“What the fuck is this?” Marko snapped, lifting his hood as he scuttled into Brill’s backroom infirmary. He started as the Homunculus turned to face him.
“It may be more efficient,” the Homunculus said to Brill in its unnaturally even, unnervingly human tone, “if you were to gather all of the appropriate audience prior to further discussion. It will save time on repeated explanations.”
Brill shook their head, beckoning Marko closer and stepping past him to draw the curtain that divided the infirmary from the rest of their shop.
“Now was that sarcasm?” they asked. The Homunculus looked back to them, moving only its head and neck. While seated, the construct remained almost perfectly still, save for the limited gestures it used to facilitate its stilted communication.
“Monk’s great at sarcasm,” Naples added. “Gave us some real zingers on the way here.”
“Fucking wh–”
“Your name is ‘Monk’, then?” Brill asked, cutting off Marko’s outburst.
“I was designated the title ‘Homunculus’,” the construct replied. “You may call me whatever you find serviceable. This one has elected the moniker ‘Monk’.”
“Quick-witted as ever, Mr. Naples.”
“Isn’t this the guy you threw out of here two weeks ago?” Marko interjected.
“I did, yes,” Brill sighed. “But when he arrived with my erstwhile charges, themselves safe from what al’Ver concurs as a harrowing journey to the Reach, I thought it perhaps worth our time to entertain some discussion as to how this discovery relates to the Crossroads. As to why I sent for you, Marko, I trust you can see what is in plain sight?”
“Quit with the fuckin’ riddles and get to the fuckin’…” Marko trailed off as he scanned the room, his eyes focusing on the parting of Monk’s cloak. “Motherfucker. That’s the Keystone, ain’t it?”
“Indeed,” Monk confirmed.
“Ah…” Marko exhaled, somehow giving the impression of smiling and scowling at the same time. “I don’t suppose you also brought Ehsam back with you, Naple man?”
“It’s, um, it’s Naples, thank you. And no. Ty Ehsam is–”
“Skulking about somewhere but not dumb enough to show his face, got it.”
Naples frowned momentarily before he realized the expression only served to confirm Marko’s cold read.
“Calm, Mr. Naples,” Brill said, noting the shape curled on the bed in the back of the infirmary, stirring. “We are not in a position to turn Mr. Ehsam over to the Blaze at present, as much as we all would like to be rid of that threat. And I imagine Commander Atra might try to sabotage such an exchange, from what Bleeding Wolf has told us of her goals.”
“So…?” Naples prodded.
“So it’s still best he’s in hiding,” Marko said. “Us knowin’ about him’s the least of your concerns. That still don’t answer my first question–” he gestured at Monk, “–the fuck are you?”
“Please explain again…Monk,” Brill added. “The only person left who ought to hear is Bleeding Wolf, and I cannot say when he will be joining us.”
As Monk recounted its purpose–its scenario, the Alchemist’s plan to avert some prophesied end of the world–Brill idly wondered how credulous they ought to be at it all. Though popular legend made Excelsis out to be a sort of magical genius–and Monk’s presence in their shop was perhaps even proof of that–they one thing they had never heard of magic having any success with was prophecy. The histories they had read were dotted with accounts of charlatans who attempted to parlay spurious–though difficult to disprove–half-predictions into political influence. But these histories all culminated in situations where those regimes with supposed access to magical foresight found ruin by pointedly unforeseen circumstances.
The Bloodfish’s rise completely obliterated the Highlord’s unsuspecting hegemony. All the Sun Priests of Khet could not, apparently, predict the ascendancy of the Dead Queen. And even the vaunted prophecy said to have fueled the reign of the Iron Queen of Spar–the sourceless and vaguely-worded “magic will destroy the world”–seemed, in the scope of history, to be little more than post-hoc justification for the Right-Hand Diarch’s consolidation of power.
And putting the conceptual issues with prophecy aside , the particulars of this one invited skepticism. The Night Sky? The Old Gods? They weren’t real. Sure, there was historical evidence of their worship, but people might worship any old thing. The forces of Harmony believed Matze Matsua was an incarnation of some godlike spirit, but he died like any other man when he was gored by a roach. Before the War, the followers of Le Marquains reportedly worshipped bulimia. Hell, Bleeding Wolf still counted himself part of a cult that worshipped the color green!
