Our loop curved in a sharp bend ahead; down, sideways and back up in a series of twists so steep they were impossible to miss. I gulped as my feet took me down teetering inclines likely to disturb my balance, only for gravity to promptly recorrect my course. It made things worse rather than better as my expectations struggled to adjust. Only the balance upgrades from Imbertri’s makeover saved me from falling over, and then not by much.

Er Jid made it look easy. The recruiter leapt from one arm of the loop to another, twisting in mid-air and dropping the last few centimetres onto the grass. She held out a hand.

I took it and made the much less elegant thud into her waiting arms, breathing to calm my racing heart. It probably wasn’t all that dangerous, but felt worse than it looked and that was enough.

At the end of the next rise – which threw me for not feeling like one – I expected to see the loose cluster of paths close up. Instead, the vista greeted me with absolute convergence. Someone had taken several hundred strands of the multiverse and folded them all into the same point at the centre. The air was thick with paths twining and knotting around each other, each with their own set of attached universes, coming together in something like the path of an exploding star.

I appreciated it for a cool several seconds before my stomach was slammed with vertigo.

Er Jid caught me again as I swayed. “It takes getting used to.”

Ten years of wandering the multiverse hadn’t prepared me for this. I let myself be gently led by the shoulder, not feeling remotely like a hardened interdimensional assassin wielding one of the most powerful cores in his House’s history, and much more like someone who needed to put his head down a bucket. This was what Gear Shift was useful for, and I wasn't in a position to use that, either.

My infiltration experience wasn’t off to a great start.

We passed several more portals labelled ‘low threat’, followed by more labelled ‘no threat’, which made me wonder about the difference. No more gravity-shifting leaps were needed, since the path now took us directly there. Close to the convergence, the grass had been covered with elegant paved lining in whites, greens and creams, along with others nearby. Evidence of other traffic at last, though of course no one else was to be seen. The inherent time freeze of the Interstice took care of that.

Other than its capacity to induce vertigo, the supposed centre of the multiverse seemed a little underwhelming. The trail of paths ended in a latticed knot of intricate decorative stone.

Embedded in the rock, accessible from most angles, rested an exit identical to all the others marked with a new sigil I’d never seen. The legible text around it read simply ‘The Garrison’.

I felt nothing out of the ordinary, senses still muted by whatever made this the Vein.

“When you’re ready,” said Er Jid.

Conflicted, I climbed into the lattice, taking care to hold onto the provided railing against unexpected forces of gravity, and traversed one of the sculpted paths inside. The multiverse was an incredibly vast place; it was more likely than not two Houses would never cross paths. And yet it seemed incredible that the Chapel, dedicated to reality-warping Fate, wouldn’t know this was here.

And here the Machine had sent me. Possibly not by design.

If someone were to find it, I supposed it would be an agent with an Arch. Ten years of repeated failures, only for everything to explode all at once. And I still didn’t know what I was doing. Or if I was doing it at all, or the actions attributed to me were really the work of something else.

I shivered as I dropped through.

Sound burst in in a riot, though most of it took the form of footsteps and birdsong. I stood on a pleasant stone balcony in what seemed like late afternoon, though the presence of three distinct suns muddied that assessment. Blue, pink and yellow, they sent different streams of colours intersecting across the landscape into multiple coloured shadows. I could feel the difference, not just in temperature but in pressure and consistency, the light making subtle changes to the air.

Below it stretched a series of tiled roofs in whites and creams, concave like the Enclave of the Bowl and topped with many series of large lenses focused down through glass apertures. There were few streets. Most of the structures appeared to be part of one conjoined complex, except for a handful of wide avenues also bathed in prismatic circles of steady colour.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Here and there, high towers rose above the other buildings, beaming larger spotlights over wide areas. I could make out glimpses of movement from people at the top.

Beyond that, unbroken forest.

No one was outdoors that I could see.

The other notable and less visible detail was that Flinpen’s marker was in this universe with me, and close by. She’d made it here before me, and I didn’t know what that said about the Machine’s or Near Miss’ priorities.

Er Jid had appeared with me, stepping into the world in a hard blink rather than the more usual rapid coalescence of mist. Everything was ever-so-subtly wrong, half a step off where it should be.

“Come with me,” she nodded, and beckoned me indoors.

