The Everpresent Joy

 “There’s no presence at the entrance to the casino,” said Pech.  He looked as though he was thinking hard.  “Nothing magical there either; the license doesn’t allow for that kind of thing.  Maybe you picked up on something outside the casino?”

“It was definitely inside,” said Sylvie.  She hugged herself as she remember it.  “I didn’t even notice it until I stepped through the door, and then it was all I could notice.”

“That can’t be right,” said Pech.  He sounded worried now and Rafael could see the man shaking his head very slightly from side to side.  “That would be a clear violation of the licence.  No-one would have installed anything there without checking with me first.”

“How could they… install? it without you noticing?” asked Rafael.  He was starting to feel some sympathy for a man who was clearly exhausted and overworked.  “I mean, unless you’re a nullie you can’t miss it when you come in.”

“It wasn’t there when I arrived,” said Pech simply.  “If what you’re saying is true, then it can’t have been there when I arrived or I would have noticed it.”

“If?” Rafael’s hackles, sensitive to the slightest perceived insult, rose again.

“Why don’t we go look at it,” said Sylvie, aware of what her partner was like and stepping in quickly to defuse the situation.  “If nothing else, maybe you’ll know what it is when you see it.”

“I’m not in the habit of lying,” murmured Rafael to Sylvie as Pech led the way downstairs and towards the casino entrance.  He’d clearly forgotten that Pech’s hearing was very good, or at least that his thaumic shadow was broad enough to catch small sounds, as the short mage’s shoulders noticeably tensed.

“You sort of are,” said Sylvie in her normal voice, hoping that would serve as a reminder.  “Think about you where you parked earlier.”

“That’s not a lie!  That’s… creative licence!”

Sylvie’s giggle was drowned out by Pech’s gasp.  He was just beyond the reception desk where the t-junction to the cloakrooms and the entrance was, and he sounded like he’d been punched in the solar plexus. Both Sylvie and Rafael sped up and reached him a couple of seconds later, just in time for Rafael to catch him as his knees buckled.

“You can feel it from here?” asked Rafael.  Pech just nodded, and Sylvie, looking around them, rubbed an arm.

“Me too,” she said. “Though it’s not that bad here.  It’s stronger now though, it stopped half-way down the corridor before.”

“Three-quarters of the way,” corrected Rafael.  Sylvie glared at him and he shrugged.  “Not in the habit of lying,” he said, grinning.

“What is it?” she asked Pech, looking at his face so that she could ignore Rafael.

“An eidolon,” said Pech.  He struggled to his feet, leaning heavily on Rafael.  “It shouldn’t be here.”

“A phantasm?”  Sylvie looked at the corridor as though it were in her way.  “It doesn’t seem like a phantasm to me.”

“No,” said Pech.  He heaved a huge sigh that made his whole body shudder.  “No, the other usage.  The idealisation of a concept.”

All three of them looked at the corridor now, but the corridor, apart from being badly lit and seeming like the worst choice to take to move around the casino, looked just like a corridor.  No ghosts emerged from the walls, and no bright lights or eerie sounds happened.

“How can you be so sure?” asked Rafael.  He’d heard about eidolons and avatars, but this was the first time he’d ever been told he was in the presence of one.  He looked about again, wishing that there was something to identify other than a faint feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

“Training,” said Pech.  “You probably wouldn’t have had it since you’ve not studied probability-changers.  It’s like… it’s like how if you study biology enough you learn a lot about mice or plants or moulds or what-have-you, but if you know a lot about mice you probably don’t know very much about moulds.  Your training’s all been in a different area.”  He was standing on his own feet again now but he was very pale and he looked like he was sweating.

“Fair,” said Sylvie.  “I’m guessing you wouldn’t know too much about South American Death Deities then.”

“Nothing,” said Pech.  “Although I suppose now I know that there’s something to be learned about them.”

“Right, fine,” said Rafael sounding a little testy.  “When you’re done swapping school stories, what’s the eidolon doing here then?  It looks like you weren’t expecting it.”

“What’s it an idealisation of?” asked Sylvie.  She was rubbing her arm again.

“It’s not permitted here,” said Pech. “Very illegal.  This would be a lot of trouble if we were open at the moment.”

“What’s it the idealisation of?”

Pech grimaced. “Joy,” he said.  “It’s almost certainly why no-one’s winning.”

Rafael looked at Sylvie, who was looking like she had hives.  Then at Pech again.

“How does that work?” he said.  “Surely everybody would be joyful if they won?  Is it stopping them from winning so they can’t be joyful?”

“No,” said Pech.  “More complex than that.  The Everpresent Joy is an aspect of the Goddess of Fortune, and she can choose to go whichever way she wants.  Someone’s put this Eidolon here to stop people winning; it’s drawing all the good luck out of the casino and into itself.  It will keep growing until it has it all, but these are games of chance; they create their own luck, so to speak.”

“I’m definitely not following you,” said Rafael.  “Just turn all the games off, right?”

Sylvie was scratching her arms now and moving backwards.  “No,” she said.  “Like he said, it’s complex.  But basically, since there’s a casino here, there’s a source of power for that thing.  And we can’t just turn it off unless you’ve got some way to make the casino just disappear into thin air.”

Rafael grinned.

“Without explosives,” she added.