“That’s certainly a statue.” The bronze and spike-crowned women raises her torch to the bleak sky, robed as Beryl was. It’s a sort of burnished brown. I feel the crown as if it weighed on my head. Strangely, it reminds me of the moon. It’s so weird, being under something so big. It’s not the same with mountains, or trees- what’s a tree? My head aches, for a moment. The salt on the sea air’s lost my attention, to this great effigy. The black waters are a matter for attention a but later. “Who’s it?”
“No one. A goddess, certainly. But no one.” Sebastian stands a ways away.
“What does that mean?”
“She is an old religion’s deity of an idea. The way they saw the Lord. Perhaps it was influenced the city that this used to be. A city of freed slaves, it seems apparent. With a very different dating system- from the old world, likely.”
“How’d you know that?” I cock my head to give the statue a stare from a different angle, turning around to accommodate my neck.
“Symbolism. Her left foot’s above broken chains. Chains for people. Slaves. We don’t do that, here, but some people did, at a point, and was widespread enough to merit the appraisal of the end of such. The poem that’s carved in can’t be read normally, anymore, but we’ve figured it out. It says, in Apollonian English: ‘Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.’”
“A city of trash people, then is it?”
“A culture of humility under the Lord, apparently. So no. Not trash. They knew to humble themselves before the Lord so that they themselves may be raised up. They acted in imitation through this humility of the Lord’s own son. They escaped from the ungodly parts of their world.”
“Why so? Or is it just history?”
“Speculation based in facts. This woman isn’t a person named, not a person famous, yet humanoid and great. Inspired by the Lord, clearly. Her crown of spikes is a very common motif of the sun we lost. Or perhaps of Christ, the Lord’s son. This is an old shade of God we do not know, that we have kept around for its beauty and its celebration in our eyes of our faith. It was a true and genuine attempt to worship our Lord, and we have kept it, as a commemoration of the effort, and as a reminder of our imperfection as humans. This bay, in Yorke Sector. It’s ours. The Roman Catholic Church holds this bay.”
“Honestly, this feels more like a patron god. Like… Athena? Maybe Eleutheria, with her thing for freeing slaves…”
“Who?”
“They’re… fuck. Can’t remember.” I massage the temples of my head. “It’s just there, right there, but I can’t get there.” I squat down, again. My head really is ringing about within my skull. Head? No, brain. Fuck. I imagine a marble tracing a burning brand in a ring in the protective fluid around my brain, turning it to a sore and aching rubber.
Sebastian seems to wait, before speaking, too fast, as if he’d forgotten.
“Relax. It’ll take time. Shall we go?”
“One quick question. The water. Why’s it… so black?” The inkiness does not lap normally, either. I see a ferry pass, in the distance. Its wake causes the water to freeze, somewhat, in patches, like ice, waves freezing mid-motion, breaking into chunks, before they turn again into liquid. The lapping water seems to alternate between liquid and solid peaks, like a churning mass of teeth and tongue.
“That’s the Sea. What kind of question is that?”
“Isn’t the Sea made of… like… water? Those waves aren’t water waves.”
“What? No. No. It’s the Sea. Of course it’s not water. Water’s for taps and wells. Do you mean you’re used to the Sea being like lakes or rivers?”
“Like the Aegean, Med, Pacific, Indian, Atlantic… oh fucking hell, there it goes again.”
“Oh. Those are lakes. This is the Sea, not the type of sea for… water. I’ve told you, already. Nemo has sailed five hundred years and not reached a bend in the shore. This sea is not a lake, nor a river, nor a little pond. I… there’s not much really else to say. Let’s go.”
I turn my head from the Sea, to the impostion of the Lady Liberty, then to the levelled hills. There were skyscrapers, here, once. They’ve been removed for space for farming and factories. There were prettier buildings people preferred to live in.
I watch the Sea, a little more. Weird shit. The cab is still waiting. Sebastian hands over a generous amount of money. “Tip for you. Thank you for waiting.”
A quiet nod.
I cock my head at Sebastian. “How much’ve you got?”
He puts a finger to his lips. “Not polite to talk about money.”
A little while later, suddenly, there is a crack, and our driver collapses. A migraine comes on heavily, and I tilt forwards. The car spins, and slams into a wall. My head slams into the front backrest, and I see stars as I keen back. Sebastian shakes me.
