“No hard proof?” Narin demanded, shaking the mass of paper at Oreius. “What do you mean, no hard proof? Look at this! He is the only one who fits everything we know!”
“Everything we know,” Oreius agreed, stressing the last word. “But we don’t know everything. There is a difference, and a significant one, my friend.”
“I can’t believe this,” Narin growled. “You are defending the man?”
“Absolutely not,” Oreius snorted. “I think he is scum, just like you do. In fact, I’d be happy to arrest him or execute him given the opportunity. But we need to make sure that we’re right before any action can be taken.”
“Before any action can be taken?” Relam asked quietly. “What sort of action?”
“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Oreius asked, leaning back and putting his feet up on a low table. “As he pointed out during his discussion with this other man, D’Arnlo has a great many soldiers. Not to mention the greatest fortress of all time, the Citadel.”
“And there are three of us,” Relam muttered. “Not exactly great odds.”
“Three can accomplish by stealth what an army cannot by force,” Narin put in.
“True,” Oreius agreed. “But there is only one entrance to the Citadel. And you can be sure that if D’Arnlo is behind all of this, he will have the place on lockdown.”
“There’s something else,” Relam added. “We have no idea what is going on out there right now.”
“What do you mean?” Narin asked curiously.
“I just disappeared from a burning room in the middle of the night,” Relam pointed out, clasping his hands between his knees and leaning forward. “I think it is a safe bet that the alarm has been raised and most of the military players in this city are aware. The city will have been put on lockdown. Now, consider this: In the event that the king and the heir both are killed or disappear, who is most likely to take control? In the interim, of course.”
“The military,” Oreius answered immediately. “Seeing as they would be running the search for a missing heir to the throne. Makes sense for them to be in charge.”
“Precisely,” Relam agreed. “Commander Eckle has Citadel connections. Likely, without an authority around to tell him what to do, he immediately sent runners to the Citadel. If I were D’Arnlo, I would use my influence to organize the search and order a lockdown of the city, placing himself above Commander Hadere of the City Guard in the chain of command. Now, I know Hadere and he could be convinced to join us-”
“But word would reach the Citadel and it’s likely locked down already,” Oreius finished. “So there’s no point in getting a small army to help, unless we plan to attack by force and get slaughtered for our trouble.”
“Which we don’t,” Narin said quickly. “Right?”
“Right,” Relam agreed. “So, what do we do?”
He looked at Oreius hopefully, urging the old warrior to come up with a spectacular, foolproof plan on the spot. But Oreius simply shook his head and shrugged.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “There are too many unknowns. D’Arnlo has support from at least one other lord. Depending on how influential that lord is, he may have the support of many more. There is nothing to say that even if we exposed D’Arnlo, that Relam would be reinstated as heir to the throne.”
Relam had not considered that possibility. “Do you really think that could happen?” he asked quietly.
Oreius nodded gravely. “It depends how deep this thing has run. Remember, the Assembly of Nobles was extremely dissatisfied with your father’s rule at times.”
“Yes,” Relam admitted, thinking back to the meeting he had sat in on more than a year earlier.
“Well, we have to do something,” Narin blustered.
“We have to do the right something,” Oreius said quietly, gazing out of the room’s one, circular window. “And until we know what the right something is, we need to keep thinking and planning. There is too much at stake for us to rush into the situation and fail spectacularly.”
“Yes,” Relam agreed. “If D’Arnlo wins, he becomes king in all likelihood. And that would usher in a dark age the like of which the Sthan Kingdom has never seen. An age of enslavement of the masses, and power and wealth for a few.”
Narin nodded somberly. “Then we’d better put together a plan,” he observed, frowning.
Oreius nodded absently, his mind already thousands of miles away. Relam closed his eyes and lay back, thinking. The room was silent, save for the crackling fire in the fireplace. The flames were cheerful and vibrant, a spark of hope amidst the three despondent occupants of the room. As the morning wore on though, and the fire lay unattended, the flames began to die and the room grew dark and cold.
Dawn came, gray light filtering through the round window. Relam, Oreius, and Narin still sat in the same places they had been hours earlier. Still thinking. Still hoping. The fire was nearly out now, but the room was growing brighter every minute with the rising sun.
An hour after dawn, the silence was finally broken by someone hammering purposefully on the front door, shaking it violently. For a moment, Relam and his companions did not even stir. Then the knocking began again and they all started and looked at each other guiltily.
“Expecting guests?” Relam asked Oreius quietly.
The old warrior shook his head. “No,” he whispered. “I think that perhaps you and Narin should hide for a little while. This may be a search party.”
Narin’s eyes widened. “Already? But we have no plan!”
“I know,” Oreius muttered. “And if they intend to search
