The Mercenary Problem

Taylor found an empty room to set up a privacy barrier and a sounding board to Red Tower. These days, when most of their capable disciples and bulwarks were in the field, the Nexus garden at Red Tower was mostly a school. It still had a complement of deadly disciples and fighters, but it was Rector Mika and his assistant Kasryn he needed to talk to. The old rector had been married to a famous disciple in his youth, and the two of them lived through history that Enclave had since purged from its books. Kasryn was a former prelate and ambassador for Enclave, and she was a First Family descendant. It took a while to pull them away from other duties and get them together.

"Is there a place where the Firsts meet regularly?" Taylor asked without preamble.

Kasryn gave him the name he sought. "You're thinking of the Pinnacle. There are maybe a hundred people who are allowed inside, not including staff. They meet once a month, but that's all most people know. It's always been rumored they had some influence over Leadership, but there's never any proof."

"Is there anything else I should know about this Pinnacle place?"

"Plenty," added Mika, "it has a small corps of defenders, all world-class fighters. There are rumors of underground passages and vaults filled with ancient treasure. The staff dose themselves with poison so they'll be immune. The rumors get stranger from there."

"Do either of you know where it is?"

"I'll draw you a map," offered Kasryn. "It's easy enough to find. They're not exactly hiding. But why this sudden interest in the Five?"

"I've had a lot of strange news today. One of the items is Leadership is meeting with the Firsts."

"We've always assumed there was some crossover, so that's not a surprise," said Mika. "Are you going to kill them?"

"If they're ultimately pulling Enclave's strings then they're enemies, and we're definitely going to kill them. Is there any reason we should not?"

After a pause, Mika answered. "Not especially, but I don't see that being enough to get rid of the families. The families are vast enterprises. Each one will appoint someone new to their seat."

"But maybe the new regime will think twice about warring with us. If not …," Taylor left the rest unsaid. Nexus could face a century of struggle with the families until one side destroyed the other, or they came to terms. If the Firsts' successors were more rational than the vow-addled incumbents, maybe there was hope for something better than an eternal feud.

"New topic. I need to know more about the Enclave Hierarchs. What duties do they have, what ceremonies do they participate in, and so on? Write down anything you can remember and send it to me. I'd like to compare their duties today to what they were in the past. If the duties have changed, when and why? I can't imagine Bahram wore a veil and used a voice like Noora does. When did that start?"

"We wouldn't have anything old enough in our library," Mika warned, "this might not be possible."

Taylor was all too aware of the limits of their library. Most of it was hunting records, recent treatises on natural law, and copies of scripture. "Not in our library, but maybe one of the defectors knows something, or there's a friendly priest out there somewhere, holding on to an old book nobody's read in a while. All major temples have extensive libraries of their own. There has to be something out there."

"We could put out a call for old books on church history," Kasryn suggested, "anything Alignment-era and before. If we set up a loan program and offered to copy and return the texts in the name of preserving them, I know some temples would defy Enclave and jump at the chance. If we provided a new copy to them in addition to the original, they'd pay us. Those old boards are getting harder to read."

"That would let us disguise our true reasons," agreed Mika, "and we need the money. We could use disciples to copy them quickly, and prioritize the books Your Holiness wants. Most patrixes won't look twice at the offer: they'll just assume we're in it for the money and the prestige of having a bigger library."

"It sounds like you two have the seeds of a good plan. This isn't urgent, but I need to know as much as possible before the fighting with Kashmar ends."

"You want to march north to finish Enclave." Mika's voice was hopeful.

"I didn't say that, and you didn't hear anything of the sort," he warned them. "Last item. I'm concerned we're not doing enough in Hyskos to keep them occupied and out of the fight. Leila has been stealing slaves and silver left and right, but now there's talk of hiring the Grand Company to help invade us. Do you have any advice, Mika? I know you have a history with the place."

"I do, but Your Holiness won't like it. Runaway slaves and theft are the cost of doing business in Hyskos. The principals steal from each other all the time, so Sister Leila is only making an existing problem a few degrees worse. What scares the debt-holders, more than anything else you could think of, is a rebellion of armed slaves. They'd keep all their armies at home for that, no matter the cost."

