Cracked Glass & Letters
Half the sky was still in the grasps of night when the convoy left base Klinngen and entered the road leading across the burnt fields. Tree stumps rose from the gray soil like spires of coal as they passed, illuminated only by the violet embers glowing behind mount Itai. Rannek rubbed his eyes with hands cuffed at the wrists and watched the city’s towers appear far ahead of them, parts of one hulking dark mass of concrete and brick, inseparable in the lingering darkness.
Syrkanan had kept them in his custody longer than he had any right to, and yet they had not complained, only answered his questions over, and over, and over again. Rannek still felt a throbbing pain in his jaw each time he opened his mouth, a souvenir of his own foolishness. Flailings, Syrkanan had called it. What madness had driven him to attack a man like the colonel? He could only smile at the thought of how he must have looked, and be glad there was no one else around to bear witness.
As the outskirts of the city came closer, he couldn’t but think of the last time he had passed this road, of the company he had been in in. Of what little remained of it. Kysryn. Only Kysryn now. The others were dead, or gone, or Vohl knew what. He remembered Wellan staring out the window, still mad from their disagreement earlier that morning. He remembered the look on Pen’s face the moment when she realized they were headed for base Klinngen. She had resented him right then. She’d been right. He had lied to her, and not only that, had lied to himself.
Because it wasn’t safe. She wasn’t safe. And now, she was gone, and he was returning to her city without her.
Barriers appeared on both sides hiding the poorer parts of the suburbs, the hovels, huts, and tents of those that could not afford apartments. As they drove on, the sun’s embers turned into a smoldering fire, lighting the contours of the towers of the inner city. The radio station. The two towers of Vohl’s Central Church of The North. The apartment complexes that were finished, and those that were not, surrounded by cranes and wrapped in blankets of scaffolding. There was a beauty in watching the city wake up like this, yet Rannek’s heart felt heavy, and he was overcome with relief when the van took a turn and hid it from his gaze behind a row of brick depots and workshops.
They made headway fast. He spotted only a handful people until they passed the plazas, where the earliest of the vendors were buzzing about their stalls, before finally arriving at the municipal building’s front entrance. Last time, it had been the back, as they had tried to keep a low profile leaving the city.
All that seemed so far removed from him now. From what Syrkanan had let slip, everyone and their mother knew of his absence; he would have to tell them something, eventually. But he found it so depressingly hard to catch even a single clear thought.
A small group of men awaited them on the sidewalk there, Tahori in blue uniform wearing berets of white. The City Watch. Rannek recognized a few of them, most notably commissioner Ayalim Oso, head of the Watch, whose square face, as always, seemed frozen in a perpetually state of mild boredom. It did not even change when the cars stopped, and the major stepped out, and almost immediately got into the commissioner’s face.
»You better keep an eye on them, or we’ll be back,« the major said. He was one of Syrkanan’s underlings, a man of stocky stature and narrow face, whose moods seemed to mirror those of his superior to the dot. He turned to snarl at the privates as they dragged Rannek and the other two onto the sidewalk. »Get them out, faster!«
After hours spent in base Klinngen’s holding facility being bombarded with questions, Rannek let the major spill his grief without paying too much attention. Before long, he was finished, and in lack of a response ordered his men to take the cuffs off the prefect and private Kysryn.
Still, the short man could not help himself. »If you think this won’t come back to you, you’re sourly mistaken,« he hissed once more. »The colonel won’t forget your crime.«
Rannek furrowed his brow. »A crime? Backed by what evidence, major?«
The major’s eyes pierced him like daggers before he turned and entered the rover he had come in. A dog on a leash. Syrkanan would refuse from openly stating his suspicions until the moment he held the evidence in his hands; ruthless or no, where there was protocol, he would adhere to it. Rannek stretched, and yawned, and waited until the convoy had taken off. He was left surrounded by men that heeded only his command, on a dark and otherwise empty street, standing before the massive northeast wing of the municipal building. Home.
“Welcome back, prefect Lorne,” Ayalim said. “We were getting worried.”
Rannek bowed the Tahori bow, and watched him do so in return. “My apologies. Have you done as I asked?”
“I have. No one knows.”
Which meant he had time to come up with a story. Rannek nodded. “In that case, I want you to meet someone. Commissioner Oso, I present to you buewe Elea Golyee of the Liberation Army.”
