Year E4319—Chillsturn 20th
(1 Year Ago)
Silence was Rainant Kells’ best friend. Though he’d been a recruiter for the Dark Spawn, that too was a quiet task—relying more on his ears than his tongue. He knew each struggle, each burning motivation, behind every refugee living in Imbral’s southern quarter, thanks to his patience and silence. His capture eight weeks ago had come at one of few moments he’d broken that silence.
Now, locked in the chains of a cage of a windswept dungeon, silence was again his only friend.
He had been silent each time the officer had yanked him from his quarters and strapped him into a finger press. Silence had not been the officer’s friend—made clear through Kells’ firmly gritted teeth, which held through each ignored question. What the officer hadn’t realized was that, during his ‘interviews’ as he had called them, Kells much preferred the moments of pain. They allowed him to feel and focus his mind on a goal. The periods of listening achingly to the officer’s constant droning in the bloated Imperial tongue were the real torture.
We know you provided meeting houses for the Dark Spawn. Where is the next one? Talk. Talk! Just talk, damn you! Dammit.
The officer, worn by his efforts, now believed time to be the key to breaking him. He was brought no food, and left to rot. Kells had protested heavily and begged against the punishment, to further encourage them to leave him in his new home. Here, where his captors only took the time to tighten the chains as his arms grew thinner.
The days blended. Kells stopped himself from observing the tally marks scratched by other prisoners each time they caught the faint glint of the sol crossing the Umbra. They may punish themselves by witnessing the passing of their brief lives, but time would not be his prisoner, for as long as the silence held, he was free within his own mind. Like as not, the captors would conclude their failures by allowing his eventual expiration—this he had accepted. Unlike the Department that had taken him prisoner, he was at peace.
One night, the silence broke.
“Let me GO! You-!...You can’t do this!!”
The voice belonged to a middle-aged woman. Stranger, the voice was speaking Imperial.
“You haven’t read my rights—you're no Inquisitors, you’re no soldiers-…! Who are you all?” she shouted, her indignance betraying the depth of her situation.
Kells kept his head locked, not wishing to show interest, but couldn’t deny curiosity. He at last caught sight of their arrival as she was introduced to his block, pushed ahead by a single black-hooded jailor bearing a savage mace. Kells imagined that if she’d known what awaited her, she might have sought escape more desperately. Her dress, clean as though fresh-bought from the Imbral markets, bore not a single scratch.
The excessive number of chains strapped to her wrists and ankles weighed her down, forcing her into a hunch. Her posture made her into an object of voyeuristic humiliation for the black-hooded jailor behind her.
The newcomer looked over the cell block—at the dried bloodstains and bare hay floors that Kells had become affectionately familiar with over the weeks—and she screamed.
“Nono-…PLEASE—NO!! Oh Mhira, oh saints-”
“DID I SAY STOP??”
The jailor grabbed at her hair by the roots, and yanked her forward, met by further protest and screams.
The cell next to Kells had been empty for weeks. Kells had never bothered to learn the name of its former occupant—only given a silent prayer for his soul when he had failed to return that evening. The jailor threw open the uncleaned cell, and tossed his prey into the haystack that his old neighbor had oft soiled after an evening’s torture.
“Wait!....Wait, just-…Th-The chains!! Sir, you HAVE to at least take the chains off!!” pleaded the prisoner. She spoke hesitantly, unsure whether to demand or plead for her request to have effect—still believing she held some power here.
The jailor stopped, and exhaled audibly enough to be heard over the woman’s shrill rebukes. He attempted—and failed—to catch Kells’ gaze, as though commiserating: At least your kind shuts up.
He reopened the cell, and withdrew his mace.
The new prisoner spent her first night huddled in the corner of her cell, wincing in pain at the jailor’s strike, and shrieking at regular intervals at her situation—as though every few minutes, she was shocked to find she had not woken from her nightmare. A frantic stream of panicked murmurs fell from her mouth every few hours.
“I couldn’t trust them…I knew it, I knew…I couldn’t have trusted them…!!”
