Kian gave Lokan a nod.
"I'm here," Lokan said.
"What happened to the concubines?" Losham asked.
Lokan understood what Losham was really asking. It wasn't about all the concubines. It was about the nameless, faceless female who had given birth to Losham. The mother he'd never known.
"They're all here, safe and happy," Lokan said. "Free."
"Are you telling the truth?"
"I have no reason to lie." Lokan paused, casting a glance at Kian, who was circling his finger to indicate that Lokan should wrap up the call. "I'll tell you more in future calls. I will even inquire as to which one is your mother. It shouldn't be difficult to figureout since you were the firstborn. We'll call you every morning and evening, your time, to check on your progress. If you have questions, you can ask them then."
That promise would guarantee that Losham would answer the phone even if he found a way to subvert the compulsion.
Losham chuckled. "You know me well, Lokan."
"I do."
"Until tomorrow, then."
"Until tomorrow."
Lokan ended the call and set the phone on the conference table.
"You handled that well," Kian said.
Lokan slumped back in his chair. "I feel like I'm playing chess blindfolded against someone who can see the entire board."
"Losham doesn't see the entire board either. He's operating with incomplete information, just like we are." Kian picked up his coffee, took a sip, grimaced, and set it down again. "It's a complicated dance that both sides are performing blindfolded."
To Lokan, it was more than a dance, more than rescuing Khiann and his companions from the island. The future of the Brotherhood was on the line, and none of the solutions that kept circling in his mind were good.
Every path seemed to lead somewhere terrible.
If Losham managed to hold on to power, which the clan might be able to help him with, the Brotherhood would continue its work under new management. Losham was smarter than Navuh,more subtle, potentially more dangerous in the long run. He wouldn't make the same mistakes his father had made.
If Losham fell, which would happen if he didn't get help, the other brothers would tear each other apart fighting for control. The island would descend into chaos, and a succession war would leave bodies piled in the streets and blood soaking into the sand. Everyone there would suffer.
If Navuh returned...no. That wasn't an option. Lokan refused to even consider it.
But what was the alternative?
The ultimate solution was to conquer the island and for him to rule it and turn it into a normal community instead of the hellhole it was now.
The question was how.
His mind drifted to the force the clan was building on Safe Harbor. The human warriors were training with the exoskeletons that gave ordinary humans the strength and speed to fight immortals on equal footing, but there weren't enough of them.
To take the island, to truly liberate it, they would need thousands of those warriors. Tens of thousands, perhaps. An army large enough to overwhelm the Brotherhood's forces, to crush any resistance, and to establish control over every inch of that cursed piece of land.
And then what?
Even if they somehow assembled such an army, and even if they somehow won the battle, what happened then? The island's immortal population had been raised on hatred and violence.They'd been brainwashed from birth to despise the clan and to regard humans as little more than livestock, to see Mortdh's way as the only way. It wasn't possible to just flip a switch and turn them into peaceful citizens.
Only a powerful compeller could do that, and the clan didn't have anyone who could simultaneously influence thousands of minds.
Was Igor that powerful?
