The Duelist 11, page 4
Sha-Kane blinked at his son, and then the realization dawned, and he smiled. It was a quintessentially fatherly smile, and it was one Horus and Shay returned, albeit tentatively.
“Thank you,” the osprey-man said, and he held out his arms.
Both Shay and Horus got to their feet and, though a bit awkwardly, they did hug their father. I could see the relief in Sha-Kane’s face and the desperation in how tightly he hugged them, his children. When they parted, the osprey-man’s eyes shone with tears for a moment before he blinked them back.
“I only ever wanted the best for you,” he said to them both. “I wanted to improve Aventoll, so you would be safe even if you didn’t have status-- so everyone would be safe, regardless of their status.”
“We want the same,” Horus said, and when he looked over at me, I nodded firmly.
“We had plans to go to the Council and confront them, anyway, but after Teivel, it’s become that much more important,” I said, and the osprey-man’s expression turned grave.
“It will be difficult,” he warned me. “Shaw Aras was only respected because his bloodline stretched back to the original sixty-four, but the Council regarded him as a radical, and me even more so. They will be hard to convince of any changes, and even harder to intimidate or threaten.”
“Well, if it was easy, someone would have done it already,” I said and was unfazed.
We’d overcome more difficult odds, and we hadn’t gone to all this effort to save Aventoll just to stop now. We’d done the most important part, which was getting rid of the demons. Now we just needed to make sure the power structures that had relied on that threat didn’t fuck everything up by clinging to antiquity.
“I admire your conviction,” Sha-Kane remarked. “But I still must caution you. The Council is not easily swayed in ordinary circumstances, but for you especially, it will be difficult. I have good reason to suspect almost every single member of the Council is currently under the influence of Kavo Alda.”
Chapter 3
“Kavo Alda?” I asked. “But… how can you be sure? He’s a face-changer, just like Krev was.”
“I know of Kavo Alda’s abilities,” Sha-Kane said in a grave voice. “But I can assure you, I know his influence. He has exploited the Council’s fears of becoming obsolete, of the larger population of non-Ashers rising up and taking over, and he has manipulated them into becoming even more corrupt, to serve his own ends. I’m sure of it.”
“Is that why you’ve spent so little time on Alem? With the Council proper?” Shay asked. She looked a little less shaken than she had a few minutes ago, and she seemed to be coming to terms with the fact that the osprey-man in front of her was her real father.
“Part of the reason, yes,” Sha-Kane admitted. “Between the fact that I killed Shaw Aras to get my seat, and because I share his so-called ‘radical’ views on reforming the Council, I wasn’t very welcome on Alem beforehand, either. I think Kavo Alda knows I would be harder to convince than the legacies.”
“Do you think he has a… a direct line of communication with the Council?” Horus then asked. He also looked less shaken than earlier, but I could see he was trying to shove himself into a new problem to fix, a new mystery to figure out. He liked to distract himself and work through things quietly, in the background of his mind, or ignore them for as long as he could. It maybe wasn’t the healthiest way to go about processing such a revelation, but it was honestly my preference. I liked to feel like I was doing something useful and concrete, and so did Horus.
“If he does, he’ll know about Teivel Tas being sent to the Isle of Hearts,” Shay said.
“More than that,” I said. “It’s only a matter of time before he finds out I killed Tas and took his seat. And Kavo already wants me dead for killing his brother.”
“But… the Alda brothers hate each other,” Horus said blankly, and I nodded.
“I know, but it looks like Kavo still held some latent affection for Krev,” I said. “Krev came to kill me because I was messing with his plans. Now Krev’s dead, and I’m not, and I was masquerading as Krev to try and get information about the Aldas’ schemes. Kavo will think I killed his brother to try and get information. And even if not, he’ll definitely have a bone to pick with the ‘upstart Traveler’ who’s been shitting all over his plans.”
