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1In the beginning, there was Void.
2
3The Elements looked into the Void, and they laid claim upon it. Each would create within the Void, to banish it, and to welcome form.
4
5Fire was the first: it burned brightly, but shortly, for there was nothing to fuel it.
6
7Water the next: It could not hold its form, but turned to vapor.
8
9Air the third: A relentless empty howling.
10
11Earth the last: It could only crumble.
12
13And Mind could not even be conceived of.
14
15Thus did the Elements cease to exist alone, and instead became a whole, greater than the sum of their parts.
16
17Earth became the land beneath us, the mountains and the sand and the fertile grounds.
18
19Water swam upon the Earth, in its rivers and oceans and lakes.
20
21Fire was the heat that lies at the core, the stars in the sky, the sun that warms us.
22
23Air breathed in all the places above the land.
24
25And Mind, in order to exist, brought life to us all.
26
27The other Elements, seeing what Mind had wrought, felt a greater need: To not only be the World, but to inhabit it, to exist within it. So they came upon the earth and fashioned bodies for themselves, and thus were made the first humans.
28
29Each element was represented by two aspects: The creative and the destructive, for while all Elements are forces of creation, they each possess an aspect of transformation. Each aspect was married to its other in the way the ore is married to the rock, the river to the ocean, the flame to the tinder, and the wind to the clouds.
30
31They are:
32
33The Lady of Subtlety, who lives inside us all.
34
35The Lord of Blazes, who reduces to ash.
36
37The Lady of the Hearth, who builds in the cleared areas.
38
39The Lord of Quakes, who opens the Earth to us.
40
41The Lady of Soil, who grows life.
42
43The Lord of Winds, who moves the sky.
44
45The Lady of Breath, who gives voice.
46
47The Lord of Oceans, who teems with life and death alike.
48
49The Lady of Rains, who falls upon us all.
50
51They created the race of man, they walked the earth as we did, and their magic was Pure, for they could be none other than what they were.
52
53We are of them, and we shall become them again. As has happened before will happen again.
54
55Such ends Chapter I
56
57*************************
581
59
60"Here is your first assignment," the taskmaster said to me, handing over a small sealed scroll.
61
62I took it eagerly, opening it without hesitation.
63
64Locate a Pure within the city limits
65
66I looked back up to the taskmaster. "Is this a joke?"
67
68He shook his head. "No joke, initiate." His mind betrayed no hint of deception, but of course someone like him could weave a story out of whole cloth without revealing himself. He wouldn't have the job, otherwise.
69
70"I don't understand." I said, making sure my confusion was perceptible to him. "There hasn't been a Pure in over a hundred years."
71
72The taskmaster nodded. "There hasn't been a publicly acknowledged Pure in over a hundred years. Think back to what happened to that last one and you'll probably figure out why."
73
74The taskmaster didn't have to remind me - the last Pure had been kidnapped by every organization that had even the barest means to do so. Sometimes he'd even been kidnapped from other kidnappers. He hadn't lived an enjoyable life, and at some point he realized he never would. They found him asphyxiated, presumably via his own air magic.
75
76"There are," the taskmaster interrupted my thoughts, "at least three Pure within the city limits. Find one of them."
77
78I nodded, used a bit of fire magic to dispose of the scroll containing my instructions, and left the building to roam the streets of the city.
79
80Once I got over my initial shock that there was a Pure in the city (let alone three of them), it made sense. Their magic wouldn't stand out, so long as they could manage to tone it down to the level that the common person could use. The whiff of flame I'd disposed of the scroll with was about as much fire as anyone could conjure, for example. A gust of wind to clean up dust or (maybe) close a door. A handful of water to stave off thirst, though as any desert traveler could tell you that was very much a zero-sum proposition. Furrowing the earth to plant a few seeds. Knowing the surface thoughts of your fellow man. Such were the powers everyone had access to. Like any skill, they could be honed, but the days of mighty wizards destroying entire cities with a rain of fire were long gone.
81
82Or so I'd thought. Because if the Pure were here, it was within their power. I didn't understand exactly how - I left genetics to the monks - but every once in a while someone was born who didn't inherit their meager powers from their meager parents. Generations of breeding had dulled the once terrifying abilities of the mages of long ago, but the Pure were proof that they had in fact been our forefathers. They commanded a single element directly, and with a power that none could match. Of course, any time one went public they were kidnapped and - at best - used for breeding stock. Unless they were willing to level an entire block to deal with potential captors, it only made sense to stay hidden.
83
84I didn't worry that I was exposing an innocent person's secret to the taskmaster - the fact that they knew of three Pure in the city already told me that such persons were watched, but not interfered with. One would think the organization would want such a person for the same reasons everyone else did, but that would ignore what the organization truly stood for: The status quo.
85
86It didn't matter, though. I had my assignment. Clearly it was a test - I could hardly be expected to locate a fourth Pure where others with years more experience had failed - but I took it seriously. The question was, how would I find such people? They wouldn't dare use the full extent of their abilities in public, or else everyone would know.
87
88I smiled as the answer came to me. All I had to do was make it very clear to anyone who looked at my mind that I was seeking a Pure. Ordinary people would read my intent and get out of the way; all I had to do was find someone who didn't react (or who needed someone to tell them), and then I'd investigate those people later. It wouldn't work if my target's element was Mind, of course, but a Pure Mind could make you forget they ever existed so trying to locate one was pointless.
89
90Finding a Pure was easy, I reflected as I started my patrol. It wasn't about what they could do. It was about what they couldn't.
91
92*************************
932
94
95"Report, Initiate" the taskmaster said to me.
96
97"Portia Windelm." I replied. "Contrary to the name, she's a Pure Water."
98
99The taskmaster just grunted his agreement with my discovery. Clearly, as I'd thought, this was not exactly news to the organization. The fact that it had taken me a week went entirely unremarked and was hopefully just as expected.
100
101My initial sweep had been a success, nearly too much of one. I'd looked for people who didn't react to my thoughts, and I'd found more than a few. The rest of the week had been dedicated to further investigating them. Most of them just hadn't been paying attention; the next time I'd gone by with thoughts of hunting in my mind they'd reacted accordingly. It didn't take long until I had only a few suspects left. Portia was the first I'd found and by far the strongest lead, since she'd made no secret of her garden's continued success even through the city's droughts.
102
103Finally, the taskmaster seemed to decide something. He turned to go, making a gesture that clearly indicated I was also to leave. Shit, had I failed somehow? If I left, I might never find my way back here, the organization was legendary for not being found when it didn't want to. That was practically the only thing anyone outside of it knew of it, which only reinforced the legend. I spoke up.
104
105"Nazir Windelm." I said. "Her husband. He's a Pure Earth."
106
107That got the taskmaster's attention. He turned, looking me over. "You were supposed to find Hakan Alsden."
108
109"I did," I said. "He was a less strong lead, but I suspect he is a Pure Air; his windmill has never ceased operating."
110
111The taskmaster nodded. "I see. Come with me, initiate." He didn't wait for me to do so, but instead resumed walking the direction he'd begun moving earlier. I stood and ran to catch up, relieved that I'd correctly determined the identity of the city's three Pure.
112
113"Tell me how you discovered Mr. Windelm," he ordered.
114
115"It was incidental." I said. I thought it strange that he'd focus on the one that was the easiest of the three to find, but didn't comment on it. "I noticed that he was the one who got his wife's attention when I came by, the thought of seeking the Pure in mind."
116
117The taskmaster nodded. "Future tasks may require more subtlety on your behalf, initiate." My specific strategy appeared to have been anticipated, but his tone didn't seem harsh at all. "If Mr. Windelm was the one to alert his wife to your seekings, it seems unlikely that he would be Pure."
118
119"That is what I believed, as well. Every time I neared their house or any place that had them both, he alerted her."
120
121"Then what gave him away?"
122
123I didn't like to admit I hadn't planned this part, but luck had its place in our organization. "Coincidence. On the fourth day, I was investigating both Mrs. Windhelm and making my way to the Alsden Mills. I did not have time to do both, so I hired a rickshaw to take me through the city at a higher speed."
124
125"And?"
126
127"Mr. Windelm did not alert his wife. Both remained entirely ignorant of my passing."
128
129The taskmaster stopped moving suddenly. He turned to face me and even though he'd always looked a bit upset, now he truly looked angry. "Initiate, I am taking you to our Queen, do you understand?"
130
131I didn't. We were two stories underground in the abandoned city that the city proper was built on. Clearly Her Royal Highness was not down here.
132
133"You, Initiate, are a Pawn. I am a Rook - in fact, the only one. Should you ever address me as anything other than 'taskmaster', you would call me 'Rook'. I am bringing you to the Queen. Do you understand?"
134
135Now I did. Clearly, my detective work had impressed. "Yes, Taskmaster Rook."
136
137Rook's mood did not improve. "That's Rook Taskmaster, not that it matters if you won't tell me what the hell your story has to do with your discovery! I'll not be made a fool of in front of the Queen!"
138
139I tried to refrain from visibly gulping. The taskmaster had been a hardcase when I was merely auditioning for my current role, and actually being a member of the organization didn't seem to improve my standing in his eyes. I got to the point: "I've done some research since I was last here, to confirm my discovery. The Pures do more than just manipulate their elements - in a way, they are their element. Anything that happens to it, they understand. They can sense through their element."
140
141Rook nodded slowly, his face slowly losing some of the rage that had built. "Good of you to research that. Not many know that particular relationship. That's how you'd find them in a subtler way than just yelling at the top of your mind."
142
143"That's how I did find him." I said. "He must have been there that first day, seen me, and been alerted by someone else before I noticed he needed the help. He didn't memorize my features, though, he memorized the way I walk. Any time I was near, he'd know it through the earth. The rickshaw threw him, though. And when I visited again the next day with a rock in my boot and using a cane, again he did not respond."
144
145Rook continued walking down the hallway again, and I followed. "You've done good, Initiate" he said grudgingly.
146
147We made another turn and he opened a door. The inside was nothing like I'd expected: While the organization's halls were far nicer than you'd expect from being in a rotten abandoned underground city, this room was lavish. Paintings adorned the walls, a massive oak desk took up much of the space, and the floor itself appeared to be expensively carpeted.
148
149"Rook." The woman behind the desk was smiling at both of us. "To what do I owe this surprise?"
150
151Rook saluted, but his tone was more casual. "Doubt it's a surprise to you. Our Pawn found himself three of the Pure."
152
153The Queen looked over at me, her eyebrows raised. "Oh, that is impressive. He found all three?"
154
155Something was off about Rook's tone, but I couldn't place it. "No. He found two of the three, and then one more we didn't know about."
156
157The Queen's face broke out in a smile. "Nazir Windelm. Clever, clever clever. I was beginning to think nobody would find him, tremorsense is such a versatile tool."
158
159"You knew." Rook didn't sound surprised.
160
161The Queen laughed. "Of course I knew, Rook. Oh, don't worry so much. I'd have let you know if he became a danger, but he's far more careful than his wife. Honestly, you should have figured it out earlier. Mrs. Windelm never rotates her crops!"
162
163Rook just nodded at this. "Of course, Queen."
164
165"You've done well, Rook, finding this one. I wouldn't normally send anyone who wasn't a Bishop on an errand like the one I have in mind, but he is good, he is very good."
166
167"Bishop One and Bishop Two are due back in a week." Rook volunteered.
168
169The Queen just frowned. "One, maybe. But Bishop Two is dead, I'm afraid. I'm sorry, Rook."
170
171Rook's face dropped. I'd seen a lot of negative emotions in that face, but I'd never seen this. "He... how?"
172
173"The Empire's Intelligence Service discovered him. Waited until he was leaving the empire to begin the journey home, and they ambushed him. I'm told he fought well, but it was too far away for any of our resources to help."
174
175Rook just seemed to accept this information. "Permission to leave, Queen?"
176
177"Of course, Rook. Take all the time you need."
178
179Rook left the room, the door closing quietly behind him. I continued standing, unsure if I was supposed to even be in the room anymore.
180
181"Sit, Pawn, sit. There is the question of what to do with you. Knight One and Knight Two are unlikely to give up their spots anytime soon, and neither of them want the kind of likely-to-get-themselves-killed missions a Bishop merits."
182
183I sat in a chair I hadn't noticed before. "My, ah... Lady Queen - which of the Pure did I miss?"
184
185She smiled again. I knew better than to trust the facial expression of anyone in this organization, and her surface thoughts were giving nothing away at all, but she seemed genuine. "Ah, you were told there were three and you found three, but Rook indicated you were only supposed to find two?"
186
187"He didn't say as much." I said. "But when I named Mr. Windelm, he said I was supposed to find the miller instead. And just now, it seemed obvious that he didn't know when you pointed out the crop rotation."
188
189"But you did notice the rotation. If had just been the footsteps, that might not have been enough. But that clue, the same one that confirms Mrs. Windelm's status, also confirms his."
190
191"Exactly!" I said. "I did notice the rotation, though I hadn't mentioned that to Rook yet."
192
193She waved that away, "Oh, dear boy, I know. I knew the moment you discovered it. I suspected that you were talented, so I made sure to keep tabs on you."
194
195She could have meant that other agents of the organization had followed me. She could have meant that some of the street urchins had sold the information of my comings and goings. She could have meant a lot of different things, but one possibility, one impossible impossibility, came to my mind.
196
197"Oh," she said, though I'd done my best to try to mask it, "but you are a good one. How would you prove such a suspicion, though? Even if I was what you suspected, how could I prove such a thing?"
198
199There was one way-
200
201She leaned forward on the desk and looked me directly in the eyes. "Initiate. I am a Pure Mind."
202
203And she proved it the only way she could: I believed her.
204
205*************************
2063
207
208It was probably a good thing she'd had me sit down, because I couldn't concentrate enough to stand at the moment. Any other Pure, and I could at least theoretically survive a confrontation. Oh, sure, it'd get messy - nothing like being set on fire or buried alive - but there was always a way out. Like I'd figured out earlier, they were defined by what they couldn't do more than what they could.
209
210But a Pure Mind... there was nothing they couldn't do.
211
212The difference between actually being set on fire and having your mind convinced you were set on fire was, for practical purposes, nil. Same with drowning, asphyxiation, and being buried alive. A person's mind had more power over them than it would allow them to realize: If the Queen made me think I couldn't breathe, then I couldn't breathe.
213
214There was no counter move I could think of, because she'd know my thoughts before I completed them. There was no strategy I could imagine, because chances were good they were her strategies and she'd planted them in my mind specifically because she knew how to deal with them. What had I gotten myself into?
215
216"I get that a lot." She said. "It's okay. You're a practical person, you'll come to the right conclusions."
217
218I'd come to the right conclusions because I wouldn't have a choice, and the 'right' conclusions would be her conclusions.
219
220"It's actually much easier if you think it through." She said.
221
222Much easier for who? It couldn't be her, because for her the ability to literally change my mind was innate. For me? It'd probably be easier for me if she just changed it, too. Less doubt, less paranoia that she was putting thoughts in my head, steering me to her own goals. I'd done the necessary research, asked the right questions, endured Rook's trials in order to be part of this organization, but when had I made the actual decision? Had I been played from the start?
223
224"Why did you decide to join us?" She asked, as though she knew what I was thinking. Of course, she did.
225
226"You know." I said. I was surprised she bothered with conversation at all. Anything she wanted to know, she knew.
227
228"I do, "the Queen said. "But - title aside - I am not a tyrant. The only mind altering I've done to you is to make you believe my claim, because that's how you prove such a claim. I'm not even using my power to read your mind now, your surface thoughts are so loud that Rook could hear them were he not preoccupied."
229
230I focused, willing myself to be calmer. It was a sort of application of my own mind magic. Most people didn't turn their mind's power inward, but it helped in situations like this. Not that this particular situation was one I'd ever envisioned.
231
232"That's better." The Queen was apparently satisfied by this. "To answer your unasked question, I have conversations because it puts people at ease. I don't want puppets who just do what I will, I want free-thinking people whose goals already aligned with mine, and for that I need trust. So I talk."
233
234"I wanted to be better." I said. I'd already decided to answer the earlier question about why I joined, but of course I didn't need to say that. I supposed being in a conversation with the most powerful telepath in the city did streamline things somewhat.
235
236"There's not much information about us on the streets." She said. "I would know. How did you even know what we did?"
237
238"At first, I didn't." I admitted. Trying to bluff at this point would be more insane than I already felt. "I didn't even know if you were real, but I'd decided that even if you weren't, it was a way out."
239
240"You grew up not far from here." She said. "One of the poor of the abandoned city."
241
242"Yeah. One of the gutter kids. I saw what happened to us - the lucky of us grew up to be homeless. The unlucky, they didn't grow up. So I didn't know if the organization existed, but I didn't care. If I got good enough to be noticed by you, I'd be good enough to get noticed by someone."
243
244"It wasn't your skills we admired so much as what you did with them. Robbing from the rich and giving to the poor is a somewhat classic theme, after all."
245
246I stifled a laugh. "I didn't learn to read until later, so no knowledge of the classics at the time. It was more that the rich were good targets and the poor was me. Still, I'd think that sort of social upheaval would be against the organization's charter, now that I know it."
247
248"It's not an actual charter," the Queen said. "it's more a guiding philosophy. The city supports as many people as it can, and then some. We work to ensure that remains the case. If we were not behind the scenes, guiding on levels both high and low, riots would have torn this city apart generations ago. We would not be the oasis we are today." She paused, as though thinking how much she should divulge, but she had to already know the answer to that. "The situation - your situation, the situation of children who even now are outside some of our doors in the abandoned city, starving - it is the best we can do. There are more escapes from the undercity than you know, but there are still too few. If you feel me insensitive, that's fair, but understand this: I feel their pain. Like Mr. Windelm felt you through the earth, I feel every mind in this city, and I feel their suffering. I can't not feel it. So when I say I am doing what I can, know that I have every reason to have done exactly that."
249
250There was a moment's pause. "I believe you..." I began.
251
252She made a gesture of understanding. "But you're still not sure whether you actually believe me or I'm making you believe me. It's okay, you'll eventually come to terms with it. Either I'm not compelling you, in which case everything is fine, or I am compelling you, in which case you don't really have a choice but to think everything is fine. Knight Two still believes that everything he does is something I thought up, which is funny because it results in plans that neither I nor him would have chosen. It works out."
253
254"It's just..." I said. "Why the organization? Why are you down here, when you could be ruling this city?"
255
256"Thank you for not assuming that I already do rule the city." The Queen replied. "The first reason is similar to the reason I'm talking. If I did just walk into the throne room and take the place of the actual Queen, everybody in the entire city would wonder if they were being compelled. Those riots I talked about would happen in no time, and if I tried to put them down, that'd just prove everyone right."
257
258"But you could just make them not riot." I pointed out.
259
260"This part," she said as though changing the subject, "I like to tell people because it's surprising. I don't get surprised, myself, all that much anymore. I have to experience it vicariously. Have you ever heard stories about King Wendas?"
261
262The name didn't immediately bring anything to mind. "Stories?"
263
264"Children's stories, specifically."
265
266And then it did. "Wait, the King of the Zombie Kingdom, that Wednas? You're telling me that the Zombie Kingdom is real?"
267
268"Surprise is such an enjoyable thing." The Queen said. "Yes, but it's not quite like the stories say. Not a necromancer's curse - the lineage required to make a necromancer would dilute the power too far for such an effect. No, it was one of my people, a Pure Mind who thought he'd rule the whole kingdom. Started out just like I said, took over the kingdom for people's own good. Riots started, and then they ended. But people kept finding other ways to rebel. The human mind is good for many things, but making trouble for others is perhaps our highest calling. Eventually Wednas ended up controlling, or trying to control, every living person in the kingdom."
269
270I tried to suppress a shiver. Wednas was a kid's tale, something you told to spook the youngsters. "So what happened when he died?"
271
272"What makes you think he's dead?" The Queen said. "I'm not deliberately trying to make you remember your earlier panic, but there is much the mind can do to control the body. His is not much intact nowadays, either his body or his mind, but he is Pure and so his power is enough to keep him and his subjects alive, even now."
273
274"That's..."
275
276"Horrible, yes, I know. The children's story is actually more tame than the truth. But that is why I do not want to rule. Instead, we have the organization. I guide society in the directions I wish it to go as a whole, and slowly it advances of its own volition. It takes more time this way, and while time is a luxury my kind have a great deal of, it is not infinite."
277
278*************************
2794
280
281"I see." I said, not really seeing where she was going. Now that she'd set my mind at comparative ease on the topic of mind control, I began to wonder why she'd kept me here. The reveal was important if I was going to be a part of the organization (it was obvious that Rook knew, and apparently so did the others), but she'd said something about a task earlier.
282
283"Oh, you're absolutely right!" She said. "I did. I've decided something. Bishop Two's mission was important, and while his death is tragic and I personally will miss him more than most people here know, the mission must be completed. I've decided to send you."
284
285"I... what?" Clearly if I were under mental compulsion I wouldn't be asking such poor questions, right?
286
287"How old do you think I am?" she said.
288
289I shook my head. "I know better to answer that question when regular women who can only read my mind a little ask it. I'm not even going to try here."
290
291"Thirty? I'm flattered." She said. "And don't worry, before you go we'll start your training on how to conceal your surface thoughts."
292
293Dammit. "That would be appreciated."
294
295"My actual age is eighty four. The body you see before you is not an illusion; my powers let me keep myself in good physical condition. But unless I want to turn into a near-husk like Wednas, at some point I'm going to die. Before I do that, I need to pass my powers on to the next person to lead the organization."
296
297"By 'pass on', you mean..."
298
299"I'm talking about my future son or daughter. No, I can't just overwrite someone's mind with my own. That's a recipe for doppelgangers, and practically the only thing those things think of is killing you and taking your place. I have to do it the old fashioned way."
300
301"Oh." I said. "Wait, so the important mission you're sending me on-"
302
303"You're finding me a husband." She confirmed. "And because I am a Pure and I want very much for my child to be one, I need to locate another one of my kind. Stand up." She said.
304
305I stood, wondering how I was going to even start such an impossible task. I'd briefly considered it earlier but even then, during the test that would determine my place in the organization, had discounted the idea. You simply couldn't find a Pure Mind that wanted to be hidden.
306
307"I'm promoting you." She said. "You are now Bishop Two. I'll be the one to break the news to Rook; he'd be upset if you told him."
308
309"You're making me a Bishop," I said, "because this is one of those suicide missions you give Bishops."
310
311"My exact wording," she said, "was 'likely-to-get-themselves-killed' missions. Not suicide, not if you're clever. And you are. I really didn't think anyone would catch on to the tremorsense and the crop rotation, even you. I underestimated you, and so will our enemy."
312
313"Who is our enemy?" I asked. "All I know is that Bishop Two died in the Empire. Are you sending me there?"
314
315"Yes. I know that the Mind is not the Empress." The Queen said. "But it's likely the Intelligence Service either houses him or is looking for him themselves. Make inroads in the service, either as a collaborator or someone looking to shield him. If you're still doubting whether I'm controlling you, know that you'll be far from my influence. If my powers extended that far I wouldn't need to send anyone, I'd already know who it was. And no, I can't just go myself, because it's a two-way street. If he is with the Intelligence Service I'd have to make one hell of a mess escaping from that. Knight One will teach you a bit about subtlety."
316
317The door opened and a man I didn't recognize walked in. "My Queen," he said. "I'm ready to report."
318
319"Later." The Queen said. "Knight One, this is Bishop Two. Bishop Two, Knight One. I know you didn't know the old Bishop Two that well, but frankly that's why I chose you for this. Go teach Bishop Two not to shout everything that goes through his mind. His mission is very sensitive and it wouldn't do for him to get picked up by the first guard he passes."
320
321Knight One saluted. "Understood. Come with me, Bishop."
322
323"One moment." The Queen looked back to me. "Bishop, understand. This is unorthodox. You would ordinarily have to spend years to earn the position you now have. But for one such as me, our instincts are a part of our power, and mine are seldom wrong. This mission may sound petty, but I am ensuring the continuity of this very organization, and with it, the city and all its people. For all that is wrong with it - and there is much - it is our home. Do not let us down."
324
325"Understood." I said.
326
327*************************
3285
329
330I made my way to the docks. The name was a joke, naturally. Opal, Jewel of the Desert, was entirely landlocked, surrounded by the desert that it was allegedly a jewel of. The district was home instead to the caravans and those who served them. Cargo handlers, traders, mercenaries, and of course more inns, taverns, and trick-houses than anywhere in the entire rest of the city. The docks were almost a city unto themselves, but it was still a part of Opal, and it was a part I knew well.
331
332My life prior to the organization was, appropriately enough, disorganized. I'd been a beggar for much of it (and, no surprise, they too were well represented in the docks) and an honest worker for much less. The work I had done, however, was as a cargo handler. Once I'd gotten old enough and, perhaps more importantly, big enough to look like I could do it without breaking, I'd taken the physically demanding job loading and unloading the cargoes from the caravans. Opal itself had little to offer in the way of raw materials, but its location between the Empire to the west and the loose confederation of kingdoms in the east meant that it was a nexus of trade. Most of the cargo ended up going on to one of the bigger destinations, but it was rare that the same traders serviced both legs of the trip, and so a great deal of money changed hands right here in town.
333
334It had been nearly a year since I'd last worked here, but little had changed. I identified the runners for the local bosses easily, and tipped one of the former to contact one of the latter on my behalf. In next to no time, I was approached by a runner (different than the first) who guided me to one of the taverns.
335
336Going from the ever-bright outdoors into the dim light of a tavern was a perfect opportunity to get jumped, but whichever of the bosses that I'd managed to reach out to was apparently one of the semi-respectable sort: He only used the opportunity to surround me with thugs. Right, I'd left out the 'thug' part of the ecosystem. It'd been a while.
337
338The thugs guided me - really they moved and my choice was to move with them or be trampled - to the bar of the tavern, where another thug already sat. Then they disappeared to whatever dark corners they could somehow hide themselves in, and I realized that this new thug was apparently the boss.
339
340"Do you want?" The boss said.
341
342It took me a moment to realize he'd left off the 'what' at the beginning of the sentence. He spoke like a man who was only grudgingly using words at all. "I need to go to the Empire, sir." I said. I spoke with just the right mixture of respect, hope, and a combination of naivety and wariness. That last was a careful balance; looking too naive was a good way to get mugged or worse. But this wasn't the first time I'd talked to one of the bosses of the docks, and Knight One's lessons on keeping my surface thoughts in order were helping sell the deal.
343
344The boss just nodded lazily. "I'm helping?"
345
346"I've worked the docks before." I said. "I know nobody gets a job without one of the bosses' say so."
347
348The boss just grunted. I began to wonder if I wasn't going to have to find another one, but eventually he seemed to make a decision. "Have Empire coin, then?" he asked.
349
350"No sir," I said, hoping that I was interpreting his increasingly vague questions correctly. "But I've got Opal coin. I can pay."
351
352He shook his head. "Opal's junk." he stated. "Empire coin."
353
354That was news - Opal's currency wasn't exactly the most valuable, but it had always been worth something, at least in Opal. Unless the boss was planning on moving to the Empire himself, it should have been fine. The Queen had given me a sealed writ that she'd promised would make me a moderately rich man in the Empire, but I had to get to its banks first.
355
356Of course, I suspected I knew exactly where this conversation was going. "I'm sorry, sir. I could have my coin exchanged, if perhaps you know a reputable vendor?"
357
358The boss grunted another answer, but nodded his head. Ah, that was the game, then. There was no such thing as a reputable coin exchanger, because they all worked for the bosses. This boss wasn't content to just take my money, he had to have me pay his network too. I'd have stalked out and tried my luck elsewhere if I didn't know for a fact that this was still a pretty good deal by boss standards.
359
360"You work?" he asked finally.
361
362"Yes, of course. I've got several years of cargo handling behind me, and I know the caravans." This was good news; if I could come on to the caravan as a worker then it would cost me considerably less. More importantly, it meant that I didn't need an official reason to enter into the Empire; I'd just be one of the crew.
363
364A runner entered the tavern and rushed to the boss' side, whispering something I didn't hear, his surface thoughts rife with exhaustion. Business as usual, then. The boss just shook his head. "Forget it. Fetch Magen." The runner only barely acknowledged the order before darting out as quickly as he'd come.
365
366The boss looked back to me, then gestured to the variety of empty tables in the tavern. "Sit." He said. He then turned away from me, facing the bar. I sat at one of the tables, and waited.
367
368It didn't take long until the runner returned, towing a larger and more clearly out of breath man behind him. "What the devil is it, Rami?" he demanded of the boss. The runner had vanished the moment the man - presumably Magen - had started talking.
369
370Boss Rami turned around and gestured vaguely at me. "Your worker. 30 Crowns, you or him."
371
372Of course he'd waited to tell me the price for this meeting. Thirty Crowns was over a hundred Opal coins, probably a hundred fifty once the changemongers took their cut. It was more money by far than I had on me, but not more than I had available, especially now.
373
374I was about to open my mouth to volunteer to pay but Magen beat me to it. "Here, you old thief," he said without much rancor, reaching into a pouch at his side and pulling out some shiny coins I hadn't seen before. "And yes, I did business with your men to get these. Thirty crowns clears me out, but there will be more on the other side." He handed the first of the coins to Boss Rami.
375
376If Rami was going to get excited about anything, I figured, it'd be the money. But he just took the coin and looked at it dimly before nodding. Magen took the entire pouch and handed it over; he'd must have done this sort of business before. I couldn't imagine my work on the caravan would be worth that much, but I highly suspected Magen was paying off some kind of debt. His thoughts were, like the runner's, clouded with exhaustion and a worn-down resentment at Boss Rami. The latter's mind gave away nothing, but that wasn't unusual for bosses. They hadn't gotten where they were by shouting their thoughts from the rooftops.
377
378Rami appeared to consider, then set the pouch down in front of him. He turned to face me. "Done," he said, in a tone that made it pretty explicit he'd meant that we were done. He gestured for us to get out before turning once again to face the empty bar.
379
380I didn't waste time; I met Magen by the exit and we both left into the searing light of the desert afternoon. That was also a good time to get mugged, but Rami must have ran a tight ship because Magen and I made it out unscathed.
381
382"So, you're my new cargo handler, I assume?" Magen asked. Not waiting for an answer, he continued. "Boss Rami is a man of few words, so I don't know if he explained how this works. You need transport to the Empire, I need someone to haul cargo when we get to the various cities between here and there. These are both things that cost money, so we call the matter even."
383
384That exact arrangement had been what I'd been hoping for when I'd come to the docks. I'd only heard of it in my previous employment, however, never actually done it. I was glad to know it wasn't just a rumor. Normally, a cargo hauler would get paid more than the fare for a trip, but there was an unstated assumption that the passenger - i.e. me - wanted to go to the destination incognito. Being a member of the crew helped.
385
386"Understood, sir." I said.
387
388Magen waved off the formality. "We're going to be smelling each other's stink for the next month as we sweat to our deaths in the desert, no need for 'sir' among us. You can call me Magen."
389
390"I'm Bishop." I said. As ludicrous as it seemed, the Queen had actually suggested I use the title as a name. It wasn't a common name in Opal. It was, if anything, a name out of the eastern kingdoms, but would only help enhance my background as a trader once I arrived in the Empire.
391
392"Pleasure to meet you, Bishop. My caravan's stored over this way, we were packing up when my old hauler got sick - food poisoning from what I understand." He talked continually as we walked, seemingly needing no input from me whatsoever. "I sent a runner to Boss Rami, who I've worked with in the past, to see if he could get me a replacement on the quick. I didn't expect it to be this quick!" He laughed, then steered me in a different direction, toward one of the warehouses.
393
394Another transition between light-blindness and dark-blindness, and then we were inside. The warehouse was loud, full of the noise of dozens of people talking at once, each of them trying to coordinate lifting something heavy. The smell was worse: Horses, donkeys, camels - all manner of pack beasts were being hitched to their respective caravans. People who expected a dock warehouse to be quiet had never worked in one.
395
396It wasn't clear to me which of the carts and beasts belonged to Magen, but he seemed to have no difficulty at all navigating the twists and turns that the warehouse became when filled with man, beast, and material. "Can you start now?" He said loudly, presumably to be heard over the din everyone else was making.
397
398"Absolutely." I replied.
399
400"Great." He stopped suddenly next to an empty wagon and a somewhat organized heap of grey boxes. "Load those up, but be careful. They're the wizard's, and I suspect he had something to do with our old hauler's illness, so don't break anything."
401
402I didn't want to know. Really, I just wanted to start on some mind-numbing physical labor and begin my actual mission. But I needed information, and this seemed important: "Wizard?"
403
404Magen laughed. "Not a Pure, of course! I mean, he's from the dynasty but he's not one of the Dynasty, you understand?" I didn't. "He's just trained, is all."
405
406I relaxed a bit. Granted, that still made the wizard pretty deadly in magical terms, but he wasn't Pure deadly. Everyone had magic, but most everyone had legs too, that didn't mean they were a distance runner. Like anything, it could be trained, honed, brought up to peak human levels and in some cases beyond. But it didn't require a special lineage, just a lot of time and effort. I should probably seem more wary of such things, if for no other reason than to seem less jaded to the caravan master who believed he was taking on a quasi-innocent youngster, but I just couldn't get that upset about wizards now that I knew the true scale of power in this town.
407
408Fortunately, Magen interpreted this as ignorance. "You'll see!" he said, half jovial and half warning. "Just trust me on the boxes! Wizard's got a manservant somewhere 'round here, too. If he shows up just let him help, I think he doesn't get paid if he lets us do all of the work or something. If you finish up here just walk forward until you find another wagon that's not loaded. They're all mine, or if they're not then they're on this trip and they won't mind the help." With that, he bellowed out a welcome to someone else in the warehouse and strode away.
409
410Finally, I could begin the mind-numbing physical labor. It was one of the things that Knight One had taught: Whenever possible, I should let my body's concerns override my surface thoughts. Emphasize hunger, physical pain - heck, even the need to urinate - and my thoughts would go unread because they were unpleasant and, more importantly, uninteresting. That one had been a relatively easy lesson to learn. My true goal was to be able to get on the level of people like Boss Rami, whose mind had just been an impenetrable bland fog. Then again, maybe he was just bland.
411
412The boxes were awkward, but the muscle memory of loading up caravans was strong, and I managed to get half of the pile loaded on over the course of the next few hours. The warehouse was loud, the animals nervous, and the work was repetitive, but I didn't mind at all. I was, if anything, comfortable here. That's when the wizard's manservant showed up.
413
414I'd learned, over the course of the past few days and weeks, that much of what I'd thought to be stories and superstitions were in fact quite real. That in mind, however, I was pretty sure that the Dwarves were still firmly in the 'myth' column. The manservant seemed to be doing everything in his power to overthrow that idea. He was half my height and nearly as wide as he was tall. His face was ruddy, his nose was bulbous, and naturally he had a thick beard that hung down to his knees.
415
416"You're the one they're calling Bishop?" he asked. He even had the eastern kingdom accent associated with the stories he'd come from.
417
418I just nodded. I didn't stop moving boxes. After a moment or so, he joined me.
419
420"I'm Dalostaed Stonejaw." He said jovially. Of course he had a dwarven name.
421
422"You're the wizard's?" I asked in between lifts. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have given into conversation; the work was hard enough as it was without expending breath on talking. I knew lifters who could load a caravan and have a full-volume conversation at the same time, but as much as the job was a second home to me I was not one of them.
423
424Dalostaed laughed. "I wouldn't put it that way! I'd also watch what you say. He can hear you." He inclined his head toward one end of the warehouse.
425
426I glanced over in that direction next time I had to turn and grab another one of the boxes. While Dalostaed was apparently very dedicated to looking the part of the dwarf, the wizard appeared like someone who'd heard a vague description of what wizards looked like, then decided the whole mess was too complicated and covered himself in blankets instead. How could he stand it? Keeping cool with fire magic was possible, but he'd have to be more talented than I was in order to not be broiling underneath all those clothes. I couldn't even make out a face underneath the coverings.
427
428"That's our wizard?" I asked, taking up another box.
429
430"Doesn't exactly look the part, does he?" Dalostaed said. "Where's his staff? I told him, he's got to bring the staff if anyone's going to believe he's a wizard - especially a dowser - but he doesn't listen when it comes to wardrobe."
431
432"How is he not burning alive wearing that?"
433
434Dalostaed wiggled his fingers. "Magic!"
435
436"If all you get from decades in a mage's tower is the ability to walk around wearing heavy bedsheets, I'm happy with the magic I have." I said. It wasn't strictly true, it certainly wouldn't hurt to have more power to call on, but even fully trained wizards couldn't stand against the people who'd lucked into their power.
437
438There hadn't been much left to load onto the wagon when Dalostaed had come over, and with two people we got through the bunch in very little time. It had to be late afternoon; I was about to take Magen's advice and start looking for another area to help when the man himself put in an appearance.
439
440"Bishop, Dalostaed!" Magen shouted from the back of another wagon, hopping down and making his way over to us. "Looks like you're done. We're nearly finished for the day. Are you rested?"
441
442It seemed a strange question, but Dalostaed answered happily. "I'm nearly entirely nocturnal now!"
443
444"Good. Bishop, you?"
445
446I shook my head. "I'm not sure what you mean. If you're asking if I can load more wagons, I can."
447
448Magen laughed. "We travel by night! It's not strictly necessary, but it saves water. Which reminds me, if you don't have a waterskin, get one. We're mustering about an hour before nightfall." He reached into a pocket and gave me a small square of fabric, and then was gone, talking to another group at another wagon.
449
450I unfolded the square surreptitiously, wondering if it was a new set of instructions or some other message that Magen had been entrusted to pass to me. That would imply he was more connected to the organization than I'd thought, though. The implications whirled as I tried to make sense of the square. Two triangles of two different colors, and a square in the middle. What did it mean?
451
452"It's a flag" Dalostaed said. I'd let my confusion bubble up to my surface thoughts, but once again people assumed ignorance. Dalostaed rapped his knuckles on the side of the wagon, which had a similar design painted on it. "So you know which wagons to find when we get going. This is your first trip, I take it."
453
454I just nodded an answer, putting the flag into my pocket.
455
456"Well, you're in luck. We need to get fitted for the trip ourselves, and we've got some time to go buying, so let's find you a new waterskin. And a few other supplies."
457
458I already owned a waterskin; it was practically a requirement if you were to survive on the streets. Still, having never actually traveled in a caravan before, there was probably a lot more I was missing. "Sounds good." I said.
459
460*************************
4616
462
463I hated the desert. It wasn't just that it was dry, though of course it was that. It wasn't just that it was hot, though of course it was very much that too. No, the worst thing was the sand. Not only did it get into any piece of clothing that so much as brushed against the ground, it messed up my footing. I was decently strong - you couldn't get a job as a cargo hauler without at least looking the part - but I was more proud of my agility. The shifting sands neatly negated everything I'd learned.
464
465What was worse was that I couldn't complain anyone about it. I was a native of Opal, Jewel of the Desert, and as such I had a reputation to maintain. I was keeping a lot of secrets, but this was the only one that actually bothered me.
466
467We started out shortly before the sunset. While the Wizard, Dalostaed, and I were shopping, Magen had apparently been busy directing the entire mess that had been set up in the warehouse. I don't know exactly what he did, but by the time the three of us returned, the warehouse was empty. The dwarf (I couldn't help but continue thinking of him that way, no matter how human he actually was) didn't seem put out by this, and I followed his lead. My experience as a cargo hauler started and ended within the city limits; I'd never left them for longer than a few hours.
468
469Dalostaed lead us through another exit, and just like that we were outside of the city walls. The dry desert wind, what little there was of it, only cooled me a bit. The day was waning, but it was still hot.
470
471In front of us was the caravan. I saw the wagons with Magen's flag on them, and a number of other wagons that had been decorated differently. It was common for smaller trade caravans to join together in larger expeditions like this one, especially when one of the joiners had made the trip before. I'd gotten the impression that Magen was an old hand, so it wasn't surprising that he'd gathered some hangers-on.
472
473The wizard moved silently across the sands to the wagon that Dalostaed and I had loaded up earlier that day. He pulled himself up to the seats atop, and sat there, completely still.
474
475"Does he talk?" I asked Dalostaed.
476
477The dwarf shrugged. "He doesn't speak Trade. There's enough to be learned in a mage's tower without adding yet another language. Speaking of, you're headed to the empire, right?"
478
479I nodded. I hadn't gone around telling everyone my destination, but neither had I tried to keep it a secret.
480
481Dalostaed chuckled. "How much Hidna do you speak?"
482
483"They speak Trade in the empire." I said with more confidence than I actually had. It was the only language I knew, I was going to be swiftly out of luck if it wasn't spoken as widely as I'd thought. I'd be reduced to trying to communicate vague emotions through surface thoughts, like an infant.
484
485"Oh, they do, they do." Dalostaed replied. "It's not called 'Trade' for nothing, after all. But something tells me you're not going to the Empire to get another job as a cargo hauler. You're hoping to make it big, am I right?"
486
487"Something like that." I conceded.
488
489At some unseen signal, the various animals attached to the various wagons of the caravan had started moving slowly forward. Dalostaed started walking and I followed.
490
491"You'd do well," he said, "to find yourself a tutor, then. Anyone who's anyone in the empire speaks Hidna. It's a mark of the upper class. Trade, on the other hand, well that's for people that need to worry about money, now isn't it?" He laughed.
492
493"That can't be the case for everyone. What about merchants? What about people like Magen?" I gestured toward the man himself, who was a few wagons up and talking with one of the women attending it.
494
495"Magen speaks Hidna. And Mundin, and at least two dialects of so-called Common. And Trade, of course, that's the only way you get things done across all that."
496
497"Fine, Magen's a genius." I said. Magen waved as though he'd heard me. "But," I continued, "merchants in the empire - or the commonwealth or wherever - they have to speak Trade if they want to buy or sell something. Not every caravan owner is a Magen."
498
499Dalostaed chuckled again. "Oh, you're right, and some of the less affluent merchants do exactly that. But in the empire, if you're really a merchant of status, you hire yourself a translator. They speak Trade so you don't have to. It's you, your translator, and whatever foreigner you're buying to or selling from"
500
501At the risk of sounding like an ill-traveled yokel, I said "But they still speak it."
502
503"Yes." Dalostaed said.
504
505"So they're hiring someone to do a job that they themselves could trivially do, just so they don't have to talk Trade?"
506
507"You're seeing it now. What better way to flaunt your wealth than someone whose explicit job is to shelter you from the lower classes?"
508
509I shook my head. "How can they run an empire, with such waste?"
510
511Dalostaed shrugged. "Same way emperors and the like have always ruled, I suppose. Build up enough speed, then coast on it for generations. Once you get your mind around it, you'll understand the empire better."
512
513I frowned, closing off my surface thoughts while I pondered deeper on what Dalostaed had said. It wasn't as though Opal was without its own graft, after all. I'd had to find a boss just to get this trip going, and even Magen had needed to bribe the man. Still, Boss Rami had his place, he contributed something, even if that something was only an organizing force. There was no place in Opal for someone who could not contribute: it was a lesson I'd been told repeatedly at an early age, during my years as a beggar. It was a hard life, but the Queen had implied it was necessary. Did it prevent our fall into the sort of decadence that the Empire apparently enjoyed? I somehow doubted there were fewer beggars on its streets. I had only a hazy idea of what the Queen was working toward, but Opal was certainly not there yet, and I doubted that the Empire was the goal.
514
515"You're a quiet one, aren't you?" Magen had made his way back to our wagon while I'd been thinking to myself. I'd picked up a few tricks, but my concealment of my surface thoughts was rudimentary enough to be notable whenever I tried it.
516
517"Sorry," I said, letting my mind wander again, "just thinking about how I'm going to survive in the empire."
518
519"I'm giving him Hidna lessons." Dalostaed said.
520
521Magen looked at Dalostaed as though he were considering commenting on that, then let it pass. Instead, he looked to me: "Bishop, you're used to being awake during the day and sleeping at night, yes?"
522
523"Yes, sir." I answered, managing to keep my tone and surface thoughts appropriately respectful. It seemed like it was a somewhat dumb question, but if we were traveling by night it was an important one.
524
525Magen nodded. "You've got two options, then. First, you can acclimate to the night schedule over the next few days. It'll be hard, tiring, and you'll likely need to switch back once you get to your destination. Or, secondly, you can take the day shift."
526
527I knew which one I would rather do - the night shift would do away with at least one of the things I hated about the desert. But Dalostaed had given me an inkling of what kind of influence this man had, and I already knew he respected a hard worker. "What's involved in the day shift?" I asked finally.
528
529"Walking, mostly." Magen said. "You, me, and a few others will be awake during that time. It's our job to keep an eye on the horizon. Most bandits spend one day and night here in the desert and they swear it off, so there's not much risk of a raid. That said, desert bandits do exist, and from time to time they have been known to attack. Can you handle a crossbow?"
530
531I nodded. The only weapon I'd brought was my knife, and that was due more to its usefulness as a tool than as an implement to fight off raiders. I could use a sword too, though I hadn't seen many on the caravan and tended not to wear them in public anyway. There were places in Opal you didn't wear a sword unless you were planning on demonstrating its use. I'd had to pass through several of them.
532
533"Good." Magen said. "So, day shift it is?"
534
535"Yes, sir." I replied.
536
537Magen laughed. "I told you, call me Magen! We're all friends here!" With that, he moved on to the next wagon in line.
538
539Dalostaed said "Aldiva!" as the caravan master departed.
540
541"What did you say?" I asked, once Magen himself was out of earshot.
542
543"I said goodbye, in Hidna. Consider it the first of your lessons."
544
545I wasn't sure at what point I'd accepted his offer of tutelage, or for that matter what point he'd even offered it in the first place, but I wasn't going to argue. We spent the next few hours with him having me repeat simple phrases, followed by him criticizing my accent, then repeating. I wasn't sure if he actually meant what he said about my accent, given that it couldn't possibly be worse than his.
546
547"Moon's up." Dalostaed said finally. "Shuh ranti." When I just looked at him blankly, he elaborated: "It means 'good night'. I taught you shuh prahaan before, you'll have to make these kind of connections when you're on your own. Morning, prahaan is morning. Good morning."
548
549I didn't recall him teaching me any combination of those words. "You're not staying in the empire?" I asked him. I hadn't really expected him to stay on as an interpreter; no doubt the wizard would be calling on him for exactly that duty. Still, it would have been nice to have someone in the city who I knew.
550
551"That would be nice, wouldn't it?" He said. "No, we've got business further west. People in the Far Lands don't respect anyone without magic, so the wizard's an ambassador."
552
553"Nobody's without magic." I tried not to scoff at the idea but didn't really manage it.
554
555"To them we are." He said. "I don't know how they do it. It's not like the Dynasty, where they try to keep the bloodlines 'pure' and end up with the inbred mess they've got ruling the place, but the Far Lands people are more powerful than most. Maybe they just take their training more seriously over there. Who knows, they're pretty strange."
556
557"How strange?" I asked. I should probably be asking more about the empire I was supposed to be infiltrating, but the Far Lands sounded more interesting.
558
559"Well, they've got strange machinery. You've seen the reservoir," he gestured to one of the wagons that looked like nothing more than a large cask; it was where the majority of the water was stored, "but have you considered how we'll refill it?"
560
561I shrugged. "Isn't that your wizard's job? You said he's a dowser, right? He finds us an oasis and we fill up there." Now that I'd said it, though, it occurred to me that I hadn't spotted any buckets or any other way to move the water from the oasis to the reservoir. We had our waterskins, but those were for our personal use.
562
563"We'll find an oasis if we're lucky! But dowsing only tells you the closest source of water, chances are good it'll be under the ground. That's what that wagon is for." He pointed to the wagon attached to the reservoir cask, which as far as I could tell was an entirely ordinary passenger wagon.
564
565"They're our porters?" I asked, because naturally if anyone was going to be hauling water around it'd be me, and I certainly hadn't got a passenger wagon to myself.
566
567"There's nobody in there." Dalostaed said. "It's all Far Lands machinery. It's not just a pump, those you've got in Opal, it's a drill! Feed it some magic, doesn't matter what kind, and it'll turn it into movement."
568
569"That is strange." I replied. Magic could only affect the elements, and only then in relatively pure concentrations. The drill had once been part of the earth, but it had been re-shaped and re-made since then; earth magic would not touch it. To be able to directly change magic into movement was impressive indeed.
570
571"And the other thing about the Far Lands," Dalostaed added, "is that that's not just our stupid name for them, or a terrible translation." He said. "They named themselves that."
572
573"Huh," was all I had to say to that.
574
575"Now, get to sleep! Magen will want you up as soon as the run rises, so you can eat with everyone. We'll resume our lessons then. Shuh ranti."
