by C. T. Rwizi
“But what can you possibly accomplish there? And I’d better like your explanation, or this will be the last time we speak.”
“An analogy, if you will.”
“Proceed.”
“Say there is a contested swath of land that all the great powers of the world have agreed to leave alone.”
The Enchantress can almost feel his amusement. “An analogy, you said?”
“Bear with me.”
With a magnanimous gesture he permits her to continue.
“Say this land, though exceedingly rich and fertile, is fraught with danger, and the indigenous peoples are . . . problematic. In fact, you might think of this place as a giant hornet’s nest no one wants to poke—so long as everyone else stays away. Are you with me so far?”
“Carry on.”
“Moreover, everyone knows that breaching the agreement to stay away would trigger a scramble so vicious there would be no victors, only losers. No one wants this, so the treaty holds. Now, if you want to start a war, how do you use this to your advantage?”
“If these were the only pertinent facts, then you would pour your efforts into persuading one of the world powers to break the treaty. The question is how.”
The Enchantress feels a modest surge of hope. She has Prophet’s attention now. “A good question. Let us suppose, then, that one of these world powers once had an enemy so terrible that the mere mention of its name could get you imprisoned indefinitely. Suppose they vanquished this enemy at immense cost to themselves and upon their victory vowed to do everything in their power to ensure that this enemy would never again rear its head. Do you see where I’m taking this?”
Prophet’s monstrous voice is suddenly subdued. “Not exactly, but you are treading on dangerous ground. Explain yourself.”
Ah, the mighty Prophet, afraid of a long-dead ghost. The Enchantress continues. “What you do, Prophet, is raise the specter of that vanquished enemy in the hornet’s nest. Then you will have your war.”
He watches her, stunned, but quickly finds his voice. “You cannot be serious.”
The Enchantress gives him the rest of her pitch. “This specter wouldn’t be the real thing, of course—it can’t be and wouldn’t need to be. It would only need to be convincing enough. Let this great power think that their old enemy is resurfacing in the heart of this contested land, and they’ll break any treaty to quash them. And once the treaty has been broken, there will be no incentive to hold anyone back. War will break on so many fronts it’ll crack the world like an eggshell.”
Prophet turns back to the burning skies, his broad armored chest rising and falling in a slow rhythm. “I must admit it sounds . . . feasible in theory, but raising this specter would be no simple matter. And the consequences of failure . . .”
“I will not fail, not with your support. I have already infiltrated the most powerful tribe on the continent and will soon restructure it as I see fit. In my hands it will be a weapon that will deliver us the war we’ve always wanted.”
“There are too many variables in this plan of yours, too many moving parts that may break.” Prophet turns to face her, dark emptiness where his eyes should be. “Worse, I worry you will unleash a monster you cannot control. Even as a pale shadow of what it is imitating, in the Red Wilds for that matter, this specter would be tremendously dangerous and unpredictable.”
“All the better to serve our ends. Time is not on our side, Prophet. The Veil will fall soon, and this may be the last chance we have to clinch our victory once and for all. Don’t you think we need to at least try?”
He thinks for a long time, and the Enchantress holds her breath.
“What would you need in this scenario?”
She keeps her smile to herself. “I need to buy the support of a group of powerful individuals. This means offering them something they don’t already have: Higher technology. I need blueprints for metaformic crystals and ciphermetric machines. I need access to your information network. If they are to become a convincing specter, they must look the part.”
Predictably, Prophet shakes his head. “The law of zero contact was created specifically to prevent Higher technology from falling into their hands. Now you want to hand it to them? Teach them how to work it and create it? You’re asking for trouble.”
“I am trying to start a war. Your apprehension only proves why this will work. The world has always feared the Red Wilds, but from a place of ignorance. Let us give them a better reason to be afraid.”
Prophet stares at the Enchantress, calculating. Eventually he looks away and turns his gaze to the fiery skies. “You may leave now, Enchantress. I have heard your case, and I will think on it.”
