NOVEL NEXT 62. War Room
Excerpt from ‘The Tenets of House Deepstar,’ author unknown.
“7. Give yourself wholly to the House, and by becoming it be strengthened.”
“As you know, we are here.”
The glimmering image of Highshine dominated the centre of the table, and everyone’s attention. No one spoke a word as the Head of House Deepstar laid out their plan.
“The plan is quite straightforward, with a minimum of moving parts and people informed for it to work. House Stormsea will be assisting us in this maneuver, but even they do not understand the full scope of our plan—this is intentional.”
Manipulating small cogs set into her side of the table, Aroearoe subtly altered parts of the magic circle—Yenna almost lost herself to wondering how the mechanism worked without disrupting the entire image, a marvel of engineering and magic combined. The image of Highshine shrunk as though they were rapidly ascending into the air, the motion momentarily hitting Yenna with a spike of nausea. Looking away, she could see similar discomfort on everyone else’s faces, with the exclusion of the Head and her daughter.
“We have promised House Stormsea a valuable artifact. Their part in this plan is to simply receive a gift and take it home. When they met us at Hilbar, they likely believed I held the artifact with me—they have no idea what it is, where it is, or why we’re giving it to them.” Aroearoe turned to Yenna specifically, the next part solely for the mage’s benefit. “The Head of a House must expect a trap when they see a fabulous gift, and I cannot say I wouldn’t have done the same.”
“It’s a bit cutthroat,” Eone snuck in a rakish grin, “But that’s how it goes up at the top. My favourite part’s the next bit.”
Aroearoe sighed, pages of history hidden inside that small exhalation. “Yes, quite. It’s why I asked for you in the first place.”
Gesturing back to the table, Aroearoe drew a glowing red line with her finger between what was unmistakably the city of Milur and a point by the coastline—as soon as she lifted her finger, the line suddenly contorted to match the twists and turns of a series of roads between both points, slotting in between mountains, valleys and forests writ in shimmering light.
“Seve Stormsea is a rather direct woman—her attempts to bring her own misfortune to me were about as direct as it gets amongst the heads of Houses. She will approach with her trusted officers, receive our gift and leave as directly as possible. The only place Stormsea will feel safe will be behind the walls of her home, so she will not bother to take a longer path in the hopes of not being found.”
Aroearoe turned a small knob and used the tip of her finger to tap several locations on the illusory map, placing little nodules of light on the highlighted road.
“Right now, our intelligence suggests that these cultists are doing their best to turn the Houses against one another. Stormsea will pass near to several strongholds of ostensibly rival Houses, and at each one is an ideal place for an ambush. Seve knows this, we know this, the cult knows this. What we know over the rest is that the cult does not attack randomly—they are very specific. Sergeant?”
Myuu gave a nod and cleared her throat. “The cult is uncanny in its ability to produce covers for their crimes. There is always reasonable doubt, probable cause for it to be someone else, even in the wake of leaving certain graffiti. Scrawled messages about the Word, nonsense in every capacity, but tucked amongst the kind of evidence that’s hard to falsify. There exists a rather sizable belief that the graffiti is being used as a cover for various families to engage in proxy war, pretending that another foe exists when it is all the usual theft of treasure and assault on important persons.”
Rather than manipulate the map, Myuu drew a small piece of cloth from a pouch at her hip. To Yenna it resembled a torn scrap of a sack, the kind you would transport fruits in, complete with the most fragmentary edge of writing. To her magical senses, it felt dully of Wrathful fire, tinged dark. The sergeant turned it over in her hand and the backside revealed a tiny message written in faint ink. The Word is the totality of totality.
It was the kind of rambling Yenna would associate with a cult, indecipherable to the sensible reader. Before the mage could contemplate it further, Myuu continued her explanation.
