ONE HUNDRED FORTY-NINE: All at Once

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Esh-erdi’s hand rested on Alden’s shoulder for a few seconds more before falling away. While the knight took his seat again, angling it for a better view of the window, Alden tried to pull his thoughts back together.

“I’m—”

Sorry for babbling. He’d already said that. Sorry for not being myself today. Or for showing you the parts of myself that are kind of crazy.

On second thought, apologizing again when the man had said there was no need for the first one probably wasn’t the best idea. Alden had already been lightly admonished for excess humility. He was sure Esh-erdi had a painful zinger for people who kept saying “sorry” for things that weren’t really controllable.

Alden was just embarrassed to have blurted out a bunch of morbid questions that showed he wasn’t as cool as he wanted to be. Uncomfortable to have shown an expert on “the way things fracture” that he wasn’t quite glued back together from the blows he’d taken before this recent one.

You are frightened. Of more than seeing the body of Zeridee-und’h.

“I’m very happy that the Contract is well,” he said awkwardly. “Thank you for telling me.”

“I wish everyone could be comforted by such easy <<assurances>>. Is there anything else you want to ask me?”

There were a thousand questions Alden wanted answered and so few he felt comfortable asking. This kind stranger had saved his life, and he could ruin it just as easily.

He shifted in his seat as he thought, and he landed on the most obvious question. “The people who did this…do you know why they did it?”

“I don’t,” said Esh-erdi, sweeping his braids over one shoulder before leaning into the chair’s cushioned back. “Not for certain. And whatever stories lips may shape in the coming days, no one else will be completely certain either. Unless we manage to find something new. You are, of course, aware that your Contract can know your thoughts?”

Alden nodded. He was under the impression that it didn’t constantly know everything he thought, but it could know anything.

“And you’re aware that your thoughts aren’t something the Contract is suppose to share?”

Alden remembered his first ever chat with the blank System mannequin and its explanation about why it wouldn’t be tattling to the Artonans about the existence of the gremlin. Violation of spiritual or mental privacy incurs a debt.

“Yes. I know it has rules about that. And messages sent through it are private, too.”

Esh-erdi nodded once. “But if someone wanted to destroy a world, and they had the means to do so, the Contract’s silence would be more costly than breaking that rule. The same would be true if a person wanted to destroy this place. Or to murder millions on Anesidora. Avowed are usually free to act as you wish and use your powers to harm who you will…but there are limits.”

Asking why the limits weren’t harsher was bound to be dissatisfying.

“So it was an Avowed who planned the attack?” he asked instead.

“It was an Avowed. But it seems the plan didn’t exist until almost the moment the act was begun. The Contract would have given warning sooner so that the person could have been stopped if there had been signs.”

Alden watched the sun rise while he considered that. There were no clouds in the sky, and this room where he and the knight sat was high enough up that the waves appeared small.

“So it was just random,” he said at last. “One human being suddenly deciding to do a bad thing.”

“Does that answer <<satisfy>> your <<unquiet thoughts>>?”

“I don’t know…” He touched his good hand to the bandage on his cheek, remembering the unstoppable force of that waist-high water that had taken him off his feet the first time. In that moment, he’d been as helpless to control what was happening to him as a doll tossed into a washing machine.

Esh-erdi had said Alden’s luck was bad. That he’d had the misfortune of being too close to too many of the cracks.

His luck was bad, but if it had been a little worse…

If I hit my head on something, if something had stabbed me in the wrong place, if I couldn’t move that weird chair off of me and I just sat there slowly freezing to death…

“It feels wrong,” he said. “It feels wrong for someone to have done so much damage and hurt so many people randomly.”

In some ways, it was the best possible reason. An organized group trying to destroy peace on Earth would be worse. But it still felt like one Avowed with one magical device shouldn’t have the power to ruin as much as they had.

“I’m sorry I can’t give you more than this right now,” said Esh-erdi. “Your Contract is also unhappy with the answer.”

Alden blinked. “But I thought the Contract was the one that provided the answer?”

“It was. From the moment the trouble began, it’s been searching for other explanations and making creative decisions to supply itself with even more information. This answer is what it has for the time being. But it also <<insists>> that the Avowed involved shouldn’t have attacked this place. In its estimation, the chance of such an <<assault>> didn’t exist when the <<seafaring vessel>> carrying the <<Submerger>> began its journey.”

Alden decided he didn’t like “Submerger” as a translation for the cause of all of this. Zeridee’s “Sinker Sender” name for the magical artifact had been more explanatory.

Drowner Destroyer would have been a good choice, too.

If there was a mystery to be solved about why this had all happened, he’d just have to hope the System, the Artonans, and whoever they’d let help them were smart enough to do it.

His thoughts were interrupted by another question from Esh-erdi. “Do you feel resentment toward the Contract or the Triplanets for not doing more for you?”

