by Sharon Green
“So we won’t have to take their orders, whatever those orders turn out to be,” Homin said, relief clear in his manner. “We won’t even have to have the vials picked up, which ought to tell them exactly where we and they stand.”
“But we don’t want them to know where we and they stand,” Delin pointed out sharply as the others agreed with Homin. “We want to know what they’reafter, and also who they are. And as long as they believe their plan is working, we won’t have to worry that they’ll think of something else to try that we won’t know about. The second package of vials was left for us, so I had it picked up as though we really needed it. Here’s what the accompanying note says.”
Delin drew out the second note and opened it, then read aloud, “Greetings to our illustrious leaders. We trust that you’refeeling much better now, but there’s no need to thank us in words. We have only your best interests at heart, as all loyal citizens should. For that reason we ask you to show your thanks by naming certain people to the Advisory Board. These men are all strong and capable, and will guide you properly in the running of our empire. The Advisors you have now are nothing but incompetent fools, who take orders rather than give sound advice. You five are in no position to give those orders, as you have no experience at all in running an empire.”
“At the moment, only a very few people know that your Seating was made possible more by the efforts of others than by your own. It happens to be in our own best interests as well as yours to keep this fact private, but arrangements have already been made to spread the word far and wide if any attempt is made to discover who we are. We expect you to learn the composition of the counteragent fairly soon, which is why we now tell you about our other preparations. One thing, however, won’t be learned from the counteragent: the fact that the antidote to the original poison is of another composition entirely. If anything happens to us, your five will need to take the counteragent for the rest of your lives in order to remain free of the pain—and eventual death. We suggest that you ponder these matters well before you take any action against us.”
“Our next missive may well contain the names of those we wish put on the Advisory Board. Right now we are in the midst of compiling that list, which is far from easy. Most of our really capable brethren have … disappeared, in one way or another, which was rather foolish of you. An empire like ours cannot be ruled through the efforts of any five people, no matter the strength of their talents. The various shortages now suffered by those in this city ought to have taught you that we speak the truth. Our hopes in that are sincere, and we remain, your loyal supporters.”
“The nerve of those bastards!” Bron growled, mirroring Delin’s own feelings. “Trying to tell us what we can and can’t do! And now we do have something else to worry about besides the counteragent, a couple of somethings. I don’t like the way these people always seem to be a step ahead of us.”
“They’rea step ahead of us because they know what will happen to them once we find out who they are,” Delin pointed out, a growl in his own voice. “They’ll die in worse pain than what they gave to you three, you have my word on that. And all we have to do is wait for that list of names. Theirs will be on it, supposedly buried among all the rest, but knowing that they’rethere will let us find them. After that they’reours.”
“What about those other minor points they mentioned?” Selendi asked, her expression furious despite the faint pallor she’d developed. “They know we didn’t really win that last competition, and the counteragent won’t do anything to get the poison out of us permanently. If the list of names they supply turns out to be only the first list and we arrest all those people, we may never be truly free again.”
“And even if their names really are on the list and we get them,” Homin added, “there’s nothing to say that they won’t kill themselves before we can find out what we need to know. And that business about spreading the word about our Seating… We’ll have riots on our hands the likes of which this city has never seen. We’d better speak to Kambil about it, and find out what he thinks.”
“Kambil doesn’t think anything, because he’s in too much pain,” Delin snarled, hating the way the other two immediately agreed with Homin. “And that means you three can’t think either, doesn’t it? Is that the way it used to be? Don’t any of you remember how it used to be?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bron asked, trying for brash and certainly not finding it. “Are you suggesting we’redifferent from the way we used to be, the way you tried to suggest it once before? Of course we’redifferent, we told you so at the time, and we happen to like the difference. We’remore efficient and capable now, and we have Kambil to thank for it.”
“You have Kambil and his grandmother to thank,” Delin corrected, letting the venom enter his tone. “The old woman was the one in control of Kambil, and she helped him to become the one in control of you three. One of the things he made you believe is that you’rebetter people now, but are you really? Efficient and capable people get to make decisions, but what decisions have you three made since we were Seated? Name even one that has nothing to do with your own private wings, and I won’t mention the fact that you’ve been taking Kambil’s orders ever again.”
All three of them actually started to answer him, but all three discovered at once that they really had nothing to say. Their expressions suggested that they were searching for an example to give him, to support their Kambil-induced belief that they were independent parts of the group, but none of them could find even one example of independent decision. Everything had been decided for them by the one in control of them, and suddenly they weren’t able to deny that.
“Kambil told you that I couldn’t be ‘helped’ the way you were because I was insane,” Delin continued, pressing the point as hard as he could. “The truth of the matter is that I’d developed a … block of sorts from having grown up with my father, and Kambil and his grandmother weren’t able to breach that block. That’s why he used Puredan to control me, and why he hated me so much. I’m the only one those two couldn’t reach, and they detested the idea.”
“But … where does that leave us now?” Selendi asked, her tone and expression wavering. “I still can’t bring myself to believe what you said, but—I also can’t argue your claim, even though I want to.”
