(This story takes place between ‘Safe Guards’ and ‘Steel Echoes.’)
From the road approaching Old Gate, Embron looks the same as always. The labyrinth of old and less-old buildings sprawls across the valley, climbing slightly up the gentle hills which bound one side. The soaring aqueduct and the crystal dome of the Greathouse are still the most striking features. A careful eye can pick out the overspilled boundaries of the old wall which defended it when its name was Tyvis.
Closer scrutiny betrays recent changes. One of the fallow fields outside the city has been cleared and graded. A dais rises at the end nearest the city’s edge, and a row of shuttered stalls stretch along one side. Fresh paint adds spots of red, blue, and other colors among the natural clay and stone hues of the buildings. The forbidding hulk of the garrison is noticeably absent from the cityscape. In its place is a cleared rectangle of land in which freshly-planted trees herald the construction of… a park?
Really.
Elsewhere abandoned tenements have been razed. In their place fingers of stone poke up from the bedrock, supporting a cat’s cradle of walls and floors in various stages of completion. Whatever the purpose of the new building, it’s large. The canopies and poles of Market Square also look to have been recently replaced, and the motley choice of colors adds a new touch of whimsy.
The City Guards keeping watch over the carriages, mounts, and pedestrians flowing in and out of Old Gate, the official entrance to Embron, are a clearer sign that things have changed. Ogres all look alike to the amateur eye, except for obvious differences such as gender and clothing. The pair standing vigil on both sides of Old Gate’s yawning portcullis nonetheless bear a startling resemblance to each other, and not just because of their well-tailored matching Guard uniforms.
I pass the Guards without drawing hardly a glance. Why should I? I’m nobody. Just another new face in Embron. The city is attracting a lot of attention after recent events. Five-generation curse broken, eccentric new Lord who marks his Ascension by picking a fight with the corrupt old City Guard and Merchant Council, leading to a battle in the streets that ends up wiping out one of the biggest brigand bands in the Settled Lands as well as ousting said Guard and Council. Now His Lordship continues to shake things up by hiring a multi-racial City Guard and human Captain, the first such to have charge over an aerin city.
Of course Embron isn’t really an aerin city anymore, is it? Hasn’t been for years. Certainly it’s under the aegis of House Shad and has an aerin Lord in the Greathouse, but if you measure the population it’s the ‘Lesser Races’ who hold a clear majority. I wonder idly what might happen if people ever woke up enough to realize that.
Politics and instigating coups are not why I’m in Embron today, I remind myself. The client wants proof that a certain journal which has sent shockwaves through Shenn’s academic community and done nasty things to a high-ranking Upper Court House’s reputation is in fact a forgery. The Guild wants street-level intel on how the changes in Embron might affect our resident agents as well as future contracts. And my other employer is curious about the city for reasons he hasn’t seen fit to share with me. So it’s me shoving body parts into the dragon’s mouth.
If I wanted safe I’d've never gotten into this line of work.
The smithy’s not hard to find. Embron’s street map hasn’t changed in centuries until the past few weeks, and the sections still under repair or being changed are easily detoured. The building’s a simple two-story affair, living quarters on the upper floor over the smithy proper. Two walls of the smithy are actually large sliding doors. These have been thrown open, exposing the forge, press, and other works to the open air.
The smith is in. He’s a blond human of average height. It’s a warm day and the forge is roaring, so naturally he wears nothing from the waist up except for his smith’s apron. The muscles which bulge and slide under his skin show he’s been at his trade a while.
“Smith Feber?” I call.
“Moment!” he shouts back without breaking the rhythm of his hammer on the shaft of glowing steel . The blade is short and wide, with curious notches at its base. It’s obviously part of a kayat’neben, literally ‘sliding blade,’ a popular local weapon. I look around and see the armature for the blade resting on a nearby workbench. Something about the mechanism catches my eye, but I can’t get close enough to see more without being obvious.
He lifts the blade from the anvil with tongs and plunges it into a basin of rainbow-hued water. The sizzle of hot metal is swallowed with a gulping sound. He lets go of the tongs and turns to me. Nice face, but nothing special. “How can I help you?” he asks, tone as open as his expression. Either he trusts too quickly, or isn’t worried about things he loves being taken away.
I give him my name and cover story. He buys it, of course he does. The Guild makes sure that all the details and references that can be checked will come back clean. They’re a competent and thorough outfit, a good example of what an intelligence organization can accomplish when they’re not hampered by anything but profit and their own definition of honor.
