Pauper's Empire: An Epic Fantasy Saga (Empire of Resonance Book 2)

by L. W. Jacobs

  Their harness broke and Tai grinned. At that rate it would be decades before the Councilate had the river clear again. Plenty of time to drop more stones.

  “Action,” Dayglen muttered, and Tai turned to see people issuing from the fort’s gate at the far end of the second bridge. He expected to see soldiers, but instead those were—

  “Achuri?” he asked aloud. “Carrying chairs?”

  That’s exactly what it was: a wave of darkhaired servants, arms full of tables and chairs and linens and trays of food and drink. They bustled across the long iron bridge under the command of a pinch-mouthed lighthair woman, who nodded to Tai curtly and began directing the servants how to arrange furniture, starting with a large ornate rug she had them lay directly over the grass and road.

  “Pardon, brother,” a servant said in Achuri, another saying, “Excuse us, friends.”

  Dayglen looked as bewildered as Tai felt. He glanced at the lighthair in charge, but doubted she understood Achuri. “You don’t have to be here, big sister,” Tai said to a stocky woman arranging an embroidered tablecloth over the long circular table at the center of the unfolding finery. “You can come and join us.”

  She spoke without looking up from her work. “That’s kind, little brother, but I have a family here, children to keep. My man went to you some months back and hasn’t returned. I can’t risk any more.”

  Tai’s stomach clenched. The Ghost Rebellion had lost a lot of good men in the days before the ousting. “I am sorry for your loss, older sister. We’re here to talk sense into the Councilate. Ancestors send after today Ayugen will be a safer place for you.”

  “Aye,” she answered, pulling an end of the immaculate white cloth. “Ancestors send it is.”

  In a few minutes the rocky island had been transformed into a strangely ornamented outdoor restaurant, full of frills and lace and surrounded by tables heavy with food. Was this intentional? Did they know Ayugen was struggling with food?

  “Not what I was imagining,” Dayglen said, pulling at one of the chairs.

  Tai nodded. “Nor I, brother. The Councilate is strange.”

  The servants left, a few of them casting backward glances, and were soon followed by a much stranger procession. Ten people, most of them silver-haired, left the wide gates of the fort and approached the island at a languid pace, stopping in places to gesture at something in the distance, a few of them sipping glasses of colored liquid.

  Tai gritted his teeth. First the Achuri servants, then the food, now this. A show of superiority up front to try to cow them, like when a rival gangleader would show up with all his best brawlers behind him. It had an effect—but Tai had dealt with this before. If they didn’t attack outright, it meant they wanted something force alone couldn’t give. Otherwise why parley at all?

  One woman stood out among the lighthairs ambling across the bridge. She was taller than the rest, smooth-faced despite her silver hair, and held herself with such grace it made the others look like uneducated louts despite their fine clothes. What stood out most about her, though, was a long scar running from behind her ear down into the collar of her high-necked dress. How did a refined woman get such a wicked scar?

  She was also the first to speak, when the lighthairs finally neared the elaborate island set-up. “Tai Kulga,” she said, eyes fixing on him. “Savior of Ayugen, yes?”

  His eyes widened despite himself, but he recovered quickly.

  “Tai’s fine,” he said, meeting her gaze. There was a depth there he found disturbing, like she saw beyond his thoughts to his very soul. Belatedly Tai remembered any of them could be mindseyes, and broke his thoughts into competing conversations, the practice coming naturally after so many years on the streets.

  “Tai, then. And this is your man?”

  He nodded. “And those are yours?”

  The lighthairs behind her tittered, as if he’d made a particularly good joke. The woman smiled slightly and cocked her head. “On my good days, yes. Semeca Fenril, at your service.”

  “Ah, where are my manners?” a man behind her asked, though clearly he had waited for Semeca to speak first—the woman had power. “Tayo Mettelken, at your service.”

