Voidhearts Chapter 4: Wounds
Alicia encounters some interesting questions and some unexpected resistance. The Exalted Heroes work the Void problem.
The fake sunset had proceeded into a full red sky, a rarer sight on earth, but apparently commonplace in Aurol seeing as the simulated sunlight filled the sky with blood orange light on the regular. Alicia had excused herself from Worship, she wanted to be back at the Castle before nightfall. Thereafter wasn’t particularly more dangerous place at night than in the day, but old habits died hard for Alicia, and she wasn’t particularly keen on fighting the anxiety that being out after dark could wake in her. The late cup of coffee was, frankly, doing entirely too good a job of stirring Alicia’s more intimidating flights of fancy. Alicia usually handled her caffeine just fine, but going over her usual dose with that nasty second gen stuff got her all kinds of antsy.
She was just past halfway home by the time Alicia noticed that someone was following her. At first she was sure it was just a flight of fancy, or some kind of overtuned big city paranoia, but after taking an entirely superfluous series of right turns, Alicia was sure. That pair of steps she heard was following her. In one turn, she spotted a long-limbed figure rendered in silhouette by fake sunset light. She had no way of knowing who it was, but that didn’t mean she had no idea. It could be one of the kids from earlier, or one of their friends. Michael didn’t seem like the kind to stick a tail on her, but he hadn’t exactly struck her as the type to run of to join the mob either. Finally, it could be related to the Council, Alicia had no idea what they were up to these days, and she suspected the reverse was also true.
Alicia put effort in moving as casually as possible while drawing on the Deep Song. There was no way to be sure who her pursuer was, and a very sensible voice in Alicia’s head told her that reaching straight for the superpowers was maybe creating more problems that it solved. On the other hand, she was no stranger to the kind of dangers that could face a lone woman at night, and just like the fact that she was considerably stronger than average didn’t guarantee safety in the real world, the fact that she could throw a horse at whoever was behind her didn’t guarantee safety in Thereafter. The pursuer kept back, Alicia wasn’t sure it was because they knew about her power, or if it was just good old-fashioned careful patience.
Alicia gripped her phone in her pocket. It wasn’t ideal as far as weapons go, but worst come to worst, she could chuck it at near-lethal speed with ease. The phone would not handle that well, but you could repair phones. Lex stuck Alicia as the kind of person who had broken their share of phones, so surely they had at least considered the magic involvedd in such a spell.
Whoever was behind her started walking faster. It was a slight increase, but it was all Alicia needed to default to one particular gambit she had used in a similar, though more mundane situation back on earth.
She spun on her heel, a sudden movement without warning, and made the sternest face she could. “Now what the hell do you think you’re doing.”
Imi didn’t quite fall on his ass as he jerked back from surprise, but it was pretty damn close.
“Exalted! Mountain Wind! I’m sorry,”
Part of Alicia wanted to laugh. Here she had built up this image in her mind of this skilled, malicious stalker, and here stood runty little Imi, whose face was covered in peach fuzz and whose voice still cracked when he got excited. Granted, he had almost caused a building-leveling brawl not an hour ago, but he was, for all his youthful unpredictability, a known size. She knew who he was and what he could do, although she had to confess she had no idea why he was seeking her out like this.
“I… I didn’t want to scare you,” Imi added, apparently self-conscious in the brief moment of silence Alicia had taken to take in the situation.
“Imi… pact brother, you can’t just sneak up on people like that, I had half a mind to put you through a wall.
“I, uh, I was trying to find out what, or how I was going to, uh…”
“Ok, ok, ok,” Alicia waved her arm as if dismissing the entire conversation. “Let’s start this conversation over again and pretend the introductions went about as normal. What do you want Imi?”
Imi took a deep breath, Alicia felt no trace of the Deep Song in him, so she let go of her own hold on it. If Imi did try to pull on it odds were good she’d notice before he did.
“I wanted to tell you I got Ola back to his kinfolk. He’s a bit dazed, but he has the elders taking care of him, so he’ll be fine.”
