H - 76: So Long as You Know (Patreon)

“Fascinating!”

It had indeed been a fascinating few hours. Emeralaphine had grilled him in detail until he related what by this point was every word and pause in his conversation with Hii-Amat. Nor was the discussion one-sided; she had frequently halted his account to cross-reference something from her own memory, always backed up with an appropriate text, of which she had pulled out over a dozen and had all the books currently hovering around open to their relevant pages.

All this had been most illuminating for Kaln, and not only in terms of satisfying his intellectual curiosity. Emeralaphine, somewhat to his surprise, had obviously been involved in academia at some point. She was too patient and methodical a collaborator and teacher for this to have been her first attempt. Reclusive as she might prefer her life now, Kaln was increasingly convinced she was enjoying the chance to pore over tomes with a fellow bookworm as much as he was.

Now she was pacing energetically in her smaller form, her talons intermittently clicking as she passed back and forth between her haphazardly strewn carpets and patches of bare Timestone beneath. Kaln remained where he was, in the middle of the rough circle of hovering books open to their relevant passages: he could both refer to each of them from this position at need, and watch Emeralaphine pacing. The way her tail twitched behind her with eagerness was downright adorable.

“Such a brief conversation,” she muttered aloud, “but so illuminating! The context—in fact, the confirmation. Nothing truly surprised me in the account, but for so long all of this has been mere extrapolation and deduction. To know from a god’s own mouth! Ah, this changes everything. Now we can deduce further from this confirmed starting point, where before any such attempts would have been pure, wild speculation. And this is only the beginning! Oh, the things we shall learn!”

“I admit I’m confused,” said Kaln.

“On what point, husband?”

“It surprises me that you’re treating this as new. I don’t doubt that it wouldn’t be common knowledge, but surely this can’t be the first time a god has ever explained things like this in detail to a mortal. Even if it is against their usual interests, you and I both know the kinds of strange circumstances that can pop up in life. That’s what brought us here, after all.”

“You’ve hit the nail upon the proverbial head, husband. This information specifically is nothing the gods, any gods, would want to be in circulation.”

“But hidden from someone like you? I don’t say this to flatter, Emeralaphine, but I have to assume you know countless things on countless subjects that the world at large does not.”

“Consider this.” Kaln found himself profoundly charmed by how she slipped into lecturing mode, folding her claws before her waist as she continued to pace in a posture he had seen several of his old teachers use. “Your friend the shadow is attempting to elevate godlings with aspects similar to its own—for what purpose we have not yet ascertained, but this is clearly its overall agenda. Would this not be easier if it guided you willingly toward that goal? And yet, it seems to have taken great pains to obscure its motives and objectives from you.”

“Okay, I follow you so far. Given how much we don’t yet know about the Entity, I assume there’s something else going on which explains that.”

“Doubtless there is additional context, yes, but there is also a more obvious explanation which addresses the point you just made. There are entire gods whose divine domain pertains to knowledge and information. They are most commonly credited with the preservation and dissemination thereof, but there is an ironic side benefit to such a domain. If you are able to know who knows any given thing, and where it is written down…”

“You have everything you need to erase that information,” Kaln finished when she trailed off and looked expectantly at him.

“Indeed.” Emeralaphine gave him a pleased smile as she continued to pace. “We are in significantly less danger, as is Hii-Amat; her designs are humble and few, and you are backed by three elder dragons, making you a target which even gods will not take lightly. Even so, husband, it will be wise to keep that which we learn of the nature of divinity to ourselves. That means it is not to be spread to mortals, any mortals—not that princess, not the cook, certainly not that irascible portal mage. Absolutely no other mortals. To say nothing of the risk spreading the secrets of divinity would pose to you, there is a very real prospect of antagonizing major gods. All of them.”

“Got it,” he said fervently. “Discretion is in order.”

She nodded. “The shadow is in an entirely different situation than we, or Hii-Amat. It is clearly aiming to upset the order of the world—whether that is in and of itself its ultimate goal, it would be the inevitable result of elevating a bunch of new gods of revenge. It must perforce be extremely discreet in its maneuvering.”

“I see,” he said slowly. “Well, that gives us a weapon of last resort against it…but one we daren’t use ourselves. How annoying.”

“Relations among the great powers of the world are usually thus,” she said with wry sympathy. “Friends and neighbors like your little fox are rare; mostly, it is deterrence that keeps the avaricious at bay. Now! I believe that is sufficient theory, husband. Let us proceed to practical experimentation.”

“I’m all yours,” Kaln said with a grin. “What’s your—oh.”

