The Jade Emperor's throne room was surprisingly small.
Though it was, of course, in no way modest; the onyx walls of the chamber spread for a thousand feet in either direction, and the ceiling was a vaunted, inverted pyramid the point of which hung high above Jaheed's head. And the Emperor's throne itself was huge, an ordinary-sized seat hewn from a truly colossal chunk of pure jade. Yet even still it seemed almost quaint compared to the opulent displays Jaheed had witnessed as a child, back when his father still brought him along on travel and his mother was still alive. For a moment, the former Marquess found himself almost unimpressed.
But the presence of this place was a powerful one indeed. There was something sacrosanct and eerily still about it all, as though everything were perfectly tuned and calculated to a single, exacting vision. It felt like a fold in time in space, like a pocket of inner reality totally divorced from the rest of the Great Domain. There was a faint, soothing sound of trickling water - but from where did it come? It was everywhere and nowhere all at once. Jaheed was immediately both calmed and unsettled and he had a strange but vivid feeling that he was sitting in the palm of someone else's hand.
It was a puzzle indeed - but one upon which Jaheed had no time to meditate, for right now he was standing in the presence of the Grand Architect himself.
"Right as always," the Jade Emperor congratulated himself, his eyes glittering brightly. Jaheed was certain he could feel the floor buzzing beneath his feet as the Architect spoke. "You survived."
The master of the known universe had been sitting cross-legged on his throne, discussing in low tones with a tan-skinned, yellow-eyed woman with dark hair tied back in a sharp ponytail - but now he rose magnanimously to his feet, eyes locked like targeting beams onto Jaheed all the while. With one simple flick of his wrist, the lights dimmed to a cool green. With another, the Scion bowed her head at once and stepped back, and she too was eyeing Jaheed with a mixture of curiosity and low malice.
Of immediate note was the absence of Volsif's red-armored guard Anansi, his living shadow - instead, in her place, a pair of identical Se-dai stood at what seemed, even for the Blessed Executioners, like rigid attention. Clearly this was an unusual assignment of unthinkable importance.
It brought Jaheed some comfort to know that even the Se-dai felt the same pressure he did now - the crushing weight of the Architect's gaze, the terrifying totality of his undivided attention. The raw, instinctual panic that came with standing before a creature who could erase you with but a thought. A creature who was now approaching quite casually, hands clasped behind his back and an odd little smile on his face. A creature who seemed to find your very existence to be quaint and amusing.
"Hail to the Seventh-Blessed Panoptic God-Emperor Doss Ken Volsif, Ninety-Seventh of his name and Seventh-Touched by the Outer Hand," Jaheed said quickly, dropping to his knees and pressing his hands to his forehead and saying all the correct words in the correct and proper order. He would stave off his fear with mechanical, well-practiced routine. "Hail to the Grand Architect. Hail to the Master of All."
To that, the Emperor made a noise of vague displeasure, and the fear tightened its vice-grip around Jaheed's heart.
"Enough of that," Volsif snapped, gesturing with two fingers for Jaheed to rise. The Marquess all but sprang to his feet. "I will have the respect I am due - but I won't have any attempt at a basic conversation stymied by your mewling self-preservation. From this point onwards you shall address me only by my favored moniker, Grand Architect, and you will offer only a third-level salute at the beginning and end of any exchange. Beyond that, Jaheed Vell, you will speak plainly to me. I demand raw and unguarded authenticity; I have no interest in speaking to a shallow facsimile of a man. Have I made myself clear?"
Thoroughly overwhelmed - having just been scolded by a living god, after all - Jaheed could really do nothing more than nod his head and say "Yes, Architect." Already he was trying to reconfigure his brain, trying to cast off a lifetime of ingrained speech patterns. His every instinct as a Highborn reeled at the necessary breach of decorum.
"Good," the Emperor said, his scowl shifting back to something at least vaguely bemused. Easy come, easy go, it seemed. "The endless titles and pageantry were the tools of weaker Emperors who sought to remind others of who and what they were. I have no need of such hamfisted proselytizing, for my existence is self-evident. All who hear my voice and gaze upon my countenance know this to be true. My name was long ago etched upon the surfaces of their souls." One corner of his mouth quirked upwards. "You, Jaheed Vell, should be especially aware of this. You exist only by my consent; a figment of my own casual interest. You are a pale shadow beneath my blazing sun."
