by Trish Mercer
Perrin stared into its tiny eyes.
It stared back, then looked down at the height at which it was dangling. It flailed in fright, so Perrin cradled it in his other hand, and the thing began to purr.
“Why does it do that?” he asked, bewildered.
Mahrree’s mouth twitched. “Because it likes you. I can’t imagine why, but it does.”
He evaluated the creature.
It didn’t resemble a Thorne—captain or general—in any way. It was just a tiny, helpless animal. With needle-like claws. And it made annoying sounds, although quietly.
Still, those claws were unreasonably sharp, snagging the wool on his uniform.
Still yet again, it was just a baby.
“Hm,” he said eventually. “Fine. It can stay.”
He handed it back to Mahrree who kissed him gleefully.
“But it doesn’t need a name!”
Chapter 17 ~ “He’s gone fishing, Thorne! He returns tomorrow!”
In Idumea it was impossible to not hear the news. Everyone was yelling it in the Administrative Headquarters and at the garrison a few miles away. And soon, everyone in the great city was shouting, “Did you hear what happened in Moorland?”
Chairman Nicko Mal was sure the large sealed folder that the messenger from Quake rushed to him late in the afternoon was supposed to be confidential. But as the corporal shouted through the vast halls of the Administrators’ Headquarters it was apparent no one had told him that. “The commanders in the north have killed all the Guarders in Moorland! The Guarders are gone!”
His fellow messenger was also just as naively vocal as he rode shouting through the garrison to deliver his copy of the report from Major Fadh to High General Cush.
Mal heard later that there was a crowd of officers and soldiers waiting impatiently outside the High General’s door. Mal believed it, because when he finally opened his office door—after staring dazedly for many minutes at Fadh’s report—he was met by Administrators, assistants, workers, and citizens who happened to be in the building. They clogged the hall like starved mutts waiting for a bone.
The Chairman had to publically rejoice for the wild success of the army and the increased safety of his people.
But Nicko felt as if he’d been punched in the gut.
He couldn’t quite catch his breath for the better part of an hour, and desperately wished Dr. Brisack would return a day early from his “fishing trip” to tell him what to think about this unprecedented failure.
Success.
Whatever.
In the meantime, the world sat panting at his door.
Once he finally opened it, he knew there was only one possible response. “Citizens of Idumea and the world—rejoice! A most remarkable thing has happened in the north . . .”
---
“But it’s a disaster!” Qayin Thorne snarled at him hours later.
Nick massaged his temples, having seen others do it and wondering what it was supposed to accomplish. His office at the Administrative Headquarters had grown dark with the evening, but he’d lit only two candles hoping the dim light would calm the pounding in his head. Next he’d need to find a way to slow the erratic beating of his heart.
“Do you realize that?” The general leaned over his desk.
Mal slowly looked up at him with a glare that could have crumbled a boulder. “You really don’t think I don’t know the severity of the situation, Thorne? Dead—267. Missing and presumed dead—more than 40. Men we’ve been training for years, new recruits we brought on for the onslaught of Edge using Brisack’s mixture—you think I don’t realize the scale of the problem? Hmm?”
Thorne stood back up and straightened his jacket. “So what are you going to do?” and he added a respectful, “Sir.”
“I’m waiting for Brisack,” Mal told him, abandoning the useless head rubbing. Instead he took a deep breath and blew it out of his mouth. Brisack had told him to breathe slowly in instances like this, but there was no easing of the stabbing pain growing in his chest and radiating down his arm. At home he had some of that brew of the doctor’s, but he should have kept some in his office.
“Brisack will have a better report. We had around 330 men, from our best estimates. That’s what he was to discover, too: a full count. Along with doing other things,” he added in a whisper.
Qayin rolled his eyes impatiently. “Mal, you have to face the fact that Dr. Brisack is dead. One of those 267, probably blown apart by his own brilliant explosion,” he added with disgusted head shaking. “He’s gone.”
