Hollow Empire

by Sam Hawke

  He looked taken aback, but only for a moment; soon his chin returned to its defiant, defensive position. “My auntie,” he said. “She disappeared. She went for water one night and never came back.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “The authorities couldn’t find out what happened?”

  He looked like he was going to spit, but glanced at the owner and thought better of it. His expression was very sour when he answered. “The town administrator set one of her people on it. He couldn’t find any sign of a struggle or any body so he decided she must have left on her own.”

  “And you don’t believe that.”

  The man snorted again. “No one who knew my aunt would believe that. Devoted to the town, she was. The administrator knew that too, but it was more convenient to claim Jesta left of her own volition. Allowed her to paint her as unreliable.”

  “So you took it further?” There was clearly more to this story than just one missing woman and a grudge with a local administrator; however tragic, it could hardly be blamed on the Council. But I didn’t want to anger him or have him close up and stop talking, either. “To your local council?”

  “Our village does not have a determination council. I walked to the next town,” the man said grimly. “But they would not hear my complaint.”

  “Where are you from?” I asked. “Somewhere local?”

  “No. I am from Lot’s Rise.”

  I frowned. There was something vaguely familiar about the name Lot’s Rise. I’d never been there but I thought I must have seen it on a map or written down somewhere recently, because I felt sure it was a town to the north.

  “In the Iliri lands,” he clarified, confirming my guess.

  “And what do you think happened to your aunt? Someone killed her? Took her?”

  A long pause. “Something bad. I am not the only one. I heard about others, and I met some of their families in the town. There are people all over Iliri and Oromani lands.” He gave a mocking little bow of the head as he looked at my tattoo. “Did you not know that?”

  Our own lands. I shook my head slowly. “You’re saying there are other missing people like your aunt. From other villages?”

  “That is what I have been trying to tell the authorities. A girl from Kakiu. A woman in Salt. There was a family I heard of who lost even a grandmother way up in Rokan, and the authorities there were sure she had wandered off into the hills and been eaten by a taskjer or fallen down an old mine. A grandmother who grew up in those hills!” He shook his head. “But no one in the town would listen, and no one in your fancy capital would even give me a chance to speak. No citizens are being permitted to bring appeals to the Silastian determination council, and when I sought to complain about being denied access to this justice I was told the Council itself would not hear complaints, either.” He pushed back from the bench and I had to resist the urge to grab his arm to keep him close as he started to stand. There was still more to this story, and something told me I needed it.

  “Please. I’m here and I’m listening. The Council might be focused on other things right now but I’m here in front of you.”

  Something in him seemed to sag, like invisible strings holding him upright had suddenly loosened. He sat again, and dragged both his hands through his wild hair. He looked exhausted.

  “We have wronged the spirits. They are abandoning us.”

  Dima stopped sucking the last of the meat juice from her sleeve and looked urgently down the table. “A hundred and fifty years the spirit’s been at our village,” she said. “We’ve driven away its protections somehow and some wickedness has killed it.” It was the most coherent sentence we’d had out of her, and her one visible eye gleamed with tears as she said it, as though it was coming at great personal cost.

  “You think the spirits had something to do with your aunt’s disappearance?” I asked the man, looking between our two sources.

  “She disappeared without anyone seeing a thing amiss,” he said, and the set of his jaw suggested he’d had to defend this position more than once.

  “Wouldn’t be the first person to want a change, eh, though? Would she?” The man beside him, who had been silently consuming an alarming number of fried beetles while we spoke, gave his neighbor a nudge. “’S’a lot of reasons someone might want to disappear.”

  The traveler glared at him. “Jesta would not willingly walk away from her family. Nor her duty to our spirits. She would never have abandoned us without a conduit to them, not now of all times.”

  “Her duty—was your aunt a Speaker?” I asked. My mouth had gone dry, though I could not quite say why.

