Chapter 17: Discoveries
It’s the height of irony that I need to write this all down, but I need a place to put my thoughts and my notes to keep them organized. Ordinarily, I’d be worried about someone finding this and using it against me, but that isn’t an issue. I could leave this in the main market, and it wouldn’t be a threat.
First, I need to get my thoughts in order. I feel as if I’m drowning in danger and possibilities, and having this here as a concrete point to anchor myself to will be invaluable, given the uncharted waters I find myself in. So let’s start with a foundation of knowledge.
###
Zoy
Flipping the small handle over her knuckles, Zoy took a moment to appreciate it. Only somewhat longer than the width of her hand, it shimmered like an oil slick on water, changing as the light hit it.
“Well, that’s ominous,” Stylio said as she stood by, leaning against the wall. “And unexpected.”
“Is it?” Zoy asked, glancing at her mentor. “You know the politics better than I do. Is it really that surprising?”
Stylio sighed and slumped; not much, but enough that Zoy knew that her mentor agreed with her. “No, I suppose not.” She reached down and plucked the handle from Zoy’s hands.
Then, with Zoy watching, Stylio gave a small exhalation of Breath into the handle—and it shimmered and changed, the flat end of the handle growing into a six inch long spike. Another exhalation of Breath, and it shifted again, this time into a corkscrew. A third exhalation, and the metal shifted into a fork.
Zoy chuckled, but there was no real humor to it. “Bit… simple, don’t you think?”
“Yes and no. But it proves that this is what it seems to be,” Stylio said, and set the utensil down, where it reverted back to the simple metallic handle it had been before.
“An Imperial multi-tool,” Zoy said, before speaking a single, heartfelt word.
“Indeed.” Stylio exhaled. “You continue to search and see what else you can find. It’s good evidence, but I wouldn’t call it conclusive… yet. Nevertheless, I’m going to inform Fia.”
With a nod, Zoy turned and went back up the stairs, Yufemya following quietly in her wake. Zoy had found the tool in the upper floors of the tower, where there was little foot traffic. Except for their group and an Imperial thief team, apparently. Well, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t grown up in a place that was just as bad. At least here there weren’t gangs that charged tolls to climb the stairs.
As they climbed the stairs, Yufemya asked softly, “You recognized it immediately… but you still went to Stylio for confirmation?”
Zoy snorted. “Annoyed at the stairs? It’s good exercise, especially after all of that time sitting in the Lynx.”
“I’d think that carrying the Lynx up all of those canal locks would have given you enough exercise,” Yufemya retorted. “But you’re dodging the question. Why?”
With a sigh, Zoy rounded a landing and started up the next flight of stairs. By her estimates, they were somewhere around the knees or thighs of the statue-tower, and their destination was up in the chest. “Because I don’t trust myself. I’d jump to conclusions or actions or other things. And this is too important to do that.” She reached the next landing and turned around to face Yufemya. “But also, she’s a lot more experienced than I am, and, well…” She sighed again and started up the next flight of stairs. “I was hoping that I was wrong.”
Yufemya exhaled with a sigh of her own. “I understand that.”
“I figured you would. Come on. Let’s sweep and see if we find anything else.”
As they climbed the stairs, Zoy considered. The Dormelion Empire reserved the multi-tools for their elite soldiers and personal guards as artifacts from the lost age of titans and heroes, and they guarded them jealously and brutally. Zoy herself had flinched when she’d first spotted the distinctive handle lying hidden behind a plinth in the hallway, half-certain that a shout and the sounds of marching boots would start echoing down the corridor. It didn’t help that the hallways and stairs here were practically identical to Kasmenarta, although the ones here were much more nicely decorated.
But no such alert had been raised, and she’d picked up the handle with ease. It had been heavier than she’d expected, and a few minor tests of her own had shown that it was exactly what she’d always heard of—a handle that seemed to conform to the shape of her hand, and whose tool-head could reshape itself exactly as she willed it to, with the barest infusion of Breath. It could be a knife, a lockpick, a garrote, a file, a spoon… any shape she could dream of, up to about eight or nine inches in length above the handle. It truly was something magical… and its presence here was terrifying.
They reached the upper floors, and with a focus born of a hope that she wouldn’t find anything, Zoy began to search, looking behind tapestries, under carpets, around art plinths, and in every potentially overlooked spot she could think of.
The small button, carved with a sigil that she recognized all too well, was hidden under a carpet.
But it was what she found out on the balcony, secured to part of the railing and dangling out into the winds and snows, that sent a shiver down her spine.
