Chapter 3: The Helbert Crag seat of the Gods.
A lone bird wheeled through the air, wind tearing at its flight feathers as it banked and turned searching for its own kind, now long gone. Not even the clever gull could make its living up here in the lonely skies, there above the citadel. The Cloistergrad citadel crouched atop the Helbert crag like a sleeping dragon. Its medieval bulk founded deep in ragged cliffs of granite, which had protected and defended this seat of power for millennia. Situated on a bow of the river Sena the citadel gazed out across the once fertile delta plane that now held the industrial stain of lower Cloistergrad. Deep in the center of the mighty fortress rests the black edifice of the temple of the gods. Gods, now long gone to make way for their successor. In the tallest tower of the aged temple Burndegard sat, enthroned upon his massive oak chair, the exalted leader of all Permia. His once handsome face now run to wattle and gout. It carried his years of power and lust like a marble edifice, suffused with grains of dark secrets and darker dreams. The weak winter sun silhouetted him, casting his long shadow across the slab-like conference table, where he rained his contempt, through blazing eyes, upon his six most trusted advisers. A specter of tension coursed through the room, expressed through the many pairs of tightly clasped sweaty palms at the table. There will be results, those eyes told them, there shall be movement or there shall be a world of pain. The worrisome question that had been raised, “How do we prevent the Cinovnik (Hanna head of the MSS the Ministry of state security) from gaining more party votes than she already holds?” The seconds drifted by, slower than glacial melt, as those eyes held them, penetrating their souls and finding them wanting. ‘Gentlemen,’ his voice in contrast almost mellow, the combination intently un-nerving.
‘Have you no good news for me, cannot one of you give me anything?’
Seated in dread-dampened slacks head bent to table, Derian,
The youngest of the six,
Felt a dry constriction in his throat and with his glass empty before him and no pitcher close, his Adam's apple bobbed like a drowning sailor under his soft chin.
The tension built in the room and he felt as if his vaulted leader was somehow directly involved in his auto-suffocation such was the intensity of that gaze, he must clear his throat but knew by doing so he would draw all attention to himself.
Glancing about him in desperation hoping that one of the others would break the silence letting him off the hook, free to huff his obstruction clear.
But it was to no avail they all sat there just like him trying to exude an air of deep concentration.
‘Harug’ the constriction lunged from his vocal cords and,
Just as the squeak of a mouse draws the owl,
Brought all eyes upon him,
- Oh by the Prophet- Derian thought -I’m a dead man-
‘Yes Derain, you have something to contribute?’
The tone of voice suggested he had better. The other five about the table near wriggled like puppies in secret glee seeing a lamb to the slaughter.
-What to do, say no he had nothing and be humiliated by the ravens around me; I must say something, think of something-
‘Well…’
He began his frightened mind racing the Nano-bots in his blood fighting to prevent his heart from thundering out of control.
Then from nowhere something did come, he almost laughed with relief as the inspiration grew like a crack on a plaster wall spreading out,
Branching out through the corridors of his mind.
‘…Well..,’
He began again with a new confidence,
‘…If we cannot get near this lady Hanna... ’
‘She is no lady!’
Burndegards’ voice ripped forth from crimson joules.
‘The Cinovnik is a blade, a weapon…’ Spittle gathered in the pinch of his lips.
‘…not a lady and don’t ever mention that name in my presence again!’
All at the table flinched as if struck.
Gulping thinly through jittering teeth Derian pushed on.
‘…If, if we can’t bring her under control through the regular means we can infiltrate and debase her from the root of her power, her aides, her private soldiers!’
‘Those people are as attached to that woman as is her own black heart!’
The word “people” spat from the depths of his barreled chest.
‘What makes you think that you could turn one of them against her?’
All his mellow tones transformed to scorn.
Derian raised his head from his chest, pointing his weak little chin out as far as he could,
Dragging more courage than he felt into his being and pressed ahead.
‘Not to kill her, they are hers and we substantiate that fact and use their actions and mistakes to topple her from her position of power. Expose her to the party as a terrorist against the state, or at least a liability, using our agent’s provocateurs to spread disinformation and in a short time, with the right people, we will have her broken!’
-Thank all that is holy-
Derian sighed to himself as he saw the crack of a malicious smile course from corner to corner on Burndegard's mouth.
‘Finally, we have someone with an idea, one that requires work but an idea none the less, set your wheels in motion, Derian, write me a detailed plan and have it to me by first thing tomorrow morning, at the latest,’
Turning his attention to the others in the room, agog with the plan set before them.
‘The rest of you could do with some of his propensity for imagination!’
He growled, jowls quivering beneath hard eyes.
