“You are one of the few Barrani I have met in my long existence that I am willing—barely, and cautiously—to trust.”
“Then let me be your Wolf; you need no other.”
“Perhaps the word ‘cautious’ does not mean the same thing between our peoples. Am I using the Barrani incorrectly?”
Elluvian’s snort did not contain smoke, as the Emperor’s often did. “We do not, and have never, seen eye to eye in any discussion that involves your Halls of Law or the mortals it is meant to both employ and protect. I feel that you are merely changing the paradigm of power, of who has power, among the mortals. I cannot see this change affecting the rest of us at all.
“Should you merely send me—or someone like me—”
“There is no one like you among your kin.”
Elluvian did not wince. “If you send me, I will kill at your order. I understand that you consider these mortals part of your hoard; I will not harm your hoard, except as you command. But I would be vastly more efficient than your fledgling mortal Wolves. When you—or one of your kin—sneezes, mortals die. That will not happen to me. If you wish my death, the outcome is not in question—but it would take real effort on your part.”
“All of this is true.”
“You have always been both humorless and pragmatic.”
That dredged a brief grimace from the Emperor. “Not one of my kin would consider my ambitions here to be pragmatic.”
“A fair assessment. I withdraw my comment. But surely within this plan of yours, there is room for some pragmatism?”
The Emperor had bowed his head—not to Elluvian, but rather, to thought. It was a thought that Elluvian did not fully understand, although he had once been told that he was capable of it, with time and effort. “This will be their world, this Empire of mine.”
Elluvian had his doubts.
“They will labor and build the lives that they will live; there is no other way.”
“Then let them choose.”
“I have not forced mortals to become a Wolf; no more have I forced them to become Swords or Hawks. They have a choice, and the choice will not be coerced. If they decline, they are free to walk out of the Halls of Law.
“But choosing who is offered the duties of a Wolf, as you have learned, is...complex. Wolves will be asked to kill, yes. To kill at my command, yes—but to kill. Such a death does not bypass the judicial system—I am the judicial system. My word is law.
“It cannot have escaped your notice that among your kin there are those who enjoy the exercise of power.”
Elluvian nodded.
“There are, among your kin, those who enjoy, if not killing, then the slow death of their enemies. Ah, no, their victims.”
Silence.
“There will surely always be such proclivities among the mortals as well. It is imperative that such people not become Wolves, or the entire project will be a failure.”
“As it has been.”
“It has not all been failure,” the Emperor replied.
“If every passing day does not result in failure, failure is the end state. The latest difficulty is a telling example.”
“Yet before yesterday, the Wolves were exactly what they should be.”
“Clearly, the difficulty was greater than a simple yesterday.”
The Emperor nodded. “Failure does not generally please me,” he finally said. “We have built the Wolves, and they have served their function.”
“Until yesterday.”
“Or forty years ago. Or seventy. Or just over a hundred. One day, no matter how disastrous, does not destroy the years in between.” The Emperor raised a hand as Elluvian opened his mouth. “I will not release you from this duty.”
“I do not even fully understand this duty. It has been centuries, your majesty, and I am possessed of no better understanding than I was on the first day you made this my duty.”
“And you believe this is why you have failed? You believe that a different person could create Wolves that would never fail, never falter?”
Silence.
“You are wrong. And among the Barrani I have met, you are one of the few I believe might eventually understand what I wish this Empire to become.”
“The Wolves are individuals; they are not politicians. They are not powers. What lesson of value do you expect me to learn?”
The Emperor shook his head.
“You desire me to continue to recruit your Wolves.”
“It is what I desire, yes. It is also what I command.”
Elluvian bowed.
* * *
“Even for you, Helmat, this is in poor taste.”
Helmat Marlin, the Lord of Wolves, looked up from his paperwork to see the Barrani man lounging against the frame of what had once been an office door. The large splinters and chunks of wood that had constituted that door had been mostly cleared. The door had not, however, been replaced. Given the Wolflord’s mood, replacement would not take long.
It was not the lack of door—or its attendant frame—that was in poor taste. Helmat didn’t require a door to keep his various underlings away when privacy was mandatory. No, it was the head—absent the rest of a body—that occupied a prominent position on the desk at which he was working.
The Wolflord, as he was colloquially called by the various people who served in the Halls of Law, was a large man. He was possessed of one striking, almost defining visible scar, and a host of lesser scars; the former cut a line across his face, broken by the thrust of his jaw. It had paled to near-white with age.
“If you’d prefer, you can be the one to file the paperwork and meet with the Emperor to explain the difficulties of the past few days.”
Elluvian motioned to the desk. “It’s my duty to find replacements for the two Wolves we’ve lost. Seeing the head of one of them on display in your office is not likely to encourage anyone to join.”
Helmat shrugged. “It’s enchanted. It doesn’t smell.”
“The blood does.”
“Is that metaphorical?”
“Only if you have a mortal sense of smell. At the least, get your door replaced. I do not want to have to remove splinters every time I pass through what remains of it.”
Helmat snorted. “You’re Barrani,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“What happened?”
Helmat had never been particularly good with words. He glanced, once, at Elluvian, but did not hold his gaze. “I didn’t die. He did.” The words were accompanied by a grimace more suited to a discussion of mosquitoes rather than people.