Fortress Al-Mir

“Regrettably, none of the nabbed notables were notably high-ranking.”

Arkk turned away from Savren, looking at the two bound sailors they had rescued from the wreckage of the warships. One’s head lolled to his side as if the muscles in his neck just wouldn’t work properly despite his best attempts. A long string of drool hung from the bottom of his chin. The other looked more aware, but was caught in a loop of rocking back and forth. At least as much as she was able with the ropes tying her to the chair.

Their state disturbed Arkk. But it was his doing. His order. He had told Savren to get as much information from them as quickly as possible. Savren had no qualms about obliging.

“What did they know?”

“I presume you are probing particulars of the war and not wasting whiles on worthless wonders.”

Arkk shot Savren a glare. The warlock, while running a hand through his greasy hair, simply shrugged. “Yes,” Arkk said. “I’m not asking what they had for breakfast.”

“Dried fish and cheese,” Savren said as he held out a long piece of paper.

Arkk looked down at it, finding a list of prepared responses neatly organized by priority. Although Arkk thought he had gotten quite adept at piercing the meaning of Savren’s words through his curse, he was always happy to remove ambiguity through the written word, which was not affected by Savren’s curse.

He leaned back against the wall as he perused through.

Both were soldiers of the Eternal Empire. Arkk had never heard of such a place. It sat across the ocean, far to the north. Savren included a few small details of their homeland. Arkk skimmed past. He wasn’t interested in their culture or culinary preferences. Perhaps when they weren’t attacking him, he would be more interested, but for now, he was far more interested in what they could do.

The woman, Porcia ‘Chain’ Catena, was a canoness. And a cannoneer. As a canoness, she was some kind of religious leader for the ship. They did not worship the Golden Good, Heart of Gold, or any variation that the Golden Order revered. Rather, they simply believed in a figure known as the Empress.

Presumably the head of their Eternal Empire.

As a cannoneer, she was adept at wielding the warship’s broadside cannons.

The man, one Titus Bellator—known to his friends simply as ‘Wart’—was the ship’s quartermaster and logistic supervisor. It was his job to ensure that the ship had enough food, medicine, alchemical reagents, and whatever else was needed to sail around the world. He also played a crucial role in navigation. Because of that, Savren had been able to figure out the exact route the ship had taken to reach Cliff.

The ship, called the Pungis Victoriae, took about six weeks to sail from their homelands, meaning they had set off well before Arkk had taken Elmshadow back from Evestani. Neither knew why the Eternal Empire’s army had set off for war but both were utterly elated to be serving in their empire.

Which was just what Arkk didn’t need. More zealots.

Titus knew a few things beyond the realm of his ship, as a result of being a higher-ranked individual. “They set out with twenty-one warships?” Arkk said, raising an eyebrow. “And another thirty or so are supposedly on their way? How big is this empire?”

“Unknown,” Savren said with a shrug. “I know nearly nothing about neighboring nations; I know even less regarding remote realms.”

“What are they going to assault with those warships? The entire northern side of the Duchy borders the ocean, but it is all cliffsides and rough rocks. There are only a handful of villages up there.”

“I believe their boats were better built for bearing both bodies and belongings,” Savren said, pointing a finger halfway down the list he had given Arkk.

Sure enough, according to Titus’ memories, a good number of the warships had been hastily converted to full troop transports.

Which explained where the additions to Evestani’s army came from.

Skimming back down the remainder of the page, Arkk’s eyes jumped to one particular line. He read and reread it a dozen times over, just to make sure he was reading it correctly. “Every single one of their knights is a high-caliber spellcaster?”

“That is what the persuasive propaganda, published by their superiors, plainly points to. Among our captives, only the canoness commands casting.”

“So it could be false…” Though it was better to assume the worst and be pleasantly surprised if they all weren’t slinging powerful spells across the battlefield. It would explain the level of firepower those warships had unleashed upon Cliff. The constant volleys raining down upon the city would have exhausted any minor casters.

“Did you yet devise a detailed design for dispatching them?”

“I have a plan, yes. I’m waiting on a few things, but I hope to… isolate this incident as soon as possible. Some parts of the plan may change depending on whether or not Zullie’s assistants can put together that damaged ritual spell we recovered from their ship.”

“Shall I skillfully shift myself to spearhead that scheme?”

“No. That is a project that would be nice to have but unnecessary to the immediate plan. I need you on the inquisitor’s project.”

