“He’s already made plans to quietly disappear for a few five-days,” Nahrmahn told her. “He’s spread the alert through your organization in Zion—and composed a message for you, as well, although obviously he expects it to take five-days to reach you. In the meantime, he’s been ‘called away on business,’ leaving that assistant of his, Myllyr, to mind the shop. It’s an innocuous enough excuse that he can always come back if there’s no sign that they suspect him. In the meantime, he’ll be safely out of the Inquisition’s reach.”
“That’s all well and good, Nahrmahn,” Sharleyan’s com voice said somberly. “And believe me, from a cold-blooded, strategic perspective, I’m deeply relieved to hear it. But completely aside from the damage their knowledge could do if the Inquisition gains it—and Merlin and Nynian are right; even if all they get is a better understanding of how Helm Cleaver’s organized, they’ll be far more dangerous—there’s what we know is happening to them right now.”
“I know,” Merlin acknowledged, his sapphire eyes dark, his mouth a hard line. “I’ve met both of them—I know them. If I could do anything to get either of them out of St. Thyrmyn’s, I damned well would, Sharley. But we can’t. The prison’s too close to those frigging power sources under the Temple for Nimue or me to stage a seijin jailbreak, and nothing else could possibly work. Helm Cleaver sure as hell can’t break them out!”
“That’s true.” Cayleb’s face was bleak, far older than his actual years. “But there are other forms of escape—like the one we’d’ve given Gwylym, if we’d only been able to figure out how.”
“I know what I’d like to do,” Nimue Chwaeriau said harshly. “You’re right, Merlin—we can’t rescue them. But if they’re so eager to call you and me demons, I say we visit a little demonic vengeance on them.”
“What do you mean?” Merlin asked, and the image Owl had projected into Merlin’s vision showed her teeth.
“I mean we strap a two-thousand-kilo smart bomb onto one of the recon skimmers and drop it right down St. Thyrmyn’s damned chimney!” she snarled. “We program it to use only optical guidance systems, so it’s completely passive, without a damned thing for any sensors in the Temple to see coming, and we blow the entire prison to hell! At the very least, we spare Zhorzhet and Marzho a horrible death—yes, and every other poor bastard in the place, too. But just as important, I think it’s time we gave these sick sons-of-bitches a little of Dialydd Mab’s medicine closer to home. Let Clyntahn and Rayno try to explain why their precious Inquisition’s just been hit by what has to be one of Langhorne’s own Rakurai right in the middle of Zion!”
Agreement rumbled over the com, but Merlin shook his head.
“That could be a good idea,” he said. “It could also be a very bad one, though. For instance, we couldn’t possibly do that with a black powder bomb, and anything more advanced than that might very well cross some parameter in a threat file somewhere. We don’t know whether or not there’s anything under the Temple that would be capable of recognizing high explosives residue when it sees it, and the prison’s so close anything like that would have to get a sniff of the dust. Even if that weren’t true, the law of unanticipated consquences worries me, because we don’t know how Clyntahn and Rayno would spin that kind of an explosion. I’m inclined to think you’re right, Nimue—a lot of people would think that it had to be a Rakurai strike, and that would almost have to be a good thing from our perspective. But there are other ways it could shake out. He might argue that it’s clear proof we really are demons, for instance, and the people who’re already inclined to believe him—and there are a hell of a lot of those people, even now—would probably accept that it was just that. Unless we’re prepared to hit other targets the same way—a lot of other targets—he’ll probably proclaim that we can’t because the ‘Archangels’ have intervened to stop us, and I don’t think we could do that without killing a hell of a lot of innocent people along the way. And from a purely pragmatic viewpoint, we couldn’t be positive, even with the heaviest bomb one of the skimmers could lift, that we’d kill Zhorzhet and Marzho.” His expression was unflinching. “Trust me, if I could be positive of that—positive we’d be sparing them the Question and the Punishment—I’d be a lot more inclined to say damn the consequences, and pull the trigger!”
“I think those are valid points.” Maikel Staynair’s voice was somber, heavy with grief. “And I think we should also bear in mind that whatever we do—or don’t do—hasty decisions may have serious implications for the future. Merlin’s right that the notion of unleashing ‘Rakurai’—especially in Zion—is something we should consider very carefully before we act. And before we do, we should be very clear on when and where any of those future strikes might be in order. Particularly since we can’t strike the Temple itself. As I understand it, that ‘armorplast’ covering it would stop almost any bomb we could throw at it?”
“That’s true,” Cayleb acknowledged heavily. “Mind you, I’m fully in favor of Nimue’s bomb if that’s the best possibility we can come up with, but you and Merlin are right. That sort of escalation could take us places we don’t want to go … and we can’t be positive it would save our people from the Question. I think we have to be careful our desperation to do something doesn’t lead us into doing exactly the wrong thing.”
Nimue looked rebellious, but she settled back in her chair in her Manchyr chamber without further argument.
For the moment, at least.
“The prison’s just over the line into Sondheimsborough from Templesborough, right on the edge of the safety zone you established, Merlin,” Nahrmahn said after a moment. “Could we get a SNARC remote into it safely?”
“I don’t want to actually see what they’re doing to them, Nahrmahn!” Aivah said harshly.
“I wasn’t thinking about that,” he said, and shook his head, his expression gentle. “To be honest, monitoring their questioning so we know what may have been gotten out of them would be of critical importance, but I wouldn’t expect anyone except Owl and me to actually view any of the take from the sensors. That wasn’t what I had in mind, though—not really.”
“Then what were you thinking about?” Merlin asked.
“I was thinking about the sabotage function.” Nahrmahn’s image frowned. “I remember something you said a long time ago, Merlin—something about the remotes’ incendiary capability and how it could have been used to eliminate … someone.”
The pause before the pronoun was barely noticeable, but Merlin understood it perfectly. And he also understood why, with Irys part of the conversation, the deceased Prince of Emerald didn’t want to explain that the candidate for assassination in question had been her father.
“I remember the conversation,” he said out loud. “You’re thinking about penetrating St. Thyrmyn’s, finding them, maneuvering a couple of the incendiaries into their ear canals, and setting them off.”
Aivah looked at him with a horrified expression, and he reached out and took her hand in his.
“It would be quick,” he told her quietly. “Very quick, especially compared to what they’re already facing. In fact, it would almost certainly be faster and less painful than Nimue’s bomb.”