The road to Gervasiel

[Graybeard]

Sister Rose nodded. "So what we have here is a gadget that, if implanted in you, could be used to blackmail you into being the pawn of anyone who knows about it and can use magical impulses to control the thing. Do I analyze that right?"

The look on Argus' face told her that she had ... and suddenly Maduin didn't seem quite as cheerfully benign a member of the party as he had a few minutes earlier.

[Drusia]

"So what we have here is a gadget that, if implanted in you, could be used to blackmail you into being the pawn of anyone who knows about it and can use magical impulses to control the thing. Do I analyze that right?"

I raise an eyebrow. "That would take some serious magical aptitude," I point out. "Most people, myself included, would need to be in physical contact with the thing to make it work. So unless someone also planned to stick his or her arm down Argus' throat to turn it on..." I shrug. I've known mages good enough to do something like this from within, say, fifty feet. I have a feeling that Rose and Maudin, at the very least, know a few people capable as well. But it's certainly a small pool of individuals. And unless such a person works for the people who sent the wine -

"Unless he was meant to activate it himself," I say, picking up my thought where I left off. "These things aren't designed to be picky about the magic flowing through them - the idea is that anyone with even the slightest magical skills can use them. But, if Argus swallowed it and then cast a spell himself..." I frown. "Of course, all this is predicated on Argus' skills as a spellcaster. I know you have some talents, but enough to kick this thing up from mildly buzzy indigestion to stone-shattering sine waves?"

Because, if this thing was meant to attack his shoulder - and wouldn't that have made an interesting discovery if he'd chosen to bed me last night - then either we're looking at a powerful spellcaster sending the bottle, or a competent one recieving it. I wonder which.

-- Drusia

[Drannin]

Argus considered with amusement that Drusia didn't know what he was fully capable of. "I assure you, I'm capable of making this thing vibrate enough to break bones." Belatedly, Argus realized what he had just said. All of a sudden, he was very, very glad that Harker was not in a talkative mood.

Quickly plowing on, he continued, "Anyway, if someone were to know that this object were in my body, then it doesn't take a master mage to reach out and activate it. Of course, you'd need someone pretty skilled to make the vibrations any more than mildly relaxing. Or annoying."

[Porcelain Fish]

"Well it's fortunate that you managed to spit it out in time Druisa." Maduin let relief color his tone as he regarded the device rather than mild amusement at the somewhat poetic idea of the free-loving elven woman choking to death on a sex toy. "That could have been quite dire. I can't imagine who would do something so . . . awkward."

[Graybeard]

Who, indeed, Sister Rose wondered as she mentally reviewed the events that had brought the bottle, and its peculiar contents, to Argus. He'd been blackmailed into making a magical attack on a smugglers' ship (one skippered by a woman related to Father Egbert, she noted) by a shady character in Nautkia named "Nikolai." This Nikolai claimed connections to Captain Kitaura, the Tsuirakuan Homeland Security official who'd previously leaned on Argus in Kiyoka. (But hadn't Kitaura changed his attitude when he discovered that he and Argus were both trying to solve the Egbert mystery? Rose wondered about that.) The bottle had appeared as an anonymous gift, accompanied by a note written in the formal, stilted style of upper-class Tsuiraku, and displaying obvious knowledge of the relationship between Argus and Lillith, not long after that ... and so had Maduin. Furthermore, Maduin clearly had the magical aptitude to do whatever was needed to make the bead threatening -- or deadly.

Not for the first time, Rose wished she knew some mind-reading magic; it would have been nice to know what Maduin was really thinking about this strange occurrence. On the other hand, her Empathy magic was rooted in a natural aptitude in her personality for understanding people's feelings, and if she was reading things correctly, Maduin just didn't feel like he had anything to do with the bottle. You couldn't be sure with Tsuirakuans, of course; most weren't nearly as open with their feelings as Argus, at least the ones from the upper social strata. (The flotsam and jetsam that had washed up at the Kiyoka mission, maybe not so much -- but there certainly weren't any high-powered mages among them.) But Rose fancied herself a good judge of character, and for this young man to be the magical muscle behind another extortion attempt ... well, it just didn't feel right.

