“Just behave and nobody will hurt you,” Anad said to the three bound Tinks, old men really, who sat on the path outside the enclave a few hours after the massacre had started. Then, turning his attention to a pair of nearby Regulars, he waved them over.

“Yes, Sir?” the first asked with a salute, a quick gesture like he was tipping an invisible top hat.

“Not a ‘Sir’ yet,” Anad corrected, but the Regular’s expression didn’t change. ‘Sir’ or not, Anad was still a Mediator, a position to be respected – Anad glanced back through the main enclave door at the bloodbath – and feared. “I need to head back in and do one more sweep. I feel like I missed something. Keep an eye on them for me,” he said and pointed at the seated Tinks.

The first Regular shared a look with the second and turned back to Anad. “By ‘keep an eye on’, you mean you want us to take them into the woods and…you know?” he asked, then made a gesture like he was thrusting a knife into something.

Anad gave him a flat look. “You think I went to the trouble of capturing them, bringing them back outside, tying them up, and sitting them down here…so you could take them into the bushes and kill them?”

The two Regulars shared another glance, then both shrugged. “Maybe?” the first said.

Anad let out a slow breath. “Let me be clear then. No, I don’t want you to kill them. I want you to make sure they stay here and don’t run.” Anad said.

“They don’t really look like runners,” the second Regular said, obviously the smart one of the two.

“That should make your job much easier,” Anad said, then immediately left and went back into the enclave before talking to the pair made him dumber by proximity.

The wide lobby was still sticky with blood, not like anyone would clean it up, though the bodies had all been dragged over to one side. Wide streaks carved paths through the crimson to the corpses stacked like logs against one wall, and Anad inspected the faces while he walked over.

All old men and women. No Tel. Had it just been Anad’s imagination? He looked at the catwalk high above, and his mind turned to the vault door he’d found. It would probably be open by now, its forbidden artifacts in the Mediators’ hands, and if Tel had been in there…

“Probably the least appreciated magic of our suits,” Sir Reghald’s voice called, and Anad turned his attention to the man walking his way from a side hallway. “The shoes,” Sir Reghald said, pointing at Anad’s feet with his cane. “This blood would make for an absolute mess if the magic didn’t repel it.”

“I’d say it’s already an absolute mess, Sir,” Anad said.

Sir Reghald appraised the room. “It could’ve been worse. Much worse.”

“How many sorcerers were there?” Anad asked.

“Not enough,” Sir Reghald said with a wink, but then his face turned more serious. “Seems the worst injury was to poor Sir Bafalo. Somebody almost broke his wrist and his jaw. He won’t say much about it, but I don’t like unknowns. Don’t like things I can’t…trust. Now, the truth will come out, always does. To speed things along, though, did you happen to see anything?”

“Respectfully,” Anad said, forcing his face neutral, “but knowing Sir Bafalo, he likely underestimated his opponent and is too embarrassed to talk about it.”

“That does sound like Sir Bafalo,” Sir Reghald said, his fingers twining the edge of his still-perfect mustache. “Still, doesn’t account for who did it to him. Any ideas?”

Anad looked to the bodies piled against the wall. “We may never know, unless Sir Bafalo tells us, but I don’t see any enemies left. It must be taken care of,” he said and met Sir Reghald’s eyes again.

Thumb and forefinger twisting the tip of his mustache into a perfect point, Sir Reghald observed Anad silently for long seconds.

Did he know the truth? Had there been a witness, and this was a test? Had Sir Bafalo opened his mouth? No, the stocky Mediator was a lot of things, a prideful son-of-a-bitch chief among them, and he wouldn’t have admitted to the embarrassment of losing to a rookie. Sir Reghald had suspicions, if that, and nothing more.

“You’re probably right,” Sir Reghald finally said, taking his hand away from his mustache and putting it over his other hand on the top of his cane. “What are you doing back in here? Most of the others have already left.”

“Already?” Anad asked. That was quick. “I hardly saw the Regulars loading the carts with the Tinks’ machines.”

Sir Reghald actually sighed. “We were too late. Weeks too late, by the looks of things,” the senior Tailcoat said with a shake of his head. “The vault was practically empty. Nothing more than a few paltry clocks. I suspect they got word we were on to them and moved the truly dangerous contraband out of here long before we ever arrived.”

“The vault was…empty?” Anad repeated the words. “What about sorcerers or Tinks hiding in there?”

Sir Reghald shook his head. “The vault is huge, I’ll give it that, but not a great place for hiding. After the distractions, we expected to be in for quite the fight too. Thought they must be firing up some great magic, or maybe one of the old war machines. Nope. Just a few gears and a couple of clocks that probably don’t even work.

