Book II. Chapter 102 - The Congress (Part 12)

Chapter 102

Ardan roused himself and shifted his gaze from the Knight-Warrior to the ambassador—a woman of about forty-five, perhaps a little older. She wasn’t hiding her gray hair beneath dye, nor concealing the wrinkles marring her dry, sagging skin beneath creams and cosmetics. Only the bright red lipstick on her lips and the thin mascara on her lashes, together with her femininely cunning, perceptive gaze, hinted at the fact that, twenty to thirty years ago, the ambassador of Selkado had not lacked for male attention.

The absence of a ring on her finger (in most countries of the world, except for Lan’Duo’Ha and Kargaam, which did not follow the religion of the Face of Light, the wedding symbols that had originated from the Church of Light were worn) suggested that she hadn’t managed to both serve her country and have a family. She also didn’t have the scent of a mother. Thanks to his dealings with Elena, his own mother, Agatha Spree, the wives of his Second Chancery colleagues, and dozens of other women Ardan had encountered, he realized that he could now distinguish a mother by her scent.

And no, this wasn’t about the inherent fatigue, the softness around the middle, the detachment of their gaze, the understanding smiles, or anything of that sort. Mothers genuinely smelled different. Ardi couldn’t describe exactly how, but they did. And it was precisely this scent that had allowed the forest hunters, back before the Hungry Nights had come, to avoid hunting mothers.

She was tall enough to appear aristocratically statuesque, but not so much as to be excessively imposing. The woman extended her hand and laid it lightly on the Knight-Warrior’s elbow. They were perhaps one of the most striking pairs Ardan had ever seen.

Walking along the path cleared of snow, she and her retinue approached Captain Ponskih.

“Did we make a mistake with the schedule, Mr... Beaver?” Her voice sounded like a thin sheet of metal vibrating in the wind. It had a light accent that drew the vowels out too far. Unlike Galessian, which was built on “growling” consonants, the Selkado language had formed itself around vowels, which, in turn, had produced a paradox: songs in Galessian sounded far more melodic than those in Selkadian. “We were scheduled for noon, but I do not see the Prime Minister.”

Captain Ponskih, pointedly ignoring the Knight-Warrior, pushed aside the edge of his fur coat and consulted his watch.

“It is already half past twelve, Madam Ambassador,” the captain replied. “The Prime Minister’s schedule is rather full, so you will need to wait until a window opens.”

The corners of the ambassador’s lips twitched in a very slight, but oh-so-sharp smile. Ardi felt like he might cut his eyes on it.

“I do apologize for our lateness, Mr... Beaver,” the ambassador said without the slightest bit of sincerity. “If the streets of the Metropolis hadn’t surrendered to the assault of unforeseen elements, we might have arrived on time.”

“In that case, Madam Ambassador, you could’ve looked out the window and left the hotel a bit earlier,” Ponskih replied in an even tone, but he nonetheless turned and extended his hand in a welcoming gesture. “Please, Madam Ambassador, do come in and make yourself at home—the Prime Minister is ready to receive you.”

“You see, Sir Edmont,” the ambassador turned to her companion. “It’s astonishing that one can clear someone’s schedule with a few polite words.”

The slight man nodded and smiled warmly without so much as glancing at the group of mages and mutants. He likely didn’t need to. There was probably no one there, Captain Ponskih included, who could have stood against a Selkadian Swordsman bearing a Black Star.

Why, then, was a Knight-Warrior being so readily admitted into the residence of one of the nation’s foremost figures? Perhaps it had something to do with the humming Ardan had been hearing since that morning. And with the fact that, had it not been for his Second Chancery credentials adorned with the Empire’s silver crest, then...

“Is something the matter, Sir?” Captain Ponskih asked the moment the ambassador and her protector had crossed the threshold.

Once he found himself inside the foyer, the Knight-Warrior who, until now, had seemed to not even notice the weight of his unwieldy and even visually rather... “implausible” sword, swayed slightly. His gaze grew heavy and he slowed down. Ardan heard his heart, which, until now, had been as precise as a metronome, begin to beat faster.

