I hadn’t known this, but Biribo had informed me during one of our recent conversations that most of the time, a person will survive a single lightning strike. Given the very good reason that being struck by lightning is colloquial shorthand for “statistically almost impossible,” I think I can be forgiven for not having been aware of that. It made sense, though; despite the colossal heat and voltage, it only exists for the tiniest fraction of a second.
It was the thunderclap that caused screams and a general flurry of brief panic from the noble stands, rather than the flash of light. It’s not often that you hear one of those that close, unless you’re me; the experience is intense. I, of course, was at least somewhat used to it, so it was mostly the flash that dazzled me for a second.
When I could see again, the lead Clansguard was flat on the ground, motionless; both of his comrades had fallen over and were dizzily swaying on their hands and knees, whether trying to get up or just not fall the rest of the way down I couldn’t tell. At that proximity… They might or might not have caught some arcing of the actual electricity, but even if not what they’d just been through was like having a stack of flashbangs go off right at your feet.
Well, whatever. Lord Seiji is magnanimous in victory.
Heal, Heal, Heal. I made sure to keep my arm dramatically extended toward them so everyone could tell it was me, applying healing to my enemies. I had an image to consider, here.
“How dare you!”
“Sacrilege!”
“—most disgusting display I have ever—”
“Wait—did he really just…”
Oh, it seemed some of my audience didn’t approve of me taking Sanora’s name in vain. That was fine; I noted with amusement that the upraised voices were a minority, most of the highborn either unsure what they’d actually just seen or keeping their opinions to themselves about it.
No, I didn’t actually expect to have created a compelling illusion. It wouldn’t take much investigation at all to penetrate my little deception. Obviously the goddesses wouldn’t allow any spell to exist that overrode their own agency. The point was the sheer confusion. I did not need these people to believe I was a new challenger to their entire celestial order, I just needed them to behave and not interfere with me for the remainder of this event. For that, they could believe that I was able to challenge the very goddesses, or they could believe I was dangerous, unpredictable, and crazy. Either would suffice.
Satisfied that the three Clansguard were alive and getting to their feet, and no one else was coming at me from behind, I turned back to face the contestants.
HealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHeal.
Heat Beam.
Obviously this didn’t settle the matter. I was dealing with people who’d been taught from birth that it was their divinely-appointed prerogative to never be told “no.” Some of them—some—had also been taught manners and even some basic ethics, but that didn’t change the fundamental problem: on a deeply-rooted psychological level, they weren’t able to handle the concept that somebody could just saunter up and stop them from doing whatever they wanted. Where a normal person would recognize and retreat from extremely obvious and well-dressed danger, highborn were likely to double and triple down until they had to get Immolated.
So I kept an ear out, waiting for the next stage of this nonsense, because I knew it was coming. I had my back to them, and some distance between us—increasing distance as I kept easing forward to find the optimal position from which I could Heat Beam the entire row of weavers at maximum efficiency. I was reduced to listening in on the conversations behind me as best I could, for what little forewarning I could get of what would come next.
Biribo would tell me about anything really important. For everything else, I was on my own. Which was why it took me by surprise that I wasn’t immediately relevant in the next developments.
“Well, good on him, I say.”
“He is ruining—”
“A disgraceful debacle, is what. If the outlander wants to ruin Caludon’s absurd schemes, more power to him.”
“Did you hear what he said?! To speak so of the Goddess!”
“I have money riding on the outcome of this!”
“Oh, don’t be Lannert in the hall of dice. The bloke’s saving us a ruddy fortune; every one of those lowborn would’ve ended up dead or unable to work if not for whatever magic he’s doing.”
“What are those spells? Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
“There’s no way that was a real spell…”
“Isn’t anyone going to stop him?!”
“No, and that includes you. Sit down before you need to beg the interloper for healing.”
I let the conversations wash over me, the bits and snatches I could hear from behind. I had, just as I’d expected, thoroughly ruined the fun for several of the absolute shittiest people who had ever lived, but to judge by the overlapping arguments from the nobles’ stands, I’d also acquired some new fans. This had already been a lesson of which I’d had to remind myself several times today, and it still came as a surprise every time: the highborn weren’t necessarily monsters. Some of them were clearly disgusted by these games and delighted to see someone do what they hadn’t dared and throw a wrench into the works. To be sure, they were all too chickenshit to stand up to Caludon, and that despite the efforts of my own intelligence network, Clan Olumnach and Clan Yviredh to induce them to do so. I wasn’t about to give them too much credit for character; when it came down to it, resisting the Archlord would have undermined their own legitimacy and not a one of these had had the spine to do that much. But quite a few of them were willing to clap right back at their own peers who were protesting my intervention.
