Black Sashes

Kedras Valdira was not having a good day.

It had begun well but things had gone steadily downhill. In the morning, his life was simpler: He got up in the morning, got his notes together, did some training classes for the new agents and then made his presentations to the espionage and recon teams that were going out from his division. He was home in time for supper and often even had time for a quiet pipe before that. On really good days, he was home shortly after lunch, had his pipe and then spent the afternoon with his friend Mathias. After supper, he'd spend some time with his wife Serena. Today should have been a good day; his schedule had said he had only two classes to teach and only a single prep meeting to host. He should have been home before noon, in time to have brunch with his wife and to spend the afternoon with his daughter on her birthday.

That was not to be, he found out. Between his second class and the prep meeting, he was approached by a messenger who had been sent to summon him before the new King, or boy-King as Kedras had taken to calling him in private. The meeting had seemed a good thing; he had been promoted! Things were looking up. Kedras had been handed the mantle of director of counter-intelligence of Zolas. It was a lengthy title but it basically meant he was the spymaster of the empire, which was something he'd dreamed of often enough during his youth.

That had been the highlight of the day. He'd thanked everyone present profusely and gone off to prep his agents for their mission. It was simple and over in under an hour. Then he had been approached by more messengers, three, in fact. They had explained to him in no uncertain terms what exactly his promotion meant. Kedras was not so thrilled with his promotion after that.

The boy-king's messengers handed him deadlines and thinly veiled threats about manning outposts in Gar'jei if he did not do something quickly to shift the balance of power back in Zolas' favor; Zalzaba was gaining too much momentum, they said and Zolas' finances were not in tip-top shape after the skyship fiasco. It had fallen to him to do something. All of a sudden, he was feeling not as if he had achieved a dream from his youth but that he was being maneuvered for a fall. When he made his way back to his office, one of the old director's advisors was already there, waiting for him.

"Good morning, Mr. Valdira." The man said. He was older than Kedras and bore the scars of a great deal of fieldwork.

Kedras nodded at the man. "Good morning...Alec, isn't it?"

"Yes sir. Congratulations on your promotion."

"Well now," Kedras said with a frown. "I'm not so sure those are in order after what the king's minions had to say to me."

Alec smiled wanly. "That has ever been the way of things, sir. The throne has never really approved of this organization, nor our nation's clear need of it. None of the kings since King Azrathan the First have really understood the importance of what we do and that's part of why we are where we stand today. On that topic, actually, I had something to say, though it appears you've figured it out already; the old king was looking for a way to shut down our organization. He had sent messengers to Zalzabra seeking peace but he was assassinated before their rider-less horses were returned to us, so he never got their answer. His son appears interested in doing the same."

"Well that makes some sense of things; apparently, I have until year's end to do something about the state of our nation or I'll be manning Gar'jei."

Alec winced. "No one likes manning the prison, sir, that's a fairly harsh penalty to work with."

"It's OK, Alec, you can say it; Gar'jei is the most miserable hole in all of the nation and if I mess this up, I'll be there until I retire."

That drew a chuckle.

"Well," Kedras continued. "It looks like I have to stay late. Damnit, it's my daughter's birthday today... Alec, do me a favor and have someone send my apologies to my wife and daughter... and that package, please?"

"Of course, sir. Shall I set up the conference room and get the other assistants?"

"Yes, that would be very good."

"Of course, sir. I will return shortly."

Alec vanished off into the depths of the building to do as he was bid, while Kedras sunk down into the chair behind his desk. He dropped his head and buried it beneath his arms and just sat there for several long minutes. What could he do? Could he turn down the promotion? No, it was an edict from the king himself, he couldn't refuse such an honor from the throne, even if it was a royal scam. His only option was to do what he could and get himself prepared for the long years that he would spend as the head of the nastiest prison complex in all of Zolas. After all of his years of service in the espionage organization, he'd be reduced to a warden in the most isolated section one could find in the nation. Would his family be allowed ot come with him? Would he WANT them to come with him? So many questions, so few answers.

His head throbbed with another of those blasted headaches he had been getting the past few months. He instinctively reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and found the bottle. He quickly unscrewed the cap and took a swig before replacing it in the drawer. It was dwarven-brewed, very strong stuff and his headache receded almost immediately. Rising from his desk, Kedras left his office and made his way to the conference room. He hoped desperately that his assistants would have something in mind from all their years of experience, some insight, anything to help him out.

