Using Barbarians to Fight Barbarians (2)

That same afternoon, in the Intelligence Department's offices. Scribble, scribble. Scratch, scratch. Director Melanie's eyes raced down the documents before her. Processing the mountain of agent reports that poured in from every corner of the continent each day left her scarcely a moment's rest.

She had just reached for the thirty-eighth report when the crystal orb at the edge of her desk began to glow with a low hum. Yellow. The signal that the caller demanded an audience at once.

Of all the times. As if she weren't drowning in work already — who on earth was interrupting her now? If it's anyone unimportant, I'll simply have them marked as out of office.

Without pausing the hand that kept moving, she flicked a sideways glance at the caller's name.

Without a second's hesitation, Melanie touched the crystal orb. The Central Officer's figure appeared within it at once.

"Ahem, ahem! Ah... ahh." She cleared her throat briefly and checked herself in the mirror. Clothes neat, hair in place, makeup fresh. Good.

Her inspection finished in the blink of an eye, she curled the corner of her mouth into a smile. "Hello, darling."

"Good day to you, Director." Nathan, looking as weary as ever, bowed his head.

"What's the occasion? I certainly didn't expect to be hearing from you this often." An unspoken addendum slipped in beneath the words: do keep calling this often in the future, too.

But the Central Officer, in place of an answer, drew a thick book from his desk drawer and held it up for her to see. "The code decryption you requested. It is complete."

It was the full year's worth of cipher books Melanie herself had sent. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠He lifted out one ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠more volume — the whole of it translated into the common tongue. "Not a single character has been left out. I will send it on to you tomorrow."

"..."

At the sight of it, Melanie fell silent for a moment. "...You do realize I gave you a week for that? And you're telling me you finished in seven hours?"

"Yes."

A sigh escaped her before she knew it. Why does that fool keep doing this to himself?

"Fine. What is it this time?" When the Central Officer drove himself past all reason to finish a request early, there was always a particular reason behind it.

"I would like to ask one more favor of you, Director."

There it is. Melanie answered with a wry smile. "All right, tell me. You worked this fast for us — it's only right we do something more for you in return."

The Central Officer stared at her in silence for a beat. Then, slowly, he opened his mouth. "Tell me how I might meet with the Black Hand."

Thunk. The pen slipped from Melanie's fingers and dropped onto the desk.

"Are you insane, darling!?" Her voice shot up in an instant, the fur bristling along her tail quivering. "Meeting the Black Hand? And you, a public official?"

It had been a long while since I'd seen Melanie this rattled. Not that she lacked reason. A chief border officer proposing to meet an assassin guild — hardly a sane proposition. Even by my own reckoning it was madness: if it ever went public, an outright scandal; kept private, a wager with my life as the stake. And yet it remained something that had to be done.

I spoke calmly. "There are circumstances."

I laid out everything that had happened. That the time for mere prevention and cleanup was over — that we had to move first. All the more so against an enemy as abominable as the Evil God Cult.

"A preemptive strike... I see. True enough — nothing guarantees they won't pull the same stunt again."

Melanie's brow furrowed. "But why the Black Hand, of all people? If you're going to delegate, there are plenty of options besides them."

There it was — the most fundamental question.

Other candidates did exist: the Skadi Empire to the north, and the Holy Church's northern branch. The Skadi Empire had grown into a hardened power through countless battles against monsters in its barren northern wastes. If anyone could sweep away the Cult's remnants in a single stroke, it was them. But cooperation with a foreign nation meant wading through labyrinthine diplomacy. Even a trade agreement kept envoys grappling for weeks on end; a joint military operation to check the Evil God Cult would take half a year at the absolute least. And every classified detail on the Cult would have to be shared with them, besides.

As for the Holy Church... my mouth would tire before the story ended. Handing them a pretext for holy war was sheer lunacy. Come what may, the Holy Church was out of the question.

The Black Hand was different. "They are the most suitable party for this."

Whatever else might be said of them, their vice-master was dead. And at the hands of the Evil God Cult's saintess, Hatenzilla, no less. Could such a thing simply be overlooked?

"A grudge has now been firmly established between the two. Acting through the Black Hand rather than through this officer's own hands would deal a heavy blow to the Evil God Cult beyond our borders."

