Fragile Empire

by Christopher Mitchell

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s freed it.’

  Chapter 18

  Head to Head

  Plateau City, Imperial Plateau – 11th Day, Last Third Spring 524

  ‘Brothers and sisters!’ the speaker called out. ‘How long must we endure the wicked and unfair taxes imposed on us by the Empress; how long must we suffer needlessly? If the empire is rich beyond measure, then why are there poor people on the streets of the capital? Why do the peasants and workers have to bear the burden of the government’s vanity? No more, I say. No more!’

  Karalyn watched from the shadows as a few people in the crowd of listeners clapped and a couple whistled. The speaker gazed at them, his arms raised.

  ‘They tell us,’ he went on, ‘they tell us that the taxes are necessary, for the Rahain might invade any day! Well, my friends, they’ve been saying that now for fifteen years, and the tune has grown old to our ears. The supposed threat of the Rahain is just an excuse, just a bedtime story that parents tell their children to make them behave. Are we children? Tell me, what sign of aggression have the Rahain Republic ever demonstrated? We are told they have great armies, well where is the proof? It’s all a lie, my friends; your government is making fools of you. The Empress makes sure the taxes go to her accomplices and sycophants, her spies and her toadies. Look at the wealth in the New Town. Great mansions, fancy carriages, jewels and fine furs! How strange it is to see so much extravagance among those who have never done a day’s labour in their lives!’

  Some cheered, while the rest of the crowd, a mixture of Kellach Brigdomin and Holdings, stood quietly, listening. Karalyn shook her head, her eyes narrow. She wanted to run up onto the podium and punch the speaker in the face. What right did he have to spread such lies? A handful of soldiers were standing next to the podium at the junction between the Kellach market, the old Holdings peasant quarter, and Chief Duncan’s Gardens – a large park that extended to the river and the bridge leading to the Rahain quarter. It was at the centre of the largest part of the city, away from the Old Town and its harbour, and the New Town with its palace, embassies and aristocratic districts.

  The soldiers were doing nothing, Karalyn noticed. Bridget had ensured that the law allowed people to speak their minds freely, even if their words were insulting or demeaning to the empire. Such had been the tradition in Kellach Brigdomin, and it still was as far as Karalyn knew. Folk there had always been able to disagree with their chiefs and rulers, but Karalyn had doubts whether such a principled stand could work in a large city, never mind an empire. Nyane had told her that she disagreed with the Empress, and thought the empire should be ruled with a firmer hand. Dissent amounted to much the same as treason in her eyes, and she would probably throw the speaker in prison if it was up to her.

  She had shown her courage during the massacre in the Rahain market, though. Karalyn had been amazed that the bookish, middle-aged woman had taken command of the militia that killed the assailants. It may have been over in minutes, but the effects on Nyane were obvious to see whenever Karalyn went into her mind. It had taken days for her anxiety and nerves to go back to normal, and she had been having nightmares. Nevertheless, she also felt pride, especially at the commendation for bravery bestowed upon her by the Empress herself.

  In Isobel, Karalyn had sensed jealousy. She had looked deep into the mind of the Chief of Intelligence, and had found many flaws, and guilty memories of petty betrayals, hypocrisy and corruption. She was innocent of treason however, and loyalty to Bridget ran through her veins. For that reason, Karalyn had said nothing to Dyam about the other things she had seen, and kept them out of her report to the Imperial Herald.

  Dyam had instructed her to switch her search from the nobles and diplomats to the tightly packed streets of the Kellach quarter. Isobel had been unable to find a single person who would say anything about the twin attacks on the Rakanese and Rahain markets. The armour they had worn had been stolen from the small garrison based in the quarter, and no one seemed to know their identity, or admitted that they had ever seen them before. The six bodies had been displayed in Welcome Square in the centre of the Kellach quarter, and citizens had filed past, but no information was offered by anyone. With Isobel’s failure, Dyam had ordered Karalyn to go in, and so for the previous five days she had been wandering the streets of the quarter while invisible, listening.

