Chương 20: Gods and devils

"Where to, sir?" the monitor asked as I stepped back into the magic lift.

"You're surprisingly polite. Most of your colleagues won't even talk to me. If they do, they tend towards the rude." He was younger than the others I'd met, his top lip crowned with a thin moustache I could only describe as desperate. Brown eyes, brown hair, the kid was unremarkable in almost every way. Pop de Librebaum Scapulated Signposter Level 13 STR 10 AGI 12 MAG 28 ARM 14"I'm not prejudiced, sir. All I see is that badge on your chest, not the… bony armour it's melted into. Mr le Prygg told me about you.

The monitors talk."

"Everyone talks," I grumbled.

"Professor Parlthrop's office, please, Pop."

"And they usually talk shite, but it passes the time. I like talking to people. I was chatting with Mistress Gailspire the other day. You know she paints? She's got a couple of pieces in the Bemgalte Gallery, I'm going to do an interview with her for the Academy paper."

"That's great, kid. Did she mention anything about dragons?" The doors opened, revealing a much simpler waiting area than the Headmaster's.

"No, Instructor. Why would she have?"

"She has very pretty eyes. You take care, Pop." He nodded as the doors slid shut, and I turned to face my destiny. Getting the weapons enchanted was a bonus, but I wanted to have a little chat about a certain interdimensional horror that was masquerading as a ghost. My knuckle struck the oak panels of the door three times, and I waited patiently.

Anything from the Outside was a threat to the stability of the verse, so I was duty-bound to investigate, even if it meant crossing swords with the formidable warlock while I was still so weak. IMPS wasn't well loved by the denizens from beyond its remit, and they tended to make a mess whenever they got loose in a reality. Impressions weren't the worst of the bunch. Changers would suck the life out of a verse, turning it into a twisted extension of the Outside.

Concepts gradually infected souls, spreading like a mix of the flu and syphilis, until every living thing was cut off from IMPS and the verse collapsed. IMPS didn't like losing a verse, the god-system's aeon-old war against Outsiders was a constant source of work for my fellow emissaries. Veran was somehow involved with one of those enemies of reality, in a city whose destiny controlled the fate of the world. It could hardly be a coincidence, but where did this femme fatale fit into Bork's future, or my own?

My fist rose to knock again, but the door swung open before my knuckles struck the wood. The air felt heavy inside. Thick curtains blocked out the sunlight, and candles flickered in sconces along the walls. Dribbles of wax hung below them like stalactites.

"You like things old school," I said. Her desk was strewn with notes in untidy jumbles. Another door led to separate rooms to the left, and besides a mahogany drinks cabinet filled with expensive-looking bottles, there were no other decorations. She rose from behind her desk and gestured towards the chair opposite her.

"I appreciate a certain ambience. Magitech is wonderful; it's changing so many lives, but the ancients understood their aesthetics in a way that we're losing. I don't need to tell you about that, though. How many worlds have you walked?" She sat down and produced a cigarette holder. She slotted in a black woodbine and snapped her fingers to light it.

"Enough to know that change can often leave a bad impression."

"Hmm. What is it like to see magic so clearly?"

"It's already causing me some issues. The barriers you all maintain between your inner mana and the natural mana around you are counterproductive, but telling the supposed local experts that didn't make me any friends." She waved a hand in my direction.

"Looking like that, you will always find it hard to build relationships in the city. But I'm sure you were briefed on the anti-necromancy prejudice that's rife here. Tell me, do you know if Breakwater survived the disaster?"

"It wasn't included in my notes," I admitted. So much had been omitted, I was beginning to have serious doubts about Abarama's competency. Better gods than him had gone senile without anyone noticing. True immortality wasn't without its costs.

"How odd. What else has been missed out?" she asked, blowing a cloud of smoke up above her head.

"You're asking me to list what I don't know? A few things, I suspect."

"Nothing too major, I hope? Feel free to ask if you feel you're missing information. Vynni and Corvax have tasked me to assist you in any way I can." This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Gods and devils know they can die too, so I'm not surprised. Thank you, but that isn't why I'm here on this occasion." I pulled the dust that comprised my gladius and warhammer from the pouch and reached out to let them condense in my hands. Setting them on the table, I turned them so she could see the engravings. Her cigarette went into the ashtray, and she leaned forward. Her fingers flickered, and the mood lighting was replaced by bright illumination from hidden lightorbs.

"You did this?" A black painted nail delicately traced the sigils and runes I'd inscribed into my weapons.

"I was first taught enchanting by Nimg Pho. This was back in my eighth life, I think? She eventually created the Citadel of Baruk Ga. Every stone had been enchanted by her personally." She looked up and smiled.

"So many lives. So much time to refine your skills, and now you're stuck as an anatomy dummy."

"Ha. It has its advantages, and I've lived through worse. I once spent forty years as a form of lichen at the bottom of an ocean trench. I do miss steak and whisky, though."

"There may be something I can do to help with that. It won't be real, but it will feel real at the time. For now, perhaps you could tell me how you'd like me to empower these items. De Blovenstein would… well, he'd pay a pretty copper to learn," she said.