576
577"Shuh ranti," I replied. I climbed up to the top of the wagon behind the wizard's - it had Magen's flag and its minders weren't using it to sleep - and made use of their bed. I was asleep in nearly no time.
578
579*************************
5807
581
582A week into the journey, I got to watch the caravan's first dowsing.
583
584Apparently the wizard had been preparing all night; when the caravan stopped for the day shift and I got up to begin my rounds, everyone seemed excited. The overlap of a few hours between the night shift and the day shift was nothing new, but the activity was. All throughout the week, people had been preparing tents around this time of day, getting ready to sleep while it was still cool enough to do so. Now they were mostly milling around, talking to each other.
585
586"Shuh prahaan!" came Dalostaed's familiar call. While I sincerely doubted I was going to be able to pick up any useful amount of Hidna on such a short trip - and during the small overlap between shifts where we were both awake, no less - I still appreciated the effort. Dalostaed was nothing if not entertaining, and he was full of information about the empire, to boot.
587
588"Prahaan" I mumbled as I climbed down from the wagon. I would concede that it was morning, but it wasn't a good one. I should probably have opted to join the night shift, being more of a night person in general, but I wanted Magen's favor and so I suffered, mild though this was so far.
589
590"You're about to witness the true power of a Tower-trained wizard!" Dalostaed said.
591
592"Is it an actual tower?" I asked. I'd been idly curious about the way he'd thrown around the phrase "mage's tower" repeatedly.
593
594Dalostaed shrugged. "Probably at least one of them is a real tower. Mostly it's the name they use to separate wizards from Pure or Dynasty types. The types that don't need to learn it, in other words."
595
596"So, what's he going to do? Am I going to watch some bandits getting smited?" As far as I could tell, the caravan were the only living beings in the desert aside from some lizards and the occasional boot scorpion. The concern about bandits had remained thankfully theoretical.
597
598The dwarf-man shook his head. "No! We're getting water. The wizard spent all night getting us to the right spot, all he has to do now is find out where to put the drill. Watch!"
599
600I looked over toward the blanket covered wizard who, at the moment, was standing by his wagon staring at the horizon. Or possibly staring at the wagon itself; when he wasn't in motion it was difficult to tell which way he was facing. At no point during the trip had I gotten so much as a glimpse at the person underneath the robes. Dalostaed claimed this was to "preserve the mysteriousness of wizard-kind", but at no point had I witnessed him actually do anything wizard-like either.
601
602"Well I mean, when it's time. Then watch." Dalostaed clarified.
603
604Magen made his way over to us. "Ready, is he?" he asked.
605
606Dalostaed saluted for some reason. "Absolutely. Give the signal and we'll get going."
607
608Magen nodded, then turned and made a large and highly visible waving motion at the wizard. The wizard moved forward then (apparently having been facing the horizon after all) and came toward us.
609
610"On zhbei kish" the muffled voice came from within the blankets.
611
612"Qinsh" Magen replied. This appeared to be the correct response, as the wizard began walking away from the wagons.
613
614"This may take a while," Magen said for my benefit. "But he hasn't let us down yet." With that, he left us to walk toward the cask wagon and its attached drill. Presumably they'd need to move it to wherever the wizard indicated.
615
616"Sorry if my attention has been slacking," I said to Dalostaed, "but I didn't understand a word of their conversation."
617
618Dalostaed laughed. "That wasn't Hidna, that was Mundin. Language of the Dynasty. Told you Magen spoke it!"
619
620I was about to reply when I felt the sudden overwhelming presence of the water beneath us.
621
622Anyone could use water magic to locate water, it was just that most people didn't know how to do it very well. The effective range for finding water with ordinary magic like my own was about three feet, which meant it was a task better suited for my eyes unless the water table was very shallow indeed. I'd done it in the past, though more out of idle curiosity than a serious attempt to train myself. It'd felt like this, but whereas before I could only sense the placid waters of the canteen I'd been trying to locate, here I felt the rushing of an entire underground river.
623
624The sensation faded as the wizard made various motions. I think they were an effort to get Magen's attention rather than a spell, but I wasn't sure.
625
626"Felt the echo on that one, did you?" Dalostaed asked.
627
628"That was his doing?" I answered the question with a question.
629
630"You get used to it," was the reply. "It's how dowsing works, you send water magic out, and the water reflects it. Only the wizard can feel it far away from the source, but once you're this close everyone gets the feedback."
631
632That hadn't been my experience when I'd tried, years before, but I wasn't a wizard. Regardless, everyone else seemed to be taking it seriously. Magen had finished taking over the cask and drill wagons, and was directing them slowly to where the wizard stood. I watched as the robed man and caravan leader exchanged a few more words that I likely couldn't have understood even if I could hear them, and then Magen stepped aside. The wizard made a few gestures at the wagon, and that was apparently enough to start it.
633
634I couldn't see the drill itself - it apparently deployed from the bottom of the wagon - but I could certainly hear it. The Far Lands had machinery far better than any I knew, but they seemed to give no thought whatsoever to noise reduction. This was probably why Magen had stepped away.
635
636Moments later the drill contacted the sands, a fact I again had to infer, this time from the large plume of sand kicked up. Naturally, we were downwind of this. My meager air magic could work to keep most of the sand from blowing into my face, but apparently everyone else had similar ideas. Since nobody was coordinating, this resulted in unpredictable - if weak - winds everywhere along the caravan.
637
638"I'd hoped the wizard could prevent this." Magen had made his way over to Dalostaed and me. He gestured to the minor sandstorms being kicked up. Dalostaed just shrugged in answer.
639
640"This hasn't happened before?" I asked.
641
642Magen explained: "In my experience, Dowsers usually need to go further afield to find water, even when we have the chance to narrow it down. You weren't awake for it, but the wizard was searching all night, changing the course of the caravan. Looks like he was spot on, which is good for harvesting - less time searching means more time drilling, means more water pumped - but bad for air quality. I'm told the wizard needs most of his power to run the drill."
643
644Dalostaed shrugged again. In the week I'd known him, I'd never seen him clam up like this. Then again, Magen was talking about the dwarf's boss. It was possible he just didn't want to speak out against him.
645
646"How much water will this give us?" I asked.
647
648"We won't know that until it's done." Magen answered. "But I imagine we won't need to fill up for another week, and by that time we'll be at Chankota."
649
650"Chankota?!" I asked. I hadn't meant to react so strongly, but the Queen had specifically warned me against the town.
651
652Magen just shrugged. "I see you know its reputation. We won't be staying inside the city itself, even if they were of a mind to allow us in for once. Don't worry, they'll not bother a caravan this big."
653
654I just nodded dumbly, keeping my surface thoughts occupied with the need to not inhale sand. In truth, I was considering both Magen's words and what the Queen had told me.
655
656Chankota was the Empire's most outlying city. It was a rest stop for caravans because it merited very little else. It was too close to the desert for any decent agriculture, and didn't rest on any metal deposits of note. In short, its redeeming qualities were like those of Opal: A good location for trade routes and a decently sized aquifer. Unfortunately it lacked any other of Opal's qualities, especially the "friendliness to strangers" part.
657
658While the empire had its expansionist tendencies, they'd learned over time that trying to fight a war in a desert was a bitter and difficult proposition. Nobody living had been in such wars, but their memory lived on, especially in small outposts like Chankota. For a city that depended on trade, its people were xenophobic as hell. As Magen had implied, we wouldn't even be allowed inside the city itself: they'd constructed what they dubbed the "outlanders' quarter" some distance away. It was the only place foreigners were allowed.
659
660My worries about the city were more personal: It was the city where Bishop Two - the man whose job I now had - had been killed.
661
662*************************
6638
664
665I managed an entire day in the outlander's quarter before I made up my mind to break into the city.
666
667Chankota wasn't quite out of the desert and, as such, most of the caravan still hadn't transitioned back into a day shift. The caravan was respectably sized and I'd been hoping that I'd be able to get to know more of my fellow travelers as a way to spend the time. Aside from some overly optimistic merchants who'd set up shop in a desperate attempt to sell to people who hated them, there were few people to meet.
668
669The Chankotans themselves certainly weren't friendly. We'd been visited by perhaps a dozen people total, and all of them were either guards or officials of some kind. They were there to intimidate, take bribes disguised as fees, and ruefully arrange transport of some essential items so their town wouldn't starve to death. There was a single translator among them, and he was the only one who spoke to us.
670
671The only reason the translator was on speaking terms with us was that he was getting paid to be: That was literally the first thing I heard him say. He spent quite some time after that going over the rules of the city, nearly all of which were "Don't go anywhere near the city." He described, in far more vivid detail than required, the fate of the last "outlander spy" to try to sneak in. That might have dismayed other people; it just made me angry I'd never met my predecessor, but he'd apparently been well respected in the organization. That they'd not only done away with him but were celebrating that fact grated on me.
672
673Even then, I wouldn't have been tempted to repeat the original Bishop's mistake. He'd been an agent for over a decade longer than I had, he was experienced, and he could probably hide his thoughts better than I could. They'd still caught him. But the question had occurred to me: Why had he gone into the city? Its citizens had proven violent and hateful, but they seemed to leave everyone who stayed in the outlander's quarter alone. What had he known, that he'd forsake its comparative safety?
674
675Even that wasn't enough to convince me to try to break into the city, really, because I'd just get caught the same way he had. But it did make me wonder what had happened to him and - more importantly - his effects. The Queen believed that he'd come back early from his mission because he'd found important information. While the safest way to carry that information would be to simply memorize it, everyone in the organization knew at least a few ciphers in case we needed to write anything down.
676
677Over the course of the day, I struck up a very one-sided friendship with the translator. He tolerated my presence because he was getting paid to (another fact he explicitly told me), and I acted the part of the naive bumpkin that just wanted to talk to the exotic Empire man. I even managed to have my surface thoughts reflect this, since what I actually wanted was information about the city and what happened to those that dare enter it uninvited.
678
679At least he was willing to give plenty of information about the latter: Taunting outsiders with their fates should they transgress seemed to be the only part of his job that he liked. I wondered out loud what happened to all the criminal's stuff. If one of our merchants were to go inside, it seemed they'd be able to take all of his wares without paying. The translator had told me that that was in fact the case - trespasser's property became property of the city, likely to be auctioned off or more likely to be auctioned off to other travelers because nobody in Chankota wanted outsider wares if they could help it. The Sheriff of the town - and that was not the right word, but he didn't care to explain how - was the one who would hold auctions and keep tabs on the property until one could happen. No such auctions were forthcoming, though; they'd either sold the old Bishop's stuff or simply weren't ready to get rid of it.
680
681I decided to bet on the latter. I hung around the translator the rest of the day until his shift was either over or he simply couldn't stand my presence anymore. He left to go back to the city, and I left to find which of our merchants who was still open. I'd need concealing clothing for what I had in mind, preferably a light robe. I also needed a very specific set of clothes that I doubted any one merchant had all of, but I could make do. It'd be dark, after all.
682
683When night fell, I made my way to the edge of the outlander's quarter. There were a few guards from the city there, and they were not there for our safety - they faced in to the area rather than out. They spotted me in no time. Crap. So far I hadn't done anything wrong, but over the years I'd developed a keen sense for how likely someone was to resort to physical violence, and the answer in the case of these guards was 'very'. I had a contingency plan, but I'd been hoping I wouldn't have to use it until I got closer to the city.
684
685"There you are, lad!" A familiar voice shouted as an arm came down on my shoulder. "You're going the wrong way, outhouses are clear on the other side of the quarter!" Dalostaed steered me away from a confrontation with the guards. I could have sworn they looked disappointed.
686
687"Actually, I wasn't-" I managed to say before he cut me off.
688
689"I know what you were doing," Dalostaed said quietly. "Just keep walking with me until we're out of sight and out of hearing. It's not safe to wander here, boy."
690
691I frowned. I didn't especially care for the 'boy' moniker, but at the moment it seemed more important to just let Dalostaed have his say. I'd get another opportunity to get into the city, we were probably going to be here for several days.
692
693I was suddenly flanked, as the wizard appeared to the other side of me. Teleportation wasn't something that magic could do, but there were a whole lot of things wizards could do that looked like it, so I had to imagine he was showing off for some reason. Was it to deter the guards? We'd already been out of their sight for a while.
694
695As though just realizing this fact, Dalostaed called a halt. "Now," he started to talk again, "it looked to me that you were thinking of maybe crossing a few guards."
696
697"I hoped to get by without a fight." I said. I gestured to the robes I was wearing. "This was apparently not nondescript enough."
698
699"It's not bad," Dalostaed said. "If you weren't already suspicious by virtue of being a foreigner, it would be fine. But you're in the outlander's quarter, it's not going to do a damn thing for you there. And are you wearing a mask underneath that? You look like a bandit trying to hide under covers."
700
701I managed not to glance at the wizard. He was one to talk about not wearing blankets. Then again, it was possible that Dalostaed's comment had also been a subtle dig at his employer. If that was the case, the latter didn't notice. He barely seemed to realize we were there at all.
702
703"There a reason you're so eager to get yourself killed?" Dalostaed asked.
704
705"It's not that, I just need to get into the city."
706
707"Oh, is that all?" Dalostaed rolled his eyes. "Makes perfect sense, the shining jewel of Chankota is irresistible after all."
708
709"It's just…." I paused, frustrated. "It's personal, okay?" Dalostaed peered at me. I managed to make my surface thoughts chaotic and perturbed, which wasn't too far from their actual state. After a few more uncomfortable moments, he leaned back. "Okay. We'll help you, then. But at a cost. Later, when it's safe, you'll tell me what this is about."
710
711"What?" The confusion in my thoughts was real. "What do you mean, you'll help me."
712
713Dalostaed gestured at the wizard. "You may have noticed, we're packing some magical punch here. You'll be able to get in and out of the city unnoticed, so long as you don't do anything stupid. Stupider than going into the city in the first place, that is."
714
715"I…" I wasn't sure how to respond. "Thank you?"
716
717Dalostaed shook his head. "Don't thank me - promise you'll tell me what it's about when the time comes."
718
719"I'm not sure I can do that." I said truthfully. I didn't want to lie to Dalostaed, either now by promising something I couldn't deliver, or later by giving him some made-up reason for my need to get into the city.
720
721He leaned forward and began peering again, looking for something. He eventually shook his head. "If I didn't know damn well you'd try without me, I'd just let you go right now. Kids. You'll learn you're not immortal some day, hope it's not because you're dying at the time. Now face the wizard and get magicked."
722
723I turned around and faced the wizard, whose blankets seemed in even greater disarray than normal. He'd already extended one sleeve and I could see there was a black glove at the end of it, though I couldn't make out any other details. Before I could ask what I needed to do, the wizard placed his finger on my forehead and spoke a word I couldn't understand. It felt like getting buffeted by a very small but very insistent gust of wind.
724
725Dalostaed grunted, apparently in reply to whatever the wizard had said. "It'll last a few hours," he explained. "Hopefully that's enough time?"
726
727I only needed to get into the city; my contingency plan would get me out. I nodded. "Sure. How's it work? Am I invisible?" Invisibility was also impossible, but I knew I'd get the real explanation by leaping to that conclusion first.
728
729Dalostaed looked directly at me. "No you're not invisible! You're just… bland."
730
731I hadn't expected that. "Bland?"
732
733"Exactly. It's a bit of mind magic, both for you, so you'll show the proper body language, and for anyone who looks at you. Their first instinct will be to ignore you. Like you belong wherever you are, but you're beneath notice."
734
735I'd been a beggar. I was familiar with the concept. "I can do that." I said.
736
737Dalostaed turned me back around the way we'd come and started walking. "Just don't talk!" he warned me.
738
739I followed him back, glancing over to the wizard only to discover that he had disappeared sometime in the middle of the conversation. I spent a little time more carefully scrutinizing the other people I saw, just in case he'd done the same thing to himself that he'd done to me, but I didn't see him anywhere. "Why not?" I asked quietly, hoping Dalostaed hadn't meant right now.
740
741"Because it'll get attention." he explained. "The spell's a subtle one, anything un-subtle you do will break it. Walking through a guarded gate is fine so long as you don't talk or make eye contact. Plus you only speak Trade, that's a dead giveaway. Don't try Hidna, your accent is still terrible."
742
743We were nearly back to where he'd first found me. This time the guards occasionally glanced at him but didn't look my way at all. "Good luck, Bishop." he said. "Don't die on me."
744
745I just nodded, taking his advice and not speaking where the guards could hear. For the first time tonight, he smiled broadly. I felt like I'd passed some test. Then, he retreated back toward the caravan, and I started walking out of the foreign quarter.
746
747This time the guards did look at me, and I quickly shifted my own gaze downward. There were a tense few moments as I walked forward, but they didn't call out, and nothing stopped me as I left the packed dirt of the outlander's quarter and started walking on the cobbled path that joined it to the city.
748
749Before, I hadn't been sure I would actually be able to succeed where my predecessor had failed. Now, though, with the wizard's magic hiding me, I might actually pull it off.
750
751There were another pair of guards outside the city walls. Chankota had several, each built before people dared expand into the surrounding areas, but the only ones that mattered were these outer ones. I'd planned to scale them, but climbing up walls was probably the sort of un-subtle behavior that'd break my concealment. Instead, I head toward the gate that the guards were stationed at, and I kept my gaze averted.
752
753This time I got a vague grunt of acknowledgement from one of them, but that seemed to be the limit of how much they wanted to interact with me.
754
755And just like that, I was inside the city.
756
757*************************
7589
759
760I don't know what I was expecting when I set foot inside Chankota. Probably some outward sign of their xenophobia: Propaganda posters or keen-eyed citizens looking to turn in a spy for a reward. Instead, it was normal. If teleportation was real and someone had been teleported directly from Opal to where I now stood, they'd be hard pressed to tell the difference.
761
762Even the buildings had Opal-style flat roofs. I'd expected their hatred of outsiders would extend to architectural styles as well, but apparently the extra expense of adding sloped roofs like the Empire prefered was just too much. Especially because that style had come into fashion due to the kind of rainfall that Chankota was unlikely to see on a regular basis.
763
764I made a special note of the flat roofs - that would help in case I needed to escape.
765
766As I walked, though, I began to see the more subtle indicators of the city's attitude. The main thoroughfare I'd been on was clean and its buildings in good repair, but those buildings were not residential. This part of the city was for warehouses and a very few money-changers. For interfacing with the foreigners just outside the city, in other words. Nobody wanted to live anywhere near the outlander's quarter, even with some distance and a city wall between them.
767
768When I left the main roads for the side streets where I'd hopefully stand out even less - no sense testing the limits of the wizard's magic - my suspicions were confirmed. I had a long honed ability to determine the tone of a neighborhood, and this was not a good part of town.
769
770I knew how to carry myself in such a way that I wouldn't be bothered; thankfully I didn't need the magic for that. Aside from a few appraising glances from figures further in the shadows than I was, I nobody even noticed me.
771
772My street smarts, it seemed, were still intact. I knew the heart of the Empire would be different, but Chankota was apparently enough of a desert city for my instincts to carry over. What I needed to do now was find my way to a better part of the city. While this district almost certainly had a police station, it'd be undermanned at best and actively corrupt at worst. It wasn't the sort of place where someone's personal effects would be kept. I was looking for an office in a more affluent area, but not too affluent - the extremes of the city both had token police forces only, though for very different reasons. If I could find the governmental buildings, that was my best bet. For that, I'd need to get to the center.
773
774Finding the center of Chankota was easy - its multiple city walls basically made it a bullseye. The inner gates of the city weren't guarded at all, at least not in these parts. I had to re-join the main thoroughfare, but only lurked there for long enough to cross into the new district. This was slightly better; a business district that had already shuttered its doors for the evening, though as before the side streets held more activity and much of it illegal or at least frowned on. I knew how to carry myself here, too. Aside from the constant calls of the merchants, which no amount of body language could silence, I again passed through unscathed and unnoticed.
775
776The police station here was full-sized but likely only slightly more effective. The legitimate merchants would want protection, but the "protection" that the thugs of the previous district no doubt provided the less legitimate merchants would ensure that the police turned a blind eye to the side businesses. Also not a place to keep goods you didn't want stolen.
777
778Dalostaed had spent a disproportionate amount of time teaching me words for various parts of law enforcement. Either he suspected that I was likely to run afoul of it, or he had personal experience. Possibly both, given his willingness to have the wizard help me. As such, I was looking for one type of police building in particular. All those I had seen so far were labeled 'Pulsin', the Hidna word for 'police'. The translator had emphasized that the person in charge of auctioning off the effects was called a 'Sheriff', and the word for that was 'Shersif'.
779
780Another wall, another change in tone for the city. Now I was seeing what I'd hoped to see: There were some residences, but most of the buildings were large, old, and clearly administrative in nature. After another few moment's walking, I spotted what I'd hoped to: A courthouse. And next to it, smaller but still prominent, the Shersif office.
781
782None of the buildings were guarded, though the local police force for this district seemed if anything overly-effective. I'd had to dodge patrols a number of times making my way here, and as I peered from the alley across the street from the courthouse I could see that this particular spot was frequently visited. The lamplighters had missed this particular alley, thankfully, but they seemed fairly thorough otherwise.
783
784Still, 'frequent patrols' wasn't 'constant patrols'. The next time there was a gap in the coverage, I darted across the street. Not to the front door, which had ample lighting from the street, but to the small alley between it and the courthouse. I had ample experience with Opal's justice district and hoped that Chankota would share a specific feature.
785
786My luck held: There was a large chain fence between the courthouse and the Sherrif's office. Beyond it, a small corridor with a door on each side, allowing for easy transfer of prisoners between the two.
787
788I wasn't so lucky that the fence itself had an entrance, but it was trivial to climb. The lamplighters had done their job in lighting the alley, but they either didn't have permission to go beyond the fence or they didn't feel like taking the circuitous route through the buildings to get there. It was usefully dim at this end, and I hoped that would be enough.
789
790The side door to the Sherrif's office was locked, of course. I'd hoped that, being essentially an internal connection between the two buildings, they wouldn't bother with such measures, but my luck wouldn't carry me that far.
791
792Still, what kind of self-respecting criminal would I be if I couldn't pick a lock?
793
794I held myself as still as I could while I placed the picks in the door; this was an operation I had to do entirely by feel, and it was possible it'd take long enough that the next patrol would come by. None so far had seemed to pay attention to the alley, but I didn't want to give them a reason.
795
796True to form, the patrol returned while I was working. I froze entirely - any movement on my part, especially an attempt to hide, would be far more suspicious than what looked to be a dark blob at the end of an alley. For all anyone knew, especially in the concealing robes I was wearing, I was a pile of trash.
797
798The patrol didn't deviate from the previous ones I'd seen; they paused for a moment, took a cursory look around, and then moved on. I waited a few moments in case they had a sudden desire to turn back. Then I resumed my work.
799
800Moments later, the door was open and I'd slipped through, closing it as I went. I moved quietly - I couldn't hear anyone's surface thoughts in the building, but someone could be sleeping in a cell somewhere. I didn't want to wake them, and though I suspected it'd take quite a bit of noise to be heard outside, I didn't want to take that chance either. Plus remaining quiet when I was places where I shouldn't be was a habit I had no intention of breaking anytime soon.
801
802There was another obstacle to staying hidden: It was dark. Normally this would work in my favor, but when you're trying to ransack a place looking for items that might not even be there, darkness caused more problems than it solved. I had enough fire magic to create a handful worth of light, but the front of the building was windowed. Any light I made would easily be visible from the street.
803
804Then again, that worked both ways. The lamplighters had done their job well and this particular area was important enough to be lit all night. If I allowed my eyes time to adjust, the outside light might just be enough. If it wasn't, I could at least wait until I was in another room to use the fire magic.
805
806It wasn't enough, really, but it would have to do. I started skulking through the front of the building; if I was going to turn on the lights in the back, I didn't want to have to go wait for my eyes to adjust yet again. There wasn't much up here - a couple of desks, a filing cabinet, a wooden board with a number of nails in it from which a half dozen keys were hung. I was tempted to look through the filing cabinet or the copious amount of paper on the desk next to it, but I didn't think I had time and I was fairly sure I wouldn't be able to read in this lighting anyway. A quick glance was enough to tell me that I was mostly right, and everything on the papers was in Hidna anyway.
807
808Not in the front, then. There were two other doors besides the one by the windows and the one I'd come in at. One lead to the rear of the building and the other to something that looked fairly closet-sized. It might have been an evidence locker, but it might have also just been a closet. I decided to try the back room first, as I figured that's where the cells would be, and I could confirm that I was in fact alone in the building.
809
810My suspicions were correct - it did lead to the cells, and they were all empty. Another door at the end of this hallway declared that it was "SHAIBOT". It was a word I didn't know, but judging from the size and all-caps nature of the warning, it had to be important. I made my way to it only to find it locked. It was a heftier lock than the one I'd picked to get in, on par with what I'd expect the cells themselves had. I could probably get past it anyway, but it'd be a lot easier to go grab the key from up front.
811
812I'd had a small handful of fire to generate enough light to read the door by, so I extinguished it and waited a few more minutes for my eyes to re-adjust. I'd hoped to avoid exactly this, but it didn't matter, I apparently had all night. While I waited, I heard a patrol pass out front, but they were distracted by their own conversation and didn't stop.
813
814Once adjusted, I made my way to the board. Fortunately, most of the keys hanging from it were labeled: "1", "2", "3", "4", and "shaibot". Hopefully that wasn't the Hidna word for "Solitary confinement room where we keep our most violent criminals." I grabbed the key and returned to the back.
815
816Determined not to have to adjust my sight yet again, I found the lock by feel and unlocked the door. Slipping through, I found myself surrounded by complete darkness.
817
818With a suppressed sigh, I re-lit my flame and was relieved to find that this was not another cell. Instead, it was a large closet with shelving, nearly all of it full. This had to be the evidence room.
819
820It was more organized than the desk out front had been, but not by much. The evidence was grouped into piles, and each pile had a tag. The tag was just a mixture of letters and numbers, presumably kept straight by whoever maintained the filing cabinet out front. I didn't have the time or light to be able to go back and forth between here and there, trying to figure out which one was the right one. My near-illiteracy in the language made that a terrible idea anyway.
821
822As it turned out, it didn't take much to find what I was looking for. One of the walls had larger shelves, for items that presumably couldn't fit on the others, and the bottom-most one had only one pile. It didn't have a tag, presumably because there hadn't been a trial. Only a few things were here, but I recognized the crossbow as being of Opal manufacture, as was the knife and the sword. I was more interested in the largest item on the shelf: An elaborate white coat.
823
824It looked absurd. Nobody in Opal would ordinarily wear such a thing, and Chankota was close enough to the desert that it would be similarly useless here. During my time in the organization, however, I'd heard of coats like I suspected this one to be. It had a quilted texture, and I quickly determined that each square - about the size of my hand - was filled with a hard but pliant material. I'd found a crosscloak!
825
826The organization had a few, and any criminal boss of status owned some for themselves, but they were mostly for show. They were still as stifling to wear in the desert heat as you'd expect, but they had a very important niche: They made the wearer near-immune to the crossbow. Each of the panels was designed to trap and deflect bolts. Though a strong bowman could pierce them, most thugs weren't talented enough to have trained in an actual bow. It was as close as you could come to being invincible, and I was sorely tempted to take this one. Sure, a good suit of mail could probably accomplish the same thing, but all anyone had to do to take out someone wearing mail was to knock them over, hold them down (not hard with the extra weight), and let the heat take care of the rest. Armor wasn't popular in Opal.
827
828The personal effects had only been the weapons and the coat. I'd been told that the old Bishop had carried a journal - a habit that I'd been encouraged to take up, so long as I used the ciphers - and I didn't see it anywhere. Chances were good that it was somewhere else, being analyzed by the Empire's Intelligence Service, but there was one more possibility to try.
829
830I took the knife, and I started cutting up the coat.
831
832The crosscloaks had another name: "Smuggler's Coats". This was because the squares of a crosscloak could be torn open, the padding removed, and replaced with whatever good one wanted to smuggle. The design of the cloak made it relatively easy to disguise such tampering, and short of tearing the whole thing apart as I was now doing there wasn't any way to discover it. They'd been out of favor in Opal for smuggling purposes because the guards had, in fact, proven willing to destroy the coats. Still useful for day-to-day thuggery, though, as that would take place far out of sight of any guards anyway.
833
834Regardless, people weren't allowed in Chankota for any reason, much less to try to smuggle anything in, so the coat had never gained its secondary reputation here. Otherwise I imagine I'd have found it much as I was going to leave it: Torn to near-shreds.
835
836I really wished I could take the coat with me, but aside from now missing many of the panels that gave it its invincibility, it was also a bright white that would rule out stealth entirely. It seemed a crime to deface such a thing, but then again I was no stranger to crime. Heck, it wasn't even the first crime I'd committed today.
837
838I'd closed the door behind me, so as to not let the light from my flame leak out to where it might be seen. If I listened carefully - and I was always listening carefully - I could hear another patrol pass by. The rest of my time was spent cutting and extracting whatever strange material they used as filler in the crosscloaks.
839
840I discovered the journal - sewn into a side panel just under the arm - at almost exactly the same time I heard a door open.
841
842I'd watched the sheriff's office closely, prior to making my move. It wasn't guarded from the outside, and I'd made sure that there was nobody inside as well. But, as I tucked the journal underneath the layers of clothing I was wearing, I realized that I hadn't paid much attention to the courthouse at all.
843
844And the courthouse was linked directly to the sheriff's office.
845
846The sound of another door opening confirmed my suspicions. The courthouse must have had a guard that did rounds internally, and occasionally checked in on the office next door, as well.
847
848I extinguished the flame that'd been lighting my surroundings, and complete darkness came over the room. Allowing my eyes time to adjust didn't help, as there was simply no light. I found myself wishing I'd found my way to the door before turning off the fire, but there was no time for that now. I could hear the guard ambling about outside.
849
850The evidence room was a dead end. I crouched by the only exit. If I were lucky, the guard would do a perfunctory round and then go back, and I could sneak out. If I were unlucky, well, maybe the magic would hold. I suspected that skulking around in an evidence room was exactly the sort of non-subtle thing that would break the spell, but even then I had my contingency.
851
852The guard was talking to himself as he moved, but it was muffled and in rapid Hidna, so I couldn't understand a word of it. I heard another door opening - this the one that separated the front of the office from the cells. Was this part of his normal routine, or had he looked at the key rack and noticed one missing?
853
854Either way, I heard the door to the evidence room start to swing open. Flickering light - like that from the same sort of handheld flame I'd been using - spilled in. And following it, the guard.
855
856He was not one of the police, I could tell that immediately. The outside patrols had featured lightly armored and heavily armed men. Most of them, while still retaining their youth, obviously had experience. This guard was young, scrawny. He either hadn't made it as a policeman or simply hadn't tried. Still, it wasn't one single guard I was worried about, it was the inevitable alarm such a person could bring. I didn't need the entire city after me, nor for the caravan to suffer reprisals.
857
858I'd still kept a faint hope that I'd go unnoticed, that the guard would take a quick glance around and then head back out, that the magic would somehow hold, but the moment his eyes turned in my direction I knew that had been a fantasy at best.
859
860It was time for the contingency, then. I certainly hoped I was going to survive this.
861
862I couldn't kill him. Not that I couldn't, of course. Even if I hadn't been armed before, I had my predecessor's weaponry within easy reach. But he was just an innocent kid, doing rounds that he probably thought were going to be uneventful, and likely for meager pay to boot. He didn't deserve to die. Even the thought of what the town had done to the old Bishop couldn't change my mind, though it did tempt me more than I'd like to admit. I couldn't just kill people randomly, though.
863
864So, the contingency: I ran directly at him. He was surprised, reflexively thrusting his handful of fire in my direction, but he didn't have any more talent than I did so he couldn't actually hurt me with it that much. Plus I figured he'd do that anyway, either intentionally or not, and I'd already prepared. The light black robe I'd been wearing was too big for me by far. It was a style more popular in some of the southern desert cities, but not entirely out of place here. Its signature was its voluminous nature - if I hadn't been holding on to it or folded it away the entire time I'd been in the city, it'd have been dragging behind me by at least six feet.
865
866Now I took up that slack and cast it over him like a net. If he'd been surprised by my sudden attack, he was even more surprised to find himself covered in my clothing. He reflexively doused his flame to prevent himself from catching fire, now that he was covered in something flammable. More importantly for the plan, he grabbed on to the parts of the robe he could reach.
867
868I'd made some important modifications before I'd set out. So while the guard struggled with what must have seen like an improvised trap, I was already rushing ahead, past him, toward the door to the front of the office. The guard pulled on the parts of the robe that he had, no doubt intending to stop me in my tracks. It apparently didn't occur to him that no criminal would actually wear such a thing. It would invite capture by exactly this scenario.
869
870The robe, weakened by my earlier modifications, tore free from my body. The guard, now off-balance, fell to the ground. I was out the door before he could stagger up, and I devoted no further thought to him, as I had an immediate choice to make: Outside through the front door, or into the alley?
871
872I'd been keeping track of when the patrols had passed by; one was due too soon for the front door to be an exit. I dashed to the side and left through the door to the alley.
873
874"Ruknat!" a voice yelled from inside the courthouse. Of course the guard had a partner. I knew the Hidna word for 'Stop' when I heard it, but I had no intention of doing so. Besides, I'd never intended to escape through the courthouse.
875
876I lept to the fence, climbing it rapidly as I had on my way in. This time my objective wasn't to go over it, though. I balanced for a moment, then pulled myself up onto the roof of the Sheriff's office.
877
878These nice, flat, Opal-style roofs had their advantages.
879
880I hadn't run from rooftop to rooftop in years, and I was in an unfamiliar city to boot, but it was amazing the kind of motivation that fear for my life provided. Shouts trailed behind me but I rapidly outpaced them, making my way toward the innermost city wall.
881
882Bells sounded in the distance - at least one of the guards had alerted the police, and soon the whole city would be waking to find me. I made it to the wall undiscovered, but I could easily see from my vantage point that while the inner walls of the city had seemed entirely decorative, their gates were still fully functional.
883
884Of course, the city had grown since these, the oldest of the walls, had been constructed. The building I was on was actually taller than the wall. I hopped down on top of it, and started making my way around the circumference.
885
886I'd hoped that people would be looking for me on the ground, or at least on the roofs in the district I'd just left behind. People hardly ever looked up. But again luck was against me: It was a cloudless night, lit by a near-full moon. I was pretty perfectly silhouetted, and before long I heard shouts much closer than they had been.
887
888I skipped over rooftops once more, heading to the second of the city's walls. I wasn't heading back the way that I'd came and, much to my dismay, the area of the city ahead apparently had decided they liked empire-style peaked roofs quite a bit. I had to go out of my way, which only gave my pursuers time to catch up to me. I saw lights from watchtowers come on. They'd be near-useless if I were on the ground, given how close together the buildings were, but while I was on the roofs I was easy to spot.
889
890A noise came from behind me. I was pretty sure it was a crossbow bolt - or possibly arrow - striking the roof. It was joined by more as more and more watchtowers woke. The second wall was close, however.
891
892I had to vault to a higher building, but in the end I made the jump to the other wall. The sound of alarm was ringing throughout the city now, including the area I was heading into, but crossing over the wall seemed to have gained me at least a little time.
893
894"Dakkoon! Dakkoon!" the cries started catching up again as I had to repeatedly diverge from the straight course out in order to keep running. The buildings here were extremely non-uniform in height, making my rooftop getaway even more perilous than it already was.
895
896I once again heard the sound of bolts clattering.
897
898Still, the third and final wall loomed. It was three stories tall, but thankfully - like the others - it had been made to keep people out, not in. I scaled a building near it, and moved to the top of the wall with ease.
899
900One brief moment of peace, as the wall once again seemed to throw them off. I looked down to the desert outside, and didn't see any guards. I'd explicitly picked a portion as far from a gate as I could get to, though I'd had less and less of a choice as I'd ran. Still, this would not be easy.
901
902I wasn't a wizard. I didn't have formal training in how to use my magic. I had the same potential as anyone else - about a handful of whatever element I needed. But I did have experience in using it courtesy of that most hallowed of Opal institutions, the school of hard knocks.
903
904As I lept off the wall, I called on all five elements. Air magic to buffer my descent and help shape the sand below. Water magic on myself, to try to move my own body slower. Earth magic on the sands, to help stack the drifts outside the walls - the reason I'd chosen this side of the city to run toward in the first place. Fire magic to heat the air beneath me so it would rise, slowing me further. And Mind… well, that was to ignore how much this was going to hurt.
905
906Impact jarred me and I almost immediately lost my balance, rolling down the dune that my earth magic, my air magic, and ordinary wind had created. Sand got in my clothes, in my mouth, in my ears, and I didn't care because I was out of the city. As soon as I regained control I sprung to my feet, running away from the city and toward the deeper desert as fast as I could. I left a wake of air and earth magic behind me, kicking up as much dust as I could to screen me from bowmen, though if any were firing at me, I didn't hear them.
907
908Minutes later, I was deeper in the desert, behind a small rock outcropping that I'd made note of on the caravan's ride in, and I was stripping off my costume. The robe had been hot enough on its own, but the "desert bandit" outfit I'd cobbled together and worn over my regular clothes had me sweating much more than I felt comfortable doing in a desert. I took a certain amount of pleasure in literally tearing it off of myself and burying it in the sand with earth magic. Even if patrols came out this far trying to find me, they wouldn't find it.
909
910The actual desert bandits didn't really have a uniform, but they had a general look and I'd been able to duplicate it with clothes I bought from the merchant. That, plus the fact that I'd fled toward the desert, should be enough to draw attention away from the caravan.
911
912Just to be safe, I took a very circuitous route back. I swung wide as I walked back through the desert, relying on the stars and the moon to keep myself from walking in circles. I eventually ended up on the far side of the outlanders' quarter, where I leisurely wandered back in as though I'd only stepped out.
913
914I'd done it. I'd escaped Chankota, and brought back a treasure trove of intelligence for my efforts. I made my way over to the wagon I'd been using as a bed, climbed up on top of it, and fell asleep almost instantly.
915
916*************************
91710
918
919The next morning, we were forcefully evicted from the outlander's quarters.
920
921Most of the day shift was awake and most of the night shift had just started dozing off when a dozen guards marched out of Chankota and started rousing everyone. They weren't gentle, and a few altercations did little to change that; instead, more guards arrived as reinforcements.
922
923There were a lot of people in the caravan, including some guards of our own, and it might have escalated to something nearing a riot if Magen hadn't intervened. He managed to talk our people down, start organizing the caravan, and even had some people get moving immediately. This seemed to placate the guards, though it did little for us.
924
925Dalostaed and I had taken it upon ourselves to start loading up wagons, even though the wizard had never unpacked to begin with. We just chose nearby merchants and started pitching in, having wordlessly decided that urgency was more than justified in this situation. At one point, Magen stopped by.
926
927"Any word?" He asked me directly, ignoring the wizard's servant. Dalostaed kept loading boxes, pretending not to eavesdrop.
928
929"It'll be an hour at most." I said. "But I think everyone's got the message to get packing, so hopefully we can start getting out of here as soon as possible."
930
931Magen shook his head. "Not about that. I mean, good work, yes, thanks for pitching in, but I'm asking about your patrols."
932
933I shrugged. "I haven't had the chance to go on any; the guards woke me up."
934
935The look of consternation that Magen had been wearing the entire morning failed to dissipate. "Damn. Long-shot anyway. Apparently bandits hit the town last night. It was shortly before day shift was heading to bed, I was hoping you'd spotted something."
936
937"I haven't seen any bandits." I answered truthfully. Disguising my surface thoughts while lying was a lot easier when I didn't actually lie.
938
939"Well it's pissed the city off even more than usual, and that's saying something." Magen elaborated. "They know damn well we didn't have anything to do with it, but when all you have is a club, everyone looks like a target." He shook his head. "Thanks. I'm going to move down the line and ask around. As soon as you've loaded this one up here, I'd like you to go find the wagons I've sent ahead. I had to do something to make the Chankotans see that we were cooperating, but I don't like splitting up if there's bandits about."
940
941"Understood." I said. Magen nodded and walked off.
942
943I turned to help Dalostaed, but he'd apparently finished loading the wagon during the conversation. Maybe he had actually been working and not listening. "You go ahead," he said.
944
945I wanted to stay and help anyway out of a sense of guilt, but that same guilt meant I couldn't stay; I couldn't risk any of the city guards picking up on it. I managed a "Thanks, Dalostaed" and started heading back out into the desert.
946
947The paths in the deep desert that we'd passed through on the way out of Opal weren't marked; if you wanted to go anywhere other than in circles, you had to know what you were doing. Magen had some kind of complicated telescope that he'd used to navigate by the stars. I wasn't so lucky, but this far away from the deep desert, the trails were at least a little bit marked. That I could follow.
948
949It didn't take long before I caught up to the other wagons. They'd apparently chosen this spot to make camp for the day, though the night shift was still awake. I nodded to one of my fellow day shift guards. "What news?" I asked.
950
951"All's clear," she told me. "No sight, sound, or smell of bandits. If I hadn't heard the bells last night I'd suspect the 'kotans just made them up to get rid of us."
952
953I nodded. "I'm going to set up on one of the wagons."
954
955She gestured to one of the three wagons that nobody was sleeping in. "Tighten it down first, the cargo's a bit shifty. Still, it should do."
956
957I took her advice. Normally the fastenings were checked and double-checked, but with the speed we'd had to evacuate I wasn't surprised at shoddy work. As eager as I was to set up for reasons I didn't dare think of too loudly, I wanted to make sure the entire wagon's worth of cargo wouldn't tumble out from underneath me the moment I climbed up.
958
959After a few minutes of re-doing their work, I was satisfied I wasn't about to climb onto a deathtrap. I hauled myself up. I took a few more moments to try to attune myself to the air around me. I was trying an old surveillance technique I'd learned early on: People disturbed the air when they moved.
960
961Ordinarily it was done with Earth magic. Even though I could see much further than my personal range with magic, I didn't actually need for the range to be that far - the vibrations that people made walking over the earth would travel to me. In this case, however, it wouldn't work. Not only was I not on the ground to make the magic work in the first place, but it turns out sand is a hell of a dampener when it comes to noise.
962
963So, the poorer man's fallback: Air magic. Same general principle; I didn't need good range because the wind would come to me. Bigger drawbacks, though: We had to be downwind, and it wouldn't detect one or even a few people. A full-sized bandit raiding party, though, that would do the trick. And we were downwind of Chankota.
964
965Of course, knowing there weren't actually any bandits helped matters. So long as I was visibly attempting to do something, nobody here would get suspicious, and I could rest well knowing that shoddy work wouldn't get me killed for once. I set up the air spell to get my attention if something triggered it, and started reading the journal.
966
967It was in a cipher, as I'd already known it would be, but that wouldn't be a problem.
968
969Mind magic is versatile. Everyone can read everyone else's thoughts from a few feet away, feelings from farther. But there's more to it than that. I'd learned the trick of calming myself down during and after a fight-or-flight situation, so that I could still think while in the midst of life or death situations. I retained the reflexes and strength that my body would normally have while mid-panic, though, which was the real benefit. Someone who had trained all their life, like Dalostaed's boss, could peer further into people's minds, whip up realistic illusions or complicated illusions (but not both), and of course could make someone disregard you while you snuck into a city. It's why the Pure Minds were so dangerous, because if they could think it, they could do it. The mind-body connection is so strong that they barely aged, they could kill you because you thought you'd drowned, and they could rewrite a personality on the fly… I stopped myself from dwelling on it. I'd had a bit more time to get comfortable with what my employer could do, but only because I didn't think about it too hard.
970
971The point was, mind magic wasn't just the reading minds that anyone could do. People can cast spells with mind magic, they just don't usually learn the trick to it. I hadn't known it either until I'd joined up, and Rook had taught me the ciphers. If the organization had used traditional ciphers, i'd be up here with a dozen pads of paper, going through my own how-to-decrypt guides and hoping that I didn't lose any of it, because then the whole communications would be compromised.
972
973So instead, our ciphers were a spell. It was more complicated than the air spell that I'd cast, and the really annoying thing about mind magic was that you couldn't think about it too hard because your own thoughts would start to leak into the spell, but Rook had made me practice until I could do it in my sleep.
974
975A set of tiring mental gymnastics later, and I could read the book as clear as day. I went immediately to the last entry.
976
977>Second Quarter, First Waxing 16
978
979>I confirmed it tonight: The Witchdoctor is here in town.
980
981I stopped reading, trying to calm my surface thoughts. Thankfully, nobody was nearby. They couldn't eavesdrop on my mind while I read the cipher - the spell made sure of that - but it couldn't do anything to mask my emotional reactions. I wanted to avoid people knowing that I had the journal, if at all possible.
982
983I looked back down at the book, wondering if 'The Witchdoctor' was a code name, but I suspected it wasn't. Witchdoctors were the offspring of a Pure Mind and a Pure Earth. The mind-body connection that I'd reflected on earlier? That was their domain. They earned the 'Doctor' portion of their name because they could accelerate a body's natural healing far beyond normal, and they earned the 'Witch' part of the name because they could turn that same natural healing against the body. Being devoured inside-out because you'd been made allergic to yourself was not a good way to go.
984
985I suspected this was why Bishop Previous had left the safety of the foreign quarter: the Witchdoctor was a direct link to a Pure Mind, possibly the one I was looking for. I certainly hoped there weren't two.
986
987I continued reading:
988
989>This is an enormous opportunity; if I can deliver the Witchdoctor back to the nest, our lady can both negate his powers and interrogate him as to the whereabouts of his father.
990
991Yep, thought so.
992
993>This one in particular is the best candidate. The Rioter or the Ephemeral would sense my intent the moment I stepped into the city, and the Illusionist would know better than to actually be anywhere near where she appeared to be.
994
995Rioters, Ephemerals, and Illusionists were the offspring of a Pure Mind and a Fire, Air, and Water, respectively. Rioters had full control over emotions, Ephemerals were the ones who could steal your memory and replace your mind with something else, and an Illusionist was exactly what it sounded like. What disturbed me more about this was that the Bishop wasn't writing as though he were reflecting on Rioters or Illusionists in general; it sounded like he had specific people in mind. Bad enough that there was apparently one half-Mind running around, I didn't need four.
996
997At least it seemed like there was only one actual Pure Mind about; they wouldn't be making half-breeds if making more Pure was an option.
998
999>To the Witchdoctor, I will simply be another body. It is risky; I've never seen a more xenophobic town than this one and so I may still stand out, may still get caught, but this is the strongest link I've found yet. Infiltrating the intelligence apparatus of the Empire has proven near impossible with the Ephemeral screening potentials, so this is possibly our last chance.
1000
1001I'd known that the Empire's Intelligence Service was somehow linked to my target. I hadn't liked my chances of sneaking in even before I knew they had an Ephemeral on staff.
1002
1003>If this journal is retrieved by anyone who can read its contents, please return it to our lady when you can. If you have found this because I have died and you searched the smuggler's cloak, I thank you for reading my words. Know that I did not die painfully; the Zishan Mon Zhouk that the Queen placed upon me at my request ensured that. Our secrets will pass with me rather than being forced out by whatever tortures the Witchdoctor could imagine. Whoever you are, I wish you luck.
1004
1005The air ward that I'd created triggered, snapping me out of my reverie. I looked up from the book, glancing about to make sure that nobody noticed I was reading instead of watching. Nobody had. My fellow guard had apparently set up something similar, because moments later she shouted to me: "Got eyes Eastward?"
1006
1007I glanced back toward the town and spotted what had set off the spell: The rest of the caravan was just visible from where I sat. "It's Magen." I supplied. "Guess we'd best cast off soon."
1008
1009A bit later and I was reunited with Dalostaed, the wagon I'd been hired to help, and the Wizard who near-perpetually sat on it. As usual, the wizard said nothing and Dalostaed did all the talking that he didn't.
1010
1011After he told me about all the wagons that he'd single-handedly packed up and heroically prepared for their journey, there was a lull in the largely one-sided conversation.
1012
1013"So…" he said finally, "tell me about the 'bandit raid'."
1014
1015"Yeah," I admitted quietly. "That was me." At least there was someone I could talk to a little bit about what I'd done, even if I couldn't go into detail as to why.
1016
1017Dalostaed chuckled. "How long did it take for you to break the spell, eh? Me and the wizard, we made a bet. Five minutes? Ten?"
1018
1019"He doesn't speak Trade, right?" I said. "Tell him whichever number you want and I'll back you up, so long as I get a slice of the winnings."
1020
1021Dalostaed laughed out loud at this. "Ha! I like your style. So, tell me, what was it like there in the forbidden city?"