This time she allows herself a brief smile. He won’t admit it just yet, but she has won him over to her cause. She looks out to the skies as well, hugging herself. “Please, let me watch for a while longer.”
“Isn’t it beautiful? I wonder if we will live to see it with our own eyes.”
“That is the hope, my dear Prophet.”
They stand there together for a while, in the pavilion above the world. Prophet is still watching the skies when she finally leaves.
15: Isa
Yonte Saire, the Jungle City—Kingdom of the Yontai
“Your Highness? Your Highness, are you listening?”
“Yes. Sure. Inviting the Valausi ambassador is an excellent idea.”
Only when she hears a snort of laughter coming from her left does Princess Isa Andaiye Saire finally lift her gaze from the book in her lap. Cousin Zenia, lounging on the white velvet couch nearby, won’t stop giggling.
“Oh, Isa.” Eyes flashing with amusement, Zenia idly caresses the gems on her silver-and-diamond necklace, perfectly at home in the milk-white opulence of the Ivory Drawing Room. The stones contrast beautifully with the clan tattoos rising up her long neck, elegant lines and motifs of the elephant clan. “We moved on from the guest list ten minutes ago,” she says.
“Oh.” Across the room, Chief Steward Maumo has gotten that pinched look on his wrinkled face, the one that visits him whenever he tries hard not to show just how annoyed he is. Isa has been getting that look from him quite a lot lately.
A plush rug of white-leopard skin stretches across the floor between their legs, and on top of it sits a glass-paneled table whose clawed feet are pure ivory. Isa closes her book and gently places it on the table. She straightens her skirts of patterned silver brocade and attempts a look of contrition. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m a bit distracted today. Where were we?”
The chief steward’s lips grow thinner. “Your Highness, forgive me for saying so, but you seem disinterested of late. Perhaps event planning isn’t stimulating enough for you?”
Her mother would hound her into the underworld if she abandoned yet another princess-worthy responsibility, so Isa lies without a second thought. “Not at all, Chief Steward.” Of course I’m fond of the endless minutiae of planning feasts and celebrations. “I just became engrossed in this book, that’s all. The city’s architectural history is simply fascinating. Did you know that the undertown warrens have never been fully mapped?”
“But is that really where your mind was, Isa?” Zenia says from her couch. “In the undercity warrens? Or was it perhaps with a certain Sentinel—” She giggles and covers her mouth with a bejeweled hand when Isa cuts her a freezing glare.
“Chief Steward Maumo,” Isa says, turning back to the long-suffering man. “I will look over all your proposals before the end of the day tomorrow. Perhaps we can continue our planning then? I promise I’ll be less distracted.”
Isa would rather do anything else. The New Year’s Feast happens every comet; why can’t the guest list and the menu and every other wearisome detail just be the same as it was during the last feast?
With a resigned shake of his head, the chief steward gathers his pens and papers, and his white grand boubou makes a swishing sound as he gets up from his divan. “Very well, Your Highness. Shall we
meet in the Turquoise Drawing Room, same time tomorrow?”
Isa peers down at her ivory bangles and silver-encrusted nails. Meeting in any of the Summit’s other themed private drawing rooms would require changing her look, which is simply more fuss than she’s willing to subject herself to right now. “We’ll meet here,” she says.
His pursed lips suggest the steward has an opinion on the matter, but he manages to keep his thoughts to himself. “As you wish.” He bows. “Your Highnesses.” And then he shuffles out the door and into the hallway beyond.
As soon as he disappears, Zenia turns to Isa with a gleeful smile. “So? What does it say?”
Isa pretends not to know what she’s talking about. She casually picks up her book from the table and flips through its pages. “What does what say?”
“The mirrorgram you’ve been staring at all day.”
“For your information, I was using it as a bookmark. I was actually reading.”
“Of course you were.” Zenia reaches over and wiggles the fingers of an open hand. “The note, if you please.”
Isa sighs and pulls the little white note out of her book. A single line of uniformly printed red script runs across its center. “If you really must know . . .”
