Captain Nathane proved to be a tall, slender man who gave the impression of whipcord toughness. He wasn't particularly handsome; on some his short, glossy black hair and small moustache could have been dashing, but his sun-weathered face could only seem hard and determined. He wore a simple outfit in Nota's green and gold colors accented by brass-studded leather cuffs on his wrists and a heavy dagger buckled at his waist.
"All right, Beldar; I'm here. What was it that made you drag me all the way across the Garrison?"
"I didn't come to your office because I'm an old man, and climbing up and down these stairs once a day is once too many," he replied with a snort. "Now sit down and listen to this."
Nathane frowned, but he sat. The Chief Physician had a reputation for knowing what he was talking about.
"Tell the Captain what you told me," Beldar ordered Morhault.
The renegade nodded and told his story to Nathane, concluding with the odd phrase the second plotter had used. It drew approximately the same reaction from the hard-eyed Captain as it had from Beldar.
"That was the phrase, 'Fire protect me'? You heard it clearly?"
"Yes. I was no more than ten feet away at the time."
Nathane's frown grew even darker.
"And you're sure he was both surprised and frightened?"
"He'd been scared, definitely. Whatever he'd been up to at the Red Gryphon, he'd clearly been nervous about it to begin with or he wouldn't have panicked at the mere suggestion of the cityguard."
"Why is that important?" Tabren asked.
"When people are afraid, they don't think clearly," Morhault told him. "Add surprise to that and they act purely on reflex--fight or flight, nothing complex, only instinctive or habitual actions. It's a dream situation tactically, but easier to achieve with an individual."
He looked back to the questioner.
"Military intelligence, Captain Nathane?"
Nathane nodded curtly.
"That's right. I'm the chief officer of Notan military intelligence."
"I thought it might be something like that. You had that unmistakable air of interrogation about you."
The Captain scowled but said nothing.
"Now," Morhault declared, resting his hands on his knees as he leaned forward, "I think we're done with the part where I answer your questions, and have reached the time where you tell us what I've managed to drag my friends and myself into." Patience was all well and good, but there was a point where mysteries stopped being amusing. That point came very quickly for Morhault, who'd long ago had his fill of employers who held back information on a "need to know" basis which it turned out that he actually needed to know.
"When a man is in trouble, he calls upon the Goddess," Nathane explained, "whether to Althena herself or in some local oath, like how Vane magicians swear 'By the elements!' Wouldn't you agree?"
"Yes."
"But ultimately, these local oaths just celebrate parts of Althena's creation that happen to be significant to a culture. Reverently or irreverently, these oaths are just prayers...in a way."
"That sounds a little religious for a career soldier, but I can see your point."
"So what would you think of someone who prays to someone other than Althena in his moment of need?"
There was a long moment of silence.
"Everyone worships Althena, Captain Nathane," Tabren was the first to speak.
"Not everyone," Edric corrected him. "Heresy crops up now and again, philosophers who reject religion, cults that make up their own gods to give them an excuse to exist, even groups that turn ritualized black magic into demon worship. I still don't see why it's a military problem, though. The practices range from stupid to repugnant, but even if they were involved in something disgusting like human sacrifice it would be a criminal matter. The chief spy doesn't investigate that."
Nathane scowled again; it seemed to be one of the man's defining expressions.
"This isn't a case of some debauched merchants using a demon cult as an excuse to hold orgies. Over the past couple of years, there's been a steady increase in the activities of the Burning Hand in the east, both in the Madoria Plains and the Stadius Zone. 'Fire protect me' is one of their standard oaths."
Edric whistled in surprise.
"What's the Burning Hand?" Tabren asked. "Why are they so important?"
"You've never heard of them?" Nathane asked.
Tabren shook his head.
"What do you know about the Vile Tribe, Tabren?" Morhault asked, and had the storyteller's satisfaction of seeing his audience jump in his seat. "Outcasts who rebelled against Althena and were confined to the barren Frontier for their crimes. Three hundred years ago, they rebelled again. We talked about that on the trip up here, remember, when we discussed the history of the Madoria Plains and Nota?"
Tabren nodded.
"But I thought Dragonmaster Alex destroyed the Vile Tribe when he defeated the Magic Emperor?"
Elia shook her head. It was surprising that the amnesiac girl would contribute to the explanation, but then again, her memory loss seemed confined to personal matters, not general knowledge, and as a magician she probably had received an excellent education.
"The leaders and champions, yes, but no one hero could wipe out an entire race. Many Viles retreated from the battlefield alive."
"There's some debate over what happened next," Morhault continued, "but at least some of the survivors took away a renewed grudge against Althena and a desire for vengeance. The Burning Hand is the cult of the Vile Tribe. They are an organized group dedicated to overthrowing Althena's world and dominating all of Lunar politically, culturally, and religiously."
"Heretical worship usually takes the form of individual bands," the Chief Physician added. "Small groups of people so unsatisfied with what they can get out of this life that they turn to divergent cults for wealth, power, pleasure, or a twisted love."
