SANITY LINE
X. A Golden Bridge
The sheer busyness of the Slab, as the locals called it, was its most baffling quality. Vidcund watched clusters of people come and go, just like the major airport it was seemingly modelled after. Devils with their entourages of soul-sold lawyers, impious enforcers, and the like. Demons and their cliques, leaving with courtiers to see them off, or arriving with blood-soaked cultist-gangsters in tow, foul-faced as, well, demons.
The agent considered the implications. Surely, not all the worlds these Infernals were headed to were his own, and yet, the sheer rate of travel was absurd. Granted, with the help of his glasses, he could tell the humans vastly outnumbered the Infernals in the terminal, and yet... this was entirely too many.
The vague familiarity of the situation, however, pressed against that logical deduction, and cognitive dissonance worked his magic, scrubbing away any lingering trace of a good mood as he and Edward flashed their passports, for the fifteenth time, as they passed militarized security guards, getting closer and closer to their gate.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Vidcund stopped short, even abruptly, causing Edward to step on his heels before sidestepping to keep his momentum from bowling him over entirely. Vidcund remained stationary for a moment, peeling his glasses from his face, folding them carefully into one hand. “It's... possible that I may have been off in my own little world.”
“I've been talking for like five minutes.”
Vidcund tucked the glasses into his jacket, extracting a highly-polished silver coin to feed a nearby vending machine. “You didn't think to ask if I was listening before now?”
“Well, you know how I like to rant sometimes...”
There was a pregnant wait. Vidcund held Edward's gaze evenly, watching the man shift from embarrassed joke to annoyance, and eventually to concern, when the agent spoke again. “Actually, I don't.”
“What do you mean?”
Vidcund inspected the can of soda fully, before popping the tab and taking a long, slow sip. They had this section of corridor to themselves, and for good reason – today's transit was privately chartered, and they were now in the section of the Slab meant for such travels. Here, then, was as good a place as any. “We've known each other the better part of a decade now, right?”
“Right. Worked together for years.” Edward folded his arms. “Like brothers.”
“Right.” Vidcund took a long sip of the soda. “... My earliest memory of you is, presently, you greeting me in Figaro.”
Edward's whole demeanour changed at the suggestion. His look, which had been developing increasingly adversarial undertones, softened. His brow unknitted, shoulders loosening somewhat. “... What, you mean like... Amnesia? Are you ok? Were you hurt?”
“Agency wouldn't have cleared me for active duty if I was injured.” Vidcund stepped them off of their spot from the wall, with a gesture. He considered going further with his revelation. By his own merit, it seemed, or perhaps helped along by his position, Edward had an agency clearance. “There are certain drugs which, taken in the correct combination, interfere with memory retrieval. With correct dosage control, the effect can be made... persistent.”
Edward stopped short, adjusting the rest of his sword at his hip. “... You mean to tell me that Agency deliberately limited your memory?”
“Temporarily.” Vidcund opened the door to their particular gate, gesturing Edward through. “The human mind is ruthlessly well-constructed. Things get a little clearer for me every day.”
“And you're comfortable working with people who are willing to do that?”
Vidcund pretended to consider that for a long moment before shrugging. “Wasn't that long ago you needed to kill people to get them to forget things. I'd say we're making progress.”
“... Vidcund.”
Vidcund stood, just this side of the gate's event-horizon, and looked back to Edward, folding his overcoat over his arm. “... I'm fine, Eddy.”
---
The revelations of the true nature of Project Moses – more than just experiments in practical application of hyper-mathematical principals – together with the destruction of Kraterburg, the seeming-destruction of the Cult of the Sleeping Eye, and the gain and subsequent loss of his trans-proprioceptive powers had been an epoch-defining moment in Vidcund's life. Before, there had been life before and after agency – the haze of true and fabricated memories and the obedient (almost religious) dedication to the cause that followed. Now, there was life before and after he'd crossed the line.
