> As is well known, free matter exhibits acceleration away from the centre of the Nested Worlds—in other words, away from the Sun—of approximately sixteen feet per second per second. “Free” matter being any matter which is not resting on the surface of, or incorporated into, the substance of an earthmote. The earthmotes themselves cannot therefore consist only of ordinary stone and ores, else they too would fall away from the sun and into the void. But keeping them in their steady orbit would require a variable (but very large) sequestering of arcanokinetic power, as described in the equation below (fig.1): note that E in this case is Elsewell’s Constant. It is my conjecture that any valid solution to this equation will solve to a stable configuration which we may express as a self-stabilizing Definite Arcanum in the first simple form of the supernal clavis, the sequestered energies of which asymptotically approach infinity (fig.2). I call this configuration a “Lodehead,” and posit that the earthmotes are formed around these arcane structures. —Excerpt from Betran Calien’s Principles of the Art: an Advanced Student’s Guide to the Mysteries of Creation

THE LODEHEAD

The Caves of Haptar Getesh, Prathardesh Earthmote 09.06.03.12.08

For several seconds, the only sound in the Lodehead cavern was the faint hum and crackle of magic, but even that faded as the energies stabilized. Silence fell, only to eventually be broken by Jerl’s low whistle of approval.

“Okay…not what I was expecting, but I’ll take it.”

Amir moved to the wall and brushed his fingers over the stone, watching the way the projected map flowed and played across the back of his hand. “Is this what I think it is?”

“Well, I think it’s a map to the location of every Word Vault in creation,” Jerl said.

“I think you may be right….hmm.” Amir orbited the room, tapping each marker as he passed it. He paused next to one. “…this must be Time. or Mind.”

“How can you tell?” Mouse asked.

Amir tapped the collection of small, angular runes next to it. “Because these two columns are unchanging, but this one is a blur,” he said. Sure enough, the runes in the third column were flickering and changing faster than the eye could keep up. “Angle roilwise, Angle polar, distance from zero. The exact same system Navigators use to this day because, well, it is the only system that works. No change in the first two but rapid movement in the third would be consistent with an object dropped over the edge.”

He stepped back and considered the entire map with a frown, then produced a small blue-bound book from his pocket and flipped through it, taking in the dense charts and tables on it at a glance. He looked up, looked around, whispered to himself, traced his fingers up and down the tables a few more times, then nodded and closed the book. “…Perfectly up-to-date,” he added. “Most impressive. That’s Time. And that one over there is Mind.”

“Most impressive?” Deng-Nah commented, drily. Once again, he was speaking in his own tongue but thanks to Mouse they understood him perfectly. “This is…I do not believe recently escaped human slaves could have worked magic like this. I doubt whether any living mage today could do it.”

“Oh…I think the Navigators could do it.” Amir disagreed, looking about them. “With the power of a Lodehead to draw on, we could do it, maybe. But we already have made something similar, albeit far cruder. You’re right though, there is no possibility this was the work of untutored refugees. Only the Crowns and Heralds would have known how to create something such as this, back in those days.”

“Rheannach?” Jerl suggested again.

“Once again…I doubt whether she would meddle with a Lodehead.”

“Who among them would?” Mouse asked. There was a note of dark suspicion in his voice. “Is it possible…these people had help from more than just Rheannach?”

“They did know about the Forsaken,” Amir mused, giving his goatee a thoughtful twist between thumb and forefinger. “As I recall, it was a book of rubbings and sketches from these very caves that first taught us of their existence.”

“But Rheannach was their patron and protector,” Jerl pointed out. “How could they have help from the Forsaken without her knowing about it?”

There was a long silence.

Finally, Amir shrugged and shook his head. “It all happened thousands of years ago,” he said. “Speculation gets us nowhere.”

Deng-Nah nodded. “Agreed. Let us stick to what we know…” He ambled over to the wall, then tapped one of the red runes. “This is nearby, yes?”

“Vathcanarthen. The ‘City of Choirs.’”

“Tell me more.”

“It was the capitol city of the Ordfey. The seat of Ekve’s royal throne, the site of the imperial palace. Where Vathelan was the seat of the arts and Vathwychen was the center of military power and the study of magic, Vathcanarthen was a giant monument to Fey superiority. It had the largest slave market ever built, and I’ve heard it said that in the Grand Arena, what was once sand is now a solid deposit of a unique kind of stone, cemented by the blood of thousands.”

“It still stands?”

Amir nodded. “After humanity rose up and broke our chains, different fates befell the three great cities. Vathelan was conquered, torn down stone by stone and rebuilt as Auldenheigh. Vathwychen is gone. In fact, we didn’t even know where it was until forty years ago when the patterns of ancient earthworks were spotted from an airship. But Vathcanarthen was simply abandoned and left for the jungle to swallow.” He gestured vaguely back toward the cave entrance. “There have been expeditions since then, of course. Archaeologists…or treasure hunters and grave robbers. The difference is largely a matter of reputation. Common wisdom has it that all Vathcanarthen’s riches were plundered long ago, and what little remains is of interest only to academics.”

“Apparently, the treasure hunters overlooked something,” Jerl commented, considering the gleaming red marker on the wall.

“Well…it seems it is safe there,” Deng-Nah pointed out. “If it has gone undisturbed for so long, I doubt anyone will stumble across it. In the meantime, we have this Word—” he indicated his family’s heirloom, still tumbling lazily in the middle of its magical field, “—and though it is now charged, we have no clue as to which Word is inside.”

“Well, we know how to get that information,” Jerl said.

“I for one am not, hm, thrilled by the idea of seeking out an Eclipse and hearing what the Shades have to say,” Deng-Nah retorted.

“Me either, but if there’s a better method then I don’t know it.”

Silence again, during which time Amir finished his tour of the chamber, having recorded the location of every vault in his notebook. Finally Deng-Nah sighed, reached out toward the word vault, then paused to glance at him. “…Safe?”

“It should be.”

Deng-Nah’s expression declared his sarcastic delight with this reassuring statement, but he reached into the glowing field and took the box. It came away easily, and rested comfortably in his hand, still covered in glowing runes, but the map on the walls around them faded away to nothing.

“I am…troubled,” he confessed as he weighed it in his hand. “I will do what I must for my people, my family, and my Emperor. But…the thought of having such a power worries me greatly.”

“If not you, who else?” Mouse asked. “Who would you trust with it?”

“…I can think of some. But none of them are here. And my trust in them is not absolute. There is a chance it might be misplaced.”

They nodded. There was nothing comforting to be said in the face of such a thought. Instead, Jerl looked around the chamber. “I suppose we’ll be back here next time we have a vault to charge,” he said. “But I think it’s time we figure out what your Vault holds, Deng-Nah.”

The Yunei nobleman sighed heavily, nodded once, and returned the vault to his bag. He looked far from certain or confident. Which in itself was a good qualification, to Jerl’s way of thinking. He’d far rather give such power to somebody who was duly reluctant and wary of it.

Time tickled him slightly as he left the chamber, and he furrowed his brow in thought, trying to make sense of a new conviction that was settling on him. A new feeling of…of urgency. Of things moving faster all of a sudden. As if this had been the last relatively peaceful moment for a while.

The Word yielded no further insight beyond that, but he trusted it.

“Where to, captain?” Amir asked.

“To the nearest Eclipse,” Jerl said, heavily. “It’s time to hear what the Shades have to say.”

----------------------------------------

> Protest over new prison plans The Constabulary were called upon today to disperse a protest at the planned site of the new penitentiary, which is set to begin construction later this week. The prison is set to be built on the salty marshes sinister of the city limits, downriver along the trailing bank of the Heigh, a location criticized by wildlife lovers, naturalists and budget-watchers alike, who claim that draining the marsh to lay the prison’s foundations will decimate local populations of birds, fish and other interesting wildlife, as well as being prohibitively expensive. The Department of Criminal Justice have dismissed the protest as a “fringe” movement, and stated that construction of the prison will go ahead as planned. If all proceeds according to schedule, His Grace’s Prison Brackismarsh will be ready to start receiving new prisoners in the year 09-06-02. The constabulary permitted the protest to go ahead, but were seen to arrest a small group of troublemakers who insisted that Brackishmarsh is being built for the incarceration of political prisoners and to silence dissenting voices. The DCJ dismissed this accusation as “ludicrous” and refused to comment further. —Article in the Auldenheigh Courier, year 09.05.19

ANVIL SAFEHOUSE

Auldenheigh, Enerlend, Garanhir Earthmote 09.06.03.12.10

“…Yeah, alright.”

Adrey blinked, quite wrong-footed. She’d been expecting Skinner to say something like ‘absolutely not’ or ‘we can’t take the risk’ or something similar. She’d been working herself up for two days to argue with him and plead Sadie’s case, but in the end…

He looked up at her from poring over his maps, and grinned his signature dental tragedy. “She’ll need ‘ta be properly vetted an’ investigated, o’ course.”

“Of course.”

He chuckled. “Don’ look so shocked, Countess. If’n I trust you with th’ tricky social nobbin’ missions, it’s ‘cuz I trust ‘yer instincts. If you think this lass is worth bringin’ in, I’ll bring ‘er in. We need to recruit anyway.”

“It’s a risk.”

“Aye, an’ if ‘yer wrong, folks’ll die. So be sure you’re right. But if you think you are, I’ll trust ‘yer.”

Adrey thought hard for a second, about Sadie. “And if I’m wrong?”

“Well, I’ll be bloody dead, won’t I? Or Encircled. so I’ll ‘ave ‘ta leave the recrimination an’ harsh words ‘ta you. Though, like as not you’d be dead too.” He shrugged, and skewered her with a steady stare. “So. Are you certain?”

“I’m not.”

“Good. You’d be a bloody fool if you were. But, uncertainty cuts both ways. ‘Yer not certain she’s a friend, but ‘yer not certain she’s a foe, neither. We can work wi’ that. But be ready to abandon ‘yer safehouse at a moment’s notice, hear?”

“I already am.”

Skinner nodded, and flipped a page in his notebook. “Now…’Bout the Peltons. I thought I sent ‘yer to that shindig to see who we might ‘ave on our side, not ‘ta cozy up wi’ the enemy.”

