Knowledge Aforethought, page 7
“I cannot. It is one thing to separate a person’s soul from their lifeforce, their essence. It is another to sever a person from their soul. I cannot fix this, because your soul is no longer here,” Death said. I frowned, trying to put logic behind these words. What logic stuck had my heart stopping in horror.
“You lost it?!” I screamed. “You lost my soul!”
Death stood and, in the most human gesture I had ever seen him make, shrugged. I was suddenly struck with a great desire to throttle my boss. In fact, I was on my feet and halfway to Death when Charlotte held me back.
“Cal Thorpe, this will not end well. You cannot go against Death and win,” she said.
“He lost my soul!” I wailed, struggling against Charlotte’s arms around my waist and doing my best to get to Death.
“Yes,” Charlotte said, as though she were agreeing about the weather. “He did.”
“I want my soul back!” I fought against Charlotte, but it was like fighting against a boulder with a sword. Pointless. “Who knows what’s going to happen to me now!”
“There are some side effects,” Death said, looking at the sculpture of a gargoyle on one of the palazzi and very pointedly not meeting my gaze. I wanted to wrap my hands around his neck and shake him. “I would not worry. It is extremely unlikely that you would ever experience most of them.”
“I’m going to soak all of your neckties in bleach,” I snarled. “I’m going to put ghost peppers in your tea. I—“
“Enough!” Charlotte snapped. “This is an unfortunate situation, but it does not change the reality of things. You are not dead. You are not dying. You merely have to go find your soul.”
“Find my soul?” I asked incredulously, shock making me stop struggling. “Where? Heaven? Hell? Some unknown corner of the universe?”
“I do not know,” Death said. He held up a slim finger as I opened my mouth to protest. “It is possible, though, that I will know.”
“How?” I ground out. My fists were clenched at my side and I was feeling anything but calm and rational.
“You say that you work for me several hundred years into the future, no? Perhaps my knowledge has expanded then. Perhaps things have changed. You merely need to speak with me then,” Death said. I said nothing for a moment, trying to get my breathing under control before I started screaming again.
“And how, exactly, would you suggest I do that? Are you going to transport me there?” I asked. My fists were clenched at my side. Mary’s eyes widened and she grinned before scribbling faster. Machiavelli took a step backwards. Charlotte put a firm hand on my shoulder to keep me from doing anything stupid.
“No, that would require my cousin, Time,” Death said simply. “Merely summon him as you did before and then ask him to take you forwards.”
“I didn’t summon Time before,” I snapped. “He showed up at the stupid theatre! He initiated the stupid trip!”
“Ah, then I suggest you do what it was that he brought you here to do,” Death said with an apologetic shrug. “I cannot say any more than that.”
I pinched my nose between my fingers, practising every calm breathing technique I could remember. I finally let out a long, slow breath and looked up at Death, hoping that my anger and fear was burning a hole through his skull. “Time sent me here to help solve whatever relationship problems you and Life are having,” I said with a malicious hiss.
Death blinked. Then smiled. “Then your task is already complete! My beautiful Life and I have no problems.”
“Oh, really?” I asked. “Then where is she now?”
Death frowned. “Ah. I don’t…”
“Exactly.” I turned to Charlotte. “Okay, Charlotte. Here’s the deal. I’ll get you that artefact. You’re going to help me with this imbecile. And Mary? Get Machiavelli before he falls and hurts himself.”
“Imbecile?” Death asked, rolling the word around as though he had never heard it applied to himself. “Interesting.”
“Cal Thorpe, what are you going to do?” Charlotte asked in a worried tone. I took another deep breath.
“I’m going to go get a drink.”
“So explain this to me again.”
I looked up from where I was resting my head on the table, a goblet of wine in my hand, contemplating the liquid. Machiavelli looked at me over the rim of his own cup, well and truly on his way to being sozzled. Frankly, he was taking this far better than I would have thought.
