Sefiros Eishi: Chased By War (The Smoke and Mirrors Saga Book 2)

by Michael Wolff

  John was stopping it.

  “No!” Scrambling across the ground she did not see the man towering over her. In his hand was the dagger she so craved. “Give that to me.”

  “No. You must live.”

  “Must live? I must live? How dare you to tell me that! You do not know me, not my suffering! Do not presume to judge me! Death is all I have!”

  “That is not true. I think the one you lost would want you happy.”

  Happy? There was nothing of that sort for hers. But death was all she had left. Without it the last threads of her sanity broke, and she collapsed into the interloper’s arms, crying for everything in her short life. And more startling was the interloper himself. He was silent throughout the whole tirade. Something like safety swelled within her. He would not discuss rumor like idle banter. He would always be discreet. For a mind mired in depression, such generosity was a balm for fractured emotions. “It hurts,” she whispered.

  “I know.” Arms firm enough for battle, now laid gently about her shoulder. “I know.” His one eye glowed green as he held her, silently. For the first time in a long time, Sylver felt safe.

  John. He was caring, devoted, everything a woman could ask for. He stayed with her for the better part of two years, giving what she needed and no more. His strength was what pulled her back from the brink. She loved him for that.

  And now she was going to bear his baby. Is this the world you will enter? There was so much blood and battle and a thousand other senseless things happening right now. How a child to know what was up and what was down? Not to mention growing up without a mother. Sylver wished that on no one, and now it seemed fate had caught up with her.

  A crystalline ring brought her eyes up to a modestly-clean fountain, hissing jets of water that flashed in the sunlight like white fire. The burble of conversation closed in on her with force, and the ranger blinked. She hadn’t even realized the path she walked. It was this kind of tomfoolery that got a person killed. Sylver rankled from the thought. That’s the first thought that comes to mind? What gets a person killed? Mothers didn’t have those thoughts; the guilt had its hooks into her now. Everything else was a distraction.

  Her room had already been bought and paid for – not here but a dirty little saloon, tucked in the shadows of the alleyways – so Sylver decided to walk the town, though there was little to see. Conscription had stolen most of the able-bodied youths. Without the men folk, there was no game for the whores, and the women were left to slave over crops that wilted under the weight of winter. Indeed; there was nothing to see but the snow. It mantled the roofs, caressed the already bony trees. The wind was worse. It rattled the windows and howled through the desolate areas like a ghoul in search of sustenance. More than one night had passed with the children screaming of nightmares, and more were ensnared by fear as time went on. By tomorrow the town would have its very own chorus of weeps and wails; by the end of the week, an orchestra. The month? No one could say.

  It was quite the little puzzle Sylver had. The cause was just, but armies needed to eat, drink, weapons and training. It took a lot of money. Thus, John’s charge: Go to Mint and cut them off from their wealth. Destroy their supply lines. Cripple them before they lift a sword. And there preached the man who would give her all the answers she needed. Just like clockwork, he was shouting out his usual speech.

  “We need not bend knee to the gold cloaks! The true saviors are of our silver-skinned brothers! They shall come and strike down these yellow heathens and deliver us for this nightmare!” Sylver winced. It was not the first disciple of the Coicro the town suffered, but he was the first one fool enough to announce himself before the senate building. Within were the local guild masters, hard at work on a solution. Only no one had come out of the senate in ten days. Some citizens feared they never would.

  “Get your hands off me!” That from the disciple. From out of nowhere three toughs wrestled the fool to the ground. The disciple screamed murder as his assailants dragged him to the safety of a side alley, where giant shadows mingled with the thunder of crushing bone. Moments later the toughs returned from the alley, licking the blood from their knuckles. The last one caught sight of Sylver and smiled lecherously. Sylver met his glare until finally the tough wilted under the threat of icy eyes. She had already dismissed them; the real prize was the sniveling coward on the ground. Time to go to work.

