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.

Land of confusion

 “Fortune’s Observer?” said Perdito slowly.  “Like, your job is to look after the money here too?”

“No,” said Pech.  He sighed.  “I was hoping they’d send someone who knew a little more about our industry, actually.  It’s sort of complicated if you don’t know anything about the magic of chance.”  His voice raised just a touch hopefully at the end, but Rafael and Sylvie both shook their heads.  “Ah, I see.  Then… the casino is licensed, obviously, and that means that there’s a duty to make sure that nothing is messing with chance or probability in here.”

“Right,” said Sylvie, nodding.  Rafael squinted at Pech.  “No,” he said. “Nothing can change the probability of an outcome, but you can change the outcomes instead.”

“No,” said Pech carefully.  “That’s the easy explanation they give you until you start studying it.  There are things that can change probabilities, and they’re all pretty dangerous.  Do either of you have a certification in Chimerics?”

Sylvie and Rafael exchanged glances and Rafael whispered, moving his lips as little as possible, “Is this for real?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Pech as though Rafael had spoken out loud.  “Oh dear.  Have either of you heard of the Sendyon’s Scorpion?  No?  Well, this is a creature that can change probabilities.  They’re not common in this country as they like heat and aridity, but people keep importing them to try and cheat in casinos and at poker tables and they’re a vile pest to exterminate when they get loose.  Mostly because they change the chance of you catching them when they know you’re hunting for them.  What should be a certainty becomes a fraught situation where the scorpion has all the advantages you should have and you have the disadvantages it should have.”

“Ok,” said Rafael.  Sylvie nodded thoughtfully.  “I’ve heard of that,” she said.  “There was one captured in Oldham last week, I think.”

Pech smiled, showing his coffee stained teeth again.  “Yes,” he said.  There was an unspoken ‘well done’ behind his words that Sylvie and Rafael picked up on anyway.  Pech yawned.

“Anyway,” he said, covering his mouth with his hand too late.  “Fortune’s Observer is a legally mandated role that the casino must fill, and it must ensure that there’s nothing affecting probability or chance within a 50m radius of the external walls of the casino itself.  That’s my main job.”

“Which you’re not doing if no-one’s winning, right?”

Sylvie punched Rafael’s shoulder; it wasn’t a hard punch but it wasn’t playful either.

“There are better ways to phrase it than that,” she said. “Just because you didn’t like the security guards doesn’t mean you have to take it out on the rest of us.”

“It’s fine,” said Pech, holding up a hand.  Rafael noticed that his fingers were webbed.

“The guard was a jerk,” said Rafael.  “Not the one who spoke to us.” Sylvie’s hackles subsided and she looked curious.  “The other one, the silent one. He was up to something.”

“It’s fine,” said Pech again, sounding slightly puzzled.

“Maybe,” said Sylvie, ignoring him.  “But do we even have a crime here yet?  There’s nothing to actually accuse him of, you know.”

“Up to what?” asked Pech, realising that he wasn’t getting any attention.

“Wish I knew,” said Rafael.  “He makes my palms itch though, so he’s definitely up to something.”

“Can you question him?”

Now Sylvie looked surprised.  “I guess?” she said.  “I mean, it would help to have a reason but… I suppose we could just ‘talk to everyone’.  Why?”

“We’ve got a room,” said Pech.  “There’s an observation room that looks into it.  The security team use it when we need to talk to someone we’ve caught cheating.  I can watch you talk to him and see if he’s connected with the problems we’re having.  I mean, I’ve been looking for answers all day now and not found any so I’m going to take any help I can get.”

Rafael shrugged and looked over at Sylvie.  “If it’ll help,” he said.  “I mean, I really don’t know why we’re here or what we can go.  It seems like we don’t even really know much about this place either.  It’s just a land of confusion.”

“Can we do this now?” asked Pech.  He yawned again.  “Only it really has been a very long day for me so far.”