He nods. “You missed him by about an hour,” he tells me. “He’s at the garrison, going over the latest order of runes with the Captain.”
The Captain. That’s a whole other issue. The client cares nothing about her. The Guild considers her a major part of Embron’s new equation, and would like any details I can get safely. My other employer has advised I avoid her at all costs. There’s a lot of folklore about people who’ve been Phoenix-Touched, what they can do and how dangerous they are to those who cross them. Add to this the Captain’s a Kandaler, that human clan said to give even House Arasidhe fits because nobody knows anything about them but what they care to share, and that’s little to nothing at all. No way am I going to make a move on the target while he’s in such company!
I leave the name of the inn where the Guild has already reserved a room while I’m in town, thank him and leave. His gaze presses on the back of my neck all the way to my single-seat carriage, but he doesn’t feel overly suspicious.
Kres Feber accepts my dinner invitation that evening. We meet at a table of the inn’s dining room. He’s a thinner, paler version of his brother, but there’s no doubt of their relation. Brains to Haydn’s brawn. Accepting the intel from the Greathouse Agent, these two ran a thievery operation for three years under the nose of the old City Guard and Merchant Council, using the city’s haunted siege tunnels while protecting themselves from murderous revenants with some very advanced runecraft.
Even so, he doesn’t strike me as a criminal mastermind. Given that two of my masters are widely considered such, I like to think I’d know.
We discuss ‘business’ long enough to verify what I already suspected. His new position as official mage and runesmith for Embron’s City Guard has him up to his eyebrows in work, so there’s no way he could possibly take on any additional contracts. I feign disappointment and steer the conversation to non-work topics. It’s easy to get him talking about recent and current events. He obviously holds a special place for his hometown, and is excited to be part of its golden future.
The hypnotic drug I slipped into his drink makes it easier to turn his attention the way I need it to go. I don’t use hypnotics as a general rule. They’re fast but not always reliable, and better wards can detect them. I prefer to rely on my own wiles alone, gradually ingratiating myself to him until he gives me what I’m after. But my Guild controller tells me the client specified haste in verifying the scandalous journal is counterfeit. I suspect the need for speed is because it’s the client’s own House whose prestige has been tarnished, and he wants to dispel it before the stain sets.
Kres talks at length about the journal. It was written during Shenn’s only world war by a soldier on the losing side. The juiciest parts detail the events of the Siege of Tyvis, and contradict sharply with the official version that casts the Assembly Alliance commander in the best role. Somehow the journal got into the collection of a crazy Upper Court Lady who was obsessed with the nightmarish tech produced by the Steel Concord during the closing days of the war, and from there into the possession of Aubryn Vaeus, formerly Captain of the Embron City Guard. Kres and Haydn were drafted by the new Captain and went down to the siege vaults to take Vaeus down. They confiscated the journal from him and turned it over to the new Captain.
It’s entertaining dinner conversation. Except for the parts about the new Captain being temporarily a ghost and psychically endowing the Feber brothers with her unarmed combat skills, it only tells me one thing: either Kres Feber is good enough to lie through hypnotics, or he believes what he says about the journal’s origin.
Back in my room I review my status. That Kres didn’t forge the journal doesn’t mean it wasn’t forged. He admits he never took time to actually read it, wasn’t aware of what it was until after it was revealed before the Court Assembly. He saw Vaeus referring to it while trying to open Embron’s siege vaults, and later turned it over to the new Captain. From her it somehow passed to the Arasidhe Lord who put it before the Assembly, thus kicking off the current storm.
Kres Feber might be a brilliant runesmith and mage, but he’s not mastermind material. Add to that for all that he was a professional thief for three years, he’s as honest as anybody I’ve met. I’m satisfied he didn’t forge the journal. Now I need to verify that nobody else did, either. This gives me four suspects.
Lady Amoren Makko
Former Captain Aubryn Vaeus
Lord Sinjinklaer Naethn Arasidhe
Captain Zerene Kandaler
Lady Amoren is dead. Aubryn Vaeus is on the wind. Lord Sinjinklaer is God knows where, but not Embron.
Great.
My other employer was very emphatic on the subject of Captain Kandaler, stopping just short of ordering me to stay away from her. Countering that, the Guild would be very happy with any additional details I could gain, especially if I’m not able to verify the authenticity of the journal.
