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The next day, Phyr pitches his tournament idea to Edric, rationale and all, at their Daily Dinner Debrief on the portico atop Big Money headquarters. Edric goes for it, even suggesting that they host it on the upcoming autumnal equinox, in tandem with the festival. They toast their wine glasses to formalize the agreement.
“We can even build a tourney grounds, in the meantime,” Edric muses, stroking his chin.
“You don’t… just have one of those? Like, lying around,” Phyr asks.
“No,” Edric says with a chuckle. “Altilluvia is a pretty fragile ecosystem, high up as it is. It’s barely tundra, and mostly taiga, and magic is all that keeps the land productive as it is. Hence, y’know, the water wheels and all. But we have menders enough on the payroll to make it a non-issue, and we can set up some Shields and Walls to protect the spectators, just like the old days.” Edric gets a gleam in his eye and says conspiratorially, “Y’know, I’m kinda jealous of you. I haven’t gone toe-to-toe with anyone since the days of my hostile takeovers.” While Phyr knows this is a business term, he can’t help but feel a tinge of the ominous as Edric says it. “Ooh, and you’re a fresh face, too - almost nobody knows you’re a god, and those in my inner circle who do know, are already in my pocket anyway - damn, we’ll get some real fine action outta this. We just gotta sell you on the dark horse ticket.” He looks off, as if hatching a scheme.
There it is, Phyr says. I wondered when his corruption would show itself. But if insider information is as far as it goes… is it really all that bad? He banishes the thought with a click of his tongue and says, “I know this is a longshot, and I’m just spit-balling here. You know her better than I do. But do you think if we let Alice out for the tournament, she’d maybe come around?”
Edric looks askance at him, his reverie interrupted. “How do you mean?”
“Well,” Phyr says, “If she’s working to restore the Old Guard to power, and you run a tournament in the manner of the Old Guard… wouldn’t that be like a show of good faith or something?”
Edric nods and purses his lips, the idea tumbling around in his head. “I mean, it’s not a sure thing. But it’s a good try.” He scrapes the edge of his fork along his plate, catching some juice from the steak that once sat there, then licks it off and twirls the fork around before setting it down decisively. “It’s worth a shot,” he says at last. “I mean, if that doesn’t work, then we can just try something else. No sense sparing expenses, when the loyalty of the world’s last mystic is at stake.”
“Yeah, what’s up with that, anyway,” Phyr asks. “Alice said that Rayla and Aqu killed off all the other mystics when they hired her on, but she brushed it off like nothing when she brought it up, and she’s been super-cagey about it ever since.”
Edric looks at him seriously for a beat, and Phyr shrinks under his gaze. “Do you… seriously not know?”
“I… don’t?” Phyr hesitates, and his answer comes out like a question.
“Oh, Jesus,” Edric says, running his fingers through his hair. “OK, we’re gonna need a drink for this one.”
Two bourbons apiece and a shared cigar later, Edric has finished walking Phyr through the baseline of their shared trauma, in terms of symbolism and tropes. “So your dad was a racist alcoholic, and my grandpa was a violent alcoholic, and they weren’t the biggest factor in our upbringing… but their shadows still haunt us in some major ways,” Edric concludes, elbows resting on the rail surrounding the portico as he watches the last of the sunset to the West.
“Well, my dad was a bigger figure than your grandpa. For one thing, I actually hung out with the guy. But, I mean, do they haunt us,” Phyr asks. “Do they, really? If we’re both dead-set against that, then is it really a problem we need to be blamed for?”
“No, no, that’s the thing,” Edric says, pouring the last of the wine into their glasses. “It’s not about blame. It’s about responsibility. Like, let’s say some asshole just shows up one day, and dumps toxic waste on a whole town. And then he gives a pile of money to like half the people in town. Now, the people who got the money - it’s not their fault that this asshole dumped toxic waste everywhere, is it? It’s not anyone’s fault, except that one fuckin’ guy, right?”
“Right,” Phyr says. “So make him clean it up, his damn self.”
“Yeah, but he died. Like a second later. Heart attack, tragedy, I know. The guy who’s to blame, he’s just fuckin’ out of the picture. So: now what?” Edric looks at Phyr expectantly.
