guild over Coravine. Do you believe them to be behind this?”
“I can’t imagine that an attack of this significance was planned and executed without their knowledge. Were they the ones behind it? I don’t know. I wouldn’t think them this foolhardy, to attack Blackstone openly like this, but then I didn’t imagine that anyone would send assassins period.”
Markl cleared his throat slightly. “We believe that their plan was made so that we would never know their identity. It was meant to frame either Iron Dragain or Silver Moon for the attack so that we would never suspect anyone else.”
“If not for the fact that I stumbled across a man who used to work for Silent Order, and he brought me to an informant of that guild, we might not have put it all together,” Siobhan added. “If you think about it, that was an amazingly fortunate stroke of luck that I was able to pull it off. In normal circumstances, I’d never have been able to manage that in a foreign city. Of course, Iron Dragain would have been able to find the same information…”
“But under the circumstances, with them being the suspects, if they’d come to us and said that it was a guild from Orin that had ordered the attack, we’d never have believed them,” Markl finished grimly. “It’s only because you were the one that discovered it that everyone can believe it.”
“So really, their original plan had a very high success rate,” she concluded, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. “We’re fortunate that things happened as they did, although it sounds callous to say so.”
“Indeed, but I understand what you mean. The thing that bothers me in all of this is their response to the proposed monopoly. I expected them to react, yes, because Orin has always struggled financially. Their location and lack of specialized products have cost them dearly when it comes to economic growth. But attacking a guild that has a direct impact on their markets is nigh akin to financial suicide. Blackstone alone has the power to shut down a third of the market in Orin. In fact, if Darrens doesn’t do just that after hearing what happened to his daughter, I’ll be highly surprised.”
Siobhan knew with grim certainty that Darrens would likely do just that. He was a fair man in many respects, but he was a ruthless one and everyone understood that crossing him would cost you dearly. The nameless guild of Orin was a fool to attack Lirah.
“I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t know what the consequences would be,” Markl stated slowly, perplexed. “No matter how high your rate of success is likely to be, isn’t it foolhardy to not expect repercussions?”
“And that’s what is bothering me,” his father agreed, mouth pursed. “In their shoes, I wouldn’t be trying to end the monopoly, I’d be fighting to join it. For them, this is a golden opportunity that comes along once in a lifetime. Or once in every several lifetimes. They need a boost of some sort to help their economy, and this trade agreement would have been the perfect stimulus. So why try to sabotage it?”
Siobhan stared at him in stunned silence for a moment. She hadn’t even considered that, but he was right. Why wouldn’t Orin try to join in? As much as the agreement would have hurt them, it would have done worlds of good, too, if they’d been a part of it. “Were they panicking? Unable to think clearly?”
“Perhaps,” Hammon allowed, although his tone said he didn’t think that was the case. “But I’m inclined to think that there is something else, some other part of this puzzle that we are not seeing. I believe that Coravine is up to something, something that they’ve kept from the eyes of the world, that would influence them to attack first instead of bargaining.”
“What?” Markl demanded.
“I have no idea,” Hammon admitted. “But it is imperative that we find out, and soon, otherwise I think this whole situation will quickly degenerate.”
ӜӜӜ
That wasn’t the end of the conversation, and with Lirah’s people settled, her own guild came and joined them in the common room. But as much as they discussed, and offered theories, none of them felt they had really arrived at an answer. After dinner, they unanimously went to bed rather than pick up the debate again.
Siobhan’s guild had been given a set of rooms that was near Blackstone’s, theirs being on the opposite end of the common room. Her own room,