225, 2/2

Erick stood with Kiri in a side room under Privacy. He still wore his black-horn crown, and he would be wearing that for the foreseeable future. His voice was that of the king, but it was still filled with Erick’s normal compassion, “Kiri. Are you doing well as the Gatemaster?”

Kiri knew this was coming, and she was prepared with a quick, “The adjustment has been difficult, but I know I can do this.”

“I know you can do this. I am not worried about the job or about your capabilities.” Erick said, “I am worried you aren’t getting enough sleep.”

Kiri suddenly gave a small, nervous chuckle. “I can handle the job just fine, Erick. It’s the fact that you could sweep away problems with a single word that’s giving me issues. Usually when I run into problematic issues, I’ve been able to tell those problems that I could get you involved if those problems wanted you involved. Usually, those problems would then stop being problems. That only ever happened rarely, but now… Things are different. I was trying not to do that. Because I was trying to keep you out of it, it’s barely been two weeks and I might have fucked up a situation in the northern lands, near Vindin.”

“What happened, and how can I solve this issue?”

Kiri explained.

Erick went out and removed a local lord from power and placed him into jail.

The guy was stealing from the Gate Network and also preventing people from moving freely. Erick dealt with the fallout from that removal, too, by talking to the mayor of Vindin, who claimed to have no idea what was happening with the local lord. Erick let the mayor have his lie.

Both the probably-temporarily-imprisoned lord and the mayor of Vindin were testing what they could get away with, which did not bode well, but it was also something that everyone did, everywhere, all the time. Erick had solved the problem at the top level, so now, House Benevolence would reorganize the Local Area Gate Network and solve whatever issues might have appeared at the lower levels. That would take them time, but the new Overseer of Gate Expansion was on that task, right away.

Erick gave one last bit of advice to Kiri, “Don’t refer to people as ‘problems’. It’s bad form. I know I’ve done it a few times, but I wince every time I do.”

Kiri gave a nervous chuckle, then said, “Right. Whoops.”

Erick moved on.

– – – –

Burhendurur was next.

“But all I have is some paperwork regarding some long-standing cases I need you to sign off on, and then I have some new hires I want you to meet. It’ll be a quick, five minute thing, but I would like a Shelter for that meeting.”

“I’ll go over the paperwork and you put those people all in the same room. I’ll Haste us all.”

“Thank you, my King.” Burhendurur grinned a little. “I never thought I would miss that spell so much, but it truly does make the kingdom run a lot smoother.”

Erick chuckled. “I’m surprised you’ve never tried for Time Magic, what with Death and Time and all that being under Phagar’s purview.”

“The only ones I know of who aren’t in the upper echelons of the Church of Phagar who are allowed to touch Time Magic are you and Quilatalap. Many suspect the God of Time and the End judges the actions of Death dragons and various sapient undead a lot harsher than otherwise, and he’s already a harsh judge.” Burhendurur continued, “Anyway, the paperwork…”

Erick signed off on a pile of 89 different cases, only two of which he actually needed to look over, since they were incidents involving the Benevolence dragons. All the rest were things that Burhendurur put out there for Erick to see that the kingdom was running fine.

As for the Benevolence dragon cases, one was an incident of a dragon eating someone’s cow without paying for it, and another was a dragon burning down a barn, with the people inside, and then torturing the people with fire for several hours. They were both exonerated of their wrongdoing.

It turned out the first guy had paid for the cow, and the seller only claimed no-payment when he found out how rich the dragon was. There was some sort of hate going on there that Erick didn’t bother to check into too deeply.

The second guy was exonerated when the Mind Mages got involved with the case, because the barn was filled with putrescent slugs. No one could see those nasty, green things, as they ate away people from the inside out and incubated inside their hosts. It was like they were a ‘natural’ intervention. The dragon had burned the people and also healed them, while also keeping the people fully sedated so they didn’t feel anything. But he also couldn’t see the slugs at all, so his cleaning operation failed, and the slugs were still there, so his Benevolence triggered him to burn the patients again, which failed again, and this went on for a while. The dragon was a doctor, too, who was completely blindsided as to why he was doing what he was doing, only knowing that he had to keep going into the ‘operation’ over and over again, while his nurses and otherwise had no idea why he was burning those poor people he was ‘treating’. He was very sorry for his actions, but everyone was very hurt over that whole thing.

