Beggar's Rebellion: An Epic Fantasy Saga (Empire of Resonance Book 1)

by L. W. Jacobs

  Tunla nodded. “And what do the ancestors say about it?”

  “The ancestors?”

  “I saw you talking with them this afternoon. What did they say?”

  It took her a moment to realize Tunla meant LeTwi. “Oh, he’s—not my ancestor. Just a voice.”

  LeTwi took a tone of mock affront. Is that all I am to you?

  Tunla shook her head, smiling. “I have heard you don’t think your guides are ancestors. But there are more than just blood ancestors. There are also land ancestors, mind ancestors. Those who have guided us on our path through life. Your guide can be any one of them.”

  Ella perked up—Markels had written nothing of this. Imprisoned or not, she could still do research. “I guess that makes sense—LeTwi was a big inspiration to me while I was locked up. I read every one of his books and kept up with his broadsheets while he was alive.”

  Tunla nodded. “Then he is a mind ancestor. They are good for helping you sort through problems, though they may not understand your heart or your deeper passions.”

  Ella paused. She’d been thinking this was just a cultural belief system, but that sounded right on target.

  Oh, please. Are you really believing this? It’s like the fortunetellers in Puahi Square—say something vague enough and it will sound accurate.

  Well it’s still interesting, she thought back. And you do help me sort through problems without understanding me deep down. Over his indignant reply she said, “And which kind do you have?”

  Tunla huffed a laugh. “Mine? Henla, my mother’s sister. A blood ancestor. Impossible to please.” She grimaced, likely being told otherwise inside.

  To please? “Do you—mean the winter festivals? I’ve heard they are held to honor the deceased.”

  “The ancestors,” Tunla corrected.

  “Right.” Thinking back to accounts of the festivals made her remember something else. “Markels—one of the first northerners who visited here—said that people there were using resonances without yura. Is that true?”

  Tunla nodded around a mouthful of soup. “Oh, I imagine so. Wanting to show how they’ve pleased their ancestors. Show off, though, more like it.”

  Ella frowned. “Are the two connected? Resonances and—pleasing your ancestors?”

  The Achuri woman put her spoon down. “You are studying yura and you don’t know this? The ancestors are the ones that control the resonances. Please them, and they release the power as a reward. Give it to you, as they pass on to the next life.”

  Ella shook her head, trying to parse it. “So, if you—please your ancestors, you don’t need yura anymore?”

  “Exactly. Yura is just a way to cheat. In the past, no one used it—we saw it as shameful. If you couldn’t even act right by your ancestors, you didn’t deserve to use the resonances. But these days”—she snorted—“everyone and their mule is eating moss and acting like they’ve done something well. Though their resonances are never as strong as if they’ve done the real work.”

  Ella’s hands itched for a notebook, but she would remember this. “And what is the real work?” If she could find out how to resonate—if this were all true—maybe she could get out of here without needing yura.

  And if an elk had gills, it could breed underwater.

  Tunla shook her head. “It’s different for everyone. And never easy. The ancestors like to test us in strange ways. Not that I would know—I’ve had Henla since my first moon, and still no clue what she wants.” She winced, likely hearing about it from Henla right then. “My mother used to say they played on your weaknesses, tested you to rise above them. She’d pleased her own guide long ago, before she even had me. I wish I could help you, but each one is different.”

  Ella nodded, trying to wrap her mind around Tunla’s explanation. It was so different from Worldsmouth, from a culture that adored yura and thought internal voices were make-believe, the last vestiges of childhood to be gotten over before one become an adult. “But somehow, some way, you need to find out what the ancestor really wants? Or what they are testing you for?”

  “That’s the idea. Wish I could say I’ve done it.”

  But the street tough, Tai—he had. And others, apparently, according to rumors about the Achuri. And Kellandrials’ dobby woman—though she’d used yura. Ella shook her head. “Can I—grab a sheet of paper? I want to write all this down.” Ella ran back to her room. Whether this panned into an escape plan or not, it was academic gold, exactly what she needed for her entrance papers.