Some mornings, like today, he watched the hazy sky from a convenient perch, sipped his caffeinated mint-coffee, and wondered if the whole thing had been some psychotic break. If the Amnesiac Medication could steal his memories away, it was only because there already existed neurochemical pathways to that end. Was the whole account some fiction he had come up with to excuse his actions in Kraterburg? Was he even involved?
While such questions did not affect his present reality, they had a way of sticking in the mind. Up here, with nothing to do but watch over Tererra and wait, there were few practical matters to shut them away.
He hadn't heard the helicopter, at all, though he somehow became aware of it even as it had appeared, popping out from the canopy on a point near the horizon Vidcund privately knew to be a small, unregistered airfield that Agency often used.... one, he knew, with its own Gate Facility, like Abject. He had arrived from there much earlier in the morning – though nobody had sent an aircraft for him. Still, being driven separately by an Agency driver had gotten him away from Edward. More specifically, it had gotten him away from Edward's question, and the burden of the Lord Protector's concerns.
As he watched the silent black shape ascend and almost coast toward him, a small icon that had hovered on the edge of his vision behind the AR glasses flashed again, changing from the usual grey to a more attention-grabbing yellow. He held his gaze directly on the icon for a moment or two before the notification itself spread across the bottom of his vision like subtitles on a scene.
Priority from Research: Triskellion is “Yellow Sign”. Report prepared. Urgent Notification of Cognitohazard. Entity 8808 Identified as “Phantom of Truth”.
There was no time to read the report, nor did he have an autofile sheet handy to read it through the AR system. The system might be used to project a window while he was in-flight, but he supposed he would likely be otherwise engaged. That helicopter – still as silent as whispers, even directly overhead and descending slowly to his approximate position – was already near to filled with the balance of Team Kether. Freshly returned, Vidcund had learned, from the exciting prospect of a mission in a war zone. Reading between the headlines, Vidcund had come to learn of Kether's destruction of a large portion of the Dean Royal Navy.
It would be interesting to learn how such a thing could be achieved by so small a Working Group.
The helicopter's skids met the well-groomed surface of the helipad even as Vidcund bounded up the steps onto its surface. Though the motor still ran, and the rotor still span, Vidcund moved quickly across the pad, accepting a bulky-armoured hand up from Zephyr, necessary given his own heavily-armoured frame.
The armour felt as natural to his movements as his usual suit. An artifact no doubt, of either the muscle-memory idiomatic to this clone, or else his own shared experience, or perhaps, just perhaps, some other secret Agency hid from him.
Dagonovich favoured him with a wan smile – being the lone, unarmoured resident of the helicopter except perhaps the pilots. “Welcome aboard, Agent. Ready to go have some fun?”
---
It was unwise in the extreme for a flag officer, let alone the highest ranking officer in three branches of service, to be present on the field of battle anywhere near the time of that battle's commencement. It was precisely this sort of ignorance of convention that had so endeared Lord Field Marshal Coultier to the men and women under his command. He stood like a figure from legend, uniformed for parade, but armed for combat – sidearm and sword at his hip, a rifle slung haphazardly over his shoulder with the cavalier casualness of someone familiar with its use.
Here he stood, ready to personally take charge of over half the Self Defence Forces, who had mustered on the shores of the new Blasted Bay in what had once been the small market town of Fen Ridge, enjoying the benefits of an elevated position. He had the latest in armour, artillery, air and naval forces at his disposal. Steel, clean lines, sharp engineering. Poised.
He considered his options for a long, pregnant moment, removed the cigarette from his mouth, and picked up the receiver of his radio set. He was reminded of the Ephors of Sparta when they had been faced by the Macedonians, uttering the famous, laconic reply. Men of the blade were not great orators. “Go” was the only command that was needed.
He flicked the ash from his cigarette, returned it to his mouth, and watched his plans unfold.
