Part 1

“…one of the more famous killers.”

A Drunk and Rather Ill-Advised Prologue

“Another one!” The drunk middle-aged man at the bar shouted to nobody in particular.

The dead bar didn’t respond as the few patrons who were actually there were content to variously be nattering amongst themselves, flirting with whoever they had with them, and staring by themselves out the window into the inky black night.

The drunk man, finally accepting ‘Another one’ wasn’t coming, leaned back on his chair and looked at his surroundings. A smoky dark-brown set of walls and a thatched roof was all that protected the patrons from the elements. Everybody was dressed in their finest tunics and garb, with not a single person affecting any grandeur besides the occasional shiny ornament hanging around their neck.

The man leaned back over the bar and was taken aback by the kid who had seemingly evaporated in front of him. A plain white tunic covered a teenage of no more than 18 years old, whose jet black hair looked like he hadn’t had a comb in years.

“You’re a kid,” The drunk said accusingly.

“You’re Guy,” He responded, flatly.

Guy raised an eyebrow. “How did you know that?”

“You really don’t realise how often you’re in here.” The kid absentmindedly was wiping out metal tankards with a yellowed rag.

Guy thought for a moment and smiled, reaching into his pocket and producing a coin that had eight perfectly segmented grooves cut into it. “Another lager, if you would.”

The kid nodded and chucked the rag under the bar. It landed with a horrific squelch as the kid produced a great wooden block and wiped the metal flakes onto the ground. He plopped it onto the counter and Guy pulled out a thin letter opener of a dagger. He placed the coin on it and kept it steady with his other hand, adorned with faded scars across his thumb and index finger.

The dagger cut through with a dull thud, cutting in half and then chipping off one of the eighth pieces into a little triangle with a rounded bottom. It still had emblazoned on each piece a tiny representation of the symbol of the Sovereign, a circle with a cross stuck through. He handed it to the kid and the kid plopped the tankard in front of Guy, slopping foams of beer and mixing with the new metal shavings before he took the wood block and placed it back down under the bar.

Guy sheathed the dagger behind him, not looking as he was more focused on drinking the beer. He took the first sip and closed his eyes, sighing as the warmth spread through his body.

“It’s fucking warm,” He chided the kid.

“Have we ever sold cold beer? Does this look like a noble’s outpost?” The kid said.

“Also,” Guy said, barrelling through the kid’s response, “Great Sovereign, you people are slow today. I was about to help myself behind the bar.”

“You could try, but they’re still picking out chunks of the last guy who did that from the river.”

Interrupting them, the door swung open and the muggy air filled the room. Four people, two men and two women, clad neck to toe in armour, chattered amongst themselves far more lively than such an inn would usually allow. They piled around a round table, not sparing a second’s thought to their environment.

“What do you think of them, huh?” Guy asked.

“Who?” The kid said, leaning over the bar as his patience sapped in real time. “I’ve never seen those people before.”

“No, not them specifically. I mean knights.”

“What do I think of knights?”

“Yeah,” Guy said, gesturing with the beer in his hand and spilling more onto the already sopping wet bar. He took a chug before the kid responded.

“I mean, they’re okay, I guess. Nice for things to get protected.”

Guy looked back at the knights, scratched his grey stubble, and looked back.

“Uh huh,” Guy responded.

“You don’t agree?” The kid said.

“You’re young. You weren’t around during the war.”

The kid scoffed. “So what were they like during the war. Enlighten me.”

Guy leaned back in his chair and glanced over at them again. He swirled his tankard and took another swig without looking, allowing the liquid to dribble down his chin.

“Your old man ever tell you about the Saracen round-ups?”

“I’ve only got a mum, she owns the bar you’re currently drooling on.”

“Alright, your old woman, then. You really gotta learn what a rhetorical device is.”

Guy glanced at the kid who was staring through him. He raised the tankard to his lips and tried sipping from what turned out to be an empty mug.

“The Saracen round-ups,” Guy continued, pointing to his tankard to instruct the kid. The kid didn’t move. “They were going on when I was just a kid. Believe it or not I wasn’t always the wealthy socialite you see before you.”

The kid remained looking unimpressed.

“I used to work at a farm in my home village. I was shovelling shit, planting wheat crops, the whole nine yards. I don’t remember what it was for, I think one of the older workers said it was for a noble’s personal banquet but I could be wrong. This was in the central territories, about as far away from the war as you can get. But one day we had a group of knights roll up. Some knights exude a real sugary loveliness, like our friends back there,” He said, shooting his thumb over his shoulder at the chattering knights, “And some look like they’re ready to rip your head off. And here was a group of eight of the latter coming to our no-name village.”

CRASH. The two looked over at a patron who’s brain had clearly had enough alcohol and checked out. The patrons staggeredly shot brief glances before minding their own business. The knights continued not noticing anything, variously breaking out into guffaws when someone said something that was surely jolly well funny.

“Did they hurt any of you?” The kid asked.

Guy looked back. For the first time in this extended drunken tirade, the kid looked like he was actually interested. He pounced.

“I guess you’ll have to keep listening,” He said.

The kid slumped back and began serving another patron that had sat down far from Guy.

“It started as a Saracen hunting mission. Obviously the Neo-Saracens were the enemy, so we all went along with it. But we never found any. Obviously we didn’t. They were growing frustrated. We lived in the most peaceful territory of The Glorious Empire and these knights despised it.”

The other patron unsheathed their dagger and cut a coin on the block provided.

“It only took one change of the Knight-At-Arms before they finally acted on that frustration. All it took was a different boss. And BAM,” Guy accentuated his point by accidentally spilling his entire drink on the floor. The kid stopped and clamped shut his eyes, gripping the bar hard.

“You don’t become a knight because you don’t like power. You know what I’m saying? And this one started seeing Neo-Saracens around every corner. Every person who whispered gossip to another, every farmer who’s harvest was too large, every craftsperson who made a dull blade. Eventually, the village was burnt down and we fled. We call ourselves the scourged of Vinland.”

The kid placed the block down and Guy, still focused on the knights and not looking, took out his money file and cut the coin.

“And you didn’t just make that name up for yourself?” The kid asked.

“But doesn’t it sound good? It’s true, though. If you go back to Vinland to a village up north, you’ll still see a black smear where I used to live.” Guy’s ale arrived and he downed a chunk of it in one go. “The booze here’s better, though.”

Guy and the kid tapped on the bar, hoping the rhythm would create another conversation topic. Patrons had been trickling out of the inn, disappearing into the void outside and whittling the current customers to the knights, Guy, and a younger gentleman having a nap on the bar counter.

“I still don’t think your story about one jerk knight should tar everyone else with the same brush.”

“Well it’s the power, innit? Power goes to anyone and everyone’s head. They couldn’t care less about us regulars.”

The laughter of the knights interrupted them both as Guy and the kid looked over at the howling steele-clad monkeys.

“I have an idea,” Guy said, “To test this little theory of yours.”

“Oh yeah?” The kid said, fully invested.

“How’s about I get myself punched in the face?”

The kid stopped leaning on the bar and stood up. “How can I help?”

“If they’re really as peaceful as they claim, then let’s see what happens when this drunk, belligerent asshole peasant starts harassing them,” Guy said, pointing to himself. He reached deep into his tunic pocket and dropped the half crown he had cut onto the bar.

Without hesitation he reached behind the bar and dropped it in kind. “It’s a win-win for me. Either I get a half crown, or I get to watch you get your ass kicked.”

Guy grinned, made an obscene gesture at the kid, and stumbled to his feet with tankard in tow. He ‘smoothly’ wandered over to the table of knights, variously drinking and throwing verbal barbs at each other.

“Hey guys how are you— Oh my!” Guy said, tripping and spilling half of his ale down the front of one of the male knights.

The three others glared at Guy as the fourth groaned and stood up to walk to the bar. Guy plopped his way to the now vacant seat and started hamming up his drunkenness.

“How are we all doing? Sorry about your friend,” He shouted, spilling more ale on the table as he gestured wildly. He glanced over to the knight, foamy beer still dripping down his breastplate as he waited on the kid to get him a rag. “You see, I’m a bit loose with my beer. But you seem like a friendly bunch,” He said, grabbing the shoulder of the knight next to him and shaking her back and forth in fake comradery.

She snorted and threw back her tankard, taking a gulp. Guy stared, unimpressed with himself, before snapping out of it and throwing his attention towards the rest of the table.

“Are you---” The one on the other end began.

“Now, I’ve heard that you all have a tendency of letting power get to your heads. And that’s totally fine, I get that. I’d do that too if I had the ability to make my fellow human being miserable. So what have you people been up to lately?” He asked. The knights went back to staring in abject confusion.

The formerly soaked knight returned with a tankard and he placed it down in front of his former seat. “Ah, cheers,” Guy said, taking the tankard and sipping liberally from it. “Did you shake down any innocent farmers?” He looked to the other side, “Ooh. Did you ransack a home owner while distracting them with legal bullshit? That’s a classic. Or---”

An almighty THUD came from outside. The sign hanging outside the front door swung back and forth from the force and everyone glanced at the section of wall the noise came from. Until, that was, the knight standing up clasped his hand down on Guy’s shoulder and he turned around. Anticipating it, he closed his eyes and smiled, picturing the four beers he could get with his half crown.

“You really don’t like knights, buddy. Who treated you shitty?”

Guy opened his eyes and sank down a little bit. “What do you mean?”

The knight, as gracefully as one can with a ton of metal strapped to them, knelt down to just below Guy’s sitting eye level. “You lived through the war, didn’t you?”

Guy scoffed and drank his drink.

“I know a lot of knights acted like animals using that war as an excuse. I understand your anger, those knights are a black mark against the Knights’ Society. I can only give you my word that me and my fellow knights---”

Guy scoffed again, more pointedly this time. “Condescending prick.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. You speak like a fucking politician. I don’t care if you think harassing civilians is bad. Good for you! You’re still all a bunch of no good, power tripping maniacs. And as far as I’m concerned you can all go to hell.”

Guy tilted his head up, offering his chin. He braced. He glanced over at the kid, who was frozen in pure shock. The knight stood up and looked over at his fellows. He nodded at them and they slid out of their chairs, filing out of the front door.

“Sorry to have bothered you,” He said, sighing and marching out to follow his mates.

Guy sat, staring at nowhere in particular. It looked like a million thoughts were zooming past his eyes. He glanced over at the kid, whose shocked face had gotten a self-satisfied smile mixed in. Guy hauled up to his feet and walked over to the bar, plopping down onto the bar.

The kid opened his mouth to speak but Guy cut in.

“Shut up.”

A larger grin spread on the kid’s face.

“So…” The kid said, reaching onto the bar for the half crown.

“No,” Guy said, snatching up the half coin.

“What do you mean ‘no’? You made a promise.”

“You should probably learn that my promises don’t mean shit,” Guy said, venom in his voice.

The kid shook his head.

“You’re going to get yourself hurt treating promises like they’re disposable.”

“Uh huh,” Guy said, placing the half crown onto the bar and slicing off a single section and allowing metal shavings to mix with the various liquids on the bartop. “That’s a tip for the service.”

The kid held it up as Guy hopped off his stool. “Gee, thanks.”

Guy gave a quick wave of his hand without looking and headed out. His eyes readjusted to the dark, as the warmth of the bar gave way to the dimly torch-lit frigid outside.

A wind howled past and Guy shivered as he pulled his tunic closer in. Above him the wooden sign hanging from two chains flapped back and forth: ‘THE DRUNKEN COCK.’

A ship flew overhead, roaring over the stone buildings and fluttering their thatched roofs. As the lights of the craft flew over, it revealed the pulsating blue wires that ran like veins over each building.

Guy sighed and looked across the road. A peasant dragged a hovercart with at least three passed out people piled in the back. On the side, a sign read ‘Drunke Vagrant Transport Service.’ The peasant stumbled on a dishevelled man, sobbing quietly with blood running down his face.

The peasant let go of the cart momentarily to check the peasant’s head. He moved it back and forth, hastily wrapping a bandage on his head and directing him to the back of the cart. Still sobbing, the man clambered up and joined the pile of passed out bodies.

Guy chortled to himself and turned right to walk away. That was all he remembered before rapid footsteps, a sharp smack on the back of his head, and darkness.

A Gallant Day-To-Day

The sound of revelry rang throughout the entire mess hall, although calling it a mess hall would be betraying the sheer opulence of the room. It was more a dining hall with its regal, fabric maroons plastering the walls stamped with a noble’s seal.

Crossing patterns of red and gold adorned the walls as ornate golden lamps stood single file in between every room-length table. A horde of knights gathered round one who had taken to standing on the table, towering over them. One knight sat on the far end, alone, far away, staring at them intently.

“Three cheers for ME, 50 million kilometres baby!” The knight standing on the table shouted, before downing her drink. Everyone was too busy getting drunk and celebrating for the three cheers. The afar knight looked down and played with the table cover, a maroon embroidered with gold.

There was a clanking tap on his shoulder-plates. “Sir Gallant?” The voice beside him said.

Gallant looked around. Greeting him was a kid, no more than seventeen years old wearing a skullcap. “Ah, welcome, Page.”

Page glanced over at the woman who was now drunkenly, and with the help of her comrades, hobbling down to the ground.

“Who is she, what’s going on?”

Gallant took a sip from his drink. “She’s an associate knight. She was awarded a moon orbiting Tailor IV by Lady Nellie closer to the central territories, so this is her last day here.”

Page observed the group as they were at various stages of stumbling or falling over.

“You mean the toxic, uninhabitable one?”

“Mhm,” Gallant murmured, taking a swig of his drink.

“Should you go over and congratulate her?” Page asked.

Gallant looked over for a moment, lost in thought. “What did you come to tell me?”

“Oh yeah: It’s time.”

Gallant sighed, taking a moment to ready himself. He sharply stood up and headed for the ornate dark wood doorway.

“Might as well get this over with,” He said, motioning Page over.

They hauled a door apiece forward, exposing the moody dining hall to the light and bustling noise of the promenade.

Gallant and Page crossed round the walkway that girt the glass dome that the promenade was encased in. Outside, putrid yellow-green sulphur smoke choked the view outside.

What little could be seen of the planet’s surface presented only a barren and rocky plane.

“…just, like, a lush planet, y’know?” Page continued his conversation to a distracted Gallant, “Lord Commodus could have picked a lovely field with daisy to set up shop on. Why here?”

Gallant peered down the promenade as he walked. The walkways underneath were stacked on top of each other, lit brightly and cleanly, and descended down an ungodly distance down. If you fell from here, you would stop screaming and get bored before you hit the ground. Elevators limited to specific ranges of levels ferried their passengers back and forth to inns, gardens, housing, and the not to be forgotten dining halls.

Gallant turned back to Page, who was looking at him expectantly. “I think being here has something to do with exerting power.”

Page cocked an eyebrow.

“Well,” Gallant began, “Think about it. Sure, Lord Commodus could set up shop near one of the million planets he has available and more habitable. But here sends a message that---”

Gallant was cut off by the clang of a civilian woman bouncing off of his armour. He shook any lethargy in his system and held out a hand. “I’m so sorry, ma’am.”

She hauled herself to her feet and, not once looking at Gallant, ran to catch up with her friends. Gallant lowered his hand back down slowly and continued walking, almost to the end of the promenade.

Peasant, knight, merchant alike all walked through this area, the yellowed light of the outside planet not daring to touch the decadent interior of Velvet Chiffon. However, each and every person passed by Gallant as though he was invisible. At least Page had the occasional glare thrown at him when his excited rambling got too loud.

Through the winding hallways the two went as Page continued talking. The halls had an indulgent claustrophobia about them. Rugs an inch thick apiece, adorned with circular, dowdy coloured patterns lined the walls, interspersed by LED torches.

While the civilians each ducked around the Page and Gallant like gymnasts, anybody wearing steele armour barrelled through like cannonballs. The knights would continue on their way, ignoring whoever they barged through and not skipping a beat in their conversations.

