by K.N. Lee
I leaned back in my saddle and breathed the sweet, acrid fumes. I could feel the vibrations in the air. Hear the clanging from the great factories. All that time spent languishing in the village. So refreshing to finally return to the steel bosom of civilization. I steered Krag towards the Army Headquarters on the outskirts of the old city with a glad heart.
A private greeted me at the door. “The meeting was moved to the conference center on Piston Avenue, Lieutenant Corbin. Did you forget the change of venue, sir?”
Kelsa's tiny voice surged to the surface. Did I miss one of the letters on his desk? Damn it! I pushed the girl back down to the bottom of my mind, tucked her into bed, and slammed the door shut. “Forget? Of course not.” I patted the walls and chuckled a little too forcefully. “Just wanted to make sure the old walls were still standing.”
“They will stand as long as the empire. May the empire stand forever.”
“Nothing lasts forever, son. The monarchy faded. Someday we will, too.”
“Don't let the damn bureaucrats hear you say that, sir. If the empire falls, they'll all need to get real jobs.”
We shared a quiet chuckle while I gestured to the dual city surrounding us. “The way of the world, Private. Stone gave rise to steel. Someday, the steel will rust away and get replaced by something else. Everything fades,” I sighed. “Even an old man's memories. Thank you for the reminder, Private.”
“The old regiments are all gathered at the conference center. If anyone deserves to be commemorated, it's you, sir. Such a lifetime of achievements. And you don't look a day over 200.”
I grunted and turned Krag towards one of the side streets. “You're lucky I'm retired, son. Back in my day, boys who cheeked their officers shoveled horse shit until their arms fell off.”
“Yes, sir! I will put myself on report to muck the stables this evening, sir.” The lad whipped off a classic salute. Good to see the old traditions survive in this changing world. I smiled as the Private's excited voice drifted on the wind. “Wait till I tell the guys I got disciplined by the Hero of Jerkum Pass!”
His enthusiasm made my bones ache. Surely, I was not so young and bubbly once?
Surely not, Kelsa murmured, chuckling before I silenced her.
The conference center was like any other hastily erected government building in the outer city: flat, steel, and featureless. Damn thing looked more like a fancy shed than anything else. I walked Krag to the stables around the back. Government architecture was nothing if not predictable. I went back around to the front of the building and threw open the doors. Not for Sir Corbin sneaking through the back entrance.
People milled about the atrium, glasses and mugs held in one hand, tiny tasty snacks in the other. It was a riotous swirl of gossip, old clinking metals, and ill-fitting uniforms. Little groups huddled together in bunches of red and blue. Each colored uniform would split and coalesce separately, like machine oil mixed with floral-scented water. I stiffened as a mage passed me, yanking his sky-colored blouse to avoid touching my blood red armor. Can't blame army mages for the current political crisis, but one would think free booze might loosen them up a bit. One person sat silent amidst the revelry, her hands clasping a glass of white wine as she eyed the door. She was a bastion draped in ruffled purple brocade among a forest of uniforms and military garb. It wasn't as elegant as my crimson cloak, but it made an impression. Our eyes met and a name floated to the surface: Maven. “My friends,” I shouted, raising my arms, “Corbin has arrived.”
The forest of trees all swayed towards my radiance like plants bowing to the sun. I made pleasant small talk of weather and the hard journey and doesn't damp weather ache old bones, every verbal skirmish bringing me one step closer to the purple maiden. “Hello, Corbin,” she murmured as I danced through the crowd to her chair.
“Nice to see a show of unity in this clashing mess of red and blue.”
“Can you blame them?” Maven sipped her wine. “All mages are branded by their rebel ilk. The wizards think the cavalry is going to hunt them down after they gave their lives for the empire and feel betrayed. The cavalrymen are insulted anyone would dare assume they might sully their honor riding down old friends and colleagues and feel betrayed. You missed the opening salvo. Now they just circulate in icy silence.”
“Such elegant garments next to our drab peers. And me.” Corbin banged on his cuirass. “Wearing your civvies, I see, Madam.”
