Devangshu removed a marble piece from the map and pocketed it again with a frown. Carian blew out another cloud of smoke with a thoughtful exhale. “I’m gonna need reinforcements next time.”
“Oh, and what am I?” Fynn complained.
“Only available on Tuesdays,” Gannon muttered. The heavily bearded Hallovian Highlander had become the Nodefinder Rebellion’s unelected yet somehow undisputed leader.
Tall, broad and generally hairy, the truthreader had the look of a rearing bear about him—if a bear had biceps like stacked coconuts and eyes that saw into the back of your thoughts.
Fynn withered beneath Gannon’s colorless inspection. “Yeah…well, you’ll have to talk to He Who Crouches on the Spine of Humanity about booking more dates on my calendar. I’m his principal wine taster, you know.”
“Yes,” Gannon was leveling Fynn a steady look, “I know.”
Fynn gave him a wan smile. “So…I’ll just go see what Kardashian is doing.” He made a hasty escape towards the Nodefinder-thief, who was standing across the way.
“Reinforcements.” Devangshu pushed hands in his pockets and frowned at the map. He had one of those disdainful, aristocratic countenances that perfectly encapsulated the bored indolence of the Bemothi nobility; but Carian had yet to meet anyone more fervently devoted to ousting Niko van Amstel from the Vestal Seat. “We’re spread a bit thin as it is.”
Carian puffed out a smoke ring. “I know.” He frowned off at the slowly revolving globe projected by the weldmap. It wasn’t numbers they needed so much as strength. They had to show these ruffians they meant business. Now, if the Avieth had been at his side instead of Fynn…by Tethys’ watery tits, that woman could fight!
“The fact is, we need more men.” Devangshu pulled the marble piece from his pocket and began fingering the figurine while his brown eyes scanned the map and his angular brows dipped into a severe V. Then he looked to Carian and Gannon. “We need Franco Rohre.”
“Undoubtedly,” Gannon remarked as if this was a foregone conclusion.
Devangshu fingered the figurine in his hand in an agitated fashion. “Without Franco, I doubt we’ll be able to gain enough support to defy Niko’s claim to the Vestal Seat. And you know Cassius of Rogue is going to demand that Franco have the helm before he’ll negotiate with us.”
“Franco must become the figurehead of the rebellion,” Gannon said by way of agreement. “If we stand up Franco up as our candidate for the Vestal Seat, the entire strand will fall in line behind us—Guild and freemen alike.”
Carian eyed the both of them with his roll of weed held loosely between his lips and smoke filtering up lazily around his face. “He won’t do it willingly.” The roll bobbed with his words, shedding ash on his thigh. He flicked at it absently. “The Admiral abhors attention as much as Niko lusts after it.”
“He has no choice.” Gannon’s tone was firm. “Not if he would see the strand spared the rape Niko intends.”
Carian took a deep draw from his smoke and considered the truthreader. “Franco is Niko’s deputy now, and you want to make him our frontrunner? Let’s just paint a big target on his back, eh?” He flicked ash from the end of his smoke. “Niko will castrate and gut him if he finds out—or at least have one of his goons do it.”
Gannon shrugged. “We all face many dangers in this endeavor.”
Devangshu was staring at the figurine in his hand. “If we can’t appeal to Franco’s vanity, we’ll have to appeal to his conscience.”
Carian snorted. “The Admiral’s got more baggage of that sort than a caravan of Khurds and already a few too many voices jabbering in his head. It’s anyone’s guess which one of them is in charge.”
“All of the Fifty Companions feel the bondage of their oaths to the First Lord, Carian vran Lea.” The ghost of dark regret glimmered in Gannon’s uncompromising gaze. “Whether they did as the First Lord bade them or disregarded those desperate and reckless oaths given in the Citadel’s catacombs on Tiern’aval, rest assured…the chains weigh heavily.” He looked him acrimoniously up and down. “Yours may be the only virgin conscience among us.”
“Fancy that!” Carian grinned at him.