Kells almost took some pity on her as she took in the horrifying state of the cells in the block. His sympathy faded when he came to realize the object of the woman’s terrors was not the brutal actions of her jailor, or her surroundings, but the complexion of her cellmates. Kells grunted in disgust. Only a generous individual would attribute such fears to their unfed appearance—rather than their skin color. He knew how Imbralites acted around klyskins.
“…said…I couldn’t…trust…but I still…!...Now I’m all…it’s all wasted…”
The next morning, Kells gained some relief from her muttering. The newcomer was brought to the interview room—a punishment Kells was spared from now that the interrogators saw him as a waste of time. When she came back each time, she was steadily rewarded for her cooperation, and released from the chains on her ankles, then her wrists. Kells realized, with some morbid humor, that in the daytime hours between each of her exchanges, he’d remained completely motionless. Someday she may end up just like him.
Kells learned that the snowskin’s name was Janice Friederick—and that she was likely little more than a housewife. As the days passed, she would demand a lawyer; or politely beg for information on the whereabouts of her husband. Time passed, and she swallowed obedience even as her regally white outfit became tarnished and torn. By the fourth day, she was responding to the guard’s orders without a word. But on that day, she had a visitor.
Kells knew the sound of the guard’s steps, accompanied by the jangle of their keys, by heart. The smooth clack of the dress shoes outside didn’t seem like any uniform attire, but it also withheld the staggering, sliding shuffle common of new prisoners, not to mention the loud sound of clanking chains. Kells grew curious—enough to finally tilt his atrophied limbs to observe the source.
His limbs creaked out of his meditative, resigned stance as he tilted his view past Janice’s cell. The gentle sound of conversation came from the steps.
“Whatever you like, pal,” huffed the jailor. “But I’m keeping an eye on you two the entire time.”
Through the cell block window, there was a civilian draped in a black suit, complete with a colorful tie. Janice’s attire hadn’t even been as spotless on her arrival.
“I’m afraid that won’t be the case,” replied the man in the suit, momentarily unnerved by the unsanitary conditions about him. “The Lawyers’ Guild is quite firm about the repercussions of invasion of Attorney-Client privileges. She is an Imperial Citizen and has her rights.”
The guardsman approached his guest, sneering his nose upward at him.
“She’s suspected of collaborating wi-”
“Suspected?” snapped the lawyer. “I fail to see how that changes the law.”
His stance had barely shifted against his invasion of privacy. He gently panned his hand out to Kells’ neighbor as he continued, in a droning, dismissive voice.
“Now, I will be speaking with my client, Sergeant. If you fail to remove yourself from the premises, that privacy violation would be grounds for dismissal even of a plain confession. That motion would go to your name and not your facility. I would advise you that my presence here signifies your cooperation is currently expected by your superiors.”
Kells raised an eyebrow halfway. It was pleasantly unexpected to see anyone disempower the guardsmen that had ruled his torturous existence for the past several months, even if it was just by words.
With some reluctance, the jailor opened the block door, and motioned towards Janice’s cell. The lawyer stepped in, momentarily taken aback by the state of the cellar. He offered a glare of dismissal to the jailor, who departed with a cluck of his tongue. The lawyer finally dropped his air of dignity as he rushed to his client’s cell.
“Miss Friedrick. Michel Hansford, legal retainer. Are you hurt? How are you doing?” he asked.
“Legal…Y-You’re a lawyer!?” gasped Janice, still hesitant to believe any sign of hope.
“An old representative of your husband. I-“
“Get me OUT of here!!” shouted Janice, abruptly. “Get me out right now!! This place is HELL!!”
“M-Miss Friederick. Stay calm. It’s not so simple. First, I need to know; Are you hurt? How are you doing?”
“How the...fffuck do you think I’m doing??” replied Janice. “They took me from my home—put a bag over my head! They never even read me any charges...!!”
Kells closed his eyes, hoping to appear asleep—convince the two of them that their conversation was private. He never knew when some detail may become critical to himself.
“I know, miss. I know,” replied her lawyer empathetically.
“This...can’t be legal!! None of this can be-”
The lawyer gently shushed her.
“That’s exactly why I’m here, miss. I’ll try to be expedient. I knew your husband, and I’d be happy to represent you. I’ve just been speaking with the commander in charge here. Legally, she has no grounds to hold you here—but...getting the motion to release you through to a judge’s signature could take a long time.”