“I must.” Zenia plucks the mirrorgram from Isa’s hand and reads it out loud. “‘I am writing to tell you I’ll be on palace duty in a week’s time.’ Signed, Obe.” She wrinkles her nose. “A bit dry, isn’t it? This is hardly a suitable love note to a princess.”
“Not a love note, Zenia. Just a note. Chaste, like our relationship.”
Zenia rolls her eyes with a huff, returning the note. “You know you can’t fool me, so I’m baffled why you even try.”
Isa once again wonders why she took Zenia into her confidence. They might be the same age, at seventeen, and Zenia is probably the most like Isa among the princesses of the rather large extended royal family, but she’s a pathological chatterbox. Certain people who were never supposed to know about the secret behind the little white note now know about it, and Isa suspects Zenia is the one to blame.
She considers confronting her, but then a young girl with a white dress and silver threads in her braids rushes into the drawing room, panting like she’s been running for some time.
Isa frowns at her in worry. “Suye, what’s wrong?”
“Cousin Isa!” Suye says excitedly. She bends over, bracing her hands on her knees as she tries to catch her breath. “You said to announce when your mother was coming.”
“And?”
“She’s coming!”
Isa curses under her breath.
“Why is that significant?” Zenia asks. Then her eyes slit with suspicion. “And why do you suddenly look like you expect a ninki nanka to rush in through the door?”
If only it were a ninki nanka. Quickly, Isa slips the white note back into the book and closes it. “I’ve got to go. Come, Suye.”
Zenia’s confused gaze tracks Isa as she leads Suye toward the wide exit opening out into the White Lily Garden with its gushing marble fountains. “Isa, what’s going on? Why the devil are you avoiding your mother?”
Isa turns around. “Because, Zenia, it turns out she knows about him. She heard a rumor somehow, and now it’s all she’ll talk about. I wonder who babbled.”
“Oh.” At least Zenia has the decency to look abashed. “Go on, then. I’ll cover for you.”
That’s what I thought. Shoving down a spike of annoyance, Isa brushes past the filmy curtains by the threshold and into the lushness of the garden beyond. Suye’s laughter trails behind her as they hurry along a stone path through well-kept beds of white lilies glistening with droplets from an earlier cloudburst. The Summit’s brightly painted limestone walls and glazed bamboo domes loom largely all around them, pregnant with the history of the thousands who’ve walked its halls before, reminding Isa, as they always do, that she is but a footnote, an insignificant player, in the story of a dynasty that has endured for centuries.
Faraswa gardeners and patrolling Sentinels in patterned green tunics and aerosteel armor bow to the duo along the way. As they turn onto a marble-columned gallery, Suye races to catch up, her little silver sandals pitter-pattering on the tiled floors. “Cousin Isa, where are we going?”
“Somewhere my mother won’t find us.”
“Oh. Oh.” Suye slows down, hesitating. “Cousin Isa, I don’t know . . .”
“It’ll be fine.” Isa keeps walking determinedly, giving the girl no choice but to follow.
A minute later they sweep up a flight of winding stairs, through a glazed bamboo rotunda, past a pair of silent guards in aerosteel armor and blue tunics patterned with elephant motifs, and then into a grandly appointed study. The four people already inside—the king, his two sons, and his herald—give them only passing glances before returning to their animated conversation.
“Don’t mind us,” Isa says, even though she knows she’ll be ignored. “We’re just here to join the furniture.”
A set of coal-black couches takes up the center of the oval room, and beyond it a pair of open doors leads out to a balcony with a view fit for a king. A gold-leafed colossus of a young warrior can be seen rising on the far side of the palace’s manicured lawns and palm trees, and in the distance, the twin waterfalls gushing beneath the Red Temple appear as turbulent white ribbons. Isa pulls Suye to the couches, almost wincing as the impossible red jewel hovering above the distant temple briefly glares, its facets catching the afternoon sunlight. The Ruby Paragon seems almost like a star where it hangs, caught in an eternal lateral spin between the thin black towers of the temple’s Shrouded Pylon.