Right now, in the generation bay in the basement, every generator was running at once, reinforcing the stationary shield capable of withstanding several artillery salvos. And that was if one converted its power into its mundane explosives equivalent. It was hardly surprising that even a Black Star Swordsman had been weakened by several Stars at best. It was possible that he’d even been stripped down to the barest reserve of his once-unthinkable power.

Lord Aversky, may the Eternal Angels receive him, had once explained to him that it was the existence of such generators and stationary shields (before the mechanization of the Ley, these had been powered by crystallized “Stars” extracted from Anomalies) that had prevented society from sliding into a magocracy ruled by the most powerful mages. And while figures like Edward, Mshisty, Lucas Krayt, Foda Moshain, the Rector of the Grand, and others like them, still wielded considerable influence over the life of the Empire, they did not hold absolute power in the conventional sense.

“All is well,” the Knight-Warrior answered, speaking with a heavy accent but still quite competently. “Mr. Pink Mage.”

Ardan flinched. He himself couldn’t have said with any degree of certainty what level of power Captain Ponskih possessed, but it seemed like the Selkadian Swordsman had needed only a few minutes of observation to figure it out. Or perhaps their intelligence knew far more than the Black House would have liked.

Stay away from politics, Ardan reminded himself.

Captain Ponskih merely gave the man a curt nod and headed toward the Prime Minister’s study. Servants suddenly appeared out of nowhere and offered a few of them a chance to visit the dining hall or the lounge. Given that refusal was not an option, some of the Cloaks followed them, including Captain Parela and Lieutenant Klementiy.

But Ponskih, Captain Aloaeiol, and Ardan remained with the ambassador and the Swordsman.

“Well then,” the mutant whispered in the Fae tongue. “Are you starting to feel the weight of that story about how your great-grandfather fought and defeated three Knight-Warriors simultaneously?”

Ardan shivered slightly. During the Dark Lord’s Rebellion, the army of rebel Firstborn had sometimes clashed with groups of foreign military interventionists. One Selkadian detachment had even contained a trio of monsters just like the one currently ascending the oak staircase.

The Selkadians had wanted to seize one of the remote eastern Alcade mines that had been about to ship raw Ertalain ore for processing. At the loading point, roughly twenty tons of ore had accumulated over six months of work. It had been worth up to a quarter of a million exes. How exactly Aror and the Dark Lord had found themselves at the right place at the right time—whether they had been pursuing their own mercenary goals, or whether the foreign interventionists had seemed like the greater evil when compared to their own government—no one knew. And there was no way to find out. There was no one left to ask.

In any case, Aror, who’d reached the area first, had fought the three Knight-Warriors alone. All three of them perished. Aror was wounded.

Merely wounded...

Ardi looked at the slight man. He was certain that, even if he’d been wielding a potent fragment of the Name of Ice and Snow at the height of the coldest night of the decade, he could not have faced a Black Star Swordsman...

At last, they reached the correct floor and stopped before doors that were well-known to Ardi.

“Captain, Corporal, keep our guests company,” Captain Ponskih said and went inside the study.

An uncomfortable silence settled over the corridor. Heavy and prickly.

Captain Aloaeiol turned toward the window, studying the snow-covered street and the palatial home of the Anorsky ducal family that stood across the way. Ardan had done his best to avoid paying any attention to it in recent days. Alas, opportunities to look away were growing scarce...

It wasn’t like he regretted anything—rather, he missed it. He missed his pen-friend. Surprisingly, he had genuinely developed a fondness for Anastasia.

Her Imperial Highness, the heiress to the Imperial throne, Grand Princess Anastasia, Ardan mentally corrected himself. He did this every time he forgot exactly whom he’d been exchanging letters with twice a month. Sometimes, he’d shared things with her that even Tess didn’t know about.

But for nearly half a year now, because of Allane’Eari’s mark, he and Anastasia had found themselves beyond each other’s reach. He wondered how the future Empress was faring. Was she still enduring endless balls and hiding from her approaching future behind rows of books on Star Magic?

