Jaheed
Madness. This was madness, plain and simple.
Those were the sorts of thoughts that reverberated endlessly and over in Jaheed's head as he sat in the sleek, featureless bay of the Jade Emperor's personal shuttle The Ankh, with Anansi standing at the back and the Grand Architect himself sitting immediately opposite.
They were here, Volsif had told him – only once the shuttle was underway – to pay a visit to the Se-dai monastery-moon of Ceres. And that was the truly insane part, even moreso than the fact Jaheed was sitting across from the ruler of all humanity. Because every man, woman, and child in the Domain knew that nobody went to Ceres. Nobody. No outsider had set foot upon the monastery grounds in centuries, and there had been only three such individuals to ever do so in recorded history. It was a place shrouded in shadow and secrets and that was exactly how the Se-dai – or, more specifically, the Sovereign – liked it.
These traditions predated the very founding of the Great Domain. And so, naturally, the Jade Emperor was determined to break them.
"They of Ceres exist without my knowledge, and therefore without my consent," Volsif had explained. "All will soon be within my hands; the monastery-moon is no exception." This, then, was to be an insult. A cracking open of a centuries-old door, a door that would no doubt later be kicked wide open. Jaheed's presence, too, could only be intended as further insult to the Sovereign.
Now, the last son of Vell was sitting in silence as the Volsif and Anansi spoke, and in the wake of his mounting terror he forced himself, instead, to study the characters of these two exceptionally powerful individuals.
The Jade Emperor was at times almost like an overeager child. He almost never stopped talking and was always remarking upon one subject or another, often descending without warning into long philosophical diatribes or explorations. Yet he was just at home openly pondering the nature of the shuttle's engines, or trying to determine via the grain of the onyx from whence their craft had been manufactured. He was insatiably curious, for an all-knowing deity, and in truth Jaheed found his presence utterly exhausting.
And then, by contrast, there was Anansi – the Sha-sur, who had removed her helmet to reveal a shaved head, a dark-skinned complexion, and a face that could only remind Jaheed of a knife. Prior to today, Jaheed had only known her as a silent, icily-calm extension of the Emperor's will. Now, more or less 'alone' with her liege, she spoke animatedly and at great length, readily debating the Jade Emperor on any number of topics. Jaheed was surprised to find that Anansi was less Ammit and more Sekhmet – fiery, impassioned, and fiercely outspoken.
"They'll never fall in line with the rest of the system," Volsif declared, folding his arms. He wore at all times a half-smile, as though perpetually amused by Anansi's vehement disagreements. It seemed, to Jaheed, that this was all mere sport to the Jade Emperor of mankind. "Study their history. Clear patterns emerge."
"As always, Doss, you’re caught up in your own predilections," Anansi replied sharply. "The Remaens have been assailed by war and famine for decades. They are a people grasping desperately for relief – any relief, at any cost."
"And as always, Anansi, you fail to take the long view. In the span of five centuries they would rebel again with full bellies and radical minds. You speak of temporary subjugation; I dream of an Empire everlasting. I deal in centuries, not decades."
"Your overconfidence will be your downfall," Anansi stated dryly.
"Oh ye of little faith," Volsif chuckled happily, drumming metal fingers against his metal thigh. Then his head turned, quite robotically, and Jaheed could not help but shudder involuntarily as the Emperor’s gaze fell upon him. "Tell me your thoughts, son of Vell."
“My thoughts-?” Jaheed blurted out. At that moment in time his mind was so blank, so utterly barren and empty that it was hard to believe there had ever been any thought at all. “Well, I…” And then, to Jaheed's relief, this torture was cut short by an announcement over the shuttle's intercom.
"Approaching high orbit of Holy Ceres now," came the pilot's voice. There was a substantial pause. "We are being ordered to turn and depart."
"So it begins," Anansi growled, her expression hardening. "The posturing."
"Please, Anansi," Volsif grinned, clasping his hands together. "This is all going to be spectacularly entertaining." His eyes flicked up, to a small camera mounted atop the ceiling. "Full speed ahead, Nergal," he ordered. "The Sovereign would not dare fire upon my vessel."
