11 - Afterparty

 

There are at least seventeen dining rooms in Bridgewood Manor.  From the chandelier-lit and gleaming grand banquet hall whose long table with a throne-like chair at one end that seats dozens to a dim, cozy café with intimately curtained booths for two.  The whimsy of tea tables on lilypads drifting across a pond while whole flowers grow suspended in the air contrasted with the stark modernist experiment in black and white and chrome.  All are served by kitchens with staff constructed from the purchased memories of expert chefs, bargained as collateral in their youth and collected upon their retirement.  Only the finest ingredients stock the stasis-locked pantries, indefinitely preserving the foodstuffs that only a centuries-old sorceress from still-older money could have purchased without blanching at the price that comes from the combination of quality, rarity, and need to transport across worlds.

Sullivan and his friend are sharing their dinner of water, a loaf of bread, a small wedge of cheese, and an apple apiece, sitting on the floor of a never-used guest bedroom.

“My friend, I dare say we struck gold with these recruits of yours.”

“You know that’s practically a pun coming from you?”

“I prefer to think of it as ‘being on brand.’”

“Honestly, I’m more surprised to hear you speak highly of them.”

“I only said ‘struck gold.’  It still needs extracted, refined, smelt, worked, and shaped into something worthwhile.”

“I think you might be overworking that metaphor.”

“No, what was overworked was your inspirational speech there at the end,” Sullivan says, shaking a still-unbitten apple at his friend for emphasis.  “Then again, I suppose it’s comforting to hear that you’re still just as corny and over-rehearsed as ever in that department.”

“That was one hundred percent off-the-cuff, thank you very much.”

“That just makes it worse.  You understand why that’s worse, right?”

“No,” they say around a bite of bread.

Sullivan slowly shakes his head.  Void Without, they’re going to be the death of him one day.

“My advice, drop the speeches.  You’ve always done better with the more de facto leadership of being the one to step up and take responsibility for getting things moving than as a formal role.”

“I’ll take your word on that.  Heh.  It’s not like I’ve been able to learn from experience.”

Sullivan nearly drops the apple.  Did they just make a self-deprecating joke about that?  Oh, no no no no, changing the topic right now.

“But as I was saying,” he resumes without a trace of fear, “the kids have potential.”

“I’d hardly call Eris and Lacuna ‘kids,’ and barely Ashan.”

“Oh please, you and I are both older than the three of them put together and I married a woman with anecdotes older than the country we do most of our work in these days.  They’re kids.”

His friend freezes for half a second, awful recognition flickering across their face.  They open their mouth to speak but the moment passes, their expression returns to an easy casual smile, and whatever they were about to say is replaced by “Do go on then.  You almost never speak well of anyone, so this should be good.”

That was a close one.  Sullivan curses himself for bringing up their age.  Is he really that out of practice from so short a time apart?  He continues on as if he noticed nothing.

“Well, obviously there’s wizard boy being a proper anchor world mage twisting thermodynamics to fuel spells from a magic system where that shouldn’t work just because it makes sense to him.”  He starts rhythmically tossing the apple in the air and catching it again.  “It’s not every day you find a mage who actually thinks to make tactical use of his power source’s side effects instead of tunnel visioning on actual spells.  Not to mention his capacity for power draw and output exceeds even my expectations.  If he can figure out a way to internalize a more efficient channeling schema and diversify his repertoire we’ll have a true rarity on our hands.”

“So that’s it?  Just another rare and valuable artifact for the collection?”

“If one wants to set a strong foundation for the sort of organization you’re looking to build then one must needs start with the best of the best to inspire the next generation.  He has the potential to be that.  And besides,” he rolls the apple down his arm, behind his shoulder and into the other hand, “he’s demonstrated a truly classic willingness to throw himself into the fire to save his comrades.  He’s a good fit for you.”

Not that Sullivan or his friend needed the help back there, but the kid couldn’t have known that.

“That is the sort of thing I would have done in his place, isn’t it?”

“More like ‘have done repeatedly.’  Maybe you’ll get to ease off and take turns now.  He’ll make a good right hand for you.  With me ever as the left, of course.”  He begins contact juggling the apple, noting with satisfaction how his friend’s eyes follow it.  “The techie meanwhile: adorably spineless.  She’ll probably just do paperwork for us all day if you let her, but - credit where it’s due - I underestimated her usefulness when you said you were bringing her on as our fifth.”

“You’re referring to the remote glyphs.  She was reluctant to talk about that when I brought it up.”

“Oh she’s definitely not supposed to have those,” he chuckles.  “The records of what she was working on before she got sacked were thoroughly scrubbed, but having seen it, there’s not much else it could be.  It’s hilarious how skittish she is about anything she’s actually good for, but I’m sure that with the right push she’ll make good clay for you to shape into whatever you want her to be.”

