It didn't take long for Major to regain full control of his facility and run a diagnostic scan, as he put it. He assured his guests that with Lucius gone, things would go back to normal.

  This wasn't as well-received as he hoped it would. Alefs by themselves were enough of a nuisance, and that was when they stuck to running themselves into Siembra's pylons. After they had shown up within the town proper once, there was no going back to the old ways.

  And then, there was the beast. Not an ominous cosmic force and a thing you build your superstitions around, but a very real threat right under your ass. One that transformed upstanding captains into partial blobs with more than just a few screws loose.

  In the end, after a rather heated discussion, Major relented and grudgingly agreed to try a more direct approach once again, but only if his existence was kept secret for the time being. True to his ways, Major proposed to form another order, one that included those present and no one else.

  Gaius shot that idea down. He had very little desire to be a part of any order. And he simply couldn't deal with Isabella adopting a new set of rules on top of the ones she was already beholden to.

  He instead offered to reconvene at a later date and discuss their options regarding alefs and the beast with clear heads and a better grasp of the issue.

  Major had no objections to that, making Gaius wonder how someone could live this long and remain so na?ve. Victor and Alessia wanted to make a name for themselves. Gertrude was a wizard, and that bunch was notorious for naming spells after themselves. Esven was the guy who served the town even despite that town treating him like a murderous fool. And Isabella now had new information about her order, the one thing that had any meaning in her life for pretty much its entire length.

  Gaius wouldn't even dare to bet on which of them would be the first to inform the world of Major and his facility. But all it meant for him was that the quiet mansion in the country he was intending to buy when this was all over, was quickly becoming a secluded cabin lost deep in the woods.

  Keeping his concerns to himself, Gaius steered the discussion towards getting back to the surface. And there, Major did them all a big solid. A quick jaunt away from Lucius' lair there was a tube, just like the one used to ferry alefs into Siembra.

  Major invited them all in and told them to come visit when they were ready.

  The next thing Gaius knew was a feeling of weightlessness. A handful of heartbeats later he was stepping out of the tube in the backyard of Vasily's Emporium.

  Outside it was already dark. An entire day went by while they were exploring the depths beneath Siembra. And it just so happened that the butcher neighbor picked precisely this moment to step outside to relieve himself, thus becoming the first thing to go wrong in what was supposed to be a perfect plan to keep Major's existence a secret.

  Esven had to go sort the butcher out and feed him a story about an investigation into the recent alef attack. It held for now, but Gaius knew all about plans like this and their tendency to unravel.

  With the butcher sent away, confused and only slightly threatened, Gaius proposed they all gave their injuries at least a few days to properly heal.

  And that eventually put Gaius back behind the counter, using the tedium of customer-watching as a distraction from the niggling pain in his wrist. He silently bemoaned healing magic and its drawbacks.

  You can't unbreak a bone was a common saying among the practiced healers. The wrist was healed just fine thanks to Isabella's intervention, but even though she hastened the recovery and mended the broken bones, the end result was similar to what you could expect had you let the injury heal naturally. Slightly lessened mobility and a promise of annoying aches every time the weather was about to change.

  At least when Gaius combined the customers with the wrist, he was able to push away those bigger thoughts that lurked beneath the surface. Thoughts that raise short but hard to answer questions and fill you with existential dread and a strong sense of impending doom.

  Gaius didn't like having those thoughts. He spent most of his life running from them. Now it seemed they were finally catching up to him.

  Around the time most honest people were finishing up their lunch breaks and going back to work, the store emptied out. Still unwilling to confront his thoughts, Gaius put all of his attention on the front door. Someone was about to come in. He knew it.

  Someone did. Dropping Gaius' stomach deep inside his bowels and forcing him to clench his jaw in a failed attempt at a smile.

  It was a distraction alright. Standing inside the store was a completely unremarkable middle-aged man. He was accompanied by a couple of slightly less featureless but still bland guys dressed in long traveling cloaks.

  But even despite the man's complete lack of notable features, Gaius knew him. This was the guy who originally hired him to steal the tablets.

  "Hi, Gaius Chanter here. How may Guy help you?" Gaius bungled his introduction while his client was crossing the store.

  "Gaius Chanter, eh? I like it. Has a nice ring to it." The client's voice was as bland as his appearance. His elbows were on the counter and his two goons positioned themselves to box Gaius in. "And you can call me Secundus."

  When negotiating the job's terms, no names were exchanged, and so now Gaius at least had something to call his ominous benefactor.

  "What brings you here, Secundus?" Gaius asked, his eyes darting between the guy and his entourage.

  "Oh, you know, I mosey into town on official Mystlund business, me being a diplomat and all, and then I hear about my countryman working as a merchant here. I figured I should go pay him a visit and introduce myself. It is only polite."

