Chapter 38.4: Vigil Politics

Penny glared at the captain through narrowing eyes, her fire returning. “What’s that supposed to mean: too little too late?”

Gelwin didn’t shy from her attention but glanced around the space, landing on a thick, stonework crate left by the Metamagicals people. He gestured toward it. “May I?” Penny made no reply, but Jinkke did, offering it with a nod.

He sat, and just as naturally as if they’d moved as one, Liæthsidhe was by his side. Both of them were now clearly visible in the glow of the illumination cells the asuran krewe had bolted to the inside of the little grotto. It was suddenly as if nothing over the last several minutes had happened at all. Penny’s attention was locked on the man, as was the attention of everyone else there, except Jindel, who looked away.

Gelwin relaxed a little, assessing the staff while the sylvari woman stood stone-still. Everyone still waited for him to speak, but Penny’s attention moved to the staff. She knew it, and gods damn it, she knew what it meant that the man was holding it. “That’s Vent’s staff,” she said.

“Yes,” Gelwin agreed, turning it over in his hands. “It is.”

All the asura moved closer, Minkus going farther than the others. “Does that mean—” Minkus stuttered. “Did he— did you find him? Is he back?”

Gelwin sighed again, still looking over the length of wood instead of the people gathering around him. “I’m afraid not.”

“The scouts returned with that,” Liæthsidhe interjected, taking the responsibility off her superior. “That, several articles of Vigil travel gear, and what we can only assume are the belongings of the scholar you mentioned.”

She looked to Gelwin, who nodded approval to some silent question.

“The scouts discovered clear evidence of a conflict: tracks, charred landscape, and bodies.” Her eyes were black ice, and her words were clinical enough to be coming from the mouth of an asura, but she looked like a string pulled near to snapping.

“Bodies?” Minkus gasped. “Not—”

“Human bodies,” Liæthsidhe said, catching the fear in his voice. “Neither the Sergeant nor the Scholar were found.”

It wasn’t until she’d released it that Penny realized she’d been holding her breath. She glanced around. No one else had seen.

The lieutenant continued: “Tracks indicated upwards of a dozen attackers, most of whom retreated eastward, presumably with Sergeant Ventyr in their custody. It’s all but impossible to tell sylvari boot-prints from human.”

“Those tracks led toward Thaumacore,” Gelwin said, finally rejoining the conversation. His eyes rose to meet each of theirs in turn.

The room fell silent for a long moment as everyone recognized the same thing Penny did: everything was in precisely the shitty condition she’d feared most. She felt vindicated, and she felt sick.

“We should be mobilizing against them,” Jindel blurted, finally moving away from the worktable to join them all. Her eyes were alight with fury, and she had them aimed directly at her captain. Though Penny didn’t know what was going on yet, she had a feeling she was about to agree with the impertinent soldier-woman.

Gelwin grimaced atop his stonework seat. “I’m aware of your opinion, Crusader, but my hands are tied.”

The woman all but pleaded, despite her burgeoning frustration. “The Sergeant is one of our own, sir, and we have clear evidence of—”

The sylvari cut between Jindel and Gelwin with a stiff hand to Valliford’s chest. “Stand down, Crusader.” The tension in the room spiked as Liæthsidhe put a warning grip on the butt of the rifle strapped to her back.

“Both of you stand down,” Gelwin demanded, rising.

The two obeyed, but the tension hung there.

“If I may inquire, Captain,” Wepp said, breaking the momentary silence as he stepped past the others, “You did convey that an attack on Thaumacore only necessitated just cause for such, correct? Does this not suffice?”

“I said that it required just cause as defined by Vigil command and your Arcane Council,” Gelwin corrected. “Both of which would take time.”

“Would?” Jinkke asked. Penny had caught that very specific choice of word too. She’d formed enough contracts to recognize intentional word-choice.

“We need to do it, sir, whatever it takes,” Jindel insisted. “We have the right of this.”

“Human tracks,” Captain Gelwin said again with emphasis. “The scouts followed human tracks toward the complex, not asuran.”

Jindel blinked, Jinkke nodded, and Wepp let his head fall. Minkus frowned, still searching for what the others understood, but Penny grasped the man’s point all too well.

Lieutenant Liæthsidhe removed her hand from the gun and placed it at her hip, shifting her weight to an approximation of comfortability. The moment appeared to be hers. “Unless it’s become common knowledge that the Inquest at Thaumacore have begun recruiting human technicians,” she said, “we have no more grounds for open conflict than we did before. We may have less, actually. There is nothing we can reasonably do for the Sergeant.”

‘But, sir,” Jindel said, “he’s one of ours. We don’t leave—”

More calmly Gelwin raised a hand. “We serve Tyria by serving the Vigil, and right now, we cannot serve either by sullying our order’s name with the asuran capital. The safety of one soldier—”

“And Scholar Yissa,” Minkus added.

The captain nodded. “As much as it pains me to say, the safety of a soldier and a scholar do not outweigh the importance of keeping our peoples united against Kralkatorrik and Zhaitan. At the end of the day, Crusader, our objective in Brisban is to maintain the goodwill of the world’s people, so that they work together toward the bigger objective. That is my duty, even over loyalty to my men—my friends.”

