Through Fiery Trials

by David Weber

  “He just … shut down,” Koryn continued. “He wouldn’t talk to Cayleb or Sharleyan, or even Maikel, about it. He wouldn’t talk to anyone … except Nahrmahn. And from a couple of things Nahrmahn didn’t say, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have talked to Nahrmahn, either, if Nahrmahn hadn’t pretty much taken it out of his hands. But you’re making the same mistake he did, Nimue. Probably because you used to be the same person. You aren’t in that dark a place, but it’s still the same mistake.

  “He felt responsible for all of us, and because he’s a good person, a moral person, it was his job to protect us, not our job to shoulder some of his responsibility for what happened. But isn’t that another way of saying he thought we were all children? That we weren’t adults? But we are adults, you know. We’ve made our choices, every one of us, and we know exactly what we face because you and he have explained it to us, every step of the way. You haven’t deceived us, you haven’t misled us, you haven’t duped us, and you sure as hell haven’t forced us! We’re standing beside you because we want to. Because you gave us the chance, as well as the choice. Because we’re proud to be here. And if we’re all going to die in the end, then we’ll do that beside you, too, and never look back. Not because some existential, unstoppable force like the Gbaba didn’t give us any choice, but because we had a choice. Because unlike the Federation, we have a chance to win, and you and Merlin and Pei Shan-wei and Pei Kau-yung and all of the other men and women who died to put you here gave us that chance.”

  His own eyes gleamed with unshed tears, and he shook his head at her.

  “Maybe there never were any real seijins, not the way the Church teaches about them. But you and Merlin are what seijins ought to have been. What seijins like Khody may actually have been, despite the Church. And if you’re going to march through my life like some mythic heroine brought to life by magic pretending to be technology, then don’t you dare not let me walk through it beside you! You may be a thousand years older than me, looked at one way, but I’m thirteen years—standard years, not Safehold—older than you were when you transferred to Excalibur, and I’m damned straight not a child. I have the right to stand beside you and look the future in the eye just like you do. I have the right to die for what I believe in, for the truth you and Merlin have taught me, if that’s what happens, just like Nimue Alban did. But most of all, I know what I’m saying, and I have the right to say it and have you look me in the eye and tell me you don’t love me if that happens to be the truth.”

  Their eyes locked across the breakfast table, and she felt her mouth quiver as the intensity of that demand burned through her.

  “So tell me,” he said softly. “Tell me you can look me in the eye and tell me that.”

  The palace seemed to hold its breath around them as his face blurred beyond the veil of tears her artificial eyes produced. And then, slowly, she shook her head.

  “No,” she heard herself say, and those tears were in her voice, not just her eyes, as her hand reached out across the table. “No, I can’t.”

  .VIII.

  Protector’s Palace, Siddar City, Republic of Siddarmark.

  “So we can consider this finally confirmed?”

  Lord Protector Greyghor Stohnar looked across his desk at Samyl Gahdarhd, the Republic of Siddarmark’s Keeper of the Seal, and Gahdarhd shrugged.

  “It’s not going to be really confirmed for a long time to come,” he said. “Not with the entire damned Empire apparently going up in flames. But having said that, I think it has to be true. If he’d gotten out, Yu-kwau would have been trumpeting it to Langhorne’s Throne by now.”

  “And if he didn’t get out, given what we know did happen in Shang-mi, it was probably just as ugly as the reports say it was,” Daryus Parkair, the Republic’s Seneschal, said bluntly, his expression grim. “If they got their hands on him, the best thing he could hope for was that it was quick … and I doubt to Shan-wei that it was.”

  Stohnar nodded slowly and ran one hand through his hair. He was only fifty-one, but that hair had gone completely white and the fingers of his hand had developed an irritating, almost continuous tremor.

  At the moment, his brown eyes were dark as he tried to imagine what it must have been like. Like Parkair, but unlike Gahdarhd or Henrai Maidyn, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Stohnar had been a soldier in his time. He’d seen the ugliness of combat. And despite that, he was grimly certain nothing he’d seen could have compared to the streets of Shang-mi as the screaming rioters overran Emperor Waisu’s guardsmen and stormed the coach. The gentlest version they’d heard said Waisu had been beaten to death. The uglier version said he’d been literally ripped apart alive, using his own carriage horses to inflict the same punishment his Spears had inflicted on so many serfs over the years.

