Foes in All Directions

Foes in All Directions

“Vasse?!”

Professor Haguus was inconsolable and kept shouting—

“Vasse?!”

If I had misgivings about the nominee before, they had been inflated to actual fears by the incredulity and outrage on the part of the dwarf. Her name had been the first introduced at the meeting of the Regents’ Council earlier in the afternoon, following the funeral of Implexor Cavanaugh and the burial of the thing that had replaced him. The Baeler had opened the rather eventful meeting.

“My good gentlemen and ladies,” the Baeler had begun the session, “we are here to honor the departed, both Implexor Cavanaugh and Professor LaRoque. It would ill befit the memories of two such men as these, however, to leave the manner of their unfortunate and violent ends to vulgar rumor and speculation.” His gentle voice enriched each word with sorrow and with the familiarity of confidence. I could have almost forgotten the words were lies.

“There has been, as I trust you have heard, a narrow escape from a fell plot against the students of the Lyceum, the people of Montmarnet, and the safety of my dominion. Through the brave actions of a few, including our young Student Regent, Edmund of Rokesparke,” he nodded in my direction, referencing me by my assumed name, “the plot was foiled. Cavanaugh had long been coerced to complicity with the plot against the threat of death to his entire family. To his credit, however, he attempted to inform his colleague, the Lord Mayor of Montmarnet, Anselm LaRoque, of the danger to his citizens. When LaRoque moved to act, though, he was eliminated. It was through this forced action the plot was more fully discovered by certain students and professors, such as Vermond Haguus, when those students attempted to visit the late Professor LaRoque in the Lord Mayor’s tower. The plot quickly unraveled from there, but our dear friend and colleague, Implexor Cavanaugh, was killed for unveiling the conspiracy in a desperate act of petty cruelty.

“The challenge facing you now is to select a new Implexor to guide the Lyceum through its grief at losing two of its most brilliant minds and its shock at the manner of their deaths. As in the past, it is incumbent upon the Regents to both put forth the names of candidates and vote yea or nay on those candidates in the order in which they are confirmed by a second Regent. Normally, I am quite loath to intrude on the process, but I wish to put forward a name for consideration: Professor Vermond Haguus.” A murmur then passed around the room, and more than one groan had been audible. “His role in the preceding events has been of paramount importance. So much so, I would say, that without his efforts the city of Suzergne would today be facing an army of creatures transformed by the blackest alchemy from their human selves into evil shapes. As I am glad to be addressing the sixteen of you and not an assembled army to defend my dominion, I must in gratitude commend Professor Haguus to you.”

The Baeler’s gratitude had not been sufficient to overcome the prevailing attitudes about Vermond Haguus, and none of the regents was willing to expend the capital to even second his name, let alone vote for him. But just as quickly as his name had been passed over, the name of Janette Vasse, the assistant to the previous Implexor, was put forward and seconded. The discussion that ensued was fairly heated, with clear disfavor from the regents I trusted most: Legrande Grimm and Delilah Corellis. My own suspicions may have started there, but the more I learned the more solid they became.

“What do you know about Vasse?” I asked Professor Haguus.

“She’s a harlot!”

“Fantastic. My friends and I have too much money to burn. Seriously, now. Anything useful?”

“She and Cavanaugh were always too cozy! I bet she knew everything he was up to—the whole conspiracy! She’s power hungry, selfish, and she would make a worse than useless Implexor! Doesn’t even care about education… nor scholarship… nor the students… not even the professors, just about herself! Money-grubbing wench!” Vermond Haguus slowly devolved into execrations of Vasse while I pondered what I knew.

The open proponents of Vasse on the Regents’ Council were all men of a more mercantile bent; not a one of them would be above sacrificing the quality of the Lyceum for a generation if the immediate personal gain met their threshold for greed. They did not number so many to be a clear majority, but the discussions and dinners tonight might change the view before the next day’s vote.

Vasse was at least as mercenary as her supporters, if not more so, but I did not see how she commanded enough wealth or power to win them to her side, and those men were not likely to see their avarice reflected in her person and be amorously stricken. “Is Janette Vasse possessed of some great store of wealth, that you’re aware of, Professor?”

