Midwinter 02: The Office of Shadow

by Matthew Sturges

  "I'm sorry," said Glennet. "It's too late. The decision has been made."

  Paet started to raise an objection, but Everess cut him off. "You heard the man, Chief Paet. Your job is to provide intelligence. You've done that. Now go back to work and let General Mauritane do his job."

  "All right," said Paet. "What is it you've been dying to tell me?"

  They were in the mission room at Blackstone House. Sela had laid out several documents in front of Paet, while Ironfoot and Silverdun watched.

  "I'm curious to know myself," said Silverdun. He'd asked Sela to tell him what was on her mind, but she seemed to be actively pained in his presence since his return. After their night in the Unseelie lands together and her declaration of love, coupled with his recent demise, he didn't suppose he could blame her. Ironfoot, for his part, could barely be torn away from his studies on the Einswrath. Both Sela and Silverdun sensed that he was on to something and didn't want to bother him.

  "When we returned from our last mission," Sela began, "you asked me to go through everything I could find to determine who it was that had given away our plans; first in Annwn, and then in the Unseelie. I've come up with something, but I'm not sure how definitive it is."

  "Let's have it," said Paet. He was clearly having a hard time concentrating, but Silverdun knew that Paet was not a man who'd ignore important information despite his other worries.

  "I began concentrating on dispatches from Annwn, around the time that Silverdun and Ironfoot first went there, and didn't come up with much. But then I decided to check on anything at all that even mentioned Annwn. And I found something peculiar."

  She pushed one of the documents in front of Paet. "This is a report from one of your informants in Mag Mell, a barmaid at a tavern on Isle Siolain. She reported in passing a meeting between Baron Glennet and the Annwni ambassador, the same day you arrived."

  "Hm," said Paet. "That's not strikingly unusual."

  "Not in itself, no," said Sela. "But at this point, I must admit that I was desperate to find out anything at all. So I went back and checked the itinerary Glennet filed with the Foreign Office."

  "And?" said Paet.

  "And there was no scheduled meeting," she said. "Glennet was supposedly there for a meeting with a mining concern."

  "That's what he told us," said Silverdun. "Remember, Ironfoot? We saw him at the locks."

  "That's right," said Ironfoot. "There was no mention of a meeting with the Annwni ambassador."

  "Indeed," said Silverdun. "And the fact that he didn't mention the meeting is strange, since-"

  "Since he was well aware that you two were on your way to Annwn," said Paet. "Glennet receives briefings on every mission on foreign soil. He always knows where we're going, and when. It seems more than a little suspicious."

  "The queen's tits," said Silverdun. "Could it have been him all this time?"

  "Ah," said Sela. "But there's more. I started going through Glennet's records at the Hall of Records."

  "How in hell did you get access to a baron's records?" asked Paet. "I've never been able to get that kind of access."

  Sela smiled. "You don't have the powers of persuasion that I have, I suppose," she said. "Either the magical kind or ... the more mundane kind."

  Silverdun felt a sudden blossom of affection for her. She looked up at him and gave him an odd look. Had she felt him?

  She seemed to lose her train of thought for a moment, but quickly regained it.

  "Not long after the Battle of Sylvan, Glennet began investing heavily in the industries of war," said Sela. "He sank enormous sums of money into the Armorers' Guild, the Smiths' Guild. The Textile Guild, too, though I wasn't sure why."

  "Uniforms," said Ironfoot. "An army needs lots of uniforms."

  "So the baron wanted to get rich off of a war," said Silverdun. "That doesn't necessarily make him our traitor."

  "No," said Sela. "That doesn't. But there's more."

  She pushed another stack of papers in front of Paet. "These are loan documents, filed with banks in the City Emerald, Estacana, and Mag Mell. Every penny Glennet invested in the guilds was borrowed."

  "I seem to recall rumors even when I was at court that Glennet had financial troubles," said Silverdun. "He loves his card games."

  "So he found a way to get rich off of the war effort," said Ironfoot.

  "But then a year went by and there was no war," said Sela. "The interest on those loans began to mount."

  "Glennet needs a war," said Silverdun. "The guilds can't pay him until the government requisitions their supplies."

  "And the government doesn't requisition supplies until there's a war."

  "There's more," said Sela. "And this is fairly damning, I'm afraid. I checked with the analysts upstairs and found that Glennet has been regularly sending spell-encrypted messages in the weekly packets to Jem-Aleth for the past year."

  "That's not uncommon, though," said Paet. "Glennet's involved in all sorts of Foreign Ministry business. He's got plenty of legitimate reasons to send such messages, and anything sent classified is required to go encrypted."

  "Well," said Sela, "we're required to retain copies of those documents. I decrypted one of them. One sent two days before we left for the Unseelie."

