* * *
“EXCUSE ME, SIR,” SAID THE AGED MANSERVANT. “Commander Alm is downstairs. He says he must speak with you. Urgently.”
Etthar Calain gave the manservant a hard look—as if sheer disbelief might make the man go away. But the manservant stood patiently at the door of the studio until Magister Calain set his brush down and took one last longing look at his unfinished painting. “Very well,” he huffed. “Send him up.”
“Very good sir.”
Etthar Calain moved to the washbasin to clean his hands. As the Imperial Magister of the Murmurs, he was accustomed to having his private life interrupted by the Empire’s business. Spying was an occupation that did not keep regular hours.
Commander Ronan Alm, a swarthy man who was relatively new to his post, appeared at the door to the studio and cleared his throat.
“Alm, come in. I’d offer you a glass of ale, but I know you won’t be staying,” said the Magister.
“Sorry for interrupting you at home, sir. But we just received word that one of Drey’s men spotted Bryn Eresthar at an inn in Swain.”
“Swain? How long ago?”
“Last night, apparently. Our man tried to pursue, but Eresthar rode off towards The Steading on an exceptionally fast steed.”
“How good is this information?”
“Very,” said Commander Alm. “But you haven’t heard the most interesting part.”
“Go on.”
“Our man observed Eresthar meeting with none other than Daras Mirth. They were alone in the back office of the inn. Spent a good hour together.”
“For what reason?”
“Unknown. Shall we teleport the informer in?”
“Not yet. I need to think about this a bit. Daras Mirth? Are we sure?”
“Drey trusts this man completely.”
Etthar Calain nodded absently. “Good work. Meet me at Skydagger in a half hour. I’ll decide what to do before then.”
“Yes, sir.” Alm turned to leave.
“And tell my man to ready my carriage,” Etthar Calain called after him.
As he changed into his uniform, Etthar Calain puzzled through this new information. Bryn Eresthar’s whereabouts had been unaccounted for since the Lord Governor left a meeting with the Viceroy three days ago. Eresthar had not been seen since. Calain’s office had been communicating with Laketon’s acting Lord Governor Isan Lagurian regularly, but each day without news raised the possibility of a kidnapping or assassination. This new information was nearly as troubling. Why would a Lord Governor be meeting with an enemy of the Empire?
Daras Mirth was the right hand of Gredarl Kar, a wealthy and powerful crime lord who controlled most of the organized crime in the Rangelands, but did so from the metaphorical shadows. So far it had been impossible to definitively link Gredarl Kar or Daras Mirth to any major crime. And as much as it would please Etthar Calain to dispatch a team of his assassins to rid the Empire of these pests, Gredarl Kar enjoyed the support and friendship of some of the wealthiest families in the area. The Viceroy had forbidden assassination. The only way to deal with these enemies of the state would be in the Imperial High Court.
Etthar Calain left his villa, entered his carriage, and ordered the driver to take him to Skydagger. It seemed that was the only place he ever went. They drove down Welden Wood, the wide boulevard with a park running down its center. On either side of the street were rows of tall, stately homes filled with diplomats, generals, high-ranking government officials, and businessmen. The dignified boulevard ended in a well-tended green roundabout featuring a statue of Emperor Thoud III, who was a favorite of both the citizens of Rundlun and the historians. The carriage traveled down Regent’s Lane towards the center of the city, which was dominated by the Imperial Palace and Skydagger.
Skydagger was an ancient mage tower. Built over 2000 years ago and one of the last vestiges of magical construction in the Empire, the tower didn’t look like a dagger to Etthar Calain. It looked more like an immense version of a child’s spinning top. The tower balanced on an impossibly thin spike that towered above the city and was visible from all of the six boroughs of Rundlun. Skydagger served as the headquarters and laboratory of his Imperial Ministry of the Murmurs—known colloquially as “The House of Spies” and it had the most elaborate security system of wards in the Empire. An understanding of most of the magic which protected Skydagger (as well as propelled its inhabitants between the four main levels) had been lost through the ages and was not fully understood by the current generation of mages. All Etthar Calain knew was that it worked. Thank the old gods.
