Read The Book of Deacon: Book 02 - The Great Convergence for Free Online

them believe that we were no longer willing to
turn you over. That has put the two of us on a very exclusive list
of insurgents who are to be killed on sight by the Elites. It is
clear that those very same Elites are the ones who seek to claim
you as well. Until we can establish that Lain's little
idiosyncrasies are harmless and that we are indeed still willing
and able to relinquish yourself and the sword, we are going to have
to wait."
    "I will just go to them myself," she
said.
    "That would not be wise. Lest you forget, the
attempts to capture you have been less than pleasant in the past.
The rest of the agents out after you are not so well disciplined as
the Elite, and I would wager to say that they have not been offered
the same compensation as we. If you meet them first, which you most
certainly will, they might be just as willing to turn over a corpse
as a captive," he said.
    "I will take my chances. I can take care of
myself," she said.
    "That freshly healed wound on your leg and
the close calls of the past would seem to indicate the contrary,"
he said. "Besides, if you go off and turn yourself in, we will not
get paid, and that would just be a tragedy."
    "Hmm. And Lain is Chosen. I would have to
find him again after all," she said.
    "Precisely. So what do you say? You stay on
as our guest until I can smooth out relations just enough to allow
an exchange. That is, of course, unless you don't want to, in which
case you will need to stay on as our prisoner. I would suggest
choosing the former. It has better accommodations and the
conversations are a tad less one sided. That will give you time to
convince Lain of his place in the cosmic way of things, and it will
allow us to protect our investment. Then you and he can go off and
find elementals and all manner of other eldritch companions and
create a tale we can all tell our children about," he said, lifting
the ingot to return it to its storage.
    Myranda frowned at his mocking tone toward
the end of the speech. When he reached for the gold, it made
Myranda realize something.
    "Wait. The war is good for you. Why would you
allow me to help bring peace?" she asked.
    "Do you honestly believe that you will be
able to convince Lain to join forces with the Alliance Army and put
his life on the line to somehow put this war to an end? They have
hunted him for decades, and when they caught him, they tortured him
for a month, if my sources can be believed. He will never work with
them without what he considers to be a very good reason, and I
doubt such a reason exists," he said frankly.
    "He will see the light," Myranda said
confidently.
    "Yes, well, I sincerely doubt it. People like
Lain have lived in the dark so long, when they see the light they
tend to close their eyes. Say . . . why do you assume the war is
good for us?" he said.
    "Lain told me how the hatred it stirs up is
what gets you your business," she said.
    "Mmm. It would generally be true to say that
war is good for the business. Of course, a war would generally only
last a few years and be far less widespread. During a normal war
there are mad scrambles for power. People stabbing each other in
the back to grab a hold of the largest slice of power and land.
This war has been going on too long. Everything has stabilized.
Anyone who wants power and has the means to get it has done so,
often with our help. The rest are too weak to hope for anything
better or too poor to manage it. Now, if this war were to come to a
sudden end, chaos would ensue. The bottom would be pulled out from
under society. The old guard would panic and throw money at anyone
who could help them hold onto any power at all, and newcomers would
jump at the dozens of holes in the hierarchy. We would barely be
able to keep up with the clients," he said.
    Myranda shook her head.
    "You would end the war because it would be
profitable to you? You would do the right thing for the wrong
reasons," she said.
    "I never said I would stop the war. And
besides, who