Gar Palace — The Distribution
The room where Garnaice and Magarles had previously met had the same map projected over the table — the three points, Sherpia, Indilá, and the isolated point in the Alve Sea containing Prisen Mandalha.
But this time the conversation wasn’t about whether the plan would proceed.
It was about who would execute it.
“Alígargar leads Sherpia,” Garnaice said, touching the first point on the map with the precision of someone who had already decided that some time ago and was merely communicating, not deliberating.
“With restraint, as I’ve already instructed him.
Enough destruction to keep Mahallem concentrated there, without escalation that exhausts its utility as a repeated distraction.”
Magarles nodded, processing.
“And Indilá,” he said.
“Gar-e-o-tigue,” Garnaice said, moving his finger to the second point.
Magarles was momentarily still, his strategic mind evaluating the choice.
“Gar-e-o-tigue is competent,” Magarles said, with the precision of someone who measured words carefully when evaluating someone from the royal elite itself, “but he is also unpredictable by nature.
His need to be noticed can compromise subtlety where subtlety is necessary.”
“Indilá doesn’t need subtlety,” Garnaice said.
“We already know, from the reports, that João is reinforcing the border.
Gar-e-o-tigue creating chaos, smuggling, and direct confrontation against that reinforcement serves exactly the same purpose as Sherpia — keeping attention concentrated where we want it concentrated.”
“And his tendency to attract attention,” Garnaice continued, with something approaching calculated appreciation, “in this specific case is an advantage, not a flaw.
I want Indilá to appear as the second major attack vector.
I want it to appear urgent, threatening, worthy of all the military force Mahallem can mobilize.”
Magarles processed the logic, recognizing the internal coherence even in the face of his initial reservation.
“It makes sense,” he admitted.
He was still for a moment, looking at the third point on the map.
“And Mandalha,” he said, finally.
The question he had been avoiding since the previous conversation, now finally articulated directly.
“Who goes there.”
Garnaice looked at the isolated point in the middle of the Alve Sea.
“Not Alígargar,” he said.
“I can’t divert him from Sherpia, where his presence is necessary to maintain credibility for the first vector.
And not Gar-e-o-tigue, for the same reason regarding Indilá.”
“Then who,” Magarles repeated, with the directness he used when he wanted a specific answer and not more explanation about who wouldn’t be.
“Heavy combat unit.
Not names you know — Overgar operatives trained specifically for infiltration and extraction in maximum-containment environments.
People who spent years preparing exactly for an operation of this type.”
“Mandalha doesn’t require someone with Alígargar’s level of power,” Garnaice continued.
“It requires technical competence.
The ability to navigate a security structure designed to contain the worst the World of Naicity has ever produced, without activating all the alarm systems before we reach the only objective that matters.”
Magarles was still, considering.
“And if they fail,” he said.
“Then the Mandalha operation fails,” Garnaice said, with the direct honesty he reserved for Magarles specifically, recognizing in him a mind that deserved real assessments rather than empty guarantees.
“But Sherpia and Indilá continue functioning as distractions, and we’ll try Mandalha again, another way, at another time.”
“It’s a plan that accepts partial failure,” Magarles said, with the strategic precision of someone identifying the complete risk structure.
“It’s a plan that recognizes,” Garnaice said, “that not everything can be guaranteed, and that the most valuable part of the plan isn’t any individual point, but the complete structure that creates enough confusion that, regardless of what happens at each specific point, Mahallem remains in a reactive rather than proactive position.”
Magarles nodded, slowly, accepting the logic even without genuine reassurance about the risk involved in Mandalha specifically.