People began to file out of the room. Eko moved to do the same, but before she could slide off the desk, a strong hand tangled itself into the back of her coveralls.
“Not so quickly, Cricket,” her father rumbled in Obsihichee.
Now, Eko had been a grown adult for quite some time. A vast majority of that time, she’d spent hundreds of miles away from her immediate family. However, it seemed that neither time nor distance could break her completely of childhood deference. Cringing at both his tone and the use of her childhood nickname, Eko stayed put. She waited until Syd finally stepped out giving her a curious frown as he closed the door behind him before she turned around.
Itzak’s frown cut deep furrows into the usual lines on his face. “What the hell is going on?”
“I thought we went over that,” Eko grumbled. “There are undead in Osso.”
“Don’t get smart with me,” he returned. “You know what I mean. Why are you in it?”
Eko shrugged. “I got chewed on when I was coming home last night,” she admitted.
“What?!”
“I’m fine now,” Eko insisted. “But after that I just kind of, got involved.”
“Do you have to stay involved,” her father asked. “Because I can have the house packed up and ready to head north right now if we need to.”
Eko considered it. One the one hand, having her family well out of danger would not have been such a bad idea. On the other hand… “Whether you all stay or go is up to you, da,” she said. “But I do have to stay here. There are no other mages in Osso qualified to handle a necromage.”
“And you are?” It was not a dig, or at least Eko thought the words were not intended to be. How could her father know what she was capable of? Eko had not been very forthcoming about her actual work when she was a guild mage.
“I am,” she said simply. “Along with Syd and the Scarecrows’ help, we should be fine.”
At the mention of the mercs, Itzak’s frown changed.
“The Scarecrows,” he murmured. “Cricket, I’m torn, because while you definitely need friends…”
“Hey.”
At the protest, Itzak gave her a look. “Darling, please,” he sighed. “Since you’ve been home, the only times you go outside are to get the kids to school, bother your brother at the shop, or drop off an order for one of your clients.”
“Sometimes I go out to look for spell components,” she sulked. Realistically, she knew that her family had noticed her reclusive moping about the house. At the very least, she had hoped they would give her the courtesy of not mentioning it.
Itzak’s face softened. “We’re worried about you, Cricket. And you rubbing elbows with mercenaries is not very reassuring.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not, but you’ve had enough for now.” Her father rose from his desk. “Now, about these hunters, Do you trust them?”
“Not one bit,” Eko said, latching onto the changed subject. “I believe that they’re here to capture Jeriko, alright, but something about this whole situation seems wrong to me.”
“How so?”
Eko hesitated, working to shape her instincts and suspicions into proper words. “I have always wondered,” she said slowly, “at the logic behind Mausoleum Prison’s existence. What is the point of containing dangerous mages if they are threat enough to pursue anyway? Magehounds are not typically known for their mercy.”
“We put regular criminals in prison,” Itzak offered. “I don’t see why that should not apply to mages.”
Eko blinked. She had forgotten how very little regular people knew about mage life. She hesitated again; this time afraid what revealing this part of her past would do to the way her father saw her. “Da,” she said slowly. “If a mage is bad enough for the Magehounds to be sent after them, they have committed sins worse than hanging crimes in normal society.”
She should have given her father more credit. Rather than sit aghast, he ran a hand through his beard and puzzled at her question. “If they would be sentenced to death by a normal court, why are the Magehounds allowed to spend time and resources to corral them; is that the question?”
Eko nodded.
“Interesting,” Itzak mused. He ran a hand through his beard.
Eko leaned back on her hands. “Much as I hate to say it, Memphis is a competent investigator. He’s good at his job.” She grimaced. “But he is loyal to his order. And it is his order that I don’t trust. They have let Jeriko run wild for too long. He’s evaded capture by one of their best and is threatening their reputation in the meantime. That is not something that can go unanswered. I am worried about their response.” She met her father’s eye, voice grave with certainty. “Memphis stood by them before while they committed atrocity before, and he has given me no indication that he will not do so again.”
