(CONTENT WARNING: The following short story contains Graphic Violence and descriptions of Blood.)

Michael found himself, not for the first time that afternoon, adjusting the head of his cane. Having a near infinite supply of identical-looking trick canes to keep his many prospective enemies guessing had definite strategic benefits, or so Michael liked to tell himself, but it wasn’t without disadvantages. The one he had chosen to bring for tonight’s activities, for example, had a slightly loose head piece. It was the kind of thing you sacrificed when assembling such a tool of disparate parts, say if you needed said parts to move, transform, or otherwise act in ways a single piece of wood would never do, which Michael very much did. And so there he was, screwing the head of the fucking thing back on, knowing full well it was going to get jiggly after a few paces at best.
“Am I disturbing you, Exalted?” Bartholomew’s voice was loud and insistent like a fire alarm in a daycare.
“I told you to stop calling me that Bart,” Michael responded off-hand. “Especially when we’re talking business.”
“I was under the impression we always talk business,” Bartholomew Thistlebarrow remarked, as dryly servile as only the truly dedicated right-hand man could get.
“Exactly. So. Nomenclature check.”
The former Aurol wizard and occasional con-artist sighed the sigh of the long-suffering straight man. “All right boss.”
“I did say you could also call me Mr. S, or anything of that sort if it pains you so to refer to me like you were, uh, where did the dockworkers use ‘that kind of language’ back before The Calamity, again?”
Bartholomew rolled his eyes at that. “It doesn’t matter, the place is less than dust, as are all its dockworkers I suspect. Now, Mr. S, Boss of bosses, most Exalted Prince of Crime, Michael FUCKING Sørstrand... Are you ready to review the topics for today’s meeting.”
“Certainly.” Michael tried not to sound too pleased at drawing profanity out of the stodgy academic, but he had to admit he failed at that.

Michael hadn’t told Bartholomew everything that was going to happen at this inaugural meeting of The New Organization, of course. He relied on the middle-aged ex-wizard for much in his attempt at reforming the Organization from something that unquestionably would’ve been a criminal gang if not for the technicality that the city of Thereafter did not have any laws to break at the time, into something that, if managed carefully, at least could be a necessary evil. That did not, however, mean that he trusted the man. Bartholomew was a chancer and a schemer by nature. No matter how helpful his assistance in the daily administration and managing of the Organization was, Michael was quick to remind himself, Bartholomew was only the second in command right now because he had been instrumental in the killing of the Organization’s former leader. Then again, the thought sprung up in Michael like nightshade in the herb garden of Michael’s mind, the same was true for himself. He had not wanted to take over the Organization, much like he hadn’t wanted to kill it’s former head, the molekin Nih-Ka, but one thing had, as these things tend to do, followed the other and here he was.

The attendees of the meeting filed in through the sliding loading doors of the warehouse largely one by one, with the exception of a handful of groups. Power blocks, Michael intuited. People who wanted to signal that they would present an unified front. Trust, Michael opined to himself, was not a common currency in organizations such as these. When everyone inevitably only looked out for themselves, it was only so much room for cooperation and alliance-building. There was an irony in what Michael tried to do, he figured, he was trying to change that, to teach these cutpurses and racketeers to work together without them unionizing and ousting him entirely. Perhaps it was all misguided on his part, but things being what they were, Michael didn’t feel like he had much of a choice. It’d have to work. He’d have to make it work.

As the large “meeting room” made by clearing out the various boxes and sundry junk that occupied the portside warehouse Michael had earmarked for this occasion, filled up with various members and adherents to The Organization, Michael withdrew to the deeper parts of the warehouse. Bartholomew would do the work of wrangling any early contributors to anything approaching trouble. Michael knew his presence started a countdown to the first open challenge to his authority, and while he wasn’t going to run away from that sort of thing, it definitely was expedient to carefully manage when such a thing could happen. An ounce of prevention, after all, was worth a pound of cure.

Once he estimated he had let the sundry mix of toughs and bandits stew long enough, Michael himself entered the meeting room. Leaning on his cane a little extra as he walked. There was no replacing a first impression, but that didn’t mean there was no room to work with it.
“Hello everyone. I want to thank you for taking time out of your day to join me in this meeting.” Michael proclaimed. He had, of course, been quite insistent and clear in what the consequences were for no-showing when the new boss wanted to talk to you. No kneecaps had needed breaking over it yet, but that needn’t remain true. “My name is Michael Sørstrand. Some of you may have heard me referred to as Exalted, but I want you to put that out of your minds for now. I do not, after all, come here as a savior, but as a man. As one of you.”

