The Masquerade

Horror seeped into him when he heard her utter his name, but he was even more terrified when she mentioned Kentaro. It would have been one thing for his identity to be revealed. It was another for the identities of those he was living with to be revealed, although he was sure that most people who were looking for him already knew that he would be in the household in the first place.

But he didn't have a chance to really focus on that, because the discussion had already changed to something else.

The god looked down at James. Recognition flashed across her face. "You're James Hawke, right-Oh. I forgot. Again. You don't like being called that, do you? James is even a bit of a stretch for you, but your friend Maahes already used it earlier." She thought for a moment, tightening her ponytail as she did so. "To answer your first question, I've brought you here with a combination of spells and some magic on the part of-"

She paused. A strange expression passed over her face for the briefest of seconds, and then she was talking once more. "Let's just say that there are people who can cause rifts in reality. And the purpose? I'm sorry, but I literally can't tell you, James."

A flash of pure, unadulterated anger flashed across James's face in a flinch of his mouth and a widening of his eyes as he heard his full name, but his attentions were set squarely on her words.

They were brought there by magic. Magic that messed with reality. But she couldn't tell them why.

James took a small step forward, looking the 'god' straight in the eyes. "So what you're telling me is... that you don't know? That you literally cannot tell us because you don't have an answer? Or that you literally can't because something doesn't physically allow you to?"

"Oh, I know," she earnestly said. "I know very well. I've gone over all the logistics on how this sort of thing works, and I could tell you - if I, uh, was actually allowed to do that. But I literally can't tell you. That's all I can say about it."

Ah, so this was the masquerade's host. Worse yet, she'd brought them all here through magic that Eremia was barely familiar with - teleportation and the manipulation of space and time - much less knew any living practitioners of (and only one dead one). That the god, as the host called herself, could summon people from a variety of timelines and dimensions suggested she had even greater powers than it. Assuming the man was correct, but it did explain all the names and places she'd never heard of. That, combined with an unrelenting honesty that was as bad as Marisol's or Taber's, made the god someone to watch out for. Someone to avoid. Someone to fear.

Eremia lowered her scepter and blended into the crowd, whose members all focused on the god and the knives she'd just handed back to her would-be assassin. Another reminder of it, so Eremia chose to ignore her fast-beating heart and follow the god's gaze over to Aaron. Or, 'Aaron.' Walking up behind him, she tapped him on the shoulder and glared up at him. "Prince?" she said as he turned around.



Taber winced on hearing the name Kartiel. "I remember Kartiel," he whispered to the other two, eyes trained on the god who'd somehow survived being stabbed in the back. At least her honesty was nice, even if she wouldn't explain how she'd brought them here. Which was less nice. "My friend Aegeas talked about him a lot. Aegeas didn't like him. That's also how I know about that city on the sea place. Sounds like it was super exciting and also super creepy." He shuddered. "We might be in trouble?"

Maahes and Vala stared at the apparent god, eyes wide in shock and disbelief. Gods simply didn't exist. There was the Ori, but this woman clearly wasn't one of them. There was the Goa'uld, but the Goa'uld couldn't miraculously heal themselves. Which meant they were dealing with something neither one had ever dealt with before, and that terrified both of them.


Second knew of gods. One of his best friends was a god, and his sort-of-friend (he still wasn't sure how to classify that relationship) was a demigod. But neither one of them could miraculously heal - in fact, one of them had even died in the past. So how could this woman be a god?

Better yet, why had she mentioned Kartiel?

Before he could get to ask that question, Lorcan did.

"Kartiel never brought someone like you up before," Lorcan said, taking a step forward and trying to look as intimidating as he possibly could. "I can't see why he would do your dirty work."

The goddess look mildly confused by his comment, only to suddenly light up and snap her fingers. "I got it! You're talking about your Kartiel, not mine. I think we know of three of them so far? Yours just happens to be a lot like mine, but don't sweat - your friend didn't suddenly betray you or anything like that."


He let out a particularly loud swear when he turned to face Eremia, one that largely went unnoticed because the crowd of people was far too busy watching the encounter between the god and some of the partygoers unfold. He paid attention to it, but not too much. He was much more focused on the encounter with Eremia.

