by John Conroe
“Are you sure, ma’am?” one of the two hulks asked in a voice like rocks grinding.
“Absolutely,” she said. The men nodded respectfully and left, closing the door behind them. “Like they would make a difference, right?” she asked us.
“Freyla Slost?” I said.
“Of course, Captain DelaCrotia. Who did you expect?” she said back.
I ran a quick glance over my people, catching Kassa’s nod as my eyes passed over her.
“You asked for help, Raven. Help is here,” I said.
She was silent for a moment, pulling back to study me and then giving the rest of my team a look over. Whatever she saw, she kept it to herself.
“There is a serious problem here, Captain. During the time of your travels, the situation has devolved much further.”
“Tell us about it,” I said, pulling out a chair at the big dining table and sitting down. Instantly, Trell and Kassa did as well. Jella chose to jump nimbly on a sideboard set against the wall. Cort and Drew moved to either side of the door, leaning back against the wall, all relaxed looking. I knew they could move very quickly should a surprise come through the door. Soshi pulled a chair at the other end of the table, spun it around, and sat backward on it, arms folded over the top of the back, her hands very close to the sleeves that I knew each held a bolter.
Freyla took all of us in, and her eyes were sharp. I don’t think she was missing much.
“My father was a member of the Squadron,” she said softly. “I have some idea of what you do, as I suspect you have an idea of what I do.”
I just nodded and waited.
“Some time ago, maybe two weeks, maybe almost a whole month, a number of altercations began to take place,” she began. “Porye is a very old town; the port was founded long before the Punishment took place. Our kingdom’s boundaries with Mandrigo and Berkette are almost unchanged since that time. The Montshire coast is only thirty t-spans long, so our northern and southern neighbors are real close. Relationships in this town have been stable for decades, if not even longer. Of course, we have seen the Sylvanian bullshit that the Paul attempts from time to time but between our allies, things have been, as I say, solid. Till now.”
“What did these altercations look like?” Jella asked.
Freyla turned and looked at my Drodacian teacher. “At first, arguments and disagreements over business transactions. That happens everywhere, of course, and is a natural element of commerce. But this was different. The frequency and intensity were much more than anything I’ve seen in my fifteen years here. Suddenly normal negotiations broke down and became crazy schisms that split partnerships that had been in place for generations.”
“What form did the disagreements take?” Jella asked. “Trade terms?”
“No, those kinds of disagreements are normal parts of business negotiations. These were philosophical differences, primarily in terms of how each country treats things like citizen’s rights, governmental leadership, taxation, property ownership, and the enforcement of laws.”
“If these transactions happen in Montshire territory, aren’t they subject to Montshire laws?” Soshi asked.
“Yes, exactly. That’s part of what has kept things sane for so long. Our kingdom falls pretty closely between Berkette’s republic and Mandrigo’s monarchy. Ours is also a monarchy, but with rotating leadership from the High Families, much as the republic circulates leadership among its wealthy class. Our economic policies are fair and favor ease of commerce. Taxation is reasonable and the government generally delivers the services the citizens need. Yet these conflicts were mainly about the differences between Berkette and Mandrigo.”
“Mainly?” I said.
“Sometimes Montshire’s form of government is the issue and when that happens, both sides take great pains to point out whatever differs most from their own culture and ignore the commonalities.”
“Hasn’t this always gone on?” Jella asked.
Freyla turned back to our Drodacian. “Of course, on a very minor and very polite scale—at least compared to this. Pub table debates have always occurred. But in the past week, my guys have broken up seventeen fights. In the previous three months, I’ve only had one scuffle, and it involved two old men wrestling over a bottle of rum.”
“So it’s a real threat. Any idea of the cause?” I asked.
She turned back to me, looked me in the eye for a moment, and then nodded. Standing, she moved to the same sideboard that Jella was sitting on. Ignoring the dangerous warrior who was swinging her feet, Freyla pulled a small key from a pocket and unlocked the little door in the center of the cabinet. She pulled out a black bundle of cloth and came back to the table, then she set it down in front of me.
“That’s the cause,” she said with a nod at the object. “Or at least an example of the cause.”
I reached over and carefully unfolded the material, which seemed to be a silk handkerchief. My team moved closer to see as the contents were revealed. In the center of the black silk laid a circular piece of copper with an eyelet at the top like it might have been strung on a necklace. Centered on the copper disk was a rectangular white object with three rounded corners, the fourth having been cut off. Inlaid in the rectangle and taking up most of it was another rectangle, this one of gold with tiny black lines running through it that were so precise, no craftsmen I knew of could have copied them.
“That looks like something of the Punished,” Cort said.
“It is,” Freyla said. “Retrieved from Punished technology.”
“You said this was an example?” I asked.
“Yes. These necklaces have been appearing all over town. The churches of all three countries have pronounced them to be salvaged metal and not proscribed technology. The gold you see is real, just negligible. It would take thousands of these things to amount to any real value, and no one has ever found that many. But six months ago, a jeweler out of Strong started to use them in his designs with a small amount of success. But then a month ago, these other ones appeared, and they’re different.”
