Arrowmask: Godkillers of the Shrouded Vast

CHAPTER ONE

Ashton Arrowmask dangled from his own cape through the splinter-rimmed hole in the ancient floor. His left foot, bare from a lost boot, took a cool dip into a sea of darkness of unguessable depth below. He listened to the cape’s stitches pop in neat succession and wondered whether he had finally run out of luck.

He certainly had run short of it before, and had learned there was no rule that everything had to end glamorously. Sometimes Fortune withdrew her favors from heroes at their very moments of triumph in a drake’s lair or a necrocharmer’s tower. And sometimes she just plain stood you up as you fell through the floor of the abandoned sanitation department headquarters while running from a gang of Mix-Fiends.

Of all the ruined sanitation departments in the world, at least my accident arrived in that of the Old Empire in Cor Cordum, the Heart of the World, the Imperial city to which all of the Old Ways lead, he thought romantically. He gazed up through the hole, past the glinting silver studs on his cape and the broken pipe that had speared it, through the crumbling arches, to the deathly pale glow of the thousand moonlets in Atel’s Trail flowing slowly across the ebon sky.

How will they remember me? wondered the lanky rogue plaintively, blowing a hank of shaggy dark hair out of his eyes as he twisted in the darkness. They, of course, amounting to his sister Nalia and maybe Elcook and Violet down at the Jury Lane tavern.

Ashton Arrowmask was a notorious... Well, he wasn’t really that famous, of course, likely only claiming more to get you in your cups or in the sack. He was an unknown underworld lurker who... Well, that wasn’t exactly true, either; he had blundered into some curious circumstances, strongly remembered locally, in places he judiciously fled. Perhaps all one can say is that he was the grandson of the famous Nire Arrowmask, the extraordinary member of the Godkillers of the Shrouded Vast—if you believed him, that is.

He wrinkled his nose. This was no good at all, this nasty business of picking one story and getting all objective about it. Surely they would have some fond memories of his rakish charms and street wisdom.

Consider the dashing attire he wore on his last adventure. A well-fitted cape woven dark for stealth, yet also spangled with silver studs so he would look good enjoying the spoils afterward. Ashton knew that it truly is possible to have it both ways.

He smiled and got a grip on the cape to keep it from strangling him under his own weight. He warmed to his subject as he concentrated on the notion of a mourning Violet plucking her harp dolefully for the tavern crowd.

Ashton considered becoming a devoted worshiper of Fortune, but, well, it’s just so hard to stick with something like that. Who can blame him? And, whatever the Harbor Guard might say, Ashton wasn’t a troublemaker; he just had a knack for having the wrong impulse at the right time. That is what gave him his bewitching air of mystery. Exactly how and why did he manage to break into that prison island? What of the incident involving a panther, a chair and a hidden jewel on the roof of the Citadel’s highest tower? And how was he to know, when stealing a kiss, that woman was betrothed to the archduke?

And oh! oh! Whyever did I deny him my cupcake breasts and warm mound!

Ashton allowed himself to bask a brief moment in the possibility of Violet’s regret. The moment was all too brief.

It was more probable, he thought with a pursing of his lips, that they would never find his body at all. In fact, their musing on his absence was more likely to run along the lines, What was it this time? Drunkenly enlisting in the Shardaian navy, or stowing away in a shipping crate to follow another junkie girl to Kundh?

A sharp shearing of the fabric dropped him another half-foot with a jolt. No, this won’t do at all, he thought. He looked up again, this time not longingly at the moonlets, but pragmatically at the cape, quickly judging it would rip apart if he attempted to climb it.

Ashton suddenly grinned recklessly. He was certain he had not run out of luck, because Fortune had left him one last roll of the dice.

When in doubt, he thought, stop doubting. He drew his dagger, sliced through the cape’s tangled claspwork, and plunged into the waiting dark.

He braced himself to land after ten feet, or twenty. Twenty-five might be alright.