Rising like a leviathan from the depths of his throne he strode from the chamber the specter of tension running after him like a minion to his will,
All that was left in the room was an air of menace as five minds turned to Derian,
His plan, and how he too could be disposed of,
Many a wizened and wounded pride called for that.
***
Derian was exhausted he’d spent the entire night plotting and re-plotting, detailing and researching until his plan for the political assassination of one Cinovnik Hanna was gathered into one neat twenty-page bundle of document which now sat on his lap as he waited his leader's pleasure. He’d had just enough time to snatch a quick wash and change his fear-soaked clothes from the previous day prior to his “first thing tomorrow morning” deadline.
He now sat outside the leader’s quarters trying to calm his fidgety thoughts by taking in as much as he could of the historic old tapestries which hung askew on the oak-paneled walls in the upper bastion tower that enclosed Burndegard's private suite.
Moth-bitten and ancient, the tapestries depicted the glories of a long-dead culture in a time before he and the rest of the Permians had gained control of this embattled land.
Warriors in steel armour picked out in fading thread, besieged the very tower within which he now sat crude constructions of wood and rope lined the walls as defenders and assailants alike fell to their deaths in the now long back-filled moat below.
-Strange times- Derian thought -no electronics or bionics, no Tec. to win the day-
His contemplation turned to the dirty world outside which in his lifetime had never seen such a bright day as was depicted in crude fiber before him.
No, his country, his Permia was a dark wet country with little in the way of sunshine and few people were old enough to remember before the rain or recall the seasons of long ago.
Each season with its own flavour, warm spring rising like a lamb to gamble in the pastures of golden summer all now dragged under by the interminable damp.
-But we have the Tec. Now we can pull energy from the earth make food from the uneatable move great weight with the force of electromagnetism and prolong our lives beyond one hundred years, with the very Nano-bionics that course through my own corporeal from-
‘You may go in now!’
Derian snapped back to reality his ruminations fading into the ether replaced with a profound sense of revulsion at the sound of the voice which addressed him, -Vergan Cothe that supercilious little shit- how he’d love to take the doorkeeper down a notch or two,
Hell, all the way why stop at a notch?
Derian did not deign to recognize Vergan's power at this moment but rather with his head unaccustomedly high breezed by as best he could into Burndegard’s office.
Inside he was faced with a desk that appeared to him the size of a small continent almost obscuring his esteemed leader, almost but not quite the man was all too distinct. Turning smoothly for all his age and magnitude from his faraway musing through the little arrow slots that still pierced the tower wall Burndegard’s eyes came to rest upon him.
‘So, show me!’
No how do you do, no introduction of the business at hand just three simple direct words. Derian approached the desk document in hand.
‘Sir I believe that if we follow this plan we can discredit the Cinovnik within a month maybe sooner.’
He said remembering not to mention her personal name, seeing the signal to continue he began to outline and then detail his plan as Burndegard flicked through the proffered document.
‘As you know sir this person's aides are as skilled and capable as your own personal guard, if I may say, possibly more so.’
This last remark earning him a cautionary glance.
‘Sir this situation prevents us from gaining access to her person with regard to physical elimination.’
he went on to explain that if the aides in question could be shown to be a danger to the state and the general public at large while under the orders of the Cinovnik then her political standing would become untenable.
‘Well and good, but this information will be suppressed by the M.S.S, I know we have tried before and it does not work!’
Burndegard stated pointedly the tone of his voice suggesting that his time was being wasted and trouble loomed.
‘Yes sir, of course, sir but that’s because we approached this issue directly in the past, with your permission I would like to set up a shadow agency which I will allow the Party’s council agents to infiltrate at a controlled level giving them the impression that all the information that arrives to the council is taken rather than given and as Hann.., as the head of security will be listed as project manager we can use it as a vehicle to erode her position.’
‘What kind of mischief have you in mind exactly?’
Burndegard asked, his immaculately tailored suit creasing a wave of folds towards his ample chins as he leaned forward onto his desk simultaneously engulfing a city of coffee stains with his silk-sheltered gut.
Derian took a deep breath; he had been waiting for this moment for years now he could pull his ace from his sleeve,
In through the nose smooth silent and slow, pause,
Out through the mouth and went for the pitch.
‘I have, at my disposal, an agent or should I say a spy..,’
The reaction to the word spy elicited a cold wave of emotion spilling across the desk towards him as dangerous as any tsunami marine and was such that Derian sensed the very void beneath him.
‘..A postal runner at the north gate who I know to be black market trading with the enemy at the border, little things you understand he’s no grand player but he does provide for us a direct link to the enemy...’
