Slumrat Rising

Chapter 92: A World Without God

“Please, wait a moment, Teacher.”

Merkovah looked inquisitively at Truth, who pointed at the Talisman. The old monster glanced at it, then glared at it. Stroked his beard in irritation as he continued glaring. Truth wracked his brain, trying to remember where he had seen it before.

System?

Before my time, apparently. Free associate on deeply unnatural shit you saw before submitting to Starbrite.

The Slums generally. Yes, but no. The Ghūl, generally. Yes, very yes, but again, no. This didn’t feel anything like his rough patron, or the Ghūl themselves, for that matter. Alright, after he broke through. Nothing on test day. Nothing at basic. During his conscription-

The giant bird-headed man lept to mind. He had never found out anything more about that, had he? It all got covered up, classified.

Clavegauh knew.

What?

Captain Clavegauh knew. She said something about you fighting a bird-headed warlock when she told you that you were going to be a bodyguard. Guess “classified” is a relative term in Jeon. Try to think about the event.

Truth tried to remember as best he could. It was the border post up in the mountains. A routine day in a routine week. He and Ludovic had dick-in-a-box duty, stamping passports. Ludovic (correctly, as it happened) ordered a wagon inspected by a spellhound. The hound freaked out, and the driver turned into a bird-demon-person-thing, became two stories tall, and started tearing apart the post.

Truth had raced for one of the heavy-duty army wagons, overrode the speed regulator, and smashed it into birdie. It didn’t kill him on the spot, alarmingly. The army wagon had been hacked open, clipping the birdman’s wagon and spilling some of the contents.

They were sealed crates. Talismans soaking in blood, wriggling. Humming. Even then, he thought they looked unnatural. Wrong on a level he was still struggling to understand.

Yeah, this doesn’t match your memory, but it’s similar. To the point where I can see some identical symbols and structures. Whoever made this had some connection to that smuggler or his goods.

Truth slowly nodded. Alright. A lead. What could he do with this information? Not much by himself. Hmm. What would Dad do?

Dad would tell Merkovah that he knew something about this and try to scam some money as a “fee” or “reward.” No, wait. That was too sensible. He would try and find the smugglers and blackmail them, thinking that, somehow, they wouldn’t just cancel his “Life” subscription. Presumably while hopped up on a blend of poppy and bleem, washed down with some Beefheart. He would try to monetize this in the dumbest, most blatantly aggressive way possible.

“Teacher, I have seen something similar to this talisman once before. Is this a reasonably safe place to talk about it, or should we discuss it somewhere else?”

“Eh? You have? No, we need to get out of here quickly. Say nothing until I give you leave to. I will order the building sealed pending further investigation. Fortunately, most of the people I will need to speak to are already at the Temple.”

They left the building quickly. Merkovah wasted no time in joining the cousins and the Shedu in sealing the building in a thick pillar of white light. It faded to a dim translucence after a few minutes, but Truth knew it was stronger than a steel wall. How could it not be, with a giant demon, a Level Seven, and two powerful ritualists powering it? Actually, just how strong were the cousins? Worth finding out, though not right now.

He had seen them in a fight. They had powerful magic, but they were truly not fighters. Actually, he wasn’t sure that they had any combat spells. Just spells that you could, coincidentally, use in combat. Like a person with a tool spell operating a flying sword.

People were gathering around the building. A lot of shouted questions and a lot of demons and spirits peeking around. Police were out, no riot gear, but keeping everyone well back. Raising barricades and generally maintaining order. Truth kept his eyes moving, trying to pick out what didn’t fit, guessing where the next threat might be. He had Incisive cast, trusting the danger sense to alert him if any attacks came.

The faces in the crowd were interesting. This wasn’t a nice neighborhood, from what he could tell, but not a slum the way he thought of that term. These people were taking care of themselves. They… weren’t beaten. But there was something in their eyes, in the way they moved and carried themselves. Something raw. Angry. Hungry. Like something had been stolen from them, even if they didn’t know exactly what that something was.

A… priest? He should really learn what they were called. Someone wearing the same sorts of clothes he remembered clerics from the Temple wearing had come to the front of the crowd. He was holding a bundle of long reeds topped with frilly fronds. He would shout something, then flick his reeds upwards. A spray of water would come out, covering the area near the police. The crowd started roaring with him. That got the police looking worried. Truth tried to concentrate on what they were yelling.

“Out, thieves, Out!”

Then the reply: “Our Land. Pure Land!”

“Siphios!”

“Siphios!”

“Siphios!”

“Out, thieves, Out!”

It repeated over and over, growing rapidly. Truth spotted at least one cop that looked like he wasn’t about to stop a riot. They might even support the rioters.

Truth started taking deep breaths, hand loose on the hilt of his sword. This wasn’t like the Free State. These were true mages. Mages with a real fondness for demon summoning. If things kicked off here, they would get very bad, very fast.

Truth stepped sharply over towards Merkovah. “Teacher. It is time to go.”

Merkovah looked sadly at the crowd. “Yes. I’m afraid it is.”

____________________________________________

There were no riots that day, Truth heard, but it got very tense for a while.

