13 Chewing Steel

Three down. Nine thousand, nine hundred, ninety and seven to go.

Ted wrote the numbers down on a semi-permanent note that he planned on destroying soon.

3/10 000

It seemed like such a tiny thing to have on his side.

He would have to accelerate things to really get the recruitment process going. The best cults had a habit of recruiting with their sheer presence. Ted did have a lot of trust for his own charisma. Perhaps he would be able to construct a similar social machine, a pecking order that was addictive in itself.

He thought of everything between fireflies and moons.

He ended up fashioning a new tier – dragon. That was just below moons. There would have to be more, of course, but there was little use in making a cover before the book was ready. He had to ask around and get more cultists.

STARS

MOONS

DRAGONS

FIREFLIES

That was how the different levels looked right now.

He was about to ask Eknie what she thought of it, but he noticed that she had simply left a short letter. That woman was never away for longer periods than necessary. She was punctuality – she was grace when it came to managing her time.

In cursive, she had written about being off to meet a family friend.

Said friend was named Nhoj. There was no doubt about whom she had truly meant, and the letter was signed with a flourish that looked a lot like a flame.

Ted put the letter into the flame of a candle as instructed. Eknie was out to murder John the former landlord.

Ted felt very sorry about it. The timing was bad – he was always down for some senseless murdering, seeing as it was a rare treat, even for a callous man like himself.

He did not mourn the missed opportunity for long, though. He decided to put his silvery tongue to work and to recruit some more people.

The Cigar Lounge was a gentlemanly space. In fact, men who could be considered to be gentlemen were the only beings allowed in. A classic rich boys' club, the swapping of fine cigars was far from being the only sophisticated pleasure the club had to offer.

While his true peers were not his peers in the intellectual sense, Ted did know quite a few men with a passion for the mystical side of the world. They did not read weather forecasts as eagerly as they read horoscopes and divinations, and fish guts were too basic for them, they craved for more intricate methods of delivering absolute manure from an imagined future to their doorsteps.

Ted did not have a whole lot of respect for divination. He would have to learn, though. He was about to introduce a few so called friends to the Dragon level straight away. The more intelligent a man was, the easier it was for other intelligent men to slip something past the cracks in his reasoning abilities. Simpletons like Junior, they were more challenging when it came to explaining things from a pseudo-intellectual perspective. That was exactly why Ted had subtly trusted Junior to make his own judgments about the nature of meteorology. One had to make the victim of manipulation feel intelligent. That was when a person was in a vulnerable, malleable state.

It was clear to Ted that the men at the club were in a constant state of overconfidence. They thought they were above such cheap tricks.

He took a few cigars with him, earthy, expensive sticks that he himself did not like that much. He only bought them to show off.

The club was rather full, and everyone was either sitting with thighs wide apart as if to show off how much space they could take up, or standing around, looking pompous.

"Well, hello, Ted," an old acquaintance said with a puff of smoke appearing around his graying head, accentuating every word. "Have not seen you around in a long time. Please do not tell me you have married her."

"It would not cross my mind to marry someone out of pity," Ted said, and he did not know whether he was being honest or not. "But what have you been up to, old termite? Please tell me you're still in the ship building business."

"Termites don't chew through steel, but I do," Ackard said and pointed towards an armchair next to him. "Here, take your time, but you have to sample my new collection."

"Of what?" Ted dreaded the answer. Smoking a cigar was a task, and drinking smuggled whiskey was an ordeal. He did not partake gladly in either of those. It seemed to him that these activities suggested a fundamental disconnect to the primitive masculinity. Then again, it could just be that everyone else in his property and income bracket had awful taste in nearly all things.

"Oh, you know I have been saving these for you specifically, no need to act humble." Ackard opened a decorative box.

To Ted's great delight, instead of cigars, the box contained cigarettes, flavored with clove, at least judging by the scent.

"Oh, you," Ted said and patted Ackard on the arm. "I was hoping you'd have them. Of course I remember. We can sample them and talk about the sky."

The old fellow seemed amazed. "The sky?"

"You are still into watching stars, right? And you make predictions based on them?"

"Correction – I make predictions based on the results that the great divinators give to the public. People are bound to take note when Scry Siallie says that it is a bad time to sell. You know this as well as I do, Ted. Observe the observers. Observe those who are listened to."

"Wise words," Ted said and pulled out one delectable cigarette. He did not know what about them seemed to boost his mental capacities. He only knew he liked a light seasoning of clove in his cigarettes and a general air of guilty pleasures with them.

"I might have something that would allow you to make trends in trade instead of just keeping up with them," he whispered to Ackard.

Those bushy, white eyebrows shot halfway up the forehead of the old man.