“You arrived in Florence from the future because Time—the embodiment and entity that encompasses all that time represents—sent you back so that your master, Death, could reconcile with his wife, Life, before they became estranged as they are in the future? You managed to run into a wandering half-giantess and her scribe companion, who declared that they would help you in your task if you helped them with theirs. This task happened to be retrieving an artefact from the Medici, who are actually vampires—beings that drain the lifeblood from you—and you walked out of there in one piece, only to run into the Death from this time, who accidentally released your soul to who knows where. And the part that has you still a little shocked in all of this is that I’m meant to be some sort of politician?”
I drained the rest of my wine and immediately poured another. At this point, I had lost count of how much I had drank. I really didn’t care, though. I was feeling unpleasantly un-drunk and really not thrilled about the whole situation.
“Some sort of genius politician-writer-type,” I corrected absently. “But otherwise, that is entirely correct.”
Machiavelli sank back into his seat and let out a breath. “I thought DaVinci was an unusual man, and he just invents flying machines.”
I snorted in laughter. Machiavelli, who was considerably drunker than I was, joined me. We didn’t stop laughing until Death himself came and sat at the table, Charlotte and Mary joining us and eyeing Death with wariness and unabashed interest respectively.
“If you touch someone, they die? But if you touch them more than once—” Mary was asking, her charcoal poised above her paper. She did not seem at all perturbed by the fact that Death was her interviewee.
“Where did you find these characters, Cal Thorpe?” Death asked, eyeing Mary uncertainly. I lifted my head.
“They found me,” I said. “Actually, that’s how most of the problems start. It’s not like I ask for these things to happen. They just do. My job sucks.”
“You do have an unusual proclivity towards chaos,” Death agreed. I looked at him, taking in the clothes that looked like they belonged in a Shakespeare play, then looked back at the wine.
“Thanks, I guess,” I grumbled. “Now here’s a question: why aren’t I drunk?”
Death grinned, the look far more maniacal than I liked. “Ah, now there is one of the more entertaining aspects of having a soul run amok. Some things you will feel stronger than before, for nothing filters it. You won’t feel other things nearly as deeply as you would otherwise. Which means you can drink a whole lot more and not get drunk. Your soul, wherever it is, is likely feeling quite intoxicated, but will not, generally, suffer the aftereffects.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Right. So basically my soul will be drunk—or hurt, or tired, or whatever—but I won’t? I see where the idea for Dorian Grey came from.”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself!” Charlotte demanded, pounding her fist on the table. The wine jug and the assorted stoneware goblets jumped and fell with a clang. Machiavelli rescued the wine and I watched my cup fall to the floor. I pushed my glasses up and then realised that I was still wearing the stupid things. In public. In 1494. With normal humans around. I sighed and pulled them off, putting them into the same belt purse that held my phone. I touched the metal object and found some slight comfort in knowing that things would be better. Eventually.
“Didn’t you hear Death?” I asked, gesturing to my boss. “I can’t feel—”
“You or your soul, whatever. You are sulking. Sulking will not solve your problem,” Charlotte said. She reached over the table and jabbed me in the chest. “Action is the only solution.”
Mary nodded. “She has a point. I mean, when she first found me, I was a snivelling, terrified weasel on the verge of an emotional breakdown. But here I am, with the makings of one of the best stories in centuries.”
“Publish a word and I’ll sue you,” I grumbled. I didn’t know what time Mary was from, but the words seemed to have some effect. She frowned, then grumbled and finally put her writing materials away.
I sighed, took a deep breath, tried to feel the sense of calm that normally came with such a thing, and felt nothing. Soulless. Right. It seemed to take some sort of great effort to push those thoughts aside, but I managed it. I sat up straight. I poured myself another glass of wine and savoured the flavour more than the need to get drunk. I closed my eyes, took another breath, and opened them.
“Okay, fine. So what do we need to do?” I said.
Charlotte nodded firmly. “Good. You are thinking straight again.”