“That’s good,” Alicia said, unable to shake the feeling that Imi felt like this was a test somehow.
“Yes, very good. I would hate to see him harmed.”
“Hm,” Alicia said. She could have asked why Imi wanted to beat him up originally, then, but the subtext of it all seemed pretty clear to her, so there was no need to belabor the point.
“He said something to me before we got back to his box, and I just can’t stop thinking about it. He said I had much to learn from you.”
“From me?” Alicia asked. She knew she was a figure of some renown, a figure of legend, really. But still, she didn’t get the impression she was the kind of person one should learn from in the folklore of the Steppefolk.
“Yes.”
“That’s not… like a common saying for y’all or anything I take it?”
“No, not really. Make no mistake, we admire you, and revere you…”
“But I’m not exactly known for my wisdom, am I?”
“Sorry,” Imi said, as if the decades, if it weren’t centuries of cultural interpretation of Alicia’s character was his fault somehow.
“Don’t worry about it kid. I figure Lia’s seen as the thinker, am I right?”
“Oh yes. Farspeaker Lia was the first of the Deepspeakers after all, her wisdom and cunning was legendary.”
“She was the brains of the operation, no doubt about that. We would never have gotten the coalition going without her.”
“That’s a question of some debate, actually,” Imi said. “There are a lot of thinkers and farseers through the years who have argued that it was, uh, what’s the word… when Lia and the Mountain Wind danced the steel on the fields of the Allthing that the First Coalition was born.”
“Danced the steel, huh?” Lia couldn’t help but scoff. “I guess you could call it that. Me and Lia were escorting some envoys back to the Allthing when the Dragon Clan ambushed us. Me and Lia being the only ones that were any good in a fight, we took ‘em down. It was a goddamn mess, and we’re lucky we made it out alive, if you don’t mind me saying.”
“All the same,” Imi insisted. “Descriptions that you ‘moved as one’ has some maintaining that the two of you were in fact two aspects of the same person, but that’s generally considered a fringe view.”
“Oh? I mean yeah, we were different people.”
“You would know,” Imi said with a shrug. “So, do you have any idea what Ola meant about that?”
“Hmmm,” Alicia thought about it for a bit. “And you’re thinking it’s in contrast from what you have learned from Lia?”
“I… guess? It’s kind of hard to explain?”
“Yeah I get that,” Alicia wanted, at least a little, to yell at this kid for the mealy-mouthed go-nowhere mess this conversation was turning into, but it wasn’t his fault, not entirely. It was difficult to unpack your culture to a stranger, even if said stranger was a central figure in it. She’d need someone with some more miles on their soul if she was going to get to the bottom of things. “Listen,” She said after another pause to consider her options. “I don’t quite know what your friend meant, sorry, but I’ll give it some thought. Come see me at the Castle if you figure it out, ok?”
Imi swallowed, he didn’t look devastated, but Alicia felt she still understood teenagers enough to guesstimate that not looking devastated took all he had.
“I understand, Mountain Wind,” Imi said. “Thank you.”
“Thank you Imi.” Alicia said, and she had no trouble at all meaning that. Imi was a hothead and a bit of an idiot, but that was normal for teens. She was glad he had the opportunity to be one, even though the heightened feelings of teenagery mixed poorly with the vast power of the Deep Song.
With an awkward bow, Imi left, and Alicia Noticed something.
Alicia took a few steps on her recently resumed journey back to the Castle before she spoke up.
“So, how long have you been there, Deepspeaker?”
“I heard most of the conversation,” Lia said as she stepped out of a shadowy alley between two buildings, joining Alicia in the walk so casually that one might forget that she had been all but invisible seconds ago. “I assure you I only paused to make sure you were ok, Exalted.”
“That’s sweet of you,” Alicia wasn’t sarcastic, but just about. “Why are you out and about this eve, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“I don’t mind.” Lia said. “I have been meeting with the Scavengers today, and the negotiations went long.”
