“And… This place was your family’s summer hunting lodge?”
“Are you by chance a student of history, Sheriff Ingvar?”
He did not miss her choice to address him, out of the several possible titles, by the one which tied him to her own regime, but Ingvar also knew very well when something was not worth making an issue of. “Very much so, my Lady, but of a quite…specific focus. I’ll no doubt be suitably surprised by whatever anecdote you are about to share.”
Ravana smiled, glancing up at him; the difference in their heights meant she was looking up through her lashes, but there was nothing remotely coquettish about her demeanor. Nor ever had been, that he could recall, which seemed notable. Noblewomen had a tendency to flirt by default, whether or not they meant anything by it.
“Well, I shan’t bore you with the minutia, but suffice it to say that if you were acquainted with the exploits of House Madouri you would find nothing odd about the presence of a prison beneath our summer home. Fortuitous, given your new position as law enforcement, is it not?”
“It…raises a different point of curiosity. Knowing this was the private jail of medieval nobles, I’d expect something more…medieval.”
“Oh, it was. The flagstones are original.” She gestured at the suitably ancient-looking floor of the aisle between the cells, long since worn smooth and with a slight but noticeable groove down the center. “Behind the polished oak wall paneling is more of the same; picture that, and torches in these sconces instead of fairy lights, and you’ll have the look. My great-grandfather was obsessed with modern innovation and had everything he could find renovated. Those fairy lamps—and the plumbing in the cells—are somewhat rustic now, but they were beyond cutting edge when they were installed, just before the Enchanter Wars.”
That seemed like enough preamble.
“Then the question is what to do with their current occupants.”
Ravana nodded once, slowly, her blue eyes panning around the prison beneath her lodge, the current headquarters of the Shadow Hunters. It was not a large prison as such went, but adequate to contain the captured Huntsmen of Shaath without overcrowding them beyond the two-occupants-per-cell recommended by the designers. Scowling, bearded men stared back at her through the bars, every one of them poised and unbowed, many outwardly serene.
And, to a man, silent.
“Their equipment?” she asked.
“Secured elsewhere. With all the respect owed to sacred implements, which they are, and methodical notes to ensure there shall be no confusion in reuniting each artifact with its owner at the end of this. Should that be how it ends.”
“And the dead?”
“I have commandeered empty spaces in the adjacent crypt. Stone tombs will suffice for now; after due consideration and discussion with the survivors, I shall proceed with proper funerary rites. I consider my ordained hunters sufficient to return those men to nature in accordance with Shaath’s ways, but the situation is…spiritually complicated. If I judge that their kin would find this offensive, they can be held where they are until all the fighting and politics have been settled, and then can be returned to their lodges. I noted the crypt’s iconography, my Lady. More Shaathist than Vidian, if archaic.”
“Ours is a new chapter in the association of Shaath’s faithful with House Madouri, but not the first. Well, then! I believe that first I should hear the input of he who arranged this outcome.” The Duchess turned around, raising one eyebrow, and her tone became noticeably cooler. “Well?”
“For now, we are still upon the path.” The nameless, elderly lizardfolk shaman leaned upon his walking stick, inner eyelids flickering in a horizontal blink as he met Ravana’s stare. “I thank you for heeding my warning, young Duchess. Now, you have seen your faith rewarded.”
“Have I?” she asked, a bite to her tone. “Your forewarning of an incipient attack was sufficient, elder. Had I met it with my own forces, the outcome would have been no less decisive.”
“But much less clean,” Ingvar observed. “A confrontation would have created a political shockwave whose outcome none of us could predict, but it is likelier that the Wild Hunt would have seen the extra defenses and retreated. This way, we have damaged the strength of the Archpope’s political faction and gutted that of the orthodox Huntsmen, while protecting our own interests, taking no casualties, and causing no disruption. I was not best pleased by the loss of life, but even so, I cannot see this outcome as anything less than optimal, my Lady. More so than any of us should ever expect an armed confrontation to be.”