  The lighthairs began naming themselves then, Tai recognizing the family names if nothing else from the twelve major Councilate Houses: Fenril, Mettelken, Coldferth, Galya, Alsthen, Jeltenets, Sablos, Ergstad, Byalsden, Kellandrials, Talhens and Deyenal. Ella had warned him they were unlikely to be heads of their Houses—such people rarely left Worldsmouth—but still, it was a little overwhelming to have twelve members of the most powerful Houses in the world on a small island with him. Likely another part of their attempted intimidation.

  Well, if everything went wrong he could always grab a couple as he escaped, to use as hostages.

  “Let’s sit, shall we?” asked Semeca, sweeping an arm at the chairs. The others sat, lighthaired servants scurrying after them to refresh drinks from crystal decanters on stands around the table, different colored liquids glinting in the sun.

  Dayglen looked askance at Tai, and he shrugged. There were no obvious military threats here, and they had a clear view in all directions. It was one of the reasons he chose the island for their meeting. He pulled out a chair and sat, Dayglen following suit. Servants hurried over, offering dreamleaf and honeywine and various hot teas. Tai chose mavenstym, amused to see the southern plant among the selections.

  “Well, let’s get down to business shall we?” Semeca asked, setting down her glass. “You are here to offer your surrender, and we are prepared to negotiate terms.”

  “That’s not why we’re here at all, actually,” Tai said, keeping his face cool, “but we have some minor business to accomplish before we get started with the main parley.”

  The lighthairs stirred. One of Semeca’s plucked eyebrows raised. “And what’s that?”

  Tai looked around the circular table. “Who among you was House Sablos? Ah, Delnin. You must be so worried about Arten.”

  The man’s face darkened. “I was. He’s in our hands now, right? You made the trade?”

  “Unfortunately, no. He escaped from us several days back. After saying some things I’m sure you’ll be interested in.”

  Eyebrows raised around the table—so there was interest in Sablo’s secrets. Good.

  “I’m interested in nothing from you, scum,” Delnin snapped. Tai remembered Ella’s tutoring then, that Sablos was the House that ran the Titan training program and made the bulk of their money from military and weapons manufactories in Seingard. No wonder the man was so rigid.

  “Delnin.” The woman from House Deyenal laid a hand on his arm.

  Tai shrugged, falling into the familiar routine of bargain and bluff he’d played so many times on the streets. Apparently the Councilate played it, too. “If not you, one of your rival Houses then. Arten seemed quite eager that no one learn his true destination.”

  “True destination?” Delnin asked, eyes hardening. “Where?”

  “Five wagons of barley.”

  “What?” The lighthair frowned.

  “Our original deal,” Tai said. “Five wagons of barley. Or millet, if you have it. Rice, even. But that’s what the information is worth to me.”

  One of the older men—House Jeltenets, maybe?—scowled. “Don’t seek to come here and play petty games.”

  “Lies,” Delnin grated, “Marla, can you read him?”

  So the Deyenal woman was a mindseye. Good to know.

  She shook her head. “He’s using a defense.”

  “Drop your defense, boy, and we’ll see what your information is worth.”

  Tai smiled. “I’m afraid I have other information too valuable to risk, sir. But some of you no doubt have eyes and ears on the road between our cities. You will have heard of a man we kept bound in the bed of our wagon.”

  Delnin looked at his compatriots. “Is this true?”

  Most looked nonplussed, but a younger man down the table nodded. “My sources said they
had a man that matched Arten’s description.”

  “And where is he now?” Delnin stood, slamming a fist on the table. “What did you do to him?”

  “Five wagons,” Tai repeated, keeping his face cool but ready to strike resonance at any time.

  “They were attacked,” the younger man said. “Not far from Ayugen, really.”

  “Attacked? By who?”

  The younger man spread his hands. He was House Galya, Tai thought. “I’m really not sure.”

  Delnin rounded on him. “You know, you lying sack of—”

  “Gentlemen,” Semeca cut in. “Parleys are not generally good times to highlight our internal divisions, hm?”

  Surprise registered in Tai, that she would highlight their divisions further by pointing it out. Semeca came off all the more confident for it.

  “I can tell you, Delnin,” Tai said. “For five wagons.”