“Oh, I see,” Alica said. She was decently sure she was casual about it, but it was hard to put herself in a headspace where she knew nothing about what might go on with the scavengers. “Nothing serious I hope?”
“Hard to say for sure. It’s probably nothing, but even small disruptions in their operations can have grave consequences for Thereafter.”
Alicia grimaced, as much was true no doubt.
“Oh yeah we don’t want that. I heard a bunch of them quit, recently?”
Lia’s step halted for just a split second. It wasn’t much of a tell, but the apparent reluctance with which she spoke definitely ws one.
“A few of them, yes, but there’s always volunteers in the wings.”
“That’s odd to me,” Alicia said.
“How so?”
“It’s dangerous work, isn’t it? There’s no air in the void, no gravity, it’s cold as hell. Why on earth would people take on dangerous work like that? It’s not like we pay them, right?”
Lia’s chuckle wasn’t exactly filled with mirth, but it was a slight humor to it, at least.
“I forget how cynical your world must be, Exalted. Us, here in Thereafter, most of us are heroes, and those that are not have grown up revering heroes. To us, there is nothing greater than braving danger for the greater good.”
“I suppose,” Alicia said. While she would like to believe Lia’s pitch on the face of it, the fact that enough people also worked for Michael and his organization told her things weren’t quite as altruistic as that, at least not all the way through.
“I just wanted to tell you,” Lia said after they had walked a while. “I should tell you about that ‘fringe idea” Imi talked about.”
“Uh, ok.”
“It was known as Pureism, and while it talked a great game about the extraordinary aspects of Lia, it did have a… secondary motivation, I think it’s safe to say.”
“How so?”
“Couplings have never been a particularly controversial topic among the steppefolk for most of our history,” Lia continued. “Who… beds who is generally considered a topic too trivial for the tribe to need bother with.”
“Like… who’s gay and stuff like that?” Alicia asked.
“Gay, yes, I suppose that’s a word for it. Anyway, some decades back there was a Farseer who had other ideas.” Lia frowned, as if tryng to puzzle out a particularly difficult math problem. “It started, I believe as an… orthodoxy in how his tribe handled children.”
“Handled?”
“I’m not particularly learned on this topic Exalted, I apologize for my inarticulaton.”
“No, no, that’s fine. Steppefolk children Belong to the Tribe, right?”
“Yes, they do, usually. This Farseer wanted to change that, wanted the birthparents to have primacy in responsibility for the children.” Alicia snorted. “What a bean-counter. Most tribes scarcely know whose loins birthed who, and we don’t spend time puzzling it out when there’s livestock to protect.”
“Right, but what does that have to do with whether I existed or not?”
“It was, pardon the indelicacy Exalted, more about Lia, I believe. The Farseer had this idea of Farspeaker Lia as some sort of primal mother of the Steppefolk, and this fit ill with her being, as you say in your world ‘gay’”
“Oh,” Alicia said, feeling a cold sensation twist in her stomach, like a bag full of snakes. “So for his argument to make sense, I couldn’t actually… be who I am and have done what I have done?”
“In essence yes. In his vision of the Deep Song was really the strength of predecessors possessing and aiding the warriors of the steppefolk.”
“At least that bit doesn’t sound too bad,”
Lia stopped. “A terrible war was fought over this,” she said. As an errant sunbeam struck Lia’s eye, Alicia noticed they weren’t entirely brown. In fact, the outer part of her iris were blue, around a shape that looked a bit like a flame. “The Farseer told his tribe and all that he conquered that he spoke for the ancestors, and that every terrible thing he did was their will.”
Lia spat at the ground, a loogie with what felt like bullet-like kinetic force.
“We have struck his name from our histories, he does not deserve even the infamy.”
“I see,” Lia said. While she was decently sure this happened before Lia’s time, the sheer vitriol she heaped on this nameless farcaster told Alicia something, but she could not quite be sure what yet. “Thank you for sharing this piece of your history with me, Deepspeaker.”