  The words were flowing, but Gaius wasn't paying them much attention. He was busy figuring out what those words actually meant. Seeing how apart from the four of them the imp was the only living being inside the store at the moment, the secrecy was a bit unfounded, Gaius felt. But then, with these spy types, no caution was excessive caution.

  His client's occupation was at least a bit concerning. When agreeing to this job, Gaius was certain he was dealing with a private collector's agent, not someone with ties to Mystlund's government.

  "I'm flattered by your attention to a lowly merchant," Gaius replied, picking up on his client's speech patterns. "And how does our good king Magnus fare these days?" he asked.

  "It's actually emperor Magnus now, Gaius," Secundus said. "You must have been away for a good while to miss his ascension and his tireless efforts to resurrect the glory of the Old Empire."

  This greater ambition was indeed news to Gaius, and if nothing else, it justified his desire to get his hands on a few bags of gold and move somewhere far away from the new emperor before his attempts to bring back the old ways inevitably ended up in chaos and upheaval.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  On the surface, he nodded, seemingly very interested in the news from his homeland. "Well, in that case, I think we simply have to discuss our kingdom's future. In private."

  Secundus was happy to agree, which prompted Gaius to invite him upstairs and ask Bes to watch over the store.

  "Ah, so now you're bossing me around. I see how it is." The imp wasn't happy about the request, but then he was a creature from hell and happiness was a foreign concept to him.

  Only now acknowledging the imp's existence, Secundus looked him over and said, "And what's this? A helper imp? How modern of you, Gaius. It's like I've always said. You can take a man out of Mystlund, but you can never kill his love for progress. Good on you for bringing some culture to this quaint backwater."

  The imp spat and bared his sharp yellow teeth. "Ah, whatever. Just go. I don't need you spook types, crowding the place for longer than absolutely necessary."

  "Oh, but we're perfectly honest statesmen, my good fiend," Secundus said. "Because if we weren't and you happened to stumble onto suspicious activity, we would have to eradicate you so thoroughly, even the top demonologists wouldn't be able to summon you for millennia." There was no sign of threat in Secundus' voice.

  The imp wasn't buying this friendly yet ominous act. "Yeah? You try that and you'll be dealing with forces far beyond yours or your emperor's feeble attempts at magics." The imp's wings were flapping with extra gusto, making Gaius wonder what would happen if someone like Vasily decided to declare a one-koschei war on a major power like Mystlund.

  Before things got out of hand, Gaius shooed Bes away and led Secundus upstairs while vaguely assuring him the imp wouldn't be a problem.

  Upon entering Gaius' room, Secundus locked the door and closed the shutters on the window. He then placed a collection of pyramids emanating strong mystical energies around their thresholds. Extra protection or maybe a way to ensure no one was listening in, Gaius figured.

  It was Gaius, Secundus, and his two guards inside. The guests weren't talking, so Gaius had no choice but to prop himself against a wall and start.

  "How did you find me?"

  "Now that you're aware who you're working for, it shouldn't come as a surprise to you that we have eyes everywhere," Secundus replied.

  "Yes, but what took you so long? It's been months since I've started working here."

  The first sign of emotion flashed somewhere deep inside Secundus' eyes. It was akin to fatherly mockery.

  "Frankly, you're not that important. With this whole empire business, I have my hands more than full these days. It took a while for me to get to an inconsequential report from a distant border pass. But now that I have, here we are."

  "Here we are," Gaius repeated after Secundus.

  The spy wasn't a fool. A smirk crept onto his face. "Come on, we're all on the level here, kid. No need to dance around the issue. This job you had, it wasn't one of those where if you fail, you're done. No one really expected you to succeed. Countless others have failed to procure those relics already. I'm just here to clear the air and since you seem to be alive and well, try to squeeze a few drops of extra intel about those things out of you."

  What began as a chortle quickly turned into uproarious laughter that caused even the stone-faced guards to exchange concerned glances.

  In a bit, when he regained the ability to breathe, Gaius wiped some moisture from his eyes and said, "I didn't fail is the thing," he said. "You see, I got stuck here. It's a long story, it involves the imp and his master. You don't need to know it. What you need is right here."

  Gaius crouched by the table, opened the secret compartment, and produced the two tablets that started it all.

  Staring at the prize that eluded him for so long, Secundus wasn't able to maintain his passionless fa?ade and joined Gaius for a bout of laughter.

  He ordered his men to examine the tablets and when they were confirmed as authentic, he turned his grin towards Gaius. "What can I say, you've earned yourself wealth beyond your wildest dreams, Guy." Secundus was now holding the tablets, just to feel them in his hand. "Never would have I imagined that this fishing expedition could prove so fruitful. Care to share how you got a hold of them?"

