TR: 37

Chapter Twenty: A Speech To Remember

The skiddish woman paced back and forth at the foot of Kade’s bed, glancing up intermittently as if rediscovering his presence for the umpteenth time. She mumbled to herself as she glowered at the floor.

“Not enough, not enough…hmm…”

She stopped mid-stride, staring at the ceiling with one finger placed below her lower lip. The soft light cast shadows across her wrinkled face and her gray hair, unkempt and knotted, hung like limp arms that had given up their reach to pull free of their place on her head. She was not an unattractive woman, nor was she the courtman’s suitor. She wore the standard turqouise casmile of a full sister, with a neck so high it appeared that the dress held her head on. Celine watched from across the room, seated an antique bureau as she watched the veteran sister work her craft. She did her best to stifle a yawn; the work had been long and tedious and she still hadn’t the chance to recovered any of the sleep she had lost at sea. Despite this, decorum demanded all sisters in attendance remain focused and vigilant lest they be called upon to help. A cleansing was serious business.

After another bout of deliberation, the woman began to pace again, shaking her head in consternation. Celine could no longer sit idly by.

“Sister Dal, perhaps you have done as much as you can.” She offered gently.

She looked at Kade who lay calmly on the cot that the other sisters had prepared for him. His once tortured expression was now one of serene comfort. He appeared to be resting easy.

“After all, the spell has been lifted. He already seems to be worlds better.”

Sister Dal waved a hand in dismissal. “Yes, yes, all is fine, he shall recover. It is not the spell I am concerned about. There is something…” She paused, staring down at Kade from under her large brow, as if she was witnessing the unveiling of a long forgotten relic. She moved her mouth soundlessly, as if trying to search for a word.

“Off.”

Celine frowned. “Off? How so?”

Sister Dal sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. She looked at Kade and then turned away, staring blankly off into space.

“I don’t understand it myself. It is as if he has accepted a part of the taint and has coveted it, deep within himself. I cannot even get close enough to discern its nature. I have removed all that had contaminated his mind but, somehow, on some inner level he has embraced that contamination, just as the immune system remembers and stores information on diseases it has overcome. Yet, I cannot understand what purpose this serves…”

“Did you make contact with his vasad?” Celine asked.

Sister Dal looked up at Celine, starting as if she had forgotten who she was talking to. “Oh, that.” She scratched her scraggly scalp. “Not much to mention there. Seemed like any other projection I’ve seen.”

She hesitated a moment. “Well, come to think of it, there was something that I found quite odd, but didn’t think much of at the time. Nor do I care to now, but…”

“What happened?” Celine pushed.

“It wasn’t something that happened, per se, but something he…it said. Like any other healing, I was speaking to the boy in his mind to see what I could learn about his world, and he was very helpful on that front, actually; he told me exactly where the forms were off and where the invaders could be found, led me right to them in fact, which was quite remarkable. I have never encountered a vasad with such self-awareness…”

Celine smiled, recalling her similar experience within Kade’s mind.. “Yes, I can certainly relate to that.”

Sister Dal continued. “…But when I turned to leave him and rid his mind of the taint that had been cast upon it, he said something very peculiar to me. He said that I didn’t have to come here.”

Celine raised in eyebrow. “Didn’t have to come? Why should that bother you? Personality traits such as humility are commonly interlinked with one’s vasad. Perhaps, he was just being kindhearted. I have it on good authority that this is exactly how he is in waking life.”

“No, no, no. Such beauty but no brains!”

Celine’s cheeks flushed. Her first impulse was to rebut but she quickly reigned in the urge as it was strict Ovraelle canon that one never stood up to their betters unless it was of the most dire urgency to do so. She held her tongue and wrote off the comment as idiosyncrasy.

“It wasn’t the boy’s mannerisms that put me off, it was the fact that he said here as if he could acknowledge his mind as being a place of his own fabrication and not accept for granted his current state, as is the case for the vast majority of subjects.”

Celine bit her lip. “Perhaps this is no different than lucid dreaming, no?”

Sister Dal looked back at the boy, leering at his placid figure. “Perhaps. Or, perhaps, something more…” Her voice trailed off in thought.

Sister Dal broke the uncomfortable silence as she sat up abruptly, groaning as her spine cracked. “Well, if my old bones are to be believed, my work here is done. And then there is Tyva, breathing down our necks like a rutting dragon on her perch, all in a working over this prince fuss in the town square. What does she expect us to do? We’re not bloody diplomats! I tell you, sister, back in my day, the Ovraelle didn’t get involved in petty politics. We only ever dealt with our own.” She sighed. “Such is the passing of ages, I suspect…”

Celine sat in the awkward silence, unsure of how to respond to a thing which begot no response. Sister Dal seemed to realize the same problem and grunted in attempt to break the ice wall she had created.

