The Miscreant (18 page)

“Mr. Holt, I apologize for making you wait. I had some business that required my personal attention.” He walked directly to the liquor cabinet, opened it with a key he retrieved from his pocket, and took out the bottle of Urqan red. “Would you care for a drink?”

Garran twitched his head. “No thanks.”

“So, tell me about…myself.”

“Well, I…what?” Garran asked when his brain caught up with the simple but abstract question.

Gregor walked to the open window and poured out the very expensive bottle of liquor. “I’ve been observing you for the past twenty minutes or so. I want to know what you have learned.”

Garran got up from his chair, crossed to the wall on his left, and began searching for the spyhole. It took him a full minute to locate the first one as well as three more a minute after that.

“Very good,” Gregor said. “How did you know to look on that wall?”

“Basic deduction by eliminating the improbable. The wall behind your desk is mostly window, and while I suppose you could have watched me from the building across the plaza, it was unlikely. Your secretary’s office and waiting area cover the entire area on that wall, and I doubt you would want every visitor seeing you with your face pressed against it. This is a corner office, so beyond that wall is the outside, and I don’t think there is enough space for a hidden corridor. There are also several bookcases against it that would obstruct the view.”

Gregor smiled and nodded. “Very good. Now, tell me what you have learned by riffling through my belongings.”

“Your name is Gregor Ward. You are highly-placed within the government and very close to King Remiel both personally and professionally.”

“Explain.”

“I found numerous documents bearing the king’s signature. Most were of an official capacity with instructions and orders to carry out certain actions. They appeared to come directly from Remiel to you; therefore they did not follow a chain of command, indicating that there was no one higher than you except the king. I also found an invitation to attend Princess Evelyn’s private birthday celebration after the more public ceremony. He named you Gregor in the invitation instead of Agent Ward.”

“You think I am an agent?” Gregor asked.

“I am almost certain of it. In fact, I bet you are the highest-ranking agent in the kingdom, given the level of communications documents I found and personal correspondence with the king.”

“Excellent, go on.”

“I know you have recently traveled to Urqua, almost certainly on official business.”

“Why is that?”

“Because nobody goes to Urqua on vacation, and since Urqan red is on the trade embargo list, you had to have picked it up while you were there.”

“I could have purchased it on the black market. There’s no need to travel all the way to Urqua to get it, and how do you know it is illegal? I doubt many, if any, are aware of the embargo way out in Wooder’s Bend.”

“I once stole a bottle from Mayor Alessi. I don’t know where he got it, probably from the black market during his annual trip to the capital. He practically tore the town apart looking for it. I know you went to Urqua recently because I found an Urqan language text that had been dog-eared in several places. I assume you wanted to brush up on your vocabulary before you left. I also found several documents inside the safe that came from Urqua, which were the reason for your trip.”

“I am very impressed, Mr. Holt. Is there anything else?”

“Given the placement of the writing implements on your desk, I first took you to be left-handed.”

Gregor glanced at his left hand. “You don’t think that now?”

“No, I think you deliberately switched their places to trick me. Not only are the smudges on several of the documents made by a right-handed person, most of them are complete bullshit, and that got me thinking that this entire thing was a farce and this office set up as one big prop. I was working on showing you what I thought about being toyed with when you returned.”

“I was wondering why you would crap in a man’s desk drawer. What tipped you off?”

“You being sloppy.”

“Please, enlighten me.”

“Half the documents in here were penned by the same hand despite bearing different signatures. Some of them were supposedly a decade old yet the ink was as fresh as those dated just days ago.” Garran’s voice became more agitated as he spoke. “There is one thing that Cyril mentioned to me, but nothing in this room has provided any answers.”

“What is that?”

Garran grabbed one of the swords hanging on the wall, spun around, and swung it at Gregor. A dagger appeared in the agent’s hand faster than the eye could track and intercepted the swing just before it cleaved his skull. He grabbed the boy’s wrist with his free hand and pressed him against the wall.

Garran’s eyes bored into Gregor’s. “That you are transcended. Now, tell me what that is and what the hell you want with me!”

Gregor’s stern visage twisted into a smile. He stripped the mostly ornamental sword from Garran’s grip, tossed it onto his desk, and sat down. He extended a hand toward the chair and beckoned Garran to sit.

“You are right on all accounts of consequence,” Gregor said once Garran sat down. “I am Anatolia’s chief agent and the king’s personal confidant and adviser. This is my office, but I set it up to test you. I tend not to keep many classified documents lying around here. I am one of two, now three, transcended known to exist within the kingdom.”

“What does it mean? Who is the other?”

“You will meet the other very soon. As to what it means, you have seen what it means.”

“I don’t understand it at all. Cyril said some ghosts or something inhabit my body and they allow me to move fast and be a better fighter.”

“That is one theory, but no one really knows how we do what we do. Have you heard of a man named Hermanus Spence?” Garran shook his head. “Hermanus Spence was a philosopher and noted astronomer. Our science teaches us that time is an inexorable force that cannot be slowed, sped up, or diverted in any way. It is like a glacier grinding its way across the universe at a constant speed without variation. Hermanus speculated that time is not immutable but is a liquid like an ocean. It is all-encompassing, and everything and everyone floats along with it. Like an ocean, it is not universally stagnant, but that it contains currents. Cartographers have mapped several of these currents within our oceans to provide much faster ship travel than relying on wind alone. As transcended, people like you and me are able to find these currents and ride them to much greater speeds than those stuck in the mostly static sea of time.”

