Chapter 67

Geopolitics

“We are barbarians, the beasts hung on the gallows of shame, set for the display in front of their masses. They throw stones at us, murder us, rape us, and desecrate all we hold dear. We fall silent. And in silence… we recover. One day we will wake. And the world will once again remember… what the Light had done to us.”

King Yevver’s Diaries, Vol. II

It wasn’t hard, Noah mused, watching the fading back of an old man with a crooked smile, leaving convinced he had just made a deal of his life. People, in nature, are all the same, circumstances removed. And, even with the circumstances applied, one only needs to know them. The rich like being rich. The poor don’t like being poor. The religious like indulging in their faith. The idealists like spreading their dogma nearly as much as the missionaries. The greedy will never have enough. The powerful will never stop.

The circle continues and weaves, just as it had done so back on Earth. During his mid-teens, he had been exposed to the idea of a lynchpin – a single point of failure. That is, no matter how perfect of a system something appears on the surface, it has, at the very least, that single flaw, something that can break it apart at its seams. It fascinated him, the idea of scrying through the perfections, looking for that flaw. However, if his life taught him anything, it’s that the single point of failure… is a myth.

He had been disillusioned over it nearly as quickly as mystified it, during his first subsidized task. He still remembered it vividly, leaving Lyon at the tail end of the 2030s, taking to the sky and traveling over forty-five hundred miles south to Harare. The mission? Find that single point of failure within the newly risen, authoritarian, revolutionary government. He believed he'd have to stay within the nation's capital for months, bribing dozens, researching, shadowing, discovering. Yet… it took a week. A week until he spotted not one, not two, not three… but eleven 'lynchpins’. Disgruntled General Itai, who had led the charge six months prior and took over the capital, was relegated to the northern parts of the nation, angry and bitter his seat as the president was taken away by Tongai, a newly-forged tycoon who made his wealth through the import of guns and missiles due to exclusive contacts.

Tongai’s wife, his two sons, five members of his closest associated forming up the National Cabinet, and two of his chief Foreign Advisors… they were all points of failure. The people preferred Itai over someone who swept in and took the seat, his family was disgruntled over his countless affairs, members of his cabinet were angry with the authoritarian reforms that had stripped them of any semblance of power, and his two Foreign Advisors… were already on the payroll of foreign nations.

Noah didn’t even have to do much. He didn’t have to maneuver pieces, bribe his way up the social ladder, spark individual revolts until forming a larger coalition… all he had to do was… give them money and contacts. Within two months, Tongai was overthrown, and the chaos continued.

His illusions of subterfuge were shattered within that short span of time. It wasn’t as romantic or as magical as he had perceived it from his studies and illusions. If anything, it was remarkably dull and simple. However… it was safe.

That was something he lacked at the moment; he had no means of playing geopolitical games due to the limited sphere of influence. He had to do what he once worshiped – bribe his way up, corrupt the specific pieces, install his own people. While he did do plenty of these things back on Earth on several occasions, they never came with nearly as many asterisks as he had now. He couldn’t ensure loyalty, and he needed it. It wasn’t as though he could replace Olivia, or replace Myrell and Sash – he’d invested too much. Back on Earth, the people he hired generally knew what they were doing. If he suspected they were compromised, it was easy to cut them off since nobody ever had full access to the operation except for him and replace them with someone else, even if it prolonged the mission's length slightly.

Here, he had no second chances. If Olivia was compromised, he would have to flee and find refugee elsewhere. If Myrell was compromised, he'd have to spend months upon months bringing someone else up to her standard. And if the jester was compromised, he might never find another piece quite like him.

All of this could be remedied, however, if he had access to geopolitics beyond the Kingdom’s borders. He could set up bases elsewhere that he could use as shelters and hideouts, set up a multitude of separate chains of command that had nothing to do with one another, ensuring he always had something. And, most importantly, he wouldn't have to sneak into decadent taverns in the dead of the night and hold dull conversations with a huge grin over on his face while talking with some of the most deplorable people the Kingdom has to offer.