Far distant, standing on the bridge of the flagship of the Golden Fleet, his counterpart waited for him. Truth needed no badge of office or rank to hide behind. His presence in this room was enough, his quiet stillness in the midst of the otherwise controlled chaos of shipboard operations. The baroque superstructures of his vessel called to mind an undeserved antiquity of construction that belied the potency of their defences and guns.
Behind the pallid mask, garbed in the mantle of the Yellow Sign, he might have been a mannequin.
“Ambassador, the Zaxtonian forces are opening fire.”
Truth turned his gaze only slightly toward the officer who had spoken. His presence was enough. Action stirred as the air filled with the best of Zaxtonian rocketry. Fusileers on the decks of the Carcosan armada chose their targets carefully. A skillful riposte.
The Ambassador himself strode out onto that deck. Netting was pulled aside, allowing Byakhee the chance to gulp free air. The cantankerous mounts rose, rearing up to their full height, spreading tattered leather wings that were at once the source of their flight and a great determent to their movement through any sort of fluid, air included. The corpse-like, half-composed beings were as vital as the Ambassador had ever seen them, and Truth quickly swung himself up onto the back of the largest and most nimble of the many, accepting his lance while his fellow cavalrymen did much the same.
The Navy would just have to make do without him.
---
Granted his own station in life, as the son of a prominent military figure, Edward was somewhat used to the delays of the security the Executive Council kept itself surrounded by. The Justice Guard was famously thorough and hidebound in its security protocols, but Edward had to admit that the current screening had been extended truly ad nauseum.
He had spent the entire time he was being screened and approved, at each successive check-point in the commandeered hotel, trying to come up for some excuse. It was possible, given his transfer to Figaro, that his presence was unexpected. Perhaps they were simply concerned, in their thoroughness, with making sure that the right albinistic Crimson Knight was trying to gain access to the Great Justice. Perhaps they were concerned with making sure the perfectly lethal sword at his hip was not secretly some sort of otherwise lethal weapon. It was a continuing theme that he was an unexpected guest in spite of having been explicitly requested, over his strong objection and the otherwise infallible insistence of the twin needs of libido and sleep.
It was therefore needless to say that by the time he had finally been shown into an empty room where he would supposedly be received, he was bitter, pissed as a devil, and eyeing the single queen-size like a starving man spies a buffet.
He was not, however, kept waiting long, before the most unexpected of possible guests opened the door. Interim Agent-Liaison Dowd closed the door behind her quickly, with the air of someone who was where they shouldn't have otherwise been. She gave Edward the briefest of nods. “Lord Protector. Welcome back. We were all very happy to hear you didn't go down with your ship.”
“I'm not that kind of captain,” Edward said, indifferently. The room had a coffee maker and he now intended to use it. “Where's-”
Stamatia gestured, and Edward glanced at the door to the adjoining room just as it opened and Michael Scamwell, the presently-unescorted Great Justice, swept into the room. First among the equals of the Executive Council, the prominent Jurist carried around the kind of gravitas normally reserved for royalty. He caught sight of Edward's activity immediately, and frowned. “You aren't actually going to drink that, are you?”
“Your well-noted fondness of coffee notwithstanding, Your Honour, I, like many, appreciate only the caffeine.” Edward offered the slightest of bows – slightly off-custom for his paramilitary demeanour, but none-the-less fitting, and easier with his hands full. He looked from one figure to the other as he poured a cup. “Practically the whole extant council. Shall I expect my father as well?”
“No,” Michael said, reluctantly flipping a mug over to indicate he, too, would have a cup. “... Edward, your father is presently campaigning in the Western Terrwald. Which is why we need to talk.”
Behind Edward, the door opened, admitting another white-clad woman, dark-spectacled (in the tradition of Agency personnel), with short-cropped blonde hair and a firm grip on a silver can of meal-replacement shake. This drew Micheal’s attention as well, who gave a firm nod in return. “Director Valkoinen. Glad you could join us.”
“My apologies for the delay. It can be hard to gain access to you when you aren't on the official agenda.”