"You're right, Mika. I hate it." An armed slave rebellion was exactly the kind of conflict most likely to spiral into the worst kinds of violence. Slaves had valid grievances; their vengeance was guaranteed to boil over.

"On the other hand, the current system is immoral and against the Alignment, and the principals don't mind shedding blood to keep their way of life. It won't ever end without some kind of violence."

"It'll also mire us in Hyskos for the next twenty years," complained Taylor. "We have no plan whatsoever for what happens after a rebellion. But I get your point."

— Thoughtspace —

In a leafy forest that didn't belong in Morufu's Palm, rustled by high breezes, their leaves showing the first hints of autumn colors, a futobel sat in a grassy clearing and watched the sky. The six-legged suid had his trunk in the air, sniffing the wind for signs of truffle and ripe fruit. The constellations here were not Tenobre's but belonged to another world, a world he would never see again. Futobel-Taylor thought he should change it, perhaps, instead of leaving it to constantly remind him of what he'd lost.

Did he want to go back, or did he want to escape what was coming?

This was far from Taylor's first war. In a dozen lives on a dozen worlds he had lived brutal, mainly short, existences. He had dropped onto strange planets from orbit, packed with a hundred other men in ships that were little better than tin cans. He had fought with bows and knives in a primeval forest. He had conjured massively destructive forces with groups of wizards. He had moved battle pieces for the Mi'iri Mind-Hive. He had strangled enemies with his bare hands when all the ammunition was gone. In some of those past lives, he hadn't cared if he lived or died.

In this life, Taylor was afraid.

That was the best and worst of reincarnation: everything done for the first time in a new body was a new experience. The old memories were recalled at arm's length, like a book or movie that couldn't be forgotten. But no matter how vivid the recollections were, every first experience seared brand-new pathways through a young brain. The first time he'd killed someone, in a back alley of Girona's entertainment district, he'd heaved up his dinner afterward. Some of the past Taylors would have walked away like nothing had happened, merged into the crowd, and put casual distance between themselves and the dead man. This Taylor had stumbled out of the district looking for safety and fell into an even deadlier trap.

First kiss, first kill, first grief, first betrayal, first victory, all the firsts burned bright in a young brain still forming. And now he was going to wage a war.

He had won a lot of battles, but he had lost more wars than he had won. That wasn't something Taylor could take the blame for because, in the larger scheme of things, his actions seldom mattered. War was a game played between powerful interests for their own survival, wealth, or self-esteem. Sometimes, the losing executive paid with their own life, but they just as often escaped any serious consequences of failure. Meanwhile, who lived and who died on the field was as much down to chance and circumstance as it was to skill. Even lop-sided battles produced corpses among the victors, an unlucky few. Some battles produced so many dead that the victor became the loser.

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As the lives and wars kept coming, Taylor learned that most wars didn't matter. They were seldom about good versus evil, freedom versus tyranny, or any other noble-sounding cause claimed by their proponents. Winning or losing a war didn't make anything better or worse, not in total. More people with hats lived, while more people without hats died. The Blue King got the gold mine instead of the Red Emperor. Compassionate God was worshiped more than Esoteric God, thanks to the bloody deaths of a few million Esoteric worshipers. Wealth, territory, and populations got shuffled around, but what did it matter in the end? At some point, he had started opting out of wars.

Tenobre was different. Its sun followed a thousand-year cycle, producing raw mana at the apex of the cycle and none at all at the nadir. Plants and animals monstrified, weather patterns changed, and civilizations were crushed. The ancients had used underground cities to survive the cycle, until the machines that supported living underground began breaking down.

That cycle was on the upswing again, but people had forgotten everything. Only a select minority remembered the sun's cycle or underground cities, and they kept their knowledge hidden because of Enclave. The supposed spiritual protectors of the world spent the last hundred and fifty years erasing history. They called scientific knowledge heresy and forbade all forms of magic not their own. Humans were in decline, and Enclave was trying to hide it. There could be no progress toward a survivable future while Enclave was in it.