“What...? E-Even though they haven’t charged me...?”
“...I’ve been negotiating. I may be able to get you out of here sooner. But...they’d need you to sign something. It’s a…note of allegiance. Saying that you can never speak to anyone of this facility, or you’d be facing treason against the Emperor.”
“...Treason...? A-after...?”
Friedrick backed away, slumping against the back wall of her cell.
“I haven’t even gotten a change of clothes...they’re treating me like dirt—as badly as those immigrants...! And you want me to-?”
“...I’m just giving you options, ma’am. I know how that must make you feel.”
With a surge of interest, the middle-aged woman rushed back to the bars, the fury from her first day returning.
“...My husband!...Have you found him?? Have they taken him too?”
The lawyer hung his head.
“I’m sorry, miss. They’ve only dismissed my questions about him thus far.”
“He’s just a doctor...! A pathologist! He was just looking into the causes behind the Hellpox! ...What reason would they have to-…?"
Kells raised his eyebrow at the last statement—about the Hellpox. Gently, he returned to his slumber, his ears finely attuned.
It had always been a constant rumor—that the Empire had in some way engineered the contagion of decades past, cleaning its own hands of their intent to wipe out the Halehearth's undesired immigrant population. If some evidence of it existed…
“Ma’am...” continued the lawyer. “They have that agreement ready. We fight this...and I don’t even know for sure if I’d ever be able to get you out of here.”
“I...” stammered Friedrick. “I want to fight what these people have done...but I can’t do anything from in here...”
The lawyer shrugged. “...These are powerful enemies, ma’am. Just getting the chance to live out your life...you may have to consider if it’s what he wanted for you.”
“...Fine,” she relented. “Please, I’ll...sign their damn papers. Just...”
The lawyer bowed.
“Understood, Miss. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve negotiated your release.”
The lawyer gingerly stepped back, and tapped on the door leading out of the cell block. The door swung shut with a collapsing thud.
Miss Friedrick began pacing, chewing on her thumbnail, muttering out loud to herself with an audible quiver in her voice.
“...could do-…..newspapers...? But I don’t.....I-….what if....hire Adventurers...from the guild.....”
Kells inhaled graciously, clearing his throat and vocal cords from months of silence.
“The Adventurer’s Guild would report your contract directly to the Emperor,” he announced. “We’d be neighbors again within the week.”
Friedrick, having heard naught from him in her entire stay, jumped back in fright. It was the first time she’d heard his voice, and the first time he’d spoken in weeks long before her arrival. His vocal cords strained to recall the process.
“Don’t…! D-Don’t talk to me, J’halan!” she stammered.
“Mmm,” Kells rolled his eyes. “What makes you think I’m J’halan? The skin? My treatment as though I’m last night’s soil? You’re speaking from the same pit, milady.”
“You...you speak Imperial?”
“I am an Imperial, miss. As are you.”
The newcomer settled her guard and shied her gaze off to the wall, no doubt ashamed of her colored remarks.
“Do you know who these people are...?”
Kells pondered simply leaving the clueless prisoner to figure things out as she went. He decided to be blunt, at the very least to spare himself hearing her muttering.
“It's as your lawyer friend described to you. These are not people you can fight, Janice Friederick. Not alone.”
“...Tell me who they are!!” she demanded.
Kells rolled an eyeball at her, its shine piercing her shy exterior.
“Do you truly want to know, Miss...?” he dared.
Friedrick opened her mouth to reply, but found herself faltering, and swallowed. After a lengthy pause, Kells continued regardless.
“Have you ever heard of an organization called the Department of Knowledge?” Kells continued.
“W-what is that...a library system...?”
Kells almost chuckled. Almost. A quick laugh might have been nice. The distance this poor woman had from his compatriot’s war on the empire was perhaps far greater than he’d realized. Maybe she deserved better.
“The Halen Empire has kept its place in the Frostscape by ruling all forms of combat. Now, they’re trying to run wars a new way, and it’s their worst kept secret. Information warfare. Propaganda, misinformation, spies, interrogation...not to mention torture and fear tactics. They even found a lieutenant of the old secret police to run it.”
