The terseness of Ruban’s tone seemed to dissuade his colleagues from pursuing the matter any further. Instead, the man named Faiz merely grinned at Shwaan with a glint in his eye. “Hello my lord. I’m Faiz,” he said, pointing his thumb at himself rather redundantly. “This,” he pointed at the woman with the cat. “Is Hema and that fluffy monstrosity on her desk is Kitty. Very original, I know. And that,” he said, indicating a grizzled old man who had so far been sitting quietly at his desk at the opposite end of the room. “Is Dai. He’s really old and really fast, so you don’t wanna mess with him unless you want your teeth knocked in. Believe me,” he said, his tone sagacious. “I speak from experience. Bitter experience. Rinku!” he called, leaning back into his chair and raising his voice. As if on cue, a slim, round-faced young woman with shoulder-length hair pulled back into a ponytail poked her head out of one of the doors at the end of the hall.
“Yes?” she asked, looking expectantly at Faiz.
“That’s Rinku, our office assistant,” he told Shwaan matter-of-factly, pointing at the woman half-obscured by the door she was leaning out of. “Rinku, this is the boss’ new…ah…companion. Lord Ashwin Kwan. Come say hi.”
“Oh,” said Shwaan, rather overwhelmed by the unexpected deluge of information even as Ruban glared daggers at Faiz. “Please call me Ashwin. And it’s very nice to meet all of you.” He smiled as sweetly as he could manage.
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Faiz dismissed this pleasantry with an unconcerned wave of his hand. “Anyhow, don’t let the bossman intimidate you Ashwin. The surliness is just his default setting. It’s nothing personal. You’ll get used to it. Do come in and take a seat. Don’t just stand there,” he said, indicating one of the two empty chairs across from his own desk.
“Well,” said the man named Dai, once everyone had settled down somewhat. “Whatever the Senior Secretary wanted to say to you, Ruban, it would seem we have a more immediate problem.”
“And what’s that?”
“There have recently been some Aeriel attacks at the mines in Ghorib. Nothing very serious, but the local Hunters are reluctant to engage because of the volatile nature of the terrain; a blast in the mines could pose a major logistical problem, if nothing else. They have asked for our help, and we’ll have to move quickly if we want to prevent the next one.”
“What kind of a suicidal Aeriel willingly enters a goddamn sif mine?” asked Faiz with a bewildered frown. “I’ve never heard of anything like it.”
“Well, Aeriels seem to be entering all kinds of places these days,” Ruban muttered grimly. “Hema, find me a blueprint of the Ghorib mines, please. Dai, I’ll need some more details on these attacks before we can move in. When exactly did each one happen, how many have there been? Talk to the locals and find out everything they know. Faiz, go help Rinku find whatever records we have on Aeriel activity in or near Ghorib in the past decade, and see if any of those Aeriels are currently in the system. We could do with some additional info on the matter. What the hell are Aeriels doing in a sif mine?”