The train's steam whistle sounded airily in the distance. Those sitting at this small sidewalk cafe pretended that they couldn't hear it. To their point of view, life had been far better before the loud, smoke and steam belching machine had arrived. Wyatt, the owner and proprietor of the cafe, finished setting down the beer mugs on the only occupied table and sat down at a nearby table. Not many people came to this corner of the city and those that did rarely had the money to spend on wine or beer.
Above the street, the sun was shining, as usual for this area. The blue stopped suddenly at the tops of the buildings which seemed to tower over the cafe and the street, even though they were short, by Gambrian standards. The street was narrow and quiet with litter cans overflowing onto the sidewalk. The people who lived here took little pride in their dwellings because this confining, smelly city was not their home. A young Frellock man walked quickly from his low brick building and along the far side of the street, picking his way around the piles of trash, studiously avoiding the men sitting at Wyatt's cafe.
The beer drinking men at the cafe glared at the young man from underneath their wide brimmed hats. They raised their voices to be sure he heard their derision.
"That's what's wrong with Frellock youth today: they've forgotten who they are. Young men
should be ashamed to cover their feet with the dirty Gamby skins," said the first, "or indeed with anything."
"That's secondary to trading the long robes of his heritage for the short coat and-" the second man made a disgusted noise before continuing "-pants. Why anyone would choose to wear those awful things instead of a robe is beyond me."
"And here's another thing," began the third man. The young man who had been their target was gone but it didn't slow the men down. Can you believe that some of these kids are actually embracing technology? It's a disgrace. The very thing that keeps us opressed they embrace."
Wyatt surveyed the three men. They had been coming to his cafe for as long as he could remember, long before he had inherited it from his father. They had been cranky young men then and age had not mellowed them any. If anything, their rhetoric had gotten worse as they became less able to act on their anger. They spent their energy in more passive resistence now and spent their time trying to dull the pain of having their entire way of life destroyed. They were old enough to remember a life before the Gambrians had taken over some forty years ago.
Wyatt smiled to himself; even the concept of measuring time by some astronomical event was a Gambrian invention. Before then, the equitorial culture of the Frellock measured time by notable events. After all, it was the event and its relation to other events that were worth remembering.
The men themselves were unremarkable. Their skin ranged in color from dark mahogany to the tawny red that Wyatt had. From under their hats, long, greying locks of hair flowed down to their waists in various styles of braids. Their robes were tattered, but expertly patched, as most Frellock considered their tailoring skill a point of cultural pride. They had enough money to pay for drinks throughout the day, but not enough to complain about how watered down they were.
Wyatt never asked where they got the money. Beyond being none of his business, he didn't want them to start in on a tirade about the evils of money and the virtues of barter. It was Wyatt's father's decision to operate the cafe on a money-only basis; a risky decision in such an anti-Gambrian area of the city. But it had paid off when the Gambys began requiring businesses to report their income in money and to pay taxes in money. That was just one instance of where the Gambians had violated their own word; despite their sound defeat of the Frellock, they had vowed to leave Frellock society and customs relatively intact. That had slowly been changing. But, it seemed that the Gambrians were content to make small, incremental changes and let the Frellock youth guide their elders to a more Gambrian-like society.
Like traditional Frellock cafes, the majority of the tables and kitchen were outside. The only enclosed area, traditionally, was the cold storeroom. However, since the Gambrians had built all of the buildings in this area, the interior was far larger than the exterior. Wyatt left the interior empty; his cafe was rarely busy enough to fill the outdoor seats let alone to require indoor seats. Wyatt had inherited the cafe from his father when he was seventeen years old. His father had not yet been born when the Gambrians took over and held no ill will towards them. He told Wyatt over and over again that change is inevitable and that it was hypocritical of Frellock to embrace the constant change that part of their culture before Gambrian rule and to reject the changes they didn't like.
Wyatt frowned as he remembered his father. He had loved his father dearly and deeply respected him as a businessman. Wyatt had looked forward to learning much more from him over the years that they would be full partners in the cafe. But that dream had been cut short when his father was killed.
As if echoing his thoughts, the three old men's talk changed to the latest attack on a costal city. "I heard that it was a young kid that set this one off," said one of them. The other two immediately rejected that idea.
"No, no, Frellock would never be so cavalier with life as to send a child to do an adult's work," said one.
The other offered, "as I heard it told, it was a kid of fourteen, just shy of being a Frellock adult himself. So, I've a notion he did it because he believed in the cause, not because he was ordered to."
"Still and even so," said the first, "this attack killed at least ten Frellock bystanders. If this kid was acting on your own, as you say, he was mighty poorly trained in telling the good guys from the bad guys."
The second man grunted. "Hard to tell sometimes even you grew up Before. Saw a tawny colored kid the other day in Gamby clothes and damned if he didn't look like an unusually tall Gamby. Swear he could've fooled the Council of Barons into thinking he was Gamby."
"Now he's the one the Seafrees should've gotten to attack that costal city. Who would have suspected him? He could've walked into a totally Gamby area and set off the bomb. Slick as that-" he snapped his fingers "-and no Frellock would have been hurt."
"Right," said the first, "like the Sea Free Fighters really care about being noticed. Probably happy some Frellock died to raise the anger of the people on the home front."
At this point the conversation descended into argument and Wyatt took that as his cue to get the next round. As he returned to the table, other people had started to arrive at the cafe. The sun had sunk below the buildings, making it difficult for most Frellock to tell the time. Even with years of Gambrian influence, taking note of the time was something Frellock found unnatural at best. But, the folks arriving were coming from jobs in Gambrian stores or factories where their short masters would have told them it was time to go home. So, Wyatt set the fish to broil and passed out mugs of amber ale to the newcomers, chatting as he went, moving among them with an inborn ease.
Of all the Gambrian traditions, the only ones that did seem to take hold among the Frellock without argument were those of beer and smoking. The beer provided a nice counter to the sickly sweet of traditional Frellock alcohol. And smoking tobacco was an instant success with the Frellock, even in the long, curved pipes the Gambrian used. Talking, relaxing, and socializing were venerated and deeply rooted parts of Frellock culture, so anything that provided them with an excuse to stop, chat, and sit a while was welcome.
Soon the sky was growing dark and the air was thick was smoke. Wyatt lit lights for each table, served the fish and let the cool breeze wash over him. Tonight was a good night; it might be payday for the Gambrian employed. Even being raised in a Gambrian influenced society, Wyatt never could keep track of the days well. He was usually glad to see the tax collector every three months because it kept him closer in sync with the Gambrian world around him. The talk people around him would stay until late into darkness, drinking well, and talking easily. Although he had a somewhat tainted view of the Frellock's original lifestyle, Wyatt thought he would have like it immensely. Certainly, his life at that moment was peaceful and calm without all the tension and pressure that Gambrians seemed to take with them everywhere. Even the old men had stopped fighting and were leading traditional Frellock drinking songs from their table. Their voices echoed off the brick canyon around them, lending volume and encouraging them to continue.
The next morning dawned unseen to Wyatt's eyes. He knew it was dawn from the light in the sky, but the sunrise was hidden from him. Despite the good night, Wyatt woke up in a foul mood. He suspected that his nightmares about bombs and children and his father were to blame. He tried to shake the mood as he prepared the cafe for the day. He scrubbed the tables, chairs, and sidewalk with a stiff brush and soapy water, washing the water into the gutter. The small amount of trash the cafe had generated yesterday was placed neatly in a litter can beside the road. About halfway through washing up, the noisy Gambrian garbage contraption came by. It was manned by a short Gambrian woman and a tall Frellock kid, probably sixteen or so. He wore Gambrian pants and a shirt and seemed totally unaware that he was doing anything controversial. Wyatt sometimes envied that obliviousness to tradition, and, truth be told, it was becoming less and less controversial all the time. Sometimes, it would make things a whole lot easier to not know what was being destroyed.
Cleaning up improved Wyatt's mood slightly. He stoked the fire in the stove and started the morning kettle. It would be some time before his three old regulars returned, but there were folks arriving already for sweet, milky tea, cold fish, and toast with honey to start their day. Wyatt moved among the thin crowd, chatting, and trying to shake the angst that threatened to overwhelm him today. There was something not right about this morning, but he couldn't say what. Try as he might, the foul mood returned again and again. Finally, he let it take over and stopped chatting and stopped trying to be a pleasant Frellock shopkeeper. His customers didn't notice since they didn't come explicitly for the talk and they had to move quickly by Frellock standards to get to their jobs on time.
Customers thinned out and Wyatt had seen the last one on his way before the three old men arrived. "Three of the same, Wyatt," growled the de facto leader of the group. Wyatt brought the beers and set them down. "Get one for yourself, lad, on us. You're going to need it this morning." Puzzled by the old man's generosity, but never one to turn down beer, he got a mug for himself.
The first old man raised his mug. "Frellock culture: may it remain pure and become dominant again." Wyatt and the other men raised their glasses in a toast, draining the beer in one long draw. Wyatt refilled their mugs and went to retrieve the accounting books he kept for the tax collector and the money from last night. He thought no more of the old man's toast.
A short time later, a loud explosion was heard from less than a mile away.
The chaos had subsided by the time Wyatt arrived at the explosion site. Helpful passersby who were uninjured were helping those wounded or stunned by the explosion while others were putting out the fires started by the explosion. There was a strange calm in the air, as though the people involved were too busy to panic, and that analysis of who did this and why could wait. Wyatt approached a young woman helping an injured man off the street and over to a nearby cafe. She pointed at a young woman sitting stunned by the curb and said nothing. Wyatt bent down and helped the woman to her feet, slowly guiding her to the cafe that seemed to be a makeshift hospital.
After making sure that she was seated securely, he went back to the explosion site and helped those that were still living back to the cafe. There were too many bodies and too few survivors. In his searching, Wyatt saw that the garbage collection vehicle was at the center of the explosion. The young Frellock man's body was nowhere to be seen, but the Gambrian driver lay dead across the controls of the vehicle.
A moan of pain from Wyatt's right drew his attention. A young Gambrian man had lost his left leg from the knee down, but looked unharmed otherwise. Wyatt knew nothing of medicine so simply picked up the small man and took him to the cafe-hospital. By this time, the authorities had started arriving in their noisy vehicles. They brought a water vehicle to extinguish the large fire and several others brought short Gambrian doctors. The doctors descended on the injured, moving with a speed and intensity that was so common in Gambrians. For once, Wyatt was thankful for their speed.
Several of the less severely injured Frellock had left the cafe once they saw the Gambrians. Other Frellock passersby left the area around that time, whether because the immediate need was handled or because the authorities had arrived was hard to say. Wyatt had no love for the Gambrians, but he felt a grudging respect rising in him. He wasn't sure that Frellock doctors would have paid as much care and urgency to injured Gambrians if the situation was reversed.
In their rush, two Gambrian nurses carrying a stretcher bumped into Wyatt. He took that as his cue to leave. Indeed, the cafe was swarming with an activity level that made his eyes hurt to look at. He walked slowly back to his own neighborhood, down narrow, identical streets. Who could do this? he wondered. There were more Frellock than Gambrians killed in that explosion and the Gambrian had no need to resort to random bombings to kill the Frellock. That much had been made clear in the war. No, it must be another Frellock insurgent group like the Sea Freedom Fighters. Didn't they realize that they were hurting the Frellock and their freedoms more than they were helping? As his mind wandered, so did his feet and Wyatt found himself walking towards the warehouse district along the wharf's edge. It was daylight, so he needn't fear ambush, but his attention sharpened.
The city had been designed and build by the Gambrians. Before the war, Frellock could never even understand the idea of a city. Frellock culture was so fluid that a city was wherever the greatest number of people happened to be at any one time. But certainly that place was not fixed and moved like the ocean that was so central to Frellock livelihood. The city, therefore, reflected the Gambrian way of life, with tight, straight streets, rigid docks and piers, and vast warehouses. The Gambrian society had begun in the south of the continent, in tall mountains and deep forests, where the winter was quite harsh. So, stockpiling goods for the winter was necessary for survival. When the Gambrians expanded their cities into the milder climates nearer the equator, it just meant that more could be sent home to the mountains to make the winter easier there. Because the Frellock culture was based on barter and had no seasons to speak of, there was little sense in acquiring things that were not immediately useful.
So, of all the places in the city, Wyatt felt most lost and ill at ease in the warehouse district. Add to that the greater chance of being robbed here and Wyatt became keenly aware of his surroundings. The waves beat against the wharf's edge with a rude slap, sending a spray of fishy smelling water into the air. Sea birds squawked and circled overhead, waiting to spy some free food or a fish darting too close to the water's surface. As in his neighborhood, the sounds of the city center were lost; even the train whistle couldn't be heard here. Unlike his cafe, however, there was an almost unobstructed view of the ocean from here. Wyatt let himself smile at the large expanse of sky and paused for a moment to caress the line where sky met ocean with his eyes. That was where his heart was, out along that line. He had never lived the traditional Frellock life, but something inside him was drawn to the ocean, to the wind and freedom that the horizon represented.
"Beautiful, isn't it," said a low female voice from Wyatt's left. He jumped and turned quickly to see who had interrupted his gazing. She was short by Frellock standards with long, salt and pepper curls flowing out from underneath a tattered, wide-brimmed hat.
She chuckled at Wyatt. "A little jumpy today, my young friend," she said and looked up at Wyatt. Her mahogany face was round and her nose a little stubby. Now, her eyes crinkled with a smile, but there were creases of worry in her brow. "What brings you my way today?"
Wyatt let go of the breath he had been holding and relaxed. Josaphine gazed up at him with kind, bright eyes and waited for him to answer. Wyatt chuckled softly since it was she he had come to see. "I'm not really sure," he said. "I was walking back to the cafe when my steps brought me here."
"Ah," said Josaphine happily, turning her gaze back to the ocean, "following your feet rather than guiding them. How very Frellock of you; your father would have been proud." Her hands played idly with the trinkets she wore around her neck as she gazed out at the ocean. "You are worried," she said.
Startled again, Wyatt nodded and looked down at his hands, clasped together in front of him. His skin was pale compared to hers. For some reason, he always felt like a student with a teacher when he visited Josaphine. He looked over to see if she would ask him what he was worried about, if she would let him say in his own time, or if she already knew. Her dark hands vividly showed many scars. Wyatt doubted she got those scars from weaving or tailoring. Her deep red robe was frayed and patched and reached all the way to her thickly calloused bare feet.
Wyatt watched her as he spoke. "I came about the explosion in the city." She showed no reaction. "I went to help the wounded, then I wandered about until I arrived here."
Josaphine's smile lessened and she nodded. "That explains the blood, at least," she said. Wyatt looked down, realizing for the first time that the front of his robe was darkened with the blood of those he'd helped. He started to fuss at it, trying to cover it or brush it off, when Josaphine suddenly grabbed both his hands and held them still between them. Her hands were calloused, but smooth and warm. She looked him in the eye, her smile entirely gone now.
"Let it be," she commanded quietly. "It is what it is, and there's no shame in helping the injured. And there is no need to explain or apologize. Let it be." She stared into his eyes for a few seconds longer, then let his hands go. Wyatt was too stunned to react. "Let's have some tea," she said in a cordial voice that still sounded like a command.
Josaphine's shop was on the bottom floor of a nearby warehouse. The rest of the warehouse was used to store fabric and salt, ready for shipment back to the southern Gambrian cities. Tapestries and bolts of fabric lined the walls. A large loom filled the central space, with just enough room left for a sales counter and a small cot behind a tattered curtain. Some highly placed Gambrian women had come to believe that handmade Frellock fabric was far superior to the mass produced fabric that was becoming so common. Josaphine happened to agree and who was she to argue if they wanted to pay her to continue her traditional trade.
She led Wyatt to her back room and made some tea over a single burner stove. They took the tea cups and sat on the ground in front of the warehouse, looking out at the sea. Wyatt sipped the tea, slowly feeling himself relax. Josaphine said nothing and just stared out at the horizon. Wyatt smiled and said, "I now see why you have your shop here." The wharf was even quieter now that the tide was out, taking the slapping sound down to a weak thumping.
"Yes," she said, "the neighborhood can be challenging, but the view is worth it." She paused with her tea cup halfway to her lips. "Do you want to talk about what happened?" She completed her sip.
Wyatt involuntarily looked down at his hands and his robe. What had happened? He was coming here to tell her about the explosion, but she already knew. And she seemed to know what he was thinking. For a moment, his confused mind thought she was reading his mind with magic. But, that was silly; magic had been outlawed for twelve years, and even then, he wasn't sure magic could do that. Somehow she knew, there was no denying that. But where should he begin? There was the terrible explosion, then the lung tearing dash to help; the smoke, the fire, the wounded...
Wyatt felt a warm, strong arm around his shoulder and was pulled into a hug. It was only then that he realized he was crying. She held him like his mother might have, silent and strong, letting him take all the time he needed to let out his pain. In the back of his mind, he was angry for being babied and for needing to be babied; he was a grown man of twenty-three, and he shouldn't need support like this. Again, Josaphine seemed to read his mind. "Everyone hurts, Wyatt, and there's no shame in that." He launched into deeper sobs, knowing she was right, and held onto her as if he might fall if he let go.
He wasn't sure how long he cried for, but eventually he ran out of energy to cry. His eyes were puffy and red and Josaphine's sleeve was thoroughly damp with tears. She surveyed his face and opened one of the many trinkets around her neck. She offered the small bottle to him and he sipped it, coughing at the strength and sweetness of the alcohol inside it. He handed it back and she took a small sip before reattaching it to its necklace. "What happened?" she asked quietly.
Too tired to be upset by the memory, Wyatt began a dull recounting of the morning and the explosion. He described seeing the dead Gambrian driver slumped over the controls and his stomach tightened, threatening to return the tea and alcohol, and he choked.
"It's okay, Wyatt, it really is," Josaphine said, squeezing his arm. "Violence like that is something no one should ever have to see. You did a very brave thing by going to help; it's a shame that good deeds get rewarded with pain and nightmares." Wyatt nodded dumbly, the stress and alcohol were taking their toll. "I'm going to walk with you back to your cafe now. I don't want your three best customers to help themselves to too much beer in your absence. Besides, you'll feel better after a good night's sleep."
Wyatt frowned. Night? It wasn't night yet. Wyatt looked out at the darkening sky over the black water and raised his eyebrows in surprise. Josaphine helped him to his feet and held onto his hand as they walked slowly back to Wyatt's cafe. A day that had dawned so normally had ended so strangely, and he hadn't even begun to process the meaning of it all. Right now, none of that seemed important and Wyatt felt more grateful for his life than ever before.
When Wyatt and Josaphine arrived back at the cafe, the three old men were passing out drinks and leading drinking songs. Only a few of the patrons seemed interested in joining in, but those that did were having a good time. One of Wyatt's more regular customers was also there, attempting to broil fish on the stone. The leader of the old men approached Wyatt with a wink. He was in surprisingly good spirits for having to serve his own beer all day.
"Proud Frellock! I give you the saint of the southside!" He raised his glass in a toast and most of the other patrons joined in. "Don't worry, son, we made sure to pay for our beer, and we've even been collecting from the others for you." He gave Wyatt a friendly slap on the back. "We can't have our favorite cafe go under now, can we boys? Who else would put up with our miserable hides all day long?"
Josaphine fiddled nervously with one of the charms around her neck, directing him beyond the men to a quieter table near the stove. She touched the charm to Wyatt's back as he sat down. He looked stunned and dazed, awed by the generosity of the people around him. Josaphine squatted down to look levelly into his eyes and make sure he was okay. His eyes were filled with tears again. "What makes me worthy of this?" he asked.
"You're Frellock, boy!" yelled one of the old men, lifting his beer mug again.
Josaphine shot him a glare and turned back to Wyatt. "No," she said, "because you're a good person. That's what makes you worthy." She glared again at the men, as if daring them to take issue with her disregard for his race. "Now", she said, "you should eat something, drink a lot of water, and go to sleep. You'll feel better in the morning."
Wyatt ate what was put before him, drank two large mugs of water, and let himself be taken to his bed. Sleep overtook him quickly. He dreamed of blood, of sea birds, of dead Gambrians, and of battle songs.
Josaphine waited until she was certain that young Wyatt was asleep, then she walked back to the main cafe area. She asked if the woman acting as cook needed any help or a break, but she was fine. Finally, she approached the old men, bringing a beer mug with her.
She raised her mug slightly and said, "let Welldon burn." It was the battle cry of the war with the Gambrians, some thirty-eight years ago. "Let it burn," they replied in subdued unison, slightly raising their mugs. Josaphine took a seat with the old men and leaned forward conspiratorially before speaking. The old men's leader beat her to it.
"Garnok," said the leader, "and this is Joe and Emilio. What are you doing with our young Wyatt?"
Josaphine stepped on her rage. "Me?" she demanded quietly. "Are you stupid? You could have killed Wyatt with that bomb!" Her statement stunned the three into silence.
"Wh-what are you talking about?" asked Joe. "We weren't anywhere near the bomb site. We were-"
"Save it," hissed Josaphine. "After Garnok touched the boy, I tested his robe for common bomb chemicals and found some."
Emilio leaned back slightly, as if in victory, and said, "he could have come in contact with those at the site of the explosion." He smirked and nodded slightly at Joe.
"Ha!" barked Josaphine. "Except that I tested his robes on the way over here, after the explosion, and before you touched him. Cut the drolp. I don't care who you are or who you work for, but I won't stand by while you endanger young Wyatt. I made a vow to his father that I would watch over him; I didn't realize that involved defending his life against his own lunatic patrons."
Garnok put his hand down on the table. "Enough. Wyatt is no danger."
"And I have your word on that, do I? What if the bomb had gone off sooner? That you planted so close to your own homes makes me doubt your sanity further."
"Stand down, soldier," said Garnok. He locked eyes with her in the dimming light. Slowly and deliberately he said, "Wyatt is in no danger."
Josaphine searched his eyes and face for something insane, some sign that he was going about this half-cocked, some sign of deceit, for a long moment. Finding none, she grunted and took a large swallow of beer. "So be it. Wyatt is my responsibility, not you, nor your war. Just keep him out of it."
Garnok relaxed and leaned back, putting on his dumb, old man face. "To Wyatt!" he cried, and slammed back a large gulp of beer. Taking that as a cue that things had lightened up, Joe turned to ask Josaphine what division she was in, but she had already started walking away from the cafe, back to her shop.
It was another dreary day in Peadon, just like the last dozen. The sky was heavy with clouds and the wind came off the ocean with unrelenting vigor. It wasn't below freezing yet, which was somewhat unusual for this time of year. The warehouse that Ian was investigating was cold, poorly lit, but at least a little sheltered from the wharf's waterfront. He was getting the impression that criminals actually enjoyed dark, dank places rather than seeking them out through necessity. Why did they never conduct their affairs in warm, pleasantly resplendent homes? Surely it would make being a criminal more enjoyable. If nothing else, he would enjoy the break from routine.
The warehouse was just another smuggling operation's home base. Finding it had been the easy part; waiting until the Baron Council decided they had enough evidence to arrest the smugglers had been maddening. Ian had been sitting on his hands for over two months now, watching the smugglers move prohibited Tarn and Frellock goods in and out of the warehouse. He had to watch as they went out drinking and carousing, finally going back to warm beds, while he and various unfortunate members of the local law enforcement slept on cold, lumpy cots in a nearby warehouse. For two months, Ian cursed the glacial speed with which the Baron Council moved, shivering in the darkness.
Then, he finally got word that he could proceed. It had been like winter festival after the arrests were made. What wondrous illegal goods would be in the next crate? They found everything from drugs and alcohol, to decorative weapons and furs, to fruits and textiles. There were some magic artifacts, all of which Ian was happy to see go out the door to the local police station. He would never understand magic or the fascination people had with it. It just seemed so ridiculous and unscientific. Ian could not claim to be a great scientist or technologist, but at least he could see and understand the principles upon which science was based.
The police detective who had been his partner through all of this approached, his pants and tailcoat expensive, but rumpled from the long hours spent sitting and waiting before the raid. Detective Simmons was a good man, and an honorable Gambrian. He had served in the war and worked in Welldon itself for several years before returning to his home here in Peadon. Those long years had left him with a limp, but age had mellowed him. He was short by Gambrian standards, with grey-green skin, which contrasted with Ian's pale white skin.
"Well, sir, the boys figure they've opened all of the interesting crates," said Simmons. "Interesting stuff, the lot of it."
Ian nodded, making notes on his small pad of paper. His fair hair was starting to cover his ears, a shameful length, but he had expected to be home by now. "Yes. I wonder how much contraband they managed to sell in the last two months? No doubt, we'll never know for certain, but based on this total, it's quite a sum."
Simmons coughed to hide a laugh. Young Ian was always to business. "Yes, sir, quite a sum. I make it to be over twenty-five thousand for the two months. Considering what they paid for it, that's a tidy profit." Simmons bounced on his toes while Ian wrote that figure in his notebook.
Ian nodded absently. "Yes, yes, now I've two questions from all of this: one, did no one notice these extravagant men or wonder where their money came from, and two, who continues to supply them?" He already knew the answers to the questions, but he enjoyed hearing Simmons reason it out. And, Ian guiltily enjoyed it when Simmons would wander from speculation or reasoning into storytelling, which he did quite often.
Simmons stuck his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets and gazed at his shoes. "Well, sir, near as I can figure, folks around here don't much care where the money comes from, so long as it comes. If the smugglers were smart enough to stay away from respectable Gambrian society-" which they had been "-I imagine they could hide for quiet some time here. Much as I'd like to think otherwise, Peadon is not rich, nor is it known for honest trade dealings."
Ian grunted, pretending to scribble notes in his notebook. Not known for honest trade dealings, indeed. Before the Baron Council had annexed the city of Peadon, it was the most notorious pirate city of all the continent. Once the council put a stop to the pirates, it lost much of its stature and became just another port town, bringing in good to send on to richer cities inland. Many of the honest dealers from Peadon had lost work because of the reputation the city had among the new masters of the Baron Council.
"There was one case," mused Simmons, causing Ian to smile involuntarily, "where a young sea captain, James, I think his name was, good honest Gambrian boy, was actually trying to get himself known as a smuggler because the textiles he brought back to Peadon legally would be worth so much more if people thought they were contraband." Simmons chuckled. "That young man was so terrified when we brought him in, he started talking and we couldn't shut him up. And I mean for days. He actually got some of the other prisoners filing complaints against him because he was awake all night, trying to confess and explain. What a riot." Simmons paused and grew more somber. "He got four months though, which I thought was a bit steep since he never actually committed any crime, except perhaps pretending to break the law."
Ian frowned. He had no love for the Baron Council, but they were the government, and his sworn duty was to protect law and order in his land. That included doing things he disagreed with and upholding the Council laws. He didn't blame Simmons; he thought Simmons was a good man, and probably in the same position that he was: upholding laws he didn't always see the reason in. He let go of his frown and pretended to scribble something in his notebook. "Detective Simmons, I'd like to see the filed manifest for crate number 473 and check it against the actual discovered contents."
Simmons snapped to attention in military fashion and trotted off to find the manifest. Ian didn't really care about the manifest, he just wanted some excuse to ponder the Baron Council further and not have his ponderings mistaken for annoyance. They were undoubtedly some of the most self-serving folks on the continent, but he felt strangely noble in upholding the laws of the land. He felt almost as if it was his efforts alone that were keeping the hordes of chaos and incivility at bay. And today, holding chaos at bay meant cataloging the contents of smugglers' crates in a cold warehouse when he'd rather be at home. Ian sighed and smiled then walked off in the direction Detective Simmons had gone.
