“Time’s running out,” I said, walking over to the three of them. “I won’t blame anyone who’d rather go on alone.”
Lili had woken up, and Rafael had already explained everything I’d said to her. She didn’t seem to care. She listened the same way she had listened to everything so far, eyes lowered, waiting for the next order.
“After we get out, can we still change our minds, if everything you said turns out to be a lie?” asked Rafael. He was the one doing the talking. Sun’s mind was still far away, stuck on the plane that wasn’t going to land.
“You can. I couldn’t stop you even if I wanted to.”
“The way you talk, this is long-term.”
“That’s exactly what it is.”
“But even if it’s true, and even if we trust you now, how do we know it’ll stay that way?” Sun asked, a little sharply. It was the first time I’d heard him firm at a moment like that, without stumbling on a single syllable. Anger, apparently, cured stuttering. “And why would you trust us?”
“You’re not wrong. I have no reason to trust you, and you have none to trust me.” I looked for a way to say the rest without sounding like a recruiter’s speech and, since I didn’t find one, said it anyway. “But I won’t be a hypocrite. I’m asking you to trust me for no reason. So I’m willing to do the same.”
The two of them grew thoughtful.
“That said, half-trust doesn’t work. Either we have total loyalty to one another, or I’d rather go on alone.”
“You say that while hiding things from us?” asked Rafael.
“Yes.”
I answered without hesitating, and regretted it a second later. It was true, but it sounded like a door slamming.
“Then…”
“But I brought you this far, didn’t I? I can’t tell you everything now. Damn it, I don’t even know everything. But I promise to be completely honest with you when I can.”
When I can. Nice, Kai. A promise with a blank deadline. The underlined sentence from the index passed through my head like a subtitle. Don’t tell.
Rafael thought for a minute. He smacked his lips and stood up.
“It’s not like I have much choice. I’m in your hands. For now.” He held out his hand.
I shook it. His hand swallowed mine whole.
When she saw the two hands together, Lili ran over and hung on our arms. Her big, round eyes were on me. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. You could see she was choosing the word.
“Lili… too.”
Lili, and no longer “this one.” She stepped into her own name like a new shoe, testing whether it fit.
Rafael looked at me. I looked at Rafael. Neither of us said anything, and I think it was the smartest thing we did that night.
“AAARGH!” Sun messed up his own hair and came over to us. “You’d better not be leading us to certain death!”
“That I can’t promise.”
He glared at me. I thought that was fair.
A light filled the place and blinded everyone for an instant. When we could see again, we were outside the tower, and it was already day.
“Wow.”
Sun stood there with his mouth hanging open. The modern houses and buildings had given way to half-medieval structures, as if everything had been raised by magic, and it had. Castles rose in the distance, and the whole city looked like an illustration from a book of fables.
Through the streets, now made of stone, thousands of people moved about, and not all of them human. People with pointed ears and hair and skin too perfect; beasts that looked like people, tigers, pandas, foxes, dogs and cats walking on two legs; and beings three or four meters tall walking side by side with everyone else.
Groups of guards had planted themselves on every corner, watching for trouble. Stalls sold everything, from foods humanity had never seen to swords and spears.
The smell of meat on a skewer drifted across the street. Rafael’s stomach growled, and he pretended it wasn’t his. Mine didn’t make a peep. I hadn’t eaten anything since the egg bread, which hadn’t even stayed in my stomach, and even so I wasn’t hungry. Me, of all people.
Lili looked at the stall and then at my stomach.
It was easy to tell who was from Erebus and who was from Earth. Many humans wore “modern” clothes and tried to go unnoticed, afraid and not knowing what to do with the new reality. A man in a suit clutched a briefcase to his chest as if it were still good for something.
Welcome to the new world. Nobody read the manual.
“Hey, you there!” A middle-aged man in full iron armor came over. “Did you just come out of the tower? Looks like you cleared the first floor. Are you new adventurers?”
He thought we were Erebians, of course. Who, in their right mind, would imagine people from Earth had cleared the first floor less than twenty-four hours after the terraforming?
“We are,” I answered, letting him think what he wanted. “A newly formed group.”
“Is that so? How about joining our faction? We’re one of the hundred strongest factions in Erebus!”
