1 State of Grace

by John Phythyon

  “Well, that’s the other reason,” Wolf said. “I want to see justice done. Silverleaf has been misrepresenting your government to mine. He has deliberately sabotaged negotiations between our two peoples for his own ends. He is cooperating with enemies of my country.

  “And he murdered three people I care about. I want Silverleaf to pay for his crimes. I want to bring him to justice.”

  Nightshade said nothing for a moment. He appeared to think about what Wolf said.

  “Mr. Nightshade,” Wolf said, “Ambassador Silverleaf is willing to harm anyone who gets in his way. I don’t know what he wants to accomplish, but I know he is cruel and merciless. He killed one of my colleagues. He killed a woman for trying to help me. He killed an innocent man, who happened to be too close to me. He has had you and all of his wartime compatriots condemned for treason and put to death. You are the last of them. Once you’ve been executed there will be no one left who really knows him. Maybe if you help me, I can arrange for a pardon.”

  “You can’t help me,” Nightshade said.

  “Maybe not,” Wolf replied. “But you can make sure your death isn’t meaningless. You can make sure Silverleaf pays for his treason.”

  There was another thoughtful pause. Nightshade was no longer looking at him.

  “What do you want to know?” he said at last.

  “There’s almost no information on Silverleaf after his capture in the civil war,” Wolf said. “Can you fill in anything for me?”

  “His capture changed him,” Nightshade said. “When the coup occurred, Silverleaf was outraged. He was strong in his faith, and he believed in the principles of Shendal. But he wasn’t one of those fundamentalists who took control of Eranbul and instituted hard-line law to reflect scriptural principles. He denounced them, saying they had lost Frey’s message and that they were rebelling not just against Alfheim but against God. He called for all elves, Freyalans and Shendalis alike, to oppose them. He personally recruited hundreds, maybe thousands of elves to fight Jifan.

  “The Jifanis didn’t care much for that. They branded Silverleaf and any Shendalis who agreed with him as infidels. They declared anyone who opposed their regime as godless, and that included all the Freyalans. They took few prisoners in battle. Most survivors were put to the sword.

  “But they reserved special punishments for the instigators – the rabble rousers, as they called them. Those they took prisoner, and they tortured them until they renounced their positions. They forced them to sign confessions apologizing for deliberately leading elves away from God, and they executed them with grace.”

  “With grace?”

  “Yes. If you signed a confession, you were executed for treason, but you were admitted to Heaven for recanting your sins. Anyone who wasn’t executed with grace was condemned to Hell. At least that’s what they said.”

  “And Silverleaf was one of the ‘rabble rousers’ they captured,” Wolf said.

  “Correct. They’d been after him for some time. They wanted him especially, and, when they got him, their torturers had a lot of fun.”

  “What sorts of things did they do to him?”

  “No one knows for sure,” Nightshade replied. “Silverleaf refused to ever talk about it. But they cut off his hand.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, that was one of their most symbolic punishments,” Nightshade said. “They said the victim had led the people of Alfheim astray. So they took his hand, so he symbolically could not do so again. He had no hand to extend to the people to lead them down the wrong path.”

  “But Silverleaf isn’t missing a hand,” Wolf said. “I’ve seen him multiple times.”

  “I know,” Nightshade said. “That’s why he had us all arrested and condemned. There was a small group of us – his most trusted friends – who rescued him. We knew what sorts of horrors awaited him in Jifani hands, and we couldn’t bear to let them break him. He was the very icon of the resistance. If they had broken him, gotten him to sign a confession, it would have shattered the spirit of the Alfari forces. It would have been akin to Frey confessing he was a false prophet.

  “So we mounted a daring mission. Our superiors refused to give approval, but we did it anyway. Twelve of us snuck behind enemy lines, broke into the prison in Eranbul, and freed him. Five of us died in the raid, but we got Silverleaf back.

  “He was different, though. He was bitter. His heart, which had been so pure in its defense of Alfar, had turned dark.

