CHAPTER 13: DEALS WITH DEVILS
"We only have half a day to stabilize the route." Somewhere, far in the back of my mind, something raised rage-red eyes and looked around.
Simon nodded. "Indeed. I'm afraid I'll need payment in advance for that. I'm not spending my own mana."
"There's no possible way I can make 640 Spirit in an afternoon! Why did you even bother telling me about it if—"
"Hold on," Marcus said, putting a hand on my head to break into my tirade. "It's an opening bid."
"No," Simon said. "It's not. This is a big enough deal that I'm not going to risk losing it because I put a little too much margin on. 640 is my cost plus the minimum profit that I'll accept."
The world began to get a little red around the edges and I could hear myself growling as though from far away. I had a chance to go home, except I didn't because there was no possible way that I could earn the fee that fast, and this red-skinned bastard was taunting me with it! Where did he get off, dangling salvation and family in front of me only to take it back and laugh in my face?! I'd show him faces. I'd show him what his face looked like after I stepped on it and smooshed it all over the stupid ugly rough-textured floor like the pustulent little zit he was!
I stepped forward one pace.
"Easy," Estelle said, moving to stay beside me and running one hand down my shoulder in smooth, relaxing strokes. "It's okay, Athos. Relax. Good dog. It's going to be okay. Take it easy. Can you sit down for me?"
The words 'good dog' jolted me, putting the anger at a little distance. It was still there, I was still ready to rip Simon in heckin' half, but now I was aware that I was angry instead of merely reacting to my anger.
I forced myself to stop leaning forward. I forced my lips to relax back so my teeth were not showing. I forced myself to breathe, steadily and evenly, although the best I was able to manage was harsh panting as the rage sparked through my lungs and made my blood fizz.
I focused on memories of lying in Dad's lap in front of the noisybox while he absently stroked my ears. Of playing fetch with Cassie in the backyard as she learned how to throw a ball. Of scrabbling urgently into the front hall to greet Mom as she got home from work, and the way she would laugh and pet me and call me a good boy as I bodythumped her with lurrrv to say that she was the best Mom ever and I had missed her.
Slowly, I pulled the rage back under control and sat down. The floor was granite and I could feel the pitting and roughness of it on my bum. The stone was warmer than it should have been, and irritating.
Simon was leaning away and one clawed hand had dipped below the counter. He looked back and forth between me and Estelle. "Is there a problem?" he asked.
"Maybe," I growled. Murray had amazing vocal range, as he managed to include the correct intonation in the translation.
"Everyone be cool," Estelle said, stepping forward enough that she was half a pace in front of me. She was mostly looking at Simon but had me in the corner of her eye as she patted the air with both hands, metaphorically tamping down the sizzling undercurrent of anger that was still sparking off of me. "This doesn't need to go badly."
"Let's talk splits," Marcus said carefully. He was resting the butt of his spear on the ground, keeping it in place with a casual grip, but the end was tipped slightly forward towards Simon. Before, Marcus had been keeping the spear in the crook of his arm, angled up over his shoulder and backwards. His current posture would make it much faster to bring the point in alignment with Simon's stupid ugly heckin' face for a lovely bit of stabbing.
"Meaning?" Simon asked.
"The 640 was a package deal for the guidestones, the portal stone, and the stabilization, right?"
"And use of my door," Simon clarified.
"And use of your door. Let's split those out. How much do you need just for the stabilization?"
Simon considered that for several seconds, looking back and forth between the three of us as he did. "You're proposing paying for the stabilization now to gain yourself time to earn the rest of the fee?"
I huffed in surprise. That...was a good thought. I relaxed a little bit.
"Right," Marcus said. With his left hand he reached out and patted me carefully on the shoulder. "Seems like the best way for everyone to win. This is obviously a pretty important deal and I'm sure none of us want it to fall through. Right?"
"Indeed." He paused, thinking. "Stabilizing the entire route will be extremely expensive. What I could do is..." He hesitated, clearly groping for vocabulary. "I'm sorry, I don't have the exact words in this language. I can do a partial stabilization. It will buy you two days, perhaps three. By the end of that time the full ritual will need to be performed or it will be too late. Doing it in two stages like that will be more difficult but I can make it work."