Ian tipped the hansome driver and walked up the front steps of the Peadon police station. He could have asked one of the officers at the warehouse for a ride, but they would be going home and Ian didn't want to make them go out of their way. Ian also preferred the new steam powered cabs to the animal drawn hansomes, but there was very little business for the newer cabs down at the wharf. The police station was a low grey building, but it had what Ian considered an appropriate level of importance and ponderance. Police work was serious business and it deserved a serious building.
The wind held less fury this far from the ocean, but it was just as cold. The wind whipped Ian's coat around, snapping it against his legs, and threatened to take his bowler hat off his head. Ian clapped it to his head with his free hand and quickened his pace to the front door. He would never get used to this wind. The front door opened easily and before he could really get himself together, the desk clerk hailed him.
"Hey there, Mr. Jenkins," said the clerk in a bored voice. "I've got a telegram for you." He held the slip of paper out towards Ian. "It's from the home office, sir."
Ian took the slip of paper from the clerk and unfolded it. It was the standard recall order, telling him to return to Volak when he finished up his paperwork here. Ian thanked the clerk and headed to the back of the station towards the office that had been his for the last eight months. This notice had come quickly since Ian had only sent word about wrapping up here mere hours ago. Usually it took the home office several days to figure out where to send him next. Ian glanced at the terse text again. There was no indication of anything unusal in the text, just the speed with which it had arrived.
Ian was one of twenty or so field agents for the Baron Council's investigation division. The Council was mostly a political body, merely dictating policy to the various baronys on the continent. They rarely delved into the messy business of enforcement, instead relying on each barony's internal law enforcement. The investigation division that Ian worked for dealt with cases that spanned multiple baronys. In fact, the case that Ian was finishing up didn't start anywhere Peadon. It actually started over two years ago, closer to Volak, the capital, in a local case involving illegal drug use. Most of Ian's cases spanned a shorter period of time. This case had been unusual in how pervasive and extensive the smuggling network had been.
The extent of the network was what had Ian most worried. It implied that there was help from within the baronys, or at least inaction. Both were symptoms of a larger scale decline in Gambrian society. While he could blame the Frellock war or continuing strain on the Council, Ian didn't believe that told the whole story. But, he had only met Frellock in passsing, so maybe they were just as corrupt and evil as some people made them out to be.
Ian sighed at the mountain of paperwork he would have to finish before he left for Volak. Even with the speed of a steam engine train, the trip would still take him a week. So he had to hurry up now so he could wait impatiently on the train.
Actually, Ian got a great deal of guilty pleasure out of taking the train. It was so fast and high tech! He felt like a giddy schoolboy when they got up to speed. Ian suspected that the frequent train travel was one of the reasons he enjoyed his job so much. He didn't much understand the science, especially when it involved that strange new electricity substance, but he did like to see it in action. The rail network was still in its infancy, with lines only between Volak and some of the key cities in the more powerful baronys. The only reason there was a station here in Peadon was that it was the closest city to Volak with access to the ocean. That access to both the sea and to swift travel to the capital is what had made it such a good base of operations for the smugglers.
Like many cities in its position, Peadon was growing, but not in measured sustainable ways. They were adding warehouses and shipyards, houses for the new workers, restaurants to feed them, and the like, but if the trade industry suffered or moved elsewhere, there would be nothing to keep the workers here. Wellden had been like that before the Frellock attack. Built as the Baron Council's access to the north coast of the continent, it was fast becoming a vibrant city of trade. Then, the Frellock attacked the city en masse and nearly destroyed it. They did not occupy the city, since cities were not their way, they just attacked it and burned it to the ground. Eventually, the city was rebuilt, and it did regain some measure of trade importance, but it was never the same after that. Some of Ian's colleagues who had been there during the rebuilding had called the city "sullen" and it had kept that feeling ever since.
Volak, on the other hand, was the capital city, nestled deep in the mountains and trees of the southern half of the continent. It was a serious city, with almost solemn glamor and awe. Once that had been awe of the imposing mountains and wilderness around it, but lately it seemed more to be more in awe of itself, looking inward at the state affairs headed in the Baron Council.
Ian's mind was drifting from the work at hand, and as the hours grew later, he became more and more cynical. His cynicism and derision would vanish in the light of day, but by the single oil lamp in this spartan, cold office, it seemed completely justified. The Baron Council was reaching a point where their long standing tradition of infighting would destroy the society. They had too many responsibilities to continue wasting time with petty differences. Taking care of the Frellock city of Frindon, on the coast west of Wellden, was a huge drain, as was continually fighting insurgents in all of the north coast cities. That didn't take into account the cost of rebuilding what the Frellock attacks destroyed or the cost in human lives. With important matters like those, why was the council spending its time fighting over lumber rights between the competing southeastern baronies? Or fishing licensing in Peadon and other coastal towns?
Perhaps this kind of obsession with trivia was what caused the barons to rise up against King Steven. Ian smirked. He always found it amusing that King Steven had, according to the history books, insisted on being King Steven I, as if hundreds of his lineage would follow him. In fact, King Steven was the first of his lineage and the last king the continent would see. His isolationist tendencies brought him into direct conflict with his barons who relied on trade to make money and to bring them power. As it turned out, trade and expansion brought a heavy price, but they had no way of knowing it at the time.
Ian finished the last of his reports and stacked it neatly on the desk. He put on his overcoat and hat, took one last look at the office, then extinguished the oil lamp for the last time. After all his years working for the council's investigation unit, he was used to his transient nature. But, every time his work on a case was done, he felt a slight twinge of loss. Something that had been such a big part of his life for two years was over in one day. Ian tried to tell himself that there was always another case and that things would look brighter in the morning. While tomorrow would be brighter, it didn't soothe the pain tonight, so he just sighed and shut the door behind him.
Wyatt woke with a start for several weeks after the bombing, dreaming he heard another explosion and that it was closer this time. Each time he woke up that way, he felt unsettled for the rest of the day, not wanting to be alone or let people out of his sight. He felt almost as if he could will away the danger of new attacks.
For the next month or so, there were no new bombings. Josaphine made a point of coming by the cafe every few days to check on him. She seemed to be avoiding the three old men, but many people did. For their part, they were back to being surly and derisive. It was almost back to normal again when word came that another attack had been made on Wellden. It was all Wyatt could do to hold it together. For six months now the attacks had been increasing in frequency and the trend frightened Wyatt.
"I don't know how much of this I can take," confessed Wyatt to Josaphine one night over fish and beer. "This constant stress of not knowing when the next attack might be or if I'll be alive afterwards."
Josaphine nodded slowly. "We are here right now, that's all we can be sure of. Do not fret over what you cannot control."
Wyatt looked down at his hands. Josaphine was a good supportive friend, but she could be a little pedantic or downright confusing at times. "How did you deal with this during the war?"
Josaphine stopped eating. It was the first time Wyatt had ever asked her about the war with the Gambrians. She considered for a long moment giving Wyatt the stock answer she gave everyone when they asked about the past: the past is gone and all we really have is today. But, something in the way he asked made her answer honestly. "We didn't, not really. We were either too busy fighting to think or too tired to worry."
"How old were you, during the war?" asked Wyatt.
"I was thirteen when it started and eighteen when the last Frellock surrendered," Josaphine said quietly.
"What happened after you surrendered?"
Josaphine drained her beer mug and set it down with a thump. "The past is gone and all we really have is today." She stood up and put her hand gently on Wyatt's shoulder. She gave him a weak smile. "Be here, right now, in this moment, and you do yourself and your heritage a great service. Good night, Wyatt."
Wyatt watched her amble away, and looked up at the stars beyond the buildings. Maybe she was right. What was the point in worrying about something he couldn't control? But, Wyatt had this nagging sensation that he could do something about it, he just wasn't sure what that something should be. The bombings had to stop; too many Frellock were dying, the Gambrians were imposing new restrictions on them to try and stem the tide, and it was having no effect on the Baron Council's policies.
First, he had to figure out who was responsible for the bombings. Then, maybe he could... what? Reason with them? That hardly seemed likely. His biggest concern was that no more Frellock were injured or killed. He thought that should also be the bomber's biggest concern, but it obviously was not. But, how could a bomb tell the difference between Frellock and Gambrians? Well, that wasn't right either; Wyatt didn't want to kill Gambrians anymore than he did Frellock. But, if he had to choose... The final goal was to decrease the number of Frellock killed in the bombings. If that was the goal, maybe he could do it.
He thought that magic might be able to do something like that, but he had only heard stories of magic, since it had been illegal for the last twelve years. And before that, it was something his father would not permit. It was something from the past that didn't help the Frellock people anymore, so they were best to forget it. But, if the bomb that had killed his father could have told the difference between him and the Gambrian supplier sitting next to him, Wyatt would still have his father. His eyes began to tear when Wyatt thought about the day he heard the news. The injustice and suddenness of his death tore Wyatt apart for nearly two years.
No, if there were going to be bombings, those bombs should spare the lives they were trying to free. Wyatt made a resolution to find a way to control this one aspect of his future. He owed his father that much.
Josaphine walked slowly back to her shop. Wyatt would be okay in the long term, but right now he was at a critical stage where he might try to act against the bombers. Retaliation and infighting would not solve anything, but stress and trauma did strange things to the mind. It was good that Wyatt never found out that three of the bombers were his own patrons. That probably would have driven him over the edge. After her initial run-in with the men, they had not spoken again. Since there had been no more bombs in the city, she figured they had taken her warning seriously. That wouldn't stop the next group of idiots, but at least their number was reduced by three for the time being.
She rounded a corner and stepped up her ambling pace; this was not a good place to be at this time of night. Josaphine wasn't afraid, but she had no love of conflict either. She was never sure what Wyatt's father had told him about her. She had just assumed that as talkative as his father had been that he had told Wyatt everything he knew about Josaphine. After Wyatt's questions tonight, she knew that wasn't true. She felt a little bad about snapping at him, but she didn't like to think about the past. In fact, she knew no one who enjoyed talking about the war they had lost.
Josaphine was lost in thought when a young Frellock man jumped from the shadows into her path. She didn't think, she just reacted, saying aloud a few strange words and making a pushing motion towards the man. One of the trinkets she wore around her neck glowed briefly and the man in front of her was hurled off his feet, backwards into the air. Before he had hit the ground, she felt someone grab at her from behind. She dug her elbow into his gut, ducked out and under his arm, wrenching it around and up at a painful angle. He yelped in pain and surprise at her speed, but then fell silently into a heap on the ground as Josaphine whispered another strange word. The two other men of the ambush decided not to wait around for their turn and took off at a run down the alley they had come out of.
Breathing quickly and shaking, Josaphine stood still for a moment, regaining her balance. The man at her feet would be asleep for at least an hour. The other man coughed and got unsteadily to his feet, backing away from Josaphine. She made one final crazy arm waving motion at him and he turned and ran as fast as he could. Josaphine chuckled, then felt as though she would collapse. She glanced around her once more and set off for her shop, her steps weaving slightly.
She shook her head in astonishment. It had been over twenty years since she last did any serious magic and she was shocked by how drained she felt. "I guess I'm not as young as I used to be," she said to herself. Still, as frightening as it was, Josaphine was glad that her reactions were as accurate as ever. Arriving home, she immediately started making tea and ate one of the foul Gambrian sweet cakes she kept for emergencies. That seemed to help a bit. She sat down at her loom to give her shaking hands something to do while she waited for the water to heat up.
In her time fighting in the war, Josahpine rarely came down to hand to hand combat. Her job was to work with other mages to provide support to the front line raiders. They stayed back as far as they could from the actual battle and directed their magic from there. Mages were among the most frail of the troops near the front lines, right up there with archers and other ranged attackers. Because she had been so young when joining the war, Josaphine had been sent with the fast-moving special strike teams. Her age and size meant that her magic wasn't all that powerful, but she was quick to react. Usually their missions were reconnasince or sabotage which preferably didn't involve much fighting. But, she had been in her share of full-fledged battles as well.
She thought fondly of the speed of youth, but did not idealize it, and she never wished to go back to those days. There was too much pain in watching friends die and in taking another's being's life. And, after watching her people lose battle after battle for two years, she spent the last year of the war in a Gambrian prison. Her hand went involuntarily to the brand they had placed on her left forearm. She had heard that they Gambrians used brands because Frellock skin was often too dark to show a tattoo. Josaphine personally suspected that the guards simply liked inflicting pain. She deliberately put her hands back on the loom and resumed her weaving. The past was gone. All we really have is today.
Ian Jenkins climbed down from the train carriage, stepping onto the smooth stone platform in his shiny black shoes. Steam billowed out from the engine, a striking white against the grey sky and bluish mountains in the distance. He took a deep breath and was glad to be home. With luck, his new assignment would keep him here for a while. The platform was bustling with travelers, men in smart pin stripe suits, women in long dresses with tight waists and high collars. The porter was unloading bags at the far end of the platform. Beyond the end of the platform, workers were hauling goods out of cargo cars and loading them onto both mule drawn carts and steam powered trucks.
Ian claimed his bag and worked his way to the front of the station to hail a cab. The cab was one of the new motorized ones that Ian preferred. He took this as a good sign. He got in the back seat. "Council chambers, please," he said to the driver.
"Aye, sir," said the driver. His skin was a light reddish brown color, something of a rarity among Gambrians, but his square jaw and broad shoulders proved he was no half-breed. "Coming in from Peadon, sir?" asked the driver, making conversation as he guided the vehicle down narrow, straight streets.
"Yes, it feels good to be home," said Ian.
"Yup, there's nowhere quite like Volak. Good weather we've been having, too. Not much snow yet." Ian nodded. "That's a good omen," said the driver, "and we could use a little good luck about now."
"Oh?" asked Ian, cocking his head to the side. "Why's that? Has something happened?"
The driver boggled at him for a moment, until he realized that his fare had been on a train for a week, essentially out of contact with the rest of the world for that time. "Oh, yes, sir! More bad news about the Frecks, I'm sad to say."
Ian frowned. He didn't think the driver sounded sad at all. Ian also didn't care for such derogatory words to be used around him. "What news is that?"
"They've gone and resumed their bombings of Wellden and Frindon. Crazy long-hairs. I don't care if they blow themselves up, but there were innocent Gambrian victims there," said the driver.
Ian refrained from suggesting that it was the Gambrians the bombs were aimed at, innocent or not. "Indeed. Well, they're stubborn, I'll give them that."
The driver spit out the window of the cab. "I won't give them anything except what's coming to them," he said flatly.
The conversation had turned Ian's enjoyment of the mechanical cab into uncomfortable impatience. He rarely felt this eager to be at the Baron Council's chambers. The neat buildings whizzed by, some flying the banners of the council. It was coming up on Council Day, the anniversary of the formation of the Baron Council. Ian understood the importance of the holiday, but he thought that some Gambrians went a little overboard, moving from fond recognition into patriotism contest. They drove past a shopping area, filled with women on errands, young message boys darting between them. In the distance, Ian could see the smoke from one of the new factories that Baron McCloud had authorized. It was just being completed when Ian left for Peadon. Now it looked like it was in full production, making formed metal pieces for motored cabs, train engines, and smaller consumer goods. This was truly a wondrous city.
The cab pulled up to a stop in front of a relatively low, unassuming building. It was formed from huge logs, unlike most of the other stone buildings around it. There were five different banners hung on the front, with one larger one in the center that combined the five different motifs into one. Ian paid the driver and walked up the steps into the Baron Council's chambers. The building was over a hundred and sixty years old, built in the style of the day: one great hall with a massive table that could easily seat two hundred guests. There were four huge fireplaces, one on each wall, to heat the hall, and old-fashioned candle chandeliers hanging over the table. There were small fires burning in the fireplaces, but the chandeliers weren't lit. Instead, oil lamps were placed every so often along the length of the table.
At the table, fifty or so council clerks were working busily on their tasks and took no notice of Ian. He removed his overcoat and hung it on a peg by the door, leaving his bags there as well. When he was in Volak, Ian rented a room, since he was never sure when he would have to leave suddenly for an investigation. Since he was unsure of his new orders, Ian had not yet rented a room in Volak.
The entire hall was hung with the council's banners. On the walls, down lower, were hung the banners of the local Baron. Ian thought this was a calculated insult and had never much liked it. It reminded the council that they were gathered on Baron McCloud's ground and that he was ruler here. Ian made his way toward the far end of the hall. In the back wall, there were two doors, one on either side of the fireplace. One of the doors led to the kitchen for the hall. The other led to the council's inner chambers.
As Ian approached the council's door, a guard came to attention beside it. Ian nodded at the guard. "Please tell the council that Investigator Ian Jenkins has arrived, as instructed." The guard bowed stiffly and turned toward the council door. Ian sat down in the nearby chair that was provided for waiting visitors. Even if the council members were not currently discussing anything, they would make him wait at least twenty minutes. It was another of the games they played that Ian would have no part in.
Ian flicked an invisible piece of lint off of his trousers and smoothed down the front of his vest. He may not like the games the council played, but they were still the heads of state. The guard returned and said, "the council will send word when they are ready for you." Ian nodded and resisted the urge to check his pocket watch to time them. The guard returned to his post and gazed out into the hall, his gaze unfocused, but not unseeing.
A mere twenty minutes later, a page came through the council's doors and whispered something to the guard. The guard nodded and turned to Ian. "Mr. Jenkins, the council will see you now."
Ian stood up and the page addressed him. "Please follow me, sir," he said, and led the way through the doors into the Baron Council's chambers. The room was warm and bright, with both fires and oil lamps providing a soft light. There were windows set high in the walls, letting in some natural light from above. The center of the room held five large plush chairs, each in the primary color of the baron that sat in it. Beside each chair was a small table for a drink and ash tray. While some Gambrians were trying to give up the habit of smoking and trying to make sure everyone else did too, cigar smoking was a time honored tradition among Gambrians, especially here in Volak. Volak was the closest city by far to Cloudbase, the largest tobacco growing city on the continent. The stone floor was covered with an elaborate rug, dimmed by age and smoke, but still luxurious underfoot. Along the walls were sideboards with alcohol, bookshelves with legal documents and papers, and various painting and tapestries, all showing the glory of the Gambrian people.
The page nodded at Ian and retreated to the edge of the room to await further orders. Three of the council members were seated in their respective chairs, arguing in low voices. The other two council members, including their leader, Baron McCloud, were talking with a tall, reddish skinned Frellock. The Frellock man was dressed in a Gambrian style suit and had short, close-cropped hair. Ian managed not to raise his eyebrows in surprise; it was not uncommon for the Frellock representative to have business with the baron council, but his presence here now implied that Ian's orders would concern the Frellock in some way. A flutter of uncertainty hit Ian's stomach, but he quelled it easily by reminding himself that his job was to investigate whatever the council deemed important. Resting in his duty, Ian was able to put himself at ease.
Baron McCloud was dwarfed in size next to the Frellock man, but the air of power seemed to make his entire presence larger than any other person in the room. His face was square and strong, with greyish green skin, slightly pockmarked, and a faint scar down one cheek. The scar was famous because the baron loved to tell the story of how he got it. As a young man, he had been hunting elk in the mountains when a large panther ambushed his hunting party, killing two men and slashing McCloud before the baron managed to shoot the panther dead. His version, of course, had many more embellishments. His suit was the dark crimson red of his barony with light grey pin stripes. His hair was short and just starting to show some grey. At the age of sixty-seven, he was still in amazingly good physical condition and his mind showed no signs of weakening either.
The baron excused himself from the other two men and approached Ian, his arm outstretched. "Ian, good to see you again." He took Ian's hand in a firm, but measured grip; the council might be petty enough for games, but he was not. "Excellent work on the Peadon smugglers case. We were delighted to get word that they'd been caught. And, excellent timing, too, as we've got a situation that could use your no nonsense, by the book ways of doing things." The baron let Ian's hand go and gestured to two visitor chairs set up next to his chair. The visitor chairs were plush as well, but less grandiose than the council chairs, and were plain brown velvet.
Ian sat in one chair and the Frellock representative sat in the other while Baron McCloud took his own seat. The council member who had been talking with the Frellock man, Baron Alexander, took his seat in his dark yellow chair next to McCloud. Baron McCloud gestured at the Frellock man and said, "this is Keeshawn, the Frellock representative to the Baron Council." The tall Frellock towered over the back of his seat and even seated was at least two feet taller than the Gambrians around him. He nodded down at Ian with a somber expression. Ian briefly wondered what it felt like to be subordinate to people so much shorter than oneself. He nodded back and returned his gaze to Baron McCloud.
The baron shifted in his chair and frowned slightly. "There's a problem in the cities on the north coast, in particular, Frindon and Wellden," he began. "Lately, there has been an upswing in the number and frequency of insurgent bombings in those cities. The Sea Free Fighters claim credit for the majority of the bombings, but others are probably home-grown terrorists, mimicking their methods. This has brought some sectors of Wellden's economy to a stand-still while they wait for replacement machines and people from other cities. Because of the increased risk, finding people willing to go to Wellden, even for a short time, is becoming very difficult."
McCloud paused as the page brought scotch for everyone. Ian didn't like drinking in general, so he took a polite sip and set the snifter back down. He noticed that Keeshawn made a point of drinking the scotch and pretending to enjoy it. The baron continued, "Aside from the monetary and morale impact these new attacks have been having, we've noticed a startling trend: magic use is also up in the region, both in small isolated ways, probably just individuals cleaning house or what have you, and in much larger ways. We've been looking at the magic use around an area that was bombed and there is almost always increased magic use before and immediately after an attack." McCloud gestured to Keeshawn who took over at that point.
"The magic used doesn't seem to be directly related to the explosion, but it may be being used to hide the bomb until it's intended detonation time or to destroy some piece of evidence left behind," said Keeshawn. "As you probably know, magic derives its energy from the person performing the magic, which usually limits its total power. However, it is possible, with enough skilled mages working together to perform powerful magic, even at a distance. If they are sufficiently trained, they only need to know what they are trying to hide or destroy and its location relative to them is largely immaterial. The power they can wield does degrade as the distance increases, so if it is a group of mages performing the magic we've noticed at the bomb sites, they are probably close by within the city, or on a boat just outside the city."
Keeshawn turned back to McCloud. "So, Ian, we want you to go to Wellden and Frindon and find out two things for us: one, verify that magic is being used as we suspect around the bomb sites, and two, discover who is doing it and where they are located. Once we know that, we can move in with local law enforcement and put a stop to it."
Ian tried to smother his frown and only partially succeeded. "Baron McCloud," he began, "I'm not sure I'm the right investigator for this assignment. I-"
The baron raised his hand, interrupting Ian. "Well, we are sure that you are. Apart from being reliable and straightforward, you get things done, Ian. This is a situation that we desperately need to have cleared up as soon as possible so that life in Wellden and Frindon can return to normal. We owe it to the people there to make this a top priority."
Not to mention, Ian thought cynically, that any hindrance to trade and production in the region is hugely expensive. Ian felt there was more to this assignment than either concern for the population or for economics. He tried to sound as respectful and non-argumentative as possible. "Sir, I don't know anything about magic, except that it's illegal to use and what I've learned here today. I'm sure there's someone more qualified to handle this case."
Baron McCloud looked slightly disappointed, but secure in the knowledge that he ordered Ian to go, he would. "We have people working with the Wellden and Frindon police to analyze the magic use to date. They'll be able to give you any support you need in that area." He stood up, which Keeshawn and Ian took as their cue that the conversation was over and stood up as well. The page approached McCloud with a thick envelope which the baron took and handed to Ian. "Here are your travel plans and all the information we have to date. You'll be leaving tomorrow morning for Wellden."
Ian took the envelope with some hesitation, but Baron McCloud slapped him on the back good naturedly and took a step towards the door. "I'm sure you'll do a wonderful job, Ian. We're all counting on you to do as good a job as you always do; I'm sure you won't let us down." With that, Baron McCloud turned and greeted the next visitor to the council chambers. Ian left the room feeling slightly dizzy and a little annoyed. Not only was he not going to be staying in Volak, but he had been ordered to the north coast of the continent, to work on a case involving magic. For a day that had started well, it had gone downhill fast.
The day dawned slightly overcast as Wyatt got up to start the tea and breakfast for his patrons. It had been almost three months since the last bombing in Frindon and Wyatt was more than happy to have peace and quiet. Josaphine had been checking in on him less frequently now, probably convinced that he was handling the trauma well enough. Wyatt was happy to have that as well as he had taken to spending a few hours each afternoon meeting with people and searching out information on magic. It was highly illegal, even if Wyatt didn't reveal how he intended to use the magic to any of the people he contacted. Although Wyatt was young and not particularly criminal minded, he was bright and spent his days dealing with people, so he had learned to read them fairly well. He assumed that that was how he managed to keep his investigations a secret for over two months. Surely, if he hadn't been so careful, someone would have noticed by now.
Wyatt served the early risers, seeing them off to their jobs until the old men arrived. He got their beers and brought seaweed cheese cakes for them to eat. Today, it was their brains he wanted to pick about magic. He had his doubts on their past, but he was sure it didn't involve magic. Still, they had been in the war where magic, especially magic with some kind of conscious guidance, had been used. He set down the cakes in the middle of the table and brought over his own mug and an extra chair.
Garnok smiled and said, "young Wyatt comes to share stories and complaints with the old men today, eh?"
Wyatt shook his head. "When will I stop being 'young' Wyatt to you?" he asked playfully.
"Ah," said Garnok, "that'll be when I'm dead. Till then, you'll always be younger than me, boy, and you should hold onto that as long as you can. Youth is a slippery eel, with twists and turns, but always too fast to hold onto."
Even Joe and Emilio supressed a chortle at that metaphor. "Actually," said Wyatt, "I've come to ask your guidance."
Joe and Emilio exchanged amused glances, while Garnok lost his old man demeanor. "What about, Wyatt?"
"I've heard people talk about magic, about how it was used in the war, and I want to know more." Wyatt didn't bother to couch his interest in academic terms around the old men; he trusted them that much, but not enough to tell them his plans.
"Performing magic is illegal," said Joe. "You know that."
"Yes," said Wyatt, "but just learning about it isn't." He tried to put on his most innocent face, full of youthful enthusiasm about something new. "It's so amazing, in the stories I've heard, with fireballs, ice bolts, and such. But still, it's said that even magic has limits. Why is that? What determines what magic can and cannot do?"
Even Garnok seemed taken in by Wyatt's ploy, smiling at the energy in the younger man. He chuckled into his beer, shaking his head. "As much as I would like to help, Wyatt, I don't know the answers. I am not a mage. The closest I got to magic was when its products, the fireballs you mentioned before, came flying over my head and into the targets in front of me. I honestly don't know any more about how it works than you do."
Wyatt didn't have to fake his disappointment. "But, didn't they train you, you know, before the war, at least a little?" Wyatt already knew that, before the war, all Frellock received some magical training and that it derived its power from the mage, but what that implied for his plans wasn't clear. He also still didn't know if directing the magic to only attack one kind of target over another was possible.
Emilio nodded at Wyatt, "yes, we all got some training about magic, but it stuck with Garnok and us about as well as our cooking lessons did."
"That being 'not at all'," finished Joe. "One time, during the war..."
Joe lapsed into a story about how bad Garnok's cooking was that Wyatt had already heard a dozen times. Well, at least Wyatt didn't have to go out of his way to find out that the old men didn't know anything. Maybe he still had time today to go talk to the owner of the cafe on the east side of town. He laughed at the end of Joe's story and got up to get back to business and refresh the men's beers.
Garnok cocked his head and looked Wyatt over as he returned to the table with three new beers. "If you really want to know about magic, young Wyatt," he said, "why not just ask your friend Josaphine?"
"Do you think she would know anything more than you?" he asked.
