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

by L. W. Jacobs

  Ella had never seen wafters using their higher resonances together before. Never realized what wind added to wind would feel like. It felt like the storms that rolled in from the delta in high summer, ripping sheets from clotheslines and tiles from roofs. Only this storm blew in all directions, outward, flipping thrown weapons up or backward, knocking the nearest brawlers back on themselves.

  Still, the circle of protection was tightening, and still the hail continued. Brawlers were gathering the weapons left in a trail behind them, pulling them from the bodies of the dying, and passing them forward to be thrown again. Almost like they were no longer people, just the pawns of whatever higher power drove them. Ella shivered, but shouted “Keep the weapons! Gather them up! They are reusing them!”

  Suiting actions to words, she bent and took up two swords lying in the field, one of them bloodied. Anger swirled in her, that she didn’t even know whose blood this was, that so many were dying today for the Councilate’s obsession with yura. For their need to suppress the truth.

  Others gathered weapons too, wafters’ winds still howling out from their pack, a few of the deflected missiles finding homes in the Broken, but their numbers still seemed endless. They had been steadily killing themselves inside the harmony field, but the pack was thicker around them.

  Which meant they were still coming. That more Broken were on the way. That they were nowhere near done with this.

  Newgen loomed closer in the distance, blueish haze replaced with the hard details of the Councilate’s former stronghold, iron sigils of the twelve houses now ripped from the walls and replaced with a simple green banner. The color of life. The color of hope.

  Prophets send it still waved at the end of the day. There had to be an end to the Broken. They just had to get through the ranks.

  First they had to get to Newgen, had to teach the city about the harmonies, had to defend themselves somewhere with a stock of yura and winterfoods. The hail of weapons slowed now as her remaining students—maybe half the number they’d started out with—gathered and carried them, but still it came. Still the Broken smashed from the sky. Still the brawlers threw themselves at the borders of the harmony, barely ten paces from where they huddled together in the middle, pace achingly slow across the empty meadow.

  Ella looked again at the meadow, at Newgen, at the trail of bodies behind them. It didn’t take a philosopher to draw conclusions. “We have to move faster!” she shouted at Aelya when the girl passed by, still fearlessly making the rounds and keeping everyone together. “We need to run, or we won’t make it!”

  Aelya barely flinched at this, at the news they might fail after all this, and just changed her shout from “Weapons! Pick up the weapons!” to “Run! We need to run!”

  It was like opening the gates on a spooked herd. The ones at the front started moving, and then everyone was running, leaders pushing too close to the brawlers, harmony weakening. “Stay together!” Aelya yelled, “Keep the resonance!”

  Ella shouted it too, but they were pulling apart, the ones in the front outdistancing those in the back, the lure of safety and Newgen’s walls too much now that they were so close. The gates were still closed, defenders waiting till the last moment to let them in.

  The Broken had no trouble keeping pace, brawlers pushing closer and closer in the dash. Ella ran with the rest, fear high in her throat, uai restored from the mavenstym but still she held it, still she waited. There would be a time, she knew. This might still work.

  An older man beside her faltered, stumbling to one knee. Cursing Ella dragged him up, pack streaming around them, and together they ran for the closed gates, just forty paces away, now thirty, now twenty, the hail of weapons intensifying, more Broken streaking down from the skies to smash into them.

  Ten paces. Five.

  The gates stayed closed.

  “Open up!” Ella screamed, two seconds from panic, her cries echoed by others. The leaders slammed into the thick gates, beat their fists against it. “Open up!”

  Their harmony faltered further, resonant chord threatening to splinter into chaos again, into the random rattle of uai that would leave them at the mercy of a field still crawling with Broken.

  Gods, maybe everyone in Newgen was dead already. Why else wouldn’t they open?

  Ella pushed in with the rest of them, maybe forty altogether now, huddling against the protection of the wall and the overhanging arch of the gate. The wafters couldn’t get them as easily now, but they were sitting ducks for the brawlers, who were hurling rocks and cobblestones now alongside weapons. A woman beside Ella cried out, clutching her head, blooding spurting between her fingers.

