Tag Archives: Shay Iraa

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“Thank you,” Rasha said quietly enough not to interrupt the ongoing discussion as she accepted the mug of hot cocoa.

“Ma’am,” McGraw answered at the same volume, smiling and tugging the brim of his hat to her before turning to pick up another cup from the tray he’d set on the end table and offer it to Shahai.

Watching him, Rasha did not miss the inherent cleverness of the old man positioning himself as the de facto housemaid; it was a discreet but undeniably effective strategy for keeping himself in the good graces of the large group of dangerous women occupying the living room, nearly all of them Avenist and several of uncertain motivations.

Joe hadn’t employed any such strategy, but then…he was Joe. It was less likely to occur to him than to the more experienced old wizard, and anyway, Joe was probably the most inoffensive person in the room. He stood against the wall out of everyone’s way, listening with his arms folded and—unlike far too many teenage boys—reflecting his lack of anything to contribute by keeping his mouth shut and bothering no one. The only person in the safe house who even might be misandrist enough to take issue with Joe’s existence was, herself, subdued and seemed so depressed that even Rasha felt a grudging pity for her. Grudging, and very slight.

The woman in question found herself the center of attention at that moment as both McGraw and Shahai turned on her, with a mug of cocoa and a question, respectively.

The seats in the safe house’s small living room were mostly taken and Sister Magden, being the least favored person present, hadn’t managed to snag one. She was sitting on the other end table in a slouched posture with her head down, arms wrapped around her scabbarded sword as if clinging to it for comfort.

It was a couple of seconds before she responded to either of them, finally looking up at McGraw patiently holding out the steaming cup to her. Mutely, she shook her head, and he withdrew with a smooth bowing motion that made Rasha wonder if he’d ever been a waiter.

“Magden?” Shahai prompted.

“Sorry, I was…” Magden turned to the elf. “What did you say?”

“You told Rasha you were looking to get in contact with General Avelea,” Shahai repeated, showing no sign of impatience. She was one of those people who gave the impression that impatience was an entirely foreign concept to her. “What did you need her for?”

“Oh.” If anything, Magden’s shoulders slumped further. “I was… I sought to ask her personal intercession with Avei on behalf of Sister Lanora. I understand the point of a public punishment of that magnitude for political purposes, but I believe it was unfair. Lanora was—we were misguided, the goddess made that clear. But she was always a good priestess, who did what she believed right. I thought…she deserves another chance. At least, I did,” she added bitterly, her voice dropping to a bare whisper. “Apparently I didn’t know any of my sisters as well as I thought. I cannot believe women I trained and prayed alongside would try to do something so contemptible as what I saw tonight.”

Shay let out a loud, expressive snort, and Casey lightly swatted the back of her head.

“It might comfort you to know, Magden, that by far the majority of your erstwhile comrades have done exactly as the goddess commanded,” Shahai said gently. “About two thirds have already left the city alone or in small groups, departing for unrelated destinations. The Sisterhood lacks a comprehensive intelligence network, but Tiraas has only two publicly accessible gates and two Rail stations; it is not hard to watch the comings and goings. Plus, most of them abandoned their Purist gear in the section of the Temple barracks they’d taken over. Tabards, chainmail, bracers, and swords; the High Commander has set our quartermasters to examining them for hints as to their origins. We can dare to hope that those you saw tonight were the only ones engaged in such depravity, but I’m sure I needn’t caution you all not to hang too much trust on optimism.”

She swept her gaze around the room, receiving nods of acknowledgment.

“I believe I have the full picture now,” Shahai continued. “I must inform you all that I received a message from General Avelea herself just before Sergeant Elwick’s reached me. She has to travel to Veilgrad tonight on political business, and in fact will be taking Bishop Darling, who I understand has been an ally in this matter. That means that until tomorrow, we are effectively on our own. Right now our priority has to be locating the remaining Purists, and most especially Sister Lanora. Their whole order was clearly propped up by the Universal Church as a ploy to divide and damage the Sisterhood, and now that that has failed, those women and the knowledge they hold present a danger to the Archpope’s operational security. They are prime targets either for recruitment into his inner circle, or elimination. We must find and secure them.”

“Why?” Shay demanded. “We’re talkin’ about a bunch of morons whose entire shtick was dragging Avei’s name through the mud so they could have an excuse to bully people. Screw ‘em, I don’t see how this is worth stickin’ our necks out.”

Magden’s expression darkened further, but she didn’t look up from her steady examination of the carpet at her feet.

“First of all,” Shahai replied, turning a flat stare on Shay, “because Justinian has a long pattern of recruiting hopeless individuals and honing them into effective servants; every warm body we keep out of his coterie now is a better trained and better armed problem we won’t have to deal with later. And second, Shay, the Purists were dealt with by Avei. As of that declaration, those who have not gone on to commit further crimes are not wanted for any offense, and those who have should be duly tried and punished under the law. Leaving them to be brutally silenced in some back alley the way they tried to do with Rasha is not acceptable in either case.”

Shay looked less than convinced, but offered no further objection, just sprawling back into her armchair.

“There is also the reason Justinian will be motivated to secure or silence them: Lanora and possibly others possess materially useful intelligence which we need. Knowing that the Archpope is behind so much recent trouble is not the same as being able to prove it. If we can definitively link something to him, we will gather a great deal more support and the Empire can bring its resources to bear on him.”

“Why did you let Lanora out of your sight in the first place, then?” Rasha asked pointedly. “I mean, not you specifically, Sister Nandi, but…”

“I take your point, and it’s valid,” Shahai said, nodding to her. “Were the Sisterhood a governmental or solely military organization, she probably would have been held and interrogated. But it is first and foremost a faith, and lacks the legal authority to involuntarily detain an excommunicated individual within the Empire. I personally would have had her followed, at the very least, but evidently that did not occur to anyone at the time.” She pursed her lips in disapproval.

“How’re we gonna find ‘er, then?” Joe asked quietly.

Shahai nodded. “As Sister Magden has lost contact with her, we are forced to fall back on the measures you used to locate the Purists this evening. With apologies, Casey, I need to divide and direct your team.”

“Nandi, it’s me,” Casey said, grinning. “I’m not Locke, you don’t have to explain what a chain of command is every single time. What’re your orders?”

Shahai gave her an amused smile in response as she answered. “Bandi, Elias, I need you to attempt to locate Sister Lanora via magic. Do you believe you can do it?”

“I will try,” Sister Bandi said, bowing. “My magic is paltry, I warn you. I cannot predict the outcome of the attempt.”

“Worth a shot,” McGraw agreed. “I can do a bit with sympathetic principles… It’d help if we’ve got anything connected to her. Somethin’ of hers, ideally somethin’ she valued.”

Magden raised her head as everyone turned to look at her. Straightening, she fished in the neck of her robe and pulled out a small talisman, an Avenist golden eagle carved in a disc of ebony, hanging on a chain. “Lanora gave me this. She made it herself, years ago, and wore it for over a decade.”

“That’ll do,” McGraw said, both he and Bandi nodding. “That’ll do quite nicely. I do warn you, ma’am, any divine charm on it’s likely to be degraded by me doin’ arcane craft at it…”

“It is not blessed,” Magden said softly, rubbing her thumb across the sigil. “Just…special.”

“Excellent,” Shahai said crisply. “Sister Magden, I would like you to assist them as best you are able. I remind you that Lanora may be in danger if we cannot find her.”

“I’ll help in any way I can.”

“Good. Casey, please remain here to coordinate and supervise; make sure they have everything they need. Meanwhile, Shay, Joseph and I will escort Rasha and Private Medvidaar. First to an Imperial police station to file a report on the Purists’ attack this evening; it will be politically important for a record of their actions to be in government hands, and this will provide the Empire with a pretext to bring pressure to bear upon both the Church and the Huntsmen. After that we can conduct Rasha back to Tamisin Sharvineh’s house, and the Private to the Temple. I believe the five of us represent a group which would deter anyone willing to attempt an ambush in the city.”

“Why don’t we just keep Rasha here?” Shay suggested. “Y’know, where we can keep an eye on ‘er ourselves.”

“Why don’t we ask what Rasha thinks of all this?” Rasha countered, raising one eyebrow.

“There is that,” Shahai agreed. “We are certainly not going to coerce Rasha into anything. I do hope you agree with me on the importance of making a police report?”

“It’s never my first instinct,” Rasha conceded, “but it’d be interesting to be in a police station on the right side of the bars for once.”

“I’m sure,” Shahai replied, smiling. “As for the rest, I am not attempting to get rid of you; I simply think you will be safer at home. This safehouse’s only defense is its anonymity, and when we are working specifically against Church and Sisterhood personnel it may not even have that. By contrast, the Sharvineh mansion is a target I understand even the Svennish intelligence service did not dare assault.”

“No, it’s fine, I agree,” Rasha assured her, taking Zafi’s hand. “I’d really like to get home, anyhow. You sure Zafi will be all right back at the Temple?”

“Wherever the Purists are, they’re not there,” Zafi replied. “That’s the one place we know they’re not. Nobody’s gonna try to snatch a Legionnaire out of her own cohort. And when I’m not drilling with the squad I can stick near Sister Azelea.”

“I will also make an effort to keep an eye on you, Private,” Shahai promised, “at least until we are sure the immediate situation has been resolved. Does anyone have further questions? Good, then let us get to work. Time is short and growing shorter.”

“So…I understand the problem.” She stood in the center of the chamber, clawed hands on her hips and her wings neatly folded against her back so that they flowed behind her like a rigid cape of feathers, with their small claws rising above her shoulders. “The machine must be, in essence, rebuilt from scratch after the damage it suffered. The work takes time because it is a secret of the highest order, so no one is trusted to help you work on it. And also, no one knows how. Plus, it is made mostly of pieces which are rare and expensive, including many irreplaceable Elder God artifacts for which there can be no substitution. Even with the search ongoing, it might be years before enough have been gathered, and…possibly never. I understand.”

The underground space had at least been cleaned up over the last four months, and was no longer a charred wreckage of mechanical and enchanting parts. Now, the equipment arrayed around it and climbing all the walls encircling the broad summoning circle in which she stood was clearly in a half-built state, with incomplete metal structures bristling from the floor, unfastened wires trailing, copper and glass rods extending from various machines into empty air, and miscellaneous parts strewn about either loose or in crates.

She heaved a deep sigh, then grudgingly nodded. “I owe you an apology, then, Rector. I am sorry for implying you were deliberately stalling. The work you do must be very difficult.”

Azradeh turned when there was no response save the continuing soft clatter of a wrench on the inscrutable cabinet on which he was working, something that resembled a twelve-foot-tall grandfather clock with glowing parts and a face which depicted a swirling portal into some mysterious darkness.

“Rector?” she prompted. “Did you hear me? Please respond.”

“I’m not deaf!” the man abruptly shouted in exasperation, not looking up from what he was doing. In fact, it sounded like he was tightening bolts harder all of a sudden. “Omnu’s breath, woman, will you go away?! I am trying to work!”

Azradeh tilted her head, studying him curiously. Rector was an odd one, and truthfully rather annoying to deal with, but she felt no animosity toward him. Of the very few people with whom she had contact, only two treated her…in a word, normally. Colonel Ravoud and Delilah were both polite, but their tense bearing never let her forget that she was a creature capable of tearing them apart bare-handed, that her name was a byword for terror and destruction in their language. Branwen set off alarms in her head just by being in the room. Justinian himself, of course, was always kind and composed, but he was his own kettle of fish. Only Rector didn’t seem to care at all what she was. It made her like him, despite his congenital lack of even the most basic social skills.

“A cogent analysis, Azradeh, but there is another important factor which limits us further.”

She turned again, regarding the Archpope himself as he descended from the half-rebuilt control platform to join her on the summoning circle below.

“When we rescued you,” Justinian explained, leaning his head back to look up at the central point on the ceiling where a secondary energy nexus would be housed when the great machine was activated, “another being…intervened. Something extra-dimensional and extremely powerful. We must do considerable research to determine what effect this had, and plan for it before trying again. That alone is prohibitive.”

“I see,” she murmured. “Then there’s no telling when I can see my sisters again. Or if.”

Justinian laid one hand gently on her upper arm; he alone was unafraid to touch her. Well, Rector wasn’t afraid either, but he loudly disliked being touched at all, as she had discovered.

“What can be done can be repeated; it is simply a question of the difficulty and the cost. Sometimes, they are too great to attempt in practical terms. In this case, I refuse to accept that possibility unless it is forced upon us. We will rescue your sisters, if it can at all be done. I simply cannot predict when. I’m sorry, Azradeh.”

She shook her head. “Everyone is doing what they can. I feel like I could be doing more. Maybe I could help Rector?”

Head buried in his clock-like apparatus, Rector emitted a feral growl that echoed oddly.

