Isabella

Our brief walk took us between a number of alleyways, and I suspected the Old Gambler led me in this confusing way as a measure of intimidation, trying to make me feel uneasy in those small, maze-like streets. We hardly spoke until we reached an unassuming entrance to what I presumed was a pub and were hurried into a private room by a pale middle-aged man who stuttered upon seeing the old Devil.

It was a muffled and quiet little dining-room, the sort where the place feels less claustrophobic and more cozy. Six candles burned on the table and were the only source of light in the room. They had opened the windows to let some air into the room, but closed the heavy, red curtains for the sake of privacy. Outside, the light rain still raged against a dusk that was something between orange and purple.

It was this setting that prepared me for that otherworldly tale. Ever since I was a child, I wondered about my grandfather’s past, his background. Now I know more and yet feel like I know less. Enlighten me, Devil.

“Gods and swords!” the Gambler had declared, raising a glass of wine. “These are the only romantic dreams becoming of individuals of taste.” He stared at me very intently. “Do you dream, my lady?”

A curving breeze with a scent of rain invaded the room—a most polite intruder—and pushed the candle-flames before they flickered back into place. Our shadows moved at this, as if taken aback, but my body remained still.

“Dream? When asleep?”

“No, when awake.”

“Of course not.”

“There was a young man on Earth a long time ago,” said the Gambler rather nostalgically, “who dreamed of much more than his life would allow him. He was born on a peaceful Earth, but he wished to be a knight, living on the edge of his own blade. The man did not desire simple violence, for he abhorred guns, but rather the romanticized idea of entrusting your life to a sword. You see the issue in his dream, of course”—and here he grinned, before returning to seriousness—“but the fact is the man was quite competent at achieving his dream and he tangled with gods. Behold!” The Gambler opened his arms wide. “The result of his dreams.”

“Are you talking about Johan?”

The Gambler laughed loudly, slapping his own knees and producing a thunderous sound. “Ha! It does appear that way, does it not? But Johan is hardly the first man to dream of such things. No. Allow me to tell you more. You will not understand most of it, but by the grace of the real God, I will tell you.”

He pulled on a string attached to a bell and spoke no more until our table was cleared and fresh drinks were served. Then, adjusting the time on his pocket watch with concentration, the man pulled his chair up forward, put his elbows on the table and rested his face over his intertwined fingers. His sword, a faint imitation of the one I had stolen, was propped up against his chair.

“Outside of the city of Lamego, in Portugal, which is some odd one hundred and thirty kilometres from Porto, there was a curious young man. He was a dreamer, much like other young men, but he was not driven to dreaming. Elaboration, hear me now, lady! You often see youngsters dreaming of a more romantic time, where they would be allowed to display their true talents, unleashed by society’s cruel shackles. Truthfully, of course, they would have been just as useless in a different time.

“Francisco was different. He was a masterful poet but also an accomplished mathematician: a man loved by both the arts and the sciences, praised by fans and professors alike. Careful now! I note he was loved by them, not that he loved them, and here is the start of our sin. Francisco’s talent was considerable but it did not bring him happiness. Often, I—a visiting student from England—would find him sitting under the same tree, looking out into the ocean.”

“ ‘Why are you always looking at the ocean?’ I asked him back then.

“It was good that I was blessed with patience because the reply did not come quickly. Francisco regarded the ocean before us with eyes unlike the ones he blessed the world. To everyone else his depression was more than unknown, it was an impossibility—the graceful, joyful, polite young man? Why, he was the happiest of us all! But for whatever reason, he was always more honest with me. Many moments later, without taking his tired eyes from the ocean, he told me, ‘The ocean is yet unexplored. Looking at it, I can believe, if only for a second, that there exists a life unlike the one we are forced to live here.’”

Here the Gambler paused to smile at me. “Do you follow?”

Strangely, I did. The names of those places that should have sounded new to me sparked distant memories, a faint recognition I could not place. The voices started to speak but I forcibly silenced them. This was my moment of truth, not theirs. Isabella would hear and Isabella would think—not Reason or Muscles or what the devil have you. “Speak, Devil, or I will kill you.”

“I know that is no idle threat,” he muttered, a sense of dark humour about him. “Very well, I shall.”

“Francisco was a man of much talent but little time. He was often busy with either professional or private—the nature of which shall become clear in due time—research. Few interests held his interest, except for one: swordsmanship, but even then with a caveat. While he was enamoured with stories of old knights of yore, he was very unimpressed by what actual swordsmanship was. He was a cold and rational man, but occasionally he would rant about the nature of sword fights.

