Book II. Chapter 81: Just a short trip |
“There was unrest on the streets of the Tend last night. Tanavir Milovsky was brought to the capital to stand trial. Regular readers of my column likely know this name, and for those of you encountering the political section of the Imperial Herald for the first time, allow me to share the biography of this individual.
Tanavir Milovsky once worked at one of the largest steelworks in the country, which is situated on the shores of the River Sea (editor’s note: this is the longest lake on the Western Continent, located in the Empire’s southwest). Tanavir Milovsky is thirty-two years old, married, with six children. On its face, this is the perfectly normal biography of an ordinary engineer. And it was, right up until the socialist party known as the ‘Disciples’ entered Tanavir Milovsky’s life. The central tenet of this party, which is gaining traction among young people employed in the sphere of minor intellectual labor, is the abolition of voting qualifications.
The ‘Disciples’ champion the idea that every citizen of the Empire, regardless of their property holdings calculated in exes, level of education, whether they have relatives in the Army, or their personal service to the Empire, possesses an unconditional, inalienable right to participate in elections from the moment they turn sixteen and receive their state citizenship papers.
I should note that the ‘Disciples’ base their platform on how the Confederation of Free Cities does things—at present, it is the only country on the planet where the right to vote is inalienable for every citizen.
I hasten to observe that the ‘Disciples,’ including their leadership and press secretaries, cannot withstand scrutiny regarding the fact that the Confederation relies entirely and utterly on its monopoly over access to the Shallow Seas. Their industrial production sits at the same level as the Principality of Foria, which possesses six times less per-capita potential. In other words, the Confederation’s wealth and prosperity are reliant upon their status as a trading port the size of a country. Naturally, due to perpetually balancing on the blade’s edge of political intrigue, temporary geopolitical alliances, and attempts at survival, they are directly interested in diluting the core electorate in order to maintain the hereditary class’ grip on power.
Dear readers, one should not be deluded into believing that expanding the electorate (in the Empire’s case, it would go from fifteen million votes to nearly three hundred and ten million) would somehow enrich our lives. Especially considering the fact that the country’s illiteracy rate still hovers around the ten percent mark...
Simply imagine the scenario in which the ‘Disciples,’ should they enter a coalition with the remaining socialist parties, manage to force their initiative through all the Chambers of Parliament. What then? If we extrapolate the data, then out of three hundred million votes, thirty million would not even be able to read the ballot, the newspapers, or the electoral platforms. Even the most ordinary pamphlets would remain arcane knowledge to them. Knowledge that would, naturally, be passed along by word of mouth. Passed along by who? With what aims? What motives?
I reiterate: thirty million illiterate voters is precisely double the current number of voters.
Yes, obviously, the fact that one needs to qualify in order to participate in the Empire’s political life is a rather vestigial measure, and something will need to be done about it. However, I will also remind you that, originally, only representatives of the aristocracy, the nobility, and the officer ranks of the Army could vote. The criteria have been greatly expanded over the past century.
What currently unites the entire constellation of disparate socialist parties? They all wish to demolish this qualification. The only difference is the degree and depth of demolition, and the ‘Disciples’ have gone further than all the others and seek to eliminate all restrictions entirely.
Here, my dear readers, one could speculate at length about how the existence of the qualification criteria benefits the aristocrats, the magnates, and the Crown, while their absence would benefit the opposition directly and would allow them to dilute the vote count and thus advance their chosen proxies.
All of this, again, is pure speculation.
Early in his reign, His Imperial Majesty decreed that the criteria would be reviewed and expanded over time, but so long as the blood of the Agrovs endured, they would never be abolished entirely. This likely cost His Imperial Majesty some standing in certain circles of the Empire’s citizenry, but on the whole, it aligns with the political course of Emperor Pavel the Fourth.
Thus, I emphasize: relying exclusively on the words of His Imperial Majesty, one may conclude that the socialist party known as the ‘Disciples’ has come into direct conflict with the word of the Emperor himself.
