by Devin Hanson
Andrew realized the man was fighting back tears and suddenly felt embarrassed. He released the man’s shoulder. “Stand ready with me and make no mistakes. We have one chance at this and we must not fail.”
“It will be done, my lord. And thank you. I speak for all balai in this.”
Andrew nodded and clapped the man on the shoulder again before turning to leave. He wasn’t exactly certain what the man meant, but he could hardly ask without making a fool of himself and embarrassing everyone. He really had to speak with Iria about this title business. And since when had “Speaker” turned into “My Lord Speaker” anyway?
He left the Hall of Morning just in time to see a pair of ornate carriages roll out through the entrance arch. Jules was standing in the middle of the courtyard surrounded by retainers of various nobles all impatiently waiting to hand her acceptance letters from the lords and ladies that had received invitations at daybreak. Apparently, once the Speakers showed their interest in showing up, everyone else had to as well.
Andrew left Jules to it and returned to the railing overlooking the Silent Sea. The waves lapping against the shore were small, around a foot in height. His stomach growled and Andrew remembered that he hadn’t eaten since before daybreak. He turned toward the center of the courtyard where the caterers were beginning to lay out trestle tables creaking under the weight of food.
A haze of dust hanging over the real land caught his eye and Andrew had a brief surge of fear that there was another dust storm coming. That would ruin the auction! But he didn’t hear any alarms and the natives didn’t seem to care. Surely someone had noticed it and had deemed it not worth bothering about. Nevertheless, Andrew waved down a passing “caterer” and pointed it out.
The balai watched the dust for a while before shrugging. “It is nothing,” he said in broken Salian. “No storm. No worry.”
Andrew thanked him and pondered the haze for a few minutes. The balai was right. It looked nothing like the dust storm he had seen earlier. Well, if the balai wasn’t worried then Andrew wasn’t worried. Besides, he was hungry.
He snuck a pastry out of an arrangement and made off with it. It was delicious, thick with meat and gravy and some vegetables he couldn’t identify. More importantly, it wasn’t spicy. It was the first thing he had to eat besides dried jerky that he could eat with ease since arriving in Nas Shahr.
It wasn’t until Andrew was wiping his fingers and considering stealing another one that it occurred to him what the dust cloud might be. He hurried back to the railing and peered toward the real land. Whatever was raising the cloud was still beyond the horizon. But it was coming straight through the center of the real land. A passage that Andrew knew from personal experience was utterly impassable by humans.
The dragons were coming.
And more than just a few. The dragons that had ambushed them at the desert basin hadn’t raised a dust cloud, and there had been scores of them.
Hundreds of dragons were coming, maybe thousands.
Andrew swallowed, his mouth abruptly dry. For whatever reason, he had assumed that the desert dragons were few in number like the northern dragons and that they had the same difficulty breeding as Avandakossi did. It seemed he was wrong.
He jogged over to where Jules was holding court and pushed his way through the courtiers to her side. “We need to talk. Now.”
“Here now!”
Andrew turned to face the courtier, a florid man with a pinched face, his eyes, nose and mouth occupying an area only a few inches across. The rest of his wide face only seemed to emphasize how close together everything else was. Andrew had a rebuke ready on his lips, but the man cowered when he saw Andrew’s face, bowed, and hurried away, his girth bulling a wide path through the courtiers.
What did his face look like, anyway? The rest of the courtiers backed away with more decorum, but none seemed keen on a confrontation.
“What is it? Was that really necessary?” Jules asked, irritation in her voice.
Andrew forced his face into what he thought was a pleasant demeanor and turned back to Jules. “There’s something you need to see.”
He led Jules toward the railing on the north side of the courtyard, ignoring her protests. They cleared the trees closing in the inner courtyard and stepped out onto the brick walkway that ran around the circumference.
“Is this some trick to get me alone–” Jules’s voice trailed off as Andrew pointed toward the north and she saw the dust cloud.
“They’re coming,” Andrew said.
“Tiny gods,” Jules breathed. She leaned against the railing and watched the dust drifting up into the sky. “It looks like we’ve run out of time.”
“They’re still miles away,” Andrew said. “We have a few hours.”
“This auction of ours better work then, or we’re all in trouble. There won’t be time for a second plan. Have you heard from Ava yet?”
Andrew shook his head. “No, but she’s getting closer.” He reached out experimentally and found the distant hitch that Ava’s presence seemed to create. An awareness seemed to push back, but it was too faint to resolve anything. Two months ago he would have dismissed it as imagination, but no, there had been some response to his probe. “She knows where I am, and is coming as fast as she can.”
“I hope nothing is wrong,” Jules said worriedly.
“Yeah, probably safe to assume something is,” Andrew sighed.
Jules made a face, but nodded her agreement. “Better go find Iria. I have some bruised egos that will need massaging.”
Iria stood with the Speaker at the railing and watched the dust cloud. The sun was starting to get low over the Silent Sea, and the sunset was reflected in the still waters, making the evening a glorious burst of color. Despite the beauty to the west, neither of them looked at it.
