The little market stall with the astounding calculation machine attracts notice. Most of the people who test the invention just want to replace the computers who do calculations for them now. Some are curious about the new species of person selling it.
One of them offers thousands of rings plus free travel to and from if Nikolas will speak to a representative of the imperial government in Mar Geru tomorrow.
Thousands of rings is not nothing.
"...What, exactly, do they want to talk to me about?"
Sigh. "Hmph. And I suppose they'll want the whole thing recorded, won't they? Governments would."
There are much less polite ways they could have caught up to him. The imperial government is a lot looser, more EU than US... But he's going to prepare something tonight, just in case. Time-release curse with the witchly artifacts in his room, probably.
"Oh, very well."
"Shall I make arrangements for you on the flight tomorrow morning or tonight's red-eye?"
"I will refuse to discuss certain things at my discretion. That's all you need to know."
Well then...
He closes up shop. He rigs an unpleasant little Hellstone to touch a certain magical mirror if he doesn't come disarm the little device with a 12 digit passcode within 72 hours and leaves it in his rented room. Shouldn't be relevant, they won't even know he's doing it, hopefully - so why is he?
Well, it's best to be prepared, anyway. He wears all the little protection doodads he has, too. He sleeps and goes to the airport.
A caralendar recognizes him and refunds him two rings for coming in under the amount of weight paid for in advance.
It's a much shorter flight than the one to another continent.
They pass a dense forest and a bay and more land and then there is Mar Geru. The airport is on the bank of the river that runs through the middle of the city.
The same belul from before is waiting for him to disembark.
He has himself, some clothes, and a messenger bag.
"Let's get this over with, shall we?"
"Follow me."
The belul leads him through a city that looks vaguely European except that the architectural style is different, the aesthetics are different, the people are different, the available materials are different... but it does look vaguely European with the jettying four- and five-story buildings and setts-paved streets.
The belul leads him to a tall, imposing building, one that has been visible since before the rest of the city and has not stopped being visible since the flight landed. It isn't decorated in the same style as anything else. Everything else is designed to look comfortable, admittedly not to humans in particular but that is the goal. The government building is not. Things are too big in a way designed to make people feel undersized. The front doors stand open. Inside there's a room that seems to be functioning like the first government office he saw back in that little town in Meiu: people can get copies of the laws or of Hari is the Language of the Empire. But that's not where Nikolas will have his audience.
How very Imperial. Like the giant steel eagle in the SS's stages courtrooms. He is warded against command magic. He is significantly faster and stronger than they expect. He has a deadman's switch. He has half a dozen protections besides.
He is... Not unfazed. But more quietly anxious and defiant than subdued and nervous.
The belul leads him through a side door down a hallway cloaked in illusions and designed to confuse anyone who tries to walk down it. Is it actually a maze with as many branches as it looks like? If he tries to find out by touching the walls he'll find out the walls aren't where they look like they are. Their footsteps make no sound.
At the end of the maze is a tall dark room where an agerah perches on a dais above his head. Probably. Unless that's an illusion too.
He fingers the various little amulets and rings (finger ones, not money) and bracelets he's wearing.
"All this must have been expensive, hm?"
"Yeah, probably," says the belul on his way out.
"Leave your illusion there and step forward," says the agerah on the dais.
He does so. Refraining from even so much as an eye-roll, now that he's in the very eye of the Powers That Be. No sense being antagonistic.
"That would be Milliways, the mysterious magical interdimensional bar. Which I have absolutely no control over."
"Now how am I supposed to know that? I mean, the answer might as well be 'forever' or 'two seconds' or '9 billion years' and I wouldn't be able to tell. At least twenty six days and four hours, since that's when I got here, I suppose."
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