Of Dawn and Darkness (The Elder Empire: Sea Book 2) (25 page)

He took another bite of his fruit sandwich. It was a Vandenyas-style breakfast, which tended to be heavy on bread and fruit, but he’d been up most of the night fielding visitors. Apparently the highest levels of the Capital didn’t feel like he was worth visiting until after he’d made his first public appearance.

In mid-sentence, Teach cut herself off and turned to face the door. Calder hadn’t heard anything, but he still reached beneath his absurdly oversized robes for the hilt of his cutlass. Just in case. Teach had her hand on Tyrfang, so there must be at least some kind of threat.

An old man in an Imperial Guard uniform burst through the door an instant later, gills flapping on the sides of his throat. He didn’t wheeze or pant with exhaustion, though he leaned his hands on bent knees. “Guild Head. We’ve just confirmed the report. Mekendi Maxeus is dead, and one of his properties has been burned to the ground.”

Calder dropped his breakfast, his drowsiness and Teach’s lectures forgotten. He’d thought the most important thing he had to deal with today was the aftermath of his speech, but this news would completely overshadow his performance.

Which was good; he thought he could have done better, given another chance.

As soon as he recognized the direction of his own thoughts, he was disgusted with himself.
What’s wrong with me? A man is dead.
A man who had supported him, though they certainly hadn’t been friends.

He wasn’t exactly grieving, any more than he would cry for the death of a stranger. But he had known Maxeus, had seen him just last night at the banquet hall, and now the man was gone. It was a heavy weight, and the loss of any life should deserve mourning.

But he let himself move on after only an instant. Someone had killed the Head of an Imperialist Guild, and there was work to be done.

“Did we capture anyone?” Teach asked, already walking for the door. Calder followed her.

“All enemies withdrew,” the old man said, falling into step with them. “So far, eight Magisters have made witness statements. They all agree that it was a pair of Consultants, one of whom looked like she may have had Kameira modifications, and one Soulbound.”

Teach slammed the door open one-handed without pausing her stride. “Do we have any former Guards who defected to the Consultants?”

“None that I’m aware of, but we’re still looking into it. The statements conflict, and there are Witnesses looking over the scene now, but a few points are very clear. The Guild Head offered the Consultants a chance to leave in peace, but they responded by attacking him. This is clearly an act of aggression on the part of the Consultant’s Guild.”

Calder thought back to his own experiences with the Consultants, from Shera fighting him on the deck of his ship to Meia coming out of nowhere to defend him. Aggressively confronting a Guild Head was well in character for them. Doing it openly, where there were witnesses around and Readers could investigate…

That didn’t sound like an official action of the Consultant’s Guild.

Mekendi Maxeus’ mansion was on the fringes of the Capital, with just enough space between it and the surrounding houses that it didn’t feel like it was on a busy street. Rather than one building, it looked like a complex of simple, square houses all stacked like blocks around and on top of one another, as though the mansion had grown from a small township all fused together. The grounds made the word “mansion” appropriate: they were immaculately tailored, with rows of shrubberies giving way to a pair of massive tiger statues by the main entrance.

Across from the mansion was the still-smoldering skeleton of a building. It sat in a pile of ash, its burnt and cracked innards exposed, a tower of smoke reaching to the clouds.

When Calder’s carriage rolled up to the wreckage, a crowd awaited him. Teach dismounted first, scanned the crowd, and forced everyone three steps back before she would allow Calder to exit the carriage.

He left with as much dignity and solemnity as he could muster, considering that he felt like tripping over his voluminous robes. Everyone bowed to him, but they were speaking to Teach: giving her their rendition of events, asking for support, demanding justice, simply trying to get her attention. Judging by the staves they carried, they were all Magisters.

The mighty Emperor descends, and no one notices,
Calder thought. He considered doing something to capture their attention, but it would no doubt seem like the petty action of a boy. He didn’t need to do anything to make him seem even younger.

So, instead, he slipped off to examine the burned building. It seemed to be a warehouse, considering the large open space and the remnants of crates and barrels, which led him to immediately wonder why the Head of the Magister’s Guild needed a warehouse across from his home. Did he expect to need eighteen pounds of salted tuna in the middle of the night?