“Did you hear about the noble election at Lyon’s Den?” One of the knights passing said to her fellow, “It only came down to a few hundred votes. And, get this, the previous noble’s son won it.”

“What!?” Shouted her enraptured associate, “Ridiculous. Crazy the kind of nepotism that’s allowed out there.”

After a few more turns, they ended up under a golden archway. An engraved sign read ‘BAY OF CHAMPIONS.’

”…I’m just saying,” Page continued, “If you packed the steele tight enough you could totally use it in a gun.”

“No,” Gallant replied, walking past each of the bay doors. Much like the mess hall door, each had the appearance of big, heavy, deadbolted wooden doors. Albeit, each had varying levels of upkeep and degradation.

“What do you mean ‘no?’ Isn’t the principle that any steele exposed to concentrated heat disintegrates?”

“It’s already been tested. No matter how you treat it, the stuff will turn to powder. No offence, but smarter men than you tried every way of doing it after laser weapons were rendered obsolete by this stuff,” Gallant said, doinking his finger off his armour, “And each either failed or went insane.”

Page pouted.

“But you’re more than welcome to try,” Gallant half-assedly reassured him.

They passed each bay door, the gilded plaques reading names like ‘Sir Henry of Velvet Chiffon’ and ‘Sir Faulkes of Velvet Chiffon.’ They arrived at the doorway, the most beat-up in the entire bay, and to a scrawny guy about the same height of Page pacing back and forth, clutching a letter.

He spotted them and jogged over, letter raised above head. “Sir Gallant! Sir Gallant!”

Gallant looked over at Page, who was just as exasperated. “Not another message,” Gallant pleaded.

“Well, I—”

“Tell my brother,” Gallant interrupted, “That I get it. But the REAL person here besmirching the family name is the one who incessantly keeps sending me messages. And I have made it very clear I’m busy and I can’t be disturbed right now. Good day.”

Gallant walked past and opened the door to his turret.

The messenger tried walking in tow. “If you could just listen for a moment…”

Gallant leaned over to Page and mumbled, “See if you can distract him and send him on his way.”

Page nodded and slowed his walk to move to the messenger. Gallant sighed and turned a corner, taking one last look at Page excitedly chattering at the messenger.

Gallant’s turret, decorated to look like a cylindrical stone castle turret, attached to the side of Velvet Chiffon and protruded out along with the rest of the turrets. Through the window, Gallant could see some of the bays were empty, and the concave bays made it look like Velvet Chiffon had been hit by several missiles.

The sprawling, undecorated stone halls were far less bustling than the halls of before. It remained mostly unchanged for the trip, save for the occasional empty tankard and stain of unknown origin. However, occasionally some of the people passing acknowledged Sir Gallant’s existence with a nod or a glance.

Gallant approached a door. The door was a thin steele that sat inside the thick stone frame. The engraved wooden sign on the door read: DISCUSSION ROOM. Gallant sighed and placed a hand on it.

Page raced back around the corner and stood at attention. Gallant gave a wave and Page relaxed.

“You give him the slip?” Gallant asked

“I told him that your quarters are on the second floor of the promenade. That should keep him busy for a while.”

“Excellent,” Gallant said, looking uncomfortable.

“You sure you don’t want me in there?” Page asked.

“No, unfortunately they only want me in there. I don’t know what this is about, but I guess I’ll find out.”

Gallant pushed, cracking the door open and walking into the room. He closed the door behind him.

***

The two men sitting on either side of Gallant looked at him expectantly. Gallant was currently massaging the bridge of his nose with his thumb and finger. “So, this is a dispute about copper?”

“SUB-STANDARD copper!” The burly, soot-coated man spat back.

“That copper came straight from the forge, if you don’t like it then maybe you should blame your equipment,” The luxuriously dressed, high-pitched merchant threw back.

“My equipment is forged by my own hand and is of higher quality than any lumpy, mixed minerals you could ever produce.”

“Guys…” Gallant tried to cut in.

“And I’m certain this has nothing to do with your ineptitude as a toolsmith, right?” The merchant cut right back.

“You’re damn right it doesn’t!”

Gallant slammed his gauntlets on the table, the noise ringing around the torch-lit room and reverberating through the occupants.

“Guys!” He shouted, silencing the bickering couple. “Shut up.”

The door behind Gallant swung open and out popped the messenger. “Sir Gallant, I understand you don’t want to see me but I have an urgent…”

Gallant couldn’t hide his contempt. “I have had quite enough of this,” He said, standing up imposing over the messenger. “I have had a long enough day. I am in the middle of…” He paused and flicked his eyes at the other two. ”…Important business. I am attempting to mediate a dispute, and the last thing I need is for a weaselly messenger from my brother taking any opportunity to disrupt my work. PAGE!” He shouted, causing all in the room to jump.

Page raced around the corner and poked his head in. “Yeah?”

“I thought you gave this one the slip,” Gallant said, pointing.

“You don’t understand, Sir Gallant, this is an important message from---”

“My brother, yes, I know. The last girl said the same thing. I will get to you in a moment but, unless you want to be scraped off of an asteroid, you will leave.”

The messenger shrank down and out the door. The sincerity of each of Gallant’s words rattled around his brain. Page awkwardly nodded and pulled the door closed. Gallant sighed and plopped back down onto his seat, with the two men still transfixed on him.

“Great Sovereign, I’d love to be many generations ago when one could send a message without it being decrypted in an instant.”

Both men glanced at each other as Gallant studied a nearby smudge on the floor. He noticed the two staring at him.

“Shouldn’t you two be arguing?” He asked.

“Actually,” The merchant began, “Could you tell us when Lord Commodus is going to arrive?”

Gallant perked up. He looked at the toolsmith and he seemed not at all surprised by what the merchant said.

“Sorry, what were your names?” Gallant asked.

The two looked at each other. Though still wearing their fury on their faces, the merchant nodded at the toolsmith.

“Angman,” Angman boomed.

“Charles,” Charles squeaked.

“And how did this…you gain an audience with the noble?” Gallant asked.

Charles frowned. “Well, we already had this discussion with Lord Commodus. But he told us to come by here to get it ironed out. Said he’d ‘Get one of my knights to facilitate.’”

The realisation hit Gallant all at once. “Pawned it off on me,” He muttered.

“And of course this would have gotten worked out if you hadn’t---” Angman started.

“Oh please, don’t start this again. You’re the one who---” Charles cut in.

“HEY! Either you two take it in turns to talk or…” Gallant pointed to the Charles, ”…I’m going to get your right to trade revoked…” He wheeled around to Angman, ”…And I’m going to level your workshop to the ground.”

Both men looked suitably furious and pouty at these threats.

“Great,” Gallant continued, “Now, let’s hear from both of you. One at a time.”

Both men said a few words, glared at each other, and fell silent.

“How about Angman, you start.”

“Of course, start with the thug,” Charles muttered.

Gallant shot him a dagger glare and Charles shrank down.

Angman, burly blackened arms folded, leaned back.

“Easy. I bought some copper from the lad. I used it to produce a pair of shears for a knight. It disintegrated in front of my eyes. Nothing else to it.”

Gallant turned to Charles. Charles looked at him nervously.

“I bought that copper direct from the mine and I had professionals appraise it at 99% pure. With the full permission of the Sovereign I received it and sold it to…Angman.”

“You had the ‘full permission’ of the Sovereign?”

“He’s an approved merchant. That doesn’t mean the Sovereign themself approved you.”

Charles opened his mouth to respond but Gallant cut in.

“Do you have proof of the purity check?”

Charles reached down, rifling through his bag, and produced a tablet. He typed a few things, and showed a receipt from ‘Great Talent Fourth Mine Purity’ showing ‘98.98% pure copper.’ Gallant peered over to Angman.

“That means nothing. I’ve used copper a million times before and I have never used anything as tragic.”

“Tell that to the paper,” Charles continued shaking it back and forth.

Gallant brought his gauntlets up to his face and sighed.

“Your metals are lumpy and weak just like—”

“You know what?” Gallant said, slamming his gauntlets down again, “I think what we need here is communication.”

Both other men scoffed.

“No, really. What I think you two should do is just talk out your problems right now. No mediator, just argue here until you arrive at a solution. Go nuts.”

Gallant rose from his chair, the wood scraping against the smooth stone floor. The other two looked at each other in dead silence.

“Um,” Charles ummed, “I feel kinda awkward being given the green light to argue now.”

“Yeah,” Angman agreed.

Gallant opened the door, the cool air wafting in and making him realise how stuffy the room had really gotten.

“You should start,” Charles said, “After all, you’re the one with the problem.”

“What are you talking about? If you’d just give me a full refund this would all go away.”

Gallant slammed the door on the two as they continued to bicker. Page stared up at him with a note of pity in his eyes.

“Don’t,” said Gallant.

Gallant waved at a nearby ratty looking levy guard and motioned them over.

“Make sure nobody in that room gets killed. And actually, while you’re at it, why don’t you deal with that dispute.”

The levy guard thought for a minute, nodded and went to the door. They allowed the argument noises to briefly escape before slamming the door behind them.

Gallant headed off in the other direction, putting as much distance between that room and himself as possible.

“Have you also got a status report for me?” Gallant asked as they reached the railing above the turret village.

A grass circle marked the border of a small village of thatched huts. The steele vents pumped in a supply of fresh air and the sun lamps bore down on the farms. Peasant walked every which way talking, laughing, and occasionally exchanging longing glances.

“Oh yeah,” Page began, holding the report up to his face like a child reading a speech to their class, “So, as per our investigations, Farmer Todd has been stealing from Farmer Landgrave and he has been asked to leave. The land has been given to Landgrave.”

Gallant nodded as they rounded to the other side of the railing to the opposite doorway. He could still feel the red hot bile that had been sitting in his stomach since the dispute.

“Good, I’ll add my seal to that,” Gallant said, opening the door to another walkway. This time, a torch-lit staircase that curved up and around out of sight. The vents carved into the side of the stone tried dutifully to hide how stuffy the walkway was, in the same way placing a miniature fan in front of an oven might cool it down.

“Any updates on those border skirmishes?” Gallant asked.

“A few more attacks just in orbit above Burning Sapphire.”

“And the ship identifications?”

“None could be identified.”

Gallant sighed. “Whoever they are, they’re good.”

Page lowered the paper. They were still winding up the stairs, both glistening with sweat. They had stopped receiving greetings from people they passed, who similarly had the stink of death about them.

“‘Whoever they are?’ I thought it was the Neo-Saracens.”

Gallant nodded as they finally reached the door to the next level corridor.

“Of course, why wouldn’t it be.”

Pushing it open gave way to the battlegrounds. A hay-strewn terrain had multiple wooden structures that all indicated different purposes. Training dummies clad in chipped and cut steele armour, enclosed archery ranges, and lengthy running circuits all adorned the open-air room. The walls were adorned with LEDs that all shone a deep blue down onto the equipment, all coated in a thick layer of dust.

Gallant grew cautious as he crossed this field, darting his eyes around.

“Sir Gallant!” Shouted a booming voice, as a side-cut woman rounded one of the disused structure. She took a sip from a mug and grabbed the end of the teabag, dipping it a few times.

“Battlemaster Elise, so nice to bump into you. We were just cutting across the grounds to get to my quarters,” Gallant said.

Before waiting for an answer, Gallant walked off, but Battlemaster Elise took one step to the side and blocked him. She glanced over at the paper that Page was grasping.

“Status report time, huh? I have something from my department to add.”

Gallant looked at her expectantly as she took another noisy sip from the mug.

“See, several of your guardspeople haven’t been reporting for training. As you can assume, this causes standards for combat to slip.”

Gallant raised his eyebrows.

“Oh, really? Who are the worst offenders?” Gallant asked.

“Well, the biggest offender is one Sir Gallant of Velvet Chiffon who has been routinely not showing up to his prescribed training sessions that HE HIMSELF set. Unfortunately I have had to stoop to ambushing him in order to remind him.”

Gallant longed for a helmet that didn’t exist so he could put it over his head and not let Elise see how searing red his face was.

“Of course, of course. We should definitely schedule something soon.” He said, dancing around Elise who was just a little bit too slow for him.

“I was thinking now, if you weren’t too busy lying on your bed and staring at the ceiling,” Elise said.

Gallant motioned to his ears as if he couldn’t hear her from a few metres away. Page sheepishly walked past as well.

“You’re next on that list, Page,” Elise threatened.

Page shuddered and returned to Gallant, who was standing, door open, shocked at what he was seeing. The messenger was puffing, leaning on Gallant’s chamber door which was made of the same thin steele the discussion room was.

The messenger looked up and raised the letter like he would a weapon. “Please…Sir…”

“I’ll give you that, you’ve got guts. You’re really not afraid to die. Unless this message is from Lord Commodus himself, I’m not—”

“It’s from Lord Commodus, Sir Gallant.”

The messenger planted the message in the shocked Sir Gallant’s hand and briskly strode off.

“Good day, sir,” The messenger said.

Page ripped the envelope for him and pulled out the letter, placing it in the still-shocked Gallant’s gauntlet. Gallant looked at the letter, as did Page, and as did Battlemaster Elise.

“It says Lord Commodus needs to see every knight for a secret meeting in the landing hall. Something like this hasn’t happened in decades.”

Elise grabbed Gallant’s arm.

“Best we get you ready now, then. Don’t want your mind wandering from whatever Commodus tells you.”

Gallant opened his mouth to protest but he was already getting a dulled iron weapon shoved into his hand and being led back into the battlegrounds. Gallant looked back at Page, who offered him no respite. Just a cheeky grin.

A Sober and More Well-Advised Prologue

Magnus leaned with her back against the wall. The village around her was reduced to a sequence of inky splotches and dimly torch-LED lit walls. Despite how often the lampposts dotted the roadways, the night still remained impenetrable.

So much so that Magnus couldn’t make heads or tails of the letter she was continually taking out of her pocket, unfolding, squinting at, and putting back in her pocket. However, every time she would scan the words of the page, smile, and put it back.

The wall she was leaned across was slightly better lit, showing through the red brick facade and gummed up windows smears with who knows what. It still wasn’t bright enough for Magnus to notice the man that had stumbled next to her.

“Good morning!” The man said, his breath a curious mix of whisky and ale.

Magnus damn near jumped away, keeping a grip on the letter.

“Fuck! Don’t sneak up on someone like that, mate,” Magnus whisper-shouted, shoving the letter back in her pocket.

“Sorry,” He slurred.

She stared at the drunk imbecile, trying to act nonchalant while desperately gripping the wall for dear life.

“Can I help you?” She asked.

“What, is it illegal to lean on a wall?”

“No, but it significantly reduces your life expectancy,” Magnus said, staring daggers at him.

A gust of wind blew through as they were talking, the icy touch of it running over both of them. Magnus shook, the letter fluttering in her hand. The drunk was unfazed, but now focused on Magnus’ hand.

“What’s with the letter, you waiting for someone?”

“Maybe you should learn to mind your own business,” Magnus said.

Quick as a flash, the drunk snatched up the letter, the sound of a tear ripping its way through Magnus’ ear and rattling around.

“Ooh,” The drunk said, scanning the page up to a nearby torch, “What’s with your sister? Is she coming to---”

That was all the drunk could say before he suddenly lost the ability to breathe. Magnus’ hand clutched his neck and she span him, stumbling backwards in an 180 degree arc slamming into the wall. It felt as though the building was rocked to its foundations, as the wall was still shaking the force of the impact out of it. The sign of the building to the left swung back and forth in the torchlight. It read: THE DRUNKEN COCK.

Magnus snatched the letter back, analyzing the microscopic tear on the side. It rode no further in than the outside margins. She looked down at the drunk asshole who had taking to slumping down to his ass and sobbing.

She booted him over onto his stomach. He crawled away, intermittently pausing to cry in convulsions, until he disappeared into the night.

Magnus made to lean on the wall again until the door suddenly burst open, and she pressed flat against the wall, peering around the corner.

