The Sultan's Spy

Chapter 7: Information

Eliska settled herself at the small table in the family hall on the second floor, a lamp burning beside her, papers and ink in front of her. She didn't have much that was concrete so far, but she had more than enough for a preliminary report back to the family. But first she needed to review what she was sending.

Grabbing a fresh sheet of paper, she carefully wrote down the names and approximate ages of everyone who had gone missing that she'd heard about in the markets. It wasn't a long list, only nine names, and was an interesting mix of people. Men and women, rich and poor, the youngest being ten while the oldest was roughly sixty, there didn't seem to be any kind of connecting thread.

She tapped a finger against the table as she thought. It was unlikely the oldest two had been taken by slavers, and without a ransom demand, she wasn't sure about the boy. She'd heard there were countries where they bought and sold children, but it was against their laws to have a slave under the age of fourteen for boys and fifteen for girls. Still, child slaves rarely sold high. Most people wanted strong, healthy adults to do the heavy work for them.

With that in mind, she crossed three names out and stared at the other six. Without further investigation she couldn't be sure what had happened to any of them, but they were all in the range that would interest slavers. For now she'd leave it but would be keeping her ears open for any more information.

She was glad to not have heard anything about strange magic or places where unsettling things were happening. Any signs of a blood mage would have quickly spread as people had a tendency to embellish stories in their retellings. And even in the poorer districts, people did notice when a house began to smell of death and rot. Eliska really couldn't imagine the blood mage being able to hide for long, unless he or she was excellent at cleaning up as well as modest about their power.

Then again, if they were modest about magic use they wouldn't become a blood mage. Only those too impatient or undisciplined for normal spells resorted to the darker side of power. She'd have to keep an eye out, pay attention as she moved not just to rumours, but to how the areas she moved through felt. Anyone who had mastered even one spell the proper way should be aware of the wrongness a blood mage brought with them, a feeling of perversion of the proper order.

Or so the books Eliska had read said. None of the family had ever actually come across a blood mage before, so she wasn't exactly sure how one went about hunting them. She supposed eradicating blood mages and any mention of them to avoid others following their path might not have been as good idea as it must have seemed in the past.

Eliska sighed. She was flying blind but would just have to work things out as she went. She thought if she kept in contact with their people within the guards she could get any information about any strange bodies showing up, people killed in using unusual methods or who were odd in any way.

But that was something for the morning. What she could do now was get the information about slavers in general and the potential underground market to her family. The first thing she did was write a letter, a general update one about moving into her new home, how excited she was that her husband's business was doing well and her hope for some children in the new future. The kind of letter anyone would expect her, or rather, Varina to send.

After carefully folding the letter and slipping it into the envelope, she ripped off a smaller piece of paper. Using the family's cipher shift and her personal word, Joy, she wrote down that there were six potential victims of the slavers and that an underground slave market might have cropped up again.

She dripped wax onto her envelope, letting it harden slightly before she pushed her piece of paper into it. She placed a small bit of oiled paper on top, to keep the wax from destroying her words, then dripped more wax on top. Her personal seal was next, a simple stylized sun with the initial E, something that could have come from anywhere.

Eliska set the envelope aside, planning to drop it off in the designated area later for pick-up. She wrinkled her nose slightly, not envying whichever shadow trainees were on duty tonight. The night air was cool, and running the rooftops collecting letters wasn't going to be fun. Not with how many operatives they had in just the city.

It might have seemed overkill to some to hide the message when the letter was going to a secret pick-up point, but her family hadn't managed to hide the nature of their information network for as long as they had by being careless. All it took was on shadow being lazy for everything to get dragged out in the open.

Which was why there were no such thing as lazy shadows. They were trained too well, taught strict discipline, and endlessly tested before being allowed into the field. And that without their graduation mission.

Eliska shivered slightly. That was something she didn't want to remember.

Instead she found herself thinking of her niece, Soyala. She hoped she was content with her new husband, that she wasn't feeling to lonely outside the harem. She thought Soyala might visit, especially since she'd still be living within the city. She hoped her niece never had to use the family code in a letter.

While not one of the ciphers used by the shadows, every member of the family learned the basic code for letters home. The messages that could be sent were simple, but no less important. Danger, help, escape, death, treason, and other words had been replaced with other word combinations such as dark night for danger so that they could be hidden in normal letters and sent back to the palace without suspicion.

Such letters were rare, only one had come in that Eliska could remember, but they created quite a stir when they did. Their family protected their own, like the fiercest of beasts, and anyone trying to harm them would fare better getting between a mother bear and her cubs. Eliska herself would happily gut anyone who harmed a member of her family. Especially if it was someone who wasn't a shadow, and triple for one of the sweet ones like Soyala.

After all, that's why shadows like her existed.