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“I have assigned you a handpicked team to be your support in this mission,” Justinian said. “Meet with Colonel Ravoud as soon as he returns, which should be within the hour. He will make the final arrangements for your departure. I emphasize, Basra, that they are support. In essence, their role will be to keep you protected, supplied, and in contact with your home base—and, as much as possible, mitigating and cleaning up after whatever collateral damage occurs. I expect there will be such, and your only countervailing orders are to avoid conflict with hostile actors as much as possible; Imperial forces and allies of the paladins will be after the same goals, and will likely attack you if they find you. Try not to be found. Beyond that, this task is of the utmost importance. Whatever must be done to accomplish it, however regrettable, I will accept. I am placing my trust in your talents, Basra.”

“That’s gracious, your Holiness,” she said stiffly, wariness written in every line of her face, “given how my last…major assignment went.”

“I can’t call that mission a success,” the Archpope agreed, his benign smile unfaltering. “But considering what you had to work with and the surrounding circumstances, I also would not lay any part of the debacle on your shoulders, Basra. You did the best anyone could in that situation. I assure you, I have never failed to appreciate your talents.”

She did not seem reassured by that; her jaw tightened momentarily and she glanced to the side. They were alone in the Archpope’s private chapel, in contrast to his recent habit of keeping Holy Legionaries in attendance when holding meetings here. Justinian had gone further to make his posture here more conciliatory by standing only two steps up on the steep flight of stairs which led to the altar, rather than addressing her from the top as he sometimes did. That only seemed appropriate to him when entertaining a group; to take such a position with a single person was unnecessarily condescending.

While keeping Basra in her place was an ongoing task of paramount importance, he didn’t need to result to cheap theatrics to manage her.

“Among the unique equipment you will be issued when meeting your support team,” he continued, “is a teleport beacon. It is designed to be easily carried and activated; the quartermaster will instruct you in its use. Mages will be on standby at all hours for the signal, so that you can be immediately extracted if you are cornered and facing capture or significant peril. Preserve yourself at all costs, Basra.”

“A shadow-jumping talisman would be more versatile,” she said stiffly. “I know the Church has numerous specimens after centuries of seizures from the Wreath.”

Keeping his calm smile firmly in place, Justinian shook his head once. “For this mission, you will have no need for rapid transit between points in the field. Abort and return in the event of significant peril, using the beacon you will be issued. When rapid insertion is required, Church mages will place you directly at the designated location. Keep in mind this versatility; it will enable you to take risks that would not be otherwise possible. The only thing you must avoid is an enemy capable of blocking teleportation. Withdraw immediately if you face such measures. And Basra: make sure you keep the teleport beacon on your person at all times. I will also have dedicated scryers monitoring you. In the event that it is disabled or separated from you, you will be retrieved instantly.”

She was good, after years of practice, at suppressing her vicious surges of emotion, but the combination of her recent defeats, the stress of being kept in the Cathedral like a caged bird, and the underlying tension of this conversation had an abrasive effect on that control. He didn’t need to be as socially astute as he was to observe the twitching facial muscles as she fought to keep sudden fury out of her expression.

Justinian gave her a quiet moment to compose herself, as was only polite.

“I realize it is a…lengthy process,” Basra finally said, choosing her words and her tone with great care, “but it would…be a great advantage to me to be fully…equipped for a mission as important as this.” She held out her left arm, her sleeve falling back to reveal more of the glove covering her prosthetic hand. The fingers curled—stiffly, and awkwardly. That it could receive and act upon nerve impulses at all was beyond state of the art, but even so it managed nothing but the simplest of grasping motions; the thumb was all but useless. “The…regenerative therapy you promised would be…very welcome. And extremely useful.”