“He wouldn’t dare,” Mal said stoically. “He alone knew the entire formula, but was going to train some men up there in it. Many would know it now. According to the sizes of the blasts described by Fadh, the good doctor got the formula right.” Mal tried massaging his hands while his eyes darted all over his desk as if in search of something he knew he’d never find. “Exploding key sections of Edge can still happen, mark my words. When Brisack returns tomorrow, he’ll bring me the details—oh yes, he will—and we’ll begin again. I have complete faith in him. You shouldn’t doubt him, Qayin.”
General Thorne leaned across the desk, forcing an uncharacteristically timid Mal to look into his eyes. “Chairman, it’s not that I doubt the Administrator of Family Life. It’s just that I doubt that he’s still alive.”
Mal slammed his fist on the desk. “He’s gone fishing, Thorne! He returns tomorrow!”
“Just like Gadiman?” Thorne pressed.
Something caught in Mal’s throat, making it impossible for him to respond. That is, if he knew how to respond.
“Gadiman’s been missing for a year now,” Thorne pointed out, and Mal was startled to realize it had been so long— “and are you still expecting they’ll find him in his office under all those crates? You know, he has a few loyal assistants who have been collecting more names and information that could feed your so-called studies, but you’ve been too obsessed with one colonel in the north to notice. Yet interestingly, all of your preoccupation with Shin hasn’t resulted in his demise, but our own!” Thorne leaned in so close that Mal couldn’t back out of his spitting range. “Are you sure you really know what you’re doing with all of this, Nicko? Or is it time for some new leadership?”
There’s only so many stabs in so many sensitive places that one man can allow. Mal snapped. “General, I am thinking of some new leadership, in place of YOU! Get out, before I strip you of command—all of them!”
General Thorne stood up, deliberately slowly, and cocked his head. “Ask yourself this: How did the northern forts know about what was going on in Moorland? Who tipped them off? I believe you’re losing control of the world, Chairman. Gadiman’s long dead—it’s obvious. Get over it because someone, somewhere, knows about your secrets and is talking, maybe even to Shin himself.”
“Not Zenos the Quiet Man,” Mal insisted. “He didn’t know about this.”
Thorne shrugged. “You need a new Administrator of Loyalty with a heavy fist to pound the truth out of a few people. Unfortunately I’m already overloaded with work or I’d volunteer for the job. Then again,” Thorne said with such smugness that it should have been a crime, “if you keep letting things slide, maybe I’ll just take over your positions—all of them.”
Mal didn’t rub his aching chest until Thorne had slammed the door behind him.
“Slag, I hate that man. Why couldn’t he have been in Moorland?”
---
The Cat, as the tiny creature that invaded the Shin household was immediately not named, followed Perrin everywhere. It was supposed to be Jaytsy’s, but as soon as Perrin appeared The Cat ran to him and climbed up his leg to perch on his shoulder, digging into Perrin’s flesh with his—Shem identified the gender—tiny claws that left needle-like gashes. Every night in bed Perrin found himself pulling the kitten off his chest. He tried once leaving it out of the room and closing the door, but its constant high-pitched meowing disturbed him more than its purring.
And in a way, Perrin admitted on the fourth night, the purring did have a rather calming quality about it.
And the kitten purred only for him. And it was needy.
And he was in charge of seeing to the needs of those in the village . . .
In the end it took only a week for the kitten to conquer the colonel. The world was completely upside down, Perrin realized, because he now willingly owned a cat.
---
There were two chairs in a dark office of an unlit building, but only one man. A week had passed since the report arrived about the incident in Moorland, and still that chair remained empty.
Nicko Mal stared dully at it. In his hand was a note from Mrs. Brisack, begging to know if the Chairman had heard anything from her husband.
Mal tapped his fingers on the armrest.
He leaned forward aggressively.
He sat back worriedly.
Then he crumpled the message and dropped it on the floor on top of Major Fadh’s report.
Dr. Brisack was never late for a meeting before. The world was completely upside down now.