It was all information worth considering. Both that the situation was more politically nuanced than I’d given it credit for, and that my own prejudices led me to expect the pure worst of the highborn. That might get me in trouble if I wasn’t careful.
Meanwhile, my Heat Beams were helping, but my power was proving a lot less unlimited when pitted directly against the winter itself. The weavers were slowing and beginning to fumble again right before my eyes, as even my magic and the asauthec braziers couldn’t completely defray the consequences of being so uncovered outdoors in the elements.
HealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHeal.
No sooner had the flashes of Heal ended and been replaced by a renewed stream of Heat Beams than I heard a new sound: the crunch of boots in the snow, approaching me from behind. A single pair of feet, from the sound of it. Biribo wasn’t warning me of danger, so I waited.
He stepped forward to stand at my left, and I glanced sidelong to take in Highlord Thymion’s profile.
“I am curious, Lord Seiji: is this an act of aimless disruption, or are you in pursuit of a more intricate agenda?” He pitched his voice carefully, clearly audible to me but not to the lowborn before us and certainly not the highborn behind. “It is hardly a secret that I am no great admirer of Archlord Caludon. If you truly wish to undermine his control, we may well have matters to discuss like gentlemen. As is, however, your…unilateral intervention is reflecting poorly upon me as the host of an event I have arranged at some considerable trouble, and upon which other plans hang.”
“Ahh…was that why?” I glanced at him again, putting on a polite, neutral little facsimile of a smile. “You clearly have enough local pull to make all the smaller Clans surrounding you report here on command. Seems like a man in your position could just as well have refused to carry out this idiotic spectacle entirely, and leaned on your neighbors to do the same. That would’ve been a much more effective counter to Caludon’s overreach than…this. And yet, here we are.”
“Here we are,” he repeated coolly, “at what was not the most direct of all possible countermeasures to Caludon’s madness, but the most effective. I take you for a man who understands that leverage is necessary to move as large an object as an Archlord, and that its acquisition requires difficult choices and compromises.”
“True, I never judge a man by what he’s forced to do. But rather, by what he refuses to. And I see that torturing your subjects to death at the whim of a maniac is a line you don’t hesitate to cross.”
I looked over at him again, curling my lips up further and narrowing my eyes.
“We are not going to be friends, Thymion.”
“And what a pity that is,” he drawled, smiling back, then turned to face the stands. For a second I naively thought that was about to be that, but instead of walking away, the Highlord raised his arms and his voice. “Let us hear a cheer for our guest of honor, Lord Seiji! I do my humble best for your benefit, my good lords and ladies, but even I could not have arranged such a compelling diversion without such able assistance. Indeed, this…peculiar spectacle was the inspiration of our dear Highlady Nazfryn, and I needn’t spell out for you what that entails.”
He paused for the requisite cheers and snickers, and I adjusted my calculations again. This guy understood showtime; I needed to amp up my own game. Opponents who understood showtime always ended up causing me the most trouble.
“Thanks to our Lord Seiji’s most gracious offer to enliven these proceedings, we shall have some proper sport, rather than the tedious display of witless brutality originally prescribed. While he generously protects our investments in these assets on display, you may all feel free to enliven the proceedings by applying…pressure to his own performance. Your good selves, as you wish, or through the efforts of whatever servants and Clansguard you have brought. I urge you, my friends, to hold nothing back! As Lord Seiji has so vividly demonstrated to us, he is hardly in any physical danger from anything we might muster. So please! Another cheer for our guest, and a lively show for us all!”
They brayed obligingly, and I reflected upon the reminder that I wasn’t the only one who could be a pain in the ass.
Politics. Fucking hell, I hated politics. Thymion was right and he knew it: nothing he or his fancy friends could throw at me was going to make a permanent dent, but they could definitely make my job here much harder. And that wasn’t the point, he wasn’t the kind of man to invest his attention and effort in petty annoyances. He had just deftly repositioned my own intervention politically, such that my attempt to undermine his authority was instead propping it up. Now this was all, once again, Clan Yldyllich undermining Caludon’s authority, with the great Lord Seiji subordinate to Highlord Thymion in the effort.
He met my eye sidelong and smiled the smile of a man who knew I could kill him with a thought, and did not dare. Because of politics.
“Not for nothing are we the highborn, my lord,” he murmured, and started to step back toward his peers.
“Heh. You know, I never get tired of that.”
Thymion paused, hesitating seemingly in spite of himself, looking over at me again.
