§128 Meet-Up (Patreon)

They were directed to a fast carriage for non-IEF personnel who found themselves attached to the expedition. Eterine wasn't content to have them pull over so they could board. She had to make an entrance. She claimed her motive was to enhance Mariella's stature among strangers, but the excitement burned too brightly in her eyes. She just wanted to mount a moving vehicle. And strangely, after her high-speed, high-altitude pegasus ride, Mariella felt like it was not only doable, but easy.

Gallifreys were delicate and finicky, but fast. The birds that the IEF loaned them were as fleet as anything she had ridden, and gave chase to the convoy with a will. The IEF escort had a tamer with them, to speed the horses, but the birds outsped even the magically-encouraged mounts. Mariella kept her mount close on the tail of Eterine's as they approached the convoy from behind, passed two supply coaches, and closed in on the third. The birds were well-trained, unafraid of the horses or the large carriages, and willingly ran dangerously close to the wheels. Their escort kept a little distance, so as not to interfere with the maneuver.

Eterine made it look easy. She paced the coach, drew her sword, and knocked on the door with its pommel. After a second knock, the door slid open to reveal a surprised young man in a soldier's uniform without rank. Eterine tossed their luggage pod at him so hard that it knocked him back into the coach. She rode close enough to grasp the handrail above the door, and leapt from her mount into the coach as if that were how one always boarded a vehicle. A distant whistle pierced the air, and her mount peeled off from the convoy to rejoin its handler.

Now that it was her turn, Mariella started to have serious doubts, but it was too late. Eterine had one hand on the rail and held the other out for her, palm up, fingers beckoning, "Come on." On any other day, the princess would have balked, but she was past the amount of fear she could feel in one day, burned away by Betty and her lieutenant. Also, every window of the coach had several faces gawking at her, made diminutive by the magic space expansion inside. It was too late to back down.

Mariella rode alongside the coach, gripped Eterine's forearm, felt her attendant's reassuring grip in return, and jumped. She went too high and almost hit the handrail, but caught it with her free hand and swung into the coach, more or less like she had meant to do it that way. Eterine pulled her deeper into the cab, away from the door, and clapped her on the shoulder. Behind them, the soldier snapped the door closed.

Applause and whistles broke out in the coach.

"Is there a compartment where we can change?"

"In the back half, Miss." The soldier pointed. "It's all supplies, and there's a door."

Mariella and her attendant passed curious stares. The IEF allowed camp followers and hangers-on, provided they were useful. She marked a few of them for academics, curious about whatever monsters happened to show up. Some were likely correspondents for newspapers. Two were civilian healers who agreed to join the expedition. Several were provincial officials, there to offer support and coordination. She spied Rasmusen sitting next to a paladin and pretended to ignore them both. They sat facing a provincial inspector, and she was accompanied by a large bodyguard in armor. She would be worth talking to.

A dwarf sat at the back of the passenger compartment, near the door to the cargo area. He was very young, judging by his beard, with topaz eyes and a spirit fox companion in the seat next to him. The fox watched the passing scenery, but the dwarf's curious eyes tracked Mariella. He stood as they approached, obviously intending to talk to them.

"Not now." Eterine's word was so final, the dwarf bowed and resumed his seat, letting the women pass without comment.

Once the door was closed behind them, Eterine helped her out of the confining leathers. Mariella took a deep, grateful breath and looked around while Eterine opened the hard pod. The back half of the coach was a standard passenger compartment filled with baggage in every seat and overhead compartment until there was only a narrow aisle to stand in. Her attendant produced the clothes she would wear for the rest of her deployment: a simple skirt and blouse under a healer's robe, embroidered with the imperial insignia. It was vague while conferring a notion of her rank. Nobody without rank of their own would question her presence. Eterine did what could be done for her hair in short order, pinning it up so it would fit under a healer's cap. The typical bag of healer's implements completed the look.

As far as most people were concerned, her primary role was obvious. Only a few knew she was present because she could handle cases of corrupted wounds. She should be with the IEF healers, but the emperor had asked for her role to be kept low-key. If anyone pried hard enough, then she was a member of the palace clinic, out to get some much-needed experience by imposing herself on the expedition, and nothing much was expected of her aside from not killing any of the patients outright. Accordingly, she got slotted with the civilian healers who tagged along for a bit of extra pay and adventure.