And when it comes to this sort of thing, one must find the strength to set aside their personal opinion. Do you agree that those with no connection to the Army should make decisions capable of influencing the military outcome of political conflicts? Do you agree that someone who barely completed the mandatory six years of schooling should cast a ballot on equal terms with you? Do you agree that an illiterate person can even understand what is written on the ballot itself? Forgive the repetition. Do you agree that a forty-year-old voter with twenty years of experience, someone who has seen and endured everything life has thrown his way and who has managed to meet the current criteria should have his vote weigh the same as that of a sixteen-year-old youth? The kind of young person who cannot yet articulate what a political course consists of—let alone what politics is in the first place?
Yes, of course, one can always argue that the aristocracy and nobility possessing the right to vote as a birthright runs contrary to any logical justification for the criteria’s existence. And with each passing decade, it becomes harder to counter that argument. I am entirely in agreement.
All of these and many other spiritual anguishes are quite clear to me. Some are even personal. As history has demonstrated, any revision of the criteria inevitably leads to unrest among those who meet it. Such democratization of the vote, according to the concerns of the Grand Magisters’ Lodge, could lead to a point where Parliament is no longer populated by the most competent politicians and lawmakers, but by those whom the masses find sympathetic. As we can observe in the case of Tanavir Milovsky himself—the crowd is not always favorably disposed toward the specialist over the loudmouth and the populist.
Mr. Milovsky organized a cell of the ‘Disciples’ that was not registered in the Party Registry, and was therefore illegal. Milovsky incited them to stage a strike in order to shut down the factory and thereby, in his own words, demonstrate the existence of the power held by the common folk. And if the common folk possess a direct sort of power, then no one has the right to strip them of the ability to express their will through a direct vote. This is a literal quote from the ‘Disciples’’ own pamphlet.
Mr. Milovsky did not coordinate his protest with the representatives of the Workers’ Guild, and he did not inform the factory management. All of this led, snowball-like, to an avalanche of events in the course of which riots broke out. In the end, several officers of the Guard Corps were injured, as well as approximately ten workers.
The detained Tanavir Milovsky was convicted on a number of charges, the most serious of which was ‘unlawful actions that endangered lives and resulted in death.’ He was then sentenced to life imprisonment in a labor colony in the northwestern Alcade, where the former engineer was supposed to mine ore and fell timber until the end of his days.
Some might consider this too lenient a punishment for such reckless actions, but not certain residents of the Tend, who attempted to free Mr. Milovsky during his transfer last night.
As a result, mass riots erupted in the Tend, and the city was compelled to enlist operatives from the Black House to resolve the problem. Only the appearance of the gentlemen in black coats managed to ‘put out the fire.’ Regrettably, the victims of this clearly premeditated action done by the ‘Disciples’ number, according to the latest reports, nineteen people, including several children. Among the casualties was the prisoner being transferred.
Whether this was an attempt to transform Tanavir Milovsky into a martyr or something else will be determined by the inspectors of the Guard Corps and the investigators of the Second Chancery. What is already clear is this: a trial will follow. And should the court find the ‘Disciples’ party guilty of what occurred, it may become the first banned political party in the Empire’s history, and all its members will be required to undergo the process of interrogation.
What does this tell us, dear readers?
Fifty years ago, when Parliament, in a slew of reforms that also curtailed the rights and funding of the Black House, established the legality of political organizations, the Grand Magisters’ Lodge issued a report on the potential danger of this decision.
Regrettably, at the time, His Imperial Majesty, the father of Pavel the Fourth, who’d only recently taken the throne, did not heed the Grand Magisters’ report. It is difficult to blame him for that—at the time, everyone and their brother was mocking that report and accusing its authors and signatories of opportunistic sentiment and fearmongering.
Shall we lay those newspaper clippings upon the coffins of those who died last night in the Tend? That way, they might be comforted to know that the consequences of a decision made half a century ago were ‘opportunism and panic’—and not a sentence deferred by several decades.
History will tell.
Reporting done by:
Senior Magister of Military and Historical Sciences,
Nalim Movarsky.
Note:
The opinion of the author may not reflect the opinion of the editorial board.”