  “Stay down,” she whispered, crouching down so close they shared the same putrid breath. “The brothers of silver will fall if you die here.”

  “Their brutes wouldn’t dare.” The fire in his eyes wavered, trembled as his hatred dissipated and found new joy in Sylver’s gaze. “You speak of just and righteousness. Are you a believer?”

  Wow. Easier than I thought. “I wish nothing more than to aid the Coicro. But sometimes we must hide behind weakness so the truth will not be supplanted.”

  “Yes. Yes of course. What is your name?”

  “Shh.” She laid a finger on his greasy lips. “We cannot speak here.” There was just the right amount of worry in her voice. “The enemy’s ears are everywhere. Do you have a place where our words are not judged?”

  The man nodded slowly, his eyes bright with belief. “Come with me.”

  Sylver followed, though she gritted her teeth. Years gallivanting across the globe made her no stranger of fanaticism, but it was always at a distance. Meeting it head-on like this, looking into the worshipful eyes, she never realized how much denial it took to convince oneself of paper truths. Denial and desperation. Now for the word-play.

  He babbled on, as many of his ilk did. His name was Oliver Naiaka, but of course Sylver already knew that. He was an acolyte at the minting mines, but Sylver already knew that too. It was why she had chosen him for the mission. He was just high enough in the food chain of business to have access, and just enough of a fool to evade general notice.

  Sylver glanced at the horizon and bit her tongue. The sky was already burning with the sun’s fall. The mine would be that much harder to infiltrate at night. Of course, there were dozens of ways to keep Oliver distracted till the morning, though her skin prickled at his touch. Duty could only ask so much.

  Oliver talked throughout their little tour. “Here is the place we like to call the Crossroads. It’s the area where the merchant guilds deliver the silver from foreign partners. See that one? That’s where we put the exported silver, and over there is the silver the kingdom gathers on domestic lands.” Sylver nodded. The metals were shoveled into a pair of large tubs: fool’s gold for the imports and tin for the exports. The imported tub, the one drawn from the mines, was significantly smaller than the exported.

  “Economics, sweet one. You probably don’t know this, but there are different kinds of iron and steel. Different rates of purification, endurance, durability...Oh, and a dozen different things. I don’t want you worrying your pretty little head over it.”

  The compliment was a slap of the face. A bar of tungsten silver makes for better forks and spoons, while quicksilver is perfect for minting. Inwardly she echoed the conversation to check herself from killing the fool. This place, and the property that extends to the mine, is the richest concentration of quicksilver on the whole continent.

  The Minting Guild left Sylver mildly disappointed. She expected gigantic vats of silver suspended by wires, not the endless columns of men working the silver slabs with their elbows. As far as the eye could see there were dirty, scarred laborers working themselves to the bone with mechanical precision. Sylver meandered through the first few lines and saw blank eyes everywhere. The numbness of monotony had erased their wills. Yet they all jumped when a hidden bell tolled its existence. They were little toy soldiers made flesh, waddling into a doorway that hadn’t been there a moment before. Sylver let Oliver led her into t
he chamber.

  Nothing Sylver had ever experienced could have armed her against this. The four walls were decorated with a mosaic of a stern-faced man, all square angles at cheeks and chin, with the goatee and thin mustachios of a court gamester. And yet she could not see the beads of the craft. Everything about the man was fluid, seamless. It had the dimensions of a man, for gods’ sakes.

  “My children. I am glad you are here.”

  Ice formed at the pit of Sylver’s stomach. The mosaic talked. It was a flesh and blood face, and it talked. She couldn’t breathe. She literally couldn’t breathe.

  The talking walls went on without her. “You were less than dogs when I found you. Yet I saw your potential. Who was it that picked you up from the mud? Me. Who gave you a purpose, a goal, something to strive for? Me. And this is how you repay me? The latest silver yields have fallen sixteen percent. That silver is necessary for the front lines. You want the Coicro to die because you failed to produce quality goods? Is that what you want?”

