The Argument of Empires

by Jacob T. Helvey

  She packed everything neatly into her trunk before turning to her room’s small mirror. She pulled a comb out of the pouch at her belt and ran it through her hair, styling it so that it fell to collect in ringlets at her shoulders. She considered applying makeup, but thought better of it. Sweat would make it cake and run down her face. All she needed was to appear before Emperor Hadan looking like some demented harlequin.

  She slipped the comb back into her pouch and strapped her last piece of affectation, a small dueling epée, at her belt. It was the weapon of a woman, common enough in the western provinces, light with a short blade. Kareen hadn’t the foggiest idea on how the thing was to be used, but she wore it more for threat than practical protection.

  Refreshed and packed, Kareen stepped onto deck with time to spare, her trunk resting on a small hand cart, a smile on her face as she watched the ever closing docks of Kwell. In days, maybe even hours, if she was lucky, this would all be over and she would be on a ship back to the Empire, back to Kilri.

  Back home…

  * * *

  Her original estimation had been off somewhat. Due to an error by one of the Kwell’s harbor pilots that nearly caused the collision of two galleys, it was nearing halflight by the time Captain Poil found them a mooring alongside a grain transport with the aspirational name Marlin. Despite her grown anxiety, Kareen still marveled at the ships, the hundreds of sailors unloading cargo, and the warehouses along the water’s edge—each the size of her father’s estate—filled to the brim with crates and barrels. Akiv might have the palace, the libraries, the temples, but this was the true nexus of Emperor Hadan’s power now.

  Lord Yules waddled up beside her, his fine nobleman’s clothes gone. In their place were a brightly colored arming doublet and trousers stiff enough that they might be able to turn a sword, if the man wearing them was very lucky. Much like Kareen’s epée, they seemed to be an affectation more than anything else.

  He was followed by his small retinue of two dozen soldiers. A lord as unimportant as Yules would only be expected to muster a small force when called on by Hadan or his High Lord. “You should really let one of my men carry that for you,” he said, motioning towards her trunk. “I would hate see you have to exert yourself like some common farmer.”

  “It’s really nothing.” Kareen gave the handle a quick tug. “It’s lighter than you would think.”

  Yules nodded slowly. “If you must insist, my lady.” He gave a bow, deep and gracious. “You were a fine traveling companion, but I must beg my leave.”

  Some of the soldiers behind Yules looked more than a little uncomfortable. Did he do this to every woman he met?

  “Thank you, Lord Yules,” she replied, trying to ignore the shuffling men. “I should be getting on my way as well. The Emperor won’t want to be kept waiting.”

  She left Yules to organize his men as she dragged her trunk down the gangway and onto the dock. Captain Poil stood a ways away near where the wharf met the quayside proper, negotiating with a uniformed man, whose badge labeled him as a member of the Dock Authority. Just who she wanted to see.

  The leathery faced officer noted her with a nod as she approached. “Ah, this must be Lady Kareen then. Captain Poil was just telling me about you.”

  “And what did he say?” she asked. A few months ago, she would have never been so forward with her questions, but a strange metamorphosis had occurred inside her heart since leaving her family’s lands. She was stronger now, more likely to speak her mind. It had been a necessity, especially when the hired guards her father had provided for the journey had refused to follow her any further than Akiv. She had been on her own since then, and felt that in some way, she had become better for the experience.

  “He said that you were a fine young lady,” the man replied, barely skipping a beat. “That you payed your dues and extra ahead of the trip. He also said that you were unafraid of the Eye of Tirrak. That’s a quality that you’d be hard-pressed to find in even the hardest Heranan sailors.”

  Kareen shrugged and tried to not show surprise at the pure fiction of the comment. “Why fear the Eye? It is the symbol of God on Earth, of Tirrak’s singular authority.” She might have put up a strong front for Captain Poil and the officer, but the experience had frightened her to her core. The wind and the waves and the constant rocking of the ship had been enough to take her mind to the borders of madness. But meek women rarely got ahead in the world, and Kareen had decided some time ago that she would not be a meek woman.

