Josie watched the messenger boy head toward the central keep. She frowned at the

idea that the boy had access to the castle. If he could get in, that meant he knew where

the note went.

“Where do you think he is going?,” said Budd.

“I don’t know,” said Josie. “I am wondering if he can get into the central keep, or if

he will have to give it over to a guard.”

“It looks like the head of this is inside Rails’s administration,” said Rickard. “We are

going to have to see how far this corruption has gone.”

“It doesn’t have to be Rails himself,” said Haslet. “I think that some of my colleagues

dealt with his knight when there were problems along the border years ago.”

“There are several others in his organization table than Sir Peter,” said Rickard. “But

they stand more in the civilian side of things.”

“So how many suspects do we have?,” said Worldy.

“Six viable, seven more on the edges,” said Glunt. “Most of them inside the

administration part of things.”

Jack and Markus came into the conference room. Jack went to his chair and sat down.

He picked up his cold cup of chocolate and put it back down on the sill.

“The innkeeper doesn’t know anything except he was supposed to send a note with

new developments to a Watchman named Larn,” said Markus. “Larn sends him some

coins in payment.”

“There are four other Casks out there that our friend sends messages for when they

are in town,” said Jack.

“Are they working on the border?,” asked Rickard.

“Our guy doesn’t know where they work,” said Jack. “He thinks they are given

private orders, and then asked to communicate back when the job is done.”

“But they are asked to communicate back in a way that no one is supposed to know

where their reports are going,” said Glunt.

“It means no one can point the finger at the guy in charge,” said Jack. “Standard

security practice.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Josie. “Now that I know who to look for, I can find him in a

second.”

“The letter went to a guard like we thought,” said Glunt. “Does he keep it, or move

it on?”

“Does he put it in an office to be read later?,” said Josie. “What’s the time

arrangement on the answers?”

“We could go down and ask him,” said Case. Everybody looked at him. “We could.”

“I think we can wait for a bit,” said Josie. “We can trace the letter to the end from

here.”

“The big question is Rails involved?,” asked Vin. “Once we know that, what do we

do?”

“We’re going to have to arrest him, and turn the city over to the General to handle

until someone is appointed in his place,” said Rickard.

“I expect there will be some civil disturbance,” said Mister Warner.

“There is going to be some since the nobility seems to be trying to destroy the country

from the inside,” said Rickard.

“Not all of them,” said Jack. “But we have got rid of quite a few since we started.”

“The new Hent seems to be a good guy,” said Josie. “I don’t know how much of that

is natural, or just us using his city as a home base.”

“I think he is scared of you,” said Jack. He grinned at her expression. “Who wouldn’t

be?”

“Who threw the lightning in the city?,” said Josie. She crossed her arms as she looked

at him.

“I was rebuked for that,” said Jack. “He would never do that to you.”

“I would never throw lightning in the city,” said Josie. “Especially not over

something minor.”

“They were breaking into the Hole in the Wall,” said Jack. “That’s all the excuse I

needed.”

“You were going to light them up anyway,” said Josie. “Don’t act like you weren’t.”

Jack grinned.

“The rag doll was great,” said Jack.

“Affirmative,” said the Enterprise.

“I would like to get a better one, maybe with some ricochet value,” said Jack.

“Affirmative,” said the machine in agreement.

“I think that is the last thing either one of you need,” said Josie. “Now, let’s

concentrate on what we have to do.”

“You see, that’s why you need a boyfriend,” said Jack.

“What?,” asked Josie. Markus covered his face. The last thing he wanted was to get

involved in family politics.

“You don’t know how to have fun any more,” said Jack. “When was the last time you

went out and had fun?”

“I went out with the kids yesterday,” said Josie.

“Because Caroline and Beatrice tricked you,” said Jack. “That kid will be an okay

queen one day.”

“Thank you,” said Rickard. He frowned at Jack.

“Case still needs work,” said Jack. “You’re going to have to take him under your

wing and show him how to do things.”

“I see,” said Rickard.

“I don’t think I’m that bad,” said Case.

“No one does,” said Jack. “It’s the Dunning-Krueger effect.”

“What is that?,” asked Case.

“Dumb people always think they are smarter than they are,” said Jack.

“I think I have an accurate handle on my dumbness, thank you very much,” said Case.

“They all think that,” said Jack.

“Let’s get back to the matter at hand,” said Josie. She frowned at her partner. “How

do we solve Kyle’s problem?”

“As long as he is with us, no one can kill him,” said Jack. “On the other hand...”

Josie gestured with her hand for him to keep going.

“They might not need to kill him,” said Glunt. “They might just need him out of the

way while the scheme is being carried out.”

“So having him here might be encouraging the scheme to go forward,” said Josie.

“Or they might be able to improvise around his absence,” said Glunt. “Oh no, the tax

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

money has disappeared, and so has the king. Anything like that.”

