Chương 177: Book 3 Chapter 35: A Cautious Man

++Other beings have begun to move. I remain distant from them for now, uncertain about what exactly it is that I deal with. They are distant creatures from far-away lands, older than me, I think, and frightfully powerful. I can see them over the horizon, such is their magic. I will engage only if necessary. They make me cautious, these self-styled 'Gods'. ++ - Fragment of Lord Dread's archives, date indeterminate.

The Duke had not changed very much in the few years since I had seen him, though my own physical transformation gave the illusion of several inches less height and a good deal more respect behind his eyes. He did not smile as I entered this time, did not seem to concern himself with keeping me relaxed and calm at all. This was an extraordinary relief compared to the gentle handling of last time, and how much slower it had made every facet of our negotiations.

"Good evening," I told him as I took a seat. He nodded in acknowledgement.

"It's been a while," he noted.

"Things have changed since I last came to see you, you have been following my progress I assume?" He smiled at that.

"I have been. It's uh…interesting. Going from salvaging the great Estalian Disaster to heading your own oil refinery isn't a change of careers most people would've predicted from you."

"I grew tired of being shot at all the time," I replied, somewhat honestly.

"And I imagine it had nothing to do with the reputation for war heroics your brother enjoyed being useful in getting started," he said dryly.

"One does wonder how many meetings you would've been turned down for if you and him hadn't distinguished yourselves so thoroughly in Orapathaqi." I was quite pleased to see him understand the core of things so well.

"You see how my situation has been growing then," I ventured.

"I do," he replied evenly.

"Though I hope you don't think it's enough to make me commit to a marriage three years earlier than I specifically told you I would be comfortable with." There was an edge to his voice, clearly braced for just that conversation.

"It is not about whether you want to, and more about your narrowing choices," I said frankly.

"I am based in Poloira currently, and I would imagine a great degree of money is being moved around to keep this from getting out, but the Voret family are directing foreign mercenaries at my refinery in the hopes of forcing it to close." His face fell instantly.

"What are you asking of me?" Wolsingham said evenly.

"I am telling you that if you do not marry me soon, you may lose the chance to do so ever again." Pushing him into a decision through time would, I hoped, let me force things to accelerate between us, without needing to leave him bitter at blaming me. And there was a look of consternation on his face, though it did not turn into the helpless agreement I had hoped for.

"You don't seem to understand how the Vorets' involvement changes this," he said slowly.

"If they're moving against you directly, even in Poloira outside of the Empire, then for me to do the same against them would be a declaration of war."

"But if I marry you, then their attack on me will be an attack on you," I told him.

"And they will know that I foiled them," he shook his head.

"You're asking me to foster animosity with the most powerful magician family in Garamon. I'm sorry, but you're just not worth that sort of trouble for my family."

"Nobody will declare war on you just for marrying me," I snapped. He hesitated.

"True. But then, I haven't decided that I want to marry you yet, either. How are you handling affairs with the Vorets exactly? Running to me for help? One of the things that struck me about you early on was your mind and judgement, but you don't seem to be getting much use out of either now."

"I am in an impossible situation," I snapped.

"No, you're not," he countered.

"You've put yourself in a difficult one because you didn't stop and think about what sort of attention you attracted with your very existence. If you'd bothered to consider how the Vorets might respond at the sight of you suddenly looking to be financially secure in your own right, then you may have known better than to invite this sort of problem."

"They would have responded no differently to anything I did," I snapped.

"In Garamon, they would not have been able to respond as they are now. But then, in Garamon, you wouldn't have had the independence, so I suppose it's more of a principle choice than a mistake on your part. Either way, you're seeing the results now." This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

There was something about the totally disconnected way he was speaking, like he was just explaining the cause and effect without caring one way or another about it, that calmed me. I was getting emotionally involved and frustrated, and if nothing else that was clouding my judgement and slowing my wits.

"You are trying to tell me that this kind of trouble is not worth having the most talented warriors in history as your children?" He eyed me evenly.

"Assuming you even produced those, no, it would not be. Now that the Vorets have invested so much, any insult from me being seen to plunder you out from under their noses would be increased tenfold. A hundredfold. There are less complicated ways I can expand my family's power." That was what it came down to in the end. My talent was unprecedented, and my family was in a better financial position than we had enjoyed ten years ago, but Garamon was wide and the Worfrey family had countless other options.