Taylor didn't care if the Five Families ran the church for their own benefit or if they lied to the world. It didn't matter if they were hypocritical and backward. It was of no concern to him if they believed their own lies. None of that mattered to him because Taylor had other options. He could make a fine living doing something else besides working as a practitioner. He could make his own magic systems. He could even let himself be summoned away to another world.

What Taylor did care about, what mattered most about Enclave, was they were going to get the entire world killed. Enclave had to perish, which meant he had to find and destroy their origin. Even if they didn't know they had an origin, a likely scenario given how ignorant they were of everything spirit-related, Taylor couldn't image it would be as easy as walking into Enclave with a hammer and smashing things. Bahram would have built defenses into his home base, something that would last for generations. Getting the Shadow Council to send all their practitioners to him was a major step in the right direction because the last thing Taylor wanted to do was fight Enclave disciples on their home ground. As Enclave would soon discover, it was better not to face an enemy where they were strongest.

Without any disciples, Enclave couldn't create new practitioners. Without an origin, they might even lose the few practitioners they had left. The remaining Vows would, hopefully, come undone. Without practitioners or an origin, Enclave could only exist as a church abandoned by Olyon in favor of Nexus. Killing the Firsts wasn't necessary, at least not in the near term, but they were enemies. If there weren't consequences for attacking Nexus, they or their heirs might be quick to try again. Taylor wouldn't be surprised if he had to keep killing off firsts until they got a batch rational enough to realize that opposing Nexus was a quick way to die.

A presence accepted Taylor's invitation and steeped softly into his private forest. A giant four-armed woman made of obsidian stood near him, her loins and chest wrapped in gold cloth.

"That's a brooding look," said Obsidian-Ma.

"That would be from all the brooding," Even the four stars that hovered between Futobel-Taylor's antlers seemed dim.

"Your Holiness called me earlier than the others, so something must be on your mind." The giant sat cross-legged on the ground, which set her only a meter taller than the futobel. "Out with it."

"I'm brooding about the kind of person this war will turn me into. But that's not why I called you here. There's news from the Quiet Room." Aside from the listeners who worked there, only Taylor and Ma'Tocha knew what the special room was for. But Ma'Tocha was practicing maneuvers outside the city, hours away by fast appalon, and wouldn't have access to the transcripts for days.

When Taylor finished reciting the most important discoveries, the first question Obsidian-Ma asked was, "Are you going to kill the Firsts?"

"Mika asked the same thing."

"So you told him about the Quiet Room?" she asked, surprised.

"No," he barked, "I just told him I received word Leadership allegedly met with them. But he jumped to the same ending you did. Why the intense animosity? It's not as if anyone believes the families are completely hands-off with Enclave."

"Because they're vile," spat Obsidian-Ma, "and pollute everything they touch. Mobeen felt the same way. I know Garsharp and Lucia did, too. Unity City puts on a good front but, for most people, there's no reward for merit. Patronage is the only thing that matters. You were only a tourist. If you lived there for a while, you'd see how corrupt the place is. Most working disciples turned mendicant to get out of the city and away from the families."

"I doubt killing the Firsts will change Unity City — the families will just appoint new ones. The most we can hope for is they'll choose a group who isn't stupidly inclined to pick fights with us."

"If the new ones give you trouble, you can kill them again," offered Obsidian-Ma with a little too much anticipation.

"I thought so too," he agreed, "and that's when the brooding started."

"You can let your underlings handle these matters in your name, so you don't have to worry about it. Your hands would be cleaner that way."

Futobel-Taylor chuckled through his trunk several times in short blasts. "Then I'd be no better than Noora. I prefer brooding and self-knowledge over isolation and ignorance."

Other disciples began to arrive in their usual avatars. Marble-Edos, Bird-Souzanne, Arkto-Mataba, Antilope-Leila, Thalia-Thalia (she looked just like herself), and the other cadre leaders. What spears were to a maul, cadre leaders were to the hierarch. Each leader commanded two more combat-capable disciples and nine bulwarks, and some had specialized healers or other support staff depending on their mission. These were the people who rode into the wilderness to put their hands on a problem and solve it. Taylor envied them.

