She knows I'm an Incursor. Skylar's blood immediately ran cold; this was incredibly dangerous. I need to keep my cool. "Who are you?" he shot back immediately. "How do I know I can trust anything you say?"
For a moment, the woman's eyes became distant, and Skylar glimpsed a complex answer buried deeply within; then, almost as quickly, they snapped back into focus. "My name is Amara," she replied coolly, "and you shouldn't trust me. But you need information, and I'm the only source you can ask right now. It's good that you're being cautious, but we don't have much time." Skylar grimaced, acknowledging the truth of her words. All the more reason to choose my next words carefully.
I can't afford to do this. She might know the answers from other sources, and admitting I'm an Incursor might definitely come back to bite me. It's safer if I just let it be an implication between us.
Now we're getting somewhere. But I need to make sure talking at all is a good idea first. Skylar pondered for a moment, then looked into her eyes again; he was surprised to see her jolt back a little, then meet his gaze resolutely. Weird. "You might not be trustworthy in the traditional sense, but I need to know that our goals are aligned at least in some way for me to trust anything you say. Ignorance might be better than misinformation."
Immediately, the girl calling herself Amara nodded. "Good, you're thinking. The answer is that I need you alive, at least for now, and you getting caught as an Incursor -- or a suspected Incursor, if you want to play it that way -- rapidly diminishes the chances of that. Asking stupid questions like 'where's the sun' that are the local equivalent of 'what's air' is not a good way for us to maintain that state of affairs."
Skylar nodded. "Okay, then, let's start with that. Why did people get all bent out of shape when I talked about the sun?"
Amara turned away, looking at nothing in particular, and crossed her arms. "First, we have to talk about Gram and Lucia. The short version is that the gods are very real here -- and Lucia, the goddess of Light, is a little bit on her back foot right now because Gram stole the sun about a hundred years ago."
Skylar's blood went cold. "That's ludicrous. The planet would freeze." Skek, are we even on a planet? "Corfsmot like this is not a great start to getting me to believe you," he warned.
"Don't be a krepnak," she retorted, spinning back around to face him. "Only the visible light spectra are blocked -- from what I can tell, everything's downshifted to infrared somehow by the time it reaches us. So there's still enough heat and radiation reaching us that most things can survive, although obviously photosynthesis isn't as viable in this situation. But it's obviously not a global effect; we still get visible light from the moon."
Skylar frowned, then began to pace; he wanted to ask about moon phases, but didn't know if they were a thing here. Maybe the moon is always full? Can that be a thing in a real planetary system?
Interesting. So either this is some kind of weird magic cosmology, or the laws of physics are different here, or something else. Skylar nodded to himself. "I'm guessing Gram is the god of Darkness, then, and most of the people who have to exist in a now-sunless world are not big fans of that." I guess I have to trust her at least a little -- I can't hedge every word I say.
"Right." Amara crossed her arms again and looked away. "The general consensus is that there's a war between Gram and Lucia, and Gram is winning -- a point of view that's not popular with Lucia's followers, which is pretty much everybody who's self-righteous or deluded."
"A perennially influential segment of the population," Skylar agreed. "And so anybody who even looks like they might be on Gram's side is trouble -- even if it's just wearing clothing that goes with everything." He pursed his lips. "I'm also guessing that all the drotz-bags of society are quick to flock to Gram, then, for free and easy power."
Amara blinked, and tilted her head. "You don't think that's smart?"
I could make some deals with demons, Skylar thought, smirking a little. "No, I think it sounds like an awesome deal," he clarified, "but I don't know where to sign up or what it costs. And those aren't decisions I should make blindly."
The young woman -- well, she looks young, anyway -- sniffed. "You're out of the woods there. The gods here don't traffic in souls -- they want foot soldiers. You sign up with Gram or Lucia, they'll pay you in Arts -- and you can even change your mind later, although pissing off a literal almighty god is not usually a good career move. But a few people have done it."
Skylar filed that away for the future -- I can probably get Aymon or Levan to tell me what Arts are -- and changed tactics. "The other thing that seems to keep getting me in trouble is not knowing what a Zuzan is. Is that their word for 'human', or something?" She doesn't necessarily know I've heard them also use the word 'human' separately, so this might be a good angle to get differentiation.
Amara shook her head. "Zuza is a city -- was a city -- where the inhabitants were famous for being liars. They're basically just calling you an untrustworthy miscreant as a cultural reference." Skylar's eyes narrowed slightly. She knows that they refer to me as 'Zuzan', so that means she's been listening to our conversations at least some of the time. I have to assume she's overheard or seen anything since I arrived here. "Cities in general are kind of a sore subject for Lucians -- most of the nations and governments have fallen since the Obscurum, so there are now only a handful of city-states left. Gavispar is one of the few that's still standing -- that's where they're taking you."
Skylar nodded, trying to keep his emotions off his face. "Okay. What's next, then? What do you need from me?"
"For now, just stay alive; but you'll need some type of way to protect yourself soon." She looked at the floor and shook her head. "You can't count on the Alvatri and the Loathborn to protect you all the time, even if you do make friends with them; but I also know that you'll be suspicious of any help I try to give you, so it's not like I can teach you Arts or skills myself." She raised her gaze to his face again, then stepped forward to take his hand once more -- he assumed she was about to transport him back.
Hmm. Cautiously, Skylar stepped back out of reach, but didn't raise his hands. "One more thing. You seem to know me a lot better than I know you, and that shouldn't be possible. Maybe you can't tell me who you really are or your real goals, but you'll have to give me some explanation for that, at least."
Immediately, the young woman's expression became full of emotion; she bit her lower lip and cast her eyes down again. "The answer's complicated. There are a lot of things I can't tell you, and a lot more things I shouldn't tell you -- but for now, just think about the fact that can't know what you don't remember." Then, abruptly, she vanished -- Skylar jumped as a hand clamped over his eyes from behind. "We're out of time," she grunted in his ear. "The shift is beginning. I'll put you back where I found you, but think twice about running back to the Alvs right away -- there's something down the stairs that might mean the difference between life and death for you." Skylar opened his mouth to protest -- or ask more questions, he didn't know -- but all his senses abruptly went queerly flat, and his mind went blank again.
When he came back to himself, he was standing in front of a puddle of urine as though the entire encounter had been a product of his imagination; behind him and to his right, he could hear Reine still muttering imprecations at him, but now that his night vision had adjusted, he could see that the wall in front of him had a small opening to a downward-spiraling staircase about five meters to his left. I could probably slip away here and maybe be back before anyone missed me. But everything that girl just told me could be a trap. This is probably a make-or-break decision for me.
DO WE WANT TO MAYBE GO DOWN SOME STAIRS AND GET KILLED