1022
1023I shrugged. "Weirdly, it was more like Opal than I thought it'd be. If it weren't for paranoid guards determined to run us out of town, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference."
1024
1025"Huh." Dalostaed said. "Not sure what I expected."
1026
1027I sensed an opening - there'd been a portion of the journal I hadn't understood, a reference to some precaution that Bishop Previous had taken. I couldn't directly mention the journal, though. I'd have to pretend to have read it elsewhere.
1028
1029"I did see this strange sign." I said, finally. The key to selling something that was an outright lie was to envision what you were lying about. I kept a clear mental image in my head of what I imagined the nonexistent sign to look like. "Outside an apothecary-and-trinkets shop. Magic, if I had to guess. It didn't look like it was in Hidna."
1030
1031"Unlike the whole rest of the town, I wager." Dalostaed said. "Must've felt like you were back before you could read. You remember what it said? I'm the wizard's translator, among my many other duties. I probably know it."
1032
1033"Yeah," I said, keeping the mental image. "It was advertising for something called a Zishan Mon Zhouk, whatever that is."
1034
1035The cheerful humor on Dalostaed's face vanished instantly, replaced with the sort of anger I hadn't seen him display until the night before when he tried to warn me away from breaking into the city. If anything, he was even more upset; the sudden fury radiated from his surface thoughts in waves.
1036
1037"Boy," he said through clenched teeth, "if you're going to lie to me, at least don't insult my intelligence."
1038
1039"I-" I started to say.
1040
1041"Not a word!" he was nearly shouting. "I don't want to hear another lie from you! There will be a reckoning later, between you and I. When you will tell me what you did in that city, and why you did it. You gave your word, and that's more binding than you might think. Until then, I don't want to hear another lie. You understand?"
1042
1043"How?" I asked, dumbfounded. I'd kept the mental image of the fake sign in mind the entire time.
1044
1045He glared directly into my eyes. "Because there's not a gods-damned magic shop in this whole world that would advertise for a suicide curse!"
1046
1047With that, he stormed off. I watched him go, speechless.
1048
1049*************************
105011
1051
1052"What the hell did you say to him?" Magen asked me.
1053
1054It'd been three days since I'd talked to Dalostaed. He was night shift and I was day shift, so it wasn't as though avoiding each other was difficult, but now that we were settling the caravan again - this time at the much friendlier empire city of Putluru - people were changing shifts in earnest.
1055
1056I shrugged at Magen. "Just a dumb argument." I said. "The heat's been a bit much."
1057
1058Magen nodded. "It happens, but you'd best reconcile quick, or at least learn to work side by side. Utijan is our next and last stop, and we'll be needing everyone left to help unpack."
1059
1060I looked around at the numerous wagons that were already unpacking. Merchants, mostly, and a whole lot more than had been allowed at Chankota. "What about here?"
1061
1062"You're free to help out, so long as the heat won't be a problem." Magen's tone indicated he didn't quite believe my story, but his surface thoughts had already moved on. He wasn't going to ask questions.
1063
1064"We're out of the desert now." I said. "The grass is almost green. Should be cool enough to keep my temper."
1065
1066"Good." He said, and moved down the line.
1067
1068I made my way up the caravan to the group of wagons that I'd guarded on their rather quick departure from Chankota. Their guard recognized me and nodded. "Hey, Bishop," she said. "Magen need anything?"
1069
1070"No," I replied, "I was just checking to see if anything needed to be unpacked up here." Left unsaid was the fact that this was about as far from the wizard's wagon as I could get.
1071
1072She shrugged. "We're not staying. Magen sent us on ahead like he did because we're not actually part of his caravan." She tapped the side of the wagon closest to her, and I noticed a different flag painted on it.
1073
1074"Oh? Where are you headed?"
1075
1076"Dynasty, eventually. So we don't dare get too close to Utijan, because you know how they feel about supplying the enemy."
1077
1078I managed a chuckle. The Dynasty and the Empire had technically been at war with each other for the past hundred years, though it had been nearly that long since a battle had actually been fought. "I can imagine. So why go this far west at all, can't you just head north from Opal?"
1079
1080She laughed. "I keep forgetting this is your first trip."
1081
1082I hadn't actually told her at any point, but gossip traveled pretty freely around the caravan. "That obvious, huh?"
1083
1084"Sorry," she said finally. "Looking at a map it looks like an easy trip, Ruby's up there along the way. You know much about the other Jewels?"
1085
1086Opal wasn't the only Jewel of the Desert. Pretty much any city that survived in the desert got that title, so long as they'd named themselves accordingly. Even that wasn't a strict requirement; Sapphire's actual name was Crossing Dunes, but nobody called it that and you'd be hard-pressed to find a modern map that used the latter name. "I mostly just know about Opal," I said finally.
1087
1088"Ruby's an outlaw haven. Founded by people who believed that true anarchy could really work. Idealists, of all things. Most of them met the wrong side of a crossbow about a month after that founding, but the city's still there so I guess they were at least a little bit right. Anyway, they're big believers in 'personal freedom', up to and including the part where they feel free to take your stuff if you're a small group of traders with only one or two guards. If Magen were leading this whole caravan to the Dynasty, then sure, it'd be safe just because there'd be too many of us to kill. But he's not, so we take the long way around."
1089
1090"Makes sense." I said. "I-"
1091
1092A cough from behind me interrupted what I was going to say. I turned around and peered into the completely shadowed visage of the wizard.
1093
1094"I'll let you get on with that," the other guard said, unhelpfully.
1095
1096"Um, hi." I said to the wizard. "Do you need help unpacking?" I wasn't sure why I was talking; he couldn't understand anything I said and even if he did answer me, I couldn't understand him.
1097
1098He motioned for me to follow him, then turned around and started walking away without checking to see if I'd actually done so. I glanced back to see if my fellow guard could help me, but she'd wisely gotten out of sight. I guessed I didn't have much of a choice.
1099
1100I caught up with the wizard, who was moving relatively slowly. His robes dragged the ground with a hissing sound that he didn't seem to notice. He didn't say a word to me as we walked back to his wagon. As I'd suspected, Dalostaed was unloading it.
1101
1102"Xiex," the dwarf / man said to the wizard. The latter barely acknowledged him, climbing back on top of the remaining portions.
1103
1104"We're setting up?" I asked as calmly as I could.
1105
1106If Dalostaed harbored any ill will over our conversation, it wasn't reflected in his manner. It was possible I'd been avoiding him for nothing. He gestured to the wagon. "Not all of it, thank the Ten. Just enough to unload a few tinctures we probably wouldn't be able to sell in the Far Lands."
1107
1108I helped unload until he told me to stop, then I helped put the booth together. I found myself wondering if I was also going to be expected to sell the wares. I not only had no idea what they did, I also wouldn't be able to understand if anyone tried to ask me questions about them in Hidna. Still, I could build a booth.
1109
1110As we were working, I asked: "The Ten?"
1111
1112"You religious?" He asked me, looking in my direction skeptically before returning his attention to the work.
1113
1114Growing up like I did, you either cultivated a deep personal faith to keep you steady in terrible times - which was nearly all of them - or you gave up on the idea of higher powers entirely. I'd known friends who had personal shrines to the Lord of Winds or the Lady of Subtlety. Me, I'd gone in the other direction.
1115
1116"Not really." I summarized. "It's just that we're taught in Opal that it's the Nine."
1117
1118Dalostaed grunted. "I'm not surprised. You know what we know about the Tenth? Nil, that's what. The texts I knew mention that there were ten, talk about how the world was created, and then each of the nine gets their own chapter. Somewhere along the line, number ten just got left out."
1119
1120"Strange." I commented. I wasn't really sure where he was going with this, but it wouldn't be the first rambling conversation we'd had.
1121
1122"You know the story about the creation of the world?"
1123
1124I made an uncertain gesture. "Not word-for-word, no. But the gist of it."
1125
1126"Let's kill some time, then. Tell me the story." Dalostaed was not killing time. There was a point to this. But given how our last conversation had gone, I was in a conciliatory mood.
1127
1128"All right," I said. "In the beginning, there was Void."
1129
1130"So you know that part word for word."
1131
1132"Everyone knows that part word for word," I said. "It gets a little fuzzier from there. The five gods-"
1133
1134"Or five aspects of one God," Dalostaed interrupted. "That's what the commonwealth out east teaches, though not all the kingdoms there agree on it. It's one of the things they fight with each other about."
1135
1136"Okay," I said. "Anyway, however many gods there were decide to hop into the void and carve out their own slice of it, but they do a terrible job alone. Fire can't survive on its own, Air is literally just howling in the void, Water evaporates immediately, and Earth can't stay in one piece. Mind of course can't even exist without people. So they have to team up to make our world. Not sure how that makes any sense with what the easterners teach, though."
1137
1138"It makes perfect sense for them," Dalostaed said, "the fact that the elements do nothing on their own means that they have to actually be reflections of one thing in order to exist in the first place."
1139
1140I wasn't sure that was a valid interpretation, but I'd barely read the actual scriptures so I really couldn't say. I continued the story. "Four of the elements make the world: Earth is obviously the earth, Water its waters, Air is the air, and Fire is at its core. And then as though to show them all up, Mind creates life."
1141
1142"Great, that's our world. But what happened next?" Dalostaed said, as though he didn't know. He was definitely going somewhere with this.
1143
1144I was suspicious, but continued. "Well, the rest of the gods, or aspects or whatever, they decide to get in on this life thing. Each of them splits into two, which I guess just makes the commonwealth scripture scholars supper happy, and they pool their powers to form bodies for themselves. These are the first human beings."
1145
1146"Who are they?" Dalostaed asked.
1147
1148That I remembered. "The Lady of Subtlety, the Lord of Oceans, the Lady of Rains, the Lord of Winds, the Lady of Breath, the Lord of Quakes, the Lady of Soil, the Lord of Blazes, and the Lady of the Hearth." I'd managed it all in one breath and without singing it in the annoying tune used to teach it to children.
1149
1150"So, they make bodies for themselves, and then the other chapters start."
1151
1152"From what I remember," I said, "that's the part I'm fuzzy on. The scriptures from that point on are a history lesson from nine different viewpoints, and none of them agree with each other. Other than some of the exciting stuff from Quakes or Blazes, it didn't really stick."
1153
1154"But you're not a religious man." Dalostaed said, finally bringing the conversation around to its beginning.
1155
1156I shook my head. "Not really." I wasn't sure I wanted to explain; gutter life in Opal wasn't exactly a cheery topic.
1157
1158"So, who were they really?" Dalostaed asked.
1159
1160"Who were who really?" I asked. "You mean the gods?"
1161
1162Dalostaed nodded. I hoped he was actually getting to the point, because we were nearly done setting up the booth.
1163
1164I just shrugged. "Seems pretty obvious, they were the first Pure. I know it's heresy to suggest it, but some people say that there was life before magic, not the other way around."
1165
1166"And they'd sure seem like gods," Dalostaed pointed out. "Maybe he wasn't divine but every historian I've ever met agrees that the Lord of Blazes was a real person. The firestorm that destroyed Gizyut really happened, and it was at his hand."
1167
1168I tried, really hard, not to ask him what the point to all this was, and I succeeded. Unfortunately, my surface thoughts were not quite so hidden as I'd hoped, because he answered me anyway: "I'm worried about you, boy."
1169
1170He really was; the rage I'd inspired in him earlier seemed gone completely, replaced with this strange sorrow for someone he didn't even know.
1171
1172"I'm sorry." I managed.
1173
1174"We're still going to have a conversation," Dalostaed replied, "when the time is right. I don't know what you got up to in Chankota or how in this world you managed to even hear the words 'Zìshan Mon Zhouk', let alone see them on a sign, but it's nothing good."
1175
1176"It's a suicide curse, you said." I was feeling pretty exposed at the moment; if it had turned out that the curse was something that only a Pure Mind could do then I'd have leaked some pretty damn important information about my own mission. Then again, things that only the Pure could do tended to not have names that weren't also the names of natural disasters. Plus my predecessor wouldn't have risked having one if its mere existence would have confirmed his employer. I hoped.
1177
1178Dalostaed nodded. "When you know something that you literally want to take to the grave with you, you find a wizard." He gestured to his employer, who was apparently asleep. "The wizard implants in your mind a sort of ward. If anyone should try to access the information you've protected, either via coercion or because your interrogator is a wizard himself, it kills you."
1179
1180I'd kept looking at the wizard atop his wagon. "And he's done that?"
1181
1182"To himself, yes." Dalostaed said. "Standard procedure for ambassadors or envoys like him. The wizard knows much about the Dynasty, not to mention a great deal about magic. The Far Lands could learn much from him, so he can't be captured."
1183
1184I shivered. "I see," I said finally.
1185
1186"It's important, because the Pure are still among us." He said.
1187
1188I didn't comment. I shut down my surface thoughts, hard, and though he must have noticed it, he was polite enough not to bring it up.
1189
1190"The real reason I asked if you were religious was because if you were then you might have read Subtlety."
1191
1192I shook my head. It was the last of the chapters and was preceded by the boring-even-for-scripture chapters of Soil and Hearth. I'd barely even bothered with Winds.
1193
1194Dalostaed grunted again. "If you had read it, then you'd be familiar with the idea that there are still Pure in the world. Subtlety prophecies that, from time to time, the Gods would return to the earth in mortal form. In other words, the Pure are still being born. I can't speak for the other cities, but I know that it happens in the Dynasty. They're very quietly brought into one or more of the ruling houses to shore up the diversity. I don't know if it's common knowledge, but the Dynasty rulers have a bit of an inbreeding problem."
1195
1196That was an understatement, though I'd thought the notion of the inbred dynast to be a stereotype rather than the actual state of things.
1197
1198"I know." I said, finally. I allowed the discovery of Mrs. Windhelm, the Pure Water I'd found in Opal, come to the surface of my mind without context. "I know the Pure are real. I made it a… hobby to try to find one. I didn't think I'd actually succeed." It was close enough to the truth to pass, for now.
1199
1200"A Pure Water," Dalostaed said, having picked up what I was thinking, "could wreak unimaginable destruction, even in a desert. Rains is an ironically dry chapter, but at one point the Lady of Rains does call down a flood from a clear sky. Any Pure could do that kind of damage."
1201
1202"But there's not that many of them." I said with more confidence than I actually had.
1203
1204"No." Dalostaed said. "There are not. You found one in a city of, what, twenty thousand people? The ratio is similar in the Dynasty. And I understand that natural-born Pure Minds are nearly unheard of. But if you wanted to protect information against one of them, the curse would do the trick. I worry that, wherever you heard this phrase, someone was tangled up with one of them. There's strange news come from the Empire over the past decade or so. Credible reports of a Witchdoctor. One Pure is unlikely, but possible. Two, though? One of which being the most rare sort that there is? And they just happened to find each other and produce an offspring? There's more behind the scenes of this than meets the eye."
1205
1206"You don't think it's bluster?" I asked. "That the Empire doesn't just want its enemies to think it has these resources?"
1207
1208Dalostaed shook his head. "When I say 'credible reports', I mean ones that the wizard and I have personally delivered. Our posting to the Far Lands isn't our first diplomatic mission. I've spent a lot of time in the Empire, more than I'd like in fact. The Witchdoctor is real. I don't know what you've gotten yourself into, but if you're stirring up the hornet's nest I'm glad I'm going to be on another continent."
1209
1210The booth had been finished quite some time ago, but only now did the wizard rouse himself to come down and inspect it. He didn't say anything, but it was apparently to his liking, because he sat himself down at the chair behind his wares.
1211
1212Dalostaed motioned me to follow him away from the booth. "Thanks for letting me say my piece," he said once we were out of hearing range. "I know whatever you're doing is important - it'd have to be - but I hope I've impressed upon you just how dangerous it is." I could tell he was thinking about Windhelm as he added, "Even though you've at least a little bit of an idea."
1213
1214"Thank you, Dalostaed." I managed. "I'll be careful."
1215
1216Dalostaed just nodded, and walked back to the booth. I watched him go, hoping that I'd actually be able to keep my promise.
1217
1218*************************
121912
1220
1221The desert had, finally, passed. Once we'd gotten into the highlands between the Empire's capital and Putluru, the heat abated almost entirely. It was early Fall, and while the highlands were no match to the mountains that divided Empire and Dynasty, it did get a bit cold while we were near the peaks.
1222
1223Magen himself orchestrated the turnover back to a diurnal schedule for the caravan. Now that moving during the day no longer meant spending a great deal of water, everyone was eager to return to it. A few volunteered to stay on night shift to watch for trouble, including the wizard. Though given how little he talked I suspected that Dalostaed had volunteered for him.
1224
1225The highlands also gave me a sight I thought I'd never see: The ocean.
1226
1227It was amazing. I knew what it was, of course, I knew that it wasn't drinkable. Still, I'd never expected this much water to even exist, let alone be a month's journey from Opal. And twinkling at the juncture of a river and that ocean was Utijan, capital of the Eternal Empire.
1228
1229It was more visible by its surroundings: The city itself appeared small and indistinct from this distance, but the acres of farmland couldn't be mistaken. The road we were on that began as a barely-marked path in Chankota had widened to a road capable of holding four wagons moving abreast. We'd pass through one or two smaller towns on our way in, but we'd only be stopping for the evenings. There would be maybe two of them until we arrived at the city proper.
1230
1231On the second night, Magen stopped by the wizard's wagon. This wasn't unusual; he'd been doing nightly rounds on all the wagons for nearly the entire trip. This time, though, Dalostaed seemed especially eager to see him.
1232
1233"What's the word?" Magen asked.
1234
1235"Magen," Dalostaed blurted. "The arrangement we have, employment for travel?"
1236
1237Magen instantly looked wary. "I don't like renegotiations, Dalostaed."
1238
1239"No, no, it's good news. I hope. The wizard wants to buy us out."
1240
1241Magen looked in my direction, and only did then I realize that Dalostaed's 'us' had included me. "You're okay with this?"
1242
1243"I'm not sure what this is." I responded.
1244
1245Dalostaed seemed incredibly rushed, he'd already begun handing over a small sack. "This is twice the normal fares - that's enough to cover all of our journeys, plus enough to hire two haulers on arrival, and a little bit left over for the inconvenience."
1246
1247Magen took the money, frown still on his face. His surface thoughts told me that he wanted to ask why, if we'd had the money all along, we hadn't just paid up front. It was a fair question that, at least in in my case, could be answered by not having any clue this was going to happen.
1248
1249Dalostaed picked up on this as well. "The wizard got a message, you understand. Urgent business on arrival, needs my help."
1250
1251The wizard himself sat on top of his wagon. If he was paying any attention whatsoever to the conversation, he was a master at appearing to ignore it. Then again, this was one of those blanket configurations where it was hard for me to tell which direction he was facing.
1252
1253"And he needs my help too?" I asked, watching the wizard.
1254
1255"That he does." Dalostaed said. "Needs someone he can trust to carry things."
1256
1257I shrugged. It sounded like I was still going to be working when I got to the city, just in a different place.
1258
1259Magen finally made up his mind. "Okay, then. I guess as renegotiations go this isn't so bad." He tied the coin sack to his belt. "I'm going to move on before the deal gets any worse." With that, he left.
1260
1261"So…" I said, "What am I doing for the wizard?" I had a mental image of trying to set up fragile magical equipment, the function and deadliness of which I didn't want to think about.
1262
1263Dalostaed shrugged. "No idea as of yet. Maybe he wants us to get the ship ready. He doesn't intend to stay in Utijan for long, that I know."
1264
1265That hadn't occurred to me. My plan had been to finish up my work with Magen, thus settling my debt to him, and then go to one of the banks in the city and use the Queen's writ to get some money. After that, I'd find some nondescript low-class inn and use it as a base of operation. Dalostaed, however, probably thought that I'd need a job or at least a little seed money to get myself started. I appreciated the sentiment, but now that I was almost to the city itself I was eager to get started. I wasn't sure I could afford the delay that preparing and loading a ship would cause.
1266
1267"I'm not sure I can actually help with that." I said, trying to remain diplomatic.
1268
1269Dalostaed just nodded. "Listen, I know how it is: You're young, you're in a new city starting a new life, you're looking for grander adventures than even you've had yet. You don't want to be stuck down at the docks, smelling of fish and brine, and having to carry yet more cargo around. Just hear the wizard out, okay?"
1270
1271I appreciated the fact that he hadn't played the "we paid for your journey" card. I'd probably end up helping him anyway. "All right," I said.
1272
1273The next morning I got to watch as, slowly but surely, the city of Utijan grew. According to Dalostaed, we'd be reaching the gates themselves late that afternoon. The road we were on grew wider, the already sparse trees we'd passed grew sparser, and traffic on the road grew thicker. I saw Magen talking to other caravan owners, seemingly negotiating right-of-way. I had no doubts that there was, somewhere, a larger caravan than this one, but if that was the case it wasn't in sight. Ours dwarfed any we passed, by far.
1274
1275Eventually, the caravan slowed to a halt. Before I could look ahead and see what the issue was, Dalostaed spoke up: "This is our stop!"
1276
1277I'd decided I wasn't going to argue over having to do more work. It might delay my investigation, but looking like someone new to town who was finding whatever jobs he could would only help cement my cover. "We're here?" I asked.
1278
1279"As 'here' as we're likely to get," he replied. "Not quite to the caravan gates yet, but they do the inspections away from the city proper. We could wait for all that, but then we wouldn't get to the safehouse 'til nightfall." He started walking up the line of wagons, and I hurried to follow.
1280
1281"Safehouse?" I asked. I knew better than to shout the question, and it didn't seem like anyone nearby had heard me, but Dalostaed still looked alarmed.
1282
1283Looking around to make sure we were unobserved - the road was quite crowded at this point but nobody was taking note of us - Dalostaed explained: "Well, we're from the Dynasty." He waved to the wizard, who had once again been following us without my noticing. "Relations with the Empire are frosty at best and 'technically at war' at worst. Staying at an embassy is a good way to get a target on my head. So, safehouse."
1284
1285We reached the head of the caravan to see Magen talking one group of guards as another group looked through the nearby wagon with professional boredom. Dalostaed waved but Magen didn't appear to notice. We didn't stop, though, as the city gates were just ahead.
1286
1287This wasn't a civilian gate like the ones I'd seen at Chankota, that could fit maybe four people at once as they walked through. This was a commercial gate, stories tall, that could fit entire wagons and still have room left over. There were guards here, as well, but it was plain they were just for show; though they were watching the crowd they didn't stop anyone or even speak.
1288
1289And then we were through and pressed into the midst of humanity that was Utijan. The road had been crowded, true, but it was nothing compared to the trade district I now found myself in. Even Opal's docks hadn't been this lively. There were the shouts of hawkers, the pleas of beggars, and above all the general roar of noise of a mob numbering hundreds or more. After a month of comparative isolation in the desert, it was almost overwhelming.
1290
1291Dalostaed showed no sign of even noticing, pushing his way through knots of people with barely any effort. The wizard followed in his wake equally effortlessly, and I struggled to keep up. I worried somewhat that the wizard would stand out in the crowd, but nobody paid us any mind whatsoever. Everyone here had something they needed to do, and they couldn't care less about what everyone else wanted.
1292
1293Growing up in the abandoned city underneath Opal, I'd rapidly curated a sense of direction that, thankfully, did not abandon me now. Even though I had only the most cursory of ideas of how Utijan was laid out, I knew I could find my way back to the gates if I needed to. It was a good thing, too, as Dalostaed clearly also had such a sense of direction and knew the city as well. He took us through alleys off the main thoroughfares, into another district entirely, and across a second main road before we ended up in a residential area that wouldn't have stood out in middle-class Opal. Except for the roofs, of course: they were peaked. Though I had seen actual domes once or twice; either way, bad for running across. If I had to leave in a hurry, I'd need another escape route.
1294
1295Dalostaed walked directly to one of the thin buildings and pushed the door open without preamble. I certainly hoped it belonged to him, though I found myself wondering why it had apparently been unlocked. The wizard glided through, entirely undisturbed by all of this, and I followed more out of curiosity than obligation at this point.
1296
1297"Welcome to my home away from home." Dalostaed said, gesturing around. The house had looked narrow from the outside and the inside did not dispel that notion. It was crowded in here, there being about two more people inside than it had apparently been designed for. Furniture had been haphazardly placed, but clearly nobody lived here. The room I was now in was a combination living room, dining room, kitchen to judge by the large hearth on one of the walls, and bedroom. At least, I assumed what looked like camping gear set up in the corner was supposed to be a bed.
1298
1299"It's… cozy." I said, choosing the most diplomatic word I could think of.
1300
1301Dalostaed shrugged. "It ain't much to look at, true. Most of the space had to go to the other room." He gestured to a door across from the one we'd entered through. "Take a look."
1302
1303I wondered if it was the actual bedroom. Pulling the door open was strange; an uncanny resistance made it feel like it was stuck, but after a bit of effort it opened with a hissing of air. I stepped through.
1304
1305The other room was strange: its walls were metal - including the other side of the door I'd just opened. In fact, juding by its weight, the door was metal as well, and its outside only painted to resemble wood. The only furniture was a rough wooden table and two chairs. Notably absent was any method of lighting the area; the only reason I could see at all was because I was letting light in through the door, though the slight reflectiveness of the walls helped a little.
1306
1307"What?" I managed to ask before Dalostaed and the wizard walked by me into the room. The former pulled out what appeared to be candles and stuck them into slots on the walls. The wizard touched his sleeve to each one and they glowed with a cold light. Not candles, then, but at least the issue of not being able to see.
1308
1309"Come on in, we've much to discuss." Dalostaed said, sitting down on one of the chairs. The wizard stood in the corner. "And close the door behind you."
1310
1311My instincts were practically screaming: this was wrong. This room looked like a prison or worse. What kind of 'safehouse' needed a room like this? What was its purpose?
1312
1313Dalostaed read my mind. "It's air-tight. To prevent eavesdropping by magical sorts. The iron in the walls defeats most magic, and the air seal prevents anyone from listening on the wind."
1314
1315That answered most of the questions, but something still didn't feel right about this. I began thinking of excuses to leave, this time making sure to mask my thoughts better.
1316
1317"Please, sit." Dalostaed said. "I've done a lot for you over the past month. I think I've at least earned the courtesy of one last chat before we go our separate ways."
1318
1319He had me there: He'd done me a lot of favors, him and the wizard both. Against my better judgment, I closed the door and made my way to the other chair.
1320
1321Dalostaed leaned forward, and something changed. His posture, his manner, the way he looked around while talking - all of it changed. Even his commonwealth accent vanished. Somehow, even though we were seated, he managed to look taller. In short, without actually changing his appearance at all, he'd managed to no longer looked like a fanciful rendition of a mythological dwarf. "What have you gotten yourself into, child?"
1322
1323I should have spotted it earlier, but he'd been flawlessly in character. I knew those tricks, because I'd been taught things just like it. Blending through a crowd, assuming another persona - these were just a few of the things i'd been taught by the organization. But Dalostaed wasn't one of us. His new accent, though faint, was Dynasty in origin.
1324
1325"You're not a Dynasty ambassador." I said. "You're a Dynasty spy." I didn't reflect on whether it was wise to start throwing around accusations when I was in a room with a highly trained spy and his pet wizard.
1326
1327Dalostaed chuckled, and even his laugh was different. "I assure you, I do actually have paperwork saying that I'm an envoy. At least, it says the person I'm claiming to be is an envoy. I can be both."
1328
1329"Why are you letting me know this?" I asked, because he had to have known he'd had me fooled until now.
1330
1331"Because I think we can be allies," the spy said. "Or at least, considering the relation between Opal and the Dynasty is not much better than the Empire's, we could not be enemies. But first, I have to know what it is you're doing."
1332
1333"I'm starting a new life here." I said.
1334
1335Dalostaed nodded. "See, people starting new lives in new places generally don't go on daring midnight raids through cities in the empire they're moving to. They tend to just want to go somewhere in peace." He leaned forward. "I told you there would be a reckoning. This is it."
1336
1337I considered how quickly I could leave the room. Dalostaed was no doubt faster than he looked, but then again so was I. He didn't know what I was capable of. The real wild card was the wizard. He hadn't shown much in the way of offensive ability as we'd traveled, but Magen had specifically mentioned hoping for his help if there were any bandit raids. I had to assume he could hold his own.
1338
1339"Ah, yeah, he is a little intimidating," Dalostaed said, following my gaze to the wizard's form, still standing in the corner. "Funny thing, you know. It's said the only thing more rigorous than Dynasty spy training is Dynasty wizard training."
1340
1341A terrible suspicion came over me, and I was getting tired of having these things confirmed. I looked at the rumpled form of the wizard, looked more closely than I ever had before. My first impression had been that he was a pile of blankets. Underneath them, I knew that there was a mask. I knew that there were gloves. But had I ever actually seen a person? The wizard was standing still, too still. The only part that moved were his robes, as though in a gentle breeze, and we were in an air-tight room.
1342
1343Dalostaed made a gesture, and the blankets collapsed.
1344
1345"There is no wizard." I said, looking at the pile of what I was pretty sure actually was blankets. I was also sure that if I were to go over there and look through them, I'd find a mask and two gloves, and nothing else.
1346
1347"I wouldn't say that." Dalostaed said.
1348
1349I nodded. "Of course. You're the wizard." Weirdly, it felt like a relief. Like I somehow wasn't outnumbered anymore even though I was every bit as in danger as I had been earlier. "How?"
1350
1351Dalostaed gestured to the pile of laundry. "Air construct. Air magic's a specialty of mine, which is also how I made it seem able to talk. Easy to throw your voice when you put some magic into it. Of course, I'm a wizard, so I've got expertise in every element. Had to have the water magic to get hired on as a dowser, after all."
1352
1353"Why?" I asked.
1354
1355"That's the better question," he answered. "Because a wizard gets attention. Not the useful sort of attention, either, mostly just fear. If you'd met me as my true self, as you have now, would you have been so willing to talk? A wizard's bumbling manservant, though, well that's practically expected of a serious wizard, now isn't it? This way I can talk to people, investigate, whatever I need to do. I get all the benefits of my magic, and my stand-in over there gets all the drawbacks."
1356
1357"Like people trying to kill him." I said.
1358
1359"It's happened." Dalostaed said. "Like I said, a wizard draws attention. We're pretty safe here, though. Heck, we can stay in this room for quite a bit longer than you'd think; I'm using air magic to keep it breathable. If we had time I'd teach you the trick, but we don't. If you end up bringing someone back here to talk to in secret, just keep in mind you're going to need to crack the door every few minutes."
1360
1361"If I what?" I said, taken aback. The way my instincts had gone off at the beginning, I was at this point nearly sure Dalostaed had brought me back here to dispose of me.
1362
1363"I want you to use the house," he said. "While I'm out west in the Far Lands. If I don't come back, keep it."
1364
1365"I… um… thanks?" I said. I felt like my equilibrium had been lost the moment I'd opened the door to this room, and every time I thought I knew what was happening it got taken away again. "But why?"
1366
1367I probably shouldn't look a gift house in the mouth, but Dalostaed answered me anyway. "Because, whatever it is you're doing, you're in far over your head. But I can help, and I want to help. Not only because it's my mission to make life difficult for the Empire even when it's not my mission, but because, well… I wasn't lying out there on the caravan," he said. "I may have referred to myself in the third person a lot and made some misleading gestures, but I wasn't lying. I worry for you."
1368
1369I thought fast. It seemed like I wasn't going to die after all, but I wasn't out of the woods yet. Dalostaed wasn't going to leave without getting an explanation for what I'd done, and though he seemed friendly and trustworthy, I fully intended to take the organization's secrets to the grave.
1370
1371Only one thing to do, then. Before I'd left, the Queen had offered me a number of boons: She could have given me the same sort of metabolic booster she had herself. She offered to make my surface thoughts unreadable by anyone else save another Pure Mind. She'd even offered 'insurance against getting captured', which I now realize was probably the Zìshan Mon Zhouk.
1372
1373In the end, wary of having my mind tampered with, I'd only taken one boon, and that one only because I could have done it myself given a few months of effort. I had the ability to, with a mental trigger, fully believe my cover story. Nobody except another Pure would be able to detect it was anything other than the truth, and maybe not even them.
1374
1375"My father was an Empire citizen." I said, and it felt like I was speaking my autobiography. "He died just over a month ago, and I'm here because I'm inheriting what he left behind."
1376
1377Dalostaed just nodded. "That doesn't explain Chankota."
1378
1379Of course, if I'd been the one to weave the cover spell, it wouldn't have been able to deal with improvisation. Thankfully the quality of the Queen's work was far higher.
1380
1381"You remember, the first day we were there," I said, "when they talked repeatedly about how they'd found a trespassing outlander and executed him?"
1382
1383Dalostaed frowned, considering. "Your father?"
1384
1385I nodded. "I vowed that I would do whatever I could to see him again. In the end, they'd disposed of his body already. But I recovered his journal. It's all I have left of him." I'd kept the journal with me at all times, and someone as observant as Dalostaed had to have noticed that I didn't have it before my excursion in Chankota.
1386
1387Dalostaed stood. "I believe you. Which isn't to say that I don't think you're lying. You are. I just can't tell how." His face, serious and dark, broke out in a slight smile. "But I suppose I should expect no less. You're either completely telling the truth and I'm a cynical old man - entirely possible - or you have a far more powerful patron than I'd imagined. Either way, best I not interfere."
1388
1389He rummaged around in his coat a few moments, then retrieved a large keyring. He set it down on the table in front of me. "I don't need it myself," he said, "The door's got a magic lock keyed to my presence. But you'll need those if you want to lock up."
1390
1391He made a gesture and the pile of blankets inflated, once again becoming wizard-shaped. "Can't go anywhere without the decoy, of course." He said. He turned and opened the door, accompanied by the hissing noise I now recognized as the seal of the room being broken.
1392
1393"Dalostaed." I said. "Thank you."
1394
1395"You're welcome." He replied. "Let's hope I'm wrong about all this, and you're exactly what you appear to be, and you live a long and unexciting life."
1396
1397With that, he left, and the air construct followed.
1398
1399*************************
140013
1401
1402I spent some time, though not too much, looking through the house that was apparently mine now, if temporarily. The camping gear in the corner was mostly a rolled up sleeper and, unless I was greatly mistaken, a partly-assembled tent. The former made sense, but I couldn't see much use for a tent here. Dalostaed's eccentricity had apparently not just been an act.
1403
1404That, then, was enough time. I exited the house, locking up as I went, and stepped out into the street. Evening was starting to fall, and though the roads weren't particularly crowded it still seemed busier than Opal would be. Then again, Opal was busiest at mornings and nights, while the heat was manageable. Here the weather had thus far seemed constantly comfortable.
1405
1406I reached for my magic. I was never sure which element, exactly, this came from. It might have been Earth or Air, as they'd have a memory of the people that passed over or through them. It might have been Mind, as people's imprints tended to linger. It might even have been Water due to the the sweat they spilled, for all I knew. But it was a trick I'd learned early on, another gift from my youth: A tracking spell.
1407
1408It was like the ones that anyone could do, the ones you used to find the keys you lost or some coins you misplaced. Mine was just more honed, and much more specific. I could, if I'd been near someone long enough and their passage had not been too far ago, track a person.
1409
1410This was possibly dangerous. Dalostaed was a wizard, after all. I'd seen his powers firsthand when he'd dowsed for water through his proxy. He might be able to feel the magic I was using, but I doubted it, because I wasn't actually fixating on him. I was asking the air and the earth and mind and even water in my general area for their memories.
1411
1412The fact that Dalostaed was a wizard turned out to be the only reason my spell even attempted to work. I hadn't really taken into account the number of people that had walked on this street, how many more it would be than I'd been used to when I'd taught myself the magic long ago. It'd instantly gotten confused, pointing a thousand different directions, and only the strong magical signature of the wizard himself managed to put the spell back on track.
1413
1414But the sense of direction was all I got, and after walking for a few minutes even that vanished. I could have called the magic back up again, but I'd entered a district that was some mixture between mercantile and entertainment. I thought I'd been used to crowds before, but this was rapidly redefining my understanding of the word. Not only was every available space taken, some people were actually riding others' shoulders simply so they could see. Still more people had climbed to narrow balconies along the edges of the buildings. The entire group moved haphazardly, and the only way to navigate was to identify which parts were moving in a direction somewhat similar to the one you wanted to go and then swap places with other people until you got there.
1415
1416Casting a spell - any spell - in this mess would be nearly impossible. The tracking spell would be harder than that.
1417
1418Magic, I'd decided while trying to let the crowd guide me somewhere less crowded, was useless. I'd been relying on it too much, because I'd been thinking of Dalostaed. I had another, better idea, and this one required skills I was actually skilled at.
1419
1420An hour later, after the crowd released me from its loud embrace into the general direction of where I wanted to go, I made my way back to the trade district where I'd entered the city. From there, a few questions got me the location of the caravan warehouses. I'd been lucky so far - everyone in the trade district spoke Trade, appropriately enough - but I was eventually going to get myself into another Chankota situation where I couldn't understand a word I was reading.
1421
1422Still, the warehouses wouldn't have that issue. They were adjacent to the trade district, and it wasn't much work to locate the specific one that Magen had set up in, as it was the biggest.
1423
1424Magen himself didn't appear to be present. I saw some of the guards I'd served with on the drive over, but most everyone else appeared to have already left. The guards all seemed to think I belonged there, and I did nothing to dissuade them of this.
1425
1426I looked for the wizard's - Dalostaed's - wagon. At first, I figured I couldn't find it simply because it would be harder to recognize without the trademark piles of strange wizard stuff. Finally, I came to the conclusion that he must have actually owned the wagon itself, and whoever had been hired on to unload it had taken it with them when they'd done so.
1427
1428I found a guard that I'd known as a passing acquaintance, asked him about the wagon, and had my suspicions confirmed: The wagon belonged to the wizard, and it'd been delivered to his ship at the docks a few hours previous.
1429
1430That alone took a weight off my mind. I didn't like this. I wanted to trust Dalostaed, to believe that he'd gifted me a house out of the kindness of his heart and now he was heading off to the Far Lands, but I couldn't even really think that sentence without it seeming ridiculous. He'd all but admitted to being a Dynasty spy. He was a highly trained and powerful wizard. He had his own agenda, and I had to make sure that I was no longer a part of it. That he'd been telling the truth about going to the docks meant he wasn't trying to mislead me on that account, at least.
1431
1432I got a bit more information from that guard and a few others. They knew I'd been Dalostaed's friend, so they figured I was likely trying to find him so I could find work hauling cargo from the ships. Another misconception I did nothing to correct. As much as my mind was spinning with possibilities, my surface thoughts were calm. I'd become better at masking over the past month, if for no reason than I'd basically been practicing it every waking moment.
1433
1434Eventually, I had a definite location and the name of a ship, the Matters Most. I also got directions to the docks that bypassed the entertainment district I'd been in earlier.
1435
1436It was late. I didn't know much about ships, but if they worked like the caravans, all the loading and unloading would have stopped once it got too hard to see what you were doing. This was less in the name of worker safety and more out of worry that they'd damage something pricey, but the results were the same: By this time of night, the docks would be deserted. And if the docks here were anything like the Docks in Opal (and, given that the latter had no actual docks or water, they may not be), I probably did not want to be there after dark.
1437
1438But I'd managed to successfully infiltrate Chankota. I knew how to handle myself in a hostile area of a hostile city. I could handle the docks for as long as it took to ask some questions.
1439
1440As it happened, that wasn't very long at all. I rapidly found out that the docks here were run by the same kind of Bosses that ran them back home, though under a different name. The workers had organized themselves into a number of unions, and the unions had 'leaders', but the effect was the same: If I wanted to work, I had to get one of their blessings. This information had cost me little, which was good: I didn't yet have any Empire coin and Opal coin was worth even less in exchange than it had been back in Opal. I managed to find a tavern frequented by dockworkers, and made it known that I was looking for work and had a friend on the Matters Most that I'd like to know the whereabouts of. Where I was from that tended to be code for "this person owes me money", but I didn't want my actual reasons discovered so I had little choice.
1441
1442"This is your lucky day!" one of the dockmen slurred at me. Luckily, the language barrier hadn't been an issue, as the docks were by necessity an area populated by polyglots. That didn't mean they were any more comprehensible while drunk, though.
1443
1444"Oh?" I asked, trying to feign a naive curiosity."
1445
1446"Yep," he said, "they sailed out just an hour ago."
1447
1448I frowned. "Doesn't sound lucky to me."
1449
1450The dockman pointed at me. "That's because you weren't there. I worked that shift, but I skived off early when I saw what they were loading aboard. They had a-" and here he leaned in toward me, as though imparting a terrible secret, "wizard."
1451
1452He whispered the word in such a way that it actually drew more attention than it would have had he just said it.
1453
1454"Really? Like a Pure?" I asked.
1455
1456He laughed. "Pure! That's hilarious. As though they'd be found outside the Ward. No, a wizard! Like, one of those Dynasty weirdos. Wearing blankets or some such nonsense."
1457
1458"Well that's definitely not who I'm looking for." I said.
1459
1460"Oh, it gets better," he said, and I reflected that, in the future, I should get more people drunk before interrogating them. "He had a servant he'd conjured up."
1461
1462"Conjured?"
1463
1464"Oh yes, definitely. Because his servant was a dwarf. Like one of those iron-seekers from children's stories!"
1465
1466"Dwarves aren't real, though." I said.
1467
1468"Friend," - I'd earned the title when I bought him a round - "I thought that exact same thing, until I saw him with my own eyes. Dwarves are real, and they are in service of the wizards."
1469
1470"And after you saw this dwarf, that's when you left?"
1471
1472He nodded emphatically, then stopped as it seemed to unbalance him. "You're damn right. He could take it up with the union if he wanted, I wasn't working anywhere near some wizard and his pet iron-seeker, no way. That's why you're lucky. They got on that ship, got their stuff loaded, and then fucked right off to somewhere that isn't here. You'd have been here an hour earlier, you might have gotten stuck on that boat. And then where would you be?"
1473
1474In better company, that was certain, though I didn't let my mind reflect that and he didn't seem cogent enough to pick up on it. I left soon after, before the inebriation practically radiating from his mind could affect me further.
1475
1476Night was in full bloom now, the moon just waxing from New. Despite the darkness and my relative newness to the town, I managed to return to my house unharmed and unnoticed. Then I unrolled the sleeping bag and promptly fell asleep atop it.
1477
1478*************************
147914
1480
1481The next morning dawned and I continued to not be felled by some trap or discovered by authorities. I was beginning to consider that the house might possibly have been a legitimate gift. Dalostaed worked for the Dynasty, after all, and they had no love for the Empire.
1482
1483If I'd been properly paranoid I'd have left the house and never returned, but I doubted I'd be able to find another place featuring an airtight room where I could talk safely. Not to mention that if I stayed at a tavern or otherwise rented a place, that was one more person who knew where I lived. The only other person who knew about this house had sailed away to another continent the night before.
1484
1485I spent some time after waking giving the house a thorough search, and found something that, with a little bit of effort in uncovering and wedging it open, turned out to be a bolthole. The house had a cramped crawlspace underneath it - emphasis on 'crawl' - that appeared to lead to another house. I wasn't sure if it was an intentional bolthole or if all of the houses were built this way, but it did mean I had an extra means of escape.
1486
1487I'd have found out exactly where it went if I didn't mind getting dirty. Actually, I didn't, but I was going to have to redeem the Queen's writ sometime soon. That would require going to a bank, and I was already going to have enough attention drawn to me due to being a foreigner.
1488
1489I set out after my search of the house, trying to head toward where I thought the banks would be. I could have gone back to the trade district and asked for directions, but not only would that take me out of my way, it wouldn't be as useful. By wandering the streets, I could build up the map of Utijan I had in my head - the more I knew about the city, the more options I had if I needed to flee it. Similarly, it was impossible to get a feel for the districts except for actually being there. This way I could know where was always safe, where was safe for me but not others, where never to go, and where I could disappear.
1490
1491I didn't have to wander for long. I'd gained my sense of how cities were laid out entirely from my life in Opal, and while Utijan was different in sheer scale, it held to a lot of the same patterns. The banks were generally near the more upscale districts, but also not too far from the trade areas. They had to serve nobility and passers-by alike.
1492
1493Knight One had given me a quick run on how money worked. I'm not talking about "exchange it for goods and services," which of course everyone knows, or even "bribe people", which is perhaps more in my wheelhouse than most. No, his lesson was in how rich people dealt with their money.
1494
1495Money was heavy. I knew this both from the perspective of someone needing to carry a heavy coin purse and someone who'd just robbed that first person and needed to make a fast getaway. If you were a rich person, there was no possible way you could carry around everything you owned. Even if you felt like buying a wagon and hauling it around, it'd simply be impractical.
1496So, the rich simply stored their wealth in their own houses. This was problematic because it was a gigantic target for thievery. Buying up material items with the hope of re-selling them for needed cash later was done for quite some time as well, but since those items were themselves valuable they were just as big a target as the money was, and their worth was subject to the vagaries of the market. Some especially rich people built their own vaults, but these were of varying quality and frequently only served to signpost the especially valuable places to steal from.
1497
1498Storage wasn't even the biggest problem: The rich had gotten so usually through inheritance, but also through the sale of valuable items. For some of these things, a barter system is viable, but when there's a difference between what the seller's house is worth and what the buyer can barter for it, money takes over. And that much money is hard to move. As tempting a target as stored valuables are, putting them in motion makes them that much harder to secure, and that much easier to steal. That's not even taking into account the weight of the things. Money-wagons are rare nowadays, but they still exist.
1499
1500And then someone who had an inside track with the Emperor came up with an idea. He was tired of moving things from his vault to the vaults of his business partners, and vice versa. The distance was across the entire city and it took all day, and as often as one time in ten they'd be set upon by robbers. He proposed creating a building that was nothing but vaults, and then renting them out. That way, moving money from point A to B was now simpler and safer. Since it was one building with one purpose, it could be built more securely from the ground-up. And since it'd house the wealth of all the city's elite, it could also afford heavier security.
1501
1502The Emperor at the time was an expansionist - the same one, in fact, who'd started the war with the Dynasty that continued to this day - and anything that increased his power, he was in favor of. He was the one who added the famous "Imperial Promise" to the banks - that if they were in fact robbed, they could recover the money from the state. Prior to this, Insurance had certainly existed, but it was small-time and often little different than paying protection money. The Emperor had given the entire industry the shine of legitimacy, and it took off.
1503
1504Thus: The writ. Nowadays, whenever one nobleman wanted to give money to another, they'd issue a writ like the one I was holding, and the bank would make the transfer between vaults (assuming they had separate vaults anymore; the Opal banks did not). My particular writ was a little different: It stated that the previous account holder had died in Opal, and that the bearer was the rightful inheritor of the money. Though I'd told Dalostaed that the original Bishop had been my father, the writ claimed someone else entirely; the old Bishop's cover had been exposed to the Empire, and so it wouldn't be usable. I'd no doubt that the Empire's Intelligence Service would catch on to my presence eventually, there was no reason to give them a head start.
1505
1506I felt entirely out of place at the bank. I was wearing clothes that I'd packed for this specific occasion, and they were entirely not up to the task. I looked like a merchant, and not a reputable one at that. The bank's customers were all dressed in much greater finery, chatting with each other and with the bank's workers in fluent and unintelligible Hidna. Fortunately, I got nothing worse than a few looks of mild disinterest from both groups.
1507
1508Eventually, after I spent enough time failing to take the hint and leave, one of the workers approached me. "Cya mai appak manadad karna sakata hoonis?" he asked. I didn't understand a word of it, but I understood the condescending tone just fine.
1509
1510I wasn't even going to try my rudimentary understanding of the language. Instead, I stuck to Trade: "I have a writ from an Opal official that I need to redeem."
1511
1512He'd been regarding me with a bland sort of displeasure, but now this deepened to something approaching disgust. I could see additional glances from the other patrons now, though I couldn't tell if they were angry or just curious about the foreigner. Without a word to me, he left and headed through a door that only the employees had been using.
1513
1514I continued to stand there patiently, just as I had been before. The number of looks I was getting increased, though only from the other customers. The remaining bank workers ignored me entirely. I didn't know if their strategy was to try to wait me out, but I suspected I was a lot more patient than they were, especially given how I was apparently distracting people from business. If they ended up calling in some kind of security, though, I'd probably leave; I didn't want to risk causing a scene before I'd even really been established. I may have chosen too upscale a bank, upon reflection.
1515
1516Eventually, the man who had first talked to me emerged from the room he'd entered, followed by a young blonde man who looked as out of place as I did. Whereas my clothes made me look like I was pretending to be rich, his looked like he was a hawker at a bazaar in Opal. The first man gestured at me and then retreated back behind the door. The second one approached me briskly.