"I certainly hope so. She's a mage."
Wyatt almost dropped the beer mugs and they hit the table, spilling beer over the sides. "What?" he asked, astonished. "Josaphine? How do you know?"
Garnok raised his eyebrows and helped Joe mop up the beer with cloth napkins. "She wears all those trinkets," he said, as if that made it clear.
Wyatt looked among the men, waiting for them to elaborate. "So?" he said finally.
It was Emilio that answered. "Not being ones to accuse without proof-" he started.
"Being a mage isn't illegal," said Joe, "just using it."
"Like I said, not being ones to accuse, mages usually wear lots of those trinkets, sometimes as jewelry, sometimes on a staff of some kind. Not always, but usually. Not entirely sure what they're for, but most of the mages I've encountered have some and guard them very well." He avoided mentioning that Josaphine had admitted to using magic the night of the bombing, when she told them she had tested Wyatt's robe for bomb chemicals.
"I'm surprised she never told you," said Garnok, "even if it was kind of obvious from looking at her."
Wyatt sat back down with the men. "Now, hold on, if those trinkets are involved in doing magic, why didn't the Gambys confiscate them all when they made magic illegal?"
This was a topic of much conspiracy theorizing among the old men, apparently, as Emilio groaned and Joe launched into explaining his theory. "I think they were planning on it, but that some highly placed, bleeding heart Gamby convinced the Baron Council that it would destroy our culture. And, that he convinced them just to monitor for magic use and not worry too much about enforcement until it was a problem."
"Now, that just doesn't make sense, Joe," said Garnok. "They weren't worried about destroying our culture when they made us live in cities. And, everyone knows that a mage can be a mage and do magic, even without those trinkets. Here's my theory on why they didn't bother: they couldn't really stop a mage with a burning will to do magic, so just avoid the hassle and grief altogether."
Joe retorted, "I call the Gambys many things, but lazy isn't one of them. There must have been another reason." The argument went on in well-worn ways until after Wyatt had wandered back to work. He was lost in his own thoughts about magic and recasting conversations with Josaphine in the new light of her being a mage. Why had she never told him? He was already old enough to understand magic when it was still legal. Why hadn't she taught him anything about it? Magic was such a part of the Frellock culture before the war that he found it unlikely to be an oversight. But, before he could get angry at her for keeping the information from him, he should talk to her.
In fact, she might have been the resource Wyatt was searching for. There was the hurdle that she rarely talked about the past, but he had to know what magic could do. Maybe he could get her with the enthusiastic youth routine. If she had been a mage during the war, she knew a lot, so he couldn't come on too strong and frighten her into silence about magic. He briefly considered telling her the truth about his intentions. But no, she was staunchly anti-violence and would probably try to stop him. He had heard enough stories to take mages seriously when they were dead set on something. Besides, she really was a friend, one of the only people who knew Wyatt as a boy, before he started coming regularly with his father to the cafe.
That was an idea: use my youth and my father as a way to get her talking about the past. Asking about her past and probing too deeply or pointedly might be suspicious, but asking about his past and his father was simply curiosity. Wyatt actually was kind of curious how his father and Josaphine had met and became friends. And he was truly upset about his father's death, even to this day. With the bombing in Frindon, he had reason to be thinking about his death, so questions about him would not be out of place. Wyatt nearly cackled with delight at the prospective wealth of knowledge he could gain from a true mage. Yes, it was a good thing he had decided to ask the old men about magic.
The local Wellden law enforcement officers were not being gentle with the Frellock's shop. The artistically carved bone and wood pieces that had been neatly arranged and labeled under glass were now unceremoniously being scanned for magic. The shopkeeper was livid, his dark skin turning almost as red as his robe, as he demanded they be more careful. The shop was filled with small tapestries with seascapes, jewelry of various materials, and the like, but nothing was more suspicious than the small statues, vials, and staves that had been under glass.
Ian watched all of this with only mild regret for the inconvenience it caused the shopkeeper. Some of that still stemmed from his resentment over being here at all. As much as he tried to be a man of duty, he really didn't want to be here. Wellden was hot, far hotter than anything he could have imagined, and it constantly smelled of seaweed and fish. Even Peadon, also a seaside city, had not matched the intensity of the fish smell. Ian wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and tried not to feel the closeness of his dark wool suit.
Ian looked the Frellock man over, watching his eyes as he ranted. Was this true indignation or was he terrified they would find something and was trying to better his odds of playing dumb when they did? Not that it really mattered what assessment Ian made; the magic detector would make it clear when it had finished analyzing the art pieces. He found it dubious that magic could be used to detect magic. He also found it unsettling that the only magic use still permitted was being used by Gambrian law enforcement. The technician using the detector tried to explain that magic left a mark, something about it being too ordered, or meta ordering, or energy something. Ian had lost the meaning of all of it quite early on in the explanation. He looked down at his notepad briefly then back up at the shopkeeper. The Frellock man was still intently watching how they handled his goods, barking orders that were ignored. Ian decided that he had nothing to hide.
A few minutes later, the magic detector technician confirmed Ian's assessment. Ian felt his heart sink a bit; while nothing was permanently damaged, he hated to give law enforcement a bad name by being wrong. The man would recover his wounded pride, but he would tell his friends what happened and friction between the Frellock and Gambrians in Wellden would worsen. The larger picture was not his direct concern, but angry people were not often forthcoming with information. And of all the cases he had ever had, Ian needed cooperative people on both sides.
For three weeks, Ian Jenkins and the Wellden police had been searching magic use and magical items. If someone was using magic, they probably had totems and other items to increase their power. At least, that was how Ian understood it. He had to take it on faith that the magic technicians and the Magistrate of Magic knew what they were talking about when they suggested starting the search with magical items. They had found some magic items, but nothing that the technicians found interesting. Soon, they would have to move on to Frindon and start the whole process over again. If that netted nothing, they would have to try the method Ian preferred: talking with people and using the weakest link in any large plot, the people themselves, to get some clue as to who was using magic near the bombings.
Ian didn't allow himself to wish for another bombing so the magic team could observe it. The last few weeks had been very quiet, and that was the end goal, after all. Perhaps with the quiet, Ian could convince the Frindon police chief to let him try the people approach to investigation before he annoyed all the Frellock in the city. The technicians were wrapping up and heading out of the shop. Ian apologized for the mess and followed them out the door.
The sitting room was well lit despite the fact that there no windows. The important rooms of this mountain complex were deep underground, well hidden from prying eyes. Eric didn't much care for the lack of natural light or for the Gambrian style and size of the chairs. But he wasn't here to enjoy thhe decor. The fire crackled pleaseatly in the fireplace, competing with the loud ticking of the mantle clock. Around the room were various sizes of mechanical trinkets, all under glass.
The master technologist and organizer of this endeavor was a light-skinned Gambrian wearing Frellock robes. When Eric had first met Stephan, the incongruity of the sight had surprised him. The robes held no importance to Stephan other than their comfort; he was one of the few Gambrians who had ever bothered to try the style. Similarly, Stephan was one of the few Gambrians who had seen the power in magic beyond being frightened by it.
Stephan finished reading Eric's report on the effectiveness of the last sequence of bombings. "Excellent. I'm glad our initial tests are working so well. I think it may be time to begin the power tests. Those will be key." Stephan handed the report back to Eric and continued. "Begin first with a small test, no more than a half stick of dynamite's power. Use Frindon or one of the smaller cities; I don't want to escalate the tension in Wellden any further until we're ready."
Eric nodded. "Our power tests here have been excellent to date; I don't anticipate any problems with limiting the size of the explosion as you command. I have two further topics to discuss," he said.
Stephan waved his hand for Eric to continue. That was one of the traits that had drawn Eric to Stephen: he chose who he listened to and respected their opinions. He was certain that Stephan had a dozen other things to do right now, all of which were at least as pressing as Eric's concerns, but he chose to listen.
"First, the Baron Council has noticed the use of magic in conjunction with the bombings in Wellden and Frindon," he said quickly as Stephan already knew that part. "They've sent an investigator from Volak, one Ian Jenkins."
Stephan looked up sharply. "Is that the same investigator who discovered some of my smuggling operations in Cloudbase two years ago?"
"Yes, it is," said Eric. "So far, he hasn't found anything of interest in Wellden, because they're using the police department's magic detectors and don't have any skilled mages helping them. Still, the timing is poor. Our contacts close to the council say that it was the frequency of the bombings that called them to action, not because they detected magic, per se. They also say that sending Jenkins was largely a political move, aimed to soothe the other cities, rather than a true interest in stopping the bombings. So Jenkins is unlikely to get much further support from the council on this matter."
Stephan chuckled, stroking his short beard as he thought. Finally, he nodded and said, "keep an eye on the investigation, and go ahead with the power tests in Frindon." Eric raised an eyebrow. "I don't expect one magic-phobic investigator to be a problem, even if he knew what he was looking for, which I'm certain he doesn't."
Eric nodded and continued. "Second, we've gotten word from some of our listeners that a some very powerful magic was detected in Frindon a few weeks after one of our tests. They couldn't say who performed it or why, but it was apparently very well done. I've asked the listeners to make some quiet investigations."
Stephan nodded and said, "that's fine. You'd like to have this mage's help, yes? If you locate him, you may proceed with the interview." By "interview", Stephan meant that Eric was free to arrange corral the mage into a position where cunning and powerful magic would save their life or the life of another. If all parties were alive at the end, the mage was worth recruiting, if possible. Such mages were rare, but there were a handful working here in the mountains that had been interviewed in exactly that way. "Is there anything else?"
"No," said Eric, "that's all. Thank you." Eric turned and left the windowless room, heading back to his own windowless office to make the arrangements for the power test. Part of Eric thought it would have been wonderful if this marriage of magic and technology was made out of the shadows of illegality. But, having been exposed to the blossoming buraucracy that was the Baron Council, he knew they would never be making this much progress under their restrictions. No, despite the cold location and lack of sunlight, this was a better place to be.
Josaphine had stopped by Wyatt's cafe just to check up on him. He thought she was acting strangely lately, like she was afraid to be out of her own shop for very long. But Wyatt didn't mind. It meant he didn't have to go anywhere to try and pry magic knowledge out of Josaphine without her realizing what was going on. She was sitting at a back table, far away from the three old men, leaned back with her hat pulled far down. She just watched Wyatt work with a relaxed contentment, as if there was nowhere in the world she'd rather be. Wyatt knew better because she wasn't smiling; when she was truly relaxed, she held a slight smile at all times. He had asked her a question before the latest patrons arrived and she was stewing, probably trying to decide whether or not to answer him.
Finally, Wyatt broke away from the latest patrons, refilled the old men's beers and returned to where Josaphine was sitting. He started to ask his question again when she raised her hand to silence him. She turned her head towards him but looked down at her hands. "I met your father when he was still a baby, being held in your grandmother's arms. Your grandmother and I had a friend in common. I visited her off and on over the years after the war, watching your father grow to be a strong young man. He had a respect for life and energy that was hard to ignore. He also had a great deal of respect for the Frellock way of life, but for him, that never conflicted with the cities we were forced into. He seemed to think that a culture was much more than clothing and hairstyle, and even more than food and customs. I think to him, the Frellock culture was its openness and emphasis on the community. If he was right, then much of Frellock culture is dead already, and has been for a long time.
"He often felt that change was a blessing and an opportunity to grow. He even managed to hold that point of view when your mother died. You were probably too young at the time to remember, but the day it happened, he cried and cried, saying, 'what a challenge!'. He laughed through his tears, remembering your mother, and sang with joy through his tears when he held you close.
"More than that," she continued, "your father had unerring business sense and an immutable moral compass. He could do the right thing and make money at it. It was truly uncanny." She paused, reaching the difficult part. "I'm not sure why he approached me about it, because he never told me, but one day he asked if I would look after you if something ever happened to him. You were, perhaps, seven years old at the time. I thought it was a strange request, but I could not refuse him. It was over ten years later that he was killed," she finished lamely.
Tears glistened in Wyatt's eyes. He did miss his father and hearing what a wonderful person he was made his pain that much more intense. He sniffed loudly. "You said he respected the Frellock way of life," he said, "did that include magic? I never heard him talk about it, but Garnok said it used to be pretty common among our people."
Josaphine pursed her lips and, for a moment, Wyatt thought he had broached the subject too quickly. She sighed and said, "well, it was common. And it was still legal when your father was a boy. I'm fairly sure it was his mother's decision to keep magic from him. He might have learned a little in passing, but it wouldn't have come from his mother. Not everyone did learn magic, despite what those old farts might have told you. Everyone learned to use someone else's magic, that's true, but it's not quite the same thing."
Wyatt tilted his head. "I'm not sure I understand. You can use magic without knowing magic?"
"Yes."
"I still don't understand," tugged Wyatt, trying not to ask her outright to explain it to him.
"Think of it like a broom or a stove," she said. "Almost everyone knows how to use a broom or a stove, but few people know how to make one. There's no need for everyone to make their own stove when they can use the one that someone else built and get out of it what they're really after: cooked food. Magic is a just a tool. The kind of learning Garnok was talking about was how to use that tool."
Wyatt furrowed his brow, trying to grasp the difference, and determine what it implied for his plans. From what Josaphine said, it sounded like he would have to understand and learn to make magic because the "stove" he wanted didn't already exist. Well, that complicated matters. Not only was Wyatt going to have to find a Frellock willing to talk about magic, but he had to be sure they knew how to make magic, not just use it. He tried to remove the scowl that had started to form on his face. "Okay, I think I understand now. So, did you go to my parents' union ceremony? Was it anything like traditional Frellock unions?" He got what he was after for tonight, better to change the subject and try for more some other night.
Josaphine studied Wyatt from under her hat's brim as she described the traditional marriage ceremony. He was interested in knowing about his father's life, and understandably so, but there was something else that was bothering him. She hated playing these games of selectively talking about the past and being vague which is why she usually avoided talking about the past altogether. There were many painful memories and as trusted or as loved as Wyatt might be, him asking her about those experiences forced her to relive it. She thought that if Wyatt truly cared about her, he would respect her desire to avoid the subject and stop asking.
After the union ceremony discussion, Josaphine excused herself for the evening. She bid Wyatt farewell and returned to her shop and her loom to think. It had been a long time since anyone had asked her such basic questions about magic. Despite herself, she started to feel excited and a little giddy when she remembered making magic for the first time. What a thrill it had been to structure a little magic item and watch it do exactly what she told it to. She had been about six years old at the time. She jumped up and down clapping and pointing excitedly. Her first magic item could join four pieces of wood into one solid square. It just instructed the wood that touched to bind together using the same forces that held the cells of each individual piece together. The result was a square that looked and acted as though it had been cut from a solid piece of wood. Not terribly useful, but to Josaphine, it was the most wonderful thing in the world. Throwing her weaving shuttle back and forth, Josaphine admitted that it was pretty wonderful and she felt an urge to make magic that she hadn't felt in over forty years.
Ian felt that he had started his investigation in Wellden off on the wrong foot. First of all, he let the Magistrate of Magic guide how his investigation should be run, starting, of course, by focusing on the magic angle. While Wellden was the major city of the north coast and the magistrate technically had jurisdiction over Frindon as well, he had not travelled with Ian to Frindon and so could not immediately veto any of the decisions that Ian made in how to run his investigation. What was even better was that the chief of the Frindon police didn't like magic any better than Ian. After talking for a short while, they realized they were of kindred spirit and agreed they could make more progress without immediately focusing on the magic. The easier aspect of this were the bombings themselves.
The police chief, a tall Gambrian with a lean, muscular body, had adapted well to the warmer climate here. Despite the pressures on him to find the bombers and any day to day crime, he looked relaxed and able to deal with it. Chief Killian had lots of leads on people he suspected of dealing with the Sea Freedom Fighters and other radical groups, all of which looked more promising than spending a month searching Frellock trinket shops for magical items and not finding any. Apart from these leads, Killian had built files on citizens that he suspected used magic. Most of those people were Frellock, but a fair number were Gambrian. Ian found that interesting, but not shocking; young Gambrians, mostly as a show of rebellion, sometimes took to wearing robes and keeping their hair long.
Most of the likely bombing suspects were angry Frellock, of all ages, some unemployed and some respectable business people. All of them had a reason to be angry enough to want to attack the city, either because they had been in the war, or their parents were killed in the war or in some other way that the Gambrians could be blamed. Other suspects included extortionists that wanted to use the bombings as cover for getting money out of people and just plain crazy people who liked to blow things up.
When they matched up locations and associations and motivations for the combination of the suspected magic users and suspected bombers, they came up with the short list of people and groups they wanted to investigate. One of those groups was a fairly well-to-do banker who had taken a strong interest in Frellock culture and magic in particular. His mother had been killed in the war, and a bar near his house was strongly suspected of being a Sea Freedom Fighter meeting house. The other two groups were fairly destitute and low profile. As concerned as Ian was with not annoying potential information sources, he decided to start with the two low profile groups as they would be the least likely to make a big fuss if their business was interrupted.
"Well, then," said Chief Killian, "which do you want to hit first?"
"If it's not too much trouble and we have the manpower to do it," said Ian, "I'd like to raid them at the same time. These are the best leads we have and we don't want to give one of them a chance to destroy any evidence because they've gotten word that we've raided the other one."
Killian nodded. "That makes some sense. Though it might spook others in to doing exactly that. If they find out we're serious about catching the bombers and are raiding randomly and decisively, they might shut down operations in a hurry."
"The flip side to that," said Ian, "is that if we spook them sufficiently, they might try to send word to their employers letting them know about the raids and take fewer precautions than they do now. If that's the case, we could actually generate some evidence for our side."
Chief Killian smiled and shook his head. "I knew there was a reason you didn't like magic: you've actually got some logic in your head. That's good thinking, and I agree with you. We'll do both raids at the same time. I have some officers on vacation and others on temporary medical leave. I can get them to mind the office here while you and I conduct the raids. Looking at the groups, I think it's best to wait until early evening, around seven o'clock, but not much later. This group here, the cafe on the southside, starts to wind down around then and the bar on the east side is just getting started around that time."
Ian was taking notes and nodded his agreement. "Which group do you want to take?" he asked.
Killian tapped one of the stacks of paper. "I'll take the bar. There are likely to be brawlers and rowdy types there, and, no offense, but you're probably not ready for that."
"No offense taken," said Ian. "I'll take the cafe then. We'll take ten men each, if your replacement officers can make it in. When should we do this?" He looked up at Chief Killian, hoping he didn't suggest tomorrow, as Ian would like someone to do a walk-by of the cafe to see the layout and describe the general area to him.
"I think payday for many people is two days from now. That would be an excellent time as both locations will be busy so any folks we want to 'chat' with will probably be there early and staying late." He continued, "plus, it will give us a chance to send some inconspicuous people past the places to get the general layout."
Ian chuckled. "Great minds think alike. That's perfect." Ian looked down his notepad and nodded to himself. "Well, I think we've got everything done for this evening, so I'm going back to the inn to relax and get some sleep."
"That's a good idea," said Chief Killian. "Try the redfish, if you haven't already. They bring it in fresh every night and it's quite a treat. You may also want to get a lighter weight suit; that one looks uncomfortably warm."
Ian smiled, "yes, it is quite warm, but I'll hold off on the suit until I see how the raids go. With luck, I won't be on the north coast long enough to make it worth it. Good night."
"Good night."
Ian collected his hat and jacket and headed outside to get a cab. The one nice thing about these north coast cities was that animal drawn carts were almost never seen. Within minutes, the cab burbled its way from the police station to the Inn where Ian was staying. Yes, he thought, this was going much better than the investigation in Wellden.
Ian arrived at the inn and ordered dinner, redfish, as the chief had suggested. It was amazing. Usually, Ian didn't like fish, but this was flavorful, without tasting fishy or musky. After dinner, Ian retired to the smoking lounge. The room certainly didn't need a fire, but it was a Gambrian inn after all, and inns just had fireplaces in the lounge, everyone knew that. The fire was small and cozy while a cool breeze blew in from the large windows at the far end of the room. Ian settled into a plush chair and lit his pipe. He felt a sense of pride in himself that he rarely did. This was quite a change from the skinny orphan boy he had been.
Since his childhood, Ian had heard stories of terrible orphanages where the masters and mistresses were cruel or the food inedible and the like. His experience was almost like a normal childhood, so he estimated. He slept well, got baths and good food, his clothes always fit and he had been educated. The biggest difference, he determined, was that normal children always had a single source of authority, and that source could change its mind on a whim. An orphanage had a single source of authority, but made up of fifteen or so adults. They had to agree on change to make sure it was applied uniformly across all the children. Thus, there was logic, time, and serious consideration given to large decisions or changes in what was permissible and what was not. Ian suspected that this authority structure had given him an unusually good view of the Baron Council and other committee structures. It also made him appreciate the value of logic and working together on a solution.
Other than his job, which moved him from one interesting investigation to another, Ian's life was very routine. That dependence on routine, Ian suspected, also came from the orphanage. If twenty young boys all got up and dressed and such in their own order, there would be inefficiency as some boys tried to use the bathroom at the same time. Instead, there was an order to everything: bathroom, tidy the bed, change smallclothes, dress, comb hair. This routine and order became its own comfort.
A young woman came into the lounge and called her husband to bed with a whisper in his ear. The other men near him chuckled and softly cheered him on. The man looked a little flustered at first, but at their encouragement, gave into his desires and excused himself in a hurry. His wife took his arm and they left the lounge. Once outside the door, Ian saw the man pick up his wife and dash up the stairs, leaving just her giggles behind.
Ian smiled. He had never considered marriage and did not regret it. Relationships were time consuming and, frankly, designed for a life quite unlike his. A wife would almost certainly not stand for having her husband gone eleven months out of a year. And, any woman that Ian would likely be compatible with would not want to travel with him. So, it had never crossed his mind as a real possibility. Perhaps when he became an old man, he would retire to Volak and marry some young woman and father lots of children. Or perhaps not. Because he had his routine and order in the present, Ian did not concern himself with the future.
The fire in Ian's pipe died for the last time that night. He tapped out the old tobacco and tucked the pipe away in his jacket pocket. Ian stood and stretched before heading upstairs to his room. The fireplace had dimmed to orange embers and most of the smokers had gone to bed. The wind coming in from the window was almost cold now. Ian thought he should try to get to bed earlier tomorrow night. These were going to be exciting days ahead of him and Ian wanted to be ready for them.
Josaphine sipped at her sickly sweet alcohol, watching Wyatt laugh and talk with customers. Tonight she wasn't here to check up on him, not really. He was doing just fine. He seemed to be taking an interest in his father and in Frellock history, probably because of his experience with the bombing. After his questions about magic, he didn't ask again. Most people lost interest quickly as soon as they realized that doing what they wanted with magic was more complicated than just wishing for it. Especially now that it was illegal, it was all academic for Wyatt anyway. He seemed like his old self again; a bit more serious, perhaps, but he would be fine.
Tonight, Josaphine had come for the company of other Frellock. It had been a long day at her shop with numerous picky and demanding Gambrian customers. Some thought her fabric was too fine, others too coarse, some too dark, others too light. After all the nit picking, she just wanted to relax and be with her own people, people whose nature it was to be accepting, open, and easy-going. She sipped her drink again and looked out at the small crowd. All of the people here were in traditional dress with long hair. Wyatt would serve those who chose to adopt the Gambrian customs, but the three old men usually scared them away. The old men were cranky tonight, so Wyatt slipped them some of the stronger alcohol to tone them down a bit.
There were six tables total, all of which could seat four to six people, depending on how friendly they were feeling. The three old men had the one table that was slightly separated from the others by the large stove. Wyatt was at the stove now, bringing out fish and seaweed cakes and putting in more of both. The smell of the cakes wafted down to Josaphine and she breathed in deeply. If she concentrated on the smell, she could almost feel the sand under her toes and the wind in her hair like when her parents would make sea-cakes over an open fire on the beach.
The other tables held groups of four, except hers which Josaphine had to herself. Wyatt would join her when he could, but he had work to do. Laughter from one of the tables floated on the air and Josaphine looked up into the starry sky. She felt completely relaxed.
The information on the cafe's layout was extremely good. Ian knew what the entire block looked like before he even arrived. The cafe was in the middle of the block, surrounded by a few other small shops and lots of apartment buildings. The two ends of the street they would need to block and Ian was concerned about the alley running parallel to the street, behind the cafe. If the information was correct, the cafe was entirely on the sidewalk in front of the building. That meant that the building itself could be one of two potentially dangerous things: more Frellock patrons, or entirely empty and a straight shot to the alley and escape.
Ian decided to split his team into three groups, one for each end of the street and one to come in through the alley door of the cafe's building. The street itself was not much cleaner than the alley, with trash piled along the gutters and spilling out of trash cans. The buildings were already starting to show their age with the mortar disappearing, a few broken windows, and a coating of soot on every surface. This neighborhood was occasionally downwind from the factories and it showed. If he hadn't been with three armed police officers, Ian would probably have been too nervous to venture down the dark street alone.
All of the light and noise on the street came from the cafe that was their target. There were small lanterns burning on each table and a few hung on hooks against the building. All of the patrons were Frellock in traditional dress. There looked to be about twenty people. Assuming there weren't more inside the building, this should be easy. Ian thought it was kind of sad; here were lower class Frellock, spending their hard earned money on cheap fish, those revolting seaweed cakes, and watered down beer. Ian didn't even have to go near the cafe to know that's what they served. It was something of a cliche with Frellock cafes, as he had discovered in Wellden. For a culture that valued trade and travel so highly, Ian thought they could have picked up some new recipes somewhere.
Laughter drifted up from the cafe as Ian checked the time in the dim light. It was time.
Josaphine started to bring her drink to her lips again and paused. She felt a change before she saw the sudden flashing and movement to her right, inside the cafe's empty building. For just a second, she failed to comprehend it. But, Wyatt doesn't use the inside of the building, she thought. Then, she reacted, without knowing who or what was coming, or even what she was doing. Josaphine dropped the cup and lunged towards Wyatt, dodging the other patrons with ease. "Go!" she shouted at him. Wyatt turned towards her, the fish spatula still in his hand, as she grabbed him bodily and hauled him around to run beside her.
The old men saw Josaphine jump up and got quickly to their feet, squinting through the darkness to see what had spooked her. Emilio shouted, "what is it?" The other patrons watched the commotion with half-interested looks.
Then, the police officers coming through the building slammed open the front door, sending shards of glass crashing to the ground around it. Four of them streamed out, guarding the door from retreat and two of them held newfangled pistols at arms length, pointed at the patrons. A few of the patrons screamed and stood up. Fortunately, the officers were professionals and didn't fire on the first movement. Instead, one of them shouted, "down! Get down on the ground, all of you."
Josaphine, with Wyatt in tow, only got a few steps beyond the old men when they ran into three police officers and another man, collectively wielding two pistols. They repeated the order and Josaphine stopped immediately. She raised her hands above her head and laid down on the ground slowly, pulling Wyatt down to do the same thing. The final group of officers arrived and all of the patrons were now terrified and complying.
All except the old men. "Damn you Gambys," said Emilio, spitting on the ground in front of Ian. "I'm not your whipping boy and I won't lie down every time you want to feel important." Joe nodded. Garnok moved slowly away from the table, but made no move to lie down.
Ian stopped and motioned for the officers to stand their ground. "I am authorized by the Baron Council and the-" he began.
"I don't give a fish's fin who authorized you, boy," said Emilio. "This is our neighborhood and our favorite cafe. If you have business here, you should come by during the day like all the other Gamby bastards."
