Vallis stared at Fara in disbelief. The fox huffed.
“Well, it’s true. Don’t pretend you didn’t notice,” Fara muttered.
“Do not concern yourself with your body, young fox,” Grigor boomed from outside. “Your martial capabilities outweigh any physical shortcomings you may have.”
Fara looked mortified, but she found herself unable to bite back at Grigor’s well-intentioned words. Instead, she muttered, “They’re not shortcomings.”
“There, there, Fara,” Vallis said. “Maybe somebody will appreciate them.”
“I will slap you.”
Vallis shut up.
“Her family also was in a much more certain position,” Fara eventually said, after she calmed down. “I can’t say I liked what I heard about the Kinadain.”
“They’re her blind spot. And not because of Barul,” Rys agreed. “We have a lot to investigate before we agree to work with her.”
“You’re going to accept?” Fara asked, eyebrows shooting up.
“In a manner of speaking,” he said.
“Ah, with conditions.” Fara nodded. “I should have known better. At least in this case, it might be smarter.”
Had Fara come around to Rys’s way of thinking?
Whatever the case, the road to an empire lay before him. It was covered in thorns, hidden traps, and false paths, but he felt confident that he could navigate it.
First, he needed to find out how to turn Maria’s idea of joint control into one where she was subservient to him.
Chapter 13
After Maria left, they argued over how to respond to her proposal. Grigor remained transformed for the discussion, just in case.
Or more accurately, Rys listened while Fara, Vallis, and Grigor argued. He had opinions on the situation, but they were talking about a tiny merchant league trying to take over a town that Rys had never heard of a week ago. Letting his subordinates run the show let him determine their ability and improve their capability.
Instead, his mind focused on how to convince a certain noble to join him.
Vallis leaned back after a long run of talking. The imps brought her a tall glass of water with sliced lemons and limes in it. Her throat thanked them, even if she forgot to.
“I haven’t done something like this for months,” Vallis said. “Probably longer. Compagnon has spies everywhere in Anceston these days. Having a fun argument about how to overthrow them is liable to land you in a creek, and I came a little too close to that a few weeks ago.”
Fara scowled at Vallis’s casual mention of her near-death experience.
“You’re taking this better than I expected,” Rys said, realizing that the argument had paused for the moment. The imps brought some burned cookies out.
He really needed to hire a chef. Or somebody who could at least remove things from an oven on time. Imps weren’t stupid, but they focused their intelligence on the important things in life, like not dying. Actually doing a good job was low on their list of priorities most days.
“The last time Compagnon sent an assassin after me, an Ashen flicked his cigarette at him and turned him into a pillar of flame,” Vallis said drily. “I’m the best protected merchant on Kavolara right now. My guards are hellfire-throwing dwarves who are happy to laze around on my cart and creepy ninja-like devils running behind me in the forests.”
“Ninjas?” Rys asked.
“That’s what the Malakin resemble,” Fara asked. “I tried asking them why they dress that way, but they mumbled some nonsense and ran away.”
“That’s because they’re creepy as shit,” Vallis said. “I mean that in the nicest way. They don’t leer, but the way they look at Fara is goddamn weird. If they could, they’d frame her tails on their walls.”
“They were always pretty weird in the Infernal Empire.” Rys stroked his chin. “But so is every species of devil involved in intelligence gathering. The head of the Empire’s intelligence before the Cataclysm was called the Pharoah, because he dressed up as a pharaoh for no discernable reason. By contrast, the Malakin worshipped angels. Nobody batted an eye.”
“Sounds useful,” Fara said.
“No,” Grigor said. “All infernals and angels possess soulsight. We can understand the nature of a being at a glance. No devil could hide from an angel’s soulsight.”
Vallis’s mouth hung open. “Holy fucking shit. The rumors are true?”
