Chương 32: 31 Madam Thornsong’s Legacy

Naomi, Ingred, and I hurried into the Sanctum of the Seal to find Bianca waiting for us in the front hall. She waved, blinking heavy eyes.

"Bianca," Naomi said.

"What's going on?"

"Bruk and Kerelev are waiting for us in the State Room," she said, jerking her head. Then she rubbed an eye.

"Is it normal to get new missions in the middle of the night?"

"No idea," Naomi said, shooting me a worried glance. My head was still pulsing, but the pressure had considerably subsided.

"It's not a good idea to keep Uncles waiting." We hurried down the corridor. Rather than ceremonial halberdiers, security officers carrying pistols and lanterns patrolled the halls, nodding to us as we passed. One of the State Room doors hung ajar, and we slipped inside.

"Welcome, Tony," Ourabora said in my mind as soon as I passed the threshold. I hesitated, tempted to ask her questions. Here in the sanctum, the system signal would be the strongest. I could communicate indefinitely without spending mana. Kerelev and Bruk stood at the head of the circular mosaic map of the World Archipelago. The map was awake but darkened by night. Floating tiles hung above the map, rising into mountain ranges and sinking into valleys across the eleven dark islands.

Clusters of shaded clouds drifted over glowing chips that simulated city lights. The whole display lived, every movement reflecting the World Archipelago in real time. My gaze was drawn to the scattered islet of Los Colmillos. Tiny luminous chips represented the pirate port. Next, I scanned Scorched Rock, quickly locating Obcity. At this scale, the obsidian tower's elevation didn't come through on the rendering, but I knew exactly where it would be.

Naomi led the way, circling around Jorg, the impossibly long serpent that ringed the world.

"Uncles," she said, coming to attention.

"I apologise, we're not in uniform." Kerelev waved dismissively. As always, the man's short swords rode in sheaths harnessed to his ribs, handles jutting forward. My eyes flickered to the thunder pistols in their holsters on his thighs, and I tried to swallow my envy.

"Sorry for the late call," he said, voice dry and flat. Bruk shifted, stroking his beard. I blinked. He wore a High Family suit. I didn't think I'd ever seen him out of full plate.

"Usually, we'd give you time to rest and recover," he said.

"But you're one of two teams handling the entire caseload of missions while everyone else focuses on other tasks." Other tasks. Puppetmaster. Prisoner's Retaliation. I glanced at the timer. <<Time to Seal Collapse: 04: 01: 05: 01: 01: 37>> My gaze went to the seal mosaic on the ceiling. The tile image depicted a man grappling with a dragon. An ouroboros snake, biting its own tail, locked the struggle in a ring. Three pillars—the man, the drake, and the serpent. My jaw tightened. Granduncle, the man, was dying.

The crack in the sky grew. The entire Cousin Corps was trying to stop the end of the world, and here we were, picking up the busywork.

"We're ready," Naomi said, her words much more professional than my thoughts. Bruk folded his arms.

"Tell me, what do you know about the Slavers' Guild?"

"Slavers' Guild?" My eyes darted to Kerelev.

"I thought it was destroyed. You brought it down, didn't you, Uncle Kerelev?" Kerelev nodded and waved a hand over the map. Hovering tiles depicting elevation lines and clouds lowered back into the floor. Chips flipped, rippling from the center and rendering a new image on the ground. The new image depicted a stern Derk Feykin woman, hands clasped before her. Her cool grey skin pulled tight around her lean face. Her emerald eyes narrowed, and her nose wrinkled in disgust.

Tiles flipped, animating the image so she seemed to breathe. Her head turned, eyes sweeping the room.

"Meet the old master of the Slavers' Guild," Kerelev said.

"Madam Thornsong. The Slavers' Guild used to be a massive inter-island enterprise. She supplied the Wake blood machine with bodies. Scorched Rock, Prime Rock, and Drake. No one moved in chains without her knowledge."

"She ran an orphan house in Paradise," I said, recalling that part of the story. Kerelev's head bobbed.

"She ran her guild here. Under our noses." He folded his arms.

"Her orphan house was her special project. She raised children without homes into specialized juvenile assassins. They were her enforcers. Life in her orphanage was—busy," he said, the weight of memory pressing into his words. He sighed.

