Published at 3rd of October 2023 12:00 pm

Chapter 2.36 In Which the Dark Lord Carries a Big Shtick

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The plan didn’t call for a mass use of my forces, but after the last time I’d tried a major operation in the Gutters and gotten dumped in the river full of quarrels for my trouble, I was playing it safe. Already I’d blundered by going back there with just myself and Aster, and in hindsight I’d been lucky nothing came of it except that we had to briefly separate when I visited the Kingsguard headquarters. This time I was planning to draw as much attention as I could and couldn’t know what might happen, so I put my people in position to intervene if something went wrong.

Their presence should not be required, if all went according to plan, but how often did that happen?

I selected only former Alley Cats for the advance teams; I trusted them the most, and also the rest of my forces consisted of known bandits and runaway noblewomen, both of which would be apprehended as soon as anyone recognized them. The Cats might also have some explaining to do if they were spotted, but now that Lady Gray wasn’t a power in the Gutters and wasn’t even there as far as anyone could tell, the worst they’d have to deal with should be some pointed questions. I trusted them to handle that, and sent them ahead to be in position along the main routes I planned to take and the specific locations where the plan itself would unfold.

Now, it was time for my revenge on that fucking river.

We emerged from the khora forest at its closest point to the city, at one of the outgrowths between the fiefs of two small Clans where it nearly reached the ruins around the outskirts of the Gutters. From there we picked our way through the rubble-strewn outermost road, seeing almost no one until we rejoined the main trade road leading into Gwyllthean. It would have been vastly more efficient to just go through the Gutters to our destination, but the point of today’s mission was not just to do what I planned to do, but to be seen doing it. For that, I needed to make a spectacle of myself.

It was nice to do things that actually played to my talents once in a while.

I proceeded with Aster traveling along in my wake, in our full Healer and bodyguard getup with some slight tweaks. The ragged coats on both of us, and hooded cloak over mine, were as usual. Under both I had adjusted our masks and gloves, though, to be solid black and of finer fabric than the Healer’s usual rags.

It was useful to have Nazralind around to explain things like fashion which my mostly lowborn associates either couldn’t afford to care about or had simply never bothered. Black didn’t have the same cultural associations here that I remembered from either of my cultures back on Earth. Since nights on Ephemera didn’t get truly dark thanks to sunlight filtering through the core of the broken planet, and the Goddess of Evil’s colors were purple and green, black was seen as a neutral tone, used as a backdrop to the brighter colors and elaborate decorations the Fflyr liked. In this country anyway, it was often worn by highborn to accentuate their more flashy accessories, and had no role in heraldry.

Since it was now time to start actively courting attention and crank up the mystery, I had decided to start making use of it. The association of the color with highborn costumes, plus the fact of the finer fabric it clearly was, made the point that the Healer was shabbily dressed and hung around with lowborn by choice, not necessity. I had to give credit to Zui for planting that idea in my mind with her comments about my hairstyle. Not that I’d ever do so out loud. Especially where she might hear.

We emerged onto the trade road, which wasn’t yet crowded at this hour of the morning but already had traffic. Perfect for my purposes. I stepped right to the center of it, and proceeded on my way into town at a sedate, deliberate pace. People streaming in toward the city gates and a few heading the opposite way streamed around me, and it was funny how I could tell the long-distance travelers from those familiar with Gwyllthean by whether they carefully avoided stepping in the Healer’s path or gave me annoyed looks in passing.

More of the latter than the former by far. There was a reason I had done this just after dawn, when the road wouldn’t yet be busy enough that the sheer press of people would have run me over for trying it.

“The fuck is the matter with you, idiot?” one particularly annoyed voice shouted from behind me. “Get out of the road!”

I didn’t even have a chance to respond before one of the food vendors set up alongside the road shouted back.

“Oy! If the Healer wants to walk, you let ‘im walk, roadie!”

“Suggest you mind your business around that one, friend,” added another in a less aggressive tone.