“Is this more of your ‘money to burn’ kind of humor? I tell you, it’s in bad taste.”

“No, it’s a serious question. Is she rich?”

“Not that I’m aware of. The Lyceum doesn’t pay a rich man’s wages, let me tell you. The work is our best …”

“Then how is she buying votes?” I asked myself aloud.

“She’s buying votes?!? I suspected as much!”

Knowing I had gone as far as reason would allow with Haguus, I turned to my best resource—my family. I explained my suspicions to my gathered siblings and our newest companions, a dwarf named Morgrim and a slightly mysterious man whose true name we had not been told. Fair enough, since he knew none of ours, either; that day of reckoning would come later. Until then we agreed to call him the Woodsman.

Thank Elos for my luck in family and friends, I thought when the harshest rejoinder was an almost expected, “If you’re sure about this,” from Elissa.

I took a deep breath and continued. “I’ve been thinking about a plan, but it has to be done tonight.”

Nightfall came sooner than I was prepared for it. Our previous investigations had confirmed Haguus’s suspicions once before, but we had embarked upon them only after a very real attack on our persons—it seemed potentially ludicrous that I might ransack the office of a candidate for the Implexorship with nothing more than a gut feeling and one of Haguus’s quixotic conspiracy theories for justification. Ludicrous or not, though, I have trusted my gut feelings a great deal more with every day that goes by; Professor Haguus just provided a convenient straw to throw upon a ton of motivation.

The Woodsman proved a very useful ally again, that night. Neither I nor my siblings know the Lyceum grounds and edifices half so well as he, and all his knowledge was laid to my disposal for the entry plan. It was thus, with his help, that I found myself hugging the face of Grimm Hall at a quarter till midnight, thirty-five feet from the ground.

I had climbed to a narrow ledge, mere inches in width, by way of a tall fir tree that still obscured me while I waited for the moon to descend from its height to illuminate the far side of the building, leaving me in the eclipse of the stone hall’s silhouette.

Minutes away from that moment, I arrived at my perch and surveyed the remaining distance, a dozen feet or so, from the window to Vasse’s office. Not so far, really. Only a third of distance I had already climbed—the distance I would fall, that is, if I slipped.

The moment of occlusion came, and I began to slowly slide towards the narrow window. The inches were painfully slow, but the ledge on which I stood was smooth, level, and wide enough, if not exactly spacious. My heart jumped once when I reached for a crack in the stone of the wall, and my hand found not a crack, but a shadow. The near darkness might yet prove as much enemy as friend, I worried. And, again, the organ nearly left my chest as I began to slowly work the glass framed window open on its hinge and heard my brothers in a cacophonous rendition of a nostalgic song of old Cymbeline.

O tower that guards Cymbeline, the city I call home,

I’ve traveled many weary miles, with farther still to roam,

My love is waiting there for me; to her I gave my heart.

O tower, keep my lady safe, as long as we’re apart.

By their voices, I could tell Elias and Lukas performed drunkenness fairly well; I hoped it was a performance, anyway. I could not spare a glance in the direction of their voices, but I knew that the song was meant to tell me someone was approaching who might spy me on the wall. Although I was dressed head to toe in black, with strips of black fabric wrapped about my face, I did not want to take any chances. I increased the urgency with which I pried my way to my destination, allowing the seemingly drunken ruckus to cover the increased sound.

A few seconds later, I slipped through open window and pulled it most of the way shut. Very slightly lifting the cloth from around the everburning torch I pulled from my belt, a thin strip of light appeared on the wall across from the window. Despair tightened around my lungs.

The mass of parchments, scrolls, letters, bound volumes, and loose papers that had enveloped the room was more than daunting, it was depressing. I swallowed my doubts, and looked around for anything worthy of the name of evidence. Uninformed as I was about the daily operations of the Lyceum, I could discern no organization to the chaos and quickly supposed there was none.

