The Sylvan Watch Is Rising

The Sylvan Watch Is Rising

Music drifted through the open rooms of the villa and into its columned courtyard, where lanterns hung above a shallow pool edged in white marble. All the rooms opened onto this central space, built to catch the infrequent rain that fell upon the hills of Helion. Beyond the villa’s southern balcony, red tiles descended toward the city, and beyond them stretched the immense plains upon which Helion had grown wealthy.

Delrona had gathered only a small company that evening, though each guest had been chosen with considerable care.

Master Corvin Drail of the Ironroot Bastion reclined beside the pool with a cup of Helion wine resting upon his considerable stomach. He held a senior position in one of Ironroot’s oldest banking houses and had spent most of the evening complaining about the heat while praising the villa, the food and the generosity of his host. Beside him sat his wife, Alessa, whose family administered several of the private accounts through which Ironroot financed foreign mines. She spoke less frequently than her husband, but Delrona had noticed that whenever matters of lending arose, Corvin looked to her before offering an opinion.

They had been vacationing in Helion for nearly three weeks, though they had paid for very little of it themselves.

Delrona had arranged their villa, their servants, their carriage and introductions to the most desirable circles in the city. Corvin regarded this as the proper hospitality due to an important banker. Alessa understood that such generosity was rarely without purpose, but she had not yet discovered what Delrona wanted in return.

Other prominent residents of Helion mingled around the courtyard: a magistrate responsible for foreign affairs which usually meant resolving disputes between foreign merchants; an assessor who certified the value of imported crystal; two members of the city’s mercantile council; and a professor from the Helion Academy who had spent much of the evening attempting to impress Delrona with theories she had studied years before he was born.

Fateese moved among them with a tray of filled cups.

“This little hovel is no Sylvan marble mansion,” Delrona said as she joined Corvin and Alessa beside the pool, “but I admit that I have grown fond of the view.”

Corvin laughed rather more loudly than the remark required.

“If this is what the Sylvan Watch calls a hovel, I have clearly chosen the wrong Crestrealm in which to keep my accounts.”

“You chose correctly,” Alessa said. “In the Sylvan Watch, they might expect you to climb a hill without being carried.”

The guests laughed, Corvin loudest of all, and Delrona smiled as though she had gathered them for no purpose beyond companionship.

A servant appeared beneath the archway leading from the entrance hall. He waited until Delrona noticed him, then offered the slightest bow.

“A visitor has arrived, my lady.”

“Tonight?” Delrona asked, allowing a trace of irritation to touch her voice.

“He says his business cannot wait.”

The gathering continued behind her as she crossed the courtyard. Fateese set down his tray and followed.

The visitor stood just inside the entrance, wrapped in a travelling cloak despite the warmth of the evening. He was built like a guardian, with a scar running from beneath his left ear to the heavy line of his jaw. Beneath his cloak, Fateese glimpsed the pale robes of the Astryx Arcanum. They pulled tightly across the man’s shoulders and ended well above his boots.

Whatever the man was, he was no librarian.

“Show him to the rear chamber,” Delrona instructed.

The guardian was ushered through a narrow passage and into the private room at the back of the villa. Its open windows looked onto the paved red tiles of the southern balcony. The laughter of the gathering still carried faintly through the passage, but no one in the courtyard could see inside.

The guardian bent close to Delrona and whispered something Fateese could not hear. He then reached beneath his cloak and produced a large book wrapped in leather and secured with two narrow straps.

Delrona accepted it with both hands.

She released the straps and opened the ancient cover. The pages were yellowed and brittle, their edges darkened by centuries of handling. She turned through them quickly but carefully until she found an illuminated passage near the centre.

Fateese caught only a glimpse.

Eleven figures stood around what appeared to be the same fire. Their clothing and features were strikingly different, yet each held one hand toward a crystal suspended above the flames.

Delrona studied the page. Her eyes moved across the adjoining text, then returned to the illustration.

For the briefest moment, her expression hardened.

She closed the book.

“Pay the man, will you?”

Fateese had grown accustomed to Delrona’s secretive meetings and unexplained visitors. He had also learned that questions were seldom rewarded with answers.

“Of course.”

“That will be three hundred gold pieces,” the guardian said.

“Three hundred?” Fateese stared at him. “Are its pages hammered from the rare metals of Pyprast Bastion?”

“Two of my men died getting that tome. You’ll pay, or I’ll—”

“Pay him.”

Delrona spoke with enough force that both men fell silent.

Recognizing his error, Fateese motioned for the guardian to follow him into the antechamber. As he turned, he saw Delrona carry the book to the fire.

She dropped the entire tome into the flames.

The ancient pages caught slowly at first. Their edges curled inward, darkening as the fire crept across the unfamiliar words and painted figures. Delrona watched until the illustration disappeared.

Fateese paused in the doorway.

