by E. M. Hardy
She nodded absentmindedly, all signs of her earlier distaste at the torture replaced by the empty glaze of her eyes as she pondered the situation.
“Take for example the operation at Yan Bao, where three agents spread rumors to lower the guard of the governor at the time. Or the ambush against the former General of the Black Turtle Guo Zhenya, where three cells of four Rats each spread out among the Khans to convince them to rebel against the Empire.
“And then Okuda reveals a network containing at least three dozen ranking agents, planning to directly attack the Empress during her wedding?”
She refocused her attention back to Cui Dai. “I see your concern, honored master. It is very uncharacteristic of the Rats to suddenly switch course, decide to attack the Empress on their own. But this torture… no, will Okuda reveal anything more than he already has over the past month?”
Cui Dai fought down the smile threatening to break through her grim façade. The young historian always did have a knack for study, preferring to pore through scrolls and texts instead of sharpening her fieldwork.
Her talents as a sahir and the unique way she viewed the world made her a valuable addition to the Balancers. Just not as a field agent. She was far too soft and empathic for the cruel work required.
But perhaps as an archivist or an investigator… yes, that would be the best way for her to serve Her Augustness among the ranks of the Balancers. She never did manage to rid herself of that idealistic and academic streak of hers, despite volunteering for the militia during Inagaki’s rebellion.
“Perhaps, my apprentice.” The Balancer agent mentally kicked herself for allowing sentimentality to bleed through the tone of her voice, even going so far as to call the girl ‘her’ apprentice. She thus flattened her tone to neutrality, turning away from Yao Xiu to fix her hair into a bun.
“Nevertheless, we no longer have any more leads to follow. Okuda’s network is the only one we have left, but every member seems to have cut and run. I am not comfortable leaving a small army of Rats to do as they please, waiting to react instead of hunting them down.
“This is why I will authorize the torturers to keep working on Okuda until he either dies or tells us more about this network of his.”
Cui Dai knew that standard torture protocol was to dispose of the victim after extracting the information they needed. Only her rank and the fact that they had no other Rat agents to ‘work’ convinced the torturers to keep breaking Okuda down day after day.
She heard Yao Xiu gulp at her declaration but kept her own silence. Cui Dai’s bond with her jinni thrummed with a hint of displeasure, and she shot a warning glance at her bonded partner.
Enin made it abundantly clear to Cui Dai that she did not approve, but she honestly didn’t care. The security of the Empress mattered more than the pain of an enemy agent planning to assassinate Her Augustness.
“What if…” Yao Xiu suddenly cut in, her tone thoughtful. “What if the Rats have something else planned?”
“Something else?”
“Yes,” the girl clarified with a half-hearted nod. “What if this supposed attack against the Empress is a feint? A… distraction of some kind?”
Cui Dai snorted at the idea. The Rats invested significant amounts of resources to plan this attack: a multitude of Rats converging around the Red City right before Her Augustness’ wedding, collecting crystals and weaponizing them, training under Martin’s obelisks to empower themselves, scattering to the winds when their operations at the warehouse district were discovered, Okuda so fervently insisting on an attack on—
“Repeat that again, junior Balancer.”
“Ah? Uh, um… what if the Order of Rats is… is only pretending to attack the Empress?” Cui Dai remained silent, her expectant glare focused on Yao Xiu.
“Um… those crystal bombs are powerful enough to damage many other things. A military garrison, a critical bridge, a busy marketplace…”
“Or an unguarded pyramid,” Cui Dai blurted out, interrupting Yao Xiu.
The inept smuggler giving herself away at the Continental Bridge, the uncharacteristically stubborn ambush set up in the warehouse sting, the way the Rats vanished over the past few months despite all the heavy-handed security measures taking place around the Red City… the odd pieces of the puzzle clicked together now that she had an idea of what the Rats were trying to achieve.
