Ordovico

Ordovico the Schoolmaster approaches Ellomyr confidently, though weary from the journey. Everyone can use education.
Soon he will be recognized as an upright, polite and kindly man of letters who acts older than he is - not long in his forties -, and he plans on teaching the children of Ellomyr their letters and numbers, maps and star-charts in the morning as a service to the community, while taking the odd private student for a fee in the afternoons. He began a new life over a decade ago and everything has gone alright, having found peace in honest, diligent work; but he keeps having to move on to stay ahead of his past. A bland-faced caucasian, always well shaved, he always wears black with a high collar, hiding the scar of a failed throat-cutting from when he was a spy for a noble and forgotten cause and got double-crossed by corrupt peers - for as long as he can help it, no one will know he is an Intelligent Jack who Operates Undercover.
He will have to keep an ear to the ground, of course, for everyone's safety - his own, the children's, everyone. A minor network of informants may prove to be a necessary precaution. But surely, *surely* he can resist the pull to fall into old vices of cloak and dagger?

~*~

Ellomyr was changing by the hour. It would be an easy place to slip through the changes. Achieve normalcy not just as a cover, but to be permeated by it, like a fossilization and a perfuming. Ordovico the Schoolmaster felt the humming stillness of perjuring the world as he immersed himself in his identity.
To meet the elders, and to set up residence. Money would not be a problem, not immediately, but it would have to seem like a problem. Hmm, so the village already has an educator, how very much to its credit. Perfectly acceptable. He planned for this branch of possibilities as well; it's something he does. He will respectfully offer to share the responsibilities, and gauge the person. Perhaps they will welcome the assistance. Perhaps not.
He walked in the morning sun, not a hint of sweat. A guarded and empty mind; a fate camouflaged by esoterities - spies as a profession had their ways of skirting the meddling of numenera. He would take a measure of this Hikodemi as he would others, some with profit, some to loss, ever cautiously, ever softly; it was a long road ahead. But he already planned ahead to his first lesson. "Well children, tell me things you know about the Ninth World..."

~*~

Ordovico lit the fire under the kettle with a bit of hedge nano as he reviewed the day's accomplishments. The meeting with Hikodemi had gone well; the man seemed a decent, dependable type and it wasn't hard to impress on him the advantages of a more advanced curriculum on natural philosophy, the histories and the numenera; seemed like a guy worth working with. Other meetings had followed a similar pattern. "And you can call me Vico..." the former spy had repeated again and again; tedious, fastidious and harmless, that was how he'd come across each time,- as intended.
He placed funnel, filter and ground grain on the thermal jar, and indulged himself with some recollecting of the people he'd been in days gone by. He was quite proud of his time as the Chalcedony Reaver; a long stint as a rugged barbarian bandit lord in which by dint of intimidation and timely ambushes he never had to actually display the physical might he in truth lacked. Same as the traveling poet Jesse Seterrant the Impudent, whose confidence and roguish charm (and not a little make-up) made him rather successful with a series of lovers in spite of actually fairly bland looks - and never really getting around to writing any poetry. And a ghost of a smile twitched in his lips recalling an operation as Mama Avivi, a remarkably cantankerous and obese baker of sweetmeats...
He poured the boiling water on the ground grain and took in the scent of coffee. He may have to revive Silkhand Johnson, he thought, that ruthless trading company representative, as someone who would employ - and afford - a network of informants. Johnson required a bit too much time with the disguise kit and its oddities - setting up the striking green eyes, dark skin, fine features, fitter build, elegantly tailored business clothes - but he'd be a most useful alter ego - hanging around the taverns at night, hiring motley adventurers for various jobs - a way to get to know the more... well, adventurous arrivals to Ellomyr. Silkhand out of the delicateness of his touch; a ghostlike mercantile fixer, go-between, information broker. No matter that there was no actual powerful merchant house with inexhaustible wealth behind him; the point was in the reputation, the contacts, the aura of authority.
"Yes," he thought finishing his coffee, "Tonight the Silkhand will be seen in town."
Who does he meet?

~*~

It is the opening night at the Tavern of the Trilling View, and a free round of drinks is paid for by a mysterious well-dressed man, this "Silkhand Johnson". He says it is a courtesy from his employers, whose business identity he unfortunately is not at liberty to divulge yet. He asks the keeper to refer any "persons of adventure" looking for work to his table in a shady corner, from where he will observe the movement enjoying a tall glass of room temperature water.
To those who do come to him, he will repeat the same story: his employers are concerned about a rival merchant house's inexplicable interest in areas in the vicinity of Ellomyr; his employers want to find out what is special about the place, and will pay for raw information of all sorts to produce a risk and prospection model of the region. Johnson will suggest dead drop sites for interested parties. Besides this standing general offer, his employers are also willing to pay a team of five professionals to scout the hills upriver, with maximum discretion, for signs of abhuman activity, while mapping potential sites for traps and other defenses for the security of Ellomyr. Johnson offers a meagre rate for the service, but will accept to be haggled to a decent rate for the local economics. He will not, however, pay in advance: "Agents who die before collection are agents who did not perform. The company does not pay for lack of performance."
It is nearly dawn when "Silkhand" makes his winding way back, throwing off any tails like the seasoned operative he is, and enters his house as Ordovico, the schoolmaster. Wheels are now in motion, if slowly, tentatively. The scouting excursion is just a shot in the dark, a gambling prod to see if anything dangerous stirs. He wonders if he made a mistake, if he just made something great and terrible looming right beyond the horizon of Tomorrow this slightly more dangerous and furious. But it's all about knowing, knowing early and knowing thoroughly. It's always best to know, right?
He sincerely hopes the five will be alright.

~*~

Ordovico reviewed his maps of the region enjoying yet another cup of coffee. Cartography was something he was getting the children interested in, and so it did not endanger his cover to keep his maps out in the open in his house. He made no markings of the intelligence gathered, however. Those went into the privacy of the memory palace, along with files on all the residents and newcomers to Ellomyr. And he already had *a lot* of data. He was, for triage, dividing all into three classes -- watchers, talkers and movers. There was the girl who listened, and the girl who saw. There were friendships and business arrangements being made, and others arriving preexisting. And there were those with blades already slick with blood.
The scouting party he hired as "Silkhand Johnson" to prospect the abhuman threat still hasn't reported back. He can't wait forever; he'll move ahead anyway with his plans to build and crew a camouflaged signal beacon post in that direction. It will take a chunk out of his reserves, but it should set up the reputation nicely - *Johnson means business.* And he needs people to start coming to him for intelligence, if he's going to balance his operational cash flow.

~*~

To the extent Ellomyr was forewarned when the margr came, some credit could be claimed by Ordovico the Schoolmaster. He heard the pop-pop-pop of the signaling flares, and peering into the hills, he saw the mirrors relaying the color-coded message from the signal watchpost his alter-ego "Silkhand Johnson" set up in the name of his mysterious (and fictitious) merchant house. The messages were no mere alarum, but estimated numbers and approach vectors. He changed quickly into a brand new identity he had prepared for such an occasion -- wise old Phasrap Nizam'Yermak Qalandar, Holy Man of the Wastes. In the streets, he ran from hero to hero -- from glaive to nano, and from nano back to glaive -- those he had identified earlier as most likely and ready to help, and told them, "You are needed!"
He knew most of their schedules and where they would be. "You are needed," he would sometimes say, "to defend such and such place! The abhuman death doth come! You will meet so and so there, assist them for Tomorrow's sake!" His plans were in truth basic -- defend wherever was most vulnerable, wherever the children and the helpless were, wherever foes could do most harm. Under close scrutiny his "prophecies" would prove not much more than common sense, forewarning and foreplanning, with the spice of crypticism and beard-spittling vehemence. He sought out the extraterrestrial and the group of mutants to alert them; he besought the help of the burned girl and the scarred warrior.
He rallied the heroes of Ellomyr thus, but when the fighting came, old Nizam'Yermak was nowhere to be seen -- Ordovico was by then in another guise, Nameless Rooftop Crossbow Sniper...

