Jaheed
Jaheed, naturally, had questions.
"How many?" he asked, for a start.
"Nearly all three-hundred offworld Se-dai," came Anansi's terse reply.
"For how long?"
"Scant few months, though I have harbored this hatred in my heart for far longer than that."
"And what of Sekhmet?" And here, now, came a rather misguided exchange. Because Jaheed, cannily, assumed that nothing happened without the Emperor's knowledge and thus reasoned that he must surely have known of the Apostate Se-dai. Anansi, though surprised that Sekhmet had spoken of their conversation, reasonably assumed that Sekhmet had told Kore and Kore had, in turn, informed her liege. And as for the Emperor, well – he was omnipotent, wasn't he? Or so he often claimed. Thus the matter of open treason passed between all three of them without comment.
"A disappointment," Anansi told him, her words void of emotion. "A coward who refuses to stand with her sisters. She would rather flee than fight, just like Loki and all the other indoctrinated fools still living under his thumb."
"Yet still she serves my interest all the same," the Emperor chimed in, somewhat smugly.
"And you're really okay with this?" Jaheed asked, speaking perhaps a mite too casually to the Emperor of the known universe. But Volsif had once demanded absolute candor and; more to the point, Jaheed had witnessed so many consequential events in the past few hours that the reverence had all but fled him entirely. "Losing the Se-dai forever?"
"I am, indeed," the Emperor nodded cheerfully. "While the warriors of Ceres are impressive indeed, they are also an old and inefficient remnant of a bygone era. An indulgence, truly. In the utopia I shall soon usher forth, there shall be no need for such violent protectors. No need for the rituals, the secrecy, and certainly no need for the colossal expenditure. And, besides," then, he spoke in a voice Jaheed had never heard him use before, "I consider Anansi a personal friend."
An entire narrative unfolded in Jaheed’s head, at that moment. Of young Volsif, plucked from the undercity and placed suddenly within the most powerful Dynasty in all the Domain. The much-maligned runt of the Volsif clan had been assigned, of course, the runt of the Se-dai. A woman scorned by the Sovereign, who was doubtlessly skilled yet would never see proper recognition for her merits. It was obvious, then, the bond that must have been forged between the two outcasts, the likes of which led Doss Ken Volsif to make Anansi Sha-sur upon the eve of his coronation. The Emperor could have chosen any Se-dai in the Domain, after all. Yet still he chose her. And then Jaheed thought of Ammit, of Sekhmet, and the thought arrived unbidden in his mind – by the void, does everybody fall in love with their Se-dai?
"Our goals are simple," Anansi was saying, and Jaheed forced himself back to reality. This was no time for such fantasies, real or imagined. "Burn Ceres. Obliterate the monastery. Slaughter the Bouchers, the Bishops, the Deacons, the Striders, and any Se-dai who would dare stand with them. Execute the Sovereign, and finally ensure that the tools of our creation shall never be wielded again." Her eyes settled upon Jaheed. "Sekhmet ran, Jaheed. We shall not. Pour nos sœurs et pour l’agonie qu’elles ont endurée."
"It's going to be a magnificent spectacle," the Emperor added, his eyes bright. "I wait with bated breath for the day Anansi cuts that wretched, moronic creature down. Oh, Jaheed," he sighed. Volsif leaned back, folded his hands in his lap, and looked quite thoroughly content. "Do you see, now, why I brought you along? We live in such wonderfully exciting times. I thought it only right that you be here to bear witness."
----------------------------------------
The moment Jaheed disembarked from the Ankh he was flagging down a hovercar and then he was off, darting and zipping through the labyrinthine halls of the Panopticon until finally he was all but sprinting up the ramp of the Cloud Gorger, his footfalls loudly heralding his presence to the crew of the aging shuttle.
Every head turned at once when he burst onto the bridge – Tarsus, Diesch, and most importantly Kore, who understood at once the reason for his urgency. She rose to meet him as he practically sprinted across the bridge and asked her, in a quiet voice very much at odds with his bristling energy, "Is it done?"
"It's done," Kore confirmed, with a small nod. Small, and perhaps just slightly sad.
"When?"
"Don't know. Mondat guy wasn't keen on conversation."
"But it will happen?"
