Corrupting Power
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Neon Stonehenge - Ch. 3 (ALPHA)
🕑 Added 2023-09-30 06:20:33 +0000 UTCChapter Three – “Willful Manchild”
Here’s a bit of Bay Area trivia you probably don’t know – Treasure Island has a smaller island a couple of miles to the north of it. You won’t find it on any maps. In fact, none of the boats really know it’s there – they just sort of drift around it. It’s not a very big island, only a hundred acres or so of space, but it’s invisible to anyone who can’t see beyond the veil of magic. For me to get out there, I have to hop onto a small boat we keep up at Fisherman’s Wharf and just scoot out there.
Normally if I wanted to talk to the Barbarian Queen, I’d have headed to her home somewhere between Pacifica and Half Moon Bay, but I knew that one of the dignitaries was in town, which meant it was likely the Accords were being discussed, and that kind of business could only be held on Crossroads Island, which was fine by me.
Crossroads Island was a place where violence was completely forbidden, and by that, I meant impossible, or at least as far as anyone knew. Even on approach, you could feel a heavy sense of calm sinking into you, as if you were being bestowed with tranquility. The various players in the magical realms had always used Crossroads Island as the West Coast meeting place, knowing that violence couldn’t break out there.
Now, I’ve never tested the push against violence on Crossroads Island, but I knew what sort of negotiations had been held here over the generations without violence breaking out, and the weight of that history was good enough for me to know not to even consider trying.
There were two boats already at the small docks for the island, but thankfully there was room to fit about six different craft around the docks if needed, as long as nobody was bringing in some kind of ridiculous luxury ship. One of them was the royal craft of the West Coast Elves, the other was a local rented craft, but one glance at the contents of the boat told me immediately who’d rented it. Too many axes and maces to be anyone else.
The Dignitaries were here.
I moored my craft against the docks and started walking up the path towards the Grotto. The Island only had a handful of things on it – four cabins, each with some basic amenities. I remembered spending a week with Dad and Charlotte there when The Predator Accords were being arranged, which would allow vampires to roam the earth and hunt, but also to allow there to be hunting protocols for hunting vampires.
I remember it being some of the tensest times of my childhood because I couldn’t understand why the Magical Nations were negotiating with the vampire families. I was almost a teenager, but I remember being extremely bothered by the fact that we weren’t just eliminating the vampires. My father, the Gunslinger before I took over the role, told me something that day that I’ve never forgotten. “They want to live, Dale. They want to live and thrive like the rest of us, but their very existence is a threat to our kind. And it’s not a Gunslinger’s job to determine the fate of an entire species. But we need to establish rules so that the monsters have enough space to live and survive, but not so much that they prevent anyone else from doing so.”
Decades later, I’d come to understand why the decisions were made, but I still wondered if I’d have been able to remain as calm as my father was during those negotiations. Because he was talking about number of humans killed per year per continent like it was the profit and loss for any other business, and I couldn’t help but think, those were people with names, parents, lives.
I could talk a lot more about the Predator Accords, but that’s a story for a different day, and one that I don’t really have time to get into right now. Let’s just leave it at saying it was one of my father’s more problematic decisions, but that in all the years between there and here, I haven’t seen a better solution on offer, so there’s that. Sometimes Daddy does indeed know best.
The island itself is covered in dense foliage, the sort of trees that I’m sure tourists would find utterly magnificent, if they could only see them, but the Veil over Crossroads Island was one of the strongest I’d ever encountered, and I think the only reason I’d gotten so accustomed to being able to see past it was because I’d been brought here so much growing up, so that I’d built up a tolerance for it. The trees were mighty redwoods, the sort of thick trunked megaliths that we had so few of left in the world these days, with a high canopy providing coverage from the regular spouts of rain. The path leading from the docks to the cabins was actually paved with inlaid brick, more of the style of ancient road, just in case heavier things were being brought to and from the cabins or the central meeting hall.