“Highborn,” I mused. “I love it. The architects of the shabbiest, shittiest little wreck of a country that has ever existed anywhere—the living byword of generations of failed leadership. And you miserable little provincial primitives have the absolute gall to proclaim yourselves better than someone else? It just never gets old. It’s so…precious. You remind me of my dog after she performs a particularly clever trick.”
His expression had gone as cold as the air around us. Thymion Yldyllich, clearly, was not a man accustomed to being insulted right to his face. For a second I dared to hope he was about to do something helpfully unwise—he clearly wanted to. He was able to exert self-control and maneuver with skill, obviously, but he was a man of martial strength and petty cruelty; I could see the desire to lash out, rising to the surface. The fact I could see it in his eyes alone told me I—I, of all skillfully obnoxious people—could bring it out of him, under the right circumstances.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
But not this time. He mastered it, pressing it back down in an act with which I was all too intimately familiar, and walked away from me.
Well, I’d lost that round, but that didn’t mean the game was over.
“My lords,” I proclaimed, reluctantly dropping the Heat Beam and turning to gesture grandly at the assembled highborn, “my ladies! Esteemed sons and daughters of the great goddess, it is my absolute honor to once again be the center of attention. I just don’t know how this keeps happening, no matter where I go.”
That got me a laugh, despite the severe tension in the air, because I am that good.
“As a humble visitor to your fair realm, I must beg your indulgence when it comes to my ignorance of the nuances of Fflyr politics.”
“It’s pronounced Fflyr,” someone shouted from the stands, to a chorus of titters. I generously chose to ignore this.
“I had thought to do you all a service by safeguarding your considerable investment, which the Archlord whom everybody hates has decided to waste for his amusement. If I’m allowed to work, you’ll all be getting your people back in good shape at the end of this, with all the productivity they represent. It’s one of those things which a naive outsider might assume would be purely of benefit to all, but perhaps I am missing important cultural nuance. Since, it seems, our most gracious host Highlord Yldyllich has decided to volunteer me to be further entertainment.”
I glanced at Thymion, who was staring impassively back from his current position at the base of the stands, not rising to the provocation. We both knew I’d undercut his ploy, though. That’s right, asshole, two can play that game.
“But I am nothing if not a good sport!” I continued grandly. “By all means, my lords and ladies, amuse yourselves. Attempt to interfere with me while I work—and do pay close attention to the results. And then think on what you have seen, should you ever find yourselves thinking to trifle with me when we are not being playful.”
I let it hang over them for just a moment, like a headsman’s ax; the sudden silence told me my meaning was made clear. Then I turned, flashed another round of Heals down the line of weaving lowborn to restore circulation, and resumed my Heat Beam treatment while behind me the muttering began anew.
There was an intermission, of sorts, in which muttering was the primary voice of the onlookers. Plus a certain amount of the other commentary—a mix of what I might expect to hear at a horse race and a particularly low-class hostess club. But what mattered was that they were sitting there being good little class parasites, watching the show while I kept the contestants as healthy as I could. Making their little comments but, in spite of Thymion’s gambit, minding their place. After a couple of minutes in which I snuck a break to Heat Beam my own half-frozen coat, I dared indulge in the hope that that would be it. Because I work hard and I deserve a treat now and then, even one as expensive and indulgent as hope.
And because I can never have anything nice, a couple of minutes was as long as that lasted.
“Well, I say let’s take him up on it,” a brash voice said from the stands behind me, rising above the muted clamor. I didn’t recognize the speaker, but I sure as hell recognized his type: always trying to prove something to himself by proving it to others, like in this case when he started braying for attention. Just had to be the one guy who swipe at the low-hanging fruit. “Goddess knows this is less sport than I was promised—may as well inject some excitement back into the proceedings, eh? Men! Put a stop to that sorcery!”
I glanced aside at the area where the various Clansguards were clustered, and instantly recognized the men nominated, despite not recognizing their livery or the Clan they served; they were the ones looking suddenly haunted while the men on all sides of them wisely began pushing away. It was just four guys, considering the apparent strictures on how many household troops the Yldyllichs would allow on their lands. All four were now clutching weapons, dividing their alarmed stares between me and one another in a silent contest of wills to nominate a sacrificial lamb.
“Well?” prompted their highborn master in a shrill voice that I’m sure he thought was very commanding. “I am waiting!”
Gritting his teeth so hard it was visible even from this distance, the man who happened to be holding a shortbow raised it, nocking an arrow and taking aim at me.
Sorry, lads, but you signed up for service. I was drafted into this war.