Out of all those who were not his senior colleagues and scholars, but rather minds still mastering Star Magic—just as he was—Ardan likely enjoyed discussing the Star path with Anastasia the most. Unlike Elena, the Grand Princess, like Ardi himself, wasn’t just interested in the theoretical domains of general knowledge, but also in Star Engineering as well.

“Sir Edmont, do you think that we should take it as an insult that they’ve left us here with a fragile woman and someone who can scarcely be called human?” The ambassador suddenly broke the silence.

She was speaking as though the conversation wasn’t meant for other ears, but was a private exchange between the two of them. Except she’d said the words just a touch louder than she should have, and she’d used Galessian instead of Selkadian.

“Would you believe,” the ambassador sighed, “that after ten years stranded on the other end of the world, I am still not accustomed to the fact that the valiant Galessians consort with animals? They even occasionally bed them. It’s astonishing how low one can sink when one mistranslates the Holy Scriptures.”

Ardan had no idea what the ambassador of the League of Selkado was trying to achieve. Firstborn were not welcome in the League. Simple as that. And the scant few who still dwelled there either hid in the mountains or ended up in labor camps. Not for any sort of crime, but simply because they weren’t human.

In this respect, Selkado and Castilia were fairly similar to the Tazidahian Brotherhood. As for Lan’Duo’Ha and Kargaam, they had simply forced their Firstborn populations off the continent, compelling them (and paying for their resettlement) to depart for the western continent.

The only country on the eastern continent where Firstborn could live without fear was the Confederation of Free Cities, but even there, they paid an additional tax. This was, most likely, still better than labor camps or being the subjects of vivisection...

“And yet,” the ambassador continued, “if not for our aid and our ships, Sir Edmont, our Star Magic—they would still be living under the yoke of these animals.”

The ambassador was distorting history. In the final years of the Ectassus and Gales war, the coalition of eastern continent nations had indeed aided Gales, dispatching an armada of warships with several thousand soldiers on them. However, they’d not been motivated by “brotherhood,” but simple, base greed. The price of their aid had been hundreds of kilograms of crystallized Stars taken from magical monsters, which the future Empire had sent to its “allies” for twenty years after the war.

And, moreover, when the Empire had discovered a way to use Ertalain several centuries later, and within a few decades, the magical ore had become the planet’s primary resource, the nations that had once formed the Eastern Coalition had sent formal missives to the Empire. The gist of them had been this: the price of their war assistance should be recalculated from monster cores to Ertalain, and the Empire should pay everything it owed them in that currency.

Naturally, only Selkado, Castilia and the Confederation of Free Cities had been convinced that this debt still existed. And it was precisely this justification—“return what is owed to us”—that the eastern nations had used later on while exploiting the civil war to stage the Intervention. And after that, they had supported Taia in the Mercenaries’ War with that same excuse.

“And now look—it’s as though we never shed our blood for Gales. The product of sin and copulation with an animal is standing right beside us,” the ambassador sighed.

By the Sleeping Spirits, were it not for those documents, were it not for those accursed documents, Ardan wouldn’t have even paid attention to these strange remarks. But he was still waking up at night because, like sparks from a fire that simply refused to die, the ghastly images captured in the photographs of the Tazidahian Brotherhood were tearing through his dreams, over and over.

“If I be animal, then you be simple mortal. You grow old. You wither. You die. Very fast. Dozen year, and you no ambassador. And no mother. Like scrawny shrub. Just empty old body,” Ardan rattled off quickly, recalling the meager vocabulary that had lodged itself in his memory after he’d begun to study the research extracted from the memories of Odurdod Nudsky, which had likewise been passed to Ardi for a combined analysis. “Madam Ambassador, please forgive me if my Selkadian is rather rough. I merely wished to express my admiration for you. It must not be easy to live in a foreign country for ten years... In comparison, I am remarkably glad to be living in my own.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Ardan felt three pairs of eyes converge upon him. One of them wasn’t merely enraged, but insulted in the way only a woman denied the possibility of being a mother can be insulted; one was savage to the degree that only a man can be savage when something he has sworn to protect and guard, something he considers a point of honor, has been wounded; and also... one was just surprised.