  And if it was true, this had the potential to change everything—the yura trade, religious understandings of the voices, the military balance of power with the Councilate’s Titans—it would change the Councilate itself! Not to mention get her out of here. This could be the key that she was looking for.

  If she could figure out how to use it.

  Or it could be total garbage, LeTwi argued later that night, as she lay alone on her cot in the tiny room. The exact kind of nonsense that has Yershmen tying beads in their hair, Yati scarring themselves over open fires, and the Seinjialese worshipping their voices as God-sent challenges. It’s religion, Ella, nothing more.

  “And what’s wrong with religion?” she murmured into the darkness, starlight casting the stark room in blues and blacks.

  LeTwi sighed. Did you read nothing I wrote? The problem is that it’s not true. That there never was a Prophet, or if there was, he didn’t ascend into the skies on a flaming spear, and he’s not going to descend to take us all to the Yersh holy land. Those were just stories told to keep people in line, keep them striving for an impossible moral goal—just like the Councilate has made a religion of money. It’s another lie about perfect happiness that you can get if you just work hard enough and obey the laws or morals. Serve society, in other words. That much, at least, I know you agree with me on.

  She sighed. “I do agree with you. The Councilate worldview is fishscat. And Yersh eschatology and all those other ones probably are too. But this is testable. It’s provable. What if the voices really are guiding us? What if they are the secret to the resonances?”

  Be direct, Ellumia. You’re asking if I am testing you, if our relationship is somehow the key to the resonances. And I’m telling you it’s not. Or have you forgotten the basic creed?

  She sighed. “That there is no Prophet, that there is no truth, that we have to make our lives here on earth because there is nothing more.” It was the creed he began all his books with. “Yeah, I still think that’s true, I just— What’s wrong with them believing in ancestors, if it makes them miss their family less? If nothing’s true anyway?”

  What I’m worried about is if you start believing in it.

  “I won’t believe anything without proof.” Ella turned on her side, gazing at the muted forms out the oilpaper window. “But there was something so nice about the way Tunla talked about it. Like her entire line of mothers and grandmothers were there with her, guiding her steps.”

  LeTwi snorted. Like you’d want that.

  “That’s not what I’m saying. The Achuri beliefs are part of a lifeway that makes sense to them. They can live their whole lives not seeing a contradiction in their beliefs. Moneymen of the Councilate, even if they make it to the top, they run into contradictions—instead of being happy, they worry about losing it, or think if they had even more, then they’d be happy. Think about Lestrad.”

  Lestrad had been head of House Coldferth until he abruptly left his position to live in one of the highland monasteries. “Maybe real lifeways are answers that make sense, for people who live them.”

  But from the outside you can see through it—see it’s just more lies.

  “I don’t know,” Ella said, shifting to see the star out the window. “I can’t see through Tai’s ability.”

  You haven’t even seen it. It’s likely just a hoax—really, how coincidental is it that the people famed for their resonances also live near the only known source of yura? Tai likely fakes it to get coins on
the street, or social influence, or whatever having “pleased your ancestors” means to the people in this belief system.

  She sighed. “You can be a real downer sometimes; you know that, LeTwi?”

  He gave the mental equivalent of a sigh. Reality often is. But isn’t that better than the alternative?

  There was another scraping at the door the next morning as they worked. Ella glanced up, but Arlo looked unperturbed. The sound came again from the window next to her desk. She looked up and saw a figure crouching outside.

  It was the street tough, Tai.

  He was right next to her desk—that must be why no one else had heard. She met his eyes and, thinking quick, motioned him toward the back, toward the sleeping cells. Hers was on the opposite side, but she slipped into Tunla’s, and a moment later, Tai’s face appeared at the window. She opened the oilpaper frame. “Tai?”

  “Yeah. You’re—the woman from the market? With Tulric?”

