The Severed City

by Christopher Mitchell

  ‘But I can do something they can’t,’ Kalayne said. ‘When I look out through someone else’s eyes, I not only see their past. Sometimes I see their future too.’

  ‘But how?’ Daphne said, over the sound of Karalyn’s cries.

  ‘She has to leave first,’ he said.

  ‘Who, Shella?’

  ‘Aye. What I have to say is for you alone.’

  Daphne turned and glanced at Shella, who was glowering at Kalayne.

  ‘Okay, I’ll go,’ Shella said. ‘Sick of your company anyway, you sleazy old bastard.’

  ‘My offer of a date still stands,’ he chuckled as she left the room. ‘Remember, I saved your life, you owe me one.’

  Shella slammed the door behind her.

  Daphne waited for Kalayne to stop giggling.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  He looked at the baby. ‘First,’ he said, and Karalyn calmed and went to sleep in Daphne’s arm.

  ‘How did you do that?’ she cried.

  ‘Easy,’ he said. ‘She is the same as me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s a dream mage. Well, that’s what I call them.’

  He picked up the water jug and sighed. ‘Got any booze?’

  Daphne stood, and placed Karalyn down in a small cot by the fireplace, covering her with a blanket. She went over to a cupboard and opened the hidden shelf. She withdrew a bottle and two glasses.

  ‘Ahh, Daphne my girl,’ Kalayne beamed.

  She poured and handed him a glass.

  He sniffed. ‘Rum, rum, rum.’

  She lit a cigarette while he drank.

  ‘What I know,’ he said, ‘I have pieced together over a long time. I share another trait with your vision mages; I possess the ability to hear the voice of the creator. However, unlike your prophets, I cannot initiate a conversation. Instead, I enter the mind of the creator in my dreams, and hear his thoughts. Every time, he is unaware that I am listening. I can scream and shout, but he never hears me. I don’t believe he has ever once been aware that I’ve been in his head.’

  ‘You can hear his private thoughts?’

  ‘Aye, and trust me, they’re not as benevolent as the Holdings church would have you believe.’

  Daphne sipped her drink.

  ‘I share other traits, such as what you call range-vision,’ he went on, ‘but no battle-vision, praise the creator. I would hate to have to do all that leaping about. And, as I said, I can see the future through other people’s eyes. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a relic, a descendant of the creator’s first attempt to imbue the people of this world with mage powers.’

  ‘The creator gave the Kellach Brigdomin vision powers?’

  ‘No,’ he frowned, as if explaining something simple to a child. ‘Before the Holdings split from my folk, I believe they were one people, and that the creator experimented on them, giving them a primitive form of the vision powers he bestowed on your ancestors. This is the only explanation of how Killop and you could have produced such a child. Killop’s family has no trace of my mage powers, so it must have been something in him combining with your own vision abilities, which triggered Karalyn.’

  ‘Sorry, but that sounds like nonsense,’ Daphne said. ‘How do you even know she has these older powers?’

  ‘I sensed her in my dreams even before she was born.’

  ‘Then won’t the creator sense her too?’

  ‘Have you been listening?’ he frowned. ‘I’ve already told you that the creator has no inkling that I have seen his mind. He believes, I am sure, that his earlier experiment was a failure, and has forgotten all about the attempt.’ He smirked. ‘I spent time inside your warm womb while Karalyn sheltered there. I look at you Daphne, and part of me thinks of you as my mother…’ He laughed.

  Daphne grimaced.

  ‘Your womb is a wonderful place,’ Kalayne said. ‘I had the most restful dreams there.’

  ‘Please don’t talk about my womb.’

  ‘Fine. Anyway, you must have suspected something was different about the child.’

  Daphne paused, reluctant to open up to the old man.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to help you. Well, I’m trying to help your daughter. I don’t actually care about you.’

  ‘You want to help Karalyn?’

  ‘Right now,’ he said, ‘she and I are the only ones in this world with dream powers. Up until I first sensed her, I’d presumed I’d be the last of that line. Our powers come on at birth, not at adolescence, another fact which supports my theory that we were the creator’s first attempt. I had a very difficult childhood. Imagine a two year old being able to use inner-vision at will. Imagine a four year old. At that age there are no morals, or fear of consequences to stop you. Soon, everyone around is scared of you, avoids you. Tries to exile or kill you.’