As I was about to start throwing sheaves of paper selected at random into the nearly limitless pack Simon loaned me, I looked up from the desk I was facing to see a large arras on the facing wall. Without knowing the source of my hunch, I carefully pulled back the arras and the green light poured into the space behind it revealing the small, square, iron door of a safe set into the wall. What an obvious place for incriminating documents to be kept, I mused, smiling.

I took great care examining the door of the safe. The small needle that was poised to strike the unwary burglar was disarmed by twisting a camouflaged knob, which was easily done. The lock was much trickier, requiring the nearly simultaneous turning of two keys. I slipped off my gloves and went to work. The tumblers sang down the rod to me as they fell into place, but as I turned the locks, I heard a woman’s voice through the door.

“…either way, he must be disposed of. Besides, he won’t be missed. You know the best method.”

“I do,” replied a sweet-voiced man in a strange accent. “He will not be seen again by you, my lady.”

“Yes, I trust he shall not. And do kill him quickly. It will be more merciful that way, and we should be merciful.”

While I heard this conversation, I was far too busy sweeping the entire contents of the safe—almost exclusively documents—into the haversack to consider the details closely. Finishing, I dashed to the window and flung it open, glass splintering as the frame struck the wall even as the door from the hall creaked open with the heavy breath of age.

With one swift motion, I pulled a grappling hook and rope from the same bag into which the documents had been dumped and wrapped it once around the now empty metal window frame and dove out the window. A scream of rage followed me through the opening into the night. I fell with a slack rope in my hands for a long, slow second in which my heart pounded several rapid beats. When it finally did stretch taught, my bare hands erupted with a fire that nearly made me pull back and fall, but I fought to control my pain and twisted my body just in time to plant my feet on the wall of Grimm Hall before my body slammed into it.

I began to repel down the wall, but a grunt from above drew my attention. Janette Vasse was above me with a knife cutting rapidly through the rope at the top. I hurried my pace, but I never took my eyes off the knife. The coils of silk frayed and unraveled as they were cut free. First one, second one, I thought, as the thick cords splayed in every direction. The ground was much closer now, but the knife was cutting through. Third one, fourth one, JUMP! I thought as the fifth and final cord of the rope was severed, and I pushed off the wall with my feet and let go of the rope.

I twisted around, facing the ground, and tucked into a somersault as I neared the ground. Pain stabbed my shoulders as they thumped hard into the ground, but I rolled with most of the force of my fall. I clambered to my feet before I stopped rolling completely and dashed for the nearest pool of shadow in which to hide before skulking back to the dormitory, shedding the black clothes in favor of more ordinary dress and stowing the conspicuous garments along with my prize in the haversack.

“Let me see,” Simon pronounced rudely the moment I entered the room.

“Nice to see you healthy, Josiah,” I said. “I was frantic with concern for your safety while you were gone, my brother.”

“Sure. Now let me see what you found. It’s my bag, anyway.”

“What would mother think of your manners, young man,” I said as I passed the haversack to him, taking my clothes off the top as he took it.

Oberon and Elissa were in the room as well, and when they saw the raw burns on my hands they both looked at me expectantly. “Oh yeah,” I said, trying to be nonchalant, “could one of you two help me out with these? I probably have a nasty bruise, as well.”

“Sure,” said Oberon. “What happened?”

“He got a lot of stuff,” Simon offered, sifting through the papers he had emptied from the haversack.

I asked, “Simon, can you still finish reading all those logs and journals by tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yes, I’ll just get some rest. Then I can prepare my materials in the morning and—“

“So, yes,” I interrupted. “Good, let me know when you find something.” I turned back to Oberon who tended my wounds and then returned to my own quarters for the night.

“We’re blessedly lucky that Simon is able to complete the task you asked of him,” Oberon said, between bites of his buttered roll. He had joined me, bringing breakfast enough for us both, by the fountain outside Brayde Hall where I had been nervously pacing before he found me.

“Elos gives us the tools to suit the tasks he means us to perform?” I replied, more sarcastically than I intended. “I’m sorry. You’re right, Simon is a tool.”

