About three months before he had made captain, Bogo nearly died in a raid on a counterfeiting operation. He could remember every moment of that raid perfectly; it had been the work of months tracking down the ring of criminals who moved from one building to another, making use of the talents of nearly a dozen alchemists who had failed to complete their apprenticeships. Their final hiding spot hadn't been something that seemed suitably dramatic in retrospect; it hadn't been an abandoned warehouse or a forgotten mineshaft. It had, in fact, been a perfectly pleasant-looking building being rented out by a moderately successful merchant who did her best to keep her properties attractive. The flowers that had been planted out front seemed burned into Bogo's mind, and not just the smell of them. The color of them in the light of the moon, the way they had swayed in the breeze, even the way they had brushed against his trousers. All those little details were impossibly vivid, as though the memories had a shape to them, a realness to them, that his life before or after lacked.

He could remember how his stomach had clenched as he stared at the incongruously cheerful facade of the building, marshaling his soldiers to prepare to breech the door and be ready for anything. The idea of fighting a dozen alchemists, even a dozen half-trained ones who lacked the skill to master the magic, had been at the time about the most frightening thing he could imagine. Normal criminals could, and sometimes did, kill members of the City Guard. They would almost always die themselves—their torcs saw to that—but...

Bogo frowned, looking down at his desk. His thoughts were drifting again, as it seemed they almost inevitably did, but he had little else to do as he waited. He had ordered a first wave of his troops into Phoenix to scout the settlement, and until a report came back he was alone with his thoughts. Perhaps it was simply his unease at the unknown, or perhaps it was the recent and shocking betrayal of the former Captain Nicholas, but something in his current thoughts was eating at him. It was like a grain of sand had gotten stuck in the delicate skin around one of his hooves, or a piece of food between his teeth. Something about his thought was like a sliver in his mind, refusing to go away. Their torcs saw to that...

The phrase seemed oddly important, but he couldn't say how or why, and his thoughts drifted on.

...but alchemists were more dangerous. An alchemist could make a mammal suffer terribly before dying; Bogo had seen it for himself before that raid. He had investigated a case of an apprentice (one in good standing at that; not one already shown the door or on his way out) who had, in an argument over a doe, transmuted the air in his rival's lungs into something horribly corrosive. That it had been after several drinks, and that the apprentice had surely never meant to actually kill another buck, hadn't changed the reality of one unfortunate mammal's demise.

Bogo's plan in the raid on the counterfeiters had been to strike hard and fast, not giving them the opportunity to react before they had been neutralized. And to bring two of the City Guard's rare and precious alchemists with. Just in case.

His own alchemists hadn't ended up needing to do anything during the arrests. Despite the tight knot of anxiety in his gut, despite his fear that he had said goodbye to Maria for the last time, despite even the knowledge that he had been lucky before and that luck surely couldn't hold out forever, despite all of that and more...

Nothing had happened.

The counterfeiters had been quite eager to surrender, putting up absolutely no fight whatsoever as they were bound and hustled out of the building. Some of them hadn't even waited to be carried out before they started trying to give up information, shrilly screaming the details of the counterfeiting ring for the whole kingdom to hear without so much as a semblance of dignity.

They had left behind what would have been an absolute fortune if any of the coins had been real. How they had gleamed! Stacks and stacks of gold coins, glittering in the harsh light of alchemical torches. The counterfeit symbols engraved in them gleaming dully with their own inner light, so even the coins too deep in the shadows for Bogo's torch to reach glowed. The very air of the room had been suffused with that incredible golden light as wondrous as anything Bogo would ever see years later when he started serving in the castle. The feel of standing there, alone in that cramped room except for one of his fellow lieutenants, had stuck with him just as much as the flowers that had been outside. Every detail of it was sharp and crisp, from how his uniform tunic had chafed at his neck to how the stone walls of the room carried the faint but sharp scent of whatever had been used to clean them. Bogo could picture it all as though he was still there, as though he had never actually left.