1517
1518"Hello, " he said, in fluent Trade, "how can I assist you today?"
1519
1520I remembered that Dalostaed had mentioned people like this: Translators, for when the elite of the Empire didn't want to lower themselves to speaking Trade. Hopefully this one was empowered to do what I needed.
1521
1522"I have a writ from Opal?" I said, trying to play up the part of the naive newcomer to the big city. "My father had accounts here, and he… passed away recently."
1523
1524"I'm sorry for your loss," the translator said. "May I see your writ?"
1525
1526I produced it and handed it over. I'd already engaged the spell that allowed me to wholly believe my cover story, and the writ itself was also genuine - it tied to the actual accounts of an actual person who had died in Opal. That person hadn't opened the accounts or even known about them, true, but the important thing was that the writ would hold up to scrutiny.
1527
1528"Excellent," the translator said. "Right this way."
1529
1530He led me to a series of rooms that I'd seen a few of the other customers enter. As he opened the door to one of them, I heard the hiss that I'd come to recognize from my own house - the rooms were airtight. No doubt the bank had customers that wished to speak without being overheard magically.
1531
1532I entered the room. Like my own, it was sparse - a thin bench with two sides. After he sealed the room, the translator sat down on the other side.
1533
1534"What about the air?" I asked. I remembered that Dalostaed had used a spell to keep us from suffocating.
1535
1536The translator held up a finger for silence, and then I felt a weak pulse of air and mind magic from him. I was about to ask him what that was about when he spoke again: "The desert's rain came without fog this year."
1537
1538I tried not to look stunned, to not let the surprise leak into my surface thoughts. Instead, I answered him: "The night's fog cleared the desert rain."
1539
1540It was a code phrase and countersign for the organization, one for use in identifying fellow members in the field. He'd said it correctly, too; it wasn't just a phrase, you had to know exactly which words to stress. The countersign was much the same. Nobody on my end had mentioned anything about meeting an agent here, but it appeared to be the case.
1541
1542"You're lucky," he said, gesturing for me to sit down. "It's just me and Pawn Seven in this city. If you'd gone to any other bank we'd have had to find you."
1543
1544"Who are you?" I asked, sitting.
1545
1546"I'm Pawn Eight." He answered. "And you, I'm hoping, are the new Bishop Two."
1547
1548"I am." I answered. "If you know about me and my mission, how did you get here before me?"
1549
1550"I've been here for five years." Pawn Eight answered. "I only know about you because our lady sent a bird, telling us to watch for your arrival at the banks. Since I already worked here, I was the obvious candidate."
1551
1552Normally messaging via bird carrier was not very reliable, but I didn't doubt that the Queen had ways of persuading a bird to fly true. "And my mission?"
1553
1554Pawn Eight shook his head. "I know nothing about it, and it needs to remain that way. If you're caught, I need to be able to deny any accusations. You forced me to help you."
1555
1556I didn't like it, but I couldn't fault it. "So that's what the writ was about? To get your attention?"
1557
1558Pawn Eight gestured vaguely. "It's a real writ, it will get you the money you need, but yes. This bank is a central bank, records get sent here from all the lesser banks in the city. I've been looking for this particular writ being acted upon for a week now. If you hadn't come here, I'd still know about your presence, I'd just have to get Pawn Seven to find you. It's her specialty. But since you came to me, I'm your contact."
1559
1560I nodded understanding. "So why the magic, when we started? Is that how we're not suffocating?"
1561
1562"Oh, good point." Pawn Eight said. Another flicker of air magic. "I'd nearly forgotten. All workers here know a spell to purify the air. It takes about a week to master it; if you have the time, I suggest you do so. This is hardly the last time you'll be meeting in a room like this."
1563
1564"I'd already resolved to do so." I said, without expanding on why.
1565
1566Pawn Eight didn't question it. "That first burst of magic was to dispel the listening charm placed in the room."
1567
1568"I thought the whole idea of these rooms was that they couldn't be listened in on?"
1569
1570"From outside, yes." Pawn Eight said. "But inside is another matter. It's not just air magic, you have to incorporate mind so the spell can remember what people said."
1571
1572"So the bank is listening in on people in the very place they feel free to talk." I said. "It's pretty brilliant."
1573
1574"Something like that, yes." Pawn Eight said. He seemed evasive, though his surface thoughts were as placid as mine were nowadays. I decided not to press the matter - I had my mission that he didn't need to know about, no doubt the reverse was true.
1575
1576"Beyond the money, what else?" I said. "And also, when do I get money? Bribing people with Opal coin is difficult."
1577
1578Pawn Eight nearly laughed. "Try that in the wrong neighborhood and things will go bad, quickly. No, in a few moments I'll go in the back and get some coins for you, an 'advance' on your account. Later I'll send some supplies you can use to issue writs against your money - you don't need to tell me where you're staying, I'll get you the location of a few dead drops. As to what else, you've got Pawn Seven's services. You won't meet her, of course, but if you need anything done at the street level, just let me know and I'll pass the orders on. Come in wanting to make a withdrawl, leave instructions in cipher on the papers I'll have you sign. She'll leave reports at the dead drops."
1579
1580It was as good as I was going to get, and quite a bit more than I thought I had going in. "Thanks." I said. "This will hopefully make things a lot easier."
1581
1582Pawn Eight smiled. "So only slightly impossible instead of entirely impossible, then."
1583
1584He had that right.
1585
1586*************************
158715
1588
1589I spent the next several days doing the same sort of thing. Not going to the bank, though I did that as well so I could drop off some preliminary suggestions for Pawn Seven to follow up on. No, I spent most of my time simply walking the city, getting a feel for its neighborhoods.
1590
1591If this were Opal, it would be a lot easier. I could find a local gang of hoodlums easily, though joining them would be a somewhat more difficult matter. But here, I was a foreigner. I had some luck in that the street-level people that would speak to me weren't high class enough to care that I didn't speak Hidna. I was unlucky in that what they did speak was some sort of unholy patois of gutter trade and a different dialect of Hidna. It was nearly incomprehensible at best, but surface thoughts helped, and I managed to get a fuller picture of the places I'd been. I had enough street smarts to get a feel for where to go and where not to go, but now I knew why.
1592
1593The gangs in the city were numerous, and the reason I couldn't infiltrate them was because most were the sort of people that Chankotans would have found charming. Saying they did not like foreigners was an understatement, and the areas I'd identified as the most dangerous belonged to them. There were others that were more open minded - the underclass tended to get its power any way it could, usually out of necessity. But the others tended to either be specialized, like the dockworkers' unions, or relatively powerless.
1594
1595Still, half of the job was making the right contacts, and the people who'd sold me this information were reliable enough. I had to assume that Pawn Seven could handle the parts of the job that I couldn't.
1596
1597I checked the dead drops on a random basis. Actually random: I purchased a set of dice and rolled them to determined which, if any, I would check on that day. I used another set of dice to decide on the route I would take. I didn't want to establish a pattern, and I knew how predictable people could be, even - perhaps especially - when they were trying to be unpredictable.
1598
1599I'd done that for a week and found nothing. In that time I'd covered a fair bit of the city, but only those portions near my house and which had the drops that I knew about. Parts of the city, largely central, were off-limits to me. For most of those areas, this wasn't an official thing. My secondhand merchant's clothes would get me into those areas, but I'd stand out worse than I had at the bank. I couldn't risk that kind of exposure yet. And of course entire neighborhoods housed palaces, domed state areas, basically all the stuff that the Emperor had carved out for himself. My not being allowed in there was an official thing.
1600
1601Fortunately, I expected that the Pure Mind I was searching for wasn't the Emperor, was probably not even one of the hangers on. I got the impression that, after Wednas had messed up and zombified himself and his entire kingdom, they'd steered clear of directly ruling. Granted, I had a sample size of one, but she was probably representative. The Queen wouldn't have sent me here to try to kidnap the Emperor, after all. At least, I hoped she hadn't.
1602
1603I tried to avoid thinking about my target. While my mental defenses against a Pure Mind were flimsy at best, my opponent's powers were also limited. The scriptures compared regular people's powers to "a handful", which was pretty accurate. They compared Pure powers to "a city", which was accurate back when the scriptures were written. But cities were smaller back then. Utijan was the largest city in the Empire, and possibly on the entire continent. My target wouldn't be able to watch everybody.
1604
1605Of course, trying not to think of him had given me an idea. It was a reckless, stupid idea, even by my standards. I'd rejected it immediately, but it remained, nagging me every time I found myself doing another pointless patrol of the dead drops: I could start thinking about my target. I could think, as loudly and as often as I could, about my target. If I could make myself heard over the cacophony of minds in the city, and I suspected I could, I wouldn't have to find him. He would find me.
1606
1607I'd rejected the idea for two reasons. One, I didn't know if he was friendly. My instructions hadn't specifically been to kidnap him, merely bring him back with me to Opal. But it was pretty heavily implied that I was to do that whether or not he wanted to go. I wasn't sure exactly how that would fit in with the Queen's plan to marry him. I remained hopeful that I'd be able to talk him into going willingly. Trying to kidnap someone who could make you forget they'd ever existed would be on par with capturing the Emperor, so I was trying to avoid that route as much as I could.
1608
1609The second reason was more immediately practical: Bishop's journal had identified four half-minds working for the spy arm of the Empire. Trying to get the attention of their father would likely get their attention as well. I didn't know the exact circumstances behind my predecessor's sudden departure from Utijan. His only entry on the topic was "They've discovered me, leaving immediately," no mention of how this had happened, if he even knew. So if I went ahead with my plan the Ephemeral would definitely hear my yelling, and the Rioter would at least get the gist of it. I didn't want to meet either of them in person; the former could read and write my memory with ease, and the latter could make me stop caring about the mission entirely. Or breathing, for that matter.
1610
1611Still, it remained a tempting idea, and the longer I went without any sort of lead, the more tempting it became. Fortunately, after one particularly fruitless and humid day - say what you will about the desert, at least it's dry - I was contacted.
1612
1613It took the form of a poster that someone had stuck to a wall on a house in my neighborhood. It read "LOST DESERT CAT - last seen near 14 Gannes Rd".
1614
1615It could be a coincidence, of course. I wasn't really a cat person, but I knew that a 'desert cat' was a real thing. That said, "lost desert cat" was one of the code phrases I'd been trained to recognize for exactly this sort of circumstance. 14 Gannes Rd was probably a real address, but I wasn't going to go anywhere near it. Instead, I'd be checking the fourteenth dead drop on my list.
1616
1617I walked past the sign without appearing to examine it closely, in case anyone was watching. Then, once I'd turned a corner, I changed my path to take me near the drop. I'd have to keep my eyes open now, travel carefully but casually, and hope that finding nobody behind me meant I simply wasn't being followed.
1618
1619It didn't take me long to get to the drop - a stables on the outskirts of the city, specifically the fence. I walked by it as though inspecting horses, but the hour was fairly late and the owner of the stable thankfully did not appear. I spotted something, made as though I'd tripped, and leaned on the fence for support. On its other side I felt the telltale texture of paper, attached to the fence. I crumpled it in my hand, used that same hand to push myself back up, and then put my hands in my pockets as I walked back home.
1620
1621The journey was tense for me, but if I had pursuers they seemed willing to let this play out. Once home, I lit enough candles to read by, and retrieved the crumpled paper, smoothing it as I did so.
1622
1623One side was brown, painted to resemble the fence so as not to stand out. I'd only noticed it because part of it had come loose and moved in the gentle breeze. The other side was written in Cipher:
1624
1625Bishop Two,
1626
1627I have found little news of your predecessor among the lowlings in this city. He did not mingle with them to the extent that you have (though so far you have not aroused undue suspicion in your activities). His investigations, what little I knew of them, led him to the higher-class areas of the city. The government quarter and the Ward were areas he frequented most.
1628
1629Should you have need of my skills or connections again, do not hesitate to contact me through our mutual friend.
1630
1631In Service,
1632
1633Pawn Seven
1634
1635I didn't know a lot about the original Bishop Two. A lot of the organization had come from backgrounds like mine, but apparently he'd been more refined. Either that or he'd adapted better to the environment. I'd been hoping that the target was like the Queen: Underground, both literally and figuratively. That my predecessor had been investigating the government seemed to discredit that idea, though.
1636
1637The government, I decided, would wait. It was the riskier target. I'd only heard about the Ward once before - from a drunk dockhand - but he'd mentioned it in the context of the Pure. I'd have to ask a few questions. That I apparently hadn't made the locals upset with my questioning so far was reassuring, but they were used to a certain level of strangeness from foreigners. So long as I kept the money flowing, I'd likely have answers to whatever mundane questions I had. Still, I'd have to be careful.
1638
1639The next day, I set out to start the process of finding the Ward. The sailor had made it sound like a prison, but Pawn Seven had seemed to think it was a neighborhood. I hoped the Pawn was right, as assaulting a prison would be a great deal more difficult.
1640
1641As it happened, I didn't need to hit up any of my contacts. I'd decided to dedicate the day to revisiting those neighborhoods I wasn't allowed in, just so that if one were mentioned to me I'd recognize it, when I stumbled across one that had seemed suspicious to me the first time but which I hadn't had the time to investigate more thoroughly without being spotted.
1642
1643The first time, it'd been a wall. I'd been moving more or less randomly along the path I'd chosen for that day, and this particular route had been more back-and-forth than most. Each time I'd traversed a certain area, however, I'd ran into a wall. It reminded me somewhat of Chankota's inner walls in that it was comparatively high and more obviously thick than other walls I'd found in the city, but these had definitely not been planned like Chankota's had. Streets and intersections dead-ended into the wall, and even otherwise major thoroughfares had apparently been diverted at some point.
1644
1645This had definitely happened sometime after the surrounding neighborhoods had been built up. That said, judging from the way that citizens of the city paid it no mind whatsoever, it had happened sometime long before now. That made it difficult to casually bring it up to a contact or stranger. It was made doubly difficult by the nature of the surrounding neighborhoods: They were all upscale, where I stood out. Not a lot - I could be mistaken for new money on his way up or back down - but enough that if I started asking awkward questions, someone would take note.
1646
1647Instead, I made a mental route through the drop box areas that would lead in a rough circle. Then I recalled other side streets some distance from the dropoffs that I would walk along instead. With the map in mind, I began surveying.
1648
1649The nice thing about multi-story walls is that you don't have to be looking directly at them to see if they're there. It was easy to make it look like I wasn't tracing the outline of the walled-off district as I went. Every now and then, a larger house broke my sightline - much like Chankota, there didn't seem to be much concern for people jumping over the wall from the buildings - but that was the only challenge that the task gave me. That, and boredom.
1650
1651It turned out I'd picked a side near the entrance to the area, but my mental circle proceeded around it in exactly the wrong way. I was nearly back to my starting point before I spotted it. That alone was strange. Opal had its share of walled off areas, typically places where the upper class didn't want to have to deal with the riff-raff on their daily constitutionals, but even the most exclusive of areas had more than one way in and out.
1652
1653This one was guarded, which wasn't a surprise, but I didn't spot them immediately because the guardhouse had actually been built into the wall. Neither of the guards was looking in my direction as I passed, and I didn't give them reason to, instead continuing my walk. Something was off about the guard post, but I couldn't put my finger on what. They hadn't seemed terribly concerned with any of the foot traffic. I'd only gotten a glimpse of the inside of the area, but it appeared to be just as residential and boring than the outside. Only a metal sign arching above the entrance told me that I'd found the place I was looking for. It read: "SUBTLETY'S WARD".
1654
1655Not exactly subtle.
1656
1657Lots of places in Opal and, I'd learned, Utijan, had named streets or districts after the Nine. Usually because there was a larger shrine to that particular god in that neighborhood. But there weren't any streets or blocks named in honor of the Lady of Subtlety. She was a very personal sort of deity; I'd known many of my fellow guttersnipes to have their own small shrines, but nobody built larger ones. It wasn't, well... subtle. Not in keeping with the domain of the Lady or (that I knew of) her teachings.
1658
1659But, insofar as the Lords and Ladies had an ordering, the Lady of Subtlety was first among them. She'd created life in general and people specifically. The drunk at the waterfront had said that you wouldn't see a Pure outside of the Ward and though I didn't know enough about the Pure to guess at their beliefs, was it possible that they looked to one specific element more than the others? I'd have assumed that they'd be devoted to the particular god that they embodied, but this had me thinking otherwise. One thing I was sure of: Bishop might have been onto something here. I had to know more.
1660
1661I waited outside the Ward. It was easy to find a vantage point out of sight of the guards; their booth made it difficult for them to see much that was going on along the streets. Again, it struck me as odd, but the wall had been built some time ago; perhaps other sightlines had been more important back then. Then, I watched the area, while I feigned reading a news pamphlet.
1662
1663I know: it's the oldest and most hackneyed trick in the book. It wouldn't fool anyone, especially because I couldn't even make smalltalk about its contents because I couldn't read a word of it. I was only somewhat sure that it was even recent. That's why I didn't even try to make it convincing. Instead, I imagined a business associate. Lazy, greedy, and worst of all: never on time. I held a clear picture in my mind as I filled my surface thoughts with impatience. The paper, then, I'd brought along with me to pass the time while I waited for my inevitably late partner. I couldn't be bothered to actually read it, though, as I was too distracted by anger at the man.
1664
1665I got a few looks as I waited there, but their surface thoughts were of pity: There goes new money, on the way down. Can't even find a reliable business partner. There but for the grace of the gods go we, but of course we know better than to trust new money, don't we? Not in so many words, but the condescension and faux-pity was there, and that's exactly what I wanted.
1666
1667The nice part about this cover was that it gave me an excuse to present a brief interest at everyone who walked by, so long as I followed that with a bit of bitter disappointment in my thoughts. I kept my post for an hour and a half, and in that time I learned a number of things about the Ward. First and foremost, almost nobody went in. Certainly not the residents of this neighborhood - they didn't even look at the wall or the gates, they walked on without even a stray thought about it. The gate guards treated them much the same.
1668
1669The second thing I learned about the Ward was far more important: Some people were allowed in. Lower class: runners, delivery, those sorts. The kind that the upper class I'd been watching simply didn't see, but of course I noticed easily. They'd enter, have a brief conversation with the guards, and then proceed into the Ward. Some time later, they'd emerge and have a longer conversation, then be on their way. As far as I could tell, everyone who'd gone into the area had later left, none had stayed. And nobody except for those I'd seen go in had come out. If the guards themselves were changed at any point, it wasn't during my watch.
1670
1671I was losing the light at this point, but I had a plan. I made my way down to the docks, and I bought the largest fish that I could find. Then, with daylight waning, I brought it home.
1672
1673It was not a pleasant way to wake up, the next morning. Had this been Opal, my attempt at spoiling the fish might have failed - it took things longer to go bad when the air itself dried them. But Utijan was between a river and an ocean. It was humid and hot, and it'd done what I'd hoped. The fish was rank.
1674
1675I'd stored my clothes and, indeed, everything I owned that I didn't want to smell like fish, in the airtight room. Probably not the use that the wizard had intended for it, but it worked. The clothes I'd worn to bed in as close proximity to the fish as I could stand were not my merchant clothes: They were commoner clothes, but I'd included a butcher's apron for extra verisimilitude.
1676
1677As little as I wanted to, I waited for the day to get hotter. It was easily twenty degrees cooler in this city than the desert, but I could tell that the humidity would help my efforts. Eventually, thankfully, it was time. I wrapped my fish back up and left the house.
1678
1679My plan: Pose as a delivery boy to gain entrance to the Ward. Reconnoiter. Since the guards hadn't seen me yesterday, they'd have no reason to believe I was anything other than I claimed. Even if they had seen me, though, they wouldn't recognize me. As a businessman, I walked with a self-important gait and held a self-important posture at all times. As a delivery boy, I was slumped and tired, subservient but hurried. The nice thing about this plan was that fish-deliverer was a role I could play more than once if necessary, since they'd certainly remember this persona if I approached them again.
1680
1681I approached the Ward entrance, surface thoughts clouded with thoughts of how much I wanted to get rid of the fish, which was not a particularly difficult thing to think about. The guards, three of them, caught the scent before they saw me. One spoke: "Munhe ajasha hain kin kiseen aura ken lies tek vitara hain."
1682
1683"Delivery for the ward, sir." I said, thickening my gutter-Trade accent even more than it already was.
1684
1685The guard I spoke to made a face indicating he wasn't sure which he should be more repelled by, my language or the fish, but the latter quickly won out. "Fine, go!" he said in accented Trade. "Quickly!"
1686
1687Nobody stopped someone delivering a fish. At least, not for long.
1688
1689I walked into the Ward without further incident. Once I had, I could immediately tell what was wrong. I'd had an inkling yesterday, but it wasn't until I got the full view that I understood. The guardhouse sightlines were far wider on this side. The houses were all set back from the wall at a distance that would prevent jumping. There was even another guard patrolling. The security around the Ward wasn't for keeping people out: It was for keeping them in.
1690
1691That drunk at the docks had been right: The Ward was a prison.
1692
1693*************************
169416
1695
1696I did my best to keep moving forward. My accent and looks could sell the idea that I was new to the city, new to the job, but I didn't want to seem entirely naive. Though the Ward appeared high-class, there was no telling what its inhabitants were actually like, and naievity tended to get interpreted as weakness. Of course, if the inhabitants were all Pure like I suspected they were, anything would seem weak to them.
1697
1698Everyone I'd seen go into the Ward had come out. It couldn't be that bad.
1699
1700"Un," I heard a voice exclaim, "bhanyanak agandh kyan hai?"
1701
1702I turned to face the speaker: An old woman, seated at her porch. She was the first person I'd seen outside other than the patrolling guard. I wasn't sure if that was because the other houses were abandoned or if everyone preferred to avoid meeting outsiders.
1703
1704"Fish delivery, ma'am." I said. "For 22 Crescent." Each of the houses had clearly marked addresses on them, and I'd been taught the Hidna words for the phases of the moon.
1705
1706"Oh I hope not!" she said. "That's me, if you can't read the address. I can tell Trade's your first language."
1707
1708"Yes ma'am." I said.
1709
1710"Of course, nobody speaking Hidna's going to be smelling like that!" She cackled. "Still, it's nice of Kruthina to think of me, even if she does have questionable taste in fishmongers. It could be salvageable. Take it around to the back, I'll be there shortly."
1711
1712I could tell it wasn't easy for her to stand, but I couldn't help her with my hands full of fish. I walked around the side of the house to its backyard. A firepit had been dug, lined with stone, and a metal platform set up above, presumably for grilling. It was the sort of thing I'd have used to cook with in the desert, though obviously more permanent. A quick glance to the sides showed me the neighbors had nothing like it. I set the fish atop the metal and turned around to help retrieve the old lady, but she'd already hobbled her way halfway to me.
1713
1714"Did you set it on the grill?" She asked. She was clearly within sight of it, but I supposed her sight might not be as good as mine.
1715
1716"Yes ma'am." I replied.
1717
1718"So polite." She said absently, continuing on her course. I stepped aside to stop her from running into me. "Not the casual blasphemy, which is nice."
1719
1720"Casual blasphemy?" I said.
1721
1722She chuckled. "Yes, people today take the names of the Lords and Ladies in vain. Not how I was raised. You're new to the city, aren't you?"
1723
1724"Yes ma'am." Politeness seemed to be working.
1725
1726"From your accent, I'd say you're from one of the jewels. Onyx? Sapphire?"
1727
1728"Opal, ma'am." I said. "Just arrived in town a week or so ago."
1729
1730"Ah, Opal. I've always wanted to go, me and the desert would get on well, for obvious reasons. But..." she gestured vaguely to the walls.
1731
1732"The trip's not expensive," I said, playing up the naivety now that I was fairly sure I was safe.
1733
1734She laughed again, this time more sadly. "You're new. You don't know better. I'm here because of this."
1735
1736The woman gestured at the firepit, and it was suddenly full of flame. She hadn't even put any fuel in it. I didn't have to pretend to be startled.
1737
1738Now her laugh was nearly a cackle. "Ah, it never gets old. I don't imagine a city like Opal has many like me. I'm a Pure, you see."
1739
1740I'd gathered that. "Not any in Opal, not that I know."
1741
1742She turned to me. "I doubt that. We spring up, from time to time, no matter the place. I imagine the ones where you're from are just smart enough to stay hidden. Else they'd end up... somewhere like this."
1743
1744I remembered what I'd once knew about the history of the pure. The last one to go public in Opal had been kidnapped and counter-kidnapped repeatedly. "What is this place?" I asked finally.
1745
1746"It's the Ward." She said, emphasizing the last word. "It keeps them safe from us, and vice versa."
1747
1748I looked around; it continued to just be us in the backyard. No other residents had shown themselves, and the guard would be on patrol a bit longer before coming back. "It looks more like they just keep you all here."
1749
1750"Ward," she replied, "Warden. Not as similar in my language, but still. Similar purpose. You're right, though it's a comfortable jail."
1751
1752I was eager to ask more but made sure to keep hold of my persona, even if she couldn't read my mind. "Can't you just... go? 'And theirs was power like unto a city', as the scriptures say, right?" I'd finally remembered the verse.
1753
1754"A city's more than it was." She said. "Though I imagine you're right. These walls couldn't hold any of us if we were truly determined, but it's not the walls that do the work. I tried once, you know. Melted my way out, cut a swath through any that tried to stop me." She was grinning, and I wasn't sure I liked the way she looked when she spoke like that. Her milky eyes were staring at the fire she'd started in the pit. "But then I woke. All an illusion. All lies. That's the way of it, here. Even the half-breeds are a match for us."
1755
1756She was probably used to saying things like that and not having people understand her. I suspected I knew what she was referring to, and I couldn't let on. Bishop had reported one of the enforcer halflings had been an Illusionist, and now I knew exactly what they were enforcing.
1757
1758"And you can't ever leave?" I asked.
1759
1760The woman shook her head. "We can," she said sadly. "There's a cost to staying, and there's a cost to leaving. Stay, and the Doctor visits once a month and uses his magic to make sure you can't bear a child. Can't have more Pure or half-breeds turn up, after all. Leave, and you have to leave married to a commoner. Someone who won't breed Pure."
1761
1762The Doctor, I assumed, was the Witchdoctor that Bishop had tried to capture. Birth control via magic was an unreliable method at best, but if anyone could pull it off a Witchdoctor could. They had that much control over the mind-body connection.
1763
1764A Witchdoctor would, due to that same power, be able to keep themselves alive for nearly as long as a Pure Mind could. But if the enforcers were the children of my target that put them well below this woman's age.
1765
1766"Was it always this way?" I asked in a somewhat hushed whisper, trying to re-gather the youthful innocence I'd been playing at.
1767
1768"No, it used to be worse." She answered. "Or better, depending on who asked. There was another way out, decades ago. You just had to make a deal with the devil."
1769
1770I shivered. Everyone knew a scary story or two about people selling their souls to the Void in exchange for worldly power. Given that, of late, I'd discovered a great many things I'd assumed stories were actually true, I was entirely prepared to take this statement at face value.
1771
1772"Have you studied the Ten?" She asked, in the same tone of voice that I'd heard missionaries use.
1773
1774"It's the Nine in Opal, Ma'am." I said by way of answer. I didn't really want to try to talk my way out of getting converted right now.
1775
1776She just nodded. "Fair enough, there's no chapter for the Lord of Lies, and who'd believe it if there were? They don't even teach that here, anymore. Want to forget the whole mess. And like I said, how I was raised, you didn't take a name in vain, not even the forgotten one. So we had a nickname for our personal adversary."
1777
1778I wasn't sure just how metaphorical all of this was. "A nickname?"
1779
1780"They call me," she said quietly, as though there were someone to overhear us, "the Lady of the Hearth. Because of..." she gestured to the fire. "I'm not one of those that think the Pure are gods reincarnated. I'm not worthy of the title, and so far as I'm concerned neither are any of my kind. He never told us his name, and we wouldn't honor him with even a name as besmirched as Lies, so we gave him a nickname. We called him the Subtle Man."
1781
1782I suppressed another shiver, and was again relieved that she couldn't read my mind. If it was decades ago, the timeline made sense for this Subtle Man to be the Pure Mind I was seeking now.
1783
1784"He wasn't very, of course, we called him that because of his power. He was a Mind, you see, but he didn't have to live here. Was in charge of making sure we stayed, just like his bastards do today." The Lady of the Hearth was well into storytelling mode, and didn't appear to observe my discomfort at all. "He was running the place the entire time I lived here, 'till recently. But back then he got this idea. Never said what it was, but he offered to let anyone out who was willing to be his bride."
1785
1786On one hand, I was outraged, but some part of my mind wondered if that was really any different than the choice I'd offer when I found him. If, in fact, I gave him a choice at all.
1787
1788"Back then," she continued, "I figured he was some pervert. Was honestly surprised the day someone tried to take advantage hadn't come earlier. But some, they were willing. And some time after that, what do you know, the half-minds pop up. Doesn't take a genius to connect the dots there: Man tried to make his own Dynasty. Must have backfired something hard, though, because the Doctor started making rounds one day and I never saw the Subtle Man after. Good riddance."
1789
1790No wonder Bishop had been interested in this place. He'd likely found out about the enforcers the same way, possibly through this same woman. And since the enforcers worked for the government, that's where he'd gone next.
1791
1792"Hey," a heavily accented voice said to me. "She bothering you?"
1793
1794The guard that had been patrolling had evidently returned. He must have overheard at least some of the conversation, but I doubted it made sense out of context. And he'd asked if she was bothering me, not the other way around. He'd also gone directly to Trade, which indicated his main interest was speaking to me rather than her.
1795
1796"Nonsense, Srini, I was just having a chat!" She said.
1797
1798"Ogh," he said, putting his hand over his nose. "You're the delivery boy with the ripe fish?"
1799
1800I nodded, gestured to the fire. "The delivery was for her, sir." I tried to make my accent stronger, but I'd not done so around the Lady and so couldn't exaggerate it too much.
1801
1802The guard frowned, or so I gathered from his voice as his hand was still covering most of his face. "Stop living up to your name, Lady, you know you have to be careful with fire."
1803
1804"It's not my name." She said with a weary tone that indicated she'd lost that particular fight a long time ago.
1805
1806The guard just gestured at me with his free hand. "Come along, then, I'm sure you've got more deliveries to do."
1807
1808I went without protest. Once we were a few blocks away, he spoke, his voice still muffled by his hand. "You've got to be careful about her, if you're to be delivering to the ward in the future."
1809
1810I shrugged. "She seemed nice."
1811
1812"You've a more forgiving boss than I, in that case. I'd have thought fish delivery would require tighter schedules. Then again, judging by smell, maybe not." He stopped short of the gate to the rest of the city, presumably just out of earshot of the aforementioned boss. "Just try to keep it quick in here, they're not supposed to interact with outsiders. Doesn't do to remind them of what the rest of the city is like."
1813
1814I nodded, keeping my surface thoughts placid and bored to mask the unease beneath. I couldn't help these people, but it felt wrong to leave them here. Still, the greater mission required it. I just had to hope I'd have an opportunity later to set this right. "Understood, sir." I said.
1815
1816"Good lad." he commented, then turned and resumed his patrol. I walked to the guardhouse.
1817
1818The guard I'd first talked to upon entering the ward looked at me and said nothing, but his surface thoughts coalesced into a rapid series of Hidna words that I had no chance of understanding.
1819
1820"What?" I said, off-balance.
1821
1822He just nodded. "You're not Pure, then. I know, we just saw you go in, but that's the rule, gotta test everyone." He continued to look unhappy at having to lower himself to my language. "Who was your delivery for?"
1823
1824It was telling that he hadn't asked me that question on the way in, but of course then I'd had the power of the fish to protect me. "22 Crescent."
1825
1826The guard grunted. "Lady of the Hearth, huh? Bet you got an earful. Normally this is the part of the exit interview where I ask for a detailed account of your time inside, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you were stuck in a one-sided conversation the entire time, am I correct?"
1827
1828"Yes, sir." I said.
1829
1830"All right, get going. Just be quicker about it next time, I don't like having to send Srinivan out to find stragglers."
1831
1832"Understood, sir." I repeated. He just gestured me away.
1833
1834I made my way home via a different circuitous route than I'd arrived. I'd managed to investigate the Ward, now all I had to do was infiltrate the Empire's intelligence apparatus to find out more about the enforcers and what had happened to their Pure Mind father.
1835
1836And, of course, avoid doing whatever my predecessor had done to alert them in the first place. No problem.
1837
1838*************************
183917
1840
1841There were a number of problems with the idea of scouting the government quarter. The first one was that it was off-limits, and while that was mainly in the self-imposed "I would stand out" way, there were also plenty of areas where guards would keep me out. A few of those areas might even have guards competent enough to do it, but in any case it would raise my profile higher than I preferred it to be.
1842
1843The other, bigger problem was that the government quarter was literally bigger. The Ward had been, all said and done, a small neighborhood. The government quarter was, as its name implied, easily one fourth of the city if not more. Utijan's business was, after all, being the capital of the Empire, and apparently that took a lot of real estate.
1844
1845I could don a disguise like I had for the Ward. A district that large had to have any number of service people underfoot, but those few times I'd scouted near the entrances, I hadn't seen any. There were likely hidden passages specifically for service, and if I demonstrated ignorance of them then I'd be outing myself pretty quickly. I could scout the underground, which is where such passages would in all likelihood be, but I didn't know the gangs that ruled it.
1846
1847I dropped a note for Pawn Seven, asking him to find out.
1848
1849Until I heard back, however, I figured I'd look up another lead. While I felt more comfortable with the lowllings than the upper-class, I'd been given ample resources to imitate the latter. I looked like a shabby businessman now, but if I put in some effort and a great deal more money, I could look like a slightly less shabby businessman. At least one that could conceivably belong in the government quarter. But first I'd have to hit up an old contact, if he was in fact still in the city.
1850
1851It didn't take long for me to find Magen - it turned out that leading one of the largest caravans to cross the desert on a regular basis imparts a fair bit of fame. Seemingly everyone in the trade district knew who and where the man was. As I'd hoped, he was putting together a return trip: a caravan from the Empire all the way to the commonwealth kingdoms. Even more fortunately, it hadn't left yet.
1852
1853"Looking for a ride back?" He asked the moment he spotted me. I'd tracked him down to a warehouse much like the one I'd started the job in. "I can always use more haulers."
1854
1855"No, but I am looking for someone who knows business." I said.
1856
1857Magen laughed. "I should have guessed! You've certainly got the clothes down."
1858
1859I raised an eyebrow. I had come dressed in my fake-businessman outfit, but Magen had likely seen better. "Thank you, but I think the clothes are part of the problem. I'm here in Utijan because I inherited my father's business, but I don't really know what I'm doing." More of that was true than I cared to admit.
1860
1861"I may have been overly generous about your appearance," Magen said diplomatically. "But it depends pretty heavily on the specific business you're in! Take me, for example." He gestured to his outfit, which was the same style of desert-clothes I'd seen him in on the entire trip. "Nobody would trust a caravan leader that wasn't dressed like this. If you were trying to lead a caravan dressed like you are, people would think 'he isn't dressed for the desert, he must not know what he's talking about'. Even if this caravan were going direct to the Dynasty and not stepping foot on sand, I'd still have to dress this way. It's about expectations. So, what sort of business did you inherit?"
1862
1863I'd given this some thought. If I were to get into the government district as a legitimate businessman, I'd need an angle that wasn't common, something I could legitimately claim to do. Fortunately, my time in Opal and some additional research here had given me an idea: "I'm now the owner of Luthra Ink, fine suppliers of fine inks to fine people."
1864
1865"Your motto needs a little work." He said. "Also, 'Luthra'? How did you get a commonwealth first name and an Empire last name?"
1866
1867"He was a rich envoy from Utijan, she was a naive farmgirl from Caernaff. It was like something out of a storybook." Mainly because I had, in fact, stolen the idea from a storybook.
1868
1869Magen chuckled. "Okay, for that business the locale and customers are going to determine how you dress and what other extras you're going to need. Dressed like you are now, you could go almost as high as Wardsmouth, and as low as this very trade district, but no lower. Docks are right out, for example, you'd get rolled for your purse and the clothes off your back."
1870
1871Wardsmouth was the unofficial nickname for those neighborhoods that surrounded the Ward; I'd already seen the suit's effectiveness there. "I was hoping to do business in the government quarter." I said.
1872
1873Magen winced. "If you want my advice, that's a fool's errand. Yes, it's the richest district, but high reward means high risk. I don't even deal with the rulers if I can help it. They hate foreigners. Like Chankota, only less likely to string you up. Don't mistake the quiet disdain for tolerance, though. They hate you every bit as much, and they have more varied ways of ruining your life."
1874
1875That would have been a problem, had I any desire to actually run a business. Still, I needed a convincing reason to persist. "I know." I said. "I've tried walking around the area, it feels like I've got a target on my back the entire time. But… among the things I inherited was my father's journal. And in it, he'd detailed plans he had for expanding the business into the government quarter. It was his dream for the shop, and he never got to see it."
1876
1877Magen shook his head. "All right, just don't say I didn't warn you." He reached into one of the pouches he was carrying and brought forth a handful of paper. "I've got a tailor in here somewhere."
1878
1879The paper was, in fact, lots of little papers. Business cards, for people who could afford the paper, ink, and effort to create and print them. It stood to reason that those were the exact sort of people I'd need to contact.
1880
1881"Here we are," Magen said, handing me two of them. "The top one's the tailor. Just tell him where you're headed and he'll make something for you. It won't be cheap, but you'll need it if you want to have a chance."
1882
1883I studied the card - I was going to have to get to know more about the sort of inks used if I was going to pretend to sell them. After a bit, I stashed it in a pocket and examined the other card, labeled simply "Jihun and Karanik" with an address close to the government quarter. "What's this one?"
1884
1885"They're a law firm, and on those few occasions where I do have to do business with the government, they're the ones who actually handle the business. They'll be able to get you the rest of the way, hopefully. They've got the contacts, they know the land, and they've got a partner company that lends out translators so you look like an actual businessman. And, as you might imagine from the 'Jihun' part, they're friendly to foreigners like ourselves."
1886
1887"Thanks, Magen. I appreciate it. Not just this, but everything you've done for me." I said.
1888
1889"Hey, it's no problem! Us desert folk have to stick together. The rest of the world only looks less harsh than our homelands." He said. "And hey, if you do fail, remember: I can always use more haulers!"
1890
1891I laughed, and showed myself out. If the worst thing that happened as a result of my mission here was that I had to go back to being a cargo hauler, I'd count myself lucky.
1892
1893I received word back from Pawn Seven the next day, which was unusually fast for her:
1894
1895>Bishop Two,
1896
1897>The undertunnels of the government quarter are not safe for you. Under no circumstances should you attempt to enter or explore them. Even if your life is in danger, seek another route. The above-ground areas are also dangerous at night, though not to the same extent.
1898
1899>If you absolutely require access to the quarter, I advise you to follow in your predecessor's footsteps: He disguised himself as a minor Guragan noble and was able to appear the part due to Guragas' outlying nature as an Empire city. Such covers have been used to great effect by our people, so long as they do not linger past sundown.
1900
1901>Again, the quarter is dangerous, and the underground especially so. Avoid the latter at all costs.
1902
1903>In Service,
1904
1905>Pawn Seven
1906
1907I could almost sense Pawn Seven's tension through the writing. Though occasionally the cipher spell did let through a bit of the emotional state of the writer, it was more than likely my own stress made manifest. The merchant route was "high risk", as Magen had put it, but apparently not nearly as high-risk as trying to go underground would have been. High-class it was, then.
1908
1909On my way to the Jihun and Karanik offices, I stopped by the bank and talked to Pawn Eight briefly in his airtight room. Mostly to set up the company that I claimed to own, but while I was there I asked him about the government's undercity.
1910
1911"That's really more Pawn Seven's area." He said. "She told me it was pretty dangerous, though was not specific as to how. I assume the usual gang problems, but it's also possible the infrastructure is crumbling."
1912
1913"Topside's safe during the day, though?" I asked. I was going to need to get in somehow.
1914
1915"Oh yes." Pawn Eight said, and then almost immediately corrected himself. "Well, as safe as anything in this city is for someone who's both a foreigner and a Bishop. Your predecessor blended in for quite some time before he was discovered."
1916
1917"How did that happen?" I asked. The man's journal entries around the time he left were frustratingly sparse, and left no clue as to what prompted his exit.
1918
1919"I don't know," he said. "And I've asked Pawn Seven and got the usual lack of answer from her as well. Whatever it was, he could apparently recognize the problem in time to leave the city, which does lend us some hope. Just keep your eyes open, and you'll be safe."
1920
1921"One last thing," I showed him the Jihun and Karanik card. "You know these guys?"
1922
1923"Not personally," he said, "but by reputation. They're very good at what they do, and the only reason they're not more prestigious than they already are is because they are run for and by foreigners."
1924
1925"I'd have thought Karanik would mitigate some of that." I said.
1926
1927"If I recall correctly, he's from Guragas. Some people," he gestured with his head toward the bank lobby, "consider it barely part of the Empire at all."
1928
1929"Thanks," I said. Then I was out the doors, and on my way to meet the lawyers.
1930
1931As it happened, the route to their offices took me near the Ward. I hadn't been to my tailor yet, so I'd look much the same as I did last time I was staking the place out. I shouldn't stand out too much, so I took the opportunity to walk by the entrance again.
1932
1933Nothing had changed - even the guards were the same as they'd been before. Some delivery boy - probably an actual one this time - was talking to the guard that'd interviewed me. The comings and goings of the visitors to the Ward, going forward like clockwork.
1934
1935Like clockwork.
1936
1937It was a testament to my ability to keep it together that I didn't falter, didn't stumble, and didn't even let a hint of the idea that had suddenly struck me leak into my surface thoughts. Instead, I kept walking, not even wanting to risk revisiting it in my mind. I'd wait until i got back to my home and its magic-proof room before I started planning this move. Before that, Jihun and Karanik.
1938
1939Jihun looked strange - definitely of a Dynasty bloodline, but dressed to the nines in the finest 'Empire Bureaucrat' outfit. His partner Karanik was similarly dressed and while passably an Empire man, he definitely owed more than a little of his heritage to the Jewels.
1940
1941Or so I gathered from their portraits, hung in their gathering room. Apparently you had to be a Magen to rate personal service from one of the founders; I'd been paired up with someone who was obviously new to the job. He was even younger than I was, though I was polite enough not to point it out. Getting the dregs of the law firm didn't actually bother me: I wanted the contacts more than the work, and this man could read from the list as well as anyone else.
1942
1943I shortly had the contact information for a translation service, the name and address of another tailor, and a letter of reference for the government's official "small business liason" office. All it cost me was a sum that, were I back in Opal, would have seemed absurd. As it was, it was only somewhat shocking. I issued my first personal writ for the money, making up an excuse to my new lawyer as to why I couldn't write one from the company.
1944
1945The actual reason was that the company didn't exist yet. That didn't happen for another few days, when I retrieved a parcel from one of the mail-houses I'd been renting space in. Every company needed a street address, but many found it easier to have their mail sent to and from each other in one place and so rented space there. Somewhat like the banks, but for delivery of goods rather than money itself. It also, conveniently enough, gave the veneer of legitimacy to entirely made up corporations like my own. Made up until now, that was:
1946
1947>Bishop Two,
1948
1949>Enclosed you will find the seals, writs, and incorporation papers for Luthra Ink, a company that as far as anyone will be able to tell has existed for the past fifty years. Detailed backdated paperwork for five years has been created and filed. Five years is the limit of governmental and internal banking audits, so you should have no need of more.
1950
1951>I have also transferred the bulk of your personal money to the company's accounts, as given your aims that is likely what you will be spending most of it on. There should be sufficient writs included to start up a shell of a company, but the bank will issue more if needed.
1952
1953>In Service,
1954
1955>Pawn Eight.
1956
1957If only real entrepreneurship was this easy. Of the two letters I got from my contacts that day, it was definitely the "good news" one. The "bad news" one came courtesy of Pawn Seven:
1958
1959>Bishop Two,
1960
1961>Your vigil in the Wardsmouth has attracted the wrong sort of attention.
1962
1963>From tomorrow on, I will send a runner with a message for you when you have overstayed your welcome. The content of the message will be inconsequential, its true meaning is that you need to abandon your post quickly. Occasionally the runner will be dressed as a businessman, as you are.
1964
1965>This should lend credibility to your presence there, but only for a time. It will hopefully be weeks before the vacuousness of your interactions becomes apparent to others, but this will happen. If you do not find what you are looking for in that time, you may have to attempt another method.
1966
1967>In Service,
1968
1969>Pawn Seven
1970
1971My 'vigil' was the result of the idea I'd had the last time I'd passed by the Ward, on my way to the lawyers. The process of entering and exiting the Ward had seemed so regimented, like clockwork, and that had reminded me of something else that happened periodically. The Lady of the Hearth had mentioned that the Witchdoctor stopped by every month to make sure the population of Pures and half-breeds didn't get any worse than it already was. That meant that I not only had a lead on the person who had killed the original Bishop, that person would also lead me to the other three and - hopefully - my target.
1972
1973Bishop's journal had noted the wisdom of targeting the Witchdoctor. While he could no doubt defend himself with ease, he wouldn't be able to detect me the same way the others would. Though I could conceivably remain undetected by the Illusionist, chances were good I wouldn't be following the actual person. And of course the Rioter and the Ephemeral would know my intentions long before I could act on them. As far as I could tell, only the Witchdoctor regularly left the government quarter. A small advantage, and one that would vanish the moment I entered that same quarter, but I'd take what I could get.
1974
1975I'd done some mental math for how long it would take to visit every house in the Ward. Granted, under other circumstances a half-pure like the doctor could probably just stand in the middle of the district and take a few minutes to do whatever it was they were doing. But magical birth control was a fickle thing, often promised but rarely effective. I imagined that even for a half-breed, it had to be a difficult task, and as such he'd probably need to actually be in the presence of the people he was temporarily sterilizing.
1976
1977The thought made me vaguely queasy, but then again the city's treatment of the Pure was wrong on many levels. Hopefully I'd be able to do something about it, but until my mission was complete there wasn't much I could do.
1978
1979Every day, I went to the Wardsmouth and stood there with a broadsheet, as I had the first time I'd staked out the Ward. I radiated impatience with my nonexistent but nonetheless terrible business partner, and then had eventually left. It was a ruse that would only work for a time, and according to Pawn Seven that time was almost over. And in all this time, there'd been no sign of the doctor, just deliveries.
1980
1981Still, the runners would hopefully extend the stay a little longer. If I was unlucky it'd be an entire month, but I doubted I was that unlucky. At some point, I'd see the Witchdoctor, and then I'd be able to follow him back to his base of operations, wherever that was.
1982
1983And as it happened, I didn't need the runners to warn me off after all. The very next day, the doctor appeared at the gates of the Ward. I knew it was him because the guards actually reacted to his presence, even the ones that weren't talking to him. They came to attention, talked with a barely detectable nervous quake, and their fear was so strong that I could feel it from across the street. He vanished into the Ward, presumably to do his rounds.
1984
1985The entire time he was gone, the guards remained nervous. They talked to each other in low, hushed voices, and they looked my way more than once, but at this point I was practically a fixture in the neighborhood. I showed the right amount of interest: Not so much it seemed I was overly interested, and not so little that it appeared like I was purposely ignoring the event. Just enough to be curious about the disruption in routine, but ultimately distracted by my own imaginary problems.
1986
1987A few hours later, surprisingly close to when I'd predicted, the Witchdoctor emerged from the ward. He didn't say anything to the guards and they didn't volunteer, instead standing at attention and desperately hoping that all had gone well and they could return to another several weeks of less terrifying work. The doctor didn't look back.
1988
1989Which was good, because I was following him.
1990
1991*************************
199218
1993
1994If the Witchdoctor was heading back to the government quarter, I'd likely lose him at some point. I hadn't yet been to visit the tailor, which meant I'd been standing around in my less-than-successful merchant's garb. It was fine for this area, but I'd get looks if I went too far. People would remember my presence.
1995
1996Still, it was either this or wait an entire month. I'd be more set up then, more established, but the longer I waited the greater the chance that I'd be discovered somehow. The Ephemeral and the Rioter were a constant risk, but it was entirely possible I could just plain mess up, or that other events out of my control could unmask me. It'd apparently happened to the Bishop who'd been here last.
1997
1998I wasn't sure how much of this logic was sound and how much of it was me trying to rationalize my impatience. When it came down to it, though, I wouldn't be doing my cause any harm by going into the government quarter early. Yes, I would stand out. Yes, people would talk. But all of it could be made to serve my cover. I was presenting myself as a merchant on his way up, after all, what better way to do that than to establish a memorable 'before' and 'after' image?
