Clodhna hums with activity, officers hustling between rooms, carrying folders stuffed with reports. A young man in fatigues follows behind a woman wearing the official uniform, finger held to her ear to engage the tiny comm device. She nods twice then hands the young man a map and points to a spot, shoos him toward the door. Disc-shaped droids skitter between everyone’s feet, polishing the white marble floors. It’s busier than usual, though I don’t know if they’re figuring a reaction to Forgall’s death, planning their own offensive, or preparing for a possible coup. That kind of planning was already above my paygrade, and even farther away now.
This building could turn a sneeze into an avalanche of tanks, but even with all this movement the place is pretty damn quiet. A while back, Morrigan redid the offices with some kind of soundproofing material. One of the guards tried to explain it to me, something about the cells being specially engineered so that the hollow construction would attract sound waves and destroy them, but my eyes glazed over after the third five-syllable word. It kills almost all sound and is only available for Tathadann elite, is what I took away from it.
The woman sitting at the front desk scans the escort’s badge. Her blonde hair is pulled up in a tight bun and held with hair pins that could double as field surgery tools. Four orchids sit on the edge of her desk, each of them as unnaturally white as the houses that fill Donnculan. With a quick glance I clock at least half a dozen security cameras in the entranceway and outside the door looking out over the lush gardens, covering every vantage point. The secretary taps her pencil against her cheek and raises her eyebrows twice at the escort, a gesture that makes him quickly check out the marble beneath his feet and clear his throat.
“This way,” he tells me when his credentials clear. She does not seem the least bit discouraged by his lack of a response.
Floor-to-ceiling mirrors hang every fifteen feet in the hallway, a pair of ravens that look carved from onyx sitting on each of them. A stream of officers marches down the hallway in front of us, headed for the large conference room at the end. The escort stays two steps in front of me the entire time, his demeanor changing quickly if I fall behind. I’m surprised he’d turn his back on me, given that I promised to turn him inside out earlier this morning. In my defense, the hangover has worn off some.
We come to a door halfway down. He clears his throat, telling me I should proceed. I step inside and my feet are silent on the thick carpet. He closes the door and the commotion from the hallway hushes, the blood in my ears the only sound. An ornately carved desk sits in front of the window and it’s about as big as my car. In the corner stands a full suit of antique knight’s armor. An assortment of animal heads rings the upper wall of the office, half of which I’ve never even seen before. I’d assume they were Commander Morrigan’s, as he seems like the type of guy to sneak up behind an unsuspecting animal and blow its head off, but I could easily see Lady Morrigan doing it.
For all the modern advances the Tathadann has implemented in the nice parts of Eitan City, this office itself is very traditional. No holograms, no automatons, no voice controls.
The door opens and I expect to see Morrigan but instead Greig walks in, his hair carefully combed.
“You’re not the asshole I expected to see,” I say.
“She calls, I answer,” he says.
“You’re a great lapdog, ain’t you?” As he comes closer I notice blood splattered on his shoes, nod at them. “What happened?”
He lowers himself into a chair and sighs. “Don’t you worry about it, Walleus.” The self-assured smirk makes me want to stick my hand down his throat and pull his balls out through his mouth. “You know, I was looking around for that authorization. Couldn’t find it anywhere.”
“You were at the Gallery this morning?” I say. He nods. “Then aren’t you supposed to be in Fomora?”
He cocks his head, and I can’t tell if he’s confused because the plebe never delivered the order – in which case I need to beat the hell out of him when I get back – or seeing if I’ll call him out on his defiance.
“I think it’s a little late for Forgall Tobeigh to save himself, but Belousz? You?” He clears his throat and rolls his shoulders.
How does he know about Forgall? Was he creeping around the edges of the Gallery, gathering? Apparently he doesn’t know about Henraek and Belousz, which is a strange advantage to have. My legs are drained from a lack of sleep and excess of alcohol but there are only two chairs by her desk, and Greig occupies one, so I stand and stare out the window at the hedges shaped into surrealist animals or something. They remind me of a black and white movie Liella dragged me and Henraek and Aífe to go see. Something about memory or impermanence. I guess it’s kind of ironic that I don’t remember anything about it.
Ten silent minutes pass before the door opens again, Morrigan entering this time wearing a raven-feather headdress that I’ve never seen before, as well as some crushed velvet thing that makes her look like the madam of a vampire bordello.
She’s not welcoming like a madam, though, ordering me to sit without even a greeting. Standing behind the desk, she leans toward me, and the resemblance to a vulture over carrion is intense.
“What did you gather at the funeral?” she says.
“There were some flare-ups, but we handled it–”
“What about Henraek?” she says.
“What about him?”
“Doctor Mebeth reported you two scuffled at the Gallery. And now there are reports that he is tied to the bombing plot.” She stares straight through me. “These two are not related?”
