Godslayers

The following day, Roel didn’t give any sign that my idea for mechanized prosthetics had sunk in. If anything she was more distant and subdued; the finer etheric hints I might otherwise have relied on were getting lost in the maelstrom of negative emotions that was slowly becoming her new normal.

If we were on Earth or Veles I’d had pulled every lever available to get her to a psychologist so she could process the trauma, but the closest equivalent on Theria were the clergy of their various cults. I’m sure there were good people in the cults, but I was pretty goddamn skeptical about letting a cult use Roel’s trauma to drag her deeper in. The Sisterhood of the Wheel seemed pretty chill, so I asked Kuril if they had any resources for this kind of thing, but apparently they left it all to the Gamalites.

I thought about planting a camera in Roel’s room so I could see if she was sketching a design or something, but ended up not following through. It felt wrong—a breach of the shaky compartmentalization I was starting to build between my mission as an Eifni operative and the life I was building with the Vitaressi. I’d navigate this without requisitioning ethertech to solve my personal problems.

I closed the door to her bedroom, secreting my pulser in one of the many hidden pockets in my dress. It was really convenient that the Estheni preferred flowy clothing. If their fashion tended toward tightness—or, Darwin forbid, nudity—it’d be a lot harder to carry around the tools of the trade.

I breathed deeply: in, out; in, out. I tried to shelve my worry for Roel and my uncertainty about living tenuously in two worlds. Time to do my nightly meditation practice—I realized with pride that it was a nightly habit in truth now, rather than aspirationally—and hit the sack.

“Operative Lilith, you are hereby ordered to report to the Ragnar for a tactical assessment.”

Or not.

“Seriously? Abby, it’s like ten o’clock.”

“I am authorizing the use of medical translation for exhaustion tonight. Extract from the Vitares estate unseen. Practice not using your cloak. With Lirian incapacited, there should be no further threats of her caliber.”

“Shit.” I guess she meant business, whatever this was. Her tone was extremely formal. “On my way.”

The only real struggle would be climbing the exterior wall; Kuril had relaxed security with Lirian’s capture. Part of me wondered whether Lirian had allowed herself to be captured for exactly that reason; she’d been remarkably calm for someone who was about to get dragged off to Javei Central. Come to think of it, I didn’t actually know what they did to people in there; but given that Kuril had ordered them to punish her, it probably wasn’t a five star resort experience.

I slipped into a darker set of clothes—the shawl I was in had been dyed with brightflower. I made sure to pick up the small bag that was waiting in an unobtrusive corner of my room before I left. Now ready to go, I located an open window and checked for estate security.

The guards all had shuttered red ghostlights. The shutters made them harder to spot in the darkness; the red light stopped their night vision from getting ruined. Pretty effective against your run-of-the-mill thief.

Unfortunately for them, I had cybernetic eyes with built-in night vision. Sucks to suck! Better luck in the next millennium!

From my vantage on the second story I saw one of the guards rounding the corner. I shifted to the side to minimize my profile in the window—there was a ghostlight in the hallway behind me, it’d make me stand out—and let him pass me by. He was in no hurry. I was, but with infil work you gotta wait for your moment. Eventually I judged he was far enough that I could make a break for it. I hoisted myself out of the window, twisting to face away from the building, and sighted my drop. The cobblestone pathway would make for a bad fall, but there was a planter—there!

I landed with a muffled thump, collapsing into a roll rather than let my feet take the whole impact. Still had my bag? Yep, all good! I kicked some dirt back to disguise the divot from my initial impact and set off to the outer wall.

“And no one was the wiser,” I murmured, popping a grin in the darkness. It felt good to be back in my element. Next op, I was going to request a role that only involved parkour and hitting people. That’s all a girl really needs.

I looked up at the wall and grimaced. It was free-climbing this or sneaking past the main entrance, which I knew was both well-lit and manned at all hours. Well, commander said to get out unseen, so that meant free-climbing time. I looped the bag through my belt, left side, and set off for one of the thicker pillars that partitioned the wall into segments. There was enough room for me to wedge myself into the corner and push myself up with my legs. Kinda like a wall sit, but your legs are walking up the adjacent wall while you scrape your back all the way up. Not pleasant, not comfortable, but I managed it. This shawl was toast, though.

I lugged my aching body over the top of the wall, pausing to take a breather and admire the view. City was quiet this time of night. Your noble types could afford ghostlights if they needed to work at this hour, but most people had to make do with candles. Man, I probably would have done way better in college if staying up late had cost me money.

The night air was cool, the moon was full, and I had some kind of weird training exercise to get to. I dropped off the wall and made my way to the hidden door to the Ragnar’s cavern. After a quick scan to check for observers, I sent a command over comms to open the door.

Abby was waiting on the lift.

“Yo,” I said.

“Evening,” she said. “We’re meeting in the lounge.”

“Tactical assessment, huh?” I said. “You gonna tell me what’s up?”

“You’ll be briefed when we start,” she replied. She started the lift and took us down.

She’d never pulled something like this on me before, and I suspected it had something to do with my breach of operational security. But I wasn’t getting anything off her. Etheric, body language, whatever—Abby was perfectly controlled. Surely she’d need to do an inquiry if she were doing an official discipline thing, right?

Fucking Veles, man. Everything was a test and all the questions had trick answers.

I didn’t forget all the social maneuvering I’d been doing the past couple weeks, though. I kept all my defensiveness out of my body language, forcing myself to stay relaxed. Would Abby pick it up anyways? Would she know what it meant? It wasn’t lost on me that the Veleans’ whole implicit communication thing probably meant a multi-centenarian like the commander wouldn’t have any issues seeing through the facade of a less-skilled person. She’d had more practice at this than I had practice breathing.

