by John Bierce
To her shock, she realized that the eyes of seers in many of the scenes were actually filled with tiny gem chips. Gem prices dropped monumentally once they were too small to use for eyes, but that hardly made them worthless.
The other Moonsworn behind her were whispering in amazement, nudging each other and pointing out particularly noteworthy scenes. To Raquella’s relief, the Patient and Dedicated were quite cheerfully interacting with one another, their usual animosity forgotten, even if momentarily.
Raquella was still slightly in shock from the revelations the envoy from the court had delivered to her. She’d known the tensions between the two factions were growing, but not to the point where violence was being contemplated. The envoy hadn’t told her who was involved, so as to prevent Raquella from responding violently herself. Part of her honestly suspected that had been a wise move on their part. She knew she had quite the temper— in that way, she was almost Galicantan herself.
Fury hadn’t been her only response, however. She’d also felt immediate guilt, because she knew quite well she’d backed the Ladreis Dedicated into a corner. Raquella had spent years shooting down the overwhelming majority of their proposals and denying them the choicest assignments. Not out of any personal animosity, but because she genuinely thought that the Dedicated were far, far too hasty in their experimentation and shifts of doctrine. It hadn’t been her intention to make them this desperate, however. That had been a severe oversight, to say the least.
The last thing she expected, however, had been for the Imperial court to be acting to try and preserve harmony among the Moonsworn. Just as shocking had been the invitation to the court, which wasn’t addressed to the ‘southern provincials’, but instead to the Moonsworn by name. That was as good as official recognition from the Empress, which could radically change the Moonsworn’s situation in Galicanta in the future.
Raquella had, when choosing the Moonsworn to accompany her, been quite careful to select them half and half from the Patient and the Dedicated. She hadn’t, however, informed them of the biggest piece of news the envoy had shared with her.
To Raquella’s surprise, they were led deeper and higher into the palace. The carvings and hangings and mosaics grew more opulent, and crowds of nobles watched them intently as they passed, gossiping quietly among themselves.
Raquella had been expecting to be led to a minor audience hall somewhere, not deep into the heart of the palace. As the clothing of the courtiers, provincial nobles, and military officers grew more and more decadent— fine linens and silks being replaced by jewel-silk and cloth of gold— part of Raquella grew hopeful, while a greater part grew nervous.
Finally, their escorts passed through a truly massive marble archway, with an ornate set of stairs leading upwards beyond it. You could march an entire village up the staircase side by side and it wouldn’t feel cramped.
As they reached the top, it took a moment for Raquella to catch her breath and understand what she was seeing.
The audience room they found themselves in was mind-bogglingly immense— larger than all but the greatest plazas in the city below. Immense windows filled the walls, overlooking the city and the sea below. Huge fluted columns supported the roof, taller than trees. Unlike the rest of the palace, there were no carvings, murals, or art of any kind, save for a great shimmering web of wire hanging taut below the ceiling.
The instant Raquella saw the web, she knew where she was.
The grand throne room of Galicanta, the Voice of the Empire. Raquella had never seen it before, but she’d read a thousand descriptions of the room, built at the absolute height of the Galicantan Empire, when it ruled all of Teringia and even down into Oyansur.
The Voice of the Empire, a room only used for the most important occasions, and seldom more than a few times in an Emperor or Empress’s reign.
Most often, for going to war.
The walk across the grand hall seemed to last hours. The crowd of nobles was immense, yet was still dwarfed by the Voice of the Empire.
At the far end was the throne of Galicanta, the heart of the Voice.
The throne was unlike any other in the world. It was suspended on a small forest of wires, which stretched taut up to the ceiling, to the walls to either side, down to the floor, and to the wall behind it. The floor curved in a great bowl below the throne. The seat itself was fairly small compared to most thrones, but loomed high above the floor in its web of glimmering wire. It was fashioned of some secret alloy of metals that was redder than silver, paler than copper. The alloy wasn’t forged for its strength, though it was strong. It wasn’t forged for its beauty, though it was beautiful. No, the alloy was forged for two reasons.
First, that it was more ductile than any other known metal, allowing the drawing of immensely long, sturdy wires with ease. And second, that it carried sound to an incredible degree.
It had taken hundreds of seers working for decades to design and build the Voice of the Empire, and it was a feat of engineering that beggared any other that Raquella had ever heard of.
The Empress sat utterly still upon the seat of the Voice and stared expressionlessly at the Moonsworn as they approached. There were no steps leading up to the metal seat— Raquella had read that there was a cunning sling on pulleys used to lift the Empress up to the throne when needed.
The Empress was an ancient, tiny woman, who seemed to be mostly wrinkles by weight. She was garbed entirely in flowing robes of jewel-silk, but otherwise, she bore little adornment, save a thin diadem of the same mysterious metal alloy as the throne. Her hair was wispy and white, and her skeletally thin wrists looked as though they would break at the slightest touch.
Her eyes, though, bored like augurs into Raquella as she approached. Empress Phillipa Sammatrask was three years shy of a century, and she had ruled Galicanta with an iron fist for all but fourteen of those years. Her father had died in battle when Phillipa was just a girl, leaving her the sole heir to the throne. No one had expected her to hold it long, for the succession in Galicanta could be a brutal thing. One of the royal cousins or aunts or uncles was sure to take the throne for themselves.