“Thank you, but we’re not interested in joining anything right now.”
“All right. If you change your minds, my name is Miguel, of Order & Justice. Look for me at the city association.”
“Will do.”
I wasn’t going to look for him. But he had been polite, and politeness on a terraforming day was a rare thing.
As we moved away from the tower, we still had to turn down a few more recruiting attempts. I turned down every one of them with the same shop-clerk smile.
“Kai, what are factions?” Sun asked.
“You know clans? Families that band together to protect themselves?”
“I know.”
“It’s practically the same thing. There’s a limit to how far someone gets alone, even someone very strong, so they created factions. They give you structure and a base to start from.”
“So why don’t we join one? Wouldn’t it make things easier?”
“A faction doesn’t come with only benefits. If it did, it wouldn’t make sense. It comes with responsibility too. Joining a faction means representing the faction. What you do has consequences inside it, and what the others do falls on you too.”
And some use newcomers as a stepladder. Literally. They send them in first to see if the floor kills them.
That stayed in my head. For now.
“So what do we do?”
“First, we register at the central guild to become official adventurers. With that we can take quests and—“
BUMP
“Hey, kid!”
A man a little bigger than Rafael appeared in front of me and bumped into me. Distracted by the city, I hadn’t noticed him in time.
“Yes?”
“Why don’t you all join my faction? We’re the fourth biggest in this city, Expansion Reach, a tier 2 faction!” He was showing all his teeth.
Behind me, I felt something small shrink.
Lili had hidden behind Rafael’s leg. She wasn’t crying, wasn’t shaking. She had just gone very quiet, quiet like an animal that knows moving makes it worse. Her eyes were fixed on the emblem embroidered on the man’s chest.
I stored that away too. The list of things stored away was getting long.
“I’m not inter—“
“And you? Why don’t you come with us?” Completely ignoring my answer, he spoke to Rafael. “The kids can come along.”
The kids can come along. He said it the way a farmer talks about chicks.
I let Rafael answer. It was a good first chance to see how he reacted.
“I think the leader of our group has already made himself clear.”
“Hey, you think you’re something special? A greenhorn should thank us on his knees for the chance to join Expansion Reach.” The smile vanished and gave way to a scowl. “What can a brat and two kids do for you?”
“My friend already answered. If we’re done, we’ll be going.” I tilted my head. “And if we’re so disposable, why are you still bugging us?”
TSK
“Think you’re safe just ‘cause you’re inside the city, punk?” He ground his teeth.
In fact, fighting in a public place was a crime, and the guard punished it hard. Even anyone who got past the guards would still have to deal with the city’s lord, who in a medium-sized place could be a tier 5 adventurer.
“Let’s see what you do when you have to leave. Or are you gonna hide forever?”
“I don’t know. We’re not in a hurry.”
He clenched his fists and stomped off before he lost control.
“Kai, are you sure it was a good idea to make him mad?” Sun asked. “Won’t that cause trouble?”
“He was going to get mad anyway and come after us sooner or later. So why not step on his toes a little more?” I shrugged. “Besides, I have a way or two of dealing with people like that.”
“Really?” Sun looked in the direction the man had gone. “Is everyone here that hotheaded? He was brick red. Old brick.”
“No. There are very good people and very bad people, same as in the world we know. There, it just doesn’t show as much because everyone lives in their own bubble, and you only run into people like that by coincidence. Or bad luck.”
I looked at Rafael.
“What you said in there still stands, right?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll protect them with my life.” He ran his hand over Lili’s head; she was still clinging to his leg and only now letting out her breath.
“I know I can trust you.” I gestured with my chin. “Let’s go to the guild.”
Lili didn’t let go of Rafael’s leg. But when he started walking, she walked with him, without anyone telling her to.
“You said factions have a good side and a bad side. What about the guild?” asked Sun.
“The guild is different. It’s more of a government organization than a private thing.”
“Government?” Rafael found that strange.
“Not the government we know. Judging by the flags near the tower, we’re in human territory, I just don’t know which kingdom. But any king here is strong enough to wipe out a small city with a snap of his fingers. So when I say government, picture a government that, if you’re late on your taxes, can literally turn you to ash.”
Sun swallowed hard.
“I’ll pay my taxes.”
“Great decision.”