It was nice to see the vendors back, even apart from their emotional support. The trade roads had already been thoroughly cleaned of all traces of the Kingsguard’s rampage, destroyed stands swept away and new ones erected. The men and women working at them had been back to work as soon as they could at all manage, not having the luxury of taking time off. Especially after they’d had to pay to have new stands built.

I came to an outright stop, turning fully around to gaze past Aster up at a merchant wagon immediately behind us, a smaller one pulled by a single dhawl. The dickhead had plenty of room to go around if he’d wanted. I guess road rage predates the internal combustion engine, after all.

“Please!” I raised both hands to either side of me, quieting further rumbling from the onlookers. “Forgive them. They know not what they do.”

My grandparents had gotten pretty big into Christianity after they moved to California, according to my mother. They’d mellowed out on it a lot by the time I came along, but still, I was glad Granmom wasn’t here to see how I was using the bits and pieces I remembered from childhood summers spent with them. I suspected she wouldn’t appreciate my creativity.

“He’s a local street preacher, boss,” muttered the single guard walking alongside the wagon, just loud enough for me to make out. “Blessed with Magic, s’pposed to have some real nasty spells. People don’t fuck with him.”

The merchant grimaced as if being forced to swallow an entire turd, sucked in a long breath through his teeth, and finally gave me a grudging nod and a gesture with the hand holding the reins.

“Well, go on then, priest. Let’s all be on our way.”

I stared at him from within the shadows of my hood, just long enough that his face started to change colors and physically quiver, and Aster minutely shifted to give me a questioning look, then turned and proceeded on my stately, languorous way.

The merchant had the good taste to wait a few seconds before guiding his dhawl to one side to pass us, stubbornly refusing to look at either me or the street vendors laughing at him. For just a moment I entertained the thought of casting Tame Beast on his dhawl and making him wait even longer in the street, but not seriously. Another time, perhaps, but right now I was working to cultivate a specific impression, and it did not include screwing with random people. No matter how annoying they were.

On we went at the same pace, which meant it took us a solid half hour to make it all the way in to the base of the ramp which ascended to the city gate. By that point the road was becoming crowded enough to make my ploy increasingly difficult, though no one had interfered with us on the way. Not physically, anyhow, and the others who complained were also either shouted down or warned off by Gutters locals, depending on whether they liked the Healer or didn’t want to see him explode somebody as the rumors said I could. Once there, we could finally turn down the wide side street closest to the towering walls, within the actual shadow of its overhang.

This was on a different side of the city from my first approach, where I’d met Lord Arider Olumnach and subsequently gotten him killed. I remember that neighborhood having been eerily quiet, and Arider’s warning that it was territory of the local crime lords. Either this one was different or things had changed after I got rid of said criminals; it seemed like a normal street to me, fairly prosperous and active. Enough so that I caused a stir by walking slowly down the very middle of it.

I did not look around or behind me, as that wouldn’t suit the persona I was projecting, but I thought I sensed from the sound of footsteps and whispers amid the general city noise that people had started to follow me. Good; job one accomplished.

Going around the city walls took even longer than getting to them; it was at least another half hour before we reached our destination, probably more. Even that served my purposes, though. People were definitely following and speculating about my intentions, though so far nobody had approached me directly. I’d always thought it odd, during my days of ministering to Cat Alley, that other people had not begged me for healing until that highborn I’d Immolated for his trouble. After that, it was understandable; everybody knew how dangerous the Healer could be. Still, it was odd. There had to be people desperate enough.

A reminder that, for all my campaigning, I just barely had my feet under me here. I barely understood this culture enough to get along in it, and that only as a person with enough wealth and power that most were reluctant to annoy me. My common sense about life in Dlemathlys was still very lacking.

When we got there, an actual crowd had gathered, between people following me and others coming to investigate as rumor had spread. I continued to outwardly ignore them as I repositioned myself along the edge of the canal, right where water spilled from the grate about three meters up.

Well, not right there, but on the edge a bit downstream. Even that close to its source, the water was fouled enough that I didn’t care to stand in the spray.