Jaheed was not nearly as certain. No ship was permitted to fly anywhere near Ceres - the Ankh had to be crewed only by Se-dai, and her passengers were permitted no windows or viewports. No living outsider had ever even caught a glimpse of the moon before. And though it maintained no standing navy, Ceres was known to be festooned with a truly staggering arsenal of ground-to-space weaponry. Destroying the Ankh would be a trivial matter for the Sovereign, done with but a gesture – much in the same way that the Emperor ordered death with but a flick of his wrist.
And then, of course, there was the matter of what would happen when if they actually did manage to land. The Jade Emperor seemed perfectly confident in pitting Anansi and two Se-dai against an entire moon of their cousins, the idea of which struck Jaheed as utterly ludicrous. Reflexively, he looked now to Anansi and was surprised to see her expression rigid with scarcely-restrained anger. Her eyes were blazing bright, and her mouth was drawn into a thin line, and the muscles were bulging at the base of her neck. She looked as though she wanted to rip off the Ankh's hatch and leap down to Ceres herself.
Jaheed looked at her, his only line of defense from the moon full of angry Se-dai below, and thought to himself thus: You'd better be as good as they say you are.
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Kore
The elevator did not descend so much as it did plummet downwards, fired as it were from a gargantuan spring-coil loaded with enough force to flatten a SPHINX-class artillery tank. Yet for the men and women of the infamous planet-city Venus, this was all part and parcel.
For the poor, anyway. The legendary artisans and forgemasters of Venus lived high above the metal planet's surface, suspended in great branching disks interconnected by a vast spiderweb of tunnels and bridges. It was a staggeringly impressive sight to behold, a monument to the sheer power of man that rivaled even the megastructure-rings of Holy Mercury. But it was beneath the clouds that the lower class of Venus dwelled, all one-hundred-and-forty billion of them, and it was only via space-elevator that one might violently descend to meet them.
Though there were no viewports or windows by which to see, Kore and Diesch could feel their ears popping every fifteen seconds or so, and all around them that coffin-esque excuse for an elevator was shaking and rattling like a thing possessed.
"Void," Kore muttered, as a screw shook loose from somewhere up above and impacted against her left shoulder. The big woman had gone entirely pale and was currently clutching a nearby, useless little railing for dear life. Beside her, Diesch was characteristically silent, a fact that was irritating Kore off more and more with every passing minute. She had wanted to bring Sekhmet, but reason had instead prevailed – the rogue Se-dai was, well, rouge, whereas Diesch was a near-total unknown and, more importantly, a man who had spent substantial time in the Venusian undercity. The only caveat? Despite his having warmed up decently well to Sekhmet and Tarsus, the Black Hound still treated Kore and Jaheed with open disdain. And now the two of them were stuck in this void-damned elevator together.
Finally, the elevator came to a sharp and sudden halt, pitching both occupants directly into the air. While Diesch was mostly unharmed, Kore's head impacted painfully against the ceiling and she hunched, letting loose a string of Callistan epithets that did nothing to dull the agony branching down from the back of her skull.
"Shit-ass fucking elevator," Kore muttered angrily, rubbing at her head as the door creaked open and a vast world of sound and sight presented itself.
This was the Venusian Undercity – endless city blocks packed in as tight as humanly possible, extending some fifteen miles below the planet's nominal surface. Black skyscrapers ran up like cliff walls in either direction, and every street corner was festooned with a myriad of neon-glowing signs that stood in stark contrast to the interminable darkness. The air itself was choked thick with smog and other, more illicit substances, and the immediate din and clamor of one hundred and forty billion people was such that Kore found herself momentarily overwhelmed.
"Quit gawking," Diesch ordered, stepping forward and brushing her aside. "Let's move."