“Oh, of course, Exalted One,” Lia said sheepishly. “I, uh, just thought you should know about it.” Lia motioned as to ask if they should resume walking. Alicia took point.
“And I thank you for it. Your wisdom is great and you share it willingly.”
“I Do,” Lia said as she resumed walking, a step and a bit behind Lia.
“And yet you talk about my business to him…”
Alicia did not flinch. It took every single mental resource she had stored away for enduring awkward conversations, every ounce of muscle control she had, every scrap of knowledge, and her every instinct, but she did not flinch.
“What makes you think I’ve done such a thing?” She asked. Not a counter-accusation, unless Lia decided to make it one.
“Do you deny it?”
“Only that I knew it was your business, so to speak,” Alicia decided that a frank response was correct. Lia was no fool, and it’d be foolish to treat her like one.
“I met with a friend, and he told me of what worries him these days.” Alicia said, her tone casual, but with a hint of an edge. She couldn’t help it. She was an adult, but it didn’t take much more than authority applied at the wrong angle for her to snap back into a standoffish teenager. “If the Council wanted me to keep out of their business, I surely would have an easier time of it if the Council let me know what business to keep out of.”
“Thunder and Stones, girl,” Lia’s voice was not as openly testy as Alicia’s surely was, but there was a core of steel to it. “The Council can’t tell you and your nosy friends everything that goes on around here. Not after…”
“Not after Eltern played us like a fucking fiddle and then fucked off to let us pick up the pieces, you mean?” Alicia’s composure had, by her estimate, suffered what might be described as a ‘slight catastrophic collapse.’
“After that scheming old fuck used us as his personal wetwork team, you mean?”
At some point, Alicia had turned to face Lia.
“You will not speak of your Elders in that tone.”
“I will speak of my FUCKING Elders in the tone they deserve to be spoken of, according to their FUCKING actions.”
“Eltern did not act on behalf of the council. He arguably didn’t act at all.”
“What do you MEAN by that?”
“You Exalted, you are so quick to make every problem your problem. Here comes the Exalted Heroes, they know best so they will hold life and death in their hands like it was nothing.”
The air crackled. Alicia felt a heavy pressure in the air, like a thunderstorm was about to break out overhead. The dome, now dark, showed only the silent dark of the Void and the distant glints of light that was the scavenger network. Only then, Alicia realized she was holding on to the Deep Song, and so was Lia. Their eyes met as the final beams of sunlight faded out around them, and the brief terror of what they almost got into them shot into them both like a thunderbolt.
“I… I guess we should agree to disagree for now,” Alicia said, her voice dry with anger and sudden terror.
“It is perhaps best. We’re both tired…” Lia nodded, her face was strained. “I need to speak to my people. I believe I shan’t return to the Castle this night.”
Part of Alicia wanted to make a big deal out of Lia talking about ‘her people,’ but she knew that was pettiness talking. She had never referred to the Steppefolk as a group she belonged to, and if today had taught her anything, it was that there was quite the gulf between her and the Steppefolk, in more ways than one. “I’ll let the guards know. She said instead.”
With a mumbled word of thanks, Lia disappeared into the night. Alicia could restrain the part of her that wanted to run after Lia and throw her into a wall, but only just about. She headed back to the Castle, suddenly tired on a level way deeper than the merely physical.
It wasn’t, Alicia realized as the rapidly cooling air of the city soothed the angry blush in her cheeks that burned like fire, that Lia was wrong that was so unbearable to her. In many ways, she had been right on the money. The Exalted Heroes had gone and done something they shouldn’t have because they believed it to be the right thing to do. Granted, they had been tricked, told lies by omission. It wasn’t just the Council, Michael’s wizard informant, now second-in-command if the scuttlebutt was to be believed, had also seemed sketchy to Alicia in retrospect. Unfortunately, it was hard to prove anything about the intentions of both Eltern and said suspicious wizard. There was plenty of circumstantial evidence and implications, but that didn’t get them far. Then again, Alicia thought, Thereafter had no Checks and Balances, so even with evidence there was every chance that Eltern would get away with it.