  “You’ll likely want lodgings in the city,” the Dock Master said, checking a well-worn pocket watch and looking up at the sun. Clearly the man had a tight schedule to keep, and making small-talk to a young noblewoman didn’t fit onto his list of priorities. “I could point you to one of the finer inns. Something that would be fitting for a woman of your station.”

  “Normally, I would take you up on the offer, but I have pressing business at the Palace that I must attend to first. I’m sure someone there could show me to a decent inn.”

  “I’m sure they could.” He nodded to her and tapped the clipboard he held with wrinkled knuckle. “Will you need directions to the palace?”

  She pointed at the tip of a spire, visible even from such a distance. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

  The Dock Master nodded his affirmation and gave her a quick and well-practiced bow. “I wish you luck at your meeting.”

  Kareen responded with a short curtsy and turned to Captain Poil. The brown skinned man’s hair flared behind him in the sea breeze, the sun’s rays catching in its dark luster. He looked out of place in a fine doublet and breeches cut in the Akivian fashion. She liked to think of him in the light shirt and trousers he wore while at sea, not in this sham of finery he only donned when trying to attract clients.

  “I can’t thank you enough for the speedy trip.” She gave him a bow, hand to breast, a deep sign of respect for a man without noble blood. “After the last few weeks at sea, I think I’ll be taking a cog back to Akiv, but if I ever need a stormrunner again, I’ll look for The Skydaughter first.”

  He mirrored her bow and kissed the back of his palm. Kareen didn’t know the exact meaning of the gesture, but it seemed to be some form of goodbye. “It would be a pleasure,” he said in his thick Heranan accent, “to sail with you again.”

  * * *

  The port of Kwell were a labyrinth of interlocking wharfs, quays, and wide berths, stretching out into unprotected waters. How the hundreds of sailors and dockhands managed to navigate this place, and how the docks stayed in one piece during a storm, Kareen hadn’t the foggiest idea. It would take a lifetime just to memorize the paths through the forest of masts that rose into the sky, obscuring the light of the sun behind partially furled sails and a spider web of lines.

  All I have to do is keep moving towards the spire, she reminded herself. It stuck above the even the tallest masts, bronze roofing and red stone glittering in the morning sun. The iron post at its peak still flew the red and gold flag of the merchant council that had ruled Kwell before the coming of the Corrossans. Hadan had yet to have the tattered banner removed, either because he didn’t care if the symbol of the now defunct state still flew, or because the ascent to the top of the dome was too difficult for any of his men to attempt.

  After close to half-an-hour of fruitless searching, Kareen found her way off the docks and entered Kwell proper. For a city of such size, the streets were quiet, nearly empty. Only small groups of Fanalkiri, with their bronze skin and dark red hair, were out walking the dirt avenues, and never alone. She couldn’t blame them. She had heard some of the Corrossan soldiers had more aggressive ideas about the meaning of the word “occupation.”

  They noted her as she passed, and then would quickly avert their eyes. In their minds, she could have a retinue of soldiers just around the last corner, ready to pounce on them as soon as they so much as gave her an angry glanc
e. But despite the occupation and the risk, a few remained defiant. They followed her with brown eyes, deep as charcoal. A few were even more disturbing. Their eyes were yellow or orange, as if those coals had been stoked into life, by the fires of some demon.

  Their gazes sent a shiver up her body. She pulled her sword close, the thought of that small protection giving her steel enough to walk past the packs of foreigners without jumping.

  Merciful Tirrak! She thought. If these people frighten you so much, how would you ever handle seeing a Cutaran? Hopefully she would never have to lay eyes on one of the brutish south-men, so different from humankind that scholars considered them an entirely different species. Like wolf and dog, she had one heard.