“Silence and secrecy,” the old shaman stated. “These are paramount. Everything hangs by a thread; too many souls are aware of us. No others must know of the People’s involvement. Our strength is meager; our contribution to averting the final catastrophe will come because we are unexpected, overlooked, disregarded. The enemy cannot learn of this. They must be silenced.”
Ingvar pinned the old shaman with his hardest stare; in the way of old shamans in general, he was unmoved.
“They are silent enough as is,” Ravana said after barely a moment’s thought. “They will be kept here, for the time being. There is no possible justification for the mass execution of prisoners.”
“Here, they are at best quiet,” the shaman insisted. “Only silence can—”
“If you find me a troubling person for whom to work now,” she replied, flashing her teeth in an icy smile, “you should be mindful of moral lines and where I stand with regard to them. This is not a slippery slope, gentlemen, it is an abrupt plunge. If I can order such a thing once, I can do it so much more easily the next time, and the next. Tell me: does the thought of me with a learned disregard for the value of life fill you with comfort?”
Ingvar and the shaman exchanged a loaded look. After a moment, he folded his arms, subtly shifting position to frame himself alongside the Duchess, joining her in staring the shaman down.
“Wise, for such a young one,” the old lizard murmured at last. “Wise only in the ways of evil—a thing such as I have never seen. But you use that wisdom to avoid the pitfalls of your forebears, and that I can only honor. Very well, little hunting spider, you speak truth. It is a risk…it is a compromise. There have been too many already. But on some things, perhaps we should be unbending.”
She raised her chin. “I’m so glad you approve. The Huntsmen will be kept here and treated fairly and as gently as is feasible until the matter of the mad Archpope is settled, one way or another. Then…we shall see how things stand, and decide what to do with them.”
The shaman bowed his head to her once. “Then the present is settled. We must discuss the future.”
“I confess I am not overly optimistic,” Ravana said, still visibly on edge. “This event had a satisfactory outcome, yes. But the thought of being led around by vague and ominous portents makes me viscerally unhappy. I am a patient person, but only when I can clearly see the benefit toward which my patience leads.”
“Would I be right in guessing that this is your first experience with following the visions of a shaman?” Ingvar asked.
“The first time one has been nominally on my side, as it were. I was rather embarrassingly outflanked by a kitsune, once, but I hardly consider those a fair standard by which to judge anyone else.”
“It seems strangely characteristic,” the elder noted, “that you would manage to run afoul of a fox-goddess, despite being so young and so very far from their domain.”
“You are not helping your case,” she said in an even cooler tone.
“As with all things,” Ingvar said in a deliberately gentle tone, “it becomes easier with experience. Until the experience has come, you can only proceed upon faith that it will. I understand that you have no personal cause for such confidence, my Lady; that being said, I implore you to lean upon mine.”
Ravana half-turned to regard him thoughtfully, but said nothing, so he continued.
“I am here to tell you that following a shaman’s visions never becomes less frustrating. From the vague phrasing to the utter lack of explanation, every part of it is more annoying than the last. Having been through this many times, I can only promise you that it is always worthwhile. I would not be here with you, had I not trusted the advice of several shaman who explained nothing and immediately proceeded to drag me through the most ludicrous, dangerous experiences of my life—well, up until Ninkabi, at least. And I regret none of it.”
The Duchess still said nothing, but her expression had mellowed to a more thoughtful one at least.
“He puts it well,” the old lizard said, thumping his cane on the stone floor once for emphasis. “I feel for your frustration, little Duchess. These are the ways of my people, but I too was once a youngling suffering inexplicable guidance from inscrutable elders. This I will say to you now: that you followed my advice when it went against your nature showed wisdom. If you will follow it still, what comes next will be more to your liking.”
She subtly tilted her head to one side. “You have my attention.”
“You are laying a trap of your own, are you not?”
Ravana’s expression turned wry. “Is that meant to impress me? Anyone who knows me in the slightest would assume as much.”
“A thing you have been advised not to build—a snare meant for prey anyone sensible would warn you not to challenge.”