Sylvara was back at Fortress Al-Mir. She, Zullie, and Savren would hopefully have a proper countermeasure to the avatar of Gold before he was ready to enact his plan. If they didn’t… Well, he had seen how the golden rays affected the reinforced bricks of the walking fortress at Elmshadow, so he had ideas on how to mitigate damage in more mundane means.

“Understood,” Savren said. “I shall steadfastly steer this stint with supreme sincerity.”

“Get back with them as soon as possible,” Arkk said. “I need—”

“Concerning the captives…”

Arkk paused and looked at the two. Their states hadn’t improved during the short conversation. It made him feel a bit uneasy. “Will they recover? Or can you get them back to normal?”

“Unlikely, as I intruded into their intellects indifferent to their individual welfare.”

“I see,” Arkk said, somewhat disappointed. They were his enemy, but… He shook his head. There were other things to worry about now. “I’ll have Kia and… I’ll have Kia deal with them later,” he said, trying not to think too hard about what he was doing.

Arkk teleported away, heading to the transportation circles that would take him back to Cliff, leaving Savren alone with the two captives.

Savren softly surmised to himself, scrutinizing the seemingly soulless souls stationed before him. If they were destined for doom, better to not squander such subjects for study. His pursuits permitted little need for plentiful participants, but their procurement promised to pacify part of Zullie’s persistent pestering.

Arkk hurried through the halls of the former Duke’s manor, making heavy use of the servant corridors to pass through while avoiding the Prince’s guard. Most of the Prince’s guard, anyway. There were a few patrols in the servant corridors. But simply donning one of the uniforms Katja had left down in the hidden dungeon room where his teleportation circle sat gave him enough plausible deniability.

It helped that he was carrying a vintage bottle of wine. A servant hurrying around was suspicious but a servant carrying out a task was something to be ignored.

It certainly seemed as if the Prince had taken over the manor in its entirety. Arkk recognized a few faces around the manor as he passed through a regular hall between two servant corridors. Bandits of Katja’s. So she hadn’t gotten herself kicked out entirely. He quickly conversed with a few of them, getting directions to where Katja was.

Arkk found Horrik standing guard outside one of the lower-level guest rooms. The hulk of a man had his arms crossed over his chest, blocking the door entirely with his body. For a long moment, he just stared at Arkk, not really glaring but also not moving aside.

“Lady Katja requested a bottle of wine,” Arkk said, not sure how many of the walls had ears now that the Prince was here.

Horrik looked at him. One of those looks. But he stepped aside. He placed his hand on the door handle but paused. “Lady Katja is not in the best mood today,” Horrik said.

“Yeah. I imagine not.” The fact that she was staying in the guest quarters was indicative enough of that. Of course, if he were in Katja’s place, trying to play nice with royalty both to keep his head and keep his position, he would have offered up every accommodation possible to Prince Cedric as well.

With a firm nod of his head, Horrik turned the handle and pushed the door open.

The guest chambers were quite lavish compared to most anything at Langleey Village. They were still small enough to see throughout the entire room in one sweeping glance. Katja, clothes askew, lounged in a large chair nestled in the corner of the room. A younger man, maybe a little younger than Arkk, slept beneath the covers of the bed, his brown hair poking out from behind the fine blanket.

Arkk hesitated on seeing the man and Katja’s state of dress, but she simply waved a hand, beckoning him further into the room. As soon as he stepped past the threshold, Horrik closed the door behind him.

“Am I interrupting something?” Arkk asked, speaking quietly.

Katja didn’t bother adjusting the doublet-like outfit she wore. Not a single button was done up, leaving nothing covering the center of her chest from neck to navel. “Interrupting?” she said with a scoff, shooting a disdainful look toward the bed. “Hardly. We were engaged in nothing more than polite fiction. Though perhaps he thinks he’ll be allowed to touch me if he acts mature enough.”

“I’m… not sure I understand.”

“I don’t have to tell you all the details of my life, do I?” Katja said with a long sigh.

“No,” Arkk said. Frankly, he didn’t want to know all the details of her life. Just the important ones. After shooting one look at the boy, watching him half-snore into the feathered pillow, he turned back to Katja. “How did things go with the Prince?”

“I still have my head, don’t I? I’m taking that as a positive sign,” she said, not bothering to lower her voice in the slightest. “It seems as if my preparations paid off. Prince Cedric seemed quite pleased with my knowledge of the current state of affairs across all of Mystakeen. Even your company commander friend was surprised with how well I handled myself.”