The construction of the buildings had obviously been contributed to by a number of various magical players – the basic structure itself was Dwarven handiwork, but the filigree work was clearly elvish in design, the artwork hanging on the walls was mostly dragon work although all the major players had hung at least one or two pieces of decoration around both the cabins and the meeting hall.
I did love coming here, even if it was rarely for good reasons. I think I’d been on this island no less than once a season since the time I was eight, so I had plenty of memories, both good and bad associated with the place.
“I did not expect to see you here, Gunslinger,” a deep, jolly voice I was quite fond of said to me. “I would’ve given you a call if we’d expected to have free time while we were in town, but alas, we knew business was going to consume all our time.”
“Lord Deepcavern,” I laughed. “I won’t take it personal that you didn’t call me, but I think we’re well beyond you calling me by my title, don’t you?”
“You’re still calling me by mine, Dale, so until you drop it…”
“Fine, Klax, fine,” I said, moving over to the dwarf who I’d known for my entire life. He was a stout and sturdy fellow, with arms like tree trunks, a heavy hitter with the kind of braided black beard most dwarves would be heavily jealous of. Klax was third in line to the Deepcavern Throne, the head family of the North American dwarves. I offered my hand for him to shake, but he grabbed my arm by the wrist, making us clasp forearms before pulling me into a big bear hug. “What’re you doing here anyway?”
“Queen Heartseye has been giving us guff about our shipments as of late, saying we’ve been under delivering to her and her people, but I’ve assured her that whatever problems there have been with the shipments, they haven’t been in what we’re sending,” he said, his annoyance clear in his tone of voice.
“So, you keep saying to me, Lord Deepcavern,” a majestic if somewhat impatient voice said, stepping into the meeting hall. Queen Layla Heartseye stood close to seven feet tall, and was dressed, as she often was, in little more than an armor and leather bikini, doing little to conceal that absolutely smokin’ body of hers from anyone’s gaze. She had long, curly red hair that hung down to the tops of those remarkable breasts of hers, and her face was refined without looking too regal, because it was clear her nose had been broken more than once. She was both intrinsically one of the most beautiful looking women I’d ever laid eyes on, but also one of the most dangerous. And I still haven’t decided if the pointy ears are a turn off or a turn on. Maybe it’s both. I’m complicated like that. “And I keep telling you that your deliveries have shown up lacking their full contents for the last several months.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible, your majesty,” Klax said.
“Oh, I do,” I volunteered. “You’re getting shorted in transit.”
Both of them turned to look at me which told me neither of them had considered that option. “That… shouldn’t be possible,” the Queen said to me. “We have the Canasta Sisters handling the transportation, and their reputation—”
“Their reputation doesn’t figure into it,” I said confidently. “Maybe someone’s on the take. Maybe they’re getting robbed in transit and they don’t know it. Maybe someone’s clipping the difference on the loading or unloading end. But if you’re sure the count’s right at the load, and you’re sure the count’s wrong at the unload, then the space in between is all you have left to look at.”
Now, keep in mind, I knew the Canasta Sisters had a reputation of being impeccable, which was why the royalists before me had overlooked the option, but I also knew that reputations weren’t forever, and that the Canasta Sisters had been coasting on that reputation long enough that someone within their organization had probably felt like it was enough of a screen to keep anyone from wondering if they were leaking from the middle instead of one of the ends.
“You want to look into them, your Highness, or shall we?” Klax asked her.
“We both should, Lord Deepcavern, so that we can ensure the impartiality of our investigations,” Queen Heartseye said, before turning her smoldering gaze unto me. “Lord Gunslinger, I am unaccustomed to being in debt to your kind, and I am certain that you came seeking my counsel. Please, ask your questions so that I might be able to remove myself from your debt herewith.”