“I certainly don’t understand how this thing works, but I can follow simple directions. You can’t tell me someone who can lift giant metal beams and cling to the ceiling wouldn’t be useful—”

“KEEP THE DAMN DEMON OUT OF HERE!” the enchanter bellowed. “NOTHING BUT INTERRUPTIONS! LET ME FOCUS!”

Delilah was already descending from the platform, giving them one of her pointed looks, the one which presaged a lecture about how much more difficult it would be for her to calm and re-focus Rector after this.

“Perhaps we have interrupted his work enough for the time being,” Justinian said discreetly.

Azradeh sighed. “Fair enough. I’ll see you later, Rector. Don’t forget to eat something, okay?”

With surprising accuracy, he hurled a brass-framed power crystal at her. Azradeh made no response, not even blinking as it bounced off her temple.

“I’m wearing him down,” she assured the Archpope while the two of them climbed the steps toward the control platform. As the passed, Delilah pressed a hand over her eyes.

“I am not sure that approach will work,” Justinian said delicately once they had passed out into the hall beyond. “There is a method to befriending people like Rector. Pressuring them is not part of it.”

“People like Rector, huh,” she mused. “So is there a name to what’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing is wrong with him,” he said without hesitation. “He is different, that’s all. But yes, we have at least a partial understanding of it. The dwarves have made a scientific study of this in recent decades, and elven tribes have traditional methods of raising such individuals. They appear to occur naturally in every race in small numbers. Most people, Azradeh, have minds that are made up in large part of people-related instincts, innate skills which enable us to recognize and interact with one another. Rector, and those like him, are born missing some or all of those aptitudes; they are replaced with other capacities. As you have doubtless observed, his talents lie elsewhere. We simply must extend more than the usual tolerance and understanding to help him make those skills useful to us all.”

“Hmmm. So they’re always gifted enchanters?”

“No, and no,” he replied, smiling. “They do tend to produce savants, but in various fields; enchanting happens to be Rector’s particular specialty. But even so, not the majority. Most are simply people, with a condition, and their own talents and abilities like anyone else.”

“I wonder if it’s really worth the effort of extra care, then, if they’re not mostly as useful as Rector…”

“Always, if only to avoid the judgment of how useful someone is. The effort is worth it, regardless of any singular result yielded. Making that effort to care for others is what determines that we are a society which does so, as opposed to one in which people are merely exploited for whatever utility can be wrought from them. The former always creates a stronger and more resilient social order than the latter.”

“Collective over individual utility,” she mused, nodding slowly. “I can see the logic. I wonder if they have similar ideas in Hell.”

“Our knowledge of that is secondhand at best,” the Archpope said gravely, “but indications are very much the opposite. Back to the present, I’m sorry about the sparring golem you were using. I was only just informed.”

“Oh. I guess I’m the one who should apologize,” she said, grimacing.

“Not in the least.” With one of his caring smiles, Justinian patted her again on the shoulder. They had arrived at her room; Azradeh hadn’t been going anywhere in particular, just following him, and now allowed him to gently usher her in while he continued speaking. “I’ll make arrangements to bring you another one as soon as I am back above, but…I fear the thing will happen again, eventually. Unfortunately, those things simply aren’t made to withstand strength like yours. I truly am sorry, Azradeh. It’s hard to provide means for you to exercise down here.”

“I’d really like the chance to fly,” she said, wandering over to her music player—a rare and expensive enchanted device, so she understood, and which she treasured—and lightly rested her claws atop it without reaching for one of the sound disks. “I feel that would help me…remember. I don’t suppose there’s any chance of me visiting the surface soon?”

It had been a desultory question with no real expectation behind it, but he gave her a pleased smile in response. “In fact, I finally have good news about that! You know the reasons we must maintain discretion, but I have been monitoring an ongoing situation which I think will provide exactly the pretext we need to let you stretch your wings above a bit. I am carefully nudging it in the proper direction; with a little bit of luck, I expect to be able to bring you up within the next few days.”

“Really?” She looked up at him, smiling in genuine anticipation.

“It is not set in stone yet,” he cautioned, “but I have committed to the plan. If it does not pan out, I will re-prioritize to put aside some other concerns and arrange an outing for you in the near future. I owe you that much, at the very least.” The Archpope’s eyes fell on her well-stocked bookcase, next to her reading desk, and he reached out to draw his fingertip through the light coating of dust on the spines of the theological histories on the top shelf. “Are you…not interested in reading about your family?”

“I’m interested,” she said, letting her own expression grow more pensive, “but…concerned about prejudicing myself. Nothing has brought up memory, not as an explicit recollection of something I could describe, but I do get flashes of feeling. A sense of familiarity about some things. I’m concerned about corrupting my perception, so to speak. If it’s going to come back to me, I’d like it to come before I start filling my head with other people’s ideas about what my sisters and I were like.”

“I do see the sense in that,” he said, his eyes falling on one of the volumes laid on the desk. “Ah, that’s right, you did ask for a copy of Branwen’s book. Have you finished already?”

Azradeh snorted. “In the sense that I read four chapters and now I’m finished with it, yes. What a bunch of absolute piffle. It’s all self-aggrandizing nonsense—anybody who already believes that stuff doesn’t need the encouragement, and anyone who does need it isn’t going to have their life changed by a book. The whole thing is nothing but selling people validation.”

“I suspect no one involved in the creation of this book would dispute that,” he said, his smile a touch wry. “It was a mechanism to improve Branwen’s public perception, and did its job quite well. Of course, I will continue to supply you with more reading material. Have you any specific requests?”

“Oh!” She looked up from her shelf of music disks, smiling. “That reminds me, could I get a newspaper subscription?”

The Archpope did not betray any emotional reaction, not by so much as a blink. “Newspaper?”

“Or several of them, ideally,” she went on, frowning at the disks. “Why are these out of order… Oh, that’s right, I re-shelved in a hurry after…anyway.” Azradeh set about sorting her music collection, speaking in a distracted tone. “Newspapers are mentioned in more recent books; it sounds like a great way for me to get up to speed on the modern world. Oh! Even better, what about some magazines? The books are great, but I like the idea of something more, how to put it… Ephemeral? Connected to the current moment in time. It sounds from what I read like magazines aren’t very well respected in literary circles. That sounds ideal.”

“That should be quite easy,” Justinian replied, smiling again. “Yes, I will have a selection brought for you immediately. Magazines are usually quite focused in their subject matter; you can pick those which most interest you and I will have them delivered regularly.”

“That’s fantastic, thanks!” Azradeh said brightly, giving him a smile as she slipped the last disk back into its place.

The conversation continued as usual and she showed no further reaction to betray the victory she had just won; revealing that she was even aware of a victory would have likely undone her efforts.

Azradeh might not have memories, but she still had instincts, and every one of them had screamed at her from the beginning that Archpope Justinian could not be trusted—and that further, revealing that she sensed this would place her in danger. This, finally, was hard confirmation. That his response to the idea of her receiving newspapers was anything other than the prompt “yes, of course” with which he had answered all her requests for entertainment and education showed he was invested in controlling her understanding of the world outside. And that meant both that she had zero chance of getting newspaper subscriptions, and that she must swiftly dispel any suspicion on his part that she sought to wriggle out from under his control.

Hence the magazines. They would reveal less about the current world, particularly a selection curated by Justinian himself, but they would reveal something, in little bits and pieces. And even better, he all but had to accede to the request in order to keep her distracted from the more dangerous subject of newspapers.

For now, Azradeh would continue slowly gather information and play along with whatever he was doing, certain only that his final goals were not what he was telling everyone. It might be that his true agenda was in her best interests after all, and if not, better that she be trusted and in a position to do something about it. Even if she hadn’t the recollection of her history, millennia of habit still cautioned her to keep her friends close and enemies closer, at least until she could tell the difference.

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“Just who I was looking for, in fact.” Sister Magden stepped forward, grim-faced and blade first. “To begin with—”

“Back off!” Zafi barked, lunging in front of Rasha and bringing up her sword in a guard position. “You get one chance to back down, lady.”

Magden stopped, looking incredulous. Then she glanced at her own longsword and blinked as if surprised to find herself brandishing it. To Rasha’s surprise, the priestess lowered the weapon.

“Ah…excuse me, that wasn’t… Well, regardless, I need to speak with—”

“Back. Away.” Zafi pressed forward, raising her short sword again.

Despite having her own guard lowered, Magden spared the other woman’s blade a scant glance, looking only miffed and not the least bit worried. It was not lost on any of them present that she was an Eagle Style duelist facing a young graduate of Legion basic training who didn’t even have her shield.

“Regardless of anything you witnessed in the sanctuary yesterday, Private, you are speaking to a priestess of Avei. I suggest you lower your…”

Pounding feet from behind them made her eyes shift past Zafi’s shoulder. Rasha steeled herself, tucking her chilly fingers into her sleeves to touch the metal secured there, while Zafi looked rapidly back and forth in apparent panic, visibly coming to grips with the fact that she couldn’t cover Rasha from both directions.

The two white-robed Purists slowed to a stop rather than attacking, though; one was carrying one of those longswords, but the other appeared unarmed.

“Sister Magden!”

“Farzi, Janelle,” Magden replied, narrowing her eyes. “What’s all this, now?”

“I knew you’d come,” the woman with the sword said eagerly. “Don’t let them past! The others will catch up, and we can finish this.”

“Finish?” Magden’s voice rose in pitch and volume. “I hope that does not mean what it sounds like, sister.”

The two Purists both frowned. Rasha and Zafi shifted position subtly, catching the mood, directing more of their attention away from Magden, the apparent lesser threat.

“It’s just…it’s just a last detail,” the other Purist said, her voice firming up as she spoke. “One thing to be cleaned up.”

Magden’s eyes cut to Rasha and then back to her fellow priestesses. Incredible as it seemed, her expression was growing more furious by the second.

“Oh, yes? A little detail, to be cleaned up. With your sword, in some dark alley, while the detail is running away from you. Forgive me, sisters, I think there’s some confusion here. Whose priestess do you claim to be now? Because when we last spoke, you served the goddess of justice.”

“Well, blow me down,” Zafi mumbled, catching Rasha’s eye sidelong. “Is one of ‘em actually gonna be reasonable?”

Her voice had been low, and it was probably fortunate that none of the Avenists responded to the comment, or appeared to notice.

“I thought you were with us, Sister Magden,” the Purist with the sword said, having the effrontery to sound hurt. “If you’re not— What are you even doing here?”

“I was just asking myself that,” Magden snapped. “Now it seems the goddess directed me here. I am doing as a priestess of Avei should. What are you doing here?”

“Ambushing a civilian with intent to abduct or assault,” Rasha said with a pleasant smile. “They also deliberately deceived Imperial police with criminal intent. Would you like to know the established penalty for all of that? We are taught such details in my faith. Of course, it would likely be lesser for you. Magistrates are usually lenient with Avenists, especially clerics.”

All three priestesses turned baleful looks on her, and Zafi added an incredulous one. Rasha kept her hands hanging at her sides, clinging to her serene bearing as Glory had trained her. Folding her hands demurely at her waist would have better heightened the effect, but this way she could keep her concealed knives ready to deploy.

“Maybe,” Magden said in a dangerous tone, “you should shut up before you somehow make this even worse. In fact, that’s enough of all of this. You two, Private and…thief. We’re leaving.”

“They’re not leaving!” snarled the sword-carrying Purist, taking a compulsive step forward and raising her weapon.

“Are you forgetting who taught you to use that sword, Farzi?” Magden said contemptuously. “Lower it before you embarrass us both any further. If you can belatedly summon the sense to drop this nonsense, I will report it as a lapse in judgment rather than the premeditated abrogation of your vows it looks like.”

More shapes loomed up out of the darkness behind them, these approaching at a less breakneck pace, but the three additional ex-Purists who now stepped forward arrived in time to hear Magden’s last statement. All five were now glaring—at her, rather than Rasha for a change. Two of the new arrivals had swords; the third carried a wand.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” the woman who by default had to be Sister Janelle hissed. “You’re— You of all people, Magden! You cannot possibly side with this…this creature over your own Sisters!”

“The creature in question hasn’t committed any crime, or harmed anyone,” Magden shot back, “and even if he—sh—even if that were true, nothing justifies Sisters of Avei murdering people in alleys! What are you all even thinking?! Just being here… Avei commanded our order to disperse! Avei! The Goddess herself!”

That seemed to bring them pause, but only for a moment.

“Gods are…difficult creatures,” said one of the new arrivals, pushing to the front of their group with her sword still held at her side. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, sister, given your special fields of study, but you know I am a student of theology. It’s a known fact that the commands of deities can be influenced by the way they are invoked. We can’t consider it definitive when Trissiny Avelea called down judgment while we know her sympathies were already tainted by…this one.”

She sneered overtly at Rasha, who didn’t spare her a glance, being focused on the one with the wand.

“Is that a fact,” Magden said in deadly quiet.

Golden light blossomed in the alley.