  Hours struggled by. Hours of the workers standing. There was no swaying. Those who managed to breathe wrong were taken by men that materialized out of the very shadows and disappeared just as mysteriously. Those who emptied their bowels were taken and not seen again. The only evidence to their existence was the spiraled towers of their shit, ignored and forbidden. Within minutes the chamber smelled like a neglected stable. And still the workers did not react. None of them so much as grimaced under the sweltering stink. They just stood there, mindlessly, until finally a second bell tolled the end of the exercise and the drones returned to the lines they so numbly worked over.

  “Oh. It’s over? Pity. I find Lord Gregory’s sermons invigorating.”

  Sylver flashed a smile she hoped was genuine. Inside her mind was reeling. Of the dozens of workers suffering the “sermon,” only Oliver seemed aware. Yet even he didn’t escape unscathed. The spark of obsessive admiration lit his eyes. It was disturbing...and in some venues, very familiar. “What happens to the silver after the workers mold them?”

  “Hm? Oh, the metal? Well...I haven’t the foggiest idea.”

  Convenient. “I thought you said you were the overseer.”

  “I did? Oh, yes. I did say that, didn’t I? I am the overseer.”

  Is it the manna, or did the man had addled wits to begin with? It was impossible to tell. “So, what happens to the silver after the workers mold it?”

  “Ah. Well, I can’t discuss that, little one. It’s a secret known only to the bluebloods.” She wanted to smash that infuriating little smile right off his face. I need him.

  “But I thought we were soul mates, dear. You don’t keep secrets between soul mates.”

  “Yes...Yes of course. No secrets. Come with me.”

  Oliver took her to a corner of ordinary wall hidden in a long shadow. Some fancy gestures on Oliver’s part made the wall press forward and then pivot. A short trek down a spiraling staircase – why is it always caverns or underground mazes? – And the pair arrived in the secret cellar. “Or the Vault Foyer, as I like to call it.”

  They were not alone. A dozen heads perked at the door grating open and suddenly there was a thick hostility to the air. Every eye on was Sylver, defensive and full of malice. The ranger simply glared back.

  “Who is this?” The man was heads taller than anyone in the room, and his voice had the tightness of a frayed patience. Shaven-headed, with broad shoulders and long leather vest that parted down the middle to better expose his muscular chest. A tattoo of a lion was seared on his breastbone, as were the lions threaded into his trousers. The leader, obviously.

  “Have no fear, Glenn. She’s one of us.”

  “One of...” Glenn’s face twisted as dark as a thundercloud. “We need silence if we are to do our work.”

  “And why is that?” Oliver challenged. “Our cause is right and just, yet we scamper inside the walls like common rats.” A creak of wood sounded within the room; Sylver could see their heads peeking from the doorframe.

  Glenn could feel their gazes, too. “Think, you added buffoon. We are in the heart of our enemy. It only takes one mistake and the Vicars will hunt us down!” There was a murmur behind Glenn, and from the growing purple in his face it was a murmur he’d worked mightily to avoid. “Come on now.”

  Sylver took a quick stock of the chamber while Glenn and Oliver argued. Cracks ran from wall to wall like black lightning, and the rafters that secured the room sneezed dust if someone breathed wrong. There were only six men, meager as the room, mostly muttering. Two were fair of skin and sparse of hair, one so thin his bones stood out more than the skin, and the last three were mirrors of each other. Sylver noted that each group held their own council, with enough distance between them so as the others would not hear. This rebellion was half dead already.

  “Now tell me why I shouldn’t kick you both out.”

  “Because you’re short-handed and because you need me.” Sylver glided over to Glenn and looked him straight in the eye. It was obvious the man favored the intimidation his lofty stature allowed him, for he was reduced to silence to Sylver’s boldness. “You know how the Vicars are. One wrong glance and its back to a cell with hot irons. These people aren’t soldiers. They’re not disciplined.” The following tick of silence added the “like you” for her. “You need someone skilled. Patient. Crafty. You need me.”

