“And So Arthur was victorious over the Fey, and had regained his freedom. But when he spoke to Morgan about how they might return to Britain, she told him the Isle of Avalon is only a gate between worlds at long intervals, and that they had taken far too long in their quest to return.”

Bran the Wise, The Conquest of Anwwn.

Tane Bayder, 25 September 1582 AAA. Trackford.

They’d kept the fairy out on the airship hangars out in the west of Trackford, with no one but aviators around and screened by earthworks. It was like any other airfield: massive hangars, roundhouses for the wyvern auxilia, cleared fields for bringing the ships in, low, sloped glacis and ravelins bristling with guns and rockets, and barracks for the crew and the army troops they had out there. It had been built nearly fifty years ago, when airships where first becoming something other than a fragile, dangerous gimmick, and since then, the Trackford suburbs had grown around it like the sea washing around a rock.

There was a second airfield, up east, for civilian craft; the Commonwealth didn’t trust the Carfani anywhere near their highly flammable trump cards, and the Carfani would rather not have the Genians looking too closely at any discrepancies between their cargo manifests and the actual contents of their hulls.

The gate guards, airborne grenadiers in sheepskin jacks with crossbows on their shoulders, waved her, Morgan and Mene through when she told them she was an army officer and showed her papers.

The fey-they’d actually gotten a name, Efflyn, but that was it-was being held in an disused ammunition bunker coated in every sort of ward their grey witches and field ritualists could come up with. There were wards that stop Fey riftwalking; Traharn hadn’t had them. Letting himself out, but not his enemies in.

General Veulnor had already arrived, alongside a pack of staff officers, his usual retinue of greatsword wielding bodyguards, and a couple of curious navy air service officers.

“Ah. Gentlemen, the officer responsible for this capture.”. Veulnor said, nodding at her.

“Captain Tane Bayder, 3rd Horse Guards.” Tane said, shaking hands with the officers. “Mene Hast, thieftaker and, uh, contractor.” Between assorted misadventures in the Valadian marches and the highlands, certain unfortunate incidents back in Trarabac, and now this, she was getting a reputation. She recognized some of them; Colonel this and Quartermaster-General that. The other two generals who formed the high command in the Trackford Garrison, however, weren’t present.

One of them, the now-Adjuntant General Baron of Cathairn, had commanded a Cateran regiment that she’d fought alongside putting down Clan Corrys’s banditry, back in the highlands. She’d gotten good at making people talk, back then; it was one of the only ways to track the Caterans down and bring them to battle amongst the forests and mountains.

Probably why she’d been called in to the interrogation. After all, she’d captured the bugger in the first place, and she’d gotten Rhys to talk.

“He’s said anything since yesterday?” Tane asked.

Veulnor shook his head. “Just saying his name and that he’s a friend of Traharn’s who was hired to fortify his house against demons. Said hitting us with demons himself was legitimate self defence. Mene agreed to the plan?”

“Yes.” Mene said, standing besides her. It was simple enough plan. Talk to the Fey, ask him about if what Traharn said about being her father was true, see if they could get him talking. Military interrogation had clearly failed. They had to get him to start talking some other way, and then hope he didn’t stop.

*

When they walked into the ammunition bunker, Morgan and Mene at her side-could never be too careful when dealing with witches-Efflyn was sitting by the far side, legs crossed. There was light coming in dribs and drabs, from gaps in the decaying roof, and he was illuminated by them, like some ascetic. He looked up at them with his solid black orbs.

“My name is Efflyn. I met Traharn when he was a mercenary. He asked me to help protect his house against witches. I acted to defend myself and him against illegal occupiers. Now fuck off.”

He had a thick, utterly unplaceable accent, the accent of someone who not only didn’t speak Brythwic as a first language but not even anything human.

Mene strode across the bunker, while Tane and Morgan hung back in the shadows.

“Alright, Efflyn.” She said once she was standing over him. “I’m not going to fuck off. I’m Traharn’s sister. I want to know what happened to my brother. I don’t care about this war.”

He shrugged. Between the gloom, and his solid black eyes, he was unreadable. “Then why are those two back there, and why where you with the raiding party?”

“Why were you working for a Carfani human rather than in the sunken city? Seems a dangerous choice.” Mene answered.

“I served in mercenary companies. They don’t give a damn, you know, as long as you can fight. Now, about you?”

“That where you met Traharn?” Mene said, ignoring his question.

“He was fighting in his father’s Arluk regiment. I got taken on as a witch, after the last one got ripped in half by a twelve pounder. Now, answer my question.”