Ardan set the newspaper aside and wiped his lips. At what point had the young man begun taking an interest in politics? He actually hadn’t. He had simply needed something to wrap the root of Laughing Nettle in—the Ley-analogue of common nettle with an anti-inflammatory property that was many times more potent. And the name itself—Laughing Nettle—had come about because the toxin, upon breaching the skin, caused a contraction of the facial muscles that outwardly resembled a smile.
Ardi might not have read the article at all were it not for the fact that he’d recognized the columnist’s name. He had already read one of his articles several months ago while waiting for an audience with the Governor-General of Shamtur, Reish Orman.
“Fifty years...” Ardan whispered to himself.
He and Milar had sometimes discussed whether the Puppeteers might have had a hand in the weakening of the Black House. And if that was the case, what was their motive? Alas, the conversation would reach a dead end every time. He and the captain (and a significant portion of the Second Chancery assigned to the case) couldn’t even make sense of what was happening right now, let alone a question from half a century ago.
“The way you’ve set yourself up here is not bad,” Bazhen drawled as he descended the stairs leading into the basement.
Shuffling along, gnawing on an apple, and keeping his coat wrapped around him like it was an ancient tunic, he wandered among the tables.
“Just don’t touch anything,” Ardi pleaded, noticing the keen interest with which Bazhen was examining the alchemical apparatus.
“For the record, cowboy, I’m two years ahead of you,” Bazhen grimaced. “And I’ve passed all my exams. Granted, I’m not studying under Kovertsky, but not everyone was as lucky as your year.”
Ardan had already discussed this on multiple occasions with Boris Fahtov and Elena Promyslov-Fahtov, thanking fate that the stars had aligned in such a way that their year had been assigned some of the best professors at the Grand. Perhaps they weren’t the very best, but certainly somewhere in the vicinity of such a lofty pedestal.
“Then tell me what I’m doing right now.” Ardan stepped away from the table, giving Bazhen a chance to examine his preparations.
In the middle of the week, they had made their purchases on Sleepless Street (spending nearly a hundred and fifty exes across various shops), where, thanks to Ardan’s skills as a Speaker, they had been able to select the best... of the worst. The young man always marveled at how, given the quality of goods on Sleepless Street, the Firstborn Quarter was still standing. It should’ve been blown up ages ago.
And so, for the third day in a row now, Ardan had been restoring tinctures, mixtures, elixirs, and salves that had emerged from the laboratories of half-trained amateurs—however snobbish that assertion might sound.
“I’ll tell you without even looking, cowboy.” Bazhen bit into his apple and smirked brazenly. “You’re getting on my nerves. And you’re remarkably good at it, I’ll grant you that. You’d pass an exam in tedium with flying colors.”
Ardan closed his eyes and, for several moments, breathed slowly and calmly.
“Thinking about hitting me again?” Bazhen asked in an innocent tone.
“To be perfectly honest, Bazhen, I always want to hit you after the first two minutes of talking to you.”
“Two minutes?!” The future jurist exclaimed. “You’ve got nerves of steel! Most people last about fifteen seconds.”
Ardi waved him off and returned to the glass that had the concentrate of Laughing Nettle root slowly dripping into it.
“Alright, alright,” Bazhen acquiesced and stepped closer. “You’re making something anti-inflammatory, right? Something... for injuries?”
Ardan cast a skeptical glance at the representative of the Grand’s fourth year. On the one hand, the requirements for practical and theoretical examinations at the Jurisprudence Faculty were arguably even lower than those at the History and General faculties. But... Bazhen still held a staff in his hand, and a spellbook swayed at his belt. Then again, if one recalled Mart Borskov, it all fell into place.
“I am restoring a Ley-salve meant to deal with skin inflammation caused by the body’s reactive response to an irritant.”
“And you couldn’t just say ‘anti-allergy ointment…’ why?”
“I could have,” Ardan nodded. “But then you wouldn’t have gotten annoyed.”
Bazhen thought it over for a few seconds and nodded.
“Fair enough, cowboy, fair enough... So, how’s progress? I don’t mean the ointment, but progress in general.”
After shutting off the gas valve of the burner beneath the apparatus and covering the glass of extract with a gauze “cap,” Ardan moved to his workbench. All their “equipment” had been acquired, as they’d agreed on, at the flea market, bought for the lowest prices they could find. The quality naturally corresponded to the ksos and rare few exes they had spent.