“Secret...police?”
That one brought a laugh. However, given the state of Kells’ lungs, it came out as more of a pained wheeze. It seemed the sheltered elite of the capital still treated such topics as mere rumors and fairy tales.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Word of advice, young woman. If, before your release, they decide you are to be questioned by Commander Wysp...you should start searching for fast ways of ending your own life. Some fates are worse than death.”
The confused woman recoiled in fear.
“I...I’ve never heard-…This is...” she sputtered . “But what does any of this have to do with me? My husband...? I only came to the Steel Legionnaires because he was missing, and they...!”
Kells sighed in sympathy, hanging his head.
“Ah...a shame. If they came for you separately, it meant they made a mistake. You had a chance to get away—leave your home, change your name. I...suppose you couldn’t have known any better. Had my friends and I learned of his abduction first, we might have sought you out and protected you.”
“Friends...?” repeated Friedrick to him, breathlessly. She crawled closer to his cell, wrapping her hands around his bars. “Do...do people know you’re in here?? Who are you talking about?”
Kells gazed upward, considering his response.
“Your husband.” he mused. “You said he was a doctor.”
“I...yes.” said his neighbor quietly. “He...specialized in Hellpox cure research.”
“The Hellpox has already been cured.” noted Kells.
“Not...reliably. My husband said the current treatments address 80% of symptoms, but there’s still a high danger due to contagion. And there are still sometimes outbreaks...”
Kells grimaced. “They say your brain more or less turns to mush...I’m lucky I never got that damned disease...and you’re lucky that it only affects klyskins.”
His neighbor shrunk down, even deeper in sorrow than her first night in the cell.
“He...cares for the J’halans’ plight. Everything that’s happened through the crisis. That’s why I stand by him...He’s a good doctor. I...”
Kells respected her maturity. He decided to rip off the bandage.
“...in short, he discovered something about that disease. About why it only affects the nation’s undesirables like myself. But ‘Knowledge’ is not for everyone. Ma’am, your husband...I have no doubt he was a good doctor."
The woman opened her mouth to respond—to yell something back defiantly. Kells held his gaze upon her, mournfully, and nodded. Her eyes flickered aimlessly as her face crumpled, now understanding his meaning. She turned away, and as Kells closed his eyes he could hear the poor woman next to him sobbing.
Kells took the time to glance up and down the cell block corridor. He lowered his voice to a more private volume.
“I'll answer your question.” he said. “You asked about...us. About my friends. There are others who feel just as you do towards the veneer of justice that covers that sickening empire of Halen. Not only the J’halans, but everyone like your husband—people who are silenced at the whim of the Mhira-Damned Emperor Neral. That said...you might be apprehensive about choosing to help us. After all...the nation has taught you we’re ‘Terrorists’.”
A flash of understanding finally rose his neighbor from her catatonic state of misery.
“Dark Spawn...y-you’re one of them...”
Kells chuckled.
“A name not invented by us. A journalist seeking to demonize us once referred to our people as ‘The darkest spawn spewed from the depths of J’halaga.’ Until we gain the Emperor’s ear, we accept that name. And you may hear mine. Rainant Kells.”
He bowed his head as he introduced himself, and extended his hand. Janice extended no hand back. Calmly, Kells withdrew it.
“I run recruitment. It’s a careful job. One day they caught me mentioning an attack by my brethren that…that they’d washed from the morning’s newspapers, and it was the last day I saw the sun. I know my friends cannot risk even providing me a quick, early grave. Still, you...” he trailed off, a pondering look sitting on his face through the gloom.
She grimaced at his protruding hand as though it were infected. “I heard about a leak of Sapfluid in the industrial quarter; that the bodies were flooded in frostbite. They said you claimed responsibility...”
“Did they now? By the empire’s prized propaganda network, the Owls’ Eye, wasn’t it? You should be careful what you believe in the papers.”
The woman nodded her head. It seemed like this was something she could agree with. In spite of public trust, the Eye no longer had a reputation for thoroughly vetting its sources. It wouldn’t even take true corruption for them to print words out of someone’s agenda.
