4 — Servants
Daelus was home — at least, a temporary one.
He knocked. It was the second time today he found himself standing awkwardly at a threshold. He had been assured that he should pay the hour no mind. It was nearly
four
in the morning.
In spite of it being the dead of the night, the air was hot, and humid. Daelus’ clothes stuck to his body. He was anxious to be out of them.
Jossimer’s estate was a
palace
. The style was familiar to him — late Corbian, also sometimes called five-cities-revival style. It featured smoothly masoned brickwork, sculpted details at all of the corners and joints, cathedral–arched windows, towers and turrets breaking up the otherwise symmetrical layout.
Good
, he thought to himself; his fading memories did
not
also erase his knowledge and love for architecture. Still, he worried that as a museum curator, in time his connection to his true calling would fade.
Perhaps it meant that the city was complete? Was there simply no need for architects in this new world?
The thought also came with a sense of relief. The work had been his entire life, and now it was
over
. That included a release from the pain of it, the utter
exhaustion
of it.
Still, there was so much empty space. Jossimer’s estate sat on a vast tract of land. Crossing from the gate, to the veranda, and finally to the front door seemed to take longer than the private rail–cabin voyage from the delegate's lodge to the estate itself. He had hoped to meet the driver — finally an entourage, he imagined — but it was fully automated.
Daelus privately wondered if his own future estate would have a fully–automated personal rail–car that would deliver him directly to his front door. He was not accustomed to such luxuries, and felt a pang of satisfaction at the thought that one could be in his future. He would need to work tirelessly to be worthy of it.
Even if he wasn’t yet to be granted such rewards, he was relieved that transportation had been provided. The trip from the lodge to the estate would have taken until past dawn on foot, and it was uphill all the way. In fact, from where he stood, the breathtaking vastness of the city stretched out behind him.
The
city
? Daelus’ mind nagged. Surely it had a name.
The door opened.
Daelus found himself face to face with a man who looked
remarkably
like Jossimer, though at least a decade younger. Was it his son?
“You may enter,” he said in a voice rather like Jossimer’s. There was also a scent—
It was an
entourage
. He had finally met one, a real one, not one of his failed experiments. To Daelus, it suddenly seemed so
ordinary
.
As Daelus was brought inside he noticed that
all
of the staff wore Jossimer's face. They milled about, taking Daelus' modest luggage — consisting of items he was
told
were his but he had
no
memory of — and setting up his room.
Watching them work, the memory of using the ability flooded back into his mind, like a churning vortex in his chest. He resolved at that moment to avoid using the power
entirely
. Something about it
terrified
him.
Daelus distracted himself with the observation that seemingly
no
preparation had been done in the hours since speaking with Jossimer. He had assumed that delegates were able to give instruction to their entourage instantaneously across distances. Daelus realized that he simply wasn't a priority.
He also considered that he had perhaps offended the man by never calling him
General
. Everyone else did, but it hadn’t occurred to Daelus to do so
; h
e wasn't under Jossimer's command, and the man had never actually
asked
to be called that.
There was nothing to be done about it at that moment, so Daelus tried to focus. A detail in the room’s décor had caught his eye. It was a calendar. He looked closely. The year read 950 NWR. The eighth month of the year was displayed, though the exact day wasn’t marked.
“Excuse me?” Daelus asked one of the Jossimer–faced servants. He
waited for acknowledgement.
“Speak,” it replied as it continued the work of hanging various shirts and jackets in a wardrobe.
“May I ask today’s date? I’d like to mark it for myself as a special day.”
“The current date is eleven Octo-exdudé, the year nine-hundred and fifty, new world reckoning.”
It sounded like nonsense to Daelus’ ears, but he noted it all the same. It hadn’t yet been midnight when he crossed over, so the tenth day would become his crossing-over anniversary. But the month? He recognized Octo — the calendar itself had revealed that it was the
eighth
month, but what was new world recko—
It clicked into place. It had been nine
hundred
and fifty years since—
“Does new world reckoning begin at the start of the project, or at its conclusion?” Daelus was suddenly desperate to know how much time had passed. How far into the future had crossing over sent him?
“A set of encyclopedic volumes have been provided for you to satiate your curiosity. I will be accepting no further questions that do not pertain to your lodging.”
Daelus noted the set of books, a row of them as long as the room, heavy, and worn. They could have been decades out of date, but they would have to do.
The passage of nearly one
thousand
years, or perhaps more, felt absurd — everything was so
familiar
. Had the world really become so stagnant?
“The Will of the Benefactors,” Daelus then remarked, solemnly. They promised stability, safety,
consistency
. They had delivered. This was indeed the new world they had promised. A world of the expected, of the
comfortable
. It was now Daelus’ duty, just like centuries of delegates before him, to ensure that it
stayed
that way.
As Daelus watched the beings, the projections of will, prepared his room, operating like silent ants. Was this what it was going to be like being a delegate? Was he going to be an ant for the Benefactors?
He once again shook the thought away. He had always had a belligerent streak, or at least that’s what his mother had always told him. He would need to keep it deeply in check if he was to survive in this new world.
The servants finished their work, and departed from his room silently. He tried to call out to them with gratitude, but received no reply.
His mind was once again tugged back to his own entourage
experience
. Why had Jossimer chosen to have all of his servants wear his own face, when they could look like
anything
he imagined?
Daelus became introspective. Why
did
his projection look like that, even though he hadn't consciously willed it? Was she someone from his memory?
As the rays of morning sunshine poured in from the eastern window of his bedchambers, he thought of the promise he had made to himself, mere hours ago.
Surely once more couldn’t hurt.
He closed his eyes, and felt his way back to that moment, what he had been thinking — feeling. He didn’t want to try to repeat the first experiment. It was dizzying and he felt his stomach couldn’t handle it. He did, however, want to see
her
.
He opened his eyes, and there she was, her skin gleaming in the morning light.
In a furious panic, Daelus banished her. The thought of turning
her
into an unwitting servant, a
puppet
, turned his stomach in ways he was not prepared to handle and did not understand.
He knew he had been correct the first time. The entourage's ability terrified him, and he resolved to never use it. This would make it much harder to accomplish his goals to the level and at the speed the Benefactors undoubtedly expected. He knew he would have to simply work that much harder to exceed those expectations.
This resolution did not last a single day.