by Paul Kidd
A beery voice rose into a roar.
"So? Mannicci was already trying to place a finger in our pie! Why ally through marriage, when we can amalgamate our councils?"
Suddenly a loud, good-natured rumbling sound came from the far end of the hall; the Blade Captains turned as a sedan chair swayed in through the doors and settled by the council table. The council relaxed, the audience busied itself with a speculative roar, and Miliana steepled her fingers and gave a thoughtful frown.
"Who is it?"
"Spirelli, our only nonhuman Blade Captain." Lorenzo coldly gnawed upon his lower lip. "This could be bad; Spirelli could swing the voting either way. He's an invertebrate politician."
"You mean 'inveterate'…"
"No, invertebrate." Lorenzo moved to give a clear view of the speaking stand. "Still, it makes for a nice change."
Miliana kept her face frozen, unamused, as a huge, slimy snail slithered from the sedan chair and took the floor. The creature had the voice and demeanor of a village schoolmaster gargling on a mouthful of soap.
"Colleagues, colleagues, colleagues!" The snail Spirelli had an unnerving habit of looking both his supporters and detractors in the eye at once. "Pray forgive my tardy arrival. I have been gazing out across the city roofs, contemplating our luck in avoiding the recent storms. The waves bring a wealth of driftwood to the beaches; merchant ships dock in our harbor and pay our docking fees…" The snail puffed himself up with pompous pride, swiveling his eyes to examine the hostile commoners. "I wonder if, perhaps, we cannot learn a lesson from the storm. It is our particular strength to turn disasters into assets to us all."
Miliana shifted forward in her seat and glared at the snail in hate. At her side, Tekoriikii finished plucking the emerald out of a merchant's signet ring and turned about to stare at Spirelli in surprise.
The snail cruised silkily along behind his prince's throne.
"Lomatra has always been an ally to Sumbria. If we break with that tradition, we make ourselves seem faithless in the eyes of the world. Let us take it that Svarezi's conquest of the Blade Kingdoms is a fait accompli. He has the wealth of Sumbria; the population of Colletro. Zutria has shown us just how all the lesser kingdoms shall fall." The snail coiled its neck about the prince's shoulders. "By maintaining our traditional ties with Sumbria, we place ourselves in a position of unexpected power. How else can Lomatra be expected to survive?"
"With an alliance!" A sooty chieftain of the metalworkers guild shook his blacksmith's hammer as he roared. "An alliance with our neighbors against Svarezi's hordes!"
The cry was met by a storm of agreement from the upper galleries; the commoners had spent long weeks succoring refugees from Sumbria and beyond. They roared and raged, hammering fists against the railings and showering curses through the air…
… All of which the Blade Captains ignored. As autocrats, they held the demands of commoners as less than smoke upon the wind.
Rising to his feet, a slim captain clad in sapphire armor calmly addressed the hall.
"I think the council is essentially agreed. Cooperation and compliance with Svarezi's program is the most beneficial course for us all."
Despite the frantic protests of their prince, the murmured agreement of the Blade Captains rumbled around the tabletop; until, suddenly, a fierce new voice ripped out to stun the hall. "Traitors!"
The Blade Captains wrenched about in shock, staring up at a pointy-hatted form that leaned out from the galleries to cast a giant's shadow.
"Beneficial? As nobles of a defeated city, you would all be nothing!" Miliana's voice twisted like a poisoned dagger from the crowd. "But as willing lackeys of Svarezi, you keep your palaces while the citizens of Lomatra are crushed by Svarezi's taxes, and die in Svarezi's wars!"
Miliana had the commoners leaping to their feet and echoing her words. Fists pumped into the air as the gallery shook to the people's rage. The Blade Captains glared up at the mob in absolute disdain, then turned back to put the seal on their affairs.
"The vote proposed: That Lomatra declare a unity between its own Blade Council, and those of Sumbria, Colletro, and Zutria. Those in favor?"
"Wait!"
Prince Rosso shook like a leaf blown by a storm. All around him, his people roared in hatred for the council, demanding courage-demanding war. The little prince, sweating, tugged at his armor's tight gorget.
"Colleagues-this decision, it seems… it seems unpopular. It seems…" The prince jittered like a captive bug. "It seems… cowardly. Surely an alliance with our neighbors to the-"
"I think that option has already been discussed in full." Spirelli spared his fellow Blade Captains a glance rich with self-interested irony. "Shall we conclude our business with the vote?"
"No. No, not yet!" Desperate to at least delay their inevitable fate, the prince scrabbled with the covers of the great book which lay upon the table-the Articles of Association for the Lomatran Free Company. "Um… wait a minute! It-it's just in here!" The prince flipped through vellum pages almost larger than he was tall. "Here we are… a recess may be declared without a vote, once only, if any member so demands." The prince jumped at the noise as he let the covers slam to the tabletop. "Well, I'm a member, and I do think that this requires more than just… just a quick vote without even a debate. The people really don't seem very happy at all."
The fat, barrel-shaped Blade Captain stirred in his chair.
"Oh, my liege, commoners never really do know what's good for them. This is why important decisions are left in the hands of better men."
"Even so, I'd like a recess, just so everyone can think about it." The prince banged his blade upon the table, almost jumping from the violent noise. "Dismissed! I–I mean, let's break until after lunchtime. Maybe until the second hour after noon?"
The Blade Captains exchanged weary sighs; shrugging amiably, they deferred to the wishes of the prince and pushed back their heavy chairs. Walking out beneath the fury of the city's common citizens, they wandered back to the comforts of their palace walls.
"Those treacherous, self-seeking, backstabbing, vermin ridden…"
When Miliana ran herself out of invective appropriate for a noble lady, Tekoriikii's head surfaced from behind the innkeeper's bar.
"Onk gronk!"
"Thank you… lowlife, frog-sucking scum!" Miliana slammed her back against the tavern wall, her face beet-red with rage. "They're willing to sell you all into slavery for sake of a cash reward!"
The upper balcony above Lomatra's largest tavern, the Besotted Python, scarcely managed to rise above the worst of the noise. The taproom below had packed itself with soot-smeared workers from the powder mills and iron foundries, the joiners' guilds, the seamen's guilds, and masters of apprentice halls. Despite the sheeting rain, the streets about the tavern had jammed tight with angry crowds as half the city tried to cram inside to hear the news.
A guildmaster stood on a table railing at the crowd; although the commoners thundered their agreement to every single word, the citizens were utterly impotent. The Blade Captains were the Blade Captains, and they held the power.
In Sumbria, the citizens were taxed into the ground to finance the hiring of vast companies of mercenaries. Svarezi's agents roamed far and wide seeking swords-for-hire. There were turbanned horse archers from the south, brigands, berserkers, and buccaneers. Foreign mercenaries had already swept the cattle from Lomatra's outlying fields, fuel for an army which slept beneath a field of gallows trees.
"Kirenzia just fell!"
A soldier, one of Lomatra's city sentries, fought his way in through the throng. "I just saw the dispatch! Kirenzia is no more!"
Uproar swelled through the rain-soaked crowd. The soldier's voice diminished like a child's cries against the ocean's roar.
"I saw it! I saw the dispatch! They opened their gates in surrender, and Svarezi's mercenaries sacked the town! Not a man, woman, or stone still stands!"
A hundred voices shouted questions; Miliana leaned across th
e railings, keeping hold of her tall hat with one slim hand.
"You! You there… do your Blade Captains know?"
"What?" The soldier struggled in a tide of his fellow men. "Aye! They would have heard the news at dawn!"
Miliana turned and fixed her companions with a cold, hard stare; they returned to their drinking without a word being said.
Above the pandemonium, the balcony offered a tiny scrap of peace. A giant fish tank, suspended like a sedan chair between a sturdy pair of poles occupied pride of place on the floor. The pink nixie sat just underwater sucking on a squeeze bulb of wine, occasionally thrashing at the water with her webbed feet. Luccio's lake-bound princess had brought word of Zutria's fall, and had spent the next few hours curled despondently on the bottom of her cage.
Lorenzo was utterly outraged. Cramming fingers through his hair, he took a proffered glass of wine out of Tekoriikii's claws and swirled it in his grasp.
"My invention! He's killing people with my damned invention…"
"It's not your fault, Lorenzo." Miliana hung her head between her hands and stared in desperation at a blank tabletop. "No one blames you."