  “Fine,” he snapped. “Yes. Good. Five wagons.”

  “Order it done. The wagons are already in the forest. Send a runner.”

  Delnin’s scowl deepened, but he told off a servant, who ran toward town. “Now tell me.”

  Tai folded his hands. “I had an interesting conversation with Arten the morning he escaped. He tried to convince me to call off the parley, to call off the entire trip. To go with him instead, and meet the people he was calling his brothers.”

  Eyebrows raised around the table, a few other Houses exchanged glances. Did they know something of the ninespears? Semeca stayed cool, sipping at her glass and watching gulls wheel over the river.

  “I didn’t pay five wagons for this,” Delnin growled. “What happened to him? Who attacked?”

  “When I refused his offer,” Tai said, “Arten called men from the trees. Men in black jackets, who had apparently been tailing us all morning. They abducted Arten and made off into the forest. His brothers, I don’t doubt.”

  Delnin sneered. “And the mighty Savior of Ayugen couldn’t stop a few men from taking his hostage?”

  Better not to tell them of the scream he heard, of the way he and Ella mysteriously lost their uai in the attack. “They caught me off guard.”

  “Fine. Out with it. Who are these brothers?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me,” Tai said. “They all carry this symbol,” he held up a sketch from Ella’s notebook, “representing a society of nine spears. Maybe something one of you recognizes?”

  Gasps sounded at the sight of it, but none so loud as Semeca, who had seemed almost bored to this point.

  “The Councilate calls a recess,” she said, icy tone belying the sudden interest in her eyes. “Delnin, take some time to settle yourself, and organize a rescue party, if you will.”

  Delnin took off, and the other lighthairs pushed back their chairs, for all the world like Semeca was their ruler and not an equal member. Tai stood too, wanting to make sure Delnin’s message reached the wagons.

  “Don’t go far,” Semeca said in a low tone, leaning toward him. “You and I need to talk.”

  23

  Ella pulled her braids into order and summoned her mother. Elyssa Merawil would never be intimidated by a campful of Councilate soldiers. Nor would she have fears over confronting one of their officers on house business. Or if she did, they would be so buried behind polite phrases, veiled threats, and voluminous petticoats so as to never be noticed.

  Ella despised her mother, or she had in her teens, but she needed the woman now. Needed to be her.

  “Business?” a smart-looking young man outside the large canvas pavilion demanded.

  “My own,” she snapped, raking her eyes once up and down him as her mother had so often done to her. “Tell your superior that Myella Fensley is here to see him, on business of her husband and House Fensley.”

  The lieutenant hesitated a moment longer.

  No one hesitated for her mother. “Well?” she snapped. “Move.”

  He moved, disappearing inside the flaps of the large tent.

  Feynrick cleared his throat from where he stood behind and to her left, a proper attache. “Barking dogs, woman,” he said in a low tone. “What’s gotten into you?”

  Ella only sniffed. Her mother had been able to convey a broad range of meaning with her sniffs; here she used it to indicate that though she had heard her attache, either what he said or the status of the person himself made it beneath her dignity to answer.

  The lieutenant appeared a moment later. “Ah, Commander Riker will see you now.”

  “Thank you, lieutenant,” she said, as sweetly as if she had never had cause to snap at him in the first place. As if to say isn’t this easier, when you just do what I want?

  She entered to find a severe-looking man in commander’s regalia, fyelocke hair cut short, sitting behind a foldable camp desk loaded with documents. The place smelled of damp earth. He stood on her entry, nearly a head shorter than she. “Miss Fensley. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  His tone indicated it was something quite different than pleasure, but she smiled as though he were a longtime friend. “Reassurances, Commander Riker. House Fensley, as you surely know, was one of the few not to pull out of Ayugen when your legion failed so miserably to defend us, and I’ve come to see what you are doing to make amends.”

  “Amends?” Riker scowled, flexing and unflexing the tendons in his neck. “We were attacked by a force of nature, Miss Fensley. No army could have handled what we faced that day.”

