CYCLE 12873 // MONTH THIRTEEN // DAY TWENTY-FOUR // REIGN OF BLESSED EMPEROR VOLSIF XCVII
The trip "home" was, mercifully, an uneventful one. For approximately four weeks the crew of the Cloud Gorger were left largely to their own devices, and thus boredom soon had them turning to the refuge of strong alcohol and good company. Kore, Jaheed, and Tarsus spent many an artificial night getting drunk on the bridge and playing cards, basking in one another's presences (as one was wont to do when isolated and alone on a flying hunk of metal) and largely enjoying a life (temporarily) free of any and all responsibility.
An amicable sort of camaraderie was growing between Jaheed and Kore, the kind that could emerge only from stark differences in personality and perspective. Each was like a counterbalance to the other, contrasting in a way that only served to make their opposite more interesting, more intriguing. Jaheed admired Kore's calm determination and hard-earned pragmatism; Kore was captivated by Jaheed's high-minded ideals and razor-sharp, book-taught wit. He could outmaneuver her in argument or debate with ease; she in turn could beat him a thousand times at cards and was an expert in the art of pointing out when he was being an idiot.
And then, there was Sekhmet - restless Sekhmet who prowled the boiler room at nearly all hours, and whose technical knowledge did in fact eclipse the captain's own (though this knowledge was unearned, having been programmed into her brain by some nameless Se-dai fleshweaver). During the "days", Sekhmet and Tarsus worked side-by-side in amiable silence - the captain far too world-weary to fear what was clearly some form of cyborg fugitive - and during the "nights", after Jaheed had retired, Kore and the former Se-dai would make the fierce sort of love that naturally stems from a lifetime of repression.
These were easy, happy times, all of them buoyed by the exciting promise of better futures soon to come.
But alas, all good times must come to an end. And so, on the twenty-sixth day, there came Sen Tarsus' voice over the intercom:
"All hands strap in; dropping to realspace in fifteen. Welcome to Holy Mercury, everybody."
And that was the end of that.
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Ket Sal woke with a start - and then, already, his head was pounding.
The Scion groaned, glanced over at the time, then slumped right back down, running his hands along the sides of his face as though they might massage the hangover from his skull. From above, artificial sunlight was beginning to stream into the room through an artificial window, and with the gentle darkness there went any hope of the yellow-eyed Scion returning to his blissful slumber.
He reached over to the nightstand, careful not to disturb the woman laying next to him, yet still he felt her stir as he retrieved and lit a long, blue-striped cigarette. He sat up in bed now, taking a heavy drag and closing his eyes – and feeling Maít's cold fingers running down the side of his chest.
"Hey..." she muttered, her face pressed deep into her pillow. She, too, was in denial at the morning's arrival.
Ket Sal didn't reply to her, not directly - he just took another drag of his cigarette, then opened his eyes and said, "Son of a bitch."
Rather than receding, as would be the polite thing to do, his headache was instead growing louder and more demanding by the minute. A Scion's body was modified to - among many other things - make them all but impervious to the disorienting effects of alcohol; however, Ket Sal had discovered just a few weeks after his Ascension that bypassing this "limitation" was absolutely within the realm of physical possibility. One needed only imbibe with speed and volume enough to kill several full-grown man. And so, last night, he had done just that, and so here he was today - thoroughly hungover.
Maít turned her head - turned her brilliant blue eyes upon him - and offered a lopsided smile. "I take it you feel about the same way you look?"
"I take it you're right," the Scion grumbled in reply. "Void, Maít, next time I say I want to get drunk - stop me, would you? Please? Consider it an act of charity."
"Aww," the woman sighed, leaning her head against his shoulder. "You're more fun when you're drunk."
"What? I'm always fun," Ket Sal scoffed, before leaning in to kiss his wife for several breathless seconds. Then, he pulled away, and the two of them shared a gentle silence and a pair of small smiles before their reverie was interrupted by a soft, pleasant - but insistent - chime at the door.