I still hadn’t met Kavo Alda directly, I’d only come into contact with some of his more peripheral schemes, like circulating Terran-steel medallions that caused ore-madness to disorient those who might be hunting him. But from what I’d gleaned through others, he was smarter than Krev, and more willing to refuse short-term gratification in favor of larger, long-term gains.
This also meant he’d be harder to defeat, but with the entire Council in the palm of his hand, or something similar, he was going to be hard to defeat anyway.
“Well, then,” I said. “We obviously need to go to Alem and see all this for ourselves. Between me having a seat, and Shay healing the Heart, we needed to go there, anyway. Right now, we’re well-positioned to find out exactly what their plans are, and exactly how they go about enacting them.”
“Like how Alem causes the Red Skies on purpose?” Shay asked, and I nodded. “Actually, were there any Red Skies while we were in the Cave of Hearts?”
“One, at night,” Sha-Kane answered. “Bodin and I were poised to intervene if any demons sprang up from the sands, but there were none. I think this Island is… better suited to keep demons away.”
“Not necessarily, if the Council has a way to control demons directly,” I said. “We know the Red Skies and the demon attacks are coincidental, and we know Alem is somehow causing the Red Skies, even if we still don’t know how they’re doing it, or how the Council is controlling the demons. They must have had some enemy on another Island they wanted to intimidate, and they probably didn’t want to send demons to the Island of Hearts while they had one of their own here.”
“They didn’t want to distract Teivel from his mission,” Sha-Kane said with a nod, but I shook my head.
“He was well-trained for sure, but he was an idiot,” I said frankly. “I genuinely don’t think that guy had ever fought a real fight in his life. And I suspect the Council knew that, so they didn’t want to risk him getting killed when he was supposed to be killing me.”
“But he got himself killed anyway,” Horus said with a smirk.
“Times have changed since Shaw Aras first took his seat,” Sha-Kane told us in a grim voice. “The Council was already corrupt, of course, but still it was… different. It wasn’t so blatantly self-serving. The Asher Council was definitely prone to… favoring itself, but they still fundamentally cared about stopping the Scourge. Or at least, that was the Council Shaw Aras told me. But about thirty seasons ago, or thereabouts-- around the time the Brothers Alda would have come to Aventoll-- it got markedly worse. Whatever noble intentions the Council ever held are long gone.”
“I honestly doubt there were ever noble intentions,” I told the osprey-man honestly. “The Council was founded because the Ashers of Blood believed they were inherently superior to those who were spontaneously blessed by Mercedes. They believed their ancestry and blood gave them more right to the world, to power. Even if they were styling themselves as noble heroes, sacrificing for their people, they believed they were innately better than everyone else, and that their power was something they were owed.”
“The flaws of the Council have never escaped me,” Sha-Kane said to me. “But for what I sought to do, it was my only option. There is no other way I could have gained any significant status, because I was born with no status at all. However, Shaw Aras, who was born into the very heart of that system, he truly believed it could be changed for something better. That was why he took me as his protégé. A non-Asher with no family name, no gold, no position. And now, I hold one of the highest offices in Aventoll.”
“But maybe now that the threat of demons is gone, we can do more,” I said. I certainly hoped we could, anyway. “At the very least, we need to get Kavo Alda’s claws out of the government. We can deal with their own brand of garden-variety governmental corruption after we get rid of him.”
“It won’t be as simple as outright killing him,” the osprey-man warned me. “Kavo has been carefully manipulating the Council for seasons. He will have intricate webs, and he will know exactly where to apply pressure to get things done. He may well have sent Teivel Tas after you himself.”
“I don’t think it would’ve taken the Council much convincing to send an assassin after me,” I said, though I did think it was a bit curious they’d sent one of their own and not some grunt. Maybe they hadn’t wanted some nobody getting my power and rank, getting the Incarnate and the supposed Prophetess for his wives. Or maybe they hadn’t wanted to risk their secrets getting out. Or maybe, they’d realized I was more than a lucky upstart and was actually able to hold my own in a fight.
