Ophelia sat at a conference table with Billy sitting on the other end of it. She wasn’t sure, but there was something different about him.
From what she’d seen when he’d come in, she’d noticed that he might have maybe grown an inch, but beyond that it somehow felt like he now filled a room more. His presence larger than life.
His aura deepening till even ‘she’, who’d been in the presence of countless men and women who could crumble mountains and the entire continents into pieces, felt slightly awed.
The whole impression lasting for all of a second, till he yawned, and it all seemed like an illusion. A soap bubble in a daydream. Fanciful and immaterial. The man took a seat, and she took a seat, and there they were. Staring each other down.
Or at least she, Ophelia was trying to stare him down. Staring ‘at’ him. Her expression kept on the pleasant side of neutral. Her lips posed in a slightly coy smile. Scrutinizing Billy while she tried to elicit some kind of response from him, through use of body language and direct eye contact.
A tactic that usually lead people to give up a little about their mindset. Fidgeting, giving away little non-verbal cues. Either pulling back, or leaning forwards. Confirming the things she ‘would’ have known already, were she able read the minds of any of the Bone Tree Company’s senior staff without worrying about being caught or getting reduced to a vegetable.
A fate, a few of her more unlucky agents had suffered during their attempts to get a read on the senior members of the Thousand Ghosts.
*****
“Well, Mister Maddoc…I’m glad you were able to make some time for me despite your busy schedule.” said Ophelia.
Billy yawned, the action seeming slightly delicate, his open mouth revealing rows of white, pointed teeth and a pink tongue. He blinked and nodded, his motions lazy and lagging, as if he and the sandman were still in disagreement over whether he should be conscious or not.
“Don’t mention it...I’m good at multitasking.” said Billy.
The understatement was well appreciated. Ophelia was in contact with no less than thirty agents that were currently observing ‘a’ Willia P. Maddoc, as he undertook some task or the other.
Wearing the same sleepy, non-expression, lazily, almost disgustingly hyper-competent, in that way that made her and all the senior Ministry Staff feel chills when they imagined a future where they and the Bone Tree Company came into conflict.
“Right...In anycase, I’ve been looking forward to you, I mean..*cough*...I’ve been looking forward to this little chat. I heard you asked for me, you wouldn’t believe how disappointed I was when I arrived and you’d already gone to do….whatever it was, you’d gone to do.”said Ophelia. Carefully keeping her tone light and not quite playful.
“Nh...Sorry about that I guess. Not sure why you came by carriage though…”
“Ah...well, would you be believe that I wasn’t aware that, that was an option?”
Ophelia laughed, laughing maybe a tad too loudly, trying to take advantage of her past mistake to try and further lighten the mood.
For all she knew it worked, or maybe it didn’t, the man really ‘didn’t’ give one much to work off of. Keeping the same expression regardless of his mood. His air and manner only changing, once one had stepped into an extreme. By which point, it would have already been too late.
Ophelia imagined the girls, and his friends in the company might have learned to read him by now, but at this stage, she was still learning. Thus her growing discomfort.
“Mhm...Okay. Well now you’re here. And now we’re talking. I suppose this has something to do with our plans for Bone Tree Republic.” said Billy.
Ophelia nodded. Moving through the paperwork in front of her. Placing a sheet onto the projection crystal near the center of the table. Feeding it a little aether to bring a projection of the sheet up onto the wall of the office.
“Well, actually yes.” said Ophelia.
“Edna already walked us through your basic plans for your newest acquisitions but I thought it might be a good idea to have you walk me through them too, if its not too much trouble.” said Ophelia. Launching into the ‘reason’ that she’d used to explain why she’d spent so many days waiting for the man.
She brought out a color coded map with all the areas that the Bone Tree Company had taken over, highlighted. A nice large area, with the former Kingdom of Garland at its center. Just a hair shy of three million miles.
Billy yawned again, rubbing his eyes as he sat up right, moving from his former slouched state.
“Nh...I’m pretty sure Ed would know more about this than I do, but sure.” said Billy.
Ophelia nodded, smiling briefly before starting with her questions. There were a hundred of them, most of them dealing with the nitty gritty details of what was planned for the conquered lands and what the Bone Tree Company’s expectations for them were.
