Matabar

Book II. Chapter 44 - Broken

Ardan was reaching for his hat when the cold iron of a gun barrel struck his temple hard.

“No jokes, mage,” the sheriff ground out. “I know that if that stick of yours isn’t in your hand, you can’t do a thing.”

What a strange way of speaking she had… but Sheriff Sestrova was right. Ardan’s staff was indeed standing to the side, and the young man made a point of not touching it. He did so for the simple reason that, no matter how crudely, ambiguously, and at times, frankly vulgarly the Larand sheriff expressed herself, she possessed a sharp mind that shone through her steady gaze. If Ardi had been sleeping with his arms wrapped around his staff, Sestrova would never have approached him.

Ardi, keeping his hands open and raised, tensed his thighs and rose to his feet, finding himself a head and a half taller than the woman, who was not small by human standards. Up close, her body looked even more awkward, but her face was quite harmonious. Not that Sestrova’s appearance concerned Ardan in the slightest, except for a pattern he had noticed over the last year.

Usually, when a woman found herself doing a typically male job, some part of her appearance—most often her face or hands—bore autobiographical marks that were ready to tell the story of why her path had diverged so greatly. But no matter how closely Ardan looked at this woman, he couldn’t for the life of him figure out how she had ended up as a sheriff.

Yes, the Fatian Massacre had happened long ago, which meant that women had been permitted (due to the number of retired nurses and a shortage of military personnel in general) to serve in the guard corps and wear a marshal’s insignia, but a sheriff… It was all very strange.

“I already told you that you’re not my type, beanpole,” Sestrova spat. She didn’t do so for the sake of being rude, but out of habit.

“I’m betrothed, Mrs-”

“It’s sheriff, handsome, sheriff, not Mrs. anything,” she interrupted, poking him in the chest with her revolver as if driving home a point. “You can call your fiancée ‘Mrs.’ I suppose. If that’s what gets you going. I hear you mages are all perverts.”

Ardi didn’t understand what she meant by that. In truth, he didn’t even know why he had mentioned Tess at all. It was as if… as if he found it unpleasant that his commitment to a true and loving relationship could be doubted.

“I don’t see any metal on that appendage of yours.”

“Sleeping Spirits! I can barely understand you!” Ard finally burst out.

“Allow me to translate into the language of yellow-bellied virgins, Mr. Egobar. You know, the kind who’ve only seen their bride from a distance,” Sestrova said, looking him straight in the eye without a trace of fear. “There is no ring on the fourth finger of your right hand.”

“I don’t have the money to buy one yet,” Ardan answered honestly.

“And that is precisely why you’ve deigned to show up here, in Larand, to… what? Hm?” She jerked her revolver a little higher, tracing it across his cheek—not the most pleasant of sensations. “To get some experience with the nuns, and then head beyond the Perimeter? Looking for easy coin? Well, I have bad news for you, mage. You’ll die with a dry cock, a wet purse, and your ass torn open. Or your stomach. Depends on what guts you, how, and with what, I suppose. The Dead things aren’t picky.”

Every woman doing a man’s job that Ardan had ever met (and there had been quite a few) was as different from the next as a stone is from the wind, yet they all shared a certain characteristic similarity. Their language was often coarser than that of even their most foul-mouthed male colleagues.

Fortunately, during her heated and lengthy, but exceedingly rapid speech, the young man had managed to latch onto a few words. “Perimeter” and “Dead things” chief among them. Only…

“A local,” Ardan said, slightly surprised. “You’re a local. From Larand.”

“Let’s assume that’s true, you sharp-eyed half-blood,” the sheriff spat again.

Again, her words did not hold even a drop of the hatred that normally radiated from the followers of the Tavsers. Sestrova merely spoke in a similar fashion, but she held no true prejudice or grudge against the Firstborn in her soul.