Despite the fact that she’s always referred to as the barbarian queen of the west coast elves, she does in fact always talk like that. I’d asked my father once why they all called her a barbarian; he told me that it wasn’t meant to imply inferior or uncivilized, but to focus on the overly violent aspect of the word. Then he told me how many of her sisters she had slain to assume the title of Queen. Again, I couldn’t tell if that made her more or less hot. Even Charlotte had to admit the level of swagger the queen carried herself with added a certain layer of allure.
“I’ve come to ask you about Saoirse Staire, your majesty.”
“I know this leannán sídhe, aye, Gunslinger,” the Queen said. “What questions do you have of her?”
“Excuse us, your majesty,” Klax said, “but if you would kindly permit, I’m going to go begin looking into our next shipment and see if we can set a little trap for our would-be pilferers.”
“Fine, Lord Deepcavern. See to it.”
I smirked a little bit, because the Queen was obviously more than a little distracted. She’d just given away one piece of information for free – confirming that Saoirse was, in fact, leannán sídhe. I’d had Seymour’s word on it, but she’d just gone ahead and solidified that information for me. “Let’s start with, ‘is she a member of good standing in your court?’”
“She’s one of the serfs within my kingdom, aye, but certainly not one of any form of nobility,” the Queen said as we started to walk alongside one another, stepping out of the great hall to begin walking down the path towards the water once more. “Are you asking in anticipation of having to put her down?”
“I don’t know what I’m asking about her yet, your majesty,” I chuckled. “It’s very early days, and I’m just starting to try and get an understanding of who the players are, and how they fit together. You’re aware she has a human lover?”
“Mmmm,” the Queen nodded. “A human police officer. We were informed when the affair began, as per the Romance Treaties, and we gave permission for it to begin.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Two or three years ago, I suppose. It was one of a series of requests we received, but we generally do not do much research into them, and give them… what was the expression your father preferred? Ah. We ‘rubber stamp’ them unless we see significant problems on the immediate horizon.”
“Gao’s a cop. Usually that kind of thing gives your people a bit of pause before they’re willing to sign off on them.”
“Mmm,” the Queen said. “The more we have come to study those humans with authority – politicians, businessmen, police – the more we have come to realize how close they protect their secrets. It is highly unlikely this ‘cop,’ as you say, would discover Saoirse’s true nature, and if he did, it’s even less likely he would be eager to break the Accords by divulging her true nature, even if he didn’t know of their existence. He would be concerned that he would be labeled as insane or unwell.” She turned to look down at me. “He isn’t planning on doing such things, is he? Because that would be your concern regarding how to deal with such a matter. The Keeper of Secrets is one of the titles you bear, Gunslinger.”
“I don’t need you telling me what my jobs are, your highness, much like you don’t see me stomping in here, dictating how you oversee your subjects and their decisions.”
The Queen laughed a little. “You’ve grown much more courage since we first met, Gunslinger,” she said, a hint of admiration to her tone. “I like it. It suits you. You’re no longer the shy, timid young boy I remember hiding behind his father’s duster during meetings.”
“Carrying the SoulEnders with you tends to age anyone, your Highness, much less having to use them.”
“Have you ever had to use them, Gunslinger?” she asked, and for the first time in all my conversations with her, I could sense just the tiniest amount of fear tinged to her words.
“I have.”
Those words filled the space like it was trying to suck all the oxygen out of our lungs.
“How was the experience?”
I frowned a little, trying not to put myself back in the headspace of the times I’d been forced to actually fire the weapons I carried with me. “It is not one I would willingly wish upon others, your majesty. Taking a life is one thing; taking a soul is quite another.”
“So it’s true? You do feel some connection with the soul, as your weapons are destroying it?”
“Every soul I have ever let the SoulEnders devour has imprinted a scar upon my own heart, your majesty. It is not an easy thing to do, nor should it be.” I’d never known her to show much interest in my title or specific profession. The position, that of Gunslinger, has always been looked upon with a certain level of fear and reverence, even by the most deadly of magical denizens.