"We just paid him a small fortune," Diesch grunted, from the navigator’s seat. "It damn well better."
There it was, then. Jaheed had done it. He had, indirectly or otherwise, just killed his uncle. His mentor. His friend. The man who was for so long the only positive force in his life, who had since been transformed into something Jaheed no longer recognized. That was the death of innocence, there. The true and final extinction of his family. There was a sudden pit inside Jaheed, a yawning emptiness over which the rest of him was constructed like shoddy scaffolding. He looked up at Kore and was abruptly relieved beyond all belief to have her here. Because from this day forth, she – the only other living Vell – would be the closest thing to family he'd ever have.
"The Mondat are pussies," Sekhmet announced loudly, interrupting Jaheed’s spiraling with her usual obnoxious clamor. She strode noisily across the bridge, her path dividing the crew in two – she dearly loved the center of attention, after all – then plopped down in the nearest chair with a half-cocked sneer. "C'mon, Jaheed. I woulda cut your uncle's head off for you – all ya had to do was ask nicely."
"I wouldn't dare risk you to that level of exposure," Jaheed replied stiffly. And then, a little sheepishly: "Besides, Kore'd wring my neck if something happened to you."
"That’s entirely true," Kore grunted.
"So where did the Emperor take you?" Diesch cut in, eyeing Jaheed with no small level of curiosity. "More deception, more sabotage?" At that, Kore shot the man a reproachful glare but said nothing. And then, abruptly, Jaheed was rather uncomfortable and quite unable to meet Sekhmet's eyes.
"Ceres," he answered, staring down at his shoes. Then followed a long, tense silence.
"Oh," he heard Sekhmet say, finally. Jaheed glanced up to see that the Se-dai was on her feet. Every trace of her usual insouciance was gone; she was standing ramrod-straight and entirely still. Everyone was looking at her, or course, and suddenly she seemed quite embarrassed at the attention she had so recently craved. "Excuse me," she said, in a quiet voice that was very much unlike her. And then, with silent footsteps, she was gone.
The crew all exchanged various looks.
"I'm gonna get some sleep," Jaheed offered, apropos of nothing. And that was that.
----------------------------------------
Jaheed, of course, did not sleep. He instead sat upright on his bed and drank and drank and drank as he waited to hear that his uncle was dead.
This was taking quite a long while.
Restless and by now quite intoxicated, Jaheed fumbled for his tablet and keyed in Ket Sal's personal ID. He was desperate for someone, anyone to talk to and so he sent off a string of messages entirely without thinking.
JV: I did it.
JV: Just like we discussed.
JV: Kore had her meeting.
JV: Money changed hands.
JV: It's going to happen soon.
He laid back on his bed, closed his eyes, and waited. And thought terrible thoughts, all the while, though thankfully it wasn't long before the tablet interrupted with a soft, insistent chime.
KS: bad practice to talk about these things over unsecured
That, admittedly, was an excellent point. Embarrassed and a little annoyed, Jaheed moved to power the tablet down at once – only to be interrupted, again, by a pair of musical chimes.
KS: that being said
KS: im sorry
Jaheed sat up, laid the tablet on his lap, and began typing furiously. There were simply too many thoughts inside him and he was too drunk to not let them out.
JV: Are you certain it was him? Are you absolutely positive that it was my uncle who ordered the hit?
There was a brief delay.
KS: no
KS: answer is still no
KS: but it lines up right? like i said, hes shown you nothing but contempt every time i talk to him
JV: Yeah.
KS: still not sure this is the right move though. this is too fast
JV: I was nearly killed. Kore was nearly killed. I can't forgive that. And as long as he's around, he's a threat.
KS: i dont disagree
KS: just
KS: be careful
KS: this is a dangerous world to step into
Jaheed was partway through composition of another message – of a denial, of insistence that he knew exactly what he was getting himself into – when a knock sounded against his door and pierced straight through his inebriated reverie. "Come in," he called, fairly certain that it would be Kore on the other side. Perfect. If there was one thing Jaheed could use right now, it was a friend. And, perhaps, a shoulder to cry on.
