Attention, Aristocrats.
Attention, Aristocrats.
We have arrived at…Chivalry. Our next stop will be…Sante. This is an indirect service terminating at Great Bern. Please mind the gap, between the train, and the platform edge.
The smooth, sedate, feminine voice roused me from my doze.
Fang was sound asleep on my lap, his oddly-metallic tongue still lolling adorably from between a tiny mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth. Alyss mumbled something incomprehensible across the table that separated us, shifting an elbow, drifting a shoulder, but otherwise escaping the land of the living for a while longer. We still had a good way to go.
She’d missed the refreshments, unfortunately for her. A silent servant had already brought them by, wholesale refusing to raise her eyes even in my general direction, save for a single fear-filled glance at a sleeping Fang. The argent cart she peddled was positively filled to the brim with delightful circles of dough and pastry, clouds of beige-ish fluff stuffed full of all manner of creams, jams, jellies, and sweet syrups.
I feasted upon them, and felt like a king.
They were all free of charge, perks of a first-class ticket. They were so delectable, in fact, so buttery and light and flaky that I almost forgot the scarred backs and gaunt ribcages such luxuriant fare was built upon. I must have devoured near enough half the whole cart.
Not that it mattered much.
We were alone in here, anyway.
The first class cabin remained just as deserted as it had been upon our entry back in Cambridge. Not a soul had chosen to join us since. And yet the carriage, itself, boasted space enough for at least fifty Crats, and our tickets hadn’t cost more than a couple-thousand chits apiece.
Was such wealth as we enjoyed truly so rare? Or, was there some other reason for our solitude?
“Why, hello there!”
I looked up to see a young man standing cheerfully beside the booth Alyss and I shared.
As young as me, at least. If not younger. Perhaps less than eighteen years of age.
He was neatly dressed, but not overly formal, in a fine, button-down shirt and beige overcoat emblazoned with the image of a weeping, impaled dragon. A crown of dense, wavy, light-brown hair sat unkempt atop his head, and his equally brown eyes were near-laughably magnified by a pair of heavy spectacles. He was thin, and prim, and proper, rather studious in complexion, with pale skin and the hands of a lyrist.
To be honest, he didn’t look like much.
That is to say, he wasn’t particularly imposing. His demeanor was meek. Sheepish. Shrunken. He projected neither strength nor confidence. And though his smile was broad, and quite guileless in nature, it betrayed with it a measure of anxiety, of self-doubt.
But his song was the complete opposite.
~~~
Ruler
Attunement: Mnemonic Engine(Ma) 14
Grain: Remnant
Marble: Anticomplex
~~~
This young man bore a Major Shard.
The third one I’d ever encountered in person. But Pylon and Vox, the other two bearers, held, or had held in Vox’s case, theirs in a veritably iron grip. Their songs had been tightly-packaged. Well controlled. Practiced and polished. This one was anything but.
This Shard wasn’t being kept on a short, or closely-monitored leash. It wasn’t tightly-restrained. It was barely restrained, at all. It was unbowed, unbent, unbroken. Prior our delve, prior my own stage progression, a song like this could’ve ruined me by presence alone. Triggered ADMINISTRATION. Driven me mad.
For a moment, its Host and I stared at one another as I worked to process what I saw. His open, casual grin started to grow strained, anxiety fraying at the edges of his expression.
“Wha–s!”
Alyss jerked awake from across the table, her eyes blinking blearily as she did so. Thankfully, she managed to keep herself from impaling who I could only assume to be an Aristocrat of considerable pedigree for the slight of surprising her slumber.
“Taiven? Wh–”
Then she noticed the young man, and her mouth closed, her eyes widening subtly.
“Oh, uh, I’m so sorry!” The youth immediately apologized, finally noticing my now no longer sleeping companion. “I didn’t know yo–er, or, rather, I didn’t notice yo–”
“It’s fine,” Alyss quickly demurred, effortlessly spreading across her face a smile most others likely wouldn’t recognize as forced, and daintily clearing her throat. I noticed a vein of tense apprehension nestled among the crinkling edges of her cheeks
“Lord Price, I assume. I’ve heard much about you,” she smiled. “It’s a privilege to finally meet, face to face.”
Price, I thought, idly. The name sounded familiar, though I couldn’t quite say why.
