Vol. 4 Chap. 17 Opening One Eye

Truth was torn by conflicting emotions. There was anger, and shame, and pain. Envy. Hatred. Even some faint traces of affection. Not everything in Harban was terrible, and there were some happy memories there. Above them all was ambition. For the Prince, this was the only place worthy of being his seat of power. He would come to Harban. And rule.

<<Drop the persona! Switch to unnoticibility.>>

And why would I do that? A Prince should be seen, that his glory may be established and his dignity upheld.

<<Because you are Truth Medici, born and raised in Towering Heavens Apartment Building Number Who Cares, and possessed of all the princely patrimony of a rat nibbling on the family turd. You are losing yourself in the identity, moron! Snap out of it!>>

Truth wanted to snap back. So far the persona has been working great. He could just plough right through all opposition, a mindset of total victory. The System interrupted him before he could get started.

<<It’s your Dad, remember? He is the evil king without vision, a petty tyrant on a busted, vomit stained throne. Get yourself some vision. Drop the persona for a while. It will be there for you when you are ready to pick it up again.>>

He snarled, but the System had a point. The whole reason he jumped off the flying cloud was so that he could go low profile. The Prince was a lot of things, but not low profile.  It made sense to let it go. Become unnoticable.

Truth consciously relaxed the scales portion of Incisive, releasing the persona. It was like letting go of a partially deflated balloon. He might be done with it, but it was staying with him anyhow. He could feel the identity clinging to him. It seemed people really believed in him. He had sold the idea of the Prince… perhaps a little too well.

If he had judged things right, the former clerk was now incapable of thinking of him as anything else. Certainly the Succubae had to know he wasn’t actually some kind of royalty, but they gave not a single damn about that. He was giving them their fix, so they were prepared to believe in him with every fiber of their immaterial being. Mary believed in him. So did the guy who’s sedan chair he stole. Perhaps the person who owned the boat, or the flying cloud. Not just passive acceptance, they were active in their belief. They took positive steps to affirm it, to make that belief tangible.

They had sacrificed for their belief in the identity. Their money, their servants, their services, their possessions. Their family. Mary believed in him so much, she gave him her grandson. She practically begged him to take her grandson away. Crammed into a tiny suitcase, to be remade in a fashion that was pleasing to the Prince.

You would have to really believe in someone to do that. What would happen if he did manage to disperse the identity? Would their belief suddenly shatter? He doubted it. Their being persuaded didn’t hinge on how he was presenting when he wasn’t in the room with them.

Botis claimed that no one had yet mastered Incisive. Truth thought that was a strong boast. He thought he had gotten good with the spell pretty damn fast. Just maybe, he was the one being arrogant. Botis was one of the strongest stellar eminences. How could his signature spell be something simple or nice?

He, against all odds, had managed to underestimate one of the most powerful entities in existence. Truth felt that he was very, very special. Yes he was. Just the most specialist little boy in the whole wide world.

Truth sat down in the dirt. Princes don’t sit in the dirt. They were too fancy. So he couldn’t be the prince. He was Truth Medici. For all the good and bad of it, that was his name, and who he was. Identity was something he could wear lightly through the world, because the core of him never changed.

He slowly calmed his breathing and fell into meditation. Letting the Prince drift away, and the son of Harbin emerge. Then even that identity could just… fade away. He didn’t need the world to have an opinion about who he was. They were welcome to look right through him. He knew himself well enough. And he could see the world just fine.

It took a couple of hours. He could still feel wisps of the prince around him. But he felt like he was wholly himself again.

<<Oh no you don’t. You don’t get to cop out that easily. You were ALWAYS wholly yourself. Every vile thing was utterly your idea, and your will.>>

Err… when you say “vile thing…”

<<Stop me if this sounds at all familiar. You walk into a hotel. Your every whim is not instantly catered to. You interpret this offense as being worthy of ego obliteration. You have so utterly broken a fellow human being that their “safe place” is curled into a crushingly tight ball in a carry-on sized suitcase. A feat that can only be achieved through some sort of demonic magic, I assume.>>

Truth felt like a heavy weight was coming down on him. It hadn’t hit him just yet, but it was coming.

