Xiatoktok and Xiatokmai traded odd looks. The prisoner interrogation was ongoing, and likely wouldn’t be done for days. What did come through the relay system was… unlikely. To the point that their well trained paranoia was screaming “It’s all fake!”

“Let’s walk through this slowly. Maybe it will make more sense that way.” ’Tok suggested.

“Can’t hurt. So, the raiders aren’t, or weren’t, part of any single tribe.” ’Mia nodded. “Pulled together crew of roughnecks, mostly from the Mount Grbldi region.”

“Which, if memory serves, is an unpleasant but not terribly long boat ride from the Vast Green Isle foreign quarter, or a considerably longer ride on cheves.” ’Tok closed his eyes, trying to visualize the map.

“Not that long on land either, actually. Depending on where they rounded them up from, it might only be a day or two. Say two days, including time to get in position for the raid.”

“The plan for which they were given in detail.”

“And they actually trusted the person who set up the job enough to follow the plan, though the prisoner says he didn’t meet them. ’Mia nodded along.

“So they get to the caravansary on the eastern edge of the foreign quarter, and they raid it. Except that’s really dumb.”

“Right. Caravans have money, but unless you hit them on the road-”

“That money is likely not in the caravan, it’s out buying stuff.” This time ’Tok nodded.

“And while the cargos are valuable, you have to be able to sell them. And I don’t believe for one second that they could have stolen a meaningful amount of cargo.”

“But they must have thought otherwise.”

“Obviously. But we don’t know what they were after, because they rode in hard, tossing honest to Goddess incendiary bombs around-”

“And how the fuck did they get those…”

“Before being largely cut down by people using godsdamned slings and crossbows.” ’Mia growled.

They paused there, for a moment, to let their outrage at the unreality of the report wash over them.

“Assuming, for the moment, that the bombs came with the plan for the robbery,” ’Tok rubbed his temples, “we still need to address the issue of the suspiciously well prepared caravan.”

’Mia frowned at that, and looked back at the report.

“Nimu caravan. It doesn't say which one. We will need to follow up on that. Apparently, they had some lightweight barriers hidden under their wagons. Mostly in the form of roped together bamboo they could deploy fast. Enough to stop sling stones and hand bows, though not anything with a heavy pull. The incendiaries hit the barrier, and then Nimu just… tossed the bamboo off the wagons and used the fire as an extra barrier between them and the raiders. Plus they all responded to a full blown firefight with… unexpected speed. People freeze up during a surprise attack. Even trained soldiers don’t respond well. Now, we don’t know just how long Nimu had to get organized before the raiders reached them, but it can’t have been more than a couple of minutes.”

“So. They get organized, armed and armored inside of a couple of minutes. They turn the raiders’ fire against them, and they start driving them off. Lots of wagons on fire, lots of screaming aurochs, who at this point are also on fire and starting to stampede-”

“Right through the main gate of the caravansary, simultaneously killing more teamsters, more raiders, and more of the Foreign Quarter guards coming to stop the riot.” ’Mia squinted, trying to imagine the scene.

“Not to mention killing enough cattle to significantly raise the price of aurochs locally.”

“And, related, the cost of haulage is going to shoot way up too. Bad enough it was going on in the east-”

“Now supplies coming in through Vast Green Isle are in more danger. Fantastic. Which leads us to The Giant.” ’Tok didn’t quite growl.

“Reports say the unknown man was between two and three meters tall, and just appeared out of nowhere in front of the Nimu wagons.” ’Mia sounded equally pissed.

“Muscles on top of muscles, nay, strong enough to shake the mountains themselves.”

“Armed with a felling ax similar in size to himself, he smote the raiders. He struck them down with the furious rage of Zenthar himself. In fact, I’m shocked, SHOCKED that the report didn’t correctly identify him as Zenthar’s avatar made flesh!” ’Mia sounded piously outraged.