1999
2000With that in mind, I followed my target into the government quarter.
2001
2002The first thing I noticed was that there were far fewer people staring at me than I thought there would be. I didn't blend in, but either the people here didn't care as much as I'd feared they would, or they were affecting an air of haughty disinterest. Either way, it worked for me.
2003
2004The second thing I noticed was that the roads were a lot less crowded. I still hadn't seen anyone in a service role, and apparently keeping them off the street freed up a lot of room. Ordinarily this would be nice, it felt a little bit more like Opal, but in this case it meant I had less of a screen between myself and the person I was shadowing. I was using the believe-my-cover spell, staring around like a gawking tourist at the buildings, so though I would stand out I'd do so in a believable way. The Witchdoctor hadn't so much as glanced in my direction, but at least I was convincing to anyone else who happened to see me.
2005
2006The third thing I noticed, after careful watching of the alleyways and other less visible passages of the quarter, was the location of the servant's tunnels. As someone who always kept an eye out for an escape route, it took me a surprisingly long time to locate one. The only reason I did was because a delivery person happened to be emerging from one when I looked, but once I knew what to look for I could find them anywhere. They tended to be small hatches, recessed in the bottom of the streets in alleyways, but I saw one or two in the middle of the road itself. Utijan definitely had an undercity like Opal, but if the entire district was run like this then that undercity had to be in a lot better repair than the one I was from.
2007
2008Still, Pawn Seven had indicated that they were by far more dangerous than the streets, so chances were I'd never be able to actually use them.
2009
2010After some time, the doctor finally turned off the main road and walked into an obviously governmental building. I knew that was its purpose not just because of its style, either. When I'd pictured the headquarters of the Empire's Intelligence Service, I'd pictured a large building, certainly, but I'd pictured something discreet. Something deniable.
2011
2012What I hadn't pictured was a five-story tall bronze-colored columned edifice with the words "THE ETERNAL EMPIRE INTELLIGENCE SERVICE" embossed in foot-high letters across the arch the columns were upholding.
2013
2014And Rook had thought I'd needed to learn subtlety.
2015
2016I kept walking, naturally. I had a cover to keep up, and actual people I needed to meet. I might as well get some errands done while I was here. My first stop was to the small business liaison.
2017
2018The liaison office wasn't as well staffed or nearly as efficient as Jihun and Karanik had been. I got more than a few looks from the otherwise entirely disinterested security staff in the lobby. Most of my fellow petitioners ignored me the same way everyone else in the district had, which is to say poorly, but they at least made the attempt. This was like going to the bank all over again, only I stood out even more than before and the staff was even less friendly.
2019
2020Still, I'd been stubborn there and I could be just as stubborn here. And while these workers were made of sterner stuff than the bank staff had been, they did eventually send someone over to ask me why I was here. Or, at least, that's what I assume he said given I couldn't understand a word of it.
2021
2022"I've recently inheri-" and I stopped there, because of course I was speaking Trade and the man looked at me as though I'd vomited in his ears. Without another word, he walked away. I was pretty sure that this was not going to go like the bank had. There was not going to be a translator for me this time, because in all likelihood any respectable small business would have their own on staff. The government apparently had a very different idea of what constituted a 'small' business, and mine would not pass muster.
2023
2024I was proven both wrong and correct in the next few moments. The office did, in fact, employ a translator. He didn't come to me, though, but to one of the security people. Then, together, they approached me.
2025
2026"Sar, man jaanae kin lies ap seen poocana chaahiess," the guard said to me.
2027
2028"Sir, I am afraid I must ask you to leave," the translator said, quietly. Even as polite as he was being, there was no doubt that everyone in the room knew exactly what was happening.
2029
2030Still, while I'd come here to get noticed, I hadn't come to cause a scene. My actions so far had already gone far in establishing my persona, no sense in appearing deranged. I'd need to come back here later once I'd "become successful", after all.
2031
2032"Of course," I said. The translator did not relay this response back to the guard, because I was already standing and making my way out of the building. I did not look back.
2033
2034My experience at the other stops I'd had planned was much the same: I wasn't given much attention and, when I was and I said a few words of Trade, I was asked to discreetly leave. As before, I didn't raise a fuss. When the afternoon started giving way to evening, I started making my way back, having established enough of my cover for now. People would remember the underdressed merchant trying to make his way into the upper-class. It'd be an amusing story, but it wouldn't raise suspicion. Even though I hadn't seen anyone else in this same situation while I was making the rounds, I couldn't be the only person who'd tried this. It'd serve me later when I came back with better clothes and an actual translator.
2035
2036I passed by the Intelligence building as I went. I'd come up with an explanation for its gaudy appearance. It couldn't have been an accident, after all, someone had paid money to put those letters up there. And while it could have simply been a diversion - claim the headquarters was there while the actual one was somewhere else - I suspected there was a more disturbing explanation: It was serving its purpose entirely just the way it was.
2037
2038The Empire's Intelligence Service was often spoke of in Opal, in the hushed sort of whispers of people joking about a topic but keeping their voices down just in case. It was the reason you didn't go to the Empire, after all. You'd be arrested as a spy the moment they found you, and they would find you, because they were everywhere. A lot of that had been overblown - Chankota was the only place likely to do that, and if they had any intelligence of any kind it certainly wasn't obvious.
2039
2040However, the presence of the building here told me some of it was true. Because the Service didn't just spy on newcomers or those it found to be suspicious. It was said that every citizen of the Empire was watched, ostensibly for their own protection. Whether that was actually the case, the fact that the gleaming headquarters practically shouted its presence to the world said that they certainly wanted people to believe it was.
2041
2042More concerning, even if it was a lie, the operatives for the empire had to behave as though it wasn't. Which meant that if any place was to be watched and policed, it'd be right here.
2043
2044I'd done what I came to do, for now. It was time to go.
2045
2046*************************
204719
2048
2049Over the course of the next week, I committed to my persona in two ways.
2050
2051The first was the simplest: I continued to make the rounds in the government quarter. I didn't actually revisit any of the places I'd been before - showing up and causing a larger scene than I already had would be detrimental - but I did make sure that I was seen. I wanted to become a presence in the quarter as I had in the Wardsmouth. Pawn Seven had apparently caught on to my change of plans. She didn't object directly, but when I started being approached by runners with nonsense messages, I understood what she was trying to say. There was such a thing as overstaying my welcome, even if I didn't go into any buildings or talk to anyone. I made sure to exit the district whenever that happened, even if I'd only just arrived.
2052
2053Over this time I spotted the Witchdoctor only once more, leaving the intelligence building and heading in a different direction. If I hadn't just been warned off by a runner myself, I'd have followed, but all I could do was note the approximate time and hope it was a habit that would repeat itself later. Of the other three enforcers, I saw no sign, but I had no way of recognizing them so long as they didn't act overtly. My usual pure-detecting tricks wouldn't work, given that two of them could actually read my mind. And chances are good that I'd never lay eyes on the Illusionist anyway.
2054
2055After I left the government quarter for the day, I built my persona the second way: I'd make my way down to the trade district, stopping somewhere to change clothes along my route. Though Magen had by this time left on his return journey, I still had a few contacts there. Most of what I did, however, was the same thing I'd been doing in the government sector: Building up a presence. It was a lot easier in the pubs and taverns of the trade sector; I blended in naturally here. It made me hope that whatever my next assignment was, it would be less high-class than the current one. And also not utterly impossible.
2056
2057Finally, after getting an idea from my contacts of how well I'd become established, I made the most difficult step of all: I went to the tailor.
2058
2059To say that it was expensive was to ludicrously understate the situation. Banks had been invented so rich nobles could more easily trade with each other, but if I'd been told that their purpose was actually just to make it possible to pay people like the tailor, I would believe it wholeheartedly. I couldn't carry the amount of money that my new suits cost. Oh yes, multiple suits. The tailors would not let me leave with only one. Each had a different purpose, almost none of which I understood because their Trade wasn't very good and my Hidna hadn't improved from immersion nearly as much as I'd hoped. I should have stopped by the translator first.
2060
2061The translator was only slightly less expensive, though only because I had to account for the various costs involved in hiring someone to clean the suits. Hopefully I wouldn't be here long enough for that to matter, but then again I'd already been here nearly two months. There was no guarantee that this would end quickly, and the situations where it did end quickly were unlikely to be in my favor. All said, the translation service was pretty calm compared to everything else.
2062
2063The next day I went into the government sector, accompanied by my faithful translator whose name was Jayehs but who would answer, he assured me, to Nibal if I preferred him to have an Opal-sounding name. I assured him that Jayehs was just fine.
2064
2065In the government sector, I was initially not treated any differently. Nobles and other highborn of Utijan still ignored me - being foreign seemed to trump any number of suits and translators. But eventually I did notice the difference. Whereas before passers-by would look at me and then look away with concealed disgust, now their gazes lingered, both on me and on Jayehs. I recognized the look: They were sizing me up as competition now, not just as someone they could dismiss.
2066
2067When I took Jayehs into the small business liaison office, I expected I might have to explain myself - or, rather, I might have to have him explain me. There might be smoothing over required from my past appearance. Anyone who had seen the 'before' picture I'd been careful to paint would be surprised at my sudden turn of fortune.
2068
2069As it happened, absolutely all of that hard work I'd spent building up the persona of the upwardly mobile foreign businessman was a waste. The guards and workers didn't even recognize me. I'd spent a lot of time talking to Jayehs, preparing for this meeting, and a fair bit of that had involved explanations for why I suddenly was flush with cash. They didn't care. The rich foreigner with the translator and the recommendation from from Jihun and Karanik couldn't possibly be the same person as that newcomer from a week ago.
2070
2071We were approached by one of the workers almost immediately, and brought back to an airtight meeting room like the kind the banks had. I and my translator sat on one side of an oak desk, a worker and his translator sat on the other side of the oak desk. In a situation like this, calling them "translators" wasn't really accurate, because neither I nor the worker actually spoke a single word.
2072
2073It turned out that the culture around translators in Utijan was even more convoluted than Dalostaed had lead me to believe. Originally, their purpose was just to make it so people who wanted to do business with traders didn't have to lower themselves to speaking Trade. But since only the rich could afford round-the-clock translation services, it quickly became a status symbol. If you had a translator, you brought them with you whenever you conducted business. And since such business usually involved negotiation and legal contracts, the translators were schooled in such things as well. This just made them more expensive, which made them that much more of a symbol. At the end of it all they were negotiators, lawyers, butlers, fixers, and also sometimes they did translating. The culmination was what I was witnessing today: a negotiation done entirely by proxy, while the actual people involved sat by mutely.
2074
2075After a few hours, what little interest and fascination such a thing might have held had waned entirely. The worker, ostensibly the other part of the deal, had fallen asleep in his chair, and the talks had continued entirely uneffected. I barely noticed when Jayehs exchanged papers for what seemed like the dozenth time, but then he stood and I levered myself to my feet as well.
2076
2077The worker seemed to think his part in this was done, as once his translator discreetly woke him he continued to say nothing, instead leaving through the door on his side of the room. Jayehs and I left the way we'd come in.
2078
2079Once we were back in the government quarter, I was sorely tempted to start asking immediately what all the talk had been about, but Jayehs had advised me not to speak Trade anywhere in the sector, outdoors or not.
2080
2081"We have interest," He told me once we were in the clear.
2082
2083"I assume that's good, but what does it mean?" I hadn't let him in on my actual mission, so I'd been forced to feign an interest in the many subtleties of business in general and ink sales in particular.
2084
2085"It means that if we show the correct initiative, we may be granted an audience with someone empowered to sign a contract." He said, as though that were entirely sensible.
2086
2087"And what kind of initiative is required here?" I asked. "Bribes?"
2088
2089Jayehs winced. "Yes, to put it bluntly. But that is not enough. They were most worried about your lack of a storefront; you'd absolutely need to acquire one before they would proceed any further."
2090
2091The cover story that I'd given the translators was that my father's original storefront had burned down with all its inventory. Insurance had covered the monetary value, but he'd left the city in order to procure more stock, and he met his end on the road. "I'm not averse to buying a storefront in the government sector. Tell me," I said, trying to remember the correct word, "would the goldanrod be a suitable area?" That was the road that the intelligence building had been on. If I had to get a storefront, I might as well make it somewhere I could easily watch for my targets.
2092
2093Jayehs raised an eyebrow, but he didn't criticize my accent so either I was getting better or he was more polite than the others I'd tried my Hidna out on. "The Golden Road is the backbone of the government district. There will likely be space available there, but it will not come cheaply."
2094
2095I laughed. "Jayehs, my friend," I said, "spare no expense." It was a lot easier to spend money when it wasn't actually mine.
2096
2097Days later, I got the opportunity to spend nearly the entire afternoon within sight of the building. My translator had arranged appointments with one person who was selling their store, and a number of other people who ostensibly weren't selling but could probably be persuaded if the money was right.
2098
2099Fortunately, my role in these interactions was to stand there and say nothing while the owner of the business also stood there and said nothing. Our translators did all the work, while everyone else tried to look as disinterested as possible. That made watching the people coming and going down the road easy for me, though again I did not spot my target. All the various machinations I'd had to go through to establish this cover had left little time for my actual mission, but that was the way it had to be in order to avoid suspicion.
2100
2101Once we were again free of the government district, Jayehs told me that only one of the people who were initially unwilling to sell had changed their mind. The one whose store was openly for sale also wanted to continue, but his location was the furthest away from the area I wanted to watch.
2102
2103That worked in my favor, however. While the building that was situated directly across from the arched entrance of the Empire's Intelligence Service would make watching it trivial, that went both ways. I'm sure the idea of clandestinely buying up a shop across the street from the spying headquarters of the empire had occurred to the Dynasty at least, and probably the various Commonwealth kingdoms as well. I'd probably immediately fall under more suspicion than I already had if I bought that shop.
2104
2105The shop further down the street had also been in the direction I'd seen the Witchdoctor go the one time I'd managed to spot him after my initial journey into the quarter. With luck, that was his usual route, and I'd be able to get an idea of his habits and eventually follow him to wherever he lived.
2106
2107The next week was almost entirely taken up by the actual purchasing of the store, followed by stocking it and hiring people to run it. "Nobody runs their own shop, here," Jayehs had told me. I took his word for it. He was the one doing all the actual work - I hadn't interviewed anyone or talked to suppliers or even discussed what I wanted the sign to look like. If I'd actually cared about the business this might have been a problem, but as it was it gave me the perfect excuse to stay in the area but watch outward.
2108
2109And, for once, my luck held. I spotted my quarry walking down the street at about the same time I originally had. The next few days proved my original hopes correct: This was the direction he went when he left work for the day. I wasn't yet ready to follow; there was too much activity at the shop and my ducking out would seem suspicious, even if I wasn't actually doing anything here. Jayehs told me that it was customary for owners to watch their businesses like this, though I didn't know if that was the truth or if he was just trying to make me feel useful.
2110
2111Once the shop opened, however, that was easily remedied. I got to set the hours for the store, after all, so I made them such that I could leave just in time to meet the doctor on the road. I expected some objection from my translator, but he told me that there was apparently no such thing as standard hours for merchants in this part of the city. Many shops, in an attempt to seem more exclusive, were open at odd times, and many more were appointment-only. The times I was opening the shop were nearly normal compared to the rest of the district.
2112
2113So it was on the second day of business (usual nonstandard hours aside, it was apparently tradition for opening day to be as long as possible) that I spotted my quarry once more. I told my workers - more accurately, told Jayehs to tell my workers, as they didn't speak any Trade at all - to start closing up, as I wanted to make my way home.
2114
2115The moment I left the shop, I started moving. For the second time, I was tracking the Witchdoctor.
2116
2117*************************
211820
2119
2120He went home.
2121
2122The Witchdoctor's home was one of those neighborhoods where I looked out of place. Admittedly, there were a lot fewer of those now that I looked respectable, but they still existed. The government district in general, even the Gold Road specifically, still had its share of foreigners. The more I followed my quarry, the fewer of them I saw, until I was the only one. I would have abandoned the chase at that point, given the near impossibility of blending in, but by this point I'd learned that the Witchdoctor was a man who never bothered to look around. He only had eyes for his destination, thankfully.
2123
2124I was tempted, by the time we got to the residential area that only the most important of government functionaries called home, to take the underground tunnels. I was attracting more than my share of suspicious gazes, and even if my target were oblivious to his surroundings, that wouldn't stop someone else from telling him about the strange outlander following him. Even if I didn't know the tunnels and my clothing would mark me as someone who definitely wasn't supposed to be there, it would attract less attention than my current situation. Only Pawn Seven's warning stopped me: If the tunnels were as deadly as she warned, any attention would be bad attention.
2125
2126Thankfully, while one of the enforcers of the intelligence service did apparently rate a home in the second most exclusive neighborhood of Utijan, he apparently didn't get one of the better ones further in. I saw him go into a modest house only slightly larger than the one that I'd been gifted, and he did not leave for the short period of time that I remained.
2127
2128If this were Opal or any number of the other districts in Utijan, I could find a gutter child like I'd once been, and hire him to keep an eye on the house. But any such contacts here would be literally underground, and they'd probably murder me on sight. The only way to confirm that this was my target's living space would be to follow him regularly. Now that I knew the route, I'd be able to figure out one that involved more subtlety.
2129
2130Unfortunately, confirmation had to wait: If I followed him the next day, even if I stayed well back, the other onlookers who'd seen me before would certainly notice my presence again. Once could be written off as a new-money foreigner getting lost, but twice would raise far too many questions. Instead, I tended to the shop and asked my translator veiled questions.
2131
2132"That neighborhood is called Annothangar." Jayehs said. "It doesn't have a Trade translation; it was named for its builder. Legend has it she single-handedly build the wall that surrounds it. A wall that, you may have noted, no longer exists, but still, the legend remains."
2133
2134"Is it a good neighborhood?" I asked. I obviously didn't need to, but I didn't want to let on how much I knew about its residents.
2135
2136Jayehs nodded. "Oh yes. The best neighborhood, aside from the palaces of course. But if you are thinking of living there…" he hesitated, "well, they might tolerate your visits. They do like to flaunt their status, after all. But you would likely find nobody willing to sell to you."
2137
2138"I see." I said. I supposed that meant that renting a place with my new persona wasn't a viable option, either. Still, I'd gotten a decent feel for the neighborhood and the local cartographer had filled me in on the parts that I'd missed. I felt confident I could follow the Witchdoctor without him knowing.
2139
2140Still, I spent a week doing nothing to further my goals, just in case. In that time, I saw him only from my vantage point inside the shop. He did nothing unusual, but my business wasn't that far from his workplace, so he had plenty of time to deviate from what I thought his route to be. It was the best I could do, for the time being.
2141
2142The next week, I was caught by surprise when I saw him on the roads far earlier than usual. The work day had barely begun, and it was only luck that I happened to be looking out the window at the time. I made hasty preparations to close the shop for the day, hopefully in time to catch up with him and find out where he was going at such a strange time. I even dared hope that this was the break that I was looking for.
2143
2144It was Jayehs who stopped me. This day was one of the busier days of the month, he told me as I tried to come up with excuses to close up early. It was apparently a quasi-holiday in the government district, and given how anemic business had been so far we could probably not afford to lose today's.
2145
2146None of that was the important part. It was the day itself that gave me pause: It'd been a month exactly that I'd followed the Witchdoctor down into this quarter. That meant I knew exactly where he was going now: Up to the Ward, to perform his dubious ceremonies to keep the Pure in check. I didn't need to see that again. I pretended to be swayed by my translator's arguments, and waited by the window until I saw the Doctor return.
2147
2148Later that night I did get to follow him, and he lead me directly back to the place I'd assumed was his home. I managed to evade the curious gazes of others this time by sticking to the back streets that anyone could have used but only the servants actually did. While I spotted one or two of them, they paid me no attention. As deadly as they supposedly were underground, they showed complete deference here on the surface.
2149
2150The next three days were the same: I'd close the shop in the evening, follow the Witchdoctor to Annothangar, and stealthily make my way back home. I was reasonably certain that the building I'd trailed him to was his house at this point; either that or it was someone who he visited every single day, in which case it was practically the same: I knew where to find him. Not that I wanted to: He could literally kill me with a thought. I had no way of asking him questions, beyond taking him back to my magic-proof room and trying to interrogate him through the walls. Of course, the hard part would be getting him there. For now, I had to wait and hope he'd lead me somewhere useful.
2151
2152On the last day of the week, he did.
2153
2154It was fairly early in his usual routine when he took a different street than I was expecting. As much as I'd been waiting for exactly this to happen, it almost took me by surprise. Still, I managed to keep him in sight as I changed course. This new route was nearly the one I would have taken if I were going home, which was also unexpected. Wherever he was going, it wasn't further into the government district.
2155
2156In fact, his destination ended up not being in the government district at all. At first, I thought he might be heading back to the Ward for some reason. If that were the case then it wasn't a total loss, no doubt he had some reason for going there off-schedule, but I wouldn't be able to follow him in to find out what it was. Nobody would believe a fish deliverer dressed like this.
2157
2158But though we were near the Ward, he didn't go in. In fact, we couldn't even see the entrance from our vantage. Instead, he ended up outside a small house in one of the residential areas of the Wardsmouth. There was nothing special about the house; it was like most of the others in this neighborhood. New enough to not have obvious defects but old enough to command respect, the houses here were obviously pricey but also likely within the reach of the kinds of people who lived here or aspired to live here. My persona could have owned this house and raised no eyebrows.
2159
2160That wasn't what stopped me in my tracks, however. No, what made me freeze in place and my blood run cold was that the Witchdoctor was no longer alone. Outside the house, apparently waiting for him to join them, were three other people.
2161
2162I blanked my mind with the sort of skill that Rook would have been proud of. I mentally doubled down on the believe-my-own-cover spell. It wouldn't explain my presence here, and it certainly wouldn't explain why I was following them, but it would hold up under any scrutiny that any of them could bring to bear. Because I had no doubt in my mind that the three people standing in front of that house were none other than the other three enforcers.
2163
2164Having now laid eyes on them, I tried to remember if I'd spotted them in the crowds that I'd watched from my storefront, but failed. If they had been there, they hadn't aroused my suspicion. At least now I knew who to look for, assuming I made it out of this situation alive.
2165
2166I didn't know which was which. Bishop had referred to the Rioter and the Illusionist as 'she', and all three were women. Only the Witchdoctor stood out. I wasn't worried about them, though, it was the Ephemeral I had to watch for. While even she would not be able to break through the cover spell that the Queen had placed on me, she was still capable of rewriting my memories, of making me forget who and what I was, and of course of simply killing me outright.
2167
2168I was prepared to run - I probably should have already been running, really. Their power might encompass a city but I was reasonably sure I could still lose myself in a crowd. If I got a big enough head start, I might actually survive this thing.
2169
2170And yet, I couldn't move. This might be the break I'd been waiting for. As excited as I'd been earlier in the week for the false hope that the Doctor's Ward excursion had given me, this was even more intense. What would bring the four enforcers together, if not meeting with their father? Was the Subtle Man in that very home? I didn't dare think like that; for all I knew the four simply got together for a game of cards to unwind after a hard week's work.
2171
2172They had a brief conversation. I couldn't hear the words from this distance, but I certainly wasn't going to get any closer. Chances were good they were speaking Hidna, anyway. The tone of the conversation was light, however, and nobody looked or even gestured my way. After some time, they went in.
2173
2174My self-imposed paralysis vanished. While I briefly had the thought to stay and see how long the house's guests remained, common sense told me that I'd risked far too much already. Now that I knew where the second house was, I could find my way back here on a night that I knew that Witchdoctor wouldn't be there. Hopefully his sisters would also be absent. While it was possible that the house belonged to them, I doubted it. They, too, would be entitled to a place in Annothangar, or at the very least a larger house. Mind made up, I quietly made my way back home.
2175
2176It was pleasant waking up the next day, having not been interrupted by intelligence agents on a midnight raid. If any of the enforcers had detected my presence the night before, they had apparently decided that I was just some hapless merchant wandering by.
2177
2178Still, that was no reason to take chances. That night I followed my own routine by following the Witchdoctor's. My store didn't close for the weekends and apparently the intelligence service similarly didn't take days off, so though the patterns of travel were different for everyone else, they remained the same for us. I verified that he made it to his ordinary home, and then made it back to mine. I did the same the next day. I did spot one of the other four I'd seen, but I didn't dare try to follow her - two out of three of the women could effectively read minds, and following the Illusionist would be pointless.
2179
2180I spent the first day of the next work week following the Doctor, just to make sure that he was conforming to schedule, but the more time passed the more urgency I felt. I had to know what was in that other house. If it was my target, I had to start planning how to contact him and get him out of the Empire, preferably before his children met up at his house again.
2181
2182So the very next day, I followed the Witchdoctor for what I hoped was the very last time. He went to his home, same as every other day. And after I'd risked a few curious glares to make sure he stayed there, I left the government sector and traced my way back up to the Wardsmouth.
2183
2184The house looked the same as it had the day I'd first seen it. Faint candlelight lit it from inside, but there was nobody outside and no other sign that anything was going on. I made up a quick cover story: My 'business associate' that had stood me up repeatedly in the past actually lived in this neighborhood, and I, tired of his constant malingering, had tracked him down to what I thought was his house. I would, of course, be embarrassed and contrite to the person whose house I had 'mistakenly' discovered. Picturing my oafish but imaginary associate as clearly as I could in my surface thoughts, I stepped forward on to the lawn and prepared to tell my tale.
2185
2186I froze in my tracks.
2187
2188At first, I thought it was the same kind of panic reaction I'd had when I'd seen all four of the Enforcers in one place, but that hadn't felt nearly as total as this did. I was so locked up that I could barely blink, and in one horrible moment I realized why.
2189
2190"It's amazing," the Witchdoctor's voice came from behind me, and I could not turn to look, "how people think that I don't notice them."
2191
2192After a few moments, he walked around in front of me. It occurred to me that I'd never heard him speak before, and he'd certainly never heard me, but he spoke Trade fluently and almost completely without an accent.
2193
2194"Oh, I understand why people think that. I can't read your mind or your emotions, after all. But what you don't realize, what nobody seems to realize, is that I know your body better than you do," he said. "And while I can't read your mind, I can read your body. Every footstep, every glance, every hesitating moment that would be invisible to an ordinary onlooker, I know. I've known where you were every single time you tried to hide yourself from me."
2195
2196I tried to reply to protest my innocence, to tell my cover story that the spell would back up, but my mouth would not open.
2197
2198"I know who you are, or at least who you'd like me to think you are." The Witchdoctor started walking around me, but he didn't relinquish his hold over my body; I could not turn to follow him. "Gold Row merchant, newly come into an inherited fortune, trying to sell ink to your betters. But the thing is…" and here he was in front of me again, "A merchant might have been curious enough to follow me from the ward. I have a reputation, after all, and perhaps you wanted to see if it were true. Fair enough. But a merchant doesn't repeatedly follow an agent of the Empire's Intelligence Service home. A merchant do not try to tag along to clandestine meetings far away from any legitimate business. So: What are you, really?"
2199
2200I still could not speak.
2201
2202"Huh," a woman's voice came from my side. "He actually is a merchant. Would you believe that?"
2203
2204Oh, shit. Of the four, only two could read minds, and only one with enough clarity to have pulled that information out of my head: The Ephemeral. Probably the worst one for me to end up in the hands of, and she was standing no more than a foot to my right.
2205
2206The Witchdoctor's face clouded. "No. I would not believe that."
2207
2208The Ephemeral made some gesture that I couldn't see. "Well, he believes he's a merchant. If he's a sleeper, he's very deep under."
2209
2210The Doctor looked back at me, still frowning. "Foreign… merchant… following me around because he doesn't have the imagination to know any better. You remind me of someone."
2211
2212"His father." The Ephemeral said, pulling again from my cover story. "The 'spy' you executed in Chankota was his father."
2213
2214The Witchdoctor looked back at his sister. "He was a spy. Just because you killed him with your questioning doesn't mean he was innocent."
2215
2216"It was an Antimahatana Abshishaal that killed him, not me," she wasn't protesting forcefully; clearly this was a conversation they'd had before. This whole lecture was a treasure trove of information about the enforcers, though I doubted I'd live to report it.
2217
2218"And what kind of merchant," the Witchdoctor asked idly, still looking at me, "has one of those? I doubt the ink trade has such secrets they're worth dying over. Still, no sense taking chances. I'll be handling the interrogation this time."
2219
2220"Ugh." The Ephemeral said. "Can't we do it my way? He doesn't have one, else it'd have already gone off when I went editing his memories." I'd have shuddered if I had any control over my body, and she picked up on it: "Sorry, kid, couldn't have you remembering all those times you caught me spying on you after you got done spying on him."
2221
2222"I won't leave you out entirely," the Witchdoctor replied, ignoring the byplay. "After I've filled his mind with pain long enough that he talks, I'll let you confirm what he's said is the truth. People say anything to make it stop, after all."
2223
2224The Ephemeral made a face. "No, no thank you. I've seen the minds of your victims. You figure out if he's lying or not."
2225
2226The Witchdoctor shrugged. "Makes no difference to me. Now," he said, turning his gaze back to meet mine, "I'm going to have you walk with me for a while. We're visiting a building you've no doubt seen from the outside. I think you'll find the inside is a lot less decorative and a lot more… utilitarian, shall we say?"
2227
2228My legs moved of their own accord to turn me around, but before they finished the movement, another voice broke in.
2229
2230"Oh, am I too late?" he said. I couldn't see the speaker, but the fact that it was male was unexpected.
2231
2232The Witchdoctor had seemed vaguely angry with me, and occasionally angry at his sister, but I clearly had not seen him at the height of his rage until now. "What," he spat, "are you doing here?"
2233
2234"Aww, nice to see you too Adhita," The mystery voice said. "Daya, you're looking well. It's been too long since we've had a good conversation, and in Trade no less!"
2235
2236I couldn't see the Ephemeral - Daya, apparently - react, but the Witchdoctor Adhita was apparently having none of this. "Go. Away." He enunciated hatefully. "This has nothing to do with you."
2237
2238The newcomer chuckled. "See, that's where you're wrong…."
2239
2240I was still wondering who this voice belonged to, and why it was that Adhita hadn't just shut him up the way he'd done to me, when my entire world went black.
2241
2242*************************
224321
2244
2245I came to in a dungeon.
2246
2247I'd woken up in a prison cell a number of times in my life, and while this bore a certain resemblance to one, the word 'dungeon' was definitely more applicable. This cell had no bed, no water, no chamberpot. It was a stone box with a heavy door that did not open from this side.
2248
2249I got up tentatively, probing for injuries as I did so. My memory of the previous night wasn't entirely clear, but I'd been knocked out somehow, and I knew that if you hit someone hard enough to knock them out there was a decent chance they weren't going to wake up again.
2250
2251The fact that I seemed to be entirely uninjured was little solace, because that meant I'd been knocked out by someone capable of doing so without hurting me. A wizard might have managed that, but the only wizard I knew was on another continent at the moment. A much more likely candidate was the Witchdoctor. He no doubt knew a dozen ways to pinch off consciousness without causing permanent injury. That meant that whoever the mystery voice had been, he had not been there to rescue me.
2252
2253I paced out the confines of the cell, but something about the texture of the walls disturbed me as I did so. I'd thought they were stone, at first, but that wasn't what they felt like. I sat down and felt the floor to see that it was the same not-stone material, but it wasn't until I tried using magic that I was sure.
2254
2255It was a simple handful of fire, the kind I'd used to light my way in Chankota. Unlike then, however, this was barely a flicker of light before it vanished entirely. I couldn't work my magic, which meant that the walls and floor weren't stone: They were iron. Magic-proof, like the room back at my house. My cell wasn't just designed to hold ordinary people, it was designed to hold anyone.
2256
2257That didn't bode well. Iron wasn't exactly expensive, but you didn't waste it building magic-proof cells unless you had a good reason to and weren't terribly concerned about the cost. Whoever had me in these cells apparently had reason to imprison those more magically talented than I was. The only thing that came to mind was the Empire's Intelligence Service.
2258
2259If the Ephemeral were going to interrogate me, it'd be one thing. My cover story would take care of that. But the Witchdoctor had indicated he'd be asking the questions, and he could torture me to death's doorstep without worry that he'd overdo it. The cover story would hold up, but would I?
2260
2261I understood why the previous Bishop had elected for a Zìshan Mon Zhouk; likely the same thing as the Antimahatana Abshishaal that Ephemeral Daya had referred to the night before. It was almost certainly the less painful way out, and it gave up no useful information to the enemy.
2262
2263I doubted that I could create one for myself, but I had nothing else to do in the cell. I knew that everyone had unconscious blocks in their mind that prevented them from being harmed by their own magic - it was the reason I could hold my fire in my hand without burning myself. Each was unique to the person - my magic, thin though it was, could harm someone else, just not myself. The first step of constructing my own curse was to dismantle those defenses.
2264
2265By the time someone arrived at my cell, I'd gotten precisely nowhere. It turned out that unconscious defenses were almost impossible to undo because they were almost impossible to even find in the first place. How could I locate something I couldn't perceive? I'd long been of the opinion that I could have mastered the more powerful forms of magic had I dedicated my life to wizardry, but it seemed the reality was that it was much more hard work than I'd hoped.
2266
2267The door, it turned out, had a slot near the top. I discovered this when it opened and a faint light poured in, light that was almost immediately obscured by someone's head.
2268
2269"The desert's rain came without fog this year," a voice said from outside the cell.
2270
2271My thoughts swam. It was the same code phrase that Pawn Eight had used to identify himself to me. Had one of my people infiltrated the Empire's Intelligence Service? Or had Daya pulled the words from my mind and then removed my memory of her having done so? The voice outside was a woman's, though it didn't sound quite like the Ephemeral.
2272
2273Either way, I had to play along. "The night's fog cleared the desert rain." I said.
2274
2275"You don't have to identify yourself to me, Bishop," the voice replied. "I've had my eye on you for a while now, trying to warn you away from exactly this."
2276
2277There was one person I knew who fit that description and would know the code phrase: "Pawn Seven?" It wasn't, strictly speaking, a good idea to use the moniker when someone could overhear us, but at this point that was the least of our problems.
2278
2279"Yes." She said.
2280
2281"Are you here to get me out?" I asked. It was entirely possible she was instead here to make sure I didn't have a chance to talk to the Witchdoctor again. Considering I'd spent my time awake trying to do that same thing, I couldn't blame her.
2282
2283"Yes and no. I'm to bring you to the boss, and he'll decide what to do with you." Her responses were strange - seemingly without emotion. Then again, it might have been the magic-proof walls depriving me of the usual surface thoughts I'd be detecting.
2284
2285"So you've infiltrated them?" I asked, not sure where she was going with this.
2286
2287"There's no time for this," she said in the same matter-of-fact way. "I volunteered to be the one to bring you because you know me. But I also did this so that I could warn you: He knows everything."
2288
2289"Who does?"
2290
2291She didn't answer that question, instead continuing her speech. "Tell him the truth. All of it. He already knows, because he made me tell him. The organization, our lady, he knows about it. He took away…" she faltered, though still betrayed no emotion. "I cannot lie to him. If he thinks you are lying, he'll do the same thing to you he did to me."
2292
2293The hope that I'd been beginning to feel died. Pawn Seven hadn't infiltrated anything; she'd been captured, just like I had.
2294
2295She opened the door. "We have to go, now. He won't want us talking for long."
2296
2297I wanted to run. Pawn Seven wouldn't stop me, she might even have come armed and so could supply me. But I suspected that she'd been allowed to be the one to get me, that if I ran from her I'd be dooming both of us in the process. Still, my legs tensed and it took an effort of will not to simply bolt through the open door. Pawn Seven just nodded to me, as though she understood everything that'd just gone through my mind. She probably had.
2298
2299The hallway was also a dungeon, though this time the floors were actually stone. Only my cell and the one across from it were made of iron, the others were ordinary cells. Torches provided little light, but enough to see that the rest of the cells were empty. People apparently didn't stay long down here, and I suspected that was not because they were set free.
2300
2301Pawn Seven started walking down the hallway, continuing to talk as she did so. "He calls himself King," she said, answering my earlier question. "He finds it amusing because it's similar to our name for our lady."
2302
2303"So he already knows about the Queen, then?" I asked even though she'd already confirmed that he did.
2304
2305Pawn Seven paused. "See, you said her name just now, and I still don't know it." She looked back at me. "He took it." She tapped her head, then looked down, breaking the gaze. "Don't let him catch you lying," she repeated in that same dull voice she'd had the entire time. After a moment, she resumed the walk.
2306
2307What the hell had the Witchdoctor done to her? I recalled the Ephemeral from the confrontation the night before; she'd said she didn't want anything to do with her brother's methods. Was this why?
2308
2309We went up a stairway, narrower than I would have expected. We entered another dull stone room, this one empty and seemingly abandoned. What its purpose was, I could not guess. It did seem odd; if I were under the Intelligence building or in some other dungeon, I would expect the rooms to be less… desolate than this. People would work here. No matter how fast their turnover, I'd have expected to see someone else in the cells. For that matter, where were the guards?
2310
2311We exited the room, to the outside, and I found out.
2312
2313The building I'd just left had once been a police station; now it was crumbling and neglected. I saw any number of other buildings, all in similar states of disrepair, some worse. Most were stone, and what little wooden structures remained were either almost entirely rotted or completely ad-hoc. It was a bizarre landscape of broken architecture, lit fitfully by torches or luminescent fungi. Despite its alien seeming, I recognized it instantly, because I'd grown up somewhere just like it: I was in Utijan's undercity.
2314
2315Like Opal, Utijan had been around a long time, and had weathered several disasters. Each time, people would rebuild atop the ruins, but in many cases those ruins remained, just underground. The Queen had set up shop in a place not too dissimilar from the one I was in now. And like that area, this one was filled with people who couldn't live in the streets above. Homeless, criminals, abandoned children… it was just like back home.
2316
2317On one hand, I felt relief. The Empire's Intelligence Service no doubt had their own dungeons; they wouldn't have needed to co-opt ruins to detain their prisoners. I wasn't in their custody. That left the other hand: If not them, then who had me? Who had coerced Pawn Seven out of her cover? If King wasn't the Witchdoctor, then who was he? "Seven," I said as she navigated us through the various debris and around the growing crowd of people following us, "I came to Utijan to-"
2318
2319"Don't tell me." She ordered, not looking back. "I told you, I can't lie to him. If you tell me, he'll make me tell him. Only tell him if he asks, and do not lie!"
2320
2321I was about to tell her my mission, because I was beginning to suspect that it and this King were very much related. Who could have knocked me out without harming me? Who had the ability to compel the truth, to know lies? The Ephemeral, sure, but that was a 'she' and she certainly wouldn't have brought me here instead of the intelligence service's dungeons. What about the mysterious man who'd showed up last night and apparently gotten me away from both a Witchdoctor and an Ephemeral unharmed? Who could do all of those things?
2322
2323A Pure Mind could.
2324
2325If the man calling himself King was in fact my ultimate target, then my job here was nearly done. All I had to do was tell him my mission - as Pawn Seven advised - and get him to return to Opal with me. It was only if he refused that my job would go from 'impossible' to 'deadly impossible'.
2326
2327I began to wonder, as we walked, if I was even a prisoner here. Waking up in a dungeon had certainly indicated so, but I hadn't been manacled, and while we were certainly objects of curiosity for the people we were passing by, they didn't regard us with fear or hate. Besides Pawn Seven herself, I hadn't spotted a single person I would have called a guard. I could probably leave right now. Sure, I didn't know my way around the undercity, but growing up in one had honed my sense of direction to a point. I would start out lost, but I wouldn't end that way.
2328
2329Of course, if King were who I thought he was, escaping would be counterproductive. He was exactly the person I needed to see.
2330
2331As we walked, I noticed something: There were people who were better dressed, running across the remains of the ancient roads. They weren't dressed like me, though my suit had certainly seen better days, but they did have a certain bearing that I only recognized when one got close enough to a torch for me to see clearly.
2332
2333"Those are the servants for the government quarter." I said to Pawn Seven.
2334
2335"Yes." She replied.
2336
2337"Then we're underneath it right now?" I asked.
2338
2339"Yes." She said again. She hesitated, clearly not wanting to say more, but then: "This is the reason I warned you away from here, Bishop. I did not want you to fall prey to the same trap that I did."
2340
2341I shivered. I'd been hoping that my target, the Pure Mind I was to bring back with me, would be like the only other one I knew: Reasonable and uninterested in altering the minds of their subjects. But I had only to reflect on what had been done to Pawn Seven to realize this was not likely to be the case. Still, what choice did I have?
2342
2343We came at last to a larger building, this one spanning the entire height between the ground and uneven ceiling above. It had likely been some government building once, but had been extensively vandalized in its time belowground. Crude columns had been carved into its side, and across the top were the words "Vah Ashoon Saamraalj". It was obviously a parody of the Empire's Intelligence Service, though these words were in Hidna and the spy headquarters' name had been in Trade, likely to intimidate foreigners.
2344
2345"What does that say?" I asked Pawn Seven. I didn't know if she could speak the language, but she almost certainly spoke more of it than I did.
2346
2347She just shook her head and changed the subject. "Whatever happens in there, know that I am loyal to our lady." She said with solemnity. "I was forced into where I am now. No matter what he says, no matter what he does, no matter what he makes me say or do… I remain loyal."
2348
2349With that, she opened the door to the building. I followed her through.
2350
2351Like the dungeons, this building was mostly abandoned. Some of the homeless had found a place here; those that I saw seemed less haggard and more well-fed than their brethren outside. More children were here as well, though those only on the bottom floor. Pawn Seven led us up.
2352
2353The second floor was more damaged than the first; this is where it and whatever government building it served as support for intersected. There was no way up to that building, whatever it was, just the ragged stone hanging above our heads.
2354
2355The people in this room were healthy and armed. These were the kind of people I expected to hold the undercity; gang members and their supporters, all hard people whose eyes held no kindness for me.
2356
2357They didn't matter, though, because like many gangs they were held in place by their leader, and in this case that could be none other than the one who called himself King.
2358
2359He wasn't hard to spot: he was better dressed than nearly everyone in the room. He held himself differently, as though he knew he had absolute power over everyone and everything he could see. And of course the large stone throne he'd chosen for a seat was a bit of a clue as well.
2360
2361"So," he said. "Fancy meeting you here." It was the same voice I'd heard the night before, which explained how I'd apparently escaped unharmed.
2362
2363"I've brought the prisoner, as ordered." Pawn Seven said.
2364
2365"'Prisoner' is such a strong word," he replied. "I mean, I did rescue you from the clutches of the empire, I don't think it's too much to ask you to be my guest for a while?"
2366
2367"I woke up in a dungeon." I said.
2368
2369"To be fair," he replied, "we're having a bit of a shortage on guest housing at the moment." There was a rumble of laughter from the crowd and he grinned at them, then turned back to me. "What should I call you?"
2370
2371"Bishop." I said.
2372
2373He made an impatient gesture. "Yes, yes, that's very thematic, what with the Pawn," he gestured to Pawn Seven, "and the King," he gestured to himself, "but I want to know your real name."
2374
2375If it had been Daya questioning me, I would have answered with my Luthra identity. The spell that the Queen had put on me would allow me to believe it beyond any ability of hers to deconstruct. But the person before me was on the Queen's level. He alone was capable of seeing through it, and Pawn Seven's condition had indicated that that would end very badly for me. Instead I told a truth that I'd shared with very few people: "If you want my birth name, I don't know it."
2376
2377"Oh?" He said. He seemed intrigued but didn't seem to disbelieve me. "And why is that?"
2378
2379"Because I was abandoned as a child in the Opal Undercity, in a place very much like this." I said.
2380
2381"Well!" He said, apparently full of good cheer that I instinctively knew I couldn't trust, "That makes two of us, doesn't it? Abandoned by those who were supposed to support us, cast low yet more driven to rise up because of it? Oh yes, I can see we're going to get along splendidly."
2382
2383I tried to fit in what he was saying with what little I knew about the Subtle Man. The person before me was far too young to be the father of the four enforcers I'd seen previously. But of course, appearances were deceiving with the Pure Minds. Assuming he wasn't just wearing an illusion outright, he could have easily kept himself young over the years. And if he'd somehow been overthrown by his children - at least one of which had seemed very angry to see him - that would certainly fit his abandonment narrative. I wasn't sure how that was possible, but even the Pure that I'd talked to in the Ward seemed to think that enough of the enforcers was a match for them.
2384
2385"So," he said, bringing my thoughts back around to the present, "Bishop: that is what I will call you because I don't feel like coming up with a real name for you, and you may call me King. Bishop, why are you here? And don't say 'because you brought me here', I know that part. I mean why are you in Utijan? It's a long way from Opal."
2386
2387"My cover story," I said, taking care to speak only the truth, "is that I'm a merchant's son, who inherited his business from his father."
2388
2389King smiled a predator's smile. "I see that Seven has impressed upon you the importance of being truthful. That cover story, you could believe that if you needed to, couldn't you? I can see the spell in your mind. Very subtle, very good, but not hidable from someone like me. Our reluctant recruit," he indicated Pawn Seven, "had something similar in her mind when I first found her. Tell him what I did, Seven."
2390
2391"You took it from me." Pawn Seven said in her cold, emotionless voice.
2392
2393"And why did I do that?" He asked.
2394
2395If Pawn Seven were embarrassed or uncomfortable with the line of questioning, she did not betray it in any way. "Because I would not tell you what you wished to know."
2396
2397King frowned. "Careful, Seven, you know what your limits are." Without explanation as to what that could mean, he turned to me. "My point is, you can't rely on your patron's protection. I expect full cooperation. So while your cover story is a cute little anecdote and you did not lie by telling it to me, it did not answer my question." His jovial tone, impermanent at best, disappeared entirely, "Why are you here?" He demanded.
2398
2399"I was sent here by an underground organization in Opal." If what Pawn Seven had said was true, he already knew where I was from, but that didn't make it feel any less like a betrayal to speak those words. I knew I would have had to tell the target the truth regardless, but I would have prefered to do so on my own terms, in a way that felt less like I was a prisoner under interrogation.
2400
2401"Now we're getting somewhere!" King exclaimed, jovial tone back. He sat back on his throne and gestured for me to go on.
2402
2403Time for the truth, then. I didn't like the fact that I had a room's worth of people as an audience, but something told me that King would have no compunction about making them forget what they'd heard. "I was sent here to find a Pure Mind, and persuade him to return to Opal."
2404
2405Pawn Seven reacted to that, but I couldn't interpret what her sudden tenseness meant. She hadn't known my mission, true, but it shouldn't have been that surprising. King just chuckled. "To what end?" He said.
2406
2407"Our organization," I said, still hating to acknowledge that it even existed, let alone its goals, "works behind the scenes to improve the overall course of life in Opal. It is such a goal that our leader does not believe she will attain in her natural lifetime. She wishes for.. continuity."
2408
2409"Wait wait wait wait," King said, "Are you seriously telling me that your Queen hired you to travel across the continent so that you could play matchmaker?" He laughed, and the room laughed with him.
2410
2411I waited for the mocking to die down. "Yes. The Queen is… she's a good person. Not just a good Pure, but a good human being. I'd like you to consider what such continuity would mean not just for the people of Opal, but everyone." It was reaching, but I had to sell him on this somehow. "Opal is a trade city, improvements there go a long way. We have a saying: Opal's gain is the world's gain."
2412
2413"You'd like me to consider." He said, laughing again. "Oh, wow, that is very flattering, let me tell you that. I can honestly say I've never been propositioned in such a convoluted manner before. But I believe your story if for no other reason than you can't possibly have made up something that bizarre. I need some time to contemplate your proposal. I need to confer with my generals." He gestured at the crowd, which laughed again. "Seven, I'm pulling rank on Bishop's behalf. He gets your room. I don't care where you sleep. Now get out of here, the both of you."
2414
2415Pawn Seven didn't object to this, instead gesturing for me to follow her out of the room. Occasional chuckles went through the crowd as we passed through it, then down the stairs to the rest of the building below.
2416
2417"Well," I said once we were out of earshot, though of course King could probably read my mind anywhere, "that went about as well as could be expected."
2418
2419Pawn Seven stopped where she was. She turned around to face me. "No." She said.
2420
2421I immediately felt guilty - Pawn Seven had had her mind tampered with by the man above, and when backup from her own organization had finally arrived, it immediately attempted to recruit him. "I'm sorry, Pawn Seven, the mission-"
2422
2423"Not that." She interrupted. "Not the mission." She added unhelpfully.
2424
2425"Then what?" I asked.
