🐉 🐉 🐉
HIGH-SPEED carriages were built with comfort in mind as well as speed, meaning you felt nearly no jolting on well-maintained roads. It was a pleasant journey at a speed close to a fast horse.
Inside the carriage, Lushera was teaching Kaphal the rules for the board game, King of the Board. The game involved several pieces on a board that you used to fight a war against your opponent. It tested your ability to process information in your head. Lushera was by no means a master of the game, but she was still amazed that Kaphal was starting to give her a run for her money after just their third match even though she had only just learned the rules.
They were at a point where one more move would decide whether she would win or lose, the view out the window glowing in the light of the setting sun. Lushera was just starting to think the magic lights in the carriage should be coming on about now when one of the slips of paper Lushera had on her burst into blue fire.
These slips of paper were a magic item known as call charms. They were quite popular as a means for adventurers to contact each other. They worked using magic formulas written on paper made with a magic catalyst. They came in sets of two, capable of connecting to the other charm that they came in a bundle with. They were one-use items since they burned up after about ten minutes.
This call charm was paired with one that Ivar had. Lushera traced the blue-white light along the surface of the paper in a predetermined pattern, activating the charm.
“Ivar, what is it?” she asked.
“I got the results of the golem investigation. Dammit! They did their best getting rid of any telltale design decisions that would give it away, but they figured it out from the burnt-out graselm circuit! It’s almost certain it was made in Martgarz, by the military. And it’s the newest model, made in the last three months. There’s almost no way it could’ve been made with stolen parts or goods secretly sold off. It was most likely brought by Julian!”
“What?!”
The moment he started shouting through the charm, it was obvious from his voice that his face had changed color with emotion. “And you know, don’t you? What makes a golem good as a soldier?”
“They don’t fear death and they never go against orders…”
“There’s that, but something else too. Living things can’t go into magic items used for storage.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, if it’s not alive, it can go in!”
Every hair on Lushera’s body stood upright when she realized what Ivar was getting at.
“So, if you imbue a trunk with storage magic and just say, ‘this is the lord’s change of clothing,’ and they bring it in, well…they’re not really gonna check inside, are they?” he said.
“But a golem that big won’t fit into your everyday storage spell…”
“So just take it apart and put it back together when you get here! It’s a damn golem!”
In other words, golems were a fighting force that a single person could carry in. It was easier to sneak that in than bring actual people with you. And Julian could do that. A normal person might find every stitch of their clothing inspected when they went in a place like that, but Julian had the status to just slip in whenever he wanted to.
“Obviously there’s still a limit to what he could store,” continued Ivar. “He’d need a seriously suspiciously large amount of luggage to bring in enough golems to take out the kingdom, and he probably couldn’t even get that many in the first place.”
“So…what could he do with the limited number of golems he can bring in…?” Lushera asked.
“He’s an important person, he can get in places.”
“Places that aren’t well guarded.”
“The kind of target no one’d ever imagine someone would target.”
“At the worst possible time.”
Silence.
Inside a high-speed carriage you could barely hear the sound of the wheels rolling across the ground, or the horses’ whinnies, or even the creaking of the carriage itself. And yet, those sounds were deafening at that moment.
“But. But, wait. Why would Julian be after Monica? Lady Monica?” Lushera asked.
“No clue, but he’s not using any decent method to go for her, so I doubt his goal is decent either. The more important thing is that Julian’s in the palace right now. He might do something.”
Lushera thought of the search she underwent at the castle gate when she went in. They had checked if she had any magic items on her…
“Oh… A normal person would be suspected if they had a magic item with them, but it’s normal for people of authority to have defensive magic items on them to protect them from curses and things. Even if they check whether or not there’s magic, they still won’t know what the magic item does. He can still trick them,” she said.
“Storage items can be boxes or more like bags, it doesn’t matter. You could even work a cape or scarf to hold something. And now that I think of it, that bastard was wearing that heavy scarf.”
It all made sense, the pieces falling into place, forming the image of a puzzle that should never be completed.
“The guard on the castle’s solid, but it’s got its limits!” said Ivar. “It’d take all night for them to check the asshole of every noble that walked in there, so they ignore whatever they decide couldn’t be possible.”
“Someone of importance doesn’t usually carry out assassinations themselves, it puts their own life in danger,” Lushera agreed. “And actually, they don’t normally do something that’d be guaranteed to bring on a political breakdown.”
“And it’s rude to be suspicious of your guest of honor, and the guest won’t prod too hard since the favor goes both ways.”
They don’t normally do that. Normally. Everything changed when you were talking about someone abnormal.
Lushera accepted the hypothesis that Julian had some plot in mind. If he did bring in a golem force, how much of a fight could they put up?
There would be a point to the plan if he could capture the kingdom of Setrayu, but Lushera doubted the country would collapse just because someone assassinated the King and some nobles.
And actually, doing that would turn public opinion in all the countries watching the war between Martgarz and Guffarr, making them criticize Martgarz or even discuss joining the war. Julian would lose more than he gained.
But Lushera remembered the impression she had of Julian when they met in the café, that niggling, threatening, elusive feeling of emptiness.
What if that man had nothing he had to protect and nothing to lose? And…an even more terrifying thought…what if this was a rampage by Julian alone, with not even Martgarz in on the plot?
If that were the case, there was nothing that could stop him.
“This…is bad.”
“This is real bad.”
Lushera clenched her tense hands. “Mom, I’m going back to the capital!”