“They’re everywhere, then.” sighed the woman. “The empire my husband devoted his life to. To think so much of what I knew could be turned upside down in a night. How does no one notice...?”
“People do notice. They just don’t believe.” said Kells, his voice rising in momentous intent. “Our people are not trusted in the capital—not even among the workers’ quarters. We keep to ourselves to prevent conflict. But we trust that our allies are out there.”
A silence descended between them.
“I-I’m sorry, I don’t...” she whispered. “I should be careful talking to you, shouldn’t I...? They might execute me if they...think...”
Kells turned away from the bars separating their two cells and returned to a meditative stance.
“Then, don’t talk. Just listen. I wonder, Miss Friederick—Have you thought about what you’ll do if you manage to return to your normal life after this hell? Will you pretend the Empire is a place of safety, and carry on as though your husband never existed...? Or, might you decide to use your skin, your voice...as a thing of power?”
After an uncertain pause, Friedrick muttered back to him.
“Do I look powerful...?”
Kells shrugged.
“Do I...? And yet, they hold us with their strongest steel. You, milady—not only are you a witness to perhaps one of the more egregious crimes of the empire’s Department of Knowledge, but the people of the cities are most likely to trust a snowskin like you.”
Friedrick shook her head.
“They’re the...bleeding Halen Empire! How long can someone expect to survive after betraying them??”
“Months? Years?” mocked Kells. “You’re talking to someone who has done so for the better part of a decade. Friends change everything.”
Friedrick shuddered, angling her body away.
“I don’t...I don’t want to be friends with a...a terrorist! ...Give me one reason I should trust you!!”
“You’d prefer to be friends with the Empire you trust,” said Kells. “And yet they don’t trust you. That is what makes us friends. What has made my people all friends in arms. Or, ‘terrorists’ as your empire calls them.”
Friedrick slowly uncrossed her guarded arms.
“If...IF I were to consider asking for your help...what...would you have me do?”
Kells nodded empathetically.
She may be my best chance yet.
“Swear it. Swear you stand with the Dark Spawn. In their plight for an Empire free of cruelty.”
Friedrick grimaced, looking out to the door.
“You...really think my husband is...is gone...?” she asked. Kells could feel that there was a solid lump forming in the back of her throat.
Kells gave a grave face.
“They...would have no reason to keep him alive for what he knows. The truth, Miss Friedrick, is that people like myself may now be your only friends.”
Friedrick squinted into a pointed expression. When she opened her eyes, there was a fire in them.
“...I swear it.”
Kells heard distant murmurs from the floor above them. He lowered his voice, and beckoned her closer to him.
“Listen closely,” affirmed Kells. “If you do survive, and ever find yourself back on the capital’s streets, then locate a tavern in the workers’ quarter called the Drowned Monk. Ask three times for a man named Jowd. Tell him that Rainant Kells has resigned his post honorably, and—this is important—tell him that ‘My soul has hatched, but I retain my shell as a shield.’ They will shelter you. Tell him everything that you know about your husband’s research. They will do all in their power to see him avenged, and the Empire dishonored for his death.”
“My soul has...hatched...?”
“The codephrase from before I was captured. It will have to do. Many of them derive from the holy texts from the Condemned Passages of the church.”
“Hm...thank you...that’s very helpful.”
There was something inspiriting in her tone. Her mood had changed markedly with this new instruction.
“I...think there should be some copies of those passages maintained by the Scholars’ Guild...I’d have to obtain permission, but it may be possible to work out the other codephrases...”
“You have my assurance you won’t need it. Just be sure to arrive there, in person, within the next month. And make sure you’re not followed.”
“O-oh...I likely wouldn’t be going myself,” said Friedrick. “I have agents for that.”
"Agents...?” Kells felt something had triggered an energy in the woman’s voice. She was...eager. Ready. Perhaps the panic of her predicament had only briefly hidden a resourceful young woman beneath it.
Friedrick stood, and walked calmly to the gates of her cell. She swept an arm into one of her sleeves, and withdrew a long, pointed object. She expertly rotated it into the lock of the cell, and pecked at the lock.