Eterine changed into the same attendant's clothes she used when her mistress worked in the clinics: a simple-looking dress underpinned with a steel corset. Small weapons found their way into secret pockets until she was sufficiently armed. Thus made presentable and defensible, they exited the cargo area in good order, with Eterine leading the way.

The dwarf was waiting by the door. "My name is Jax," he bowed, "a traveling correspondent for Arcaic Times. This is my summoned spirit, Akoto. Who might you be, Miss?" He tilted to look around the attendant, to make it clear to whom he was speaking.

Eterine threw a questioning glance at Mariella: should she answer, push him aside, or put a knife in him? Mariella decided to answer for herself.

"I am a low-ranking healer on the imperial staff, who made the error of asking for more field experience." Akoto sat on one of the passenger chairs, nose twitching in her direction. "If you must talk to me, you may call me Mary. I fear you will be disappointed. My knowledge of the current situation is limited."

"A low-ranking healer, shipped out here on the emperor's fastest transport, with a personal bodyguard? It doesn't quite add up."

"The emperor has his whims. It's not for us to question them."

Eterine gave Jax a hard look, and he moved aside.

They went back down the car until they found the provincial inspector. "Would you happen to be Curator Jane?"

Jane and her companion stood but didn't bow because of her lack of declared rank. There was every possibility she didn't know Mariella was a princess. She made introductions. "Domine Rasmusen. Next to him is Paladin Briallen. This is Cadmius."

The name came as a shock. Why would Taylor's former mentor be working with the man who once cut off the boy's hand? The infamous ex-paladin looked like most active veterans she knew, fit and bright-eyed, but his blonde hair fell to his shoulders. He also had a charming smile, which might have turned her head if she hadn't just spent three hours riding behind an even handsomer, younger man.

"I understand your surprise," smiled the veteran. "I can hardly believe it myself. It was Taylor's idea that we should meet."

Meltissa nodded. "He is most reliable. And discrete."

Mariella helped herself to a seat among them and sat, then they followed suit, followed by Eterine. Jax watched the seating order carefully from the other end of the compartment. He wasn't the only one: at least two more sets of curious eyes were on them. She didn't see the fox spirit, which annoyed her. It might be snooping somewhere it didn't belong. Or, it could be sleeping in its chair.

"Eterine, could we have some privacy, please?" Her guard deployed a wooden disk inlaid with silver spellscript: an anti-listening device, and held it on her knee. The train's noise reduced to a distant buzz.

"My name is Mary, and I'm an imperial healer," she began, taking care not to look at Rasmusen. "The palace sent me because I'm acquainted with corrupted injuries."

"Mary's more than acquainted," Rasmusen added. He was a priest and also her cousin. "It's largely her fault you had to trek through all those hills."

"The governor told us they were sending a specialist," Cadmius said. "We didn't expect someone so young. Are you sure you want to be here?"

"It's no matter," Curator Jane said rather forcefully. "We've seen odd skills in the hands of young people before, haven't we? If she can do the job, I don't care how old she is. Forgive my assistant. He's protective by nature."

"Why are you here, instead of with the IEF commanders?" It seemed strange to Mariella that the woman on whose word the entire expedition had been mounted was sitting with the hangers-on. That went double for Rasmusen and Braillen. They would be key players against corruption.

"Prince Wolson," said Jane. "It was his idea to mobilize Midway's garrison, and he's the prelate for this expedition. He's keeping anyone not under his chain of command in the dark. He'll take my reports, but he won't answer my questions."

"And we self-mobilized," Paladin Briallen added, indicating herself and Rasmusen. "The battalion has a few priests and paladins attached, but they decided taking on any more was a waste. So we're auxillaries."

"And my situation is complicated," said Cadmius.

"Because of your class change?" The man had attacked Taylor, the Divine Envoy, and in so doing, had broken a church contract that the gods took very seriously. He lost his Paladin class as a result and became a simple Fighter. Mariella suspected his punishment was unfair in light of the boy's curse, but she couldn't exactly argue with the gods.