“That’s not at all what I meant. Simon learned the trick of reading books by magic…” his voice trailed off before the end of his sentence as someone neared. It would do no good for us to be overheard using one another’s true names or advertising our brother’s practice of magic.

“Edmund of Rokesparke!”

I was startled to hear myself addressed by the stranger who approached us. “At your service, stranger. How…”

“I challenge you to a duel for your insult to the honor of a lady, young knave.” The sweet voice and remarkable accent were unmistakable now, although the man was still as much a stranger as ever. He was armored in a heavy shirt of mail with a dizzying array of coins from many lands woven into the metal of it and wore a shield on his back and a sword at his belt. “The lady is my sister by marriage and I will not stand to have family insulted by the likes of you. Draw!”

I knew only a little of the Code of Duello in Hathaine, but I knew enough to argue with the audacious accusation thrown at my feet. “You lie. I have insulted no woman’s honor and I have never met you, nor your sister—I am sure of that, though by no means sure you have such a sister.”

“If you deny my accusation, prove me wrong with your sword!”

“I haven’t one on me!”

“You, sir,” the armored foreigner said, addressing Oberon for the first time. “Go and get this fellow a sword while I stand to ensure he will keep promise.”

“Um, Edmund…?” Oberon looked to me.

“Get me my sword,” I said. “But hurry.”

“Yes, hurry little man. My outrage cannot long go unsatisfied. If you do not return quickly enough, I may forget my own honor and cut young Edmund down.”

Oberon ran for my weapon. Glad he was unencumbered by his armor, I turned to keep my eye on the challenger. I made sure to keep the fountain between us for the time being, but he did not look prepared to risk himself to the law by “forgetting himself” in a moment of rage. There seemed to be very little rage to his behavior at all.

“Your sister, sir, is Janette Vasse, then? I did not know she had family so near,” I ventured to begin a conversation to learn what I could. My opponent seemed genuinely surprised to hear Vasse’s name mentioned. “I may not be so little missed as she suggested, but that’s all one. I intend to see her at the Regents’ Council this afternoon. Will she miss you, though?” I breathed with exercised and deliberate calm, although I was far less confident than I wished the other man to believe.

“I am her trusted and faithful friend. I will not let you leave my presence alive.” The foreigner, it seemed, was also less confident than his bold statements made him out to be, for he turned and shouted out, “Hola! A challenge has been issued. Witnesses come presently to ensure the Duello is obeyed.”

I suppose he expects foul play on my part, I thought. Fair is fair. If he had no witnesses, my brothers and sister would not be likely to let me face him unaided. With witnesses, to do so would be disastrous for the violation of the Code of Duello can be severely punished by law. But fair cuts two ways, and I am not as helpless as I look once I have my sword.

By the time Oberon returned with Elias, Lukas, Elissa, and my sword, a small crowd of witnesses had gathered, all students. I was reminded that dueling is considered great sport by the younger men in Hathaine. My siblings saw the crowd, too, and the hands that reached for weapons reluctantly relaxed. Oberon walked my sword over to me and leaned close. “Are you wearing your armor?” he asked, to which I nodded. The mithral shirt was light enough to be worn under clothes and not attract attention, and I was paranoid enough to wear it nearly all the time.

I took my sword by the hilt and drew it, leaving Oberon holding the scabbard. A small sword, it was quick and its blade sharp, but it was also deceptively strong due to the enchantments on it. I was counting on that advantage as I turned to face my challenger, who was readying his shield and broad sword with evident glee.

The crowd cleared to give room for the duel and the stranger came to the same side of the fountain as me. We stood at approximately ten paces from one another and the stranger glanced at Oberon and asked politely, “A count of three, if you please. May Elos,” he spoke the god’s name with the slightest hint of mirth, “guard the right.”

Oberon consented, and the moment he uttered, “Ten,” the stranger plunged forward with considerable speed. I was prepared to parry, but the force and zeal of his first charge surprised me. His blow was deflected but not completely turned aside, and I bled from a scratch on my ribs through my mail. My own riposte bounced ineffectively from his shield, but I regained my wits quickly and set about defending myself from the fury of his blows.

