Chương 51: A Party of Two

I thought for a bit, the next floors would be easy if we kept moving. I had already settled on the route through sixteen and was considering whether the supplies on seventeen justified a detour when Petra asked where we intended to make camp. I stopped with the staff planted beside my foot.

"Camp?"

"Somewhere you can rest." She glanced at the bandage around my arm.

"You're still holding that against your side."

"It is attached to my side."

"I meant your arm." I knew what she meant. The question was whether we could afford the rest she wanted, and the answer was somewhere beyond the passage ahead. Floor sixteen had places suitable for it. There were approaches I could watch without getting up, and enemies whose movements would give us enough warning to gather our belongings before they reached us. I started arranging those possibilities while Petra waited. [Floor Collapse Imminent.] [Time Remaining: 01: 30] The notification interrupted the route I was putting together. I read the remaining time, then looked back along the passage.

'Damn it. Walk first.' There had been two minutes. We had spent thirty seconds discussing where to lie down, although most of that discussion had apparently taken place inside my head. I shifted the staff and started forward again. Petra followed.

"I wasn't suggesting we stay here."

"There is a place on the next floor."

"Alright. Before we get there, could we—" Mimir said something from my hip. I missed it because I was reconsidering the approach to the next gate. Taking Petra through it would require keeping her within reach without crowding her bow arm. The passage narrowed farther ahead. I remembered that much, though I could not recall whether the narrow section came before the turn or after it.

'After the turn. No, that was another staircase. Curse these bloody passages.'

"Carlos?"

"I heard you."

"What did I say?" I looked at her. She waited, and I disliked that she had found such a straightforward way to establish the problem.

"Say it again."

"Could we form a party?" The humans used that term often. I had heard it in arguments about supplies and in the complaints of people whose companions had failed to arrive somewhere alive. Its meaning shifted depending on who was speaking. I had generally treated it as an arrangement they made among themselves. Petra slowed and lifted her hand. A screen opened in front of her. I stopped so abruptly that the end of my staff struck the edge of my boot.

The window hung between her face and her raised fingers, its surface angled toward her. I could see it from the side. I leaned a fraction farther, expecting the letters to disappear when I changed position. They remained.

"Is that Aiōn?" Petra's hand stopped beneath the screen.

"What did you say?" I looked from the window to her.

"That is—""Lad," Mimir cut in, "ye do not dare utter such befoulment." His voice was loud enough that I turned toward him before considering the words. He stared up at me from beside my belt. I had heard him produce considerably worse language over a handful of powdered ingredients. Petra followed my gaze. Her eyes settled on his face. She looked at the rope above him, then down at his mouth, and took a small step away from us. Mimir's brows drew together.

"What are ye looking at, ye dim twat?"

"You…" She moved back again, catching the bow at her side before it swung against the wall. I tightened my grip on the staff.

"You're not human, are you?" Her attention had returned to me. She was looking at my face now, then my hands, examining things I had done nothing to conceal because she had already spent enough time beside me to see them. For a moment I wanted to tuck my free hand out of sight. The impulse irritated me. I had no reason to feel as though I had been caught doing something improper. She had asked a question. Humans asked questions constantly, including when the answer was visible in front of them.

Still, I lowered my hand.

"Wait," I said, looking down at Mimir.

"She can see you?" A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Of course she can. Everyone can see a head hanging from your—" He stopped. Petra remained a few steps away. I could see her screen beyond her elbow, waiting for whatever she had been about to do. It seemed indecently patient. I had known Petra across more runs than I cared to count. Mimir belonged to this one. Somehow, I had allowed the familiarity of having him speak beside me to stand in for any actual understanding of what other people saw when they looked at him. He was a talking head fastened to a rope.

Put beside the other things I had encountered in the tower, that did leave several possibilities open. I had not properly considered which one a human would reach first. I had not even established which one was correct.

"Lad," he said, more quietly.

"Repeat after me. Khronos." I stared at him.

"Say Khronos. Keep the other name out of your mouth."

"Why?"

"Because I'm asking ye nicely, and there's very little time left for nicely." Lady Livia had called it Aiōn. I remembered the name clearly. I had spent enough time turning it over in my head that confusing it with something else would have required effort. Mimir was now demanding exactly that effort while Petra watched us confer beside a wall. I looked back at her screen.

"Carlos," Mimir said. I had a method for this. It was unpleasant, and I had hoped not to need it in front of someone whose mannerisms I still had to remember separately from several hundred previous versions of her. Mimicking humans required selecting the right human. A solemn one would take too long. A frightened one might encourage her to keep asking questions. I settled on the expansive certainty I had heard from men who used divine names to excuse mistakes they had plainly made themselves.

Then I raised both arms.

"Of course I am human!" The movement pulled at the bandage. I kept my arms up because lowering one immediately would have spoiled the gesture. Petra looked at my hands.

"The skin," I continued, looking down at myself as though the subject had only just occurred to me.

"Yes. I understand. An unfortunate amount of time inside the tower. Very little sunlight. You have seen the staircases."