"That, and the Oathbreaker title. It makes it hard to gain anyone's trust," he said. "Meltissa might have had better luck with them if I weren't there."

"I would be dead if you weren't here."

Mariella asked the group, "Does anyone feel the commander is making any mistakes?" She could possibly interfere if doing so would make a difference. It would strain what little relationship she had with her brother, but that was better than dead soldiers.

Rasmusen shook his head. "Not so far, but we haven't arrived in Sinter yet."

Cadmius added, "Commander Bolan knows his business, but the IEF has been touchy ever since they lost Restoration. They want to prove they can do something right without relying on outside help."

Rasmusen added, "And Prince Wolson has something to prove as well, I suspect."

Hours later, the convoy halted at a walled village and made camp. It was one of the southernmost towns in Estfold Province, half-abandoned, and in poor repair. The battalion pulled their coaches inside. Several mages shored up weak areas of the ill-maintained walls, while the first watch posted themselves, and the rest of the men found places to sleep. They lay down anywhere they could, either in tents or in abandoned houses, but the units stayed together, and everyone stayed within the walls. Cooks set up a kitchen in the town's small meeting hall and turned out hot, bland food fit for a small army on the move.

Mariella only saw the village legate briefly, as the old man asked Commander Bolan how long he planned to stay and emphasized that, other than space, they had nothing to offer the IEF. Prince Wolson looked on, disapproving of the man's daring to ask questions of an imperial official. Eterine set up their tent between the civilian hangers-on and the healer corps. Jax floated around, talking to people while he wrote in a little notebook.

Without anything else to do, she presented herself to the military officer in charge of the healers. The field clinic was set up in an empty house, small but clean. In a force that size, there were always minor accidents and injuries to take care of, and a few of the healers were at work. The captain barely looked at her and said he would ask for her help when he needed it. He also declared that he was in charge, and it didn't matter if she was from the palace. Mariella handed over a letter from the palace clinic, its seal intact, and watched him slip it into his pocket without looking at it.

"It isn't wise to ignore an imperial seal for long," she reminded him, and left. The contents wouldn't change his attitude much, but it should ensure she was given real work.

"Eterine, why do they do that?"

"You're too young to know anything, and you're only here because of your connections. That's what they assume. You could go back there and set him straight if you wanted to."

"I'd rather see the look on his face when he realizes he messed up. Besides," she yawned, "this means I don't have to work right now. I can do my magic exercises and get some sleep."

She spent the next hour and a half with the Find spell. It was the most basic of divinations. If the caster knew an object well, and had a piece of it, and the object wasn't too far away, then the spell would lead them to it. She was trying to duplicate its effects without using the actual spell, which was a difficult feat. It wasn't her first non-systematized magic. Like every other spell she had learned to duplicate, it was giving her trouble. She was discovering she didn't understand some of the concepts as well as she'd thought. Miss Wibbles said it was the difference between doing magic and mastering magic.

A small commotion outside her tent convinced Mariella to take a break and peek outside. A squad of soldiers escorted a dwarf and an arc toward the house taken over by the Commander. The two men were hooded and roped together like prisoners.

"Get Curator Jane!" pleaded the dwarf. "We just want to talk to her! She told us to come! She gave us a pin!"

The soldiers didn't respond, but kept pushing the men forward.

That sounded important. Mariella ran for the curator's camping spot, the lawn of a run-down hut one block over. She called for the woman urgently, and she soon appeared. The brief glance Mariella had of the inside of her tent looked like a library. Cadmius appeared after her, clutching a map. When she told the inspector what she had seen, the woman's eyes narrowed, and her face took on a fearsome aspect. She marched toward the command building as if she would storm it, and Cadmius fell in behind her. Mariella trailed behind them, uninvited but ready to assist. Eterine brought up the rear of their little line.

They could hear shouting as they approached the command center. The two men pleading, and a man's accusing voice talking over them.

"Please, Commander, just let us talk to Curator Jane. She's supposed to be here. She told us to come!"

"What do you have to say to her that you can't say to me?"

Jane was halted at the building's front door by several armed soldiers. "Let us through," she demanded. "Those men might have useful information."