  “In that condition, he would have been nearly as devastating to our cause as if the Jifanis had forced him to confess. So we sent him away. We smuggled him out of Alfheim altogether. Then we told the world he had escaped from his Jifani captors and gone into exile. He would return when Jifan was no more.”

  “Then why is he back now?” Wolf said. “Jifan remains and Alfar nearly suffered a coup that would have brought it under Jifani rule.”

  “He returned to Alfar shortly before the establishment of the coalition government,” Nightshade answered. “He said Alfheim needed him. Trading on his heroism during the war, he obtained the position of ambassador to Urland.”

  “What about his hand?”

  “When he returned, he had two hands again,” Nightshade said. “I don’t know how. I can only assume it’s some form of black magic.”

  “And that’s when he had you and your friends arrested,” Wolf put in.

  “Yes. Only the seven of us knew the Jifanis took his hand. He had to make sure none of us could tell the tale.”

  Wolf thought about it for a moment. Did The Hand of Destiny, whatever is was, offer an explanation for this?

  “I’m curious,” Wolf said. “Which hand did the Jifanis cut off?”

  “His left hand,” Nightshade said. “According to scripture, the left hand is the tool of The Devil. Since an infidel was allegedly leading the people astray, he would be doing so with his left hand – The Devil’s instrument.”

  Wolf’s mind flashed back to his game of Conquest with Silverleaf. The ambassador always drew with his left hand. It was the left hand that created the burst of magic Wolf could see with his Shadow sight.

  “I’m curious about one other thing,” Wolf said. “Silverleaf hates Urland. Why?”

  “You’re not very strong on your history for a man who represents the Urlish government,” Nightshade commented. “Appeals were made early on for Urlish assistance in the civil war. Alfheim was a strong trade partner with Urland, and it asked for help in quashing the Jifani coup. Her Majesty, the Queen, demurred, though. She sent a token force, mainly to advise and train. Very little of the fighting involved human soldiers. She cited the ongoing struggle with Phrygia as cause. She simply couldn’t spare the personnel for fear of leaving her eastern borders and allies open to Phrygian attack.

  “It was only after the Alfari government begged for help that you sent troops. By then, Jifan was trading with Phrygia, and you could have lost all of your elfin magic had Shendali fundamentalists toppled the government.

  “Silverleaf has never forgiven your people for that. He raged against Urlish neutrality during the civil war, and he believed, had you assisted us, Jifan would have fallen. In this way, he blames you for the decay that has set into elfin lands.”

  “Not exactly our finest hour,” Wolf said after a pause. “Thank you, Mr. Nightshade. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “I’ve done nothing,” Nightshade said. “You are no closer to determining Silverleaf’s purpose than when you came in. I don’t know what he’s doing, so there is no way I could help you stop him.”

  “Yes, but you’ve given me more information I can use,” Wolf said.

  “Then use it, Ambassador Dasher,” Nightshade commanded. “Whatever Sagaius Silverleaf may have been, he is a traitor now. He has turned on his people, on his friends, and on his country. Whatever he seeks to accomplish, it is for his own purpose. As you say, he is cruel and doesn’t care whom he has to hurt to get what he wants. He is no longer a patriot. He is a desp
ot. If you do indeed care about the fate of Alfar, you’ll kill Sagaius Silverleaf before his plans come to fruition.”

  “I will do all I can,” Wolf said. “As I mentioned, I have personal motivations too.”

  Nightshade nodded. He curled back into the corner.

  “Leave me now,” he said. “If Silverleaf plans to act tonight, you’re losing time.”

  “Thank you again,” Wolf said. “After this is over, I will see what I can do to get you pardoned.”

  “You can’t help me,” Nightshade said again. “Just save Alfar. That’s all I want. That and Silverleaf’s head on a pike.”

  Wolf nodded. There was nothing more to discuss. He said goodbye and let himself out of the cell. He hurried down the stairs past the warden, not bothering to tell him he was finished. The elf could figure that out for himself. Wolf had a country to save and vengeance to enact. He was running out of time.