“The answer to the first question turned out to be ‘precious few,’” Adrey explained. “Most of the gentry really don’t understand the threat. They’re too out of touch and don’t realize the noose that’s hanging the working class will tighten around their own necks in due course. Right now, the prevailing attitude seems to be that a bit of law and order is a good thing.”

Skinner made a disgusted noise, but sighed. “So instead…’ere you are, invited ‘ta tea with two o’ the free collaborators. That’s risky as fuck.”

“I’m not here to be safe, Skinner.”

“Aye, none of us are!” he laughed. “But lemme be th’ voice o’ caution here. ‘Fer all you know, Mrs. Pelton saw right through the Miss Bannant disguise an’ you’re walkin’ into the slaughterhouse like a good little lamb.”

“Could be.” Adrey shrugged. “Or it could be I’m about to get my foot in the door and become a source of real intelligence.”

“Assumin’ the Peltons know owt.”

“Skinner, we’re not going to win this thing without risking my life, and part of the risk is that the thing I’m risking it for might turn out to be nothing. It’s that simple. Unless you have actionable evidence that this is a trap, I think I have to do this.”

He made a grumbling noise, but nodded. “Take no steps wi’out an escape plan,” he said. “An’ keep ‘yer bloody ‘atpins sharp an’ that spring-loaded gizmo up your sleeve well oiled. I want th’ worst case ‘ere ‘ta be that you ‘ave to stab the Peltons an’ run. If you wind up bitin’ the cyanide pill, I swear by Maicoh an’ Maingan I’ll be very cross wi’ you.”

“Noted.” Adrey gave him a dry, complex smile.

“In the meantime, we need to talk ‘bout your position at ‘Atpin safehous. Now you’ve got a fellow tenant who guesses what ‘yer in with, an’ the constables sniffin’ around…”

Adrey scowled. “You think they got the wrong woman?”

“Nah. if they’d been in any doubt as to who they was after, the whole lot’a you would be in Brackishmarsh already. They knew who they wanted.”

“Do we know who Jemma Gower really was?”

“Not yet. Fairly sure she’s not one of ours, but you know how it is wi’ compartmentalization. I’ll keep diggin’, if I can spare the time an’ men.” Skinner shook his head, then came back to the subject at hand. “Anyway. You got three choices wi’ ‘Atpin. You stay put an’ take a chance on Sadie’s loyalty, you come up wi’ a plausible reason to leave, or you rabbit.”

“What do you advise?”

Skinner remained silent for some seconds, aside from the raspy scratch of his fingernails through stubble as he scratched thoughtfully at his jaw. Finally, he looked Adrey in the eye. “…It comes down ‘ta ‘ow much you trust Sadie,” he said.

“I have no particular reason to, on a rational level” Adrey admitted. “But…my gut wants to trust her.”

“Hrrm.” Skinner scratched his jaw again, then nodded. “If it were me, I’d pull out gracefully. You’ve got the cover already sorted: you’ve been workin’ for the Gladreaves long enough an’ Mister Rubb’s sent back enough money you can get a place o’ ‘yer own.”

“On the other hand, an address suitable of Miss Samandra Bannant would be…pricey.”

“True.”

Adrey nodded, and turned away from the desk to pace the room in thought. Skinner let her think in silence and busied himself with his papers and writing.

The fact was, she knew what she wanted to do. She also knew it was her duty to try and talk herself out of her first impulse, in case it turned out to be the stupid one. And there were good reasons to talk her out of this decision. But…but none of them were quite enough to overcome a conviction she couldn’t entirely name or articulate.

Adrey groaned and massaged her forehead. If there was one thing Skinner and Bothroyd and the others had drilled into her time and again from the very beginning, it was that spycraft was no place for impulsive, illogical action. Skinner was almost certainly right, the rational thing to do would be to gracefully leave Miss Brooknetter’s boarding house and set up elsewhere under a different identity.

And yet…

“I want to stay,” she said aloud.

Skinner looked up from his reading. “Reason?”

“Every move is dangerous. We have proof that the constabulary at least don’t suspect Countess Adrey Mossjoy is at Brooknetter’s boarding house, or as you said I’d already be waiting for the Circle in Brackishmarsh Prison. But if I move on and set up under a different name elsewhere, that’s a chance for somebody to notice the discrepancy, for me to make a mistake…or if Brooknetter is being watched, then one of her tenants leaving so soon after this incident might ring a bell no matter how careful I am. Meanwhile, I do think Sadie is in earnest, and she has figured out I’m into something, so I suspect the smart move is to keep her close, where I can watch and guide her.”

Skinner considered this for a few moments, then nodded. “Arright. But whatever your escape plan is, I want you to keep it on a hair trigger from now on. You need to be ready to leave immediately at the first sniff somethin’s gone wrong. Clear?”

“Crystal.”

“Outstanding.” He gave her a tight nod with something that was almost but not quite a smile attached to it. The signature Skinner look of approval. “You’d better get on ‘ome, then, if you wanna…fuck me, you ‘ear that?”

They’d both paused to listen at the same time. There was a rumbling in the air, the deep-throated voice of airship engines. As one they traded a glance then moved to the window, twitched aside the curtains, and peeked out.

They got their explanation immediately. Not one, but three of the largest airships Adrey had ever seen were rumbling in low over Cheapside, each one vast enough to carry lesser ships amidst docking gantries in their bellies. As indeed they did, as well as trailing an escort of smaller craft in their wake. The one in the middle was a true behemoth, pushed by numerous engine outriggers and bristling with weaponry. From her nose jutted the broad snout of a siege gun, and Adrey could see men in Clear Skies livery lined up down either gunwale, their shakos tall and their rifles held at port arms.

“That’s the Ring of Eternity,” Skinner murmured. “And that’s her little sister on the left, the Unbreakable. But what in the Red Lady’s name is that third one?”

Adrey took a closer look at it. The ship was built much the same as the other two, but now she looked close she saw its livery was different. Instead of the sky blue and cloud white of the Clear Skies guild and the Oneists, it was black, edged in indigo. If there was a name on the prow, Adrey was at the wrong angle to read it, but the figurehead caught her eye. A single black wing, raked down and turned backwards so that its remiges led the way.

Something about it made her shiver.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I don’t like the look of her one bit.”

“…No.” Skinner scowled. “….See there, behind ‘em? That’s the Make Your Own Fortune, I’m sure of it.”

Adrey stared up at the smaller ship in the midle of the escort flotilla. “Civorage.”

Skinner’s expression was hard and tense. “Aye. If ‘is ship’s ‘ere, then ‘e’s come back to Auldenheigh.” He twitched the curtain closed. “Go ‘ome. Wait ‘fer orders.”

“If the Peltons contact me?”

“Then carry on as planned, but keep me informed.”

“Will do.”

He nodded, looking grim. Something had just changed, they could both feel it. And Adrey knew for a fact that they weren’t going to like it, whatever it was.

Somehow, she had a feeling she’d find out all too soon…

----------------------------------------

> “It never mattered how many of them we killed. I’d have sworn we wiped out the whole Set one time, and yet the next Eclipse came, and there they were again, slithering over the walls like always. I don’t know what magic went into twisting the Nornfey, but I swear… they’re more like Shades than elves.” —Captain Sgair MacDubhain, Laird of the Crae Manaan City Guard.

CLIPPED WING

above Auldenheigh 09.06.03.12.10

Auldenheigh. Auldenheigh.

The Right Hand took a deep breath of ancient Vathelan’s much-changed air, and almost laughed. What a name, and what a city! And what a view of it! Even from up here on the Clipped Wing, Auldenheigh’s lichenous growth still sprawled as far as the eye could see in every direction, its otherwise circular stamp on the landscape only pulled out of shape by the stretching influence of the river, and the squeezing influence of the hills and Auld Forest.

They took a deep breath and savored the tang of smoke on the air. Wood smoke from the houses, charcoal from the forges…It was the taste of millions of people heating their homes, forging their cutlery, living their lives.

So many dissatisfied lost souls, who’d never known the Forsaken Mother’s love. And at long last, her Hands were here to deliver them.

The Right Hand stretched out their own hand and caressed the Clipped Wing’s dark wood. All those who pledged themselves to Lady Iaka’s love did so by granting her a gift. For most, it was nothing less than their entire identity as a person. They gave her their dreams and ambitions, their fears, their pain and their souls, and she granted them serenity in gratitude.

The Right Hand had given…most of themself. Certainly they had given their name and most of their life, in the form of memory. They knew they had once been an elf of some influence in the Ordfey courts, but the rest was the Mother’s secret to keep. The same went for their counterpart and sibling, the Left Hand.

Nils Civorage had given a ship.

It wasn’t the Right Hand’s place to question Mother’s decisions, of course, but they rather felt that Civorage had missed the point in giving a mundane, inanimate object. Though, they could not deny the utility of the Clipped Wing, nor her quality. She was the second ship built to the same plans as Ring of Eternity, one of only three in existence, and unlike her sister ships, she was built with some particular customizations and modifications to suit Tyulmater’s needs.

She did not carry the Protectress herself, of course. Lady Iaka was forever bound to her temple and the magic of the Lodehead beneath it. For her to step out of its confines would be to invite time to resume its remorseless grind on the mortal, human body the Crowns had reduced her to in their cruelty. It would not bring all the years down on her in a single avalanche, like many naive new followers first assumend, but it would erode her finite supply of precious seconds, and Iaka needed to reserve every one of those in pursuit of her long-term plans.

Hence the Right Hand and the Left Hand. The Loving’s oldest and most dedicated servants, and the architects of their clan’s rebirth as the Tyulfey, the elves of darkness. The last of the Nornacha Set to bear the burden of individuality in any degree.

Still, even as much of that as they could had been shed. The Hands surveyed the world from behind an entirely faceless dark mask, without mouth or slits or even eyeholes. They saw the world through a strip of diaphanous weave that crossed the bridge of her nose, but otherwise their masks were utterly opaque and featureless. Their garb likewise was plain, unadorned and cut as neutrally and as simply as possible. They were non-persons to the fullest degree they could be, until the day when Lady Iaka’s plan came to fruition and they were finally granted the full peace of her embrace.

