“You’re not fully Palo?” Vlora asked in surprise.
“I’m half-Adran,” Burt said with a smile. “But I don’t look it.” He continued with his story. “My father was something of a Fatrastaphile – he loved everything about this continent, and colonial expansion was one of the few things that I’ve ever seen him get worked up about. Together with my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, and my mother, he began to make a plan for the future of his tribe, to protect them from the Kressian encroachment.
“Geography was our ally. Without inside knowledge, the Ironhook Mountains are very difficult to cross, and the wilds beyond them are vast. For fifty years, no one has questioned the fact that Kressian explorers rarely return from their expeditions north. And for fifty years, no one in the Nine has questioned the wealthy, eccentric savages sent to learn at Kressian universities. You’ve gawked and laughed, but never thought twice. And during that time, we learned.” Burt stopped, cleared his throat. “I’ve gone on too long, so here is a better summary: Beginning with my grandfather, the Palo Nation has studied you without being studied back. We have co-opted the best parts of your civilization. The tribes were united, the hereditary chieftain system replaced with democracy. We have become the thing that Lindet and all the rest of the colonial powers fear the most: natives who have modernized before we could be crushed underfoot.”
A long silence hung in the air, and Burt took advantage of it to relight his cigar. He’d finished his tale with a measure of emotion, but it disappeared back into tranquility as he puffed up a storm of cigar smoke.
“Why are you telling us this?” Vlora asked.
Burt pointed his cigar at her. “Because I’m laying all my cards on the table. Because the Palo Nation won’t remain hidden forever, and I, if you’ll remember, am half Adran. I quite like Adro. It is the only democracy in the Nine, and I would like very much to lay the groundwork of an alliance.”
Vlora felt like she’d been punched in the face. This was not what she’d expected when she came here looking for the godstones, not even in the slightest. Taniel’s warnings about the Palo Nation were, in retrospect, not emphatic enough. “I think that our politicians would be amenable to the idea. But I’m not one of them.”
“You’re a damned war hero, an Adran general, and a member of the Republic Cabal. I can think of perhaps five people who would be more advantageous to have this conversation with. None of them are here, and none of them quite have your reputation for civility.”
“I see. Consider me intrigued. But there are plenty of things to worry about before a formal alliance. Where do the godstones come into this? Or the Dynize, for that matter.”
“The Dynize,” Burt repeated, pulling a sour face. “They’re one of the reasons we’re having this conversation. If they win this war, they won’t be satisfied with tall tales from over the mountains. They will explore north, in force, and they will do so with far more violence and organization than Lindet can manage. For all her intelligence, she’s been holding together a house of cards by sheer willpower and has had no interest in pursuing rumors of our existence. I’m not convinced the Dynize will feel the same way.”
“And the godstone?”
Burt frowned at Olem, then at Vlora. “We are a secular society. We have destroyed our idols, forgotten our gods, and we are better for it. My spies tell me that you and Lindet fell out because you wanted to destroy the stone, so I say this: By all means, destroy it. My government wants nothing to do with the damned thing. If we could have found it, we would have already removed it to the farthest reaches of our territory just to keep it out of Lindet’s hands.” Something must have shown in Vlora’s face, because Burt lifted an eyebrow. “You’ve found it, haven’t you?”
“And we’re working toward destroying it,” Vlora replied.
“Excellent.” Burt stood up, clapping his hands together. “Can you do it before the Dynize arrive?”
“We hope so,” Vlora said hesitantly.
“You have four days.”
“Actually, we only have two. We have to destroy it, then get out of here before the Dynize arrive. The Dynize have instructions to take my head.”
“Why?” Burt asked with disgust.
“Because I humiliated their general, or whatever he wants to call himself, back at Landfall.”
“Ah,” Burt said. “Nothing like a despot who takes things personally. The Dynize and Kressians aren’t all that different, are they?”
“We all want to be the last ones standing,” Olem commented.
“Now, that’s just everyone.” Burt raised his glass of whiskey. “You will have what help I can give you. The town is yours to billet your men, but as you suggest, you shouldn’t tarry. Destroy the godstone or make preparations to move it immediately.”
Vlora considered the offer for a moment, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Where was the price, or the betrayal? Was Burt seriously doing all this just to make a friend in the Nine? “You do realize that putting us up, even for a night or two, will earn the anger of the Dynize? If we leave, the town will be undefended.”
“I know,” Burt said with a sigh. “I’ve spent the last few years trying to take this town over by wile, to turn it into a beachhead for my country without Lindet finding out. Everything changed when the Dynize invaded, though. If they head our way, we will eject the prospectors and dynamite the passes. They might take the town, but my people will be safe up in the high places.”
“Even if they have Privileged?”
“We are not … undefended when it comes to sorcery.”
Vlora wondered what Taniel would say when she told him about this conversation. She would have to do it slowly, so she could cast his expression to memory. She stood up, putting out her hand. “We’ll do our best to be gone well before the Dynize arrive. Thank you, Burt. And I hope this is the start of a long friendship.”
Chapter 56
Michel sat on a stool, the only piece of furniture in a looted, upscale tenement apartment on the northwest edge of the Landfall Plateau. His eyes were closed, his mind wandering, as he considered the options available to him from this point out.
The apartment was, as far as Michel could tell, the nicest of Taniel’s safe houses. It had tall ceilings and enormous, south-facing windows in the great room, and even a master bedroom with a balcony that looked off the plateau. At some point over the last couple of months it had been thoroughly tossed – a safe in the corner of the master bedroom had been ripped out of the wall, the furniture and silver stolen, and even the gas lines turned off and ripped out of the wall. It was the first time Michel had been to this particular safe house and he was more than a little disappointed to find it in this state.
But it did give him a place to think.
His whole mission with the Dynize was to snatch Mara – Ichtracia – and get her the pit out of Dynize territory. The fact that she was a Privileged made this more like trying to extract a rabid bear rather than an informant. Even if she was a normal person, all his old Blackhat routes were compromised. He needed a new escape route.
And he found himself less eager to use it than he had expected. The Dynize government was a viper’s nest, with Sedial as the king viper ready to kill anything that moved. But part of Michel desperately wanted to finish what he’d started. Hunting down Blackhats had brought out a mean streak in him, a deep satisfaction at rounding up the people whom he’d helped to oppress Landfall for so long. Watching the way the Dynize treated the occupied city, and especially the Palo, had deepened Michel’s hatred of Lindet’s regime. Je Tura’s indiscriminate bombings, his killing of women and children – these gave Michel a real urge to finally put him in the ground.