Chapter Eighty-Six
Plan A
Klaryah pushed through the door of Sylvia’s tavern and spotted Jack sitting by the low-burning fireplace on the left of the bar. She strolled toward him and leant her Crekaen Longbow against the wall and slumped into a chair. She watched casually as Jack was hunched over a piece of parchment, scribbling sets of numbers and grimacing every time he came to a total.
“How’s our plan shaping up?” she asked, leaning toward the fire.
Jack threw down his quill and pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’ve got a problem.”
Klaryah was wearing bags under her eyes and a shadow grew around her jawline. Every time she saw Jack with that look on his face she swore he had another wrinkle. “What is it?”
Jack picked up his notes and said, “We can’t try to lure the armies away with a distraction force because they’ll gather up arms to fight said-force. Which means we can’t sabotage their weapons. If we can’t damage their weapons then they’ll be at full effectiveness in the fight. And regardless, our primary aim is find the Heart Stone and the Immortal Flame, so somehow we need to draw away the army without them gathering weapons to do so.”
Klaryah held her hands over a fire as Sylvia hobbled over to their table and set down a glass of wine so dark it was nearly black. “Thanks, Sylvie. Okay, let’s think about this... what if we send in the saboteurs- sneak them into the enemy compound first. Next, we send the distraction force, draw away the army. Only then do we send in the retrieval crews for the primary targets. That way we can damage the weapons, then draw away the army, un-armed, then swipe the goods.”
Jack raked his fingers through his hair and folded his arms. “The sabotage crews are teams of three or four... we’d be asking one or maybe two Legacies to conceal three others with their Arcancy for maybe as long as half an hour. I think we have enough to worry about before adding Turning to the list.”
Klaryah smiled fondly and shook her head. “Not if they combine Arcancy-strength. Legacies can reinforce one another even if they don’t have compatible Arcancy, they just can’t enhance the Blood magic. If all four of them are working together, then it could be done.”
Jack looked at the woman as she took his parchment and began scribbling down her plan. “I’ve been trying to figure that out for six hours, and you just went and did it, huh?”
The door of the bar swung open.
The assassin and the rebel looked over to see Amekot sauntering in rather smugly.
Jack turned back to the table and quietly groaned. “I was hoping he’d forgotten about this meeting.”
Klaryah rolled her eyes but she felt rather the same way. She’d grown up in Lower Kameronby, a small town in Cresik, and only discovered her Arcancy when she was sixteen. She didn’t have a grand realisation that many other Legacies had, and managed not to lure any monsters her way because her aura of power was so gentle. Klaryah met Amekot when he was a younger man. He’d been more charismatic in those days. But age had made him brittle with frustration and paranoia. The Arcancy ever-roiling beneath her skin flourished as Amekot entered the room. He was always hiding something. Jack by comparison was like the first glass of cold water to work against a headache. He had his secrets, but not for the wrong reasons. Despite his many stressful qualities, the soldier brought her a profound sense of peace.
As Amekot sat down and smugly placed his leather-bag of recovered secrets on the table, he turned and snapped his fingers at Sylvia. “Crek Dark, ma’am.”
“Snap those fingers at me and I’ll poison it, Hillborn,” she called from behind the bar.
Jack and Klaryah covered their grins and filled Amekot in on what they’d discussed. In turn he told them about the documents found in Oliver’s closet, describing the event like a heroic tale of righteousness and truth.
Amekot saw Jack’s face tighten with sorrow when he mentioned the proof. Amekot took a long sip from his drink before scowling and muttering, “I really don’t see what everyone’s so upset about.”
Jack caught Sylvia’s eye and politely asked for another drink, handing her his empty tankard. “I just don’t understand why he wouldn’t talk.”
Klaryah shrugged, sipping her dark wine. “Shame, probably.”
Jack rubbed his unshaven beard, running his fingers along the occasional scar. “But not a single word? I just... it doesn’t make sense to me.”
Amekot looked at the tired rebel and chuckled. “I’d think you would understand fear a little better than most. The oncoming siege. Nikereus. The thought of being nothing more than an orphan again. It’s twisted his mind. I imagine he went on that mission with the intent of slipping away, but simply couldn’t manage to do it cleanly.”
Jack leaned back in his chair and sighed, when a thought snuck into his mind. “So, why not take the documents with him? Why not give try to give them to Nikereus? He was one of the few in that company who didn’t get captured, it would’ve been too easy. He’s got stealth Arcancy for god’s sake…”
The assassin fell quiet and looked to Amekot, but the Fortmaster too was unsure and merely let out an amused huff and shrugged. “Maybe he did take them. Perhaps showed Nikereus then brought them back. That way we wouldn’t catch on.”
Jack only looked more sceptical. “Just to break into the Priority Archives again? What for?”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I’m not an empath, McKennedy, we might never know. Let’s not waste further time on it. We are here for a reason.” Amekot took a refreshing sip of his drink and swept his hair back, smiling brightly, as though he’d just sat down.
Jack’s mace-hand twitched as he watched the man’s bright teeth and he closed his eyes, breathing softly.
Amekot began discussing the details of their plan but Klaryah merely watched Jack. She knew something dark and painful raged in his mind, but before long he stopped trembling and opened his eyes to see her.
They shared a soft, uncertain look.
Sylvia put down the new drink in front of him and Jack reached for it, but his hand stopped, an inch or so shy of the tankard. Instead he sat up straight and thanked her properly, before realising it was chipped beer mug filled with raspberry wine.
Jack tongued his cheek and rolled his eyes at Sylvia as she walked away.