“But Carian is right, Gannon.” Devangshu set the figurine back on the table. “We three will never convince Franco to do it. We’ll present him to the brethren instead. Epiphany willing, their combined might will accomplish what ours alone cannot.”
Gannon nodded resolutely to this wisdom. He pinned Carian with one of his listen-closely-and-do-exactly-as-I-say stares. “Go and brief Dagmar and ensure that Rohre comes to us as soon as he returns from Illume Belliel.” He scanned his colorless eyes across the pavilion, surveying the activities within. His gaze tightened. “It’s time Franco Rohre stuck his neck in a noose along with the rest of us.”
Carian exhaled a cloud of smoke. Maybe he’d pay birdie a visit while he was in T’khendar. Massively annoying the Avieth would make the trip far more enjoyable. He nodded to Devangshu and Gannon and flicked the butt of his smoke off towards Fynnlar, who glared at him. “Well, you know what I always say, if you’re gonna dance the hempen jig, it’s best to do it with friends.”
Then he headed off to start measuring Franco for his own specially tailored noose.
Six
“We all stand at the center of our own lives. It’s not until we look beyond ourselves that we find cause and purpose.”
–Isabel van Gelderan, Epiphany’s Prophet
Franco Rohre slouched in Raine’s throne in Illume Belliel with his chin on his hand and his mind elsewhere. He’d tried staying engaged with the Council of Realms’ discussion that day, but after countless hours of listening to the same tedious argument reworded a hundred different ways, he’d lost the ability to focus on anything except the growling in his stomach.
Yet he understood the importance of the discussion. The Council had recently passed a measure that would legalize trade between the realms after over a thousand years of prohibiting it. That the measure had passed at all was a monumental feat. No one admitted to voting in favor of it—no one even admitted to recommending it for a vote—yet someone with clout had to have signed off on the measure for it to have arrived on the Council’s docket. Needless to say, speculation abounded.
More startling still was that the Speaker refused to name the Seat who had initially proposed the measure, only going so far as to say that it had his wholehearted support. Rumors told that the Speaker himself had written it and purchased the votes he needed to see it passed using a variety of currencies, including extortion, blackmail and bribery. Of course, these were only rumors.
The ramifications of the measure were as momentous as they were destabilizing. The measure hadn’t even been enacted yet and already the Council had broken into contentious and dissenting factions.
“If we open the welds to anyone,” one Seat had posed in reopening the discussion that morning, “how can we possibly regulate travel between the realms?”
Fourth-strand patterns inlaid across the hall had translated what he said so that the thought was communicated to those listening, regardless of the language being spoken. It had taken some getting used to for Franco, this double-hearing of translated thought superimposed over vocalization.
The same Seat added rather vehemently, “The Council cannot think to enact the measure until the necessary qualifications and restrictions have been determined and statutes written to regulate Nodefinder travel.”
The Council had gone on to argue about the point for most of the morning, even though everyone seemed to be in agreement that regulations would be needed.
This was a different issue from the matter they’d argued several days before, which had centered around the problem of determining the criteria for a Nodefinder to be allowed to travel between the realms.
As the morning’s discussion was dying down, another Seat had taken the floor, moving to the front of his section of thrones to address the assembled members. “How are any of the worl
ds supposed to open trade with one another when our weldmaps have been redacted to remove all of the node points that would allow interrealm travel?”
This had met with a fierce outcry over the general state of weldmaps.
They’d already argued the problem of redacted weldmaps two days earlier.
Another Seat had then launched a further debate on how to establish a single unit of exchange when the materials that were considered precious varied so greatly from realm to realm. This had consumed the better part of the afternoon.
Now the sun was waning, along with Franco’s patience. His interest had found another occupation a number of hours ago.
His gaze for the hundredth time that day found Alshiba, who occupied the throne of the Seat. Her light blue eyes were fixed forward and her features were set to impassivity. From an inauspicious beginning where she’d Healed him and then somehow bewitched and beguiled him into swearing himself into her service, they’d developed an unexpected rapport. Alshiba seemed almost to trust him.
The Seat across the hall continued droning on about the necessity of establishing a mint in Illume Belliel, which half of the Seats seemed to be in alignment with and half vehemently opposed.