Murmurs went through the crowd of Tahori, cut short by Ayalim Oso’s raised fist. He stepped past Rannek and Kysryn to face the tall girl and check her handcuffs carefully. “It’s not often we get guests from the TLA. Solitary?”
“Yes. I will question her shortly.”
“Of course,” Ayalim said. “Anything else?”
Rannek had to stifle a yawn, with little success. “That’s it from my part. Anything I should know? Has the city gone up in flames yet?”
“Hardly. Two protests directly after you left, an increase in jinoas, but things have calmed down since. They might pick up once the people learn of your return, however.” Ayalim shrugged, yet his face stayed the same. “Some are not too happy you left to begin with.”
That was to expect. “You may go, commissioner. Thank you.”
“One more thing, if I may ask.” Ayalim scratched the back of his head. “Why did you call us, and not the Guard? Not to complain, but the prefect’s return from travel traditionally falls under their purview.”
“The Guard is… not as organized, at the moment.”
“About that—where is commander Sersynin? Is he—”
Rannek shook his head.
At last, something moved in Ayalim Oso’s face, if only for a breath. “I’m sorry. He was a good man.”
“Thank you.”
Rannek passed a number of guards on the way to his office, men at the end of an unthankful shift, more than a few of which showed surprise at his reappearance. None dared to approach him about it, though. The ghost of Wellan, still at my heels. For the moment, he was grateful for it. The staircase creaked under his steps and those of Kysryn, who did not say a word either. He had taken up silence ever since the Krissin took off at Bitaab, ever since they had seen the full scope of the destruction Syrkanan had brought upon the mines. Rannek had been prepared, and still, it haunted him, would haunt him for a long time, perhaps into his grave. He saw no reason why it shouldn’t.
They stopped before his office, where two more men of the Guard were keeping watch. Their faces were well known to him, yet whether it was the time of day or his scrambled mind, Rannek failed to remember their names. “Go,” he simply said, and they complied, taking up position further down the hallway.
He turned to Kysryn. »You should go, too.«
The guard looked up, perplexed. He was clad in the fresh clothes of a soldier of base Klinngen, similar to Rannek’s except for the beret. Only his face showed how tired he was. »Go where, prefect?«
»Home. Bed. Anywhere but here.« Rannek put his hand on Kysryn’s shoulder. »You may take a leave. Ten days, twenty, it won’t be an issue.«
»… But you won’t rest. How can I?«
Rannek knew exactly how he felt. But he was too tired to argue with Kysryn, with himself, with anyone. »Go home,« he said. »That’s an order.« And for whatever reason, Rannek neither gave him a nod or a salute, but a hug, a long, awkward one that crinkled the guard’s shirt, before entering his office and closing the doors behind him.
The curtains were drawn, the air chilly and laden with dust. Rannek stepped onto the thick carpet and felt a weight fall off his chest, one he had not realized was even there. Alone. He was alone, truly alone, not dozing in a cave surrounded by other people who had found sleep before him, not sitting in a tent waiting for the next person to come in and berate him with questions, but in his office, his domain, where no one could enter, where they had to knock, and where he was the prefect and didn’t have to answer, didn’t have to do anything unless he cared to.
Rannek took a deep breath, looked around at the big shelves full of books and peculiar items, of friends, the only ones he had ever needed, and found a laugh creeping up his chest, one too deep and urgent to be kept down. And so the prefect laughed, and laughed, until tears streamed down his face and his breath caught in his throat, and he realized that he was laughing no more.
After wiping off the snot against his sleeve, he sunk into his chair. The leather felt cold, as did the wood of the desk, and when he turned on the lamp, it needed two frags before the bulb fully lit up. Some folders and correspondences lay about the workspace left from before his departure. They read incredibly boring and meaningless. He had to prioritize. Too many things needed to be done, and the sooner he did them, the better he would be able to focus once the public learned what had happened.
He wasn’t foolish enough to think that they had no inklings about the annihilation of Bitaab, but those couldn’t amount to more than hearsay. People from the area talking of blinding flames at the horizon in the morning hours, of smoke columns, of locked-off roads and jungle pathways, of Krissins circling the skies around the mines. Yet they did not know what exactly had happened. Who had made it happen. Rannek feared it was only a question of time until he himself would be implicated. Ayalim said he had kept it secret, yet who knew? He was a careful man, true, but so was Wellan.