And Nicko needed two new Administrators.
---
Perrin becoming a cat owner wasn’t the only unusual thing that happened in the next few weeks. Two new Administrators were named in an announcement that was delivered first to the fort, then the next day to the public in general.
Mahrree and Perrin read and reread the contents of the message, trying to find hidden meanings between the lines.
“Doesn’t seem right,” Mahrree said on her fourth time through it. “Gadiman’s been ill for over a year? And only now they’ve decided to replace him?”
“I don’t think he was ever ‘ill’,” Perrin told her quietly. “I suspect he’s dead. He wasn’t at my hearing, and I wonder if anyone had seen him since. I asked Thorne about it once. He said he hadn’t seen Gadiman the last two times he was in Idumea, and usually he met with him as a formality during Command School.”
“Thorne would meet with Gadiman?” Mahrree asked, immediately suspicious. “That doesn’t seem right, either.”
“That’s what I thought, but he wouldn’t say anything more about it, nor did I want to continue the conversation any longer than necessary. But Brisack—that’s even more mysterious.”
“Presumed missing in a fishing trip,” Mahrree reread the words. “He never told us he was coming, did he?”
Perrin shook his head. “It says only that he was heading north for a holiday four weeks ago and hadn’t been heard from since.”
Mahrree went pale and she grabbed her husband’s arm. “Perrin, I just remembered—at The Dinner last year, didn’t he say they were experimenting with sulfur? I thought he also mentioned something about Moorland, about wanting to get new samples.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Something awful. Perrin, what if Brisack was in Moorland? During your attack? What if it was him experimenting with that black powdery substance? You said it smelled sulfur-based.”
Perrin scoffed. “Mahrree! We’re talking about Dr. Brisack. The man wasn’t perfect, but you liked him, remember?”
Mahrree didn’t answer that. How much could she approve of a man who wanted reports on how her husband was responding to secret testing?
Perrin broke into her thoughts with, “Why would Brisack be experimenting with Guarders anyway?”
Mahrree shrugged. While she didn’t approve of Brisack’s meddling, she did have to acknowledge that he’d been most helpful in sending the sedation, and seemed earnest in his frequent messages to know how Mahrree was doing although she never answered the nosy old man’s queries.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said dismissively. “It just seems that . . . well, would you have been able to recognize any of the bodies at the crater?”
“No,” he told her gruffly. “Burned beyond recognition.”
Mahrree winced and nodded. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. Do you know anything about this new Administrator of Loyalty, Mr. Genev? Is he as paranoid as Gadiman was?”
“Evaluating paranoia is such a subjective thing,” Perrin sighed with more experience than he wanted to admit. “Genev was his assistant for quite some time, so things should be about the same for the Office of Loyalty.”
Mahrree bit her lip. “Is that good or bad?”
“As long as there is an office,” Perrin said, instinctively glancing around him for a red coat and white ruffles that might be peering into their gathering room windows, “it’s bad.”
Mahrree fidgeted with worry. “Then what about Brisack’s replacement?”
Perrin shook his head. “I don’t know anything about him. Worked in Brisack’s office for a while, but I don’t remember meeting him.”
“Hmm,” Mahrree pondered. “Perhaps all of these changes are why we haven’t heard any response from the Administrators about your attack on Moorland.”
“Or maybe they’ve forgotten all about me,” Perrin smiled.
---
“You CANNOT be serious!” General Thorne bellowed at the Chairman.
Nicko merely raised his eyebrows and looked over at the High General to see if he would rein in his hound.
“Qayin,” his father-in-law said consolingly, “think about it. What else can be done? Besides, all of the Administrators have agreed.”
“You could—” Qayin faltered, gesturing madly. “Or, or, or . . . you could, could—” His hands continued to flap uselessly as if somehow they would smack randomly into a different solution.