She had called upon magic, fully deploying the spell faster than he could react to it. The lair around them blurred, and suddenly its dim lighting was replaced by brilliant sunshine and a cool mountain breeze ruffling his hair. Emeralaphine had moved them smoothly out of the vaults and onto a mostly-bare plaza in the ancient Timekeeper city behind. Crawling tree roots and the odd chunk of fallen stone strewed the vicinity, but by and large the space was clear.

“I most certainly do not intend to be fooling about with experimental magic and even more experimental divinity in the midst of my own hoard,” she said archly, “when there is a perfectly serviceable platform of utterly indestructible surroundings with a pleasant view. Now then! I shall be your subject, husband. Let’s see what those powers can really do to a dragon.”

“You want me to experiment on you?” he asked, frowning. “Directly?”

“And how else are we to learn the limits of your abilities?” Emeralaphine countered. “You are not without a point, husband—it might be more instructive to test your capacities upon a less powerful dragon, one over whom you are likely to have greater sway. Toward that end, I will quite likely recruit Pheneraxa for some poking and prodding later. Before taking that step, however, I wish to reassure myself of the safety of this.”

Kaln raised an eyebrow. “Do you really think it makes that much difference? Atraximos was apparently more durable than any of you, and…well…”

“Yes, I was there. The difference may prove to be trivial, but when flailing against the unknown, there is never a good reason not to exercise all relevant caution. It’s the principle of the thing.”

“Ah, I see your point.”

“Then proceed,” she said, spreading her arms as if in welcome and adopting a self-confident smirk. “Let us see, husband, what you can make me do.”

Kaln allowed himself the luxury of slowly looking her up and down once; by the time his eyes returned to her face, her expression remained unchanged but a warm blush had risen in her cheeks.

“Why, my lady wife, I could almost take that for a challenge.”

***

“Overall the gang was exactly as you predicted, Clarent,” Cora said, as usual pacing like a tense tiger and glaring at the walls rather than anyone to whom she spoke. “Your man on the scene was able to feed me intel about those two mages. Spellblades, both of them, an elementalist and an enhancer. I’ll write you a detailed report so you can plan accordingly.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to handle them going forward?” the spymaster asked. “The little I do know about them concerns their inclinations more than their capabilities. I do not expect them to gracefully accept cooperation with the Court Mage of Boisverd.”

“Our specializations are different enough to make attempts at comparative scaling pointless,” she said in a tight voice, pivoting at the end of the room and stalking back the other way. “They’re dangerous enough that it’ll come down to preparation. I can’t afford to take those two lightly; any further altercations will be decided by who gets the drop on whom. That has to be me so I can avoid any altercations; we can’t afford to scuttle our relationship with this group.”

Clarent nodded. “Meeting Gunhild’s demands will be trivial. For once, world events conspire in our favor: Rhivaak has been using smugglers operating in the Hiiri Reaches to funnel supplies and weapons to the resistance fighters in the Nourdells, and the Lord Regent recently severed that trade when the Lord of Chains began overreaching in his counterattacks. The smugglers still exist and have inventory to offload. Not only can I spend untraceable coin to shift their deliveries to Dragonvale, but that turn of events will look quite natural to the other Vale states. Due to Cora’s open involvement, our embedded agents in the other Dragonvale gangs can clear the way for Gunhild to overtake them one by one, and her two pet spellblades will systematically blind the eyes of the other nations among them. Once it is all done, we’ll have a united force of bandits to spend as we see fit, with little to no oversight from our peer states.”

“Of what use are these bandits against the dragons?” Queen Henrietta asked quietly.

Cora barked a short, mirthless laugh. “Oh, none, your Majesty, they’ll be so much ash and bone at the end of all this. I will need to come up with something to make them think they have a chance at attacking the lair—both to coax them to attack it in the first place, and more importantly to make the dragons believe they did so of their own volition when all this is done. They are not what will settle matters. That godling has been rummaging in Atraximos’s hoard; I don’t know what else he may have dug up, but I do know he’s opened the Scroll of the Phantom Legion.”

Henrietta’s mouth tightened and Clarent’s eyes narrowed, both unusually overt expressions of dismay from Valefolk nobility.

“No doubt he thinks himself very clever,” Cora growled to herself, continuing to pace. “He’ll think differently when I break his control over them and he learns the folly of enslaving an army of ghosts with an established predilection for betrayal. That I have the means to do right now—and of course, Boisverd is in possession of the means to take a godling off the table entirely. What I must still put together are the means of aligning all these elements at the right moment. I must find a way to distract the three consorts, coax the godling into our trap, lead the bandits and that party of adventurers to assault the lair, and safely extract Princess Perseverance during the ensuing havoc. I am working on the means to achieve all these ends.”

“Freeing the Phantom Legion will have consequences for many people, for a very long time,” Henrietta observed quietly.