“Iphigenia. Driver’s near-dead. I’ve frozen him. Don’t touch. Lie down. I’ll get out and deal with them. Don’t move. Helps me position you better, counter-magic.”
“K, k, don’t… shake me, ow.”
I hear the a sort of slider, and the door slams. I notice the windows have polarised. I hear Sebastian march out. A minute later, few quiet, distant cracks, followed by thuds, and a weird sort of spray.
Then the car door opens. I sit up, blearily, and get hit with another round of migraines. It’s not Sebastian. I put two and two together. “You’re not Sebastian, I say, similarly blearily, as I’m pushing myself out. The person raises a gun, I raise my eyebrows and my hands.
“Yo, yo- hey- no need to shoot.” He shoots. I die.
—
The moment I feel the car swerve into impact, I put my head in a bubble of time contraction around my head. It’s extremely expensive in terms of energy. And I can’t do it on my body for too long. Especially not just my brain. Especially not at this scale. Overheating. Pressure imbalance. Lack of blood circulation. Possible stroke.
Already, my brain feels like it’s being crushed. The world outside moves in slow motion. The 700 degrees a second of the human eyes’ peak angular speed feels painfully slow, but I can’t afford to waste acceleration of my non-thinking parts.
Iphigenia’s being thrown forward. I take a moment to gauge. She’ll be fine. I notice a bullet, as my heart sinks, slowly pushing into the side of the driver’s head. I can’t bear to watch. Time leaves its stately pace, and I catch myself as I’m thrown forwards.
I shut down my basic innate channel, and turn on my third. My Sakadagami. No. Not yet. I can’t put that card on the table, just yet.
I quick make a few vague calculations, and freeze the driver in time. Very, very, very expensive, for every second. He’s perhaps a minute before death, seeing where he’s been shot. A second for him would be a third a minute for us. I’ve got maybe twenty minutes to disable the assailants and get him to either the hospital or a fat energy source. Pop ups flash in my vision, but I disable them all. I need to focus. Fuck these hallucinogens. Sorry, Father. Lord, I confess these evil thoughts, and I ask for forgiveness.
I remember Iphigenia. She groans. Perhaps she’s injured, as well? Please, Father, no…
I fix her head and shake her, lightly.
“Kay, kay, don’t shake me, ow.”
She’s good. I slide up the polarisation of the windows with a hand, and open the handle with the other, kicking open the door as I form a shield of time dilation around my head. My head is the positioning keystone of my innate channels. That’s my Sakaya-Difi. I am point triple zero of my own Cartesian. Others prefer their hands. Not in the Church. Hands are to give, to heal, to pray, to accept the body of Christ.
I ask myself a last time, what am I to do? But of course I can give no answer. I check my first pocket. This is always a process undergone before an act of violence. And I feel the scrape of glass. Oh. God. I pull out His Glass Hand , and lay it out, as a halo opens, and I gift it, to the glass hand.
So I ask my Lord, the star under the sea, the Lord returning, the Lord coming to this world that is not his creation. What am I to do? And to me he speaks.
The Lord calls me. I answer. “Here I am.”
“I am the Lord your God. And so I say, oh sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the valley of Aijalon.”
I open my eyes, and both and the sun and moon are still, as the Lord had willed it. And to me He has a last thing to say.
“As I am the Lord your God, do not be afraid.” His likeness of a head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his likeness eyes were as a flame of stars, burning; And his feet like unto the finest dirt, as if they burned and finessed in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of all waters. “Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you. Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today.”
I stand out in the open. I have as long as I need. Nothing may move faster than I. I stroll, looking around. The world behind me is burnt red, and the world ahead is burnt blue. My body flickers, uncertainly. My breath is sparse. The world is burning into these blue and red colours. Doppler’s. I am amazed at the power. It is not I that is sped up, but the world. And yet I feel the tinges of fear.
The Glass Hand is single-use. It is sent back to the time when it is needed. If it is needed now, I will need to fight. But I cannot? Why me? Why here? And then there is the crack of light, and I turn my head, and move, carefully, slowly, forward, as a bullet travels just slightly faster than the sound. I push aside shrapnel flying. So long as I move slowly, nothing may move faster. And my mind moves faster than my limbs. It is my position that is measured, so if I stand still, the universe would come to freeze, and I would fall through all matter.