Erick decided to send some letters to the aggrieved parties in the putrescent slug case. Maybe that would calm them all down. He’ll probably have to help the doctor dragon get a job somewhere far away from where he was previously employed, though, and that was fine.

After writing that letter, Erick went to go see the people Burhendurur wanted him to see. It was a quick meeting, though it did take an hour inside a [Hasted Shelter]. By the time Erick left, he left behind a bunch of happy new security people, who Erick felt good for having at House Benevolence.

– – – –

Goldie, the former Shade of Assassination, was now the Shade of House Benevolence. She was also a bit of a bookworm, who usually hid out in the library, reading books, when she wasn’t out on assignment. Erick chose to visit that library to check up on everything that went bump in the night.

Erick rounded the corner of the Privacy-laden library, and spotted Goldie laying back in her recliner, reading a good book, half a second before she spotted him.

And then she spotted him, her bright white glowing eyes going wide. The Shade’s ever-present, black slab of a sword, floated at her side like a languid cat, but at Goldie’s noticing of Erick, that sword suddenly came to life for the briefest of moments. It relaxed almost just as fast, but Goldie did not. She leapt out of her chair and landed in front of Erick, already down on one knee.

“Sir!” she said.

“At ease.”

Goldie rose from the ground, smiling. “Are you back?”

“Not really. Are you subject to interventions? They’re like Silences, but simpler. Temporary, I think. Anti-memes. First time I heard of them was about 2 weeks ago, so I assume they’re rare.” He added, “Not that rare in practice, though, with putrescent slugs and other mental monsters.”

Goldie frowned a little; worried. “What is the source of the Anti-meme?”

“Rozeta, Sininindi, the Script.”

“I’m immune to those. All of those sorts of things, actually.”

“Good. I thought as much. Everbless is Gold Taker. Does that make sense to you?”

“… I have no idea who ‘Gold Taker’ is, but I assume it’s an… Alter of Everbless?”

“Exactly.” Erick said, “I’m going down to Storm’s Edge, and I need you with me, yet hidden. Bring along a few elites that are the best about keeping secrets and not being seen. The priority is not being seen, and especially not being seen by Everbless or Gold Taker, which is a tentacle-like [Familiar] that can be either kilometers big, or small as Ophiel—”

Ophiel said, “I be bigger one day!”

“Yes you will, Ophiel. You did very well hiding yourself as well as you did down there.”

“I did!”

“Yes you did.” Erick turned back toward Goldie. “Gold Taker is usually ethereal and invisible and intangible, yet he has had little to no apparent formal training in that regard, or no impetus to get better, for he’s been invisible in that sort of way for the last few years. Ophiel knows how to do all that much better than Gold Taker / Everbless. Even so, I am sure that if you are not careful, he can see you anywhere inside Storm’s Edge or the surrounding lands. Trying to hide from him will be like trying to hide from Yggdrasil; near impossible, but I trust you can do that. We leave in 20 minutes.”

“Heard and understood!”

– – – –

Erick stepped into the True Interfaith Church, still located where Erick had begun construction and where the gods had finished that construction 12 years ago. It was all flying buttresses and stained glass and a whole bunch of white eternal stonewood, but also black outlines on the whole place, and the marble-like floor was a checkerboard. Church was not in session right now, so getting inside and where he needed to go was easy enough, though Erick had to stop when he saw Head Priestess Justine Erholme. He didn’t really want to stop and say hello, for he was in a time crunch, but Justine stood in front of the Hall of Gods, Erick’s destination, and he couldn’t really walk around her or push her out of the way.

Justine was an all-white Underworld-born incani, with bright red eyes, who was glad to see that Erick wasn’t barging past her ‘blockade’; she was a rather small woman, after all, and the Hall of the Gods was several meters wide.

“Hello, Justine. I would ask to get around you to go talk to a goddess, but I suspect you already knew that.”

“Hello, my king,” Justine said, “I’ll be happy to let you pass, but first, the goddess you wish to visit has expressed to me that she does not desire a visit with you right now, for news of this latest prognostication is spreading fast and she is dealing with the debris of it all. You have your bargain, and she trusts you to fulfill it as well as you can.”