“Wait!! Not now!” called Kells. He had become intimately familiar with the guards’ shift cycles in the months of his imprisonment. “Wait until nightfall, when-”
A pattern of realizations was finally reaching Kells’ malnourished, sleep-deprived mind.
‘I have agents for that.’
The blood drained from Kells’ extremities, as he helplessly watched the four-day occupant of his neighboring cell block finish unlocking her cell with the key hidden in her sleeve, and calmly exit her unlocked cell.
One of the jailors had caught on to the noise in their block, and charged down the cell corridor.
“HEY! STOP WHERE YOU ARE! GET BACK TO YOUR CELL-!”
His target nonchalantly raised a hand, ambivalent to his aggression.
“You can stop, we’re clear,” she announced to him, with a tired, uncaring air. “Misson’s over.”
No sooner had she said these words, than the jailor ground to a halt mid-stride.
He snapped a salute.
“Oh, thank the saints! That means no more briefings held in that damned interrogation room, right? I’ll go and get you a change of clothes.”
The two of them settled their gaze upon Kells. His catatonic muscles lurched reflexively, and he found himself shuddering back against the far wall of his cell, locked in a stare with the woman he’d called Miss Friedrick.
Those eyes…
“...He talked?” asked the jailor.
The escapee nodded.
“He talked.”
Kells realized he hadn’t breathed in the past minute. Only a failing wheeze fell from his mouth. Silence—his old friend. He’d betrayed that friend, again—and likely for the last time.
What have...I just said to her?
As the jailor retreated out of the cell block, the woman before him stepped back to his cell, and stood before him outside his door. Though Kells had only ever seen her curled up in her cell, or hunched as she’d been lead by the jailors, now her poise had straightened. The full figure of the woman before him was at least the height of most men; the black curls of her hair now giving her a distant and menacing appearance. Her shining eyes were almost hidden behind a face draped in a shadow of eerie confidence. She appeared nothing like the meek prisoner that had been dropped in the cage two weeks ago.
“Just to make a few things clear,” she began - “Now that you’ve set down the path of a turncoat, there’s no turning back in your brothers’ eyes. Should they realize what you oh-so-eagerly gave us without even the slightest fucking mark of torture, they’ll find anything—or anyone—halfway sacred to you and violate it, burn it, blow it to the gzildamn corners of the Frostscape.
She grasped at a far bar of the cell, and tilted her head at him in a sickening way. Her cold eyes seemed self-lit in the dark cell.
“It’s their way,” she emphasized. “The way that you signed up for when you became part of a society of murderous, child-smothering, bloodthirsty FUCKING psychopaths.”
Kells found himself scampering back in his cell on pure instinct. The woman squatted down in front of him, like she was taunting a small child, and continued.
“Now, you still have one avenue open to you; and that’s to spill anything further you have that we can use. We’ll be moving on the Drowned Monk within the week, but I think we can agree not to use that codephrase if you can give us something to implement a bit more...subtly. Perhaps even wipe away the fact that it was you—the loyal Rainant Kells - who doomed every single one of your comrades that makes that their home.”
Four days. The calm, methodical woman before him had endured a mere four days of imprisonment and abandonment to get those words out of him. He’d thought himself a pariah, far beyond even the most extreme torture, and yet the bored look in the eyes of the woman before him had addressed this moment as a foregone conclusion. He'd felt himself buy the story about a murdered husband down to its last detail—felt the emotions of the woman beside him crumbling. But that “person” simply didn’t exist. His body fell even more chill than the outside wind as he came to realize just who this woman was.
Satisfied with her threats, his former cellmate rose to her feet, addressing Kells sidelong.
“So...the man who’ll continue your questioning is Colonel Herris. He’s a blooming idiot, so I’ll need you to use small words with him, if you can.”
She rapped her knuckles once on the cell bars, and flicked her eyebrows upward.
“Welcome to the big leagues, Rainant Kells. I’ll make sure you get upgraded to a nicer cell as reward for your cooperation. After all you just gave us...it looks like I’m your only friend.”
Kells buried his head in his palms, scratching at his face in shame for his mistake. Her inflammatory persona exposed, the stories he’d been told did not do the woman outside of his cell justice. Her dismissive remarks echoed down the hall.
