Slumrat Rising

Vol. 3 Chap. 58 Homemaker

Truth felt the security systems brush past him, like walking through cobwebs. Knowing that somewhere in them, spiders still hunted. His work cracking the system, his own spells, and the seeming “invitation in” by the lady of the house was enough to get them to look the other way. For now.

Borges' house was curiously decorated. Superficially, it was the same suburban blandeur- imposing sofas in grays and browns, a big scry ball, what was clearly intended to be his recliner, with a sparkling clean ashtray next to a table lighter and fully stocked humidor. There were fleece-lined leather slippers under the coat hooks by the door. The walls were painted a light olive color. One lamp had pressed leaves in wax paper for a shade. So far, so dull.

Maysi went upstairs to get changed. Truth stayed on the ground floor, trying to figure out what was bothering him about what he was seeing. The sofas and recliners and slippers were all quite ordinary. Nothing special about the cigars or lighters or any of the dull brags of suburban success.

His eyes drifted to the bookshelves. All perfectly dust-free, naturally, and with perfectly undamaged covers. He would be shocked if anyone had read them. The titles all sounded like things that got put in the front window of bookstores, then returned to the publisher a month later.

There were little knick knacks scattered around the shelves. A glass paperweight, geometric shapes cast in bronze, things like that. Maybe they had some meaning or emotional importance to Borges. He couldn’t imagine why. There was a coin in a clear plastic case. Truth picked it up and examined it. The case was carved and polished to make the coin look bigger when you held the box up to your eye. You could get a quite close look at all the sides of the coin.

On one side of the coin was a regal face wearing a crown. Words in some language Truth didn’t recognize, in an alphabet he had never seen, circled the face. The edges weren’t quite even, the coin a little too lumpy to be perfectly circular. The back was a tiered platform, clearly huge, with tiny people around it. There were three stars hanging in the sky above the platform. Symbolizing what he didn’t know. A funny trinket, but Truth couldn’t imagine what its relevance to anything was. Though, he couldn’t quite bring himself to put it down.

The king’s face was handsome. Strong. He was a good king. The writing was neat and formal, but it flowed elegantly. Someone had done really good work there. The edges of the coin must have deformed with time. The platform on the back only grew more impressive the longer he looked at it. The tiny people gathered around it in worship.

At the top, they would be making an offering. Worshiping the stars above. The king was no doubt up there, leading the sacrifices. Just what, or who, would be going under the knife? Feeling the terror rise to such a peak that it was no different than ecstasy. Losing themselves in the void between life and death, orgasm and extinction, until they tipped over and the Gods took their due.

It wasn’t right for this coin to be left around like this. It was… blasphemous. It was too precious and special. Truth felt a pressure building in his head. There was an increasing dissonance. The coin seemed to get blurry in his hand, or maybe it was his eyes that were going. The coin seemed to eclipse the room in his perception as he fought to wrestle it down.

His hands smoked furiously, his whole body steaming. He wasn’t worshiping at the foot of the ziggurat, a word he had never known before today. He wasn’t the priest or the sacrifice. He snarled silently, forcing the coin to be a coin.

He was Truth Medici, and whatever he was, he was no king’s slave. He wrestled to put the box down, still unable to fling it away from him. In a moment of desperation, he tried casting Cup and Knife. He could feel the spell raging at the wrongness of the coin, but he couldn’t figure out how to use it. How do you “correct” something like that? Peeling back one finger at a time, he managed to drop the thing on the floor.

Truth collapsed on the sofa, sweating. Gasping for air. He could smell that place, whatever it was. He could hear the chanting, the screams of the sacrifice as they balanced on the limit of experience. The holy born from the profane, finding the ecstatic spirit in the split chest of the sacrifice.

He could feel the awesome majesty of the king. His rule was blessed by the Gods above and venerated by the people below. A living god, bestowed with the right to determine life and death, to divide the earth and the waters, to make all laws that bound those who dwelt between Heaven and Hell.

The king’s harem was filled with women from every corner of his dominion and from every nation begging his benevolence. His storehouses groaned with gold, silk and amber. Precious perfumes and oils were his, as were the rarest fruits and nuts. All earthly glory was his due, confirmed by the heavens above.

Truth shuddered, feeling the coin tugging at him. He heard Maysi walking down the stairs. She looked nice in her yoga gear. Hair up in a ponytail, everything form-fitting. She looked pleased to go get a workout in her cute little white sneakers. She didn’t look like someone who tortured her neighbors. Right now, he supposed, she wasn’t.

Truth could easily understand why Borges kept such a cursed coin in the living room. The message wasn’t subtle. But it didn’t explain by itself the wrongness and the power of the thing.

Maysi went out, leaving Truth in the house alone. He didn’t know how long he had before the spells marked him as an intruder. Probably not very long. He could keep hidden from them, but it would be tiring. He had to get up off the sofa and get to work. It seemed mildly impossible. Deep breath. Impossible or not, he had to do it. He heaved himself to his feet and got searching.

