Chapter 333 - 326 — A Name from Beyond

Interrogation chambers

Cedric returned to the fourth chamber with Vale’s folder beneath his arm. The Peak Knight looked up at the sound of the door and straightened in his chair.

"Back already?"

"I’ve spoken to your companions."

Vale’s eyes moved briefly to the folder. "How are they?"

"Unharmed. I’ve had your engineer’s instructions passed to the people handling your equipment."

"Durn gave you instructions?"

"Quite a few."

Vale nodded looking relieved. Cedric took the chair opposite him and opened the folder, leaving him a moment before continuing.

"Now that our little talk is over, let us return to the Warhound. You wouldn’t tell me whether you’d encountered one before coming here. Durn explained that blueprints could help establish where an unfamiliar vehicle was manufactured, and Elenwe told me stealing them wasn’t part of your original mission."

Vale’s expression tightened at Elenwe’s name.

Cedric noticed but gave no response.

"My working theory is that you encountered an armored vehicle resembling ours, then came to Elarion to investigate its source. Is that close?"

Vale studied him for several seconds.

"Did Durn tell you that?"

"No. I’m asking whether it’s true."

"Then ask something else."

"All right." Cedric turned a page. "Where did you encounter the vehicle?"

No answer.

"Was it operating under an Elarion flag?"

Vale gave a humorless laugh. "Do you think we would have spent all this effort looking for its manufacturer if it had been?"

Cedric made a note. It was more than Vale had given him during their first conversation,at least a start.

"Who was operating it?"

"I’m not prepared to discuss that."

"Did they claim Elarion had supplied it?"

"No."

The answer came promptly enough that Cedric looked up.

"Then what led you here?"

Vale stared at him, plainly regretting how much he had already said. Cedric set his pen down rather than fill the silence with another question.

After a long time, Vale spoke.

"We found something that pointed toward your territory."

"What?"

"Evidence."

"Of what kind?"

"I’m not discussing our sources."

Cedric accepted the limit. "But you believed the connection was strong enough to bring eight people here,if I am right?."

"Yes,We had to find out whether it was genuine."

"And stealing the blueprints would help you do that?"

Vale looked away. He had not answered, but he no longer appeared interested in denying Cedric’s explanation.

Behind the glass, Lucien leaned closer to the window.

"So they were tracing a machine."

"It’s looking that way," Malen said.

Gandalf stood beside the ward controls, his attention fixed on Vale. "He still hasn’t said what happened when they encountered it."

"No," Lucien replied. "And he’s avoiding the question more carefully than the others."

He knew how Elarion’s tanks performed in battle. A Warhound appearing in hostile hands somewhere beyond their borders was a serious prospect, particularly with the stolen vehicle whose blueprints still unaccounted for.

But Vale had not yet identified the vehicle he had seen, much less its operators. Lucien kept his attention on the interrogation.

Cedric opened a fresh page.

"Let’s talk about what you intended to do after obtaining the blueprints. Were you planning to return home?"

"Yes."

"Immediately?"

"That depended on what we found."

"And if the documents had shown Elarion manufactured the vehicle you encountered?"

Vale’s jaw tightened.

"Then I would have needed to speak to your lord."

"About a purchase?"

"About why his military technology was being used against us."

Cedric’s pen stopped.

"Against your expedition?"

"No."

"Your country?but I believe there is no such power on this continent except one that doesn’t have the warhounds"

Vale exhaled through his nose. Cedric had come close enough to the truth that the careful distinctions were beginning to irritate him.

"The Alliance," he said.

Cedric looked up. "Which alliance?"

Vale frowned. "What?"

"Elarion has dealings with several alliances. Which one do you represent?"

"None of your local alliances."

"Then where does yours operate?"

Vale leaned forward, the links between his cuffs scraping across the tabletop.

"Do you think we crossed all this distance because we wanted a set of blueprints for our workshops? That machine was being used against Alliance forces on the Central Continent. We came here to find out how it got there."

