*
It was ten days before the end of the amnesty when the last of the Venncastle men left the Association. The remaining members of the council gathered in their chamber at daybreak the next morning. It was strange to see the room so empty; Venncastle’s contribution to the council had far outweighed its proportion of men in the wider organisation. They hadn’t been the only defectors – a handful of others had reluctantly expressed a feeling that their duties to the Empire outweighed any allegiance to the Association itself – but they were by far the largest group to depart.
“Before we begin, I must ask whether anyone is still undecided,” Ragal said once they were all seated.
Silence.
“Then, if you are all certain, we must plan our next steps.”
“What are we considering?” Bill asked.
“First, we move,” Laban said. “We’re vulnerable here.”
“Where can we go?” Eleanor asked.
“We always knew we might lose favour with the Empire one day – the plans for a new headquarters were made years ago.”
“But won’t the others have told the Empress’s forces where we’ll go?”
“We knew there would be traitors, too,” Nathaniel said. “None of us knows where we’ll be falling back to, but three people hold keys to the vault where that information is stored. I have one and Ragal has one – the third is with Nicholas. We’ll have to get that one back from him, but that’s all.”
“How do you propose we do that?” Ragal asked. “We must assume it’s in Imperial hands now, and they won’t surrender it willingly.”
Nathaniel shook his head. “No. Nicholas will have kept it for Venncastle. If we’ve learnt one thing, it’s that any alliance with that school lasts only as long as it serves them.”
“Quite right,” Daniel agreed. “Venncastle will not surrender a single ounce of power to the Empire without proper payment, and the Empress would not know to be interested in this.”
“Indeed, even most of the Association never knew of these plans,” Laban said. “It’s bad for morale to have people thinking you might need an escape route. Aside from the key-holders only a few of us have ever known, even within the council.”
“Why bother with the key?” Eleanor asked. “Why can’t we just break open the third lock?”
“Remember this was designed by people like us,” Nathaniel said. “There are safeguards in place.”
“What safeguards?”
“The details are lost to history, but we understand there’s some mechanism to destroy everything if anyone tries to break the locks. It would be better not to risk it.”
“Do you think Nicholas might bargain for the key?” Bill asked. “Do we have anything left that Venncastle wants?”
“We cannot make any bargain with them,” Daniel said. “We cannot trust them.”
“But the key can’t be any use to them,” Eleanor said. “So if they’d trade something for it...”
“We cannot trust them to keep to any agreement.” Daniel’s voice was firm. “We must not give them chance to create a trap for us.”
“We should never have let him leave,” Bill said. “We should have taken the key from him while we had the chance.”
“He left at the first opportunity,” Ragal said. “Before the implications had really sunk in.”
“We’re still in the amnesty, aren’t we?”
“Yes, for a few days.”
“Well, couldn’t we send someone to meet them under cover of the amnesty? We could scout it out, at the very least, and hopefully work out the best line of attack.”
“It’s not a bad plan,” Ragal said. “Any volunteers? It would have to be one of the younger ones. Someone they might trust to come in peace.”
“I think Eleanor is the closest we have to a wild card,” Laban said, turning to look at her. “No-one really knew which side you’d choose. If you turn yourself over and claim you’ve changed your mind, maybe you can get close enough to Nicholas to get the key.”
“No,” Daniel said. “It is too risky.”
“I’ll do it,” she said. Daniel opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off, sure he was thinking of Raf. But Laban was right: she was the one who could most easily convince them she’d changed her mind. “I’ll go – but it could take a while to work my way close enough to Nicholas. You can’t wait here.”
“No, we’ll move what’s left of the Association to a temporary hideout. We have to get out of the city... it’s probably best to fall back to the Black Wolf Caves, we can defend ourselves there.”
“You’ll have to tell me where that is so I can find you again.”
“It’s easy. Follow the waymarkers over the pass towards Bastion, then head east along the ridge for two days, and down into the Ice River Valley. The caves are in the woods on the north bank, a couple of miles further east beyond the point where the ice cascade joins the river.”
“Okay, I’ll see you there. I’d better go and pack, we don’t have that much time.”
Nathaniel followed her from the room. “I’ll walk with you,” he said. “We should talk about the keys.”
“What about them?”
“Each key is a weight around its owner’s neck.” He twisted his own gold chain around one finger; the key itself dangled far below the collar of his shirt. “And not in the literal sense. The moment you get that third key from Nicholas, your life changes. No more risks. You come straight back to us.”
“That’s what I was going to do.”
“Yes – but you don’t quite appreciate how much it matters. You have a reputation for being impulsive, but once you have a key you can’t get sidetracked by anything else. You can’t run off at a tangent just because the world offers you some opportunity that looks too good to miss.”
“Surely there are some things that are even more important than the keys?”
“Not to you. While you’re carrying a key, your only purpose is to keep it safe. Others can do the other jobs. This becomes your life.”
“That sounds a bit dull,” she said. “I’m glad it’s not for long.”
“Yes, it’ll be different for you, of course. We actually need to use the keys this time. For me and Ragal this has been a duty of years.”
“Can I see yours? I need to know what I’m looking for.”
He pulled it out from beneath his shirt and held it up for her to examine, though he kept the chain looped around his neck. For something so important, it looked very small. It was like no key Eleanor had seen before, with twelve pins arranged in a complex pattern across the head.
“I can’t promise you this will help,” he said. “Mine and Ragal’s are definitely similar, but I’ve never actually seen the key that Nicholas holds. However, we assume they were all wrought by one locksmith.”
“Thanks.”
They reached the door to Eleanor’s building and Nathaniel broke off to finish some business of his own. “Good luck, Eleanor. May the strongest winds blow in your favour.”
She started packing a small bag with the clothes she wanted to take, making a separate pile of things she didn’t expect to need. She was almost satisfied with her selections by the time Daniel arrived from the now-finished council meeting. He barged into her room without knocking, causing the door to slam into the wall.
“What were you thinking?” he demanded. “You cannot do this.”
“Why not?”
“It is very dangerous. You cannot go.”
She sighed. “I never liked you telling me what to do when we were together – what makes you think I’d like it better now?”
“What if I do not trust you to come back?”
“The rest of the council trusts me.” She made up a leather roll with all the weapons she wasn’t already wearing, stuffed it into the top of her travel bag, and pulled the drawstrings closed. “If you try to stop me, it’ll be quite obvious it’s personal. I don’t really care if you hate me, but don’t try to stop me doing m
y job.”
“I am not happy with this.”
She ignored him, and progressed to filling her trunk with the clothes she was leaving behind. “Someone needs to take this to the caves when you go,” she said. “Will you see to that for me, or are you feeling too petty to be helpful?”
“I will take it.”
“Thanks.”
“Remember why you are there,” he said as he left. “Do not let them tempt you to betray us.”
She wanted to scream after him, but there was no point. Instead, she slammed the lid of the trunk closed, and hefted her travel bag onto her shoulder.