The door slid open, and Jaheed tensed up at once because it wasn't Kore. It was decidedly not Kore. It was, instead, Sekhmet who stood in his doorway, a trillion-dollar killing machine looking utterly disheveled in sweatpants and a stained tank-top. Looking not just ordinary but almost pitiable, if not for those damned silver eyes.
"Hi," Sekhmet said.
"Uh...hello," Jaheed replied, his eyes darting frantically about. "Did you need something?"
"I, um," Sekhmet scratched at the back of her neck. The fearless Se-dai looked absurdly uncomfortable, which would be funny if Jaheed were not feeling very much the same. "Can we talk?"
Oh. Well, that made sense. Though it was equally possible that she had come here to kill him in darkness, leaving the secrets of the Se-dai forever unspoken. "About Ceres?" Jaheed asked, beckoning – reluctantly – for her to enter. No sense in delaying his inevitable demise.
"Not exactly," Sekhmet replied, her footsteps silent as she all but glided into the room. And then the door shut and Jaheed was alone. Though Kore had long gotten over the whole she-could-kill-every-one-of-us thing, Jaheed most certainly had not, and now he was viscerally uncomfortable in the presence of the Blessed Executioner. It was dawning upon him that he had spent not one hour, not one minute, not even one second alone with the rogue Se-dai before. The two of them scarcely ever spoke to one another, save for orders from Jaheed and crass remarks from Sekhmet in turn.
Sekhmet lowered herself onto the couch; Jaheed worked overtime not to physically shift back, even though there were already several feet of space between them. He couldn't stop staring at the sword on her belt, which was due in part to the fact that it was really difficult to make eye contact. Every Se-dai had those same eyes – absurdly cold, haunted eyes that raised one's hackles by all but primordial instinct. That old reptilian quarter of the mind screaming danger, danger – a tiny voice, yet one vividly felt. Or, perhaps, it was a manifestation of an uncanny-valley sort of effect, of a thing that looked almost human but just...wasn't quite right.
Nevertheless, Jaheed – having almost instantaneously sobered – was making a game try of it. He clasped his hands together, forced himself to look her dead in the eye, and said with perhaps a mite too much enthusiasm: "So, what's on your mind?"
For a moment, Sekhmet looked like she was just going to walk away. This entire bizarre exchange, simply aborted on the spot. Instead, she asked him: "You spoke with Anansi?"
"I did," Jaheed said carefully, unsure where this was going.
"Do you know the meaning of the words Le Sang Neuf?"
"I do."
"Well, then I guess it's safe to say your little Ceres jaunt was a declaration of war," Sekhmet folded her arms. "Am I right?"
"It certainly looked that way to me," Jaheed agreed. "Anansi was shouting right in the Sovereign's face, calling them a monster and a despoiler and nine other things that I can’t quite remember. And they were…well, they were certainly shouting back."
"Good for her," Sekhmet noted dryly. And then, in a quiet voice, she asked, "Do you judge me?"
It took Jaheed a long moment to figure out what the hell that even meant, for the very concept of Sekhmet caring what he thought was entirely foreign to him. But he did put it together, eventually, when he remembered what Anansi had said about her. A disappointment. A coward. The words spoken not with disgust but a certain tinge of regret, as though she had expected better. He wondered to himself if Sekhmet had, too.
"You agree, don't you?" Sekhmet added, when Jaheed took too long to respond. "You saw Ceres, so of course you agree with her. That place has to burn."
"Yeah," was all Jaheed could manage, to that. The memories of Ceres – of the utter seasick wrongness that had pervaded the entire monastery-moon – were still vivid in his head. His senses had revolted against every sight and sound and smell on a level deeper than the mere conscious mind. Yes, he thought to himself, that place needs to fucking burn.”
"So you're wondering, now," the Se-dai continued bitterly. "What the fuck is wrong with Sekhmet? Why isn't she standing with her cousins right now? Why the fuck isn't she helping them?"
"I didn’t-"
"Why the fuck is she running away?" Sekhmet demanded, with sudden and stark intensity. Jaheed fell abruptly silent. "She’s Se-dai. She’s supposed to be fearless.”
"That's not true," Jaheed muttered, thinking of the way every Se-dai had reacted at the den of the Fleshweavers. Thinking of the way Freyja had been clutching Nergal's hand. Thinking of the way Sekhmet had flinched, just a few seconds ago, when Jaheed had spoken the name Sovereign.