“I’m not interested in ‘shaping’ anyone.  These are our teammates we’re talking about, our friends, not a bunch of shiny new toys to play with.”

“Call it ‘inspiring’ her then if it makes you feel better.  She’d probably like the clay analogy though.  Given today’s revelations and her circumstances I’d be willing to bet she’s got at least a decent theoretical grasp of any transmutation related topic you care to name.  It’s an obvious case of someone who doesn’t know who they want to be but knows it’s not who they are now.  Show her like you showed me.  It should be easy enough; it’s obvious every time she looks at you that she thinks the world of you.”

“Just like it’s obvious she’s terrified of you?  Seriously, what did you say to her when I wasn’t around?”

Sullivan clasps his apple-less hand over where his heart should be and gasps in mock indignation.  “Why, I was nothing other than my usual charming self.”

“That’s what worries me.  You were being antagonistic enough while I was around; I’m not completely blind to how you are when I’m not.”

The apple’s returned to its original hand when Sullivan pulls it away from his chest into an exaggerated shrug.  He cheated that particular sleight-of-hand, but that’s one of the perks of being him.

“I was just stress testing them.  If they can’t take a bit of light provocation now, how can we expect them to hold up a year from now in a real high-stakes situation with tensions running high?  Besides, if I’d really been trying to antagonize anyone there would have been bloodshed.”

His friend sighs.  “I know, I know.  But for once, could you at least pretend to get along?  I really want this to work out.”

Sullivan stops playing with the apple.  “I know, and so do I.  That’s why I did it.  But since you asked, I’ll… show some restraint.”

“Thank you.  Building up team trust and understanding is going farther than just learning to tolerate each other.”

Sullivan peels a bit of skin off the apple with his teeth instead of answering.  The taste is so-so.  Better as a prop than food, especially for one who doesn’t need to eat.

“I notice you didn’t mention Eris,” his friend says after a few bites of their own meal.

“Muscles?  What’s there to say?  Every team needs its resident brute and she fits the role.  Big, simple, strong, durable, and resorts to physical force at every opportunity without thinking the consequences through.  But, as they say, ‘when all you have is a hammer…’” He traces a ring around the apple’s stem with a finger and then rips out the core with one tug.  “It’s cute though how protective she gets of the techie,” he continues as he tosses the de-cored ring of fruit to his friend.  “Pound of gold says the two of them are sleeping together by the end of the year if they’re not already.  Muscles will probably be obsolete once the other two come into their own, but she’s a good shield until then and - as we’ve seen - putting her in danger’s a good way to motivate the techie.  Not that you would ever do that intentionally of course.”

His friend pauses, apple halfway to their mouth, and gives him a flat look.

“And not that I would either, don’t worry,” he assures them while lazily swinging the apple core by its stem.  “Besides, it’s not like I’ll be going into the field with them again anytime soon.”

“You have a lead then?”

“That remains to be seen, but as you pointed out yourself when you got the call for this job, a bizarre accident on a known smuggling route just weeks after a cross-world smuggling ring got wiped out and robbed is enough of a coincidence to be suspicious.  I’ll be checking on our lighthouse-dwelling acquaintance to ask him if he knows anything about this ‘pulse’ our sole survivor mentioned.  After that I still need to have an interview with said survivor to make sure there aren’t any other details he’s forgetting, sort through the salvaged luggage and cargo for anything incriminating, and grease whatever appendages on whatever politicians in Crossherd I need to in order to get all those pod people out of my garden and back to Culescu.

“Suffice to say, that all should keep me occupied for some time, and even if it turns out to be unrelated to your initial case there should be some positively delicious secrets to be dug up in the course of looking into why this happened.  Assuming you want me to find out, of course.”

“Go for it.  If there’s a chance something or someone intentionally caused this disaster then we need to know.  I’m guessing that ward monitor you had me plant at the lighthouse still hasn’t picked up anything?”

Sullivan shakes his head.  “No one’s been in or out of there except us and Cabetha’s crew, and at this point I don’t think anyone’s going to be.  Either that or whatever it is they’ve been doing to keep from leaving a trace is even more paranoid in its thoroughness than I thought.  I’ll retrieve it when I’m back out there tomorrow morning.”

His friend nods.  “In the meantime, I was planning on seeing if I can track down Jero and talk xem into helping wake up the passengers.”

“Xe’s still on-world, last I checked.  Let me know when you’re bringing xem by so I can get xem through security.  You bringing wizard boy along with you?”

“No, I figure we can let him and the others rest for a few days while you and I wrap things up on this quest.”  They smirk a little as they say that last word and Sullivan lets them have this indulgence without comment.  “I take it you’re fine with him staying here that long?”