The shock did not come, and his stomach lurched as he kept falling. Out of some unusual impulse toward dignity, he willed himself not to scream. This is what they call time to think about it. Another old saying appeared unbidden: Don’t look down. But that’s only when you’re trying not to fall, not already well on your way. He looked down.

He may as well have been falling upward into a moonless polar sky in all its disorienting blackness. Then, like a smoke-muffled sunrise, a pale orange oval appeared and tracked across the barren space. It paused beneath him, that lambent ring. A shadowy figure within bent and gave an interrogative grunt as it hefted something floppy and shiny—a boot.

Ashton laughed aloud for the split second before he curled into a ball and slammed into the Mix-Fiend with the force of a harbor cannon.

The pain was maliciously thorough, like an accountant paid to audit the capacity of every single nerve. Still, after he had lain sprawled in the damp, moldy sand awhile, panting in the dank stench, everything seemed to work properly. The same could not be said for the Mix-Fiend. The details, thankfully, could not be seen due to the shade that clung to him, even in the light, as a skin-tight black mist. But his shape was terribly wrong, and the spatters of blood and marrow on the sandy floor were undisguised.

Ashton sat up and bowed between his spread knees until his head stopped spinning. He looked again at the dark blob and gave it a sympathetic wince. He was hardly sorry for the way his luck—and his foe’s neck—had broken, but after all, he’d been on the receiving end of a surprise blow himself once or thrice.

He extended a foot and slipped it back into his lost boot, then prodded it against the horrid, mushy lump of flesh, feeling it give way to a degree improper for a healthy human body. Tapping here and there, his toes sought to elicit a cold metallic clunk.

Mix-Fiends were high-class addicts, devotees of the rarest of drugs: magical elixirs. Magica was almost gone from the world, and the art of ensorcelling liquid for potions was lost with the Old Empire’s fall a century past. Quaffing an ancient elixir for kicks was luxury enough. But Mix-Fiends drank two, or more, at a time. Not for the raw punch of the typically high alcohol or herbal stimulant content, or any practical benefit of arcane powers twinned and doubled. It was the sheer mind-twisting sensation of intense magicks competing for space and attention deep in one’s body and brain. Magica was never without consequences, inside or out, and the Mix-Fiends lived, and sometimes died, for that thrill.

Their minds were not all that was twisted by the sorcery. Noble cloaks and foppish blouses hid digits extended into fins and skin turned tree-bark. Small wonder so many retreated to the ruins to skulk among the bandits and beasts. And in this lovely atmosphere of broken floors and tumbling intruders, naturally they stored their priceless fixes in unbreakable vials of copper or bronze or even steel.

Aha, Ashton said flatly, his voice a hollowed-out echo in the vast chamber, as his boot hit something hard.

His toe found a flap. He kicked it open, relieved to see it was the hem of a jacket and not a ribbon of torn flesh. Then he was overjoyed to discover what lay within the interior uncloaked by the eldritch dark mist: a cleverly sewn-in holster of five slots, each containing a square copper vial that glowed warm in the light of the fallen torch.

From spying on the Mix-Fiends, he knew that the juice in these was something called Shadow-wield. What they had been mixing it with he would never know, but the combination must have done something to heighten their senses enough to hear the scrape of his boot on the rafters as he crouched above them. After that, it took no magical skill to notice the glinting on his quite spectacular cape. Black-bladed swords were drawn, and he was running from shadows. No matter; it had ended well enough, with these shiny little prizes his for the taking.

He plucked the copper vials from the holster, running his thumb around the waxed lip of each to check the seal before tucking them into his doublet. All intact. That would be pleasing to Counsel Regulus of the Tetragate Palatinate, who had hired Ashton, on the basis of a somewhat exaggerated curriculum vitae, to acquire them. Four vials would garner him a handsome bounty. As for the fifth… coin was nice, but the ability to disappear into the shadows could well be its own reward. He’d hide it in one of the flowerpots outside the Curia Regis before going in to meet Regulus and friends, just in case they thought to search him. Afterward, it would be his little bonus.