After a pregnant pause, the Crimson Knight captain turned his gaze back to the Great Justice. “You didn't bring me in for a debriefing.”
---
Somewhere in the recessed and convoluted folds of his fractal, half-obscured and multitudinous memory, Vidcund remembered the lesson he was sheltering in as being a lesson earned in blood. He couldn't swing a cat, throw a stone, or otherwise take action without getting involved in the ongoing skirmish, and yet here he was, comfortably learning on a pillar, assault rifle heavy on his chest and ready to spill blood, but relaxingly unnecessary. There was a time when all he could have done was watch himself in horror as he threw himself into the fray.
Somewhere to his left, over the din of the evolving skirmish over Fen Ridge, the gum that Zephyr was chewing backfired, cracking loudly in the back of the man's mouth and drawing Vidcund from his introspection. The three of them – Dagonovich was even further to the rear, co-coordinating Agency's response with the Ground Self Defence Forces and Maritime Self Defence Force Special Infantry that were trying to hold the hamlet-turned-strategic-port.
Satisfied with a short glance that the battle was not about to turn in a way that would require his intervention, Vidcund's memory subsided to the journey here.
“I have my own theories,” Dagonovich had said, as the aircraft banked and they got their first good look, with their own eyes, at the fleet that was sailing in from the new bay. “But you seem to be more certain.”
“Having a stack of reports from Research is always a helpful development.”
At that, every eye in the cabin landed on Vidcund. In the sprawling Invisible Bureaucracy, getting a report from Research with such turn-around was genuinely impressive. A number of reports describable as a stack? It was Asmodeus who had the penny drop first – a grim smirk spread across his face as he put it all together. “The National Library incident. You had a head start. These are the same guys.”
“No, see, that's where it gets weird,” Vidcund replied, uttering the word that was all but a vulgarity in agency parlance. “For the most part, these aren't the same entities we fought at the National Library. Krilian Signatures are all wrong. These guys actually bleed, too, and what's better, they aren't that much harder to kill than Joey Hipster down at your local Starbucks. But then there's this motherfucker.”
Vidcund reached into a thigh pocket and extracted a deck of index cards printed with autofile registration marks, handing them out to each of the Agents in turn. The AR image was a Yellow-clad figure out of a renaissance painting, elegantly masked and sat astride some creature evocative of dead men, horses, lobsters, bumble-bees and the worst combination of lysergic acid and ethanol. “Apart from Maria Frost, this entity was the ringleader of the National Library attack. He also lead the attack on Figaro that ultimately wound up in the Lord Protector's Remnant Force tactically withdrawing.”
Zephyr chuckled. “Is that what Eddy called it? A tactical withdrawal?”
“That decision was made by the Lord Field Marshal,” Dagonovich countered smoothly. “... Has research identified this figure?”
“Tentatively, which is why cognitohazard countermeasures are in effect.”
Asmodeus chuckled at that. “Which is why we all get to wear these dope-ass mirror-shades.”
This earned a chuckle from the entire cabin. Even Vidcund, cold fish that he was, was starting to warm to Asmodeus, his constant cracking-wise and princely obsession with appearances. The augmented reality protocols had been modified. Certain symbols and images would be redacted from what they could see in real-time. It was crude, and a loss of power or loss of glasses would mean complete exposure – but it was the only measure agency had for prevention – all the rest was Amnesiacs and Censure.
Vidcund stretched. As he moved, the safety of his rifle disengaged and the bolt cycled, driving a fresh round into the chamber. In the interval just before, a body fell from the window, the smell of what had once been cordite stuffed the room, and the mint between his molars cracked.
“Well... I'd say that's our cue.”
Zephyr, sprightly as ever, had already risen up and turned to the door by the time it burst inward. The two who had forced it were not expecting any response other than cowering in fear. Not that there was much they could do against the homunculus's reflexes, but they had made no attempt to find cover before the shots ripped through them. The effect was spectacular. Zephyr loaded his handguns with cast-iron rounds from some old superstition. The weight did not slow him, and, in this one case, it seemed to pay off. These entities disintegrated as the bullets passed through them. The iron literally burned them up from the inside.