“Madam?” She quirked an eyebrow, then scowled. “That makes me feel my years more than three days in the saddle. Not here . . . not now. Today we are young again. You even look the part. However did you get that old armor to fit properly?”
I coughed. “I'm afraid this owes more to a costume shop than a blacksmith. Had it tailored. This plate mail would not turn aside a harsh glare. You wound me, Maven. You wound me in the heart.”
“Haven't forgotten my name at least. Everyone is getting so forgetful these days.” She took another sip of wine and gestured to the crowd. “You must love all this. Never left the battlefield, did you, Corbin? Up here,” she tapped her skull. “And I hear you're still wearing that old ring around your neck. Damn thing makes you clank like a tin bell when you walk.”
I bowed. “I wear the ring . . . to honor the mother of my child.”
“Do you, now?” she asked, taking a long, slow sip.
“You disapprove, Maven?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Whether you wear that stupid ring in public is your business.”
What does this woman know about my grandfather's ring? I took her glass and quaffed the rest of the wine. Her glare grew more furious as I sipped down to the dregs. “Ancient, bitter vintage,” I muttered. “Almost vinegar. Pity what the passage of time does to fine wine.”
“I could sour your adoring audience with a few choice stories, hero. Like how you betrayed my dear sister. She was as pale and sparkling sweet as this Dragon Crystal White '22. Now be a dear,” her words slurred as she pointed towards the bar across the room, “and bring me another glass. Someone masquerading as a gentleman stole my wine.”
I vanished into the crowd before she could see the shiver crawl up my spine.
4
CORBIN, YEAR 198
The bar stretched across the entire expanse of the western wall like a granite shelf overlooking a swift current. Most of the stools were empty as patrons swirled through the crowd in a river of noise, only venturing into the little eddy along the bar to refresh their glasses before diving back into the throng.
As I approached, an unseen hand reached behind and slapped me on the shoulder. The impact pushed me into the protruding edge of the bar as cold, sticky ale splashed and trickled down my neck. I turned and saw the grinning face of my old friend, Drake. The years had etched fresh lines and wrinkles into his face, but his smile remained unchanged since the last time he visited the house.
“Corbin, you old warhorse! You visit with Maven before talking to me? I am enraged, buddy mine.” He gave a hearty laugh without a hint of anger or malice. Then he leaned closer and whispered, “notice anything missing when you came in here?” He gestured around the room, mug sloshing. “No mage-detectors. The bitch had them stripped from the walls yesterday and removed from the premises. All her powder blue compatriots joined the fun. 'An affront to the mages,' she said.”
“Let them have their dignity, man. Surely, you don't think the army's mages pose any danger?”
“Oh, they won't catch me off guard.” Drake smiled and glanced over his shoulder at Maven. “And did you see her dress? As if wearing purple civvies and draping pretty silk over that gaunt frame would soften her reputation. Make us all suddenly forget her years leading the militant arm of the Mage Corps.”
“Maybe it's nothing more than a pretty dress.” I shrugged, wondering whether G'fa would comment on the weave or the elegant fabric. No, surely not. “She doesn't need to turn any blades in this crowd. Besides, who knows what she's wearing underneath?”
“Ha!” Dra
ke elbowed me in the ribs and my cuirass rang. “What indeed, you old lech!”
I turned away to hide my blush as I waded through the swamp of masculine subtext. Men were so public and flagrant with what a woman must keep hidden in her private thoughts. How easily they drag an innocent comment about hidden armor preventing someone thrusting their stiff blade deep into Maven's body into the muck. I resolved to stop scanning each sentence before it tripped over my lips on the way out. Guarding your thoughts was unmanly, it seems.
Drake seemed not to notice, quaffing his beer as he nodded to the barkeep and slid his empty mug across the counter.
I mimicked him. “Wine, please. Dragon Crystal White, Year 122 vintage.” Drake quirked his eyebrow. I shrugged. “Just plying the crone in the purple dress with alcohol, old friend.”