“Your surname… Sestrova… you’re from the orphanage. You’re a graduate of the Larand-”

She moved her revolver, and Ardi let out a slight rasp as the barrel dug in beneath his ribs. It wasn’t painful, but it was deeply uncomfortable.

“It seems like we’ve switched roles, boy,” the sheriff said. She was indeed significantly older than him by a whole eight, if not nine years, but using ‘boy…’ Ah. Right. That strange manner of speaking… “I know, of course, that there are men who prefer it when they’re not the one behind, but when the prostitute is…” She smiled slyly and winked. “I’m afraid your virgin ears couldn’t handle such details. What were you doing at the monastery?”

“Leaving a donation for the orphanage.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, the sheriff moved the barrel from his chest… not to Ard’s forehead, but she instead pressed it directly into his groin. It was so sudden and unexpected that Ardan tried to flinch away, but his shoulder blades hit the rough bark of a tree.

“I will shoot you, mage. And your wet dreams about nuns will remain just that—the fevered delusions of a horny-”

“I am not horny!” Ard couldn’t hold back again. “You have an amulet. You know perfectly well I’m not lying.”

For a long moment, silence hung in the pine grove, broken only by the nocturnal sounds of the forest, the creaking of treetops, and a soft chewing. The steppe horse, which was observing the scene, calmly munched on moss and showed no inclination to come to the aid of its temporary ally.

It was as Shali had used to say: “A hunter can trust no prey, but especially not the domesticated kind.”

“I know,” the sheriff did not deny it. “Just as I know you didn’t lie about searching for someone important to you. But you know what?”

She paused. It was a theatrical pause, so Ardan didn’t interrupt her.

“People don’t really talk like that.”

Ardi nearly choked on his indignation.

“And you’re the one telling me that?!”

“Is something wrong?” The sheriff blinked.

Sleeping Spirits…

“It doesn’t matter…”

“I think it does matter, mage,” she said, rocking her revolver. A shiver of pure terror ran down Ardi’s spine. Sestrova really could shoot him. He made a mental note that people were not equations and that Ardan did not know how to calculate them. “It matters that you keep dodging a straight answer and feeding me all sorts of crap.”

Ardi had heard a similar expression from Arkar once, so he understood her meaning.

“You have no objective reason to detain me,” Ard said, admitting his temporary defeat and deciding to retreat. It had been a bad idea to think himself Milar’s equal. What an experienced Cloak with years of service behind him could pull off with the Crimson Lady was far beyond the reach of a mage who had served for less than a year. “Either charge me with something or let me go.”

It had been foolish to hope that he could use Sestrova for his own interests. But he who makes no mistakes, learns nothing—that was Atta’nha’s wisdom.

Sestrova blinked a few more times, then burst out laughing. It was a laugh that was clear, ringing and light. It didn’t fit her awkward appearance or her harsh way of speaking at all. If Ardan had been blind, that laugh alone would have made him imagine someone ethereal, carefree and still very young.

It was a child’s laugh.

The same kind he had heard at the monastery…

“You’re a fool, mage,” Sestrova stated. “This isn’t the Metropolis. It’s not even Nigrad. I’ll shoot you right here, right now. And using that nag of yours, I’ll drag you to the cliff and throw you into the sea. Do you believe me?”

He did. Ardan really believed that if the sheriff didn’t get the answers she was looking for, she would do exactly that. But… like Balitsky, Maryana Sestrova was not a bloodthirsty killer who had only one solution for every difficult situation—to snuff out the source of the problem. No. She was a normal… a relatively normal person. And the thought of killing, even if justified, repulsed her, just as it did all normal people, including Ardan himself.

That was why she had first threatened his… groin, and only then the rest of him to which said groin was attached.

And if you put those parameters into a func… if you took these character traits into account, then there had to be very serious reasons for such threats, let alone such potential actions. So serious, in fact, that someone who sincerely served the law would decide to break it. And not for the sake of evil. For good.