Sighing, he glanced up to the starlit sky, pondering, missing his home. On the surface, he had a fairly easy time up until now, save for a few scuffles. However, he never felt settled, calm, worry-free. While one could say that his life on Earth was far more dangerous as he had countless people after him, he trusted his own, self-built protection systems. He knew just how to maneuver around those life-or-death situations. Here he was a lost lamb, and while certainly safer, as evidenced by a complete lack of attempts at his life, he was not worry-free. He couldn't live and exist in the moment and had to constantly readjust to the future.

Retracing his steps back to the Royal Grounds, he reminisced of perhaps the simplest period of his life – the mid-2040s, and his mid-to-late twenties. The world had finally seemed to calm, after two decades of unceasing strife and conflicts. The jobs he was offered were not all that interesting or profitable, so he went silent for a few years, disappearing from the grid. He spent most of the years enjoying the sunshine-gassed beaches of the Caribbean, occasionally visiting some other landmarks. Most in his line of work believed he had died or even retired, and nobody was able to track him down, ensuring the peaceful living. He even came remarkably close to marrying during that period of time, and settling completely, leaving his old life behind. So close… yet so far.

He was snapped out of his thoughts by a strange sensation inside his chest, causing him to frown; he felt a pair of eyes on him… yet not quite. He didn't react outwardly, merely shifting his route slightly to see whether it was just a one-off feeling. It, however, didn't disappear; no matter how he curved his path, he still felt those eyes on him – so, he stopped. In the middle of the alleyway, he came to a halt and sat down, leaning against the stone-cast wall behind him, chilling his back slightly.

The gaze persisted, almost like the glue, but it felt like it was closing in. It was an unfamiliar sensation, and he realized it was because the lumps of Dark inside of him resonated with the gaze and not his instincts. I must have been watched by Olivia like this before acquiring magic, he sighed inwardly, realizing just how many things he’d overlooked in the first few months of his stay here. Whose eyes did I draw on myself, though?

The faint sounds of footsteps came clanking from his left as he glanced sideways, seeing a figure draped in the colossal shade, its features barely discernable. Yet, Noah recognized him, connecting the dots. He was tall, stalwart and broad, bald in the head, with the walk of an imposing, championed man. And, even the stranger thing was that, somehow, Noah knew he was not there just a few moments ago – he appeared here, somehow, someway. If he sought me out like this, Noah mused, getting up and dusting off his behind. It looks like he's figured out I was behind that letter… and that he's interested. A bit sooner than I thought, but this could be an opportunity to cement his influence further, and for me to weasel my way in.

“…” the man said nothing, approaching Noah slowly and stopping a couple of feet away, the shade around him collapsing, revealing the middle-aged figure behind the curtain, Duke Godwind Fyrost. “You’re an awfully difficult man to track down, Dacent Noah.” He flashed him a smile, a wide and blusterous one, speaking in an imposing tone that Noah merely ignored, smiling back.

“If I knew that the Duke himself was looking for this little me,” Noah replied. “I would have certainly made it much easier.”

“I imagine that most of the Kingdom is looking for you at the moment,” the Duke said. “So I will be a fair bit more understanding toward your circumstances than I usually am.”

"Why would most of the Kingdom be looking for me, though?" Noah asked, acting ignorantly. Naturally, he had no intention of admitting to anything – save for, perhaps, that he was acquainted in some way with the sender of the letter.

“… are we really going to play the courtly games so far from the peering eyes and ears?”

"… we are never that far from the peering eyes and ears," Noah said. "And, I must admit, I was never a fan of the courtly games. I still, however, do not quite understand why the Kingdom would be looking for me… when they can always find me in my studies, swarmed in the old and dusty books."

“… we’ll make this a test run,” Duke said suddenly, taking out a satchel and tossing it in front of Noah. “You’ll find a thousand Royal Crowns in there, equivalent to ten thousand ordinary ones. If you can double the amount within two months, I’ll consider your proposal.”

