Chapter 241: The Saboteur
Corvus stared at me for a moment as the cat jumped onto a nearby shelf and promptly knocked off one of the jars. The glass shattered on the sandstone floor, the sound echoing in the chamber as his head half-turned to track it.
“Your cat?” he asked with an amused smile, sounding annoyed but curious.
“The first time I saw it was when I entered the Archives,” I replied as the cat knocked another jar to the floor and looked down at its own mess in confusion. If it kept this up, I wouldn’t have to do anything. Corvus made to grab the cat, rushing around a shelf. It sensed his intentions, leaped down, and raced away among the shelves.
Corvus realized he wasn’t going to catch it and focused back on me. He studied me intently, hesitation in his eyes. As Hounds, we were trained to recognize the dozen creatures that could mimic humans. I expected him to try and stab me with silver before long—a tried and true method for uncovering shapechangers.
He spoke in a casual tone, “When you didn’t arrive in Varvao, and the Caliphate fleet didn’t either, we assumed you died slowing them down. Centurion Sergius was praised for your efforts by the Emperor.” He paused and asked curiously, “How did you manage it?” He had given me the answers I sought without me even asking—they thought I was dead.
I slowly walked toward Corvus, preparing to bullshit him as I closed the distance. I also needed to be careful about the range of his ability to influence me. From reviewing the charm affinity spell forms, I knew they the closer you were to a target, the more potent the spell.
“I snuck aboard the lead warship and killed the orc priestess. She was quite comely for an orc,” I smiled lasciviously. “When she used her magic, she was unencumbered by clothes, making her a temptingly easy target.” It was a lie, but a plausible one since we had been trained in assassination.
I sighed heavily, as if recalling a bad memory. “Unfortunately, the Pathfinders took offense to me spearing their priestess and chased me for days seeking revenge. I lost my goggles and message book during my flight east. They blocked me from heading south to Varvao, but I eventually reached Vartaholme.” I stopped twenty feet from him to appear unthreatening. He seemed to be processing my words and considered my story believable, even smirking when I called the orc priestess comely.
He nodded slowly. “How are you here, then? In the Archives?” Corvus asked skeptically.
“Centurion Sergius sent me here after I reached Ogala. I thought it would be fun to surprise you,” I answered in a friendly tone.
He immediately frowned. “My father would have never directed you to the Archives.”
Well, shit—I miscalculated, but I maintained my smile. Corvus had even warned me that his father didn’t trust me. I thought that after saving the Centurion’s ass and delaying the fleet, I would at least be trusted. Corvus tensed, and I stepped forward to within fifteen feet and attempted to remove his head.
An aether shield flashed around him, and I realized that bastard was wearing the amulet I had given him under his persuasive magic. It somehow defended against my spell form as my aether bottomed out, causing a severe backlash that made me stumble.
I focused through the pounding headache, pushing the migraine away, drew magebane, and rushed at him. Corvus dodged right, using the heavy shelves for leverage to gain distance while drawing his only weapon—a dagger. He wasn’t wearing his Hound armor or gear, which explained why he avoided direct confrontation. I knew I couldn’t let him escape the room, but I also didn’t want to chase him all night.
“Why don’t we talk about this?” he asked, putting a shelf between us. He probably thought I was a spy, imposter or some mimic-like creature. I felt his spell form trying to gain a foothold within my subconsciousness, but my surging adrenaline and the necessity to leave no witnesses made it ineffectual.
I moved to give him a path to the chamber entrance, and he took it, rushing for the exit. I raced after him, leading with magebane and my dagger in the other hand. From our time together, I already knew I was much faster than him and overtook him in half a dozen strides.
Corvus reached for something on his belt and cursed loudly, “Pluto’s cock!” He wasn’t wearing his Hound belt, so whatever he had hoped to grab wasn’t there. He stopped running and turned to fight. We clashed with our blades. Corvus was on the defensive, backpedaling, trying to avoid the magebane’s superior reach. When we separated, he had a long slash down his forearm from my dagger, blood dripping steadily to the floor. The muscle was cut—if he wanted to continue, he’d have to switch the dagger to his other hand.
