The Beast of Ildenwood: 14. The Traitors Among Us

The Beast of Ildenwood

14. The Traitors Among US

Deletrear finds Haq in the round courtyard between the Sisters of Miraya, sitting cross-legged on a worn carpet he has laid out in front of the reflecting pool. Before him sits a woman, her robe stretched out across her knees as she, too, sits cross-legged and holds his hand.

 

He murmurs something to her, and this makes her smile with relief. Deletrear approaches them slowly, wondering how best to find out whether Haq has been turned by the enemy. He decides to use his Invisible Eye to probe into the man’s Guidebook, flipping through it quickly. It does not take too long, because Deletrear is aware that Haq, given his own skill, has cultivated a high-level Book Defense skill, and intruding upon his Guidebook for too long will alert the man to Deletrear’s snooping.

 

There are no quests or mentions of Muna or an artifact, and nothing to suggest, from Deletrear’s quick skim, that Haq is anyone other than the Noble Guardian of Truth that he has always been. Being a man of skill, however, means that Deletrear cannot let his guard down quite yet. After all, there are ways to deceive those who look into your Guidebook – even if this is not common knowledge for most, and for good reason.

 

He is close enough now to hear what Haq is saying to the woman, whose hand he now holds up gently.

 

“...You must come back and see me again,” he tells her. “It is rare that such a beauty graces me with her presence. All too often it’s bickering fools and incompetent officials.” The lady laughs quietly behind her other hand and shakes her head. Deletrear tries very hard not to roll his eyes as he stops at the edge of the carpet.

 

“A bit old for her, aren’t you?” he asks, crossing his arms as he looks down upon the Guardian of Truth. “I’m certain she can do much better.”

 

Haq’s challenging gaze meets Deletrear and he replies with a smirk: “Age means nothing to a man if he’s charming enough. Not that you would know anything about being charming, Deletrear.”

 

“What I lack in charm, I make up for in wisdom,” Deletrear responds. “And in my wisdom, I shall end this little squabble here. I have come on important business. Will you listen to me?”

 

Haq frowns, a twinge of annoyance in his face as he glances back at the young woman. With a sigh, he shakes his head. “My sincerest apologies, my dear. It seems the work of a Guardian is never finished.”

 

“It’s quite alright,” the woman says in amusement, pulling her hand back from his open palm. “Thank you very much for your services. I may call upon you again.”

 

“I may not be here,” Haq replies with a helpless shrug.

 

The two of them watch the young lady walk away, and when she is out of earshot, Deletrear clears his throat. “Shall I sit on the carpet with you, too, or is that only reserved for pretty women with deep pockets?”

 

Haq scrunches his nose. “I will have you know, that woman was simply having a difficult time understanding herself, and I was more than happy to reveal to her her own truth. I am tired of sitting. I want to stretch my legs. Let us walk a bit, old man, and you can tell me what you’re here for, if not to pick fights you cannot win.”

 

With a snort, Deletrear joins the man on a stroll around the reflecting pool in the center of the courtyard. “I am here on behalf of the King,” he tells him. “He requests a favor of you.”

 

“I have not seen your king in a long time,” Haq replies, stroking the neatly-trimmed black hairs of his beard. “I’m quite busy these days, you know.”

 

“Oh, yes,” Deletrear says. “Setting up camp on the street and waiting for a passer-by to seek your truth-revealing skills can be quite time-consuming. How much are you making these days, anyway? Don’t tell me you’re homeless again. Did your wife kick you out again?”

 

“I was never homeless,” Haq says, scoffing. “I was simply traveling for a while. And my wife and I are doing quite well, thank you very much. In a few months, we shall be rid of one another, and finally I shall be able to breathe.”

 

“Is that right?” Deletrear says with a chuckle. “How is your daughter?”

 

Haq grumbles something under his breath and sighs. “She’s going through an insect-catching phase. Glass jars full of the things everywhere. Even managed to get her hands on one of those thorned fleugons.” He shudders violently. “And her mother, of course, encourages her day and night, just to get under my skin! I had to escape for a little while.” With another sigh – Deletrear is beginning to think that Haq isn’t doing quite as well as he’d like others to think – he pushes his hands deep into the pockets of his robes. “So what’s this all about, Deletrear? What does the King of Samat want with me?”