  He frowned. “Yes. Her grandmother was a very powerful Speaker and Jesta was the last to be taught the ways in a long time.” He looked at my tattoos again, and I felt blood rush to my face and shame press against my ribs. The underdevelopment of Speakers across the country was the fault of families like mine, whether through deliberate malice or unforgivable neglect. I made myself meet his eyes, and he continued, with a touch of pride, “Jesta of Lot’s Rise is a name known all round our parts. When the spirit at Tenrowan Creek died, who do you think they called on first? To say she would just abandon us is—”

  “Tenrowan Creek,” I repeated, and now I remembered the map on which I had seen the name Lot’s Rise. Hadrea’s notes on the missing spirits. “The spirit at Tenrowan Creek died.”

  “Or left.” He scowled. “It does not matter. The fish died, water ruined. Folks lost livestock and wildlife alike.”

  “An-Ostada was there, wasn’t she?” A faint prickle of excitement gathered static in my chest, the feeling I was on the edge of understanding something; something important.

  “That Speaker from the city? For all the good that did. Jesta went in to town to speak to her and all she got was a lecture about failing to educate the population. As if it were Jesta’s fault Darfri practices have fallen out of favor! No, that investigation was about as useful as the one into Jesta’s disappearance.” He frowned at me. “What do you know about it?”

  I hesitated only momentarily. If I wanted candor it was only fair to offer it in return. “Spirits are dying or dead in places without explanation. That much we did know. An-Ostada and her apprentices reported the first instance probably five months ago now, but we didn’t realize it was a pattern until later. An-Ostada thought it was down to neglect.” We should have looked harder, but I’d been focusing on more physical and direct threats, and had been keen not to intrude in Darfri matters against the wishes of the elders.

  And yet, failing to take the Darfri and the spirits seriously had almost been our country’s downfall. Hubris and greed and shortsightedness had led us to forget or ignore our own heritage, nearly to the ruin of all. I couldn’t sit back and let that happen again, couldn’t assume these events were unrelated. I met the Darfri man’s eyes directly. “Listen. I promise, on my honor, on my family’s honor, I won’t ignore this. I can’t promise we’ll find your aunt, but I can promise I’m going to look.” I fumbled in my paluma for my notebook and pencil. “We’re going to take Dima here to get some help at the hospital but before we go, I want you to tell me everything you know.”

  * * *

  Chen stood stiffly, hands behind her back. There was an air of awkwardness about her posture and expression, and she didn’t seem to want to look at anyone directly. Could be she was regretting her manner with the Councilors two days ago; now she’d had a bit of rest she seemed embarrassed to have been so forthright with them. A shame. They could have used a bit of directness. We all could. It was long past the time where coddling us did anyone any favors.

  “All parties are satisfied the assassin caught poisoning patients at the hospital is not local, though so far attempts to determine his homeland have failed,” she said, keeping her eyes on the paper in front of her as she reported. “The prisoner Sukseno, formerly of my own Guards, has as part of an agreement to bring his sister into safety from retaliation by his employers agreed to divulge some in
formation about the Hands’ network. A small team of my people in conjunction with army officials this morning raided a house in the Weavers’ District on the basis of this information and arrested three members of the criminal gang and seized a quantity of money and the drug Void, which was being stored in a disused tunnel accessible from the basement of the house.”

  “The tunnels we ordered closed off after the siege?” Lazar asked.

  Chen bowed her head in acknowledgment. “It appears the Hands had reopened access for the purposes of their criminal activities,” she said. “As you can appreciate, Credo, the task of sealing off the entrances took a long time as part of the infrastructure repairs two years ago, and it is not possible for the Builders’ Guild to continuously maintain checks on every access point indefinitely.”

  “Army officials are now conducting a search of the tunnels, as it is likely other entrances have been used by the network,” Moest said. “We’re hoping to identify some other buildings they’re using.” There was a pleased murmuring around the table. “Noting the source of our information was a person who had infiltrated our city Guard, please understand this operation is being conducted as secretly as possible. If the Hands are tipped off about our plan, they will have time to respond. So this doesn’t leave this room.”