“There was more chaos energy in a few workshops on the third and seventh floors,” Sir Reghald said, then stopped like something had just occurred to him. “But you still didn’t answer my question. What are you doing back in here?”

“I wanted to see the vault,” Anad said honestly. “First mission outside the capital, all of us gathered together like this, I wanted to see what warranted it.”

Sir Reghald thumbed up towards the catwalk. “Feel free, even though I’m sure you’ll be disappointed. Though, you know,” Sir Reghald said, walking up beside Anad so their shoulders almost touched, “the fact the Tinks had warning really has me wondering. Who could’ve told them we were coming? Who betrayed us?”

“At least we both know it wasn’t me,” Anad said. “You said it yourself on the way here. You had me watched, purposely kept in the dark about our mission so I couldn’t do exactly what seemed to happen. So, Sir, if you need anything, I’m here to help.”

“Help, hrm?” Sir Reghald said without turning his head to look at Anad. “Go take your look at the vault, there are still a few Regulars in here if you need anything, then catch up to the column. We’ll be on the road back to Bastion, at which point we will take a very hard look into what happened here today.”

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

“Understood,” Anad said, and Sir Reghald stalked off, his shoes clacking on the floor despite the thick coating of blood.

Without waiting for the other Mediator to leave the lobby, Anad headed for the hall the man had come from. Sure, he could leap up to the catwalk again with the Trance, but finding one of those Regulars to answer some questions could help.

It wasn’t until he was on the third floor that he finally spotted a man beyond a heavy, metal door. The room looked like a tornado had hit it, papers strewn across the floor, desk drawers hanging open, if not totally ripped out, and some other wooden wreckage piled in a corner. And of course there was a pool of blood staining the workbench, along with the floor and papers below it.

“Find anything?” Anad asked without entering.

The Regular’s head snapped around at the sudden sound, and he quickly stood up and saluted. “A couple of stopwatches in a drawer, but not much else, Sir.”

“Not a ‘Sir’, yet,” Anad repeated his earlier words quietly, then pointed at the papers on the floor. “Nothing in all that?”

The Regular looked from Anad to the paper and back again. “I wouldn’t know, Sir. I don’t have a license to read.”

“Right, of course,” Anad said. “Did one of the other Mediators look through them?”

“I believe so, Sir. Sir Hickle was in here for almost an hour. Left me to double check for secret compartments and the like. Not much so far,” the Regular said.

“What’s your name?” Anad asked.

“Bally, Sir,” the Regular said with another salute.

“Bally, did you help move the contraband from the enclave?”

“I did, Sir,” Bally answered.

“Great, come with me,” Anad said, turning and heading back towards the stairs. Bally was out and a step behind him in no time, a small pack over this shoulder. “Can you tell me about anything interesting that was found?”

“The biggest pieces were some grandfather clocks we found on this floor and one of the higher up ones. There were also a lot of small watches and clocks in another workshop up on the…the sixth floor I think somebody said,” Bally answered. “Aside from that, there were a number of trinkets, but nothing else of note.”

“The vault?” Anad asked, briskly climbing the stairs until he got back to the sixth floor where the catwalk was.

“Nothing of value inside,” Bally said. “I was behind the Mediators when they cut through the door, and we were all pretty surprised at what we found inside.”

“And what was?”

“Nothing, Sir. There are lines on the floor, like very large machines had been stored in there for a long time, but they’re gone now. They must’ve moved them to another location.”

Bally’s summary lined up with what Sir Reghald had said, but something still didn’t add up.

“There was nobody in the vault?”

“Not a soul, Sir,” Bally answered quickly.

As they got to the edge of the catwalk, Anad stopped and looked across it. Stairs behind and a catwalk ahead. How did…ah. That was it!

Anad started off again, his quick steps devouring the distance across the catwalk towards the vault. “Do you have one of those stopwatches you mentioned in that pack? Do any of them work?”

“I haven’t tested them, Sir, but knowing the Tinks, they probably all do,” Bally said, practically jogging to keep up with Anad until they got to the vault.

Like Sir Reghald had described, the room was huge. It was maybe half as tall as the lobby, though Anad was careful not to truly define the height out loud, and easily dwarfed the other room in length and width. It was also completely empty.

“Those machines you said you saw lines from, do you think they were big enough to need a room this large?” Anad asked Bally.

“Oh, for sure, Sir. Look here,” Bally said and jogged over towards a wall. “I think this was a foot. Look at the shape of the clean spot on the stone.”

Anad walked over and looked at what Bally was pointing at, though he actually had to take a step back to really appreciate the scale of it. If it was actually a footprint, and it sure looked that way, it was as big as Anad was.

