Shield and Crocus

by Michael R. Underwood

  Sapphire nodded. “I was waiting for you to come back. Or for more of them.” She gestured at the unconscious thugs.

  “Get him out of here as soon as you can.” Aegis held up the bracelet, tapping on Rova’s glowing gem. “Ghost Hands should be here soon, then the two of us will find you and we can get him to another safehouse. I’ll clean this place out before we leave, for Mehgi’s sake.”

  Rova scooped First Sentinel up, one arm around his shoulders and the other under his knees. In her arms, he looked a sleeping child nestled against its mother’s breast.

  Sapphire took a breath, something on the tip of her tongue tried to get out, but then she swallowed it. A beat later she said, “Take care of yourself. I’ll see you soon.” he knew what she wanted to say, and it was enough. The threads between them were woven by years of words unsaid, feelings buried for prudence’s sake.

  Aegis gave her a smile. “Go.”

  A nimble duck under the doorway and she was gone. Aegis wrapped the guard’s bodies in the linens and stacked them in the corner behind the bed, then arranged the trash and other supplies.

  The room as clean as he could manage without supplies or storage, he took a seat on the on the foot of the bed and waited. Come on, Ghost Hands. Anytime now.

  Ghost Hands’ voice in his head. [You’ve been busy. Where’s Sapphire?]

  “I’ll explain while we get rid of these bodies.” [Lovely.]

  City Mother, protect her. And my father, too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Sapphire

  Douk was an excellent host, but he made an abysmal nurse. Rova had kept him out of the room, tending to Wonlar herself until Dr. Acci arrived. Wonlar’s fever had settled a bit when she got him set in the bed. She had even managed to slip some more water down his throat.

  It had taken her more than an hour to get through both Nevri and the Smiling King’s domains, dodging patrols and roving bands of guards. She’d had to bribe three sets of border guards to get to Douk’s daily and safety, where she hoped Wonlar wouldn’t have to be moved again until he was well.

  Come back to us. We need you. Selweh needs you, and this city needs you. If you die now, your spirit will linger, and the last thing I want to do is burn your body in a bed of sea salt and force you to pass along.

  As Sapphire sat in the café basement, watching over Wonlar, she heard bells ringing in the distance.

  They’d have to be the size of a Freithin or two Ikanollo standing back-to-back to be heard from the street. What would call for bells that loud?

  The ringing grew louder, joined by muffled voices which Rova couldn’t quite pick out. Unwilling to leave her post and risk an altercation or discovery, she waited.

  Come on, Douk. Of course I need him now, after I’ve sent him away.

  Soon enough, she heard clumsy steps down the stairs and then a knocking code. Sapphire opened the door and a flushed Douk launched into rapid speech, almost as fast as an agitated Pronai.

  “The summit! It’s starting tomorrow! The four tyrants are meeting, but they didn’t mention anything about Nevri or someone from her domain. They passed by with giant bells and a mass of troops wheeling a cart, with a Freithin herald bellowing the news. What are you going to do?”

  Douk’s expression, though interested, was not so much that of concern as excitable curiosity.

  Sapphire looked to the unconscious First Sentinel, and then turned back to Douk. “First, we have to call a meeting.”

  Douk nodded and left. Rova sighed, rubbing her temples with both hands. This was First Sentinel’s role, or Aegis’s. The responsibility felt uncomfortable, it weighed on her, gripping tight around her throat, trying to take her breath.

  “Aegis should be here soon anyway. Send him down when he arrives and we’ll talk it over. Just make sure they all know about the summit.”

  Killing Nevri was supposed to stop the summit. Now Dlella and Yema have united to ensure it comes to pass. The tyrants will band together and scour the city. if Nevri’s domain was representative, they might have already started.

  And our leader is still on death’s door with a rapidly approaching appointment.

  Sapphire returned to the bed and knelt, praying to the City Mother that she might look after Wonlar, after Aegis, after them all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  First Sentinel

  When Wonlar woke, each tiny motion took an act of will. He felt like he’d hit himself with a dozen drainer disks.

