The Delegation (1)
A round little pebble of an outer artifact. The Regression Stone.
As the Elaine of his past life had explained it, the thing was a vessel handed down in the North — an outer artifact passed from Grand Duke to Grand Duke of Serzila through the generations, its potency kept alive with the Grand Duke's blood as the medium.
So it substitutes a particular bloodline's blood with mana. A remarkable artifact just to hear described. It was no accident that its power was regression.
Which would make that pebble a 6th-tier artifact, now that I think of it. Whoever had made it, it could only be 6th tier — and deeply entwined with Serzila, at that.
The identity behind it was beyond guessing. Harad knew the history of Serzila, and in all of that history there was not one precedent of Serzila joining hands with a magician.
Which would mean a magician like me existed once before.
Had the North of his past life not fallen, the Harad of that life would have gone down in history as nothing more than a bodyguard knight of the Grand Duke — a matter neither astonishing nor significant. What use was digging through history anyway? What mattered was that the regression pebble was gone.
The Grand Duke seemed unaware of it. He could be hiding it, but Harad doubted that. Something as absurd as regression seemed unlikely to repeat itself.
There is no Regression Stone in this life. That assumption had to shape every move he made. Nothing really changed — it was already how he'd been living.
Then, without warning, he felt a presence. Not Ellen. She had left Harad's annex the night before, and hadn't put her bedding away — she might need it again sometime, she'd said.
The visitor was a servant. No ordinary servant, either — one of the ducal house's. Every servant of the Grand Duke's household was a former knight; nothing less could endure the aura the Grand Duke shed even in his ordinary hours.
The one who came was an old man with hair gone snow-white, though his eyes still glinted keen as any knight's. Without a word he handed Harad a letter and departed.
Letter was a generous word for it — closer to a scrap. A single small sheet, a few lines scrawled across it.
Do nothing.
The hand was Grand Duke Aratus's. An order, presumably, not to catch the imperial delegation's eye — which meant the assignment to the Third Knight Order, the one Toremote and Arika had relayed, had been cancelled.
The delegation. Come to think of it, such a thing had existed. For Harad it could only be a faint memory. The Harad of his past life had never once welcomed a delegation; the tradition was not so old, and it had died out right around the time he finally clawed his way out of the days he'd survived on insects.
Did Grand Duke Aratus order it done away with? He couldn't recall the reason. Well, it couldn't have been anything momentous.
Because of that, the tradition of the envoy had naturally transformed into inviting Elaine to the imperial capital on her birthday. The Grand Duke hadn't stood in the way even of that — it was to let Elaine experience the Empire firsthand. More precisely, to show her just what a collection of halfwits the imperial house of Enberke was.
Harsh as the North already was, winter made it crueler still. For the sake of that North, the Empire sent a delegation on the day each winter began — a delegation bearing a considerable weight of food and supplies. A token of affection, and praise for their toil.
It was also a way of parading before the continent the fact that the crown stood above Serzila. Serzila, standing opposite the Outer Realm, was undeniably under the Empire — but the continent knew, without ever being told, that it did not obey the palace's word.
Flattery was part of it too. To the Empire, Serzila was a threatening power.
"What a load of shit."
That was what Elaine had once said of the Empire's envoys, back in his past life — of a piece with the fact that Grand Duke Aratus had never once received a delegation in his entire reign.
"They pull every sort of... stunt, don't they."
Ellen had started to curse and thought better of it. This was Kubel's annex. Shura was upstairs on the second floor — but who knew whether she might overhear.
"Food and supplies."
"We don't need any. We're not beggars."
Ellen despised the Empire for playing almsgiver. Harsh land though the North was, it was not a poor one. What tormented this land was not money but the cold. The cold that money could drive back had its limits, and Serzila had sat at that limit for a very long time. Whatever the Empire did at this late date would not help — that was what she meant.
"Which family is coming this year?"
The delegation changed every year, and was drawn from noble houses rather than the crown. Imperial personnel were sometimes included, but more often not — Serzila disliked the imperial house. The palace, on the other hand, wanted to win Serzila's heart, which was why the family chosen for the delegation was almost always a martial one. Keep sending martial houses, the hope ran, and sooner or later one of them would win the North over. Serzila loved the strong, after all.
"Some knightly house or a warlord clan, I'd imagine."
For all the palace's hopes, Ellen didn't seem to know which family this year's delegation would come from. Harad wasn't expecting anything either; he had no part to play in it regardless. It must have passed quietly in my past life, too. The delegations would end five years from now. If anything had blown up before then, the Elaine of that life would surely have dredged it up as gossip over dinner.
"I-isn't this serious?"
