Chapter 260: Preparations and Gardeners

We moved swiftly. Making ready a mad plan, made more mad by the impossible deadline of it’s needed completion. Yet never did I or the others allow carelessness to mar our preparations. This was an operation too important to be fouled by the reliance on luck and happenstance, more so than it already was.

I knew Isaac desperately wanted more time. Desiring the nullification of so many capricious dangers with adequate preparation. Preparation that could take us months I mentioned to him. Time we simply did not have. Though this did little to convince my ordinarily staunch Shade Corps Commander, as he continued to hope that he could maybe convince me of the scheme’s woeful risks, if the perfect opportunity arises.

Though he thankfully did not have too many opportunities to scavenge for this desired moment of his, as he and Glee were made too busy scouring the ancient city for the failing master of this empire. Yet Tianlan seemed to have become a ghost, as he disappeared nightly from the Palace before reappearing again in the mornings, perfectly unharmed and energized. Unseen and unheard by any, with his doings remaining as mysterious as everything else, according to my Eve who kept a steady eye on the happenings within the Palace, as even her powers failed to identify his whereabouts, or even his means of disappearance.

Which brough us to two conclusions. The first being that a rival divinity was at play. His own or another’s we didn’t know, I was not yet certain. Or he was vanishing with the aid of a tenth rank master. Which would then prove that a remaining loyalist among the three still stands. But we still had too little evidence to say definitively.

Meanwhile the rest of us were kept busy with the laying of the groundwork for our infiltration that was scheduled in a mere two days time. Which would’ve offered us five days in total to illegitimately enter a place my empire has been trying to penetrate for the better part of six hundred years.

It was true foolishness for any who would hear it, but we had an advantage none of my predecessors had ever had. An advantage I was staking my very life upon. An old friend that accompanied me throughout my past life. Pandemonium. Pandemonium and chaos and disorder. That was to be our ally.

For not in more than half a millennium has the mighty Moon Palace been in such disarray, and we planned to make full use of it. Men and woman were dying by the handful, if not by the dozen everyday in those gilded halls, but to keep the day to day workings of the gigantic structure operational, they needed a steady supply of new servants to maintain it, and preferably ones who’s allegiances’ have already been spoken for, awarding them more eyes, ears and steady blades in the constantly bloody battle.

And it was these new servants that we were currently targeting. For you see, because of all the mayhem, ordinary procedures that would’ve taken place when hiring new staff were undoubtedly being hamstrung at the moment. And once fool proof security measures that defended the eastern imperial family for centuries are being undoubtedly sloppily implemented or entirely overlooked at the moment.

So we had our pick of what positions we would impersonate. It only required the killing and disposal of the original unfortunate soul, followed the subtle bribing or intimidation of the guards at the gates, a simple job for the extensive networks the Shade corps built within Yueliang.

A less simple set of jobs however, was the helping of my brother in mastering his nagging worries and the convincing of Abraham to stay behind as his strength could lead to our discovery, especially since unlike Isaac, he was not a master of concealing his aura as he was.

Nizam meanwhile was simply beset by his yet untested nerves, as he felt that even war was less anxiety inducing than this, which was fairly understandable. But a healthy dose of encouragement and reminding of what it is we were doing here were more than enough for him to once again regain control over his trembling hands.

Abraham on the other hand was a different matter entirely. He was honour bound to defend me to the death he would say. That his life was forfeit for my own, and that his absence from my side in such a critical time was tantamount to a betrayal to all his oaths.

It took a long time to convince him otherwise. But eventually he relented, if only barely.

Which finally allowed me to once again focus on the day ahead, when we would enter the Palace in the guise of a mere gardener.

An odd choice when one would initially hear it. For a gardener seemed such a wild and limiting choice. After all, it didn’t offer the fairly free access to the many corridors and rooms that the cleaning staff possessed in the Palace. Nor did it hold the ability to peek into more secretive information similar to a scribe or messenger. It did not possess the effortless ability to tamper with a specific person’s food such as a member of the kitchen crew would. It didn’t allow easy access to weaponry like’s a guard’s posting would. And for the love of the Gods, it didn’t even afford you access into the Palace buildings itself, where the real manoeuvring was happening, but merely into the vast and forgotten gardens of the Moon Palace.

And yet that was one of the primary reasons for my choosing of it. For in such times, none would pay attention to a mere gardener. It was a useless post for the ones currently twisting the strings of intrigue within the Palace walls. They would care for the posts that I had mentioned before. The maids, the butlers, the cooks, the scribes and the guards. The ones who’s skills and privileges held tangible value at the moment.