  “Ellumia,” she said, standing on tip-toes. “Call me Ella.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I—ran into some trouble.” She noticed through the bars that he was dressed much better than the last time she’d seen him. “I could ask the same of you—working for House Coldferth now?”

  “This? No, it’s a…long story. Look, is Odril around?”

  Ella frowned. “What do you want with him?”

  “Part of the long story. I have something for him, and I’d rather not keep wandering the town with it, if he’s in.”

  She took a deep breath. “He comes by every couple days, but the manager here can probably help you.” She saw him start to close up, mentally moving on to the next thing. “Tai, wait. I—need to ask you something.”

  He gave her a quizzical look. “What?”

  “On the street back there, you said you could resonate without yura. Or at least, your boy said it.” He looked troubled at this, but she pressed on. If she could find out from him how he did it—if it was Tunla’s pleasing of the ancestors, or the dobby woman’s yura overload, or something different, whatever—she could break out of here. “Is it true? How did you do it?”

  “It’s true,” he said, working at his shoulders. “And—I don’t know. It was a long time ago.”

  She drew in a breath. It was true. “Did you please your ancestor? Is that the secret?”

  “I—don’t think so. It was in the middle of a battle. There was no time.”

  He looked more troubled yet, but she had to know. “What about overdosing on yura? Did you take a whole handful of yura?”

  “No.” Tai frowned. “Is that possible?”

  “It’s…something I read about,” she said, face falling. “Someone in the capital did it.”

  “And you need to do it now.”

  She looked up. “Yes. I signed a bad contract with Odril, and he’s got me locked up here with a bunch of other people, forcing us to work or he’ll cut off food. If I just had some yura, I could get out, but I can’t get any down here.”

  He hesitated, looking at her a moment, then seemed to make a decision. “I have some yura.”

  She caught the scent then: dry, earthy, mossy. Gods. For it to smell that strong— “You have a lot of yura.”

  He winced. “Yeah. Which is why I need to find Odril. I can’t keep walking around with this.”

  Ella took a deep breath. “I know you have no reason to help me, no reason to even like me, but I’m asking you, please, can you give me some yura? I will pay you back when I get out.”

  He looked at her a moment, then glanced behind him, as if to someone else on the street. “I can see you’re in a bad situation, and I would help you out of it, but I am too.”

  Her heart fell. Of course he wouldn’t help her—she was a lighthair, part of the people that ruined his city.

  “On the streets, we say rumors are money,” he went on, digging under his shirt. “This overdosing thing, it’s real? Anyone could do it?”

  Her heart leapt. He was getting her yura. That had to be what he was doing. “I don’t know. A cleaning woman did it, in Worldsmouth. I’m going to try.”

  He nodded, still working under his shirt. “How much did she take?”

  “I’m not sure. I think about twelve balls.”

  “Twelve balls,” he said, like a curse, then kept digging. He came out with a handful of yura. “I’m lending you this, all right?” He counted out balls into his other hand. “Twelve. Enough for you to do it.”

  She goggled. She’d only been counting on one. “Thank you, thank you so much, I—”

  “I need to hear if it worked,” he continued. “And I need to get paid back. Meet me on the Sanga bridge in three days’ time, noon. If you’re not there, I’ll check on you here.”

  He leaned in, their hands barely meeting to exchange the balls.

  “Thank you,” she said, tears unexpectedly springing to her eyes. “I—”

  The door creaked behind her. Ella spun, jerking her hand closed. It was Prula. She took in the situation at a glance. “What’s going on here?”

  Ella thought fast. “Prula, this is Tai. Tai, Prula. She’s the one I was telling you about. Prula, Tai has a delivery for Odril, and I was just saying how you might be able to take it for him.”

  The old woman’s eyes were knives, cutting apart the situation, straying close to the fist Ella tried to dangle casually at her side. “What kind of delivery?” she snapped.

  “Yura, ma’am,” Tai said, followed by a string of liquid Achuri she couldn’t follow.