Justinian made an unfeigned expression of regret. “I am afraid that current events have put that matter on hold. I know how disappointing that must be, Basra, but sadly even my reach has its limits. The necessary experts belong to either the Elven Confederacy, in which I have no leverage whatsoever, and the Emerald College, which like the rest of the Collegium has treated the Church with increasing coolness since the Eserite withdrawal. Alas, I had a direct asset, a fae practitioner of surpassing power and skill, who was performing exactly such services for injured members of the Holy Legion…but not since Ninkabi. It seems someone rather bitterly alienated him.”

He watched with interest as she struggled mightily not to lash out, physically quivering from the effort. Good; Basra at the very edge of her tether was precisely what he needed. Sending her out into the world would cause disaster everywhere she went, even beyond the provocation her very presence would cause most of those who were already set against him. His planned next steps would throw his many enemies into confusion, but he could not let them forget their ultimate goal. Not this close to the moment when he would need them bringing all their strength to bear at once.

“Very well,” she managed after several drawn-out seconds, her voice still tight. “Then shall we finally address the zebra in the room?”

Justinian raised his eyebrows in very genuine surprise, though mindful of her emotional state, he kept the amusement well clear of his face and tone. “What a curious expression. I don’t believe I have ever heard that one.”

“You’re sending me out to locate and retrieve excommunicated priests,” she continued, still all but vibrating with tension. “Which you intend to ritualistically sacrifice to create your new thing that I’m not going to bother pretending isn’t an artificial archdemon. When is it my turn laid out on the altar, Justinian?”

It was just as well he had opted to hold this meeting privately; most of the loyal lieutenants he might have kept at his side for such a sensitive conversation would have objected vociferously to that overly familiar form of address.

“I have, at present, no plans to use you in the Angelus creation ritual,” he replied in his customary beatific calm. “You are far too valuable to me as you are, Basra.”

“Ahh, of course.” She didn’t trouble to disguise the bitterness in her voice anymore. “So I get to live as long as I am useful.”

He smiled, spreading his hands. “You can think of it that way, if it helps to motivate you. I would say, rather… That you are blessed with divine purpose. You may be assured that you will be useful to me, in one way or another. Not many people enjoy such certitude upon their path through life. For the time being, know that it is of the utmost value to me to have you and your unique talents in play as you are. And should you prove a failure, or become impossible to manage…”

The Archpope trailed off, let the dangling threat hang in the air for a silent moment, and then shrugged. Still smiling all the while, a beacon of serenity.

She tensed fully, shifting into a combat stance. He wondered, idly, whether she would actually so lose control as to do such an obviously futile thing as attack him. The seconds passed, however, and she did not. Just glared.

“The truth is, Basra,” he continued after moments had ticked by and she remained silent and unmoving, “you have been failed by virtually everyone you have ever trusted, or relied upon. Your true value never regarded, much less given the chance to flourish. What you have always needed was support—a proper appreciation of your unique nature, expressed through the specific accommodations you needed to fully exercise your talents while protecting you from the pitfalls of a society simply not designed with individuals like yourself in mind. But life is unfair for us all, and you’ve simply never been given the chance you deserved. From Rouvad to Antonio…and yes, even myself. All those who recognized in you something unique and special have thought only of how to leverage your nature for their own purposes—or tried to destroy you out of blind fear. I know you carry with you the resentment of a world that has constantly let you down, but I suspect there are none who would willingly acknowledge this: that you are as much a victim as any of us. That you deserved better. I simply wanted you to know that I see it, that I recognize it. That is the least I can do. And sadly, the circumstances being as they are, it is all I can do.”

“Ah, well, thank you then,” she said, every syllable oozing bitterness. “That just makes everything all better. Next you’re going to go on at length about how sorry you are.”

“I am sorry, since you bring it up,” he replied, implacably calm. “But no, I was not going to say it; that seemed self-indulgent. It’s not as if you care how I feel.”

Slowly, she clenched the fingers of her right hand. The left one managed a wooden twitch, then spasmed uncontrollably for a second as something misfired. That technology was still barely more than experimental.

