The meat hung in the cold, dark, box. The barge took them past the judges, who looked down on them and distained them. The box of meat was carried down the river, on to that place of long knives, where children learned a bloody truth- they were the least important component in a machine for pigs, and always would be. They were worth less than the meat they cut up. Meat they would be arrested and beaten for trying to eat.

The meat hung still, only juddering when some unseen crane lifted away the boxes and carried them ashore. That shake seemed to stir some animal spirit in the hanging carcasses, as one pig corpse shuddered and drew a gasping breath.

One strong hand reached up and back. Strong muscles, trained, cultivated, used hard, flexed and lifted. The meat rose off the hook, and lowered itself softly to the floor. The hole in its chest was very thin. Meat was expensive. It's not good to damage it unnecessarily. This meat was able to patch the hole with a small effort. Reminding itself that it was more than meat took longer.

The world really, truly, sincerely, believed Truth Medici was dead meat. Truth was determined to prove the world wrong.

He took a few minutes just to recover. It had worked well. The context mattered. Dead meat in the cabin of a long haul truck was believable for only upsetting reasons. Dead meat hanging with other dead meat in a refrigerated cargo container going to a meat processing plant outside the city was entirely plausible, and needed little magical support to be convincing.

It still sucked, though. It hurt. It was exhausting, and worse, demoralizing. It wasn’t fun to fall into that well of oblivion. Wasn’t fun to be meat on a hook. Truth rubbed his hand over where the hole had been. The physical damage had healed. He had a feeling the mental damage would take more time.

Sitting there in the dark, cold box, watching his breath slip out in long streams of steam, Truth concluded that he was not happy. He was not even content. Perhaps he had no right to expect happiness or contentment. He was an international terrorist creating chaos in the days before the apocalypse. But this felt bad. Wrong. Not the hanging meat thing, though that was part of it. Just the whole approach to the problem of Starbrite.

Breathe in and out. Haul in the thinning cosmic rays, and trap them in your slowly perfecting body. In and out. In and out. Stretch, move, and let the cultivation calm you as your energy refilled.

This whole campaign was essentially a military action. There were political and economic consequences too, but the core of it was to hurt Starbrite and the System so much, they had to move and show a weakness. Lift that skirt of secrecy, flash a little leg.

But that wasn’t the way to think about things, was it? That was picking from the stacked deck. It was rolling up to the three card monty table swearing that you finally had a system and you would definitely find the lady this time.

You wouldn’t. You would never find the lady. There was no way to play the game and come out ahead. You didn’t realize the card that made the money was you. Truth had always walked straight past the little tables and their excited crowds when he was a kid. Foolish to think the game would change just because he got a little taller.

Level Zero denizens hauled open the door to the container, apparently not noticing or caring about the damage to the locks. They lifted the carcasses, hooks and all, onto their shoulders and carried them away. Into the assembly line butchery, Truth assumed. He wouldn’t be following them. He liked sausage, but had seen it made far too often, recently.

He stepped out of the cold, dark, box, and into the warm summer light. It didn’t seem fair that the day could be so beautiful. But the sky just didn’t care about his misery.

It would be night in Siphios. Truth smiled up at the clouds, wishing Etenesh sweet dreams. Then tacked on Jember too, because why not? Merkovah… he wasn’t sure Merkovah actually slept.

Now where was he? There was an irritating lack of road signs. He was on a dock next to a meat packing plant, next to the river Fan. Truth shrugged and started walking west, towards the sea. He would make his way to a road, and work from there.

Truth walked about fifteen minutes. It wasn’t particularly scenic, but what did you want out of an industrial park? There was, however, a distinct moment of whiplash once he got out of the park. He was next to a farm, and across the street from a long row of greenhouses. There were crummy low rise apartment buildings in sight, and he was near Highway 77.

Truth looked back at the industrial park, with its large, boxy buildings and assembly line butchery, to the brilliantly green fields, to the greenhouses growing vegetables and fruits, and then over to the apartments. No dead meat here.

The river had turned north west as it made its way up towards the sea. Nothing for it but to get walking. The days were longer as the summer settled in, but sunset wouldn’t be far off. He wanted to be well away from Harban and with a new base of operation before the sun rose again.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Truth tapped his toes against the pavement, smiled, and took off at a run. The eyes of the world just slid off him. Not considering that if Incisive encouraged a certain ethos and way of thinking, perhaps the Meditations of Valentinian might have the same effect. And that, of all his spells, it was the one he had practiced the most.