“He will be conscious shortly. I suggest he stay bed-ridden for several days until we can be sure that the divination worked. If you are to be his chambermaid I suggest that you keep him well hydrated and kept warm at all times.”

The old woman opened the door, scurrying out into the dimly lit hall. She turned back before she had left the room. “Oh, and sister: stay out of his mind. He doesn’t need any more stirring up after the commotion I’ve caused. We wouldn’t want either of you to be lost for good, now would we?”

She cast Celine a wry look, such as that as a goblin used to terrorize young children. Celine merely half-smiled, the best response she could conjure to the old woman’s bizarre comment–and expression. When Sister Dal left, Celine sighed in relief. She knew the old woman meant well but she had always been odd, even when Celine had been a young novice. And old. Somehow, Sister Dal was one of those people who seemed perpetually aged, like people who went gray in their thirties. Celine reflected on this point for a moment and found great irony in the fact that one could be so powerful yet seem so feeble for the brunt of their life. It became apparent to her that, perhaps, sister Dal had never considered using a vitality spell on herself. Or, perhaps, she had, and she just didn’t care to. Celine shrugged the thought away and turned her attention to her charge.

She sat down on the edge of Kade’s bed and placed a gentle hand across his forehead to check his temperature. His skin felt moist but not feverish. She brushed his hair from his face and she smiled at the thought of finally meeting Brian’s good friend. After all they had gone through she felt as if the boy were a perfect stranger–one she knew not at all but all too well. It was forbidden by creed for Ovraelle to have child but, perhaps, exemptions could be made for friends. She knew that the news of Brian’s death would devastate him and she would do everything in her power to support him. Life, she thought, just wasn’t fair sometimes; you get yourself out of one fix only to fall into another. If there wasn’t someone or something testing them, then irony was truly nature’s cruelest mishap. Kade moaned as she removed her hand from his head. Her eyes widened in excitement.

“Kade? Can you hear me?”

He lay motionless, save the slow rise and fall of his chest and the gentle air passing from his breath.

Celine thought for a moment then leaned towards him. She whispered in his ear. “I know you and I have never really met–in person–but I just want you to know that I will be here for you, whenever you need me. I…”

A tear began to creep out of her eye. She closed her eyes as she fought back the image of Brian falling into the black sea. The tear fell from her face and landed on Kade’s cheek, forming a star pattern against his skin.

“I know what it is like to lose someone. I know what it is like to feel completely lost and alone. I hope that you will never feel that way.”

She stroked his hair once more and then, wiping her cheek off on the edge of her casmile, she left the room to the calming silence.

***

The tumultuous uproar of the crowd sounded throughout the city square. Tens of thousands had massed around the palace grounds, crammed up so tight against the towering ivory walls that the rows threatened to overlap on top of other rows, like a zombie apocalypse. And beyond the square, hundreds of thousands more had come to have their voices heard, a veritable ocean of angry bodies, rolling waves of rage screaming for change. Barring the main gates entering the palace grounds a scaffolding had been erected upon which sat a makeshift stage, atop which was a single, empty podium framed by a dozen palace guards. The guards wore their ceremonial regalia: deep, hooded robes the blue of the sky, trimmed with gold and emblazoned across the chest with the house insignia of Enbrazen–a dragon wrapping itself around a halberd. They bore identical weapons to their insignias in one arm and a black leather buckler in their other. The stage was further quarantined by an electrified fence which had been set up several blades away from its base, also heavily manned by another two-dozen or so guards. Quigzid stood at the fore of the cordoned area, arms crossed as his blooded eyes scanned across the crowd defiantly, almost asking for someone to start some trouble. The cordon guards shot nervous glances at the angry mob around them, clearly not sharing in their comrade’s confidence, likely because they also did not share in his magickal ability to melt flesh with but a thought.

All around people shouted diatribes and waved signs of resentment, some of them outright treasonous in language. So many people had gathered that day that they filled the square entire, burgeoning out all the way up into midtown and the commerce district, to the suburban outskirts and the city limits beyond. Brazen City was literally bursting at the seams with dissenters, it seemed. And it was no coincidence in their minds that the prince had finally chosen to show his face on Alms Day, of all days, given the publicity it would draw. If rumors were to be believed, there was perhaps nothing in the world that the prince cared more about than his own reflection, which explained most if not all of the problems that the city faced. But, oddly enough, the prince was nothing if not introverted, given this was his first public appearance in nearly a decade–shortly after his father had died and he taken to the throne, then a vicenarian. What he did with all of that free time inside the palace was anyone’s best guess, but from the swathe of placards decrying the plethora of issues on the table, it was clear that the citizens of Brazen City had many well-informed ideas about it. There were calls for the man’s long-overdue abdication, and the messages were no more kind to the senate and the council of ministers; it appeared Brazen City was ready for a complete overhaul–a political facelift, as it were. And there was no shortage of ideas on how to improve, which business to sack and which to promote, who should run for office et cetera.