It wasn’t the source, which was the problem. The actual water source was beneath Caer Aelthwyn itself, the towering palace at the very apex of the city. It was this combination of an abundant spring and the defensible hill that had led to the city being built here. Clan Aelthwynn siphoned what they needed directly and let the water pour through the middle ring in a network of actual pipes rather than open canals, distributing it more evenly through the wealthier part of the city. The highborn there had easy access to clean water, and dumped their refuse into more pipes.

It was a blend of this and whatever clean water they didn’t use that was funneled into three large pipes which drained into the Gutters to be spread throughout the canals and ultimately discharged into the two rivers which meandered away from Gwyllthean. Lowborn could gather water easily, or “water” at least, but it had to be thoroughly sifted and boiled before it could be used, and the wealthier among them even still added alchemical purifying agents first. The water was befouled by the time it entered the district whose people didn’t even warrant proper sewers, and borderline sludge by the time it poured out.

I knew that more intimately than most.

Stopping and repositioning myself there gave me a chance to sneak a glance around. Oh, yes, this was a very satisfactory crowd; people completely clogged the street behind me, with more on the other side of the canal. Everyone gave the generous but dangerous sorcerer a wide berth, watching with interest to see what this sudden change in my behavior was about. I spotted four of my own people, three in alleys and one perched on a rooftop. I was pleased to see they all had the sense not to openly display weapons, though at least some of them had stingers hidden away and all should be carrying clubs or short swords under their cloaks.

It seemed I’d also picked up a Kingsguard patrol, which were likewise standing at some distance observing me without intervening. There were three of them; patrol sizes were normally two, but after the crackdown the men preferred not to go into the Gutters in comparatively vulnerable pairs. I couldn’t blame them. Well, not for the hesitation, I absolutely blamed them for antagonizing everyone enough that it was necessary.

Them and myself.

Satisfied that I had everyone’s attention, I began to work my literal magic.

Summon Bound Slime.

The pale blue blob, conjured into being with the effects of my Tame Beast already active on it, appeared at the edge of the canal, causing a stir from across the way and whispers from people behind me who couldn’t as clearly see what I had done. Immediately, receiving a mental nudge from me, it slid forward and tumbled over the edge, splashing into the turbulent water and disappearing beneath it.

And so I continued.

Summon Bound Slime.

Summon Bound Slime.

Summon Bound Slime.

Summon Bound Slime.

Summon Bound Slime.

Mutters began to grow around me, mostly of confusion. Aster’s head remained in motion, constantly scanning for threats, but she neither moved nor found reason to reach for her sword, so I carried on with my work, ignoring the noise.

I had dumped almost forty slimes in the canal before one of the Kingsguard screwed up his courage.

“Here now, uh…Healer. Sir.” The young man, scruffy behind his uniform helmet, approached hesitantly, and I didn’t need to have been close enough to hear the whispered conversation between his fellows to see that he’d had this duty delegated due to lack of seniority. I recognized him, though not by name; he’d been around on patrol and gate duty but it always ended up being the more senior guards who took bribes from me in my other persona. “What, uh… Whatcha doin’, there?”

An ugly undercurrent threaded through the sea of murmurs around us. Even had I not been generally well-through-of in the Gutters, the Kingsguard right now were decidedly not.

I paused in my summoning, turning slowly to face him. The poor boy took a half step backward before he caught himself, swallowing visibly.

“What I always do,” I intoned sententiously, projecting my voice at a low register over both the noise of rushing water and mumbling onlookers.

Then I paused for three beats, just to ratchet up the tension, before dropping the final note.

“Healing.”

The guard looked at me, then at the roiling surface of the water, then back at me, and swallowed again.

“You… Uh, you’re… Putting slimes in the canal.”

Very slowly, I nodded my cowl once.

“Look, I don’t… Uh, how exactly is this healing?”

“There are many ways,” I stated gravely.

I could see frustration beginning to flicker through the unease on the poor guy’s face.

He drew in a deep breath to steady himself, and then by his expression immediately regretted it. Yeah, I was breathing shallowly this close to the water, too. “Right, well, I don’t think… That is, are you sure you should be doing this? You’re, well…littering.”