“That puts Kyle on the spot if we take him back and we can’t prove anything other

than with our word,” said Josie.

“It makes things complicated,” said Glunt. “I doubt anyone who has to judge this will

accept anything like our word for his presence. After all, we live weeks away from

the south by most of the overland routes that I know of.”

“Anything we do outside of the normal system would be putting a spell on Kyle to get

our way,” said Josie. She rubbed her face.

“Not exactly, but close enough it makes no difference,” said Worldy.

“All right,” said Josie. “So we need to know who is involved, and how to break them

so we get what we want which is ideally a living Kyle. What makes you important to

the Society, Kyle?”

“I don’t know,” said Kyle. “As the High King, I control the combined armies of the

kingdom if needed, I arbitrate matters between the low kings so there isn’t the threat

of civil war. I help collect taxes for the kingdom. I meet with a lot of people to create

laws and answer requests for things like roads and viaducts.”

“What happens if you die?,” asked Jack.

“The country would be paralyzed while the low kings convene a conference and elect

a new high king,” said Kyle. “He would be doing my same duties.”

“So if someone needed to do a policy change, he would have to get rid of you,” said

Budd.

“I guess,” said Kyle. “Or say one of the low kings wanted to do something against the

general rules, he would need for me to be gone so he could do it.”

“Give us an example, Kyle,” said Rickard.

“So we have a peace with the goblin tribes now,” said Kyle. “A fortification was put

up and keeps them from doing free raids for the most part. But the southern kings still

hate the tribes, and I expect that the tribes still hate them. As the High King, I have

to enforce the treaty we made with the tribes. If I wasn’t in place, or someone else

was elected that hated the tribes, we could have a war with them based out of the

wall.”

“So you being alive is the only thing keeping the peace?,” asked Jack.

“It goes the reverse way too,” said Kyle. “We border Grecious in the south. If

someone wanted to start something on that border while this was going on up here,

the first thing they would have to do is remove me and my command of the joined

armies. Then they could use their own army to invade from that direction.”

“We might be looking at a concerted effort to drive Grecious into the ground,” said

Josie.

“A takeover,” said Rickard.

“It looks like it, but how do we prove it?,” said Jack. “How much are we going to

have to cut out to solve this?”

“This is what Ropel meant,” said Rickard. “I hope he was right that we can solve

this.”

“We’ll solve this,” said Josie. “Even if we don’t get them all this time, the Society

will still hand out quests to defend the planet from things like this.”

“Even after we’re gone, and Case is the king,” said Jack. He smiled at the various

expressions of annoyance that got him.

“And our letter has landed,” said Mister Warner. “And it looks like it is going to the

central keep.”

“Let’s see where it goes from the gate,” said Josie. “Then we’re going to have to look

into it.”

“If it is Rails, I am going to have to find someone to replace him,” said Rickard. “He

doesn’t have any relatives that I know of.”

“And if he did have relatives, they might be in on whatever is going on,” said Jack.

“Something I can’t discount,” said Rickard.

“It doesn’t have to be Rails,” said Josie. “It just has to be someone in his organization

who is willing to backstab him.”

“The letter entered the keep and is climbing,” said Mister Warner. “Central

Administration?”

“I think so,” said Rickard. “It has been a while since I have visited out here on the

frontier.”

“That’s a lot of steps to have to climb,” said Jack. “Guy must be in good shape.”

“He stopped about midway,” said Glunt. “Maybe a planning level?”

The signal from the note being destroyed reached them. Josie frowned. This was as

far as their investigation was going to go.

“Enterprise,” said Josie. “Can you put whomever’s in that office where the note was

torn up in the brig?”

“Affirmative,” said the machine.

“I think Rickard and I should go down and talk to our new prisoners,” said Josie. “See

if you guys can come up with a way to trace the rest of this.”

“What do we do about the support structure?,” said Jack.

“I don’t know,” said Josie. “We might have to engage in an ongoing clash to see how

much we can root out.”

“Caroline will never be safe,” said Case.

“Neither will you,” said Vin. “Neither will any of us. Once they know who we are,

they’ll come after us to see what they can do.”

“Before we start worrying about that future,” said Josie. “Let’s worry about the future

where thousands could die on the border because of some criminal machinations and

what we are going to do to stop it short of crashing the Enterprise on target and telling

it to self-destruct.”

“Not my baby,” said Jack. “I could never replace the Enterprise. She is the

awesomesauce.”

“Rickard and I are going down to talk to our prisoners,” said Josie. “I would

appreciate it if someone would go over to that office and see if there are any records

we can use to expose this operation. A membership list would probably be invaluable.

Once we have taken care of those two objectives, we are going to decide what to do

to our captives, and how we are going to find the rest of this mob.”