“I’ll be back for that coin next time, though,” The man said.

“I look forward to seeing your skull crack,” A kid inside responded.

The door swung shut as the guy seemed to be taking in his surroundings. He paused to squint in the middle distance where Magnus heard the soft hum of a hovercart floating gently by.

The “Drunk Vagrant Taxi Service” contained a few bodies piled one after the other. Some were snoring gently, and some snored with such ferocity that it sounded like they were ripping their sinuses out. The pilot of the cart, clad in a neck-down robe made, as far as Magnus could make out, of hessian, hopped away from the front and grasped the man.

A beige, rounded landing craft roared overhead illuminating each of the buildings in a strip ahead of it. Magnus and the guy’s attention were momentarily diverted to it, but Magnus, within a second, glanced back at her mark.

The man turned right, Magnus popped out from behind the wall and yanked the sword from her scabbard. Before he could react, she drove the hilt of her sword into the back of his head and he crumpled into a pile on the ground.

She hastily put away her sword and crouched down, the tail of her cloak carefully depositing itself in the muddy ground behind her. She cursed to herself as she wrapped her arms under his arms and, with a great heave, pulled the heavy-set man’s frame about half a metre towards the roadway. She stepped over his torso and gripped his legs like a cart, heaving them towards the roadway. They were gratifyingly far less heavy.

She knelt down to catch her breath and let the soreness that flowed through her muscles dissipate into the air. She glanced over at the unconscious man, labouredly snoring. She snorted, shook her head, and looked across the road. A chill blew its way through, rustling the thatched roofs and shaking Magnus from her root.

She reached over, patting down the man’s pockets top to bottom, and producing a wad of papers. She flicked through the papers, holding any up to the nearby torch that caught her interest. One paper stood out to her and she murmured a phrase over and over again to herself.

The quiet hum of the hovercart returned, as well as introducing the snoring of five different people who would, in a few hours, be nursing some atrocious hangoves. Magnus stuffed the papers, crumpling and tearing them into a non-descript pocket, shot up and stood in the way of the cart. The hum wound down as the driver lazed back into it to prevent any movement.

“Excuse me,” She began, affecting a shy innocent inflection in her voice, “My husband’s had a bit too much to drink tonight and I was wondering if I-we could get a lift.”

The driver motioned with his head back to the cart.

“Where are you h—”

“Francois Cottage, Tory Village, City 2 Outskirt Territory,” She sped through.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“I’d have been fine with the cottage name. We’re IN Tory Village, ma’am.”

He leaned down and hauled up the guy’s legs. She looked at him, he nodded towards the body, she sighed and strained the torso up.

She spoke between puffs.

“Of course…I must have…had too much…myself.”

They waddled to the back of the cart.

“You mind if I…” He said.

“Not at all,” She said.

He swung his torso back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, before stumbling him forward on top of another passed out patron. The patron snorted and turned her head so she could breathe again before going back to sleep.

Magnus planted one foot on the cart and hauled up, the driver making a token motion to help her and resignedly returning to his station at the front.

Holding onto the smooth oak wooden side of the cart she felt the jolt of the cart rise half a metre off the ground and head along the road.

***

Guy heard a flat thunking rustling sound as the black fog of violent unconsciousness unveiled itself. His brain settled in the room, returning to his body.

He peeked his left eye a crack open, keeping it as closed looking as possible. The room remained as dark as unconsciousness but human silhouette was sat about a metre opposite him.

“Good morning,” The voice said, “Glad I could finally arrange a meeting.”

His eyes wrenched fully open and, with perfect timing, a lamp clicked on blasting his face and frying his retinas.

“Sovereign’s sake, who are you?” He asked.

His eyes readjusted to the inside of the cottage. The blue wire veins of the outside ran in across the walls and plugged into various metallic devices.

They were sat in a room that contained a kitchen, bed, and couch in one cramped, L-shaped oak room with another room sitting in the crook of the L.

“You do realise it’s night time, I think.”

The figure, now coming into view as a woman wearing a cloak, leaned over and peeked through a crack in the curtain.

“It’s technically morning. You’ve been drinking a lot more than you think. In fact, you’ve been drinking with my money so I know you’ve had a lot.”

Guy’s eyes widened, then closed as his eyes were still not ready for that much light.

“You were that lady that wanted to get smuggled.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“People generally call me Magnus.”

She wasn’t armed. She didn’t have a sword or a gun, just leaning back in a chair and not currently tied down with ropes.

Guy, as soon as he realised he was bound, instinctively tried jerking himself free. He wrenched his right arm, and his left arm. Nothing.

“Easy there,” Magnus said.

“HELP! SOMEONE HELP!” Guy shouted. Magnus scrunched up her face as the screams rattled around in her ears.

“Eek, could you stop doing that. It’s really irritating.”

“THAT’S irritating? SOMEONE HELP!” He screamed again.

As Guy screamed, Magnus rose and spotted a picture. Alarmingly unfazed by the piercing, blood curtling screams, she walked over and picked it up.

“Help! Help! H…” Guy stopped and looked at the picture he was being presented. It was him and another man, both arms locked around each other in cheers.

“This your husband?” Magnus asked.

Guy shifted around.

“Boyfriend.”

Magnus flipped it around and studied it.

“What do you think he’s going to think when he sees you like this?”

Guy was taken aback.

“When he sees me like this? He’s going to come save me, that’s why I’m screaming HELP!” He screamed.

“He’s a sheriff of the next village over. So you’re in some serious sh—”

“What if he comes back…” Magnus cut in, scanning the image again and sighing, ”…And I’m still here.”

Guy widened his eyes.

“You wouldn’t dare hurt him. I have friends, I-I—”

Guy hung his head. Magnus did the same.

“So what are you here for?” Guy said. “Are you here to take your money back? Because this sure is a dramatic way to do it.”

Magnus dropped the frame on the ground and it made an unfortunate cracking sound, accompanied by a simultaneous, involuntary gut sound by both people.

“I’m not here to rob you, Guy. I’m here for something else.”

Guy furrowed his brow. He looked down at the shattered glass that had made its rest on the ground.

Magnus continued. “I need a name.”

Guy widened his eyes and shot his head up.

“Oh no, no way,” Guy protested, rattling around in his chair, “They ONLY do business with middlemen like me. I tell you what you need to know and I’m out of business forever.”

Magnus scoffed and leaned back in her chair. The hum of a ship flying overhead rumbled through, rattling Guy’s cottage and making the metallic devices clatter.

“Man, I have no idea how you live in here,” Magnus said, peering through the gap in the curtain, still depositing a fine layer of dust across the room.

Guy looked at her with incredulity.

“Could you stay focused? The answer is no.”

Magnus avoided eye contact with Guy. She took a moment, placed her hands slowly on her knees, and rose to her feet. She dragged the chair away and Guy immediately, with her back turned, wrestled with his knots.

He looked up at her as she settled the chair next to the front door.

“What are you doing?” He asked, stopping.

“You really aren’t the first person I’ve tied to a chair. I wouldn’t keep fussing with those knots, you’re just going to wear yourself out.”

Guy jolted forward.

“What are you doing!?” He roared.

“I’m waiting for your boyfriend,” Magnus replied wearily.

“No, no, wait, don’t,” Guy stammered out.

Magnus’ leg was now more obviously bouncing, she tapped on her leg and locked her gaze on the door.

“I TOLD you I can’t. Please, don’t.”

Magnus stayed locked on the door, clenching her jaw.

“FINE, fine,” Guy shouted.

Magnus finally looked over at him. She stayed where she was, hands on either leg.

“Fine…what?”

“I don’t know her name, but she set up her shop in City 2’s old city in citadel central. She gets her middlemen and middlewomen through the other slum dwellers, and she’ll have a stall with a lot of computerized junk hanging everywhere. She won’t sell anything no matter how hard you haggle. That’ll be her.”

Guy had blurted this all out in one go, scanning for her face in the darkness and slurred from the ale still weighing him down. But Magnus still nodded as soon as he was done.

“I believe you,” She said, getting up and striding over to him, this time with more gusto. She patted him down and reached into his pocket.

“Hey, what the hell?” He said.

She pulled out two whole crowns and set them on the counter.

“I thought you said you weren’t going to rob me.”

She yanked a steele knife off of a magnetic holder on the wall and, with perfect precision, cut exactly an eigth piece off. She walked back over and deposited it in his pocket.

“This,” She said, holding it up to his face, “Is for my refund. That,” She said, pointing to his pocket, “Is for the picture frame. Sorry about that.”

She shoved the coin in her pocket and darted to the door. She grabbed the handle and jerked the door open, but paused for a moment, hanging her head down.

“I’m sorry about this. Your boyfriend will find you when he gets back,” She loudly mumbled.

Magnus took a step out.

“I don’t know why you’re being smuggled, or why you’re on the run. But I hope they catch you,” Guy spat.

Magnus had been frozen for a second. She took a breath and left, closing the door behind her.

A Call To Help

“Again!” Battlemaster Elise shouted, slashing down right.

A desperate Gallant parried up right, gripping the sword with both hands for dear life.

By this time a small crowd had gathered at the hay-strewn battlegrounds. People, associate knight and peasant alike leaned on the segmented wooden barricade, only choosing to back off when Gallant or Elise were going to barrel into them and take their eye out with a practice sword.

“Great! See, you’ve still got it.”

Gallant was puffing, holding on to his sword for dear life, it being the only thing keeping him upright as he embedded the tip in the ground.

Page glanced up at the grand clock positioned at the far end and hopped the barrier. He ran between them before Elise could call another move.

“I think it’s time for me and Gallant to head to the meeting.”

Elise squinted her eyes at him and glanced at Gallant, who at this moment had every fibre of his muscles twitching.

“You’re lucky you’ve been showing up regularly.”

Page smiled cheesily as he snuck under Gallant’s left arm and hauled him away.

“When do I not?”

“You,” Elise pointed to an associate knight, who immediately winced and pretended to not see her, “You’re next,” She said, motioning with her thumb behind her.

Gallant staggered out of the ring as a few of the poor associate knight’s mates patted her on the back.

“Thanks for the save,” He muttered as they walked to the exit doorway, having been left ajar by the crowd. Gallant walked with a sword in his right hand and a Page in the left.

“I was actually enjoying it, but we had to leave. If it was up to me then you’d have suffered,” Page said with a grin.

Gallant shook his head and unhooked his arm from Page. After a few wobbly newborn steps, he was able to keep going and they headed out the door.

A fairly uneventful stroll through the turret and out the door, even Page had little to say along the way. They crossed Velvet Chiffon’s endless promenade and into an elevator.

It was adorned with the same patterned and embroidered rugs that characterised the walkways, creating a hugged-in feeling. A console of chunky buttons had been carved out next to the door, the rug material perfectly sculpted to make it fit in perfectly with the surroundings.

Before Gallant could press anything, they were joined by a knight, and woman with simple clothing covered in mud.

“Thank you so much for this, it means a lot to me that knights like you are looking out for us,” The woman said.

The knight selected a floor and Gallant tried to reach around him to select his own. His fingers were agonizingly close but not quite.

“It’s no worry, we are only chosen to be extraordinary. And that means taking nobody for granted,” The knight responded to the lady, her, of course, being the only person in the elevator.

Gallant retreated his arm and looked at Page, nodding his head towards the buttons. Page sighed, shook his head, and contorted himself around the two.

He clicked the floor marked* TRANSPORT *and looked back at the two, both staring at him as if he had just teleported in.

Page slinked back and the two glanced back at him but returned to their idolating conversation with each other, not sparing Gallant a second glance.

“I don’t suppose I could invite you back to the village for tea with everyone?” She asked.

“I can’t, I’m otherwise occupied for reasons I’m unable to outline,” He insisted.

Gallant and Page looked at each other in disbelief about this robot, before a flowery chime played and the lift gently glided to a halt.

“Now, I’m going to have to ask you to brace yourself, Edna,” The knight said, his voice lowering an octave.

“Brace myself?” Edna said.

“Brace herself?” Gallant muttered.

The doors slid open and the knight led Edna out with great speed, revealing a horde of steele armoured knights ready to move in.

The two didn’t have any time to react before the chattering horde muscled its way in and lent the elevator an atmosphere of loud confusion.

Gallant couldn’t see Page, as he had, at that moment, a face full of shoulder-plate.

The agonizingly long ride down the promenade shaft was only lessened in misery by the air conditioning that kept everything, inexplicably, the same temperature. The only thing that felt warm was Gallant’s cheeks as he was continually ragdolled by the other knights into the corner. They held no notice of him.

As soon as it hit the right floor, the crowd piled out, leaving Gallant a crumpled pile against the wall. Page hopped over and patted Gallant on the shoulder.

“You alright? The meeting’s that way,” He said, pointing out the still-open elevator doors.

“I can tell,” Gallant said, peeling himself off of the wall and heading out, shaking the compression out of him.

Page and Gallant both looked up. They were on the bottom floor of the promenade, and looking up from the well they were in the walkway spiralled on forever into the depths above. The slightest yellow tint was their only indication that they were still on the same planet.

Crossing over past an enclave in the hallway where a forge was carved into the side of the wall. The workers, between pouring molten gold and blowing the billows to forge their jewellry, stood at attention and nodded with respect to all of the knights. Gallant got no such attention.

The end of the hallway revealed a grand vista. Hills rolled over the landscape, a speedy maglev train snaking through the trenches that had been carved around the hills. The sight was so bright and lush with a gentle breeze blowing back and forth, wiggling the blades of grass around, that there was no way it had come from the planet itself.

Gallant stepped down the dark oak walkway, gliding his hand on the shiny gold railing. Page patted his arm and pointed up. Above were floodlights that, despite having slatted metal shielding in front of them, seared an afterimage into Gallant’s eyes.

“Ah!” Gallant reacted, rubbing his eyes at the base of the stairs and being buffetted by the latecomer knights. “Why am I looking at that?”

“Oops, sorry. I was just going to ask why even have this entire setup?”

Gallant finished rubbing his eyes and peered at Page.

“What do you mean? I’m not the architect here.”

“I mean, sure, but why not just have some fake turf. Why have a maglev for that matter? Seems like a waste.”

Gallant and Page arrived at the platform, hanging so precariously above the hills below it was almost as if they could fall at any second.

“Not if you’re Lord Commodus,” Gallant replied.

Despite the metal horde having made its way on to the platform to wait, it didn’t move an inch. The rumbling of a train quietened everyone down.

A grind, the sound of the air being parted, and the train sped like a bullet into the station. The thing was enormous and everyone flowed like water into their respective seats. Both men blacked out for a moment but somehow came to having secured their own seats.

Gallant stared out the window as the train picked itself up again and sped past the emerald hills, the shimmer rotating as the train did. Page, meanwhile, was fixated on everyone inside the cabin. Their conversations, who was slapping who’s back and guffawing, who’s relationship was on the rocks.

Gallant looked at Page, looked around at the random people chattering, blew his cheeks out and returned to his view.

Ornate housing dotted the landscape, with each boasting no less than two floors and no more than five. Despite the difference in materials, some with refined dark wood, some with grey brick patterning, each was emblazoned with an obsidian sigil that was burned in above each doorway.

The train rounded a bank hard and the clattering of armour keeping itself steady rattled through the train, with the few non-knights desperately trying to keep their squishy bodies safe.

All of a sudden the vista stopped rotating around and they juddered to a halt. The building outside, once the doors opened, filled the view of every compartment. Gallant and Page stepped out, narrowly beating the bulk of the rush of knights doing the same.

Despite leaving the train, their view was still entirely dominated by this one magnificent limestone building. Gallant physically stopped and craned his neck around. It was only by looking to the other side of the platform that the green hills came back into view again.

Columns fused into the front-facing wall lined the facade. The two knights that stood at the doors, blue X-shaped streaks adorning their chestplates, nodded and pushed the dark oak doors open.