Any urge Ashton had to experience an elixir-mixing high himself—which is to say, a hundred definite urges merging into an all-consuming pang toward ill-advised corruption—was counterbalanced by the certainty of a potion payday and the distinctly unappealing Mix-Fiend corpse at his feet. He gave it an aimless kick and hit hardness again. He squinted his dark eyes as he traced the length of the shaded but solid object with his foot. Of course. The sword the unlucky git was shaking at me just minutes ago.

Ashton hesitated a moment to touch the hilt, considering the chance that the magical darkness surrounding it would taint him somehow. He realized he had no basis whatsoever for rationally calculating those odds. So obviously the best thing to do was just go right ahead, grab it, and see what happened.

He unhooked the sword from the dead man’s belt and unsheathed it. For a moment, he thought the blade had remained blackened by the Shadow-wield magica. Tilting it in the firelight, he realized it was crafted of so-called black bronze, a rare metal of purple hue. Just the sort of weapon someone who could afford to use museum-quality drugs might be expected to carry. Another bonus, Ashton thought, looping its scabbard to his belt. He paused to give his own backside an experimental pat. And no sign I’m growing a magica-induced tail, to boot.

The other Mix-Fiends were likely to arrive sooner rather than later, swimming anywhere in the pool of shadows about him. Ashton picked up the torch, then located his dagger in the sand. He slid the toe of his boot under it, intending to flip it up and into his waiting palm, but accidentally kicked it a yard away. He’d rewrite that bit in the retelling back at the Jury Lane.

He retrieved the dagger, rejoined it with its scabbard, and cast his gaze about the floor. Locating the footprints of his late would-be assassin, he followed them out of the ruins and back into a world that was about to become a little more magical.

CHAPTER TWO

Counsel Marcus Regulus had the disconcerting feeling that he was about to be humiliated by the brilliant strategic mind of Ashton Arrowmask.

Judging by the tavern tales about the cat-burglar, he would hardly be the first. But, unlike the police authorities and piratical villains with whom Arrowmask had tangled, the counsel was risking nothing worse than an exceptionally fine opening move in their game of Check.

Regulus clutched his goateed chin, his other hand swirling the brandy in his goblet, and looked across the chequered game board at his dodgy young adversary.

Arrowmask was a gangly creature with a tendency to hunch, as he did now with his ivory senator-piece dangling from his long, delicate fingers. His eyes were dark and a set a bit too close together, adding to his air of intensity, if not focus. Neither handsome nor homely, the rogue seemed open to others’ interpretations—a trait that undoubtedly served him well in his line of work, such as it was.

Regulus was under no illusions about the embellishments Arrowmask had added to his qualifications in entering the employ of the Tetragate, the quartet of paladins who ruled the Empire from Cor Cordum. He expected as much, and would hardly trust a hireling who wasn’t desperate enough to toss in a lie or two. But Arrowmask was demonstrably accomplished in certain remarkable feats—most notably, the affair involving the Star of Monksbane Glen and the panther atop the Citadel. And there was the plain fact that here he was, back from the Old Empire ruins with a satchel of Mix-Fiend potions and barely a scratch to show for it. That’s why he invited Arrowmask into the Curia Regis, the Imperial court, to play Check, the Imperial game. It was a way to take the full measure of a man.

Also for a man to take the measure of himself, Regulus considered silently, as Arrowmask continued his confoundingly unorthodox offensive. The counsel realized he was being pushed to play a conservative, defensive game that had little hope in the long run. He recalled Arrowmask’s comfortable upbringing in the Millennium islands, where tutoring surely included the great games of royal strategy. Now he watched Arrowmask preparing to sacrifice his senator and attempted to puzzle out the trap being laid.

Senator to g3, Arrowmask said, flourishing his cubeb, that nasty little foreign vice he was smoking. The rogue leaned back, taking in the sight of the oak-paneled, book-lined room and its cheery fire, required despite the spring weather in the chill stone confines of the Tetragate complex. He unsuccessfully tried to lure Villi, the bulgy-eyed dwarf cat beloved of the servants, from her favorite spot on the hearth. He seems more comfortable here than I do, Regulus observed.