Yao Xiu acted first, tossing down the wet towel wrapped around her neck, donning her featureless Balancer mask before hurrying out of the training grounds. Cui Dai and the two jinn looked at one another, confused by her sudden departure. It only took a moment for Cui Dai to guess what her young apprentice was planning to do.
She gave herself a wipe one last time then donned her mask once again before striding out of the enclosed training yard. Both Inqiz and Enin disappeared into the Invisible World, hiding their presence to prevent people from associating them with their bonded partners as masked Balancers.
She first scanned the night skies, seeing no eyeballs she could call, before following the faint tracks of dust left behind by her apprentice’s training garb. The trail ended inside the hallways of the Imperial Palace, causing Cui Dai to groan in annoyance.
Yao Xiu should have been more socially adept, more aware of her position than this. Anything connected to Martin, however, sent the young girl into a frenzy.
She honestly believed that he and his constructs were the best hope against these so-called ‘invaders’ he kept harping about. Cui Dai didn’t think she would do something stupid… no, in this situation, she would definitely do something stupid if given the chance.
At least the girl didn’t barge into the inner halls reserved for Her Augustness and royal dignitaries. Her footprints ended around the outer hallways used by guards and servants.
She caught the attention of a nearby servant, calling her out more roughly than she intended. The suddenly pale-faced woman stumbled, regained her footing a moment later, before responding.
“Yes, esteemed Balancer? How may this humble one help you?”
“Pardon the urgency, loyal retainer, but have you seen an apprentice Balancer pass by?”
“Yes, esteemed Balancer. She… seemed to be headed toward the gardens, I think.”
“Thank you,” Cui Dai responded with a curt nod, rushing off without waiting for the servant’s reaction. She stormed her way toward her intended destination, very nearly knocking an expensive vase over in her rush.
She spotted her quarry out on the manicured gardens, who stalked up to a walker chatting amiably with Prince Suhaib. The Empress’ consort-to-be seemed jittery, not surprising considering his upcoming wedding in a few days. Proper decorum told her to wait until the two were finished with their conversation, but Yao Xiu ignored all that as she walked straight into them—barging right into their discussion.
Martin quickly spotted Yao Xiu as she rushed toward his walker. He must have sensed her urgency, for the walker quickly straightened up from its formerly relaxed posture. “Yes, Balancer? Is there something wrong?”
“Your Highness,” Cui Dai curtly said as she stepped in beside Yao Xiu, gripping her previously-broken shoulder with fingers that dug viciously into the meaty flesh. “Please forgive this humble one’s abruptness.”
“But master, I—”
“Shush. There is a time and a place for everything. This is not one of those times.”
“No, please. It looks like Yao Xiu has something important to say,” Prince Suhaib said, nodding his head as he caught on to the girl’s urgency. He stepped back but did not step entirely away from the conversation.
Cui Dai grimaced from behind her mask. Yes, the prince was familiar enough with Yao Xiu to identify her by her voice alone. The girl was most definitely not cut out for fieldwork, at least not on anything involving stealth or subterfuge.
She released her vice-like hold on Yao Xiu’s shoulders, silently permitting her to speak now that the prince gave
his consent. Yao Xiu breathed a sigh of relief and turned to face the walker in front of her.
“Martin, the Order of Rats might be targeting one or more of your pyramids. All the evidence the Balancers found points to an attack against Her Augustness during her wedding, but it is entirely possible that all this is just a misdirection.”
Cui Dai winced, hearing Yao Xiu say it out for the first time. The idea sounded so urgent, so dangerous when the thought first crossed her mind. Now that she had a few moments to think about it, the threat sounded much less credible and more fanciful when blurted out loud.
Martin’s walker, however, simply stood still for a moment. The construct’s stillness told Cui Dai that he was off somewhere, his attention focused across the countless constructs under his control. He ‘came back’ a few seconds later, shaking the walker’s head.
“My walkers and eyeballs see nothing, Yao Xiu.” Cui Dai knew that Martin already identified her as a Balancer, associating a name with her face and her voice. This, even without the prince calling her by name.