“Last I’d heard, it was Emeríann Daele and Forgall Tobeigh.” I resist the urge to acknowledge Greig beside me, or bash his skull with the heavy lamp sitting on her desk. “Still, I can assure you that you’ve received inaccurate information. Need I remind you of the ice cream incident?”
“It’s early still for jokes, Walleus. If you’re positive, you need to make sure he’s aware of how this looks and what will happen if he continues to operate this way. Now that Greig has dispatched with that vile rebel Forgall Tobeigh–”
“Whoa, hold on.” I sit upright. “Greig said he took out Tobeigh?” I look from Morrigan’s blank face to Greig’s smug smile.
“Is this a surprise to you?”
I’ve wanted to bury this bastard. And now I know how.
“Only because it was so easy for Greig to take Tobeigh out, since Greig has so little field training.” I motion for her to continue.
“Given that there is the potential for another uprising, we will disseminate a story that he was killed by one of his own because he had been secretly relaying information to the Tathadann, but we expect a reaction to his death regardless. The rebels have already threatened to disrupt Macuil’s dedication ceremony and I need not tell you what will happen if they do.”
I clear my throat, compose myself. Actually, I won’t bury him. I’ll let him hang himself. “Can I ask what proof you have of Henraek in this? Do you have any photos linking them?” Greig starts to speak but I talk over him. “Because I find it interesting that Greig could have such sensitive information about this bombing, especially given that the men who are supposedly the architects – Henraek and Tobeigh – were highly trained rebels who thrived on secrecy.”
Her head tips slightly to the side. She’s listening.
“So if this information is as reliable as you say it is – and I’m still on the record as saying it’s useless at best and contrived at worst – then I would reckon it could only be gathered by someone close, someone who has intimate access to the architects.” Finally, I look over to Greig. He clasps his hands, then repositions them, crossing and uncrossing his leg. He is so ready to tear into me.
“Intimate is one way to describe it.” He reaches into his jacket and produces a grip of photos, dropping them on Morrigan’s desk. “This is a complete broach in protocol and amounts to treason. Belousz and his superior,” he says, looking at me, “should both be brought before a tribunal.”
She snatches the photos from the desk and examines them. Her nostrils curl up, like he’s handed her a carcass left out in the sun. She regards me with a sideways glance, holds them up for me to see as well. I close my eyes and press my thumb and forefinger against the lids, as if this is the hardest thing for me to accept. I feel a tear well beneath the skin and it takes me by surprise.
“It’s true, ma’am, Belousz was with Forgall Tobeigh. Quite frequently, and for the last two weeks.”
“I wouldn’t begin to tell you how to govern, Lady Morrigan,” Greig says, “but I doubt the people would balk at a decree for these two to be stripped. Especially given that this has been going on for two weeks, and so close to the anniversary.”
“Two weeks, Walleus?” she says.
“Two weeks, ma’am.” I steeple my fingers, clear my throat, and blink a few times. Don’t break, Walleus. Don’t you dare break. “In my experience – and, Greig, that includes six years under the purview of Lady Morrigan and another ten before I saw the light – it’s incredibly difficult to gain the confidence of a source quickly without them suspecting you and providing whitewashed intel, rendering the entire operation useless.”
Greig’s face pales.
“Source?” they both say.
“Yes. Source.” I blot my forehead with a handkerchief. “I took your advice to heart, ma’am, and decided that instead of relying solely on Henraek to infiltrate the rebel cells, I would recruit Belousz to go deep cover. Which he did,” I gesture to the photos, “until Greig went and ruined that.”
“Why wasn’t I notified?” she says.
“It was a quick operation and, obviously, required a high level of secrecy and trust. Young Greig here, ambitious as he is, has shown he can’t play well with others. And I sure as hell don’t trust him. For all I know, he took out Tobeigh because he is the leak and he’s protecting himself.” I clear my throat. “I made an executive decision for the safety of my team to keep this one close to the chest. I apologize for leaving you in the dark.”
The room hums with silence, all the commotion outside not more than a whisper.
She holds up the photo of Henraek and Emeríann. “What of this one? Is this another operation you’ve yet to tell me of?”
“I told you he could do it, we just needed some time. Judging from the size and shape, I’d wager that’s a liquor cabinet, given they’re headed into a bar.”
Greig speaks up. “That’s now two rebel sympathizers Walleus is tied to.”
“No,” she says, her voice so sharp I can nearly hear the air part in front of me. “You killed one of them. The other is useless without Tobeigh.”
He bows his head, like he’s actually deferring to her. “My apologies, Lady Morrigan. I was acting in the best interest of the Tathadann and Eitan. If everything were running above board, as I run my operations–”
“You have no operations, son,” I say. “I give you tasks.”