“Out with the blathering Bumbo! Yan’s your man!” read one sign, propped up by Yan Yanning of Yan’s PharmaCures, no less.

“The cutbacks end when you cut-back Maxyl Dend!” said another, a reference to a local business tycoon.

And the signs went on and on, as far as the eye could see, a chain of angry, dancing white squares and scribbles, underscored by the voices which held them.

There was a tone on a loudspeaker, somehow audible above the wash of tumult from the audience. The sound died down some as people in the square turned the attention to the stage, the volume knob going from a ten to perhaps an eight-point-five. Ministerial representatives and other important delegates walked on to the stage from stairs unseen, forming a semi-circle behind the podium where they took up seats, as if they were about to initiate a seance. Chancellor Algreaves was one of the lot, sitting as sour faced as the rest, clearly wishing he was anywhere else in that moment. A squat, rotund man ambled his way up the stairs, heading to the podium. It was the Minister of Civil Affairs, Minister Bumbo, his ministry the prime mover for all things internal within the city, apropos the situation at hand. He fumbled with some papers as he stood in front of the podium, his fat, inarticulate fingers stumbling as he tried to sort through his program. He shot nervous glances frequently between his papers and the pandemonium before him. When he had the papers in order he tapped the butts against the wood, leveling them, and then clearing his throat he raised one hand above his head to silence the mob.

“As I’m sure you are all aware we have come here today…”

The minister’s words were swallowed up like a hungry crocodile by din of the crowd. Men in the front could be heard shouting and screaming at the top of their lungs, demanding to see their prince. What was he doing there?

He cleared his throat. “We have come here today to acknowledge…”

The din rolled at him like a wave of defiance, quashing his words like grapes in a press.

Bumbo pumped a fist at the crowd in frustration. “People, we need order here!”

A man twenty paces away, just behind the electrified fence, shouted at him. “We need a new order, that’s what we need!”

He threw a tomato at the minister–a crack shot–striking him in the face. Red juice drizzled down his neck and onto his expensive shirt collar. Staring bleakly off into space he retrieved a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and carefully wiped off the residue. Quigzid shook his head, frustrated that he was bound by clear instructions not to intervene unless an emergency. He turned and shared a mutual, disapproving glance with the minister, who looked as if he was on the teetering edge of revoking those boundaries. He shook his head, confirming to stay the course. He tapped his throat, signalling a need for a boost. Quigzid snapped his fingers over his shoulder and Bumbo felt a tingling in his throat, a similar sensation to taking a breath of fresh, winter air. He turned back to the crowd, smiling.

“Silence!” his voice boomed across the town square, Quigzid’s magic amplifying his usual meager voice. People shuddered against the sound, many grasping their ears, some even dropping their signs. After several moments, ninety percent of the sound had receded.

Bumbo grinned triumphantly from behind the podium. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, we have order.” Bumbo looked back to his compatriots sitting around him. Their expressions told him they were unimpressed with his bluster. His smile faded and his toad-like frown returned. He turned his glare back upon his audience.

“As I’m sure you are all aware, we have come here today to acknowledge a very special occasion: our fair prince, prince Solus Enbrazen, is to make an announcement.”

A man in the audience sneered and spat in the dirt at the mention of the very name.

Bumbo thumbed through his papers.  “Though much controversy has circulated about this event and its nature, unfortunately, I cannot confirm what the topic of the prince’s address will be on this day. However, I can confirm what it will not be: the prince will not be addressing your questions and concerns regarding the current state of the economy or your personal livelihoods. I have been informed by my superiors that this is not the jurisdiction of the crown and that these matters should be continued to be forwarded to the ministry…”

Shouts of protest and booing began to erupt out of the audience. Objects began flying through the air–food, garbage, clothing articles and anything else the dissenters could find–striking the side of the stage, the guards having to dodge several times.

Order!” he bellowed, under Quigzid’s influence.

The crowd quieted once more. The minister opened his mouth to begin again but a voice from behind–another amplified voice–cut him off.

“It is clear to me, minister, that this crowd is incapable of order.”

The Minister turned and saw a hooded figured proceeding down the walkway from the palace gates towards the stage. The guards bolted upright, placing their lances across their bucklers in front of their chests. The party stood up from their chairs, diverting their eyes to their feet, their expressions solemn. The minister moved his mouth, stammering at the sight of the figure approaching the podium. The figure stood tall–well over two blades–and he wore a black cloak adorned with the house insignia across the chest.