"Of course," Jaheed agreed, bowing his head. That was about as 'casual and unguarded' as he could physically go, under the circumstances. "I owe you my life, Architect. I know this well. And, if I may - it has been the greatest of honors to serve as an extension of your holy will."
"Has it?" Volsif remarked dryly. "What a pitiful thing to say."
At that, Jaheed truly had no response, and so he simply remained silent as the Emperor approached, his metal feet soundless against the obsidian floor. Behind the Architect, the yellow-eyed Scion smirked and said nothing.
"Now then," the Emperor said, gesturing with one hand. The twin Se-dai were moving with him, shadowing him as Anansi had - but their movements were ever-so-slightly delayed, ever-so-slightly exaggerated. They were no true extensions of him, not like Anansi was. "Let us discuss the shape of your future, Jaheed Vell." He stopped just a hair short and stared up at the Marquess and Jaheed realized, for the first time, that the Emperor was actually a half-foot shorter than him.
An odd choice, for a man with a mechanical body.
"I live to serve," Jaheed swallowed, trying hard not to physically recede from the Emperor's presence.
"Most everyone does," Volsif agreed. "Now, I knew full well that your chances of survival were slim. I pitted you against Almae Sorrel, a canny and dangerous man who cloaked himself in false pretenses. I pitted you against the Black Hound, a man whom I am told devours the duplicitous and the untrustworthy with ravenous abandon. You, the spoiled descendant of a backwater House - of a bitter old man long broken by the death of his wife. You are in so many ways the product of generation-spanning failure and I strong suspect it is only by Sain Sahd's training that you survived." The Emperor smiled fully, and for the first time displayed a row of dark-grey teeth. "But you did survive, just as I knew you would." He reached out, and Jaheed could not help but flinch as the Emperor tapped a cold metal finger against his forehead.
"You remind me of myself, in my younger days," the Emperor declared. "In the days before my Ascension. I was far, far too angry at the world to ever let it beat me. Losing was simply never a part of the equation."
For a moment, Jaheed felt an acute sense of shame - shame, as the Emperor's words cut him down to the bone. Shame as the Emperor pared Jaheed's very being down to a mere two sentences, and shame as the Emperor was absolutely correct. But then came something else, a surge of dark and undulating and seething pride because Jaheed and the Emperor were alike. Because the master of the Domain had seen kinship in Jaheed and that meant, without a doubt, that Jaheed was right and the rest of the universe was wrong. His bastard of a father was wrong about him!
"Of course not," Jaheed agreed, speaking freely to the Emperor for the first time. The word was delivered with not a hint of care or delicacy. "That's how Lowborn think – everything revolving around loss. Fear of loss, triumph over loss. They can't help but gaze down at the pit beneath their feet."
"Ah," the Emperor chuckled. "There, you show your naivete. That which you prescribe is a pox upon the Highborn, not the Low. It is those with everything who have so much to lose, who cling to their little lives and little worlds and curl up into tight, unthinking little balls. They are the weeds I have tasked myself with rooting out." He smiled. "Your father was a weed.”
"That," Jaheed said darkly, "is an understatement."
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Sekhmet was bored out of her mind.
In the span of a few hours she had 1.) Paced every square inch of Kore's room, and 2.) smoked through roughly two dozen of the woman's cigarettes. Her eyes were glowing wildly, as they always did when she was worked up - an odd byproduct of a biomechanical nervous system created in imitation of a real one, further exacerbated by the fact she had long deactivated her mood stabilizers. Her entire body was running hot, and the air around her was visibly shimmering and rippling as her synthetic pores opened to vent the excess heat.
What Sekhmet was experiencing, currently, was a pathological condition common amongst the Se-dai - with such an immensely powerful body came an immensely powerful urge to use that body. Sekhmet's hands clenched and unclenched with force sufficient to fold steel; eyes that could see with perfect clarity in pitch-dark and from over a quarter-mile away darted back and forth, taking in every miniscule detail of the room with microscopic clarity.
She wanted to fight something. Badly. She wanted to be right back in that hangar, zipping around at impossible speeds and dancing on a razor's edge and pushing her body to the absolute limit. She wanted to do everything she had been born and built to do, as was her nature.