  Prula nodded, responding in kind, then began to leave. “You,” she snapped at Ella in Yersh. “Back to work. And I don’t want to have any trouble because of this, understand?”

  She left, and Ella felt a grin split her face. She’d done it! She was getting out! She held the yura up to her nose and breathed in, almost doubting it was true. And Tai—he had just given it to her, hundreds of moons’ worth of yura. Though from what she could tell, it was still nothing compared to what he was delivering. Where had he gotten it? What was it for?

  No matter. She had her yura. She was getting out.

  14

  There’s no one way to do it. Can you love a new man same as you loved the old? You got to listen to your ancestors, think about ’em, care about ’em. Mostly, they just want another chance.

  —Achuri elder

  Ella ate yura.

  Just one ball, to start—she knew she needed a plan, needed to think through how she was getting out, despite the animal drive to attack and escape.

  So, she ate one ball, savoring its bitter, earthy taste, as she listened to Prula’s steps retreat down the hall, and thought fast.

  She could stay, wait for the perfect time, but Arlo was always at the door, or Teddon, day and night—so she might as well go now.

  She could take all the yura, on the chance it might make her more powerful, or trigger the change Kellandrials talked about, some chemical version of the Achuri ancestor-pleasing—but who knew what that would look like? Whether she’d still be able to run or move at all?

  Better to stick with one. Besides, she would need money once she was out, and literally all she had were the clothes on her back and the balls of yura. Eleven. She had eleven balls left.

  Ella felt the gate open inside, like someone pulling the cover from a harp. Her resonance was there in the strings, ready to sound.

  She struck it.

  Her body hummed, skin tightening, senses sharpening, and the gentle breeze from the window slackened to nothing against her skin. Time slowed and she did not, as though the world had become her private chambers. She sighed, stomach relaxing. She’d been powerless for so long. No longer.

  Ella strode down the hallway, air swirling against her like water. The office was a room caught in cold honey, quills grating at a snail’s pace, Tunla’s mouth open mid-yawn, Prula with foot raised on her way to the door. Ella slipped past her, resisting the wild urge to grab all the ledgers, rip them up, throw the
ink everywhere, destroy the place. But there was no time—she needed to get out, to prioritize the brief moments of her resonance.

  Arlo was frozen in his usual posture, arms folded, leaning against the wall. “I’ll take these, if you don’t mind,” she said to him, slipping the keys from his pocket. He would hear her words sped-up and high-pitched, like a blast of human bird song.

  The smaller key opened the door, and she swung it wide as she could against his frozen form—likely too heavy to move in slip—then wedged through and up the stairs. There was a second door, and she pulled out the big key.

  It didn’t work.

  “What the scat?” She tried the smaller one—it didn’t work either. There was a slight ache in her spine—sign that her uai was running out. Big key again. No. She could try breaking the door, but timeslipping didn’t make her any stronger—she might be able to do it, but it would take too long.

  There had to be a key somewhere. Who would have it?

  Prula.

  Ella leapt down the stairs, spine aching, hair floating behind her. Prula was barely one step closer than she had been, Arlo just starting to look at his pocket. Ella patted down the old woman’s dress for pockets or pouches—nothing. A glint on her neck—a chain. She just had it pulled up to find a key when the office slurred into life around her.

  Her uai was gone.

  Everything happened at once. Prula shouted, Tunla screamed, and Arlo seized her by the back of the neck, his own resonance rattling her bones.

  “What the hell are you doing, girl?” Prula spat, snatching the key back from her. “Did he give you yura?” Grimacing, not waiting for an answer, she nodded at Arlo. “Lock her in her room while I deal with this kid.” And with a furious look at Ella, the older woman strode up the stairs.

  Arlo wrapped an arm around her chest and lifted her bodily from the floor. “Let me go!” she yelled, knowing it was fruitless, knowing too well the quick and beaten ways the other women looked back to their books. Tunla looked a moment longer, face full of concern, but what could she do? What could any of them do?