Truth ran along the dirt roads between the fields, keeping parallel to the river. There were suburbs north of the farms, but the logic of building the fields next to the widening river was inescapable- irrigation and transportation. So he took the easy option and kept to the fields. They didn’t provide much cover, but he was so far from anyone that there would be near enough no eyes on him anyway.

What did he want to ask Merkovah? Or tell him, for that matter. “Say, it just occurred to me that, logically, the System Astrologica must exist on a higher plane of existence, calling into question all my work here. So, you know, the fuck?”

There might be a more delicate way to put that. Or “Say, a senior suggested an idea. How do you feel about the proposition that, if we can prevent a harm without sacrificing something of moral equivalence, we morally ought to do it? Do you think that’s a good first step towards defining humanity as more than starving rats?”

Yes, he was sure that would make Merkovah very happy. It was just the kind of thing a six hundred year old spymaster loved hearing from his most rogue agent.

“Yeah, I’ve decided to ignore your missions and focus on finding the shattervoid girl. Next stop, Army Ford. Any information on that, by the way?” Ah, he could practically hear the shouts of joy from here.

Was that… corn? He had no idea what they were growing in these fields. It was pretty short to be corn. Wasn’t corn tall? He just didn’t know what corn looked like before it was stripped from the cob and packaged in the can. The only reason he knew about corn growing on a cob was the picture on the label.

He was a good distance away from Harban now, but nothing felt quite right. He didn’t want to just pop into some suburban home, or dig a hole in a field or something. At the same time, The “Luxury Hotel” game was definitely over.

He consulted his much abused road atlas. There was a big hill, mostly covered in woods, northeast of where he was. If he ran further north, he would actually start hitting mountains. The mountains just north of Harban were famously packed with military installations, ready to launch swarms of golems and spells at anything daring to threaten Harban or the river Fan.

There was a certain appeal to losing himself in the mountains, hiding in the place of most danger. It had worked before. But no, that close to that many military installations, it didn’t matter how sneaky the communication ritual was, it would be caught. He looked a little closer at the forested hill on his map. According to the atlas, there was a temple on the other side of the hill from him.

He didn’t have a better idea. He turned northeast and got running. Whatever it was, it would beat standing in a field.

The hill was taller than it looked on the map- easily over a hundred meters, vertically, of steep slope and dense trees. Quite pretty. The temple was tucked into the north east slope. Truth was kind of amused to see that it was a collection of small colorful buildings arranged around a little square and a big stone statue of a smiling demon. Something about the way it was pretending to be big, but was actually lots of small things. Like a school of fish.

The monks were tidying up after the visitors had left for the day. Brushing away the dirt with brooms rather than air demons. Odd, but presumably there was a reason for it. He started scouting around for something like a bedroom, and didn’t find much. He found bedding, but not beds. Apparently, the monks slept on the floor of one of the great halls.

He would really prefer not to, but if needs must…

He kept hunting around, looking for something useful, or at least comfortable. The Grand High Abbot or whatever must have their own room, right? Merkova's cell in Nag Hamadi was the same size as his, just with more bookshelves. So maybe not.

He pushed open another door, and found himself confronted by a rabbit. Not a very big rabbit, Perhaps half again taller than his hand was long. It did have little antlers, though. So that was something. The rabbit demon hopped through the door at speed. Apparently it had been stuck in there a while, and couldn’t wait to get out.

On a whim, Truth followed the rabbit down the halls. It quickly led him to another building. A small, open room, with polished wooden floors and another big demon statute. There were a few dozen demons sitting around, looking at the statue. Praying? He had no idea. They seemed quite peaceful.

Most importantly, however, was the big communication altar tucked in a corner, surrounded by a privacy ward. It was jarringly out of place, like a horse on an escalator. This room was clearly intended for worship, so why…

He took a closer look around. In a large, locked closet, he found his answer. A surprisingly robust set of scry recording and broadcasting talismans. The big transmission fetish was folded up and shoved into the corner. He wasn’t just in a temple. He was in the studio. Laughing quietly, he looked over at the statue.

This demon looked like a muscular man with a deer’s head. It was sitting comfortably cross legged, one palm outstretched towards you, the other hand raised shoulder high. Presumably there was some religious significance. He would find out tomorrow. For now, he would just… sleep. Just find a spot, rest his head on his shoes, and sleep. He gently moved enough supplies out of the closet to give him room to lie down in. It wasn’t really meaningful, but he appreciated the illusion of privacy. Sleep soon claimed him.

The little demons didn’t see him. They seemed content just to silently look at the statue. Until something in the air changed, and they bolted from the room. Truth’s nous gave a little shake. And the eyes of the demon statue opened.