Instead, she was stuck in this miserable little prison. She couldn't even go outside; the Emperor's eyes were everywhere and fellow Se-dai often stalked his jade halls, eyes sharp and ears keen. Make no mistake: Sekhmet was one of the very pinnacle of the Empire's strength, the latest in a lineage of science and technology and fierce martial discipline that predated even the first Deiform Emperor. And right now, she was doing absolutely nothing.
Then, mercifully, her thoughts were interrupted by an unexpected sound - steady, rhythmic breathing just outside her door. A visitor. Kore? No, her breathing was always deeper than this. Tarsus? That seemed more likely. There had been no footsteps, which was odd (Sekhmet could hear all the way to the bridge with perfect clarity), but that was likely just a byproduct of her distracted mind.
Grateful for any reprieve from the dull malaise she was experiencing, Sekhmet made her way to the door at once, her finger tapping impatiently against her thigh as she keyed the door open. Then, three things happened in rapid succession - all of which were perceived by Sekhmet in slow motion, due to the stress-activated influence of a small implant in her limbic system.
First, the door slid open just far enough for Sekhmet to see that it was red-armored, grey-cloaked Anansi standing on the other side, unhelmeted and staring straight forward with eyes colder than the deepest void of space. There came with that realization a gargantuan flood of adrenaline and various other chemical stimulants into Sekhmet's mind and body.
Second, Sekhmet spat her cigarette into Anansi's eye.
And third, Sekhmet's hand darted to her sword, which made it two-point-two-five inches from its sheath before Anansi put a molecular blade to Sekhmet's throat.
The cigarette bounced harmlessly off Anansi's metal eye, and the two stood there in perfect stillness for a moment before Sekhmet snarled "I'm not going back."
"Cousin," Anansi said, just as icily calm as Sekhmet had always known her. "Still yourself."
Sekhmet's response to that particularly stupid suggestion was to snatch up Anansi's wrist, free her neck from that lightless blade, twist around, and angle a knife-hand straight for her cousin's throat - all of which was cut tragically short when Anansi's palm impacted hard against her chest.
Sekhmet, who weighed upwards of eight-hundred pounds, was flung entirely off her feet and crashed back against the wall. It didn't hurt, exactly, but it was extremely fucking irritating and so Sekhmet dropped at once to a low crouch, those same old billion-dollar muscles tensing to fire off once more.
"I said be still," Anansi snapped, and that voice brought Sekhmet right back to the days of her adolescence - of endless sparring sessions stretching long into the night. Of the tall, dark-skinned, bald-headed opponent whom she had never once been able to best. Anansi, who had stood tall even amongst the company of giants - Anansi, whom Sekhmet had for so long admired and despised in equal measure.
"You won't capture me," Sekhmet growled, her fury tempered somewhat. Her mechanical heart was still galloping along at a breakneck pace. "You'll kill me, or I'll kill you - but there's no scenario where I let you take me alive."
"If I wanted you dead, you'd have died twice," Anansi countered sharply. "Now be still and listen."
It was the undeniable truth in those words that stayed Sekhmet's hand for just a moment - and so she rose to her full height and said, somewhat surely and detached: "Go on."
"Last night, men of the Vren Clade infiltrated Panopticon and attempted to assassinate Jaheed Vell," Anansi stated matter-of-factly. No emphasis anywhere, no variation in tone. "You intervened, then reported not to Jaheed - but to his Chief of Security, Kore Vell."
Sekhmet blinked. "How...?"
"The Jade Emperor sees all," Anansi said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. Sekhmet did not bother to ask how assassins had managed to infiltrated the palace of a man who saw all; she knew full well that the dogma cared not for logical consistency.
"You're protecting her," Anansi continued. Not a question - a statement of fact.
"Something like that," Sekhmet muttered, struck by a sudden twinge of embarrassment – and then a surge of fear for the oh-so-delicate life of the woman she loved. "What of it?"
"The Jade Emperor approves," Anansi said - and then everything clicked quite neatly into place, and Sekhmet understood with perfect clarity what was happening here. The rogue Se-dai couldn't help but let out a bitter, rueful chuckle.
