Warsinger - Chapter Fourteen

"Fucking hell, this is ridiculous." Suri fumed as we lurked in a corner of the ballroom, trying - and failing - to avoid drawing attention. "I've got all those papers we pulled out of the Warden’s Quarters, you've got shit to do, and we're standing around here like loons, drinking champagne and trying not to look at anyone."

"Can't say I'm a fan." I drank about half a flute of champagne in a single swallow. It tasted great going down, but it sat in my stomach like a lead brick. I was starting to think alcohol didn’t agree with the quasi-undead. “Did you hear what she said about Baldr’s plans?”

“About him trying to do all this to destroy the Drachan?” Suri gave me a puzzled look. “Why’s that bothering you most out of everything?”

“Because that’s what I’m trying to do. When we met Matir at the Dragon Gate, he offered me a quest to try and repair the Caul,” I said quietly. “And I turned him down. I told him it wouldn’t work, that we had to try and unite Archemi to deal with the Drachan once and for all. He bought it and reissued the quest. I accepted it just before I left for Dakhdir.”

“He was probably lying to her, you know,” Suri replied softly. “To Rutha, that is.”

“Yeah.” That worried me, too. Baldr was a great big hulk of a man who preferred to fight with sword and board, but behind the bland chiseled albino Superman look was an unfortunately sharp mind. Like me, he had warfighting experience. Unlike me, he’d wanted to be there – he’d enjoyed it.

Suri eyed the room. “How long do we have to stay here, do you reckon?”

"We just have to make it until Ignas leaves, though. Then we can make a quick, polite exit, ride back to Vulkan Keep, and fuck like rabbits before we fly to Kalla Sahasi and you get your spawn point."

"I like the sound of that, but I can't guarantee I'm not going to freak out on you once you get my knickers off." Suri's lovely mouth turned down, and her eyes darkened from gold to amber. "Got some bad head noise going on. You got any idea how surreal it is to be standing here in a big poodle dress with a glass of champagne after being stuck in Al-Asad for a fortnight?"

"I can imagine," I admitted. "It was like that when we got cycled from the front lines into the reserve every couple months. We'd go from this endless muddy jungle hell to a bunker with a gym and videogames and hot food. My head would spin for a couple days, because you know... the war was still going on over there. No ever played the games. We just slept."

"Yeah. I’m sitting on an Exhausted penalty as we speak." Suri looked down at the plate of lacy little sandwiches she was holding. She normally ate like a rhino, but she’d hardly touched any of them. "I know we’ve got this shit with Baldr going on, but I’m warning you now. I’m not gonna be able to rest until I get my hands on those bastards, Hector. It would have been one thing if I'd gone back and they'd changed their tune. But they hadn’t changed. Or, they had, but they were WORSE. They'd killed a bunch of the other women they kept in there. The others... Jesus Christ. They were mutilated, Hector. Like, they'd been cut up and shit."

The bile rose in my throat. I took a sip of champagne, but no matter how hard I tried, it didn't help.

“You pulled up any memories on those names? Jacob and Nicolas?”

I wracked my brains. They were definitely familiar real-Earth names, but I just couldn’t place them. “Give me some hints? Tell me anything you know about them – maybe it’ll jog my memory.”

“Well, one of them was a big tall bastard,” Suri said. “Half-giant. He was always the one in charge of everything, really. The little guy we called Rat was always taking orders from him. The Giant used to call him Rat, so that’s where the nickname came from. We didn’t know it then, but after knowing Rin and seeing the weird corona she has, I know now they were Architects…”

“That’s it!” I exclaimed, loudly enough that a few people glanced in our direction. I waved them off and set my glass down before dropping my voice again. “Fuck, now I remember. Rat as in Ratzinger, as in Jacob Ratzinger… Rin mentioned his name to me during a call a week or so ago. He’s a member of the OUROS programming team, which means… uh…”

I trailed off, not sure how to explain to Suri what an Artificial Intelligence programmer was. The only way I could potentially describe them was as the Architects who had quite literally created this reality and everything in it. But even my emotionally immature ass figured that telling Suri that her torturers were some of the most powerful entities in her reality would not be good for her mental health.

"Which means…?" She cocked her head.

"They, uh, made the Words of Power that mages here use," I said weakly. "Rin told me they created magical languages. She didn't know them personally, in case you're worried she's been holding out or something... she just knew OF them." 

"Nah. I don't think Rin is in on any of this." Suri shook her head, and a curl from her hastily pinned hair slipped over her cheek. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. I'm gonna hunt them, and do something to stop them before they hurt other people. They're just as bad as Baldr, Ororgael, whatever the fuck his name is. I don't care if they're Architects. They’re gonna pay."

"Yeah. They should." Even as I agreed with her, I found my mind going back to the massive list of chores, quests, repairs and expenses Myszno required. Guilt pricked at me. "No one hurt you this time, right?"

"Nah. All words and bad memories." She snorted, tucking a scarlet curl behind one of her dark ears. “First thing the guards said to me when I spawned back in my cell was ‘Welcome home, Princess’. Haven’t heard that one in a while.”

"Princess? You?" I gestured across the room with my glass to where Queen Eevi had pinned Ignas beside a piano, boxing him in with a strategically placed daughter. "You see that over there? The girl watching Ignas with the shark eyes? THAT is a princess. Her mom probably started drilling her in how to snag a king as soon as she squirted her out of the royal cooter."

"Oh my god, Hector." Suri rubbed her eyes.

"Ooooh yeah, hey there daddy Ignas, what a big throne you have oooh ooooh yeah"." I put on my weirdest nasally girl voice, even as the princess gave a fluttering little laugh at something Ignas said and conveniently thrust her chest up toward him. "Ooohh yeah baby, you wanna see these princess nips?"

Suri coughed on her sandwich, and fumbled for a glass. She took a great big heaving draft of it.

"Fuck you," she gasped. "I'm going to go read my bloody journals and let you embarrass yourself here.”

"Want to meet Rutha first? She's cool." I motioned to her. She was talking to someone who had come with Rupert of Gilheim, a handsome young Germanic-looking dude in elegant, close fitting black clothing and a very stylish hat. When I looked over at her, she caught my eye and smiled.

"I will. I'm not ready yet." Suri shook her head. "Once I’m out of this fucking dress and have caught up on sleep, sure. We'll go out for a drink or something. But you know she's still sweet on you, right?"

I winced. "Yeah. I wasn't sure I was reading her correctly, but... yeah. I don't know what to do."

"Easy. Be honest with her and me, and Karalti," Suri replied. "Don't say one thing to any of us, then go do another, and we're all good."

Some men would probably have found Suri to be too blunt for comfort, but not me. I reached for her hand, and when she gave it to me, I squeezed gently. "Do you have any idea how much I missed you?"

"I missed you, too." Suri leaned against me with a sigh, relaxing a little on her feet. "You and Karalti, Masha, Vash, Cutthroat…"

The ability to see around the back of my own head meant that, even though my face was turned toward Suri in the moment I leaned up to kiss her, I could still see Rutha's expression of disappointment as she gazed at the pair of us, and then turned a flashing empty smile back to the man she was speaking to.