“Your highness, I was just about to… I didn’t think you…”

The figure pushed the minister aside with one hand and stepped up to the podium. The only perceptible feature of the figure’s face was his mouth which was drawn back into a tight pinched line that indicated annoyance.

“Bow to your Prince!” Quigzid shouted, his magickally-imbued voice resonating throughout the square like a god.

The guards and the attendees on stage were the only ones to acquiesce. The crowd just stared resentfully at the man in the cloak, unyielding. Quigzid closed his eyes and delved deep within himself. He found the source that he sought and, from there, reached outward. Outward across the town square, the thousands upon thousands of bodies there, radiating out and out, through streets and avenues, his consciousness snaking around buildings and other obstacles as he felt his way through the millions of bodies that stretched out all the way to the city limits. He could feel each and every one of them–millions of heartbeats all juxtaposed against each other, like one giant asynchronous rhythmic machine. He could hear their thoughts too, but chose to block that out as the sheer magnitude of that many minds was maddening. Instead, he focused his attentions on all of their lower bodies–their legs, to be precise–until he had those millions of pairs central to his mind. His breath picked up, his own heart racing, sweat beading down his forehead; the feat was significant, even for him. And then, he pulled his fist backward, like starting a lawnmower in slow motion, and millions of bodies began to slowly go down as the crowd felt an irresistible force weighing down on them, pulling them to the ground. Screams of surprise and protest erupted from all over the city and then, in the very next moment, everyone was kneeling one knee.

This time, everyone had gone silent.

Stupefied. Terrified. Obedient.

Quigzid opened his eyes slowly, looking out over the square at his handiwork, though his expression showed no elation in his achievement.

The prince nodded subtly to Quigzid and looked back upon his crowd of newly-abeyant followers. “I know you have all come here today to have your questions answered, but it will be I who asks you a question on this day: why should a leader not expect from his people what they expect of him in return?” The Prince’s voice was firm yet almost gentle, the voice of  a shrewd tactician.

The man leaned over the podium towards the crowd, as if to challenge them. “Enlighten me.”

“You arrogant swine!” One woman yelled. “While you sit back sucking on videral and cavorting with tramps in your luxury mansion, my kids lay at home sick and uneducated, hopin’ that their daddy has a job at the end of the day so they won’t starve on top of it all. You want to know what Brazen City means to us? Inequality, that’s what!”

The crowd cheered their approval. Others began to shout out in protest. A rough-cut man with a grisly beard raised his fist into the air.

“We can’t even get to the mines anymore because the roads are so bad! The treasurer says that the city can’t afford to fix it, but it’s a well known fact that Clefton Delbaly, CEO of All-Mart Enterprises, just got a two-point-five million wann tax break, while here we all are breaking our backs working for a pittance. What does Brazen City mean to us? Elistist, imperialist favoritism! We, the working class, refuse to be your lap dogs!”

A storm of voices rose up in agreement; objects began flying towards the stage again. The prince leaned back from the podium and observed the subterfuge before him with the stance of one observing a social experiment. A hammer flew at him and he snatched it out of the air a hand’s width in front of his face. Algreaves exchanged astonished glances with the other delegates. The prince waved the hammer at the crowd.

“Look at you animals!” he spat, now as aggravated as his accusers.

“You accuse me and my council of irrational action, and here you come to parade around at my doorstep like a scorned child at the market? You speak of inaction and conspiracy and then decide sound recourse is a mob? Since when did civil resolution involve pitchfork riots? Tell me, oh faithful civilians, how you would have this nation run? Do you think that managing a mom and pop business is the same as overseeing the welfare of a country? Do you think you could do this better than the House and Council? Tell me then, what exactly have I done wrong? Point to me this so-called fountain from which I have been drinking. And, most importantly, explain to me WHEN THIS CITY BECAME OVERRUN WITH IMTEK?”

An anonymous cloaked man in the front row stood watching as the prince seethed rancor back at the crowd before him, eyeing him carefully.

“I can’t believe he’s accusing us of anarchy!“Can you believe this? Of all the nerve!” A disgusted farmer shouted, standing beside him.

The man glanced at the farmer from under the shadow of his cloak, looking past him to the ticking timebomb that was growing around him. Quigzid could sense it too and his demeanour had gone from one of cool apathy to wound-up tension, like a snake getting ready to strike. He scanned the crowd with a lethal precision that forewarned none to overstep their bounds, but it seemed the breaking point was a bigger threat than he at that moment.

“That’s right, you heard what I said.” The prince continued to push.