The heads-up display behind Ket Sal's eyes informed him at once that it was Ammit at the door, the Se-dai's name and serial number flashing over his wife's face in bold red text. Through an unspoken command issued through his occipital implant, Ket Sal bade the Se-dai to enter.
The doors hissed open at once, and Ammit stepped into the room, unhelmeted but otherwise clad in full Se-dai regalia. Her eyes fell upon the naked couple with mechanical disinterest and she said, by way of greeting, "Jaheed Vell has arrived."
Ket Sal's headache was growing worse. He sighed, planting palm to forehead in a sort of penitent gesture as his cigarette hung suspended between two fingers.
"Good morning, Ammit," Maít smiled beside him, infuriatingly cheery and unsuffering. "Care to join us?"
"Good morning, Lady Maít," Ammit replied, perfectly matching the other woman's lackadaisical tone. Her eyes widened ever-so-slightly in what Ket Sal knew to be her closest approximation of a smile. "I must respectfully decline."
When Volsif XCVII, the man Ket Sal had known as Doss, was Ascended to the title of Holy Emperor, he brought with him nine of his closest friends and allies - a sentimental gesture from a deeply unsentimental man. These became his first Scions; Ket Sal among them.
Now, when Ket Sal had been Ascended, he brought with him only one person - his longtime girlfriend from Third School, Maít Tas Oan, whom he proposed to the day he was made a Scion. There were no others. Not his family, who had scorned their youngest and cast him out; and not his friends, of whom he had none.
That was, in truth, what really set Ket Sal apart from his fellow Scions. Though he was as fluidly outgoing and social as any Scion, he was by no means a friendly man. He kept those he cared about close and all others at a stark, hostile distance. It was thus that Ket Sal's reputation was not as a diplomat but as the Jade Emperor's headsman, a sneering figure whose very presence spelled a terrible future to come. This was what Sain Sahd understood at once, when Ket Sal had appeared on Callisto, and what Duke Jerohd and his son had failed to grasp until it was far too late.
"Did you say Jaheed?" Maít was asking, sitting up in bed now. Though officially she was little more than a filing clerk at the Immaculate Palace, unofficially she was deeply entwined in all of Ket Sal's affairs. Like all Scions, Ket Sal was an incorrigible gossip. "The Callisto boy - he actually made it back?"
"Indeed," Amnit replied, with just the tiniest trace of amusement in her leaden tone. "It would seem the mission on Proxima was a success."
"I suppose I might find myself on travel soon," Ket Sal mused wearily.
"Proxima's nice this time of year," Maít offered cheerily.
"At any rate, Lord Scion," Amnit interjected, "Director Vesos has requested that you receive Vell at once and see him properly escorted."
"You're joking," Ket Sal said blankly, to which he only received a blank stare in return. Beside him, Maít broke into a riotous peal of laughter. Ket Sal turned, fixed her with a glare - but couldn't keep the look on his face for long. Not at her, anyway. There would be many pointed stares for those who had crossed him in the days to come.
"His life was in the palm of your hand," Maít chuckled. "Now you're stuck babysitting him. The Emperor's new pet, huh?"
"Something like that," Ket Sal sighed - rising to his feet now, the blanket falling around him. "Doss is probably grooming him to join our ranks, as though there aren't enough Scions already." In the three years of Volsif's reign thus far, the Scions' numbers had swelled from nine to twenty-four, and the bitter - sometimes murderous - rivalries between them had only grown and deepened. It was becoming a dangerous position indeed, and Jaheed was an unwelcome entry into a space that was already overcrowded.
"Welp," Ket Sal clasped his hands together, his cigarette still jutting out at an angle from between his lips. "Guess I won't be getting anything useful or interesting done today. Have they already docked?"
"They have," the Se-dai nodded slightly. "Master Vell awaits in Bay epsilon-four-three-seven."
