Nothing more needed to be said. Harmony was resolved. Truth could see it in his eyes. His body would break and his soul would shatter before he quit. The System had been working on Harmony for almost six years now. Truth was brainwashed to near suicidal fanaticism in one. Admittedly, in both cases, Starbrite had been pushing on an open door. With that little motivational speech, Mr. Red had ensured the perfect sacrifice.

Truth flexed his fingers. Mr. Red was a superb ritualist. Best he had ever seen. Really made Truth appreciate his deficiencies. As a thank you, he would make sure not a single bone in Mr. Red’s body remained intact. Even the quite tiny ones inside the ears. Easily overlooked, by the thoughtless. It might take some ripping and prying to get at, but that was fine. All in a good cause, and gratitude made souls grow strong.

“It’s time. Ling will lead you to where you will be bathed and prepare for the ritual.” Mr. Red gave Harmony a slight smile.

“Yes Sir. I will do my very best.”

Mr. Red didn’t say anything unnecessary, just nodded his head in appreciation. As soon as Harmony was out of the room, the smile drained from his face. He quickly checked over the ritual space. Truth kept moving, trying to stay in the ritualist’s blindspot as much as possible. Truth could feel that his body was different now, his integration with the world subtly different, but he still wasn’t prepared to test the observational abilities of a Level Nine. Seemed… unwise.

Some faint prickling of warning was on the edge of his skin. It wasn’t Incisive, just the slumrat in him. Mr. Red looked like exactly the sort of person who liked to counter-ambush. If he was showing a gap, it was probably intentional. Hanging out by himself in the crucially important ritual room?

Well, they might not know he was in the base, but it was a cheap precaution to be ready for surprises, right? And Truth had proven that he could make his way in just about everywhere.

He half expected the man to suddenly yell “I know you’re in here, show yourself!” But the ritualist didin’t. Maybe he thought it was beneath him. There was a knock at the door.

“Everything set?” A woman, also still in her office gear. Her hair was cropped short, but it looked good on her. Truth was puzzled by it for a second until he looked over at Mr. Red. His hair was short too. Must be to prevent accidents during rituals.

Mr. Red nodded, keeping his gaze moving around. “Not so much as a dust mote out of place. The sacrifice is prepped.”

“Mmm.”

Ms. Black looked around the room as well, indifference smoothing her face. Eventually, Mr. Red broke the silence.

“Still have that premonition?”

“Yes. Going on two weeks now. Extreme danger. Could just be things getting worse outside.”

“But you are certain it isn’t.”

She nodded. “It feels more personal.”

The two shared a look, shrugged, and walked out. Truth carefully trailed behind them, trying to kill his existence as much as he practically could. It was a little frustrating, even with how tightly he was holding his emotions. It should be possible to ambush and kill the two of them, but he knew he would fail. They were waiting for it. Even if he had hidden himself like a rat in the walls of the world, they were waiting for him to pop out.

The two trudged off to a ritual bathing and changing room. Their vestments were already laid out. Silver ewers, inlaid with precious metals and gems, poured sanctified water over them. They dried using cloths woven of trees whose swaying leaves brushed away evil fortune. There was not a single thing in this room, towel racks included, that was not a precious treasure. So precious, most people wouldn’t even recognize them if they saw them. Truth included. He could just smell the reek of money and power on everything.

“It’s funny. Not ha-ha funny, but… funny.” Ms. Black looked over at Mr. Red. They were both naked, and both utterly unbothered by that.

“What is?” He asked.

“We have worked together for… seventy years?”

“Seventy one next month, yes.”

“Had sex hundreds of times, if not a thousand.”

“As part of rituals, not recreationally, but yes.” Mr. Black nodded, clearly wondering where this was going.

“Lots of late night meals together, on the job. A lifetime of shared experiences. Climbing the ladder of power all the way to the pinnacle together.”

“Yep.”

“And I just see you as a colleague. Not even a work ‘friend.’” She did the little air quotes. “Just a reliable co-worker.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“Same. Funny.” Mr. Black shrugged. “I guess we just never clicked.”

“I don’t mean romance, I mean… that’s really it? Seventy years. I have known you longer than any other person in my life, and we are on cordial nods. I don’t think we ever had drinks after work, or watched a fight together or… whatever friendly co-workers do. Scheme against our wives. Husbands. Whatever.”

“Well, other than the company organized socials. But so what? Did you want that?”

Ms. Red laughed silently as she started dressing. “No, not really. It just struck me how solitary my life has been, even with all the people around me. And then it struck me that I was content with that. It’s been a good life. Fulfilling. I got to see, if not the absolute peak, then one step below it.”

Mr. Black smiled one of his meaningless smiles as he put on his own costume. “Yes. I noticed it long ago. I was standing under a streetlight, waiting for a sacrifice to be hauled into the back of a wagon and I looked up. I felt suddenly alone. Utterly, terrifyingly, alone. Dozens of people around me, and yet I was alone and lost in the obliterating light.”

