Eve of Destruction (34 page)

“As I warned you before,” Danev replied, “the Dusties are the least of your problems.”

From his actual position leaning against the western wall, Danev released his hold on the illusion he’d woven over the room. The false projection of himself in the chair vanished, and the elongated shadows that had concealed he and Aram in the corner faded. It took Venn and his guards almost a full five seconds to realize that their target wasn’t where they thought he was. It was slow enough that even an overweight and out-of-shape man like Danev would have had plenty of time to leap on them.

For an Eclipsean, it was nearly an eternity.

To say the pair of guards never had a chance was probably giving them too much credit. Aram moved in a blur of feet and fists, and within an instant the closest thug was flying head-over-heels across the room. The second actually managed to open his mouth in shock before Aram delivered an elbow to the chin, shattering his jaw with a thundering crack, and then kick him hard enough in the chest to hurl him all the way into the opposite wall.

Venn himself never actually made it out of his chair. He spun around, eyes agape in horror, and then raised his hands above his head at the human wrecking ball now glaring straight at him.

“Now,” Danev said nonchalantly as he stepped into the light and twirled his cane, “perhaps we can continue our conversation.”

Venn glanced frantically between them before his eyes locked on Danev and his mouth fell open in recognition. “You’re…”

“A bit upset with my employee,” Danev finished for him. “I always thought we had a very profitable relationship with one another.”

“Don’t kill me,” Venn pleaded, his eyes now latched on the Eclipsean looming over him. “I’ll get you the drakes.”

Danev sighed and rubbed at his arms. Maintaining even a simple illusion over an area this wide was taxing, but what he had just done—a full audio and visual displacement and distortion—was enough that the Flensing had already taken its first bite. It was almost a blessing that Venn had ended the conversation so soon; Danev probably wouldn’t have been able to hold it together much longer.

Still, he’d often found that the added dramatic flair was worth a bit of discomfort. Venn would talk, and word would hopefully spread to Danev’s other contacts throughout the region that he wasn’t to be cheated.

“Drakes are good,” Danev said after a few moments of uneasy silence, “but information is even better. I suggest you tell me what I paid you for in the first place…unless you want to see another demonstration of Crimson Eclipse training.”

Venn swallowed. A minute ago his tan, soot-stained face had almost been difficult to make out in the dim lightning, but now it was as white as a Kelpek winter.

“Fine,” he stuttered. “Fine, I’ll tell you what you want. Chaval isn’t sitting back and waiting for things to happen. He’s made a lot of powerful friends in the last few months, especially in the army.”

Danev nodded. “And how is he paying them?”

“Mostly through promises of military production contracts,” Venn explained. “He’s selling them a huge amount of weapons and now these Zefrim airships. I heard they can drop dynamite from the sky and burn whole cities.”

“I see. And what else?”

“I have records,” he said, fumbling through a collection of transcribed cables and other documents he had lying scattered about the room. Venn might have been a disorganized kreel, but judging by the raw size of the collection, he was still good at what he did.

“The bottom line is he expects to fight a war, and soon,” the man added.

“My question is whether he plans to initiate one.”

Venn nodded. “He doesn’t trust the magi or the Enclave. And if they don’t act, he plans to give them a demonstration.”

Danev frowned. He would have to personally review the cables later, but assuming the information was correct…

Well, the news wasn’t exactly unexpected, but that didn’t make the prospect of civil war less harrowing. He wondered idly if Eve or Tara was mentioned in any of the documents here.

Venn licked at his lips. He was still staring at Aram like he fully expected the man to pounce at any moment.

“There’s something else,” Venn murmured, “it’s in some of those cable transcripts near the back. Chaval’s been assembling a lot of magi behind-the-scenes, almost exclusively those with combat training.”

Danev frowned. “Curious considering the damage that could do to his image. He hasn’t toned down his inflammatory rhetoric against magi in the slightest.”

“I’m not sure he intends to make them fight.”

“Protection from Enclave assassins, then?”

Venn shrugged. “Maybe, but I suspect it’s something else. He’s been moving more and more of his operations out of the city. It’s been a gradual process going back almost a year, but the last few months it has really picked up. Even now the majority of his serious production has been moved outside the city limits. It’s not something you’d notice just looking around—the factories here are still cranking out this stuff left and right.”

“Odd,” Danev murmured. Now he
really
wanted to look these documents over, and that meant getting back to their hotel. It probably wasn’t a bad idea, anyway. Leaving Shaedra with Eve and Zach for an extended period was probably not in anyone’s best interests.

“That’s it,” Venn insisted. “That’s all I know.”

“For your sake, I hope you’re telling me the truth,” Danev said, allowing his voice to cool a few degrees. “I’ll be in town for a few more days and I might need to contact you again for…
clarification
. If I don’t, consider yourself a free man.”

Venn winced. “Yeah. Sure.”