Garnok had moved away from the table and started to lie down. Josaphine saw him nod ever so slightly to Joe and Emilio began to back away from the table, very slowly. Ian only noticed that two of the three old men had started to comply. "Sirs, I come on behalf of-"
Joe got a wild look in his eye that Josahpine had seen on men before, some thirty-seven years ago, and her stomach dropped to her feet. If it was possible for her heart to race faster, it did so. She prayed that he would not say what he did next.
Joe looked directly at Ian and said, "let Wellden burn."
Before Ian could react, Joe had pulled open his robe. Inside, strapped to his bony chest were three sticks of dynamite and mechanical trigger. As he began to reach for the trigger, Josaphine screamed, "no!" and thrust her left hand towards Joe, knocking his hand backwards and away. Then, two bullets pierced his chest, well away from the dynamite, blossoming with bright red blood. "No!" shouted Josaphine again, this time more of a whimpered plea. Joe fell backwards onto the table, the red blood immediately staining the bright yellow of his robe to a deep brown. His head slammed backwards and lolled to the side, his arms were limp. Emilio's lips were pressed into a firm line as he stopped moving, waiting for the officers to calm down. Ian had staggered backwards two steps and now stood clutching his chest and staring at the gruesome sight before him.
"Down on the ground, now!" shouted one of the officers next to Ian. Garnok and Emilio laid down on the ground. Josaphine sobbed, "no, no, no", over and over again while Wyatt laid in shock beside her. Ian didn't move for almost a minute. The officers around him moved with efficiency, handcuffing all of the patrons and moving them into seated groups for the police truck to pick up. Ian stared at the dead man on the table, knowing that it could have been him lying dead on the sidewalk instead. The blood continued to ooze out, pooling on the table and dripping to the ground.
Ian had been in life-threatening situations before, but it had always been abstract danger, like being in a bad neighborhood at night, or receiving death threats from noblemen he had caught with illegal goods. But this was different; a split second truly had been the difference between life and death for him. He still wasn't sure what had happened, but something caused the man to stop long enough for the officers to shoot him. Ian stood in shock and horror, unable to take his eyes off the dead man.
Finally, the officers handcuffed Josaphine and Wyatt, hauling them to their feet, as best they could, given their shorter stature. The officers led them to the police truck and they climbed inside. Josaphine had stopped sobbing and had closed her eyes in centering meditation, trying to focus on the now, not what was, and not what might have been. Wyatt was alive, that was all she really cared about. Her duty to his father was to keep him safe, and she had done that. For his part, Wyatt was beginning to think about the implications of what was happening and beginning to panic.
One of the officers, shook Ian out of his shocked stupor. He had work to do and contemplations of his own mortality could wait. He pushed the horrific event to the back of his mind and began the tedious task of searching the cafe. He expected them to finish sometime in the dark hours of the next morning. It was good that he had slept well the two previous nights as he doubted he would get many more in the near future.
The cell was small and dry, far better than conditions at the prison camp Josaphine had lived in for a year. She tried not to think about the past and tried to focus on what had gone right two nights ago. Wyatt was alive, the investigator was alive, she was alive. Josaphine had figured out that an investigator was all the un-uniformed man could have been. He spoke of the Baron Council and while he seemed at ease with confrontation, he seemed shocked by real violence. She started to get angry at Joe again and tried to shift her thoughts back to the present.
The cell was empty except for a small, Gambrian sized cot in one corner. There were no windows. Josaphine moved with almost imperceptible slowness through an intricate meditation dance. The slow movements helped her focus on the act of movement and her breath rather than on her thoughts, fears, and regrets. She had learned this meditation technique over a year before her unit was captured in the war. At that time she considered it a waste of time and useless. In prison, it had saved her sanity.
As she moved, her neck felt strangely light and bare. The officers had taken all of the trinkets she usually wore. They couldn't tell by looking which ones were magical and which ones weren't so they decided to take them all. Josaphine didn't blame them as most people these days had an almost irrational fear of mages. And, whatever else they were investigating, they now also knew that she was a mage, after her instinctive use of magic to stop Joe from blowing them all up. No one had come by to tell her what was going on, but she was fairly sure of two things: one, they didn't want anyone from the cafe that night to talk to each other, and two, they were afraid of her. When she left the cell to go to the bathroom, three guards went with her. At her age, she hardly seemed like a threat to young armed men, but they thought differently.
Despite her situation, Josaphine smiled. People who didn't understand magic amused her with what they thought it could do. Some people had even accused mages of being able to read minds, as if magic was something mystical and not the mundane science it really was. Magic was just the process of moving atoms around, nothing more, nothing less. So, it simply was not possible for a mage to read minds. So ridiculous!
Josaphine heard the guards coming down the hall and brought her meditation pose to a simple standing one, breathing, waiting for the guards. They approached her cell without speaking.
Ian walked down the hall with the guards. The last two days had been very long. Chief Killian's raid had not gone as smoothly as Ian's and one of his officers had been killed. They had interrogated over forty-five people in two days. A few they charged with minor violations, fined them, and released them. Only a handful from the two raids were sufficiently interesting to hang onto. One of them was the old mage in tattered red robes that stood calmly before him.
He wasn't quite sure what to make of her. She was one of their prime suspects, yet she had saved his life. She certainly didn't look like a radical separatist capable of blowing up innocent people. In fact, she looked amused in a morbid kind of way. She was old enough to be his mother and it was hard to imagine anyone of that age being a radical. But the man who tried to blow them up was older still than she. Ian shuddered involuntarily as the sight of the man's death flashed before him yet again. He doubted he would ever forget it or stop feeling horrible about it. His duties as investigator rarely involved violent crimes.
"Do you want something?" Josaphine asked in a quiet voice. Ian's eyes snapped upwards to meet hers, startled by her question. Then he realized he had been staring at her for some time and he shook himself free of memories.
"Yes," he said, "I wondered if you'd speak with me about the cafe, its patrons, and its owner."
Josaphine blinked at him. That was far more polite than she had come to expect from police officers and from Gambrians in general. "Uh. It depends," she said finally.
"On what?"
"On what your questions are. I would like to leave here, of course, so any questions that I can answer that move me towards that end, I will answer. Unless answering them requires me to betray a trust, then I will not answer."
Ian nodded. "Fair enough." He motioned for one of the guards to bring him a chair and he sat down in it, notepad at the ready.
Josaphine thought they would be going to an interrogation room, but she was content with this change of venue. She sat crosslegged on the floor, almost looking the short man in the eye from her seated position.
"Why did you save my life?" he asked, pointe blank.
Josaphine wasn't sure herself why she had done it. "I just reacted. I didn't think at all."
"Who was the young man with you, and why did you try to run?"
"The young man is Wyatt, but I'm sure you already knew that. I ran because I didn't know you were police at first. Again, my instincts got the better of me."
Ian nodded and scribbled some notes. "Why were you at the cafe that night?"
"I was eating dinner and visiting Wyatt."
"What did you have for dinner?"
Josaphine looked at Ian, incredulously. "Fish and seaweed cakes, with curaco to drink."
"What kind of fish?"
"Cheap fish."
Ian looked up from his notepad. "How do you know Wyatt?"
"I knew his father."
"Describe Wyatt to me."
Josaphine realized that they thought Wyatt was a likely suspect, for whatever they were investigating. She shook her head. "Wyatt is a good kid. You think that losing his father to a bomber would make him into a violent man? Well, it didn't. If you knew enough about him to suspect him, you should have also seen that he is as straight as it comes. He works hard at his cafe, and he doesn't deserve this kind of harassment."
"You protest that we shouldn't suspect him, but you don't know what we suspect him of," said Ian, writing quickly.
"It doesn't matter. Wyatt is not a criminal."
Ian looked up and stopped writing. He was fairly sure she wouldn't be phased by threats to her own freedom or future. Now was his chance to verify that part of her character. "But you most certainly are a criminal," he said. "You performed magic in front of a dozen witnesses, most of whom are police officers. The trinkets we took from you are almost all magical devices of various kinds. We have enough evidence to incarcerate you for two years. Perhaps you should worry less about Wyatt and more about yourself."
Josaphine narrowed her eyes at Ian. Perhaps it was time to test how far a mage's reputation could get her. "Ha! I'm not worried about myself. For your information, they were all magical items. If your detector can't figure that out, then how will it be able to warn you when I make magic to turn the lock in my cell door. How will you know when I take the light from your eyes, making your world nothing but blackness, and I walk out the front door of this station? It's you that should worry."
The guards with Ian tensed noticeably and began to back away from the cell. All of those things were possible with magic, but she didn't tell them that it would take a very long time to do, especially if she couldn't create any magic items to help her. Ian ordered the men to stay put with a hard glance and they stopped moving away. "Very well. Who were the old men at the cafe?"
Josaphine relaxed slightly. The investigator may not understand magic, but he did not fear it. That was better than nothing. "The old men are regular patrons at Wyatt's cafe. I only saw them in passing."
"Did you know that Joe, I think his name was, was wearing dynamite that night?"
The scene replayed before Josaphine's eyes and she grew quiet. "Absolutely not," she said.
"What are Garnok and Emilio's political views?"
"I don't know. You should ask them. I try to stay away from politics."
"Why do you live in the warehouse district?" asked Ian, trying to goad her into talking again.
"It's a better location for trade," Josaphine lied easily. She had told that lie so many times that it almost felt like the truth. Really, it was the view of the ocean. The same one she had shared with Wyatt on the night of the explosion.
Ian raised his eyebrows and scribbled a note. "Indeed. If we go to your shop, will we find any contraband there?"
"You may find some more trinkets that you'll think are magical."
"Are you saying they're not?"
"I'm not saying anything."
In fact, Ian had already been to Josaphine's shop. They had found the items she mentioned but the magic detector was unable to determine if they were magic or not. Ian now felt certain that Josaphine knew enough about magic to be the one who was trying to cover something up with magic at the bombings in Wellden. Her personality seemed to point in the opposite direction. Ian wasn't usually one to go on gut instinct, so he let the facts guide him for the time being. He had just one more thread to tug on.
"What does the phrase 'let Wellden burn' mean?"
Josaphine smirked. "It was a sort of battle cry among the Frellock during the war. Now it's used as a call for solidarity among Frellock, or as a way to identify others who were in the war." It was no secret, and it was amusing to hear a Gambrian say it, even if it was a question.
Ian nodded and noted that down. "What division were you in, in the war?"
"All of that information is in your records already."
"Yes, so they are," he said. "Do you keep in touch with any of your compatriots from the war?"
"Unless you mean 'do I talk to other Frellock', then, no, I don't." Josaphine paused as she noticed the pattern in Ian's questions. "You're looking for the bombers, and you think that Wyatt, or the old men, or I had something to do with it."
Ian smiled. "That's correct." He admired her deductive reasoning; he didn't expect to see it in a Frellock, let alone in a mage. He waited for the inevitable denial that suspects always spouted but it didn't come. Josaphine was staring at a point up and to the right of Ian's head with a faraway look in her eyes, her eyebrows furrowed in thought.
After a moment, Ian said, "well, those are all the questions I had for right now." She was still a suspect, but he was beginning to have doubts. She nodded, still thinking.
Ian stood up and a guard picked the chair up. "Wait," said Josaphine, "what's going to happen to me now?" It was Ian's turn to smirk. "Assuming you don't use magic to break out of here as you alluded to before, Police Chief Killian would like to have some words with you. Once you've talked with him and he and I have a chat, we will make a decision."
Josaphine smiled slightly at Ian. "Good day, Josaphine," he said and walked down the hallway and out of sight. He was certainly an odd one, both his mannerisms and his grey wool suit. Josaphine had admired the quality of the work, but wool was almost unheard of here on the north coast. Why he had not bought a lighter linen suit confounded her, because he certainly had the money if his wool suit was any indication. Perhaps he was just stubborn.
Her mind was back on the purpose for the investigator. At the cafe, he had said he represented the Baron Council, so what would make them so jumpy that they would send in an investigator after all of these years. It was true that the bombings had been worse four months ago than they had been in years, but through all the years that Wellden and Frindon had been targets for attacks, the Baron Council had never gotten involved before now. Curious. And, they had started with Wellden, where most of the attacks had actually been. Why were they here now and still grasping at water trying to find suspects? They weren't trying to build their case, they were trying to start it.
What had gone so dismally wrong in Wellden that they didn't find anything? Then again, maybe there was nothing to find. Josaphine knew that at least one bomb in Frindon was set by the old men. Could they be responsible for all of the bombings in Frindon? It seemed extremely unlikely, so unlikely that she dismissed the notion that they could be connected to the Wellden bombings. It was just too far-fetched that three old drunks could mastermind something like the repeated attacks from the table in Wyatt's cafe. No, if there was one group behind the bombings, it was probably from Wellden, not from Frindon.
"What in the hell was that old man thinking?!" yelled Eric at the telegram he held in his hand. He dismissed the frightened courier with a wave of his hand who retreated quickly out Eric's office door, closing it behind him. Eric reread the telegram and slammed it down on his desk under his open palm. Damn, damn, damn. Eric got up to pace his small, windowless office, thinking, trying to understand the implications of this blunder. The old man was supposed to tell his contact in Frindon if he found a mage of interest, not try to blow him up. The old man's contact would have been more discreet in interviewing the mage.
But, it was his own fault for letting the old men be listeners in the first place. They were crazy and their background in the war meant they were skilled enough to be dangerous. Eric didn't think they would be that dangerous. "Huh," Eric laughed mirthlessly, wondering if some of the errant bombings in Frindon were their doing. Certainly, Eric would not have authorized bombings so clumsy and ill-conceived.
One thing was for certain, the power tests in Frindon would have to be postponed or moved to another city. They couldn't conduct the tests while the Frindon police were actively searching for magic related bombings. He supposed they might be able to draw the police to another city, maybe one far east of Wellden, with a rash of bombings. That would free up their operatives in Frindon to conduct discreet tests. Especially if one of the side goals of this project was to destabilize the region, bombings in more cities would unsettle the populous. Stephan was not going to be pleased.
Eric stopped pacing and sat back down in his chair, reading the telegram for a third time. At least one good thing had come of this; they had found a mage worth recruiting. That assumed, of course, that the police eventually released him.
"What in the hell was Ian thinking?" Baron McCloud asked Keeshawn quietly. The Baron Council chambers were otherwise empty and the fires were dying in the fireplaces. McCloud and Keeshawn were seated beside one of the fireplaces, looking at a telegram from the Magistrate of Magic in Wellden.
"Perhaps he was frustrated by his lack of progress in Wellden," said Keeshawn.
McCloud nodded, staring at the dying flames of the fire. "You're probably right, but I didn't expect him to move so quickly once he was in Frindon. Who's the Magistrate in Frindon these days?"
Keeshawn coughed quietly to cover his annoyance. "There isn't one, sir. The post has been vacant since the last three were assassinated. It's been more than a year now." A fact that Keeshawn had tried to get the council to address before Frindon became a target for unrest.
"Damn. Well, we can't allow Ian to completely shutdown the bombers until my plans for Prahn are in place. Ian does things by the book, so if we appoint a new Magistrate there, Ian will have no choice but to listen to him. The trick will be finding someone." McCloud leaned back in his chair and thought. This was not how he envisioned Ian's investigation working out. Of course, he also thought there was still a Magistrate in Frindon. Damn it, Keeshawn should have warned him that there wasn't one the moment they hatched this plan. Drawing public attention in the region northward to the coast made Baron McCloud's slow and deliberate takeover of the city of Prahn almost unnoticeable to the general public.
The city of Prahn was on the plains, a crucial way point between Wellden on the coast and Cloudbase, the city just north of the mountain range that Volak was south of. McCloud already controlled Volak and Cloudbase, but he wanted unrestricted access to the north coast cities that controlling Prahn would give him. Prahn was currently controlled, on paper at least, by Baron Vargas. In reality, it was controlled by Vargas' wife, a beautiful and cunning woman, and a handful of trade cartels that taxed all goods moving through Prahn. Since Baron Vargas controlled Prahn and since he allowed the cartels to operate, it was all entirely legal.
However, no one on either side of Prahn was happy about the arrangement. Since the north coast was mostly Frellock, those cities were run by the Baron Council as a whole, and not by a single baron. Baron McCloud controlled the cities to the south of Prahn and was head of the Baron Council, which put him in an excellent position to address the problem of Prahn's taxes on Frellock goods coming south. But, he needed time to get his men into position in and around Prahn without being noticed, or without Vargas' protests being noticed. Hence the lackadaisical way the law enforcement of Wellden and Frindon were investigating the bombings. Baron McCloud needed the public's attention and that of the council to be on things other than Vargas' complaints about McCloud's troop and "advisor" placements within the city.
When McCloud had sent Ian Jenkins in to investigate, he was making a show of taking action. He was sending the best investigator the Baron Council had at its disposal. But, McCloud knew that Ian would not test the bounds of his mandate or argue too much with the local magistrate about the approach they should be taking for the investigation. So, he thought it was safe to send him, and for a while, it was going extremely well. The Welldon magistrate had one of his underlings, the Magistrate of Magic, talking Ian in circles about magic and taking him on wild goose chases through the city. But, Ian had taken his own initiative to move the investigation to Frindon so soon after beginning the investigation. He was perfectly within the law to do so, but McCloud had forgotten about the vacancy in the Magistrate's office in Frindon. No doubt, Ian was working with someone lower in the government who had no hangups about making progress in this case.
McCloud sighed. If only he knew some of the local politicians in Frindon. It would be too suspicious to bring someone over from Wellden, just when Ian was making progress. Perhaps he should play this from the other angle. He looked up at Keeshawn and asked, "do you know any Frellock who would like the Magistrate's post?"
Keeshawn had been staring into the fire. His role in this was simply to keep tabs on public opinion in the north coast cities, both Frellock and Gambrian. At McCloud's question, he blinked several times in surprise. "What?"
"The Magistrate's post, do you know any Frellock that are qualified to fill it?" McCloud repeated. He hated repeating himself and usually did not indulge the listener by doing so, but it was an unusual question.
"Uh, yes, sir, I know several respectable businessmen in various fields that would be delighted to take up the task," said Keeshawn. He wasn't sure that delighted would quite cover it; giddy hesitation was more like it. The chance to rule themselves, even in such a limited way, was many Frellock's dream, but there was the problem of repeated assassinations. Perhaps a Frellock Magistrate would last longer in office.
"Excellent," said McCloud, settling the matter. "Interview these contacts of yours and select one of them for the post. Just be certain that they will be strong willed enough to keep the rest of the government in check and to keep Ian Jenkins' investigation at a standstill. Let me know when you've got your man and I will make the appointment declaration for the council." The baron stood and stretched, then bid Keeshawn good night. He left the council chambers heading back to his castle for the night. Keeshawn wondered what the other barons would think about having a Frellock magistrate. The horror he imagined in their eyes was delightful.
Ian released Wyatt two days after the raid. He went back to his cafe and began cleaning up. The fish and seaweed had gone bad and the door to the building had been broken. He got an old tarp from one of the trash bins and hung it on the door, covering the broken window. He swept the broken glass into a bucket along with the other garbage. He had cleaned every surface and every mug before he would even look at the table where the old men usually sat. Every time he remembered the scene that night, his stomach heaved and tried to return Wyatt's most recent meal. After the third time it happened in jail, Wyatt stopped eating.
This night was no different. He finally turned his attention to the table and the dried blood made his stomach heave again, but there was nothing in it. He tried to think about anything else to keep his mind off of the implications of the police raid. He thought about how Josaphine had tossed Joe's hand aside with magic. He figured she must know a lot about magic to direct it like that. Most of the magic he had heard people talk about required contact with the magical item and the object it operated on. He guessed that mentally directing the magic was more advanced.
Then he thought about the rumors he heard in jail as he was leaving. Apparently, his cafe was not the only place raided that night. In fact, the other place was the bar on the east side that he guessed he could learn about magic in. Wyatt wasn't really interested in why the police had raided his cafe. He had become jaded, especially after listening to some of the stories that his magic contacts had told. He wrote it off as just another way that the Gambrians were oppressing all the Frellock people. In fact, over the last two days, Wyatt had become less interested in magic for keeping Frellock safe from bombings as he was in using magic as a weapon.
Wyatt finished cleaning the old men's table with little more trouble from his stomach, now that he had gotten his blood boiling about the injustice of it all. It wasn't fair that Frellock should be so looked down upon by those short little men. Frellock had a long and proud history, and they had mastered magic. All the Gambys had were their little technological toys that broke so easily. And they wouldn't even have those if someone was to sabotage it in someway. Just the slightest little thing out of place, and technology just refused to function. Wyatt was sure that he could find someone willing to teach him just where to push to break the Gambys machines. He went out to buy fish and seaweed for the cafe, and to do some information hunting.
Ian walked down the hall to Josaphine's cell, alone this time. He was convinced that Josaphine was no threat to him while they were in the station; she'd had enough time to do something to him, if she wanted to. It had been four days since the raid on Wyatt's cafe and two days since they last spoke. She was standing in the same position she had been in two days ago, watching Ian approach, her hands clasped loosely together in front of her.
"Josaphine," said Ian, nodding to greet her. "Chief Killian and I have discussed your case at length." Discussed was a mild word for it; Ian almost never raised his voice but while arguing with Chief Killian, he had done so several times. It frustrated Ian to no end that someone so logical and practical like Killian could be so obstinate when it came to issues that inflamed his passions. "Chief Killian believes that you are not to be trusted and that you were involved in the bombings. He also believes that I should keep you here until we have evidence to the contrary."
Josaphine tilted her head to the side and waited for Ian to continue. No doubt, this Chief Killian had also specified the manner in which she should be kept and it had turned Ian's stomach. Ian's suit was immaculate, as it had been two days ago, but the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes belied the toll this case had taken on him in a very short period of time.
Ian continued, "I sent a telegram to the Magistrate in Wellden and he agrees with me. I will release you, without your magical trinkets, and ask you not to leave the city. The other provision I have is that when I have further questions, you will be available to answer them." The Magistrate had been very wary of endorsing Ian's plan, but Ian reminded him that she had almost no money or means of getting very far from the city. Ian was sure that if she was involved with the bombings, she would not contact anyone for several weeks, until she was sure that no one was following her. Without her magic items, she would have fewer resources available to detect anyone watching her, and would undoubtedly make a mistake. Then, Ian's people could observe who she was talking to and possibly intercept any communications.
"If I am only expected to answer questions under the conditions I laid down two days ago," said Josaphine, "then I agree." She was certain he would follow her to see who she met with. The wonderful thing about being innocent was that she had nothing to hide.
"You are, as the law states, prohibited from using or making magic of any kind," said Ian. "We are keeping your trinkets both to limit temptation, but also as collateral to hold against you if you do not comply." Josaphine nodded. "Very well, a guard will be along shortly to release you." Ian turned to leave, but turned back with a ghost of a smile on his lips. "Could you really have opened the lock on the cell's door with magic?"
Josaphine blushed and looked down at her hands. "Yes," she said simply. Ian shook his head and walked away down the hall. Josaphine reached forward and pushed lightly on the door and it swung open silently on its hinges. "In fact," she murmured to herself, "I already have."
Three weeks later, the people at Wyatt's cafe were buzzing about something other than the raids: a Frellock had been appointed as Magistrate. The day it was announced, Wyatt bought a round of drinks for every patron at the cafe. Josaphine smiled at the memory as she walked along the pier, heading for the relatively small Frellock cargo ship docked in the wharf. Last night, no one could complain about anything in politics, or Wyatt and the two old men would kick them out. It was still strange seeing the table with Joe missing, but Garnok and Emilio had seen enough of their friends die in the war that one more was just a scratch on an old wound.
The small sailing ship was unloading onto the docks crates full of yarn and other raw materials from the islands that were sprinkled along the north coast. The islands were usually too small to have their own ships or even a real pier for the cargo ship, but that was common among Frellock islands. For a long time, Frellock ships were light, shallow catamarans that moved easily up to shore. Now, they were using those ships to move goods to the deeper hulled sailing ships. Those only became common just before the war started, so there was almost no infrastructure on the islands to handle those ships. Now, those sailing ships were being dwarfed by the large, steam powered, Gambrian cargo ships.
Deckhands moved the crates off the ship with the strength and speed of long practice. Josaphine met with the captain to locate her crates and arrange for their shipment to her shop. She had been hoping for some of the fine linen in a bright yellow, but there was none. There had been too much rain on the island where the plants for the yellow dye grew and there was only enough for a pale yellow. The Gambrian women sometimes preferred the paler colors for their own use, but it was the bright colors that made Frellock fabric unique. Josaphine thanked the captain and walked slowly back to her shop.
It was a beautiful day, with a clear blue sky and a mild breeze. Josaphine had been outside her shop less frequently after her arrest, especially after dark. She just didn't feel right without her magic items. She smiled under her wide-brimmed hat and touched the new patch in her robes. Few would suspect that it was magical, and that was the point. Mages chose the manifestation of their magic, for the most part. The tradition had always been to make them ornate, separate items so they could be easily traded, moved, or replaced. By making them into inconspicuous pieces she assured that most people would overlook them, but they were now permanently attached to her robe. She had only replaced two of her magic utilities in three weeks, intentionally moving slowly as she knew Ian's people were watching her. But, as in jail, she felt confident that the "magic detectors" the Gambrians were using were little more than a simple magical utility and some lucky guessing.
Josaphine looked up along the pier and watched the sea birds circle and dive on something in the water. She noticed a young man standing at the end of the pier, not moving cargo or fishing, just standing. As she moved closer, she felt a mild magical tingle as someone, probably the young man, scanned her for magical items. She neither hurried nor slowed her pace nor altered her path in any way, but simply replied with a comparable scan. Of her magical items, the two most important were locating magic and interfering with its operation, so those were the two she had completed rebuilding first. The young man sat down on the edge of the pier, dangling his enrobed legs over the edge, watching the sea birds. He was a reddish-skinned Frellock with a long ponytail of black hair. His robe was a bright yellow, the same yellow that Josaphine had been hoping to acquire, and looked quite new to Josaphine's trained eyes. Sitting next to him on the edge of the pier, she felt her age and poverty like never before.
"What do you want?" asked Josaphine, before the young man could speak.
"Just to talk," he said in a cultured tenor. "My name is Simon and I represent some very powerful people."
Josaphine gave a quiet mirthless laugh. "I'm sure you do. What do your powerful masters want, then?" she asked.
Simon pursed his lips and looked out over the ships in the wharf. He wore no trinkets, so he must be concealing his magical items in some other way. "We want to offer you a job," he said. "We are always looking for skilled mages to join us and lend us their talents. In exchange, we are allowed to practice our craft unmolested by the police or the Baron Council."
Josaphine immediately smelled a trap. This must be Ian's doing, trying to get her to barter her magic for some reward then use that as evidence that she was involved in the bombings. Well, she would not be that easy to dupe. "I'm sorry," said Josaphine, getting easily to her feet, "but you must have me confused with someone else. Good day." She turned toward the city and had only gone a few steps when she felt resistance, like she was swimming through seaweed. She stopped and turned to Simon.
He was smiling, but still staring off into space. "Aren't you going to try and break it? It's quite easy," he said. It was clear that he enjoyed magic, relished his power, and felt no fear of retribution for using it in the city. Josaphine had felt that way once. The whole incident with the police had made her remember how much power she truly wielded and how much fun it had been to create. But, she had a life that no longer involved magic, and she was content with it. Using magic now, especially some strong and clever enough to break Simon's barrier would surely be detected, even with the pathetic equipment the police department was using.
Josaphine sighed and returned to Simon's side. "No," she said, "I'm not going to play your game, so either take down your barrier, or tell me what you really want. And I don't buy your job offer, it's just too convenient."
