The bakery Blaze directed Serenity to was in a prosperous part of town. Serenity felt out of place; he’d dressed for a different part of town, closer to the Mercenaries’ Guild. It wasn’t that delvers couldn’t come to this part of town; Serenity saw several. They simply looked out of place, since most of the people wandering around were either wealthy or workers in the nearby shops.
Serenity could easily tell the three groups of people apart by their clothing, but there was also a significant difference in weaponry. The workers rarely had more than a large knife and the nobles had either no weapon or something ostentatiously overdone. The delvers were split; most had well-maintained functional weapons, but a few had no weapons visible at all, like Serenity. Serenity was still a little unusual in that he wasn‘t dressed like a mage, but he wasn’t alone.
Serenity at least half wished Blaze had included instructions on what to wear. On the other hand, he knew Serenity and he knew what Serenity was likely to wear. Surely he’d have mentioned it if it was important?
The bakery seemed to have two public accesses. One was off the main street and clearly led into the dining area; the sign above that entrance said “Liv’s Cafe” and had a tree growing up between the words. The second was around the side and seemed to be more of an order window than an actual entrance; it had an awning with a sign that simply had a sketch of a loaf of bread. There was a short line at the awning; everyone there was in the less ornate clothes that seemed to indicate the working class, while almost everyone in the cafe was either a noble or dressed more like Serenity.
That made it clear which way Serenity needed to go. He headed into the cafe and ordered something that looked good, a hearty breakfast pie. The spicing was a little unusual, but to Serenity the important thing was that it was light on the mana and therefore seemed pretty bland. He’d gotten used to higher Tier food.
As he finished, a young woman he didn’t recognize until Aide pointed out her similarities to one of Blaze’s agents hurried out from the back and set a cup of hot water on a saucer on the table in front of Serenity. She bobbed in something that could almost be considered a hasty curtsey. “Here’s your drink, sir! I’m sorry it took so long.”
Before he could respond, the waitress disappeared back into the back room. She had to be up to something but Serenity didn’t know what.
Serenity shrugged internally and did the natural thing: he lifted the cup off the saucer to take a sip. The indentation on the saucer that centered the cup had some dark marks; they didn’t take long to translate. The fact that they were clearly in English instead of Bridge helped, but there was a decent chance that would only raise suspicions if anyone noticed.
2 min
Spill wtr on pl8
Follow blz
Aide started a timer while Serenity took a sip of the “drink.” It was indeed just hot water. In fact, it was hot enough that it was a good thing Serenity was very heat-resistant. It was clear that Blaze had considered that problem and also come up with a solution; the water would probably take care of the evidence on the saucer. That was probably why the “drink” was hot water in the first place; maybe the heat was needed?
Serenity drank most of the water while he thought. He didn’t want to overflow the saucer, after all; he wanted it to look like he hadn’t realized there was any of his drink left. This might not be what Blaze meant, but Serenity wasn’t a good enough actor to spill water without making it obvious he’d done so on purpose. He might as well make it look like it was actually on purpose instead of making it look like he was trying to hide something.
Serenity was bad at this stuff, but at least he knew that much. People paid more attention to things that were poorly executed attempts to be furtive than things that were obvious even when they had the same effect.
The moment Aide’s timer ran out, Serenity turned the cup over on top of the saucer and set it down. The water that was still inside splashed over the lip that would hold the cup in place if it were right side up, but the larger upper rim didn’t fit cleanly in the depression. Serenity shrugged; that was good enough. He’d certainly gotten hot water on the words.
He then rose and headed out of the cafe. He glanced both ways like he wasn’t certain which way he was going. That much was true; he wasn’t certain which way to go.
A bright red head of hair halfway down a block from him headed away gave him his direction. That had to be Blaze, even if the only thing about him that looked right was the hair. Blaze normally walked confidently, certain that others would yield to him; this redhead carried a pair of bags that clearly held bread from the bakery, at least based on the paper that peeked out from the top of each bag.
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Serenity followed Blaze for several blocks. When he turned down an alley, Serenity followed. He didn’t see Blaze, but a few steps later he heard a tapping noise from above him and saw Blaze’s face looking down at him from a stone wall. Serenity found a stone staircase and hurried up it to meet his friend.