Kubel, who had been fidgeting this whole time, finally let his lips tremble. "I-if the likes of us get caught..."
"Caught means the stake. Ah — no, for me they'd just peg me down like one instead."
Seeing as fire wouldn't take him. Harad laughed low. "Shu—Shura!" Kubel, crying out his daughter's name instead of a scream, curled his enormous body up small. He was still enormous.
"It's a joke. There's hardly any need to worry — the Inner Castle's discipline is second to none."
"And how would you know that?"
"Aren't I the living proof?"
Half a year had passed since Harad took up residence in the Inner Castle. In his past life, he had lived there fifteen years. Serzila's knights knew him for a magician. Even among those who served the Inner Castle, everyone who ought to know, knew. And yet the fact of Harad's sorcery had never reached the wider territory.
It had been the same in his past life — not even the most common rumor had ever sprung up. His own careful conduct was partly responsible, but more than that, it was the Inner Castle's discipline. No — not discipline. Loyalty. The loyalty of Northerners, and above all of those who served the Inner Castle, was uncanny in its ferocity.
"I'd wager that's part of why they send envoys at all. They're starved for information, you see."
The Inner Castle of Serzila held not one of those ever-present spies. Anyone who looked suspicious or had a loose mouth got seized by the staff before anything else. Cassion excepted. That one the Grand Duke deliberately let be.
"All the same, it might be best if you and Shura stayed out of sight while they're here."
There were only two ways to identify a magician: for a magician to kill a magician, or for a magician to manifest magic. Until one of those occurred, no soul alive could tell a magician from anyone else. But that demanded a properly iron-plated face, and Kubel had yet to acquire the requisite skill.
"And what about you?"
"I could sit down to a meal with the Pope himself."
Harad's iron plating had been perfected in his past life. He turned his eyes back to Kubel.
"Or, come to think of it, this is a fair chance to get some practice in. You can't hide from it forever."
"..."
"Think it over. We can leave Shura with Arika for a while."
Not that Shura's poker face wasn't already better than Kubel's. He only proposed it to spare the man the worry.
"...What do you think, Harad? Would it be better if I... took part?"
"Better that you do. That is simply the fate of a magician living on the continent."
For as long as a magician lived on the continent, the iron plating had to stay on. Heart in knots, face serene.
"You know as well as anyone — the situation we have right now is extraordinary."
How many lands were there where a magician could live with his heart this much at ease?
"And because it is extraordinary for us, we owe it extraordinary care. If you're exposed, it won't end with just you and Shura."
If Kubel were discovered, then Serzila itself — the power that had permitted him — would be in danger.
"The delegation will make good practice. Who would ever dream of suspecting a magician inside Serzila's Inner Castle?"
In truth, the likelier outcome was that they'd pass the whole affair without so much as setting eyes on one another. What business would a delegation have at some out-of-the-way annex? But Harad didn't go out of his way to say so. It isn't urgent. In any case, Kubel had answered that he would give it a try, and that answer alone satisfied him. Brazenness, after all, could be cultivated to a degree with nothing but willpower and imagination — though nothing beat the real thing.
The delegation was due tomorrow. But the North was a land where schedules bent easily; they might arrive today, or days from now. So first, Shura had to be left in Arika's care.
"I can walk there on my own, you know."
"Nothing says I can't come along."
Ellen, Shura's hand in hers, glanced back at Harad trailing behind them. "Didn't the Grand Duke tell you not to do anything?"
"That order's for when the delegation actually gets here."
"..."
For some reason, Ellen looked distinctly displeased. "Do you dislike my coming along?"
"It's not that I dislike it."
"Then what is it?"
"What did I do?"
Harad tilted his head. Things had been fine between them right up until yesterday.
"Big sister, did you fight with big brother?"
"No, we didn't fight. What would we even fight about?"
"Then why are you like this?"
"..."
Ellen didn't answer. One look at her face told him she was keeping something back. Looks like she's been at Arika's. He couldn't imagine what she was hiding — only that it seemed to be something Arika meant to hand over when Ellen came by with Shura.
"Aren't you busy? There'll be plenty to see to."
"If I were the direct heir, maybe. Is it really necessary?"
"That's exactly why you should go."
"Is the Grand Duke's heir attending?"
"He always used to. This time, I couldn't say — I hear he can't be bothered."
"Is that even allowed?"
"Everyone will love it. The Grand Duke included."
Well, then. If even the Grand Duke's heir thumbed his nose at the crown, the North would feast on it.
The rift between North and crown ran deep. It had been substantial to begin with, and the Grand Duke's imperial sabbatical had settled it decisively — they had clamped restrictions on the Boundary. The Grand Duke and the throne had stood, more than once, on the very line of death. The crown had repressed not one but two of the things the North loved.
