Veiled Empire

by Nathan Garrison

  Yandumar waited, like all the rest, as Paen looked about the tent, letting his words sink in. Yandumar soon grew impatient. “Cut the theatrics, Paen. What does this mean for our strategy?”

  “It means that, when the time comes, the Imperials will find the wall under attack from both sides at once.”

  Yandumar closed his eyes, picturing the lower district of Mecrithos as reconstructed from his memory of his time there. Picturing the wall. Thirty paces high and just as thick, full of narrow holes in the stone face for archers to fire out upon attackers, the top lined with ballistae and linked groups of daeloth.

  “Feints will be no good,” he said, opening his eyes and locking gazes with Paen. “Can you get word to your contacts before tomorrow?”

  Smiling, Paen nodded.

  “The central gate. Dawn.”

  “They’ll be ready.”

  Yandumar turned to Orbrahn and Calla. “Organize the casters. I want one embedded with each commander and four with me. Let them know to send updates by commune every few marks and for every major development. The rest, get them practicing that linking thing you do. We’ll likely need all of their combined strength to hold off the daeloth and break through the gate.”

  He turned to Mevon’s captains. “We’ll need your Fist to lead the central assault. Begin making preparations.”

  “Aye,” they said together. Yandumar didn’t need to say any more to them. They knew their business.

  “Bellanis,” he said, meeting her gaze. “Inform the other commanders of our plans and get the troops started making ladders and overhead cover that is light enough to be carried yet still protect against arrows.”

  “Got it,” she said.

  “Slick Ren, Derthon . . . where will your forces be?”

  “Most bandits aren’t particularly suited to fighting on the front lines,” said Slick Ren. “But everyone that came with me carries a bow. We’ll do what we can to keep those on top of the wall occupied.”

  “Good. Have them start fletching more arrows.”

  “Until their fingers bleed, my dear.”

  Yandumar looked around the room. Satisfied, for the moment, with their preparations. “Ready or not, we assault at first light. We won’t have time to meet like this again, so use your casters to send and receive messages. Let’s get working.”

  They all voiced their assent and began shuffling out of the tent to their respective tasks. He closed his eyes once more. God, please don’t let me be forgetting anything. The sound of shuffling feet ceased, and Yandumar sighed, turning towards his side of the tent, intending to retrieve the detailed map of Mecrithos. Tonight, there would be no sleep.

  He opened his eyes, stopping short. Orbrahn and Paen waited silently.

  “We need to talk,” Orbrahn said.

  Yandumar growled. “I don’t wanna hear it. Not now.”

  “It’s about your son,” Paen said.

  “Mevon? Where’s he got to? There are all kinds of people I want him to meet. Distant cousins and such.”

  Paen and Orbrahn shared a look, and Yandumar felt a chill go up his spine.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Orbrahn stepped forward. “Jasside is dead. Mevon had been getting close to her, and, well, he didn’t take her death very well.” He craned his neck towards Paen. “Show him.”

  Paen pressed his hand forward, a letter held within. “Yandumar” was written on the front. There was no seal.

  Paen must have noted his frown. “Yes, we read it. He left us, Yandumar, in the middle of the night with no notice. I had to find out why.”

  Yandumar snatched up the paper and unfolded it. It read:

  Father,

  Know, first, that I will never regret the decision to join you. However, I now find myself at a crossroads, and am uncertain which path to take. I will continue to aid the revolution if I am able, and will contact you again once I have determined where my steps will lead.

  Keep yourself safe. I am glad to have known you, and I am proud to be called your son.

  —Mevon

  Yandumar read it again, uncomprehending, then folded it up and tucked it away.

  “Look,” Orbrahn said. “We need to—”

  “Get out,” Yandumar said, low, firm.

  “But sh—”

  “OUT!”

  Never having witnessed his temper unleashed before, the two scrambled backwards, practically racing each other out of the tent.

  Yandumar fell to his knees. It was all for you. Everything I’ve done—every drop of blood, every vow, every deal with every devil—all to find you and bring you peace. Somewhere, I lost sight of that . . . and now I am lost.

  He bowed his head, closing his eyes. God, please watch over my son, wherever he is, and guide his steps. Bring him back to me. Please . . . bring him home.

  THE STADIUM LAY quiet and empty, dark under the blanket of night, but the stench of death lingered. Mevon sat, hidden beneath his cloak, on the balustrade encircling the upper levels of the Ropes, feet dangling over the edge, looking down into the pit of tar swelled by the rotting corpses of its victims. He found no joy it in, only a sickening sorrow, and anger burning like the sun.

  Getting into the city had been easy enough. Mevon used the contact information provided by Paen and met a man within the sprawl of ramshackle buildings outside the westernmost gate of Mecrithos. After providing the right passwords, he’d found himself tucked into a wagon beneath several layers of wine crates. Floods of the empire’s citizens crowded through every gate, fearing the clash to come, and guards did not have enough time to perform more than cursory inspections.

  Once inside the city, he’d come straight to the Ropes. He’d already made the decision to act—the atrocities committed here only served to fuel his fury—but he did have one more thing left to decide.