"Void take me," Ket Sal muttered, pinching his brow for the dozenth time. "I don't suppose there'd be time for me to shower?"
"I don't suppose so."
"Then I guess this is me," Ket Sal declared, turning now to his still-smirking wife. He spread his arms.
"Maít, darling," he asked, "how do I look?"
"To my eyes? Absolutely terrible," she chuckled, somehow cruel and warm all at once. "But to anyone else? Fucking immaculate."
Ket Sal didn't reply - he just grinned, stepped over, and kissed his wife on the forehead.
"Five minutes to get dressed," he commanded, without looking, and behind him he heard Ammit step aside and the door slide firmly shut.
"Well?" Maít asked, demanding a correct answer from her husband.
"Well," Ket Sal echoed, meeting her challenge. He rose to his full height once more. "I promise not to strangle the little shit."
"That's the spirit," Maít grinned. "And hey, don't worry - we can always just have Ammit slit his throat sometime later."
"That's right," Ket Sal said, matching her grin with a Scion-perfect sneer of his own. He had no desire to be anywhere in the world other than right here, right now. "I’ll dwell on that, today, whenever the going gets tough."
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It wasn't the biggest hangar Jaheed had ever seen.
But by the Void, it was certainly up there.
As the three of them - Jaheed, Kore, and Tarsus - stepped off gangplank of the Gorger, they found themselves in a chamber that was, in truth, the span of an entire town. Walls that had once been adorned in blinding white and brilliant gold were now that of deep black and swirling jade, the darkness offset by countless strips of gently-tinted lights that ran up and down all sides of the enclosure like some colossal circuit board. To the left and to the right stretched unending rows of ships, and around them swarmed thousands of workers clad in the dark-blue jumpsuits that marked them as mechanics and engineers. Their mouths were covered, all of them, by bulky, surgically-attached masks that allowed them to breath freely in this fume-choked environment. Their skulls, too, all bore on the left side a strip of metal adorned with faint, blinking lights - a repository of information that made every worker an expert, no matter the vessel to which they were assigned.
Jaheed had grown up in places like this, places whose size and scale defied understanding - places that incited your eyes to war with your rational mind. But while the former Marquess was largely unperturbed by this terrifying excess, Kore was standing entirely still beside him, and when he glanced over he saw for the first time in his life that her mouth was hanging agape in naked shock.
"Quite a spectacle, isn't it?" Jaheed offered, by way of comfort, and his Chief of Security merely nodded her head in distracted silence. "That's how everything is, here on Holy Mercury - far, far bigger than it needs to be. It's designed to break you down, to make you feel small. To remind you who you are, when measured against the Emperor." His gaze was momentarily downcast. "Or so I've been told, at any rate."
"Everyone makes that face when they see it the first time," Tarsus offered casually, bumping Kore's shoulder as she moved to stand beside them. "But don't worry. Give it enough time and all this just becomes the same as everything else on Mercury - fuckin' boring as any other palace." Ordinarily, it would have been Jaheed's place to reprimand the ship-captain for her informal tone and vulgar language - but in truth, he had come to somewhat appreciate the older woman's rough sort of candor in the weeks they had traveled together.
There was no time to attend to either of his subordinates, at any rate. A sleek, featureless hovercar was speeding towards them, and as Jaheed moved to adopt a position of formal salute his eyes caught upon the two faces sitting at the front - and his breath caught in his throat as the vehicle hummed to a halt.
Out the driver side stepped sneering, yellow-eyed Ket Sal, clad in dark slacks and a form-fitting jade-green vest. His body was all sharp angles and long lines, and he couldn't help but remind Jaheed of a scarecrow as he leaned back against the vehicle with a hand in his pocket and a curl to his lip.