She chuckled, looking up at the fog that had draped over the tops of the trees that canvased the tiny island. “Forgive me, Gunslinger. Your kind has long held sway over my imagination, and so rarely are we afforded the ability to simply discuss matters one on one in an environ such as this, without the eyes of the court gazing upon us. You were saying?”
“I was saying that I’ve just begun to look into what’s happening with Saoirse Staire, your majesty. I’m certain that I am miles away from understanding exactly what it is this case is all about.”
“Then why take the case, if it’s proving to be so problematic?”
“I didn’t say it was problematic; I said I was just getting started. Cases like this, they’re never what they seem on first blush,” I told her. “She’s been missing seven days now. You have anything to do with her disappearance?”
“Absolutely not,” the Queen said. “Why would we have?”
“That’s going to be my next question.”
“She’s a serf, Lord Gunslinger,” the Queen sniffed. “She’s lucky I even recognized the name at all without having to call upon one of my assistants to jog my memory.”
“And yet, you remembered her nonetheless.”
“Mmm.” The Queen glanced away from me, peering out across the Bay, or at least as far as the fog would let her peer out. “There was a certain sense of joy permeating from her, something I do not see very often. She loves your Detective Gao very much, and I do not suspect that wherever she is, if she’s been kept from him, that it is willingly. She even offered to rescind her magical nature, if that was what we would demand of her for her to spend her life with this Gao man, something not spoken of in hundreds of years. Behind her eyes, one could see the sort of love that poets wrote about in the olden days.”
I grinned with a slight shrug amidst the shadows. “That sort of poetry’s usually in song lyrics these days.”
“Mmm. I have heard these rock lyrics of which you speak, where ‘bitches be down with the illness’ or some such buffoonery,” she said, shaking her lowered head. “The romance has nearly entirely left you people and your foolish ways.”
“Oh we’re not all entirely without romance or style, your majesty.”
“Indeed, willful manchild,” she sniffed. “Your previous paramour, the Lady of Cold Waters, had plenty of kind things to say about you, but she also said you were often stubborn-headed, spiteful and flippant when it came to her concerns.”
“Her concerns were about shit that didn’t matter, such as color coordinating our attire for your little shindigs,” I said, deliberately underplaying the importance, knowing it would rile her up even more. I hadn’t been able to speak with the West Coast Elven Queen alone before now, so it was important to take measure of her temperament myself, and not rely on father’s words about her.
“The Winter Cotillion requires that attendees and their partners wear matching attire! Your stance to ‘come as you were’ flew in the face of tradition and honor!” she shouted, that temper flaring up. “I suspect that was the point, though, wasn’t it? To display that the Gunslinger, as much as he or she may interact with the communities they protect, are still above them and their traditions.”
“Nah,” I said with a smirk. “It was more just to remind you that you can ask whatever you want from those attending your parties, but that you can’t mandate that they follow along with those asks. Alaizia and I were already starting to see significant cracks in our relationship, so it felt like a fine place for me to take a stand on what I believe in. And I believe in individualism.”
“And it had nothing to do with spitting in the eye of your romantic rival for the lady’s affections?”
“Look, I knew Lord UptightPants was showing up, but I didn’t know that he was that much of a stickler for tradition. And I knew he was into Alaizia, so I suspected he might put up a minor ruckus, but I figured him to have more common sense than to affront a Gunslinger.”
“And yet, when he challenged you to a duel, you still accepted.”
“It wasn’t a lethal duel.”
“It could’ve been.”
“Captain ThunderBritches didn’t have the stomach for it,” I said confidently. “He wanted to put on a big show of just how aggrieved he was, but nothing but talk was ever going to come out of him. I wasn’t ever worried about it turning serious.”
“You broke three of his ribs!”
“And he’s lucky that’s all I broke,” I grumbled. “The man refused to yield after he’d lost, and per the terms of dueling – I wasn’t allowed to stop hurting him until he yielded or could no longer speak. Those aren’t my terms, your majesty – that’s in the Dueling Accords, which were ratified long before my birth, and as such, I’m held accountable to them, just as much any anyone else.”