"Granduncle caught wind of her operation, and an earlier generation of Inner Circle Aunts and Uncles besieged the Thornsong Home for Orphans. They didn't know how to respond to the death squad of children that answered."

"What'd they do?" Bianca asked, brows raised.

"What they had to," Kerelev said simply.

"Madam Thornsong's control over her pet children was—strong. But some of us found the will to resist. Unit KR-11 turned on her, killing her as she was cornered." He plucked his lapel, drawing it back to expose the brand on his chest. A primordial slave brand. I didn't read primordial, but I knew what it said.

"KR-11," I said.

"Kerelev." He nodded once, eyes empty.

"Since then I've seen to it that no slave machine could resurface in Paradise. The industry has split into independent cells across various islands, but it hasn't touched Home."

"We saw it in Scorched Rock," Ingred said knowingly.

"It's quite—bureaucratic there."

"That's right," Kerelev said.

"Lashmasters control forced laborers on Drake, and the Ophidian Empire holds the monopoly on Prime Rock."

"But something's changed?" Bianca said. Kerelev nodded.

"In the last month alone, I've rooted out three individual cells of slavers in Paradise. This new system is heavily compartmentalized. Lower echelons don't know the identities of who they work for. We can strike at the heads, but this new group is like a hydra." Bruk planted his hands on his hips, stance wide.

"You're going to root out its leaders and end this new guild from the inside." The air rushed from my lungs. This suddenly didn't feel like busywork.

"I'll tell you this up front," Kerelev said.

"Your average party level is much lower than what we'd usually assign to this type of quest. It's going to be extremely dangerous. We simply can't afford to spare anyone else."

"We can do it," I said, righteous wrath hardening my resolve.

"For slavers, we'll make do."

"Infiltrate from the inside?" Bianca asked.

"What does that mean?"

"We're going to be slaves," Naomi said.

"Injected into the machine like a virus."

"Some of you will be slaves," Bruk clarified.

"Splitting a party is a tactic usually reserved for stronger parties, but we want to approach this from all angles. Captain Myrkrath, you're going to be a wealthy buyer, new to the market." Naomi's eyes went wide.

"You want me to buy slaves?"

"This is going to challenge who you are fundamentally," Kerelev warned.

"Cover work will take you to dark places. Wearing this kind of mask—it comes with a cost." She swallowed.

"Who's going with her?" I asked. Her recent confession about the whispers pressed into my mind. I needed to watch her closely.

"I can be her attendant or something."

"Actually, we have a different role for you," Kerelev said.

"We weren't joking when we said we were tackling this from every angle. You're going to be the competition. An ambitious young slaver encroaching on the territory of the greater network." If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"I'm what?" My mouth went dry. I could kick in doors, strike chains from wrists, and crack the heads of scum. But play the part of a trafficker?

"Three angles," Kerelev said, watching me carefully.

"Your mission is to find the heart. Once you get there, send a message to Aunt Springweather. She can locate any cousin in the High Family."

"So long as you can see the sky," Bruk stipulated.

"Your location will be blocked if you're locked away or underground. Find the leader, get under the sky, send a mission. We'll come personally and clean up." Kerelev's gaze never left me.

"While you're under, you'll be tempted to do the right thing." His hands folded together.

"You'll have the opportunity to save innocent people, to show mercy. This is a natural display of your character. It's because you are good." His hands tipped down.

"You've got to find that part of yourself and bury it deep. Do not jeopardise the mission to do the right thing. That decision is going to cost you. This is the price we pay for the greater good." My fingers tingled. Could I don that mask? How did one assume the role of everything he stood against? And when it was all over, how difficult would removing the facade be?

"Finding and dismantling the guild is your second priority," Bruk said. My head tilted.

"Second priority? What could possibly be more important?"

"Our reports indicate that there's a substantial uptake in demand for slaves," Kerelev said.

"We need to know why and where they're going." His eyes flickered to me.

"We've also heard this movement is Wake-sponsored. One of our spies overheard Puppetmaster himself issue the command to place a bulk order with the guild." Puppetmaster. I felt his scaled claw on my wrist, and my fingers drifted to the spot where he'd grabbed me all of those years ago. Could this bring us face to face with Puppetmaster? My jaw tightened as my throat worked soundlessly.

"Good," I rasped.

