Industry & Intrigue (44 page)

Shonna smiled and pulled Zuri to her feet
as she held on to her staff. “Welcome to the Hydrus Scepters,
Mastermage Zuri Abeliah.” Shonna clapped and all of the other mages
standing in a circle around Zuri joined her in applauding their
newest member.

Zuri let go of the staff and
bowed her head. She was now one of the
Hydrus Scepters of Alkos, a defender
of the realm and a battlemage. If someone told her five years ago
she would be here, she would have laughed at them. It felt like a
lifetime ago, when all she had wanted was to teach magic to the
youngest at Warded Spirals. Now here she was initiated in the
Scepters with the empire on the brink of war.

With the ceremony now finished,
the other leaders congra
tulated Zuri and shook her hand. As they started
to leave, an aide entered the room and ran up towards her and
Shonna.

The boy said
, “Excuse me, Mastermage
Abeliah.”

“
Yes?”
she asked.

“
There’s a watch officer here to
see you, Sergeant Brenna Moreland.
She’s waiting in the entrance
room.”

“
Alright thank you.” She turned
to Shonna and Arnette, the two remaining Scepter leaders in the
hall.
“Thank
you both once again for accepting me into the Scepters.”

“
You’re welcome my dear,”
replied Shonna. “Best see what this sergeant wants. When you’re
done with her, come and join the rest of us in the meeting room. I
will be briefing everyone who is heading to Sethain in half an
hour.”

Zuri nodded and left the
room,
making
her way towards the front of the building. The atmosphere of the
Scepters building was different from that of Warded Spirals. There
was a feeling of discipline and order that the school had not had.
Most of the Scepters were, after all, soldiers albeit using magic
rather than guns or swords.

Zuri spotted the
red-haired watch
sergeant sitting in a chair next to the reception desk. Brenna
smiled upon seeing her and stood up to shake her hand. “Zuri, good
to see you. I heard all about your investigation and battle. I see
it’s left you with something of a promotion.”

Zuri tugged on the new
badge sewn onto the
shoulder of her robes. “After what happened I needed a change. I’m
not sure when or even if I’ll be ready to go back to Warded
Spirals. Stopping that bastard Feyton felt good, I can do more good
like that here. And I couldn’t have done it without your help, so
thank you. Especially on behalf of Kyle Dunn.”

Bre
nna folded her arms. “That’s why I’m
here. I need a favor.”

“
Anything for you
sergeant
,”
she said.

“
We’re planning a major
operation
against the city’s biggest drug lord. The place we need to
hit is heavily fortified. My captain wants to supplement our force
with a few mages from the Scepters and I was hoping to get the
process moving faster if I asked their new star member. We need to
hit tonight and if I went through the usual channel, we won’t have
mages assigned to us in time.”

Zuri nodded. “You’re right. You would’ve
had to wait. We’re busy around here at the moment. Chief Ciar has
everyone training daily in case the emperor appease the
Galrians.”

“
I can imagine,” replied Brenna.
“I shouldn’t need more than two mages, only to help us if we come
across bigger barriers than we expect. It’ll only be for a few
hours tonight.”

She doubted it would be much
trouble to arrange for Brenna
. “I’ll talk to Chief Ciar, but it shouldn’t be a
problem. So long as you bring them back in one piece. She isn’t
going to want anyone injured the night before we leave.”

“
Leave for where?” asked
Brenna.

“
S
he’s sending a contingent of us down to
Sethain. She wants her best and brightest there in case everything
goes sideways.”

The redhead
said
, “So
does that mean you’re going?”

Zuri leaned
against the desk. “Yes. Because
of what I did, the chief wants me to serve as an inspiring example.
I only did it because I cared for Kyle. It wasn’t because I was
brave or heroic. The truth is, when the archmage blasted that wall
open, I was more scared than I’ve ever been in my life. It’s
different using magic in the heat of combat than in the classroom.
Now I’m headed for a potential warzone.”

Brenna put her hand on Zuri’s shoulder.
Clearly the watch officer was trying to comfort her. Zuri didn’t
push her hand away, humans had a greater need for touching to
reconcile emotions than skylords. “I remember when I first
graduated from the watch academy. My first week, we had to go into
the Den to break up a street fight. I was terrified. It’s not fear
you have to worry about Zuri. It’s how you use that fear. From what
I’ve heard about what you did at the Blue Tower I think you’ll do
fine as a Scepter. You’ll end up catching the eye of that handsome
emperor of ours.” She was joking with that last comment.

Emperor Lawrence may have been
known for his numerous affairs in his teen years, but
he had grown past
that. Besides, members of the royal family getting an eye for a
commoner was never a good idea. One of the emperor’s uncles had
developed such an infatuation with a Westerner girl. When the
scandal became public, the backlash had forced the man to abdicate
from the line of succession.

Zuri laughed
at the notion,
though she did agree with Brenna that the emperor was handsome.
“There’s a meeting I have to get to. I’ll bring the matter up with
the chief and convince her you need a couple of mages. When do you
need them at your station by?”

“
Before six o’clock. We
won’t be ready to hit the warehouse until later in the night. But
the captain will want them included in the planning
stages.”

“
I
’ll have them for you by then.”

“
Thank you Zuri.
I’m sure you’ll be
fine, but stay safe. Or as safe as you can be on the border.
Farewell.”

“
Farewell
,” she replied. She watched the
watch officer step out the entrance doors.

