Chapter 90: I Did Retire Without Telling It. In Retrospect That Was Impolite

The pipes ended at the wall.

I’d been following them long enough that reaching the end felt less like running out of pipe and more like arriving somewhere. Which, in my experience, is the better sort of ending for both plumbing and conversations.

The wall itself looked old. Not unusually old for down here, just the same old stonework as everything else. Same general sense that it had been exactly what it was for longer than most things were expected to remain anything.

But the door set into it was different.

Not newer, exactly. Just made by different hands. The kind of difference you notice when two very old things simply didn’t come from the same maker.

I stood there a moment and looked at it.

The entity had stopped back at the corridor entrance behind me. Several of its eyes were pointed toward the door. Several more were pointed elsewhere, which was its way to look at things. But the ones aimed at the door had a certain glimpse the others didn’t.

It did not come through with me.

I opened the door.

The room inside was small. Smaller than anything else in these sections, which had generally been built with the philosophy that if you were going to construct a ceiling you might as well make one nobody could fully account for.

This ceiling was low. The walls were close.

The whole room had the feeling of something built at the end of a long project by someone who knew the exact dimensions required and had no intention of needing more.

A halberd was in the center.

Standing upright. Not leaning against anything, which is not what halberds normally do on their own. In my experience halberds require assistance if they intend to remain vertical for long periods. Gravity tends to have opinions.

This one appeared to have reached a separate agreement with gravity.

It was simply standing there, the way something stands when it has decided that standing is available to it and has been maintaining that decision for a very long time.

It was old. Not neglected-old or rusted-old. The sort of old things become after being certain about themselves for a while. The metal had a character to it. The light caught it differently from different angles, each angle producing a slightly different glow.

The blade was at the top. The pole was below. Everything exactly where it belonged.

The halberd clearly had views about presentation, and this appeared to be the correct one.

When I stepped through the door, it started to glow.

Warm light at first. The sort of color something produces after spending a long time alone in a dark room and suddenly finding someone has turned the lights on.

The glow reached me before anything else did. It came with a vibration. The old stone carried it the way good stone carries a struck bell. Through the floor. Up through the soles of my boots. Following the same route warmth tends to take.

I stood in the doorway.

"Hello," I said. "I’ve been following the pipes. I should probably have come down to introduce myself sooner."

The glow brightened briefly. Then it shifted. Still warm. But there was something underneath it now. The feeling of someone drawing breath before saying a thing they had been saving for a particular moment and had now arrived at that moment.

The vibration shifted as well. It ran through the room with texture in it, the kind that separated emphasis from the rest of a sentence.

I listened for a moment. It came to me I recognize this halberd.

"I know," I said. "I know I should have told you. That was an oversight. I’ve been meaning to address it."

The vibration did not stop. If anything, it expanded.

The glow developed an edge. Not angry, exactly. But everything anger tended to come from. A long accumulation of waiting for something that never arrived, expressed through the only means available to something whose means were fairly substantial.

Layers of glow formed. Each a slightly different shade. Like light passing through glass of uneven thickness.

The stone walls carried it evenly.

I once had a guest who was unhappy with their room assignment. They chose to express this by rearranging the furniture throughout the entire building. Every room. Including the ones currently occupied.

On the fifth morning I woke up and discovered the dining table had been moved to the second-floor landing.

Both hall chairs were in the kitchen.

Someone had relocated the entire kitchen shelving unit about four feet to the left, which should not have been possible through a normal doorway. I assumed they had a method they preferred not to discuss.

They left no note explaining any of it.

I moved everything back where it belonged. Then I found them and we had a conversation about the guest agreement and what it covered regarding communal spaces. Once located, they were perfectly reasonable about it. It simply had not occurred to them that the procedure was to mention the problem rather than relocate the furniture until someone asked why.

The vibration did something pointed. Very specific.

"Right," I said. "That’s fair. It’s too much blabbering"

I walked over and stopped a few feet from the halberd.

"These dimensions are impressive," I said. "From a technical standpoint. I don’t want you to think I missed that part."

The glow pulsed once. The vibration stayed low and steady.

I stepped fully into the room and left the door open behind me.

"Well," I said. "I’ll set it aside."

I listened.

The whole account took a while. The halberd was thorough, and the account covered a considerable span of time.

When it finished, the room became very still. The glow returned to the original warmth. But something had changed. There was less of the warmth itself. More of whatever the warmth had originally been covering.

"You came down here," I said.

I gestured toward the room around us.

"I suppose you were upset over my decision."

I looked at the blade.

"I knew you would be. I told myself you’d understand over time."

The vibration shifted.

"I see," I said. "You wanted me to explain what I was doing and why before I did it."

I rested a hand against the old stone wall.

"Looking back, you were my companion. I should have informed you about the retirement"

I let that sit for a moment.

"That part was wrong."

[SYSTEM LOG]

Pre-settlement chamber. Halberd: located. Current status: active.

Account delivered. Encounter ongoing.