Secondly, the gardens were not entirely forgotten due to the mire of war, for there was one left within this dying symbol of an empire, that still stalked it’s floral walkways, beneath it’s verdant canopies and along it’s crystalline fountains.

Princess Ziyi. My brother’s fiancée. She would be the key to our success or failure.

"Are you certain this will work brother?" Nizam asked me, as he and I donned the green and brown uniforms of the Dynasty’s gardeners, while Isaac masterfully wore a disguise so perfect, you’d never have guessed that he was an ancient man of innumerable memories, as opposed to the handsome, raven haired youth before us now.

"If she loves you half as much as you do her, then yes. I am confident." I calmly said, tightly fastening the last leather strap on his outerwear, as he turned a deep shade of crimson.

We left before dawn even had time to break over the horizon. A gardener’s duties begins early after all, and we had much to do.

The Palace gates were already open by the time we arrived, and we passed through with little to no effort on our part, as the guards obediently let us pass. Isaac and Glee’s men did their jobs well. We followed the paths we’d already memorized from the Palace blueprints the Shade Corps had obtained years ago, during a failed operation to infiltrate the Dynasty’s most vital point.

But regardless of all of that, Isaac guaranteed it’s worth, despite it’s age, as swiftly cut a path towards the Outer Gardens.

The Moon Palace was split into two, the Outer and Inner Courtyards.

We could enter the Outer areas of it. But it would’ve been far too ambitious to try and bribe or intimidate the guards to allow us into the Inner keeps of the Palace in it’s current state., for it would be akin to painting a bright red target on our backs had we tried.

So instead we had to devise another path into the Inner areas of the gigantic castle.

We glided swiftly across the pale white stone pathways into the entrance of the Western Gardens, where myriad trees of all kinds lay in vast forests of alternating evergreens and deciduous trees. Arming ourselves with shovels, rakes and hoes from a nearby workers’ equipment lodge.

We blended in with the others new servants, heads bowed and expressions reverent, as we made our way slowly and ever deeper into the darkening treeline, until we were met with the dividing line of the Inner and Outer Courtyards. A long narrow wall of sun bleached stone entombed in a sarcophagus of vines and risen dirt.

"This is the place." Isaac declared, readying to leap beyond it.

"Are you certain?" Nizam worriedly asked, his breath uneven due to his lacking stamina from too many afternoons sitting in front of desks, as opposed with me and Cyrus in the training hall.

"Of course, my prince." He confidently assured him, as he effortlessly soared beyond the wall, with not a ripple of wasted aura.

"And what of the guards?" He asked me then.

"Occupied." I curtly answered, preparing to join my chief assassin, as he followed a second later.

Once over it, we found ourselves within the fabled inner sanctum of the Moon Palace. With all it’s many wonders. Yet appreciation would have to come later, as we quickly rearmed ourselves with the agrarian props we confiscated earlier, making our way once more through the gardens again.

"...That was easier than I thought." Nizam muttered in a voice barely above a whisper.

"Is that disappointment I hear in your voice brother?" I teasingly asked, as he instantly denied it.

"My emperor, to the right!" Isaac urgently whispered, as we all dipped from view behind a well trimmed hedge of thick rose bushes.

A gaggle of the true wardens of this garden were approaching from that side. A disaster in the making should they lay eyes upon us, for they would instantly be able to identify us as the frauds we were.

A threat we had not anticipated.

"What are they doing here?!" Nizam shouted in a hissing whisper. "Weren’t they meant to be working on the northern parts of this garden today?!"

"That’s what our informants’ assured us of my prince." Isaac replied, his eyes furrowed.

"A thorough cleaning in the house of Glee seems to be in order, doesn’t it Isaac?" I calmly asked, my tone dripping in malice, as I turned back to them. "But for now, we must deal with this mess."

We could not remain where we were. Isaac had it the easiest. The man’s centuries of experience allowed him unparalleled grace in evading detection in this moment of worry. I had it the second easiest, as I escaped with more struggle yet without any mishaps too extreme that a simple stroke of opportune luck did not balance out.

My brother on the other hand was not so skilled nor so lucky. He was found. Glared at by no less than two stunned men, their equipment frozen mid-motion.

"Damn!" I muttered, looking to my brother, as my hand made ready around the sharp sheers I had, and Isaac gripped the hidden blades in his sleeves.

Yet before we could make good on our murderous intentions, we stopped. For my brother’s hands had every so subtly shifted, prompting us to stop.