Troublingly enough most the young man’s answers involved either the Ministry handling things, or a certain Edna Maddoc dealing with the issue.
By the end of it Ophelia found herself feeling a pang of pity for the girl who was doubt was sitting in her office. Slaving away. Her face hidden behind a console and a stack of paperwork, the pressed in on her like walls of dungeon.
She was struck by the realization that if the young man, were slightly less talented, he’d be one of ‘those’ louts. One of those playboys who got through life by shamelessly relying on the women in his life.
“Well...that’s pretty much it I guess.” said Ophelia.
After the main inquiries were over she sat back down again, feeling more tired than she’d expected to feel. She gave Billy a sidelong look, as she prepared to ask the questions she’d really been wanting to ask.
She tucked back an out place lock of silvery white hair that had fallen free from its hair tie. She put her stack of materials back together.
Then once she was done with that she met the man’s eyes again, watching them flicker with that same eerie electricity they always seemed to hold. Her expression still very neutral, her tone still very light. Smiling as if all this had really concerned her.
“Hm...I guess that’s pretty much it, Mr.Maddoc.”
“Nh...Billy’s fine, by the way...Er...I guess that’s good. Like I said, Edna knows more about these things...So if you have any more questions….”
Ophelia nodded.
“Right….No problem I think I’ve got a pretty clear idea for now…”
“...Great.”
There were thirty seconds of silence where neither of them said anything, then right when it looked like Billy was getting ready to go, she asked her question.
“So...if you don’t mind me asking, what is all this?”
He stopped what he was doing, sitting back down again. He turned towards her, and she wasn’t entirely certain but she got the sense he was raising his brow at her.
“...Clarify.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Clarify your question, it’s a fairly broad thing you’ve asked.”
A light entered Ophelia’s eyes and she wished more than anything, that she could use her powers to get peek into the man’s thoughts.
“Mhmm...Okay. So from what I’ve gathered, I get the sense that this little land grab is mostly just a family thing...Personal...And yet, I can’t help having a feeling that there’s more going on. Or rather, I can’t help feeling that there’s more that I’m not seeing or else why would you bring ‘us’ into this. I’m fairly certain your Edna has the setup and general bureaucracy for your little republic well in hand.”
Billy nodded. Rubbing his mostly hairless chin.
“...Right...that. Uh...I guess you could call it a secure investment for a very insecure future.”
“Ah...now who’s speaking broadly now? This is Monde, Mister Maddoc. The futures always uncertain.” said Ophelia, with a smile. Her eyes hungry and sharp, as she found herself catching sight some kind of conspiracy.
Billy looked up at her, his gaze heavy, but somewhat far away. He looked at her and then he looked ‘past’ her, his eyes moving to somewhere far away.
“...Nh...I said, insecure, not uncertain. The future I speak of, is very certain. In fact for me its almost as its lapsed into being the past...but that’s besides the point.” said Billy.
Ophelia wanted to ask more but by now she knew one could kill a conversation by tugging on it too forcefully on just the wrong spot. So instead she calmed herself.
Leaning back resting her chin on the back of her hand as she asked,
“Well then...what is the point then, Mister Maddoc?”
Billy looked over at her then, and for a second it felt like the boy in front of her had suddenly been aged, looking like an old man, wrinkled and gray. His eyes having seen countless years. More years than even the centuries old Ophelia, had seen.
It felt like he was an old grandfather looking back on the past like it was something that had happened a forever ago. He felt like ‘she’ felt, looking at Ophelia like the old woman who’d worn the mantle of Head Administrator before she had, used to look at her.
“Nh...Okay. In that case lets for conversation’s sake, imagine that there two cities, filled with high tier, top realm, practitioners. Now imagine that in between them is a village or normal folk. Farmers, cobblers, peddlers, no one above the common layer. What would you say is most likely to happen to that village?”
Ophelia shrugged, distracted, because busy she was reading the man and his words looking for hidden means.
“The village gets destroyed. When gods dance, men tremble.”
Billy gave her a look, a rare flash of expression, his eyes widening, a wry smile curl bending the line of his lips.