“…Knew I couldn’t trust them…not to handle a simple interrogation like that…”
***
Staff Officer Erron Gandor sat at the corner of the work room, anxiety biting at his mind. He’d finished his job for the night, and was awaiting relief orders from the base commander. Only a few other officers and radiomen remained at their desks, silently judging him for his idleness.
“Hey! You got a guest pass?”
The call had come from a member of the base’s indoor security team; a concept that was still hard to get used to. Each of Gandor’s other postings had only kept security at the front door, allowing officers to roam freely on the inside. To himself as well as the colleagues he’d spoken to, the lack of trust was far more dispiriting than the inconvenience.
Gandor reached in his dark suit jacket, and fished out a laminated card. Cameras were still an uncommon invention even within the Empire, but in this department, each ID card embedded a photo print of its owner’s face. He displayed the card to the guard.
“Huh…officer? Where’s your uniform? You here to resign?”
Gandor paused before replying. He had, in fact, thought about doing that before.
“The Commander wanted me to help with a play. I’m…a lawyer coming in to arrange her release from a cell. If the jailor comes and tells me it doesn’t work, I need to go back down there with a second go-”
A stern woman’s voice interrupted him.
“That’s enough. You showed him ID. Don’t say anything more.”
The base’s commander, dressed in filth-soaked rags, marched in from the hallway leading to the cellar stairs. The security guard, momentarily confused by her outfit, snapped a sharp salute. Commander Wysp strode uncomfortably into Gandor’s personal space, consuming his field of vision.
“Never volunteer information that’s not need-to-know. Security is only here to find intruders, not make small talk. Do you understand?”
Gandor wished he’d stood up to salute, so he wouldn’t become victim of the Commander’s looming height.
“Y-Yes, ma’am.”
“Got a change of clothes ready for you, Miss.”
The jailor had come from the same hallway, bearing a bundled shirt and trousers.
“Leave them by the bath. I’ll be there soon.” The jailor trotted off dutifully. “Gandor. Write an order to Colonel Herris to take over Prisoner J14’s account, and move him upstairs to a suite. He’s cooperative.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Gandor.
He quickly stepped up to be out of the Scion’s sight.
“Before you go, Officer. The suit.”
Gandor froze mid-rise, unsure whether to turn around. The Commander’s voice resonated in his ear.
“Overall, satisfactory. But your persona had just arrived at the facility. The prisoners can tell when there’s snowfall, there should have been a light dusting on your shoulders.”
Gandor swallowed.
“I-I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m not actually an agent, I w-wasn’t trained-“
“Don’t make excuses. Just learn.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Dismissed.”
No sooner had Gandor written the memo to Colonel Herris, and deposited it at reception, than he scattered out of the facility’s front door, eager to be out of the Commander’s presence before she descended on him with more orders.
Back at Fort Ortmeyer, he’d been fine with the occasional night of late work, straightening supply orders and drafting requisitions. Diligence in service to the Empire, preserving the safety of its people was a rewarding job to him. Allegedly, his reassignment to this remote office in Smolensk maintained this same goal—and was considered a privilege when the position had been announced.
But, it was hard to see it that way. The Department of Knowledge kept its workings so deeply obscured from even its mid-level members that he’d yet to count any worthwhile, tangible successes in his several months on the job. All he might do in a day was distill a detailed, 300-word report down to the 30 words their colleagues in the Steel Legion were ‘permitted’ to hear. It was the same ‘need to know’ principle the Commander had just chastised him for.
He could see why so many in the Department respected her. She carried an air of confidence far more earned than many officers, whom he’d known to be victims of nepotism. But there was a coldness to her that was unpierceable. Gandor considered the case of prisoner J14—in the past few weeks, multiple senior officers had been assigned to his interrogation, and concluded there was no circumstance in which he’d talk. The case escalated, and Commander Wysp only took charge of him for a matter of days. Thinking about what she did to force his words out chilled his blood even more than the biting coastline winds of Smolensk.
