Book 4 Chapter 21: Deeper

++Relics of the Gods and Demigods are not known to have ever found their way into the hands of humanity, and for good reason. Such workings are far beyond the ken of common mortals in any case, and even putting aside the utility one must consider the inevitable question of morality in handling them.++

- From ‘Magic and Mundanity’, a commentary on the role of the arcane in an advancing society.

Instinct told me to turn Elqarth down, but then human instincts are not terribly useful at navigating complex political situations. They were evolved for fending off predators and scavenging berries, with their limits being rather pronounced the moment one applied them to anything more than that.

I swallowed my disgust and held out my own hand, allowing him to take it in a clammy grip.

Elqarth led me into the centre of the room, and at some unseen gesture it seemed that the dancing began. Dozens, then scores more joined us near the heart of the ballroom, ensnaring each other's limbs and beginning to rock one way and the other.

It was at this moment that I realised I did not, in fact, know how to dance.

“No dear, your feet go there. No, back a bit. Yes, like that,” Elqarth was smiling as he delivered his patronising instruction, with the sort of look that people got when they thought they were being awfully charming. I let him see first-hand how unimpressed I was. “Ah,” he laughed. “There’s that famous Isabel Vornholt scowl.”

I scowled even harder. If he told me to smile, I was not entirely sure that even the willpower needed to maintain my sanity through countless aeons in the Depth was going to keep me from unravelling his intestines and dangling him from the ceiling by them.

“Your home is nice,” I told him abruptly, more to keep him from saying anything that we would both regret than anything else.

“It is, isn’t it?” he grinned. “I’ve heard you’re doing some construction of your own.”

I was, but not for a home. My reasoning was that I could focus on acquiring my first billion, then spend that on the most expensive and vast house to ever exist in Garamon’s history. Nothing less than that would be worth the time needed to commission it.

“That is correct.”

His smile wavered a shade. “You don’t need to be so prickly,” he told me with a bit less good-natured ease now. “We’re all friends here. You and I are, at least.”

I said nothing at that, deciding to let him continue talking. Talkers often gave you so very much information about themselves if you just provided the chance.

“Truth be told, most of the refuse at this engagement bore me. None of them have anything remotely interesting to offer, and each and every one of them is only here in the vain hope of leeching off my own success and affluence. Parasitically attaching themselves to me and sustaining themselves from my own resources.” His lip curled with palpable disgust.

That feeling, at least, was mutual. Though not for the reasons he would think.

“We do not have to stay among them,” I pointed out, letting my tone lighten somewhat.

Elqarth warmed up to it immediately of course, no doubt convincing himself that I was succumbing to his charms. The charms of a man closer to three times my apparent age than two. Who was also an idiot.

The egotism of Garamon’s people would never cease to shock me.

“What are you suggesting exactly?” he asked, leaning closer and pressing his body somewhat against mine. I actually, genuinely, literally puked in my mouth, and had no recourse but to quickly contain the vomit in a capsule of aether before swallowing it again to keep from causing an incident.

“Well, the reason I came here was that I heard you had the finest collection of artefacts in Garamon,” I said frankly.

“I know,” he told me with a chuckle. “I’ve heard that you’ve been visiting just about every public and private collection in Garamon. What are you searching for? Something specific, I know that much. You’d not be nearly so thorough if you were motivated by basic curiosity.”

This was inconvenient, but not unexpected. I had known that it was not too hard to piece together what I was doing from an outside perspective.

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“You are cleverer than I had expected,” I told him, figuring that I may as well come as close to honesty as I could. He ate up the compliment, naturally.

“Well, you don’t become the world’s richest man through stupidity. What exactly are you looking for? I must say I haven’t actually managed to work that out, but I’m devastatingly curious.”

“I would rather not say,” I told him, cautiously eying the man to see if he would decide to insist on this.

He did not, just laughed again.

“And what if I would rather not introduce you to my collection?” he asked.

“Then you can live your life knowing that my mental ranking of all the ones I have seen will discount it,” I replied.

I was not sure precisely where Elqarth drew the line in what he could delude himself was flirtation versus what he would be forced to acknowledge as a challenge or insult. This time, however, I had guessed correctly, and I saw his mind moving silently through his options.

