Kaede woke up from her slumber as the wagon bed lurched. A wooden wheel seemed to have hit a rock on the snow-covered dirt road.
The Samaran girl rubbed her eyes with her small hands as she registered her surroundings. She sat in the front-left side of a covered wagon on top of a thick, woolen blanket. Meanwhile Pascal, who was still unconscious, laid flat with his head in her lap. A young, apprentice healer girl sat diagonally across from Kaede and peered out to the rear. To her side lay another patient — a Lotharin noble who looked not even thirty. His exposed head and limbs were largely covered in bandages, while his unconscious face was red from a burning fever.
Kaede could hear the creaking of wagon wheels and the clinking mail of armored troops. She could see the train of vehicles to both the front and rear which traversed through the wintry forest on a narrow road. Soldiers marched in columns on each flank through the snow-covered ground. The horse-drawn wagon behind her carried no less than six injured officers. While the one behind that was outright packed with wounded soldiers.
Aristocratic privileges, Kaede couldn’t help but smile a little. She doubted the people in the wagons behind them could stretch out their legs as she did in her sparse carriage.
Nevertheless, the familiar felt not just drowsy but exhausted. The healers had asked her for more blood last night, and she had given them enough that it left her anemic. It didn’t help that she had another nightmare which jolted her awake in a cold sweat. The haunting image of a blackened wasteland had replaced the snowy landscape of her previous dreams, where zombie-like corpses crawled and lunged after her in waves of endless terror.
Kaede was about to doze off again when a ringtone began in the back of her head. Her torso jerked upright as another bump in the road lurched the wagon’s carriage at the same time.
Magic always seemed to adjust to the user. And in the case of her earrings’ ability to receive Farspeak, the lively music it used was the same as Kaede’s cell phone on Earth.
Must be Her Highness… or rather, elder sister calling. Kaede adjusted her thoughts with a faint smile. She was still trying to grow accustomed to thinking of Princess Sylviane as her elder sister.
Regardless, the familiar reached up with one hand and squeezed her earring between her thumb and index finger.
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Kaede pursed her lips as a sharp retort rose from within her. She had been nearly thirty kilopaces away when Pascal cast that reckless spell. How could she have helped?
— Yet, at the same time, she was also the reason he experimented with magic beyond his comprehension in the first place.
“”
Even Karsten couldn’t reprimand her for that.
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“” Kaede tried to sound reassuring. “
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Kaede’s lips twisted. She should have expected this. Every economic reform throughout history had run into its share of road bumps and, occasionally, massive pitfalls.
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Pascal had established several publicly traded companies to help spur the reconstruction of Nordkreuz. Three of them were allocated to the different guilds and their industrial workshops, while a fourth — the North Sea Trading Company — was set aside for the harbor and its dock facilities. The idea was to attract private investments for the rapid re-establishment of Nordkreuz’s strategic trade port. In turn, the port would share 50% of its future profits with all private investors.
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You mean her love of young boys, Kaede almost scoffed. Even she had heard the rumors by now.
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Kaede frowned. She had learned from her conversations with Cecylia and Perceval that both cocoa and sugarcane had become commonplace in Skagen society thanks to their colonies in the New World. However, while the Grand Jarldom of Skagen had a formal trade embargo with both the Kingdom of Weichsel and the Holy Imperium of the Inner Sea, these products nevertheless entered the Imperial-speaking cultural sphere through traders in Gleann Mòr and illegal smugglers on the North Sea.
I wonder if there’s an Adam Smith of Hyperion who is writing furiously right now. Kaede thought of the ‘Father of Capitalism’, who relentlessly attacked the stupidity of trade embargos in how they negatively impacted both sides — the British and French in his time — while enriching the coffers of the Dutch middlemen.
Nevertheless, both cocoa and sugarcane required tropical climates to grow. They certainly would not thrive near the shores of the cold North Sea. And while Weichsen soldiers likely acquired batches of it during their raids across the Skagen Peninsula, it didn’t mean that these lands could yield such crops.
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That’s not a good sign. Kaede thought as she furrowed her brows.
The marginalization of accurate information required purposeful propaganda. Some unseen actor was actively spreading false information to engineer public opinion.
It reminded Kaede of the disinformation campaign launched by American and British media in the run up to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq to gain control of its vast oil wealth. In less than three months, public approval of a war to remove Iraq’s supposed ‘weapons of mass destruction’ went from less than 25% to over 75% of the populace. Meanwhile, anyone who expressed disapproval of the war on mass media was declared a traitor and had their careers destroyed. Even allies — like the French who refused to participate — were ridiculed and branded as spineless, immoral cowards by the media onslaught.