“Again—”
“A thing of arcane fire and lightning,” he pressed on, eyes boring into hers, “with which you mean to bring down a demigod and parade its defeat before your subjects and foe alike.”
The Duchess fell silent, narrowing her eyes.
“I tell you this, little spider.” Once more, he thumped the staff, causing the bones hanging from its head to rattle. “Our defeat of the Huntsmen was the first step. Others I have foreseen—and laid safeguards, that my presence and influence will not be noted by they who move against us. Let me seek out each step of the path, follow where I guide, and I shall lead the monstrosity straight into your fangs.”
She stared at him, frowning, silent. After a moment he continued.
“A great doom is coming—is nearly here. It is not your fate to avert it. Nor is it that of my people, for all our careful preparations. Our destiny is to create but the smallest opening, to act in a moment of such perfect opportunity that even our meager strength will topple the mountain. Yours is to seize the enemy’s attention and hamper his plots, that those whose destiny is his defeat will find their own moment. We shall none of us be the heroes when this tale is told, but without us, all is lost.”
This time, he thumped the staff twice, his voice falling into an almost musical cadence.
“You have shown forbearance at my urging, and great faith that took, for it is not in your nature. I do not ask forbearance of you now. Today—this very night, you plan to enter the lair of the beast. Those closest to you have told you it is foolhardy, a risk to be avoided. I tell you this: now is the time to strike.”
Thump thump; his tail swished twice across the floor behind him in the echo of the staff’s impact upon ancient flagstones.
“This Archpope Justinian is a spider, a weaver of webs. He sits in the center, pulling each strand with care. You are a hunting spider, a fierce thing of venom and speed. You have shown the discipline to wait for your moment, little spider, and by the counsel of my spirit guides I tell you that your patience is rewarded. Prepare your venom. Go into his web, and tear it asunder. This night, follow your nature, and you shall know success.”
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His thin chest expanded slightly as he drew in a breath, then a shiver went through him almost as if he were shaking off a dream.
“And then, when you have twice succeeded upon my counsel… Perhaps you will have cause for faith when I next tell you something I cannot yet explain.”
Very slowly, Ravana tilted her head back, then nodded once. “It goes without saying that I would have executed my plans for this evening regardless. Still. The one voice out of all who assures me victory is…not the one I would have suspected. Very well, gentlemen. I will leave matters here in your care; as just mentioned, I have another task to carry out tonight.”
“You are planning to go to Justinian?” Ingvar asked warily. “I…certainly see why your advisors would urge you not to, my Lady. Is there anything I…?”
“Frankly, Ingvar, the less you are involved with this, the better for us all.” She patted his arm once, then strode away to the rising staircase without another word, leaving them to watch her go in silence.
“That’s quite the little monster you’ve climbed into bed with, Brother Ingvar.”
He turned to regard the speaker through the bars of his cell. Cameron had been the leader of the Wild Hunt, a survivor of the lizardfolk’s poison due to luck and fast medical attention.
“Is that judgment I hear, Brother? From a follower of none other than Justinian?”
“Justinian is a…circumstance. I follow Veisroi, and Shaath.”
“In that order.”
The ghost of a smile tugged at the Huntsman’s face, subtly shifting his beard. “We have made our respective positions on that argument clear long since. Still, your point is well-taken. Men of the world such as we must make our alliances…wherever they must be made. I must tell you, Brother, I don’t like your little monster’s chances against mine.”
“If it all rested upon her tiny shoulders? No indeed. But if all she needs to do is make a wreck of others’ careful plans…”
He trailed off, and the smile drained from Cameron’s face as he watched.
----------------------------------------
“VEILGRAD STANDS!”
“VEILGRAD STANDS!”
“VEILGRAD STANDS!”
Natchua shut the door to the stage outside and slumped, letting out a heavy breath that puffed out her cheeks. It wasn’t the pressure—actually she felt oddly at home in front of an audience. It was just…the emotional intensity. Working a crowd into a fury involved entering a fury oneself, unless one were a two-faced anth’auwa like Chase. Stepping out of view and trying to let it go was like a lesser version of an adrenaline crash.