Two minutes later, Danev and Aram were standing out on the Cadeotheian streets once again. Dusk had already fallen; it’d been a long and harrowing day drudging up anything they could get from old contacts that were becoming increasingly unreliable. From the moment their meeting with Jack Polard hadn’t gone the way they’d hoped, Danev knew they probably wouldn’t find many answers here.

But at least they still had Tara’s journal. Assuming Simon hadn’t torn out everything of value.

“I can’t think of many reasons Chaval would be pulling out of the city this early,” Aram said softly after they hopped into a carriage and set off towards the hotel.

“No,” Danev agreed. “The only thing that comes to mind is that he’s expecting a serious reprisal from the Enclave.”

“You mean attacking the city directly?” Aram asked. “You’re not jaded enough to believe that, I hope.”

Danev shook his head. “No. For all their faults, I can’t see the Magister’s Council doing anything so rash. That would just give the Dusties even more ammunition to rally the people against them.”

“Perhaps he plans to do something himself. He certainly has the weaponry for it.”

“I don’t see what that would get him,” Danev said. “Why attack your own people? Why cripple your own power base? Simon may be ambitious, but he’s not insane.”

“It’s not insanity if the public believes your enemy did it.”

Danev frowned as he remembered an old conversation the two of them had shared a few months ago. “Back to your old theory, then?”

Aram shrugged. “It’s still never been disproven. Kalavan was a boon to the Industrialists, there’s no way around it. Chaval had the most to gain by destroying it.”

Conspiracy nuts, especially those with connections to the magi, had been throwing around that explanation ever since the massacre. It hadn’t gained any real traction with the public, and actually it might have even done the opposite—it just seemed like a quick and easy way for the magi to deflect blame onto someone else.

Danev had never personally bought into it, but he had to admit that sacrificing an island to accomplish one’s political goals would hardly stand out as a unique atrocity in history, as sick as that might have been. Many kings and warlords through the ages had done worse.

“Venn said he was hiring magi,” Danev murmured. “You think he plans to use them to frame the Enclave?”

“If it worked, you can imagine the effect it would have.”

Danev shook his head and leaned back against the overly-stiff seat cushion. “It’s too far-fetched. Even the new Simon has limits.”

“Perhaps, but like you said, there aren’t many alternatives.”

The illusionist sighed and pulled on his mustache. “Perhaps Eve will have learned something useful.”

“You mean other than the fact she is the Avenshal?”

“Now that,” Danev said, “is even more far-fetched. I have a hard time picturing that girl hurting a roach.”

“Maybe that’s the point.”

Danev sighed and glanced up at the evening’s half-moon. It was covered behind clouds and smoke like it often was in Cadotheia. He wondered dimly if the locals considered that a good omen. A fair number of Edehan sects believed the moon represented the lingering gaze of Abalor. During a full moon cycle, it was said that his power was greatest. By his rough estimate, that would almost perfectly align with the forthcoming election.

“Besides,” Aram added into the stillness, “you didn’t see her at the
Calio
.”

“She didn’t actually do anything, as I recall. Shaedra dealt with the assassins.”

“She wove a spell with far more power than a krata should have been able to muster.”

“Tara probably taught it to her.”

“And violated the sanctity of the Oath Rituals?”

Danev grunted. “You act like it’s unheard of. I told you before how much more we knew back in school than we were supposed to.”

“That was a long time ago, and the rules are even stricter now. But my point remains: it could be a sign.”

“Or you could be reading too much into it,” Danev countered. “Either way, there’s nothing to do about it until we get back.”

Aram didn’t reply, and Danev let the matter rest. Despite having left the Eclipse behind, the bodyguard had been thoroughly indoctrinated into their way of thinking, and that kind of behavioral branding didn’t go away easily. He’d been taught to loathe Defilers, just as they all had, but he’d also been taught that even subtle violations of protocol—such as a parent teaching their child particular weaving techniques before the Oath Rituals—were unconscionable.

He might have been right, but at the moment all Danev could think about was getting out of this Fane-forsaken city. They had long-since overstayed their welcome.

Chapter Sixteen

It was late evening by the time Aram and Danev returned from their excursion out into the city, and Zach could tell from tight expressions on both their faces that it hadn’t gone as well as they’d hoped. Not that he’d expected otherwise. From the moment Danev had first mentioned the idea, Zach had known coming to Cadotheia would be at best a waste of time and at worst a disaster. So far he would peg the trip somewhere between the two.

They were all alive, at least, but they still hadn’t gotten an answer to the question that had brought them here in the first place: why had Tara DeShane been killed? Even her journal hadn’t helped with that yet, and worse, it had presented an entirely new problem—one he fully admitted he had no idea how to deal with.

He tossed a furtive glance to Eve as she walked into the adjacent suite and sat down to hear what the others had to say. The two of them had spent the last few hours playing cards and generally trying to ignore the grim prophecies from the journal, and it seemed to have helped her a little. She was taking this about as well as could be expected, but he continued to try and convince her it was all a mistake. Danev and the others could talk all they wanted about Tara DeShane and her great power, but Zach had basically lived with the woman since he was four. He refused to believe she’d been carrying that burden alone all those years.