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Cecylia’s dad! The Samaran girl’s eyes widened as she thought of the handsome dhampir whom she had met back in Nordkreuz. He’s been made Marshal too!
Kaede realized then that Karsten must have linked his Farspeak call to her with a Telepathy connection from the new Marshal. It readily created a telepathic chatroom that stretched across thousands of kilopaces.
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The Samaran girl’s brain did the math and… That’s a P/E of over 200! Kaede’s mental alarms immediately sounded.
Kaede wasn’t much of a stock trader back in Japan. But she did talk about it with the family, especially as Konstantin wanted to make sure his son had a ‘basic financial education’ which was sorely lacking in schools. She remembered that a healthy P/E ratio was around 15. Anything above 100 was definitely a bubble. Even worse, her P/E ratio was using ‘projected figures’, as the destroyed harbor wasn’t even rebuilt yet and it currently had virtually no revenue source at all!
The Samaran girl bit her lip. This was proof enough to clear all doubts.
Someone at Nordkreuz — perhaps a group of wealthy speculators — has learned to game the new system. The false rumors were almost definitely started by them. And the rampant speculation was fast forming a ‘financial bubble’ where asset prices grow to be implausibly, unrealistically high.
If such a bubble was allowed to keep growing, it would eventually burst. The collapse of the Japanese Assets Bubble in 1992 ruined an entire generation to stagnation in the ‘Lost Decades’. A single company in Nordkreuz should not have such catastrophic results. However, with public confidence on the line and people betting their life savings on such a gamble, even a small disaster could ruin Pascal and her attempts to introduce modern finance.
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The Samaran girl had read enough about historical financial crises from Earth to at least grasp the overall strategy. However, while she could make high level plans, the execution was a far more complicated affair. Furthermore, not only did Kaede lack understanding of the intricacies of financial and economic management, she also had zero experience in trying to organize and coordinate so many people at once.
Therefore, Kaede had to entrust the execution of this plan to others. And there was no better candidate in her mind than the Cardinal-Chancellor, who was a deft old hand with decades of experience in managing Weichsel’s economy.
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Now that she considered it, Kaede would not be surprised if this whole incident was deliberate sabotage. The Holy Imperium of the Inner Sea certainly has a history of tying military and economic expansion together. Weakening Nordkreuz by sabotaging its economy would definitely play to its geostrategic interests.
“” Marshal Wiktor added. His sentiments were then echoed by Cardinal Lisbeth.
Faced with the dire circumstances, Karsten replied with only a begrudging “<…I understand.>”
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It was also the reason why Kaede suggested leaving 10% of Pascal’s total shares in the system. This would allow sizeable reinvestments to be made without violating their own rules.
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Kaede twisted her lips. Time was of the essence. Yet it was also the Achilles’ heel of new ideas. There needs to be an institution set in place to manage everything — to control, to supervise, to enforce.
Cardinal-Chancellor Lisbeth was the most prominent figure in the Weichsen civil bureaucracy. She had direct control over two of the five ministries. Her people could no doubt summon an army of clerks and accountants to manage transactions and perform record-keeping. However legal enforcement was outside her jurisdiction. Therefore, not only did she lack the authority to conduct investigations into the accounts of private enterprises, she likely also lacked personnel who specialize in tracking, monitoring, and arresting suspects.
Then a lightbulb lit in Kaede’s mind.
Weichsel was a near-absolute monarchy. This gave one body the highest authority to interfere in all civil and military affairs as they saw fit. Kaede wasn’t sure what exactly was the relationship between the Black Eagles and Weichsel’s Ministry of Law. But she had no doubts over who had greater freedom of action in a crisis situation.
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Kaede had to pause for a moment and blink as she heard their acknowledgements. She could hardly believe she was conversing with two of Weichsel’s highest ranking leaders as if they were equals.
Nevertheless, she still wasn’t done:
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The good news was that by pulling most of his investments out while the stock was at its peak, Pascal would make several times his original funds in profits. This would give them more than sufficient of a ‘war chest’ to fight the remainder of the economic battle.
We’ll make you pay dearly for trying to sabotage our economy, just like what the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities did to George Soros. Kaede grinned wolfishly as she thought back to the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.
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It’s no wonder King Leopold relies on her. Kaede thought before she decided to add: “
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He knows that was from me and not Pascal? Kaede couldn’t help wondering before adding. “
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He definitely knows. The familiar girl scowled.
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With a mental ‘click’, the Farspeak call ended. Kaede then took a deep breath to calm back down.