Yes, she was definitely going to put the girl somewhere behind a desk where she couldn’t risk compromising any other agent with her bumbling ways.
“Then again, I’ll have to admit that I don’t have as many eyeballs and walkers hanging around my pyramids as I normally do. Most of them are down south in the fight against the rogues, and the rest of my reserves are around the Red City watching out for a possible attack by the Rats.”
“And that is why we suspect that the Rats may actually be moving against you,” replied Yao Xiu. “The Rats have been dropping obvious hints that all indicate an attack against the Empress, yet we have only managed to hit one of their assets in recent months—the raid in the warehouse district of Wu Er.”
“Yes, I remember that,” Martin said with a nod. “That’s where we got the idea for crystal bombs, yes?”
“Indeed. That’s also where the Balancers walked right into an ambush—which was strange in the first place.” Cui Dai sighed and decided to grin from behind her mask. The little historian spoke with far more confidence than she had a right to possess, and she decided to back her up on her hypothesis.
“They knew we were coming, had enough time to plan such an elaborate trap, yet they chose to fight instead of making their escape. That is not the standard operating procedure for the Rats. No, they usually do their best to slink away to sabotage another day. They wanted us to find those bombs, to realize their threat to the Empress, while they’re busy working on something else.”
Martin hummed with his walker as he mulled over Yao Xiu’s words.
“Let me get this straight,” Prince Suhaib interrupted, stepping into the discussion as he scrunched his face into a tight expression of concern. “Are you telling me that the plans of these Rats to kill my wife-to-be are just a decoy and that she doesn’t need to be protected?”
Yao Xiu leaned forward to give her reply but Cui Dai stepped in before her apprentice could say something she would regret for a long time to come. “No, Your Highness, far from it. The safety of Her Augustness is still our top priority and we are doing everything we can to ensure that the wedding ceremony concludes without a problem.”
She inhaled deeply, deciding to irreversibly commit herself to Yao Xiu’s cause at this point. “However, my apprentice here does put forward a credible if unsubstantiated hypothesis. The Rats have made it abundantly clear that they are targeting the Empress, but they could also use their crystal bombs to theoretically strike any other target they want.
“They know security will be extremely tight around the Red City, so they could hit other targets while everyone’s attention is focused on your grand wedding with Her Augustness.”
Yao Xiu stared at her from behind her mask, the girl’s eyes shining with admiration. Cui Dai wanted to poke those shining orbs out for forcing her to commit herself, but she settled for ignoring her apprentice as she focused back on Martin’s walker.
“Be wary, Martin. These crystal bombs aren’t the only things that the Rats have developed. They could have discovered other techniques while meditating under your obelisks. An enhanced ability to blend into the shadows, for instance. They’ve always been good at sneaking around, but their new talents of late are simply on another level. They might even have sharpened their shadow-walking to the point where they can hide their auras, and—”
Cui Dai never finished her sentence as the walker in front of her dropped noiselessly to the ground. Its limbs locked into a death-like rictus, hardened ceramic cracking the tiles it landed on.
“What… Martin, what happened? Martin? Martin!?” Yao Xiu shouted out in an increasingly alarmed tone, panic washing over her as she knelt over the fallen walker. Inqiz, Enin, and even the Prince’s red jinni Uhi shot out from the Invisible World, their ethereal auras crackling with energy. They quickly shot their gazes to and fro with alarm before focusing on the sight before them.
“Oh no,” Uhi blurted out as she took in the walker’s lifeless, rigid form. Enin and Inqiz just floated nearby, too shocked to say anything else.
The hairs on Cui Dai’s neck stood on end and a surge of cold shock arced through her body, but she fought the reaction down and knelt beside her apprentice.
The walker’s ceramic skin felt cold to the touch, as to be expected, but the limbs no longer shifted when she tugged at them. No energy flowed through its hollow shell, reduced to a stiff lump of clay. No chi, no prana, not even the strange signature that Martin called pnevma.