So I walk around, slowly. Then back to the car. I look through the tinted windows to find the hole, and I wager the bullet was shot a bit before the car fully swerved into the wall. I look up to the windows. I walk towards it, pacing in circles when I can’t. There’s a shooter there. I see the glint of iron sights in a window. Perhaps half a kilometre down. I walk there. Humans don’t move much a proportion of the speed of light, so I should take my time. And prepare.
The frozen world is eerie. Terrifying. I am not sure what the Glass Hand does, but this situation is… ridiculous, to say the least. I take the emergency stairs, after spending an agonising amount of time opening the door. A few more flights. I remember the floor. It’s an office building. I make my way to the office he must be at. The door’s locked. I kick it down. Again, no faster than my stroll. I’m essentially at moving at near lightspeed to a stationary observer, I realise. The materials cracks easily. And I see a machine ripping apart men in an impossibly large room. It’s in slow motion, compared to me, but it must be ridiculously fast. I freeze. What the fuck?
“Oi. Don’t stop moving. There’s latency, but we’re all fucked in a second or two more.” I take a few steps back out. “What the fuck?”
“Don’t mind the blood. It’s a performance art. Art needs suffering. Though not necessarily the artist’s own. Please come back. I won’t hurt you. I’m Beryl. We need a talk.”
I walk forwards, towards the robot.
“Let’s take a slow stroll. Feel free to lap me. Or come back. I can’t be as fast as you.”
She leaves the corpses, mangled and dismembered, floating in the air, blood like ribbons. I wait for her at the door, and she snaps at me.
“Stop freezing up. Walk in a circle faster so I can catch up, Christ.”
“Don’t invoke the name of-”
“I’m not a Christian. But alright. Fucking hell.”
“...That’s arguably worse.”
“Let’s talk about you.” She catches up to me, and I walk around her.
“You’re like a koi.”
“Got a better idea? I don’t know how to disable the Glass Hand.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“It’ll wear off. I’ve dealt with the assassins. And the terrorist group. Opened ways to their bases. About… four hundred dead in the time you took to get up here. Some minor protectionist clan. They probably wanted to sabotage the Fugued. Dunno why. People believe people things. I’m pretty sure they’re all dead, now, so, well, no more problems. It’s kind of funny. They didn’t use magic, just tried to shoot the driver and get him to crush you all. Didn’t expect the pride of the Satholique Clan and Halton to fuck ‘em over so hard. How many of you are there? Two million? Out of the sixteen in Nemo?”
“Two point one. Speaking of. Could you take over his temporality? I’ve been maintaining him a while. Not good on my energy.”
“Don’t care. Just get a reactor like Iphi has, from your clan. Or maybe a fat flywheel to make up the difference.”
“You’re the one who contracted the Bishops to discuss Iphigenia.”
“Discuss is a mild term. I get what I want. Speaking of, again, here.” She smashes an arm, slowly, into the air. It folds, turning black, and Beryl pulls out the Glass Hand.
“What?”
“Put in your pocket. Bring it back to the clan. They’ll hold on to two of these, for a while.”
And then the world shifts back to normal. I hear an explosion of flesh, and wince.
“You, know… I’m… we’re… opposed to extreme violence like that.”
“Unless you want to spend the equivalent of a few centuries of energy reviving that clan, don’t bother. They’re spread over more area than a football stadium. I’d say the biggest pieces left could be half a fingernail.”
She places the hand in my pocket. We’re of a height. She moves on ahead, in the empty floor. Then we hear a gunshot.
My eyes widen. “Shit.”
Beryl turns to me, ahead. I can’t see her expression. “Shit indeed. Remember. Don’t use the hand. I’m not pulling this again. Just this once. For this talk. You’re going to need to… use… your Arahant. I liked your answer. I’ll put in a call for you to the Satholique. They’ll listen.”
She waves, and walks backwards into a singularity.
I turn, transmuting some of the acid in my stomac to opiates, adrenaline, creatine, erythropoietin, endorphins, and a dozen other chemicals in the Lavender Cocktail, my Sotapanna, and run to the window, and jump. It’s only a few stories.