~*~

Ordovico the Schoolmaster had a period of respite in the eye of the storm -- hard-working respite.
In the first margr probe, he had over-responded to gauge the readiness of Ellomyr. The skirmishes were less intense than he'd prognosticated; the newcomer legion of heroes was well qualified for the threat. He then returned to his care of the children's education, while continuing the parallel work on his network and his files. He poked elders in the right direction when it came to deciding on the defenses of the village through anonymous letters of bribery or, when necessary, blackmail. It paid to know people's little sins.
He'd secretly acquired a captured margr and interrogated it with a cypher before disposing of it. Vico learned things too cryptic to be completely horrific, but still quite upsetting. The abhumans were just the beginning, one could say "phase one" of something darker. And it was taking form in his dreams -- bad dreams.
He wasn't leaving the village, but he was supporting from the shadows those who did -- and his middlemen were paying well for information afterwards. He now had three agents taking shifts at his camouflaged watchpost, good for keeping track of traffic in and out of Ellomyr -- he spent many a sleepless night over calculations of traffic analysis, but he enjoyed it, the numbers caressed into telling hidden truths -- and two more in the village itself -- and the woman with the carrier pigeons over with the embassy to Othmar. Well, the agents believed they answered to Silkhand Johnson, commercial representative of a secret, major merchant house; and that was as it should be. The network was now selling enough information to be self-sustaining -- the wiser adventuring parties were purchasing intelligence before an expedition.
Now Vico realized morale in Ellomyr was low enough to become a problem. Well, he did what he could as schoolmaster -- he treated the children with attention and confident optimism to soothe their worries, and their carefree tranquility carried over to their households. But his alter ego also did his part -- he invested in local artisans, paying immediately for vague long-term business arrangements on extremely generous terms. The carpenter Kelem, and others, had their fear checked by their own sense of avarice -- if big businessmen believed in Ellomyr, surely they knew what they were doing?
Vico went nearly broke, but it was worth it.

~*~

Adults lie.
Seen from above, the damage to Ellomyr was like a great wound upon the soft, thin fabric of civilization. Ordovico the Schoolmaster stood facing the setting sun, half-blinded. He was not thinking like himself. He was thinking as the nameless man beneath all his names. Thoughts thick as treacle, very cold at their depths.
Adults lie.
He'd told the children -- he'd let the children believe, and told them in the wordless way adults tell certain big things -- everything was under control; not in so many words, but the lie had been there, deliberately, pragmatically. Now some of his students would attend his next class as orphans. By his count his students had all survived, so that was one small blessing -- and the logical monster he also was checked some boxes in the demographic forecasts for Ellomyr. The long view was pitiless.
Authorities lie.
Someone had to take the long view. Growing up was finding out life would be hard and unfair; of course, children often knew that all too well, but it took the preclusion of possibilities age entailed to completely cool down on innocent hope. Security, to say nothing of happiness, would be always a tiny local thing, a most fragile microclimate. It took a constant gardener. He'd once come across a text of great antiquity, merely a fragment with edges long crumbled to dust -- "...it is not a new discovery with him that the gods, the abstractions and forces of nature, are frivolous, lewd, vicious, quarrelsome, and cruel, and only men's steadfastness, love, magnanimity, calmness, and compassion redeem the nightbound world." So ancient, yet a discovery that must come to every man, in his time,-- if at all.
Authorities lie.
We lie, and it must never be openly acknowledged. He'd planted the seed of doubt and hope in Kelem and the others -- a false hope of future investment and prosperity. And that had counted; that had changed their hearts in their alchemy of shame and fear, greed and bravery, into a final decision of collective salvation. Will there be one to judge if they acted for good reasons or selfish reasons? If they acted out of love or lie? Perhaps, but it would have to be a higher Authority than Vico. He'd made an instrument out of people; he'd caused some of them to die who otherwise might not, not today at least; but he did what was for the best, as far as he could tell.
He'd lied, but it was a lesson his students had to be taught, had to mull over in the privacy of their hearts, had to learn and build their character upon:
People who love sometimes have to lie, and sometimes you have to go along.

~*~

Despite being studiedly given to expecting the worst, Ordovico had to admit things had gone excellently. The investments he had made under the cover identity of Silkhand Johnson were mainly to raise morale during a time of crisis, but the mercantile boom of Ellomyr had suddenly made the nonexistant man actually quite rich indeed. The money had gone back into his intelligence-gathering network, but as the façade of a distant mercantile house was getting harder to maintain when the real actors were coming to town, Vico was phasing out Johnson and introducing Caspyr Múm, a smuggler who took over the network and used it to establish a foothold in the tentative criminal underworld of Ellomyr as the "Cobalt Syndicate". The crime lord identity would have many secret uses, not least of which mitigating the violence disorganized crime entails. Crime is business too serious to be left out of professional hands, as all good intelligence architects know.
But Vico was doing an increasingly rarer shift as Johnson at the Tavern of the Trilling View one night when he met one he had hoped never to see again. A specter of darker days.
"Bishop," the man said in greeting, completely disregarding Vico's cover.
"Hello, Rook," Vico acknowledged. This was Cygn. He was a legend. He was twice the operator Vico was at his best skillset -- his tradecraft -- and unlike Vico, Cygn was a formidable fighter, gifted with nano, and handsome. If Vico had ever known his former colleague to smile, he'd feel immense jealousy of the man. Cygn's main redeeming feature was that he was always more miserable than everyone else, all of the time.
"You're not here for me," Vico realized, finally processing the simple fact that he was, of yet, unstabbed. Cygn was a god of knives, but foremost a never-failing assassin who never left anything to chance. A tiger who did not play with his food.
"Not a lot of people who care about you have made it past the years."
Vico peered curiously into the rugged, weary pale face under the raven locks of hair. "Some of it your doing, I'll assume. I thank you."
"It was poor operational hygiene to let you escape. You know I can't abide imperfection."
"But you don't have a problem with me?"
The man shrugged. "You were not in my charge." Vico looked around briefly and realized one or two patrons watched him quizzically. He realized Cygn was using one of his esoteries, making him invisible and inaudible to everyone else.
"But you are not here by chance."
"Of course not. There are wheels in motion, as you must have sensed. And I have a new mission."
Vico mustered up his dignity and feigned nonchalance. "Well, don't let me get in the way. I know you'll keep it clean, whatever it is, but I must still warn you: Ellomyr is my territory and I don't want more harm going around than necessary. Lots of well-meaning, nosy folk around here. Even a couple of private detectives, I was recently told."
Cygn nodded absently. "I'm not here to mess around with... people." He stood up to leave.
Vico suddenly remembered someone -- huge-eyed, melancholy, dancing alone, most powerful nano he'd known. "Rook? Give my regards to Teardrop when you're back with her."
Cygn stopped midstep, his back turned to Vico. "She's... gone. We came across something too big. Bigger than the sun. Why I'm here."
"I'm sorry," said Vico sincerely, raising his glass. "Now how do you abide the world?"
"I don't," replied the man, walking away.