  She had read hundreds of people in that time, her vision drifting from one mind to the other. Her purpose was clear – did they know anything about the attacks? – but she always ended up seeing more than she wanted. She had learned the secrets of a woman who was having an affair with her husband’s brother, and who lived in terror every day of him finding out; she had peered into the heart of a corrupt town guard, who had a list of folk he was blackmailing – from counterfeiters in the Rahain quarter to prostitutes working in the Rakanese harbour district.

  Folks had theories, but none she had read knew anything about those who had caused the slaughter. The theories centred on a small but fervent group of Pyre worshippers, who congregated at a small chapel by the Kellach gate. Isobel had used her vision powers on each of them, and had pronounced them innocent, but many of the locals retained their suspicious views of the sect.

  She began walking away from the speaker and the crowd, heading into the wide gardens that lay between the Kellach and Rahain quarters of the city. The caretakers had planted trees and plants from all corners of the empire within the gardens, and little fountains bubbled in the sunshine. Running across the middle of the park was an old earthen rampart, a relic of the defensive circuit of the city when it had been put under siege during the wars. Next to it stood an enormous marble statue of Chief Duncan, the leader of the Kellach Brigdomin in Plateau City at that time. His carved beard reached his waist, and his stern expression faced east, towards where the enemy had once camped.

  Families were sitting on the grass with picnic lunches, enjoying the warm weather, while folk strolled along the twisting paths that laced through the gardens. Karalyn remained invisible, keeping her distance from everyone. She sat in the shade of a beech tree and watched. She saw a pair of soldiers go by and entered the man’s head. He was bored and fed up, and knew that he really should go and see a healer about the rash covering his nether region. It had been red and sore for days and… Karalyn flitted to the woman, who was wondering how best to tell her squad mate that he was beginning to make a foul smell that made her gag, which was weird as she used to fancy him, at least until he started visiting the brothels in the peasant district.

  Karalyn withdrew from their heads and sighed. She lit a cigarette. She was filled with the thoughts, desires and secrets of the folk she had read, and wished she could scour her own memory of it all. So much love, and frustration, and pent up rage and desire – everyone in the city seemed to have a secret of some kind, and all of them were swirling around her head. She was drinking again, but this time it was alone in her room in the evening, trying to blot out each day so she could get to sleep.

  On the nights she couldn’t sleep, she would prowl the Kellach quarter, drifting in and out of the late night bars where locals would consume vast quantities of ale and whisky, and sing, dance and fight until they fell over. Weed was smoked everywhere in the quarter, and on more than one occasion Karalyn had noticed someone wandering the dark streets with glazed-over eyes and waxy skin, the signs of dullweed dependency.

  By daylight however, the quarter was different – it bustled with life, and rang with the hammer-blows of dozens of smithies and forges, and the racket from metal workshops and carpentry yards; while the stench from the tanneries by the outer walls drifted through the air, competing with ordure of livestock and the reek from the many small breweries. Volunteer fire wagons sat by most major junctions, ready to fight any blaze that broke out among the maze of wooden tenements.

  Karalyn loved it all. Though she still felt a bond to her mother’s people, she had always felt out of place among them. But in the Kellach quarter of
Plateau City, where over twenty thousand of her father’s kinsfolk dwelt, it was like coming home. Many times she had wished to reveal herself to the folk who lived there, just to talk, to connect with them, but through a mixture of apprehension and Dyam’s orders she had remained hidden. The herald had told her to stay out of sight, and so that was the excuse she was using.

  She got up from where she was sitting and walked through the park. To her right were the banks of the river, and she followed a pathway lined with trees. On the far side was the beginnings of the Rahain quarter, and she noticed a handful of Holdings soldiers at the other side of the bridge that connected both banks. Dyam had told her that all Kellach soldiers had been withdrawn from guard duty within the Rahain quarter, as their presence could provoke panic, or potential retribution. Karalyn had watched the funerals of some of the many who had been slaughtered, and had heard the anger of the local community against their Kellach neighbours. The Empress herself had attended the scene of the crime, and had spoken to the leaders of the Rahain, including Nyane’s father, to express her sympathy and resolve.