Nearly getting a splinter in the process, Ardi picked up several low-quality, brown sheets of paper from the tabletop.
“I have, in terms of per-unit consumption, cold remedies for forty-two people, remedies for-”
“Ard, by the Eternal Angels!” His business partner cut him off and tossed his apple core into the bin. “I didn’t want details! You could have just said: ‘Everything’s fine, Bazhen. We’re afloat.’”
Ardan silently counted to five, then said, very nearly growling:
“Everything’s fine, Bazhen. We’re afloat.”
“Wonderful, cowboy!” Bazhen clapped him on the shoulder, which very nearly caused Ardi to start practicing bear wrestling on one exceedingly insolent law student.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Why have you come?” Ard asked, setting aside his notes. “There’s no work for you here yet.”
“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, my dear partner,” Bazhen wagged his index finger, all the while eyeing the rows of vials filled with various remedies. “Remember how we wanted to buy a batch of slightly-spoiled Diver whiskers from a half-blood on Sleepless Street?”
Divers were a particular breed of chimera created during the war between Ectassus and the Empire that had long since been reclassified as natural Anomalies. They actually had nothing whatsoever to do with water, but rather, they were related to... earth. They resembled a cross between a mole, a beaver and a humanoid, and they could easily move several meters beneath the surface. Of their entire anatomy, the most valued part were their whiskers, which were used for creating pills that elevated nitrogen concentration in the body. In other words, they were a medicine that enhanced masculine vitality and cardiac function.
Such a product was in high demand at establishments like the Crimson Lady’s (former) cabaret and the Black Lotus because it lasted an astonishingly long time.
“He didn’t just sell it to you.”
“Exaaaaaaaaactly,” Bazhen drew out the word, tapping his fingers on the cheap cauldron in which an herbal infusion for sore throats was simmering. “I’ve negotiated a sale. One kso for the entire lot.”
Ardan narrowed his eyes.
“And what are the conditions?”
“We need to visit him at home,” Bazhen finally straightened up and returned to Ard’s table. “He lives north of the city, in a small Firstborn settlement. It’s two hours by car.”
“You have a car?” Ardan asked immediately.
“I do,” Bazhen answered calmly, as though they weren’t discussing something worth hundreds of exes. Then again, Ard was somehow not surprised. “So, if you’re not too busy with your nettle, let’s go.”
Ardan sighed and looked up at the ceiling. There, among the rotting boards they had painstakingly cleared of mold and cobwebs, the young man tried to find an answer to one simple question: how had his path through the dream of the Sleeping Spirits gotten twisted in such a way that he was now working alongside Bazhen Eorsky on a shared enterprise?
Even serving in the Black House, when compared to this partnership, didn’t seem quite so strange.
“Bazhen.”
“What?”
“A lot is seven hundred and fifty grams of ground whiskers. Even accounting for the lack of freshness and a loss of nearly a third during sifting, that’s still half a kilogram of product.”
“Yes, I know basic arithmetic, cowboy. You’re not the only one in the Metropolis with that gift.”
“Is that so? Wonderful.” It seemed to Ard like all his sarcasm and cutting wit had been forged exclusively by his dealings with Bazhen. “Now calculate what that comes to in exes.”
Bazhen shrugged.
“Since your arithmetic is failing you, I’ll spell it out for you: three hundred and seventy-five exes. You and I were looking to buy an amount exactly ten times smaller than that, so, Bazhen, please enlighten me: what does Mr. Nalail want from us if he’s offering us that kind of money?”
Now done with his tirade, Ardan crossed his arms over his chest. In his own mind, he looked if not fearsome, then at the very least angry. But Bazhen simply regarded him with that same light, needling smirk as ever.
“When Mr. Nalail’s long ears caught your surname, Ard, he contacted me this very same morning to make this tempting offer,” Bazhen answered, inexplicably buffing his fingernails against the sleeve of his jacket. “He needs your help at his home. The home we could have been driving to for the past five minutes.”
“Help?” Ardan asked in surprise. “What kind?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Bazhen!”