You were talking about mysteries, Arrowmask continued politely.

As men who have solved our share of them, I thought perhaps we might find common ground there, Regulus said.

All the common ground I’m likely to have with an Imperial counsel and his secret guard who drag enemies off into the night, Arrowmask remarked with casual impertinence and a charming grin.

And I with a supposedly lapsed pirate who is wanted on open warrants in a half-dozen provinces under as many names.

Arrowmask sucked the corner of his mouth for the briefest instant. He wasn’t expecting me to know about those—or not that many of them, Regulus thought.

Mistaken identity. Bureaucratic problems, shuffled paperwork—it happens a lot in these New Empire days, Arrowmask offered.

To be sure. A mystery unto itself, Regulus sympathized. With deliberation, he avoided taking Arrowmask’s senator and instead brought his legionnaire out to a6.

Mysteries aren’t very interesting, Arrowmask replied. They’re only truly mysterious at the very beginning, and only truly satisfying at the very end. The rest is a muddle, I’m afraid.

You speak of actual mysteries, or the stuff of playwrights and novels?

It’s all the same, Arrowmask said, inching his castellum forward a square. Authors could make it a lot easier on themselves. Give your readers what they want—a mystery that is only the last page. A short poem of set-up and spoiler all in one. The rest of the book could be illustrations, if the case is bloody enough.

Regulus chuckled, half from the man’s breezy gall and half from the amusement of a pleb mocking the plebs. He picked up his senator and placed it to flank his own castellum, hoping to stave off whatever attack was to come.

Come now, both the courts and the public wish to know more than that, he said, leaning back and giving his silver-filigree waistcoat a tug. They wished to know, for example, how I determined that an esteemed elderly lady in Etonia was poisoned, not by her husband, but rather by fumes from the glaze of her pottery collection. The details mattered much in sparing him from the gallows.

Arrowmask, whose eyes brightened markedly at the concept of escaping an execution, took a drag from his cubeb and tilted his hand in a gesture of acceding the point.

As for fictional mysteries, the counsel continued, well, the satisfaction is more than just the sense of completion, the inevitable victory of Order. The true mystery of the mystery is how the hero was able to see what no one else did.

With an air of relaxation bordering on distraction, the rogue deviously placed his legionnaire at a7, forking Regulus’s senator and legionnaire. The counsel set his jaw silently. How had he missed that coming?

True, I don’t understand mysteries, Arrowmask admitted. I have no patience for them. That’s probably why I solve them. I just plow straight through.

You’re quite good at spinning mysteries as well, Regulus replied. Such as poking about in the flowerbeds outside. Hiding some coin you found on the body? Or an extra elixir, eh?

Arrowmask shrugged. He clearly saw no point in denying it now. He was smart enough to surmise that the counsel had exhumed it already anyway and was having a bit of fun with him.

Not to worry, the counsel said. Perhaps we’ll let you have it back. In exchange for owing us a favor.

Regulus returned his focus to the board and did not like what he saw. The rogue’s scheme was masterfully bewildering. The counsel couldn’t see more than four moves ahead. Which surely meant he didn’t have many more than that.

I resign, he said with as much self-possession as he could muster, surprising himself more than his laconic guest. Arrowmask waved a hand over the board with an air of kingly permission.

Regulus rose and motioned for Arrowmask to join him at a table near the fire, where he refreshed their goblets of brandy.

Well played, Arrowmask, he said, stopping the decanter. You know, I believe I read about that strategy in Massacus. Twenty-two moves to a bare emperor, I recall?

Oh, said Arrowmask, blinking and half-turning his head toward the game board. I actually kind of hate Check. Way too logical. I wasn’t trying at all.

Regulus froze for a moment, then chuckled and shook his head.

Quite a trick to pull on your employer.

Former employer, Counsel.