Though the sky was starkly overcast, the sun left behind a thin semicircle of red at the edge of the Umbra. Its last emanations before the full dark of night were just bright enough to highlight the silhouette of the large manor behind Gandor. It had apparently once belonged to a wealthy family that owned a fishing business. The Department had chosen it for its headquarters, not for the sen on the gilder that it had sold for after that family’s fall, but for its isolated location, far along the Duskpeak coast. Open white snow extended for miles past the edge of the small forest leading up to their cliffside location.
The walls at the edge of the manor compound were the Department’s addition. There was a mid-sized gatehouse ahead, from which motorsleds entered. There, the lone gate guardsman was in conversation with an elderly woman, each drinking a warm beverage to fight the night chill. Still ruffled by his interaction with the indoor security, Gandor marched to meet them.
“Ma’am? Got a badge?” he called to the old woman.
The guard saluted to the approaching officer, responding in a chipper Elman accent.
“I’ve checked her, sir! She’s one of our contractors—just here on standby.”
The old woman patted him on the shoulder. Her voice was warm, making the meager gatehouse feel like a small home.
“This nice young man-! He was so apologetic that he couldn’t let me wait inside! Of course, all our work here is quite hush-hush, of course, so I quite understand!”
“May I ask who or what you’re waiting for, ma’am?”
“Er-!...Well, depending on your clearance level, maybe you can’t, good sir.”
Gandor slumped his shoulders. She had a fair point.
“What’s your name, miss?”
Before she could answer, the guard interjected.
“Gusvelt, sir! With a U, and-“
“Not an ‘ooh’!” chimed the old woman jovially. “You remembered!”
Gandor sorted his mental notes—and felt his brow furrow reflexively in concern.
“…Are you here for…case J14?” he ventured.
Gusvelt nodded enthusiastically.
“Uh…I think I can at least tell you that case is closed for now.”
“Ooooohh, drat!”
Gusvelt shook her head, making a dramatic showing of collecting her thermos as she readied the descent of the hill.
“Ahh, and I’d been needing something to keep my hands moving. Oh well. There’s a tidy room at the Oasis, suppose I’ll just tuck in there for the morning train. You’ll let Miss Wysp know, in case she needs me, right?”
“Sure…” said Gandor.
As she trotted down the forest path to the town below, Gandor examined the guard. Frost had collected on his scarf and goggles, leaving the outfit’s occupant perpetually shivering through his attentive posture. Most of the Department’s security remained indoors, playing card games in anticipation of alarms—leaving sole sentries like this one to suffer the frigid cliffside winds. Already, Gandor was starting to think about heading back inside himself—he couldn’t easily compare to the younger man’s resilience.
The outdoor security guards were recruited from available squadrons in the Steel Legion—the Department’s faint attempt at demonstrating inter-office cooperation. Feeling a nostalgic sense of camaraderie, Gandor prompted him to conversation, sensing a kindred spirit.
“Talk to her about much?”
“She was very professional, sir. Didn’t gossip about any Department work.”
“Good.”
“Very nice woman, though! It sounds like she’s resisted retiring quite a few times just out of pride for her work. She said the Commander has been so accommodating for her—like it’s easy for other people to forget she exists.”
Gandor winced at the compliments directed to the Commander.
“…Do you know what she does, exactly?”
“Well, she was vague. Uh…information handling.”
Vague was probably better. Secrecy protocols prevented him from explaining that Gusvelt was the Department’s torture expert. Commander Wysp had apparently kept her available in case the “Miss Friederick” act had failed.
Gandor’s careful acting as a lawyer for the ears of Rainant Kells had been driven by mercy. He only knew a part of the rumors of Madame Gusvelt. The Department’s contract required that she be allowed to conduct questioning in her own way.
She offered “patients” a deal. She laid out her instruments in a private room, and asked them the question the Department wanted answered—once, and only once. If they answered, she would pack up and leave. If they didn’t, she began. They would always answer, always—usually before the second day of live dissection—but even if they did, she would continue her procedure. Rumors said her record was a full week before the patient’s heart stopped.
Every guard that had ever been assigned to the door of her interrogation room had gone on leave for therapy and counseling—some had become permanently mute. Gandor shuddered as he watched the gate guard next to him wave back to the elderly woman at the edge of the forest below.
Out here, everyone has secrets. Here, you don’t know anyone well.