I got back to Pax from my winter leave in Sunmount about a week after the start of the new year. The Paxlight Integrity Office was one of the smaller offices, and when I was there I was usually the ranking officer, which meant I had the run of the place. When I was not there, the privates and corporals who staffed the desks were often left to their own devices, and I knew from experience that they had a tendency to dally about and hardly get a lick of work done when stern eyes weren't upon them. As such, I knew that my first task upon returning was to check up on exactly how much progress they made.

  Dressing in uniform daily simplified things. It took a lot of the time out of deciding what to pack, what to wear. It also made everyone give you heed, both in the halls of the office and on the street. I had earned my uniform and my rank of captain. I'd worked hard for it. I felt I filled the shoes.

  Walking up the stairs to the front door of the red-roofed Integrity Office, I took in the clamor of the city. It seemed there were more automobiles in Pax than even just a few months before. Jack Clearwater Sr., I knew, was hard at work on that.

  I opened the door and indeed saw two young privates, a Mr. Mellor and Mr. Shield, sitting at their desks.

  "I want all your daily reports from the span of my absence," I told them without a hello. I wanted to set an urgent pace, as my senior officers had done for me when I was in training. "I want to read everything."

  "Yes, sir," said Private Mellor. He stood straight to salute at the sight of me, and so did Private Shield. That was a good sign. It was good they had not grown too soft.

  "At ease," I said. Then I turned to Private Shield with further instructions. "Telephone Army Engineering and see if they can send a Mr. Thomas Trussford over here."

  I knew Tom was just blocks away, at his new job, and I knew that he was one of the few people I could trust in confidence to discuss this strange prospect of a treasonous officers’ scheme to force war with the CCNCU. I figured he was as good a place as any to start my investigation.

  "For?" asked Private Shield.

  I scowled at the impertinence, scratching my beard. It was none of his business. "Lunch," I said back.

  "No other information?" Private Shield asked.

  "No, Private," I said, with a tone to get him to leave my business be. "Just call it in."

  As I said it, I heard a crack of rifle fire in the yard outside. I tensed a little, reflexively, and Private Mellor saw me. "Marksman training, sir," he said. "They’ve been going since Tuesday."

  "No rest for the infantry," I said to the slender young man. Though the Integrity Office and the general infantry were both under the purview of the Army Corps, we had very different roles and very different internal cultures.

  "Shut those windows so we can hear ourselves think," I told him. I hung my long olive coat on a rack, and my hat with it.

  "Do you need porters from the barracks to get to the station?" Private Mellor asked me, and it took a second to even remember what he was referencing.

  "I'm not going to Dubhamer," I said in response.

  Dubhamer was an icy little rock of an island far to the north that had been split in two between Luminous Paxana and the CCNCU, with the Clementics holding the northern half and us keeping grip on the southern half. There was a fortress there, with a tank battalion garrisoned, and my original orders had been to go north to investigate their fitness. Now, with my mission changed through the meddling of Jack Clearwater, Sr., all that was off.

  The two privates exchanged unsure glances as I said it. "Oh?" Private Mellor asked.

  "I'm not to be disturbed," I told him and shut myself in my office.

  I was surprised to see Major Everett Coybrook standing inside. He was reading a paperback from the shelves, a novel, and seemed like he had been in there quite a while. Though I had always known Major Coybrook to be a pleasant conversationalist, a middle-aged man with a modern sensibility, he seemed quite displeased today.

  I saluted when I saw him, taking my own turn to express formality at the sudden presence of a superior. "Major," I said.

  "Book of the Lightsman Duelist," said Coybrook, referencing the title of the novel in his hand. "Do you come from a lightsman family, Boll?"

  It was an odd question, since to my knowledge there were no Wyldman lightsmen. The lightsmen knights had been founded and cemented long before the Wylders had been illuminated into the Empire. It was either rhetorical, or he did not know I was a Wyldman, or he was confused.

  "We Wylders have our own martial traditions, sir," I said. "I do come from soldiers."

  "At ease," said Coybrook, and I lowered my salute. I put my hands in my pockets and took a step toward him.

  "I'm surprised to see you, sir."

  "I came in while your desk boys took lunch. They get soft without an officer minding them, Murdoch. They let things slip."

  It annoyed me how he said it, like it was my fault. I knew just as well as him that the privates dawdle when unwatched. Still, I answered only with respect. "I'll see to shaping them up."

