Nothing Goes Smoothly — 12
Late afternoon.
By now I ought to have been back at my lodgings, but instead I was ringed by soldiers and being taken toward the castle. They had asked me to come with perfect courtesy, yet sending this many men made the intent plain enough: I was not to be allowed to run. I had no thought of running, so there was hardly any need.
From the main gate of the Royal Academy we followed the wall in a long curve. The palace grounds and the Academy sit flush against each other, but there is no passage between them. What lies in between is a military base under grim watch, and so the walk from the gate is a long one. That is, if one walks. I was riding to the royal castle in a car.
Something like a limousine, for reference. The power plant looked to be a thing of mana, but the way of using it was familiar enough: wheels, a driver's seat, a compartment to sit in. When I think of royalty I picture a carriage, yet here they use motorcars. It isn't that this world has no beast-drawn vehicles. They are simply kept to the country outside the cities, and to the places where the poor live. I had seen as much in the slums I visited — though those carriages carried goods, not people.
The moment we entered the castle, I was shown into a room. It was where King Hypion did his work.
"Hello."
"Still a greeting with no feeling in it. Very well. Come and sit."
The king indicated the table before him, so I went and sat. A flicker of distaste crossed his face. To sit first is a breach of courtesy. Aurora's memories hold that etiquette, and I could have followed it, but I didn't. Given the time I have had, there is no world in which I could have learned such a thing. If I assume that every moment I spend with another person is under watch, then I have had no chance to learn it — and knowing it would be the stranger fact.
So I took the seat first and looked up at him, and he came and sat as well. For the record, he does not wear an easy face. The shift in his expression was so slight that, had I been poor at reading human feeling, I could not have read it at all. But the memories of those who died screaming are sensitive to the emotions of others. They gleam, picking each one apart with a vicious thoroughness.
And what does that tell me? That he finds the sight of me unpleasant?
"Yesterday you treated a great many people. And the place was the Brightshin Slums — hardly safe ground. When you go somewhere like that, at least tell someone before you leave."
The Brightshin Slums. So that was the official name. The Harvesters there know the district by so many names that I hadn't been sure which was the right one.
At a glance it sounded like worry. In truth he was not worried about me in the slightest. What clung to the words was irritation — why do you move as you please? — and I doubted it was only because I had gone there without a word.
"Yes. I understand."
After the Harvesters in Berne City caused their incident, I still had the option of going elsewhere if their numbers fell too far, so I nodded obediently.
"It would be a grave matter if you were hurt."
He added it as if the thought had only just occurred to him. There was not a shred of concern in it, so it was purely words. Hm.
Simply agreeing would have been the wiser course, but that would only have been a repeat of the last world. This time, just a little further. Let me push a bit harder.
"No. I don't die easily. Not if an arm is cut off, not if my heart is run through, not if my head is severed."
As I said it, I pointed at my own head.
"This is nothing but a vessel of meat."
I was making a point of not being human. Show them I am not a person, and they will treat me carelessly. People turn cruel with ease toward what is not human. Become an easy tool that way, and I can dig into the deep places of their hearts. It is the method cults use when they cling to those in power.
I know the filthy part of you. Speak freely. I will help you. Your desires shall be granted.
A sense of kinship is an important element.
And second — Sorindiges told me this. There is a witch who laid a curse upon this royal house, and once she realizes the curse has been lifted, she is likely to come for me. I intend to use myself as the bait.
Oh. Now that I think of it, the day I went to the slums, the prince's people or the king's may well have followed. My memories aren't enough to pick them out from among the onlookers. A few of those involved are in there, but not so many memories that I could find them at once.
They, for their part, have been at the research institute measuring physical ability, sticking this and that to bodies and running their tests. That is how I came to know how far a Harvester is strengthened. Among the patients there had been someone of fairly high standing, so getting to see the results was luck. From what I heard, physical ability rose to more than double, on average. The quantity of mana, however, did not increase. Skill at controlling mana did. That side of it is probably the effect of a sharper mind. This world has no technique yet for measuring intelligence.
No — my thoughts had drifted. The point is that they saw, with their own eyes, the scene of me making Harvesters. Acting in line with the facts matters, so that a lie is never born.
"As far as I know, it is impossible for me to die."
I put into it the meaning that they might use me as freely as they liked, if it meant making contact with the witch.
The king stared at me.
"Why did you go to the slums and treat them? Until now you have done nothing at all, to a vicious degree."
He didn't ask the dull question of whether I was human. Right. By this point he had clearly grasped that I was something monstrous.
"That was where the most people needed me. There were many who couldn't do what they wanted to do."