It was her first experience with just how much power she could wield through decrees in Pascal’s name. It wasn’t a lowly rank like Pascal the Captain or empty titles like Pascal the Crown Prince Consort either. Instead, today’s meeting showed that Pascal exercised true authority and influence through his ducal rank as the Landgrave of Nordkreuz.
Even a slight taste of it felt… intoxicating, in a self-righteous sort of way. Kaede’s conversation with Karsten began with him patronizing her. It ended with her giving orders, and not just to him.. She had even issued the main plan of action to the Chancellor and Marshal of Weichsel!
I’d better be careful with this power. Kaede couldn’t help thinking. This was doubly so as her influence with Princess Sylviane grew. Plenty of trusted, close advisors throughout history had lost their heads because they became overconfident in issuing orders in their master’s stead.
Kaede stared back at the long train of over a hundred wagons. It was often too easy to forget how many pieces must be in position for history to be made. The people who worked in the background were often forgotten by everyone except scholars. But that did not mean they lacked the power and influence to affect the world.
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The Samaran girl was still gazing into the distance when she noticed a twitching jerk from the blanket across from her.
“Attack. Attack!” The youthful noble who lay across from Kaede suddenly cried out in his delirious fever. Tears streamed from his unbandaged eye as it suddenly snapped open and the young man yelled “For Maela! Kill them all!”
The healer girl who sat beside him quickly pulled out a cloth from her waist pouch. She covered his nose and mouth with it. The nobleman struggled slightly before his eyes closed and he fell back into unconsciousness.
Chloroform, Kaede sniffed as she could smell the strong scent from the cloth.
“Sorry,” the young healer looked towards the familiar with a wry smile. “I didn’t think he’d wake so early.”
Kaede could only return a similar smile before she pondered aloud: “who is Maela?”
“His newly-wed bride, from what I’ve heard.” The healer sighed. “They were apparently childhood friends. They married on the same day they joined the Avorican army together.”
Kaede grimaced. War stories loved to use such tales to romanticize and glorify heroism. But the reality was that they almost always ended in tragedy.
The familiar was so distracted by what had just happened that she almost missed the faint stirring that came over her familiar link. The placid void she felt instead of Pascal’s consciousness was growing active once more. It began to radiate waves of awareness, discomfort, even confusion and pain. Then, right as Kaede looked down with hopeful uncertainty, she saw a twitch from his exposed right hand as Pascal tried to lift his arm.
“Pascal!”
Relief and joy flooded across Kaede’s thoughts at once. Both the driver and the healer looked at her with interest but she didn’t even care. The Samaran girl felt water in her eyes as she looked down at Pascal’s blindfolded face. His head moved slightly as it laid on top of her lap. Meanwhile she took his trembling hand into her own as she felt the weak movements of his still-bandaged fingers.
The healers hadn’t been sure when he would awake from his coma. They said perhaps this week, perhaps next month, perhaps never. It was a miracle that he survived at all. To be conscious again after just six days time was surely a blessing from some higher power that watched over them.
Kaede could sense Pascal trying to put strength into his arms. However, with his right hand arrested by her grip, he tried next with his left hand. The arm was slightly shaky at first. Yet as it rose, his control became noticeably better, and a lot more so than his right hand.
“Don’t…” Kaede caught his other wrist before it could reach his face. “Don’t try to take off the blindfold. Your eyes haven’t recovered yet. You’ll go blind.”
“K-kaede?” A sickly, raspy voice emerged from Pascal’s parched throat. The healers had kept his body fed and hydrated through Sustenance spells. Though it clearly wasn’t enough. His body continued to tax itself in a low fever. It was gradually repairing the horrendous damage taken from the directional thermonuclear blast.
Meanwhile, the healer girl who just put the other patient back to sleep crawled over on top of the wagon bed. She pulled out a crystal display from her extradimensional pouch and began casting several diagnosis spells.
“Don’t speak.” Kaede added before remembering their familiar link. “
Kaede thumbed the back of his hand as she stared at his pale cheeks. She felt her eyes grow blurry as she brought his fingers up to her tender cheeks. His touch was cold and clammy but she didn’t care. She was just glad that he was back among the living once more.
The pain and nausea that ebbed over their empathic link were growing. Pascal’s body was clearly still in a state of recovery. It wasn’t a surprise. After all, the acute radiation poisoning that he suffered would have killed him had he been on Earth.
His next appointment with the senior healer wasn’t until dusk, when two of them would cast Regeneration, Cleanse, and Invigorate on every one of his damaged organs and muscle groups again. Magic was the only reason he still lived. And even then, the healers weren’t sure how much of his bodily functions he could recover.
