Eve of Destruction

by C. E. Stalbaum

  “So what did you do?” Zach asked.

  “We had this notion that the magi needed to change if the country was going to survive. The older generation liked to say that anyone could go to the university if they wanted to, but that wasn’t realistic for most families, financially or otherwise. They liked to point out how the temples took care of the masses, tending to their wounds and giving them spiritual guidance, but we all knew there weren’t nearly enough priestesses to handle the need. Most of the casualties from the war were poor conscripts, often from rural areas, and a lot of them had never even seen a real priestess, let alone been blessed by actual magic. We were living a big lie, and the war had started showing people the truth.”

  Danev took a long sip from his drink. “Tara was our leader, as much as we had one. She and Simon were the most zealous of us, and they believed the future was in technology. Now keep in mind back then we had just started hearing about the first trains, and the rifles our soldiers had been using were dangerous and inaccurate. Everything was new and undeveloped, and they saw massive untapped potential.”

  Eve slowly shook her head. “I don’t know who you’re talking about, but that’s not my mother. She thought that industry was killing the Fane.”

  The man’s eyes softened. “I’m sure her opinions changed over time, but back then, she was Simon’s staunchest supporter. More than that, actually.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Danev licked gingerly at his lips and sighed. “They were lovers.”

  Eve’s jaw fell open and she knew the color drained from her face. It was impossible. It had to be. Mom would have told her about that if it were true. Her dad would have, at least—if he even knew about it.

  She brought a hand to her cheek. That was a particularly grim thought. Had mom kept this from dad, too? What about the other magi? Did they know she’d helped Chaval get started? Did they blame her for his success? Was it motive enough for them to finally make their move and murder her for it?

  Or was the man in front of her just lying about it all?

  “It was nothing scandalous,” Danev assured her after a moment. “Simon was a good man at the time. I admit I was jealous; I had always fancied Tara myself. But they worked well together. He was studying sorcery too and using what he learned to create new inventions and refinements.”

  “Wait,” Zach muttered, wetting his lips as he recovered from his own shock, “Chaval is a mage?”

  “A krata, nothing more,” Danev said, rubbing at his chin. “He learned many of the basic concepts, but he never took the Oath Rituals or finished his last year at school. The Enclave doesn’t teach krata anything truly dangerous, as I’m sure you know. By now I doubt he remembers much of any of it, and given his politics, he probably wouldn’t use them anyway. You can appreciate what it would do to his image.”

  Zach nodded slowly. “It would destroy him. He’s built his entire platform on opposing the magi.”

  “Indeed. He has admitted in public that he attended a university for a while, though. He explained how it has helped him understand the ‘corruption’ of the magi, but there’s much more to that story.”

  Eve closed her eyes and forced herself to take a deep breath. It was coming too fast, and she felt like her brain was mired in molasses. But she needed to think clearly now—even if Danev was lying about all of this, she still wanted to hear it. She and Zach could chew over the details later when they were alone.

  “Why didn’t Chaval finish?” she asked.

  “The Enclave stopped him,” Danev said. “It wasn’t long before they started to take an interest in your mother’s work, and I don’t mean that in the positive sense. At first they were just curious, but soon they started branding both Tara and Simon heretics and traitors. By our junior year a few men would show up now and then to threaten all of us to stop what we were doing. It began to fracture our little group. We finally started to realize that what he’d gotten into was big—and that we had upset some very important people.”

  “So you stopped?”

  Danev shook his head. “Most of us were pretty rattled, but Tara and Simon didn’t care. I think it emboldened them, actually. Eventually the Enclave sent men to destroy Simon’s work, and they coerced the headmaster to expel both he and your mother from the school. The rest of us…well, we distanced ourselves enough to slip by, if not by much.”

  Eve frowned. “You’re saying my mother was expelled? That she never took the Oath Rituals?”

