Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

“We don’t ride for Lady Flint or Fatrasta,” she said with her northern Fatrastan twang. “We ride for Ben Styke.” The riders behind her nodded sagely, a mutter of approval going up. “If you want us working for Lady Flint, we’ll work for Lady Flint. We’ll follow orders. But don’t think for a moment we’ll forget the state we found you in the other night.”

“That how you all feel?” Styke demanded.

A chorus of “yeah” and “bet we do” rose up over the lancers.

“Because you’re all a bunch of fools,” Styke grumbled. “Always have been.”

“Yeah, but they’re your fools,” Ibana said.

“Suppose so. I guess that settles that.” He thought of Ka-poel, and the crimson welling up from her thumb. He rubbed at his forehead. “Is there blood on my face?” he asked.

“No,” Ibana responded.

Styke glanced down at his hand. There wasn’t any blood there, either. He wondered if he’d imagined the whole thing – Ka-poel, Taniel’s letter. He wondered if perhaps his mind was slipping. “Where’s my banner?”

Ibana returned to her saddlebags, untying a long, oiled leather tube. She removed a bundle of cloth from the tube and, holding one end, let the rest unfurl. The banner was black on yellow with a crimson border, the center dominated by a grinning human skull spit upon a lance. Styke held out his hand, taking the banner for himself, rubbing the rough material between his thumb and forefinger.

“Jackal,” he said. “Your lance.”

He fixed the banner in place and then handed the lance back to Jackal with a nod.

“Bannerman,” Styke said. “Lead us to Jedwar. We have a command to pick up.”

First thing in the morning, Michel left his small apartment in Fallen End and went to the local bank a few blocks over. He was on edge as he walked inside, his nerves still frayed from the visit to the monolith the day before, and was functioning on just a couple of hours of restless sleep. Whispers had filled his night, and none of them had been pleasant. He wondered how those researchers managed to stay near the godstone – and that more of them didn’t go mad from exposure.

The bank was small, sleepy, with just two clerks, a single vault, and a row of lockboxes along the back wall behind the clerks. Michel hadn’t been inside it in four years, and hoped he remembered the right number. He took bank stationery, wrote down the lot number of the monolith dig site – and specific directions that it was two miles south of Landfall – along with the word “CAUTION.”

“Number 132,” he said, handing the note along with a single krana over to the teller. Michel tapped the brim of his hat and left.

He had, no doubt, several folders on his desk with reports about how much nothing his new underlings had found in their search for Styke. He’d have to attend to those at some point. He should have done it last night, but the monolith had unnerved him enough to send him straight to home, a warm bath, and bed. Though none of that had helped him sleep.

Instead, he’d spent the disquieting hours putting his marble back together. His self – his real self – was safely stored away. With that note dispatched to Taniel, Michel could go back to being the good little Blackhat, heart and soul. He’d be a model Gold Rose, rooting out Fatrasta’s enemies from a new place of privilege, worming his way up the ladder. Pit, in a few years maybe he’d be one of Fidelis Jes’s confidants.

The higher he climbed, the easier it would be to help Taniel burn the whole thing down.

“No,” he said to himself sternly as he walked, hands in his pockets, along the morning streets of Landfall. “You’re Agent Bravis now. Not a whisper – not even a thought – of the man you were.”

“Taniel,” he answered in agreement, “is on his own with that… thing.”

“And I’m going to forget it ever existed.”

“Right.”

Michel stopped by an early market, collecting several canvas bags of food, even stopping by a discount bookseller to grab a few penny novels at random. He found himself whistling, walking slow, ignoring the urgency he knew he should be feeling to get back to the Millinery and help find Styke. For the first time in a long time, he actually wanted to get to Mother’s home after she returned from her usual perusal of the local bookstores.

He walked all the way to Proctor, a full forty minutes. He paused by the back alley to his mother’s home and, still whistling, went around to the front, knocking once and letting himself inside. For once he was going to weather her lectures with a smile. For once he’d allow himself the small fantasy of telling her who he really was – though it would, of course, remain just a fantasy.

He immediately went to her small table, clearing away books and old canvas totes to set her food down, then turning toward her chair by the window. He froze, the whistled tune dying on his lips as he realized that the figure he’d spotted out of the corner of his eye in his mother’s rocker was not, in fact, his mother.

It was Fidelis Jes.

Michel straightened, clasping his hands behind his back to hide their sudden tremble, and tried to act casual as he knocked a whole box of books off Mother’s table. “Sir!”

Fidelis Jes rocked softly in her chair. He seemed back to his old self – hair slicked back, shirt pressed, face immaculately stoic. He gazed out the window down the street, a contemplative look on his face. His sword was unbuckled but still sheathed, lying across his knees, one hand resting on the hilt. Why the pit was he here? A thousand possibilities went through Michel’s head, none of them good, but the grand master remained silent.

“Sir,” Michel managed again, hoping he didn’t stutter, “this is an unexpected honor. Is there something wrong? Has something happened with the Styke business?” He grimaced, telling himself to shut up. People went to Fidelis Jes. He did not come to them. This was unprecedented.

And the fact it was his mother’s house was more than a little terrifying.

Michel took a step back and craned his head to look up into the loft. His mother wasn’t there. Had she been taken away? Was she out running errands? Just as Michel’s nerves were about to get the best of him, Fidelis Jes finally spoke.

“The Styke business has been called off. For now. The Dynize have our attention.” Jes turned his gaze on Michel – stony, penetrating. There was no anger or pleasure in the grand master’s eyes. Michel could not read him in the slightest. “Tell me, Agent Bravis, how has your own search gone?”

“Ah, not well, I’m afraid,” Michel said, speaking too loudly. “You see, there are a lot of reports on my desk I need to go through but Warsim will let me know as soon as we find anything and again let me tell you what an honor it is to have this…” Michel trailed off, licking his lips. Fidelis Jes remained expressionless.

“I’m not talking about that search,” Jes said. “I meant the other one. The one you are conducting that gave you the strongest urge to search the upper archives within hours of receiving your Gold Rose.”

Oh. Oh shit.

“I’m not sure what you mean, sir. Dellina didn’t give me any instructions regarding the upper archives.”

“No,” Jes said. “She did not. But the man who was clever enough to work his way up to Gold Rose, even during a time of crisis, could figure out how to enter the archives. It’s not difficult – which is why the archives are heavily warded. We keep records of when someone enters, and one of the archivists noted a man of your description fleeing just an hour after you entered.”