“Um. Do we know each other?” This Lord Price, apparently, quirked an eyebrow awkwardly upwards.
“Not insomuch as that,” my friend replied. “My family attended a Summer Tourney of yours, some years ago. In Chivalry.”
The sorceress seemed to hesitate, but only very briefly, before going on.
“I am Alyss, thirdborn of Nycta,” she declared.
“Ah,” the youth replied.
His smile, already strained, became even more so.
“Hou–er, Cell Nycta. A Slaver…”
“Quite,” Alyss agreed, unblinking. She gestured my way, still wearing that pleasant smile.
“And this, here, is my companion.” Having said so, she trailed off, and the both of them looked my way, clearly expecting me to speak.
But I just stared.
In fact, I’d only really been half-listening to their conversation. This contrast between Blessed and Blessing…I’d never seen anything like it before. Never. It was…unthinkable, almost. Remarkable. Normally, the latter shaped the former so dramatically. Especially in cases of such a potent Shard as this. How had this Host, meek as he was, retained any semblance of sanity, given the circumstances?
The Crat in question shifted uncomfortably under my withering gaze.
“Uhm…is s–something wrong?” He stuttered.
I ignored him. I was watching his power like a hawk. Watching its motions, its movements. Trying to determine its disposition from afar.
It spread searching, probing fingers outward, eagerly, with the confidence and gall that only lords paramount enjoyed. It brushed them up and over and across the contours of Alyss’s form, tasting her song with arrogance but no particular malice, then stretched them my way. Its demeanor was clear as it approached me. It expected nothing less than absolute, and immediate, obeisance.
I scowled, and with a flexure of will, and the errant flick of an obscured finger, lightly snapped my own song towards it.
The Shard reacted like a struck child.
It retreated instantly, shrinking back with all the guilt and fear of chastised babe, many tendrils deflating as it cowered behind the diminutive form of its own meek Host. I watched the Crat closely as it did so.
No reaction.
How bizarre.
“No–no!” Alyss semi-stammered, as the uneasy silence grew. She glared at me meaningfully from the corner of half-slit eyes.
“Not. At. All,” she ground out, with considerable effort. “My friend here was just about t–”
“Taiven Tharros,” I introduced myself abruptly, not that my own name would mean anything to him. I half-rose from my seat to treat the youthful lord with a rather cumbersome handshake, dislodging my ever-faithful hound as I did so.
Fang whimpered at me.
Drama queen.
“Tharros,” Ruler muttered, shaking my hand with a surprisingly firm grip, his spectacled brow furrowing, “sounds familiar, that name, I–”
His eyes widened.
“Oh, shit.”
He drew back, his face shifting between awe and fear, his eyes flicking between the two of us.
“You–you’re group fourteen,” the brown-haired youth stuttered. “You’re group fourteen. Aren’t you? Aren’t you? The Agogians. The Katakh…”
I glanced at Alyss, but the sorceress retained her smile with little apparent effort.
“We are indeed,” she replied, politely.
“Holy shit. Holy shit,” the boy repeated. The last vestiges of trepidation melted off of him, feet edging himself away and towards us in alternating patterns. A small, excited grin trembled its way across his face.
“Oh, shit, I can’t believe I’m…you’re…a–all Europe’s talking about you, you know? You guys, you survived–Gods–I mean, what must it have been like, I can’t even–”
He stopped short, then, doing a double-take at us.
“Wait,” he said, “I thought there were three of you?”
“There are,” I confirmed, haltingly, the youth’s sudden fascination making me uncomfortable.
“Our third companion, High Inquisitor Conway, is reporting back to Rome at the moment,” Alyss swiftly and seamlessly took over. “He’ll be joining us in Bern, perhaps a fortnight from now.”
“Right,” the youth nodded eagerly. “Right, that makes sense.” Then he stopped himself again, and this time seemed to come to some sort of realization.
“Oh, right, of course! How rude of me! Father says I sometimes just get swept up in my own…well…” he cleared his throat, and adjusted his thick, heavy spectacles.
“William Price,” he stated.
“Er, William Price the second, that is,” and quickly followed up, with equal parts pride and sheepishness. “Obviously.” He stiffly thrust out a palm, never mind the fact that we had already shook hands.