  “She did, but not right then,” he clarified. “The two of them created Steamworks in outright defiance of the Enclave, and the money starting pouring in. It was two years after graduation and many of us had started going our separate ways when she suddenly left Simon. I never found out why, but that was when she moved away. As far as I know she finished her Oath Rituals years later in Lushden before going on to teach there, and she never looked back.”

  “He must have done something,” Zach said, his own voice sounding a little hoarse.

  “Like I said, I don’t know for certain. Perhaps she started to see the Enclave’s point, or maybe Simon changed somehow. In any case, I’ve barely spoken to anyone from Valmeri since. I do know that several of our friends regretted some of the things they had done, though, and I imagine that regret is stronger than ever now.”

  Zach nodded idly. “The Dusties are taking over everything. Your friends started the revolution that’s wiping out their own kind.”

  “In a way,” Danev admitted. “Simon certainly knew about Tara’s talents and about her journal. I just don’t know why he would have waited thirty years to do anything about it, if it was indeed him.”

  “The election,” Eve whispered. “It has to be about the election. She knew something dangerous, or maybe he thought she did. He’s been steadily gaining support since Kalavan—perhaps he finally wanted to tie up loose ends.”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure how we can find out for certain, but there are others who probably know what happened between them better than I do. I’ll just need some time to track them down.”

  Eve bit her lip. “Like Glenn Maltus?”

  Danev cheek twitched. “You know him?”

  “He was our neighbor for…oh, seventeen years or so, before he moved to Selerius. We saw him right before we left. He implicated Chaval, too, but he didn’t mention most of the rest of this.”

  Danev shared a meaningful glance with his bodyguard. “I haven’t spoken to Glenn since before you were born.”

  “But you know why he didn’t say anything, don’t you?” Zach asked.

  “I know very little,” Danev corrected, “but I can guess. Glenn was one of the first to leave town when we graduated. He claimed he had a teaching position, but it didn’t take us long to learn he had been conscripted by the Enclave.”

  “The Enclave,” Eve murmured. “But mom hated them! They used to complain together when we were younger. Did she know?”

  “She did. She was quite bitter about it for a time, and so were the rest of us, really. It was a brutal betrayal of everything we’d been working against. But then real life caught up with the rest of us as it has a habit of doing, and I doubt many of us ever looked back.” He pressed his lips together tightly. “Glenn was…a good friend. It’s been a very long time.”

  “He said we should trust you, but now I don’t know if we can trust him,” Eve whispered. “Blessed Kirshal, what is going on?”

  Zach put an arm around her but kept his eyes locked on the older man. “So you think Maltus still works for them?”

  “Magi don’t quit the Enclave,” Aram put in, “and their agents don’t act without their consent.”

  Danev nodded slowly. “We’ll get you some answers, my dear. It might take some time, but we’ll figure out what’s going on. I’m sorry I had to be the one who told you all of this, but it’s the truth.”

  Eve smiled faintly. “Thank you.”

  He waved a hand dismissively. “It’s the least I can do for an old f
riend. Besides, you remind me of her a great deal…it brings back more good memories than bad ones.” He smiled to himself for a moment then stood. “For now, why don’t you head over to the Calio? It’s a nice hotel on Fourth, and I know the owner. Just tell him I sent you and I’ll take care of the bill.”

  Zach stood and shook his hand. “That’s very kind of you.”

  “Come by again tomorrow evening. I’ll provide dinner and hopefully have some more information for you by then.”

  Eve nodded, and a few minutes later she and Zach were stepping back out onto the dirty streets of Vaschberg. They managed to walk about halfway down the street before she stopped and turned back to Danev’s building.

  “I don’t believe it,” she whispered.

  Zach squeezed his arm more tightly around her. “I don’t think he was lying, at least not directly.”

  “He had to be,” she insisted, locking eyes with him. “There’s no way mom knew Chaval. Not like that.”

  A part of her wanted him to lie, to agree with her and just dismiss the whole thing. They could hop back on a train tomorrow and never look back.