The doors were about half the height of the building, meaning they couldn’t be scaled even if every knight stood on each others’ shoulders. With great effort and might, and a few good sports bouncing forward to help, the doors opened revealing the stark, bright interior.

“Good Sovereign, I’ve never seen this view before. Isn’t it amazing, Page. Page?” He asked, not getting a response.

He looked around him, and spotted page across the platform chatting up a knight who was listening to Page intently. Gallant sighed and strode over. He caught the back half of the conversation.

“—her actual needs. Not just what you THINK she needs. Otherwise your relationship will just feel overbearing.”

Page glanced over at Gallant and smiled, who gave a confused half-smile back. The knight looked up at Gallant.

“This your associate?” He asked.

“Mhm,” Gallant said, beginning the motions to usher Page away.

“He is strange little man, but he speaks like wise oak tree. Thank you for help, little man.”

Page grinned and nodded back to him as Gallant turned him away towards the entrance.

“I learnt so much about Sir Pious’ girlfriend. Or, I guess, soon to be ex-girlfriend,” Page responded, “That’s not lasting.”

Page hopped his way up the steps as Gallant slugged behind him.

“I have no idea how you do those kinds of things,” Gallant said.

“All you gotta do is talk to people.”

“Ah, that’ll be the problem,” Gallant said, starting to puff but making it to the landing before the doors. Before Gallant could cross the doorway, the blue-crossed knight held his lance out just far enough to stop Gallant getting in.

“Woah there, I’ve never seen you before.”

Gallant looked at him in disbelief, and motioned to his armour.

“Seriously?” Gallant said.

“I’m gonna need to see your papers,” The guard said, punctuated with a sniff.

Gallant stared daggers at him for a few moments and motioned over to Page. Page nodded and produced some crumpled papers, which he handed to Gallant, who slapped them in the guard’s hand.

The guard, lance in the crook of his elbow, held out the paper as if it was about to jump out of his hands and strangle him. He looked at the paper, looked at Gallant, and looked back again. Then, resignedly, he pressed it back in Gallant’s still outstretched hand.

“Sorry to have bothered you, Sir Gallant.”

Gallant handed the page back to Page as he got hotter behind the ears. He took a step to the door but this time Page got the lance treatment.

“He can’t come in, unfortunately.”

Gallant opened his mouth but Page cut in.

“No worries, I’ll just…ride on the train until I get bored,” Page said, nodding. Before Gallant could say anything Page had already zoomed off. He chuckled and felt his ears cool down.

He walked into the bright lights of the lordly hall. The expansive hallway seemed to stretch even taller than it appeared on the outside, like the interior was somehow shy to show its full majesty.

The lights seemed to eminate from the stone walls themselves as it shone down on the maroon carpet that stretched off in the distance.

Gallant followed the other darkened bootprints lining the carpet and rounding the corner. The walls up to about the height of Gallant were planked with perfectly smoothed wood, and the limestone stretched up the rest of the distance.

The doors came into view, significantly more openable than the doors outside. They were human sized, for starters. There was a lack of paintings on the walls, its space taken up by the soft, luxurious material. As Gallant approached the doors, the excited murmuring of the pre-meeting chatter grew louder and louder.

He pushed open the doors, Gallant being blasted in the face with heat and noise. He took a moment to recover and crossed the room to his chair. Knights were shouting, occasionally banging on the table to get attention they wouldn’t get, and occasionally throwing food at each other. But nobody dared touch it more than to chuck a little scrap. Certainly nobody was eating it.

Gallant found the sole unoccupied chair, the knights on either side shouting at each other across it. It was of the same smoothed bright pine, with the same triangular steeple at the top of the back flanked by two small columns.

Gallant looked at the back of the chair. It read:

SIR GALLANT OF THE DOCKING BAY TURRET

Gallant frowned and plopped himself down and the men on either side moved their gaze tablewards to look around Gallant. Gallant himself looked at the feast in front of him. Suckling, glazed pig and tender, crisp lamb sat alongside fresh brightly coloured salads and genetically engineered meat-less steak.

Two knights, both with the same blue crosses on their breastplates and with helmets on, slammed their lances up and down on either side of the velvet red throne at the end of the table. The pattern was rhythmic, alternating one, two, one, two, everybody died down.

“Now introducing…” The leftward knight demanded, his voice carrying as if he was right next to Gallant, ”…Ruler of Velvet Chiffon and the greatest jewels of the Central Territories, Lord Commodus.”

Silence had completely descended upon the table by the time the announcement had finished. On the other end of the hall, well behind the throne, the dark oak door dotted with green diamond-shaped emeralds parted.

A figure waltzed in with practiced steps, trailing a white fur-lined red cape behind them. The knights’ conversations completely died down with the last few dregs of conversation dragging to a halt as Lord Commodus strode the agonizing distance across the room.

He arrived at his chair, the two guards pivoting aside as Lord Commodus stood in front of his chair, leaning onto the table. He scanned the surface, which had already had food thrown or otherwise smeared on its ancient surface. He glanced at all of the plates still full of uneaten food and grinned.

“I see you have all already dug in.” There were a few chuckles from the more brown-nosing knights. “Please, I invite you all to feast till your heart’s content. My words go down better with suckling pig anyway.”

There was a moment of expectant silence. Lord Commodus looked across the room like a dad at the dinner table with their kids. A woman two thirds towards the other side of the long table made the first move to rip some chicken off the bone with her teeth. Soon a great deal of the other knights had joined in, but many still had their beamy gaze fixed on Lord Commodus. Gallant ripped some pork off of the pig in front of him and took a few uncomfortable nibbles.

“Wonderful, glad we’re all on the same page. And I’m glad we’re in agreement about how good the food is.”

Commodus, almost as a demonstration, took a dripping chicken leg in front of him and raised it up to his teeth, tearing a chunk of flesh clean out. He chewed, savoured, swallowed, and continued.

“The reason I have called you all together is for something you may be familiar with. And some of you…” He paused for a moment, ”…Have been keeping a rather close eye on.”

Gallant smiled, though Lord Commodus made no attempt to look at him.

“And this is the myriad attacks at the border territories and especially in the space above Burning Sapphire. The people of The Sovereign’s Second Great Megacity are in pain, and they cannot even leave their planet as like we do. They will not abide by this. The Sovereign will not abide by this. And most of all, WE will not abide by this.”

As soon as that ‘we’ left Lord Commodus’ mouth, the banging of gauntlets balled up in fists rang out across the table. Those who were still eating held their plate in one hand above the table, and the other hand banging with the rest of them.

“I must address another rumour that has been circulating around my feifdom as of late, that of the Neo-Saracens and their complicity in these attacks.”

Again, he scanned the table. There was no banging.

“I wish it to be known that I harbour no ill-will towards the Neo-Saracens. We don’t know if they are the ones behind these attacks on civilian ships. And so soon after our previous war with them, I would not think of it. So I would caution against spreading so firm a fact.”

There were a few agreeing mutters. Lord Commodus cleared his throat and continued.

“Lady Hope of the territories most afflicted by this blight has reached out to me for assistance. And I have told her that, in no uncertain terms, we will throw our entire weight behind this. When one limb of our Glorious Empire is under attack, the rest of the body attacks. Just as The Sovereign wants it…”

A thump was heard outside the door. Lord Commodus briefly

“I have sent word that we shall be sending our finest champion. We will be sending…SIR FAULKES! My most venerable knight-at-arms,” He said, motioning to his left and moving his hand up.

Sir Faulkes, sitting the closest to Lord Commodus’ chair, rose and addressed the rest of the table. There was screaming, cheering, banging on the table. Gallant grabbed some chicken and gnawed on it before it was bounced onto the ground.

The cheers continued, and Lord Commodus raised his hand to stop them. A wave of silence hit the table, radiating out from Lord Commodus. He continued.

“Our greatest knight, here, will ensure that we catch the monsters who have been attacking our brothers, sisters, and all in between. With him, we shall—”

CRASH. The door crashed open, clattering some of the silver relics on the wall, but they were fastened too securely on the wall to be dropped.

“What in the Sovereign’s name?” A few voices said.

The man dressed in scruffy, brown, messenger regalia (Dressed in a way to not differentiate them from normal civilians) rushed past the end of the table as the two guards jogged after him.

Some more knights stood up and blocked the way about halfway along the table. One was holding out a ham leg that dripped irritatingly on the messenger.

“I have a message for Lord Commodus from Lady Hope of utmost importance.”

Commodus looked at the commotion, of his guards standing back while the knights at the table murmured amongst each other in the fervour. He dropped his chicken leg on his plate, wiped his hands together a few times on the tablecloth, and grinned.

“I’m glad my door guards are doing such a good job stopping you from coming in,” He said, smiling. “You two can go back, it’s okay,” He said, nodding back to the door. The guards obliged, and secured the door on the other side.

He walked over to the knights who were dutifully holding back the messenger and nodded at them too. Almost as if they were possessed, they sped back to their chair still keeping an eye on the messenger.

“So, what was this message Lady Hope wants me to hear so desperately?”

The messenger looked around awkwardly and leaned in. This was in front of Gallant so he was seeing the whole thing unfolding in front of him.

“Should we not do this privately?”

Lord Commodus snorted and raised an eyebrow.

“I think we passed that point once you burst past my guards. Sorry, buddy, you get either private or speedy.”

The messenger took a deep breath.

“Lady Hope wishes it to be known that you need read her first message more carefully, and that Sir Faulkes…”

The messenger looked over to the knight standing up next to Lord Commodus, Sir Faulkes, currently staring daggers into his skull.

”…Is not to be sent in Sir Gallant’s stead.”

The table was shot into a deep silence. The knights who were on either side of Gallant talking through him were now peering directly at him. The people across from him were laser focused on him as if he had suddenly popped into existence.

Lord Commodus turned to face Gallant, his cloak bending at a sixty degree angle. Gallant felt the eyes bearing down on him. His reality had flipped from one of invisibility, where his power lie, to one of extreme visibility. And he sunk as low into a chair as you can while also hauling a full body suit of armour.

Lord Commodus turned his head to the other knights near the messenger, nodded, and walked slowly back to his throne. The two knights got up, one wiping the meat juice onto the tablecloth, and they tapped the messenger to turn around and walk back out the door. Lord Commodus took his seat to a still-stunned audience. Some were looking at Gallant, analysing him. Some were throwing their gaze towards Lord Commodus as they would a life raft.

Lord Commodus leaned, arms on the table, hands balled up to his face. He slowly lowered his hands back down.

“Sir Gallant. Arise,” He ordered.

Gallant rose to his feet, full concentration locked on Lord Commodus and wishing he’d worn blinders for this event.

“Do you reaffirm your solemn duty of fealty and loyalty to me and The Chivalric Code, and in doing so swear to execute this task to the highest of The Knights’ Society standards?” He asked.

Gallant briefly glanced at the expectant gazes boring into his soul.

“I do swear all of this.”

“Then by the majesty of The Sovereign and by my will, you are bound to see this task to completion. Now, let’s continue the feast!” He shouted, clapping his hands.

The was a few seconds of uneasy inaction. But a few murmurs of activity and nibbles of eating soon expanded into a great cavalcade of activity.

A few knights walked over to him and clonked a hand onto his back, giving an obliging, “Good luck.”

Sir Faulkes stared down his meal, not wavering his gaze for a second. Lord Commodus, however, couldn’t take his eyes off of Gallant. Gallant noticed this straight away.

Lord Commodus eventually whispered to the knight on his right, who did the same on her right, and again, and again, until the message was getting clearer and clearer. Soon, the knight on Gallant’s left whispered to him:

“Lord Commodus wants to see you in his chambers after the feast has ended purple monkey dishwasher.”

Gallant looked again at Lord Commodus, who had satisfied whatever reason he had to stare at Gallant, and jovially chatted with those around him as if he were one of them. Gallant wouldn’t eat for the rest of the feast.

***

Gallant looked upon the entranceway to Lord Commodus’ chambers, behind his throne at the feasting table. Workers shuffled round to each chair and hauled them off. The food scraps, what little there was, were remaining, congealing, festering.

Gallant banged his steele fist on the door, and a mumble from the other side of the door led to it being opened. A blue-crossed guard with eyes of deep blue stared him down.

After a moment of inaction from both of them, Lord Commodus shouted, “I’m back here, Gallant.”

Gallant wandered through, the hallway adorned with golden gilded frames. Inside, holographic projections made it look as though each person in each image was boxed inside the wall in an endless void of mirrors.

Lord Commodus showed in maybe one or two of these, variously chatting and hanging off the shoulders of different comrades. He was clad head to toe in unassuming, plain, steele armour.

Gallant made little time to admire as he entered the main chambers. It was rather more stripped down than the rest of Velvet Chiffon, with a simple maroon and gold painted pattern backing a few war relics. The bed was a single, dark oak frame with few adornments. Lord Commodus sat off to the side at his library, a wall of thin tablets with authors etched into the sides. He was finishing up a passage on a tablet labelled, ‘Sovereign LXII.’

He clicked a button on the side, the backlight dying, and slid it back into one of the many empty spaces. More tablets were strewn either under the bookcase or on the bed.

Gallant stood at the doorway, at attention but refusing to budge. Lord Commodus turned around, taking off his cloak and revealing a blue suit underneath. He hung up the cloak inside a door with an ornate brass hanger, and closed it, leaning on the door and facing Gallant.

“At ease, Sir Gallant. I don’t mean to give you any grief.”

Gallant thought for a moment, and let his arms rest.

“And walk around, too,” Lord Commodus continued, “For right now I want this to be a shared space for both of us.”

Gallant strode over to the bookcase and judiciously slid out the book Lord Commodus was reading.

“What is this?” Gallant asked.

“A Treatise on Formal Neo-Saracen Negotiations by the previous Sovereign. My dear friend.”

Gallant did a double take and slid the book back into its place.

“You were friends with the previous Sovereign?” Gallant asked.

“We were brothers in all but name,” Lord Commodus said, smiling. He strode over and slid the book back out again.

“He had wrote this only after he had discovered the horrors of the Second Empire-Saracen War. The poor guy. I was accompanying him when he had taken his first ever trip to the frontlines. To the pain and suffering the war had inflicted upon both warrior and civilian alike. It was too much for him to handle. That peace treaty was drafted by him. That, and this book, were the last things he wrote before he was struck down by the Sovereign slayer.”

Gallant looked anywhere but at Lord Commodus.

“Gee. I’m sorry for your loss,” He eeked out pathetically.

Lord Commodus chuckled.

“At this point, one can only make peace with it. And I have long since made peace with their death.”

He slid the book back in.

“With someone who has the weight of responsibility that I have, you can’t wallow in it for too long. The lord’s domain is much like that of a shark: One cannot marinate in one spot for their whole life. To do that is to starve and die. Life can only be sustained by moving about to better waters and more abundant food sources.”

Gallant nodded but Lord Commodus was registering his discomfort.

“I did what I could to carry on his legacy, though. I ensured someone, the next Sovereign, was one who would carry on his legacy of peace. They underwent the proceedure, and that was that.”

Lord Commodus nodded and moved to the bookcase, taking the book out and handing it to Gallant.

“You can keep this. I can get another copy. There’s a lot of wise lessons you can learn from it.”

Gallant, by habit, immediately clicked it open. It shone the passage that Lord Commodus was reading:

‘(Something obliquely referring to the difficulty of sustained peace) The idea of sustained peace is one that often eludes …?’

Gallant stared for this brief moment, but clicked it off and stuffed it into his breastplate pocket.

“With all due respect, my liege—” Gallant said

“Lord Commodus is fine, Sir Gallant. I want you to feel comfortable to speak your mind.”

Gallant nodded.

“Okay, Lord Commodus. Do you disagree with me being sent to assist Lady Hope?”

The question made Lord Commodus think for a moment.

“What do you mean?” He asked, “I really do not doubt your abilities in enacting this task set before you.”

Gallant breathed in.

“It seemed as though you responded to her stating that I would be ineffective for the job, and that Sir Faulkes would be better suited.”

“Are you upset by that idea?”