I repeated the motion regardless, and watched as my female friend did so, too, frowning as the young lord’s name, once more, rang some distant bell in the cobwebs of my mind.
“Of course, my lord. As I say, it is a privilege. Your sigil is hard to miss,” Alyss replied, smiling slightly as she gestured to the coat of arms upon his lapel. There was slight set to her teeth as she spoke the words, though, was it perha–
“Youngest son to Great House Price, Prince of the Elgin Palace, and Heir to the Anglican Triarch of United Franco-Anglica. Your reputation precedes you,” Alyss stated deadpan, then turning my way with a terrifyingly pleasant smile. “Of course, we both know who you are.”
Oops, I thought.
Fuck.
“Ah, yes, well,” the Anglican heir grinned sheepishly, coloring as he did so. “W–well, I’m not really heir. You know. Not unless one of my older brothers dies, ha–ha, or Father names me in their stead, which, honestly, is about as likely to happen as a–”
“A–anyway,” he transitioned clumsily, looking left and right. “I was just wondering, um…”
He glanced about at the first class cabin, which remained just as empty as ever it was.
“Uh, would you guys mind,” he attempted, hesitantly. “If I joined you? The both of you? You’re headed for the Institute, in any case, I assume. No? For Bern? I’m headed there, myself. Starting in the fall semester. Like you. Very excited! My brothers have been, obviously, and I’ve visited a couple times, as I’m sure you–”
Whilst the Prince babbled to himself, or perhaps to us, Alyss and I shared a clandestine glance.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Needless to say, in a vacuum, we’d much rather weather the journey on our own, neither of us particularly enjoying the company Aristocrats had to offer. But the Anglican Heir was doubtless a powerful man, and, more critically, seemed naive to boot. Already infatuated with our infamy. Who knew when an opportunity like this would avail itself again?
And besides, I was eager to learn all I could about his Blessing.
I would’ve copied it here and now, if I’d had the space to do so, and I was strongly considering simply deleting some saved Shards to make room.
“–nly if it’s no imposition, of course! I don’t mean to be a bother, you understand, not at all, not at all, it’s just, there’s no one else in the cabin, anyway, and, oh, I’d love to hear some stories abo–”
“You aren’t,” Alyss stated, sweetly, gesturing to the bench on her side before the young Blessed could talk himself in another circle. “Imposing. Not at all. Please, join us.”
The Prince treated us both to a beam of pure glee, and promptly did just that, sliding cautiously onto the plush leather cushions, just about as far away from my companion as possible whilst looking as if he wished nothing more than to inch closer.
“Oh, that’s so cool! Thanks, that’s so cool! You guys are bigger than Syren, right, now you have no idea–”
From my lap, Fang let out a low growl.
It wasn’t particularly threatening, though. He was, after all, more or less the size of a small house cat in his current form. As such, his vocalization emerged more as a high-pitched whine than the warning he no doubt meant it.
Hilariously, the Anglican paled all the same, clamming right up.
“Fang,” I chided, struggling to keep a smirk from my face. “Play nice.”
“G–gorgeous, uh, servant you have there,” the boy complimented, hesitantly, his words nevertheless making the arrogant little runt in question puff up with pride. “A living weapon?”
“That’s right,” I lied, stroking the offending Shard, who crooned joyously under my touch. “Soulbound. From the Maw.”
“I see,” he whispered, shaking his head in rapture. He grinned, shamefully. “It’s, ah–it’s embarrassing, I guess, but I’ve always dreamt of having one, myself.”
Alyss frowned.
“Could you not just buy one?” She asked.
“Hah,” William laughed, once. He puffed himself up, and spoke in a deep, gruff tone. “Living weapons are expensive, and temperamental. Unreliable. When death treats you to its fangs, you place your trust in yourself, and none others. Better to hone your own skills, boy.”
He deflated, and shrugged.
“So sayeth my father,” William smiled, sheepishly. “And what Father says, goes.” He scowled to himself. “Never mind the fact that Roland has one, I suppose. And Wergar.”
“Hmmm,” Alyss hummed, noncommittally. “Still, he’d know. What with his background, and all. You know?”
“Oh yes, I know,” the Prince replied, his smile draining of humor. “Believe me, I am well aware. Rarely does a day pass me by, during which I am not reminded of the Dragonslayer’s exploits.”
