Chapter 46 Chapter 45: Fire and Ice
We were led down a stark, utilitarian tunnel, the air growing cooler and smelling of damp concrete and something else, an unfamiliar, spicy incense that felt like a challenge. It opened into another sterile room, and there they stood.
The one in the centre was a Nate of such a high level it could have been seen from a mile away; he radiated an aura of cold, untouchable authority. Flanking him were four hard-faced guards, their expressions carved from stone. And beside them, almost comically overshadowed, was a little frail Nate, his posture hunched, his clothes a splash of muted colour against the monochrome severity of his companions. They were definitely not from Polli-Nation.
As we neared, the guards performed a bizarre, synchronized ritual of intimidation. They seemed to physically inflate, their chests puffing out and their shoulders rolling back like peacocks in a mating display. They wore loose-fitting black pyjamas, and the juxtaposition of their elegant, jewelled knives with the brutal, functional lines of their machine guns was deeply unsettling. A thick, drooping moustache seemed to be mandatory this year, for they all sported one, as if it were a uniform-issue ticket into Nate-hood.
The frail little Nate spoke first, his voice a reedy pipe cutting through the silent posturing. I had almost forgotten about him, so small was he compared to the titans around him.
“Karn Isa wishes you the greeting of the moon and sun, Lord Vincent and party,” he began, his eyes darting between Vincent and the imposing Karn. Then his gaze, sharp and unnervingly hungry, settled on me. “I am Zeb. We were not told, you would you’re your wife with you, Lord.”
Lord Vincent let out a bark of laughter that echoed in the sterile room. “My wife? I should bloody hope not! There would never be a peace if that battle-axe was here, let me tell you.” He shook his head, still chuckling, before clapping a familiar hand on my shoulder. “Oh, you mean Nanda here? Not wife, gods no! Perish the thought. Just my new assistant. Bright Polli. Terrible at making leaf, but we can’t have everything.”
Zeb’s eyes narrowed, flicking from me to the impassive Karn Isa and back. He took a half-step forward, a gesture of pure insolence. “We were not expecting a Polli, Lord Vincent.”
Lord Vincent laughed again, a rich, condescending sound. “Dear sir, Nanda’s a changeling! Surely you get changelings over here. Basic stuff.” He posed the question to Zeb, but his eyes, sharp and calculating, were locked on Karn Isa, hunting for a reaction from the true power in the room.
“Yes… yes, of course, but we nor-” Zeb began, flustered.
Vincent cut him off with a wave of his hand, his voice dropping into a tone of finality. “I assure you; Nanda’s papers are fully in order. A tedious formality but handled.”
Emboldened by his master's presence, Zeb took another step forward. “Lord Vincent, this will-”
He was silenced, not by Vincent, but by a single, low utterance from Karn Isa.
“Let it be.”
The words were simple, quiet even, yet they carried an absolute weight that seemed to freeze the very air. No one present, not even the preening guards, would have dared to deny them.
“Ah, Karn Isa!” Lord Vincent’s voice boomed, a crack of thunder in the tense room. Before anyone could react, he strode forward, moving past the four hulking guards as if they were mere furniture, his hand stretched out in a gesture of audacious camaraderie. “So pleased to finally meet you in the flesh!”
A ripple of confusion paralyzed the room. Protocol, that delicate and vital dance in such situations, had just been thrown to the dogs. The air crackled with the collision of two humongous egos, one a loud, crackling fire of performative warmth, the other a glacier of frigid, imposing calm. The guards’ hands twitched toward their jewelled knives, but a near-imperceptible shake of the Karn’s head stilled them.
Lord Vincent’s own entourage had the good sense to remain a silent, watchful tableau. Zeb, however, was not so quick on the uptake.
“This is not how things are done!” he squeaked, his voice cutting through the silence as Lord Vincent pumped the Karn’s still, formal hand with unshakable enthusiasm.
The Karn’s voice was quiet, yet it carried the weight of absolute authority. “Be quiet, Zeb. The Lord is our guest. They are all our guests.” The correction was final, a door slamming shut.
Thus dismissed, Zeb was left to seethe in our company, joining Ciel, Jode, and myself while our masters played house in the far corner. Saul, meanwhile, didn't join our little group. He stood apart, his cold eyes performing a slow, methodical inventory of the Sylvan security, a silent display of alpha assessment, measuring their strengths and weaknesses without a single word spoken.
“This is quite unheard of,” Zeb muttered, ostensibly talking about the breach of protocol between the Karn and the Lord. Yet his unsettling, hungry eyes were glued to my every move. He undressed me so thoroughly with that gaze that I found myself having to glance down, checking and rechecking that I hadn’t missed a button on my jacket.
For a good fifteen minutes, our paymasters conversed in hushed, familiar sentences, their heads close together. A burst of laughter from Lord Vincent was met with a deep, rumbling roar from the Karn, the sounds alien in this room of suspended animosity. The rest of us just stood there, useless and waiting, until Lord Vincent’s voice boomed once more, shattering the stalemate.
“I am famished! And the Karn here tells me that the Sylvan food is the best in the known world. I say we should get on the road and get a move on; my stomach demands it!”
With that abrupt declaration, the formalities were rushed to a conclusion. Our papers and belongings were subjected to a brisk, invasive search, and soon we were being ushered out and partitioned into two large, menacing armoured hoppers, one for the Polli-Nation delegates, and the other for the Sylvans, we understood, for the beginning of our journey into Sylva.