Chapter 32: The Blackmail of Caelmont

Chapter 32: Chapter 32: The Blackmail of Caelmont

"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." — Archimedes

The second night of fake remedial classes caused no suspicion at the barracks. The duty officer logged Joel out and back in without caring.

Down the laundry chute beneath the old bathhouse, Farthing had spent the day building the tool Joel requested: a secret phone call.

"The Mayor’s private line goes through the relay office on the hill," the old man explained. The relay office trusts its headers completely."

He pushed his repaired glasses up into his messy white hair while his assistants connected the brass and crystal parts.

"So we won’t attack the line directly. Lines can be repaired, and attacks leave clues.

"Instead, we’ll knock politely using the header of the Aethelgard tribute office.

"That’s the one office in the world he can never afford to keep waiting.

"He’ll answer immediately and respectfully.

"And then he’ll have a very long night."

Farthing tapped a small copper throat-piece worn like a collar. "This will change your voice to sound robotic. It isn’t pretty, but it leaves no fingerprints."

Joel practiced twice, wrote down his demands on a single paper, and sent Nyx to Sterling’s study an hour early. Negotiating over the phone was better with a partner in the room, and Nyx waited patiently in the dark shadow behind the Mayor’s portrait.

[Ding!]

[Outbound relay established: Cipher-Rat Network → Sterling Estate (Priority Header: FORGED).]

[Caller image: none. Caller voice: altered.]

•••

In the study on Ministerial Hill, the private crystal chimed with the official mark of the tribute office.

Mayor Sterling stood up from his chair before the second chime.

"Good evening, Mr. Mayor," Joel said through the secret phone. His voice sounded like metal scraping on metal, and the display showed only a grey, empty shadow. "We will keep this brief.

Third quarter, this year. Reported tribute weight: four hundred and ten standard cores. True weight: five hundred and nine. The supply wagons went upstream short, and the missing cores ended up somewhere with your handwriting on it."

Sterling sat down slowly, putting on his politician act. "This is a secure line. Whoever sold you access is a dead man. Give me their name as a courtesy."

"I have forty-four quarters of your ledger, Mr. Mayor," Joel replied. "Every tenth core stolen from every wagon for eleven years, written in your own hand, including payments to the Karst mercenary company.

Want to know the total? It stops looking like money very quickly and starts looking like an army’s payroll."

A long silence followed. Behind the portrait, Nyx watched the Mayor place his hand flat on the desk to steady himself.

"Every problem in this city has a price," Sterling said smoothly, trying to bargain. "Name yours, and we can both sleep easily."

"You already priced me once at a cheap rate, paying the Iron Hounds in advance," Joel said calmly. "I kept the change, returned their tags, and you couldn’t report a thing.

So we will skip the bargaining and the threats.

I already heard threats from your guards, your warden, and your hitmen. I will answer them once, and then we will do business.

Corvo sat by the window seat. Brann smoked every fifteen minutes, and you joined him at the window. That was a bad habit, and the only flaw in your house security.

Your safe opens with your election year. Your strongroom took eleven Karst boxes on Tuesday. I stood in your room behind your bright lights while your magical traps missed me completely. Threaten the Rustward again, and my next visit will be longer, and I won’t be as patient."

Sterling’s hand froze on the desk. His rings clicked against the wood.

"What are you?" he asked.

"You tried to kill me twice this month and failed both times," Joel answered. "Check your gate archive records, Mr. Mayor. The boy who walked home alive twice."

Realization showed on the Mayor’s face in stages. Nyx watched him go from disbelief to shock, realizing the weak student he tried to poison and murder was now holding his life over the phone.

"Carrow," Sterling whispered. "The scanner read you as a weak F-rank."

"You looked at a low level, but you missed what I really am," Joel said. "Here are my demands. They are not negotiable. Twelve Tier-3 Rift-Cores, unlogged, from your private stash.

The movement and perception manuals from the Academy’s restricted library, all grades. And non-interference, total and permanent: no contracts, no guards, no accidents, and no mentioning my name.

Your stolen core trade can keep running as usual, because I don’t care about public news, and you don’t know how to do anything else."

"And the ledger?"

"Stays with me. You aren’t buying it back, Mr. Mayor. You are renting your life from me every quarter. I keep eleven years of your handwriting as proof.

Delivery is tomorrow at dusk, at the drowned shrine by the ninth arch of the old aqueduct. Pell or you can bring it. No spies or watchers, or the Inquisition reads your whole record over breakfast."

Sterling stood up, walked to the window, and looked down at his fountains glowing in the dark.

"You are in the trial, boy," Sterling said, trying to sound confident again. "The Labyrinth kills better than I do, and it leaves no evidence."

"It does," Joel said. "Which is why my drop location is Quadrant Nine, and my tracking beacon stays marked as broken at insertion, just like your tired Warden wrote it down.

A boy with a broken beacon gets three days of privacy in the deep jungle. Don’t fix the paperwork. Keep it broken. Sleep well, Mr. Mayor, and pay on time."

The call ended. The grey projection vanished. Sterling stood at the window for a long time while his coffee went cold.

•••

At midmorning, Pell led Aldrich Vance down into the wine cellar through the back door. Lanterns hung dusty among rows of expensive wine, and Vance looked nervous as he came down the stairs.

Sterling handed him a small velvet case first, then explained. Inside lay a fine metal needle the length of a thumb, sitting on dark cloth.

"A Severance Needle," Sterling said. "Banned Inner City contraband. It cost me a fortune. Driven into the chest above the heart, it slowly crystallizes the mana core over an afternoon.

The body looks like it suffered core failure from overexertion. That happens to a candidate or two in every trial. It is the cleanest way to kill someone, leaving no mark but fatigue."

He closed the case and placed it in Vance’s hands.

"The Carrow boy enters the deep jungle with a broken beacon and no drone," Sterling said. "The jungle will probably kill him for us, but I don’t trust luck anymore. You will finish him in the deep quadrant, away from others, and you will be the top student at graduation. No one will suspect you."

"And if I refuse?" Vance asked, his voice shaking in the dark cellar.

"Then the truth about the poison tonic gets out, and I tell everyone who poured it," Sterling said coldly. "We are partners, Aldrich, and we have one last job to finish. Take the needle."

Vance took the needle.

•••

At dusk, near the old aqueduct, shadows gathered around the ninth arch. Nyx stepped out from the darkness beside Joel, giving her report smoothly.

"The old man slept two hours," she said. "The golden boy drank half his lunch, visited the cellar, and came upstairs holding a velvet case like fire. His heart was beating wildly. The needle is in his trial kit right now, above his spare socks."

’Of course it is,’ Joel thought, a cold smile appearing on his face as they walked up to the drowned shrine. Pell was waiting alone in the twilight with a strongbox, right on time, exactly as demanded.

’He paid the blackmail in full and sent a free weapon with it,’ Joel thought. ’He sent Vance into a high-level zone with no witnesses, no drones, and no laws. Vance isn’t walking into an exam, Nyx. He is walking into my counting room, and bringing his own knife to the audit.’

"Then let’s be on time," Nyx said, stepping back into the shadows.