The basement was cleaner than he expected. The floor was sealed concrete. The walls were smooth and painted white. There were storage boxes of old clothes, hiking gear, and skis. A punching bag was hung from the ceiling next to a dusty bench and rack of dumbells. It all looked in mint condition, if in need of a wash.

The wine rack saw heavier use. It was almost fully loaded. There was a high table next to the rack with a decanter and a pair of glasses set on it. Perhaps Borges had tastings down here. Truth didn’t know much about wine, hardly anything actually, but at a guess, these were expensive. A couple of trophies had been stood on their bottoms, proudly displaying their labels to the room. He gave them a second look, then turned away, shuddering. The labels were in the same language as the writing on the coin.

He tried not to speculate. Too soon to speculate- he needed more information. Still, he was steaming so much, it looked like he was being prepared for a light supper. It seemed that whatever this was, it was not in conformity with “orthodoxy.” Truth smiled a little at that. His mad idea of a backup plan was looking a little more plausible.

The rest of the house was more of the same. Bland, safe, suburban, sprinkled with little artifacts from that strange world. There was a home office, but a careful search revealed that it was used exclusively by Maysi to organize parties and the very important activities of the village- the Gardening Committee, the Festival Committee, and the Running Club. The den saw a little more use- more cigars, decanters of whisky, comfortable club chairs, and books that looked like they actually had been read. Most non-fiction, historical stuff. Some books on spell theory. Those were unread. He couldn’t understand why until he saw Borges listed as the author.

Next to one of the club chairs was a volume of an encyclopedia. Truth opened it, letting the book fall open wherever it wished. It opened to an entry about some ancient country called Uqbar, long lost, or perhaps still existing on another planet. Or possibly existing on this planet before the most recent human settlement. Its location was precisely set between mountains, rivers, and the ocean, for all that its existence was ambiguous. The entry was quite long, giving a detailed description of its history (bloody), its politics (distressingly simple), and its philosophy (endlessly complex). It felt… true.

Truth dropped the encyclopedia back on the side table and glared at it. He had noticed the way his hand was steaming when he picked it up. Was this house a testbed for the reality alteration going on around the whole village? Something more dramatic than the invisible alterations made before? Truth wondered if whatever Borges had done to Maysi was part of it. His first thought was that it was a deliberately repressed memory or perhaps an implanted one. There were no wife and children waiting for Maysi, but when she hurt someone deliberately, she believed that she had once been happy and loved.

It didn’t quite feel right. Not after searching the house. The house was boring. It lacked any of the paraphernalia he associated with the recreationally cruel. Other than the “artifacts,” it seemed to lack anything at all that smacked of creativity or imagination. Which couldn’t possibly be right. Borges was one of the leading researchers of the age. He had to be some kind of creative.

Truth could vividly remember being beneath the ziggurat. He could remember the fear and worship the king tried to press into him. He could remember the cries of the sacrifice and the smell of that strange earth. The memories were slipping away, their vividness fading, but he could still remember Uqbar.

What if the doctor wasn’t trying to torture Maysi?

He spun the idea around in horrified fascination. What if the doctor was trying to show Maysi a better life, a life of freedom and joy in another world? Such memories would come at a cost, of course. Pain. Sacrifice. Proving your strength by making another pay the price for your happiness.

The king didn’t look much like Borges, but that didn’t mean anything. Maybe it’s what Borges thought he should look like. Or maybe it wasn’t Borges at all, and the King was Starbrite or the current CEO, or some designated puppet. It would seem to line up with how the System Astrologica liked to work. Create your own chains, and be grateful to serve.

He searched through the house again, cataloging the artifacts and hunting for anything that might undercut his theory. He didn’t find so much as a skin mag shoved under the mattress or a little vial of Mother’s Helper in the vanity.

If Borges had more colorful sins, he kept them at the research center. If Maysi did- but she couldn’t, of course. Starbrite did fine work when it made custom goods for its top employees. And Borges was a proud B-Tier elite. Maysi would have been delivered with a certificate of authenticity and a comprehensive warranty.

Truth laughed at the audacity of it. The researcher he murdered thought the Black Ships could move through the void because they perfectly understood their environment, which gave them power over it. That junior was stuck in an anonymous suburban office park licking copper cubes. He didn’t get his own research center on a giant flower with a complete village attached. He thought too small. Borges? He thought big. Big enough to move Starbrite.

It wasn’t just about building an escape ship for Starbrite. It was about everyone. Borges would do his part to get the boss off-planet safely, then afterward? This planet would have the God-King it always deserved. Worshiping the God it always deserved. The planet would wait for the millennia to pass, worshiping its king, consecrated by Starbrite. And if they weren’t able to capture the cosmic rays anymore? No problem. There was another source of power available. Sacrifice. And he would have billions of people to choose from.