Because no matter how he tried to imagine the situation, he was sure it wasn't going to end well.

"My real name is Prince Asteri, just like the god said," he admitted. He didn't glare at her, but he did meet her gaze. "I had no idea if your kingdom was from the world mine is, so I used an alias."

James's eyes shot back and forth between the men who apparently knew Kartiel, but he was determined to get answers. Or at least, as many as he could out of her. He could already tell that she had loose lips and could hide very little, apart from the one thing that mattered to them the most. So he decided to try for other things.

"And what's your name, party host?" He asked. "Since you know all of ours?"

Eremia raised the scepter up to his face. "I cannot say I am surprised that my honesty was not met with honesty," she said, "But surely you would be aware, as a prince, the kingdoms and states in your world. Unless you had assumed I were lying - which I suspect is the case, though you do not appear to have found anyone you recognize in this ballroom, and nobody has attempted to assassinate you - you had no motivation to hide your identity from someone who could not recognize it. Which is rather rude."

"Oh, it's Rendra," the god said, a grin starting to spread across her face. She took a step towards James. It didn't appear to be an intimidating one. If anything, she was putting forth quite the friendly demeanor. "I'm not sure if I really need to do the rest of the introduction, since my domain is pretty obvious."

Maahes furrowed his brow. This was already starting to go far over his head, but he had to try his best to keep track of what she was talking about.

"Domain?" he questioned from where he was standing. While he waited for an answer, he went to join James. They had been through too much together for him not to stick by his side in a potentially dangerous situation. A second later, Vala joined them as well.

Rendra crossed her arms and tilted her head slightly to the side. "Okay, maybe not as obvious as I thought. Domains are a god's area of control. They tend to be really specific. Like Kartiel's domain is souls, and Thymea - she's my girlfriend - has control over forgotten memories. There's a bunch of different things domains can imply. Thymea can also do some pretty cool stuff with abandoned places, and Kartiel's got the ability to easily move his soul from one body to another."

"So what would yours be, then?" Vala asked, crossing her arms as well. Unlike Rendra's pose, however, the gesture wasn't meant to be a friendly one.

Rendra grinned even more. "My domain is lies. I'm a pretty decent liar when I want to be, and I especially adore masquerades. Which is why I'm your host!" She paused for a second, the grin momentarily fading. "And, uh, I kind of have a bad habit of accidentally revealing people's lies. It's easy for me to tell if someone's lying, and sometimes I forget that not everyone can do that."


Asteri pushed the scepter away.

"I don't think you'll understand it," he said. He kept his ground and continued to look her in the eye. The temperature was beginning to drop ever so slightly around them, but he couldn't tell what emotion was causing his magic to act out. "My life is far from normal, even for a prince. The last time I was in my kingdom - my world - was when I was a baby. My father was a terrible person. Or maybe is a terrible person. I don't even know if he's alive. But he ran an experiment on me that ruined my life, and I've been...living with someone else for the past sixteen years. I'm not going to risk the lives of the people I care about, and the life that I've made for myself."

It wasn't the full story. He doubted she would believe it. If he hadn't been there and experienced the whole thing, he likely wouldn't have either. He hadn't just been living with someone else. He had been stuck in his brother's consciousness for fifteen years. Eremia could never understand what it was like for him, and could never understand the life that he led.

I froze at the mention of Kartiel. I knew that name.
I knew nothing of the man who owned that name, or who we were to each other, save for what Rendra had revealed, and the fact that I was possessed by the overpowering need to drive a sharp implement into both of his eye sockets.
It seemed that Rendra knew a lot of things.

Her ability to detect lies was disquieting to me, considering that lies were my first line of defence and first means of testing the waters in every given situation.
In normal circumstances I would have tried to gain her favour via flattery, and see if I could coax her to reveal something useful, or come to some form of arrangement.
But in this instance, I would have to be very careful.
I would say nothing that was strictly a lie, and then, perhaps, my intent would not register.

I turned to my friend in the pink gown. Raymond? Radcliff? I would have to ask him later. "We will continue this conversation. But first, we shall see what information I can charm out of our host." I said confidently.