People who would come running like fools if even the slightest light shone. People with no vessel left in them to hold even a little ease.
The king asked me, "What do you want them to do?"
That question was wrong.
"What they want to do."
Ask me that, and this is how I answer.
"You are like a god out of a story from the distant past. A god who seeks out those sunk deep in despair and grants them the power of revenge. That god, too, is depicted in violet. The same in every land."
Ah. Yes. It was here as well. Nearly every world bears traces I left behind — traces from the days when I hunted the light that drew near the surface.
"Was that you?"
There is a right answer, and a wrong one.
"I am not a god. I am neither omniscient nor omnipotent. Rather, I am a monster filled with lack."
What is not fact, I say is not fact. I lay the word monster over it and cover the rest. How would Hypion answer that?
"I see. Then may I put the question this way? Are you the monster who seeks out those sunk deep in despair and grants them the power of revenge?"
Mm. Sharp. He isn't dragged about by wordplay. A king is a king, is he? In a flash he cut slickly down toward the truth. Ordinarily, by now, a person would have decided I was no god.
I corrected him once more.
"I don't think of things like revenge."
Aside from that, yes. That was the meaning folded into the answer.
Hypion pressed a hand over his eyes and leaned back in the chair.
"Why did you appear before us?"
A way of speaking that knew me oddly well. Did he know something? I grew uneasy at the thought that Hypion might become a Harvester. If I had known it would turn out like this, I should have just played the yes-yes vending machine. Then I could have taken memories, too. Regret comes too late, so in this world I go in boldly.
"The question is wrong. I appear only when someone calls. That is something I ought to be asking."
Plainly.
"Did you call because there was someone who would give themselves to me?"
You are the ones who called. I press the desire I want, and I press it hard. I declare that I stand in this place for that alone. They may hear it as nothing more than my having come because I was summoned. They may also understand that I truly want it. Either way, I only need to obtain warmth.
"Resolute to a vicious degree. The nameless god of the myths had no name because it was not a god."
Myths? Even combing through Aurora's memories, there is no such myth. A god of the hunt, a god of rivers, a god of herding — only a pantheon that once existed and then withered, pushed aside by the age.
"Gods exist. I have been struck by one. But I am not a god."
The Holy God of the first world. I went at it directly, and still I could not touch it. Someday I want that one's warmth as well. Daegon and Yuanshi Tianzun are gods, if such things are gods, but they had their warmth taken by me, so let us say they are not. A god ought to be greater than that. Omniscient and omnipotent. Able to know anything, able to do anything. I am neither all-knowing nor all-powerful. Therefore I am not a god.
"Even a monster cannot defeat a god?"
"No. I couldn't reach it. I was simply beaten, one-sided."
In exchange I took all the warmth of that world. But a defeat is a defeat. I am not fool enough to deny that I lost. One admits the loss, and then one thinks about how to win.
"So you mean to paint your color over every person."
"Wrong. I can't handle that many people. I lack the ability, so I will give myself only to those who come to me."
A world cannot bear so many, and a world that holds so many lacks the strength to keep itself — but I had only left part of it out. I was telling the truth. Enough for them to take me as a monster of middling power.
"And if I were to forbid you the use of your ability, what would you do?"
"Would you make a contract?"
The opening had come, and I asked before I could stop myself. King Hypion clearly knew something. I had already made more than twenty thousand Harvesters. Two hundred years at the outside. I could go without making any in the meantime. He would be begging me to please make Harvesters before that contract ever ended, so a contract on the condition of a ban would do well enough. Just as I had done for Aurora.
"No. Never mind. You merely give it to those who wish for it, and I am one who has received that benefit. It is not my place to say anything."
I had thought that, for the sake of the country, he would set a tighter limit. Perhaps it was because I had said I could not bear so many people. If a limit already exists, the thing will regulate itself, and leaving it alone makes a certain sense. A pity, from the feel of the room — but next time. There is time enough. I mean to wait for the opening slowly. It is a technique I have already succeeded with, so I am confident I can do it well again.
After that the talk turned ordinary. How was the Royal Academy. What did I do with my days. Trivial things. Hypion asked, and I answered. He offered me a chance to ask in turn, and I said there was nothing in particular. I wear the look of someone with no interest at all. Hunting is easiest when the quarry does not know a hunter is standing beside it. Of course there may come a reversal in which I, certain I was the hunter, find I was the prey. I will think about that when it happens. I have much hidden, and so does he, and time is full.
The king told me that a guard would be attached to me from now on, and sent me back to the place where I live.
A guard... I wonder whether I will still be able to go about with Victoria.