The Blissful Day

The Blissful Day

“And would you like anything to drink with your meal, Council Leader Thrankal?”

“Yes. Some freshly squeezed jallo, with a slice of sourfruit on top.”

Thrankal settled into his usual place at the large corner table on the upper balcony of the Blissful Day. From there, he could look unimpeded towards the glittering waters of the Great Ocean.

Below, the restaurant’s main floor bustled with customers also enjoying the spectacular visage. Both there and out the front of the restaurant on the main ocean road sat merchants, officials, visiting scholars and affluent families enjoying meals they would later complain had been too expensive.

“Do you know why I lunch here, Yenit?”

Councillor Yenit looked beyond the balcony towards the water.

“I presume it is the exceptional view.”

“No. I come here because it is private, yet we are still outside, beside the ocean.” Thrankal unfolded his napkin and placed it across his lap. “Well, that and I prefer to avoid the common crowds and their constant complaining. The street drains are clogging. The vegetables can’t get to stalls quickly enough due to congested roads. The old government structures require renovation. Labour costs for a simple porter have become intolerable. Blah, blah, blah.”

He paused to enjoy the breeze rolling in from the sea. He calmed and filled his lungs, inhaling cool salt air through his nose.

“Up here, I am safe from their narrow worldly concerns, and I can enjoy my lunch in peace.”

“How fortunate for the common crowds.”

Thrankal ignored the remark.

“But the privacy does come first, which brings me rather neatly to the reason I invited you. Are you aware of the reconstruction efforts along the city wall following the quake?”

Yenit raised his eyebrows.

“Yes. I have seen the stone being transported from the quarry across the city, but I have not visited the site.”

“Well, I have a friend who owns a quarry on Filee Island. It lies between the Argent Isles and Kefar. There is not much there besides the quarry, a small harbour and a few fishing villages.” Thrankal accepted his drink from the server and examined the sourfruit floating upon its surface. “He was mentioning the excellent price his stone might command if we were to purchase enough of it for him to expand his operation.”

“Has the Council not already signed a contract with Muylant?”

“Well, yes. That is where you come in, Yenit. It is within your purview to oversee city contracts, is it not?”

“Procurement before a contract is signed. I do not have oversight once the work has begun.”

“That will be changing at the next council meeting.”

Yenit lowered his cup.

“And I have the distinct feeling that Muylant will soon be found in breach of contract,” Thrankal continued. “Poor-quality stone. Incomplete deliveries. I have even heard that some shipments are disappearing before they reach the construction site.”

“That is curious. I have heard no such reports.”

“Ah, yes.”

Thrankal glanced around before stabbing a piece of rare meat with his fork.

“That is because it begins tomorrow.”

Yenit watched him chew.

“When you receive the reports,” Thrankal continued, “make certain that Muylant’s contract is cancelled. The urgency of the repairs will then require you to procure stone from Filee Island as a no-bid replacement.”

“You appear to have considered every detail.”

“Not every detail. That is why I have you.”

Thrankal cut another piece of meat.

“Delicious meal, is it not? There is no need to pay. Muylant has picked this one up.”

Yenit looked down at his plate. His steak suddenly looked very expensive.

Thrankal turned towards the ocean and exhaled deeply.

“What a magnificent view.”

A city runner appeared at the entrance to the balcony carrying a narrow leather message case. The boy hesitated when he saw the two councillors eating, then approached their table.

“I am sorry to interrupt, Councillors. Councillor Thrankal, this arrived by griffon rider. I assumed it was urgent.”

Thrankal put down his fork.

“Quite all right, boy.”

He reached into his purse and flipped the runner a quarter gold piece. The boy caught it awkwardly, stared at the coin and hurried away before anyone could discover that he had been paid more for crossing the city than many porters earned in a week.

Yenit watched him leave.

“News from the Crestrealms? Are the peasants revolting?”

“Well, yes,” Thrankal replied. “And as long as they are, we shall not invite them here.”

He removed the parchment from its case and saw Kaelen Thorne’s mark beneath the seal.

“Ah. I will read this one alone.”

“But I have not finished.”

Yenit’s offence was immediate and considerable. Thrankal paid it no mind. He beckoned to a table attendant and instructed him to move Yenit’s meal to an available table downstairs.

“I will see you in chambers,” Thrankal said dismissively.

Yenit rose with what dignity remained available to him and followed his lunch down the stairs.

Only when the balcony had fallen silent did Thrankal unfold the report.