There was a lot still to do before that blessed day, though. And it all pivoted here, on this greatest human city. And on one stupid, artless human whose first blundering attempt at the sacred duty had run him into the teeth of a magic that had thwarted them ever since, and whose every attempt to wriggle free had failed.

Their sibling joined them at the prow. By design, the Left Hand and the Right Hand were almost impossible to tell apart, having shed every facet that might differentiate them. Name, voice, gender…all such protrusions had been sanded away, leaving only the pure, clean core of them both. There was a difference in chirality, inasmuch as the Left Hand was indeed left-handed, but this merely created a complimentary symmetry between them, not division.

There was no communication between them for the moment. There was no need. They both knew why they were here, arriving in this unmissable manner. Their thoughts were aligned, nearly identical. But the Left Hand’s arrival was a signal that the time had come. The Right Hand nodded, then jumped over the airship’s rail.

They landed as lightly, silently and harmlessly as a squirrel among the reeking stack of household chimneys. Around and behind them, the Left Hand and the Set alighted with similar ease. With the precision and dexterity of a single guiding intellect, they spread out and vanished, darting away across the rooftops in sure-footed bounds that carried them easily across streets and wide thoroughfares yet never dislodged a tile.

They were hunting. There were disordered souls out there, humans who, in innocence and ignorance, clung to the trap of self. They would be found. They would be given peace and happiness.

And then, because all else had failed, they would have to die. It was the only way to break the witch-thaighn’s curse

But that in itself meant their deaths would mean something. If the Right Hand had still been in possession of a conscience, that alone would have been sufficient to soothe it. As it was…they had no need of soothing. There were no compunctions, no qualms, no worries. There was only the instruction, and the hunt.

They glanced at the Left Hand, nodded once, and together went bounding away across the rooftops in search of one very particular target.

----------------------------------------

> “The constabulary was founded by decree of Duke Errard, who faced a particular problem in his war against Comte Gavier Navarro de los Oderos, the so-called ‘Oderan King.’ Hitherto, the law had been enforced on a case-by-case basis by the Enerlish nobility, who would raise militias or direct a portion of their regiments to investigating and punishing crime. With so much of the duchy’s men-at-arms marching dexter to war against de los Oderos and his men, Duke Errard found himself in need of an alternative solution. Thus was founded the constabulary: a civilian force whose oath swore them to uphold the law, protect the peace and serve the common good. The constabulary has endured ever since, through the reigns of duke Einharth and Duchess Ellaenie, and has continued into the reign of House Telliker under Duke Betrem. —Wolder Ruddie, The Legacy of House Banmor

BRIEFING

Constables’ House, Old City, Auldenheigh 09.06.03.12.10

“These orders come direct from the Duke, Serjant.”

Jed Bothroyd knew how to play this game. His particular role for the Blackdrake consisted of appearing to be a hopeless, beaten old man whose career had stopped due to his lack of ambition and backbone, who’d just hopelessly plod on without pushing back against orders he didn’t like. It was a role he had played well for years now, and it had successfully warded off suspicion many times, most recently after the Duchess’ raid on the Circle.

Even a spineless no-hoper had to push back a little at times, though. If for no other reason than to give the appearance of folding.

He kept himself at an appropriately upright posture, with his helmet tucked under his arm, and addressed the wall behind the Chief Superintendent’s head. “I understan’ that, Chief, but these Clear Skies men aren’t coppers, if’n ye follow me.”

The chief gave him a cold stare which Bothroyd ignored. Slimy bugger. the Superintendents to a man were free collaborators installed by Ducal command, and the Chief in particular, one Orlan Wotken, was getting rich on it as if he’d be able to enjoy a rusty steel scrip of his wealth once the city was fully conquered and Oneness was achieved.

“I’m sure I don’t, serjant,” Wotken said.

“I means they’re…they’re not local lads, sir. They don’t know the streets, know the folks, know ‘ow ‘t’city works. Some of ‘em are foreign sorts as don’t even speak Garanese, sir.”

“They don’t need to, Serjant, that isn’t their role. Their role is to maintain order.”

“Beggin’ y’pardon, sir, but that’s a damnsight easier t’do wi’ kind words than wi’ rifles. S’called community policin’, sir.”

Wotken gave him a haughty look. “I wasn’t aware you were the one in charge of policy, serjant.”

“No sir.”

“You’re a gutter-treader, serjant, and don’t you forget it. Your perspective is narrow and street-level . You don’t see the bigger picture. Leave that to your betters.”

“As you say, sir.” Bothroyd replied evenly, desperately wishing he could add, ‘do let me know when such a fellow shows up.’ “Still, we’ve ‘ad no less than ten cases o’ these Clear Skies men shootin’ first over stuff my lads would ‘ave ‘andled peacefully, sir. Six men are dead.”

“Six curfew-breakers, Serjant.”

“Is curfew breakin’ a capital offense, sir?”

“It damn well should be!” Wotken rose from his desk. “How many people died at that Circle? The terrorists crashed a bloody airship on it! And they murdered innocent members of the faith community! Anyone abroad after dark in the wake of that is acting like a terrorist, and I won’t stand for it!”

Bothroyd shifted his feet uneasily. “I’m jus’ worried the public won’t see it that way, sir. We’ll ‘ave riots if we’re too ‘eavy-’anded.”

“Good! Then we can flush out the malcontents and agitators and finally get this damn city under control!” Wotken strode to the sideboard by the window and poured himself a brandy. He didn’t over one to Jed. “You have no spine, Bothroyd.”

“So you’ve told me before, sir.”

“Nor are you a student of history. We’re in the midst of a succession crisis and an upheaval. These are the times that break inattentive civilizations. If it ends in revolution, it’ll be your neck swinging from a rope next to mine, but your….soft, mealy, coddling approach to policing brings the little bit closer every day. Do you want to hang, Serjant?”

“No, sir.”

“No, sir.” Wotken echoed, with a hint of mockery. He knocked back the brandy and poured a second. “We have an army in the city now. We have airships. Let the people riot if they think it’ll do them some good. We’ll put them down hard, round up the troublemakers, and then we’ll finally have a compliant and harmonious Auldenheigh. It’s like surgery. You ever seen a man having his leg off, serjant?”

“Can’t say as I ‘ave, sir.”

Wotken drank his second brandy. “Grim sight. Tied down, thrashing and screaming. Hate to endure it myself. But it’s better than dying of gangrene. And the best surgeons, the ones who save the most lives, are the ones who have the strength of will to ignore the patient’s whimpering and get that leg off him as quick as may be. The quicker the better! It’s brutal, it’s agonizing, but it saves lives. That’s what we’re doing.”

Bothroyd didn’t let his thoughts show on his face. Instead he settled for shifting uncomfortably as if squeamish, and fidgeting with the helmet under his arm. “Sir.”

Wotken scoffed and returned to his desk. “The Clear Skies marines are here to stay, and the city is under martial law now,” he said, as though it hadn’t been before. “I don’t care if you disagree with the decision. If it matters to you so much, I’ll accept your badge and you can go home to your wife.”

There was a long silence. Bothroyd finally stopped staring at the wall and dropped his gaze down and to one side as though shamed and capitulating. Wotken stared at him, then grunted and pulled a document over from his in tray to read it. “If you’re that worried about this ‘community policing’ of yours, you can go out and be nice to the public on your own time, see how it ends for you,” he said. “While you are on duty, I expect you to carry out your orders as His Grace the Duke has commanded, the Chief Constable has directed and I have conveyed. Dismissed.”

Bothroyd ducked his head in a sharp little nod and retreated from the office.

Well, that had gone about as well as he imagined it would, but Wotken had given away quite a lot. The man was more complex than a first reading might suggest, being hideously eager to please his own masters and superiors, and cunning enough to know a good idea when he heard it so he could steal it and pretend it was his own. For him to shut down Bothroyd’s suggestion of a softer community-based approach said that riots weren’t merely an acceptable hardship, but part of the plan. Auldenheigh’s new masters wanted blood to run in the streets.

That was a sharp change in direction. Up until now, the plan so far as the Blackdrake Network could tell had been to maintain peace and order while the Circles slowly converted and absorbed the populace at a quiet, steady, gentle pace that wouldn’t cause a panic. “Like slicing a gammon,” as Bothroyd liked to put it: no individual slice cut enough away to prompt alarm, but it was astonishing how quickly the ham disappeared in hindsight.

To abandon that course was…insane, so far as he could tell. What had changed? Why had it changed?

Never mind all that: how could they stop it?

“Serjant?”

Bothroyd emerged from his thoughts and considered the constables of his squad. Good lads, one and all. Young’ns he’d taken under his wing, older men whose judgement and character he trusted. Seven of them, and all deeply worried by this further tightening of the Oneist vice. Sitting alongside them were Barrow Coppicer’s squad, also awaiting his return. Fifteen men all told. Fifteen of the best…and fifteen of the last good’uns in the city. All the rest had either been Encircled or forced out for speaking their mind too frankly at the wrong time.

And all the bad’uns were fully behind the Guild, if they weren’t joining up.

He shook his head grimly at them. “We’re no longer the law in this city, lads. The army is, an’ the Clear Skies men in particular.”

“It’s not right, sarge,” Willowman commented sourly. The others nodded along with him.

“Whether it’s right or no, ‘tis out’ve our ‘ands,” Bothroyd told him. “All we ‘ave left is what’s in our power t’do. So while the army an Guildsmen peacock around our city wi’out proper restraint, we’re gonna show ‘em what proper constables are.”

“It won’t ‘elp,” Serjant Coppicer noted. He was Jed’s counterpart and closest companion on the force, a man he wished he could have kept in his squad as senior constable…but no. His promotion had been necessary and good, and damn difficult to arrange in the present climate. But not even the Wotken had been able to ignore Coppicer’s unblemished service record and manifest merit.

“…Let’s get out on beat, lads. We can natter while we’re workin’.”