And so the two made their way into that tremendous crowd, Diesch blending in at once and Kore looked decidedly out of place. She had scrambled to find anything remotely resembling 'casual' wear – anything other than an Imperial uniform – and had only been able to produce a pair of dark slacks and a grey cable-knit sweater. Already this was a rather rigid-looking outfit, but the effect was further exacerbated by the fresh scar and fresh-shaved undercut that gave the ex-rebel a distinctly warlike appearance. And then there was the matter of the tall, broad-shouldered body that put her several inches above the average eye-level on Venus.
Sekhmet had tried to offer Kore some of her (stolen) clothes, only to quickly retract the offer and lament the fact that her girlfriend was 'built like a fucking warehouse,' one of the most truly baffling comments Kore had ever received. And so, here Kore was, looking like an undercover greencoat complete with a melt-blade openly displayed on her hip. She had come to favor the weapon – a fat-bladed six-inch knife with a well-worn hilt – and had for several weeks of transit been practicing all manner of Se-dai knife-fighting techniques. If nothing else, Kore was confident that she could handle anything the undercity threw at her so long as she had that weapon in hand.
Now, the two of them were forcing their way through a throng of merchant, partygoers, mercenaries, hecklers, and hagglers. "Of course I'm gawking," Kore snapped, already pissed off by the perilous elevator ride. "I've been looking at nothing but palace interiors or the Gorger for the past nine months."
"Well, sort it out," was Diesch's only reply as he forged a relentless path ahead. Kore, struggling to keep pace, had to resort to simply shouldering pedestrians aside, putting her bulky frame to her advantage. There were some comments, some complaints – but all fell silent at the ex-rebel’s hard-eyed glare.
And yet even as she was glaring, she was also still gawking because all around her were sights the likes of which she had never even imagined. At this moment in time there was, in immediate eyeshot:
- A man who stood nearly twenty feet tall on long, spindly mechanical legs, his face little more than a mass of red-glowing photoreceptors jammed into his hollowed-out skull.
- A woman in a long robe, gas mask, and straw hat who had, slung over her shoulder, what appeared to be a bushel of severed human arms.
- A grey-skinned man with patches of what appeared to be black mold growing across his exposed skin, leading by rattling chain a snarling, six-legged, slit-mouthed cat-beast.
- And, finally, a trio of scantily-clad women in what appeared to be a highly sexualized version of traditional Se-dai armor, overtop which a neon sign proudly proclaimed COME AND SEE THE LEGENDARY WHORES OF CERES
At the last one, Kore actually laughed out loud, and in that moment she wanted nothing more in the whole universe for Sekhmet to be here and to see this.
But Kore, of course, was alone, and so she just followed Diesch and said nothing.
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Jaheed
The Son of Vell stood now at the Emperor's left hand and found himself staring at a place from out of time.
Ceres’ version of a hangar looked moreso like an ancient cathedral, a palace of gorgeous and masterfully-crafted marble architecture replete with stunningly elaborate stained-glass windows through which rays of distorted sun filtered through. The place was lit by braziers that hung, blazing, from gilded chandeliers, and the floor beneath their feet was perhaps the most beautiful mosaic Jaheed had ever laid eyes upon.
"Garish, overwrought, and deeply self-important," the Jade Emperor remarked openly, as he descended the ramp with hands clasped behind his back and a slight curl to his upper lip. He wore a simple black-and-white robe and a circlet of pure jade. Beside him marched Anansi in perfect lock-step and contrite, respectful Jaheed in a pale imitation. Behind them loomed the Se-dai NERGAL and FREYJA, unhelmeted just as Anansi was. Jaheed recognized them now as the Se-dai who had guarded the Emperor in Anansi's absence.
At any rate, those were the first words the Emperor had chosen upon being one of the only outsiders to ever set foot upon the sacred monastery-moon. Jaheed wondered then, to himself, just how long it would be before the Sovereign decided to have them all killed.
"Just as I described," Anansi agreed, at an equally blatant volume.
Jaheed, meanwhile, was working overtime to convey as much silent reverence as he possibly could. He felt like–nay, he was a profound outsider, an interloper who had been dragged along for little more than to deepen the insult against Ceres' immortal rulers. He was by a significant margin the least important and most expendable person here.