  Coybrook tapped his hand on the novel he was holding. He had a reddish undertone to his hair, although it was mostly brown, and he looked a bit like one of those long-nosed dogs you sent out hunting. "I got a very… alarmed call from a General Ravenridge."

  "Oh?" I asked. I could tell from his tone that this was a subject he had come to discuss.

  Coybrook nodded. "It seems the civil government attempted to lean on one of his captains, to block your transfer from Pax to South Dubhamer."

  This was Mr. Clearwater's doing. The civil government member in question, whoever it was, was surely his friend. Jack Clearwater Sr. had meddled in my schedule to try and free me up to investigate the Rekindler treason, and in doing so he had inadvertently kicked up an Integrity Office hornet's nest. Nobody in the IO brass, especially Coybrook, liked putting up with civil government nonsense.

  For all these thoughts, I kept quiet. "I see," I said diplomatically.

  "Trying to spare yourself some frostbite, Boll?" Coybrook asked, bitter and mocking. I resented the accusation of duplicity, and I resented the accusation of laziness even more. "I thought your blood was made for it."

  "It's not my doing, sir," I said truthfully.

  "No?"

  "I—"

  "Are you going to tell me I didn't just hear you tell the privates you're canceling your rail leg?"

  I felt my blood chill. He had caught me in this one. It was obvious from what I had just said outside that I had already known I wasn't going north to Dubhamer. I needed to act very quickly indeed to not have this blow up in my face.

  "I wanted a day to catch up on office affairs," I told him. I’ve been told at various points in my life that I speak with a serious monotone, which is not usually to my advantage. In the case of lying, however, it proves very helpful. "I was going to set out for Dubhamer tomorrow."

  "What is going on here?" Major Coybrook asked, raising his voice and pointing at the ground. "I don't like it. I don't like angry generals telling me stories of intrigue in my ranks. This is the kind of thing IO is supposed to stamp out."

  I had committed to the lie now, and I was deep in it. "I don't know, sir. I'm as baffled as you at least." I hoped, if the whole truth ever did come out, that the court-martial would find my lying defensible—on the basis that Major Coybrook might have been a suspect in the Rekindler scheme.

  "Well, one thing's for certain," said Coybrook. "You're leaving for the far north tomorrow morning at dawn. No later."

  "Yes, sir," I said.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "You'll report to Major Blackwell of the South Dubhamer Mechanized Division and begin your report on division readiness."

  "Yes, sir."

  "You report to Blackwell, but he is not exempt from your honest assessment. What you write comes straight to me alone."

  "It's not my first division audit, sir," I said to Coybrook.

  As a new captain and as a Wyldman, I was used to having to reassure the senior staff that I was actually competent. This, however, was a fairly extreme example of brass condescension. I supposed it was preferable to have Coybrook think I was daft, instead of having him think me a liar.

  "That was a very stupid thing you did, presuming you could change your transfer date," he went on. "It makes you look involved in this whole mess of the civil government trying to squeeze us."

  "Do you think I'm involved, sir?" I asked bluntly. I felt this directness would put him at ease, and perhaps also give a stronger impression of my innocence.

  "No, I do not," said Coybrook. "But I don't know why they would block your transfer in particular. And I think the mild sea air in Archcove makes one lazy. I think the north will do you some good. Draw that bear blood out."

  "Yes, sir," I said.

  There was a pause, and Coybrook continued to stare at me. I watched his serious, beady eyes scan my face like he was trying to solve a puzzle. "You're holding back," he said at last.

  I clasped my hands together and nodded. "If the major will permit my speculation, sir, perhaps there's a problem with division readiness in Dubhamer someone wanted more time to resolve before my inspection."

  Major Coybrook thought and murmured. He seemed to buy this. It was a good lie, in the scheme of things. He set down the novel and gave me a nod before opening my office door to leave. "Carry on, Captain Boll," he said, and proceeded to the exit.

  For the rest of the day, I beat myself up very roughly about being caught in such a stupid situation with Jack Sr. and Major Coybrook and so much dishonesty. Several times I wished that I’d just told Jack Sr. to run it up through proper channels, so as to keep me from getting involved in a tangled web. After dusk, when I got back to my officers' lodging, I subjected myself to a grueling exercise regimen that served to partially flog out the guilt in my bile. I went to sleep, exhausted, and the next morning I woke up very early to catch the train north on the Searoad line out of Pax.