That moment, Rannek knew what must be done. He cleared the space before him, took out pen and paper from a drawer in the cabinet, and started writing.
Dear Eshryn, I write to you
He stopped. His words needed to be chosen carefully. ‘full of grief?’ No. ‘with a heavy heart’? Better, but was Eshryn the kind of person who even appreciated such formalities? He had only met her once during the few days she had visited, and yet the impression she’d left had been a strong one. The woman definitely did not beat around the bush.
Dear Eshryn, I write to you with sad news.
‘Sad’? Rannek palmed his face, then crumpled the sheet in his hand and flung it into the waste basket before taking out a new one from the drawer.
Dear Eshryn, I write to you with terrible news. It pains me to say, but
‘I’. ’me’. Rannek began to see what the problem was; here was a woman about to receive the worst news of her life, yet he was making it about himself. Once again, he trashed the letter, and this time took out a whole stack of paper.
Dear Eshryn, I hope this letter finds you
Dear Eshryn, may this letter find you well. Unfortunately
Dear Eshryn, there is no way to put this kindly, but I do not know
Dear Eshryn, you always seemed like a woman who appreciated honesty and
Dear Eshryn, your husband is dead.
»Fuck!« The last ball of paper he flung into the room. It slipped his hand prematurely, flying off into one of the shelves and hitting a hand-sized porcelain manserpent. The figurine wobbled, so much so he feared it may topple over, yet the arc of its wobble slowly decreased until it vibrated back into place with the noise of a miniature drill.
Rannek sighed. There was no escaping his duty, and no unfortunate choice of words came close to the shame of her finding out through anyone else than him. It was his lot. His responsibility. With a heavy hand and heavier eyelids, he put a new sheet of paper before him and started over.
“Prefect Lorne?”
Rannek lifted his head with the paper still stuck to his forehead, disoriented. His dreams had been a tangled mess, full of sparks and giants and flowers of blood, all to the backdrop of waves eating away at a stony shore, whereas now, he was staring at a head clearly discomfited by his attention. Iogu barely dared to peek inside, and looked as if one squinting of Rannek’s eyes could suffice to let him slip out again. Rannek pulled at the paper still stuck to his head. It tore.
“Iogu. What is it?”
The young man averted his eyes. Rannek noticed a different background noise than the relentless cycle of the tides. Grumbling. Murmuring. “I’m sorry to disturb you, prefect, but there are people here to see you.”
“Who?” Rannek smacked his lips. A foul dryness had seeped into his mouth. “What time is it?”
“Noon,” the young assistant replied. “As for who…”
Iogu opened the door just a bit further. It was plenty enough to wake Rannek in a heartbeat. Down the entire corridor stood a line of Tahori chatting, debating, waving their hands, cinnamon faces he knew well and ones he had never seen. People did come to seek his counsel on occasion, or his approval, or sometimes to change his mind. But never like this.
“Get inside,” Rannek whispered, sharply. “Now!”
Iogu did as he was bid, and closed the door behind him. “Should I have sent them away? I’m sorry, but… they showed up out of nowhere! Saying you’d come back, saying they wouldn’t leave before they spoke to you. I didn’t know what to do—after all, I hadn’t even seen you come in, and—“
“You did nothing wrong. The city doesn’t stop when I leave, this is just… backed up traffic. But we have to think about our next move here.” Rannek pinched the bridge of his nose, leaned back in his chair, and blinked until the sleep had vanished from his eyes. “I need you to buy food.”
“What food?”
Rannek looked Iogu in the eyes until the young Tahori squirmed under his stare. “All the food that you can find. Just don’t tell them who it’s for, got it?”
Iogu blanked out for a breath before nodding, and hurrying back to the door. His hand pressed down the handle. Then, he stopped, and turned. “Glad to have you back, prefect Lorne.”
A shred of paper separated from Rannek’s forehead and sailed back onto the desk. ‘Dear Eshryn, I’… Rannek flung it in the trash and stood up. “Glad to be back,” he said, before ripping apart the curtains and letting a flood of light wash over him.
