Collide Gamer

It was the eve of the final day before the ceremony and John was feeling… a sensation that did not have its own word. He was eagerly nervous, nervously impatient, impatiently fearful, fearfully calm, and none of those things. He felt empty and incredibly fulfilled at the same time. It was the prelude to the greatest happiness in his life.

It was atrocious.

John had been unable to stand social gatherings further. He had excused himself from the final pre-wedding ball. A bit of a social oddity, perhaps, since it was in his honour. Various haremettes had offered to keep him company in his room. He had declined. Assumedly, those that hadn’t offered had heard and decided not to stir him.

It was rare for John to actually want to be alone. Usually, the presence of his women was, at the very worst, neutral. He could be in the foulest of moods and yet them making noise around him did not bother him. A hug and a kiss almost always brightened his day.

His mood wasn’t foul. It was uniquely strained between several emotions all at once. He enjoyed the quiet and waited for the inevitable march of time to deliver him to the promised moment. After a week of waiting, he could not force himself to chat with the wider Abyss anymore. So many words to say so little, flattery for the sake of manipulating people of lesser intellect or willpower into considering him with a bit more regard. It was all so vapid.

Tomorrow would be their day.

‘The last night as an unmarried man,’ John thought and looked at the empty single person bed beside him. He was in the temporary quarter he had taken at the beginning of the week. It had not changed in that time.

Would his life be changed in 24 hours time?

Doubtlessly.

Everything and nothing was going to change. That was just how occasions such as this went.

‘Maybe I should see if I can pull Max aside for a bit?’ John wondered. If there was any company he wanted at this time, it was that of a man who had gone through this experience already.

A knock on the door pulled him out of his thoughts. With a raised eyebrow, he stood up and headed over. It would have been a coincidence if fate delivered him exactly what he was thinking about right at that time.

He opened the door to the somewhat comical sight of Romulus’ broad chest blocking the entire doorway. The two-and-a-half metre giant of a man bowed his head partly in greeting, partly so as to not tower above the Gamer as much. “I bring an offer,” he said, his diplomatic, deep tone reverberating with jest. It was like listening to an earthquake tell a joke.

Romulus raised a bottle of whiskey. There was no label on it, the glass was simple, yet John had no doubt that the golden liquid was more expensive than the daily economic output of some cities. “Do I even dare ask what that is?”

“Whiskey brewed with the purest water pearled from the leaves of Yggdrasil. Barley that grows only once a decade in the fields of Milan, malted over the course of a century in the chambers of ice beneath my palace. The yeast used was sent to me by the Philosopher of Matter, the biomancer who founded the school of biomancy that all of Portugal came to be influenced by.” Romulus turned the bottle in his hands. “That is to only mention the core ingredients.”

“And you offer this to me?” John asked.

“Hopefully, I offer this to myself as well…?” Romulus’ question hung in the air unspoken.

After short hesitation, John stepped aside, a sweeping gesture serving as the invitation. Romulus ducked under the doorframe and strutted forwards. It occurred to John that the once ever-present awe he had felt from Romulus’ simple existence had faded. Was it because the difference in their power had shrunk that much?

“May I create my own seating?” Romulus asked.

“Go ahead.”

Romulus waved his hand in an esoteric gesture, while John walked to the small, unused kitchen to retrieve two whiskey glasses. By the time he returned to the table, a massive seat made from woven ivy and cotton had sprung up. Even if it wasn’t intended to look like a throne, the sheer bulk it needed to support made it appear as such.

John took his seat opposite at the hardwood table, his own chair just a little bit less impressive. Glasses met the tabletop with a subtle clack. He gave one a shove and it glided over the smooth surface to Romulus.

“So, for what reason am I being honoured by the Apex of the Abyss coming to see me at this hour?” John asked. “I was under the impression my announcement earlier today made us adversaries?”

“At once, it does and it does not.” Romulus filled the glass halfway. “Ice?” he asked.

“No thank you,” John responded.

The filled glass was pushed back to John and John passed the second glass over to Romulus in turn. Once they both had their hands on the golden liquid, Romulus raised his voice again. “A recommendation: swirl it for a while. The full aroma only unfurls once it has had time to breathe.”

John considered much of the craft of sommeliers and the value of aerating liquor to be humbug or minor at best. On this occasion, he just bit back his cynicism and did as Romulus showed, gently rolling his wrist to keep the liquid in motion.

“I do not fault you for having further territorial ambitions,” Romulus said.

“Would you believe me if I said I honestly had none?” the Gamer said. “I have a moral investment in ending the raid on Japan, but I do not specifically desire that land. Neither did I have any plans to push south. The last land I wanted to conquer was Hawaii.”

The Apex chuckled. “As expected.”

“You’re not surprised?”

“Sometimes, Gamer, those around you choose to deliberately leave you loopholes in their contracts. You are in love with the fine print, so you can be controlled by making you feel smart.” Romulus raised his glass. “It is ready now.”

The whiskey’s taste washed over John’s tongue with enough strength to wash away the annoyance he felt at the revelation made. It was a malty liquor with a heavy kind of sweetness that played nicely with the muted alcoholic taste. It was, without a doubt, the best whiskey John had ever tasted. Simultaneously, it was still whiskey, not some ambrosia that was incomparable to anything else.

