Listening Post

The message center was adjacent to the map room, within the heavily guarded intelligence section on the second floor of Taylor's command headquarters. Before diving into whatever news had stirred up the analysts, he poked his head inside the communications center. Most of the operators were idle, reading or copying reports. Each had headphones, an attached microphone, and a long cord tucked into their belts. Informants all over Tenobre had links, disguised as earcuffs, they could use to talk to operators and pass on potentially useful news. The light for that informant would turn on, and an operator would plug their cord into the hole underneath and talk to them. Everything got written down.

It was a primitive system, but it was easy to build. The main problem was the space requirements, which grew linearly with the number of informants. One more informant required one more module. It was fine for the moment, but Tenobre wouldn't have a true communication system until the Black Sanctuary invented a switching system.

From the operators' relaxed attitude, the excitement wasn't coming from routine communications. It was all public information, anyway. Little of what was gathered here would be considered sensitive by anyone, but Nexus received timely information on what the Enclave prelates were preaching, large troop movements, the state of markets in every realm, and rumors of monsters. In a world where the speed of information was measured in gurantor-days, immediate news was a strategic advantage. The market information alone could be worth tons of gold in arbitrage. Any monarch or executive in Tenobre would kill to have something like it.

Taylor topped off the large spirit gem that kept the place running and pressed on to the message center, where all the news was collated into a picture of Tenobre. Calique tablas excelled at the work, and the gardens of Saphir and Running Phlox had loaned him their best. They sifted and sorted information with efficiency, kept a running account of how things stood in the world, and filed everything away for future reference. Other gardens would have been glad to loan him their tablas, but many were either rebuilding from Darkmaw's ravages or preparing for further devastation that would accompany a Kashmari invasion.

He found two tablas in attendance, eyeing a stack of papers held by Sadio, a defected Enclave healer from Gallia. Sadio and a few others had been chosen for duty in the Quiet Room for their exceptional transcription skills.

"We have something," she said, and her eyes flashed to the tablas.

"Give us the room," Taylor told them, and the tablas left obediently. Only a handful of people were allowed in the message center, and they were the only ones who knew about the Quiet Room's existence. Of everyone allowed to enter the message center, only six could enter the mysterious room beyond, sealed with Sanctuary, or knew what went on inside. To most message center workers, the Quiet room was a darkened doorway they couldn't pass through.

"Start here. It's not the beginning, but it's the most important." Sadio peeled off the bottom half of her stack and put it on the table for Taylor to read. As he flipped through the pages, Taylor couldn't believe his astounding stroke of good luck. Sure, a lot of the news was bad news, even terrible, but the fact he had it was incredible.

"The Shadow Council is real," Taylor said in wonder, "and we have ears inside the room. How did this happen?"

"Short version? When Leadership got the shield, they took it to the Shadow Council to convince them how serious their situation was. There's a lot more to it, but it's best if you read for yourself."

An arm appeared from the sealed chamber, holding a new sheaf of papers. Sadio took them, and the arm withdrew. "They're still meeting. Do you want to listen in?"

A quirk of Speak on the Wind was a practitioner could either send a message or have two-way communication, but they couldn't just listen. When Taylor crafted his indestructible manifesto, he hid a sigil inside that let the shield be targeted with the messaging prayer. An identical sigil, cut from the same section of Darkmaw's shell, graced a soundingboard inside the Quiet Room. Every surface of the room was covered in sound-dampening material: thin felt on the table and three chairs, thick gurantor felt on the walls and ceiling, and softened coir matting on the floor. A paper banner hung from the wall with "Silence Is Golden" inked in thick black letters. There was no noise in the Quiet Room except what came through the soundingboard.

Stolen novel; please report.

A pair of tablas were recording the Firsts' conversation, a duplicate effort but worth it. They made no sound of their own as they brushed words onto paper in tiny quick strokes. Someone had already brought an extra supply of paper and prepared ink so they wouldn't run out. All they had to do was keep up with the conversation.

> Phrenos: Moldonia will want a disciple in exchange for weapons. They claim there's a sickness in Drumura and their healers can't keep up.

>

> First Fortuna: Offer them more healers. You can spare them. We'll provide the necessary gold to make up the difference.

>

> First Namalous: This will put a strain on our usual activities. Perhaps it's time to release a portion of our gem reserves.

>

> First Donglar: The prices are high enough. I'd like to see them converted into gold in my lifetime, instead of sitting in a Kashpam vault.

>

> First Korolo: There is no need to hurry. The troubles in Hyskos won't abate any time soon, and Nexus won't find anything in the Calique's dead mines no matter how hard they try. Give it a few more weeks, and then start the process of releasing gems from storage. That gives us ample time to collect our gold before yearly payouts.

Taylor took a full copy of everything recorded so far and retreated to the message center to read, his head spinning. Until now, everything they had heard through the Manifesto Shield had been innocuous. They entrusted it to a renowned merchant who had connections to Enclave, and for two weeks the Quiet Room was treated to the sounds of a moving gurantor train, the caravaners' conversation, people snoring or, a few times, having sex. Everything changed once the shield arrived in Enclave and the secrets came spilling out.

The Vow, the Mandates, the Hierarch's ignorance, the Shadow Council, all of it together painted a new picture for Taylor. He had spent a week at Enclave the previous winter, and he had kept his nose out of Leadership's business. Maybe he should have stayed longer and looked harder. The papers kept coming for another hour. At most, he'd hoped to capture one conversation from Leadership. Now he had something much more valuable.

He needed to talk to Mika and Kasryn. They knew Enclave better than anyone else in Nexus, and Kasryn had been Prelate of Lavradio at one point. They might be able to answer some of his new questions. And, he needed to meet with his top disciples. The news about emptying Enclave to attack him was a welcome development, but the second army of mercenaries wasn't.

He called out to have someone arrange the meetings he needed, only to realize he was alone. His guards weren't allowed inside, he had sent the tablas away, and Sadio had returned to the Quiet Room. Taylor slipped inside long enough to return the papers and give a silent but heartfelt thanks for their work.

We barely did anything, signed Sadio.

But you did it well when it mattered most, Taylor signed back. You look worried.

All the disciples, and another army.

Both scribes were watching their conversation. The Firsts were done with their meeting, and the room was back in waiting mode. The sound of sweeping and picking up came from the soundingboard, as servants removed rubble and swept up debris.

I planned for the disciples, he assured them, and we'll deal with these mercenaries, too. You'll see. Keep doing this, and I will use all of it.

He praised them again and left them to their work. When he let the analysts reclaim the message center, they entered with new stacks of work: evening reports newly arrived from all over Tenobre.

"I'm interested in news from Moldonia today," he told them, "especially Drumura."

"We don't have many sources in Moldonia," said one, "mostly transient merchants. It hasn't been a priority."

"That's fine, just copy me on everything we get and set aside all the Moldonia reports for the last two weeks. They shouldn't take long to read if there's so few of them."

"Pasha, if you could tell us what you're looking for, we could find it for you."

The tablas were getting defensive about their work. They were all women who'd spent decades tabulating things and discerning future dangers from small facts. Nobody liked having their work doubted by outsiders who didn't understand their job, and having a man question them (a young one at that) went against their culture. Taylor looked to the huge slate board where they kept a running status of Tenobre. He was probably the best-informed executive in the world, but Moldonia's space was practically empty, and the little that was written amounted to 'everything is normal'.

"I don't know exactly what I'm looking for. If it was something I could describe, you would have found it already. Reassess the reports if you like, but I still need to see them."

More than anything right now, he needed a plan for those mercenaries.