by A. C. Cobble
The bishop finished his sherry, letting the director continue.
“Somehow, that connection was facilitated for the Dalyrimple woman,” guessed Raffles. “Somehow, someone opened the way for her pathetic sorcery to reach far deeper into the underworld than she was capable of venturing on her own. Did the spirit himself reach out to her? Is there another sorcerer in league with the great darkness?” Raffles set down his pipe and leaned forward. “If there is another sorcerer and this person facilitated a connection with Dalyrimple and Ca-Mi-He, what was the purpose?”
“To give the woman a weapon against us?” guessed Yates.
“If the sorcerer has bound Ca-Mi-He, he has all he needs to crush us now, at least until we control our own powerful ally,” challenged Raffles. “No, I’ve mulled it over and I believe they have a different purpose. What if they’ve somehow become aware of our activities? That either by the great spirit or through other means they’ve found us preparing the bindings. They could know what we do, but they may not know who we are.”
“And Hathia’s attempts with the blessed dagger were merely a ruse to draw us out?” wondered the bishop, his eyes growing wide.
Raffles collected his pipe and drew on it again, settling back in the chair.
“What… what did they learn, then? Do you think they know us now?”
“If they did, I suspect we’d be dead,” remarked Raffles stiffly.
The bishop’s fingers drummed a nervous pattern on his empty sherry glass.
“Oliver and his companion seek us still. I think we can be sure of that after the girl’s appearance in Romalla,” mused Raffles. “Without realizing it, they are doing the work of this other traveler on the dark path. The narrative fits, Gabriel, and I can think of no other explanation for the way the events have unfolded.”
“If they are agents of the other, even if they do not realize it, then why should we not kill them?” questioned Yates.
“We should kill them at the appropriate time,” suggested Raffles, “when the loss of the agents strikes a crippling blow to our opponent. Until then, we wait, and we watch. We prepare as we have always done. When it will cause maximum harm, we will strike. In the meantime, there is an advantage knowing the two of them operate on behalf of the other. Perhaps our opponent will reveal himself inadvertently when trying to steer his agents? Perhaps they can be encouraged to turn on their hidden master?”
Yates nodded sagely. “I will reach out to the woman, Samantha, and inquire how her meeting went. I will endeavor to keep her within the folds of the Church so that when that time comes, she’s at hand. I believe you are right. She may be doing our opponent’s work, but I don’t think she knows it. We can use that.”
Raffles smiled at Yates.
“Shall we tell our partner?” asked the churchman.
“No, I think not,” murmured the director. “I think it best he remains focused on completing his role in the pattern. Besides, there may be some use to him staying ignorant of what we suspect.”
The Cartographer XI
“I estimate at least a thousand have died already!” cried Oliver, pacing the room while his father and the Company’s president, Alvin Goldwater, looked on. “It’s a tragic loss of life, for what?”
“For what indeed,” murmured the king.
“I’m afraid I do not understand, m’lord,” murmured the president. “Imbon can be reestablished. We can draw labor from our other colonies and the debtors’ prison here. A terrible setback, to be sure, but from what you describe, I do not believe the situation is unsalvageable. To be frank, the Company’s financial position is as strong as it’s ever been. Not that we ever want to weather a crisis of this sort, but those natives couldn’t have picked a better time to revolt.”
“The Crown will assist, of course,” added King Edward. “The royal marines are on regular patrol now between Enhover and Archtan Atoll. It will only be a few days out of their path to fly over Imbon. In fact, perhaps we’ll dispatch two airships directly from here,” mused Edward, tugging on his salt-and-pepper goatee. “We’ll outfit them with holds full of munitions and marines. If they eliminate these giant lizards that you described, they’ll have only a few thousand poorly armed natives to contend with. It should be quick work.”
“Ah, m’lord,” said Goldwater. “We do request that care be taken around the spice groves. The Company has spent a decade growing them, and our productivity will collapse if we’re forced back into the jungle to harvest. We’ll lose half the debtors within months to tropical diseases if they must work in the bush.”
The king waved a hand dismissively. “Of course. I’ll instruct Admiral Brach to conduct that piece of the campaign on foot. You understand, though, that the village and the Company’s compound are unlikely to survive? If the natives take shelter in the buildings, I will not risk the lives of my men to root them out when we can simply reduce the structures to smoking ruin from above.”
“Yes, yes, the Company understands that the marines will not take undue risk,” said Goldwater, nodding his white-haired head. “We appreciate your assistance in this matter, m’lord.”
“And I’ll appreciate the tax levies when the colony is up and running again,” acknowledged King Edward. “How long do you think before the full revenue stream returns?”
“The full stream?” replied Goldwater, tapping a finger on his chin. “I’m afraid a year or more. Much of Imbon’s success was the wharfage fees and tariffs we charged United Territory vessels in our harbor. That will take time to recover. The spice trade itself should be back in short order, though. While your marines prepare for action, I’ll see about gathering sufficient labor to work the plantations. We will need quality intelligence, though, both for the campaign in the air and on the ground. Maps, of course, and the man who knows the most about them.”