 

“What do you know about Muna?” Deletrear asks.

 

Haq’s eyes widen, his hand gripping Deletrear’s arm, and he looks around automatically. “Keep your voice down, will you? That’s meant to be a secret!”

 

All the while, Deletrear tries to scan him for any strange information that may be revealed in his Guidebook. Even with the application of methods used to hide a Guidebook’s true information, the slightest emotional or psychological reaction can undo some of the illusions and show to the reader what truly lies below. When nothing turns up, however, he clasps his hands behind his back and continues on, and Haq falls into stride with him once more.

 

“Well?” he demands. “What about it? I know it can’t be a small matter, or you wouldn’t be here, and my Guardian’s Web has been irritating me of late – a death, isn’t it?”

 

Deletrear tells him the broad strokes of everything he knows, leaving out which Guardian currently has hold of the artifact, and completely omitting the Wanderer (he’s still not entirely certain where that young man fits into the whole story, but he has no doubt he will soon find out). All the while, he monitors the man’s Guidebook curiously, cautiously, looking for anything out of place, any twinge of deceit. Time and again, the search comes up empty, with nothing out of the ordinary.

 

By the time he is finished, Haq has grown as serious as he has ever seen him, and he nods, scratching his head. “Yes, that is a problem,” he mutters. “One of our own… Possibly more. I see now why the King requested my presence.”

 

“Will you come?” Deletrear asks. His head is aching with the strain of continuously using his Invisible Eye for this particular kind of detection. As far as he knows, there has never been any Invisible Eye user in the world who has developed the attribute for truth detection. Perhaps he is the first one.

 

“I don’t have much choice,” Haq replies with a frown. “If there are Guardians shirking their responsibilities and betraying their vows, I want them exposed. Zerban wasn’t a good man – a bit of a jerk, to be fair – but when I scanned him at his test years ago, he was clear. His intentions were good. There was not a single lie to be detected. He was clear.”

 

“Yes, I suspected as much,” Deletrear says. None can fool Haq’s truth-seeking attribute, not matter how well they pretended. “You wouldn’t have let him pass, otherwise.”

 

“So they’re turning us against one another now,” Haq says, smoothing back his messy brown hair. “I suppose this calls for an emergency re-testing. That’s what you’ve got planned, isn’t it?” When Deletrear nods, Haq says, “Well, let’s get going, then. The sooner the better. It’s going to be a long meeting. And here I was hoping I’d be home by the end of the month, at least.”

 

Deletrear ignores the little emotional spike that tells him this was a lie.

 

* * *

 

“Thank you all for arriving on such short notice,” the King of Samat says, taking a stand from his white-marble throne. The throne room is filled with Guardians from all over Samat. There are forty in room, according to Deletrear’s Guidebook, and this is concerning, because there are forty-three Guardians in Samat.

 

Three are missing. Zerban, of course, is dead, so one of them is no longer accounted for.

 

But the other two…

 

Deletrear stands at the back of the group, with hopes that he will blend in while he does what the King has asked him to do – as exhausting an undertaking as it is. With his Invisible Eye, he goes through the Guardians’s Guidebooks one by one, trying to quickly search them for any information that ousted them as potential traitors, and ignoring the mental aches that come with practicing such an invasive skill for what might be the fourth or fifth time in his entire life.

 

“Some of you are already aware of the reason for this morning’s meeting, but there are many of you who have yet to hear the news,” the King goes on, his charismatic voice rumbling through the sealed room. “The foreign armies at the shores have unearthed one of our most powerful artifacts,” he continues, and Deletrear tries very hard to flick through everyone’s Guidebooks to see if anything he says is resulting in any suspicious reactions. Handling a group of people is much harder than handling one at a time.

 

“As you all know, the legends surrounding the artifact known to us as Muna speak of great destruction and chaos,” the King says. “This is the artifact the enemy has unearthed.”

 

There is a rumble of concerned chatter through the crowd, and the King holds up his hand for silence. “It is extremely concerning that such a thing has happened, but we are currently in control of Muna and hope to remain so. However...” He pauses for a moment, his gaze sweeping over the group. There is only silence now, and his very presence commands the entire room. This was the man that all of Samat chose to be their Guardian, the man who, decades ago, became the King of Samat as was his right as the Guardian of all of Samat. His feats are legendary. Deletrear can sense the deep respect that the Guardians have for him.