But it was the man who emerged from the passenger side that Jaheed was now fixing with a wide-eyed stare. It was none other than his uncle, Sain Sahd, who stood there before him - the wise, aging Mercurian who was more of a mentor to Jaheed than his own father had ever even attempted to be. His beard was neatly trimmed, his hair was slicked back, and he was clad in a striking steel-grey suit accented only by a tie in the color of the Emperor's green. But it was his eyes that drove Jaheed to silent shock. His eyes, once a vibrant blue, that were now a dull, sallow yellow, just like Ket Sal's. And the way he stood, the way he carried himself, the way he looked over his nephew now like a damn scavenger bird waiting for an animal to die.
Jaheed felt as though he was standing before a total stranger.
"I'll see to final checks at once," Tarsus muttered, stepping away - then stopping to give a more-rigid-than-usual salute. "My liege." Behind the two Scions, a pair of masked Se-dai emerged and stalked forward like twin panthers, Ammit standing at attention alongside Ket Sal and the other - whose gorget read HEPHAESTUS - taking up position behind Jaheed's yellow-eyed uncle. Though Jaheed could not see her, Kore was standing just a hair behind him with her expression as still and stoic as stone, a perfect pillar of support who managed to lend nearly the same gravity to her charge as the Blessed Executioners did to their own.
The onus was on Jaheed now. So he gulped, tensed his hands to stop them from shaking, and stepped forward with a warm smile and arms spread wide.
"Uncle Sain!" he called, the picture of casual geniality - just as the old man had taught him. He considered a formal address, as was protocol, and settled instead for something personal. Something real. "It's good to see you again," he said, his voice wavering just a hair.
Sain Sahd and Ket Sal exchanged a glance - and then the two of them burst into the cruel laughter of two hyenas.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"The wager is mine, Ket Sal" Sain Sahd declared, holding out a hand, to which the younger Scion fished through his pockets with a comically exaggerated sigh, producing several crumpled bills and slapping them into the other man's waiting palm.
"Damn it all," Ket Sal chuckled, ignoring Jaheed entirely. "I didn't think he'd possibly be stupid enough to try that Uncle Sain stuff from the first minute he arrived!"
"Oh, you overestimate my nephew," Sain Sahd countered, sparing the former Marquess not even a glance. "It's no stratagem. Remember, his family is all but obliterated. I'm the only one he has left - no doubt he expects I’ll be his father, in absence of the late Jerohd."
Finally, those strange, hateful eyes fell upon Jaheed, and in a voice thick with contempt Sain Sahd told him thus:
"That was the one and only time I will ever allow you to disrespect me with such a casual address. I am a Scion, the voice of the Thrice-Blessed Emperor; you are nothing more than a highborn stripped of rank and title. You will speak to me as such or I will have you disciplined accordingly."
All of this was so shocking, so totally overwhelming that Jaheed's mind simply packed it all away for later, deciding at once that the Sain Sahd he had known all his life and the Sain Sahd standing before him were two different individuals entirely. Beside him, Jaheed felt Kore stiffen with barely-concealed indignation - indignation in his behalf, for which he was grateful - as he took a step back, crossing his fists across his chest and bowing at the waist. It was the third-most-formal variation of an imperial salute, the second being to kneel and the first to simply fall to one’s knees in prostration.
"The error is mine, Lord Scion," Jaheed said, the words flowing from his mouth pleasant and unperturbed. A lifetime of training and preparation were kicking in now, and with little effort Jaheed slipped entirely into his False Face once more. "Master Sahd, Master Sal - I am honored to be received by two Blessed individuals at the gates of Holy Mercury. My gratitude overflows, and for a moment I forget myself." He unbent at the waist, and his eyes settled not on his uncle but on the half-smirking face of Ket Sal. "Nevertheless, I come bearing joyous news."
"Yes, yes," Ket Sal said, waving a hand - not bothering to match Jaheed's formal tone. They intended to disrespect and belittle him at every turn, then. So be it. "Three of the Holy Emperor's Empyreal Legions have already been dispatched to Proxima, and Duke Sorrel's family will have met a similar fate as your own by the week's end."
