Bastien stalked through the camp. The sun, moments before dropping below the horizon, left his shadow sharp against the dunes, wagons, and tuspaks alike. He ordered around men who were trying to settle in for the night, demanding equipment checks that had already been done twice.
His movements were frenetic and lacked his usual economy of motion. He checked the northern ridge, the western one. He checked the water skins, and feeling of the seals for leaks. He had just done all this an hour before. He was looping.
If Bastien broke, my mission would fail.
I could order him to stand down, but that hadn't worked last time. I could use the Justice Stone, but it wasn't clear how muddy light would help. My only option was the Truth Stone, the white dodecahedron.
That stone weighed down my pocket. I remembered the last time I had used it. On him. The accidental, invasive flash of his love for his newborn daughter. The memory of that love still burned my mind. I had violated his heart without even knocking. To do it again would be a grievous betrayal our friendship. "I don't need a magic stone to understand my friends." I told myself. The only way to decipher the underlying cause without it, was to examine the symptoms and perform tests.
It was possible that Bastien felt responsible for the Quartermaster's error and was trying to prove his competence. He was adjusting a cinch on a sleeping tuspak, as he had done yesterday. The poor animal grunted in its sleep.
"Bastien," I said, approaching from behind.
He jumped. When he saw it was me, his pupils dilated in the fading light.
"My Prince. Our perimeter is secure. But the wind is shifting. Raiders could be using it for cover."
"Bastien," I said as I stepped closer. "Your cinching it too tight. You'll rub its skin raw and then we'll have a wound to deal with. About the Quartermaster... He made a mistake. Mistakes happen. You don't need to whip yourself over it."
He looked down at his hands and loosened the strap a bit. "It's not about the Quartermaster. It's about our standards. We're heading to Spartova over the Red Sand Sea. One mistake..." He stole another opportunity to scan the horizon. "One mistake and we don't go back."
"We will return to Heliqar." I said firmly and grabbed his upper arm. "We just have to reach Spartova first."
"There are a lot of ways things can go wrong, Elyan. We could be killed on sight. The water could run out. A sandstorm could bury us."
He was right of course, but there was more to this than professional caution. It was all catastrophic thinking. A guilty man tries to fix the error he made. Bastien was trying to fix everything, everywhere all at once. The guilt hypothesis was wrong.
But perhaps, I had lost his confidence or perhaps he felt the mission was unwise. "Is there something you haven't told me?" I searched his face for a response. "Do you think our plan is flawed and we should go back to Heliqar? You know I value your advice. Just tell me."
He looked at me. I thought he would answer. But then he looked back to the cinch. "I understand the risks, My Prince. I will do my best to mitigate them. I'll check the wagon rims again."
With that, he turned his back and marched away. Like a soldier retreating from the enemy. I watched him go. He wasn't checking the wagons. He was looking back to home.
If it wasn't guilt or a lack of confidence in our mission, the only other option was sabotage. He was driving the men into the ground, waking them for useless checks, creating friction. A tired worker makes mistakes. Having other men make the mistakes for him was a good way to sabotage the mission.
Back in Heliqar, the Carthian offer was still on the table, a contract that would irreversibly turn us into their vassal. Bastien had a moderate standard of living, but he was not rich by any means. He had a new child to care for. Could the Carthian courier have made him an offer?
If our mission failed because of "unavoidable circumstances," the Council would have no choice but to sign with Carth. Worse than that. Carth could make a newer, lower offer and the Council would still accept. Perhaps half the population would be sent back to Carth to work on the plantations. Bastien wouldn't want to harm me. I would still be sold to Princess Nesa, just another part of the package. A broken wheel here, a water leak there, a morale collapse driven by exhaustion. It would look like the simple misfortune that could befall any endeavor.
This was a hypothesis that made sense. But it had to be tested. If Bastien were a saboteur the lives of the men were at risk. If sabotage was even a possibility, I had a duty to eliminate that uncertainty.
I was defeated. My only option was to use the Truth Stone. I hated it. To consider intentionally violating a person like this was the worst kind of offense. Could I warn him before using the stone on him? Get his consent? How could I ask anyone to consent to that? Especially when they were operating in a state of frenetic exhaustion. Nobody could even give consent in such a situation.
What if I did it and then asked for forgiveness later? That wouldn't work either. My relationship with Bastien was less important than the mission. He would feel violated and ashamed. He would withdraw and become resentful. The lives of the men would still be in unnecessary danger.
Use of the stone was justified. Bastien was in a compromised state, and I was the one accountable for the lives of all the Heliqari's present and future depending on him. Our friendship might well be a casualty when I could tell him later, but for now, I didn't have a better choice.