Sestrova… Maryana Sestrova… A woman who became a sheriff… and once lived in the Larand Orphanage…

“Slimy will come, Slimy will take you, and everyone will forget you. You were-”

Ardan didn’t get to finish. The sheriff, moving with a speed that left no doubt about her professional competence, lunged at him. She slammed her shoulder into Ardi’s chest while simultaneously sweeping his legs out from under him. Ardan fell flat on his back, his hat flying to one side, and the heated barrel of the gun pressed into his cheek, cutting into his skin.

“What do you know, you scum?!” Sestrova hissed through clenched teeth, flecks of foamy saliva landing on his neck due to her barely-contained rage. “Speak, you bastard, or I will kill you so slowly that you’ll come to hate your Firstborn blood!”

Spit dripped onto his neck. Foamy and hot. But it was the other drops that burned. They were rare. Solitary. Salty… Scalding tears that left instantly-drying, glistening tracks on Sestrova’s cheeks.

Ardi had seen their kind before. In Lea Morimer’s memories, as she’d lain on the grave of her parents that had been taken by sickness. In Selena Lorlov’s memories. At the cemetery, when they’d buried Edward. He had seen them on his own face, too. And on his mother’s…

“It didn’t work on you, Sheriff…” Ardan whispered.

“Shut up! Answer the question! What do you know about-”

“Slimy’s curse didn’t work,” Ardi raised his hands and gently, carefully, as if a single clumsy movement could shatter the fragile vessel that had for years held a storm straining to break free, he reached for her. “You never forgot the one they stole from you. In all these years, you never forgot.”

He hugged her. Just hugged. As a long-lost friend. He didn’t know why he did it. It just seemed like if he didn’t, he would never forgive himself later. For what? Why?

Thoughts for tomorrow.

They lay like that for only a few moments, until she shook herself off like an angry cat and got to her feet. She wiped away her tears and blew her nose like a cowboy, pressing a thumb to one nostril and exhaling snot from the other. Even after six years, Ardi had never managed to master that particular trick, and after once soiling his shirt to everyone’s amusement, he had given up on trying.

“Enough lying around, Cloak,” she said, holstering her revolver and offering him a hand up.

“Cloak?” Ardi, accepting her help, tried to put on the most plausible expression of innocent confusion he could manage. “If you mean my insignia, I took it off before entering the monastery. It’s in my saddlebag. I’ll put it on in a jif-”

“Do I look like an idiot to you?” Sestrova adjusted her hat, which had somehow managed to stay on. “I’ve had dealings with your kind before. Bastards just like you, who’ll shake out your soul and everything else with those unwashed appendages of yours. Just show me your identification so I can be sure.”

For a few moments, Ardan stood there like he’d been doused with cold water, but knowing how to admit defeat was one of the first things his forest friends had taught him. If you fought in the rough, sometimes brutal games of hunter cubs without knowing your limits, you could find yourself walking the invisible paths of the Sleeping Spirits very quickly.

In the end, he had managed to stay incognito. Even if only for a few days.

With a sigh, Ardi reached into the inner pocket of his jacket.

“Careful, now,” the sheriff rested her hand on the grip of her revolver. “It’s not like I trust you all that much, Mr. Egobar.”

Mr. Egobar…

As he handed over the black leather folder with the Empire’s crest, Ardi figured something else out.

“When you ordered your deputy to send a letter to the guards to find out about me, you knew I would hear you.”

The sheriff, after verifying the authenticity of his documents, handed them back.

“You’re not the first Firstborn on my road, Corporal,” Sestrova said, only now removing her hand from her revolver’s grip and releasing the hammer.

She turned and walked over to the steppe horse. She stroked its muzzle slowly, whispering something. She did so soundlessly, with her lips alone. In the darkness, she was probably almost invisible. But not to the eyes of a Matabar.

Ardan stood and watched the sheriff. On the surface, nothing about her could explain why a woman, especially out here on the frontier, might wear a sheriff’s badge. However, on the inside… Inside her was hidden the same child who had handed Ard a handmade horse during the day.