At that, Jaheed could swear he saw the faintest shift in Sain Sahd's mocking expression, though it could easily could have been a mere trick of the imagination.
"Joyous news indeed, then," Jaheed said, clasping his hands together and giving another quick half-bow. "I am all but euphoric to serve as an agent of the Emperor's divine will."
"I'm sure you are," Sain Sahd said dryly. He glanced back at his fellow Scion. "Alright, Ket Sal, you've kept me long enough. I tire of this shambolic affair, and I've much to see to before the close of day."
"By all means," the other Scion shrugged. "I just wanted to see the look on his face."
As if on cue, another hovercar appeared, and as Sain Sahd and Hephaestus departed Ket Sal turned to Jaheed with a renewed expression of thinly-veiled agitation.
"Shall we, then?" he asked flatly.
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Holy Mercury was, from the viewport of a passing vessel, an astonishing and overwhelming sight. The planet's entire surface was coated in material of human construct; it appeared like some grey-silver sea urchin with millions of vast spines jutting out to scrape at the thin, artificial atmosphere in which the planet-city was enveloped. And surrounding the Seat of the Domain were no less than twenty-seven concentric rings of varying sizes, all megastructures in their own right and all orbiting the planet with such incredible mechanized precision that some rings passed mere inches from one another in the course of their rotations. Around these rings, billions of ships buzzed like flies, some as small as a personal hovercar and some eclipsing even Mercury's greatest spires in size.
And atop the planet - situated perfectly at the northmost magnetic pole - there loomed an obelisk visible even from space; a truly gargantuan slab of dark onyx whose surface was pitted with uncountable windows and lights and inlaid with generations of masterwork-engravings.
This monolithic monument to the accomplishments of mankind had once carried the moniker of The Kingdom in the Sky, under Emperor Volsif XCVI. Now, under his adopted son, it went by a new name - The Panopticon.
At this particular moment, however, what it really reminded Jaheed of was an ant farm, for within that dour hunk of black rock there twisted and wounded nigh-uncountable halls and passageways and chambers all spiraling out like the roots of some great tree, all of it somehow feeling quite subterranean despite the fact that one was, at all times, likely several hundred thousand feet above what had once been sea level.
It was through this labyrinth that Ket Sal and his ever-vigilant Se-dai bodyguard led Jaheed and Kore, the Scion guided by a navigational guide that flashed intermittently across his vision. As they walked, the Ket Sal spoke ceaselessly of The Panopticon's history, of this wing and of that room and of this individual and of that conquest and to Jaheed it all seemed as though the Scion was merely reading oft-practiced words from a script (and, indeed, he was).
Jaheed spared only a fraction of attention for his malevolent tour-guide. Instead, his thoughts and his eyes were reserved for the countless individuals they passed in the halls - men and women in all manner of finery, some subtle and some utterly overwhelming in their stark opulence. And among them, too, there passed an almost constant stream of individuals clad in baggy black-and-jade jumpsuits, their faces concealed by opaque and visorless helmets. All carried boxy, stubby disruptor rifles slung over their backs, and all moved with identical rigidity and precision. None spoke, and - Jaheed knew - none would, for he recognized from his studies at once that these were The Panopticon's much-whispered-about Centurions.
These were the worker ants, the drones - the blood cells in The Panopticon's body. Some, he knew, were live humans, while some were but smoothly-puppeteered corpses. All were the recipients of near or total lobotomies, their actions carefully directed by either pre-programmed instructions or by the direct command of a higher-ranking Praetorian. Jaheed had seen a few of them, too, identifiable at once by the narrow, vertical visors that bisected their orb-shaped helmets. They carried disruptor rifles and melt-knives and were flanked at all times by a squadron of silent Centurions.