“Uh,” I started, at least fairly certain I wasn’t making a big mistake. “What exploits?”
Prince William glanced at me, strangely.
“You don–”
“He’s Forsaken,” Alyss cut in, quickly, thankfully without the glaring side-eye that meant I’d committed a grave faux-pas. “A mercenary. He never got a formal education.”
“Oh. I see,” the Crat mused, raising an eyebrow in my direction. “Well, you carry yourself well, Lord Tharros. I wouldn’t have guessed it.”
“To answer your question,” he half-grinned, half-grimaced, “we speak of my father’s glorious triumph over the East, in the Border Wars. His errantry.”
William paused, and a certain confliction passed over his face.
“Where, upon the field of battle, he bested the Celestial Emperor in single combat.”
My jaw dropped.
I glanced at Alyss, who shrugged, and nodded.
“Are you serious? Your father beat Lung?” I asked, incredulously.
“Indeed he did,” the heir confirmed. But, once more, I detected that air of uncertainty, that vacillation in his song that made me think things might not quite be as he described them.
“But, I thought no one could beat Lung,” I maintained, pressing the prince. Alyss glanced over at me curiously as I did so.
“Lung’s the paramount,” I went on, my eyes narrowing as I watched the Crat’s song squirm. “The strongest of the strong. The Titanbane. Vanquisher of the Cerulean Pit. How did your father manage it?”
“You should ask him yourself,” William replied, smiling frostily at me, “I’m sure he’d be happy to tell you all about it. It was the feat that saw him named Triarch, after all. Knighted by Queen Roland, no less.”
He waved a hand.
“In any case, living weapons,” he went on, “Personally, I’d name my father’s reticence to purchase one more due to my own power than some…philosophy, or some such.”
“Your power?” I asked, genuinely taken aback. “Forgive me, my lord, but with a Ma–”
I snapped my mouth shut.
Stopping myself short just before I said the words ‘Major Blessing,’ to someone who both would not know what they meant and was not supposed to know that I knew what Blessing he had.
“A–er, what I mean is,” I waffled, to the Anglican’s perplexion. “You seem, my lord, to know your way around a battlefield. I’m sure you fare well enough in combat.”
The heir’s confusion matured into downright disbelief.
I stared, unbelieving, right back at him.
Does he…does he not know what he has? With a Shard like his? How could that be possible?
“I…that’s awfully kind of you, Lord Tharros,” William said, perplexed. “But, uh, unnecessary. I mean…”
He chuckled, uncomfortably.
“You needn’t spare my pride. I know, I know I’m not exactly the valorous sort.” He paused, and licked his lips, before reciting the words. He spoke them in a practiced manner, as if he’d done so, and heard them said to him, many, many times before.
“I’m…kind of, more academically inclined,” he winced. “Than most, uh, of the family. They’re Brutes, after all. Literally.”
“To be honest,” he admitted, “I’ve never even stepped foot inside the World Titan.”
Alyss’s flawless composure broke, at that.
“You’ve never Delved?” She asked. “You mean, not once?”
“No,” he readily accepted. Then his eyes grew wide again, and dreamy.
“But oh, man, I’ve read everything about it. I mean, everything.” He counted out the various literary items on his fingers. “I’ve read Olafsson’s Wanderlust, of course, even though you can tell it’s a bit embellished in some parts, and Nasir’s There and Back Again. I’ve read that, too. I got Father to buy me Into the Cerulean Pit, last Solstice, which was just fantastic. I read it in the original Imperial, of course. And then, you know, you’ve got the Chief Delver’s Rust, Guts, and Steel.”
He frowned.
“I mean, I doubt he wrote it himself, to be honest,” he muttered. “Doesn’t really seem the type, you know? But it was, uh, alright, I guess.” He scrunched up his face. “Very gory. Not really a huge fan of gore, personally.”
He jabbed an excited digit our way.
“I’ve even read your namesake. Lord Katakh-Lau’s Somnambulism.”
The boy went on and on, gesticulating grandly as he spoke, every so often re-adjusting those massive glasses of his.