Everyone present shied back and shaded their eyes for the seconds it took them to adjust, Zafi and a few of the Purists with hisses of displeasure. Sister Magden had lit up with a golden halo of pure divine light as she channeled energy actively without yet directing it. Pushing forward between Rasha and Zafi, utterly ignoring any threat they might have presented her, the priestess planted herself between them and her own former comrades.

The second she was clear, the light around her hardened into a golden sphere.

“I stand with Avei,” Magden’s voice rang through the cold alleyway. “I serve Avei, and an oath of service is not suspended when I am ordered to do something I happen not to like! I’m confident I remain in the goddess’s good graces, sisters. It’s far simpler to obey her commands than to rationalize why I shouldn’t have to. But if your faith is wavering, don’t take my word for it! You can call judgment down on yourselves, you know.”

The five of them shuffled backward. Magden gave them no quarter, taking a step to maintain the distance.

“Well?” she barked. “I note none of you have called on the goddess’s light. Why? Is there some reason you fear to draw her attention? Are you perhaps doing something right this minute you know to be wrong?”

The woman in the lead drew a deep breath and let it out in a puff of mist, her expression hardening, and raised her sword.

“I don’t want it to come to this, Magden,” she said coldly, “but anyone not with us is against us.”

Magden’s sword flashed in a horizontal arc that impacted hers with a furious clash, and the other woman was sent stumbling against one of the alley’s walls by the force. Magden, in addition to her mastery of the sword, had clearly trained in the knack of modulating a divine shield to let her attack through it while blocking outside forces.

“Avei is against you,” she stated. “I didn’t want it to come to this either, sisters, but if this is where you must plant your flag, I like my chances.”

The woman in the lead quickly recovered her feet, and the two others with swords hesitated, visibly recalculating their odds against their order’s finest swordswoman in a cramped alley, but Rasha was still not watching them. Most of what she knew of divine shields came from correspondence with Trissiny, according to whom a paladin’s barrier could stand up to a lot, but an average cleric’s shield would rapidly decay if subjected to point blank wandfire. So, when the Purist with the wand took aim at Magden, Rasha flung out her own arm.

It wasn’t one of her better throws; her fingers were half-numb from being bare in the cold. The throwing knife struck the woman in the upper chest where it wouldn’t do much damage, but at least the blow succeeded in making her stagger back with a shriek. Lightning flashed deafeningly in the confined space, punching a crater in one wall a few feet above their heads and showering them all with fragments of brick.

For doubtless the first and likely the last time, Rasha, Zafi, and Magden all had the same thought. All three turned and dashed away up the alley, the two of them not needing Magden’s shouted order to flee. Rasha saved her breath for running, but privately had to wonder whether Magden was uncertain of their chances against five of them or was just reluctant to take a blade to women she likely still thought of as friends.

Unfortunately, she also seemed to presume herself to be in charge, and pushing her way up the alley behind them surrounded by a bubble of hard light gave her more authority than she perhaps deserved.

“Take this right!” she ordered as a gap in the wall loomed up.

“No,” Zafi shouted back, “keeping left will lead us to—”

“Do as you are told, Private!” In a frustratingly impressive display of Lightworking skill, she dropped the shield to dart forward and to their left, swelling it again to push both of them into her chosen alley.

Rasha hissed in wordless displeasure, but didn’t try to fight, as that would only let their pursuers catch up. She was inclined to chalk this up to Magden’s naive arrogance and presumption that she was automatically in command. A crafty enemy might have used this whole incident to earn trust in order to get them alone for an assassination, but by Rasha’s reading the woman didn’t have that kind of subtlety in her. So far, the extent of Purist cleverness seemed to be setting up ambushes that anyone could have warned them were sure to backfire. Hell, their best case scenario if they succeeded in what they were trying to do here was Trissiny hunting them all down like stray dogs.

Magden immediately revealed the reason for her insistence by kicking over the stack of crates lurking in the mouth of this side alley, forming an impromptu obstruction that would definitely not inhibit their foes enough to have been worth this detour, and Rasha privately decided that next time she was going to follow her own damn path if it meant she had to stab the woman. Incompetent help was basically the same as another enemy.

“This is insanity,” Magden snarled at no one in particular as they pounded down this new back alley in the wrong direction. “What are they thinking? Avei spoke to us! The Goddess herself! I didn’t like it either, but nobody needs to like it. She’s the Goddess! The subject is closed!”

“It’s pretty normal, actually,” Rasha puffed, annoyed that Magden was less out of breath with this exertion than she was. The priestess’s legs were a lot longer; Rasha had to take more steps faster to keep up. “If you conclusively debunk something somebody really wants to believe, they’re not likely to change their minds. Most will get mad and dig their heels in, start massaging reality until it looks more like they want it to. Honestly, the fact you actually did what Avei said shows unusual character.”

“I do not need validation from you,” Magden spat, giving her a bitter scowl.

“Okay, maybe not too much character,” Rasha allowed.

“If you’re not with them, why are you looking for Rasha?” Zafi demanded.

“I need to speak with General Avelea,” Magden grated. “And it turns out a Sister of Avei like myself has less direct access to her than some Eserite…person.”

“Then how’d you know to look for me here?” Rasha exclaimed.

“A few minutes ago I met a scruffy man wearing half a tuxedo who said you’d be down these alleys. I assumed he was sending me into some manner of ambush, but I was in a mood to vivisect a few muggers anyway, so here we are. The Goddess works mysteriously at times.”

“I’m not sure that’s the deity you’re working with right now,” Zafi muttered.

Then the three of them had to skid to a stop, Rasha nearly losing her balance on a patch of ice until Zafi caught her. The alley had abruptly opened up into a kind of courtyard surrounded on all sides by four-story structures, each with a rear loading door facing the cul de sac. There was, or at least had once been, another alley leading out of it in the opposite direction, but someone had built a ten-foot-tall wooden slat fence across it at some point. That looked dubiously climbable, at best, and definitely too tall to jump.

“Oh, good,” Zafi exclaimed. “I’m just so glad we went this way instead of staying left! Just think, we could be back on a main street with police now instead of trapped like rats, and wouldn’t that be awful.”

“Young woman,” Magden shot back, “if you cannot find something more—”

“Shut up!” Rasha barked at both of them, already heading to her left. “Try these doors, we only need one unlocked!”

None were unlocked, of course. Most didn’t even have handles on this side.

Zafi began pounding on one with her fist, loudly demanding it to be opened, while Rasha swiftly crossed to the only door with a visible keyhole and knelt, already extracting her lockpicks from their hidden pocket. All the other doors were clearly meant to be openable only from the inside. She set to work, both annoyed about what the filthy floor of this alley was now doing to the hem of her dress and grateful the lock was an old-fashioned one any idiot could have picked. All she needed was a minute…

And naturally, that was also a forlorn hope. The angry Purists pounded into the alley—now there were six of them—and immediately fanned out in the open space, raising weapons. Magden and Zafi pivoted and brought up their own blades in readiness, and Rasha wasted precious seconds pausing to reach for her remaining throwing knives before deciding that getting this door open was a better use of her abilities.

The woman who’d argued with Magden was still in the lead and now opened her mouth to deliver another no doubt riveting spiel, but then gasped, raising her eyes to the top of the wooden fence.

Their only warning was a clatter of bodies rapidly clambering up something stacked against it—of course, there’d be a convenient path up the other side—and then yet another white-robed priestess of Avei vaulted over the top, this one a Westerner with a multitude of narrow braids flying about her head.

She hit the floor in a roll and charged forward. Zafi pivoted to slash at her, but the priestess flowed under the relatively clumsy swing as if she were made of water and kept going. Magden turned, sword upraised, but the new priestess did not join the others in attacking her.

On the contrary. Before they could react, the woman ducked under the Purist leader’s stab and simultaneously ripped the sword out of her hands while dropping the woman with a knife-handed jab to the throat. She moved like no one Rasha had ever seen in a fight, flinging the confiscated sword almost contemptuously and yet nailing another Purist on the skull with its heavy pommel while turning to barehandedly disable a third.

With a roar, another woman in a white robe under a more mundane winter coat hit the ground from the fence and charged forward. She moved with much less grace, slamming fist-first into the only Purist who didn’t have a weapon and sending her reeling backward.

A beam of clean white light flashed silently through the air, piercing the hand of the woman who had been taking aim with her lightning wand, which she dropped with another shriek of pain; despite being the most dangerously armed member of her group, she was not having good luck today. Turning to look in the direction the shot had come from, Rasha could only gape in surprise.

“Joe!”

“Hey, Rasha!” Joseph Jenkins said cheerfully, hopping down from atop the fence while another young woman with a Legion short sword bounded over it right after him. “Sorry to leave it so close. Seems we’re cursed with dramatic timing.”

“This behavior is utterly contemptible,” stated the dark-skinned woman who had just taken down four fellow priestesses with her bare hands in a few seconds. Two were clearly unconscious and the rest had been disarmed; all who could still walk were frantically backing away now. “I urge you to submit to citizen’s arrest, sisters. Penance begins a path to redemption.”

“Fuck that, let’s beat ‘em up for a while longer,” suggested the other new priestess, grinning and raising both her fists. “Asskicking is good for—”

“Heel, Shay,” ordered the teenage girl who incongruously seemed to be in charge of this lot. “That’s more than enough carnage. Bandi, is that one going to die?”

“Possibly,” the martial artist allowed, dispassionately studying the fallen Purist who was struggling to breathe around a damaged windpipe. “That would be unfortunate; permission to render healing?”

“Please do. Let’s not have any corpses here.”

“Finally, a voice of reason!”

“Oh, what the hell now,” Zafi demanded as the retreating Purists flocked away from the alley mouth, leaving one of their number sprawled insensate on the ground and another clutching her neck while Bandi knelt beside her, applying golden light to the injury from her hands.

Of all things, two Huntsmen of Shaath entered the courtyard from behind them.

“Unbelievable,” Magden hissed, raising her sword again.

“Now, now, Sister, let’s have peace,” the Huntsman in the lead said in the same smooth tone with which he had already interrupted them. “I think all of this has gotten more than sufficiently out of hand, don’t you? I propose everyone take a moment to breathe and find some calm. Brother Arlund, would you kindly make sure the fallen Sister here is all right?”

“Don’t you touch her!” one of the other Purists squawked while the second Huntsman strode forward to bend over their unconscious comrade.

“I assure you Arlund would never handle a woman, or anyone, with anything less than the utmost respect,” the more loquacious Huntsman said in a soothing tone.

He actually stood out, to the eyes of anyone familiar with Huntsmen of Shaath. The man was neatly groomed, his winter tunic boasted subtle embroidery in the elven style, his long hair was tied back in a tight tail and his beard gathered into a chest-length braid, and even his traditional bearskin cloak appeared to have been brushed. He also spoke with a smooth, cultured intonation at odds with the (mostly accurate) popular conception of Shaathists as scruffy outdoorsmen.

Unlike Arlund, who looked up from the fallen woman with a much more characteristic grunt. “She breathes. Took a knot to the temple. Head injuries need quick treatment, but mostly likely she’ll be fine.”

“Now that is a relief,” his companion said with evident sincerity. “Sisters, perhaps it would be best if you withdrew your friend from the line of fire, as it were? That is, if these good people will kindly stand down,” he added with a courteous bow toward Magden.

“Whaddaya think, Casey?” Joe asked. He had not put away his wand, but was currently aiming it at the ground.

“I think they’re beyond the point of any funny business,” Casey said, watching the Shaathists warily as Arlund stepped back and the Purists began to edge forward. “There’s absolutely no justification for denying someone healing. Speaking of, Bandi, how is she?”

“Serviceable,” Bandi reported, also retreating from the oncoming Purists and Shaathists while the woman she’d been treating now backed away. “She is in no danger, though I imagine that is still uncomfortable.”

To judge by the way the priestess continued to clutch her neck while glaring daggers at Bandi, she was correct.

“Good,” Casey said curtly. “Please be more careful in the future, the last thing I need is you killing someone by accident. Now, then, I don’t know what business Huntsmen have in this, but with all due respect, you need to back off. We’re taking these women to the Imperial authorities.”

“I wonder if that is the best use of everyone’s time?” the more talkative Huntsman asked with a calm smile, while Arlund lurked behind his shoulder, glaring at them. “Here we stand amid the ruins of multiple grievous errors in judgment. Does it not seem to you that it’s best we all step back and allow one another to depart in peace?”

“Yeah, that’s not on the table,” Casey stated. “Thanks for your help, but we’ve got it from here.” Magden nodded in agreement.

“Ah, forgive me, I have failed to express myself clearly,” he said, his smile not diminishing. “We in Shaath’s service are men of action, not of words.”

Everyone’s eyes shifted, and he half-turned to follow their gaze. Then his smile widened and he turned back to Casey while three more longbow-wielding Huntsmen paced silently out of the alley behind them.