Blaze led Serenity into the building, which seemed to be a large abandoned room. “We can’t be too loud here; the downstairs is still used as a shop front. The shop owner thinks I rented this on behalf of a noble for temporary intermittent storage; he doesn’t care as long as we use the side entrance and aren’t too loud. I do store things here sometimes, but right now it’s a good place to talk.”
“What do we need to talk about?” Serenity was certain Blaze already had a plan; he might have only had the sketch of a plan when he left the Death’s Wings, but he wouldn’t have sent for Serenity if he didn’t have a plan.
“Options.” Blaze settled down on the floor with his back against the wooden wall. “The way I see it, we have three options from here. You can kill everyone on the Mound, I’m certain, but I’ve left that one out. No, the options are about how we find the people who are actually responsible. I haven’t been able to find much out about the people behind either the attacks on Rissa or anything they might have had to do with the White Tiger; I assume Rissa hasn’t, either?”
Serenity shook his head. All they knew was what they’d learned from Ida’s zombie and the White Tiger herself. Ida really hadn’t known much, she was literally just following orders. Serenity didn’t feel bad about her death; just following orders wasn’t an excuse to kill Rissa. Oh, he’d have allowed her to live if she survived his initial rage and was willing to back off, but he was quite certain she wouldn’t have.
The White Tiger’s information was not particularly useful, though it did solve a riddle. All she knew was that she’d found a suspiciously convenient note about the location of a Near Point on Eitchen, which made her change her mind about which direction to travel after she checked it out and found out that it was a valid location. It explained both her sudden shift in direction and how she’d passed Eitchen far faster than expected.
Rissa had tried to find out more, but she’d told Serenity that she would have to be extremely lucky to see anything relevant. If the White Tiger still had the note, that would be one thing, but it was long gone and that left her without anything to follow. There was simply too much Time to effectively search it all and now that they’d thoroughly broken the prophecy, or possibly fulfilled it, there wasn’t a thread to trace. Even if there had been, the fact that the Mimir were also oracles would make it very hard to see anything they were deliberately concealing.
Rissa could do the same thing, but she was a single person instead of an organization. They had the people and the power to find any small cracks she left; she couldn’t do the same to them, at least not for years on end. Right now, she was doing her best to conceal the Death’s Wings; she was confident it would work for a while, at least.
Blaze gave a shallow nod. He’d clearly expected that answer. “All I’ve been able to find out about the missions is that they were done on the command of the Memory of Light and the Memory of Blood. We already knew that much from questioning Ida. It doesn’t seem to be something people talk about too much. It also doesn’t seem to be all that unusual for Valkyries to go offplanet on missions, but what they are is never public.”
Serenity frowned at that. He didn’t like it that they were meddling that much with the outside world, but at the same time he knew it was completely normal. Every country that was powerful enough paid attention to the countries around them, usually with spies as well as ambassadors. Assassins and provocateurs weren’t new, either. Why did it bother him so much more from the Mimir?
The only answer he could come up with other than the fact that they’d meddled with him was that they were using foresight to do it, which was a completely lame answer. It had to be because they’d gone after Rissa and Earth.
Which was plenty of reason for him to go after them.
“So we need to get to the Memories of Blood and Light,” Serenity offered, “Possibly the other Memories as well, plus anyone that’s behind them. Is there someone behind them?”
Ida didn’t know. She considered the Memory of Blood to be her sponsor and disregarded the others; Ann was the same way for the Memory of Light. It was very much like the Memories didn’t want the Valkyries to know more than they needed to do what they were told.
Blaze shook his head. “Not as far as I can tell. The thing is, without infiltrating them, I don’t think we can know for certain. That’s the first option, at least; to spend the time here to insert people into their political structure. I don’t like the plan and I don’t think you will, either.”
Serenity shook his head. “Not if there’s another good plan.”
Blaze chuckled. “Plan three is essentially Senkovar’s plan; you challenge the Memories based on what you already know. There are some odd rules in place here about challenges, and while they severely limit what outsiders can do, you’re a Planetary Sovereign. That means you can challenge anyone you want to, with a lot of restrictions. Only one of them is particularly important here. It would be single combat between you and whoever you challenge, but you have to challenge everyone at the same time and they are allowed to choose the order they face you in. You can’t challenge anyone you don’t initially list for the same reason. I fully expect you could win, even if it is stacked against you as hard as they could manage, but I don’t like the option.”
Serenity snorted. “I notice that you skipped option two. I assume it’s the one you do like?”