Godslayers

Falerior didn’t respond immediately to my offer to team up. He watched me, very calmly, assessing the situation. Behind him, another contestant stood up nervously, voice trembling a bit as he announced his song to the crowd. Whoever had to follow Markus’s performance was always going to have a bad time, and I felt a little sorry for the dude.

“So you would like me to believe this… ne’er-do-well is in the vicinity,” he said. “The one who you claim injured Roel?”

Was that the same person? “Uh, the person who injured Roel was…” I tried. “They were a… fuck, what was I talking about?”

“Is this the same person who injured Roel?” Falerior asked.

“Lilith, I’m on your feed,” said Val. “I’m outside the range of the effect, so you can trust me to be accurate. The answer to Falerior’s question is yes.”

“Yes, it’s the same person.”

“Is this person a whisper?”

“What did you say?” I asked. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

To my left, I spotted an unobtrusively-dressed woman making her way through the benches. If I wasn’t looking for her specific shade of blue, I’d have missed her. Abby was carrying an amphora, inside of which lay a higher-powered etheric scanning device. “One minute,” she said. “Keep him talking.”

Falerior nodded, satisfied. “Never mind. You’ve convinced me there’s another person of interest here. I can’t say you’ve convinced me you’ll be valuable in finding them.”

“I have something you don’t,” I said. “I can find invisible people.”

“I don’t see a skios on you, and I’m not convinced you had an opportunity to attune one.”

Thank you for the valuable information, Mr. Oathkeeper. Trust the servants of a god of revelations to offer helpful information about their capabilities. I smiled. Abby was almost here.

“I found out she was in the library,” I said. “And I didn’t know ahead of time. Your truth vision picking all that up?”

Falerior considered.

“The truth belongs to Javei,” he said. “All is known, and all shall be known.”

I tilted my head expectantly, a kind of okay, go on? gesture. “So…”

“What would you ask in return?” Falerior asked. “I cannot give you this skios.”

Great. So the paladins were always gonna know my location. “Can you, like, reset it? I don’t like being tracked like that.”

“All is known—”

“Okay, fine, you can’t. Can you at least stop bothering me?” A flash of inspiration struck me. “Uh, it’s interfering with my ability to keep to my oaths.”

This seemed to get a small reaction out of him. At this distance, with my original eyes, I would have missed it. But my Eifni-issued cybernetic replacements automatically blew up the image of his face to note a slight widening of the eyes, the lips loosening—maybe because he wanted to ask about it?—even as the muscular tension in his cheeks indicated he was actively maintaining that fucking neutral expression.

I struck first, before he was able to finish adjusting. “I can’t be a good daughter to the Vitaressi if you disrupt my place in the household. And I genuinely want that.”

“This investigation must be concluded,” said Falerior. “But if what you say is true, finding this other whisper will do so. We’ll honor your place in the Vitares household.”

“Sweet,” I said. “I’ll meet you out back. Follow the skios.”

Falerior nodded, then strode off. Abby came to a stop next to me.

“Good timing,” I said.

“I’m set,” she said. “Do it.”

I drew my pulser, using my shawl to hide it from the crowd, and fired three times into Falerior’s back. Like Vanerel, he made no indication that he’d noticed. I switched to my hand amplifier. He was nearing the edge of its range, so I didn’t have time to play around with the settings too much. I nailed him once with the last frequency used, the Mom Special, and then he was out.

“Val?” Abby asked.

“I’ve recorded the blessing. Do you need me on ops?”

Abby shot me a knowing smile. Val probably wanted to get working on that immediately.

“We’d appreciate oversight, if you can spare the time,” she said. “Good work, team. This op has been extremely profitable. Lilith, are you actually working with the Oathkeepers?”

“I planned on it,” I said. “Are you saying I should change my mind?”

The commander smiled, wrapping me in a side hug. “You’re showing great initiative.”

I leaned into the hug, but it didn’t escape me that the commander’s non-answer was also an answer in the weird Velean implicit communication layer: You made the call, so you’re responsible for it. My shoulders hunched in a little bit. Abby definitely noticed—she glanced at my body language as she released me from the hug—but she made eye contact and didn’t say anything. That, too, was a message.

“So what’s the plan?” Abby said.

“Let’s assume Lirian’s cloak effect is roughly circular,” I said. “She’s staying out of MDO range, but we can triangulate her by reaching the edge of her range and saying her name.”

