Empty Names

4 - Prince In Gold

 

Sullivan examines the riesling resting in its glass on the table before him.  He’d always thought white wines were misnamed.  Yellow, or even better, gold, would be a far more fitting description.  Alas, he can no better change that ill-fitting naming convention than he can get drunk off the beverage before him, as much as he’d like to do both right now.  Either one would make this reunion easier.  

But since buying up vineyards and restaurants just to change the terminology on menus would be a waste of resources and taking a drink before his friend arrives would be poor form, he contents himself with leaning back into the richly upholstered chair and gazing into the chandelier above while he listens to the music from the band behind him.  It is a lovely little piece; a sonata that some two-centuries dead Frenchman left unfinished until the restaurant’s owner conjured up his ghost to complete it.

The band’s just reached the fourth movement where the stylistic shift from the composer’s death becomes obvious when Sullivan catches a glimpse of purple and green out of the corner of his eye approaching the table.

“You look comfortable,” a voice he’d recognize anywhere says.  

“An ambience such as this is worth basking in,” he replies before turning to look at his friend standing next to the table wearing a sleek purple and green dress.  “You look nice.  Been a long time since I’ve seen you in a dress.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had both the desire and the occasion,” his friend says as they - no, it’s she tonight - takes her seat across from him.  More than the dress or her words - less reliable indicators than most would think - it’s her voice that clues Sullivan in.  A subtle brightness of resonance and twisting of inflection that he doubts most others would pick up on.  

“And I see you still insist on wearing that same hideous vest as always,” she continues.  

“No, this one’s gold.  You’re thinking of the dandelion one.  Or maybe the ochre.”

“It’s all the same pattern though, just different shades.”

“And it’s a lovely pattern, isn’t it.  I’m considering wallpapering one of the guest bedrooms with it.  What do you think?”

His friend laughs.  “Only if you want to drive whoever tries sleeping there mad.”

“I’ll take that as your seal of approval then.”

“Don’t you dare,” his friend says, suddenly serious and glaring at him from across the table.  

“Oh, I dare,” Sullivan says as he meets her gaze.  

The two of them stare in silence for a solid minute before bursting into laughter in near unison.  Not that any of the other restaurant patrons can hear.  Privacy is part of the service here.  

The laughter dies down and Sullivan wipes a nonexistent tear from his eye before saying “It’s truly been too long, my friend.”

“It really has,” she says.  Her smile fades and her gaze wanders off for a moment before continuing, “But really though, I’m glad you agreed to meet with me.  I hate to say it, but with how we left things off, a part of me worried you wouldn’t.”

Sullivan leans back in his chair and shrugs with a practiced nonchalance.  She doesn’t need to know that stung.  “Eh, you always were the one person I could never hold a grudge against.  And besides, I said some shit that night I shouldn’t have either.  Innocent’s not something I’ve ever claimed to be, so no point in starting now.”

His friend lets out a breath that sounds like it’s been held for years.  “That means a lot.  Thanks.”

“That’s not to say you weren’t way more out of line than I was that night, but that’s water under our bridge now.  You made your apology already when you said you wanted to meet and this,” he gestures to the table and their surroundings, “is mine, so I don’t want to hear any more about it tonight.”

“Fine by me.  I’ll admit, this place is decadent even by your standards.  I’m almost afraid to see the menu.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of already ordering for the both of us, so that’s one fear you can lay to rest.”

“So you have,” she says as she reaches for her drink.  She takes a sip and looks up.  “Water in a wine glass.  My favorite,” she says without a trace of irony.  

“I trust that the rest of the meal will be to your liking as well, if a bit exotic.”

“So it won’t still be wriggling when it arrives.”

“Yours won’t,” Sullivan says with a toothsome grin.

“Apology accepted then.”  

The conversation trails off as his friend takes his earlier advice and basks in the ambience.  The band members’ hair has collectively lit on fire and their instruments have all turned into smoke, but none of them seem particularly perturbed by this.  At the next table over, a couple with blurred out faces are plucking star-filled black orbs from a porcelain tree and popping them into what are presumably their mouths, causing another glimmering mote to appear in their shadows with each fruit consumed.  A waiter golem trundles over to Sullivan’s table and lays out soups served on glyph-inscribed plates whose liquid hangs suspended above in shifting geometric shapes.