His second attack came fast on the heels of his first, but with the strength he put into his sword strike, it was evident before he swung that he was targeting my right shoulder. I stepped left and lifted my sword into his own sword arm as he swung and though his armor protected him from the worst, I knew I had wounded him. I continued to circle to his left, putting his shield out of position and putting the fountain to his back.

He grunted with the effort of recovering from his last while having to turn to keep his front to me. His blow was well placed to catch me in my circular path around him. I was too focused on staying out the path of his heavy sword to step into the blow, but he did not let the opportunity pass to finesse a pass at my right leg when it was clear the main force of his blow would miss me. My calf seared with momentary pain, but I blocked it out and landed a well-placed blow of my own to his abdomen, under the reach of his sword, but too far across his body for his shield to block my sword.

The next several seconds earned me two more flesh wounds, and my opponent three, but mine were clearly costing me much more than his. The shouts of the crowd were beginning to break through my focus. Were they louder, or was my concentration failing? The big foreigner was flush with the hope of victory and desperation ripped through my mind.

It was no great difficulty to let the man see that desperation in my face. Could I have disguised it if I wanted to? My sword began a low arc to sink below his shield and strike his groin, a mortal blow if I could land it. He contemptuously batted away my blade with a sweep of his shield arm and raised his sword overhead for a blow which could cleave a man my size in two. But hope rushed through me.

I spun with the force of my blow deflected and continued the spin, knowing I would come close to losing my balance, and consequently my life, if I failed. His sword arm was lowering by the time I completed my pirouette, but it mattered not a bit. I was inside his reach and his arms went slack as our bodies closed, my sword protruding from his back.

I stepped away and stared for a moment into his gaping eyes just before the thought behind them fled and pitied the man. Nothing but a tool for a task, cruelly used and thrown away. Shuddering I turned to Elias, Lukas, Elissa, and Oberon and fought back the urge to allow consciousness to be capsized in a stormy sea of pain.

“Let’s get out of public,” Oberon suggested, “so I can fix you up.”

“You haven’t passed out, yet,” Elias offered, grinning. “That’s got to be a good sign.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe I should; I’d be doing you a favor.” I chuckled at his confused look. “You look like you might be getting a little soft around the middle.”

Three hours later, I was preparing for the Regents’ Council session—a luncheon was, of course, included in the agenda—when Simon burst into the room moving as quickly as his impediment would allow him. “Wow, did you find a goldmine or what?”

I raised an eyebrow questioningly. “You found something? There was something incriminating in all that mess?”

“Really the question is if there’s anything in that mess that’s not incriminating, but let’s stick with the really good stuff.” Simon was clearly relishing the moment of revelation. “But I’ll just give you the best parts.”

“First,” he began, quite like a lecturer, “there were a number of cryptic account sheets which, once put together indicate an elaborate scheme of kickbacks to one Pinkham Hillbottle. There are indications in other documents of a much larger scale operation once Janette Vasse becomes Implexor. The evidence necessary to prove this is in this stack.” He pulled a two-foot tall ream of papers and logs bound tightly by leather cords from his pack and handed them to me. I quickly set the heavy weight down.

“Second, and entirely unrelated, is the evidence in this journal she kept of a long-running affair between Vasse and Cavanaugh dating back to when the previous Implexor died—oh, sorry, I meant ‘back to when they assassinated the previous Implexor.’ Silly me.” This was astonishing, to say the least. Also, the journal he handed me was going to be much easier to carry to the meeting than the previous evidence.

Simon finished familiarizing me with the evidence as I readied myself and began the walk across the grounds to the Council session, but as we entered the doors of Brayde Hall, I could already tell something was amiss.

The expected murmur of lunch getting underway in the room the Council was occupying during the selection process was more of a dull roar. I sprinted to the chamber with the journal in my hand, leaving Simon behind. The door was wide open and the scene before me was near chaos.

“Such a vote should never have been rushed!”

“A Regent was absent!”