"Well, we're supposed to be," Sekhmet said ruefully. "Most of us are – but I'm not. I'm scared a lot, actually. All the fucking time." She pointed a finger at a wall, which Jaheed could only assume indicated roughly the position of Kore's bunk. "I worry for her, Jaheed, because that's what I do. I don't sleep. I just lay awake and worry. I worry that this, this fantasy-" she gestured broadly, "-is all just gonna disappear, one day."
"It won't," Jaheed told her, with rising conviction.
"You can't be certain."
"By my power, it will be certain," Jaheed declared fiercely – and suddenly, there was just a hint of the ol' Emperor in his words. That confidence, that utter surety. Because his family had died – would die, soon – so that he could have the power to do something like this. Nobody was taking his crew or his ship or any of this life away from him, because he was Jaheed fucking Vell. Acolyte to the Jade Emperor himself. And he was no longer required to just sit back and take whatever life deigned to give him.
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Sekhmet didn't answer, for a while. She just leaned back, arms folded, and observed him with narrowed eyes. Scrutinizing him. Taking the measure of his resolve.
"Okay," she agreed, finally. "I believe you."
"Tell me something," Jaheed said quickly, leaning forwards and steepling his fingers. His fear of the Se-dai was now all but forgotten. "Look, Sekhmet. I don't know a lot about you, but I do know that Kore is incredibly fond of you – and as far as I’m concerned, anyone important to Kore is important to ne. So I’ll ask you, just this once: what do you want? I don't judge you for breaking from The Order, or for spurning Le Sang Neuf. At this moment, I don’t give a damn about anyone outside my ship. So whatever kind of life you want to lead, Sekhmet, I promise I’ll do everything in my power to allow you to do so. Because I can."
For a while, that question seemed to genuinely stump her.
"I just wanna be...Sekhmet," she answered, finally, unintentionally echoing Kore’s words. "No sorority, no sisterhood, no wider machine for me to be a cog in. I wanna do what I wanna do. I wanna...I don't want to be significant, anymore. I just wanna be another-" she waved her hand, "-ordinary fucking person." A pause. "Who can also outrun a hovercar and fold steel with her bare hands. I like all that stuff, too."
"Then I have a request," Jaheed said, rising sharply to his feet. He extended a hand – and now, he was truly devoid of fear. "Work with me, and you’ll remain just that. Sekhmet, and nothing more."
Sekhmet arched an eyebrow. "Work with you?"
"That's right," Jaheed nodded, hand unwavering. "Not for. With. Help me, like Kore helps me. I couldn’t possibly have gotten this far without every one of you by my side.
There was another long pause.
"I mean, I kind of already do," Sekhmet remarked dryly. And then, without further ado, she shook his hand, and Jaheed was only slightly put-off by the unnatural warmth of her skin. "But sure thing, boss. I got your back."
And then the awkwardness returned, because now there was no purpose for either to be in the other's company and yet somehow it felt wrong for either to just get up and leave after such a powerful declaration. It was Sekhmet, finally, who decided to break the silence.
"How's Anansi doing, these days?" she asked, offhandedly. Jaheed raised an eyebrow.
"Still terrifyingly intense," he told her. "What, were you two friends or something?"
"Oh, we all know each other pretty well," Sekhmet rolled her eyes. "It's a whole deal. But she was always the best, y'know. Shoulda been ranked first." At Jaheed's mild puzzlement, she explained: "All three hundred Se-dai have this, like, internal ranking system. It's to make us more competitive, have us always striving to outdo one another. When I left, I was...what, one-oh-nine, I think? Not too shabby." Jaheed just nodded his head, whilst everything about Sekhmet's personality was clicking into place with this new revelation. If nothing else, she would be solidly ranked first amongst the crew of the Gorger. "Anyway, everyone knew Anansi was the best, but the Sovereign never liked her. Can't tell you why. So it was another cousin, Loki, who got number one, and so it was Loki who should have been Sha-sur in theory." She laughed. "Lotta people were pissed when Volsif chose Anansi, Sovereign included. Me? I always knew she was the real deal."