“A very astute assessment Ms.Delphi. Very astute indeed. When gods dance men tremble.”
Ophelia sat in silence, mulling the man’s words over, looking for a tell, or any sign of what the man ‘wasn’t’ telling her. Eventually she gave up, she had various guesses, but even with his lapse from just a second ago the man was still nigh unreadable to her.
Or rather while she trusted her senses, she didn’t feel it safe to risk things on a hunch if she didn’t need to.
“...Okay, but what does this have to do with us?”
Billy stared at her and then he reached over to a pitcher of water that had been left sitting on her desk. He poured it out, emptying the water into the air. The aether in the room humming, as he cast a minor cantrip. Soon two flat rectangles of water were hovering in the air.
He reached over to the table again and grabbed a piece of paper, crumpling it into a ball and putting it between the two hovering planes. He took another piece of paper and shred it, tossing the pieces into the middle where most would stay, while a few managed to make it to the top plane.
Then He said a word that made the air go shivery and top planes turned into vapor staying in place but seeming to boil within itself. The other stayed the same, like gelatin, with its moisture being fed from and fed by, the vaporous layer.
Finally Billy returned his attention to Ophelia.
“You want to know what this has to do with you. Do me a favor a try to push your finger from the top layer to the layer on the bottom. Don’t stop till you succeed.”
Ophelia looked at the little spectacle that hovered above Billy’s hands and then she looked at Billy. After a moment’s thought, wondering where all this was leading she did as he asked and was only a little surprised when the vapors turned out to be quite solid.
Resisting her finger till Ophelia decided to cheat a little by using a ray of aether.
It worked, but it worked a little too well, she ended up not only tearing a hole through the top lay, but smashing through the bottom layer and the little crumpled ball in between.
The spell broke and all that was left was a puddle of water and some soggy paper. She looked at the mess and then looked to Billy.
“Okay that was….interesting, but I still don’t quite understand what that has to do with anything.” said Ophelia.
Billy frowned cocking his head to the side, looking at Ophelia as if ‘she’ was the one not making any sense.
“Nh...Don’t get it...Hm...Okay.”
He snapped his fingers and more water was pulled from the air. Forming two new planes. He took another piece of paper creating another ball.
He took more paper to create more of the strange floating strips, and then he took yet piece of paper. Ripping it into wide pieces and twisting those pieces into knots.
This time he broke the top lay himself, but this time the bottom layer wasn’t broken through. Instead the knots fell onto the crumpled ball, slowly unfurling themselves, becoming small lurching figures that moved across the ball.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Suddenly she understood, connecting the pieces before Billy said a word.
“Heaven and Earth are separate. Yes, a few may ascend and few may descend, but those are small events and very rare, with the system adjusting to allow such transitions and requiring great cost before such things can pass.”
Billy looked down and Ophelia looked as well, staring at the tiny paper god-monsters that stomped across the surface of a paper Monde.
“Nothing is supposed be able to pass into or out of the heavenly super space without cost and yet….” said Billy.
Ophelia finished his words for him.
“Millions god-monsters and divine artifacts are currently scattered all over the world.” said Ophelia.
“Exactly, that’s definitely not supposed to happen....”said Billy.
“Now I ask you again, try to push your finger through the top layer.”
She obliged and almost immediately her hand came smashing through the paper ball.
“If you’re saying what I think you’re saying...this sounds bad.” said Ophelia. Imagining a world where the things from the higher planes could smash into the mundane reality willy nilly and feeling her gut grow cold.
The world was nearly destroyed when mankind made a small hole between the planes. Even one of the god-monsters that currently roamed Monde’s could lead to a catastrophe if she didn’t have yet another group of ‘monsters’ dealing with them. She couldn’t imagine what could come now that there was apparent a few big hole hanging above them.
“Yes...I thought so too. And it’s only going to get worse.”
“You can’t know that...perhaps things will stabilize, the planar boundary could heal like it did the last time.”
“Yes...that is possible. But I know it won’t and I’m telling you that its going to get worse.” said Billy.
His tone calm and grave at the same time. Though his expression was the same as it always seemed to be. Sitting somewhere between sleepiness and apathy.