The conference room was a simple affair; a long, rectangular room dominated by a long, rectangular table and a bunch of chairs. One wall was covered in a chalkboard that Kedras often used for his presentations. The assistants and Alec were already there, talking animatedly about the problem and passing notes and diagrams around. Kedras checked a sigh of relief and walked into the room witha bold stride. Alec noticed him and smacked his hand on the table, which quieted everyone almost instantaeneously. Kedras raised his eyebrows at Alec and smiled.

"Good afternoon, everyone." Kedras said. There was a chorus of replies and he waited until they died down before continuing. "So I gather that you're all up to speed on our little... 'situation?'" Nods and muttered affirmatives followed. "Good, because I'm up the creek without a paddle and I have no idea what to do, so I'm looking at you guys."

Several of the assistants paled noticeably when he said that but Alec merely nodded and motioned for him to continue.

"So as I understand it, we need to do something major to help Zolas by the end of this year or the boy-king and his puppeteers are going to doom our nation by shutting us down." Alec and the assistants chuckled at this.

The assistants shuffled the papers in front of them for several long moments before Alec spoke up.

"As we understand it, this organization is now under considerable pressure to come up with something that will help Zolas out of its current state. The new king, King Azrathan the Tenth, is leaving it up to us because he wants to have a reason to finish what his father started, the dismantling of our organization. He is, to be frank and bold, too soft to run this nation, as his father before him and his father before him. But as he is the heir to the throne and we are a monarchy, there is little enough we can do about that without crossing the line into treason and so we are left with but one alternative: to do something suitably large enough that we actually meet his requirements."

Alec turned to Alicia, the youngest and most recent addition to the advisory staff. "Would you care to read that report you submitted to me earlier to Mr. Valdira?"

She nodded, a little slowly to Kedras' eyes. 'Maybe she's neverous...' He wondered.

Alicia rose from her seat. She was young, Kedras thought. Very young. If she was past her 20th birthday, he'd have been shocked. Alicia arranged a few documents on the table before her, cleared her throat and then began to speak.

"Well," She said in a voice that was quiet but somehow carried throughout the room. "It's not good." There were a few chuckles from her contemporaries, perhaps thinking she was faltering on the big stage. These were dispelled as she continued.

"The economic state of Zolas after the skyship fiasco and in considering all of the banditry that has been happening in the north-east, the warlord in the mid-west and the cessation of trade relations with Baron Ketheroc is quite poor, as a matter of fact. The monarchy has spent an inordinate amount of resources dealing with internal issues and has let its focus on foreign relationships lapse; we're currently experiencing difficulty with the dwarves, which is limiting our supply of various important metals from mithril to plain iron ore and the lack of the food items Baron Ketheroc provided is making us more dependant on our own farming and livestock operations, which are considerably less than what our population requires. We are being forced to rely more heavily on expensive and ill-developed industries within our own nation, which is expensive, and importing more from other nations, which is also expensive. We are running at a deficit for the first time in four generations. Even after all of those difficulties are put aside, we must consider the increasing frequency of espionage tactics from Zalzabran agents. They have been disrupting caravan lines outside of Zolas and making incredible issues of themselves inside of Zolas. Our underfunded organization cannot handle them and we have, to date, ignored numerous opportunities to create income for ourselves because our previous director was unwilling to do anything that he could not directly inform the king about."

She paused and took a moment to hand out the papers she had collected. They were maps of Zolas, marked with locations of the various acts of espionage perpetrated by known Zalzabran agents and places where acts had been committed by suspected agents.

"If you look at this map, you can see that the event markers all fall along a roughly circular border that seems to center on Sor'thel, a village in the mid-south, just north of the Dunefang desert and mountain range. It seems likely that whatever kind of makeshift headquarters the Zalzabrans are using, if they are using one, would exist in this section of Zolas. If we're to do something about the state of the nation, this seems a good place to start in my opinion."

Kedras tugged at his beard thoughtfully. It wasn't a large, flowing beard, it merely hugged his chin and connected to his elongated sideburns that covered his jawline but there was enough of it to get a grip on and tug and it had become a habit of his over the years, though it was a lot greyer now that it had been when he had first grown it.

"Thank you, Alicia." Kedras said. "That does seem like an interesting angle. Anyone else have anything to add to that?"

An older woman, perhaps a decade younger than Kedras' own 50 years, raised her hand. He nodded at her and she spoke without rising.

"Actually, now that it has been mentioned, I have noticed an increasing number of reports in that area of unusual activity, ermm, unexplained disappearances, mysterious noises, monstrous encounters, those sorts of things. It didn't make much sense but if there IS such a base in the area, they are certainly doing a good job of dissuading people from getting anywhere near this portion of the range, the Yir'Xava peaks. If I recall correctly, there is a valley in there that would be perfectly suited to hiding a small- to medium-sized basecamp."

