Chương 162: Book 3 Chapter 20: Desperate Measures

++Extended family is, in many ways, even worse than regular family. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E. A more thorough examination of the mangled refinery told me that my repairs were affordable. I was not surprised by that, of course. After I had started producing thousands of barrels of oil a day, the category of 'affordable goods' had quite rapidly expanded to include almost everything that was for sale in the first place. But not time.

Time was the one thing I could not afford now. Time was a currency I had bankrupted myself in. My next payment was merely three weeks away, and with my current income I would fail to meet it. If I hurried with the false leyline business I might scrounge up the necessary money, I might even scrounge it up for the month after that, but eventually my reserves would run dry. Everything I was doing had been built on the refinery, and with that knocked out my growing business had been sedated.

I needed eight thousand more crowns than I would already produce if I wanted to make the payment and fund repairs in time to be producing oil again in time to weather the next. Eight thousand crowns. It was the profit from only half a week of operation, and yet, now that my operation had been stopped, it was as far from my grasp as the moon. Farther, actually. Lord Dread did not need to breathe and could fly to the damned moon overnight.

Alira was the first to question me about this problem, heading over with worry branded deep across her features.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"This is bad, right?"

"It is." I filled her in on the details, which only made her worry deepen. It was hardly an inappropriate reaction.

"Can you fix this?" she blurted out when I was done. There was fear and desperation in her voice. My instinctive response was to sneer at how pathetic it all was, but I bit that back and gave her a more measured answer.

"I do not know yet. I certainly have a chance to, but I will not make any promises just yet." Alira nodded, swallowing and doing a better job of controlling her emotions than she had a few moments ago.

"Alright. Is there…anything I can do?"

"Yes," I told her.

"I need you to stay here and keep things from collapsing more while I head out to find a way of resolving this situation." Alira seemed almost relieved to be given work to do, and I imagined she was glad to know she would not have a chance to agonize over the new uncertainties of her future. Blakely tried to stop me, or worse, accompany me, as I headed out, but I was in too much of a rush to permit it this time.

"I cannot bring Qaigor with me and travel fast, nor you. Stay here and guard my brother," I instructed as I took off into the air. The Cadnichan hurled a few curses after me as I flew. Of course, leaving him behind served a dual purpose as well. With him stranded here alongside Qaigor, he had no choice but to improve the defences of my refinery to keep my brother from being endangered.

Between the most paranoid living thing I had ever encountered, Sethira, Alira and the new band of misfits I had called on to protect my refinery, I was confident it would be safe from a follow-up attack for some time. That, and the visible damage meant that striking it again so soon would be a considerable waste of resources. Whoever had orchestrated this wanted to cripple my business, and they had succeeded for the time being.

There would be no additional benefit to them crippling it again before it was up and running once more. This was one flicker of silver in a vast sky of storm clouds. I still needed money, and I had precious few ideas of where to obtain it. All of them were centred heavily in Garamon, though. I ripped across the sky as fast as my magic could drive me, feeling the fatigue actually eating away at me by the time I was over the landmass. I kept flying all the same, and kept flying further.

Heading not to Lachfel, nor Laugrey, but instead to a new city holding a new chance. The home of my grandfather, Earl Yilear. If I had been given the opportunity to pick one person not to rely on for financial aid, it would be this one. The old man was both putrid and self-assured, a loathsome combination, but my father had no more wealth to offer, and I did not want to take additional funds from anyone outside my family and give them the chance to influence me through the debt.

Bad enough that I was already scrambling to pay off the loans I had now, if the people offering them had known I was in dire straits at the time my financial situation would be that much worse for it. I was panting, though not sweating, as I finally touched down. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

My own grandfather had revealed the location of his home in one of his numerous, horrid visits to Lachfel, and my mother had corroborated it on a few occasions. Liches of my age never forget anything, so it was trivial to obtain the relevant directions from memory. This did not mean I was familiar with the place, though. Seeing the Yilear family estate for the first time, I was surprised to find that it was somewhat larger and, as far as I could tell, older than my father's own.

I recalled a mention of my mother's family having the greater history, so this did not surprise me so much. What did was the number of staff present. Apparently, childhood in the Vornholt estate had not prepared me for what a properly-staffed noble home looked like. I was stopped at the gate and ordered to share my business, then made to wait after I did. Then to wait some more.

There were at least three guards outside, two within line of sight and one more hidden in a small outpost by the fence, whom I discovered only by feeling his lifeforce through the wall. None were brandishing guns, but I did not doubt they had them within easy reach. That was only the beginning.