"As I said, we are a consortium of mages and... other folks... who simply want to practice our art. That's all. We are constantly looking for new mages to bolster our power and teach us new ways of making magic. If you choose to reject our offer, that is your decision, but the offer is real," Simon said.
"Hmm," said Josaphine, "and would these other folks be intent on securing the freedom of Frellock through any and all means necessary?"
"That is not our primary aim, no" said Simon. "Though some of our members do share that belief, as might any subset of Frellock in any given gathering."
So it was a trap, and a clumsy one at that. "Well, I must be going then," said Josaphine. She stood to leave.
"Don't you want to know how we found you, or why we chose you?" asked Simon.
Josaphine sighed. "Well, I assume that Ian Jenkins sent you," she said, "if you must know."
Simon blinked and looked up at her. "Who?"
"Yes, very convincing, I'm still not interested," said Josaphine, walking away.
"It was Joe," said Simon, still seated on the pier's edge. Josaphine stumbled a little and turned back to face him.
"What?" said Josaphine quietly.
Simon stood up in an easy, fluid movement, the neat hem of his robe just brushing the tops of his bare feet. "Joe was one our listeners. He told us about people he met and monitored for magic in the area. He reported very strong magic use a few weeks after the last bombing in Frindon. He suspected that it was you."
The mention of Joe had brought her down to earth from all the scheming games that Ian might be playing with this Simon and his job offer. She wasn't interested in playing those games anymore. She knew who she was, a mage, pretending to be normal. She was also an honest, moral woman who wanted nothing of power or causes, she just wanted to eat and watch the ocean. She had that, but it seemed some people were determined to see that her normal life could not proceed. One wanted to stop her magic and the other wanted to encourage it. Well, she was having none of it. She took a short step towards Simon and looked him in the eyes.
"You listen to me: Joe was just a normal old man. Someone put it in his head that trying to blow people up was a good idea and I'm betting it was you. So, I don't want anything to do with you or your organization. You stay out of my life and stay out of Wyatt's life. I'm done with these games." Josaphine stalked off toward the city and met the resistance of Simon's barrier. She muttered a few words to herself and waved her hand in a dismissive motion. The resistance vanished and she continued her brisk pace all the way back to her shop.
"Hrmph," smirked Simon as we watched her leave. "Powerful indeed."
Ian left the Magistrate's office with relief. He had spent the entire morning having his head bitten off and his judgment questioned by the new Magistrate. While the Baron Council had approved of Ian moving his investigation, they were quite dismayed with the form the investigation had taken here in Frindon. At least, that's what the Magistrate said. Ian was quite certain that he had done things by the book and completely within the guidelines set down for Council investigators. When he pointed this out, he was rewarded with another hour of diatribe about common sense overriding the guidelines and respecting the privacy of honest citizens. Ian was sure that most of the Magistrate's indignation was a show, ordered by the Baron Council to remind him forcefully of the limits of his duty and responsibility. Some of it was genuine.
Ian had been surprised at the appointment of a Frellock Magistrate, as were most of the people in Frindon. It was a political move that made sense to Ian in hindsight, but he was less than thrilled to have another Magistrate meddling in Ian's investigation. And frankly, having the council come down on him so harshly and so indirectly wounded his pride. Ian had always prided himself on achieving results while still maintaining civility and professionalism, and always operating within the rules. Now he was being reprimanded, through a lackey, for that same procedure.
It troubled Ian that the rules were changing. Rules and order had kept him safe and sane for a long time; he hadn't even considered that rules could change in anything but a superficial way. His head was spinning as he reached his desk at the police station. A note on his desk said that Chief Killian wanted to see him immediately after he was done with the Magistrate.
Killian's office door was open slightly and Ian knocked on the window. Killian waved him in and told him to shut the door. He waited for Ian to sit down.
"I've already had my meeting with the Magistrate," said Killian. "The short form is, we're to consider any political ramifications before acting on leads in the future. Is that the version you got?"
Ian nodded. "The Magistrate also reminded me to exercise common sense when reading the guidelines for investigators and not to be quite so literal in its granting of power."
Killian sighed. "Damn it, if they don't want results, then why do we even investigate these things? Instead, they say they want one thing, then prohibit us from going after it."
"What results did we get from those raids, exactly?" asked Ian. "We got three prime suspects, all of whom have not led us to any new suspects or generated any leads since their release. I am as much frustrated by the Magistrate's... guidance... as I am by the lack of results that costly exercise netted us."
Killian shook his head. "The closest thing we have to a lead at this point, are the new magic detection logs, which I left on your desk, and word of some unnamed goods transfer out by the lighthouse tonight."
Ian closed his eyes before he rolled them. Oh good, more useless magic logs. If he knew what he was looking for in those logs, or trusted the magical judgment of any of the officers on staff, he would put more faith in them. To him, it just looked like random small blips of magic use, without pattern or order. And he didn't know what to make of the differences in "making" and "using" tags for the entries. It had been explained to him, but he didn't understand the explanation.
Killian chuckled. "You look tired, Ian," he said. "Why don't you go back to the inn and get some rest. I'll take the men out and investigate the goods transfer."
Ian nodded. He was very tired and trying to read the magic logs would put him right to sleep. He wished Killian luck and went back to his desk. Ian collected the logs and his hat. If this investigation went on much longer, he was going to have to break down and buy a linen suit. The sun was unbearably bright and the narrow brim of his hat was not much help. Ian hailed a cab and gave the driver the address of the inn he was staying at.
He wished that someone magic savvy had been assigned to this case instead of him. If all Ian had to focus on was finding bombers, that was proving to be somewhat easier than gleaning the purpose to the magic-related bombs. Killian had already arrested several cells of the Sea Freedom Fighters, mostly from leads that existed before their raids, but they were making progress on that side. The magic component, however, was proving near impossible. The analysis that Ian was getting from the Magistrate of Magic, both here and in Wellden, was indecipherable. When he asked for the non-magical translation, they said not to worry, that nothing interesting was indicated in the logs. That analysis certainly confirmed Ian's reading of the logs.
Not making progress and the reaming he had gotten from the Magistrate made Ian consider an option he never would under normal circumstances. Ian gave a new address to the driver, who looked at him like he was crazy, but shrugged and changed the cab's course. If he couldn't understand the logs or the analysis because they were in magical jargon, then he needed to find someone who understood that jargon. Ian knew of only one person.
Josaphine heard a noisy mechanical cab pull up outside her shop. She stopped her weaving and got up to greet the potential customer. It had been several hours since her encounter with Simon on the pier and she had calmed down considerably. She hoped it was enough to put up with a fussy Gambrian woman's prattle about fabric. The door opened, its small silver bell ringing pleasantly. Josaphine blinked in surprise when Ian Jenkins came through the door, and she was even more surprised that he was no accompanied by any other officers.
"Good day, Josaphine," said Ian, removing his hat. "Do have a few minutes to talk?"
"Uh, yes, of course," said Josaphine. "Would you care to sit down?" Josaphine indicated the chairs near the sales counter that were provided for bored husbands or maids of her customers.
"Thank you," said Ian. He hung his hat on one of the pegs just inside the door and took one of the chairs Josaphine offered.
"Would you like some tea?"
Ian held up his hand. "No, thank you, I hope this won't take long." Josaphine sat on a flat cushion on the floor in front of Ian. She found that this arrangement put both parties at ease, the Gambrians more so; she and Ian could look eye to eye without craning her neck and most of her customers felt better about having Frellock sit at the feet of their betters.
"What can I do for you, Investigator Jenkins," asked Josaphine.
"Please, call me Ian. It feels awkward calling you by your given name when you do not reciprocate."
"Frellock children only receive one name, so I don't find it awkward at all, but, as you wish, Ian. What can I do for you?"
Ian sighed and looked down at the papers he was holding on his lap. He had spent the long cab ride over here second guessing his impulse to ask for her help in the first place. Now, he actually had to do it. Ian didn't mind asking for help, and he didn't care that she was Frellock, but she was a prime suspect in the case that the logs concerned. This conversation was not protected by the rules of investigator conduct, nor the Magistrate's rules of common sense.
"Well, it's difficult to know where to begin," said Ian hesitantly.
Josaphine tilted her head and said, "it's about magic, isn't it?"
Ian blinked. "Ah, yes, it is. How did you know?"
Josaphine smiled slightly. "You seem to be uncomfortable with magic, though much better than some people. And, magic is probably the only topic about which I know more than you do."
Ian chuckled. "Well, that and Frellock history and culture. I, ah, have some logs from the magic detection officers and I'm supposed to analyze them for patterns or anything out of the ordinary. But, I don't know what ordinary is, so it's difficult for me to say. I thought you might be able to make sense of them." Ian refrained from telling Josaphine exactly what he was looking for: patterns of hiding magic or uses of it near areas with bombing suspects. Mostly, he did this to limit the amount of privileged information that he gave a suspect in an ongoing investigation. He held out the stack of papers to Josaphine.
She took the stack and read the header of the first page. "Huh," she muttered to herself, "that's a really inefficient way to do that."
"So, you understand what it's tracking?" asked Ian, impressed.
"Yes, I understand what it's tracking, but it's a very inefficient way to track magic making." She looked up from the papers. "Do you understand the difference between magic use and magic making?" Ian did not, so she explained it to him, using the same analogy she had used with Wyatt.
"Fascinating," he said, "so magic is quite like technology in a way: not everyone knows how to build a motor cab, but people still use it."
"Exactly," said Josaphine, "magic and technology are almost identical except for the scale upon which they work." She was pleased that someone so magic illiterate could pick up the concepts so quickly. "So, for these logs, magic use is almost a useless data point. The magic you're after almost certainly must be custom made, so magic making is more interesting."
Ian furrowed his brow. "What magic am I looking for?" he asked.
"Magic that can conceal something, obviously," Josaphine said simply. Ian's worried look made her pause. "You're not supposed to show me this, are you?"
Ian shook his head.
Despite their positions and their last two encounters, Josaphine felt sorry for Ian. He was lost in all of this magic talk and had taken a big risk even coming here. Now, she was making him feel like he had vastly overstepped his bounds. And he seemed to like his bounds where they were. "I'm sorry," she said. "All of the logs indicate that you're looking for concealment, so even a glance at this information would have revealed that." She handed the logs back to Ian. "But, I don't think you'll ever find what you're looking for using that method. Well, eventually you might, but that passive scan will be too late for you to do anything with the information you gather."
"Indeed," Ian said. "What's wrong with the method?"
"The method they're using would only find poorly made or improperly used magic. It would be like trying to hide a fish by putting a tarp over it and telling the next person you see that there's something under the tarp. It's still technically hidden, but the person can go lift the tarp at any time."
Ian nodded to indicate he was following along.
"What you're looking for is something that someone doesn't want you to find. You're trying to find out whether there is a fish and where it is, without help from the person who hid it." She looked up at Ian, who looked more and more overwhelmed. He also was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with his own presence here. Josaphine took pity on him. "How about this: I'll give you a primer on what you need to look for and how to explain it to your magic officers. Then, after they change their searching method, you can search the logs yourself and you'll be able to see the patterns."
Ian nodded again, silently.
Josaphine said quietly, "that way, you won't need to come down here again." She explained as much as she could while Ian took notes. Finally, she finished and stood up.
Ian hastily stuffed his notepad in his suit pocket. "Well, thank you, Josaphine. I appreciate the help." He took his hat when Josaphine offered it to him.
"I say this and I mean it: anytime, Ian," she said. Poor boy! The magnitude of his learning curve and the chance he had taken in approaching her was finally catching up to him.
Ian nodded and opened the door. "Good day, Josaphine." He walked out into the sun, intending to walk to the next busy road and catch a cab. Josaphine closed the door behind him. Twenty feet from Josaphine's door, Ian's stomach lurched and returned his lunch to him.
The lighthouse was not a particularly good place to do something clandestine, but it was the closest place to the city's harbor that the Sea Freedom Fighters were willing take their catamarans. They had a shipment of bomb materials that Simon was expecting and other weapons and bombs for the city-based operatives. Simon's transaction with the Sea Freedom Fighters was strictly a business one; they had the tech-based raw materials needed for the bombs that Simon would use in a power test. He was a little nervous that so much material was being transferred to shore tonight because it would take longer and make their chances of being discovered greater.
This was Simon's first time away from the mountain complex in a long while and he remembered how much he liked the salty breeze and the sound of waves crashing against the rocks. Usually, this kind of thing was left up to Handlers, one level up from Listeners. But, part of his job in coming here was to eliminate the clumsy Handler who had let Joe attempt to blow himself up in front of the police. In fact, the 'interview' of Josaphine that night had not been their idea. The Handler should have made that explicit to Joe, but apparently did not. That whole incident was the kind of costly mistake that they could not allow. So, now that the Handler for Frindon was dead, it fell to Simon to take up his work until another could be found.
There were four other Frellock out by the lighthouse that night, all of them were local Seafrees operatives. They were standing close to the base of the lighthouse, in the shadows, talking in low, self-important voices. Simon would probably never get used to their blind devotion to a cause. His organization was using bombings to destabilize the region and to test their weapons; he fully expected every member to have their own agenda and political games. He certainly did. But they didn't have to believe in a cause to blow things up, they just needed to believe in having power by taking it from others. Simon shook his head. Especially this new kid, Wyatt. He was so full of anger and venom against the Gambrians that Simon doubted he realized he was just the pawn of some Seafrees captain somewhere who also just wanted power.
Their talk turned to magic, as it often did. Magic was the martyr for the Seafrees and people of their ilk. Magic was the one thing that the Gambrians did not have and so they had outlawed it. At least, that was how these zealots made it sound. It was much more inspiring to be able to point to a specific example of oppression rather than whining generally about having to live in cities. This Wyatt had an insatiable desire to learn more about magic from whomever he could. Simon had considered him as a possible apprentice for the organization, but it was clear that he didn't quite understand magic, no matter now hard he tried or how much he wanted to. And, he was far too gone down the blind-devotion freedom fighter route to be of any use to Simon.
Wyatt said something that made Simon pay closer attention. He was describing a raid on his cafe that was eerily similar to what Simon knew had happened with Joe and Josaphine. To hear Wyatt tell it, there were far more police and he was far braver in dealing with them than simply lying down on the ground at their order. But, there could be no doubt, this was the same Wyatt that Josaphine had referred to on the pier at his failed recruitment attempt. That was very interesting. Perhaps the boy deserved further consideration, as bait or leverage.
Simon's considerations were cut short by the silent arrival of the cargo catamaran. One of the men on the boat threw a rope to tie the boat up and keep it from drifting while they unloaded. The city-side Seafrees hauled small crates up from the catamaran with impressive speed. Simon approached the boat and tossed a small sack of coins to the unoccupied captain and nodded his thanks. The captain nodded back then jerked his head around toward land. "Cut it loose," he yelled. The man shoving the last crate up to land let go immediately and cut the mooring rope. The crate toppled into the water and started to sink as the catamaran loosed its sail and swept out into darkness.
One of the men on the pier cursed at the lost crate while Simon whipped around to see what had spooked the captain. Moving quickly along the pier to the lighthouse were a dozen Gamby police officers, their lanterns bobbing with their brisk run. Then, from two sides of the lighthouse, Simon saw lights on small, steam-powered dinghies as they approached. The men on the pier started to panic. Simon knew this was a lousy place to exchange goods.
"Get back, all of you," yelled Simon, over the noise of the waves. "Form a tight circle with what goods you can carry." He hoped they listened to him. Simon returned his attention to the bobbing lights in front of him and concentrated, murmuring words and raising his hands, palm up, in front of him. Nothing happened for a moment, then a large fireball appeared in each of his hands which he quickly hurled towards the police. He killed three of them on impact and the terrified screams and injured gurgles of others ensured chaos for long enough to escape.
Simon turned back to the crates. He was planning to ignore the boats when a bullet whizzed past his head, close enough to make him flinch involuntarily. He spoke strange words aloud while he moved to the men and the crates, his arms stretched outward toward the boats. The steam engines in the boats suddenly produced an extreme amount of pressure and exploded, hurling police officers into the sea and putting an end to the shooting.
The men had gathered essentials from the crates, holding them in their arms protectively. He ordered them to surround his crate and to touch it with one of their feet. They did so and so did Simon. He started to chant different words, concentrating on making the magic that would transport them safely to an empty warehouse not far from the lighthouse. It was the best he could do; magic lost its power over great distances and he would rather end up too close to the police and have to run again than to end up somewhere safe but missing one of his limbs. As he reached the final words, one of the men flew backwards from the force of a bullet hitting his shoulder, breaking his contact with the crate. The lighthouse and pier disappeared and were replaced by an empty warehouse. Three of the men and Simon were there, complete and unharmed.
"Go," said Simon, "quickly, we're not far from the pier. Take your goods and go." One of them thanked Simon for saving them, then they scattered into the darkness outside the warehouse. Simon lifted his crate with prepared magic and pushed it effortlessly in front of him, through the air. He indulged himself in one glance at the chaos he had created on the lighthouse pier, then moved silently into the dark city.
The noise from the ambush didn't wake Josaphine in her shop, just a half mile away.
Ian didn't sleep well that night. He was tortured by his willful disregard for the rules of investigator conduct. The next morning, after his morning routine, he skipped breakfast and headed to the police station. There was a somber mood in the station. Ian guessed that Killian's ambush at the lighthouse had not gone well, but he could not guess just how badly it had gone. Ian went immediately to the Magistrate's office. He had decided on the cab ride to the station that he was no longer fit to lead this investigation and wanted to remove himself from it. He decided that the Magistrate should be the first to know, then he would telegram the Baron Council asking for a new assignment.
He knocked on the Magistrate's door and heard a weary voice say, "come in." The usually tidy office was in disarray and the Magistrate looked like he hadn't slept all night.
"Sir," began Ian, "I wish to-"
"Have you heard what happened at the lighthouse?" asked the Magistrate, interrupting Ian.
Ian shook his head. "No, sir. I take it something bad?"
The Magistrate grunted, "more than bad, Mr. Jenkins. Six of our officers were killed and four more were badly injured." That was a sizable portion of the total number of officers for the city of Frindon.
"Oh, no!" said Ian quietly. "What happened?"
"From the reports we've gotten from the uninjured officers, it was a single, powerful mage that did this. He and the other terrorists escaped with enough bomb materials to make life in Frindon very difficult."
"And, Chief Killian?" asked Ian, almost afraid to hear the answer.
"Dead," said the Magistrate flatly. "He was leading the charge up the pier and was hit directly by one of the fireballs. From the reports we got, no one has seen magic like that since the war."
Ian stood where he was, stunned. He had talked with Killian just yesterday and they had planned to have lunch together tomorrow. Now, he was gone. What kind of heartless murderer could kill six people? Apparently the same kind that could bomb public places with innocent people and small children. People like his bombing suspects. What if the mage at this encounter was the one responsible for the concealment magic he was supposed to be looking for? Was it too much of a coincidence, or had they been closer than they knew to discovering the people behind all of this?
"Sir," said Ian, "you said that the mage on the pier was a man?"
"Yes, that's what the witnesses said," replied the Magistrate, "but it was night and since both Frellock sexes traditionally keep long hair, it's hard to be certain."
"And, what color was the mage's robe?"
The Magistrate shuffled some papers, looking for the report. He scanned the document and said, "bright yellow. Why?"
Hmm, bright yellow and not dull red. Still, there was nothing to say that Josaphine didn't have more than one robe. Rage like Ian had never known rose inside him. He wanted to lash out physically. He had never known real betrayal and he was a little frightened by the intensity of the anger he felt. His nostrils flared as he answered the Magistrate. "This is important new information and it implicates one of our prime suspects. Sir, with your permission, I'll take my leave of you and pursue this new lead immediately."
The Magistrate blinked and said, "yes, of course, do whatever you think is necessary, Ian."
"Thank you, sir," he said and quickly left the office. He all but ran back to his desk for his hat and out the door to hail a cab.
Josaphine awoke early and had her tea out on the pier closest to her shop. The sun came up with a brilliant display of color against the slowly lightening sky. Her morning meditation was interrupted by a lack of sounds. Normally at this time of the morning, dozens of ships were coming and going from the wharf, loading and unloading goods and fish. But this morning, there were no ships in the entire western half of the wharf. It looked like the ships had been ordered to stay away because they were all trying to cram into the few slips on the eastern part of the wharf. There was some kind of activity on the lighthouse pier, probably the source of the sailors' headaches.
From this distance, Josaphine couldn't make out what was going on. There must have been some kind of commotion in the night. Surely it hadn't been a bombing, because Josaphine would have heard it, being this close. She saw no Frellock nearby, so she didn't venture closer to see what was going on. Wyatt would probably know. She thought she could ask him tonight at dinner.
Josaphine went back inside her shop to continue her weaving. She was going to finish her current brown and red pattern before she started making the pale yellow linen into fabric. It would be spring in Volak in three more months and she thought the pale yellow would sell well then. She sat down at the loom and began the comforting repetative task of throwing the shuttle back and forth, ever so slowly creating fabbic.
She had been thinking about Ian's concealment magic. From the records she had seen, there was only poorly disguised magic. If Ian's people thought that there was magic trying to conceal something related to the bombings, it didn't make much sense. Why try to conceal a bombing, an act whose point was to draw attention? Maybe it wasn't the bombing they were trying to conceal, but some aspect of the bomb itself.
She didn't know how long it had been but some change in her environment made her pause to listen. A few seconds later, her front door flew open, the bell ringing madly. Josaphine yelped in surprise and tumbled backwards over her weaving bench to stand defensively against the wall, ready to fight or escape. From the back of her shop, she heard a voice yell, "clear! Coming forward."
Josaphine relaxed just a bit. It sounded like police, who were less of a threat than burglers. What did they want now?
Ian and another officer came through the front door, both wielding pistols.
"Ian, what's going on?" asked Josaphine.
The sight of her rekindled the rage that Ian had felt earlier that morning. He whipped around to face her, without lowering his gun. "Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head." He hoped he managed to keep the rage he felt out of his voice; it just wasn't professional and he wasn't comfortable feeling it.
Ian look livid, but no trace of it entered his voice. Josaphine complied with his order, asking again, "Ian what's wrong? What's happened?"
Her feigned innocence pulsed his rage again and his will lost the battle. He took two long strides toward Josaphine and hit her backhanded across the face with all the force he could muster. Josaphine grunted with the force of the blow and fell to the ground, blood spilling out of her nose and mouth. Her head was spinning as it rested on the cold stone floor.
"I trusted you!" screamed Ian at her crumpled form. "And this is how you repay that trust?!" Ian stood over her, breathing heavily as the other officers handcuffed her hands behind her back. His rage was subsiding, but he did not yet feel guilty for his actions; that would come later. "Get her up," he ordered.
Josaphine felt herself hoisted back up to a kneeling position. The world had stopped spinning but she was still extremely confused. The blood had slowed to trickle and her face was beginning to throb.
"Where were you last night?" asked Ian tightly. He did not have his notebook out.
Josaphine licked her swelling lips and said quietly, "I was here, weaving, all night." She knew that that wasn't what Ian wanted to hear but she also knew it was better to answer.
"And I don't suppose anyone can corroborate that," said Ian with contempt. His rage pulsed but he held it in check.
"No," said Josaphine. She paused, trying to decide whether to press her luck. Ian still had not calmed down, so she decided against asking him what had happened.
Ian started pacing back and forth in front of her. "Do you own any other robes, Josaphine?"
"No."
"Can magic make something change color?"
Josaphine blinked. "No, not really. Color is part of the material. You could mask an item's color, but the original color would still be there. It would just be hidden until the magic was removed." This felt like a very odd conversation to be having. She was sure that Ian had some theory in mind that he was trying to prove, but she couldn't figure out what. All she could piece together was that it probably had something to do with the ships being kept away from the lighthouse in the wharf.
"Do you ever make bright yellow cloth?"
"Yes, but I haven't done so in a while."
Ian stopped pacing. "Did you do any magic yesterday, Josaphine?"
Her heart skipped a beat. Yesterday she had performed some fairly powerful magic to remove Simon's barrier on a pier not too far from here. As she thought about the encounter, she realized that Simon had been wearing bright yellow robes. Had he done something that Ian suspected her of doing? Gambrians often thought that all Frellock looked alike because both sexes had long hair and wore the same style of dress. If only she knew what Simon's group was up to, she would have had better information to clear her name. Dammit. She should have strung him along to find out more about his group.
"Uh, well, yes," said Josaphine.
"Ha!" yelled Ian, "so you admit it! It was you on the pier last night, hurling fireballs at innocent police officers. Sargent, take this woman into custody. I want her under constant guard and have a magic detector and technician dedicated to making sure she doesn't perform any more magic."
Josaphine's eyes grew wide in horror. "No! I wasn't on the pier last night! I didn't hurt anyone." The officers pushed her to her feet and forced her toward the door. "Ian, please, you have to believe me, there was another man. A mage! His name was Simon. Ian, listen to me!" Her pleas were grew faint as she was pushed outside and into a police vehicle. Ian stood looking at the small pool of blood on the floor. She was definitely guilty, he thought. But, the pool of blood tugged a memory before his eyes, that of the dying Frellock who had tried to blow them up with dynamite. She had saved his life that night, less than a month ago. How could she be so cavalier with life now?
Ian shook his head, dismissing his doubts. No, she was guilty and he would prove it. Then, he would make her tell him about the concealment magic and his job would be done. And good riddance; Ian didn't like this sweltering, fishy-smelling city or its inhabitants.
Wyatt felt strangely light and giddy in the morning. It could have been the lack of sleep, but he thought it was because they had gotten most of the bomb materials out of the hands of the police and escaped to boot. Those short bastards wouldn't know what hit them. Garnok was not with the Seafrees, but he knew an awful lot about bombs from the war, and Wyatt trusted him. Together they had named a target and devised a plan to hurt as many Gambys as they could, without hurting any Frellock. Well, without hurting any Frellock that hadn't sold out their own race. They were going to bomb the an upscale financial building.
Wyatt went about his day with a new spring in his step. He finally felt like he was taking control of the situation. No longer would he be a victim of misguided bomb placement, he was choosing the targets and he could decide who got hurt. Killing Gambys didn't seem right, but neither did the randomness of the bombs that killed indescriminately. The bomber that had killed his father was just sloppy; Wyatt was sure that he wouldn't be.
He thought about the previous night's adventure and smiled a half-smile every time one of his patrons asked him if he'd heard the news. He played dumb and let them tell the story as they had heard it. It had been exhilerating, and terrifying. If it hadn't been for that mage, they would all probably be in jail or dead. Wyatt didn't know what group the man worked for, but he had money and power and no qualms about achieving his ends, all of which were traits that Wyatt had come to admire in the last few months. He thought briefly about trying to find the man again, to get him to teach Wyatt about magic, but he wouldn't know where to start. He sighed and filled the next patron's glass of beer.
Simon was snuggled safe within a new, mostly uninhabited office building on the east side of Frindon. A local technologist was fussing over the construction of a tiny steam-powered engine. He was sitting at a Gambrian height table in an otherwise bare room. The smell of new paint was still on the walls. Until this technologist had worked out the kinks in his tiny engine, Simon didn't have much to do but wait. He stared out the window, watching motor cabs and people move along the street below, completely unaware of the chaos he was planning to create.
The first tests had been simple interaction tests: could magic and technology coexist and work together to accomplish something? The answer was clearly yes. The bombs to date had been simple magical triggers for a technological bomb. The power tests would determine if technology could initiate magic. But, until this technologist could make his little toy work, Simon should progress his other leads. He turned and left the Gambrian alone without a word.