With Argus seated, she urged the wagon into motion, hoping the bouncing wouldn't cause Lillith too much pain. However, she didn't go far before finding a country lane heading off into the farm country that looked like it wasn't used often. Pulling the wagon off there, she got it out of sight of the main road, parked, and asked the obvious question.

"So what are we going to do with this thing?"

[Drusia]

"So what are we going to do with this thing?"

I shrug. "It's harmless enough outside Argus, no reason it shouldn't be put to the use for which it's intended. Originally intended, that is." A lot of craftsmanship goes into those things. Wouldn't want to waste it.

"If no one else wants it, I'll add it to my collection of aides d'amour," I say. "But I'll ceed my claim to Lillith if she'd like to start her own collection." I'd make the same offer to Rose, but I'm getting the impression that she wouldn't be nearly as appreciative as Lillith. "After all, no woman should be without one."

-- Drusia

[Sareth]

"Ah... Well, I..." Lillith seemed clearly lost at the offer. She didn't seem particularly embarrassed by the idea, simply uncertain, as though she hadn't ever thought about it, and didn't want to make a snap decision.

[Graybeard]

"I'm not sure that would be a good idea," Sister Rose demurred. "However this thing got into the bottle, the people that put it there wouldn't just launch it and forget it was there. They must have some way of keeping track of where it is and whether it's active. Clearly, it's been activated. So I don't know how, but it must have some kind of beacon built in. Do you really want something in your bag of tricks that would let a Tsuirakuan keep tabs on where you are?"

"But why would they want to do anything like that?" Brad objected.

Rose sighed; her cousin had missed the point of the whole previous exchange. Well, he wasn't the sharpest tool in Luminosita's toolbox ... "So that they could use it to lean on Argus at opportune moments. That's what it was in there for, I'm just certain of it. And they wouldn't know when it made sense to do that unless they also knew where he was and what he was up to. It's not just a threat to him, if I'm right; it's also a tracking device. It'd have to be." And then the thought she'd been trying to suppress escaped her lips.

"Unless they had a more -- local -- way of knowing when to turn the thing on to push Argus around, or do him harm." She honestly liked Maduin and didn't want to believe he had anything to do with this gadget, and she didn't like the way her reasoning was heading.

[Drannin]

Argus was silent. Local. She meant Maduin. It was hard to miss an implication like that.

He didn't know. Maduin seemed to be a fairly decent individual. Argus had grown to like him. Maybe even trust him a little. He didn't want to think that Maduin would be in cahoots with that lot.

It was just baseless speculation. Wasn't it? There was no proof at all... And Fayna had put her trust in him as well. Fayna wouldn't do that for just anyone.

So, fundamentally, why would they have slipped a vibrator into the wine? It was baffling.

For the time being, Argus was going to keep trusting Maduin until he had a good reason to think otherwise. At least, as much as he would trust any Tsuirakuan. As for the odd bead... well, he'd have to think about that some more. But Rose had inadvertently made a good point.

"It's possible that they have someone tracking me," Argus said out loud.

[Graybeard]

"It's possible that they have someone tracking me."

"'Possible'?" Sister Rose echoed. "Damn near certain, I'd say. It's not difficult to do with magical means; even we, with much less well developed magic than you Tsuirakuans have, have figured out how to do it to some extent. That's how the parrots work, after all."

Now it was Brad's turn to, well, parrot what his cousin had said. "Parrots? I don't understand."

Rose rolled her eyes. "A courier system that we used in the military, for sending and receiving messages in places that don't have more direct communications," she said. "Some of my old friends are letting us borrow it, so that we can keep in touch while we're on the road. It's like the old carrier-pigeon setup, but the parrots have some extra capabilities. Pigeons can't talk, after all."

"Ah, I understand," Brad said. "So parrots like that one up there, that's been circling over us for the last half hour?" He pointed to the sky.

Embarrassed, Rose followed the gesture, facepalmed. She'd been so busy welcoming Lillith back to the land of the "living," and then puzzling over the magical vibrator, that she hadn't noticed. The flak I'd be getting from my instructors right now about situational awareness... "Yes, that looks like one of them," she said, trying to keep a stiff upper lip. "It acts like it's got some voice-only message for my ears alone. Excuse me for a minute." She dismounted from the wagon and stepped off into the trees as the bird dropped toward her.