I land on my legs, and crumple them, breaking them, and roll, shoulder first, to absorb the impact. I stiffen my legs with magic and keep going, shutting off the pain in my brain by the opiates. Sakadagami. Half a hundred metres feels like hell. I cannot fail Father. I cannot fail Father. I cannot fail Father. My brain burns. It’s overheating. The human brain can only handle five or so degrees above average. Even with the transmutations, I’m way over that. And I’m on opiates, besides. The world is dizzy, fuzzy, warming and waving. My fingers tremble, I stumble again, and again. I go.
I’m breathing fast.
I cough, a bit.
Too much magic. My brain’s already been overheating.
There’s a gunman at the car. He’s running. He sees me. He raises his pistol, and shoots, and misses. Thank God. My barely aware brain, it takes the air ahead of me and behind him, turning into a funnel, condensing, as it trips up the man, smashing his face into the road and scrapes him over the asphalt towards me. I turn the air into a little ball of lead, and send it up the man’s pelvis, all the way to the head. Sakadagami, again. He screams, once, and dies, fast. My Lord, I am sorry. I confess to my sin of wrath. But it was for the greater good. And violence addles the brain so. But still, truly, those are not excuses. I will accept my punishment in time. But only from you will I accept punishment. I reinforce the biochemical structures of my brain with more magic, sucking even more energy. Or maybe I neuter them. I’m not sure, but it works. Sakadagami, again. I pull up the dreaded visuals for just a second to see how fast I’m draining. I’m at around 20%, at a guess, before I hide it. This morning, it was closer to 80%. Not wonderful. My temperature feels just a bit better, and I rush forwards with that little thrust.
I reach the car, and waste much time, grasping at the air for valuable seconds before I remember the door’s open, and I don’t have to grasp the handle. Father, I’m sorry. I slump, my knees giving out onto the road, and I pull on Iphigenia’s legs and the car seat to drag myself up to reach her wound. My shattered legs kneel on her stomach and the seat, but I could care less. She’s dead. I feel no pulse. Fuck. There’s two holes in her head. Fuck. I hold the opposing window to stop myself from crushing the rest of her body.
There is no thought left. A latin chant, to activate that deep, deep, deep blackbox in the recesses of my brain. Arahant. “Ex-ex-exivit enim mortuus, et man-man-man-nus et pedes involuti lin-teis, et pal-lium in os… eius.” My teeth are rattling. My legs are freezing. My head is burning. Everything is woozy. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fury and depression rise in different measure, euphoria giggles to the surface of my skin. My spit is dry as hell. I poke my fingers into the holes in her head, cautiously. I need a direct, and full contact of connection. I slowly pull out my fingers, sticky with brain matter and blood and stabbed with bone, as the holes repair themselves. And then it is done. Perhaps she’s in a coma. No. Father, I did my best. I stumble out, onto the road, too weak to scream, and lie on the road. Too much pain to sleep, but oh the sweet, sweet, touch of the opiates. I giggle, again. It’s so ridiculous. I can’t fail. I can’t fail. Still, I realise I’m maintaining the driver. How much time has passed? I pray he’s not dead. But my mind gives, and my maintenance over him is gone. Fuck. Should’ve used Iphi’s thing to maintain him. But it’s too late. I made bad decisions. Father. I’m sorry. Father. I’m so sorry. Never again. No.
—
I sit up too fast, and hit the roof of the car, as I jump slightly.
“FAG! FUCKER! BARBARIAN, DEPART!” No one’s there. My stomac hurts. Did- what? I feel to my head. But there’s not the time for that. Sebastian is on the road, sleeping. His eyes are open, smoking. That… looks problematic. I rush out as fast as I can.
“Hello?” I shake him, slightly. He’s out. His eyes are fucking smoking. His skin is burning to the touch. It’s actually burning away, slightly. He’s soaked in sweat, and shivering like all hell, but it’s also cracking, his skin is a shade whiter than I remember. I see a crack, and all the way down, the flesh is white. But he’s shivering. So he’s alive. Blood comes out, turgid. What the hell? The air isn’t warm… is it magic? From the inside?
Think, think. He’s a decent man, right? He deserves saving. He’s a cool guide. Shut up. What can you do? What can you do?