“I’m serious, cowboy.” This time, Bazhen did actually sound serious. “I haven’t the faintest idea. But he said you’d understand once I explained things.”
“Well then, perhaps you should explain?!”
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to do, you towering, fanged blockhead!” Bazhen snapped back in kind and, clearing his throat, continued more calmly. “At night, his home reeks of sulfur. There. That’s all he said. Utter nonsense, if you ask me. What does sulfur have to do with problems with his daughter? Nothing about it makes any sense... Hey. Heeeey. Cowboy!”
Ardan flinched and snapped out of his thoughts.
“You actually got something out of that?” Bazhen asked with a degree of bewilderment in his voice.
He could be forgiven for that. Despite everything, Bazhen was still a fourth-year student, which meant that he had already sat through at least six semesters of lectures on the History of Magic and General Knowledge. Bazhen was sharp enough to grasp that such a request, given the emphasis on Ard’s surname, could mean only one thing—a problem that fell within the domain of the art of the Aean’Hane. And the Grand’s lectures could offer the jurist nothing on the subject. And so, he was now getting nervous.
“What else did this half-elf mention?” Ardan asked, taking his coat off the hook and heading for the stairs. “Besides the smell of sulfur.”
After going up the narrow staircase where the air reeked of damp wood, rat droppings, and the despair of the previous tenants, they went into a small room. It was currently empty, but in the future, they planned to build several cubicles for a manager, a bookkeeper, and a staff break room, just like at an Manish’s company.
“Something about his daughter complaining that she’s had nightmares these past few weeks,” Bazhen listed. “She’s lost weight. Gone pale. And she’s cold all the time.”
They crossed a corridor where the floor groaned, and not just because of the rotting floorboards, but also the unfulfilled hopes of the builders, then emerged into a spacious main hall. At least that was what he and Bazhen called the space that had previously stored what had clearly been rancid herring. Neither magic, nor a dozen kerosene lamps, nor the windows being wide open this entire time had conquered the smell.
There remained only the hope that, over the next month or so, the suffocating stench would dissipate. Besides the lamps, several tables that served as a counter had already found their home here, along with a cracked graphite board and a pair of barrels upon which they could display a few vials of the most popular and cheapest goods. After all, setting them down on the floor was hardly an option.
As for the second story, they had not even gone up there yet. The roof didn’t leak, and that was good enough.
“Anything else?”
“Eternal Angels, Ard! If you know something, then ask directly! Spare me this mysterious and enigmatic cowboy brooding of yours.”
Ardan muttered something unintelligible in a blend of the steppe orcs’ tongue and Ralian dwarfish.
“Has the girl been talking to someone the adults can’t see? Maybe she’s acquired a companion? A friend?”
“No idea,” Bazhen repeated. “But I’m very alarmed by the specific nature of your questions.”
Ardan had to admit that he was unnerved as well. Could it be that, as a result of the Puppeteers’ activities, Homeless Fae had begun manifesting in the vicinity of the capital—ones that had long been forgotten here? Perhaps... or perhaps the half-elf, due to the unsettling news headlines, had blown the problem out of proportion.
It might not be a Homeless Fae at all, but a vitamin deficiency and heightened fatigue compounded by the peculiarities of a body in which human blood had mixed with that of the Firstborn.
“Did you drive here?” Ardi asked as they stepped outside.
“Naturally,” Bazhen replied, fishing out some keys from his coat pocket and pointing to the vehicle parked at the curb... An “Entio.”
Ardan very nearly forgot how to breathe. The “Entio” was one of the rarest automobile brands in existence. It was so rare that even in Baliero, one seldom encountered them. This was because the starting price was a staggering twenty-three hundred exes per unit, often climbing far higher than that. With an elongated body, a low roof, and a complex exhaust system, the car could reach a positively monstrous one hundred and ten kilometers per hour.
In plain terms—it was a very expensive form of suicide or, should one really mess up, a way to commit mass murder of pedestrians and fellow drivers alike. The thing was practically an artillery shell on wheels.
In the entire country, there were no more than a couple hundred “Entios.” And likely just a few dozen in the rest of the world.