Fists balled tight, Jindel glared past the lieutenant and directly into the eyes of the captain. “Sir.” She clearly worked to rein herself in. “What if—”

“That’s enough, Crusader.”

The crimson in the woman’s face deepened, but she bit back whatever argument she’d been about to make.

Beside Penny, Minkus’ shoulders drooped. For once Penny could neither blame him nor Jindel. She had no love for the idealistic crusader, but she did have a score to settle.

“Hey, we’ve almost got this thing working,” Penny said, pointing to the worktable. All eyes turned to her.

“And I applaud your effort,” Gelwin replied. “But the Vigil cannot help you in this.”

Beside her, Minkus slumped further. Penny didn’t know whether it was her friend or the captain’s words that she felt so acutely, but she groaned, glancing at the other asura around her. “Fine. You won’t do it, but you also can’t stop us, right? Or does the Vigil imprison independent citizens these days?”

“No,” the man agreed, “I can not stop you. Nor would I.”

Penny nodded. “Good. Because we’re going to finish this field-projector and go shove it down the throat of the asura woman who runs that place, with or without your soldiers.”

Liæthsidhe crossed her arms, returning Penny’s glare. “And you’ll get yourselves all killed in the process. Genius.”

Penny was coming to hate that petalled woman. “Grenth better bring a wagon, then,” Penny snapped back. “Because we’re going to take a ton of those Inquest bastards with us.”

From the corner of her eye, she recognized the attention she’d garnered from her companions Each one was wide-eyed, with Wepp visibly gaping at her, his jaw hanging limply open. He swayed a little, looking light-headed. Minkus stood shocked but also bearing the edge of a proud grin. Jinkke went quickly unreadable when their eyes met. 

The sylvari only scoffed, shaking her head openly.

“That’s enough, Lieutenant.” Captain Gelwin said, keeping her from any further rebuttal. He only glanced at his subordinate. “If these good folks want to attempt to rescue one of ours, they should have our gratitude, not our scorn.”

He let his attention settle once more on Penny and the three asura. One by one, he analyzed them, then he took them in as a whole. Once or twice, he looked thoughtfully at Valliford as well, who all but fumed and refused to meet his eye. It didn’t seem to bother the man.

“I’ve arranged with Tekki to keep this space available for you as long as you need it,” Gelwin went on. Minkus began to fidget with his ear, which drew the man’s inspection for a second. “I don’t expect you to use it long, but it’s here.”

Stammering at first, Minkus spoke up. “Yes— we— well, thank you, but we really can’t wait. Ventyr and Yissa could be— well, Wepp says they could be in very bad trouble if—”

“It’s considerate of you, Captain,” Jinkke broke in, “but what my brother is trying to convey is that we don’t have any surplus of time for even standard quality assurances.” She glanced at her brother and swallowed the anxiety spreading across her face. “I imagine, the very minute we complete our preliminary analyses of this device’s efficacy, we’ll be departing to rescue the Sergeant and Scholar Yissa.”

Minkus nodded.

“And we will repay Kikka for every misdeed,” Wepp added, slamming his fat hands into his hips for emphasis.

Asuran machismo was a strange sight, but he wasn’t wrong. Penny looked back up at the Vigil captain, crossing her arms and glaring as she nodded her support. Inside, though, her heart gave a flutter.

“As you wish.” Gelwin nodded acceptance.

“Sir,” Jindel blurted again, “there has to be something we can—”

Once again he halted her, addressing the group. “Should you find the Sergeant and Scholar, bring them here, and we can at least provide field aid.”

“Sir—”

“And,” he went on, eyeing the party’s smattering of equipment. “I’ll send someone with arms we’ve captured over the last seasons. They bear no Vigil markings, which should make them useful to you without causing a stir in Rata Sum. Take what you will.”

Jindel seemed on the verge of arguing again, but he silenced her with a look. “That is all I can do,” he said—though it wasn’t clear who he said it to.

Jinkke and Minkus both exchanged a nod with the man, seeming to represent the group. Before Penny could get anything out, Gelwin turned back toward the mouth of the cavern, only just glancing back. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry I couldn’t do more for you. Dwayna’s blessing.” With Lieutenant Liæthsidhe directly on his heels, Gelwin left.

Crusader Jindel was slower to respond to her commander’s lead, drawing out her rotation to follow as she surveyed the space. Her gaze moved across the four of them, one by one, and returned to settle on Minkus. It was hard to tell which of them looked more dejected, until Jindel tightened the sorrow out of her expression, twisting it into a determined grimace. The woman spun and stormed off in the tracks of her superiors.

“What was that about?” Penny asked, waiting just long enough for the Vigil entourage to disappear beyond the mossy wall. She looked to Minkus.

Face still downcast, he shrugged, watching the wall as if he could still see the three soldiers walking away beyond it. “I don’t think she’s very happy with the Captain’s decision.”

The knot in Penny’s stomach swelled, then tightened. She flexed a grip, aching for something in her hand, and stomped back to the worktable.

Snatching up the data tablet, she extended it back at Jinkke. “No point gawking,” Penny growled. “Let’s get this damn thing working.”