“This was left behind at the scene of a crime. The culprits had ransacked a ghellifruit¹ farm, apparently scooping up a majority of the prime pick of the harvest before setting fire to the orchards. This tiny scrap was found caught on the edge of a fence, as though whatever filled sacks the villains had used to carry away their ill-gotten goods had caught on the edge as they fled. It was perfectly placed for my peers to draw many conclusions—this was a farm held by House Gracewine, and the route taken to escape drawn by this piece of evidence pointed right towards the best route to reach a warehouse of House Ewergulf, their ancestral rivals. On this single scrap of cloth they fined House Ewergulf after they failed to turn over the stolen goods—which they did not have, of course. It was the perfect crime, despite the cult telling us explicitly who had done it.”
Sergeant Myuu looked around, pausing for dramatic effect. “There are countless crimes reported between Houses that are just the same—a plausible reason why one House might have attacked another, or stolen their goods, or done any of a number of crimes. The denials of innocent parties serve only to heighten tensions, leaving everyone wary and highly-strung. We know the cult wants to act in a way that causes this friction, though their end goal still escapes us. Regardless, we can use this to our advantage.”
Now the sergeant reached across the table, a nigh imperceptible sideways glance at Aroearoe for permission—the Head gave a miniscule head motion, highlighted by the chains hanging from her two-pronged horn, and Myuu proceeded to draw a glowing circle onto a patch of terrain. Yenna quickly re-acquainted herself with the area—it was just shy of a day’s travel out of the city, a bit less on Chime’s back.
“Right here is the domain of House Shalefree. Despite some distance between territories, the head of House Shalefree has a well-known grudge against Seve Stormsea—I’m not particularly sure of the exact reason why, but it’s no secret that the pair hate each other. Stormsea’s shipments that pass through Shalefree territory are often exposed to delays in the forms of unnecessary inspections, military posturing, all that kind of political nonsense. No offense, Head.”
“None taken—it is all quite nonsense.” The faintest glimmer of a smile graced Aroearoe’s lips as she leaned forward against the table—Yenna’s eyes acquainted themselves with illusory mountains to keep her mind from a certain valley.
“Stormsea will be tight-lipped about their cargo—the last thing they want is everyone to know they’ve got something worth risking open hostilities for. However, House Deepstar will not be.”
Eone gave a sharp laugh, abrupt enough for Yenna to jump.
“Ahh, look how magnanimous House Deepstar is, granting gifts to their lessers!” The captain gave a horrid smirk, her voice mockingly grandiose. “A gift to match our wealth—a show of power, and a huge painted target over the head of poor Seve Stormsea. Head Shalefree herself would charge into a Stormsea shield-wall butt-naked if she thought she could steal it out from under them.”
“I, erm, hate to ask,” Yenna nervously raised a hand, “But what exactly is this cargo, that you’re so sure that everyone would want it?”
All eyes turned to the mage, and she immediately regretted speaking up. Eone seamlessly took the heat off of her.
“Yes, mother,” the captain grinned, not without a bit of venom, “Just what treasure of House Deepstar are you wagering on this little plan? One of those awful paintings? Some enormous gemstone, kept dusty for a rainy day–”
“I am giving them the Starbearer.”
All of the colour and bravado rushed out of Eone’s face. Muut, who had been serenely silent this entire time, straightened up in wide-eyed rigidity. The rest merely looked confused.
“M-Mother?! Please, tell me you’re joking?” Eone was suddenly pleading. “A rare moment of levity? You’re not seriously granting House Deepstar’s greatest treasure to a woman who tried to have you killed just for the sake of a ploy, right?”
“It must be irresistible bait. There will be no second chance with this plan.”
Eone looked like a puppet with her strings cut, suddenly lost for words. At her side, Muut held back some choice words with sheer strength of years of practice being Eone’s attendant. An awkward silence filled the room, the desire for context burning on everyone’s lips—Yenna desperately wished to know, but did not want to be the person who asked. Aroearoe took the silence to mean she could continue explaining the plan, leaving Eone and Muut silently fuming.
“The cult will strike under the guise of an attack by House Shalefree, without doubt. We will have our ambush waiting to meet theirs—taking them by surprise, we will take from them the location of their leaders, their safehouses, their hidden domains. In one way or another, they will tell us.” The Head’s tone could have turned water to ice in an instant.