The first party turned out to consist of well-knowns: the sturdy women of the Koeiji Culture Board, each of whom squeezed him by the shoulder and made long eye contact following the old Tahori way of greeting, a practice that, after years of heeding their complaints, still made him feel uncomfortable. The issue of the day came as no surprise. They presented him with a beautifully assembled photo book filled to the brim with pictures of jinoas taken throughout the city that, according to them, “brought shame on this great ancient art”. Browsing through them, Rannek found a good two dozen depicting his likeness, and couldn’t but feel flattered despite the snide remarks hidden within. Nonetheless, he assured the Board that Commissioner Oso would be informed to send out more cleaning outfits, and thanked them for their kind words about his recent slimming. When they left, he found the book an inconspicuous place in his shelves before opening his doors again.
Next came two foremen from the dock worker’s union. Their quarrels with the City Guard had escalated in his absence, especially with the support staff from base Klinngen; one blue and four black berets had gotten into a scuffle and shot two workers in the leg, who still remained in the hospital. Rannek could not imagine approaching Syrkanan about the issue anytime soon; nor did he know how to broach the subject with the Guard before choosing a new head. But it seemed that the incident itself had quieted things down for the moment, and that the two men appreciated him listening in itself. Only when they asked about Wellan did he halt for a breath. Commander Sersynin was indisposed, Rannek said. It was his first lie of the day.
Next up were four men and women from a township in South Koeiji, who swore that their neighbors were harboring “agents of the TLA, filthy, craven creatures”. Their evidence for this was flimsy, however, and focused more on the neighbors’ lack of courtesy than actual treason. Rannek told them to address these claims at the Watch and sent them away not five frags after they had entered.
Iogu returned as the disgruntled South Koeijians were just stepping out, carrying two heavy burlap sacks in each hand packed to the brim with steaming foods from all the restaurants he’d found open. Rannek had him bring in two cocktail tables and a heap of plates and dishware, and fix it up so that the visitors could feel free to help themselves to a decent meal. The first plate filled, however, was his own; a roasted quack with a side of corn mixed with patiti nuts, which he gulped down hectically before reveiving the fourth group of visitors.
Six fishermen came in, rugged, thick-armed men, complaining about tankers who scared away their prey by veering off course when entering the port. He wrote down a note to contact port administrator Yaen about the issue and thanked them for bringing it to his attention.
Two drivers whose cars had collided in the inner city asked his approval to settle the matter out of court, as neither wished to involve lawyers; he was close to giving his—meaningless—blessing until he inquired by what method they were going to settle it, and found out they meant to duel with knives over which one got to keep both damaged vehicles. He forbade them to do so, and notified judge Guylam with them still present, and disgruntled.
A whopping twenty-three Gekiko musicians crowded his office to invite him to attend the yearly Koeiji Sunyear Festival—per song. He stopped them after two frags of deafening noise with an emphatic yes, and ushered them out while shouting apologies about his hectic schedule.
Five community leaders came before him to complain about a road being built close to their townships. What exactly their quarrel was took a while to figure out, as his hearing was still suffering from the musical assault. When he realized they were complaining not about the road itself, but about how slow the tar was being laid—“what an awful, awful smell”—he assured them to contact the construction company in question and sent them on their way.
The afternoon saw many and more people seeking his attention, and he gave it willingly even though the lack of sleep was beginning to gnaw at him. Disputes about hedges, tapped power lines, school curricula, statements from organizations for ethical butchering, against Gralinn restrictions on clothing in the workplace, and one that sought nothing but to make sure he understood their neutrality on the subject of baptisms in the Church of Vohl while strongly admonishing his office’s tolerance of the “dangerous” initiation rituals sometimes performed by Tahori sages… Rannek heard them and comforted them and sometimes spoke a word of power, and gradually lost all awareness of time. The brightness of day made way for the warm colors of the evening. And then, after the thirty-ninth visitor, it suddenly was Iogu standing in the doorway.
“Don’t tell me,” Rannek said. “We’re finished?”
The young Tahori looked exhausted himself, having catered to the line of visitors with drinks and soothing words of affirmation about the prefect’s need to give each and every one of them the time they required. He smiled a shy smile. “Almost. There is only one left.”