Oliver spun, glaring at Goldwater. “Is this your payback for being embarrassed at Company House?”
Goldwater held up his hands, palms out. “I would never retaliate against the Crown, m’lord. It simply makes sense that you are the one to lead the resettlement of Imbon.”
“He’s not wrong, son,” remarked King Edward.
“I want no part of this!” shouted Oliver. “The blood of those natives will not be on my hands.”
“Will not?” snapped Goldwater. “You discovered Imbon. You identified the island held commercial value. You were there when we raised the first wall of the compound. You were the largest individual shareholder in the colony, and you were the one who discovered the pond which evidently led to this conflict. No blood on your hands? I’ve never even seen one of these natives, much less killed one with my own steel. Can you say the same, Duke Wellesley?”
Oliver stood, his hands convulsing into claws, rage surging through him, but he did not voice a reply. Instead, he thought of the face that had popped up on the other side of the wall in Imbon, the one he’d slid his sword into, the point of the blade punching down the poor man’s gullet like he’d swallowed death itself.
“It’s unfortunate so many died, Oliver,” consoled the king, “but such is the stuff of empire building. When I was born, Enhover was a nation besieged. What are now the United Territories and the Coldlands meant to march over us. Today, they are our tributes or dead. We’ve established toeholds in the tropics, in the south, and even in the Westlands. Enhover, and our influence, is spreading outward. These people paid the cost. Unfortunate, but someone has to pay.”
“They paid the cost. That is true,” growled Oliver. “I don’t think they would have agreed to the exchange.”
“That’s why we don’t ask,” responded King Edward with a wry smile on his face.
“Empire,” snarled Oliver, stalking back and forth across the room. “Blood staining our hands, our souls, for what? All so we can draw new lines on the map? Thousands will die because of this. A culture will vanish. Father, the wisdom these people held will be gone. Do you not wonder what they could have taught us? We’ll learn nothing
now. That is the price of our empire.”
His father tilted his head curiously. “I could make the argument, son, that there’s not a man in Enhover who benefits more from the Company’s adventures abroad than you do.”
Oliver stopped walking, staring at the king.
President Goldwater, to his credit, stayed wisely silent.
King Edward gestured around him, seeming to encompass the room, the palace, the city, and the nation around it. “Everything we stand upon, everything we have, was bought in one way or another. Sometimes, it’s the shrewd trading of the Company’s factors. Sometimes, it’s the bravery of this nation’s explorers and their bold forays into the unknown. Sometimes, it’s the concessions we wring through diplomacy. But sometimes, Oliver, what we have is purchased in blood. It’s the way it has always been for our family, the way it has been for every empire since the beginning of time. That blood buys us new lines on the map, Oliver, but it also bought your lifestyle, your opportunities. We bought that for every citizen of this great nation, for every child that has a chance at a better life than their parents. That’s what it is for, and yes, someone has to pay. It’s better them than us.”
“Imbon was different,” argued Oliver. “We could have worked together with the natives. We didn’t have to just take.”
“Different in what way?” questioned his father. “It’s ending as it always does.”
Oliver stormed to the side of the room and jerked the stopper out of a crystal decanter of wine.
“Pour one for each of us,” instructed his father.
Not trusting himself to respond, he poured, sloshing wine over the rim of one of the delicate glasses but not caring, hardly even noticing.
“I do not mean to interrupt,” ventured President Goldwater, clearly intending just that, “but, Oliver, what is it that you would have us do?”
Oliver handed the older men the wine glasses and resumed pacing. His father and the Company president drank quietly, letting him think the matter through. As he did, he found no easy solutions. The bloodshed, the horror he’d witnessed during those moments in Imbon, who else was it for if not him? A son of the king, a shareholder of the company. His father was right. He benefited more from the colony than anyone. He’d been there at nearly every important stage of development of the place. From its rise to its fall, his hand had been there, steering the course, drawing the map that had led to annihilation.
“It could have been different,” he said finally. “The relationship with the natives was strong. Until this, they benefited from our presence. That’s the way it should be.”
“How do you think the natives benefitted from our occupation?” asked King Edward.
Oliver blinked at him.
“We took control of their island. We put them to work on our plantations. We taxed them. We forced them to adhere to our laws, and I don’t doubt our men took their share of joy from the native women,” said the king. “We brought them our medicines, true, along with diseases that they had no tolerance for. We brought sterling, which they give back to us for goods only we can provide. Which part of that, Oliver, do you think the natives enjoy the most? Don’t lie to yourself and say that Imbon was different. It wasn’t. It just took longer for the blood to spill.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.” Oliver drank down his wine. “It doesn’t—”
“It’s the way it has always been,” interrupted the king, “the way it always will be.”
Snarling, Oliver spun and stomped back to refill his wine.
“What happened?” asked the king. “Why did they rebel?”
“We— I, found a cache of artifacts,” answered Oliver, pouring his wine and not looking back at his father. “The natives ascribed some importance to them. They claimed the spirits of their enemies were captured within wooden figurines. There were tablets as well, ones with…”
“With what?” asked the king quietly.