“I can see you spared no expense with these reservations,” his friend says while spooning off a corner of her soup.

“What can I say?” Sullivan replies.  “When I said to get out of my sight I wasn’t expecting you to go off-world for years.  So now we’re celebrating your return.”

“Didn’t you just say-”

“You know I’m a hypocrite.”

“Utterly incorrigible.”

“Thank you.  Also, the owner’s a close acquaintance of mine so I’m not paying for any of this.”

His friend raises an eyebrow.  “Another ex?”

“Ex’s brother.”

“Not mutually exclusive for you.”

“Touché.  But enough of me,”  Sullivan leans forward resting his chin on interlaced fingers.  “You finally find anyone while you were gallivanting about the cosmos?”

His friend answers with a short syllable of a laugh and a dismissive wave of the hand.  “You already know the answer to that one.  No, I just did the usual while hopping worlds every time I felt like I needed to clear my head.  The variety was nice though.  Picked up a few souvenirs.  Eventually I wound up on Dorbreith for most of my travels.  It was… refreshing… to be back somewhere ‘adventurer’ is an acknowledged profession.  I even signed up with a local guild for a stint.”

“My, my.  Finally thinking of putting down roots are you?”

“Well actually…” his friend stretches out the word while making a face somewhere between playful and embarrassed.

“Nooo.  Really?  Congratulations!  You always did seem more at home on worlds like that.”

His friend laughs, more genuinely this time.  “Close, but not quite.  After spending time with the guild, getting to know everyone, seeing the camaraderie, learning how they organized, witnessing the good they were doing, it got me thinking.  Why not set up my own adventurers’ guild here?”

Sullivan stares at his friend for a moment before collapsing back into his chair, arms at his sides.  “I take back my congratulations.  You’re insane.  That or you’re joking.”

“Oh, come now, I’m serious.  It could work.”

“There are so many reasons it can’t.  Social, economic, logistical, cultural, oh and as you alluded to yourself, ‘adventurer’ isn’t a real job here.”

“I’d argue it’s an unmet need.  An untapped market if you’d prefer that term.  I don’t but,” she gestures to the opulence around them.

“Void Without, you really mean it, don’t you?”

“Of course.  This might be an anchor world, but it’s a relatively loose one and there’s all sorts of things going bump in the night that would normally be handled by adventurers - whether they’re called that or not - elsewhere.  Gods know it’s been enough to keep me busy in the past.  The real difference here is the various powers that be are content to let things sort themselves out so long as it’s not technically a Masquerade breach.  But you and I both know how much room that leaves for innocent people to get hurt.”

“Nice speech.  Practice it long?”

“Sullivan!” His friend pauses and takes a breath.  “Look, what I’m proposing has precedent here.  I can think of three different witch covens that provide similar protection for their local local regions, and while most monster hunters are a bunch of rugged individualists even they tend to have a loose social network and a couple formal orders.  Not to mention most major cities having at least one paranormal detective agency.  This would just be a little wider reaching and recruit a more diverse skillset than those organizations.”

“All fine in theory, but how are you going to pay for it all?  Where are you going to operate out of?  How are you going to find jobs?  Hells, how are you going to find recruits?  No one around here signs up for dangerous work for the sake of adventure or heroism, and it’s not like there’s much chance of fame and glory with the Masquerade.”

“Crossherd has a theoretically infinite number of perfectly good empty buildings we can set up in.  As for finding jobs and payment, I figure the same way as any other adventurers guild does.  If anything it’ll be even easier with this world’s internet.”

“Bullshit.  You and I both know you’ll refuse to take payment from the first sap that shows up at your door with a half-convincing sob story and you’re too nice to take money off a normie who won’t even remember you saving them the next day.”

“We could always make a deal for funding from Backstage organizations.  Convince them that this will be better in the long run for anchoring.”

“Did you want to protect people or do you want to start a normalcy org?  Because that’s how you start a normalcy org.  We’d be better off with me bankrolling it, classifying the venture as a charity group, and filing the investment as a tax write off for my on set holdings.”

“We?”

“There’s no reality you don’t try to recruit me for a big scheme of yours.”

“I’ll admit, you were at the top of my list.”

Sullivan leans forward once more and smugly raises his eyebrows.

“But I wasn’t going to ask for your money.  I can make this work without it.  I just want you.”