  “His information was good then,” I said. Honor-down, I was trying, but it was hard not to get my hopes up. “What did he say about the foreign connection? Where did they hire the assassin from?”

  Chen looked up properly then, and directly at me. “He says he doesn’t know anything about an assassin and he doesn’t reckon he’s got anything to do with them. He claims the Wraith—that’s the name he knows the Hands’ leader by, claims not to know her real identity—arranged the arena explosions under orders from the gang’s foreign backer, and that the entire criminal network was built around the supply of Void from across the border. It’s his view that the real money flows back out of the country.”

  The room started murmuring again. “To where? To whom?” someone demanded.

  “So far, he hasn’t said. Might be he’s holding out for further bargaining. For now, he’s told us the foreign agent who gives the Wraith orders is a woman, and she is—or was, at least during the karodee—here in the city. He claims the Wraith took an urgent meeting with her on the evening of the masquerade.”

  Excitement tingled in my fingers and I had to consciously work to keep them smooth and relaxed on the table. What Sukseno had told Chen checked out with my experience. They’d realized who I was and then come back with a plan to dump me at that party. I tried to remember exactly what the Wraith had said when she’d come back dragging poor drugged Tuhash with her. The boss suggested it. He wasn’t lying. She really had gone off to meet “the boss” in the interim.

  “And he won’t say who this person is? What good is this without a name?” asked Ifico, one of the estate representatives, throwing his hands up in frustration.

  Eliska cleared her throat. “The Captain has been so good as to provide my Guild with samples of Void, and I’ve just this morning set my best scientists to analyzing it as we speak. If we can identify the key ingredients we can perhaps learn where it is made. It might also be worth giving some to the research team at the hospital. They can do some testing on animals to better understand the effects on the body, and that might give us some further information.”

  “My daughter says this drug, this Void, has a particular effect in relation to Darfri communion with the spirits,” Salvea said, looking troubled. “Should that also be investigated by the physics?”

  Chen scratched her head, the lines between her brows deepening. “Right. On that note, there was one more bit of information we got out of Sukseno. Apparently in the early days, Void was distributed cheaply in the lower city, and it was only later they started marketing it as an expensive and exclusive drug for the upper classes. Parties like the one our Talafan guest died at are a newer source of revenue for the gang.”

  I felt a dark amusement at the thought of the kind of rich, spoiled people Sjease had said were the type to populate those parties thinking they were partaking in something unique, something to separate them from the masses, when really they were taking the same shit as the people on the streets in the outer village, just marked up in price. “It’s an addictive drug,” I said. “The physics told me people get badly hooked then do all sorts of things to afford to keep on it. Makes sense that they start it cheap so everyone gets addicted.”

  She nodded. “But the interesting part, to my mind, was all the sellers in the early days had orders to give Darfri customers discounts. They targeted Darfri districts and sold near Darfri gathering places. Some of the first businesses they started extorting were in the heaviest Darfri-populated areas.”

  We all digested that. Why had the Hands targeted the Darfri? To engender goodwill in those communities? I felt my insides go cold. Or to help recruit people, people like that rogue Speaker? The drug was the key. Its sales drove the Hands’ success and had allowed the gang to get a foothold in the city, spreading from the lower city all the way to high-class secret parties in the upper. And it had some connection to Darfri magic. But as far as I knew, the Darfri culture and its understanding and use of the secondworld was something unique to Sjona. How did it fit in with a foreign power looking to destroy us?

  “Well, it’s obvious what that’s about, isn’t it?” Credo Sjistevo thumped a hand on the table and looked pointedly around at the Council. “They want to recruit for a second rebellion! Our esteemed Darfri leader, An-Ostada herself, said she had had difficulties with some of her students. I don’t think anyone could now deny there has been resistance among some segments of the population, sometimes in the form of violence and sabotage, to the new Compact and Council. Our enemies are seeking to agitate old wounds and use these people to their own ends.”