~*~

The Syndicate was expanding steadily. Ordovico vetted every candidate thoroughly, separating the simple muscle from the leadership material, and ensuring all moles met discreet, clean ends. He saw much promise in Xandra, but her current boss was more than the cartel could chew at the moment -- he could try to make the man's path cross with that of some violent do-gooder or another, have them fight it out; but in his day job, Vico was Simin's schoolteacher, and the kid's safety was paramount -- he couldn't risk a plan with too many moving variables. Meanwhile that other interesting candidate, the dishonorable one who conceals the truth, might be perhaps too much of a lone wolf; Vico didn't mind that the man had many old enemies -- he knew the feeling -- but perhaps he wasn't after new friends at all either. Either way, as soon as possible, he would have one of Caspyr's lieutenants contact the gentleman in question in a diplomatic, nonthreatening manner. Yes, and "Mad Sarrak" Deklos would be most suited for the task -- his nickname was ironic, he had an accountant's mind in a decidedly unthreatening body. Deklos managed the many warehouses the Cobalt Syndicate owned behind fake identities and businesses, and kept track for Vico of all the dark stuff being smuggled into and out of Ellomyr. It's best to know.
But parallel to Caspyr Múm, another identity had also been busy. Phasrap Nizam'Yermak Qalandar, the Holy Man of the Wastes, had founded his tariqah. He had a couple of dozen followers, and they called themselves the Gardeners of All Tomorrows. His main teaching was that Ellomyr was a holy place, the final battleground in the universal struggle of Good and Evil, and that Seven Trials would happen -- the margr attack he had warned so many of ahead of time, the first Trial. The Gardeners pledged to dedicate their lives to study and communal pursuits preparing the town for the Trials, by becoming defense engineers, militiamen, doctors -- all the good stuff. They were by necessity a bit kooky in the head, but lived upright lives and worked hard, and the community did not resent them -- or their occasional preachy claims of imminent doom -- too much. They preached mostly to passing caravans, anyway.
News of the coming Iron Wind were music to the Gardeners -- the Second Trial was ahead. They set themselves to work twice as hard -- their religion said forethought and hard work were the only effective forms of prayer. The Syndicate received the news with a lot less enthusiasm -- other than digging deeper bunkers or laying low in cells elsewhere, they were short on ideas. Deklos complained this ruined his profit estimates for the third quarter. Caspyr did not push the truth of the prophecy too hard; as it was, perhaps skepticism should win the day in the organization, at the moment, until there was a better plan.
Vico sought out Cygn by leaving a message in public -- paying a kid to fly a blue and white kite against the sunset. The man met him shortly after.
"I'm sorry we have to meet again so soon, Rook. Twice in twenty years may be a bit too much."
"It is your territory. It would be discourteous of me to refuse the meeting. Though we may have to set up a dead drop protocol, for convenience."
"We should. Well, I trust you've heard of the Iron Wind. Are you going to finish your mission here before it happens? Do you have a way to survive it? Or is it related to your mission somehow?"
Cygn balanced a knife on a fingertip. It turned on its axis slowly, evenly, without wobble. "I can't share that much, Bishop." He sighed. "The Iron Wind. Teardrop would brave it, you know. She trained her nano in pacifying the storm around her; it was a beautiful bubble, a pearl of chaos. She claimed the wind could decompose her and make her into a new form, or pure consciousness, and then she would abide among all things."
"Was that what happened to her?"
"No. Nothing so simple. Anyway, in her experiments, the stranger ones, close to the end... she made this." He handed something strange to Vico, a wristband seemingly made of salt-and-pepper ashes, which kept their form somehow; once in Vico's hand, he felt the item's granularity and elasticity.
"It's strangely beautiful."
"Is it not? It is apparently a tame precipitation of the Wind. Once it's been worn for a few days, it memorizes the shape of the wearer; when the Iron Wind comes, it supposedly tells its brethren in the air not to harm him."
"Valuable. What would you want for it?"
Cygn shrugged. "I don't need it. You do. Going back to your business will keep you out of mine. I'm fine with that."
Vico rolled the band in his fingers in velvety ashen cascades. "A hell of a gift."
Cygn smiled imperceptibly. "Even so."
Later in his study, Vico sat with the artifact on the table before him. The room was completely dark.
It's useless to keep this just so I can survive the Wind, he thought. I need to send this to someone who'll use it to investigate its workings, perhaps generalize its effects. But who?

~*~

Ansel "the Laak" arrived in Ellomyr just the day the news of the incoming Iron Wind came about. "Just my luck!" he exclaimed upon hearing of it, but the people around him in the market did not understand why he was grinning.
You see, Ansel was a Lucky Delve who Works the Back Alleys. He had just come into the greatest treasure of his career -- a beautiful emerald -- and he knew there were people who would come for it. Well, not to a doomed city, they wouldn't! He was *safe*! Ansel did not stop to think about the gap in his logic. He never did. He never had to. He was *lucky*.
He went for celebratory drinks at the Aurora's Arms. He played with the emerald in the open, flipped it about, smiled his winning smile at a waitress and told her all about it, hoping to get, well, lucky.
"This? It's called the Heart of Absinthe. You hold it and concentrate and you get into some memories like you're there, you see. Memories stored in the stone, or some of your own you'd like to revisit. But then they get in the stone. Rich dude I got this from, dude was totally addicted to it. Kept going back to happy days of his childhood or something, was all scrawny and bruised, kinda sad. Did him a favor really, that's not living, maybe now he takes up healthy eating and exercise and stuff. Anyway, these memories go all the way back to who knows. Some folks weren't even human. Oldest memories are kinda dim, but they seemed to believe the stone was the Fairy King, who went to the Angel of Loss of Love and asked to have his love for his wife removed from him. The angel did that but only the stone remained of the Fairy King. That's a weird tale, I don't suppose it means anything. Best thing about the stone though is that all memories are as they happened, so you could use it to check whether somebody is lying or something. So cool."
It was around that point that he passed out from the narcotic in his most recent drink. The waitress gestured to the men in the shadows and returned to her work. Another bonus well earned from the Cobalt Syndicate.
Ansel woke with water being splashed on his face. Yep, tied to a chair. "It is your lucky day, Mr. Laak."
The man flashed a winning smile. "Aren't all of them?"
"No. I am Caspyr Múm, and I run a few things on Ellomyr."
"I look forward to being your friend, Caspyr buddy pal."
"Quite. Well, you see, you are lucky because we of the Cobalt Syndicate got to you before Bart's men did. They got informed of the bounty on your head, and would collect it without hesitation."
"So you're saying you won't? High five! ...untie me, and then, high five!"
"So you really are as stupid and positive as your rapidly growing legend suggests. Fascinating."
Ansel nodded, happy at the word 'legend'. "Yeah so, have you seen my stone?"
"Face it, Mr. Laak. You had no idea what to do with it, just like with every other artifact you've procured in your career." Caspyr flipped through a file. "Yet you love getting the haul, don't you? It's all about the game. And how you're good at it. It almost makes you... clever."
"I am!" He beamed. "But you're right, Caspyr friendo-man. I like doing my thingies with the sneaky stealy not get stabby fun."
"I propose a trade. I keep your stone, and I give you a job where you'll get pointed to many opportunities to... sneakily steal sans stabbing. And then I'll make sure the items get passed along to those with a use for them."
"Do I get protected from bad people who want my head?"
"If you commit to only drinking in the correct establishments, I daresay I can even guarantee that."
"Deal!" Ansel tried to stand up and extend his hand, but only managed to topple the chair and fall over.
"Welcome to the Cobalt Syndicate, Executive Branch, Mr. Laak."

~*~

Tyrsten drove the stolen wagon into a secret tunnel half a mile outside Ellomyr. The wagon had scorchmarks, but they were not his doing. The highwaymen had killed the caravaneers in an ugly mess of an attack. In turn, he'd picked the bandits off one by one, making sure they knew the terror of the night in their last moments. Caspyr had ordered that there be no reprisals against the rival boss, not yet. But Tyrsten's interrogations had yielded proof that the gang was unaffiliated; they just planned to sell on the weaponry to the enemy. Well, the enemy must be strangled out of imports. Tyrsten would prefer a more literal strangling, but he was a patient hunter. More precisely, he was an Appealing Glaive who Hunts With Great Skill. He did not become head of Counterbanditry in the Cobalt Syndicate for nothing.
The tunnel branched out many times, and was busy with work. The Mad Sarrak had poured resources into the expansion of the underways as a measure against the Iron Wind. It would also help with smuggling, and no-one in the city would be beyond the Syndicate's reach when the network was complete.
The metal gate of the safehouse shut behind him, and he climbed down, greeting his men, who cheered his return. "How many?" one asked.
"Eight. But two were just kids."
Deklos was there. Probably eager to start the inventory of the wagon's contents. The man loved his columns of numbers. "Any survivors among the merchants?"
"No. The gang was vile. Made plasma ants burrow out of their prisoners' faces. Hadn't seen that one before. Bunch of c***s."
"Shame. But they weren't paying for our protection."
Tyrsten was handed a frosty, foaming pint. "Well, they got avenged as a freebie, courtesy of the Cobalt boys." Glasses clinked as they toasted his success.