“Remember this! He loved tales of swords and duellists, but he himself had very little understanding of the art. More a fan than a practitioner. This will be relevant later.

“ ‘Why is it that the greatest swordsman in the world has to fear the weakest?’ Francisco had shouted one time. ‘Shouldn’t they win every time? This is frankly unacceptable.’ Sword fights, as I am sure you of all people understand, are not won by the stronger swordsman every time. Nay! Many things are to be considered. Much like a person’s height varies depending on the time of day, so too does their skill. A less skilled swordsman may simply catch their better rival during a bad day or simply score a lucky strike to achieve complete superiority. Good swordsmanship means high percentage swordsmanship—even the world’s greatest swordsman fears dying in a match against a lesser swordsman.

“Francisco thought this abominable. He wanted things to be absolute, perfect to the number—and sports were hardly such things. He loved them but he also hated them: when a sporting result was different than his prediction he found it absurd, sacrilegious even. There was an oddity to his general behaviour: he was fixated on that which nobody cared about and cared nothing about what everybody loved. Would you believe that he turned down not only professional awards but also financial rewards for reasons known only to himself?

“It was for this reason that I was not entirely surprised when I entered his laboratory one night and saw his most horrifying discovery. I managed to keep a steady expression in spite of his revelations. That is, until…”

“Until?” I prompted at his sudden pause. Curiosity was such that at this point I contemplated attacking him to force faster responses.

The Gambler was silent for a long while.

Then, suddenly, as if released from invisible restraints, he exhaled deeply and smiled wickedly. “Until he told me, in an excited tone, that his invention—I had little understanding of what kind of invention a mathematician would have created, but later I learned this was but one of his specialties—had made contact with someone. Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight, something would have been more fitting.

“This wasn’t the first time they had spoken to him, he told me, but his excitement had grown such that he had to share it with someone and he had chosen me for such honour.

“A word of elaboration is warranted regarding my relationship with the man—he scarcely had any friends but he was, if not fond, then oddly more tolerant of my presence than just about anybody else. I attribute this to my gift for listening and knowing when to limit my questions. From my part, it was fascinating to spend time with the perfect genius. He shone brightly, you understand. I was just someone hoping to catch some of that light.

“And that night I caught it, oh I caught it! He looked at me, with the excitement of a small child during Christmas and said, ‘I have been in communication with beings from a different physical realm than ours.’ He did not tell me the contents of his communications but he did show me enough for me to verify that they did exist in some form.”

Suddenly the Gambler laughed and studied me for a reaction. When he saw I gave him nothing, he went on, “He did not tell anyone else but me about his discovery. At first I thought him mad or merely mistaken—surely there was a more logical explanation for the messages he had been receiving? Yet as time went on he received more and more messages, until that night. When the message, the only one he allowed me to read, came in the form of a question.”

DO YOU WANT TO BECOME A GOD?

“Without hesitation, Francisco sent a single reply.”

YES

“That is when we died,” the Gambler said. His voice up until now had a storybook quality to it, as if enticing me to the unknown, yet here his presentation faltered and bitterness surfaced, albeit only slightly. His smile was still present and you would need careful eyes to notice its wryness. “His machine exploded and we woke up in a white void, nude but injured.

“My first thought was that an accident had occurred and we had gone to the afterlife. I was wrong and right at the same time.

“’Fear not,’ Francisco had said. ‘Everything has gone as planned. This is within calculations.’

“My shock back then could not be understated, but hindsight allows me to understand what happened.”

“Francisco, you see, through some manner managed to reach out to otherworldly beings with his own cleverness. During their talks, he was invited to participate in a game that would take place away from our planet. Naturally, he agreed, and took me with him for reasons I never managed to ascertain. We didn’t simply die, he killed us in a very special way so we would end up in that white void.”

I raised my hand as if in a lecture. “You mentioned earlier—he won the game?”

The Gambler nodded. “That he did. The game’s conditions were simple: twenty geniuses and their friends were thrown into a world and asked to compete in achieving certain objectives. We were generally given a week to accomplish each goal, and those who failed to accomplish it would be erased from existence. After succeeding enough times Francisco was offered the position of Godhood. They put something inside his chest and he became one of them.”

“Godhood,” I muttered. “What does that mean exactly?”

“We came to this world many hundreds of years ago. Immortality was one of the first rules Francisco created, mind you. Or rather, I should say he is truly immortal. I merely cannot age.