  Lucky old man, you should be dead. Then the two carry-overs from the past could be buried side by side.

  Instead, he was surrounded by his friends in the basement of Douk’s coffeeshop. His bed had also become a desk, with maps and charts piled on the sheets. Selweh and Rova fussed over Wonlar like the caring couple they should be, doting on an invalid father. Douk brought dounmo tea; somehow just freshly steeped and perfectly hot as if he knew when Wonlar was going to awaken.

  Truly a miracle-worker.

  Wonlar grit his teeth and stretched out his leg. Over the course of several minutes, he moved, winced, collapsed, and then moved again until he had pulled himself up to a sitting position, propped up against a shelf with a sack of flour as his pillow. He looked down and there was a kingly meal on his lap—roasted chicken, root vegetables, and yomu-shell pasta with a red-pepper sauce.

  “Douk, you should have been a chef.”

  Douk smiled. “Actually, Selweh made this. It was the only way I could get him to take a break from watching you.”

  “Tell me everything.” Wonlar took a bite of the pasta and listened.

  They told him about the fights in the street, the succession conflict, and the summit’s beginning. He’d been out for a week. I almost missed it all, and now I don’t have time to plan.

  Wonlar blinked his eyes and focused on the scrawled schedule Selweh had put together for the summit. “We have to do something tonight, during their opening ceremonies. The tyrants will be together for the first time in years.”

  Bira spoke in his mind. [And they’ll be more heavily protected than ever.]

  She’s right.

  He thought back to the early days, when the Shields were just a handful of upstart kids and one hero. Go where they aren’t.

  “And that’s why our target tonight isn’t the summit.”

  Even grinning hurt, but he didn’t care. This was their chance.

  “What, then?” Sarii asked, elbows forward on the bed. Wonlar smiled as broadly as he did when he was surrounded by laughing children. “The Tower. Tonight, we free the City Mother.”

  Sarii threw her hands up in frustration, Bira asked, [What?] in an incredulous tone, and Wenlizerachi’s eyes crossed. Selweh was still, his brow furrowed in thought.

  Rova leaned back, hand going to her chin.

  “Even with most of the troops pulled from each domain, the Tower is guarded by all five of their forces,”

  Selweh said.

  Sarii shook her head. “None of them wants to leave the City Mother’s temple untended.”

  Yes, yes. I didn’t say it’d be easy.

  “But they won’t expect it. The tyrants’ best will be with them, Nevri’s succession is still unclear. The cover of chaos is our best asset right now.”

  Selweh said, “But we’ll be going in a man down, and you’re the only person who has a chance of breaking the bindings.”

  “I’m going,” Wonlar said.

  “Don’t be stupid!” Sarii slapped his leg through the covers. Wonlar bit down on his tongue rather than wince.

  “She’s right. You can’t be serious about going on a mission,” Selweh said.

  Wonlar grunted. Broken old man. If I had a new body, I’d storm the tower right now. “how else do you intend to free City Mother when you get past the guards?”

  “We should just wait until you’re healthy. There are plenty of things we can do to interrupt the summit,” Selweh said.

  Wonlar took a breath, then a bite of food. He resettled and a
nother wave of pain dropped him flat on the bed. Maps and plates toppled off, clattering to the floor.

  “See?” Sabreslate said. Damn her, she’s right.

  “All right. Aegis, what are the other options?”

  The flour pillow propped his head up enough to see the group, but he sat himself up again, despite the fresh pain. He took Rova’s offered hand, going slower that time.

  Selweh stood and started pacing. “We can hit the meeting place, or make smaller strikes against holdings across the city to divert their attention. The longer they concentrate their forces, the more attacks we can make on their infrastructure.”

  “Omez’s slave pens,” Rova said. “He’s built his numbers back up, almost as many as when you broke me out.” Wonlar nodded. “Good. More.”

  “COBALT-3’s laboratory,” Selweh said, flexing his left hand. “Outside of her direct command range, the automata’s ai will be weaker.”

  “Even better. What else?”

