Soen smiled, the points of his ears quivering as he shook his head. “Who among us ever has ‘plain talk’?”
“Oh, nonsense,” Ch’drei spat the words with disdain, “If I were fifty years younger, I’d throw this at you, and you’d be dropping dead before you could utter another word!”
“That,” Soen said as he casually walked the length of the hall, “is the Baton Seal of the Iblisi Keeper, and you shouldn’t be throwing it at anyone.”
“I’ll throw it at whomever I please,” Ch’drei said, her featureless eyes squinting at him. “I’m especially fond of hitting insolent young boys with it.”
“I have heard that the Keeper might have found better uses for insolent, young boys,” Soen said with a lightness in his words.
“Perhaps,” Ch’drei said through a dark chuckle; then she paused. “Soen, the Myrdin-dai have a problem on the Icaran Frontier. They need it silenced, and they want you to do it for them.”
The Icaran Frontier! The farthest western reaches of the Empire and about as far from the Imperial Court as one might hope to be assigned. Even if it were only briefly. .
“What is the problem?”
“Something happened in the folds,” Ch’drei spoke softly. “The Myrdin-dai have been basking in the glory of their handling of the folds in this last war against the dwarves. They’ve even gone so far as to make something of a public spectacle of themselves, using this as an opportunity to rub the noses of the Occuran in their success. Now something has happened in the folds of the frontier that has them worried-worried enough that they insist that you, the favored Iblisi of the Emperor himself, take care of it discreetly. They want it silenced, and they want it done by someone close to the Emperor. And they’re willing to promise anything and pay anything to make it happen quickly. You’re to be given complete access to the folds controlled by the Myrdin-dai throughout the Empire to serve this purpose. You’ll be given a commission and seal specifically for this purpose.”
“Generous of them to provide transport,” Soen considered, “especially since it will allow them to follow my movements.”
“Who trusts anyone anymore?”
“And they would not tell you what actually happened in the folds?” Soen asked.
“They didn’t even try to lie to me,” Ch’drei said with a shrug. “That was the most insulting-that they didn’t even bother to make something up for me. I tell you, elves today have no respect for their elders.”
Soen drew in a deep breath and nodded, his own black eyes looking at the Keeper from under his heavy brows. “So it is in the service of the Emperor’s Will that the Keeper of the Iblisi is commissioning me to travel the Myrdin-dai folds to the Icaran Frontier to silence an unspecified matter that is currently distressing a companion Order of the Empire?”
“Oh, what nonsense!”
Both Ch’drei and Soen laughed heartily.
“I too soon forget why I like you, Soen,” Ch’drei said through her grinning smile. “You have such a charmingly dry sense of humor. No, of course that isn’t why I’m sending you. I wouldn’t mind currying a little favor with the Myrdin-dai right now, but, no, that’s not why you’re going.”
Peril or profit? Which will it be?
“The Myrdin-dai were not my only urgent audience today. Their rivals, the Occuran, visited me this morning,” Ch’drei said, her voice softening. “Something has gone very wrong with the Aether Wells of the Icaran Frontier.”
“Twin trouble in the Western Provinces?”
“Yes. It has caused disturbance patterns resonating all through the Aether links throughout the Empire. The Occuran tell me the Aether Wells have failed on the frontier.”
Soen raised his eyebrows. “Failed?”