  Mevon looked south over the lower tiers of the city. At the base of the slope rested the wall.

  He looked north. Displays of wealth increased as his eyes trailed up the mountainside. At the city’s crown sat the Imperial palace.

  Should I aid the revolution by helping secure a foothold in the city? Or, cut straight to the heart of this empire’s corruption?

  Mevon looked south to north, back, and back again, frozen by indecision. Soon the sun would be up, and based on talk he had overheard from the guards, it looked like the end would begin with the dawn. He doubted he would have the strength for both tasks. He needed to decide soon.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  A lesser man would have jumped out of his skin. Mevon merely tensed, gripping the hilts of his daggers and jerking his head towards the voice. Beside him on the balustrade, twenty paces distant and unmoving, a figure stood. A black cloak covered his body, hood hiding its wearer’s features. His hands were visible, palms forward—a gesture indicating that he did not wish to appear threatening. Mevon could tell nothing else of him but that he had a shorter than average height and a softly coiled stance.

  Mevon felt a chill as he realized he hadn’t seen or heard the man approach. He himself had to scale a five-pace-high wall to ascend to his vantage. One couldn’t simply stroll up.

  Unless someone was very, very good at remaining silent and invisible.

  Adjudicator.

  Mevon relaxed halfway. If he was truly an Imperial assassin, then Mevon had little to fear. He knew the type—too reliant upon sorcery to be any serious threat to him.

  “By all means.” Mevon gestured to a spot of stone not too far away.

  “Thank you.” The man sat down roughly where Mevon had indicated, keeping his hands in sight. “Tonight is not a night to be alone, I think.”

  Mevon decided to play along. “Perhaps not. But I needed a place to clear my head. To think.”

  “I can see why you picked this place, then. I myself used to come h
ere often, for much the same reasons.”

  Mevon nodded. A moment of silence stretched between them that might have been awkward had he not felt so disinclined to speak. At last, however, curiosity drove him to probe.

  “So what brings you here now?”

  “Fate,” the other said. “But one of my own choosing. Which, I suppose, isn’t really fate at all.”

  “No.”

  “Call it . . . the end of a road, then. A long road. Made longer by each deliberate and often painful step along the way.” The man turned towards Mevon. “I’m sure you can relate.”

  “Yes,” Mevon said, fascinated. “Someone can claim to hold your leash all they want. But as long as we are free to choose according to our beliefs, then the path we walk is our own.”

  “Well put,” said the other. “And what path have you chosen?”

  Mevon didn’t have to think long. It could only have ever been one thing. “Justice,” he said. “You?”

  “Redemption.” The man sighed. “It turned out more difficult than I thought it would be at first.”

  “How so?”

  “Redemption for yourself is trying enough. But if you seek it for others? If the people you are trying to save are the very ones standing in your way?”

  “Ah. Much like trying to impose justice on those who have declared themselves above the law and have the power to stay up there.”

  “Indeed.” The man leaned back on his elbows, exhaling loudly. Mevon looked south. Then north. Back, and back again.

  “I sense,” the other said, “that you are struggling with a decision?”

  Mevon frowned. “Yes.”

  “I understand, I think. Obligations pull you in too many directions at once, and you find yourself in the middle, grasping at threads, and more often than not, failing them all.”

  “Exactly.” Mevon sighed. “Right now I have two responsibilities. One, to protect those I call friend and ally. The other, to cut out a source of corruption that plagues more than I could ever know. Alone, I will not have the strength to finish both tasks.”

  “What if you weren’t alone?”

  Mevon paused, considering. “What do you mean?”

  “I believe our goals may not be all that dissimilar, Mevon. Why not help each other?”

  “Perhaps. But first, we have a problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I never told you my name.”

  Silence. Mevon couldn’t even hear the man breathing. Then, his guest released a terse burst of laughter. “Right you are. I’m not quite as sharp as I once was, it seems.”

  “If you ever were.”

  “Oh, I had an edge to me once that cut most anyone that came near. But it came with a price. I thought I would have to pay that price again recently. Luckily, someone I love saved me from that fate.”

  “An edge would help right about now.”

  “It would. But I think, even dull as I am, what I bring will be enough. So long as we work together.”

  Mevon stewed. “Convince me.”

  “I notice you looking from the wall to the palace. I assume your responsibilities rely in those two places?”

  How the abyss could he tell where my eyes were looking? Mevon nodded.

  “I, too, have obligations to . . . take care of . . . at both locations.”

  “What obligations?”

  “On the wall are people who stand in the way of the redemption I seek. You see, I made them. Trained them. Quite literally wrote the book that they now follow. And they use the power I gave them for the wrong reasons.”

  “And you seek to put an end to that perversion?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Adjudicators.”

  “Ah,” Mevon said. “Then maybe you’re right. Maybe our goals do coincide.” He paused. “What about at the palace?”

  “As to that . . . let’s just say I have a feeling I will be needed there.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just that some players still have choices left to be made. Based on those decisions, my purpose will likely change.”