"But, how?" Ingred asked.

"How are we embedding ourselves? How do we make first contact?"

"You'll all be responsible for figuring out your exact approach on your own," Bruk said.

"We have a middle manager in custody. That's our only lead." We went silent, exchanging hesitant glances.

"Any questions?" Bruk asked. No one spoke up.

"Get some rest," Kerelev said.

"We'll expect your plan by noon tomorrow." I glanced at the others. Ingred gripped the back of her hand, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Naomi's lips pressed into a tight line, and Bianca struggled to keep her eyelids open.

"Dismissed," Bruk said.

"Tony, we have some questions for you. Naomi, you can stay." Ingred shot me a look, hesitating before following Bianca out. Bruk waited for them to close the door behind them.

"We got your reports on Scorched Rock movements, and Naomi sent a message about this new Titan."

"The Brass Turtle," I said. Kerelev nodded.

"You discovered one of eight documented wrecks so far. As far as we know, you're the only ones who have picked up a survivor." Barkley. My hand tightened at my side. In retrospect, maybe we should have dragged him back to Paradise.

"Your report about automatons abducting gnomes is particularly insightful," Bruk said.

"We've determined that this Titan is likely a construct, though what it wants with gnomes we have no idea."

"Did your survivor seem to imply the gnomes were being hunted, or saved?" Kerelev asked.

"Hard to say," I shrugged.

"I was eavesdropping. Neither. Collected, perhaps?" The Uncles shared a knowing glance.

"Can't you find it on the map?" Naomi asked.

"Ourabora's always watching, right?"

"She's given us two glimpses of the turtle as it attacked," Kerelev said.

"It's big enough to divide a ship-of-the-line between its foreclaws." I swallowed. A construct of that scale? It made the Under Chassis of the Boneyard feel like a wind-up toy.

"Keep your ear out," Kerelev instructed.

"This thing dives deep when it submerges. That makes tracking it difficult." We nodded in agreement.

"You can go," Bruk said, waving us away.

"Good work with the Orange Steel." I stepped back, but Naomi remained rooted in place. I twisted back to watch her. What was this? Was she going to come clean about the whispers?

"Do the other Cousins know Granduncle's dying?" Kerelev looked at her, impassive. Bruk's suit rustled as he shifted.

"Flavia," he growled.

"Your mother should learn to hold her tongue about Inner Circle secrets." I turned back, face heating.

"Aunt Myrkrath didn't tell us," I said.

"An Efreet in Obcity did."

"What happens if this seal is destroyed?" Naomi pressed.

"How is Granduncle tied to the crack in the sky?"

"That's privileged information," Kerelev said, voice flat.

"You won't go spreading this across the High Family."

"Naomi," Ourabora's voice filled the room.

"Granduncle is one of the three pillars that sustain this world. Without him, our reality folds in on itself." Bruk swore.

"Sanctum shut down!" The mosaic image of Madam Thornsong flipped, tiles rippling to reveal an inert, flat depiction of the World Archipelago. The Dwarf stomped up to Naomi, jabbing a finger up.

"You won't speak about this to anyone. This is confidential at the highest level. Do you understand?"

"I do understand," Naomi said, staring down her nose at the finger without flinching.

"You don't want the masses knowing the world is ending. That mass hysteria will only make our job harder." Her gaze shifted to Kerelev.

"But we're the ones trying to save it. Don't keep us in the dark." My eyes went as wide as tea saucers. Bruk terrified me; ever since my father had almost killed him, the tyrant Paladin had been watching me carefully as if I were a juvenile beaked sea snake with underdeveloped venom glands but the potential to grow into something truly dangerous.

"Granduncle's death would also kill Ourabora," Kerelev said.

"It would end the system." Bruk whirled on the much taller man.

"Kerelev, I swear."

"She's right," Kerelev shrugged.

"If she doesn't have a need-to-know, I don't know who does. If anything, this will move them with greater urgency."

"So the system ends," Naomi said.

"What about the sky?"

"No idea," Kerelev admitted.

"Strong hypothesis—the world ends. Couldn't tell you why. All I know is we need all three pillars. Granduncle, Krathic-Thar, and Jorg. Without any one of them, there's no system. No system—no World Archipelago." She bit her lip, nodding.