  But she knew he wouldn’t. He believed every word Danev said, and deep down she did too. And that was the whole problem.

  “Let’s get to the hotel,” Zach said softly. “We can talk more there.”

  Eve sighed and nodded. They continued on down the street.

  ***

  Amaya dropped out of the window into the back alley behind the Pampered Goddess and quickly dashed away from the building. She shed the attendant’s outfit as she moved, and within a minute she was three blocks away in another alley. The streets were still bustling with the movement of the evening crowds, so she had to stick to the shadows and avoid being too obvious about it. A foreign woman slinking around the streets in a dark bodysuit was not something most people would ignore.

  She only had to wait a few seconds before two burly men approached her.

  “So, what’s the plan?” the lead one asked.

  “She doesn’t know as much as we thought, but she will soon enough,” Amaya told them. “Danev is going to help her.”

  The man glanced furtively to his partner. “Your boss isn’t paying us enough to mess with Danev. I hear his bodyguard used to be with the Eclipse.”

  She did her best not to roll her eyes. The warriors of the Crimson Eclipse—an order of bodyguards dedicated to protecting important magi—had a fearsome reputation, to be sure, but these goons didn’t understand what a yohisha was capable of. Not that it mattered; Eclipsean or not, Danev’s bodyguard wouldn’t be anywhere near the two targets tonight.

  “Forget Danev; we’ll deal with him later,” she said. “Right now we need to get to the Calio.”

  “So just the girl?”

  “The girl and her consort,” Amaya told them, grabbing her other equipment pouch from one of them. “Just a few loose ends that need tying.”

  Chapter Six

  The Calio was far and away the most upscale hotel Eve had ever set foot in. She’d heard stories of the lavish suites of the Pon Celar in Selerius and the famous Vorani seaside complex in Sunoa, but both of those were in wealthy, culturally refined neighborhoods. Here, amidst the grime and soot of Vaschberg, the relative grandeur of the Calio stood out like a torbo at a magister’s ball.

  All things considered, though, Eve was far more impressed by the staff’s deferential reaction to Danev’s name than the ambiance or décor. The manager assigned them a second floor suite in a matter of seconds, and the bellhop moved their light load of luggage with dizzying haste. She felt like a street urchin reaching into her purse to find a few coins to toss him as a tip, and even more so when he refused for the pleasure of “talking care of one of Mr. Danev’s friends.” Evidently her mom’s old college friend had a lot more clout in this city than she realized.

  “You know, I take back everything bad I said about this trip,” Zach told her as he gaped at the spaciousness of the room. “I lived in a barracks this size with fifty other men for three months.”

  Eve slowly shook her head. Three couches, a full bar and kitchen, a washroom, a bed almost the size of a boxcar—two whole families could live comfortably in here. It made her tiny, four-meter by four-meter dorm room at Rorendal seem like a closet by comparison.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Zach said, grinning coyly. “You might as well get it over with.”

  She smiled and dropped her bags. Then, with a gleeful squeal like a girl half her age, she dashed across the room and leapt onto the bed.

  She couldn’t help it. There was something rebellious about flopping unceremoniously on sheets that probably cost a thousand drakes, and as she bounced her way towards the front of the bed, Zach quickly followed with a shoulder-first dive of his own. Suddenly they were eight again, bouncing around on her parent’s oversized bed while her mom and dad were at the neighbor’s. They had no responsibility to anything except fun—and trying to knock the other person off.

  This time when she finally stopped bouncing he almost landed on top of her and his face immediately flushed. “I’ll, uh,” he mumbled. “I’ll take the couch, I suppose.”

  Eve pushed him over and rolled her eyes. “Don’t be silly. This bed is big enough for six people.”

  He leaned up on the edge and glanced away sheepishly. “Eh…”

  “Zach, we’ve slept in the same bed about a hundred times.”

  “Not since we were ten.”

  She snorted. “Well, if you start getting all handsy, I’ll burn your hair off. How does that sound?”