That last one belonged to Captain Aloaeiol. She was indeed regarding Ardi with sincere, profound astonishment.

And who knows what might’ve happened next had the doors of the study not opened and Captain Ponskih appeared on the threshold.

“His Excellency the Prime Minister is ready to see you, Madam Ambassador,” the Senior Magister said with a bow and, stepping into the corridor, took his place beside the door with a hand outstretched in a welcoming gesture.

The ambassador shot him a look that contained more disgust than contempt and let the Knight-Warrior enter first. For several seconds—until the ambassador herself entered, followed by Ponskih, Aloaeiol and Ardan—Duke-General Zakrovsky and the foreign Black Star Swordsman were alone together. Such a deliberately-taken risk would’ve probably boggled the mind of an ordinary citizen.

“Madam Alaya Ontoka and Sir Edmont, her faithful bodyguard,” the Duke-General greeted his guests with his signature good-natured, deceptively open smile. It was as though he were displaying his prosthetics on purpose.

“Mr. Oleg Zakrovsky,” the ambassador began with a slight curtsy, then shook his offered hand. “Getting in to see you today has proven surprisingly difficult.”

“And I cannot say, Madam Ontoka, that you were so desperately eager to reach me.”

Both of them—the ambassador of the League of Selkado and the Prime Minister of the Empire—smiled at each other with nearly more warmth than Ardi sometimes received from his few friends. One could have been deceived by this atmosphere into thinking that two comrades who’d known each other for years had just reunited.

Ardan and Captain Ponskih took up positions behind the Prime Minister, Captain Aloaeiol withdrew to the bookcase, and the ambassador and her companion settled into the soft leather armchairs opposite the desk. Sir Edmont, after removing his scabbard, leaned it without the slightest bit of embarrassment against the armrest, tearing the carpet and scratching the parquet in the process, but everyone pretended not to notice this.

The relationship between the Empire and the League of Selkado was difficult to sum up. But perhaps the most vivid illustration was what Ardan was currently witnessing: mutual smiles and damaged parquet...

“And so, Madam Ontoka,” the Prime Minister began, spreading his hands out, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Ontoka produced a cigarette case from her purse and asked permission with a glance; the Duke-General nodded silently. Sir Edmont immediately obliged her with a lighter, igniting a distinctly unladylike cigarette. It reeked of strong, bitter tobacco, with the smell of something sour added to the mix.

The ambassador surveyed the study for a few moments.

“Oh, you changed the curtains,” she observed. “It used to be brighter in here...”

“It did,” the Prime Minister nodded. “If my memory isn’t failing me—and it rarely does—your last visit was... some six years ago?”

“Five and a half,” the ambassador corrected the slight inaccuracy.

For a time, a strange silence hung over the room. It was strange because Ardan was certain that the ambassador of the League of Selkado and the Prime Minister had continued their conversation without words. They were speaking in a language understood only by those who had devoted the greater part of their lives to the political cesspit.

“You will not hold,” Madam Ontoka suddenly said.

“I beg your pardon?” Ardan finally got to see General Zakrovsky’s gaze lose a touch of its warmth.

He had even shot Tophat while wearing that same caring expression he put on when speaking with everyone around him.

“You understand what I mean, Duke Zakrovsky... Oh, Light... You’re a Duke... The Empire simply refuses to abandon its anachronisms... The aristocracy...” Ontoka took a drag and exhaled a wisp of smoke. “It is so tiresomely obsolete. An utterly ossified view of life.”

“I take it that you wish to return to our last conversation, which resulted in our subsequent dialogues being interrupted?” Zakrovsky asked, almost casually. “You will remark that we live in a feudal country. And I’ll reply with: whom should I be speaking to—the Chairman of the League, who is elected every seven years for a single term, or your bank owners, the proprietors of your largest enterprises, companies, and newspapers, who, unlike the government, keep their capital until the end of their lives and pass it on to their inheritors? If the Chairman changes every seven years while the largest market players do not, then whom do I even talk to? Perhaps not you? Perhaps I ought to talk to the Secretary of the United Industrial Corporation? I believe they spent sixty-four thousand exes—converted into Imperial currency—supporting the election campaign of the current Chairman and his cabinet. The same cabinet that so conveniently lowered the export duties on your famous Selkadian steel, which the Tazidahian Brotherhood and Urdavan purchase down to the last gram.”