He stopped.

Cedric did not move.

Vale had heard the words as clearly as he had spoken them. For several seconds, neither man said anything.

Then Cedric asked, quietly, "The Central Continent?"

Vale settled back in his chair.

"I’ve answered enough."

Cedric considered him. He could have pressed immediately, but Vale’s expression had closed again, and repeating the name would accomplish little.

Instead, he returned to what had prompted the answer.

"You said the vehicle was being used against Alliance forces. Was it a Warhound?"

"I said it was a machine resembling yours."

"Did you see it yourself?"

"Yes."

"Was it intact?"

"When I saw it."

"Did you get close enough to examine it?"

"Not a working one."

Cedric nodded. Durn’s interest in the blueprints now had a practical explanation.

"Do you know who supplied it to your enemy,was it one of our allies?"

"If I knew that, I wouldn’t be sitting here."

"Fair point."

Vale looked at him sharply, as though expecting the answer to be followed by another accusation. Cedric simply made a note.

"One final question for now. Did you come here believing Elarion was deliberately supplying your enemy, or were you trying to determine whether someone had obtained our technology without permission?"

Vale took his time answering.

"We also came to find out which one it is."

Cedric closed the folder.

"That’s something Lord Valen will want to hear."

"Then let me speak to him."

"I’ll tell him what you’ve told me,then let’s see."

Vale watched him rise. The commander had revealed far more than he intended, but he had also established something that might matter when he finally met Elarion’s lord: their expedition had not come looking for a new weapon to steal. It had come looking for the people responsible for one already in use.

Cedric reached the door.

"Are my companions still being kept apart?" Vale asked.

"For now."

"When will that change?"

"When we arrange the next conversation probably."

Cedric stepped into the corridor and closed the door behind him.

Lucien was waiting when Cedric entered the observation room.

"The Central Continent" he said.

Cedric placed the folder on the table. "He let it slip while explaining why they came. He also confirmed he personally saw the vehicle, though he couldn’t examine it closely but my lord if what this man say is true then we have a much bigger trouble to resolve."

Malen looked through the glass at Vale.

"So the eight crossed from the Central Continent to investigate one of our machines?"

"A machine resembling ours," Cedric corrected. "We haven’t established that it’s a Warhound, or how it reached their enemy since the barrier as you all know but as far as my intuition says it’s from the blueprints."

Lucien nodded.

The System had already revealed the existence of the Central Continent to him, but until now that knowledge had felt distant—part of a much larger world he was only beginning to understand. Eight people from that continent were now sitting in his interrogation wing, investigating military technology that might have traveled far beyond Elarion’s and it’s allies borders.

"Did he say who sent them?" Lucien asked.

"Only that they represent the Alliance. He hasn’t named the authority behind the expedition."

Gandalf frowned. "An alliance on the Central Continent could mean a great many things."

"Which is why I want someone who knows it," Lucien said.

Malen turned toward him.

"Aurethar?"

"Yes. He left the Central Continent a long time ago, but he knows the Alliance better than any of us and he might recognize who these people serve, even if he doesn’t know them personally."

Malen reached for the communication set.

"Shall I tell him it’s urgent my lord?"

"Tell him eight people from his old homeland are sitting in our interrogation wing and he might wish for a heart to heart talk with them."

Malen’s mouth twitched. "That ought to get his attention my lord."

"And tell him I need his knowledge, not a lecture about how little I understand of the world."

"I can pass along the first part."

Lucien gave him a look.

Malen turned his eyes away activating the set.

Cedric, meanwhile, opened Vale’s folder again. There were still questions to prepare before the prisoners could be brought together, and he had no intention of letting the unexpected revelation distract him from the reason they had come.

Through the glass, Vale sat alone with his cuffed hands on the table, no doubt wondering how much damage a single unguarded sentence had done.

Lucien watched him for a moment, then turned toward the door.

For the first time, someone from the Central Continent had come to Elarion seeking answers.

Lucien intended to get a few of his own.