“You could’ve hit him less energetically,” she growled.
“He wouldn’t have learned as much if I did.”
“You think he learned anything from that beating?”
“I think he learned that just because he has a title and a little bit of prestige doesn’t make him untouchable, and he probably also learned that just because a fellow doesn’t get all gussied up for every party he’s invited to doesn’t mean he’s incapable of defending himself when a lout gets churlish,” I said. “I wasn’t going out of my way to provoke him, your highness, but I’m also not going to let someone slander me, my family, my profession or my lineage, and frankly, I would’ve expected more understanding from someone like yourself about besmirched honor.”
“Oh, I do understand about honor, Gunslinger,” the Queen said, trying to keep her tone even keeled when she spoke to me. “But I think it was just as much about getting to beat up a nobleman as it was maintaining your honor.”
“I gave him multiple chances to retract his statement, even after he challenged me to a duel. I would’ve much rather he backed down, because having to thrash him made me look a bit like a bully, because I knew he couldn’t put up much of a fight. We were never in the same class of combatant.”
“Then why not refuse the duel?”
“Because refusing the duel puts into the public record the validity of his claims, which I cannot abide by,” I sighed. “You saw me, Layla. I wanted him to back off. I promise you, I did. I tried everything I could think of to get him to back down, to rescind his statements, to give me any possible way out other than beating the shit out of him. But the second Lord Trunkfoot challenged me to a formal duel, we were locked into the Dueling Accords until one of us yielded or one of us was unable to answer when asked if we wanted to continue. You’re the Queen of the West Coast Elves, Layla, and I know you understand what it’s like to be bound to rules you don’t happen to agree with. If I didn’t abide by the Dueling Accords, I would’ve weakened the position of the Gunslinger as one of the primary rules enforcers independent of all other factions.”
“Then why did you look as though you were taking great joy in the matter, Dale?”
“Because…” I started then stopped, letting out a very tired breath. “Because I have a reputation to uphold, and it’s one reinforced by the notion that the Druid Gunslinger is one of the true primal and elemental forces left in the world, one that does not get tangled with lightly or without consequence. My father ignored attire suggestions all the time, but that prick never once said anything to him about it. But less than two years after I’d assumed the mantle, that ignorant noble decided he needed to see if the new guy had a spine. I’d actually been expecting it for months – not him personally, but someone like him, assuming that because the position of Gunslinger had been passed to a new mantle wearer, that the new guy would be a push over for the first few years. Dad told me something like that duel would coming, and that when it happened, I needed to go as aggressively over the top as I could, to establish dominance, to establish fear, to make sure that anyone looking on realized that while there was a new Gunslinger, I was nobody’s fool, and not to be trifled with.”
Despite the fact that Charlotte had told me she was exceptionally proud of me after the duel, I considered it one of my greatest failures, simply because I hadn’t gotten Lord Trunkfoot to back down. I knew in that moment that my appearance with everyone was everything, and that meant I could offer no signs of weakness. I was the new guy. New should’ve meant uncertain, they incorrectly all had thought. The elf had immediately escalated his insults to a duel when I’d asked him to retract them.
I was given the choice of time, to which I responded we would begin imminently. He was given the choice of weapons, to which he responded bare fists. I was given the choice of arena – I chose the dance floor. He was given the choice of severity – he chose non-fatal, as I knew he would. We were each given our choice of seconds – I chose my sister, Charlotte Sexton, the Druid Huntmistress, he chose Treyton Gallows, the Queen’s Executioner.
I knew that Trunkfoot had thought I would have grown up reliant on SoulEnders, and that a Gunslinger without his Guns would be an easy and manageable fight, but I’d grown up under Charlotte’s watchful eye, and not a single day had passed from the day from the day I turned 4 until the day I turned 21 that I didn’t spend at least an hour sparring with my sister, meaning I was trained in every weapon imaginable, including the weapon of my own body.