Wyatt was serving a plate of fish when he noticed a man in a bright yellow robe sitting down at an empty table. Garnok and Emilio gave him a wary look, talking in hushed voices over their beers. They knew who he was, but he had never come down to the south side to meet them personally. And, from the looks of things, he wasn't going to introduce himself to them now. Wyatt's heart surged with delight. Not only had the raid gone well, but the mage he wanted to talk to was sitting in his cafe. Wyatt brought him beer and set it down, attempting to be nonchalant.
"Hey there, stranger," he said. "Take a meal with your drink today?"
Simon concealed his feelings of disgust well. The greasy fish and tough sea cakes were enough to turn his stomach and offend his refined palette. "No, thank you, Wyatt," he said. "If you have a moment, I'd like to talk about something else."
Wyatt turned around to examine the other tables in the cafe. Other than the old men, there were only three other patrons and they were all nearly done with lunch. "Of course," said Wyatt, sitting down. "What can I do for you?"
Simon smiled. "Actually, it's a mutual favor I have in mind. I hear that you're interested in learning about magic," he said. Wyatt nodded eagerly. "It so happens that I have an opening for an apprentice. I would like to have you fill that position," said Simon, "if you'll do something for me in exchange."
Wyatt could hardly believe his good luck. It was probably the skill with which Wyatt had turned the conversation to magic last night that made the mage take notice. Now, he was offering to take Wyatt as an apprentice, to teach Wyatt all that he knew about magic. "What do I have to do?" asked Wyatt.
"I want you to tell your friend Josaphine that you've decided to become my apprentice," said Simon, "and that you'd like her to teach you as well."
Wyatt's smiled slackened. "I don't think she'll agree to that. I already asked her and she doesn't want to do magic any more, not since the war," said Wyatt.
Simon smiled his most winning smile. "I didn't say she had to accept," he said. "I just said you had to tell her. Does that sound fair?"
Wyatt's head was spinning with joy. What a wonderful day it had been! He was going to be an apprentice mage and all he had to do was to talk to Josaphine. "Yes!" said Wyatt, "quite fair."
"My name is Simon, by the way." He lifted his hands to cover his face and moved them down and outward in the traditional Frellock way of greeting new acquaintances.
Wyatt reciprocated. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Simon," he said. "How will I find you after I've spoken to Josaphine?"
Simon stood to leave. "She'll be able to find me," he said, "with magic I will teach you. If she cannot, I'll find you. Farewell, Wyatt."
"And you," said Wyatt. He watched Simon flow away, his bright robe in stark contrast with the uniform grey around him. Wyatt thought longingly of beautiful new robes like that and got up to have a beer with the old men.
"Who was that?" Garnok asked as Wyatt sat down with his beer.
"His name is Simon. He's going to teach me to be a mage."
Garnok looked after Simon as he disappeared around a building. "Is that so? Well, fancy that. Way to go, boy, finally got someone willing to teach you, eh?" Garnok raised his eyebrow slightly at Emilio who responded with the barest of shrugs. Wyatt didn't notice the exchange as he was too busy staring into space, fantasizing about being a mage.
The police officers had removed the bed from the cell that Josaphine was in. Maybe they thought she was going to turn it into a cannon and escape. While a cannon she could not make, magic did require reagents to build anything. Magic couldn't conjur matter out of nothingness, but it could transform matter that already existed. Most non-mages pointed to fireballs as something that was conjured from nothing, but even those required something to set on fire. There was almost always enough dust in the air in the surrounding area that could be gathered together to create a fireball that it often looked like they were conjured from nothing. Josaphine didn't think her guards should know that aspect of magic yet.
Removal of the bed was just fine with Josaphine since it was too short for her anyway. They had given her a bowl of water and a towel to clean up the blood on her face. Her nose hadn't broken, but her eye was beginning to blacken on the side where Ian had hit her. She was still terribly confused and frustrated. Ian was convinced that Josaphine had attacked police officers on the pier last night with magic. And, as far as she could tell, the only reason he thought that was because she was a mage.
In her anger, Josaphine dabbed at her nose a little too hard and winced in pain. She handed the towel and water back to the guard who took them and retreated. Now there were just two guards and the magic technician sitting outside the cell. The magic technician confused her the most. What did they think the magic detector was going to show them? And would they recognize magic early enough to counter it? Josaphine smirked. No, probably not, if last night was any indication. She lost her smile immediately at the thought. Those poor people, burned by the fireballs and exploding engines. She had done far worse in the war and justified it in the name of defense. They were right to defend themselves, but there were better ways to win a war. All of the guilt and shame from those years settled onto her shoulders causing her to hunch forward protectively.
One of the guards noticed her change in mood. "What's the matter, mage?" he taunted. "Finally realized how much trouble you're in?"
"Yeah," said the other one, "I hear that the Baron Council itself is deciding what to do about the attack. We can't have mages running loose if they're going to wreak that kind of havoc."
The first one grunted. "Best to just round them all up and put them somewhere safe." He paused. "Like the bottom of the ocean." The guards laughed and Josaphine's hand went to the brand on her left forearm. Her long-sleeved robe usually kept it hidden and she made a concerted effort to conceal it. All Frellock prisoners of war had gotten a brand; the one for mages was different so the prison guards could immediately tell them from the rest.
The magic technician looked bored. Unless Josaphine tried to do magic, his job was to sit there and stare at readouts that never changed. The guards didn't much like the technician on principle; the magic detector used magic, so he was much closer to a mage than they cared for.
Josaphine still didn't know why Simon had been on the pier that night, nor what the police were doing there. She was convinced it was Simon, though. It was too much of a coincidence that Ian was looking for a powerful mage wearing a bright yellow robe and one had visited her earlier that same day. She had figured out why Ian thought she had betrayed him. Knowing why didn't make it any easier on her, even though she knew she was innocent. She still believed that Ian was a decent Gambrian who cared about stopping the bombings and saving people's lives. She hoped she would get a chance to talk to him tomorrow and tell him about Simon. Maybe it was his organization that had been behind the bombings. But, Josaphine didn't want to jump to any conclusions, especially after now being on the receiving end.
The guards chatted with each other about some Gambrian sport that Josaphine had never been able to figure out. She laid down and tried to sleep while fireballs, bombings, and guilt bounced around in her head.
Ian sat in the smoking lounge of the inn until two in the morning. He had spent the entire day trying to collect enough evidence against Josaphine, arresting her, and corresponding with the Magistrate of Magic in Wellden via telegram. This morning he had been ready to take himself off the case for showing magic logs to a suspect. Now, that paled in comparison to what he had done: jumped to conclusions about the guilt of a suspect and actually struck a suspect. For about the hundredth time, Ian buried his face in his hands and sobbed. His sobs were tearless now as he had cried all of his tears out.
The rage he felt at Chief Killian's death was no more than a hot ember, burning in his stomach, but it was still there. Ian was terrified of rage because it just boiled up and seemed to take control of his mind. He had already sent a telegram to the Baron Council, telling them he was relieving himself of duty. A few hours later, he had gotten a reply. Ian read it again and sobbed dryly for a few minutes. The council had agreed to take him off the case and send someone else to deal with it. To Ian, this was confirmation that he was unfit to be an investigator.
Ian had decided to stay in Frindon until his replacement arrived so that Ian could tell him what little he knew. That would probably take a week or two. At that moment, staying locked in the smoking lounge, drinking scotch seemed like an excellent idea. Ian sobbed. How had he failed so miserably at this case when so many others had gone so well? Was it the magic aspect? He and Killian had collected enough evidence to find and twart one bombing and one illegal goods transfer, but that was all. They were no closer to discovering any pattern or mastermind than they were when they started.
And what about Josaphine? He had arrested her trying to link her to the attack on the pier. He had circumstantial evidence, and part of him truly believed that she was guilty. But another part was not so sure. His thoughts warred with his conscience and his rage as he fell asleep beside the dying fire.
The feeble light of dawn leaked through the tiny window of Josaphine's jail cell. She laid on the floor, thinking about weaving she wasn't getting done. Then she caught herself and instead began to focus on sleeping in, in a safe, warm place, and having no choice but to lay there. She heard sea birds calling and the street outside was waking up. She didn't expect anyone to come see her for several days, just like last time. She heard the guards move around but didn't look up. A familiar polite voice quietly asked the guard, "is she awake yet?"
Josaphine picked her head up in surprise. After their last encounter, Josaphine did not expect to ever see the polite Ian again. "Yes, I'm awake," she said, sitting up.
Her blackened eye made his composure crack. He dismissed the guards and magic technician with a wave of his hand. They left quickly and without argument. Josaphine expected the worst, but when Ian turned back to her, he had tears in his eyes. He sat down in a very defeated way in front of the cell. "Josaphine," he said, "I am so sorry. I-" A sob choked him.
"Ian, what happened on the pier?"
"Chief Killian, my collegue and friend, was killed." Ian broke into quiet sobs.
There had been too much of that particular hurt in Frindon these days. It was Ian's job to find the people causing all of the pain and destruction and put a stop to it. On that point, she was in complete agreement with Ian. Josaphine felt sorry for him; no one should have to experience the sudden loss of friends that way, especially one trying to put a stop to it. "Oh, Ian, I'm so sorry," she said. "That's terrible; no one should have to go through that."
Ian sniffed and wiped his eyes. "I, ah, have removed myself from the case. The Baron Council said they would send a replacement as soon as they could."
Josaphine studied his face. He clearly was upset by more than the death of his friend. He probably still felt guilty about showing her the magic logs. "Is that what you want?"
Ian nodded vigorously. "I have not conducted myself in a manner the befits an investigator. And I want the violence to end, so I have little choice but to assume that another investigator could do a better job."
"I can't speak to that, but-" Josaphine stopped. She wasn't sure if she wanted to bring up Simon right now. It would look like she was trying to take advantage of Ian's weakened emotional state. "Well, never mind. I think you were doing a fine job and your motives are pure."
Ian sobbed quietly. He didn't expect forgiveness from Josaphine, not so soon. He wanted her to be angry at him, to demand that he put things right or at least apologize.
"Josaphine, I'm sorry I hit you, I just-" began Ian.
"Shhh, Ian, I've endured worse." She smiled slightly. "Rage and emotion can do that to even the best people."
Ian nodded. They sat there in silence for a few minutes, thinking, when a muffled explosion sounded in the distance.
"What was that?" asked Josaphine, fearing the answer.
"I don't know," said Ian, "but I'm not in charge of the investigation here anymore." Ian hung his head in shame. "The police can handle it without me."
"Ian, a moment or two of weakness does not make you a bad investigator," said Josaphine. "You have a logical mind and a sense of fairness, you have intuition and reason. All of these things work together to make a problem solving mind, the mind that you have."
Ian laughed weakly. "How do you know? All I've ever done to you is cause you trouble."
"Because you examined the evidence and impassionately evaluated it. It was my misfortune to be a likely suspect, but, in your place, I might have drawn the same conclusions. I think you're a good young man, with a good head on your shoulders. Don't let your first run-in with overwhelming emotions destroy all of that."
Tears of gratitude streamed down Ian's face. He didn't even care if Josaphine meant anything she had just said. Having someone say it was enough. He did enjoy his job and he was good at it. It was time he put that skill to work and got some results. And part of his skill was trusting his intuition. He stood up, resolute, and retrieved the keys for the cell door.
As Ian unlocked the door, he said, "I'm certain that was another bomb. I doubt it will have magic traces, but it never hurts to look."
Josaphine stood up, uncertain where Ian was going with this.
"I know the magic detectors are useless; they barely registered a blip from the pier two nights ago. I need a mage, and I happen to know one," said Ian, smiling up at Josaphine through his watery eyes. "This is a request, not an order, Josaphine. Would you please come with me to see what's going on? If there's nothing interesting, I have requested the magic logs from Wellden's Magistrate of Magic to get them ready for my replacement and they should be arriving today. I would like to get your help reading them."
Josaphine blinked at Ian several times, studying his face. He seemed serious and had managed to mention the painful events at the lighthouse without breaking out into a rage or into tears, which was a good start. But, she remembered how uncomfortable he had been the last time they discussed magic. "Ian, are you sure? I won't cease being a suspect just because you've invited me to help. And I'm not sure this is entirely by the book."
Ian's stomach fluttered, but the emotional stress of the last two days put it down firmly. He nodded once. "Yes, I'm sure. My job is to find the source of these bombings and discover what the magic is hiding. The best way to do that is to have you help me." He swung the cell door wide open. And, to Josaphine's surprise, he offered his arm to her. A Frellock and a Gambrian walking arm in arm simply wasn't feasible, so she rested her hand on his arm until they were inside the main police station.
The place was buzzing with activity, people trying to get doctors and other officers to the scene as quickly as possible. Ian excused himself and dashed off to talk with some officers while Josaphine stood self-consciously by the door. He returned and led Josaphine out the back door to a waiting police vehicle. Inside, there were half a dozen men preparing for crowd control and damage assessment. After they were underway, Ian explained that the bomb had gone off in the financial district at a time of peak activity. The results were just as gruesome as the bomber had intended.
They bounced around in the back of the motor vehicle for ten minutes or so until they screeched to a halt, not far from the site of the explosion. Josaphine jumped out of the back, eager to help any injured people. Most of the survivors had gathered themselves into small groups, their shock-glazed eyes staring at the flames. It looked as though a motor cab had been the carrier of this bomb. It seemed similar, somehow, to the explosion near Wyatt's cafe.
The officers spread out, checking for survivors and looking for eye witnesses that weren't in shock that they could question. Josaphine approached the nearest group of survivors and began bandaging the people she could until the doctors and medical personnel arrived. They took over and Josaphine went to find Ian. He was examining the still burning cab that had carried the bomb.
"Pretty crude," he murmured.
"Yes," agreed Josaphine, "bombing is very crude behavior."
Ian looked up at her with a half smile. "No, I mean, the bomb itself was pretty crude. The explosion pattern is loose, not tight, like it would be with a more sophisticated bomb. Whoever made this one either didn't have all the right pieces, or they wanted to make it look that way."
"What purpose would that serve?"
Ian shrugged. "To throw suspicion toward the loose cannon fanatics or underfunded terrorist groups. It will be hard to tell if the crudeness was intentional."
Josaphine nodded. The mind was something that defied logic, so she had never really tried to understand it.
"Can you look around for traces of magic," asked Ian. "However it is you determine that."
Josaphine said, "certainly. I will need at least half an hour."
"Take whatever time you need," said Ian and walked off to be of use elsewhere.
Josaphine concentrated and analyzed the situation. If she was trying to disguise something about a bomb, or something about the people setting the bomb, what kind of magic would she use? She began murmuring words with her eyes closed and ten minutes later had created a small patch of red fabric. Fifteen minutes after that, she had created another, different patch. She tried to remember to afix them to her robe later.
Now came the interesting parts. She spoke words, combining the powers of her small, specialized magic utilities to perform a thorough investigation of the area for concealment magic. She found nothing. She searched for unconcealed magic and found small bits of it, but nothing conclusive. Josaphine was starting to get frustrated. Ian had brought her along to find magic, but there was none. On a whim, she decided to test for the same bomb components that she had testing Wyatt's clothes for after the first bombing.
Ian came walking over to Josaphine. "Find anything?"
Josaphine sighed. "No magic yet, but I'm searching for similar components that were used in the first bombing in Frindon a few months ago."
"Were they magical in nature?" asked Ian hopefully.
"No, but I have a pretty good idea who set that first bomb, or at least may know who did," said Josaphine, mentally listening to the results of her search. "Ah, yes. Some of the traces are the same, but it's not conclusive."
"Who did you suspect?" asked Ian. "They may be worth talking to anyway."
Josaphine turned to face Ian. "There's something I want to tell you and I don't want you to think I'm trying to cast myself in a better light. The day that Chief Killian was killed on the pier, a man came to talk to me. He invited me to join an unnamed group of his, boasting that they did magic where and when they pleased and no one interfered with them. I turned him down and performed magic to break some of his."
"So, that's why you said you did magic that day," said Ian, amazed at his own blindness. She was being honest with him, even though that admission could cost her more money or time in jail. And he had immediately assumed it was the deadly magic from that night.
"Yes," said Josaphine, "because it was the truth. Now, listen: this man, Simon, was a mage and wore a bright yellow robe. I suspect it was him on the pier. In our conversations, he showed little regard for life."
"And you think he was the one that set this bomb?" asked Ian.
Josaphine looked away. "Ah, no, actually," she said, "I think Wyatt's friend Garnok made this bomb." Wyatt eyes widened. "The tests were inconclusive, as I said, but he's worth paying a visit to."
"That's somewhat of an understatement," said Ian. "Over the last three weeks, we've seen your friend Wyatt's description come up more and more often in our investigations. If he's learning from a militarily trained man like Garnok, well, it would explain the sheer devastation of this bomb."
Josaphine flushed with anger. "If Garnok is teaching him anything of the sort, we'll need to have a little chat," she said. "Can we take the police vehicle to Wyatt's cafe?"
Ian looked over at it. "Uh, I'm afraid not. They need it here and I'm not officially an investigator anymore, so I can't commandeer it. We could take a cab."
"Drolp on cabs, I'd rather walk. Are you up for it?"
It was at least three miles from here to Wyatt's cafe on the south side. Time was important, but not of the essence, and a walk would give Ian a chance to solidify what he knew. "Sure, we can walk."
"Thank you," said Josaphine. "Now, what kind of people described Wyatt to you?" They left the crime scene, heading for Wyatt's cafe.
Simon was busy creating his magic explosive device when one of his magic detectors set off an alarm. It was Josaphine, at the scene of the explosion. Simon wondered what she would be doing there. But, if she was as good as he thought she was, she would soon realize that Wyatt had planted that bomb. Simon only knew that because he had been watching Wyatt and the old man creating the bomb and plotting how to get it to the financial district. He gave them points for maximum damage and carnage, but it was sloppy and all but led the police directly to his door, if for no other reason than Wyatt's father had been killed in that same district.
Josaphine was heading for Wyatt's and Simon couldn't have planned it better. He wanted to get her and Wyatt in the same place for a while and she was making it easy for him. He cackled with glee and quickly finished the magical device he was making. There were two electric leads on the oddly shaped device to merge it with the tiny steam engine. Simon handed the device to his technologist. "After you put it together, set the charge near a factory or somewhere on the west side of the city. Then, get down to the train yard. I don't want any delays if this power test goes well."
The technologist nodded and Simon hurried down the stairs and out the door, heading south along the street.
Ian and Josaphine walked along, each lost in thought, piecing together facts and suspicions like a puzzle. Josaphine was keeping a slow pace to make the walk easy on Ian, and he noticed and appreciated it. Slowly, they had gone from the financial district, where Josaphine had looked and felt entirely out of place, to the south side where it was Ian's turn to wear that self-consciousness. As the buildings became more and more run-down, Ian began to tense up. It was not the sort of neighborhood where he usually found himself. Dirty, angry looking Frellock glared at him as they passed.
Josaphine whispered down to him, "just ignore them. They're all teeth and no bite around here." Ian did not look reassured. "Besides, you've got a dangerous mage with you." She wriggled her fingers, attempting to look scary and silly at the same time.
Ian let out the breath he was holding. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you're here, but I'd still feel better with a pistol."
"Pshaw," dismissed Josaphine. "You only want a gun because you don't know magic."
He was horrified for only a moment that she suggest he learn something illegal. Then Ian asked, "can Gambrians even learn magic?"
This was only the second time Ian had ever brought up race in his dealings with her, a fact that she noticed and appreciated. She supposed that, as the years went by, it would become less and less of an issue. "Of course," she said, "why wouldn't you be able to?"
"Just, folklore and superstition," he said. "Do you know any Gambrians who learned magic?"
"No, not personally, but there have been stories around for a long time, twenty years or so, of Gambrians learning magic," said Josaphine. "Just like Frellock can learn technology. Besides, when magic was still legal, it was considered a very low-class skill to learn."
Ian shook his head. "Amazing. Something so dazzling as magic could be considered low-class," he said. "But I understand. If it's ever legal again, I think I'd like to try it."
Josaphine blinked at him in surprise. He had been so magic-phobic two days ago, and now he was willing to consider trying it. Ian was certainly open-minded, if nothing else. They rounded a corner and picked their way around trash bins on the sidewalk as a smelly truck went by.
"So, if you don't mind me asking," said Ian, "don't your feet get cold or hurt, walking around barefoot all day?"
Josaphine looked down at her feet with their thick calloused soles. She tossed her salt and pepper braid back over her shoulder as she straightened up. "No, not really. These are the coldest days around here."
Ian goggled at her. "Then it's fortunate I wasn't sent here in summer," he said. "I find this heat unbearable."
Josaphine laughed. "Well, when this is all over, I'll find a tailor to make you a linen suit. All I know how to sew are robes."
"Not that I'm planning to start, but I've never worn robes. I imagine they're heavy, but comfortable," Ian said.
"They're not that heavy," said Josaphine.
"Have you ever worn pants?" Ian thought it was an innocent question.
Josaphine's mood darkened. "Yes," she said curtly, "for just over a year."
"Oh, right," said Ian sheepishly. "Sorry." All Frellock prisoners of war were made to wear pants and their hair was cut short.
They walked along in silence until they approached Wyatt's cafe. They could see Garnok and Emilio at their usual table, hunched over beers. There were a few other patrons, finishing a late breakfast. As they approached, Emilio nudged Garnok who turned around to face them.
"Well, to what do we owe this displeasure, officer? Slumming today?" called Garnok. A few of the other patrons looked up briefly, then went back to their food. Wyatt left a drink for someone and came over to Garnok's table.
"Yeah, come to see how the other half lives when they're not being raided by twitchy police officers?" said Emilio.
Josaphine opened her mouth to tell them to shut up when Wyatt said, "enough, both of you." He looked up at Josaphine. For the first time in her life, Wyatt didn't seem happy to see her. Of course, that could be the company she was keeping.
"We need to talk," said Josaphine. She looked down at Garnok, then back up at Wyatt. "Someplace private."
"This way," said Wyatt. He led them to the door of the building. It still had cardboard over the broken window from the raid three months before. Wyatt opened the door and led the way inside the building. He switched on the electric light to reveal a small table and some chairs. "Sit down, if you like," said Wyatt, not moving to take a seat of his own.
"Wyatt, I-" started Josaphine.
"I met your friend Simon," said Wyatt, trying to be cheerful. "I want to ask you if you're willing to teach me magic."
Ian was trying settle into a Frellock sized chair and stopped. "Who's Simon?" asked Ian, feigning ignorance.
Josaphine ignored him, here eyes blazing with fire and intensity. "Wyatt, Simon is not my friend and he is a very dangerous man. I want you to stay away from him. Do you understand?"
"You are not my mother, Josaphine," blurted Wyatt. "I can talk to whoever I want to. Simon is a very powerful mage and he's going to take me as an apprentice. So, keep your old woman worries to yourself!"
"Wyatt, I'm just trying to keep you safe."
Ian just watched the exchanges like a sporting match. This was not how he would have handled the situation, but he was on Josaphine's turf now, so he let them argue.
Wyatt turned and walked a few steps away. "I can take care of myself. I don't need you to keep me safe, not anymore." He turned back to face Josaphine. "Besides, I'm not the one who let herself get beaten up by Gambys."
Josaphine stopped her protests. "How did you know about that?"
Wyatt turned back to her. "Magic! What a wonderful thing. And that you didn't notice proves my point that Simon is far more powerful than you are."
"You let him spy on me?" yelled Josaphine.
"Actually," said a cultured voice from behind her, "I've been spying on all three of you." Two heads whipped around to identify the newcomer. Simon stood just inside the closed door, his robe brilliant against the dreary grey of the wall. Rage that had been dormant in Ian's chest exploded into his head and he jumped off the tall chair, charging straight at Simon. With a flick of his hand, Simon held Ian in place where he was.
"Let me go!" screamed Ian.
"Such a big noise from something so small," said Simon. "I wouldn't have thought it possible."
"Simon, let him go," said Josaphine with menace in her voice.
Simon shook his head. "If the little one can't control himself, then I have no choice, it's purely self-defense."
"We didn't come here for you," said Josaphine, "but it saves us the trouble of searching. You were the mage on the pier two night ago. The one hurling fireballs at everything in sight."
"Yes," said Simon, "but I wasn't alone." Ian stopped struggling against the magical bonds and turned his head to look at Wyatt. Josaphine looked at Wyatt with horror.
"You were there?" asked Josaphine quietly. She had come to warn Wyatt to stay away from dangerous people like Simon and Garnok, but he had been with them voluntarily. "You were coerced, or threatened, that's why you were there?" Icy realization that Wyatt was no longer the good innocent man he had been four months ago stabbed into Josaphine's heart.
Simon shook his head, savoring the look on her face. Wyatt pulled himself up to his full height. "No, I was there of my own doing," said Wyatt. "We have to put a stop to this Gamby oppression of our people. What better way than to take the fight to them."
"You intend to win our freedom and equality by slaughtering innocent people? Wyatt, no!"
"Don't you talk down to me like that," yelled Wyatt, his eyes flashing. "I'm standing up for our people, Josaphine! What are you doing but playing the dumb, subservient fool?"
Josaphine's eyes filled with tears as more cold betrayal poured into her core. "Wyatt, no," she whispered. "There are better ways..." Ian's rage flared again and he resumed his futile struggle against Simon's hold. Josaphine sank to the floor in defeat.
Emboldened by her surrender, Wyatt continued. "That's right, it was me who set the bomb for this morning. Garnok was a good teacher. Better than you ever were, Josaphine," spat Wyatt.
Simon had grown bored with this domestic dispute. "Well, that was dull. Wyatt, tie them up. I'll make sure you don't get any resistance."
Wyatt moved Ian to a chair and tied him to it. Josaphine just stared at a spot on the floor. She was supposed to protect Wyatt. Part of that meant making sure he didn't fall victim to people like Simon and their slick ways. She had failed. Her stomach dropped again. She had failed at the only mission that had mattered to her for the last fifteen years. Two tears rolled silently down her cheeks. Wyatt moved her to a chair and secured her hands and feet. She didn't even care any more.
"Josaphine," said Simon, "this is your last chance to join me." She looked up at him, confused.
"Join you? I said 'no' before, Simon, why would I join you now?"
Garnok stepped out of the shadows and held a pistol to Wyatt's head, his left arm reaching around Wyatt's chest, immobilizing his arms. Simon lessened his hold on Ian and applied some to Wyatt to quell his shocked struggling. "Because now if you say no, I'll kill Wyatt."
"No!" yelled Josaphine.
Ian struggled harder. "You bastard, let me go and we'll settle this like men." Simon looked at the short Gambrian and laughed. It was a harsh, oily sound.
"Why would you kill your new apprentice?" asked Josaphine, buying time for her magic to loose the ropes binding her hands.
Simon laughed again. "You mean Wyatt? I wouldn't take someone as stupid as Wyatt as my apprentice; I've got standards." Wyatt turned his eyes to Simon. "Well, what's your answer?"
"I need to think about it," said Josaphine.
"You're stalling," said Simon. A small magic alarm told Simon that his technologist was in place. Simon wanted to be at the test to collect data about it. "But I have something to attend to at the moment. Garnok, give her five minutes to decide. If she says no, kill the boy." Garnok nodded silently. Simon dropped his final restraint magic and walked out the door of the building.
Ian noticed the ropes around Josaphine's wrists moving from her magic, so he tried to distract Garnok. "You know, you don't have to do this, Garnok. Put the gun down and we can talk about this."
Garnok didn't take his eyes off Wyatt and didn't even acknowledge Ian's comment. It was Wyatt's turn to try. "Garnok, this is me, your friend Wyatt," he said in a wavering voice. "How can you do this?"