Rys raised an eyebrow. “They’ve become rumors? How many people did the angels murder to bury that truth? They can tell truth from lie with their eyes. It makes them terrifying to negotiate with. Trust me, I know. It doesn’t work on infernals, so they only negotiated with humans. That meant me.”
“That explains a lot of weird shit they’ve done in history,” Vallis said. “Azrael’s a touch stab-happy. Likes to teleport into palaces and kill rulers.”
Because it’s her job, Rys imagined.
Something about that story bothered Rys. He knew about Azrael’s habit of teleporting into fortresses and killing everything he saw. A lot of powerful infernals died in the Cataclysm that way.
But there was something more. Rys felt a mental block that prevented him from accessing his memories.
He made a mental note but moved on.
“We’re becoming distracted,” Rys said, burying his frustration. “I’m glad you’re settling in, Vallis.”
She beamed at him. “I’m not just settling in. My debt worries are history. I’m doing things I only dreamed of doing and learning all sorts of stuff I only touched on when I was younger.” She sighed. “I feel I wasted a lot of time. My father wanted me to become a mage, but I dropped out of the mage tower apprenticeship right at the end to help him run the family business. For the first time, I feel that I’m living for myself, and not to fix my father’s fuckups.”
Fara looked away, her face downcast.
“We should settle the plans for Compagnon,” Rys said quickly.
All eyes focused on him, their expressions turning serious.
“How certain are you that the plan you said is what they’re doing? Maria agreed, but that doesn’t mean much if she missed the artifact trade,” Vallis said. “You were pretty flippant about the whole thing.”
He shrugged. “There are only so many ways to skin a cat. A bunch of merchants are pretty limited in how they can realistically take over the region. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you’re a rich bastard, that hammer is a gigantic sack of gold and you use it to flatten those nails.”
“You don’t like the wealthy, do you?” Vallis asked. A grimace crossed her face.
“It’s not that. My issue is that people with extreme wealth and little else tend to be small-minded. They try to solve every problem with money, and when that fails, they’re swiftly crushed by a better prepared opponent,” Rys said. “Money is only one form of power. They’re going to learn how poor their preparations have been.”
A series of expressions distorted Vallis’s face, before she finally settled on grim comprehension. “You don’t care what they’re doing here, do you?”
“Should I?” Rys asked, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t know anything about Compagnon or their situation on Gauron. For all I know, they have some horrible sob story about being oppressed by evil monarchs or vampires over there. The same goes for the powermongers you hate. Even Maria admits they’re here for personal reasons. Sure, they do horrible things, but in their lives, horrible things might have been done to them.”
“What if they’re just assholes?” Vallis asked flatly.
“No shortage of them,” Rys said. “But my point is that I don’t know. And I don’t need to know. The world isn’t going to change because I make a moral judgment of my opponents. I can cry and scream about how awful everything is, or I can do something about it.”
Vallis opened her mouth to protest, then closed it. After several long seconds, she asked, “Then why help everybody? Why help me, when I was just some rando
m merchant about to be killed?”
Fara glowered at Vallis.
“Because nobody gets anywhere in life without working with others,” Rys said. “That means helping others, often without the expectation of anything in return. I gained my closest allies that way.”
Grigor nodded at Rys’s words.
“You make helping others sound so transactional,” Vallis said. “I am a merchant, but…”
“I’m not here to preach at you,” Rys said. “You asked. I’m telling you why. There’s often a lot more to gain by helping potential allies and saving your vicious side for your enemies. Because there will always be more enemies.”
“Carrot and stick,” Vallis said. “I’ll think on it.”
Rys turned to Grigor. “Let’s actually discuss our plan. I liked what you brought up earlier. Then again, I always like your plans.”
Grigor let out a snort. “You flatter me, Rys. It is simple enough. This Compagnon’s power comes from their network of allies. There is no need to face their full might head-on if we instead crush each of their weakest links one by one. Then, once they are weakened and flailing with terror, we will rip out their heart with a decisive strike.”