For most of my teenage years, I thought I was being groomed to take over the Huntsmaster position, the one previously held by my Uncle Oscar, but on my 17thbirthday, my father pulled both me and my sister aside, and informed us of the roles he and Oscar expected us to play in their events of their passing. Oscar had no family to speak of, and so it had been decided that Charlotte would become Druid Huntmistress, meaning she would be the oversight and controller for all hunters in North America, and that she would be engaging in most of the culling activities required of us. She would bear SpiritCrusher, the blade of that position, and she would have hundreds, if not thousands, of hunters reporting to her regularly. I, on the other hand, would take over the duty of the Druid Gunslinger, the final arbitrator of interfaction squabbles, and the investigator of mysteries.
Neither Charlotte or I were initially pleased with our assignments, but Dad and Uncle Oscar spent the next few hours explaining why they’d made the decisions that they had. Charlotte was, as Oscar pointed out, exceptional at overkill, and easily the better hunter in the wild of the two of us. She pointed out that she felt that should entitle her to the position of Gunslinger, but Dad pointed out that, through no fault of her own, she didn’t have the temperament needed to be Gunslinger. Over the years, we’d been tested in every way we could imagine, and it had turned out Charlotte had a rather serious disdain for both puzzles and complex machinations, whereas I’d grown up addicted to murder mystery books and the court intrigue of Alexander Dumas.
“The Huntmaster is the biggest, baddest hammer we have in our toolbox, Charlotte,” Dad had said to her. “The Gunslinger has to be the scalpel. One isn’t better or worse than the other – they’re just different. Besides, would you really want to spend that much time dealing with all the Courts?”
Charlotte had groaned and then nodded in agreement, two years my senior. “You’re right, Dad.”
Three years later, Uncle Oscar had been killed in a raid on a rusalka lair, and Charlotte had become the youngest person ever to assume the role of Huntmistress at the age of 22. It would be another decade before Dad died, and I took on the role of Gunslinger, a few days after my 30th birthday. I’d sort of started believing Dad was going to live forever, but nobody ever does. And as for whether we were suited for our roles, as he was in most things, father had been spot on. Charlotte enjoyed the hunt; I enjoyed the unravelling of knots.
Trunkfoot was an accomplished fisticuffs fighter, but he was completely unprepared for the like of me, despite all the effort I took to give him ample chances to yield. See, he was a boxer, and he expected we would be trading punches like a couple of brain damaged idiots, but I knew the rules of the Dueling Accords far better than he did. Choosing ‘bare fists’ only meant no external weapons, and no natural weaponry we didn’t both share; so, for example, if his kind had naturally had venomous elbow spurs, he wouldn’t have been able to use them because I, as a human, didn’t possess those. But both he and I had feet, which meant those were fair game.
That meant when he was swinging his first lumbering fist in my direction, I snapped a roundhouse kick across the side of his head. It knocked him clean to the ground as people around had cheered my violence. I offered him another chance to retract his statement, and instead he stood up and charged me wildly, a move I’d foreseen and simply leaped over him as he fell back onto the floor, his grapple catching only air and embarrassment.
I knew winning the fight wasn’t the most important thing. Making it look easy while winning the fight was. I needed everyone to understand how deadly serious I took the Accords, as I was obliged to by my title and status. Trunkfoot had thought he was going to peel an apology from my whimpering form, but instead, I beat the ever-living crap out of him without breaking a sweat, without so much as even looking bothered by it. I did my best to look bored much of the time, as if the application of injury was beneath me.
When he was knocked down, after two or three minutes of playing the part of my punching bag in my one-man exhibition on the dispensation and application of violence, I offered him yet another chance to yield, but he shouted that as long as he could speak, he would never yield.
I took him at his word.
