Chapter 155 - The King of 1000 Names

  From the outside, the brass dome looked like a single solid object. From the inside, it appeared more to be a lattice that crossed over the city, as well as the primary method of Ifrit transportation. Hundreds of brass rods crisscrossed overhead, glowing with the subtle light of Ifrit shooting down their lengths. On the ground, we walked past vessels of every shape and size, decorated with every geometric pattern and fractal imaginable. It was like walking into an art-deco steampunk city without the steam.

  The war forms kept pace with us, as did a dozen or so paladins. If any were the ones that had visited Bluff Apollo, I would have been hard pressed to say which. My own secretive service were allowed to keep their weapons, though all of them were slung in favor of hefting brass jars filled with Ifrit unions through the city. Soft flames flicked out from vessels to touch other unions that we passed in a gesture that looked like a fiery high-five.

  But what struck me most odd about the city was the relative silence of the place. Aside from the whirr of clockwork devices, the soft step of the paladin boots on the sand, and the distant ringing of hammers, very little within the city seemed to create noise. Ifrit communication was visual, so there were no conversations. Neither were there cars or engines, no shopkeepers hounded us with deals, and unlike goblin villages there were certainly no explosions or manic squawking. It was no wonder the paladins grew up mute in such an environment.

  The structures we passed were just as odd as the brass lattice, contorting in strange shapes that accommodated the vessels of the individual unions that dwelt in them. More than once we passed what I took to be a shrine or furnace of some sort, only to see a mechanical vessel no larger than a Chihuahua creep its way out for a peek at the procession.

  The thoroughfare itself was open to the elements, and sand accumulated in corners and crevices. Where the wind blew clear, it revealed old and worn designs on the tiling beneath our feet. Ahead, a large building that resembled a blown glass lantern rose above the stone and bare metal construction of the rest of the city.

  “I take it that’s the palace?” I asked Tamaho.

  Tamaho had folded his wings to walk alongside, and he tapped his pointed feet nervously as he regarded the structure. “It houses the King of 1000 Names,” he said.

  Rufus leaned over. “Just hope the king doesn’t demand a formal greeting. We’ll be here all week,” he said.

  “Wait, that’s literally 1,000 names?” I asked. “That’s not a metaphor?”

  “Just so,” said Taquoho. “At present, the king is a union of 907 Ifrit, though when we left, the king was a union of 1022 Ifrit. That so many of their members would reach such discord speaks to the tumult Haut Voclai Behen Mira Do has caused with his falsehoods.”

  The war forms and the royal messenger stopped us and held up a claw to me in an unmistakable wait gesture. Ahead, I saw a familiar ornate form that I’d last seen departing Bluff Apollo with his cronies and a load of ceramic components. I narrowed my eyes at Haut Vo-whatever.

  “The king bids our union attend,” said Tamaho. As if also noticing, Tamaho spread his rotor blades and took to the air. All around us, Ifrit closed in, vessels angled for a better view of the Ifrit who could defy gravity and float freely through the air. Tamaho joined the royal messenger and disappeared through the opening in the narrow domed palace.

  “Great, we’ll just wait here, then,” I said. Some of my retinue were already becoming impatient, edging further away from the group to gawk back at the Ifrit. But it wasn’t just Ifrit in the city. Besides the paladins, I spotted a group of humans in clothes very different from the people I’d seen at Habberport. Another group in deep robes and hoods moved through the square, giving us a wide berth, and I could see curved rams horns coming from inside their hoods.

  “Boss, Midnighters,” said Armstrong, pointing off to another side. Sure enough, I spotted a palanquin—different from the one that carried Cla’thn, along with more royal guards. They watched us openly, with several of the serfs and attendants openly whispering amongst themselves.

  “What are they all doing here?” I mused.

  “TrAdE,” said one of the war form Ifrit. The voice was rough and sounded a bit like the wind whipping through a bonfire.

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  “You speak the common language?” I asked, looking up.

  The war form lifted one of its pointed legs and pointed it at a passing group of humans with skin the color of blue coal. “ThEy tRade…”

  “Ah,” I said. I nodded to the Midnighters. “What about them?”

  The war form tilted to the side to examine the bug people. “CoME spEak kIng. ThEY seEk,”

  “Seek?” I asked. “What do they seek?”

  “TheY sEEK. SEarCH. WorLDs.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “They’re astronomers. They search for other worlds.”

  The war form tapped its foot in the dust impatiently. “seek THIS.”

  Before I could make heads or tails of what the Ifrit was trying to say, the royal messenger emerged again and tapped on the steps of the palace for our attention. Rufus sighed a breath of relief beside me. “No formal greeting today. We can go in.”