"He can go sit on a pineapple. Do you know Hagsbane's Descent?"

"I've heard of it, but never used it for anything myself. I've never needed that much mana invested in an enchantment." I spent a few pleasant minutes demonstrating the forms she would need to create with her mana using golden bone dust. Imparting knowledge and skills wasn't usually part of my remit beyond what was immediately necessary for ensuring my assigned mortal fulfilled their destiny. I'd often been the one learning. Veran was a quick study, as fast as Bork.

Guiding her through refining the forms, pointing to where she was projecting her mana and advising the changes she needed to make demonstrated only too clearly the extent of my magical sight. The runes on the hammer glowed brightly. Purple light flared, and she leaned forward with her hands to either side of the haft.

"Did it work properly?" she asked, slightly out of breath. Toughened Ancient Bone Warhammer of Breaking (exquisite)"It worked. I didn't get any bonus effects, but it changed the name of the item," I said cheerfully. I took up my weapon and stepped back for a few practice swings. The weight had shifted, and it had a pleasing amount of heft now.

"An Identify spell as well?"

"Ability. We all get that one as a freebie. I am magicless this time around."

"You don't sound too bitter about that. I imagine with lifetimes of magical training, it would be like losing an arm."

"Not my first rodeo." I shrugged.

"What's a rodeo?" she asked, picking up her cigarette and relighting it. The purple tadpole inhabiting the whites of her eyes was zipping back and forth between them.

"Not important. I've been a warrior before, and there are workarounds for some things. Unfortunately, empowering enchanted items isn't something I can get done quickly without a caster on hand. Thank you, Veran." I bowed my head to her.

"My pleasure. I learned something new—yes! Fine, Vynni. Vynni wants to have a word." A tear in reality appeared next to her head, and an eyeball on the end of a mushroom pushed its way out of the infernal pits. Black, rotten vines spilled out to dangle around it, writhing unpleasantly.

"Emissary. I wanted to explain about Ermintrude. It is no fault on Veran's part." The voice was a dull rasp.

"What happened to let an impression loose in the city?" I asked. Technically, an archdemon like Vynnithnop held unfathomable power versus my puny, nascent state. But gods and demons tended to know the score, and I'd rather they paid attention to me than pestered Bork. It would give the boy airs if gods started popping by to chat with him.

"You found what you needed in the Library," he rasped.

"Now you've got an imp hidden in my shadow?"

"Apologies, we needed to see what you knew. Ermintrude isn't a threat."

"Any Outsider is a threat, Vynni. Why is that impression allowed to wander around unbound?" I dissolved my hammer to dust and sent it back into the pouch, absently patting the leather with bony fingers once it was stored.

"She was pulled through by the Steel Wind debacle."

"The kind of power needed to breach the barrier would level half the town. If it worked properly. One slip and it would have gone off like a nuke."

"They weren't trying to breach the barrier; it was an accident," Veran said.

"They wanted to save the city, not wreck it."

"A sky cult had formed, and been allowed to go too far," Vynni took up the narrative from his mistress.

"Merchants and Guardsmen were looking to foment a war against Gladespear."

"That's four hundred miles away. Why would they want to fight those lunatics?" I wondered.

"Money, power, it's always the same stupid reasons," Veran said bitterly.

"Edvard formed a counter to the cult's ritual, but he made a mistake."

"Missed a serap?"

"He trusted the wrong person to act as his second," Veran said flatly.

"And the result was the Steel Wind and, for a fraction of a second, a breach."

"Which let Ermintrude slip into this world?"

"Part of her. Most of her is stuck Outside."

"Just a fragment. Still, I know you've got mages capable of banishing the thing. You could probably do it solo, Veran. So why is it wandering the staff quarters?"

"She's lonely. The bulk of her power was stripped from her. After what happened to Edvard and his family, I couldn't bring myself to kill her," she said.

"You can't kill an Outsider. Banishing her would be a mercy. It would let her reunite with the rest of her being."

"She doesn't want to. She says the Outside is… unpleasant, even for its natural denizens," Vynni rasped.

"It is. It's like a formless mass of ideas all constantly consuming each other, new ones forming from the parts even as they dissolve back into each other. It's soup made of living lava. It's the fate of this world if Bork doesn't stop it."

"She's also the only hope of getting the airships running again," Vynni said.

"Edvard managed to channel the cult's energies upwards, which disrupted the leylines the airships used."

"What the hell was the cult trying to do?"

"We never found out." Veran leaned back in her chair.

"The circle was destroyed when everything fell apart. Edvard did his best, but his colleague made a mistake with the flows, and he lost control. It burned his channels out and incinerated the ritual site." I looked at the demon, my eye sockets flaring.

"What were they trying to do?"

"A portal. The gods Aeris and Gezeit were sanctioned as a consequence of the assistance they provided the cultists," Vynni said, earning a gasp of shock from Veran.

"All this time, and you never told me," she accused.

"You didn't want to be any more involved than you already were, dear Veran," said a new voice from behind me.

"And you would be Corvax, I presume?" I said, turning to face the goddess of Death.

"Nice of you to pop by. What the shit has the pantheon been up to on this world?"