“No, not at all,” Gallant thought for a moment, “I just want to know if you really mean to send me out or if you needed to maintain some visage for the rest of the knights at the table. To save my face.”

“No, not at all,” Gallant thought for a moment, “I just want to know if you really mean to send me out or if you needed to maintain some visage for the rest of the knights at the table. To save my face.”

Lord Commodus smiled and grasped Gallant on the shoulder.

“Sir Gallant. You are a competent knight and especially your abilities in conflict resolution are unmatched…”

Gallant braced himself for the—

”…But this is a very important diplomatic job. As someone with little experience in that field, I didn’t want to pawn something so important off on you. To pressure you into something you weren’t prepared for. With that in mind, I leave the choice up to you whether you want to respond to this call.”

Gallant raised his eyebrow at him.

“But the oath, I—”

“I understand. But that oath is to enact your duties to me. And my order right now is for whichever you prefer. You’re a knight with potential, I don’t care what age you are. If you wish it so, I can send you out. If not, I’m happy to take the heat from Lady Hope. I leave it up to you to do it if you want to.”

The last sentence seemed to echo around the domed chambers. Gallant looked down at his boots, studying the floor, affecting a thoughtful look but his brain too much a white noise to allow any thoughts through.”

Lord Commodus craned his neck a bit to study Gallant’s face.

“I hold no ill-will for you if you decide to—”

“I’ll do it,” Gallant interrupted.

Lord Commodus was taken aback.

”…You will?”

Gallant sighed and peered up at the dome, it dutifully filtering out the gasses and revealing only a slightly tinted ruby red nebula.

“I know I seem like I don’t have any ambition. And that might be true, somewhere along the way I think I lost it. But I think it’s time I learnt some.”

Gallant stood uneasily as Lord Commodus’ surprise morphed into a smile.

“Very well. Then by all the power granted me by The Sovereign, you shall head this task.”

Lord Commodus patted him a few times on the back.

“Good luck, son.”

Gallant etched out a half smile before two firm raps came from behind the door, drawing Gallant and Lord Commodus’ attention. The guards opened the door, happily murmured with the figure and let them straight in.

It was Sir Faulkes.

He made it to the main chamber as the doors were slammed close from well behind him. Lord Commodus dropped his arm from Gallant’s back and stood in front of Gallant.

Sir Faulkes didn’t once look at Gallant. He stood right in front of Lord Commodus and bowed deeply.

“May we talk, my lord?” He asked.

Lord Commodus made the hand gesture for him to arise.

“Of course. Sir Gallant, you may leave. I expect you to depart tomorrow at 0800 hours. You will be given more detailed instructions of what Lady Hope wants from you.”

Gallant tentatively walked around the two and towards the door.

“Good luck, Sir Gallant,” Sir Faulkes commented.

Gallant paused, turned around, and said, “Thank you, Sir Gallant.”

He headed out the open door which was dutifully closed behind him. He finally unclenched his jaw.

Manipulating Assistance

The city street wound through the old city centre as if following an imaginary river. Magnus, clad in a cloak, stood before the rather optimistic sandy brown city walls that enclosed the old town before the rest of the city spilt out.

The crowd of the day was fervent. People heaved back and forth, occasionally bumping a firm Magnus. She took a breath and walked in. The guardspost, carved into the side of the arch leading in with windows on all three sides, sat occupied by a disinterested guard. The guard glanced over at something inside, stood up from his post, and walked inward. Before the next guard took up the post, Magnus had already disappeared.

The structures around her looked to be more mortar than stone. She looked into the reflection of one of the taller buildings on her left, the archway behind her dotted irregularly with thickly glazed, iron crossed windows that looked like they could withstand an explosion, let alone the sound of the hustle and bustle of the city.

Through this reflection, Magnus could just barely gleam the outline of a few guards sitting. None certainly were paying attention to the outside. To her.

She still got out of view as soon as she possibly could, turning round to the next street. Suddenly she was faced with a small squad of town guards lumbering along the road. They had deep brown tunics on that were almost certainly lined with steele. Their pointy shoes kicked up the light, grainy dirt of the street as the stream of the crowd flowed around them.

Magnus ducked into a slight recess into the wall. Through the now thinning crowd the guards clomped past, chattering amongst themselves.

“Thanks so much for the assist. If I had to do one more round under this fucking sun by myself I was going to kill someone,” One of the more sweaty guards said.

“No worries. That sauna of a headquarters was killing us anyways,” The one next to her said.

The guards rounded the archway and disappeared out of sight. Magnus shook the shakiness out of her fists and remained at the recessed wall.

“Hey,” A female voice said next to her.

She craned her neck around the recess to the store owner staring her in the face.

“I own that recess. I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t loiter longer than you have to to avoid the guards.”

Magnus furrowed her brow, but stepped off the stoop.

“Thanks,” The store owner said, “Much appreciated.”

Magnus stepped further forward and noted the makeup of the store. The storefront was buried into the side of a curated light brown rock face. Inside hung on chains miscellaneous pieces of tech.

Internal boards of book tablets, the shells of announcement speakers, and even a ruby red laser pistol core. All hung precariously from hooks nailed into the rock roof past the metal grid above.

Magnus squinted and walked nonchalantly inside. Workbenches littered the shop floor. Wires spaghettied around the walls, roof, and were strewn across these benches. One at the far back of the store had a soldering iron still smoking.

“Hi, sorry about that before. I was wondering if you have any tech to sell me. I’m looking for something very particular.”

The shopkeeper didn’t react.

“I’m not sure I can help you with that.”

Magnus was taken aback.

“What, why not?” She asked.

“Right now I’m full up on orders and, frankly, I don’t trust people who loiter like you do.”

The shopkeeper walked back over to the smoking soldering iron and switched it of, clearing space on the bench.

“You’re more than welcome to do some window shopping around my store, but nothing is for sale.”

Magnus smiled.

“Not even if I haggled?”

The shopkeeper, for the first time herself, broke ever so slightly.

“No, not even if you haggled.”

The shopkeeper, with practiced coolness, ushered Magnus towards the front entrance.

“As much as I appreciate your patronage of my store I am really going to have to ask you to leave.”

Magnus kept trying to get a word in edgeways but was interrupted by the shopkeeper speaking and nudging her out.

“You said I could window shop.”

She continued pushing.

“Uh huh, and now I’m saying you should leave.”

At the front of the store, and Magnus bumped her head against one of the hanging circuit boards. This seemed to reset her brain and she spoke up.

“I need your services,” Magnus said, raising her voice.

“As I previously stated—”

“I mean your OTHER service,” Magnus interrupted.

The shopkeeper stopped, and quit nudging. She looked at the raggedy person in front of her and sighed.

“All I do here is sell and repair tech. That’s all I—”

“You don’t actually sell anything. And no matter how much I haggle, you’ll never sell me anything. Isn’t that right?” Magnus stated.

The shopkeeper stared at her for a moment, and walked into the back of the store. She plopped herself down on the stool in front of the newly cleared bench and massaged her eyes with her finger and thumb. Magnus walked over to meet her.

“That fucking drunk…” The shopkeeper said to herself.

Magnus attempted unsuccessfully to stifle a smile. She grabbed a stool at the other workbench and dragged it over.

“If it’s any consolation, he revealed who you were under duress.”

The smuggler raised her head up and peered at Magnus.

“What did you do to him?”

“Oh, what? He’s fine I didn’t torture him if that’s what you’re worried about. You can talk to him yourself if you want to,” Magnus said.

“I may have to pay him a visit after this.”

“He may rant about some lady who knocked him out and tied him up.”

“For someone who revealed who I am and broke his oath I feel like that’s the least he deserves,” The smuggler said.

The smuggler leaned back and sighed.

“So, what? What’s the plan here? I only work through intermediaries. Are you going to threaten to turn me in?”

Magnus shook her head.

“I would do no such thing. I am in far more trouble than you could possible fathom and I need your services. I am able to pay upfront for a trip.”

“And what kind of trip are we talking about? If you’re in as much trouble as you claim it doesn’t seem like a quick trip around Burning Sapphire is enough,” The Smuggler said.

Magnus considered for a moment, weighing up whether it was worth telling this stranger.

“I need to go to Bawat,” Magnus said.

The smuggler whistled with surprise.

“Now THAT is a journey.”

She wandered over to the middle of the store, where her words echoed more.

“Why would someone need to go so far out to one of the few systems not under any empire’s control?”

Magnus followed the smuggler further in.

“Isn’t it your job to smuggle people without asking any further questions?”

“YOU are not my job right now. I can ask whatever I—”

There was a banging on the front wall. Magnus recoiled away instinctively. The smuggler peered around the corner and snapped back to look at Magnus.

“It’s the Sovereign’s Guard Division. What in the name of all that is holy did you do?”

A pang of pain hit Magnus.

“Is there a back door here?” She asked, expecting a no.

“No. Come with me.”

“Don’t you have a smuggler hidey hole for clients or something?”

“No, for some reason I didn’t think any of my clients would come hunt me down,” The smuggler said, glowering at Magnus but hastily turning around.

She rounded the corner to a black and white tiled room with grime adorning the floor and walls.

While Magnus took in the truly abhorrent looking room, the smuggler yanked a pole with a hook at the end and hooked a hidden hook hole in the ground next to the toilet. She yanked as the relaxed clonking of armour made its way in the store.

A quadrant of four connected tiles came off, revealing a dark hole below with the echoey sound of dripping water. The smuggler noted Magnus’ disgust.

“Don’t worry, it’s a stormdrain,” The smuggler said.

Magnus sighed and slid hastily down.

“Or at least, I think so,” She said again, grinning.

Before Magnus could protest, the top was slid back on and her eyes readjusted to the dark. The lamps adorned the sides of the tunnel and shone a dim blue, like blue embers. They looked like jagged crystals that were atop a metal holder drilled into the side.

The smuggler’s shoes clomped overhead and out into the store. Magnus ran halfway up the side of the tunnel and, one foot planted in the crook of the lamp and one hand planted on the roof to keep her steady, she listened in.

“Welcome, ladies and gents, what can I do you for?” She asked with an enthusiasm Magnus hadn’t received.

Already Magnus was eyeing the other end of the tunnel. She could only see what the dim torches shone over but it seemed to go on for a fair distance.

“We are looking for a woman who was spotted entering your store a few minutes ago,” One of the female guards stated.

“People enter my store all the time. Some of whom are women. You mind describing her?” The smuggler asked, Magnus could hear murmured through the entrance.

“She will be a dark-haired, dark-skinned woman with blue eyes covered in a grey cloak.”

Nothing.

“You do understand that concealing the presence of such a person will have you strung up on the same crimes, right?” A male voice cut in.

A light chuckle was heard by Magnus.

“I’d like to know exactly who I’m ‘colluding’ with. Because if I sold to someone who has gotten into a pub brawl I’ll be rather”

“She is wanted for High Treason, Attempted Destruction of the Stability of the Realm, and Murder of the Most Depraved Kind,” The guard listed.

There was again a silence, and an uncomfortable tapping of armour.

There was a close murmuring, and Magnus couldn’t tell who was talking. Her own breathing reverberated around the tunnel and drowned out anything they could have said. She held her breath but by then it had stopped.

There was a moment’s silence, and then clomping above her. She stepped down and took a step towards the other end of the tunnel as a single clomping set of shoes came her way.

After a small clattering above light flooded through the entrance, showing how truly awful this sewer looked.

Once Magnus’ eyes adjusted, she saw the smuggler staring at her and smiling.

“Well well well,” She began, a new gleeful tone pressing on every word, “Murder, treason, attempting to ‘destroy the realm?’ Somebody’s been busy.”

Magnus took another step behind her.

“Woah, hey. They’re gone. I told them exactly where they could shove their threats and sent them on their way.”

She put her hand through the entrance but Magnus still wasn’t moving any closer.

“That tunnel, at every end, has a mesh to only let water out. Even if they were still here, I didn’t send you down with a saw, did I?”

Magnus sighed. She walked over to the lamp she had been using as a foothold and, leaping off it, planted both hands on the lip of the entrance. She peeked her head out and, indeed, no guards.

“Man, not only do I have a wanted criminal in my own store, but she is also the great Sovereign Slayer,” The smuggler said as Magnus pulled herself up.

Magnus stopped and stared daggers at the smuggler. She finally got out and the smuggler busied herself with pulling the quadrant of tiles back onto the gap. Magnus peered around the corner looking for anyone else.

“I’ll do it,” The smuggler said, once the clattering of moving tiles stopped.

Magnus turned around and raised her brow.

“You’re such an interestingly fucked case, legally speaking, how could I not? It’s too interesting to turn down.”

Wordlessly, Magnus reached into her cloak, causing the smuggler to step back a bit, and Magnus produced a fistful of entire crowns dotted with some cut up pieces.

The smuggler, amazed, watched as Magnus shoved them into her hand.

“Where in the Sovereign’s name did you get all of this?” She asked, bewildered.

Magnus stepped forward and looked out the front of the store.

“Trust me,” She said, looking back, “You don’t want to know.”

After a moment of contemplation, the smuggler shoved the coins into her pocket. She clapped, causing Magnus to turn around.

“Right, come with me. I have a place I keep clients while I’m preparing their plan. And you…are gonna need some work. We’re going to have to get you fitted for a barrel.”

Magnus breathed in what she had gotten herself into here.

“We need to make your identity something that absolutely nobody would question. It can’t be ‘random civilian no 527’ because then you’ll be vetted. How well can you act?”

“Like what?” Magnus asked.

“Like a bootlicker.”

Gallant Finds His Place

Gallant had spent a solid chunk of the hyperspace journey gripping the drive room railing tightly, and not just because he had been holding his sword for so long during the battlemaster’s training. Everybody had noticed, not least of whom was Page, eyeballing him with great concern plastered on his face.

“Gallant, you not sure that you wanna go down to the dock?” Page asked.

Gallant unclenched, Page could have sworn there were two hand-shaped indents in the railing. The railings separated the drive room and its cramped, stone walls, from the spaghetti of wires below in the pit and the viewport ahead.

The viewport showed what looked like a mess of scaffolding cut into a now L-shaped brown asteroid with a rounded base. There were occasional dotted flashes of white light that popped into existence and disappeared.

Gallant checked over the shoulder of the two co-pilots. In the centre space, paper star maps were splayed out with hastily scribbled lines. All of these lines converged on one point: Hero’s Reach.

A throbbing pain was still running through his hands. Gallant mumbled something about training and continued looking on.

Page sighed and stepped closer.

“I’m confused, I thought this is what you wanted,” Page said.

“It is. It’s just…it’s actually happening,” Gallant replied.

Page chuckled, and Gallant caught this immediately.

“What?” Gallant said defensively.

“Sorry, it’s just that I haven’t seen you care about something enough to be nervous about it in a long time. We haven’t even gotten to the dock yet. THEN you can be nervous,” Page said.

Gallant shrugged. The asteroid was approaching quicker now and the turret was making an about-turn. There was enough room for just one turret to bury in the scaffolding.

Next to the port was what looked like a mining ship, much as they had passed many times before. But this had many obsidian-black additions added to it. It looked to be about a third smaller than the turret.

Gallant turned around and walked off, motioning Page over who followed in tow. Page caught one more glimpse of the turret burying itself in the station before leaving.

Behind all of this construction material, the comparatively sturdy looking steele shell of the station welcomed the turret in.

“I thought I might actually feel different,” Gallant said as they walked down the stone hall, his words echoing around to nobody but them.

Page looked at him for a moment.

“What were you expecting to feel?” Page asked.

Gallant had no response.

They traced the path to the dock and there was an excited quiet laying on the turret’s population. Passing over the grassy village and they worked as normal, but tittered amongst themselves.

“We’ve actually gone somewhere. In all my days I wouldn’t have believed it!” One exclaimed.

“I’m not saying I want to get in a fight, but certainly would liven the place up,” Another said.

Page looked amused by all of these, looking down from the scaffolding they were crossing, but Gallant was focused ahead.

