by CM Raymond
If the Governor and the Chancellor made something happen in Arcadia, it was always for the sake of only themselves, only to keep themselves in their seats of power. And, most importantly, to protect themselves from any who might want to challenge them.
“What the hell are you doing here, Parker?”
Looking up, Parker saw Duncan, an old friend of his father’s. Duncan was a smart man and a hard worker. Although he lived in Queen's Boulevard, he was still able to make a daily wage shining shoes on the streets near the Capitol. Parker always thought the man’s job was recession proof. Because if there was one thing that a nobleman wanted, it was a pair of boots that he could see his own face in.
“I need work, Duncan—same as the rest, I imagine. The question is, what the hell are you doing here? What happened to your cushy shoe shining gig?”
The man looked down at his own shoes, which had been polished for years. “They drove me off the streets, man. I had no choice.”
“Who did?” Parker asked.
“The Governor’s guard,” the ex-shoe shiner said. “Told me I didn’t have a license to be doing business on the streets of Arcadia. Believe that? A damn license? Like anybody has ever had a license to do business in Arcadia.” The man shook his head. “Things are out of control.”
“Yeah. You’re telling me. It’s bad for everyone.”
Duncan laughed, knowing quite well the kind of work that Parker did on the city streets. “Guess they never offered licenses for your kind of work, did they kid?”
Parker liked the man. He was always good for a laugh. Even at this moment, he drew a smile from Parker. “No. I guess they don’t. So, what’s up with everybody getting jobs at the factory anyway? You know anything about this?”
The man shrugged. “There’s lots to talk. Some say that the Governor finally decided that we folks down on the Boulevard needed a leg up. They’re saying that a big project is being funded, one that will not only help the town at large, but will take so much production and capital that some of that is going to trickle down to the shit in the gutter. And this piece of shit needs a little help.”
“You not the only one,” Parker admitted.
He watched as the men were brought into the factory one at a time. Strangely, he didn’t see anyone come out—which he guessed was good news. Duncan said that if you got a job, they put you to work right away. That wouldn’t be so bad, and it looked like nobody was being turned away. Maybe the factory was the best thing for him and his mother after all. He knew the work would be terrible, but at least it was work. A few weeks in there, and maybe he could get back out on the streets—after things settled down.
The iron door creaked open, and a man in a rough looking, brown jacket and slacks to match waved Parker in. Duncan slapped him on the back. “Good luck in there, kid. Maybe I’ll see you on the floor.”
Parker gave him a nod and climbed the last steps into the factory. The place was dim. The hall lacked windows, and just a few oil lamps lit his way. He stayed a few paces behind the man in the ugly brown suit. His gut was starting to tell him that this was a terrible mistake.
They walked into a room at the end of the hall. It was empty except for a single table with two wooden chairs on either side. A small pile of parchment paper sat with a leather-bound volume on top of it. The man in the suit pulled the brown volume in front of him and eased into his chair. He motioned for Parker to take the other chair. The boy complied.
“You guys really know how to make a person feel welcome,” Parker said as he looked around the dingy room. “It’s real nice in here.”
“Name?” the man in the suit said without looking up.
Apparently, there was no Smalltalk in the factory. “Parker.”
“Quarter?”
Parker laughed. “You get many nobles coming in for work? How about boys graduating from the Academy? Yeah, I guess you probably don’t get many of those guys here, do you?”
The man in the brown suit narrowed his eyes, and Parker knew it wasn’t the time for joking if he wanted the job. But then again, maybe he didn’t.
“Quarter?” the man asked again, as if it were the first time.
Parker grinned. Seldom did he have the opportunity to rub shoulders with mid-level bureaucrats. And if this guy were any indication of what bureaucrats were like, he was glad for once to have missed the opportunity. “Queen Bitch Boulevard.”
The man scribbled Boulevard in the leather-bound journal. “Do you have any family?”
“Just my mother. She still lives on the Boulevard.”
The man nodded and scribbled again. Parker couldn’t help but wonder why in the world they might need to know that.
“Her name?”
“Eleanor.” Parker cracked his neck, trying to feel more comfortable. He was already overly suspicious of this process and wondered what the hell was going on.
His intuition was blowing up. And having hustled on the street for all his life, he liked to think that his intuition was well calibrated. But they need the money, and he wanted to make his mom proud. “You asking me any questions about my experience?”
The bureaucrat looked up from the journal. “That won’t be necessary. You’ll work just fine.”
As the man closed the journal, he nodded behind Parker. A screeching sound filled the room as a door to Parker’s right opened. Parker turned to look just as the glowing blue light jabbed him in the ribs.