Show the guild the truth — and in the same stroke, swing the arrow of their wrath around to point at the Cult. "Tell me how a meeting may be arranged. This officer will handle the remainder."

The mutual enmity and collision of two terror organizations. And at the very end, their shared destruction. That was my method.

But Melanie shook her head. "No."

Refused again.

"Director! What I'm about to propose is genuinely necessary, so—"

"I know exactly what you mean to say." She cut me off sharply and swept the plan aside. "What you want is using barbarians to fight barbarians. Am I right?"

"That is correct."

"The strategy of ruining an enemy you can't stomach yourself by setting them against their own kind. Just as you said — taking down your foe with another's hands. It's a fine idea." She went straight for the heart of the matter. "But to pull it off, not a speck of dust may cling to your hands. Let even the slightest ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠trace slip, and both factions will smell it and change targets — straight to the one who orchestrated it all."

Her finger pointed at me.

"And right now you propose to meet the Black Hand in person and say all of this face-to-face? You might as well proclaim your name to every street corner in the underworld."

"..."

"Do you understand what that means?"

I answered in a low voice. "They would take notice of this officer's existence."

"Exactly."

My standing before them in the flesh meant, at the same time, the Black Hand learning who I was. Which made the risk a different order of magnitude from anything I had yet faced.

"But I have steeled myself for that."

"Resolve alone will not do." She shook her head. "Until now, you have been nothing more than the chief officer of the Southern Border. But intervene this actively even once, and from that moment on, the name Nathan Kell is seared into their memories."

Her tail trembled, as if uneasy.

"Say you show them the vice-master's corpse with your own hands and tell them, 'This was not our doing — the Evil God Cult did it.' Will they simply swallow it whole? What do you imagine they'll see when they look at you?"

"The border chief who holds their secrets. That is what they'll see. In their eyes, you become a threat. And word of it could just as easily reach the Evil God Cult as the Black Hand. A name that circulates in the underworld is never a good omen."

The words of a woman who had lived deeper in those shadows than anyone. "And when it is a public official of an entire nation — someone like you — it is guaranteed to end in ruin."

I had no rebuttal. Every word of it was true. If I showed my face to the Black Hand, the danger might well swallow not just me but everyone around me. But if I never showed my face, they would never so readily believe the truth.

Cornered — no way forward, no way back.

"Damn it..."

As I stood frozen in the contradiction, Melanie spoke. "What did I tell you? Stop trying to do everything alone. You are an immigration officer, not some all-purpose fixer."

"..."

Squarely on the mark.

"What you're after is holding back the Evil God Cult through the Black Hand — yes?"

"That's right."

"Hm... then I happen to have one good way." Her yellow eyes rolled this way and that. "Sometimes, you see, shock therapy is the surest turning point there is. You have to set it off at the moment least expected."

A loaded remark. "There is exactly one thing I need from you." Melanie pointed at the clock. "The changeling's execution. It falls this evening."

At her words, I looked at the clock as well. Six in the evening. Come to think of it, the changeling's execution was set for eight tonight. She had already died under the curse, but Margrave Reyes had yet to make that death public. In other words, the Margrave judged that even a corpse carried symbolic weight, and meant to hold the ceremony regardless. For someone who lived by the image shown to the world, it was entirely in character.

"No matter what happens — stop that execution."

But stop it? Why? The proof of the Evil God Cult's involvement would betray itself in that black-red miasma regardless. After a moment buried in thought, I grasped her true intent and spoke.

"Melanie. Don't tell me you intend to hand the corpse over to them."

"Goodness — sharp as ever, aren't you." She nodded. "This operation proceeds on the premise that you stop the execution. Do that much, and we will handle everything after."

"...In other words, this officer is to take the opening move of the operation."

"Don't worry. To the Evil God Cult and the Black Hand alike, you will never even have existed. In exchange, I'll need to borrow Miss Erzena for a while."

Those long, slitted pupils settled on me. "You will open the play — and Erzena will bring down the curtain."

The far north of the continent. A forgotten tower standing somewhere in the Great Forest region.

In a silent room on its topmost floor, a woman leaned against the wall with her eyes closed, saying nothing. As if waiting for something, every nerve in her body was gathered into her ears.

Then— Flap, flap. A raven came sweeping in from the sky, wingbeats even, gliding smoothly into the tower's topmost story. Caw! The shrill cry split the silence, and the woman slowly opened her eyes.