A chorus of jeers rose from the surrounding watchers, and I had to grin behind my mask. It would take a lot worse than slimes to make this canal any filthier. This close to the drainpipe there wasn’t any visible flotsam, but everybody knew what the canals were like through the rest of the Gutters.

“I mean,” the guard said, clearly flustered, “you’re making a mess!”

The displeased catcalls rose, now accompanied by actual laughter. Behind the unfortunate guard, his two companions turned to face the crowd, hefting weapons; that bought them a bit more personal space, but the noise didn’t diminish.

“You object to my healing?” I asked, keeping my tone mild while still projecting hard enough to be audible to the whole audience.

“How is this healing?” he exclaimed.

“All will become clear,” I intoned.

I’d finally made the rookie mad enough to scowl outright.

“Look, mister—”

“Do you require healing, soldier?” I raised one hand, palm out toward him. “Have you paid the price?”

The scowl instantly vanished and he backpedaled physically, raising both hands. “Hey, hey, there’s no call for that talk! Just… It’s my job, all right? I—we have to investigate disturbances.” He shot an accusing look over his shoulders at his unhelpful patrol partners. “Look, if you’re…I mean, I suppose that’s… Listen, man, if those slimes cause any real trouble it’s going to bring down the Clans on us all. You don’t want that, all right? Nobody wants that.”

I wished I could have inferred something useful from this deferential behavior. Norovena, I was pretty sure, knew who the Healer was, and some of his officers might, too. It’d be nice to be able to take this as a signal that he’d decided to back me. Unfortunately, the reality was that the Kingsguard were simply too craven to challenge a spellcaster who was widely known to blow people up when provoked. Their own Blessed didn’t patrol down here; they got the cushy gigs in the middle ring.

“Surely the Clans will not object to me healing the Gutters,” I said, turning back to my work.

“Healing, right.” The guard had one last try in him. “Why are you putting slimes in the canal?”

A better question was why there weren’t already slimes in the canal. I couldn’t have been the first person to think of this, surely. Superstition, or did the city authorities just not realize that giant biomatter-eating amoebas were basically free water treatment? I was never sure how much the Fflyr knew about anything; this place was solidly medieval, but they had some anachronistic technologies and were way more into literature than most cultures at their general stage of development.

“I go where I am needed most,” I said, already summoning another slime. “Where the price has been paid.”

“Whatever,” the guard grunted, retreating to his comrades and leaving me to my business.

As had become the theme of my recent endeavors, it took longer than I’d expected. I was used to a society of smartphones and bullet trains, and even after a few months of constant hiking my internal sense of time hadn’t fully adjusted for the pace of life at this level of technology.

Most of it was travel time. Now that I had the city’s attention, it wasn’t strictly necessary to proceed at the same stately pace—at least, not in terms of making a show. Maintaining a show was another matter. I needed the Healer to be consistent, unflappable, impossible to be moved from his course by any outside influence. Thus, having set that pace, I had to keep to it. Walking most of the way around the city walls that way ate up most of the day; between that and the time it took to stand in one place and summon slimes one by one until they filled the head of the canal to the point of visibly raising the water level, it was nearing dusk by the time I was ready to head to my final destination of the day.

I was tired and really hungry, but I was first and foremost a showman. More than myself, I was concerned about Aster, who had unflappably shadowed me all day. Well, this would be wrapped up soon and we could rest and refuel. Also, to be strictly honest, Aster was tougher than I was.

The slimes wouldn’t stay that conspicuous that long. I had imprinted them with instructions to stay in the water and eat as much as possible of anything that didn’t fight back. They should be harmless, especially once they spread throughout the canals of the Gutters. Even the hefty amount I’d summoned wouldn’t provide much coverage, but that was the thing about slimes: they were basically made of magic and didn’t need to eat to survive. Eating was how they reproduced. Once a slime nourished itself to a big enough mass, it would divide into a new slime, and their numbers would grow exponentially until they’d scoured the Gutters of every speck of filth and started making their way down the rivers.