Michael scanned the crowd. They did not seem particularly impressed at his speech, but that was to be expected. The goal of this part wasn’t to change anyone’s mind. The goal was to locate The Problem, and between two particularly towering gentlemen with perhaps a dozen teeth between them, Michael found what he was looking for. Who, really, he was looking for.
It wasn’t any one thing that singled The Problem out, not really. It was more of a cluster of properties that all promised Something Bad. He was long-limbed, built like a man accustomed to violence, the many scars on his face and what could be seen of his torso singled him out as a man who could take a licking and keep on ticking. The Problem, needless to say, didn’t seem all that impressed by Michael’s introduction, nor all that worried about hiding that fact, but he shared that with most of the men around him. In the end, it was the clear, cold, predator patience that the Problem exuded that tipped him over from being a Concern to being The Problem. This was a man who would backstab Michael one day. It wasn’t an if. It was a when. Convincing this man would not only be just about impossible, it would also be, at best, a temporary fix. This man was the kind of person the original negative connotation of the word Ambition was made for. One day he would discard you. It didn’t matter if you were his boss, his employee, family, a lover, a priest, a merchant, or prophet. One day, The Problem would decide that his world would be simpler if you weren’t around and he would then make moves to make sure that version of the world became true. In other words, he was going to be a tremendous pain in the ass, inevitably, and he looked like the kind of man who could make that pain quite literal with relative ease. In other words, he was perfect to be The Problem.

Michael cleared his throat, it was time to proceed to phase two. “Now, I have no more desire than any of you to waste valuable time. Even so, I believe it pertinent for me to say some words about leadership and how things are going to be different going forward. Consider it a kindness to you all, in face of the harshness of changes in power, and the kind of uncertainty that can bring.”

Michael held his cane at about the 3/4ths point, like an old-timey carnival barker. In some ways that was what he was right now. “As far as I am concerned, there are two kinds of community one can form, and this is, make no doubt, a community.”
Michael let the outraged mumbling this comment had provoked die out as his audience started the process of deciding just how outrageous was too outrageous to keep listening to.
“Now I say community in that we are a distinct group, or organization if you prefer, working together to reach certain goals.”
The Problem, Michael noticed, had moved to the front of the crowd, sliding through the mass with the frictionless ease of the profoundly un-fuckable-with.
“There are two types of communities, again speaking broadly here,” Michael continued, undaunted by what looked like a kingkiller getting in position to do a little kingkilling. “There’s communities of Strength,” this, Michael noticed noises of approval among the crowd. The odd cheer, a couple of affirmations. “And then there’s communities of Weakness.” Similarly, this drew jeers and less-than-flattering comparisons.
“Oh, I hear what you say my friends,” Michael shifted slightly in his stance. “Surely we, The Organization is a Community of Strength. Well, until recently I believe this to be the case. Only the strongest thrive. Those who can takes what they want from those who can’t, and so on.” More cheers. “This, of course being the opposite of a community of weakness, who work together to cover up each other’s weaknesses, not exploit them.”
More boos.
“I have two problems with this. This being the Organization continuing to be a community of strength.” Michael continued undaunted, holding up two fingers. “One, it ignores the cooperation that is needed on just about every level. Even the world’s best cutpurse would go hungry without a fence. Doesn’t matter how slick your talk is, without the muscle there’s no push there, and similarly it doesn’t matter how strong you are, if nobody knows about you that won’t get you anywhere.” The mumbles were less enthusiastic about this, but it was also, Michael knew, hard to argue with. “Second, and this is more on the individual level, I want you all to briefly consider the transience of strength.”
Michael felt invigorated at this point, strolling with some confidence up and down the semicircle that had formed around him.
“Ok, that’s a big word for it. You have my most sincere apologies for that. What I mean is that strength doesn’t last. Strength in arms, strength in mind, strength in wealth. Eventually it peaks, and there’s only going down from there. Imagine, one day you’re king shit of fuck mountain and the next…”

Michael struck fast, faster than even he knew he was capable of. There was one thing that had singled out The Problem as his target for all of this, and that was his almost-imperceptible limp. Hadn’t it been for Michael’s tremorsense, his ability to sense by the slight vibrations movement spread through earth, and more relevantly this time, stone, he may not have picked it up at all. There was, however, no mistaking it. The Problem had a very slight limp, his superior motor control and no doubt sizable stubborn streak allowed him to all but hide his favoring of one leg. It would heal over time if nothing were to aggravate it, of course, so it hardly was the kind of weakness one wrote down for later.