“I remember still, looking down upon this new world with Francisco, at his innocent smile, with the same eyes he once regarded the ocean back on Earth. He kept a stiff upper lip, with tears running down his face. I felt like a proud father then, as if my son had grown over night. Pride was almost enough for me to forget what he had done during the game.”

The Gambler said nothing here but his smile faded as he leaned his forehead against his intertwined fingers and looked down. I needed no voice—from him or within myself—to tell me what that meant. Francisco had committed some form of betrayal during the game to win it. “Then he started enacting his Rules?”

He nodded. “He first enacted the Rule of Swordsmanship. Then, after careful consideration, he enacted a single rule that encompassed sixty-four different [Skills]. After some more thought, the man made it so that [Skills] could be increased but not [Swordsmanship] and he devised the [Levelling Sphere] system to ensure a functioning, if frankly bizarre economy.

“One needs goods and services. Well, you may use [Skills] to provide such goods and services, like shoemaking and masonry. But to improve your [Skills] you need a [Levelling Sphere] which you may only acquire by winning a duel—making those with high [Swordsmanship] very important, as high levels of it increase the capability of the resulting [Levelling Sphere]. Francisco created a world where not only swordsmanship ruled, but it ruled as he had imagined it should—with hardly any upsets, where the strong always defeated the weak.”

“Are his Rules unbreakable?” I asked.

“Extremely so. He cannot even break Rules he wants to break once they have been made. He went on shaping the world as he wished—creating a facsimile of Portugal in some ways, adding Roman inspiration in others, though the world remained mostly Portuguese. An early Rule imposed the language on certain regions of the world. As a twisted favour to me, he did the same for my British roots, and created what you will know as the Terra Inglesa, including the kingdom of Inglaterra and some lands currently under possession of the Lustobritanio Empire, such as Cresna.

“There were people present back then, of course. Most of them adapted to his Rules. The ones who didn’t ended up going somewhere else—Rules have a limited, if large range. His have a much larger range than mine, of course, and can overrule them. You know the limitation of my petty Rules, of course.”

It was hard to forget—I had established that quite well during our little experiment. Four to five steps near me seemed to keep his Rules from working, for whatever reason. That was is range. Anything more than that and he would have escaped my attempts at murder quite a bit sooner than that.

“Francisco’s Rules cover a large part of the world. The areas he did not cover he isolated: he created Rules making the oceans unruly and isolating them. You would be most familiar with the Araenses from Razil, I believe, though there are other communities without [Skills] hidden around the world. But I digress.

“For a long time I quieted down a raging fury in my heart. I admired the man and tried to convince myself this was enough not to resent him—but he ripped me out of my beautiful life back on Earth and I know in my heart of hearts that I can never go back to it. Sometimes I wonder if he made a Rule ensuring I cannot do so. His Rules were rarely cruel from his perspective, but they caused pain nonetheless, and slowly I came to the conclusion he should be ousted from his Godhood. This was, you understand, a difficult goal to achieve.

“One of the duties he gave me was the recruitment of powerful swordsmen: an early Rule of his was that understanding of swordsmanship on Earth could be translated to [Swordsmanship] upon arrival given they paid a price heavy enough to showcase their dedication to his ideals. I was, therefore, given a few Rules.

CHARLES CANNOT AGE

CHARLES CAN TRAVEL TO OTHER WORLDS

CHARLES CAN SUMMON OTHERS TO THIS WORLD IF THEY PAY THE PRICE

CHARLES CAN TELEPORT BACK TO ANYWHERE HE WAS TWENTY-FOUR HOURS IN THE PAST

CHARLES CANNOT PHYSICALLY HARM FRANCISCO

CHARLES CANNOT LIE TO FRANCISCO

CHARLES CAN LOWER A PERSON’S [SWORDSMANSHIP] WHILE MAINTAINING EYE CONTACT.

THOSE CHARLES BRINGS INTO THE WORLD WILL HAVE THEIR [SWORDSMANSHIP] GENERATED BY THEIR INNATE SWORD SKILL AND THE SACRIFICES THEY ACCOMPLISHED.

CHARLES CAN CREATE RULES RELATING TO OUTWORLDERS BUT THEY CEASE FUNCTIONING BEFORE A BEING FROM THE WORLD CONTROLLED BY FRANCISCO.

“This last rule is especially important—you will remember you managed to corner me before. Well! I am an outworlder, and you are from a world controlled by Francisco—if only partially. But we get ahead of ourselves, we will come back to that soon enough. These Rules made me quite good at my job and I set aside to looking for swordsmen across history to steal—time was hardly an issue with our powers—at first following Francisco’s intention—certain kings can trace back their lineage back to Earth—but eventually for my own reasons. To kill Francisco and depose him.