  Breathing deeply, she took on the straight-backed posture of a lady, and as if by command, the Fanalkiri edged back, as if the authoritative stance she had learned from her late mother was a physical force. No, these men would not harm her, not while she acted the part of the cold and distant noblewoman.

  She made it through the lower city without incident and entered the finer inner city. The streets were wider here, so close to the palace. The Fanalkiri were slowly replaced by Corossan soldiers, scribes, nobles, and even the occasional lady, most of whom walked beneath the protection of wide parasols to ward away the southern sun. Many of the houses in this district, once the homes of wealthy merchants, had been repainted and renovated, reflecting the current styles back home. Clay bricks and exposed wooden posts had been replaced by whitewashed stone facades, and once-empty windows had been filled with stained glass. Many of the residences had banners hanging above their doorways, proudly displaying the coat-of-arms of various noble houses, major and minor alike.

  She recognized a few. The golden eagle of House Markest, the black star of the Angeans, and even a few from Kilri. But the majority were foreign to her, the houses that bore them either too distant or too unimportant for her to know.

  Not for the first time, she wondered what had happened to the people who had once called these houses home. Had they been cast out to live among those in the lower districts? Had they been murdered, executed?

  She took a deep breath and centered herself. One thing at a time. Taxes first. You can worry about the welfare of the locals later.

  The palace was up ahead, almost fully visible now above the flat-rooved houses of the inner city. It was easily the largest building Kareen had ever seen. Even the Imperial Palace in Akiv would have fit neatly in the shadow of the mountain-like structure.

  It has to be carved out of the bedrock itself, she thought. She didn’t know much about architecture, but where in the name of Tirrak would you find that many blocks of stone? The quarry would be bigger than most cities.

  Although it might have looked like a natural peak, Kareen had it on good account that the House of the Seafarers, as it had once been called, was designed from the ground up to resemble a mountain from Fanalakiri mythology. The habitable portion of the structure consisted of two buildings, one at the foot of the peak, and the other straddling its top, the pillared rotunda, capped by a bronze rooved dome that shone in the late morning sun. Separating them was a winding path, hundreds of feet in length, like the goat trails used by the shepherds of the Uthon Mountains.

  Kareen sighed. The climb looked hard, and would be even harder in the rising heat. She would be sweat stained when all was said and done, regardless of her clever choice of fabrics.

  * * *

  The lack of security at the palace entrance surprised Kareen. There were no walls or gate to keep out commoners and only a handful of guards to stand watch on either side of the cavernous entrance, each wearing a black uniform emblazoned with a white falcon. These were Imperial men.

  Kareen stole herself and stepped through the entrance without a second glance from the soldiers, almost as if they had been expecting her. She was struck by an inexorable feeling of wrongness, like walking into your house to find a single unidentifiable object out of place. Where were the legions of soldiers, the hundreds of scribes, the dozens of sycophants looking for some modicum of power at Emperor Hadan’s feet?

  She quickly realized that the first of the palace’s two buildings was more a façade than a real useable structure, and some of her calm returned. A single lonely hall ran through a structure that should have been large enough to house a small army. To either side, she could peer into well-lit administrative offices. A few scribes worked at low writing desks, but for the most part, the sparse rooms were empty. Her feeling of wrongness deepened again.

  Kareen tried to distract herself with the carvings along the walls, richly decorated with images of trade ships and merchants and animals she had only ever seen described in books. Great maned cats, strange long-necked horses, and snakes the size of men. There were even a few Cutarans, unmistakable, standing a head taller than any of the depicted Fanalkiri and twice as broad.

  She could have stared at those walls for hours, would have, had she not had business that couldn’t be kept waiting. At the opposite end of the hall, she found the way up towards the palace proper. The guards were thicker at this doorway, and more observant, but still, they didn’t stop anyone from taking the first steps towards the peak of the artificial mountain and the palace at its top.