XXX
Memphis was halfway through a cigarette when the mage and the councilman finally emerged from Itzak’s office with matching frowns on their faces. Memphis pushed away from the wall he had been leaning against, grinding the last of his smoke out on his boot. “Everything alright?”
“As alright as it can be, all things considered,” Itzak said, leveling an assessing stare his way. He led the way back out onto the street, Eko at his elbow. “The council palace is located on an island in the middle of the river,” he told them as they walked. “Since we are not in session, I doubt all of the councilmembers will already be there.”
“How long will it take to gather everyone,” Lily demanded. Without her Lieutenant to keep her company, the Captain was sticking close to Memphis and Anujak. Not that Memphis minded. Lily had already proven herself useful, and the more bodies between himself and Eko the better.
Itzak’s massive shoulders squared, and he spoke without turning. “Emergency sessions are uncommon but not completely unheard of. It should take about an hour or so to get everyone together.”
Every second spent not pursuing Jeriko felt like a second wasted at this point. But in this case, there was nothing to be done. They needed the council’s support. Memphis tried to take some solace in the fact that they weren’t totally sitting on their hands, Jakkor and Syd had left already. The Lieutenant headed out to organize patrol teams and the mercenary had gone to do the same on his end; as well as get his boss who Memphis could only hope would be more help in the council room than she had been this morning.
Damn, had it really only been a few hours since he’d gone to the Scarecrow Hall? Today had gone by like a lifetime and it was shaping up to stretch even longer. Memphis shook his head and tried to dislodge the bone deep exhaustion that had hounded him since heading north. He had been running himself and Anujak ragged pursuing a necromage whose motives had seemed fairly straightforward a day ago. Now, Jeriko was delving tombs and raiding temples. And Memphis could not fathom a reason why. He thought back to the last missive between himself and the Central Office.
It had been obvious that their higher ups were growing impatient with this case, and when Memphis had informed them of his suspicions that Jeriko was headed towards Osso, they had not been enthusiastic. He and Anujak had been given an ultimatum, and with that came the shaky haze of desperation that had plagued Memphis for the last two weeks. He was a fucked up cocktail of feelings at this point, barely stitched together with cigarette smoke and spite.
And maybe those bindings were wearing too thin too quickly, because when their group reached the ferry house and were informed that the boat had just left and would in fact not be back for another hour, Memphis did something reckless. While Itzak and Lily went off to find them alternate transportation, he spied Eko seated on a bench, frowning out at the sun fading on the water.
His feet carried him forward. This was a terrible idea. Before he could turn around, he was standing beside the bench. Memphis coughed into his fist.
Carefully, Eko arced her neck around to stare at him. “What could you possibly want from me,” she asked.
Nothing he could put into words. Which raised the question of what he thought he was doing right at this very moment. Over the past years, it had not been easy to put things behind him, but the way had been smoothed a bit without having Eko around as a reminder. Now that they were sharing space again, something in him refused to quiet down. He hadn’t gotten a chance to say his piece back then – not that it would have helped anything. But Memphis could not shake the feeling that he had been given some sort of chance. A chance he was foolish enough to reach for. “I just want to talk.”
She scowled harder, the shadows around her feet began to writhe. Memphis tensed, remembering those cold tendrils on his skin. “I have absolutely no interest in talking to you.”
The dismissal in those words were impossible to miss. Were he a wiser man, Memphis would take the opportunity to walk away, and this could be chalked up to a temporary bit of madness. He was not a wiser man, so Memphis pressed on anyway. “Look, the way things happened back then – ,”
“What things?”
Memphis stopped short.
The mage twisted all the way around, menace in every line of her pose. “You wanted to talk,” she taunted. “Let’s be specific then. What things?”
The words died on his tongue.