  He cast his glance downwards, shaking his head.

  ‘Of course I want to help her,’ he said, ‘and part of helping her is preparing you for what her life will be like. It will not be easy.’

  Daphne frowned. ‘She can sense my feelings. Half of me wants to believe that I’m only imagining it, but I know it’s true. If an angry thought crosses my mind she cries. If I’m happy she laughs. I feel her discomfort if her nappy needs changed, and her hunger too.’ A tear rolled down her cheek. ‘What you have described sounds awful. I don’t know if I’ll be able to cope.’

  ‘I can teach you how,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you how to protect your mind, make it more resilient to her thoughts invading you. And I’ll show you how to guide her. Even so, it will not be easy. But you must do it, Daphne. The world depends on it.’

  ‘The world?’

  ‘I’ll need to stay here with you for a bit,’ he said, pouring himself another drink. ‘I’ll teach you what you need, and protect her at the same time.’

  ‘Protect her? From what?’

  He squinted at her as if she were stupid.

  ‘The damn priests, Daphne,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t trust them. Their minds have been turned by the creator, and they work to his purpose. They’ve been waiting for your child to be born, waiting to see if she’s a freak of nature before deciding what to do with her.’

  Her eyes darted over to the cot, and Karalyn let out a whimper.

  ‘Calm yourself,’ he said. ‘So far the baby appears normal to them. One other trick I can show you is how to shield your mind, and hers, from their prying.’

  ‘Show me that first,’ she said. ‘The idea of them being in my head, let alone Karalyn’s, sickens me.’

  ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘that will be our first lesson tomorrow. Even so, as time goes on it will become harder to hide her powers.’

  ‘I intend to go back to Rahain as soon as she can travel.’

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘You’ll be safer there, for a while.’ He sighed. ‘Off into the arms of that man-bear Killop? How he gets the good ones I’ll never know. Wait a minute. Ha! I do believe that red-haired beauty Kallie must be single again. Mmm, I wonder where she is.’

  ‘I’ll have to break it gently to the household that you’ll be staying,’ she said. ‘Can I ask you to temper your scorn, and forgo the lewd comments?’

  ‘Aye, you can ask,’ he said, ‘but I warn you, any such request would be met with studied indifference on my part. For instance, I intend to make a pass at Shella on a daily basis. I’ll wear her down eventually.’

  ‘I’ll enjoy watching you try.’

  She glanced over at the cot, where the baby was sleeping soundly, and wondered how much of her relief at Kalayne’s arrival was due to his ability to soothe her.

  ‘You can really see into the creator’s head?’ she said.

  ‘I can. It is a dark, angry place. Much pettier than any supreme being has a right to be if you ask me.’

  ‘A priest said something to me a while back,’ she said, ‘about how I was no longer part of the creator’s plans.’

  ‘The priest was right,’ he said. ‘The creator
thinks you’re damaged, contaminated by your coupling with a man from another mage-line, and has no need for you any more. Count yourself lucky.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He has plans Daphne. I only know fragments, but he wants mages brought here from every corner of the world. He needs them for something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Kalayne. ‘Every vision I have of his plan ends in my death.’

  Chapter 32

  Return to Slateford

  Slateford, Rahain Republic – 30th Day, Last Third Winter 505

  ‘You didn’t tell me how beautiful this place was,’ Bridget said, as they strolled down the farm track, between vineyards and olive groves. Trees were budding in the mountain air, and they could feel the chill of winter fading, and the warmth of spring ready to burst forth. Early flowers dotted the grassy hillside, knee-high beacons of red, yellow and purple swaying in the breeze.

  The path led down into a sheltered valley, where the mansion of Slateford Estate sat, boarded up and empty. In the courtyard before it, stood the gaien carriage that had brought them from the Severed City that morning, while its four beasts circled overhead in the sunshine.