“No one is taking anyone into custody.”

This unusual Huntsman might be polite, even suave, but he was definitely not obsequious. He held Casey’s gaze, clearly having pinned her as the person in charge despite Magden’s puffing up, and the two stared one another down in a mute contest of wills. Her expression was icily blank, while he managed to keep smiling even as his eyes silently offered the very violence from which he was courteously urging that they all abstain.

“Are you certain,” Casey asked at last, in the same tone of deadly quiet, “you want to embrace the consequences of your actions here, Huntsman?”

“That is tomorrow’s hunt, miss,” he replied politely, inclining his head. “Here and now? Surely it is best that we all refrain from exacerbating this…misunderstanding. It seems to me we have been lucky there has been no more serious injury, yet. Just a little more aggression from anyone present would imperil that clean record.”

“This one sure does talk fancy,” Shay observed. “They aren’t breeding Shaathists like they used to, I guess.”

“The wolves of Shaath hunt with Ingvar, now,” Joe drawled, twirling his wand. “All that’s left under Veisroi are the tame dogs.”

“Joe,” Casey growled as four of the Huntsmen present turned to him with bared teeth, one raising his bow.

“I should hope,” the leader said, more loudly but still calmly, “that I can count on the men of Shaath to show more character than to rise to childish insults. Someone here must be the adult, after all. Now then, I believe it’s past time we separated these groups of people who so clearly do not enjoy sharing space. Ladies, after you.”

He turned to the Purists, bowing respectfully and gesturing toward the alley mouth, which his followers had just shifted aside from.

“Are we lettin’ ‘em go?” Shay demanded, turning to Casey.

“Well, he’s not wrong,” Casey replied, still staring at the smooth-talking Huntsman. “If this becomes a real fight… No matter who wins, everyone loses.”

He smiled and favored her with a deep nod. She just narrowed her eyes, and kept staring until the Huntsmen and Purists had all filed off up the alley. He was the last to go, giving her a final smile over his shoulder.

At last, Casey heaved a sigh. “Fuck, that was closer than I like ‘em. Rasha, are you okay?”

“Well, my date was interrupted,” Rasha said, indulging in a bit of petulance now that the danger seemed past, “but otherwise, this has been no worse than some decent exercise.” Zafi chuckled, stepping over to take her hand. “Excuse me… Casey, was it? This is embarrassing; I’m certain I know you from somewhere, but I can’t recall exactly.”

“My squad threw you in jail once,” Casey said with a wry smile.

“Oh, that’s right!”

“Does that really narrow it down?” Magden asked acerbically.

“Maybe not, but then we made her muck out a stable. Tends to leave an impression. Who’s this, then?”

“This is Sister Magden,” Rasha introduced her. “A former big name among the Purists who now…I think…is…on our side?”

“I am on Avei’s side,” Magden corrected with barely-repressed dislike. “Even if that puts me in…strange company.”

“Strange company ‘bout sums it up, no offense,” Joe commented.

“Okay, that’s a sufficient amount of banter,” Casey stated. “This looks like it’s gonna need to be a long-ish conversation. Let’s have it someplace less frigid, shall we?”

“Heh, that’s what she s—”

“Shut up and march, Shay!”

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McGraw had spent by far the majority of his career in the wilderness and small towns of the Great Plains frontier, but not all; he had ranged widely enough over the years to have been in more than a few urban safehouses. Enough, at least, to recognize one on sight. When you’d seen one, you’d seen them all, these empty but well-maintained residences kept by various powerful organizations against times when they needed to discreetly stash someone for a while.

They were so empty, despite being fully furnished. There was no personality or character, just bland arrangements of styleless furniture and only the most neutral and inoffensive of decoration, when there was any at all. Interestingly, he had always recognized the home of Bishop Darling as another such place. That had been only the first hint that “Bishop Darling” was a role being acted rather than a real person, McGraw was just as glad to have parted ways from the man on amicable terms before he had to find out what was underneath that mask. The Darling residence had even less personality than this place, which at least identified its owners by having golden eagle sigils or casually displayed copies of the Aveniad or Avenist librams in every room. The front parlor even had a full shrine to Avei; a small and plain one, but still. Avenists might occasionally mutter “war is deception” or some such aphorism but as a rule they didn’t care for sneaking around or hiding their intentions.

Following his careful exploration of the mid-sized middle-class townhouse (only three bedrooms, but none of the team were overly particular about their living conditions), he returned now to that front room, his first view down the hallway revealing Joe leaning against the wall and watching something.

“Serviceable place,” McGraw observed, approaching. “Cozy, but not—”

He broke off when Joe raised one finger to his lips, crossing the last few feet in silence to peek into the room.

Everyone else was here, Shay lounging in the room’s most comfortable chair and Casey also leaning against the wall, next to the door in a position which made her invisible to someone approaching it. McGraw had noted her tendency to do that and similar things; someone had taught this girl stealthy habits. They were all watching the fifth member of the group, who appeared to be doing particularly unconventional witchcraft in front of the little shrine to Avei.

Like most who’d gravitated or been assigned to the First Legion, their two actual priestesses of Avei did not exactly fit in with the rest of the Sisterhood. Shay Iraa liked beer and loud, off-key singing, and thus spent a lot of her free time in taverns frequently getting into brawls, which had only been tolerated because she had extricated an astonishing number of battered women from their situations. Even so, the Sisterhood was just as happy to have her off training in Viridill rather than having to be retrieved from jail every other week. All in all she resembled the popular stereotype of an Eserite, and was always ready to demonstrate that upside the head of anyone unwise enough to point it out.

Bandi Avelea, on the other hand, was easy to mistake for an Omnist, given her stereotypically serene bearing and devotion to the martial arts, as well as her emphasis on meditative and spiritual disciplines which were held in less esteem in the pragmatic Sisterhood. Indeed, upon first seeing her demonstrate her fighting style during a First Legion training session, McGraw (and others present) had mistaken it for a Sun Style sequence until she began serenely explaining and demonstrating on a luckless target dummy all the ways in which she could kill a person with one unarmed hand.

Now, Sister Bandi stood in a defined spell circle consisting only of seven crystals arranged around her, which McGraw only knew was fae in nature because of the unpleasant prickling it caused against all the arcane magic he had stored in his own aura. There was a limit to how much fae magic a priestess could do, if only because most fairy spirits objected to being in the presence of so much divine energy. But by settling for strictly low-tier spells and getting a little creative, one could always pick up some extra versatility from outside one’s own preferred skill; he’d done so himself.

What she was doing more resembled a very slow dance, or perhaps a martial arts sequence performed at half speed. The priestess, eyes closed, moved evenly through a fluid series of motions with her arms and legs, flowing in a manner that almost resembled water held within the tube delineated by her spell circle.

Casey leaned over to him and murmured, “She’s checking if we can pick up any traces magically. I figured it’s worth a try. Hate to just sit on our hands while we wait for General Avelea and Nandi to come back with more orders.”

McGraw nodded once, understanding. Trissiny was engaged in some high-level political maneuvering with the aid of her fellow paladins and had to return to their current base in Madouris to check up on the progress of that, while Shahai was at the Temple of Avei meeting with the High Commander. She, at least, would be back with orders by that evening, but Trissiny had been clear that there were numerous unexpected events in the air and she might not be able to return that day.

He leaned over toward Casey in turn, lowering his head and his voice to mumble in a low tone even Joe shouldn’t have been able to pick up. “I’ll get ya a rolled-up newspaper t’whack me with if y’want, boss lady, but meantime, a word of advice.”

Her eyes flicked up to his face, expression neutral, as he continued.

“Best way to impress folks like General Avelea is by not tryin’ to impress them. People of action only get irritated if the spot you maneuvering for favor.”

The sergeant’s cheeks darkened slightly and he saw her eyes narrow in displeasure, just as expected.

But then Casey turned her head to resume watching Bandi’s odd ritual, her expression of annoyance turning to one of contemplation. She didn’t even try to deny it; by that point, no one in the First Legion didn’t know Casey Elwick was an ardent fan of Trissiny Avelea and undoubtedly over the moon at having the chance to work directly under her.

“Okay, thanks for the tip,” she said softly, “but I don’t know what else to do, here. Irrespective of impressing anybody, we accomplish nothing by loafing around waiting for orders. It’s not like this is a regular Legion. If we can’t take some initiative toward the mission, what’s the point of us? If you’ve got a better idea for how to spend our time, Elias, I’m open to it.”

He quite liked Casey; for someone so young (he’d eat his hat if she was eighteen) she had a good head on her shoulders, and not only the habit of thinking carefully before acting but the solemn aspect of someone who had learned her restraint and strategy through suffering. She reminded him a lot of Joe, in that respect.

“When you put it that way, it does seem like the most solid move in our position,” McGraw agreed, tipping his hat. “My apologies, Sarge. Y’get to be my age and it’s easy to forget y’ain’t the only person in the room who knows what he’s doin’.”

She gave him a sidelong smile at that, but further conversation was cut off by the end of Sister Bandi’s ritual.

She straightened up, first raising her arms out to both sides and then bringing them up, overhead, and down to fold her hands at her waist, and finally opened her eyes. At that signal, all seven of the crystals around her tipped over in unison.

“It is well you insisted on this measure, Sergeant,” she said seriously.

“You got a lead?” Casey asked, straightening up.

“I did warn you that my very basic oracular craft is unlikely to pick up on trails of subtle maneuvering, and indeed I did not. But focusing upon the Purists, I was touched by spirits their intentions have moved. Vengeance, and violence. They are about to strike.”

At that, Joe also straightened up.

“At who?” Casey demanded.

Sister Bandi shook her head, the beads in her multitude of thin black braids clattering softly. “While the spirit is still upon me, I can lead us toward the place. But it is like a hound tracking a scent. I cannot see where it will end, or what will meet us there.”

“If those fools go after Trissiny, they’re toast,” Joe said. “They can’t be dumb enough not to know that…”

“Oh, I dunno,” Shay disagreed, “they are pretty damn dumb.”

“Trissiny’s Eserite friends,” Casey said. “Rasha, the Sakhavenids, and…what’s her name, the acrobat.”

Shay finally joined the others in bolting upright. “Shit. Disgraced or not, if priestesses of Avei stick swords into Guild apprentices it’ll be war in the streets by sunset.”

“Okay, we’ve gotta move,” Casey said, glancing rapidly back and forth across the group, all of whom were staring expectantly at her for orders. “But… We can’t just…”

She faltered, and McGraw gave her an encouraging nod. He could tell what needed to be done, and he would tell her if she didn’t work it out herself. But he waited, at least for a moment. Casey was smart enough and she’d grow faster as a leader and tactician by doing these things for herself. He knew his role in this party; it was the wise old wizard’s job to support the scrappy young heroes, not take over. Showing some faith in the young sergeant was worth a delay of a few minutes.

In fact, it only took a few seconds before her eyes fixed on him and widened slightly in inspiration. “Elias! Can I borrow one of those portal runes of yours?”

“What’s mine is yours, boss lady,” he agreed, already fishing one out of his pocket to hand over. “Though you do realize it won’t let you teleport without a push from yours truly.”

“No, but you can find it, right? And teleport to it?”

“Ah,” he said, nodding and deliberately clearing his expression as if catching onto her plan. It was the best strategy, which was why he’d immediately thought of it, but it cost nothing to encourage her. “You’re right, that I can.”

“Defending this position isn’t important in and of itself,” Casey said to the others, “but this is where the General and the Bishop expect to find us, so we can’t just disappear from here. Elias, I’m sorry, but we’ll have to leave you behind for now. Wait here in case one or both of them returns; the rest of us will go try to intercept…whatever’s about to happen. You’ll be able to bring either of them right to us, if that’s what she orders. If we’re in deep trouble and need backup, I’ll destroy the rune. Will you be able to sense that?”

“With a little bit o’ concentration, I can manage that,” he agreed, nodding again. “Shouldn’t be too hard to ‘port right to its last position, then.”

“Good. If that happens, be ready for maximum trouble. Our goal here is to prevent a big messy fight from breaking out; if I have to call in our wizard for firepower, situation’s FUBAR.”

“Understood, Sarge.”

“Sorry for ditching you,” she said again. “It’s the best I can think of. All right, everybody, move out. Bandi, lead the way.”

The formal announcement would come the next day; Rouvad, like Trissiny, wanted to move fast and begin working before Justinian or anyone else had time to prepare political countermeasures. But before embarking on her new set of duties, the High Commander had wanted Nandi’s impressions of the project her previous squad had been working on and had to abandon upon the First Legion’s formation. Locke had, with Billie Fallowstone’s help, quietly continued her weapons research in Viridill, but now it seemed her erstwhile research partner had finalized her original project.

And so, Nandi found herself in Sister Eivery’s basement workshop with the gnomish priestess and the High Commander, holding and studying what had apparently been a regulation Silver Legion lance before it had been heavily modified.