#
Lord Faalk ava Geroold of House Rechneesse
“…and dealer rolls,” said Driies, tossing the carved dice onto the table.
Faalk tried to keep his expression even and disinterested as he examined his own hand. Around the table were about half of his personal guards who Fia had hired. To pass the endless winter night, they were playing a game of Poquehen, which was one of their usual card and dice games, and had insisted that he be taught how to play.
So far, it was a good thing that they were playing for low stakes, or Faalk would have felt like a sheep in spring having just been sheared of its winter wool.
“Dealer starts the bidding at four,” Driies said, and tossed some wooden chits into the pot at the center before nodding to Nataschaa, who was sitting to his left.
The guardswoman considered her hand and drummed her tattooed and ringed fingers on the table for a moment before nodding and tossing in four wooden chits of her own.
As Aafje considered his own hand, a frown furrowing his brow, Nataschaa leaned in. “So the Captain looked all right to you?” she asked Faalk.
Driies snickered. “He said she did, and he got a close look.”
Faalk rolled his eyes, even as he gave a small smile. “She was all in one piece, I promise.”
Aafje drummed his fingers on the table, tossed in four chits, and said, “You know the Captain. She’s taken a cannonball to the gut and just whined about the bloodstains. She’s fine.”
Faalk winced at that image, for all that he knew just how resilient Fia was. “I raise two,” he said, tossing in the requisite wooden chits.
“Feeling lucky there, are we, Chief?” Nataschaa asked with a smirk.
Faalk glanced at her. Unlike Fia, whose healing didn’t let her scar, Nataschaa was tattooed all over, with intricate blue, black, and white whorls over her face and down her neck, extending down to her hands. From what he’d overheard, the tattoos apparently went down to her feet. She’d once offered to “show” him, but when he’d declined, she’d taken the rejection with a smile. “Yes, in fact. I’d say that I’m the luckiest man at the table.”
“Too right on that,” said the man at his left; Odi was another foreigner, with intricate wooden piercings through his ears, and he tossed in six chits of his own. “You’re good for the Captain, that’s for sure. And the little one,” he nodded his head towards where Faalk’s daughter was asleep in her crib in the corner of the room, “is the sweetest thing.”
“Hear hear,” Driies said, picking up his tankard of beer, and he was quickly echoed and mirrored by the others, who clinked and drank.
Faalk smiled; they were a rough sort, but Fia trusted them, and that was good enough for him. Plus there was the benefit that their piratical airs—which he knew they deliberately played up for fun and for distraction—drove his father to quiet frothing madness.
Also, the hats were honestly quite handsome.
Driies rolled out the next die on the table; the strategy of the game was to have the cards match the faces of the dice in symbol and color as much as possible, and the dice were rolled in a particular order, with different sets of faces for each. Faalk had studied enough mathematics that he was decent at the game, while the guards were more… intuitive in their understanding of the odds.
The game progressed, and Faalk managed to keep from being too badly skinned; he suspected they were cheating, as the odds were rather against their hands having come out the way that they had, but it wasn’t as if they were playing for real stakes.
“So now what, Chief?” Driies said, as he packed away the cards and dice. “Up for another game?”
Glancing at the clock, Faalk rose from the table and gave the guards a smile. “Unfortunately not. As much as that was enjoyable, but I need an escort down to my father’s office.”
“And the rest of us watch over the little one,” Nataschaa said, her joking tone melting away like snow under the summer sun. Faalk was fairly sure that she considered herself to be an honorary aunt to his daughter, and, being honest, he was fine with that.
“Indeed. Now, let’s see…” Faalk gave some judicious suggestions for maximum slovenliness to Driies and Aafje, knowing that it would drive his father to distraction. A partially upturned collar, some spilled beer, a half-done bootlace…
“Seriously, Chief?” Aafje asked as Faalk had him put the handkerchief into the wrong pocket. “Something this small will bother him?”
“It will. He’s not only fastidious, he’s controlling.”
“As you say, Chief,” Aafje said, shrugging and wrinkling his nose after giving himself a sniff. “The Captain put you in charge, and this is your battlefield.”
Faalk snorted. Yes, yes it was. While he would take Fia’s directions at sea in a heartbeat, or in an actual fight, or anything physical, the political arena was his, however much he might detest it.
His father had taught him well.
With Aafje and Driies at his back, he left his quarters.
The manor house was so quiet at this time of year. Instead of the lively commotion of guests, supplicants, staff, and others tromping in and out, the manor and its complex of outbuildings were silent beyond the patrolling of guards,and the handful of overwinterers.