"And, uh, I kind of have a bad habit of accidentally revealing people's lies. It's easy for me to tell if someone's lying, and sometimes I forget that not everyone can do that." said Rendra.

I approached her, and greeted her with a polite bow.

"Thus, the goddess of lies is a purveyor of truth. What a marvel that is.

I understand that my reputation precedes me, but it would be rude of me not to greet my host when given the opportunity.
It is not every day that one meets a goddess, less so, one who can pull off a suit so spectacularly well.

With the pains you must have taken to arrange this, I cannot imagine that you did it all solely for the sake of a party.
Whatever the mysterious purpose of your divine machinations may be, let me just say that I sorely regret that I did not ask you for a dance before the mood became so serious."

James was not happy. Now he had to figure out the motive of whoever Rendra worked for, and he had to decipher from what she was saying what was truth and what was lies. Though she seemed to make it clear that she, despite being a god of lies, was terrible at keeping them - he wondered if that only applied to keeping others' lies or if it also meant her own. For someone with so much power and a seemingly mysterious purpose, she was open in most other respects.

His upper lip twitched beneath his beard when the drunken man approached, speaking flowery language with little substance. Not willing to underestimate Rendra's abilities in detecting lies, he refrained from interrupting and he pulled back slightly, attentively observing Rendra for her reply.

Rendra stared at Boris for a moment, then immediately doubled over in laughter. Whatever had made her laugh was apparently so funny that she was crying; Maahes could see the tears rolling down her cheeks as she popped back up.

"You're Boris Dietrich!" she said, stifling another laugh. "I remember Kartiel telling me all about you. He talked about you as much as he complained about Aegeas after that whole thing with Atlantis. And he said that you were the flattery type! I just can't believe you tried it on me, too, especially after you know what my domain is. Oh, man, this is absolutely hilarious! It really is your thing, isn't it?"

For a good ten seconds I stood, gobsmacked. I was aware that she knew my name, but I did not expect her to have such an extensive account of my character.
She knew everything that Kartiel had learned about me in the elusive Atlantis incident, but I had no way of knowing how much that was or how deep it went, and that frightened me.

As far as I knew, her knowledge might have been only what she had just demonstrated, or it could extend to the more personal recesses of my history.
I could not prompt her into revealing how much she did or did not know without inviting her to drag it all into the light of day.

These people, with the exception of one, may all have been strangers to me, and there was materially nothing to lose if they should know the secrets I held from my world, but these secrets were the only thing that was sacred to me.
Everything I said risked encouraging her habits, and everything I did she had grounds to predict. Rendra had me at a crucial disadvantage.

''It is one of my better vices.'' I said curtly.

I made a tactical retreat in the direction of my friend in the pink gown.
I snatched a full glass of some strong-looking spirits from a nearby table on the way.
Having joined my friend's side, I silently tried to drain said glass as inconspicuously as possible. ''Last one, I swear.'' I muttered under my breath.

"That's what you said back in Atlantis," Raiden replied, smirking. "But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here. Don't worry about it."
He then walked up closer to Rendra.
"So, I know you're a god and like that's cool and all but I have one question," Raiden paused, building tension as he raised his finger slowly. He pointed it at the God.
"You're gay?"

Rendra grinned at the comment, completely ignoring how flustered Boris currently looked after their brief conversation. "I am! You heard me talking about my girlfriend, right? Thymea's just amazing. I wish she was here. She was going to be, but then there was that whole business with that one town or something? I wasn't given the details because-"

She suddenly fell silent. Maahes watched her with interest from his spot beside Vala and James. It was like when James had asked why she brought them there. He was starting to believe what she had said about being unable to say specific things. But how? And what was so important that it couldn't be revealed?

Something was stopping her from speaking. Be it physical or mental or some magic of which he was unfamiliar, something was keeping her from saying the things that were most important, and the things they needed to know the most. And if that were the case, then informationally, that made her... mostly, useless.

"Is there anything you can tell us about this masquerade or the circumstances that brought us here that we ought to know that isn't going to be stolen from your lips?" he asks, ignoring the boy in the dress.