When my name was finally recognised and verified, and the order to take me in was given, I was escorted through the estate and given the chance to see just how many non-security-oriented staff were occupying themselves within it. Gardeners swarmed through the lands like flies, few even bothering to look up at me as I passed. Most were tending to grass, though I saw some more exotic plants being kept alive too. To my surprise, there was a magician at the far end of the lawn seeing to… yes, cherry blossom trees.

Interesting, pink-flowered growths I had encountered in another continent quite far to the east of Garamon. A momentary study told me that this environment was not, in fact, suitable for the plant, and it was dying. But the magician caring for it was keeping the tree alive faster than nature could put it down. There was a metaphor about the role of magic in human hands there, something one might liken to my own existence. I did not bother, metaphors have always interested me even less than existentialism.

Inside the mansion there were even more servants, all rushing around like they were putting out fires rather than tending to the wants of a giant baby. I was struck again by how large the place was, and made to spend almost five consecutive minutes walking before I finally reached my destination and was ushered inside. Of course, the Earl awaited me within. It was his living room, rather than a formal reception area, which told me he at least recalled that we were family.

My grandfather was already seated in an armchair and gesturing to the one opposite him. His commands and actions were friendly enough, though his face was nothing of the sort.

"Isabel," he greeted me stiffly. My grandfather had never quite forgiven me for being a woman who was capable of higher thought and cognitive processes.

"Grandfather," I replied.

"It is good to see you." I took my seat and forced a smile at him. I had gotten quite good at faking those expressions, mainly out of necessity, and even Earl Yilear relaxed slightly when he saw this one.

"I take it this isn't a social visit?" he asked wryly. Not stupid then, unfortunate.

"It is not," I answered. He nodded, unsurprised.

"And I take it, also, that this has something to do with your tomfoolery in Poloira?" Tomfoolery? Ah, owning capital and attempting to run a business. As a woman.

"... It does," I admitted. This was not going how I had hoped.

"What is it then?" he asked me.

"Money, you need money, is that right?" I hesitated. With him having put it like that, my options were quite suddenly either to confirm his guess, which would probably not make him happy, or attempt to lie outright. The former, I decided. A lie would crumble eventually, as soon as I requested his aid.

"Yes," I sighed.

"I am in need of eight thousand crowns. A loan, not a gift, I can pay it back in—""Let me stop you there, girl," he held his hand up and sighed.

"I understand that you were raised in an… unconventional household, and that you want to play the man, but you're simply not made for it. You tried to start a business and here you are, mere months later asking your grandfather for a loan to keep it afloat. Do you think that's going to stop? That things will just be miraculously fine after this? They'll only get worse my dear." My grandfather looked at me in an odd way there.

I did not see any anger or annoyance in his eyes, just patronising, suffocating benevolence. It made me even angrier.

"I need money now because my refinery was attacked," I told him, keeping my voice carefully level.

"I'm sure it felt like that," he sighed.

"But the world isn't conspiring against you, Isabel. You just made a few mistakes."

"Magicians bombed my machinery!" He rolled his eyes.

"You can save the fanciful tales for someone who'll believe them." I wanted to liquefy his lower body and make him drink it. To remove his eyes with the optic nerves still connected and let him look at the face he made as I went to work on his intestines. To… I inhaled carefully, burying all my anger, knowing that it would do me no good here to let it show. Anything except total neutrality and control on my part would, in my grandfather's head, only be proving that I was too unstable to possibly trust.

There was a way out of this, I just needed to be clever.

"... Can I confide in you, grandfather?" He looked immediately suspicious.

"You're not pregnant, are you?"

"No!" I snapped.

"No, I…I am not." The very thought of being infested with some parasitic creature feeding off my life force was…"No," I repeated.

"This is about the business." Earl Yilear relaxed at that, but only slightly.

"Then confide. I'll not share your secret unless it puts you or someone else in danger." That was fair enough. Earl Yilear was being surprisingly accommodating, perhaps being away from my father left him less combative.

"The business is not actually mine," I lied.

"I am simply running it at the moment, on the behalf of my brother." I saw his brows shoot up, and a smile built on his face.

"Well, in that case, of course your grandfather will help you out." He was still condescending, but affectionately now. That was even more annoying.

"Just get your brother over here to sign the papers himself, so that everything checks out legally, and you'll have the eight thousand."