"You admire her," Jaheed observed – and then immediately regretted, because Sekhmet was averse to admitting such things on the best of days. And there was, of course, the matter of Anansi's open contempt for the rogue Se-dai.
"We all did," Sekhmet admitted, a little sheepishly. "And do. She's the only one who could ever have put together something like Le Sang Neuf."
There was a very, very long pause as Jaheed tried to figure out what to say – tried to figure out what would be comforting to Sekhmet specifically, from what he knew of her.
"Well, I thought she seemed like kind of a bitch," he remarked.
Sekhmet laughed out loud.
----------------------------------------
The Hated One
Hell had come to Zenith-4.
Not the Sky-Melters, not at first – but instead the monastery-moon of Ceres had come roaring out of voidspace just within the planet’s orbit. For those situated in the proper hemispheres, the sky had simply gone from empty to full, and the denizens of Zenith-4 found themselves staring straight up at the nightmarish, millennia-old home of the Se-dai.
What followed, inevitably, were devastated tides – waves the likes of which swallowed entire cities whole. Apocalyptic chaos reigned upon Zenith-4, followed just a few short hours later by the arrival of yet another horseman – the distant, triangular shapes in the sky that could only herald the coming of the Crimson Emir.
Zenith-4 was scoured of all life, in due time – the Sky-Melters more than earning the moniker as they boiled the land and extinguished the seas. Gargantuan umber beams stitched careful patterns across the surface with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel, for by now the hands controlling them were experts who had condemned a dozen such planets in similar fashion. Trillions perished. None were spared. When Zenith-4 was naught but a black and smoldering rock, the Emir’s ships began to join with Ceres, falling into natural and graceful orbit as, between them, a black cloud of shuttles passed.
And so, in the final hours of Zenith-4, the Crimson Emir arrived to stand before the Sovereign – no intruder, but a welcome guest.
At the Sovereign’s side stood one-hundred Se-dai in perfect formation, with Loki at their helm. At the Emir’s, five thousand troops had crowded into the once-spacious inner sanctum. Their foremost line was populated by towering armored warriors who wore crimson cloaks and hefted massive force-halberds. They were the Death Knell, the Emir’s own personal army of cyborg-enhanced supersoldiers, and they were no match for a Se-dai.
Still, they were vastly greater in number – their very presence an affront to Ceres’ millenia-old policy against outsiders. And still, even in the lair of the beast himself the Crimson Emir did not bow. It was simply not in his nature.
“O Honored Emir,” the Sovereign thundered, spreading six hundred mechanical arms wide in either direction. “The Se-dai of Ceres bid you welcome.”
“What’s left of the Se-dai, anyway,” the Emir rumbled. His mouth split into a wolfish grin. “I hear tell of a house divided, Sovereign.”
“My wretched daughter, Anansi,” the Sovereign said, literally shuddering with rage as he spoke that particular name. “I will see the skin flensed from her bones.”
“Anansi was here?” the Crimson Emir asked, arching a scar-pierced eyebrow. “Doss was here?”
“In the flesh,” the Sovereign confirmed. “Or what little of his body remains flesh, at any rate. That arrogant little rat – I would have seen him rent to pieces, were it not for your demands that I spare-“
“You fool,” the Crimson Emir said darkly, taking a single step forwards. The sound of his boot impacting against the floor was all but a thunderclap. “You are lucky to be alive.”
“He arrived with three traitor Se-dai!” the Sovereign protested, clearly wrong-footed in what was ostensibly a meeting of equals. “From the moment he landed, he was in the palm of my hand.”
“I have not an ounce of respect for my half-brother,” the Crimson Emir growled, taking another titanic step forward. “But even I am not fool enough to forget that he remains the most dangerous man in all the known universe. You accepted a lion into your den, Sovereign. You welcomed him with open arms.”
"That-"
“Had he deemed you worth killing,” the Emir went on, “the Se-dai would have been lost to me. Ceres would have been lost to me. Your death would have inconvenienced ME.”
The Emir had no vocal enhancements, no mechanical voicebox – just a terrifying, booming register that rang out like a thousand batteries firing in unison. Though the Se-dai remained unmoving, internally their bodies were beginning to heat up, to tense in preparation for an explosion of motion and violence. On the Emir’s side, the Death Knell were not so subtle – every one of them was clamoring eagerly for a chance to whet their blades against the finest warriors in all the Domain.