  Rova glanced at Selweh, her gold thread of partnership dominant, keeping the jade in check. “With the right catalyst, we can start a riot in Nevri’s domain. Her lieutenants and thugs have been pushing people to the limit. It wouldn’t take much to tip them over the edge.”

  “And rightly so,” Selweh said.

  “What’s the catalyst, then?” Wonlar asked.

  Aegis stopped in place. “I am. It’s been a while since I stirred up a good riot.”

  [Where do we direct the mob?], Bira asked.

  “Nevri’s security compound,” Wonlar said.

  “So, what, they can give the guards crossbow practice?” asked Sarii.

  “If we’re going to mobilize that many people, it has to accomplish something,” Selweh said. Of course. But the compound means casualties. Lots of casualties.

  “What else could we do with the mob?” Wonlar asked. “We do need to put the mob to some use, but can’t we send them after something less dangerous?”

  Sarii sculpted a bland office building with a scrap of stone, holding it in her hand. “Central corporate offices?”

  Selweh snapped, a thought striking him. “That or the Plutocrat’s bank.”

  Wenlizerachi said, “The bank is protected as well, but it has more of a draw. If we did it, we could give people back decades of taxes.”

  Wonlar set his empty plate aside. He barely remembered eating it. But hunger was good. Hunger meant he was healing, that he’d be able to rejoin the fight faster and end the war. Selweh took the plate and offered to get more. Wonlar waved him off. “Just tea.”

  Back to business, Wonlar thought, already feeling stronger. “Five Shields and a mob against the Plutocrat’s bank. You’ll need tools to get into the vault, unless you get enough Qava and Freithin in your crowd.”

  Rova stepped back and walked around the bed. “We can handle the vault door. I’m more worried about their response team. Within half an hour we’ll have the whole security division on top of the bank anyways, and then the casualties will be massive.”

  It’s a better plan than my suicide run on the tower. The tower can wait for when I’m better and we’ve whittled down their forces.

  “It’s violent, it’s dynamic, and it necessitates a response. We’re striking in a weakened domain. We go tonight, unless someone has a better plan,” Wonlar said.

  “I still think we’re overextending ourselves,” Sarii said.

  She may be right, but we’ve come too far for caution. “You’re the one who wanted us to do more, take risks. We don’t have the breathing room to play small anymore. Without the tyrants’ infighting, they’ll come down on us with everything they can muster, and we’ll constantly be on the run. Let’s at least make it a running battle instead of a dead woman’s chase.”

  After a few more minutes of details, they were agreed. Tonight the war goes to a new level, and I’ll be stuck in bed. Wonlar sipped his tea and asked for the newspapers and reports. He had to catch up, and fast. They’d put the tyrants on the defensive. Time was always the ally of the establishment, and Wonlar was tired of waiting.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Interlude—The Sorcerer

  The halls of the Audec academy of artifice were ornate, carved greystone laid down centuries ago, maintained by frequent treatments. First-year students learned to make the unguent of preservation, and only those who succeed were allowed to move on to the greater mysteries. Yema had been one of them, a lifetime ago.

  Magister Yema ran a hand along the wall, felt the grooves of the mural that told the story of the fall of Audec, the founding of the city, and the birth of the City Mother.

  Yema left this place behind years ago, when mere science could no longer hold his attention. Artifice was so limited, merely pushing the elements to their limits, instead of shaking the foundations of the world itself.

  He heard shuffling in the room ahead, the flapping of wings, sycophantic birds hopping about courting favor with the other oligarchs. This one sent his assistant to talk to that one’s assistant, talking circles around one another, always angling toward another agenda. They built tentative alliances with whispers and baseless promises behind doors that had survived the tide of years.

  He cast open the doors and heads turned towards him. The newest oligarch was the first to respond. Dlella, would-be heir apparent to Nevri’s corporation, sat forward on her tail, arms crossed. Her eyes locked on Yema, and then she nodded. She seemed to have learned Nevri’s lessons well, but she was untested. Her territory was across the city from his, so he would neither be threatened directly if she succeeded, nor would he be in a position to attack her if she failed. Still, best to watch her closely.

