“Don’t get me wrong. You could say I’m one of those people,” he said. He covered one eye, and pried the other open.
She looked away before she could see the empty socket.
He passed the orb from one hand to the other, then put it back. “Blind, partway there. Confident? Yes. Stupid? I don’t have the objectivity to say, but, well, I’ve put this together, so that might be answer enough.”
“Agreeing or disagreeing?”
“Yes,” he said. He smiled a bit. “I don’t think we’ll banish all the Others anytime soon. Or even in a hundred years, or a thousand. But we’re making inroads. The landscape is changing, and Others are on unsteady footing. Some won’t be uprooted no matter how much the landscape changes. Because they’re powerful, or because they’re rooted in something too fundamental. Some have found their place in the new landscape, but I imagine they’re still uncertain. Even humans are a little uncertain. Then there’s another group. Some Others are looking for a place. Faysal was one, in a way, and I think I’d rather give them a place than see what happens when they try to take it.”
He paused to let that sink in, then spoke again, “I won’t say it isn’t selfish. I think, as the situation shifts and Others are replaced by us, others will start doing what I’m doing. Maybe Lords will start offering up their cities. It’ll concentrate the damage the Others do to us, maybe even slowing it, giving us more time to expand and assert or dominion… And whatever happens, I wouldn’t mind being the example people look to, ideally as a success story.”
“Ideally,” she said.
“That’s why. It’s why I reached out to you, seeing you displaced as well.”
“I’m not an Other, as far as I can tell.”
“In the midst of a revolution, I’d rather be the one the other guy is shaking hands with than the one they’re crossing swords with, whether the other guy is Other or practitioner or human,” he said.
He looked so at ease, and he was talking about such grand ideas.
“Faysal is back,” he commented. “We should hurry this along, I’m thinking. You’re more or less secure while you’re here-”
“But you can’t do anything to stop Padraic from taking what he takes. Sandra said the same thing.”
She looked. The dog stood at the edge of the room, looking out the window at the city below, hair blowing in the wind.
“My turn?” He asked.
“Please don’t screw me over. It wouldn’t be sporting,” she said.
“Not to worry. My first question… you’ve heard my argument, you know my agenda, at least in the abstract. are you going to take my offer?”
The question caught her off guard.
She slowly shook her head. “I can’t. It’s… it would put me at odds with people who’ve been fairest to me, and that wouldn’t be fair to them.”
“Sandra and the Thorburn family?”
“Yes.”
“I see. Then my second question would be… is there anything I can do to convince you?”
“Honestly? Probably, yes. But…”
“But…” he echoed her.
“It’s like it was with Faysal, maybe. Yeah. You want to play that game, I could list off stuff you could probably give me. Important stuff…”
Fire and blood and darkness stuff.
He answered her. “But I’d lose the war. I imagine it’s in a different sense than having two enemies to fight for every one I vanquish.”
“…I think we’d both lose in the long run. I guess it’s part of who I am. I can’t take the easy road. I can’t be passive.”
“Even if these important things are weighing on you.”
“Even then. I need to find my own strength here. I have to fight my way past this.”
“I see. I could press you on the subject, demanding my answer.”
“I could veto,” she said, her voice firmer. “and we might not get along so well afterward.”
He nodded. “I won’t put us in that position then. Keep your veto. I have just one more question, I suppose.”
“Sure.” She tensed, ready for the knockout blow.
“What’s the story with your being unable to swear?”
She blinked.
“I can put two and two together, but I’ve wondered.”
“I traded the harshest part of my tongue to a goblin for information on how to bind superior goblins. I, uh… that’s pretty much the whole story.”
“Ah.”
“I don’t suppose you know where there are any superior goblins?” she asked.
“I’d be betraying my guests if I directed a practitioner their way.”
“Goes against the whole point, huh?”
“Yes. In theory, I could point you to a certain individual who betrayed my rules, Rackspatter of the Nine Thousand Scalps, but I wouldn’t be doing you a service. For one thing, he can’t be bound. If I remember right, ninety-nine of his nine thousand scalps are from practitioners that tried and failed. It’s like the rule of three, reinforced thirty three times over. At this point, it’s a foregone conclusion. You’d be the hundredth.”
“And he’d be over nine thousand,” she said.
Johannes’ smile suggested he browsed the internet. That was telling.
“Damn it. So the goblin I dealt with got my curse words, letting him give people tongue lashings that hurt, but I’m gonna have to wait.”
Johannes raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“Wait? You’re not taking my deal, but you’re speaking with an eye to the future.”
“Yeah,” she said, quiet.
She trudged over to the spot where the dog had dropped the bag. It was filled with next to everything, some of it in plastic bags.
Faysal was looking at Buttsack, who was perched on the railing, staring out at the city. As different from the familiar as anything.
“A magicked bag,” Johannes commented. “Everything weighs one tenth what it should.”
She tried to pick up the bag, and found she didn’t have the strength.
I’m as weak as a baby.
“Buttsack,” she said.
The goblin huffed out a bit of a groan before picking up the bag.
“I’ll need the bag back, if you’re up to the task,” Johannes said. “As for the phone…”
“I’m suspicious there’s a reason you keep lending me things,” she said.
“Oh?”
“Keeps me coming back.”
He smiled, a faint dimple showing in one cheek.
A tell, even.
“Can I ask a favor?” she asked. “Two?”
“Perhaps.”
“Let me hold on to the phone? Battery’s dead-”
“Do you need the charger?”
“No. Just… just the phone. And a book on claiming a demesne, if you have one?”
“Bag, phone, and book. Three favors requested. I could ask for something in return.”
“Yeah.”
“Let me ask one more question.”
“I can’t shake the feeling that all of this was a lead-up to this one question you wanted to ask.”
“No, not at all. In fact, if you don’t feel like answering, that’s alright.”
“Can I not answer and still take the stuff?”