Waiting for them, as the ramp descended, were twenty Se-dai standing at rigid attention, flanked on all sides by nearly a hundred men in neat-pressed purple uniforms. Trailing either side, circling slowly, were unnaturally tall figures draped in dark robes, their faces obscured by orbs of blank onyx as they paced, some with canisters trailing faint incense and some with multi-pronged banners the significance of which that Jaheed could not even begin to guess at. At the helm of the entire procession stood two individuals – the first a hunched old man wearing a sardonically-smiling gold mask and a long, flowing red-and-silver robe. From his neck there hung what must have been a hundred different pendants. The second was an imposing Se-dai whose black armor sported a single streak of byzantium-purple paint. Her auburn hair was tied back into a tight and violent ponytail, and her countenance was marred by a vertical scar about her right eye. Her nameplate read LOKI, and she was glaring at Anansi with open contempt.
Before anyone could speak further, another of the Se-dai – VĀYU – burst from the crowd, her armored boots impacting loudly against the floor as she barked out "Anansi! Comment oses-tu montrer ton visage ici? J'ai promis que je découperais la chair de tes os!"
"Ah. An old rival," The Jade Emperor remarked, for Jaheed's benefit, as the translator-unit in the Acolyte's ear relayed to him more or less the same. "Anansi was never meant to be Sha-sur, after all. It caused quite a stir when I chose her to serve at my side." As he was speaking, Vāyu was reaching for her back and withdrawing a cruel-looking sickle. Her Ker-sot. The incensed Se-dai thrust the weapon forward in accusation and pounded her fist twice against her breastplate. Her eyes were glowing bright.
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"[I swear by the old blood,]" Vāyu declared, her words thick with venom. "[You shall not leave Ceres alive.]"
Anansi's eyes, by contrast, remained cool and dim, and her only response was to glance over at her Emperor in silent query.
The Emperor did not say a word. He just smiled and gave a small, two-fingered flick of his left wrist.
Instantly, Anansi was storming forwards as though possessed by a surge of electricity. Her eyes were narrow slits and her mouth was drawn to a thin line as she reached up and undid the clasp, allowing her signature cloak to fall slowly and silently to the ground.
Now, for the first time, Jaheed was actually getting a good look at the armor of the Sha-sur. It was at once beautiful and understated, comprised of interlocking red plates interposed with lines of solid black, and the vividness of that ruby coating served only to further contrast Anansi's pitch-dark skin. It made for an impressive and imposing shell indeed.
Wordlessly, Anansi unsheathed twin blades – flat, angular weapons at the crossroads of dagger and shortsword, each roughly a foot long and each held in a backwards-handed grip. And Jaheed had a sudden feeling of grave and dire import as Anansi reached forwards and gestured with one of her implements.
"[Come, then,]" Anansi said flatly. "[Die at the hands of The New Blood.]" Le Sang Neuf, words the importance of which Jaheed could not possibly have guessed.
At that, Vāyu let out a fierce yell and shot forwards, just as Jaheed had seen Sekhmet do twice before. But Anansi just stood still, met the charge head-on – and then the two were clashing not at a breakneck pace but slow and methodical as Anansi immediately ground her cousin to a halt. And the two fought for perhaps thirty furious seconds before Anansi forced the sickle aside, gouged open Vāyu’s stomach, circled behind her, crunched the other woman's knee beneath her boot, and finally – with a hateful, impatient snarl – drove one blade through Vāyu’s ear and the other through the base of her skull.
Anansi jerked her blades free, and Vāyu’s head simply exploded into a combination of grey brain matter, sparking bits of circuitry, and a spray of steaming aquamarine fluid. The decapitated Se-dai fell to her knees with a resounding thud and then slumped over, dead as history.