The carriage and its inhabitants were inspected both visually and magically through several checkpoints before being allowed to enter the fortress-like compound which formed the base of the tower. As per procedure, Etthar Calain left the carriage and was escorted by a battle mage and a squad of guardian knights inside the base of the tower through to the maze level—so named for the elaborate twisting passages which provided another layer of protection against invaders. In the center of the maze, glowing purple was “The Waterfall.” No one knew the true name of this magical installation, but it looked very much like a waterfall of purple light, shimmering and twisting from the base of the tower high up to the laboratory level, where a score of mages from all three Orders worked, Black, Red, and White—side by side. As a final protection on this level, only those who wore special emerald rings attuned to the magic of The Waterfall could enter it. Only 66 of these emerald pass rings were forged. Eighteen had been lost throughout the years, and the remainder were assigned to Etthar Calain, his staff, and the mages posted to Skydagger.
Stepping into the light of The Waterfall, Etthar Calain felt the tingle of teleportation and a moment later he stepped out into Sanctum lab—ten storeys above the ground. There he was met by Ronan Alm, who walked with him up the spiral stairs to the command level. This was the place in which Etthar Calain’s team worked to make sense of all the whispers of information which came into their organization. It was a spacious circular room—with an exterior wall constructed of an arcane substance which was similar to glass, although it never became discolored, was impervious to damage, and appeared to be solid stone if viewed from the outside. Etthar Calain always wondered if the ancients used Skydagger as a throne room, since the views here were so impressive. Most of the command level was filled with desks and tables with scrolls, scrying crystals, memory stones, ledger books, and a dozen men— mages, scholars, strategists, and spies—working side by side.
“Shall we bring the informant in?” asked Commander Alm.
Etthar Calain shook his head. “I have a better idea. Let us bring in Bryn Eresthar himself.” Alm arched his eyebrows in surprise, but the man knew enough to keep silent. “We can’t have our Lord Governors vanish off the face of Tomira,” Etthar Calain continued. “And we cannot stand by while one consorts with the likes of Daras Mirth.”
“I will call for the Laketon ambassador and Legate Horiler—”
“No time for that. Begin the preparations now.”
Alm hesitated, but just for a moment. Then he acknowledged the order and strode towards the staircase with two mages in tow. He was heading to the top level of Skydagger, known simply as “The Vault.” Kept there—in various locked and protected niches—were a myriad of secret items of the realm, from the ancient artifacts of the Zantu excavations, to powerful magical weapons, gems, jewelry, and scrolls—to more ordinary items that were nonetheless of strategic importance to the Empire. The item that Alm was retrieving, for instance, was a mere scrap of sheercloth from Bryn Eresthar’s shirt, gingerly collected from the Lord Governor’s guest room while he slept during the visit before this one, and sealed in a stone compartment carved out of a thick wall and protected by several locks and wards.
The Ministry of the Murmurs kept tokens such as these for every person of importance to the Empire, be they friend, foe, or somewhere in between. A personal item like a scrap of cloth—when preserved properly
—was an essential ingredient in spells of the Knowing or Changing schools, including divination and summon person. The spell that they would use today was an incredibly advanced and costly one: involuntary summoning. To increase the likelihood of success, Master Iorod would join with seven of his archmages to cast the spell in unison. Anything short of Bryn Eresthar wearing a relorcan suit of armor should prove to be inconsequential to the mages.
Once Eresthar appeared, Etthar Calain would be there to assuage the Lord Governor’s objections and then quickly escort the man into a private office for debriefing. If Eresthar had a satisfactory explanation for both his whereabouts and his meeting with Daras Mirth, a different group of mages would open a portal to Laketon so the Lord Governor could return to where he was supposed to be. That was the best case scenario. The worst case scenario would involve more interrogation, which would necessitate informing the Legate and likely even the Viceroy himself. Etthar Calain sincerely hoped that—
Suddenly, Ronan Alm clattered down the stairs, breathless. “Lock down Skydagger!” he yelled. “Lock everything down!”
The command level erupted in a flurry of activity as guardian knights blockaded the staircases, workers left their desks and huddled in the center of the room, and mages raced down to the Sanctum lab to guard The Waterfall and prevent anyone from using it.
“What is it?” asked Etthar Calain.
“Eresthar’s niche is empty. We have been infiltrated!”