“Don’t think that the House doesn’t know it; this so called secret society of ours–alleged officials part of a sinister cult– is it no coincidence that this very accusation was started by you? Is it no coincidence that you-the-public now conveniently gather to dissent and usurp, in the hopes that you may push your agenda? No, my veneer-thin friends, I will not believe for one moment that the rot lies at the top, but at the very heart of this city–within those dark hearts that make it up, the faulty foundation of lies and treachery. How easy it is to cast a tale and spin it on its head to point away from itself, toward this most convenient untruth. No, it is not the government who wishes to quash the economy but those who are the unfortunate byproduct of it. You call yourselves honest folk, but the vast majority of you are nothing but SCHEMING, LAZY, TRAIT…”

The prince’s words were cut off as a whirring sound passed over the stage, five blurry objects propelled at the speaker. There was a gargling gasp and a choking sound as the prince was struck in the chest by five deadly-precise shurikens. His arms splayed out like a puppet, he fell to his knees, blood spots forming circles around the wounds, mortal flowers against as snow-white backdrop on his under-tunic. He looked down at his body in horror, convulsed several times then, gazing out at the stunned audience, his eyes glassed over and he fell onto his face. A crimson pool seeped out around him, dripping over the edge of the stage. The delegates on the stage panicked, jumping up from their seats in horror, running–some diving–off stage to evade a potential second wave.

All hell broke loose.

While a scant few people in the crowd cheered with joy at the sight of their deposed, much-loathed monarch, ninety-nine-point-nine percent of people began wailing and flailing about as if they were on fire. The problem was, everyone had packed so closely together that nobody could really move anywhere until the outer layers dispersed, so nearly everyone was left scrambling over each other like frantic bees trapped behind glass.

The mass exodus inevitably butted up against the cordon and, despite the electrification, the sheer force of the numbers buckled the gate and the guards were soon consumed into the morass of bodies fleeing the scene. Quigzid, however, had the foresight to get out of the way, backflipping up onto the now vacant stage, gracefully lunging toward the fallen body of his late master and gathering it in his arms. He stood up, leering as his gaze panned across the distant rooftops and, seeing nothing, he hopped down off the backside of the stage, disappearing into the palace grounds.

In the square, the remaining people had worked themselves up to a fervor, frantic to get out lest they be the next target of the mystery assassin. All were panicked, except one man who remained standing in place near the stage–the cloaked figure. Somehow, people seemed to naturally evade his position as if some sort of barrier existed between him and them, the flow of bodies filtering around. He scanned the perimeter with hawk-like attention but it appeared that all of the checkpoints still had guards in their positions, which meant one of two things: either it was an inside job and one of the guards had committed the act, or the true assailant had made an incredible shot outside of the near-leave perimeter that he knew the palace guard had formed. Were it a precision weapon such as a pulse rifle or ballistek he would have believed what he saw, but those were shurikens sticking out of the prince’s chest–plain old throwing stars. And no one–no one–could throw a hand-propelled projectile that far.

Unless…

He stopped to do a quick calculation in his head. When he had come to a number that satisfied him he formed two circles between thumb and forefinger, placing them against his eyes like binoculars. Looking through the holes that they made, his vision was amplified ten times. He scanned the rooftops at that depth of distance; the library across the way had great domed archtops, not the kind of footing conducive to a long-range attack. He brought down his middle finger, magnifying the circle by one hundred times. The saloon was within the right distance but there was construction out front and scaffolding and other equipment blotted out any chance of a direct line of sight to the target. He brought down his ring fingers, magnifying his vision even further. He examined the legislation buildings: long, A-frame rooftop, extending out along the length of the eastern side of the structure; windows at frequent intervals–offices, by the look of it. His vision glided along the roof until he came to a ventilation termination box, where he noticed movement. He narrowed his eyes to help focus, and then a figure bolted from the stack, heading east across the rooftop.

He lowered his makeshift binoculars, the corner of his mouth turning down in disdain. “So they did use the flows.”

The hooded man wasted no time and, with inhuman speed, began bolting across the square, the crowd parting around him as if a forcefield had pushed them aside. After only several seconds, he had cleared the length of the square, where he then leapt into the air with one powerful lunge. The few whose attention had been diverted turned to gawk at the sight but their and cries and pleas to attention were lost amongst the mass tumult of people attempting to evacuate. The hooded man flew through the air, soaring like a bird, landing gracefully on the rooftop of the legislation building.