Kaelen’s account began with their arrival in Helion and the unexpected disturbance outside the city. He mentioned the wave of energy but not its source. He explained rescuing a village from a reptile attack but Thrankal saw little value in that and almost no point in including it in the letter. Thrankal frowned. 

The report seemed filled with useless details which Thrankal put down to Kaelen’s inexperience and he continued to read the only news that mattered. The company’s discovery of some sort of star map with possible connections to energy flow and sites over Aethoria. The information about the map room and its potential value gave Thrankal pause. He read on about how it revealed a pattern of distant sites, including another location somewhere within the Vireilian Bloomlands.

It explained that Kaelen believed that the towers might once have formed a connected system, though he could not yet explain its connection. Nor could he explain the energy wave, the reaction towers or how any of it related to the Heartwell Crystals diminishing power. 

Thrankal read the relevant portions a second time.

Then a third.

He had financed investigators to obtain answers. Instead, they had rewarded him with ancient ruins, unexplained devices, disturbed animals and a glowing map pointing them towards an entirely different Crestrealm.

At the bottom of the report, Kaelen had included a carefully worded request for additional funds. The company would need passage west, supplies for the journey and enough coin to continue its work in the Vireilian Bloomlands without attracting unnecessary attention.

Thrankal placed the parchment upon the table and stared out at the ocean.

“They know nothing,” he muttered.

The sea, despite its exceptional view, provided no response.

“They have discovered more problems, attached names to none of them and offered solutions to even fewer.”

A server approached with his jallo, noticing his distressed expression and distant stare.

“Is everything satisfactory, Council Leader?”

“No.”

She stopped.

Thrankal glanced at the glass. “Fetch me another slice of sourfruit for the top.”

She was an experienced server and knew when to avoid and when to engage and she withdrew quietly.

He picked up Kaelen’s report again.

Another journey meant another trail of payments. Transport, lodging, equipment, local guides and whatever unexpected expenses Kaelen’s peculiar collection of companions accumulated while wandering across Aethoria and awakening ancient machinery.

The Food and Supplies budget had already been stretched beyond credibility. Menard would tolerate some additional manipulation because he now understood the danger, but even Menard could not disguise an intercrestrealm expedition of strangely assorted Aethiorians to the Vireilian Bloomlands as an explainable increase in the cost of council bread.

Thrankal folded the report.

He would have to hide the money elsewhere.

Perhaps within the wall repairs. With Muylant’s contract cancelled and the Filee quarry supplying the replacement stone, several inflated transportation charges could be redirected. Yenit could be persuaded to overlook them. If he objected, Thrankal would remind him who had arranged his new authority over city contracts.

“This little expedition,” he muttered, “is becoming intolerably expensive.”

He finished his meal without enjoying it.

The streets below were crowded when Thrankal left the Blissful Day.

He could have summoned a carriage, but the council chambers were close enough to walk, and he required time to decide precisely where Kaelen’s new funding would disappear.

Kefar rose around him in layers of white stone, painted shutters and crystalline ornamentation. Narrow streets wound around the seawall with its restaurants and luxurious homes revelling in a seaview and then concentrically until they were in the city center. Crossroads intersected them like spokes on a wheel with the heartwell near its core. Thrankall knew the streets well and preferred the open pathway along the seawall which at least provided a cooling breeze until turned inwards on Kefarian Way where the towers of the city caught the afternoon light and scattered it across tiled roofs in pale ribbons of blue and gold.

It was, Thrankal had always believed, the most beautiful city in Aethoria.

It would have been nearly perfect without so many people living in it.

“Council Leader!”

A fish seller waved at him from beneath a striped awning.

“Council Leader, something must be done about the harbour fees!”

Thrankal smiled politely and continued walking.

Near the Fountain of the First Light at the first intersection a group of workers were repairing a fractured water channel. Several sections of the street had been opened, forcing pedestrians, carts and a flock of irritable long-necked galling birds into the same narrow passage.

A woman carrying two empty water vessels recognised him.

“Our pipes ran dry three days ago, councillor please!”

“Then I commend your preparedness in carrying containers,” Thrankal replied.

Before she could decide whether she had been insulted or commended, he had already passed.

Farther along, two carts laden with blocks of pale stone rumbled towards the damaged western wall from the docks. Men shouted to one another as they guided the heavy wagons through the crowded street.

Muylant’s stone.

Thrankal paused to inspect it.

The blocks appeared sound, properly cut and entirely suitable for the repairs.

By tomorrow, that would become unfortunately untrue.