“It's not like I don’t understand them,” Etenesh said, “Though I do think the Pure Land people go too far sometimes. Still, there is no denying that Siphios has been on the decline for a long time now. Centuries. We were the pinnacle of the world, but day by day, it slipped away from us.”

She looked hopeless. They were sitting on a bench in the Temple, taking comfort from each other’s warmth. Each envying the other, pitying the cold within themselves.

“I can’t help but feel it was stolen from us.” She twisted a bit of her shawl. She was more covered up today. Still lovely, in her fashion, but the brilliant light she had before was dimmer now.

“Who stole it?” Truth asked. Etenesh laughed bitterly.

“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Who stole it, and can we take it back? Foreigners, generally. People who are the wrong sort of Siphian, usually Orthodox Siphian or Progressive, or worse, Secular. Occasionally the Desrin, often the Praegerites. Big businesses. Particularly foreign big businesses. Like Starbrite. Landlords. Sometimes the Temple itself. Or the Throne. They aren’t too particular.” Etenesh sighed. “Actually, they are extremely particular. It just isn’t consistent across all of the Pure Land groups.”

Truth sat quietly. He didn’t really know what to say to that. He couldn’t think of any romance novels that covered this.

“And the thing is, they aren’t wrong about a lot of things. Like, why exactly is it that so much of the good farmland here only grows coffee for export? Or that all those fields have inescapable contracts for starvation prices? And that all the contract holders are big foreign companies?” She said with quiet fury. “Or the big elixir growing region in the Xarn highlands. All contracted out to the big Alchemist Towers, a cartel based out of… you will never guess…”

“Jeon?” Truth asked. He could vividly remember how the sun turned neon orange through the haze above the towers. Turning the canal the same blinding color and throwing everything around it into deep shadow.

“Jeon.” Etenesh agreed. “All that money. All those elixirs. None of it sticks here. Maybe a very little bit, at the very top. But most of it gets right on the bird and fucks all the way off to Jeon!”

She controlled her temper, then bowed her head, hands pressed over her mouth. Then she dropped them on her lap.

“I swore in Temple. I would never swear in Temple. Never. I can’t believe I just did that. And now I can’t believe I care. What does it matter? Not like God’s going to notice. Or care.”

Truth thought about that a moment. “Do you care?”

“What? That I swore?”

“That it should be a rule- people shouldn’t swear in Temple. Even if God wasn’t there to be mad about it personally. Do you care?”

“I…” She drifted off, thinking about it. “I do, actually. Isn’t that stupid? It bothers me. The thought that people would just go around swearing in Temple really bothers me. There should be someplace without… that. Without the dust of the world clinging to our tongues.”

“Then don’t swear. It’s enough that you don’t approve.” Truth shrugged.

“It really doesn’t bother you? Really?”

“About God? No. Not really. I never knew him the way you did.”

She looked ready to blow up but forced herself to calm down. “You know, once upon a time, my family would have been considered rich. We never had much money, but we were rich because we walked with God. Angels spoke sweetly to us and would answer our questions. Our lands might have been rugged, but they always met our needs. The whole of creation spoke to us, and we to it.” She waved a hand grandly.

“But then, the land started falling silent. The angels still answered our call, but they grew colder and more remote. And they would never explain themselves. No matter the sacrifice. No matter who asked.” She ground the words out. “Now we know.”

Truth just nodded. Now they knew.

“But you say you didn’t know him as I do. How. How is that possible? Even in some blasted Pragerite hole, they still know of God. Still honor him, still understand that this is his world, and we but poor stewards of it.”

“Do they? Know all that?” Truth asked.

“YES,” Etenesh spoke with quiet intensity.

“Nobody ever told me.”

That seemed to confuse her.

“What do you mean, no one ever told you?”

“I knew God existed, and some other random details here and there, but it just… never really came up. Never seemed important, so I didn’t think about it.”

“God, the actual, literal GOD, never seemed important.”

Truth looked at the etched wall, and all he could see was the scarred concrete he hid behind as gangsters strolled past. He could hear the drugged-up giggles and, worse, the shouts of the ones getting sober. Ready to do whatever it took to buy that next fix. He could feel the cold of the concrete, could smell it. Years ago. Other side of the world. And he was right back there in the alley. Scared, starving… but he had a job to do. And the sibs were counting on him.

“No. God did not seem important. Finding food was important. Keeping warm, somehow. Shoes not too worn out and cheap because someone spilled tar on them. That was a big win in the pawn shop. A good day fishing trash and industrial waste from the canal to sell as scrap. Clothes that might last a season or two after being pulled out of a dumpster. Treated carefully. Always a lucky find, though you had to be really careful about cleaning them. My hand was covered in blisters for a week once. I missed a curse when cleaning. But mostly, it was food. Every day, finding food. Whatever it took. That was the important thing.”

“Merciful angels. Where were your parents?”

“Dad was passed out in his armchair or mopping piss off the floors in the casino. Drunk, in either case. Mom was worse. Dad beat us to feel in control. I think Mom just liked to be cruel. And we were too weak to fight back.”

Truth said matter of factly. It seemed fair in his head. She felt abandoned, as though God had suddenly betrayed her. He could show her the truth- God had never been there. Not for him. And not for her. They were always alone. So they would have to be enough.