“I could not harm him myself, but surely I could find someone, somewhere, somewhen, to fight him. Yet this proved a failed endeavour. You understand, most swordsmen tried too hard to be heroic and were killed before even being able to meet the man. There were two exceptions and I owe you to talk of the first. Duartes, a Portuguese man who was an unusually talented world champion fencer.”

“My grandfather,” I said slowly. My grandfather was brought into my world for the purpose of killing God. “He refused the attempt altogether?”

“That he did. Instead, he used his talents to win enough money to retire and lived a happy, long life. With his [Levelling Spheres] he extended his life as well—by my count, the man should be 120 years old.”

Grandfather is alive. I know this. Just wait for me a bit longer. “And the second?”

“Johan. When I saw him on Earth, when I heard him talk about his dreams and aspirations…by the gods, when he smiled so innocently and projected that horrifying aura…he reminded me of Francisco. At the time I knew he could accomplish what I wanted him to do. I took no pleasure in watching him pay the Steel Price, I assure you, but it had to be done—”

“It must be so convenient to convince yourself that your atrocities had to be done,” I said dryly. “How many people paid the Steel Price because of you?”

“That—“

“—is your sin and you shall carry it until someone decides you should pay it with your life.”

“Indeed,” he agreed. “But until then, allow me to clear as much of it as I can, eh?”

He cleared his throat. “Johan was my god and my devil. His arrival on this world was perfect and yet it horrified me. At first his swordsmanship, his sheer genius and competence made me confident he would finally be the one to oust Francisco from his throne. I did not know how one could kill a God and yet Johan seemed eerily capable of such an act. Heavens, he appeared to relish the thought of being allowed such action. And then, as time went on, it dawned on me:

“Johan would be a worse God even than Francisco.”

It was here that the Gambler, that the Devil appeared extremely human, tired. He opened his mouth and an awkward sound came out, as if he was trying out for the right words and failing at every turn. “Understanding my mistake, I turned back to Francisco and told him of my treachery. He did not seem offended but he arranged for Johan to be killed—offended he was not, but displeased he was. He plucked out an unassuming man of similar thoughts to himself from Earth and dropped him here, under the assumption that my methods of looking for real swordsmen were flawed and that one should focus more on the mindset, which he believed to be correct—that you should believe swordsmanship to be a more numerical affair, rather than an athletic endeavour.”

“Fedal,” I whispered softly.

“Correct. He gave Fedal low Swordsmanship] upon arrival—remember, he could not go back on his own rules! [Swordsmanship] upon arrival was determined by your knowledge of swords in your home world—and with another Rule gave him his special [Skill], the one called [Heroic Rising]. He assumed that someone with large enough stats would surely defeat Johan, but, well…”

I remembered our duel against Johan—Carr, myself, Fedal and Valle had fought him and it was only through Valle’s miraculous bravery that we managed to escape with our lives. “That didn’t happen.”

“Johan’s numbers were higher than Fedal’s back then, but it is my sincere belief that he would never lose regardless—you have witnessed Carr’s strength there. Nay, this has a far deeper root: Francisco doesn’t understand sword fighting, remember? When he set the Rules for [Swordsmanship] the magic came at costs of his phrasing: increase in speed did not mean an increase in recovery, explosions happened only when a swing reached its intended target, and high numbers did not translate to having an understanding of how fights actually worked. This was because Francisco, albeit a genius, was very much a childish creature when it came to such matters. Every weak point Carr—and Johan—exploited regarding the [Swordsmanship] system came by because of these fragile Rules. Speed does not increase range, power can be negated due to leverage: it all comes from Francisco’s poor phrasing upon establishing the rules, and they can no longer be changed.”

“Johan decided he wanted to kill God and take his place…but you no longer want that.”

“I do not.” He shook his head. “I do not think so, anyhow. My feelings are complicated, you understand. Francisco has his fair share of flaws and to say I hold a grudge against him would be understating the matter, yet Johan…the man is somehow worse.”

「REASON」

This explains Johan’s arrival. Duarte’s arrival. Fedal’s arrival. It explains much, and yet…

「SPOTLIGHT」

WHAT ABOUT US?

“You mentioned earlier, a long time ago…that my current state came by because his powers were mixed with yours?”