And then...

What had happened next had always refused to fall into any sort of order. Reconstructing it afterwards had only made it all the more surprising that he had somehow survived, knowing that it had quite literally been a matter of inches. Bogo felt his frown deepen and he shook his head, trying to clear it as he stood up from his desk in his carriage. He didn't think about that raid often. He didn't like thinking about it. But something about it seemed to inexorably pull at his mind as he waited for news to come back from his scouts. He began pacing his carriage, despite the lack of room to do so, having to turn so frequently he would have been better off staying seated. But there was something restless in him that refused to be quieted, and it was a welcome distraction when there was a sudden knock on his door.

Although he had hoped for a report back from the scouts in Phoenix, and even another assassination attempt would have been something of a respite, it was only the princess. She looked surprisingly small and miserable, although Bogo was sure the multiple attempts on her life couldn't have helped her mood. He felt a touch of shame at himself for half-hoping something terrible would happen to distract him from his own gnawing concerns and welcomed her into his carriage.

"Is it true?" she asked, the words very nearly the first ones out of her mouth.

Bogo didn't have to ask about what, of course. "It appears so," he said, "The fox was involved in Cencerro's plan after all."

The look of distress that crossed the princess's face was almost painfully childish, a reminder that for all she had been forced to grow up quickly she was no adult. "It just doesn't make sense," she said, "Nicholas could have killed me. He had the perfect opportunity to kill me and Commandant Totchli and make it look like he wasn't involved."

A response died on Bogo's lips as that nagging thought crossed his mind again. Their torcs saw to that...

He resisted the urge to shake his head. It was a nonsense thought, completely irrelevant to the situation. Nicholas's torc wouldn't function outside the boundaries of the Middle Baronies. No torcs did. He had warned the queen of the danger it posed, since any assassin could strike with impunity, knowing that their own death wasn't guaranteed. Torcs simply didn't work without the alchemical array surrounding the part of the kingdom that virtually all of the population lived in.

Their torcs saw to that...

The thought came again, with that same nagging insistence, but it continued to make no sense. The princess was right that Nicholas had held the perfect opportunity to strike. He could have helped the sheep assassin carry out his job and make it look as though he would be overwhelmed. Why wait only a matter of minutes longer to expose his involvement?

That, at least, Bogo remembered, but compared to his other memories of all of the worst moments of his career it was oddly dull and flat. There was none of the sharpness of his memory of events just prior to that raid on the counterfeiters, nor even the jumbled mess of images like the immediate aftermath. When the booby trap, set not by any of the counterfeiters but by the criminal who had organized them, went off it had turned the piles of fake coins into a deadly hail of metal. Coins had been everywhere, denting his breastplate, embedding themselves painfully in his arms and legs, one nearly passing through his eye where it surely would have killed him.

Bogo tried pushing that nightmarish memory aside, but it felt as though it had trapped him in the stuttering replay of what he had lived through. He had fallen on his back, at some point, but he didn't remember that. Just the glowing white blossom—like a flower, like the flowers in front of that building—that had seemed to suddenly spring into existence in the center of the room, pulling up and flinging coins. There had been a terrific sound, like a crash of thunder centered in his head, and then his ears had simply stopped working for an instant before there was nothing but a high-pitched ringing in them.

The other lieutenant had been dead before he hit the floor, punched full of holes by counterfeit coins, and the smell of his blood sizzling in the heat of the explosion had been what brought Bogo back to a hazy imitation of consciousness before a wide-eyed ensign pulled his head up, her words completely inaudible over the ringing in his ears. Then he had been outside, somehow, with no memory of how that had happened. Had he walked? Been carried? He had never learned the answer to that question. Time seemed to keep jumping after that moment, but it always went back to that explosion. It was like his memories were a book that had been torn apart and reassembled without any care for the original order. He knew that he must have been taken elsewhere for medical care, but it felt as though the explosion had happened after that, as though it was a piece of punctuation.