“Clearly the local Clanfolk are slipping. What could he be, other than divine? Especially since the interrogation summary says that the prisoner was attempting to throw a hatchet at him while sitting on a cheve and still, somehow, in defiance of all logic and anatomical sense-”

“To say nothing of the goddamn saddle horn-”

“SOMEHOW managed to cut his own cock and balls off! Somehow! I don’t know how! Apparently, nobody knows how!”

“The cheve is fine. I keep coming back to that. There is nothing in the report to indicate that the cheve was so much as nicked.” ’Mia gave up and tossed the report onto the desk.

“And then this divine being just… vanishes again. Somehow. You would think a three meter tall troll of vengeance capable of beheading twenty armed raiders, despite them being on cheves and he on foot, would stick out. But no. Somehow. After the battle, while people found tall teamsters, and strong teamsters, and even tall, strong teamsters with axes, none were divinities or mythic monsters. Somehow.” ’Tok looked equally defeated. “You know what? Going through it more slowly didn’t help me understand things better.”

“Me either.” ’Mia looked faintly murderous. “I do want to have a quiet, respectful word with our traders out there. A truly productive dialog.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“I’ll sponsor the buckets and mops.”

They looked blankly around ’Tok’s office. The decorations invited subtle, careful unterspracht. They truly couldn’t be bothered.

“You know what bothers me the most? Aside from everything? The hatchet wound.” ’Mia ground out. “It is so plainly bullshit. It’s the kind of thing you hear about in myths, like some kind of divine curse.”

“You find out what deity, I’ll see what kind of sacrifices they need.”

The silence stretched longer.

“We are really fucked, aren’t we?”

’Tok sighed. “Yep.”

Xiatoktok tried to meditate. The trick was to let the thoughts flick past your mind, without judgment, without analysis. Just… watch them go. Feel the separation between you and your thoughts. Don’t feel the thoughts. Just watch them come and go. He had spent a lifetime practicing meditation. It wasn’t working. He opened his eyes. The beautiful beeswax candle was slowly burning down, letting its warm scent fill the room.

The Business Council hadn’t mysteriously stopped caring about him. It’s just that they had missed the timing for an overt attack. Now, they lay in wait. They just needed him to slip. Didn’t even have to be a big slip. Because once he slipped, they would start pushing and make sure he never got up again. The Voices of Reason were tending their little gardens of interest, being visibly occupied with other matters. As though their spies and informants didn’t infest every crack and crevice of the Bank.

An organized campaign of raids was clearly not his fault, nor something he could stop. And yet. If the bank didn’t fill those budget holes. If the bank ate a serious loss. If the owners, the Clan, ate a serious loss… he would have to make sure ’Ja had those fake teeth ready. She said that she had some other uninterruptable suicide mechanisms she could install in them too. Needed to get on that. Needed to be a priority, in fact.

And the concubine… situation. ’Tok sighed. He was being an asshole. No two ways about it. ’Ja always said she was ok with it, and she appreciated his… focus on her. And she wasn’t lying, but she couldn’t have been telling the whole truth either. How could she have been? He nearly got stabbed a few times by outraged parents. Mindy voPin’s mom put enough cyanide in his drink to turn it blue!

But it was all worth it, to him. That was the core of it. He knew it. Everyone knew it. No matter how much bullshit he ran into, how many promotions he was passed over for, no matter how much harder he had to hustle and scheme to make it this far, it was completely worth it. ’Ja was his. His alone. And he was only hers. Oh, some incidental time slipped away here and there. The job, friends, the children of course. But in his heart of hearts, it was just ’Tok and ’Ja. Together, forever. The notion of sharing some of his time, of ’Ja sharing some of her time, with someone else… made him want to puke. It made his hands itch, like they could only be soothed by gripping the hilt of a knife. Like they could only be soothed by squeezing a throat.

There was a gentle knock at the door. How did she know? But then, after fifty years, how could she not?