Michael aggravated things, if not the wound, swinging his cane in a golfers arc and hitting The Problem’s at the time healthy knee with a crunching impact whose immediate effect was dropping the man like a sack of flour. The Problem fell to the ground, but Michael had no intention of letting him get back up anytime soon, and fell upon his would-be opponent in what he could only describe, himself, as a bloodthirsty frenzy.

There was, or so Michael had been told, an art to a proper Corrective Beatdown. He was no professional, but as he rained blow after blow on the downed man, favoring strikes to his head for every second of dazed stun one could extract from such treatment, and torso to make damn sure the beating would “stick,” Michael certainly did his best impression of the passionate amateur. At some point, Michael was sure, his strikes started drawing blood, and at least once he could have sworn he heard a half-drowned plea for mercy that he drowned in yet more swings of the cane. The weight of it, Michael noticed amid the madness of violence, was different. At one point the metal head must have come lose or lodged somewhere in The problem. It wasn’t a thing Michael had planned, but it was another detail to add salience to it all. At any rate, nothing could be done with it now.

“Boss, please,” Bartholomew’s plea snapped Michael out of it, or at least so he went to great lengths to telegraph. In truth, he was dang thankful his second-in-command had chosen to speak up. It was a good stopping point, and while giving a beating probably sucked less than getting one, Michael felt surprisingly tired physically, and also more than a little nauseous.

Michael stepped back and cleared his throat. He kept his cane, or what was left of it, at chest height, holding it like a Hollywood gangster would hold a bat. “And the next you’re a pile of various discount meats on the floor because the boss figured out you were trying to start some shit,” he continued, doing his level best to maintain the too-even tone he had imagined himself using at this point. “That’s not the kind of thing anyone wants, is it? I sure don’t. He…” Michael gestured at The Problem, who had just about begun to gurgle in pain. At least he was still alive. “Probably doesn’t want it to be like that. Hell, I’m even pretty sure none of you…” the gesture at his men was purposefully sloppy, trying to sell the bloodlust that was still supposed to be there under all the calm considered words. “If you think real hard about it, want that, no?” It was a bit more than he had aimed for, but at least, much to Michael’s relief, the members of the Organization recognized a rhetorical question when they heard it, even though he wasn’t sure all of them knew it by name.

“So,” Michael was back to being Only Business now. “Going forward, I both will endeavor to nurture, and also expect to see, more gainful cooperation between all of you. We are building something Grand and Important here in the ruins of all existence, and I will see every single one of you dead in the fucking void before I see one more dick-swinging knuckle-dragging usurper even considering trying to make themselves king for a day. Because make no mistake fellas, it won’t be for much longer, because there’s always someone stronger, and if you think that’s not true you’re just deluding yourself. IS THAT FUCKING CLEAR? AM I MAKING SENSE”

Michael didn’t catch who was the first to respond out loud with “Yes Sir,” but before long, the majority of his men were at least mumbling it. Michael took a deep breath.
“Don’t call me sir, you lickspittles.” Michael said, it was a joke that wasn’t one, he found himself too tired for anything else. “That’s enough chatting. Go on, get out there and generate some wealth for us.” He motioned for the door, and the meeting did not dawdle for a second with adjourning, as Michael’s men started filing out. “And don’t forget to write everything down.” Michael shouted after them. “I’ll get these fucking ledgers up-to-date if I have to break you all in half trying.”

Once the last few of Michael’s underlings had made themselves scarce, leaving him almost entirely alone in a warehouse he could have sworn wasn’t quite that large when he entered it, Michael allowed himself to be tired. It was just about all he could do to make it back to the open plan “office” he had set up before he felt his knees buckle under him. He wanted to lie down on the floor and stay there, he wanted to scream, he wanted to throw up, but the truth was he was going to do none of those things. The masquerade was not over. He wasn’t sure when it was going to be over. No time soon, that was for sure.

Part of Michael wanted to keep the momentum up, to use this burst to get some serious work done. Perhaps he could get around to working his influence on those trade expeditions? It’d have to remain a hypothetical. Michael found himself sitting on one of the cheap chairs he had rustled up for the event, and try as he might, he could not summon the strength to get up. He could envision the act with crystal clarity, trace every muscle he’d need to flex to do the squat-like motion, but he couldn’t find it in himself to actually do it.