“…” Noah remained silent, not reaching for the satchel. It was the classic powerplay, one that he’d both employed and been subjected to thousands of times before. Despite being basic, however, there was a good reason it was employed so frequently – it was because it worked. However, he had no intention of surrendering over the leading hand to the Duke in front of him. “If you want to increase your wealth, I suggest you seek out some of our finest merchants. On the other hand, if you perhaps have a question about our wonderful histories, I will be more than happy to answer, free of charge, of course – knowledge, after all, is priceless.”

“I don’t care how you do it,” just like Noah ignored the Duke’s words, Godwind did the same. “So long as it remains out of those pesky peering eyes and ears. You can even take a small cut for yourself, buy a better robe, if you ask me.”

“… again,” Noah bent over and picked up the satchel, flipping it in his hand for a moment before tossing it back over to the Duke’s feet. “I get very nervous around Crowns, you see. They unsettle me. Books, on the other hand, I find very calming. If by your grace you are willing to donate some to my little library, I would accept them with the deepest gratitude.”

“… you have no protection,” the Duke said, finally breaking the chain. “You have no power, no standing, no army, no connections, no influence. You have nothing to offer to me. If you were nearly as clever as you believe yourself to be, you’d have taken this offer up in a heartbeat.”

“… you have nothing either, I’m afraid,” Noah replied, vanquishing his smile and choosing to settle on the hardline. Otherwise, he knew, this would never go anywhere. “I need neither your Crowns nor your armies. I don’t need your connections, your influence, your standing, and certainly not your waning power. If we’re being honest here, Duke, associating myself with you might bring about as much headache as a good bump against the stone wall. If you were nearly as clever as you present yourself to be, you’d have understood by now that you misinterpreted my intentions entirely.”

“… it’s been a long time since someone spoke to me as so, Dacent,” Godwind’s lips widened into an angry sneer as he took a step forward, leaning in. However, he was half a head shorter than Noah, and just about as wide, surprising the Duke. “Those ugly robes must hide something that gives you that much courage to face me like a common whore, no?”

“… donate to the Princess’ cause tomorrow,” Noah said, smiling. “And send one of your children to accompany us alongside a hundred soldiers from your personal army. I’ll ensure your child returns safely, and your name… well, finally gets out there.”

“… those are some mighty promises, no?”

“Promises? Who said anything about promises?” Noah said. “This is a business transaction, Duke Godwind. Those are simply my terms.”

“… you seem pretty fine with handling Crowns, for a man so terrified of them.”

“I really am terrified of them, though,” Noah shrugged. “Having too many seems to make people into strangest of creatures.”

“… one thing we can agree upon,” Godwind said, taking a step back and glancing up at the sky, turning momentarily silent. “Fine, I’ll gamble – I won’t lose much if it all fails. However, I’d like to alter one part of your terms.”

“Oh? Which one?”

“… someone that I send,” the Duke said, turning around. “Would, perhaps, if by accident, be better off not returning.”

“…” he left those words behind and walked away, vanishing, leaving Noah silent. So, he wants his kid dead, he stroked his chin, chuckling to himself and shaking his head. Indeed, it was all so similar it was almost tear-worthy. Get rid of the pest, make a martyr out of him to prop up the image of his House amongst the commoners… I should steal a note from his book.

The problem was, however, that Noah had no one to sacrifice – at least no one who could make an impact with their death. He lacked the assets that long-term residents of this world all had, and it showed. He’d have to entirely depend on Olivia’s charisma, while even if he sent the worst person in the world over there, someone everybody hated, it would turn into a perfect story of redemption and martyrdom by the end of it. And records describe him as a ‘brute’, Noah chuckled bitterly, reassessing the Duke’s image inside his head, resuming his walk back to the Royal Grounds. Brute my ass. He has you all figured and fucked by the balls… damn, I really can’t trust any of those records, can I?

Sighing exasperatedly, he wondered how much easier his work would be if the things he learned from the books and the records were actually correct. Or, rather, how easier would it have been even if he never read anything. At least, in scenarios like these, he’d enter with more caution, not relying on clearly flawed knowledge. One day, he knew, he would have to remedy that shortcoming, by any means necessary.