  Stohnar suspected the ugly version was also the accurate one.

  “I really don’t like myself very much for saying this,” he said, “but there’s part of me that can’t help feeling a certain satisfaction about what happened to him.” He shook his head. “What does it say about me that I could want anyone to die that way?”

  “It says you’re a human being who saw millions of your own citizens murdered in an invasion that Waisu’s army helped lead, My Lord,” Dahnyld Fardhym, the Archbishop of Siddarmark, replied gently. “And the fact that you don’t like feeling that way says you’re a human being whose moral compass still works.”

  “I’d like to think you’re right, Dahnyld,” Stohnar said. “I’d like to think you’re right.”

  He turned to gaze out his upper-story office’s window across Protector Palace’s wall at the roofs of Siddar City. He looked at them for several seconds, then turned back to the men gathered in his office.

  “I don’t see a thing we can do about what’s happening in Harchong,” he said then. “And, to be honest, we’ve got enough problems of our own. Speaking of which, how bad is it, Daryus?”

  “It isn’t good,” Parkair replied frankly. “It’s not a total disaster, though. Not yet, at least. And we’re one hell of a way short of Sword of Schueler levels.”

  “So far, anyway,” Gahdarhd amended in a sour tone. Parkair cocked an eyebrow at him, and he shook his head.

  “Oh, your estimate’s accurate as far as it goes, Daryus. The problem is I’m not sure it’s going to stay that way. And to be honest, that’s mostly because we lost Archbishop Zhasyn. If anybody had the moral authority to sit on those idiots, it was him. But he just … used himself up during the Jihad. He and Archbishop Arthyn got the reconciliation courts set up, but we needed more time and we didn’t get it.”

  Stohnar nodded heavily. Arthyn Zagyrsk, the Archbishop of Tarikah, and Zhasyn Cahnyr, the Archbishop of Glacierheart, had indeed created the reconciliation courts that both Stohnar and Rhobair II had signed off upon. That provided at least a legal framework for the return of some of the millions of Siddarmarkian Temple Loyalists who’d fled to the Temple Lands during and after the Jihad. The courts had offered a means to adjudicate legal claims and property ownership as an essential part of rebuilding a stable society. What they hadn’t provided was a moral framework, a basis for genuine reconciliation between one-time neighbors who hated one another with a bitter, burning passion because of the atrocities and bloodshed which had turned the Republic’s western provinces into a corpse-littered wasteland dotted with the mass graves of the Inquisition’s death camps.

  Maybe Gahdarhd was right. Maybe Zhasyn Cahnyr’s moral authority as the fearless wartime archbishop of Glacierheart could have made a difference. Unfortunately, they’d never know. And not just because he’d “used himself up during the Jihad,” either. Oh, there was plenty of truth to that, but in a just world, he would have been given the final years of peace he’d so richly deserved. Instead, he’d literally worked himself to death as the passionate spokesman for compassion, godly charity, and reconciliation.

  And in that final monumental task of his life, he’d failed.

  “I don’t think it’s
going to get anywhere near as bad as it was during the Sword, Samyl,” Parkair disagreed. “What I think you’re probably right about, though, is that it’s going to be with us for a long, long time. And, frankly, all the speculators pouring in are making it a hell of a lot worse. They’re pissing off both sides, because both of them see them for what they are: carrion-eaters.”

  Stohnar winced, but Parkair—as always—had cut to the heart of the matter with all the tact of a pike charge.

  “Unfortunately, we can’t keep them out,” Maidyn said. “Not unless we want to issue a decree or pass a law which makes it illegal for our own citizens to move from one province to another. Or to offer to buy up land that’s lying fallow and untenanted. Even if the price they’re offering is maybe as much as fifteen percent of its pre-Jihad value.”

  His expression was disgusted, and Stohnar snorted.