<< His name was Barton. I know you forgot. On purpose. That was some spectacular work dehumanizing him. You were literally putting him on the same level, or slightly below, the succubae in your mind. Just wow. I am extremely gratified to see my lessons were learned so well. What were your instructions? To make him hate and fear everyone and everything he ever loved, and worship only you in the future? Nice.>>]

Truth looked out at glittering Harban. Not yet able to process.

<<So, just to review. Your notion of how a prince should act, based on the examples of your evil Dad and the scumbags you bodyguarded, plus what you got from cheap novels and the occasional scry program, is a homicidal maniac. A sadist of the highest order. So arrogant he makes demons horney. Your notion of what a ruler in training should be… is this.>>

That… is pretty fucked up. Yeah.

The system started mimicking his voice, making a nasty parody of it. <<That’s not okay. That’s fucked up. And I was okay with it. Which is fucked up.>> Its voice changed back.

<<Are you okay with it, Truth? Because I don’t give even one half of a damn about this serf’s life. I don’t care if you become the most horrible tyrant this world has ever seen. But you have to look at it stone cold and ask yourself if you are okay with it. Not because of some desire to fulfill your role. You could have chosen to handle that any number of ways. You chose this one. So are you okay with this? Is this who you dream of being?>>

Truth was looking straight at Harban, and not seeing it. It wouldn’t make Etenesh happy, would it?

<<Not relevant to the conversation. What do YOU want? Because there has always been a core of violence in you. Of vicious sadism. You have sneered at the slums, and all your fellow slumrats, since before you could read.>>

Truth wanted to argue, disagree. He just wasn’t sure how.

<<It wasn’t Starbrite that put it there. It wasn’t that Ghul juice. They brought out more of it, maybe, but it was always there. And you have to understand it, or it’s going to ruin you.>>

Ruin me?

<<Losing sight of the line between confidence and arrogance. Between ruthlessness and cruelty. You want the highest throne, Truth. You may keep those traits. God knows God does. But you must understand them.>>

Truth was too stunned to pick apart what the System was saying. It had brought this up before. Repeatedly. Seems he should have listened better. Or at all. He was thoroughly mind breaking someone, killing them slowly, really, because he did the job he was magically compelled to do. Because in Truth’s mind, he deserved it. For questioning him. For failing to instantly obey his better.

<<Identity isn’t just what you put out there, but the world is building on the scaffolding you set. Just… think through who you have been since you left the slums.>>

FNG at the PMC. Eager to please. Did what I was told. Though in retrospect, beyond the talent for violence, they thought I was pretty weird but going places. They always shoved extra leadership training on me. Networking through bodyguard duty. I got put on high profile ops regularly.

<<Everyone could tell you didn’t give a damn about much of anything except the job. You never socialized off the clock. You never had the slightest qualm about morality or legality. You were plainly ambitious and you weren’t dumb. The phrase “monster in training” seems fitting.>>

I wanted to be a talisman maintenance tech!

<<A decade long dream you trashed in ten minutes when offered money for violence with the prospect of a lot more money and a lot more power than you would get replacing street lights.>>

Truth opened his mouth to defend the choice… and closed it again. That was exactly what he did.

<<Then your ambitious ass got “rightsized” into a hole in the ground.>>

I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted. Spells, generally. Trying to figure out what I wanted from life.

<<You went looking for power again. And how did you go about it?>>

Violence. Seeing everyone around me as disposable trash.

<<Mmmm. You didn’t give a damn about a single person you met between when you last hugged your sibs and when you finally decided that you liked Merkovah, Jember and Etenesh.  Even those “kind people” at the garage or wherever. You liked them because they provided service with a smile. Happy servants.>>

No, it wasn’t like that. The warmth of them-

<<Was real. Yes. And those laborers were friendly, and it touched you. Yes to all that. But you only felt safe because none of them could hurt you, physically, emotionally or otherwise. They were below you. Remember how you freaked out when people touched you in Siphios?>>

Vividly.