“That doesn’t explain how I suddenly became a great fighter.”

“You fancy yourself a great fighter?”

Garran shrugged. “Even though I could tell I was moving faster than everyone else, I somehow knew how to move my body and aim my blows to most effectively kill those men.”

“I was a soldier before I became an agent. I remember training one particular new recruit. I forget his name, but I remember he was from Wildemont. Have you heard of it?”

“No.”

“It doesn’t matter. Anyway, I spent hours trying to teach this young man archery, but he could not hit a target more than fifty yards away with any kind of regularity. This was strange as Wildemont is renowned for its hunters, particularly in regards to archery. His father and grandfather were notorious hunters, but he never possessed an interest in it. Day after day, I worked with him, but he seemed purposefully determined to be awful. I should have simply given him a spear and dropped him on the front lines with the other meat shields, but I just knew there was something there that made him more valuable. We had just finished a private training session, and I had given up and decided to put him on the front lines. As we were walking back from the archery field, a pheasant flew up out of the grass. This bird must have been fifty yards away at the least, but the kid, without thinking or hesitating, drew back his bow, loosed the arrow, and dropped the bird. I immediately thought that this was a fluke, but then another pheasant burst from the thickets and he killed that one too. I asked him what he was thinking at the moment he loosed the arrow. He said that he wasn’t thinking at all. He had grown up watching his father and grandfather hunt. Archery was in his blood, but because he never cared for it, it wasn’t in his mind. So when he removed that element, the thought, he was a natural master of the skill.”

“What happened to him?” Garran asked, enraptured by the tale.

“He got dysentery and died of the shits before he ever saw battle.” Gregor tossed back his head and laughed. “Lady Luck is a cruel bitch!”

“I didn’t know my father or grandfather. I know my mother’s family is a long line of uselessness for several generations back.”

“I don’t have all the answers, Garran. I don’t think anyone does.”

“Fine, I’m pretty good at accepting who I am. What do you want with me?”

Gregor leaned back in his chair and wrapped his hands behind his head. “When Commander Godfrey informed me of your existence, there was no doubt that the king and I would have an interest in you. The big question was what would make you the most beneficial to the kingdom and us. That is why I created this little improvisational play. Cyril filled me in on his assessment of your character and some of your actions. I wanted to see if you possessed an affinity for espionage.”

“You think I can be an agent?”

“After watching you just now, very much so. You possess a natural curiosity and insightfulness that cannot be taught. Most men and women who make it through training to join the Ministry of Diplomacy become attachés and analysts. Even without your special ability, I think you could make a fantastic field agent.”

“What if I decide I don’t want to be an agent?”

“We both know you are going to accept, so it’s not even worth speculating.”

“You obviously don’t know me well. That statement alone makes me want to shit in your desk.”

Gregor grinned and leaned forward. “Who is the most powerful man you know?”

Garran shrugged. “The king, I guess.”

“I am closer to the king than almost anyone, and I can tell you that he is not the most powerful man I know. No, who do you know personally.”

Garran gave it a moment of thought. “I guess that would be Mayor Alessi.”

“I could make your mayor piss his pants with a look of disapproval and eat horse crap for dinner with a word, and so could you if you become an agent.”

“Where do I sign?” Garran asked without hesitation.

Gregor smiled. “I understand you can read?”

“Yes, surprisingly well, actually.”

“It is surprising for someone born and raised in Wooder’s Bend. That eliminates what would have been a significant challenge, but only one of several. Training to become a member of the diplomatic corps, especially if one has his sights set on becoming a field agent, is a grueling venture. You will attend the most demanding university in the world. Not only will you study core education, you will learn chemistry, botany, language, and history. Not just Anatolia’s but that of all the major kingdoms.”

“Hmm, I thought spies just had to learn how to steal stuff and kill people.”

“And learning those fields enables you to do precisely that.”

“It’s starting to sound a little less fun.”

“Let me assure you, the next four years of study will be anything but fun.”

“When do I start?”

“About half an hour ago.” Gregor lifted his eyes to the door behind Garran. “Victor!”

Garran twisted in his chair to see the man who entered. He was perhaps thirty years old and walked with the confident swagger of a man comfortable with wielding authority as well as a blade. The sword hanging from his hip looked as natural as any other appendage. He had one of those faces that spoke of arrogance without saying a word.

“Garran, this is Victor Law. He is my top agent and the only other transcended in the kingdom. He will teach you how to harness and manage your ability and provide you with additional combat training outside of the university.”

Victor stood next to Garran and looked down at him as if he were something unpleasant stuck to his shoe. “He sure doesn’t look like much. Did you steal those nice clothes? You wear them about as well as a scarecrow.”

Garran deeply disliked sitting with Victor looming over him, and it was all he could do to force himself not to stand. He knew that showing such discomfiture in front of Victor would only earn him more of the man’s scorn.

“Stealing is what petty thugs do. I used my wits to acquire what I needed to fulfill my needs in order to accomplish my goals,” Garran answered.

Victor smiled in a way that did not make him appear any friendlier and clapped Garran on the shoulder. “It looks like there might be more to you than meets the eye. I bet you’ve used that to your advantage more than once. Good, having people underestimate you can be a powerful tool.”

“Being transcended, I bet you know all about powerful tools,” Garran retorted before he could filter his thought.

There was a moment of awkward silence before Victor let out a good belly laugh and squeezed Garran’s shoulder. “You have no idea! You might just make it after all.”