“Allow me to introduce you to Minister Breban,” Captain Barinov said, gesturing to the other person in the room.
I stepped forward and shook hands with the man who was dressed like a civilian. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” I said.
“Minister Breban is the government liaison between our operation and Lord Belevich, who is ultimately in charge of us all,” Barinov said. “I hope the accommodations that we provided are suitable, at least for tonight.”
“Oh, they’re fine for a night or two,” I replied. “They are much more comfortable than the ground was for the last several days.”
“Why don’t you tell us what happened with you after we parted ways last,” Barinov said, gesturing for Aleyda and me to sit down at two open seats at the table.
We sat and I began talking. “I want to first thank you for taking care of the people in the company who were about to sell me out,” I said. “It kept me from having to deal with them on the voyage home. One way or another, they weren’t going to make it back to port, but you kept me from creating more divisions and hard feelings among the people I was traveling with.”
“It was nothing,” Barinov replied. “What you said when we talked last made a lot of sense. They meant to do you harm. You did me, and all of us, a good turn by damaging their portal. Taking care of that small problem helped ensure you could stand here before me today. I have big plans for our association. You have the capability of doing things we are poorly equipped to accomplish. I was just mentioning to Minister Breban that you seem to have a gift with languages and that you can assume any number of appearances.”
“You are correct,” I answered. “I can speak and read any language and my ring does allow me to change my appearance at will.”
“You can speak any language?” the Minister asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Are you certain?” he said.
“I am certain,” I responded.
“Remarkable,” he said. “I just spoke to you in two separate languages and you answered as if you were a native speaker.”
“Tell us about your journey here,” Captain Barinov said.
So, I told them. I talked about our headlong flight to reach the ship before the others did and our fears of being left behind. I spoke of our long voyage back home and the immediate pressure of the Shroud Hallow guard. I recounted our panicked flight to Bralgren and being accosted by the guards just as we reached the ship. I let them know that my people had voted to come here and that we all hoped for a better life. I mostly glossed over our stay in Restru but went into great detail about the attack by the river pirates. Finally, I talked about walking the long road to Kollavik. They were practiced and appreciative listeners. They asked clarifying questions when necessary and oohed and aahed in all the right places. I also discussed our plans to go into business.
“I think I would like to invest in your business ventures,” Minister Breban said. “You seem like you are very competent people and I assume you will apply that competence to your business dealings. The things you told me about your engineer, Werner, lead me to believe that you will all be very wealthy in no time at all.”
I was never one to turn down some additional funding and having someone powerful on our side wouldn’t hurt at all. “I think that can be arranged,” I said. “Although we are not looking for a partnership, I think that we can certainly ensure you will get a tidy return on any investment that you offer.”
By this time, dinner was being served. Lieutenant Rudov had left after delivering us so there were just the four of us eating. I tried many different dishes. Some of them were quite tasty while others were more of an acquired taste, but I soldiered through. It’s hard to complain about free food.
“How many fighters do you have among your people,” Barinov asked.
“Five to seven depending on how we count. One of our people is a female dwarf blacksmith named Sathebeena and although she is very strong and competent, I think using her to develop our business interest makes the most sense. There is also a friend of mine, a human named Anxo, who is probably a little too old for extended operations but I assume he would pitch in from time to time if he was asked to.”
“And are all of your people competent warriors?” he continued.
“I think so,” I said. “We are all veterans of several fights. One of us, my friend Xeng, tends to get injured when he fights, though.”
“So, you can field a group of as few as four or as many as six if you are called upon to do so?”
“That seems about right,” I said. “What plans do you have for us?”