<<Didn’t bother you when the laborers patted you on the shoulder. Didn’t even notice it, beyond their smell.>>

Truth thought it through. They weren’t dangerous. They were beneath me. I didn’t care about them. Their kindness was unexpected, and happy making, but that was it. It was like being touched by a warm wind.

<<And the second a Level Three mage touched you, someone you did care about and put roughly on your own level…>>

I freaked out.

<<You freaked out. In fact, the thing that cracked your shell, really cracked it, was when Etenesh started making herself vulnerable to you. Holding her wrist instead of her hand. Having you pin her against a wall or the bed. Cupping her fragile neck. She told you over and over and over how desirable she found you, how much she loved you. Even though you never told her the same. Not really. You felt safe when you knew you were emotionally safe… and you could put her down hard if you needed to.>>

It was… all her idea. She pushed for it.

<<Yeah, she did. She’s down bad for you, in case you hadn’t noticed, somehow. She was finding a way to make it work between you. And she succeeded. She found a way to manage your insecurity. To give you back that arrogance and feeling of power. What do you want to bet that, if she’s still Level Three when you next see her, you won’t feel the need to be quite so domineering with her?>>

Truth was silent for a while. Honestly, I got to like the domineering stuff.

<<You always did. You were just so starved for affection before that you didn’t know what you liked. I’m not judging, Truth. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, even. I’m saying you need to understand where you are coming from before you fuck up something you do, actually, care about.>>

And the feeling stupid and ugly that Starbrite pounded into me?

<<Another way of managing your insecurity. By deepening it. Make you unable to accept compliments and validation from outside company control. Every little *ding,* every bonus, every glowing quarterly performance review, was Starbrite reminding you that it liked you. Valued you. You were doing a good job. The more and more you became the monster they wanted, the more they showered you in affection. Not that this makes you special. It’s how the whole company works, for everyone.>>

Getting more and more isolated. Because I only believed the bad shit outsiders said. Because they were trash. People I looked down on. Their positive opinions were worthless, and their negative opinions only justified my treating them like nothing.

<<So lets review. The majority of your brief life was spent in the slums. You lived with abusive parents. Your dad was a tyrant who ruled through violence, your mom was a manipulative sadist. Control was something that had to be fought for, and viciously defended. Everyone you saw around you was a person without vision. Their drive was always for stupid things got in stupid ways, or people with no drive at all. People born to be eaten.>>

I then join Starbrite, and the second I find out that I can make good money, long term, by hurting people, I take it. Because why wouldn’t I?

<<You then do the good little soldier thing because, one, you really did feel grateful to Starbrite and, two, it was the fastest way to get money and power. And the second the company turned on you…>>

I was gone. I mean, I don’t think it was really reasonable to ask me to die-

<<Truth. Buddy. Fuckwit. You were being mentally conditioned through your mutilated soul and under a magical compulsion to joyfully obey. Nobody else seemed to have any problems obeying their “fight to the death” orders. You fucked off the second the order came down. I had to fight you literally every step of the way. You were grateful, but like your loyalty, it was conditioned on Starbrite being useful to you.>>

A mindset I clearly carried over through the Free State and Siphios. And since coming back to Jeon. I wouldn’t even follow Merkovah’s travel plans. I clearly know better than the six hundred year old professional spymaster.

<<The thing with the kid on the rooftop was a particularly nice touch, I thought. Why let a mass murderer go to waste, when his brief life could be better spent involuntarily serving you?>>

The thing I keep coming back to is that it worked. All that shit. It worked. It is working. I have no reason to think it won’t continue to work. In fact, I would be a moron to suddenly stop doing it and try to live like a saint.

<<Yep. Never said you should. Just said you needed to understand where it was coming from, so you recognized it when it was happening and didn’t do something stupid.>>

Truth chuckled. Then laughed. Bitter, self mocking laughter, tears running down his face. Laughing until he couldn’t breathe, convulsing in the dirt. “That’s not Okay. That’s fucked up.  And I don’t really care. That’s even more fucked up. I should care. It’s not like I don’t care about things. I should care about this. But I like it, and I’m going to do it again. And that’s fucked up!”