"And can Granduncle really pass the mantle? Find a successor while preserving the seal?" Bruk swore again.

"What else did your mother tell you?" Kerelev contemplated his answer for a moment.

"If we can't recover Prisoner's Retaliation in time, he's going to try."

"We're going to get the artifact," I said, voice louder than I intended.

"If no one else in the High Family can, I will." I met Bruk's eye.

"Before the timer runs out. If you haven't succeeded, I swear I'm going to kill Puppetmaster."

"Alright, ladies, listen here!" Bebi said, planting his fists on his hips. He glanced at Bianca and Ingred.

"I'm going to teach you all how to be a slave!" He shifted his gaze to Naomi and me.

"Or an ash ass." We stood in a High Family gymnasium. The Coredwarf had spent the better part of twenty minutes ogling the strength equipment, the training targets, and the weapons racked on the wall. Wonder processed; now he was in charge.

"I'm going to warn ya. If you've never worn shackles and served a master, ya're going to stand out. Listen closely and just maybe, ya might not stick out like an ice cube in a furnace." Solen watched a little further back, only giving the lecture half of his attention as he filled out logs. His family had departed for Terra Slab early in the morning, Ignis begrudgingly giving his blessing to let his son serve as our purser.

"Lesson one," Bebi said.

"A slave is not helpful." My brow raised.

"Surprised? Isn't that a slave's entire purpose: to help? Nar. Ya'r purpose is to follow orders. Ya do not offer insight, ya do not explain ya'rself, or offer clarification unless asked." He jabbed his temple.

"Offering context shows ya're thinking, and a slave that thinks hasn't earned his stripes yet." The Coredwarf's shirt slid off in a smooth motion, revealing chiseled muscle on ashgrey marbled skin. He turned, exposing a latticework of scars across his back and sides.

"Of course, too many marks like this are also a red flag. Signals insolence, rebellion. Basically, if ya knar what's good for ya, keep ya gob shut." Bianca and Ingred nodded, following closely.

"Lesson two! Watch'er eyes. They'll betray ya. Don't look for escapes, or watch people. Lecha gaze linger on a moment and yer done. Glazed eyes are best, unfocused and down. The moment yer eyes sharpen, or ya kindle a flame in yer peepers, it's over." He scanned each of us, making sure we were following.

"Here's one that'll all rookies bugger up. Pain is expected, not anticipated." He pitched his voice into a sarcastic soprano.

"But Bebi, Expectation and anticipation are the same thing."

"No, they're bloody not!" He dropped back into his drawl to answer his own objection.

"Ya flinch after the lash lands, not before. Free men brace for pain. Slaves deal with it as it comes." Ingred cleared her throat and tugged at her collar.

"What questions do ya have?" he asked, looking at Bianca and Ingred. They exchanged a glance and shook their heads.

"For the love of all that's hot, don't negotiate or plead. Ya won't kindle mercy, ye'll stoke cruelty." He pivoted towards me.

"This goes for ya too, slaver boy. Ya don't explain yerself. Ya don't justify. Orders are transactional, not personal. Yer a master." My breakfast soured in my stomach, and my hands tightened on the bench.

"Don't like that, eh? Well, yer going to have to swallow that one. Kind masters can exist; they'd draw attention, but they're out there. Kind slavers on the other hand—" He shook his head.

"Yer a businessman dealing with livestock." He glanced at Naomi.

"Masters don't talk to their possessions. They don't ask about where they came from, and they don't question their suffering. Ya care about delivery numbers and price." He jabbed a finger.

"The greatest danger out there isn't yer business partners. It's an unbroken slave with an opportunity. Show no weakness, or the very people yer trying to save will turn on ya." His gaze swept his captive audience.

"Yer Peradisians. This'll cost ya a piece of yer soul. Lock that away, ya can pay the price later. For now, yer monsters." My mind flashed back to Los Colmillos, Nahla's lips on my brow. She had called me a monster. My finger ached against the wood, and I forced my hands to relax.

"Thank you, Bebi," Naomi said with a nod.

"We'll apply your advice." The Coredwarf snorted.

"This isn't a switch ya turn on after a lesson. Ya need reps." His arms folded over his hairy chest.

"So we're going to practice. Lots and lots of practice." <<Time to Seal Collapse: 04: 01: 04: 10: 54: 32>>