"Commander's orders, Ma'am."

Mariella reached into one of her pockets and found the mithril badge, the one she hoped she wouldn't need to use, and brandished it at the guards. "By the imperial seal, let her pass!"

The men were surprised to be suddenly confronted with the emperor's emblem, but less surprised when they saw the same emblem on her cloak. They hesitated, then decided not to risk an argument against the imperial seal. They let all four of them pass.

Thus ended the short career of Mary, the unranked healer from the palace clinic. They might not know she was a princess, but they knew she was somebody.

Once inside, Jane took one look at the two prisoners and clicked her tongue.

"These are mine, Commander. I would appreciate it if you didn't abuse my helpers."

"This one was kicked out of the IEF for violence against an officer," he pointed at the arc, "and they've both been in prison. They have the tattoos to prove it."

They both were about to protest, but Jane silenced them with a look. "Irrelevant," she told Commander Bolan. "They helped us get out of Sinter in one piece, and I want to know what they have to say. Go ahead."

"Wait a second, Curator," insisted the commander, "who let you in here?"

Mariella showed him her badge. Curator Jane's lips thinned in a repressed smile. The commander's mouth shut tight. Maybe Prince Wolson would have countered her, but he wasn't there.

"Thank you, Mary. Let's try this again. What do you have to report?"

The arc spoke first. "The legate has an army of monsters. I don't know how he's doing it, but there's hundreds of them gathered near the mine. And there's people, too. They've done something to them. They don't seem right, but there's a lot of them. And they're armed."

"And worse things," said the dwarf, and shivered. "They look like beastkin, but I'm not sure what they are. They give me the shakes just looking at them."

"I thought we told you two to leave Sinter. The mine was in the wrong direction."

"If something bad was going down, we wanted to know. We thought the information would be appreciated."

"You wanted to make some quick silver," spat the commander.

"They control the monsters, and more are joining. They have mountain rams, understand?" The arc grew emphatic, pointing toward the edge of the town. "What's it been? Forty years since these walls were properly repaired? They're tall enough to keep out dire wolves, but they're thin. Those rams will bust through them like paper, and you'll have a full-on horde to deal with. And then there's the dark people to deal with. If we could tell you what they were, we would. But they can't be good. We saw ten of them, and they were working together."

"When we left," continued the dwarf, "they were rounding up everyone in town and herding them into the mines. Something bad is coming! So either let us go so we can get as far away as possible, or put weapons in our hands. Because tied up like this, we're monster bait. I don't want to be monster bait. Whatever you think about us, that's not justice."

Cadmius looked like he had plenty to say on the matter, but kept his peace. Jane defended the two informants. "They're right, Commander. If we're about to be attacked, you should send them away or let them fight."

Commander Bolan looked doubtful. "What makes you think they're going to attack us here?"

"Why else would they assemble hundreds of monsters?" reasoned the dwarf. "It's not like your approach was a secret. The mine is up in the hills. Gotta tell you, the view is pretty good from up there."

After more arguing, the two men were released and transferred to the curator's care, who gave them to Cadmius to assess and arm. Jane pulled Mariella along with her until she found where Rasmusen had bunked with the other clerics.

"Do you have a way to contact the Divine Envoy?"

Rasmusen shook his head. "I don't. Mary?"

"I had the privilege of dining with him once, but that is as close as I have ever been to him. He has never confided anything to me."

"Please excuse me." Jane stepped away with her tablet, put her thumb onto the transcribing circle, and silently thought words at it. 

"Cadmius, hasn't Bolson sent out his own scouts yet?"

"I'm sure he has."

"Then why…"

"Because, when you're interrogating an information source you don't trust, you don't tell them what you already know."

"Quite right," said the arc cheefully. "Not the first time either of us has been in the hot seat."

"Wasn't too bad," said the dwarf. "Never expect thanks when dropping bad news. Especially when you're a stranger."

Meltissa returned after she sent her message.

Mariella was curious. "May I ask…?"

"I asked the Governor to send a green notice to Taylor. It's expensive, but I would prefer to have him here. When it comes to hunting monsters, he has always been reliable."