Cora shook her head impatiently. “Once they get their retribution they’ll most likely just go to the Cryptlands. That lot are backstabbing cowards; that’s what got them into their situation. They won’t want to tangle with Vale adventurers or armies or anything else the kingdoms will deploy to address them.”

“We will also have severe problems if they kill the drakes in their mothers’ absence,” Clarent warned.

Again, Cora shook her head, grimacing. “The Phantom Legion at their full strength could maybe take out one drake, if it offered them a pitched fight. Not three, and anyway, none of the drakes will dig their heels in once they’re dealing with a bandit army fighting a ghost army in their own home. They will leave and wait for things to cool down. Dragons in general and those three in particular are known to be shy about anything which poses a serious threat to them.”

“Very well,” said Henrietta. “What methods are you pursuing to bring these elements into alignment at the appropriate time, Cora?”

Finally, Cora slowed, then actually halted, turning to regard the Queen directly. She was even more hollow-eyed than usual, absently clenching and relaxing her fists at her sides.

“Your Majesty, I fear I’ve told you too much already. Making this work will not be the hard part; it’s what comes after. If we’re to get the Princess back, neutralize that damned godling, and still have a kingdom standing at the end of all this, I have to go rogue.”

Henrietta narrowed her eyes infinitesimally, while Clarent did not outwardly react at all.

“And by rogue, you mean…?”

Rather than answering the Queen, Cora turned to the spymaster. “Clarent, what’s your assessment of the information gathering capabilities of the consorts?”

“Tiavathyris has kept no mortal assets in four hundred years,” he said. “Izayaroa has deliberately neglected the Empire’s foreign intelligence capability in what I consider a gravely misguided pursuit of her own foreign policy objectives, but the error is in our favor. My people can run rings around hers. As for Emeralaphine… I fear that is your area more than mine.”

“Yes, precisely,” Cora agreed, nodding and turning to resume her frenetic pacing. “As in traditional spycraft, it is not necessary to know everything your enemy can do, so long as you know what they will do. I am no match for Emeralaphine in a direct contest, but I know the means she will use to find out what happens when she comes home to find their lair in disarray and all their plans in ruins. That is the reason for involving the bandits. By that point I will have built a scenario around them all which will make it look plausible that they assaulted the lair under their own volition, emboldened by Atraximos’s demise, the consorts’ absence, and other advantages with which I will need to equip them in the coming weeks. She will not be satisfied with that, which is why we are cultivating those three adventurers who were hired to handle Izayaroa’s food deliveries. They’re imbeciles, all three of them; it will not be hard to coax them into an action they will think heroic, but which the divinations Emeralaphine will employ will register as a betrayal. That will provide the cover story…hopefully.”

“And if not?” Henrietta asked in quiet calm.

Cora inhaled deeply and then exhaled through her teeth. “Then, if she looks further, she will find me, not you or the kingdom. As I said, your Majesty, I worry you already know too much, but this much was necessary for you to understand what I am doing. I do believe I can deflect the White Wind’s attention entirely using the bandits and adventurers, but considering the consequences, we cannot wholly rely on that. If the consorts learn that Boisverd has attacked them… Just because they’re not Atraximos does not mean they aren’t dragons. Those three in a vengeful fury will be nearly as bad as he was. No, if Emeralaphine pushes past the layers of deception I am laying out, the ‘truth’ she will find is that I have taken it upon myself to expropriate the kingdom’s resources and pursue my agenda without your knowledge or consent.”

She stopped, suddenly, turning to face Henrietta and staring into her eyes with fevered intensity.

“There must be a complete severance of information, your Majesty. You cannot know what I’m doing, you must harbor a measure of reasonable mistrust toward me, and most important of all, I can have no idea what measures you are planning to hide and protect Princess Perseverance once we have her back. If my deception fails, the White Wind must find and avenge herself upon me, and not the kingdom.”

“Cora,” Henrietta whispered.

The mage shook her head violent. “Don’t. I am the Court Mage of Boisverd, and I have not been shy about fully exercising the privileges of my position. I knew what this job might entail when I took it, and I will execute my duty faithfully. Whatever befalls, no one will call me a thief.”

“It is in accordance with doctrine,” Clarent observed, quietly and without inflection. “I would expect nothing else from one of my agents in the field. This is what it means to serve the crown.”

Henrietta closed her eyes momentarily, but when she opened them again, they were resolute. “Very well. I follow your reasoning, Cora. Proceed with your plan under your own guidance. I will not urge you to make haste, for we can afford no mistakes, but remember that every passing moment is one my daughter spends a prisoner to those monsters.”

Cora bowed. “I will get her back, your Majesty. If it can be done, I will do it, and if I fail it will be only because I have fallen. By your leave.”

She departed the room silently, pushing the heavy door shut with care.