"Okay. How much for this partial stabilization?"
"Perhaps...sixty Spirit? That's upfront, and then I'll drop the package cost to 610."
"Sixty? That's—" / "Done. I can pay that."
Marcus broke off in mid-word and glared at me, gritting his teeth.
"What?" I asked. "I can. I'm down to 108 Essence right now, but that's still good enough."
Marcus's hands clenched into fists. He cleared his throat, then took a deep breath. "Good to know, Athos. Perhaps, in future, let me take care of the negotiating? And don't be quite so quick to volunteer your stats?"
"Oh. Right. Sorry." I started to snoot-bump him in apology, then I remembered that the skin had been stripped off of my snoot by those stupid worms and so I was wearing a fragile plaster of gauze that would start bleeding if I nudged it too hard.
"So...sixty works for you?" Simon said, barely even trying to hide the smugness.
"Apparently," Marcus grumbled.
"Excellent. The ritual takes about an hour but there's no need for you to be here for it, so—"
"Hang on," Marcus told him, dismissing Simon's words with a casual wave. "There's a few more things to cover. Like, for example, Athos still owes you for the original deal, finding the route. As part of the overall package, you're going to forgive that debt, plus give him full details and a map of each of the domains he'll need to cross, plus supplies for the trip."
"I will, will I?"
"Yup."
"You realize that you don't actually have any leverage here, right? Your friend needs this route if he ever wants to go home. He'll pay whatever it takes."
"You realize that you aren't the only PortalCo shop in town, right?"
The demon looked as though he'd been slapped. "You would go to another representative after I've done all the work?!"
"In a heartbeat."
I could not help myself; I felt positive glee at Simon's expression.
Simon digested the news for several seconds. "I don't have details on all the domains. I don't have more than names and locator frequencies for most of them. Plus, transnoxaetherial transit is complicated. For one thing, every domain is of essentially infinite size, so a complete map is impractical."
"Well, then just the route from where he'll enter the domain to the entrance to the next."
"That's not—" Simon paused. "Here, why don't you just read this?" He reached down and pulled a piece of paper out from under the table, laying it on the counter in front of him so that we could all see it.
We weren't terribly sanguine about being that close to Simon, but we still gathered around, each of us keeping an eye on him while we read through what quickly became clear was a letter to him from another demon. A letter parts of which had been scribbled over with angry gestures that had actually torn the paper in a few places.
> Hey Simon,
>
> Twenty-seven-link interdomainal route, huh? Guess this guy is seriously desperate. Anyway, yeah, I can give you a short rundown to give to him. I'll even try to use small words, since I know you ███████ even when ██████ and ███████████████████████████ Don't get offended, I'm just saying the facts!
>
> First thing for him to know is that a domain is a treoconvex brane translating through a vector-positive thaumoconstrained matrix of dimension septos-prime Sorry. That went over your head, right? You never did ████████████████████████████████████████
>
> Okay, small words. Right. Domains are 'bumpy' and they're always moving, so the contact points between two adjacent domains are constantly shifting around. That means that if your customer opens a portal from Domain A to Domain B at noon, he might have to be standing in a different part of Domain A to re-open that portal an hour later. The doorway in your office will get this ███████ of yours to within fifty miles or so, but he'll need a guidestone to get him to the exact spot, since it's going to be moving around while he's there. I've included a supply tuned to the domains you specified. Don't worry, ████, I made them idiot-proof. Each guidestone will activate when it enters the appropriate domain. The outer edge will glow red to show which direction to move. When it arrives at a suitable point, the whole circumference will glow red. When that happens, have him push some mana into the stone in order to create the portal to the next domain on the path. (This will cause the stone to crumble! Make sure the █████ knows that!)
>
> Next thing: Interdomainal portals are influenced by the metasup are influenced by the stuff around them, let's say. (Gotta keep it simple for you, kid!) It's like with magnets—if you're trying to align ten pieces of iron together, it helps a lot if there aren't any magnets in the area pulling them out of whack. Your customer isn't going to want to lug a twelve-ton metastatic thaumoconveculator into the field (and I doubt either of you has the horns to do five-nines domain-membrane calibration measurements even if you had the thaumoconveculator!) which means you'll need to go low magic: Break shit until it stops screwing things up. I'll put something in the guidestones that will identify interfering elements in the surroundings. The edge of the stone will glow gold to point at anything with a strong enough thaumogravitemporic presence to interfere with interdomainal travel.
