Chương 42: Chapter 41 - Vexatious

"Vex is clever enough to keep his operation profitable and quiet, which makes him predictable. Men who have built something worth protecting do not risk it on principle. When the time comes, he will stand aside." - From the correspondences of Duke Alastair Thorne, undated ISABELLA Several people glanced in my direction as I passed but they quickly looked away as if confused by what had drawn their attention in the first place.

I didn't think an aggressive approach was my best option, but I didn't see any other choice. As I reached the corridor, I could see the guards standing vigilant by an unlit opening that appeared to go further into the rock. I focused on a shadow inside the opening and activated [Shadow Step], the long cooldown leaving me no easy means of escape should I find myself trapped inside. I appeared just behind the guards, my head spinning from the sudden movement.

They hadn't noticed, their eyes resolutely scanning for threats in front of them. I pushed toward a sliver of light I could see further in, a flowery perfume causing my nose to twitch into a sneeze. I suppressed it, my eyes watering. I stayed hidden in the deep shadow, the path terminating in a natural cave full of oddities. A menagerie of magical artifacts and preserved monster corpses, many of which I could not even identify, filled the room in glass display cases.

The walls sparkled a rainbow of colors, lights refracting through various gemstones created a dream-like ambiance. A large four post bed was covered in furs and pillows against the far wall. Expensive patterned fabrics that shimmered like glass were draped from the ceiling and smokeless fires burned in braziers. The bedroom had a cozy and inviting atmosphere that made my eyelids feel heavier.

Vex sat in front of a huge desk against the opposite wall looking into a large mirror, his back to me, eyes of different colors floating in small jars littered the surface. A large volume was open on the desk in front of him, his head tilted down as if reading.

"I'd appreciate it if you'd breathe a little quieter, I'm trying to read." The changeling spoke, startling me nearly out of hiding. I glanced around the room searching for whomever he was speaking to but saw nobody.

"I do mean you, Ms. Thorne. Unless you're here to kill me I'd suggest you stop skulking in the dark like an alley cat." He turned to look directly at me, my stealth enchantments seemingly useless against his magical eyes which were now a deep green and glowing with an internal light. I took off the mask and released it into my inventory, stepping into the light.

"I've expected you for some time, but I know you've had a lot on your plate." He turned his back again and peered at me through the mirror.

"I've been following your career with some interest, Renard is an old friend of mine. Vargo dying at the end of your knife was a development I confess I did not anticipate, though I do love to be surprised. I suspected you'd end up here eventually given your lack of options." Finding out Renard had any friends at all was a bigger shock than realizing one of them was Vex.

"I'm flattered that you'd deign to take an interest in my fumbling attempts."

"You give yourself too little credit. Vargo was an odious character and had many enemies, none were brave enough to do what you did." Brave. The word sounded strange, like I was hearing it for the first time.

"Clumsily executed, perhaps, but then we all must start somewhere and a man like Vargo was no small feat for a first attempt."

"He nearly killed me," I confessed, the chaos of that night flashing through my mind.

"I've nearly died half a hundred times, yet here I sit." Vex said, smiling to himself as if enjoying a private joke, diamond teeth glittering in the shifting light.

"You seek my help, that much I can ascertain, but what is it that The Bandit Queen believes I can do for her?" I steadied myself, remembering the speech I'd prepared.

"As you surely already know, my organization has suffered a... significant setback." The changeling raised an eyebrow but I pushed past it.

"My father believes The Bandit Queen dead, a fiction I have allowed to root by ceasing all operations in and around Eastwatch."

"I would not be so quick to presume what your father believes." He casually painted a manicured fingernail which ended in a sharp point.

"The man is as shrewd and ruthless an operator as I've come across in my many years on this planet. You play a very dangerous game thinking you can betray him so brazenly while sitting at his left hand. Do not underestimate him."

"My tactics have been naive, I do not deny it, but that's why I'm here. I need experience and I need resources, but above all I need people I can trust. I've come to understand I cannot do these things on my own." I let my aura manipulations drop to display the raw anxiety underneath.