By the time she arrived
at the meeting
room, many of the mages had already arrived, but Shonna had not
started the briefing. She was at the back of the room, finishing
off a cup of coffee.

Zuri
approache
d
and quietly told her about Brenna’s request.

Shonna had a
thoughtfu
l
look on her face. “Alright. I will send Sadic and Andas, they’re
the best young energy mages we have and I’m not sending them south.
It will do them good to practice magic in a real situation. They
haven’t had any experience outside of training.” She looked the
room over. “Everyone is here, best take a seat and I shall
begin.”

They both moved towards the
front of the r
oom, Zuri sat down at the end of the third row while Shonna
continued to the front of the room. Her eyes looked over everyone
in the room as if sizing them up.

She adjusted her robe slightly
then spoke.
“Thank you for coming. As you are all aware, the emperor
has gone south to treat with the Galrian envoy. What you may not be
aware of is that Imperial Intelligence has been assigned the task
of investigating the assassination of Atoli Rossiv. From what I
have been told, they do not have any new leads.

So that means
t
hat within
three days we may well be at war. All of you here will be leaving
for Sethain in the morning. The city has defenses, both mechanical
and magical, but only a small number of Scepters. I need all of you
to make sure the magical defenses are well in place and to prepare
for the worst. If war does break out, we do not want Sethain
falling to Galria right in front of the emperor.”

Shonna then made an upwards
pointing gesture with her hand and the blank board behind her lit
up. A bright blue glowing map appeared. It was the border and
showed the placement of forts.
Then arrows appeared and moved from the
Galrian side to the Alkon side.

“
These are the most
obvious
routes of attack the Galrian army will take. They will have
their own battlemages and will be using them to try and bring down
Sethain’s walls. Many of the Galrian mages are skilled in earth
magic, so we will need to ensure the walls are reinforced to
prevent quake spells from breaking them apart.”

Then Shonna
talked about the Pale
Brotherhood, Galria’s elite magic organization. She went into great
detail about them and Zuri paid close attention. The Pale
Brotherhood was more than simple mages, it was also a religious
order.

Their members believed that their magical
power came from their pagan mountain god. They removed all hair
from their bodies and dressed themselves in bone-white loincloths.
They believed that the more skin they exposed, the more their god
powered their magic. It was utterly ridiculous of course; magic was
nothing more than natural energy, but it made them fanatical men.
And fanatics were dangerous to fight.

Chapter 43

Lawrence had only been to the
town of
Rampart once before. His father had traveled here to
negotiate with the Galrians, much as he was now, and he had brought
his youngest son with him. He had been negotiating with Galria over
a border skirmish. Lawrence hoped that he was up to the same task
his father had succeeded at.

Roughly eleven miles south of
the city of Sethain, t
he town sat right on the border was thus more
important than its size suggested. It was ringed with a high wooden
wall and plenty of defensive towers. Throughout its history the
town had been sacked numerous times and its inhabitants had taken
those lessons to heart.

It had originally been its own
ind
ividual
city-state until 1512. Unlike the other southern kingdoms it had
not joined by conquest, but by choice. The neighboring Galrian
states had treated the town and its lands as fruit for the taking
and raided regularly. The citizens of Rampart had decided that
joining with Alkos was the best way to prevent the
raids.

At the
western edge of the town, the road
leading out the west gate ran directly into Galria. There was a
large, stone building in the town center that served for
negotiations. Lawrence and his staff were currently occupying the
upper floor of the building and preparing for the Galrian
envoy.

There had been a response to
his telegram from King Cyrus. He was sending a low-level
representative to meet with him.
Lawrence hadn’t expected anything less,
after losing one foreign minister, the Galrian monarch was unlikely
to risk another until the culprits had been caught.

On that
front
,
Lawrence was concerned. The telegram from Director Talmach
yesterday informed him that the agents had discovered evidence that
the Arm of Assassins were behind the killing of the Atoli Rossiv.
Talmach’s agents were even now on their way to Longhaven. The Arm
was powerful and secretive. He didn’t expect that they would be
able to find the assassin in time.

The more disturbing thought was
that even if they did catch the assassin, they would only have the
weapon not the master. The Arm was unscrupulous but usually
apolitical. They would only have carried out an
as
sassination like this for a large sum of money. He doubted
they would give up the names of their client. It also made Lawrence
wonder who could stand to profit from the assassination so much,
they would employ the Arm. Assassins of their nature did not come
cheap.

There were plenty of
governments that would be happy to see Alkos and Galria go to war,
the Kordate Union especially. But with their
strict religious values they
wouldn’t use assassination as means for their ends. Silund had the
money and will, but they could stand to lose as much they gained
from a war with Alkos.

Tal Feros or Ze Feros
wouldn’t
shy
from political assassinations, but they would target each other
directly, they wouldn’t waste time involving other nations. The
last two possibilities were of course, Galria or Alkos-there were
those in both nations that wanted a war. Lawrence hated to think
that someone in his own government may have had a hand in
it.

“
You Imperial Majesty?” asked
Siobhan
Mason, his foreign minister, pulling him out of his
thoughts.

“
Hmm?
Sorry,” he said. Lawrence looked down
the table at the woman. He was glad to have her here, she was a
skilled diplomat. In the past she had managed to talk Silund out of
financially embargoing Alkos over colonial conflicts and had
secured a trade enterprise in Artropia, the first permanent foreign
presence ever to be allowed on the island.

“
We have three more days until
the Galrians are here. How do you plan to respond to them bringing
an armed retinue with their envoy?”
she asked.