  Tai a force of nature? Interesting. “Be that as it may, you have a duty to protect your Councilate citizens, and there are a few of us who stayed to attempt to salvage the yura supply when the rest of them ran so cowardly for home. Now. There have been attacks in recent days—”

  But the commander’s eyes had widened. “Feynrick? Is that Feynrick of Rotwen?”

  He did not sound pleased.

  “Aye, sir,” Feynrick snapped behind her, in a more precise Yersh than she’d ever heard him use. “At your service, sir.”

  Riker’s eyes narrowed, looking back to her. “This man was dishonorably discharged from our ranks some years ago, Miss Fensley. How comes he to be in your service?”

  “Ah, I can explain sir,” Feynrick put in, still sounding for all the world like a chastened new recruit, not the bawdy and laidback Yatiman she had always known. “Took your words to heart, sir, I did, and tried for a new life in Ayugen. Found some work mercking. Then House Fensley took me on, sir. Best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “He’s a loyal man,” Ella said, “if simple.”

  Feynrick made a strangled sound behind her.

  Riker seemed to accept this, turning back to her as if Feynrick had never been there at all. A true Councilate man, used to ignoring his lessers. “Miss Fensley, if you were referring to recent yura-based attacks on Ayugen, I’m afraid I’m unable to comment.”

  “Oh?” Ella pursed her lips, as mother would do when she knew one of her children was lying. “I suppose Brynne at the tarte shop, and Leyena at the bakery, and that kind leatherworker in the center of town, they were all lying when they said you were in charge of those operations?”

  And if Riker later came down on them, it would serve them right for not telling her in the first place.

  Ella started, realizing that was her mother’s way of thinking. This role came a touch too easy.

  “I’m afraid I can’t comment on that either way, Miss Fensley. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a number of—”

  “I won’t excuse a servant of the people, Commander Riker, who is attempting to avoid his service.” She let her voice raise in pitch, inching closer to the shrill heights her mother would employ in dire cases, sure to achieve her goals if only to prevent hearing loss. “There are lighthaired Councilate citizens still living in Ayugen, I said, and what is the hold up in smashing those mudhairs and retaking our protectorate? Have the Houses lost all interest in yura? Or has the army simply lost its nerve after one freak accident?”

  Riker grew stiffer and sti
ffer with each word—good. Build the man up, then break him.

  “Now I know you have some secret project here, and that is well and good. I don’t need to know the details. What I need is to see that you are actively doing something to counter the Achuri threat, instead of resting on your rears, and all reports indicate if you are doing something, you are doing it here, and I demand to see it.”

  There it was. The screech.

  Riker winced, tendons standing out in his neck, then folded. “Very well. A brief look. And you’ll leave your attache here.” He cast a dark look at Feynrick.

  Ella smiled, back to sugar and sweetness. “How kind of you, Commander. Lead on.” She waved at Feynrick. “Stay put now.”

  She’d done it. She’d bullied and faked her way through Councilate military ranks, and now they were going to lead her right to the information they most needed to keep secret. If she could get a sense of how they were making Broken, or even see where they were keeping their yura, it would change everything.

  Riker turned to lead her in, but a horse-faced woman emerged from behind a canvas partition to the left, sheaf of papers in her hand. “I’ve got these ready for you, Ri—”

  The woman broke off when she saw Ella, and Ella’s stomach clenched. She knew this woman—she’d been a calculor in the Tower, before the ousting. She’d testified against Ella in arbitration, and Ella had publically humiliated her on a number of occasions. Worst of all, she knew Ella had been working with the rebels.

  “Clarella,” she smiled, trying to resummon her mother. “How nice to see you.”

  “Rebel sow,” the woman spat, face darkening. “What in hells are you doing here?”

  24

  Tai sent Dayglen across the bridge to find one of their men—he didn’t think Delnin would renege, but a shadow for his messenger couldn’t hurt. Delnin stormed back into the fortress, shouting at servants, and the other lighthairs drifted into clusters along the bridge, no doubt discussing the ninespears and what it meant.