It was ironic, in a way; when Faalk had been a boy, he had sought out quiet like this, hiding in his great-grandfather’s library and devouring the books there. And now that it was all silent and peaceful… he found himself shivering and wishing that he could be bowled over by the staff’s children running through the halls.
Entering his father’s wing of the sprawling house, Faalk paused for a moment, holding up his hand. Without question, his guards stopped behind him.
“Do you hear that?” he asked.
Aafje cocked his head, and then his left eyebrow rose a bit. “There’s a group up ahead. Sounds like in the office and general spaces.”
“That’s what I was thinking too,” Faalk said. “Sounds like we have guests.”
“Orders, Chief?”
“Play dumb and surly, but don’t start anything. Make them underestimate you, and keep your ears open.”
Both men gave a grunt of understanding, and together they continued on.
Entering his father’s chambers without even knocking, Faalk rapidly scanned the room as everyone turned to see who had interrupted.
What—and who—he saw gave him pause.
His younger brother Tiimo was sitting sprawled in one overstuffed armchair, a flute of bubbly wine dangling from one hand extending over the side of the chair, his feet up on a stuffed footstool. Opposite him was their father who was sitting in a throne-like armchair of his own, and next to Tiimo were two men that Faalk recognized as being from the staff of two of the other dukes in the kingdom.
“Ah, brother, decided to join us?” Tiimo’s eyes slid over to look at Aafje and Driies, and Faalk saw his nostrils flare a little with disgust.
Moving towards the bar by the side of the room, Faalk said dryly, “Yes, and it would have been helpful to know that there was a meeting going on.”
With a sigh of his own, his father said, “Don’t worry about this, son. It’s the sort of strategy session that doesn’t appeal to your interests.”
Faalk gave his father a sidelong look and poured himself a snifter of brandy. Taking a sip, he leaned against the wall and motioned with his free hand to go on.
His father sighed again and turned back to the two ducal staffers. “Before my son interrupted, I believe we were speaking about the upcoming session of the High Dieta—”
One of the envoys spoke up. “Sir, are you sure that you wish to continue this discussion now?” He gave Faalk and his men a significant glance.
His father scoffed. “For all of our conflicts, my heir understands the duties and responsibilities of his station. He can stay, and honestly should have been here to begin with.” He didn’t acknowledge Aafje and Driies, not that Faalk was surprised; the two unkempt guards were essentially animate furniture to him—and ones that wouldn’t pass the white glove test.
Faalk gave him a sardonic salute with the brandy snifter, and took another sip. “So, what’s the discussion with the Dieta?” The kingdom’s high legislative council was split into two chambers, with the high chamber consisting of the nobility’s representatives, and the lower chamber consisting of the representatives of the common folk. His father led a faction within the high chamber—and the other two men worked for his fellows within that faction.
The irony, as far as Faalk was concerned, was that as much as his father and fellow travelers were interested in aggregating power to themselves and away from the king and commoners, his father led the faction with an iron fist.
“We have an opportunity at hand this upcoming summer,” his father said, picking up a cigar and snipping off the end. “The King is planning on calling for war with these western barbarians, and that gives us leverage.” As he lit the cigar and gave a puff, he continued, “There are several issues at stake. First is rectifying Hinterloossberg’s admissions policy.”
Faalk suppressed a sigh. His father and other high nobles didn’t like that the Officer Academy would take anyone for training so long as they could pass the entrance exams. Even though the upper ranks of the military were still overwhelmingly drawn from the nobility, the fact that commoners could be commissioned as officers at all was something offensive to people like his father. Honestly, it had offended Faalk once as well… before he’d met Fia.
“But the admissions policy is ultimately a distraction. I plan on using it as a rider on any proposal we want to kill in debate…”
Faalk swallowed another sip of brandy; it was quite good, unsurprisingly. For all of his many faults, his father kept an excellent bar, and had good taste, unlike some of the other high nobles.
“Just because something is expensive doesn’t make it good,” he muttered to himself as his father laid out their plans for exploiting several procedural and legislative processes in the Dieta in the summer session. There would be favors called in, some horsetrading with another faction who wanted lower import duties on several taxed goods…
“—and with that, we can hopefully force a partial repeal of the Liege Oath Act,” his father said, and Faalk nearly choked on his brandy. “Is there a problem, son?”
Forcing down his sputter, Faalk managed to choke out, “There will be riots in the streets if you do that.”