  “Winds!” Ella cried. “Use your winds!”

  It was no use, though. While most of her panicked a cold and rational part of her brain understood that. If the gates didn’t open, they were finished. Already fear and uai depletion and their shrinking numbers were pulling the circle of protection closer and closer in. Another five paces and it wouldn’t matter if the brawlers lost control or not. They would be killed just from the random movement.

  And all their discoveries lost with them, and the deeper mysteries of the resonances, and the world given back to the tyranny of the Councilate. Ella’s shoulders slumped, her hands dropping a collection of daggers and swords. And she would die without ever having really lived, still. There was so much left to do. A rock struck her in the shoulder and she stumbled back, hardly aware of the pain. It was over.

  A roar sounded behind her, and a fresh burst of uai hit her like a slap to the back. Someone overcoming—another of the harmony’s amazing effects, about to be lost. This one was powerful. Enough to push their circle of protection wide, if there was another strong resonance to harmonize with it.

  Like her resonance.

  Ella struck, flexing time until she found a harmony, survival overcoming despair. Swords and stones slowed in air, and she ran among them, pushing against the quadrupled strength of inertia, deflecting them from the ragged bunch of survivors.

  Only then did she see who had overcome: Feynrick.

  The grizzled Yati was half-frozen in the act of pulling the spear from his chest, wound healing around it, face radiant with a sudden rush of life. “Oh, thank prophets,” she whispered in the basso silence of slip, hope rising anew. “I knew you’d come through.”

  She slurred slip up then, finding a higher harmony that would pass time faster and still work with Feynrick’s resonance. The circle was expanding, to judge from the several paces of brawlers who had been closing in, only to now turn on each other in a bloodbath that was as awful as it was satisfying. Let them kill each other, innocent though they might have been. Nothing mattered but survival now. And opening those godshattering gates.

  In faster slip Feynrick’s brawler speed meant he moved almost normally to her—and before she could shout, the man was turning for the gates. Ever the strategist, he knew what needed to be done.

  He pulled an axe from a bloody halfspeed man beside him, one of an armful of weapons the man clutched, and swung it at the door. Through the door, a full armspan of iron-hardened heartwood. Then again, and again.

  Ella held resonance, hoping against hope, spine rekindling, but they didn’t need much more time. A wafter sped inward at them, obviously aiming for Feynrick, and with a shout Ella thrust a sword up into it as it passed. Feynrick seemed to hear and without missing a beat spun and swung the axe back into the air, smashing the wafter aside.

  Then he chopped again, Ella doing her best with projectiles coming much faster in her sped-up slip, but there was no slowing it, no risking the fire already spreading up her spine, the loss of protection for the group and loss of time for Feynrick to batter down the gates.

  With a roar just lowered enough to sound more beast than man the healed Yatiman kicked the heavy doors apart, drawbar splintering in half.

  The survivors rushed in, Ella using the last burst of her uai to kill the nearest brawlers and deflect their missiles. Spine on fi
re and the last of the survivors pushing through the gates behind her, Ella ran between them, praying they would find the city of Ayugen waiting on the far side, fresh drawbar in hand, ready to man the walls, ready to continue this fight.

  But as she pushed in, time stuttering back to regular motion, the faces of the bloodied survivors told her all she needed to know. She looked anyway.

  The streets were empty, the city dead. There was no help to be had.

  49

  To those who talk of cultural learning and winterfoods, I would propose a different theory: the darkhairs are possessed of strong magic because they are still without reason. They are still able to believe in such things as our intellect and rationality have long ago dismissed, and so their crude minds are more open to the power yura offers. It is unfortunate that we suffered such a setback in Ayugen. But I ask you: would you rather be a beast with magic, or a man with his reason intact?

  —Eglen Fetterwel, Address to Members of the High Council, Yiel 112

  Fisher and Tai lay on their back in a wide meadow, watching leaves blow from the trees. It was a bright, clear day, and gusts from the west sent shower after shower of gold and scarlet leaves flying.