“Like, come on. All guts and gore aside, obviously, doesn’t it just–I mean, doesn’t it just entrance you? Doesn’t it just mesmerize you?” He swung a clenched fist through the air, his eyes sparkling behind the spectacles. “To travel fantastic lands? To slay foul beasts! How, how incredible! How amazing! What more could you ask for? Oh, the Gods only know what I wouldn’t give to experience it all myself, or–can you imagine–the fourth floor?” He leaned in close, and whispered. “I mean, can you imagine it? To visit whole new worlds?”
Alyss was staring deadpan at the youthful Blessed, her polished visage having finally evaporated in favor of some mixture between bewilderment and revulsion.
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, my prince,” she intoned, with an acid that made me think she was anything but, “but the reality of the World Titan is far from fanciful.”
She leveled an unimpressed eyebrow at the Anglican lord.
“Forget fantastic lands,” she stated, “try vistas of filth, decay, or desolation. The first floor we visited during the Agoge smelt, quite literally, of one thousand rotting corpses. The second, I had to crawl through crevices so small the skin on my hands and knees sloughed off.
“And forget slaying foul beasts,” she went on, mercilessly, no matter the impact her words were having on the bright-eyed Blessed. “And fighting magnificent monsters. Unless, of course, you’re well and happy to see your own guts and gore splayed out across the ground.”
She jerked an irate thumb my way.
“One time our companion lost his arms, his legs, half his gods-damned chest. Almost died, then and there, and he’s a fucking Immortal. The three who weren’t did die.”
Well, to be fair, we killed one of them, I thought, but had good enough sense not to speak aloud.
“As well as, needless to say, the hundred-odd others who took part alongside us. Those stories of yours, my lord, they talk about that?” She snapped. “They talk about your friends, your allies, being turned to fucking pulp?”
“Some of them do,” the prince muttered, meekly.
Alyss scowled at him.
“Well then, take my advice, my lord, that it’s one thing to read about, and quite another to see in person, to see…uh…to see…”
The heir of Nycta paused, and her scowl receded slowly, her features starting to calm. She blinked once, then once more.
“Uh,” she said, again.
She seemed surprised, and glanced my way with a mixture of anxiety and embarrassment.
“I–”
“No, I apologize,” the prince grimaced. “I’m sorry, my, uh–I can get, caught up, at times. I should’ve realized it was…it’s easy to speak vicariously, I suppose.”
“Actually, I understand,” I spoke up.
And I did.
No matter how miserable it was, and it was miserable, there was just something…magical, about the Maw. About the World Titan. I remembered thinking just the same so long ago, just the same as the boy before me now. Back in Burrick.
For all its tortures, there just wasn’t anything quite like the World Titan.
“Ah,” William grasped desperately onto my words. “Do you?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I replied. Alyss regarded me with a degree of scandalized confusion, and I simply shrugged.
“Wanderlust,” I declared.
“Yes!” the Anglican agreed, his eyes lighting upon me, his disposition recovering somewhat. “Yes, exactly! You’re, uh…”
He hesitated.
“No education…you’re not familiar with Professor Angstrom’s ‘many worlds’ hypothesis, are you?”
I looked to Alyss blankly, who, mirroring my prior actions, shrugged.
“Professor Angstrom,” she muttered. “Works at the Institute, no? He’s a Dean of the Sciences…Bioengineering, I believe?”
The prince nodded, eagerly.
But, apparently, it was the wrong decision.
Alyss’s face darkened in a manner I saw less and less these days. I watched the shadows about her shiver as she spoke.
“He’s Devoted.”
“Huh,” Prince Price exhaled thoughtfully, ignorant to my comrade’s malice. “Well, that’s true, I guess. But I mean, he’s just a Creature. And besides, he’s only involved in the local Chapter. Not like he’s been to the mainland, or anything.”
Alyss frowned.
“A…creature?” she asked.
“A Creature. A Physiognomist. W–is something wrong?” The Anglican prince asked, confused.
“We’ve had poor experiences with Devoted, in the past,” I explained, cautiously, unsure just how much to reveal.
“Ah,” he nodded, understanding. “But with a Screech–uh, a Jehenist, I assume?”
Now it was my turn to frown.
I glanced at Alyss. Had Vox been a Jehenist? I didn’t know. He’d never mentioned anything of the sort to me. I didn’t even know there were different types of Devoted.
My companion, for her part, gave my implicit inquiry no reply, but her scowl never shifted.