  “I’d love to restrict migration. For that matter, I’d love to declare martial law and prohibit any land sales, if that’s what it took to get a handle on all this profiteering! But I don’t have the constitutional authority. Neither does the Chamber, under existing law, and the noble and high-minded delegates from Tarikah and Westmarch would fight us tooth and nail if we tried to get the kind of legislation to change that passed.”

  “Old Tymyns might not,” Parkair said.

  “I’ll give you that Tymyns would at least recognize an honest thought if it crossed his mind.” Stohnar’s tone was caustic. “But Ohlsyn and Zhoelsyn have him convinced they’re honest. And don’t get me started on Trumyn or Ohraily! And all the rest of them are right in the speculators’ pocketbook, too. Besides, if I take them on over this, I’ll alienate a lot of the other delegates, and we can’t afford that. Not when we’re coming up on the vote on Thesmar or your proposals, Henrai. Thesmar we could probably get through anyway, but not your bank. So you people tell me—where do I make my fight? On trying to control the speculators or on trying to get your bank chartered?”

  “Langhorne, I wish Tymahn was still alive,” Maidyn sighed. “Even I’m not sure ‘my’ bank is the right answer, Greyghor, but we’ve got to do something! And Braisyn’s worse than useless.”

  Stohnar ran his hand back through his hair. He’d been doing that a lot lately.

  Tymahn Qwentyn had thrown the full resources of his family’s banking dynasty behind the Republic in its fight for survival. The Republic had survived; the House of Qwentyn hadn’t. It could have. It should have, and that only made its collapse hurt even worse. Maidyn and Stohnar both knew the Duke of Delthak had stood ready to pour support into the House of Qwentyn. But then Tymahn had died—and at least he’d done that peacefully, in his own bed—and his older son Mahrtyn, the obvious heir apparent, had gotten himself murdered by another banker who’d blamed the Qwentyns for his own family’s ruin. And that had left Braisyn, the younger brother, who’d never expected to inherit control of the house and who’d been far more interested in freezing out his nephew Owain, Mahrtyn’s son, than anything else. The instant Owain recommended accepting Delthak’s offer to buy into the House of Qwentyn in order to save it, Braisyn had come out in full-fledged resistance and killed the entire deal.

  That was what had truly wiped out the banking house. And, in the process, wiped out what had been effectively the central bank of the entire Republic of Siddarmark. Stohnar hadn’t thought of it in those terms—the concept of a “central bank” wasn’t one which had been clearly enunciated on Safehold—but that was what the House of Qwentyn had been. It was the entity which had exercised a curbing effect on unsecured lines of credit or undercapitalized enterprises, whose own loan portfolio had been so vast it effectively controlled the Republic’s interest rates. It was the entity whose officers and agents had managed the currency flow. It hadn’t done any of those things as an official agent of the Republic, but because someone had to regulate the banking system if it was to be kept stable and the House of Qwentyn had gradually assumed that role out of what amounted to enlightened self-interest.

  Now it was gone. Owain Qwentyn and his wife and children had left the Republic, immigrating to Charis where Stohnar had no doubt he would soon find himself in a new partnership with Duke Delthak, given Delthak’s wyvern’s eye for talent. The rest of the House lay in ruins, with Braisyn and a dozen of his cousins bickering over the skeleton. And in its absence, an economy which would have been in serious trouble anyway, in the wake of the Jihad and the deaths of so many millions of its citizens, was on the brink of outright, catastrophic failure.

  The Exchequer was already deeply in debt from the ruinous expenses of the Jihad, but at least it knew how big that debt was. No one—least of all Henrai Maidyn and the Exchequer—had any idea how many totally unsecured loans and letters of credit had been issued to fuel the speculation in land. More of them had been issued to support the importation of Charisian manufactory methods, or to fund the privatization of the Republic’s foundries in the wake of the Jihad. What they did know was that those notes and loans were trading at less than half their face value and that the value of the Siddarmarkian mark was plummeting, and not just in comparison to the Charisian mark.