Sergeant Myuu picked up the explanation. “With that information, we can strike a full-scale assault. We wipe out their leadership, pull them out by the roots. Without whoever or whatever is coordinating them, disparate cultists will inevitably wither away or burn out. Exposed, the Houses will realise their common enemy, and the full might of Milur will fall upon them like scourging sunlight.”
The remainder of the meeting was on more specific points—the exact locations they would prepare their counter-ambush, who and what they would bring, the role Eone and crew would play. Most of the military strategy flew over Yenna’s head, but she caught the general idea. The expedition crew was meant to be the spearhead, to strike at the enemy once cornered by Deepstar forces. If pursuit was necessary, Chime was equally the fastest and sturdiest means of making chase, and with the amount of skilled warriors on-side there was little doubt that they would be successful.
Still, it felt a bit too optimistic for Yenna’s taste. She wasn’t sure if perhaps she was missing some crucial link in Aroearoe’s strategy, or if the woman was genuinely over-extending here—the entire plan hinged on far too many probable events, as opposed to certain ones. It was probable that the cult would go for this bait, highly likely even, but it was also possible that they struck actual members of House Shalefree, or found no one at all—only for the cult to strike elsewhere. And what of the interrogation? What was to say that House Deepstar could pry the secrets out of people who, to Yenna’s knowledge, had willingly given up some part of themselves to become beasts? Were they even capable of speaking, or were they puppeted by some mastermind instead of being coordinated?
Doubts swirled in Yenna’s mind, her thoughts wholly consuming her as the planning went ahead entirely without her. No one asked the mage for tactical advice, and the Head of House Deepstar trusted her own augur for simple specifics of a magical nature. It wasn’t until Eone clapped a massive hand to Yenna’s thin shoulder that she realised that nearly everyone had left.
“Inspecting the table?” Eone gave a grin, though it faded as Yenna shook her head.
“S-Sorry, no—I’ve memorised the design for later analysis, but no. I was stuck thinking–”
“That this plan’s a little shaky, yeah?”
The captain quickly peeked her head over her shoulder, making sure the room had truly emptied out—Yenna’s reverie was sharply cut away by the swoop of Eone’s sword-horn in that motion.
“H-How did you–”
“You’re clever, Yenna. You may think you haven’t got a clue when it comes to stuff like this, but I think I’ve figured out when the cogs are turning back there. Besides, I think my mum’s playing at something here. I mean, the Starbearer? Talk about a gambit.” Eone ran a hand through her hair, her fingers dodging the cutting edge of her horn with practiced ease.
“If you don’t mind my asking, what is the Starbearer?”
“Ah, let’s get somewhere more comfortable and talk, yeah? I’ve just the place you’d like to visit.”
—
Eone could not have chosen a better place to lead the mage. Stepping through a pair of ornate stone doors, Yenna gasped, all the doom and gloom in her mind chased away with a simple display of House Deepstar’s material wealth.
Before Yenna was an enormous, immaculate library. Soft charcoal-black carpet muffled the sounds of the mage’s tentative hooves as she took a few steps into a veritable treasure trove of learning.
“Oh. Oh dear. Oh.” With her heart beating wildly, Yenna could only make vague, breathless gasps and the merest hints of lucidity. It was like a place from her dreams, towering shelves filled with well-kept tomes, scrolls, tablets, everything Yenna could ever hope to read and more. Behind her, Eone gave a smug chuckle.
“All the Deepstar wealth is worth something, eh? Welcome to the Highshine Library, an unfortunately exclusive club. I’ve always been tempted to just sneak all the books out and give ‘em to people what’d read them, but then I wouldn’t be able to catch your expression. If only I had a painter! …Hm, I actually probably could find a painter…”
Yenna stopped gawking to boggle wide-eyed at Eone, earning another squawk of deep belly-laughter.
“I’m kidding, Yenna! Mostly. Anyways, while we’re here, help yourself—we don’t ride out until tomorrow, so consider it my apology for throwing you in the deep end.”