A small, frightened girl who had clung to this life with her fingernails and refused to let go until she reached her goal.

“I didn’t believe in those scary stories either,” Sestrova finally broke the silence after nearly ten minutes. “Nobody there believes them, Corporal. But everyone tells them. Because they feel it. When they wake up. When they make noise in the dining hall. When they sit at their desks. When they walk around and when they go to sleep. They feel that something is wrong. And everyone around them just keeps repeating, like a broken record…”

She clenched her fist so tightly that she nearly pierced her skin with her nails. She brought it to her teeth and was about to bite down, but then stopped at the very last moment. Ardi noticed the small dots on her thumb and index finger, left there by her teeth. They were like burns from sparks. Old scars.

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So, there were marks after all. Ardan just hadn’t been able to see them right away. Ergar and Shali would not have been pleased to hear he’d made such a mistake, but his forest friends, and he himself, did not understand people.

“We felt it too,” Sestrova continued her unbidden story. Ard didn’t even need to unleash his Witch’s Gaze. The words themselves tore from her chest. They rushed to throw off the chains with which she had bound them to her pain for so long. “Me and Marin. My brother. My twin… Maybe that’s why the curse didn’t work on me, Corporal? Because we’re twins? We always had this strange connection. He could finish my sentences, and I always knew where to find him. And how he was feeling… And even now, I sometimes think I can still feel him. Like how war cripples sometimes feel pain in their amputated limbs, the ones that aren’t even there anymore. It’s like that for me. It hurts... It hurts and whispers to me that Marin is still somewhere behind those bastard walls. That he’s in there. In the underground cells.”

“Underground cells?”

Sestrova just smiled. But not like before. Not with insolence and arrogance. It was an empty sort of smile. Meaningless, even. It was as if she knew she was supposed to smile, even feign a look of sad amusement, but she had no strength left with which she could feel any real emotions anymore.

“They didn’t tell you, did they? They don’t tell anyone…” Sestrova stepped away from the horse and, standing next to Ard, leaned her back against the tree. “There used to be underground passages between the buildings there. Carved into the cliffs with embrasures and everything. They used them to fire on ships straight from the rock face. And when the fort was reconstructed, the passages were turned into cells for hermitesses. Then the hermitesses were gone, and they were just abandoned. A few have cellars and locked doors. But at night, sometimes, if you listen very closely, you can hear sounds. The children scare each other by saying it’s Old Slimy.”

Ardan didn’t rush her story. Not because he wasn’t in a hurry, but because he didn’t know how to act around a person from whom pain was literally seeping. If you held out your hand, it would have pooled there like a dark, bitter sludge reminiscent of a swamp mire. It was just as foul-smelling and just as likely to pull you under, never letting you reach the light.

“And then…” She faltered after all.

Ardan stood there for a moment and, after realizing that Sestrova couldn’t continue on her own, asked:

“You were eleven, weren’t you? When your twin disappeared, you were both eleven?”

He would have given anything—to the Sleeping Spirits, to the Eternal Angels, to anyone—for her to answer “no.”

“Yes,” the sheriff nodded. “How did you know? Do you people at the Black House know something?”

Ardan closed his eyes for a moment. Eleven… the same age as the children at the underground tram station, at the Irigov estate, in the vampire’s lair, and, most importantly, in the records he had found at the Grand University at the beginning of the year.

Neuroplasticity.

That’s what Lea Morimer had called it.

“We have our suspicions. That’s why I’m here.”

“A rosy-cheeked youngster like you?” Sestrova raised her eyebrows slightly. “I know a thing or two about Firstborn, but you’re… hard to figure out. How old are you, mage? Twenty? Twenty-one? And that staff of yours is hardly a military model.”

“Eighteen,” Ardi answered quietly.