They filed out of the building, and formed up unto their squads on patrol. In better times, fifteen men would have been an entirely too sizeable force to go patrolling about this part of the city in one unit, and the serjants would have dispatched their men in pairs to beat the streets while their mates were to hand in case of trouble. But these were grim days. Now, two squads moving as a unit was unremarkable.

Coppicer fell in alongside Bothroyd at the front of their column as they walked. “So. ‘Ow’s it gonna go, you think?”

“I think…” Jed said, keeping his voice low so that prying ears would not hear him over the tramp of booted feet, “that we’re ‘eaded for a tragedy, soon.”

“Deliberately.”

“Aye. It’ll be summat nasty, too. Summat t’get th’ public rightly angry. An’ then when they’re out there remonstratin’ wi’ the law—”

“Some loudmouths in the crowd t’make things worse.”

“Aye. An if they’re real clever—”

“—Which they are—”

“—Which they are…they’ll make a show o’ retrievin’ the loudmouths an’ brutalizin’ them, too. Might stage a murder in plain view, even.”

Coppicer grunted. “Stage it? I wouldn’t put it past these buggers to do it for real.”

Jed gave him a wary look. “You might be right. They want things to turn bloody. They want war in’t streets.”

“They’ll bloody get it,” Coppicer noted. “Nowt we can do to stop it, is there?”

“…Nowt I can see,” Bothroyd admitted.

They trudged in silence for a minute before Coppicer asked, quietly, “…D’you no’ have anything, Jed?”

Jed glanced over his shoulder at his squad, and at the hateful looks people were shooting them from behind after they’d gone past. “Barry…at this point, I dunno if Eärrach ‘imself showin’ up would make a diff’rence.”

“Oh, surely it would. ‘E’d bring this to a peaceful end, for sure…”

“’E won’t, though.”

Barrow Coppicer sighed heavily. “Know for sure, do you?”

“You do too.”

Coppicer nodded glumly, and said nothing. They walked in silence to the end of the street, each man chewing over an endless stream of futile ideas. Both of them knew with horrible certainty that, if there was anything that could prevent a massacre, it wasn’t within their power.

“…What’s a man to do in times like these?” Coppicer asked, quietly.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Bothryod inhaled sharply through his nose as he reached a conclusion of sorts. “Same thing ‘e does in all bad weather. Bends ‘is back, bows ‘is ‘ead, an’ keeps on trudgin’ through.”

“To what end?”

“To whatever’s on t’far side. For good or ill…an’ we’ll only ‘ave the chance to make it good if we show up.”

Coppicer didn’t reply, but Bothroyd was watching his expression. Nothing changed in it, as such—his friend’s brow was still furrowed, his eyes still tired and the set of his mouth still grim—but it did become stiller, somehow. Harder.

Good.

He caught something out of the corner of his eye, glanced toward it, signalled recognition with an up-nod, then cleared his throat. “Keep the squads together. Patrol aroun’ Heralds’ Park an’ meet me back ‘ere. I’ve got a Lad Jack ‘ta meet,” he said, using the Constabulary’s internal nickname for the informants and gossipers who kept them informed for a little coin, or some leniency when it came to their own petty crimes.

“’Bout what?”

“Nothin’, most like. But we’ll see.” He peeled off from the group and ducked through the door of a pub called the Water Fowl Inn, tucking his helmet back under his arm as he did so. There was a beer waiting for him at the bar already, and he slid himself onto a stool to take a much-needed swig in silence.

“You’re late,” the figure to his left commented.

“Shit weather.” Bothroyd swigged his drink again. “Gettin’ worse, too.”

The figure nodded, then lowered his voice. “What’s the word?”

“My choice is to do as the Guild men tell me, or turn over me badge. You?”

“All the regiments an’ ships ‘ave been sent out on maneuvers. Ev’ry armed man in the city is either the ones the Duke brought in from Betlend way, or Guild men. There’s no Auldenheigh lads protectin’ Audenheigh now.”

“No-one wi’ a personal stake.”

“Exactly.” The man swigged his drink with a slight tremor in his hand. “An’ there’s been rumors all since the ships arrived. Folks say they’ve seen figures on th’ rooftops. Elves, they’re sayin’.”

“What kind of elves?”

“Like none I ever ‘eard of. Black as ink, grey as fog, an’ stark-arse naked if you believe it.”

Bothroyd frowned into his beer before taking a slow, careful draught as his mind turned that detail over. He lowered his voice until it was impossible anyone could hear him save the other man, and even he had to listen carefully. “Alright. You remember the plan we made?”

“…Now?”

“Not jus’ yet. But be ready. If I send the word, I need you out the city an’ on ‘yer way within the hour.

“Jed—”

“I mean it, lad. I want bags packed, the women an’ little’uns told, an’ th’ whole family ready to be gone on a moment’s notice. Summat bad is comin’.”

His son-in-law tensed up a moment, then nodded and finished his drink. “Right.”

“A man who looks to ‘is family in these times is jus’ doin’ ‘is duty, Danel. You keep me grandchildren out o’ ‘arm’s way, leave me worry about rest. Deal?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good lad.” Bothroyd finished his drink as well, and rose to his feet, patting the younger man on his shoulder. “See you at lunch on the tenth I ‘ope, if not sooner.”

“Be safe, Jed.”

“Do me best, lad.” And that was that. he strolled back out into the street and cut through the park to catch up with his men.

He was, at least, a little bit less afraid now.

----------------------------------------

> “Auldenheigh’s tram system is the marvel of the modern age, combining as it does all the lessons and technologies that have come from the airship industry. Thanks to the generating mill at Auldbend, a network that once relied on horses now runs entirely on the miraculous power of electricity, allowing Auldenheigh’s citizens to travel in warmth, light and comfort at all hours of the day and night.” —Miss Beka Tinshearer, A Tourist’s Guide to Auldenheigh

VISITING THE PELTONS

Leadbanks district, Auldenheigh, Enerlend 09.06.03.12.10

“Samandra Bannant” alighted from a private carriage at Mr. and Mrs. Pelton’s city address, a fashionable three-up townhouse in the affluent district of Leadbanks, and held in the nervous urge to take a deep breath or check all her weapons were still in place. She knew they were. She had ‘hatpins’ strapped to her thigh, a cutting knife in her bustle, two pistols up her sleeves…and a deep, deep hope she would need none of them.

Instead of showing her nerves, Adrey forced a smile onto her face and ascended to the front doo, only to find it being opened for her before she’d even set foot on the bottom step. An older man in the severe but well-cut black suit of a butler gave her a respectful little bow. “Good afternoon, Ms. Bannant. Sir and Madam are waiting for you in the parlor. My name is Elston, shall I take your coat?”

“Thank you, Mister Elston.”

“Of course, ma’am.” He took her coat, escorted her to the parlor door, and vanished.

Mister Kal Pelton rose to his feet as she entered. Adrey hadn’t actually engaged with him much at the social event a few days prior, but she saw immediately that here was a charming and clever man. Not, frankly, the most beautiful man she had ever met, or at least not to her tastes. Adrey had always favored dapper, slim, boyish men, while Kal Pelton was burly and stern-faced rather than handsome, with a thickness around the midriff which spoke either of over-eating or of prodigious strength. Adrey judged it to be the latter from the way his sleeves pulled tight around the shoulder and upper arm. His eyes were dark, piercing, and gave away very little, and the set of his mouth was largely hidden behind a neatly cultivated full beard.

Mrs. Mari Pelton, on the other hand, was nearly as tall as her husband, with astonishing curves, a cascade of golden curls and a face that would have been beautiful enough to make Adrey’s heart flutter were it not for her eyes. Oh, the broad smile and embrace she offered as though greeting an old friend rather than a new acquaintance gave her a semblance of warmth, but her eyes were a pale grey so striking as to be unsettling, with an unceasing calculation and hunger behind them that set Adrey’s danger sense to itching.

They exchanged the mandatory social pleasantries and got settled. Elston brought in coffee and some light refreshments, and then…business.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed our new guests in the city,” Mister Pelton said, sliding onto the couch alongside his wife.

Adrey nodded and sipped her coffee. “I had. Quite the show of capability.”

“A statement of intent. The world is changing, Miss Bannant. Enerlend—the whole of Garanhir, even—was in danger of being left behind by the very technological and magical innovations our peoples were at the forefront of inventing.”

Adrey said nothing, but quirked her head and an eyebrow at him as she sipped, in a silent invitation to elaborate.

Mrs. Pelton took over. “Consider airships for a moment. With airships, I could have the finest Oderan silver tea service delivered inside the week. Or strawberries from Frudlend, shipped on ice and still fresh. And with the power of electricity, soon I’ll be able to place those orders without having to pay a mage to send the message telepathically.”

“Those are only the personal benefits, though,” Mister Pelton added. “Consider on a grander scale, what such capability means for governance and the reach of law and civilization. Faster and easier communication, quicker deployment of men and supplies…”

He paused, apparently expecting Adrey to complete the thought. She mused on it for a moment, trying to see things from the perspective of wealthy gentry who lacked any of the formal power and accolades of the titled aristocracy….

…Ah.

“I suppose…well, historically of course every duchy had its counties, every county its barony, every barony its manors…” she said, carefully.

Mrs. Pelton smiled. “Exactly, my dear. The king, when there was one, could not be everywhere at once, and thus a hierarchy of those who acted in his stead, and they with hierarchies of their own in turn, and so on and so forth down to the common man on his little plot of land. The various dukes and counts and viscounts and all the rest were an appropriate measure, but now…”

“Now times have changed,” Adrey finished for her. “the dukes are obsolete.”

“Oh, they have been for some time. Dear Duchess Ellaenie, the silly girl, she was really just a figurehead, wasn’t she? And Duke Betrem, bless him, even more so. But a figurehead for who?”

Adrey offered an honestly uncertain answer. “Well..the duchy, isn’t it? Enerlend’s parliament.”

Mrs. Pelton chuckled softly. “It all seems a little silly to me, don’t you agree? If we’re to have a parliament, why not just have the parliament? Why do we need a duke at all? They’re a vestigial organ of a bygone era.” She leaned forward. “But…why have a parliament, for that matter?”

