Chapter 11
“You cast... against your own daughter’s will,” I say, but it comes out too hushed so that the intended accusing tone leans more toward awkward question.
“A father’s will for his children...” The elf scion’s voice is distant, soft as if it’s some philosopher's forest contemplation. “How could the fatherless, the godless understand?”
“What?” My eyes quirk in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“It is some years your destiny reaches toward my lineage, is it not, Horned Howler page?”
“Emithy, she... We’ve been friends forever.”
“Forever.”
“Yeah. A figure of speech. So what?”
“I will speak with her, and all will be made clear. But she seems to grow more adamant the more one presses. Like a magnet she is. And I am bound by oaths, young page, as all who seek true wisdom are. Humble none consider me, and yet none do really know one’s inner core, do they?” Resentment and kinship stir toward him at once. “No. Would they but see me hold audience with a hobgabarrin childe.” We lingered in a heartbeat’s silence. “Your companionship with my daughter. I fear this is some great wound in my life tree.”
“A wound?”
“You cannot fathom the forces at work, cannot see the greater good, for all, for her, for you. You must leave her be. Her destiny is another. For another she must be. Do you understand?”
“That you don’t want your daughter having a hob for a friend. This your enlightened opinion.”
His conya sinks slightly, and his aura dissipates so that I can now clearly see the wrinkles lining his eyes, the deep grooves on his forehead, the satin brittle of his hair. “You think I hold your people in contempt. You in contempt. You must set such emotional addictions aside, passing fashions the frail minded use to console their myopic, infant souls. I guide her away from all who are not fitting, of all races, including my own. There is a place for all things in the Triune’s creation. For sky and earth, past and future, for good, for evil, life and death. There is a place, even for you.” His face softens a moment, has, almost, a smile. A jape? But I am in no japing mood.
“And that place is far, far away from Em.”
“Childe, I have seen a thousand years come and go. Do you think I see as common mortals, with the selfishness of men, with the woe of tieflings, the greed of dwarves, the pride of my own race? Would I choose of my own will, I would grant her whatever passing glee she wished, and any and all she might bind her fate to. But the world is broken because we follow such small ends. You are in these hallowed halls. You would be one of the magi, and I see you are more than capable of achieving this end, for you possess that gambler’s touch that is requisite for all the truly great. But a gamble is only a gamble if one can lose. And so first seek wisdom. Become a true Magi.”
“I'm in the honorarium! My my paper on cyclopean the cyclopean ocular tetra-dimensionality won the Horizons gold medal!”
“Honors, medals, trophies adorned with a tiny figurine? The only recognition a true mage seeks is from reality itself. You think a mage is meant to swan about, dazzling those without the gift, collecting favors from professors who are more courtesans than mages? A magi is a world weaver. A guide and tender to the lesser. You must understand this, then live it, rein in the fickle mind and its desire, this is the price of wisdom. Focus on your studies for there is a great work at hand that will call for every magi to bear its weight. Once it is completed then you can turn to your whimsy once more. Will you not heed my counsel? Will you not play your part in evolving the world?”
He holds out the scroll with his bejeweled hand. I take it, but keep my eyes fixed on his, a blinking effort. My teeth grind, my breathing burns, necktie feels a noose, my tendons go tight as bridge cables, but then suddenly... they loose, and I feel as though I am on a deserted island and I have just watched the only passing ship in ten years sail past, my waving cries finally dying to a knotted whimper. My conya hangs just an inch or two: “I will.” For a split moment reality seems to grow lighter, ears pop, then it turns heavier, as if the one dreaming it startled and began to keel off the bedside.
“The Radiance endures.” He nods with what might be respect, might be amusement. “Perhaps you will prove a true a magi still.”
I open the scroll, and see 3 nights of work in the zero point field. “My punishment...” my voice trails off, eyes searching. “The same as Emithy’s.”
“Let it not be said, that I am unjust.”