They arrived at the round, stony entrance of the dock. They were lurched forward and had to grab onto the sides to stop themselves from slamming into the wall.

After a hiss and a groan from the turret and dock, the thin steele door opened sharply revealing a single knight. The welcome party.

“Right this way, Sir Gallant. I am Dame Victoria,” She said in a muted manner.

Gallant and Page looked at each other, mouthing confusions, before heading off.

Past the docking bay it was clear this was not Velvet Chiffon. The staggered hum of the cramped, cold, scaffolded bay gave way to the high pitched discharge of mining lasers.

To their right, only protected by a single railing heading from one end of the alarmingly rickety walkway to the other, the hollowed out caverns of the asteroid stretched on in the distance.

The rock formations looked like they had been abjectly stripped of anything remotely useful and all that was left was what looked like they were at the bottom of an unlit ravine. The walkway continued, segmented by a rough rock arch, until giving way to a cold steele plaza.

Evenly lit under the surgical lights far above, men, women, and all else hauled ores, refined and unrefined, with a quickend pace. There were rocks of copper, jet black coals, and jewels all being rushed along in the standard issue hand carts.

Above them, criss-crossing rickety walkways crossed at different angles above them. Thus far, this knight was the only knight they had seen. And she hadn’t spoken a single word to them the whole trip.

Page was in awe of all that was around him. Gallant wasn’t studying anything, however, except for the group of three knights in the distance. It was hard to make out but it looked as though they were staring daggers at the party.

They approached a mining elevator, open and welcoming them in. It was the only light they had seen at all at this station that had any tint of warmth. The singular cable clearly seen holding it through the fence that protected the shaft? Less welcoming.

They stepped in and their guide manually shut the door and hammered the top button with more force than necessary. Page was looking around the station in awe as Gallant looked, concerned, at their seemingly angry guide.

The smooth ride they had experienced back on Velvet Chiffon had been replaced with a jolty, bumpy, juddering trip past the walkways. Up each floor as the elevator made several sideways movements to keep up with the entrance to each walkway.

They finally hit at a halt and the knight opened the door up again. The elevator was wide enough that the knight motioned out the door, with enough room for Page and Gallant to leave.

Out on the walkway, a knight was leaning back on the railing, apparently ignorant of the fact that he was very close to a splattery, 40 storey drop. Gallant walked past him.

“Good luck, Sir Gallant,” The knight said in the same gritted courtesy as Sir Faulkes back on Velvet Chiffon.

Gallant looked back at the knight, awkwardly nodded at him and continued walking.

“Did I do something to upset anyone here?” Gallant murmured to the guide.

“Maybe you should be more focused on going to the job you have been assigned by our Lady Hope,” Their guide snapped, causing Gallant to jump back.

They arrived at a wide open rock face where people were variously walking, lying down, chatting, and having a good time. There were pockets of greenery of an alien kind Gallant hadn’t ever seen before. It was all a lot more hardy, with occasional fields of blue tinted, dry, scraggly grass.

Gallant was immediately hit with a wave of cool humidity. The trees were almost plastic looking, but when swayed around it did so in natural sweeping motions.

Small metal poles stood beside each of the plants, and at regular intervals in the blue fields Gallant could just about make out a fine mist blowing out of them. A few of the more beleagured looking, dirt covered people were lying directly in front of them and were shocked a little to life by the mist.

“There’s our great hero, here to save us,” A voice shouted behind them to their left as they crossed the field.

Gallant looked over, and Page broke his concentration on a group hucking a metal ball around to do the same. The owner of the voice strode over. He had long, bright, phosphorescent white hair draped over his neck to toe bronze coloured armour.

Dame Victoria walked through the middle of the dumbfounded Gallant and Page and stopped Sir Weyland with her hand.

“Sir Weyland, not now. I understand, but Lady Hope needs to see him without harassment or delay,” Dame Victoria said.

He looked over again to the others and back to Dame Victoria. He nodded and looked back to the two.

“My deepest apologies,” He said, doing a mock curtsy.

They walked past. Gallant, unsure of how to respond, did nothing.

“Good luck,” He cut in as they passed. Once they were out of earshot, Page let a shaky breath out. Gallant patted him on the back and Page looked back at him and beamed.

They were soon over a patchy, rocky hill and in a field, lush with flat flowers spread out in front of them in yellow, white, and red patterns. At the end of the clean stone path that ran in a semi-circle to the other side of the field, was the entrance to a grand white mansion.

The stairs seemed to go on forever, up and up. At the top was a great square building of stone with a glass dome atop it, reinforced with lines of black metal. At the top of the stairs, in front of the human sized light oak double doors with quad crossed windows, was a knight.

His helmet was off, revealing a plump face with a 5-o’clock shadow and short buzzed hair. His armour had, adorned on the breastplate, the seal of Lady Hope: A sillhouetted Heron atop a hazy red sun.

“Hope you find what you need,” Dame Victoria said, echoing the same tone of voice as Sir Weyland.

She walked off, leaving Gallant and Page at the foot of the stairs. They climbed, embarassingly out of breath the both of them once they got to the top.

The knight smiled and patted both of them on the shoulder.

“Welcome to Hero’s Reach! I’m Lady Hope’s Knight-At-Arms, Sir Esteem,” He said, in a thick Irish accent. Gallant was almost in a state of shock at the sudden change of attitudes.

“Come on, I’ll show you to the Lady’s office,” He said, turning around and bounding off.

Following in tow, the hallways had a very spartan look about them. There were paintings, usually of very po-faced people standing or sitting and looking awfully important.

There was one particular painting showing a man clad in a muddy green peasant’s tunic and wearing a loosely fitting biggins cap that looked like it was ready to fall off any second. The peasant looked up with a beleagured anguish on his face. Gallant studied this more than the other paintings.

“So what was with the other knights?” Page asked. This broke Gallant’s concentration.

“Aye, they can be a bit proud, our knights. What kind of welcome did you get?” Sir Esteem responded.

“It was either quiet resentment or very vocal resentment,” Gallant said.

They headed up another staircase, of which Gallant was getting frankly sick of, within the main atrium. At least, that’s what it seemed like as it was as stripped back as could be. It was mostly pure simple eggshell paint with extended floorboards, adorned with metallic scuff marks.

“I’m sorry about the other knights, I can assure you they’re all good sorts. It’s just that between being antsy about the attacks we’ve been getting at this end, as well as their inability to do anything, you, by no fault of your own, have become a rather unwelcome presence here,” Sir Esteem said.

Gallant was struck dumb by this. They had reached the top of the stairs far more uncomfortable than he was at the bottom.

“Do you know why I was chosen for this job instead of anyone else?” Gallant asked.

Sir Esteem scoffed.

“Certainly not. Otherwise I would have been told.”

Gallant pursed his lips and cursed that he had ever asked. Sir Esteem noticed this.

“Ah, didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I hold no ill will towards you. I also want to know why the Lady didn’t ask any of us for help, most of all me. But I trust she has her reasons. I don’t hold it against you two.”

Gallant let out a tired smile. He looked to Page who mimed an uncomfortable sigh. Midway to the end of the corridor they were in, two guards with the seal stood either side of an unremarkable door.

“Here, we’re almost there. You can ask the Lady herself for the answers to your questions.”

They headed over and Sir Esteem smiled and waved at the two.

“Right there, lads? Is the Lady ready to see us?” He asked the right guard. The guard nodded and knocked on the door.

“COME IN!” A voice roared from inside, causing Gallant and Page to jump back a bit.

Sir Esteem opened the door and Gallant walked in, but Page was halted by the guards.

“Sorry lad,” Sir Esteem said, “We—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the drill,” Page said, moving out of the doorway.

Gallant was welcomed into a room scarcely bigger than a shoebox. Bare walls containing only a desk, Lady Hope, and a man in a dark cloak with a red eye emblazoned on the front.

The desk was the only ornate object Gallant had seen in this entire house, with a clean finished wood with a door that could be rolled down and locked. Atop the desk was a photo of Lady Hope smiling, being kissed on the cheek by a blonde woman.

Lady Hope closed down the desk and Sir Esteem walked over to stand beside her, opposite the mysterious man. She stood up and rotated her chair, turning to face Gallant.

She had curly black hair, tied up in a simple bun. Her flowy white dress was unornamented and workmanlike. She nodded at Sir Esteem who went off into a side room, and she held out her hand.

“Nice to meet you, Sir Gallant. You are as I expected reading your file.”

Sir Gallant shook her hand.

“It’s an honour meeting you too, Lady Hope. I understand the weight of being hand picked by a Lady and I will perform my duties to the fullest,” Gallant said.

Lady Hope studied Gallant for a moment. Sir Esteem tapped Sir Gallant on the shoulder and motioned him to the simple wooden chair he had produced. Lady Hope and Gallant sat down at their chairs.

“We know the Neo-Saracens are behind the attacks on the border territories,” Lady Hope said matter-of-factly.

Gallant widened his eyes but before he could speak, Lady hope continued.

“We caught one of the derelict attacking ships after a fierce battle involving Dame Victoria’s turret. There was no sign of anybody living but the ship ID matches what we have on file for the Neo-Saracens. You will be accompanying me to a meeting with The Grand Council of The Sovereign’s Second Great Megacity outside Burning Sapphire. You probably know it better as City 2. I know they are often ridiculed for being councilmen and women, but they are lords and ladies all the same and you will treat them with respect.”

Gallant nodded, looking to Sir Esteem for any help. Sir Esteem gave a half-hearted smile that did not seem to say that this treatment was out of the ordinary.

“Absolut—”

“Don’t interrupt,” Lady Hope said, “As a nearby authority with one of the closest relationships to The Sovereign, we can explain the situation without alerting the whole Empire. There we can decide what to do with this information.”

Gallant nodded in agreement but wisely kept his mouth shut. Lady Hope gave a muted nod back.

“You have questions. Ask them,” She said.

Gallant opened his mouth but Lady Hope cut in.

“And don’t filter what you want to ask behind a layer of niceties. I need you to be honest with me, that’s what this assignment is all about.”

Gallant closed his mouth, thought for a moment, and made to speak again.

“Why didn’t you pick someone else for this assignment. One of your local knights, or even Sir Faulkes.”

Lady Hope glanced up at her spymaster.

“We have a Neo-Saracen spy here at Hero’s Reach,” The spymaster said.

Gallant readjusted in his seat.

“A spy?” He repeated.

“Yes, and it could be anyone here,” The spymaster said, “My sources have only been able to ascertain that there has been some inside siphoning of information. It is entirely possible that a knight could be the culprit, though we’re not sure. We just know that they have the same speaking mannerisms as one who would have been trained in language conventions used by the Royal Knights’ Society”

“Could someone in the Society really be that derelict in their duties?”

The spymaster shrugged, Lady Hope spoke.

“Even just the possiblity of the Neo-Saracens learning that we’re on to them is too much of a chance. Even letting Sir Esteem in on this is risky, but I trust him with my life. Which is why we’ve gone for an outside hire.”

Sir Esteem stifled a grin.

“And Sir Faulkes, what about him?” Gallant asked

“Sir Faulkes is a too much of a chummy brown-nosing little shit for that Lord of his for my liking,” Lady Hope said.

Gallant gasped so quickly he was sent into a coughing fit. Sir Esteem awkwardly walked over and patted him on the back but Gallant waved him off and promptly recovered himself.

“And I don’t care if you tell him I said that, I have little respect for the man. And he clearly has little respect for me given that I had to ask him twice to get you here.”

Gallant sat back and basked in the honesty of it all.

“Unless you have any more queries, we shall make for Burning Sapphire early tomorrow in my flagship. If you have any more queries you may direct them to Sir Esteem.”

She nodded to him and he directed Gallant out. Gallant mulled around a thought for a moment. He was at the door before he turned around.

“Why did you pick me?” Gallant asked.

Lady Hope was taken aback.

“I think we’ve already gone over this—”

“I mean me specifically. I’m not an expert in any field, I don’t have any commendations of valour, I don’t have any war experience. People look past me when we walk opposite each other. I would like to know why I was picked specifically,” Gallant blurted out

Lady Hope raised an eyebrow and studied Gallant’s face.

”…Respectfully, my Lady,” Gallant hastily added.

Sir Esteem stood back and Lady Hope stepped over to Gallant, looking up at him.

“Do you remember your one and only citation you’ve recieved in your duties?”

Gallant immediately went red in the face.

“Yeah. It was my first year as a fully instated knight,” He replied.

“You got caught ‘Harbouring adverse information against the Empire.’ They really pulled out all the stops against you, but you still refused to reveal who you had held information for. Why was that?”

Gallant gave a shrug that very much said ‘I’m done litigating this.’

“And how did you get out of it?” She asked, sounding increasingly like an interrogator.

“Lord Commodus swooped in.” Gallant chuckled to himself, “I think he saw something in me.”

Lady Hope smiled and leaned back.

“And you have no problem with being that indentured to a Lord like that?”

“Not at all—”

“That’s why I chose you. You are fine with that. You withheld information that potentially would have incriminated one of your fellow knights, I imagine because they told you to. This is a job that is too important for any kind of dissent.”

She turned around and walked over to her desk.

“I need someone who will just say yes.”

The sentence hit Gallant like a sword to the gut.

“And I need to bolster my numbers at the table. It makes my position stronger.”

As if she had said little of importance, she plopped herself back at her desk, unlocking it with the key around her neck, and pulled the door back up again. Sir Esteem guided a now shaky Gallant out of the door.

”…And it turned out to be your own wife?” Page said to the guard.

“Yeah. Hey, sometimes you get lucky in love and sometimes you find your rainy day fund missing,” The guard responded.

“H-Hey Gallant. You okay?” Page asked Gallant.

“I think I need a moment. I’ll meet you back at the turret,” Gallant said, walking off.

Gallant gave a half-hearted smile and turned back to look at Page, “Keep exploring, I’m sure you’ll like it here.”

Sir Esteem jogged up to him and mumbled, “I’m really sorry you had to hear all that, lad. She has a real pragmatic way of doing business.”

Gallant nodded and wandered off down the hall, like a lost soul.

Magnus Gets Promoted

“So, who are you?”

Magnus stared in disbelief.

“Seriously, we’re doing this again?”

“Yes, who are you?” The smuggler asked.

“You do realise I used to do this for a living, right?”

“I know. So tell me who you are.”

Magnus absorbed the ambience of Megacity 2. There was no such thing as whispering, or even soft speaking here, lest you get drowned out by a million merchants selling a million niche items.

They stood in the square, the light brown loose dirt floor that otherwise would have been loose was packed by years of criss-crossing people and carts trodding all over it.

Magnus was dressed in a different, more business-like grey garb, wearing a hair that wasn’t her’s.

“I am Jacinta Proudboar born in the outer villages of City 2, I’m looking for a job as—”

Magnus was suddenly bumped by the corner of a cart. She wheeled around, almost ready for a fight but the owner had long disappeared into the crowd.

“As-as a food server for the City 2 council. That’s what my dying father asked of me, that I work for royalty. Once we get there I keep my head down and serve food for the one crown per two hours I will be getting.”

“Great. Good job with the birthplace, too. Their meeting with this noble should be happening tomorrow. I’ve set up a meeting with my guy about getting you the job. From then on, I can reveal the next stage.”

Magnus rolled her eyes and looked back at the smuggler.

“Can I not just get the whole plan at once? Again, I used to—”

“Not a chance in hell,” Mary cut in, “If I tell you the whole thing you galavant off and screw it up. I’m not having my whole operation compromised by someone like you,” Mary said.

Magus rolled her eyes and they made for the council building, which certainly stuck out. There were three buildings of varying styles haphazardly bolted together. One wooden red beachhouse-looking building had attached on either side one thatched stone cottage and a turret, all arranged in a T-shape.

“And you were just a general fixer,” Mary said, “Stop saying you used to do what I did. You’re a dabbler, not an artist.”