"[I will not weep for you, cousin,]" Anansi spat, drying off one blade in the crook of her arm, then another. Quietly, Freyja and Nergal were whispering the same. And Jaheed, all the while, was astonished. This had been nothing like the fight between Sekhmet and Gaun. Anansi had patently dismantled her opponent, methodically closing off her options one by one until there was nothing Vāyu could do but lose. He had just watched one of the mythical, invincible Blessed Executioners killed like it was nothing – and this, he understood, was what real, permanent death looked like for a Se-dai. No three bullets to the head, as Kore had administered, but a complete and total obliteration of the brain.
For a moment there was a reverent, sacrosanct silence. And then of course it was Volsif who broke it.
"Fine work as always, Anansi," the Jade Emperor said, lightly applauding, and Anansi's only response was to cross her arms in salute before sheathing her blades and returning at once to his side. "An entertaining spectacle indeed." Jaheed could only surmise, then, that this sort of thing was a regular and expected occurrence amongst the Se-dai, for there were no further threats or acts of violence amongst Anansi’s cousins. A quartet of men stepped forward to drag away the body and that was that.
"Now, then," the Emperor said, turning to face the gathered assembly. "I shall be bade a proper welome.”
At that, every single man and woman of Ceres – even Loki, who was still glaring daggers at Anansi – dropped to one knee as though they had been physically forced and bowed their heads, touching two fingers to their foreheads in a display of abject reverence. Only the Emperor and his retinue remained standing, the former now striding forward with the effortless confidence of a man who felt, in no uncertain terms, that he owned the place. Beside him, Jaheed was under no such illusions, but nevertheless he understood that in this moment he was but an extension of the Grand Architect.
"[I bid you welcome to the Most Holy and Blessed Warrior-Monastery of Magnificent Ceres, may the light shine upon it evermore,]" the masked man intoned, his voice heavily accented. "[Welcome, O Celestial Seraphic Empyreal Seventh-Blessed Panoptic God-Emperor Doss Ken Vessholt Tefand Disnal El Errendekes Sen Sorad Volsif.]"
"[The Grand Architect,]" the towering black figures intoned as one. Their voices were quite decidedly inhuman and came out as a sort of combined gurgle. "[The Panoptic Eye. The Hand That Encloses All.]"
"The very same," the Emperor smiled, somewhat condescendingly. "It is a sad day, indeed, when the Sovereign does not deign to make an appearance before their Master."
"[The Sovereign is in poor health,]" the masked man explained, somewhat uncertainly, after a moment’s hesitation. The people of Ceres were determined to stick to the proper order of ceremony and Volsif, it seemed, was determined to break it. "[They can no longer travel beyond the bound of the Inner Sanctum.]"
"A pity," Volsif remarked, without any pity at all.
"[Shall we go and see him, O Seventh-Blessed Emperor?]" asked a new voice – the voice of Loki, the impressive-looking Se-dai with the vivid scar. Volsif's eyes flicked to the side, then, and he looked her over for a long time before responding.
"You," he noted, finally. “The woman who was to be Sha-sur, now the Sovereign's favored pet. How amusing.” Loki stared ahead and said nothing. "No, we shall not." The Emperor turned to face them all, men and women alike, and gestured with two fingers for the lot of them to rise. "I should very much like a tour of your facilities, instead. I wish to see your sparring grounds, your sacred temples, your Fleshweavers at work. And, perhaps most eagerly..." His eyes glittered dangerously. "I wish to see a Birth."
It was as though all air had been sucked from the room.
"[None are permitted-]" Loki blurted out, rising sharply to her feet – but then, without a sound, Anansi's wrist-blade was at her neck. And Jaheed could only observe in helpless terror as Loki's head turned, slow and reptilian, to regard the woman to whom she had displayed such visible malice.
"[Cousin,]" Loki said, coldly. The familial term was all but ground out from between gritted teeth.
"[Cousin,]" Anansi growled back, matching and perhaps even exceeding Loki’s bile. "[How often you find yourself at the edge of my blade.]" And with that, the two parted, each withdrawing slowly like cats on the prowl. For a moment there was a taut line of invisible tension between the two Se-dai – and then Volsif snapped his fingers, and Jaheed was grateful to see the line snapped at once.