“I’ll tell you what I remember,” Eko hissed. “Stop me if I get it wrong. I come to you with proof that members of my guild are experimenting on children. I tell you where and when to find the victims. I practically giftwrap the perpetrators for you. And what do your Magehounds do? Storm the entire castle, arrest every mage you can find, and outright kill the ones that fight back. Some of whom were students, Memphis. Kids who found themselves under attack and died in what they thought was self-defense. Then, you raze the place to the ground. Do I have it wrong?”
“No.”
“No,” Eko’s tone was caustic. “Good, then let’s continue. What happened to the victims? Those kids I came to you about?”
Memories of a hundred small hands reaching out of grimy cages rose up in his mind. The sight of eyes, shining with fever and desperation were just as clear today as they had been back then. “It was determined,” he said, fighting off the bile rising in his throat. “That the victims were in such a state, they could not be salvaged. They were mercifully put to rest.”
The words he spoke were forced and hollow. Lies even to his ears. And they did not begin to encompass the sight of watching over forty children die at his feet. The eyes he had seen were lucid, if understandably feral. But Memphis had not been in command that day and the order had been given around him.
“Bullshit,” Eko seethed. “They were murdered.”
“I trusted you, Memphis,” she said on a ragged exhale. “Not the Magehounds. You. And you stood by, and you let your Order slaughter innocents.”
All at once, Memphis was thoroughly sick of Eko’s anger. Who was she, to claim all the pain from that day for herself? “What the fuck should have I done,” Memphis shot back. “The order had been given and carried out before I could stop it.”
“You should have said something, done anything.”
“How do you know I didn’t,” Memphis demanded, recalling how his protests were drowned out and shouted over. How he had lunged for Roache only to be met with a boot to his ribs. “You’re the one with the magic, Eko. Where the fuck were you?”
“Making sure the students under my care didn’t die like their classmates.” Eko was on her feet now, eyes wide and wild. “And if you think for one second, that I don’t regret not going down there when the fighting started, when you and your rabid dogs first set foot on Jadcrö soil, you are sorely mistaken. Now get out of my face, before I forget the promise I made to Syd.”
This time, Memphis heeded the dismissal. Frustration and shame scorched him from the inside out as he walked away. Eko had every right to be angry, but to heap her ire on him, when he had been just as hobbled in those moments was unfair. When Eko had showed him the chamber for the first time, it had been just the two of them. That night, she had also handed over all of the information she had gathered about the mages involved. Memphis had done what he was supposed to and turned it over to his superiors. The proceedings after that had been entirely out of his control. How was he supposed to know that Roache would make that call?
But just like in the wee hours of the night, when that bloody morning looped over and again in his mind, Memphis found that his reasons sounded too much like excuses. And they offered him no comfort at all.
So, Memphis found a chair at the far end of the dock and waited for the boat in silence.
XXX
In the end, it was Lily who found them a ride. A fisherman would shepherd them across. He had sold off his catch and was getting ready to leave the city, the council palace was close enough to the nearest gate that it was on his way and the handful of silver tiles the captain paid him was enough to make the inconvenience worth it.
They all shuffled on board the creaky wooden steamer, trying to ignore the smell as their captain launched the boat. Eko propped her elbows up on the railing and groaned. Her mood was well and truly shot now. She had half a mind to just say ‘fuck it’ and kill the Magehound, ghouls and promises be damned. Memphis was sure making that idea more attractive.
She was still mulling the idea over when they landed on the island that held the council palace. Council meetings were closed to the public, but on occasion the palace was used for elaborate galas when dignitaries or other important people came to Osso. The last such event Eko had attended with her father, she’d been thirteen. She didn’t remember much about that night, except stealing a plate of almond cookies and eating them by herself in a secluded part of the courtyard gardens. Today, Eko’s quarry was a lot more enticing than almond cookies.
“I’m off,” Eko said the moment she cleared the plank.
“And just where do you think you’re going,” her father demanded, brow hiked high.
Lily scowled behind him. “I thought you were helping us with the council?”
“Absolutely not,” Eko told her. “The only reason I came along is because I need a detailed map of the city, and the public works office is here.”
The captain looked unconvinced. “You don’t think a Tower mage’s word will help our case with the council?”