Stabilise? Quantum cohesion? Yes. No Mana. The warning flashes. Fuck. I draw out a conversion of two SP, quickly, into 2.2%, and I draw it all out, clumsily, and sketch the glyph in the air with a hand. What else? Temporal shit. How? Reinforce against countermagic, at least. This doesn’t seem like a natural affliction. But what if it’s just the residuals of a single-frame? I can’t tell. But I probably don’t have enough energy to slow time. Just reduce flux. I draw it with the other hand. In the rush, I get them both done in a minute, and power the spells, linking both on top of each other, sticking the wand with my mouth in the general region above him.
Wattage usage: 5.0x10e+7
Total Joules: 4.174x10e+9
Total Joules: 4.124x10e+9
Total Joules: 4.074x10e+9
Total Joules: 4.024x10e+9
Ok. That’s good. I can maintain this for… oh… a minute and like… twenty seconds. Shit. His breathing’s slowed. But I don’t know if that’s good. His skin’s not cracking as fast, I think… but..? I notice a weird glow around the mandalas. Slowly building up.
I grab the combined mandalas, with the wire stuck in them, and call out.
“HELP? HELLO? THERE’S A DYING GUY DOWN HERE!”
No one comes. I call, some more. A minute later, a person shoots over the skyline, decelerating into the ground, into a dash. He’s dressed in black robes, a cross pinned on his chest.
“Hey- you’re a Catholic-”
He pushes me out of the way, and raises a sort of crystal around Sebastian.
He turns to look at me, breathing heavily, taking note of the Mandalas in my hands, frowning.
“Who’re you?”
“Uh… his liaison?”
The man blinks. Oh. Oh. Sorry. Alright. Sorry for pushing you. No time.
And then I remember something. “Uh… the car we were in,” I jab behind us. “It has a driver. Will be had, soon. Could you..?”
The man strides over to the car, entering through the open door. A moment, and he pulls the a black coffin out.
“Is he dead?”
The man blinks. “What? No. It’s a more compact stasis thing. Saint Sebastian was more… critical, so I didn’t have time to properly form a good shape for him. Sebastian’s done well with this one. You can depower your spells now.”
I pluck out the wires, and the mandalas dissolve in my hand.
“Uh… are things good, now?”
The man looks over my shoulder. I turn around, to see a bisected corpse.
“Oh. That looks… bad.” I say, dumbly.
“No. They’re not good.” The man paces, agitatedly. “I’m Eleazar. The Lord will save his flock, but we are his agents, and so the stress is upon us. I can only maintain this for about five minutes. We need a micronuclear reactor truck to power a proper spell, and we’ll need a trained mage to use the power efficiently. It’s gonna take a few hours to heal him, but a lot of energy. Main thing is- nevermind. Talked too much.”
“Pft. I’ve talked to Beryl. Been talked to. I doubt you’ll bore me. It’s a fascinating new world, I’ll say, even given these morbid circumstances.”
“Take a sit, somewhere. If you’re cold, I’ve got a blanket in my bag.”
“Fine. Just shocked.”
Eleazar kneels on a leg next to the black mass where Sebastian was.
“Do you know what happened?”
“Uh. We crashed. Sebastian went out, polarised the windows. I sat up, got shot. Woke up. No bullet holes in my head. Saw Sebastian steaming on the floor. I… died. I felt the bullet, in my head. I died.”
“Do you mind if I do a cursory examination? There’s lots of ways you could be walking around up here with a smooth head.”
“How’s that gonna happen?”
“Just… a sort of gravitoelectromagnetic scan through your head. A sensor on the other side to catch out the shape. I’ll get the pillow out of my bag.”
He parts the back of his robes to reveal such a bag. It’s a normal rucksack. He lays a sort of reflective shield on the ground.
I put my head on it.
“Thanks. Hold still.” He places his hand over on top, and I feel a slight stir. Then he taps my head to move me aside.
“Huh?”
“Got the scan. Thanks. I’ll scan it and send it for quick analysis. He holds the corners and stares at the sheet, before crumpling it up and shoving it back in his rucksack. And then a vehicle arrives. A truck pundles down the road. I realise something.
“Where’re all the other cars? And people?”
“People? This is a city built for maybe a hundred million, two hundred million, and there’s sixteen million people around. Big parts are empty. Like these parts. Especially closer to the sea. What were you all doing here?”
Abashedly, I rub the back of my head. “Sightseeing, I guess. Saw the Lady Liberty.”