Looking down, he saw a six-foot metal rod with a glowing blue ember on the end. He braced himself, knowing what was about to come. Kids in Queen’s Boulevard called the weapon the shocker. Parker had no idea what its actual name was, but didn’t matter. He’d seen its consequences for years. The guards carried them, as did many of the Hunters. A weapon fueled by magitech, the shocker could drop a three-hundred-pound man in the blink of an eye. He knew exactly what it was about to do to him.
Pain spread throughout his body as if he had been struck by lightning. His arms and legs flailed, but only for a second. Then he lost almost all control, though he managed to somehow retain consciousness.
Grabbing him underneath his armpits, two guards pulled him to his feet and out the door. His boots dragged behind him, leaving parallel marks on the dusty floor. The door opened to a catwalk over the main floor of the factory. Parker poured all his energy into turning his head up to take a look at his destination.
His heart rate increased as he saw his future laid out before him. Down on the floor, there were too many men to count. Hundreds. All of them looked tired, dirty, and each of them was wearing strange metal bands around their arms. They were working on something unrecognizable, a machine bigger than anything he’d ever seen.
And although he couldn’t tell what it was, he knew without a doubt that it spelled trouble.
Before dropping him into temporary confinement, the guards slapped a set of cuffs on his wrists—a pair just like the ones worn by the men on the factory floor. The restraints turned blue and began to hum as soon as they snapped into place. Then they threw him in a cell with a few dozen other people, men like him who were looking for honest work.
Standing watch was a Hunter and a few of the Governor’s guards.
Whatever it was that was going on here, the authorities were not taking any chances. Parker had weaseled his way out of many precarious situations, but none of them involved a set of magitech cuffs and the deadliest enforcers in all of Arcadia.
****
The tower, the old, main building of the Academy had stood tall for over thirty years. It was built not long after Ezekiel had left Arcadia, just after the Capitol itself was built. The classrooms were constructed first, Adrien knew then that the most important thing was to start training the young.
Whoever controlled them, controlled the future.
Making sure that his young and inexperienced staff had all the right resources was his primary concern. But once magical education was nicely underway, he turned his eyes toward the tower itself.
&n
bsp; Soon after the first class graduated, Adrien recruited a team of newly licensed magicians and paired them with master builders who shaped many of the houses in the noble quarter. He tasked them with building a grand tower, one that would stretch higher than the domed roof of the Capitol building. He wanted all the people of Arcadia—all the people of the world—to know that power resided in his house, not the Governor’s.
For several years after its construction, the tower was used by Adrien primarily for research. He was truly a master of the magical arts by the time it had been erected, and his first goal was to build new knowledge, new magic, which he could spread across the land. But that ideal, grown from the seed planted in his head by Ezekiel, did not last for long.
Whether the tower represented the desire for greatness that was within him, or whether it led to his own desire to stand over everyone, Adrien was never quite sure. All he knew was that from his position up high, he could see the others as the insects they truly were.
Adrien mused on this as he sat in a leather chair in front of the broad window overlooking Arcadia. With the curfew in place, and his guard doing their jobs, the place was darker than a dungeon.
He preferred it that way.
He sipped on an expensive wine made in the western portion of the valley—as close to the Dark Forest as anyone dared to go. Its taste was thick on his tongue, and it was sweet, but left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. The drink was appropriate for his mood these past months.
Adrien knew that he was close. Closer than he had ever been. The machine was moving quickly, and it might even catch up with his original timeline. Not that it mattered. He would have his victory regardless of any delays. But like a child looking forward to his birthday, Adrien could hardly wait to unwrap the present that was being built on the factory floor.
The list of young magicians from Amelia was coming along. The Academy dean was not only intelligent herself, but also able to discern potential in the young. He made the right move promoting her over others who had a longer tenure in the Academy, and that decision was about to pay off.
Soon, she’d be sending him a willing supply of magical adepts—a crucial piece in the construction of his machine.
A knock on the door interrupted his ruminations. Disturbances were unusual for this hour of the night. Doyle never tended to work this late, and if he did, he knew not to interrupt the Chancellor. Catching Adrien at a bad time was not a smart move, something even Doyle had been able to work out.
Adrien’s days belonged to the Academy; his nights were his own. Not that he wasn’t thinking about the Academy, Arcadia, and all of Irth every night anyway. But it was good for him to know there wouldn’t be any interruptions from his assistant.
“Enter!” he yelled at the closed door, ready to lay into Doyle for the intrusion.
