Blood of Empire

Chapter 41

Michel watched from the darkened corner of a pub in Greenfire Depths as Survivor and his young wards told their stories of Dynize horror to a packed room. This was only their fourth appearance in public and yet word had spread like wildfire. Palo packed the entrance of the little pub, spilling out into the street, straining to hear every word. Drinks flowed, fury stewed, and gossip bubbled. Michel could hear the growing indignation in the whispers around him, see it in the body language.

Michel was jostled aside as Jiniel joined him and Ichtracia in the corner. She bent an ear toward the story being told for a few moments, then turned to him and Ichtracia. She looked serious, but pleased.

“We’re getting requests from every corner of the Depths,” she said in a low voice. “Everyone wants Survivor to come tell his story.”

“Congratulations,” Michel replied, “you’re now the booking agent for the greatest act in the city.”

“It’s not an act,” Ichtracia said. She was listening intently, though she’d heard the story half a dozen times already. She wore the same look of horror as she had the first time and seemed no less affected. If anything, her emotional response seemed to grow with each telling. Michel remembered once that she’d called herself a monster in service of the state. He could no longer believe that. She seemed to care just as much as he did.

“Maybe it should have been,” Jiniel said cynically. “We could have gotten this up and running earlier if we’d just hired a couple of actors.”

Michel could see Ichtracia begin to react to the cynicism. He cut in quickly. “No. First off, we didn’t know the details. Second… well, no actor is this good. No actor can be this convincing.” Survivor was, he had to admit, a natural storyteller. Not in a dramatic way, but with the gravitas of a grandfather who’s lived through a dozen wars. He spoke in a clear, measured tone, tired emotion leaking through into his words with each retelling. He never smiled or tried to play to his audience. There was a raw honesty to his words that no actor could possibly capture.

Jiniel nodded in agreement, and Ichtracia settled back into her seat.

“Other than pub owners looking for something to bring in an audience, do we have any rumblings?” Michel asked.

“ ‘Rumblings’ is a good word,” Jiniel answered. “It’s all over the Depths. Just on the way over here, I saw a couple of teenagers pulling down those Dynize propaganda posters. I’ve got word from friends on the Rim that gossip has already reached Upper Landfall and the Palo who moved up there after the evacuation.”

Michel trusted Jiniel not to overembellish, but he tried to remain cautious. Survivor had only started his public stories early this morning. It was now almost midnight. Eighteen hours, give or take, was not much time for word to spread. But if it was already reaching Upper Landfall, this was, as a friend of his in theater used to say, a performance that “had legs.”

It needed to be more than a performance. It needed to be the galvanizing cry for an entire people.

“What other intelligence do we have?” Michel asked. “I’ve been following Survivor around all day. Tomorrow I’m passing him off to Devin-Mezi, but for now I need to catch up.”

Jiniel reached into her pocket and drew out a sealed envelope, sliding it across the table to him. “A message from your mysterious friend,” she said.

Emerald. Michel had seen no reason to reveal his identity, even to Mama Palo. He took the envelope and opened it, reading it quickly. He tapped Ichtracia on the wrist.

“Hmm?”

“Confirmation,” Michel said unhappily. “Our friend has heard rumors out of the citadel to the south. They’ve unlocked the godstone and are actively studying it. No word on whether they already know how it works and are just being cautious, or if they’re waiting for something.”

“Probably both,” Ichtracia replied. “Sedial has collected every known scrap of information on the damned thing. If anyone knows how it works, it’s him. He spent years studying the Talunlica godstone.”

“Talunlica?” Jiniel asked.

“The Dynize capital,” Michel explained. “It’s where they have the second godstone.”

Jiniel scowled at them both. “Did they kill orphans for that one, too?”

“I… I don’t think so.” Even Ichtracia seemed uncertain. “They found it in the swamp and constructed a city around it. But there was no protective sorcery to break. They didn’t need blood to make it work.”

“I’m not sure if that’s better or worse,” Michel said.

“Neither am I.” Ichtracia’s uncertainty deepened. She seemed about to say something, but to think better of it. She glanced purposefully at Jiniel, and Michel made a note to ask her what she’d wanted to say the next time they were in private.

Michel waved the envelope from Emerald. “This just confirms something we already suspected. But it does mean that we need to move faster. We need leverage on Ka-Sedial.”

“What, to blackmail him?” Jiniel asked.

“Even if we had anything, blackmail doesn’t work on Sedial,” Ichtracia said flatly. “I’ve seen it tried. He kills everyone suspected of involvement, and sorts out the corpses later.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Michel tapped the envelope on the table thoughtfully. “I just mean anything we can use against him or the Dynize. You have your agents sweeping up any information they can get their hands on?”

Jiniel nodded. “I’ve impressed upon all of them how important it is.”

“And how important it is not to get caught?”

“That, too.”

“Good. It’s a fine balance to walk. The last thing we need is someone getting caught, dragged in, and tortured, and revealing our entire organization.”

“Come now,” Jiniel said, smirking. “You taught me better than that. None of them know who they’re working for. There’s at least three layers between me and them.”

“Good.”

“Ah,” Jiniel said, raising her chin toward the door. Michel soon saw Devin-Mezi struggling through the press. The lieutenant finally reached their table and leaned over them.

“I’ve got something to show you,” she said, indicating all three of them.

“Here?”

“No. The barkeep has a little room in the back. I had it emptied.”

Michel and his companions pushed their way through the common room and into the back, where the barkeep did indeed have a private room. It was barely big enough for the four of them, dominated by a small dice table. Once they were all seated, Devin-Mezi produced a thick binder and tossed it down on the table.

“What’s this?” Michel asked.