“I wouldn’t say that. I’m not sure I’ve done that for a while, but I am going to fix this whole problem,” I said, unable to suppress a glare at Death. He just watched me, empty eyes taking in everything as though I were uncharted territory, a mystery to be solved. A game. “You can’t help me until I get back to the future—some sort of copyright infringement going on with that, but still. You’ll have the information in the future.”
Death inclined his head. “I will do my best to discover a means of fixing this.”
I nodded. “Right. And you—” I pointed at Charlotte, “are still determined to help me if I help you get that thing from the Medici.”
“We found Death by that means,” Charlotte said with a warrior’s grin. “Surely we can find Life similarly.”
“That’s a terrifying thought, but likely accurate. So we get the artefact, find Life. I get you two to kiss and make up—”
“I should like to protest that there is nothing actually wrong with our relationship,” Death said, raising a gentle finger. I replied with a skeptical eyebrow and he sighed. “Yes, very well. Time told you there was a problem between us here and now, so something must be done. Though I could not imagine what.”
“Time said that you missed some terribly important appointment. And then that Life wouldn’t let you get involved in some mortal person’s end of days,” I said. Death considered, frowning.
“I do not know what appointment my cousin refers to,” Death said. I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” I said. At this point, I discovered that the jug of wine was empty and neither Charlotte nor Machiavelli were terribly forthcoming with money for more. As I had only just earned a tiny amount of money, I didn’t think that wasting it on wine would be a worthwhile use of my time. Not to mention I wasn’t actually feeling drunk, so that plan went out the window as well. Instead, I sighed and rested my chin on my fist. “Is there any way that you could, oh, I don’t know, call Time up and get him to send me back?”
Death tilted his head. “I do not know this ‘call’ that you speak of. Do you wish me to shout?”
“No,” I said, groaning. I had known that I wasn’t in the time where I belonged, but this just hit home. Death—my boss, a familiar figure and all that—was not the Death I knew. I was stuck in a place that was technologically extremely different, full of people I didn’t know, and a world that had already done worse than kill me. I had thought that the world of Elsewhere with all its magic, all its strangeness and danger, was terrible enough. I had wanted nothing more than to return to my normal life. I wanted to do marketing. Social media. Normal things. Now, I longed for even the strangeness of a few days ago. I pushed the empty jug away from me and rested my head on the table. Maybe sleep would provide me some relief.
“It seems to me,” Machiavelli said, speaking up for the first time since Death, Charlotte and Mary had joined us, “that the best way to solve your problem is to learn more about the people involved.”
I raised my eyebrows and looked up at him. “Oh?”
“You need to get an artefact from the Medici. Therefore, it would be useful to know what motivates them. What you can do to manipulate them in a direction that would be beneficial for you. They wish you to kill Savonarola, which would be tantamount to war on the lower classes of Florence, with the Church in the middle. So, in essence, they wish you to either give up, start a war, or figure out a different way of stealing this artefact. The Medici are powerful. They have influence in almost every quarter of this city. So why would they wish for you to kill such an important figure, with influence in the Church?” Machiavelli asked. I blinked and glanced over at Charlotte.
I had forgotten about the ridiculous request the Medici had made in all the hullaballoo that followed. Losing your soul does tend to make you forget a few things. But, we had to start somewhere to fix this, and the best place was the artefact that Charlotte wanted. I took in a deep breath to focus myself. I thought I felt the same as I normally did, but Death had said that things would be different without my soul. So maybe I needed to push myself a little more to focus. Alright, fine. I took another deep breath.
“Okay, so the Medici are trying to use us as a scapegoat. They either want to start this war without anyone knowing that it was them who started it, or they really don’t think we’re going to do it, in which case they don’t really want the war to start. But… why would they make such a ridiculous request if there is even the slightest chance that we would do it?”
Machiavelli flapped his hand dismissively. “No one is stupid enough for that.”
I snorted. “Trust me, people are a whole lot stupider than you think they are.”