>
> He's probably not going to be able to do this in one jump, so I included that portal stone you asked for—I even got you a Superb-rated one, because I'm such a fantastic guy. ████████████████████████ If he successfully deconvolves eliminates enough of the disturbing environmental elements and the domains haven't moved too far from their starting locations and he doesn't wait too long then he'll be able to jump straight from your doorway to the domain he portaled out of. If not, he'll have to jump to one of the earlier domains along the way and retrace his steps. I'm including a noxaetherialosophoticmeter with this letter so that you can figure out which domain to send him to.
>
> Again, warn him that your office's doorway is a ██████████ with coarse attachment, so if he goes to a given domain twice he isn't likely to end up at exactly the same starting point each time. (Seriously, when are you going to upgrade that thing? I keep telling you I can do it for you, and my rates aren't that unreasonable.)
>
> Speaking of warnings, given the segment of nox you're talking about you should probably tell him to watch his step. Most of those domains are going to be risky business. He's going to have to fight. A lot.
>
> Anyway, good luck. Don't forget that you still owe me █████████
>
> Baratameus the ██████
Simon nodded politely when we looked up from the letter. "Hopefully that was all clear? Baratameus can be a bit pompous...and rude...and condescending...and racist...and speciesist...and...well, he can be a bit difficult, but he does know his subject. The guidestones and portal stone will work as stated."
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
"What's with all the crossed-out parts?" Estelle demanded.
Simon grimaced. "I believe I mentioned that Baratameus is rude? I excised the offensive parts. I give you my word that nothing was excised that would be relevant to your interests."
The three of us exchanged looks.
"Let's walk through this," Estelle said, pursing her lips. "Athos has a pouch full of guidestones and a portal stone. He goes through your door to another domain. One of the guidestones starts glowing. He follows it to the destination and activates it to generate a portal to the next domain. He may have to destroy something, or multiple things, for no apparent reason. If he gets into trouble he can use the portal stone to return here but if he does then he might have to start over from the beginning of the whole route. That about right?"
"Indeed."
"What if—"
"How do I take the guidestone out of the pouch?" I asked, interrupting Estelle's next question. "I don't have hands."
Simon shrugged. "I'm afraid that's not my problem." His gaze drifted to Murray; Simon cocked his head in thought. "Although..."
"No way!" Murray said, zipping back with both hands upraised. "My contract is purely fah dis Realm. I ain't goin' on no scavenjah hunt t'rough two dozen different domains wid stuff tryna kill me dah whole way!"
"It's true that his contract does not extend to work beyond this Realm," Simon said. "Also, he's purely translation, not bodyservant. We could expand his contract if you would like...?"
"Hang on," Marcus said quickly. "Before you discuss that, what are these domains going to be like?"
Simon shrugged. "They will be different, one from the next, but they are all survivable by a being such as Athos. That is, he will be able to breathe the air, the temperature range will be manageable although perhaps unpleasant, gravity will be no more than 25% different from this domain's standard, and so on. There may be opponents or environmental hazards—dangerous plants or animals, pits, glaciers, that sort of thing. PortalCo has guaranteed that there will be a path that is passable given his bodily form and capacity—the guidestone will not require him to, for example, cross an unswimmable and unjumpable river unless he has demonstrated the ability to, for example, turn into a bird. Or the equivalent."
"Wait, what?" said Estelle. "The guidestone knows what he can do?"
Simon looked as though he had tasted something sour. "Not...exactly. The guidestones are not self-aware entities but they do have a certain degree of intelligence and awareness of their environment. They will keep track of the user's maximum demonstrated speed, any transformation abilities, and so on."
"Suppose the stones misunderstand something?" Marcus asked. "Maybe he has a 'turn into a bird' potion but only one of them. Will the guidestone assume that he can do that from then on?"
"The guidestones will accept limited user input," Simon said with a sigh. "At any time you may say 'guidestone, find alternate route'. If one is available, the stone will switch to the next-shortest-time route that hasn't been used yet. If there are none, it will return to the route it originally chose."