Ophelia ignored the wall of anxiety and responsibility that was threatening to wash over her. Her position as the Head Administrator of Public Order and the last line of defense for the civilized world requiring her to do something.
“Okay. I assume you wouldn’t tell me all this if there was nothing we can do.” said Ophelia.
Billy smiled, or at least he seemed to smile.
“To that end...I can say don’t worry about it.” said Billy.
“Don’t worry about it?”
“Yes, don’t worry about it, for the short term at least, I’ve already handled the issue.”
“Short term? Handled? How?” said Ophelia. Frowning as she eyed the soggy mess that lay on the table.
“Simply put, I took over the world.”
That got her attention. She gaped at him, brow furrowed. Not sure where to start with her line of questioning. Before she could speak Billy elaborated.
He didn’t use words, instead he made the world shake and as it shook he got up and turned her seat around, making her face towards the wide windows of her office.
She watched a wall of mountains rise up in the distance surrounding the fledgling republic. Millions of miles of rising stone Enclosing the fledgling nation like a fist.
“I did the only thing I ‘could’ do at my current level of strength. I subsumed the world. I took in every pebble, every single drop of water, every single blade of grass, every breath of air in this particular part of the universe. I took this world’s section of the space-time continuum. And partially merged it with another space that I also happen to control so I could safely move the planet elsewhere. Unfortunately even a partial subsumption like this one is permanent so for all intensive purposes this world is a part of me. Its mine. Like my hand or my hair. I don’t plan to use this against anyone..and besides you and the girls I don’t plan to tell anyone. I just thought you’d like to know.”
Ophelia turned around to face Billy, feeling both hot and cold. She was furious, somehow feeling like she’d been tricked, she wouldn’t have been able to explain what the trick was but sher knew it had been a nasty one. She turned her face towards the windows again, rationalizing that the man ‘could’’ lying.
Technically he hadn’t shown her anything that couldn’t be done with magic. It would have had to be some very high level, very complicated magic, but magic could still do this. Except she had a feeling that that wasn’t the case.
She knew what she’d seen was what he’d said she’d seen, because from what she understood of Billy Maddoc, he wasn’t the sort who went to great lengths to trick people. ‘He’ didn’t trick people, period. He was the sort that let people trick themselves, letting them overthink the situation because the reality seemed either unthinkable or too unreasonable.
“Okay, so you’ve taken over the world... What do you want me to do about it? What do you want the Ministry to do about it? Or rather do you think we’re just going to let you ‘keep’ the world. ” asked Ophelia.
Her tone, full of conviction and righteous anger, though she was starkly aware that she had exactly no idea on how one went about reclaiming an entire planet once it was already in the hands of a megalomaniacal sorcerer.
“And now we get to the crux of the matter...I want you to just keep doing what you’ve been doing. What you already agreed to do. What you and your Administrators have already sworn to do. What you Ophelia Delphi, in that surprisingly earnest heart of yours, know has to be done. Keep the peace. Protect the world from itself and me. And if you have the time, maybe help me keep from running my little country to ground. Do that, and the world never need know what I’ve done.”
Ophelia’s breathing grew even, she considered the man’s words and found that though they were slightly menacing, they weren’t full of menace. They were just stark facts…
Like the skies were blue. And the seas were wet. It was now a fact that both those skies and the seas were apparently both fully in the possession of the young man who stood at her back.
“Fair enough...In that case, why?…”
“Why what?” asked Billy.
“Why tell me? Why let the Ministry know?”
Billy blinked and then he smiled. A full thing, both scary and eerie at the same time seeming ill fit for a face that so rarely emoted.
“Because amongst the number of possible threats that could get in my way in this entire world, you’re the only one who made me worried. You’re the only who’d be clever enough to possibly figure things out on your own. You’re the only one who could pull together enough of the other riff-raff to actually make them count as credible threat. You are...or at least you were, the only one who could stop me. Now that we’re nearing a point of no return it just makes sense to tell you. Besides, You look like the kind of person who gets upset when they find out that they’ve been lied to. I’d much rather lose you now and maybe win you back later, than lose you later after you were already an integral part of us, after I’d already placed enough trust in you to let you hurt us. So I guess, you could call this covering my bases.”