“You are free to resent the situation,” Justinian said, “and resent me for taking advantage of it—but know that taking advantage is all I have done. The dire straits in which you find yourself are entirely of your own creation, Basra. Out there is a world filled with powerful people you have wronged, all on the hunt for you, who will spare you not a sliver of mercy. Even betraying me will not put you back in their graces; you know nothing, can do nothing and offer nothing to my enemies that they do not already possess. I am your only refuge. As such, in one way or another, you will further my plans until they reach their conclusion. After my successful retrieval of poor Sister Lanora’s soul, I can further promise you that not even death will release you from my service, Basra. Snatching you from his retribution is the least of the insults I mean to inflict on Vidius before the end. For now, all I ask is that you be yourself—and do so diligently, with enthusiasm. Stay the course, and you will continue to serve as a mortal woman and not fuel for the machines of change. Whenever you tire of it, the alternative awaits.”

“You think you’re invincible,” she whispered. “No one is. Everyone will be humbled in the end. Even you.”

“You never have understood the truth of what is happening,” he said regretfully, shaking his head. “No, Basra, I think no such thing. This I can promise you: in the end, we will every one of us pay in full for all of our crimes. Myself especially, and the bill that will be laid at my feet outstrips yours by far. Take some comfort from that, if you can.”

She stared at him, finally recovering control of herself. In posture and expression, she might have been an ice sculpture. He gazed back, serene, unflappable, in control of far more than just himself.

“You have your instructions,” Justinian said. Calmly.

Basra Syrinx turned on her heel and marched out.

---

“Ah. I can’t win this one, either.”

“Are you sure? So soon?”

Joe scowled, leaning back from the table. “It’s just math. Nope, let’s call it another win for you.”

“There’s sense in recognizing futility,” Khadizroth the Green said mildly. “There is also virtue in pressing on against the odds, unless some contravening moral reason exists why one should not.”

“Odds, nothing! At this point we’re talking about a mathematical certainty!”

“Are we? I confess that even I am not positive of that, at this stage.”

“Look me in the eye and tell me you think I can still win this game.”

“I do not,” the dragon replied with a smile, “but that is opinion, based on the fact that I’m better at it than you. It is not math. I caution you not to confuse the two, Joseph.”

Joe squinted at him in suspicion; Khadizroth just smiled, knowingly. After a pause, however, the Sarasio Kid grunted and placed down another white stone.

“I’m not agreeing, mind you. I’m just wary of turnin’ everything into a contest. Win-at-all-costs types always seem to ruin things for everybody and come to grief themselves. I’ve seen no end a’ that kinda trouble at the poker table. Games’re supposed to be fun, after all.”

“Well said,” Khadizroth agreed, placing down a black stone. “I’m relieved to hear that you are having fun. I can tell this has been frustrating for you.”

“Hah! Yeah, well, I ain’t willin’ to call it my game just yet. But nobody in this dang place’ll play me at poker anymore, so here we are.”

“Can you blame them?”

“Whiners,” Joe grumbled. “Ain’t like I even took anybody’s money; that’s trouble, when it comes to coworkers. Just playin’ for chips, that’s all I ask.”

“Even when the stakes are low, it’s inherently unenjoyable to lose. As you have recently been reminded.”

“Just had to rub it in, didn’t ya.”

“I would not wish to subject you to needless frustration, either. You dodged the implied question; I infer from the fact that you keep coming back to the table that you are beginning to enjoy the game.”

“Dunno about that. Not just yet, anyway.” Frowning at the board, Joe hesitantly placed down another stone. “It’s more… I don’t get to do a lotta stuff that’s hard for me to wrap my head around. A board game’s just numbers and statistics, in the end; oughta be right up my alley, seems like. The fact I can’t make heads or tails o’ this makes it…compelling.”

“I hoped that might be the case,” the dragon said with some satisfaction, already placing his next stone. “Perhaps it was presumptuous, but I had an inkling that you prefer to challenge yourself, considering that your favored game is poker.”

“Poker is entirely statistics and probabilities. For me, that’s as easy as breathin’.”

“Half of it is. The rest is analyzing social cues, which I gather is a learned skill for you.”

