No translations this time. I'll make up for it next chapter, promise.
Mysteries and Loose Ends
Harding grinned at me. "Caught your interest, huh?"
We were riding together again, this time surrounded only by her scouts. It was unlikely anyone could hear us in any case, but she judged it better to be safe, and I had no grounds for disagreement. "Precisely as intended," I pointed out. "Tell me more about these names."
"Someone has been smuggling red lyrium into Tevinter," she began.
I nodded. This was a problem I was familiar with, though following the details of what we were doing to solve it hadn't been one of my responsibilities. "And growing it somewhere," I added. "Have we made any progress on either point?"
"Well, the Viscount ruled out the Carta, even a rogue faction," Harding told me, and I nodded again. Varric and I had discussed it, though ruled out was perhaps a strong term. If anyone in the Carta was responsible, they were covering it up well enough to fool even Varric. Not easy - but likely not impossible, either. "With enough favors called in and coin spent, we did manage to learn the lyrium is moving from the east, to the west."
"That's...broad," I said.
"You're telling me," Harding muttered, clearly dissatisfied. "The Viscount suggested checking out normal trade routes first, because there are good reasons they're normal - they're fast and fairly secure. That means the lyrium would be flowing either through Nevarra, if it's being grown inland or in the north, or through Cumberland, if it's being grown near a port or somewhere in Ferelden."
"And now whoever was checking into it in Cumberland has stopped reporting," I surmised.
"Belle - you remember, the merchant from Val Royeaux - and half of Vale's Irregulars took Nevarra. It was a lucrative trade run, but nothing else," Harding explained. "Bonny Sims and the other half of the Irregulars took Cumberland. They missed their first update nearly a month ago."
I was forced to bite back a curse, and plastered on a smile to hide my dismay. "And Leliana is only sending someone now?" I demanded through clenched teeth.
"We had no leads," Harding replied, matching her smile to mine so anyone watching would continue to assume this was all just a friendly chat. "Tried the mages first - they came up with nothing. Got the attention of the Jennys in the city, though. They had more luck, but we didn't want them taking on too much themselves. Not if it's something half the Irregulars couldn't handle. That...took most of the month. Now I'm on my way to see where the leads take us."
"How do we know they aren't already growing red lyrium in Tevinter?" I asked her.
"They probably are," she replied, "but the shipments are still pouring in from somewhere outside. Finding and cleaning up that operation is my problem. Cleaning up Tevinter belongs to someone else."
"Fair point," I allowed. "We can't give it a chance to spread again."
"Exactly."
"Precisely how many people are we looking for?" I asked.
"Of ours? There are - or were - thirteen Irregulars, counting Vale, but he stayed in Kirkwall to oversee the operation, so six of his people went to Cumberland, plus Bonny," she explained. "But...we might be looking for some people who aren't ours, too."
I raised my eyebrows.
"I'll give you my reports to look over tonight, and you'll see what I mean," she promised.
"Seven is a lot to go missing with almost no trace," I observed.
"It is. Way too many," she agreed. "Another reason not to let the Jennys get too close."
We lapsed into a thoughtful silence. If red lyrium was flowing through Cumberland, one of the largest cities in Thedas, that was...terrible. Possibly catastrophic.
Tonight we camped at the crossroads, along with several other groups - merchant caravans - traveling from the Orlesian Heartlands to Cumberland or Val Royeaux. They gave us space, either because they recognized our banners or because of the general military character of our company, but our soldiers seemed pleased to have options for spending their pay. The camp took on a celebratory air that I could feel even sequestered in my tent with Harding's reports.
These were the facts: six weeks ago, Bonny Sims and the Irregulars had landed in Cumberland and began selling the wares Varric had provided them, while also asking discreet questions. For two weeks they had sent back mundane reports of Carta factions double-crossing each other, merchant guild squabbles, rivals sabotaging each others' shipyards, and all the other normal corruption that one found in a city of any size. The only - only - message of interest concerned some disappearances from farms on the outskirts of the city. Apparently some sort of giant spider had been terrorizing field hands and shepherds, but it was mentioned only in passing as the Irregulars had forwarded the information on to the College of Enchanters, who were better-equipped to deal with local monsters.
Two weeks of reports. Then - nothing. No mentions of a new lead, a search, anything. In fact, the last record of their movements wasn't even from the accounts sent by our agents. Harding hadn't been quite accurate in stating the mages found nothing - they had reported that the Irregulars had been helping them scout the forest for the giant spider. But, as far as they knew, Bonny Sims had not joined in these scouting missions, and the Irregulars had reported to the college after their last attempt to find the beast, two days before their missed check-in.
They were gone as if they had never been.
I read the report several times, trying to find some detail that might have been missed, though of course Harding was very thorough in her work, but it remained a puzzle without a solution.
When it became clear the pages didn't hold the answers I needed, I turned my attention to the information offered by the Jennys. First: several of the shepherds who had later been taken by the spider had mentioned seeing unsettling shadows in the forest. Though the shepherds referred to them as demons, it didn't take much reading between the lines to understand they had likely spotted Qunari. What were Qunari doing in Cumberland? Which faction were they with, the Antaam or the Ben-Hassrath? The shepherds were likely far too busy being dead to even begin to answer those questions for us.
I did stop to wonder, though: how did we know they had been taken by the spider? That wasn't in the Jenny's brief note.
Second: some people living on the outskirts of town were contracting an odd disease characterized by clammy skin, elevated heart rate, paranoia, and delusions - in particular the belief that they heard music. No treatment - those that didn't run off had to be kept locked up day and night to keep them from doing so. Some had started refusing food and drink, and a handful had died that way.
The illness had been traced back to two wells, which had since been closed off, but if the groundwater there had been poisoned, odds were good it would start seeping in elsewhere - perhaps even within the city proper. And the rest of the wells had not been decommissioned, because water for drinking and brewing was non-negotiable, and the river was so polluted by manure runoff from the farms that using it to ferment liquor was hardly enough to clean it adequately. Besides, Harding had noted wryly in the margins, even Orlesians weren't fools enough to buy liquor tasting of literal bullshit.
Third: a streetwalker pressed up against a warehouse wall in the course of her employment thought she had seen strange, red-glowing rubies through the cracks between boards. After reporting the find to some of her more larceny-inclined friends, the warehouse had been hit - and all three of her friends had silently disappeared. Weeks later, no word, no corpses, and the "rubies" were no longer in the warehouse. She suspected her former friends had skipped town to avoid giving her a finder's cut.
The poisoning and "glowing rubies" seemed to point fairly decisively to red lyrium, though it didn't tell us where our agents had gone. The Qunari - and maybe the giant spider - might or might not have related to either concern.
Well, perhaps Cumberland would be interesting after all, though I didn't know how directly involved I would be allowed - or have time - to be.
I resolved that I would at least volunteer to take on the giant spider. One spider ought to be simple enough, even if I wasn't as skilled at killing as I had once been, and removing monsters could only simplify the situation, leaving Harding with fewer distractions and loose ends.
I put away her reports, and went to bed.