“Well?” Eivery prompted, grinning up at them. “How’s it look?”

“Expensive,” Rouvad said flatly, taking the spear from Nandi. “Are the glowing runes and this… Is this shaft coated in lacquer? Eivery, is this absolutely necessary?”

“Arguably not,” the gnome admitted. “It put ‘em on the demonstration model, there, so you can see it’s doable. There’s a reason most battlestaves don’t ‘ave that, it adds to both the cost of manufacture an’ the weight. But the point is that it protects the runic engravings, see? Yer average battlestaff ain’t gonna see use as an actual staff, whereas the whole point o’ these, so I was given ta understand, is for ‘em to double as firearms and spears. Thus, they’re gonna be seein’ a lot o’ physical contact.”

“It can probably be dispensed with,” Nandi said. “If properly used, a lance’s head will see physical impact a lot more than the rest of it. Eivery’s right, though, the proof of concept is valuable.”

“Darn tootin’,” Sister Eivery agreed.

“Agreed,” Rouvad rumbled. “All right, I understand the clicker mechanism and I think I can intuit the reason for this clunky device at the base of the spearhead. What I note is that these runic engravings are a lot more extensive than on any battlestaff I’ve ever seen. Can you explain why?”

“Aye, give it ‘ere,” the priestess said imperiously, ignoring the sardonic expression with which the High Commander handed the modified lance back to her. “It’s the enhanced engravings that make it all work, see? I actually didn’t ‘ave the inspiration meself, but stumbled across th’basic method from the works of an old Hand of Salyrene, Andronimus the Spellblade.”

“Curious,” said Nandi. “If this solution was found as far back as Andronimus’s time, I wonder why no one has adapted it already? Magnan, at the very least, would have pounced on such an innovation, and he certainly had access to Salyrite records.”

“Aye, but it wasn’t in those records,” Eivery replied, grinning madly. “Andronimus ‘ad quite the stick up ‘is arse about people stealin’ ‘is works an’ never wrote down ‘is methods. This one was noted in the last place anybody’d think ta look, cos nobody studyin’ magic reads Tellwyrn’s published journals. They’re mostly a list o’ complaints about legendary figures, good fer comic relief an’ a touch o’ historical detail. But! In between gripin’ about how Andronimus snored an’ ate ‘orrible stinky cheeses and ‘ad terrible taste in music, she mentioned a sword he made that cast lightnin’ from the tip an’ how clever the method was. See, metal’s no good fer electrical enchantments on account of ‘ow conductive it is, so Andronimus placed the enchantment on the handle, which caused the lightnin’ bolt to form a few inches beyond the tip o’ the blade!”

“Hm,” Nandi murmured. “Modern firearms do that anyway, albeit just beyond the tip. Even a wooden shaft would be destroyed if you tried to channel that much electricity physically through it.”

“An’ there’s been no reason to modify that,” Eivery agreed, raising the lance to firing position and grasping the clicker, “cos nobody’s considered puttin’ blades on a firearm till that crazy elf came along. Modern armies fight at a distance. And so, behold!”

The crack of the weapon was functionally indistinguishable from that of a conventional battlestaff. Its lightning bolt charred and half-destroyed Eivery’s unshielded target dummy, with no backward arcing along the shaft or spearhead.

“And that heavy bit at the base of the spearhead,” Nandi said, “that has a grounding charm to prevent accidents?”

“Just so! Also, talkin’ of accidents, I discovered quite coincidentally that if ye do this, make the bolt form more’n a foot forward o’ the end o’ the staff, ye gain a lot of accuracy! These aren’t as precise as beam weapons, obviously, but they won’t arc nearly as much as an ordinary staff.”

“So,” Rouvad said, muted excitement in her voice, “you could increase that even further?”

“Sorry, Commander.” Eivery shook her head, raising the staff to plant its butt on the floor; in that position, it towered over her. “This is as far as I’ve been able to extend it. That’s why its engravings are so long. There’s just no room fer more.”

“But you said the original inspiration was a sword. On the handle! That was a much shorter surface and a much longer distance, if it sparked beyond the tip of the blade.”

“Aye, an’ I also said it was Hand of Salyrene that made it! Whaddaye want from me?”

Rouvad turned back to Nandi. “So you see where we are. Eivery has already refined Locke’s armor enchantments for efficiency; the updated versions will stand up to staff fire and augment soldiers’ abilities in several important respects. That makes an inherently more expensive kit than any Imperial trooper’s, but that’s the price to be paid for better-equipped soldiers. With the finished firing lance, we only have to begin training our soldiers with them.”

“First we ‘ave to make this stuff,” Eivery objected. “I don’t mind workin’ me fingers down, Commander, but I’m one gnome. If ye want me to equip a Legion, gimme ten years.”

“Yes, production is an issue,” Nandi agreed. “The Sisterhood does have a contract with Reviani Firearms, does it not? I know we don’t order many energy weapons, but for just that reason, they would likely appreciate the business.”

“I am…reluctant to give these specifications to an established firearms company,” Rouvad said, frowning. “We will have the element of surprise upon the first battlefield deployment of this equipment. The more people who know of it…”

“Well, buildin’ an in-house enchanter corps’ll take almost as long,” said Eivery.

“Our paladin has contacts with Falconer Industries,” Nandi commented. “They don’t make any weapons at the moment, but have the manufacturing capacity to produce almost anything. And if FI can’t do it, Geoffrey Falconer undoubtedly knows who can, and could arrange an introduction.”

“That’s a good idea,” Rouvad replied. “We’ll both be in close contact with Trissiny over the next few days anyway. I will raise it with her at the next opportunity. In the meantime, Eivery, please put together as many kits of the new gear as you can without exhausting yourself. I’ll assign you whatever enchanters we have who can be trusted. Ideally, I’d like to send a few to Locke’s outpost and be able to outfit one squad from the Third’s Cohort One to begin training.” She paused, then smiled. “I’m glad to have you back here, Nandi. I’ve missed your insight.”

“Aye, well, if we’re done with all the huggin’ an’ kissin’,” Eivery huffed, “I didn’t get ta tell ye the really neat thing I discovered.”

“There’s more?” Nandi asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Aye, another ‘appy little accident, ye might say,” the gnome chuckled, already at work unscrewing the spearhead from its shaft. “A neat trick that works as a result o’ this specific model’s design. If ye just take off the bayonet, like so… ‘Ere we are.”

She bounded over to a low stack of bricks she’d erected in the middle of the workshop in the form of a wall that was shoulder-high on her. Grinning, the gnome pressed the head of the lance, minus its blade, against the wall aiming at the half-wrecked target dummy which was across the room on its other side.

“Wait,” Nandi objected, “don’t tell me… There’s no way that thing can fire through walls?”

With another perfectly ordinary thunderclap, a bolt of lightning flashed from a point a few inches beyond the wall and finished demolishing the target.

“Eh? Eh?” Eivery cooed, waggling her eyebrows at their expressions. “Ehhhhhh?”

It had already been a full day not long after noon, and so by the time Trissiny returned to Madouri Manor she found herself eagerly looking forward to some lunch and a cup of hot, strong tea, and not just to help wash away the winter chill. A steward informed her upon arrival at the Manor that Ravana was not present at the moment, which she had to admit was something of a relief. Trissiny had yet to decide exactly how she felt about the diminutive Duchess, but one thing was certain: Ravana Madouri demanded her full attention when she was present, for much the same reason she would have carefully watched a large spider if she found herself in a room with one.

Returning to the suite her classmates were inhabiting during their vacation, she was pleased to find Toby and Gabriel there waiting for her, in fact having a conversation just inside the door, rather than in the sitting area of the main hall itself.

“Trissiny!” Gabe said, grinning in welcome. “You’re a sight for sore eyes. How’d it go?”

“All according to plan,” she replied, smiling back, “though my business today was mostly just squaring away details. I had a couple of interesting conversations with dragons I’d like your opinions on, but that can wait. How’d your meetings go? Are we ready to move?”

The boys exchanged a look, and then a nod.

“I’m as certain of Gwenfaer’s support as I reasonably can be,” Gabriel replied, turning back to her. “She gave every indication of wholeheartedly supporting the plan. And… Before that, we had a little chat about trust. I’m convinced of her reasons for opposing Justinian, and I made a point that she’s going to have to start being generally less squirrelly about it, but if she can behave I am willing to extend a little trust. At least, enough to let her earn more.”

“Well, good. It’s kind of funny, though, you being the one to make demands like that of your cult leader. Usually that relationship goes the other way.”

“Yeah, well.” He shrugged. “I did not mention how I have valkyrie friends who can invisibly watch everything she does and a valkyrie scythe that Vidius explicitly wants used to cut the rot out of the cult. Seemed kind of redundant, y’know? She’s a sharp enough lady to have figured all that out already.”

“Good plan,” Trissiny agreed, nodding. “That’s Eserite practice, too, you know. If you’ve got an unspoken threat to hold over somebody, you only cheapen it by pointing it out.”

“Good to know,” he said wryly.

“Sounds about as straightforward as it went with the Dawn Council,” Toby reported. “I gained…some support, and I’m afraid I burned a few bridges in the process. But most importantly, the Bishop is on my side. I’m as certain as I reasonably can be that the cult will fall in line with the plan.”

“Good,” she said seriously. “I’m sorry if it got you in trouble with them, though, Toby.”

“Thanks,” he said with a soft smile, “but to be honest, the fault here is theirs, not yours or even mine. The Dawn Council’s entire method of dealing with everything is to bow to inevitability, after they’ve waited to be certain what it is. It was just a matter of making myself inevitable. They’ll bow. Some of them are not going to be happy about it, though. Future engagements with them may be… Well, not as good.”

“Man, it’d be nice if we could just convince everybody to do the sensible thing,” Gabriel complained. “Sometimes, though, you just gotta apply the stick instead of the carrot. If we can help with anything, Toby, we’ve got your back.”

“I appreciate it,” he said, smiling again. “But anyway! Before we move on to that, Trissiny, there’s something unexpected to deal with.”

“Well, of course there bloody is,” she said with a sigh. “I’m really starting to sympathize with Ravana. What this time?”

“It turns out,” Gabriel said, grinning, “that you have a visitor.”

“Me?”

“You,” Toby confirmed, already turning to head back toward the doors into the remainder of the suite.

She followed, alongside Gabriel, already frowning in thought. Who would be seeking her out here? Practically everybody she knew, she’d already talked with today. Herschel knew she was staying in this Manor over the winter break, but now that she thought about it, she hadn’t notified Ravana or her guards to let him in. One of her elvish relatives? Trissiny wouldn’t put it past Lanaera to be able to bully her way into a noble’s house, but she didn’t care for leaving her grove any more than any other Elder shaman did.

They only made it a few more paces before the mystery resolved itself, their guest emerging from a side parlor. She had no doubt heard the whole conversation; Trissiny’s visitor was, indeed, an elf. Just not any of the elves she would have expected.

Trissiny came to a stop, blinking in surprise. “Natchua?”

“Trissiny, good, you’re back,” the drow greeted her tersely. “I’m sorry to barge in on your vacation like this, especially when you’re obviously having a busy day, but I need your help.”

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“I dare to hope this will not take long, but it doesn’t pay to make excessively optimistic assumptions about wholly unprecedented events,” Ravana said, coming to a stop in the middle of the marble-floored parlor adjacent to her chambers which she had designated an official teleportation arrival and departure point. “Regardless of how much time this demands, Veilwin, I’ll expect you to remain sober for the duration, and I will have Yancey enforce this if need be. Take us to the lodge, please.”

The elf wasn’t even looking at her, staring at one of the doors to the chamber with her eyes narrowed. Yancey quirked an eyebrow at this, which was as voluble an expression of disapproval as he ever produced in the presence of the Duchess.

“Veilwin?” Ravana prompted. “While we’re young, please.”

“Hang on,” the sorceress replied. “There’s news coming that I think you’ll wanna hear.”

Ravana bit back her instinctive reply, reminding herself that there was no point in having an elf as her Court Wizard if she wasn’t going to take advantage of all the fringe benefits.

Indeed, it was only seconds later that the pounding of booted feet came into the range of human hearing, and moments after that, the door burst open to admit the commander of her House Guard—likely the only person who could have dashed through the halls of Madouri Manor without being detained by soldiers.

“My lady!” he exclaimed upon finding her waiting, barely out of breath. “Thank the gods I caught you. There’s a situation unfolding in front of Falconer Industries you’ll want to see.”

“Lord-Captain Arivani,” she replied evenly, “there are hundreds of inexplicable refugees attempting to cross my lands, and currently detained by Sheriff Ingvar in a facility which does not have the resources to keep them. Is this more important than that?”

“I…couldn’t say, my Lady,” he admitted. “But it was your explicit instruction that any incidents of public rebellion against your authority be brought directly to your attention.”

“Gods send me patience,” Ravana hissed. “Rebellion, is it? Very well, Lord-Captain, you are correct. This I want to see. How great is the danger?”