“I have plenty of people to cover most of our more basic functions,” Barinov replied. “I would use you and your people as a team of troubleshooters, and of course I would provide you with every bit of support that I can. If you do well, you make the rest of us look good. Unfortunately, like most governments, sometimes looking good is as important as actually being good. I know that you have other interests and I would like to be certain that you have enough time to pursue those interests. After all, we all need something to do when we are no longer fit to fight. I won’t lie to you. You will be thrust into dangerous situations, sometimes more frequently than others. I hope that what I say here you can keep in confidence because if it leaks it puts all of us in great danger. Lord Belevich is tired of the status quo. He thinks the other lords have become weak, pitiful shells of the people who forged the history of the two continents. Put simply, he would like to be in charge. Although mostly rational, he also has a superstitious streak. When I mentioned that I had found a capable team of five-fingered humans, he immediately seized on the prophecy that has plagued people of your kind for the last few centuries. What better way to ascend to power than on the back of a prophecy that many people still believe in.”
“I want to make something clear before we formalize any association,” I replied. “The lives of my people are more important to me than any individual mission. If I am asked to choose sacrificing their lives for your patron’s political goals, I will pick their lives every time. I am new to this world and they are the only family that I have. I will not squander the lives of people I care about for some diffuse political goals. I understand that in battle, many things can happen. Injuries, death, those things are common, but I will not throw lives away meaninglessly. If that is a problem, then I thank you for tonight’s hospitality and we will find our own way in this world. If that is an acceptable condition, then I will be glad to work for you. I will also be exerting quite a bit of effort to improve the lives of the five-fingered population. Even where they are free, their lot in life is not good from what I’ve seen and heard.”
“I think we can work with that,” Barinov replied after receiving a nod from Minister Breban. “On our best day, we don’t always solve a problem on the first try.”
Stolen story; please report.
“I assume that you would like us to sign on for a term of service,” I said. “How long do you want that term to be?”
“Ten years,” Barinov replied.
“And what do we get in exchange?” I asked.
“We will give you a comfortable place to live, either in the city or somewhere in the surrounding countryside,” Barinov replied. “You can loot anything from our enemies that you can find that does not jeopardize the mission, and you will have some fairly powerful people in your corner if you cause waves in the business world.”
“Oh, we intend to make quite a bit of noise when it comes to business,” I said. “We have access to hundreds of years of technological innovation to perfect here and unleash on the markets. There will certainly be some people who are not happy when their customer base evaporates overnight.”
“Let them be unhappy,” Minister Breban interjected. “Your coming could create a boom for the economy here. Of course, you will have to pay taxes like any other merchants. At the end of the day, there is never enough governmental funding. You will become quite popular locally if you can enrich us all.”
Great, even by coming to another world I couldn’t escape death or taxes.
“How are taxes structured here? Is there an income tax?” I asked.
“No, incomes are not taxed but trade is,” Breban replied. “Anything imported or exported is taxed.”
Well, at least I wouldn’t have to hire an accountant to keep our books. Speaking of accountants, that made me think of Sawwar.
“Where are the people that we sent back with you settled?” I asked.
“They are living in a port city named Gilmja on the western coast,” Barinov answered.
“If we can generate enough work, I intend to bring those people here to serve as part of my initial workforce. I think I can trust them and there aren’t that many people in this world I can say that about, present company excluded.”
“That could easily be arranged,” Barinov said.
“So, how goes the battle for the island?” I asked them both.
“It goes well,” Barinov said. “In case you haven’t noticed, we have many more people here than the orc clans do. In a war of attrition, they will certainly lose. Of course, we are hampered a bit by the fact that they have always invested more heavily in their naval infrastructure than we have, so we are playing catch up in that regard. Taking down that portal bought us some time but they are no doubt working on its replacement in a more secure location. If they complete the portal before we land enough troops, we will be hard pressed to hold on to the place.”
“Why don’t you establish a base on the island like they have?” I inquired.
“Because they established the only real deep water port that we know about,” Breban said. “We are looking for another.”
“Well, as a show of good faith, I may be able to offer something of a solution,” I said. “Did you ever wonder where the five-fingered invaders came from when they swept in off the sea.”
“Of course we have,” Barinov said. “It’s one of the largest unanswered questions in our history.”
“They came from that island,” I said.
