Caswell had his boots up on a rail that was probably worth more than his town and was working a roasted bird down to the bone. He tossed a stripped thighbone over the edge, watched it drop the long way to the floor, and reached for the next one.
"You know they can see us up here," Beth said.
"Good. Let 'em watch a man eat." He wiped his fingers on a napkin with gold thread run through the weave, looked at the napkin a moment, and used it again. "Nicest room anyone's ever been fool enough to let me into."
Renna wasn't listening to any of them. She stood in the far corner with her neck craned back and one hand flat to the wall, following a band of carving up the pillar until it climbed past the light.
"These carvings are beautiful, I just wonder what the story is about," she whispered to herself. "These are the same characters, but they changed it here.” She tapped the stone twice. "Who does that?"
"Nobody who had to pay the mason," Caswell said.
Josh had found the only two chairs set close together and installed himself and Beth in them like they'd bought tickets. One arm along the back of hers, some kind of drink he made himself with the bar at the rear, and they were browsing the catalog together.
"That one's a magic hat," he said. "2 gold. Makes you taller."
"It's a helmet, babe."
He looked at her, confused. "Who would wear a purple helmet? That's the worst color."
Beth smiled, and she leaned into his side.
Cora had claimed the bench along the back wall, her head tipped against Caldwell's shoulder and her hands folded on the swell of her belly. Beth crossed to her, Caldwell's wife, as Josh was pulled into a conversation with Mark and Parker.
"You're supposed to be home with your feet up," Beth said. "Being sensible."
"Oh please. I’ve done this twice before. I'm allowed a night out." Cora took Beth's hand and set it flat on her belly without asking. "Sensible is for women who don't get to sit in a room like this. Nothing is sensible now. Feel this."
Beth placed her hand on her belly and smiled. "There he is."
"She," Cora said. "Caldwell swears it's a girl, so it's a boy; he’s never guessed right." Her face softened. "I feel young in here, Beth. Isn't that a stupid thing to say out loud? Must be all the mana in the air." She pressed Beth's hand flatter. "There he goes again."
Harold stood at the rail and left them to it as he looked out over the auction hall. He had never been this high in the tiers before. The view…was breathtaking. An example of wealth and power and prestige. The system knew how to show off.
Below and across the curve of the block, the other galleries hung out over the floor, and he watched the people file in. Most held their people in rows, standing or seated by rank, a lord at the front and the alliance arranged behind by whatever order they ran on. He also noted that nobody in those boxes had their boots on the rail or talking about purple helmets. Though Josh might have a point about that one for once.
Margaret came up onto his shoulder. "I wish there was a way for people to come back with us from this. It would solve so many of our transportation problems.” She sighed, then pointed. “The northern bloc is three galleries down. They've been looking at us since we arrived."
Harold glanced over at them. "I was wondering where they were. Not as many as I thought there would be."
"The one straight across hasn't looked once." She didn't lift a hand toward it. "I find that more interesting."
A knock came at the archway at the back of the box, knuckles against the frame, and the talk in the gallery fell off.
A man stood in the arch with one hand on the stone and didn't come any farther than that. Gray under the eyes, gray at the jaw. His coat was good, cut for a man used to being obeyed, and he wore it as if it were five hundred pounds.
Parker and Garrick quickly walked to the door, then stopped and looked back. Caswell looked over from his chair. Josh had gone quiet in his. The whole box put the same question to Harold without a word in it: this one, in or out.
Harold knew him. He had wondered when something like this would happen. He was both looking forward to it and dreading this.
He kept it off his face, set his cup on the rail, and turned.
He crossed the gallery and put his arm out. "You spent authority getting in here. I wonder how you figured that trick out."
"A lord may walk into another lord's box. I read the small print." The grip was dry, firm, and worn through. "My name is Reyes Jubilee. I speak for the Concord, out west of you, I believe. I won't pretend the crossing was easy. That was miserable."
It hadn't. Harold had spent authority promoting people to knight, and he knew how exhausting it could be. Reyes had burned a real piece of himself to walk here.
He also knew who Reyes was.
On Earth, he had been a captain in the Spanish navy, middle of the ladder, competent and passed over for promotion to admiral. Last time around, he'd finished it, holding four regions in his fist, the largest stack of path books any lord had ever amassed.
Harold was responsible for making sure some of his people snaked the perks this man’s people had gotten last time. The first dungeon clear had been done by this man. He'd been called practical to the bone and a great friend to the race, a man who'd burn anything down to keep humanity standing.
Sarah had taken perks that were meant for Reyes's wife. She had been famed for hunting monsters affiliated with the wind so she could stack as many wind-related perks as possible, then had collected perk combination tokens to combine as many of those as possible. She could summon tornadoes and throw wind blades that could cut through city walls. Powerful was an understatement.
None of that reached Harold's face. He made certain of it. Reyes was no mere representative of the Concord. He ran the dam thing.
"Sit before you fall down," Harold said.
Someone slid a chair under Reyes, and he lowered into it and let his eyes go around the room, over Caswell's bootprints on the rail, and Josh feeding Beth lies about helmets and Cora snuggling with Caldwell in one of the corners.
"Well, your box is warmer than mine," Reyes said. "All of us are standing around being annoyingly formal with each other." He took a cup Margaret handed to him. "Yours put their feet up," he said, tipping the drink to Caswell. “I much prefer the vibe over here.”
Harold snorted. "I’m not much for formality. It has its place. I’ll take competence any day of the week."