“I know you weren’t going to.  And if you were anyone else I’d call this an obvious ploy to guilt me into volunteering.  But here’s the thing,” Sullivan puts up a finger.  “One, you’re not anyone else.  Two, I’ve always made a habit of indulging your whims like a spoiled princess.  Three, since I married Carnette I’ve had more money than I know what to do with.  Four, I’ve been terribly bored lately.  And five, it’s going to be much more entertaining for me to see what you get up to with proper funding than to watch you struggle to manage a business.  So,” he flourishes the now fully-open hand, “you’re getting me, and my money, whether you want it or not.”

His friend smiles and shakes her head in long-suffering exasperation.  “I can’t argue with that now, can I?”

“I literally won’t let you.”

“Oh rea-”

“Nuh-nuh-nuh,” Sullivan cuts her off, “I said ‘literally’ and I meant it.”

This gets a chuckle out of her.  It’s been too long since Sullivan’s heard that sound.  A sound of old times.  Perhaps the past few years apart for them both to cool down truly was for the best.

“Fine, you win this round you, old rogue,” she says.

“I always do.”

“Only because you cheat.”

“And I say again, touché.  But anywho, who else is on that list you mentioned?”

“A monster hunter I’ve worked with in the past a couple of times.  Goes by Eris.  We worked fairly well together and she seems to be in it for the thrills rather than the money, so I’m expecting she’ll be a good fit so long as she doesn’t go off the deep end with the danger seeking.  She’s got one of the most dramatic cases of autogenesis I’ve seen going on too.  Practically superhuman strength and durability.”

“Sounds fun.  Who else?”

“That’s all I’ve got so far.”

“Short list.”

“Shush, you.  I’m thinking two more for this founding proof of concept party.  So, five counting us.  I want to keep the number prime, and while three and seven are plenty auspicious, three’s too few for” she pauses ever so slightly, “what I have in mind, and seven’s more than I feel comfortable trying to lead just yet.  I do want to keep anyone we bring in local though”

“And what do you have in mind?”  Sullivan cocks his head.  Realization dawns.  “You have a job already lined up don’t you?”

“Maybe.  Not quite.” His friend looks around the room and leans in.  “I’ve got a potential lead on something that I tracked back here before losing the trail,” she whispers.  “It might be nothing, but if it’s not, it could be big.”

“How big?”  Sullivan whispers back.

“The sort of thing we always talked about as kids.  A proper quest.  Real world saving stuff.” She glances over her shoulder again.  “I know this table’s got a privacy ward, but I trust the ones at your place more.”

“So, that’s the real reason for all of this,”  Sullivan says as he sits upright.

“More the impetus than the reason,” his friend says, no longer whispering.  “I was sincere about everything else I said - about the guild and about wanting to make up with you - regardless of whether that particular subject turns out to be anything or not.”

Sullivan suppresses the urge to sigh.  The urge to comment about how she’s always endearingly, infuriatingly sincere about everything.  Everything outside of certain topics.

“Do you want my advice?” he asks instead.

“You’d give it even if I said no, but yes, go ahead.”

“For those other two recruits, you’re obviously going to want a proper spellslinger for one, but for the other, get a tech guy.”

“Like a hacker?”

“Sure, if you want to call it that.  Doesn’t have to be anyone with combat experience, just someone who’s at least moderately computer literate so that I don’t have to hold your hand again like that time I had to set up an email and forum account for you so you could track that hate group whacko passing out defective demon summoning rituals to normies.  Seriously, it’s embarrassing how bad you are with that stuff.”

His friend makes noncommittal noise at that last comment before saying “It shouldn’t be too hard to find someone like that in Crossherd with all the paratech companies these days.  The mage will be harder to come by if we want to stay local.  You know how anchor world mages are.  Either their part of a coven or order and don’t want to leave their insular group, they can barely make a spark, or…”

“Or they’re arrogant pricks powered by sheer ego who take it as their due that reality itself bends to their whim,” Sullivan finishes for her.

“Yes.  That.”

“I think I might have you covered there.  There’s this wizard that showed up around the same time you left who was born here but trained off-world.  I haven’t met him myself, but he sounds like your type with the wandering hero bit and no-killing policy.”

“Color me intrigued.  What’s his name?”

“Ashan Glassheart.  I’ll track him down in a few days and tell him you’re recruiting.”

“Wonderful.”