He nodded to the wine. “Best warn the witch she needs to drink that slop by the barrel while she still can. We've damn near slaughtered all the dragons in the empire. Good riddance, I say! Guess those damn mages are good for something. Doesn't stop them from rubbing it in our faces.” He flexed his arm and slapped the table. “Better yet, don't warn her.”
“I'll pass that along, oh mighty dragon slayer. As if she doesn't know already! But it would hardly be chivalrous otherwise.”
He guffawed. “All these years, Corbin. You haven't changed a lick.”
More than you know, I sighed, suppressing Kelsa back into the darkest depths of my mind. I nodded to my old friend, raising the refilled wine glass in salute as he raised his mug. We clinked and I sipped the wine. “A weak, womanly drink crafted from a dying breed of fire-breathing monsters,” I murmured. “The perfect beverage for an old imperial witch.”
“Come back after you've discovered what's underneath that dress.” Drake smiled as he sipped his ale. “We can ditch the wine and explore all the manly brews together.”
“We'll line 'em up and knock 'em down,” I said, dredging the phrase from memories of scores of old men quaffing beer around the kitchen table.
“Just like the olden days.” Drake laughed as I smiled and merged back into the crowd.
I returned to Maven. I delivered the wine.
“Run along,” the old woman said, waving me away once she had yanked the glass from my fingers. “Go mingle with your adoring public. I will no doubt see more of you tonight,” she leered.
“I expect you will,” I murmured, questioning her words as my eyes glossed over the crude expression on her face. I was missing something again. Why couldn't old people just speak plainly? I shrugged and left.
As I circulated around the room, blending into the little knots of conversation was easier than I had expected. I just stood and interjected polite nothings and soaked in the currents surrounding me until I had a grasp on the major arguments and who was taking which side. The thrust of each conversation was a variant on three common themes: whether our new empress was up to the task of executing her late father's pogrom against civilian magic users, the effect of said pogrom on the army's Mage Corps veterans, and oh my aren't the new grandchildren just adorable?
I expressed polite disinterest in the tiny portraits of chubby arms and rosy-cheeked faces as expected of the stern Hero of Jerkum Pass. My heart might have cooed a little. I squashed it.
After a few hours of mingling, a male courtier or a bureaucrat dressing wearing puffy sleeves, tight red hosiery, and enough rouge on his cheeks to make me question the necessity of my masculine charade ushered us into another room for dinner. I was placed at the center of a long table groaning under the weight of a banquet containing every savory dish and frothy drink served from the kitchen of my dreams. Crystal glasses. Silk napkins. A parade of silverware on either side of gold-rimmed porcelain dishes. And I didn't even have to cook any of it. Or set the table.
Everyone remained standing, shuffling their feet and casting small glances in my direction. Drake coughed. Maven tittered behind her hand. What had grandfather done in these situations sitting around our kitchen table as the perennial lowest ranking officer in the room? Everyone deferred to him regardless of rank due to his heroism . . . my heroism, but refused to sit until . . .
Of course. I raised my crystal glass, tapping it with my spoon. “Ladies and gentlemen: the Empress Cordelia I. Long may she reign!”
“Long may she reign!” the chamber echoed. Then the guests took to their seats like vultures hunched around a dead cow and began to feed.
“Lieutenant Corbin!?” The man sitting to my left trembled as I sat down. “You may not remember me. I was a part of the welcoming committee? We visited your place of residence prior to the ceremony?”
I gestured to his goblet. “Please, drink. You seem flustered.”
“I was just surprised to see you on your feet . . . walking through the door earlier. We were not expecting you to . . . arrive as you did. So soon. It's all so very disturbing.”
“Aha?” I asked, quirking my eyebrow.
He offered his hand. “Captain Nortus. I believe we've met? Of course, we've met.” His question lilted at the end in the manner of someone who was uncertain whether his words were truth or lies.
“But of course, Sir Nortus. How could I forget you?” I grinned inside. Captain Nortus was the unassuming quiet sort of nobody you stepped over without blinking. A fan, it seems, blinded by my glory. A girl in the back of my mind was screaming something about subtext, but I shushed her and cast through my thoughts for a safe topic that would not fluster the poor gentleman further. “What do you think of our new empress, Sir Nortus?” I asked. “I hear she finds the crown and robes a mite heavy.”