“Lirian’s name,” said Abby.

“Yeah,” I said. “Wait. Fuck.”

“We’d better run,” said Abby. “I’ll go north.”

“I’ll meet up with the Oathkeepers,” I said. She nodded and moved back in the direction she’d come from. “Markus, can you say Lirian’s name?”

“Sorry, I must not have been paying attention, can you repeat that?”

“Lirian,” I said.

There was a pause on his end.

“Markus?”

“Team, I’m under an anti-memetic effect,” said Markus. “Enemy operative at or near my position.”

I looked over to where Markus and the other athletes were gathered. Behind them was the building where the massage competition was being held.

“She might be going after Kuril,” I said. “What does your MDO say?”

“I don’t have one, remember?” said Markus. “I’m flying in style.”

“Shit!”

“Lilith, get to the Oathkeepers if you’re still deputizing them,” said Abby. “I’ll clear Markus’s area.”

“On it.” I ran.

*

I rounded the corner invisibly and almost ran into Oathkeeper Vanerel, who was standing there with the other two. I jumped back and quickly decloaked so no one ran into me.

“Well,” Vanerel snapped.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry we can work this out later,” I said breathlessly. “Kuril might be in trouble. Please. I need your help.”

Vanerel’s expression softened.

“I’ve spoken with my brother and sister,” said Falerior. There was a wide age range between them and none of them looked related, so he clearly didn’t mean they were genetic siblings. “We’ve agreed to restrict our investigation should your lead play out.”

“Okay great but we need to go,” I said. “This way! The massage building!”

“Slow down, girl,” said the third Oathkeeper, a dude who was either late twenties or early thirties, with a look that said he thought he was smarter than everyone else in the room. “What evidence do we have to believe—”

Go for the throat.

“We can talk on the way,” I interrupted. “Move!”

I started running for the administrative building where the massage contest was taking place. My heart was already pounding from the stress of the situation, imagining Lirian holding a knife to Kuril’s throat, but my stomach dropped as the Oathkeepers failed to follow me. The fuckers. Falerior promised! We’d made a deal! Fine! Fuck them. I could deal with Lirian myse—

The clatter of armor behind me had me almost collapsing with relief. I really didn’t want to go head-to-head with Lirian by myself again. Having backup would be great.

Backup, I belatedly realized, that was immune to pulser fire. An almost-snarl passed over my face. I was gonna get her this time.

“Her name is Lirian!” I shouted as we ran. “If you can’t think that name anymore, that’s how you know if she’s close! I can tell you more precisely where she is if I get within a stone’s throw of her.” No precise numbers; comm translation had trouble with those, since it didn’t automatically convert the quantity to the local distance units. “Less if it’s crowded. Can you grab her if you know where she is?”

“I am confident that we can,” said Falerior, voice strained with exertion.

“There’s four entrances!” I turned my head over my shoulder and was surprised to see Vanerel had almost overtaken me. Not bad for an old lady. “Let’s split up and each take one! I’ll try to push her toward you, but otherwise just collapse in on the massage competition!”

“Why are you so sure she’s at the massage competition?” asked the third Oathkeeper, jogging along with no apparent effort. Something about his face rubbed me the wrong way.

“That’s what happened last time! She, uh. Lost my train of thought, what was the question again?”

“Brother Tiresia asked why you thought Lirian would be at the massage competition,” said Falerior.

“I don’t know who that is.”

“Now that’s interesting,” said Val.

“We all heard you predict this,” said Abby. “No need to preen on the ops channel.”

“Are you saying you doubted me, commander?”

I ignored the byplay. “Okay, you two head right, Falerior comes with me. Let’s get this motherfucker.”

“Sister Vanerel goes with you,” said Falerior. “I have the skios. We’ll use it to find you.”

“Whatever.” It was better than Tiresia, I guess.

I didn’t wait for her, skidding through the nearest doorway and taking the stairs two at a time. My MDO read nothing. The opponent wasn’t here. I booked it for the massage room.

“Lilith?” Abby asked.

“What?” I said.

“Did you hear me?”

“You didn’t say anything,” I said.

“The opposing agent is still in your area. Do you feel comfortable performing absence meditation in the field?”

“Fuck it, why not,” I said. “Airplane mode, activate.”

“What? Are you asking for air support?”

“Shh. Gotta focus.”

