“They aren’t too far from one another,” he said. “That’s doable.”
“Thank you,” I told him.
It took a few minutes before we passed onto a road with barely any cars at all. It had been plowed, but snow had layered on the pavement since. As confident as he was in his driving, Fell was compelled to slow down some.
“What gets a guy like you to serve a guy like Conquest?” I asked.
“Why would I share that?” he asked.
I started to say something that might have been construed as rude or provoking, insinuating that Conquest might have something to offer someone who had trouble with sexual conquests, and shut myself up instead. I couldn’t think of a quippy way to word it, in any event.
“I don’t really know what would motivate you,” I said. “But silence sucks, and you haven’t cranked up the radio, so…”
“You expect me to share details with you, diabolist? For nothing?”
I almost protested against the label, but it was accurate. “An alternative is that I share my life story, filling the endless minutes or hours in the car with personal details, either boring you to tears or getting you to sympathize with me.”
“It might be amusing to see you try and fail,” he said.
“It might,” I acknowledged.
“But you’re right. It’s more liable to be irritating, and there’s an aura around you. Infecting everything you have contact with. I want nothing of it.”
“Aura?” I looked down at my hand.
“The imp’s ambiance. A light, a pattern, a smell. The form it takes depends on the individual, and how they choose to see these things. Right now, you are passing on traces to everything you touch. Depending on the distance, the infection may be stronger or weaker. But you always leave traces. My car will stink when you are gone, cleaning or no. You leave fingerprints behind, infect people, who infect other things in turn, until the energy is used up, fueling things that should not be.
Radiation.
“Right,” I said. “So…”
“Don’t talk to me, Diabolist. Do not interact with me.”
“Are you cool with what Conquest is doing?”
“You’re talking to me,” he said.
“I’m just saying. For someone so touchy about imp ambiance, you seem remarkably cool with your lord and master doing what he’s doing.”
“No,” he said. “No, ‘cool’ has nothing to do with it.”
“That so?” I asked. “Huh.”
“You’re prying,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Knowledge is power, and it’s a kind of security too.”
“A novice mistake,” Fell commented.
“Hm?”
“Are you really more secure than you were before you learned about how this world works?”
“Depends what you mean,” I said. “I was more secure before I learned about magic and demons existing, sure. But the moment I began to teach myself stuff, well, whole different ball game. Yeah, I’m more secure.”
“That same knowledge led to this issue with the ambiance, diabolist. Had you known nothing, then Conquest would have had nothing to demand of you.”
“So being ignorant is the way to go, huh?” I asked.
“For billions of people on this Earth, yes,” Fell said. “It affords a kind of protection. Not immunity. But on the whole, the average person is better off for being unaware.”
The car briefly fishtailed on ice. He corrected it.
Still driving a little too fast, all things considered.
“I’d delineate,” I said. “Break it down into awareness and knowledge. There are a lot of things where being aware is shitty. Being aware of how many kids die in Africa is one thing. Being knowledgeable about it implies you know enough to do something about it.”
“Or,” Fell said, “Your knowledge empowers you to make others aware, and you make their existence a less happy one.”
“Somehow,” I said, “I’m getting the vibe that you’re speaking from experience. Did knowledge not do you any favors?”
He was speeding up on a long, straight stretch.
“No,” he said. “Neither knowledge nor awareness did me favors. Both were snares, of a sort.”
“Snares?”
“Given your circumstances, I’d think you know, diabolist. No sooner do they tell you, than the shackles slip around your neck, your wrists and ankles. You’re bound.”
“By circumstance?” I asked.
“Or other means,” he said. “You’ve seen the connections that surround us. They appear as threads. Can you name one that couldn’t be used to bind you?”
Familial ties, ties to a place, ties to a thing, to ideas, even.
“Rose wears a chain,” I said. “Another kind of connection being used to bind?”
“Obviously,” Fell said. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
Here in the car. Seeing to task number two.
He still wasn’t slowing down.
We zipped past an isolated car. The shift of wind in the other car’s wake made us wobble.
“You’re talking about Conquest,” I said.
“My father served him, as did his father, and his father before him. As did my brothers and sister. On our twelfth birthday, we each received a gift. Knowledge. But it isn’t a gift we can return, and it’s a gift that burdens. The Lord of Toronto acts according to a certain pattern. He takes, and he doesn’t let go. I notice you didn’t fight to take your companion with you when you left.”
“She’s already his, isn’t she?”
“Shackled. Much as I am. It is perhaps a good thing that she sleeps.”
“You have to obey him,” I said. “I suspected you’d sworn to serve, I used that against you, forced your hand, even. But I didn’t think…”
“That my father would have been forced to lure his sons and daughter into the trap, as his father was before him?”
I didn’t miss the slight acceleration as he spoke.
“You’re kept from acting against him. From hurting yourself or breaking the terms of the agreement?”
“Yes.”
“But not, I gather, from taking certain risks?”
“It is the only rebellion afforded to us. I didn’t take the out that my family did. I have only a sister, who ranges far afield in Conquest’s service, and an uncle who watches over the neighboring areas. My brother died at the hands of goblins, trying to save a small town. My other brother went after one of Conquest’s enemies, who took mercy on him and killed him.”
“And you just drive fast,” I said.
“That’s less a rebellion than a freedom. Different things.”
I nodded.
“I’m sorry, Fell,” I told him.
“Hm?”
“Being a dick, before. Toying with you.”
“We’re not friends, Thorburn. I’m hoping you die quickly, sometime in the next two days. It would make a lot of things simpler.”
And if I defeat Conquest? Where does that put you?
But I couldn’t ask, because he was no doubt sworn to obey Conquest.
I could feel the car shudder as he accelerated. Tires grinding down ice and snow.
I leaned back and closed my eyes.
“You aren’t worried?”