Truth grinned mirthlessly at the communication altar. He couldn’t see Merkovah, but he could certainly imagine the “old man” shock on his young face. Looks like he knew. Well, I wouldn’t have believed him if he denied it.
“Oh, you know me. I take an interest in people, and listen when they tell me things. Also, having eliminated all other reasonable possibilities, it’s where I landed.”
There was a long silence.
“Teacher?”
“On the one hand, I feel like I can take a little credit by encouraging you out of your low self esteem and showing you that you can trust your own reasoning. On the other hand, we, and many other nations, spent a horrifying amount of time and money validating that theory. So. There is frustration there.”
“‘Validating that theory’ doesn’t sound like ‘proving that right.’ Or, for that matter, like an explanation for why you sent me to draw the System out of cover if you didn’t believe it was, actually, hidden somewhere.” Truth noticed the edge creeping into his voice. It was hard to miss.
“They don’t sound the same because they aren’t the same. We didn’t prove a damn thing, except excluding some very, very specific things it couldn’t be. We can show that the System Astrologica is likely some kind of higher dimensional being, or at least, exists on a higher dimensional level that we can easily access. And I sent you to draw it out of cover because it has to be interacting with the world somehow, and there is no visible means by which it is doing that.”
“There is. I told you there is. The swearing in stamps the System onto your soul.”
“No, what you said, and what we had been able to deduce, was that the System implants a tiny fragment of itself into your soul, which then interfaces with the main body of the System. The distinction matters, because it means there is communication between your soul and the main body. And in case you haven't noticed, somehow, when humans interact with higher dimensional beings, it usually involves a whole lot of highly expensive magical furniture, sacrifices and intensive spell work.”
“Or you have a Station Six situation,” Truth countered. “Higher dimensions just leaning on a place. No furniture, sacrifices or rituals required.”
“Young man, would you describe any portion of your time at Station Six as “subtle” or “hard to spot?”
“I would not.” Truth allowed.
“Whereas, despite centuries of observation and testing, we have never caught the System in action.”
Truth thought that one over a moment. Hey not-the-System, how did you describe communicating with the main System? Like sending messages, right?”
<
Just turn up. Really just turn up?
<>
Yeeeeeessssss…
<
Huh.
<
“Mister Wells?” Merkovah said. Truth startled. He must have been silent for longer than he thought.
“Sorry, thinking.”
“Something I tend to encourage. We have been planning for this for a while. If you still don’t manage to make the System show itself during or after the rescue, we have some contingency plans. Which I’m not going to discuss for obvious reasons. Anything else I should know?”
“Not yet. Something about the arrangement of things. Communicating from soul to mind then mind to soul to… what, exactly? It reminds me of, well, prayer.” Truth spoke slowly. “Prayer” wasn’t quite the right word either, but he was suffering from the lack of conceptual vocabulary.
Merkovah just grunted in reply. “Alright, let’s run through things. I can’t imagine we have much time left before this ritual is traced.”
They raced through the details of what had happened since Conjin. Merkovah had a good laugh out of Starbrite sabotaging its own productivity with the roadblocks, and another out of the giant demon blowing up the bank it was supposed to protect. He flat out refused to believe that Dr. Sun was a sadistic old monster, however, and insisted that it must have been a disguise. Truth didn’t argue about it. Maybe the old man was right.
“Anything else?” Merkovah asked.
“So much. So, so much. Let me fill you in on MegaShroom, and a small commission I made in the University.”
Truth spoke quickly. Merkovah laughed again and said he would look into them.
“Alright, if we are down to that-”
“Last thing, I promise.” Truth rushed. “I heard a theory about why we can’t cultivate past level nine.”
“Oh? That’s relevant to anything?”
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“Yes. What if it’s the planetary spirit? What if that eminence just decided it didn’t like humans, and choked off our path of ascension?”
There was silence over the altar.
“Teacher?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Talking with a demon. Not an infernal demon, a local.”
“Ah.” There was a longer silence. “Earth Brotherhood?”
Truth blinked in surprise. “Yes.”
“The idea… has been around. No evidence supports it, and it is entirely supposition. I have excellent reason to think that God is actively ignoring this world, and that seems like reason enough for the collapse. Everything before that being his dwindling patience with our repeated failure to abide by his law.”
“Sure. Something to think about though.”
“Yes. Dead drop will be at N-41. Give me a day or two to get it set up.”
They said their farewells. Truth had mixed feelings about not mentioning the whole “Can’t imagine a better world” thing, but it sounds like the Exorcist had enough on his mind as it was. I really miss just being able to talk with him about stuff. Just being able to ask all the questions to someone who either knew the answers or knew where to find the answers.
He sighed and looked over at the deer-demon meditating under the tree. The demon knew more than Truth was really comfortable with, but… even if the demon spilled everything to Internal Security, would things really be different for Truth? Or put another way, would the demon ever volunteer anything, given that their temple might be obliterated for helping Jeon’s Most Wanted?
No. The Abbot was going to keep their mouth shut. They just wanted him gone, soonest, with as little evidence of his passing as possible.