“Perhaps not, but the timing and choice of assassin can tell us a great deal,” Sha-Kane said. “They clearly value their secrecy, else they wouldn’t have sent one of their own along.”
“They could’ve sent someone smarter,” Horus snorted. “Tas barely took any convincing before Alex had him in a Duel. And he was a crap fighter.”
“H, could we maybe not criticize the Council for not sending a better fighter to kill me?” I laughed, and Horus looked away in slight embarrassment.
“Right. Sorry.”
“The Council has their own secrets to keep, and I suspect a few of them are the result of Kavo Alda,” Sha-Kane said to us. “The corruption has always existed, both in the Council and in the Order of Mercedes, but only with the arrival of the Alda brothers has it gotten this bad.”
“But why?” Horus asked. “Why go to all the trouble of controlling the existing forms of government like this? They can change their faces. They could have all the power they wanted if they just stole the face of someone powerful and killed the real version.”
“Maybe that would just be too boring,” I suggested. “Krev was a sadistic son of a bitch. You saw what he did to Nova’s mother, and to Nova herself. And he was the less patient, more ‘in your face’ of the pair. I don’t want to think in too much detail about what Kavo is capable of, because he’s the patient one. He’s the smarter one who knew to stay out of the spotlight and let his name become something like a legend to be feared instead of an enemy to be defeated.”
“Words have power,” Shay agreed. “Do you think that’s how he influences the Council? Has he built himself up as some kind of… mythic figure?”
“In a world with Incarnates and Prophetesses and Saviors, I imagine it wouldn’t be too hard to style himself as a Nightmare,” I answered. That was what Gella Vane had called Kavo while he’d been poisoned by the Terran steel. “And when he’s encouraging them to act on their basest greed, to the point of obscene luxury, I doubt the Council is too concerned about morality.”
“The Council was never about morality, no matter how hard it tries to present itself in that way,” Sha-Kane said. “We would do well to remember that. It was built to keep antiquated structures of power in place, far beyond when they were useful.”
I wasn’t quite sure what to make of Sha-Kane here. He’d obviously turned to the Council because it had been the one thing that could maybe offer him-- and therefore his children-- some proper protection, but even as he was frank about its flaws, and criticized it, he hadn’t mentioned wanting to leave it. I couldn’t tell if that was because he was still worried for Shay and Horus, or if some part of him wanted to keep the fancy titles and the money.
I guess I couldn’t really blame him, since I enjoyed the perks of my Asher status as much as the next guy, but I drew the line at engineering demon attacks and killing innocent people to hold onto those perks.
“Why stay with the Council, then?” I asked the osprey-man.
“Because I don’t know where else I would go,” Sha-Kane answered simply. “It’s not a very good reason, I know, but it’s the one I have. Shaw Aras was the only family I had, for a very long time. And it seems… rude. To leave the Council when he wanted so desperately to improve it. It might be beyond saving, but I have to try.”
“If the only way to save Aventoll is to burn it all down, can we trust you to help us, then?” Horus asked. The falcon-man leveled his gaze at his father and seemed entirely unintimidated by the man who, when they had first met, Horus had refused to even look directly in the eye. “Which oath matters more to you?”
“Family,” the Councilman said at once. “My family has always come first. Shaw Aras was like a father to me, and I will honor his wishes with a sincere attempt to repair a broken system. But I will not have my children be caught in the fallout of an impossible promise.”
“It might be impossible,” I warned him. “Kavo’s hold seems to be very strong.”
“I know,” Sha-Kane said in a heavy voice. “That’s another part of the reason why I stay away from Alem as much as possible. I don’t know how Kavo Alda is controlling the Council. It could be ore-madness with their medallions, some kind of magic like the Rogue mage, Aiken, or perhaps just promises of more money. I am not an infallible man, as you all know, so I didn’t want to give myself the chance to fall into that corruption.”
I had to admire that, at least.