Joe raised his eyes from his study of the board to give the dragon a gimlet stare. “You gather that, do ya.”

“I apologize for presuming,” Khadizroth said diplomatically. “Your remarkable facility with numbers and physical forces is a rare gift indeed—possibly unique. But you show many other signs of a specific type of mind which, while not greatly common, occurs regularly in all populations. I have known many during my long years.”

The young man grunted and placed his next stone. “Figures. Guess it stands to reason somebody who’s been around as long as you has seen it all.”

“I could not say how many of my kind would notice such details, but I have always been a people person, as dragons go.”

“Mm. Yeah, well… Guess y’ain’t wrong. It’s true, I do relish a challenge. Well, maybe not that exactly, it’s more… I like to feel like I’m expandin’ my mind. Addin’ to my skills. Reckon that’s why I never took to chess. Too easy.”

“My thinking exactly. Chess is a game of angles of attack, precisely your strength. Go is a game of encirclement. I intuited—correctly, it seems—that it would come less naturally to you.”

“People are always goin’ on about chess as a guide to grand strategy. Frankly, I can’t see it. I only wish people moved in prescribed patterns.”

Khadizroth nodded approvingly. “Indeed, I have always been skeptical of the notion of board games as training for any kind of real-world strategy. Rather, I think of them as…metaphors. The game of go will teach you nothing about flanking an enemy on the battlefield; at best it helps unlock certain pathways of the mind which you can further train to apply toward that skill. I think the best use of games is that they are, as you say, fun. And they provide excellent stimulation for good conversations with interesting people.”

Joe grinned and placed his next stone.

“Are you sure about that one?”

“Don’t try to psych me out, K.”

“I fully believe that someday you will be so skilled at this that I will need to employ manipulative tactics to face you. That is not today, however.”

“Well, whatever, we’ve already determined I’m just flailin’ against the inevitable, here. Put up or shut up.”

The next four moves passed in silence before Khadizroth spoke again.

“Somewhat to my surprise, Jeremiah inquired after your well-being in his last letter.”

Joe grimaced. “Th’heck does he care?”

“I took it as a cursory interest—a general sense of social obligation. But considering our shared history, and his and your respective situations, even that seemed significant enough to share.”

“I gotta tell ya, K, I don’t get why you’d still correspond with that guy Shook at all. Is it just…shared history, like you called it? For somebody your age it doesn’t seem like a year or so would make that big an impression.”

“The length of a period of time has little to say about the significance of what happens within it. You are not wrong, however, I don’t consider those relationships to have been deeply significant to my personal growth. I could not make myself mourn the Jackal were his ghost haunting me, and my sole concern about Kheshiri is that it is inherently disturbing not to know where she is, or what fresh chaos she is scheming.”

He paused, staring down at the board but seeming not to see the pieces. Joseph just regarded him in quizzical silence, waiting.

“Perhaps I am overcompensating,” Khadizroth continued at last. “I have come to believe that my own greatest failures and offenses had, among their root causes, a lack of empathy for those my actions affected. Having been in proximity to Jeremiah Shook for so long, I cannot but have compassion for him. Not least because he has embraced punishment for his own crimes, and continues to seem earnestly determined to better himself. What more can we ask of anyone?”

“I don’t recall readin’ about him endin’ up in jail, but I s’pose that might not make the papers.”

“Well…it was punishment from his Guild,” Khadizroth clarified with a grimace of his own. “I am skeptical of Eserites and their notions of retribution, but in this case, what seems important is that he sought out and embraced it. Punishment can be deeply therapeutic to a suffering conscience.”

“You really think a guy like that can change?”

“I think I have to.” The dragon raised his face to look Joe in the eye, and nodded once. “I do not believe in redemption, Joseph. What we have done remains done; the path goes only forward. But…rehabilitation, perhaps. That is a thing worth valuing. The weight of one’s sins can drag one down, but I don’t believe it has to. It can also, if carried the right way, serve to aid one’s balance. A reminder of the past, of the roads one has traveled before and must never again.”