He wondered, as he brushed shoulders with what must have been the thousandth passing Centurion, whether it was the Emperor's consciousness personally guiding any of the anonymous flesh-constructs. Surely such a thing could not be far from the realm of possibility. After all, the Jade Emperor wanted nothing more than to be everywhere. To reach and touch anything and anyone on little more than a whim.
That, he mused to himself, was the shape of true power. And within him now there was not only a deep-rooted yearning but also, at the core of his very being, a dangerous twinge of jealousy.
Finally, the four of them arrived at the end of their tense excursion - before a set of doors marked DIR. KIRAK VESOS, flanked by an unhelmeted Praetorian with short-cropped blonde hair and a metal plate running up along the side of her jaw.
"Good afternoon, Commandant," Ket Sal said, inclining his head. "We have an appointment with the Director."
Jaheed observed in silence, puzzled by the Scion's deference to a woman of such low station.
"Name?" the Praetorian asked.
"Vell, Jaheed."
"Stand by."
The Praetorian's eyes went entirely black, for a moment, then returned to their normal color at once.
"Go on," the Praetorian said, to which Ket Sal gave another small nod. And so the two did indeed proceed forwards, with Jaheed casting the Scion a look of mild puzzlement. He was, against his better judgement, about to ask a stupid question to a man who plainly despised him - when the doors hissed open, and all thought was momentarily ripped from the young Marquess' mind.
Those humble doors, identical in every way to every other set of doors in the Panopticon, belied a chamber that simply defied belief, that stretched quite literally miles upwards into winding, sprawling infinity. Vast monoliths rose up like a metal forest, all of them festooned with innumerable blinking lights and small, whirring fans. Five-foot-thick cables ran in thick bunches along the edges of the floor, sprawling out like fat tentacles from one tower to the next. And, at the center of it all, there sat an individual at a desk that was little more than an outright slab of colorless obsidian.
A hairless, dark-skinned figure, clad in a cool-grey suit with strong accents of green and blue. Both their hands were gone, replaced entirely by spindly thirty-fingered prosthetics that tapped away now at four individual keyboards. Their face was surrounded by dozens of holoscreens upon which vast quantities of information scrolled by, the text too small for Jaheed to possibly glimpse any comprehensible meaning. This was Director Kirak Vesos - steward, majordomo, and chief of staff for a palace the size of several cities.
This was the lone individual who ran the entire Panopticon.
At Jaheed and Ket Sal's approach, one of the Director's eyes flicked up - while the other remained glued to a screen - and with a weary, long-suffering sigh, Vesos rose and dismissed the many screens with a wave of their hand. Their myriad metal fingers retracted at once, folding into one another until they resembled something five-fingered - more human. And it was only then that Jaheed was able to pick out from the shadows the Se-dai looming behind them, her gorget reading NERGAL as she observed the proceedings in statuesque stillness.
"Jaheed Kesol Gragnad Demnod Vell," the Director recited, rising from their desk and interlacing their fingers. "Twenty-two years old. Five feet and nine inches tall, with prosthetics. One hundred and twenty-seven pounds, with prosthetics. Auburn hair, blue eyes. Pale complexion. Blood type b-negative. Current final living member of the Vell Dynasty, currently stripped of all holdings and titles."
"That's about the long and short of it, yes," Jaheed quipped, meeting this unsettling barrage of information with well-drilled congeniality. "A pleasure to meet you, Director Vesos."
"I met you months ago, through the data," Vesos scoffed, waving a hand. "A physical meeting is necessitated only by the Emperor's command. This is a waste of my valuable time and thus I will be keeping this exchange short."
Another asshole, Jaheed couldn't help but think to himself. It seemed that dour attitudes were in no short supply on Blessed Mercury.