Ophelia blinked, absorbing the young man’s words and deciphering them like they were some kind of esoteric text.
Feeling fuzzy headed, like everything she’d heard was too much to process, even though ‘she’ was someone who’d lived immersed within the thoughts of at least a million minds for every day she was connected to the ministry's telepathic network.
******
“And…. that’s the point where you fucked him?!” laughed Alphonse. Sipping on a mint julep whilst staring at the board that lay between himself and Ophelia.
He moved his piece and she moved her piece to take the spot and the two pieces that had lain between it.
Ophelia decided not to honor that question with a response. Letting him fall into a trap that would allow her to take three more of his pieces.
*****
Alphonse frowned, the laughter dying in his throat as he watched how spartan she was being during their match. Marching her pawns and rooks across the board. Ruthlessly collecting his pieces without an inch of friendliness in her demeanor.
He sighed.
“Sorry, okay-okay. Don’t be so mad.”
“.....I am not ‘mad’,Alphonse. Don’t be silly. Why would I be mad at you, my dear Primus.” said Ophelia. The set of her jaw giving away the lie.
Alphonse couldn’t help the dry chuckle that escaped him. This was the Ophelia Delphi that only he got to see. Sulky, self-questioning and childish. After three weeks of calling she’d finally answered him. And he couldn’t help feeling like this was the reward for his patience.
She arrived at his palace with a look that was two parts wild and one part scared. All of it covered up by her usual look of haughty, detachment. Disguised well enough that he was likely the only one in the world who could see through it.
He told her of the missives and she fulfilled his purpose for calling on her by supplying answers. Far more answers than he’d expected to get.
Explaining that a young sorcerer somehow had taken over the world. A young sorcerer that she apparently she ended up sleeping with that young sorcerer. For the second time even….He, Alphonse just sat there listening. Accepting it all as a gift.
Closely watching all the expressions that girl’s face made as she described what happened and how. Struck by how different she was from her usual confident, lofty self.
Honestly was it his really his fault? Save, the relationships setup for and by the Ministry, Ophelia’s romantic entanglements were few and far between. Even old Alphonse had more experience with the worlds of love and eros and he, as a high priest was technically supposed to be celibate.
And really who was it that bore the blame for making the girl’s troubled expressions look so very amusing? If it was wrong for him to be enjoying this, than he’d complain to the heavens, that this was some form of entrapment.
A temptation even a Saint would find hard resist.
Someone like Alphonse whose nature was just naturally rotten, wouldn’t have chance.
“Game set and match…” said Ophelia. The sharpness of her voice and clack of her crystal pieces on the stone board, cutting through Alphonse’s reveries.
The old man blinked, goggling at how thoroughly she’d cleared the board, collecting his pieces in a way that made him suspect that she might just be cheating.
“Hmph...you’re the one who called ‘me’ here. If you’re not interested in either playing or listening to what I have to say I can leave…”
“Calm down...Calm down. I said I was sorry, didn’t I.” said Alphonse. Sighing.
Though she still bristled, her eyes glinting like knives, she did take a breath. She steepled her fingers as he watched Alphonse setup the board for yet another game.
Then after taking a sip of wine she sighed. Seemingly aware that she was the ill natured friend of an ill-natured old man. She’d known how he was from childhood and likely should have foreseen his reaction from all the years she’d known him.
After all, she’d long ago known, that that kindly old man act of his was, was exactly that. An act.
“So...finish the story, you didn’t just come here to tell me how you got your toes curled did you?...Cause while I admit it is some fairly big news, it’s also not the priority right-….” said Alphonse.
Alphonse smiled, his whiskers dancing as he took Ophelia’s knight.
She put on a mask of indifference as she took his queen, a knight and pawn.
“No...No I didn’t...He also said that you should know what’s going on.Since you more than anyone else, should know about a certain seating having been empty for the last half century or so.”
The smile immediately fell from the old man’s face. His eyes growing grim and cold.
“Oh...so this has to do with ‘that’...” said the Primus. His face falling.
“Yes…’That’. So, my dear Alphonse...Why on earth wouldn’t you tell me that Alceus’ throne was currently empty. Did you think the Ministry didn’t need to know that the king of the gods was dead?”