“If you ask me,” I said in a projected voice that carried across the snowy grounds, already raising a hand toward the archer, “between the two sisters, Virya is hotter. Deflect Divine Retribution!”
Strike.
He should have shot me while I was talking. With my Heal spell and amulet it still wouldn’t have helped, but he still should have. I didn’t know whether that little speech had been long enough to trigger my Wisdom perk or it was just my natural charisma—it had certainly set the highborn behind me to clamoring in renewed outrage—but the end result was the same: my would-be attacker was struck by lightning before he ever fired his shot.
And then, of course, I Healed him, as well as his squadmates who’d been standing close enough to get singed and probably had their eardrums burst. No point in being sadistic—at least, not to lowborn soldiers who were neck-deep in this against their own wishes.
“Really, that’s your idea of sporting?” I called back to the audience, bestowing up on them a condescending look over my shoulder. “Here I thought the word implied there would be some sort of challenge involved. Ah, well, you do you, I guess.”
HealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHeal.
Heat Beam.
I got back to work on what mattered: the vulnerable people in front of me. They were still at work on their looms with grim determination. Clearly suffering in the cold, but between Thymion’s braziers and my spells they were still going, long past the point where some would have succumbed to frostbite by now.
All across the island, on Clan grounds where there was no dominant Clan to gather them, and no onlookers save Caludon’s auditors, this was happening with none of those interventions. Innocent people were suffering—losing fingers and possibly whole limbs, very likely being beaten for failure to perform by their so-called masters. By this point, it was likely some were already dead.
I couldn’t do anything about it, except to hold the knowledge of it close to my heart, and brand that hatred into myself. I was standing here, failing to protect a lot of people today; the only, inadequate consolation I would be able to offer them was vengeance. For now, I just had to help who I could.
Hopefully, the dumbass highborn had gotten the message that—
“I say, this is fun! Boys, get in there, have a go at him!”
No, of course not.
Once again, I leisurely turned my head toward the Clansguards to see who the unlucky—
Oh, shit, this one had learned.
The next poor bastard on the chopping block was already pounding across the open ground toward me, weapon upraised. All he had was an arming sword and buckler, so he had to close before he could truly attack. I had to respect him not repeating the errors of his predecessors, but it was still a forlorn hope; he was so far away I had plenty of time to not only take him out before he closed, but do so with the requisite showtime first.
“Hey, Sanora,” I called, turning and flinging one hand forward toward my next opponent. “Your waifu is trash. Deflect Divi—”
----------------------------------------
Everything was white. What… How was… My head was full of static. I was cold, and numb, and also… hot? And wet? The confusion belatedly began to lift when I instinctively tried to move and discovered that everything hurt.
Fortunately, by that point in my career on Ephemera, I had instincts for this situation, too.
Heal!
The flash of magic remedied my injuries and cleared my head, enabling me to take stock. I was facedown in the…oh, damn, it wasn’t even snow anymore, I was in a steaming puddle with mud and old dead grass poking through. Pushing myself up to my hands and knees, I became aware of an absolute tumult of yelling from the direction of the highborn.
What?
I did recognize this, now. This was the aftermath of a lightning strike. Why had it hit me? The targeting of Strike was purely mental, it wasn’t even possible to miss. Actually…now that I thought back, I hadn’t gotten so far as casting it. What in the hell had…
And then it hit.
“Sanora,” I hissed, clambering to my feet. “Oh, you petty, thin-skinned fucking weeb. I’m gonna—Biribo!”
“Here, boss,” he squeaked from inside my scarf. “No worries, familiar are more or less physically impervious. Doesn’t mean it’s fun getting struck by lightning. Is it too much to ask that you pick slapfights with deities on your own time?”
I ignored the color commentary, of course; all that mattered was that he was okay. I turned to observe my surroundings; my would-be attacker had trailed to a halt a few meters away, weapons dangling uncertainly from his hands. From the stands two highborn men and three servants had also come rushing over, apparently to help, and also paused when I Healed myself and got back up under my own impetus.
“It’s all right, folks!” I called, grinning and raising my hands. “It takes her a couple of tries to catch on, but I guess the fun portion of the festivities is now over. Alas, that leaves me nothing to work with but…direct measures.”
I turned my head to study the Clansguard who’d paused in his charge. He swallowed heavily, his eyes shifting toward the stands.
“Well, go on then,” commanded the voice which had previously ordered him into that futile attack.
Sorry, man.
As before, he was quick on the draw, and lunged at me without hesitation. Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t close enough to connect faster than I could cast, but he was close enough for one of my other spells.
Immolate, Windburst!