"Well, understood." Harad stopped in his tracks. "Go see to your errand, then."
Ellen turned her head at that. "Are you sulking?"
"I'm not sulking."
He had no idea what she was hiding, but he had no intention of prying into it. It's not as if I'm Elaine. Harad turned on his heel and went back the way he had come.
Cutting across the plaza, he caught sight of severed heads on display — the brokers Arika had caught.
The heads hung in a spot easy to miss unless one looked closely, and soldiers stood at the entrance. That this was for the children's sake, Harad knew without having to ask. The North does not show corpses to its young. Corpses — why, it doesn't even let them watch a fight. If fools came to blows in front of a child, whatever Northerners stood nearby would drag the pair off. Not that it happened often; no one so much as curled a fist in front of a child to begin with.
In any case, Serzila was a place that thrummed with life. So claimed Elaine, who loved this land. To Harad it was simply noisy. Shouting followed you down every street, and the sound of fists landed and faces taking them was a constant — yet even in the thick of it there was warmth, a dense, clannish tenderness no outsider's eye could see. That Serzila, today of all days, was quiet.
Because the delegation's coming... no. It's already here, isn't it. A banner stood tall in the distance — the flag of an imperial noble house. The party beneath it was not large. Ten people, of whom only seven wore armor.
A handpicked elite, then. A sensible size. Arrive as a horde and they'd be dismissed as weaklings who could only travel in packs.
Every face was plain to see — the natural result of no crowd pressing around them. The Northerners had no interest in the Empire's delegation. I don't recognize a single one. Not one familiar face. Which told him the welcome this delegation received would be just as indifferent.
Harad had a rough recollection, too, of the knights who had covered themselves in glory in his past life. Not that recognizing them would do me any good. He was the only person alive who remembered that life. If the delegation sought him out, he would oblige them for Kubel's practice's sake — but he had no intention of seeking them out himself. People in the Empire who'd know my face... There couldn't have been many. Chewing over his past life, Harad moved on.
His destination was Rusel's leather shop. Isota's leather shop, in truth — the dwelling of the mask-mage who had kept Rick the tunneler confined. Arika had already combed the place, and nothing had come of it.
That's not certain, though. A civilian's eyes and a magician's eyes were different instruments. What read as ordinary to Arika might be extraordinary to Harad.
The shop stood open, and its interior was unexpectedly clean. He'd braced for dust. She anticipated me. Arika, guessing that Harad would come poke around himself, had evidently kept the shop in order. Very like her. She came across as cold-blooded, but at her core she was warmer than she let on.
Isota lived here. She couldn't be parted from Rick. She had to keep watch over him while maintaining her cover as a fur merchant, so she had merged workplace and home into one.
Not that she shared Rick's room. Isota had used the one beside it, with a small hole bored through the wall on Rick's side — for listening in, no doubt.
Isota's room was unremarkable. She was a woman, but the fur merchant Rusel had been a middle-aged man, and so the room had been furnished as Rusel's, not Isota's.
Isota had belonged to the Liberation Magic Tower — and to the Rebel Faction, no less. She had been ordered to open a link to the Outer Realm, and had dug her tunnels through Rick. She would have kept in contact on a schedule. The means of contact had to exist. The Ivory Tower — no, in the Outer Realm's case, they used communication tunnels. Harad happened to be carrying one at this very moment: the tunnel Cassion had given him. Communication tunnels for the Outer Realm. And the Liberation Tower, then...
The quill.
Seeing the quill tucked neatly away in the desk drawer, Harad smiled. It was the same kind of quill the Liberation Tower magicians of his past life had used. He fed mana into it, and sure enough the quill rose and stood upright on the desk, all alone. Quills come in pairs. When the far side writes, this one traces out the same words...
He was just debating whether to try writing something when—
"Anyone here?"
A voice carried in from outside. A middle-aged voice. A visitor?
Certainly no Northerner. A middle-aged Northerner would never address a fur merchant in honorifics. Nor the Information Bureau, nor the watch — the investigation here was finished.
"Anyone here!"
The middle-aged voice rang out a second time. A voice that doesn't believe for a moment the place is empty. Louder than before, and laced with a certainty he couldn't hide — he had sensed someone's presence, it seemed.
Harad stepped out of the room and opened the shop door with his own hand. The visitor was, as expected, no Northerner. ...A knight. Middle-aged, memorable for a mustache like a calligrapher's brush. Etched into his armor was the same crest as the banner he'd seen earlier. The delegation? But why—
Just as Harad's brow began to knit—
"...H-Harad, young master?"
The knight's eyes wavered.