“Are you sure it’s a good idea to do this now?” I asked Havier Regina as we marched along the crowded corridors, pushing past the hive of excited spectators. Blood lust hanging thickly in the air.

  “Why wouldn’t we do it now?” Havier replied.

  “Baccus’ champion just won an astounding victory. Surely he feels powerful right now. Trying to negotiate an alliance with a man high on victory is surely a bad move.”

  “Baccus is no man,” Rex grunted, he had insisted on coming with us. “He is a god. He feels powerful all of the time. I doubt that this victory will make any difference in your negotiating power.”

  “Your dog is correct,” Havier nodded.

  “Watch your tongue human,” Rex growled. “You may be the emperor, but we are about to be in the presence of my people and they might not be as forgiving as me.”

  Havier glanced at him with dark eyes, then blinked hard a single time.

  “You’re right Red Fist,” he conceded. “Take note Kaleb, that was a good use of leveraging situational power. On any other day, at any other moment, I might have spayed him for speaking to me that way.”

  Rex grunted in irritation but held his tongue as we finally reached the end of the horde-like crowd of blood drunk viewers. They were ferocious in their appetite for violence. Queuing back as far as the eye could see for drinks and food. Screaming and chanting. Talking animatedly about the fight they’d just witnessed. Some were even fighting themselves, though few paid those particular idiots any mind. It reminded me of a football game.

  Having never known my father; I hadn’t been to many. But as a child a school friend won some tickets in a competition and he took me with him. It was intoxicating. I didn’t even like sports all that much back then, but the atmosphere was divine. As a child I’d often longed to escape into other worlds and I’d read books and played video games to accommodate that escapist desire. But at that match, becoming one with the crowd like it was a living entity; a fictional beast which moved and shouted of its own volition and I was a mere vertebra aiding it, a single part of a larger whole… that was something else entirely.

  So I completely understood the drunkenness of the crowd. The allure of being a part of something bigger than yourself. But right then and there, it didn’t appeal to me. I needed to be an individual. A single rock preventing the advancing tide that was Chrysus’ plans – whatever they may be. I didn’t feel like just another member of the crowd. I was no longer a single vertebra, but a force to be reckoned with in my own right. And that in and of itself was both intoxicating and terrifying.

  We rode in the elevator in silence until the audible chime of the doors clicking open roused me from my thoughts. The room before us was similar in size to the one I’d met Loki in, with a viewing platform at the back which led to a large golden chair – the platform where the gods sat.

  This room was distinctly different in its decoration though. Six roman columns of ivory swirls surrounded the outskirts. In the centre was a large, square bath emitting a foggy steam which swirled and danced, filling the room and bringing on a sweat which stuck like thick sap to my skin the moment I entered it.

  Scattered around the sides of the bath were plates lavished with fresh fruit, goblets and jugs filled with wine, and lounging, semi-naked women: a mix of human and lycanid.

  I guess all the gods are perverts… makes sense considering the mythologies of my world.

  Sitting tall at the far edge of the bath was a towering lycanid with golden fur which glimmered like the sun, casting blinding sparkles in the reflection of the crystal-clear water. He had a nasty gash across his eye, an old wound which seemed to have blinded him on that side. I’d seen a lot of well-built people in this world, but even by Celestian standards Baccus was gargantuan in stature. His shoulders were as wide as the bath itself and normal sized people could have fit in there three a breast. The waterline barely covered his lower abdomen yet the large man sitting next to him was covered to his neck.

  Brodir looked up at us, his eyes milky and half closed, as we entered. His wounds seemed to have been healed already, but he looked exhausted. A floating tray with a wine goblet on it drifted near to him. Baccus, on the other hand, had his meaty fist – which was easily the size of my torso – wrapped around a goblet which was bigger than I was.

  “You know,” Havier said under his breath, glancing at the normal sized women who lounged around the edges of the bath. “I’ve always wondered how he manages to sleep with them. As big as he is it must be quite painful.”

  “Some parts are made to stretch, Havier,” Baccus said in a booming, jovial voice. “But of course you wouldn’t know that having never had the endowment to experience it for yourself.”

  I snorted, cupping my hand over my face as Regina shot me a scathing look. Rex also seemed amused but he hid it better than I did.

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  “Come, join in our victory celebrations,” Baccus continued. “Today we honour my champion and friend, Brodir. Drink with us, bathe with us. I insist.”

  He waved a meaty hand in our direction and I felt something brush against my mind. It faded quickly, was that the work of my usurper skill? Whatever it was, I felt a sudden compulsion to strip off and join them in the bath. Havier looked at me and sighed. I frowned at him, then caught his meaning. On the other side of me Rex had already unequipped all of his armour and weapons and was moving towards the bath.

  “Your friend is either very trusting,” Havier said, “or very underprepared for this meeting.”

  “How could he prepare?” Brodir asked. “No one can resist my master’s charms; even most jade souls fall on their knees before him. It is you two that are the strange ones.”

  “I’ve known your master for a long time,” Havier said casually. “His tricks don’t work on me.”

  “And the champion of Diako? Is he not the same level as me, how does he resist?”