He continued towards the council district, passing the Bank of Ironroot and the broad steps of the Kefar Crystal Exchange. Clerks and traders moved constantly through their doors, carrying ledgers, sealed cases no doubt the wealth of the world on their shoulders. 

None of them knew that the crystals upon which their wealth depended might soon be in shorter supply and none especially that the power crystals charged by the Heartwell were taking longer to do so. He imagined for a moment what their reaction might be before silencing his mind. 

These fools had no inkling that ancient towers were awakening across Aethoria or that a group of young travellers had become entangled in something older than the Crestrealms themselves.

They worried about harbour fees, fish prices and broken pipes.

Thrankal almost envied them. Almost.

The council complex stood at the end of the Avenue of Accord, its gilded columns glowing beneath the afternoon sun. Two Guardians opened the main doors as he approached.

“Council Leader.”

Thrankal acknowledged them with a slight nod and entered.

Once inside he made his way to his council chamber and as he entered he saw a sealed letter resting in the centre of his desk. 

Thrankal stopped in the doorway.

Business and letters of city engagement were usually brought in when he was sitting to work. Only senior council officials, assigned Guardians and a small number of trusted clerks possessed access so he rightly concluded it must have been delivered by one of them. The letter bore no mark he recognised. Its seal had been pressed into dark grey wax and stamped. It was when looking intensely at the dark seal that he recognised where it must be from. The wax was impressed with the interlocking gear and tower of the Mechanum Ascendancy.

He closed the door behind him.

Kaelen’s request was momentarily forgotten. Thrankal crossed the room, broke the seal and read.

Then he returned to the beginning and read it again.

The message was concise, formal and utterly devoid of pleasantries.

That, according to what Thrankal’s had heard, was typical of how the Mechanum Ascendancy expressed themselves.

He pulled the chamber bell twice and a clerk appeared moments later, a little breathy which Thrankal liked as it meant they were paying attention.

“Send for Guardian Commander Deron Jain. Tell him to come to my chambers immediately and to speak to no one along the way.”

The clerk bowed and departed.

Thrankal remained standing beside his desk, the Mechanum letter held between his fingers.

It was not long before a knock sounded at the door.

“Enter.”

Deron stepped inside, still wearing the formal breastplate he used when attending the council chamber.

“You called for me, Council Leader?”

“Close the door.”

Deron obeyed.

Thrankal crossed to a narrow cabinet, removed a crystal key from beneath his robes and locked the door from within.

“You recall the matter about which I explained to you several months ago?”

Deron considered the question.

“The group investigating the irregularities in crystal recharging?”

“The group whose existence you have been keeping silent for me.”

“Yes.”

“And you recall that we sent a message to the Ascendancy so that one of its members could come from the Mechanum Ascendancy?”

“Anderix,” Deron said. “He was one of only 10 to ever come out of the Mechanum Ascendancy to Kefar under the exchange program.”

“Apparently his full parentage is of considerable importance.”

Thrankal handed him the letter.

Deron unfolded it and began to read.

Deron lowered the letter.

“They believe we are holding him hostage.”

“Captive or hostage,” Thrankal said. “They appear undecided as to which accusation they prefer, so they have generously implied both.”

“Did you know that he had not returned to the Ascendancy and was still gallivanting around Solaryn?”

“That is among the many things Kaelen failed to explain in the report I received over lunch.”

“Perhaps Anderix could just send word home that is alive and well and with his former academy mates?”

“Then we may be accused of falsification as they accuse us of holding him as hostage or of encouraging him to defect.”

Deron read the letter again.

“The threat is credible. Much of our southern transit depends upon access to the seas between us and them. Kefarian fishing vessels also sometimes range far into those waters.”

“And the Ascendancy’s patrol ships can seize them without declaring war,” Thrankal said. “A trade restriction, a licensing dispute, an enforcement action. They can strangle our southern shipping and commerce while insisting they have done nothing hostile.”

“What does the Council know?”

“Nothing.”

“And Menard?”

“Too much, but not this.”

Deron placed the letter upon the desk.

“What we tell the Mechanum Command Center that Anderix joined the investigation freely, out of concern and a desire to help us, compassionate grounds?”

“Ha, a compassionate Mech, then they really would worry and send guardians after him. And if we admit that he is working under our authority, we confirm their accusation.”

“We could deny that he is with us,” He mimicked talking to them officially “Sorry it's a big continent, not sure where he is right now.”