  Kareen gave her luggage to a porter wearing the Imperial colors, but not before taking a satchel from within the trunk, filled with pound upon pound of silver to be placed before Emperor Hadan.

  Kareen took the stairs two at a time, making good progress up the path towards the top. She thought she might make the ascent within a half-hour or so, but there just so many steps, and her pack felt like it was filled with coins made of lead instead of silver. She was breathing heavily by the first hundred, but kept going, the promise of an end to her errand pushing her forward even when her body felt ready to give out. Still, halfway up the path she had to relent. She fell back onto a guard rail, panting and trying to catch her breath, and beheld her first view of Kwell from such a height.

  The curve of the harbor stretched across the horizon to the north, holding what seemed to Kareen to be all the world’s ships. Beyond, the sea was calm and placid, the waves only compelled into motion by a breeze that cooled her skin. The city stretched below her, hundreds, perhaps thousands of buildings. There were warehouses, tenements, and temples, and rivers of people, like ants running through a maze. She looked straight down, her eye following the almost natural slope of the carved ochre stone. I must be three-hundred feet up, at least.

  And yet there was still another hundred feet to go. She sighed and was about to resume her climb, when a man came jogging by. She gripped the railing with white-knuckled fear as he jostled her, the animalistic part of her brain afraid she would somehow slip off the side of the mountain in a plummeting slide to her death.

  The man turned to face her, while somehow managing to keep up his pace, running backwards up the steps as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “Apologies!” he called to her before stopping. His face grew serious and he jogged back to where she still stood clutching the rail. Lords and ladies passed, giving them angry looks. There was only enough room on the stairway for two people to walk abreast and even then the path was tight. But every one of them held their tongue when they saw the man who stood before Kareen. Were they afraid of him?

  The young man brushed a lock of long hair away from his chiseled face and grinned boyishly. His teeth were only slightly paler than his face. Kareen frowned and glanced down at his clothes. He wore a short black coat, buttoned at the front, and a matching pair of breeches. A longsword lay at his belt, a simple yet fine weapon.

  He dresses like a Kilrian, or maybe a Vashavan. Her people had a penchant for black. Her father claimed it was the only color a man should wear, so that he would always be properly attired when he went to meet Tirrak.

  “I’m sorry, my lady. I didn’t see you.” He glanced over his shoulder at the
palace. “I’m so use to running these stairs that half the time I hardly notice the people I’m passing.”

  “It’s alright,” Kareen said, trying to regather her wits. “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have been foolish enough to think I could climb all these steps in one sitting.”

  “Most people find eight hundred eighty-nine steps difficult their first few times. I suppose you could have taken a palanquin, but…” He pointed towards the base of the stairs where a dozen meaty looking servants were doing their best to drag a… yes that was a palanquin, up the steps.

  “For some of our more rotund peers,” he continued, putting a hand to his tight stomach. “We should probably make ourselves scarce before it gets up here. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want the poor man or woman inside accidentally thrown over the railing on my account.”

  She nodded. “First, I would like to know your name.” That would confirm it to her, whether he was from her homeland or not. Perhaps, if she was right, she might have a friend in this Tirrak forsaken place.

  He put a hand to his forehead. “Blessed Tirrak… I suppose I should have started with that…” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, embarrassment writ pale across his comely face. “My name is Livran of House Kirov.”

  Kareen’s face lit up. She knew the name Kirov. Everyone knew the name Kirov. “House Kirov? As in Timon Kirov? Your family fought for the Emperor during the Autumn Rebellion.”

  Livran nodded, his brows furrowing. “The skin, the hair… we don’t happen to be kin?”

  “Distant kin, perhaps. I’m Kareen Stevalen of Kilri” It felt strange to utter that string of words to an outsider. She preferred to keep her lineage to herself whenever possible. The war might have ended seven years ago, but it had cost the lives of tens of thousands in its passing. Many of the Loyalists had lost family and friends in the fighting. Best to not reopen old wounds.