PART II: REGRESS

  CHAPTER 11

  He was free. Completely, totally, wholly. . .free.

  They might kill them all. Rina. Pil. . .

  He couldn’t do anything about any of that. Not anymore. Freedom.

  The weight of it grew and grew with each moment, until the word itself was heavy, and cold.

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  Reduke sat, duly chastened. Nightmaster paced in fury. Reduke's arm hurt. It had been cut off. The prospect that Nightmaster might leave him was far worse than any pain.

  "Another shiner,” his patron said, and the hood of the robe twisted horribly. "I was so sure it was the green bitch!”

  Having never seen his patron nervous, Reduke was more than a bit confused. The crazy blue rokkae-woman had surprised them, and he regretted his arm, but they could get her any time.

  They could get anyone. . .right?

  "Nightmaster,” he whispered. "Reduke’s arm is okay now.” He was off his feet and face-first into the wall before he could even grunt. He would have screamed had it been allowed. He was being pressed into the wall as if by a giant palm.

  "Stupid!” Nightmaster snarled, and left Reduke in a veil of pain and returned to pacing. Reduke looked out across the darkness. Fires, jovial whooping, wet screams. . .another day in Fair.

  Reduke was dropped onto his butt, left there as Nightmaster stood, and Reduke could, by the power, feel the depth of his patron's thought. Reduke said nothing when the shadows behind Nightmaster dissolved into a kid wearing a black suit and black sunglasses, for Nightmaster still locked his voice

  "Geta,” the kid growled.

  Reduke saw only purple splash against purple as Nightmaster’s great power rapped the kid in many strings, cutting his flesh, peeling his skin, popping bone after bone as from a chicken wing.

  The kid's mangled corpsemelted, his essence drifting lazily and forming behind Nightmater, hands clasped behind his back.

  "Pitiful. Trained at the feet of one of the Akarat? The Three TheyFollowInSilence? Pitiful.”

  Nightmaster’s rigid shoulders relaxed. "Valens, I assume? Shinasshu, eh? Took you long enough."

  Seeing Nightmaster at ease, Reduke laughed, "What is a 'Geta?’”

  Nightmaster barely wagged a finger. Pain. Reduke was again silent.

  A thousand thoughts flickered and died within Nightmaster. Reduke directly perceived few, understood less. A few dismissive wrist-flicks, and Reduke could move, could breathe. "Dear Reduke, take a walk, blow off some steam, have fun. Your leash is a bit longer today.”

  Reduke looked between the intruder and Nightmaster, "Can Reduke leave Nightmaster?” From within the robe Nightmaster drew a small hatchet with an edge so nasty it whistled when his patron threw it from the roof.

  "Fetch.”

  Thoughts of cleaved meat made Reduke's mouth water, and before he knew it himself, Reduke jumped. Nightmaster turned him upside-down halfway to the ground. He landed, painfully, on his face.

  "Ouch.” He stood, took up the hatchet, and began a quest for meat. "Not for Reduke to worry,” he said as he loped away. "Reduke has nothing Nightmaster needs. Nothing. To be a patron. Such power. Such truth.”

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  It had taken weeks to simply hear of the dreadful place--a fact all the more impressive when considered alongside the nature of Valens' shine--let alone find it. Valens wished he hadn’t. The smell.

  Someone screamed, common enough since he’d arrived, as Geta’s fat lackey waddled off. Valens made great notes of the man and his movements. Geta was sharing his, or her, shine with the man somehow. Shine transfer? Without a standard? "What is funny?” he said when he noticed his new employee giggling.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  "Don’t tell me you’ve never have a little bit of fun with your shine. I bet you see all sorts of things.” Geta’s voice had morphed halfway through the sentence to a particularly deep baritone. Mixed with the sexual tinge, no doubt picked up from the psychotic Cal, it was profoundly unsettling.

  "I work. I win. That is all I do.” Valens nodded to where the fat man had gone over, "You make that, thing?”

  "Not my hot mess,” Geta giggled, voice always shifting, always hissing.

  "Trusted subordinate, then?”

  "Trinket.”

  Valens sighed as the low drama. "I see now why you’ve failed so miserably. Ovon needed a soldier here, not a clown.”

  The cut landed. Geta's giggling ceased. The narrow, robed shoulders squared.

  Valens shook his head. "I have arrived. But why send him away, then?”

  Geta took a long moment before answering. "The greater I am in his mind the easier we, uh, connect. He was already confused by. . .unpleasantness, earlier. Your sudden appearance will not help.”

  "That is your fault. You were to await your superior, contact me upon arrival, not hide in the garbage. Why, I wonder? Have you abandoned your mission?”