2426
2427Her jaw tightened; clearly she could feel frustration, at least. "King is… a very… dangerous… man. He is not… safe." she said finally. I could almost sense something in her surface thoughts, but then it was gone and she was back to her usual placid tonelessness.
2428
2429"I'm sorry." I said again. I could tell she was trying to talk around whatever constraints he'd put in her mind, but I couldn't determine what she was trying to tell me that I hadn't already figured out. I'd known when I accepted the mission that I'd be dealing with a danger that I'd previously thought to be nearly mythological.
2430
2431Pawn Seven relaxed her jaw, seemingly giving up for now. "Come this way. I'll show you to my old room."
2432
2433*************************
243422
2435
2436Pawn Seven's room was an improvised shack of rotting lumber barely large enough to hold her, let alone me. I tried to convince her that I was perfectly fine sleeping outside on the ground, but she wouldn't hear of it. "Orders." Was her only explanation. So I slept in her room, and she slept outside on the ground. I wasn't sure if she was there to make sure I wasn't trying to escape, or to protect me against the others. Opal's undercity had been a place of casual violence, after all, and I suspected that Utijan was much the same.
2437
2438In the morning, she woke me and wordlessly led me through the maze of the undercity. It spanned the entire government quarter and had connections to the other parts of the city as well. We used one of those she apparently deemed safe enough to return to the surface.
2439
2440"Should I use this opportunity to escape?" I asked her. I'd thought, earlier in the dungeon, that she would aid me if I needed to get out, but that was before I understood the extent of what had happened to her.
2441
2442She didn't reply, instead looking back at me.
2443
2444"The mission's important," I said. "I wish we didn't have to deal with that guy, but… without him, distasteful as it is, there's no more organization."
2445
2446"Not the mission." She said, repeating her words from the day before.
2447
2448"If it's not the mission, then what is it?" I asked, trying to answer her gaze in a way she could understand. "Seven, what… what did he do to you?"
2449
2450Her jaw tensed, but she didn't answer the question.
2451
2452"I understand if you don't want to talk about it." I truly did; there were definitely parts of my past I wouldn't talk to anyone else about. But the frustration evident in her stance told me she did want to talk about something, she just couldn't. "You can't…" I said, finally realizing it. "You can't talk about it."
2453
2454"No." She said. "I can't talk about what was done to me except to someone who already knows."
2455
2456My eyebrows raised; I'd somehow gotten a sensible answer. "And I already knew?"
2457
2458"You knew I couldn't talk. Close enough. If I can make it reasonable in my head, I can get around some of the restrictions." She said. Her voice was still monotone and her surface thoughts still placid, but there seemed to be some relief that she could finally talk about something.
2459
2460"Did he hurt you?" I asked. I didn't think that the Queen would want to deal with someone who'd harmed one of ours, continuity or no.
2461
2462"It doesn't hurt," she said, "it's just… missing. Like the name of our lady, there are parts of my mind that are simply gone and will not come back." She didn't seem upset about this, but then again it was entirely possible that she could no longer be upset. The more I talked to her, the more trepidation I felt about the mission. I'd figured that the Queen could handle one of her peers, but King seemed far more vindictive than I'd considered.
2463
2464"I wish there was another option," I said.
2465
2466Pawn Seven did not answer, but it was a non-answer that I was beginning to think was her way of signaling me to talk more.
2467
2468"Is there another option?" I asked.
2469
2470She just looked back at me.
2471
2472I remembered what she'd said, about only being able to reveal what I already knew. "There is another option," I said, as though it were fact.
2473
2474"Yes." She said, again seemingly relieved to speak. "There is."
2475
2476I was getting the hang of this. "I know everything about this person," I said. "Why don't you tell me what you know and we can compare notes?"
2477
2478"Unfortunately, I know nothing." She said. "Only that he exists, and there's some connection that I used to know but don't anymore. I think King took that from me, but not the way he did the restrictions, that I can work around. It's gone forever, whatever it was." Her voice was as even as always.
2479
2480Maybe I was reading too much into it, and she wasn't sad at all in this state, but it certainly hurt me to see her this way. "Listen," I said to her. "When I go back to Opal, I will bring you with us. The Queen - our lady, that is - she can fix what happened to you." I hoped that was true.
2481
2482Pawn Seven's response was that same even look she'd given me before, and I didn't have to think for long to realize what she wanted me to say.
2483
2484"I'm not going back to Opal, am I?"
2485
2486"He will never let you leave." She said. "If you don't believe me, look no further than my own situation. I don't even remember where Opal is, anymore."
2487
2488I grit my teeth. "Then let's go now. I still remember." At least, I hoped I did and hadn't had my mental geography swapped out for something incorrect by either King or Daya. "I can still accomplish the mission later, after you're safe."
2489
2490"I think…" she said, "that I don't know the world outside this city. I think, sometimes, that there may not be a world outside. I certainly can't remember it. I think, to go to a place that my mind was convinced was not real, even as the rest of me saw its obvious truth, I think… I think such a thing would kill me." She paused. "It is within his power to kill."
2491
2492"Well," I said, "there's an alternative. And since you're not safe in the city and might not be safe outside it, I'll work alongside you to find that alternative."
2493
2494"Thank you." She said. Her voice was the same monotone it'd been the whole time and her surface thoughts were opaque as ever, but I thought she really meant it. "Now, let us do what I brought us here to do," she continued, "Eat."
2495
2496We acquired food - my coin purse had been unharmed by my incarceration - and then returned to the underground. When we arrived, one of the toughs from King's crowd was standing outside Seven's shack. My shack now, I supposed.
2497
2498"King wants to see you." He said, watching me as though he were hoping I'd resist so he'd have an excuse to hurt me. I knew his type, and so long as I didn't show him any fear I had nothing to worry about. At this point, I was well past fear, especially of people like him.
2499
2500"Lead the way," I said. He grumbled but did so, and Pawn Seven followed after us. If this wasn't part of the plan, the guide gave no sign. Instead, we came to the same building, went up the same stairs, and entered the same throne room. Today's crowd was, if anything, bigger than yesterday's. I wasn't sure how they could all fit, especially given that the room had been near capacity before.
2501
2502"Make way," my reluctant guide said. "Make way!" he shouted when people didn't move fast enough. When even that didn't work, he grunted and just started shoving people. I followed quickly in his wake before the crowd could fill in the gaps.
2503
2504The area by the throne itself was clear of people, at least. It still had me standing uncomfortably close to both the guide and King himself, but I could handle that. Pawn Seven had vanished into the crowd at some point, but she was no doubt watching carefully.
2505
2506"So," King said without preamble, "I've been giving your words a lot of thought and, well, I just can't do it." He said this in an overly apologetic voice that I didn't trust for a minute. He continued. "I mean, I'd like to. Not every day a Queen of some secret organization wants to be your bride, but really, there's lots of people who want to marry into this kind of power." He gestured to himself, then faced the crowd. "Am I right?"
2507
2508The crowd cheered, and though I suspected a fair amount of that was forced, it sounded genuine.
2509
2510"Of course I'm right." He said. "And, I mean, I don't actually know that you're on the up and up. You could be a surprisingly tan Dynasty agent. Wouldn't be the first time they'd found me, after all, for all the good that's done them." The crowd laughed and I tried not to wince at the thought of what King had probably done to an agent of an enemy kingdom.
2511
2512He turned his attention from the crowd back to me. "Now, if I could be sure you were loyal, on the other hand? If I knew you weren't trying to sell me out, maybe we could continue the conversation."
2513
2514I knew a veiled suggestion when I heard one. "Of course," I said. "How might I demonstrate good faith?"
2515
2516"Ooh, 'how might I demonstrate', fancy!" He laughed at me, and again the crowd laughed with him. "I don't know if you've noticed, but we're not big on formality here." Another wave of laughter. "There's a reason we all talk Trade, and that's because Hidna is for people who think they're better than you. So don't waste your fancy talk on us."
2517
2518"Gotcha." I said.
2519
2520"That's more like it," he replied. He made a "come here" gesture to the crowd but kept talking to me. "Bishop, let me introduce you to a woman named Pampa. Pampa, this is Bishop. Bishop will be helping you escape."
2521
2522Pampa turned out to be the person he was gesturing for; the young woman emerged from the crowd somewhat nervously.
2523
2524"Pampa," King said, because it was clear the woman was not prepared to speak under the circumstances, "is the offspring of two lovebirds of our very own Ward. See, Adhita is not the only Gifted that makes monthly trips there. I can be convinced, from time to time, to head aboveground if for no other reason than to fuck up his work. And, you know, I love romance or whatever. Pampa, tell our new friend who your parents were."
2525
2526Pampa mumbled something.
2527
2528"Pampa, you're terrible at this," King said. "You've got to learn to speak up! Also, that was in Hidna and he doesn't understand that and what did I just say about Hidna? Anyway," he turned to me, "the point I'm trying to get to here - if people would just start cooperating - is that her father was a Pure Water, and her mother was a Pure Earth. She's a Mudslinger and, like almost all half-breeds, therefore condemned to death."
2529
2530"Death?" I said.
2531
2532"Oh yes. The Pure they'll lock up 'for their own protection', as though anyone believes that. But the rules in the Ward are that you can have all the hanky panky you want, but you can only have a kid with some mundane jerk who won't breed Pure. That means they'll have normal nobody kids like anyone else, in case you're not familiar with the finer points of Pure breeding. Fail to do that, and the penalty is death for everyone involved. Thus the past tense when talking about the parents, but I managed to get Pampa out before they could get to her." King leaned back smugly.
2533
2534"It seems," I said carefully, because there was obviously an agenda here and upsetting it would not be to my advantage, "that you are well suited to helping her escape. You did it once, after all."
2535
2536That was apparently close enough to what I was supposed to say. King grinned. "It might not be humble of me to say so, but you're spot on. Now, that said, I might have mis-implied the order of events there. I got Pampa before her parents met their end, not during or after. So the bad guys weren't looking for her yet. Now, though, well the E.I.S. - that's the intelligence service - had had her on their wanted list pretty much her entire life. She's evidence of some of the many faults of the Ward project, and they'd like very much for that not to exist. That's where you come in."
2537
2538Okay. Smuggle a girl out of town; I could probably do that. If Magen hadn't already left, I could have gotten her on his caravan without question, but I was confident I could find a way to make this happen regardless. To be honest, I was relieved that what King had asked of me wasn't objectionable. It almost seemed the right thing to do. "I'd be glad to see her safely to the border." I said.
2539
2540King laughed. "Oh, I love that enthusiasm. You'll be needing it! Because you're not smuggling her out, come on, you barely know this city. No, your purpose in all of this is to create a diversion. I want all the enforcers focusing on you and not me."
2541
2542That was more in line with what I expected to be asked, but it was still something I could do. "Of course." I said. I could definitely cause a diversion.
2543
2544"Great. It's not important what you do, just that it's flashy enough to get their attention. I'd suggest you destroy the docks, but really, it's up to you." King turned to the young lady. "You could do that, right Pampa?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Go stand behind him."
2545
2546Destroy the docks? That seemed like an unusual suggestion. Pampa stood behind me as though she'd been expecting to be asked that, which was also strange, but not as strange as what happened next.
2547
2548King made a gesture, and I got hit in the back with the force of a mountain falling on me. I think I fell over but I could barely feel that, because I was too busy feeling everything else.
2549
2550The Docks. I still didn't know why King had suggested them, but I could feel them now, I knew exactly where they were in relation to where I stood, because somehow in some way I couldn't effectively explain they were sticking into me. The piers and some of the boats, the people at the shore, the worms and other creatures, all of them pressing on me or through me and it didn't make any sense but it was real, almost more real than the air and stone surrounding me. I tried to fight it, tried to come to my senses, and I felt something move in response.
2551
2552"Woah there," King said, distracting me at least a little bit from the overload in my mind. "Not yet! Wait until later today, when you've got the right audience. I don't need you caving this place in on us. Pampa, Seven, go take this guy off my hands until he sobers up. Then you can explain to him what the hell I just did, but don't explain too much, got it?" This last was said as a threat for reasons that I couldn't possibly comprehend given my mind was still reeling. I tried to make it to my feet and failed. I felt two sets of hands, impossibly distant, haul me up and lead me away from the room. The crowd cheered, or possibly jeered, as I was dragged away.
2553
2554I wasn't sure where I was brought. It was difficult to locate myself, my body, in the expanded mindscape that King had somehow foisted on me. I tried to talk but my voice was the burble of the air through the mud, the sound of rain hitting the ground. It didn't even make sense to me, and I was living it. If Pampa or Pawn Seven understood a word of it, they didn't say, not that I was really capable of hearing much other than the roar of the rivers and the depths of the ocean right now. Eventually, they sat me down.
2555
2556Much later, I found my way back to my body. I discovered I could move it, I could feel it like I felt the cold surface of the ocean floor. I could speak through this body, if I concentrated hard enough. It was difficult to manipulate something that wasn't my element, but I kept at it.
2557
2558"Gurrrnph." I managed.
2559
2560"He's coming around." Pawn Seven said, as unexcited as ever.
2561
2562Pampa filled my field of vision; at some point, my body had been placed on a bed. "Hey, listen to me. It'll be okay." She said.
2563
2564Pawn Seven hadn't been anything special, but this woman who was before me now: I could see that we shared an undeniable and intuitive connection, the same connection that I shared to the shores and riverbeds. I felt my mind begin to thin again, its borders becoming less viscous, much like my element itself. I wondered if I could move Pampa's body the same way that I could move this one.
2565
2566"Stop that!" Pampa said angrily, and that snapped me back. I still felt the unbearable pressure of the world itself against my mind, but it no longer seemed like I was going to leak out of it.
2567
2568"Msorry." I made my body say.
2569
2570"I'm the one who should be sorry." Pampa said, softening her expression. "I had years to get used to it. I didn't think it'd hit you so hard. I should have, I just want to leave this place so badly and you volunteered to hold my power…."
2571
2572I didn't recall volunteering for that, but then again a lot of my memories were worms and silt and buried gold at the moment. "I… what happened?"
2573
2574"He… King, that is, he…." She seemed to struggle for how to speak, and I couldn't tell in my current state if it was because of her apparent shyness or if King had put some kind of restrictions on her the way he had Pawn Seven. "He gave you my power."
2575
2576I had a lot of questions about that. I couldn't deny it, given that I felt a deep and personal connection to every bit of mud in the city, but it still didn't make any sense. "How?" I asked. "Why?"
2577
2578She answered the second question, naturally. "So you could be the diversion." She seemed saddened by this, perhaps only now realizing what this plan would cost. "He told me that he was sure you could make a good diversion on your own. But he said that even if you started a riot, that'd only get the Rioter's attention. We needed three out of the four. The Witchdoctor, the only one who could stop me - I mean you - we already have a distraction for him, but the other three, they're up to you."
2579
2580Slowly, my ability to talk was coming back to me. "They can all stop me." I said. Even if she was right and I somehow had gained the power of a mudslinger, the Rioter could still put me to sleep with a thought. And of course, Daya could make me forget I even had this power… maybe. My connection to the mud certainly felt a lot more prominent than I'd ever imagined it would, and it seemed that sort of thing would be hard to forget. Pampa took a glass of water and poured some of it on the dirt floor beneath us. I didn't see this happen so much as I felt it; it was as though I'd suddenly grown another finger. The ground was a part of me. She reached down to the patch of mud and shaped it. It was simple and intuitive, and I knew that because I knew I could do the same thing. It was like she was teaching me to sculpt by holding my own hands. When she brought her hand back up, she was holding a tiny but intricate statue of a person in it.
2581
2582"You've got most of the power now so this is all I can demonstrate. Just do this," she said, gesturing to the statue. "To your whole body. Make an armor of the mud. It doesn't matter that it's just mud and wouldn't ordinarily stop a crossbow bolt - once that bolt enters that mud, it's yours. You can deflect it easily. You can stop it from hurting your not-mud body. And it's easy to breathe through it, again, for that same reason. Plus, if you show up on the docks looking like this, you'll be a diversion without having to destroy anything. They'll think you're me."
2583
2584"Ah," I said. That made more sense, insofar as any of it made sense. "But that mud… how's that going to stop the Rioter? She'll use her control over my emotions to not make me care enough to stay awake, and then I'll drown in my own armor."
2585
2586Pampa shook her head. She put the little mud-statue down nearby. "No, that's the thing people don't know about Pure combat, or at least half-breed combat. It's not in the scriptures, either, I checked. If you cover yourself in your own element like that, they have no way in. You're protected. The only ones that can get through that are the Witchdoctor and the Illusionist. Everyone else would have to physically break through."
2587
2588"Why them?" I asked.
2589
2590"Earth and Water," Pampa said. "They share one of your elements, so it can't defend you against them. But the Witchdoctor is going to be busy with a manufactured emergency in the Ward, and the Illusionist can't actually hurt you. She can give you all kinds of imaginary nightmares, but she can't break your connection to the mud. So that's your out when she shows up."
2591
2592This was getting better and better. I had another idea. "What about King?" I said. "Isn't he worried I'll shield myself from his power and then grab him and run?" It sounded like a halfway feasible plan, now that I'd said it out loud. Crossing the desert in mud armor would be the hard part.
2593
2594Pampa didn't say anything. Pawn Seven, who had been ignoring the conversation, also didn't say anything, but she looked at me in that same blank way she had earlier in the day.
2595
2596"He can get through the mud." I said.
2597
2598"They can all get through the mud." Pawn Seven confirmed, "But they'd have to fight through it first. It's similar to physically breaking in, you'd be able to stop them before they could finish. King… well, he would have to do the same sort thing but he's pretty good at it at this point."
2599
2600A thought occurred to me: "Wait, is he an Ephemeral too?" That wouldn't have him sharing an element with me, but it would explain how he could do all the mind things I'd seen him do. Or almost all of them; this power swapping thing was something I'd never heard of before. I hadn't thought it was possible even for a Pure Mind, but it clearly was because there was no other way I could be feeling the city's mud like this.
2601
2602They didn't answer that, so I tried rephrasing: "He's an Ephemeral." I said.
2603
2604This time, they didn't confirm it. If I was wrong, though, they would have denied it. In fact, it seemed like they wanted to avoid the topic altogether. I played a hunch: "You can't say what he is."
2605
2606"Correct." Pawn Seven answered. Pampa looked relieved that somebody had spoken up, she seemed to have less practice getting around the rules in their heads.
2607
2608"You can't even hint at what he is, you can't give me an answer one way or another." I said.
2609
2610Since that wouldn't give me an answer as to King's power, Pawn Seven answered it. "Correct again."
2611
2612It made sense - one of the things the Pure seemed to value was privacy and secrecy, and a Pure Mind would be capable of enforcing both of those things easily. Such unspeakable topics made for a cadre of loyal soldiers without the worry that they'd accidentally (or purposefully) spill their secrets to an outsider.
2613
2614I took a few moments to collect myself, the pressure of the oceans still in the back of my mind. "I was kinda out of it for a while there." I said, "But did King say something about doing all of this later today?" I felt like I could sleep right now, lulled into unconsciousness by the sounds of the water and the earth.
2615
2616"He did." Pampa said. "I know it feels like it's forever, but what he did… it doesn't last. By this time tomorrow, you'll be back to normal."
2617
2618I didn't know how I felt about that. Now that I was getting used to the feeling of mud in my head, I found that it felt natural rather than oppressive. This non-mud body was still a problem, though. If Pampa was right I would eventually be it and no longer be my own element. I hoped I'd still be able to move it.
2619
2620I glanced down at the tiny statue she'd created to demonstrate the armor. "What about you?" I asked. If this was temporary for me, I had to hope that whatever condition she was in now was also temporary.
2621
2622Pampa shrugged. "I'm okay. It's a bit like walking around with an imperfect blindfold. I can feel the mud in this room, so it's not like I'm going completely without. Leaves me hopeful it'll come back to me."
2623
2624"It might not come back?" I knew she wanted to escape, but I was surprised at how much she seemed willing to give up.
2625
2626She didn't meet my eyes. "King said that it can, but it's… imperfect. This might be all I have." After a few moments, she added "Still, if that's the cost of my freedom, I'll pay it. What's the alternative? Stay here as a fugitive all my life?"
2627
2628"Fair enough." I said, thinking over her words. "This is a lot to think through. Give me some time, however much time you can spare, really, but after that… after that I'm ready." I hoped it was the truth.
2629
2630"Okay." Pampa said after some deliberation. "I'll go tell King that you're up. In the meantime, I want you to practice." She picked up the glass of water and emptied the entire thing into the ground; I grew another arm. "Practice lifting that."
2631
2632I reached down, and she laughed. "No, not with your hand. Just lift it! It’s yours, it'll go where you want." With that, she left.
2633
2634Pawn Seven was in a characteristically silent mood and just watched as I lifted the mud. It was as easy as Pampa had said; it really was like I had another arm. All I needed to do was to want it to be elsewhere, and it floated up in a big glob and moved there. With some thought, I managed to shape it, though a lot more crudely than she had. Pampa had her entire life to have practiced this, and while a lot of it came naturally, I didn't doubt that the fine control she'd demonstrated earlier was something that took a while to learn. Oh well, it wasn't like I'd need it in order to be a diversion.
2635
2636Still, by the time that she returned, I'd managed to both stand up and to fashion the mud into something that could be said to resemble a mask. I'd even, after a few sputtering and not very tasty starts, managed to breathe through it.
2637
2638"King wants to move around evening, night's better for sneaking around in." She said.
2639
2640"Works for me." I said. "Though I can't exactly tell what time it is down here." My gut told me it was still afternoon.
2641
2642"We'll have time to eat." Pampa answered. "You'll want to go into this with a full stomach. The energy you'll be using mostly comes from the element itself, but you'll still be exerting a lot when you use your connection."
2643
2644"I'll get food." Pawn Seven said flatly. She looked back at me on her way out. "Practice." She said, and then left.
2645
2646It was good advice. Pampa grew excited when she saw what I'd already learned and eagerly started suggesting additional tricks. "It took me years to get that far," she said, "but I mean, that's how it is for Pures and their kids, you know?"
2647
2648"Actually, no. This is all new to me." I said. "When I'm not a Mudslinger I'm just an ordinary person with ordinary magic."
2649
2650"But you didn't always have your magic, right?"
2651
2652I shrugged. "As long as I can remember. I know I learned the tracking spell pretty early, it was good for when I'd spotted a mark." Normally I wouldn't be talking this much about my past, but being underground had brought a lot of it to the surface, so to speak.
2653
2654"Huh. I didn't come into mine until I was older." She said. "King told me that was normal, and he's the only Pure I know. I don't get to go up to the Ward, after all."
2655
2656I wasn't about to point out that she'd casually let slip that King was, in fact, a Pure. I wasn't sure if it was something I wasn't supposed to know, after all, and I didn't want to know what the consequences of knowingly disobeying were. Though King's Pure status wasn't surprising, it was still good to be able to rule out the "second Ephemeral" theory.
2657
2658Pawn Seven returned after a while with more food than we'd had that morning. I was fairly hungry and had a surprisingly strong craving for seafood, though that was probably the mud part of my mind talking. We ate in silence.
2659
2660Some time later, one of King's cronies showed up. In fact, it was the same one that'd been waiting around my house the first time I'd finished eating a meal, my guide from what seemed like ages ago. "Boss says it's time." The man said.
2661
2662"Okay." I said. "Is there a signal, or…" I trailed off.
2663
2664Pampa nodded. "Not officially, no, but I've got enough power left to pull on the mud a bit. You'll feel it when I do. When that happens, it means I'm on my way up to the surface so go nuts." She paused. "And Bishop… thank you. This means a lot to me."
2665
2666"You're welcome," I said. I felt guilty - I hadn't volunteered the way she thought I had, and I'd certainly had no idea I was getting into this much trouble. Still, I wasn't having second thoughts. I was going through with it.
2667
2668"Follow me." Pawn Seven said once we were outside. "I'll lead you to the docks from the passages down here."
2669
2670After one last look at the girl I was saving, I left.
2671
2672*************************
267323
2674
2675Pawn Seven and I navigated the twists of the undercity in silence for a while. Eventually, once I'd judged us far enough from King's seat of power, I had to ask: "Is King trying to kill me?"
2676
2677"Yes." Pawn Seven answered.
2678
2679I was a little disturbed by the fact that King had apparently not put any restrictions on her telling me that. "The power, then. I still don't understand how he gave me someone else's power. Is it going to fade during the fight?"
2680
2681Pawn Seven shook her head, then gestured me down a different branch of the tunnels before answering. "Your power will fade by tomorrow." She said, confirming what Pampa had told me. "You'll have it the entire fight, but your experience with it has been only these last few hours. The people you're fighting have had their power for their entire lives."
2682
2683I nodded, thinking about the ease with which Pampa had shaped the mud. No doubt the enforcers had similar experience, and on a larger scale: They'd had no reason to hold back their entire lives. I, on the other hand, could barely breathe when I'd tried wearing my own mud-forged mask. Which reminded me: "So the mud armor won't protect me?" I asked.
2684
2685Pawn Seven shrugged. "It will for a time, but it can be worn away. It can be pulled apart." She stopped, then looked directly at me. "It can be taken from you."
2686
2687I understood immediately. "King gave me this power. He can probably cut the connection whenever he wants to, can't he?" No wonder he wasn't worried about me putting on the mud armor and carrying him away to Opal.
2688
2689"He can." Pawn Seven said. "But he is likely simply counting on your enemies overwhelming you. That is what happened before."
2690
2691I thought back to the crowded throne room. It'd taken me this long to realize that they'd known what was going to happen. They'd come expecting a show. "Has anyone survived this kind of thing?"
2692
2693Pawn Seven continued to talk without emotion, but I could almost sense a fleeting sense of grim pride. "I did."
2694
2695We continued to walk in silence for a while longer. We'd long ago left the government's undercity and were, if my sense of direction was accurate, nearing the docks. It was a lot easier to navigate toward them now that I could feel their presence sticking into me.
2696
2697I felt, briefly, one of the rivers upstream shift. It was almost on the other side of the city, and only moved a bit, but I recognized the signal when I felt it. "Pampa's ready," I said.
2698
2699"Hurry, then." Pawn Seven replied, guiding me more quickly down the maze of tunnels.
2700
2701Eventually, the tunnel stopped; not at a dead end like I'd imagine it would have, but instead opening directly into the outside world. It must have been for flood drainage because the beach in front of it was muddy and nobody else was around. Still, the docks were very near.
2702
2703"Meet me here before you return." Pawn Seven said. I appreciated her apparent confidence that I would survive.
2704
2705"Well…" I said, stepping out into the mud, "Here goes nothing."
2706
2707Pawn Seven didn't reply. She just watched.
2708
2709The mud beneath me wasn't thick, but it did lead down toward the ocean and that had all the mud I needed and more. I pulled it to myself like I was putting on a coat, and in an instant I was covered with the stuff. There was a brief moment of panic when I forgot how to breathe through the stuff, but some part of the power operated instinctively and I managed not to inhale too much mud before I got air.
2710
2711Satisfied I was not about to suffocate, I spent some time turning the glob that surrounded me into something approximating the statue that Pampa had created. It was that which would allow me to pass as her, which was my best hope of creating a diversion without having to actually destroy the docks. I turned to Pawn Seven. "How is it?" I asked.
2712
2713I hadn't thought of how I was going to speak through the mud. Pawn Seven either couldn't hear what I'd said or couldn't make sense of it. Her only reply was: "Hurry."
2714
2715Right. This power wouldn't be mine forever, might not even be mine by the end of the fight. If King were looking to murder me, this would be the time. I'd be serving his purpose of diverting from Pampa's escape even better if the authorities thought they killed her, after all.
2716
2717I called up more mud; it was again as simple as putting clothing on. I moved forward - was moved, really - and found myself underwater, and then under the ocean floor itself. I'd brought air with me this time, but it wasn't much. I'd need to surface, soon.
2718
2719Still, before I did that, I need to make sure people knew I was here. I reached out with the expanded sensorium that the mud gave me, and I pushed.
2720
2721It wasn't a tidal wave, thankfully. I was new to this strength and likely pushed harder than I should have, but the ocean was much more massive than I'd anticipated. My mud pushed the water, and the water reared up and pushed ashore. The large trading ships found themselves unexpectedly lifted into their moorings, the smaller fishing boats rode it out without comment. People on the shore got drenched but nobody was really hurt. I'd spent time at the docks, I'd come to know some of the people here. They didn't deserve the kind of destruction I was capable of. I'd put on a good show, but I wasn't in this to actually hurt people.
2722
2723It certainly got attention, and had the helpful side-effect of washing more mud up onto the shore and dock areas. I could feel people moving through it in vague disarray, but not panic. Not yet.
2724
2725I moved. As I and the giant column of mud propelling me upward surfaced, spraying water everywhere and causing a second smaller shockwave to push ashore, I re-shaped the mud around me to form the armor that Pampa had shown me.
2726
2727I'd managed to appear pretty much exactly where I'd wanted to: Looming over the biggest ship in the docks. The aptly-named Grandiose belonged, I'd learned in my earlier sojourns to the district, to the worst taskmaster / boss of the area. Low pay, hard work, and of course extortion and blackmail schemes to shore up his power. With a showy lifting of my arms, I poured mud into the ship.
2728
2729I wasn't going to hurt anyone, but I could certainly dole out some justice while I was here. It wasn't every day the tables were turned like this, and I intended to make the most of it.
2730
2731The mud pouring into the ship served an important purpose other than just making it look like I was wrecking the ship, though it was also doing that. I could feel through the mud, which meant in a matter of moments I'd be able to tell if there was anyone on the ship itself.
2732
2733There wasn't. I picked up the ship with another column of mud, lifted it higher than I was, and then dropped it.
2734
2735While the Grandiose hadn't skimped on size or gaudy decoration, it had definitely cut corners when it came to routine maintenance. The ship shattered when it hit the waters again, breaking into two and quickly vanishing under the now-turbulent waves.
2736
2737Now, people started to panic. It was late afternoon, so thankfully most of the work was already done; there weren't enough people around to trample each other. Still, they didn't want to be anywhere near me and my apparent penchant for ship destruction, so it only took a few minutes for all but the bravest to clear out.
2738
2739For the most part that was fine: They'd be spreading word of me as they ran. Those few who stayed were mostly interested in watching what I was going to do next, and I did not disappoint. Since I didn't know many of the other ships' owners and I didn't want to cripple the local businesses any more than I already had, I mostly showed off by creating large columns of mud and then toppling them onto empty portions of the docks. It looked destructive, and some of the older portions of the docks that hadn't seen work lately did in fact collapse, but for the most part it was harmless.
2740
2741One of the people who remained had apparently decided to be a hero, the poor bastard. I saw him take up a crossbow that a guardsman had discarded while fleeing. The man aimed at me and fired, and missed. He missed the next few shots, too, but I couldn't really bring myself to hurt him. I suppose he was trying to kill me, but it was like a toddler trying to hurt me. Entirely beyond his capability, and the poor guy didn't even know it.
2742
2743Was this what it was like for the Pure all the time? I didn't even have the full power and already I was looking down on the common man.
2744
2745He did score an actual hit, finally, but as Pampa had predicted it was trivial for me to move the mud surrounding the bolt and deflect it. Still, enough was enough. I threw a blob of mud at his chest. Sputtering, he threw down the crossbow and ran away.
2746
2747I'd started moving the mud holding me up to the far side of the docks when the sound of thunder interrupted me. I had a moment to wonder what had caused it in the middle of a perfectly clear day before a metal ball the size of my fist flew unnervingly close to my head, crashing loudly into the docks. I turned around to face something I hadn't counted on: A fucking warship.
2748
2749The thing that really grated was that I'd known it was there. My time in the docks had included plenty of gossip about the comings and goings of ships, both mercantile and navy, and I'd been informed way back then that there was always at least one of the Empire's warships in the harbor at all times, in case the Dynasty ever managed to get a navy together and then somehow get it this far. I'd remembered the Grandiose because I'd known abusive bosses like its former owners, but I'd forgotten about the warship because remembering naval forces wasn't exactly something I'd had to do a lot in the middle of the desert.
2750
2751Thankfully, it had missed; I couldn't imagine the cannons could be that accurate given the swell of the sea - a swell that I did everything to encourage. Still, it didn't bode well for my mission. Not only were none of the enforcers here yet, but I'd already attracted the attention of something I couldn't handle.
2752
2753Actually, I could. It would be easy for me to do the same thing I had to the other ship: I could lift it up and break it. Even if it was likely to be far sturdier than the pleasure barge I'd shattered before, everything breaks if you drop it from high enough. But this wasn't an empty frame. I didn't know how many people a warship could hold, but it was much more than I was comfortable killing.
2754
2755With effort akin to lifting an especially heavy rock, I pulled up a sheet of mud between myself and the warship. It wasn't thick, but it served two purposes. First, even as thin as it was, it concealed me entirely from my attackers. Secondly, it'd serve as an early warning if they fired any more cannonballs through it, and I could at least partially deflect whatever they sent.
2756
2757It took very little time for them to decide on exactly that. Evidently the first shot had been a warning; this was a broadside of a full dozen.
2758
2759I deflected all of them, pushing them downward into the ocean, and my wall had patched itself up before anyone on board the ship would be able to get a fix on me. What the hell were they thinking? They'd end up doing more damage to the docks than I had if they kept this up.
2760
2761Another crossbow bolt struck me; with my attention fixed on the wall I'd created this one managed to get further into the armor before being pushed away. I turned again and found myself facing a dozen guardsmen. These were clearly not dock regulars, but likely full members of the military. I was getting someone's attention, but it still wasn't the people I wanted.
2762
2763"Pampa Arora, stand down! You are under arrest!" The only one without a crossbow, presumably an officer of some sort, shouted at me. At least they'd bought my pretend identity. I answered his order with a ball of mud to his stomach.
2764
2765The guards opened fire, but I was already moving. The armor could take a lot of punishment; I could in all likelihood have just stood where I was. Still, it was more impressive to push myself even higher above them, then push over the column of mud supporting me onto the guards below.
2766
2767Rippling thunder announced another broadside from the warship further out; I split my attention, deflecting the cannonballs once again while keeping the guardsmen pinned down underneath the mud I'd thrown at them. Dividing my thoughts like this threatened to throw me back to the fugue state where I was all the mud in the city and my body was an afterthought. I grit my teeth to try to ground myself and focused my mind with angry thoughts about the warship's captain. Even if the ship's attack had hit me, it'd have also taken out half their men on the shore. Were they that desperate to end an attack that hadn't actually killed anyone?
2768
2769While I was thinking about it, I let the guardsmen get up so they didn't drown but pulled the currents in such a way as to separate them from their crossbows. Not that it mattered; another several dozen were marching down toward me. Just when I was getting ready to repeat the tidal performance that I'd done at the very beginning, I finally saw her.
2770
2771One. The Ephemeral, Daya, was at the head of one of the squads heading my way.
2772
2773Two-Next to her was a woman I recognized from the night I'd spotted them in the Wardsmouth, seemingly forever ago. That meant it was one of the sisters, either the Rioter - who I would be immune to until she figured out a way past my defenses - or the Illusionist, who would actually be able to work her magic on me.
2774
2775I had the sudden urge to flee. Usually, this was an urge that had served me well, both in my youth in Opal and more recently in Chankota. It seemed like there was an entire company of troops inbound to the dock and they were now backed up by two of the most powerful enforcers in the city.
2776
2777Three - I spotted the last sister with a different squad, presumably trying to flank me. That wouldn't work, though; they couldn't actually accomplish the feat without entering the water, and there was no way I'd let them successfully board a boat.
2778
2779"Pampa Arora!" another officer of another squad yelled. "Surrender yourself now!" I answered him the same way I'd answered his predecessor and got another volley of crossbow bolts in response.
2780
2781This time, they didn't stop; there were now enough people here for someone to be shooting while the rest reloaded. The armor, I'd decided, was a method of last resort; I raised additional mud walls to block the incoming projectiles.
2782
2783These were definitely military; unlike the people I'd scared away from the docks, they didn't flinch in the face of getting mud all over them. Even though it was obviously ineffective, they kept shooting.
2784
2785I saw why moments later; the three sisters were approaching the area where I was.
2786
2787"Do something." One of them said to Daya.
2788
2789Daya looked up at me; as of yet, I hadn't pelted any of them with mud. I wanted to keep their attention for as long as possible, but there was nothing to be gained by antagonizing them early. That would happen soon enough.
2790
2791Daya turned to her sister. "I can't do anything for the same reason you can't do anything. The mud's blocking me." The first sister was the Rioter, then.
2792
2793"Do something." The Rioter said to her remaining sister.
2794
2795I fell to the ground, harshly.
2796
2797I slowly picked myself up, trying to regain my bearings. I had to keep the guards from hitting me, and-
2798
2799There were no guards. I wasn't even in the docks anymore. I was in an enclosed neighborhood - I could see a tall wall surrounding the area. The only housing was small and almost identical. An old lady sat on the porch of one of the houses. I was in the Ward!
2800
2801I found myself wondering how much time had passed. Clearly I'd been defeated, and Daya had removed the memories of my capture. Then they'd evidently dropped me off somewhere they could keep an eye on me until my power waned.
2802
2803Thankfully it was still there and in full force. I could feel all the mud in the city; the armor surrounding me, the column supporting me, the walls shielding me from the warship and the crossbows. I saw the Ward, but I was feeling the docks.
2804
2805But, I slowly realized, there hadn't been any mud in the Ward. I was clearly not wearing the mud armor, and the docks were across the city.
2806
2807But simultaneously, the docks were right here. I could still feel their piers pressing into me like a particularly uncomfortable backpack.
2808
2809Pampa's words came back to me - only two of the four enforcers could affect me, and only one of those had been at the docks. And while the Illusionist could weave convincing sights, sounds, and evidently kinetics based on how hard I'd fallen, she couldn't sever my connection to the mud. The mud said I was still at the docks, still surrounded by my element.
2810
2811I closed my eyes, shutting out the sights of the false Ward, and concentrated on the mud of the ocean floor beneath me. What I was about to do would be a lot more destructive than what I'd done before, but it was the only way I was going to be able to see. I was reasonably certain I could prevent people from drowning.
2812
2813The ocean floor rose up to meet me. The water receded - was pushed, really - further back away from the shore as the shore itself came alive. It crested over the docks and then fell on everyone there; coating every building, every person, every exposed surface.
2814
2815When I opened my eyes, I still saw the Ward, but I could also see the docks through the mud. Two images superimposed on each other and my connection to the latter made it clear which one was real. The soldiers were still there, many of them searching for the weapons they'd dropped in the attack. The sisters were there, sputtering and trying to clean themselves. My walls and armor were intact.
2816
2817The illusion faded, and I was greeted by the sight of the docks covered in mud. The piers and other ships I'd labored to protect were half-buried at this point, as were many of the warehouses and shops. I hadn't intended to actually carry out King's instructions to destroy the docks, but I apparently had done so anyway.
2818
2819"Well, that didn't work." The Illusionist said, helping Daya to her feet. "Any other bright ideas?"
2820
2821"Speaking of bright," Daya said, "Can we get some lights? Maybe dry this mud so we have a chance at wrapping this up?"
2822
2823Late afternoon had transitioned into evening at some point, and my inundation of the docks had doused all the natural light. I was fairly sure I could see better at this point than anyone else.
2824
2825"I've got a better idea." The Rioter said.
2826
2827The wall that I'd created to separate me from the warship shattered, though not because of cannon fire. I'd been anticipating that; no, the Warship itself careened through it. I got a good view of everyone aboard as the mud collapsed onto them, but that didn't stop them. The Rioter had worked them up good, it seemed. Had likely been doing so since that first cannonball, as a way to distract me until she could get down here in person. Clever.
2828
2829The warship was a problem - I could only deflect the cannons, not stop them, and my ability to do so grew more tenuous the closer the ship got. Of course, at this rate, it'd risk running aground.
2830
2831I grinned as the idea came to me. I was the ground.
2832
2833Another column like the kind that held me up formed underneath the ship. I didn't intend to break it, though, just lift it slightly above the water.
2834
2835The ship impacted with a loud crunch and, for a moment, I was worried I'd doomed everyone on board. But, thankfully, it was as sturdy as I'd assumed; it held together. I lifted and turned it so that the cannon broadsides weren't facing me. Then I turned around to the four enforcers to see what they had in store for me next.
2836
2837Four?
2838
2839I froze; my every muscle paralyzed, and I instantly knew it wasn't due to fear. Whatever diversion that King had planned for the Witchdoctor, it had apparently not worked. Possibly it hadn't existed in the first place. Adhita stood next to his three sisters, looking annoyed at me.
2840
2841"That's not Pampa." He said. "That's not even a woman."
2842
2843"Then who the hell is it?" The Rioter said, exasperated.
2844
2845Before Adhita could answer the question, I flung a glob of mud directly at his face, as hard as I could. He fell to the ground, and I felt control of my body return to me.
2846
2847The Witchdoctor had the same weakness that the Illusionist did. They could control my body or my perceptions, but they had no control over my connection to the mud.
2848
2849Still, now was a good time to leave; it wouldn't take long for Adhita to get his bearings back, and this time he might not be satisfied with paralyzing me. He could kill me faster than I could distract him.
2850
2851I collapsed the column supporting me, pulling it and a helping of air down underwater once more, into the ocean bed, and moving myself as quickly as I could back to the drain that I'd entered the docks from. I could tell that Pawn Seven was standing in the mud, no doubt to signal to me that she was still there. It was heartening, and then it was gone.
2852
2853My entire sense of the city suddenly shrank, pushing on me like the weight of the ocean above, which was suddenly pushing on me with all its ordinary weight. The mud that had until moments ago been a very part of me was severed, foreign, and this unfamiliar body was all I had left. The air I'd been holding in the pocket of ocean floor burbled up, uncontrolled, and I raced up with it before I could be reclaimed by my former element.
2854
2855My lungs strained, but I kicked upward harder. My power, Pampa's power, the power that'd encompassed a city, was gone. I was an ordinary person again and stuck desperately under the sea. King had robbed me of my power exactly when I'd needed it the most.
2856
2857And, of course, there was the fact that I'd grown up in Opal, Jewel of the Desert, where water was rare and precious. I'd never learned how to actually swim.
2858
2859I was fairly certain I knew which way was up, though. And I knew kicking was involved. If I could get myself to the surface, it was possible that Pawn Seven could reach me; I knew I'd been nearing her when the power had left me. I had, thankfully, not gone all that deep into the ocean.
2860
2861I breached the surface and got a blissful mouthful of air before I fell back under the waves. My own tides were coming back to haunt me; I'd found the surface but couldn't keep my head above it for long. It was all I could do to tread water and hope the current was bringing me closer to shore rather than further away.
2862
2863A hand grabbed hold of mine and pulled. I emerged half-buried from the mud that I'd apparently pushed onto the shore, and Pawn Seven was there, pulling me back into the drainpipe we'd originally emerged from.
2864
2865"King," I said, "tried to kill me." I spat mud out of my mouth; it was back to being an irritant. It felt strange, almost unreal, to be confined to a single body again. No element to reach out to, no part of the world singing its constant harmony to me. There was just the small connection I had to all of the elements. At least my ordinary power was still with me.
2866
2867"I see." Pawn Seven said without inflection. She hauled me to my feet. "Let's go."
2868
2869I signaled that I needed more time, coughing. "You think he'll finish the job when we get back there? You said you survived this kind of trial, right?"
2870
2871"I am aware," she said slowly, "that, in many ways, I am no longer what I was. But I try to speak as clearly as I can. When I say that we should go, I mean we should not return to King. We should leave this city. Now."
2872
2873I was still trying to clear my lungs and mouth. "No." I managed. "You said that'd kill you."
2874
2875"I think it may kill me." She corrected. "But it is dangerous here, as you now know."
2876
2877"Will King kill me if I return?" I asked.
2878
2879"No." She said.
2880
2881"What he had me do today… it was an initiation." I said. "To see if I'm worthy of being a part of the gang." I mentally laughed at my earlier self, who'd thought it'd be simple to infiltrate Utijan's underworld.
2882
2883"Yes." She said.
2884
2885I nodded. "Then I have to go forward. If you want out, I'll give you every resource at my disposal. I've got more money in this city than I know what to do with, we can get you out of here. But I have to stay and complete the mission."
2886
2887She still couldn't yell, couldn't scream at my obstinance, but I could tell she wanted to. "Not the mission." She said.
2888
2889I smiled weakly. "Then it's about my wellbeing? I appreciate it. But I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to this."
2890
2891That was, of course, a complete lie. I'd certainly had no idea I'd end up here, having destroyed an entire district of the Empire's capital with power impossibly borrowed from a Mudslinger. But if Pawn Seven disagreed with me, she didn't say anything. She just started walking back into the drainpipe, and I followed.
2892
2893I hadn't yet memorized the layout of the tunnels under the city, though given enough time I felt confident I could do so. Still, I recognized that we were following a different path back than we had there. I couldn't help but wonder if King had other contingencies planned if it appeared that I'd survived. My former guide might be sitting on our route back, waiting to ambush me. I had doubt that I'd ordinarily win in such a situation, but now I could barely make my body move. I still didn't have a good sense of how my body worked, it still felt like something separate from me even though I was now as average as the next person in terms of magic. I could only hope my reflexes would return; they'd been the difference between life and death before, and I didn't doubt they would be again.
2894
2895When we returned to the government's undercity, Pawn Seven didn't bother to take us back to our shack. Instead, she led me directly to King's building. A number of the people we passed looked surprised to see us, but my ability to read surface thoughts hadn't yet returned to me so I had no idea what their true feelings were.
2896
2897The second floor of the building, what I'd come to think of as the Throne Room, was much less populated than it had been on either of the times I'd been there previously. King himself sat on his throne with a half-amused look on his face. His generals sat on the floor to either side of us, making a corridor for us to pass through.
2898
2899As we approached, King slowly clapped his hands together. It was the least reassuring applause I'd ever heard.
2900
2901"Well, look who the Pawn dragged in." He said with feigned surprise. "How did your little docks job go?"
2902
2903"You already know," I said. "I almost died out there. You nearly killed me." I should have been wary of speaking so bluntly, but if King was a Pure Mind he could kill me anytime he wanted. He didn't need to go through these hoops.
2904
2905King shrugged. "'Almost' being the important part. The point is, Pampa's safely on her way up to the Dynasty, and you did your part. You've proven yourself willing. Now, will you prove yourself loyal?"
2906
2907"Dying for you doesn't prove my loyalty?"
2908
2909King laughed. "Again, 'Almost'. No, what I want from you is an oath. A simple oath, but one that every person in this room has taken, one way or another. An oath that I will then enforce."
2910
2911I'd suspected this was coming. "You want me to swear that I won't talk about you to anyone who doesn't know," I said.
2912
2913"Smart lad." King said. "That's exactly it."
2914
2915"What about my mission?" I asked. "Will you come back with me to Opal?"
2916
2917"Oath first." He said.
2918
2919I glanced at Pawn Seven, who just looked straight ahead. I knew what she'd be saying, though. She'd be telling me to fuck the mission. Taking this oath, an oath I knew would be more binding than almost any I'd taken before, was a terrible idea. It was an even more terrible idea to do so before I got any concessions from King, before I knew if he'd actually go to Opal. Then again, nothing prevented him from lying to me. I was the only one who was going to be held to my word. And I had faith that the Queen would be able to un-do anything that King could do, once I returned. At least, for Pawn Seven's sake, I hoped so.
2920
2921Pawn Seven had said there was an alternative, but we'd yet to discover who or what it was. This was my only chance, the organization's only choice. I had to do it.
2922
2923"I swear it," I said.
2924
2925I briefly felt like I'd forgotten something important.
2926
2927"That's the feeling," King said, "of your ability to speak about me to anyone who doesn't already know being taken from you."
2928
2929"Opal." I said. I still remembered where it was, so that had at least remained.
2930
2931"Well," he said, grinning broadly, "I've been meaning to tell you that little detail about your mission. See, I can't come back with you to Opal and be breeding stock for your Pure, because I am not, in fact, a Pure Mind. Sorry to disappoint, but I couldn't exactly tell you that before I had your loyalty, now could I?"
2932
2933I frowned. "What?" it didn't make sense. "I've seen what you can do. There's not another element or combination that can transfer powers. I didn't even think Minds could do it. If you're not one, then what are you?"
2934
2935King stood, and his generals leaned forward. Like my previous time here, they obviously knew this part was going to happen. Pawn Seven had known this would happen. She'd tried to warn me, tried to tell me that King wasn't actually my mission, but I hadn't understood.
2936
2937"I," King said, gesturing extravagantly, "am a Pure Void."
2938
2939*************************
294024
2941
2942I was, at this point, somewhat accustomed to things I'd previously thought to be legends turning out to have been real all along. But there was a difference between that and what I was hearing. "There's no such thing," I said.