It was the north that held their attention. The distant smudge that had first caught the Speaker’s attention had turned into a column of churning dust over a mile wide. Some of the guests were alarmed by it, but it was moving far too slowly to be a dust storm and was not nearly wide enough. Jules had handled that with a timely distraction and laughing assurance.
Iria felt nothing like laughing. The Speaker’s first estimate of hundreds was grossly off. There were thousands of dragons coming.
“Maybe the blue walls will hide the city from them,” the Speaker said dully. The approach of the dragons seemed to have sapped his usual enthusiasm.
“Perhaps,” Iria said. “But the Palace of a Thousand Arches will stand out above the wall like a beacon in the light of Maeis.”
“If the dragons attack the city, they will strike first at the Arches,” Andrew finished the thought.
Iria stood silent for a while. There were other duties she should be attending to, but the sight of the approaching dragons was mesmerizing. The Speaker, she noticed, was not looking at the dust plume, rather a spot more easterly. He seemed lost in thought, or perhaps concentration.
“Ava speaks,” he said abruptly. A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “She asks if we know there is an army of dragons marching toward the city.”
Iria coughed out a surprised laugh and bit it off when it came out a little hysterical. “Yes. We are aware.”
“I told her as much. She now wants to know what we did to anger them. I’m explaining things, but it might take a while.”
“I apologize if I am too forward, but is it possible Avandakossi can speak with the dragons as you did?”
Andrew quirked an eyebrow at her. “What’s with you balai and apologizing today? Yeah, I’ll ask her.”
Iria cast her eyes down. “Perhaps in Salia it is different,” she said, “but Maar respect the elders and the wise. It is not right to impose on them without need.”
“Tiny gods, Iria. I wasn’t chastising you. Look, you’re one of the very few people I trust completely. And you’re a friend. I…” his voice trailed off, a faraway look returning to his eyes for a few moments before snapped back. “You
’re important to me,” he said firmly, “your requests are important too, and I will do what I can to help you in whatever way you need.”
The Speaker cleared his throat and turned his gaze back to the mountains. “Sorry. To answer your question, yes, Ava knows Miranikossi and will speak with her. Was there a message you wanted to convey?”
Iria cursed to herself as she blinked the prick of threatened tears away. The day had not been easy, and the state the Empire was in still shocked her. The balai she had spoken to had been apathetic, beaten down by the decay of their nation and authority. But it was the balai that had changed their robes for the black that were the worst. Those traitors had fled to the Emperor’s Speakers like rats fleeing a sinking ship, betraying the balai that worked to preserve the Emperor’s strength and sabotaging their efforts.
The heartfelt and unlooked for show of support from Andrew had touched her, making her vision blurry and her throat tight. She schooled herself back to calm and forced her mind to focus on the problem at hand. “Ask,” she cleared her throat and took a deep breath. “Please ask Avandakossi if she would be willing to relay a request to delay until after the auction.”
The Speaker nodded. “I will tell Ava, but whether the dragons will wait is up to Miranikossi.”
“Thank you, Speaker.”
“Iria…” Andrew waited until she looked up at him again and she saw the fear and confusion on his face. “What is going on here? Nobody is telling me anything.”
How could she tell him? What words could she use to describe to betrayal of the Speakers? Or worse, the oath-breakers who abandoned the Emperor? That worst of all, the Emperor himself was probably dead?
“The balai gather to us,” she said, “because we are the only thing left that brings them hope. We will save the people, Speaker, but the Empire has already fallen.”
“What of the Emperor?”
“We assume him slain. No balai has seen him or been allowed into his chambers for two weeks.”
“Oh, no.” Andrew’s face fell. “We were too late. The Speakers were responsible?”
“They are behind the orders blocking balai from entering the upper levels of the palace. It must be they.” Iria felt like pacing, clenching her fists and screaming at the sky. She did none of them, because she was a balai, and balai did not betray their emotions like that.
“I saw some of the Speakers’ guards. Who were those black-robed balai?”
“They were no balai,” Iria said angrily. “Traitors, oath-breakers, filth. They defile the mask. They were once balai, but they sold their loyalty to the Speakers and have betrayed the Emperor.”
“Then they are likely Incantors too.”
Iria nodded, she had thought of that. “The balai know. When the time comes, they will be struck down first. We will make sure of our kills as well. The orders I gave were to pierce the heart and cut the throat, no matter the other wounds.”
The Speaker nodded, his mouth tight. “Good. We must take no chances.”
“It will not be long now before the auction begins.” Iria eyed the approaching dust cloud once more. “If you are going to prepare, it might be time.”
“Yes, you’re right. If it can be spared, I would appreciate a guard while I do. I think you and Jules will be busy.”
“I will find some balai worthy of trust.”
“How about the squad captain who was posted on the balcony in the hall? I liked him.”
“It will be done.”
Chapter 19
Auction
Andrew settled onto the cushion and closed his eyes as the sun slowly crept the last finger’s width beyond the horizon and music began, ushering in the night and the beginning of the festivities. He had found a good place to overlook the courtyard on the eastern wall: an apartment whose owners had been given a staggering sum of gold and told to get lost for the evening. Andrew was seated on a table with a clear view out over the balcony and down into the Court of the Rising Sun below.