Hopefully my own purposes here would be accomplished before I had to find out what this would do to the ecosystem. Probably not much; there was a strange lack of aquatic life on Ephemera, or at least on Dount. Some of the shelled creatures that could be harvested for meat and akornin were amphibious, but everyone I’d asked insisted there were no purely water-dwelling animals and were confused by the concept of fish.

Also, slimes were slow and basically defenseless. Hard to actually destroy without magic, but the Dountol had magic. If they decided to get rid of a bunch of slimes, that would be at worst tedious, not difficult.

At any rate, that was a problem for another day, and someone else’s problem to boot. My own day’s journey ended at the largest temple of the Radiant Convocation here in the Gutters.

It wasn’t as large or as nice as the meanest such temple up in the middle ring, of course, but that meant nothing to me; I had chosen this one for maximum public impact, and in that I had succeeded. The priests had clearly been forewarned of my coming, and no fewer than eight stood in the main sanctuary when I arrived.

Convocation temples were built around a central dome where the actual religious ceremonies took place, with a large column-lined front extension housing a short entry corridor. There were no decorative carvings on the akorthist blocks of this temple, being a structure for the lowborn, but it interior decorations were nice enough, mostly depictions of Sanora and various saints and heroes, plus smaller pictures of little mythical critters from Fflyr folklore. According to Aster, the inclusion of these myths in temple practice was one of the core differences between the Convocation and the Radiant Temple, the state religion of Lancor from which it had diverged.

Behind the dome would be more areas, housing and workspaces for the priests in residence, as well as a library, another function unique to Convocation temples. I had no need to worry about that, however, as I wasn’t planning to go in there. My business was here in the main sanctuary, with the priests.

To my surprise, I recognized one of them. She was clearly the most highly ranked of the priests present—socially, if not in terms of rank within the Convocation, which I didn’t know how to tell anyway. But while the other seven were all lowborn, this woman had paler skin, light brown hair, and spectacles with frames of actual metal to match her pricier-looking garments.

I’d met her twice in the King’s Guild, once on my first visit where I indulged her taste for church music and once as a member of Rhydion’s party. It was… Dannit? Danno? Something like that. Truth be told I wasn’t all that interested in her, though her presence made me look warily around for an armored shape of which I fortunately saw no sign. I wasn’t exactly sanguine about encountering Rhydion right now. He shouldn’t know who was under the Healer’s cloak, but that guy had already given me trouble by being smarter than he looked. I didn’t want to have to find out exactly how dangerous that artifact armor made him.

It was she who stepped forward, tilting her head back to regard me over the rims of her spectacles and down the length of her nose, which brought to mind that after just two short meetings I quite disliked this woman.

“Welcome…Healer.” Her tone was laden with skepticism, as was her expression. “You are, I trust, a brother priest of the Goddess?”

“In the end, sister,” I declaimed, “do we not all serve at the Goddess’s pleasure?”

She didn’t care for that answer, which I found amusing to no end, doubly so because of the wordplay. Eventually people were going to figure out they needed to clarify which Goddess.

“Sister Dhinell,” murmured another priest, stepping up to her shoulder and looking pointedly past me at the entrance. “Let us be mindful of the serenity of this house of worship.”

“Yes, of course,” Dhinell—right, that was her name—replied in annoyance, restraining herself with a visible effort. That was the right call; I’d been followed into the temple by quite a crowd of curious onlookers who had dogged my steps through the city. Enough of a crowd, at least, that none of these functionaries wanted to be seen at odds with a popular local healer. Exactly as I had intended. “What brings you, brother?”

“As always,” I intoned, stepping right past her, “I come to heal.”

Dhinell said nothing in response and I deeply regretted not being able to see her face at that moment, but you couldn’t have everything. Ignoring her and the other priests, I crossed the open space at the center of the done to stand behind the altar positioned there.

It had been showtime all day, but now came the real spectacle.

Aster had already peeled off to one side, as I had directed her in the morning before we’d even come into town. You can’t have showtime if the extras don’t know their blocking, after all. She remained close enough to whip out her sword and intervene in the unlikely event that it should become necessary without distracting from the center of attention: me.