“I’m not sure,” I answered, frankly.
“Probably a Jehenist,” he went on, waving a palm somewhat dismissively. “They’re the more radical ones. But they’re on the fringe. Most Devoted aren’t like that, really.”
“Really,” Alyss echoed.
“Really!” The prince reaffirmed. “Seriously! I mean, Physiognomists are even apolitical, for the most part. I’ve meant plenty of ‘em, I can tell you for a fact. Preachers and Creatures are all over Europe. It’s the Jehenists who push for severe social change.”
“As you say, then, my lord,” Alyss accepted, entirely unconvinced and with a good deal of suspicion, now.
“And besides,” the Anglican went on, appealing to the both of us good-naturedly. “I know Angstrom well enough, even secondhand. He’s good friends with Barty–er, Lord Piers–who works for my father. He’s a Dean, too.”
“Trust me,” he finished, sincerely. “Nothing gets past Bartholomew. If Angstrom was doing anything untoward, anything at all, he’d know.”
“Wait,” I said, “one of the Deans works for your father…the Triarch?” I glanced at Alyss hesitantly, though recognized little helpful in her expression. “I thought the Institute was meant to be politically neutral.”
At this, William snorted.
“Politically neutral,” he repeated, chuckling. “Yeah, right. That’s a good one, Lord Tharros.”
Humorlessly, I held his gaze.
“Oh shit, sorry. Of course, you’re not joking, you’re from the Cells, uh…I mean, you’re right! Your viewpoint, it’s understandable. Totally,” he apologized. “I’m sure that’s what they say. But, like…”
He spread his hands, meekly.
“I mean, the Great Houses have their fingers all over the Institute. Everywhere. The funding, the staff, the Professors…it’s in Bern, after all! And, all their children attend it. Of course they’re gonna secure their own interest…”
He paused.
“Though, fair enough, it’s gotten more heavy-handed than usual of late. That’s true. That’s true. There’re a lot of heirs in there, right now.” He shrugged. “Just how things panned out, I guess.”
Then he directed a cautious glance towards my companion.
“If I might offer a piece of advice, my lady,” he began.
“I’m sure you can take care of yourself!” He added, as a rapid afterthought. “No, no doubt about it. Your exploits have well enough proved that much, I don’t mean any disrespect at all! Not a bit, not a bit…but…”
He paused, again.
“I know you’re from the Cells. But, I’d be…careful, with that rhetoric. You know. The Devoted stuff. In Bern. There are…a lot of Devoted in the city, now. Not all of them are understanding, like Angstrom.”
Alyss glanced briefly at me, from the corner of her eye. Her face was concerned. Deeply concerned. Near-panicked. I couldn’t help but feel much the same.
Just what on earth were we walking into, here?
“I…understand,” she accepted, grudgingly. “Thank you for the advice, my Lord.” He nodded. “Though, if I may ask…why?”
“Why? Why what?” William replied, frowning.
“Why are there so many Devoted in the city?” She followed, carefully. “I am from the Cells, as you say, but it was my…good understanding that they were expelled many centuries ago. In all but name.
“As far as I was taught, the Devoted seek a new world order,” she explained, “an upheaval of the status quo. Bern, and the Assembly, they are the status quo. How can they abet such a thing?”
“That’s not what they believe,” he recited, quickly. “The Devoted, that’s not what they believe. Not…entirely. And, and it’s more complicated than that.” A grimace passed across his face, and he seemed to glance left and right before speaking, even though we were all alone. “I’m sure you saw it on the way here.”
“Saw what?” I asked.
“The Mundanes,” he replied, his voice half-grimace and half-whisper.
“It’s worse than it ever has been. There’ve been attacks,” he spoke, with widening eyes, and a progressively frightened tenor. “Coterie emplacements. First Frattol, and Galencia, now word has spread of Crannoch’s fall. Officially, no one’s claimed credit, bu–”
ARISTOCRATS, MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE.
The sudden shriek of a mechanized alarm cut off the young Prince’s words, the soothing, feminine voice of the faceless announcer turned shrill and ear-grating, reverberating across the luxuriant halls of the train.
ARISTOCRATS, MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE.
THE SWORD TITAN HAS BEEN SPOTTED OUTSIDE BERN.