Sestrova drew a deep breath and almost screamed:

“Eighteen?! Eighteen, for fuck’s sake?!” She nearly started shaking with anger. “You’re just a student! Not just a student, but a… what do you call it… a second-year!”

“I’m about to start my second year,” Ardan corrected her.

“You’re really not helping your case right now, Corporal…” Sestrova waved a dismissive hand. “Is the Black House mocking me? They might as well have sent a cadet fresh from the academy…”

They fell silent for a while, just standing there in the night, listening to the sounds of the forest and feeling the sea breeze on their faces.

“Marin disappeared in the evening,” Sestrova suddenly returned to the previous topic. It was like the short outburst had helped her gather her strength a little. “We were going to sleep. We were gonna sleep in the same bed, as always. They only allowed us to do that… The other kids sometimes tried to joke about it, but Marin was never at a loss for words. And if needed, he could pull a fist out of his pocket, too… And… Eternal Angels… I don’t remember, Corporal… I don’t remember…” She wrapped her arms around her shoulders and shivered. “I don’t remember… I don’t remember a damn thing! I remember falling asleep. But after that… it’s a blur. And he always woke up first. And I would wake up because I could feel that he was awake. But that morning, if it hadn’t been for the bell, I would have just lain there. I opened my eyes and there was no one beside me. I didn’t think I was mistaken. I didn’t think Marin had just stepped out. No. No! No…” She lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “I knew. I knew something was wrong with him. Because it wasn’t just him that was gone, but his things, too. And even the stupid carving on the headboard that the matrons and sisters had scolded us for, the one with our names, wasn’t there anymore. Only mine. Only my name. Not his. And in its place…”

“A burn mark,” Ardan glanced toward his saddlebag where he had put Zirka’s toy.

Sestrova let out a choked sob and nodded.

“I screamed. I was hysterical. And no one remembered. Can you imagine it, Corporal? No one in the entire orphanage remembered Marin. Not the children. Not the matrons. Not the sisters. Not the lay workers. No one. Absolutely no one. Fucking… Fucking Old Slimy…” Sestrova, like Ardan had a moment ago, pressed her back against the tree and slid down, scraping the bark and surely tearing her skin, but that was probably what she wanted. “I searched for five years. Every day. And every night. I got caught. They scolded me. I searched again. Got caught again. They locked me in the obedience room. A couple of times, they even used the switch on me when I tore out one sister’s hair and gouged out her eye, but they didn’t break me, Corporal. No. To hell with them. They didn’t break me…” Her heart was beating the way a liar’s heart beats. And Sestrova knew it… “I graduated. Went to Nigrad as a farrier’s assistant. And there, I was lucky enough to get hired as a secretary in the sheriff’s office. You won’t believe it, Corporal—those hundreds of hours the sisters made me spend with books and problem sets came in handy. That was their punishment for my ‘heresy and ravings’ or whatever they called it…”

She wiped away two solitary tears again. She simply couldn’t cry anymore. She had spent her tears back then, all the way in her childhood and youth.

“Then they sent me north. To Snowy Lake. I won’t go into details, Corporal, but after some stupid decisions by men and a couple of bold steps from one orphan woman… and there you go,” she flicked her badge with a finger. “It took another couple of years to get back to Nigrad. But I couldn’t come straight back here. I had to let everyone get used to it. To me. To my badge. And to the order signed by the Senior Sheriff of the Empire. He handed it to me personally, by the way.”

Ardan nodded to himself. That was more or less how he had imagined her appointment had gone.

“And now, for the second season in a row, I’m back here. Searching again. Digging up the earth again. Because I can hear him. Every day. It’s like…” She curled her fingers into a clawed hand and shook it by her temple. “…like a constant itch. Like something is humming. And you hear it, hear it, hear it every day. You can’t not hear it… And also because, Corporal, whatever they might think behind their stupid walls, they didn’t break me… They didn’t break me!” She slammed her fist into the ground so hard that she might have broken the more fragile bones in it. It looked like she was trying to hammer this truth into herself and something else at the same time. It was like she needed it to believe for sure that yes—they hadn’t broken her. “Listen, Corporal… fuck me, will you? My soul feels so foul… It’s maddening… Let’s do it like animals. Rough and dirty. Maybe even with some blood. I can take it. I always have.”