For the first time in his life, Ardan was grateful to his friend Boris for supplying him with pamphlets from socialist parties of every stripe. Including the largest opposition one. Thanks to them, he at least understood what Zakrovsky was talking about.

“Only if your one-legged Emperor allows you to open your mouth,” Ontoka replied with the same smile the Prime Minister was showing her. “An Emperor who became one solely because, by the will of the Light, he was forged in Agrov blood. Oh, forgive my slip, Your Excellency. He wasn’t born in the blood, of course—but from it.”

Ardan was trying very hard to pretend that he wasn’t there. In fact, he tried his utmost to convince even himself that he wasn’t a sentient, living and breathing creature. He already had enough problems with the Empire’s own rich and powerful; becoming the victim of international discord was something he refused to even entertain.

As for their steel... Selkadian steel did indeed possess outstanding qualities. The Empire didn’t need it since the country more than met its own requirements through domestic production that was of more than sufficient quality, but other nations were more than interested in it.

“In the end, it’s simply more tax revenue flowing into the Central Bank from foreign trade,” Madam Ontoka shrugged.

“And more money settling in the pockets of the United Corporation’s shareholders,” the Prime Minister was not to be outdone. “Who can now raise the prices in your domestic market due to higher demand.”

“Those are the rules of the game, Your Excellency,” the ambassador exhaled wearily. “Or have you truly become a soft-hearted socialist? Will you now insist that society is governable only when the state performs the function of a parent?”

“No, but neither do I intend to throw my people to the predators.”

“In nature, among the beasts, only the strongest survive.”

“Then it’s fortunate that we, Madam Ambassador, are not beasts, but people. We have souls granted to us by the Light and reason acquired through evolution.”

“Regarding the matter of being human,” Madam Ontoka glanced at Ardi, “I might argue a bit further.”

“And I would ask you, Madam Ambassador, to refrain from any insinuations regarding my compatriots.” The Prime Minister’s voice sliced through the air with such force that Ardan had to fight the impulsive urge to check whether his own ears were bleeding.

And he wasn’t the only one affected. Sir Edmont, judging by the slight tremor in his body, had very nearly reached for the hilt of his blade, and the ambassador merely shivered, drawing on her cigarette rather too deeply.

“The Empire is undoubtedly strong, Your Excellency,” she continued in a considerably softer and more restrained tone. “You have the largest army on the planet, the most tanks, and your army reserve is nearly equal to the entire population of my country, but... you are alone. On this entire planet, Your Excellency, you are alone. It’s just you, your... Firstborn, and your Ertalain.”

The Prime Minister frowned and leaned slightly forward.

“Do not take this as an attempt at blackmail or anything of the sort, but your dragon-hunting adventure, even if it ends up being a rousing success, will yield little results.”

“The expedition through the mountains of the eastern and northern continents, Madam Ontoka, is nothing more than an international archaeological endeavor,” the Duke-General’s voice rang out, cold as steel.

Ardan was seeing this side of His Excellency for the first time.

“And also a cunning gambit by the Empire,” the ambassador of the League of Selkado pressed on. “You want to at least secure pacts of mutual non-interference, if not outright support. And if that fails, you are counting on the old legends being true—that the dragons will come to defend the Firstborn. Only, if they’d actually been true, then the Firstborn would not have vanished from our continent.”

Was that even possible? Ardan wasn’t sure. According to the legends Atta’nha had taught him, the Sleeping Spirits had created the first dragons to protect their slumber. From whom or what exactly? It was never mentioned. And, in any event, they were merely old fairy tales.

“Your airships are already in the sky,” the ambassador continued. “Castilia, just like the League, has nearly completed their glider trials. And they will likely prove far more effective than your flying balloons. Though I have no doubt that gliders are in development on your end as well, Your Excellency.”