The top floor of the forgotten tower was the birds' domain. The creature settled softly onto the perch placed directly before her, and her gaze turned to it in one smooth motion. The raven let something drop from its beak — a small note, folded into a tight crumple, that fell at her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠feet.

She read it with a glance.

The same result yet again. The woman's brow knotted.

"My sworn sister... where are you."

A week had all but run its course. A full week, too, since word from her younger sister — no blood between them, but a sister all the same — had simply stopped. She had always been fiercely self-willed, yet once every three days, without fail, a raven had arrived bearing news of her. "Don't worry. No matter what, I'll be sure to send word now and then about where I am and what I'm doing."

With a small sigh, she drew a pinch of tiny seeds from her pocket and scattered them across the floor. "Endure the toil a little longer. I have... an ill foreboding."

The raven was a harbinger of misfortune; its very existence boded ill. A bird bedeviled by superstition — glimpse one, the saying went, and the whole day would go sour; a bringer of bad luck. And yet she had taken the raven as her emblem and drilled her birds without cease. Contrary to their appearance, they were remarkably clever, remarkably hardy creatures. There was no reason, she had always held, for anything to be despised as an omen of woe.

Then— a long, grating creak. "Lady Eliza."

A sinister-looking man pushed the door open and stepped through, and with him the bright light of high noon came flooding into the room. In an instant the pupils of her jet-black eyes contracted to pinpoints, and skin paler than platinum showed itself in the glare. Turning her head slightly aside to escape the light, she asked, "Found her?"

There was no need to say who. Only one person alive could chafe her nerves this raw.

"...My apologies. We have been unable to establish Lady Shahal's present whereabouts."

Shahal. The vice-master of the Black Hand — and her sworn younger sister. Now even a man, and not a raven, delivered her ill tidings. That plainly displeased Eliza; she turned her head back to the raven.

"I... see. Good work. Go."

But the man's report still had more to it. "However, we did learn her destination."

Her head came back up. "Where."

"After concluding a private contract with an unknown party, she made for the Crossline Kingdom."

"The Crossline Kingdom..."

She remembered. It was by no means a name she heard for the first time. A haunt of fanatics obsessed with that thing called a border — eccentrics who had planted themselves at the heart of the continent to set down in writing everything that crossed their threshold.

Why would Shahal go there? The question gnawed at her. For the likes of us, a written record is nothing but a liability. And a private contract, of all things. Her face creased despite herself. She had pressed on her, time and again, never to take a job on her own authority — and yet, irritation aside, she could roughly guess why she had. Word of another of their kin must have surfaced, and she snatched the contract up on the spot. Again.

A changeling always yearns for others of its kind — closer to racial instinct than to want. She had done so any number of times before, and this time too, she had most likely flung herself in without a thought for consequences for that very reason. The problem was that freelance contracts made guild protection and vetting of the client all but impossible. Unless the party herself reported in person, no one would ever learn whether the job had ended in success or failure — or what storms might follow after. They could not so much as guess whether she lived or died. Granted, with skill like Shahal's, dying would not come easily; her gift for escape was first-rate as well.

And if it is the Crossline Kingdom... — that much granted her some small ease. A land that recorded everything was, by the same token, a land where her sworn sister's trail would be written down somewhere. She knew every alias Shahal habitually wore; even with her true name hidden away, they would know her. Silence drawn out too long is a bad habit — more than ever when someone worries after you. This time, I shall teach her that lesson thoroughly.

She rose slowly to her feet. "There is something I must verify. I will be away from my post."

With the motion, two vast wings unfurled — raven's wings, black as the night sky and glossed with a faint sheen, growing from her shoulders in place of arms.

"Understood. How long do you expect to be gone?"

"One day."

A raven harpy. The race said to be the most accursed of all harpykind — and at once the hardiest and the most savage, classed even among monsters. As she stretched to her full height, the man's gaze climbed upward after her.

"Travel safely, Master. We shall await your return."

Eliza Corvus, Master of the Black Hand, turned her head toward the window. Caw! The cry of a raven — and in this world it signified one thing, and one thing only. Ill omen.

The pitch-black harpy soared up into the sky, all unaware of the dreadful news that awaited her there.