“If you’re planning to ask me where it came from, I won it from my father in a wager,” Bazhen answered the unspoken question, stowing his staff in a special compartment. “But I thought you didn’t know anything about cars, cowboy.”
“Boris Fahtov is on the waiting list for one of these,” Ardan said, folding himself into a triple contortion as he climbed inside so as not to graze anything. “He talks about it often.”
Ardan chose not to mention that Boris was on the waiting list for several cars simultaneously. Boris’ passion for automotive engineering was rivaled only by his obsession with Magical Boxing.
“Lord Fahtov? On a waiting list?” Bazhen turned the ignition key, and for an instant, Ard thought that the engine was about to explode—so loud and guttural was its roar. “With his money, Lord Fahtov could simply buy the ‘Entio’ design bureau and factory outright.”
Ardan looked at Bazhen in surprise.
“Ha! Eternal Angels, cowboy—how much money do you think your friend actually has?”
Ardi had always suspected that Boris possessed more exes than one could readily imagine (he was, after all, according to Milar, among the wealthiest residents of the Empire), but therein lay the trouble. Ardan could not fathom such sums because he had never dealt in them. For him, even ten exes was a considerable amount. And this was despite the fact that, for some time now, he had been earning rather decent money even by the Metropolis’ standards.
“Upon returning from the Lich’s crypt, his mother didn’t simply allow her fortune to sit idle.” They were gradually heading toward the main and, incidentally, sole avenue of the Firstborn Quarter.
A grand total of seven streets that could support vehicles branched off from it, and their warehouse sat on one of them. All the remaining space had to be traversed on foot.
Bazhen really hadn’t been lying when he’d said that he had found the best location one could wish for.
“Lady Malesh established an investment fund, the legal matters of which, by the way, are handled by my father’s firm.”
“Sleeping Spirits!” Ard exclaimed, and before he could continue, Bazhen voiced his thought for him.
“The world of serious money is even more cramped than the world of the aristocracy, my cowboy friend... But that’s beside the point. Lord Fahtov has, on paper, enough exes to... oh, I don’t know... fund his own small army? Purchase a tenth of the Taian Principality? Buy a couple of islands from Lintelar?” They pulled onto the sole automobile bridge leading into the Firstborn Quarter. “In short, whatever you might have assumed about your friend’s fortune, Ard—if he liquidated all his shares and assets, multiply that figure by a minimum of three.”
Turning toward the window, Ardan began to wonder: was there a connection between how actively Boris attended the meetings of socialist parties—not to mention how eagerly they recruited him—and the resources his friend commanded? Or was this merely the Black House influencing his thinking, aided by newspaper articles?
Thoughts for another day.
Right now, the young man was far more concerned with the bridge that was under construction and that they were driving past.
“How did you come up with this?” Bazhen asked, following the direction of Ardan’s gaze. “I thought you were going to build a pontoon bridge—that’s why we bought the pilings.”
“A pontoon bridge would be fine, too,” Ardan nodded, “but it looks unreliable.”
Dozens of orcs wearing nothing but sturdy work pants and undershirts were laboring over the construction of the crossing. At the shore stood a truck with a portable generator that the welding equipment was drawing power from.
The process, which had proceeded without breaks for meals or sleep, was advancing at a rather impressive pace. The orcs were hauling out the pilings and lowering them into the water, but not before first sealing both of their openings with homemade cap-stoppers. Thanks to their hollow structure, the pilings could float calmly on the surface, and then, at the right moment, the cap would be opened, the piling would drop to the bottom, and a sheet of metal would then be welded onto it. Felt coated in boat tar would then be placed on top of that, with empty barrels along the sides for temporary stability, and once the tar had set, the boards would be nailed into place.
In this manner, the bridge was being built relatively quickly, and thanks to the bay’s shallow depth, it did not require any superhuman effort. The pilings, after sinking into the silt, would hold by virtue of their own weight, and the water itself would keep them vertically “aligned.” Structural integrity was being provided by the metal welded across the top, and the barrel-buoys distributed along both sides of its entire span ensured that it would remain stable and not fall apart due to heavy vibrations.
Yes, this solution was decidedly temporary and wouldn’t hold for more than a few years—sooner or later, it would need to be replaced with something sturdier and more monumental. But...
