Exploitable Weaknesses by Brian Keller (red queen free ebook txt) 📗

twelve when he heard her voice, a series of muffled echoes, come from below, “There’s another glass plate here. I don’t want to break it and then drag myself across shards of glass. Give me a few minutes, I’ll see if I can force it out of the frame.” She paused and then added, “I’m not stuck, but I wouldn’t try following me if I were you.” It was a few minutes and then he felt the rope being pulled again, slowly at first and then suddenly several feet all at once. A second later he heard her voice again, more clearly this time, “I’m through! But I can’t see a thing. Tie your lantern to the rope and I’ll pull it to me.” He doused the lantern and wrapped a loop of rope through the handle and tied it, then called down, “Ready!” He felt the rope being pulled through his hands for several feet. He worried that they might run out of rope, then he felt the rope go still. A few long minutes later he heard Loryn’s voice through the channel, “I’m not sure how you’re going to take this but… except for some tables, chairs and shelves, this place is empty.” Cooper almost shouted, in fact, if it hadn’t been for the ever-present worry that soldiers might walk in at any moment, he would’ve shouted, “Empty!?!” Loryn replied, “Yes, empty. That is to say, there’s not a single roll of parchment or book in the entire room.” Cooper was stunned. He barely managed to reply, and when he did, he needed to repeat himself in order to be heard, “Well then, come back up. There’s no reason to stay any longer.” His mind was still reeling as he helped Loryn from the hole. He untied the lantern as she untied the rope from its mooring and then began to coil it back around her waist. Loryn risked a question, “What does this mean for us now?” Cooper took a second to reply, “I’m not sure. I’ll need some time to think.” They left the way they came and shared barely a word all the way back.

Cooper was unable to sleep and took the last two watch shifts. At dawn, once everyone was awake, he informed the rest of them, “The Library has been emptied.” The replies were immediate and mixed. Cooper held his hands out for quiet and he continued, “We can only hope that someone from the Guild had the ability and presence of mind to secure the Library and then empty it out sometime later… but hope is not something we can use to form a plan. We have to assume that someone from the Watch or Army discovered it. With that thought in mind, who would have it now?” Cooper looked to Birt for the answer. Birt looked uncomfortable. The fact that everything from the Library was gone, along with him being scrutinized for an answer likely shared equal roles in his discomfort. He considered for a minute while everyone patiently waited, “Well, the most likely ones to have it would be either the Spymaster or the Prince himself, but that might also depend on unknown allegiances of the one that made the discovery. For all we know, some noble or the Lord General has gained possession of it.” Loryn interjected, “I don’t know if anyone else here, besides Cooper, has been in there. I only saw a room filled with empty shelves and tables, but that room is almost half as big as the dining hall, and has almost as many tables.” Before anyone else could speak she added, “And there were huge book cases between the tables, and shelves along every wall as well. If those were all full of documents, well, it’s almost more than I could imagine.” Everyone turned to Cooper. He replied, “The tables were heaped and the shelves were overflowing. It would take a few minutes just to clear a space every time I needed to work.” Loryn’s eyes grew big. The description even seemed to impress those that hadn’t seen it for themselves. Spen recovered quickly, “What now?” Cooper shrugged, “Good question. The rest of you keep doing what you were doing. We need to know more about that foreign-owned house in the Dregs. We need to know if those foreigners are Lukasi.” His head dropped and his shoulders sagged, “I’ll have to figure out what I need to do.” He turned to Birt, “Either you or Dailen go with the masons to the quarry. They’ll all need stone, but we can probably get a better price if we contract for everything as a single buyer, then the masons make their purchases at that contracted price. The same goes for lumber if we can manage it, though I can’t imagine that it would all come from just a single lumber mill.” Dailen had heard his name and joined the conversation, “Maybe we see about making some kind of arrangement with a couple of mills? We buy ourselves a partnership…?” Cooper shrugged, “It might be better to buy up a few sections of wooded land, sell the trees to the mill, then we buy it back from them as lumber. It might draw less attention than buying up businesses all over town all at once.” A note of irritation had crept into Cooper’s voice and Birt steered Dailen away, assuring Cooper, “Dailen and I will look into it. We might just accept paying full price for lumber at first, and see what develops.”

Cooper spent the next few days at the Waterfront, watching addicts and Lukasi vendors, or locals in their employ. If the Journeymen watching the house in the Dregs didn’t have anything worthwhile to report, he’d consider taking over that part of their efforts. The Journeymen needed to have a chance to demonstrate their value. His thoughts never really strayed far from the fact that the Library had been emptied. So many of his