  As Integrity Office men, we rode on civilian trains for most deployments, since we did not travel in large enough numbers for a military car to be prudent. They paid for second class, which was more than enough for me, and gave us a little to cover our food and accommodations wherever we were headed. I would be taking one long day’s ride from the prefecture of Eastwall all the way up to the northern tip of the island of Paxana.

  Since I would be getting in quite late, there was no ferry to meet me right at the station and take me north across the Sea of Paxana to the island of Dubhamer, where Fort Firclaw lay in wait. I would need to spend the night in the town of Nilafossam, which had the honor of being the northernmost inhabited settlement on the entire isle of Paxana. It was also deep within the Wyldlands prefecture, House Boll’s frost-gripped ancestral home.

  After our initial talk, Coybrook had seemed to calm down, and through his network of gentleman officers he had secured arrangement for me to stay in the guest room of an Admiral Marshall Richfield. I knew Coybrook well enough by now to know that there was a second purpose to this. There were tensions between the Army and the Navy at that time, and they were growing worse. Staying with Richfield, I had put together, was part of the IO’s plan to stay relatively pleasant with the Navy and position ourselves as appearing more reasonable than the hardheads in the general Army leadership.

  I got in late at night, after dark, and the cold was so intense whipping through that little mining town that even I needed to pull my overcoat tight. I was grateful for respite when the older, stocky Admiral Richfield picked me up in his motorcar with his elegant younger wife, Noel, in the side seat.

  Admiral Richfield was in his Navy uniform, which was a deep, proud blue and covered in medals. Noel was in a blue and white winter gownrobe in the Eastwall Paxanan style. Neither one was a Wylder.

  “Thank you again, Admiral,” I told him, as we were having dinner in his dim dining room. The whole house had something of a nautical theme, with anchors and model ships serving as decor.

  A cold blast of air from the east hit the windows with such fury that both I and Noel Richfield jumped in fright. We both chuckled seconds later, just from nerves. “Welcome to Nilafossam,” said Richfield. “I’m just glad it’s not me you’re here to audit.”

  “Although I’m sure you would pass with flying colors, Marshall,” said Noel, flattering her husband.

  “IO only reports on Army readiness, not Navy,” I said in reassurance.

  There was a low boom and a flash of an explosion out at the frozen sea cliffs across town. I looked over, out through the window, and worried for a moment that an accident may have occurred.

  Holding up a hand, the walrus-like Admiral sought to reassure me. “Mining charges,” he said. “We’re building submarine pens into the cliff.”

  “In the dead of night?” I asked.

  “All hours, till it’s done,” said Admiral Richfield. He drank a thick-looking scotch from a glass. He had poured himself a strong drink, with no chaser, and done the same for Noel and myself.

  “It means ‘I don’t know,’” he said, after a large gulp. “In Wyldish, ‘Nilafossam.’ A man reached the north point and asked his Wyldman guide, ‘What do you call this place?’ and the guide said, ‘Nilafossam.’”

  Richfield then guffawed at his own anecdote. I realized too late that I should have laughed as well, lest I appear disdainful.

  “Oh, he knows that, darling,” said Noel. She was fairly typical in her Paxanan coloring, with dark black hair and pale, smooth skin. To describe her, she almost would have sounded like Violet, but in reality the two seemed nothing alike. Noel Richfield was taller and fuller, and had a sort of coarseness to her beauty that made her seem like she was eager for the world. “Captain Boll is a Wylder by blood,” she explained to her husband with a smile.

  “‘Níl fhiosgam,’” I said, explaining the proper pronunciation of what had become the name of the town. The story the admiral had told sounded true enough.

  Noel, who seemed in her forties or thereabout, watched me sip my own scotch with a strange expression in her eyes. “Do you like the liquor, Captain?” she asked.

  “Very much,” I said.

  “Just as well you’re moving on to Dubhamer, then,” said Admiral Richfield. “This town has a way of making liquor taste a touch too sweet.”

  I could tell he was speaking from experience, and I felt it was a good sign that he was comfortable enough with me to be that vulnerable about the pull of vice. I swallowed and decided to engage in a scheme that had served me a few times before.