Those were thoughts for another day.
“What did you promise them, cowboy?”
“A discount,” Ardan answered lightly. “Twenty percent on all orders for one year.”
Bazhen grumbled unhappily.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Ard, because our margin is twelve and a quarter percent at best.”
“The discount is only for those working on the bridge,” Ardan quickly clarified, “and everyone they bring in-”
“You put a lot of faith in the power of word of mouth,” Bazhen interrupted. “Even if they start hollering about our apothecary in the middle of a square in broad daylight, it’s far from certain that anyone will come, cowboy.”
“Someone…” Ardi deliberately stressed the word. “…will definitely come. That way, we build the bridge, gain free advertisement, and attract the first buyers for your—as you put it back at the ‘Eltir’—turnover on paper.”
Bazhen glanced sidelong at Ard, who continued to stare out of the window, gazing at the cityscape that had long since become familiar to him.
“Be honest with me, Ard—how much of everything you’ve proposed and done so far was your own idea, and how much of it came from a certain shrewd Overseer of the Orcish Jackets, whom the guards have been trying to send to a penal labor camp for several decades now?”
Ardan only smiled and said nothing. In the end, he had figured out how to build the bridge himself, and that was worth a lot in his opinion.
“I see,” Bazhen drawled.
They fell silent. The capital drifted past them outside. It was currently wrapping itself in a worn-out, moth-eaten autumn coat. It was dusted with the dirty slush that clumped up in piles at the curbs; worn through in places by the tangle of Ley-cables, streetlamps, and smoking workers patching the gaps in the asphalt and cobblestones; and it reeked of tobacco, diesel, expensive perfume, and the coffee over which freezing citizens warmed their fingers in cafes and restaurants.
The city was preparing for the approaching winter. In just a couple of weeks, the snow would cease to melt during the comparatively-warm morning hours. Soon, the cold would transform the black river and its canals into a frozen, snarling beast bristling with jagged blocks of ice. Unlucky passersby would inevitably slip on the sidewalks, the number of automobiles on the roads would dwindle to a tenth of their previous multitude, and the volume of tram breakdowns would have even the draft horses howling as they’re brought in to clear the jams.
But oh, how many lights would blaze through the endless night when the sun begins to visit the Metropolis for only a few hours each day. How the festive shop windows would sparkle, how the domes and roofs of palaces would glow, how the colorful building facades would be framed by a play of shadow theatre, and how pleasant it would be to bundle up in warm clothes, wandering the streets where an entire forest of breath-columns would blossom from the hundreds of thousands of inhabitants.
Ardan loved the winter, which was perhaps unsurprising when one knew where he had spent the greater part of his life. But in just a year and a half, he had learned to love not only the snow-capped peaks of the Alcade, but the frost-laced, endless windows of the Metropolis as well.
The young man smiled and, after settling into a more comfortable position, closed his eyes.
* * *
Ardi was awoken by a violent lurch of the car that very nearly introduced his nose to the dashboard. Shaking off the remnants of sleep, he looked around.
They were in... a field covered in wet snow. It was at the foot of a small hill, atop which, in the center of a broad clearing, stood a house. It was large enough to shelter several generations of a single family and striking enough to pass for the work of an architectural firm rather than a simple engineer.
On three sides, it was enclosed by a low stone wall, and in the front, there was only a wooden fence, without so much as a gate.
Around the field, which resembled a smooth, snow-white lake, rose the forest through which the only road ran. Or rather, it wasn’t even a road, but a deep rut covered with gravel.
“We’re here,” Bazhen wiped his sweaty brow. “No way I’m ever driving out of the city in this contraption again…”
Ardi smiled faintly. He recalled Tatyana, the maid at the Anorsky estate, and how she’d told him about “shoes not meant for walking on the street.” Apparently, when it came to the truly wealthy, such a thing as automobiles not meant for driving on anything besides the fresh asphalt of Baliero and the New City also existed.
“It’s a wonder we made it here at all,” Ardan exhaled, struggling to open the door, which neatly sheared off a mound of earth.
By the look of things, they had gotten thoroughly stuck, and Bazhen had spent some time pressing the gas pedal, only to sink the wheels deeper into the muddy mire.