If the Duke wanted, he could marry some millionaire's daughter tomorrow. The custom of husbands paying the bride's family, after all, did not apply to those outside of warrior or magician families.

"So I am on my own then," I said at last. My lip trembled, my eyes started to water. I let out a sob, then hastily forced it back.

"Oh stop that," the Duke snapped.

"I'm not stupid enough to believe those are real tears, now you're just insulting my intelligence and embarrassing yourself." I stopped the tears and glared at him, my arsenal now fully exhausted.

"Fine then." He looked away from me for a moment, sighing.

"You have my sympathies, for what it's worth. You just don't have my help. Really, I can't imagine what possessed you to get into this situation in the first place. Do you have no basic caution for those more powerful than you?" It was a shame he would likely never know why what he had just said was so funny.

"Thank you for your time then," I forced myself to say evenly as I stood. There was no point in burning any bridges with unrequired rudeness, if I did manage to get my way free of this latest predicament I still rather liked the idea of keeping open an option to marry this man. With a few particular details added to the contract, of course. I was halfway to the door when his voice held me back a moment.

"Ah yes, the Vorets seem to have been calling in a few favors here regarding their friends overseas. Not that it's any business of mine of course, but I thought you might be interested. Whatever they plan on sending your way, it's going to be big and fast and it's going to hit hard, you understand?" An army, then. They were preparing to strike at me with an army. My five hundred mercenaries did not feel nearly so significant in the light of that news.

"Thank you," I replied.

"Oh, don't thank me," he waved.

"Really, don't. If word gets out that I'm where you got the warning from, the marriage is off no matter what." I nodded to him, showing myself out. It was raining by the time I emerged, the sky weeping thick, heavy drops that struck with a tangible force where they found my skin. I lingered in it for a moment, letting the sensation wash over me as I considered my next move. The Duke had been right about one thing, I had antagonized something far more powerful than me. Was this a wakeup call?

Was my pride, finally, going to be the death of me? Was I reaping what I had spent more than ten thousand years sewing? No, that was stupid. This was just another obstacle on my road to kill all Gods and rule the universe. I could hardly hope to control the cosmos if a single magician family would be my undoing. I took off into the air and started powering on through it, pondering my next move. An army was coming to my refinery.

That was, obviously, not ideal, but it also meant that the Vorets were taking heavy precautions to leave all ties to themselves hidden in this affair. There would be Vorets present in the force, they could not hope to win without them, which meant that they had some means of going un-observed by any potential witnesses for a wide radius around the refinery. Simple geography would help with that too, the place was very remote. But this cut both ways.

My enemies had me isolated and cut off, which meant that I had very few limits to what I could unleash against them. The major one was being seen to send out undead, if the Vorets simply reported seeing that then all illegality on their part would be dismissed, my refinery searched and my execution imminent. Garamon did not tolerate undead for any reason. But this still left me with a great many options as I flew through the air and headed for the place I would make my last stand.

Mass producing enchantments for the common mercenaries seemed like a good start, I could do that with Lord Dread's power. It may lead to suspicion of my leyline business, but the way I could use Lord Dread's vessel was so specific and unique that I doubted anyone in Garamon would piece together the truth just from me churning out an odd number of enchantments. What else? Hm, I had found it striking how far artillery had come in the modern age.

The cannons of today eclipsed the power of the ballistae of the ancient world by several orders of magnitude. But they were still, ultimately, mundane objects. Could I do better than that with magic? My journey was no shorter than the others, in total terms, but it felt a thousand times smaller simply because I had so much to consider as I made it, my mind moving even faster than my supersonic body as I tore through the air. What was it Blakely always ranted about, a 'secure perimeter'?

I had done my fair share of booby-trapping over the millennia, naturally. It comes with the territory of waging war on the Gods. That would help too. Yes, the more I thought about it, the more I accepted this upcoming conflict, the more I found myself relishing the idea. What better chance would there be to test out all the new ideas I had bubbling around inside my head? And then there was the other factor, the way it would all be remembered afterwards.

I could think of few ways better to cultivate a reputation that others did not trifle with than by inflicting the most vicious retaliation against Garamon's most powerful magician family that I could. The Vorets would remember it for years, even generations to come. And that was good.