RE: Monarch

There was a loathsome image in my mind ever since Persephone had given me this job. The image of a man dressed in black sneaking about in the dead of night, skulking between houses, his heavy breath fogging dimly lit windows while he spied on oblivious couples mid-coitus. As much as I told myself I would eventually make it up to our victim—and would to some extent be doing just that by stopping the impending slaughter taking place a mere two weeks from now—it didn’t change the fact that it felt dirty, and the image of that stubble-ridden dark-eyed thief slinking through the night never quite left me.

Which is why it came as quite a surprise when Shear revealed the theft was to take place in the middle of the day. According to Shear, only fools or amateurs robbed at night. Why enter someone’s home when they were most likely to be there, potentially with company, putting both them and yourself at risk?

The best timing for this sort of mischief was just after one in the afternoon on a workday. The subject of the theft, as well as those around them is more likely to be mentally preoccupied, in the middle of their daily tasks, trying to shrug off the inevitable sluggishness that takes place after a meal. There will be a moment of hesitation, of confusion, if the would-be housebreaker is caught in the act. Are they supposed to be there? Who breaks into a home in the middle of the day? That single moment of hesitation can make the difference between a getaway or an arrest.

Shear’s confidence and friendly explanations made me feel slightly less queasy about the whole thing. He almost made it sound glamorous. Mifral was notoriously vain, selfish, and abusive towards her servants. She was part of the enclave mercantile elite. Shear wove a beautiful tale in which all of us were heroes, robbing from the rich for the sake of the poor. This narrative disregarded the point that Persephone herself was quite wealthy and was entirely ignorant of the fact that I was involved. But I had no desire or intention to inform Shear of the truth: that this was actually a case of the rich robbing the rich to for the sake of the rich.

I liked his version better.

Jorra, Ginger, and I were all hidden under a tarp in a moving cart pulled by a slow moving dire-mole. Despite the cool climate of the enclave, the mid-day auric sun glaring down directly on the covering combined with our layered clothes and masks made the situation nigh unbearable. Shear’s cart was just a bit too narrow for all three of us to fit in comfortable, so we pressed together, vestigial comfort squandered the moment anyone shifted. And the dwarf shifted constantly. The scent of sweat was mingled with plastic and garlic.

I found myself slightly nauseous—a combination of the environment or the way the two wheeled cart rattled over cobbled stone, swaying us from side to side.

I shifted onto my shoulder to face Jorra, who looked away and stifled a burp. “Did you really have to eat half a mess-hall’s worth of breakfast?” I asked.

“I get hungry when I’m nervous,” Jorra whispered back. He sounded much less confidant than he had a matter of hours ago.

“There’s still time to back out.” I said, completely conflicted on that point. On one hand, there was no denying that I wanted him here. But at the same time I hated the idea of putting him in danger. It was something I had to get used to, that was clear. A king could not send his men into battle consumed with crippling worry for their lives. But that didn’t mean I had to like it, or that I wanted to start with Jorra.

Jorra appeared to consider the question, and leaned towards me as if to whisper something.

Burrrrrrrp. The belch was gargantuan and laden with garlic. I imagined vampires holed up in a cave hundreds of miles away fleeing into the sunlight as a reprieve.

“Ah! Gods! Why? You little shit!”

“Little? I’m taller than you.”

“Barely.”

“Stone Maiden take me now, let this suffering end.” Ginger stared up at the tarp, eyes dead with the torment of a suffering saint.

I had to mentally repeat the exchange to make ensure my accent had stayed intact and was relieved to find that it had. It would be incredibly unfortunate for all the effort I’d put into to this so far to be undone by a simple slip of the tongue.

As we grew closer to our destination, the thick chatter and bustle of people lessened to a slow a trickle of infrequent conversations. The bumpy road grew smoother. Before long, the cart ground to a halt. Someone knocked twice against the wood. I caught a glimpse of the outside through a gap in the tarp.

We were at the outer fringes of Mifral’s estate, all that separated us from it a short stone dividing wall. The house itself towered skyward. It was larger than Ralakos’s home, by a significant margin. The architect had eschewed style for scale, the mansion itself an overly styled box with two wings that extended outward, a massive fountain in its courtyard encircled by a roundabout path. Two guards stood posted in front of the iron gates while several single-man patrols circled the grounds themselves. In the distance, I saw the telltale frilly green-jacket of one of Ephira’s guards. Likely delivering a message.

It was now or never. I popped the cap on the iron-lung potion, the acid brine taste bringing tears to my eyes. My heart-rate slowed and a sense of calm washed over me.

I mentally bumped my intention to research a cheaper alternative for iron-lung up a few notches in terms of priority.

Ginger nearly bowled me over, pushing me aside to move the carpet and open the hatch in the bottom of the cart. He lifted it easily, then laid down on his stomach to grip a drain cover below, which he set to the side. Shear kept watch as we lowered ourselves down the hole. The iron rungs of the ladder had long since rusted and the smell of the sewer made me gag.

Thankfully, sewers in the enclave were laid out logically. There was a convenient path along the side for maintenance, meaning that, unlike the stories, we did not have to trudge through the filth. They weren’t stupid: there were a series of ascended steel gates that should have been nearly impenetrable. Shear and Ginger passed right through without giving the gates a second thought. Jorra paused at the gate and bent down, picking up a massive security lock and studying it. He wrinkled his nose and handed it to me.