“Simple, but effective,” Rys said. “Use the Malakin to identify the best targets. I reckon Margrim has a lot of experience with this sort of thing, too, given he’s been summoned to Harrium before.”
Grigor nodded.
“We’ll need an economic approach as well, in order to really weaken Compagnon,” Rys continued. He turned to Vallis. “I know you’re busy with your new trade route, but—”
“We need to dig up more on what’s going on with the artifacts,” she said. “I can do that. The merchants in Port Mayfield were relieved to see me turn up with so many artifacts. I reckon they’ll prove trustworthy sources.”
That left Fara. Rys turned to her and she ducked her head, her tails hiding most of her body from view.
“I’m a fighter,” Fara muttered. “I don’t know much about spying, especially given how good the Malakin are. And even Margrim has more experience giving orders than me.”
“Don’t say ‘even Margrim,’” Rys said. “He’s older than you are.”
Grigor held his chin in one massive hand. “Your skills will be needed, Fara. My plan can only succeed with the help of talented warriors such as yourself. And there is always need for you on the home front and in the Labyrinth.”
Fara gave the demon prince a small nod and a blatantly fake smile.
Rys remained silent as the session broke up. His thoughts turned to his conversation with Fara in the Labyrinth weeks ago, and her confidence issues. While Grigor’s heart was in the right place, simple platitudes couldn’t solve Fara’s concerns.
That evening, as the sun began its slow descend past the horizon, Rys poked around the detached building behind the manor. He searched for a bottle of liquor. Vallis had brought back plenty of food and drink during her trips to Anceston and Port Mayfield.
Rys only wanted something to sip at while he digested the evocation books. Instead, he found empty shelves and hiding places. The infernals loved their booze. They’d pilfered every drop in the main building, so he’d hoped to find something out here.
The rooms here were empty—the guest room and kitchen contained nothing but dust. Fara had chosen a bedroom next to Vallis’s, which was next to Rys’s. These were temporary quarters, as Rys had plans for the bedrooms to face the central courtyard eventually, but their choice to stay close to him was an important one.
An empty study held Rys’s prize, tucked behind a false wall inside a desk cabinet. Grape spirit, if his spell didn’t lie to him. He replaced the false wall and turned to leave, a triumphant smirk on his face.
Fara stared at him from the entrance, leaning on the door frame. “You didn’t strike me as much of a drinker. You value clear thinking too much.”
“Alcohol is an old comfort,” Rys said. “The weaker stuff doesn’t affect me like it once did, but the nostalgia helps. Sometimes it even tastes good.” He paused and looked back at the desk. “Was this yours?”
“That depends on whether you’ll share it,” Fara said.
“Ah. Care to join me for a drink?”
The two of them sat together on a bench in the central courtyard. Only a small garden occupied the space for now, lit by the twilight rays of the sun. A magic lamp flickered to life next to them before it became dark enough for Fara to summon balls of flame.
Fara placed two small glasses on the stone bench. One of her tails shifted, and the cork untwisted itself from the bottle. Rys raised an eyebrow.
“That seems like the most useless technique I’ve seen,” Rys said. “Spiritual techniques take years to learn. They’re not like spells, where you can alter one on the fly. Unless it’s different for a fox?”
“No, you’re right,” Fara said. “But I spent a couple of decades monster hunting up in the mountains of Pharos. Plenty of quiet days and nights with nothing to do. That’s a lot of time to spend mastering useless skills.”
Fara poured the grape spirit into both glasses. A soft “cheers” rose from both of them, followed by silence as they enjoyed the spirit.
Perhaps “enjoyed” was too strong of a word.
“This is foul shit,” Rys said.
“I think it’s from a merchant’s personal still. Strong, though,” Fara said. She maintained a slow and steady pace of drinking.
Rys supposed it was grape spirit. He’d had worse, so he accepted what he had. The bottle’s contents dwindled.