Franco sighed. He cast his gaze around the immense, circular hall, letting his eyes drift across the thousand Seats and their accompanying vestals. They seemed a forest of bright colors gleaming beneath the hall’s faceted crystal dome.
As the gathering place of the vestals of a thousand worlds, the Hall of a Thousand Thrones reminded Franco of a great theater entirely comprised of balcony boxes. Each world convened within its own box, which allowed for privacy of discussion while yet keeping every vestal in view of the rest of the Hall.
Which is why Franco was still sitting there trying to look engaged. Most of the vestals nearest him just looked bored, most especially Niko van Amstel, who was sitting in Dagmar’s throne on Alshiba’s right. Franco could tell from Niko’s vapid, unfocused gaze that his mind had clearly traveled elsewhere.
In the middle of the hall, the Speaker sounded a chime, signaling the end of that discussion. Franco, like most others, returned his attention to the Speaker.
The elf Aldaeon H’rathigian sat on his throne atop an alabaster tower carved with a spiral of stairs and worked all over with patterns. With his long, white-gold hair and his sylphlike form draped in pearlescent robes, he looked inimitably statuesque.
“Your concern has been noted for further inquiry and review, Ambassador.” Aldaeon’s calm voice reverberated deeply throughout the hall. He added with admirable patience, considering how many times he’d already expressed a similar sentiment, “The establishment of statutes governing the new measure, as well as a plan for enacting them, will be the primary mandate of the new regulatory committee.”
Another Seat rang a chime to be heard. “Speaker, if I may inquire, who is to be on this committee?”
The monument beneath Aldaeon’s throne swiveled so the Speaker now faced the inquirer. “I will be appointing the Chair. The Chair will appoint his or her committee members.”
Franco didn’t envy any man that position. Chairing possibly the most important and controversial measure the Council had passed since their ruling, millennia ago, to prohibit interaction with the Warlocks of Shadow? It seemed more like a death sentence.
“Speaker?” another Seat chimed in from the other side of the hall.
Aldaeon’s tower swiveled again. Franco wondered how the man kept from becoming dizzy with all the round and about.
“This is inarguably one of the most important positions ever established for a Council committee—”
You read my mind, Ambassador, thought Franco.
“—under the circumstances, shouldn’t the Committee Chairperson be determined by a majority vote?”
Aldaeon gave a slight twinge of a smile, which Franco noted even from that distance. “That it is such an important position is precisely why it will not be determined by a majority vote, Ambassador.”
Whereupon hundreds of chimes rang simultaneously—the cacophony of outrage that instantly filled the hall throbbed in Franco’s head, its force doubled by the patterns of translation.
Alshiba looked wearily to him. “I think I’ve heard enough for one day. Shall we go?” She stood, gathered her white silk skirts, and climbed the stairs towards a curtained exit at the rear of their balcony box. Niko jumped up and joined her side, at once bending to murmur in her ear.
Franco pushed from his chair and took up the rear. As he was heading for the drapes at the top of the stairs, however, he couldn’t help but notice the Speaker’s gaze fixed upon their box. Aldaeon was taking special note of Alshiba’s departure.
When Franco caught up with the Alorin Seat in the passage beyond, Niko was walking at her side and complaining, “…such an imposition to require us to sit for unending hours listening to problems that don’t concern us, when we should be spending that time resolving the very real issues threatening our own realm.”
Franco shook his head, marveling at the infallibility of Niko’s self-absorption. It was a wonder rain didn’t bead off the man, he was so saturated by conceit.
The Alorin Seat kept her gaze forward and her stride smooth. “If you find the affairs of council governance too tedious, Niko, I give you leave to remain in Alorin.”
“No-no-no, I don’t mean that,” Niko quickly straightened his shoulders as if to adopt a stance of authority. “I’m fit to serve in any capacity. I merely mean to point out how untimely it is that we should have to spend all of our time here, when we’ve so much to do in Alorin.”