Which was fair enough, really. And he kind of felt like he owed the old timer.
“So. I’m all done here.” Truth nodded to the Abbot.
“Anything else you need?” The Abbot asked.
“No, I’m set. Just for my own peace of mind, you are aware that even if you call Internal Security right this minute, you are still ‘aiding and abetting,’ right? And the penalties for that?”
“Oh yes. Or potentially “Offering Aid and Comfort to the Enemy,” depending on who you are. Move it from conspiracy to treason. Not that the penalty would be different either way.” The giant deer head nodded calmly.
“Right.” Truth was a little thrown by all this, but there really wasn’t anything else to say. “Thanks for the chat and the insight. Be well.”
“Mmm.”
The abbot just nodded again. Truth shrugged and ran West. The Great White Mountain was North and East. No need to make things easy for anyone tracking him. Besides, the river Fan flowed into the sea not too far from here.
Truth ran through the woods, just happy to be wearing pants this time. His head was buzzing with ideas. The sheer scope of everything. He was a tower rat. It hadn’t been that long, from his perspective, since he was studying for the SAT, hoping for a better nest for him and the siblings. He had wanted to be a good rat.
He shook his head and focused. He was near the river. There would be at least one, possibly two, more checkpoints over the river between here and the ocean. Well. He could deal.
Truth ran flat out, trying to get as much distance from the temple as quickly as he could. He hit the highway in just a couple of minutes. There was a short moment of agonizing about running along the road or taking the literal slow boat, but the debate was happily resolved for him by the barbed wire and lookout posts lining the riverside. Far, far too short to stop him from jumping over, but they spoke to a certain way of thinking. The mouth of the river was being fenced off. There would be checkpoints over the water, and checkpoints on the road.
He’d bet there would be fewer over the water. He looked around. Not a significant amount of traffic on this basically nowhere stretch of highway, and a terminally bored private standing in the lookout. The conscript was displaying the zeal and diligence Truth remembered from his own service days, as she firmly refused to look at either the river or the road. She doubtless had faith that one of her fellow conscripts would spot any problems. After all, they would be paying attention to their jobs and not, for example, hypothetically, enjoying some depressingly basic pornography and bathtub narcotics. Like she was.
He dashed across the six lanes, jumped up on top of the stubby watchtower, then with a little help from Abner’s Amble, launched himself out over the water. It was a little finicky on the landing, but he was able to time it right so he could land at a run. He had sprinted to the closest cargo ship in record time. Getting up the side of the ship was more challenging, but not that challenging. He had a hell of a vertical leap, and the friction of his shoes on the hull was enough to let him push up.
Truth was standing next to the Captain on the bridge of the ship in less than thirty seconds from deciding he would travel by boat. Unseen. Unheard. Moving like gods and ghosts.
Truth looked down at his hand and clenched it into a fist. He admired the way the tendons appeared, taut as piano wires, and the way the blue arteries snaked under his skin. He relaxed his hand and then flexed again. Enjoying the strong grip and the feeling of the blood pumping up his muscles.
He smiled and let it go. Time to nose around and figure out where they were headed.
____________________________________________________________________________
Truth nosed around for exactly five minutes before he found himself back on the bridge. It turns out that while a cargo ship is, indeed, very large, the portion of it occupied by humans is very small. And yet, somehow, he couldn’t find any indication of how the ship was steered.
He retreated to the bridge. The bridge was also “wrong,” in that there was a complete absence of a steering wheel. There was a little shrine, a chair for the captain, an enormous trash bin already partially full of empty energy drink bottles, an ashtray fully full of cigarette butts… a whole lot of nothing that told him where they were going.
What kind of incredibly cursed ship doesn’t have a steering wheel? Or even a damn compass? How are they navigating this thing? With good wishes?
<
What?
<
It’s a ship, not a boat. And how else would you steer it?
<
Truth looked around. Nothing seemed like a likely candidate. The only thing that looked remotely noteworthy was the shrine. Truth walked over. It took him a minute to understand what he was seeing. There was a little icon of… he wasn’t sure what saint. Then below that was a few small dumplings, some fresh fruit, and a truly heinous looking sigil, carved into polished bone. At the front end of the table was a wide map, showing a route traced in dried blood. It started in Harban, ran up the Fan, out into the bay, then into the wider Green Sea, then sharply north. A short haul, as ocean vessels went.
He traced his finger along the route. A short haul, north and west. Terminating at the port of Nailad, which sat at the end of a substantial peninsula and which, when he drew his finger back east, was just north of the Jeon border. Truth smiled. The mountains along the Jeon-Onis border were beyond rugged. Spiteful would be a fair description. Poor beyond belief, even by Truth’s standards. Only the mine bosses and other criminals made money.
It would be a long haul through horrible terrain, filled with the defeated and their predators, all to go digging into a volcano to save a princess and hopefully kill an evil king.
I really am a fool. But now for the real challenge- convincing Etenesh and Jember that I’m not trying to be a hero.