The Argument of Empires

by Jacob T. Helvey

  Tain had driven them hard to reach Kwell ahead of schedule. “I want to be in and out of the city without a fuss,” he had said. “Quick enough, and we might even be able to intercept Irrin and Uche Lords before they pass over the Sikara Divide.” By riding an additional two hours every day, they had managed to shave two days off the trip. And, Grith had to admit, it had paid off. By the time the sun fell below the horizon, they would be within the walls of Kwell.

  After that, the plan was simple. Ride up to the entrance to High Lord Malgin’s palace, a building that Jionis assured them was unmistakable, and ask for an audience. Jionis would then read off the letter she had memorized, and they would pray to all the gods in the heavens that Malgin hadn’t betrayed them to Hadan.

  If he had, things could get very messy indeed.

  * * *

  Just as Jionis had predicted, they rode through the cavernous gates of Kwell just as the sun fell behind the city walls. They took rooms in a boarding house in the Upper City, only half a mile from the House of the Seafarers, the artificial mountain that had once been the home of Kwell’s Merchant Council, and now the Emperor, until recent developments had drawn him to the Front. A traveler had told them the good news a few miles outside the city. Hadan was in the field seeing to his armies. A fortunate turn of events. Perhaps Malgin would be more receptive to their message without Hadan’s eyes on his back.

  Grith tried to sleep. He would need his strength for tomorrow. But no matter what he did, he couldn’t stop the racing of his heart and mind. It made no sense. He was more nervous now than on the eve of his first battle, when he was certain that pirates were going to take the merchant ship which he had guarded. Perhaps it was the hopelessness of the situation if they failed. If Malgin betrayed them, there would be little even a pair of Enforcers could do to escape. He and Tain, even with all their power, would be as good as dead, and Jionis with them.

  Grith rolled onto his side and watched the Sky Father through his room’s window. When sleep finally took him, it was deep and dreamless.

  * * *

  They woke early the next day and ate a silent breakfast in the saddle. The city was quiet in the morning twilight. The men and women who were out so early walked with purpose, wrapped in thin shawls against the slight chill that underlaid the dry air. Blacksmiths stoked their fires and shopkeepers opened their doors to the first customers of the day.

  Grith had wanted to go to the meeting armed, but Tain had denied him. His spear or bow would draw too much attention, and might even bring the Akivian Corps down on their heads. The Emperor’s soldiers would have little tolerance for a Fanalkiri carrying a weapon in public. And besides, it wasn’t like it mattered anyway. As Tain had said before, if they were betrayed, they were dead whether they carried weapons or not. Grith wondered then why they had come along in the first place. Why not let Jionis fend for herself, if betrayal was a guarantee of death? Why would Irrin volunteer his two Enforcers for a suicide mission?

  As they approached the base of the House of the Seafarers, the streets grew wider, the cobbles finer, and the houses taller and more sturdily built. The majority of the faces Grith saw on balconies and through windows were light skinned Corrossans. They hadn’t even bothered to build houses of their own. Instead, after the conquest of the city, they had evicted the merchants and taken their homes for themselves.

  And the most prized of these houses lay ahead. Separate from the others and well within the shadow of the House of the Seafarers, was the largest and finest estate Grith had seen so far. It was of a Fanlkiri design, three stories tall, built from brown sandstone, and fronted by several levels of balconies. Guards paced back and forth behind the iron guardrails on each floor, wearing the red and gold livery of High Lord Malgin. His flag flew from the roof of the house above raised friezes strikingly similar to those on the Pasha’s Palace.

  “You were right,” Grith told Jionis. “You can’t miss it.”

  She smiled. “I served here for five months back when it was still the home of Offan Ishis.” She looked up towards the towering heights of the House of the Seafarers. From this angle, Grith could just barely make out the palace at its peak, where the Council had met when they still ruled this city.

  “I remember the day they killed him, clear as the glass your people are so fond of.” A tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away with an absent hand before averted her gaze from the immense structure.