“I think that a Tower mage is more useful doing spellcraft than arguing with a bunch of old fossils about why they should lift a finger and their fortunes to keep this city standing. No offence, da.”
“No, you’ve got it pretty much dead to rights,” Itzak sighed. “Go on then, and, please Cricket, do try to keep yourself in one piece.”
Memphis looked over at her for the first time since they had spoken on the pier. “Anujak, please assist the Night Witch with her search.”
Eko grit her teeth, the use of her name had been for her father’s benefit. A hint at who she had been under Jadecrö. Memphis was petty enough to throw it in her face with the knowledge that to call him on it her would be to expose herself and waste time they did not have. So she swallowed her ire and whistled toward the younger Magehound. “Come on, keep up.”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Anujak blanched. He had been nearby when Eko and Memphis had been talking, so she doubted he had missed anything. Dutifully, if unhappily, he followed her across the courtyard. In the evening light, the palace grounds seemed ornate and regal. The twin rows of columns that led to the main building were tall and imposing, their granite polished to an almost glasslike finish. At this time of day, there were not a lot of people about on the island, but as they walked, Eko spied one or two aides hurrying along studiously swept walkways.
The public works office was located on one of the further outbuildings. Eko had not frequented the island enough to know the way there by memory. Thankfully, there was an abundance of clear signage on what departmental buildings were located where.
Less luckily, the office was closed. And Locked. The lamps turned off and the windows shuttered. Eko scowled at the darkened door, considering her options. She wasn’t in the habit of breaking and entering enough to have a lock-open spell memorized. Internally she reminded herself to rectify that immediately. If she dropped her human guise, she could probably phase through the door. But she wasn’t overly found of the idea of revealing that particular secret to a Magehound.
“Excuse me,” Anujak said, carefully coming to stand beside her. In his hands, he held a travel lockpicking set.
Eko hummed in surprise. “So, you are useful after all,” she said as the younger Magehound bent over the lock.
“I would like to think so,” Anujak said lightly. “I don’t think Memphis would put up with me for long if I weren’t.”
Eko felt her face sour. And she must have made some sort of noise, because Anujak’s hands stopped on the lock before he twisted to look at her. “He’s not so bad, you know.”
Eko scowled harder. She did know, which was what made their situation even more infuriating. Back before the incident, Eko had actually liked Memphis – surly tightass that he was. They had done good work together and she had grown to appreciate him. Enough so that she had put her faith in him when she had possessed nowhere else to go. The events that followed had not been entirely his fault; she was grown enough to admit it. But it was Memphis who had let her down when she needed him the most, and the disappointment of that was something Eko could not forgive.
Not being privy to Eko’s internal thoughts, Anujak continued to press. “I joined right after the incident with Jadcrö,” he told her, still fiddling with the lock. “All anyone could talk about back then was him breaking command against Agent Roache. He paid for it, got put on suspended duty for half a year thanks to that.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better,” Eko snapped.
There was a solid click as the lock finally surrendered. Anujak pushed the door open. “Feel however you want,” he told her, shortly. “But just know that Memphis feels worse.”
“Well, you know what they say about misery and company,” said Eko, unwilling to cede the last word. She strode into the darkened room, spine straight. “Let’s get this finished so he and I can go back to being miserable in our own corners of the world.”
The front room was a neat little space sporting simple wooden chairs along the wall. Across the room sat a single receiving desk, on top of which was a lone logbook and a glass dip pen. Just behind the desk was where things got interesting. Simple wooden shelves extended far into the room packed thickly with scrolls and thread bound tomes for city records. This was the home for every public undertaking in Osso, from the annual census to receipts for the outer wall’s repair.
Helpfully, someone with an eye to organization must have been running this place. Inside of one of the desk drawers, Eko found a little booklet that outlined the office’s filing system in carefully written blocked script. According to the ledger, records for construction projects should have been near the rear corner. “It says here that there are only four bookcases for construction records,” she told Anujak, as she led them towards the back. “We’ll start on one end and make our way through. You take a shelf, and I’ll take the other.”
The auxiliary Magehound nodded. “What are you hoping to do with a city map?”
Eko started poking through a set of scrolls. Bless whoever was managing this collection. Eko feared she would have to open each one to see the contents. Instead, there was a neat little tag hanging onto the end of each scroll that listed its subject and date of entry. These were all for aqueduct repair. Eko moved down the row. “In order to make an efficient spell, I need a map with the precise dimensions of the city.”
“You need a map for spellcraft?”
Eko arched a brow. “Yes,” she said flatly. “Or did you expect me to pull a functional wide-ranging spell out of my ass?”
Anujak shrugged. “You’re the mage,” he said. “I’m just a hunter.”
“Do they teach you anything about the mages you hunt?”
Anujak pulled a book of the shelf, shook his head, and put it back. “Turns out you don’t need to know a whole lot about mages to kill them,” he said. “No offence.”
Something about that logic did not sit right with Eko. In her mind, knowing everything there was to know about a subject helped you handle it more efficiently. The same rule should apply to hunting. Silence on the mage’s end, Eko understood. Mages would not want to give away any information that could be used against them later. Eko had always assumed that the Magehounds would be trying to snatch as much information as they could.
“I know the basics,” Anujak added. “You all have different ranks which scales with your ability. Spells can’t be cast infinitely, and most magic needs to be memorized or an array needs to be made to be utilized.”
“That,” Eko said. “Is an incredibly paltry and insufficient set of knowledge.” She poked through a new set of scrolls. “What kind of a spy are you if you don’t even know what you’re looking at?”
Anujak looked like a kid caught with his hand in the sweets tin. “Spy?”
“You’re here as Memphis’s eyes and ears,” Eko said dryly. And she would be lying if she said she didn’t get a mean little bit of satisfaction from the shadow of guilt that passed over Anujak’s face. She smiled. “I’m not mad. It was smart of him. Never take a mage’s word for it.”
“That’s exactly what he says.”
Eko picked up a scroll. “And he’s right to say it. Do you know what they teach initiates in the mage’s guilds? They say you get sent to hunt us because you are jealous and fearful. That you stand in the way of progress. That we can manage ourselves without outsiders mucking around where they’re not welcome.”
Anujak paused. “And do you think that?”
“I think,” Eko sighed. “Unchecked mages make litches, and raise the dead, and try to take over cities. I think, unchecked mages are the reason the world was broken for the second time. I also think you lot are a bunch of heavy-handed zealots, but right now you are better than nothing. Your ignorance is surprising though. And lucky for you, I have time to fix that. Some of it, anyway.”
Between the events of the day and talking to Memphis earlier, Eko was feeling more than a bit unbalanced, emotionally. Educating Anujak was a good enough opportunity for distraction. Would he use it to go out hunting other mages? Probably, but other mages were not her concern anymore. And like she had told her father, if they were stupid enough to get the Magehounds called down on them, they deserved whatever they got. “At the very least, you should have a working understanding of what you claim to be defending the world against. Tell me Anujak, what is magic?”
“It’s power, right? The ability to bend the world to your will.”
Well, that was not too far off. Inaccurate, but not egregiously so. “That is the effect of magic,” Eko corrected, pushing back a set of files on the foundational integrity of the city’s infirmaries. “It would be more accurate, to think of magic itself as an element like water or air. It’s the first and the oldest, the pulse and current running beneath all things. Spellcraft is the act of directing that current to achieve a desired outcome. And because magic is in all things, there are nearly infinite ways of weaving it.”
This bookcase was a bust, they moved to the next one. “So, a mage is someone who studies spellcraft,” Anujak said, sounding unsure.
“Yes, a very rote and specific form of it. Mages learn to craft spells in a way that is readable and repeatable so that knowledge can be built upon between generations.”
“Okay,” Anujak nodded. “Okay, that makes sense.”
