Chapter 484: The Cost Of A Talent
"You have known, or suspected, since when."
"Since our second conversation. When you asked about the meat’s dispersal and I told you about fresh souls. You listened to the answer in a specific way that made me suspect you were thinking about how the realm worked rather than accepting what it did. That is a rare kind of listening. Ordinary hunters do not do it. Only souls whose talents work on the substrate ask those questions in that tone."
Bruce absorbed this.
"You have been watching me carefully."
"I have."
"Why."
The old soul was quiet for a long moment.
"Because two hundred years ago, someone like me told someone like you what I am about to tell you now, and it saved a soul who was in your position. I am going to tell it to you not because I want anything from you but because the chain continues. You may do what you wish with the information."
"Please."
The old soul turned off the last pot and dried their hands on a small cloth. They came over to the table where Bruce, Kael, and Theron were seated. The regular in the back continued their cleaning, more slowly now.
The old soul sat down.
"The three previous cases who were killed by political action," the old soul said, "were killed by the same person. Not by different Nonagon members. By one Nonagon member, over the course of two centuries."
Bruce sat very still.
"Who?"
"Sisel Marn."
Bruce closed his eyes for a moment.
Sisel Marn. The Nonagon member Elenora had described as "the most cautious of the four opposing votes and the most dangerous." The one who did not approach directly. The one who waited to see what you became and then acted through indirect means.
"You are sure."
"I am sure. Two of the three deaths were traceable to her networks by the time of the funerals, though never proven in a way the Nonagon would sanction. The third, the most recent, forty years ago, was proven internally to a small circle of us who investigated it. Sisel Marn kills talents she considers dangerous to the stability of the realm’s political order. She has done this for a very long time. She will consider you dangerous."
"And Elenora knows this."
"Elenora knows this. Which is why Elenora offered you sponsorship tonight. The sponsorship is not primarily about her recruitment of you. It is primarily about Sisel Marn’s attention being deflected. Elenora’s seal is one of the few markers Sisel will not act against, because acting against a soul under Elenora’s sponsorship would trigger a Nonagon dispute Sisel does not want."
Bruce sat with this.
He looked at his own hand. His hand was closed into a small fist against his thigh.
He thought about the old soul’s words.
He thought about Elenora’s words. If you accept, you take on the reputation cost of being seen as under my protection. Ashen Carr will treat you as if you have declined his invitation. She had told him about the reputation cost. She had not told him about Sisel Marn.
She had let him decide about the sponsorship without knowing that the alternative was death by Sisel Marn’s networks.
Was that generosity or manipulation? Was she letting him choose freely, or was she trusting the old soul to fill in the information she had strategically omitted?
He looked at the old soul.
"You are the one Elenora trusts to tell hunters like me the things she cannot say herself."
The old soul was quiet.
"I do not work with her," they said. "But I know her well enough to know that she operates with the confidence that I will do exactly this when it is needed. She does not tell me to do it. I do it because it is right. She counts on me doing it because it is right. That is the relationship."
"So the sponsorship offer has more urgency than she suggested."
"It has significantly more urgency than she suggested. She was hoping you would infer the urgency from her account of the six previous cases and the mention of Sisel Marn. She was being, in her mind, respectful of your intelligence. But that respect can look like withholding information. Which is why I fill in what she leaves out."
Bruce took a slow breath.
"I need to accept the sponsorship."
"You need to accept the sponsorship. Or you need to leave Xiltra within a week. Those are your two options."
"Leave Xiltra to go where?"
"To another city. There are five major cities in Xiltra’s region of the soul realm. Each is governed by its own political structure. The next-nearest is a two-week travel by hunter’s route. It is a viable option, but the six previous cases at the orb, including the three that Sisel killed, all included attempts to leave Xiltra. Sisel’s network extends beyond the city. Leaving is not a full solution. It is a delay."
"So the sponsorship is my best option."
"The sponsorship is your best option."
"For a limited term?"
"You should propose a limited term, as Kael suggested to you on the way back. Elenora will accept it. She will not insist on longer than you want. She has done this many times. What matters is that the seal is on you for at least the next three to four months, until you can advance to a rank where Sisel’s easier moves against you become expensive. At D-rank you become expensive to Sisel. At C-rank you become significantly harder to touch. At B-rank you are essentially outside her comfortable target range. Elenora needs to shield you through the ranks where you are still vulnerable."
Bruce looked at his hand. It was still a fist against his thigh.
He looked at Kael.
Kael looked back at him.
He looked at Theron.
Theron was very still, his young face processing what had just been said, and Bruce could see the tax clerk’s careful methodical mind rearranging its previous assumptions.
Bruce opened his hand. He let it rest flat on the table.
Flat for done.
He looked at the old soul.
"I will accept the sponsorship," he said. "With a two-month initial term. Renewable by mutual agreement. If Elenora agrees, it is settled. If she does not, we have learned something important."
"That is the right choice."
"Thank you."
"Mm."
The old soul rose from the table and went back to the last few things needing to be closed for the night. The regular in the back finished their cleaning with the same slow deliberate pace and, for the first time all evening, looked up at Bruce and gave him a small, quiet, unmistakable nod. Then they went back to their work.
Bruce, Kael, and Theron walked out of the small quiet kitchen into the deep blue of the late evening.
At the rooming house, the three of them stood outside the door for a moment before going in.
Kael, quietly: "Sisel Marn."
"Sisel Marn."
"Elenora didn’t tell us."
"Elenora didn’t tell us. The old soul did."
"Because Elenora trusts the old soul to tell us."
"Because Elenora trusts the old soul to tell us."
"That is a very careful political arrangement."
"That is a very careful political arrangement."
Theron said: "Are we sure it is real?"
Bruce paused.
"You mean, are we sure the old soul was telling the truth about Sisel Marn."
"Yes. What if the old soul is aligned with Elenora after all, and the whole thing about Sisel is a way to push us into accepting the sponsorship?"
Bruce thought about it.
"That is possible. I cannot rule it out entirely. But I do not think it is what happened."
"Why?"
"Because if the old soul had been Elenora’s agent all along, they would not have needed to reveal that Elenora knew about the orb overloading. They would have kept that piece separate. But the old soul explicitly said they had suspected, inferred, from listening to me over the past several days. They gave me the mechanism of their own suspicion. That is more information than an agent working to a script would have offered."
"Unless the script is very good."
"Unless the script is very good. Yes." Bruce shook his head slightly. "There is no way to be completely certain. But at some point, the accumulation of small honest details either builds up to a pattern of real honesty or it doesn’t. The old soul has been consistent for a week. That is not conclusive evidence. It is enough evidence to act on."
"Okay."
"You are right to keep asking, Theron. Please keep asking."
"I will."
They went inside. They climbed the stairs. They went into their small quiet room.
Bruce sat on the edge of his bed and let his soul-body settle after the long evening. Kael sat on his own bed and did the same. Theron sat down and, after a moment, took out the soul-script manual from Bruce’s ring, Bruce had told him to help himself, and began reading, quietly, in the pale luminescence of the room.
Bruce closed his eyes.