“You want to because Kambil’s talent is still influencing you,” Delin soothed her, privately delighted that his guess had been correct. These three were more susceptible to suggestion now than they had been, courtesy of Kambil’s efforts. But Kambil wasn’t here now to take advantage of the situation, and he was…
“All three of you will have to work at it,” Delin continued, “but in a little while you should be able to throw off Kambil’s strangling influence. Then you’ll be your own people again, and we’ll be able to formulate a plan against our newest enemies that will gain us everything we need. Everything you need. I’m not involved in that part of it, but you can be certain I won’t be abandoning you. I know that the way you treated me was all Kambil’s fault, so I hold no grudges against you.”
“That’s decent of you, Delin,” Bron muttered, still obviously rather unhappy. He also hadn’t met Delin’s gaze, just as the others were avoiding looking directly at him. Their feelings of guilt were most likely rather faint, not at all as strong as their realization that they needed him in order to be pain-free. And to figure out some way to save their lives and positions. And Delin meant to do exactly that, although possibly not in the way they were expecting…
“All right, enough about this for now,” he announced, trying to brisk them up. “We have other things which have to concern us, and the first of them concerns a journal I found in Kambil’s bedchamber. Considering what we began to practice, I take it Kambil told the rest of you all about it?”
“Maybe not all about it,” Homin said, the words grudging. “You know he told us a few things, but he was the only one who read it.”
“That’s about to cha
nge,” Delin said, and now they all looked at him again. “I’ve read through it already, so the rest of you can take your turns. But more than that I’ve had a search started, and a like journal has already been found in my own library. Chances are excellent that there are other journals to be found in your libraries, but until they are we’ll concentrate on the two we already have. And I need to be brought up to date on what’s been happening out in the world. We can’t be an effective team if one of us is forced to stumble through the darkness of forced ignorance.”
They all nodded at that, their expressions having turned somewhat impressed, and Delin smiled to himself. Before very long they would be taking his orders in the same way they’d done with Kambil, and being just as unaware of it. Yes, Kambil had prepared things nicely for Delin, and now was the time for him to begin making use of that preparation…
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
High Lord Embisson Ruhl was far from happy. Agitation made him pace back and forth in his study, at least until he heard footsteps out in the hall. Then he immediately slumped into the nearest chair, and only just in time. A single knock brought the servant into the room, to announce his visitors.
“My Lord, Lord Edmin and his companion are here to see you,” the servant said, sounding as concerned as he always did. “You do wish to see them, do you not?”
Embisson turned his face away as he’d taken to doing of late, pretending that he wished to have nothing to do with the world or any of its happenings. Also as usual Edmin thanked the servant and dismissed him, and when the sound of the door being closed came, Embisson turned to look at Edmin. Edmin’s hand was up, showing that the servant was still close enough to hear what was said in the room, so Embisson remained silent. Edmin, though, began his usual attempt to jolly his father into having some interest in life again, and then Edmin’s words abruptly changed.
“All right, Father, he’s gone now,” Edmin said, looking at Embisson with a frown. “I can see that you’reextremely agitated about something, so please tell us what’s happened.”
“Your chief agent was unable to reach you, so he came to me instead,” Embisson replied as he stood, watching Eltrina Razas lower her hood. “We’ve been talking about celebrating how well our plans have gone, but a celebration would have been premature. One of your agent’s spies has gotten word to him that only four of the Five were affected by our little gift to them. The fifth, Delin Moord, apparently never ingested it at all, and now he’s been able to duplicate the counteragent. Why did it have to be the Earth magic user who was unaffected?”
“The possibility of that happening was always there,” Edmin said with a shrug that wasn’t entirely unconcerned. “It’s the major reason we chose the poison we did, one which requires an entirely different antidote. They know all about that after having read the second note, but what they don’t know is that the counteragent will soon be insufficient to hold off the poison’s effects. If they don’t give us some indication of being willing to deal straightforwardly with us, we’ll just sit back and let them die.”
“A result which will be extremely pleasant, but one which will leave us out in the cold,” Embisson grumbled, his agitation still rather active. “We need to have those five little nothings firmly under our hands, else control of the empire will still elude us. And what if they feel secure enough to start searching for us? The fact that we made certain to know almost nothing about the poison and its antidote won’t stop them from trying to rip the information out of us.”
“They won’t use torture on us, not at the beginning,” Eltrina said, and her certainty was clear and unfeigned. “They’ll have their Spirit magic user force the answers from us, or they’ll feed us doses of Puredan. All they’ll get out of that is the knowledge that we’rein touch with the people who have the answers they need, but we don’t know where they are. At the least sign of something being wrong, those people will disappear out of Gan Garee, and that will be the end of our beloved Seated Five. We’ll have to explain that in the next note we send, but in the interim there’s another problem we need to find an answer to. One of our secret holds on those five little vermin is no longer a secret.”