Ahead, the assassin stopped in their tracks, sensing something had changed. They turned back to look over their shoulder and saw another, hunched over on the very same rooftop, hardly a bout away. The other bolted off their knee, racing toward the assassin with full force. The assassin cursed and in similar fashion, began running with magickally-imbued velocity. The breakneck speed at which they ran left little room for error; any misstep could result in tremendous injury or death and it was clear by their pounding hearts that they both knew this. As the cloaked man pursued the figure, bounding across rooftop to adjacent rooftop, he could make out some details of his pursuant;  they wore a blue uniform–a gi by the look of it–with a matching balaclava and a red bandana tied around the head. By their shape and build they appeared to be a male, but it was too difficult to tell while moving. The air whipped across his face, every gnat that struck him feeling like a needle piercing his skin. The rooftop that they were on suddenly jackknifed and the assassin leaped down indiscriminately, landing on the roof of a small clay hut of a vendor, one of the terracotta shingles coming loose and crashing down onto the cobblestone walk below. Several chickens hollered harried clucks and scurried out of the way as two shadows bridged the gap between buildings above, partially obscuring the sun for the barest fraction of a moment.

As they passed into a residential district, the cloaked man found himself leaping over a clothes line strung between two poles of adjacent homes, a woman reeling in the line from her window gasped, cursing at the two as they flew past her. The assassin bounded off of the roof of a hovel and, in mid air, he span around and flung two handfuls of shurikens toward his pursuer. The cloaked man twisted and contorted around each object as they whirled past him, as if time had become a viscous fluid. The assassin completed his spin and cushioned his fall with a roll, rebounding back into full stride. The hooded man landed just behind him and caught a quick glimpse of a yellow symbol on the back of the man’s gi: a tree with a fist wrapped around its base. The assassin glanced back nervously over his shoulder and cursed. He bounded across an impossible gap, the cloaked one following close behind. The roof began to rise on an incline as they made their way up to a higher level of the tenements. Loose tiles began to slip out from under their feet as they scrambled up the steep precipice. The assassin lost his footing and began to slide back down towards the oncoming figure pursuing him. Without a second thought he snatched a handful of throwing knives from his belt and whipped them towards the other. With a glittering gauntleted arm, the cloaked man swatted each of the blades away as if they had been nothing more than insects. The assassin took the temporary distraction to get proper footing and he launched himself into a backflip, arcing through the air until he landed perfectly on the apex of the slanted roof.

The man stood there with arms splayed out to the side, almost ritualistically, perhaps, taunting him. The cloaked man narrowed his eyes, sneering at the assassin and he too propelled himself toward the other, arm outstretched for the kill. As his fingers found their grip around their quarry’s neck, the assassin made no move to defend themselves, their eyes squinting in what seemed to be humour. And then, out of nowhere, they shifted their position, he felt his grip slacken, and a plume of thick grey smoke erupted around them. He recoiled, covering his eyes from the stinging chemical–whatever it was–coughing out a lungful of the stuff. He waved his hand in a circle and the air around him began to follow suit, gathering in a twisting eddy that pulled the smoke along with it. He continued to move his arm around and around, until the smoke had dissipated away from him. When all was clear, there was no sign of the assassin nor any inkling of where he had gone. All he could see was a thirty blade dead drop to the street below and endless rooftops beyond that, spanning out into the horizon of Brazen city. The hooded man’s gaze slowly moved down to the fragment of cloth in his hand that he had managed to snatch off the assassin. He stood there pondering the strange yellow symbol as the unforgiving wind whipped his cloak across his body.

***

“Aha! Here it is!”

Mannin Vassik swiped a handful of paperwork off of the bureau, snatching the document from his desk. The room had been overturned; books scattered about, leaflets of paper strewn haphazardly about the room, like a bureaucratic hurricane had passed through the room. Darrik stood in the middle of the room doing his best to maintain an impartial frown.

“Let’s see…yes, yes, dates, venues… where is it now…” The Ambassador mulled over the paper as he paced to and fro over the mound of debris. He did not seem to care about the clutter.

“Sir, may I suggest that you consult the tablet for the records you seek?”

Vassik waved a hand of dismissal. “No, no. The minutes we need would not be on record. The tablet would only have sanctioned meetings. What I need is something very specific, very…flagrant.”

Darrik folded his arms behind his back. “Then, perhaps, sir, by definition what you seek lies not in public record at all. Have you considered the local newspaper? After all, it is a scandal.”

Vassik looked up, squinting at his comrade’s colorful line of reasoning.

“Are you suggesting that we consult a tabloid, Darrik? I would not dare entertain such a preposterous notion.”

Darrik walked across the room to a shelf filled with voluminous tomes, the kinds with titles alone that put a normal person to sleep. With gloved finger he pushed the spine of one, Equipoise And Neolibertarian Structures Within A Korduranestian Framework, back in place until it was flush with its kin.

