Eden's Jester by Ty Beltramo Read Free Book Online Page A

It was a premeditated attack of astronomical effect and cruelty.”  
    Aello glared at me, but stood straight and still. She was burning inside. Thoughts of violence against yours truly rose from her like steam. I could see it. But she stood motionless.  
    Melanthios spoke quietly. “Elson, you are unique in my experience as one who denies both Law and Chaos. But in all the time I’ve watched you, you’ve never been involved in such a direct attack.” He obviously hadn’t been watching very closely. “Would you care to explain why you did it?” There was no threat in his voice. It was all business.
    “Uh, a friend asked me to?” I said. There was no point in lying now. But my gut told me that there was more than just a boat in play here.
    “A friend? Who?”
    “Mmmm . . . I’d rather not say.” I thought Aello was inching closer to me. I inched the other way.
    “Elson,” Melanthios leaned forward and spoke more slowly. “If you had declared yourself for Chaos, I would have had you in a cell in the Abyss long ago. The only reason I let you run free is that, generally, you don’t harm the cause. You don’t do anything of significance, as far as I can tell. Now it’s time to cooperate.”
    I didn’t know if Melanthios knew about Death. I’d never seen Death with another Engineer and I’d never heard Engineers talk about him as if he were real. Engineers tend to think they know the “real” truth about the universe. Anything outside of their understanding is fiction. I detested their tidy view of the world, but I leveraged it whenever I could. I wasn’t going to cough up Death to a pencil-neck like Melanthios.  
    “I can only say, Melanthios, that in all the time I’ve known him, he has worked only for the good guys,” I said with a straight face. It was true, but perhaps slightly misleading.
    “Okay. Did your friend say why one lawful Engineer would attack another?”  
    “Uh . . . he said it was a trade secret.” I wasn’t getting ahead in the score. I could tell. But Melanthios seemed to believe I was speaking the truth.
    “So a ‘friend’ asks you to murder a crew dedicated to Law and to destroy treasures of Thought along with it, gives you no reason at all, and you do it.”
    It sounded so irresponsible, the way he said it.
    “These ‘treasures,’ they aren’t replaceable, are they?” I asked.
    “No,” Aello said.
    Melanthios stood up and began to pace. “Tell me about Aeson’s operatives.”
    Now there was a good opportunity for a half-truth if I’ve ever seen one, and I have.  
    “I didn’t touch them. Why?”
    “Because they’re all dead, all of them in North America, anyway. Because seventy-five prominent and some not-so-prominent citizens of my domain had their heads explode, all in public, with no evidence of the cause. We’re calling it an act of terrorism, but it’s more than that, and I think you know something about it.”  
    I made a mental note to kill Death the next time I saw him.
    “Did you say all of Aeson’s operatives were exploded?” I asked. I thought about it. I’m pretty sure I had used the word “key” when mentioning the operatives to Death. Yep, I had said “key,” not “all.” I was sure.
    “Every one. And this has set off a chain reaction that, normally, I would think was beyond your means. However, let me narrate for you the events of the last day or so, and you tell me what to think.
    “All in a single moment, seventy-five people with no obvious connection but one have their heads explode in a gratuitous fashion all over my domain. At that very same moment you are witnessed destroying, also in my domain, all the assets belonging to Diomedes; the same Diomedes who had publicly opposed Aeson only a day before--cursed him, I believe.  
    “Aeson believes Diomedes had his operatives killed to oppose his development and demands restitution in the form of Diomedes’ assets so he can keep his timetable. But to everyone’s surprise,