We stepped into a large central platform with dual elegant staircases winding around the outside. The air was thinner indoors. Three storeys’ worth of ceiling loomed high above me, and more stairs descended into a separate section below. Everywhere I looked featured tessellated stone mosaicked into intricate patterns, interrupted at avoidable intervals by more of the focused spotlights.

“Try to avoid going outside,” the recruiter said, heading up the nearest set of stairs. She walked through a circle of white light filtered down from above. “The atmosphere here is variable. We control it indoors, but if you start feeling sick in any way, look for white light. If it still doesn’t improve, inform someone and they’ll see that you’re treated. And never go out when only one sun is up.”

I nodded mutely as a pair of formally-dressed locals passed us in the opposite direction, still paranoid someone would figure me out at a glance.

“– the wraith sighting,” I overheard in a worried tone. “They’re never this close.”

“It’s the recent changes,” responded the other. “Has to be. Send out a lure, you’re bound to attract more than you bargained for.”

“The Garrison seems dangerous,” I noted once they were out of earshot. “Why did you set up here?”

“Tradition. This is our ancient home, the centre of our empire.”

I glanced over the railing at the platform below. A solitary figure clacked its way across the stone holding a stack of the coloured lenses. “Empire?”

Er Jid smiled at me from the landing, gesturing me toward the first open door. “We used to be bigger.”

I passed through into a spacious room resembling a kind of study. In it, behind an enormous immovable stone desk featuring more of the ubiquitous tessellations, sat an elderly woman in formal attire swiping and gesturing at what appeared to be an interface. That the screen and its components were invisible to me wasn’t entirely unexpected.

For some reason, the idea of a House using computers surprised me. Logically, there was no reason it would follow the Chapel’s rules. On the desk beside the older woman sat a few more traditional tablets and more of the obligatory coloured lenses, plus condensed arrays set up to catch the light from the windows in a miniature circular spray. The sprawling forest could clearly be seen and showed no other buildings beyond its perimeter from this angle, either.

“Soor Kas,” Er Jid greeted her, knocking at the frame, “This is Tidu from the Geo-International Accord. He’s my nominated candidate for standard replacement.”

The old woman blinked. Her age also surprised me. She made a wide swiping gesture with one hand, and her eyes appeared to refocus. “So,” she said to me. “Tidu, was it? It appears you were about to die.”

“I’m… honoured to meet you,” I said, not knowing how to respond to that.

“All of Er’s picks are about to die,” said Soor Kas, as if I hadn’t said anything. Her voice was clipped, each word pronounced as if laced with inauspicious and personally-directed intent. “Don’t take it personally.”

“Alright, I won’t.”

The old woman sighed. “In case it hasn’t been explained, you are in the Garrison. We are caretakers of the multiverse, which does exist – you probably noticed it on the way here – and you are here because one of our existing members is retiring. Who was it again, Er?”

“Fal Mier,” Er supplied.

“Very good. Have we already had the ceremony?”

“You presided over it,” Er said, and shot me another reassuring smile. “Yesterday.”

“That sounds vaguely familiar,” said Soor. She refocused on me. “You. Do you want to be here?”

“I do,” I said.

“Do you plan on betraying your fellow initiates in service of competing ideologies, personal gain or other conflicts of interest?”

“Out of curiosity, does anyone ever answer yes to that?” I asked.

“Some people have a sense of humour. You appear to be on the fence.” She yawned, covering her mouth with one hand. “If you could do anything, what would you do?”

“Anything?”

“Answering with anything pornographic will get your application rejected.”

“I’d figure out the best thing to do,” I said, thinking of Near Miss. Strange job interview, not that I’d been to many.

Soor peered down the hook of her nose at me for a moment. “Good enough. Do you understand that if we accept you, you will be considered property of the Empire until such time as you are expulsed, dead or retired?”

“Yes,” I said. The Chapel’s arrangement was less generous.

Soor glanced towards Er.

“All my picks are about to die,” the recruiter reminded her.

The elderly woman sighed again. “Our arrangements are largely based on tradition. Certain rules can be bent, such as allowing premature retirement as situations permit. Other rules cannot. I recommend learning which are which quickly. Very well. Welcome to the Garrison. Er will get you registered and assigned. Now begone.”

Er beamed at me and beckoned me towards the door. In the corner of my eye, I could see Soor Kas already returning to her invisible interface, lips pursed in concentration.

Well. That had been easy.