Edric snorted.
"That's a brilliant reason to make your soul the slave of evil."
"Corruption and logic rarely walk hand-in-hand," Morhault noted.
"At worst," Beldar continued, "the cults are a temporary nuisance as they commit crimes in the name of their masters; at best they give the foolish and venal something to amuse themselves without annoying the rest of us. The Burning Hand is a different matter altogether."
"That's likely because of the Vile Tribe at their heart. The human and beastman followers are mostly the usual cultist types, but the Burning Hand gets a continual driving force and purpose from the Viles, who have their own agenda. They've never been all that big, and often have had to go completely into hiding to prevent their destruction, but have also been able to carry out a number of violent attacks on Lunar's society. They collapsed that ridgeline in the Nanza Barrier a hundred and fifty years ago, for example, that ended up cutting Vane off from the eastern land route. Some blame them for touching off the Saith-Meribia war, and they were definitely responsible for assassinating High Priestess Rylera sixty years ago. You can see why nearly every government--even Reza's--considers the Burning Hand a criminal society in which membership is a crime in and of itself. In the Prairie they'll hang Hand members outright, even without evidence they'd been involved in other, actual criminal acts beyond just membership. They're even a kind of bogeyman sometimes. You know, 'finish your chores or the Burning Hand will get you.'"
"Bogeyman or no," Nathane said, "they've been stepping up their activities of late. A number of pirates and bandit gangs have been working for them."
Morhault grimaced.
"They're direct thinkers when it comes to money. They need silver, so they take it by force."
"Why would anyone follow them?" Elia asked. "Those bandits and pirates can't all be members, can they?"
"No, they're not members," Nathane told her. "Some didn't know who was backing them, but for the most part it's a case of people not caring where their money is coming from. Too many people are like that, willing to serve any master so long as they benefit."
Elia frowned, thinking that over.
"It's a problem the priests of Althena have been grappling with forever," Edric noted, "and if it's all the same I'd like to leave the theology to those who are trained for it."
The Captain nodded curtly.
"My sentiments exactly. My job is to stop the Burning Hand, not to wonder about the whys and wherefores."
The conversation was interrupted by a knock at the door.
"What is it?" Beldar roared.
The door swung open.
"Sorry to interrupt, but I was told Captain Nathane was here."
The newcomer was a woman. She wore a white shirt with loose sleeves gathered at lace-edged wrists, black breeches and boots, and a black leather waistcoat traced through with gold embroidery. A slender rapier, a long, light sword developed in Meribia for use mostly between unarmored opponents, hung at her waist. A lightweight gray cloak fell from her shoulders, secured by a silver clasp. Black curls framed her face and just brushed her shoulders, and her eyes were a warm, rich brown. Lightly tanned skin indicated that she spent time outdoors regularly, while her lithe, catlike build suggested that the sword was for more than just show. Her face didn't rival Elia's for beauty, but it have a liveliness that made it very appealing despite not having such a perfectly sculpted appearance.
"I'm here," Nathane verified the obvious, "and from the way this conversation had been going, it's good you came looking for me."
The newcomer's face quickly changed from lighthearted to intent.
"New information about the Burning Hand?"
"Right."
Morhault was still at a loss as to how what he had seen and heard could have been so important. Certainly, it verified that Vile Tribe cultists were at work in Nota, but from Nathane's manner that wasn't a surprise to anyone.
"You'd better fill me in, then." To the others she said, "I'm Jyrian, by the way."
"Master Jyrian of the Magic Guild of Vane," Nathane clarified, "who is providing us with assistance, both magically and with fieldwork."
Morhault and Edric were both startled by the name, but Tabren looked completely poleaxed, eyes wide in amazement.
"You don't mean you're...Jyrian Mageborn?" he breathed reverently.
Jyrian blushed.
"Well, sort of. Those silly songs are about me, if that's what you mean, but they aren't too accurate. I mean, I'm not the demigod they make me out to be. Every minstrel I've ever met had a chronic problem with the truth."
Edric smiled.
"There you have it, Morhault, someone else with the same attitude about singers."
Inwardly, Morhault winced. Jyrian Mageborn was a true heroine, no matter how overblown the stories about her were. She lived the life of a wandering adventurer, sometimes at the behest of the Guild and other times seeking out evil to confront on her own. Comparing himself to her made him feel inadequate; in spite of his belief that he'd made the correct choice in the past, all his doubts, all his questions came back to him in a painful rush.
"Morhault..." Jyrian mused. "Unfortunate name given the--wait a minute. That face...you really are the one they call Morhault the Fallen, aren't you?"
He nodded slowly, bracing himself for the inevitable. The expected scorn didn't come, though, at least not from her. It was Captain Nathane's face that tightened into a mask of suspicion and distaste.