Tane winced. She’d had the good fortune to always have the big guns on her side so far, but she’d seen what they could do up close. It wasn’t pretty.

“And I was working with the Commonwealth because it pays and because-“ Mene tensed-“I got thrown down into the mud by Traharn’s thug when I tried to inform him that I existed. You see, our father got my mother knocked up then disappeared. She died when I was ten. On my own after that. I wanted some of what he had, and Traharn seemed to be doing quite well for himself down south. Did Traharn know I existed?”

“H-His father said he had a woman and a son in Genia. Nothing about a daughter. Must have been sowing his wild oats. He regretted having to leave them. Said he didn’t have a choice.”

“Why?”

“He never told me.”

“You lying?” Mene asked.

“No.”

“I already know you’re lying about at least one thing.”

“Do tell.”

“That you met Traharn in his father’s Arluk company. Traharn and our father are the same person.”

“And what evidence do you have for that? I can’t tell you bastard’s ages, but he isn’t that much older than-“

Mene cut him off. “He told me he was my father. And he’s almost certainly immortal. So I put two and two together.”

“Immortal?”

Tane had to admit, the Fey feigned ignorance well.

“Well, he said he’s my father even though he barely looks thirty. He’s shrugged off an awful lot of stabbing and shooting. And he’s got a strongbox full of rituals. All of which involve immortality. So I’ll ask again. Why did he leave my mother? People noticing he wasn’t aging?.”

Efflyn shrugged. “Maybe. He ages, just slower. Much slower.”

“But he’s-“

“You humans really do know nothing. He ages slower, he heals faster, he dies harder. He’s not immortal. Not truly.”

“Then what does he want?” Mene asked.

Morgan leaned across and whispered in Tane’s ear “He’s already drunk from the fountain of youth. He wants true immortality. To separate the soul and the mind from the frailty of the physical body. That’s what the rituals are for.”

“You wanted to know about your brother, not look for intelligence. Well, I told you about your “brother”. Now sod off.”

Mene shrugged and turned away. “Fine by me. “

Even with a mail lined doublet under her thickest coat, the cold stung to her bones. Forcing Avon to come out here and talk had been her idea, of course. Mene had suggested simply meeting him at an inn. That was good enough if you were unknown criminals or spies, but Avon was a public figure, and she suspected herself and Mene were getting reputations as well. Him meeting with a Commonwealth officer was attention she didn’t need.

So, in her infinite wisdom, she’d decided to meet with him in the middle of the night. She needed to know everything there was to know about Traharn. Not vagueness about “weapon smuggling”, but dates, addresses, names.

“If Traharn’s my father, that means…” Mene said, leaning against a tree beside her. She’d dragged Mene out, officially, for backup in case pf ambush, but in reality for company.

“You could be immortal?”

If she’d already had her suspicions, the fact he said he was Mene’s father when she was in her twenties and he looked barely thirty, then had an actual, living, breathing fairy in his house confirmed it.

She had no idea if the immortality granted by the fountain of youth was heritable, but if it was….

Mene shook her head. “I get sick and injured and age like anyone else. Got stabbed in a knife fight a while back, took forever to heal and got infected.”

“What happened to the attacker?”

“I was running too fast to ask after her health.”

“Oh.”

I would’ve fought.

It was easy enough to say that when you’d training in martial arts since you were a child, were 5 foot 10’’ and your reputation depended on willingness to face danger. Less easy when you were a thief or thieftaker or whatever Mene was back then, weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet and had just been wounded in a fight over god knows what.

In Mene’s circumstances, I would’ve died.

She glanced at her pocket watch, lifting her lantern to check it.

“It’s 12 o’clock. He should be out here by now.”

“Give him half an hour.” Mene said. “He might be delayed.”

If this was Trarabac, she would’ve expected him to turn up knifed in a back alley. If even half the stories she’d heard about what went on in Hassarch were true, she would’ve expected half a dozen assassins with mail under their coats to step out of the cold, blades in each hand and Avon as the bait.

“Or he could have jumped through a rift with his fairy friends and currently be drinking wine in the Sunken City.”

Mene laughed, her breath coming out in puffs of mist.

“Someone’s coming.” Mene said, a moment later.

Tane loosened her rapier in it’s scabbard, and checked that her pistols were still in place under her coat and cloak.

A hundred yards away, through the cold night air and the half dead vegetation, she could see a single man, lit up by a lantern, entering into the gardens.