"It is my fault, because I made the cursed thing!" Lorenzo rammed himself back into a corner of the wall. "My light lathe! This is all because of me!"
Playing at being a waiter, Tekoriikii collected empty glasses, waddled over to the balcony rails, and let the tray of empties simply drop into the hall. He strutted happily back to his companions, oblivious to a chorus of screams from far below.
The irrepressible Luccio tried to be the voice of sweet reason amidst his friend's despair.
"All right-we know he's using the Sun Gem as a focus for the ray. Lorenzo, how long should the Sun Gem last?"
"Long enough." Lorenzo whirled, helpless rage burning in his eyes. "Luccio, it doesn't matter. The damage has been done. He's looted enough cities to hire an army a dozen times our size."
Cries rose from below as another speaker helplessly harangued the crowd, offering fear without solutions. Miliana ripped off her hat and cast the thing aside, flipping out long glorious sheets of mouse-brown hair.
"Did Svarezi bribe your council, or are they cowards of their own accord?" The girl took off her spectacles to polish them, and felt them tremble in her grasp. "That snail's the worst of them all! How did he get to have a seat on your Blade Council?"
Lorenzo unconsciously held Miliana's hand.
"Well it's a free company, isn't it? I mean, he just cruised out of an enchanted forest-the Satyrwood or somewhere-about ten years ago, bringing enough mother-of-pearl to buy himself two palaces and a golden pleasure barge. He even changed his name. It used to be Boble-boop, or some such sound."
"So, why Spirelli?"
"I'm not sure. I always thought it was a type of pasta." Lorenzo drained half a glass of thin white wine. "Anyway-Spirelli changed his treasure to cash, hired a thousand troops, and bought himself the vote."
"Ha!" Miliana's bitterness hung in the air like knives. "So it's money. Just money. The mercenary creed." The girl slashed scorn across her own worthless "royal" heritage. "What a race of heroes we all are."
"It can't be helped." Luccio tried to pour balm on Miliana's hurts while holding the finny hand of his nixie princess. "Anyone can do it-it's all written in the Articles of Association, you see-"
"It says nothing of the sort!" Lorenzo jutted out his chin like a badly shaven battering ram. "You have to be a citizen first."
"The snail, one hesitates to point out, was not a citizen to begin with." Luccio gave his friend a leveling eye. "He simply lived here a year or more and paid taxes; he who pays taxes is a citizen; once he became a citizen, he could become a mercenary commander. Once he became a mercenary commander, he had the vote-and, therefore, power."
"He just made himself a Blade Captain?" Miliana cocked her head, echoed by Tekoriikii at her side. "Just from scratch?"
"It took almost two hundred thousand ducats, but I believe that was the case." Luccio gave a dismissive wave of his hand and went back to stroking his aquatic princess's hair. "He owns half the city now-even the city hall, though as an act of largess he lets the city have it back for a mere peppercorn's rent."
Watched by an admiring Tekoriikii, Miliana arched slowly backward in her seat, her eyes fixed upon the ceiling beams. The whole room suddenly faded out of view as Luccio's words drifted through her mind.
Peppercorn rent…!
She felt herself drifting to her feet; with Tekoriikii's feathered presence to support her, she walked over to the balcony and stared down at the crowd.
Men cursed and swore, shouting to each other from a foot's distance away. They screamed advice and heeded none, like ants milling upward from a broken hill.
"What makes you all so angry?"
Choleric faces turned up to her; here and there a man recognized her from the council hall, and rumor buzzed swiftly that here stood Sumbria's exiled princess.
A hush spread as the closest men tried to hear what Miliana had to say. The girl leaned over the balcony, her lenses winking like a medusa's paralyzing stare.
"What did you expect? You handed these men your fates, and they used you! What else did you think they would do?"
"They're gentlemen! They're officers!" A man stood on a table and bellowed up at the girl. "Who are you to say they're scum?"
"Who is she?" Lorenzo leaned across the balcony, taking Miliana's hand. "She's Princes Miliana Mannicci Da Sumbria!"
Miliana took a firm mutual grip on Lorenzo's hand. Below them, a man struggled to make himself heard.