Erick gave a diplomatic smile, and said to Justine, as well as to the air, for Sininindi was surely listening right now (along with a bunch of other people in the church, who were sitting and praying in silence, and down the Hall of Gods, where a bunch of people were moving through, unimpeded by well-meaning high priestesses), “You can tell her that we’re going to have words about a certain thing that she knows about, after I solve this new minor crisis and fulfill the terms of our bargain. We can talk about all that later, but I do need to see her, to decide how to make this next part happen.”

“… That is acceptable,” Justine said, as she stepped to the side.

“Thank you.” Erick adopted a nicer mien. “It’s good to see you, Justine. Everything going well here? Anything I need to take care of?”

Justine spoke casually. “Everything is going great, as far as I know. Not sure what you got going on with this latest event, but we’re good here, Wizard Flatt.”

Erick smiled in a normal sort of way. “Good to hear.”

And then he walked down the hallway.

– – – –

The world was a dark ocean with a surface tens of meters below Erick’s floating body. Waves broke and swelled everywhere, creating valleys and mountains out of salt water, as a storm raged overhead. Lightning crashed everywhere, briefly illuminating grey and black clouds, heavy with rain.

And then the lightning illuminated the Goddess Sininindi. A wave crashed upon her like she was a rock in the waves. Water splashed everywhere but the Goddess of Storm and Sea remained unmoved.

The water and wind did not touch Erick.

“Hello, Erick,” the Storm Goddess said, with a hint of natural thunder in her voice.

“Hello, Sininindi,” Erick said, like a completely normal human. “I will be going to Storm’s Edge now, to solve this developing issue in the safest and quickest way I can. Are there any nuances you desire from my involvement?”

Lightning flashed across the sky. Waves crashed all around.

Sininindi took a moment. She was subtly angry, but she was controlled, too.

And then she said, “By all rights, you and I should be better allies than we are, but I am terrified of you and of any new Sunderings, and anyone who controls lightning outside of my church. Even after you became Benevolence…” She moved on. “Everbless is old enough and this is a large enough of a possible disaster that the time for distance is over, if you wish it to be over. I would have you as an absentee uncle figure, though, and only if Everbless desires this.”

So they were going to have this conversation right now.

Erick said, “The intervention.”

“It remains.”

“When are you planning on removing it?”

“I will never remove the intervention. Gold Taker will forever be disconnected from Everbless, until a time of his choosing, which he has already chosen to do with ‘Vanya’. This intervention will afford Everbless to have a persona that he can adopt to get away from the eye of the storm of being a World Tree. When he wishes, he can adopt another avatar, and that one can be his public persona.”

“He needs to be held accountable on a larger scale than a personal one for his actions as Gold Taker, so that he will know that killing people is wrong, even if it is done in a dungeon.”

“And who holds you accountable, Erick? No one. Everbless will be like you, and woe betide all who get in my son’s way.”

“I have all the world holding me accountable, Sininindi. I also have over half a century of learning how to be a good person—”

“And before you were given a hand up you were a shit person. Allow my son time to be a shit if he wants to be a shit.”

“… All I’m saying is that you are floating dangerous ideas out there, Sininindi. I didn’t gain power until long after I grew up. People who grow up with unfettered power often grow up dangerous.”

“We are dangerous entities, all of us. And I am his mother; I will not crush my son in any way whatsoever. So you tell him what he has done wrong. Maybe he’ll listen to his ‘eccentric Wizard uncle’ if you speak well enough, and teach him well enough, in the few interactions you will have from now on.” Sininindi frowned a little bit, as she said, “I am extending more trust than I am comfortable with, so do not endanger my people or my son.”

“… I will solve this current problem, ensure that the problem remains solved, and then I will be opening a channel of communication between Everbless and Treehome, so that he and the arbors and Yggdrasil can all communicate with each other in a more direct manner. It was good for Yggdrasil, and it will be good for Everbless.”

Sininindi seemed momentarily surprised. And then she seemed ashamed. “Thank you, Erick. I am sure Everbless will love it.”

“Will you remove the intervention from all the arbors?”

Lightning flashed in the distance. No one cared about that.

Sininindi said, “The intervention is a weak thing, and though it is powerful now, it will break if Everbless removes too much of it from the world, and once it is removed from a person, they’re immune to reinfection. He knows this, and now you know this, too. Let the intervention stand while he is a child, please, Erick. He is learning how to be a person in as normal a way as one like him can learn; don’t take that away from him.”

A moment passed in quiet thought.

