by Anna Eluvae
"Are we ready to go?" asked Kendrick. "My bags are packed." This was a little joke, because he was taking nothing with him, but the silent woman didn't smile, and only gestured for him to follow. He obliged, and stepped lightly behind her. He'd shaved his goatee and was wearing common clothes, which would make him difficult to recognize, but the path they were following was taking them deeper in the building instead of outside. Kendrick had never been to the place before, and looked around at the wooden walls with interest as they walked. It had been, or possibly still was, a sprawling shop of the kind the Council seemed to have in abundance.
"How have things been going in the city?" asked Kendrick. Predictably, this didn't get a response. "Everyone mourning my death? My only regret in all this is that I won't get to attend my own funeral. I think that if we had the right collection of domains we could have done it. You would have been in charge of changing the shape of my face, and with different hair and possibly some darker skin, I could have been unrecognizable, at least until I opened my mouth. But even then, acting isn't exactly foreign to me. Did you see the performance?" Again there was no response. "Well, I did wonderfully. No one had any clue except for Nemm. I saw her face right near the end, and I was sure that she was going to put a stop to it all, but I suppose her woman's intuition didn't get her the whole way. It'll be a shame to lose her. The others, not so much."
He chattered amiably as they walked, simply because he enjoyed it. He did regret that he wouldn't be the one to end Wenaru, but those dice had never looked like they were going to come up in his favor. Wenaru wouldn't survive the coming weeks, Kendrick had been assured of that. The Iron Kingdom would scoop out the rotten core of Torland, and the glorified mercenaries would be taken out with it. The kingdom of Torland would be made anew, and if it would owe something to the Iron Kingdom, that seemed like a small price to pay.
The benefactor sat behind a desk, looking down at hastily written letters that must have come in from around the city. Sitting on one corner of the desk was a blocky gray device with a hole in the top that simply screamed Harbinger artifact. It had that same annoying insistence that the benefactor's ring had; you couldn't look at it without knowing that the Harbingers had made it. If the Harbingers had been able to encode that into an object, Kendrick figured that they would have been better off informing you what the thing actually was, but trying to make sense of the Harbingers had always been a fool's game, and Kendrick's opinion on that hadn't changed after he'd known for certain that they had once existed.
"Why am I still here?" asked Kendrick. "I should be leaving." Every moment that he remained in Meriwall there was a risk that he would be discovered, however small. It was damned hard to turn a narrative around once it got rolling, but more pertinent to Kendrick, there was a high personal risk involved.
"Put your hand in the device," the benefactor said. His hood had been pulled back, and he was revealed as an old man with white hair, though they'd had enough meetings that this wasn't any surprise. The benefactor tapped the Harbinger artifact for emphasis.
"Why?" asked Kendrick.
"I received this only late today," said the benefactor. "It will change your domain from blood to sound."
"I didn't ask for that," said Kendrick. He was about to say that he couldn't very well be the Blood Bard without a domain of blood, but then he remembered that the Blood Bard was dead. "If I have a free choice of domains —"
"You don't," said the benefactor. "Priming the device is expensive. Changing your domain is necessary for the creation of your new life, and sound is a preferable domain for a bard."
"I can agree with that," said Kendrick. "But we didn't discuss this before —"
"I didn't know whether the device would be available," said the benefactor. "Originally it was to happen in the Iron Kingdom. Now, please. After this you sail away. A changed domain will prove beyond all doubt that you are not the Blood Bard."
Kendrick stepped and looked down at the device. The hole at the top of it wasn't circular; it was shaped like a hexagon. Kendrick's curiosity was piqued, but something about this didn't feel right. Still, if they'd wanted to kill him, the silent woman could have done that when she was healing him earlier, and there wouldn't have been much that he could do about that. He had to trust that he was still worthwhile to them as an illustrati; his legend would grow with his martyrdom, and the Iron Kingdom could make good use of him.
"It won't hurt," said the benefactor.
"Very well," said Kendrick. He gave them his best smile, the one that he used at the end of particularly bawdy songs, and stuck his hand into the artifact's maw. He had expected it to clamp down on him, or change its shape, but instead it simply emitted a loud, solid tone.
"You may remove your hand," said the benefactor.
"For people who understood fame better than we do, the Harbingers didn't have any particular flair for the dramatic," said Kendrick. He rubbed at his wrist, but felt only a slight tingle. He felt off, somehow, and realized slowly that it was because he could no longer feel his blood. "I would have used flashing lights and a song of some sort." Yet if he could no longer feel his blood, then surely he should have been able to sense sound in some way. The domain of sound was supposed to give you a gilded ear. He should have been able to modulate his voice without thinking about it. Yet there was no domain intuition that Kendrick could feel. "What did you do?"
"Primed the device," said the benefactor.
Kendrick felt a hand on his neck and turned around to see the silent woman gripping him. His first instinct was to go for her blood, to push it up into her head and burst every vessel in the brain, but he felt nothing. The last thing he saw was a slight quirk of a smile on the silent woman's face.