Calder tried to get a sense of the Intent, but it was far too weak and muddled to give him any useful picture. That was normal. A building wasn’t like a small tool; it gained Intent only slowly, over years of use. No one focused on a warehouse as they used it, no one noticed it, and as a result its investment was weak. The fire hadn’t done it any favors either. The destruction of its form would also lose much of its Intent, leaving very little for Calder to see.

As he moved around one still-standing patch of wall, he came face-to-face with Meia. She was dressed all in black, as usual, and had knelt to inspect something she’d found on the floor. A needle.

“This wasn’t a Consultant assignment,” she said, without looking up.

“Were you riding in the carriage with me? I know you’re good, but if I didn’t see you from six inches away, I’ll be
really
impressed.”

“A Consultant is always where the job requires her.”

He hadn’t expected an explanation. “You’re sure that your Architects didn’t authorize this?”

“I checked at the chapter house. According to the official story, the team was only approved for Shepherd work. Reconnaissance, tracking, observation. No direct aggressive action.”

Calder looked around at the smoking ruins of the Magisters’ building. “Well,
someone
took some aggressive action. And the Magisters say it was you.”

When Meia didn’t respond, he looked over to her, only to see that she’d vanished. Seconds later, he found out why: Jarelys Teach was marching up to him, trailing men and women in robes and staves.

“It’s not appropriate for you to be alone out here, sir,” she said. She didn’t look straight at him, keeping her eyes on the crowd, but he heard the rebuke for what it was.

Calder didn’t acknowledge it. “The Consultant’s Guild didn’t officially sanction this.”

“The Guild also doesn’t openly recognize that they employ assassins,” Teach responded. “But that doesn’t stop them from doing so.” She didn’t ask where his information came from.

“We have to respond to this.” He wanted her opinion, but he couldn’t be seen asking for it. Not with all these strangers around.

“Yes sir, we do.” She gestured with one hand, and a handful of nearby Imperial Guards began moving Magisters back. When they were out of earshot, she continued, her voice low. “Our course of action is obvious, and I’m sure my fellow Guild Heads would agree with me. We have full justification for an attack on the Gray Island. The Consultants attacked and killed an allied leader without provocation, and the Witnesses will corroborate that. It’s exactly what we wanted: an excuse to attack them as soon as possible, but keep the public opinion on our side.”

Calder nodded absently as he thought. There was still something strange about all this.

“I’ve already sent a messenger to Captain Bennett. The hour
The Eternal
is seaworthy, I want to load up the entire Navigator’s Guild with as many soldiers and Guards as we can and head straight for the Gray Island. The longer we delay, the more likely that Estyr Six herself will get involved.”

Still, Calder didn’t speak.

“If we act immediately, we can remove one of our strongest enemies before the Regents even know we’re moving. The situation is very clear.”

“Except that it’s a trap,” Calder said, finally.

Teach’s hand twitched up toward her shoulder at the mention of a trap, seemingly on reflex. “All our information suggests that it was a mistake on the part of the Consultants. A botched mission combined with a Soulbound who lost control.”

“There’s only so much coincidence I’m willing to accept,” he said. “First, the Independents find out about Alagaeus’ death
weeks
before they should have, and they publish it in the news-sheets. It forces us to hunt for an excuse to attack. Then, only a few days later, the perfect excuse drops out of the sky and lands in our laps.”

“If you’re suggesting the Consultants manipulated events to that degree…if they were capable of coordinated action on that scale, they’d rule the world.”

“I don’t think it was the Consultants that set the trap.”

The Elders had a plan. Their actions with the Optasia, the Emperor’s death, the steadily growing conflict between the Guilds…If the Great Elders weren’t pulling the strings, they were at least enjoying the show.

Teach stepped closer, lowering her voice even further. “It’s fine for you to express these doubts to me privately, but keep them away from the public. We need to make sure that people see you and the Imperialist Guilds as one and the same.”

