บท 64: Chapter 64 - Rat Claw, Part 5
Elysia and her group of sewer guards were leaving the city offices instead of receiving the day's pay.
They kept in awkward silence for a while, the mission to find the ratfolks not very successful. After a few minutes of depressed looks, an elegant carriage arrived and stopped on the side of the building. When the vehicle door opened, a tall man was led inside by a servant. He was attired in black, and his monk's robes made him seem out of place in that setting. He had a thin, ascetic face, and his black hair peaked on his forehead.
As he strode into the guard building, silence fell around her, and Elysia saw that the arrogant guard officers were afraid of her. As she passed her, the young catgirl was shocked to recognize him: he was, unquestionably, the man she had seen in the sewers with the ratfolk. She felt dizzy, because she had assumed that the individual must be some kind of witch or renegade. She had formed the image of a secret worshiper or a desperate one, and she hadn't expected to see him there.
"What's wrong, Elysia? It looks like you've seen a ghost."
"Who…? Who is that man?"
Rudi blew out a long breath.
"It's better that you don't know. He is not a man you can ask questions about. It is he who makes them about others."
"Who is he? Am I going to have to go ask him?"
"Yes, I think you would be able to do it, Elysia" Rudi. "Okay, I'll tell you. He is Supreme Magistrate Fritz Helstaff, head of Duke Emmanuel's secret police.
"Talk to me about him."
"There are those who consider him the enemy of corruption, wherever he is. He works hard and no one doubts his sincerity. He frankly hates mutants, and for that reason he has the support of the temples, whose templars guard his home."
"He thought that the temples had no power here, in the kingdom."
"That was before Helstaff came to power. He went from being a Court Prosecutor very quickly to being the most powerful man in the city. Some say he got it through blackmail; others claim that his enemies have a habit of turning up dead under mysterious circumstances. He has risen very high for a man whose father was a minor noble from an out-of-the-way province. According to everyone, he is a tough old scoundrel."
"Helstaff is cold, cruel and dangerous, and not just because of his influence. His sword is deadly. He has killed several people because they insulted the honor of the duke's daughter."
"He thought that the duke's son, Leos, had already killed enough without anyone's cooperation."
"Leos isn't always around, and rumor has it that the High Magistrate would be willing to fight him for the young noble lady, who, it seems, has a bad temper with him."
"In that case, he's crazy. I heard that Leos is one of the deadliest swordsmen in the Kingdom."
Rudy shrugged.
Elysia stared at Helstaff, as she wondered what the connection could be between the ratfolk and the head of the duke's secret police, and she entertained the counterintuitive hope that the man would not recognize them. It was to be expected and that her companions did not realize the resemblance that Helstaff had with the subject they saw in the sewers, it seemed that they did not have enough perception. On the other hand, it was lucky that Frey wasn't with them, apparently he had other things to do.
♦ ♦ ♦
Fritz Helstaff He was at El Martillo Dorado, one of the best restaurants in the city.
Helstaff was tired, and even his usual excellent dinner failed to cheer him up. His head was full of the worries and cares of his high office. He looked at the diners around him and returned their smiles, but deep down he despised them. They were a herd of superficial and indolent beings, dressed as noblemen but with the hearts of shopkeepers. He knew they needed him, needed him to keep corruption at bay, needed him to do the job they were too soft to do themselves. They hardly deserved his scorn.
That had been a hard day. The young Helmut Slazinger had not confessed despite the fact that Helstaff himself supervised the instruments of torture. It was strange how some of them insisted on his innocence to the edge of the grave, even when they knew he wasn't unaware they were guilty.
His secret informants had told him that Slazinger belonged to an underground cell of Lilit worshipers. The jailers hadn't been able to find any of the tattoos that distinguished the sworn members of that cult, though that meant nothing. His most trusted informants, the ratfolk, had revealed the secret: fearing Helstaff's relentless crusade, his hidden enemies had resorted to wearing magical tattoos, visible only to his coreligionists.