"Damn it all," she said somberly, shaking her head. "I'm right back in the palm of his hand, aren't I?"
"The Jade Emperor has taken an interest in Jaheed Vell," Anansi said, as though her cousin had not spoken. "Your presence, whilst heretical and shameful, does ensure that Jaheed will not die prematurely. Ordinarily he could not be afforded a Se-dai, for our numbers are waning by the day." That was as clear an accusation as Anansi had leveled thus far, and Sekhmet was surprised at just how much it hurt. She had never much cared for her cousins, after all – but she didn’t much care for the implication that she had abandoned them, either.
"I'm don't give a fuck about Jaheed Vell," Sekhmet practically spat, refusing to be cowed. Refusing to fit the Emperor's mold. And, well, it was also entirely true; all she felt towards Jaheed was a vague sense of irritation. She had shadowed a dozen different Highborn in her lifetime, and Kore's patron was only more of the same.
"Really, now," Anansi said dryly. "You are being handed an opportunity you do not deserve - and still you wish to split hairs?"
"I do what I do because I want to," Sekhmet shot back. "Not because the Emperor, or the Sovereign, or anyone else wills it. Because I will it, Anansi. That's something I wouldn't expect you to understand."
"A weakness of character then," Anansi remarked coldly. "How sad. Very well; the outcome remains the same, regardless of your own childish feelings. The Emperor wills it and so it will be done."
This was, of course, all entirely too good to be true. Wasn't it? Sekhmet narrowed her eyes. Like any good Se-dai, she was always on the lookout for the next threat. And there was always another threat.
"What of the Sovereign?" she demanded, somewhat flippantly. "They would truly suffer an apostate to live, just for the sake of Volsif's own amusement?"
"The Sovereign are no longer relevant," Anansi said plainly, to which Sekhmet actually laughed out loud. How could she not? The Sovereign were the ruling class of Ceres; the trio of men who had been the masters of the Se-dai moon for countless centuries. They - and Ceres as a whole - were the one part of the Great Domain that the Emperor's hand could never reach. To hear them dismissed so casually now, and by a Se-dai no less, was nothing short of ridiculous.
"They don't know that I’m here, do they?" Sekhmet asked, eyeing her cousin carefully. The answer was there at once, in the other woman's calculated lack of reaction. "Nobody does."
"No."
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"Not even our other cousins - just you and Volsif."
Anansi did not reply.
"You two are playing a dangerous game-” Sekhmet warned – eliciting a scowl from her red-armored cousin.
"Gods don't play games," Anansi snapped, turning away. "They speak, and it is made so. Do not forget from whence you came, former cousin."
The red-armored Se-dai paused in the doorframe, then – and slowly she turned back, and for the first time Sekhmet saw something other than stone-cold stillness on the other woman’s face. Some small semblance of humanity there, buried beneath layers and layers of ironclad discipline and duty.
"Why did you run?" Anansi asked. It was a simple question, not an accusation. A query stemming from genuine curiosity and nothing more. And yet still Sekhmet was somewhat surprised that the other Se-dai had even bothered to wonder.
"I didn't run," Sekhmet answered at once, her own expression hardening. "I left. And if you really can't even venture a guess as to why, I won’t try and explain it to you.”
Anansi was still a moment longer - her eyes probing Sekhmet's face as though she could somehow wring understanding from some minute detail or expression. But finally, after a pregnant silence, the most dangerous of all the Se-dai simply turned and left without a word.
Sekhmet did not move for a long, long time. And then, finally - when she heard Anansi's footsteps vanish from the Gorger she sunk back against the bed and lit a cigarette with hands that would be trembling, were they physically capable of doing so.
"Fuck," she muttered to herself, running a hand through her hair. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
Her thoughts, in that moment, were no more complicated than this: Void, I wish Kore were here right now. Because with Anansi’s words there came a bitter revelation indeed; she had never truly escaped the Emperor’s clutches. She hadn’t even come close. She was, as she had said, right back in the palm of his hand.
And she was going to stay there, too. Because she loved Kore, and because she dared not believe that Kore would ever leave this life.