“A partial repeal, son. As it is, the Act is too liberal with its provisos. If our duchies cannot raise the appropriate number of troops for the upcoming conflict, and with the votes we have at our sides, we will be able to help keep the populations grounded to their ancestral lands.”
Faalk took a deep breath and forced down his objections with the air. The Liege Oath Act had been passed when his father had been younger than Faalk was now; in essence, it had streamlined the process by which the kingdom’s subjects could switch their oaths of allegiance from one noble to another.
In the long run, however, it had been a trap for the more repressive members of the nobility, as now their people were slowly but surely shifting their homes to more open-minded duchies and counties. And Rechneesse was one of the losers in that competition. Faalk had recently read a paper by a scholar—who had called it ‘demography’, for the ‘study of populations’—showing that shift over the last generation, with his duchy having lost nearly a tenth of its young men and women to other duchies, with the corresponding loss in tax revenue.
So of course, rather than giving people incentive to stay… his father wanted to make it more difficult for them to leave. And he thought that Faalk would be all for it, given that he was the heir, and thus these would be his problems in the future.
Getting up and refilling his brandy snifter, Faalk said dryly, “And what happens if this war doesn’t occur?”
“It’s unlikely at this stage, given everything. But let us continue. Even with these new ‘ice-boats’, these fine gentlemen have a long voyage ahead of them.”
#
Raavi ava Laargan
Standing on the side of the group, Oksyna’s hand tightly gripping my own—Lady Fia had told her not to “let Raavi do anything stupid again,” and she was taking the order seriously—I tried to keep myself from fidgeting too much as Stylio presented the items they’d found to the Gehtun king. He was sitting on his throne, one elbow resting on an arm of the fine chair, his hand rubbing his chin and beard as Minister Hayri translated.
Finally, as she finished, there was silence, and I glanced over to the side where the Death Lord and the lynx had been. A rug had been pulled over the stone, but I could see two things of interest; first, there was a metal circle set into the stones, and second, that the stones inside the circle were pitted and cracked. I was almost certain that the second was from the effects of the Death Lord’s Entropy, but I had no idea what the deal with the metal circle was.
The King spoke, and I hastily turned my attention back to him. Once he was done, Minister Hayri translated. “And why are you so certain that these items are from the Dormelion Empire? Did you not say that you yourself were from that land? Perhaps you are biased in your identification.” Hayri bowed politely. “It is not that we doubt you… but we only have this one chance, and we dare not waste it.”
Stylio bowed back, mirroring his form precisely, down to the same angle of her back and the same way of holding the hands together, with the thumbs, index fingers and pinkies out and the middle and ring fingers folded together. “I understand, as do my companions.” She motioned to the small pile of objects. “This,” she held up the first one, “is a multi-tool, a magical artifact from a bygone age, made by the same beings who erected the great towers. In the Dormelion Empire, they are restricted by law and custom to those who protect the emperor’s family, as well as those who work directly for them. Any others that are found in their territory are taken and thus given, and theft is harshly punished. But, perhaps, you say, that one could have been lost, or perhaps come from elsewhere.” She patted the coil of what looked like fine black glass wire; the whole coil was about the size of my finger, but was hundreds of yards in length. “This, on the other hand, can only have come from one place that I know of.”
“I still don’t understand that,” Minister Hayri said. “Can you explain again?”
“Of course.” Stylio reached over and gingerly picked up the coil. “What do you know of Kasmenarta, Minister?”
“Legends. Myths. It is far away and has not been a concern of ours for as long as our people can remember.” He shrugged. “I know that it is a crystal spire, much like this edifice.”
Stylio nodded. “Yes… but also no.”
“How so?”
“Comparing this building to Kasmenarta is akin to comparing a sprouted seedling against a full grown oak wide enough that a man cannot encircle it with his arms,” Stylio said. “This tower is two hundred feet tall from foot to crown, with deep basements underneath extending down for many more floors. The King’s Tower in Westernfellsen is almost four hundred feet tall, with similar basements.” She took a deep breath. “Kasmenarta is over five thousand feet tall.”
He blinked, and sucked in a breath. “I would say that you jest… but you don’t, do you?”
“I do not. And I say ‘over’… because defining exactly how tall it is is… difficult, due to the width of the base, which is as wide as the tower is tall, and because the basements there go down deep underground. Deep enough that they are under the level of the sea nearby, but they remain dry. Deep enough that, despite centuries of exploration, sealed and overlooked chambers are still routinely found.” She held out the coil of wire. “This? This is made by a magical artifact deep in one of those chambers, found only a few decades ago. It is a vastly strong cable, stronger than a steel chain as thick as a man’s torso. Under tension, it can cut a person in half with little trouble.”