  Yema looked to the Smiling King. The madman’s head was lolled to the side, twenty colors spilled over one another like his face was a canvas. The Smiling King chanted a nursery rhyme and stroked one of the seven hands belonging to his deformed assistant. The sevenhanded man leaned into his master and cooed, three other hands scribbling away on separate sheaves of parchment. Disgusting.

  The little birds flapped their way out of Yema’s path as he took his seat, threw back his cowl to display the tattoos that adorned his head, proof of the pacts he had made, the power he held. Yema turned to Medai Omez, nodding to the slaver in his shifts and wraps in bright yellow and green. Medai was backed by his four cowled bodyguards, tall blades slung over their shoulders. The merchant smiled with golden teeth, then resumed turning a pair of blue cloisonné balls in his palm.

  Ever since he lost control of his blue beasts, Omez has been cautious, weak. But the merchant-king had a talent at making a mask of his intentions, and even Yema’s spies had failed to discover if the scarf-clad slaver would ever again wield power the way he had in the first years since the Senate’s fall. He still had slaves, yes, but his new crop of Freithin could not compare to the herd he had lost.

  Yema turned at last to his left, where COBALT-3 stood, never sat, at the far side of the table, her chrome plates shone from polishing so diligent it couldn’t be the work of mortals.

  Magister Yema had preferred her father. Less attached, more clear in his focus. His peer, ally, and rival to the south had inherited her grandmaker’s preoccupation with the mysteries of organic life, but she paid handsomely for additional test subjects. And Yema was always happy to take a rival’s money.

  “Shall we resume?” Yema asked. Today he officiated, set the agenda, and controlled the flow of the summit. After Nevri’s death, it had been Yema who took the reins, insisted that the summit continue. Dlella backed his assertion, trying to claim Nevri’s seat before it was even cold, but her boldness served his purposes.

  In taking control of the summit, he’d accepted the responsibility that came with it, the corralling, the appeasing. He’d had to force the Smiling King to stay on task and keep Dlella’s dagger eyes from provoking COBALT-3 to pull out the Millrej’s forked tongue.

  Children, all of them.

  Medai pulled his chair in, making more noise than needed. “
Yes, let’s.”

  Yema looked to the Smiling King, who had ceased the rhyme and looked at Yema with rare clarity.

  “We were discussing the matter of the insurrectionists’ bolt-holes.” Yema waved his hand and a map of Audec-Hal appeared on the blank yellow wall behind him. “Nevri succeeded in razing and destroying over a dozen, but we’ve identified more, locations that were kept back from Nevri’s original effort. I understand the need for our caution, especially given the late Plutocrat’s recent demise.”

  Medai shifted in his seat, nervous. The Smiling King collapsed into a fit of profanities, clawing at the air.

  “But if we are to end the threat of the Shields for good, we’ll need to be more trusting with information before we begin our assaults. Ideally, we will be able to attack each one at the same time to catch the Shields by surprise.”

  The Smiling King slapped the table. “Flies! Damn flies!” Then he licked his hands, sucked in a broken carapace and cracked wings.

  Yema continued, ignoring the madman. “I propose that we each make a list of known and suspected hideouts in our own domains, then coordinate our strikes.”

  “Agreed,” said Medai Omez.

  Dlella nodded. “Yes.”

  “Affirmative,” said COBALT-3.

  The Smiling King smiled. “Damn flies, squash them all, flies. Tasty with bacon and chives. Chives and flies.”

  Yema cut the Smiling King off before he could get too far from the topic. “Moving on. I’d like to talk about security rotations for the district gates. The Shields have been able to move between districts too easily. I’d like to propose more restrictions on movement between districts.”

  “I respectfully disagree,” said Dlella. “It will not be sufficient to stifle the Shields’ activities, and it will hamper trade. We’ve known for years that they use Audec’s bone hollows when we crack down on intra-city travel.”

  COBALT-3 turned to Yema, catching his eye. Yema nodded, and COBALT-3 spoke. “Agreement: The Magister is correct. Assertion: Restricting passage will limit their activities and reduce the difficulty of maintaining surveillance on their operating areas.”