Asmodeus was right behind him, radiant in cold fire every colour of the rainbow, and a few that weren't. He strode into the hall through the hole Zephyr had created, while the other turned to Vidcund.
The mostly-human agent was at once relieved and terrified to not be the most capable in his working group. “Just try and keep up, Mr. Därk.”
---
Those who knew Edward especially well – his Lieutenants – knew that his bad moods were unavoidable and unusual. That having been said, this afternoon's rageful presence was seemingly without decent cause. His well-known hatred for travel by sea notwithstanding, the entire nation was a no-fly zone with the ongoing conflict in the bay. This was the only way to get to Galba Dea these days – an overcapacity cruiser sailing in convoy with two or three of the same under guaranteed immunities between the two countries. The news said it was the Deans attacking Fen Ridge, but then the news had also said that saboteurs with the ZGSDF had sank the vast majority of the Dean fleet in harbour at Galba Roy, so... what was the big deal?
Edward and Francis had boarded the ship very early in the morning, long before the balance of the passenger manifest, or even much of the crew. Edward had refused to say anything about their trip, only that it was an official visit. Maybe he was pissed that this was the best the state could do for such official travel. Whatever the case, he hadn't said a word until they were at sea, and Zvanesburg had vanished, and his phone had begun pumping white noise into the room.
That, frankly, was the clue Francis had needed. “... We aren't on an official state visit, are we?”
“No. We're doing for what we do best. Mages.”
Francis almost smirked. Ah, yes... Edward was on the Warpath. That made so much more sense.
---
“Bingo on specials!”
As Zephyr's upper body vanished behind the brick-and-mortar corner he was using for cover, on the opposite side of the street, Vidcund emerged. He was as ambidextrous with a rifle as he had proven to be with handguns, and though his mission was suppressing fire, he had the discipline to choose his targets. Suppressing fire worked because nobody wanted to catch a stray bullet – Vidcund could suppress you because his bullets didn't stray.
Dagonovich's voice hissed in their ears. “Come on, gentlemen, you really don't have all day. You're just about encircled.”
The bolt locked back even while Vidcund was swinging back behind his own cover. “Man's got a point. Grenade out.”
The grenade, he had clipped to his rifle, which gave him a bit of disadvantage. It did, however, destroy the rifle – a necessary factor in Agency protocol. If it took a few more fae with it, so much the better.
“Seriously, Vidcund, get your people the fuck out of there.”
Asmodeus lifted Zephyr's case, which the homunculus had dropped on his side of the street for a bit of extra speed. Unlike Zephyr, he was less than concerned about the arrows and quarrels of the fae. He slung the heavy parcel over one well-muscled shoulder, striding out into the open of the marked crosswalk with the presence of a runway model. As a means to draw fire, it was excellent. But Asmodeus was not bait. Zephyr was effectively unarmed for any sort of ranged combat. Vidcund had his handguns, but unlike Zephyr, he was aware of the weapons' limitations and wasn't about to waste his last twenty-six rounds. So Asmodeus was both the colourful pheasant thrown to distract the archers and the swarm of bees deployed against them. His aura had not diminished, though it moved and warped around him. At the gesture of his empty hand, it would refocus in points, sending out rays of violet, fuchsia, octarine, ruby, turquoise... as deadly and lethal as the cast iron had been.
He made it halfway across the street when disaster struck. A blur had moved behind him, and the case fell, and Asmodeus turned neatly on a heel, toothpick still loosely gripped in the corner of a now slightly-open mouth, peaking over the rims of his smoked AR glasses.
The figure of the Duke now occupied the centre of the intersection, turning his sword over slowly in his grip as he turned with a broad, challenging gesture. The air was still.