“According to our records, we currently have three-hundred and twenty-five Legacies stationed here.” Amekot took out a scroll unlike the others, clearly one he’d written himself, and read, “Twenty-two can damage or corrupt weapon-materials. Eleven can conjure Cloaking Arcancy. I have Miss Hawthorne gathering those individuals as we speak.”
“Ten. I suspect Oliver no longer counts.” Jack sighed, pressing his face into his hands. “We can’t seriously expect a couple dozen Legacies to sneak into a compound, destroy thousands of weapons, and get away clean again. It’s not doable, Hillborn.”
Amekot’s face soured again and he said, “Victory requires sacrifice.”
Jack tried not to let the statement hit him hard and a thought fell on him. He looked Amekot bluntly in the eyes. “Let’s evacuate. Let’s leave.”
Amekot scoffed loudly and looked to Klaryah in amusement, only for her to shrug and ask, “Why not?”
The Fortmaster bit his tongue and laced his fingers together before looking them both over, patronisingly. “Would you like me to list the reasons in alphabetical order, or at random?”
Klaryah cocked her head in disbelief. “We’re trying to help you, so stop acting like a fucking child. I don’t work here. You’re not my commander, and I can up-and-leave pretty damn quickly if you’re intent on being this difficult to work with.”
Jack watched the look on Amekot’s face and suddenly remembered, while it was rare, he was in fact was attracted to women. “What she said.”
Amekot finished his drink bitterly and sat back as far as he could. “Firstly, this structure itself is nearly a thousand cycles old. We couldn’t just rebuild one somewhere else, the magic used to do so does not exist anymore.”
Jack shrugged and his dark eye glittered in the firelight. “It’s just a place. There are other strongholds.”
“Not in Olympium!” Amekot said, matter-of-fact. “Fort Guardian is the only place on this continent truly safe for Legacies, and new ones realise their power almost every cycle. Most don’t make it here in time, so can you imagine the likelihood of them making it across the seas?”
The assassin and the rebel sat in silence, knowing full well he was right.
Amekot pressed on and said, “For the sake of the argument, let’s say we left. Nikereus isn’t actually here for us. They’re here for the Location Tablets.”
“The what?” Klaryah asked.
Amekot pushed his empty glass away. “It will be easiest just to show you.”
*****
Amekot led Jack and Klaryah to the keep hall. They came to a stop before the reception doors and Jack looked down at the stone square where the hatchway was drawn. He was having trouble focusing on anything except the polished patch of stone where Ilo had stained the floor red.
Amekot placed his hand on the floor, the stone came alight in four lines of blue flame, lining out a hatch, and before long, the three of them were moving down a set of dark steps into the bunker below Fort Guardian.
Their footsteps echoed as the walked and Amekot pulled a torch of the wall. He touched a rune on its side and it flared with flame, casting out the nearby shadow. As he walked, he said, “The Location Tablets describe the particular protocols of how to enter each Legacy stronghold.”
Jack peered through the dark. “There used to be eight. If Nikereus wins here, there will be six.”
“Six what?” Klaryah asked, her strides long and careful.
“Six places in the world that we’re-” Jack stopped himself, chuckling bitterly. “I nearly said ‘safe’.”
They came to a far wall where a great circular stone door sat, carved with dozens upon dozens of runes. Amekot placed his hand on the face of the stone and let his Arcancy burn dark in the veins of his hand. The shadow bled into the stone and when Amekot rotated his palm, the entire stone wheel spun turned over.
It shifted away slowly and let out a soft boom as it stopped, revealing a dark room with an alter at its centre. Amekot stepped in and raised his torch to the dark lamps on the walls, alighting them one by one.
Klaryah approached the alter and frowned before she even came close.
‘Tablet’ was a misleading word. It was more like a pillar of rock that jutted four feet from the ground. It reflected a strange amount of light for stone.
Klaryah bent her face close to it and realised there was spell-work etched into the stone so finely it was mistakable for texturing. She ran a finger along the grooves and felt the magic humming in the depths of the stone. She pulled away but it left her hand numb.
Amekot held the torch close. “The tablets are layered with illusion, but anyone with Blood Magic can use their Instinct to glean the location of the other six strongholds. If Nikereus got so much as one good look at this, then they’d know the defensive procedures of every fortress on Draendica.”
Klaryah frowned, and knew the answer before she asked, “Don’t supposed we could take it with us?”
Amekot glared at the tablet. “Its immovable. Locked to the spot with a magic we've long since forgotten.”
“Could we copy down the information and then try to destroy it?” Klaryah offered freely, much to the horror of Amekot.
Jack smiled weakly and shook his head. “Location Tablets are made from Everite. They can’t be defaced by anything but pure time.”
Amekot shrugged and hung his torch on the wall. “Nikereus wants the tablets to find and kill Legacies. If we leave, they will find the other strongholds. And I doubt they will simply let us go if we attempt some kind of massive exodus."
Jack ran his thumb thoughtfully along his jawline. He remembered feeling the same way in Arcavelot City. No way out, no good options. Either stand, fight, and die, or run, fight and die. Not everyone did of course, there were stragglers who got away and a handful of people who bargained their way out of the ropes of hangmen. But even the ones who lived died there in all the ways that mattered.
The torch flickered and Jack twitched.
Klaryah glanced at him.
Jack closed his eyes again and felt his mace-arm twinging. The dark was thick about him. The air was cold and hung in his lungs like a fog. And, then, like he’d woken up from a dream, Jack was sixteen all over again on the day he died.