Well, let’s not be hasty. The end of one job may be the beginning of another. We share a skill at uncovering the mysterious, and a taste in fine brandy. And though we have quite different methods of excelling at them, we know how to win our games.

I note that you prefer one where the pieces are tactically vital, but strategically expendable, Arrowmask said with a politely tiny sneer.

Quite, Regulus allowed with a smile. You will find that is the rule of every game. Come, and bring your drink. There’s a much larger puzzle I’d like to show you.

The adjacent room was lined with provincial maps and sea charts, many of them chipped and browned with age. In one corner stood a globe cunningly crafted to include the moonlet belt of Atel’s Trail encircling its equator.

Occupying one wall was dark wooden paneling inlaid with the heraldic shield of the Tetragate, with its four swords and four portcullises. One for each of their largely self-proclaimed rulers: Sir Ulther Eldershaw, Dame Maud Threlkeld, Sir Heddon Coldwyn, and Sir Claudis Aberdarron. In theory they were all equals, but there was a hint about their inside politics in whose face showed up on which denomination of coin. Sir Ulther’s was on the gold in Ashton’s pocket.

The paneling comprised two doors that Regulus spread apart and slid into recesses behind flanking bookcases. Revealed behind them was a nearly floor-to-ceiling map of the known world. The roughly rectangular border of the empire surrounded the map’s center, divided into its twelve provinces and dotted with its cities and landmarks.

Arrowmask sipped from his brandy as he looked over the enormous landmasses of Trelpas to the west and Kundh to the east, their appearance something like an opened clam with Cor Cordum as a pearl in the very center. A great city was inevitable there at the northernmost reach of the Godsblood sea and alongside the Atelrush, the longest and widest river yet discovered.

Why, I think I’ve seen this somewhere before, Arrowmask cracked. I wouldn’t say no to a bonus, but you’re not offering all this to me, are you?

Regulus ignored his base jesting and picked up a stick from a tray at the map’s base. The Corcorid Empire at its height five hundred years ago, and as we still like to think of it today. The shape remains on the maps we publish and the flags we fly. He half-heartedly traced the Empire’s border with the point of the stick.

Perhaps it even still looks this way in reality. But the fact is, we don’t know. We don’t know what’s happening on most of the borders. Some cities have become isolated. Some procounsels haven’t been heard from at all.

Regulus was aware he wasn’t telling a reasonably educated traveler such as Arrowmask anything he didn’t already surmise. The invasions of the Weàlae from western Trelpas two to three hundred years ago rocked the Empire and changed its face forever, from slaves to emperors; Arrowmask himself was plainly of Blue Weàlae descent. But the Imperial government also rarely admitted doubts or disorders. He suspected the rogue would be impressed with the significance of such plainspeaking.

Our intelligence networks broke down long ago. It is possible the Weàlae or the Cynricas tribes in the north have taken over and are massing to push farther into the Empire. Or perhaps legionnaires have switched allegiance, or some common calamity has afflicted friend and foe alike. Then there are the stranger mysteries affecting us all.

The decline of magica, the rogue offered.

Indeed. Not the only troubling curiosity, but first among equals.

The loss of taxes and tributes must be right up there, too. I guess this would be a bad time to ask for a raise.

We wouldn’t say no to higher revenues, naturally. But it is hardly the first concern.

True, you don’t look like you’re missing many dinners. Arrowmask smirked and gestured with his goblet. You’ve got the Godsblood under control, anyhow.

Regulus looked at the vast central sea with its thousands of harbors and islands. It was a yard wide on the map, and in reality, seven hundred leagues or more of supreme wealth in fisheries, trade routes, shipbuilders, salt manufactories and vacation resorts.

Yes—at least, as much as the Old Empire ever had it under control from the occasional sea monsters and perpetual piracy. He glanced knowingly at his guest.

But here… The counsel dragged the stick’s point through the Godsblood’s only outlet, the narrow southern mouth called the Twelve Pillars, and into the Dunelf Sea. The stick sailed five thousand miles south in a moment to the great continent of Shardai.

