After paying off the barkeep and corroborating her information with a few other people, Mark sat down in his car and began to plan out his next move. He wouldn’t be able to get a closer look at the Galata without trespassing, but he could probably at least get started on something, to try and figure out a process to this.
-
“Yup, I’ve got nothing.” Mark leaned back and buried his face in his hands.
“It’s been three hours, did you only realize that now?” Rachna leaned over Mark from the backseat, hand reaching into a bag of chips in his lap.
Mark got up and turned to look at Rachna. “You’re really not helping, you know!”
Rachna, about to eat a handful of chips, closed his mouth. “What’s wrong? I’m just sitting here. And these chips aren’t that loud.”
Mark grabbed the chip bag out of Rachna’s hand and threw it out the open window. “That’s the problem! I can’t think when you’re… breathing down my neck like that!”
Rachna pouted at his now-empty hand. “You managed just fine when Horan was the one breathing down your neck.”
“Yeah, but with Horan, he… I…” Mark trailed off.
Rachna raised an eyebrow.
Mark regained his train of thought. “Yeah! See that? All that… you judging me like that! All I can think of is you seeing me fail, I can’t take it!”
“Well, then I’ll leave.” Rachna climbed out of the car, picked his chips off the ground and sat on top of some boxes.
“I can still see you!” Mark climbed out of the car as well and stormed over to where Rachna was sitting. “You know, I’ve been thinking about you. One of the reasons I can’t plan. What exactly are you here for? You tell me that you’re not just busting in there and taking Erlani out because I need to become a better person, but then why are you hanging around me like this? If you want me to work so bad, just give me space and let me think! But do you? No! What do you want?!”
Rachna stared at Mark with an expression of serene amusement, like a kid who found a cool stick in the park and was planning on showing it to their friends. “There are plenty of things in this world that people don’t understand, yet deal with on a daily basis. What causes gravity? What created the universe? Why do chip bags contain so few chips? There’s hopefully an explanation to all of those, but you can’t expect to get the answer to them by just asking. Maybe you’ll never know the answer to any of them.”
“Quantum something, Big Bang, capitalism.” Mark wasn’t sure if any of those were correct, but they were the first plausible answers that came to mind.
“...What matters more is that those facts cause things to happen around them, and what you do in response to those happenings.”
Mark looked at Rachna for a while, expecting him to say something else. After a bit, he realized he wouldn’t get any more. “Is that just an overly long-winded way to say that you’re not gonna tell me?”
Rachna opened his mouth again, but stopped when Mark put a finger over Rachna’s lips. “And don’t answer that with more long-winded philosophical trash.”
Rachna relaxed when Mark pulled his finger away. “If you’re going to force me to be blunt, then all I’ll say in response to your question is ‘yes’.”
“Then just say that!” Mark slumped to the ground. “Why is it that whenever I get stuck with an ancient superbeing of unfathomable power, I get paired with the annoying ones? I have to do everything, and everything you’d think would help ends up only slowing me down!”
Rachna slid down the boxes and sat down on the ground with Mark, only for the latter to scooch further away. “Well, most things in life are complicated, and there are things we can’t understand about a lot of things.”
“I heard you the first time, stop repeating yourself!” Mark climbed into the car and started going through his supplies. “I don’t need a lecture on how things are complicated, I need to actually think about this. Horan isn’t saving himself, and the sooner you’re out of my hair, the better.”
Rachna chuckled to himself patronizingly. “And things like that are exactly why I keep trying to tell you that. You think it’s as straightforward as that? Save Horan and get on with your life, reassured that you’re a good person? You know that things don’t end there. If you do get him out, what then? Do you really intend to keep that contract going? You have no plan, and you’re just hoping things will turn out great.”
Mark groaned loudly and somewhat melodramatically from the car boot. “Seriously? This again? I get that you’ve been watching me for a while, which is still creepy, but this is completely unrelated to what I’m doing right now! Right now, my long-term plan has nothing to do with just getting me and my Primus out of this demon-infested city. Got it?”
Rachna walked over and looked at Mark rummaging through his junk. “It has everything to do with this, and you’re well aware of that. Say you do actually manage to get Horan out of here. What then? Say you stick to your plan and sell him off once Thel stops messing with your prospects. Now you’re fabulously wealthy and set for life. Do you expect to spend the latter half of your life just… being rich? What happens if something goes wrong, or you can’t find a buyer, or Horan dies in transit? You’ll just go right back to being your old slaver self, and any improvement saving Horan made to you will be washed away, like a pretty seashell at high tide. You refused to throw away your chance with him, but have you ever stopped to wonder if it’s a chance that might be better off thrown away?”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Mark bolted upright, climbed out of the car, drew his pistol from his pants and pointed it under Rachna’s chin, who barely reacted. “Alright, that’s it. I’ve let you pester me, call me dumb and shoot holes in my plan for long enough. But let me make one thing clear: I. Don’t. Care. All I’m trying to do is save Horan and get out of here. You can bother me about my life goals later, but right now, it doesn’t matter. You’re not bulletproof, and if I hear one more judgmental word out of that blue mouth of yours, I’m blowing your brains out. Now leave me alone, and let me work in peace!”
Rachna stared at Mark for a moment, probing him. After a few seconds, he shrugged. “Alright.” The next moment, he was gone.
Relieved to get the chance of a few more minutes of peace, Mark sat on the ground and started drawing in the dust, in the vain hope of thinking of something. Nothing yet.