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Kore, at that exact same moment, was also very bored. She had been standing at rigid attention outside the Emperor's doors for well over an hour now, flanked by no less than four black-armored Praetorians who were somehow conveying murderous glares even through faceless helmets. She wasn't sure what exactly she had done to offend them; perhaps she carried with her the distinct odor of a lowborn, something she couldn't smell and could not possibly wash out. Or perhaps a pissed-off stare was just a requirement if you wanted to get hired on as a Praetorian – however it was that process went about, exactly.
So. Kore wasn't much a fan of the Praetorians. But the boredom? That, at least, she was far better equipped to deal with than her augmented paramour. Kore's background was one of hard, menial, repetitive labor, and as such she was very good at compressing and compartmentalizing her thoughts down until her mind was running at a bare minimum, on autopilot. This was her job, she thought to herself, and she would do it well.
And so she did.
And then finally the doors opened, and Jaheed was there, eyes hooded and body language somewhat cagey but overall unharmed, which was a relief. Kore had, in her worst imaginings, half-expected Jaheed to be killed and the Praetorians to simply turn about and hack her to pieces. So, overall, this was good news, and she opened her mouth to deliver some sort of sardonic jibe.
Then she saw the man behind him - the hunched figure who was, just like the Praetorians, glaring at her with death in his eyes - and the words died strangled and unborn in her throat. Behind Jaheed was none other than a pale, miserable-looking Abel Diesch, his beard unkempt and his eyes laden heavy with dark bags. He looked like a shadow of himself, like someone had taken the Abel Diesch of her memory and sucked the very soul from his body, leaving behind only a desiccated imitation-husk.
The guilt rose up within her like a roaring wave.
"We have a job," Jaheed said simply. The doors slammed shut behind him, as if to put a period on that woefully insufficient little sentence.
"Great," Kore replied distantly, eyes still locked onto Diesch's haggard figure. His hatred was like a physical, blistering heat against her skin.
"We need to talk," Jaheed said, with a bit more urgency. "On the Cloud Gorger. Now."
Kore couldn't agree more.
----------------------------------------
The hovercar ride back to the Cloud Gorger was a long and silent one, wherein Kore spent a great deal of time drumming her fingers against her holstered pistol and saying nothing. Neither she nor Jaheed felt comfortable speaking in front of Diesch, who for his part simply stared straight ahead, hands folded over his stomach in a sad impersonation of a nap. That blistering intensity was gone; now his eyes were distant and unfocused, as though all this were little more than some strange and fleeting dream.
Holstered on his belt, Kore noticed, was that same six-chamber laser revolver. The very notion of this man armed in her vicinity filled her with sickly unease, and thus she kept her own weapon close at hand.
Finally, after what felt like a literal eternity, they returned to the Cloud Gorger, whereupon Jaheed immediately directed the Black Hound to one of several empty bunks.
"That's you," Jaheed said, somehow keeping his voice entirely conversational and pleasant as he indicated a tan-faded door. Oh, to have the undergone the social conditioning of a Highborn. "We'll be meeting in an hour to discuss our next assignment; I'd like very much to see you there. And hey, if there's anything at all you need - just speak to myself or Kore, alright?" Jaheed smiled thinly. "We're in this together, after all."
Diesch gave the Marquess a hard look.
"Thanks," was all he said, his voice ragged and rough. Then he was gone, disappearing into his chamber and loudly locking the door behind him, and then Kore and Jaheed were in shuttle's "confidential room" - a small, soundproofed, brightly lit chamber wherein one could only assume torturous interrogations were meant to be carried out. Jaheed slumped into a painful-looking steel chair as Kore paced madly, now a perfect mirror of the troubled Se-dai just three rooms down.
"What the fuck," she said. It seemed an appropriate opener.
"I know," Jaheed just nodded, palms spread in a gesture of weary surrender. "I’m just as baffled as you are."
"Why?" Kore demanded, voice growing louder. Again, Jaheed could only shrug.
"I put in a good word for Diesch, in my report ," he suggested, hunching forward and resting his chin upon one hand. "Just as you requested. Well…I guess the Emperor listened."
"Okay, great!" Kore exclaimed. "Fantastic! Good for Abel. And then the Emperor just, what… dumps him on us as a prank? As a practical void-damn joke?"
"Amusement is probably at the root of it, yes," Jaheed muttered.