 

“However,” the King repeats from his platform, “in investigating this event, we have come to a disturbing conclusion. There are only a limited number of people who know of the artifact, and fewer still who know of its location. All of them are Noble Guardians.” A heavy atmosphere creeps throughout the room as the Guardians realize what the King is trying to tell them, and they glance at one another with shifting eyes.

 

“Yes, my fellow Guardians,” the King confirms, crossing his arms. “There are traitors among us.”

 

Almost immediately the crowd erupts into another fit of whispers and chatter, but this time, the King allows it to go on for just a moment. And, as Deletrear tries to flip through their Guidebooks, a strange sensation washes over him. His Invisible Eye tugs at his mind from within, alerting him that something is not quite right. What is it?

 

Inconsistencies detected in the Environmental Condition.

 

Deletrear strokes his beard, calling upon the Environmental Condition of his surroundings. He has already seen it and doubts that it will show him anything out of the ordinary. But if his Invisible Eye is telling him to open it up once more… Well, his ability has never led him astray. So, he does.

 

Everything seems alright…

 

There.

 

In the place where it once listed the number of persons currently in the space as 40, there is a 39.

 

40.

 

39.

 

40.

 

39.

 

It flickers back and forth continuously, and Deletrear studies the people around him cautiously. What can this mean?

 

“Noble Guardian of Truth, will you please step up?” the King asks, and Haq makes his way from the edge of the crowd where he has been standing quietly and up the stairs to the King’s podium, where the great marble throne sits, the blue gold-embroidered cushions a striking contrast to its earthy white. “Already one of our own has turned against us,” the King says. “Already they have tried to kill another Guardian. We cannot risk another traitor among our ranks. As I am unwilling to speak deeply of the matter until I am certain all can be trusted, I have invited the Guardian of Truth to be here with us tonight, so that all of the Samatian Guardians may be re-tested for their fealty and honor.”

 

This, too, creates a small hubbub, but the King continues on, unfettered. “Are there any here who would object to being re-tested?” he demands, his eyes dragging from one person to the next, challenging them to speak up. Nobody does. Perhaps they are frightened of him. Perhaps they are still in shock. Or perhaps they have nothing to hide. The King nods his head with a decisive finality. “Then we shall begin.”

 

The Guardians line up before Haq, one by one re-examined for their conviction, intention, and an additional test for truthfulness in which each is asked three hastily-chosen questions: Are you involved with the enemy? Are you a traitor to the Noble Guardians? Do you harbor any ill will against the people or Nobles of this land?

 

One by one, they answer, and one by one, Guardian after Guardian is cleared by Haq. All the while, Deletrear watches from the back of the group, taking his time to investigate each and every person still in line.

 

It is not until the second-to-last Guardian – one who wears a black cloak and stands quite still – that he finds something. Deletrear does not know this Guardian – he is older, but something about him eludes Deletrear’s memory. Perhaps he was simply not present when this man earned his title. As he tries to find the Guardian’s book, he is disturbed to realize the man does not have one.

 

It is impossible. Something else is at play here.

 

Inspect.

 

Error.

 

Inspect, he tries again.

 

Error.

 

Why?

 

There is nothing to inspect. Please choose another target.

 

Nothing to inspect? Deletrear’s frown deepens, his headache growing by the minute. The number of people in this room are 39 or 40. This Guardian has no Guide. And, to top it all off, his inspection skills do not detect anything when turned upon this Guardian.

 

Yes, he has heard of something that could explain this, but…

 

The King, who has a particularly good nose for trouble, looks over to him as though Deletrear has just called his name. Deletrear holds his gaze steadily, nodding, and the King’s hand slowly reaches for the sword sheathed at his side. Deletrear does not have time to tell him that it will be useless against this man. It is easier to show him.

 

He strides up to the man, now only three spots away from meeting Haq’s truth-revealing abilities, and raises a hand. The man notices, turning, eyes widening slightly as Deletrear’s hand falls atop his head – and down, through the rest of the body, causing it to wave and distort and ultimately dissipate.

 

“A mirage,” Deletrear states dryly amid the shocked stares of the other Guardians. “It seems we had ourselves a little spy.”