A couple of hours later Tyrsten was back in his bed, gratefully, in silken sheets after nine days in the wilderness. His fingers played idly with his lover's fair hair as her head lay on his exquisite abdomen.
"Plasma ants? That's horrible. Imagine one crawling out of your tearduct..."
"I don't need to imagine. F***ing savages."
"Well, good thing you happened. My hero."
"Nah... thing is, they thought they were so incredible because they were willing to do any f***ed up s***. Edgy idiots. Letting go is easy. Self-control is hard."
The girl chuckled. "How very adult of you. Were you afraid?"
"Babe... you know I'm not afraid of anything."
"Other than your dad."
He snorted. "Yeah, other than the old devil. He's been dead twenty years and I still panic sometimes thinking he'll burst through the door and start beating me up like a broken hound."
"Poor honey."
"Well, I made the best out of what the abusive c*** left me. Good genes, for one thing."
She traced a finger on his chest. "Formidable stamina and everything else, hmm?"
"Sure." He pulled her up effortlessly and looked into her eyes. "Have at it again?"

~*~

You could almost hear the trumpets whenever he walked in. Evalan Treacher, Logothete of the Cobalt Syndicate. The title meant Bearer of the Word; whatever he said, it was to be taken as the decision of the boss. His qualifications were as an Insolent Glint who Speaks with a Silver Tongue. Few understood why Caspyr Múm would choose an insolent diplomat as the voice of his organization. The thing was -- Evalan wasn't there to make people like him. He was there to make people believe he was offering a deal so good, it could be delivered with a side of snideness and contempt, and grudgingly accept -- but accept they almost always did. This is a guy whose most famous saying is, "My apologies, I suffer from this trauma about hearing other people talk for too long. The dullness is ever so painful." And somehow he's yet to leave the negotiating table without a good deal.
You could almost smell the sulfur whenever he passed. Evalan Treacher, of the Navarene Treachers, a landowning family so rich it lost touch with reality and, well, now Evalan is the last one left, and he's not rich, despite what his frilled wrist-sleeves, debonair loose nanosilk tie and diamond-studded Jiraskar head lapel brooch might suggest. They say his first job for the Cobalt Syndicate was to take over a Queb fighting ring that belonged to Bart's gang. He got thrown into the ring, of course, but someone owed him a favor and lowered the ramp, and the beasts got loose upon the crowd, -- long story short, after a couple of lynchings, the business was under new administration. And then Caspyr closed it, because he's got a thing against animal cruelty. It was the start of the bad blood between Bart and the Syndicate. But no one could get a hand on Evalan. He turned every hitman sent against him, usually after berating their mother's vocation.
You could almost see the honey dripping in his footsteps. The thing was, people knew where they stood when negotiating with Mr. Treacher. The Syndicate would not lie. It wouldn't even bend the words of the agreement. It was what it was, and what it was, was invariably reasonable, occasionally even generous. "Let's get disgustingly rich together," he'd say. "Let's well damn *wallow* in how prosperous and successful we'll make this stupid place. Let's be the best of cronies, chug the finest drink like boors, piggishly belittle some prodigally remunerated pleasure workers, set fire to the sky and play music while the world ends. Let's. Do. Business." He sold a vision of reckless freedom and will to power, and it was *intoxicating*. People, sensible people, bought it.
*And they seldom found reason to regret it.*
That was the magic happening, right there. Ellomyr, like most other places, suffered enough to be wary of people with gentle words and cruel intentions. As Caspyr said, perhaps quoting from something -- *Too sweet is the rind, say the sages/ Too bitter the core.* The Word, given out by Evalan, was bitter medicine. Its working was its bond. It just was what it was.
You could almost feel the tickling of feathered wings whenever he passed...

~*~

Ordovico's original assessment of Sabaraan turned out to be a rare underestimation. He thought the kid was credulous, socially awkward, only moderately intelligent, full of good intentions -- and so under the guise of Phasrap Nizam'Yermak Qalandar, the Holy Man of the Wastes, he recruited the young man into the Gardeners of All Tomorrows. Sabaraan thrived. Vico had measured his potential wrong; Sabaraan worked 20-hour shifts on the projects of the Gardeners, carried the invalid on his back to and fro, donated not the typical 50% tithe but rather everything he earned -- he was a model disciple. Vico got a little suspicious; he did not assign Sabaraan to the pious foundation the tithes went to, the Bank of All Tomorrows, in case the kid was running a long con. (The BAT was willing to finance any project that fit the religion's preoccupation with the defense and sustainability of Ellomyr -- new houses, if they were fortified and safe; the workshops of wrights and nanos; power and recycling facilities. It also laundered money for the Cobalt Syndicate. Everybody scored.)
But Sabaraan was happy to stay with the charitable works directly. He became quieter, and at the same time, all other disciples of the tariqah began to follow his unspoken lead.
One day, the young man went to Vico, who was in his Phasrap disguise. Vico was unsettled by the brightness of his sunset eyes, peering from under a mess of tawny hair. "Can I help you, brother Sabaraan?"
And Sabaraan replied by calling him by his name. Not Nizam'Yermak, of course. But not Ordovico either. Not even by a name from when Vico was spy. The name Vico had had as a boy; a name that belonged in his mother's lips and little place else.
And Sabaraan told him Tomorrow had spoken to him, and told him to go and do her Will.
"Her?" asked Vico.
Sabaraan smiled.
"What is her Will?"
Sabaraan pointed to the Gardeners at work below.
"Am I in trouble?"
Sabaraan took his hand and pressed it against his own heart.
Nizam'Yermak Qalandar gathered his disciples and announced that he was returning to the Wastes, to commune with All Tomorrows, and would likely never return. He left Sabaraan Qalandar as the new spiritual guide of the tariqah. All Gardeners seemed to already expect this outcome. It felt natural.
Ordovico was freaking out. He got the hell out of there.
Sabaraan Qalandar was a Serene Arkus who Tends the Flock. Under him, the Gardeners continued doing good things, ever more fanatically devoted to hard work and the safety of Ellomyr. It was almost... terrifying, somehow.

~*~

Urrán reviewed his blueprints and grunted. Garbage. So flawed. He made an adjustment, and then another. A whole night passed.
A trio of Gardeners of All Tomorrows, dressed in their religious white overalls, visited. They were sent by their Bank, of course. The Bank was paying for his work, building a power and data relay to the force field based on Faël's research. "Go away. Go get laid, you holier than thou bastards. It will be done when it's done." He chased them off flailing a tungsten adze about.
The blueprints were crap. The contract was crap. Damn it, but the city was garbage, and the sky wasn't great either.
Urrán, the Hideous Wright who Finds the Flaws in All Things, never had good days. He should really be known as Angry. But he was really damn Hideous.
Blasted Cobalt Syndicate. It paid so well. That was a flaw, because it made Urrán take the job, and now he had this crap to deal with. The money for the relay was supposedly a loan, but the Syndicate had paid it off for him off the books. Now he wasn't wallowing in poverty and nearly out of business, like he'd been all his life.
He couldn't fault the underlying research, in truth. ...But he did anyway: why couldn't the nanos and wrights who reviewed it come up with a better way to feed the energy cycle, without so much waste? It was such laziness. Such complacence. Typical of stupid bastards who weren't born with the kind of ugly Urrán had been born with. Damn, but he revolted his own stomach just by remembering what he looked like.
By nightfall, he'd reduced the waste by 3.5%. Idiots and their rounding errors.
He worked all night, and collapsed the following morning in a pile of booze and oil and sick. He woke midday with vermin crawling over his face. Only blind vermin, though. He was too ugly for even the other kind.
This was stupid. This would work, of course, but it had so many flaws. So many damn flaws. It was almost unbearable. He felt his skin crawl.
He worked some more. He estimated he was doing a 14% better job than a complacent wright would have done. He was saving at least three dozen lives with his redundancies and risk-mitigators. Why was everyone else so dumb? Stupid question, he chastised himself. He knew the many reasons. He counted them every day. People were stupid multiplied by evil multiplied by lazy. They pissed him off. Of course, he'd do the right thing and save as many of them as he could. Moral duty is the flaw of being. Or maybe it was because he was under contract. He was too cynical to tell, and assumed the worst.
By sunset he was finished. Not a day too soon; the Iron Wind should be coming any minute now. The defense grid still had a bunch of flaws, of course. But it had to do, for now. He "enjoyed" a lukewarm drink in his creaky veranda with a mediocre view of the unimaginative sunset.
He heard a visitor at the gate to his cliffside workshop. Must be more Gardeners. No-one else had the stomach to visit Urrán.
A young lady. A face that puzzled Urrán. "I'm with the Cobalt Syndicate," she said, and unlike anyone else he'd ever met, she did not wince at the sight of him; seemed like she just couldn't be bothered. "Also, so are you. You're now a criminal too, so get over any objections that pop up later by reminding yourself of that. Just craft these tools and weapons ASAP." She handed him a large pile of diagrams and schematics. "In case we don't meet again, I'll register a sarcastic 'good job with the Iron Wind defenses, dumbass' now. If we do, I'll remember to withdraw the comment. Ciao."
And she just turned and strode off, leaving him dumbfounded.
He wasn't even bothered by the stuff she just said.
He'd just failed to find a flaw in her face.

