Michael Stackpole - Of Limited Loyalty

And so you deceive yourself yet again, Ian. How long will you deceive this woman you love?

He kissed the crown of her head. There were things she needed to know about him, but not yet. They were not important, yet. When they were together, permanently together, then he could share his innermost secrets. To do it before the time was right would just drive her away. And then I would be nothing.

Ian smiled. “Go back to bed, my darling. I shall look at my report one more time, and then I shall join you. We will create wonderful memories to see us through the times we must be apart, and to inspire us when we can yet be together again. I love you, Catherine Strake. Do not doubt this and know, soon, very soon, you shall be mine for eternity.”

12 July 1767 Government House, Temperance Temperance Bay, Mystria

Owen turned the last page of Colonel Rathfield’s report over, then squared the stack and, righting it, handed it back to Prince Vlad. The sun had set while Owen studied the report in the Prince’s office. He’d finished by lamplight and his spindly chair creaked as he sat back.

“Highness, I don’t really see anything in there to be overly concerned about. The idea of Antediluvian ruins might attract some attention, but he largely bypasses it. His focus might have some interest to people at Horse Guards, but this is mostly the account of a man’s hunting weekend in the country. He’ll be asked to repeat the story about the wolf attack, and be congratulated on bringing the people of Postsylvania back into the fold, but he says nothing about the events after our return to Happy Valley.”

“Yes, and the slaughter at Piety can be laid at the door of the Twilight People or Ryngian settlers-whichever is more convenient at the time.” Prince Vlad smiled and set a small stone on the report. “I liked the piece about his being conveyed ‘with all alacrity’ back to Temperance, without any mention of how he returned.”

Owen nodded. “I saw that. Do you not think that someone will wonder at that?”

The Prince stood and walked to a sideboard, where he poured whiskey into two glasses. “I considered that question, but I believe the statement ends up proving itself. The expedition has been described as conducting a thorough survey, suggesting you were not moving at great speed. On the contrary, his swift return was just that, swift. He certainly has no understanding of how long it took. Outside of my household, or the men who traveled out there, no one else does either. Because the people of Launston think of Mystria as a vast wilderness, they have no idea of the vast distances we travel here.”

“I’m not certain I’m clear on that point.”

Vlad smiled. “I believe Mugwump flew roughly two hundred and fifty miles each way. How he knew where to go, or why he started going, I don’t know. This still concerns me.

“I can understand that, Highness.” Owen accepted a glass from the Prince. “What are you going to report to Launston about Happy Valley?”

The Prince rolled his glass in his hands. “This is the greater problem, isn’t it? I’ve read everything you wrote concerning the Norghaest and the visions you had among the Altashee. If we treat their knowledge of how the Norghaest work as accurate, we need to be prepared to repel Norghaest scouts next year and destroy their colonies. If we fail to do that, we face a larger war five or ten years from now. The difficulty is, of course, that if I tell the tale as you have told it, it becomes me using a Shedashee legend to get the Crown to send soldiers and money to fight a war against nightmare creatures. While I am not at all certain I want more troops in Mystria, I am fairly certain that we might not be able to defeat the Norghaest without them.”

“But once troops have been sent, Highness, they’re not likely to be recalled.”

“No.” The Prince sipped his whiskey. “I could send back some demon bones, but Mugwump’s saliva did a very good job at demineralizing them. They’re as fragile as eggshells and likely would not be seen as proof of anything threatening. They’d start a debate about a species of giant bats existing out here, and make Mystrians look silly for mistaking them for demons.”

Owen glanced down into his glass, then back up again. “Were you to travel to Norisle to press the case to the Queen herself, you would be believed, but questioning would reveal the fact that Mugwump can fly. Then we’d get lots of troops here, and all of them would be wurmriders, looking to have their wurms transformed into dragons. The Ryngians would bring theirs over, too, and we’d have dragons going to war over the heart of Mystria.”

“Exactly. If we invite Norillian troops in to save Mystria, we doom the colonies to warfare. If we don’t make the request, we could be overrun.” The Prince set his glass down on his desk. “Of course, I have one obvious choice open to me, and I shall have to avail myself of it. I’ll prepare a report about the Norghaest and request troops. For me to do anything less would be an abrogation of my responsibility, especially in light of the fact that I truly am uncertain if Mystrian militias can defeat the Norghaest.”

Owen frowned. “Are you certain Norillian regulars would be enough to contain them?”

The Prince shook his head. “No. This is why a second course, a very dangerous course, must be taken as well. I will have to rely upon you, Owen, as we discussed earlier.”

“Whatever you need, Highness.”

Weariness washed over the Prince’s face. “This will be an incredibly perilous game, Owen, and one we will lose at one point or another. I know that. Pressure from without, spies from within, somehow our effort will be revealed and there will be no controlling it. The fact is that the Norghaest, from what we saw, from what the Shedashee said, are masters of magick we do not know how to perform. It’s obvious that the Shedashee, likewise, are more skilled and powerful than we are. The Church suggests this is because of demonic influences-their way of dismissing that which they do not understand or do not wish to address except with extinction.”

Vlad crossed to a cabinet, withdrew a map, unrolled it on his desk, and pinned a corner down with his whiskey glass. He touched the map roughly where the Antediluvian ruins stood. “If we use this as one point, and Piety as another, we can suppose that both places are roughly equidistant from some central point. Exactly how far away that is, I don’t know, and I hope it is very far west. Why they chose those two points, we don’t know. Happy Valley is a third point, but I would imagine it was Branch’s use of their magick which attracted them there. But if you just look at the line between the ruins and Piety, you’re looking at an enormous front, and one that is largely unexplored by Mystrians.”

Owen came around the desk and studied the map. If the Norghaest advanced along that front, and even if their force narrowed, it would run to the northeast on a line that would split Lindenvale, Queensland, and Summerland in half. And if they shift to the coast… With a decent army, they could take what they wanted, kill what they wanted, and reestablish their empire.

“I understand the threat, Highness.”

“I needed to stress the nature of it because our counter to it could easily be worse.” Vlad picked up his glass, letting the map roll shut, and tossed the whiskey off in a gulp. “It is not enough that I know how to work proscribed magick. We are going to have to teach other men how to do it. We are going to have to teach them to create their own spells, and yet we cannot let them know this is what they’re doing.”

Owen wondered, for a moment, if that last whiskey had not, in fact, been the Prince’s first. “That’s not going to be easy, Highness.”