“Interesting that you confess that scheme so readily,” the Gamer remarked.

“I thought you had it worked out already?”

“I had my suspicions. It’s nice to have them confirmed.”

Romulus shrugged, massive shoulders rising and falling. His middle-aged face, a masculine shape carved from granite, wrinkled slightly with amusement. “This kind of politicking was never my forte nor do I intend it to be. It is altogether too honourless for my taste.” He took another sip from the whiskey. “Making a separation between what I will say in public and in private is as far as I will go.”

“And what will you say in private? That you do not fault me for my ambition?”

“Yes,” Romulus confirmed his earlier words, plainly. Though when delivered in the rumbling voice of the world’s strongest individual, even plain words became filled with charisma. “Neither will you fault me for my opposition. You have entered the game of empires. Someday, someone may win – for a time. Each of us will push back that day for as long as possible.”

“Indeed,” John agreed.

“All of that said… I have not come to discuss imperial politics with you… not in that sense,” Romulus said. “If you would listen to the ruminations of the oldest living man… then I would like to regale you with a few lessons that I wished I had been given – lessons that none were ancient enough to give in my time.” He stared deeply into his glass, holding it at the cusp of his lips. “From one immortal to another.”

John’s mood shifted. He took a deep gulp of the whiskey, finding the glass suddenly empty. When he placed the glass down, Romulus gestured for him to push the glass over. “I would love to hear it,” he spoke, with nothing but respect in his voice.

As he poured, Romulus chortled. “Your mixture of selfish ambition and eager absorption of the wisdom of others is perhaps your most admirable quality. You are a good man, John Newman.”

The glass was pushed back over the table. John caught it automatically. “Did you talk to Maximillian about that?”

The emperor shook his head. He did not pry into why John had asked that question, simply began to say what he had himself wanted to say, “I remember the day I married Sol and Luna. In all of my long, long memory, that day will remain with me forever. Marriage then was different, but then and now men and women desire a ceremony to signify their souls are joined.” He had a dreamy smile on his face that turned a tinge sad. “I also remember all the marriages I had after that with women that could not match my vitality.”

“A fate I will hopefully be spared,” John muttered.

“You and I know that the chances for that are slim. Given enough years, given enough enemies, given enough Latebloomers to rival our powers, you will lose someone eventually.” Romulus stared into his drink again, for a long time, just observing the way it swirled from his rolling wrist. “We may be ageless. Even that truth is not certain. It may take twenty, fifty or a hundred thousand years. Perhaps even our lifespan has an end we cannot see yet.”

John did not like to think about any of that. Growing old with his harem was fine with him, though the idea of old age came with the threat of dying years apart and that was a cruelty he did not wish on anybody. “What then is your advice on loss?”

“Know that it is coming.” Almost forceful, Romulus moved his arm up. The golden liquid in the glass splashed. He took only a little sip, before putting it back on the table. His dark green eyes focused on John. “I made the mistake of thinking that those I had chosen as mine were as invincible as I was. When the reality hit me, it did so in a series of realizations over the course of thousands of years. My wives… my children… my friends…”

Romulus closed his eyes. His shoulders slumped, yielding to the weight of memories. The shadow of loss was deep. Did he always carry it with him like this or did the recent loss of Rodaclam remind him of all that was gone?

“Even those that I once confided in eventually succumbed to the crushing wheel of time. Only Sol and Luna remain with me. We are three, tied together, facing eternity – rocks in an everchanging world.” His eyes opened, just enough to give John a tired gaze. “You are blessed in sharing that longevity with others. I wish only the best to you. All the same, I advise you: know that loss is coming. Know it… and then love all the same.”

John said nothing, just listened as Romulus spoke with growing urgency.

“No, love as deeply as you can. Know that your grief is coming, in all of its depth and all of its unchanging cruelty. To grieve deeply means that you have given your heart to one that deserved it. I have no greater regret than the love I have not given to women that deserved it, that I withheld from my children, because I thought I was too hurt to love again. There will be days, perhaps even entire decades, where every day is a struggle of memories of those long gone. Smiles that you will never see again – thousands of them.”

“…How?” John croaked. Just the idea made his head swim. He knew, of course. He had often thought about how he would handle the loss of Maximillian and the potential loss of his very own children. He had never gotten a proper answer.

“Know that you are not alone. Be relied upon. Know when to tend to your thoughts and when to tend to your garden.” Romulus gestured at the room, the world, around them. “There is much men like you and I can do. We must do something or our own immortality will devour us. As long as you keep marching, you one day will find another joyful memory. Even the worst depressions one day end, as long as you keep moving.”

For a minute, they were both silent. John turned the glass in his hands, then remembered that the purpose of alcohol was to drink it. Another wave of the liquor washed over his tastebuds, loosening his tongue enough to croak out the words: “I will remember this.”

“Good… and I have a plea in a personal manner… do not let your ambition get the better of you.” Romulus rose to his feet, the throne behind him folding in on itself until only a hovering seed remained, which he put into a pocket of this toga. “There are few that will be stones with me and my Sol and Luna in the stream of aeons. If at all possible, I would wish for us to be friends for the time we spend as shepherds of humanity.”

“I would like that as well,” John agreed.