Seeing he was outmatched, I assumed he would beg for his life. Instead, he tried his influence spell form again. In a pleading tone, he said, “I will surrender, and you can present me to the man who holds your leash. My father would offer an Emperor’s ransom for me.”
I considered telling him about the conspiracy and introducing him to Antonia, but I recognized his attempt and resisted the influence that tried to worm its way into my thoughts.
“I serve only myself,” I told him, a hint of anger in my voice. He winced and gave up trying to influence me. Then he started grabbing jars of blood samples and throwing them at me.
Even wounded, Corvus had good aim—not at me, but at the shelves, smashing jars so I’d be showered in glass. Frustrated with his stalling, I tossed a pair of pellets to the floor—blindness and smoke. I sprinted to block the door. Corvus tried to escape the cloud, but I had already tossed more pellets along his likely path as I moved.
Corvus began coughing and stumbling among the shelves, knocking dozens of glass containers to the floor. I planned to let him wear himself out, but then he reached into his satchel and pulled out his message book, fumbling for something to write with. I couldn’t let him message his father.
I threw my dagger with my free hand, and it made a satisfying thud as it sank into his chest. I closed the distance and followed up with a slash from magebane. The blade tried to draw on my aether, pulling the minuscule amount I had recovered over the last minute. I didn’t need its ability—as I pivoted rapidly on my heel and cut into Corvus’ neck.
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He reached for the wound as blood gushed out, dropping the book.
I finished Corvus by removing his hand and piercing his heart, not wanting him to suffer. I stood over him, breathing steadily and shaking my head. His shocked, wide-eyed expression was a reminder that I was a killer.
Another jar shattered, drawing my attention. The poor cat had knocked over another glass jar as it stumbled along a shelf—the foolish feline had blinded itself by entering the wafts from the pellets.
I confirmed Corvus was dead and retrieved the amulet along with his message book. I was curious about what he had discussed with his father. I leaned over and took his Hound token from around his neck as well, sending it to my dimensional space. If I needed to show a Hound token in the future when departing the Empire, I would prefer it was not mine.
I picked up the frightened cat while soothing it. Its claws dug into me for grip and as a release for its fear. It had been trying to clear its eyes but wasn’t having much success.
After barring the entrance to the room so I wouldn’t be surprised, I walked to the desk, set the cat down, and cleaned its eyes with a waterskin I found there. The cat quickly calmed as my voice soothed it, and washing its eyes allowed its vision to clear. Soon, it was rubbing against my leg, treating me as its savior.
With the cat taken care of, I checked the large tome and found Castile’s, Renna’s, and Zyna’s reference numbers. I walked to the shelves, figured out the organizing system, and pulled those three samples in glass jars. Each jar contained small cut squares of cloth soaked in their dried blood. The samples were ready to use in a blood compass. My aether had recovered enough to move all the jars into my dimensional space. I was taking these as insurance in case I needed to find one of the mages in the future.
I moved to Corvus and placed the collector on him. The collector easily pulled the blue wisps from his still-leaking corpse. It felt cold-hearted to harvest someone I knew—even if he was an adversary. I was surprised when a major intellect essence formed.
I slipped the essence into one of my pouches and searched his body. He had a silver ring with a faceted ruby and runic script. It was an artifact, though not a dungeon artifact. The dagger he had used was a dungeon-runic weapon, but not the one I had given him that had belonged to Selene Greco. I returned to the desk to read his correspondence with his father. The exhausted cat was splayed across the book, sleeping after an eventful night.
These message books only held the script for two days before it vanished, so I wasn’t sure how much I would glean from the correspondence. As I paged through it, I frowned. Centurion Sergius was clearly grooming his son, judging by the volume of entries.
Corvus had advocated for me with his father and was upset when I was believed to be dead. From the entries, it was clear Centurion Sergius didn’t trust me—but I only had access to the last two days of communication.