"It ain't right that we don't get listened to! The nobles are special-like! They ain't supposed to treat us like we was sheep!"
Loud, angry curses of approval followed, only to be stilled by Miliana's derisive laugh.
"What's the shame in being sheep, as long as your voices are heard? Make a stand, be proud, and tell them how you demand to be ruled! If the flock roars loud enough, then the gods themselves will have to take heed!
"We're citizens-not scum! This isn't Chondath-we aren't Chessentian slaves! Every citizen has a blade, and every blade has a right to be heard!"
People suddenly cheered in approval. Behind Miliana and Lorenzo, Tekoriikii strutted up and down, adding a touch of magnificence to the occasion. As the girl teetered upright on the balcony rails, the bird spread open his tail to frame Miliana with a brilliant fan of fire.
"You want to have your opinions heard? Then why not do it? Do it legally, and make them listen to you!" The girl shook a fist, almost losing balance as her voice rose into a peal of victory. "Could you use the vote if you had it? Would you really know what to do?"
Men and women roared out a thunderous reply. Miliana blinked and disappeared as the railings shook beneath her feet. Lorenzo and Tekoriikii raced to the edge of the balcony and looked down in fright, only to see Miliana buoyed up on a sea of triumphant hands.
Keeping her hat clapped to her head and her frothing petticoats in the air, Miliana bellowed up at Lorenzo's astonished face.
"Lorenzo! You wanted a revolution? Then bring everyone from outside!" The girl bobbed as she was passed slowly backward toward the tavern's bar. "And get me a bag of peppercorns! The biggest you can find!"
Amidst wild cheers, the crowd bore Miliana away. Tekoriikii alighted on the mob beside her, bobbing up and down like a duck on a pond as Lorenzo raced off to turn a kingdom upside down.
Luccio watched his friend race by and raised a puzzled little hand.
"Lorenzo? What's going on?"
"Peppercorn rent! Don't you see?" Lorenzo the inventor. launched himself gaily down the stairs. "The entire population has just negotiated a severe cut in pay!"
The young man raced off to collect his newly-announced bride, leaving Luccio and Princess Krrrr-poka blinking at the dim, deserted hall.
"Meeting is brought to order! Will all counsellors please prepare to render forth their vote?"
Lomatra's fat Blade Captain
hammered on the meeting table, utterly ignoring his prince; men drew their blades, preparing to hold them aloft or cast them down to indicate their vote. Gazing up at the empty audience galleries, Lomatra's prince bleated in alarm.
"Wait! The audience has not arrived."
"An unneeded distraction; I have ordered them barred from the hall." Blade Captain Spirelli extended his eye-stalks with a silky smile. "Our business will be easier without them.
"Vote!"
"W-wait!" The prince leapt forward as the men reached for their blades once more. "Perhaps we should read the minutes of our last session?"
Spirelli jerked his eyestalks, then let them angrily extend.
"We all remember the last meeting. It is all perfectly fresh and clear. I must insist that the vote be taken and emissaries be dispatched to the Svarezi camp forthwith!"
The sounds of a mob clamored at the council gates. A soldier shouted a warning, then babbled as he was forcibly moved aside. The heavy doors slammed open, and a mighty mob of common citizens surged into the room, hooting and cheering the strange procession of figures at their head.
A girl, an inventor, and a giant bird; a courtier and a female nixie in a clear glass tank formed the spearhead of the charge. Blade Captains leapt to their feet and drew their swords, halting in place as they saw themselves outnumbered by hundreds to one.
Gleefully adjusting her spectacles, Miliana faced the warlords with a grin. At her side, Lorenzo made a delighted bow.
"Greetings! We have news for the Blade Council of Lomatra!"
"Revolution!" Spirelli recoiled, a look of pure horror in his prehensile eyes. "The guard will never stand for this. The army will have you hung!"
"Not a revolution; a reevaluation!" Miliana held aloft a scroll, protected by a giant bird and a brace of blacksmiths armed with hammers and quarterstaves.
Next to Miliana, a Blade Captain raised his sword with a snarl of rage. Miliana pointed a finger and cast her feather fall spell, then grabbed the armored man with one small hand and effortlessly threw him through the air.