He carefully eased his arms into the undershirt. There was some delicate magical embroidery on it. Truth imagined it was rather fragile.

“You got over it.”

“No, I didn’t.” Mr. Black shrugged carefully and gave his torso a little shimmy, making sure everything fell into place. “I am still lost in that terrifying presence.”

“Don’t you mean void?” Ms. Black was, Truth noticed, practically mirroring Mr. Red’s movements. Not intentionally, he suspected. Just the product of endless repetition.

“No, I do not. That’s what’s so terrifying. White light contains every color within it. Even more so than the Sun, it fits my imagination of God. Infinite variation sublimated into a single, seamless, perfect, whole. And the only fault in that infinite perfection, the only stain on that pure white, is me.”

“Sounds kind of egotistical.”

“Just my own perspective. I know perfectly well I’m not special in the grand scheme of things. But it did make something very plain. I am always alone, and never alone. The fact that I am capable of thinking both “I” and “alone” proves just how far I am from the infinite, while immersed within that infinite.

So… why get close to other little blots in the light? They are as limited and alone as I am. Nothing will be gained by clumping together, as twice nothing remains nothing. I should just remain in awe and terror at the infinitely surrounding light. It was that moment, I think, when I lost my final trace of empathy.” Mr. Black’s hands never stopped moving, fixing his vestments and trying to wear the surplice just-so as he looked intently in the polished obsidian mirror.

“Huh. And here I was just thinking we are just shockingly anti-social.” Ms. Black’s smile was as meaningless as Mr. Red’s.

“We are also shockingly anti-social. I suspect that’s why we climbed so high. Lack of distractions.”

“Yes, once I pushed past all those early years of trauma, it was remarkably easy to cut ties with the world. To drift past it, touching it only when and where I pleased, or Starbrite required.” Ms. Black finished buttoning the surplice.

“Oh, you had a messed up childhood too?” Mr. Red sounded politely interested.

“I think it’s more or less mandatory past Level Three. Cultivation of that quantity would be impossible if one is wasting time on family or friends or… whoever. Children, I suppose. Or pets.” Ms. Black casually fixed her collar in the mirror, then made a few minute adjustments to her jewelry.

“Didn’t you have… I’m going to say… potted plants? I thought you mentioned them once.” Mr. Red wiggled his feet into the waiting slippers. He made it look easy.

“The various maids look after them. I don’t even see them anymore. Not really. They became part of the background decades ago.”

Mr. Red nodded understandingly. “I had an underling give me a potted plant. I stuck it on a side table and forgot about it. I was startled to find it had grown into a vigorous little tree when I noticed it again. Generations of housekeepers tended to it carefully, and I never noticed. Funny.”

Truth nodded. It was funny. It was so damn funny. He controlled the urge to summon the Tongue and lay into the two of them. It wasn’t time. Soon, though. He could feel it, feel incisive coiling, the poison dripping along the fangs. Even Cup and Knife seemed eager to have a go at the two ritualists.

“Ready to end a bloodline?”

“If we did all that work and we only get his bloodline, I’m going to spend however much time remains exterminating all life in Siphios. I don’t care what it costs. I’m going to do it.” Ms. Black sniffed.

“Why Siphios? At this point we know he’s from Jeon. I would personally put money on him being from the same slum as our sacrifice, if not the same building.”

“Because fuck ‘em.” She exhaled through her nose and set out. Mr. Red blinked in faint surprise, smiled slightly, briefly, and followed behind her.

Amazing. Truth found himself smiling too, and with no more feeling of humor than Mr. Red. It was really amazing. This is what the top of the Pyramid looked like. This is the best of what Starbrite had to offer. He really wanted to laugh, and really couldn’t. It was just too damn bleak. Then a real smile did escape somehow.

He only had sex once, and it was more special to him than the hundreds of times these two fucked. Teenage-Truth would never have believed it. Twenty-Six-Truth could barely believe it. He didn’t want their stuff either. Maybe just to use, but as something to work towards? He didn’t want it. What would he do with it if he had it? Who, exactly, would be impressed if he waved it around? How… funny. It was just so damn funny. It was the biggest damn joke in the world.

Well, that wasn’t fair. It was easy to not worry about starving or finding shelter when you just stole whatever you needed. He would take the more easily pawnable items, the ones with big chunky jewels in them. If he went off world, he could probably sell them. And if he stayed local? Who wouldn’t want a fancy water pitcher?

Into the ring they went. Truth quickly followed the two seniors down the hallway. He had an… unpleasant idea. All this spellwork, all these intersecting lines carved and painted and inlaid over every surface, all the scarification, and potions and purifications and anointments, all the ritual prayers and blessings and invocations and banishments all of it was just trying to operate machinery hidden behind a curtain. The magic wasn’t here. All this stuff was to intercept the magic coming from higher levels of existence than this one. Starbrite got it. It’s how his best tricks worked.

So what if he were to just… bypass all the big brain stuff, and steal the ritual for himself?