Nexus had thirty-six fully qualified disciples in the field in twelve cadres. That was as many disciples as in all of Enclave, back before they started losing so many. First, they lost some to Darkmaw; then they purged any who wouldn't read Vow of Obedience; then they lost more trying to kill Taylor. None of Enclave's disciples had recent field experience that he knew of. In addition to the three dozen, Nexus had a body of support disciples who specialized in roles like healing and building. Many of them were defectors from Enclave, healers who were mainly interested in access to higher-level healing prayers. They didn't care which church they worked for; they cared about the Work, and that was fine with Taylor.

"We've confirmed Leadership has been meeting with liaisons from the mercenary guilds, and we've heard a very large transaction has been authorized." Taylor had Ma'Tocha tell the lie because she was better at it than he was. "The two events could be unrelated, but … "

"They're hiring the Hyskos Grand Company," Antilope-Leila finished, as they'd hoped. News of the meetings could be put down to watchers on the street, and Enclave grounds were rife with rumors. Taylor felt a twinge of conscience at deceiving his former teacher, but nobody could betray what they didn't know.

A shifting unease fell over the gathered avatars. The Grand Company was comprised of professional soldiers, and there were fifty thousand of them. Their entry into the conflict was not a favorable development for Nexus.

Arkto-Mataba scratched his languid hide. "I don't suppose we can pay more than Enclave. You can bet your sharpest claw the Families are behind this. They've backed Kashmari invasions before now, but they never paid for mercenaries. I wonder what could be motivating them." He cast a sly ursine eye in Taylor's direction.

"What would happen if we attacked them now," asked Marble-Edos, "before they're ready to march?"

Obsidian-Ma shook her head. For some reason, that small motion required her to flex the muscles in all four arms. "That would mean assaulting their bases, which is a hard job. That's where their families live, and they'll protect those places down to the last soldier."

"We can make it too expensive for Enclave to hire all of them," said the excited Antilope-Leila. "I have a network of hundreds of former slaves, and they want to fight. With another cadre, we could attack several places at once, whenever we want. Every principal will want to hire the Grand Company. Enclave might get a token force, but they won't be able to buy most of them. You should be able to handle a small force of them in the desert."

"They'll fight as well as Kashmar's elite," added Marble-Edos, "but they won't fight as hard. Kashmar fights for their god-appointed Tyrant, but the Company fights for money. If you make it too expensive for them, they'll turn back. Mobeen used to say mercenaries are useful when winning but turn with battle's tide."

Futobel-Taylor glowed with purpose. "Before I authorize what will doubtless be a bloodbath followed by years of instability, I need a few things. There must be rules of conduct, and the fighters must understand there will be severe punishments for breaking them. Nexus can't be a party to atrocities." The specific list was known well enough it didn't need to be said out loud. "We also need a plan for what happens with freed territory."

"I don't think we should free any territory," Antilope-Leila wobbled her head, "not while we're fighting Kashmar at the same time. Ground taken is ground we must protect, but our best asset is mobility. For now, our goal is to cause mayhem and start a bidding war for the Grand Company. As long as we avoid causing too many deaths among the Grand Company, they'll be happy to take the principals' coin until it runs out — especially if we make it clear that setting foot in the desert means their deaths. Taking the First Families' coin becomes too expensive, then. They'll make the rational choice."

Obsidian-Ma grinned. "So, we only attack the lands that haven't hired the Grand Company to guard them. We worry about finishing off the slavers after we've settled things with Kashmar and Enclave. That gives us time to consider Hyskos's future."

"Then we can defer that problem, but it's an inevitable one. It can't be ignored," added Futobel-Taylor. "For now, hostilities with Hyskos have to start soon. They need to feel the threat before the Grand Company receives orders from Unity City. There's no bidding war if they're already under contract."

"You may leave the detailed planning to us, Your Holiness," said Arkto-Mataba. "We'll have a plan for you to review by mid-morning."