“So we can trust you?” Horus asked, and when I looked over at the falcon-man, I saw an almost childlike hope shining in his eyes. For the first time, he was daring to imagine that this father figure might be decent, and might be here to stay.
“You have always been able to trust me, my boy,” Sha-Kane answered earnestly. “Everything I have ever done has been for the sake of you and Shale-Lea. You are my children, you are my greatest loves.”
Tears shone in the corner of Horus’ eyes, but he blinked them back, and I pretended not to notice. He would probably have a proper let-out of the day’s emotions behind closed doors, with Shay or Anwaar. But right now, I could tell he just wanted to move on so he could ignore all this, or just process it in the background while his mind was distracted.
“It seems fair to say Kavo thinks you killed his brother, Alex,” the falcon-man said to me, and I nodded. “So Kavo isn’t going to stop sending people after you. He might even come after you himself.”
I should be so lucky. I wanted to make that bastard suffer for what he’d done to Aventoll-- especially Rylan. The poor kid had been all but kicked out of his home because of what Kavo had done to his mother. The woman couldn’t stand to even look at her own son because of Kavo.
“But we can’t just keep reacting to what he’s throwing at us,” Horus continued.
“I agree,” I said firmly. “We need to go on the offense for a change, if we’re going to have a hope of beating him. Kavo thinks he can control us because we’re a smaller group with fewer resources, but we’ve just been playing this game on his terms.”
“So, what would you suggest?” Sha-Kane asked, though I could see what Shay already knew from the look in her eyes.
“We take the fight to him,” I said simply. “We go to Alem, to the Council, and we figure out how they’re controlling the demons, and we stop them.”
At that very moment, there was a knock at the door to the family room.
“Come in?” I asked it more than I said it, but my confusion was answered when I saw the knocker was Amaya.
“Is everything alright?” she asked. “I could sense… discomfort. Upset.”
“It’s fine now,” I promised the oryx-woman, and I held up an arm.
She grinned and walked into my embrace gratefully. Once she was nestled in my arm, she reached out to take one of Shay’s hands, and I could see the phoenix-woman was relieved for the contact. After the high of healing the Heart of Aventoll, and learning all this new information about Sha-Kane, I could see Shay needed to feel a little more grounded, and Amaya was probably the best person to do it. She understood what it was like to have higher powers whispering inside her head and giving her Knowledge. I might have been worried for both women if they didn’t have each other. Support in all its forms was invaluable, but sometimes, what was really needed was someone who’d gone through something similar, because it made explanations so much easier.
“I can sense that, too, now that I’m inside,” Amaya said with a smile. “You’re all okay, then?”
“Just about,” I said with a nod, and I looked at Sha-Kane curiously.
I had no idea if he wanted to tell anyone else about him being Shay and Horus’ father-- or if Shay and Horus wanted to tell anyone else. The osprey-man just smiled at me, and I got the impression it was information for another time, when there were less dangerous things afoot.
Plus, it was probably better to keep that on the down-low until the Council no longer had a blood debt hovering over Sha-Kane’s head.
“Good, because we need your help out on the shore,” Amaya said. “Nemis was scouting around to prepare for take-off, and he spied another vessel a little way down the beach.”
“Another vessel?” Horus asked with a frown. “Who else could have come here?”
“It must have belonged to Teivel,” Shay said, and I knew she had to be right. Who else could have traveled the straight path across Aventoll to reach the Island?
“Then we should approach with caution,” I advised. “He could have a big crew in there, maybe even other Ashers or some kind of bodyguard group.”
“Caution seems wise,” Sha-Kane agreed with a nod. “Does the other ship know it’s been spotted?”
“I don’t think so,” Amaya replied, and she ran a finger along one of her oryx horns as she thought. “But they might be playing dumb in anticipation of an attack. They could be preparing an ambush.”
“Then we go in carefully and on high alert,” I said.
The five of us walked back out into the entrance hall to see everyone else had crowded around Nemis, and the raccoon-man was energetically describing the ship he’d spotted to his rapt audience.