  ‘It was blowing a blizzard when I was here,’ Killop said. ‘Didn’t see much except for the inside of that cottage.’ He pointed at a row of out-buildings near the mansion. ‘I had no idea how large the estate was.’

  They paused before heading down the slope, to catch a last view from the hillside. The entire valley now belonged to the Severed Clan, from the spring and rocky cliffside at the southern end, right up to the broad arable plain to the north. A river ran through the centre of the valley, and the terraced slopes were covered with olive trees, orchards and vineyards. There was a settlement on the road at the northern boundary of the estate, with houses to fit over four hundred people, and there were several more farmsteads and hamlets dotted throughout the valley.

  ‘This is all ours,’ Larissa said, taking Killop’s hand.

  ‘My head is whirling with ideas,’ Bridget grinned. ‘Doing up the mansion, building more houses… Did you see the quarry out by the waterfall? We can build villages out of that stuff. But before we think about that, we’ll have to get everybody out into the fields right away. With so many emancipated Rahain having left the estate, we’ll have to plough and sow the fields ourselves, as well as finding places for everyone to stay…’

  ‘Shut up and enjoy the view,’ Larissa said.

  Bridget smiled. ‘I’ll give you two a moment,’ she said. ‘I’ll head down to that cottage you pointed out, see if it’s in a fit state. We might have to live there until the mansion’s ready.’

  She turned and headed down the path.

  ‘I’ve never seen her so excited,’ Killop said, his eyes following Bridget down the hillside.

  Larissa frowned. ‘I’m still a bit jealous of you and her. Are you sure you never went with her?’

  ‘Very sure,’ he said. ‘Can a man not be friends with a woman?’

  She kissed him. ‘Friends don’t do that.’

  He smiled, holding her round the waist.

  They gazed down onto the valley.

  ‘Look at the size of that house,’ she said, pointing at the mansion. ‘Larger than any chief’s hall back in Kellach. And just imagine when this valley is filled with our folk. Freed slaves from all over Rahain will come here, not just from the Severed City, and you’ll be chief of them all. And when they get settled, babies will come, and our life here will begin.’ She looked up at him. ‘This is all every Kellach slave has dreamed of.’

  His thoughts raced to Daphne, and the dreams he had lost.

  He forced himself to smile. ‘It’s been a long struggle, but we made it.’

  Another carriage appeared overhead, its gaien descending towards the open courtyard in front of the mansion.

  ‘Laodoc,’ Killop said.

  They watched as the carriage was lowered to the ground, and secured by its pilots. The winged gaien were released, and they flew up to join their brethren in the skies, wheeling and circling under the sun.

  Killop and Larissa walked down the hillside path, passing through a short strip of pine trees, erected as a wind barrier. At the bottom of the slope, they saw Bridget approach the new carriage. A few others from the clan were also present, having arrived that morning in the earlier carriage.

  The side door fell open, and a couple of Rahain guards got out. Laodoc followed, accompanied by a small retinue of assistants.

  The old man looked around, and Bridget rushed forward to embrace him.

  ‘Is that him?’ Larissa said as they got closer.

  ‘Aye,’ Killop said.

  ‘Maybe you shouldn’t tell him,’ she said. ‘Does he really need to know?’

  Killop said nothing.

  They emerged into the courtyard, and Laodoc caught his eye. Smiling, he disentangled himself from Bridget’s hug, and Killop stepped up.

  ‘Good to see you again, Laodoc,’ Killop said.

  Laodoc embraced him. Killop felt awkward, but patted the old man’s back.

  ‘My boy,’ Laodoc said. ‘How wonderful that you’re here. I hoped you’d come, but knew how busy you must be.’

  ‘Not as busy as you Laodoc,’ Killop smiled. ‘Chancellor of the Republic.’

  ‘Officially only from the day after tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I have two final days as a private citizen to enjoy.’

  ‘I’m afraid the chief will have to miss your inauguration,’ Bridget said, ‘though we’ll be sending a clan representative back to the capital with you for the New Year ceremonies.’

  ‘I understand,’ Laodoc said. ‘I’m just glad you’re both here for our own little ceremony today. And afterwards, I have some important news to share with you.’

