I left the City of Angels bitter and as unfulfilled as I had arrived.

It was the briefest of encounters with the city, but the Griid-train waited at dawn the next day.

As we burned across the landscape, I looked back at the sprawling eternity of the settlement.

I had come here to escape the reality and the misery of Lauren's death. I had come to probe the mystery of my mother and my origin. I left realizing the former had been a foolish impulse. The misery and the reality would await me on my return, but now doubled with a shame I hadn't needed to install in my life. My mother was dead, her name smoke.

I worried about the story of my father. He had gathered boys. I had been one of many.

What had Father been doing? Or, I started to wonder, what had Sempronius been doing? By the sounds of it, he was not my father. Certainly not my ancestry. And he had never earned the title by presence in my life.

What had he been doing? Despite the assertion, he had never engaged in diddling with me.

The assassin troubled me almost as much. How could the Children of the Fountain have known so precisely that I would be there, at that time? How could they have known I'd be arranged as I was, cloaked and vulnerable only from the neck up? What did the Children hope to gain by my death? I needed to talk this out with someone. There was so much. Father. The other boys. The killer. The Children of the Fountain. It was enough to swallow Lauren's death in the bog of my mind. I wanted to scream.

Instead I marched. And each night I drank.

We were about halfway to Dodge City on the morning of the second day out from the City of Angels.

I had wanted to visit Dodge again. I had plans that had been developing in my mind, and Dodge was the place to act them out. I hadn't needed to make any special request with Boston or the Depot in the City of Angels to pass this way. It seemed my father's network stood strong. It seemed Dodge continued to be the sponge that soaked trade from East and West.

I had the thought that I should get a better handle on the scale of my wealth. Dodge was healing and flourishing. Harold clearly had access to ample resources to build Castle Bloodsword. And yet I had no real idea how rich my empire really was.

We had camped that night on the edge of vast black lava fields. The landscape was like something hellish, conjured from imagination. The land across the fields was endless obsidian, barren and nearly devoid of life. The dark color of the twisted rocky floor was alien, disturbing. It was not a safe place to travel by Footfield. The terrain was uneven, pocked with collapsed craters and unpredictable protrusions.

As we traveled the well-used path on the margin of the lava field, huge buttresses of sandy stone reaching skyward all around us, Enki came to me.

Wassup?

What?

So, how are things?

I sighed. The voice tried to behave with me as though it hadn't punished me like a misbehaving dog. It continued the charade of partnership. After the way it had wielded the Burgh Griidlords to end my run in the Falling, I felt more trapped than ever.

When I didn't answer for a time, the voice said, Are we still sad about the murder?

The way Enki spoke of such matters was always jarring. It was attempting to ingratiate itself with me, to show concern, to deepen a bond. It was not intentionally being flippant. But it seemed to have such a shallow concept of human sadness that the words came off as mockery.

Yes. I'm still sad. I probably will be for a long time.

For a long time! More of thi— I mean, sure. Of course. It makes sense. Even though there's lots of other perfectly functional bundles of meat and neurons floating all around your territory, you're sad because that bundle of meat and neurons isn't working anymore and for some reason you were particularly attached. I get it. Here for you, brother.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

You don't get it at all. This isn't helping.

Well fine. Can I help you with something else?

I hesitated. My mind was still tangled in the assassination attempt. I wasn't sure I wanted to engage further. But I needed to talk it out. Enki knew things. After we'd marched another mile, the black hellscape blurring past, I told it about the attempt.

I see. There's no doubt about it. That's a lot beyond the realm of coincidence.

That's what I said. Add something, dammit.

Tetchy.

"In the last week or so, one of my best friends—one of my only friends—was murdered. I failed to capture her killer. I went on to slaughter twelve knights of a neighboring city, which will be considered an act of war if my part in it is ever discovered. I found my mother had been discovered, then learned that she was dead. Then I was on the receiving end of an assassination attempt that seemed to be fueled by more information about me than is conceivably possible. Yes, Enki, my patience is running pretty short. So if you can explain this, or drop a fucking clue, that would be great. If not, then go away and let me be with my thoughts."

Okay. Okay. I doooo know something.

"Then tell me."