Adrey sipped her coffee again, frowning. “Are you suggesting that parliament is a vestigial organ now, too?”

“Well of course it is, dear. It’s a relic of a time when travel was slow and messages were expensive and imprecise. Parliament sits half the year, then spends the remaining half at home among their constituents to try and learn their needs? It’s a relic of the horse-and-cart-and-wizard years, Miss Bannant.”

‘Samandra’ smiled slowly. “You foresee an imminent change, and you intend to benefit.”

“An enormous change, yes.” Mister Pelten stood up to walk slowly about the room. “Another question for you, Miss Bannant. Why have we always needed the structures of duchy, county, barony and so forth?”

An easy answer. “To keep order.”

“Exactly. Order is a more delicate thing than some like to believe. Even in the most peaceful and harmonious of times, our city is patrolled by constables with pistol and cudgel to maintain it, and in these more fractious days…”

“Loyal men with rifles,” Mrs. Pelton nodded. “But they are a terribly crude instrument, my dear.”

Adrey considered this, frowning slightly as she put together her understanding of their thoughts. “…And now we have a more refined instrument?”

“Several.” Mrs. Pelton leaned forward with ambition glittering in her eyes. “Picture it, Samandra dear. Picture a properly orderly world, without a criminal element, with no need for armed men to keep the peace. Picture a world where those who know what’s best can place themselves at the center of all information, let it come to them, let it flow from them, and govern wisely without needed to stoop to parochial pantomime.”

“A world where everyone knows their place and is happy there,” Mister Pelton agreed.

It sounded ghastly to Adrey, knowing what she did. But Samandra sat back and considered it, and her expression grew misty. “A world where everyone is happy in their place…” she muttered softly.

“That is what we are working toward,” Mrs. Pelton told her, fervently. “Peace. Order. For the common folk, the bliss of Oneness. For the elite, the certainty that we will never again have to appease and pander to the whims of the uneducated mob. Everyone wins.”

“I see…” ‘Samandra’ thought about it while finishing her coffee. “And what would my role be in all this?”

“Oh, darling! You’re too much of a delight to abandon to the grey morass of the Circles!”

Adrey smiled. “Well, I’m flattered, but surely there’s more I can offer than my sparkling company alone…”

She saw the two of them exchange a glance. There was a lot in that glance, more than she could read. These were dangerous, dangerous people. Perhaps they guessed her real identity and wanted to earn prestige by turning her over to Civorage…though then again, no. He would have been here to surprise her, if they thought that. No, she had something they wanted to exploit for themselves.

“Well…” Mari Pelton shifted from her own couch to sit next to Adrey, close enough to envelope her in the scent of perfume and the warmth of her nearness. The move almost stalled Adrey’s brain entirely. Crowns, was she resorting to seduction? “Let’s talk about what we can offer you first…”

“The world, all its riches, and immortality?” ‘Samandra’ ventured, looking her in the eye. Pelton laughed.

“All of that,” she agreed. “Even the immortality.”

“And more besides?”

“Much more besides.” Pelton almost purred. “You said yourself, you’re eager to start living…”

Crowns, could it really be that simple? Could they really just be after…her? Could it be that all they wanted was to seduce her, take pleasure from her, then throw her away to fall back down among the Encircled masses?

She glanced at Mr. Pelton. He was leaning affably against the fireplace nibbling a dainty sandwich and watching the two of them. His face gave nothing away, beyond a slight smile. When she looked back at Mari, the buxom gentlewoman’s striking grey eyes were boring into hers with an intensity that amplified her closeness and conveyed an interest Adrey had never received from another woman before…

Could it be that simple? Or…or did they think she was that simple, and that they could entrap her with a torrid game and extract what they really wanted from her that way? What could Samandra Bannant have that they wanted, beyond the opportunity to enjoy a plaything? Which way should she lean? Either way felt like underestimating them.

On the other hand…this was a move in the game between them. A stake of some kind had been laid on the table, and Adrey’s only options were to fold her hand and walk away, or see it and find out what came next.

Duty forbade her from walking away. So she rolled the dice. Let Mari think she was succeeding.

“I am,” she said, not having to fake the stressed, nervous note in her voice or the pounding of her heart. “But, ah, I’m…unused to such, um…” her eyes darted downward to Mari’s ample cleavage. “…Largess.”

Mari giggled. “Oh, it’s not largess. Just a little…tit for tat?”

Despite herself, Adrey laughed at the double entendre. “Hah! Oh…um…Well. That’s…very appealing.”

Mari laughed as well, clearly pleased with the effect she was apparently having. “We’re eager to enjoy life too,” she purred. “After all, what’s the point in being among the elite if you don’t enjoy the perks that come with it?”

“And…what perks are those?” Adrey asked. Mari’s eyes really were hypnotic. But there was no magic in them, no attempt by an intrusive will to push in on her and dominate her thoughts. She’d taken a draught of Ellaenie’s potion, she’d know. This was just a very, very beautiful woman using all her charms and the intoxicating power of her closeness.

It was a more intense thing to be on the receiving end of than she’d expected.

Mari’s voice was musical, and her breath touched Adrey’s ear as she leaned in a hair closer. “No masters but ourselves. No inconvenient, awkward, stupid game of prestige and influence. The freedom to be who we really are…” she murmured, the sound of it bringing an unwanted blush to Adrey’s cheeks. “Imagine being the ones who set the rules, rather than having to live by them…”

Adrey wanted to argue. Adrey want to remind her that those who don’t obey the very rules they set had no moral standing to enforce them. Adrey felt nothing but contempt for what she was hearing.

But she steeled herself, remembered why she was here, and allowed Samandra Bannant to be weaker, greedier, more selfish and more easily seduced.

“It does…it does sound good…”

“I’m certain it does…”

Adrey had little experience of kissing. A few fumbling, stolen snogs with a couple of noble boys her age during the summers of her teenage years hadn’t prepared her for the heat, softness and flavor of Mari Pelton’s lips. She stiffened, unsure what to do, torn all sorts of ways between the cautious part of her that was screaming she should pull out of this mission that had taken such an unexpected and unwanted turn, her duty to stay the course and see how deep into the Peltons’ confidence she could get and what she could find out, her personal distaste for the Peltons and the slavery their ambition would help usher in…and from some unexplored primitive part of her soul, a profound arousal that left her feeling dirty and ashamed.

She was lost in her own private agony of indecision for a few long seconds, until Mari laughed softly and sat back. “…Not ready yet? Too bad.”

“I…ah…” Adrey fought for an act, an angle to play, something to say. Mari just laughed and looked across the toom to her husband. Kal smiled, and handed them both a small glass of sparkling wine.

Mari gave her a sympathetic smile as she took her drink. “No, no. I’m sorry, my dear. I got ahead of myself,” she said, and sipped the wine.

Adrey took a more generous swig. “Is…that what you want from me?” she asked.

“Oh, we want it,” Mari crooned softly, but shook her head. “But it’s not all we want. Business has to come before pleasure, doesn’t it?”

“Then, uh…” Adrey cleared her throat and straightened her back. “Perhaps…perhaps we should discuss business.”

“Perhaps we should,” Kal agreed with a smirk. He seemed to be…oddly far away. And small.

“Um—” Adrey began. Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. What was it?

“Oh, don’t worry about it, darling,” Mari raised a hand to cup her cheek and stroke it like a tender lover. It felt…good. Very good. Very…

Very…

…oh.

Shit. The wine!

“Y-yooouu…” Adrey tried, but Mari just laughed delicately and took the wine glass from her unresisting, paralyzed hand while continuing to caress her cheek.

“Yes, Countess Adrey Mossjoy,” she said, and her face and her words seemed to be falling away to the far end of a long, dark corridor. “We’re going to have an awful lot of fun with you…”

Adrey remembered the suicide pill tucked in the back of her mouth, between her teeth and her cheek. She remembered the hatpins at her thigh. But she couldn’t remember what to do with them. She couldn’t…

Couldn’t…

…something….

The last thing she saw before she fainted was the Peltons chiming their glasses together in a toast. Then their laughter chased her down into the dark, and she was gone.

----------------------------------------

> “There is a reason men of high honour disdain spycraft: it is the exact same reason that spies disdain men of high honour.” —Duke Einharth of House Banmor, personal diaries.

EMERGENCY MEETING

Woodyards, Auldenheigh, Enerlend 09.06.03.12.10

“Bothroyd.”

“Skinner.”

They nodded at each other and set up on opposite sides of the stack of planks where Skinner’s maps and documents were currently unrolled. He’d relocated to a timber warehouse for this meeting; the shelves around them were heavy with boards and beams, and the air was just as heavy with the scent of sawn wood. They weren’t alone, either: SKinner had called a meeting, in a daring and dangerous but necessary move. The Network needed to be acting with one will right now, and that meant taking the risk of coming together for a real face-to-face. Bothroyd made his hellos, met a few people for the first time, was surprised to learn that a couple of men he already knew were part of the Network as well…

But there was no time for pleasantries and small talk. They had to get this done and scatter as quick as may be.

“I won’t keep ‘yer, ladies and gents,” Skinner told them. “Quick summary, quick action plan, then we go.”

Heads bobbed agreement, and he continued.

“We all know about the Clear Skies guildsmen out on th’ streets. But we’ve got confirmation now: Civorage is in town. Right now, ‘e’s up at the Ducal palace, an’ likely to stay there. That black ship ‘e brought with ‘im, we don’t know…but we do know it was full of hag elves. They were seen jumpin’ off in ones an’ twos all over the city.”

There was muttering and uneasy shifting around the table.

“Now, we don’t rightly know what the hag elves are to Civorage, but they’re known ‘ta work with ‘im. Wordspeaker says they do ‘is biddin’, an’ we know they attacked the Thunderin’ Hall a few weeks back. They’re bad news. Elf-deadly, quick to the kill, silent an’ smart. They will sniff us out if we’re visible at all, so from ‘ere on out until I give the all clear, we’re locked down. Minimum necessary messages, all operations that can be put on ‘old, are now on ‘old. When your agents come back in from their field assignments, you tell ‘em to lurk in their safehouses and do nothing. We may have an opportunity to strike back and ‘urt the enemy, but we’ll only manage it by bein’ disciplined and sneaky.”