“No,” was all Ardan said.

“Because of your fiancée?”

“Just no,” he repeated.

“Well, go to hell then, you unfeeling half-blood scum,” Sestrova said without malice.“A real man would have me. ”“I'm not a man. ”

“I know. ”

They fell silent again. The stars were already shining overhead, and a bright, silvery moon rolled out from behind the clouds.

“Do you have a plan?” Sestrova asked.

Ardan turned to her and looked down into her eyes.

Skusty would not have approved.

“Yes,” he lied.

“Good,” Sestrova nodded.

Maybe she knew he was lying, maybe she didn’t even doubt it, but she wanted to believe him. She wanted to do so and so she did, because the wounded Sheriff Maryana Sestrova and the Sisters of Light had far more in common than one could see on the surface.

***

They rode slowly along the path that wound through the sparse woods. In the east, the sky, which had seemed to be pulling on a cloak of inky haze just a short while ago, was now rapidly kindling the fire of a summer dawn. Only the harsh wind that was herding storm clouds ever closer together saved their eyes from the light that beat against them.

Ardan rode slightly behind Sheriff Sestrova, whose black horse moved with a slow roll of its croup. She had left it a few hundred meters from where Ardi had been “sleeping.” As the sheriff had later explained, she had based her judgment on the hearing of orcs.

Due to being born to live on the steppes, orcs possessed excellent hearing and sight, but their sense of smell was not the best. And so the sheriff had concluded that Ardan, too, would not be able to smell the horse, but he could certainly hear it.

But that didn’t matter.

They had spent the entire night on a rocky cliff, watching the monastery. And although Ardi had said that he wanted to make sure his visit hadn’t caused anyone in the monastery to “behave strangely,” it had been a largely pointless endeavor. Thanks to the capabilities of the Puppeteers and their numerous… puppets, it would have been no trouble for them to hide their activities where they could not be easily seen.

But only Ardan understood that. The sheriff did not. So, lying on the rock, sometimes turning his face to the sky, the young man had bought himself time to think. In the end, in this particular case, he had no Milar to rely on, with his experience, knowledge, and a certain degree of recklessness.

Moreover… The sheriff still didn’t trust her new acquaintance for obvious reasons, but the habits ingrained by a rigid military hierarchy had done its work. Maryana Sestrova, upon seeing the identification of a Black House employee, had soon forgotten that Ardi was not yet twenty. And so all the decisions, and therefore the plan, would indeed have to be made by him.

If you really thought about it, this changed nothing. It hadn’t changed anything on the airship, nor when Ardan had decided to use himself as bait to get to the Spiders.

The young man glanced at the sheriff’s back.

However, he was not alone this time. He wondered if Milar ever felt the same thing, this sense of being responsible for the outcome of their adventures…

“So, Corporal, you’re suggesting that I should comb through all the records in the Larand administration?” Sestrova’s voice sounded a little sleepy. She had managed to doze off a couple of times during the night thanks to the sun having warmed the grass and stones during the day.

“Yes,” Ardi nodded. He’d managed to sketch out the general contours of a solution by now, at least according to the data he had. “If the fortress’ underground passages were reconstructed, then by law, the Church would have had to hire engineers. And given the military nature of the site, they would have had to be Ley Engineers from the Mages’ Guild. A copy of their records must be kept in the administration’s files for seventy-five years.”

Sestrova adjusted her hat and snorted. Or maybe it was her horse that snorted. At times, both the sheriff and her black steed behaved almost identically.

“You’re not like the mages who sometimes visit here.”

“Are there many of them?”