  “Who killed him?” Grith asked, though he feared he already knew the answer. When the invasion had taken place two years before, the Fanalkiri states hadn’t put up much of a resistance. Their armies were small, little more than city garrisons, and had fought on for less than a month before surrendering to the more heavily armed Corrossan troops. It was supposed to have been a bloodless transition of power, was touted as one, but Grith had always harbored suspicions. Things were rarely so clean.

  “One of your Emperor’s lords.” The words stung Grith. Hadan wasn’t his Emperor, he had always told himself. Jionis looked down at her saddle horn, whispering to herself as she did when using her Delving. Grith tried to imagine her drawing forth a single name, perhaps even a face, from a lifetime of perfect memories. It was difficult to wrap his head around. “Lord Ferrow,” she finally said.

  “I think I met him once, at a ball in Selivia,” Tain said. “He seemed like a decent fellow.”

  “This ‘decent fellow’ hanged Offan without a trial,” Jionis spat. It was the first time Grith had ever seen such emotion from her. “Hanged all the men and women of the Merchant Council. I saw him do it, heard their necks break when the rope went taut.”

  Tain and Grith both remained silent for a long, awkward moment. What Jionis had said wasn’t surprising really. The Empire had a way of dealing with conquered rulers, pushing them out of the way quietly, as they had with the councils that had ruled the Shaleese, or in the case of Kwell, through public humiliation. Then, men more loyal to the Imperial regime would be set in the places of power, men who would follow Hadan’s word to the letter. It was a frighteningly effective system. But still, to hear it from the mouth of someone who had actually experienced the aftermath of the Corrossan conquest, who remembered it in perfect detail… it was sobering.

  The trio remained quiet as they approached the wrought iron gate to Malgin’s estate and hailed one of the guards on the second floor balcony. He came out the front door a minute later and headed towards the gate, his spear held at his shoulder, a slightly annoyed expression on his wide, shovel-like face.

  “A good morning to you.” Tain offered, giving his best disarming smile.

  Despite his teacher’s best attempt, the man held fast to his foul mood. “The High Lord isn’t seeing guests today.”

  “Even messengers from High Lords Irrin and Uche? We have traveled for nearly a week to get here and-”

  “Gimme a moment,” the man growled, holding up his free hand. Clearly, the names held some weight in the household. He turned and went back inside without even a question as to their intentions. Was that a good or bad sign?

  “The guards in there are thick as pea soup,” Tain murmured.

  “I only spot seven,” Jionis said. “Five on the balconies, and two patrolling the grounds. That does not seem like an unusual number for the protection of a High Lord.”

  “I see twelve more,” Grith replied, hoping no one would notice that he was in fact perfectly capable of hearing and speech. Curators might have had perfect memories, but clearly their senses paled in comparison to those of an Enforcer. “Archers, up in the shadowed windows.” He motioned as casually as he could to the thin slit-like openings on the upper floors of the house. “And in the bushes along the path. If you look closely you can see the glint of their armor.”

  “It’s good to see that a few weeks without training hasn’t taken the edge off,” Tain commented. Yes, Grith had feared his abilities might weaken. He hadn�
��t practiced much since they’d made landfall, except to go through basic forms, and even on the ship, they hadn’t been able to fight at full tilt for fear of the collateral damage they might do.

  “Do you think he’s expecting us?” Grith asked, scanning each guard in turn. They had their bows ready, arrows knocked, like they were prepared for an army to assault the front gate.

  “Impossible,” Jionis said. “Word only travels so quickly. I would say that your High Lord being on the continent at all will be news to Malgin.”

  “Let’s hope,” Tain said as the guard returned. “I prefer to have the element of surprise with these kind of things.”

  “High Lord Malgin will see you,” the guard said, his voice more resigned and less confident than it had been moments before. He put down his spear and undid the lock on the gate. It swung open with a creak of iron hinges, allowing them to ride through.