  Paet looked at her, wide-eyed.

  "Well, I didn't decrypt it myself," she said. "One of the analysts may have helped a bit."

  "What did the message say?" asked Paet.

  "It gave explicit details of our travel plans, including our physical descriptions, and our itinerary."

  "Dammit!" said Silverdun. "Those soldiers on the transport to Preyia. They knew exactly who they were looking for."

  "The message also contained the location of our rendezvous in Preyia."

  Paet leaned back. "Well. That is fairly conclusive, I think."

  "But why would he come after us?" asked Ironfoot. "That's the part I still don't understand."

  Paet looked at him. "Because Everess went all over the city selling the Shadows as the best deterrent to war that Elfkind had ever devised.

  "And," added Paet, "if you were killed, then it not only stops us from doing that very thing, but also adds yet another reason to go to war, once your deaths are pinned on our enemies."

  "And I thought Everess was a bastard," said Silverdun.

  "I believe Glennet was Everess's mentor," said Paet.

  Paet looked at Sela, who looked pleased with herself. "Sela, I must say that I'm amazed at this bit of detective work," he said.

  "No more than I was," she said. "I was amazed at how much I enjoyed it. And how good I was at it."

  "Simply astonishing," said Paet, looking over the documents.

  "I'm glad you think so," said Sela, suddenly becoming serious. "Because I've decided I don't want to be a Shadow anymore. I want to be an analyst."

  "What?" said Paet. "Are you serious?"

  "I am," said Sela, looking down. "I was raised to be something. A killer. A monster. But I was also trained very well to use my Empathy. I understand people, and what drives them and what they want. So I've made my decision. I'm not going on any more missions."

  "But you're a Shadow, Sela. You'll always be a Shadow."

  "Call me a Shadow, then. I can work just as easily in the lien. But don't send me out on any more missions."

  She touched the band on her arm, the crude thing that Ironfoot had fashioned. "I'm never taking this off again."

  She stared hard at Paet. "Never."

  Paet and the Shadows went to Everess, and Sela went through the documents with him as she'd done with Paet.

  "Very good work, Sela. Very good," said Everess once the story was done. He leaned back in his chair.

  "Do we recommend him to the high prosecutor?" asked Paet.

  "Heavens no," said Everess. "We can't let him know we suspect anything."

  "You can't think to let him get away with this!" said Paet.

  "Oh, he won't," said Everess. "But Glennet is a very powerful ma
n, one who's owed many, many favors. Who do you think recommended the high prosecutor to his post? No, we can't take the direct route with someone like him."

  "Are you proposing that one of my Shadows eliminate him?" asked Pact dourly. "I thought I made myself clear on that point."

  "No, Glennet is more useful to us alive and well at the moment," said Everess.

  "At the moment," said Silverdun.

  "At the moment," repeated Everess. "And trust me, I know precisely how to take care of him after that."

  Everess fell silent, lighting his pipe. "We've a more pressing problem, though," he said. "Our troops are outnumbered by a great margin, and if war is indeed inevitable, we need to find ways to even the odds. Any suggestions?"

  Silverdun sat up. "I've got a few ideas," he said.

  Estiane's office was as warm and cozy as Silverdun remembered it. When he barged in, Estiane was sitting at his desk with a huge slice of peach pie in front of him. Estiane made to hide it, then saw it was Silverdun and decided not to bother.

  "Perrin! It's good to see you, though I'm told that things are not progressing as one might hope with our neighbors to the north."

  Silverdun sat. "It's worse than you know," he said. He told Estiane what he could, leaving out the more classified details.

  When he was done, Estiane said, "What can I do to help?"

  "I'm glad you asked," said Silverdun. "Because I'm about to ask something very large of you."

  "What's that?"

  "We are going to war with the Unseelie," said Silverdun. "That seems inevitable now. All we can do is try to make it as unpleasant for the Unseelie as possible."

  "I'm not sure how I can help, other than by praying."

  "How many devout Arcadians are there in the Unseelie?"

  Estiane frowned. "It's hard to say for certain. Perhaps five thousand? Ten thousand at the most? As I told you before, the less we know about them, the safer they are."

  "I want you to contact them, as many as you can, in secret."

  "And what shall I tell them?" Estiane now looked deeply worried.

  "You're going to tell them to do everything they can to sabotage the Unseelie war effort. Disrupt supply lines, disrupt communications, destroy spellcraft depots, steal weapons, horses. Stab commanders in the back. Whatever they're able to do."

  "I can't ask that of my people!" said Estiane. "These are Arcadians! They're committed to love and peace. That is what brought them to Aba in the first place." He pushed the pie around on his plate, dropped the fork in frustration. "I won't do that. I'm sorry."