“That’ll be him.” Tane said, lifting up her lantern so Avon would know where to walk.

Beside her, Mene pulled up her scarf and faded back into the shadows of a dying tree. It wasn’t far from the frozen stream where she’d fought Traharn.

“This is a rather inconvenient time to interrogate me.” Avon said as he walked into the clearing, hands in his pockets. Tane’s hand went to one of the turn-off pistols tucked into the back pockets of her coat. “Show your hands.”

He raised them. “I wouldn’t shoot you anyway. Any blackmailer worth their salt would have someone else ready to carry it out if they get killed.”

Tane laughed. He had her figured out. The letters were currently in the safekeeping of Morgan.

“Did you know anything about Traharn’s involvement with the fair folk?”

“Not until they took that fairy prisoner. Every pamphleteer I know is crowing about it.”

Oh, of course it’s all the Commonwealth’s fault, trying to frame poor old Carfane for having a goddamn fairy turn his house into a goddamn magic fortress.

“That your glorious returning hero is in league with the old enemy, and you let him pirate your organization?”

“I had no idea!”

“Alright.” Tane said. “I’ll believe you. You mentioned assistance with weapon smuggling. What sorts of weapons? Where were they stored? How were they getting in and out of the city?”

“He told me he had weapons stockpiled in his household. Brought them in through Kasilisk, wanted my connections to get them into the city from Southmoor. I got them brought in by a smuggler captain I know, then set up in an old warehouse in the bog.”

“What sorts of weapons? Muskets? Armour? Artillery? Rockets?”

“I’ve no clue what Traharn did with those. He just had barrels, lots of them. They were probably full of gunpowder.”

“Just gunpowder? No shot, no weapons to fire it from? Did he have those smuggled in separately?”

The Trackford city militia was fairly small and exclusive, unlike most militias, and a loyalist bastion, with the weapons stored at central armouries. That was the only reason a revolt hadn’t begun the moment Genia occupied the city. Traharn having smuggled an arsenal into the city would mean an armed revolt that would have enough momentum to storm the weapon stockpiles. And if they secured the gates… well, the countryside was hostile enough as it was.

“Just gunpowder, at least as far as I could tell. He also had me being in weapons and complete ammunition, but that was separate. Only a dozen or so weapons.”

That figured. Like any self respecting city, Trackford’s populace was armed to the teeth, but not with military equipment, and certainly not the artillery needed to counter the Commonwealth’s sea and air fleet.

“And where was this warehouse?”

He gave her the address. Not far from where she’d met Mene and been dragged into this madness in the first place.

“And anything else?”

“Oh, god, I don’t know. You want to know about Traharn’s bowel movements? Can we talk about this some time it isn’t freezing?”

“I second that motion.” Mene, lurking in the shadows.

Tane was shivering herself, but she ignored it.

“In an inn, perhaps? Where anyone listening in will know who you’re working for? Yeah, no. I like my sources alive.”

She stepped closer to him, and he tensed visibly.

“Traharn is doing something besides planning a bloody revolution. He wouldn’t be blackmailing his own side if he wasn’t. He wouldn’t be working with the fey if he wasn’t. He wouldn’t be fucking immortal if he wasn’t.”

“Christ-Horus, what?”

“Yeah, that was my reaction when I worked it out. He walked off a rapier through the lungs, and reckons he’s a twenty-somethings father. His pet fairy all but confessed it. Now, I need to know everything. You said you were involved in more than just smuggling. Raid logistics. Laundering. Intelligence. You were in deep. You know what, if you cooperate, I won’t just destroy the letters, I’ll cover up any connection you have to this bloody mess. Because at the rate Traharn’s going, heads are going to roll and bodies are going to swing.”

“I’ll need to go through my books.” Avon said.

Tane ignored him. “Let’s start with raids. Where you involved with the Highhome massacre?”

“No, no-alright, look, Traharn, a few weeks before the raid, Traharn asked me to have my intelligencers-yes, of course I have those-get us information on the security of the frontier forts.”

“You know anything about what happened to the rockets?”

“No. After that, he just wanted to know how the Commonwealth was responding.”

“Alright, recruiting.” Tane said.

“Traharn once asked me if I knew any miners. Loyal, reliable ones, good at underground work. I found him a few ones, don’t know if he took them on or not.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know. Probably for trying to build a smuggler’s tunnel or something.”

He wants hundreds of deaths, for true immortality. He has plenty of gunpowder, but no bullets or guns. He’s hiring miners.

“Fuck.”