“To lead is to serve, Niko,” Alshiba said levelly, but Franco heard the exhaustion in her voice. “My place as the Seat is here in the cityworld; but as a vestal, your duty lies in Alorin, close to the people, to their plight; my eyes and ears.”
Niko sighed disagreeably. “The realm is no more pleasant at present.” He tugged at his coat as though the cloth was suddenly too binding.
Seems unfair to expect mere cloth to enclose such a massive ego, the mad voice in Franco’s head snickered.
“My edict to restrict travel upon the nodes is an important step in imposing control and standards upon the strand,” Niko said. “I expected it would meet with some minor resistance, but I’m being challenged at every turn! Why, Agasan’s guilds have outright refused to comply, pending their own deliberations.” He pushed a hand across his immaculately coiffed hair, shaking his head as he murmured, “It’s an intolerable situation.”
As ever, Niko only ever saw the illusions cast by his own expectations, to the utter exclusion of reality.
Do you think he’d recognize reality if it beat him on the head with a rock?
Franco rather imagined Niko would merely be confused by it.
What about a bench? An anvil?
Franco was envisioning things he’d like to hit Niko over the head with when Alshiba replied, “If you’d sought my opinion before issuing an edict that affects the entire realm, Niko, I might have advised you this could happen.”
The intimation in Alshiba’s tone wasn’t lost on Franco, but he was fairly sure her subtle rebuke flew right past Niko’s notice.
Niko shoved hands behind his back and deflated slightly. “The Free Cities of Xanthe were quick to agree to my edict, but now Rethynnea’s Guild is blaming me for all manner of things—as if I’m somehow responsible for their being robbed.”
“Robbed of what?” Alshiba asked bemusedly.
Niko’s expression collapsed into sullenness. “Someone stole the Vestal Codex.”
The Vestal Codex was a literal tome listing the rules and regulations governing vestalship to the realm. While in itself a valuable work to the vestals and Guild leadership, Franco couldn’t imagine what anyone would’ve hoped to gain from stealing it. It wasn’t like you could sell it without making a whopping target of yourself.
Niko threw up an exasperated hand. “Probably members of this purported rebellion.”
Yes, what is this? Franco became instantly attentive.
Niko’s face puckered at the word. “Surely nothing to beg Your Excellency’s attention. It’s probably just a few covetous ill-wishers, no doubt riled by the restrictions I’ve put in place to make the realm safer for everyone. It will all blow over soon enough.” He leaned around Alshiba to better view Franco, who was standing on her right. “Know you anything about it, Franco?”
“It’s the first I’ve heard of it, Niko,” which was true, though a hinting intuition made him uneasy.
Niko scowled. “Pity. But then…well, you’ve been here in the cityworld this whole time, haven’t you?” His tone made up in resentment what it lacked for in warmth. “Seems like as my deputy, you should be the one spending all your time in Alorin mopping up—”
“A deputy vestal is the Seat’s deputy, Niko, not the adjunct of another vestal, and I have need of Franco here.” Alshiba leveled him a steady gaze. “I expect you to take this rumored rebellion in hand at once, Niko. Make your way to Alorin and do what you must to quash it. We cannot have second stranders becoming fractious with infighting.”
“As you wish, Your Excellency,” Niko muttered, but his brows had formed a deep V of resentment, and his breath reeked of malcontent.
They’d stopped just shy of the wide staircase that twined down five stories to the Hall’s atrium. Alshiba started down it now.
“Ere I depart, Your Excellency,” Niko murmured as he trailed behind her, aiming a daggered look at the back of her head, “might I inquire as to the other matter I earlier brought to your attention?”
Alshiba had her skirts in hand and was making a swift descent. “Which other matter?”
Niko aimed a glance at Franco. “About the Fifth Vestal? I believe you’ll be surprised and…pleased by the candidate I’ve found to replace him.”
“We’re hardly in a position to attempt replacing the Fifth Vestal.” Alshiba reached a landing where the stairs branched. She paused there and looked Niko over, her gaze uncompromising. “Concern yourself with your candidacy, Niko. Until the Council ratifies you, anyone might stand to challenge your appointment, and a strand in rebellion is hardly a feather in your cap.”
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