"You," Vesos declared, jabbing a metal finger, "will report to the Emperor's Grand Citadel at fourteen-hundred hours tomorrow, and submit yourself for His judgement. In the interim, a penthouse has been set aside for you in Sector 4-C," their eyes flashed, just as the Praetorian's had, "the coordinates of which have just been forwarded to your bodyguard. On that note-" their head snapped to Kore, "-your bodyguard exists currently without any record of a familial name. This is an unacceptable aberration in my records and must be accounted for."
Kore glanced around - unsure if she was permitted to speak - and Jaheed was relieved to see her choose to remain silent. In truth, he knew no better than she did whether or not her voice would be a breach of etiquette and had no interest in finding out.
"With the power vested in me by the Thrice-Blessed Emperor, I thus name you Kore of Vell," the Director said, with not an ounce of fanfare, and both Jaheed and Kore blinked in surprise. "The record shall be adjusted accordingly."
"Wait, what-" Jaheed started.
"It's done," the Vesos interrupted, smothering his protestations in the crib. "Now, then. Kore Vell will be assigned to quarters in-"
"Um," Kore coughed, and Jaheed whirled around with a vivid you-are-going-to-get-yourself-fucking-killed look, one borne out of genuine fear that she would do just that. "Actually, I'd prefer to remain in my quarters on the Cloud Gorger. The, uh, shuttle." Her eyes flicked away, and the confidence was draining rapidly from her usually-stoic countenance. "If that is, um, acceptable."
Vesos regarded her curiously, for a moment - then merely shrugged their shoulders. "One less allocation," they said. "So be it. At any rate, both proper uniform and equipment will be delivered to Kore Vell at shuttle XTZ3859601 Cloud Gorger by eighteen-hundred hours this day. At twenty hours this day she will report to-" his eyes flashed again, "-the following coordinates for occipital-implant surgery."
This time, Kore just nodded her head.
"That is all, then," Vesos said, turning sharply on their heel. "You may go." And just like that, the exchange was at an end.
"It was a pleasure speaking with you, esteemed Director," Jaheed called, bowing at the waist - but Vesos was already consumed by the vast screeds of data once more and so, as Ket Sal snickered behind him, Jaheed chose simply to depart.
"Well," Ket Sal remarked, as the doors hissed shut behind them. His hand disappeared into his vest-pocket, rummaging around for something. "That's that."
"The tour is at an end?" Jaheed asked dryly, as the Scion retrieved a blue-colored cigarette.
"Uh huh," Ket Sal grunted, holding the cigarette out to Ammit. The Se-dai snapped her metal-armored fingers - and a stray spark ignited the tip at once. "Is it everything you dreamed of, Jaheed?"
"It is..." Jaheed trailed off, unsure for a moment how to respond on what was either a jibe or a genuine inquiry. He decided, finally, to be authentic. "Terrifying. And incredible."
"Huh," Ket Sal grunted, cigarette now clenched between his teeth. The look he gave Jaheed now was not one of disdain so much as dim, disinterested regard - and, perhaps, a hint of sympathy? "Well, you'd better get over those feelings real quick. This place..." he took a long drag, blew out a cloud of glowing smoke. "It eats the weak."
Was that advice - or a threat? Was this whole sudden, casual affectation just a calculated play? Or was this the real Ket Sal, and the sadistic creature from earlier a mere projection? The damnable Scion was a constantly-moving target, impossible to pin down. Silently, Jaheed bemoaned the challenge of getting an accurate read on a man who could change expression and inflection at will, who could simply plaster on any face he chose and any voice he saw fit.
"Ket Sal," he said, after a long moment of consternation. "We needn't be enemies." A naked attempt at fraternity, then.
"Ha!" the Scion laughed, and Jaheed couldn't help but flinch at the sharp and sudden outburst. Kore bristled beside him, surreptitiously placing a hand upon his back. And it was from this gesture that Jaheed's flare of angry indignation began to cool and fade. He had been, in truth, a hair's breadth from snapping something truly regrettable.