Centurion Sergius was apparently taking fifteen of his Hounds to support the Emperor’s attack on the Esenhem Elves, which explained why I had been left alone in the Western Empire and why the southern wilds were undermanned to monitor the growing goblin horde. It also explained why there were only eight Hounds in the city protecting the Archives. I had killed two and trapped two others, so I guessed the remaining four were in the city above, guarding the entrances.
The goblin problem was more severe than I had thought. Sergius told his son that a hobgoblin general was organizing the goblin hordes. The few Hounds near the mountains were issuing dire warnings about the coming surge. I closed the book, frustrated that the communication didn’t go back further than two days.
I pulled the registry book toward me and gently pushed the sleeping cat aside. It was perturbed but rolled over to continue its nap. Unsurprisingly, samples of neither Centurion Sergius nor Corvus were stored here. I found the entries for First Citizen Boris Angella and First Citizen Justin Cicero. I retrieved and stored those two samples—because it never hurt to know where your enemies were. I looked for Duke Octavian’s sample as well to gift to Castile, but there was only a dust imprint where it should have been.
I still had a few hours until dawn and needed to finish up. The aisles between the shelves were only four feet wide, and the shelves were over ten feet tall, made from thick timbers. There were twenty rows of parallel shelves, each one hundred and fifty feet in length. I walked along the outer row and began removing the interior supports. The first shelf tilted, sending dozens of glass containers crashing down in a cacophony of shattering glass. It didn’t cause a strong enough push to start a domino effect, but the cat was wisely absent as I methodically destroyed the Archives.
It took much longer than I’d anticipated. The final touch was breaking the casks of lamp oil among the wreckage. I doubted more than a tenth of the samples had survived. Burning it all was probably more symbolic at this point. I uncorked the oil casks and tossed them around the perimeter of the wreckage.
I tossed the index tome into the pile, and Corvus’s body followed. As I soaked the book and his corpse with the last cask of oil, I knew it was a risk—burning him would alert Sergius that his son was dead—but from what I understood, it would prevent necromancers from speaking with him.
I lit the book and stepped back, watching the flames rise. Soon the fire found the puddles of oil, racing along the floor where it had seeped into cracks. The wave of heat forced me to step back as colored smoke rose from the burning pile. The wood was dry, and the oil potent. The fire grew quickly, and I saw the smoke being drawn up into vents high in the ceiling. One of the undamaged jars exploded with a pop. It was time to go, before the air fouled too much. Although the underground complex was vast, there was a lot in this room that could burn.
As I started climbing the stairs, I found the cat confidently plodding at my side. I turned toward the bunk room where I had trapped the two Hounds. I heard the pair pounding on the stone—soft thuds and screams. I realized the room was above the Archives, and the smoke must be filling it. I had planned not to leave witnesses, but suffocating seemed too cruel a death.
The cat hissed, and I turned around to run down the corridor. The smoke must have been reaching the surface and alerting people. I hoped those two men deserved their fate and fled into the tunnels.
Pulsing earth speak, I made my way back to the old woman’s shop. The cat took the lead and guided us straight back to its home. I rewarded him with another plate of eggs and bacon. I then returned the blocks to seal the access I had made. I was starting to feel the warning signs of aether burn and was glad my work was done.
I crept up the steps and cracked the cellar door, surprised to see the morning sun filtering through the windows. The cat dashed past me and up the stairs. I didn’t see the old woman and moved to the back door.
Just as I was about to slip out, a dry voice cut through the air from another room: “How did you get in here?” I paused, worried I’d have to deal with her. I pulled the hood of my manticore cloak tight over my head to hide my features.
The cat meowed loudly, seeking attention. “I’ll feed you in a bit, Apollo,” she said, addressing my feline accomplice. Judging by his whining tone, I was sure he was telling his mistress there was an intruder—but I didn’t wait to be discovered. I slipped into the alley.
As I walked toward the Eastern Gate to leave the city, a few strangled puffs of dark smoke began to rise from some of the sewer grates I passed. I didn’t wait for the city’s alarms to sound and was soon on the road to Sobral—to join Maveith.
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