“Let’s assume they are.”

“Thank you for not denying the obvious,” Ontoka nodded. “You are perfectly aware of the fact that Urdavan and Grainia signed the deal of the century at the recent economic forum, fully opening their internal markets to each other and unifying their currencies. The moment the Congress ends and the Rule of Silence is lifted, every newspaper will trumpet this new alliance.”

“It’s an economic alliance,” the Duke-General stressed that word very firmly.

The ambassador grimaced and reached toward the table to tap her ash into the ashtray.

“We are all aware of the fact that an economic alliance turning into a military and political one wouldn’t even require a full step, but just a small movement,” she said, leaning back and crossing her legs. “Grainia possesses an enormous fleet. Urdavan has one of the most efficient military-industrial complexes in the world. They are missing only the final ingredient, Mr. Prime Minister. A third party to provide the manpower. And then...”

The ambassador let her pause linger.

“It’s as I said at the start: you will not hold,” she repeated. “Grainia, backed by Urdavan and one more, will tie up the Lintelar-Olikzasia-Foria fleet in the Shallow Seas and the Swallow Ocean. You will be left without your naval support. And on land... You know perfectly well what is happening on your northern border. To say nothing of the thorn to the south that is Taia.”

The Prime Minister stretched his neck and said slowly:

“This is a very candid conversation, Madam Ambassador of Selkado.”

“Subtlety has no place here, Mr. Prime Minister of the New Monarchy,” the ambassador replied just as firmly as Zakrovsky. “The Empire’s strength lies solely in its numerical potential and Ertalain. But you are enormous. And your borders are just as boundless. This means that you require four times as many soldiers to guard them compared to everyone else. And that takes money, provisions, munitions, equipment... I need not explain this to you, Mr. Duke-General.”

Ardan didn’t think that exchanges with ambassadors were usually this intense. What he was witnessing was surely something quite extraordinary.

“Urdavan and Grainia will be looking for an ally.”

“As will Scaidavin.”

“You won’t be able to help them,” Madam Ontoka waved her hand. “Scaidavin’s only hope is either us or the Confederates. But as everyone knows, the Confederates will maintain their neutrality until the very last moment, sponsoring every side of the coming conflict at once with their endless money.”

“Which can still be prevented.”

“Possibly,” the ambassador nodded. “If the Empire gains a reliable trade ally with a strong industrial base, a worthy market, and significant manpower.”

“Are you hinting that this could be your country?” The Prime Minister raised his eyebrows slightly.

“I’m not hinting,” the ambassador opened her purse and produced a sealed envelope. “I am speaking directly on behalf of the Chairman of the League. We are offering His Imperial Majesty a proposal that will lead to the mutual elimination of all protective tariffs, as well as the opening of your market to our goods. I emphasize—all goods. We, in turn, will commit to purchasing your Ertalain on a long-term contract basis at, shall we say, one-third of the market price.”

One didn’t need a year and a half of attending lectures at the Grand to understand that the Empire was being presented with an ultimatum behind which lay a banal attempt at robbery.

The Prime Minister accepted the envelope and, without sparing it a second’s attention, set it on the edge of his desk.

“And if we refuse, then...”

“At the upcoming ambassadors’ round table, the League of Selkado will announce that it’s joining the trade alliance of Urdavan and Grainia,” Madam Ontoka declared. “Scaidavin will not hold out for even a year. And when it falls, if the Tazidahian Brotherhood joins the new alliance, we will have open routes to both continents. And the Ertalain that has been the Empire’s greatest strength for so long will at last become the property of the world at large, rather than the hoarded resource of a single country that has fallen behind the times.”

These words could not be mistaken for anything other than a direct threat.

“How many have we buried?”

“What?” Madam Ontoka faltered.

“My dear Beaver, how many Selkadians, Castilians, Tazidahians, N’gians, and assorted other rabble that showed up on our soil over the past several centuries have we buried?”