  “This is not a rebellion,” Tain said. “We don’t even know what these people want, other than to hurt as many people as possible. What we need to find is the common factor between the rebellion and these attacks. We can’t defend against random, senseless attacks, so we have to make sense of them. Which is why the work the Administrative Guild is doing is of critical importance. We know there is someone styling themselves as a ‘Prince’—”

  “Talafar? There are half a dozen Princes to the north,” Javesto said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Or Tocatica? I didn’t like that Hanichii.”

  “I thought this Sukseno said it was a woman,” An-Suja said.

  “It’s not a single person, obviously,” Javesto shot back. “If they’ve funded an entire rebellion, and been mass-producing a drug, they’ve got money, they’ve got lands, and private ways of growing and manufacturing this sort of thing. I’ve heard from Talafan business contacts there’s a lot of drug use in the streets of the capital there, too. Could be it’s the same thing.”

  “The Prince was nearly killed in the explosions,” Tain said, “and his sister the Princess was. The assassin is not Talafan. The Empire’s our best hope for assistance if we fall under a full attack, so we need to be trying to preserve our relationship with them, not accuse the heir to the Imperial throne of trying to blow up our city.”

  “What about Perest-Avana? Their High Priestess or what have you is a woman, and she mysteriously didn’t turn up to the closing ceremony,” Lazar said. “Need I remind you all that Marco, one of our greatest traitors, was Perest-Avani? What explanation did their delegation give for not attending? Very suspicious if you ask me.”

  Budua pursed her lips. “The diplomatic office made some … subtle inquiries in that regard. Evidently the entire contingent came down with a vomiting illness on the evening of the closing ceremony and decided not to attend at the last minute.”

  “Can anyone verify that?”

  There was a quiet cough from the corner, and everyone turned to look at the boy who sat behind Tain, notebook in one hand, the other raised, quavering, in the air. “Uh, Honored Councilors
?”

  “Yes, Erel?” Tain smiled encouragingly, pushing himself to the side to give the room full view of his nervous young page. “What is it?”

  “It’s just … if you remember, you had gifts made for each of the delegations? The lanterns?”

  Tain looked blank for a moment, then suddenly nodded. “Yes, yes of course. The Guild’s idea, wasn’t it?” He looked over at Budua. Did I imagine a tiny bit of desperation in that glance? What had Erel said the other day? That it was normal to forget things? I scrutinized my friend’s dull skin, bright eyes, and thin cheeks, and wondered suddenly just how much of the slack his page really was picking up.

  “Yes, each delegation was gifted with a lantern made by one of the Artists’ Guild’s best artisans,” she said, glancing at Marjeta beside her, “with a message of goodwill for the season. The Chancellor added his own signature and delivered them to the delegations before the ceremony.”

  “I delivered the lanterns to all of the western delegations,” Erel said, his voice squeaking uncertainly. “And, well, if anyone was sick in the Perest-Avani residence, they didn’t look it, and they didn’t say anything. I talked to that, uh, the very…” He paused, looked down at his lap in obvious embarrassment, and tried again. “There was a translator, a lady, there in the room when I delivered it, and she said she would give it to the High Priestess, and that was only a few hours before the ceremony.” Significant mumbles followed this pronouncement, but I also saw several people around the room give an understanding smirk and realized the reason for Erel’s fumbling—he’d been about to describe the extremely attractive diplomat, Abaezalla somebody, who Kalina had dealt with a few times. To a fifteen-year-old boy, she must look like something straight out of his imagination. But more critically, she was someone Kalina already held suspicions about. She’d shown far too much interest in our family and been around town meeting too many other countries’ delegations for a supposed linguist here only for translation for a reclusive religious leader.