“My men have secured the roof of the tariff office just across from FI, my Lady. It has a good view of the action.”

“Excellent work. Veilwin, it seems we shall be taking a detour before visiting the lodge, after all.”

“Yeah,” the elf said smugly, already making one of her needlessly dramatic hand gestures as sparkles of arcane light gathered in the air around the four of them. “I had a feeling.”

The rest of the excursion was uneventful and smooth, even to the extent of the entire party being teleported back to the Conclave embassy in Tiraas with a minimum of backtalk, which likely was exactly why Ampophrenon chose that moment to spring his surprise.

“Principia Locke may deny involvement in classical adventuring, but it is clear she understands the practicalities better than one who has learned of them only from books,” the gold dragon said as he and Trissiny talked quietly a bit apart from the rest of the group, who were being courteously given a city map and directions from the Conclave’s public steward. “The division of deployed assets into five-person bands is traditional for good reason, and her training style is exactly that which got the best results from the greatest adventurer guilds, when they still operated.”

“I’m relieved to hear that,” Trissiny admitted. “It all seemed a little chaotic to me.”

“In comparison to a proper military boot camp, I shouldn’t wonder,” Ampophrenon replied with some amusement. “But the looser approach will help enforce standards while respecting the freedom agents like that require, and she has applied the necessary strictures to keep everyone on task and aimed at the same goals—methods developed over centuries. Locke was either in one of those guilds at some point, or has studied them extensively. Altogether, General, I deem it a most promising endeavor, and an enjoyable visit on my part. I only regret I was unable to speak with Khadizroth, but doubtless he has his own tasks to pursue.”

Snuck in at the end as it was, that stinger had the desired effect of rocking Trissiny’s composure—not by much, but she failed to suppress a slight jerk of her head.

The dragon’s monochrome eyes made it impossible to tell exactly where he was looking, but his expression and the position of his head gave her the impression of someone watching her sidelong for exactly such a reaction.

“If I might ask a favor, General Avelea,” Ampophrenon continued in the same courteous tone before she could recover, “when next you see Khadizroth, I wonder if you would be so kind as to pass along to him that he is always welcome to join us here.”

The extra few seconds were enough for her to regain her footing, though this had altogether been a valuable reminder that she wasn’t equipped to play mind games with a being such as he.

“Attempting to poach my personnel, Lord Ampophrenon?” Trissiny replied, raising her eyebrows and affecting a bland tone. “I could call bad form.”

The dragon’s lips quirked in a faint smile, but his voice remained as even and mannerly as ever. “I suspect you must be aware that the Conclave’s formation was inspired in part by Khadizroth’s own adventures of the past few years. We do not compel any of our brethren to join, but all have a place with us should they choose it. In any case, we have long since opted not to pursue any action against Khadizroth for his various errors in judgment, in particular as he has been helpfully in contact with us concerning the deeds of Archpope Justinian.”

“Has he.”

“This was before he enlisted in the First Legion,” Ampophrenon clarified. “We have not heard from him since. It seems needlessly vindictive to castigate one of our own for errors which he has fully committed himself to correcting, in his own way. Perhaps a stint in Avei’s service will provide him the penance he seeks, as well as the opportunity to effect some progress in undoing Justinian’s schemes.”

“So,” she said, watching him intently, “you are aware of the Archpope’s…ambitions.”

“Their specifics are frustratingly obscure, but we make it a point to be as aware of the world as possible, and I in particular am quite concerned with such a betrayal of the Pantheon’s most sacred charge,” the dragon said gravely. “I lack your insight into the recent events at the Temple of Avei, but even from the reports that reached me I can discern a pattern. It seems to me, General Avelea, that this is no time for those of us who are driven by principle to let ourselves be divided by misunderstandings. Khadizroth’s place among your Legion will not be a sticking point between the Sisterhood and the Conclave. On that you have my word.”

He smiled, the expression calm and open. After a moment, Trissiny had to smile back.

That silence hung for a few seconds, in which her own expression faded back to thoughtfulness, and Trissiny decided to accept his implied invitation by taking a slight risk.

“Where do they all come from?” she asked quietly, making a subtle gesture toward the two Conclave soldiers currently talking with her own party. Joe was well-mannered as always and McGraw seemed likewise, but the two Avenist priestesses—despite the fact that neither of them would be taken for such at a glance, which was no doubt part of what they were doing here—seemed openly skeptical. “If the Conclave had been scouring the streets of Tiraas for every pretty woman who might want a job…that’s the kind of thing the Sisterhood would notice.”

“Indeed,” he acknowledged, nodding once. “It was, in fact, the opposite; the Conclave did not elect to employ many of those who first sought us out, as they were a melange of opportunists and spies. Instead, my brethren have recruited from among the most unfortunate. Employment here comes with a very progressive package of benefits, including medical care by green dragons, which in addition to being better than most nobles receive, includes cosmetic glamour of the recipient’s choice. A proper application of the fae craft can even suppress the effects of chemical addiction.”

For a moment, Trissiny was again rendered silent by the weight of it. If they could gather drunks and shroomheads out of the gutters and turn them into this… Well, it explained a great deal. And raised further questions.

“I gather,” she said aloud, “such benefits would be suspended if the individual in question left the Conclave’s service. That is quite an incentive for loyalty, Lord Ampophrenon.”

He nodded again, his expression more grim. “It becomes inherently somewhat coercive, does it not? To say nothing of the implications of deliberately recruiting among the most unfortunate in the first place. There is also the fact that such exotic benefits are a ruthless cost-saving measure, as people willingly work for less than the average wage to have access to them. I raised these concerns with my fellow members of the Conclave, who it must be said indulged me in a full meeting to discuss the matter. Ultimately, their decision was that since no one is being forced to do anything against their will and our compensation is the finest they could ever hope to receive, we are not committing any ethical violation.”

“I see,” she said, not meaning her voice to be cold but hearing it anyway.

“The Conclave of the Winds is a necessity of this political moment,” the dragon said softly, now gazing across the great hall of the embassy. “More importantly, it presents the hope of betterment, for both your kind and ours. Our institutions are never perfect, Trissiny. Governments, faiths, the Church itself, my own Order of the Light… All are unavoidably flawed. I believe the Eserites have a saying about this.”

“I’ve heard it a time or two,” she agreed wryly. The dragon gave her a sidelong smile.

“Yet we cannot abandon them,” he continued, his expression quickly sobering again. “The world is always somewhat…broken. I have come to think it is meant to be. Can you imagine a world with no hardship—or more farfetched, with no difficult decisions to be made?” Ampophrenon shook his head. “Such eternal complacency could only bring out the worst in us all. We are tested, yes, constantly. It is our duty, and our only option, to rise to these trials, and make what difference we can.”

“People have often said to me that the gods never test us beyond what we can bear.”

His lips thinned for a moment. “I have seen far too many people destroyed by trials they had no reasonable hope of overcoming. Good people, who were sorely missed. Life is not so conveniently purposeful. And yet, we stand.”

“What else can we do?” she whispered.

The dragon inclined his head to her, the gesture both a nod and a bow. “I enjoy your conversation, General Avelea. You, too, are always welcome here. Feel free to call up on me if I can aid your battles, however overt or subtle they may be. Or simply if you wish to visit.”

“Thank you for everything today, Lord Ampophrenon,” she replied, nodding back. He gave her a final smile before retreating to the stairs.

Trissiny turned around, finding her own party approaching at the signal that her conversation had ended. Zanzayed, somewhat to her surprise, was still with them, and it was he who spoke up before any of them could.

“You do realize he was hitting on you, right? You’re exactly his type, Trissiny.”

“Really, Zanzayed,” she sighed.

“Hey, you’re family! I wouldn’t lead you wrong. I’m serious, Puff absolutely does have a type, and it’s ‘Hand of Avei.’ He’s had seven of ‘em over the years.”

“The hell you say!” Shay Iraa exclaimed.

A silence fell over the chamber as the various dragonsworn present turned to stare at the rough-looking woman who had just sassed a dragon right to his face. Sister Shay was still glaring at Zanzayed, clearly not bothered by any of this. Trissiny was already beginning to like her.

“Yeah, they don’t teach you that, do they?” the blue rejoined, smirking. “You’ve got the rank to bully your way into the Sisterhood’s hidden archives; do it if you’re curious, Triss. But seriously, though. If you decide to pursue that, wait till you’re ready to settle down. Puff is a nice, old-fashioned, marriage-minded dragon. Don’t toy with his little heart.”

“Well, he did invite me to drop by,” she said. “Maybe I’ll come around sometime and see what other hilarious gossip you’ve accumulated over the millennia, cousin.”

Zanzayed grinned. “Always a pleasure. Do give Arachne my love.”

“If you keep trying to get a rise out of me, I’m gonna tell her you challenged her to a duel.”

“You are a horrible little wench,” the dragon chuckled, ruffling her hair. “You’d better come visit. We need to hang out more.”

“’Rebellion’ may have been overstating it, Lord-Captain, but you were still correct to bring this to me,” Ravana said, lowering the spyglass from her eye and handing it to Yancey. “Has this demonstration shown any signs of becoming violent?”

“No, my Lady,” he admitted. “There’s at least one Omnist monk in there, which is probably helping keep things calm. So far they’re just marching in a circle with those signs. But they’re blocking the factory’s main entrance, which is not doing FI any favors.” Yancey handed him the spyglass after having a look, and he raised it to his own face, which fell into a scowl as he studied the demonstrators. “Unwashed ingrates. If the young Mrs. Falconer and her wife want to slaughter idiots who tried to steal their dog, what business is it of theirs? It wasn’t even in Madouris.”

“You’re asking for whatever you get, fucking with somebody’s pets,” Veilwin opined, looking bored. “I’d’a just killed the bastards.”

“I pity any poor animal which has to depend on you for care,” Ravana said absently, herself frowning in the direction of the protest. It was sizable, already more than thirty people. She wouldn’t have thought there were that many people in the city who’d be willing to protest Falconer Industries, which was deservedly popular. If anything, they were risking retaliation from FI’s own employees, who had famously once squared off with Thieves’ Guild enforcers. The House Madouri guardsmen currently standing in a line in front of the closed gates were probably protecting the demonstrators as much as the factory, whether they knew it or not.

Yancey, as usual, echoed the direction of her own thoughts. “Several of those signs mention Vadrieny by name, my Lady. While not a secret, the archdemons have been absent from the mortal plane since the Hellwars; their names were reduced to obscure theological trivia before the founding of the Empire. It does not prove anything…”

“And yet,” she murmured in agreement.

“Madouris is prosperous under you,” Veilwin added, which may have been the closest thing to a compliment she had ever paid her employer. “And most of those yahoos look pretty well dressed. Takes a lot to get comfortably well-fed people out in the goddamn snow at mid-morning on a workday to march around chanting slogans. Especially over something that clearly doesn’t affect them at all.”

“I did wonder at the attempted kidnapping,” Ravana mused. “Apart from my expectation of better treatment from the Thieves’ Guild, such a fool’s gambit is unlike them. As a deliberate provocation, it makes more sense.”

“Give the word, my Lady,” Arivani urged grimly, “and I can have my men clear that rabble into cells where they belong.”

“No!” she barked, causing him to jerk back in surprise. His startled expression quickly morphed into near-hurt reproach before he mastered it.

Ravana took a breath of the chill air, reminding herself what she was dealing with. She employed Ludo Arivani because he believed the sun shone out of her skirts, because an administration such as hers which favored the velvet glove over the iron fist absolutely needed a high-ranking thug for situations in which its preferred approach would not do, and because it was generally advisable to keep a military commander who hadn’t the aptitude to organize a coup, even had he been inclined to try. Also, men like him came in useful in the event of regrettable situations in which a scapegoat needed to be discarded. All of this factored into her handling of him; it was for these reasons precisely that she had made it clear he was not to try to deal with civil unrest except under her direct oversight.

“I have made carefully-cultivated popularity a cornerstone of my rule,” she explained in a more moderate tone. “The damage caused to my reputation by engaging in the type of brutality for which my father was notorious would be catastrophic. That, I suspect, is at least part of the reason for this…episode.”

The Lord-Captain nodded, seeming mollified by the explanation. “I’ve got men under my command who’re good at knife work and listening in the dark, Lady Madouri. We can avoid more episodes like this if you’ll let me spread them through the city.”

“Madouris is not a sovereign state,” she said patiently. “I can have my own propaganda machine or my own secret police, and the one I chose is already pushing the Throne’s tolerance. If I tried to have that slice of cake and eat it too I would be set upon by the Veskers and Imperial Intelligence. I need neither headache, let alone both.”

And so she lacked convenient knives in the dark, as indeed Lord Vex would never tolerate that, but there was also the fact that her network of listeners spread through the province did not report to Arivani; he didn’t need that kind of influence. More immediately, those listeners had not forewarned her of this. A demonstration of this size could not be assembled in total silence. Thus, it had not sprung up organically. This had been orchestrated; the question was by whom?