The Shardaian trade was our richest a century ago. Virtually nonexistent now. I’m sure you’ve heard all the quayside rumors. A political shift toward isolationism. A tidal wave that destroyed its northern harbors.

The one certainty being that captains who do sail south rarely return.

Regulus nodded and moved the stick to the Empire’s three southeastern provinces. The Greenarch. We know almost nothing of its condition beyond the coastline. He tapped Millennium, the fabled thousand islands in the Godsblood, and home province of Arrowmask; then Jadal, along the eastern border, where the Green Weàlae made their jungle homes; and finally Archaia on the southern coast.

The stick moved offshore to a great island, once an entire Weàlae nation unto itself, then similarly its own Imperial province.

Bastion. We’ve heard nothing from procounsel, solider, commoner—anyone—for near a decade.

They say constant storms make it impossible to reach, Arrowmask said. He considered his goblet a moment. Also that the Tetragate keeps inconvenient prisoners there.

They say a lot of things, Regulus replied. He slapped the eastern half of the map with a professorial air: Kundh.

One of the most ancient names in the Empire, and thus one of the most widely used. In broadest terms, Kundh was the entire East, largely unknown due to the Kundhmur, thousands of square leagues of towering mountains walling off the Corcorids and Kundhiis from each other.

Kundh also referred variously to a specific great nation beyond the Kundhmur that had some trade with the Empire via the southern nation of Vyrkania as middleman; to the eastern coastal section of the Empire between the Godsblood and the mountain range; and to a specific Imperial province therein. In short, there was Their Kundh and Our Kundh. Exactly where the line was drawn at the moment, Regulus devoutly wished the Tetragate could know.

The East remains secure, the counsel continued, resting the pointer on Kundh Province on the east-central shore of the Godsblood. Border fortresses in Duxum—the stick slid to the northeastern province—and in The Twelve—it slid down to the southeast—remain essentially intact and well-garrisoned. But our intelligence beyond the borders is weak. Several forts in the foothills are unaccounted for. Even records of their locations are incomplete.

The stick jumped the Godsblood like a magical hero of legend and landed on the western provinces of Argentum and Eastreach. The Silverhold Mountains here were smaller and less extensive than those of Kundh, but performed the same role as an unbeatable border defense.

A similar situation in Silverhold. In the mountains, fortresses and towns lost or forgotten. In Eastreach, a secure line of fortresses remains across the lowlands, but leagues farther east than the old Imperial borders, and no certainty of what lies beyond.

And then, of course, there is the Shrouded Vast. As shrouded as it ever was. Regulus swept the stick across the entire north. Thousands of miles of ancient forest and trackless fens surrounded the gigantic, yet-unsounded lakes of Frostmyrr and Stjarnafall. The Vast was the latest addition to the Empire, taken a half-millennium ago in battle with a legendary tribal leader variously known as Ultio or Hefnd. It was conquered, but never tamed, its borders ever contested and its forests forever hiding secrets. Its winters were as daunting as its barbarians and killed more surely.

A second home for your family line, I’m told, Regulus remarked.

An expert in genealogy as well as geography, the rogue replied. The Godkillers affair of seventy-five years earlier was a popular legend, though not everyone knew the names of all the players. I didn’t inherit any loot or anything, sorry to say.

Regulus did not care for genealogy, but background investigations of his hirelings were interesting indeed, and the strange times demanded of him a command of events once dismissed as legend and fairy tale. Three-quarters of a century ago, the bards recounted and Legion logbooks partly confirmed, a powerful entity claimed to be a barbarian deity was invoked deep in the Vast—either by the tribes themselves or Imperial agents, depending on which side was doing the remembering. As it broke loose and threatened indiscriminate destruction, a small group of Imperial and barbarian adventurers put aside their differences and came together to stop it. Among them was a thief and assassin called Nire Arrowmask. They slew the god, at the price of their own lives, and established a legend in both cultures.