“From the capital?” The sheriff asked and, without waiting for an answer, immediately continued. “Almost none, to be honest. If they do visit, they don’t show their faces, or… anything else, past Nigrad. If they come ashore on their yachts, then yes—they bother the monastery.”

Ardan made a quick mental note—a capital mage with a pleasure yacht, while not a common occurrence, was not unique. Even so, perhaps this would be useful to him…

“And how am I different from them?” Ardan continued the conversation.

They were riding at a very leisurely pace, so there was no danger of biting his tongue.

“Besides your half-blood appearance, Corporal?” The sheriff let a venomous chuckle. “You’re calm, somehow. Like you’ve drunk a couple of barrels of chamomile and lavender tea.”

The first thing Guta had taught Ardi was to remain calm and never show any signs of his intentions or worries. And this had probably become a habit for him long ago, but one that had been showing some cracks more and more often lately.

“And you’re self-assured. And in a way that’s… unpleasant, maybe. It makes me want to shoot you in the leg, just so you don’t think I can’t do it. I don’t know how else to explain it,” the sheriff waved her hand vaguely in the air. “You usually get that feeling when you’re around military mages. If you believe those who’ve encountered them, of course. I’ve never met one myself.”

Yes… of course… To Ardan, military mages, and mages in general, mutants, chimeras, Cloaks, werewolves, vampires, and everything else that was used to scare children and was written about in less popular newspapers, had become commonplace over the past year. The vast majority of the Empire’s population might not even believe in the existence of some of the aforementioned creatures.

“But you really couldn’t,” Ardi clarified. “Only if you shot me from behind. From another building. In such a way that I wouldn’t be able to-”

The sheriff’s hand dropped, and she twisted in the saddle. She drew her revolver fast enough. Faster than some of the Cloaks in Yonatan Kornosskiy’s own squad. But not faster than Yonatan himself. And, of course, she was no match for Alexander or Din. And there was no question of her matching the speed with which Grand Magister Edward Aversky had been able to form his seals.

And so, by the time she clicked her cocked hammer, a needle of ice had already formed before her face, and the soapy film of a Universal Shield was shimmering around Ardi. The horses snorted and shook their heads, clearly protesting such recklessness. Even if there was no real recklessness here.

The sheriff had just wanted to check who exactly she was about to trust with her back.

“I’m starting to feel better about the fact that you were only recently weaned from your mother’s teat,” the sheriff whistled with no small amount of respect and returned her revolver to its holster.

Ardan dismissed the spells while calculating how many kso such a small demonstration of his skills had cost him. He didn’t bother to clarify that just a year and a half ago, he wouldn’t have had time to form the seals, and would most likely have fallen out of his saddle in shock…

“Alright, let’s say I manage to find these records and blueprints,” the sheriff continued their conversation after a short pause, turning to face forward again. It was as if she hadn’t just pointed a revolver at Ardan for the umpteenth time. “How will they help us?”

Ardan was sometimes amazed at the level of intellect and competence possessed by the Mages’ Guild Council on Education. It was truly surprising that even a course like the History of Magic was now a deciding factor in the success of this dubious enterprise.

“According to the rules of fortification, any underground structures must have drainage systems in case the lower passages flood.”

Sestrova clicked her tongue.

“I didn’t study at universities, Corporal, and my school curriculum evaporated from my head along with, as you’ve put it several times, the basic rules of decency.”

Yes, during their “surveillance” of the monastery last night, Ard had been unable to restrain himself several times and had reminded Sestrova that it wasn’t necessary to express herself in a way that made everyone around them almost marvel at the degree of vulgarity uttered. Needless to say, the sheriff had ended up launching into an angry tirade and reminding him that it wasn’t his place to tell her what to do.

And he hadn’t even been telling her anything.

He had only commented on it, but, alas…

“There should be a drain outlet,” Ardan explained. “So the enemies of the past couldn’t just cause a flood.”

“Like in a privy.”