“For mages to work magic efficiently, they have to be aware of every aspect of their spell’s effects and craft them carefully. A good way to do that is to add as much context into the array as possible. So, if I wanted to make a barrier around Osso that keeps ghouls from escaping…”
“You would need to include the exact edges of Osso in a spell. Which means you need a map of the city to shape it correctly.”
“Full marks, Anujak.”
The Magehound beamed. It took them a while longer to find what they had been searching for. The maps had been filed alongside city surveys that had been done once the expansion had been approved by Osso’s council. Already forming arrays in her mind, Eko took the sheaf of paper with the map she needed, folded them carefully, and stowed them away in her bag. She was halfway out of the door before she remembered Anujak.
“Maps aren’t the only things I need to make this work,” she told him. “In order to make appropriate countermeasures against Jeriko’s necromancy, I need to see the spell working in action. If you or your partner feel like being useful at all, you can go find me an active ghoul.”
Without giving him a chance to respond, Eko found the darkest corner, and stepped inside. If Anujak and Memphis were any count at all, they would get her what she needed. She had her own work to finish.
XXX
Osso’s council chambers reminded Memphis of the fighting pits back in Garyu City. The space was cavernous, with windows on every wall, giving a bird’s eye view of the entire city no matter where you stood. The floor was large, octagonal, and empty. The council seats were set into a raised platform above the floor, presumably, so whoever had the misfortune of addressing the council had their full attention. Himself, in this case. Memphis could see the thousands of lights burning in windows across Osso like a constellation of orange stars. So many people in this city, and all of them blissfully unaware of the monsters prowling the shadows. All their lives were in Memphis’ hands, and it was his job to make their council care. For some reason.
And as Osso’s ruling members filed into the chamber, Memphis thought that maybe anybody else would have been a better choice.
To Itzak’s credit, he had managed to wrangle every council member to the hall in record time. That said, minutes were precious, and the hour since they’d arrived had felt like an eternity. As the last council member – a sleepy looking giraghul woman– slid into her chair, Memphis could feel himself pull taught with the urge to rush.
Twelve sets of eyes peered down at him from the platform. Expectant. Irritable.
The entire council weren’t all opponents, though. Their thirteenth member, Itzak Odzobek, stood squarely by Memphis’ side. “Thank you all for coming,” he timbred.
“Not like you gave us much of a choice, Odzobek,” said a slender Ku’uda woman. “’A matter of destruction’, were your words I believe.”
“Your missive did read as incredibly dramatic,” intoned a human with silken hair that brushed the floor in a river of white. “So very unlike you.”
The mood in the room was far from welcoming. How Itzak managed not to flinch under the weight of all their attention, Memphis could only guess. Experience, maybe. Or maybe Itzak really was just built differently. “I had to ensure the gravity of the situation impressed upon you all,” he said without an inch of remorse. “But I am only the force that called you here. The real dire tidings come from our guest.” He shot a warning look towards Memphis before stepping aside.
Studiously attempting not to throw up all over his shoes, Memphis cleared his throat. “I am Memphis Bass, agent of the Helspack Hunters Order, you know us better as Magehounds. I have come here in pursuit of a necromage by the name of Jeriko. The murders of sewage workers, the attacks on both the West Willow Infirmary and the West Central Temple have been his doing. I have discovered that he is not in this city only to hide from my order. He has come to Osso in search of something. In pursuit of this, he has been turning your citizens into undead.”
Gasps rang out from the gathered councilmembers. Questions fired across the room, passing over and around Memphis so quickly that he could not parse any but for the largest and loudest of them. “WHY?”
That was the million-silver question. “Our quarry’s motives are unclear,” Memphis admitted. “But the damage he has already done is can be classified as potentially catastrophic. Each of the ghouls he has risen is capable of turning living beings if they so much as bite or scratch a person. The number he has under his command is unknown and grows every time he sets them loose above the surface.”
“Why has this gone unanswered, why were we not informed earlier?” That demand came from the white-haired person form earlier. They were on their feet now, arms clasped behind their back in rage.