“You have it wrapped in silk?” I asked.
“Yeah, exactly. If you touch it, you’ll immediately want to pick it up. When you do, you’ll become fascinated. If you wear it next to your skin, you’ll start to change.”
“Change?” Kassa asked. She’d been absolutely quiet, but the object seemed to have her complete attention.
“Your personality will begin to… morph. You’ll get very focused on your own beliefs, very quick to defend them. Next you’ll find yourself gravitating to people with similar beliefs and arguing with people who don’t agree. Violence will quickly follow.”
“You sound like you know this from personal experience,” Jella observed.
“Just a little bit, combined with hours of observation,” Freyla said. “Every altercation and act of violence recently has involved wearers of these objects. This one got ripped off a brawler’s neck two days ago. One of my girls picked it up. When I asked to see it, she got in my face. This girl is one of my rescues, abused and beat down. It’s taken me two years to get her to hold a conversation. She doesn’t say boo to anyone. I was so surprised, I smacked it from her hand and picked it up before she could. She tried to get it, realized what she was doing, and ran from the room. In the meantime, I found myself feeling like I would kill her if she spoke back to me again.”
“What made you put it down?” I asked.
She looked at me long and hard. “Let’s just say that I’m not a stranger to things that can be addictive. I recognized it for what it was.”
“Which was what?” Cort asked.
“A drug,” Kassa answered for her, eyes still on the object. “Just one you don’t smoke, snort, drink, or otherwise put in your body.”
“Exactly,” Freyla said, looking at the pretty, soft-looking girl with surprise.
“You think it’s been tainted?” I asked Kassa.
“Of a sort,” she answered, giving me a meaningful look.
“A
ny idea where these are coming from?” I asked Freyla. She looked back and forth between Kassa and me, then she shook her head.
“They just started to appear. I’ve asked ten or twelve wearers where they got them, and they all told me that they found them just lying on the street or floor somewhere.”
“Smart,” Soshi said. “Just leave the shiny drug laying around and let the soon-to-be addicts pick them up. No way to trace them back.”
There was a knock at the door and Freyla leaned forward and covered the necklace even as she spoke. “Come in.”
One of the bouncers opened the door, then moved out of the way to let a waitress in with a tray of covered dishes.
“There are plates in that cabinet you’re sitting on, along with spoons and forks,” Freyla said to Jella as she waved the serving girl to the table and began to transfer the contents from the tray.
“There is fresh bread, cheese, butter, beer, wine, and fish stew,” the waitress said. “The kitchen shut down an hour ago, but the soup was still hot.”
“That soup is quite good,” Freyla said, her tone a little defensive.
“It smells excellent,” I said. “We are lucky you have it at all, arriving this time of night.”
Freyla nodded once, eyes on me as my murder descended upon the food and drink.
Chapter 21
Conversation ended temporarily while my people ate. The waitress retreated from the room, casting us a few curious glances as she went.
“How fast will word get out of our arrival?” I asked, watching the girl leave.
“From her? Never. My people don’t talk. But I can’t say the same for anyone who saw you enter tonight. Certainly by this time tomorrow, Captain. You are, after all, well known in Montshire, as are a few of your companions, such as the famous Trell here,” Freyla said, although her eyes flicked Jella’s way briefly.
“Hmm. Okay—assignments,” I said. “Cort, Drew, and Soshi, you’re on pub patrol. Hey, wipe those smiles off your faces and keep your wits about you. Observe. Trell, you do what you do so well. Jella—” She had had her bowl up to her mouth, swigging the last of her soup, and now she set it down and fixed her steely gaze on me.
“I’m out,” she said, to which I merely nodded. What she meant was she would ghost about the town, likely check on Yawl, who would be just outside the community limits, and possibly even sleep in the woods. And somehow learn all kinds of interesting details.
“Kassa, you and I will stay here,” I said with a nod toward the wrapped object. “The less I’m out and about, the better.”
“Still hours left before the pubs close, so I’m off,” Trell said, picking up his wrapped lute and pausing to look at his other instruments.
“They’ll be safe,” I said to him. “We’ll put them in our rooms, along with the rest of the gear.”
“We have time to canvas a couple of likely information sources as well,” Drew said, which earned him a snort from Soshi and a wicked grin from Cort.
“Speaking of rooms, I have set one aside for the women and two for the men. They’re on the end of the hall upstairs, two on one side, one across the hall. Facilities are halfway down the hall.”
“Do the two on the same side connect?” I asked. It was a feature that some of the better inns included in at least a few rooms.
“Yes,” Freyla said with a look like I had insulted her child.
“We’ll put all the men there,” I said. “Trell, head on out. You three, grab some gear and haul it upstairs. Jella, have a good night.”
“Aye, Captain,” Drew said. Soshi nodded and Cort snapped off a salute. Funny thing is that when he does that, he actually means it. There’s no flippancy or sarcasm in his actions.
Jella nodded at the group and slipped out the door, taking her small pack and weapons. Her saddlebags were left behind. Trell left just behind her, while the other three loaded up like pack mules and hauled the baggage upstairs, leaving just Kassa and myself—along with Freyla.