“Almost…”

“And what good will that do us?”

“Given that the fort was on a rocky cliff, the drainage must have been designed to account for the possibility of a partial rock collapse.”

This time, it was Professor Convel’s lectures that came in handy.

“Corporal!” The sheriff raised her voice slightly.

Ardan sighed. In some ways, Sestrova and Milar were similar. To one of them, Ardi constantly had to explain concepts related to the Ley, and to the other… the concepts of fortification. Okay, fair enough, that was probably an even more specific piece of knowledge.

“Somewhere below sea level, the monastery should have another entrance. One barred with grates and positioned so that it isn’t exposed at low tide.”

The sheriff whistled again.

“And couldn’t they have used such a contraption during a siege?”

“We’re talking about several centuries in the past, Sheriff,” Ardan glanced toward the ocean visible through the gaps between the trees. “Even now, descending to the seabed requires complex equipment, special machines to pump air, and a very fragile hose through which it is supplied to the diving suit. And moving in all of that, with the equipment weighing almost ninety kilograms, even considering the fact that it feels lighter in the water, is still too difficult.”

“Thanks for the boring lecture, Corporal, I mostly tuned it out,” Sestrova seemed to take pleasure in making people uncomfortable. “You could have just said ‘no’ instead.”

“No, they could not have,” Ardan repeated slowly.

“Excellent! And why can we? If it’s that deep, and the tide will soon be coming in, and there’s also a storm brewing…” Sestrova just managed to grab her hat to keep it from being carried away by another gust of wind. “How will your passage help us if it wasn’t designed for humans to use?”

“It’ll help us because I am not a human, Sheriff.”

“Ah, right… Can you be more specific?”

Ardan nearly choked on his indignation again.

“Are you mocking me?”

“Yes,” Sestrova answered immediately. “Because you react to it in a very amusing way, and I don’t have much else to do.”

Ardan just exhaled something unintelligible in the language of the steppe orcs and, pointedly falling silent, opened his grimoire. Yes, it would be difficult, but if he prepared in advance… For example, he could make a concoction from the local flora using the art of the Aean’Hane to hold his breath longer. And he would need an ointment for his eyes to see properly underwater. Not to mention that he probably wouldn’t be able to cast spells down there, so he would need something to break the grate with. Something silent, but very, very effective.

Maybe he could try to make the Powder of the Sleeping Sun? But where would he get emerald dust, plates from a Fire-Bearer (a creature like an armadillo, but with a fiery shell instead of a regular one), and volcanic ash soaked in ale? It was unlikely he could get anything like that even in Nigrad, where there were no universities or institutes, and thus no Ley-shops, either.

Yes, that was the biggest issue with this “plan.”

“You know what the biggest issue with your plan is, Corporal?” Sestrova asked unexpectedly, making Ardi jump slightly in his saddle.

“The Fire-Bearer plates?” Ardi guessed, not sounding very confident.

“What?” The sheriff turned sharply toward him.

“It’s a creature that-”

“I don’t give a damn unless its mere gaze can make my whole body tremble like…” Sestrova started and then stopped. “I’ll spare your delicate ears, Corporal. Anyway. I don’t know anything about your Fire-whatsit, but if you know about these passages, then so do the people in there. So, even if we manage to use them, we certainly won’t go unnoticed.”

Ardan, who had just taken out a pencil, slowly put it back. Milar was constantly reminding him that besides magic, he needed to pay attention to everything else in a case as well.

“We need a distraction,” Ardan said, his eyes narrowing.

“The Day of Weeping,” Sestrova reminded him. “On that day, the monastery will be flooded with supplicants, so you won’t get a better opportunity. There’s just one tiiiiny little catch. But, I’m sure that for a big half-blood like you, with an equally big staff, it won’t be a problem.”

Ardan sighed and looked up at the sky again.

By the looks of it, the storm would hit the rocky shore on exactly the Day of Weeping.

How Ardi hated adventures…