Eight 5.31: The Missed Option

The fortress went into motion like a kicked beehive. The visiting builders were put to work patching up and returning the outer compound to a pristine state, while the lower-level soldiers washed every surface clean, and the same thing happened on the upper levels—the proud silvered seemingly willing to get down on their knees to scrub the floors until they shone.

Inspections happened twice daily, and there was a different security drill every day for three days running. And when the soldiers were done with those? The fortress had to be cleaned all over again!

The good news was that we gained a more complete picture of how the Maltrans responded to emergencies, including confirmation of how the failsafe worked. They simulated a group of powerful would-be attackers getting squashed by thousands of tons of rocks.

As for my family, we worked around the clock, redoubling our own efforts. For those three days, the Deer God was only in his body to eat and sleep, as he fought through the magical defenses around the shaft to eat the power maintaining its integrity. Meanwhile, Fala spent most of her time in the stone surrounding the fortress, destabilizing the underlying structure even further. When the mountain finally came down, it was going to feel like the world was ending.

Like the Deer God, I spent most of my time out of my body too, roving through the parts of the fortress safe for me. When I could, I haunted the commander and eavesdropped on the reports he received and the orders he gave. The most important intel was that the soldiers stationed at the Eagle Fortress planned to welcome the empress with a grand assembly, which they could only do outside.

Of course, guards would remain inside to restrict access to the upper levels, but everyone else would be outside. It would be the most opportune time to put our own plan into action. Plus, if we were lucky, maybe we’d take out Sister Moon at the same time, which was probably a pipe dream given the level of security likely around her, but we could dream, couldn’t we?

And plan. The branching scenarios were proliferating endlessly.

As for Yuki, their focus narrowed to decrypting the coded texts we’d looted from Old Baxteiyel. Since the Deer God and I were mostly out of our bodies, they freely made use of our brains to speed up their computations. The few times I came back to my body to take care of my own needs, I found it feeling feverish, and that was after me having left it immersed in cold water.

I didn’t complain, nor did the Deer God. While we’d developed a plan for getting unfettered access to Baxta’s egg, what we’d do once we had it was still uncertain. The more information we possessed about the magical practices involved, the better.

The empress was due to arrive the day after the body.

###

Eight days from the arrival of the body, nine days before Sister Moon’s visit, I spied on a couple of researchers talking about an unexpected, spontaneous acceleration of the ritual’s progress. A spontaneous anything related to Baxta was cause for worry, so I called over the Deer God.

I hated to do it—every minute seemed to matter—but it really was better to not take any chances. And he must’ve sensed the urgency, because he appeared only a moment later. I signed to him the details of what I’d overheard, then jumped on his back and held onto his neck as he flew us to the research level.

We found the technical staff buzzing with excitement, and in the largest of the meeting rooms, the senior researchers had gathered to debate whether or not Baxta’s spirit had come close enough to the mortal world to be able to actively help the ritual along.

Tenna’s Gift meant that the dead couldn’t influence the living, but anything to related to Baxta had the potential to be exceptional. The Deer God and I looked at each other and immediately left to check on the egg.

A few of the junior enchanters were gathered on the observation deck; they watched as one of their number examined the altar inside the chamber. Above her, inside the egg, Baxta watched with interest.

I frowned. The last time I’d stopped by was yesterday, and Baxta had been—physical distances didn’t really apply, but if you treated it like a metaphor—about a yard farther into the spirit world than he was now. In comparison, he’d previously been approaching the living world at a rate of half a foot per day. That was a hell of a jump.

The Deer God and I had been there for only about a minute when the ghost of a soldier appeared in the chamber below. He was visible, and then he was gone—drawn into the egg. The suction power appeared to have grown stronger, which hadn’t been in any of the researcher reports. Baxta was helping, after all.

Not a moment later, another ghost materialized in the chamber. This one had time to glance around before he was swept into the egg. Then, a pair of ghosts arrived, one of whom appeared to have been reaching for a sword at her side when she’d died.

While her compatriot was pulled into the egg, she remained rooted for a time, glaring to the north. She had no lungs but still breathed heavily. Carefully, she put her gear into order, reached back to tie her hair into a simple braid, and turned to face Baxta. Her eyes were serious as she walked toward him, disappearing in a flash.

Over the next ten minutes, it was like there was a conveyor belt feeding ghosts to the egg. These new arrivals were all like the woman, though. They carried enough heft to control their own approach toward the egg.

And then another pair of ghosts arrived, and I gasped. There was Butrus, his face in a rictus of rage, his hands clamped around the neck of another man who looked like he could’ve been his brother.

What Butrus was doing here? Did the Maltrans hunt down Melwei and his crew?

The brother was doing his best to gouge out Butrus’s eyes. The two men scrambled and fought like animals, neither noticing the amusement on Baxta’s face. Then they were gone too, absorbed into the egg.

The enchanter inside the chamber spoke in the poetic language used by her lodge, but her voice was excited, as were the voices of those around me. One ran off to report to the seniors down the hall.

Each bit of progress meant that a comrade had died, but the researchers only cared about what it meant for Baxta’s revival.