“A shame her father died so young. Not that I doubt Empress Cordelia is up to the task of exterminating those damn . . .” The man pushed a glob of food around his plate, looking to either side, likely for a hint of blue. There was none to be found. We were surrounded by a wall of red uniforms and blood-tinted armor. The cavalry had clustered around me at the center with the mages sitting on either ends of the long table. The nearest magic user was a speck of blue almost on the horizon. “ . . . those damn, dirty mages,” the man gulped.
I gestured to the ends of the table. “Surely, you would not impugn the honor of our brave brothers and sisters of the magical persuasion? Have we not broken bread at the same table, slept in the same tents, and shed blood during the same battles?”
“Times have changed, Corbin,” the man stammered. “How can we trust the loyalty of any mage after the cowardly assassination of our beloved emperor?”
“Hardly cowardly. The rebels fought for their beliefs, however misguided.”
“But the emperor . . . the emperor is gone.”
“And he shall be missed. But while I am ashamed to admit it, Sir Nortus, emperors and empresses come and go while the bureaucracy marches onwards. It is the bulwark of our glorious political system.”
He sniggered. “Hard to see anything glorious in a bureaucrat.”
“A necessary evil,” I agreed. “Strange parasites clinging to the massive elephant hide of the empire who give as much as they leach away by the nature of the stability they confer. When one elephant dies,” I plucked several pieces of broccoli from my plate, “you just detach the little worms and latch them onto his successor,” I flung the little chunks of broccoli one by one onto his plate, “and the substance of the empire endures despite the changing form. Old blood mixes with new. New emperor. Same empire.” Amazing what you can learn after a succession of quiet conversations in which you listen more than you contribute.
“A masterful summation,” he said, clapping. “But something has changed. It is not old age or war that has killed our latest emperor, but our own people.”
“It's risky at the top.” I shrugged. “Their own family members assassinate emperors all the time.”
“But never mages, Sir Corbin. The death of our beloved emperor has exposed a canker on our society. A boil that must be lanced.”
“Go get 'em, soldier.” I sipped my ale and wiped the froth off m
y lips. This was growing tiresome. I gestured to either end of the table. “There they are, sitting in our midst. Who shall hold this lance, Sir Nortus? You?”
“Well, no,” the man stammered. “Not me, not me.” He sank into silence the rest of the evening and left me to my meal.
After dinner, there was a clamor from several cavalrymen and quite a few mages. “Speech,” they roared. “Give us a speech, Corbin. Surely on the eve of the anniversary of your great victory, you have something to say?”
I stood up, wiping the sweat off my brow as I raised my hands in a placating gesture. I had not thought about the damn speech for hours. All the food and beer in my stomach began to sour. “A good battle plan is like a fresh egg: delicate and messy if not handled with care and requiring some . . . gestation before you present it. You will all hear the speech at its proper time in two days. Now my ass is sore and my poor stomach is bloated. Please, I seek only the peace of my bed.” I chuckled, glancing at the array of doors surrounding the dining room. “Once I find my bed in this maze.”
“Not joining us for a nightcap?” Drake asked.
“Tomorrow night, old friend.” I stepped away from the banquet. “I promise I shall drink you under the table.” The words came easy. I knew them by rote. I had heard them all before in our kitchen.
Another functionary wearing red hose gave us each little tickets with a key and our room assignments. I hurried to my room and closed the door, feeling the facade slip away. I ran a bath. This copper tub was much larger than the one at the inn. I did not squeal. I did not add bubbles or bath salts. I did strip and plunge into the water. I closed my eyes as the ring grew warm against my chest in the hot water.
Someone knocked on my door, five sharp raps. My loins tightened. A part of me rose above the water and it wasn't my toes. Did my subconscious body remember that knock? The knock came again. I swelled and surged to the surface. I scrambled out of the bath, looking for a towel. No towel? I took a deep breath and tied my shirt around my waist like an apron.