  “We’ve got to get the Bank—or something like it—up and running,” Maidyn said now. “The Church’s insistence on redeeming all those notes Grand Vicar Rhobair issued when he was Treasurer and paying them off at par is only making our situation worse. The Church had a lot more notes out there than we did, but despite everything, it still has the depth of holdings—and the cash flow, thanks to the tithe—to retire all its debt eventually. More than that, everyone’s realized Rhobair intends to do just that, which means the Church’s paper is still good for something besides lighting fires and wiping arses. And everybody knows Charisian notes are—literally—as good as gold. For all intents and purposes, both the Charisians and the Church are now using what amounts to paper money, and people are willing to accept it from both of them because they know both Charis and the Church can redeem their paper in specie if they have to.

  “With Tymahn and Mahrtyn gone, Shan-wei only knows how much paper’s been issued—or by who—here in the Republic. That’s why no one’s willing to accept our ‘paper money.’ It’s also why my people estimate that close to a third of all our manufactories—and that includes the new ones—are about to collapse. And that’s going to throw thousands or hundreds of thousands of manufactory workers out of work. And that’s going to cause ripple effects all through the rest of the Republic. So we have to at the very least do what Charis has done and establish controls on future issues of credit. If we can figure out how to do it, we really need to do what the Church is doing, too, and retire all the notes we issued during the Jihad at their face value. Even if we can do all that, we’re still looking at all the notes other people have issued here in the Republic, so we’re still heading into a serious … call it a recession. If we can’t do it, we’re probably looking at a general collapse, and I have no idea how long it will last or how bad it will be. Except to say it will probably be worse than anything any of us have ever seen before.”

  “We still need to get some kind of handle on what’s going on in the western provinces, too, though, Henrai,” Parkair said. “There’s got to be some way we can pour a little water on the coals before they flame up all over again!”

  “Daryus, if it’s a choice between getting the Bank approved and seeing everything from Icewind to the South March border go up in flames, I have to vote for the Bank,” Maidyn said flatly. “Civil unrest, insurrection—hell, even outright civil war!—you and the Army can fight. If the bottom falls out of our economy, that’s something no army can fight. It may not get as many people killed outright, but it’ll do even more damage to the Republic as a whole. And if it gets bad enough?”

  The chancellor looked around at the other faces, his expression grim.

  “If it gets bad enough, you could see the Army fighting right here in the streets of Siddar City.”

  His tone was flat, and when he finishe
d speaking, it was very, very quiet in the lord protector’s office.

  .IX.

  City of Yu-kwau, Kyznetzov Province, South Harchong.

  “I want that fool dead.”

  His Celestial and Consecrated Highness Zhyou-Zhwo Hantai’s voice was iron-hard and colder than Bedard ice as he glared after the withdrawing prelate.

  “Your Celestial Highness,” Grand Duke North Wind Blowing began, “I understand your feelings, but Archbishop Bau—”

  “I want him dead,” Zhyou-Zhwo repeated even more flatly, glaring at his father’s first councilor. “See to it. Unless you want to join him, Your Grace.”

  North Wind Blowing had been a courtier for over fifty years. Despite that, his face tightened as he heard the utter sincerity in the crown prince’s voice.

  “If that’s what Your Celestial Highness wishes, then of course it will be done,” he said, forcing his voice to remain level despite the ice water suddenly flowing through his veins. “I would, however, be derelict in my responsibility to Your Celestial Highness if I did not point out that he is an archbishop of Mother Church. Executing someone who wears the orange is likely to precipitate a conflict with the Church—with the Church, not simply The Temple—at a time when Your Celestial Highness can ill afford to … fight on additional fronts.”

  He met Zhyou-Zhwo’s furious eyes steadily.

  “I point this out,” he continued, “because I wish to know if Your Celestial Highness could be content with his assassination rather than his official execution.”

  The crown prince’s expression relaxed ever so slightly. He looked at the grand duke for several breathless seconds. Then he nodded.

  “How he dies is unimportant, so long as he dies soon,” he said. “He and those like him who abandoned their posts at the first sign of danger—who allowed this to happen in the first place—will pay. And however he dies, I think those who we wish to understand will recognize whose hand struck the blow.”