“Whatever faults I may hypothetically have, I have always been an excellent host.  I’ll not remove a guest who hasn’t done anything to deserve it.  I’ll see to it that the staff keeps him and our other guest from getting lost without me.”

“Thanks.  Speaking of Ashan though, any idea what’s with the tattoo on the back of his neck?”

“Tattoo?” Sullivan asks, his surprise nearly causing him to miss the falling apple core he’d just tossed into the air.  Barely catching it with his teeth, he pulls it the rest of the way into his mouth and swallows it whole.

“I just caught a glimpse of it when he was pulling his hair back.  You were busy with the radio and I think Eris was distracted by seasickness, so I suppose it makes sense if neither of you saw it.  It looked like a glyph of some kind.  Thought you might have recognized it if you saw it, having lived with Carnette and all.”

Sullivan smiles wide.  “Now that is some interesting gossip.”

“Please don’t sneak into his room while he’s sleeping to examine it”

“Fine,” he concedes with a huff and a roll of his eyes.

 

*******

 

It’s approaching midnight and - to his own surprise - Sullivan’s been true to his word and not spied on any guests in their sleep.  Not for the first time lately, the thought crosses his mind that he might be going soft.

He pinches the ivory candle floating in front of him to snuff out its black flame, dropping the interior of the spherical mirror chamber into darkness and releasing the ghost he’d spent the past half hour cross-examining from the infinite reflection of its corpse.  He claps twice and soon he feels the subtle shift in the air from the chamber opening.  He gathers up the cadaver and candle in his usual fashion, takes a hold of the silk rope that’s been lowered to exactly where protocol dictates, and allows himself to be lifted out.  The pull of gravity returns, a trapdoor slides shut with a soft wooden swish-thunk, a carpet unrolls with a whump, and old wooden furniture creaks as it returns to its proper alignment.

As he lets go to drop into the plushly upholstered chair now beneath him a buzzing electric chandelier flickers to life, revealing the recreation of a nineteenth century occultist’s séance parlor around him.  Dark red velvet curtains (expensive) lining the walls, crystal ball (mundane) nestled in a pillow on the table (mahogany) in front of him, ouija board (fake) on one side, tarot deck (fake but good for introspection) on the other, human skull (real) on a nearby pedestal, cabinet of curiosities (fraudulent) behind him, and eldritch communion incense (distressingly real) resting cold and unburnt in a tentacle-shaped holder.

It had been another one of Carnette’s little jokes, setting up this hackneyed facade on top of the actual necromantic summoning chamber of her own design.  There was always one of those to go through anytime Sullivan wanted to get into the tools and mechanisms she’d left behind.  Daily reminders of her just as constant as the blue metal wedding band on his finger.

Sullivan’s no mage himself - and never could be in this world cluster - but he could still manage his fair share of rituals, especially with the help of his dearly departed wife’s implements, reagents, and grimoires.  Using one of the bodies of the Culescun crew members he’d discreetly gathered up while his video feed was off to summon the associated ghost to verify Dis!ma*s’s story had practically been child’s play with the mirror chamber doing most of the work for him.  Truth be told he’s feeling disappointed, both at how little a challenge it was and at how little new he learned.  Just because the ghost had corroborated the story Dis!ma*s had told them that didn’t mean there wasn’t more going on that neither of them knew about, nor did it mean there wasn’t still something the live one had left out.  Never trust a sole survivor.  Sullivan’s been one enough times to know.

As he removes the ivory candle from his person and places it in a candlestick he contemplates repeating the process on the ship’s resident flesh-shaper.  On the one hand, the other two were just grunts and someone of higher station might know more.  On the other hand, it’s not every day he gets his hands on a body with a skill this rare and it had been dead long enough before he got it into stasis that there’s not enough essence left lingering for both summoning and… personal indulgence.

A series of rapid beeps emits from his breast pocket.  What to do about that morsel is a decision that will have to be tabled for another time.  It was hard to tell with how they blended together, but at a rough guess Sullivan would say about twenty.  Roughly twenty people have just crossed the bounds of the perception ward around Lachlan’s lighthouse.  More than he’d anticipated - even before he gave up on anyone showing - but not, he thinks, more than he can handle.

This morning it had taken the carriage roughly forty minutes to make the trip from the front door of the Manor to the base of the cliff below the lighthouse.

Alone, Sullivan figures he can make it in five.

He stands and his skin ripples and writhes from that which is beneath it.

Space warps and compresses to a single point in his vision.

He takes a step and is out in the hallway.

Another step and he’s at the far end.

A turn, a step, another hallway.

Cross rooms and repeat.

The internal labyrinth of Bridgewood Manor is not conducive to this mode of travel.

He doesn’t bother waking his friend or Ashan.

Outnumbered as he expects to be, he may do some things they wouldn’t approve of.