  "Superior?” scoffed the other Lesser.

  "I hate games,” Valens took a step toward Geta. "Ovon will have contacted you at least once since I left, spotty communications or no. A and V are bending the whole of their substantial will to the rise. As of right now, I own you.” He let the words hang in the filthy, cold air. "You report to me, and I mean now. Everything you’ve discovered in a year of skulking failings.”

  The crucial moment. Geta’s every move, every flinch read in Valens' HuD as a precursor to violence. Geta laughed, and Valens was not ready for that, noting how easily the other Lesser capped their emotion. Damn. Valens had really been hoping to end this now.

  With a swish of air the robe turned, stepped to the edge of the building. "Okay tough guy. I get it. Do you? You get it? You know who they’ll mangle if this gets shaked up?” A long, bony finger pointed straight to his heart "In case that wasn’t clear.”

  Valens waited.

  Geta sighed. "I have good reason to suspect it is in First. I’ve had exactly zero success in Wordheal, get me? No trace. Nothing. Of course I’m still operating there on the off-chance I’m wrong, we all are, eh, Valens? All current information points to the narokk city. Those are so wedded to delusion that I could walk the streets lit up like the sun and I doubt they’d see.”

  Valens snorted, "The Firsts have the better of it. This is a search for manes.” Valens ran shine through his glasses, flipped through his filters one at a time, but Geta’s face remained black.

  "Manes? Like Oldword ghost stories? Naughty boy, looking me up and down.”

  "Skeel.” His shine repelled from it, his HuD registering nothing but empty air. "Pounded into a thin screen between skin and robe?”

  "Yep,” the hood raised two draped arms, "all for you, my man. What a bitch it was finding this much refined product out here once I knew it was you coming.”

  "Waste of good skeel.”

  "My rashin and anushin don’t require skeel.”

  Fool, Valens thought. That information alone was worth suffering both you and this place. Already his analysis of the person now talking to him, from bone density estimates to gait to voice, was solidifying. "You know about my shine?”

  "I know more about yours than you mine, but whose fault is that? How is dear Cal, anyway?”

  "I prefer seeing the faces of those I deal with.”

  "Cry more,” the rolling voice taunted. "You have your creepy all-seeing glasses, I got my silly little screen.” Geta rose into the air as if supported by invisible legs, began to slowly sway back and forth. "We good, or this a problem?”

  Valens changed the subject. Geta was a liar, but they had submitted. That made them useful, but what Valens said was, "You are useless, Geta. I can tell you with certainty that we’ll be successful in Wordheal.”

  "That right? Based on what? Best guess? You been out here a few days and you think you can tell me how these cities run?”

  Valens laughed, said derisively, "'A few days.'”

  Geta took this in, then said, "Boxing me out before we even meet, huh boss?”

  "I simply couldn’t waste all my time finding you. Regardless, Wordheal will be our primary sphere of operation.”

  "Any specifics on this intel?”

  "No.”

  An extended silence in the black filth passed between the Lessers before Geta chuckled, said, "I hate you Valens, but I love how you play. Ought to be fun.” Geta rose above Valens' head, "They promise you a big chair? Know they promised the same thing to me. Only enough room for one more chair.”

  "Agreed.”

  "Excellent,” Geta came back down feet from Valens. "What now, boss? I assume you felt that fire fight last night? You know there’s another shiner in play in addition to the redheaded First?”

  "I am aware. Another of your blunders. If we are silent and careful, they won’t be a problem. We’ll be on our way back to Ovon within the week. The Given holiday will provide excellent cover.”

  "Then I’ll move all operations to Wordheal,” said Geta. "Where to start? When and where will we rendezvous?”

  "I have a few ideas,” Valens produced several papers and passed them to Geta, "I welcome any input you might have. Rendezvous tonight, I assume you are familiar with this horrid place? I’ll be atop that awful statue.”

  While stuffing the papers away, Geta said, "I like it. Feels real. You know the Given call the future world, 'the Real’? Shit. This here, death in many forms, this is real. This is truth.”

  "Tonight,” said Valens, "before high of the night.”

  The hooded figure turned, approached the edge of the building, and with a mock salute said, "Tonight,” and disappeared over the edge.

  Valens moved forward and watched, his shine cutting the darkness, as the other Lesser vanished around the bulding's corner on descent. It might have been better to just ignore you, Geta. Scapegoats have their uses, however. Truly, he needed the extra eyes, as he had no idea, at all, where their prizetruly was.

  "Unfortunate,” Valens said aloud. Another scream and Valens used his shine to go far into the deep darkness. Geta’s dog was hacking someone down, slobbering as he did so. "Unnecessary," said Valens. "And gross, besides."