"You can't even conceive of your own irrelevance, can you?" the Scion chuckled cruelly. "You don't understand that you are not a player. You are not an equal. You are an indulgence of the Jade Emperor, and nothing more." And then, still with a pleasant and entirely artificial smile: "Wipe that angry little look off your face, boy, or I'll have Ammit kill your bodyguard."
He was glaring, Jaheed realized, and so he quickly averted his gaze, his face flushing with embarrassment at his own poor physical control. His father, Jerohd, had been a master of the False Face - but Jaheed had always struggled with the Liar's Discipline, and a Scion's chameleon-like skills far eclipsed them both.
His lack of restraint had nearly gotten Kore killed.
"I know," he said quietly, his words tightly clipped and controlled, "exactly who and what I am. I am under no illusions as to my status here."
Ket Sal looked down at him, for a bit. Then, his gaze flicked up to Kore - his yellow eyes met her own. "Good," he remarked, taking a final puff. With that, he tossed the cigarette aside, turning sharply on his heel and striding away with Ammit in tow.
Jaheed stood there in silence for some time until a quarter of Centurions shouldered roughly by, snapping him from his miserable trance. He looked up to see Kore watching him with what passed, on her stony face, for concern.
"All good?" she asked, gruffly, and Jaheed noticed that her hand was still hovering near her las-pistol. The threat of death at the hands of a Se-dai was a powerful one indeed.
"I'm fine," Jaheed replied, smoothing his hair back with one trembling hand. "Lovely fellow, eh?"
"Yeah, nice guy," Kore scoffed.
"If they're all as hospitable as him, well," Jaheed deadpanned. "I expect we'll be treated as kings from hereon out."
"Which we aren't anymore," Kore noted. "Or you're not, anyway."
"I was a duke, not a king," Jaheed rolled his eyes. "And that was for all of approximately five minutes."
"Better than I've ever managed," Kore countered. "Speaking of which - guess I'm next in line now."
"I suppose that is the case, isn't it?" Jaheed chuckled. "Welcome to the family, Kore Vell. I'll have to watch my back from now on. Who knows - at any moment, you could snap my neck and have Ket Sal's loathing all to yourself."
"A tempting offer," Kore said, giving the Marquess a small, rare smile. "But this 'stand still and don't talk' job is much more my speed."
"It's good work, if you can get it," Jaheed conceded. "Which, by the way-" he shot her a quizzical glance, "-you'd really take the Gorger over a real room?"
At that, Kore glanced away - and it was through years and years of learning to read faces, to read people that Jaheed was immediately aware of that fact that she was hiding something.
"It's just, I dunno," she shrugged. Hesitant. Evasive. Dancing around the question. "Spend enough time in a place and it starts to feel like a home. Even if that home is a shitty little bunk on a ship that reeks like dead fish."
Jaheed's face betrayed nothing.
"It really is a dead-fish smell, isn't it," he agreed, effortlessly masking his suspicion. Lying to Kore was child's play compared to a Scion. "Well, at any rate, we should probably get back to our quarters before-"
Another quarter of Centurions strode by, one of them bumping so forcefully into Jaheed that the Marquess was actually about to voice a complaint - though he was unsure if his faceless assailant would even be able to hear him - when he felt a small scrap of paper pushed firmly into the palm of his hand.
"A message from your uncle," came a low, modulated voice. And then, before Jaheed could say a word, the Centurions were moving on - just four masked figures, identical in every way. Jaheed stared at them as they departed, a question stillborn upon his lips.
"All good?" Kore asked for the second time, taking note of the young man's sudden silence. But Jaheed's gaze was downcast now as he unfolded the note with trembling hands, eyes scanning in an instant over the neatly-printed scrawl.
WE HAVE MUCH TO DISCUSS. SECTOR 8-C, HANGAR 10-7J-621. 19:00. DO NOT DELAY.
"I, uh," he muttered, his mouth suddenly dry. "I have a meeting to attend."