Eighth Interlude - Field Promotion

Though it was the second week of March, snow still fell on Geon.

Lieutenant-General Izikiel Brask sat at his desk in Rarc's commandeered palace, working by the light of a candle. He stopped writing when he heard footsteps behind him.

"There's no window on that wall, so I'm quite at a loss as to how you got in." he said, without looking up. "But I'm assuming that, since you managed it, you could have approached without letting me hear you, and so it is by design that I am still alive."

"You Sardipans." said a voice like black velvet, "You've got no flare for the dramatic."

As the intruder stepped around to the front of the desk, Brask saw that he had flare for something, at least. The man's costume was bright red with black highlights, and he had thick dreadlocks hanging down his back.

"Apparently not. Now, why have you come here?" asked Brask. Brask had started as a lieutenant in the field, and had enough brushes with death that he no longer feared it.

"General Brask, you are the second-in-command here in Geon, correct?"

"Yes."

"And you are, in fact, the fourth-highest in rank in all of the Sardipan military, yes?"

"Yes."

"I am here to inform you," the man withdrew a jar from his coat and placed it on the table. "That you are now the third."

With that, the man retreated into the shadows, and was gone.

Brask picked up the jar. It was filled with water, tinged slightly red from the pair of eyes floating in it. Brask calmly stood and went to the door, where he called over the guards outside his office.

"Sergeant, check in on Field Marshall Holland's quarters. And his office. Report to me as soon as you find him."

"Yes, sir. Shall I deliver a message, sir?"

"No. Just find him."

The message that Ishmael Shinnik had sent him couldn't have been any clearer.