“If a Student Regent shirks, his vote should not be considered!”

“It is unorthodox for a candidate to be present if she is not one of the Regents on the council,” Legrande Grimm was saying, trying in vain to stop the gabbling, “but— but it is not impossible for us to do our business, but… Our missing Regent is here!”

All eyes turned to me, and I saw Janette Vasse looking smugly from the front of the room. I might have smiled briefly to her, I certainly thought of doing so, but I had no desire to waste time. I scanned the room for the Baeler.

“Your Eminence,” I addressed him, “I have something of great importance to speak with you about.”

“Young man, this council is not the place to address your personal grievances,” an older regent and Vasse supporter interrupted. “The other regents have been attending the business of the Lyceum whilst you have been dawdling like a wastrel, and we have elected Vasse the new Implexor…”

A burst of sound came from the seated Regents as four or five began to speak all at once, and another four or five attempted to shout them down a heartbeat after. In the din, the Baeler moved towards me and tilted his ear in to try to listen above the shouting. I simply shook my head and opened the journal I was holding to a certain page and handed it to him.

Legrande Grimm began to bang an empty tankard on the table like a gavel. The respect he was generally accorded was due to his seniority on the Council—his tenure spanned more than a century. “We have not ascertained if the vote was appropriately held. There seems now to have been no reason to have hastily acted on business before our repast—indeed, cooler heads might preside now if we had waited. I believe that, in the interest of order, our previously absent Regent—absent for what he must have assumed would have been only the fish course, not the election of an Implexor—be allowed to cast his vote now. In favor?”

I added my voice to the ‘aye’ that followed.

“Opposed?”

The ‘nay’ was of approximately equal volume.

“The ‘ayes’ have it,” Regent Grimm concluded. “Regent Edmund of Rokesparke, how do you vote in the matter of the Lady Janette Vasse’s assumption of the Implexorship?”

“Against.”

“Then it appears we have a draw—eight for, eight against—and we must deliberate longer on Janette Vasse’s nomination until a majority can be reached either in favor or in opposition to her Implexorship.”

“That,” intoned the Baeler in a voice like pealing bells, “will not be possible I fear.” The Baeler glanced pointedly at his honor guards, and then held up the journal. Janette Vasse’s gaze shot directly to me and her eyes narrowed like a predator. “I have here sufficient proof to act as I do now. Arrest the Lady Vasse. Her trial for the crime of murder will begin as soon as I have been presented with the remaining evidence and sufficient time has been given for the Lady Vasse to produce witnesses to testify in her defense. I am afraid it is not well that a murderer be Implexor of the Lyceum, although you may select another Implexor and be assured that I will not interfere with less compelling motivation than this. Good day to you all, and may Elos’ blessed light destroy the shadows of our minds and give us wisdom and the inclination to do good.” With no more ceremony than that, the Baeler turned and left, followed by Janette Vasse, escorted by the four armed guards of the Baelery.

“Young mongoose,” she whispered as she passed me. “You will soon disturb a serpent much too big for you.”

Days later, Professor Delilah Corellis had been chosen to assume the Implexorship, and even Vermond Haguus received a reward for his service in the common good—he was elevated to Lord Mayor of Montmarnet.

The documents unearthed from Janette Vasse’s safe were only the beginning of the Baeler’s investigation, in which I had volunteered to assist. All of the records she kept in both her office and her private quarters were now subject to scrutiny, and the workload was massive. The letter I found exactly one week after receiving the obscure threat from Vasse on her way to judgement was just one of the thousands, but in light of her choice of words in threatening me, I took note.

To the Queen Who Sits the Coiled Throne,

I believe you have been made aware of the man named Cavanaugh. The cunning of this one is quite refined, and he could be a useful ally. Should he be made aware of our presence in this land? Should he be enlisted, either covertly or openly?

The humble snake in your distant garden,

Janette Vasse

I scribed the words on another sheet of paper, and stored it once the ink had dried. I placed the original back in the file for personal letters, but felt sure it had seen light for the last time.

-- by Kyle