Gods, how insidious were the mutant enemies! At that moment they could be anywhere; they could be sitting in that very dining room, with their initiation tattoos visible to themselves on their faces, without him noticing. They could be sitting there, taunting him without him being able to do anything about it, they could even be hiding in the guard office. That young Feral girl dressed in worn clothes could be one of them. It was obvious to Helstaff that he was studying him quite carefully, and if he thought about it, the truth was that he conveyed something very sinister. Perhaps the unknown Feral girl should be the next target of an official investigation.
"No, please control yourself," Helstaff said to himself. "They cannot hide forever. The blinding light of logic can pierce the blackest darkness of falsehood." That's what his father had always told him before a new beating for his sins, real or imagined. No, his father had done the right thing. Helstaff had done something wrong, although he couldn't figure out exactly what.
The beatings had been inflicted for his own good, to turn him away from sin. His father had been a good man, he had acted honestly, and that's why he smiled while he punished him, not because he enjoyed what he was doing, as he often repeated, but because he did it for his own sake. his own good. In a way, he had been a lesson, for he had learned that it was often necessary to do painful, bad things for the greater good.
He had hardened him, and that allowed him to do what he had to do at that moment, free from the weaknesses of lesser men; he allowed her to defend justice. He had made him a man his father could be proud of, and he should be grateful for. He was strong without being malicious, as was his father.
He had derived no pleasure from the young Slazinger's torture, nor from the ratfolk's report that the highborn was a worshiper of Lilit. He had to admit, however, that it had been a lucky coincidence, given the rumors about Slazinger and Emilia. More malicious lies: someone as pure as the future duchess hadn't, he couldn't have anything to do with Slazinger-type characters. This worm was a famous ladyboy, the kind of handsome young dandy who found it witty to speak against the legitimate servants of the state, to criticize the harsh measures necessary to maintain law and order in this fetid cesspool of iniquity and sin.
He pushed Slazinger out of his mind and turned his thoughts to other matters. His constable at the guardhouse had filed a report on the Gant incident. No action would be taken on this, as it would be very expensive to comb all the sewers below the Old Town, and that would reduce the amount of money the captain took for himself from the budget allocated to his crew. "Well, even corruption sometimes has its advantages." thought Helstaff, for he knew that the captain of the guard was a firm believer in Mammon the dark god of greed, wealth and dishonest abundance.
However, the spy had told him that Gant's patrol had investigated the area where he had died, which was more concerning. They might accidentally stumble upon more ratfolk going about their business, and might even discover the skiff traveling from the docks to the Collector's Emporium. He doubted, however, that they would ever discover that the shop was simply a government front, funneling manastone from outside the city into the hands of ratfolks as payment for their services. He smiled.
It was an arrangement that had a certain pleasing symmetry. He paid the ratfolks with whatever coin they wanted, and they seemed unaware that it was both useless and dangerous. Manastone was dangerous, though the ratfolks claimed it served as their fuel. Well, it was a relatively harmless way to get rid of an incredibly dangerous substance, and at the same time it provided him with a good source of information.
Yes, a truly pleasing symmetry. In a way, it was a shame that he couldn't publicize the service he was rendering to the Kingdom of Lothal by safely disposing of that evil substance. The day that Helstaff got lost in the sewers and stumbled upon the ratfolks had been a lucky day for all mankind. It was lucky that they recognized him as a man with whom they could negotiate.
He had to get more. That same night he was to contact another ratfolk agent and make sure that the group of sewer guards suffered an accident. He was sorry to have to act like this against men who were only doing his duty, but his own safety came first.
He was the only man who understood the dangers that threatened Bergheim, and he was the only one who could save the city. He knew it wasn't just vanity, but the plain truth. That same night he would contact the new ratfolk leader, The Black Magician Dhalthar, and order him to eliminate his enemies. The thought of this secret use of his power sent a shiver through her, and she told herself it wasn't a shiver of pleasure.
สถานะพลังงานรายสัปดาห์
-- การจัดอันดับด้วยพลัง 
-- หินพลัง