He Who Fights with Monsters 11

4

“The way we treat people always matters. If you want something grander, then I’m still deciding how to interact with your people. I suspect that, in the millennia to come, how I deal with the messengers will affect a lot of people.”

“And what? You’re going to decide that based on me?”

“Not just that, of course, and not just now. But you have the chance to make me see something I don’t in Marek or Tera Jun Casta. What you and I learn from each other could end up being very important.”

“That’s too much responsibility.”

Jason grinned. “I know, right? You get used to it. With a good support system and enough therapy.”

“You’re joking, but this isn’t a small thing you’re putting on me.”

“Yeah. Joking helps, trust me. I tried being super-serious and I turned into an angry prick.”

Jali turned her back to Jason, rotating in the air.

“This is too much to put on me.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “But you’re the person on the spot, and you’re stronger than you think. I saw you stand up to your astral king. The reality is, I don’t know how many free messengers are out there, but I’m guessing not a lot. That makes you important, and being important sucks. I’m hoping you can help me find a way forward with the messengers beyond the options I already have. The astral kings and their Nazi angel army obviously can’t be worked with. Marek’s Unorthodoxy has some real ‘victory or death’ energy, which is less bad but definitely not good. I’m starting to get a Project Mayhem vibe that I don’t like.”

She turned back to face him.

“How much of what you say do people understand?”

“You’re a smart woman, Jali. Are you telling me that you’re not getting the gist from context clues?”

“No. But why would you talk to people like this?”

Jason held out his hand and squeezed as if holding an invisible ball. Jali’s magical senses felt the fabric of reality around her bend alarmingly. He opened his hand and the sensation was gone as if it had never been.

“I have to remember who I am, Jali. I change, but if I ever let go of who I am without all this power, the power becomes who I am. That’s not good for anyone. Except the god of dominion, maybe.”

“You’re sharing a lot with me.”

“I’m hoping it will help you. You’re not on the path I walked, but I think you’ll see a lot of the same landmarks.”

“Should you be thinking about things like this when you have more immediate issues to deal with?”

“Yes, I should. I’ve always had this idea in my head that I didn’t choose the responsibilities that now rest on me, but that hasn’t been true for a long time. I did choose, many times. Now, I have to live up to those responsibilities because they affect a lot more than just me. You’ve sensed the brighthearts in my soul realm. I’ve kept them underground, away from the rest of you, but you’ve felt their presence.”

“Yes.”

“They represent what’s left of an entire civilisation. An entire species. I’m responsible for them now because I chose to be. Just like you and I are about to be responsible for these messengers above us. And a lot more before we’re done. This is just one territory of many.”

He drifted closer and put his hands on her shoulders.

“If you don’t want to be part of that, I get it. My asking you isn’t fair, I know that. Not when there is so much I haven’t told you and you’re still coming to terms with the massive changes you’ve gone through. The portal is right there. If you go through it, I won’t ask you to do anything like this again. But I’m certain that you and I, together, can do better for these people than I can alone. I hope you’ll choose to share this responsibility with me.”

“I… you’re asking a lot that I wasn’t ready for.”

“Yes. And I haven’t given you a lot of time to choose.”

They both looked up at the messengers gathered in the air. While Jason and Jali had been talking, so had they.

“I think they’re picking someone to come and talk to us,” Jason said. Proving him right, two of the messengers broke off and started floating downwards.

“Alright, team,” Jason said. “Let’s not spook the hopefully nice baby angels.”

Shade disappeared into the void of Jason’s cloak, Colin dissolved into a blood mist that Jason absorbed and Gordon just vanished, Jason’s aura pulsing as he did. Jason looked at Jali.

“I’ll stay,” she told him.

“Good. Now just try and look like you know what you’re doing.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Which is when looking like you do is most important.”

Jali floated to Jason’s right and they hovered side by side to meet the pair of descending messengers. Jason pushed his hood back to show his face.

The messengers hovered in front of them, wings extended like Jali’s. Jason’s cloak floated out to his sides like the celestial wings of a star phoenix. The messenger pair showed no trace of elemental taint and wore diaphanous robes apparently conjured up by the transformation zone. One was female, with long dark hair, while the other was a sandy-haired male. Both had the statuesque proportions and exquisite features common to messengers. They glanced at Jali before locking their gazes on Jason.

“You are the ruler of this place,” the female messenger said.

“I am. My name is Jason Asano.”

“I… I should have a name,” the female messenger said, her expression breaking into confusion and fear. “I can feel that I should have a name, but something is wrong.”

“There is much you don’t know,” Jason said. “Yes, something has gone wrong and I know you have many questions. We have the answers you need.”

The two messengers looked at him with a mixture of wariness and hope.

“You are right that you should have a name,” Jali said.

“Then why don’t we?” the male messenger asked.

“We’ll go through everything,” Jason told them. “Some of it will be hard to hear, but we can answer your questions, and we will. But I think we should tell all of you together.”

He glanced up then back at the main messenger group, far above them, then back to the two in front of him. They shrank back, their nervousness almost startling coming from messengers.

“If you were hostile,” the female messenger said, “is there any place we could hide from you?”

“Perhaps,” Jason said. “There are many territories in this realm and, for now, I only possess this one.”

“We were going to belong to it,” she said. “To you. We could feel your influence being imprinted upon us, but then it stopped.”

“I apologise for that experience,” Jason said. “It is an unfortunate interaction between the nature of this place, the nature of your kind and the circumstances that brought all this about. I will explain it all. For now, just know that I intervened because I do not own people. I made sure that I have no intrinsic hold on you.”

“He has helped me in a similar way,” Jali said. “I was slave to another and he freed me, as he has freed you.”

“Yet you serve him?” the man asked.

“I… stand by him,” Jali said, prompting a sideways glance from Jason. “That is my choice.”

The woman continued staring at Jason.

“You are not of our kind,” she told him. “Yet, I feel something from you. When we awoke, there was an instinct to kneel. To acknowledge ourselves as less than you. But what you did, what you changed, it altered that instinct as well. I sense your power, but I’m no longer driven to obey it.”

“Good,” Jason said. “As I already told you, I don’t own people. It’s a personal policy that’s caused me more problems than it really should.”

He gestured to Jali.

“This is Jali Corrik Fen. I hope you will collect your people and wait with her while I go deal with some of the others who share this space with us. Then we can have a nice long talk.”