Call of the Colossus: An epic fantasy novel (The Mindstream Chronicles Book 2) (21 page)

“There you are,” Trond said, approaching from the other direction. “Milad wants you in his office.”

He headed upstairs with a bounce in his step, repeating the name in his mind. Sharkfighter. Yah, that was him. Korlan Sharkfighter Rastorfer, champion enforcer of the Justice Bureau. Other enforcers had nicknames, like Gruesome, Nob, Brutal, and Chop. Korlan wondered whether he could get them to start calling him Sharkfighter.

When Korlan walked into Milad’s office, the boss glanced up through a pair of spectacles. “Where’ve you been?”

“You wanted me to make sure Jora doesn’t investigate the smuggling, so I was with her. She’s taking her lessons now.”

The justice captain continued writing. “You haven’t answered my question.”

Korlan didn’t know how much Milad knew about her relationship with Sundancer, and he certainly didn’t want to be the one to give away a secret she’d wanted kept quiet. “She needed to walk the stiffness out of her joints. We strolled to the docks and back.”

Milad sighed and took his spectacles off, tossing them onto his desk. “Are we going to have a problem?”

“No, sir. No problem.”

“Then why are you being evasive?”

Korlan swallowed. Had the boss been Observing him? “She wasn’t investigating the smuggling. What more do you want me to say?”

“I want you to be forthcoming. I want to know whether I can trust you.”

“Sir, I’m doing my job. I’m doing what you told me to do.”

“Then either you’re an idiot, or I didn’t make myself clear. Which is it?”

Korlan narrowed his eyes. “You didn’t make yourself clear. Sir.”

“I want you to tell me everything she does, where she goes, who she speaks to, and what they talk about. She didn’t go to the god forsaken docks to work the kinks out of her joints, and if you think I’m going to believe that, you
are
an idiot.” Milad rose to his feet, slowly, deliberately, and went around the desk. With his nose only inches from Korlan’s, he said, “If I need leverage to get you to do your job, I’ll get it. Do we understand each other now, or do you need me to be more specific?”

Korlan’s heart sputtered. Milad was threatening his wife and daughter. He narrowed his eyes at the man.
You bastard.
“I understand,” he said, his upper lip stiff.

“Do not test me, Rastorfer. I’m not a patient man.” He went back around the desk and sat down again, leaning back in his chair as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Now tell me what she did at the docks.”

“She played her flute, and a dolphin came.”

“The one she calls Sunsplasher?”

“Sundancer,” he said, relieved that he hadn’t given anything away. “Yes.”

“And?” Milad snapped his fingers a few times. “Come on. I haven’t got all day. What’d she want with the dolphin?”

“I can’t understand their language, so I don’t know what she wanted, other than to greet her friend. She introduced me. That’s all I know for sure. And the dolphin gave me a name.”

The justice captain smirked. “What was it? Pea-brain?”

“Sharkfighter,” Korlan said, lifting his chin proudly.

Milad rolled his eyes. “Did she tell you afterward what the conversation was about?”

“She said they talked about the water and fish, that’s it. Observe me in the Mindstream if you don’t believe me. I don’t know what else they talked about.” Once the words were out of his mouth, he realized it was a lie. She’d mentioned wanting to ask about the warrior statues. He licked his lips, hoping Milad wouldn’t take his suggestion.

After a moment, Milad gave a wave of his hand. “All right. Dismissed.”

“What are my duties today?” Korlan asked.

“Find Gruesome. He’s going to issue a punishment. I want you to assist him. After that, follow her, talk to her, be her friend. Try to get her to tell you what if anything she’s learned about the smuggling.”

In other words, trick her into revealing more than she might otherwise.
“Yes, sir.”

“Now get the hell out of my office.”

In the dining hall over breakfast, Jora sat with Adriel, the only person willing to brave the stigma of associating with someone wearing the black mantle of shame. Jora explained that she was wearing the mantle because of her refusal to relinquish her books to the dominee.

Adriel grinned. “You’re tough.”

“I’ve never been one to hold a grudge, but they’re teaching me well. She’s not getting my books, and that’s final.”

“You have to admit,” Adriel said, “that they have a good argument about Elder Kassyl’s book belonging to the Justice Bureau. All of his possessions did. I spent some time today looking it up.”

“But he gave it to me.”

“I know, but all our possessions belong to the Bureau, too. They practically own us like a farmer owns a plow.”

Jora shook her head. “I never agreed to that. They can’t just spring these rules on us when they decide they want something we have.”

“Listen, you’ve seen all the pages in his book, right?” Adriel asked. “Why not give it to her? It won’t do her any good without your journal, and by Mindstreaming your own past, you can look up anything you need to.”

Jora hadn’t looked at all the pages, but she could. “You’re right,” she said, tapping her spoon against the edge of her bowl. “Giving her the book of tones might pacify her for a time, but she’ll still insist on having my journal, too.”

“If you tear out the pages you wrote before taking your oath, then she can’t claim you’ve desecrated Justice Bureau property. Those pages didn’t belong to the bureau in the first place.”

Jora nodded slowly, considering the strategy. They were solely hers, those earlier pages, the ones containing her notes about Azarian, the language of Sundancer and the Spirit Stones. Even Elder Devarla would have to agree they didn’t belong to the Justice Bureau.

“And if you burn them, there’s no hope of recovering them,” Adriel whispered, a wicked glint in her eye.

Jora laughed. “They could simply rewrite them by Mindstreaming to my past and Observing me making the notes.”

