Enmity of Atlas

“Wheel?” Kiva asked, looking over at Garrote.

“Wheel…wheel of fortune? Is it one of your relatives?” Trenton asked, the pieces suddenly clicking into place.

“Yes,” Garrote said, his face souring, “one of the worst. He’s the reason my family is as wealthy as they are. Money means more than anything to him…even his own brother.”

“You’re a Maiga?” Walibeld asked, his eyebrows arched upward.

“I am. Or at least, I was. Garrote Maiga. I’m surprised you know the name,” Garrote said, taking deep breaths to calm himself.

“One of your brothers lived in Aria. He ran a hanging restaurant named after his card,” Walibeld said.

“The Hanged Man? Oh, yeah! I hadn’t even realized,” Trenton said, thinking back to his last dinner there. “We actually met a weird man there who gave me advice the day of the attack. Was he your brother?”

Garrote’s eyes brightened as Trenton spoke, memories shifting behind his eyes, “Did he talk about making changes in your life?”

“Something like that.”

Garrote beamed, “That’s so like him! He always did like giving people advice, had quite a way with words, too. He left a long time ago, so I’ve had no idea where he’s been for ages now. Although,” his smile faltered, “if he was in Aria, that means he’s probably dead, right?”

“Almost undeniably,” Walibeld said, laying a comforting hand on Garrote’s shoulder.

Garrote sighed, his eyes growing glassy and his tone pitching an octave down, “I see.”

Trenton pulled himself over to Garrote, wrapping his arm around the boy’s shoulders, letting him rest his head and mourn in peace while they continued to talk. Garrote was tough. He didn’t need consoling. He just needed some time to his own and he’d figure it out.

“You said we were here to meet someone, right?” Trenton said, looking over at Walibeld.

“That’s right. We-” Walibeld said, stopping when he noticed a younger dwarf jogging up the stairs towards them, a small envelope in his hand. When he got to the top, he stood next to Blithe, heaving as he held the letter in the air.

“Holy…so far…are yah’ Walibeld?” The dwarf asked, looking up at Walibeld.

“I am.”

“Got this fur yah’, client said it was of the utmost importance or somethin’, had to get it to yah’ with all due haste.”

Walibeld hopped off of Blithe, sparing the dwarf the effort of trying to climb the gargantuan beast. He grabbed the letter from the dwarf, opening and reading it without bothering to hide the face of the letter. Trenton thought to not peep, thinking better of being a snoop, but curiosity took hold of him pretty much instantly. He peered over the edge of Blithe, gazing down at the letter in Walibeld’s hands.

“We were wrong. We had absolutely no idea what was happening. Meet me immediately. This could mean everything.

-Garh”

It was a simple letter all things considered, leaving much more than Trenton would like to the imagination. Garh hadn’t even said where he was. His curiosity hadn’t been sated in the slightest. It was only worse, now.

“Everything good down there Walibeld?” Trenton called out, pretending he hadn’t just read the letter.

“I’m leaving,” Walibeld said, folding the letter and stowing it within the folds of his shirt. “It’s sooner than I would have liked, but I can’t ignore this…I can’t afford to ignore this. The city should be safe, regardless, much better defended than Zerital or Wyrm’s Perch. I’m not sure where Wimbleton is in the city, so you’ll have to look around if you mean to find him. But, so as to not leave you with nothing, I’ll give you a place to start. An old friend of mine, Evai, lives in the city. She might know where he is.”

“That’s…not very helpful. Do you know where Evai is, at least?”

“Of course. She lives in the most obvious building in the city,” Walibeld said, slowly raising his hand to point towards the tall building on the right, the one opposite of Wheel’s.

“So in the tower on the right we have a family friend. And in the tower on the left, we have a family enemy,” Trenton said, Garrote moving away from him and chuckling, wiping the tears from his eyes with his one arm.

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Garrote said while he pulled himself back together.

“Wait, where are you going?” Millie said, leaning over Trenton to look at Walibeld, suddenly realizing what was happening.

“Far away, and I won’t be back for some time. Take care. I’ll send a letter if I can. Otherwise, good luck. I have faith in you,” Walibeld said, waving goodbye and walking back towards the door they’d just entered to get into the city.

“Very sudden. He’s not great at goodbyes,” Kiva noted.

“No, he’s not. People aren't really his forte,” Trenton said, looking back out over the city.

“He just got back? Why is he leaving,” Millie said, clearly out of the loop.

“Very important business. He won’t be gone long, I’m sure. He just doesn’t want to get your hopes up,” Trenton said, doing his best to comfort Millie.

“Hmmmm. Okay,” Millie said, clearly not fully convinced.

“How about we pick up a treat on our way to the tower? Some local delicacy?” Kiva said, crouching down in front of Trenton, her face bright and happy.

“What kind!?” Millie shouted, completely forgetting about Walibeld’s leaving. Astonishing it really was that easy.

Without any further complaints to see to, Trenton led them through the city atop Blithe, the shrunken locals giving them odd looks as they passed. It seemed that humans were a rare breed among the dwarves, something of a cultural anomaly. Trenton figured he’d probably actually think the same had he not known Brus so long. Dwarves were extremely rare in Aria, like spotting a purple finch out in the wild, so it only figures it was the same here. The kids would even point at them as they passed, shouting to their mothers about how weird their group looked, and how much they wanted to pet the lizard dog. Children really had no idea of subtlety.

They walked slowly through the city, stopping to get Millie a little ice cream cone, marveling at the impressive architectural innovations, ziplines connecting buildings a dozen stories overhead, elevators made entirely of gears and metal, buildings which wound this way and that. It really was something out of a fantasy book, which actually reminded him he had to give Leo the Gasal book when he woke again. He had finished reading it a couple days ago. The ending was…bittersweet to say the least, and he’d want to take some time to mull over it before he looked at the story again. Logically he knew how Gasal died, but reading it really bugged him for some reason, like a painful itch in the back of his mind he couldn’t quite reach. It was almost like-

“You alright, Trenton?” Kiva asked, leaning close to Trenton’s face.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry, I was just thinking about something. Did I miss a turn?”

“Spacing out at the wheel? Reminds me of someone else I know,” Garrote said, eyeing Karfice sleeping behind Trenton.

“Give him a break. The kids got brain damage, for crying out loud,” Raligoth said, somehow knowing who Garrote was talking about despite not having eyes.

“Maybe if he were awake, he’d be able to defend himself,” Garrote muttered, crossing his arm.

“You’re more than welcome to wake him up, Garrote,” Kiva said, giving Garrote a stern look.

“Not worth the effort. I’d rather just let him sle-”

“Tower!” Millie cried, distracting everyone from Karfice.

Just ahead of them, the massive tower sat, the street leading up to its entrance absolutely packed with dwarves running all around, many of them holding packages or whatever else. It looked like this place was a shop, although it was a little big for shoppings sake. From afar, the building had already looked gargantuan, but now it looked leviathan, Gasalian, bigger than any building Trenton had ever seen. What a marvel capitalism was.

“Well, what are you waiting for? You heard the girl. Tower! Let’s go,” Garrote said, egging Trenton on.