"I need your help."

"Yes, you clearly do. Though I don't think you'll like the form of it."

"I don't expect charity, I have useful information to trade." He appeared unmoved by that, an ominous sign.

"I fear that your information is not so useful as you think. Your father is backing the Stone-Sworn, a faction of religious fanatics who intend to overthrow the High Council in Kaz-Varr." How could he possibly know that?

"You think they seek an automation device that they will use to break the Ironhand monopoly on steel. If you knew what the thing inside that dungeon truly was, you would not be within a thousand miles of here." My throat closed up, palms sweating. I clawed back my composure, I had no choice but to see it through.

"The Stone-Sworn claim they possess a device that will allow it to function without risk," I said, straightening my spine.

"The Stone-Sworn claim many things of dubious veracity." He didn't even bother to conceal the disdain.

"They are primitives. They think that they can pray to it and it will give them the keys to the universe, but they will destroy themselves and half of this mountain in the attempt." Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. If that was true, that risk was existential to the Drift most all, yet Vex seemed completely unbothered.

"Then we must stop them, why do you not act? I have first hand knowledge of their activities, I can be useful to you."

"Who says I do not? You see the world operating at a scale that is confined by the limits of your shallow experience." He took a deep swallow of a thick liquid from a crystal glass.

"Nobles and mages playing at being kings and queens, their legacies defined by their capacity to enact their will on those weaker than themselves, but there are layers to this world you yet lack the capacity to understand. I cannot gift you that capacity, you must earn it."

"Why do you speak in riddles? Tell me what I should do. I cannot stop my father's invasion, it is too far along and I am one person."

"I shall speak plain then. You should do nothing. As you say, the wheels are in motion and it is far too late for you to stop them. If you wish to survive, flee. That is your best, perhaps only, hope." His face softened, translucent skin moving over crystals beneath the surface like muscles of rock.

"You should prepare yourself for what comes after. If you wish to help your people, do not waste yourself on a hopeless cause."

"After? After what?" I said, suppressing my exasperation, his plain speak no more intelligible than the rest.

"After... I don't know exactly." His face appeared suddenly very old, centuries of weariness flashing in a moment of deep reflection.

"There are pieces on the board that are hidden from my [Sight]. Great change is coming, of that I am certain, but the form it will take is still in flux. There are games afoot even beyond my ability to see them."

"You speak of the First Magi, it is their artifact at the heart of all this. What is it?" A question I knew it was blasphemous to even contemplate. The First Magi were mysterious for good reason, if they wanted us to know, they would tell us.

"Not so much a 'what' as a 'how' - it is but a tiny fraction of their power and yet it has the capacity to alter the foundations of our world." He sighed.

"There are things about the First Magi that are too heavy for a mind to know. Perhaps someday you will have the strength to lift them, but that day is not today." A part of me wanted to scream at him, to demand he stop treating me like the child I knew I was, but another part of me felt great relief to not be burdened with whatever it was he kept hidden.

"So you refuse to help me? You praise my courage and then tell me to scurry off with my tail between my legs?"

"Do not mistake a simple observation for praise, my dear. Courage, like anything, is a tool - its utility lies only in what it is used to accomplish. You have courage, yes, but you lack forbearance. You are impetuous, you seek to achieve things beyond your abilities and you lack the humility to realize it. Others have died because you do not know your limitations, why should I seek to send my own to die as well?"

"You're right," I said finally, throat clenched.

"But I can't give up. I won't. If I don't stand up to my father, who will? None have so far been willing, help me understand what I must do." He turned to look at me and I stood against his gaze feeling naked and exposed, but I refused to flinch. He reached into a drawer and withdrew a gold token, its ridges caught the light as if it had been recently polished.

"The value of this coin cannot be overstated." Vex said with a solemnity that made the hair stand up on my neck.

"It is a currency borne of trust and given to a very select few. Should you make it home, there is an elf in Kelna who may be able to give you what you need. Her name is Tarasynora, she knows more about your father and his tactics than anyone alive. Show her that coin, it will earn her attention, though I cannot guarantee it will earn her help - only you can do that." Should I make it home... it felt like a threat but I sensed no malice in his words.

