Chapter 141: Curse

Logan and Alice were still standing on the lawn when the units came over.

None of them had been polite enough to pretend they were not listening at the table. They had heard every word, and now they gathered in a loose ring on the grass with none of their usual noise.

Billy rolled up first and stopped at Logan’s feet. For once he did not announce anything.

"Boss," he said. "Are we coming?"

Logan had no answer for him.

’The announcement said there would be Summoning Circles inside, and that I could summon new units with Tower Points. It did not say a single word about the ones I already have.’

"I don’t know," he said honestly. "Let me go and ask the only person who would."

---

They found Rishin in Vina’s room.

She had sat him down on the edge of her bed and was showing him her drawings one sheet at a time. Most of them were of Billy. Several were of Sonic, and one was of Logan holding a sword larger than the house.

Rishin gave each drawing his full attention. He held one of them by the edges, as if it might tear if he breathed on it.

Helen appeared in the doorway behind Logan. She glanced at her son’s face and understood what he had come for.

"Vina," she said. "Winsmoke made dessert."

Vina was out of the room before the last word landed. Helen touched Logan’s shoulder on her way past and followed her down the stairs.

Rishin set the drawing down on the bed and smoothed it flat with his palm.

"Ask," he said.

---

"Our units," Logan said. "Can they come in with us?"

"Yes." Rishin did not hesitate. "Every summon you own, if you choose to bring them. The Abyss does not care how many you drag down with you."

Alice’s shoulders dropped.

’Terry and Winsmoke,’ she thought. ’Skyveil. All of them.’

Rishin did not share her relief.

"Now listen to the rest," he said. "Because I would rather you hear it from me than from the Abyss."

---

"The first layer is gentle. It lets you believe you understand it." Rishin folded his hands in his lap. "The second layer is where it starts collecting."

"Collecting what?" Alice asked.

"When you set foot in the second layer, the Abyss lays a curse on every summoned being you carry." His voice stayed level. "From that moment, each of them has one year to live. Not one day more."

Logan’s hands went cold.

"And if we never go down to the second layer?" Alice said.

"Then you never reach the bottom," Rishin said gently. "And you already know what the bottom is for."

"What happens at the end of the year?" Logan asked. "To a unit."

"It ends."

---

Rishin gave them the rest, and the rest was worse.

"Down there, a summon’s remaining life can be spent," he said. "The Abyss turns it into currency. It calls that currency Abyss Points."

Alice’s jaw tightened.

"There are shops in the Abyss," Rishin went on. "Nobody knows who keeps them. They sell Relics, and most of those Relics are good for one use only. The rare ones are worth more than anything you have ever owned."

"And they only take Abyss Points," Alice said.

"They only take Abyss Points."

’Billy’s days,’ Logan thought. ’Terry’s and Sonic’s. Counted out on a shop counter like coins, for something we use once and throw away.’

"I will never spend them," he said.

"Everyone says that at the rim." Rishin did not say it unkindly. "I have heard it said by a great many people who meant it."

---

Logan forced himself past the anger. Thinking was the only useful thing he could do in that room.

"Then we lean on the Summoning Circles," he said. "Every new unit we summon inside is one we do not have to spend."

"You will earn Tower Points down there slower than you have ever earned anything," Rishin said. "Do not build a plan around the Circles, boy. What you carry through the door is most of what you will ever have."

’So every unit I own is a year,’ Logan thought. ’And every year is also money, and the money buys the things that keep everyone else alive.’

He could see exactly how the Abyss meant it to work, and that made it worse.

"And us?" Alice asked quietly. "The announcement said we could live there forever. Is there a limit for players too?"

"The Abyss will tell you that itself, the moment you arrive," Rishin said. "It prefers to deliver that particular news in person."

He had not said no. Alice noticed it, and she saw Logan notice it as well.

---

They told the units in the garden.

Logan did not soften any of it, because they deserved better than that.

He told them about the second layer and the curse. He told them about the year and the Abyss Points and the shops, and they listened to all of it without interrupting him once.

"So here is the choice," he said when he was done. "Anyone who stays here keeps living. There is no curse on this side of the door, and nobody will think less of you for staying. I mean that."

Billy rolled forward until he was pressed right up against Logan’s boots.

"Boss," he said. "That is the dumbest thing you have ever said to me."

"Billy."

"You built me one merge at a time." Billy said it quietly, and Billy never said anything quietly. "Where exactly do you think I would go?"

---

"I am coming," Sonic said, as if anyone had doubted it. "One year is plenty of time to be the fastest thing in the Abyss."

Solveig did not say anything at first. He looked past Logan at the kitchen window, where Vina was sitting at the table with her face buried in a bowl of Winsmoke’s dessert.

"I will be wherever she is," Solveig said.

Xairon had drifted out from behind the herb beds, and for once it held a single shape without sliding into another.

"A year is an insult," the Creation Sage said. "I intend to argue with it."

---

Alice’s units had gathered on her side of the lawn.

Terry stood at the front of them, and he was looking at her the way he looked at a gate he had been told to hold.

"You are going to need a wall down there," he said.

"Terry, I am not asking you to."

"I know you are not. That is why I am offering." He did not move. "I am coming."

Winsmoke let off a short burst of steam from his hull, the same kind he made whenever somebody tried to leave his kitchen without eating.

"Somebody has to feed the old man," he said. "He is too thin."

Skyveil Cantor sang one clear note that did not need translating. The rest of Alice’s units stepped closer to her and stayed there.

Alice pressed the back of her wrist hard against her mouth and kept it there until her eyes stopped stinging.

’Every one of them just chose a year,’ she thought. ’They chose it for us without stopping to think about it.’

---

Logan looked around the garden at all of them.

He thought about the Warlord match and every order he had given in it. He had always known there was risk in those orders.

He had never once had to count how many days a unit had left.

’One year each, and every day of it counted.’ He closed his hands into fists and slowly opened them again. ’Then we do not waste a single day. Not on the rim and not in the first layer and not anywhere after it.’

Behind him, the window on the upper floor was open.

Rishin was standing at it, watching the units gather around the two of them. He did not look surprised by any of it.

He looked like a man remembering a garden very much like this one.