“Intelligence,” Devin-Mezi said. “One of our people got hired as a maid for a townhouse near the capital building last week. Turns out the owner is a dragonman – too dangerous for us to keep her there for any length of time. This morning, we had her snatch up every important-looking document she could get her hands on and then made her disappear.”

Michel raised both eyebrows at the binder. “Why didn’t I know about this?”

“You’ve been busy,” Devin-Mezi said, jerking her head toward the commotion going on in the common room.

“I authorized this,” Jiniel cut in. “Like she said, it was safer to do a smash-and-grab than to try and keep someone that close to a dragonman.”

Michel glanced at Ichtracia, who shrugged. “They’re probably right. Dragonmen can be arrogant, but they pay more attention to their immediate surroundings. Far more likely to notice someone acting suspicious.”

“Fair enough.” Michel undid the cord on the binder and let the contents spill out onto the table. He was immediately taken aback. This didn’t look like the contents of a warrior’s desk – this looked more like it had been pilfered from a general or politician. There were sealed envelopes, work orders, army missives, quartermaster reports. And that was just at a casual glance. “Wow,” he managed. “This is quite the coup.”

Devin-Mezi gave them all a self-satisfied grin. “I thought so.”

“You’re sure this came from a dragonman?” Ichtracia asked, leaning over the pile while Michel sorted through it.

“I am.”

“Do you know his name?”

“Ji-Noren.”

The name tickled the back of Michel’s memory, but Ichtracia’s reaction was far more telling. Her eyes grew wide and she drew in a sharp breath. “You’re kidding.”

“I think that was his name?” Devin-Mezi said.

“No, no. I believe you.” Ichtracia swore under her breath. “You just robbed Ka-Sedial’s right-hand man.”

There was a moment of silence as that sank into the group. “Oh,” Devin-Mezi replied.

“You don’t rob Ji-Noren,” Ichtracia continued. “He’s one of the most dangerous men in the empire, easily in the top five besides Ka-Sedial himself.” She looked at Devin-Mezi. “Whatever you think you’ve done to hide the woman who did this, do better. Get her out of the city. Far out of the city. No doubt he’s already discovered that these are missing and begun a search.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Pit, you’ve kicked a hornet’s nest.”

Michel watched everyone for their reactions. Devin-Mezi immediately took on a defensive expression, while Jiniel scowled at the pile of papers. He stepped in before anyone could say anything else. “Okay, so we’ve robbed the wrong person. Devin-Mezi, I want you to clean this up. Do as Ichtracia just said and get anyone else who might have been seen around his townhouse out of the city.” He reached beneath the table and squeezed Ichtracia’s leg. She seemed to relax slightly. “We’re going to see what we can gain by this. We might have done something stupid by accident, but that doesn’t mean we can’t benefit.”

Devin-Mezi waited for Jiniel to give a nod before leaving the room.

“He’s that terrifying?” Michel asked Ichtracia.

“I’m a Privileged, and I’m scared of him. That man you told me about, the enforcer for Chancellor Lindet?”

“Fidelis Jes?”

“Yes, him. Ji-Noren is like Sedial’s version of him. Not as bloodthirsty or egotistical, but equally effective.”

“Okay. Well, we’ll deal with this. In this meantime…” Michel resumed going through the stack of intelligence. No use in worrying about mistakes already made.

Ichtracia suddenly perked up, leaning forward again and searching through the stack with one hand. She fished a little bundle out from the middle: a number of envelopes, all bound together with a black ribbon. They were stamped with the three-star seal of the Dynize emperor. “I know these,” she said.

Something about the way she said it struck Michel. “Those in particular?”

“Yes.” She got a distant look on her face. “In Sedial’s study. I saw them by accident.”

“Well, let’s see what the old man has to say,” Jiniel said, reaching for the bundle.

Ichtracia snatched it away. “No. These are warded. Very subtle. I almost couldn’t sense it, but now that I’ve touched them, they could have any sort of nastiness stitched into them. Open one, and it could burn the envelope, or cripple you, or even alert the owner that they’ve been touched.”

“Shit,” Michel said. “Can you do anything about that?”

Ichtracia stared at the envelopes for a few moments. “The wards are very tightly wound. But given a day or two, I should be able to pick them apart.”

“Any idea what’s in them?”

She shook her head.

“All right.” Michel returned his gaze to the rest of the intelligence. “Let’s sort this out. Ichtracia will unwind what she has there.” He pointed to Jiniel. “You and I will figure out what we can use. The rest leaves the city.”

“To go where?”

Michel sucked on his teeth. “We can send it to either Lindet or Lady Flint.”

“Lady Flint? The woman who killed the last Mama Palo?” Jiniel asked in disbelief.

“Or Lindet.”

“Those are terrible options.”

“Maybe. But Lady Flint is a friend of Taniel and Ka-poel’s, and she’s actively fighting to get the godstones away from Sedial. And Lindet… well, Lindet has fought the Dynize to a standstill out west. She’s probably going to lose, but anything we can do to distract Sedial is a good thing right now.”

“Why don’t we make a copy and send one to each of them?” Jiniel asked.

“Fantastic idea.”

“I was being sarcastic.”

“I wasn’t. Get it done.” Michel glanced at the envelopes in Ichtracia’s hands. Something about them seemed off – so different from all the other missives and reports in the stack. Despite the official seal, they looked more like love letters than orders – thicker envelopes made out of heavy, expensive paper. He tilted his head, turning his ear toward the common room where one of Survivor’s young wards was talking about the horror of the Dynize citadel.

“Whatever you have on your schedule for Survivor, double it,” he told Jiniel. “And get our printers going on the propaganda we’ve sketched out. I want everyone in Greenfire Depths to see a poster or handbill describing the evils of the Dynize by the end of the week. We have no idea when Sedial will use the godstone. We have to work as quickly as possible.”