“It’s not going to work, you know that right?”
Only Michael’s profound tiredness stopped him from reacting in a sudden and very undignified way to the startling presence that had taken him by surprise.
“What would that ‘it” be then, Bart?” Michael responded, hoping his elevated pulse didn’t show up in his voice. “Is ‘it’ proclaiming formal leadership and staking out the way onward? Because to my eyes that seemed to work just fine.”
“Granted,” Bartholomew said as he stepped into Michael’s sanctum. He didn’t sit down, but he did put a possessive hand on another chair. “But your ‘high-function madman’ act? I don’t think that’s going to last.”
“A drawn sword keeps another in the sheath,” Michael said with a shrug. “The easiest way to create peace is to prepare for war. Pick your justification.”
“So they do say, but if I may Boss, this really isn’t you, is it?”
“Now what do you mean by that?”
“Nothing, boss, nothing.”
“Yeah?” Michael found himself rising. He wasn’t an ounce less tired, but there was something ugly in the depth of his mind that took the reins for the moment. “Because to me, it sounds like you’re wondering if I have what it takes. Is that what’s going on here?” Michael suddenly felt mindful he was still holding what remained of his cane.
Bartholomew took a step back, he had read the situation correctly, Michael found himself musing. He had no intention of hurting the man, but then again, Bartholomew didn’t have to know that right now.
“Of course not, Mr. S.” Bartholomew floundered. “It just occurred to me that you perhaps would prefer a more… cerebral management style?”
Michael shrugged.
“I play the cards I’m dealt same as any man, Bart.”
“Very well,” Bartholomew licked his lips, the first nervous reaction Michael could remember having gotten out of him.
“Now, was there anything else?”
“Oh yes,” Bartholomew perked up at the easing of the pressure. “I wanted to ask you about the Nih-Ka Manor, we’ve encountered… some resistance to using it as housing, do you want us to insist on it?”
“No need,” Michael waved the question away. “Let’s make it our primary headquarters. I think this place’s got mold.”
“Very well, Mr. S. I will rustle up some craftsmen to do the needed modifications. Here, I took the liberty to have a replacement fetched.”
Bartholomew offered Michael one of his canes, handle first as was only proper. Michael had definitely not seen it in his hand before, which meant he probably had either conjured it up on the spot, or used magic to fetch it. Michael knew which option he liked least.
“Thank you Bart,” Michael said as he tossed the broken mobility aid away and accepted the cane. “I will leave the comings and goings of this move up to you. I will be at my Residence.”
“Very well, Mr. S, but if I may…”
“Hm?”
“Do you really think the Residence is fitting a man in your position? Can I not entice you with something with… a bit of amenity to it?”
Michael shook his head. “Nah, the Residence is plenty. Inform me if anything politically disastrous were to happen, other than that I do not wish to be disturbed. As you were, Bart.”

As he walked, the slight stiffness of his bad knee being back after a long absence, no doubt a consequence of his many aggravations. Michael felt tired in multiple ways. Physically, his muscles were sore after the sudden activity that had been brutalizing The Problem, mentally, he felt his focus decaying around him, spiritually, he wasn’t even sure where to begin. The cane was one he was familiar with, the one with the sword Bartholomew had gifted him at the start of his tenure of Organization Boss. It was probably no accident that Barth had chosen that one. It could be he was tracking the thing, but Michael had nothing to hide from his chief magus in particular. Only Bartholomew knew the location of the Residence in the first place, after all. Ideally, Michael would’ve liked to hide that from him as well, but he needed someone to do a number of spells on the place, and so Bartholomew simply had to do.

Michael wasn’t entirely sure he could trust Bartholomew. Well, that wasn’t correct. He was decently sure he couldn’t. Barth had sold out his former boss and he hadn’t seemed all too torn up about it. Michael had no illusions as to whether history could or would repeat. If Bartholomew found him more useful than any replacement would be, Bartholomew could be the Devil that Michael knew. If the inverse were ever to be, though, then surely something would happen to him. After all, Michael had happened to Nih-Ka, only a short time ago. As Michael wandered under the pitch black night sky of Thereafter, he could not but conclude: it was a hell of a deal, but then again, deals with devils usually were.

Author’s note: And we finally return to Thereafter. I apologize profusely for the Pride Special failing to manifest. Turns out the short story I wanted to write was too hard for me to write when I was as depressed as I was in june-july. These things happen, I aim for getting it out there for next Pride. Anyway, this can be considered a bit of a prelude for book 3, Souls of Stone, and I plan to start releasing that on September 01. August will probably mostly disappear into editing my first “regular” novel for self publicaation, but I plan to start weaving together Felipe’s Terrible No Good Horrendous 24 Hours of Misguided Vengeance, Boner Jokes, and Actual Boners (or Souls of Stone as I have titled it proper) as the month progresses.