Just for her, though. The crowd was still chanting powerfully enough to be clearly audible through the stone walls and reinforced wooden door.
“Press conferences sure have changed since my day,” Jonathan commented, stepping up and gently resting a hand against her back in support. Emotional support; it wasn’t like she needed his help to stand, but the reminder prompted her to straighten back up. “Traditionally they just involve reporters.”
“I wasn’t actually…planning to do that,” Natchua admitted, leaning against him. “Just, I asked the reporters to assemble in the square to make sure there was room for everybody, since we’ve got a bunch of out-of-towners from across the Empire this time. And, well…I didn’t expect half the city to turn up. How’d they even find out about it?”
“You put out a public announcement, kitten. Well, I can’t hear an uproar like that without being a mite concerned over what that crowd’s going to do with that energy next, but I think we’ve learned by now that you’re at your best reacting to circumstances rather than laying schemes.”
“Yeah, good for me. There are just so many circumstances.”
Jonathan draped his arm around her shoulders as they moved down the corridor, giving her back another gentle rub. “With all that said… Listen, sweetheart, please stay calm.”
Natchua nearly missed a step. “Well, that’s something that’s only said to people who are about to have a very good reason to get mad.”
“You’re about to have a reason to be surprised and frustrated. I’m only mentioning it because that’s exactly when you tend to say the first thing you’re thinking. This is your gentle reminder not to show the sharp edge of your tongue to people who don’t deserve it, because if you do, you’ll feel awful about it for the rest of the day.”
“Fine, fine,” she grumbled. “How alarmed should I be?”
“Not very, I don’t think. While you were out there, a…let’s call it a surprising development showed up here looking for you. Lord Lars has them comfortably ensconced in one of the bigger meeting rooms. Just through here.”
“Them? Wait, here?” They were in the renovated castle near Veilgrad’s center which housed the government facilities for both the city and Lower Stalwar Province. “Not at the manor?”
“I think we want to encourage that. There are all kinds of reasons it’s preferable not to have people popping up randomly at Leduc Manor.”
“Well, that’s for damn sure,” she grumbled. “This one?”
He nodded, reached out, and opened the door for her. Natchua stepped through and stopped, taking in the sight.
Lars himself—formerly Lars Grusser, steward of House Dufresne, and as of his recent formal adoption Lord Lars Dufresne, heir to the entire House—was present, as was his consort. In fact, Natchua reminded herself, his fiancee; Eleny Feathership’s hand sparkled with a brand new and (in her opinion) borderline excessive engagement ring. It was all politics: House Dufresne required the backing of powerful allies to legally adopt new members, and now with a formal alliance with Houses Leduc and Madouri that was on the table, enabling not only Lars’s admission into the house, but his marriage to a gnome now that the two could adopt children themselves to carry on the line. For once, Natchua didn’t mind the politics, as it enabled two decent people to be happy and also put the province in capable hands. Right now, the pair were solicitously entertaining the other guests present.
The entire chamber was full of Narisian drow, nearly all of them in traditional robes that showed they hadn’t been on the surface long enough to acquire new clothing. Sixteen of them, Natchua counted with a swift movement of her eyes. Women, men, and even three children, all with the blank-faced reserve characteristic of their culture. As one, they turned up on her entry, and bowed toward her.
And even with all that, her own attention snapped immediately to the last person present.
“Mogul, just what the hell are you doing in here?”
“I have come to beg of thee a boon, good lady!” Embras Mogul, leader of the Black Wreath, proclaimed as he swept off his hat and bowed to her, bald head glinting under the fairy lamps.
“You’ve got some brass balls on you, mister.”
“True enough, and also I will never hesitate to bring up for leverage that time you murdered half my friends.”
“Murder is an inapplicable charge during a time of war—a war which your side declared and started, by the way!”
“Potayto, potahto.”
“Apples and oranges!”
He waved his hat at her. “In any case, these good folks were here first, and if I am not mistaken their business is rather more urgent. Let it never be said that Embras Mogul is too prideful to wait his turn.”