Magnus ignored her and climbed the steps to the front of the beach box. The door that outwardly looked rickety and flimsy breezed open in a very sturdy manner.

They were soon in the main atrium. They stepped on the lightly browned, polished marble arranged in square patterns. The windowless room stretched high with ornate colonnades adorning the windows at the top of the corners of the room.

The receptionist sat at a plain, simple desk, behind her the grandest of the three doors along the wall stood. In an alcove of the hallway in were some benches. While Magnus stood, staring all around her, Mary had made her way to the desk.

“Hiya Bruce,” Mary said with practiced joviality.

“Oh, hey Erinne,” Bruce responded.

“I’ve got my new hire here. Just wondering if you might tell Mr Brien that we’ve arrived.”

Bruce immediately went red and stayed silent for a moment. Mary frowned.

“Is everything alright?” She asked.

“Didn’t you hear?” Bruce somewhat redundantly asked.

“He was clamped in irons this morning…I think it was something about collaborating with smugglers.”

Mary tried to get out some words but they were momentarily caught in her throat.

“Oh no, that’s terrible,” Mary said, outraged.

“It’s no worry, though,” Bruce reassured, “That particular agent’s cases have been reassigned and you will be speaking to the council directly.”

Mary went white as a sheet. The receptionist, however was still beaming at her.

“Gee,” Mary said, nearly through gritted teeth, “That’s just fantastic. Thank you.”

She pivoted to Magnus and walked within mumbling distance.

“This is bad,” Magnus said.

“This is a fucking disaster,” Mary responded.

“What about the guy—”

“Brien,” Mary interjected.

“Sure, Brien. You sure he won’t flip on you?” She asked.

Mary shot a dirty look at her. Magnus had her answer. Mary massaged the bridge of her nose and threw her arms up.

“Alright, here’s the new plan. We’re going to that meeting.”

Magnus felt her stomach jump up into her throat.

“Seriously?”

“What other choice do we have? This is just about our only chance off this planet. There aren’t a lot of smugglers around who are willing to be turned into paste by the Neo-Saracens. It makes for a lot of job opportunities on council ships, however.”

Magnus contemplated for a moment, exhaled, and shook out the stress a bit.

“Alright, let’s do it,” She said, walking past the receptionist to the council doors.

“Hey!” Bruce shouted, “I didn’t say you two could go in yet.”

Mary rushed up to Magnus and directed her to the alcove.

“I’m so sorry about my…client. She doesn’t understand how things work around here. She’s from the outer villages.”

Both women sat down.

“Make sure not to get us arrested, by the way,” Mary said to Magnus.

Magnus shook her head and was contemplating, leaning forward and pressing her two hands together and burying her face in them.

They stayed as they were until some shouting caught them off guard.

“A bloody intruder, that’s what she is!” A masculine voice rattled from behind the door.

“Have some decorum, Councilman John,” A feminine voice shouted right back. Soon thereafter the shouting died down.

After a few more moments of apparent silence, Magnus shot up and approached the door.

“What are you doing?” Mary hissed.

Magnus waved her hand in a ‘shut up’ motion and carefully grasped the handle, cracking the door open just enough to let sound in. She glanced back at Bruce, who was burying himself face first in some documents, and listened closer.

”…You organized the meeting,” A different female voice said.

“And I want it on record that was under great duress, Councilwoman Isabelle” John said.

The frustration from the other two was palpable, even Magnus felt it.

“Look,” John continued, “We don’t need this meeting. All that’s going to happen is yet another noble is going to show up, treat councilpeople as they have always been condescended to, take what we have, and race to The Sovereign herself to get brownie points.”

Magnus listened on with incredulity, she assumed the other two did much the same. She had only now noticed that Mary was also listening in behind her.

The frustrated pause continued for a moment longer.

“We need to coordinate,” The only unidentified voice said.

“With whom?” He asked, “Is The Sovereign not the highest authority here? If we’re looking to maximize the effectiveness of what we have…”

Magnus looked confusedly at Mary at that last sentence, but Mary could only shrug back.

”…Then should we not go to the person with the most ability to act on it?” John continued.

“And alienate every noble everywhere with our brown-nosing, not just the one we have a meeting set up with,” Isabelle responded.

There was another pause, this time almost expectantly. Magnus couldn’t push the door any further to get a better view in.

“I’m going to put it to a vote. But I want us all to agree. ‘Should we tear up this meeting and go to The Sovereign directly?’” John said, “I vote aye. Isabelle?”

Silence. The scratching of Bruce’s pen rang out as the only sound in the building.

“I vote…aye,” Isabelle said. Magnus clutched the door tighter. Magnus could hear the sound of them turning to someone else. Someone who hadn’t spoken yet.

Magnus took one look at Mary, who was studying Magnus carefully. They knew they were fucked. She suddenly burst through the door and ran for the council table, Bruce and Mary screaming behind her.

“Don’t do it!” Magnus shouted at them. She was suddenly restrained at both arms by two guards either side of her, who forced her to her knees.

Magnus looked at the triangular oak table, the point facing Magnus, with a line tracing just inside. The symbol of City 2.

On either side, John, a man wearing a brown friar’s garb wrapped in a simple hessian rope, and Isabelle, wearing a maroon, velvet cloak with the triangular symbol emblazoned big on the front and little versions running down her loose sleeves, stared at Magnus.

Isabelle stared with confusion and John stared with a blind rage. At the far end of the table, a woman sat. She leaned on a cane with both hands, one flesh and one a steele prosthetic. She was in a green silk gown, almost as if she had been woken out of bed to attend the meeting. She was a deep shade of brown, with wrinkles encrusted across her face, forcing a deep smile.

“Don’t vote aye, councilwoman,” Magnus said to the woman opposite her, no longer shouting or scuffling with the guards.

Both other members launched into protests.

“You have no right to interrupt a meeting like this. You need to file—” Isabelle said.

“How dare you, do you know what meeting you’re interrupting—” John said.

“How did you even know what we were talking about? Did you—”

The old woman raised her silvered hand above the protests and they immediately buttoned it and sat down, bowing their heads. She raised herself up to her feet, slowly and gracefully. Despite her apparent age she stood with a straight back, almost taller than the other two, and peered at Magnus. She gave a curt nod to Magnus, and looked expectantly.

“Don’t vote aye, Miss Councilwoman. The people are already outraged about the skirmishes. They are unable to leave to see their loved ones in other systems. If they were to ever find out about the closest noble being dissed like this, a noble who could help set up a strategy, there would be outrage outside. There would be people chanting for your heads.”

Magnus glanced at the guards, who had loosened their grips on her. She batted away their hands and stood up. Even they didn’t dare to protest.

John looked ready to jump up and protest. But he stayed, only occasionally flexing his fist.

The elder councilwoman leaned to her left.

“Head scribe!” She shouted.

Bruce promptly raced to the side of the councilwoman, stack of loose papers in hand.

“Yes, Councilwoman Erenne?”

“What is this woman’s business here?”

Bruce coughed and flipped through the various papers, arriving at the top of one in the middle.

“She is here to gain passage on the council ship and work as a servant to The Council. She is of the outer villages.”

Erenne nodded and Bruce promptly returned to his station. She received Magnus with a warm smile, displacing the wringles on her face.

“We are forever levied the attack that we are out of touch in matters relating to the people. How would you like to be delegate on behalf of the people of City 2.”

This made people pay attention.

“Yes,” Magnus cut in, before anyone else could.

“Great. You may reside in my third of the council building on the upper quarters,” She once again nodded and the guards slammed their polearms down. Magnus understood and turned to leave with her aghast companion.

They walked past Bruce, now staring at them.

“I have no idea how you did that,” Bruce said to Magnus, amazed.

Magnus didn’t respond, as the two started making their way up the stairs and unintelligible arguments started ringing out in the atrium.

Once out of earshot, Mary made to smack Magnus upside the head but Magnus grabbed her hand.

“What the hell?” Magnus said.

“What the hell, me? What’s wrong with you!? How easy do you think it will be to escape now that you’re a core member of the delegation. This plan hinged on you being able to slip away in the night,” Mary said, snatching her hand back.

“If it wasn’t for me, that vote was going to go through and your plan was in tatters anyway. At least this allows for some wiggle room. And I know for a fact that The Sovereign’s outpost is the exact opposite direction of this meeting,” Magnus responded.

“Okay, so did you have any plan or is that my job?” Mary asked.

Magnus smirked.

“I’m all paid up. I think that’s your job, isn’t it?”

Gallant The Muscle

“Because you say ‘yes?’” Page said, as Gallant deflected another blow.

“And you didn’t immediately clock her jaw?” Battlemaster Elise said, lowering her sword to the shock of the other two.

There was the occasional background clatter of a few disparate guards practicing their swordplay, archery, and hand-to-hand. But in the soundscape, this only rated the occasional clunk of metal and the sound of boots scraping up hay.

“Great Sovereign, that’s rough,” Battlemaster Elise remarked.

The other two continued their silence.

“What?” She said, “She’s not my noble.”

Gallant lined up for another shot but Battlemaster Elise took one step to the side and trapped Gallant’s sword on the floor, under some hay and her own sword facing down.

“We should respect nobility, no matter who they are…” Gallant looked between them for approval, puffing with exertion ”…Or how rude they might be.”

Battlemaster Elise smiled, during which time Gallant unwedged his sword and slapped her on the arm with the block of wood.

“OW! A little finesse, please.”

“Gotta keep a watch out, Elise,” Page chanted from the side.

“I think that if nobles want respect they should earn it. Kowtowing to shitty nobles only results in more shitty nobles,” Battlemaster Elise said.

Gallant glanced at Page who shot him a ‘She’s got a point’ look.

Page suddenly stopped as he glanced towards the doorway. Even the sounds of sporadic combat in the battlegrounds stopped. Far away in the doorway were Lady Hope and Sir Esteem.

Lady hope stood at attention, her hands behind her back. Whereas Sir Esteem fiddled with the hilt of his sword, and was at that moment hiking up his sword belt, his baldric.

Elise blew her cheeks out and leaned on her sword

“I was hoping we could get at least one full session without being interrupted.”

Gallant threw the practice sword up and caught it by the ‘blade,’ heading for the sparring circle exit.

“My apologies, Battlemaster Elise. Maybe next time,” Gallant said with a bow before leaving.

“Uh huh,” Elise replied, unsticking her sword and hopping the barrier to the unsuspecting victims at the archery field.

Gallant opened the weaponry closed, stuffed the practice sword along with the other loose practice swords, and slammed it shut. Page looked on from afar, heading for the back exit.

Gallant linked up with Lady Hope and Sir Esteem and they headed out of Gallant’s turret to Lady Hope’s flagship.

It was a great deal larger than the turret, with wide open hallways that at least ten people shoulder to shoulder could walk through. The starkness of Hero’s Reach had continued here, with simple fences and above them scaffolding adorned their path. They passed by former mining storerooms that had been repurposed as subdivided cabins and tents.

And in spite of all of that, and its boxy, utilitarian setup, the scratched metal within had been polished to a light cyan. The ship was like a ghost town, with the turbine hum of the engines and the clomping of their footsteps being the only sounds.

“I’m fine if you think me rude, Sir Gallant,” Lady Hope said in the final wide open space before the dock.

Gallant immediately grew red in the face, and could feel all the heat in his body migrating there.

“My job is not to coddle or make you feel jolly swell about yourself, it’s to administer a realm. I like your Battlemaster, by the way.”

“Thanks, her name is Elise,” Gallant mumbled as they crossed over to the other ship.

They entered at a grand atrium, columnaides at the top of the roof, two stairways either side of them heading up, and a head scribe dutifully making notes in the middle.

The scribe looked up at them from under his curly black hair. He motioned up and to his left. Lady hope nodded at him in acknowledgement and they made their way up.

They transitioned rather quickly from a hallway of marble to a grand atrium. Inside the archways all lined up in a rectangle, topped with a bar of marble, was a table far smaller than could fit the parties.

The three were surrounded by greenery, with bushes in the corners bearing purple flowers, and vines criss-crossing on the walls and wrapped around the archway bar running its entire length.

They remained standing at attention. Gallant followed Sir Esteem and Lady Hope’s lead by standing next to them, arms behind back.

Behind the other door, there was the distant clomping of shoes before stopping abruptly, and the hanging handle clacked open. Out popped a bald man in the green tunic of a City 2 worker.

He unfurled a piece of paper.

“Now begins the delegation parlay between the Grand Council of City 2, and Her Ladyship Hope.”

He bowed and stood off to the side. Gallant darted his eyes at Sir Esteem, who was absolutely eating this all up, and Lady Hope, who was well and truly done with this.

As the procession rolled out, one immediately caught Gallant’s eye. (DESCRIPTION OF WHAT MAGNUS LOOKS LIKE). He furrowed his brow, a glint of recognition in his eye, but the woman didn’t seem to notice.

They rolled past, shaking the hand of each member with practiced reverence and moving down the line.

“I am Councilwoman Isabelle.”

“I am Councilman John.”

“I am Councilwoman…Jacinta,” Jacinta said, stumbling as she noticed how intensely Gallant was studying her.

She hastily moved on to close the briefly broken line, and and older woman walked to Gallant with the excitement of a 20 year old.

“Councilwoman Cerys. Thank you for hosting us,” She said, gripping Gallant’s un-gauntleted hand firmly.

The procession moved to the other side of this small table, and City 2 employees clattered the door open carrying additional chairs. They were ornate and polished wood, sculpted and curved to be like one great sculpture.

The chairs were distributed amongst all of them and they sat down, all three of Lady Hope’s delegation looking as uncomfortable as possible. The opposing delegation, if they were uncomfortable themselves, were good at hiding it.

“We thank you for receiving our delegation, and we hope that this meeting will be the start of a great cooperation between our two parties,” Lady Hope said before sitting down.

The other party sat, some leaning over the table and beaming at Lady Hope. Lady Hope waited for a moment longer before continuing.

“Oh. Okay. Now, the skirmishes in our territories have been a blight on . I’ve received word from my spymaster there is a potential Neo-Saracen spy that has infiltrated my outpost.”

“Hence the outside hire,” Isabelle said, motioning to a Gallant who did not want to be motioned to.

Lady Hope stared at her, contemplating for a moment.

“You know about that?” She said.

“Every noble worth their salt knows about it,” John said.

“Well, regardless of my contracting practices, this is an issue that affects me,” She leaned back into her chair again, “Which means there’s a likelihood this will affect you too. It’s important you send your spymaster and their team to investigate within your city. It is possible that this spy may be feeding information to the Neo-Saracen skirmishers.”

“And how did you find out it’s the Neo-Saracens,” John said, grinning oddly.

“It’s mostly circumstantial, but between the spy and the tactics I have little doubt in my mind it’s them,” She said, brushing off John’s quirk

There was a moment of expectant silence between them.

“Yes, go on,” Councilman John said.

“Um,” Lady Hope said, stumbling for the first time Gallant had seen, “Well, we’ve noticed the skirmishers using impressive hit and run tactics. Even with armed ship guards, there has been only one successful defense from one of my knights. They are using large fleets to jump in, attack, and jump out. We would both be stretched thing trying to defend every merchant, transport, and mining vessel in our territories. But, we could work together to create smaller, more well armed convoys until The Sovereign is able to mount a better defense.”

They all nodded together in agreement. Gallant was presently being distracted by Jacinta, the fires of recognition burning. He could have sworn he had seen this person before.

“And what else?” Councilwoman Isabelle said.

Lady Hope looked between them and leaned forward, causing all but Lady Cerys, and Magnus who seemed to be lost in thought, to lean back.

“Would you be able to enlighten me more about what information you have received in regards to the skirmishes? I know that your planet being in a defacto lockdown can’t be pleasant.” She asked.

“Oh, you know, we got some information,” Isabelle said, looking at her nodding cohort.

Lady Hope breathed out a little heavier than normal.

“Would you be able to enlighten us? I’m as eager to resolve this issue as you are.”