“Sure,” said Sylvie.  “Let’s go look at this room and then we’ll find the guard.  Oh, by the way, what’s the thing you have in entrance?”

“Thing?”  Pech opened the door to his office and ushered them out.

“Yeah, the five kilothaum presence.”

Fortune's Observer

 The reception had a long curved desk at the front of it, two security guards stood at one end of it, and three well-dressed, frazzled-looking people behind hit.  Two of them, both women, were sitting on expensive looking office chairs and frowning and the third, a man in a dark-blue suit, was standing just behind them, leaning over the shoulder of the left-most women and seemingly glaring at something.

The desk was made of wood and artfully curved to draw customers along from the entrance and towards the arch that led into the main casino room.  The lighting was subdued at the entrance, where Rafael and Sylvie were standing and it brightened and became more yellow as it approached the casino rooms, where the security guards were standing.  A tall vase behind the desk contained a bunch of sad, withered looking flowers but there was still a strong perfume in the air.  The nearest security guard noticed them and nudged his partner who was staring at his shoes.  The second guard looked up, sighed heavily, and plodded over.

“We’re closed,” he said, sounding like he wanted to sigh again.  “Who let you in?  Was it Derek?  I’ll have his bloody guts for pulling this stunt again.”

“We were asked to come here—“ said Rafael, his eyes narrowing.  Sylvie, who had a good feel for his mood, laid a gentle hand on his shoulder and he tried to shrug her off.

“We’re still closed.  Talk to your friend about your invitation and come again when we’re open.”

“Sure,” said Rafael.  “Nothing I’d like more.”

“We’re here to meet Pech,” said Sylvie, tightening her grip on Rafael’s shoulder as he tried to turn and walk away.  “Probably about the reason that you’re closed right now.”

The other security guard looked up now and started watching them, but he didn’t come over.

“Why didn’t he say that?” complained the security guard who was talking to them.  “What’s the point in coming in here like that and not telling me what you’re here for, eh?”

“That’s enough,” said one of the women behind the desk.  She stood up, revealing that she was dressed in the same dark-blue suit as the man behind her.  “Could you identify yourselves, please?  While I’m sure you are here to see Pech we are a licensed casino and we are required to follow certain procedures before allowing anyone admission.”

Sylvie produced her warrant card and squeezed Rafael’s shoulder until, with less grace, he produced his.  The woman from the reception desk studied them both, then took them behind the desk and carefully scanned them.  There was a short pause, then a double-beep from the computer.

“Thank-you,” she said.  “I was expect— well, that is to say— ah, it’s sort of— no-one told us what to expect.”  She fumbled her way to a conclusion.  “I think I was expecting you to be in uniform,” she said. “That would have made things clearer all round, you see.”

“The silent security guard slipped out a minute ago,” whispered Rafael.  He was nearly soundless, but since Sylvie was gripping his shoulder the words were as clear as if he’d been speaking them into her ear.

“Uniforms are problematic for the Mage Squad,” said Sylvie.  Rafael winced; ‘mage squad’ was what the tabloid press called them.  “In some cases a uniform can be a positive hindrance.  So we have a little more leeway in what to wear.”

“Quite,” said the woman with a look of incomprehension.  “Well, please stand over there,” she gestured to the far side of the reception area, next to a shiny, chromed coffee machine sitting on a dresser, “and help yourself to coffee if you’d like some.  Pech will be… here soon.  I hope.”

Rafael had barely had time to start fiddling with the coffee machine’s settings before there was a soft cough behind him and he and Sylvie turned round.

“Pech,” said a middle-aged man, holding out a hand.  He was shorter than both of them, had a bald spot on the back of his head, and there was a smell like a damp towel hanging around him.

“Malacosa,” said Sylvie, shaking his hand.  As soon as he turned away she wiped her hand discretely on the back of her skirt; his hand was so clammy as to be almost wet.