"Shut up," said Garnok, his voice calm and unemotional. "Josaphine is doing this to you, not me." Wyatt whimpered involuntarily. "Besides, you planted a bomb today that killed dozens of innocent people. Think of it as dying for your cause."
Josaphine finally worked her ropes loose and signaled Ian.
"Garnok, this is not Wyatt's cause, this is Simon's doing. What purpose will this serve?" asked Ian.
"I don't ask questions," said Garnok, "I just-"
Garnok's pistol hand is jerked upward and stayed there. Wyatt felt the gun move away and took the opportunity to try and get control of it. He turned and elbowed Garnok in the side before reaching up for the gun. Garnok used his free hand to try to fend off Wyatt while Josaphine held his arm aloft.
"Wyatt," yelled Josaphine, "I've got him, just get his gun." Garnok's second arm was no longer moving as Josaphine applied her magic force. Wyatt reached up and took the gun out of Garnok's hand. He was holding it when a muffled explosion made him look up and made Josaphine's concentration slip. That was all the opening Garnok needed to break through Josaphine's restraints and tackle Wyatt to the ground.
"No!" yelled Josaphine. She magically cut the ropes holding her and Ian to their chairs. Ian leapt off the chair and joined the struggle for the gun. Josaphine stood and concentrated on restraining Garnok with all of her might. The struggling was slowing down when the gun went off. Ian grabbed the gun during the distraction and backed up off the pile, aiming it at Garnok. Wyatt rolled onto his back, red blood quickly spreading outward from the gunshot wound in his stomach.
Josaphine fell towards Wyatt, pulling up his robe to use to put pressure on the wound and try to stop the bleeding. "No, no, no, Wyatt!" She looked into Wyatt's face and saw the regret and shame and apology come over him. She touched his face with a bloody hand as tears welled up in her eyes. Wyatt motioned her to lean close and she did, saying, "don't try to talk Wyatt. We'll get help, just hold on."
Wyatt shook his head. "Power... Simon is powering... magic... with tech..." He swallowed hard. "Big engine..."
Ian tied up Garnok with little resistance and leaned over Wyatt in time to hear what he had said. "How do you know?"
Wyatt looked at him and twitched a weak smile. "Not as dumb as Simon thinks... friend followed him..." He winced in pain again and turned back to Josaphine. "I'm... sorry... Josaphine. Stop Simon... " his eyes fluttered and reopened. "Stop big engine..." Wyatt's body went limp and his eyes stared up at nothing.
"No!" yowled Josaphine in anguish. "Not you too, no!" Ian reached down and closed his eyes in silence. He studied Josaphine's face; she was somewhere else, dealing with her loss internally, so she could go on. He walked over to Garnok and quietly began asking him questions.
Three minutes later, Josaphine sat with her hands limp in her lap, staring into space. Ian finally raised his voice to the unresponsive Garnok. "It won't work," said Josaphine. "You won't get anything from him in time to do any good." Ian turned to look at her and she was still staring into space.
Without moving, Josaphine asked, "where's Emilio?" Garnok did not answer. Josaphine finally looked up at Ian. "I'm sure he's with Simon. We need to find them. What technology has a very big engine?"
Ian thought and said, "factories, large steam ships, and trains."
"If you were going to use it power magic, it should be mobile, to get it into range of the target."
"Scratch factories," said Ian.
Josaphine nodded. "And to do the most harm or good, it would have to travel where most of the people or raw materials are."
"Train it is then. We can't be sure our logic is correct, however," said Ian, beginning to pace. "I'll send some officers to-" Ian stopped and dropped his head. "I'll advise the Magistrate of the situation and suggest that he send officers to the wharf."
"I wonder how much time we have," said Josaphine.
Garnok broke his silence to taunt them. "Not long enough."
Josaphine stood to leave, taking one last look at Wyatt's body, before helping Ian guide Garnok outside. They wouldn't be able to get a cab in this part of town so they had to walk over a mile before they found one to take them to the police station. Ian was hoping the Magistrate took his warning seriously and didn't ask too many tough questions about where he got the information.
The Magistrate read the telegram in surprise. Normally, he would not have trusted a message like this one, but it came with the Baron Council's personal code. He was supposed to stop Ian from doing any more investigations on the magic/bombing case because Ian had taken himself off of it. Honestly, the Magistrate was having a hard enough time dealing with two bombings in one day and he doubted that he would even see Ian with all the chaos. Another page came in with a message and the Magistrate returned his attention to more pressing matters.
He was a banker by trade and not entirely accustomed to the speed with which things could happen in government, both its astonishing speed and its lack thereof. He had just started getting details on the factory bombing, but it was the one in the financial district this morning that had dealt him a serious blow. Those were people that he knew, friends and colleagues, and now some of them were dead and all of them were scared. It was his job as Magistrate to guide the people and reassure them, but he wasn't sure he could.
Chief Killian and Ian had made some good progress on finding out who was behind the bombings, but as the investigation went on, things seemed to get more violent with more casualties. Soon, the Magistrate would be tempted to ask the Baron Council to allow him to impose martial law with Baron McCloud's troops. He was willing to let things go on for a while, but today had been brutal. The Magistrate sincerely hoped that he would not be around for a second Attack on Wellden. The first attack on Wellden had been over a hundred years ago, but it still held fame as the worst disaster in Gambrian history.
The bombing in the financial district had done more damage to people than to property. It had exploded on a busy street at the peak of activity for the day. There were at least fifty confirmed casualties and hundreds of injuries. A few of the surrounding buildings had their windows destroyed, others lost a door, but all in all, it was not bad physical damage. The factory bombing was almost the exact opposite. Only two or three Frellock workers had been killed, but the damage to the factory was enormous. From the reports the Magistrate was getting, it seemed that a bomb about the size of a large mellon had destroyed almost a quarter of the largest factory in Frindon. It was not the largest explosion that anyone had seen, but, if the reports were accurate and it was as small as the officers suspected, then it was by far the most powerful for its size. There was something strange about the explosion, but none of the reports so far made it clear how it was different or strange.
The Magistrate buried his face in his hands. He was the first Frellock Magistrate and he truly wanted to do a good job. His wife and he had one son, an energetic three year old. The Magistrate did not want his son growing up in a world where bombings were common place and fear was rampant. The best thing about his job right now was that it had kept him and his family away from the financial district that morning. He had to find the good somewhere. His grandparents had fought in the war, but they had accepted that times change. After Frindon was established, they were among the first to adopt the Gambrian ways. It wasn't easy for them, but their family flourished and the Magistrate's parents were wealthy long before he was born, the fifth child of eight. For him, life had always included pants, short hair, fussy nannies, and being dragged to high-brow affairs.
After his schooling was done, the Magistrate's father made him work in one of his shops for two years. The training there was twofold: one, he was learning a good work ethic, and two, he was learning how to manage money and how business worked. The experience had been invigorating for the Magistrate. After so many years of having whatever he needed provided for him, actually having to earn it made him realize the value in the inheritance he would get. It made him eager to learn and conscious of the struggle those without money faced everyday. He never experienced it, but the Magistrate was very empathetic and extrapolated well from the occasional beggar he saw near his shop. When he saw someone without money or in need, he wanted both to help them and to ensure that that never happened to him and his family. He had been good at doing both. There were several orphanages and a charity wing of the hospital that were started with his money. The Magistrate saw it as his duty to help his people without feeling any shame for the wealth he had for himself and his family.
It was his awareness of the conditions that the average Frellock lived under that had made him the obvious choice in Keeshawn's mind. Here was a man who understood the average person, but didn't want to just give those in need a charity handout. Whenever possible, after recovering from illness, patients at the charity wing returned to the hospital to do chores and generally help with its operation. That was their payment and they were almost always happy to do it. Despite their poverty and oppression, the Frellock were a proud people and as much as the Magistrate didn't want to give them a handout, they didn't want to take one. But, working was not a new concept to the Frellock and this barter system fit their traditional ways much better anyway.
All of that knowledge and experience was of no value at the moment. He felt completely unprepared and lost. He had the power of the Frindon government at his fingertips and connections within the community, but he didn't know what to do with that power. This was not an aspect the job of Magistrate that he had forseen. Because the last two Magistrates had been assassinated, he knew the job was not without its risks, but personal risks he was willing to take for a cause as noble as leading his people. He was not willing to risk the lives of the people of Frindon by allowing the bombing to go on.
A light knock on his door made the Magistrate look up. He expected another page with a message, but it was Ian and an old, shabby looking Frellock woman. The Magistrate stood up and greeted Josaphine in the traditional Frellock way. "Ma'am, I'm Magistrate Perkins. It's a pleasure to meet you," he said.
Josaphine returned the greeting with mild surprise, "likewise, sir. I am called Josaphine." She thought it was odd that he was comfortable with the traditional greeting, but had taken a surname like a Gambrian.
The Magistrate smiled and turned to Ian, shaking his hand. "Ian, good to see you. You have news, I assume?" He made no comment about the disheveled state of Ian's suit or the spots of blood on his shirt.
"Indeed we do, sir," said Ian. The Magistrate gestured to two chairs, inviting them to sit down. He had replaced the original Gambrian sized chairs with some that were slightly too large for Gambrians and slightly too small for Frellock, but both chairs were identical, reinforcing the equality that the Magistrate wanted to reinforce. Ian and Josaphine sat down and Ian began with the outcome first.
"Sir, we believe there will be another bombing in the city very soon," Ian said quickly. "We have, er, I have a man in custody who is at least responsible in part for today's bombings-"
The Magistrate made a noise of delight. His eyes were bright with tears. "Excellent! You caught the man?"
Ian glanced at Josaphine briefly before continuing, "ah, well, he's one man of several, I'm afraid." The Magistrate lost his smile but still looked encouraged. This was some excellent progress.
"And you believe the others will attack again today?"
"Yes, sir."
"Do you know who these others are?" asked the Magistrate.
Ian nodded. "We know of at least two others who are definitely involved. We think they will attack at or around the train yard."
"With their aim being to destroy property or kill people?"
"I can't say, sir."
The Magistrate pressed his lips together in a resisted frown. "If we knew it was people they were after, I would order the station cleared and all passenger trains emptied until we find them," he said. "But, I don't want to task such a drastic action if their aim is to destroy property. It would most likely cause general panic."
Ian shifted in his chair. "Sir, I'm not sure it's one or the other they're after. Or, they may be after neither. If at all possible, I think clearing the station is the safest action for the train yard. Now the wharf-"
"What? Both?" gawked the Magistrate. The headline "Second Wellden: Frindon!" jumped into the Magistrate's head.
"We're not sure," said Ian. "It could be both, it could only be one, it could be neither. Right now, my advice is to send a team of officers to the wharf to search the large steam ships for bombs and the two men responsible."
"And the train yard? I'm running low on officers with all the chaos today," said the Magistrate, "but I will find people if you think there's a real chance of stopping a bombing."
Ian nodded vigorously. "Yes, sir, I believe there is a very strong chance, but only if we act soon. I, uh, was hoping to join the team going to the train yard and to take Josaphine with me."
The Magistrate then remembered the order from the Baron Council. He was supposed to stop Ian from investigating further or he risked retribution from the council. The Magistrate wrote two notes and called in a page by pressing a button on his desk. "Take these to Captain Hillman." The page nodded and disappeared.
"I'm ordering men to the two sites. They'll evacuate the train station as well as possible without causing a panic. Ian, you've done a wonderful job. Truly amazing. I assume you can give descriptions of the two men you know of to the captain?"
Ian nodded, sadly. "Yes, sir."
"I can't let you go with them. I have a telegram from the Baron Council ordering me to stop you from investigating this matter any further as you've taken yourself off the case," said the Magistrate with conflict in his voice. He wanted this resolved and wasn't too concerned about who did it. But, it was an order, and not one he could disobey without notice.
"Yes, sir."
There was fire in Josaphine's eyes, but she said nothing. The Magistrate noticed it and knew that he could not stop her from intervening, if that was her intent. From everything he knew of Ian, it might tear him up inside, but he would obey orders. Josaphine held his eyes, then looked sidelong at Ian and nodded. But then, maybe the Magistrate had been wrong before. He cleared his throat.
"You know, Ian," said the Magistrate, "now that I've ordered you to stop investigating, I have too many things on my plate today to keep track of. If you were to slip away after giving the descriptions to Captain Hillman, and just happen to end up at the train yard, well, there's nothing I can do about that."
Josaphine smiled slightly and looked at Ian who looked confused.
The Magistrate lost all his political facade and leaned towards Ian over his desk. "I want them stopped. I don't want anyone else to die needlessly. If I had the power to stop them, I would." He looked meaningfully at Josaphine and back to Ian. "Mages have a lot of power, too. Don't squander it." The Magistrate straightened himself back up in his chair and took in a deep breath. "Well, then, that's settled. You'll give the descriptions to Captain Hillman and he'll take over from there."
Slightly awed and taken aback by his candor, Ian nodded mutely. The Magistrate stood up and wished them well before showing them out of his office. He hoped they were right and that they could stop this bomb before it went off.
The results from the first power test were remarkable. Simon expected only a marginal increase in the range of the device, but it had far exceeded his expectations. It was good that the initial results were so conclusive because the magical spying device he had placed at Wyatt's cafe indicated that Josaphine was no longer there. Garnok would not have moved her body after killing her without Simon's direction, so she had probably managed to escape. Simon cursed incompetence and realized he should have killed her himself. But, had no time to rehash the past. He needed to complete the larger scale power test before he could return to the mountain complex. The timing wasn't good. So many disasters in such a short period of time meant that the city's population was likely to become too unstable too quickly for their plans to unfold smoothly. But, Eric had been adamant; without these power tests, they could not be sure that their plans to take the city of Prahn as their own would succeed.
So, despite the short notice and Simon's own personal reservations, he was going ahead with the test. He had already constructed the vast majority of the magic he was going to test with. Now, he was just cleaning it up a bit, tweaking it with the results from the first test, and creating the leads to the locomotive's engine. The first test had been one of distance and total power that a technological power source could lend to a magical device. This test aimed to measure how long magic could be sustained. One of the most limiting factors of magic had always been its power source, that being the person performing the magic. That's why, in the war, the Frellock had needed hundreds of mages. They were powerful, yes, but their power was limited by their own energy. When a mage became fatigued, their power decreased and when they became exhausted, they were effectively disarmed.
The idea of using some other means to power magic was not new. But the Frellock were not technologists at heart. They had tried fire directly, resulting in more than a few badly burned mages, and the energy of falling water or wind. None of these had provided enough power to make the hassle worthwhile. It took being conquered by the Gambrians to provide a workable answer to the power problem. The Gambrians had harnessed fire and steam to make an engine that produced power for solving mechanical problems. It had taken Stephan most of his lifetime to work out the details of connecting the two. He had come at magic from a technologist's viewpoint and didn't have any of the preconceived notions of what was possible and what was not. Simon and the other mages had made Stephen's original ideas workable, at least in theory. Now that his own life's work was finally coming to fruition, Simon was very excited.
In fact, it was Simon's brainchild that they were using for the next test. Simon had always wanted to fly. He thought that if teleportation could be done with magic, then flying should be relatively easy. And he could hover, briefly, and he could raise himself or others high into the air, but he could not ease them back down, and it was exhausting. The smaller the object, the longer he could make it fly, like the box of components he brought back from the lighthouse. But, a person was much larger and he could only make himself hover for twenty yards, at most. Simon wanted to really fly, to swoop and soar like the birds, to wait on the wind, poised for an attack and then dive down onto his unsuspecting target. This test was the first step in getting there. He was going to attempt to hover the entire locomotive, including himself, and move it some distance.
But, Simon would have "borrow" a locomotive from the train yard for this test. And that meant getting people away from it. He had already sent his assistant down to plant another bomb. It had a magical trigger and Simon would set if off just before he arrived at the station. In the ensuing chaos, he would slip in a take a locomotive, uncoupled from its cars, some distance from the city and then begin his test. Simon grinned in delight and set to work finishing his magical device.
For the second time today, Josaphine was squeezed into the terrifying contraption that was a motor cab. She was having a hard time concentrating on Ian's questions about magic.
"So, one thing I don't understand with all of this," said Ian, "is why a magical bomb would be so much worse than a technological bomb."
Josaphine closed her eyes as the whizzed around a corner and past a group of pedestrians. She thought for a moment that she was going to be ill. She wasn't afraid of going fast, of suddenly changing directions, or of not being in control; being on a Frellock catamaran had all of those characteristics. But, on a boat, you were rarely in immediate danger of hitting other boats or, for example, buildings, pedestrians, and sidewalk shops. Things were so close together in a city that just being in one sometimes made Josaphine uncomfortable. Being in a motor cab in a city was very uncomfortable.
"Did you hear me?" asked Ian, looking at Josaphine's closed eyes and hands that held onto the cab for dear life.
Josaphine's eyes popped open and she looked at Ian. She caught a glimpse of something over his shoulders and closed them again. Groaning, she said, "sorry, what did you say?"
Ian smiled. "I said, why is a magic bomb so bad?"
"That's easy," said Josaphine without opening her eyes. "You know how a regular bomb works: some chemical reaction causes air or something to expand very rapidly, pushing bits of metal or rocks out of the way of the explosion."
"More or less, yes," said Ian.
"So the damage a bomb can do is really the damage of the pieces of metal or whatever do when they slam into something else with the force of the explosion," said Josaphine. "Magic can instruct atoms to move, that's the basis of all magic. A magic bomb would simply be a device that ordered all atoms in the area to move suddenly some distance away from where they were when the started."
They raced around another corner and Josaphine could swear she heard people screaming as she imagined them running out of their path. She clutched the door and braced herself.
Ian nodded. "Yes, of course. That would make a much more terrifying bomb. Not only would armor not protect you, but armor itself could become the bomb!"
Josaphine was so delighted at Ian's quick grasp of the concepts that she opened her eyes despite herself and smiled. "Exactly," she said. "Fortunately, the power of any magic is limited by the person performing it, so they're never that big. Big enough to kill one or two people, but not enough to make it as effective as a technological bomb."
The cab lurched again and Josaphine closed her eyes. Ian suddenly grew somber. "When we had you in custody before, you stayed there because you chose to, didn't you?"
Josaphine opened her eyes and nodded at him before closing them again.
"Then why didn't you use that kind of magic to break the ropes at Wyatt's or kill Simon?"
"Making magic takes time," said Josaphine. "Time and concentration, neither of which I had." She paused. "If I had had my magical trinkets, I could have done so very easily, because using magic is much easier."
Ian shifted in his seat. "Since I'm not officially investigating anything at the moment, I can't hold your answers against you." Josaphine looked puzzled. "Have you rebuilt any of your trinkets?"
Josaphine resisted the urge to finger one of the magical patches on her robe. "Uh, well, yes, I have built the two or three most basic items. Why?"
Ian was quiet for so long that Josaphine opened her eyes to make sure he was still there. He looked terribly uncomfortable and pale like he might be sick. At first, she thought Ian was finally feeling the effects of the jostling cab ride, but then she saw a small box beside his foot with a police inventory tag on it. "Well," said Ian finally, "because you might not have to make any more of them."
Josaphine looked from Ian to the box and back. "Ian, are you sure? I know the Magistrate said he couldn't stop you from investigating, but stealing contraband is a real crime. As is aiding the performance of magic. You might never be an investigator again."
Ian swallowed hard, still looking sick, and nodded vigorously. "I'm sure," he said. "The Magistrate said he wanted Simon and the others stopped. It seems ridiculous to cripple your power when you're trying to help achieve that goal."
"And, afterwards, assuming we survive?"
Ian shrugged slightly. "Inventory mistakes do happen. I'll take the blame for losing them."
Josaphine was still in awe of Ian's courage when they arrived at the busy train station. They got out of the cab and Ian paid the driver. He handed the box of trinkets to Josaphine and tried to smile. "I have my pistol and you have these," he said. "That seems fair."
Josaphine reached for the box and touched his hand. Holding it there, she said, "thank you, Ian, for trusting me." She took the box and pulled out the tangled mess of cords. She murmured a few words and the cords suddenly appeared, neatly ordered, hanging on Josaphine's forearm. She ducked her head through them and felt the reassuring weight around her neck once more.
Ian felt very self-conscious all of the sudden. Here he was, normally a respectable Gambrian, standing in rumpled and blood spattered clothes, helping a mage to perform magic. The station was mostly populated with Gambrians and what Frellock there were were wearing pants. Ian led them to the side of the station, just to ease his self-consciousness. But, it was good timing, since a few minutes later, the police officers that the Magistrate had sent finally arrived. They began clearing people away from the station in a quiet, orderly fashion.
Josaphine tapped Ian on the shoulder and they retreated in the direction of what looked like a maintenance building. There were not many people around in the yard itself, just a few mechanics and laborers, so they didn't have a hard time reaching the maintenance building. It was a long building with a high, open ceiling like in a factory. Inside, there were dozens of short siding tracks that an engine or other car could be pulled onto and locked there with a hand brake on the car itself while it was being worked on. At the moment, there were three freight cars and one engine being serviced. Josaphine was not used to subtle surveilence, so she let Ian peek around the corner of the building and assess the situation.
He pulled his head back. "There are two workers for each car and four around the engine," he said. "None of them are Simon or Emilio."
"It seems unlikely that a bomb here would create a lot of panic," said Josaphine. "If these cars will be here a while, we should look on the trains closer to the platform."
Ian nodded. "Agreed." There were two trains in the station, one coming from Wellden and the other boarding passengers for Wellden. "Can you tell if there are any magical devices around, other than yours?"
Josaphine nodded and murmured some commands, a few of her trinkets glowing as they were activated. After a half a minute, Josaphine shook her head. "I didn't find anything," she said, "but we're not certain that this bomb will be magical, although it seems likely."
Ian opened his mouth to say something when Josaphine touched his arm. "Wait. There," she said and pointed at the platform loading passengers onto the train bound for Wellden. Underneath the platform, near the wheels of the first-class passenger car, they saw a figure in dingy green Frellock robes doing something. "There's no concealment magic there, but I'll be you anything that's Emilio," said Josaphine. "It's just his style to go for the maximum damage to people."
"If the police are working the station, they should start preventing people from going to the train any minute now," said Ian. "But, that doesn't help the people on board. We need to remove that bomb or stop Emilio from setting it." Ian set out at a dead run for the platform and Josaphine jogged slowly beside him, her trinkets clinking together lightly.
"Oh!" said Josaphine, "there is magic there, just not concealment magic like there was before. It's a magical trigger. Simon must want to detonate the bomb remotely."
They slowed as they approached the platform. There were still dozens of people there, and now they saw an officer trying to convince a small group of travelers to leave the station. Josaphine ducked as they walked under the platform, trying to sneak up on Emilio from behind. The platform formed an H with the train itself being one leg and the platform forming the other leg and crossbar. The moved slowly along the length of the station. Fortunately, it was dirt and stone around the platform, not gravel like it was in the maintenance yard. Josaphine whispered some magic words, disabling the magic trigger. She was sure that Emilio would have put in a mechanical backup trigger, but that they could stop if they stopped Emilio.
Ian whispered, "can you immobilize him?" Josaphine nodded and spoke some words, holding her arm out towards Emilio. His movements suddenly stopped and he cursed when he realized who it must be behind him. They walked towards him, under the platform's extension to the train. They could still hear people moving above them.
"I'll get the bomb," said Ian, using his small size to get in between Emilio and the bomb with ease.
"You're too late, Josaphine," said Emilio. "It's already set, and Simon will be here shortly to show you true power."
Josaphine just laughed. "Spare me. I've disabled the magic trigger, and while I know you're insane, you're not quite as insane as Joe. So, we've got some time before this bomb detonates on its own." She couldn't see his reaction, but he said nothing more. "How's it coming, Ian?" asked Josaphine. She was getting nervous about the change in sounds above her. It sounded like the police were now down nearer to them, herding people away from the train. If they made too loud a noise, the police would come to investigate.
"He's set it up so that trying to remove the bomb from the car will cause the mechanical trigger to fire," said Ian. Just then, the magical trigger fired, harmlessly. It interrupted Josaphine's concentration just long enough for Emilio to reach down and touch the mechanical trigger. Instincts made Josaphine let go of Emilio entirely and trap the bomb in a sphere of pressure, containing the explosion for now. Ian stumbled backwards over Emilio's leg.
"Run!" yelled Josaphine. She concentrated on containing the explosion and hovered the bomb out and away from the train, towards an open area between the station and the maintenance building. Her warning had spooked the police on the platform above who started screaming orders at each other and at passengers. The passengers panicked and stampeded away from the train in a rush. Ian regained his footing and leveled his gun at Emilio's retreating figure.
"Emilio, stop!" ordered Ian, not wanting to kill him before he'd answered for his crimes. Emilio ignored him and plunged on, out in the open along side the train. Ian fired his pistol and hit Emilio in the shoulder, causing him to spin around and fall to the ground.
The gunshot intensified the panic above and a Gambrian police officer dropped off the platform near Emilio's figure and turned toward Ian and Josaphine. He removed his own gun from its holster and yelled, "you two, down on the ground, now!"
Ian slowly placed his gun on the ground and backed away. "We're unarmed," he called to the approaching officer. Josaphine was still focused intently on containing the bomb and moving it a safe distance away. She could feel her containment weakening, so she began moving the bomb-sphere upwards, out of harm's way. Ian laid down on the ground as the officer grew closer. He glanced at Ian, and walked up behind the barely moving figure of Josaphine.
She had reached the limits of her ability to contain the bomb and was going to let it go anyway, when a strong hand shoved her in the middle of her back, breaking her concentration. She stumbled forward and cringed when the bomb exploded harmlessly fifty feet off the ground. The officer near them looked upwards and Josaphine disarmed him easily. She looked at Ian and said, "we still need to find Simon."
Ian got up off the ground and took the gun from Josaphine, removing its bullets. The police officer was waiting with his hands in the air, not sure what had just happened except that one man had been shot and a bomb had exploded harmlessly at the hands of the woman in front of him. Ian said to him, "officer, you need to tend to the man I shot. He's responsible in part for this morning's bombing in the financial district. He should live to be held accountable."
The police officer finally recognized Ian. "Mr. Jenkins, I've been told not to take orders from you anymore."
Ian handed the empty gun back to the officer and said, "then don't do it because I told you to, do it because it's your duty as a police officer to make sure that a suspect survives being arrested." He looked up at Josaphine. "Can you track Simon?"
Josaphine nodded. "He's back in the maintenance building near the lone engine."
Ian nodded and turned back to the officer. "The danger here is not over. If I were you, I would continue clearing people from the station, but use your best judgment, officer."
Ian and Josaphine turned to leave. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," said the officer, "I can't let you leave. I have some questions."
"You can't stop us," said Josaphine.
"Officer, the man I shot needs your help," said Ian, "time is of the essence." He gestured at Emilio's figure. The officer hesitated a moment longer, then turned and ran towards Emilio, yelling instructions at the other officers still on the platform.
Ian and Josaphine ran back towards the maintenance building under cover of the platform, the way they had come. They heard people stomping around on the platform as they ran, showering dirt down through the cracks between the platform's floor boards. The magical trigger on the bomb going off had let Josaphine know that Simon was on his way, but now that he was here, she could detect his magical devices directly. Whatever he had with him, beyond his normal small utilities, was very large. She doubted that one mage could make it work on his own, which puzzled her; how did he intend to use the thing if he couldn't power it alone?
Josaphine had seen very large magical devices in the war, something like a fireball cannon, that took many mages to operate, but that was fine when there were lots of mages around. Did he still think that Josaphine was going to help him? Or was he going to get the power from somewhere else? Had Simon solved the power problem for magic? That could make him very dangerous indeed.