“We had hoped to capture Jeriko quickly and without causing a city-wide panic,” Lily interrupted before Memphis could answer.
The councilor narrowed their sharp eyes down at Lily. “And I assume, since you’ve come to us, the guard has proved as impotent as ever.”
The captain grit her teeth.
“Councilor Keffeh,” Itzak intoned. “Let us remain focused on the subject at hand, please.” He shot a reproachful look Lily’s way. “While it is true that the guard’s operations have been sub-par in the past, I take it to believe this necromage is a threat that would have put them on the back foot even if they had been operating at full capacity.”
Memphis nodded. “The decision not to inform your council was made when we were still under the assumption that Jeriko was on the run,” he explained. “Now that the situation has changed, we have been forced to reconsider.”
To his left, a nhedii man dressed in a crisp wool suit cut in the Ethrand style leaned forward. “What is it, precisely, you are asking of this council, Magehound?”
“Your assistance,” Memphis said firmly, drawing on the information Itzak had given him while they waited for the other members to assemble. “In order to capture Jeriko, we must first restrict his movements. It has been explained to me that nothing and no one moves in or out of this city without this council’s express permission. I need that permission revoked, the city must be sealed.
“I also understand that each of you employ private security for your interests. We are all aware of the city guard’s shortcomings. I would ask that you would add your strength to theirs.”
As Memphis spoke, the room had gone silent. The one to break that silence was the ku’uda woman. “The matter of our security is a simple one,” she said. “If this Jeriko is as much of a threat as you say, I see no reason not to lend our people for securing him. Your alternate request however -,”
“Is preposterous,” the nhedii councilor cut in. a“You are asking for us to stop all trade. At the edge of winter. The time where most of us have final shipments to make. We have mere days to send those to port before the storms make it impossible. Do you understand what a ruinous loss of profit that would mean for much of this council?”
Murmurs of assent rose up around the room. Memphis felt the tide in the room turn against him as various council members did mental calculations on their potential revenue losses. Itzak said nothing.
The door to the chambers burst open. In the lamplit doorway stood Wylma, Boss of the Scarecrow Mercenary Company. Memphis almost didn’t recognize her as the same woman he had met this morning. Her desk had hidden much of her true form from view. He saw now that despite her apparent age, Wylma was taller than her Vicemaster. And despite her wiry frame, she was still incredibly fit. Muscle moved beneath the bit of forearms exposed by the rolled-up sleeves of her coat. Also, under her coat, a second pair of arms were folded across her torso. Her sturdy black boots thumped solidly on the rug as she made her way across the chamber.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said as the door slammed shut behind her. The grin on her wrinkled face betrayed nothing but amusement as she swept her eyes over the room. “It seems as if the party has started without me.”
“This is a closed chamber session,” the giraghul woman from earlier finally spoke up. The granite stiffness of her face did not form expressions easily, but her displeasure read crystal clear.
“Is it,” Wylma asked lightly. “The unlocked door would say otherwise.”
She tilted her gaze over towards Memphis. “Have you gotten to the part about the ghouls yet?”
He coughed “Yeah.”
“Oh good.” Her lower arms propped themselves on her hips. “So, the squabbling is hopefully about how all of them are ready and willing to help defend the city, yes?”
Councilor Keffeh leered down their nose at the Scarecrows’ Mistress. “You are not funny.”
Scarecrow’s Mistress grinned with all her teeth. “What could possibly be funny about the impending doom of our lovely home?”
The nhedii man from earlier spoke up again. “The Magehound suggests that we halt all movements in and out of the city until this is done.”
Wylma nodded. “Well, that seems like a measured and reasonable response to the situation we find ourselves in. So, what’s the problem?”
The councilor’s face reddened. “We would be hemorrhaging money,” he exploded. “And he cannot even tell us for how long!”
