It had only been half a week since Ashtante had moved into Babylon. The chaos that that had caused was still showing widespread effects. With the wholehearted efforts of Vyra and the tower mages, they had barely managed to keep production and progress from skidding to a halt. Dozens of earth mages had been taken away from their research to mass produce golems. Durghan’s hunting party had been reassigned to the butchery as extra labor, and they were mass producing low level magic stones and kobold meat there. The War Orc guards had been coaxed into assisting the goblin farmers, and several Fomor slaves had been reassigned there as well.
Their need for food had skyrocketed, and it was going to continue to grow over the next couple of months. Fiara had come through with a hypothetical spell circle for an earth magic to increase the rate of food growth, and Vyra had tested it right away on a small section of farmland. The result was that the already fast-growing food had more than doubled its growth rate. It sapped the soil of nutrients just as fast though. If they didn’t have the Orc fertilizer, their fields would have become barren in less than a year.
Somehow, everybody had food to eat, golems were steadily being produced to help decrease the burden of labor, and the majority of people working skilled crafts had been able to continue their work.
The main thing that worried Vyra was that the development of their government system had crawled to a stop with her attention focused elsewhere. Her mother and father had kept their skeleton of a legislature functioning without her, thankfully.
This is exactly like a natural disaster, the Orc Lord mused.
And it was with this terrible timing that the Andorin King’s shadow returned.
She met him at the gate, heard his message, folded her arms, and nodded.
“So your king has accepted. Good. We will have the materials ready when you return here on your first day of the week.” Vyra quirked her eyebrow slightly. “What day is it currently for you?”
“Today is actually also the first day of the week, so I will return in six days with your spices.”
The Orc Lord nodded and frowned while she shifted around the golem labor assignments again in her head. Some would have to be put on mining duty soon. The shadow, meanwhile, nodded to the city behind her.
“It seems a bit more hectic in there than the last time I was here. Did something happen?”
Vyra bit her tongue to keep herself from honestly complaining.
“It’s nothing that will affect our deal, but I am very busy. Thank you for delivering the message, shadow. You may return now.”
“Of course.” The shadow bowed and vanished on the spot, and Vyra returned to her duties.
***
The shadow watched the Queen Orc return with complex feelings. Did she really expect him to leave just because he was dismissed? He, a shadow, leave without even investigating the obvious disturbance? He was right in his earlier assessment of her: she was honest and didn’t think like someone in the intelligence business.
Avoiding the tiger golems just in case, the shadow climbed up the outside of the orihalcum wall. His body was a little sluggish today for whatever reason, but it was still a task he could do with ease. When he rounded the top, he was momentarily startled as his stealth skill suddenly stopped working, but he was well-trained and managed to reactivate it before any of the guards spotted him. There was some kind of anti-magic barrier over the top. That was good to know.
The shadow climbed back down the other side of the wall and took a casual, unseen stroll through the settlement. One of the first things he noticed was the surprising number of golems. They were hauling things through the streets, weaving cloth, harvesting crops. It looked like there were more golems than people in some places. The shadow knew there had been more living creatures around the last time he was here.
So where did everybody go?
He tried looking inside one of the buildings and hit the jackpot immediately. A female Orc was nursing a litter of four children inside. There was a similar scene in the next house, and the next house. All of the children looked like newborns.
In his reading the past couple of days, the shadow had learned the interesting fact that Orcs kept all of their mating activities to a very specific time of year, so the children were also all born around the same time. That time must have just recently come to pass.
But, as expected of pig-like monsters, they had plenty of piglets at a time, huh?
The shadow’s main question was answered, but while he was here, he thought of looking around a little more. He’d seen a tall tower near the castle the last time he was here; maybe that would prove interesting.
He turned to walk to it and hesitated when a sudden breeze kicked up the dust around him. He shielded his eyes while it passed, then he felt a large hand clamp down on his shoulder.
“I said I was busy, shadow. I can’t spare more time to entertain you.”
A tremmor of fear traveled up the shadow’s spine. It had been a long time since anyone had seen through his stealth, and he hadn’t thought the Orc Lord had the ability to do so either. She certainly hadn’t expressed that power before.
It had also been a long time since he was touched so intimately by another person. He might have lost his resistance to it over the years, since it made him a little flustered internally.
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“Ah, curiosity,” he chuckled, “Occupational hazard. Sorry, I’ll leave.”
He twisted his body expertly to slip out of the giant’s grip. The shadow used that split second of confusion to read the Queen Orc’s face, and came to a quick conclusion.
No, she can’t see me.
Somehow, she had suspected he was still around, perhaps even known his general location, but that dust cloud earlier had been made specifically to pinpoint his exact location.
The shadow increased his movement speed with his skills and zipped over the wall as fast as he could manage. He climbed a tall tree outside, fished out a magic tool to help him see farther, and watched the Orc Lord.
She stayed in that spot for a minute, focusing on something internal, and then returned to her own business. The shadow had been right: she had some way to know if he was in the city or not—or to tell his location in general—and it was an active skill. If he waited until everyone was asleep and snuck in for a peek then, he should be able to go completely unnoticed.