“Perdito,” said Rafael, also shaking his hand.  “No-one’s told us why you want us here.”

“Blunt,” said Pech, grinning and revealing coffee-stained teeth.  “Nice.  Don’t get a lot of that here.”

“That’s not an answer,” said Rafael.  He was also looking for somewhere to wipe his hand, but Pech hadn’t taken his gaze off him.

“Not here,” said Pech.  He didn’t look round but both the others felt as though he had.  Sylvie nodded once, to herself; Pech had a strong thaumic shadow.  “Too many people wouldn’t understand what we’re talking about and I don’t like having to keep stopping and answering questions.”

“Me neither,” said Rafael.  “Where then?”

“My office.”

Pech’s office had a nameplate on the door but neither Rafael nor Sylvie had time to read it as it was blurred with a secrecy charm.  Both of them could have broken it easily, but not without Pech noticing.  It was a small room with a desk piled high with small white boxes and a chair on which a coat and gloves had been discarded.  A tiny table in one corner held a fist-sized quartz crystal and there was another chair, with a broken leg, tucked in underneath.  There were no windows and a pervasive smell of day-old toast.

“Sorry about the mess,” said Pech without sounding sorry at all.  “The casino is supposed to come and collect all the confiscated items every couple of days but they’re always behind on them.  And then there’s the current situation, which has been going on for—“ he checked his watch— “a little over thirty hours now.”

“What’s the situation?” said Rafael, sounding just a touch aggressive.

“No-one’s winning,” said Pech.

“Isn’t that always the case?” asked Sylvie.  She moved a little closer to the crystal on the small table.

“No,” said Pech.  “You might be thinking of the house edge, I guess?  That’s built-in.  The idea is that customers win or lose according to the whims of chance, and the house takes a tiny sliver from the money they gamble with as payment for providing the services and entertainment.  If customers only ever lost no-one would play after a short while.  Just like if they only ever won they’d stop playing too because it would be boring, but no-one’s supposed to get the chance to find out.”

“So what do you do then?” said Rafael.  He looked around the room.  “Stop people cheating?”

Pech nodded.  “That’s a big part of it,” he said.  “People come up with the most amazing ideas of how we’re cheating them, and then they try and ‘make things fair again’ by cheating themselves.”  He patted the boxes on the table.  “Each box has a gadget or magical item in it that someone’s tried to sneak in.  We get most of them at the doors or reception, but every now and then someone puts some real effort into it, spends some serious money and we have to catch them on the floor.  It’s amazing how much effort they’ll put into trying to beat a game of chance when the same effort at their day job would get them a double promotion and a bonus.”

“What’s the other part of it?” asked Sylvie, sounding a little distracted.  The quartz crystal felt like it was beckoning her.

“I’m Fortune’s Observer,” said Pech.

A matter of chance

   Rafael frowned as though he’d been given a maths problem to solve and only five minutes to find the answer.  “Can you repeat that, please?” he said at last, a note of weariness entering his voice.

“Which bit?” said the slightly nasal sounding voice on the other side of the radio connection.

“All of it, please,” he said.  He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes tightly, wishing that the headache that was forming would go away.  In the passenger seat of the patrol car his partner, La Malacosa, giggled.  

“Um, well… you’re to go to the Hallways Casino, that’s the big one off Sycamore Square and not the little one near the train station, and when you get there you’re to ask for Pech—“ he pronounced it like peck but with the last sound made breathy somehow “— and they’ll explain what the problem is.  Uh, is that clear now?”

“As mud,” said Rafael.  “Why are we going to a casino?  Is there an assault?  Or a drug deal gone wrong?  Something, you know, criminal, happening there?”

“All I have here is that Pech will tell you when you get there,” said the dispatcher.  He sounded a touch unhappy.

“Right, yes, well I guess that’s what we’ve got then,” said Rafael.  “Thanks.  We’re on our way.”