  Grith took a heavy breath and entered further into the Deepening, watching the men in the shrubbery flanking the graveled path to the front door. They had shifted in their positions, their bows ready, as if to prove to anyone who approached just how fully they were at Malgin’s mercy. Grith gritted his teeth, trying to ignore the rustling of leaves, the glint of broadheaded arrows.

  The guard led them around the house and to a stable where grooms took their horses. “I don’t like this, Tain,” Grith whispered as they trudged back towards the entrance to the house. “Those archers-”

  “If they wanted to kill us, we’d already look like porcupines,” Tain replied easily. “That means Malgin will hear us out, at least.”

  “And then what?” Grith demanded, his voice rising.

  Tain shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes, you just have to wait and see. Roll with the punches.”

  Through the front door was a well-lit foyer. Hallways branched out on either side, leading deeper into the labyrinthine building, but instead of taking them down these darkened, seemingly abandoned corridors, the guard led them up a set of stairs to a second floor balcony that overlooked the house’s entryway.

  While the first floor had been decorated with various rugs and carpets, each likely worth as much as one of Malgin’s soldiers made in a year, the second put it to shame. Here the walls were lined with paintings brought from the Empire, depicting heroes and villains from myth and legend: Ishai the Wanderer with her gnarled staff, Ser Bosson, doing battle with the great serpent creature that would be his downfall, and a dozen others. Alongside the paintings, were set shards of pottery and metalwork, ancient, if their state was anything to go by.

  Grith could imagine Irrin’s palace in Selivia looking something like this, rich and fashionable and filled with the loot of previous generations. Aside from a few small quirks in style and appearance, these High Lords seemed to all share similar tastes.

  The guard brought them to a plain door at the end of a side hallway and knocked three times. All six inches of thick hardwood opened with a creak of overworked hinges. “Send them in,” came a voice from within the room beyond.

  Tain stepped through first, followed by Grith and Jionis a few paces behind. The room was smaller than Grith would have expected and more simply decorated than the hallway outside. The walls and floor were all bare wood. Rugs were thrown haphazardly across the rough surface, and the heavy desk that dominated the center of the study was covered in papers. A single window on the back wall let in light that illuminated the man behind the table. It would have given him an angelic quality if his appearance hadn’t stood in such stark contrast to the heavenly light.

  He was older than Grith would have expected for a man who Irrin had called a friend. Malgin was as rough as the room around him. He had lost most of his hair, and what was left fell in long wisps to a patterned mantle that Grith guessed had never been fashionable. His face was hawkish, even thinner than Grith’s own, pale, wrinkled, sickly, but whether from disease or indulgence in life’s more destructive pleasures, Grith couldn’t be sure.

  Malgin raised a glass full of deep amber liquid to his lips. Perhaps the latter then.

  “High Lord Malgin,” Tain said, stepping forward and giving an elegant bow at the waist. “It is an honor.”

  Grith stepped up beside his teacher and mimed the motion. While it wasn’t as smooth or well executed, it passed snuff. Grith rose and twisted his head to where Jionis still stood at the door. He motioned to her with a barely hidden wave of the hand. Bow! he wanted to say, but hoped the gesture would be signal enough.

  Instead, she put a finger to her forehead and ran the digit down her nose to her lips. It looked like some kind of Fanalkiri greeting, at least that’s what Grith hoped it was. He turned back to Malgin. The High Lord hadn’t moved since raising the glass to his lips. He gulped down the last bit of liquor and set the glass back down on the table with a click.

  “So you are Uche and Irrin’s messengers?” he asked Tain. “I would say you’re overdressed…”

  Without skipping a beat, Tain replied, “Irrin likes his messengers to look the part.”

  “Cocky as well,” Malgin growled. He waved a hand to the guard at the room’s entrance, who stepped outside and closed the door behind him with the heavy click of a locking mechanism. Grith felt the hair on the back of his neck stand at full attention as the last latch fell into place.

  “You should work for Uche,” Malgin continued, once they were alone. “You two would get along swimmingly.” He kicked his feet up on the table. “He always had a high opinion of himself.”