But they didn’t. Phillipa had ruthlessly destroyed every threat to her rule. The first attempt on her throne had been at her coronation, in this very hall. She’d supposedly had her guards seat the offending cousin upon the throne, to be left there without food and water until he either starved or fell. The cousin, apparently, had chosen to fall and be cut to pieces by the countless wires suspending the throne. Curiously, the interruption seemed to have changed Phillipa’s mind about taking a new name upon ascension— the first Galicantan Emperor or Empress ever to not do so. Given that, according to the Church Eidolon, monarchs were the only people who could ever take a new name without being lost to the ancestors, this was a decision much discussed even to this day among the Vowless.
Some claimed she’d executed fully half of her close relatives before the rest had fallen in line. She’d dealt with every single threat to her rule swiftly and harshly. She had outlived five Sunsworn Emperors, four Lothaini kings, six Geredaini kings, and countless other rulers across the world. She had outlived half a dozen husbands, and was noted for her complete lack of humor or mercy. She had borne more than a dozen children, and outlived all but two of them, one of whom was doddering and senile now. She had a small army of grandchildren who all lived in terror of her. She’d declared no less than eight wars during her reign, and she had conquered quite a few of the Fractured Duchies before an alliance of Lothain, Geredain, Dannagrad, and Roske forced her back, in concert with a Sunsworn assault on the Choke.
Empress Phillipa was a proud, cruel, and ruthless woman, and her enemies universally offered her both respect and fear in great measure.
The collected Moonsworn delegation all stopped a few feet ahead of the wires descending from the base of the throne, and bowed as a group. It was slightly ragged and unsynchronized, as they were unused to the rituals of court.
Raquella’s kn
ees were happy that they were in Galicanta and not Quae— she had heard tales of the Quae Imperial Court, where supplicants were forced to prostrate themselves before their Emperor.
The Empress didn’t appear to have blinked once as she glared down at the Moonsworn. The silence seemed to drag on and on before the ancient monarch finally spoke.
“For decades now, I’ve tolerated your little Moonsworn infestation in my city,” Empress Phillipa said.
Her voice rang out along the wires attached to her throne, and echoed down the wires spanning the ceiling of the room. Her voice came out sounding bell-like and inhuman, but it could be heard clearly throughout the entire massive hall. Its distorted echoes could be heard down in the city as well, and though the Empress’s words could not be made out in Ladreis’ streets, all knew that events of great import were happening in the palace.
The throne and its wires, the Voice of the Empire, carried and amplified sound perfectly, and even a whisper would echo louder than any man could shout.
The Voice of the Empire was, unquestionably, one of the greatest wonders on Iopis.
And, given its occupant, one of the most terrifying.
“I’ve done nothing to interfere with your work,” the Empress continued, her face like an iron mask. “Though, I must admit, I’ve often wondered if I was not making a mistake. That even if you truly did not spy for my Sunsworn foes, whether your very presence might count as an insult to Galicanta.”
Raquella struggled not to tremble at those words, because they were not what she’d been expecting. Truth be told, she’d expected to be met by some minor functionary in a minor audience hall, not here in the beating heart of Galicanta by the Empress herself. And she’d certainly not expected a speech like this. Doubt came over her, and she wondered whether the envoy had spoken truth to her or not.
The Empress let the silence drag out, as the last ringing echoes of her voice drained from the wires. Her eyes seemed to pierce Raquella through.
Finally, she spoke again. “Today, I am glad I did not wipe you out, for the Wrack is coming. Its cries have been heard only a few days ride out.”
Even over the draining echoes of the Empress’s voice, Raquella could hear the gasps and curses of the courtiers and nobles. Surely many if not most of them had known, but for the Empress to state it so baldly, in the very home of the Galicantan polite lie, was a shock to them.
Raquella too had known the Wrack was close, but not that it was that close. That almost certainly meant that the Wrack was already in Ladreis, given its long dormancy period.
The Empress gestured, and a palace servant darted forwards, a plain cedar box clutched between his hands. He bowed to the Empress, then turned to Raquella and opened the box.
Inside, nestled in jewel-silk, lay a single seer’s eye.
The Empress’s Pride, a perfect, polished, spherical emerald. One of only three on the Teringian continent, and one of only a handful in the world. The King’s Eye of Geredain was said to have been lost during their failed invasion of Lothain. The Singer’s Truth, the third emerald, never left the great Eidolon cathedral where the Singers elected their Highest, who would command and direct all of their great Choruses.
Raquella exhaled raggedly in relief. This is what the envoy had promised.
“I offer to you my greatest treasure,” the Empress said, “so that you might fight this plague. It is yours until the day the Wrack is defeated. Raquella of the Moonsworn, I place the responsibility for my emerald eye on you, and those you see fit to use it. Guard it well.”
There were, of course, countless strings attached to that statement, as the imperial envoy had made clear. The great jewel would never go unescorted by the elite palace guards, and were it lost, well… the Empress most certainly valued the emerald more than any number of Moonsworn lives.
