The Book of Terrus: The Wise and Powerful

Chapter 14 - The Leaders of the South

One such agent saw Vinie and Reyson as they passed on the walkway. Already on the move, she calmly ducked into her employer's office, closing and locking the door behind her. The guards they had planted wouldn't be able to remain in the State Hall after today, but the clerks would be. The information they had been passing to Vinie in Falerik was already to thank for making this day possible.

Through her spies in Moaan, Vinie had learned that Lord Xolani and Lady Oesu were, very guardedly, sympathetic to the Factionist cause. In fact, they had already succeeded in watering down or even blocking altogether some of the capital's harsher edicts concerning the Factionists. Execution upon capture, for example. No doubt King Mahir was getting fed up with Vinie's favorite hobby of jail-breaking her arrested supporters.

When Vinie and Reyson reached the regents' office, they were indeed met by a pair of familiar faces flanking the enormous, embossed doors. The undercover Factionist guards tapped the butts of their spears once, quietly on the floor, wordlessly indicating that everything was in place. Lord Xolani and Lady Oesu were at work inside their office, all guards on the top level of the State Hall belonged to the Factionists, and all of the other high-ranking politicians were safely locked away in their own offices. All that remained now was to begin.

Taking a deep breath, Vinie reached for the golden door handle. The metal felt heavy and warm under her palm. Aware of Reyson watching her, she steeled herself and pushed. Too much had gone into this plan to turn back now.

The regents of southern Goran looked up from where they sat at either arm of a half-moon desk facing the door. Lord Xolani's head, piled high with a colorful ochre wrap not unlike the ones Kiiss was fond of wearing, cocked in confusion.

"Is there something the matter?" he asked, setting down his quill and pushing his chair back from the desk. Lady Oesu glanced briefly at her husband, half-drafted letter still in hand.

"Not if you are open to hearing what we have to say, lord and lady regent," Vinie replied. At a nod from Reyson, the Factionist guards followed them inside and shut the office doors behind them.

Instantly Xolani and Oesu's expressions turned from benign curiosity to shock.

"You're the BlackPearl," gasped Oesu, not a question but a realization.

"I am."

"You should not be here." Xolani's jaw clenched dangerously, backing away from Vinie on an angle as if trying to put the most desk between him and her. "What in the depths makes you think we'd hear you speak?"

Out the corner of one eye, Vinie noticed the slender cord dangling beside the window where Xolani was edging toward. Sure enough, his hand was already drawing up to reach behind him...

"Stop him!"

Reyson was on the move even as the words left Vinie's tongue. He and the other two Factionists practically threw themselves straight over the desk as Xolani turned and bolted for the call bell. Papers and paperweights went flying all across the floor with a clatter, and a bottle of ink spilled. Tall and powerful as he was, Reyson just barely managed to tackle Xolani around the knees, pulling the regent down inches away from the cord.

Unfortunately, no one had been paying Lady Oesu due attention. Pulling a stiletto dagger from within her side of the desk, Oesu slipped around to make a break for the closed office doors. Vinie realized what the lady regent was doing only just in time to chase her down. Wiser and better armed than the last time she had pinned a knife-wielding opponent, Vinie drew her own short belawa knife. When Oesu, trapped against the bolted doors, spun around blade leading, Vinie was quick to strike hard at the other woman's wrist with the three-pronged pommel of her belawa.