“I really don’t know what to say,” Yenna sighed, mildly overwhelmed. “Do you have books on Miluran magic? Magic foreign to Milur and Aulpre? Any magic books at all?”
“Ah, well, probably? I’ve found a few dusty old tomes in my travels and thrown them in the heap,” Eone made a throwing gesture that left Yenna cringing, “So there’s bound to be something. Why don’t you ask the librarian?”
Eone looked up—a rare sight, for the incredibly tall yolm to mention a person and look upwards. Yenna felt a cold sweat on the back of her neck at the idea of a real giant working in the library, handling miniscule books between her pinched fingers. To her relief, Eone had been gazing up at a figure clinging to a ladder up the top of an exceptionally high shelf of books—another silupker, an odd figure not unlike a spider or a crab. Thin, multi-jointed limbs terminating in small two-fingered grips sprouted out of its ovoid body, several of them filled with books it was carefully re-arranging. Yenna would have loved nothing more than to have spent the rest of the night practicing her silupker language with the librarian, but she forcibly reminded herself to finish her conversation from earlier.
“So,” Yenna covered her awkward conversation restart by finding herself and Eone a place to sit down, “What is the Starbearer?”
Eone flopped down into a soft, old armchair, while Yenna contented herself with the softness of the carpet. The captain gave a small sigh, a wry smile on her lips as she stared at the roof.
“It’s a weapon. A really, really old one. The bloody start of House Deepstar.”
“A… weapon?” Yenna could feel the strain in Eone’s voice. The captain wasn’t one to shy from violence—she had seen the woman far too eager to dive into a situation with her sword drawn to imagine her a pacifist by any stretch of logic.
“The thing about empires is that you’ve generally gotta convince everyone else you’re worth listening to—gotta have the most stuff, the most people, or the biggest stick. Turns out, the best way to get the most stuff and the most people is also to have the biggest stick, so it’s lucky for that distant Deepstar that she struck more than gemstones down in that ancient mine. What she found was a tool for making people listen, of making people hand things over. She said it was a gift from the gods. I think it was left by something truly evil.”
Yenna had never seen the captain look so weary, as though just thinking about the thing was as exhausting as a full day’s work in the mines. The mage waited as Eone let her statement linger, allowed her to muster up the energy to keep talking.
“It’s a cross between a hand-cannon and a magic wand.” Eone gestured with her hand at the size as though holding it—barely big enough for her. “You point it at something, you thumb the piece of metal that causes whatever inscrutable mechanism it hides within to work, and whatever it’s pointing at ceases to exist. No flash of gunpowder, no scorching light or crackle of magic, just– pop. Gone. Wood, stone, metal, flesh. Nothing left behind. The very thought of using it on a person sickens me in a way I’m not entirely sure I can explain.”
“I… I think I understand.” There was nothing glamorous, or merciful, or even morally conscionable about killing someone, no matter what way it was done. But the very thought of a person being there one moment and simply ceasing to be the next triggered some primal revulsion, some animal fear of the dark and unknown.
“That thing is sealed away in a vault for a reason—it should never again see the light of day, or touch living hands. Ugh, I can’t even begin to imagine what my mother is thinking, risking such a thing.”
Eone suddenly shook her head, as though shaking off a particularly troublesome insect. The captain gave an odd waving gesture, a declaration that she was done, and was all smiles once again.
“That’s quite enough of that, then. There’s one more reason I brought you to the library, Yenna. You wanna know what’s right next door?”
The mage’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of Eone’s enormous grin, the casual showiness of a thumb pointing over her shoulder. Could it be…?!
“Whenever you’re ready, Mage Yenna, you can head on into the research chamber.”
¹ - Ghellifruit is a rather temperamental fruit, grown atop tall, slender trees and famous for the extremely sweet wine that can be produced from it. Difficult and time-consuming to grow and harvest, each tree produces only a handful of fruits once a decade. With the price of each individual fruit measured in leaves, farming ghellifruit can lead to massive profits if one is willing to stomach the enormous financial risk.