  Chapter 31: Blackhand

  (Twenty-one Hours, Forty-two Minutes before Revelation Day)

  Boris Davidov was worried. He’d received a note from Shadowcat. It read:

  MUST SEE YOU AT ONCE. URGENT. OPERATION: HAMMERFALL IMMINENT.

  Several things about the note concerned him. The first, of course, was its subject matter. He’d heard very little from Shadowcat since assigning her the task of watching General Tupelov a little over a week ago. That was mostly to be expected. He wanted her maintaining as low a profile as possible, and every time they made contact, it risked putting Tupelov onto her.

  But the note read that “Hammerfall” was imminent. That was her cue to contact him. That was her moment to sound the alarm.

  Other parts of the note didn’t sit well with him, though. Shadowcat was a careful agent. He found it surprising she would mention the name of the operation in her note. Given how secretive everything else about “Hammerfall” was, it seemed strange for her to risk its name falling into the wrong hands if the note was intercepted. On the other hand, perhaps only she and Boris would recognize the name of the plot besides Tupelov and his co-conspirators. And if Tupelov was paranoid enough to scatter the details of the operation across multiple projects, it was possible very few people really knew what Operation: Hammerfall was.

  Still, it was uncharacteristic of her, and he worried. There was also the nagging sensation that this was the completely wrong protocol. If the matter was urgent and “Hammerfall” was imminent, why wouldn’t she just contact him directly instead of bothering to send a note? Why go through the cloak-and-dagger routine instead of just sounding the alarm?

  Boris smelled a trap. This just didn’t feel like Shadowcat’s work, and that meant she’d been compromised.

  That was the main reason Boris was worried. He didn’t want anything to be wrong with her. She was ... too important to him.

  So, despite his instincts, Boris came to the rendezvous. It wasn’t in the usual place. That was another thing that alarmed him, but he supposed Shadowcat could have thought the Bear Claw had been compromised.

  Instead, they were out in the open in one of Pushkingrad’s marketplaces. That made him feel more and less comfortable at the same time. On the one hand, it was not an ideal place for a trap: there were many ways to escape. But it would also be difficult to see trouble coming, which made it easier for a trap to be sprung. This particular marketplace was on the outskirts of the city and was less populated than the main one in downtown. There were numerous stands selling everything from fruit and meat to clothing and housewares. There were few customers, though. The merchants competed fiercely for the few individuals who ventured to market this afternoon.

  As he waited, Boris felt his skin tingling. It had been years since he’d worked as a field agent, but he hadn’t forgotten his training. His senses were heightened, and he paid attention to every detail – the man trying to interest customers in out-of-season melons; a woman beating a rug one storey up in a balcony overlooking the market; the chill in the wind that promised winter was coming early this year. The marketplace was like a living thing, and Boris watched its every move.

  Presently, a woman approached him dressed in rags. Instinctively, his muscles tensed. His hand went to the knife he had concealed in the back of his belt, ready to draw it at the first sign of trouble. As she got closer, though, he saw it was Shadowcat in disguise. Her babushka concealed all of her blonde hair and part of her forehead. It was her eyes that gave her away.

  “I got your note,” she said when she was next to him. “What’s up?”

  “You got my note?” he said.

  “Yes. You said you had urgent news and to meet you here.”

  Damn, he thought. It is a trap.

  “I received a note from you saying Operation: Hammerfall was imminent.”

  “I sent no such note,” she said. Her face went dark with worry.

  “I think we’ve been compromised,” he said. “We’d better get out of here right away.”

  “I agree,” she said.

  He scanned the market looking for the best exit. He took her by the arm and was about to lead her away when her eyes opened wide.

  “Look out!” she yelled and grabbed hold of him pulling him down. As he fell to the ground, he looked up in time to see an arrow pierce her neck on the right side and partially exit on the left. Blood welled out of her mouth, and she clutched at the arrow and sank to her knees.

  A man stood with a crossbow approximately twenty yards away. He hastily began reloading. Two more men with crossbows were approaching from the right and left. Each lifted their weapons and took aim at him.