  Tain took a step forward, not threatening, but undeniably assertive. “I’m here to deliver a message for High Lord Irrin.” He looked around the room. “Are we alone?”

  Malgin nodded to the door. “In here, even a Delver couldn’t listen in on us.”

  “Good-”

  “So Irrin’s made the trip south. I wondered when he’d finally leave the safety of his palace. It seems the coin locked up down here is too good for even a man like him to pass up.”

  The implication in the statement was clear. He had just called Irrin a coward. Tain looked like he might come over the table and beat the High Lord senseless, but checked himself and instead turned to Jionis. “I see that we should get straight to business then.”

  Grith fiddle with his fingers as he watched the scene. He badly wanted his spear. Either Malgin was a simple ass, or they were about to get fucked. Either way, Grith was beginning to wonder if he could survive a jump out of a second story window with Jionis in his arms.

  The Curator stepped forward and clasped her hands at her waist. With searching eyes, she began to recite Uche’s message:

  “Malgin, I wish I could code this letter in a way that you would understand, but since no formal code exists between us, I am afraid I must be opened. Our mutual friend, Irrin, was attacked on his way to Fanalkir, just outside of Saleno. He tells me the men were no common bandits, or even assassins from a rival lord. They were Highlanders…”

  Malgin shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Jionis stopped for effect, but the High Lord waved at her to continue. “Go on.”

  “As hard as this may be to believe, you must trust me when I say it is true. We have few friends in the south we can trust. But you are one of the men on that small list, and closer to the center of power than I. Use your contacts in the capital and elsewhere, find out what the Emperor is planning, and send a reply as soon as possible. You have the use of my Curator for this purpose if you wish.”

  “That is all, High Lord.”

  Malgin took his feet off the table and leaned forward, staring at somewhere indistinct near the door. “Can you be sure they were Highlanders?” Malgin asked, turning his attention to Tain.

  “Positive,” the bodyguard told him. “I looked over the bodies myself. They had all the telltale markings.”

  “I can also attest to that,” Grith said, deciding it was finally time to give up the mut
e act.

  “A messenger who has fought Highlanders and a Fanalkiri who is not a Fanalkiri? Irrin keeps strange company.”

  “My name is Tain. I’m High Lord Irrin’s bodyguard and this is Grith, my apprentice.”

  Understanding crossed Malgin’s face. “You’re the Delver Irrin talked about in the last letter he sent me.”

  “That’s right,” Tain replied.

  “And how many Highlanders did you fight off?” Malgin demanded as he leaned down to shuffle through a stack of papers beside his desk.

  “Fifty,” Grith said. “Maybe more. There was the Ignean as well-”

  Malgin pulled something from the stack of papers and held it to the light filtering in through the window. “They may have been Highlanders, but they were not sent by the Emperor.”

  Grith and Tain shared a confused look. “What do you mean?” his teacher asked.

  “They couldn’t have been sent by the Emperor, because this writ names Irrin Master of Fort Tanally along the western edge of the Front. It’s a lynchpin position in our defense against the Cutarans. Why would Emperor Hadan send assassins to kill the man he had just chosen to appoint?”

  Twenty-Two:

  Kareen

  Clouds of dust signaled the arrival of Lord Hars’ three-thousand soldiers. Cavalry, infantry, and archers all formed columns across the plain outside the Imperial Camp. Kareen couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit of sympathy for Hars’ men, who had been the last to arrive. There would be no time for the battered grunts to set up tents, much less rest. They would be on the march again in hours.

  “That brings our numbers to just under fifteen thousand,” Oranhur said, from her side. “Not as much as I would like, but better than I feared.” He closed his spyglass and placed it back in the pocket of his doublet.

  “But the army is moving anyway?”

  “If you spend enough time with His Highness, you will learn quickly that he makes his own council.” Oranhur whistled to a groom who stood nearby. “Bring us a pair of horses,” he told the freckled boy. The youth nodded and scampered off in the direction of the hitching posts.