"You belong to me," the Jade Emperor reminded them, and immediately both Anansi and Loki pressed hands to foreheads in salute. "For the moment, it is my will that you both remain alive. And besides-" he turned to the masked man, gave a metal-toothed smile. "There is still so much to see."
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Kore
FAT FARRAK'S - that was the name of the dive bar/nightclub/'restaurant' in which Kore and Diesch now found themselves. The two were seated in a cushioned booth at the very far corner of the establishment, beers and cigarettes in hand as they reclined and said very little. All around them, dark-purple lights were strobing and deafening bass was throbbing and hundreds of people danced and thrashed and shouted and laughed and screamed and drank/snorted/injected and the whole thing was such a wild assault of sight and sound that Kore was quite decidedly on edge.
And here it was that they waited. And waited. And waited.
"What if he doesn't show?" Kore remarked, finally, which was the equivalent of an are we almost there yet on a road trip wherein one was very obviously not almost there. It was the kind of useless thing that everyone thought and nobody ever needed to say but–by the void, she was bored out of her skull. Any conversation was better than this.
"Ket Sal said he'd be here," was all Diesch gave her in response. Which was a fair response, though it was far from what Kore had wanted and had been spoken to her with an undue level of malice. And so Kore stewed, drank her beer, ordered another, drank that too, and fiddled with the knife on her hip all the while.
Finally, she turned to Diesch and asked, quite bluntly, "Can we talk?" It was less of a question and more of a demand, really.
"You can talk," came the icy reply. The Black Hound passed a cigarette between his lips. "I guess I’m stuck listening."
"Look, I'm sorry," Kore blurted out, with perhaps a bit more vehemence than intended. Diesch regarded her dryly. "Is that what you want to hear? Because I really, truly am. I'm sorry for lying to you, Abel. And I know you have every right to be upset."
"Uh huh," Diesch grunted, taking another drag. Kore's eyes narrowed. Her ire was rising by the minute. Void, why did he have to make this so fucking hard?
"But what I don't understand," Kore pressed, her voice growing louder, "is how you get off playing the poor-little-victim routine when me and Jaheed saved Proxima!"
That, finally, got a reaction out of him. Diesch's mechanical fingers snapped the cigarette in two and his eyes widened, then narrowed to slits. "What did you just say to me?" he demanded, his voice low and dangerous.
"Oh, grow up," Kore scoffed, rolling her eyes. She had been scared of him, in Proxima – but the Kore of today was leagues ahead of those days, now. "You're not stupid. Sorrel was in bed with the Crimson Emir, how'd you think that was gonna go?"
"I knew nothing about that-" Diesch hissed.
"Sure, I get that!" Kore exclaimed. "And now you do know – so what the fuck are you angry at me for? Your beloved duke was gonna hand your people over to an omnicidal maniac who woulda glassed Proxima just like he has two-dozen other poor fuckers. I did you a favor!"
"Did me a favor?!" Diesch thundered, planting his hands and rising halfway from his seat. His eyes were wide open, now. "That's how you see this?!"
"What else would you call it?" Kore demanded, folding her arms. She watched as Diesch’s face contorted with livid, purpling rage.
"You did your fucking job," the Black Hound snarled, jabbing a finger against the table. "Don't you dare preach to me about ‘saving Proxima’ or any other high-minded idealistic bullshit. You have zero ideology, Kore. You are an extension of a powerful man with powerful ambitions and that is all there is to it. You didn't think for a second about the morality of what you were doing – it was just the job, and so you just did the job."
"You don't know a thing about me," Kore spat, suddenly on the defensive. By the fucking void it was loud in here.
"My entire job is studying human behavior," Diesch shot back. "And you're such a two-dimensional shade of a human being that it makes me genuinely sad. You are in no way complicated and in no way an enigma, least of all to me!"
"Oh, that's it, huh? You got me all figured out?" Kore demanded, throwing up her hands. She was well on her way to just hurling her bottle into his condescending, martyr-complex, holier-than-thou fucking face. "Did you ever tell my girlfriend any of that? Y'know, the woman you're all buddy-buddy with? You ever try and explain to Sekhmet that the love of her life is apparently a shallow voiddamned psychopath?"