“Send him in, then!” Rannek stood up and walked to the display of foods on the cocktail table; it had been diminished, but most was still left, now cold and less appetizing. At least some of them ate. After Elehi Rai’s death, it seemed a worthwhile effort to encourage people to break bread with the prefect once in a while.
When the door was closed, Rannek turned in surprise to find that it was only Iogu who had entered.
“I don’t mean to take up your time, prefect,” Iogu said. “There are only a few small issues… We can address it some other time, if you wish.”
Rannek smiled a tired smile. “Nonsense. Take a seat.” The young man complied. Rannek meanwhile tended to his room, limping here and there to open the window fully and assemble empty plates smeared with grease.
“We need…” started the assistant. “We could use more fans. The heat is getting bad in the east wing.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Rannek said.
“Lieutenant Hulsnyk wished to speak to you. He said you may call for him whenever needed.”
“Good to know.”
“There also have been letters piling up since you left. I thought it unfitting to present them to you on a day like this. Do you want me to bring—“
“Tomorrow. I’ll deal with that tomorrow, as with Hulsnyk.”
“Of course.”
“Is that all?” Rannek asked.
A pause ensued. “Prefect Lorne, what happened to you?”
Rannek piled up the last of the plates left on his shelves, and sat down in his chair to look at his assistant. As always, he felt reminded of himself. An unfair comparison to a young man as keen and strong-chinned as Iogu, he knew, yet he remembered his own twenties, the allure of books and tireless work, the awkwardness with people. Iogu was without a doubt the most educated of the municipal clerks, save for the accountants, perhaps, but it took so much to get that gifted mind out of his head. It was why Wellan had objected to his promotion to first assistant.
“I took a trip.”
Iogu rose from the armchair, and bowed. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Sit down, for Vohl’s sake. You wouldn’t ask if there wasn’t reason to do so.” Rannek waited until the other had complied. “What are they saying?”
“All kinds of things, but nothing substantial. I asked mainly because I see for myself. You don’t look well. You’ve been gone for near a moon; recovering, I had hoped, yet you look… gaunt. Tired.”
“Look in your memories. Have I ever looked well rested?”
The eyes that looked back at him suddenly turned suspicious. “What about your glasses?”
Rannek took them off, and looked. And for the first time in a long time, he noticed the crack that went through the right lense, suffered in the crash of the Krissin. He noticed the bend of the temples from when jaiwe Haam had hit him. He’d been wearing trash in front of his eyes the entire time and never noticed it. “… Why didn’t you say anything before?”
“I didn’t… The people, we were overrun, I…” Iogu looked down. “I apologize, prefect.”
Rannek sighed. “No matter now.” He opened the middle one of his drawers, and took out his second pair. The rims were thicker, and it fit not as neatly, yet when he put them on, he suddenly noticed the discomfort that had become his normal. “I think I’m done for the day, Iogu.”
“I understand.” The young man got up and walked to the door. But then, he stopped. “Sir, there’s someone outside.”
Rannek joined him at the door with painful, hobbling steps. There was indeed a commotion outside, a back-and-forth of muffled voices. He sighed. “And here I thoughtwe were finished for the day.”
“They must have just arrived, there was no one—“
I know that voice. Rannek pushed open the door, and found a fresh blue beret facing a group of six Tahori in the hallway, all speaking at once. They silenced as soon as they spotted him.
»Kysryn, what is the meaning of this?« asked Rannek.
The guard showed him a face tired and unrelenting. He hasn’t slept either. »They wanted to barge into your office. I told them to wait, but they wouldn’t listen, and… the language, I don’t…«
»I told you to stay home.« Rannek softly pushed him aside. The Tahori looked at him with unsure eyes. There were two men, two women, and two children, a girl and a boy. Some of them had tears smeared around their eyes. “I’m sorry for the trouble. What can I do for you?”
One of the women stepped forward and slapped him in the face, propelling his new glasses in the air. They landed on the marble floor with a cracking sound. Kysryn moved to intervene, but Rannek held him back. When one of the men tried to pull back the woman, she wrestled free of his hands, and dug a finger into Rannek’s chest. “You can give us answers! You can give us respect!”
“How?” Rannek asked. It was all he could think to say.
