Michael Stackpole - Of Limited Loyalty

“Nor I, you.” She glanced away. “But I should tell you something, so you understand why I will act as I do, why this will be the last time you and I can speak alone behind closed doors.”

“Bethany…”

“No, Owen, you must listen.” She brushed away another tear. “I remember what it was like when Ira Hill went with the Rangers to Tharyngia. I remember waiting and the worst happened. He never made it home. And I remember when Nathaniel reported you had been captured. The days waiting for your return were pure torture. Then when you went off to Anvil Lake. Every day lasted forever because I didn’t know if you would be coming back, but I did know that when you returned, it would not be to me. I think I held my breath the whole of the time you were gone, and returned to life when you came back.

“So my being here, Owen, is to be near you. I know that’s wrong. I have no claim on you. I cannot have one while your wife lives. I accept that. But I needed to be here to make sure that you would live, that you would be able to return to her, and to Miranda and Becca. And, yes, I know I am torturing myself. I know I should be smarter than that, that I should forget you and find someone else, but I cannot.”

Owen forced himself to remain where he stood. He wanted to cross to her and take her in his arms. He wanted to hold her and keep her safe. He wanted her to feel his presence, for her to feel she could take sanctuary in him.

But he knew he could not. To do so would destroy her. Save for the Prince having chosen her at the insistence of his wife, Bethany would have been thought a woman of curious moral character for going off to war. That her brother was along might offer mitigation and her family’s upstanding reputation might shield her, but all that would go away were one person to see them together. Even an innocent remark would be forged into vicious gossip. Catherine would seize upon it and flay her alive. She would be ostracized and ruined, utterly and completely. Traveling south to Fairlee to live with her uncle might allow her to outrun the scandal for a short time, but it would eventually track her down.

Owen studied the floor for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “Anything I say will sound false and will cause you more pain.”

She half-laughed. “Then you probably ought not speak.”

“Being silent isn’t going to help, either.” His eyes tightened. “Decisions get made and lives are launched on a course we can’t predict. My mother fell in love with a Mystrian sailor. Her decision to marry him, and my father’s death, meant her father could decide to marry her into a powerful family. That set my mother up for her life, and made mine miserable. And yet, without any of those decisions, I’d never have come to Mystria. I’d never have fallen in love with the land, the people.” With you.

“Other decisions put us here,” he went on, “under these circumstances. Somewhere out there the Norghaest are making decisions that we’ll respond to. There’s no telling what will happen. But there is one decision that gives me heart. That’s your decision to be here. I can’t say I’m not scared for you, but I can say I trust you to do what you have to do. And I understand everything else you said, and I’ll respect your wishes.”

She nodded without meeting his eye. “Thank you, Captain Strake.”

“You’re welcome, Lieutenant Frost.” Owen shook his head. “It is going to take a bit for me to wrap my mind around having a woman in the militia.”

“You’re lucky I’m only a lieutenant, and that might change if the Bookworms don’t shape up.” Bethany smiled genuinely this time. “The Prince has threatened to make me a field marshal if that’s what it takes to get them to abide by communication protocols. It’s hard to tell their messages from ghost messages sometimes.”

“When the Prince promotes you, I’ll salute smartly.”

Corporal Brown returned with a bowl of stew topped with a hunk of black bread and a small mug with a slug of whiskey in it. She set them on the table, saluted, and made her way out, but left the door open at Bethany’s request. Owen moved his satchel, handing it to Bethany, then sat and began eating. “In there’s my journal, but it’s the map that’s the most interesting.”

Bethany drew it out, unfolded it, and smoothed it against her desk. She studied it for a moment, then nodded. “Many more ghost rivers. If you project the lines out, the nexuses flow together out here. What’s this marking on the map?”

Owen glanced over. “Hodge called it the Stone House. Natural formation at the edge of a woods, nice fort in and of itself. And you’re right, lots of ghost rivers come together in that valley about a day’s march west. We all noticed it, but I’m not sure of what to make of it.”

She shook her head. “Neither am I. I can’t wait to hear what the Prince thinks.”

21 May 1768 Fort Plentiful, Plentiful Richlan, Mystria

“It almost looks like a system of canals.” Standing in the thaumagraph office, Prince Vlad studied the map to which he had added the information from Owen’s latest surveys. A strong line running from the direction of the Antediluvian ruins to the northeast-and on toward a geological formation in the mountains in Bounty which looked like a man’s face in profile-split near the Stone House. Rays shot out at angles and then bounced back in. Another slightly weaker line ran from the southeast toward the northwest very close to the splitting point. The Prince guessed it was contributing to a formation of which they could only see the edge.

“If you look here and here, you see a similar angle. It is as if several squares are overlapping, rotating by thirty degrees.” He tapped his chin with a finger. “That would concentrate a lot of magick in the area.”

Owen, who had joined the Prince, Count von Metternin, Nathaniel, and Bethany Frost in the thaumagraph cabin, shook his head. “We didn’t see anything unusual out there. Just a valley with those three points on the ridges.”

“Not likely you would have seen anything.” The Prince smiled. “The Norghaest have taken refuge under the ground. If they were to have planted any devices or tools to help them split and deflect the flow, they likely would have done so from beneath the earth. Without the surveyors you’d likely have passed over the area without noticing anything.”

“I reckon we did just that a year ago, on our way into the mountains.” Nathaniel tapped a finger on the map. “We’ll be needing some eyes on that area. I’m fair sure I ain’t the only one what’s thinking that if they is going to raise a colony, that’s the spot they’re preparing for it.”

“Precisely what I was thinking.” Vlad looked at Owen. “How big is that valley?”

“About as big as this one, but not as much water. Forest mostly, with a bit of marsh in the middle. An industrious beaver could turn it into a lake.”

Vlad slapped his own forehead. “Of course. I was insane not to have seen it before.”

The Kessian noble cocked his head. “What is it you see?”

Vlad grabbed a sheet of paper from the thaumagraph table and overlaid it on the map. He drew six squares, each with a corner on one of the nexus points at the eastern edge of the valley. “This star shape, it is what we see from the high point of a fortress, with the glacises set to deflect cannon fire. It is easy, then, for us to see these squares as walls, or lines of defense. But what if that is not what it is at all? What if, instead, the magick is being channeled here not as a defense, but to create a reservoir of magick energy? Just as we shipped supplies up the Benjamin to Grand Falls and replenished our supplies there, could the Norghaest look to create a reservoir in the valley?”