Marcus and Estelle exchanged glances. Estelle's eyes went wide and she shook her head. Marcus's smile got wider. Estelle cocked her head in a 'Seriously?!' expression. Marcus nodded. She rolled her eyes in disgust and then nodded.
"Excuse us for a moment," Marcus said. "Athos, could we talk to you outside?"
"But..." I looked at Simon, then back at Marcus. "Okay. Excuse us for just a moment, Simon. I'll be right back." I followed them outside without further protest.
"We want to go with you," Marcus said without preamble.
"'Want' is a strong word," Estelle noted, lips quirked in amused resignation. "As is 'we'."
I huffed in amusement at the idea of finding Mom and Dad again, pointing to Marcus and Estelle, and saying 'They followed me home. Can we keep them?'
"Are you sure?" I asked. "It sounds like it's going to be dangerous."
"Yes, that's the whole point," Marcus said, excited. "Look, Estelle and I came here to make some money. I chose honey candies and silk as our trade goods because they're light and I expected they would sell well. There's no silk worms or honeybees in or around Hellsport—it's actually part of why they have to import all their food from—"
"Focus," Estelle said.
"Right. Anyway, honey should have been rare in this area, and my research back in Ozurdati suggested that there were several different demand drivers for silk. Problem: While you and Eugene were at the tournament, Estelle and I went looking for buyers and we mostly struck out. That new Patch that came in last week has been selling a white syrup that's sweeter than honey, so no one is interested in the honey. We can still make something off the silk, but the prices are down a lot because silk was the material for high fashion last summer and now it's out of style so no rich person wants to be seen having it. In fact, it's so out of fashion that the price has tanked and merchants are unloading their silk stocks for demistones. Point is that me and Estelle can probably break even on this trip as long as we don't eat too much, but it won't be worth the time we spend. On the other hand, if I could sell an unlock for that Rare skill that I got from the lizard, that would more than pay for the whole trip all in one go. If I can do it multiple times, we could end up set for life."
"Okay...can't you already do that?"
"No. I don't have enough Attunement to unlock a Rare for myself, let alone for someone else, and I won't for a long time unless I go out and fight something. As of twenty minutes ago I had been figuring on doing that in the arena, but this journey you're going on would be way better for us. The three of us together should be strong enough and fast enough to take on or run from pretty much anything, and if we bump up against something we can't handle then we can portal out."
"So you want to come along just so that you can fight?" Sometimes, humans were just weird. "Why go into another world to do that? There's all those wolves and stuff in the woods."
"Not that much, though. The area right around a city like Hellsport is pretty thoroughly hunted out of anything that gives decent Attunement or Skills. We'd need to travel several days away to have a hope of finding anything, then we have to hunt around for an unknown amount of time in order to find something, then we have to travel back. Either it's just the two of us or we have to talk Bjorn or one of the others into it—or maybe hire someone—but then we have to spend more money on supplies and more time hunting to make it worthwhile for all of us. The economics don't work out.
"On the other hand, if we go with you then we're a much stronger party because all three of us are watching each others' backs and we have that portal stone so we could return here immediately. We'd go to the last step with you and then when you use the guidestone to return to your own domain we would use the portal stone to return to ours."
Huh.
"We should check on how the portal stone works," I said. "Make sure that it can transport more than one person."
The two of them exchanged surprised looks.
"Good point," Marcus said. "Still, let's assume that the portal stone does what it says on the box and opens a portal that all three of us can jump through. Are you okay with this?"
Hm. How did I feel about this?
Foreonpaw, yay having people around and boo being alone, so huzzah for having them join!
Foreoffpaw, what if they got hurt? Everything was telling me that I would have to do some dangerous things to get home. Could I really ask Marcus and Estelle to risk themselves? I mean...I suppose I wasn't asking, they were volunteering, so that wasn't too relevant.
Hindonpaw, what if them being along put me in a situation where I had to choose between the destination and them? Suppose there was a chasm that I could jump across and they couldn't, and there was no way around. Having them there would mean that I might not be able to continue. Sure, they could portal out while I continued on, but then I would not have the option of portaling out later if I needed to...although, thinking about it, I could always portal out with them and then we come back later with appropriate gear to bypass the chasm. The route was stable for most of a year so there would be plenty of time.