Bothroyd raised a hand, and spoke when Skinner nodded at him.

“There’s more to it than bringin’ the elves in,” he said. “I dunno why yet, but the Guildsmen on th’ street ‘ave orders to put down curfew breakers, no mercy. Far as I can tell, CIvorage wants a riot, an’ ‘e wants it to get bloody.”

“There owt we can do to stop it?” Skinner asked.

Bothroyd shook his head and shrugged. “Keep our people out of it. Other’n that, not that I see.”

There were dark, angry mutterings and a volley of curses around the room. Skinner took a deep breath, then looked everyone around the room in the eye. “Right. For now, jus’ focus on stayin’ alive. Do what you can to calm things wi’out compromisin’ yourselves, but remember: we’ll get one chance to to stick a spanner in th’ engines, so th’ most important thing is bein’ ready to do it when an’ where will do most damage. All else is secondary. Everyone understand?”

There were grim nods.

“Right. Dismissed. I trust you all know ‘ow to get ‘ome wi’out causin’ a stir. Jed? A word.”

They retreated into a small office while all the others slipped away in ones and twos through various exits. As soon as they were alone, Skinner spilled the bad news.

“Countess was payin’ a social call to some free collaborators today, the Peltons. She’s missed two status signals, and ‘er scheduled egress.”

“Shit.” Jeb rubbed his face. “Any chance she’s just in too deep an’ can’t risk it?”

“Possible, but my gut says not. I need you to get the squad together and go on over to the Peltons’ address. Anonymous informant, wanted terrorist seen entering the property—”

“..I ‘ate to say it, but someone ‘as to,” Bothroyd cut in. “She’s jus’ one woman, Skinner, an’ if she got caught then there’s a good chance she bit ‘er pill. Is she worth the exposure?”

“We can’t afford uncertainty, not now,” Skinner replied. “We need to know if she’s dead or alive, and if she’s alive, whether she’s Encircled.”

“You’ve cleaned up everythin’ she coulda compromised, ‘aven’t you?”

“Except you. You’re the one brought her in, remember?”

“…Shit.”

“Yeah,” Skinner gave a dark nod. “S’why I’m willin’ to risk exposin’ you. If she’s caught an’ compromised, you’re done anyway.”

“And if not, this is my chance to nip it in the bud,” Bothroyd nodded along. “Arright. If she’s alive an’ safe, what then?”

“You and the squad will be ‘waylaid by terrorists’ on the way back to the lockup. An’ no matter what you find, you stick the Peltons with a couple of her ‘hatpins’ to make it look like she assassinated them.”

Bothroyd grimaced, not much relishing the notion. “I’ve…never killed a man, Skinner. Not in anger nor in cold blood.”

Skinner sighed. “I can have someone else do it, if you think you can’t.”

“…Maybe. I dunno. Stupid bloody thing to balk at, in’t it? The Peltons’d ‘ave us all as slaves…”

Skinner clapped a hand on his shoulder, gave him a nod that said he understood and that Jed need say nothing more, then canted a head toward a back door. “You’d better get on. Time’s short, an’ Adrey’s may be shorter still.”

“Right.” Bothroyd headed for the door. “…’Ey. If this goes awry at all—”

“Your family’ll be out the city inside the hour, I promise,” Skinner said.

Bothroyd nodded, took a deep breath, and headed out.

He was not at all confident of success.

----------------------------------------

> “Perfection is only visible atop distant mountains.” —Yunei proverb

A GENTLE AWAKENING

Unknown address, Auldenheigh, Enerlend 09.06.03.12.10

Adrey woke to a tender kiss on her forehead, and the feeling of fingers softly stroking her cheek. For a second or two it was bliss and she was unconsciously rolling her head into the loving touch and sighing happily when memory landed on her like a crashing airship.

She went to jerk upright, to fight, to kill, then gasped in pain as her movement was sharply arrested by a pair of soft but expertly tied ropes around her wrists. She was tied spread-eagled to a comfortable bed, stripped down to her shift and secured at ankle and wrist. Worse, whoever had tied her had known exactly the right way to do it: no matter how she twisted, she couldn’t get her fingertips in contact with rope at all. She was utterly trapped, utterly vulnerable…

…And there was no little rubber pellet in the back of her mouth.

Mari Pelton smiled sadly at her. “Sorry, darling. We took that nasty bit of medicine and got rid of it.” She stroked Adrey’s arm. “You’re far too lovely to go throwing your life away like that.”

Adrey stared up at her and said nothing. Shit. Shit shit shit, how had she been so stupid? She’d known the dangers of underestimating these two, known they were damn dangerous. Her instincts had been screaming at her to flee the instant Mari had started coming on to her so hard, but she’d overruled them, and now she was…

She was fucked. The only two fates ahead of her were death or Encirclement. After whatever the Peltons had planned for her. The bastards had even set up a mannequin in the corner of the room with her clothes on it, and her knives and guns on display on a low table beside it. The tools that should have prevented this and could allow her to escape, cruelly on display exactly where she could see them…but they may as well be on another earthmote. It was a move calculated to drive home just how hopeless her situation was and how completely she had failed.

Despite all her years of preparation, training and mentally steeling herself for this…when it came down to it, Adrey trembled.

Mari saw her fear, and did something unexpected: she sighed, as though the sight of it truly upset her. “Oh, I know,” she said, softly. “You’re a fighter aren’t you, my love? All those nasty nasty knives we found strapped to you…but you’re not ready for this, are you?”

Adrey summoned up a glare, but she may as well have been scowling at the weather. Mari just continued to pet her like she was an irate cat, gentle and tender but keeping her fingers out of biting or clawing range.

“Let me tell you something,” she said. “Kal is…Kal is a brute. I married a nasty piece of work, my dear Adrey. But he’s terribly patient, too. He knows just how to humiliate you and hurt you in the ways you can’t stand. You won’t be able to hold out, and you know it.”

She leaned down a little closer while futile tears prickled Adrey’s eyes. “I’d hate to hear you going through that,” she lied. “So I’m the easier option. I’ll make all the pain and humiliation go away. I’ll look after you. If we keep it up long enough, you’ll come to love me. And I’ll love you too…all I ask in return is that there be no secrets between us, nor any angry words.”

She stooped down low until she was practically lying on Adrey, her face not quite close enough to bite or headbutt, but close enough to suggest intimacy. “I’ll even tell you the truth of Kal and me, if you earn it. Everything you want to know. All you have to do to earn it, is be a good girl. Can you do that for me?”

Adrey couldn’t bring herself to speak. Part of her wanted to spit in the beautiful bitch’s face, to curse and savage her with words. The coldly rational part knew that Mari was right and that she’d never endure long under torture. Nobody could. Her fear tempted her to submit right away.

Her hope held her back. The Network knew where she was. They’d rescue her. She just had to hold out. Just for a little while.

Please, Crowns and Heralds, let it be only a little while…

She turned her face away, and remained silent.

Mari watched her for a moment, then sighed and rose to her feet. “The difficult way it is, then. Not that I expected anything else...when you’re ready for the easy way, just call for me. Call for mistress.”

She headed for the door. As she opened it, her husband entered the room. Kal Pelton was stripped to the waist, showing off the round pugilistic hardness of a truly strong body, and the dark, intense eyes of a man who loved nothing more than the sound of screaming and pleading. Mari stretched up to kiss him, and whispered something that Adrey couldn’t quite catch. But she did catch the equally sadistic sparkle in those grey eyes, and knew she’d have had to endure this no matter what.

She screwed her eyes shut, wept futile tears, and waited for the torture to start.

Mari was right.

It was far, far worse than she could take.

----------------------------------------

> “I remember the ribbons on Mr. Michely’s door, when he was murdered. The constabulary set ‘em up, wouldn’t let no-one in or out until they’d ‘ad a good look. They ‘ung yellow ribbons around the door, to warn folks off. That was, oh, thirty years ago now. Never saw those yellow ribbons again until the night the duchess was chased out. That was eight years ago. Now…now they’re everywhere. An’ now I’ve got to wonderin’ if I shouldn’t head out to the countryside sometime afore there’s ribbons ‘angin’ around my doors an’ windows too…” —Overheard in the Bag and Sail, Dockerlands, Auldenheigh

SITTING DOWN TO TEA

Park End, Auldenheigh, Enerlend 09.06.03.12.10

Mister Yulan Harrow had once been Lord Harrow of Whimsgate, before the regime change. Apparently, the penalty for speaking in support of the rightful Duchess was the stripping of one’s titles…though mercifully, by the time the rot had penetrated deep enough into the judiciary to enable stripping of lands and assets as well, Yulan had met some very clever friends who had helped him put his wealth beyond their reach.

Now, his job was to sit quietly and pretend to have learned his lesson, while messages and men passed through his modest townhouse in Park End, ostensibly doing things like delivering onions and cleaning the windows.

Yulan didn’t read them. He didn’t need to read them, they weren’t for his eyes, and what he didn’t know couldn’t get anyone else killed. But he’d come to learn when a message passing through his station was an urgent or desperate one, and the one that had just passed through had the young lad who’d dropped it off in a cold sweat. Something bad was happening, or had happened.

The message had moved on quickly, by whatever hidden mechanisms the network had for identifying when they should. Then, an hour later, another message came back and moved through with equal alacrity.

Yulan knew he shouldn’t pay attention to such things, that him even being aware of the correspondence passing through was a potential breach. But the Network were fighting for Auldenheigh’s soul and freedom, and though his part in that fight was to do effectively nothing more than be a man of property…he couldn’t help being fascinated, and afraid for them.

By lunchtime, there was no hiding that something was amiss. The new, huge airships growling low over the city, the patrols of Clear Skies guildsmen suddenly marching in the streets, the flurry of messages, all pointed to something big happening.

Just before teatime, the messages abruptly ceased, and there was no further activity all afternoon or evening. Yulan could only guess that somebody important in the Network thought his station might be under surveillance and so had halted or redirected all traffic to try and throw off suspicion. It had happened before.