“What? How do you know that?” Breban asked.
“Because we found their base,” I said. “That’s where I had the people that you evacuated from the island holed up until I found them a way off. Things may have changed, but at one time they must have had a sufficient port to craft all the ships the used for the invasion.”
“Remarkable,” Barinov said. “Can you describe the place?”
I spent about half an hour describing our underground explorations, culminating with the description of the complex itself. I emphasized how defensible it was and talked about the cove that provided access from the sea.
“This could be an absolute game changer,” Barinov said when I wound down. “Would you be able to relocate the place again if we all went back to the island?”
Me and my big mouth. I quickly realized that I had just talked myself into another excursion out to someplace I never wanted to visit again.
“Relocating it would not be a problem,” I said. “I don’t know whether the cove is still deep enough to land troops because I never went down to the sea to find out. Reefs could have grown in the many years since it was used last. Things could have shifted.”
“If the water is deep enough, we should be able to clear out any underwater obstructions,” Barinov said. “Clan Galwick is not the only force that employs mages. I need to requisition and provision a ship and an escort. We will leave early next week.”
Crap. Early next week was only four or five days away.
“I hope the food is better than my last voyage,” I said.
“Oh, we eat well on ship, don’t you worry,” Barinov said in a lighthearted manner.
“I have not talked to all my people yet, but I think living in the city might be a little overwhelming for some of us. If the offer is still open, I think we would be more inclined to accept someplace outside the city as our payment. I don’t think we will try the farming thing again but somewhere with enough room to build manufacturing facilities would be preferred.”
“I know just the place,” Breban said. “It is not so close to the city that you have to smell the slums, but not far away either. We can go look at it tomorrow if that works for you. And, on the way, we can talk about investment terms.”
“That sounds like a good plan to me,” I said. “Since we will be leaving again almost as soon as we arrived, I want to make certain that my people are all comfortably settled before we depart.”
“You will like the place,” Breban said. “It was the country home of a minor noble family that had a bit of a falling out with Lord Belevich.”
What was it with all of these names that started with the letter B? Barinov, Breban, Belevich? Maybe having a name starting with B was seen as auspicious in this culture. It did certainly tax my ability to recall names, though.
During the rest of the meal, nothing of major import was discussed. Instead, conversation turned to less weighty topics. Apparently, Barinov and Breban had attended the same boarding school and Breban had a whole litany of stories about the hell raising adventures of a youthful Barinov. Many were quite humorous. I appreciated the levity. It made both of these men seem less like faceless bureaucrats and more genuinely human. Of course, when Breban finished his stories then we got to hear from Barinov, who had a whole host of tales about Breban. I don’t think I had laughed that hard in quite a long time. I translated the stories for Aleyda so she could enjoy them as well. At one point, a fit of laughter caused her to spray wine out of her nose. She was never going to live that down, especially all of the complaining about her sinuses burning.
By the time dinner was over, I felt pretty good about our decision. I hoped we wouldn’t live to regret it, but that was old James talking. New James had made a vow to himself to live more in the now. I desperately hoped that I could hold to that promise. Sometimes, the habit of worrying all the time is a hard one to break.
After dinner concluded, we bid the others farewell and headed back to the barracks. At night, passing a row of uniform stone buildings can make a person feel a little lost, but we were able to locate the right one when we heard Xeng’s booming laughter. We walked in the door.
I don’t know what had happened, but Xeng, Helvia and Patrick were grouped up in one corner of the room. Xeng was still laughing, although it was winding down, and it must have been at Patrick’s expense because his face was scarlet.
Upon seeing us enter, everyone quieted.
“Well, I have some good news and some bad news,” I said. “The good news is that they are going to assign as a property out in the country close to the city where we can put down roots. The bad news is that our first mission is a trip back out to the island because they want to take over the base that we found.”
“I think I’ll stay here this time around,” Bowen said.
“That’s fine,” I replied. “I think Aleyda and I are more than enough for this mission.”