  Killop frowned. ‘Me too.’

  Laodoc’s assistants removed several crates from the carriage, and began to set up a podium and lay out lines of chairs on the grass in front of the mansion. One aide opened a box, and filled a table with refreshments.

  ‘I took the liberty of bringing some wine,’ Laodoc said, as they walked to the table. ‘I wasn’t sure if you had much in the way of supplies.’

  ‘We only got here this morning,’ Bridget said. ‘More gaien are due to arrive over the next few days, bringing food, and more people from the Severed City.’

  Laodoc smiled as drinks were served. ‘Will the entire clan be moving here?’

  ‘Most of them,’ Bridget said. ‘The clan’s Rahain can’t bear to leave, they see it as their home, so we decided to let them stay rather than force them to make the move. And messengers have been sent to all of the big Kellach refugee camps, offering them a place here if they want it.’

  Laodoc’s face fell. ‘I have some bad news on that front,’ he said. ‘The Emancipation Board have been looking through the records of every Kellach slave. We have only been able to locate ninety thousand out of the original two hundred thousand that were brought here. We estimate there may be another twenty or thirty thousand still being held in the areas of the Republic that have yet to surrender, but we must assume that most of the rest have perished.’

  Killop bowed his head.

  ‘Once we’re settled,’ he said, ‘we’ll be able to offer you help in rooting out the rebels.’

  ‘Thank you, Chief Killop,’ Laodoc said. ‘Calcite City is the key, that’s where the rebel committee has based itself after fleeing the capital. We take that, and the rest of the rebellion will crumble.’

  Killop glanced at the old politician. The lines on his face were deeper, and his eyes lacked some of the light they had previously held, but his will seemed as strong as ever.

  ‘Would you be able to transfer copies of your slave records to Slateford, Chancellor?’ Bridget said. ‘Many of our folk will be travelling here looking for information about their loved ones, and we’d like to help as much as we can.’

  ‘Of course, Bridget,’ Laodoc said. ‘I’ll have them sent out
by wagon once the holiday’s over. May I ask, what will your advice be if your folk want to return to Kellach Brigdomin?’

  ‘We weren’t planning on handing out any particular advice,’ Killop said. ‘They can stay, or they can go, it’s up to them.’

  ‘Why do you ask?’ Bridget said.

  ‘The alliance sees the province of Kellach Brigdomin as unfinished business,’ Laodoc said, ‘but they don’t seem to know what to do about it. There’s no government down there from what I’m told. When the old Rahain regime collapsed, many soldiers and merchants seem to have remained, despite orders to return. The situation is still volatile.’

  ‘But we’re one of the five peoples of this world,’ Bridget said. ‘Don’t we have a say in this?’

  ‘The king of the Holdings has proclaimed Duncan as the chief of your people. He will represent you in the royal court.’

  Bridget frowned.

  ‘It’s a sad fact, Bridget,’ Laodoc said, ‘that currently the republic depends upon Kellach coal for heating. Most of the mines in Rahain are closed through lack of labour, and only the imports from your land are keeping the peasants from freezing. Hopefully, as it gets warmer come the new year, we will need less.’

  ‘But until then we should stay away?’ Bridget said. ‘And let you dig up and despoil our land? Are you worried we might go home and put a stop to your pillaging?’

  ‘Bridget,’ Killop said, ‘you and I will talk about this later.’

  Bridget pursed her lips, gazing at Laodoc. ‘We’ll continue this another time then, Chancellor.’

  ‘I look forward to our frank discussions, Bridget,’ he bowed.

  An assistant raised his hand, and Laodoc looked up.

  ‘Ahh,’ he said. ‘The preparations are complete.’

  They walked over to where the podium and chairs had been set on the grass. Laodoc went up to the small platform, and turned to the little crowd as they took their seats.

  ‘Greetings to you all,’ he said, ‘to my fellow Rahain citizens, and to those from Kellach Brigdomin. Here, on the last day of winter, something long awaited has occurred. Those who used to be slaves will own a piece of the land that enslaved them. They will become masters of their lives again, able to exercise their rights as free men and women, reclaiming something that should never have been stolen.