Mal clasped his hands calmly in front of him. He had drained the entire bottled heart concoction he acquired from an associate of Brisack’s that morning, just in anticipation of this meeting. “You see the problem, don’t you? He’s been nothing but loyal. So loyal that he even violated his probation to save your son. How exactly are we to punish loyalty, General Thorne?”
Qayin scoffed, gestured, started and stopped and foamed in exasperation, but he had no response. Eventually he slumped in his chair. “So he just gets off?”
Mal rolled his eyes very slowly, to make sure General Thorne got the message. “It’s an excellent strategy until we get a new one.”
High General Cush cleared his throat. “I’m not hearing this, you understand. I’m just here to give my approval, and to also tell General Thorne that he’ll deliver this news personally.” Cush absent-mindedly rubbed his chest.
Mal wondered if the High General had his own supply of heart tonic. He was pale enough to need some.
Thorne glared at his father-in-law. “Me? Why me?”
Cush chuckled in his normal way, which today sounded as natural as an ox laughing. “Because I’m simply not up to it.” A bead of sweat formed on his broad forehead. “And because your going there will demonstrate to the world the honor and veneration the army has for the colonel, just as the rest of the world feels for him. And you’re also to check on my grandson. Thirty stitches? Make sure they sewed him up correctly. Nothing . . . dangling out.”
Thorne pursed his lips in thought. “Lemuel’s been exceptionally slow in a few things. I do want to see what’s happening, especially with the Shin girl. Maybe if I can get her alone—”
“Even I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Mal said with a squint. He knew very little about teenage girls, but even he could tell that Thorne’s idea was worse than saddling a skunk. “Lemuel has to win the Shin girl over himself when the time is right. Something like that,” he waved vaguely.
Thorne grumbled. “Says Versula as well. So,” he exhaled moodily, “I get to go to the Edge of the World, then.”
The Chairman shook his head. “I don’t understand you, Qayin. You have everything: second in command of the army, and at a relatively young age. Possession of the third largest home in Idumea. Rank of general, which is one higher than him. A son who’s the youngest captain in the army. And you have the ear of the most powerful man in the world—me. What more could you want?”
Thorne g
lared. “Him. Dead.”
“No you don’t,” Mal smiled narrowly. “What you want is him, tormented.”
Cush stood up abruptly, quite the feat for a man of his diameter, and huffed to catch his breath from the exertion. “I’m not listening anymore, you know that. Qayin, you’re going to Edge, and you’re going to put on a face fitting for a man whose subordinate has just handed him a most welcome victory. I’ll see you at the garrison.” Cush wheezed and left the office, slamming the door behind him.
“It’s about time he left,” Mal said, watching the door. “If he keeps up this interference, he’ll have to take the oaths. I don’t understand why he’s so opposed to that. Misplaced loyalties to a dead friend, I suppose.”
He shifted his earnest gaze to General Thorne. “Qayin, if Shin’s dead, he’s no fun, and we’ll need to find a new falcon. But there simply isn’t one as complex and intriguing as him. To be honest, I rather miss Relf. I miss his exasperation and his cluelessness, and the fact that I knew exactly what was causing his trouble but he never could figure it out. There was great pleasure in watching his frustration. You really don’t want that to end so soon with Perrin. I certainly don’t. We’re laying a new foundation to test him with, and while I don’t entirely know what kind of structure will come of it, I promise you that it will be most magnificent and worth the wait. And you, Qayin Thorne, will have a front row seat to it all. You will watch Perrin Shin squirm and shrivel.”
Thorne slowly nodded his head. “I hadn’t seen it in that way,” he said thoughtfully. “The reports from Lemuel last year had been most entertaining about the colonel and his madness. Rather miss hearing about his rants.”
“Give me some time, Qayin. You’ll be entertained again,” Mal assured. “When a man has fallen to such depths, it takes very little to push him back into it again. We just have to prepare the right hole. In the meantime, you’ll go to Edge, and you’ll smile at the colonel because you’re on top of the world, and you know that soon he’ll be in yet another pit.”