Whether Ashton actually was her grandson was hard to say; that he at least claimed to be was intriguing.

The rogue raised his cup toward the top of the map. I hear the Vast is pretty popular in your bosses’ family, too.

Regulus raised his eyebrows at the rogue’s acumen. Not many people outside of the political realm bothered to learn the complicated history of the Tetragate paladins.

It indeed began in the Vast, centuries ago at the time of the Weàlae invasions, where a Weàlae paladin called Sir Doublegate reputedly unmasked an evil spirit disguised as a procounsel. In more recent, yet still ancient, times, another Weàlae paladin who called himself Sir Triplegate in tribute to his nation’s hero defended the Empire from magically talented foes in a series of spectacular battles across the provinces. Scholars described his foes as a wizard cabal. Minstrels and tale-keepers claimed they were the resurrected children of Atel, the giant who ruled the Godsblood in the near-forgotten millennia before the Corcorids defeated him and founded the Empire. Either way, Triplegate remained the Empire’s most popular legend and the date of his adventures the basis for the Common Count calendar.

When Sir Ulther Eldershaw, a modern paladin of Order, a score-and-five years ago began his campaign to restore the fallen Empire, he took the name Tetragate to honor the palatine tradition— and to reflect the scope of his ambition. Following Ulther’s early successes, he saw the need for assistance and turned his chosen name into a blueprint for a ruling quartet of paladins. All took on the honorary surname Tetragate.

The paladins inherited nothing, either, except continued trouble in the Vast, Regulus said. But there is something to be said for drawing inspiration from legends.

Arrowmask swallowed his mouthful of brandy. I don’t know why they don’t just go all-out and call themselves the Milliongate. Modesty will get them nowhere.

I’ll be sure to pass that along, Regulus said dryly. But I fear they have greater concerns in the Vast.

Turning back to the oversized map, he traced the mighty Atelrush from its origin in Duxum westward across the heart of the empire and northwest into the Vast. He circled the far northwestern province, on the outskirts of the old Weàlae kingdoms, that contained the area where the river emptied into the Kriegschiff Sea.

We have essentially retreated to heavily fortifying the river harbor in Riparia. The actual province we call the Vast—it appears to have returned to a wild frontier. More than two-dozen legions posted there were never reinforced and their fates are unknown.

The rogue set his goblet down on the rim of the stand supporting the globe. Well, as fun as it is to hear about our nation imploding, I must say I don’t see much coin in it for me. It sounds like a job for the Tetragate.

It certainly will be in the end. But first we need intelligence. Which means we need spies, explorers, thieves.

The counsel circled the Imperial city with his stick. We may have uncertainty and decay on a dozen fronts, but we also have a solid advantage to rely upon. The stick traced five dark lines emanating from the dot of Cor Cordum like rays of a star.

The Old Ways, Arrowmask said.

Regulus nodded. The ancient roads of the Old Empire, built two millennia ago for trade and military reinforcement, and still solid today. We know from experience that even where they go unmaintained for centuries, scarred by war and weather, they remain passable.

He waited as Arrowmask’s eye followed some of the lines, snaking through the Silverholds, across the jungles of Jadal, deep into the Shrouded Vast, and skirting the cliffs of the Kundhmur.

A force small enough, mobile enough, adaptable enough, could use the Old Ways to access almost every obscured corner of the Empire without drawing excessive attention or bogging down in the terrain, he concluded.

They’d also be sitting ducks for not only whatever barbarian threat might exist, but also for bandits, wild animals—who knows what else.

That in turn can make the force underestimated. I daresay you know something about using false flags and deceptively small attack vessels in your adventures on the Godsblood.

True enough. But if this is such a good idea, why hasn’t the Legion done it already? Or one of the trading cartels?

The military is still stretched thin from the wars and the efforts to rebuild the Imperial government—thinner than we admit. The cartels are in a similar position. Their rebuilding is largely based on sea trade, legal and otherwise, as you likely know better than I. I daresay a few indeed are pushing to recapture lost overland routes, but if they are doing so successfully, they are keeping them as trade secrets.

