Chapter 20 – SubFundus (3)

Splash!

The putrid water, thick, greenish, almost alive with contamination, ran down Ezra's hair, soaking his hood and plastering his clothes to his body. A heavy droplet dripped from his chin, slow and viscous.

"Well, well… seems our water's too refined for the young master."

The voice was raspy and mocking. It belonged to a man with a patch over his left eye and, in the right, an unstable mechanical implant that pulsed red with each electrical fault. He laughed loudly, signaling for the others to come closer with more buckets.

Splash!

This time, the jet hit him straight in the face. The stench was suffocating, rust, mold, chemical waste, and a hint of stagnant death. Ezra clenched his teeth. He didn't say a word.

The place looked like an underground chamber, or perhaps a repurposed cell. The walls were corroded metal and cracked concrete. Exposed pipes spat steam and dark fluid across the ceiling, dripping incessantly. The floor was sticky and uneven, covered in a mixture of sludge, oil, and trash. The only light came from hanging bulbs strung on exposed wires, flickering with a sickly glow.

In front of him, scattered like hyenas around prey, stood several men. He couldn't tell exactly how many. Shadows moved in the corners, others emerged from the smoke. But they were more than enough.

"Ezra! How dare these idiots, who probably don't even know what kind of diapers their quinquallion ancestors wore millennia before they were born, treat you this way!" Mazzareth's voice echoed furiously in his mind. Once serene, now it roared with primal rage.

Ezra kept his eyes down.

'Ignore them. That's how life works in the SubFundus… I was the fool to show up like nothing would happen.' He spoke in thought, but he had already realized: Mazzareth could hear him. As long as he directed the thought.

Another man approached. He was smaller, his face covered in scars and his teeth stained with rust. His tongue, split down the middle like a serpent's, lolled from his mouth.

"Young master… what a shame," he hissed, bowing slowly. "If it weren't for the boss's orders… ah, the things we could do together…"

He ran the forked tongue across Ezra's face. Ezra didn't move. But the disgust was almost physical, a shiver ran down his spine, followed by a surge of nausea.

What surprised him most, however, was Mazzareth. The demon seemed ready to erupt.

"EZRA! When we get out of here, you're going to annihilate these worms. One by one.

And you'll start with this hole-tongued bastard. I'll personally see to ripping out his other eye."

Ezra sighed. Paradoxically, Mazzareth's explosive rants calmed him. They were so over-the-top they felt oddly familiar.

'And how, oh exalted demonic majesty, do you suppose I'll get out of here?' he muttered in thought, almost sarcastically.

"Oh, it's quite simpl—"

Before Mazzareth could finish, the conversation was cut short by a voice on the left.

"Stop scaring the kid, Karmen." It was the one-eyed man, speaking lightly, as if the whole thing were a joke.

"Once the boss is done with him, he's all yours. But for now… don't stiffen up his flesh. That just makes your process slower, doesn't it?"

"What you say makes sense, cyclops…" Karmen, the one with the split tongue, chuckled softly and stepped away. But not before slowly leaning in and kissing Ezra on the cheek, as if it were some intimate gesture.

"Nothing, nothing… we'll still have our fun."

Ezra's skin prickled. Not from the kiss itself, but from the way Karmen's gaze lit up, flushed cheeks, a twisted grin, an eerie blend of childlike perversity and chemical-induced madness.

He closed his eyes for a brief second. Not to escape. But to erase the moment from memory.

'One by one…' he repeated silently. And for the first time, Mazzareth fell silent.

For a few seconds.

"This won't do," he finally broke the silence, indignant. "Ezra, I think it's time we got the hell out of here before... well, before your ass loses its virginity."

Ezra scoffed inwardly.

'I think it'd be the oth—' But he cut off the thought himself. The image that had flashed through his mind was too absurd even for him.

'Forget it.'

He took a deep breath. The stench around him seemed to have grown worse.