  “I stopped for a drink,” I said, lying, “on my way here from the station. I can’t remember the name, but I didn’t stay long. It was full of pansy types.” I was skillful, the way I stressed those words, acting like I was searching for the right terminology while holding back incredible disdain.

  The admiral and his wife looked to each other in surprise. “Not the Lavender Spa?” asked Noel.

  I pointed at her and slapped the table. “Yes, that’s the place.”

  “Oh, Captain,” said the admiral, holding his forehead with a laugh. “Anyone in town could have told you not to go there.”

  “A rookie’s mistake. I ran out quick,” I said.

  The admiral went on. “We have a lot of those types in the Navy. I’m not of mind to purge them from the ranks like some.”

  I was surprised to hear that. I was surprised to hear anything besides the most cruel vitriol about the existence of homosexuals in our Luminous Paxanan Order. “You’re a sentimental one, Admiral,” I said.

  Admiral Richfield shrugged. He was getting increasingly rosy with each sip of the scotch. “They do good work for our emperor. That puts them above a thief or smuggler in my eyes. Let’s just hope they never get a VD flare-up. We’d have a hell of a time getting them to wear Prime Attacks.”

  I scowled in confusion. “Prime Attacks?” I asked. I had never heard of such a thing.

  Richfield seemed eager to engage in show and tell. He fished in a little box, which I thought was a cigar box. Then he passed me a silvery foil square with something circular concealed within. There was a cartoon of a soldier printed on it, along with the words, “Prime Attack, Latex Condom.”

  “A health effort from your Army Medical Corps,” he said, with some amusement.

  I examined the shiny object between my fingers, pensive and thoughtful. Richfield finished his glass of scotch and drew a cigar from the box where the condom had been kept. “Smoke, Captain?” he asked, offering me one.

  “No, thank you, sir,” I told him. I started to make a move to stand as well, but he waved me off, pouring himself a second glass as he ambled toward the master bedroom.

  “Noel can make up your room for you,” he said. Then, with a groan, he shut himself in the bedroom with a new, full drink and lit cigar. It was a rather unceremonious departure, but not an unpleasant one.

  In the sudden silence, I felt Noel turn to me. I hardly knew her, but she seemed to have taken a liking to me in a way I couldn’t fully understand.

  We stared at each other, sitting on the same side of the heavy wood dining table. Our chairs were turned to mostly face each other. She took a slow drink of liquor, not looking away, and tried to read me. “When he goes in, he’s in for the night,” she said.

  “I see.”

  Then, inch by inch, I saw the woman in the cotton-lined winter gownrobe begin to move her right leg outward. Her two legs parted, with her bare toes sliding on the wooden floor, and she laid one slender finger on her lap to tease the folds of her gownrobe apart near her waist. One flap fell away, and with her legs wide I could see in the candlelight that there was no undergarment to conceal her. She slid her hand downward toward what, to me, was foreign domain. All the while, she watched me.

  “Show you your room, Captain?” she asked, with a low voice.

  I leaned forward. My chair creaked. I knew I was in a tricky position, and that if I snubbed her too severely she might turn around and tell nasty lies to her husband out of sheer bitterness. With shallow breath, I silently asked my ancestors for the gift tact as I thought. Then I brushed her face and kissed her cheek.

  “You’re a lovely woman, Mrs. Richfield,” I said, trying to find sincerity. “I’m just not made for the stuff.”

  It was true. I didn’t know why. I had just never found myself to possess an interest in womanhood the way the boys of the state school and officer training always did. Making another excuse, I told her I wanted to visit a Wylder shrine before midnight, and bundled up to leave the admiral’s home for a walk in the dark.

  After several blocks, I reached the Lavender Spa, with gas lamps burning in the windows and a wooden sign swinging in the wind. The gusts coming in from the sea at that time had become a veritable snowstorm.

  I stood alone outside the spa. Then I reached for my neck and removed the captain’s pins from my collar. I knew I could not put the men inside at ease if they feared I was there to rat them out on behalf of the Integrity Office.

  The ice on the wind cut my cheeks, but I stood still. I felt too nervous to go in. To kill time, I drew a pack of cigarettes from my pocket. They had gone stale, because I hardly ever smoked them. Removing one from the pack, I lit the tip, and spent twelve long minutes debating whether to give in to the strange vice I’d grappled with since adolescence.