Compared to that, what was the fox's betrayal? Certainly nothing particularly impressive. "It may not seem to make sense," Bogo said slowly, painfully aware of how long had lapsed between when the princess had last spoken and when he had responded, "But I saw for myself that the fox was a traitor."

The evidence had been undeniable even if it hadn't been spectacular. The fox had drawn his sword, declared his allegiance to Cencerro, and tried stabbing Bogo. Commandant Totchli had intercepted and deflected the blow, but Nicholas had used the closeness of her approach to steal her quauhxicallis and flee. It was all quite simple, really, and Bogo described it to the princess in his typically blunt fashion.

She didn't seem comforted by it, but then again Bogo supposed it was far from comforting. Knowing that one of the mammals who had sworn an oath to protect you would violate that oath had to be frightening, especially if the princess had started getting close to him. "That makes even less sense!" the princess protested, and Bogo felt genuine confusion overcoming him.

Confusion and something else, something he couldn't identify. "He's an alchemist!" she continued, her words coming rapidly, "Why would he try stabbing you?"

"He—" Bogo began, and then immediately paused.

It was odd. Or perhaps odd wasn't the right word for it. An alchemist had access to incredible power, even if that wasn't power that they could instantly draw on. The time spent transmuting something could be enough to get past their defenses, but that really only applied when they weren't taking someone by surprise. Nicholas could have easily hidden what he was doing until it was too late for Bogo to do anything but die, and his torc wouldn't have done anything.

Their torcs saw to that...

The thought popped into Bogo's head again, defying all efforts at focus, and he cursed his drifting mind. It was bad enough that he was dwelling on being caught flat-footed by a booby trap in some long-ago raid; that by itself was the last thing he wanted to think about when the lives of his scouts were on the line. But the single maddening thought that ran through his head was even worse; it didn't seem to come from anywhere or belong anywhere.

"Perhaps he didn't wish to harm Commandant Totchli," Bogo said at last, but that didn't fit either.

The rabbit hated the fox. She loathed him with every fiber of her being, in fact. Why would he care about someone who cared so little for him? It was a foolish thing to say, the words seeing to have simply come out of his mouth unbidden, but to his great surprise the princess nodded slowly.

"Maybe," she said thoughtfully, as though Bogo's suggestion had been entirely reasonable, "Maybe that's why."

Perhaps the princess was simply indulging in a bit of romantic nonsense, imagining that the fox and rabbit shared some sort of sordid affair, but she was silent for a long moment. "Has there been any word from Phoenix?" she asked, mercifully changing subject.

"Not yet," Bogo replied, and she seemed to catch a wealth of meaning from those lone two words.

"Thank you, Lord Bogo," she said, nodding, "Do you mind if I wait here for news from the scouts?"

"As your majesty wishes," he said, and they both fell silent.

He couldn't guess at what thoughts consumed her, but his own mind fell back into familiar territory as he was tormented by the memory of that raid.

Bogo resisted the urge to slam a fist onto his desk; it wouldn't have done anything other than hurt his fingers and perhaps splinter the wood and it was a bad example to set for the princess. Why was he remembering it now, of all times? Why couldn't he banish his stray thoughts anymore? Bogo had never been an especially pious mammal—in his view, the gods mostly left mortals alone, only occasionally poking and prodding at them when they wanted something—but he couldn't help but feel as though someone was trying to give him a message. It'd be arrogant to consider himself divinely blessed, but...

Their torcs saw to that...

It didn't mean anything. Couldn't mean anything. And yet Bogo felt as though there was a spark of realization that dangled just out of his grasp, that there was something that he was simply failing to recognize. He stopped trying to push his memory of the raid away and instead tried scouring it, trying to find why he kept thinking of it. He wasn't sure how much time passed, but he kept coming up empty over and over until at last there was another knock on his door, interrupting his futile efforts and seeming to make the princess jump a little.

