097 – Karen Starts Investigating

The Viceroy continued. “That tells me you are good. And I remember your father, Oleg. He was as good at his work as you, but a pain in the…”

  Karen interrupted again, partly to salve an old wound. “His daughter is much better.”

  “Good,” the Viceroy responded. “That is what I wanted to hear.”

  He snapped his fingers, loudly, and his man entered. The man put down a parchment and a bag, and departed.

  Karen read over the contract, and was surprised at it.

  “No sense going halfway,” he responded to her look. “Your job is to join with the parents and mage. Take them to where the kids are, and get them. Teach the family how to kill The King and Queen, and her daemon. Be sure that they are able to. Remove the mage, and deliver the family into the hands of my troops.”

  “Simple enough. Where are the kids?”

  “The girl is in Chigoria, a village of the Chithare elves. The boy is in the talent’s village of Kadomu.”

  “Anything special that they need to be taught?”

  “The Queen is magically bound to the daemon. The daemon needs to be driven away before The Queen can be killed. But only the daughter can kill The Queen. The King can only be killed by the son.”

  “I think I can figure the rest. This is going to cost, though. And I will not go into any caves. Five times The Queen’s fee, you say?”

  “Or more, depending on my satisfaction.”

  “Do you think that is enough?” Karen wanted to be sure of his motivation. His reputation was of being a good leader and loyal, concerned about those he had charge of. And when all else failed, he got by with brute competence. What he had said about The King and Queen needing replacement was correct. The Queen being the real problem.

  “Instigators of a coup, and traitors, get paid more than patriots.”

  “Which do you think I am?”

  They sat quietly for a moment, looking at each other. A smile lurked at the corners of his face.

  Karen broke the silence. “Have your men ready. But they will wait until I give the signal that the family is ready. If they come too soon, they will have to face me.”

  “They will be instructed.”

  Karen signed the contract. The Viceroy rolled his copy of the parchment and pocketed it, left his payment for his drink, and contract, and departed.

  Karen had never taken a counter contract before. It was generally against guild rules, and ethics. But in the case of this job, it wasn’t so much a reversal of the original contract, as a modification, and minor extension of terms. The Queen wanted the parents delivered, and the wizard killed. She could do that. The Viceroy wanted the family taught what was needed to do to kill The King and Queen. She could do that, thought she needed a bit of research first. Whatever happened after that was none of her concern. And what about patriotism?

  Karen had heard rumors about The Queen for much of her adult life. Now she was tasked with killing her, via these half-elves of prophecy. So first she needed to learn of the specific prophecy, in its entirety. Problem was the prophet had been killed, executed at the order of The Queen. So next was the official record. That was not public knowledge. But The Guild had a copy.

  It was a routine exercise for guild members to sneak into the palace and copy parts of the court's records. One summer, the guild and guards had made such a commotion about it that an open brawl had occurred on four different occasions. The guild had compassion in the fights, and none of the guards lived to face punishment. They would have been executed anyway. The guild just did a quicker, cleaner job.

  At any rate, this evening Karen went to the Guild Hall, and to the library. This only cost her two bruises. She quickly found what she wanted and copied the passage. The language was prophetically clear, for Karen’s exposure to prophets and scripture. Point blank, the prophet said that the Harbingers of the Chaos Bringer would kill this king and queen. Male for male, female for female. And this would happen before the Chaos Bringer came into mortality. Annotated to this was all that was known about this Chaos Bringer, including a copy of the original prophecy about that person. Karen read and copied all this, then went back to her primary residence.

  This did not answer the question of how, but it did tell for sure who; just as the Viceroy’s contract stated. So she needed to learn about The King and Queen, and how to get some children to kill them. That meant a trip into the palace. While the guild kept tabs on how to kill everybody of note in the area, they had to update this regularly, and that meant surveillance. Karen had kept her extra senses suppressed when she went in to receive her contract. But her eyes and ears had told her much. Her best target would be among the bodyguards of each monarch. The longer lasted the better. So she got her costume together, and went down to the river: it was going to be a cold swim.

  The Palace sat on a large island. The guild found the easiest approach was from the Garmad river side of the fortress. But to get there meant starting upstream, swimming the river, and fighting the current to the fortress wall. At that point the choice was four easy ways, and one hard way into the fortress. The hard one was the only one not guarded regularly.

  Karen swam across the river carefully, avoiding the eddy currents while also not making any big splashes. She had to concentrate some to stay warm, as her clothes waterlogged and started to drag her down. She got around the fortress wall to the down-river side, and began counting bricks. On twenty one from the corner, she dove down and to the grate. Pulling herself down it, against the current coming out of it, she found the hole at the bottom and went in. She had to pull herself against the current in the tunnel. Along the way, Karen’s air began to give out, and the tunnel began to collapse on her, as panic looked for a way into her concentration. The current lessened and the water was warmer, and the tunnel ended as Karen got to the end of her air. She got her feet under her, and pushed up. She quickly surfaced. The air was a bit foul, the water dirty. The chamber was a final mixing point for water from the river and fortress sewage. She could track up the sewage lines and get to many of the secured areas of the palace, but Karen did not want to risk any further encounters with claustrophobia. She got over to the one walkway in the room, used by the service sector to keep the place running. Karen pulled herself out, stood on the stone and concentrated.

  She focused her mind on pushing all the water out of her costume; her balaclava, canvas jacket and trousers, the cloth pieces under those, and out of her socks and out of her low boots. The rolled up cape wrapped around her waist took a bit longer to wring dry, but it was before she left. The water ran down her and off leaving a puddle. Her leather components retained a little water but were all but dry to the touch. As she left the puddle she shook the last drops from her boots, leaving no foot prints.

  Karen quickly made her way out of the utility area and up to the garrison barracks. She listened carefully the whole way with all her senses. The hard part was looking like a shadow on the wall for the few guards standing watch. She simply paced the patrolling ones. Finally she got to the barracks, and found where The Queen’s personal guard stayed. She had to wait for the right moment, but was able to cleanly slip into the bedchamber of the second in command. Unmarried, he was wrapped around a harlot on his bed.

  Karen moved around the bedchamber, a cat would be noisier. First she reached for the harlots head, and gave her a quick scan, confirming her asleep. Then a psionic push to deeper sleep. No sense having her disturb this. Karen then put her attention on the guardsman. She touched his mind. He dreamed of this harlot. Karen took a soft hold of his thoughts, and put the idea of The Queen in the harlots place.