~*~

The room was full of blueish gas. A deadly nerve agent. All Cobalt Syndicate lieutenants were alchemically treated to be immune. Just one more clever precaution among numberless others.
"Like I said before... hooray for energy dudes!" Ansel, the Laak, felt he had somehow scored an intellectual point.
Sveti tsk-tsked and scribbled something. As Caspyr Múm's new secretary/executive officer/bodyguard/factotum, she was presiding the staff meeting in the absence of the boss.
Urrán's fingers were digging deep into the table. "All that thrice-damned work! To get bailed out by some blue cu--"
Evalan coughed in a timely interruption. "AHEM. I'm actually sure we can promote the narrative that our fields did the work and the crystals were a trick. Turn the people against our energy-based competition."
"Competition?" Tyrsten was puzzled. "They helped us. That's all there is to it, for the moment."
"Sure, it starts like that, but soon they come here and start fixing crime. Then what?"
Mad Sarrak Deklos looked up from his ledgers. "Technically, very little of what the Cobalt Syndicate does, these days, is against the extremely limited code of laws of Ellomyr. We're well ahead of the curve."
Evalan was unconvinced. "The Bank of All Tomorrows won't be happy about this. It reduces public emphasis on hard work, in favor of turning stones in search of the next deus ex machina. And can you imagine if a new religion forms around the blue man group?"
Sveti put down her notes and leaned forward. Everyone paid attention to the Efficient Nano who Inspires Lust and Jealousy. She smiled sweetly.
"Boys, the Iron Wind is yesterday's worry. The energy whatevers are today's gossip. Tomorrow is still about taking out our enemies."
Ansel shrunk in his chair. "You're a scary lady, lady."
Deklos adjusted his dandruff-speckled spectacles. "You mean?..."
"She means Bart's gang, probably," snorted Tyrsten. "Intel has it the Phantom is out of commission for a while."
"We have a confirmation on that. But Mr. Múm hasn't signed off on either assassination. He believes another party is in play, and doesn't want to get in the way of their plan."
"I believe this other party is out of her depth. She needs help." Tyrsten crossed his arms. "Let me got against Bart. He's the big cheese. I have had him primed as quarry for weeks now. I f***ing have him."
Evalan had been making leering faces at Sveti, and didn't stop even as he retorted: "Wrong. Let's just poison Phantom while he recovers, he's the exceptional asset. Without him Bart is just a b****. Poison. I have his location, I have people in place, motherf***er complicated my schedule for weeks, let me have him."
"Nope."
"Why the hell not?"
"Orders, silly. Stop being a baby. You don't have to be afraid of Phantom around me, I have rad nano to wreck foes material or im-."
"Much as you'd love it, sweetheart, I can't hang around you all day."
"Which is why our new wright has been distilling poison all week. Your bodyguards will be trained accordingly. Phantom can be scratched, and now a scratch will be enough to do him in. If it ever comes to that, which it won't."
"It is alright poison," begrudingly conceded Urrán. "Also works on automatons, godlike beings of eight varieties, faeries, silk men, weavers of the stars... but it still has a disgustingly high failure rate of 0.39%."
Tyrsten extended a hand to the man sitting across from him. "I was wondering when we'd be introduced."
"Well, that's Baghead Urrán. He's the right wright for wrighting wrongs."
Ansel raised a hand. "Is he called Baghead because he's wearing a bag on his head?"
"Yeah yeah, I'm really ugly. I'd rather not cause more vomiting than strictly necessary. I hate all of you, by the way. Y'all garbage." The wright did not shake Tyrsten's hand.
Ansel smiled. Right in one try. So lucky.
Urrán faced Sveti and crossed his arms. "And I recall you owe me an apology for your insult, missy."
"Nah, you didn't beat the Iron Wind, energy dudes stole your thunder. You're still a dumbass until further notice."
Evalan sneered. "Well then. You were saying something about eliminating our enemies. But apparently you didn't mean our main rivals. It's not like you to take this long to get to your point."
Sveti leaned back and smiled -- sweetly. "It's because I don't have a point to get to."
Eyebrows were raised.
"Yeah, this isn't a meeting to decide or plan anything. I already put everything in place, the stuff Mr. Múm planned. Cut a bit of red tape, cut off a few loose ends, tipped scales here and there with total deniability. Magic was involved. Also murder. Long story short, the Syndicate has never been a tighter ship. We're ready for war. We're ready for peace. Whatever's ahead."
"Oh," said Deklos. Everyone was silent, reviewing all the little things that had, indeed, gone mysteriously right in their divisions during the hectic final weeks before the Iron Wind.
Ansel frowned, struggling against a difficult, tragic thought. "So you're sayin'... I could be having lunch right now?" His stomach growled pitifully.
"There's a boxed sandwich under your chair. Knock yourself out."
While the Laak gobbled his reward and the others got up and mumbled their way out, Evalan Treacher eyed Sveti with sincere appreciation for the first time. "Oh, you're *good*."
She smiled -- sweetly -- always so sweetly. "Why thank you. Help me plan a party, Navarene?"