"Do you remember me telling you that magical devices were limited to the power of the mage performing the magic?" asked Josaphine as they approached the building.
"Yes," said Ian. "Why?"
"Well, Simon may no longer have that limitation," said Josaphine.
They snuck up to the edge of the building and Ian peered inside. All of the maintenance men were gone, probably evacuated by the police. "That could be very bad indeed," murmured Ian. He started to edge around the corner of the building when Josaphine touched his arm.
Ian turned and she handed him about half a dozen small grey things. They could have been stone except that they were almost perfectly spherical. "Take these," said Josaphine. "If you get into trouble, these are like small bombs. Just hold one between your forefinger and thumb, say 'gurthumbal', and throw it like a rock. It will explode on impact." Ian looked at the rock-bombs with awe and some fear. These were magical devices, the first Ian had ever been told how to use. He simply nodded and put the rock-bombs in his suit jacket's pocket.
They were closest to the engine's track in the building, so they edged around the corner and sidled along the outer wall, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. Unlike the first time they were here, the locomotive was running, emitting small puffs of smoke from the smokestack in front, and hissing from building steam pressure inside.
There were small tables and racks of tools laid out along this side of the track where the mechanics had been working. They moved along the wall until they could see the back of the engine. Seeing no one, they started to move towards the locomotive and Ian drew his pistol from its holster. Then, they saw movement from the front of the engine and froze in their steps. It was a small Gambrian man, moving quickly and deliberately, attaching thick cables from somewhere onto the pistons that moved the engine's wheels.
Josaphine performed a more detailed search for Simon and discovered that he was in the cab of the engine. She was about to signal Ian to head for the cab when the man at the engine suddenly looked their direction. He dropped the tool in his hand and charged at them.
"Drolp!" said Josaphine. "Simon knows we're here." Her search had been too thorough and Simon had detected it. Ian quickly trained his gun on the charging man and fired. Ian's shot didn't miss, but it never reached its target. The bullet stopped in the air between the men then dropped harmlessly to the ground. Josaphine whipped her head around to look in the window of the cab and Simon was there, looking down on them.
The man had almost reached them when Josaphine waved her hand, magically shoving him backwards to the ground. "I'm going for Simon," she yelled and covered the distance to the engine in three long strides. Ian grabbed a heavy wrench from a nearby table to use as a weapon and approached the man Josaphine had knocked down.
As she climbed aboard, Josaphine countered magical attacks from Simon like she was shooing away flies. She knew he was more powerful than that and wondered why he was holding back. She climbed into the cab and narrowly avoided Simon's attacking arm which hit the frame of the cab with a thump. Josaphine tackled Simon, using magic to help slow his movements. She couldn't immobilize him altogether since he was fighting back with his own magic.
With Simon occupied with his own fight, Ian's fight was on even footing again. Ian approached the small man as he scrambled to his feet and grabbed a wrench of his own. The man charged at Ian, swinging the wrench at Ian's head and growling. Ian deflected the blow and moved to the side to let the man's momentum put him off balance. But, as the man stumbled past, he grabbed the front of Ian's jacket with his free hand and pulled Ian down with him. Ian swung his wrench at the man's midsection, just under his grabbing arm and connected with a thud. The man twitched in pain, releasing Ian's jacket, but not before they both hit the ground.
The man swung his wrench backhanded and grazed Ian's head. Ian reached down and held the man's wrench arm to the ground. He used his own wrench to hit the man's side again. The man's free arm shot upwards and hit Ian squarely in the jaw. Ian's vision flashed white from the impact and they tumbled back and forth over each other rolling into one of the tables of tools. Heavy tools rained off the table, one hitting Ian in the back. Ian grunted in pain, and a second later, one of the tools hit Simon's minion in the shin. The man yowled in pain and surprise, distracting him just long enough for Ian to clobber him in the head and knock him out. The man went limp and Ian let go of him, but kept the wrench as he struggled to his feet and sprinted to the engine.
Josaphine tried to slam her knee into Simon's groin, but his movements weren't the only ones that were slowed and the contact was barely enough to make Simon uncomfortable. Simon tried to box Josaphine on the side of the head, but again the magic made it a useless attack. "Give it up," said Simon. "I'm younger than you are, so I have more energy and will eventually out last you."
Josaphine could make magic that would kill Simon instantly by severing his throat, but she hadn't created it before they arrived. Getting enough time where Simon was not paying attention to her magic seemed impossible. And, he was right. If this fight went on long enough, she would exhaust herself to the point of immobility while Simon still had energy. Josaphine only hoped that Ian had won his fight.
"Perhaps," said Josaphine. She tried to elbow Simon in the gut with the same slow-motion lack of effect. So far, Simon and Josaphine had only succeeded in frustrating each other. Just then, Ian charged through the door and aimed a blow with his wrench at Simon's head. Simon suddenly let go of the forces holding Josaphine and she tried again to knee Simon in the groin. Before she could do so, she felt a searing pain in the back of her head and the world went black. Simon had let go of her to redirect the blow from Ian's wrench. Josaphine's body went limp and Ian stumbled backwards in horror.
Simon smirked and pushed Josaphine off of him to stand up. He looked out the cab's window at the body of his mechanic. Undaunted, Ian stepped closer to Simon and swung the wrench at his knees. Simon stopped Ian in his tracks and magically forced the wrench from his hands. "We're not going to need this," said Simon as he tossed the wrench out the door to the cab. Simon tested the power connections on the large magical device behind him and appeared satisfied. His assistant had managed to finish the connections before the fight began. Simon turned his attention back to Ian. "Now, what shall I do with you two? You've been more trouble than I care to think about."
Ian struggled futilely against Simon's magic. "The Magistrate knows who you are and he has informed the Baron Council. You will be stopped, Simon, even if we're not here to see it."
Simon laughed. "I see that you know nothing of politics. Why do you think the council has let this go on for so long? They want this region unstable. If people are paying attention to the bombings here and in Wellden, then they're not paying attention to other areas of the continent. Fool. You weren't sent here to solve a crime, you were sent here to fail at solving a crime. In that, you have done quite well."
Ian started to protest, but Simon interrupted him. "Not that it matters. Someone should witness the awesome power that my organization will soon possess, if only to start rumors and make us that much stronger in the eyes of others." Simon tied Ian's hands together in front of him and tied that to a ring bolted to the wall of the cab. He then did the same to Josaphine, her head drooping forward between her arms.
Simon released the brake holding the engine in place and started moving them out of the maintenance building along the tracks. The wheels spun metallically against the rails until they caught and slowly began the engine rolling. The smokestack puffed larger billows of smoke as more power was applied to moving them forward. They rolled out of the building, past the nearly empty station and onto the main track heading for Wellden. They would still have to get out of the city before Simon could conduct his tests, but in all the confusion, no one noticed that an engine had gone missing from the station. They eased down the rails, passing by factories and loading docks, then through residential areas and out into the rolling hills along the coast. All the while, Ian was trying to loosen the ropes tying his hands together.
Ian was somewhat relieved when they left the city. His greatest fear was that Simon's device was a magical bomb and that he intended to destroy some large section of the city with it. Now that they were moving into the hills, he was slightly more at ease. Wellden was a two day train ride away and the engine did not have enough fuel to get there. He hoped that Simon was bluffing when he said that the Baron Council wanted the region unstable. Even with the speed of a telegraph, it would be at least a day before the council could advise the Magistrate on what to do with Garnok and any action to take against Simon. Normally, they would not be so directly involved, but since Ian's replacement had not yet arrived, the Magistrate didn't know what to do about it. After their conversation today, Ian also had the sneaking suspicion that the Magistrate was trying to buy time for Ian and Josaphine to act. Ian assumed that the council would arrange for show-trials for the guilty and have them executed to prove that they still wielded control over Frindon and to discourage other potential bombers. He disapproved of such methods, but the council had done it before.
The engine began to slow down. They were well outside of the city, at least a three hour ride in the fastest road vehicle. Since the engine was not towing any cars, it had moved much further much faster than usual. Simon let friction slow the engine to a stop and set to work activating his magical device. It was a smooth black object, the size of a large Gambrian suitcase with rounded edges. There were no controls on the device, just a few indicator lights and two thick cables running out the back. Ian guessed that activating the device was done through magic since Simon muttered a few words and the lights on the front changed from amber to green. The controls for the train and the magic device were arranged along the front of the cab and there were windows on the front, right side, and back of the cab. The left wall is where the cab attached to the engine itself so the wall was solid steel. The door to the engine's furnace was on the back half of the wall. Simon had tied up Josaphine and Ian on either side of the furnace door.
Sweat ran down Ian's forehead into the cut caused by the glancing wrench blow. The blood from that cut had dried and Ian wiped irritably at the sweat with his sleeve. Ian found it terribly hot in Frindon to begin with, but he had spent the last half an hour sitting next to the furnace for the engine in his dark wool suit. A pained groan from Ian's left made him turn to look. Josaphine's head throbbed and her ears were still ringing from the blow she had taken. She felt blood matting her hair to her head and tried to move her arm to probe it. When she felt rope digging into her wrist at her tug, she forced her eyes to focus and looked up. Simon was busy fussing with his magical device and ignored her. She was kneeling on the floor of the cab with her arms suspended above her. Josaphine looked to her right and saw Ian standing with his arms in the same position.
Through the pain in her head, Josaphine concentrated on using one of her trinkets to cut the ropes holding Ian's arms. Before she could finish, Simon said, "don't bother. I've put protections on the ropes to prevent your meddling." Josaphine looked up and Simon was looking down at her with his arms folded across his chest. A faint smile crossed his lips. "Besides, don't you want to see what magic is capable of when there's ample power?"
Josaphine blinked at him. "So, you really did solve the power problem?"
Simon grinned and almost sounded giddy when he said, "yes, I really did. Just think of all we can do now! All of the magic that we theorized about, we'll finally be able to make and use. We'll be unstoppable!"
"Simon, that's wonderful, but-"
"You don't believe me," he said. "Fine. Watch this." Simon turned back to his black magical device and murmured commands. Josaphine felt pressure pushing her upwards, but it wasn't just her. The entire engine lifted off of the ground. At first, Josaphine didn't believe it, but the hills beyond the cab's window dropped out of her sight as the engine lifted further into the air.
"What the-" whispered Ian in disbelief.
"Unbelievable," said Josaphine in awe.
Simon barked a laugh. "See, I told you! Now, let's fly!"
The engine puffed away as it sailed forward, veering off train tracks into the hills. Simon concentrated on directing the movement with a grin on his face. He guided the engine back and forth, zigzagging over the tracks. While Simon was showing off his success, Josaphine concentrated on finding a hole in the magic protecting the ropes securing them. Simon laughed, "and they said it couldn't be done! The fools! Imagine the possibilities of flying machines, unconstrained by iron rails or water passageways. The freedom of movement, the power, and the surprise, all because I, Simon, have solved the power problem once and for all. You may even come to brag about this day, Josaphine."
Bringing his attention to Josaphine made Simon aware of what she was doing. He cursed and started to guide the engine back down to the rails, but it was too late. Josaphine found the hole in Simon's magic that she was looking for and exploited it, ripping the protections off of Ian's bonds. She then uttered the command to cut the ropes and set to word removing her own bonds. Simon had almost set the train down when Ian pulled out his gun and fired it at Simon, hitting him in the right leg. The pain broke Simon's concentration and the engine fell from the air, smashing into the rails and careening wildly off into the ditch beside the rails. The force of the impact tossed Ian up into the air and towards the center of the cab. As he landed, his right elbow caught on the hinge of the furnace's door, ripping a hole in his jacket and the shirt below. His bare skin then touched the hot furnace door, searing his flesh. Ian screamed and pulled his arm free from the furnace just as the engine made contact with the ground.
Josaphine finished cutting her bonds just before the engine made contact with the ground. The force of the impact slammed her forward into a pile with Simon and Ian, her knees cracking painfully off control panel. Simon was clutching his leg, whimpering words to stop the bleeding. His bright yellow robe was now stained brown with his blood. The engine leveled off briefly before falling into the ditch beside the rails, rolling onto its side as it gouged a path through the dirt. The windows in the cab smashed inward as the engine fell, showering all three of the people inside with glass. Josaphine felt a shard slice through her upper arm as she was thrown forward again. Simon and Ian slid along the floor of the cab, crashing into the wall of the cab that was now the floor.
Simon started to say some magic words, his intent being to slow the engine, but Ian didn't know that. Ian heard him begin some magic so he punched Simon in the nose, guessing, correctly, that the sudden flood of blood and pain would distract him from his magic. Simon yelped in pain, his hands flying to his face to stop the flow of blood down his face to no avail. Josaphine flew forward from the impact of the engine's roll and hit the roof of the cab that was now the wall. Dirt and grass were flying upwards into the cab from the broken windows. Simon's magical device had broken one of it cables and was dangling from the other one over the control panel, apparently broken. Josaphine steadied herself as best as possible and began concentrating on stopping the engine's slide. Friction and magic slowed the engine to a stop a few seconds later. Josaphine collapsed forward, nearly exhausted from stopping the engine.
The furnace door was open and steam was leaking into the cab from various pipes damaged in the crash. Simon's robe, like Josaphine's robe and Ian's suit, were stained with blood and tattered. The broken machinery in the cab spit sparks and popped, creating the only noise in the sudden silence. Ian raised his head from the ground trying to get his bearings. He began searching for his gun amid the clods of dirt and broken glass on the "floor" of the cab, but it was nowhere to be seen.
Simon got unsteadily to his feet, still clutching his nose, his eyes burning with anger and hatred. Josaphine raised her eyes to look at him. She knew he was going to kill them, but she didn't have the energy to move, let alone to stop him. It was a shame, too, that such a skilled mage would choose to use his powers for personal gain. Josaphine felt that she could have guided his path in magic in a much more constructive way, if only it had been legal. She only hoped that someone else had the strength to stop Simon after she was gone.
Ian saw the look in Simon's eyes, but without his gun, he had no chance of stopping Simon. Then Ian remembered the rock-bombs that Josaphine had given him. If they all hadn't fallen out of his pocket, they might have a chance to stop Simon, even if it meant that all three of them would die. Ian reached into his pocket and felt one small sphere fall into his fingers. He held it between his thumb and forefinger as he pulled it from his pocket and whispered, "gurthumbal." Simon turned his head to Ian in time to see a small rock fly from Ian's hand and hit him in the chest. After letting go of the rock-bomb, Ian dived toward Josaphine to try and shield her from the blast. Mid-dive, Ian heard the explosion and everything went black.
It took the Magistrate and the acting chief of police twelve hours to sort out what had happened at the train station in Frindon. Emilio had survived and his accusations combined with the police officer eyewitness confounded the Magistrate's attempts to reassure them that Ian and Josaphine had his complete confidence and that, once they were found, they could explain everything. The chief of police sent out "arrest for questioning" bulletins to all his stations. No one at the train yard noticed the missing engine until the next morning. By that time, the train heading into Frindon from Wellden had noticed the wrecked engine and stopped. The telegram carrying the descriptions of Ian, Josaphine, and Simon had already been sent to Wellden, and to the conductor.
The train from Wellden was rolling smoothly down the rails when the conductor noticed smoke and twisted glinting steel off to the left of the tracks up ahead. He began slowing the train down, wondering if he had the misfortune of finding the fugitives from Frindon. The conductor was a simple man and he didn't want anything to complicate his normally boring life. He briefly considered not stopping the train, but it would probably be worse for him if he didn't; the railroad company would get a big reward if they helped the police. The conductor sighed when he saw someone trying to flag down his train. Well this was certainly going to ruin his day, if not his week.
Ian had never been happier to see a train in his life. He waved his arms in a big motion trying to get the conductor's attention. As the train began slowing down, he sighed with relief. He limped back to where Josaphine was sitting and grinned. "They're slowing down," he said. Ian grimaced in pain and grabbed onto the wreckage to steady himself. He had taken the force of the explosion on his left side, cracking two ribs and peppering his side with shrapnel. One of them had narrowly missed his eye leaving a long gash down his left cheek.
Josaphine nodded and smiled. She had been collapsed in a heap when the rock-bomb went off, so surprisingly little of the shrapnel had reached her. She suspected that Ian's heroic dive to protect her better explained her safety. She had torn off a piece of her robe to bandage the gouge in her right arm from the broken glass. Josaphine looked down at the covered body of Simon.
When they had regained consciousness in the engine's cab a few hours after the explosion, Simon was dead. There was a bloody hole in his chest the size of a seaweed cake. After making sure Ian was okay and safely away from the engine, Josaphine had dragged his body out, too. He had been evil, but he had also been Frellock and he deserved to be buried as one, even if no one would mourn his death. Ian had taken off his suit jacket to cover Simon's face in death. That was a Gambrian custom, so Josaphine didn't say anything.
They spent a cold night near the dying fire in the engine's furnace. Ian was convinced that a train would be by in the morning, so he woke up early and waited on the train track side of the wrecked engine. Josaphine privately thought that Ian just wanted to be alone, so she stayed behind, near the cab. Now, Ian's claim had proven correct as Josaphine watched the twelve car train slowing down. "How are we going to explain this," she asked, "to the, uh, the man who runs the train."
"The conductor," said Ian smiling. "I don't think we'll have to. By now, the Magistrate would have sent a telegram to Wellden to be on the look out for Simon."
Josaphine was not so sure. Gambrians were suspicious by nature and Frellock were fiercely protective of their kind, so nothing about this situation was likely to put anyone at ease. Especially when encountering unexpectedly it on a bright sunny morning in the middle of nowhere. The train finally stopped a half mile from the wreck and Josaphine saw a man jump out and slowly head their way.
The conductor cursed his luck the entire way from his train to the crash site. He had retrieved the pistol from the lock box in the cab of the engine, just in case they didn't want to come along quietly. He didn't know if he could bring himself to use it, even if he had to, but the show of force might be enough to subdue them. He approached the wreck with his gun outstretched. "You there," he called when he was still fifteen yards away, "what's going on here?"
Ian raised his arms, wincing at the pain in his ribs, in a show of surrender. "My name is Ian Jenkins. My companion, Josaphine, and I have apprehended the mage Simon, wanted in Frindon. During the struggle, our train was derailed." The conductor approached slowly, circling around Ian to get a look at Josaphine and Simon.
The conductor paled when he saw the covered form of Simon. "Apprehended or killed? Oh, drolp!"
Ian turned to look at Josaphine who tried to supress a smile at the conductor's cursing.
"Drolp on sea cakes!" he exclaimed, and Josaphine coughed to hide a giggle. "You are the fugitives from Frindon. Drolp! And you're going to want to take that corpse back with us, aren't you?" The conductor had lowered the gun and was stomping on the ground cursing fluently.
Ian lowered his arms and tried to calm the conductor. "Listen, we have to take him back, if for no other reason than to give him a funeral." The conductor was unmoved. "We'll put him in one of the cargo cars, okay?"
The conductor snorted. "Drolp right you will, and you'll stay back there with him. No way am I letting the gentle people on my train get a look at you two. You'd scare them half to death." Ian didn't relish spending an hour and a half in a cargo car, but he didn't blame the conductor. A few months ago, Ian considered himself one of those gentle people.
"Alright, fine," said the conductor. "You there, girl, pick up his body and let's go." Ian was about to protest his manner towards Josaphine, but she touched his arm and shook her head. She picked up Simon's body and Ian picked up what was left of his magical device. The conductor made them walk in front of him so they couldn't try anything funny. Once they were settled into the last cargo car, the conductor locked them in and went forward to the engine to get the train moving again. The faster he could be done with this mess, the better.
The cargo car was dark with the door shut as there were no windows. Josaphine conjured a small flame using the dust all around them as a fuel source. She smiled sadly at Ian. "I guess I'll have to get used to living without magic again," she said. Ian nodded and remembered that he, too, had used magic now. The tiny fireball in Josaphine's hand was a small, harmless version of the thing that had killed Chief Killian. Sitting there, watching the tiny flames flicker, Ian lost his last mental resistance to magic. He realized that it wasn't magic that was harmful, but the person behind the magic. And the person behind this magic was a good person. This person had become his friend.
"Thank you," said Ian.
Josaphine blinked at him since his gratitude seemed to come out of nowhere. "For what?"
"For being yourself," said Ian, "a good person, a skilled mage, and a true friend."
Josaphine's eyes filled with tears. "You're more than welcome, Ian."
Ian smiled at her and pointed at the tiny fireball. "Can you teach me to do that? You know, before we arrive in Frindon?"
She laughed. It was an honest, throaty sound that Ian had never heard before and Josaphine nodded. "I think so, yes," she said.
After the train arrived at the station in Frindon, the conductor left the car locked until the police arrived to take the whole mess out of his hands. Ian and Josaphine blinked and squinted against the sudden bright light from outside. Police officers loaded Simon's body into a hearse and sent it on its way, then loaded Ian and Josaphine into the back of a police vehicle. There was still some question as to their guilt or innocence and the warrant just said "arrest for questioning". They didn't speak on the bumpy ride to the police station. Ian winced at every bump but denied Josaphine's offer of magic to absorb some of the shock.
Finally, they arrived and the police took them to two different interrogation rooms and left them alone for a while. Ian was sitting up straight, as usual, when the Magistrate arrived to question him. The acting police chief had protested the Magistrate's decision to question Ian directly, but the Magistrate overruled him.
The Magistrate had to bite his tongue to try and keep his expression emotionless at best, when he wanted to thank Ian profusely, especially after seeing him. His suit was reduced to rags, heavily spotted with blood, dirt, and train grease. His face was dirty and scratched with dark circles under his eyes. But Ian smiled when he saw the Magistrate, wincing as he stood and offered his grimy hand to the Magistrate. The Magistrate took it without a second thought and shook it more gently than usual, which Ian appreciated.
As Ian told his side of events to the Magistrate, it became clear to the Magistrate that Ian and Josaphine were innocent. In fact, they were heroes. The Magistrate said he would telegram the Baron Council at once with the excellent news that the case had been solved. He even wanted to award the Frindon's medal of honor to them.
Ian shook his head. "No, sir," he said, "I don't think that's called for. I was just doing my job, even if it wasn't sanctioned."
"You were doing the right thing," corrected the Magistrate. "And that's worth noting! Besides, it's excellent public relations to have heroes. Come on, Ian, don't make me beg." With that last comment, Ian heard the veiled threat, "don't make me order you to". Ian was still under the Magistrate's command until his replacement arrived or until he was recalled by the council.
Ian looked sad and nodded. "Fine, I'll do it."
The Magistrate beamed at him. "Well done, well done, indeed."
The ceremony took place two days later at the site of the bombing in the financial district. The Magistrate and Josaphine towered over the other people in the ceremony and he made sure to stress the fact that it was a Frellock and a Gambrian working together that had saved them all. The ceremony had the effect the Magistrate intended. The people of Frindon united like never before and they began to have constructive discussions about how to make their city a better place to live. Those things included Frellock-friendly housing and permitting barter again on a limited scale. The Magistrate was beside himself with joy.
Stephan didn't shout when he was angry, which somehow made him all the more terrifying. He paced from his chair to the door, to the fireplace, and back to his chair. "Well, that clearly did not go as planned," he said.
Eric shuffled his feet uncomfortably.
"But, the power tests are complete," he continued. "Use what data you do have about how Simon was coupling power to magic and begin preparing for the move on Prahn. Others will find out how it was done soon enough and we will lose the advantage."
Stephan finished pacing and sat down in his seat. "Go, now and no more mistakes."
Eric bowed stiffly. "I will see to it."
The council chambers were empty except for Baron McCloud and Keeshawn. "What a disaster," said McCloud. "I want to destabilize the region and instead I've created a unified populous with an agenda to continue their good will."
Keeshawn nodded. He was waiting for McCloud to blame the whole affair on Keeshawn and his choice for Magistrate. Secretly, Keeshawn was happy to see things going so well in Frindon. Magistrate Perkins had done a stellar job of handling the crisis.
"Well," said McCloud, "it serves me right for sending our best investigator. I should have known that he would buck the rules if he was pushed hard enough. I think he's a crusader at heart." He gazed into the fire. "Well, there's nothing to do but try and clean up the mess. And there's always Wellden. I'm sure some of the good will in Frindon will rub off, but hopefully not much."
Keeshawn nodded. "And good will tends to run out when things don't go well. The people should be back to fruitless bickering in no time."
"Yes, I'm sure," said McCloud. "In the meantime, I'll send Ian far away from the north coast and keep him out of the way until I can move on Prahn." He shook his head. "That's a mistake I don't intend to make twice."
Two weeks after the train wreck, Ian took a cab to Josaphine's shop and let himself in, the bell ringing pleasantly. Josaphine stood up from her weaving to greet him.
"Ian! How good to see you. Please, sit down." Josaphine headed for her cushion on the floor and sat down. Ian didn't sit in the chair but sat down on the floor in front of her and smiled.
"I just came by to tell you that I've been recalled to Volak by the council. They want me to investigate some illegal big game hunting in Prakash, along the mountain range south of Volak," he said.
"That sounds fascinating," said Josaphine, trying to be encouraging.
"It sounds cold to me," said Ian. He was wearing a new wool suit, almost identical to the one that was destroyed. "I had almost gotten used to the heat here."
Josaphine smirked. "Well, I guess you'll have no need for this, then," she said and walked behind the counter. She pulled out a suit in Ian's size made from the pale yellow linen she had just finished weaving two days ago. She brought the suit around in front of the counter for Ian to see, the deep red hem of her new robe swirling around her ankles. Ian stood up and felt the fabric of the suit with tears in his eyes.
"Thank you," said Ian smiling. This time, Josaphine just nodded and smiled back.
Ian sat back down and waited for Josaphine to follow suit before he continued. "I went by Wyatt's cafe," he said quietly. "It was for sale. I guess they'll make the new owner fix the broken window."
Josaphine chuckled.
They had been through so much together and still Ian felt uncomfortable asking Josaphine about herself. "So, what are you going to do now?"
"Me?" asked Josaphine, surprised. "The same thing I always do, weave my fabric, and watch as many sunrises and sunsets as possible. That's an old lady's idea of a good life." She paused, realizing Ian probably wanted to know more than that but was too polite to pry. "I'm going to be okay. I miss Wyatt, of course, but I've lost loved ones before and the wounds do heal eventually."
Ian nodded. He was glad she didn't make him ask. He tried to lighten the conversation by saying, "I hear the Magistrate is putting together a committee to look at regulating magic rather than banning it outright."
"Yes," said Josaphine, "I heard the same thing. I don't believe the Baron Council will ever go for it, but I'm hopeful. The regulators would need a lot of training if it ever comes to fruition."
Ian smiled slyly and looked at the floor in front of him. "And, ah, I heard you were going to be involved in that committee."
Josaphine made a disgusted noise and swore. "Ian Jenkins, I knew it was you! Do you know how much I hate committees and politics. You set this up, didn't you?"
"I only suggested the idea for the committee to the Magistrate," said Ian defensively. "He chose the members on his own."
"Huh, small field to choose from," muttered Josaphine.
Ian smiled. "I'm sure you'll be fine," he said. "You've been through worse. I think you can handle sitting on one committee."
Josaphine nodded. They sat in silence for a minute, reflecting. Finally, Ian said, "well, I have to be going. I have a train to catch." Josaphine insisted that he take the linen suit with him, even though it would be completely useless where he was going.
"Just remember to bring it back with you the next time you're in Frindon," said Josaphine. She showed him to the door and the waiting cab. Before he left, she touched his arm and he looked up at her. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you for being the polite, open-minded man you are." She kneeled down and hugged Ian. She let him go and said, "I hope I did that right. Crazy Gambrian customs."
Ian hugged her back and said, "that was perfect."