“Of course not sir, that would be quite preposterous.” He turned back to the ambassador. “What I am suggesting is to look for patterns that can help guide you. When the trail of crumbs runs out, head for the bread factory, as the saying goes.”

“Are you trying to say that the media has a part in this? You know as well as I that the consulate screens and censors every little thought-piece that blows through their doors. Chains and locks, that sort of thing.”

“A well known fact, but as such it could also be said that the committee holds office in the press as well as the consulate. A point to consider, sir.”

Vassik looked from Darrik to the paper and, sighing, threw it down amongst the rest of the refuse.

“Perhaps, you are right. How trite is a conflict of interest among all the greater conflicts occurring?”

Vassik slumped down in his armchair behind his ramshackle bureau, tapping his skull.

“I just wish I knew what they were thinking, you know? Other than the obvious, who benefits from this insurrection? Who truly comes out on top? If there is some kind of…secret society or cabal–as they would have us–believe then shouldn’t it be the ones left standing? Yet, the foundation is crumbling beneath us all, and where there should be high-collar stooges and profiteers circling above us like hungry vultures waiting for the feast of the defeated, there is just empty vacuum. Even Dend–that bottom feeder–Warptech’s Index was down eleven points again this week. If anyone was to be the default in all of this, it should be him. But there you have it.”

Vassik picked up a random document from a pile on his desk, mulling it over.

“From where I sit, Darrik, all I see is on one side you have a righteous, power hungry zealot who thinks he can nationalize the world, and on the other you have an elastic band wound so tight that if you said a word that weighed too much the tension would cause it to snap. And caught smack in the middle you have Brazen City–an insurrection forming a political black hole, drawing all the opportunists right into its capital. And don’t even get me started on those anarchists up north…”

Vassik flicked the document away and buried his face in his hand in frustration. “Darrik, where do we even begin?”

Darrik walked over to one of the cinquefoil windows lining the room, glancing through the ornamental tracery to the city beyond. From the city limits, home to the working class under humble rooftops in clay villas and tight-knit tenements, to the business district where the aristocrats–city workers, specialists, officials, including the embassy–Darrik imagined for a sweet, simple moment, everyone just trying to live their lives. Of course, in a city of over one hundred million strong, things were much more complicated than that. As if to punctuate this reality, standing center in the town core, his eyes drew a straight line to the defiant marble pillars of the Royal Palace of Enbrazen jutting above the cityscape as if it were better than the rest. He remembered growing up and looking at those pillars in awe, thinking only someone great could live behind those walls. But it had never occurred to him until later in life that there was a reason for those walls.

Darrik heaved a heavy sigh. “The paths to success are mostly dead ends. Only when you step off the path and into the wilderness, will you have begun your true journey.”

The adage hung in the air, as if the thought resounded throughout the room in the proceeding silence.

The Ambassador looked up from his work and frowned at Darrik in thought.

“Is that Humbock? Certainly has that self-righteous naturalism to it.”

Darrik cleared his throat. “My father, actually. He came to this city as a young man, nearly a lifetime ago. He died before I was born, but I am told he was a very accomplished man. But it wasn’t always so. He had to work very hard to get to where he ended up.”

Vassik leaned back in his chair and tapped a pen against his chin as he stared off into space. “Indeed.”

The Ambassador spoke slowly, carefully measuring his words. “Darrik, what would you say most behooves men of our position?”

“Why, to act in the public welfare, sir.”

“Even if acting out of one’s own province merely constitutes a means to that end?”

Darrik smiled and glanced back out the window to the cityscape, clasping his hands in front of him.

“Sometimes, sir, I find that what we do is analogous to the practice of husbandry. If you build a farm, as it were, then you have license to carry the plow. Whether or not you use it is up to you but, fellowship, in my experience, is never borne out of inaction.”

The Ambassador nodded and pulled open a drawer of the bureau and placed an envelope on the top of the desk. The wax seal bearing the royal insignia had been broken and the edges of a letter protruded out as if trying to escape its prison. The men both stared at the piece of paper between them.

“Then, perhaps, it is time that we tended to some weeds that have sprouted in the royal garden.”

Darrik nodded solemnly, frowning at the anonymous yet not so anonymous letter.

“I shall have your bags packed and the coach ready within the hour, Master Vassik.”