"That's the thing I came to see, more or less." He turned the cup, peering into it before taking a sip. "We've no quarrel, your Landing and my Concord. Whole width of humanity laid out between us. No border to fight over, no river to split down the middle." He said it plainly, a reasonable man saying a reasonable thing. "Two men building in opposite directions. I’m here on behalf of my alliance leader to talk about our expansions."
They talked. Reyes was good at it, the banter flowing between them, and he asked after the Basin developments, and they compared progress. Talked about the new galleys and the dwarves; the man was easy to talk to. He would give that much. It was easy to see how he had pulled people into this orbit and built one of the strongest alliances in his last life. So he gave him small, true things and watched how he reacted to them all. Behind Harold's shoulder Margaret stood and said nothing.
"Can I ask you something plain?" Harold said, "seeing as we're being plain."
"Hmm, so now we get to the real talks. Question for a question? That's the whole idea."
"You first, then." Harold turned the cup a slow half-circle on the rail as Reyes sat. "How many lords in your Concord keep slaves?"
Reyes's face stayed blank. An innocent man's face would have moved, a real laugh, a blink, a beat of honest confusion. His face held flat.
"That's your plain question? Strange question that." He settled deeper into the chair. "The alliance is over one hundred Lords, Calder; he doesn't go auditing their households."
At Harold's shoulder Margaret went still. When he saw the edge of her face, she was frowning.
And that was where he started to lose it. He knew this man. He had made him so so sososososososososos many potions.
His aura escaped and he barely contained it before it lashed out against anyone in the room, and when he looked at Reyes, he saw no longer a tired man in a good coat.
Caswell's boots came off the rail. Cora's chin lifted from Caldwell's shoulder in concern. Every one of his people felt it land at once, the cold arithmetic of it, the sense of being weighed and sorted and priced against a use, and Reyes felt it worst.
He saw a yield. Something to weigh and render down, to open up and see what came loose. Not a man anymore. Stock on the bench. Wasn’t that what they had made him?
Harold breathed out once and pressed it back down. Rebuilt the wall. Rebuilt the dam. Pushed the memories inside the man's face brought up.
Reyes had set his cup down at some point without meaning to. "My turn, I'd think," he said, and the ease was gone, and the man Harold remembered was being revealed. "You've a way of—"
"Your Concord's been at war with other humans since you organized." Harold rolled over him without lifting his voice. "Lord on lord, west of your divide." He tipped his head. "And once tonight's done and everyone's home admiring their new toys, you've a campaign drawn up. A thorough one where you bring war to several regions of lords at once, all of it on a clock." He set the cup down without a sound. "You came here on behalf of your alliance leader. So carry him a question from me. Ask him how he squares it. Humanity bleeding out in three directions against the things in the dark, and his best plan for the winter is to spend it killing the neighbors."
Reyes stood up, shock plain on his face. The last of the tiredness burned off him between breaths.
"How do you know that?" Reyes whispered furiously. "That plan has only been revealed to the most trusted. Who do you have inside my Concord—"
He caught himself with the sentence half out of him. My Concord. Not the leader's.
Harold held on him a moment longer, weighing him, turning him over once more on the slate. Then he set the whole thing down and stepped back off it.
He drew the aura back into himself, all of it this time, and the warmth came up around them again. Reyes was a tired man in a good coat once more, and far smaller than he'd walked in.
He sighed as he turned away. Because that was the answer. The man was more concerned about playing games. He wasn't a contender for the great game. Of all the people that had visited him. Reyes had been the nicest of the worst people. But that was a spectrum. The man had just been more concerned about what he could get from him. And he would get more from him if he wasn't cut up and abused.
Harold sighed, honest and let down.
"I'd hoped for more out of you," he said. "You could do near anything. You've got the tools sitting right there in your hands, and you're spending them to win a knife fight in a burning house." He got to his feet and looked out past the rail to the floor, where the first lot was rolling into the light, and a hush was climbing the tiers toward them. "Go home, Reyes Jubilee. Go play petty warlord. Go kill your fellow humans and play your games. I’ll be coming for you."
"Calder—"
"Beware the Deep Dark this winter." He said. "The mana will rise after this auction. Things start coming up out of the earth that were content down there. You'll want your adventurers home and rested for that. Not scattered for your warplan." He turned his head. "That's the one free thing you get from me tonight, and it's worth more than the thing you came for. Now go. You walked into the one room of friends, and you most certainly are not one."
Reyes looked at him. Then he looked around the gallery and found every face in it already turned his way; Parker and Garrick stared at him. Margaret was frowning at him through her glasses.
Caswell spoke up over his pint. “He said to leave, mate.” He nudged Fitch and Maren. “Look at this cu— kicked out the club”
None of the faces were warm now. Frowns surrounded the man.
He stood, slower than he'd sat, set the cup on the arm of the chair, and gave a formal bow.
"Lord Calder."
Then he was through the archway, and Harold knew it would cost him authority to get back as well.
For a breath, nobody said anything.
Caswell put his boots back up on the rail. "Well. Barrel of laughs, that one."
Josh dragged a hand down his face. "Jeez, Harold. Keep that thing contained. Did anyone else just feel like a side of beef getting priced, or was that a me thing?"
"Be nice, Josh; that man was obviously known to him," Beth said.
"Great. Real fun houseguest." He reached back for his drink. "He's off the game night list."
Harold picked his cup up off the rail. Down on the floor, the auctioneer had climbed the block, tall and gray and four-armed like the clerks at the gate; however, he was wearing a tuxedo, and the light was gathering onto the first lot. A few thousand of the best humanity had left were waiting in anticipation.
"Alright," Harold said. "Here we go."