-
Horan lay in the corner of his pit, huddled against the wall with his eyes closed. He weakly looked up to see the trap door swing open to allow Erlani through. Erlani landed in the centre of the pit, dimly illuminated by the pillar of light streaming through the trap door.
“Evening.”
Horan pushed softly against the wall, leaning away from Erlani. “Oh, is that the time? Felt like way less, I’m having a real blast down here. But now that you’ve arrived, the fun can really begin.”
Erlani looked at Horan’s hunched figure with disdain. “Hilarious. I’m bored.”
“I fail to see why I’m supposed to care.”
Erlani marched over and picked up Horan by his bindings. “You’re supposed to care because I say so. You’re my prisoner, so I may as well have some fun with you while you’re in my custody. Break the monotony.”
“Really not liking where this is going,” muttered Horan as he was dragged out of the pit.
As Horan was pulled through the tunnels and up the staircases of the Galata, passing demons were given encouraging looks by Erlani to poke, kick and generally abuse Horan as he went past, soliciting plenty of laughs from the various demons. Horan examined Erlani’s attire. He didn’t have his halberd with him, but there was still a wicked-looking knife sheathed on his thigh. That was slightly concerning.
Eventually, Erlani brought Horan to the top floor of the tower. Windows were placed regularly on each wall of the fourteen-sided room, split into segments by the rotting wood floor. A scale model of the city lay on its side on one wall, a large crack running through the centre.
Erlani pulled Horan over to one of the windows and made him look out over the decrepit Istanbul landscape. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Eh, place could use a makeover or two million.”
“I’m talking about the freedom, moron. All that space to be free from your dark pit and the threat of Lord Thel, only a window away. Tantalizing, isn’t it?”
Horan rolled his eye. “Oh, taunting me with the allure of freedom? Real original, pal. How about we skip ahead to dangling me over the edge?”
Erlani scowled and brought Horan up a layer, onto an open-air balcony just below the conical roof. “If you’re so excited to get to the fun part, I’ll oblige.” He leaned forward and held Horan by his bindings mid-air, dangling 150 feet off the ground.
Horan kept up his poker face. “Wow, look. Ground. Haven’t seen nearly enough of that today.”
“How about a closer look, then?” Erlani let go, sending Horan plummeting down to street level.
Twisting in the air, Horan looked Erlani in the eye as he fell, as if daring his captor to rescue him. After watching Horan fall about half of the way down, Erlani broke and flew down to catch him mid-air.
As Horan was placed back on the balcony, he tutted. “Real scary. You sure know how to put me in my place.”
Erlani knocked Horan to the stone floor with a single blow. “Shut it, I’m trying.”
Horan rolled onto his back, wincing in pain. “Trying to what, scare me with overdone intimidation tactics? Great job.”
Erlani stomped petulantly, cracking the stone beneath his feet. “Thel just makes it look easy, how does he do it?”
Horan sat up and wriggled up against the wall, sniffing to hold in the blood he felt in his sinuses. “Ah, it’s not you. Thel’s been at the villain routine for millennia, he knows his branding. You new to the whole conquest thing?”
Erlani looked at Horan suspiciously, as if trying to determine what Horan was trying to accomplish. Horan sighed. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize prisoners weren’t meant to feel empathy.”
Erlani leaned on the railing, looking at where the sun would be setting, were it visible from the ground. “Yeah, I’m pretty new. I’m one of the High Emperor’s nephews, and when we manifested I was tasked with the ‘dispensation of justice’. Sounds cool, but it’s really just me hunting down demons whenever they crop up.”
Horan stood up by pushing against the wall, and leant over next to Erlani. “Yeah, I can imagine how that’d get boring after a millennium or two. Especially for someone like you.”
“Exactly!” Erlani turned and leaned against the railing, his back against the sun. “After three thousand years of that, just a couple years ago, I started to wonder, ‘what’s the point’? Demons don’t always do something wrong, they’re just magic animals. And then, when the world ended, I started questioning what there even was to protect. The humans Deus left here? They’re just nomads and farmers, and one Deus didn’t even want. Not much worth protecting. So then I met Thel, and the two of us decided to team up and get this whole ball rolling. And I was down for it, I wanted to do something new. And I’ve seen how much fun Thel has with hamming up his villainy, as he says, but I just… don’t. I don’t have that drive he has. You know?”
Horan nodded. “Yeah, I feel you. Whole deal with that sucks.”
Erlani’s eyes narrowed. “Sure you do.” He put a hand on Horan’s shoulder, who didn’t dare move. “I have to say, you’re good. Getting me vulnerable like that? Impressive. And it’s a real shame you had to lead me on like that, because you’re not getting anything more out of me.”
Horan put up no resistance as he was pulled away from the railing. “Hey now, I was just trying to connect! Who says I was- Woah!” Horan yelped as Erlani hurled him back inside, his leg slamming into the far wall. “Okay. Not talking. Got it.”
Erlani pulled Horan back down the tower, even more roughly than when the two had gone up. As he walked back down to the tunnels, Erlani muttered to himself under his breath, which Horan just barely managed to pick up on.
“Makes it look so easy… When he monologues, it’s threatening, when I do it, I overshare… Does he take courses? I should ask…”
Finally, the two arrived back at Horan’s pit. Erlani opened up the trap door and dangled Horan over by the scruff of his neck. “You’ve only got about twelve hours until Thel picks you up, so you should get some sleep. It’ll probably be your last chance.” He let go and dumped Horan into the pit.
“I’ll mull it over. Have a great day!” Horan kept taunting Erlani until the trap door closed in his face.