Then, right as the tension was about to reach a bloody apex, the Sovereign shuddered – and bowed their head, in contrition. “The error is mine,” the patriarch conceded, their voice some approximation of graciousness.
“Quite,” the Crimson Emir said gruffly. “Nevertheless. The past has gone; now we look to a bloody future.” His leathery countenance split into a grin once more, one replete with an arsenal of pointed teeth. “The finest of your Blessed Executioners have turned against you, Sovereign. What have you left to pledge?” At the Emir’s blatant insult, the myriad Se-dai did not react.
“Four-hundred-and-seven daughter of holy Ceres,” the Sovereign told him, somewhat indignantly. “Two-thirds their number are yet neophytes, though they will fight like Se-dai well enough.”
“You offer me an army of children, then,” the Emir chuckled, and at once the Sovereign reared back like a cobra preparing to strike, their six-hundred arms spread perhaps in imitation of the hood of that very reptile. But the Emir just laughed and waved a hand. “I jest, Sovereign. Calm yourself, lest you say something I cannot forgive.”
“I have staked everything upon you," the Sovereign reminded sharply, the great bulk of the millennia-old patriarch lowering and contorting until their nominal ‘face’ hovered but mere inches from the Emir’s own. “Do not forget that we are equals in this, O Hated Emir. Two gods, aligned in the mutual cause of eradicating an interloper.”
“Ha!” the Emir barked, right in the Sovereign’s face. “You forget yourself, Sovereign. For I am the rightful ruler of all the Great Domain.” He spread his mammoth arms wide. “I have no equals.”
----------------------------------------
Sain Sahd
In that moment, Sain Sahd was content.
What had only just recently concluded was a long, difficult day – one descended from a great line of long, difficult days that had originated some time around his recipient of the Emperor's 'offer' to become a Scion. Offer, of course, was in quotation marks there because the Emperor did not do offers. He gave commands. Imperatives. And, if necessary, ultimatums. And so here Sain Sahd was, once nearing retirement and now hopelessly entangled in a nest of leering vipers. No resting-on-his-laurels for the accomplished statesman, oh no. He had to remain razor-sharp or he would most certainly be dead.
Which...wasn't exactly the most unpleasant prospect, now, was it? But those were thoughts for later hours, for right now Sain Sahd was enjoying a late-night meal at his favorite establishment – the Hazy Eye, one of those little upscale establishments that was just shy of being overly-popular. It was a cozy little place, perched atop the seventy-fifth floor of an obsidian tower from which Sain Sahd could see the entire Mercurian city laid out beneath him, the Panopticon's vast bulk a great and terrible shadow on the horizon. A distant threat, for the time being. Omnipresent yet momentarily forgettable.
As he bit hungrily into a tender brahmin steak and sipped at a glass of magnificent blue wine, Sain Sahd could feel at all times Hephaestus' presence at the edge of his peripheral. The Se-dai had been something of a surprise; Sain Sahd had found her to be not only riotously funny but a bonafide chatterbox as well, a woman who talked more than the man whose job it was to talk the nearest ear off. Right now, however, she was playing the role of silent and robotic sentinel, as was prescribed of all Se-dai. Sain Sahd suspected that this was the case for many, if not all the Blessed Executioners – boisterous personalities hidden beneath stoic facades
He would have offered her a seat and a meal, had tried and failed countless times before. Yet even still he felt a pang of sympathy that she was forced to simply sit there and watch him eat. And so, he glanced back at his dutiful bodyguard and said, apropos of nothing, "Do your people even eat?"
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, one restrained at once by iron discipline. "When the mood strikes us,” she allowed.
"But you don't need to, then?" Sain Sahd asked, taking a sip of his wine. The Se-dai inclined her head; he was certain she would be yammering on for hours on this particular topic were she not 'on the clock'.
"What I intake," she said, "is something you might not exactly recognize as food." Then, even as she was speaking, her eyes were flicking to the side and Sain Sahd was following to see a waiter approaching with check in hand.
"Everything is well, Master Scion?" the man asked, looking admirably calm in the presence of a full-armored Se-dai. Hephaestus' presence had a tendency to put patrons and staff alike on edge whenever Sain Sahd decided to dine out (which was frequently, for he fancied himself something of a gourmand).