“I can’t recall, Your Excellency,” Captain Ponskih said crisply. “There were too many to count, and we didn’t care enough to even try. In any case, their blood made excellent fertilizer for our agricultural lands.”

“Superb answer, my dear Beaver.” The Prime Minister shifted his gaze to Sir Edmont. “Even when my country was nearly being torn to shreds by civil war, our countrymen could still tell one enemy from another. I believe that three fine specimens such as yourself, Sir Edmont, could not handle just one of our old men.”

Judging by the way the Knight-Warrior’s jaw muscles clenched at that, the League still remembered the ringing slap that Aror had dealt them.

“You are right, Madam Ambassador,” the Prime Minister turned his gaze to the stunned woman. “The Empire is alone. But tell me—does a lone wolf fear a flock of sheep? You want our Ertalain at a third of the price? Are we supposed to mine and transport it at a loss? Our margin is already a mere twenty percent. Not a single country in the world can substantiate its accusations that the Empire exploits—I will remind you—our own natural resources for excessively selfish ends.”

“We-”

The Prime Minister waved his hand, and the ambassador fell silent as though she had swallowed her own tongue. In the depths of her gaze, Ardan saw what Madam Ontoka had so carefully been masking for the past half hour.

“You have said quite enough, Ambassador of the League of Selkado,” the Prime Minister told her firmly. “But it was not you who fought for these lands for centuries. Not you who survived the wars, the rebellions, the conspiracies, and the interventions. Not your families who drenched every inch of the Empire with their blood. And it wasn’t your children who ate bread from the wheat that grew in it. So, gather alongside your fellow sheep. Pretend that if there are more of you, the Empire is nothing to fear, but I don’t even need a Firstborn’s nose to smell the fear rolling off you.”

“Blood will be spilled, Your Excellency. Enough to fill the Shallow Seas.”

“Then that is the will of the Light,” the Duke-General answered without hesitation. “Do not mistake our desperate attempts to smother the nascent conflict for weakness. The Empire will do everything it possibly can, and more, to prevent a great war. And it hopes that the majority of the world’s nations will attempt to reciprocate. But believe me: if our initiatives fail, we will fight. Just as we have fought before.”

Without even glancing at the envelope, the Prime Minister swept it directly onto the ambassador’s lap.

Silence settled over the study once more. It reeked of blood, gunpowder, and, as the Duke-General had correctly noted, fear.

“In that case, perhaps we might agree on a three-year contract entitling us to the full Ertalain range at, say, a one-and-a-half-percent discount, Your Excellency?” Madam Ontoka’s expression suddenly became placid.

“Certainly, esteemed Madam Ambassador Ontoka,” the Prime Minister nodded with the same cordiality and warmth he’d shown at the start. “In exchange for a three-year contract, the Empire is prepared to offer you a discount of half a percent.”

“And, naturally, it’s prepared to fix the price at the moment of signing, rendering it independent of market fluctuations?” The ambassador proposed.

The Duke-General considered this for a time.

“I will need to consult with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, but I believe it is possible.”

“Then the League of Selkado will, I expect, regretfully decline the proposal of Urdavan and Grainia. It doesn’t quite serve our immediate interests.”

“Those are your internal affairs.”

Madam Ontoka nodded and got up, extending her hand. The Prime Minister stood as well, his prosthetic crunching, and clasped her slender hand with his own.

“If you would, Madam Ambassador.” Captain Ponskih, who had approached the exit, opened the door for her.

Without another word, the ambassador and the Knight-Warrior departed with Captain Ponskih. The Prime Minister circled his desk and stood by the window. For a time, he silently studied the foreign automobiles, then watched the receding procession a while longer.

“Whatever the Colonel is doing, he had better hurry, Corporal,” the Prime Minister said suddenly in a quiet, heavy tone. “The vultures can already smell blood, and we will not be able to drive them off forever. Sooner or later, they will gather enough courage to try a peck. And then your generation, Corporal, will have to show what it’s made of.”

“Yes, Your Excellency,” Ardan forced himself to reply.

Was he frightened?

He was almost as scared as when he’d encountered a pack of wolves poisoned by the Ley in his childhood.