Chapter 9
The city smelled of smoke. It soaked into Dravus's clothing and filled his nostrils. His sweat made black streaks on his skin where it touched the bits of ash. After the first hour, he'd developed a light cough that he was sure was going to get worse as the night dragged on.
A few of the fires had been easy to deal with. They had been in relatively affluent parts of the city, as befit the Council of Laborers' stated ideal. The print shop had burnt to the ground, but when the fire made the leap to other buildings, there were people ready with buckets of sand to toss on top of the embers. There had been a sizable crowd ready to see justice had, but few really wanted to see the whole city burn, even if it was one of the richer areas. The fire in the church had consumed the interior, but there was no risk of it spreading. It was a building of thick stone, ringed with a few precious feet of green grass that had now turned brown. It was a similar story at three of the banks; the illustrati of flame there had gone nearly unchecked. Rather than proselytize to the crowds, he had set himself wholly on fire and burned his way through the buildings with as much heat as he could manage. He had done an immense amount of damage, and burned through countless ledgers, bills of exchange, letters of credit, and the various paraphernalia of the moneyed. The fire itself had been contained within the ornate masonry and tiled floors, and hadn't spread outward.
Not every part of the city was so lucky.
The group walked quickly, and in tight formation. Flame had been coaxed from the Flower Queen's lap, leaving an imprint of tears there, and against the orders of the queen, Darkheart had chosen to accompany them with his steel armor covering him from head to toe. He had a sword so massive that it looked like it was designed for cleaving cows cleanly in half. Lexari flew overhead, while Nemm and Dravus moved their small party along at what seemed to be a glacial pace. Dravus's job was to act as the secondary lookout by peering into the shadows. The enemy was using incognito illustrati, and Dravus was tense with the feeling that they could be attacked at any moment. The fire ahead of them had gotten noticeably larger.
There had been a strong argument for staying in the palace and letting the commoners take care of themselves. Fires — even bad fires — weren't unheard of in Meriwall, and the city had been marred by
a serious one just twenty years prior. In the wake of that, the city had passed certain laws and made a few preparations. The constables had buckets of sand to put out errant embers, and there were bucket brigades to bring up water from the River Hathim that ran through Meriwall like a thick vein. When Darkheart had begun to talk about how thatched roofs had been outlawed, and how new construction was done with stone instead of wood, Dravus had grown more certain that there was still a need to act. He had seen enough of the city to know how much its citizens cared about those laws. He'd run across hundreds of thatched roofs without having the slightest hint that they were illegal. The law had been put in place to appease someone, and actual enforcement had fallen to the wayside. That was a pattern that Dravus knew all too well from Genthric.
"Just this one more, Flame," said Nemm. "We'll put out this fire, and then we'll go back to the palace and sleep the night away." Nemm was walking faster than anyone else, and kept having to make frequent pauses to wait for them to catch up. Flame had been given new clothes which were now singed, but the illustrati-forged chainmail coat she wore would protect her modesty in all but the strongest fires. "I can carry you, if you'd like," Nemm said for the third time.
Dravus's watchful eyes caught Flame's for a brief moment. She was staring at the fire, which rose up over the rooftops. "It's so large," she said. "I don't know if I can."
"Let's get there first and then see," said Nemm.
The crowds began two blocks from the fires. Some of them were merely watching, while others were more clearly refugees whose homes and businesses were burning. Every one of them had to be looked at with suspicion; any of them could have been one of the hidden illustrati that the Council seemed to have in abundance. Given how heavily armored Darkheart and Nemm were, it was little wonder that the crowds gave them a wide berth. That was a small piece of fortune. They couldn't risk getting touched by one of the commoners, not if they could secretly be holding the domain of flesh.
"They'll tell stories about you, Flame," said Nemm. "They'll talk about how you saved this city from a fire that was set to consume it."
"I can feel the heat from here," said Flame. "My face is warm already."
"Fire can't hurt you," said Nemm. Her voice was calm and steady, but that was the only part of her that was keeping up the act. Dravus couldn't tell whether he was seeing anxiety or impatience, but there were emotions close to the surface that Nemm didn't have the energy to hide. The night felt like a fortnight; at a guess, it was four o'clock in the morning, and there had been stress enough during the day.
"Fire isn't heat," said Flame. "They're paired, and they have overlap, but they're not the same. And immunity is linked to standing, I know that much, so why should I be protected from an inferno? I could die in there."
"You can take it slowly," Nemm began.
"I can't," said Flame. They were three houses away now, and had come to a halt. Dravus was sweating profusely, and he had to avert his eyes from the intensity of the flame. He was casting long shadows, and directed them back towards the flame to put himself in his own shade. "I can't," repeated Flame. "I'm sorry, but you're going to have to do it without me."