  “I’m an atheist,” I said, blurting out the first thing that came to mind without revealing my skill. “I don’t believe in gods, so their aura manipulation doesn’t work on me.”

  “Is that so?” Baccus asked, looking me up and down with a predatory eye. “How interesting. I still wish for you both to join us in the baths. How can we make discourse if we do not do so as equals. Bathing together levels all things, for we are equal in our vulnerability.”

  I was pretty certain I was significantly more vulnerable than he was even in my amour, but there was no use arguing. I was here as a diplomat, looking to negotiate an alliance to help me fight Chrysus. I needed to show a willingness to compromise if I wanted his support and how bad could it be, sitting in a roman bath drinking wine with a god?

  Unequipping my armour, I slid beneath the silky, warm water. Its heat trickling into me, warming my bones and filling my muscles with life. It had been a long time since I’d last enjoyed the pleasures of a warm bath. There was no plumbing in the training zone.

  See Bell, I do take it off.

  “That was quite the fight,” Rex said, sliding next to Brodir in his stoic, lycanid way.

  “Adolf Von Silver was a worthy opponent,” Brodir replied. “I am thankful to still be breathing whilst his body is a feast for garuda.”

  “Silver was a shit who needed to be dealt with,” I said harshly. “I only wish it was me who got to fight him.”

  Baccus grunted a laugh and Brodir looked towards me. His milky, half-closed eyes waned as he addressed me.

  “And what of me?” He said, “if you win your fight we will cross swords in the final.”

  “You… I’d rather not fight, if I didn’t have to,” I replied with a curt nod and he finally cracked a smile.

  “A man who comes waltzing in on a dragon, making a fool of the merchant god is scared of little old me? I am humbled, human.”

  “I watched you cleave a man in two like it was nothing. Only an idiot would want to fight you. That doesn’t make me fearful, it makes me smart.”

  “Here, here,” Baccus said, raising his human sized goblet and taking a swig. I felt a nudge from my left and looked to see a floating tray beside me with a smaller goblet on it. A flash of semi-transparent, flowing cloth, and the girl who had placed it there drifted back to the side of the baths. Taking the goblet, I cheersed the god and took a drink myself.

  It really does taste just like fortified wine.

  “Shall we get down to brass tacks old friend?” Havier said from my side. “I know you love entertaining guests but we are here for a reason.”

  “Why talk of business when there is so much pleasure to be had?” Baccus replied. “Come now Havier, you can’t deny me that, surely?”

  “But surely the pleasure tastes that much sweeter after enacting a successful business dealing?”

  “Only if that dealing is successful.”

  I felt my stomach drop and had to stop myself from sighing outwardly. It sounded like Baccus might not ally with us after all. And just when I thought we were getting along so well. Lucas had told me that the god despised Chrysus so I’d hoped to gain an in with him but…

  “Fine,” Baccus boomed like a sad puppy. “Have at it then.”

  They both turned to me.

  “I’m here to ask you to ally yourself with me… Diako, against Chrysus. We have reason to believe-”

  “Yes, yes I already know this,” Baccus said with a flippant wave of his hand. “Chrysus spoke to me yesterday about backing him to become king of the gods or some horseshit and I spat in his face. I hate that little bitch as much as anyone. So you have nothing to fear from me in that regard. All I want to know is why I should ally with you and the shadow monkey? You do know the history we lycanids have with him don’t you? We are not the best of friends, he and I.”

  “I’m aware, and if it helps at all, I’ve only agreed to be his champion to try and stop Chrysus. There is no love lost between me and Diako. In a way, this is also just an alliance.”

  “Ha! You believe yourself on equal footings with a god? You’re crazy, human.”

  “I already told you; I don’t believe in gods. I recognise and respect your power, but I don’t see it as divinity. If you don’t want to ally yourself with Diako because he poisoned your Empress and sterilised your people then it would be arrogant of me to try and persuade you otherwise. But if you were to ally with me, then that would be different. You could get the backing of Diako without having to sully your own name.”

  “The hubris of this one eh?” Baccus said, nudging Brodir in the side with his huge elbow.

  “I know you don’t know me,” Rex said. “But as a lycanid I back Kaleb completely. I trust him with my life and he has already proven to me that he is a friend of our people.”

  “Yes, yes, I’ve heard how he helped you overthrow your uncle, Rexus Crimson Fist. I’ve also heard how he threw Cali Port into an all-out civil war.” He turned back to me, allowing his fangs to creep along the side of his facial fur. “You’re dangerous, Kaleb Akabane, I can feel it. I can sense it in your aura. I don’t think you intend me and mine harm, but I also can’t trust you not to cause it inadvertently. Trouble seems to follow you…” He paused a moment, taking a large gulp from his cup, thick wine spilled down the sides of his mouth tainting his fur a dark burgundy. “And yet, any man who has the balls to sit naked in a bathtub with me and still deny my divinity is a man worth calling friend. When the time comes, I will aid you against Chrysus. But only if the time comes. I will not cause a war by acting before he tips his hand. If that is acceptable to you then you may call me a friend and an ally.”

  “Cheers,” I said raising my glass towards him as a smile brimmed the top of my goblet. “I wouldn’t ask for anything more.”