“Now what, what? Does the blame pass on?”
“Of course not,” Edric says, springing his trap. “The one person to blame - which is, in this case, all the people to blame - has died. So whose responsibility is it to clean up the mess?”
“I mean… no one’s?” Phyr shrugs, and takes another sip of his own nightcap wine. “Wait, are we talking just responsibility, or blame too?”
“That’s just it,” Edric says. “It’s both! Where does the ‘sponsibility go? Where’za blame go? Who needs to clean up the mess, once the guy who made it is gone?”
“I mean… I guess no one’s to blame. And the responsible guy is dead.”
“So you just leave it? It’s toxic waste, Dale. People are gonna fuckin’ die.”
“Right, right,” Phyr says, holding his forehead and exhaling sharply. “But how can you make anyone clean it up, when nobody made it happen? Like, the guy who did it is dead, right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, he’s dead,” Edric says. “So it has to be cleaned up, dunnit? But who are you gonna make do it? And then there’s the people who got the money: like, they benefited, but they didn’t ask for it, right? They just happened to be around, but shouldn’t they have to do more, since they got more out of the whole rotten deal?”
“OK,” Phyr says, “That’s where you lose me: it’s a rotten deal, so why does anyone have to play fair?”
“The world’s a rotten place,” Edric says gravely. “Why shouldn’t someone force ‘em all to play fair, if they can swing it? How else can anything get done?”
Phyr focuses hard for a moment, then asks, “Wait, what does any of this have to do with Alice?”
Edric stares off for a second, then says, “Oh, right! So, like, Rayla and Aqu. Each of them is the Last of the Breed. Very symbolism, much portent, wow. Right? And it’s good to have a mystic on your team, but there are clans an’ shit. Families. Villages. They’re all dedicated to the craft, like a buncha hippies who just wanna commune with the cosmos an’ such. And maybe they’re not all on board with your whole ‘rule the world’ thing, right? So what do you do about that, when you want one person on your side, but there’s like a million of ‘em behind that one who may or may not buy into your agenda?”
Phyr stares off for a long moment, and Edric lets it linger. Then Phyr takes a sip from his wine glass and says, “You make her the Last of the Breed. Just like you.”
“Right,” Edric says with a nod. He leans on the rail of the portico, and sighs. “Now pretend these two fuckers, who rule the world with an iron fist, they come to you and offer you that.”
“Fuck no,” Phyr says. “That’s some serious bullshit. I hold the line.”
“OK,” Edric says. “You hold the line. You say, No. But they all do. And the Rulers tell you that. And now you’re, like, the hundredth one in line. They tell you that No means death.” Phyr takes a deep breath. He lets it out, and Edric continues: “They’re just gonna keep doing this. Working on down the line. Now what?”
Phyr sighs. “I guess I’d say Yes. And try to do the best I can to make their plan go wrong.”
Edric nods slowly and says, “That’s where Alice was. A hundred and more of her kin were slain in Rayla and Aqu’s search. They weren’t gonna stop until they got a Yes. So: what do you do, hero?”
“I… I say Yes,” he admits with a sorrowful stare.
“That’s the kind of person Alice was, when they found her,” Edric says. He drains the last of his wine glass. “That’s who they took into their house. That’s who they trusted. And she earned their trust, and she let them shape her. Now, she’s on their side. And that’s who you ran with, before you came to me. So this whole awful thing just gets dumped at her feet - she can’t stop The Cycle, she can’t fix the past, she can only let it crush her or play along. Everyone else is like, ‘Fuck this toxic waste clean-up, I didn’t put it here, I’m just gonna do the best I can even though we’re all dying to this.’ So she plays along, figuring she’ll do her best to clean up after - but after long enough goes by, it turns out she switched teams. She’s a part of it now. And she’s just… kind of… cool with that.”
Phyr takes a deep breath, then lets it out, and drains the last of his own glass. “Jesus,” he says. Then he sets his glass down on the nearby table. “On that note, I think I’m gonna hit the hay.”
“Have a good night,” Edric says. He fires off a half-salute, but Phyr’s back is turned. Edric sighs, and looks up at the stars: they are glassy-clear, this high up, even through the light-polluted sky.
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