“I could not read the script, but I recognized a symbol,” explained Oliver “In Westundon, before the events at Derbycross, I was attacked in the courtyard of Philip’s palace. Three footmen had somehow been, ah, taken. They were like puppets, controlled by Isisandra Dalyrimple or Marquess Colston, I’m not sure which. The footmen had tattoos drawn on the backs of their necks, identical to a symbol I spotted on one of the tablets. I don’t know what else is on there, but…”
“Sorcery?” wondered the king. “That explains the reckless behavior of the natives. To protect knowledge like that, men have done awful things. Who would have thought, in Imbon?”
“The Church,” said President Goldwater, looking from the duke to the king. “Shall we call for their opinion?”
“I’d like to see the tablets first,” stated the king. “The last time sorcery was a threat to Enhover, it was Oliver who faced the danger. The time before, it was me. The Church declaims loudly from the pulpit, but it has been a long time since I’ve heard of their actions on the field of battle. In time, we will turn these tablets over to them, but first, I want to see the objects that caused a bloody revolt.”
Goldwater shifted, as if he wanted to speak up, but between the duke and the king, he evidently decided there was little room for commercial interest. Not when he was relying on that same king’s marines to return his colony back to him.
“They’re still on my airship,” said Oliver. “I’ll have the captain transport them to you.”
“I’ll send a delegation of marines to fetch them so they’ll be in my study later this evening,” offered his father. “Perhaps a note from you to your captain? I’m told she’s rather feisty, and I’d hate for her to think we’re robbing her hold.”
Oliver snorted. “Feisty. That she is.”
“Do you understand, son, what we have to do now?” asked the king.
Oliver paused a long moment. “It did not have to be this way. It didn’t. But now, I understand what must be done.”
The king nodded, evidently satisfied, and Oliver heard Goldwater letting out a slow wheeze where he’d been holding his breath. Bloodshed. It had been unnecessary, Oliver knew that, but what was the alternative? What could he do about it now?
Oliver wrote the note his father had requested and retired quietly to the room that he’d grown up in, the one his father kept vacant for when his son returned to the capital. In that room, Oliver sat and held his head in his hands.
The Spectator I
“I’m devastated Oliver couldn’t join us,” Lannia Wellesley pouted, adjusting her shawl so it revealed a bit of her bare shoulders. “I haven’t seen him since I was in Westundon some months ago, and he doesn’t make time to visit me in Southundon like he used to. He seems preoccupied in recent days, does he not?”
“You’re not wrong,” agreed King Edward, shifting forward in his seat to peer over the balustrade at the slowly filling theatre floor below.
Peers and merchants were trickling in. Only a few members of the orchestra had reached their chairs in the pit below the stage. Unorganized twangs and whistles rose as the musicians checked their instruments and arranged their spaces. The murmur of quiet conversation filled the rest of the theatre floor. She smiled, seeing some of that crowd looking up toward them.
“A quarter turn of the clock before it begins,” she advised.
The king glanced at her before pulling out a small circular pocket clock and frowning at it. “The program said it was to begin now, did it not?”
“It did, but the theatre always starts late,” she said loftily.
King Edward grunted and settled back in his chair.
Briefly, she wondered if she should have arranged for them to arrive later. When Oliver used to attend the shows with her, he would always insist on arriving the moment before the curtain parted. Efficient, but it would spoil the effect of Southundon society filling the chairs and glancing up to see her seated beside the king. No, if they’d arrived after the lights dimmed, most of those sniveling snakes wouldn’t notice, or at least would pretend t
hat they had not.
Smiling at him, she put a gloved-hand on Edward’s arm. “Do not fret, uncle. This will give us a moment to talk. I’ve been feeling quite abandoned, you know? With my father racing between Westundon and here, you so busy with your studies, and Oliver off doing whatever it is that he does, no one has been around to squire me about town. Why, not even John has had time to escort me.”
“John has a young family and responsibilities as Duke of Southundon,” reminded the king. “Besides, what good is hanging your arm on that of your cousin’s? A girl your age ought to be out with suitors! I know what happened with Viscount Brighton, but your father told me you barely even glanced at the man when he attempted to court you. He wasn’t a bad sort, was he? Adequate income from, ah, what was it? Whale oil or steel manufacture? Timber?”
“Viscount Ethan Brighton’s death was no severe loss to Enhover or to me,” declared Lannia, pointing her nose in the air.
“That’s unfair,” chided Edward.
“You weren’t being asked to marry the man,” she stated, “or, worse, to move to that… that village he ruled. I can’t recall the name of it. Where are the Brighton family lands?”
Edward tugged on his goatee.
“You don’t know either!” she squealed.
“I’m not saying you should have accepted a proposal from Viscount Brighton, or even spent more than a few turns of the clock with the man before you sent him on his way, I’m suggesting that you should consider a suitor, any suitor. It would be good for you, Lannia, to have someone in your life.”
“Is that the same advice you give Oliver?” she questioned.