This time Bryck managed to check a smile. It was an impressive display of bravado, particularly under the circumstances. Bryck indulged himself with a glance toward Quentis, standing several steps away. In her amber eyes he again sought and found reassurance.
"We know about you what your two former agents know about you," Bryck said to Aquint, tone frank, not belligerent. "You've been assigned by Abraxis, a powerful Felk lord and mage, to seek out dissent in Callah. You like this assignment. You want to keep it as long as possible. You're not Felk yourself, and you have no genuine loyalty to the empire. But you'll go along with this, finding and arresting rebels here in Callah, so long as it serves your ends. You are a collaborator, but the Felk haven't won you over. You're interested only in your personal gain and well-being—and perhaps that of your youthful partner. You're not loyal to the Felk, because you have no loyalty to give."
It didn't appear to faze Aquint. But if he was the kind of man Bryck had just accused him of being, he wouldn't react to such an allegation. Bryck considered another course.
"Are you curious as to how your two associates so quickly became our confederates?" Bryck asked.
Aquint's lips moved sourly. He glanced behind at Deo. "I'm not entirely surprised about this one. From the start I sensed something weak in him." He turned about the other way, eyed Radstac. "But her—that is startling. I'm not disappointed, mind you. But I'd figured her for the smart one. And joining up with your wretched little band isn't a smart move." His gaze swung forward once more and settled wryly on Bryck. "You're going to be hunted down, however many of you there are, and Jesile's going to have your heads taken off. You and the gods know how many innocent Callahans. Yours is a sorry cause."
Behind him Radstac showed no response, but Deo's teeth bared in an ugly grimace.
Bryck nodded. "Well, now we've both made our speeches."
Aquint sniffed an involuntary laugh at that. They were equal adversaries. Perhaps that gave them all the common ground they needed to communicate. And Bryck did wish to communicate.
So he told Aquint how Radstac and Deo had joined with the Broken Circle.
It was, in the main, Quentis's doing. Rumors had spread about a new pair of troubadours in the city, ones very blatantly singing songs of dissent against the Felk. The songs themselves were spreading as well, rather infectious tunes with clever provocative lyrics, one or two of which Bryck nonetheless recognized as traditional songs that had been revamped to new purposes.
He dispatched Quentis to investigate. She had easily enough located the tavern where they were going to play last night—which led Bryck to wonder how this duo was operating with seeming impunity in a city where the Felk came down brutally on signs of defiance. But he wanted to meet these two. He had thoughts of persuading them to perform songs even more inflaming, calling directly for an uprising of the Callahan people. The giant sigil on the wall of the Registry—since painted over, of course—had had an effect. So had that execution in the square. The people were stirred.
Quentis had observed the performance, then approached the two musicians and proposed a rendezvous. Then she exited the tavern.
Deo followed her out. But Quentis wasn't alone. Ondak, her older cousin, had gone along and waited outside the establishment. When Deo eagerly rushed after her, Ondak stepped from his nook and seized the vox-mellifluous. Radstac had come out into the street pursuing Deo, but by then Ondak had a cleaver to his throat. It was sufficient to induce Radstac not to act hastily. Ondak quickly discovered that Deo wasn't the imbecile he was pretending to be. In fact, when the four withdrew off the street, it was found that the troubadours weren't at all what they seemed.
Deo confessed everything, immediately and earnestly; and added to it his avid desire to join the rebellion. Radstac claimed the same, though appeared to Quentis's eye to be merely following Deo's lead. Still, Quentis decided the strange pair should indeed meet the Minstrel—that night. This was too urgent to wait for the next day.
Bryck did meet the two. Deo was very convincing in his zealous desire to strike against the Felk. Convincing, too, were his reasons. He was a wayward member of Petgrad's royalty, one who wanted to make his own mark in this life. So fervent was his ambition that he'd attempted to assassinate General Weisel, the head of the Felk army. Radstac, it was revealed, was a Southsoil mercenary who was in Deo's employ.
It was too fantastic a tale to be any kind of sane covering story.
"So, after all this you contrived to capture me," Aquint said. He frowned his puzzlement. "Why?"
"You're an important figure," Bryck said.
"You could've made better use of your two new acquisitions." He didn't bother glancing behind at Deo and Radstac. "They could have gone into the Registry, with the proper access, and assassinated Governor Jesile."
"He'd be replaced. What good would that do?"
"About as much good as anything else your Broken Circle is liable to carry out."
"You don't think much of us."
"I don't."
Bryck nodded, accepting this. "What do you think of our aim, at least?"
"And it is?"
"To overthrow the Felk here in Callah, of course."
Aquint appeared to be measuring his thoughts. Finally he said, somewhat grudgingly, "To be rid of the Felk in Callah? Yes. A worthy goal." He added, with another hint of drollery, "Just between us, of course."
Bryck moved a step closer. A bead of moisture had gathered on the tip of Aquint's nose. It fell when he cocked his head. He was curious about this, Bryck judged.
"We might have an even greater goal," Bryck said quietly. "One that we could actually accomplish."
Aquint lifted a brow.
Bryck licked his lips. Aquint was their prisoner, but he might also be the key to all this. He and the renegade Felk wizard, Nievze, the practitioner of blood magic, which Deo and Radstac had told Bryck about. The long odds chafed Bryck's bygone gambler's instincts. But this was no game.
"Can you lure Abraxis here to Callah?" Bryck asked Aquint. He suddenly found himself a bit breathless. "Because if you can... we might be able to end this entire war."
There inside the scorched granary, with the drizzle finally thickening into actual rain and bringing with it an even chillier damp, Bryck explained the plan. He listened detachedly to himself as he revealed it to Aquint, and to his own ears it sounded wild, imprudent, nearly preposterous and fascinating.
It wasn't something he had ever imagined as a possible objective for this Broken Circle. It was hugely ambitious, far beyond the relatively safe and contained scope of operating covertly against the Felk garrison here in Callah. That at least was a manageable feat, more or less.
But these instruments had been seemingly placed deliberately into Bryck's hands, like a miraculous round of Dashes, where every card and dice throw has gone in one's absolute favor. He couldn't ignore the astonishing combination of all this.
It seemed... ordained. Not that Bryck put any sincere stock in the workings of the gods. To do so would be to acknowledge that those gods had permitted the annihilation of U'delph.
At last he finished. Aquint had listened without interruption, which Bryck didn't take as a sign one way or the other. Rain dribbled down onto the gummy black ashes flooring the granary's exposed interior.
Bryck let Aquint digest it. He had explained the plan to the Internal Security agent in succinct terms, without any rhetoric. Aquint didn't need to be won away from the Felk. He, too, Bryck guessed, had done some gambling in his time. He would want to weigh the odds. He would consider the gain and the risk. Both were considerable.