A few feet from the end of a bookshelf, a loose shirted mal sat flaccid on a chair, rotting beard mouth agape, weeks of unwashed stench filling half the hall, a book of old nude photography cracked open on his grimy lap. My jaw clenched, side eye burning contempt, but I kept scanning the miscategorized, disheveled shelves. I knew it was here somewhere, that book that had slipped by unnoticed to the overworked librarians, just another worn tome of industrial nonsense.
Finally coming to it, I clasped its hard cover in both hands.
Spotting a familiar figure, a horn, glasses and an academic outfit, I rushed around a corner bookcase where I took covering flight down the stairs. I was in no shape for a run in with Berry, a drab shirt, my hair undone, and I was in no mood as even more distant memories lashed me with disgrace.
The entrance arch straightened above me, then curved again as my rushed paces took me through it, the book tucked under my arm, protected as if it were made of solid diamond. My feet pattered down the monumental front steps. It was late enough that the stench and half crazed mutterings of bums filled the manicured lawn, flattening grass and snapping flowers like locusts. One, a gnome splayed out in tatters, reached a drugged hand toward me, and I batted it away, spittle flying in my hissing grunt.
The book in my grasp, the library facade was behind me as the Stallion’s door opened, as was the memory of that trip to the halls of living knowledge. That 1,000 year old elf prick, with his high falutin’ holier than thou bullcagg, what I wouldn't give to snap a bat over his skull. My bottom teeth sprang out of my twisting, bitter mouth as I gnashed the memory away. Into my Stallion. Into the city night. Still. It lingered and pricked, a jingle I couldn't lick to save me.
Still. Looking back, all these years later, and how it all turned out, I have to admit, gang, and I do so only to you, my esteemed brethren... perhaps he was right.
Sitting at the desk crammed into my bedroom, the library tome cracked open, a galvon lantern over my shoulder illuminating my finger as it scrolled along the sepia diagram of an intricate machine, a machine with tubes and cables wreathing it like medusa hair, a glass encasement over a metal chamber large enough for a person to sleep in, for a person to dream in.
From the kitchen: a sudden clatter. Pots and pans banging, dishes flying, ferocious squeals.
“The hell's going on out here?!” I sprang from my chair, almost knocking the lantern off its hang hook.
My hand braced my room’s door frame, neck in a swiping scan. The noise had died.
Skreech scurried to me.
“Boss! For you!” He held a rat by its neck, its black fur pushing between his fingers, tail flicking, limbs panicking against its choking finger prison.
“I don't want that! It's a rat!”
“I can has it?”
“Just get rid of it.”
“Rid?”
“I don't want to see it and I don't want it anywhere around here.”
His eyes turned to malicious slits on his face (healed, but with a roughened texture, a discoloration so that he looked like he had a mask-shaped permanent coat of paper mache). He laughed this quiet, dry, cancerous-dog-throat sort of laugh and slinked back to the kitchen. His conya tilted like he was about to sneeze, then he chomped down on one of the rat's legs, prying it from its body, skin stretching like gum before it ripped apart. Rat squeaks of agony, tail whipping. The goblin’s screeching laugh.
“What are you doing?!”
“Eh?” Skreech swiveled his con’, a dab of blood on his lip.
“Come on. Put it out of its misery.”
“Kill?”
“Yes.”
His big misaligned teeth clamped down around the rat head and with a grinding twist, snapped it clean off. His chews crunched and grinded.
I stared at him a long moment, saying nothing.
Could he be useful?
Perhaps not. He was a full-grown goblin and barely civilized. Then again his consciousness could be molded, shaped like clay. To a point. All things had their limitations didn't they? All things their duty, their nature. Their place...
“Clean up.” I waved toward the kitchen. “Then you can watch TV.”
Still. In the grand scheme of things, he was likely insignificant. All things likely were. All things except the somber machine that awaited me in a secret dungeon under a massage parlor.