He flicked the switch on the radio that turned transmitting off and looked over at Sylvie, better known by her department nickname of Malacosa.  “This has got to be some kind of joke, right, Mal?  How can there be a crime going on in a casino that’s a secret?’

“I have no idea,” said Sylvie.  She saw his look of disbelief and shrugged.  “No, really, I don’t.  I know as much as you do, Perdito.”  Perdito was Rafael’s nickname.

“Well that’s just about nothing then.”  He glared out through the windshield, hoping to see an actual crime being committed that would allow him to pass the casino case onto someone else, but the streets were quiet.  A couple of children were levitating over a playground, and a young woman was walking two fish on a leash, but otherwise there was nothing to see.

“Get a move on,” said Sylvie, shifting in her seat.  “It’s not going to get better if we’re late getting there.”

The Hallways Casino was a squat rectangular building on the corner of Tremble Street, supposedly named for a 19^th century politician, with no windows that Rafael could see but a very grand, porticoed entrance with wide double doors and a doorman on either side.

“Do you think they open a door each?” he said as he parked the car in a space reserved for disabled parking.

“No, I think they’re there to make you feel special when you go in,” said Sylvie.  She tsked when she saw that the space was reserved.  “You can’t park here, you know.”

“I can,” said Rafael.  “The tickets always get lost before they reach me.”

“That’s really not the point.”

“I know, but unless you want to move the car yourself, that’s where it’s parked.”

Sylvie shrugged.  “I’m not the one who’ll get the ticket,” she said.  “Although it sounds like you’re not either.  Who does get the ticket?”

“I’ve never found out,” said Rafael, smiling for the first time since they’d been despatched.  “Come on, let’s go and see if we warrant both doormen or just one.”

Both doormen ignored him and Sylvie as they approached and as Rafael pulled open a door and walked through into a long, gloomy corridor.

“I guess that’s how special we ar— whoah!  What the hell was that?”

Sylvie had stopped just inside the entrance and the door hit her ungently on the shoulders, nudging her forwards.

“Strong,” she said, not moving any further.  “That’s got to be at least five kilothaums.  And… it’s not moving, it’s static.”

Rafael walked a little further and then stopped.  “It ends here,” he said.  He looked up and down the corridor.  “About three-quarters of the way along.  Might be a security field?”

“Might be why we’re here,” said Sylvie.  “I’m pretty sure that the use of magic in a casino is regulated.”

Rafael looked along the corridor again.  “Arguably we’re still outside the casino proper,” he said.  “But I wouldn’t want to be standing in front of a judge making that argument.”

“Good choice,” said Sylvie.  She took a step forward.  “I don’t like it,” she said.  “Gives me the creeps.”

Rafael took a few steps back until he was inside the magical field again.  The sensation was like a bucket of cold water being poured over his head: a sudden shock that made him tingle everywhere, and then he kept tingling even as the shock died away.  The tingle seemed strongest in his fingers and toes but he knew that that was just because the nerve endings there were especially sensitive to thaumic fields.

“It’s strong but it doesn’t feel odd,” he said.  “And nullies wouldn’t even detect it.  Maybe it’s just to identify people with magical ability to prevent them from getting into the casino proper?  Part of the regulations?”

“That would make some sense,” said Sylvie.  She seemed to steel herself against something unseen and walked along the corridor.  She didn’t run, but she was clearly hurrying.  “But,” she said when she reached the end with a gasp that suggested she’d been holding her breath, “it surely doesn’t need to be so strong for that.  And why not have an alarm attached to it?”

“Maybe it does, but it’s not sounding here?”

“Could be.”  Sylvie looked around.  “Maybe we should stop guessing and find someone with some answers though.”

“This Peach person?”

“Pech.”  Sylvie corrected him with a faint smile.  “Looks like the coatrooms are to the left and the reception area is to the right.”  She pointed at some faded signs on the wall.  “Reception sounds like where we might be expected.”