Erick suspected that he and Sininindi probably would have been closer if he had handled that first interaction with Sininindi’s priests better, years and years ago when he was giving those talks on Particle Magic in the Mage’s Guildhouse of Spur. Storm Priestess Tiza Nindi was the name of the head priest at the time. She was still the head priest, if Erick recalled correctly, and he did.

“I will be telling Everbless to remove the intervention from people he wishes to be friends with.”

Sininindi gave a little nod, slow and measured.

Erick departed.

– – – –

Erick stood inside his Gate Space, checking everything out while he still had a small bit of time. The Regency had been warned that he was coming, and everything was going fine at the dungeons right now, according to a rapid check with Ophiel. All delving had stopped at the Pit, though, and some battlements had been set up around dungeon 6.

From what Erick gathered through Ophiel…

The people of the Dungeon Guild were being told that they were preparing for a dungeon break.

Barda and Nero were wanted for questioning.

House Maryol was under the control of the Regency’s rapid response teams.

And Archmage Wiloza Tidewalker was standing inside stone battlements overlooking over the Pit, and furiously casting even more castlework, lining the entire Pit like she was preparing for something horrific to come out of all those black holes in the world. Or maybe she was preparing for something to assault the Pits from the outside. Hard to tell right now. She was probably playing that option close to the chest; able to switch her angles of attack and defense either outward or inward as needed.

Everyone was in a panic out there, at Storm’s Edge. But here in the Gate Space…

A calm breeze brushed against Erick, as he gazed upward into the sky.

The sky looked alright. The whole gate space looked fine, actually; it had grown a lot from what it had been eleven years ago, though. Back then it was a land of white stone hexagons, suspended in a vast white sky, with Yggdrasil floating off in the distance. A small fountain had burbled up from the center of that land, flickering with flame at the top while also flowing water up into the air, and then outward, across the hexagon land, into the air again but sideways, and then over to Yggdrasil, connecting Yggdrasil to this gate space by way of floating water. Back then Yggdrasil had looked like a very large tree growing from a floating lake, off in the near distance.

It was the same sort of look these days, but the scale was a lot different. A lot more.

Yggdrasil was fifty kilometers tall and twice that wide. He did not cover the sky at all, though, for he was far, far away from the fountain. At least a hundred kilometers away, for he always looked the same sort of height he always had, but distance and size played grand tricks on anyone’s sight inside this land.

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The platform itself was now fifty kilometers wide at the smallest parts and dotted with wild, green spaces amongst the hexagonal ground. Certain parts of the platform even extended out of sight, out past a lightning-filled horizon like stone bridges among the power lines. If one walked across those stone bridges, if they braved the lightning and the dense illuminated fog, they would eventually end up at the other gate spaces that Erick had made, all around Veird.

The fountain that existed in the center of this platform, and to a smaller extent, on every platform inside every one of Erick’s gate spaces, was no longer the small thing of the previous decade. It was now an overflowing lake, a good half a kilometer wide. The bottom of the fountain was a black abyss, while the top held a floating bonfire the size of a house, shaped like the curled-up rune of [Renew]. That rushing lake overflowed directly into several rivers, all of which flowed through deep channels, out to the edge, to form a moat around the main platform. That moat then flowed through the sky, to connect to Yggdrasil in the far, far distance.

If one hopped in that river, or in any river on any platform, and if they managed to keep floating and not fall out of the benevolent sky, they would eventually float to this central platform, and then to Yggdrasil.

Anyone taking such a trip would need to be mindful of the lightning, though.

Tangles of lightning held all around, like white lines of power, never thundering, but always making themselves known, especially with those few black tangles here and there. In those places the lightning did not flow freely like it should.

There weren’t a lot of those tangles these days. Most of them were rather more grey, than black, and those that did exist were generally good things.

Over there was the induction of a boy into Candlepoint university, and the subsequent creation of computers on Veird. Another tangle held the same eventuality but a good 60 more years in the future, so whatever was happening there was not too set in stone… Or set ‘in the sky’, as some people were saying these days. Erick kept his eyes on that particular tangle sometimes. Most days he ignored everything he saw, though, because it was all so ‘up in the air’, which was another multi-meaning saying that was spreading amongst the people of House Benevolence. None of these things were absolutes. All of these futures were possibilities, deeper than most. The only ones that were truly visible as ‘this will happen now’ were the ones that were closest to the edge of the platform…

Erick looked around, trying to find the tangle that was for Storm’s Edge…

He found it.