"Yes," I said, lolling my tongue in a broad doggy smile. "Assuming that the portal stone can get us all out, I'd love it if you two would come along. Thank you."
Marcus tried to fistpump subtly enough for me to miss it. He failed. Estelle smiled briefly and gave me a nod.
"Okay. Okay, let's work through this," Marcus said, tapping his right fist gently against his left palm in thought. "We need to know as much as possible about the domains so we know what to prepare for. If there's anything living there, we'll want to be able to talk to it." He glanced up at his translator imp. "Hey, imp. Come down a sec."
Zabazel was far more taciturn than Murray, to the extent that I had yet to hear him say anything outside of an actual translation. Unlike Murray, who enjoyed sitting on my head or at least being near me, Zabazel liked to hover up high enough to be out of everyone's eyeline, only coming down when summoned to translate. It was easy to forget that he was there and, honestly, that seemed sad.
At Marcus's command he drooped downward, the lazy beating of his torn bat-like wings causing him to bob up and down instead of staying at a consistent height the way Murray managed. He oriented himself in front of Marcus and bobbed in place, tiny arms folded and an expectant look on his face.
"Murray was talking about how his contract didn't extend to other Realms," Marcus began. "If we go to another domain, will you still be able to translate for us?"
"Of course." Zabazel's voice was oily and creaky; it made my ears hurt.
"Good. Okay, then—"
"Standard terms and conditions apply, obviously."
Marcus frowned. "Excuse me?"
"I said: 'Standard terms and conditions apply, obviously.'" He shook his tiny head, his obsidian horns leaving tiny trails of fire in their wake. "Humans. You never listen."
"I heard you, I wanted to know what you meant. What 'terms and conditions'?"
"The T and C from your service contract, obviously. Specifically, the part that says 'Company guarantees Translation Availability only when both Customer and Interlocutor share a language from the Starting Pool, only within the Coverage Area, and only during the Covered Period.'"
"The Starting Pool was that bit about 'all languages spoken by every culture of one hundred or more people within a hundred leagues of the shop when the contract was signed', right?"
One miniscule and sharply-plucked eyebrow rose. "When I was assigned to this job I was told that all mortals were idiots who couldn't remember to come in from the rain, much less the details of a contract. I am delighted to see that there is an exception."
I had a feeling that I was entirely justified in biting Zabazel just a little bit. Still, I wasn't completely clear on why that was, so I decided to leave him unchomped for now. (It was hard to unbite someone or something, a story hinted at by the inquisitive little puppy-nibbles on Mom's shiny black stilt shoes. Fortunately, the marks weren't visible when she was standing up so she hadn't gotten too mad.)
"Geez, Grouchy. Still bein' a dick ta da custahmahs, huh? No wonda you ain't been promoted yet."
"Murray?"
"Eh, sorry, Boss. Dis guy just yanks my horns, ya know? Real toejam-eatah. Anywayz, I'll shut up now. Don't mind me. Again, sorry fah interruptin'."
"Actually," Marcus said, "please continue. You're a lot more communicative than he is. What do we need to know about taking you guys into other domains?"
Murray looked at me. "I t'ought we settled dis, Boss. I ain't no stinkin' exposition fairy!"
"Marcus is asking for clarification on your job rules, Murray. It's not exposition if you're simply clarifying the terms of your contract to the customer, right?"
"...I guess," he grumbled. "Anyway, like I says earlier, da Coverage Area on my contract, and I'd assume on Grouchy's, is just dis Realm. You leave heah, contract's ovah and I get tah go home. Even if I did go wid ya, I didn't get dah language packs fah any languages outside dis domain. I'd be limited ta what I know naturally."
"Can we get your Coverage Area expanded and get you new language packs?" Estelle asked.