He took dinner with his wife and son, and they studiously and dutifully avoided the entire subject, talking instead about such mundanities as what these latest Guild arrivals would do to their investment portfolio, whether the weather would allow a pleasant stroll around the park after tea, and tomorrow’s game between the Park End Rounders Club and Heightown.

The weather being deemed good enough, they took a late afternoon constitutional, but Yulan couldn’t shake an awkward feeling of unease that chased him all the way around the duck pond. Curfew was at nightfall, and they had taken their walk a little late, so perhaps that was it. Stil…there was one moment when he turned around to cajole his son into picking up his pace, and…he wasn’t sure of it, not at all. But there was very briefly the sense of a shadow where no shadow should have been, among the trees.

He narrowed his eyes, trying to find it again, but there was nothing out of place. In fact, everything looked so normal that he would ordinarily have dismissed it as just some strange paranoid fantasy brought on by the unusual circumstances of the day. Except…

Except the faceless, nameless man who’d first recruited him into helping the Network had given him some advice, and among them was to trust his instincts. “If’n you feel in danger, then ‘yer in danger,” he’d said. And Yulan did indeed feel endangered.

He sped his family home with words of encouragement, fairly dragging them at a brisk march.

To his surprise, his valet didn’t open the door for them when they got back. Gleaves would normally have anticipated their return and welcomed them home, but this time Yulan had to open his own door with his own keys.

“Gleaves, old man. Not like you to leave us on the doorstep!” he called, hanging up his coat.

Silence. Now that was peculiar, and enough to solidify Yulan’s paranoia into suspicion. Rather than hang up his cane, therefore, he hefted it in his hand and waved Mellie and Petter to stay by the door as he…what? Snuck forward into his own house? Ridiculous!

But his fears turned out to be entirely justified. He pushed open the parlor door only to stiffen at a stark, hot, coppery stench. He’d never smelled blood before, but that was the only thing it could be: there was a lake of the stuff in the middle of the room, spreading from the crumpled body of his housemaid, Hettie. The poor girl’s neck had been sliced through down to the bone and she’d been left where she fell, her arm still looped through the firewood basket. Her face had settled into an expression of pitiable surprise, as though she couldn’t quite believe what had happened, and her eyes transfixed Yulan for a moment. Long enough for him to pause in the doorway.

Long enough for Mellie to see, and to shriek.

That seemed to be the signal for them to come out of the woodwork. Figures he could have sworn hadn’t been there a second ago seemed to just emerge, as though they’d been standing there all along but somehow disguised just the same hue and texture as the wallpaper behind them.

They were elves. Naked elves, their skin the same grey-white as cold ashes, their hair and eyes as dark as ink. They were expressionless, neither cruel nor cold nor even disinterested. The look they gave Yulan and his family was, at most, the same as a factory worker might give to the tools and raw materials he worked with every day.

They killed Petter first. There was a gurgle, and a mother’s wail of loss and anguish behind him, and Yulan turned in time to look in his son’s eyes as the elf finished the single surgical stroke that all but beheaded the lad. Petter’s eyes, wide with agony and terror, fluttered then went dull before his limp body collapsed to the tiles.

Yulan dropped his walking stick in grief and shock, and one of the coats hanging behind Mellie stepped forward. The elf’s skin shimmered and changed, shedding the texture of worsted wool and becoming smooth and pale even as it drove its dagger into his beloved wife’s graceful throat.

Something struck him hard in the back. Something that drove the air out of his lungs, bringing up an acrid, bitter mouthful of fluid as he coughed.

He collapsed, landing next to his son’s corpse. Mellie fell on top of him, gurgling and twitching her last. He tried to hold her, to comfort her, but his arms wouldn’t work. Nor would his neck. He couldn’t hold his head up. Couldn’t look at anything. Couldn’t…

Couldn’t…

The elves walked away, and didn’t even bother to watch him die.

----------------------------------------

> “Some humans, lacking in introspection, like to pretend the Ordfey was uniquely an aberration of the Fey soul. Too often have I been sneered at or bit my tongue over acid comments about what ‘my kind’ were ‘up to’ during those years. I don’t think it ever occurs to the speakers that whatever malady it was that made us do those terrible things lives in them as well. Humans have just the same cruel potential as elves. It is simply that history has never yet afforded them the opportunity to show it.” —Almathir Nadhthrancan Obis, Reflections on the Past

A BASEMENT

Unknown location, Enerlend 09.06.03.12.10

Adrey woke to a warm, damp cloth bathing her face. She stiffened, whimpered in pain, and remained still.

It was…late. After nightfall. At some point during the endless torment she’d found a shaft of light down the window that suggested they were in a cellar, and had focused on it until Kal had noticed and given her two blows to the face that swelled her eyes shut.

Now she could see again, and the light had that silvery, night-time quality of having reflected off the distant snows of the Unbroken Mote. It haloed Mari Pelton’s hair and gleamed through the soft peach-fuzz on her cheek and the elegant curve of her neck as she dipped the cloth in a bowl and tended Adrey’s wounds some more.

“So beautiful…” her captor crooned. “You are a marvel, do you know that? So fit and tall, and such a pretty face…don’t worry, Kal hasn’t damaged it too badly. You still have your gorgeous good looks…and your strength. My goodness, your strength. You held out so long before calling for me, darling. Longer than I would have believed…you’re so brave.”

Her words of praise should have revolted Adrey. It was a manipulation tactic, and she knew it…but right now, she didn’t have the strength to resist even this cynical pantomime of kindness. Mari Pelton was setting herself up as Adrey’s escape from torment, as the shining beacon she could always turn to, and it was going to work. It already had worked, in the moment when Adrey’s courage had finally failed and she’d cried out for ‘mistress’ to come and save her.

She was too tired to feel sick and ashamed of herself.

Mari continued to bathe her for a minute, then spoke softly. Her voice was low, melodic, gentle, soothing, and quite wonderful. “I promised you tit for tat earlier, didn’t I? Well, you’ve been a good brave girl, so I’ll share a secret you’ll be glad of. Because right now, I imagine you think you’ll be off to the Circle once this is over, don’t you?”

Adrey shivered, too afraid to speak. Not that. Please not that…

“Well, you won’t, darling. I mean it and I promise it, you won’t be Encircled.” Mari dared to stroke her face, rightly confident that Adrey wouldn’t bite. Though the thought crossed Adrey’s mind, she was just too spent, and she knew that if she did then she’d just face more of Kal’s inventive cruelty, and she couldn’t. Not yet. “In fact, we aren’t going to tell that bastard Civorage about you at all. Him or anyone else.”

Adrey looked her in the eye at last. She still couldn’t speak. Words seemed to jam and gum in her throat rather than emerge.

“Shhh, my love. Don’t try and speak yet. I’m talking.” Mari’s thumb brushed away a tear. “You see, Kal and I aren’t stupid. We know perfectly well that Civorage’s plans will end with us Encircled as well. Does that sound like something we want? Speak.”

“…N…no…” Adrey croaked.

Mari raised a finger. “Ah?”

“…N-no…mistress.” It didn’t mean anything, Adrey told herself. It was just a word, nothing more. There was no shame in playing to Mari’s ego.

Even so, it felt like a section of her crumbling walls had shed another brick.

A pleased, somewhat triumphant smile plucked Mari’s lips. “Good girl. No, you’re right. It’s not what we want at all. Us or any of the other so-called ’free collaborators.’ As soon as Civorage gets his way, it’s all over for us. Our goal is exactly what I told you earlier: a blissful future where the masses are happy with their lot, and the worthies are free to act without having to worry about parochial public opinion.”

She stroked Adrey’s hair. “You’re one of the worthies, my love. You’ll be free, once it’s over. We’ll even let you go to live your life, if that’s what you want in the end…”

Lies. Lies and manipulation. Except…

Mari laughed as though sensing her thoughts. “Oh, clever girl. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? Now that I’ve told you this, I can’t turn you over to the Circle, or else Civorage will know what I said to you.” She bent down close until her breath was once again tickling Adrey’s face. “I haven’t told you a single lie, beloved. Not one. And I never will. I know you don’t believe it yet, but you can trust me.”

Adrey just blinked at her. She had nothing to say. Her silence seemed to please Mari, though, who bent in close and kissed her brow.

“Sleep,” she whispered. “Sleep, and get better. Tomorrow, I’ll start asking questions.”

For the first time, Adrey felt a flicker of magic in her captor’s words. Her potion must have worn off. Her head swam, and she found her pain receding, her fatigue overwhelming her.

Ellaenie—!

It was a last desperate plea for help before Mari’s will overcame hers, and she fell into a deep sleep full of nightmares.

----------------------------------------

> Uniform and equipment for standard patrol duty: Wool greatcoat, dark blue, with high collar. Rank insignia are to be worn on the right breast and left sleeve. “Brick kiln” peaked helmet, black. Constabulary badge and precinct number to be worn on front. Linen shirt, white. Wool vest, dark blue Good boots, black leather. Wooden truncheon Heighridge Lockworks .442 revolver Pouch containing a box of .442 revolver ammunition. Pouch containing no fewer than 6 charged magestones Pouch containing 2x clean rolled bandages Magestone bullseye lantern. Wrist shackles Leg irons Brass signal whistle —Auldenheigh constabulary regulations.

LEADBANKS

Auldenheigh, Enerlend, Garanhir 09.06.03.12.10

Constables had a whole language of different knocks. There was the soft knock for delivering bad news, the firm but polite knock for responding to a report, the firm but impolite knock for when they could hear raised voices inside…

This knock promised that the next one would be much louder and made with a battering ram if the door wasn’t opened immediately. It involved the pommel of Jed’s truncheon, left dents in the wood, and was accompanied by a commanding cry of “Constabulary! Open in the name of the Duke!”

It worked. The door was opened hastily by a balding man in the garb of a valet or butler, whose astounded glance took in the fact that two whole squads of constables were on the doorstep.

He grew even more astounded when the lads immediately barged past him and into the property.

“I—I say, you can’t just—!”

“You the butler?” Bothroyd asked him, entering after his men as they fanned out through the house.