The woman’s finger left him, and dread all of a sudden crept into her expression. She covered her mouth with her hands and sank back into the man’s embrace, still staring at him. “I’m… I didn’t…” she stammered.
“I pray you will forgive Mayi,” said the other woman with a voice of simmering rage. “We have been waiting to see you for days and tens, yet no one knew when you would return. How is a parent to stand that?” She faltered. “Where were you?”
“I…” A parent. “The attack. Your sons, were they—“
“Our son,” said the man still holding Mayi. “Some children have one parent, some none. Ours have four.”
The composed one silenced him with nothing but a raised finger. “We know what our boy did was wrong. A horrid act by a misguided child, but… none of us are trying to make excuses. He must pay. We understand that. Yet how? Days pass, almost an entire Tenin, and nobody tells us what will happen to him. Nobody tells us anything. You have the right to try him, as it was your life he attempted to take, but to put us through this… limbo? Why? If you mean to—“ She choked, and tears came to her eyes. “If you mean to kill our Diaen, the least you could do is tell us!”
She silenced, and Rannek, too, found himself at a loss for words. He had forgotten about the boys who had tried to take his life. How did one forget such a thing?
More guards had entered the hallway, but stayed at a distance following Kysryn’s signal. These people were hardly an emergency, they were simply a family, a worried, tortured one. He saw lines under their eyes, especially Mayi’s, and uncertainty in the two childrens’ faces. They were fifteen, sixteen perhaps, not much older than Pen. The girl was thin, well-dressed, undoubtedly popular amongst her peers, the boy unseemingly fat, but kind-eyed. If either of them shared the sentiment that had driven their brother to try and take his life, he couldn’t see it.
Rannek leaned back against the doors to his office and pinched his nose. However much he rued himself for his forgetfulness, that was not the full picture. His plate had been full as of late, not least with survival, but there was another reason he had avoided thinking about it. Whichever call he made about the fate of the boys would have implications. Elehi Rai’s legacy was a tainted one, and comparisons would arise should he follow in his footsteps. On the other hand, attacking a prefect could not go unpunished. His life had to be protected by law. The courts would give the charges he filed serious thought, if not approve them right away for fear of the Empire. He had to be careful. He had to weigh his options. This was not the moment to—
“None of them will die,” Rannek found himself saying. And before he could even think to retract the words, the Tahori made it an impossibility. Cries of joy echoed off the marble, and hugs went around, and a barrage of thankful words thrown at him.
When they had calmed down a bit, the composed woman stacked her hands and bowed a bow so deep his injuries forbade him to reciprocate. The others followed her example. “We are forever in your debt, prefect Lorne,” she said. “Thank the gods for letting you judge our son’s fate.”
Rannek smiled, conflicted. “I appreciate your kind words. But know that your son still won’t be free for a long time. What he did must have—”
“Consequences, no doubt. I don’t like the thought of him locked up, yet he has started to drift away from us a long while ago. Maybe some time to think will bring him back.” She bowed once more, and took a step backwards while doing so. “We will not take up more of your time. Besides,” she added with a smile, “the other families need to hear these joyous news.”
He nodded, and they left. When he stepped away from the door, Rannek stumbled, and felt the supporting hands of both Kysryn and Iogu holding his elbows. “Iogu, my crutch, if you’ll be so kind.”
“Of course,” Yogu said as he rushed into the office.
Rannek then turned to the guard. »If you insist on waiving your leave, may I ask a favor?«
»You may.«
»Take me home, Kysryn.«
The rover they were assigned by the Guard’s lot manager was clean, and had mercifully been standing in the shade of the palm trees planted beside the municipal building. Rannek rested his head against the leather, inspected the tiny crack in his second glasses, and watched as the buildings went by, watched the people stream across the streets and plazas. The evening was a special time during the dry heat, as it was warm, yet bearable, and thus saw a steep increase in productivity. Subservient vendors earned their dinner selling to the families that left the coolness of their homes for a stroll around the block. Craftsmen and -women kept the gates and doors of the shops open as they sawed, welded, polished, soldered, and assembled the products scheduled to be finished on the morrow. Butchers and fishmongers opened up once more after having closed for the afternoon, expecting to make the better part of their profits in the crammed timespan between sundown and darkness.
Only after they had left the inner city behind did Kysryn speak up again. “You see them?”