  Mevon didn’t think it much of an answer, but he didn’t feel like pressing the issue either. “Very well.”

  “And your responsibility in the palace?”

  “The primary target of my justice. And those that guard him. Those I feel compelled to deal with myself. My . . . peers.” Mevon grunted. “I once wanted to become one of them. It seems like forever ago, now.”

  “It’s funny, isn’t it, how that which once seemed like the most important thing in the world can become so hollow once our priorities change.”

  “No,” Mevon said. “Not funny at all.”

  “I know.”

  Silence descended, and they sat without speaking or moving for several marks. Mevon watched the eastern sky change from black to midnight blue. Time was running out. Without making any sudden movements, he stood.

  “I have one request,” said Mevon.

  The man stood as well. “Name it.”

  Mevon smiled. “Try to keep up.”

  He threw off his cloak. In one swift motion, he reached behind him, grasped the two halves of his Andun, and pushed the pieces back together with a click.

  The man hesitated only a moment before ripping off his own cloak, revealing blackened chain mail and bands of leather holding sheaths filled with daggers and throwing knives. Even in the gloom, Mevon could make out the pale, boyish face with lightless scales around its edges. Recognition bolstered the knowledge he already possessed.

  “Come, Draevenus. We’ve some cleansing to do.”

  THE STAR WAS all that he saw now. The void beyond might as well have ceased to exist, for all that Voren could discern it. No, the star filled all his senses from the moment he stepped into communion.

  All he could tell was that Gilshamed was close. Very close. And that he had not moved much in the past few days. He had begged Rekaj to begin searching the city but was refused. The emperor had not wanted to spook their prey into fleeing.

  Voren knew that, when the time came, the trap would shut swiftly, and any options he might have had would expire. And that there would be no time for words.

  This would be the only chance Voren had to say his peace. His only chance to defend his choices. And, maybe—if Elos answered even one of his prayers—to extinguish the fires of rage that had been burning against him for so long. He only hoped his old friend was of a mind to listen.

  Never was his greatest strength.

  Voren formed a body, took a deep “breath,” and brushed his consciousness against the star. Such as he could, he pulled back and waited.

  Almost immediately, the star began collapsing. Smaller and smaller it became, until shrinking to a point and vanishing without a sound. A few more beats, and a golden figure straight out of legend stood before him.

  “Hello, Voren. It has been awhile.”

  Voren gave his most gracious bow. “Councilor Gilshamed, greetings.”

  He straightened, noting the look of fury upon Gilshamed’s face.

  “After all this time . . . after what you did . . . you dare to make your first words to me a mockery?”

  Voren sighed. So that’s how this is to be. “No mockery was intended, I assure you.”

  “Forgive me if your assurances bring no peace to my mind.”

  Voren reined in his anger. Loosing it would do no good and would only hinder his chance to . . .

  Chance to do what? He still did not know what he hoped to accomplish. But arguing, surely, was the least productive way to get anywhere.

  “Please,” Voren said. “I did not want our reunion to be like this. I seek not a quarrel with you.”

  “You do not get to dictate terms, Voren. You lost that righ
t when you led our kin on that foolish, dangerous expedition against my explicit instructions.”

  “I was young.”

  “You still are if you think hiding behind pitiful excuses will do you any good.” It burned, how closely his words echoed Kael’s.

  “We were . . .” Voren paused, shaking his head. “It does not matter now, does it? We cannot change the decisions we made in the past, only strive to live as best as we can with their consequences.”

  “I am your consequence. One you have escaped for far too long.”

  “Is my death really so important to you that you would start a revolution, a conflict claiming tens, if not hundreds of thousands of lives already, just to see it done?”

  Gilshamed appeared to soften slightly. “The revolution was not for me. It was for the people of this land, to help them escape the yoke of oppression laid upon them by the mierothi. Even you should be able to see the need for that. Or have you truly become the emperor’s tool?”

  “No. I just thought . . .” I just thought to join you, once. But you made it clear that such a path was closed to me. “I just thought it all seemed too convenient, that you were using it solely to further your own goals.”

  Gilshamed frowned. “Perhaps I was, for a time. Perhaps I still am.” He chuckled, a sound holding no mirth. “Our kind have a tendency to do that.”

  “What? Use people?”

  Gilshamed nodded. “Without hesitation. Without regard for the consequences they will suffer.”

  “I know. It is the greatest fault of both our people and the mierothi. It makes you wonder. Perhaps sentient beings were never meant to live as long as we do.”

  “Perhaps you are right.” Gilshamed shook, as if remembering something. “But if there is one thing I have learned, it’s that people will not allow themselves to be used forever. Eventually, they will figure it out, and either turn on their manipulators, or—in extraordinary circumstances—actually take ownership of their actions . . . and accomplish wonders.”

  Is that how you justify all you have done? Voren did now know whether to be awed or disgusted by that. Then, he did know. His stomach turned as he took stock of his own actions and realized he was no better. We have more in common than you might believe, old friend.