“In the woods, it was dark and the road was frozen there,” Bazhen grimaced and also retrieved his staff from the compartment and stepped outside.
The frosty air nipped lightly at Ardan’s face, and rather dense wisps of steam escaped his mouth. The farther one ventured from the city with its factories, automobiles, generators, and millions of citizens, the sooner old Mother Winter claimed her rightful domain.
Closing the door, Bazhen pulled a warm blanket from the rather small trunk and draped it over the hood. In winter, the vast majority of car owners had to do the same thing, with the exception of those who owned the very newest models. Apparently, the “Entio,” despite its majesty, was not particularly resistant to frost.
“Stupid heap of junk,” Bazhen kicked the tire with the toe of his shoe.
“If you hate it so much, why not give it back to your father?” Ardan asked.
“He’d waste it by having a chauffeur drive him around,” Bazhen shrugged. “And this way, it’s a reminder that I won our wager. And don’t look at me like that, cowboy. I have a perfectly normal relationship with my father. Not like your friend, Lord Fahtov. We simply disagree on what I ought to be doing with my life.”
“Is that why you serve in the Second Chancery?”
Bazhen turned sharply toward Ard and let out a rather unpleasant snort:
“I’m busting my precious backside in that fleapit because my dear papa shoved me in there.”
Ardan was halfway convinced that his eyebrows very nearly touched his hairline—so high did they leap.
“Ha! Got you, didn’t I? Not everything can be figured out by that investigator’s block of yours, eh?” Wrapping himself tighter in his coat, Bazhen, leaning on his staff, was the first to begin climbing the hill. “Let’s go.”
Ardan started. All this time, he had assumed that Bazhen had become a Cloak as something of a protest against his father—one of the most prominent lawyers in the capital. But the truth had turned out to be the exact opposite, and... on the whole, that explained a great deal. It especially explained why he was so flippant about being a Cloak and often did his work if not half-heartedly, then without any excess zeal.
But if one recalled the conversation between the elder Eorsky and his wife, which Ardi had had the misfortune of accidentally overhearing while they’d been boarding the ill-fated airship, then Bazhen’s studies at the Grand...
“It’s none of my business,” Ard reminded himself.
He soon caught up with Bazhen, and after several minutes of enduring clinging lumps of mud that hopelessly soiled their coats as they climbed up, they reached the summit. From there, a rather pleasant view of the field and forest greeted them, making the choice to build a house here seem a lot more sensible. And the presence of a garage annex (formerly a stable), in which a stout little truck rested, explained how the occupants got around.
“Hold on,” Ardan seized Bazhen’s shoulder just as the latter was about to cross the invisible threshold.
“What is it?” Bazhen asked.
Without answering him, Ardi opened his grimoire to the page bearing the seal for the Demon Search spell and, with a heavy heart, struck his staff against the ground.
A red-and-black seal flared beneath his feet and... nothing happened. So why was Ardan not particularly relieved?
As a consequence of his suspension from active duty, he had lost not only a rather substantial portion of his finances, but also—far more painfully—access to military accumulators.
The crystal that had been issued to him for the mission at Angel’s Tear was in the crown of his staff, and his only remaining military accumulators were in his rings. He had one Red Star and one Green Star accumulator left. That was precisely why Ardi, contrary to military doctrine, had just spent rays from his own Stars first, rather than the borrowed ones.
“And?” Bazhen asked without any mockery—rather, there was a certain tension in his voice that trembled ever so slightly.
“Nothing.”
“Well, praise the Light,” Bazhen exhaled with relief.
Ardan looked up at the topmost, second floor of the richly-decorated facade. He would very much have liked to offer Bazhen something equally optimistic and reassuring in return, but he could not.
With every step that had brought Ardi closer to the hilltop, he’d winced more sharply at the suffocating reek of sulfur. And now, standing at the invisible boundary, he could feel the tingling in his fingers. Goosebumps marched in orderly rows along his spine, and his gums ached where his fangs strained to push through.
He might need to rewrite the Demon Search seal, because whatever was taking place inside this lonely house made it clear that they hadn’t come here in vain.