I found Bastien checking the wagons, yet again. He was having to work by touch since the light was too far gone. I pulled out the stone from my pocket, but kept it hidden. I focused on his retreating back. I asked the question in a low voice: "What is your true purpose right now?"
The reaction was instant and the answer surged within my mind.
He wasn't angry at me. He didn't doubt me or the mission. He wasn't a traitor or a selfish man who wanted to desert.
He was experiencing a pure, agonizing, longing toward a particular point in space and time. Not as an abstract goal but as a living reality. There was a room back in Heliqar. A little girl in my arms. The feeling of wrongness to be anywhere but there, protecting that tiny fragile life.
Tangled with that was some twisted logic. In his mind, every step forward increased the probability of death, of never realizing that envisioned future. Every step backwards reduced it and brought that future closer. Every dry well, every broken axle that forced the mission to end would allow him to return home with his honor intact.
It was a waking nightmare where success meant failure and failure meant success. He was subconsciously sabotaging the mission not to betray me, but to save himself for that tiny life.
The connection broke, the information transferred. I had invaded his mind again. Just to get the same information as last time. But there had been no choice. And because I now knew, there was a path forward.
I chased after him and caught up. He was checking the horizon again. In the dark. Looking for the tiniest shadow.
"Bastien," I said.
"My Prince." He replied.
"Your checking the path home," I said. "You're rushing the inspections because you want to be there. Not here. You missed the fraying strap because you were looking behind instead of ahead."
Bastien froze. I let the silence linger. Finally he spoke. "I'm doing my duty. Your father ordered me to ensure your safety. Failed equipment..."
"If the equipment fails, we turn back," I finished for him. "Is that it? Are you waiting for the failure so you can follow orders and go home?"
He turned like a top to face me; I could see the twist of his face in the last trace of light. "I would never sabotage the mission!"
"Not with your hands," I said grabbing him gently. "But with your heart. You're looking for an exit."
He opened his mouth. He would deny it. So I cut him off. "Your fear is making you predictable, my friend. Your vigilance won't save you. It has diminishing returns. You're terrified. You think you're going to blink and never see your daughter again."
He flinched like he was going to cry. He glared at me, his jaw chewing on air like an old scrap of tuspak leather. "You don't know what you're asking," he rasped. "She is... she is everything. If I die here..."
"You save no one by going back now," I said flatly, despite knowing the pain it caused him. "Part of you thinks that turning back protects her. But look at the map. Failure here means Spartovans take the trade routes. Failure means Carth buys the city. Your daughter doesn't just lose a father; she loses her future. Without his mission there are only two possibilities for the woman she'll become: helot or slave."
His breathing stuttered.
"You want to hold her again? You have to ensure she has a city to live in. A hug today means chains tomorrow. Or worse. Our mission is how you protect her."
He slammed a fist into his other open palm. It sounded like the crack of a whip. "I am not a coward," he bellowed.
"No one believes you are," I tried to reassure him. "Your feelings are perfectly natural. But the only way home is through Spartova. That's how we survive the mission and save the city. There is no turning back. We fight forward or you lose her anyway."
He stared at me. Rage fighting with panic. He slowly straightened up. "Through Spartova," he repeated, the words ground his teeth like gravel.
"Through Spartova," I confirmed and handed him a duty roster. "I've reevaluated the duty assignments. Go. Rescind the double watch. Let the men sleep. And sleep yourself. I need my Captain at his best if we are going to survive this thing."
He nodded, a single, sharp jerk of the chin. "As you command, My Prince."
He turned and walked away, with heavy, purposeful strides. Not back to Heliqar, but towards the man serving as sentry.
As I walked back to my tent, I felt the stone in my fingers. I had solved today's puzzle but only by cheating. Bypassing decency to save the mission.
I had solved one puzzle, but the black Justice Stone remained. It hadn't worked on the Quartermaster. Why? The poem said:
`But when the glow turns slowly into night,
`The stone is lost, unsure of wrong or right.
The Quartermaster was surely innocent, but maybe justice isn't something you can measure in the dark with just two people. Maybe it required a stage.
`Its word is given to the human race.
"Public," I whispered to myself.
The Justice Stone was a gavel that needed a courtroom. It needed collective view to validate the guilt.
I had a new hypothesis. I pocketed the black stone along with the white one. Two tools. One for the heart's desire, one for the justice's letter. Both powerful and dangerous.
Extreme caution was required. The desert was long, and sooner or later, there would be a fracture visible to all.