Брайан Макклеллан - Wrath of Empire

“I am not,” Ka-poel said. “I may, tentatively, but I’m not sure if that will reveal our position. He knows who I am – he knows that I am that girl stolen away so long ago. But I don’t know why my nurse stole me away. She took me for a reason, and I want to discover why. But if I ask him, he will lie.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he may know who I am, but he does not know what I am. He does not know my power. I can see through his intentions like a pane of glass, and I know he wishes to use me.”

Styke grunted. “I don’t mind being used, but never against my will.”

“I am of a similar mind,” Ka-poel acknowledged.

Styke lifted his head, looking down the valley toward the soldiers unloading the cache. It was late, and he knew he needed to rest if they were going to ride all day tomorrow. “This thing,” he said, changing directions and gesturing to the wax figurines and bits of detritus on the rock, “I suggest that you learn some … restraint. There is no reason to torture people at length.”

“They feel no pain unless I make them,” Ka-poel said, frowning.

“Physical, perhaps. But emotional? I looked into that woman’s eyes. She knew she was being controlled and she tried with every fiber of her being to fight it. If you must do that to people, make it short. Suffering is needless.”

“I had cause.”

“We all have cause,” Styke said with a shrug. “This bone-eye, Ka-Sedial. What will you do with him?”

Ka-poel looked down at the camp herself, her frown deepening. “I will let him croon over the distance. I will let him wonder what I am up to. And in the next few days, I will find the godstone that he seeks and I will break it. Only then will I answer him, and I’ll allow him to know what I have done.” She smiled, an expression neither bemused nor playful. “Then I will demand that he explain why my nurse – a woman who loved me – felt the need to carry me off so long ago.” Ka-poel’s attention returned to the detritus spread in front of her, clearly a dismissal.

Styke left her with her figurines and headed back to camp deep in his own thoughts. Celine rode on his shoulder, clearly lost in thoughts of her own. “Do you understand never to speak of what you heard back there?” he asked.

“Yes,” Celine responded. “I’m no snitch.”

Well, at least her dad had taught her something . “Good. If you have questions, you may ask. But only when we are completely alone.” He took her back to Margo and Sunin, then found Amrec and began the mechanical work of brushing him down for the night. He thought of Ka-poel’s expression during their conversation, and of his own search for vengeance these past few weeks. He wondered if she had difficulty, trapped in her own body without a voice, unable to communicate beyond a bit of slate and a little girl’s translations.

He finished his work and prepared for sleep. They would find this godstone soon, and it would be her work to destroy or disable the damned thing. And then, it seemed, she had questions of her own to answer.

Sorcery had never scared him. But he did not envy this grandfather of hers. Not when she finally turned her attention on him.

Michel was so furious at Taniel that he couldn’t think straight. He spent the night drinking at one of the few bars left in the city where he was fairly certain he wouldn’t run into either a Blackhat or a Dynize; then the next morning he went to Yaret’s new residence in the old bank. He stood outside, wishing he was still buried in a bottle of whiskey before running a hand through his hair and straightening the collar of his jacket.

Whatever was going on with Sedial, Ichtracia, or anyone else, Michel needed to finish what he’d started here in Landfall. Eliminating the Blackhats to the last man would make his chances of survival go up, so eliminate them he must. He held a large valise that he’d fetched less than an hour ago, and opened it once more to confirm the contents before heading inside.

He found Yaret and Tenik in deep conference in Yaret’s office. Both men looked up as Michel entered.

“You look like you got hit by a carriage,” Yaret said.

Tenik sniffed. “And you smell like a brewery.”

“I know where je Tura is hiding.”

“Oh?” Yaret asked.

Michel went to Yaret’s desk, clearing off the papers into a messy stack and tossing them on a chair before opening the valise and producing an armload of two-foot-long cylinders. He opened one at random, discarded it, then another before producing a large roll of paper that he spread out across Yaret’s desk.

“What are these?” Tenik asked.

“Maps of the catacombs beneath Landfall.”

The two men stared at the paper in stunned silence. “Why haven’t we been using these all along?”

“Because I didn’t know they existed. The thought struck me at about four o’clock in the morning – Lindet was as good at keeping records as you, maybe even better. There are hundreds of miles of natural and man-made catacombs in the plateau. Most of the larger tunnels were sealed off decades ago, but there are plenty of entrances around the city.”

“Yes, we know. We’ve been searching the damned things and haven’t found anything.”

Michel held up one finger. “I had two thoughts. One, that Lindet would have mapped those catacombs and stashed the maps in the Millinery library. They weren’t important enough to take along, so they would have been left behind. It took me less than an hour to find them once I realized.”

Tenik swore.

“My thoughts exactly. My second thought was that we’ve been looking for an operation – dozens of men moving around supplies and powder and sleeping in the catacombs and all that.”

“Right,” Tenik responded. “And again, we haven’t found any sign of that.”

Michel leaned over the table toward Tenik and Yaret. “ But we’re not looking for dozens of men . What if it’s just je Tura? Maybe two or three others at the most?”

“There’s no possible way he could have conducted all these bombings without serious help,” Yaret protested. “He blew up my house!”

“A barrel of powder in the basement,” Michel proclaimed. “I bet if you send someone to dig around in the ashes really carefully, you’ll find a hidden tunnel that connects to the catacombs. Plenty of places in the city have them. Shopkeepers use them for storage. If je Tura is moving through those tunnels – if he has maps like these, or a seriously good guide – he could evade our soldiers indefinitely. Think about it. We would easily find evidence of dozens of men down there, but if he’s carrying no more than a bedroll, a pack, and a lantern, he’ll leave absolutely no sign of his passing.”

“And the powder?”

“An off-the-books cache? A forgotten storehouse? I haven’t met je Tura, but I’ve heard rumors that he’s a strong son of a bitch. He could carry around a couple of barrels of gunpowder himself – certainly enough to set up in your basement.”

Yaret snorted in disbelief. “You’re telling me that hundreds of Dynize soldiers are being foiled by the work of one man?”

“With all the evidence – or lack thereof – it’s the only solution we have left.”

Tenik rubbed the back of his head, staring at the maps, looking as irritated as Michel felt. “So what do we do? He went off the schedule he arranged with Forgula the moment Forgula wound up dead. He’s striking at random throughout the city. Do we just hope we get lucky?”

“Not a chance.” Michel tapped on the map he’d rolled out. “We go in after him.”