"An elf?" I asked, stepping forward to take the coin.

"Your father was not always the Duke of Eastwatch, his sins go back far longer than you've been alive." Vex's otherwise unreadable aura suddenly showed a spike of red anger that he quickly suppressed.

"If you wish to learn of them, Tarasynora knows them well. You should be aware, however, that she may simply decide to kill you as your father did to her daughter - an eye for an eye as it were." More sins of my father I would be made to answer for. He held the coin steady as I grasped it, looking up at me with a startling intensity. His deep green eyes were exotic orbs that made me feel unsteady on my feet.

"You open this box and it cannot be closed again, your life will forever be defined by what you learn." He said, the light in his eyes swirling in dizzying fragments. I had no illusions about the kind of man my father was, whatever more there was to learn I was not afraid to know it.

"He killed my uncle, probably my mother too. He has turned my once kind brother into a twisted and vicious monster who revels in cruelty. There's no life for Isabella Thorne that has him in it, no peace for Eastwatch while he steers it toward destruction." He nodded and released his grip on the coin, accepting my resolve without protest.

"You should get back before your brother notices your absence." He turned once again to the mirror.

"My man will see you back to the city, can't have you falling prey to misadventure using outdated tunnel maps."

"Thank you." He nodded and I understood the conversation to be at an end. The trip back to the surface was much quicker than the descent had been, my escort taking me through a more direct route that emptied at a large vent just outside the slag pits that bordered the outskirts of the city's forge districts. I made my way back to our lodgings some four hours after I had left, slipping in through a back balcony that attached to my rather opulent room.

My bedroom door appeared undisturbed, the fine string I'd left across the threshold was unbroken. I quickly changed, adorning a nightgown and letting my hair down. The shared apartment was quiet, if Victor had returned he was being uncharacteristically reserved, but I wasn't about to find out. I laid in bed, the extended battle rush left me feeling suddenly exhausted. I ran the coin through my fingers, Vex's bedeviling eyes burned into my mind. Do nothing.

The door creaked open and I let the coin slip into my inventory.

"You awake, Bella?" Victor's voice was soft, a hint of that quiet boy laughing in the garden. Tears suddenly burned hot on my cheeks, a rush of deep longing catching me completely by surprise, a momentary slip back to a time when life was not so full of pain.

"Yes, Victor," I said quietly, keeping the emotion from touching my voice.

"Did things go well at the meet?"

"Well enough," he said, the floorboards creaking as he approached my bed.

"The timeline is moving up again." He sat on my bed. He was not wearing his armor, a loose-fitting untucked shirt falling down to his thighs.

"Father is impatient, he fears the unpredictability of the dungeon." My father was many things but impatient was not one of them, this must have been the plan all along.

"So what does that mean for us?"

"We will remain here and I will oversee operations from a distance to maintain deniability and step in only if needed." I chose not to question the lie, we both knew he'd never have the discipline to not get involved, a variable my father would have also planned for.

"You will spend your time doing whatever it is you do, gathering information and shopping I suppose."

"I see." He reached for my hand and I let him take it. He ran his thumb over my knuckles in that familiar show of unsettling affection.

"Do you ever miss mother?" The question was so unexpected I thought I'd misheard. Victor had not mentioned our mother in my presence since the day we buried her twelve years ago.

"Of course," I said truthfully.

"Why are you asking me that now?" He shook his head, letting my hand fall back to the bed.

"No reason in particular, I suppose." He stood up, a dark melancholy shifting behind his eyes.

"I'll let you sleep." I felt a maternal pull to reach out to him, to comfort the remnants of the gentle boy who yet lived inside the monster's shell, but I knew that was an illusion that would shatter my resolve. That boy was gone, glimpses of him were a torment but wishing for them served no purpose. The city's artificial lights had dimmed, the signal of night in a place with no sky. I let him go, the door closing with a finality I knew was a point of no return.

Soon my brother and I would find ourselves on opposite ends of the same battlefield once again.