  "You will do that," said Silverdun. "You put yourself on a pedestal, making a martyr of yourself, believing that if you do a little evil in the name of good, then you're protecting your people. You claim that this is a sin you take upon yourself to save others. But now it's time to give all of your followers in the Unseelie the same opportunity. If they're as principled as you, they should be happy to make the same choice."

  "You don't know what you're asking, Perrin," said Estiane. "Joining Everess and his Shadows has changed you. You've forgotten what it means to be an Arcadian."

  "I haven't forgotten," said Silverdun. "I've just learned a few things since then."

  "I'm sorry, Perrin. I won't do it."

  "If you don't, then Paet is prepared to testify in the High Court that you conspired with the foreign minister to have the husband of the secretary of states murdered in a brothel."

  Paet had promised no such thing, but Estiane didn't know that.

  "That's preposterous!" said Estiane. "I had no idea what Everess was planning!"

  "Maybe not," said Silverdun. "But you know there are elements in Corpus who would be more than happy to see the Church fall on its face. It's not that long since Arcadianism was considered a dangerous cult by most Fae."

  "You'd bring down the Church to get your way," said Estiane.

  "No, but I would bring it down to save the Seelie Kingdom."

  "I could excommunicate you for this," said Estiane.

  "It wouldn't matter," said Silverdun. "I don't think you can excommunicate a dead man."

  "Are you serious about this?" asked Estiane.

  "I've never been more serious about anything."

  "Aba will turn his back on you for this."

  "I believe that the ends will justify the means, Abbot." He stood. "You taught me that."

  The basis of the Chthonic faith is the mistrust of divinity. How fortunate we would be if all religions had the decency to lock up their gods!

  -Beozho, Autobiography

  ronfoot was desperate.

  He'd stared at these documents a hundred times in the past two days. He'd read every single one of the books that Timha had brought with him, examined every bit of Hy Pezho's fake plans on the off chance that some bit of the actual mechanism might be concealed somewhere within them. The best lies, he knew, were based in truth.

  It wasn't just that the Einswrath threatened the Seelie Kingdom. He understood that, of course. But that still seemed remote, a possible contingency. This was personal.

  It was at times like this that he could not control his anger, when he was in the thick of a problem. At any moment the dark thoughts would creep in: You are not smart enough, or good enough. You are a shepherd's son. You don't deserve to be here. You will fail and then everyone will know who you really are.

  He was fighting those dark thoughts when Sela came downstairs into the mission room carrying a stack of briefs. She'd begun sorting through intelligence from the Unseelie, trying to get some idea of where Hy Pezho had come from, and when.

  "How is it going?" she asked.

  Ironfoot looked up at her. "How does it look like it's going?" he said blandly.

  "I don't suppose there's anything I can do to help."

  "Not unless you know how to circumvent the exponential decrease of reitic force in unbindings."

  "Sorry," Sela said.

  "If only I could remember," said Ironfoot. "Something that's bothered me ever since I first came to Selafae."

  "What's that?" asked Sela.

  "All around the crater, there was a smell. Sort of like roast meat, but acrid, like tar. I don't know how to explain it."

  "Do you remember the smell?" she said.

  "I'll never forget it."

  "May I smell it?"

  "It's a long way from here to Selafae, and I doubt the smell is still there anyway, after last spring's rains."

  "That's not what I mean," she said. "Open yourself up to me. Open your mind and think about the smell."

  "You can smell my memory with Empathy? That's new."

  "I have skills other Empaths don't," she said.

  He shrugged. "Why not?" He closed his eyes, opened his mind. He felt something-not a presence, more like the sense of being watched by someone unseen. It made him wary.

  "Relax," she said. "Think of that smell." He did.

  "Got it," she said.

  Ironfoot opened his eyes and looked at her. She was smiling.

  "You know what that is?" he said.

  "I do. When I was very small, before ... well, when I was very small, my parents used to take me to the Chthonic temple in the city on holidays. That's the smell of the prayer bowls just after they've been lit."

  "You're kidding," said Ironfoot.

  "Have you ever been to a Chthonic holiday service?" she asked.

  "Just once," he said. There aren't many Chthonics down south, where I was raised. But I went to a wedding once in Sylvan...."

  Ironfoot sat up. "Auberon's hairy balls, Sela! That's it!"

  "What's it?" Sela looked excited, though she clearly had no idea why.

  "Auberon's big, sweaty, hairy balls!" he said, digging through the stack of papers on the table. He couldn't find what he was looking for.

  "Prae Benesile," said Ironfoot. "Where's Prae Benesile?"

  "Who's Prae Benesile?" asked Sela.