~*~

A masquerade! Ellomyr woke up to the news that the usually discreet importer Caspyr Múm was going to throw a ball to celebrate the town's triumph over the Iron Wind. Invitations were sent out to everyone who was someone, with blue metallic letters in the man's elegant handwriting.
The main festivities were housed in the magnificent Hall of the Bank of All Tomorrows, a majestic place of tall columns and broad staircases built overnight with a single particularly exotic cypher found by the delve Ansel, the Laak. There would be musicians and dancers. And a troop of wrights would assist the guests with their costumes for a week before that special night.
And while it seemed to take forever, the night finally arrived. Countless candles and illumination oddities lit the great marble chambers. In great pillars of blue light, motionless depictions of the energy men who had helped Ellomyr loomed over the dancing and the feasting -- apparently a homage. To others' astonishment, a trio of frilled bauls prowled among the guests calmly, trained or drugged out of their natural aggression, happily accepting to be petted by the revelers.
Evalan Treacher greeted everyone by name and regaled each of them with a personalized bit of juicy and barely opportune gossip. He had a dashing feathered red hat on his long golden curls, and matching mask and suit. At his arm, in angelical white, Sveti looked resplendent, but only cut into the conversation when Evalan gave in to the temptation to spice the truth with a scandalous little lie. "No, your Reverence, I assure you none of the dancing staff is secretly a 'Nibovian wife' for some kind of Russian roulette game later. Mr. Múm very expressly requested that the festivities be tasteful and without debauchery."
As they walked away, Evalan remarked, "His Reverence seemed disappointed, actually."
"Let him take it up with the Papacy," she scoffed.
"I sense a strong opinion. You *are* from Qi, are you not?"
She just shrugged. The secret to making Evalan bearable was to ignore him whenever possible.
They passed a group of newcomers examining their waiters warily -- half the serving staff was composed of mindwiped margr, psychically sockpuppeted by Sveti. She was certainly multitasking in her mind, behind glowing smiles.
They greeted Tyrsten, who had his girl Namiry with him; they wore baroque automaton-evoking costumes, with moving pieces and glittering precious stones -- and the two were just announcing their engagement to a small group of Syndicate friends. Evalan made a surprisingly tasteful toast to their future happiness.
Of course, Caspyr Múm was there, in a heavy dress of flowing blue silks and a large cobalt mask, greeting his guests. He seemed to have started drinking a bit too early and to be a quiet drunk -- each time he slurred a few gentle words and excused himself quickly. But that wasn't Ordovico under the disguise; that was Ansel, as a decoy against assassination attempts. Poor Ansel had been put into a chemical coma and Sveti was steering his body too. The decoy was working; Ansel was supernaturally lucky, and a couple of poisoners in the kitchen had accidentally poisoned themselves, while a sniper had tripped and fallen off the roof.
In a group standing off to the side, in their pristine white overalls, the owners of the Hall watched the festivities with amiable smiles. Sabaraan Qalandar was there. The Gardeners of All Tomorrows did not dance -- it was a waste of energy. And they did not indulge in the extravagant food and drink -- it would set expectations of future comfort that would weaken their resilience. But they were happy for the success in the Second Trial, and thus smiled. Some of them, however, believed the Blue Beings were the real Trial, and that the town had failed. Anger flashed briefly in the eyes of these when they glanced up at the great blue holograms.
Ordovico observed this from his disguise as a waiter. He was pleased with the idea of the masquerade. His whole life had been one. Now Caspyr Múm was a mask worn by a mask and wearing another mask. Layers on layers that were the kind of music he could make. He poured a stiff drink for Urrán; the wright deserved it. The machinery of the party was working well, and the costumes, and the augmented acoustics, and the pyrotechnics -- all the wright's doing. At least he looked somewhat pleased under his mask -- still finding flaws in everything, but his broken face not in evidence for once.
Vico knew these people too well. Sometimes it felt dirty and voyeuristic. Other than Sabaraan, none of them knew about him; even Sveti thought Caspyr Múm was where it all stopped. Was there a point to secret order? He could die just then and nobody would ever understand his design. It would be lost with the small and big truths of eight worlds. He poured himself a drink.
...
It was almost dawn when, on real Caspyr's orders, Sveti took Ansel, Deklos, Evalan, Tyrsten and Urrán into a back room. There were three vases of clear glass, with three flowers bred to be of a rich metallic blue color.
Sveti stood beside the row of vases and crossed her arms. "Caspyr made them."
"So, the Boss has taken up gardening -- the literal kind, eh." Tyrsten remarked, examining the second flower, a rose.
"Or he's always been into it," snorted Evalan. "We still don't really know anything about his private life." He bent to take a closer look at the first flower, a lotus.
"Why bring us here?" Urrán sniffed at the third flower, an orchid. "Too rich." He scowled under his mask.
"The Boss wants us to choose a symbol. Something we can send to our friends. To our enemies. A marker, and a celebration."
Deklos sighed. "I really don't care."
Urrán nodded. "They're all bad."
"I like the rose," said Tyrsten. "It's romantic."
"The orchid is so weird, though!" Ansel was enchanted, though likely some of it was because he was still a bit drugged. "Look at its dangly bits! It's so funny!"
"The lotus is evidently the best symbol," asserted Evalan. "Nothing sticks to it. Nothing stains it. What the Cobalt Syndicate should be all about."
Sveti uncrossed her arms. "I actually agree. So it's settled. Time to start raising a bunch of cobalt lotus."
While the others returned to the dying festivities, Tyrsten snipped the rose to take to his fiancee. Beside him, Ansel whispered, "Can I take the orchid?"
"Take the whole vase, buddy. It's a fragile plant."
Ansel the Laak left that morning the big palace his cypher had raised, after a night of being drugged and used as bait for assassins, with a single flower for his troubles. He was happy.

~*~

"Smoke gets in your eyes" Part 1

A laak had died in Ellomyr that night. Sveti smiled thinly at the joke, though even an amoral monster of cold efficiency such as her felt a little bad about it. Ansel, the delve, had been murdered. He had been innocent. Well, not quite, insofar as property rights were concerned. But he'd never hurt anyone. Well, not wholly accurate either, the kid had left quite the body trail in his wake actually. But there was a childishness about him that made his demise that slightly unnerving to her, even after de facto running the Cobalt Syndicate for many years now.
She had not aged. She would not age; something that had happened way back in Qi made sure of that; she'd wonder if she'd live forever were it not inefficient to speculate. She was over a hundred years old, and only Caspyr Múm knew. How did he find out? She'd stopped wondering after the first couple of years of their association. Anyway, her angelical face had seen this scene far too many times in her long life. Wet alleyway, dark, pooled blood, body with a slit throat. Thing is, Ansel had been precisely stabbed in the carotid. To her knowledge, no-one had ever even landed a good blow on Ansel. He was supernaturally lucky; if there was any chance the attack could have missed, it would have missed. Urrán had explained it was a quantum superposition of possible worlds thing. If Ansel got taken out with a single light jab of a dagger, it meant... she involuntarily shuddered at the thought. It meant it was literally, physically, logically impossible the attacker could miss.
She was efficient. She sent a messenger to Caspyr Múm. But she was perhaps too efficient. She'd employed an extraordinarily valuable cypher, called the Chandler-Oracle. A candle, which lit on a crime scene, only dropped its wax on a map to pinpoint the current location of the perpetrator. No known protections against scrying and location seemed to apply. Perhaps she was being sentimental to go ahead and do it for Ansel's sake, without checking in with the Boss first. But she immediately dispatched Solutions Force 15, also without waiting for clearance. In her defense, her initiative had always worked out for the best in all her years as the Boss's XO. But she was overconfident not to realize Ansel's killer could be simply out of their league.
Solutions Force 15 was the Cobalt Syndicate's elite hit squad, developed over the years since the Great Masquerade. Five glaives, five combat nanos, five combat jacks, all top tier. It was Tyrsten's pet project, the one that allowed him to retire confident he was leaving the Syndicate well defended. His relatively brief career in the Syndicate had left him young and rich, and he wanted to live it out in peace with Namiry and their many gorgeous children. They now had a pleasant sunny mansion, owned land and various businesses, had a premium account at the Bank of All Tomorrows. He was one of the first lieutenants of the Syndicate to go full legit and prosper, but by no means one of few. Peacetime had made the career path almost safe.
Poor Ansel. Could have retired even earlier than Tyrsten, but he loved what he did. So unlike Mad Sarrak Deklos, but in this they were alike. The old chubby accountant was offered a vice-presidency of the Bank of All Tomorrows, but considered his work for the cartel to be more honest than finance.
Ordovico received Sveti's message through the tortuous channels he had set in place long ago. He took it in and felt weak. He had to sit down.
It felt like the beginning of the end.

"Smoke gets in your eyes" Part 2

Ordovico got up and set himself to the task of putting on the Caspyr Múm disguise. He was praying he was wrong. Maybe someone else had got Ansel. Someone with a cypher neutralizing his probability-bending power, perhaps. Or just someone else really powerful, but not the old ghost himself. Not the god of spooks. He'd hoped that one had left Ellomyr long ago. Vico certainly hadn't seen a trace of him since the Ashen Band.
He went directly to where Sveti's note said SF15 had been dispatched. It was a dingy apartment. No signs of trouble outside -- no huge craters, broken dimensional barriers, the fibers of reality seemed unfrayed. Then he went inside. Yes, all fifteen had been killed. Silently, cleanly, without a chance to react. Not all inside, of course. The killer had picked off those outside -- the Drummer, the Sniper -- and brought them in and stacked everyone in a neat pile. Soundlessly. He could hear the aged neighbor snore in the apartment next door. It meant the team hadn't even begun their attack. The Drummer, a formidable nano, would normally stay in the rear, beating his frightful beat as a terror tactic. Well, they were all gone now.
The adversary -- he shuddered to think -- had left a clear message. He could have slipped away without a trace. But in the blink of an eye he had snuffed out the greater part of the Cobalt Syndicate's firepower.
He heard someone approaching, and recognized Evalan's footsteps. The man stopped at the doorway, opened a flask, took a swig, and then said, "Well, ain't this a damn mess."
"The biggest we've been in," said Caspyr. "Word will get out we've lost the team. Our rivals will sense weakness. Prepare for a storm, Logothete."
"Our rivals? F*** our rivals, they're garbage. What about who did this?"
"That's something only I can deal with. Don't worry about it."
Evalan spat. "Then I won't. Anyway, Sveti had me come directly from the Eye-Juggler. He produced this image from Ansel's memories of his final delve." He produced a flat polished lens, an oddity that now displayed an orange precious stone, something like an intricately cut golden beryl but of an amber hue.
Vico shook with recognition. Other than the color, it strongly reminded him of another stone Ansel had acquired, long ago. And of a third one...
Evalan sneered, but he was not amused; it was a feral reaction of a social predator. He'd never seen the boss lose his nerve.
"Treacher. Take this message to the Bank of All Tomorrows..."