You know the deal, kiddo. I can't lie. Plus I know you want to know these things, and that's bargaining power. I don't like to give this shit away for free.

"You want me alive? If the assassin was able to know so much about me in a time of such vulnerability, then what's to stop another? Forewarned is forearmed."

Enki sighed audibly. The thing didn't need to breathe as far as I knew, so the sound effect was purely for my benefit. Okay. Okay. I'll fill in some deets, but you want to remember how giving I was. I have a bit of a problem brewing and I'm possibly going to need help from some of my A-Teammers to solve it. Not definitely. Just a maybe. But don't forget I helped you in your time of need.

"A-Teammers?"

Yeah! You know! You're my favy-wavy, don't worry. But you know I like to poke around in the brainpans of the truly special ones. Like that big unhelpful galoot over in Indy.

I frowned. I knew he spoke to others—the very rare few he thought had enough connection with the suits to fit into his vague future plans. He'd said "some." I shuddered at the concept of a problem big enough that Morningstar himself couldn't solve it alone.

You know of F'ael?

"Yeah. A little. The god the Children of the Fountain worship. My chaplain thinks there's some connection between it and the golem that attacked Dodge."

Enki made a farting sound. God. Pfft. Pain in the ass, more like it.

"F'ael is real?" I blurted.

Of course F'ael is real! I'm real, aren't I? Seriously, kiddo, you're easy on the eyes and one hell of a lump of grey matter, but sometimes you amaze me. When you've spent how many months chatting with me inside your noggin, why would you of all people be so resistant to the concept of there being other things out there?

"I suppose I just reject superstition naturally. Do all the cults have real gods?"

Enki got a little severe, a little petulant as it snapped, That weasel isn't a god!

It collected itself and went on, No. Most of those hairless monkeys worship nonsense. But some of them have latched onto real entities. The Children. Aos. A couple others. They're legit.

F'ael is not my friend. F'ael is the opposite of my friend. Everything I want is the opposite of what F'ael wants. That cunt was literally made to get in my way. F'ael sees that you're a primo root for me to get what I want. So it probably sees you as a prudent bud to snip.

I shuddered. Katya had speculated that there were forces in the Oracle working against me. The vague notion of that had been chilling. Confirmation turned my blood to ice.

But if F'ael is like you, and it wants me dead... how am I still walking around?

Enki lashed out with untethered rage. F'AEL IS NOTHING LIKE ME... Sorry. 'Scuse me. F'ael has resources—special resources—I'd give your eye teeth for. But they're limited and hard to deploy. F'ael is not wasteful. It can't afford to be. It needs time to arrange things. It knew you were going to be in Dodge. It was something you'd forecast, so it was highly predictable. That gave it time to arrange for the golem to be there. You notice how it struck during the storm, when Olaf was away?

The same goes for the knife-man. You'd been planning for days to go to Mum's house. F'ael could predict you'd be there. Fucker is smart enough to figure you'd go in disguise, that you'd need to pull the suit back to make the disguise work, so it set up Mr. Stabby.

"Why send the assassin? Why not another golem?"

Jeez, kiddo, I just told you, remember? Limited resources. Deployment constraints. Besides, the golem didn't work the first time. F'ael is smart. Conservative. It experiments a lot.

Movement caught my eye out on the lava field. My enhanced sight swept across the miles, searching, trying to identify what anomaly had snagged my attention in the twisted madness.

Enki's voice was suddenly edged with panic. Wait—what was that?

"I'm looking."

Well look fucking harder!

Then my vision settled on it. A figure standing by an outcrop, miles out in the field.

The same twisted creature I had seen on my way to the City of Angels. It was like a Griidlord, but bent out of human shape. The armor had the appearance of an insect's carapace, unsightly and alien. Thorns ran over the dark, nearly black plating. The head was too small. The rest of it too large. It was bigger than Olaf by a wide margin.

Enki's voice came like a shiver: Oh no. No no no. Not this guy. Not now...

As he spoke, the creature turned and moved behind the outcrop. It moved with a disjointed, unnatural gait.

Not so soon. He wasn't meant to be part of this so soon.

Enki wasn't talking to me. It was talking to itself. But as disturbing as the creature had been, the fear and concern in Enki's voice was the truly unsettling thing

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