So he wasn’t with them. That was a point in their favor. Natchua turned her attention back to the drow, eyes darting back and forth until one stepped forward, clearly nominating herself the speaker for the group.
Lars cleared his throat. “Natchua, this is Niereth yil Lissneth y’nad Naalsoth, whom these guests have nominated to speak on their behalf.”
Natchua quirked an eyebrow at those particular honorifics, but just nodded in response when Niereth bowed deeply to her.
“Duchess Leduc, I thank you most humbly for this audience.”
“What is it I can do for you, exactly?”
Ordinarily more pleasantries would have been called for, but Niereth took the hint from her brusque response and got right to the point, which itself earned some brownie points from Natchua.
“With the greatest humility, your Grace, my companions and I have come to beg sanctuary from House Leduc. We are as beggars, bereft of home and any assets not carried with us, but we do not ask charity. You will find us able and most willing to work. We seek only the opportunity to support ourselves.”
Natchua blinked twice. “…from me?”
“It will not come as news to you, your Grace, that there are many in Tar’naris who…fall through the cracks. The formation of the Elven Confederacy has upended many norms. One is that Confederate law stipulates the right of movement within its territory for all citizens, at the insistence of the plains tribes who have joined. No longer can the Queen and the matriarchs physically restrain people from leaving. We fear there is a very short window of opportunity before entrenched powers in Tar’naris contrive a…workaround. As they did to preserve their slave trade in defiance of the treaty with Tiraas.”
“You don’t need to explain to me of all people why anyone would want to escape that hellhole, Niereth. I’m asking why you would bring this to me, personally. If you’re hoping for special treatment, I should warn you that my feelings toward Tar’naris are strongly negative.”
“On the contrary, your Grace, all of us here share that attitude. That…is why we sought you out. Your rebuke of Matriarch Ashaele at your ascension ceremony is already widely whispered throughout the city, as was your defeat of the Highguard sent to abduct you.”
“You’re welcome,” Mogul commented. Fortunately everyone ignored him.
“Hm,” Natchua grunted. “I’d have figured that of all things would be a secret.”
“Such would be my assumption as well,” Niereth said evenly. “The Qestrali are prideful, indiscreet, and unskilled at keeping secrets. The other surface elves, little better. You are known throughout Tar’naris as the city’s rebellious daughter. She who most successfully escaped its grip, and continues to defy its authority. The name Natchua is held in great contempt by the matriarchs and their circles, but very much the opposite among the poor and the powerless. It is…truly an honor even to meet you, Duchess Leduc.”
That was something, all right. Natchua blinked again, too lost in the sheer impact of that revelation to even begin sussing out how she felt about it. Jonathan shifted subtly, moving to stand closer behind her shoulder, a silent but much appreciated gesture of support.
“Lars?” she asked, more to buy time than because she really expected him to have answers.
Fortunately, Lars’s characteristic competence was in full effect. “The sponsorship of a noble House considerably streamlines the immigration process,” he explained. “Truthfully, the normal process isn’t onerous. It’s always been the Tirasian Dynasty’s policy that anyone willing to work and pay taxes is welcome in the Empire; there are even housing and food programs available in coordination with the cults to help new arrivals settle in.”
“There are?”
“That’s something you in particular would be familiar with, if it weren’t for your chronic aversion to doing anything the normal way,” he said wryly. “Yes, in fact, data collected by the Surveyor Corps indicates that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes and more likely to participate in civic functions than natural-born citizens. Perhaps because they don’t take citizenship for granted, but whatever the reason, the Throne considers them worth investing in, even if it does cause friction with locals from time to time. We could easily get these people settled in—and in fact it’s my intention to do so even if you decline to aid them.”
She turned her attention back to Niereth. “Well, there you go.”