Grand Magus Eltern, Alicia realized with some horror, was too important to the city of Thereafter in the state it was in currently to be removed from the seat of horror. Even if his mastery of magic was hampered by whatever the hell went on with the magic in the city, he was the definitive authority on Aurol-style magic, just like Lia was the definitive authority on the Deep Song. They could manage without his leadership, she reckoned, but they could not manage without a steady food supply as supported by Eltern’s duplication spells.
It was somewhat later, after Alicia’s exploration of certain aspects and limits of the human body together with Lex had concluded, that she made her decision.
“I have to figure out what’s behind these Scavenger disappearances,” Alicia made the decision as she spoke it out loud.
“What’s that?” Lex raised their head from the pillow. The both looked and sounded like they’d be happier to be asleep, but there was a certain post-coital warmth to them that dulled any barb there might be.
“Just something Michael told me about. There might be something going on with them. I know I sound like a broken record but…”
“You think Eltern is involved?”
“I mean less scavenge certainly would bring the importance of the duplication into the forefront.”
“It also would risk societal collapse,” Lex pointed out, apparently not as dulled by sleepiness as Alicia had notice.
“That’s true,” Alicia said. “If I’m honest it isn’t just that I don’t trust Eltern,”
“Although you do not,”
“I do not,” Alicia conceded. “It’s also that it seems that Lia doesn’t want me looking into it.”
“Ever the contrarian. Girl, you should be a journalist.”
“That’s not telling me I’m crazy or petty.”
“You can be both petty and right,” Lex drawled. “In fact I am both, frequently.”
The door to the bedchamber creaked open, and Alicia, true to form, briefly tensed ready to fight until she realized it was just Felipe.
“Scoot over perverts,” Felipe mumbled, a tired glaze to his voice.
“People who have asked me if I could dress up as a priest for them shouldn’t throw stones in pervert houses, altar boy,” Lex shot back. Still, both they and Alicia scooted over in the bed a bit to make room for Felipe.
“You remember that conversation very differently from how I remember it,” Felipe yawned as he climbed into bed and, as the spoiled housecat of a man he was, immediately proceeded to take up as much space as at all possible. “But fine, see if I share any of my tormented psychosexual soul with you again.”
“Psychosexual soul?” Alicia asked. “I think you two have been hanging out too much. You’re starting to rub off on the lad Lex.”
“It’s all according to plan. Hey Felipe do you know anything about what’s going on with the Scavengers?”
“The disappearances? Yeah, I’ve been keeping an eye on it.”
“How come everyone has heard of this thing but me?” Lex asked, apparently incensed at this disparity in knowledge.
“Your brain is full of obscure magic math?” Alicia suggested.
“You don’t go outside much?” Felipe added, and after deflecting an elbow to the ribs from Lex, he continued. “Oof, ow… I’ve been trying to track down one of them actually. Might have a lead, you two wanna come with?”
“I’d love to,” Alicia said.
Lex scoffed. “I’ll pass. I have obscure magic math to consider.”
The bickering went on for a little while. It wasn’t quite a ritual, but Alicia did find respite in the mutually assured sassiness, and when the comically overstated sick burns, she had no problem drifting off to a deep dreamless sleep that lasted her through the night
Author’s Note: This chapter is a good illustration of my pantser/plotter approach. The digression about the nameless farseer that basically invented homophobia in Steppeworld came to me while writing the chapter, and I found it too compelling to leave out/leave it for bonus content. It’s just important to me to clarify that while the magical realms did host the Exalted Heroes’ adventures, they do have their own history and culture that spun on after said adventure. Hell, there may even have been realms that hosted multiple adventures through the ages. There’s something there about how a living world needs to be able to change, but I won’t get into the metaphysics of my worldbuilding at this time.
Catch you next time when we get another slice of the Scavenger puzzle, and probably more sass.
VSD