I turned my gaze on her and she returned it with calm curiosity. After a moment, she blinked. “I’ll trust you to take care with that,” she said. “I don’t need any Recon warriors running amok in my business.”
My right eyebrow lifted all on its own as I processed her words. She blinked again and stood up quickly. She paused, as if deliberately slowing her motions, and then left the room at a sedate pace.
Once the door clicked shut, I turned back to find Kassa watching me with a slightly wary expression. “I hardly ever run amok these days,” I said with a little smile.
Her eyes widened a tiny bit, like my attempt at breaking the ice surprised her. “Sounds like a thing to be avoided,” she said carefully.
“Well, as they say, with age comes wisdom,” I said, shrugging. “Now, what do you make of all this?”
“This situation? Or this artifact?”
“Yes.”
She frowned and thought about it. “Personality alteration can be done with drugs and certain toxins,” she said. “For instance, the scorpion sand striker, which is found in these waters, produces a toxin that in small doses can completely transform a normal well-adjusted individual into a crazed maniac.”
“I’m familiar with it,” I said.
“Oh, right. It’s sometimes hard to remember who and what you people are. Other times, like when you were staring down our hostess, it’s terrifyingly clear.”
“I understand. I felt the same way when I first met Jella. Trell mentioned a similar feeling several times as he’s gotten used to us,” I said, although I doubted that Kassa had actually forgotten anything about us for even an instant.
“I should probably defer any conversations about toxic substances to you,” she said, watching me with that alert, careful gaze.
“Never hesitate to include any piece of information that you think might be germane. We happen to be well versed in toxins, and particularly well with scorpion striker venom—it’s what we used to poison the woldling hordes,” I said. “But we don’t know everything.”
“Oh,” she said, eyes widening again. “That makes a certain sense. Make them crazy… crazier, and then set them against each other.”
“Exactly. Woldlings have a high tolerance for drugs and poisons in general, but not that one, and they’re pretty close to manic at the best of times. Plus, the venom is extremely potent and concentrated, which made transporting sufficient doses easier.”
“The defense ministry said the RRS poisoned thousands of woldlings. Where did you get so much?”
“It took months to obtain. We offered expensive bounties to all of the kingdom’s commercial fishermen and women to buy scorpion sand strikers. They sometimes to show up in nets and traps, ripped out of their tunnels when they hit a fish that’s being dragged in a trawler net. The money was so good that a few people gave up regular fishing and became serious experts in catching strikers,” I said. “Now, do you think it’s been dusted with venom?” I asked with a wave at the golden object.
“No.” She shook her head. “I get a feeling from it. I think it’s been touched by an eslling.”
I couldn’t help my frown. “I’m aware of natural talismans and certain crystals that can aid and influence eslling talents, and Finders use Finder’s stones, but an object created to change people? Mass produced?”
She visibly pulled back a bit, maybe to gather herself. After a few seconds, she leaned forward.
“You are a Finder. A pretty powerful one, from what I can tell,” she said.
I snorted because Finding isn’t all that powerful a Talent.
“You dismiss your own ability, yet that ability is part of a branch of Talent that includes Knowing, the ability to touch an object and know about it or who last used it or what happened near it,” she said. “It is as closely related as my ability as a Reader is to the abilities of the albino who shadows your princess.”
“She is your princess too,” I said.
She raised one brow. “Please don’t insult me, Cap
tain. Your relationship with the crown princess is much, much different than anyone else’s.” She held up both hands at my expression. “And completely your business. My intent was to point out that her Reader’s talent is related to my own, and yours is related to Knowing. And I am aware of a few Knowers who could not only read an object but do the opposite—they could impress an object with their power.”
I’m pretty well versed on eslling Talents, between my own and Brona’s collection of special rescues, and I knew how to create my own Finder’s stones, but I’d never caught wind of something like this.
“See, that’s why you must speak up,” I said. “This is all news to me.”
“It is extraordinarily uncommon,” she said. “My mother’s family was mostly Talented and had been for more than a few generations. We had a body of knowledge, passed down by word of mouth, parent to child.”
“Had?” I asked gently.
“They were killed in the last war with Sylvania,” she said, holding my gaze, her eyes shimmering ever so slightly with just a trace of what might well be pent-up tears.
“The Paul’s forces or our own?” I asked in a moment of intuition.
She pulled back, eyebrows up in surprise. “Ours,” she answered slowly, her expression transitioning from vulnerable to curious.
“Regular military or my people?”
“Cavalry,” she said. “We were evacuating our village. A mounted force came upon us on the road, suddenly and violently, charging through without regard. Scared our horses. The road was deep in the mountains and it was a sheer drop-off on one side. My family wagon went off that side. I was riding in another wagon.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She nodded. “That’s what the RRS squad leader said. She came upon us that night as we tried to bandage our injured and fix the few remaining wagons. She had her people round up as many of our horses as they could and her medic treated the wounded, then they disappeared like ghosts.”
“Kassa, I’m pleased to hear that my fellow Squadron mates showed such compassion, but I can’t tell you that we didn’t make any mistakes of our own,” I said.