  Karalyn crossed the bridge, and at once felt as if she were in another city. The narrow, twisting alleyways, covered with trellises and canopies, and thick with loud Rahain voices seemed a world away from the high wooden tenements of the Kellach Brigdomin. Large numbers of armed militia were on the streets, supplemented by Holdings regulars in burnished armour, and there was an air of nervousness and barely-suppressed grief and rage. No one had asked her to go into that area of the city, but after days searching the Kellach quarter, she was curious to explore.

  She listened to a few conversations, the Rahain that Laodoc had taught her allowing her to keep up with what was said. It was all business, work, family life, the usual pleasantries – nothing of any use. She came to a small square and rested on a stone bench by its edge, watching the people as they passed.

  She lit a cigarette and read a few minds to pass the time.

  A jewelsmith, her thoughts focussed on the designs she was working on; an apprentice clerk, his eyes and mind on the young women walking by in their spring outfits; a man, whose thoughts were on a wagon, as he imagined it arriving somewhere – a city, though Karalyn didn’t recognise which. The man had been there, and she could see the buildings mapped out in his mind’s eye. Rakanese folk filled the streets, and there were canals. Arakhanah? Amatskouri? She was about to leave his mind when his thoughts turned to the interior of the wagon, and she froze. Inside, crouching and ready, were four armoured Kellach Brigdomin. Helmets covered their features, and they were handling the large, ugly maces that had killed so many in Plateau City.

  The man smiled and turned a corner, and Karalyn zipped her vision back to her head, gasping. What had she seen? The future, or something that he had been imagining could be happening right then? Nerves made her shudder, and she breathed and got to her feet. She ran to the corner of the square where the man had turned, and saw him, walking down a street away from her. She dodged past the folk in her way, keeping him in sight, though she had no idea what she would do if she caught up to him. Both Dyam and Nyane had suggested she carry a weapon, but she had refused.

  The man turned down a side street and Karalyn lost sight of him. She ran through the crowds, and peered down the alleyway.

  ‘Damn it,’ she muttered. The man had gone. She ran up the narrow, shadow-cloaked street, but there were at least a dozen other alleys and lanes heading away from it. She looked down them all, but there was no sign of him. She cried out in frustration, and got a few puzzled stares from folk who couldn’t see where the sound had come from.

  She tried to relax. She needed to be calm to go into dream-vision while awake. She sat in the dark shadows of the alley, and focussed, counting her breaths and willing her vision to rise. Her consciousness broke free of her body, and she urged it upwards. She faced the city, and gazed down upon it, twenty feet above the rooftops. The alleys surrounding her were covered, and she knew she had lost the man.

  She turned towards the north, and her vision sped out, past the Great Fortress and the streets of the New Town, reaching the palace in an instant. She found Dyam and entered her head, as she had done many times in recent days.

  Something’s about to happen, she whispered in the herald’s mind. An attack in Arakhanah or Amatskouri, I saw it.

  It was Amatskouri, Dyam replied. It’s already happened. Did you read it from someone?

  Aye. A Rahain man.

  Do you know where he is?

  No. I lost him. Sorry.

  The herald paused.

  Come back to the palace.

  Aye, said Karalyn, and her vision snapped back to her head.

  Dyam offered Karalyn a glass of wine as they sat in the herald’s private office, and she took it.

  ‘What were you doing in the Rahain quarter?’ Dyam asked, sitting in her chair by the open window, a mug of ale in her hand.

  ‘Just wandering,’ Karalyn said, lighting a cigarette. ‘I’d already been through the Kellach quarter and I was curious.’

  ‘And it was definitely a Rahain man that you read?’

  ‘Aye. Like I told you, he was thinking about a wagon, with armed Kellach in the back.’

  Dyam nodded. ‘They murdered sixty-four Rakanese citizens of Amatskouri, mostly young men and women out enjoying themselves. The wagon led onto a district of bars and cafes, and they waited until lunchtime, then attacked. The wagon had been there all morning, apparently, and nobody had paid it any attention. The driver was said to be a Holdings woman, if the eyewitness is correct, but no one has seen her since.’