“Well,” he muttered, reaching reluctantly for the villa’s strongbox, “that was three hundred gold pieces quickly spent.”

When the guardian had gone, Delrona summoned Fateese back into the rear chamber. The book had collapsed into a glowing heap, and she was calmly stirring its remains with an iron poker.

“I want you to go down into the city and get word to Ivan in the Helion branch of Ironroot Bank,” she said. “Tell him that the loans he extended to the Auric Exchange for the expansion of the Emerald Stepstones mines were secured against false estimates of the mines’ profitability. He should demand immediate repayment unless he wishes to preside over the largest default in Ironroot history.”

Fateese nodded slowly.

“And he will simply believe this?”

“He will believe that I know considerably more than he does.”

Delrona set down the poker and crossed to the open window.

“Remind him that no further credit is to be extended to anyone in Pyprast Bastion until he hears from me. Then ask whether his wife still takes their youngest daughter walking along the western cliffs in the evenings.”

Fateese waited, expecting an explanation.

Delrona continued looking over the lights of Helion.

“Should I send them your regards?” he finally asked.

“No. Merely tell Ivan that the winds above those cliffs have become ...unpredictable.”

Fateese frowned. “Very well.” He turned to leave.

“There is one other matter.”

She opened a drawer and withdrew a report bearing the seal of the Emerald Stepstones Mining Group.

“This describes the discovery of a substantial new vein of blue crystal beneath the southern mines of the Emerald Stepstones near the Swift River. Arrange for copies to reach three families among the principal investors of the Auric Exchange.”

“Which families?”

Delrona handed him a second sheet containing three names.

Fateese recognized all of them. Each controlled a considerable share of the Auric Exchange, and all three had borrowed heavily from Ironroot to finance their existing investments.

“Why only these three?”

“Because information given to everyone becomes news. Information given to three wealthy families becomes an advantage.”

Fateese examined the report.

“If they believe this, they will purchase every available share in the expansion.”

“And borrow more to do so.”

“The value of the mining concern could rise considerably.”

“For a time.”

Fateese looked toward the remains of the book burning in the fireplace.

“Is the new vein real?”

Delrona folded the report and returned it to him.

“It will be real for precisely as long as I require it to be.”

A fresh swell of laughter travelled from the courtyard.

Delrona listened for a moment, then adjusted the sleeves of her robe.

“You should go. I have neglected my guests.”

She returned to the gathering with a warm smile and an apology for her absence. Corvin Drail had acquired another cup of wine, while Alessa was explaining to the Helion magistrate why foreign loans could be far more dangerous than foreign armies.

“Ah, Delrona,” Corvin called. “We had begun to fear that your urgent visitor had carried you away.”

“Nothing so dramatic,” she replied. “A scholar seeking my opinion on an unremarkable text.”

Behind her, smoke from the burning tome slipped unnoticed through the villa’s chimney.

Delrona accepted a cup and took her place beside the pool.

The conversation moved from Helion wine to trade, and from trade to the growing uncertainty surrounding the crystal markets. The assessor complained about irregular shipments. One of the merchants observed that capital was becoming scarce in the Western Crestrealms. Corvin insisted that Ironroot’s banks remained stronger than ever.

“And what of the Sylvan Watch?” Alessa asked. “You have been suspiciously quiet about your own people.”

Delrona smiled.

“The Sylvan Watch has never needed to boast of its strength. Our guardians are unmatched. Our marble is carried into every capital of Aethoria. Our scholars preserve disciplines that other peoples have only begun to understand.”

The professor from the Helion Academy shifted uncomfortably.

“Strength and tradition are admirable,” said the magistrate, “but they do not always produce prosperity.”

“No,” Delrona agreed. “Leadership produces prosperity.”

She raised her cup toward the southern plains.

“While other Crestrealms quarrel over old debts and declining mines, Sylvan workshops are expanding. Our crystal reserves have grown. Our merchants are purchasing new routes, and our treasury has recorded its strongest year in generations.”

Corvin lowered his cup.

“I had heard something of that.”

“So had I,” Alessa said. Unlike her husband, she was no longer smiling quite as freely. “Sylvan investments have appeared in several markets where prices had only recently collapsed.”

Delrona regarded her with open admiration.

“You pay attention.”

“Good banking depends upon it.”

“Then perhaps you have all noticed.”

The gathering became quiet.

Delrona’s smile remained pleasant, her voice conversational.

“The Sylvan Watch is rising.”

For a moment, no one answered. Then Corvin lifted his cup.

“To the Sylvan Watch.”

The others joined the toast, some enthusiastically and some because declining would have been impolite.

Delrona drank with them as though she were merely celebrating the good fortune of her homeland.

In the rear chamber, the last surviving words of the ancient tome turned silently to ash.

Thy Quest
Delrona once accused the Heartwell Council of controlling knowledge for its own benefit. Identify two moments in this chapter when Delrona controls information herself. Explain what these actions reveal about her true motives.