2943
2944King held out a hand, palm up, and suddenly he held a circle of complete darkness. It was a blackness more total than any I'd ever seen, to the point where it took me a while to realize he was holding a sphere rather than a circle. It was as though he hadn't just removed the light but also removed anything that the light could have possibly reflected from. "In the beginning, there was Void." He said, quoting the scriptures.
2945
2946"There are five elements, divided among the gods," I replied, trying not to stare at the demonstration. "Void's not an element, it's just the nothing that was there before! It's never mentioned again anywhere in the scriptures." I hoped. I hadn't actually read all of the chapters, but I'd been exposed to the teachings far more often than I'd have preferred. I was pretty sure that it would have come up. I mean, sure, every now and then a Void cult sprung up, promising power from the nothingness that had somehow escaped the gods, but none that I knew had ever claimed to be Void personified.
2947
2948"Oh, I know all about the scriptures," King said. Mercifully, he moved his hand, and the disquieting nothing vanished as though it had never been. "Believe me," he continued, "I turned to religion in my darkest times just like everyone else. And just like always, it had no answers. But there's an interesting tidbit about those first Gods: There were ten of them."
2949
2950Ever since I'd been told that other places taught The Ten instead of The Nine that I'd grown up with in Opal, I'd wondered how that extra god had been explained. I'd been told that it hadn't, that the tenth was only mentioned in passing or implied by the missing husband to the Lady of Subtlety. Now I was seeing the effects of that - with a missing tenth god, people could fill that gap with anything they wanted. In this case, King was obviously some sort of self-hating Mind. The demonstration, as surprisingly disturbing as it had been, could have been done with simple illusions; trivial for a Mind. With the sort of power over his own thoughts that he had, who knew how he'd altered himself? Mind magic could be turned inward; I'd done it many times to calm myself down. King was just operating on a larger, more terrible scale.
2951
2952If King noticed my frenzied introspection, he didn't let it stop his speech, though I doubted he'd have done that for any reason. "The Lady of Rains, and the Lord of Oceans," he continued. "The Lady of Breath and the Lord of Winds. The Lady of Soil and the Lord of Quakes. The Lady of the Hearth and the Lord of Blazes. The Lady of Subtlety… and the Lord of Lies." He grinned as though that explained anything.
2953
2954"Not exactly a trustworthy source." I managed.
2955
2956"You have no idea," King spat the words with surprising force, "how right you are. I spent years of my life tracking down the so-called 'Book of Lies', the alleged missing chapter to the scriptures. There were dozens, and all they had in common were the title and their adherence to the theme of not saying a single word of truth. Useless, until I realized who the true Tenth God was. Even the name of the Lord of Lies was a lie, you see. The gods did not destroy the Void, they only displaced it. It is still there, still waiting. Some people think that the Pure are the gods reincarnated. If the elements can do it, why not Void? It's the perfect complement to the Pure of Mind. It's a necessary balance. Mind created life and, well, Void takes it."
2957
2958"You're insane," I said. I'd certainly thought so before, and learning of King's specific delusion had only cemented it.
2959
2960King chuckled. "You're not the first to say so. You probably won't be the last. But, really, you're the one ignoring the blatantly obvious truth about the Void. I mean, I realize we're underground and you can't do what I'm about to say, but still, it's easy. Go outside at night! Look up! What do you see? It sure as shit ain't the elements. It's Void. Pinpricks of Fire outnumbered by vast, unthinkable, Void."
2961
2962I struggled not to repeat myself, instead settling for "I don't understand."
2963
2964"You don't believe, you mean," King said. "I can't blame you! Ask this lot," he said, gesturing to his generals in the crowd, "they didn't believe at first, either. You'll see. Because the elements, they're about creation. But Void, it's the opposite. It's about destruction. And the longer you're with me, the more you'll see that's what I do." He turned to face his audience. "Isn't that right?"
2965
2966I was expecting a cheer from the people, given how raucous they'd been the previous days, but instead, they just inclined their heads in unison. That didn't really do much to dispel the whole "void cult" feeling.
2967
2968"I've already shown you." King was not going to stop talking anytime soon. "I've done something that not even a Pure Mind can do; I took Pampa's power from her, and made sure you received part of it. The closest thing to giving I can do, and it's really more you getting in the way of me taking it than anything else. I made you, if not Pure, then Gifted at least. Nobody else in this entire world could do that. And I took it away again, as you pointed out. Do you remember what it was like, to have such a gift? To be connected with your element on a personal level?"
2969
2970He paused long enough for me to realize that wasn't a rhetorical question. "Yes," I said. The feeling of my connection with the mud had almost entirely faded, but the memories were still fresh and alternately comforting and terrifying.
2971
2972"Imagine feeling that every single night. Imagine the moonlit sky being a part of you. Imagine that everywhere in the city where there is nothing, resonates with you. Imagine the places between. These belong to you. That's how I know what I am. I can't expect you to believe, not right away, but I want you to remember your time as Gifted. Remember it, and know that that is what life is for me, only on a far grander stage."
2973
2974He gestured to the crowd, and they stopped their creepy head-bowing. Sensing that the time of explanations - bizarre though they were - was about to be over, I spoke up. "What about the Pure Mind?"
2975
2976King laughed fully this time, though at least the generals didn't join in. "Oh yes, of course, your mission! You remind me of a younger Seven. So eager, so dedicated. Let's hope you're smarter than she was about obeying orders, shall we?"
2977
2978Pawn Seven didn't react; hadn't reacted the entire time. She already knew everything that was happening, because this exact thing had happened to her, and now she was trapped. It didn't bode well for my chances, and suddenly the mission seemed more out of reach than ever before.
2979
2980"As it happens," King continued to enjoy the sound of his own voice, "the timing of your initiation into our little group is convenient. Suspiciously convenient, really, which is why I had to test you with that whole Mudslinger thing. The eclipse is coming up soon, and when that happens you'll be able to act on your precious mission."
2981
2982"Eclipse?" I asked. The conversation had taken too many abrupt turns for me to be able to follow all of them, I just had to latch on to whichever one stuck out the most.
2983
2984"I can predict them," King said, as though such a matter were trivial. "Eclipses are a force for the Void. They say that one happened on the day of my birth, though they only say that because I told them to. Makes me seem scarier. But still, Eclipses being of Void is pretty obvious. I mean, the moon shifts into a disc of darkness that eats up the sun? That's some serious symbolism. And, like the eclipse demonstrates the inversion of void and fire, so shall this next one be accompanied by my own inversion. From below the streets to above them. From outcast to caster-out. You get the idea."
2985
2986"You're going to overthrow the surface," I said. I'd so far avoided saying the words 'void cult' out loud, but the number of similarities was getting out of hand at this point.
2987
2988"Yes and no," King said. "I'm only overthrowing the surface because that's where the people I want to hurt are: The enforcers of the E.I.S: my brother and sisters."
2989
2990"Brother and sisters?" I said. It seemed like I was never going to escape that family, despite how dysfunctional it appeared. Still, given the Witchdoctor's hostile reaction to King, it made perfect sense they'd be related. "If your father was a Mind, how are you a Void, much less a Pure one?"
2991
2992King just shrugged expansively. "How do two nobody weakbloods end up giving birth to a Pure? It is the will of the gods, that's how. I don't pretend to know why my patron element decided it needed to manifest in the son of a Mind. Seems Void could have done everyone a favor and not tainted me. Of course, then I wouldn't have rescued you from my siblings, which admittedly I did mostly out of spite. But still, you owe me for that."
2993
2994I opened my mouth to ask another question, but he turned suddenly. One moment he was playing to the crowd, the next he was a foot away from me, staring me down like I'd direly insulted him. The words died in my mouth.
2995
2996"That," he said, "is me taking your ability to speak, at least for now. You've said enough; do not presume to tell me what either of us is going to do. I am the boss here. I took the name King because I am the opposite of your Queen, but also because my word is law. If you remember two things from your initiation, let them be that I feel the Void that surrounds us and is within us as though it were a part of me, and that I can take anything and everything that you have." He paused, continuing to stare me down. Finally, he said, "You may leave now."
2997
2998I couldn't object; the words formed in my mind but vanished somewhere between there and actually being voiced. Pawn Seven took my arm impassively, pulling gently to indicate that King's statement was more of a command. I left with her, speechless.
2999
3000Once we were outside, she spoke. "Your voice will return," she said, though her tonelessness was far from reassuring. Compounding this impression, she added, "probably."
3001
3002I didn't reply, mostly because I couldn't. It hadn't occurred to me that this might be permanent, and it should have. I knew that King was willing to maim in order to keep people loyal, I had only to look at Seven next to me for proof.
3003
3004Ever since I'd started the process of leaving Opal, the possibility that I might not return had been in the back of my mind. The original Bishop Two had far more experience than I did, and he'd died in Chankota. How would I fare better? I'd told myself that so long as I planned ahead and worked hard, I could overcome any issues. While the doubt never really went away, it remained a theoretical thing. Something that might happen, but was not guaranteed.
3005
3006Now, though, I began to picture my future underground. I could end up like Pawn Seven: a broken agent, struggling futilely against her bonds, unable to even remember the organization that had sent her. King could do this easily, without even considering it. For all I know, he'd already begun. The very real possibility that I'd never see my home again stayed at the forefront of my mind.
3007
3008"You can do this." Pawn Seven said. "You will return home."
3009
3010Surface thoughts! A wave of relief came over me. Even if I remained mute, I could still make myself understood. When I'd first come to Utijan I'd been afraid that my inability to speak the language would leave me grunting and thinking vividly of what I wanted to communicate, like an infant. That I was now comforted by this same thought was a reflection on just how bad things were.
3011
3012Pawn Seven didn't take us back to her shack, which I insisted on thinking of as hers even though it was supposed to be mine now. Instead, she guided me through the tunnels once more, waiting until we were far from the government undercity. Then we went aboveground and walked another few blocks.
3013
3014She'd led me to one of the small parks in the city; barely the footprint of a house, it hosted a lone tree and no visitors. She sat on the ground underneath the tree and motioned for me to join her.
3015
3016"Your house," she said, "has a magic-proof room. Pawn Eight mentioned it in one of his communications, in case I ever needed a secure meeting area." She looked at me but her face and voice were just as blank as ever. "You might wonder why I haven't suggested we go there for this conversation."
3017
3018I wanted to ask how we were going to have a conversation if I couldn't talk, but of course, I couldn't talk.
3019
3020Still, something of my frustration must have gotten through, because she explained. "There is much I've wanted to tell you. And now that you are one of us, terrible as that is, I can at least speak freely."
3021
3022I was glad there was at least a little upside to my new found inabilities.
3023
3024"The magic-proof room," Pawn Seven said, "would not work against King. Void is an absence of magic, after all; it'd be like he was right there in that room. That said, he can't eavesdrop on us the way a Mind would, by simply knowing our thoughts better than we do ourselves. He can know your thoughts by taking them from you, that is true, but you will know if that happens because you will not be thinking those thoughts anymore."
3025
3026This line of conversation was itself somewhat disquieting because it sounded like Pawn Seven had bought into King's whole 'Pure Void' persona.
3027
3028She nodded. "I believe him, Bishop. Whether this is due to reasoned consideration on my part or simply because he took away my ability to be skeptical of his claims, I do not know. The result is the same: I truly believe that he is Void personified."
3029
3030It was good I couldn't talk, because I wasn't sure how to respond to that. I couldn't believe that a Pure like King could exist. It wasn't that I thought that Pure couldn't be evil; even the scriptures had tons of examples of that. It was that I didn't want to believe an avatar of destruction could just casually walk the earth. The explanation that he was simply a malformed Mind was, to me, far simpler. I still didn't understand the power transfer, but that was one unexplained detail in a sea of things that made perfect sense with that assumption.
3031
3032"I understand your unwillingness to believe." Seven said. "For a long time, I shared it. Even after he tested me as he tested you, making me a Gifted for a short time, I did not believe. But I have been trapped here for years. I have seen him work. And I did some research, thanks to a wizard I was supposed to track down."
3033
3034That got my attention. I'd never known Pawn Seven's actual mission, beyond a general mandate to infiltrate the Utijan underground.
3035
3036Seven explained: "Yes, my initial mission was to locate a wizard, a Dynasty spy in the guide of an ambassador. Officially, the Dynasty and Opal are in a state of mutual suspicion at best. But our lady hoped that unofficially, there might be cooperation or at least coordination. At least, I believe this was my mission. I can no longer remember it."
3037
3038A Dynasty wizard-spy acting as an ambassador to the Empire? That sounded suspiciously familiar. I formed as clear an image of Dalostaed in my mind as I could.
3039
3040Pawn Seven only shrugged, though. "Your thoughts are easier to understand when you cannot speak, but I still cannot see them clearly enough to know if that was him. You can try to describe him later if your voice returns, but a name will do me no good. I either was never given the wizard's name or King took it from me later"
3041
3042Frustrating. I'd have to find paper and something to draw with, not that my meager artistic ability would be of any help.
3043
3044"I accomplished my task of infiltrating the gangs of the city before I could find the wizard." Seven continued. "Which is to say, I was conscripted into King's service. At that time, I had not yet been made to forget as much, and I was skilled at slipping away from my captors. Even though I had several chances at true freedom, for me, the mission came first."
3045
3046I could certainly relate to that.
3047
3048"By the time I found him, however, it was too late for me. Opal was gone from my mind, leaving only its name. I could not remember what I was supposed to do once I made contact. At that point, my only thought was that he might be able to help. I still did not believe King's claims, that he was a Pure Void. I knew he had power, yes, but I thought it might be a minor combination that had yet escaped notice. Though few wizards can overcome a Gifted of any strength, I held out hope that this was one such case."
3049
3050I watched her; her face impassive, her tone even, her surface thoughts near nonexistent. And yet she was talking, possibly more in this one sitting than I'd ever heard out of her before. Even if I could speak, I wouldn't dare interrupt her.
3051
3052"The wizard could not fix me. The holes in my mind were not barriers like those that a Mind might construct. Instead, the information I had, the abilities I'd learned, they had been taken from me. That is what King means when he talks about his power. Making a mental block would be an act of creation - and he can only tear down. Even then, I held out hope that King's power was some unknown combination of elements, that someone more powerful than him would be able to repair me. If it would not have meant my death, I would have gone to the enforcers then. But the wizard changed my mind, because I told him of my suspicions, that King believed himself to be a Pure Void but I did not."
3053
3054I started at that but could not express my surprise.
3055
3056Pawn Seven picked up on it. "Yes, even back then, ever since my initiation, I'd been under the same restrictions you find placed on yourself. I could not speak of King's delusions to anyone who did not already know them. But the wizard had never met the man. We parted after that, he to return to the Dynasty with news of King's existence, and I to whatever life I could scrape together from what remained of my memories. It took me some time, but I eventually realized why I could speak to the wizard about the Void."
3057
3058She'd been looking away from me, down the street and off into the distance, but she met my gaze now. "Because he already knew. Normally the simple fact of his knowledge would not be enough - the restrictions are on my mind, I would have to know that he already knew. It took me longer to look within, to try the bounds of my own magic, to figure out the connection."
3059
3060Pawn Seven had emphasized that last word as much as she could, but I didn't know what she meant. She looked away, back down the street, but continued. "Do you remember, when you had the Mudslinger's power, your connection to Pampa?"
3061
3062I'd never actually told her that, but I remembered she'd been through a similar ordeal; she must have had the same connection to whoever she'd been the diversion for. I couldn't answer the question out loud, but I could still nod.
3063
3064"I used to think that all Gifted were like that; connected to each other on a fundamental level. But it's not just them. Anyone who shares an element is connected. People like us, we just don't notice because our power is so weak. But I had been Gifted once, I knew what it was to feel that connection, and so I knew what to look for. It took time, but time is the one thing I had."
3065
3066She closed her eyes. Possibly she was tired from too much conversation. I would be, though from this end I didn't want her to stop. However much I dreaded whatever revelation she'd received that changed her mind, I had to know what it was.
3067
3068I felt a sudden warmth come over me, as though I was back in Opal's desert air. Just as swiftly, it was gone, replaced with a chill in my blood. I unwillingly exhaled, then felt my body tense up. Finally, all that faded, and all that was left was a ringing in my mind, like the fading sound of a bell being struck.
3069
3070"Fire, Water, Air, Earth, and Mind." Pawn Seven said, her eyes still closed. "Those are the elements of our connection. And…."
3071
3072For one terrible moment, there was nothing, and then everything was normal again. It had begun and ended so quickly that my mind wanted to reflexively discard it, to forget the unpleasant experience and chalk it up to something unexplained, anything, so long as I didn't have to think about it anymore. It wasn't just that the feeling was new, or even that it was unnatural, it was that it was all those things and yet somehow familiar at the same time.
3073
3074"Void." Pawn Seven said, her eyes open now. "The wizard knew about Void because he had learned it. It's probably one of the secrets of their training. I did not believe in Void, but I knew of it. And when he made the connection between us to try to heal me, he connected all our elements. As I did with you, but less jarring. I am sorry for it being so disruptive, but I am not a wizard. You shrank from the connection of our Void, and rightly so. I do not remember that happening during my encounter, but it must have. The experience must have told me that he already knew, and that was how I could speak."
3075
3076I didn't want to believe it, and it was so very tempting to just wall off that experience and forget it had ever happened, but I didn't have the luxury.
3077
3078"When I was a child, before the organization took me in, I was raised by very pious parents." Pawn Seven's tone hadn't changed, not that that said much, "They would take me to the sermons twice a week, and the church had special educational classes for children. In my youth, I was excited. I suspect I was not the only child who found the tales of the Lord of Blazes or Winds to be interesting. Even Rains calls down a flood at one point. I am familiar with the scriptures, as many are. Did you attend such classes, Bishop?"
3079
3080I shook my head. Missionaries sometimes visited the undercity to try to reach lost youths like myself, but that was as close as I'd been.
3081
3082"They teach the scriptures, but they also teach other things. Non-canonical information, but deemed important nonetheless. I think the particular church my parents frequented had some connection to the Dynasty denominations because there was a focus on the Pures and the particular powers the various combinations of godhood would produce."
3083
3084I wasn't sure where she was going with this, but I was still glad she was talking. Plus it gave me the opportunity to try to put the Void connection behind me.
3085
3086"I was a talkative child, as difficult as that may be to believe." Pawn said, with no indication of humor, "I had many questions for my teachers. I knew, for instance, that the offspring of a Mind and a Fire would be a Rioter. I knew that the reason normal people's powers were so muddled was that we were dozens of generations or more separate from our Pure ancestors, and had been so mixed that only the barest flicker of divinity remained. But that didn't make sense to me. You met the Rioter, didn't you?"
3087
3088I nodded. I'd been fortunate enough not to be directly affected by her powers. Judging by how reckless and bloodthirsty she'd made the crew of the warship she sent after me, it would not have been pleasant.
3089
3090"The Rioter controls emotion, a combination of Fire and Mind. The offspring of a Rioter and a Witchdoctor, what the Dynasty would call a Erxin-Tuhus, has a stronger control over the portions of the body that interact with the mind. They could not paralyze you like a Witchdoctor, or make you fear like a Rioter, but they could trigger your fight-or-flight reaction to accomplish much the same thing."
3091
3092I didn't know the Dynasty nomenclature, but the mixture made sense.
3093
3094"What I wondered was," Pawn Seven said, "why did those mixtures not work the same way as us? The Erxin-Tuhus has a power clearly derived from their parents, but they can't directly affect emotion. They can't directly control other parts of your body. Their power is not a mixture, but a new and separate thing. They do not have weaker versions of their parents' elements. But we do. We have all the elements, and they behave like their separate elements. You can call up a fire in your hand, but a Rioter, whose parent was a Pure Fire, cannot."
3095
3096It was a question I hadn't really considered; until this mission I hadn't given the Pure and their offspring, nor my own ancestry, much thought. It did seem like there was a disconnect there, and I didn't like the conclusion that I thought Seven was coming to.
3097
3098"The answer is Void," she said. "It changes the mixture, dilutes it and breaks the connection that would have formed a new power. It's why our powers work the way they do, instead of how they should. My Void connected to yours, because it's within you, and it's within me. It is in everyone."
3099
3100We sat in silence for a time. I didn't want to believe it, but as much as I wanted to deny the connection and the sense of what Seven was saying, I couldn't. I wasn't sure it was entirely right, but I was willing to admit that there was more to the elements than I'd originally thought. Something unprecedented was going on here. I found myself wondering again at King's claims. Even if Void was a part of normal people like me, it wasn't a part of Pures; they were called 'Pure' for a reason, after all. How could a Mind like King's father - the man I assumed was the Subtle Man, my target - possibly have a Pure offspring that wasn't another Mind?
3101
3102Then again, both of these facts could be true. Void could exist inside every mundane person, but that didn't mean that King was a right. He could still be a broken Mind, one who'd stumbled upon the truth that Pawn Seven had discovered and convinced himself that he was a Void. I settled uneasily on that explanation for now, but I knew I'd have to revisit it. I might have to admit there were more than five elements, but I didn't yet have to acknowledge that a literal avatar of destruction lurked in the undercity.
3103
3104I found myself wondering about King's plans. He'd outright said he intended to overthrow the surface and while I didn't doubt his intent I did wonder how he thought he'd pull it off. The four enforcers had stopped breakouts from the Ward before; they had experience in stopping those more powerful than they were. Judging from the Witchdoctor Adhita's attitude when he'd seen King, there was no love lost there. They'd have no problem stopping an insurrection.
3105
3106I found myself thinking about the timing. King claimed he could predict eclipses somehow. Even if they had nothing to do with the Void and neither did he, he believed it. Even if it did nothing to his power, he'd think himself unstoppable, and if he was a Mind then that belief could become very real.
3107
3108"We should return," Pawn Seven said, "It would not do for us to be missing fo-"
3109
3110A cart, moving unreasonably fast, rolled down the street next to the park. It kicked up a large plume of dust, which I immediately began coughing on. "Sorry," I said to Seven, "didn't mean to interrupt."
3111
3112"You can speak." She pointed out. "Remember this. Unconscious or reflexive acts are often the simplest way to break free of King's control."
3113
3114I breathed a sigh of relief only slightly interrupted by additional coughing. My voice had returned. "The eclipse." I said roughly, "Is it real?"
3115
3116She shrugged. "I have witnessed one in my lifetime, but it was before I came to Utijan. I do not know if King can predict them."
3117
3118"What is he going to do?" I asked. "Can he really overthrow the whole city?"
3119
3120"He means to," Seven answered. "I am not one of his generals. I do not enjoy his confidence except when it serves his ends, such as when I brought you from the jail. I do not know how he intends to meet his goals, only that he will destroy this city if he thinks it's necessary, and he has convinced himself that it is. Unlike many of his generals, however, I do not believe this to be a good thing. As obedient as he has forced me to be, he does not have my loyalty, and I do not believe in his cause. He said it himself: Void cannot create, it can only destroy. King intends to tear down as much of the intelligence service as he can and put nothing in its place. As much as the enforcers are no friends of mine, King is worse."
3121
3122"I'm with you," I said. "I don't know if he meant what he said about allowing me to continue my mission, but I'm taking the first opportunity I can get. I want to take you back with me, Seven. If we can find the Subtle Man, the man I suspect is King's father, he can repair you." I hoped that a Pure Mind could overcome what King had done, otherwise Pawn Seven was, at best, stuck in Utijan forever. "And then we can get the hell out of this city and never come back."
3123
3124Pawn Seven stood, and I stood with her. "I hope that day comes to pass, Bishop," she said as tonelessly as ever, "I truly do."
3125
3126With that, we walked back.
3127
3128*************************
312925
3130
3131"When's the last time anyone here saw justice?" King yelled.
3132
3133The crowd replied with an incoherent roar.
3134
3135A full week had passed since I'd officially been inducted into this crew, and in that time I'd mostly been ignored. King hadn't sent for me, I'd spotted his generals only sporadically, and the rest of the citizens of the underground didn't seem to quite trust me yet. I spent the time with Pawn Seven, who apparently had a number of duties to the group, most of which consisted of stealing things. When we could slip away, we checked the dead drops. There was no word from Pawn Eight, and of course, we couldn't share anything we knew with him so we couldn't really start a conversation either. It would have been a restful time if the general tension of the undercity hadn't been building the whole week.
3136
3137I'd been awoken earlier this morning by Pawn Seven, who told me that everyone was to attend a speech by King. This was apparently nearly unprecedented, judging by the furtive conversations I heard whispered around me while we gathered. There were far too many of us to fit in the upper floor of the Void Kingdom building (which is apparently what the crude Hidna carved into the surface of King's building meant). King himself was instead standing on the ledge inscribed with those very words, and everyone in the undercity was crowded in the broken streets below.
3138
3139"That's right, you see justice every day down here, don't you?" King continued his speech, "If someone steals from you, you shiv him! That's justice!"
3140
3141A cheer came from the crowd, mostly driven by the generals who were seated up front.
3142
3143"But up above, there is no justice. We get discarded down here, forgotten, made to work as runners or servants at best. And who, I ask you, gets shivved for that?"
3144
3145A jumble of words poured from the crowd, incoherent.
3146
3147"That's right, nobody! Well, today's the day that finally changes. Many of you knew this day would come, and many more of you could only hope. Today is the day of the Eclipse, the day my power will be at its greatest, and today is the day we shiv the surface!"
3148
3149This time, the cheer came from the entire crowd, not just the die-hard loyalists.
3150
3151"I mean that literally," King said, holding up what looked like an improvised knife. "My generals are going to be passing these out after the speech. If you've got a grudge to settle against someone on the surface, we're going to be headed up there in about an hour. Take the time to think of some people you really hate. Now," he set the knife back down so he could resume his grand gesturing, "some of you might rightfully be wondering what'll happen if you stab someone. No matter how much they deserve it, that tends to be frowned on topside, because like I said, there's no justice up there. Well, that's where I come in."
3152
3153He gestured to one of his generals, who immediately ran into the building, presumably to fetch the knives. "Anyway, you're not just going up there on your own. We’re all going up there, and we’re all settling some debts. The one force that's worked the hardest at keeping us down is the Empire's Intelligence Service."
3154
3155A chorus of 'Boo's, mostly general-driven, erupted. I personally doubted that the service had done much of anything to most of these people–the enforcers seemed focused on their specific roles suppressing the Gifted. Likely this was just King's way of pinning the blame for the poor conditions on people he didn't much care for. So far his speech had been nothing if not predictable.
3156
3157"Their four enforcers," King continued, "have long been the true power behind the Emperor, and thus the true reason our justice is denied. I, personally, will deal with these four! Once the false rulers have been cast down, we will take our rightful place on the surface, and live like kings!"
3158
3159It seemed to me pretty likely that the only person King intended on living like a king was himself. I wondered if he was self-aware enough to realize how his own chosen name undermined his message.
3160
3161"One hour!" King repeated. "My generals already have their assignments, so this is yours: Go up on the streets and, once you see the eclipse begin, start fucking things up! Some of you might be tasked by my people with doing something else - don't worry about it! You'll definitely still get to shiv someone if that's the case."
3162
3163I could tell that most of King's rhetoric had been ignored by most of my fellow undergrounders. They were street-savvy people, and they knew bullshit when they heard it otherwise they wouldn't have survived this long. But the parts about revenge and the parts about violence, those they'd paid attention to. King had likely pinned his plan on exactly that.
3164
3165"Generals, move out!" King said. "The rest of you, come get your knives. If your first instinct is to stab each other with them, that's understandable, but I'll have to ask you to hold off. Today you're settling a much bigger debt!"
3166
3167Cheers, again mostly from the generals up front. Once it became apparent that the speech was over, each individual general ran off to whatever task King had given them. A few worked through the crowd, picking out undercity residents seemingly at random. One returned from inside the building, wheeling a container no doubt filled with weaponry. The residents that weren't getting drafted quickly gathered around it, claiming their promised knives.
3168
3169"Bishop." One of the generals - in fact, my ostensible guide for the first few days I'd been down here - was in front of me and talking. "Come with me." He said this in the same tone he'd first used, the one that both asked for and promised violence.
3170
3171As before, I disappointed him. I had bigger matters at hand. Pawn Seven and I followed him through the rapidly thinning crowd and into King's building.
3172
3173By the time we arrived on the second floor, King had managed to return to his throne. He was in conversation with a different general, and it rapidly became obvious to me that he was purposely extending the conversation as an excuse to keep us waiting.
3174
3175"The volunteers are on the first floor, sir. I can have them brought up, along with their donors," the general's voice was unsure, either because he was nervous talking to King or merely uncertain as to what the man wanted.
3176
3177"What quality of volunteers, hm?" King asked.
3178
3179"The usual dreck, sir."
3180
3181"And how many of those volunteers actually volunteered?" King asked.
3182
3183The general looked somewhat abashed. "They all volunteered, sir." This was met with silence. The general coughed, then clarified, "Some may have done so as an alternative to their earned punishments."
3184
3185King laughed. "That's more what I expected! Give troublemakers an out and they'll take it, especially if it makes them a Gifted and lets them cut loose. I mean, I realize this must sound like a terrible idea, but since I can take their gifts away at any point it's not an issue."
3186
3187I kept my composure, but I suspected the 'volunteers' had been told as much as I had before I'd been similarly volunteered to hold Pampa's power. I didn't know how many there were, but given how much damage I'd been able to do on my own, the use of the plural form indicated a fair amount of destruction was intended for tonight. King either truly believed in his own rants against the surface or was willing to go to extraordinary lengths to appear that way.
3188
3189"Yes sir," the general continued. "Our donors are mostly already here. The Stormcaller and the Sandblaster are still unaccounted for, as is the Ershu-Yitukon"
3190
3191"Cut out that Dynasty talk; he's a Drowner." King ignored the general's flinching at the name, instead barreling on: "Find them all. Their powers aren't particularly important but I don't like that so many of them are missing. They can't have gone far without being caught by the exact people we're trying to surprise today, so find them or shut them up, I don't care which."
3192
3193The general apparently interpreted this as an order and dismissal, as he immediately turned and left.
3194
3195"Bishop is here." My guide announced.
3196
3197King scowled. "Who the hell invited you?" He said this to Pawn Seven, who had followed me in.
3198
3199"Nobody." Pawn Seven replied immediately. I recalled that King had made it so she couldn't lie to him, a decision he was probably regretting.
3200
3201"Fine, whatever, you're with him then." King turned to the guide. "You, on the other hand, are dismissed. Go find the rest of Team Sapna."
3202
3203Once it was only the three of us in the room - suddenly much larger than I'd remembered, devoid of people - King spoke again. "Time for us to talk about your place in this little uprising," he said.
3204
3205"I'm not volunteering." I preempted. My time as a Gifted had given me an entirely different outlook on the world, but it had also nearly gotten me killed.
3206
3207"And here I thought it was every kid's dream to be able to bind people to the earth and replace the air in their lungs with water," King said with his usual false pity. "No? Just me? Nobody here heard childhood tales about Drowners and thought they'd rather be causing the drowning?"
3208
3209Neither Pawn Seven nor I answered him. He let the silence stretch out, but I wasn't eager to fill it.
3210
3211"Ugh, Bishop, you're getting as boring as her," King said. "I called you here today to give you something, not to take something from someone else and you incidentally catch some of it on the way out."
3212
3213I didn't feel any better about the power transfers now that I knew how they were done. For one, it backed up King's claims to actually be a Pure Void. I didn't know what connection Mind had to powers. There wasn't supposed to be any, as the other elements and Mind weren't connected, but people commanded their powers with their mind and channeled them with their bodies. For my 'self-hating Mind' theory to be correct, it had to be possible, because King actually being an agent of Void was the only other explanation. I could barely accept that I had part of that element in me, let alone that a full-fledged avatar of Void walked the land.
3214
3215"No, Bishop," King continued, thankfully oblivious to my inner thoughts, "I called you here today because of that thing you bring up every single time we're in a room together: Your dear mission, the one you're apparently willing to accomplish at all costs."
3216
3217That got my attention. "You know where a Pure Mind is?" I asked.
3218
3219"The Subtle Man," King said. "AKA Shekhar Roy, AKA My Father, AKA Giant Asshole. You bet I know where he is. He's got this quaint little house up in the Wardsmouth. You might remember it as the place you were following my brother and sister to, shortly before we met. That's right! You were almost on his doorstep before Adhita put a stop to that. Don't feel so bad, there's always someone watching that house, you wouldn't have gotten very far."
3220
3221I did feel somewhat frustrated at the fact that I'd been dragged so far away from my original target, but the fact that I was shortly going to be able to pick up where I left off made up for it. Assuming, of course, that King could be trusted at all. "What's the catch?" I asked.
3222
3223"Bishop, you wound me with your entirely justifiable wariness. Where's the trust? I mean, sure, I tried to kill you at least once but who hasn't? You met my family, we're all like that. But yes, I do want something from this deal, and that something is the man you're going to get. In short, I'm not letting you do this as a favor to you: You're doing it as a favor to me."
3224
3225"I see," I said.
3226
3227"I don't think you do." King leaned forward, grinning that mirthless smile. "You belong to me. Can you understand that? Ask Seven over there. I can make you forget your Queen, and your mission, and everything that's not thoughts of fanatic loyalty to me. You might not think you have a lot of those, but when there's literally nothing else rolling through your head it'll be plenty." He held the pose, watching.
3228
3229Then he leaned back, seemingly relaxed again. "But we need not go to such extremes. Serve me willingly, and you'll have a high place after the revolution. Your Queen doesn't have the title she pretends to, she cannot put you in a seat of power like I can. I'm not asking you to give up your mission. Once you've brought me my father and I've taught him several extraordinarily valuable and painful lessons, you can return to Opal with him. I'm just saying there's more for you here."
3230
3231I ignored King's poor attempt at bribery. "Painful lessons?" I asked instead.
3232
3233"Listen, Giant Asshole abandoned me down here when I was twelve years old," King replied. "Don't pity him; he's earned every punishment I can bring his way and more. Besides, what do you care? You only need him as breeding stock, how his mind ends up doesn't concern you. Don't pretend your motives are any better than mine."
3234
3235An arranged marriage seemed preferable to outright torture, in my opinion, but I couldn't deny that I wasn't exactly being altruistic. "And how am I going to find you?" I said.
3236
3237King shrugged. "That's not really my problem. Link up with one of the other groups. You'll be able to spot them by the fires they'll be setting in their wake. Each one of my groups is assigned to locate and distract one of the enforcers. The riot is obviously to get Vanhi's attention, Adhita will be dealing with an emergency in the Ward, Daya will be dealing with an incursion of bandits on the southern wall that have no direct ties to me so their memories can't tip her off, and Team Sapna is just straight-up breaking into her house. She's not that far from Adhita's place, you know where that is."
3238
3239I nodded. I hadn't known half of the names but by context, it seemed that Vanhi was the Rioter and Sapna was the Illusionist. "Won't bringing their father directly to them cause problems?"
3240
3241King laughed. "If anything, it'll just serve as a better distraction until I get around to stopping them."
3242
3243"And how will you do that?" I asked. It was perhaps overly impertinent of me, given how King's temper seemed to be getting shorter over time, but I had to know. My part of this would play out very differently depending on if King won or lost.
3244
3245King vanished. In his place was a flat cutout, the color of utter nothingness. Like a living shadow made of Void itself, it stood from the throne, and only then did I realize that it wasn't flat at all: It was simply so dark that I couldn't see any depth. I was looking at King's equivalent to the mud armor I'd been wearing, and it looked a whole lot more formidable.
3246
3247"Individually, the enforcers cannot defeat a Pure," King said. His voice was distorted, as though it had echoed down an unfathomable distance, and yet it was perfectly understandable. "It is only together that they are strong, and our groups will split them up. With my armor and the backing of the eclipse, they will be powerless before me."
3248
3249My mind was still racing: He'd covered himself in his element. He'd be immune to his sibling's powers unless they could wear down his Void armor. When the enforcers had faced me, they hadn't done so, but it seemed to be because they hadn't considered me that big of a threat. I doubted they'd make that mistake against King. They probably had some way of constructing their own armor, but King could no doubt overpower them. Even if he didn't come out of this the victor, the enforcers would have their hands full. I started planning.
3250
3251King's nothing-form flickered away and now he stood as he always had, as though he hadn't just transformed into a nightmare and back. "Get going. One hour is when everyone's supposed to be in position, and the eclipse will start about a half hour after that."
3252
3253"Can you really defeat your entire family in five minutes?" I asked, voicing a question that had been in the back of my head for a while now. Eclipses were not known for their length.
3254
3255King's laugh was even deeper this time. "Oh, Bishop, remind me never to take your sense of humor. You're just so amusing." He sat back down on his throne. "I mean, I can see where you got this idea from, I did tell you I could predict eclipses. And I can. The next natural eclipse isn't happening for another ten years, though."
3256
3257"Then what…?"
3258
3259King opened his hand, and in it was the black circle of Void he'd originally used to demonstrate his powers. He gestured with it, and it floated up toward one of the torches on the wall, blocking it from my view. "There's nothing natural about today's eclipse. You might think constructing a city-sized umbrella would be overly taxing on me but, well, 'power like unto a city', right? As long as I don't have to actually make a city out of the stuff, I've got plenty left over to take out my unruly half-siblings. Or anyone else who thinks that today is a good day to cross me." He glared at both me and Pawn Seven. "Now go get my father."
3260
3261Pawn Seven lead the way out of the room, and I followed. As before, we said nothing as we traversed the underground tunnels. Some of the crowd from the earlier speech was still in front of the building, milling around the weapons cache, but most of them were nowhere to be seen. I suspected that they'd already made their way to the surface.
3262
3263Seven had a similar idea. We retraced our steps from the week before and with little effort found our way to the tiny park she'd introduced me to on the day I'd been inducted.
3264
3265"Do you have a plan, Bishop?" Seven asked me once we arrived.
3266
3267"Most of it is King's plan," I said. "Once the eclipse starts, we go to the Wardsmouth, get into the house, and convince the Subtle Man to come with us. Where our plan differs is that we don't turn him over to King. Instead, we leave Utijan with him as fast as we possibly can and never come back."
3268
3269Pawn Seven didn't react to the new plan, except to comment: "I cannot leave."
3270
3271"You can," I said. "I've got a plan for that, too. The Mind should be able to fix you." Two plans, actually, though the backup plan was a lot riskier than relying on the Subtle Man.
3272
3273I didn't know if Pawn Seven could still feel gratitude, or anticipation, or even doubt that my plans would work. She didn't indicate either way what she thought of our chances. "And until then?" She asked.
3274
3275I looked around the parts of the city I could see from here, which was not much. I was thinking of a great deal more of it when I answered her. "I can't let this place burn down."
3276
3277"It is already in motion," Seven said. "No doubt that is exactly why King waited until only an hour beforehand to share his plans."
3278
3279"Still, I can do something. Come with me," I left the park and started walking back to the government quarter.
3280
3281I wasn't dressed for it - a week underground meant that I'd had to adopt old clothing habits - so I'd stand out quite a bit, but time was limited and I couldn't justify going home and changing. Our first stop was my ink store, still somehow in business despite my extended absence.
3282
3283Jayehs, my faithful translator, had been running the shop. Of the people working there, he alone recognized me without my fancier clothing. I could tell he wanted desperately to ask what had happened to me, but I couldn't answer and didn't have time to regardless. I used some of our product to write a note, which I tucked into my pocket. Then I shuttered the shop and gave Jayehs and the rest of the workers the day off, with instructions to leave the city if at all possible, preferably by the North gate or the trade district.
3284
3285After that, we were outside the government quarter, heading toward a bank I'd only physically entered a few times.
3286
3287Pawn Seven stumbled when we got within sight of it, nearly falling over. "What is that place?" she said, averting her eyes.
3288
3289"It's a bank," I said. "Pawn Eight works there."
3290
3291Seven just seemed confused. "How can Eight work where there's… what is it?"
3292
3293"It's a bank," I repeated.
3294
3295Seven shook her head, still keeping her gaze away from the building. "I know you've told me twice now, but it won't stay. Like our lady, I think King took this from me. It hurts to look in that direction, to see something my mind refuses to know." Her voice was almost wavering.
3296
3297It made sense; King probably didn't want her finding reinforcements. "Okay, you stay here," I said. "Face away from the building, don't look at it. I'll be right back."
3298
3299Pawn Seven nodded her understanding, then stood so her back was to the bank. As terrible as her condition was, the fact that looking away helped was good; it meant that my backup plan for getting her out of the city would probably not kill her.
3300
3301I went into the bank and was immediately cornered by security. The first time I'd been here I'd not been terribly well dressed, but I'd at least looked moderately like I could conceivably belong. Now I looked like riff-raff.
3302
3303"Nightingale!" I shouted. "Raven! Wren!"
3304
3305I hadn't asked myself what I'd do if Pawn Eight wasn't working today, or if he'd taken the day off or become sick. I'd already expended what little preparation time I'd had and not been able to warn anyone other than the few people in my shop. But, thankfully, that was not the case. He must have heard me yell three of the organization's emergency words, because he suddenly intervened between me and the guards.
3306
3307"What is all this?" He asked of both me and my captors, "why are you disturbing business?"
3308
3309"This lowlife-" one of the guards winced to be speaking Trade, but he followed Eight's lead, "-barged in here."
3310
3311"I'm a runner!" I said. "I bring a message from the Bishop."
3312
3313Pawn Eight's tone didn't change but I could tell that he recognized the part I was playing. "Hand it over, then, and get out!"
3314
3315I handed it over and then got out.
3316
3317Pawn Eight,
3318
3319The investigation has unearthed much. Calamity will befall the city upon the eclipse. Save yourself, and whoever you can.
3320
3321In service,
3322
3323Bishop
3324
3325It was all I'd been able to write, back at the shop. King hadn't forbidden me from mentioning the plan to anyone, thankfully, but I couldn't leave more details. It'd been hard just to include 'unearthed' as a hint toward King's location. I felt a pang of sympathy for Pawn Seven, given what she must have been going through talking to me.
3326
3327When I returned to her, I found her still facing away from the bank.
3328
3329"I delivered the letter," I said.
3330
3331"We are out of time," was her stoic reply. She wasn't even gesturing or facing anywhere different, but I knew. I dared a glance up at the sun.
3332
3333The black disc had begun to obscure it.
3334
3335*************************
333626
3337
3338An eclipse was a natural event, even if it was somewhat disturbing. The only people nearby who knew that there was something different about this one were me and Pawn Seven. Everyone else should have been going about their business, maybe giving the fading sun a curious glance or two, but certainly nothing more out of the ordinary than that. They shouldn't have been panicking and running down the streets, but the more Pawn Seven and I walked, the more of that we saw.
3339
3340"I suspect that discipline has lapsed," Seven said. It made sense. The rabble of the undercity - present company excluded - had been sent up to start riots and general mayhem. It didn't surprise me that they hadn't wanted to wait.
3341
3342We knew our target - the Wardsmouth house that had apparently held the Subtle Man this entire time. Getting there was rapidly proving more difficult than we'd hoped.
3343
3344We nearly got caught in the first riot: Pawn Seven stopped me from running around a corner moments before I would have been trampled by an angry crowd. They were either yelling incoherently, yelling in Hidna, or both. I would have worried that they'd take their anger out on me and my fellow foreigner, but they barely noticed us. More than a few of them were foreign themselves. Far more than a few of them weren't even our people from underground. Apparently, the government district's castoffs weren't the only angry people in Utijan.
3345
3346"This is likely to become even more untenable," Pawn Seven said to me as we watched the crowd pass noisily ahead of us.
3347
3348I just nodded. "How long has the eclipse been going on?"
3349
3350Pawn Seven did not appear to need to think about the question. "Nearly fifteen minutes at this point," she said. She clearly had been keeping track, likely for the same reason that I wanted to know.
3351
3352"At some point," I said, "very soon, people are going to start wondering why the sun's not coming back."
3353
3354"As I said," Seven repeated, "untenable."
3355
3356No doubt this was the intention, to make sure that the Rioter Vahni had to deal with panicky civilians in addition to the angry lower class. As a bonus, the city's militia would likely not be terribly effective under the conditions either. Still, it would be better for both of us if we could stay away from crowds for the time being. We didn't want to be standing in the wrong one when Vahni decided to put everyone she could see to sleep.
3357
3358Pawn Seven lead us down another path, one that I recognized as a somewhat roundabout route to the Wardsmouth. It was narrower, which meant that those people we did run into proved to be an even greater hindrance to our progress, but there were far fewer people to do so.
3359
3360We made good time, but not good enough. By the time we arrived in the upscale neighborhood, chaos had obviously preceded us. A large plume of some kind of sparkling black smoke glittered over an area that I suspected was the Ward itself. King had probably torn down some or all of its protective wall. Even if the Pure had no intention of cooperating with King's plans, the mere fact that they were free would no doubt serve to distract the enforcers even further.
3361
3362I'd spent a lot of time in this neighborhood, though, so I knew enough back ways to keep us out of sight. It didn't take long for us to reach that simple house I'd intended to approach what seemed like ages ago. It was the same yard and the same windows, but this time, none of the enforcers were here to stop us.
3363
3364I looked at the front door, then over to Pawn Seven. "The mission," I said.
3365
3366"Yes," she said. "The mission." I could have sworn that, for just a fraction of a moment, she'd smiled.
3367
3368As relieved as I was to finally be here, I still felt trepidation. Inside the house was a Pure Mind: someone capable of everything the enforcers could do individually, and more. Someone just as powerful as King, but who'd practiced his craft for even longer. I had no choice, but I wouldn't put Seven in danger. "Keep a lookout for me?" I asked.
3369
3370She just nodded, slipping into the shadows between two of the houses across the street. Now it was just me and the house. I took a deep breath and opened the door.
3371
3372I wasn't sure what I'd expected on the other side. Something like King's ostentatious throne room perhaps, or the Queen's humble if busy workroom. A perfectly ordinary living room had, for some reason, not been on my mind.
3373
3374"Adhita,kya ven tun ho?" an unsure voice came from a hallway to my right. Before I could answer it, its owner appeared. He froze the moment he saw me. "You're not Adhita," he said, this time in Trade. I hadn't looked the part of someone who could speak Hidna for weeks now.
3375
3376If King had seemed too young to be the Subtle Man, the person I saw before me now was far too old. He looked like he could have been King's great-grandfather. The man leaned heavily on his cane, wrinkled face further distorted by a mixture of confusion and fear.
3377
3378"I am Bishop," I said. "I'm looking for a man named," and here I had to think of which of the names that King had said that I could actually use, "Shekhar Roy."
3379
3380"That's me," the old man said, as though that made sense. "Did Adhita send you? I know he's wanted me to leave for someplace more secure. You can tell him that, whatever's going on, it's convinced me."
3381
3382I was sorely tempted to claim that this was, in fact, the case, but lying would be counterproductive in the long run. Still, something was clearly wrong here. Lying should have been entirely out of the picture with a Pure Mind involved. He shouldn't have had to ask me any questions, including who I was or who had sent me. He should already know all of this.
3383
3384"Are you the Subtle Man?" I asked.
3385
3386The confusion in Shekhar's face turned to anger. "Not anymore. Is that what this is? One of the Pure down the road finally figured out where I lived and who I was? Sent you to do their dirty work?" He had a hard grip on his cane. While I didn't doubt that he could use it as a weapon, I also didn't doubt that I would have no trouble avoiding it.
3387
3388Still, why would he try to hit me with a cane when he could just knock me out effortlessly? If he was the Subtle Man, what had happened to his powers?
3389
3390"Did King do this to you?" I asked. It was the only thing that made sense.
3391
3392Some of his anger ebbed, replaced again by the confusion. "King? This is an empire, no kings here. Stop trying to confuse an old man, and tell me what this is about!"
3393
3394It was possible that King had lied to me, that he'd sent me to some innocent person's house as a way to distract me, but it didn't seem likely. This person answered to the right name and was on a first-name basis with at least one of the enforcers. His surface thoughts were a roil of confusion and fear, but no deception. It was the right person, just without his abilities. I fell back on the mission.
3395
3396"I'm sorry for the confusion. I was sent here from Opal, to find a Pure Mind. From what I understand, that's you."
3397
3398Shekhar's mouth tightened, but he didn't comment.
3399
3400"I was sent by one of your kind," I said. "Opal's undercity is run by a woman we refer to as the Queen, and-"
3401
3402"One of my kind, in Opal?" He interrupted. "Malika sent you?"
3403
3404"We don't use each other's names," I said. "She is simply our Queen."
3405
3406"That is what her name means," Shekhar said. "As my name means 'peak'. Are you telling me that the family will have me back?"