Raquella bowed in thanks to the Empress, not saying anything, for you were only to speak to the Empress if she demanded it. That wasn’t a Galicantan custom, merely Phillipa’s own.
As Raquella gently closed the cedar box, latched it, and accepted it, her mind was already racing with plans for it. She intended to allow its use to a small number of the most skilled Moonsworn scholars, divided evenly among the Patient and the Dedicated. And, to bridge the growing divide, she’d offer it to the Dedicated first.
They’d also try to fit Sherra into the rotation, and for all the animosity between the Moonsworn factions, she doubted either would object to that. Be nervous? Most likely. But not object to it.
Even if that precedence wasn’t enough to settle the anger of the Dedicated, however, they’d never dare assassinate her now, for all healers would value access to the Empress’s Pride more than any dispute amongst themselves. The clarity an emerald eye offered to a seer examining a human body was truly legendary.
Many of the Moonsworn suspected that the Wrack was simply too small to see with a peridot eye before the screaming began, that it was some strange form of contagion far smaller than any they’d seen before. That what they could see with peridot eyes just before the screaming began was the disease… changing form, growing, or clumping. That with the emerald eye, they might be able to finally spot it before it shifted form. Perhaps even see it in the water, if that was how it was truly spreading.
The Empress’s voice interrupted her. “That is not all.”
Raquella’s eyes shot back up to the Empress.
Phillipa let the echoes drain away again and the tension build again before she spoke.
“There are no prouder people on Iopis than my subjects, and none who deserve that pride more than my subjects. It is our greatest strength, but also our greatest flaw. And, in the face of the oncoming plague, it is no strength.”
Raquella could actually hear the shocked whispers of the court over the draining echoes from the wires.
“Seldom in my life have I ever asked for anything,” Empress Phillipa said. “But now I must ask for something from you that I cannot command.”
The Empress said nothing for some time, and Raquella wondered if she intended to speak further.
“I would ask that the Moonsworn step forwards in the coming days. I would ask that you, Raquella of the Moonsworn, take command of all healers not only in Ladreis, but in all of Galicanta.”
As the room erupted into shouts, confusion, and protests, Raquella could only gape at the Empress.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A Fragmentary Message
Ivrahim was a coward. He knew he was a coward. His family knew he was a coward. Everyone in his home village knew he was a coward.
He was too afraid to fight another man. Too afraid to go to war. Too afraid, even, to venture out alone into the night.
Most of all, he was afraid that his name might go unrecorded, as the names of cowards sometimes did, and he might be lost to the ancestors.
And so Ivrahim fled his hometown and became a seer.
Once that would not have been so easy. Once only the third sons of the wealthy and promising priests could become seers, but now, now there was much demand for them, for the semaphore network always needed more seers. So long as you were clever enough of mind, you could earn your way as a seer.
So Ivrahim had his eye plucked out, learned to see through amethyst, and learned to work the clockwork semaphores.
For once Ivrahim felt proud— for though he’d been afraid to lose his eye, it hadn’t stopped him.
And when he received his assignment, he was uncomplaining about it. For though it lay far out in the desert at the heart of Galicanta, far from the great cities, it was honorable work, and he need not be ashamed of it.
When he arrived at that dusty, rocky place, with no structures visible in any direction save for a single well and a tall, rickety wooden semaphore tower, Ivrahim felt fear again. Not of the isolation, for in his shame he sought not the company of others, but of the great height and shoddy construction.
Yet he climbed the stairs inside the tower nonetheless. Past the storeroom and
the little kitchen at the base. Past the mess where they would eat. Past the bunkroom where he and the other three seers would sleep, which only had three beds, for at least one seer must be on duty at all times. Up and up, higher than he had ever been. Though that said little, for Ivrahim had always had many fears, and height ranked chiefest among them. He had only once climbed a tree as a child, and his father had to climb up to get him out, since Ivrahim had been too cowardly to climb down.
And as Ivrahim reached the creaking top of the tower, where the great clockwork machine of brass and gears and chains rested, he looked out over the edge, and the world seemed to twist and breathe and pull at him, and he stumbled back away from the railing, fighting to not let the vertigo overwhelm him.
Ivrahim spent little time with the other three seers.
He had little in common with them, after all. They’d all had great scholarly ambitions, had all read more books than Ivrahim had ever seen, and all bore great bitterness at their paltry assignment.
Ivrahim’s only ambition was for a quiet life, to serve well and honorably, and to have his name recorded so that he might join his ancestors and have them be not ashamed for him.
He bore his fellow seers no ill-will, nor they him. They simply had nothing in common.
If anything, they thought well of him, for he willingly took upon himself the shift that ran from late night to dawn. If they were ever curious about the lash scars covering Ivrahim’s back, where his father had punished him for his cowardice, they said nothing. They thought him a good fellow— one who simply enjoyed solitude— and they weren’t wrong.
They weren’t right either, though. Ivrahim chose that shift because, in the dark, the vertigo’s hold over him was weakest. It was bad during the day, but it was at its worst at twilight, when the air below him began to call him, to physically pull him, until he could hardly stand without clutching the railing.