He let his head drift up as he tried to imagine the monstrosity that had occupied the space. If the foot was that big, it would’ve easily reached the ceiling. Just what had the Tinks been keeping here? And where had they moved it?

One step at a time.

“Bally, how many stopwatches do you have?” Anad asked, twisting the end of his cane and drawing his Order blade.

“Five, Sir,” Bally said, licking his lips and keeping an eye on the naked sword.

“Turn them all on and place them around the room,” Anad said, turning his attention to the wall opposite the vault door. “Especially down at that end,” he said, pointing with his sword.

“Sir, I’m not authorized to…” Bally started.

“I’m authorizing you,” Anad said. “With me here, and my blade drawn, we don’t have to worry about the chaos energy causing any trouble.”

“Yes, Sir. Of course, Sir. Down at the far end?” Bally asked.

“Please,” Anad said, walking slowly in that direction while he inspected the floor. More clean spots, like the one Bally had showed him, but of different shapes and sizes. Several of them were definitely feet, though the machines must’ve been more animal-shaped than man by their placement. The size and shape answered one question though – the marks didn’t belong to Reapers.

Thankfully.

If a room that big had been full of Reapers…

“I’m ready to turn on the first one,” Bally called from the far end of the vault. “Are you sure…?”

“Start it up, put it on the floor, and move on to do the same with the next one,” Anad instructed, picking up his pace to get to the far end of the vault.

Bally only hesitated briefly, then pushed the stopwatch plunger with his thumb and placed it on the ground.

Almost as soon as he started the stopwatch, small glowing butterflies began materializing around the device. There weren’t many, only one for every two or three ticks of the watch’s hands – it couldn’t be very accurate – but they would serve Anad’s purpose.

Anad watched as small swarms of the chaotic insects formed and flitted around their respective stopwatches, though never straying to far from their source. The first ones had already faded out to be replaced by new by the time Bally got the fifth and final watch placed on the ground. By the number of luminescent butterflies, the fourth stopwatch was by far the most accurate, but that wouldn’t matter for the task.

“Now what?” Bally asked even though he likely couldn’t see the manifestations of chaos.

“Chaos energy is, by definition, chaotic,” Anad said, lifting his arm and holding his sword horizontal out to the side. “And yet, it’s organized chaos when it’s at such a small scale as this. With enough Order – such as through my sword – we can organize it even more. Watch,” Anad said as he walked through the line of stopwatches, gently focusing his will through his sword.

The forced Order of the Chronosteel blade called to the chaos butterflies, pulling them out of their stopwatches’ orbits to follow his sword as he moved towards the wall. The closest insects began whirling around his blade, though Anad was careful not to pull hard enough to actually force them into the Chronosteel, while the others trailed behind like a comet’s tail. Bally even gasped, the chaos growing visible to the naked eye, and Anad stepped up to the wall.

Placing the tip of his sword against the wall, he took slow steps forward, his eyes constantly on the ebb and flow of insects. “The other thing about chaos is that it’s…playful,” Anad continued to explain. “It likes games, like Hide and Seek, or Tag.”

“Really?” Bally asked.

“Maybe?” Anad said with a shrug, continuing his slow steps, his sword leaving a shallow scar in the stone wall as he walked. “It’s just an easy way to explain it.”

“What do you mean it likes to play then?” Bally asked at the same time the spiralling butterflies changed their pattern.

“Come here and see for yourself,” Anad said, stopping and facing the wall straight ahead of him, his sword tip still touching the stone.

“What are they doing?” Bally asked, his eyebrows almost all the way to his hairline, as he watched the butterflies pulling away from the spiral of Anad’s sword to gradually draw a perfectly straight, glowing line up the wall.

“It’s the strangest thing. If you turn on a stopwatch in a sealed room with a window, the butterflies don’t spread out evenly. They don’t even stay close to their stopwatch. The gather around the edges of the window, like they want to escape. They don’t bother trying to go through the glass, even though they probably could. No, they go to the edges. The seams.

“And it’s not just windows, they also do it with…”

“Doors,” Bally breathed as understanding hit him, the glowing line of butterflies having turned to inscribe a glowing horizontal line high up on the wall. “You’re saying there’s a secret door here, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Bally, I’m saying exactly that. Now we just need to find the mechanism that opens it,” Anad said, the glowing seam of the hidden door easily wide enough to drive several wagons through side by side. Or to accommodate one of the massive machines.

He’d found how the Tinks had moved such large devices in and out of the enclave, and probably how Tel had escaped the mountain. It still didn’t explain who’d betrayed the Mediators and warned the Tinks, but one step at a time.