  “Everyone down!” Boris yelled.

  Then he acted. He turned his left hand to Shadow and whipped his left arm in the direction of his leftmost assailant. His hand detached itself from his body and flew to the attacker, grabbing his throat and choking him. The assassin dropped his weapon and started fighting the new danger.

  Boris did not command the PDB in this section for no reason. He was not some ordinary person put in charge of the mysterious agents tasked with learning Urland’s secrets. He was a Shadow himself, codename: Blackhand. General Tupelov had seriously underestimated his opponent.

  With a thought, he commanded his hand to crush the assassin’s trachea. The attacker on the right fired but struck a bystander. People screamed and started running in every direction. Boris had been right. The market was a good place to spring a trap, but not a good one to actually catch the prey.

  Boris drew his dagger with his right hand and mentally recalled his left. It dematerialized from the dead man’s throat and reappeared back on his arm. The first attacker had his weapon reloaded. Boris sent his left hand spinning at him. It connected with his crossbow, knocking it from his hands and dislodging the arrow. Then he sprinted at the man on the right, who was struggling to get another quarrel loaded. The fool looked up just in time for Boris to slash his throat with the dagger. He fell to the ground, gurgling.

  Boris turned on the remaining assassin, the one who killed Shadowcat – killed Svetlana. His eyes were wide with fear. He no doubt had thought this was going to be an easy mission. Now, two of his friends were dead, and he was left alone to face a very dangerous Shadow. Boris summoned his hand back and began advancing on him.

  The man turned and fled. Boris was not about to let him get away. He dropped the knife, turned both hands to Shadow, and hurled them at the assassin. They grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him backwards off his feet. Boris pulled with his mind, and his disembodied hands dragged the terrified soldier across the ground back to where Boris stood. When he came to a stop, he tried to get up, but Boris’s Shadow hands held him fast to the ground.

  “Who sent you?” Boris said. He already knew the answer, but he wanted a confession.

  “I can’t,” the assassin protested. “He’ll kill me!”

  “I’ll kill you,” Boris replied and dug the fingers of his Shadow hands into the man’s flesh. He screamed.

  “All right!” he said. “It was Genera
l Tupelov. He said you were an enemy of the State and to kill you.”

  “He lied,” Boris said. “And so do you. He gave you orders to kill the woman and me, so we could not prevent Operation: Hammerfall, didn’t he?”

  “No! I don’t even know what that is!”

  “Liar!”

  Boris squeezed tighter. His hands had inhuman strength. He could feel them penetrate the assassin’s skin and dig into his collarbones. The soldier screamed again.

  “Okay, okay!” he wailed. “Yes. You and the woman, Markova, were digging into Operation: Hammerfall. You were learning too much. He couldn’t jeopardize you uncovering its purpose.”

  “General Tupelov is a traitor, and so are you,” Boris said.

  “Today, perhaps,” the assassin said. He’d recovered some of his composure, and he snarled at Boris. “But tomorrow, he will be a hero, and you will be dead.”

  “You’ll never know,” Boris said.

  He stomped on the man’s face repeatedly. He felt bone crack on the second blow. After a few more, his brains were smeared on the ground.

  He looked at his work grimly for a moment. He felt no regret. This man was an enemy of the People. Boris had simply saved the State the trouble of trying him for his crimes and then executing him. He returned his hands to his arms and then went to Shadowcat.

  She lay gasping for breath. She would drown in her own blood shortly. He knelt beside her and took her in his arms.

  “Shadowcat,” he said, “Svetlana, I am so sorry.”

  She put a hand to his face and stroked his hair, trying to stay brave until the end. Unable to stop himself, he began weeping.

  “I love you, Svetlana,” he confessed.

  She tried to speak, but no words came out. Her lips formed the words, “I know.”

  Then she put her arms around his neck, pulled herself up and kissed him. All he tasted was blood. None of the pleasures he imagined from kissing her – the taste of her breath, the firmness of her lips, her skill at kissing – were there. There was only death.