“Did elves exist, before the Descent?”
“Yes, but as wealthy socialites, ‘celebrities’ and ‘influencers,’ who manipulated the appearance of their bodies. It was fashionable at the time, for those who could afford it.”
“And chickens?”
“Chickens were chickens. Leave me alone now. I’m behind on my reading.”
The only subject the sorcerer persistently avoided answering was what he planned for the after times. After he killed God, after he restored the ‘laws of physics,’ where he’d be.What he would do. How life would continue for the man who structured everything around one transitory moment-to-come. It gnawed at me.
I also missed the old excitement of provoking his rage, and so tried my best to be a nuisance. Within reason, of course.
“Oh no, I’ve spilled flour everywhere,” I moaned over one communal breakfast. “I hope nobody punishes me. For spilling all this flour.”
“You can sweep that up later.” The sorcerer chewed another mouthful of egg. “As I was saying, the thing that perplexes me is how far it extends . . . I’ve been tracking star movements, and they match pre-Descent records. Larnia is caught in a stain of infection, but whether it’s spreading, or contained by some force, I have yet to determine. If it is only a singular planet that must be changed, that will greatly reduce the energy output requ—”
I dropped a plate. “Oh no! Clumsy me.”
“Are you bored? Am I boring you?” The sorcerer’s face turned red, his stone eye blazing. “Put voice to that, instead of assaulting my kitchenware.”
He finally caught on a couple of mornings later, after the fourth plate. “I’m not playing into your perversions,” the sorcerer said between nipping at his toast, as kitchen constructs arrived to carry away the plate shards. “If you succeed in drawing my anger, it will not be to your liking.”
I picked up another plate—and was flung, bodily, against a kitchen wall. Pinned by an invisible force, ladles clattering above my head, I watched the sorcerer approach in full mouth-twisted fury. That he nearly tripped over a chair did not ruin the effect for me.
“If you break another of my plates”—Merulo jabbed a finger at me, red blooming in his pale cheeks—“prepare to spend the remainder of this day hanging from chains.”
“Oh?” I said hopefully, ignoring the ladles that had settled atop my head.
“Stop that, stop smiling, you will not enjoy it. I know this with certainty, because you will be bored, Cameron—and more than anything else, you cannot stand to be bored.” The sorcerer looked satisfied with this pronouncement, a black-clad villain who had, at last, found the hero’s weakness. I grimaced.
“Now, I’m going to let you down.” Merulo spoke with the false patience of a teacher-priest. “And will you be harming more of my ceramics?”
I hung like a crucified saint from the kitchen brickwork, the sorcerer mere inches from me. The tingling thrill of it all compelled my honesty. “Absolutely.”
The sorcerer swore and slammed a hand into the wall beside my head, narrowly avoiding the ladles. “I am TRYING to be kind here.”
“Well, maybe you don’t have to be so kind,” I said, discreetly testing the forces that held me in place. Under the kitchen table, the constructs carried off the last shards of plate. “You know, it can be fun sometimes. To . . . not be nice to people. And here I am, with nothing much to do but clean. Maybe you could be not so nice to me.”
With the sorcerer so close, it was easy to hear his breathing change. “Is that right?”
“That is right.” I tried to lean my face closer, feeling a fantastic frustration at the pressure that held me prone.
“Well,” Merulo breathed, anger melting into somethingelse. “Then I will let you go. And if you smash another plate, just know that there will be . . . consequences.”
“Alrighty, then.” Abruptly, the force released me, and I fell forward, barely catching myself on the heels of my hands. The ladles clattered a final time, as if cursing their continued disturbance. In casual movements, under the sorcerer’s watching eye, I took the plate that held his remaining slice of toast and—feeling far too pleased with myself—frisbeed it into a wall.
When the eight-foot construct arrived to drag me from the kitchen and march me down the stone corridors, I struggled, once or twice, for effect.
We entered the room where I’d been interrogated so long ago, and the mad sorcerer broke character. “Er.” Merulo’s stone eye blazed, conspicuous in the dingy torchlit room. “Those aren’t adjusted for your current height, let m—”
“Oh, wicked deviant!” I interrupted, while the construct fiddled with the chains about my wrists. “Foul villain! You can violate my body, but you cannot violate my, uh . . . mind!”
From the extended pause, it was obvious I’d misspoken. With its handiwork complete, the construct clonked out of the room, tactfully closing the door behind it.
“In this scenario of yours, I’m the ‘foul villain’?” Merulo looked genuinely taken aback. “After you devastated my kitchenware? And that’s not the least of it, Cameron. You’ve been doing an exceedingly poor job at every assigned duty.”
I pulled at the chains awkwardly. “What’s wrong with my cleaning? Haven’t you noticed all the vulture dung is gone?”
“Wonderful. And you’ve figured out how to remove the dust, but why must everything be sticky?” The wrong sortof passion was entering his voice. “And you misplace items. Constructs have limited intelligence. If you put something in a strange location, it confounds them. They cannot complete their tasks.”