“I understand, but the confidence of the people isn’t our biggest problem. The Elders are involved here.”

“The Great Elders have a plan. They
always
have a plan. We fight back by facing them head-on, and not hanging back in fear because they might—”

Teach snapped around, staring at the section of wall. Her hand was already on Tyrfang’s hilt, though Calder hadn’t seen it move. She seemed transformed, like a lion poised to pounce, her Intent sharp and focused.

With hardly a second’s hesitation, she lashed out with Tyrfang’s power.

A lash of dark power flickered out, like a whip-crack of shadow. It blasted the top half of the wall to rubble, striking the figure that had been crouched on the other side. Calder had managed to deaden his senses before the attack, because he’d seen it before: the corrosive Intent would have left him with nightmares for days.

Teach leaped, clearing the remaining wall in one bound, and slammed into the ground. She stood over the crouching figure with her blade ready to draw.

“Remain on the ground. If you attempt to stand, you will be executed. If you speak without permission, you will be executed. If you draw a weapon, you will be executed.”

The injured woman coughed and started to crawl out, so Calder caught a glimpse of blond hair and orange eyes. Meia.

“Stop!” he ordered, walking forward to make sure that Teach didn’t strike again, but one look at her face told him it wasn’t necessary. The Guild Head was even more shocked than he was, her face going pale.

“Meia?” Teach asked.

Meia raised her head and tried to speak, even as blue scales popped up irregularly over her skin. She finally hacked out a breath and collapsed, breathing heavily, her muscles squirming on their own beneath her black uniform.

“She’s been working with me,” Calder said hurriedly. “She protected me from the Champion, and I suspect she’ll soon join my crew. She’s on our side.”

Teach looked at Meia as though staring through a window into the past. “Could be she is. But the last time I saw her, she…”

The general let the thought trail off. When Imperial Guards came rushing over to tend to their Guild Head, she ordered them to load Meia back into a carriage and take her to the palace. “Full alchemical recovery,” Teach instructed. “The palace staff knows her, they should know how to deal with her enhancements. Three sets of eyes on her at all times. Any mistakes will be personally addressed by me.”

Teach and Calder rode back in the carriage behind Meia. They’d seen what they needed to see in Maxeus’ warehouse, and now they were faced with a decision.

Namely, whether to declare war on the oldest Imperial Guild.

General Teach was totally certain of her opinion. “Decisive action here could prevent a full-scale war. If we destroy the Consultants, we destroy the capacity of the Independent Guilds to organize. In the best-case scenario, we may even be able to get the Architects on our side.”

Cheska Bennett seemed to agree. “Once
The Eternal
is back in the water, I’ll lead the attack myself. This is what we needed.”

As for Bliss… “I have supervised the repair of the Optasia. As far as we are capable of determining, it has sustained no permanent damage. It’s in swib-swab shape, as you sea captains say.”

Calder exchanged a look with Cheska. “No one says that, Bliss.”

“I see the books have misled me. I will be rid of them.”

Bliss didn’t have much to contribute to the ongoing discussion, but her presence gave Calder an excuse to leave. While Cheska and Teach discussed the logistics involved in a coordinated assault on the Gray Island, with Bliss providing the occasional observation, Calder slipped away.

The Optasia was unharmed.

He hadn’t gone back to see Jerri again, but the last time he did, she had insisted that he
needed
to use the throne. Since the device was the only reason the Imperialist Guild Heads had allowed him to assume the role of Imperial Steward in the first place, he could reasonable assume that they wanted him to use it. So one way or another, he was going to end up using the Optasia. He might as well get a look at it first.

On the second day since the sky cracked, Calder changed back into his old clothes—pants, jacket, sword, pistol, and
at last
a hat—and met with Andel and Foster. Together, they would go test the Optasia for the first time.

“Why us?” Andel asked, as they moved toward the Emperor’s old quarters. Life in the Imperial Palace hadn’t changed him at all: he was still wearing the pure white of a Luminian Pilgrim, the silver sun emblem hanging on his chest.

“I’ve asked myself that question every day for almost ten years, Andel,” Calder responded, adjusting his hat.