“I did not waste these last few hundred years,” he said through quiet laughter. “Far from it! Hear me now. I attempted to use Rules Francisco imposed on me as well as whatever faint power I had in me and—yes, the Steel Price—to create my own [Levelling Spheres]. It seemed possible, at the time, that if I could destroy the basis with which Francisco controlled this world, I could…” He shook his head. “Well, you understand, yes? You are at the same time an outworlder and a native to this land—Francisco’s Rules run through you, but then, so do mine. I was not ready for the result. Even my powers stopped mattering near you, Lady Isabella, for you were at once a being with my powers and with Francisco’s.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” I started. “What—what are those voices?” I did not expect my own stutter; I had suppressed the fear in the question.

Because part of me already knew the answer.

“Come with me,” the Devil said grimly.

He stood up with a swift gesture, but he walked slowly toward the door. Abruptly he stopped, hand on the door handle, and he turned round to look at me with a serious expression. “Once we step through this door, you may come to regret it.”

“Where does it lead?”

“To the bank that keeps the payments made in Steel.”

“Lead me.”

That the door should only have led back into the pub did not even come as a concern to me. The slow creak fastened my heartbeat, and the wooden door gave way into something I dared not look at. My eyes were closed and at some point I had begun to sweat. Gently, the Devil took my hand and accompanied me as we took a step into this world. The sound of a closing door behind me felt desperate, and at that moment I wanted to return. All I had to do was open my eyes.

Yet when my eyes opened, I still saw nothing.

It was not merely dark, it was void. Even at night, your eyes adjust, even without light you may perceive shapes. Here there was nothing but an absolute blackness that surpassed darkness itself. Are my eyes open? Are they closed? I can’t tell.

“Hello?” I spoke out loud, but I could not hear my own voice. Sound too was shrouded in darkness.

I became more aware of my own heartbeat. Then, the sound of my lungs. My stomach. Finally, even the sound of my blood coursing through my veins, a screechy sort of jetting sound haunted my ears. “STOP IT!” I cried out, but I didn’t hear my own voice. Had I truly screamed? Were my eyes open? Am I even alive? Would I be able to tell?

“We are here,” the Gambler said. “Look ahead of you.”

At his voice and guidance I could now hear. The absolute darkness remained, but I could now see my own body, as if unaffected by it. Before the two of us, in that terrifying void, I saw a number of vines, and they moved. Like a ball of serpents wrapped around themselves, I could not begin to guess what lied at the centre of each collection of vines. By my estimate, there were two dozens of spherical vines floating in that endless void. “What’s at the centre of those things?” I dared ask.

“Souls,” he replied sadly. “Or what remains of them. The Steel Price does not simply kill someone, but it shatters their souls in thousands of pieces, so they may never even reach the afterlife. Some of those pieces go inside the person who paid the price—the others…what remains…they stay here.”

“Then—the voices—are they…?”

“They are an amalgamation of all of those who have paid the price before. A connection to their memories, thoughts and dreams. They are not alive nor can they ever be brought back. Each voice is a different connection to a different state, a different combination of feelings and knowledge.”

I looked at the vines. They snaked around, eternally moving. If I were to cut them apart, would I find anything beneath? Would I find the twisted remains of a person beneath it all? “Does it hurt?” I asked. “Does it hurt for them to—to be like that?”

“Yes,” the Devil replied softly. “Every day is torture for them. Destined to remain incomplete, unable to move on to the afterlife.”

“Is there…is there a way to—”

“Destroy the vines,” he replied noncommittally. “They should be able to move on after that.”

“That—that’s it?” I asked. “Then why haven’t you done that?”

He looked at me sadly. “If I do that, you will stop hearing the voices in your head, that is true. But that might also means you will lose the powers you got from me, our connection forever severed. I cannot tell you for sure what will happen if you do so. Do you think you have the power to save your grandfather without it?”

I looked at the vines.

I wouldn’t.

I knew that better than anyone.

But it wasn’t just my decision to make.

「REASON」

We suffered this much. Let us kill Johan before we disappear.

「FENCING」

Death won’t stop me from getting a rematch with him. Johan always took me lightly. Time to show it to him.

「SPOTLIGHT」

We won’t go out on this anticlimactic note. One last show before we are gone.

「WINNING」

We will do anything for victory.

「FLEXIBILITY」

There is no need to end it this quickly. Let’s think it over carefully…even if I don’t want to suffer for any longer than I have to.

「MUSCLES」

I WILL WALK BAREFOOT IN HELL IF THAT’S WHAT IT TAKES TO KILL JOHAN!

“I believe I have made my decision,” I told him.

Yet the relief brought about a concerning question. If they had said they wanted death, would I have allowed them such?