“Veilwin,” she said, staring at the protesters through narrowed eyes, “can you work any kind of divination which would isolate members of that crowd who were set there as deliberate agitators, rather than the gullible sheep I must presume most of them to be?”

“Come on, you know better than that,” the sorceress said brusquely, ignoring Arivani’s displeased glare at her tone, “you study at Tellwyrn’s school. You’re talking about fae divination, not arcane scrying.”

“That is what I feared,” Ravana said with a sigh. “Then do you believe Barnes is competent to perform such a ritual?”

Veilwin snorted loudly. “That puffed-up—”

“Veilwin,” she interrupted in an unusually steely tone, “I put up with a great deal from you, and mean to continue so doing. In return, I expect the skills for which I generously compensate you to be available when I need them. It’s time to work. In your professional opinion, with no needless inter-disciplinary sniping, can Barnes do this?”

“Well…sure,” the elf said, her voice more subdued. “Any witch could, and…yeah, he’s better than most. But that’s contingent on the targets not having been warded against it, which when it comes to fae magic, well… That ends up being a pissing contest between Barnes and whoever’s at the other end, which there’s just no way to call in advance.”

Ravana nodded once.

Arivani opened his mouth to speak, but she held up one hand for silence, and he obediently subsided. She stared sightlessly out over the square ahead and the chanting individuals currently complaining about the violent archdemon in their midst, eyes shifting rapidly back and forth as she contemplated.

“Lord-Captain,” the Duchess said at last, “these…specially skilled soldiers you mentioned. Are there any among your command who could discreetly join that crowd, out of uniform and without revealing their affiliation, and agitate them to attack the factory?”

Veilwin turned an incredulous stare on her, which she ignored.

“I’ve just the man, my Lady,” Arivani said avidly. “Montrois used to do union-breaking work in Chevantre. That’s why he’s here, the local Vernisites set the Glassian Theives’ Guild after him and he had to leave the country. I’ve not had him train any of the other troops, my Lady, but he’s pointed out a few he thinks have the knack.”

“Splendid.” Finally, a stroke of luck. “This is what you will do, Lord-Captain Arivani. Send this Montrois into that crowd, along with whatever other personnel you and he deem competent for the task, forewarned to watch for a signal from you. Summon Barnes from the Manor and instruct him to be ready with whatever materials he needs to divine hostile intent; bring him here and have him stand by. Also, bring out as many medics from the House Guard as you can assemble, and place Barnes among them. Gather my lightcap artists and place them here and on other nearby rooftops, wherever they can get the best view of the action down there. Understood so far?”

“Yes, my Lady.”

“When all this is prepared, then you will give the signal to your men below, and get that crowd to try storming the gates. At the very least, have them attempt to attack the police forces in place and cause some property damage nearby. I want an abundant selection of lightcaps of these violent criminals in action ready for tomorrow’s papers, to discredit any further attempt at this utter nonsense. My people among the writing staffs will handle the rest. Give the cappers time to get enough shots before you intervene, and then put down the mob. No energy weapons or blades, make a show of restraint, but the more minor injuries inflicted, the better.”

He grinned wolfishly. “As you command, Lady Madouri.”

“And then,” she continued, turning to meet and hold his gaze, “take them to the medics. Understand? No jails, except in the case of any individuals who make it truly unavoidable. Use the chaos to separate your plants out from the crowd and treat everyone for injuries, then let them go—but not til Barnes has had the opportunity to scan everyone. He is to do so discreetly, passing it off as medical diagnosis. If he manages to identify any of the agitators, they are also to be released, as soon as he’s confident he can track them. When this is all done, I want a spectacle to be made of my restraint and mercy in the face of reprehensible violence by despicable ne’er-do-wells. Are my orders clear?”

“Explicitly, my Lady!” he promised, saluting.

“There is likely to be significant collateral damage, my Lady,” Yancey said diffidently, “and substantial risk to the factory and its personnel. Should we warn the Falconers?”

Ravana shook her head. “I know Geoffrey’s uses; they are many and I respect him for them, but they do not include subtlety. They can’t be brought into the loop.”

“The Falconers have been the victims in all this from the very beginning,” Veilwin pointed out with an edge to her voice.

“It is often said,” Ravana observed, “that to make an omelet one must break a few eggs. To rule is to make an endless succession of omelets while standing in the very henhouse. Explaining the process to the chickens would be not only pointless, but cruel. We will continue on our way, Veilwin. This day’s work is likely to bring the Throne’s attention, and I want numerous witnesses able to attest that I was on the other side of the province while it all happened. That means all of this will rest upon you, Lord-Captain Arivani. Hew closely to my instructions, improvising only what you must, and remember my ultimate goal.”

He saluted again, his eyes fervent. “I will not fail you, Lady Madouri.”

Ravana smiled and reached out to touch his arm, which undoubtedly made his entire week. “That is why entrust you with your position, Lord-Captain.”

That, and on the day when he did fail her, it shouldn’t be too hard to replace him.

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“I was going to say, I can point out the location on a map,” Trissiny commented, her breath misting on the air as she peered around at the snow-covered mountainside and the old temple complex just up ahead, “but I see you already know exactly where the First Legion is headquartered, for some reason.”

“I’m not just a pretty face, Trissiny,” Zanzayed said primly, adjusting the collar of his heavily embroidered robe.

“The Conclave has been careful to keep abreast of world events,” Ampophrenon added, inclining his head respectfully toward her. “It was formed in large part to overcome the broad tendency of our kind to fail at so doing, General. I apologize if this seems intrusive; we saw no indication that the First Legion’s headquarters were meant to be a secret.”

“It isn’t, don’t worry. I was just surprised,” she assured him. “I see you even picked us a prime landing spot! Far enough out to give them forewarning without making for an inconvenient winter hike. Very deft, Zanzayed, almost as precise as Professor Tellwyrn’s.”

“Almost,” he huffed. “You see how she talks to me! Me, her own some-number-removed cousin, whom she has met exactly twice! No respect, this new generation.”

“Indeed,” Ampophrenon agreed mildly while they strode forward toward the complex, “I am impressed by how quickly she has picked up the art of handling you, Zanzayed. I have had the honor of working with many Hands of Avei, and hold them in the highest esteem, but it must be said that most have not been so…socially adroit.”

“Now, that’s something I don’t often get called,” Trissiny remarked.

The headquarters Rouvad had assigned to Locke and her upstart Legion was an old temple complex high in the weathered mountains of Viridill, which had been mostly abandoned due to sheer inconvenience, even among the various Avenist facilities perched in the highlands, like the Abbey itself. The sole access to this remote spot was a single steep, winding flight of weathered stone steps carved right into the mountains which made large-scale supply deliveries all but impossible, and would have been absolutely suicidal to climb currently, while covered with ice.

It was an impressive complex, built across four small peaks with deep ravines between them and connected by stone bridges, two of which had fallen at some point. Currently, the First Legion HQ looked somewhat eclectic, having clearly been quickly renovated; ancient granite temples had been hastily (but apparently carefully) repaired with patched walls of wood, brick, and metal, and the two broken bridges were spanned by similar constructions. All of the paths were cleared of snow, and there were even greenhouses and a number of smaller outbuildings of uncertain purpose appended to the existing structures, one of which was topped by an exhaust antenna along which occasional crackles of electricity arced.

Zanzayed had set them down on a cleared-off, round stone patio at the head of the treacherous stairs, and separated from the temple campus proper by an arched stone bridge which, to judge by its weathered state, was part of the original construction but still evidently sound. Beyond it was a half-ruined structure which had been a gatehouse once before the archway collapsed and was later cleared out of the path; of the original gate, there remained no trace. The half of the building which still possessed a roof now also had an improvised metal stovepipe emerging from an upper arrow loop and puffing out wood smoke. As the three of them crested the arch of the bridge, the gatehouse door opened and a very small figure emerged.

“Zounds,” the gnome exclaimed, waving eagerly. “General Avelea, what an honor! Please, come on in, make yourselves at home. And you brought dragons! It’s Lord Ampophrenon and Lord…Zanzayed, aye?”

“Our reputation precedes us,” Zanzayed preened.

“Gnomes are always well-educated,” Ampophrenon replied.

“Thank you,” Trissiny answered the gate guard, “Mr…?”

“I’m Bonkers, ma’am,” he said, grinning. “It’s me moniker, not me condition, never fear.”

“Nice to meet you,” Trissiny said with the merest hesitation, while Zanzayed snickered outright and Ampophrenon gave him a disapproving look. “I need to speak with Captain Locke immediately, if you would conduct us to her.”

“Ah…” He winced, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m not to leave me post, ma’am, no disrespect intended. Thing is, I’m alone on watch just now, as me partner already went to fetch the captain soon as you popped in. Reckoned you’d wanna talk with ‘er, an’ the other way ‘round, as well.”

“Good thinking, then,” she said, nodding. “Ah, and speak of the Dark Lady. That was quick.”

The door of the nearest temple structure, one occupying the same peak as the gatehouse, had opened while Bonkers was speaking, and three figures approached them rapidly, the first two gliding rapidly over the frosty stone paths (being elves) while the third picked her way more carefully along behind.

“I’m willing to bet ‘Dark Lady’ isn’t even the worst thing you’ve called me, though not usually to my face,” Principia called as she trotted up. “Trissiny, welcome! And Lord Ampophrenon, what an unexpected honor. What’d you bring him for?” she added, pointing accusingly at Zanzayed.

“Seriously?” he exclaimed. “I’ll have you know I am literally the only member of this party who has contributed materially to it so far!”

“He’s right, Locke,” Trissiny agreed, “and just because he’s family does not mean you get to insult visiting Conclave delegates while in uniform. Keep a civil tongue in that head.”

“Oh, so it’s only okay when you do it,” Zanzayed huffed at her.

She winked, unrepentant. “That is how rank works, yes.”

“You really belong in this family,” he informed her.

“Hey, now,” Trissiny exclaimed, “I don’t think that kind of language is called for.”

“Below the belt, Zanza,” Principia added reproachfully. “People do have feelings, you know.”

Zanzayed threw his arms up in the air and turned away in a dramatic sulk.

At Principia’s side, Nandi Shahai cleared her throat pointedly. “Perhaps we could conduct our visitors indoors and provide some refreshments?”

“Actually,” Trissiny said more seriously, “it’s good that you two came out in particular. I need to speak with both of you alone. But Lord Ampophrenon has expressed an interest in what you’re doing out here, and I for one would be very glad to hear his thoughts about the Legion. If our guests could have a tour of the facilities…?”

“Perfect!” Principia said brightly. “Iraa, you know the sights. Please show our guests around, and make sure you swing by the mess hall and fix Zanza up with some bacon.”

“Uhhh… I mean, sure, Captain,” the third woman with them replied, clearly nonplussed. Though she had the broad shoulders (and twice-broken nose) that tended to come from Legion service, her manner of addressing her commanding officer contradicted that impression.

“I don’t suppose that bacon comes wrapped around shrimp?” Zanzayed asked with almost childlike hope.

“Zanzayed, this is a military facility hundreds of miles inland,” Principia said patiently. “Why would we have shrimp?”

“Well, why have you got bacon, then? How ‘bout that, huh?”

“We are grateful to be accommodated, Captain Locke,” Ampophrenon interjected courteously. “We would not dream of asking any special treatment.”

“You’ll be in good hands,” Principia promised him. “Sister Shay Iraa here knows the place inside and out, and is delightfully plain-spoken, I think you’ll find.”

“Stop, I’m gonna blush,” Iraa replied, deadpan. “Well, then! If you’ll come this way, uh…my lords? Let’s get you started at the bunker, grab something to nosh.”

“Now you’re talking my language!” Zanzayed said, following the priestess up the path toward the next bridge.”

“I am surprised you have room in a place like this to train in adventurer activities,” Ampophrenon added as the three headed off.

“Oh, this is just the topside, there’s old tunnel networks to all kinds of interesting places. We got caves, a nice clearing behind that peak over there, a patch of pine forest, the ravine floor under us… Most of ‘em show signs of being used for military training before we moved in.”

Trissiny turned back to the two elves as Iraa and the dragons vanished over the bridge’s arch. “So! I guess congratulations are in order, Captain Locke. You must be the most rapidly-promoted officer in centuries.”

“Not even in the top fifty, according to Nandi here,” Principia replied cheerfully. “Though apparently I am something of a record for an officer in peacetime.”

“War tends to create career opportunities in the most unfortunate way,” Shahai agreed solemnly. “The command post is over here, General.”

“So, I have to ask,” Trissiny added in a lower tone as they moved off, glancing over her shoulder. The gatehouse guard had already discreetly retreated to his post, shutting the door behind him against the winter chill. “Bonkers?”