“Hawkwood? How is he doing?”

Katja shrugged, loosening her doublet even further. “Running around like an obedient lapdog. The kind wealthy nobles preen over in the company of their peers but usually abuse behind closed doors.”

The bite in her tone sounded a bit… personal. Arkk wondered if she was talking more about her past rather than the Prince.

“I suppose you’re here wanting every detail of what transpired?”

“No, not really. Only if he is intending to act against Company Al-Mir. I trust you to handle everything else.” Or, rather, he trusted that she would act in her self-interest. Which generally meant keeping her own power by keeping friendly with others in power.

Arkk just needed to ensure that she remained aware of his power compared to whatever the Prince could offer.

Katja cocked an eyebrow? “Really? Huh.” She started to say something more, only to pause for a long yawn that devolved into an extended stretch. The striped tattoos that adorned her arms also ran along the sides of her ribs. “Sorry. Long day. He is certainly interested in you. But it seems to be more in how he might make use of you as a tool rather than an obstacle. Especially in light of this renewed attack from Evestani. He wants to meet you at some point. Hawkwood and I managed to delay, saying you would need to focus on preparing for conflict. I doubt that will work forever.”

“Fine,” Arkk said, moving just past Katja to look out the guest room window. It had a view of the harbor. Most of the ships out there were just dark silhouettes against the dark sky, but the largest ship was lit up with dozens of glowstones as people hurried across its decks. “I’ll have to find one of my nicer suits. But before that… I had another matter I required assistance with. Your assistance.”

“Oh? Not here just for a chat? I’m hurt, Arkk.”

“I need access to the Duke’s treasury.”

Arkk could feel the stillness at his back. He turned to find Katja no longer lounging in the chair but leaning forward with a scowl on her face.

“My treasury? For what reason?”

“I’m planning a construction project. It will consume a rather large quantity of resources.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I thought you had your own source of funding. You certainly poached a number of my crew with promises of gold.”

“It would be months before my source accrues enough for this project. Naturally, I would return it all in time. And until then, I thought you might be interested in purchasing some… services from Company Al-Mir.”

“Services,” she repeated, tone flat.

Arkk swept a hand through the air. Without a word of incantation or any visible effort, a slit of a void opened between him and Katja. Her forward lean reversed, leaving her pressed against the back of the chair where she remained frozen and unmoving.

“The spell I used earlier today is a result of counter-demon magic my researchers are developing,” Arkk said, pinching his fingers together. The unnatural void in the air sealed with the movement, leaving no evidence of its existence. “Given who you’re sharing this manor with, I thought you might be interested in learning some of my secrets.

“Of course, if you aren’t interested,” Arkk said after leaving his proposal hanging in the air for a short moment. He turned and started back toward the door. “I do have others who owe me. I think I’ll pay a visit to Silver City—”

“Wait.”

Arkk paused and looked back over his shoulder.

Katja stood, finally clasping together the wooden toggles on her doublet. “Roland!” she snapped.

The boy in the bed snorted, jolting upright. He looked around with bleary eyes set in a pudgy face. A vaguely familiar face at that, though Arkk couldn’t quite place where he had seen the boy before. Perhaps among Katja’s bandit crew… except she didn’t have many youth among her crew.

“Roland, you have your ring?”

Blinking more times than Arkk felt necessary, the boy sluggishly nodded his head as he lifted his hand. Right on the middle finger, the Duke’s signet ring gleamed in the room’s lights.

Arkk looked in askance at Katja, only to find her shrugging.

“Some parts of the manor are protected, requiring the Duke—or one of his progeny—to access. The treasury among them. I’m working to adjust the locks to be a bit more favorable, and have succeeded elsewhere using help from the academy, but I’d rather not have random people having access to the treasury.”

“Perhaps you can use the time it’ll be empty to change the locks.”

“Empty?” Katja snapped. “You’re taking it all?”

“Depends on how much is there,” Arkk said. “Roland, is it?” he said as he looked at the boy. “Let’s go. I am apparently pressed for time.”

Roland didn’t do anything until Katja gave him a nod of her head. Only then did he untangle himself from the twisted blankets and scramble for a set of slippers. In short order, they were back out in the corridor and hurrying down the halls.

“Prince Cedric has taken over the upper floors,” Katja explained as she waved them down a side route. “Aside from a few of his guards posted near stairs and main entrances, he has left much of the lower levels to me. He…” She sighed. “He isn’t going to be happy if he finds out about this. I imagine the contents of the treasury technically belong to the King or somesuch.”