"I say again - what the fuck.” Kore threw up her hands. This, she knew, was very much unlike her. She was always the one to take things in stride, always quick to accept and adapt to changing circumstances. She certainly wasn't one to just rage helplessly against the new status quo. But there was something else to this particular variable, this time – the fact she had personally doomed this man and his people to the Emperor’s cruel mercies. The fact that Diesch had Jaheed at gunpoint, and it was only on Kore’s good word that he had stayed his hand. That was a wrinkle with which she was entirely unprepared to contend.
"We can’t possibly trust him,” Kore said, trying to shunt her mounting guilt to the side and fill that space with something practical. Tell me something I don't know was the reply conveyed by Jaheed’s weary shrug of his shoulders. "I lied to his face. He has every reason to see us both dead."
"I raised every one these issues," Jaheed said, for whatever that was worth.
"And?"
"He's the Emperor of the Great Domain," Jaheed answered flatly. " He gets what he wants."
"And what he wants is an albatross around our necks," Kore scowled. "Fucking fantastic. Now I gotta watch my back every waking second I'm around this asshole - and I gotta watch your back twice as hard, too. Everyone is now at risk."
"We do have Sekhmet-" Jaheed started - and then both of them stopped at once and looked each other dead in the eyes.
"Shit," Jaheed said first.
"Yeah," Kore agreed second. "He can't know."
"He has to."
"He can't. He'd sell us out in an instant."
"Diesch will find out," Jaheed pressed. "One way or another. You couldn't hide her from me, could you?"
"Did a pretty good job of it for a while.?"
"Which I am still unhappy about, by the way," Jaheed snapped. "But that's a moot point. In this line of work we will eventually have need of her services and then, just as it was with me, the beans will be quite thoroughly spilled – or however the old expression goes. The only way Sekhmet generates value is by breaking her cover."
"Generates value...?"
"Allow me to rephrase that.”
"She is a human being, not a fucking asset.”
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Jaheed groaned, waving her off. "Look, we're getting unfocused. The fact of the matter is that one way or another, he will eventually come to know about her. But-" he held up a finger, before Kore could interject, "-it is also a fact that Abel Diesch lives only because the Emperor finds his relation to me and you amusing. We're the only reason he’s still alive. If we go-" he drew a finger across his throat, "-he goes."
"You're assuming that Diesch cares at all about death," Kore folded her arms.
"He hasn't put a bolt through his brain yet," Jaheed shrugged. "Or maybe he has, I don't know. These walls are soundproof after all."
There was a long, heavy silence between them. And then:
"Alright," Kore said simply. "We'll play it your way. Now hurry up and tell me about this void-damned job."
“Are you familiar with Horstchia-12?”
----------------------------------------
"You're joking," Ket Sal scoffed.
As if to punctuate his sentence, Anansi's blade came down once more, and the man on the floor let loose another hideous scream. A drop of blood splashed against the sleeve of Ket Sal’s shirt and the Scion glanced down, rubbing out the stain with a thumb and a frown.
"Not at the moment," the Emperor smiled, circling around the room like a hungry shark. Knelt down on the floor, wailing in agony, was the envoy the Crimson Emir had sent. The scruffy-looking soldier had come bearing a message that was as short and blunt as it was entirely unsatisfactory:
Watch your back, Doss
And so the Emperor, it seemed, was eking out some small measure of satisfaction by having his Se-dai carve the messenger to ribbons. Powerful stimulants were coursing through the unfortunate man's veins, keeping him alive and conscious even as most of his insides were laid out on the floor in front of him. His wails undulated in pitch and tenor and Ket Sal remarked, to himself, that Anansi was almost playing him like a musical instrument. It was beautiful and hideous all at once, though, truth be told, Ket Sal found the entire thing to be in somewhat poor taste.
The man's screams were grating on his ears, at any rate.
"What about that backwater Horstchia-12 could possibly necessitate the presence of two Scions?" Ket Sal groused, thoroughly unhappy and refusing to let this go. The Emperor, still admiring Anansi's grim handiwork, merely tilted his head.
"Jaheed Vell is no Scion," he corrected. Ket Sal rolled his eyes.
"Spare me the pedantry," he scoffed. "A Scion and an Acolyte, then. Fine. Now why the hell do I have to be paired up with that idiot child?"