“Only if you let them. What good is the barring hood if you don’t use it to keep people from your valuable secrets?”

“You’re so bad,” Jora said with a grin. “I like that about you.”

Adriel winked. “What are friends for if not to lead each other into mischief?”

When Elder Devarla entered the room, conversation faltered. Her demeanor was different than usual, more forceful. Urgent. She crooked a finger. “Jora, come with me. Now.”

“Elder? Have I done something wrong?” she asked, standing.

“Something has happened.”

Jora stood and picked up her breakfast tray.

“Go,” Adriel said. “Leave the tray. I’ll put it away for you.”

She gave her friend a grateful nod and followed the elder out of the room and down the hallway. “What’s wrong, Elder?”

“Let’s go to my office where we can talk privately.” Elder Devarla strode with purpose along the walkway to the justice building, then upstairs to her office with Jora struggling to keep up. Though the ache in her hips and knees was mostly gone, she felt it renewed when she needed to hurry as she did now.

The elder’s office office smelled of mint and citrus. A half-eaten orange sat on her desk atop a folded napkin.

Elder Devarla gestured to one of the chairs in front of her desk and shut the door. “Please, have a seat.”

Jora did as she was instructed, but the urgency of the news had her on edge. She sat tall in the chair, leaning slightly forward as she followed the elder with her gaze.

“As I expected,” the elder woman said, sitting across the desk from Jora, “the dominee was quite displeased with your refusal to give her the books. I urged her to give me time to convince you, but she said she had her own means to get what she wanted.” Elder Devarla took a breath. “Jora, I’m sorry. Your brother, Finn, has been arrested.”

“What?” Jora said, standing. “He’s done nothing wrong. How could he be arrested?”

“Well, that’s not quite true, I’m afraid. His sergeant was tasked with telling him what you’d done. I questioned the delicacy of his words, and so I Observed the conversation. It appears the sergeant told Finn you went on a murderous rampage, killing an elder and the four enforcers sent to bring you to trial.”

“Murderous rampage?” Jora asked. While it wasn’t completely a lie, it certainly sounded far worse than “justice for slaughtering two thousand people.” She lowered herself back into the chair. “But why was he arrested?”

“Finn didn’t believe him. He accused the sergeant of lying and then punched him. Knocked him out cold.”

Jora laughed. The notion was so absurd, it couldn’t possibly be true. Finn had never stuck up for her when they were younger. He let his friends and other children ridicule her mercilessly for being different, standing by doing nothing. While he only teased her in the privacy of their home, he never stood up for her when others did it. Not like Boden did. Even their younger brother, Loel, came to her aid more than Finn ever had. “You must have the wrong man. That doesn’t sound like Finn. He’d never hit an officer in my defense.”

“Well, he did this time. Observe him yourself if you don’t believe me.”

Jora snorted a chuckle. What hapless wretch had they mistaken for Finn, telling him a lie about his sister? She opened the Mindstream and found the moment in question—her brother Finn speaking with another man, one with a stripe on his sleeve. She watched in mute horror as rage twisted Finn’s features a moment before he threw a punch, connecting squarely with the sergeant’s jaw. The officer was unconscious before he hit the ground. Finn fell to his knees, straddling him, grasped him by the shirt and punched him again. Two other men pulled him off.

Jora couldn’t bear to watch anymore. She put up the barring hood as she always did before closing the Mindstream.

She shook her head, hardly able to believe what she’d just witnessed. Not only was it out of character for Finn to so recklessly defend her, but to strike an officer—it was shocking, to say the least. Did he know about Kaild? The knowledge that all his friends and family were dead could have pushed him past his limit. “What will happen to him?” she asked quietly.

“He’ll be brought to Jolver and court-martialed by the Legion.”

Jora nodded. A formality, given that his actions were Observable.

“Jora,” Elder Devarla said, “Dominee Ibsa has a good deal of influence with the Legion. If she can’t command your compliance by hurting you, she’ll make you watch Finn be punished.”

“She’s evil,” Jora said in a horrified whisper. “She’s absolutely evil.” The woman had a good deal of influence everywhere, it seemed—a prime position to be in for someone who was smuggling godfruit to the enemy.

Elder Devarla sighed. “Do not speak of the dominee so. As a favor to you, she’s promised to negotiate a light punishment for Finn if you give her the books.”

“Fine,” Jora announced. “She can have the damned books. Give me a few minutes to get them.” And when that task was done and the books delivered, she would do what she had to do.

She would visit the warrior statues that very night and begin assembling her army.

Chapter 13

Alone in her room, Jora paced and cursed under her breath, thinking about Finn and the mess he’d gotten himself into. By behaving so rashly, he’d also unwittingly put her in a bind. She didn’t trust the limits of the dominee’s decorum. Gambling with her brother’s life was not an option.

Unable to see any other way, she summoned Po Teng. The ally faded into view holding the two books just as he had when she last dismissed him.

“Hello, Po Teng,” she said. “I need my books again.” She took them from his tree-branch arms. “Thank you for holding them.”

“Weh-luh-cuh-meh.”

“Po Teng, do you remember my brother Finn?” she asked as she sat at her dressing table.

The ally nodded enthusiastically. “Lee-nah.”

“That’s right. His wife was Reena.” She began to unlace the binding of her journal. “Finn’s gotten himself into trouble. He hit his sergeant. Knocked him unconscious. Can you believe that?”

Po Teng cocked his misshapen head. “Fih-nuh?”