My furious mental calculations came to a halt. We’d reached the lounge.

“After you,” Abby said, her lips quirking.

I stepped through the door.

“Oh, you utter bastards!” I shouted in delight.

Markus burst out laughing from his seat at the central table. Val merely smirked, steepling his fingers behind my fucking DM screen. They’d brought out my RPG books and my dice were all over the table.

“Tactical assessment my ass!” I threw my arms around Abby. “What the—why on earth?”

“Surprise!” Abby chuckled. “Your birthday’s in a week. Between that, and the occasion of Lirian’s defeat, we decided to throw you a surprise party.”

“I designed a character for you,” said Val. “You can fill in the personality details.”

“I’m sure it’s minmaxed to hell and back!” I said happily, skipping over to give Markus a hug too. “Hey, big guy. Is Slinky the Rogue coming back?”

“I decided to branch out,” said Markus. “I’m playing a wizard now.”

The drawing on his character sheet looked exactly like Slinky the Rogue: a shirtless, overly muscled dude striking a pose. The only difference was the hasty addition of a wizard hat.

“You big lunkhead.”

“Waif,” he replied.

“Oh yeah, Val,” I said. “I got a present for you.”

“Isn’t that the inverse of your native birthday customs?”

“Smartass.” I reached into my bag and retrieved the sandals I’d been wearing the day I’d fought Lirian—still stained with splatters of her blood where I kicked her. “Can you do something with this?”

His smirk stretched into something more predatory. “Happy birthday, Lilith.”

“Well done!” Abby said, grabbing my shoulder.

“Eyyy!” Markus fist bumped me. “I knew you had this.”

“Abby,” Val said. “Would you say this means she vanquished Lirian?”

He put a weird inflection on the word. I had my comm replay it in Velean—I didn’t recognize the word, but the overtones were ancient. Like, someone randomly dropping into Beowulf-style Anglo-Saxon English in the middle of a vernacular sentence, kind of ancient.

Abby hummed. “I suppose it would. Will you retrieve it for me?”

Val nodded, rising from his seat at the head of the table and exiting the room.

“What’s all this about?” I asked.

Abby stared off into the middle distance.

“There is an ancient code,” she said. “Some say older than the Eifni Organization. Those of us who follow it call it the Old Ways; no other name for it has survived. It is a code for those of us who find themselves drawn to war as an art rather than as a career. Before you ask—no, it’s no more religious than doing meditations or practicing your katas. Eifni has extensively vetted it for religious contamination and found nothing. It’s merely a way to shape your growth as a warrior.”

“Hell yes,” I said. “Is that the thing you do with the amplifier? And you’re all like ‘surrender now because I’m not giving you another chance’ and then you kick everyone’s asses?”

Abby snorted. “Yes, that thing. But it’s more than that. I am offering to teach you. I am considered a master of the Old Ways, which means I am permitted to take an apprentice—provided you have proven yourself by vanquishing a foe in hand-to-hand combat. An utter defeat, such as what you visited upon Lirian.”

I stared at her.

“I get to be a motherfucking Padawan?” I said. “Fuck. Yes.”

Abby beamed. “We’re all so proud of you, Lilith. I have to admit, I had a feeling you might accept. So I took the liberty of requesting Val’s expertise on the next step.”

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “Wait a second, is it a math test? Is that why you’re buttering me up here?”

“No, you’re gonna like this,” said Markus. “I think he’s almost back.”

Val returned, carrying—

“HOLY SHIT IT’S A MOTHERFUCKING SWORD!” I squealed.

“Your powers of observation are truly without peer,” he said. “Their custom is for the sword to be bestowed by the master to the apprentice, so you’ll have to survive an additional few moments without touching it.”

“Holy shit holy shit holy shit.”

Val gently flipped the blade around, presenting it to Abby, who bowed before taking it from his hands. He made a soft, derisive noise.

“I know we say this every time we hand you a deadly weapon, but this is not a toy,” he said.

“Uh huh yeah sure of course absolutely.”

“Lilith,” he said. “This is a translated weapon with etheric components. If you aren’t careful with it, you could cut your soul.”

I squealed again. “It cuts souls?!”

Val glanced obviously in Abby’s direction and sat back down. I picked up the hidden meaning—this was important to Abby, so I needed to not make a fool of myself. That was probably fair. I steadied myself.

“Okay,” I told her, grinning madly. “What do I do?”

“I am a warrior of the Old Ways,” said Abby. “My road has been long. If you would walk it, then take up my sword.”

She offered the sword to me, hilt-first. I drew it reverently.

It was perfect. The entire weapon etherically reeked of sword-ness, which just made all the little touches look just right. The leather wrap around the handle! The curves along the hilt! The ridge down the blade! Damn, I was really going to need to learn some sword terminology so I could gush more.

“Your apprenticeship formally begins when you name it,” said Abby. “If you name it wrong, you can try again. Some people take several years of contemplation to fully understand the nature of their sword. Once you’ve discovered its name, you’ll train until I say your apprenticeship has concluded, and you’ll be given a spear as a symbol of your mastery.”

I could see my reflection in the sword. It was so shiny.

“Okay, that’s easy,” I said. “It’s named Lilith.”

Markus burst out laughing. The unexpected one was Val, who was full-on doubled over and guffawing from his gut. Abby’s face radiated utter shock.

“I—are you joking?” she stammered.

“It’s what they taught us in the Academy,” I said. “Swords are just swords. The real weapon is me. It’s named Lilith.”

Val wheezed out, “I told you.”

Abby sighed. “Congratulations, apprentice.”