The next morning I play tourist, walking Embron’s streets. I visit Market Square, wandering through the maze of passages and improvised courts. I let the cries of the hawkers draw me this way and that, just another easily-distracted sightseer. While I sample food and fondle clothing I weigh two evils to see which will hurt less if it drops on my head.
A scent hits my nostrils, a heady wood-spicy aroma I’ve not smelled in…. Professonal detachment suddenly gets trampled underfoot. I can’t not follow it. It’s a bakery, run by a portian of course. A crowd stands around the open front of the stall, eager as I am for the source of that smell. The baker pulls a tray from the oven and sets it on the bench, to the rapturous ooos and aaas of the onlookers. My eyes are just as excited and incredulous as my nose at the contents of the tray. Where did she learn to bake those? And where did she get the–
“Oy,” lilts a deep voice above me. “Smell great, don’t they?”
Later I learn that Market Square is a favorite haunt of Captain Kandaler, and Marnixelroikenama’s bakery in particular. So it’s not such an unbelievable coincidence that we should encounter each other there. At this moment though, spinning and staring up at her ruddy-brown face where she perches on her Tantareli lieutenant’s shoulder (and yes, he really is that damn big!), meeting her molten bronze eyes as her attention is drawn by my incriminatingly abrupt reaction, the thought that betrays me is How did she know I’d be here?
I’m trained in psychic countermeasures by both employers. I’m carrying Guild wards, expensive and worth every tine. None of it matters. My interest in her, that I consider her a target, contemplating methods and risks of meeting her, getting what my employers want – I might as well climb her Lieutenant, introduce myself by my real name, and ask “Did you forge the Daubei Journal, or know who did?”
Her eyes light up as she stares at me, and the warding runes in my tunic answer with their own heat as they try to rebuff her. The fact that she’s strong enough to provoke that much reaction from them tells me Xander Struyck is right, and Embron has ceased to be a viable location.
“Oy,” Bolt cried in mild surprise. He watched the human female sweep away into the traffic of Market Square. “Guess there’s one won’t be wantin’ one o’ Marni’s new sweets, eh Spoons?” He grinned at Zerene, then peered her curiously. “Ye all right?”
Zerene held one hand to her head, a look of annoyance on her face. “Aye,” she replied sourly. “Just my damn power slipping its leash again.” She turned her gaze in search of the vanished woman. “She must have felt me getting through her shields and panicked. I should really try to find her, apologize.” She grimaced as her scrutiny failed to reveal any trace. “Ztraq, I must get a better handle on this!”
“Aye,” Bolt agreed, queuing up for their turn at the fresh steaming buns slathered in sugary, buttery glaze. “Last thing we need’s fer ye t’ make someone’s brain pour out their ears on accident. ‘Specially mine!” He felt Zerene’s weight suddenly shift on his shoulder. He turned his head, and was face-to-rear with her posterior. She’d risen to her knees and turned around, searching more urgently for the woman. “Oy, Spoons,” he said to her left cheek. “Promise me ye dinna have beans fer lunch.”
“She was an agent,” Zerene hissed.
“Wot?” Bolt started to twist his fore torso around in reflex, but stopped as it occurred to him this would spin Zerene around as well, setting her facing the wrong direction. “Wot’d she want?”
“Me,” Zerene murmured. “But not exactly. She wanted something and thought I might have it.”
“Aye, an’ wot’d that be?” Bolt asked.
Zerene shook her head, slowly reseating herself on his shoulder. “Not sure,” she answered, brow creasing in thought.
“Should we call t’ the garrison?” Bolt suggested. “Let ‘em know t’ be on alert fer a thief?”
She considered the idea, but rejected it. “It’s not an object she was after,” she said, sorting through the jumble of images and information which had spilled into her mind at the inadvertant invasion. “It was an answer.”
“Well,” Bolt said, “way she lit out, she’s gotta know ye’ve kenned her thrust. If she’s any sense at all, she’s headed out the city ne’er t’ return.”
“Aye,” Zerene agreed. “And in that maybe she’s gotten an answer. Though not the one she came for.”
As they received their treats and chewed contentedly on sweet, spicy dough and creamy glaze, one question returned to Zerene. She filed it away, but promised to pursue it when the opportunity arose.
How does a Feyside Agent come to be named Lacy Hellstrom?