The shape on the bed had sat upright, and Brill caught Devlin’s face, shaded by the boy’s tattered hood, staring, lidded with exhaustion but nonetheless fascinated by the construct’s locutions.
“And thus it is of paramount importance that the site of the Night Sky’s awakening be located expediently,” Monk concluded. “It was Captain al’Ver’s belief that we might investigate that question here. And Brill recommended we consult you, as you have expertise in creations such as myself.”
Brill nodded in agreement.
“What do you make of it, Marko?” they asked. Marko shrugged, grimacing.
“What do I make of it? I don’t sell abominations anymore,” he spat. “Though…I’ve a few clients who–”
“Abomination?!” Naples exclaimed.
“Technical term,” Marko replied, distractedly calculating what Brill could only assume was a sales offer on their guest. “Any artifact that seems to be alive. Messy fuckin’ business, but–”
“Regardless, Monk is not for sale!”
“Indeed, Marko,” Brill interjected. “My query for you was not regarding commerce.”
“Well then what the fuck was it regarding? I don’t know shit about the Keystone–and I woulda bet you no one’s interest in it was more’n speculative in the first place. And if you want my opinion on the end of the world story, it’s horseshit. If the tinker toy here ain’t a commercial opportunity, I can’t fuckin’ fathom why you want my opinion.”
Brill glanced at Monk, but if the construct was alarmed or offended at Marko’s outburst, it did not show it.
“I was hoping, my friend, that you might consider this development from a different angle.”
“Talk straight or I’m leavin’,” Marko growled. Brill sighed.
“Self-preservation, Marko,” they said.
“Eh?”
“The Blaze’s momentum toward us is being used to justify meddling in your business that you don’t much appreciate, yes?”
Marko held their gaze for a moment before nodding slowly.
“An’ you think that whatever prophetic interaction this thing has prepped can be used as leverage.”
“I have no idea whether such a thing is feasible, of course,” Brill added. “But if it is, I would consider you best equipped to determine it. Ideally before Atra does.”
Brill glanced again at Devlin, still staring from afar, half his face concealed by his hood. The boy seemed different since his return, they realized. He was still quite ill, of course, but beneath his labored breathing and evident weakness, a sort of grim determination had overcome his catatonia. Brill could not imagine Devlin held any stake in the intrigue to which he was listening so intently. They could only wonder where all that determination was aimed.
“So…who is this ‘Atra’, anyway?” Naples asked. Before anyone could answer, the creak of Brill’s shop door wheezed from beyond the infirmary curtain, along with the sound of voices. Brill motioned to Naples, who readily intuited the alarm in the gesture. He quietly escorted Monk to the corner of the infirmary and draped the construct in a bulky canvas sheet.
“Now you must promise to rest, my dear,” came Lan al’Ver’s voice from the next room, followed by the trudge of approaching footsteps. “Your journey has been arduous, and it is no weakness to admit it!”
“It seems there was no cause for concern after all, Captain…” Atra’s voice was fainter, trailing off as the door creaked shut again. Then Orphelia drew the infirmary curtain aside, only to freeze as she beheld the veritable crowd within.
“Mr. Marko…” she said. It was an almost-gasp, as if she lacked the energy to be properly surprised. Brill noted with some concern that the aura of mischief she’d had in her brief visit to the shop a few hours ago had given way to a demeanor that seemed practically haunted.
Marko looked from her to Brill.
“Gonna go,” he muttered uncomfortably.
He slipped past Orphelia and made his way out as Brill approached the girl, wary that she seemed somewhat far from alright. Like Devlin, she seemed different as well. Older, they decided. By several years. They could have sworn that she was a child when they took her in a few weeks ago, but now she seemed nearly old enough to be married. That could not have been a lapse in attention, they thought. There had to be something more…complex affecting the girl.
“What’s wrong, Orphelia?” they asked, setting aside their suspicions for now. She shook her head, looking up at them vacuously.
“Nothing…” she said. “You aren’t smiling. And that’s…good. Probably.”
***
This wasn’t good, Atra thought, reentering the jail. She stood over the desk, shuffling parchment absentmindedly. The girl. Something was not right about the girl. She could not tell what, and that by itself was perhaps cause for alarm.