“Has he seen the contents?” Arkk asked. When Katja shook her head in the negative, he continued, “Then claim the Duke squandered his riches, which is why taxes were so high. Or something else to that effect. Think of it this way: You’re giving me the gold for safekeeping, making sure he can’t run off with it. After he leaves, I pay you back, and you get to sit on your mound of gold without him messing with it.”

A look of consideration crossed Katja’s face. She didn’t look happy, but the irritation that had lined her features since Arkk brought up the treasury diminished somewhat. That was good enough for him.

The treasury sat behind a large vault door beneath the throne room where the incident at the party had taken place. Katja had to bring him through the throne room. Only a few of Katja’s men were present.

Arkk had already used his crystal balls to ensure that the Prince was busy and separated from Katja before daring to step foot nearby. Even now, he had his scrying teams watching them, ready to give a warning tug should the Prince so much as look toward the door of the study he had sequestered. He would have to thank Katja later for disabling the counter-scrying magic in the manor.

At the vault door, Roland stepped forward, taking the lead. He pressed the signet ring into a little slot in the center of the rounded door and twisted his entire hand. A series of ratcheting clicks behind the door sounded out, filling the quiet corridor with an uncomfortable noise. But the door swung open without incident.

It… wasn’t as full of gold as Arkk had hoped. The treasury at Fortress Al-Mir was larger currently, even in its diminished state after building up Walking Fortress Al-Lavik. Still, it was an influx of gold that he very much needed if he wanted to press forward.

It wasn’t all gold either. Arkk could see plenty of other metals—silver mostly—along with gems and jewels all arranged in decorative cases. Fine paintings of landscapes, scenery, and people who Arkk didn’t recognize were hung from the walls, often between fanciful tapestries. Suits of armor stood in the corners, ones clearly not designed for combat. The metalwork was more a work of art than anything designed to take the blow of a weapon. Arkk wondered how often the former Duke walked through the treasury, just browsing his riches. Did he ever bring others in to show it off or was it all for himself?

Shaking his head, Arkk held out a hand and, with a muttered incantation, conjured up a lesser servant. Mentally commanding it, Arkk set it to eating everything of value in the room. That included the gems and jewels, which Arkk had discovered were worth a lot of wealth to the [HEART].

Beneath Elmshadow, Arkk had found some kind of hollow formation in the ground where glossy emerald crystals had grown from the outer shell. A geode, according to Vezta. It was supplementing his gold income almost more than the gold mine underneath Al-Mir, though it wasn’t nearly as large and would soon run out.

Katja watched the lesser servant go about its work, harvesting all the treasury, with a look of utter disappointment on her face.

Taking some pity on her, Arkk reached into his pocket and pulled out the blade he had hidden in his palm earlier. A dark, black blade with glimmers of light dotting its surface. A product of Zullie’s research into both the magic of Xel’atriss and work replicating the ceremonial dagger they had found in the Underworld.

“No incantation necessary,” he said, holding its hilt out to Katja. “Just push a little of your magic into the pommel and swipe it through the air. A little mental direction will have it form in the rough shape and size you want. We haven’t had an opportunity to test, but the hope is that a demon coming into contact with it will be shunted out of this reality and back to its own. It certainly works to stop most other things as you saw with the warships.”

Katja accepted the blade with a lot more care than he would have expected from the former bandit. Then again, he had done the same when Zullie first handed it to him. He never knew if something was going to blow up in his face.

“It won’t last forever. Only a few of those large gaps. Three or four more, I imagine. More if you use it for smaller things, but I would keep it secret until you absolutely need to use it.”

Katja stared at the blade for a long few moments before slowly looking back to the rapidly emptying treasury. “I suppose it is something,” she said, sounding glum. “You are repaying me, right?”

“After the Prince leaves. So anything we can do to expedite that would be best.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

That was more than Arkk figured he would get from Katja, so he didn’t bother pressing for anything else. He simply waited for the servant to finish its job. Once it did, he set to leaving the manor the same way he had come. He got out without incident, teleporting via ritual circle back to Fortress Al-Mir.

Deep within the recesses of the fortress, he appeared in the midst of a rather pleased-looking Priscilla and a somewhat frightened-looking Leda. The young fairy had changed since Arkk last saw her.

Her glowing red eyes were locked on the shadowy orb hovering just above her fingertips.