"The renegade Lion Knight," he snarled. "The man who singlehandedly managed to wreck the Tamur-Prairie peace settlement ten years ago and plunge the Stadius Zone into a three-year war."
Elia gasped. Apparently without memories, the connection between Morhault's name and history hadn't come to her, or else she just hadn't known it.
"So now you come here, purporting to bring information about the Burning Hand. That war did the Pyre Lord no end of good down south, so now you continue their work here by spreading misinformation, is that the way it is?"
Over the years Morhault had learned to put up with the inevitable insults from people who believed one or more of the popular versions of his story, and occasionally those who knew his real reasons but completely disagreed. The taunts that had stung painfully in that first awful year gradually started to bounce off a hard shell. This time, though, he lost his temper at once. He had been accused of wrongheaded stupidity, of arrogance, of greedy intriguing, and even sheer bloody-minded villainy, but never, not once, had he been accused of being a Vile Tribe follower, sent out to cause trouble on their behalf.
"Would you care to repeat that, Nathane?" he said in a quiet, deadly voice. His hand began to reach up reflexively before he remembered that he wasn't wearing his sword.
"Do you really think that the Lion Knights would have allowed one of the Burning Hand into their ranks?" Jyrian asked, apparently none too pleased with what passed for the Captain's reasoning.
"All right, so saying he's a member might--might--be going too far, but it wouldn't be the first time an unscrupulous person would have taken their gold." He fixed Morhault with an iron gaze. "I'd say that a mercenary--a paid killer--who was also a known oathbreaker would be just the type they'd want."
Tabren leapt from his chair.
"You dirty swine! Morhault saved my life just a week ago, and put himself at risk to do it! He volunteered to help Elia get her memory back and isn't even asking for money! You've known him less than an hour and you're calling him all sorts of rotten things just because of a bunch of stupid songs!"
Morhault blinked, taken aback by the boy's fierce defense.
"Tabren's right," Elia agreed with no less emotion. "Morhault is kind and honest and decent, and you have no call to be accusing him without reason."
"You really ought to know better," Jyrian added. "I'm sure your spies learned what actually happened; the consequences were too important for Nota to have missed any details. Morhault broke his oaths of knighthood, yes, but because of a crisis of conscience, wrongheaded as it might have been. If the Lion Knights had believed for an instant there was more to it, whether for gain or something worse, they wouldn't have just stripped him of his shield and cast him out."
Nathane ground his teeth together.
"When following your 'conscience' means betraying months of hard work by your friends and allies and sending thousands of people to their deaths in a war that didn't have to happen, then it isn't a matter of personal judgment any more. It's wrong, plain and simple. But," he grudgingly admitted, "Jyrian is right. I can't see even your warped version of morality helping the Burning Hand, so I'll believe you told the truth."
"Thanks ever so."
"Told the truth about what?" Jyrian asked. "As the latecomer here, I seemed to have missed the good parts."
"I'll explain," Nathane told her, rising. "Beldar, thank you for bringing this to my attention. Miss," he added with a polite nod to Elia, "I wish you Althena's fortune in solving your troubles."
He beckoned to the adventuress.
"Come on, Jyrian; we have a lot to talk about."
With that he left the room, the raven-haired magician following.
"I have no idea what just happened here," Tabren complained. "He comes, he goes, he invites her to stay, he tells her to leave with him. This doesn't make any sense!"
Morhault sighed heavily.
"Actually, it's fairly obvious." A glance at the others' expressions revealed that, predictably, Edric and his mentor had followed his line of thought while Elia's bright blue eyes held much the same confusion as Tabren's. Morhault supposed it all came down to age.
"Nathane is the Notan cityguard's chief spy," he explained. "That puts more information at his fingertips than nearly anyone in eastern Lunar. With everything he knows, the little bit I told him must have meant something. So, he thought of some kind of plan that probably needed my or our help as witnesses or something along those lines. But, and this is the fun part, when he realized who I was, he decided that he'd rather have nothing to do with me, so he left." Morhault opened his hands. "See how easy it is?"
"But that isn't fair!" Tabren protested. This exclamation drew almost identical expressions of disgust from the two healers.
"Tabren," Edric told him, "if there's anything at all you remember from this trip, remember that life isn't always fair."
"Which doesn't mean that it's always not fair," Morhault added sympathetically, "or that you shouldn't try to make things turn out justly. Only, don't get in the habit of expecting things to work out in the end because you think they ought to. Happy endings don't just happen; you have to work for them, and even then you might run up against someone who worked even harder for theirs."
He turned to the elderly physician.
"Thank you again for your advice, Beldar. We're all grateful that someone in your position would consent to see us."
"Yes, very much so," agreed Elia.
The Chief Physician grinned.
"Oh, no trouble at all. Just tell me where I can send my large bill," he joked.
"Well, since only one of us has a permanent address...right, Edric?" Tabren suggested, grinning back. Edric groaned.
"Boy, you're growing entirely too fond of your own wit."
"I've fallen in with bad companions."