"Delightful, yes," Sain Sahd agreed heartily, putting extra emphasis on the first word because it had been a delightful meal, and because he had always held a great sense of empathy for restaurant workers. As a youth, he had spent long summers bussing tables – a life so distant, now, that it might as well have belonged to someone else entirely.
"I'm honored to hear that," the man smiled, bowing deeply. He extended the check. "If I might-"
A few things happened, then, in quick succession. All of it was too fast for Sain Sahd to process in the moment and thus, to him, it was all little more than a blur of motion and sound.
Hephaestus took one step forward, faster than Sain Sahd had ever seen her move, and thrust a wrist-blade right through the waiter's chin – the point of the blade emerging with eerie bloodlessness from his right eye. At the same time the Se-dai was also whirling around and slamming her fist down upon the table. The granite countertop flipped straight up, as though it weighed nothing at all, and promptly intercepted a trio of whirling purple-glowing discs before crashing noisily to the floor.
And then Hephaestus' hand was on his shoulder, forcing him down behind the overturned table, and the Se-dai just told him "Stay put" before leaping into the fray. And then all hell broke loose as the rest of the un-augmented world caught up on events, the restaurant erupting into screams and chaos and the shrill retorts of what Sain Sahd now recognized as plutonium shredder-discs.
Sain Sahd was a smart man, quick-thinking, who had seen far more than most in his eighty-four years of life (though he didn't look a day over fifty). And so, as he watched the face of the dead waiter melding and shifting and seeming almost to slough away, he recognized at once the handiwork of the infamous Mondat. He dared risk a glance out from behind his makeshift cover and saw Hephaestus in the thick of battle, surrounded by a half-dozen wiry figures in bodysuits replete with strange, rapid-blinking floral patterns that constantly shifted color. Dazzle camouflage, he recalled. It was difficult for the eye to track and confused one's movements; any incremental advantage was imperative when one made a living of killing the Se-dai.
The Mondat were fighting with both wrist-mounted shredder-disc launchers and some manner of white-glowing shortswords that he could only surmise were the infamous Mondatti phase-blades. Hephaestus had a hatchet in each hand and was fighting viciously, gouging an assassin's throat out even as a phase-blade bit deep into the back of her thigh. The Mondatti were like vultures, circling carefully and constantly picking at a larger and more dangerous predator, daring her to overcommit so that the others could descend upon her.
Sain Sahd took one look and knew her odds were poor. He counted eight Mondatti assassins – nine, if one considered the faux-waiter. Someone had shelled out a fortune to have him killed.
Go! Hephaestus' voice rang out in his occipital implant – subvocalizing even as she fought for her life. But Sain Sahd was one step ahead of her. He was already bolting, reaching into his jacket as he did so and withdrawing a compact, boxy magnetic-accelerator. His objective was not the exit – but the kitchen, which he burst into as a screaming shredder-disc ripped past his head and decapitated an unfortunate chef. Everyone was running and panicking and shouting now and Sain Sahd used the chaos as a cloak, disappearing amidst the clamor of the chefs and the kitchen both.
A few Mondatti had peeled off Hephaestus and were following him, he was certain. So be it. He slammed open the door to the emergency exit, kicked it shut behind him, and found himself at a service elevator with a half-dozen other terrified patrons and staff. The elevator currently read FLOOR FIFTY-TWO and was ascending in no particular hurry.
Sain Sahd swore under his breath and dropped to a knee, leveling his pistol just as he had practiced a thousand times before. It wouldn't be the first time he'd had to use it – wouldn't be the first time he had killed a man, either – but in a narrow corridor against the Mondatti his odds of adding to that tally were slim indeed. Still, he shouted for the civilians to get behind him and braced his shoulders, drawing in a long breath through his nostrils and exhaling out from his mouth. In, out. In, out. His eyes narrowed. In, out. Cold and calm. Ready. No man but an instrument, in that moment.
Ahead, the door creaked, and then a trio of kaleidoscope-flashing Mondatti burst in, their 'faces' featureless save for a cyclopean red-glowing eye. Sain Sahd didn't hesitate to squeeze the trigger, even knowing that there would be a shredder-disc in his skull long before the accelerator even cleared the hall – but then there was a terrible crash, like thunder, and Hephaestus burst violently from the wall beside them.