  ‘So it was done by Kellach, Holdings and Rahain?’ said Karalyn. ‘The man I read had some part of it. I could sense his pride that he had helped make it happen.’

  ‘So it seems. It’s clear. It’s Ghorley.’

  Karalyn sipped her wine. ‘I’m sorry that I lost him.’

  Dyam shrugged. ‘You have natural skills, but you’re not a trained agent. I don’t hold you responsible, in fact Bridget will be angry with me that you were placed in a position of danger. She made it clear that I was to keep you safe.’

  ‘I wasn’t in danger,’ Karalyn said. ‘I was invisible the whole time.’

  ‘But you chased after a hostile enemy who was probably armed. Don’t do it again. Stay out of trouble.’

  Karalyn suppressed an angry response. Dyam was starting to sound like her mother. She frowned, but nodded.

  ‘Good,’ Dyam said. ‘You may not have caught him, but at least we have another piece of the puzzle. I’ll make sure Isobel learns of this. You did well.’

  Karalyn looked away.

  ‘Talking about Isobel,’ Dyam went on, ‘I know for a fact that she has no idea you’re a dream mage.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Karalyn. ‘That’s right.’

  Dyam’s eyes narrowed. ‘Then I have to assume that you’ve been in my head, and the Empress’s, for we both know what you can do. Either that, or Isobel never reads us, which I find hard to believe.’

  ‘It’s neither,’ Karalyn said. ‘I put a little stumbling block inside Isobel’s mind. It makes her ignore me, and any mentions of me. You could talk about my powers to her face, but she’d forget the words as soon as she’d heard them.’

  Dyam stared at her.

  Karalyn shrugged. ‘I thought it was the easiest solution. I’ll need to top it up now and again, or it’ll wear off eventually.’

  The herald shook her head and raised her ale cup to her lips.

  ‘Did I do something wrong?’ Karalyn said.

  ‘No,’ Dyam said. ‘You’re right, it was a neat solution. I’m just pondering the possibilities.’

  They were silent for a moment, each sipping from their drinks.

  ‘The fact that you could do that to Isobel,’ Dyam said, ‘that’s what impresses me the most. She’s one of the best three Holdings mages in the empire. I’m not including you in that, of course; your dream mage skills are of a different class altogether.
’

  ‘Is my mother one of the best three?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Then who is the other?’

  Dyam smiled. ‘I’m not going to tell you that. I know you can read it from my head, but I’m telling you not to. The identity of this mage is a secret, best known to only a few.’

  ‘Alright,’ Karalyn said.

  ‘Thank you. Next, I want you to accompany me to the state rooms. The Empress is holding her afternoon audience with petitioners, and there’s going to be someone there I’d like you to read.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘It’s a new arrival at court, a young woman I’ve never heard of before. For some reason Isobel has been unable to get into her mind, so I need you to try.’

  ‘Is her name Lady Belinda by any chance?’

  ‘How in Pyre’s name did you know that?’

  ‘I was with Nyane in the harbour when she landed,’ Karalyn said. ‘She was making a bit of a scene, and it got our attention.’

  ‘Oh, alright. I thought for a minute you’d seen her in a vision or something.’

  ‘There’s a problem though,’ Karalyn said. ‘I couldn’t read her either.’

  ‘Shit. Why not?’

  ‘She had some kind of physical barrier shielding her eyes; a thin, transparent film, almost as if…’

  ‘As if she doesn’t want to be read,’ Dyam said, frowning.

  ‘What’s her story?’

  ‘She says she’s from an estate in the far eastern corner of the Plateau,’ Dyam said, ‘right under the Forbidden Mountains. Isolated, but that has kept them out of trouble for decades apparently. Her family’s been there for close to sixty years, farming, and operating a small gold mine. She’s rich, maybe the richest person in the world for all I know, and she claims her family wishes to gift an endowment to the people of Plateau City; a hospital, college, orphanage, that sort of thing. I’ve sent someone off to the estate, to see if her story matches the truth, but they won’t be back for some time.’