My hands clenched as I stood waiting to see who else might appear, hoping it wouldn’t be Melwei or anyone else from his team. They shouldn’t be drawn to Baxta; none of them were Maltran. Well, neither had been Butrus, but he’d been lost in his rage. That enmity had been personal, and he wouldn’t, perhaps couldn’t, let go of his enemy.

Was it really his brother? The man who’d been portrayed on the sheet of paper he’d glared at every night—the focus of his rage?

I was starting to think the action was over when a half-dressed woman suddenly appeared. Even so, her bearing was proud, almost regal. Her willful face turned to look to the north, then with an expression of disappointment, she strode toward the egg under her own power.

She too must’ve held great authority. If this was Melwei’s team’s doing, then they were fighting well above their level. Had they all become silvered and dark in the time since we’d separated?

All I had were questions and no answers until the next ghost appeared, and this one, I knew. Not because we’d ever met, but I’d seen his portrait. It hung in the administrative hall in Bashtencru. There was also one in the commander’s office.

Brother Sun was also half-dressed, a subtle frown on his face as he gazed at the chamber he’d found himself in. While I gaped to see him there, he stood in deep thought. Around him more soldiers began to materialize, and these looked they’d been pulled to the egg from the middle of a fight. A series of them, the conveyor belt starting in earnest.

They bowed to Brother Sun in shame and regret. He watched them stream into the egg, one by one.

The conveyor slowed again. Soldiers appeared in dribs and drabs. Then it stopped altogether.

Brother Sun frowned in earnest, and then he sighed. He took one last glance at the egg, and then walked out of the chamber. The Deer God and I followed—we had to—and saw as the way into the next life opened. He disappeared into it. The bastard was willing to feed his people to the egg but not himself.

He deserved a worse fate, much worse.

At least he was dead, and from the looks of things, Melwei and his team were the ones who’d done it. The realization hit repeated like waves crashing on the shore: the whole time we’d been with them, they’d had their own mission.

How had they hidden their intentions from my spirit eyes? Were they also Silasenei’s agents? It didn’t seem so from the conversations we’d overheard, but there was no way to be sure, at least not then. Maybe after all this was done with, I’d ask her. She might even answer.

Holy smokes, Brother Sun is dead, and Sister Moon is on her way to Eagle Fortress. If we really could kill her, then it would leave the Maltran empire headless.

###

My beloved had dark circles under her eyes. The donut in her hand went uneaten as she thought through news. “The problem will be her guards,” she said. “They will be the best in the empire. And reinforced, too, after what happened to Brother Sun.”

I’d been pacing but stopped to say, “You mean they’ll be on high alert.”

She nodded, putting the donut down.

‘Could that work on our behalf?’ Yuki asked. ‘Some of the silvered here might leave to escort her in.’

“We shouldn’t count on it,” I said, pacing. Not only did the movement help me to think, but the toes on my left foot had gone numb, and I was trying to get the blood flowing in them.

Fala quirked her head. “What can we count on?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

The truth of Brother Sun’s assassination had been contained to the commander and his assistant. The two of them bore the weight of that “tragic” news, and they’d redoubled the fortress’s security in advance of Sister Moon’s visit. From what we’d overheard, she planned to shelter here for as long as it proved necessary.

Sotwansein and Kolwei were waiting to hear back from the empress’s people on whether the review of soldiers should be cancelled. So were we, since it would drastically change the plan we’d been working toward.

“Even if the fortress’s soldiers don’t gather outside to welcome the empress, we should still use the failsafe,” Fala said.

“Because if we don’t, then it’ll become impossibly impossible to infiltrate the place instead of just simply impossible.” I sighed and wracked my brain for options. We’d already come up with so many plans and then discarded them. Dead ends, I thought. Too many dead ends.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose as an idea came to me—incredibly dumb but also potentially brilliant, depending on whether it worked or whether it killed me.

Yuki’s qi turned horrified as they picked up on my thoughts. ‘Oh, no, no, no.’

The Deer God was currently spying on the commander; we’d been keeping tabs on him around the clock since the assassination, so that we didn’t miss any new developments. He must’ve picked up on the alarm, because he started on his way back to the stronghold. Which was just as well, since I’d need to consult with him about the feasibility of the idea.

‘This is insanity,’ Yuki said.

“Eight?” Fala called to me. “What are you thinking?”

I licked my lips. She wasn’t going to like this—not one bit.

‘Can you blame her?’ Yuki said, their qi rioting within me.

“There was an option we missed.” I walked over and knelt in front of her, taking her hands in mine. “An easy way to get me into the stronghold, so that we could all be grouped up together—at our full strength—from the beginning.”

‘Don’t listen to him,’ Yuki said.

Fala’s eyes were reluctant, and I felt her hesitancy like it was my own. But she nodded for me to continue.

“What we missed,” I said gently, “is that the Hoarder’s Pocket can carry meat into the fortress.”

“Meat?” she started. Then the horror spread to her, and she looked at me like she didn’t know me, like she hadn’t realized I was capable of such recklessness.

Because the idea was reckless. If was dead, then Fala could carry me into the fortress in the Hoarder’s Pocket. The trick would be coming back to life afterward.