Kedras nodded but the woman was finished.

"Well alright then." He said. "The next question is, how soon can we get confirmation of the base and what kind of resources do we need?"

"Well, we don't have any free agents and if we have to pull some active agents off assignment, we'll be talking in terms of weeks instead of days. We're stretched thin because of all the things happening on the border and in No Man's Land."

"Well that's great." Kedras dead-panned. Alicia giggled a little and Alec smiled but the rest of the room was quiet. "So what do we do instead? We need to get a recon team together. What are the Eyes doing?"

Alec shook his head.

"They are out watching Baron Ishakar's lands and trying to gauge his strength and motivations."

"Ishakar?" Kedras said, frowning. "Where's that?"

"On the other side of the Great Forest." Alec said.

"Oh, so I suppose recalling them won't really work. So what do we have to work with?"

"Trainees who've gone through the first few weeks of class and the general populace."

Kedras paled but kept a straight face. "Well that certainly makes things more difficult. Alright, how about this: All of you, get out there and see what kind of resources we've got to work with. Find me all the people we've got and get them here; instructors, trainees, anyone who's capable of helping out. Get me a report on our equipment inventory, too. Alec, Alicia, stick around, we need to talk, so please join me in my office."

Everyone broke up and began to move. Kedras made his way back into his office and had time enough to take a sip of his secret dwarven stash without Alec seeing before he and the young analyst arrived in his office. When they arrived, he was sitting in his chair. He motioned for them to take seats in the two chairs in front of his oaken desk and they did.

"Alright, so we've got a problem; we have a basic idea of what's going on now but we are going to find out almost assuredly that we have only about a half-dozen instructors who are too old or crippled for field work and a bunch of green recruits with no field experience but that because of under-funding, we've got no equipment that isn't out in the field, either. If this doesn't pan out, we're all going to end up working Gar'jei until we retire. For some of us, that won't be as terrible but for people like you, Alicia, that's going to suck."

"Gar'jei?" She asked, a quizzical look twisted her features.

Alec gave Kedras a warning look and a little shake of his head.

"It doesn't matter now, Alec, we need all the help we can get." He turned his attention back to Alicia. "Gar'jei is a prison and it's basically a really big secret without being a secret. People don't go out of their way to talk about it because it's a foul place. It's in the middle of the most inhospitable climate Zolas has to offer, it's got really tight, almost brutal security and it houses the most dangerous criminals that we've captured and people that the government wants the world to forget about. It's not a nice place at all and it is not looked upon as a favorable assignment locale."

Alicia looked lost in thought, so Kedras paused. "Yes, Alicia?"

"Hm?" She shook her head a little and then set her gaze on Kedras. "These prisoners, they're dangerous criminals, yes?"

"Oh yes, many of them are Zalzabran agents, warlords, the great cat burglars and so forth."

Alec closed one eye and looked at Alicia. "What're you up to, lass?"

"Well, I was just thinking, we have this big collection of people with lots of skills, who are just sitting there... they're expendable... Why not use them?"

"What?" Kedras exploded. "You want to use prisoners, dangerous criminals, KILLERS, to do some of the most important work for the nation?"

"Well in a word, yes." Alicia said. "It's cost-effective and there's a fairly large supply of them readily available."

"And what do we do if they take the opportunity to just bolt? It'll be more expensive to track them down."

"We can use other prisoners to chase after them and deal with them appropriately. Obviously, there will have to be a selection process to determine who can be useful to us, who's willing to work under the conditions we present and all that but it could work."

"You're insane, this is insane, I can't believe that you're even suggesting this..." Kedras said, face red with indignation. "I know we're pressed for resources but we'll do more damage than good with this... plan, if you can even call it that."

"Sir?" Alec said. "The idea has merit. It does seem likely that we can get at least a few operatives out of the pool. It's worth a shot and we can't really afford to overlook these opportunities."

Kedras glowered at Alec as if he'd betrayed him but calmed down some. "You're right, of course. It's just that the idea of using the dregs of our society is so distasteful... Alright, look into it and let me know what you find. I... I need to go see my wife and say 'happy birthday' to my daughter. She's 18, you know..."

"Congratulations, Mr. Valdira." Alec said with a smile.

"Yes, congratulations, sir." Alicia added.

"Thank you both. Alright, let's get on this. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

Taking their cue, both Alicia and Alec vanished from Kedras' office and left him to his thoughts... He sighed and reached for the bottle in his desk, taking a swig and then replacing it behind the stack of books he kept in with it. After a few long moments, he rose and left he office, making his way out of the building.