He purses his lips. “If we were all notified, this source would still be active. However, it was a well-intentioned operation and one that could have been used to obtain a large amount of intelligence on the rebels. Despite our difference in opinions, Protectorate Blaí is a good leader and I have learned a lot from him. I have become very good at my job under his supervision.” He pauses, maybe for dramatics or to let me crap my pants in surprise at getting a compliment from him, in front of her no less. “Which is how, in addition to uncovering Belousz, I recently gathered information that none other than Daghda Morrigan plans on returning to Eitan City.”
Morrigan’s eyes ricochet to mine. I let her stew for a couple breaths. The noose is set around his neck. Now I make the floor disappear and hope like hell this memory can be verified.
“It’s an amazing feat, I’ll give it to him. He probably would’ve come back early for his nephew’s funeral today too.” I nod at Greig, whose apparent confusion leads me to believe he didn’t know Daghda and Forgall were kin. “Except Daghda died five years ago.”
Greig’s face goes completely white. Morrigan’s is stone blank.
I pull the viewer out of my jacket and set it in front of her, then hit play. “We found this memory on the network.”
It’s subtle, but her expression does change. At first it’s something like spite or revulsion, but as she lowers herself into her chair, it softens into a sadness that’s been battened down beneath years of anger and bitterness. The moment makes her uncomfortably human.
“I’d reckon that I could identify the reason for all this miscommunication,” I say to Morrigan. “It would be a lack of focus, from having one eye on my seat and the other on my back, looking for somewhere to rest a knife.”
“This is in fact the problem,” she says, still looking at the screen. “You can’t have your men’s eyes going in two different directions. It’s impossible.”
“It’s a figure of speech.”
“It’s attention to detail, and the lack of it here.” She sets the viewer down and pushes it back to me, then leans back and assesses us like cattle. “Greig, you will be accompanied on all operations by a senior field scout of my choosing and submit extra logs with all observations verified by that scout. Walleus, you will clear everything – and I mean everything – with me first. There will be no dark operations. I will see to it that someone else investigates these rumors of Daghda.”
“Ma’am,” I say, “you saw that he’s dead.”
“This cannot be altered memory, or hallucination from too much Paradise? Have you seen his body?” Her expression is blank but I can see the anger roiling behind that purple-tinted skin. “Attention to detail, Walleus. I will make one of you an example. It’s up to you to decide who it is.”
I swallow hard, nod.
“And if no one decides, I’ll kill you all and start over,” she says. “Have Belousz report immediately for a debriefing. I want to know everything he learned from Tobeigh about the attack.” She turns away, ending the discussion.
“Thank you for your time,” Greig says, giving a slight bow before pushing his chair toward the desk.
Blood crashes against the inside of my face. I wait for him to start toward the door before I move, making sure he can’t snake his way further into her graces.
She calls my name before I reach the door. “You’ve been a loyal asset to the Tathadann for many years,” she says. “Both I and the Promhael recognize that.”
“Thank you. I’m glad–”
“But that won’t save you from the firing squad if you don’t resolve this immediately.”
I nod. “I know.”
I push the door open and see four of myself in the hallway mirrors. As I walk toward the exit they disappear; I wonder if it’s a trick of perspective or a suggestion.
Greig stands before one mirror, smoothing back his hair in a compulsive way, like he’s willing his pulse back to normal. I stand behind him, watching the reflection of his hand go over the same spot repeatedly.
“I’ve got a hangover, so I’ll give you this one,” I say. “Next time you go over my head, I’ll shoot off your kneecaps so you can’t reach so high.”
“Walleus, you ever think I’m not reaching higher, but you’re sinking lower? Oh wait, maybe I am rising. After all, I’m the one who took out the legendary Forgall Tobeigh, right?” He smooths back the same piece of hair. “I’m going to bury you.”
“I would love to see you try.”
“You think you’re so smart, don’t you, old man? Undercover operations? Insinuating that I’m working with the rebels? We both know you’re a rat. You’ve always been one,” he says.
“And you’ve always been a spoiled shit who lives off his father’s heroics.”
“Your kind is a relic,” Greig says. “You don’t have the constitution for this anymore. It’s only a matter of time before you expire, so you should do the honorable thing and step aside before someone really gets hurt. This is our war now.”
Then he lets loose with a smile, adjusting his collar and smoothing the front of his shirt, and in his teeth I see the tombstones of all the men I fought with, men with conviction and spirit and more balls than this little snake who has found his way into my yard. His smile grows, knowing he has my goat.
I slam his face against the mirror. Spiderweb cracks spread, a smear of blood tinting the hundred shards of my reflection. He falls to a knee, cupping his nose.
For some reason, I don’t kick him. Instead, I continue toward the entranceway.
“I warned you,” he shouts behind me.
I leave the droids to clean up his blood.