"Smoke gets in your eyes" Part 3

Ordovico, still as Caspyr Múm, met Sveti and Urrán in the safehouse codenamed ELITA. It contained one of their most important treasury vaults, and inside that, another secret one, for the most important items they had ever acquired. Vico was glad when they met Deklos in his office outside the vault, alive. That meant the intruder did not find it necessary to kill the man. Or maybe they were early? But no-one ever preempted the Black Swan.
"A perfect green," Vico was mumbling. "The Heart of Absinthe, he called it. I looked it up. Paid for information from all corners of the world. Corners you haven't heard of. From beyond the stars... one of a set. There had to be other perfect colors, you see?"
"No," replied Sveti, efficiently.
"Sounds like poetry to me," agreed the Mad Sarrak dismissively.
Urrán grunted. "Y'all philistines. But this talk of something perfect... sounds like you're deliberately antagonizing me, boss."
"I remember you thinking I was perfect," laughed Sveti, like clear running water in the desert.
"Just the face. And the body. ...Hair too, I guess. Mind's a mess. Still can't get off without a mirror, can you."
Ordovico struggled to remember the combination to the inner vault, the one only he had access to. The conversation was distracting him. Reminded him of banter long ago. Company long dead.
"I must agree, carnality is greatly overrated," said Deklos. "My wife's alright, but I'll take my spreadsheets any day."
"But I do agree with you, gentlemen," smiled Sveti amiably. "Attention from boys and girls simply disgusted me at first. Such misspent energy. Of course, one learns to work with the parameters at one's disposal."
Vico said, "You piss him off because you'll take flawed and sufficient over niggling forever compulsively over some tiny speck. You remind him of everyone else."
Everyone stared at him strangely. He realized he'd forgotten to sound like Caspyr Múm.
The vault clicked open, and the big gate folded out into a different dimension.
It was a very advanced security system. As far as anyone knew, it couldn't be remotely sensed into, phased into, teleported into. No invisible being could remain so inside; no unaccredited entity beyond their number could enter after them. It was as foolproof as it got.
He opened a drawer. There it was. The Heart of Absinthe. He took it out. Urrán gasped in awe.
"What's the deal, Boss?" asked Deklos.
"I'm not sure," said Vico. "I'm... disappointed? Expected he'd have taken it somehow."
"Are you going to take it to him? Because it kinda feels like you are. This bogeyman of yours. You want rid of him as soon as possible." Vico wondered if that was reproach in Sveti's voice.
He closed his fist, stopping the enchanting play of the stone's green light upon her golden hair. "You're right. I am. That's why he hasn't done anything, he knows I'll buy him out."
"F*** no, you won't," said Urrán, moving between Vico and the vault's entrance. There was menace in his motion. "I saw the green. It really is a perfect green." He was suddenly armed.
"Oh, you dumb--" Sveti made a gesture. Some bit of nano that would cleanly disable Urrán. She collapsed unconscious, instead.
"Sorry, doll. I made a little something custom-tailored to your powers. I see the flaws in all the things. I saw the flaw in unconditional loyalty, -- especially to you, lord of lies," he added, turning his gargoyle gaze to Vico. "Give me the stone."
The wright had a ridiculously powerful artifact weapon in his hands. He'd see through any trick. Vico handed the Heart of Absinthe over.
"I can make *something* with it. I can fix the whole damn world with it. No unhappiness or evil. I can fix myself--"
He'd see through any fallible trick.
And then he was dead. Deklos examined a minute speck of blood on his glasses, and threw them away. He put the green stone away with casual legerdemain. He began undressing his disguise, and seemed to grow in stature with a simple shift in posture.
Vico opened his mouth, and then closed it, and then opened again. "Really? All this time? Kids and all. F***, you're good."

"Smoke gets in your eyes" Part 4

Cygn did not stay to talk. Ordovico didn't even try to give chase. He briefly checked on Sveti. No lasting damage. He brought her out of the vault and left a note for the Logothete.
He started undressing his disguise, too.
He left the hideout casually dressed, his neck bare with its scar. He didn't care who knew what about the schoolmaster, right now. He had an appointment to keep.
The crowds were restless, but not about his own personal crisis. The margr were coming back. Some, with dark humor, had settled on turbomargr as designation. They seemed to be much stronger and able now.
A problem he doubted he'd live to see.
He reached the middle of Shardwatch Bridge, a scenic hanging pass the generous importer Caspyr Múm had kindly donated to the city, connecting two elevated areas over a less affluent part of town below.
Sabaraan Qalandar sat on the balustrade, serenely meditating. Vico wordlessly watched the afternoon sky beside him. The flight of the birds.
Vico broke the silence. "What will you tell the flock about the Third Trial? Turbomargr, after all?
The holy man smiled. "We have layers of teachings. The Trials will never truly end, will they? But some will hear of your friend, the Sign of Loss. Of his broken heart. And of how the goddess struck him down."
"Hold on to that faith," said Vico. He took out a cypher, a mechanical stopwatch of brass and thin silver filigree. He looked at it for a moment, said goodbye to his world, and pressed the button.
Time stopped. The birds stopped in midflight. The crowds. The vehicles on the bridge. Coffee being poured. Smoke and dust, suspended in the sunlight like timeless nebulae.
There was a great silence; all he could hear was his heart pounding and the placid breathing of the clergyman behind him.
Then he saw Cygn coming up the road. It felt like one of those archetypal showdowns when the man stopped a short distance away from them, looked to his sides, looked straight into the sun.
"You have my attention."
"I supposed that'd have to do it. I heard legends of operators who mastered a discipline of being in tune with Absolute Time to avoid being caught out by time distortions. Figured that if the skill existed, you'd know it."
"Not forever, of course. It takes a great effort." Cygn's nano made his black hair and clothing shift dramatically even in the motionless air. "Ask your questions, and let's do this."
Vico decided to start on a minor one, but one that piqued his professional interest. "How'd you kill Urrán? I didn't even see you move."
"Poison called the Pale Tryst. When one ingests it, the nearest person is affected instead. Designed for fashionable double suicides at a decadent court long ago, far away."
"Dunno how fashionable it could have been, with the exploding capillaries and all. Anyway... so you knew he'd betray me."
"I knew he'd see the flaw in All The Things. As in Reality. That stone is one such... well, it's almost blasphemous to call it a flaw, is it not? Vulnerability. Exploit. Something that doesn't quite belong."
"And yet as Deklos you were around me for so long... belonging."
"The vocation, Bishop. It is what it is. You teach kids with the same mouth that authorizes murders."
"Call me Vico, Cygn. Well, time's ticking, I don't want you to think I'm delaying. Ansel's stone. The one that got him killed. Tell me about it. I owe his friends an answer."
Cygn touched the breast pocket of his jacket. "The fifth I've acquired out of the set of seven I require. It's called the Honeycomb of Genius. An angel made it for a dragon. Something like that. The story was old when I was young, and I was old when the first world was young."
Ordovico laughed, and there was an insane edge to it. "Now that is a strange boast. You never did, and you start with a lie."
"Do I? I'm tired, Vico. One more gemstone and I'm finished. I'm out of your life, out of Ellomyr, out of the world forever. Don't get in the way."
"I know. I won't. I'm here to help."
Vico's dagger darted out at Sabaraan, but the holy man held up his hand, and the blade went fully through it, stopping a milimeter from his unblinking eye. Still he was calmly smiling.
"You Yesterday's slaves," he said derisively. His unharmed hand came out of its pocket, holding a bright ruby. "Behold, the Ruby of All Tomorrows."
A burst of red light threw Vico to the floor, stunned.
"Yes, holy man. The last of the seven I need."
"To go back. Curse your blighted blasphemy. To go back to her. And betray Tomorrow's love!" Sabaraan almost snarled the words, yet his face still showed no strong emotion.
Cygn produced a jade knife, calmly. "To go back to the start, and live all over again all I have lived, exactly the same. Because there was wanton evil and irredeemable pain."
They began circling each other. Sabaraan now had a scimitar in hand, and it was made of red light.
"But she was there... a woman of flesh and blood. Small, big doe eyes." He glanced sideways at Ordovico, who was still crawling on the pavement, trying to get on his feet. "You remember her, Vico. Not a desire freak like your secretary. A regular cute girl who liked me back. Of course I want to go back to her, close the circle, live that relationship again and again forever." And then, for the first time, Vico saw him grin. "And you tell that to your b**** goddess."
Anger flashed briefly on Sabaraan's face, but if Cygn expected him to charge in, he was disappointed. Instead, the holy man raised the ruby and said, "How about you tell her that yourself?"