  He raised his hands defensively. “Fine. I’m not going to complain if you aren’t.”

  “Good. Now why don’t you be a good minion and fetch our bags?”

  “Of course, madam,” he sneered before hopping off the bed and moving over to the luggage. He knelt down and then paused as he eyed the room again. “I don’t know what it is, but something about this place just feels…wrong.”

  “The whole town just feels dirty,” she said, sliding off her boots and wriggling her toes. “It’s much worse than Radbury—I thought I was going to gag when we got off the train. I don’t understand how people can live like this.”

  “I counted at least a dozen factories on the east side as we passed by. Goddess knows what they even make.”

  “I’m not sure She wants to know,” Eve replied dryly. “Anyway, I’m going to have a bath before bed. Hopefully the water is cleaner than the air.”

  “I’d be more worried about it being heated,” he said, dropping the bags next to the bed. “You’d think it would be in a place like this, but…”

  “Heat I can deal with myself,” she said, winking at him and heading into the washroom.

  As it turned out, the water in the illustrious tub was somewhere between extremes. She, however, preferred it to be steaming. After experimentally dipping in a finger as it filled, Eve closed her eyes and reached out to touch the Fane. One of her favorite instructors had always compared weaving the Fane to commanding a hound—with time, patience, and a stern voice, you could convince it to do whatever you wished. Eve had personally always seen it as more like a cat: rebellious and independent, but willing to cede to your demands if you gave it something it wanted. In this case, the treat was a part of her own life-force. Such was the price of power.

  Her hand flashed with a reddish glow as she fed the Fane’s hunger, and she gently pressed her fingertips against the water’s surface again. After a few seconds the temperature seemed right, and she released the spell.

  Energy manipulation was a basic tenet of the sorcery discipline, and it could obviously be very dangerous. This basic spell, however, was something even krata could manage, and her mom had taught it to her years ago. By itself it wasn’t enough to invoke the Flensing.

  She spent far too long lying near comatose and letting the heat soothe her muscles, but it felt so damn good. She even had to warm the water again before deciding to actually do some scrubbing a
nd shaving. Her eyes fluttered closed a handful of times, and she caught herself nodding off more than once. Only then did she start to realize how long it had been since she’d gotten a full night’s sleep. She’d stayed up for much of the week at her parent’s place, or been so overwhelmed with grief that sleep had only followed hours of sobbing. Perhaps tonight would finally be different.

  She rolled Danev’s words around in her head. She’d always considered mom to be the quiet type, but Eve really had no idea how true that was until today. It seemed like her mother had led multiple lives and never talked about any of them; imagining Tara DeShane as a youthful radical was utterly mind-boggling. Imagining her with Simon Chaval was heart-breaking.

  Did her father ever know about that? He’d been a kind and tolerant man, so he probably wouldn’t have cared. Chaval also hadn’t been nearly the same menacing public figure ten years ago when her dad was still alive. But now…now Chaval’s Dusties were tearing apart the country, and her mother had been right there at the beginning of the movement. Perhaps she hadn’t always been the quiet type. Perhaps shame and regret had turned her into one.

  Then there was the question of her longtime neighbor and friend. When her father had died, Mr. Maltus had almost been like a replacement. He loved her mother, and Eve always thought mom loved him, too, even if she didn’t remarry. But how much of that was true? Why had mom put up with him if she knew he was an agent of the Enclave? What was he even doing there in the first place?

  Eve sighed and dried herself off. She tossed on her plain white nightgown before heading back into the main room. Given how riled up and borderline paranoid Zach had been the whole trip, she half-expected to catch him tipping over all the furniture just to make sure nothing was hiding underneath.

  Instead he was unconscious in the middle of the bed, still fully clothed, and she couldn’t help but smile. She thought soldiers were supposed to be light sleepers, but he didn’t even stir when she slipped off his boots or pulled the covers over him. Finally she pressed up against him and slid her arm over his chest, then closed her eyes and let her mind drift.