Poor bastard went howling through the air like an agonized comet, and the men who’d apparently been on the way to help me backpedaled frantically through the snow. I took the opportunity to turn back to the lowborn contestants, casting a round of Heals and resuming my Heat Beam for the minute or so it took for quiet to reassert itself.
That meant not only for Immolate to run its course on the unlucky Clansguard, but for the assembled highborn to quiet down enough to address again. This time, they actually did quiet down; there was still muttering, but a lot of the color commentary had abated.
Upon reflection, I could sort of see why. Previously I hadn’t really expected them to believe I was deflecting the divine wrath of the goddess for my own ends, but the absurdity of that pantomime had sufficed to confuse them. Now? They were forced to consider that either I was engaging in magical fisticuffs with the actual, literal goddess, or had just called down a lightning bolt on myself for pure comedic effect.
Whichever they decided to believe, it seemed my “maybe we shouldn’t fuck with this guy” rating had finally risen high enough to impress even the aristocrats.
“It really is a shame,” I projected, turning back to address my audience once I had stabilized the lowborn again. “That was a most diverting little interlude for a while, there. Alas, with my most entertaining trick off the table, there’s nothing left but to dispense dreary, pedestrian pain and suffering upon those who interfere with me.”
I paused for effect, pleased to find them now hanging on my next words in anticipation. As they should be.
“Not to mention… I believe I’ve about exhausted the utility of slapping down soldiers one at a time. I most respectfully suggest, my good lords and ladies, that you edge along your seats away from the more…rambunctious amongst you. It seems the next logical progression would be for me to chastise not those who ineffectually hurl themselves at me, but those who command them to.”
I started to turn my back on the ensuing hubbub.
“Now. Hear. This.”
I really had to give Thymion credit, his showtime was almost good enough to compete with my own. He could project, he knew how to position and carry himself—directly in front of the stands, now, between me and his guests, back rigidly straight and chin high—and he had the vocal command to convey absolute conviction and strength of will through delivery alone.
“I acknowledge the debt owed you for your ill-treatment at the hands of my servants, Lord Seiji, but do not presume it will stay my hand against all transgression. The safety of all guests of Clan Yldyllich is utterly sacrosanct, and my retribution against any who would spill the noble blood of my guests upon my lands shall be instant and relentless. Have a care not to issue threats you dare not back up. If my wrath falls upon you, no matter who or what you may be, it will be absolutely without mercy.”
He got some applause and cheers for that—some. Apparently not everyone he’d brought to this spectacle was that sympathetic toward him. I ignored them all, suffused as I was with the sudden warmth of pure satisfaction.
Oh, bless this contemptible piece of crap. It was so very rare that one of my enemies just handed me such a perfect setup. I couldn’t have orchestrated a better lead-in if I’d written his lines myself.
Slowly, deliberately slowly, I turned to face the crowd, ignoring them and locking eyes with Thymion Yldyllich. After a half-beat pause, I began to stride forward.
One measured step at a time, neither charging nor dawdling, simply crossing the ground at my own pace, emphasizing my utter control of the situation. Thymion raised his chin further, watching me come and projecting confidence; he didn’t even bother to lay a hand upon his sword, making a spectacle of how little threat he perceived in me.
As I approached, the sounds of the onlookers, both approving and negative, trailed off. Naturally—my timing was impeccable as always. Dragging out the tension with every step, until the last few were made to no accompaniment save the crunch of my own boots in the snow.
I stopped in front of Highlord Thymion, just out of arm’s reach. He met my stare, raising one eyebrow superciliously. A moment more I dragged out the anticipation, ratcheting up the tension, studying every minute detail of his face. Not because I particularly cared to remember them, but because the tiny movements of my eyes held his attention for the last few seconds I needed him quiet.
Then I smiled—a small, smug, cold expression. And finally, leaned forward a bare few centimeters, drawing my lips back over my teeth to speak with every whit of my own absolute vocal control, making my single response ring across the snow, not shouted, but audible and clear as the strike of a church bell to every soul present.
“If.”
Our eyes were locked, and held during the ensuing silence. It seemed the highborn behind him barely dared to breathe.
He was a military man, Thymion—too proud to concede upon such a field, but well aware when he had no viable moves left. He stood his ground, not giving me an iota, but not fool enough to bluster or attack, or otherwise provoke a reaction that would lead to his true defeat. I let him have that moment, his silent refusal to back down, because we both knew that was the best he’d managed to salvage from this.
And more importantly, so did everyone else.
Then, in a few more seconds once I judged my point thoroughly made, I turned my back on the Highlord and all his kind, striding back to attend to what really mattered.
HealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHealHeal.
Heat Beam.