I slowed to a halt, focusing on the light of my soul. It sputtered and pulsated, throwing streamers of different colors across etherspace. That still confused and worried me during practice, because my confidence had gone way up since the inquiry and I was sure the change would be reflected in my soul. Maybe that was just how your soul looked until you were geriatric like the rest of the team. Until then, though, it was making my job easier.

“Is this the work of a unified self?” I muttered to myself.

I forced myself to remember Abby’s hug from earlier, Markus laughing at one of my jokes, Val telling me I did a good job. I remembered the guilt of sitting by Roel’s bedside, knowing I was responsible. The way that Kuril seemed to have about fifty pounds less on her shoulders this morning. Everyone thanking me after the ritual that Kives interrupted.

All of it was me. None of it was coherent. I just had to find the cracks in my sense of self and pull them open.

I did.

“Lirian,” I said, just to test the waters. Good.

My eyes opened. The path to the massage competition room was a familiar memory and I let it guide my feet. A wandering acolyte of Kabiades passed me.

“Can I help you, my lady?” he asked, avoiding eye contact.

My feet stopped.

“I need a sword.”

*

They were stomping their feet for Cades when I walked in, sword sheathed on my belt. My emotions were present but what I felt was the shift of my clothes against me, the shift of the sword as I walked, the changing pressure of my feet against the sole of my sandals.

Vanerel had caught up to me at that point. In my altered state of mind I could still see the results of cold social calculation in my head, and entered the room in front of her to make it look like I was in charge. That could change so very fast, but as long as I kept holding the reins, I could steer.

“Lirian’s not in the room,” I told Vanerel. “I’ve bypassed the cloaking effect on myself, so let’s check if it’s affecting the people in here.”

Vanerel nodded, frowning at me.

Kuril saw me, but I waved at her to keep doing what she was doing. I marched straight to the nearest familiar face, which just so happened to be Alceoi Voranetes.

“Godsmile,” I said when she didn’t acknowledge me. I was helped in this by Oathkeeper Vanerel trying to move up closer to avoid looking like a subordinate. Alceoi turned to look at us with a bright smile, as if she hadn’t been ignoring me on purpose.

“Oathkeeper,” she said. “Lady Ajarel.”

Addressing us in that implied that Oathkeeper Vanerel was my social superior, which probably wasn’t the case, but my thoughts were too crystallized to focus on that.

“Does the name ‘Lirian’ mean anything to you?” I asked.

“You’ll need to speak up,” she said. “I can’t hear you.”

“Might be she’s not in the building,” said Vanerel, an ironic look in her eyes. “Course, you seemed so certain.”

“You’re one to talk, harassing innocent graced at a public event.”

“Hah!”

Alceoi looked at us with a calculating expression.

“There are tunnels beneath this building,” she said. “They lead back to the arena. It’s how the priests move people around without disrupting the flow of the crowds too much.”

I exchanged a look with the Oathkeeper.

“Let’s check,” I said.

“Signal Falerior. We can head down together.”

We left the massage competition behind us. The priest was doing the ritual of threatening a buff dude with a sword. The audience was watching us leave instead. It meant nothing. I was mere blood and flesh.

We grabbed one of the acolytes waiting at the door and got him to direct us. Down the stairs to the ground floor, then down more stairs to a wine cellar. This must be where they stored it. The acolyte directed us to a door on the far end of the wine cellar. I drew my sword. Vanerel scoffed.

“She’s just a whisper,” she said. “They’re assassins, not soldiers.”

“You don’t have a weapon?” I asked.

“I don’t fight,” she said.

Look where that got you, I did not say.

“No hard feelings, right?” I said. “About earlier?”

“All debts come paid in the end,” she said cryptically.

I thought about my student loans, abandoned back on Earth with my forever-unexplained disappearance. “Sure. Let’s go with that.”

I reached to open the door, then paused.

“Uh, Vanerel?” I said. “If I signal Falerior, I have to drop the state of mind that stops Lirian’s cloak from affecting me. Can you guard me while I do that?”

“From a whisper?” Vanerel snorted. “You just tell me if she’s in here.”

She pushed open the door and strode into the tunnel.

“Wait, Vanerel—” I called, running through the door after her.

I was still an operative of the Eifni organization. I checked my damn corners. It’s the only reason I saw Lirian jumping at me with a knife in her hand.