The counsel toyed with his map pointer. There is another factor as well. It took the Tetragate years to arrive at this idea. Longer than, in retrospect, it should have taken. I suspect that, despite your years of smuggling, extensive use of the Old Ways never occurred to you, either.

Arrowmask rubbed his hawkish nose. No, it didn’t. Are you saying something is preventing everyone in the Empire from reading a map? Another ‘curiosity’ like the loss of magica?

It is quite a coincidence, isn’t it? Now that we do have the concept of using the Old Ways, however, any prior amnesia perhaps no longer matters. Though, stranger still, many of us here at court forget the idea ourselves from time to time, and must be reminded by our fellows.

I’ll admit it’s a decent idea—if you ignore the extreme-danger part.

It’s more than an idea. It’s a plan. We are already commissioning four teams to ride to the ends of the Empire. Three are preparing at this very moment to go east, west and south. We need only someone to lead a team into the Vast.

The counsel tapped the end of the stick against his dark goatee as he awaited the rogue’s reaction.

Arrowmask snorted. Dear old grandma would be so proud. Why in Night would I want to do that?

It could cause a half-dozen arrest warrants to be erased rather than executed immediately, for one thing, Regulus offered.

You must get some great bargains at the marketplace, Arrowmask said, sliding one hand onto the hilt of his freshly looted sword with a feline air of faked nonchalance.

Allow me to continue. Assuming you return with useful information, you can expect five thousand aurei and a villa in Laternium. Financial security in return for the Empire’s security.

Also, I suspect you are a bit bored, the counsel added.

Money and excitement. You certainly have my attention. But what exactly is your big plan? I pack my lunch and ride off down the Old Ways on a mail coach?

A trading caravan armed and outfitted to your specifications at the government’s expense.

And who staffs this caravan?

A small squad of legionnaires as guards, and up to three professionals you may hire yourself, with my approval. He watched for a moment as his hook sunk into the fish’s mouth.

I suppose you’ve thought up something to prevent me and my new friends from just selling off this lovely wagon full of loot.

The legionnaires are disgraced former officers, recently freed from prison, who will regain their titles and lands if they return with useful information, the caravan, and yourself. That is worth far more to them than the equipment’s value, or any bribe you are likely to be able to afford.

Arrowmask smiled like a man who appreciates a clever plan, even though he’s terrible at making one himself.

Well, camping on a half-erased part of the map amid barbarians with a squad of ex-prisoners—I mean, who could say no to that? He smirked at the counsel. Just one other obvious question. Why me? You don’t trust me.

Nor you me.

True. But you paid me. Arrowmask patted his newly fat purse.

And you delivered as promised. It is not a common thing these days. If I may be permitted to sound dramatic, it’s the stuff an empire may be founded on.

The rogue crossed his arms and considered Regulus with a half-grin. I haven’t forgotten the type of game you like to play.

I haven’t forgotten your method of winning it.

Arrowmask laughed. I almost got killed tonight. I fell—uhm, pounced—onto a Mix-Fiend about six stories down in the Old Empire ruins. It must be near dawn by now. Can I have some time to think about it?

Regulus offered his own half-grin. Do you need it?

The rogue laughed again. Nah. I’ll explore your damn woods for you. You better start dusting out that villa. I’m feeling lucky.

CHAPTER THREE

Ashton hunched over the bar at the Jury Lane, with his first chicken pot pie and his third ale before him, and silently vowed to drink just enough to forget how he had once again fucked things up with Violet.

In his more sober moments, he was aware that his thirties were fast approaching, and with them the inability to use his youth as an excuse for his foibles. Leaving the Curia Regis, he had a fleeting determination to seize this great responsibility. It began well enough; he went straight to the room Elcook let him use in the tavern basement and slept past highsun, awakening rested and sharp-minded, in part thanks to the stabbing soreness of various joints and muscles. He had lain in bed for an hour, taking the time