  “You talk a lot of bull. Your father in the army?”

  “Up to the day the Vicar killed him for spoiling meat.”

  She let the point go to let the meaning sink in. All heads were upon her now, as was Glenn. Some of the fire the ranger brandished was in their eyes. From the way Glenn quivered it was clear he felt the scales tip as well. Even if he denied her now, the rumors would end him. Questions of power and right would follow him, and sooner or later someone would decide Glenn was too out of touch with their sacred cause to effectively wield the order.

  “Come back tomorrow. We’ll see what you’re good for then.”

  “What am I supposed to do in the meantime?” Oliver. Somehow Sylver forgot he was here at all.

  “Nothing. Go back to your house.” With that he turned his back on Oliver’s protests. Sylver had to take Oliver by the arm and drag him away like a child.

  “Tis always been like that with Glenn,” Oliver muttered on the way back to his humble mess of a house. “It’s always been like that with everybody. They dismiss me for my size.”

  Sylver ducked her face in shadow to hide her eyes rolling. Glenn had a physique to match his arrogance, and the frustration glinting in his eyes was mirrored in every colleague. Oliver was a jester without his belled cap. It was lucky the fool lived this long.

  “They’re jealous of me.” The blindness that veiled his sight continued in his hovel. Jumbled, loosely-bound squares of clothing were scattered about, some more rotten than others. A quick glance added another layer of blandness. Every pile of clothing was the same: dull green tunic and white trousers, accompanied by particularly ugly boots. The man did not have it in him to acquire different clothing.

  “They’re jealous,” he said again, although more to himself than to Sylver. “They’ve always been jealous. They know how smart I am. I could lead a mission just as good as them. Better!”

  “Perhaps such a plan should be initiated,” Sylver purred as she slipped into bed, her bare shoulders tantalizingly erotic. “We need to show Glenn how valuable you are.”

  “Yes, yes.” He was inside her now, his face a tomato as he thrust weakly into her. Words poured out of him as he bludgeoned. “I have just the idea. There are a few people I thought to recruit, but...Do you really think I can do it?”

  Asking her. He was fucking her, and he was asking her fo
r permission. It took a great deal to moan convincingly enough to restore his pride. “Yes, yes. Oh yes.”

  “I’ll do it! Yes, yes. This could work! It will work! Then Glenn will have to heed my council!” His seed was as pathetic as his fragile words; most of it dribbling away as though unworthy of Sylver’s womanhood.

  Later, Sylver caressed her belly, her thoughts caught between rationality and guilt. The agenda of the war superseded petty individual concerns...But he had touched her. He had been inside of her, slobbering over her nipples and his fingers digging into her buttocks as though clinging to a buoy during a violent storm. Sylver couldn’t help but feel dirty. Such a wonderful mother I am. Distraught and scared Sylver turned to sleep. Nothing less than perfection would be needed in the coming days, and she couldn’t risk everything for exhaustion.

  LVI

  Jade Raptor was not his real name, but rather a name taken on for his service in ranging. His real name no one knew but him and his mother; it was a treasure without equal. Jade Raptor was the name of the man he crafted, the man he always dreamed of being. Simple farmland names could not delve into the entire world’s bounty. No, the only destiny such names were to live was the stagnation of their home villages, never changing, never growing. Jade Raptor, now, that was a name that hinted at adventure, at danger, at the willing wenches after heroic deeds were done. Now that was a life worth living.

  At noon the following day, Raptor walked to the gates of Na’ion. Slowing his pace to a casual walk, Raptor paid the bribe to the guards standing at their posts, and entered the town as if he owned it. Smiling at every pretty lass and giving short nods to those gentlemen who barely noticed, Raptor entered the first tavern he could find, sat down in the back tables, ordered a drink, and waited.

  It did not take long before a huge shadow loomed over the ranger. Raptor looked up and up, craning his head so far back his neck muscles began to quake. My, what a big boy. “Ho, brother. How fares the weather?”