The conversation trails off into silence.  It suddenly hits Sullivan that his smile right now isn’t a mask for once.  When was the last time that happened?  Probably back before Carnette was gone.

“I really am happy you’re on board with this,” his friend says, interrupting his train of thought.  “It wouldn’t be the same without you.  I was worried… No, we agreed not to talk about that anymore tonight, didn’t we?”

Slow to find his words for once, the waiter golem arrives to serve their meal  - one entree fully cooked, the other still writhing - before Sullivan figures out what to say to that.

“And now the real reason for the evening,” he jokes instead.

His friend reaches for her glass instead of her fork.  “I was thinking we might make a toast first.”

“I do love a good toast,” he says.  “But shall the subject be?  To new starts?  To happy reunions?  To foolhardy ventures?”

She smiles and shakes her head.  “To spoiled princesses and incorrigible rogues!”

Sullivan laughs and clinks his glass to hers.  “And to the assholes they grow up into!”

 

*******

 

The labyrinthian halls of Bridgewood Manor are dimly lit at night by flickering blue-white flames bereft of both smoke and heat; tamed into regularly-spaced sconces and trained to ignite when approached and extinguish when left behind.  The result is a system delightful in its needless complexity, like so many of Carnette’s creations.  The lighting used to be brighter and more even but, like so many of Carnette’s creations, Sullivan still hasn’t figured out how to maintain it properly without her.

This is how he spends his nights, in lieu of sleep, in a bubble of light drifting through dark corridors.  Or at least, how he spends his nights when he’s at home and not out diving headfirst into whatever hedonistic pit he can find.  Some nights these walks have a purpose.  Mapping architecture that no longer shifts at its mistress’s command.  Identifying the hidden passages she never got around to showing him.  Finding ways into rooms she left locked.  Other nights the walking is an act of meditation.  Step after step, focusing on the void outside the bubble of light, and clearing his mind.  It’s not sleep, but it’s close enough.

Every so often he turns through a door and into a room and cuts through it to another hallway that geometry would have demanded intersect with the first had not the sorceress Bridgewood once said otherwise.  The portrait room.  The lesser library.  The skull room.  He’s halfway across the verdant drawing room (as opposed to the xanthous drawing room or the aquatic drawing room) when he notices his friend asleep on the moss-green couch.

Sullivan freezes, not wanting to wake them, but their eyes flutter open a moment later all the same.  Had he made more noise than he realized, or was it the glow of the fireplace coming to life with his entrance?

“Hey Su,” they mumble with a voice still groggy from sleep.

“Hey,” he whispers back.  “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Is fine.  Not that asleep anyway.”  An obvious lie.

“We have plenty of real beds around you’re welcome to use, you know.”

“Mhmmm.”  They slowly shake their head.  “Never could get used to ‘em.”

The corner of Sullivan’s mouth curls up into a faint smile at old memories.  “Right.  I’ll let you get back to sleep,” he says and then turns to leave.

“Su,” whispers the voice behind him.  He stops and turns back around.  “Since you’re here, can you tell me a story?  Please.”

“Sure thing.”  He takes a seat on the floor leaning against the couch, one leg outstretched while the other makes an arch to rest arm on knee.  He looks up at his friend and asks “One of the classics?”

They shake their head.  “Something I missed while I was away.”  Their voice still sounds half-asleep.

“I’m afraid there’s not much to tell there.  It’s been pretty quiet here lately.”

The light from the fireplace reflects off pleading eyes.

“Well, I suppose there was one thing,” Sullivan concedes.

“Oh?”

He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.  He breathes out and stares into the fireplace.

“It was a couple weeks after you left,” Sullivan begins, “and with you and Carnette both gone I wasn’t taking it well.  No, don’t apologize, I’ve moved on.  Anywho, I hit a point where I needed something, anything, to get my mind off it, if only for a night.  So I called up Lucinda to see if she could set me up with a gig on short notice to blow off some steam.”

“Lucinda?”

“My old fixer.  Little old lady.  Hair looks like it used to be red.  Vampire.  I think you met her at the wedding.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“Thing is, I hadn’t seen her since the wedding either and she wasn’t answering my calls, so I decided to go drop in on her in person.  She shot me.”

“Rude.”

“Eh, I was in her house uninvited, and she’d just climbed out of her coffin for the night.”

“But what if it hadn’t been you?”