  Fisher laughed with each one, and Tai was happy she was happy. She deserved this, after all she’d been through.

  You too, Tai. Everybody should be happy.

  A leaf landed on their nose and Fisher squealed, but her words echoed in his head. Everybody should be happy.

  Everybody.

  Tai. Don’t go getting like that again.

  “Like what?” He plucked the leaf off, feeling sad somehow that he didn’t just feel happy. He’d had such a sweet time with Fisher. But everybody should be happy.

  Who wasn’t happy?

  You have to start with yourself. Isn’t that what the Prophet used to say? That was the problem before. You weren’t happy, so you couldn’t make us happy.

  Right. No. He shook his head. It was so hard to think somehow, with Fisher around. “But Ella. Aelya. Feynrick. My—”

  No, no, no, she scolded, switching to the prim and proper Yersh he’d taught them to appeal to lighthaired customers. Every time you start worrying, you stop being happy, and it all starts again. Don’t you want to be happy?

  “I—yes. Of course I do. But my friends—I don’t know.”

  Well, I know. Love rolled off her, overwhelming his confusion. It felt so good. Happiness is all you need. This is all you need. Me, you, the blue sky? That’s all.

  “Right.” The tension left his shoulders. Why had it ever seemed more complicated?

  They made lunch on roots roasted in the fire’s coals, then chased butterflies and songpicklers through the forest as they gathered wood to make a better shelter. It was heaven. Every day was heaven.

  In late afternoon a man showed up at the edge of the clearing. Fear immediately struck him, and distrust. Who is that? Fisher asked. We should hide.

  It was too late, though, the man had seen them. Tai recognized him after a moment, striding through the thick meadowgrass toward them. Nauro. The man with the fox. The one who had given him Fisher.

  A faint smiled played on Nauro’s face. “Getting comfortable, are you?”

  Tai frowned. Nauro knew about Fisher, should know everything, and yet Tai felt like he had a secret to hide. Something Nauro shouldn’t know. “I suppose. What can I do for you?”

  Nauro didn’t answer, gazing instead into Tai’s eyes. Then he chuckled. “Naveinya, at it again. Here friend, let me help you.”

  Fisher screamed for a moment, then it was like blinders were cleared from Tai’s eyes.

  His leg exploded in pain and he fell to the ground, clutching the bulge in his calf. “What—” Where was he? What was he doing? “Ayugen. I need to get back. I—”

  “Yes,” Nauro said, holding up a hand. “In a moment.”

  Nauro. Nauro had stuck Fisher on him somehow. No, not Fisher. A spirit. A revenant. And it had driven him out here, to who knows where. Made him run around chasing mecking butterflies while his friends were in danger.

  Anger boiled up, hot enough to eclipse the pain in his leg. Tai struck resonance.

  Nauro tsked and waved a hand, and Tai’s resonance died. “No need for that, friend. I’m on your side, remember?”

  “On my side. You put that thing on me.” He pushed himself up. “You knew it would bring me out here.”

  “Here exactly? No. But I knew it would take you somewhere, yes, somewhere far away. That’s what she does. What all revenants do, if they get the chance. Make you a hermit. Get your uai all for themselves. Naveinya just happens to be especially good at it.”

  “And you can control her?” He stood straighter, wincing against the pain. What happened if Nauro died? Would the thing come back, or vanish?

  “In a manner of speaking, yes. You could too, if you agree to tutelage. Otherwise,” he gestured to the meadow, “I imagine your world will remain quite small.”

  The deal Nauro had offered. Join him and defeat Semeca. “And let all my friends die? Never.”

  “About that. I thought you might appreciate an update. The Councilate has finally struck in force. I’d estimate eight, maybe nine hundred Broken. Some of your friends made a daring escape from the caves, but they’ve got nowhere safe to go.”

  Gods. He had to get back to them, but neither Nauro or the revenant would let him. Tai had no weapons, but that meant little to a child of the streets. He’d risk it. Tai lunged, aiming a fist at the man’s adam’s apple—

  Nauro stepped back just as Tai’s leg gave out. He fell again, white-hot lances of of pain shooting up his side. He gasped.