“Seems simple enough,” said Jack.

“We might have to fly back to the border and do some things,” said Josie. “I’m not

sure what we can do to fix this problem, but once we have more information, maybe

our perspective will change.”

Josie and Rickard went down to the brig. They found their new arrivals in separate

cells across from their first captives. The messenger boy was still on the ground

somewhere. She would pick him up if he turned out to be the mastermind behind all

this.

“How do you do?,” asked Josie. “We were wondering if you could explain why you

are trying to start a war with Shemmaria.”

“Who wants to know?,” said the man with the better embossed uniform. He had

waxed his mustache near to death, and didn’t have enough hair on the top of his head

to do the same to it.

“I’m the terror that causes screams in the night, I’m the destroyer of all my mother

surveys,” said Josie. “I’m the Ear Ripper of Justice.”

“Pretty dramatic,” said the uniform, clapping his hands. “I like it.”

“Most people are like that,” said Josie. “They don’t take the threat seriously enough.

They always have to have a demonstration.”

“Really?,” said the officer.

“Almost always,” said Josie. She changed into Zatanna. She created two books for the

King to read. “Wait here, please. We’ll be right back.”

She vanished, dragging the officer with her. They were gone long enough for the

King to flip through the first section in the first book. He shook his head.

“Where did they go?,” asked the other prisoner.

“I have no idea,” said the King. He put the first book in his belt, and leafed through

the second. “I’m sure it was very pleasant.”

The officer appeared in his cell. His mustache had taken a hit. His uniform looked

ripped in a couple of places. One of his hands had a new cut on the palm.

“How would you rate your walk on the hull?,” said Josie.

“I don’t want to do that ever again,” said the officer.

“Major Ston made a deal with someone with too many tattoos on his face,” said the

King. “He is supposed to be stirring the frontier up until the land grab is executed.”

“He was going to try to con your new relief force to do the job for him,” said Josie.

“Any connection to Lord Rails?”

“None that was in your book,” said Rickard. “Major Ston? You wouldn’t happen to

know how to make arrangements to meet this tattooed man?”

“He is supposed to send an emissary with the password and my first cheque to be

drawn out of the Exchange when the job is done,” said Ston.

“We will have to look at alternate means to find him,” said Rickard. “Is there

anything else, Madam Fox?”

“Where did you first meet this contact?,” said Josie. “Maybe we can find out

something from there.”

“He approached me after a status meeting with Lord Rails about the border,” said

Ston.

“So he knew you,” said Josie. “He knew your function.”

“Somebody in Rails’s administration?,” asked Rickard.

“Somebody who studied the local government at least,” said Josie.

“Can you find him?,” said Rickard.

“I can try,” said Josie. “I am going to keep you guys until the king wants to do

something to you. You will be safe where you are. Don’t do anything to

change that status.”

She led the King out of the brig, asking the Enterprise to keep the door locked.

“Someone from the Montrose contacted this guy anonymously and wanted him to stir

up the border and help with the invasion of Shemmaria,” said Josie. “Who is this guy,

and who is he connected with? What did we do when we took Rustam in Hawk

Ridge?”

“We might have cut the core out of this over that,” said Rickard.

“And no one knows,” said Josie.

“I need a way to spread this across the country somehow,” said Rickard.

“Too bad you don’t have a news wire,” said Josie.

“A news wire?,” asked Rickard.

“Where I am from, communication is faster,” said Josie. “Almost as fast as the

Enterprise. A couple of businesses have set up to report on events across the world

and send that back to local reporters to be shared in their own reporting process.

If you had the concept of printing the news, you could slowly build up such an

organization to report on things in your country and let everyone know.”

“Maybe my council can come up with something to emulate it,” said Rickard.

“How would you spread the news across the country?,” asked Josie.

“We are using messengers and adventurers now,” said Rickard. “Maybe we can use

a new organizational tree to create such a news agency.”

“Maybe start small, like in the capitol,” said Josie. “And then work your way out.”

“I will talk to Lois,” said Rickard. “She will have better ideas for something like that

than I do.”

“All right,” said Josie. “Try to keep the corruption to a minimum.”

“I haven’t done well on that so far,” said Rickard. “Maybe traveling the country

should be something I should do.”

“Traveling the country is hard for people,” said Josie. “I can see the extraneous

problems that can come up.”

“Tradition is to stay with the noble responsible,” said Rickard. “How many of my

nobles are trustworthy? How much time would I have to spend in a tent because I

don’t have that much trust?”

“Just think about the army of supporters that would have to travel with you,” said

Josie.

“I think one of Jack’s moving houses would be enough,” said Rickard. He smiled at

her visible annoyance.

“Do not say anything like that in front of Jack,” said Josie. “The Society is already

annoyed at him for what he has already done.”

“I can understand that,” said Rickard.