Sullivan shrugs.  “Guess they would have died.  But I just told her the bullets normally get shot at me after she gives me a job.  In light of my comedic genius - you had to be there for the full effect of the delivery - dear old Lucy graciously forgave my unannounced visit and presented me with the predicament that had kept her up all day.

“Apparently some punk kid of a mage got her hands on the staff of a long-dead wizard and was going around calling herself the second coming of Morgan le Fay or some shit.  The kid was a useless newbie, but the staff itself packed enough of a punch for her to set herself up as Crossherd’s newest cult leader and wannabe mob boss.  The powers that be wanted this nipped in the bud before it got to be a real problem - especially if the kid started buying her own con and autogenesis kicked in - and my lovely Lucinda of the immortal wrinkles had been running herself ragged the past week trying to find someone who could take care of the problem with minimal collateral damage.  It was exactly the sort of outlet I’d been looking for and I volunteered to do it that night without pay.”

“How heroic.”

“That’s me, a proper saint.  And saint that I am, I got straight to the miracle working.  You see, this kid and her punks were holed up on the outskirts of Crossherd proper, right around where the buildings start getting all fractal and distorted, and the warehouse they’d picked out had a ward around it.  Classic bubble shield, strong in its simplicity, but with no visible circle powering it and way bigger than even a veteran battle wizard could sustain for more than a few seconds, much less some rank amateur.  So, the staff was definitely legit, although Void knows where this kid found it.

“But, as I said, miracle working.  You know I’ve never been a mage myself, but I did pick up a few tricks from Carnette that I’d been itching to try out.”  A predatory grin creeps across Sullivan’s face at the memory.  “Melted a hole through that bubble like a lighter to plastic wrap.  After that I flipped my vest inside out on the off chance anyone inside saw me and stepped on through.”

“Vest?”

“One Carnette got me.  Has some xenocolor I can’t remember the name of sewn into the inner lining that screws with memory.”

“Know it.  Purple but not really.”

They would know it, but Sullivan continues on instead of commenting.  “Security was pretty light after that.  Rookie mistake relying solely on magic to keep unwanted guests out.  Still, I was in the mood for some fun and climbed up to the roof.  For once Lucy didn’t have any intel on the inside, so I figured if I started at the top and worked my way down I’d find this wizarding wannabe eventually.  Turns out the place had three levels of basement and she was at the very bottom, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

“So, there I am crouching on the rooftop, looking down through a malformed skylight at a crooked catwalk over a warehouse floor full of crates that probably came with the building when the first unlucky sap of the night walks under me with a gun in one hand and a phone in the other.  Just the sort of appetizer to get the fun part of the night started.  I cracked open the window, pulled out a knife, and waited for him to get in position.  I was about to do the dumbass a favor really, putting him out of his misery before he could accidentally shoot himself in the foot with that sloppy trigger discipline.

“But then I had one of those annoying little bouts of conscience you’ve worked so hard at giving me.  A real ‘what would my friend think?’ moment.  Irritating, but hey, it was a chance to test out another new trick.  My own concoction of venom to coat the blade with that’d be night night for anyone that got so much as a prick.  Let me know if you want it instead of a bedtime story sometime.  So, with henchman number one upgraded from victim to test subject I dropped down, gave him a little paper cut on the cheek, and he was falling over before he even finished turning around.  I caught him so he wouldn’t make too much of a ruckus tumbling off the catwalk and splattering on the floor below, laid him down, took his gun, and continued on my merry way.  After that…”

Sullivan trails off as he realizes his friend has fallen back to sleep.  That’s fine.  They didn’t really need to hear about how he spent the night stalking and picking off everyone in the building one by one when he could have easily snuck past them.  Maybe he could have spun it as giving them all a scare that would get them rethinking their life choices when they woke up the next day - and the thought of them all waking up to the terror of finding they’d all been knocked out by an unseen assailant did amuse him - but the truth was he did it because it was a fun power trip.  Nor did his friend need to hear about the cyborg in the basement he had to disassemble because the guy didn’t have enough meat left in him to poison.  And the less said of what happened in the end with the kid and the staff the better.

Sullivan never did like lying to his friend to give stories clean and happy endings.

Quietly, so as not to wake them, he gets up to continue his nocturnal pacing.

“Goodnight my friend,” he whispers from the doorway, “and may you sleep without dreams.”