“Who uses xescalt for a lock?” Jorra sounded disgusted.

He was right. It was ascended steel at first glance, but reinforced around the edges with the same dark bronze of Maya’s staff. But there was something more interesting: the two prongs that once made up the loop of the lock were blackened and charred.

“Ginger,” I whispered. The dwarf didn’t slow. I sped up to catch him, mindful of the slick concrete and grabbed his arm. Finally, he stopped and looked at me, then down at the lock in my hands.

“What?” He snarled.

I held the lock up. “What can burn through xescalt like this?”

Ginger’s face turned coy, as if he was about to reveal a grand secret. “

“Why, demon-fire, of course.”

My jaw dropped. This was the closest thing to a hint I’d found on the topic of other infernals with demon-fire. I peppered him with questions until Shear hissed for us both to shut the hells up.

Ginger didn’t seem to know much about it other than the fact that Persephone “had people.” Before big jobs like this, there were often prep-crews that would roll through, smoothing the way for the main group. But this was huge. It meant Persephone had access to someone with the flame—maybe there was more than one, but on the off chance there wasn’t, that simplified my situation immensely.

This had to go well. If it did, it could be my solution to both the outside source of demon-fire and the demons themselves.

The sewer tunnel split off into three branches. Shear nodded to me and took the passage to the right. I felt a twinge of trepidation as Ginger followed after. If they were going to screw us, this was their moment.

I looked from them over to Jorra. He was quivering like a leaf in a high-wind.

Damn.

“Are you okay?

“Uh. Yeah. It just kind of hit me all at once. We’re really doing this. We’re just going to waltz up to Madam Mifral’s door step.” Jorra’s hands shook and his breaths grew shallow.

“It’s just the adrenaline.” I put my hands on his arms and maneuvered him backwards. “Put your back against the wall. Now take ten breaths and count them.”

Jorra gave me a funny look, but did as I asked. The tension in his forehead slackened. “That actually works.”

“I’ve had some practice warding off panic.” I loosened the collar of his tunic, giving him more space to breathe. “I’d ask you again if you want to go back, but I’m terrified of a repeat performance from earlier.”

It was a joke, but I left the option open, just in case he wanted it.

Jorra shook his head. “No. No I’m good now. It’s just…”

“Real.” I said. “I know. It’ll pass. If it starts to bother you again, count.”

“Okay.” Jorra said. But he seemed to take his own moment of weakness as a personal affront, and kept moving forward, his eyes vigilant.

Mental fortitude ran in the family, it seemed. Nethtari, Maya, and Jorra were all rock solid under pressure. I couldn’t speak for Kilvius, but somehow I doubted he was any different.

We placed both devices I’d mistaken for bombs at the areas Shear had marked on the map, both set under the southeast and southwest corners of the mansion. Unless something terrible went wrong, Shear and ginger would have already done the same on the opposite end of the mansion.

“Think we’ll need them?” Jorra eyed the last device warily.

“Considering everything you ate this morning? I hope not.” I said.

Backtracking, we found the ladder leading up to the garden. As Shear had predicted, it was open and mostly unmonitored. I crouched behind a hedge, waiting for a pair of patrolling guards to pass, then scampered up a trellis onto a wide second floor balcony. I grabbed Jorra’s rest and hoisted him up behind me.

So far, so good. The balcony door was unlocked.

I entered.

To say the interior was gaudy would be an understatement. Suddenly, I understood a great deal about Mifral: She wasn’t just rich. She actively was terrified of being poor. I could see her fear imprinted in the plush sheen of the overly ornate carpet, reflected in the many vases. A mess of art from various periods was horrifically augmented by gaudy golden frames. There was a bevy of display cases filled with hundreds of gems held in black velvet.

In the mansion, I saw Mifral, and within Mifral, I saw myself. My old self. I’d been like her, once—with better taste, but similar, regardless. I met and lost Lillian. Then the coronation and subsequent invasion. Then Thoth. A series of events that had changed my perspective so vividly I wasn’t even sure who I was anymore.

I shook my head. It was hardly the time to reminisce

Jorra and I headed down the hallway of the second floor, finding it largely abandoned, headed towards the bedroom.

“Where are they?” I whispered to Jorra.

He cocked his head, peering at the ceiling. His hands glowed slightly. “Down that way.” He pointed behind us and downstairs towards the area where the showroom should have been.

Good. Now it’s just a matter of getting in and out—

There was a keening screech. A mix of static and the sound of a metal echoing across ice. A shout of surprise came from up ahead. A gray bubble formed in the center atrium and expanded, encasing the entire house.

“Was that—” Jorra started, interrupted as gravity itself answered his question and he began to rise in the air, his arms and legs pinwheeling. The feeling of weightlessness turned my stomach, but I managed to keep my wits in check, grateful for the calm from the iron-lung potion. I grabbed a nearby curtain with one hand and snagged him with the other.

They had a dwarfish name. Shear had simply called it a gravity field—a fiendishly complicated mix of magic and dwarven engineering. It was intended to cover our escape in the chaos and make a bit of a mess.

From over the railing a face appeared. A violet infernal wearing a white bathrobe, looking besottedly pissed, slowly rose from the first floor in a lazy ascent, her arms crossed.

I recognized her stern features immediately and felt the blood drain from my face.

Ephira.

We were monumentally fucked.

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