“That’s… an interesting comparison. Like a wire cutting cheese?”
“Yes. The only downside to it is that it decays in a matter of a few years. The Empire keeps strict control over it, using it for their projects, including, yes, being used by their elites to enter and leave places like this.” She exhaled. “Between these two… yes. The Empire was here. And it seems they stole your oathwalker scroll. And if they stole it… then there is only one place where they would have taken it.”
Minister Hayri sighed. “Their capital, this giant tower?”
Stylio nodded. “Yes.”
As Minister Hayri spoke with his king, I looked around the room. A number of people were standing around, listening and watching, including the woman who had sledgehammered the walls when we’d first arrived. She was relatively near the throne, next to another woman who looked like an older version of her. Both of them were dressed in fine clothing similar to what we were wearing—and then I made eye contact with the younger woman, and looked away, embarrassed.
“You okay?” Oksyna whispered.
“Yeah. Just… tense,” I replied.
Minister Hayri cleared his throat, and I looked back at him. “Of course, now comes the question of retrieval. We… we would send a delegation to attempt to bargain for it… but our forecasting tells us that this would end poorly for us.”
Stylio nodded. “Yes. The Dormelion Empire has no love for revenants of any sort, not since Nightshade. Likely the only reason they haven’t destroyed the scroll already is because you are doing as they wish.”
“Yes. That was our thought as well. Which leads to the next question. Why?”
Lady Fia shrugged and bowed slightly. “That is the question. While the Empire is expanding again, they’ve been primarily moving to the east. The Kalltii and others in these western lands have been so far left alone—although they’ve been building up their armies in preparation for potential conquest attempts by the Empire.”
“We might be softening them up for an attempt of conquest, perhaps?” Minister Hayri suggested.
“Perhaps. That sort of divide-and-conquer attempt is fairly classic for them,” Stylio said. “But at the same time… it seems unlikely for them to make such an attempt at this time; their forces would have to travel through other nations in any significant number.”
The minister nodded. “Yes. I see. But this does not answer the question on how to retrieve our scroll—”
Lady Fia stepped forward. “We already discussed among ourselves earlier,” she said. “We will try to steal it back for you.”
The Minister shared a look with his king, and translated for him, before turning back to us. “Are you certain? It is a long way, in winter no less, and you would be attempting this against the Dormelion Empire…”
Fia scoffed. “Ironically, the distance is the smallest problem, thanks to Raavi here.” She patted me on the shoulder, and I felt my cheeks flush when everyone looked at me. “We’ve already traveled an equal distance using his ice-boat across the canals here, and, thanks to the Empire’s old building efforts, there are canals nearly all the way from the White Mountains to Kasmenarta.”
Minister Hayri seemed to digest this for a moment, before saying, “Well then. So… my King and his other ministers thought that this might be the case, based on our forecasts.”
Lady Fia asked mildly, “Is it normal here to admit that you do such predictions for negotiations and the like?”
With a pained smile, the Minister spread his arms in a shrug. “Yes…?”
“It is not where we come from. Call it a polite fiction. Yes, everyone does it, but you’re not supposed to admit it,” Lady Fia said with exaggerated patience. “But fine. You knew that we would offer to help with retrieval, and I bet that you have some stipulations.” She folded her arms as I tried to keep from bursting out in giggles; she’d said that this was probably going to be the case when we’d had our own planning session earlier. “So what are they?”
Minister Hayri glanced to the side, towards the young, sledgehammer-wielding woman. “This is the King’s daughter, Illgina, who will be coming with you, should you agree.”
Lady Fia cocked her head as Illgina bowed politely. “A princess? You’d be willing to send a potential heir into the territory of a presumed enemy?”
“She is… not a princess as you understand the term,” the Minister said.
“But you said ‘King’s daughter—’”
Illgina spoke up. “My half-brother the heir is.” She motioned across to the other side of the room, where another young man around our age was standing, watching with what looked to me like undisguised envy. “My stepmother the King’s wife is, while my mother my father’s companion is.”
I blinked, trying to parse that, as Oksyna stiffened and whispered into my ear, “She’s the daughter of his concubine. Acknowledged concubine, given that they’re standing here. Interesting.”
“Oh.”
Lady Fia exhaled a long sigh. “All right. Welcome aboard the Lynx, Illgina. We have a long way to go.”
Illgina stepped forward and bowed. “Forward to it, I look.”
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