Rannek nodded. He feigned a yawn and a neck-stretch to throw a glance out of the rover’s back window. The other car was still there, following at a good distance behind them, as it had for the past ten frags. “Looks like one of ours. Guess lieutenant Hulsnyk wishes to keep me safe. It’s him who heads the Guard for the time being, isn’t it?”
“It is… You didn’t see him yet? Does he know about the commander’s death?”
Rannek shook his head. “It was a full day. I thought it easiest to let him continue as before until I made up my mind.” A lie. He hadn’t spent a thought on Hulsnyk, let alone Wellan’s succession. “What do you think of him? Hulsnyk?”
“Decent soldier, better leader.” Kysryn’s eyes glanced at his through the rear view mirror. “The driver’s wearing a black beret.”
“… Oh.” Rannek was too tired to be surprised. So Syrkanan really was keeping tabs on him. Rannek had considered it, but he hadn’t expected it to occur this out in the open. The colonel really must have been livid underneath all that composure.
Then again, he had good reason to. What they had done broke codes Rannek had never before even questioned. If it came out, he may well be deemed and tried a traitor. And perhaps they’d be right. If Syrkanan’s actions reflect the Empire, he reckoned, a traitor wassn’t the worst thing to be. Dangerous thoughts, yet he failed to rein in his mind. Thoughts wouldn’t catch up with him. His actions would.
It was at least a solace to not be alone. Kysryn was complicit just like him; their ‘fight’ had happened in front of a good three dozen soldiers at the center of the camp. He still suffered a certain disbelief that it had worked. By now, Rannek was well-versed in the ways of politics, yet it had been a different kind of ruse required to draw the soldiers’ attention, a far more physical one. ‘Foolish old man’, he remembered the technician yelling at him before lunging out. Kysryn had pulled his punches, yet to a wounded Rannek, they had felt deceptively real against his sternum.
A price worth the reward. He would not even have considered Ibiko to get involved if he had not offered it himself, stammering, signing, barely able to talk. It could have backfired, it should have. But he had gotten inside the tent unnoticed. If even one man had seen him, Syrkanan would have been informed long ago, and he would have never left base Klinngen after being flown there shackled and guarded like a lowly criminal. All they were missing was the evidence.
For when the fight was over, and the soldiers checked inside the tent, all they found was a dozen leather straps cut open, some drops of blood on the ground, and two flaps of fabric waving softly in the mountain breeze, cut apart by a scalpel. Ibiko was gone.
And so was Glane.
When they arrived at the gate of the house provided for the prefect, the other rover arrived too, its front peeking out from a crossing down the street. Two blue berets posted outside opened the gate for Kysryn and Rannek, and they passed four on the inside as they moved up the driveway. The fortress felt excessive to him still even after five years, yet on this day, he did not mind the two-birk walls of limestone, the sentries, and the bright lights kept on throughout the night. Syrkanan would not resort to anything unauthorized, he knew. The colonel was the least of his enemies.
He had pardoned his would-be killers. There would be others. As he stepped from the car, Rannek watched the blue-black sky disappear behind the dropping garage door, and stepped into his house.
Kae and Fyori had gone home from the looks of it, but they had left the rooms clean as always. Rannek poured himself a glass of water, downed it, and offered one to Kysryn, who had followed him into the kitchen. The guard declined. Rannek crossed the kitchen, the living room, and started up the stairs when Kysryn suddenly spoke up.
»Should I go?«
»You may,« Rannek said. He did not know what to do with this man; Wellan’s choice deemed him capable, and he’d proven himself steady under pressure with Syrkanan. Despite all of that, he barely knew him.
Yet something told Rannek that he would do well to keep him close. He alone among all of Koeiji knew what had happened in the caves under Mount Taab. More than that, he had lived through it. He had seen Wellan die, and felt the dread of facing the savage. With nothing but uncertainty on the horizon, this man would understand him. He’d stay loyal to him.
»Private Kysryn,« Rannek said, »would you consider being my new head of the Guard?«
The man at the bottom of the stairs looked up at him with confused eyes. »… No, sir.«
Rannek nodded, and chuckled. »Good decision.« He turned around, walked into his bedroom, and fell onto the cleaned ironed sheets without even taking off his clothes.
Martin Surga 