Orphelia was indeed a mage, that was certain. Bleeding Wolf had said as much–though he had deliberately omitted detail–but it was more than that. Not a concrete observation, not a characteristic Atra could see, but a feeling: like a paranoid delusion that something was just over her shoulder, just out of sight, but only when she was near Orphelia. That feeling was magic she had never seen before, and she had seen quite a bit.
Never mind the shock of it, though. She had researched the deep lore of the Riverlands extensively, and though the complication Orphelia presented was outside her expertise, it was unlikely to be outside her knowledge entirely.
A different angle, then: The girl had been traveling with al’Ver, “retrieved” from the Chateau de Marquains, as he had relayed to Bleeding Wolf. This meant the girl had made a journey south…a week’s journey to the Reach, a week’s journey back with al’Ver. The captain had been gone about two weeks, yes. But so had the girl, according to a conversation Cirque had overheard from Brill. Had he…chased her down to the Reach? That was impossible. No one could elude al’Ver on a river for a whole week. His “experience” as a boatman aside, the magical forces involved in that proposition made the certainty of him catching her almost categorical.
Which meant he wasn’t chasing her. He knew she would be at the Reach. And if he meant to retrieve a teenage girl from the Chateau de Marquains of all places , she had to imagine his hurry would supersede his preference for conventional travel.
Which meant she wasn’t there in the intervening week. She was merely going to be there at the end of it.
She had left the stream.
And the Chateau de Marquains…the Saraa Sa’een. Fucking shit.
It was all Atra could do to keep from punching through a corner of the jailer’s desk. It wasn’t a certainty, no, but if the girl was a locus of the Gyre, it would dwarf every other cause for concern she and Cirque had yet found. Marko’s scrying attempts, Brill’s political feints, even al’Ver–an incarnate primal storm, albeit one she was pretty sure she could sidestep–all of these were minor distractions compared to the prospect of being warped into the circular story, the Smiling Lie and the Promised Vengeance. Al’Ver could be convinced to stay out of things. The Gyre, though, existed almost exclusively to meddle.
Her ears perked up at the telltale sound of skittering in the jail hallway. Odd. Cirque was early tonight. She looked over her shoulder to see him stalk into the room, frustration more apparent than usual on his face.
“Weird stuff going on at the apothecary,” he said. His tone was quiet but still cuttingly clear. “Al’Ver came back with a talking construct that’s trying to find the ‘place where the Night Sky will awaken’. Marko’s trying to use it to keep the mayor away from his toys, and it gets worse.”
“We might be in the Gyre right now,” Atra replied grimly. Cirque stared at her, his frustration visibly giving way to worry as he slouched back against the wall.
“No shit.” He paused. “You sure? You see the old man or something?”
“No. Not yet. But I’m fairly certain there’s a locus in this town.”
“So we might not be in it yet?”
“Right,” she said. “But I’m not sure we have the luxury of keeping to the background right now. An’ I hate to run.” Cirque snarled at nothing in particular.
“Worthless town,” he muttered. “Rotten scheme. Can the Gyre be counteracted magically?”
“Hard to say. Only information we’ve got is that’s ensnared many a powerful mage. Catherine of Greypass was said to be one of the greatest Blood Knights of Kol. Jin Gaenyan was supposedly formidable enough to have the Barabadoon on ‘is tail even before he became a monster. An’ Feathermen records suggest even the bloody Masked Alpha got pulled in before the War. But there’s ambiguity.”
“Ambiguity?”
“Did they get pulled in? Or did they enter of their own accord?”
Cirque scowled.
“That’s a greedy fucking question.”
“‘Tis. But we may never get a chance like this again. The whole damn horizon’s dyin’, an’ a barren waste just won’t burn. No fire for me, no feast for ye.”
“I hate this argument.”
“Come now. Isn’t it exciting there’s a player in this game that might best us?”
“Two,” Cirque spat. Atra raised an eyebrow.
“Pardon?”
“Two players. The boy al’Ver brought to town–”
“Not the girl?”
“No, not the girl. The fucking boy. He reeks of feathers.”
“…feathers?”
“Feathers, you arrogant musclehead. Like the Feathermen and the Sadist. Like Ka’s palace. Like her.”
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