***

The minotaur’s figure emerged from the shadows, a snow storm cascading down behind, visible through the cave mouth. Its hooves clicked against the dusty stone of the mountain-hewn floor, snow flaking off its coarse hair with each step. It held a limp figure in its arms, the expression on its face a losing battle with devastation. As it came into the grand hall, the music and merrymaking ground to an immediate halt when the tall figure standing next to the throne raised a furry fist, demanding immediate attention. Hundreds of minotaurian eyes–black specks in a field of snow–watched unblinking as the somber figure made his way through the room, now silent as a mausoleum. One of the onlookers gasped when the messenger passed closed enough to see what was in their arms. The figure stopped a blade in front of the throne, bending on one knee as it gently laid the dead body onto to the floor with the care of a sacred offering. The imposing minotaur sitting in the huge, stone throne jumped up from its seat violently. Two hulking, minotaurian guards flanking the throne nearly choked they gasped so hard, their shining green armor clacking as they shuddered backwards a step, as if repelled by the sight. The king, with flowing red robes and a glittering jade crown atop of its head took two heavy, reluctant steps forward on the stone altar upon which its throne sat, the sound reverberating around the room as if punctuating the severity of the silence that had blanketed them. His Vitrion–his spiritual advisor, the one who had admitted the messenger into the hall–held up a hand to the king to try and shield him.

“My lord, you need not see this. If you would just…”

“Wh…what happened? My boy!” It wailed, pushing his priest aside as he scooped up the dead body of his son in its muscular arms.

It looked over the body in disbelief, as if scanning to see if there were still life somewhere in it that it could salvage. When it realized that time was cruel and had left no options, tears began to fill its dark eyes. It grasped the body and pulled it against its chest, sobbing into its shoulder, its body racking up and down in spasms. Eyes turned to the messenger now standing off to the side, looking both crestfallen and terrified at the same time. The Vitrion seemed to pick up on the cue and motioned to him.

“Speak. What happened here?” He demanded.

The creature swallowed, tapping a hoof nervously against the stone floor, wringing its hands. “My lords, I was doing reconnaissance when I spotted an anomaly  on a path about a leave away from the Kn’Kada. I went in closer to inspect and found… him…like this. But there was more…”

“Explain.” The Vitrion urged.

“The land, it was turned up–disturbed by a great number of passersby. An army, by the look of the numbers. I followed the trails until I came to the sacred grounds and, as I suspected, a large group has occupied the area. I am unsure exactly what their motives are, but by the equipment that has been gathered thus far, I believe they are repurposing the Kn’Kada as some kind of…training ground. To think, our sacred lands defiled for the purposes of man!”

The King had stopped sobbing and remained silent, huddled over the body. After a pause that seemed to extend into eternity, the King’s muffled voice came from under the cloak.

“Who is responsible for this?”

“I…I cannot be certain, your majesty.”

Suddenly, its expression changed to one of surprise recollection. He fumbled at a pouch at his belt and pulled out a weatherworn letter.

“But I did find this. This was on…the prince when I found him. My lord…”

The Vitrion wasted no time burdening his charge with getting up and strode forward, snatching the letter up violently from the messenger’s hand. The messenger bowed his head and walked backward, disappearing into the crowd of onlookers that had gathered before the throne. The priest unfolded the letter and read it silently. It took him only a moment and his glance bounced back and forth between the letter and the crowd, eyeing the lot suspiciously as if any of them could have been the perpetrator. The Vitrion sighed deeply and looked down to the king who half-turned to him, looking less like a king and more like a deposed monarch at that moment. Despite his vulnerability, it was clear by the Vitrion’s measured actions that he had a great deal of compassion and respect for his king. He squatted down and held out the letter to his master. The king’s eyes met his own and the two stared at each other in silence as they exchanged words without words. Somehow, the two knew what was said and Vitrion simply nodded, the king taking the letter in a shaking hand. Ever so gently, the king let the body roll back to the cold, lifeless floor, and he stood up wiping tears from his face with the hair on the back of his arm. He briefly looked out at the sea of eyes on him, as if seeing them for the first time, then he unfolded the letter slowly, his eyes drifting down to the page. The king stared at the paper before him, a look as solemn as stone as he transfixed on it.

A minute went by. Then three. And then, after nearly five minutes, the king’s expression began to change from one of stony resolution to volcanic fury. He grit his teeth so hard the bones cracked audibly from the force. On the page were only seven words, scrawled in Minish runes, the hand clearly an amateur’s–one not of their kind. It said:

JOIN ME OR DIE LIKE HE DID

The king crumpled up the paper, his knuckles white they gripped it so hard. Blood began to trickle from his balled fists, pitter-pattering down on to the immaculate stone, dark droplets of collecting rage. The letter exploded into flames as he released it and he raised his arms to the cavernous ceiling, bellowing a warcry that shook both the mountain itself and the very bones of the many tribes from leaves around that called it home. Outside, a flock of birds nearly a half-kaldar away spooked out of a treetop, chattering wildly as they took to the sky, carrying with them the message of the wrath of the Jejum King.