Yet, despite his misery and agony, Pascal’s first statement had nothing to do with his own personal well-being:
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Kaede could hear the disappointment in his trembling voice. She laid her palm over his right hand — which was still feeling its way across her cheeks — and pressed her head against it. She wanted him to feel the smile that he could not see. She wanted him to touch her joyful tears and be reassured that all was still well.
There were so many, so many things she wanted to say to him. But at the moment, none of them seemed to matter. The fact he was still alive and awake was enough for her, for now.
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Pascal didn’t need to hear how exactly they won yet. There would be a time for that later, when he was feeling better and not stuck in depressing blackness.
An audible sigh of relief came from Pascal as he relaxed on top of the wool blanket. Then, as a hot tear dropped from Kaede’s eyes onto his fingertips, his blindfolded eyes turned towards Kaede once more:
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Kaede almost burst into tears as memories of that night came rushing back in. Thousands of burned out tree husks stretched on for kilopaces. Tangles of blackened limbs piled together as soldiers dumped bodies onto corpse wagons. She would have thought Pascal dead had it not been for her own life. Yet the state she found him in wasn’t much better — with severe burns covering him from head to toe and entire patches of inflamed red skin sloughing off.
A mental sigh emerged from Pascal as his feeble fingertips tickled her cheek.
“” He replied slowly with a tinge of regret. Kaede remembered then that he could keenly feel her emotions — much better than she could feel his. It offered him a perfect mental image of her expression, even if his eyes couldn’t actually see.
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His comment knocked Kaede off balance, leaving her staring back in surprise. She couldn’t quite grasp it yet. But, something about Pascal was… different. Something beyond merely his injured state.
This wasn’t the same Pascal she had left before the Battles of Lysardh Point and Glywysing.
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“<…The Rangers estimated that out of almost ten thousand Cataliyan troops who arrived on the battlefield, less than a thousand escaped.>” Kaede finished her summary of the conclusion to the Battle of Glywysing.
It felt odd for Kaede to not see his clear, turquoise gaze. Instead, she faced only the black blindfold that wrapped between his golden, wavy hair and his pale, faded cheeks.
Even most of his emotions seem to have vanished from their empathic feedback link. They left behind only his ebbing pain and nausea. Pascal must have suppressed it, and the master-to-familiar channel was not as sensitive as its reverse. Kaede could only sense powerful sentiments through it to begin with, or moderate emotions if she concentrated. But now, there was almost nothing on the other side.
It was as if she was talking to a faceless… well, certainly not a stranger, as she could easily recognize him even with his blindfold. But it simply felt… weird.
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“” Pascal sighed.
An uncomfortable silence settled over their private channel. Though the atmosphere was not quiet as the creaking of wagon wheels, the steel of marching soldiers, and the chatter of drivers and troops alike continued to fill the air. Yet to Kaede they all seemed distant, nondescript.
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The question came so sudden it caught her off guard.
“” Pascal sighed bitterly. “
Without much of a choice, Kaede told Pascal the whole story of the battle as she heard it. How the Lotharins had lost the town. How the Princess had been pressed to the brink of defeat. How she had been rescued by Edith’s counterattack, mere moments before the reserves ran out of momentum. Then, when the Lotharins were spent and the battle seemed lost, a miracle happened as an entire forest uprooted itself.
“<…We told the army that we had known about the Migrating Trees all along.>” Kaede explained what had happened afterwards. “
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The Samaran girl had a headache just thinking about it. It wasn’t merely because of its implausibility either. She knew that she remembered more about what happened. Yet for some reason, she couldn’t remember it right now. It was as though she suddenly had selective amnesia.
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The void where his emotions had been suppressed returned once more. Kaede could feel the gloom of his guilt spreading from their empathic link. The dark fog soon took on a sickly hue as it turned into one of disgust, even loathing — hate not directed towards anyone else, but at himself.
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“Pascal…” Kaede pleaded as tears brimmed in her eyes once more. She hadn’t even realized that she dropped out of telepathy and spoke through the real air. “Pascal, please. You’re overthinking things.”
“J-just answer the question, you silly girl.” The young lord’s raspy voice blurted out. “What do the troops say about me?”
For a moment, Kaede gawked back as if she had just been slapped. And that crucial moment was all it took for him to learn the terrible truth.
“They say that Your Lordship is a born destroyer with a callous disregard for friendly casualties.” The wagon driver spoke in a voice that was laced with both awe and fear. “The men can’t decide between calling Your Grace the Dusklord or Blightlord right now. Though a suggestion to just smush the words together in typical Weichsen fashion is catching on.”