Captain Adnan Hakhim and the twenty men under his command were in the apartment, guarding his back. Andrew had expected just the Captain, but apparently Iria had assigned his entire troop as Andrew’s personal guard and ordered Andrew’s safety on pain of death. The Captain had taken the assignment seriously.
After Andrew voiced some disagreement about the number of balai assigned to him, Iria pointed out that there were now over four hundred balai in and around the Court of the Rising Sun. The Captain and his troop were easily replaced, and if he complained any more, Iria promised she would double the number as she had done to Jules.
It was a small comfort to know that Jules would have no less than forty balai dedicated to keeping her alive. Even so, once the guests had started arriving, Andrew wondered if it would be enough. The Court was full. The stupendous amount of food the caterers had set up was swiftly diminishing, and fresh offerings were being brought out in a constant stream by a small army of waiters. There were hundreds of guests, and more arriving as fast as they could fit through the entry arch. The Hall of Morning would have standing room only, with only the lucky few who had sent a runner to confirm their reservation scoring seats.
Among such bustle, the balai moved invisibly, disguised in a hundred different ways. But for every balai that was dressed as a noble or a waiter or a groomsman, there was one dressed in the not-so-subtle promise of the dun-colored robes, sand masks in place and weaponry in plain view.
Rather than the fear Andrew had expected the response would be, the guests saw the presence of so many balai as confirmation that the subject of the auction was real. The excitement was palpable. Andrew wondered what their reaction would be when they discovered there was no dragonet. And what would happen when an open battle between the Incantors and the balai took place?
It would be a slaughter. But what option did they have? They couldn’t start turning people away in case one of the Incantors arrived late. They couldn’t let people leave, either, for fear that an Incantor would slip away. Every noble and rich lordling with their coterie who walked through that arch was doomed. It weighed on Andrew heavily, almost paralyzing him when he thought about it, but what choice did they have? He was doing the right thing, the only thing, but no justification in the world would ease the sick feeling in his stomach.
Captain Hakhim stood a few paces behind Andrew’s left shoulder, but other than that, Andrew had managed to order the room clear. So instead of crowding around him while he was trying to concentrate, the troop had broken into spears, groups of five, and distributed themselves around the apartment. One spear stood out on the balcony, while the rest patrolled around inside the apartment and adjacent rooms.
Avandakossi had finally reached the city and was currently flying slow circles overhead now that the sun was down and it was unlikely anyone would see her. In her last update, the desert dragons had reached the hills just outside the city within a ten-minute sprint. Miranikossi had acknowledged the request to delay, but hadn’t confirmed or denied her intention, or ability, to cooperate.
When Andrew asked Ava how many dragons were mustered outside the walls, she had answered, “All of them.” It wasn’t a number, but it communicated the situation plainly enough. The desert dragons were not going to take any chances. If Andrew couldn’t deliver on his promise, Khar Bora would not exist by the time the sun rose once more. Not a single human would survive the massacre.
Andrew sighed and started the process of clearing his mind. The last time he had attempted this, the circumstances had been more clear-cut. He had been preparing to fight for his life against Incantors or their servants, and forming the elements of the rune song to bring about their demise hadn’t had any additional baggage.
This time, as Andrew tried to focus, all he could see in his mind’s eye were innocents being shredded by the ravaging forces of alchemy. The sound of the pre-auction party going on outside the balcony didn’t help things. All those people currently engaged in celebration would soon be running in terror as
Incantors fought balai.
He couldn’t do it. He pulled out of the trance and found he was shaking and sweating. He lurched off the table and stumbled to the wall where he threw up everything he had in his stomach.
“What is wrong, Speaker?”
Andrew wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. He still felt sick. “I can’t do it,” he croaked. “All those people out there, I can’t kill them all!”
The captain nodded, his eyes tired but understanding. “No man could and stay sane after,” he said quietly. “You are not such a man, nor should you attempt to be one.”
“But what do I do?” Andrew cried, “Jules is out there counting on me! Iria, all the balai, tiny gods, Adnan, the entire population of Khar Bora depends on my alchemy!”
Captain Hakhim nodded. “It may be as you say, Speaker, I would not gainsay you in this. But the killing is not for you, that is plain to see. Leave that to the balai, it is what we do. For years, we have made the hard decisions that kept the Empire together. I have killed many innocents in the pursuit of the greater good, it is not something I am proud of. But I know the type of man it takes, and you are not one.”
“I’m sorry,” Andrew said miserably.
“Do not be. You are a better man than I.”
“There might be some alchemy that I can bring to bear that might help us. I… cannot kill without knowing my target is deserving, but there is work that needs doing beyond killing. You and your men are competent enough at that task, I think.”
“We will follow your orders, Speaker.”
“The alchemy doesn’t disturb you?” Andrew asked, climbing back up onto the table.
The Captain shrugged a little uncomfortably. “It is not something I have much experience with.”
“Iria told me some about how the Maar view alchemy.”
“Iria is known to be open-minded,” Adnan admitted. “But it was her specialty to hunt down the rogue alchemists and bring them to justice. Most Maar never witness any alchemy being performed in their whole lives.”