“Do you remember our first conversation with Lady Eltrina, Father?” Edmin asked as he made his way toward the tea service. “She was rather upset at the time and spoke of her intention to spread the word about the cheating at the final competition, but we made her understand that that course of action would have been most unwise. Rather than continue on with it she joined our own plans, but now it seems that someone else has been talking about that particular subject. The word has spread all over the city, and everywhere one goes there are large groups of people listening to various agitators and shaking their collective fists.”
“We’renot feeling as lighthearted about it as Lord Edmin’s words might suggest,” Eltrina put in at Embisson’s startled exclamation. “We’ve just come from a meeting of our peers, which is why Edmin’s agent wasn’t able to reach him. Things are rapidly getting completely out of hand, and we’ve been trying to formulate ways and means designed to put an end to the trouble.”
“Which is not working as easily as Eltrina has made it sound,” Edmin added as he turned away from the tea service with two cups in his hands. “Most of our peers are either frightened out of what little wit they possess, or insist on being totally outraged. Their agents have made some few, pitiful attempts to collect what’s due them, but the peasants have been too busy listening to those agitators to run the businesses the way they’resupposed to. And the growing shortage of food has added to it all, and there have been certain incidents.”
“He means that certain of the shops in our part of the city were broken into the other night,” Eltrina supplied as she took one of the cups from Edmin with a brief smile of thanks. “They were all food shops—and half a dozen eating parlors—and every scrap of food meant for us was taken. Those groups of guardsmen who were on duty tried to stop them, naturally, but the guardsmen all ended up either badly beaten or dead. There were just too many of the peasants, the survivors said, and now everything they took is hidden away somewhere on their side of the city.”
“And now no one knows what the peasants will decide to do next,” Edmin said, again taking up the narrative as he seated himself near the woman. “Eltrina and I have been discussing the matter, and we’d like your opinion on the conclusions we’ve come to. To begin with, considering these latest happenings, just how much good can we expect to get out of controlling the Five?”
“Why, quite a lot,” Embisson began, but then he paused to rethink that conclusion. The desire to control those little nothings as well as the empire had burned in him for quite some time, but now… Now things had changed from what they once were, and personal safety would soon become a man’s first concern.
“You know, Edmin, I believe you’recorrect,” Embisson said as he walked to a chair of his own and sat. “We’ve been through this sort of thing with the peasants before, and no matter how ragingly destructive they get they eventually quiet down and let us all go back to the way things were. Since the Five are responsible for this set of disturbances, their deaths ought to quiet everyone down. And with many of our peers gone, we’ll be in the perfect position to be the ones to hold the next set of competitions. The new Five will be ours from the very first, and we won’t have to worry about whether or not they intend to destroy us.”
“So you’rewilling to simply sit back and watch the Five die?” Edmin asked with an expression of qualified approval in his eyes. “Are you certain about that, Father? I know how badly you wanted to repay them for humiliating you, and I would dislike being the one who takes that satisfaction from you.”
“There will be satisfaction enough in knowing how agonizing their deaths—or the deaths of four of them—will be,” Embisson said after considering the matter for a moment. “Under other circumstances I might have decided differently, but with everything else occurring… No, Edmin, I would be a fool to i
nsist on personal satisfaction. But I’d like to know how Lady Eltrina sees it. Her difficulties, as she once pointed out, were far more intense than my own.”
“Knowing the agony they suffered before they were given the counteragent did quite a lot toward making me forget my own pain,” Eltrina replied with a smile which showed exactly how pleased the knowledge made her. “It also helps to know most of them will feel the same again before they die, so I’m also willing to let the matter of controlling them drop. But I should tell the both of you that I’m meeting with an agent of my own tonight, who’s been doing some oblique checking around for me. That peasant Five is still on the loose, and we need to know what they’reup to.”
“Yes, I’d nearly forgotten about them,” Embisson replied with a frown. “They aren’t at all as important as the doomed Five made them out to be, but they certainly could become a nuisance. We’ll have to find out what precautions against their return the little nothings have taken, and then do our best to improve on what will certainly be uninspired planning. But you still haven’t told me what everyone’s decided to do about our outraged citizenry.”
“Various plans are even now being put into effect,” Edmin said, and the way he exchanged a glance with Eltrina confirmed Embisson’s earlier opinion: he was undoubtedly sleeping with the woman. As a diversion that was perfectly all right, and Embisson made a mental note to speak privately with Edmin to be certain that it was no more than a diversion. Before one made a permanent liaison one paid attention to the political aspects of the match, and with Eltrina Razas there no longer were any. The woman was nothing but annoyance and difficulty in skirts, and as soon as their current undertaking was over, so would their relationship be.
“The first of those plans is a set of daytime and nighttime curfews,” Edmin continued. “Gathering idly on street corners listening to rabble rousing will no longer be permitted, and anyone found on the street, day or night, without a legitimate reason for being there will be arrested by the guard. If anyone tries to resist arrest, he will be put down like the lawless animal he is, which will certainly be a lesson to the others.”