He’s faster alone anyway.

And he hates to disturb his friend’s rare sound sleep.

One minute.

He steps out the door into the night air.

One step to the edge of the forest.

Three steps to the correct tree.

He lets himself settle for a moment so as not to confuse the security.

A brief transit north through the dark of the bridge.

Still faster for the master of the house alone than it would be with others.

Rise from the weathered wooden floorboards to stand in an arctic wind.

No longer a storm but still enough to rattle the remains of the old collapsed cabin.

Two minutes.

The twisting beneath his skin resumes.

One step down to the shore.

Practically a leisurely stroll down the winding coast.

Faster than the wind whose bite is but a tickling nibble to him.

Three minutes.

The boom echoes across the water and off the cliffs from kilometers away.

The pillar of fire erupts high enough to pierce the perception ward.

The lighthouse’s last light.

He picks up his pace.

Four minutes.

The receiver in his breast pocket beeps twenty three times.

The beeps are more spread out this time.

He swears and rounds the bend in the coast.

The dragon and the bone ship are long gone.

A single, strained step takes him across the bay and to the top of the cliff.

The receiver beeps once with his passage.

He stands at the base of the lighthouse.

It looks like the door’s been kicked in and then lit on fire.

Five minutes.

He steps to what’s left of the top of the lighthouse.  The glowing red metal grating of the widow’s walk bends beneath his weight and begins blackening and cracking the leather soles of his shoes as he perches at the edge of the hollowed out tube.  There’s light to be seen down there from the molten stone walls; not much, but enough to show that naught remains inside but swirling smoke and ash.

Sullivan stills that which is beneath his skin before opening is mouth wide (but only humanly so), sticking out his tongue, and breathing in the char on the air.  Plenty dead here, but nothing remotely recent.  Annoying, but curious.  He stands up straight and looks around, taking full use of the high vantage point as he blinks his eyes to cycle through spectrums and filters.

A quarter of a kilometer inland, well outside the bounds of the perception ward, he spots the last fading wisps of a spatial distortion marking a mass teleport.  Even from here he can tell there’s not enough left to trace the destination.  He gives a whistle of appreciation for whoever was skilled enough to break space that cleanly.  Turning his reconfigured gaze back to the burning hole that was once an alchemist’s workshop he notices a previously unseen current toward the bottom.  May as well check that out.

Casually, he rolls up the hems of his tailored pants, breaks apart the brittle and crumbling ruins of his shoes, peels off his flaming socks and steps over the ledge.  He falls twice the height of the lighthouse tower into the hollowed-out depths of the cliff before the shock of his upright landing sends a boneless ripple through his body.  The cavern he’s landed in is low and wide.  As above, so below remains nothing but cooling molten rock, ashes, and smoke.  Oh, and an entrancingly toxic mix of fumes from whatever alchemical concoctions the fire was meant to dispose of.  A shame the fire vaporized the equipment as well.  If he could condense this into a cologne the scent would simply be to die for.  Not that he’d have many places he could get away with wearing it, but he’s sure it would be a hit in the few that he could.  

Alas, he has a job to be doing, so he’ll have to satisfy himself with the short-term sensation of the gases that burn his face and nose just as surely as the floor is burning his bare feet.  He follows the invisible current of warping space to the gasping remnants of a collapsed bridge near the wall.  Had he arrived any later it would have been gone completely.  It’s visible now, up close, refracting the orange veins of light emanating from the wall more than what mere heat distortion could accomplish and gathering the ubiquitous fumes into a slowly swirling vortex.

Sullivan sticks a hand into that vortex, hardly feeling it as his palm is shredded and his nails are plucked.  Not passable - no surprise there - and routed through multiple proxy destinations.  Clever and thorough, as befits an alchemist worthy of the name, but not so clever that one worthy of the name of Bridgewood can’t get a feel for the general area of the final destination.  More importantly, he can feel the last traces of the alchemist’s “footprint.”  The man escaped before he set his home to blow up in the faces of unwanted guests.  Lachlan always had been the sort of man who’d rather destroy his own secrets than share them.  Not quite Sullivan’s style, but close enough that he can respect it.

He withdraws his arm with a smile and massages his wrist while his hand returns to a pristine and manicured state.  Now this was a lead.  And even better, his friend wouldn’t need to be sad and blame themself for the man dying under their watch.  He’d been worried about that when the the two of them first found the bodies aboard the Culescun ship, but fortunately Dis!ma*s’s timeline of the crew having died before his friend even got the call to investigate seemed to be enough for them to compartmentalize and rationalize it all as a success.

But best of all, it had been ages since Sullivan had a proper manhunt, much less one promising to end in a conflict with a large force backed by significant magical firepower.  He’ll need to expedite his other plans for the next few days because this is going to be delicious.