She sounded so much like me sometimes.
“This part of things sucks,” Priss said. “Not hearing a good bit of the conversation.”
Nick leaned over and began updating her again
“Let’s not forget, you got shackled in the first place for my sake,” I told Rose.
“He was gunning for it from the beginning,” Rose said. “To get me in chains.”
“Was he?” I asked.
“Yeah. I’d bet on it.”
“Fuck,” I said. I hadn’t realized how badly we’d walked into that one. I’d thought it was a lose-lose situation at worst, and we’d picked the lesser of two losses. Rose could be freed, but I couldn’t be put back together if Conquest tore my mind, body or heart apart. Hearing that he’d wanted this particular end result sucked.
“If you’d like,” Priss said, “I could pay visits to a few locals.”
“Priss.” Nick said, with a warning tone.
“Not taking sides. More like I’m doing my job as a good citizen of the community and conscientiously informing the locals of exactly what’s going on. Of course, I’ll probably only be able to visit a few over the course of the evening.”
Visiting only the ones she thinks she can convince.
“I don’t like this,” Nick said. “You never wanted to get into all this. You were probably right, too.”
“I want to get into it here and now,” Priss said. “I’ll be careful.”
“Careful enough?”
“I can call in the others, too,” Priss said.
“I’m not sure I agree with that either, for other reasons,” Nick said.
“It’s a moot point, if the kid doesn’t want us to,” Priss said. “Might mean word leaks.”
“I appreciate the offer,” I said. “Thank you. Please do, if it’s possible.”
The words didn’t feel like enough. It was a note of hope, when I was feeling pretty hopeless.
Priss glanced back at me, offering me a small half-smile. Nick said something I couldn’t make out, and they started a whispered conversation.
Two hours, twenty minutes and change, to try to figure out how to unseat a ruler who’d been in charge of this city for a very long time. One who’d made a lot of enemies, yet still sat atop his metaphorical throne.
But that wasn’t the sum of the problem. He was a stubborn, single-minded entity. He…
“He isn’t human,” I thought aloud, interrupting the conversation between husband and wife. “He follows a set of rules. There are things he can do, but there are an awful lot of things he can’t.”
“Yes,” Rose said. “But any Incarnation will tap the ranks of humanity for fitting subjects and sacrifices, to give themselves a reservoir to draw from. Pride might be able to perform actions that don’t raise its standing or gain the ability to bow to others in a pinch. If they go too long without sacrifices, they start to become more… I don’t know how to phrase it…”
“Mechanical,” I said. “They become more mechanical.”
“Basically. Parts of the overarching machine of reality.”
“Well,” I said, “That’s a weak point. How often do they need sacrifices?”
“Depends how often they break their own internal rules. Once every thousand years? Once every hundred years? Daily?”
Time, again. “It’s too bad we can’t tap the Behaims for help on that front. I could do with that number having less zeroes on it. What other weaknesses do Incarnations have?”
“They’re fairly rigid. Something like the sphinx could theoretically learn some magic to a degree. Like, shamanism, the source might differ, but she could learn the runes, still appeal to the spirits, and make an offering, hoping to achieve a small effect. But Incarnations… basically are what they are. No more, no less. One that’s absorbed a lot of people might be flexible enough to bend the rules, and a human that’s absorbed an Incarnation successfully could, too, but they’re mostly just going to do what they’ll do. For the Toronto Lord, he has a narrow repertoire.”
“Okay,” I said.
“The book says that within that repertoire, well, an Incarnation can approach a god in terms of sheer power,” Rose said.
“Right,” I said.
Of course, I knew that Conquest wasn’t quite that powerful. He was a dying incarnation, and his power as a local lord wasn’t real so much as it was feigned.
If he was killable, I might try my luck at killing him. But he wasn’t.
“Alright,” I said. “What about binding, then?”
There was a pause.
Priss glanced over her shoulder. I, for my part, looked up.
Rose wasn’t in the mirror.
“Nick? Pull over,” I said.
Nick pulled over.
I rose from my seat, looking in the mirror.
Rose wasn’t there, even as I looked at a different angle.
I stood up in the back of the truck, until my head touched the roof of the truck. The book was there. Lying on the street, dropped.
She’d been abducted.
I settled back down into a sitting position.
“Fuck,” I said.
“I’m not following,” Priss said.
“She’s gone,” Evan said, though Priss couldn’t hear him.
“My friend has just been abducted,” I said, feeling very weary and a little afraid.
“Do you need to run to the rescue?” Priss asked.
“We should,” Evan said.
“No,” I said. “I… I don’t know what to do, exactly. But this is the second time. He has a habit of taking her and keeping her, and she was someone I really needed at my side. The last time he held onto her, she was unconscious. I… he likes threatening people. He threatened me. I don’t like the idea that he’s putting the screws to Rose like he threatened to do with me.”
“If he has that strong a hold on her,” Nick said, “Might not be pretty.”
“It won’t be,” I agreed, “And it isn’t. Fuck.”
“What are you going to do? If you want a ride to the Lord’s place…”
“No,” I said. “I’m not really capable of doing anything if I go there.”
“Then what?”
“I need to… arm myself, somehow. Build up my strength, in more ways than one.”
“Weightlifting,” Evan said.
“Not fast enough.”
“Magical weightlifting?”
“You got a familiar between the time we dropped you off at the woods and today,” Nick said.
“It’s too soon to get an implement, I don’t have Rose to talk me through it, and I don’t know what I’d take. Demesnes, same thing. I don’t think there are any other shortcuts out there that would give me a concrete enough power boost.”
“We have a few basic texts, if you need them,” Nick said.
“Though we’re pretty fucked if you borrow them and lose them,” the other guy said.
“Maybe,” I said. “I dunno what I’d do. But I appreciate anything I can get, really truly.”
“We can’t drive you around all night. Gas is expensive, and I’m not sure that it’s going to get you anywhere,” Nick said. “Where can we drop you off? We can hang out a bit, if you need a bit of company.”
“My place. Near the University, you’re close. You don’t have to stick around. You’ve helped a lot already.”