Henrietta waited until the latch had clicked and the small, luminous glass inset into the latch began to emit its muted light, showing that the room’s privacy enchantments had fully activated, before she spoke.

“Clarent…”

“No, your Majesty, I do not believe Cora will actually betray us. And yes, I will of course take all sensible measures to ensure that she does not, and be prepared to deal with it if she does.”

The Queen let out a faint breath, and nodded once. “Forgive me, I meant to imply no mistrust of you.”

“There is nothing to forgive, your Majesty,” he said with a tiny smile. “We have each our due diligence to perform: mine to take these measures, yours to ensure that they are taken.”

“I have never found cause to mistrust her, either,” Henrietta murmured, staring at the silent door, “but now that we are in this situation… I find myself remembering, suddenly, that period during Cora’s adventuring career for which she would not account for her whereabouts.”

“I do not consider that suspicious, your Majesty, for the reasons I explained at the time. Adventurers are what they are; if one handed in a CV which did meticulously account for everything they had done, I would presume the records to be fraudulent and the individual an enemy agent.”

He paused, glancing at the door momentarily before returning his gaze to the Queen’s face and continuing.

“Still. As Cora herself just reminded us, extraordinary predicaments require extraordinary precautions… And I am not such a clever old fox that I’ve never been taken by surprise. I will begin making discreet inquiries.”

“Thank you, Clarent.”

***

The small, private meeting chamber was deep in the Palace’s bowels, the security of its nature geared more toward privacy than protection. As such, no guards stood outside the door, in the empty hall.

Standing outside that door, Cora very carefully withdrew the thin current of her power that was holding open a listening ward through its defenses, and showing that false activation of the room’s silence enchantment. Silence cut off the muted conversation therein as she allowed true security to reassert itself.

“So, that friend I was telling you about? The one who specializes in hopeless cases?”

The mirrored wall sconces marching along both sides of the corridor cast short, multiple shadows from her feet; only one shifted to address her.

“She lives on a tropical island. Closest thing to paradise there is in this world! Sunny skies, palm trees, fruit year round and all the fish you can eat. Excellent rum and wine, too! It even sits at a lovely little nexus of ocean currents that means almost never takes a typhoon head on. Perfect spot for a vacation!”

Cora bared her teeth, making a feral rattling noise deep in her throat.

“No one’s saying you aren’t smart,” the shadow told her gently. “Smart, resourceful, adaptable, and powerful. None of that makes you a match for someone like Clarent at his own game. It’s not too late to call this off, Cora. Even if my friend can’t help you fix what you’ve done to yourself, I bet she can find someone who will.”

“I will protect my kingdom,” she hissed, turning to stalk down the hall, “rescue my Princess, and teach that damned beast some much-needed humility—her and the rest of them. Worry about yourself, if you’re having an attack of conscience. Whatever else he’s up to, that boy of yours did rid us of Atraximos. I’m not convinced he deserves what we’re planning to do to him.”

“Worrying about yourself is good advice for you, too, friend. If you won’t call a halt to this, at least recognize your own state of mind, and the errors it’s leading you into. You’re getting tunnel vision, Cora. Emeralaphine is not the only threat you need to address, and possibly not the biggest. When the—”

She grabbed power with her mind and yanked roughly, causing her body to distort and then seemingly squeeze itself through a pinpoint hole in midair, the entire hallway momentarily flexing around her. And then she was gone—having vanished to leave no shadow, and no one to steal the last word.

***

“That…wasn’t what I had in mind,” Emeralaphine complained breathlessly. “You didn’t use your power even once.”

“Are you sure?” Kaln asked innocently, stroking her disheveled hair.

She planted her claws to either side of his body, pushing herself up enough to gaze down at him while leaving most of her figure draped atop his. She’d also wrapped her tail around one of his legs in the same way Izayaroa did in bed, not that he was ever planning to mention that similarity to either of them.

“Give me that much credit, husband,” Emeralaphine said, obviously trying to seem stern despite being so visibly blissed-out she was having trouble propping herself up. Her white hair tumbled around them both, forming a halo of strands which were luminous with the sunlight filtering through them. “I remind you that we did come out here to attempt…something in particular. Not that this hasn’t also been…enlightening.”

Kaln grinned up at her, and reached up to brazenly caress her cheek. Her eyes drifted shut and a trembling breath escaped her as he trailed his fingertips down her neck, across her collarbone, to grasp and gently squeeze her breast.

And then he did flex his divine power, simultaneously moving her body through space while keeping himself anchored to her; Emeralaphine let out a yelp of surprise as she found herself bodily flipped over, landing upon her back in the pile of only his own discarded clothes (her having been a magical effect that simply vanished when she willed it) with Kaln atop her, pinning her down.

“I am glad you find it so, wife,” he purred, lowering his mouth toward her lips. “I have so many more things to show you…”