Itzak arched an eyebrow. “Tell me, Oyrunn,” he said, sounding like a schoolmaster explaining basic addition. Memphis could see the shadows of Eko in Itzak’s frown. In the mage, it was cold and cutting. In the councilman, it was condemning. “What happens when all your product is ruined by ghouls? When you cannot find transporters because they are undead? What happens when your investors cut ties because Osso is much of a risk? Will the money you save today have been worth it?”
Councilor Oyrunn snarled. “What will your mother say, Itzak, when you tell her that you let a foreigner,” he pointed to Memphis before turning his finger towards Wylma, “and this woman convince you to let your people’s livelihood rot in a storehouse over winter.”
Wylma snapped, “Dominic Oyrunn,” she said. “Before your father was a twinkle in his father’s eye, I ran wild in this city. This place would have been ashes three times over if not for ‘this woman’. So, scrape together some fucking respect, and watch your tone when you talk about me. Besides, if we find the necromage quickly, everyone’s cargo can depart unimpeded.”
“But you cannot guarantee he will be found before the Quetza becomes unnavigable.”
The light in Wylma’s eyes sharpened. “Who can guarantee anything? Has this council become so soft as to shy away from risk? A risk that is irrelevant, seeing that if the necromage is not caught, we may very well all be dead anyway.”
Councilor Oyrunn snarled. “Speak for yourself,” he said. “I can have my family out of this city within the hour.”
More murmurs of assent gathered behind Oyrunn.
The giraghul woman stood. “If we had a proper military behind us,” she blustered. “This type of thing would not be a problem. Do you think Krait has to worry about necromages? Or Aster? A lone interloper would not dare if we were under a nation’s banner.”
Memphis thought her words carried the sounds of an old argument. A suspicion Itzak confirmed when he waved the councilor’s words away with a deepening scowl. “This is not the time for your annexation pitch, Babette.”
“This is the perfect time!”
Dissenting voices rose higher. Memphis felt his impatience mounting along with the volume. Money and politics were all this council seemed to be focused on. Their citizens’ safety, apparently not at all. He had one more card to play; words from the last missive he had received rang in his ear.
“One more thing,” Memphis shouted over the arguing. Sweat ran down his neck, cold and clarifying. He held onto the sensation, knotting his nerve together as the councilors quieted once again. “Two weeks ago, I received word from my Order. It is their belief that Jeriko has proven himself to be more dangerous than we assumed at the outset of this mission. They have dispatched a contingent here, six days behind our arrival. Because of the nature of his necromancy, and the threat he poses not to just this city, but the safety of the surrounding life, the coming Magehounds have been given an alternate objective.”
Memphis paused. Letting the council grapple with that as he prepared to speak words that had stopped his heart when he had first heard them.
“If they get here and determine situation in Osso to be unsalvageable,” Memphis said. “The Magehounds are prepared to cull the city.”
Councilor Keffeh leaned forward. “Cull?”
Memphis forced the words past his tightening throat. “They will seal it from the outside, and kill every moving thing within these walls.”
Curses and screaming rose up from the council. Wylma’s smile finally wilted. Her wrinkled face slackened in shock. Itzak, however, did not make a sound or move an inch. The Obsihichee councilman’s face remained as stoic as stone, with only a small tightening around his mouth to hint at his surprise. However, strangely, a small gleam of understanding lit his grey-on-black eyes.
Memphis recognized that look for what it was. After the incident at Jadcrö, Eko would never put anything past the Magehounds. Given her knowledge about them and Jeriko, she probably held her own suspicions concerning what the Magehounds’ final solution would be, if they had to employ one. Eko and her father had spent some time alone in his office before they all came to the council palace. She had undoubtedly shared her suspicions with him during that time. That look confirmed Itzak had not known the full extent of the Magehounds commitment to see Jeriko destroyed, but the news hadn’t caught him nearly as off guard as his fellows.
More troubling than the knowledge that Eko had guessed the Magehounds’ plans were the implications of that knowledge. Memphis knew Eko well enough to assume that if the Night Witch had suspicions, she would be making countermeasures. And after failing so miserably at Jadecrö, she would make sure they were watertight.
Which meant Memphis was fucked. Tenfold.