"Smoke gets in your eyes" Part 5

And then the goddess was among them. Made of light and power; flashing neon radiance, scorching the cobblestones. The ruby had flown to her forehead, and crowned it; and her hair floated in all the colors.
Tomorrow deigned to visit today; truly a wonder of the age. Her prophet watched, in ecstasy. Even more beautiful than in his visions.
She crashed into Cygn with an inhuman roar, and a thundering that shook all of Ellomyr.
Ordovico felt he should be dead or dying from the internal injuries caused by the burst of energy. Then as he crawled, he noticed the cuts on his arms mending themselves with a familiar nano dust residue. He almost burst out laughing. The Ashen Band. Cygn had used it to contaminate him with dormant healing nano, just for this occasion. The foresight.
He reached a storm drain. Sticking his arm inside to the shoulder, he found a tiny lever, moved it. It was his goddamn bridge.
The mechanism sprung into life, his trigger exempting it from the time freeze effect in a slow spread over the mechanism, creeping on like a thaw.
Bursts of blue gas blossomed out into the air.
Sabaraan turned to him dismissively. "This all you got when a god wages battle? The old Syndicate nerve gas? Of course I kept up with the immunity treatment."
Vico laughed, and realized blood was pouring from his mouth. "It's just the same colorant, kid."
He laughed louder. Sabaraan stepped forward, raising his sword-arm, but his grip suddenly failed and the ruby blade burned through the ground.
"You'll never see Tomorrow again."
The face of the arkus contorted in panic. He turned to cast a desperate final look at his deity. The motion made him collapse in a twisted heap.
Vico stood to watch the titans struggle. Tomorrow had Cygn held by his throat with one bestial clawed hand, and the other tried to push through his force field into his chest. The energies involved were tremendous. His jacket and shirt were fraying into nothingness, and the six stones floated there over his heart -- blue and yellow, cyan and purple such as Ordovico never had seen. The goddess had many cuts upon her, bled much luminous ichor; the jade knife stuck out from through her knee. But Cygn's defeat was imminent.
Yet he smiled. "You will never have my heart, Ever-Fleeing One. I'm going home."
Tomorrow shrieked in inarticulate rage. She poured all her force into her arm; a vortex was in the air, carriages were being thrown off the bridge, the stone under them sizzled, the flesh of statue-like bystanders was boiling away -- at least it would be painless. Vico desperately tried to think of anything to do, to no avail; he too was being burned by the divine luster.
And Tomorrow's claw finally, suddenly pushed past the collapsing field, and bloodily burst through Cygn. She dropped his lifeless body dismissively and held up his heart in her hand, studded with the six stones, her divine face painted with exhaustion but bearing a triumphant, divinely insane leer.
Vico watched this on his knees, sweat and blood pouring from his face, burns all over, half-blind. Then he noticed movement from the other side of the goddess.
She turned her head, bestially hissing. Then she glared at the body, and back to the newcomer. It made no sense.
"There were always two of me, Vico. All along the ages. Saving ourselves for one final great trick. And now there is only one, because of this... thing."
He was suddenly upon her. She had spent too much of her energy; she was far weaker now to reprise the same combat.
"This machine. Alien. Artificial intelligence. Djinn. Dimensional intruder. Sandestin." He was cutting her a thousand times while he spoke. She howled terribly. "Call it even a goddess, if you like. Killed my brother."
He began smashing her head against a curbstone. The ruby came loose after a while. She still shook and flailed, tendrils of burning death coming out of her wounds like sea anemones and whipping about. Vico still had no way to approach, even if he wanted to. And as he watched, he understood -- that thing had never been a person. Just some strange creature feeding Sabaraan's zealous madness, and feeding off it. Without a vestige of humanity. Even as it died it showed no fear. That was how he'd choose to see it.
The creature's head was cracked open, and Cygn stuck his hand into its skull. He took fistfuls of the oozing contents and gobbled them down, and yet it still screeched and flailed.
"Tydeus missed out on immortality over this," he shouted to the heavens, "and now I too forsake the future!". And Vico noticed as the echoes died down how quiet it was, again.
The now levitating gemstones flashed trails of color as they gathered and spun, forming a gate of white light. Cygn -- the one who wasn't lying dead at his feet -- turned his gaze to it. "Steleyn," he murmured softly, and his eyes seemed to tear up -- maybe. Vico would never be sure. Then he strode into the light and was gone. No goodbyes, not another thought wasted on enemy or brother -- or old comrade, Vico added in his mind, with a strange melancholy.
He let the portal die away, no trace of the seven stones remaining. He was done with his past. And now his past was done with him.
He pulled the time-frozen people, one by one, out of the area of the poison gas. He took the wounded to a hospital. He returned home, and crushed the stopwatch under his heel, and the cypher's effect ended.
He counted about two dozen innocents had died on the bridge.
He wanted to pay. Perhaps he deserved to die. Tried too hard to be in charge of the future. Dwelt too long upon the shadows of the past. Hurt people every step of the way.
No, there was no justice in the world. It would have to accept what it could get. He condemned all his other identities to death. Caspyr Múm, the Chalcedony Reaver, Silkhand Johnson,-- they would never be seen again. Whatever they owned or controlled would be passed on to anyone better deserving. Other people in charge, other people to lose sleep over the margr and the Cobalt Syndicate's future. He'd lose sleep over his students. He would never wear a disguise again. He would be nothing more than Ordovico the Schoolmaster, and that would have to be enough.

~*~

EPILOGUE

Ordovico the Schoolmaster woke up smiling, as was always the case these days -- and he wasn't even aware of it. He liked to do some gardening while daylight broke. His flowers bloomed into the dawn like a world come anew again and again.
He now had a lot of time for his hobby. But he also treasured having more time for his students. He'd had a generation of students grow into fine adults -- Elita and Simin sprung to mind -- and he was now educating the nine children of Tyrsten and Namiry, all gorgeous, wise and good -- Vico was glad Tyrsten overcame his personal demons about his own father and turned out to be an excellent parent. Vico now spent his afternoons caring for the orphans of Ellomyr's many troubles -- he had the children play boardgames, music and sports, according to their interests -- and the Bank of All Tomorrows generously financed both school and orphanage, because he had retired from his former activities a very rich man indeed.
He thought of someone else who had retired -- Evalan Treacher. The glint got tired of violence and became the proud owner of a theater, the Logothete, welcoming only the richest and most fashionable of the city. He produced and wrote plays, too, and even acted when he felt like it. He also had a program for teens interested in the arts. Ordovico had personally told Evalan, Sveti and Tyrsten the truth about his identities and everything else, when he retired Caspyr Múm from existence. They understood and ensured a peaceful transition; the Syndicate was still doing well and harming as little as possible under the leadership of Tiri.
(Only Sveti remained in the criminal world; they now knew her as Sveti, the Ageless. She was still efficient and hard. A sharp instrument. But a trustworthy one in the right hands.)
Ordovico now remembered every single moment of his life clearly, without the need for a Memory Palace; a side-effect of having once looked into the white light of the seven gemstones, something of a temporal singularity. But he felt no sorrow over the times gone by. And he dreamt of infinite worlds, also because of that perfectly precious whiteness. But he felt no desire, not even longing, for them. He had a good thing going: the life-pulse of Ellomyr itself.
Some afternoons, when the old itch for being someone else came... well, he gathered some of the quieter children, and spoke to them -- "alright then, how about a game of playing roles?"