This time it actually was a scout reporting back, a slim cheetah with her back proudly straight. She stood before his desk, her feet a shoulder's width apart, and made her report. "The settlement seemed abandoned, Captain General," she said crisply, "No sign of mammals above ground."

"Above ground?" the princess asked, emphasizing the very word Bogo had also caught as important.

The cheetah nodded. "Yes, your majesty. There are survivors—"

Before she could finish the thought, Bogo knew exactly what she would say. Hiding in the ruins under the city.

"—hiding in the ruins under the city," the lieutenant finished, just as Bogo knew she would.

An odd feeling gripped his gut, and he became aware that both her eyes and the princess's eyes were upon him. It was foolish to read too much into his ability to know how the sentence would end; if there wasn't anyone above ground but there were survivors, it only stood to reason that they'd be below ground. But his certainty had been absolute; he felt as though he had already known it before she had told him. It didn't feel as though he had simply guessed. "How many?" Bogo asked, feeling strangely numb.

"A few dozen, at most," the cheetah reported.

No, that wasn't right. The entire population of Phoenix had survived. Bogo had felt very sure of that for some reason, but he couldn't guess why, and at the scout's words realized it must simply have been wishful thinking. He looked at the cheetah—tall and slim in her scout's uniform, a City Guard torc glittering at her neck—and saw she was waiting for him to say something else. "What did they say happen?" the princess asked, mercifully sparing Bogo from having to come out of his thoughts.

"They were attacked," the cheetah reported simply, "Most of them seem too shocked to say much else, other than to ask if we're sure that they're safe now."

The knowledge of what Bogo needed to do next seemed to fill him all at once. "We're taking the main part of our forces in," Bogo said, the words seeming almost alien in his mouth.

He knew it was the right decision at the same time he knew it wasn't, but that was surely just his self-doubt cropping up. For the sake of the citizens of Phoenix, he had to do what was right; who knew when the attacking force would show up again? Maybe that was what his memory had been trying to show him. He had walked into a booby trap before, it was true. He had nearly lost his life to it, as a matter of fact. But that had been a pile of fake coins and nothing more. When it had exploded, the loss of each coin was completely insignificant. But if someone had set a trap with the survivors of Phoenix as bait, it was his duty to walk into that trap. If he didn't try to save innocents, he really would be unworthy of his rank.

Still, he became aware of the princess looking at him, and he quickly added, "With a sufficient force remaining to ensure the safety of the royal family, of course."

The princess nodded, but there was an almost faraway look in her eyes as she did so. "I'll return to my mother," she said, "And inform her. Thank you, Lord Bogo. I think I know what I need to do now."

The chimera turned to leave, and as she did, Bogo caught a glimpse of a sheath under her cloak. He had barely even noticed the clothes she had been wearing as she walked in, but the sight of that sword hidden from view filled him with an odd sort of melancholy. It only made sense for the princess to carry a weapon after so many attempts on her life, and especially after the betrayal of a guard who had personally helped defend her. But it was still a terrible thing to see.

The princess made her goodbyes, and Bogo was left alone with the scout. There had been something almost curious about the princess's choice of words, and with her deciding to leave before hearing everything the cheetah had to say, but Bogo let it slide. He had to get ready to walk into Cencerro's trap, after all.

Author's Notes:

I don't really have too much to add for this chapter. Chapter 5 established that coins in this setting do have glowing alchemical symbols engraved on their sides as an anti-counterfeiting measure, but this chapter shows that it isn't a perfect proof against counterfeiting. The significance of Bogo's thoughts, and what keeps occurring to him over and over again, should hopefully be apparent, and I did enjoy the opportunity for another glimpse into his long career. Beyond that, due to having a Nick chapter this was the first Bogo chapter in a while; things are continuing to move above ground even while they do so below.

As always, thanks for reading! If you're so inclined as to leave a comment, I'd love to know what you thought.