The Mondatti were fast. They were not Se-dai. Hephaestus split the nearest from stem to stern, dropped, rolled, disemboweled another and simply sliced the top of the skull from the third. And so the assassins convulsed and died, again with an unsettlingly small volume of blood spilled.
Hephaestus, alas, could not say the same. The Se-dai's entire body was a mass of cuts that oozed steaming teal fluid, the skin torn partly from her face and her left arm quite violently broken. Her ear was entirely gone – and yet despite all this she stood alert and unbothered, eyes locking on Sain Sahd's at once.
"Escort is on its way," she told him curtly, moving at once to block line of sight between his body and the door. The civilians, who had once maintained a careful distance, now crowded closer to the Se-dai, grateful to have one of the Emperor's invincible warriors at their sides.
"What's your status?" Sain Sahd asked, keeping his weapon trained on the door. He was far too canny and experienced to let his guard down at the eleventh hour. "Fully functional?" He wanted to ask are you alright, because Hephaestus was his friend, but words were a precious commodity right now and what he needed was information, not reassurance.
"Damaged significantly," Hephaestus reported, which was an unwelcome surprise to hear. "Phase-blades wreaking havoc on my systems. They knew exactly where to target."
Sain Sahd didn't answer – he just squeezed the trigger and felt the gun jump like a jackrabbit in his hands, because he had seen just the faintest glimpse of a shadow beneath the doors. And sure enough a half-dozen shredder discs ripped clean through in return. Hephaestus shoved Sain Sahd to the ground and then there was a great shower of something wet and hot upon him, and then he was being hauled back by the collar of his shirt and he got only a momentarily glimpse – saw the civilians all torn to pieces, saw Hephaestus staggering with a trio of smoldering holes in her chest as a dozen multicolored Mondatti stalked in, slow and deliberate – and then the elevator doors shut and Sain Sahd was shooting down to the city below.
He took a moment, then, to compose himself. Stood up, removed his jacket, unbuttoned his collar and sleeves. Lit a cigar, clenched it between his teeth as he re-armed the magnetic pistol. Stared at his weary reflection and tried to still the trembling, tried not to feel the heat of blood both crimson and teal in which his back was now drenched.
"You're a survivor," he told himself, as the city raced by. "You'll survive this, too. And if you don't, well..." He trailed off. "Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, right?"
The doors dinged opened and the time for self-assurance had passed. Sain Sahd sprinted through the lobby, shouldering aside patrons and bursting through the doors and arriving before...
Three Mondatti, their bodysuits jet-black and sedate, advancing slowly up the stairs with phase-blades in hand. These three, he realized, were not here for a fight. This was to be an execution.
He raised the pistol.
"Sain Teren Sahd," one of the Mondatti said, in a deep and modulated voice. "By the hand of the Mondat-"
"Get the fuck on with it," Sain Sahd snapped, utterly without fear as he stared into the face of his annihilation. And then, from above, there came a great shattering of glass.
One of the Mondatti actually shouted "Move!" And then, like a meteor from the heavens, Hephaestus fell upon them, crushing the lead man into little more than bloodied paste and a strange, translucent fluid. The next angled a phase-blade right for her face, while the third leapt for Sain Sahd.
Hephaestus made her decision. She darted forward, severed the head of Sain Sahd’s attacker – just as the remaining Monday drove his phase-blade went right through the back of her skull. Hephaestus jerked, shuddered, dropped to one knee – and as soon as her shoulder was low enough, Sain Sahd fired just over and blew the Mondat's brains out.
And then, as Sain Sahd just stared, surrounded by dead Mondatti and a dead Se-dai, a trio of armored black hovercars came roaring up. Faceless centurions were about him at once, armored hands guiding him into the back of the waiting vehicle and all the while he just stared at Hephaestus, face-down and unmoving.
She had died for him – for a man who hadn't even really wanted to live.
Then the door slammed shut, and Hephaestus was gone, and then Sain Sahd was off. Back to the terrible shadow looming over Mercury. Back to the Emperor’s arms.