"Because that's how I want it to be," the Emperor purred, as Anansi's molecular blade entered the messenger's left eye. "And, so, that is how it is."
Just about anyone else in the Domain would have been moved to silent obedience by such a statement from the mouth of the Grand Architect - but Ket Sal and Volsif XCVII had been teenage classmates at the same academy, back during a time when both were still mere Lowborn and the Jade Emperor was merely Doss Ken Sorad. Before the adoption, before the Ascension, before everything that had led them here today. Ket Sal could not and would not see the so-called living god as anything other an exceptionally powerful man.
"I don't appreciate this," Ket Sal said firmly, folding his arms. Behind him, Ammit shifted uncomfortably but said nothing. "I'm owed time for rest and recuperation on Mercury. I've been on travel for-"
"You are owed nothing," the Emperor said, voice still conversational, but Anansi had now frozen and the air had been all but sucked out of the room. The Jade Emperor rose slowly, uncoiling and rising like a serpent as he regarded his old friend with glittering eyes - the look not quite threatening so much as intrigued. Still, there was an unmistakable warning there. A clear sign that the Scion had overstepped. Ket Sal cleared his throat at once, keeping his expression and posture perfectly neutral through a mixture of extreme mental conditioning and helpful cybernetic implants.
"My apologies, Doss," Ket Sal said graciously, bowing his head. Calm, cool, and collected - artificial though it all was. And, of course, there was the use of the Emperor's informal name, which the Scion hoped would conjure up memories of a friendship long past. Ket Sal was one of few people actually permitted to use that old epithet. "I forget myself."
"That's quite alright," the Emperor smiled, and at once the tension dissipated as though it had never existed at all. “Every human does, from time to time.” Through his nostrils, Ket Sal let out a quiet sigh of relief - just as the Emperor gave a small flick of his wrist, and in one smooth motion Anansi severed the messenger's head clean from his body.
A quick, casual, almost thoughtless extinguishing of a life.
Ket Sal was going to do exactly as he was told.
----------------------------------------
The first official meeting of the Cloud Gorger Crew was, well, a rather inauspicious one.
They had departed Mercury in short order, as Jaheed was very much interested in getting far away from his uncle as quickly as possible - hurtling through deep space, there was no need to confront nor even acknowledge the obvious fact of his mentor's betrayal. Here, now, there were practical and immediate problems to solve, and Jaheed set upon them with fervor and enthusiasm both. Now, at his urging, the crew were gathered in the Gorger's bright-lit bridge, and it was only seeing them all together that Jaheed realized what a truly strange and motley assortment they were.
There was himself, of course, standing at the prow with hands clasped behind his back and a warm smile upon his face. The picture of distinguished nobility, confident and in-control and the north star by which every wayward member of the crew could orient themselves.
That was how he saw himself, at any rate.
There was Kore standing at attention, arms folded, cap set aside but uniform still clean and pressed. Both her pistol and melt-knife both were prominently displayed upon her waist and thigh, respectively, and her sleeves were rolled up to reveal arms thick with corded muscle. Her entire appearance, Jaheed knew, was sending a clear message to their newest recruit – behave yourself.
There was Sekhmet beside her, lounging in the navigator's seat with boots up on the terminal, clad in a baggy bomber-jacket and smoking idly. On her belt was that same antique katana, which Jaheed had yet to ever see outside of its sheath. The rogue Se-dai looked disinterested and annoyed - and, admittedly, Jaheed was annoyed right back, because she was an open secret that not only had he not been privy to, but that now showed him not even an ounce of respect upon the bridge of his ship. An open secret that could not ever be disciplined or even scolded, seeing as how she could slaughter every one of them with her bare hands. A conundrum indeed - but, he had to admit, an incredibly useful one to have on hand.
There was Tarsus, clad in an old fighter-pilot's jumpsuit, leaned forward in the captain's chair and arguing quietly with Sekhmet about something related to the Gorger's engine manifold - and periodically snapping at the Se-dai to get her damn feet off the damn terminal, which the other woman pointedly ignored.