“I could hear you brooding from across the hall.” She didn’t smile, exactly, but her lips quirked in a way that suggested she could be smiling. She walked over and sat down on the little table in front of him.

“I was meditating.”

She smiled slightly.

“I was trying to meditate.”

“Me too.” ’Ja muttered.

“I’m being an asshole.”

“Yeah. Not that I don’t feel like one too.”

“Why? The universal opinion of the Clan, and everyone closely affiliated with the Clan, is that I’m being an asshole, you are either a saint or an enabler for putting up with me, and we need to start bringing in concubines in job lots.”

“Because, Lover, for fifty years I monopolized your time. And I let you monopolize mine. It was so decadent, so depraved, it became a core fetish. One I didn’t have before I met you. Jerk. But I always knew that it was more than a kink for you. It was who you were. Are.”

’Tok nodded. He didn’t feel strong enough to speak.

“And what made it so hot was that we weren't hiding it. Notoriously monogamous. Gluttonous with our time. Devouring each other, drowning each other in our obsession. Like squatting in front of a starving beggar and eating Auroch flesh by the fistful. It would be so easy to raise someone up, make them Xia. But it was so much hotter not to. Like fucking on a bed of money with an audience in rags. And then I started finding reasons why it wasn’t just hot, it was necessary.” She held the beeswax candle in its little dish with cupped hands and watched the flame flicker.

“It became a self reinforcing cycle. I need to have all your time, because we are under attack. We need to fight off outsiders. We can’t afford to give our time to someone else. And we can’t afford to care about someone else either. We are under attack. For not caring about other people, and refusing to share our time. And so many other reasons, of course.”

“Always good reasons not to do it.” ’Tok agreed.

“Bet you were thinking of them just now.”

“Those uninterruptable suicide mechanisms need to become a priority.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve been spiking our food. You will tolerate the grafts pretty easily in a few days.”

“Classic ’Ja.”

She grimaced.

“But that's just it! There is absolutely no reason I couldn’t have just talked to you about it. You would have enthusiastically said yes. Instead I felt the need to sneak around. Like in some tiny way, I was getting revenge on you. For monopolizing my time. And enabling me.”

“By being dishonest. Or rather, by not being open.”

“Yeah. Same reason I have been spending all this time covertly screening potential concubines. I wanted to spring it on you. I wanted to box you in. Make you do it. Like somehow you forced me to be depraved and now I am going to force you to be decent. I know how twisted this sounds, by the way.” ’Ja looked away.

“Gentian, right? When am I meeting her again?”

“Tonight. I invited her for an after dinner drink. Just the two of you.”

’Tok slowly closed his eyes, and sighed long and deep.

“It’s our duty, ’Tok. And it’s a pleasant duty, if a hard one. But there is never going to be a time when things aren’t balanced on a knife’s edge. We could have chosen mediocrity. A bland, safe-ish life. We didn’t. So if every time is the wrong time, then every time is the right time. Like tonight.”

He nodded.

“After thinking about it long and hard, my final evaluation is this:” ’Tok was completely serious. “I just don’t wanna. I want to be greedy. I want you to be greedy for me. I just don’t wanna.”

’Ja made an amused chuff.

“You know that most people are delighted to take a new consort. Especially one that their loving, supportive wife has chosen with immense care. I did mention that I worked really hard for half a year to find and train her, right?” ’Ja could talk in italics. So could ’Tok. Both thought they had learned it from the other.

“Something to that effect, yes.”

“Well. I did. You are going to do an amazing job teaching her. I am going to do an outstanding job teaching her. She is going to be a brilliant credit to the Clan and our lineage will be honored for a hundred generations. So. Go wash up. Put on a nice robe. Share a drink with the beautiful, charming, intelligent young lady I found. And unless she pulls a knife and stabs you in each major organ in alphabetical order, accept that she is going to join our family.” ’Ja smiled quirkily.

“Actually, forget that last bit. At this point, I don’t care if she stabs you.”