“We do understand this,” Niereth said smoothly. “And we are of course deeply grateful for Lord Lars’s assistance and support. Your Grace… If all we needed was a place to go, there is an entire expat community in Tiraas itself which would welcome us. We are people who have only been given the opportunity to leave Tar’naris since the unexpected announcement of the Confederacy created gaps in its customary control over its citizens. All of us are wanted back there—not because anyone wants us, but because they desire to have us under their thumb. In some cases because not having us thus causes a loss of prestige, but just as often for reasons of petty spite. You know very well that a lack of legal recourse will not stop the Matriarchs from reaching out and seizing what they consider to be theirs. And…there are others. Many others. We seek not only a place to go, but a place where we can be safe, protected, and beyond Tar’naris’s grip. Where others can follow and join us, as many as can escape before the jaws clamp shut again—which you know they will, sooner than later. Veilgrad is known as the city which faces monsters and eats them. Duchess Natchua, you are known as the hand which slaps away Queen Arkasia’s grasping fingers.”
Niereth drew in a deep breath, then bowed deeply, bending herself fully double. Immediately every other drow in the room did likewise, even the children, and they all held that pose.
“Please,” Niereth whispered. “We need your help.”
“Please don’t do that,” Natchua pleaded. “Stand up. One of the best things about life in the Empire is nobody has to do that!”
“Natch,” Jonathan murmured, “a moment of privacy?”
She looked up at his intent expression, then nodded. The other drow had straightened up, but even their Narisian reserve was thin, now; she could see the fear and pleading in too many of their eyes. Especially the young ones.
“Just a moment,” Natchua said, then raised a hand. A wall of swirling shadows rose from nowhere, encircling herself and Jonathan and filling the space with a constant, soft tumult of incoherently whispering voices, concealing anything they said even from elven hearing.
Both of them turned their backs to their audience and Jonathan wasted no time in getting to the point.
“If Narisians or the Confederacy were interested in planting spies, this is exactly how they’d do it.”
“Why the hell would any of them want to spy on me?”
“There are potential strategic reasons, but considering who we’re dealing with, Niereth’s right: we can’t rule out petty spite.”
“Hm. So you think I should turn them away?”
“Very much the opposite, and not just because helping them is the unambiguously right thing to do. The Confederacy is a jumble of cultures that don’t like each other and are all various incompatible flavors of isolationist. There are a lot of areas in which no one else should dare challenge elves, but when it comes to spycraft? None of them have ever had to learn how, or even had the opportunity. The Narisians are, at best, the least incompetent. And you have two succubi and a lesser djinn on your payroll, which they do not know. If the entrenched powers in Tar’naris are going to come stalking after you, let them plant an agent. The girls will sniff them out immediately, and then you can feed Tar’naris whatever misinformation you want.”
He paused, then smirked.
“Either strategically, or out of petty spite.”
A smile blossomed slowly across her face until she had to bite her lip to control it.
“I love you.”
“You’d better,” he said, his voice slipping into that raspy near-growl which said if they’d been in private the rest of their discussion would be passionately non-verbal.
Thus, she took the luxury of a few extra seconds for them both to regain composure before dismissing the wall of whispers and turning back around.
“All right, Mogul,” she said briskly. “I hate you, you hate me. Insults, injuries, and we both think we’re right—it’s all very bardic. So if you actually came and sought me out to ask for a favor, it must actually be really important.”
“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” he replied with a broad grin. “Well, obviously I could have, but I’ll let you have this one.”
“Mm hm. Just…go to my house and tell Hesthri. I’ll be there as soon as I can to hear you out, without keeping you waiting unnecessarily. But I am going to be fairly busy in the interim, so it’s likely to be a bit.”
“All other things being equal, I believe I can live with that,” he said, doffing his hat once. “By your Grace’s leave, then.”
Shadows swelled, receded, and he was gone.
Natchua let out a relieved breath. “I can’t stand that guy… All right, so, legalities and paperwork are not among my strong suits. Lars, I know this isn’t your job, but can I ask for your help in getting all this set up?”
“You hardly need to ask,” he replied, smiling. “I’m always up for doing some good, especially when it’s to the benefit of Veilgrad.”
“I appreciate it. All right then! Niereth, everyone else, welcome to Veilgrad. Let’s go get you settled in, and then talk about the future.”