Derian paused for breath the reaction so far had been the best to be expected, he was a least still alive and still being listened to, slowly an index finger raised up before him and gave him an undeniable signal to carry on with his account.
‘With this runner, we can connect the M.S.S to treasonable acts!’
Sweat beaded in frigid oily droplets across Derain’s forehead in solidarity with the trickle down the center of his spine which ran like the ice-clad river Sena without.
‘Details, please!’
The please was the closest thing to etiquette Derian was going to receive and enough to allow the coiled knot in his stomach to relax, but only a little.
‘I wish to use the experimental ghost-wings, sir, flying at head height they can give the same image as a cornea pixel camera, this will give the impression that anonymous persons are in the company of the aides as they go about their business, this information will be then funneled through our runner to be caught red-handed by the counsels’ agents on our tip off implementing the head of the M.S.S and bringing about her downfall the council will never stand for a traitor in the party.’
Derian's hands sweated damp stains on his trouser legs where he held them pressed hard against his thighs he worried about his plan, all the agents of the party were required to have visual and audio transmitters such as the cornea pixel camera fitted using bio-Tec which was expensive but considered a vital tool for gathering information, the ghost-wing, on the other hand, was an entirely different thing.
For the past five years, Permia's best aviation engineers and biologists along with reams of other highly qualified personnel had been dedicated to developing bio-Tecs of all manners and forms in the hope of getting a jump on their border aggressors and one item on a very long and thus far pointless list was the ghost-wing micro flyer.
With the flyer, the objective was to produce a reconnaissance machine capable of being invisible to electronic, visual, and audio detection. What was achieved with the relatively new Nano-technology was an insect-sized single-wing flyer made of a transparent Nano-material in the form of a five-cell deep crystal lattice of charged carbon5. The flyers’ five layers of carbon provided the opportunity to program the material and to use the differential between them as an energy converter/exploiter able to record both sound and images with the minimum of moving parts as its very surface could encode the information directly on any spare surface area without need for lenses or microphones.
The result was an invisible machine that rode the slight thermal variances in the ambient atmosphere adjusting its shape fluidly to allow it to hold position no matter what the external conditions were, it merely swam through the air. The program had stalled as the engineers struggled to create a remote system to control the device, the stumbling block being that as soon as you tried to send the Ghost-wing a directive the signal gave its position away, and Burndegard was quick to point this flaw out in Derian's plan.
‘You can’t control them remotely; even if you could. the M.S.S aides will detect your signal!’
He was growing tired of this nonsense, stimulating to a point, but he had lunch to do.
‘That’s to our advantage…’
Derian blurted the words in a rush to smother the ill squirm inside.
‘…We program the ghost-wings to follow the individual thermo-electric signatures of each of the M.S.S aides in question, positioned above their heads at a pre-proscribed distance it will appear for all the world as if our agent is in their company, cut the resulting data to fit our own scenario and leek it to our postal runner friend and the M.S.S will be once more in your capable hands sir.’
He rushed the last bit in a fit of panic fully convinced that Burndegard was about to throw him from the office.
Burndegard's unyielding intellect digested the information put before him, the implications were enormous, why was it that no one else in his command had seen this before, if they can do this to the M.S.S they could do it to the entire party council,
They could do it to him.
‘Is this thermal-electrical signature the only way of tracking the target?’ he asked thinking way ahead.
‘Currently, and going on this morning’s data, it’s the only way available sir!’
Derian answered keenly aware of the behemoth of a mind silently working across the desk from him.
‘I want you to implement this plan of yours and also draft a paper detailing your requirements for a real “ghost-wing” directive; you are now the head of our political incursion agency!’
Of course, Derian thought to himself,
I was so busy thinking of the objective at hand that I’d missed the point entirely, he allowed himself a tight little grin, he and he alone had provided the means to truly win the war once and for all, control the head and you controlled the body, once he had the enemy’s leaders under ghost-wings he could orchestrate their demise.
With their business finalized for now Derian left the office feeling on top of the world, he had achieved more than he had imagined and been smart enough not to give that precious fact away in the process.
As for Burndegard, he reached for his pen scribbled a quick note on the headed jotter before him, and then flipped the switch on the intercom and blipped Vergan.
‘Go to project six and deliver this document to Tarnan and be quick about it!’
In his hand he held a directive to produce a bio-internal thermal disruption unit with sufficient details to allow, Tarnan his most loyal science project leader, to produce something to protect him from this Pandora’s box he envisioned he was about to open.
It would be a pity to lose such a good scientist he thought, but no one could know of this safety precaution. Poor old Tarnan must disappear.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone