without a reason. I have you, and I don’t want slarjei unless we need to go south into the desert. Do we need to go south?”
“No.”
“Well, pick the direction, and let’s be off.”
Attrebus stared at him, teasing that out. Then he understood. “You don’t know where Umbriel is.”
Sul barked out something that might have been a laugh. “Umbriel. Of course. Vuhon …” He trailed off. “No, I don’t know where it is.”
“How do I know you won’t kill me as soon as I tell you?”
“Because I need you,” Sul said.
“Why?”
“I’m not sure. But I know I do.”
Attrebus considered his reply for a long moment. But really, what did he have to lose?
“East,” he said. “It’s over Black Marsh now, heading north.”
“North toward Morrowind,” Sul sighed. “Of course.”
“Does that mean something to you?”
“Nothing that matters right now. Very well. East we go, then.”
“Let me get my things,” Attrebus said.
“Hurry, then.”
Attrebus was glad Coo was in Radhasa’s haversack and not on her body. The idea of approaching her, seeing what Sul made of her, made him sick. True, she was a lying traitor, but she had been warm in the bed with him not long ago. Alive and beautiful, sweaty, enthusiastic—or so she had seemed. Of all of the women he’d been with, she was the first to be—well, dead. At least so far as he knew. It was upsetting.
Sul gathered a few things from the bodies, then led him upstream among the trees for some distance until they finally came to three horses—two roan geldings that looked as though they were from the same mother and a brown mare. One of the roans was packed up, the other two horses were saddled.
“Ride the gelding,” Sul said.
Attrebus sighed, feeling that was somehow fitting. A few moments later he was riding east with the man who had saved his life, wondering what would happen if he tried to run north, to Cyrodiil, to home.
And he had to admit that at the moment he didn’t have the courage or the confidence to find out.
SEVEN
Colin curbed the impulse to pace, but although he had walked into the room of his own free will—and there was no evidence that he couldn’t leave it—he felt caged somehow. But his mind had been spinning for two days now, and the thread it turned out was beginning to look more like a garrote.
The vanishment of Prince Attrebus wasn’t his first case—it was his third. The first had been simple enough; he’d planted spurious intelligence in the minister of war’s office and waited for it to come out somewhere. When one of their agents in a local Thalmor nest reported it, he easily backtracked the leak to a mid-level official who was apparently hemorrhaging information to a mistress who was—as it turned out—a Thalmor sympathizer. It was simple, clean. No arrests and no bodies. Once the leak was known, it was more useful to leave it in place.
His second assignment had been to discover the whereabouts of a certain sorcerer named Laeva Cuontus. He’d found her without ever knowing why he was looking for her. He didn’t know what happened to her after he reported her location, and he didn’t want to know.
When he’d been sent out with the patrol to locate Prince Attrebus, it hadn’t seemed that odd. Apparently the prince often had to be shadowed, and it didn’t require a particularly senior member of the organization to do the job of what amounted to a bit of tracking, questioning, and bribing.
But now he was in the middle of something pretty bad, and a sensation between his sternum and his pelvis told him that it hadn’t been an accident that such a junior inspector had been sent to discover such nasty business.
He didn’t have any proof of that, of course. Just that feeling, and the certainty that he was missing some piece of the puzzle. And now he was in a well-furnished room on the second floor of the ministry, which was apparently the office of no one.
He turned as Intendant Marall entered the room, followed by two other men. One was Remar Vel, administrator of the Penitus Oculatus. The other …
“Your majesty,” he blurted, taking a knee. He felt suddenly in awe, an emotion he hadn’t experience in a while. As a child he’d worshipped this man. Apparently some part of him still did.
“Rise up,” the Emperor said.
“Yes, highness.”
The Emperor just stood there for a moment, hands clasped behind his back.
“You were there,” he finally said. “Is my son dead?”
Colin considered his answer for a moment. If anyone else had asked him … But this wasn’t anyone else.
“Sire,” he said, “I do not believe so.”
Titus Mede’s eyes widened slightly and his brow relaxed, but that was his only reaction.
“And yet his body was recovered,” Administrator Vel said drily.
“A body, sir,” Colin said. “A headless body.”
“It’s said that the rebels in that area take heads,” the Emperor said. “Other heads were taken.”
“I don’t believe the Natives were responsible, majesty.”
“Why not? They’re vicious enough, and we have information, do we not, that they are supplied and funded by our ‘quiet enemies’?”
“You mean the Thalmor, majesty.”
“They are in everything, these days.”
“And yet I don’t see how killing your son advances their aims.”
“Who are you to say what their aims are?” Vel snapped. “You’ve only been an inspector for a month.”
“Yes, sir, that’s true. But my training focus was the Thalmor.”
“Which does not include—by any means—everything we know about them. Their aims are obscure.”
“I respectfully disagree, sir. I may well not be privy to many details, but their goal is clear—the pacification and purification of all of Tamriel—to bring about a new Merithic era.”
“We have an inkling of their long-term goals, Inspector, but their intermediate plans are less scrutable.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but not always. When they took Valenwood, that was pretty straightforward, and quite logical—they put the old Aldmeri Dominion back together, which makes perfect sense in terms of their ideology. Their harassment of refugees from the Summerset Isles and Valenwood also fits their broader pattern, as does what little we know of their activities in Elsweyr. But the murder of a prince—I’ve tried many ways of looking at that, and it doesn’t make sense.”
Vel started to retort to that, but the Emperor shook his head and held up his hand. Then he spoke again to Colin.
“What is your opinion? If my son is not dead, do you believe him kidnapped? And if so, by whom, and for what purpose? And why leave this trail that seems to lead to the Thalmor?”
Colin took a another deep breath, and began to lie.
“If we assume that much of the ‘evidence’ left for us was false,” he began, “then I might suggest it’s someone interested in drawing our attention to the Thalmor. A distraction to keep our eyes turned, perhaps even coax us into a fight.”
“Leyawiin?” the Emperor muttered. “They are still restless under our rule.”
“Maybe it’s not someone restless under your rule, majesty. Maybe it’s someone who would prefer someone else inherit the throne.”
“My brother?” He massaged his head. “It’s not impossible. I do not like to think it.”
“Sire,” Vel said, “your brother did not hatch this plot. He is more than adequately surveiled.”
“He is perhaps more clever than you think,” Mede replied. “But lay that aside. If we find my son, we find our enemy. So I want him found.” He frowned and stroked his upper lip. “Captain Gulan was among the dead?”
“He was,” Vel replied.
“Is there any question regarding his identity?”