Death chuckled, shaking his head. “Humans are such an unusual species. No matter how much time I spend amongst you, you are always surprising me. Perhaps that is why I brought you into my service centuries from now, Cal Thorpe.”
I banged my fist on the table, making everyone in the tavern jump. Silence fell and I had to work hard not to shout. I was breathing heavily, anger coursing through my veins, stronger the longer I tried to control it. “Alright. First off, it’s Cal. Just Cal. No Cal Thorpe. No Calvin. Just Cal. Got it?”
“Got it,” Mary squeaked. Charlotte nodded, but her gaze had hardened and her hand was reaching towards her sword.
Death blinked languidly. “You humans may be unusual, but do not forget that you are just that. Human. Fragile. Do not presume to make such demands to me.”
I snapped.
I turned to face Death head on. Baring my teeth like I had seen plenty of immortal beings do—sylphs, rock trolls, vampires, you name it—I leaned in close enough so that Death could feel my breath on his face. “I’ll make whatever demands I want. Do you know why? Because I’m not human anymore. You can’t harm me. You made me.”
The shadows lengthened. Light seemed to just evaporate into mist. The world around me slowed until even my breath seemed to hang in mid-air. Death’s power pulsed, making him the centre of the world, of my world, until it was impossible to look away. I could see his power leeching into the table, into the wine, into Machiavelli and Charlotte and Mary. I could see it inching closer to me, until it stopped, tantalisingly close.
Part of me longed to reach out and touch it. I wanted to see what would happen. I wanted to see if contact with that undeniable force would take me to bliss, or if it would do nothing at all.
“I am the Inevitable,” Death said, his voice deep enough that my whole body vibrated with the sound. “No matter what you have become, you will face me in the end. Nothing escapes me. Nothing at all. I am the horror of civilisations. I am the nightmare in everyone’s head. I am the last and the enduring.”
The power seemed to fade, until Death was looking at me and holding my attention not through intimidation or fear, but because his empty eyes held a glimmer of kindness. “I have done grievous harm in rupturing the connection to your soul, but I will seek a solution to this. Until then, you may be impossible to kill, but you are not impossible to change. Be wary.”
I nodded, blinking away moisture from my eyes. Whatever anger I had was gone. Now, there was nothing but pain that I couldn’t even feel. It was like the pain, the horror and sorrow lay behind a thick veil. I knew it was there. It tormented me. But I could only see it—feel it—out of the corner of my eye.
Death reached out and, tentatively, patted my shoulder. I smiled weakly and turned back to the others. They looked away, saying nothing.
“What is this artefact that you are so interested in?” Death asked Charlotte conversationally. Her breath caught in her throat, but she shook off whatever fear or strangeness she felt and answered. It was as though, after seeing the terror of Death, everything was too normal.
“The Eye of Carteria,” Charlotte said. Mary nodded eagerly. Machiavelli looked at me and I shrugged. But Death? He tilted his head back and laughed. The sound was loud enough to rattle the walls, much to the astonishment of the other patrons.
“The Eye of Carteria?” Death asked, wiping moisture from an eye. “You are either insane, or you live up to your moniker, Charlotte the Unkillable.”
Time Long Past
“Would someone like to explain to me what is going on?” I asked. “What is the Eye of Carteria?”
Death looked at me and gave a quiet hum. He drummed his fingers on the table and then turned back to Charlotte. “Would you like to explain, or shall I?”
Charlotte blinked. But before either Death or Charlotte could say a word to enlighten me on what the heck was going on, Mary dumped a scroll on the table and rolled it open, holding it flat with the empty wine jug and my empty cup. She coughed and brushed her skirt like she was getting ready for a meeting. She pointed to a sketch of an amulet thing. It had eight sides and a single jewel in the centre, shaped like the slit in a wyvern’s eye. It was surrounded by tiny glyphs in a language I didn’t recognise.
“This is the Eye of Carteria,” Mary said proudly. Machiavelli leaned over the paper and frowned, but it appeared this enlightened him no more than me.