Surely not the most complicated of processes, in any case. I doubted this man knew of any way to deal with another person that did not involve either awing or daunting them with his resources. He knew how wealthy I was, and I had thus far shown only the barest interest in the apparent wealth of his mansion.

He would resort to the collection next, it was only a matter of waiting for him to realise that himself.

“You may see it,” he decided at last, with all the flourish of a man who sincerely believed he was being surprising. “Though your bodyguard may not.”

I considered that. I had not actually cared about the prospect until it was brought up just now. The fact that Elqarth did not want Blakely there, however, left me rather suddenly thinking the contrary.

“Why?” I asked him.

“Because it’s my collection, and I said so,” he replied stiffly. A few seconds spent staring at my face apparently made him realise that he had yet to convince me. He sighed. “...And because he’s not the most…socially adapted individual. I would rather not see him near my most treasured possessions.”

I followed his gaze to where Blakely now stood, leering at the other guests with at least a five yard area of clearance around him on all sides.

Perhaps the Earl had a point here.

“Lead the way then,” I told him. He smiled grotesquely, evidently convinced that I was falling for whatever charm his imagination had bequeathed him with, and did so. I was pleased to see the crowd parting easily for us, letting us make our way out of the ballroom and deeper into the mansion without much delay.

If Earl Elqarth’s mansion as a whole was bordering on palace levels in scale, then the section hidden beyond the prying eyes of its common guests would, I imagined, be the labyrinthine crypts. It was dark enough that he had to keep turning back to ensure I was following after him while we walked, though of course I could navigate the place easier than he could. And not, for once, due to my deliberate magic usage.

Warrior vision was somewhat better than the eyes of an ordinary mortal. Lacking the specialised biological equipment that permitted certain predators to see so well at night, it still suffered heavily in the dark, but apparently my physical training had afforded me a marked improvement. Where the Earl was likely struggling to see more than ten feet ahead of him, I was managing a good fourteen.

“I’m surprised you still want to follow me, given the conditions here,” he mused.

“Why?” I asked him. A pause, then he laughed.

“You’re following a strange man you don’t know into an isolated part of his mansion, surrounded by his guards, and now the patch you’re walking through is dark enough for…well, an ambush. Most young ladies would be rather scared of that.”

I noted the distinct sound of arousal in his voice, and then applied my considerable will to the effort of pretending, both outwardly and to myself, that I had not noticed it.

“Most young ladies would not know where to begin if they wanted to blast a ship to smithereens, for me it is a half-minute of mild exertion.”

He chuckled. “Yes, I heard about that. I’m glad to see that you weren’t charged with anything. Bloody outrage if you were, I should say. Defending your own damned family is your own damned business. But then that’s the Empire for you, always stomping its heel down on those of us with the wit and ambition to rise above the chaff.”

I sort of disassociated as his latest tirade began, but we fortunately did not take much longer to reach the man’s inner sanctum. It was a far smaller chamber than most of the other rooms of this ridiculously sized mansion, and it seemed that every square inch of it was occupied by some relic or another. I saw they hailed from dozens of time periods, separated from one another by many centuries of history. None were as old as me, that I could tell, but a few were almost as ancient. I recognised the craftsmanship from a few of the stone workings littered about the place as belonging to tribes that had gone extinct only a few generations after my own mortal life ended.

“Like what you see?” Elqarth asked me eagerly. I had to resist the urge to shut him up, satisfying him with a distracted nod as I turned around and surveyed the place using my arcane sight. This was what truly mattered, of course. Not the age or history of the artefacts, but their hidden magic.

For a few moments I saw nothing but the mundane, or at least the conventionally magical, with no trace of anything special at all. And then my vision caught onto something. A tiny spark of power, less substantial than even the amounts I had been able to muster on the day of my rebirth, but undeniable now that I saw it. It was bound to a mask that seemed to be made of clay, rimmed with electrum, shaped into the visage of some ancient deity, resting amid a hundred other items with no prominence given to its display or standing. Its owner was totally ignorant to the power contained within.

But I was not, because I had studied divine magic enough that I would never have failed to recognise it with such close proximity. I had finally found the relic of Zameka.