Suye’s wide eyes slowly take in the study and then fix nervously on its four occupants, who are seated around a mahogany table at the front of the room. She isn’t a shy girl by any means, but for some reason the king makes her nervous, and the crown prince even more so. Isa suspects a girlhood crush might be the culprit for that last one.
She smiles in amusement and begins to tug idly at Suye’s braids while she picks up the threads of the conversation she intruded on. Technically, the king’s study is no place for a young princess, but the king has always been permissive with his children, and he’s never once complained about Isa coming and going as she pleases. Her mother, on the other hand, never sets foot in here, which makes it the perfect hiding place.
“What about the reports of increasing violence against our clanspeople in the crocodile province?” Kali, the crown prince, says. “Some of the things I’ve heard, the language being used against us—it’s outright genocidal propaganda.”
The crown prince, Isa would say, is far too serious for his own good, certainly more serious than any twenty-one-year-old man has any right to be. Unlike the typical Saire prince, Kali served with the King’s Sentinels and dresses in the blue tunics of the Saire Royal Guard, with nothing but a single golden chain to indicate his princely rank. Isa misses the much less austere brother she knew growing up.
Prince Ayo—a better-looking if slighter version of the crown prince, possessing all of the ego and none of the humility, in emerald robes as princely as his brother’s are plain—leans back in his chair with a smirk. “That’s nothing new, though, is it? And I doubt it’s restricted to the crocodile province. Every other clan has always hated us, and why wouldn’t they? The Saires own all the banks, the entire transport infrastructure, not to mention stakes in practically every mine and grainfield in the kingdom. On top of that, we get to be kings.” Ayo shrugs unworriedly. “Resentment is inevitable, but it’s nothing we can’t handle.”
Isa rolls her eyes. Trust Ayo to be smug about Saire predominance and absolutely blind to why that might not be such a good thing.
“Your overconfidence concerns me, brother,” Kali says to Ayo, then turns to the man across the table. “And it’s especially concerning that you’re not more worried about this, Great Elephant. Kola Saai is conscripting every young crocodile into his legion. He’s almost doubled his forces
just this last comet. How can you not wonder what he’s up to?”
King Mweneugo Saire, portly in his middle age, with eyes that can be as soft as they can be unyielding, strokes his thick beard. The many gold and ivory chains of his office seem to add more bulk to his chest, glittering in tandem with the gilded elephant mounted on the wall behind his large chair. “I can wonder and worry until I’m a wrinkled corpse, my son,” he says, “but at the end of the day what matters is what I can prove. Can you prove the Crocodile is up to no good?”
“Well, he did just marry that foreign woman,” Ayo says. “Dulama, I think, or from somewhere else up north. I heard he had to put her up in his Skytown palace because she found his clanlands too, and I quote, ‘rustic.’ Isn’t that a little strange? A woman who won’t live in her own husband’s princedom because it’s too ‘rustic’?”
“Strange, maybe,” the king says, “but some people find it hard to part with the comforts of this city. I can’t say I see any malice there.”
“Neither do I,” Kali says, “and all of that is irrelevant in any case.” He briefly shoots his brother an irritated look. “I’m talking about the size of the crocodile legion. Specifically, why Kola Saai has doubled it.”
The herald, Princess Chioko Saire, a shrewd woman in a matching golden caftan and head wrap whose eyes always seem to twinkle like she knows everyone’s secrets, chimes in with her characteristically diplomatic voice. “I suspect he’d remind you that Umadiland kisses the southern edge of his province. To anyone looking, he’s only doing what needs to be done to secure his borders. We all know how rapacious those southern warlords can be. More so now than ever.”
“I get that,” Kali says, “but why so many men?”
“I think you are right to be concerned, Your Highness,” the herald says, “but perhaps your focus is a little misplaced.”
“How so?”
“It’s not so much the expansion of his legion that should catch your eye as the fact that he’s done it largely without consulting His Majesty. A clear challenge to the mask-crown’s authority. Your larger point remains, however. The headmen need a firmer hand.”