"I've tried," Diesch snapped, leaning over the table now. "But if you think the fact that poor woman is entirely co-dependent on you is some kind of endorsement-"
"Hey," an attractive young man in a half-unbuttoned shirt said, sliding up next to Kore and flashing her an effortless grin. "Is this guy bothering-"
"Step back or I will knock your fuckin' teeth out," Kore snarled, and the man physically jumped back, eyes wide. Kore gave him a glare that could melt through solid mithril and the interloper simply vanished, disappearing into the writhing throng lest he remain the subject of her ire for even a moment longer. And after that, Kore and Diesch were dead silent, neither one willing to meet the other's eyes – until the Black Hound visibly straightened and declared, loudly:
“That's him."
And indeed it was. Sitting there at the bar, sandwiched between a four-armed woman and what appeared to be a metal skeleton, was a man with orange-colored hair and a bright-yellow suit jacket. Ten Na-Kath, the only reason that Kore was even in this shithole of a club tonight.
Kore and Diesch were on their feet in an instant. Seconds later they were both at the bar, slipping the polymelic woman and the synth-steel construct each a wad of credit notes – and promptly instructing them to get lost. Now, Jaheed’s agents were sitting on either side of Na-Kath, both staring straight ahead with drinks in hand. Na-Kath, who was currently pretending not to have noticed any of this.
"Evening," Kore said, tilting her glass. Already, her anger was cooling. There was only the objective after all. Only the task at hand, at which Kore would excel, because Kore always excelled. Because Kore was good at her job.
"It is indeed," Na-Kath observed dryly. He was a wiry sort of man, his face narrow and somewhere between roguish and ratlike. His eyes flicked to her, now – eyes that were, if not necessarily intelligent, starkly cunning and clever. Kore disliked him immediately. "Do I know you?"
"You do not," Diesch answered.
"Okay," Na-Kath folded his hands, glancing now between the two interlopers. "Then might I ask what this is about?"
"We'd like to speak to your friend," Kore said – and then Na-Kath was moving to get up, and then the barrel of Diesch's revolver was pressing into his side.
"I wouldn't," Diesch cautioned.
Na-Kath didn't.
"I have a lot of friends," Na-Kath said, slowly, after a long moment. "You'll have to be more specific."
"I think you know exactly who," Kore nodded, mostly to herself. "Call him, please." Na-Kath hesitated. Kore leaned forward, made her voice low and threatening. Fixed him with her hardest stare. “First time, I’m asking nicely. Second will be another thing entirely.”
"And what should I tell him, exactly?" Na-Kath asked, remarkably calm under his present circumstances. Clearly this was far from his first time under the gun.
"Tell him that we have a vast sum of money with us, and that we would like to have a conversation in person, please."
Na-Kath put a finger to his earpiece and did just that.
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Jaheed
Jaheed, at that exact moment, was seeing things that he knew, with every fiber of his being, he should never have been allowed to see.
He was now but a single participant in the hundred-strong retinue trailing behind Emperor Volsif XCVII and Arch-Bishop Grehmeel Derast Xenet; a contingent of armored Se-dai and unarmored attendants and those strange, loping black things that uttered occasional phrases the meanings of which Jaheed’s translator could not parse. And as this great train descended deeper and deeper into the monastery-moon, the architecture was growing grander and more elaborate by the minute. It was a truly magnificent work of art, all of it, and it was little wonder that construction had begun before even the foundation of the Great Domain. There was some form of masterpiece waiting at quite literally every turn.
All the while, Jaheed was learning a great deal by way of mouth shut and ears open. He had come to surmise that while the women of Ceres were exclusively warriors, the men served virtually every other role – cooking, cleaning, construction, engineering, medicine, and most importantly ruling. It was men like Bishop Xenet who clearly held the true bulk of the power on Ceres, and who acted as key religious figures in the myriad rituals of the monastery-moon.