  “If it’s any comfort, I hate seeing you like this,” the fyelocked man said. “Many more days on that leg and you’ll have a limp for life. Or Naveinya may never let it heal. There are stories of people she dragged out for decades, nursing old injuries. I did some reading, once I’d purchased her. Fascinating stuff.”

  His casual tone only made Tai more angry. Angry and frustrated at his own powerlessness. He couldn’t resonate, couldn’t fight, couldn’t even stand at the moment. But think, Tai. You still have your wits. Think.

  Keep him talking, for starters. “So why have you come? To laugh at me while my city burns?”

  “Believe it or not, Tai, I’d rather not see Ayugen burn. But if that’s what it takes to get you on our side, yes. You would be surprised how people change when they lose everything they love.”

  “You’re insane if you think that will make we want to join you.”

  He nodded as if accepting a point. “I was afraid you’d feel that way. So I’ve come to amend my offer.”

  Hope surged in him. Hope and distrust. “To save the city? To fight together? I would join you for that.”

  “Ah—no.” He smiled apologetically. “As I’ve said, until you’ve studied more, until we’ve had time to prepare, we cannot take on an archrevenant. And Semeca is there now, in person. No. What I’m offering is more modest, but the best I can do. To save a few of your friends. We could get out three, maybe four.”

  “And the rest would die.”

  He grimaced. “Unavoidable. That many Broken—” He shook his head.

  The smart thing to do would be to accept. Cut his losses. Do what he could. But that was the Fisher-revenant’s logic. Give up on himself. Run away. “Never. I’ve beaten voices before. Two of them. Give me this thing back. Naveinya. I’ll beat her too.”

  Nauro’s mouth twitched. “Your determination is admirable. But no, no you won’t. Naveinya has been around for centuries. At least six, I think. She’s one of the most powerful revenants known to us. Cost me quite a fortune to buy her, you might be happy to know.”

  “I don’t care. If you’re not going to help me, put her back in. I’ll take her down.”

  “As I said, your determination is admirable. Denial is something else. Look around, Tai.” He gestured at the meadow and forest. “What have you been doing, chasing butterflies? Watc
hing leaves blow? Naveinya is too strong. There’s no shame in it. She has driven every host she’s ever had into the ground, whether it takes days or decades. And with the amount of uai you control, she will get more powerful than ever. I don’t imagine she’ll let go of you easily.”

  “I’m done talking. Give me the ghost back.”

  “I could sell you out, you know. Bargain with Semeca. She sees the same promise in you I do. She would likely reward me richly for turning you in, especially in such a state.”

  “Give. Me. The. Ghost.”

  The corners of his mouth drooped. “Very well, Tai of Ayugen. Don’t forget that I offered you hope for at least some of your friends. I will be back, when this is all done. You will see reason eventually. Until then, there’s Naveinya.”

  Nauro’s eyes grew hard. Tai braced himself. He just needed to remember she wasn’t real, it wasn’t Fisher. It was some ancient ghost thing—

  Fisher slammed back into him like a physical force, screaming, driving all other thought from his mind in pain. The scream went on and on.

  When it finally stopped they were both exhausted, the sun lower in the sky, confusion drifting like a fog between his thoughts. There had been a man here, but he was gone now. A bad man? The wind had died down, and there were no more leaves to watch tumble through the sky.

  Come on Tai, Fisher said, her reedy voice as tired as he felt. Let’s make a fire. It’s getting dark.

  50

  And some appear to be entirely devoid of yurability, even when fed southern foods and plenty of moss. These I call ‘blanks,’ the sorry louts. How dull life would be without magic!

  —Artimus Kellandrials, broadsheet on philosophy of yura, Yiel 101

  Ella stared at the deserted enclave while the crowd around her panicked. There were signs of people everywhere: muddy footprints, dropped clothes, discarded leafwrappers wafting in the compound’s shallow waters. But no one on the walls, no one in the raised streets, no faces floating from the Councilate’s ornate island houses.