The shadow suspected he was overstaying his welcome a little and that he should probably retreat for today, but his curiosity was piqued. Something exceptional was hiding in those walls—he could feel it.
***
After the sun had long since set and all but the golems and guards were sleeping, the shadow once again climbed over the wall. He snuck right behind a War Orc guard without them even noticing the moment his stealth deactivated. The shadow sat on the top of the wall for a minute, waiting to see if the Orc Lord would come rushing out of her palace. She didn’t. She was asleep just like everybody else.
Satisfied, he climbed down the inside of the wall and beelined for that tall tower near the castle. There was certainly something in there these monsters didn’t want him to see.
He got close enough to see the entrance to the tower and then abruptly skidded to a stop. There weren’t any obstacles, just a feeling. A strong feeling that he ought to be somewhere else. The shadow turned his head and saw a well-ordered building that could only be a church. He walked toward it, guided only by that unfounded feeling in his gut, and nearly gasped aloud.
Standing proud and tall in the center of the room was a statue of Ashtante. Not a replica—a real, divinely manifested statue. The air was harmonizing with the goddess’s divine power, and the shadow was paralyzed by it.
“Why is this… here?” he murmured weakly.
Immediately, the earth cracked and clamped his feet to the floor, and he felt something metal and sharp ever so gently touching the back of his head.
“I knew you’d come, but, well, thanks for revealing yourself.”
The shadow didn’t even have the heart to chuckle at his mistake. He just dropped his stealth skill and looked over his shoulder at the Orc Lord.
“Why is she here?”
***
Vyra grinned dangerously and pressed into the shadow’s skull a little harder. “You will answer my question first: are you really King Andorin’s Shadow?”
Vyra has thought something was off about the shadow when they parted earlier that day. He seemed curious about their internal situation, and she thought he might try to snoop a little. On a whim, she’d checked her city’s population.
Imagine how surprised she’d been to see an extra beast man present, and no extra humans.
And the beastman she’d caught on his way to investigate the temple was “King Andorin’s Shadow.”
Now that he’d tried again to investigate the matter of their missing god, he wasn’t going to get to leave unless he answered very carefully.
“I am,” he answered shamelessly.
“Really? You, a beastman, are a spy for the king of a human nation?”
“And you, a monster, have a genuine temple to my ancestor goddess,” he shot back. “Sorry, but I answered your question, so please answer mine.”
Before doing so, Vyra used a quick appraisal on him. For a moment, her eyes widened, then she understood a great many things at once. Things she couldn’t have learned from Surumi, who was a Babylonian citizen at the moment Ashtante transferred her patronage.
“You aren’t in the habit of checking your status, are you?” Vyra suggested, a hint of bitter sympathy in her voice.
The shadow’s face was hidden, but she could see his magic power twist in shock.
“Blame the current politics of your motherland,” The Orc Lord said. “She came here for refuge.”
The shadow clenched his fists. “Elios and the Elves?”
“As expected of a shadow, you at least know that much about the situation.” As something like holding out an olive branch, Vyra lowered the tip of her weapon. “In short, things are messy right now. We’re trying to keep this matter quiet until we know how to go about dealing with it. It’s a given that people will realize Ashtante has left, but—as you should realize yourself—there’s no way to tell she’s ended up here without getting close.”
The intensity in the air kicked up once again.
“Now then, about the arrangement we’d made.”
The shadow smiled bitterly. “Ah, that can go uninterrupted. No worries.”
“Really?” Vyra tilted her head skeptically.
“In the first place, even the king never knew I was a beastman, so nobody will know I’ve become a monster either. I’m not in any danger of losing my position.”
She smiled, “How convenient. Well, I’ll know in a second if you were lying at all.”
She activated her Domain and was mildly surprised when he didn’t attack her.
“Now, tell me honestly: were you lying to me earlier?”
“No, that was pretty much all the truth.”
“Fine. In that case, I order you not to tell people about Ashtante being here, or about this power of mine.”
“But I can still say other things?”
“You’re a spy,” she rolled her three eyes. “It would be suspicious if you didn’t report anything. Also,” she threw him an domineering look, “starting now, I am the person you truly serve.”
She released her Domain and freed the shadow’s feet.
“You are to keep your true allegiance a secret and continue to pretend to serve King Andorin.”
“Yes, my Lord,” the shadow bowed. “In that case, I’d better return before he starts to worry where I am.”
“Before you leave, remove your mask. I would see the face of my shadow.”
There was still some part of Vyra that was suspicious. If any mortal had the ability to resist her domination and pretend they hadn’t, it would be a spy like this. She wanted to test him a little more before just letting him leave with dangerous information.
The shadow hesitated. It seemed like a difficult choice. Finally, he nodded and reached up to pull off the dark covering. Underneath was a pale, well-ordered, heart-shaped face; dark, angular eyes; fluffy black hair, and cat ears.
”And your name?”
The shadow bit his lip, frowning. “My Lord,” he pleaded. Vyra continued watching him with a look of authority, and he bent. “My name is Yui Inari.”
She nodded. “Good. You may return to your duties.”
She was satisfied now that the shadow saw her as his master. As the Orc Lord returned to her room to sleep, she considered all the things she could accomplish with a spy firmly planted in the heart of Andorin Kingdom.