(no subject)

[iniquiticity]

Essek was in his library when the voice trickled into his mind. Uncommonly distressed, even if there was only a thread of it there. He was perceptive, with these things.

Essek. What is the status of the agents you reported who wished to recover our artifact?

A strange question. He had reported that drow saboteurs had been dispatched. He trusted the Assembly to respond reasonably, in a way that did not give away they had been alerted. But it was not permissible, for the beacons to return here.

He suppressed his irritation. Ludinus should know. Had he had important information, he would have sent it. He didn’t bother to look up from the book.

No new reports since last week.

Certainly this was not the end of the conversation. Ludinus had a tendency to badger you until he was satisfied, and he evidently had the power to indulge that tendency.

Have they reported the mission was a success?

He looked up from the book and glanced out of the tower window into the familiar darkness. A very strange question. Certainly Ludinus knew that had such a thing happened, he would have reported –

— had something happened with the beacon?

– what could have happened? The existence of the beacon, Ludinus reported, was shared with only trusted operatives and arcanists. Not even those whelps that this Ikithon was trying to fill with dunamancy knew about it. Theron and Ouris had still been at least a day or two away, not counting whatever time it would have taken for them to get it and flee far enough to feel safe to report.

That would have been something to report, he thought, trying not to be irritated. Ludinus was too clever to waste his time with stupid questions.

What happened to it? he asked. This conversation was leaving a sinking feeling in his stomach. Of course, he thought to himself, closing the book and locking it and putting it away, idly warding the case again. Of course he could not even trust Ludinus Da’leth, maybe the most powerful nondrow wizard on the continent, to take care of a Luxon Beacon. It really was true, that you could only trust yourself. That not even someone as capable could prove competency.

Meet me in the Greyward.

He hissed out the breath of frustration and pulled on his mantle. Summoning up the vision of one of Da’leth’s sanctums, he twisted his fingers and was there.

Ludinus Da’leth was standing there. The twinkle in his eye did not adequately hide his frustration, not to the gaze of a shadowhand. He was uncommonly stiff in his shoulders.

“Your operatives attempted to steal the beacon,” Ludinus said, “They did manage to recover it from the Zauber Spire in Zadash.”

“Why was it in Zadash?”

“Ikithon was experimenting with it, with one of his associates.”

“Given the way you talk about this man, perhaps you should not have shared it with him.”

Ludinus narrowed his eyes for a second, and the his familiar placidness came back over his face. “His experiments with it prior to this one have always been fruitful.”

Essek glanced out of one of the windows. The Greyward was a tall tower in the Greying Wildlands, not even that far from his home, where him and Ludinus had met here a number of times prior. A secret place, invisible, unless you knew what you were looking for. Not even he had been able to find it, without Ludinus allowing him to.

“Neither Theron nor Ouris have reported back indicating they have obtained the beacon.” Theron had been consecuted though Ouris had not; he would have had to come up, quickly, with a way to recover it without them knowing. A frustrating waste of his time. Foolish that he had expected someone else to be capable. He should have just figured out a way to hide it in his own sanctum. He could have just generated some sort of demiplane. Make some sort of time-wall between Rosohna and his own study.

“Their corpses were recovered from the Zadash streets,” Ludinus said. Essek turned back to meet his eyes. “And the beacon was not on either of them.”

A pause. Essek took in those old elven eyes. Had you not been a Shadowhand, the archmage would have been impossible to read. He saw it, though. He saw the frustration and confusion and anger.

“Let me just repeat this,” Essek said, taking in a long sigh, still thinking about every possible way he could have done this himself and not have had these Empire idiots have lost his treasure, “Theron and Ouris got into the Zauber Spire, recovered the beacon, were killed and looted, and the beacon was missing.”

Ludinus nodded, once.

At least he would not have had to figure out how to secretly murder Theron. This meant, however –

“You aren’t able to locate the beacon?”

“I can assure you,” Ludinus said, and Essek heard the knife there, that accustomed-to feeling of everyone else thinking he was a gods-damned child, “I and everyone else who has been looking for it has tried to find it and has failed. It did not leave the Zauber Spire hidden in a lead box.”

You let some secret organization or spy or wizard steal my beacon, he wanted to scream, and didn’t.

He said instead, “I will see what other organizations or groups might have known about the attempt and could have interceded.”

“I will as well. We’ll reconvene when we know more.”

Essek nodded. The anger was pulsing in his chest. It had barely been in Ludinus’ hands and now it was gone! This worthless scoundrel Ikithon had let it been stolen by some mysterious third party. It was not even being handed back to the drow. It was just out there, maybe being studied and learned and known and he was not even getting that information back. Who knew who had it, what they would would do, what they already knew.

A flash and he was back in his tower. Things became smaller than motes of dust, when he screamed.