Murray glanced at her in disgust, then looked at me. "Boss, I am havin' a hahd time doin' my duty as yah translaytah because alla youse friends keeps tryin'a tawk ta me direct-like, and dey don' pay attention ta what I says! I. Ain't. No. Exposition. FAIRY! I dunno why youse friends havin' such a hard time wid dis! I translate! Dat's it! I don't carry ya poyse, I don't buy ya groceries, I don't draw ya maps, I don't shave ya unmentionables, I don't do no silk woik, I don't do legal advice, and I definitely DON' DO NO EXPOSITION! I'm a friggin' translaytah! Why is dis hahd for youse people?! How come I gotta be answerin' alla dese legal questions? Read da friggin' contract fah da details, ask Joikface in dere about any changes ya wanna make ta da contract!" He came to a halt, his tiny chest heaving as a few sparks literally dribbled out of his pointy, currently-non-canine ears. Over the course of his diatribe, his face had progressed from firebrick red to garnet.
"Okay, okay," Marcus said, holding up both hands. "Sorry. We won't do that anymore. We can ask Simon to clarify it. And we'll need to get your contracts expanded."
"I'll pay for that," I said.
Marcus shook his head. "I can pay my own way."
"It's going to be expensive, and I have a lot more Spirit to spare than you do." Marcus's jaw started to clench at that so I hurred to add, "And, also, you're only doing this to help me out so it's only fair that I pay."
Marcus digested that for a moment, clearly wondering if he should take the fig leaf or point out that no, they were not going along primarily to guard my back but rather to gain rewards for themselves.
"We'll talk about it after we know the prices," he said at last. "We need to get the initial stabilization done, then arrange for these two to be able to go with us and translate for us. We'll want any and all available information about the domains. Then we want to put together a list of equipment and supplies. Once we've got that, we'll need to figure out where we can round up several hundred Spirit in the next couple days. We've got twenty-seven domains to get through and two hundred and twelve days to do it in; that means a little more than a week per domain so we'll need to move fast."
"He said he could drop us within fifty miles," Estelle noted. "Unless there's a straight-line path from our point of arrival to the destination, we might need to traverse a hundred miles, maybe even more. Give it some elevation change and we could be looking at one mile an hour average pace, which is pretty brutal if we need to cover that much ground in a week. We should find out if there's any sort of distance indication on the guidestones so that we can set the pace."
"Right," Marcus said, nodding. "Also, this is definitely going to be a multi-leg trip, so we'll want to find out what replacement portal stones cost. We'll probably also collect stuff along the way so we should put together a list of dealers we could sell to in order to fund buying more supplies and gear. And unlocks for all of us."
"If there's as much fighting as I'm afraid there will be, we'll probably all have enough Attunement to unlock for each other," Estelle said. "Athos, Weapon of Peace would be great for you. It prevents you from doing any damage but it greatly increases knockback. A pawswipe from you would send an enemy flying for days."
"Mystic Acceleration would be good for you guys, too," I said. "It lets you move faster. Good for fighting and for getting away."
A thought struck. "Hey, Murray. You were willing to do a deal with me under...what was it? 'Exigent circumstances'?"
"Yeah...?"
"Could we do more of those? You're really smart, and I wouldn't have had a clue what was going on if it wasn't for you."
Murray puffed out his tiny chest and straightened out a bit at my words.
"Maybe. Dere's a lotta restrictions on dose kindsa deals. Like, it helped dat we was standin' at a crossroads—well, neah one. Lots of precedents fah demons doin' deals at crossroads. Still, if I did too many o' dose it could end up lookin' bad on my perfoimance review. You're a decent guy fah a mortal, but I ain't riskin' my promotion 'causea you. No offense. I'm sick o' bein' a translaytah imp. I wanna move up."
I cocked my head in interest. "What would moving up look like?"
"Huh?"
"Well, I'm sure you'll get the promotion, because you're an amazing translator. What will you be doing after you get it?"
"Uh...well. I'd be able to grow inta a bigger, more powahful form. I'd change jobs—maybe move up tah bodyguard fah some rich warlock. It'll be a few millennia before I could even hope ta woik in hospitality, but if ya want to get dere den it's impoitant not to miss gettin' promoted at each review. Dat's part o' why I'm so careful about da exposition t'ing, an' about talking ta people who ain't you, Boss. I don't want dem fairies complainin' ta my evaluatah."
"I hope you get the promotion."
"Uh...t'anks?"
I wasn't sure why he seemed so flummoxed, but he did.
"Okay," Marcus said. "We've got a list of things to do. Let's get on it." He crackled his knuckles, grinning. "Time to do some negotiating."
Estelle sighed.