Eleazar’s gaze softens. “Ah. Well. Guess you both didn’t know. He wasn’t chosen for protection. More as a tutor. Thank the Lord you didn’t all die. We’ll debrief him once he wakes up. By the looks of it, it’s going to be a mess reconstructing his brain. Lots of things will be missing. We’ll probably assign you a new escort. Higher-ups’ mission.”
“Why? Why go to all these lengths?”
“For you? One. Beryl. Two, the human due. Three, if you want to be more cynical about it, same reason we’ve a separate school and a sponsor system for fugued mages. Growing up somewhere else makes a different sort of person. Chance to found a whole new clan with different innate channels. We’ll see about that. For your safety-” He looks over at the truck arriving. It’s massive. “-Get in the truck. We’ll take you to an apartment at our headquarters, and look into this matter.”
“Sorry,” I say, as I’m practically pushed into the back row of seats, as a series of mages jump out, in white medical gear.
“Mhm,” Eleazar says, as he signs and throws over informatic windows to the mages around. Orders, maybe.
I sit quietly in guilt, as they package the two coffins into the back, and the truck moves off.
…
“Yo~” I snap to awakeness. Beryl’s sitting by my side. My head’s in her lap. I just look up. She looks down. “You’re really a child.”
“I’m fifteen.”
“I’m five hundred. Sebastian died.”
I snap up. “What?” A flurry of emotions go through me. My hand clenches.
“For about… five minutes. In his time, of course. Depends how you qualify ‘dead’. His heart and brain stopped, but they managed to restart it. His brain absolutely overheated, burned out, his eyes boiled. They’ve done a... job fixing him up, but they needed quite a few surgeons. I’ll be going in for my turn after a moment.”
I stare at her, in disbelief. I thought- must be a joke, then? Then I punch her, lightly. “You can do- Ne'ermind. Don’t. Just. Don’t. Don’t shock me like that. It’s not funny. It’s not fun.” I look around.
We’re still in the truck. But we’re in some sort of garage, overhead white lights dangling off twine, they look too heavy for their thin strings, but still they hang, like little stars.
“What happened to the security escort they mentioned?”
“Oh, no, I’m still keeping you with Sebastian, once he wakes up. Shouldn’t have left him, really. But my oven wasn’t gonna wait. I was trying to bake cookies, be a better sort of parent next time we met, an all that. Kitchen still burned down.”
“Oh. Cookies. Uh. Isn’t that like… rude? He’s been through a lot. Wouldn’t it be better to get someone more professional?”
“I’m the most professional there is. You’re not properly dying until I’m done with you.”
“Wonderful. Assuring. Not at all threatening.” I reach for the handle. I can't tell if this woman is mad or just fucking with me. Beryl flicks a small... something at my hand. It stings. I look around for the small pellet that must've hit me, but I can't find it.
“Ow. What was that?”
“We’re done when I say we’re done. Wouldn’t you like to know more?”
“Maybe when I’m feeling less guilty about getting him killed. Technically killed. You know? There’s this fun thing, called a conscience-”
“Survivor’s guilt.”
“Yeah. Conscience. Maybe, like… eh???”
“Mind your tone. I could still remove your limbs and re-attach them. I am being kind because I want to. You’re staying alive for these next twenty years whether you like it or not. I could make that life rather unpleasant. Shut up.”
I put my hands up in the air. “Are you- Someone feeling attacked?”
Beryl looks at me, raising her eyebrows, before lowering them, as if forgetting what she was doing. “It’s useless, with children. Go on, get out, go play, or whatever. Talk with the other kids. The Catholic guys. Fuck off.” She puts a hand to her forehead, and I leave.
A woman stands to greet me. A pretty one. Draping dark hair over her white suit.
“Hello, Ms. Iphigenia.”
“Uh, hi. You could… drop the Miss. Too formal. And you’re?”
“Saint Bononi.” She readjusts her glasses. “We have re-evaluated the threat to your person. I will show you to your room, and you will be free to go as you please in Nemo. You may request for a guidebook. Saint Sebastian will be transferred to you likely by the end of the day. We do not have other available agents.”
“Is he alright?”
She pauses, frowning. “I hope by the Father that he will be well. But it is an imperfect world of suffering. Rest assured, if he dies, he will be a Martyr.”
“That’s… alright. Show the way.”