  "It's a trade secret." Gaius winked. "But now that you have yours, how do we go about delivering me my wealth?"

  Secundus looked over his guards and hid the tablets in a secret pocket of his jacket. "We obviously can't move all that gold across the border without raising suspicion. You know how to contact me. When you get back home, my assistant will set you up."

  "Here's the thing," Gaius started. "I kind of can't leave this place for several months still. This goes back to that story you don't need to know. Just make sure I'm still expected when I finally manage to get out of here."

  Secundus looked at Gaius as if he was measuring the thief inside his head. In the end, he asked, "How much do you know about these tablets?"

  This question resulted in Gaius mirroring Secundus' questioning gaze. "I think at this point it's safe to say I know more about them than you do, regardless of how informed you may be."

  The spy took more time to regard Gaius. "Then, as long as it's understood that this conversation never happened..." Gaius nodded, allowing Secundus to proceed. "You know what power the tablets wield. They can give us access to the technology buried underneath. You know, all the stuff the local yokels treat as divine."

  "You know all that, huh?" Gaius was well aware his homeland's spy networks were vast, but having Secundus so casually mention a thing like this, like it wasn't even that big of a secret, was nothing if not impressive.

  "Come on, Gaius. All we had to do was read their texts through the lens of our far superior understanding of the world. Afterwards, it was just putting two and two together. We had to be cautious while getting our hands on the original sources, but once we did, it was all smooth sailing."

  "Look, I'm not the king's, I mean the emperor's, treasurer," Gaius cut Secundus off. "You don't need to present things to me like you're justifying a budget increase. If it was that easy, you wouldn't need me to steal the tablets for you. I have this feeling this whole op is your personal pet project, right? Because if your reading of their texts is correct, it would upend our superior understanding of the world and prove many of our most influential scholars to be at best hacks."

  "Can't get anything past you. Any chance I can interest you in a job?" Secundus asked.

  "Nope, I prefer my independence."

  "Suit yourself," Secundus said. "But the point is, because you're not asking me to elaborate on what all my dancing around the point means, I have to assume you know I'm right. And if that's the case, possessing these tablets will allow me to turn the famed Caladonian weapons back on them."

  "You want to tell me Magnus is planning an invasion?" It's just been a few months since Gaius was last in Mystlund. Back then, his kingdom was in no way preparing to mobilize for a military campaign.

  "Nothing of the sort," Secundus said. "But imagine what having a fully armed ancient fort on the border would do to our negotiating power."

  "A fort? What do you mean?"

  "I've read a passage that suggested that given the right command, ancient cities could return to the surface even still. And if having access to a few of their cannons can give a miserable kingdom like Caladonia all this power, just think about what having an entire city at your disposal could do for us."

  Power again. It seemed to Gaius he was the only one capable of resisting its siren song. And with the tablets already in Secundus' possession, he couldn't exactly spin a story about how he didn't have them.

  "I know it feels like a good idea to you," Gaius said. "But there's more at play here than ancient firepower and fancy toys."

  "I count on exactly that," Secundus nodded.

  Explaining to the spy, in as general terms as possible, the dangers Major's facility posed to the world, Gaius was pretty much drowning in the irony of him being the first to spill the beans on the whole thing.

  Having heard Gaius out, Secundus countered with, "You're the guy who did the impossible, and I respect that, but that story of yours sounds like a bunch of far-fetched horseshit to me, Guy."

  "I saw it with my own eyes."

  "It was probably just an illusion created to prevent those like us from getting a taste of their power."

  And with that, Gaius was finally able to see Secundus for what he was. A man so caught up in a singular idea that he wouldn't listen to reason and would find every excuse possible to discount anything that didn't suit his limited understanding. He was not unlike Lucius in that, only with less warped flesh.

  "Could you at least postpone your excursion until after I'm far away from here?" Gaius asked.

  "You have until this evening," Secundus stated in a way that made it obvious this wasn't a negotiation.

  Knowing Secundus and knowing Major, Gaius would easily bet on the latter, especially after the Lucius debacle. But still, there was a slight chance that Secundus' plan would succeed and allow him to bring the facility to the surface.

  And while the main danger of it lay in unleashing the beast's energies upon the world, Gaius was more concerned with Siembra's fate in the short term. If there was no town, there was no shop. If there was no shop, according to Vasily's draconian terms, Gaius' contract was void and his fate was sealed.

  Gaius understood Secundus. He knew what made a man like him tick and how he operated. Instead of trying to plead with the man, or declaring his intentions, Gaius reached under the table where he had a dagger stashed.

  He had a smile on his face when he launched that dagger at Secundus' heart.

  Story Facts - Chapter 36