Vidcund knew they wouldn't hold their fire forever. “Pull the plug, Dago.”
It was as though the ground opened up beneath them, and the three fell. The Duke tilted his head slightly, pacing toward where the Demon had been, probing the nearly-molten concrete with the pointed toe of his sabatons.
That could be problematic.
“They, uhm... They don't normally do that, my Lord.”
“Indeed not.”
---
The most mystifying thing about the advance of the millennium, even from the perspective of one so relatively sheltered as the Archangel, was how little things changed. It seemed the same, or mostly the same, technology that had parted the waters a hundred years ago were what parted the waters now. The belly of a refugee ship was better lit than the bowls of Titanic, but no less pregnant with dreams.
In his little corner of what was to be a hopefully-ill-used hold, the risen necromancer could not help but to reflect upon that danger. Born and raised deep in the Northern Terrwald, he was party to almost every rumour, myth, and legend the all-but-forgotten Terrik culture could bring into play. The Nordwald, as it was known these days, was a land of dreams. Men, it was said, were spread too thin there. Without their waking disbelief, the dreams of the whole Terrik People, perhaps all of Mankind, ran roughshod and rampant over those woods, calling monsters into being that defied reality, having no natural law to follow.
Eli wasn't sure he believed much of it – having spent much time in the Northern Terrwald, the only monster he'd encountered there was whatever he brought with him. Not counting himself, naturally.
The sound of footsteps called him out of his restive stasis. Footsteps in the corridor outside were de-rigeur. The patina of disuse upon the door had marked the hold as unused, but the passage itself was the direct line between crew quarters and the engine room. It had become Eli's custom to mark such footfalls, since stowing away shortly before the vessel had slipped out of Fen Ridge in the face of the Dean Advance. Which was not a Dean Advance, but if that's what the news was saying, it was easier for Eli, at the moment, to go on perpetuating the lie than to distract himself from his mission by investigating the truth.
These footfalls, however, were not the firm boots of the men and women who helped this ship in its Mosaic feats. They were tiny. Too big for a ship's cat, maybe, but certainly too small for an adult. The necromancer's non-breath caught in his throat, as he remained deeply within his shadowy cover, huddled like a pile of linens, with only his mask to betray anything out of the ordinary.
He was almost surprised the door opened. The brighter lights of the hallway betrayed a silhouette of a little girl, preteen at his educated guess, who had had to stand somewhat on elevated footing in order to reach the hatch control, which she had then had to turn – no mean feat for a child.
Otherwise motionless, he smiled slightly behind the mask. He had a soft spot for children. Always had, frankly. Children had that magic combination of inquisitiveness and innocence that even the heartless could admire. The Necromancer was all too aware that he, too, had once been such a child.
“... Hello? I can see you there, you know.”
Of course you can. Eli shifted slightly, as one does when one wakes up from a nap, and put on his best Dean. The ship was registered in Sussex, after all. “Huh? Hoozzat?”
A giggle. Eli watched the girl slip in, feeling around the door frame for the switch. He smirked a little more when his dark-adjusted eyes saw that she had found it. It was a strange design, unlike anything she'd have used before, but surely she'd get it eventually.
She did, and Eli was once again shocked he needed no adjustment. The young woman shielded her eyes for a moment, before squinting at him. What a sight he must have been – a mask peeking out from a pile of stolen laundry.
“What are you? Are you a monster?”
Eli almost laughed. What a strange question. “... What's a monster?”
This seemed to puzzle the girl, more than scare her, though she was hovering near the door frame, still. Ultimately, the question proved entirely too philosophical. “... Are you a Prince? I knew a man with a shiny mask once. He said he was a prince.”
It would be a lie to say that the necromancer's interest was not piqued by that statement. He sat up that much straighter, then, the loose linens falling off of him, betraying more of his upper body. “Did he have a big grey coat like mine?”
“... Yeah.”
“Was he a monster?”
“No.” The little girl thought for a shy moment. “... So you must not be either.”