Eventually, Fara broke the silence that settled. “How do you do it?”
“Gonna need to be more specific.”
“Everything.” Fara waved her glass in front of her. “Bulldoze Barul. Make a plan to dismantle Compagnon. Not care about what anybody thinks of you. And all of this even though you’ve woken up after a couple thousand years of sleep. I don’t get it.”
“If I say experience, will you hit me?” Rys asked.
Fara batted him with one of her tails. He didn’t feel that was punishment.
“I’m used to being in shit situations. After crawling my way out of so many, I don’t think too hard about them,” he said.
“But wouldn’t you have been working for somebody else most of the time?” Fara asked. “You were a general of this Malusian. Surely, he gave you orders. Or others did. I get the impression that you were powerful, but the Infernal Empire was ruled by infernals.”
“Hence the name,” Rys said drily.
He drained his glass. Fara topped him up. Her tails tickled his neck and chin as she leaned over. Redness filled her face, but she sounded sober enough.
“‘General’ is a pretty inaccurate title,” Rys explained. His gaze turned distant. “By the end of everything, I helped run the damn Empire. There were a few of us that worked across both Ariel’s and Malusian’s courts to keep the whole thing together. When you have that much authority, it doesn’t matter if somebody else technically holds your leash.”
“But what about before that?” Fara pressed. “How did you even get to that point? You’re so confident about it now, but I can’t imagine giving somebody like Grigor orders.”
He frowned. That was a complicated question. And one that took Rys back in time.
“Do you know what the difference between infernals and every mortal race in Harrium is?” Rys asked.
Fara blinked. “They don’t have souls. It stands out to somebody like me. Makes it easy for foxes to detect infernals.”
“That’s right. Infernals come from a world without an astral plane, so they don’t have souls. But the soul is an important part of a person. There are four intrinsic parts that make somebody what they are: their body; their mind; their magical essence; and their soul. If you lack one of these pieces, you become fundamentally different.”
“I’ve heard this before,” Fara said. “My soul guides me and determines my goals in life. My magical essence represents my raw desir
es and instincts. My mind is my personality and combined memory of life. My body is only a physical representation of everything else, and is the least important.”
Rys raised an eyebrow. “I’d question the ‘least important’ part for your body, but that’s mostly true. Mere mortals can’t survive being disintegrated like divine beings. If Grigor dies, he’ll reform in Hell. Same goes for angels, who are gigantic balls of astral energy in the astral plane. But we’ll die if our bodies are destroyed, which makes it important to me.”
Fara smirked. “Ah, so you can die. Good to know.” Her smirk vanished. “So demons lack a true goal in life? That means they’re driven by their desires and instincts. What does that have to do with what we were talking about?”
“Everything,” Rys said. “I told you that the infernals ran their Empire by beating rules into everybody. Well, that’s only half true. The reality is that the infernals ran their Empire using a standard currency for everything. And I agree with that idea.”
Waiting patiently, Fara refilled both of their drinks. The sun had long since set. Fireflies emerged from the surrounding darkness.
“Power is the only currency of value in the world,” Rys said. “Money, political influence, physical or magical strength—those are forms of power. Each of them held value in the Infernal Empire, but the greatest infernals had many ways to stay on top. It didn’t matter who was right, only who could win. And once you were on top, you set the rules.”
“That’s why you don’t care about whether Compagnon or Maria are right,” Fara said. “Because it won’t matter after you pick a side and take over.”
Rys tipped his glass toward her, careful not to spill any alcohol. “Don’t tell Vallis that. I want her to realize on her own.” He chuckled. “I spent most of my life under others. But the more power I gathered, the less that mattered. I reshaped huge swathes of the Empire. And when it collapsed, I was truly free and could do what I wanted.”
Until he somehow got sealed away in a coffin, lost his memories, and ended up in the middle of nowhere 1500 years later.
But Rys didn’t focus on his problems. He was alive and free.
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