“What?”

“You’re hurt. You almost lost your life. It would be understandable.”

The Artonan’s tone was the same interested but unconcerned one he’d used while asking his questions about the deaths of the three who’d tried to steal the flyer.

Do I feel resentment? Would I have expected more if I’d imagined something like this happening?

Alden had to ponder it for a minute.

Melt, melt, melt, sounded more like a joke now. Sitting here in this very warm room, in the sunlight, he didn’t really think the System was out to get him. At least not when it’s having a good-to-medium day.

“I don’t feel that way,” he said. “The Contract wouldn’t have saved me from an attack by another Avowed on a normal night. Unless I was fast enough to use an emergency teleport. And it must have given out thousands more teleports than usual. I got one. Before everyone else. And I was given a flyer.”

He had been angry and scared so many times while it was going on, but…

“The person who did this, the people who hurt Zeridee, the ones who were focused on using others—I resent them.”

He had a larger list of resentments if they went back in time, but he didn’t think he was being asked to cough up all his feelings about his childhood, his affixation, and people who left scientists stranded on moons.

“Your perspective is reasonable,” said Esh-erdi. “There are different perspectives that are also reasonable. Many of them have been spoken over the past day, so I was curious to hear yours.”

What are the other perspectives?

Alden thought of Marks. And the Long siblings. And the woman on the motorcycle. Of the Artonans who considered Avowed to be beasts of burden, those who thought they were children, and those who believed they were existential threats.

The gifts from the holy universe people are too hard to imagine until I’ve met one. Maybe Lute’s boss is like that? No…that could just be the reflected glory of Alis-art’h shining on me and making him talk about spotlight organs.

He glanced at his companion. Esh-erdi hadn’t moved his eyes separately once since he’d taken his hand from Alden’s shoulder. He was always looking with both of them, either at Alden or out the window. Right now, one of his fingers traced a swirl on the front of the padded armrest.

This person fights demons, thought Alden. He pulled me out of the water. He and his partner are knights.

I’m betting neither of them decide to become one in exchange for a System saving their asses in an emergency.

Oh no…I really did that, didn’t I? I was facing down death. I made that decision. And then…

He clasped his hands in his lap and sat up straighter, pretending to admire the view while in truth he was processing what he’d done, or attempted to do, for the first time since it had happened.

Alden didn’t know if using the Mother privilege to ask for a favor meant he’d instantly be shoved into a uniform, made to swear oaths, and presented to the Primary with a gift bow on his head. Here, I got you a new one! He’s tall, and some of his parts are put together differently, but he’s got an auriad!

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

But he did believe it was an agreement to gallop in that direction with little or no chance for turning back.

It’s a privilege for knights. A privilege for people who are owed.

Here was Esh-erdi, enjoying a break after a hard day and night of flood rescues, death investigations, and whatever else he’d been up to. Lind-otta was still out there, probably slow-mo skilling mountains of ocean into obedience.

They were people who celebrated their esvulgivnas by babysitting human S-ranks and engaging in some casual demon slaughter.

They were almost certainly owed.

Alden wondered how many affixations Esh-erdi had been through. How many people he’d saved. How many bodies he’d seen fall.

I wonder if he was around Stuart’s age when he became one. It had to be a major decision. Personal sacrifice. After all, he could have just been a wizard. Free and clear. Power without pain.

He tightened his hands around each other and then stopped when it hurt the left one.

I totally got rejected.

Was it because they were already coming to save me? Or because my attitude wasn’t…

He cut his eyes sideways to peek at the knight.

If I assume he’s on par with Lind-otta then he’s massively strong. He must have been through a lot of affixations.

“I’m sorry,” Alden blurted.

Esh-erdi looked over at him with a head tilt. “What are you apologizing for?”

Damn. That just came out. Now what?

He cast around for something that wasn’t sad or weird to say and settled on being informative. “I should’ve told you, there’s so much more food downstairs in the kitchen. There’s a man who’s been cooking for a long time.”

“If being in my presence makes you nervous, you don’t have to stay here,” said Esh-erdi in a neutral tone.

Alden winced. “You’re not making me nervous. I’m making myself stupid with stressful thoughts.”

“I doubt my questions about people who tried to kill you helped. But if that’s how it is…why don’t you pull out the task you were working on when I found you.”

That particular task was so far from Alden’s mind now that it took him a few seconds to come up with what it even was. “The essay I was writing for school?”

“You seemed <<well occupied>> with it before I interrupted. And it’s my intention to sit here quietly for a time. Your company isn’t required, but it would be welcome.”

Alden thought writing a paper all alone in a room with the knight sounded unmanageably peculiar. He decided he’d fake it so that he wouldn’t hurt Esh-erdi’s feelings.