And then, finally, the newcomer made an appearance. Abel Diesch stood at the entrance to the bridge, looking as though someone had injected at least a hint of life back into his weary shell - no doubt a product of having slept somewhat well these past twelve hours. A bit of the color had returned to his skin, and he was actually standing sort of straight, and most importantly his eyes were as Jaheed remembered them - sharp, alert, and aggressively probing, sweeping about the room like the barrel of a gun and taking stock of each and every insignificant detail.
"Abel, my friend," Jaheed called, forcing a smile - forcing down his extreme discomfort at the presence of a man who was supposed to be dead. "How are you feeling? Are your quarters to your liking?"
Diesch glanced around, seemed about to let fly some cutting remark - but instead just started forward and said "Yeah. No problems." He took a seat at the weapons station, beside Sekhmet, who gave the Black Hound an icy side-eye but otherwise paid him no mind. Kore, too, stiffened visibly, yet she also remained silent.
An inauspicious gathering, indeed.
"Welcome, everyone, to the first official meeting of the Cloud Gorger," Jaheed said cheerily, knifing right through the tension with enthusiastic aplomb. "For the benefit of our newcomer, let's all introduce ourselves, shall we?" He put a hand to his chest. "You already know me, Abel, but a reminder - my name is Jaheed Vell, Acolyte to the Jade Emperor and executor-noble of this vessel."
Diesch just stared at him with a blank, lazy sort of contempt. Jaheed, wounded but undeterred, passed the ball to Kore with a tilt of his head.
"I'm Kore," the woman grunted, making sure to shoot Jaheed a this-is-fucking-stupid look before turning to face the rest of the crew. "Security Chief." And that, it seemed, was all they would be getting from her.
"Captain Sen Tarsus," the pilot sounded off, giving the others a two-fingered salute. "Pilot, navigator, et cetera. Jaheed's in charge but don't forget - the Gorger is my baby. Anything ship-related, you lot answer to me. Got it?" She received an assortment of nods and acknowledgements in return and leaned back, satisfied.
And then, there was Sekhmet. The Se-dai just tilted her head - cigarette still clenched between her teeth - and said, with little fanfare: "I'm Sekhmet. I was a Se-dai, now I'm not. Anyone has a problem with that-" she blew out a cloud of hazy smoke, "-keep it to yourself."
Jaheed turned to Diesch, who was now staring at Sekhmet with wide eyes. It did, admittedly, bring him some small satisfaction to see the Black Hound so thoroughly wrong-footed. Surprised you, didn't I? the Marquess thought to himself. Already he had re-oriented his brain in such a way as to take internal credit for Sekhmet's presence, telling himself that he had cultivated the right personnel - Kore, namely - and that Sekhmet was merely a product of good networking. Just as Kore had predicted, it did indeed bring him no small amount of pleasure to know he had one of the legendary Se-dai guarding him - right under the Emperor's nose, no less.
"You people are mad," was all Diesch could manage, to which Sekhmet snorted and Taurus shrugged in agreement.
"She's non-negotiable," Kore said firmly, at which the Se-dai visibly brightened.
"She's pretty good in a fight, supposedly," Tarsus offered. "But she's also an insufferable know-it-all bitch when it comes to engine work."
"Both true," Sekhmet grinned, stubbing out her cigarette in the palm of her hand. The flesh sizzled, then quickly healed over. At that, Diesch’s eyes somehow grew even wider.
"You people are mad,” Diesch repeated. He looked to Jaheed like a drowning man, as though he were the only beacon of sanity in a sea of chaotic madness. "Does the Emperor know? Do the Se-dai?"
"The only people that know she’s here," Jaheed couldn't help but smirk, at this, "are all sitting here on the bridge of this ship. Welcome to the club, Abel."
There was a bit more talk, after that - some consternation, some light banter, and most importantly discussion of the mission soon to come. Then, with all said and done, they departed - Kore and Sekhmet to Kore's room, Tarsus to the belowdecks, Diesch to his own room, and then there was only Jaheed standing on the bridge. He turned now to look at the stars streaking by, cutting slices of blinding white across a canvas of pure black - billions and billions of tiny lives racing by as though they were nothing at all.
Jaheed smiled. He had risen above them. He had freed himself from the trap of Callisto, from a life of steady and stable and suffocating living. He would not live and die as the same man.
He was going to be somebody.