"Kaitlin," said Nemm with a soft voice. Dravus had practically forgotten that Flame had a given name. "Have you ever heard the story of how I got my scar?" The glass faceplate had parted further to show the pearly white line that ran down the side of Nemm's face.
"I don't … it was a fight, wasn't it?" said Flame. She was looking at Nemm now, with the fire raging behind her.
"It was early in my career," said Nemm. "I didn't have any experience with what it meant to be a fighter. I was really just a girl, cast out from my home and living off the kindness of strangers. I'd taken dinner with a few of the nobles of Abalon, and one of them had invited me back to his home. I was very free with my body in those days. Only when I came into his bedroom, and began to undress for him, he called me a whore and spit on me. I had been a queen; I wasn't about to stand for that. I got haughty about it, and began to curse him out. That was when he pulled out a knife and slashed at me. I was terrified. I clutched at my bleeding face and after I had fled, I spent the night crying. That morning though, even though the fear hadn't left me, even though the wound hurt terribly, I decided that I wasn't going to let it control me. We define ourselves by how we respond to pressure and strife. Running away is easy. Letting someone else deal with a problem is easy too. But that's not how we grow as people. It's not how we become a better version of ourselves. Kaitlin, you need to do this. Not because it's the right thing to do, though it is, and not because you're the only one with the right domain, though you are, but because this is the moment where you define yourself against the fear and anxiety."
Flame nodded along towards the end of this speech. She set her jaw and turned back towards the fire. "You're right." She stepped forward, and faltered slightly. Dravus could imagine the heat.
"You can do it," said Nemm.
"Yes," said Flame. She steeled herself and strode towards the burning tenements, and this time she didn't slow down.
Nemm let out a low sigh. "That was a near thing."
Darkheart coughed into his fist. "Your majesty, I had heard that the scar was symbolic, but the story itself … I had never heard it. I know it was not meant for my ears," he looked towards Dravus, "But of course I will practice discretion in this matter."
"I appreciate that," said Nemm. "It's not a story that's made it into my biographies."
Dravus wanted to ask whether the story was true, but Flame had reached the first of the burning buildings. The flames died down where she walked. Soon she was inside the building, and hidden from view. The plan was simply to burn the buildings to the ground. Flame would increase the flames while drawing them inward, in an attempt to burn all the fire's fuel while preventing it from spreading to the other buildings. Space was at a premium in Meriwall, and the buildings had been numerous stories which jutted out at every level to monopolize the space above the roads.
"She'll die if the building collapses," said Dravus. "A thick wooden beam to the head would knock her out, and there would be no way to rescue her."
"A bigger concern is that one of the illustrati of flame might be in there, waiting for her," said Nemm. "Nothing to be done about it though. Just keep your eyes out for threats." She glanced up as a glowing white form passed over them. "More likely Lexari will see it first, but all the same, we have little better to do at the moment. Be prepared to start making firebreaks." She glanced at the city block around them. "If we bring down those buildings, perhaps we can prevent the fire from spreading."
Flame might well have been sent to her death with a story about personal growth, and Nemm didn't seem the slightest bit concerned. It occurred to Dravus that the death of the queen's alchemist might be a good thing for the country of Torland. The narcotic flowers were produced by the queen and distilled by Flame. Dravus was certain that was how Nemm would think; if Flame managed to put out the fires, then that was some good accomplished, but if Flame died, it would help to restore the queen to her former self.
It took an hour and a half in total. A dozen buildings had been destroyed, and one of them had collapsed, but Flame emerged, if covered in soot and looking worn down. What clothing she'd had on had burned away, save for the steel chain shirt, which glowed orange with the heat. When she smiled, her white teeth gave a contrast to her ash-coated skin.
Dravus worried about an attack during the entire trip back to the palace. He worried that there would be another fire that would demand their attention. Nothing came though. He collapsed into his bed just as the sun began to rise.
* * *
"What do we know for a fact?" asked Nemm.
"Nothing," said Wenaru. He had slept far more than anyone else, but didn't seem much better for it.
"We know that they were enhanced," said Dravus. "Better muscles and likely better bones."
"That's a guess," said Wenaru. "If I had been there, I might hav
e been able to tell for certain, or if I'd had a body to autopsy."
"We were busy," Lexari said with a smile. "Next time perhaps."
"There are at least three sides," said Nemm. "The Council of Laborers are local, opposed to the Flower Queen's rule, and trying to start a coup. The Iron Kingdom is presumably backing them, but even if it weren't, the Iron Kingdom will sense weakness and be ready to strike. That would be difficult without casus belli, because too many other countries and illustrati would be pulled in. The Flower Queen's side, which we can call the royalists, just want everything to stay the same."
"The Iron Kingdom has control of Harbinger artifacts, and the knowledge to use them," said Lexari.
"No," said Wenaru. "It's one thing to say that, it's another entirely to prove it. Nemm wanted to know the facts, and what you're offering is a hypothesis." He folded his hands across his chest. "I would require extraordinary proof to accept that something so truly unprecedented is going on."