'How, Mazzareth? I've got my hands tied, literally, and even if I manage to get loose, how am I supposed to escape a bunch of maniacs armed to the teeth?'

His gaze swept the group subtly. The shadows. The makeshift weapons. The mechanical arms with built-in blades. The crooked smiles of people who had lost everything, and enjoyed the feeling.

'And, much as I hate to admit it… that one with the eyepatch, and the other, the one with the tongue, they're most likely Codex bearers.'

It wasn't just their stance. It was the way the others lowered their heads around them.

Or rather: revered them. As if in the presence of something sacred. Or cursed.

Codex. Not exactly rare. But priceless. They represented power. Identity. And in the lowest layers of society, where government protection was just a myth, a Codex bearer was treated like a king.

Or a demon.

'Even if they're low-tier… they're still three, maybe four times stronger than I am.' Ezra bit his lip, tasting the metallic blend of the air and his own sweat.

And even in silence, Mazzareth felt the weight of what was forming.

"That's exactly why you're still incapable of grasping a Law, Ezra." The voice came sharp, laced with that patronizing tone of a disapproving grandfather, but with the latent fury of a bored demon.

Ezra furrowed his brow. He wanted to argue.

But Mazzareth didn't let him.

"You thought well, sure… if you were someone strong... But Ezra, you're not. Not yet. Your way of thinking needs to be different."

The pause was brief, but deliberate.

"Why go head-on when there are countless other ways? Have you considered threatening? Persuading? Deceiving? Escaping?... Maybe begging… not that I'd allow it, of course, if you do that, I'll kill you myself, but I think you get the point."

Ezra stayed quiet. The words circled in his mind like acidic smoke.

"Listen. This is my first lesson for you. The first of many, on your path to claiming your Codex." Mazzareth's tone shifted. "Etch this in your mind. Burn it into memory."

His voice slowed. More deliberate. As if teaching a child.

"The first Law for understanding a Law is simple:

—To understand something, you must first know it.— And to know it… you must feel it, see it, touch it, smell it, hear it, suffer through it. Only then will knowledge bow to you."

"Laws don't reveal themselves to the distracted. They must be lived. Felt in the flesh, in the bone, in fear. Because tell me, Ezra… how can someone understand what they've never even noticed?"

Ezra didn't answer. But Mazzareth felt the response between the lines. The silence, this time, was one of listening. Of acceptance.

"Very well… In that case, first question."

Mazzareth's tone turned sadistic. Almost gleeful.

"How many idiots are in this space?"

Ezra immediately understood the point. After all, he was a scholar. And he remembered an old maxim, something that had fascinated him as a child:

—To know something, one must first be astonished by it. Astonishment sparks doubt. And doubt fuels the search.—

Now, there was a concrete doubt. A need: How many?

He lifted his head subtly. His vision was still blurred, stinging from the foul liquid that had been thrown in his face. But he forced his eyes open, ignoring the burn. Blinking was no longer an option.

To the left, he made out three men talking near a staircase. However, what caught his attention was a shadow cast on the wall by one of the neon lights, elongated, subtle, in motion.

'Four... maybe five on the stairs.'

To the right, a broken window. Near it, a solitary man slumped in a corner, rifle across his lap. Breathing heavily, head drooped. Probably asleep.

'One less for now.'

At the center, directly in front of him, a metal door. Closed. Ezra couldn't see what lay beyond, but in front of it stood two bulky guards, armed, unmoving, alert.

'Where there are two guards at an entrance, there are at least two more on the other side.'

Behind him, nothing but cracked wall and steam pouring from a broken pipe.

He shut his eyes for a moment. Calculated.

'There are at least seven... maybe eight idiots in this space,' he replied, confident.

The silence that followed didn't last long.

"Good," Mazzareth replied with a tone somewhere between a chuckle and disdain.

"For a first try… not bad."

A pause.

"But I must say… there are at least fifteen."