“Uh, yes. My name is Elston. And y—?”

“We ‘ave it on good authority a wanted terrorist was spotted enterin’ this address earlier today. Adrey Mossjoy. I’ve a warrant for ‘er arrest.” Bothroyd held it up. The document was genuine.

“I-I—” Elston squeaked.

One of the lads appeared at the top of the stairs. “Nobody ‘ome, Sarge!”

“What?” Bothroyd pushed past the stammering butler and glared up at him. “You’re sure?”

“Jus’ the maids an’ the butler, Serjant. ‘Ouse is clear.”

Bothroyd rounded on Elston. “You! Where’s ‘yer employers at?”

“They, ah, they left this lunchtime!” Elston cleared his throat and recovered his poise somewhat.

“They ‘ad a guest?”

“Yes! Miss Bannant, a friend of Madame’s—are you saying she was actually—?”

“Where did they go?” Bothroyd interrupted him with a snarl.

“I, well, I don’t quite know. They just went out!”

“’They just went out?’ You’re their bloody butler, it’s your job to arrange transport and that, in’t it?”

Elston simply opened and shut his mouth like a landed carp a couple of times, then shrugged and shook his head. Useless bugger. Bothroyd snarled and spun away from him to stalk through the house. There would be clues. Somewhere there would be clues—

“Jed!” Coppicer’s voice carried up from a door tucked away under the stairs, from which came up the familiar aroma of a cellar. Bothroyd trotted down stone steps into a cool, dry space filled with wine bottles and other such luxuries.

“What’ve you got, Barry?” he asked, looking around.

The words “Back ‘ere!” drifted from among the shelves and stacks. He followed it, and found Coppicer standing near a section of blank wall. Barry gestured at it. “Notice owt?”

Bothroyd frowned at him, then considered the wall closely. As he moved left and right, a slight cool breeze ruffled his mustache, and spurred by that evidence he took a closer look still and…

Well, either the brickwork had suffered a surprising amount of cracking for a posh place, or those gaps in the mortar were deliberate.

It took two minutes to find the device tucked away inside a fake steamer trunk: a handle which, when twisted and pulled, released the wall with a heavy clonk and allowed it to pivot open easily on its thick hinges.

Jed stared, then looked back at the stairs to get his bearing, orienting this hidden passageway against the house, the line of the street, compared it to his mental map of the area…

“…Get your squad and take ‘em ‘round to the Rose and Crown on Peel Street,” he said. “An’ send my lads down to me.”

“Aye.” Barry marched off, nearly running. Moments after he’d gone up, Bothroyd’s squad came scrambling down the cellar steps, and gawked at the secret passage. Bothroyd had to admit, it was damn good work: somebody had dug a seven foot high tunnel under garden and street for a good two hundred yards or more, and left it properly braced and propped with a footing of good dry duckboards. Magestones glimmered on each support beam, illuminating the tunnel in stark blue-white. There was even an air vent in the ceiling, which presumably came up at a discreet spot in the property’s garden, and at one point Bothroyd had to duck under a thick pipe which presumably took care of the sewerage.

“How bloody long did this take to make?” he wondered aloud.

“Couple of months at least,” One of the lads commented. Betker would know, Bothroyd reflected. The lad’s family were builders and well-diggers.

Sure enough, the tunnel terminated in a stone wall with a similar pattern of missing mortar, and another twist-and-pull device conveniently at hand-height. Just as Jed predicted, this end was the cool cellar of a pub, stacked high with beer barrels along one wall and empties along the other, and the ramp up to the yard above where wagons could easily load and unload cargo.

Shit.

Sure enough, though he did his due diligence and questioned the landlord, who admitted to taking a hefty payment from the Peltons to allow them to have this tunnel built into his cellar, part of the service they’d paid the man for was to not pay any particular attention to their comings and goings. He acknowledged there had been a carriage sometime after lunchtime that wasn’t one of his deliveries, but didn’t know more than that.

Jed pulled out every intimidating constable’s trick he knew, making dark noises about what happened to people who aided and abetted terrorists and rebels against the Duke, and the man went suitable pale and volunteered everything he knew…

But none of it was enough. The Peltons had known what they were doing, and had successfully snuck their prize out of their house right under the Network’s noses.

Defeated, he stood his men down. They’d been outwitted by an inordinately well-prepared foe, and there was nothing more for him to do except hope and pray. If she’d been delivered to the Circle already…

…Well, if she’d been delivered to the Circle already, then he’d already have been nabbed. So perhaps his hope and prayer that there was more going on had already been answered. Either way, events were now out of his control.

Wherever she was, Adrey Mossjoy was just going to have to get herself out of trouble.

----------------------------------------

> Countries of page and oceans of ink have gone into the recounting of men at war. Monuments are built to their triumphs and victories, to the legacies of their regiments and knightly orders, and this is because men fight their wars in public, against other men, side-by-side and shoulder-to-shoulder with other men. They share their pain, their heroism, their loss and their triumphs. Male war is open, visible, and all-encompassing. There are fewer monuments to female struggle and strife, and the reason is simple: Women fight our battles in privacy, silence and intimacy…and above all, we fight alone. —Adelie Davenroyd-Asten, A Woman’s War.

IMPRISONED IN A CELLAR

Unknown location, Enerlend 09.06.03.12.11

Adrey woke to a slap in the face, and lurched directly from a sleeping nightmare to a waking one.

Kal Pelton sneered down at her, and backhanded the other side of her face for good measure before she could recover her wits enough to say anything, or even really think anything. The blow drove all thought out of Adrey’s head, left her dizzy and on the very edge of unconsciousness, so that she could offer no resistance or even complaint as he released her bonds, dragged her from the bed, and shackled her to a framework of steel pipes against the wall. She dangled from it, her legs still too rubbery and weak to hold her up, when the first blow slashed across her back out of nowhere, the whip-crack as loud as a rifle shot in the confines of the cellar. She shrieked, writhed and pulled at the frame in futile panic, already knowing this would be more than she could endure…and she was proven right.

Thus commenced an eternity of pain.

There was nothing he wanted from her other than to humiliate and hurt her, and so he did, relentlessly and inventively and in ways designed to utterly degrade her…though if there was a small, detached place in her mind that managed to remain thoughtful throughout, it noted that all he did was inflict pain, and though this necessarily involved violations she would see him dead for, and though his eyes shone with unmistakable pleasure at her cries of agony, it seemed as though that was sufficient for him. She’d expected him to rape her, but he hadn’t. At least, not yet.

Was he saving that for later?

It went on for…forever. Time lost all meaning. There was no rhythm, no way of marking time. There were only torments, and the brief intervals between torments when he was preparing a different one. Some were obvious and brutish, the lash and the cane and the blade.

Others were subtler…and worse. The worst were the needles. Such tiny things, but when he clamped her foot securely in place and inserted one slowly under a toenail…

It broke her. Broke her utterly. She begged him to ask her a question, any question, she would have answered truthfully just to make it stop, but he never did. He never gave her any instructions at all. He simply found ways to make her shriek then whimper, scream then plead, sob then wail until her voice was a raw, rasping thing that contributed to the tapestry of pain with every ragged breath…until suddenly he was done with her, as though abruptly disinterested. He left her weeping and shattered in the frame, and strode out of the room with his bag of tools, having never uttered a single word the entire time. Adrey, still half-lost in the delirium of torture, couldn’t remember whether she’d cried out for Mistress or not.

As soon as the door clicked shut, though, it seemed to trigger something in her. Some instinct, some core of iron recognized this was the first chance she’d been given to actually assess her predicament, and that she couldn’t afford to waste it.

On that pale thought, she pulled herself together and straightened as best she could. Even though agony was still flitting around her limbs, even though she was by now utterly filthy and wretched, and even though the largest part of her wanted to just hang abjectly from the frame and weep, she clenched her teeth, choked down her misery, wrenched some focus into her mind, and took stock*.*

She was battered, but quickly realized that for the moment her injuries were superficial. That seemed important. Kal, aparently, bruised but never broke, and though he’d caned her, whipped her, cut her with knives and stuck her with needles, the wounds had already clotted over. His hallmark seemed to be extracting the maximum of pain for the minimum of actual permanent damage*…*

She heard a thump from the floor above. Then some more thumps and clatters. A pause, followed by yet another thump, which became…rhythmic.

She turned her head and her stomach heaved, too empty to properly vomit.

Escape. She’d have to do it herself. The Blackdrake Network had known where she was going and what she was doing, so the fact they hadn’t rescued her yet said they couldn’t. Adrey guessed she must have been moved covertly while she was drugged, somehow. Which meant she needed to escape by herself, one way or the other.

So think. Ignore the hateful sound of vigorous rutting from upstairs, and think. What did she have to her advantage? What could she use from this vulnerable position?

Well. She had something they wanted. But they were going to drag that out of her no matter what. Adrey wasn’t stupid enough to believe she’d last long under a routine like this. Soon, Mari would come and bathe her wounds and speak kindly to her and give her tender love and affection in equal proportion to Kal’s cruelty, then…repeat. Over and over, as many times as needed. It wasn’t a matter of whether she would break, only a matter of when.

Already, the thought of Mari coming to soothe her felt welcome, despite knowing full well that Mari was just as much the architect of her pain and humiliation as Kal, and enjoyed it just as much as her husband if the loud feminine moans from upstairs were any indication…

Except…No. No, that wasn’t quite it. Mari certainly did have that malicious sadism in her, but more than that she clearly enjoyed the seduction. She enjoyed the power she’d gain over Adrey by becoming her lifeline. What Mari was expecting to get out of this, besides the information she’d yet to actually ask for, was that Adrey would come to be pathetically grateful and obedient to her. She’d as good as said it already: she wanted Adrey’s love and gratitude. She wanted Adrey to become her pathetic, grovelling, obedient pet.

Adrey shivered at a loud cry of release from upstairs, hating them, and hating even more the germ of a plan that was starting to unfold in her mind. It was detestable, loathsome, possibly even exactly what they expected her to do, but it was the only thing she could think of, the only faint glimmer of hope she could see. She had nothing to give them but what they wanted…

…So she would give them what they wanted.