“Well,” Councilman John began, “Our sources indicate that spies have infiltrated further than just your or our territories.”

John said nothing more, clearly satisfied with that response.

“Would you be able to elaborate further?” Lady Hope asked.

“Oh, we can’t tell you,” Councilwoman Isabelle said, beaming once again at Lady Hope, “We have to keep it secret for their sake. But trust us that this is reliable information.”

Lady Hope brought one hand up to her temple, massaging it gently, as Gallant continued glancing back at the unaware Jacinta.

“I want to make something clear, here. I’m only looking to work with you to resolve this issue. I think we need complete and total co-operation or else more people will die,” Lady Hope said.

“We understand, but our…source has a strict policy of anonymity. You understand.”

“Is there anything more you can give me?” Lady Hope asked, blood beginning to boil, “What about any names behind this spy ring. What does your source know about this?”

The three councilmembers looked at each other and nodded.

“We have…intercepted chatter that a person, or group, by the name of ‘The Son Of The Sovereign’ is involved,”

“‘The Son Of The Sovereign?’” Lady Hope, “Is this some kind of joke? The Sovereign can’t have children, that’s what makes them The Sovereign.”

“Careful with your tongue when you speak of them,” Councilwoman Cerys cut in, cautioning.

Lady Hope studied them.

“Can you give anything more than that?” She asked.

“No, Just a name,” Isabelle cut in before John could speak. She said it great affected innocence.

Jacinta looked up from her stupour at Gallant, and she realised she was being studied. Gallant felt the well of recognition begin to erupt.

Lady Hope breathed in and breathed out. The spell had been broken. She calmly stood up, leaned over the table, as if she were about to leap over it and start stabbing, and said, “I want to see your spy.”

The members of the delegation looked in shock, whereas Magnus looked in confusion. Gallant’s concentration was broken and he, too, looked at her.

“What…” John mumbled, ”…How…”

He trailed off.

“From the start of this meeting you’ve all had a big damn smug ‘We have a secret’ sign slapped on your faces since this meeting began. You intercepted ‘chatter?’ Do you not think I might have my own exhaustive network looking for every scrap of ‘chatter’ since these skirmishes began. And did you know what I have to show for it? Absolutely nothing. Are you really going to spin me this line about your idle listening being better than my active research.”

Gallant was in awe. She hadn’t been yelling, but her words hit them as if she had been screaming in their faces.

Lady Hope punctuated what she said with, “I want to see your contact.”

Lady Hope planted herself back down on her chair, the others staring with mixtures of outrage, confusion, and guilt.

“Unless you want the people of City 2 to find out who ground this meeting to a halt.”

Lady Hope sat back, letting the others stew in their filth for a moment.

Magnus The Delegate

One Hour Earlier

Magnus and Mary entered their quarters. Compared to the rest of the garish marble walkways, it was relatively stripped down. Quarters fit for a servant.

A single bed and table were all that populated the room, the bed being a cut out section of white, speckled marble with a simple cot mattress lining it and the table being of the same material as the floor making it look like it had grown right out of the stone floor.

“You really had to tell them I was your servant?” Mary said, planting her bag on the floor and plopping down on the bed.

“They were all but interrogating me, and I needed an excuse to keep you around. I’m all paid up for this whole trip, in case you forgot,” Magnus said, walking next to the bed cutout and peering in.

They listened to the idle hum of the engines for the moment, mass drive in full effect slinging them accross the empire. A tangle of hanging plants were hoisted at the top of the walls, a little cutout being where they were planted.

“So, what’s the next—”

“Absolutely not,” Mary cut in.

Magnus leaned her head back in frustration.

“How are we going to be an effective team if I don’t even know what the plan is to get me where I need to go,” Magnus protested, “Can’t you even tell me what’s next?”

“No, absolutely not. As soon as I tell you, you go galivanting off into trouble and blow up my spot. No, I’m telling you exactly what you need to know right now,” Mary said.

Magnus blew air out of her cheeks.

“I used to do this for a living. You still remember, right?”

You did this as part of your job, this* is* my job.* *You’re a cook, I’m a chef. And not that it matters, because this plan is going to need some serious revision now.”

A rapping came at the door.

“It’s time,” The voice said, anxious footsteps hurrying off.

Magnus turned to Mary as she walked to the door.

“I’ll spend the time in the meeting figuring something out. It’s not like I have to do anything anyway, I’m only here to placate the people I’m apparently a part of.”

Mary shook her head as Magnus left. Whoever called her out had already disappeared and she was left to make her way to the meeting atrium.

She rounded a corner and saw the three Grand Council members standing single file behind a grand latched door. Magnus caught the back half of a sentence John was saying.

”…But there’s no need to reveal our hand unless absolutely necessary. If we show what we have then we lose our ability to tell The Sovereign first. If anyone’s going to be able to do something about this, it’ll be them. And the people of City 2 will still love us for it. Right, Miss Proudboar?” John said, turning and raising his voice to Magnus.

“Uh, yeah. Absolutely,” She replied, spotting Cerys admiring a tree in the centre of this cramped garden. The sturdy base gave way at the top to the tangled tendrils of noodly branches that overflowed, flowers budding as it went down.

Magnus plopped herself down and looked along with Cerys.

“You like the tree?” Cerys asked, seeming to teleport next to her. Magnus rather quickly glanced over at her but didn’t flinch.

“About as much as I like the ship,” Magnus deflected.

“I think the ship’s austentatious, but when you join the council you have little say in the matter. Sometimes makes me wish for the wide open space to build, like Lady Hope. Alas, I have little to do these days. I’m mostly here to run out the clock, and for someone younger to take over.”

Magnus stayed quiet, arms still folded. Magnus wasn’t looking at Cerys but she could tell that Cerys was doing the same. They were just taking a moment to take in the garden around them.

“I know you wonder why I chose you,” Cerys said. That made Magnus look at her, only briefly.

“Sometimes I wonder myself,” Cerys continued, “But I know what you are.”

The anxious feelings that had exploded back at Mary’s shop were creeping back in. Her heart was making its way northwards.

“You are an alien to City 2. I know you’re not a citizen, I can tell by the accent and the desperate need you have to get away. I don’t know why, but I imagine it’s the same reason I want to as well.”

Magnus relaxed.

“Not much for conversation, are you?” Cerys stated.

“Ditto,” Magnus replied.

She walked over to the line as another servant, a bald man in a green tunic, came from the entrance and breezed past everyone to open the door.

“You remember the proceedure?” John asked last minute.

“Shake hand, say name, don’t get distracted,” Magnus sped through.

John nodded and turned back around. He was leaning slightly into the door and, once he heard ‘…and her Ladyship Hope’ He signalled for the others to walk through.

Magnus went through the motions, not really seeing the other delegation from behind the procession. John took the person’s hand, said “I am Councilman John,” Getting an “I am Sir Gallant” back.

Magnus rolled up and shook the knight’s hand.

“I am…”

The knight peered intensely at her. He bore a hole in her skull with his gaze.

”…Delegate Jacinta.”

She waited for the servent to give her a chair, and slowly everything faded out into a muffled white noise. Thoughts of this knight and what he knew, how to escape this situation. Everything else became secondary.

She was aware of a meeting happening around her. Some feeling of rising tension. But for the most part she considered every plan her brain was straining to come up with. And now there was a knight who, if he had clocked her, was certainly keeping it secret.

She glanced up to see where the other door might lead, and met eyes with the knight again. He was also very much not participating in the meeting. She was lost as the spark of recognition was starting to burn in his eyes. She looked to the door to see how far she might go if she ran before—

“I want to see your spy,” Hope said, breaking Gallant’s concentration to look at her.

Magnus was relieved for a moment, but that feeling gave way to confusion. She looked at Hope who was basking in the silence, and Magnus looked at her with a furrowed brow.

“What…” John mumbled, giving his usual amount of gravitas, ”…How…”

Magnus was more curious than, as her colleagues were demonstrating, cornered. She could have sworn that Lady Hope saw this seeming nonchalance and her already stony face grew a little stonier.

“From the start of this meeting…

***

The combined procession walked down the dingy hallway in oppresive silence. As it turns out, within The Sovereign’s section of the council flagship, a dungeon dwelled that made no attempt to hide that it was a dungeon.

Misshapen stones sealed together with thin mortar sat jutting out of the walls. Torches with holographic flames irregularly lined the walls, with more regular holes where torches would have been held. Paper thin Steele doors were met on either side by thick glass windows, dimmed by them being one-way glass.

The knight rolled up besides Magnus, and she maintained her pace despite her overwhelming desire to slow or speed up. He didn’t look at her, but she kept him in her peripheral vision.

Each cell was empty, until they arrived at a man’s cell, lying down on the bed with arms folded behind his head and analyzing the ceiling. Magnus stared as she made the horrifying realisation that this room looked more comfortable than any she had ever lived in.

The furniture were simple geometric shapes of a desk with a computer and the bed topped by a fluffy mattress. There was even a divider where presumably the bathroom was.

The man lying on the bed, the tunic with diagonal belt running down his chest, the skin, the hair. To Magnus it was unmistakable, he was—

“A Neo-Saracen?” Hope said, all her attention fixed on the man.

“A Neo-Saracen spy,” John replied.

Lady Hope tore herself from the view. She opened her mouth to spit abuse at them, but held back.

“How many people have you told?” She asked.

“Just you. We only caught him shortly after we set our meeting.”

Lady Hope looked back through the window. John was still stewing in his guilt. It looked like he was about to tear what little hair was on his head.

“What information have you gotten?”

John ummed and erred.

“Seriously?” Hope said.

“I don’t know what our interrogators have been—”

“Let me get this straight,” Hope said, turning to face John and Cerys, “You were willing to burn this meeting to the ground for a spy you can’t even get a name out of?”

“I wasn’t…” John said, trailing off.

“Forget it. I want to go in,” Hope said, with a nonchalance that caused John to not react for a moment.

“What was that?” John said, bewildered.

“I want to go in and talk to the spy,” She elaborated.

“But…Why would—”

“Is it safe?” She asked plainly.

“I mean, yes but—”

“Then I want to go in and see what I can do. I see no problem. Do you?” She asked.

John genuinely considered this for a moment.

“Not at all,” He said, defeated.

“Great. One more thing, though. I want one of you to come in with me,” Hope said, calmly.

John furrowed his brow.

“Why?”

“Well, if this prisoner is as docile as you claim then I want some assurance.”

John glanced over to Cerys, nodded, then back to Hope.

“You can take Jacinta.”

Magnus winced, and Hope noticed.

“I’m okay with that.”

Hope looked over at Gallant.

“You’re with me too.”

The knight nodded and Magnus felt a sudden desire to bolt for the exit.

After a moment she walked to the door, and John patted Jacinta on the back. Magnus fought the urge to send a death glare his way.

Hope looked at one of the guards, who jangled out a key ring and plugged it into the round door’s keyhole. He breezed it open and the spy immediately glanced up from his bed, but stayed lying down.

The door slammed behind them, the knight getting ever so slightly startled.

“Oh, hey,” The spy said, his joviality catching Magnus off guard, “Another 12 hour interrogation session of yelling in my face?”

Hope death glared at Magnus.

“There’s not usually three of you, though. And not so mismatched.”

Hope wandered to the middle of the room as Magnus and Gallant stood opposite each other, both finding themselves unable to find a comfortable position to stand.

“I’m not with them,” She glanced over at the window, “Metaphorically speaking.”

“Uh huh,” The spy vocalised, “You’re a lord, you carry yourself like a lord, you’re one of them.”

Hope did a double-take.

“I’m a Lady, not a Lord. I’m Lady Hope. How did you know?”

The spy snorted and shook his head, and went back to looking up at the ceiling.

Hope shook her head and walked over to the desk chair, moulded in stone out of the ground, and sat with the back between her legs.

“What do you know about the skirmishes on the border territories?” Lady Hope asked.

Silence. The knight was scanning the man on the bed.

“I know you probably have a code of silence here, but I think we can dispense with that. We know about the Neo-Saracen ships being the ones that attacked our ships. If your people want another war, I think it’d be better if you’re just out with it.”

The spy furrowed his brow.

“I’m sorry, you what? I think if that’s what your info says then you need to get your sources checked,” The spy said.

Lady Hope gripped the chair tighter.

“What do you mean?” She asked.

Again, silence. Lady hope sighed. Magnus desperately looked for a place to sit down.

“Tell me, I know you’re a young guy, but did your family experience the war?”

The spy pivoted his head to Lady Hope, but it was moreso to see where she was going with this rather than to answer.

“I lost my first wife in the Battle of Hero’s Reach. It was a senseless war that only ended when cooperation began. If I go to our Sovereign with what I have right now, war will be imminent. Does your government at least want an opportunity for dialogue. Do you want to lose more loved ones?”

The spy mulled this over for a moment. Magnus could see his stomach wrenching itself in several directions as he uncomfortably moved for a few moments.

Finally, he said, “It’s not us,” mumbling as low as he could.

Lady Hope leaned in.

“I beg your pardon?”

The spy, contemplating for a moment, sat up on the bed.

“The skirmishes on the border have nothing to do with our empire.”

Lady hope leaned back, frowning and scratching her head.

“But what about the Neo-Saracen ships that attacked our people?”

“I don’t know who that was, but it wasn’t us.”

“We have a positive ID on at least one war-era Neo-Saracen ship attacking one of my knights.”

The spy scoffed and Lady Hope’s ramping up refutation was halted in its tracks.

“What?” She asked, flatly.

“First of all: Please stop calling us Neo-Saracens, it’s just embarassing. Secondly, our ships and their IDs have been completely overhauled since the war. And I only tell you this because none of your idiot nobles or your idiot Sovereign will believe me,” The spy said, not having been this engaged since the beginning of the conversation.

What the spy was saying made the knight perk up, and Magnus noticed.

“We would like to know just as much as you why these skirmishes are happening, and so close to our borders, too.”

Lady Hope frowned again.

“And you expect me to believe that?”

“Again, no. This is just the way it is.”

The knight, formerly still as a statue, walked over and tapped Hope on the shoulder. He motioned with his head over to the door. (Walking over).

“Uh,” The knight said, hastily turning to the spy, “Just give us a moment, would you.”

The spy shook his head and lay back down, checking his nails.

“Bloody barbarians,” The spy muttered to himself.

“What are you doing?” Hope hissed, as they walked to the door completely ignoring Magnus.

Magnus stood by the spy as Hope grumpily murmured to the knight.

(Magnus has brief conversation with spy about …?)

---

Magnus walked over to the two as their disagreement was heating up, and Magnus caught the last few words of Hope’s sentence.

“…don’t care about your conspiracy theories, I can’t just believe the guy.”

“It’s not a conspiracy theory to at least entertain the notion that he might be right,” He protested, showing a level of engagement that had been absent this entire meeting.

---

“I’ve dealt with a lot of spies in my time…”

The other two stared at her, growing slowly more bewildered as they thought for a moment.

”…A-As a diplomat. And I can tell you that this is no act. He’d never lie about something this verifiable. He doesn’t know what we have on him or his people.”

---

“Back when I served at Lyon’s Den, before working for Lord Commodus, we had an incident where a ship of unknown origin crossed into our territory by mistake. It was badly damaged for some reason, and it requested humanitarian help. But they never let us see who they were or what was inside their ship. We just supplied standard parts and they took them while nobody was around. I could have sworn some parts of the hull looked like retrofitted war-era Neo-Saracen ship parts, but I thought that was just because they had scavenged it from a battlefield. As a precaution, Lord Lyon swept it under the rug and us knights all swore an oath of secrecy.”

“And you’ve admitted to betraying the trust of Lord Lyon?” Hope asked.

“To prevent a war?” Gallant said, “Yes.”

---

“What do you know about ‘The Son of The Sovereign?’” Lady Hope asked.

“Did they tell you about that?”

“Does it matter?”

Gallant Gets It

It had been two weeks and three days since the meeting, and subsequent interrogation.

???

Lady Hope’s Speech