  I followed Rufus up the stone steps and through the arch that opened up into a brass dome. The irregular shape of the palace on the inside felt a bit like being inside a brass sculpture of a tornado, and I looked up at the rows of rails lining the dome. Fire raced along them, smooth and continuous. On the floor, Tamaho’s vessel sat, lifeless and empty. Next to it, the ornate vessel I recognized as Haughty von Haughty’s.

  “Tamaho!” I shouted. I looked up to the dome. “What did you do to them?”

  “Peace, King Apollo. We are here. Horal lends his voice to the chorus that we may speak as we are.”

  The whisper came from everywhere and nowhere, and it was unmistakably the voice of Tamaho, or I suppose just Horal, who was the talkative one of the throuple. I relaxed somewhat.

  “All right, then. We need to set the record straight.”

  “We have examined testimony and memory both. This dispute caused much damage to the Ifrit. It is good that the truth of things is revealed.”

  “You mean Haught Voclai’s lies are dispelled,” I said. The fires of the palace flared for a moment. A prismatic wave circled along the rails, and it gave me the impression of many individuals turning to look at one.

  “Haught sought to shield the Ifrit from outside danger. Voclai sought to shield the Ifrit from dissidence within. Behen feared the Ifrit beholden to external vice. Mira wanted the Ifrit not dependent on strange artifice. Do feared that the Ifrit outside the walls could not be kept safe. Their loyalty to the Ifrit remains, though their sight was short. They have diminished us—and in their actions, we have lost standing while seeking the truth. Not only did you return every union unmolested, but you have vanquished our city’s greatest threat. There can be no doubt. The 1,000 names have consensus. Be welcome always in this city, Tribe Apollo.”

  “Ah, uh, thanks,” I said. “I’m glad things got sorted out.” I looked at the vessel of the Ifrit that had caused us so much trouble. “What’s going to happen to Haught and the others?”

  “Their wisdom joins the choir—tempered by the lived experience of Maduri, who witnessed the defeat of the null devil. They shall remain with the 1000 names—in service and humility for a time no less than 1,000 years.”

  A prison sentence, then. And not a short one—unless you were an immortal fire spirit, I suppse. I didn’t know how I felt about their voices being part of the ‘choir’, now. But not my circus, not my monkeys. Confinement and community service was a lighter sentence than I thought they ought get for trying to kill Taquoho. But I’d be content to have my buddy back. “What about Tabun, and Horal?”

  “We are free to return to Bluff Apollo and once more embrace Quo into our union.”

  A heavy weight lifted off my shoulders, one I hadn’t even realized was pressing down.

  “The Ifrit owe a debt, King Apollo. Not only for our actions which have diminished us, but for our defense and our gratitude. And for these new vessels that Tabun has shared. What would you ask? If it is within the power of the king to give, ask.”

  I thought. I could ask for materials, money, soldiers, anything. But while material shortfalls were a problem, to be sure, what I needed more than anything else was friends.

  “I want our original agreement to stand. Trade for goblin vessels and ceramic parts. I also want freedom of movement between our two cities. I want Ifrit and Apollan goblins to each be welcomed by the other. I want to set up a radio station here so that Ifrit can come and go from the bluffs as they see fit, and I want them to continue helping our technology develop by possessing whatever goblin artifice they please. I also want to start working together to manufacture precision instruments—gyroscopes, accelerometers, magnetometers, and other things more suited to Ifrit clockwork than the Goblin Tech Tree.”

  The entire hall flickered in what seemed like muted whispers.

  Rufus leaned in closer. “You could have asked for a lot more than that,” he muttered.

  “Don’t worry,” I whispered back. “Trade now will be way more than the original agreement. You’re going to make a lot of money,”

  “Noted,” he said, satisfied.

  The Ifrit apparently shared his sentiment.

  “You ask too little, King Apollo. The scales are not balanced. We are uncertain they could ever be.”

  “Fine,” I said, biting my lip and wracking my brain. My mind went back to all the different cultures I’d seen in the city. Newcomers, the Ifrit called them. Specifically, I thought of the Midnighters in the square, and the struggle for the war form Ifrit to get his words across. They seek other worlds. They were seeking other worlds in Lanclova—and they’d stopped searching once they met me. I was beginning to suspect something, but a hunch is not a hypothesis, and I needed more observational data.

  “I want to know who’s capable of summoning beings from other worlds, who’s been trying, and why.”

  The lights raced again.

  “We do not fully understand their motives, King Apollo. But here is what we do know…”

  a lot of the theories and guesses that have been tossed around in the comments over the last year. I will say that a few people have been pretty close on individual specific details, but no one person has everything completely figured out and there are a few details yet to come that I haven't even seen theorized.