Stepping up behind the altar, I loomed over it and raised my hands, positioned as if to focus my power on the surface of the altar itself. Which was indeed the plan, as I waited only two beats to ramp up expectation before I began to cast.

Breath of Vitality.

I conjured the spell in a wide spray, sending a gentle, warm breeze through the temple. It didn’t travel far, just enough to lightly touch the audience spectating from the entry, but it was enough to ruffle the clothing of the priests nearer at hand. More importantly, it was obviously magical—and impressive magic, to judge from the murmuring that arose from the onlookers and even the clerics. Visible flickers and sparks of pink and green light danced on the enchanted wind, and with it came healing. At that level of diffusion it wouldn’t do much, but the Breath was pleasant and invigorating to experience, enough at least to make it obvious to those close enough to feel it that this was a healing spell.

I couldn’t cast it and the next one on the agenda simultaneously, which I knew because I had tried in preparation for this moment. But having practiced it, I was able to make the transition look seamless enough that it could be taken for another stage of the same powerful working by somebody who didn’t know how spells worked.

Healing Beacon.

The next spell took over the instant I ceased focusing on Breath of Vitality and filled the room with its warm pink glow before the last flickers of its predecessor had faded a few meters from me. The combination of Heal and Orb of Light made an orb that projected healing power at a much higher intensity than the widely-sprayed Breath had. Focusing on it this way, I had some fine control over it, and began it at a relatively gentle burn.

Then, gradually, ramped it up. Unevenly, letting it flicker weakly now and again to really sell the impression that I was laboriously pouring magic into my grand design, as opposed to holding a level of concentration that was honestly less hard than just keeping my hands in the air. To judge by the increasing mutters throughout the temple, my showmanship was on point as always.

The Beacon grew in intensity until its light filled the sanctuary, its power reaching to the farthest onlookers and washing healing magic over everyone close enough even to see it. That was a nice ancillary benefit; I could indirectly do some actual healing here, since undoubtedly at least a few of the lowborn watching had medical issues which could benefit from this.

But it wasn’t the point. I systematically drove it higher and higher, focusing more and more power into the spell, before—and this, again, I had practiced to make sure I could do it right once I had an audience—abruptly dropped and in the instant cast the final spell on the program.

Summon Healing Slime.

It snapped into existence exactly where the Beacon had been, just above the altar, and fell to land atop it with a soft splat. By the time everyone’s vision had cleared after having started at the intense blaze of healing light, they beheld what must have looked like that same spell concentrated into solid form: a single slime, bright pink and softly glowing.

Tame Beast, I added, just to make sure they wouldn’t have too much trouble with it.

“What in Her blessed name,” Sister Dhinell muttered, squinting at the magical slime through her spectacles.

“I leave this in your care, servants of the Goddess,” I stated, my voice ringing through the excellent acoustics of the temple. Man, I needed to create more excuses to perform in here, this was fantastically designed for carrying sound. “Keep it safe. Tend it well. Let its power touch all who come in need of healing.”

“That’s…” One of the priests goggled dumbly at the altar, blinking. “That’s a slime.”

I wasn’t about to engage with that. They’d figure it out, one way or another. I simply stepped around the altar and forward, making my way toward the door of the temple.

The crowd parted before me, astonished-looking lowborn—and, I noted with interest, more middleborn than I usually saw here in the Gutters—letting me pass untouched. Behind I left a gift that would change everything in the hands of the Radiant Convocation.

If I knew human nature, which I most assuredly did, what happened next would be as simple and inevitable as arithmetic.

The only question was who would snatch the slime first. It best served my immediate purposes if Olumnach’s gangsters were the ones to do the deed, but as soon as everyone understood exactly what they had there, someone would. If not the gangs, then Gwyllthean’s own highborn, or possibly the Convocation itself. Whoever did it, the lesson would be felt throughout the Gutters—and if I wasn’t mistaken, it would be around that time that the canals began to be cleaner than anyone had ever seen them.

I gave, and I took away. The other powers on Dount? They only took.

I would deal with them all in due course. By the time I got around to each of them, the people would be mine.

Maybe then I could stop having to do so much killing.

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