"You were just—""And the name! Khronos, naturally. The almighty Khronos. I have been away from society for far too long." Mimir made a low noise beside my belt. I pressed on before he could contribute anything less helpful.

"Time dulls the senses. One loses the habits of proper speech, of worship. I confused the name of the almighty Khronos with that despicable Aiōn." Saying it a second time seemed to defeat part of the instruction. I only considered that after the name had left my mouth. Petra blinked. Mimir closed his eyes. I brought one arm down and pointed at him.

"This is a relic." The angle was awkward. I nearly struck his forehead with my finger and adjusted at the last moment.

"A talking relic," I added, because the talking seemed to be the part she objected to.

"Acquired in the tower."

"Aye," Mimir said through his teeth.

"A relic. Endowed with wisdom that occasionally survives contact with its owner." Petra looked from him to me. I held the expression I had chosen. It involved more of my face than I usually committed to conversation, and I could feel it becoming difficult to maintain.

"You don't have to shout," she said.

"I wanted to be clear."

"You were clear." She examined me once more, slowly enough that I considered whether I had forgotten some other visible feature. Her gaze stopped at my bandaged arm. I lowered the remaining hand. A breath escaped her, and the bow settled against her hip instead of remaining caught in her grip. I took that as permission to stop performing. It might only have meant she was tired. Mimir spoke while she turned back toward the passage.

"Good thing ye have neither horns nor a tail, lad. God made ye human at heart, though He might have spent another afternoon on your manners." I did not answer. The word human had become too expensive to discuss. Mimir could explain the divine names somewhere else, ideally before another human asked me to identify something. [Time Remaining: 00: 54]"We should move," I said. Petra nodded. She started walking, and the screen moved with her. I nearly stopped again.

Instead, I matched her pace and watched from the corner of my eye. My own notifications were familiar enough that I generally read through them without considering their appearance. Hers had a different colour. Blue, where I expected the grey I knew. I shifted a little closer. Petra glanced at me.

"Your bandage?"

"What about it?"

"Is it too tight?"

"No."

"You're looking down." I raised my eyes to the passage.

"I'm watching where I step." That was also advisable. The staff had already caught my boot once, and my attention was becoming unreliable. A shallow groove ran down the centre of the floor, with a small pale stone lodged inside it. I stepped over the groove and spent an unnecessary moment wondering why it was there. Beside me, Petra reached toward her window. Her index finger hovered before she pressed. The movement was careful, almost tentative. She waited, then touched a different place.

I could see where her finger met the surface. For all my familiarity with the tower, I had no useful explanation prepared for that. The system had addressed me through every path I had taken. I had used it alone, examined it alone, cursed it alone. I had treated its presence as something belonging to my own experience without ever needing to test the assumption this directly. Petra was using hers within arm's reach. I wanted to ask her when it had first appeared.

I wanted to know whether she had always seen it and whether she could see mine. The questions crowded together badly enough that I kept my mouth shut. The performance about sunlight would not survive much more scrutiny.

"Does it usually take you this long?" I asked instead. Her finger withdrew.

"I'm checking."

"Checking what?"

"That I selected the right person." I looked down the passage. We were the only people walking through it. Petra followed the glance.

"I know. Just give me a moment."

"Take all the time ye need," Mimir told her.

"We've nearly a whole handful of seconds. A king could squander a kingdom in less." She pressed again. A new window opened in front of me. [Party Invitation Received.] Beneath it, the names appeared. [PARTY 1: Koalemos] [PARTY 2: Petra] I read the first name before the second. Koalemos. Petra had selected me. Whatever she had done had reached the system I knew, and it had answered with a name I had not given her. I looked toward her window, trying to establish whether the same thing had appeared there.

Her arm obscured part of it. She caught me looking and lowered her hand.

"Did you get it?"

"Yes." The answer came out more sharply than I intended. I eased my grip on the staff. She had asked an ordinary question, as far as she was concerned. The invitation waited.

"Do you need me to send it again?"

"No. I have it." She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, then put her hand back on the bow strap.

"It's… for protection." Mimir stirred against my hip.

"Protection indeed. Be the gentleman ye are, lad, and accept before the ceiling joins our company uninvited." I looked up despite myself. The ceiling remained where it had been. Petra pressed her lips together. I could not tell whether she was suppressing a smile or regretting the invitation.

"I can keep up," she added.

"And I still have the arrows."

"I know how many arrows you have."

"Yes. You asked." The names remained in front of me. I had spent so long wondering what her system meant that I had given very little thought to what she was offering. She wanted to go with me. There were practical reasons for that, and she had supplied one without requiring anything elaborate in return. My fingers hovered near the invitation. I had watched her touch the blue window. Mine had always answered my intent readily enough.

Repeating her gesture felt unnecessary, but I did it anyway, bringing my finger toward the place where acceptance was indicated. [Party Invitation Accepted.] [PARTY 1: Koalemos] [PARTY 2: Petra]