3407
3408It was rapidly becoming apparent that, even as prepared as I'd finally become, I was still not prepared for this conversation. "Family?" Shekhar made an impatient gesture. "I don't know what word you're using now. Group, coven, organization, whatever. It's our family. Pure Minds."
3409
3410The Queen hadn't come from nowhere, I'd already known that. I'd had a sort of abstract knowledge that the organization I belonged to was older than her, that before her some other Mind had been doing much the same thing. Such continuity was the entire purpose of my mission, after all. Still, to hear of the existence of an entire extended family of Pure Minds unnerved me.
3411
3412Still, it was the mission. "Yes," I said. "She wants you to be part of her… family."
3413
3414I wasn't initially sure that I'd gotten the message across about what such duties would entail, but Shekhar just nodded slowly. "Of course. Like Xie Yin, my crime can be forgiven if I return to the fold, and do my duty to the family." He shrugged. "What choice do I have? I deserve to die here, for my sin, but if I can serve the family I will do so."
3415
3416I wanted to just take this for agreement, but I couldn't help remembering what the Lady of the Hearth had told me about the Subtle Man. How he'd kept the Pure locked up in the Ward, ostensibly for their own safety, and then offered to set anyone free who was willing to be his 'bride'. He seemed harmless in person, but his own words indicated that this was not the case. "Your crime?" I asked.
3417
3418Shekhar refused to meet my gaze, his eyes resolutely on the floor. "Do you know who Xie Yin was?" he asked.
3419
3420"No," I said. "Dynasty, I assume?"
3421
3422"Dynasty. Yes, you could say that." Shekhar laughed humorlessly. "Xie Yin was the founder of the Dynasty, at least as we know it today. A Pure Mind, one of my ancestors. He split with the family because he wanted to be more than just a father to more Minds. He wanted to bring back the days of Scripture, to elevate all the Pure and the Gifted to the ruling class that he believed they deserved. Our family cast him out, for that. The other Pures, you see, by luck or fate or will of the gods, they are born occasionally to ordinary parents. There is no danger of their vanishing from this world. Not so with the Minds. A Pure Mind is never born to ordinary parents. Not once has this happened. Only two Pure Minds can make another. Two." He emphasized this, then shuddered. "For his selfishness in abandoning his duty to our people, Xie Yin was cast out."
3423
3424"But the family took him back," I pointed out. I began to see what Shekhar had thought his crime was; his enforcers were apparently the forerunner of an attempted Utijan dynasty. Fortunately for my mission, there appeared to be precedent for forgiveness.
3425
3426"He was my ancestor, so yes." Shekhar continued, "and if coming back to the family will help absolve my crimes and my sin, then I will do so."
3427
3428Good enough for me. "Will your children try to stop me?" I asked. If the enforcers survived what King had planned for them, they would probably want their father back.
3429
3430Shekhar just shook his head, though. "Adhita, Daya, Sapna, Vahni… they are grown now. They do not need their doddering father, but they'll respect me enough to listen if I tell them I want to make a trip to Opal. They'll keep the Empire safe without me."
3431
3432"True enough," I said. I didn't want to dwell too much on their methods for doing so. For that matter, I didn't want to stick around here any longer than we had to. Shekhar appeared to be willing to go along with my plan out of some sense of familial responsibility, but it seemed like a good idea not to test that. It'd be much harder for him to back out once we were underway. "We should get moving," I added. "I think the Ward is open, so your worries that someone over there might come seeking vengeance aren't exactly unfounded. Plus there are the riots." I looked out the back window; I'd known there was an alleyway behind the building, but there didn't seem to be easy access to it from inside.
3433
3434The Subtle Man didn't seem worried. "Only a matter of time until riots, I suppose." He sighed. "Vanhi, at least, will have her work cut out for her."
3435
3436I didn't see anyone in the alley, not that visibility was all that great with the sun blocked out. "Yeah," I agreed, "but not all your kids are so well-behaved. We should be able to get out, though, if we move quickly."
3437
3438"Wait," Shekhar said, glancing toward the same window I'd been observing. "One of my children is behind this mayhem?" He asked.
3439
3440It occurred to me that he hadn't mentioned if King would be willing to let him go. "Yes, your son. Not Adhita. Your other, angrier, son."
3441
3442The color drained from his face, and every emotion that wasn't stark raw terror fled his mind. "Devraj? No, no no…." He pushed me out of the way with unexpected force and was at the window that I'd been at moments ago. He wasn't watching the alleyway, though; he was craning his neck upward, trying to look at the sky.
3443
3444"I don't know his real name; he calls himself King." I chastised myself mentally for letting my guard down, but Shekhar didn't seem interested in fighting me.
3445
3446"The eclipse, oh gods, it's him. It's really him. He's still alive." Shekhar's voice trembled as he slowly turned himself to face me. "My boy, my cursed boy, my sin… he lives?"
3447
3448Shit. If I'd known that his other children had apparently kept King's survival a secret, I would have been more careful about what I'd said. "Yes," I said finally. "And he's behind the eclipse and the general unrest outside. That's why we have to go, now."
3449
3450Shekhar nodded but still moved entirely too slowly. The shock of it was still settling in. We didn't have time for this, but I had his cooperation and I couldn't risk breaking it. I still didn't know why the man hadn't used his powers, after all; it was possible that too big an upset would have him lash out. He was undoubtedly already close to the breaking point as it was.
3451
3452"His brother, his sisters…" the Subtle Man said. "He'll kill them."
3453
3454"Listen, I'm sorry you had to find out this way," I said sincerely, "but for them, nothing's changed. He's always been out there, and they've survived." I decided against telling him that they were already aware of his presence.
3455
3456Finally, the man started walking toward the front door. "Yes," he muttered. "We should leave this place. Leave my crime and sin behind." He shook his head. "I'm sorry you had to get involved in all this… Bishop, you said your name was? Family business does tend to get convoluted, it's our nature, but I really made a mess of things this time."
3457
3458I opened the door, darting out ahead of him, only to see that a crowd had gathered in front of the house.
3459
3460My guide from the Undercity, one of the generals who had apparently been waiting this entire time for some violence, had a rough hold on one of Pawn Seven's arms, which he'd pinned up behind her back. She was trying to say something to me - her mouth was moving, but no voice was coming out.
3461
3462Adhita I recognized on sight; I was beginning to feel like I knew the Witchdoctor personally at this point. He'd been treated roughly as well; I could see several cuts on his face, and bruises were just beginning to form where he'd apparently been struck. He, too, was restrained.
3463
3464And, of course, at the center of the crowd, a corridor that had parted for his presence, was King.
3465
3466"Hey pops," he said as Shekhar exited the building behind me. "Long time no see."
3467
3468*************************
346927
3470
3471King vanished, replaced by the flat nothing-cutout that was his armor. Any hopes I'd had about Shekhar casting off whatever reservations kept him from using his power vanished. They'd be evenly matched now, even if the father could bring himself to fight his son. Given that he hadn't even attempted to fight me when I'd broken into his house, it didn't seem likely.
3472
3473Shekhar winced. "Devraj…" he said, almost plaintively. "You must believe me, I didn't know you lived."
3474
3475King laughed, mockingly, the tone turned even more menacing due to the echo of his armor. "Oh, this is rich."
3476
3477Shekhar seemed barely able to even look at King. "It is true."
3478
3479"No, no, not that," King said. "I already interrogated your favorite son about that. They were keeping my survival a secret from you, it turns out."
3480
3481The Subtle Man looked to the Witchdoctor. Adhita just nodded soberly, without explanation.
3482
3483King continued, "No, what I can't believe is that I was just about to pull your powers out the way that I did all the rest of my half-siblings, and you beat me to it."
3484
3485This, finally, seemed to rouse some kind of defiance in Shekhar, though even it seemed subdued: "What have you done to your sisters? Your brother?"
3486
3487King shrugged. "Girls are stacked over there in that wagon. I put them to sleep since fighting them was taking too long. Dear brother Adhita got a longer talking to, and I took his powers away. Temporarily, of course. It'd take more time and effort to drain him permanently, but I have plenty of time and am more than willing to make the effort. Also I slapped him around a bit, because it was fun."
3488
3489Shekhar looked aghast, yet still defeated. "Please," he said, "leave them alone. It's me you want."
3490
3491"Oh, now you're noble? Where was that nobility when you abandoned a child in the undercity?" King demanded, his anger clear even through the muffling of the armor. "I'd have left your other children alone had they left me alone, but they're complicit. They kept me from you. They kept me below, the same as they kept the Pure in the Ward. So no, you don't get to bargain for them. As far as I'm concerned, you're all the same."
3492
3493I could see tears streaming down the Subtle Man's face. "Please," he begged.
3494
3495"Stop avoiding the question!" King shouted. "I came here to tear your power from you as painfully as I could before killing you, only to find that you'd already sealed yourself off from it. Why?"
3496
3497I was, by this time, relatively certain I'd got the right person, but now I knew why he hadn't seemed like a Pure Mind: Because, effectively, he wasn't. I'd known that mind magic could be turned inward against itself, but I'd never expected that anyone would actually do so. I'd hoped that Shekhar would be able to help us escape, that he could restore at least some of Pawn Seven to herself, but those hopes vanished. The Subtle Man was as helpless as I was, perhaps even more so. I could still use my magic, however weak it was.
3498
3499An idea came to me, then. A desperate, terrible idea, one that depended on me to accept things I'd rather not, to put my life into the hands of speculation and what little magic I could bring to bear. But King had just outright said he'd intended to kill the object of my mission, and I doubted he'd let either me or Pawn Seven walk away.
3500
3501"I sealed my power away to atone," Shekhar said, "for my sin."
3502
3503"If you wanted to do that, you could have just come back and got me, you know." King said acidly. "Call it a 'life lesson' or some bullshit. Like camping but with more gutterfolk trying to stab me."
3504
3505Shekhar drew himself up. "No. I regret the necessity of abandoning you, but it was a necessity." His voice had grown cold, though it still wavered. "I sealed my power away before I cast you aside, because I was not worthy of my power, and the world was in danger because of yours."
3506
3507"Can't really argue the whole 'world in danger' thing," King said, gesturing upward to the dark circle still eclipsing the sun, "but did it not occur to you that maybe, with an actual role model, I might not want to kill absolutely everyone?"
3508
3509Shekhar was trembling, but he forced himself to look his son in the eye. "I made you of Void. That was my sin, my terrible act by which you were tainted. What could I do, but ensure that such a thing never happened again?"
3510
3511"Pfft," King said, the dismissive noise made especially strange by the echoing armor, "As though that was up to you. You don't get to pick when the gods make a new Pure, old man."
3512
3513Shekhar shuddered. "My kind have played God more than you know. That is the nature of sin, to believe yourself godlike, to believe you can do what only they can."
3514
3515"Talk sense!" King demanded. His already fickle humor seemed to have vanished entirely.
3516
3517"You never knew your mother," the Subtle Man said. "None of you did. Adhita, your mother's name is Malati Tamboli, and she is a Pure Earth. She still lives in this city. Should we survive this, I can take you to her."
3518
3519"What are you talking about?" King said, throwing his arms up in exasperation.
3520
3521"Vanhi's mother is Swarna Jain, and she is a Pure Fire."
3522
3523"Is this the birds and the bees talk?" King said. "Because it's a bit late for that, I know how that works. You'd better not be about to ask me for grandkids."
3524
3525The Subtle Man didn't acknowledge the reply, instead continuing, "Daya's mother is Swapna Joshi, and she is a Pure Air."
3526
3527"I don't care!" King shouted. "I know this already! Not the names because who gives a rat's ass, but I know how Pure breeding works, okay? So if the next damn sentence out of your mouth isn't an actual explanation, I will kill you where you stand!"
3528
3529Shekhar looked directly at King, and he said: "Sapna's mother was Shobha Kaur, and she was a Pure Water."
3530
3531King yelled something I couldn't understand either because the armor was muffling it or he was just incoherent at this point. He ran forward toward his father, and I ran forward to intercept him. The charge had caught me unaware, I was barely calling up my own magic to enact my own hopeless plan when King pushed me aside. I fell to the ground, the cold numbness of the void armor cutting into my arms where I'd tried to defend myself. I couldn't feel them anymore, though at least I could see that they were, in fact, still there. I wasn't bleeding, but I had no doubt that King could have outright killed me if he'd wanted to.
3532
3533He wanted to kill his father. His hand, a dark outline, shot out and wrapped around Shekhar's neck. Color drained from the old man as he choked. I struggled to stand, fought to call up whatever magic I could.
3534
3535"Your mother," Shekhar said, fighting to speak, "is Kavita Chaudhri." The Subtle Man struggled in his son's grasp, managing finally to say: "she… was not… Pure."
3536
3537King dropped him, and whirled to face Adhita. "What is he talking about?"
3538
3539I crawled over to where Shekhar sat on the ground, my arms slowly regaining their strength. The old man was breathing, at least, though I couldn't tell how much damage King had inflicted on him.
3540
3541Adhita, for his part, simply looked at King and shrugged. Given King's lack of further demands, it seemed likely that he'd taken away Adhita's ability to talk, the same as he'd done to Pawn Seven. I hoped he was regretting that now.
3542
3543I managed to stand up, now between King and the Subtle Man, before King turned back to face us. I was helping Shekhar stand when King started making his demands once more. He was either too angry with his father or too dismissive of me to even look my way.
3544
3545"So what?" he said. "So what if my mother wasn't Pure? I was chosen by the Void to be its avatar, my parentage doesn't matter."
3546
3547"No," Shekhar said, still struggling to his feet, "I made you."
3548
3549King's armor rendered him entirely featureless, but I could tell he was rolling his eyes at the remark. "Yes, yes, you and my mother made me, I understand that. But the gods made me Void."
3550
3551"No," Shekhar repeated. "I made you Void."
3552
3553The temperature seemed to drop, as though King's rage had turned cold. "What? Explain yourself." He said.
3554
3555Aside from some soreness in my arms where I'd touched the void armor, I was recovered. I had a feeling I was going to need whatever strength I had, and soon.
3556
3557Shekhar was standing now, most of his strength seemingly returned as well. "There are very few Pure Minds. The Lady of Subtlety chooses not to bless the ordinary people of the world with the occasional Pure Mind child, and so the only way for us to carry on is to conceive children with other Pure Minds. The failure of the Dynasty was that its founder was the only one of his kind, he could convince no others to defect with him. I would not make that same mistake."
3558
3559King was just standing, stock-still, saying nothing.
3560
3561"There are few acts that my family considers a crime" Shekhar continued. "And I had already committed most of them by leaving to establish my own Dynasty here in the Empire. But there are even fewer acts that we consider to be a sin. Each of us are taught from a young age that we are not gods. Our place is not above people; we guide, but we do not control. We make the world a better place, we do not dominate it. I chose a different path. I tried to be a god, and in so doing I sinned. I tried to make you Pure."
3562
3563"What did you do to me?" King's voice was strained, either with disbelief or anguish at the truth.
3564
3565"You must understand," Shekhar said, tears again beginning to well up in his eyes, "I did it because I wanted the best for you."
3566
3567"What did you do!?" King shouted. His void armor wavered but not long enough for me to take advantage of the opening.
3568
3569"The family is exactly as it sounds. We are a family of Pure Minds, and we are the only Pure Minds that exist. We trace our lineage back to the Lady of Subtlety herself, though how that is possible without committing the very sin that I have, I do not know. There are very few of us, but our ability to affect the minds of others, and through that the bodies of others, is unparalleled."
3570
3571I saw Adhita's eyes widen at this. If anyone else here knew what that kind of connection could do, he did.
3572
3573Shekhar hadn't stopped talking: "The family can only exist because of that power. We would be as the Dynasty is, otherwise; too little diversity to sustain us. We are so few, so very very few. Maybe a dozen of us live, but with our power, we can alter the undesirable traits that would otherwise build up." He paused. "That is not a sin. It is a small alteration. What I did to you - what I tried to do… that was my sin."
3574
3575"You… changed me?" King's voice was somewhere between outrage and incredulity.
3576
3577"In your mother's womb." Shekhar confirmed sadly. "She was an ordinary person, and without my interference you would have been born mundane as well. I made you Pure, and for the first twelve years of your life I thought I had succeeded. Gifted do not come into their powers until their teen years, and from the moment you were born, you could not read my surface thoughts. I was overjoyed."
3578
3579"And then," King spat, "you saw this." He gestured to the Void armor he was wearing. "You saw what I truly was."
3580
3581Shekhar nodded. "You came into your powers, and I realized what I had done. The Void is real, it was within you as a child, and rather than magnifying your Mind, I magnified your Void. I do not know where I went wrong," he shook his head, "all I can say is that those who warned me against my course of action were right. I should never have played God. It was that very day that I turned my Mind against itself, that I sealed my powers away so that I could never, ever cause such suffering again."
3582
3583"And then you added on to the suffering toll by throwing me away." King said. "Nice atonement, there."
3584
3585"You should not have been," Shekhar said, once again unable to meet his son's eyes. "Void is unnatural, it is against the gods."
3586
3587"Fuck you!" King shouted. "I don't care what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night. You haven't atoned for shit. I'll give you the absolution you want so bad, I'll send you right to those fucking gods you sinned against!"
3588
3589King rushed his father again, but this time I was ready.
3590
3591Any undercity kid like myself knew how to fight dirty. You grew up scrapping or you didn't grow up at all, and while I was no wizard, I knew every dirty magic trick in the book. Everyone knows the trick where you toss sand in your opponent's eyes. Undercity kids know how to use their Earth magic to conjure up sand to throw. And that wasn't the dirtiest trick, by far.
3592
3593Did King know these tricks? If he did, I was out of luck. He'd been abandoned like me, but I had to hope that he hadn't survived the way I had to. His power could kill with ease, after all, he'd never had to learn to eke out everything he could from his magic, to survive on what dregs were left to the common man. He'd never needed to truly fight for his life.
3594
3595I conjured up a handful of fire, the same as I had back in Chankota, the same as I had any number of times in my life to light a dark room, the same as I had those few times in my life when I wasn't just fighting dirty but was in fact fighting just to stay alive. My pitiful magic paled before what King could bring to bear, I was a spark in the face of cavernous void, but there was one faint hope, one truth that would let me get past King's defenses and actually harm him:
3596
3597We shared an element.
3598
3599If this worked I'd have to admit the terrible truth that a bit of that Void was in me, made me what I was, but if it wasn't true then I was dead anyway, and the handful of fire was only for the most dire of times as it was. I was drawing on every last trick I knew, every bit of experience, for one last defiant attack.
3600
3601My hand met King's armor. Cold numbness spread into my arm, into my very bones, and the terrible horror of utter failure filled me. Then I felt - felt! - my still-burning hand collide with King's face.
3602
3603Only a few people were prepared for what happened next, as the eclipse vanished without warning and the full strength of the sun suddenly shone down.
3604
3605Pawn Seven, her eyes already shut so she would not have to adjust to the brightness, spun on the guide that had been holding her. He was reeling from the returned sunlight, and had let go of her in his surprise. She had a knife, then, one of the makeshift weapons that King had been handing out, and a fraction of a moment later the guide was bleeding to death.
3606
3607I'd prepared myself for this, as little as I dared hope that it would actually come to pass. The numbness in my arm had vanished entirely, King's armor having vanished as well. I passed around King, holding my hand over his mouth and nose as I shifted from Fire to Air. King was screaming, his hands coming up to smother his burning face but as I suspected he had no fighting experience, did not know what I was doing next. I used my magic to begin pulling the air from his lungs.
3608
3609He was powerful, and if he managed to concentrate he could kill me easily, but as I'd learned from fighting Adhita, the Gifted were powerless if they could be distracted. King himself had given me the opportunity to gain that knowledge.
3610
3611The only other person who'd been prepared was, surprisingly, Adhita. The Witchdoctor spun on his captor in much the same way as Pawn Seven, and to much the same effect. Unlike his brother, he knew how to fight, and every strike he landed seemed to do much more damage than it ought to. He didn't have a knife but he'd evidently recovered at least some of his power, as the people closing on him were increasingly getting themselves paralyzed for their trouble. I'd disrupted more than just the eclipse. Hopefully Adhita wanted his brother dead more than he wanted to kill me.
3612
3613King fell to the ground, and I bore him down, continuing the stream of magic that prevented him from drawing breath. He was panicked, struggling beneath me. Eventually some part of him would think to strike out with his power and kill me; my only hope was that he passed out before that happened. Even now I felt the cold void starting to seep back into me; I had seconds at best.
3614
3615Adhita fell next to me, reached out, and grabbed King's arm. King's struggles stopped immediately. The Witchdoctor looked up at me. "You. I should have known you'd be involved in this," he said, bitterly. "Take my father and get him out of here, do you understand? Keep him safe!"
3616
3617"What?" I managed.
3618
3619King's generals had recovered from their initial shock and were regrouping. Any who touched Adhita were reeling back in pain the moment they made contact, but eventually someone would think to start throwing weapons or getting crossbows. Adhita glared at me. "Keep him safe, or so help me I will hunt you down. Now go!"
3620
3621I stood, taking my hand away from King's mouth. He was breathing but apparently Adhita had knocked him unconscious. It was also apparent that the Witchdoctor's full power had not yet returned to him, that keeping King from waking up was taking most of his strength.
3622
3623I turned toward the half of King's men that Pawn Seven had been taking on single-handedly, only to discover that she'd cut a swath through those who had fought her and routed the rest. She was gesturing for me to follow; her voice had not yet returned.
3624
3625I ran to Shekhar, who was watching everything unfold with a mixture of sadness and shock. I pulled for him to follow me, but he seemed unwilling to move, instead staring as one of his sons paralyzed the other.
3626
3627"Go!" Adhita shouted at us both.
3628
3629I grabbed Shekhar and lifted him over my shoulder, then regrouped with Pawn Seven. Without looking back, we ran.
3630
3631*************************
363228
3633
3634I hadn't realized how much I'd missed the desert. It was hot, dry, and windy, but more than anything, it smelled like home.
3635
3636Pawn Seven sneezed. "Funny weather," she remarked stoically.
3637
3638"It's not uncommon, this time of year," Shekhar said. "Dust from the mountains to the north."
3639
3640"I will have to take your word for it," Pawn Seven replied. "As I cannot see."
3641
3642My backup plan for getting Pawn Seven out of the city had relied on something she'd told me those first few days after we'd met. She couldn't talk to anyone else about anything that King had forbidden, unless they already knew about it. But she'd discovered that so long as she could justify it to herself, she had a fair bit of latitude to determine what counted as "already knew". She'd become adept at convincing herself of these half-truths.
3643
3644At the trade district's warehouse in Utijan - the same one Magen had set up in what seemed like ages ago - I'd given her a choice. The knowledge of the world outside Utijan had been taken from her so strongly that to try to leave the city could very possibly kill her. The safest move was for her to simply stay put, in hiding, until I could get help from Opal.
3645
3646Her other choice was to also stay in Utijan. Shekhar and I would stay with her, and the three of us would walk for a very long time through the city and its outskirts. The big difference was that she'd be wearing a blindfold.
3647
3648She knew, of course, that we were lying about that second option. That option meant we were leaving the city, heading home with her, and giving her a not-very-plausible lie about it. It could kill her, but I couldn't tell her the actual plan because then she wouldn't be able to lie to herself.
3649
3650Her exact words, in that careful monotone I'd grown used to, had been "I'd rather die than keep seeing Utijan. Put the blindfold on." There'd been a few tense moments when we left the city gates. I'd been guiding her by the arm and I could feel an uncharacteristic nervousness in her. She knew the truth.
3651
3652Thankfully, it either wouldn't have killed her in the first place or the lie we'd fed her was good enough. We passed through the gates without incident. We had to sleep unprotected under the stars that night - we'd left in a hurry with nearly no supplies - but the next day we'd managed to stock up in Putluru and head south.
3653
3654Guragas was quite a bit out of our way. The fastest route home was east, through Chankota and then directly through the desert to Opal. But I knew that Adhita, assuming he'd won his confrontation, wouldn't take long to make good on his promise to find his father. The Witchdoctor had visited Chankota before, and even without him it definitely wasn't the most welcoming of places. I could blend in, but Shekhar looked too old to be traveling and the blindfolded Pawn Seven stood out even in the far more welcoming city of Guragas.
3655
3656Still, we'd made it here without incident. Shekhar was guiding Seven around at the moment, and I was walking a bit ahead of them, keeping my eyes open and letting my instincts do their work. Guragas was in many ways the opposite of Chankota: It was a sprawling town that welcomed everyone, foreign and domestic. Magen's stop in Chankota had been due to convenience more than money, it seemed, as Guragas was definitely the closest thing the empire had to a trade hub. It served as a crossroads for goods back to Utijan, Saratov to the south, and of course over to Amethyst and the rest of the Jewels.
3657
3658Still, that didn't mean it was safe. It reminded me of home even though we weren't close to the true desert yet, but home had its share of dangers and Guragas would be no different.
3659
3660Shekhar motioned me over. "Do you think we can," he started, then mimed taking off a blindfold.
3661
3662I glanced around. The city was a mishmash of architecture; Empire-style peaked roofs mixed with flat Opal-style buildings. There were even a few Saratov-style onion domes scattered throughout. It might be taken for a particularly strange section of Utijan, but I didn't want to risk it. "Wait until we get inside." I said.
3663
3664Daylight was waning by the time I found a suitable inn. It needed to be on the eastern part of town so we could make a fast escape if necessary, close to a bad enough part of the city that the three of us could vanish in it, but not so close that we'd need to pay extra protection money. I wasn't confident about that last point by the time darkness fell, but it was better to be indoors at that point so we settled. We rented out the top floor of the inn, complete with something approximating a living room, for no other reason than to allow Pawn Seven to have her own sleeping space. Thankfully, the night passed without incident.
3665
3666Of course, it could not last.
3667
3668I was woken before daybreak by Pawn Seven. "Someone's here," she said tersely. She'd left the room before explaining further.
3669
3670Strangely, I wasn't worried. I was probably wrong about the protection money and it was a representative of a local gang. They could be paid off. It wouldn't be a problem. I made my way to the living room to see Seven by the door. She was all business, face blank but visibly waiting for the slightest movement. Based on how she'd fought King's men back in Utijan, I didn't doubt that any confrontation would be short and in our favor.
3671
3672The door opened and Seven struck, but something was immediately wrong. She froze halfway through her movement, then spilled to the floor. I remained calm for reasons I didn't quite understand. Pawn Seven was down, shouldn't I be worried?
3673
3674Adhita stepped through the door, looking cross. Of course it was him. I should have been dismayed that we'd been discovered so quickly, but instead there was nothing but that constant weighty calm.
3675
3676"Mujhen lagh ki tumum ne kahal ki anap un sabheek ko sambhhaal sankata ha, Vanhi." Adhita grumbled to someone behind him. I still couldn't understand Hidna very well, but I recognized the name 'Vahni'. The Rioter was here, which explained the insufferable calm I couldn't seem to shake.
3677
3678Adhita stepped over Seven's prone body, and Vahni followed suit. She sat down on one of the free chairs and just looked over the room. Care-free, as though she hadn't just broken into an inn and incapacitated everyone inside.
3679
3680Adhita turned to look down at Pawn Seven. "If I let you up, you're going to need to refrain from killing me. We came here to talk."
3681
3682Most of Seven had been paralyzed, but her eyes were apparently still her own; she glanced at me. I nodded; between the two of them we didn't have much of a chance in a stand-up fight. If they truly had come here to talk, then we might all walk out of here alive. Adhita could be lying, but if that were the case why bother to try to talk to us at all? They could grab their father and leave, and we'd have been powerless to stop them.
3683
3684"She still wants to kill you, but she's not going to act on it." Vahni said.
3685
3686"Hmph. Now you can read her?" Adhita replied, still watching Seven carefully.
3687
3688Vahni frowned at him. "Our dear brother did something to her emotions. I don't know what, but I know it's bad. She's different, harder to get a read on. But she'll cooperate. Probably." Vahni's body language was aloof, but I thought I detected a hint of sympathy in her voice for Pawn Seven.
3689
3690That appeared to be good enough for Adhita, as Pawn Seven was slowly getting to her feet moments later. He turned to me. "The man sleeping in the other room is my father," he said. "He doesn't seem to have been harmed, but I'm going in there to wake him regardless. If I find out you've been mistreating him, I promise that you will regret it." With that dire promise, he left the room.
3691
3692Vahni rolled her eyes. "Adhita's always so dramatic. Please, sit, you'll be fine. In fact, as a gesture of goodwill…" The calm slowly left me, letting the adrenaline surge back. I forced myself to stay where I was, to not fight or flee. I was myself again, though it was a mixed blessing at best given the situation. Still, Vahni apparently meant well. I found another chair and sat. Pawn Seven stood in a different corner, where she could watch both the room and the hallway that led to the sleeping quarters.
3693
3694"Thank you," I managed, not sure how sincere I actually was.
3695
3696"No problem," she replied, still relaxing in her chair. "I know you haven't hurt dad. Adhita, he just likes being angry, I think."
3697
3698There were a few moments of silence before Vahni spoke again. "So you're Pampa," she said to me.
3699
3700I grimaced; I could only hope that she didn't hold a grudge over the fight at the docks. "Something like that," I said.
3701
3702"I had to spend the entire rest of the day in the baths getting mud out of my hair," she said. "And that was after I had to de-escalate everyone in that warship you almost sank."
3703
3704"You did send them after me," I pointed out.
3705
3706She shrugged. "I may have excited them, yes, but they already wanted to kill you. Docks are kinda their livelihood, after all."
3707
3708"Can you fix me?" Pawn Seven interrupted suddenly. Her voice was as even as ever but I could tell it'd taken some courage for her to ask the question.
3709
3710A look of genuine pain crossed Vahni's face, her carefully constructed mask of aloofness having failed her. "I-" she stammered, finally adding, "I don't know what he did to you."
3711
3712Pawn Seven didn't reply.
3713
3714Vahni kept talking. "Normally I can. If someone's heartbroken, I know it's because their partner left them. If someone's elated, I know it's because they've been given a raise at work. I always know why. But for you… I don't know. Something's missing. I can't work with what's not there. I'm… I'm truly sorry."
3715
3716Pawn Seven just nodded her understanding. I had to hope that she couldn't feel disappointment.
3717
3718Adhita returned to the room, followed by Shekhar. "He tells me he's been treated well," the Witchdoctor said in a tone that clearly communicated he wasn't sure if he should believe it.
3719
3720"He helped me," Pawn Seven spoke up again. "He guided me along the roads, held my arm so I wouldn't wander off." Her tone was as neutral as ever, but I could tell she was trying to keep the peace.
3721
3722Adhita's face softened somewhat. "We need to talk," he said, "about what happens next."
3723
3724Shekhar sat down next to me, and Adhita retrieved another chair to sit across from us. Vahni stayed where she was, and Pawn Seven remained standing where she could see everyone at once.
3725
3726"I want you to come back with us, Father," Adhita said once everyone was situated.
3727
3728Shekhar just shook his head. "As I told you when you were trying to convince me to leave out the window, no. I am going to Opal."
3729
3730I'd suspected that Adhita had been talking about more than just his father's well-being in their conversation. I felt strangely proud that Shekhar had refused to simply leave when he had the chance.
3731
3732Adhita had either not gotten a satisfactory explanation or simply hadn't had time to ask for one, because he threw up his arms in exasperation. "Why?" he demanded. "I could march you back home if I wanted to, you know."
3733
3734Shekhar chuckled. "I threatened you with much the same punishment when you were a child."
3735
3736Adhita grimaced. "Believe me, I remember. Still, I'd like to know why you want to leave." the Witchdoctor glanced over at me before moving his attention back to his father. "You're not being coerced, are you?"
3737
3738"No, no. I told you, they have treated me with nothing but the utmost respect. They saved my life, Adhita."
3739
3740"I know," the Witchdoctor said grudgingly. "That's why we're having a conversation instead of me killing them."
3741
3742"Please," Shehkar said, "you have always allowed me my autonomy, my dignity. I am very thankful for that, but I must ask that you respect my wishes in this. I don't want my fellow travelers harmed. They will see me to Opal, and there I will re-join the family."
3743
3744Adhita sighed. "Of course. I would not keep you. I just want to know why you'd leave us. We're your family."
3745
3746Shekhar chuckled again. "Son, you haven't needed your old man in decades. You and your sisters have done a fine job holding the empire together."
3747
3748I wasn't sure I agreed, given their dubious treatment of the people in the Ward, but I kept my mouth shut.
3749
3750Adhita was apparently thinking of that same topic: "Devraj tore down the Ward's walls, father. The Pure have vanished into the populace."
3751
3752"Perhaps it is for the best," Shekhar said, somewhat sadly. "Many of my ideas seemed not to have had the results I wished. Though I am proud of you, Adhita. You too, Vahni. All of you, in fact."
3753
3754He didn't explicitly exclude King, but I could tell that the wayward son was not his proudest moment.
3755
3756"What does your family want?" Adhita asked gently.
3757
3758"The same thing any family wants: For me to continue the family. I could tell you were listening when Devraj confronted me. You know how few we are. I am needed."
3759
3760Adhita did not dispute this. "Will you return to us?"
3761
3762"Honestly, I do not know." Shekhar said. "Xie Yin, for his crime, was never allowed to return to his Dynasty. But there were more of us in his time. The family will want one of us in the Empire. It is possible that, once I have done my duty, I may be allowed to return."
3763
3764"Not the strongest promise there, dad," Vahni said.
3765
3766"I will not make a promise I cannot keep," Shekhar said.
3767
3768Adhita sighed. "Very well, then. But I want to know you're safe. Write letters, send representatives to us. But not him," he turned to speak to me. "You saved my father's life, and possibly mine. But we are not friends. I don't want you back in my city."
3769
3770"I'll try to steer clear," I said. It was the most I could promise, given that I wasn't the one in charge of where I was going.
3771
3772The Witchdoctor stood, and Shekhar and Vahni stood with him. "Then I suppose our business is concluded. Goodbye, father." He stoically shook Shekhar's hand.
3773
3774Vahni was not so reserved; she flung her arms around her father and hugged him. "Seriously," she said, "sneak out and visit us every once in a while, okay? I promise the rest of the girls and I will stop Adhita from chaining you up and keeping you here if you do."
3775
3776Shekhar returned her hug. They parted, and the father's face looked suddenly grim. "I must ask," he began, then hesitated.
3777
3778"Devraj lives," Vahni said. "Damaged as he is, he is still our brother. Daya has made him her personal project. She wishes to build for him an entire life, one where he made different choices, became a different person."
3779
3780Shekhar did not look happy about this; if anything his concern deepened. "That is dangerous work," he said. "I would not have her repeat my mistakes."
3781
3782Vahni shrugged. "I said the same thing, but if we inherited anything from you it's our sheer hardheadedness and the burning conviction that we are in fact doing the right thing."
3783
3784Shekhar laughed, but it was hollow. "I suppose so. Goodbye, Vahni."
3785
3786"Goodbye, father." She hugged him again.
3787
3788With no further fanfare, the two enforcers left the room.
3789
3790"I am sorry for their intrusion," Shekhar said to me. "They've always worried about me, powerless and alone in the city. Leaving is only making it worse, but what else can I do? I have much to make up for."
3791
3792Neither Pawn Seven nor I disagreed.
3793
3794"We should go," Pawn Seven said.
3795
3796I nodded. I could use more sleep but I doubted that any of us felt that the inn was safe. We'd feel better once we got moving.
3797
3798After waiting some time to make sure that Shekhar's children had truly left, we followed suit.
3799
3800*************************
380129
3802
3803"Where the hell have you been?" Rook demanded.
3804
3805I laughed. I'd lived in near-terror of Rook, all those long months of training, and now I was just so relieved to see an even remotely friendly face again that I nearly hugged the man. "Utijan," I answered.
3806
3807"Not you," Rook said. "What the hell did you get up to, Seven?"
3808
3809Pawn Seven was still wearing her blindfold. Opal's undercity and Utijan's were very similar in terms of their population and deadliness, but the style of the buildings was different enough that I hadn't wanted to risk the already frail illusion that was keeping Seven alive. She'd become more quiet as the journey had progressed into the desert. Her surface thoughts became more and more concentrated on the lie that she was still in the Empire, just a particularly dry and dusty part of the city. We'd caught a smaller caravan out of Guragas, and she'd stayed away from everyone who wasn't me or Shekhar out of fear they'd make a casual remark that would reveal our true location.
3810
3811To Rook, she just shrugged. "It has been rougher than I anticipated."
3812
3813"Well," Rook said, uncharacteristic softness creeping into his tone, "It's just good to see you come ho-"
3814
3815I held up a hand, sharply, one of our sign-signals we used to coordinate when we couldn't talk to each other and didn't want to risk having our surface thoughts read. It was one of the simplest and the first ones: Stop.
3816
3817Rook looked confused but the mask he kept over his thoughts never slipped. Then he nodded. "Ah. That bad, huh?"
3818
3819"That bad." Pawn Seven confirmed.
3820
3821"Let's get you in to see… someone." he said. He took her arm to lead her.
3822
3823"We have a guest outside," I mentioned. Shekhar had, of course, not been invited to come into the inner sanctum of the organization, even if he was allegedly already a member by way of family. Pawn Two and Knight One were keeping watch over him a number of turns back in the warren of collapsed buildings that led here.
3824
3825Rook nodded. "As expected," he said to me. He didn't say it in a congratulatory manner, but just having him state that he'd expected my success at all was high praise. Without elaborating further, he led Seven down the hallway that I'd followed nearly a year ago, toward the Queen. I followed with him. Pawn Seven needed the help far more than I did, but King had been inside my head too. My mind could have easily been affected in ways I didn't even know because that knowledge itself had also been taken from me.
3826
3827"Come in," Queen's voice came from her office through the closed door. The old apprehension I'd felt when I'd learned her true nature, that she was a True Mind capable erasing me or worse, threatened to come over me. But after all I'd been through, all the Pure and Gifted that I'd somehow managed to overcome, I was more relieved to hear her voice again than terrified. And if that was her putting trust into my head, at this point, I didn't even care.
3828
3829We entered the room. It had changed completely and hadn't changed at all: There was still a desk, still expensive carpeting and artworks. All of those things had been changed out. The desk was maple now, the carpet a different kind, and the artworks a different style altogether.
3830
3831"Bishop Two," she said, addressing me by the full title I'd barely used, "welcome back. I understand your mission was a success?" She didn't need to ask, but she did anyway.
3832
3833"Yes," I answered, sitting down on one of the chairs without having been invited too. I was, I realized, far more tired than I'd initially thought.
3834
3835Rook guided Pawn Seven to one of the other chairs and lowered her to sit in it, then he left the room without a word.
3836
3837"Pawn Seven," The Queen said, looking somewhat confused though I couldn't tell if that was just for effect, "I'm surprised to see you. Were it not for Pawn Eight's reports I'd have thought you lost, you'd gone off-mission so long ago."
3838
3839"I…" Pawn Seven said, her voice sounding strangled. Her surface thoughts were suddenly a jumble, nearly panicked, and I realized that the illusion had broken at last. She couldn't bring herself to believe that the Queen had come to Utijan.
3840
3841I opened my mouth to tell our lady of Seven's condition, and I couldn't. It was like when King had taken my ability to speak; the words died between my mind and my mouth, and unlike before they weren't even manifesting clearly in my surface thoughts. I couldn't tell Queen anything she didn't already know. Many of King's curses were temporary, but that one seemed permanent. Especially so in Seven's case.
3842
3843The Queen could at least sense our panic. She stood up, her eyes widening in shock but staying on Pawn Seven the entire time. She whispered, "what?" but it was only a bare sound, byplay to the sudden torrent of Mind magic I could feel in the room.
3844
3845Pawn Seven held stock still for a few moments, then let out a long sigh. "Thank you." She said. Carefully, she removed her blindfold. She looked around at us, at the room, and said "I remember this place."
3846
3847Her voice was still the monotone. Whatever the Queen had done, she'd only repaired some of the harm that Seven had suffered.
3848
3849The Queen, apparently satisfied that the moment of crisis was over, sat back down. "What happened?" She asked Pawn Seven. I knew what the answer was going to be, because at this point I'd been on both sides of King's curse. Seven wouldn't be able to answer the Queen anymore than she'd been able to warn me.
3850
3851But Seven had been able to work around the restrictions with careful thinking, by convincing herself that the other party already knew certain things. And given what I'd just witnessed, I knew that the Queen had to suspect at least a few things I could elaborate on.
3852
3853"Her memories had been taken," I said. I'd struggled to start, but once I'd begun it became much easier. Queen could not have failed to notice this fact, after all.
3854
3855The Queen nodded, her face growing cold. She asked: "Did Shekhar do this?"
3856
3857The Queen had made every effort to befriend me, to put me at ease. She'd gone out of her way not to remind me of just how much power she had, to make herself approachable. This was the other side of her: The side that protected her own, the side willing to use her power to wreak a terrible vengeance when such protection failed. Shekhar indicated that his crimes against his family - against the Queen - would be forgiven, but I knew then that if he had in fact been the one to harm Seven, then his life would have been forfeit.
3858
3859"No," I was glad that I could answer, "he turned his power inward some time ago."
3860
3861Queen nodded. "That explains," she said, her face and tone slowly returning to normal, "how strange his presence felt. Unfortunate, but it's within his rights to do so. So, if not him, then who?" She looked directly at me. "And I'm afraid that this is not a question I can leave unanswered. If you cannot answer me, I can look through your mind."
3862
3863I could not answer her, because that would give her information she didn't already have. But not answering her would be giving her information that she didn't already have. There was a brief feeling of… stretching in my mind, a subtle shift in the environment around me as, for a period of perhaps a second, my conscious mind ceased to exist at all, trapped in the constant back-and-forth loop of the curse. The Queen's eyes were wider now, the look of worry she'd had when Pawn Seven had nearly succumbed returned.
3864
3865"I'll not look through your mind." Queen said. "And I apologize to both of you. I knew that Rook suspected that you'd been tampered with, but I did not know to this great an extent." The Queen looked back over at me. "You can't tell me anything I don't already know, can you? That's why you couldn't answer me and you couldn't not answer me."
3866
3867I breathed a sigh of relief. "Yes," I said. "I've been prevented from doing so."
3868
3869"Okay," she said. Then: "You understand, then, that this means it's even more imperative I have these questions answered."
3870
3871I nodded. I looked to Pawn Seven, but the pawn looked to still be recovering from her earlier ordeal. She seemed even more tired than I felt. I'd have to adopt her techniques of careful volunteering of already known information.
3872
3873"There was a rare kind of Pure in Utijan." I said.
3874
3875Queen nodded. "Shekhar, of course. But you wouldn't be saying that if it were just him, so there is clearly someone else at play. And I know where all of my family is, so it's unlikely you ran into them. Not to mention that doing something like this is… well I'd like to say they wouldn't, but they'd at least have needed a damn good reason."
3876
3877I took a risk: "There is… an absence of a Mind in Utijan." I said.
3878
3879Queen nodded again. "Because you took Shekhar out. But your use of 'absence' is interesting, because-"
3880
3881And then, finally, I saw comprehension dawn on her features. Then, instantly following it, stark cold horror. "A Pure Void." She nearly whispered the words.
3882
3883"Yes," I could confirm it, at least.
3884
3885The Queen seemed not to hear me. She'd sat back in her chair, staring at the empty space between me and Pawn Seven. She shook her head, as though she couldn't believe it. "Shekhar," she said, and again it was clear she wasn't talking to us, "what have you done?"
3886
3887She looked toward the door that, no doubt, Rook was standing on the other side of. Then she looked back to me. The Queen I'd met all that time ago had been friendly and confident above all. This one suddenly seemed as tired as the rest of us. "Do you remember," she asked me unnecessarily, "our first meeting? When I lamented the fact that I rarely get surprised anymore?"
3888
3889I nodded.
3890
3891"I take it back." She said, sadly. "I take every last word of it back."
3892
3893Rook opened the door, thrusting a visibly hurried Shekhar ahead of him. "As requested," Rook said.
3894
3895"Thank you, Rook."
3896
3897Rook left again, closing the door after himself, though no doubt he was resuming his station just outside.
3898
3899"Malika," Shekhar began, but he was interrupted almost immediately.
3900
3901"A Pure Void?!" the Queen demanded.
3902
3903Shekhar cringed. He looked around for somewhere to sit but we'd taken all available seats, and neither Seven nor I were inclined to give ours up for him. Over the time we'd traveled with the former Subtle Man, we'd become at least somewhat friendly out of necessity, and I personally appreciated how willing he'd been to return to Opal with me. That didn't change what he'd done, though, not for a moment. This had been a long time coming for him.
3904
3905"What were you thinking, cousin?" the Queen asked. "It's one thing to leave the family, though you know how few of us there are now. It's even forgivable to start your own Dynasty for some damn reason. But this? Do you know what the rest of the family will do when they find out there's a Pure Void alive?"
3906
3907"Mercy," Shekhar said, not even looking at the Queen. "I do not care what happens to me, Malika, but please, mercy for my children."
3908
3909"Your Dynasty-to-be will be fine. It's not the bastards' fault you screwed up. But we can't abide a Void, you know that!"
3910
3911The same defeated posture that Shekhar had displayed when he'd faced King was in full evidence now. "Please," he said. "I made a mistake, and I only compounded that mistake when I abandoned the child to die. Please, no more killing."
3912
3913The Queen's anger seemed to soften, at least somewhat. "I don't want to kill either, Shekhar, but you know it's necessary. The rest of the family could raze all of Utijan to stop this threat."
3914
3915"My daughter, Daya, she is an Ephemeral," Shekhar explained quickly. He had the air of a desperate man, and rightfully so. "She has him now. She's rebuilding his life, giving him a better one than I did."
3916
3917"She can't sever his connection to the Void," the Queen said. "Nothing can do that."
3918
3919"But if… if he's not a killer, if he's not even the same monster he was… is it right to kill him?" Shekhar was pleading rather than trying to state his case calmly.
3920
3921"It's right to kill him because he's Void." The Queen stated this flatly, but I could tell that she didn't believe it. "Oh, Shekhar… I don't know if I can spare him, do you understand? I can't abide the destruction of an entire city, I won't give their lives for your son's."
3922
3923"My Daya, she knows the risks," Shekhar said with more certainty than I knew he had. I remembered the conversation in Guragas when he'd warned Adhita of the dangers himself. But Shekhar seemed confident: "She'll leave the city with him. Go somewhere remote, where they can't do damage."
3924
3925Maybe the Queen was unwilling to read Shekhar's mind, maybe she just wanted to believe him. Either way, she did not question this. "Very well." was all she said. "There may come a time where that changes, and there will be nothing I can do."
3926
3927"Thank you." Shekhar said. "Thank you."
3928
3929"We have much to discuss, you and I," the Queen said, and her tone made it clear that the conversation was likely to be about as pleasant as the one that I'd just witnessed. "But for now you should get some rest. Pawn Two will be outside, and will show you to your quarters. I have some things to discuss with my people."
3930
3931Shekhar hastily left the room. I noticed that at no point had the Queen offered to un-do the work he'd done to his own mind. She seemed to prefer him without his powers, and I found it hard to fault her.
3932
3933"Pawn Seven," the Queen began, and her voice was back to sympathy and, I thought, the exhaustion we all felt. "You have suffered as nobody in this organization has in living memory. I promise you this: I will heal you. It will not be instant. Even the memories I gave you of Opal are someone else's and will not serve for long. But I will work, every day, to restore you closer to what you once were. I give you my word."
3934
3935"Thank you," Pawn Seven said, and though her voice could not convey her gratitude, I could almost swear I felt it in her surface thoughts.
3936
3937"Go," the Queen said. "Sleep. You've earned it."
3938
3939Pawn Seven got out of the chair and exited the room, leaving the Queen alone with me.
3940
3941The Queen smiled wanly. "And you, Bishop. It seems I was right about you. As I told you back then, my instincts are often right, though even I did not foresee all of this."
3942
3943I just nodded acknowledgement.
3944
3945"You've earned some time off." Queen said. "I understand it may be difficult for you, but I want you to take at least one day where you do nothing. After that, you're still technically off-duty, and I highly suggest you continue doing nothing for at least a week. At some point, I will need you to refamiliarize yourself with this city. Let your contacts know that you are alive, find out what has happened in your absence, train, and prepare. You'll be doing a lot of good for this city and its people, but there will come a day where I will call on you again for a mission like the one you just endured." She actually shuddered somewhat at that.
3946
3947"Well," she continued, "hopefully not quite so bad as that. But, I will not lie, it may be. You've gotten a feel for the wider world, now, you understand how much is happening at once. The Empire, the Dynasty, Saratov, even the Far Lands, they're all connected to us, to Opal. Your home needs you. Do not let us down."
3948
3949"Understood," I said.
3950
3951THE END