“They already know enough to send this directly to my desk. A simple denial will encourage them to reveal what else they know, possibly exposing us in front of the entire Council.”

Deron walked towards the chamber window. Beyond it, the upper towers of Kefar rose above the city, their crystal fixtures shining in the sun.

“Then we order Kaelen to send Anderix home.”

“Kaelen thinks Anderix is the only person among them who appears capable of understanding the machinery they have discovered.”

“Then we cannot surrender him.”

“We cannot openly refuse, either.”

Deron looked back at Thrankal.

“What do you suggest?”

Thrankal tapped one finger against the Mechanum letter.

“The Ascendancy has demanded that Kefar secure Anderix and arrange his return. We will inform them that we have begun doing precisely that.”

“By contacting Kaelen?”

“No. Any intercepted correspondence would connect Anderix directly to the investigation.”

“Then how do we demonstrate that we are complying?”

“We send a recovery party.”

Deron’s expression hardened.

“To retrieve him by force?”

“Publicly, yes. A Mechanum citizen has exceeded the conditions of his travel permissions and is believed to be moving through the Solaryn Reliquary. Kefar, eager to preserve its warm relations with the Ascendancy, dispatches Guardians to locate and return him.”

“There are no warm relations with the Ascendancy.”

“Then preserving them should be remarkably easy.”

“If the recovery party finds Kaelen, they may expose the entire investigation.”

“Only if they know what they are looking at.”

Deron’s eyes narrowed as he began to understand.

“We tell them nothing about the Heartwell.”

“Nothing about the tower, the star map or the Vireilian Bloomlands,” Thrankal agreed. “They are searching for a foreign traveller named Anderix. No one else in the company is of any interest.”

“And the Guardians in the recovery party?”

“Select those you trust to follow orders without asking inconvenient questions. Their instructions will be to take Anderix into custody and return him to Steamport 1.”

Deron was silent for a moment.

“That would remove him from Kaelen’s company.”

“If they catch him ...... “in Solaryn”,” he said for emphasis.

Thrankal’s gaze remained fixed upon him.

Deron studied the council leader’s expression.

“You want the recovery party to fail.”

“I want Kefar to respond visibly and sincerely to the Mechanum demand. If difficult terrain, inaccurate reports or the movements of the fugitive to an entirely different continent prevent his immediate recovery, that would be regrettable.”

“And expensive.”

“We will classify the deployment as an extension of security operations related to the damaged city wall.”

“The damaged wall is in Kefar.”

“Yes, Deron. That is what makes accounting such a splendidly flexible art.”

Deron walked slowly back towards the desk.

“If the Guardians reach the company, they may still attempt to carry out their orders.”

“They must,” Thrankal replied. “The pursuit has to be genuine. If the Mechanum Ascendancy has observers in Solaryn, a theatrical search will not satisfy them.”

“And Kaelen cannot be warned without risking the secret.”

“Correct.”

Deron’s jaw tightened.

“So we send a force to capture a member of our own investigation, while concealing from that force why it must not succeed.”

“Now you understand the elegance of the plan.”

“I would have chosen another word.”

“Fortunately, I am the one describing it.”

Thrankal retrieved a fresh sheet of parchment and placed it before Deron.

“Choose your people. They leave for Helion before first light. Officially, they are acting at the request of the High Council to recover a Mechanum citizen unlawfully travelling under Kefarian authority.”

“And unofficially?”

Thrankal looked down at Kaelen’s folded report.

“Unofficially, Kaelen Thorne had better remain one step ahead of them.”

Deron thought a moment then smiled. I have some guardians in mind that can handle this sort of thing. Do you know Greyn Bilt? He did some work for us in Ironroot. The kind of work that could land you in a prison if someone were to find out. I'll ask Greyn to get some guardians on the job. Deron glanced towards the sealed doors.

“What shall I tell the Guardians if they ask why this mission requires such secrecy?”

Thrankal dipped his pen into the ink.

“To win their trust, tell them that this is like their Ironroot excursion but the pay is better and to win their hearts tell them this Anderix is a fugitive from the Mechanum Ascendancy and must be returned.”

Deron waited.

Thrankal began drafting Kefar’s response to the Mechanum Command Center before ending with “Relations between the Crestrealms depend upon it.”

Thy Quest: The Elegant Solution
Thrankal creates a plan that appears to satisfy the Mechanum Ascendancy while secretly protecting Kaelen’s investigation. Explain how the plan serves two different purposes. What could go wrong if either the recovery party or Kaelen’s company discovers only part of the truth?