The entire thing, really, was shrouded in a great deal more religion and mysticism than Jaheed would have expected, though he supposed such things were part and parcel for a people that had been isolated for millennia. Yet the three Se-dai he knew – Sekhmet, Ammit, and now Anansi – were, in terms of personality and demeanor, all decidedly the opposite of everything he was seeing here. None held anything in any particularly high spiritual reverence, and if anything, all three had shown their homeworld only disapproval and disdain. Anansi herself was harshest in her criticism, looking at all times like she wanted to unsheathe her blades and start the killing anew.
There was a stark difference, then, between the Se-dai of Ceres and the Se-dai of the Great Domain. And indeed, Anansi and Nergal and Freyja were visibly a world apart from their cousins. Even their posture and movements were subtly different, and they did not hesitate to stand at a distance from the rest of their peers.
And Volsif? The Jade Emperor was having a grand time, eye roving constant and hungry over sights long unseen, his lips in constant motion as he loosed an unending stream of queries and observations. He was wringing Xenet like a rag, siphoning from him every drop of knowledge he could get his hands on. Ravenous – that was the word that came to Jaheed’s mind. And while the Bishop was always respectful, there was a clear reticence behind that masked face – reticence that made Jaheed think of the mysterious Sovereign, whom Volsif was currently either avoiding or simply further insulting. He got the clear distinct impression that the Sovereign would have shown Volsif no such deference.
They came to a halt outside a portal of sorts, a vast circular opening barred, at current, by a twisting sheath of layered metal embossed with thousands of delicate, swirling designs. Standing guard outside were four additional masked Se-dai, all with two-pronged spears in hand. Unlike the others, these did not kneel in the presence of the Emperor, nor did they even offer salute. They were as statues, sentinel and unmoving.
"[Seventh-Blessed Emperor Volsif,]" Xenet began, apropos of nothing, wringing his gnarled hands together as he spoke. His nails were all nearly a full inch in length. "[If I may. Ahead lies a sacred place, one forbidden to all but the highest echelons of the Holy Se-dai order. To tread further would be...]" He trailed off, and then said in a voice Jaheed had not once heard him use: "[You are making a mistake.]"
Jaheed knew, of course, exactly what was coming. He blinked, and then Anansi was at the Bishop's side – void, she made even Sekhmet look sluggish – with one gauntleted hand resting firmly upon his shoulder. And the Jade Emperor turned now, with eyes glittering and lip curled, and Xenet seemed to almost physically wither beneath that emerald gaze.
Loki's wrist-blades were fully extended. Freyja and Nergal were both watching her closely.
"Don't ever speak casually to me, you animal," the Emperor snarled. "I do not make mistakes."
"[L-Lord Emperor,]" Xenet stuttered, the fight having fled entirely from his body. "[I only-you must understand, to step any further would be heresy!]"
"I am the dogma, you insipid little speck," Volsif spat. "Nothing is heresy when carried out at the behest of a living god. I shall remind you all, now, that everything on this moon is mine. Every centimeter of brick and metal and flesh and bone and thought belongs to me. And, right now," his gleaming eyes flicked to the side, "my door is going to open, and I am going to venture deeper into my monastery. This is my will, and thus it is made reality."
The Jade Emperor snapped his fingers – and like magic, the embossed metal parted like a blooming flower to reveal a narrow, shadowy, torch-lit passage on the other side. Beside him, Jaheed felt Freyja tense. There was a ripple through all the female Se-dai, in fact, like the shiver one gets in the moment just before a fight. He peered over the shoulder of a male attendant to see Anansi, her eyes narrowed to slits and her jaw locked tight. Jaheed saw Volsif glance back at his bodyguard for just a moment – and then he saw, too, the subtle nod she gave the Emperor in return.
"Well, then," the Emperor smiled, clasping metal hands together. His ire, it seemed, had already been discarded. "Let us descend."
A fitting choice of words, Jaheed thought bitterly, to himself. And so he crossed the Rubicon.