“We have everyone vetted by our top fae and divine casters for hostile intentions,” Principia assured her. “Aside from that… These are adventurers, not soldiers, and a good few of ‘em are here at least partly because of the amnesty. I’ve made it policy not to pry into anything we don’t explicitly need to know.” She grinned at Trissiny. “This ain’t your grandma’s army, General.”

“Well, no, I’m clearly not happy about it,” Principia said, one short but thorough explanation later when the three of them were ensconced in her office with its late-model arcane heater. “I went to a lot of trouble to get Nandi into my squad in the first place, and she’s been invaluable in keeping this place shipshape, what with all the large personalities we’ve got here. But I’m also not an idiot, and… It’s the right call, Trissiny. I saw firsthand how she performed as Bishop, and it’s exactly the approach this situation needs. You are definitely gonna be missed around here,” she added directly to Shahai, “but I can clearly see the sense in it. The Sisterhood right now has more need of you there.”

“I wouldn’t presume to proclaim myself the best woman for any task,” Shahai said almost diffidently, “but given your general pattern of interactions with the High Commander, General, I consider the fact that you are both in agreement on this to be an adequate endorsement.”

“Also, you know,” Trissiny said dryly, “orders.”

“Of course,” Shahai replied with a wry smile. “I will go wherever Avei requires me, no questions asked. Your pardon; after five centuries of service I’m afraid I’ve become prone to speaking my mind.”

“Well, Rouvad and Locke both think you’re worth it, and I’m inclined to agree.”

“So, about the other thing,” Principia said more seriously, getting up from her seat and crossing to open the door, “I believe I know just the right backup for you. Hey, ELWICK!” she bellowed down the hall outside. “Get in here!”

“I had an uncomfortable realization yesterday when dealing with the Purists,” Trissiny admitted while Principia returned to her chair. “With you and the squad no longer in the Temple, I have no personal connections there, aside from Rouvad herself. Being able to pull rank is nice, but it’s also useful to have access to a view from lower on the chain of command. Fortunately, I managed to strike up an acquaintance with Azalea Hsing that I think will prove positive.”

“Oh, that’s an excellent choice,” Shahai agreed, nodding. “Sister Azalea is clever and far-sighted, and good at gathering Legionaries and novice Sisters under her wing.”

Casey Elwick appeared in the doorway, saluting. “You squawked, Capt— General Avelea!”

“Come in, Sergeant Elwick, and shut the door,” Principia ordered. “Congratulations are in order. I’m giving you field command of the First Legion’s first-ever active deployment. You’ll be operating directly under General Avelea, but mostly on your own, like we’ve trained.”

“Thank you,” Casey all but squeaked, then swallowed and controlled her voice. “I will not let you down, ma’am! What’s the mission?”

“The General will brief you fully when you’ve assembled your team,” Principia said, nodding at Trissiny before the latter could answer. “The short version: urban counterintelligence. Go gather up, let’s see… McGraw, Jenkins, Iraa, and Bandi Avelea.”

“Sister Shay is still escorting our other guests around the campus,” Nandi reminded her.

“Right, so find her last. You’ll be moving out with the General and Shahai in one hour, Sergeant, and you’ll need time to get everyone briefed before departure. Let’s make it sharp, the General’s time is valuable.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Casey barked, saluting again. “I’m on it!”

“Dismissed,” Principia said, and the young sergeant rushed out so rapidly she almost forgot to shut the door behind herself.

“I have to admit,” said Trissiny, “I’m a little surprised at how well this place is shaping up. It’s a strangely appropriate outgrowth of your little oddball squad. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had all turned to disaster. No offense.”

“None of us would’ve been surprised,” Principia said ruefully. “But the real test is coming; apparently you’ll get to see it firsthand. Oh, but speaking of!” She suddenly straightened up in her chair, grinning. “My squad had a secondary mission in Tiraas that I’ve quietly continued out here. While everybody’s getting rounded up and packed, General, you wanna see something cool?”

“A rifle?” Trissiny asked, turning the blocky device over in her hands. “What does that mean?”

“Refers to the rifled barrel,” Billie Fallowstone replied from the other end of her underground workshop, where she was affixing a strong shielding charm to a training dummy. “The long hollow bit there, it’s got spiraling grooves on the inside, to stabilize the projectile in flight. Can’t take credit for the notion, it was Locke’s idea!”

“I love taking credit,” Principia added, “but truth be told, that one was actually Rouvad’s.”

“Aye, ye get surprisin’ bursts of insight from folks with no actual engineerin’ skill,” Billie agreed with an irrepressible grin, trundling back over toward them. “Some distance from the problem helps, I guess. Let’s see it, then, General.”

Trissiny carefully handed the weapon back to her and watched as the gnome briskly opened a hinged panel in the top of its squared midsection and slotted in a tapered metal object she picked up from a nearby table, then shut and latched it again.

“Here now, what’s that?” Principia demanded, peering down at the procedure. “What happened to the metal balls? I thought we agreed shaped projectiles were too farfetched—”

“You agreed that,” Billie said scornfully, “an’ you were right, insofar as yer eyes were too big fer yer belly, as usual. All that fancy talk o’ spiral-shaped projectiles an’ aerodynamic fins was pie in th’sky, but a cylinder with a cone on one end fits neatly in the barrel and is stupid easy to cast. I can whip up a mold me damn self usin’ scrap I’ve got layin’ around, an’ any foundry can crank out thousands of ‘em by the hour if we go inta production. The shaped bullets’re a good seventy percent more accurate than those fool balls the dwarves were usin’. Here, General, care ta do the honors?”

“Sure,” Trissiny said warily, accepting the loaded weapon back. “The ammunition goes in that top compartment, there? Seems awfully inconvenient; you can’t have much rate of fire that way.”

“Aye, yer dead right. That li’l girl ain’t a production model, I’m still prototypin’ various features. I got me a much more efficient magazine design in progress over there.” She waved at a miscellaneous pile of tools and scraps on her workbench which might have been anything at all, as far as Trissiny could tell. “Now, use the rune there to prime it.”

Trissiny touched the rune, and the arcane device obligingly hummed to life. A thin slot revealing the power crystal lit up with a blue glow on one side, just behind the ammunition compartment.

“Now, be sure ta brace the big ‘eavy pommel against yer shoulder, good an’ solid,” Billie said seriously. “There’s a good reason I made it that way. First model I tried was built along the standard battlestaff model, with the butt tucked under yer arm. An’ that’s the story o’ how I discovered this thing’s got about ten times the recoil of a lightnin’ staff. Damn well shot outta my grip across the room backwards.”

“Duly noted,” Trissiny said, carefully holding it as directed. She had fired battlestaves, of course, but not often, and the different shape of the rifle made it a somewhat awkward grip, but it seemed to fit well enough. Moving carefully, she took aim at the target dummy, which now stood behind the blue glow of a military-grade shielding charm. “Ready?”

“Whenever you are,” Principia said with an anticipatory grin.

Squeezing the clicker produced a flash of blue light from the power crystal’s slot and also from the tip of the barrel, accompanied by a thunderclap almost exactly like the discharge of a battlestaff, which was nigh-deafening in an enclosed space. The rifle did indeed try to jerk right out of her grasp; Trissiny found herself nearly aiming at the ceiling a second later when it was back under control, the end of its long muzzle smoking faintly.

There was now a gaping hole in the center of the dummy’s body. The shielding charm, rated to stand up to sustained staff fire before failing, had been snuffed out like it was never there.

“Nice shot!” Billie crowed. “Yer a natural! Aye, the toys Locke was tinkerin’ with used an explosive charge like the dwarven original, which seemed t’me needlessly cumbersome an’ askin’ fer trouble. An arcane acceleration charm’s way too power-intensive, but you can cobble up a real efficient contained explosion that uses less power per crystal than the standard staff shot, an works beautifully ta fire th’projectile. Also won’t blow yer arm off if ye light up a cigarette.”

“Why didn’t the dwarves refine it this much?” Trissiny asked, still frowning at the slain target dummy with the smoking rifle in her clenched hands. “You’ve only been at this a year or so, and they’re rather famous for engineering.”

“There are a million possible answers to that, and we don’t know enough to guess which might be true,” said Principia. “Such things usually come down to social or economic factors rather than the technology itself. What do you think of it so far?”

“Shield-breaking utility aside,” Trissiny said softly, “this thing would do terrible damage to a living body. Different damage than a lightning bolt, but… I’m not sure if better, or worse?”

“I’ve tested that girl’s older sisters on pumpkins an’ melons,” Billie said seriously. “Yer right, it is not pretty. Makes a fair neat little hole goin’ in an’ a honkin’ big terrible one comin’ out the back. Ye hit somebody in the right spot with one o’ these an’ I reckon the best healers would be stymied.”

“There’s also the matter of escalation,” Principia added. “I talked about this with Rouvad. The first battle in which these weapons are used will be an absolute rout, but immediately after that tactics and devices to counter them will begin to be deployed. The projectile weapon itself is enough of a jump forward that there’s no telling how far that arms race will run before it settles back into any kind of equilibrium. I suspect the Svennish are aware of the same thing. The base concept is pretty clearly aimed at negating the Tiraan Empire’s military capabilities, but it can’t be a coincidence that we took the original from an intelligence agent while their soldiers have never been seen with such weapons.”

“It’s a big improvement over battlestaves in range, accuracy, an’ stoppin’ power,” said Billie, “but can’t match ‘em for rate o’ fire or economy. An’ the ammunition situation is actually a step back from arrows. Metal projectiles are smaller, but about as ‘eavy an’ more expensive to make.”

“Well,” Principia snipped, “maybe if you used the original spherical ones—”

“Blow it out yer arse, Captain. This ‘ere’s my workshop, an’ I’ll not be party to the deployment of inferior technology!”

“I need to think about this,” Trissiny stated abruptly, bending to hand the weapon back to Billie with great care. “Don’t get me wrong, ladies: you’ve done fine work here. This is extremely impressive. But I can’t help having the sinking feeling you’re about to unleash something horrific on the world.”

“Aye,” Billie said solemnly as she accepted the rifle into her arms, “we’re not blind ta that, General.”

“What it comes down to,” Principia added, “is that we didn’t invent this technology; we’re just refining it. The knowledge was out there, and bound to be used sooner than later. So the issue becomes one of whether it’s going to be our people who get ravaged by its first deployment, or someone else’s. That is a damn ugly choice to make, Trissiny, but I don’t see how we could make a different one.”

“You’re right about that,” Trissiny murmured. “What’ve you come up with in terms of countering this, Billie?”

“So far?” the gnome hedged, wincing. “Me best notion is armor. Made o’ materials which do not, at this time, exist. Got meself a couple ideas fer alchemical treatment o’ wood an’ ceramic, but that’s not me field of specialty. An’ I’ve not even tried scalin’ the tech up to a cannon-sized siege engine. I’ve frankly no idea what ye even could do against that.”

Trissiny inhaled deeply and then blew the air out in a huff. “All right. Thank you for bringing me up to speed on this; I very much fear it’s going to be relevant far too soon. For now, I think we’ve still got a little time before I need to brief Elwick’s team and have Zanzayed bring everybody back to Tiraas. Changing the subject, Locke, where is Khadizroth?”

“In his own chamber, pretty far underground,” Principia answered. “You need to talk with him, too?”

“I was actually hoping to,” Trissiny said thoughtfully, “but that was before Ampophrenon invited himself along for this visit. I’m not sure we’re ready for that confrontation to unfold.”

“Yikes. No kidding,” Principia cringed. “But you needn’t worry; Khadizroth knew it the second two dragons arrived on our doorstep and warned me even before Iraa came to do likewise. Then he went to hide himself away.”

“Ah, good,” Trissiny said fervently. “Damage controlled, then. Still, it seems a waste; I was taking advantage of a rare opportunity to make sure it was Zanzayed he met with first, and under my supervision. We can’t keep him away from the Conclave forever, but I’d rather not start with its cannier members.”

“Do not underestimate Zanzayed,” Principia warned her. “I have twice seen him directly cooperating with Imperial Intelligence, and Quentin Vex does not associate with fools. Zanzayed is thousands of years old and has survived brawls with Arachne and Kuriwa. He wouldn’t be the first person to downplay his own intelligence for strategic advantage.”

“Aye,” Billie agreed, grinning. “You actually study under Admestus Rafe, right? Same principle applies.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Trissiny said with a pensive frown. “Well, then. I guess I have no other pressing business here. Let’s go get everybody caught up and then move out. Not that I’m not enjoying the visit, Locke, but the real trouble’s unspooling in Tiraas as we speak, and I don’t like leaving it out from under my eyes any longer than necessary.”

“There’s always trouble out from under your eyes, Trissiny,” Principia said. “You can’t plan for everything. The best you can do is stay flexible and learn to think fast and react smart.”

Trissiny sighed softly. “Yeah, I’ve been getting that impression. I just hope I can learn fast enough.”

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