The walker lay there just like a statue toppled over—static, unmoving, dead.
Screams flared up from all over the palace, followed by the gongs signaling a general alarm from the Red City. Cui Dai clicked her tongue and placed a firm hand on her apprentice, shaking her out of her stupor.
“Up, apprentice. We have business to attend to.”
“Business? Master, I can’t believe… yes, master.”
Cui Dai nodded her appreciation, grateful for Yao Xiu recovering quickly enough. She gave one last glance at the ceramic corpse still lying on the floor as they walked briskly toward their intended destination, ignoring the chaos that slowly descended upon the city as more people discovered fallen constructs.
***
Okuda chuckled softly at first, then proceeded to malicious cackle before devolving into a series of uncontrollably hysterical howls of laughter.
Cui Dai was not in the mood for the man’s levity and quickly silenced him with a chi-fueled punch to the gut. Okuda grunted from the blow and gurgled in pain for a bit before proceeding to laugh as madly as before.
She gifted him a few more punches to the stomach, a hook to the lips, and a kick to the nuts, yet he still kept chortling like a toddler given the greatest gift in the world.
“Heh… hehe… hehehe… they did it… they actually managed to pull it off… HAH!” The man’s triumphant shout irked Cui Dai more than she wanted to admit, but his one statement told her all she needed to know about the involvement of the Rats in this matter.
“After all this time, after all the SHIT I had to deal with just to keep you people off-guard… they did it. They… actually… did it…” The man was so pleased with himself that he slumped down on his chains, nodding off into oblivion.
She would have none of that, which is why she quickly injected him with life-giving chi before slapping him back to reality.
“Details,” she demanded. “What did your people pull off?”
Okuda spat at her mask, an action which she rewarded with a head-butt to his face. She didn’t bother to heal the blood flowing freely from his nose. “Details. What did your people pull off?”
Still dazed, Okuda shook his head and was promptly rewarded with a fierce kick that broke the bones in his leg. He screamed in pain, and Cui Dai broke his other foot when he attempted to laugh in her face.
“Details. What did your people pull off?”
His refusal to give her a st
raight answer prompted her to repeat the question three more times— breaking something different each time.
“How in the hells should I know!?” Okuda screamed out as Cui Dai was poised to pop another bone in his toe. “My cell thought the bitch on her paper throne was the target! She was just—” He howled out in pain as Cui Dai ground the bone on his toe to dust with a single swing of the torturer’s hammer.
“You will address Her Augustness with respect. Now… continue.”
“The… empress was our target,” gasped Okuda, all traces of gloating gone from his voice. “My cell was instructed to guard a trove of new weapons, with our lives if necessary. There would be no retreat, no relocating, no surrender. We would hold as long as we could, fight back as savagely as we could manage. We weren’t even permitted to destroy the crystals! Just… fight back with everything we had until another cell came and gave us further directions during the Empress’ wedding.”
He shook his head at that. “We stuck to our duties, believing we would die a glorious death taking down the Empress with us. We were apparently the sacrificial lambs, however; the bright lanterns distracting you lot and blinding you from the shadows moving behind your backs.”
“And?” she said, still tapping away. “We already know that much. Give me something new, something useful, to pay for a quick and painless death. Otherwise, you’re going to be the lucky soul who will ‘instruct’ the next three, maybe four or even five generations of Imperial torturers.”
Okuda gulped loudly at her demand, though Cui Dai didn’t really care much. Okuda was a dead man, and the only reason he was still breathing at that point was because of what she wanted to know.
“We saw how Inagaki Shogun died—burned down by those infernal insects. We knew then that it was only a matter of time until the Shogunate fell, so we hid as deeply as we could. We blended in with the cowards serving under the false Shogunate, the traitors in the Sahaasi… we even infiltrated the ranks of the Imperial guards just to train under the shadow of the demon’s obelisks.