In accordance with the Dueling Accords, an opponent who is able to voice opposition is still a viable opponent. I began then to kick him in the stomach while he was down, making sure each sharp snap of my leg was inflicting serious wounds without causing any life-threatening injuries. During that moment, I had allowed my expression to carry with it a certain degree of joy, not delight in causing pain, but more of satisfaction in a job well done, as if I was simply setting expectations should anyone further wish to challenge me to a duel.
That was the part I was most annoyed by with all of it, I guess, that nobody recognized I was displaying an immense amount of control and restraint. ‘Accidental’ deaths in these types of duels happened often enough and were seen as unfortunate side effects of a party refusing to yield when they should have. I could’ve killed the elf very easily. In fact, making sure I didn’t kill him was harder than it would’ve been to allow him to just die by several orders of magnitude. But I had to make it look easy, and make it look like I was taking satisfaction in ensuring the elf’s submission.
Eventually, Trunkfoot had slumped to the floor, unable to speak, his consciousness blissfully retreated behind the curtain of pain into the nothingness of sleep’s oblivion, and when Treyton Gallows had proven he was unable to answer, I was formally anointed victor of the duel. Alaizia had broken up with me later that evening; she and Lord Trunkfoot had been wed last autumn. Naturally, I’d not been invited to the wedding.
“Am I likely to find you engaging in other duels with my subjects, Gunslinger?” the Queen asked, snapping my mind back to the current moment.
“That was years ago, your majesty, and nobody’s been so foolish as to ask me for a duel since, so as distasteful as the entire evening might have been, it seems to have had the intended effect,” I said. “And I might remind you that you’ve called on the services of the Gunslinger before, and I have yet to deny you, despite you denying me a dinner date.”
“Queens and Gunslingers do not mix, Lord Sexton.”
“Says who?”
“Tradition.”
“Don’t queens establish tradition?” I asked with a smirk.
She grinned back at me. “The stones on you, Gunslinger. Flirting with an elf ten times your age. Surely you have other questions regarding your missing leannán sídhe.”
“What work did she do for you?”
“She was a wallwatcher, an envoy between us and the Northeastern Pacific Sea Dwellers, but our two kinds so rarely interact, I never expected more than a yearly report from her, and the rest of the time, she was free to do as she saw fit.”
The fact that she’d had experience with the Sea Dwellers certainly put another piece of information into a new light. “Any experience dealing with the Atlanteans?”
The Queen looked at me very suddenly, too suddenly. “Why would you ask this?”
“Seymour said he detected a bit of old school Atlantean magic around Detective Gao, and I’m still trying to make sense of that.”
“The unicorn was certainly mistaken. The Atlanteans are within their dome, and nothing crosses in or out.”
“That’s the story, anyway,” I said. “But has anybody been out for a looksee lately?”
“Alarms would’ve sounded in every major kingdom across this world, Gunslinger. I am telling you, it is not possible.”
“And I’m telling you, your majesty, that nothing is impossible, and that’s something every Gunslinger learns very early on. Anything else you can offer me in terms of useful information about this woman under your dominion?”
The Queen scowled a little. “Only an entreaty that you attempt to bring her back safely. We’ve had a rough year, and if it gets out that a member of my kingdom has disappeared without my knowledge, it will imply weakness on my behalf.”
I nodded. “Then poke around with those in her circle in your formal inquiries, and I’ll circle around again, Queen Heartseye, and perhaps one of us will have made some progress.” I offered her a bow. “Farewell, your highness.” Then stood up, spun on a single heel and walked back to my boat.
Coming to see her had answered little and asked far more. I was also certain that I was going to be hearing more about Atlantis as time went on, which meant I was probably going to have to talk to The Captain sooner or later. Still, I would keep it in the later column as long as possible. My next stop was probably going to give me even more questions, but at least it was someone I knew would be trying to lie to me.
Time to go see Digger.
Comments
Corrupting Power
It's definitely detective neo-noir fiction, so the pacing is deliberately slow-ish.
Ronan
A good, slow build. Not slow enough to be annoying, just leaving us wanting more.
SovietDegendays
Damn so far so awesome