But Doyle didn’t enter. Instead, a much more thrilling surprise walked through the door.
The smell of sandalwood and wildflowers preceded Alexandra’s entrance. Adrian didn’t need to look to know it was her; he never did. But he tilted his head, nevertheless, because any man in his right mind wouldn’t miss the opportunity to take in the most beautiful woman in all of Arcadia. Adrien grinned as he scanned her body, which was carefully wrapped in a tight-fitting suit of black leather.
“Good evening, Chancellor,” she said with a voice that was at once alluring and powerful. “I was hoping you would be here, but then I remembered, you never go anywhere after dark.”
Adrian laughed, a tight, controlled sound. “You know me too well, Alexandra. Please, sit. Need a drink?”
“Considering the shit storm you’ve given me down at the factory, yeah, I pretty much always need a drink. But don’t get up, darling. I’ll grab it myself.” She walked over to the bar in the corner of the room, and Adrien watched every step. She was quite a few years his younger—although the way she maintained her body made it difficult to tell just how young she was. She had been around him long enough for Adrien to realize how unique her talents were.
“Doyle tells me that things are coming along quickly down at the factory. I assume that I have you to thank for that.”
She shrugged, raised her eyebrows, and gave him a sensuous smile. “Men are easy to control. One way or the other, I get what I want from them. After all, I learned from the best, Adrien. Care to come over here and teach me another lesson?” Alexandra held up her hands and her eyes went black. Sparks began to fly from her palm, and they danced from one hand to the other. “You know I have a special way with my magic.”
Adrien couldn’t help but smile. He rarely allowed himself the luxury of a companion, but Alexandra was a treat he indulged in from time to time. Even though their intimacies were periodic, they were always satisfying. “Truly, Alexandra, you are a testimony that the matriarch and the patriarch are real—and they have decided to bless me with a beauty such as yours.”
“You’re kind, Adrien. And… Honest. But you know better than most that I’ve never been swayed by flattery.” She chuckled. “Force is more my style. It’s power that I’m drawn to.”
“Well, once you’ve finished your work, there will be no force greater in all the world than mine. Will you be by my side?”
Alexandra made a tsk sound with her tongue, and said, “Adrian, I’ve always been by your side.” The woman put down her wine glass and slowly began to unbutton her top. “But maybe, for tonight, you’d prefer me to be on top.”
Adrien finished his wine as he took in the woman in front of him, magical sparks still crackling from her palms. Truly, he thought, when power like this comes begging to my door, there is no one in all of Irth who can stop me. This world will be mine
****
Hannah washed down a shot of hard liquor with the thick local ale. Karl and Hadley sat with her at the rearick bar, each of the men with several empty tankards in front of them.
Their clothing was torn and covered with dust. It looked like the three of them had walked through the apocalypse and had hardly made it out on the other side.
In addition to the stiff drinks, Hannah had a plate of meat and vegetables in front of her, and she was shoving it into her mouth as fast as she could. Her energy was all but sapped from the ordeal. It wasn’t every day that she had to blast her way out of a collapsed mine, while also protecting others from the rocks crashing around them.
But she had done it. Mortimer, the old rearick, was safe from harm and currently getting his leg bandaged by the local healers. Hannah made it out alive, though, she could barely stand, and the rest of the miners trapped underground were saved from an early grave.
“The damn rocks came flying out of the hole,” said Karl, telling the bartender the story for the second time, “like the Queen Bitch herself spit the rubble from her mouth. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Hadley laughed loud enough for the whole bare to hear. “I guess we have a princess bitch among us.” He elbowed Hannah and nearly knocked her off the stool.
Hannah smiled, but was far from as giddy as her two drinking buddies. She finished her ale and waved to the bartender for another. The drink was not even close to as good as the elixir they served hundreds of feet up the path at the mystic’s temple, but it would do to numb her emotions. Today had taken a toll—and not just a physical one.
“Just doing my job,” she said. “And I think, in some ways, saving lives feels a little bit better than pickpocketing in the market square.”
Karl threw down two shots, one right after the other, and washed it with half a pint of ale. His eyes looked lazy, but he couldn’t stop smiling. “Bastards in charge are talking about why the mine collapsed. But I told em days ago that it was gonna happen. Said, ‘yer lookin for trouble if you dig any further.’ Of course, they didn’t listen, they never listen. All they care about is how much gold they can put in their coffers at the end of the day. Lose a rearick or two, no big deal. Slow down production, all hell’s going to break loose. Arcadia ain’t the only place that
has problems of power and leadership, believe you me.”