“I kinda like that. Course, personally I prefer to just not do horrible stuff in the first place. My pa told me the best way to keep a clear conscience is never to do anything you feel like you have to justify.”

“That is excellent advice,” Khadizroth said with an odd blend of wryness and fervor. “I heartily recommend your father’s example above my own.”

“Knock knock!” Principia strode into the room without actually knocking. Joe immediately stood, reaching instinctively for his hat, which he was not wearing. “Well, it’s convenient to find the two of you together, but why the hell are you lurking out here in the storeroom with the fritzy heater in this weather?”

“Privacy, ma’am,” Joe said. “I got a certain reputation around here. Can’t have everybody seein’ me get spanked at this game.”

“There is no contest at which it’s shameful to lose to a dragon, Joe.”

“You were looking for us specifically, Captain?” Khadizroth inquired.

“Right. The Hand of Avei was just here—the necro-drake situation is resolved for the moment, but she wants to move proactively rather than waiting for whatever insanity Justinian whips out next. You two’re on the short list for the planned mission. I want you in the briefing room in thirty.”

“You got it, Cap’n,” Joe said, already putting his hat back on as he turned toward the door.

“I’m just as glad I found you separate from the general populace,” Principia continued, patting Joe on the shoulder as he passed. “Khadizroth, you know I make it a point not to pry into anyone’s history; in this outfit that’d lead nowhere good, fast. But given the severity of this threat, I’m going to ask you for the use of some personal assets that aren’t part of your personnel file.”

Joe slowed, paused at the door, and half-turned to regard them with a raised eyebrow.

“I am less of a collector than most of my kind, Captain,” Khadizroth said, rising smoothly and inclining his upper body toward her in a shallow bow. “But I have always considered myself an advocate of the greater good. I do own a variety of rare and valuable objects that might conceivably be of use to the Legion. Is there something in particular you wish me to retrieve?”

“That’s appreciated, but you can rest assured I’m not interested in getting my hands on your hoard,” she said with a faint smirk. “No, for several possible outcomes of the planned mission, we may soon have an urgent need for a secured location—more secured than Camp Eagle, I mean.”

“Are we actually callin’ it that?” Joe mumbled. “I thought that wasn’t decided yet…”

“Someplace strictly off everyone’s books,” Principia continued, staring Khadizroth in the eye. “Absolutely secure, slightly modified for livability, impenetrably defensible. Likely inhabited already by a few individuals heavily motivated to aid in a campaign against Justinian in particular. I’m envisioning something of Infinite Order design—lots of open space, probably originally built as a vehicle hangar. Anything sounding familiar to you?”

The dragon studied her innocent expression for a long moment before answering.

“I simply have to ask, Captain Locke. How could you possibly know about that?”

“It is very distinctly possible that you’re smarter than me, Khadizroth,” she said sweetly. “Intelligence is really a cluster of barely-related traits. But you are not more crafty than I am. I’ve got a feeling it’ll spare us all some potential grief in the future if you keep that firmly in mind.”

“You may be assured that I shall, Captain.”

“To answer the question, the Guild calls me Keys for a reason: the places I have been into and out of with no one the wiser would astonish even you. And I’m afraid you’ll have to be content with that.”

“Very well, I suppose I shall.” The dragon smiled faintly. “I choose not to modify my earlier statement, Captain: for the sake of thwarting Justinian, you may consider me and any assets I can bring to bear at your disposal. I only ask that you share your plans for them with me in advance.”

“That won’t be a hardship, it was my intention to anyway.”

“Then we are in accord. Now, Joseph, we had best move out. It would not do to be late to the briefing.”

“Aren’t we walkin’ with her? Ain’t like it can start ‘til the Captain gets there, anyway.”

Principia prodded him lightly toward the door. “There’s already been too much cleverness in this room, Joe, it’s starting to funk up the place. Don’t add to the cloud. Forward march, boys.”

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