Beggar's Rebellion

by Levi Jacobs

  The law lessons. You know—when you all you wanted to hear about was theology and the latest speeches given in the city?

  “Telen?” An image flashed in her head—her brother, handsome and smiling, kicking and bleeding out on the floor of her cell—then she shoved it down. “Tells?”

  The very same.

  “You’re a… voice?” Ella glanced around, then kept walking, albeit slower, mind turning with thoughts of ancestors and demons and parasitic voices. But she was done with those now—right? She’d gotten rid of her voice. “Is it really you?”

  Of course it is.

  Ella thought fast. “What was Dad’s favorite drink?”

  Yersh brandy, barrel-aged from the west slopes.

  “What color were the tiles in my cell?”

  Pea green. You hated it.

  “Poddy’s favorite part of the yard?”

  He snorted. The far corner under the acacia bushes. You two used to hide there all day, writing your little stories.

  Ella breathed out. “Telen.” It really was him. Guilt crashed into her chest, long pent-up. She had killed him five years ago, trying to escape their parents’ house. “I’m sorry. I just needed to get out, and you were—“

  I was being an ass. I’ve had a long time to think about it, little sis, and I don’t blame you. He was using the serious tone she only heard occasionally, when something would break through his banter. We were both under a lot of pressure then, and I—I thought if I did what Dad wanted, I could get you out eventually.”

  “I still didn’t need to kill you,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “I could have gotten out some other way.”

  Yes, you did. There was no other way. And it’s amazing, what you’ve done. How you got out of the ports, the accountancy thing—

  Ella shook her head. “You’ve seen my life? All of it?”

  I’ve been here the whole time. I just couldn’t speak, because that other thing was here.

  Her heart clutched, eyes smarting. Somehow it meant so much, that he’d seen it. When all this time she’d thought she was alone. “You mean LeTwi? Why didn’t you talk to me then?”

  I don’t know. This is a weird place, Ella. I’m not really alive or dead, I’m just—here. And while LeTwi was here all I could do was watch.

  She felt frustration from him then. Telen had always had a temper.

  You too, Smellumia! he snapped back, using his old name for her, for the year she’d refused to bathe.

  She smiled. “It really is you.” It was confusing but—relieving, somehow. That someone knew what had happened, what she’d gone through.

  I know it all, little sis.

  “Everything?”

  Almost. I tend to shut down when you, y’know, shower and stuff.

  Her face heated. “And you’re not ashamed of me for taking a different name?” Mother and Father would be mortified. If they even thought she was alive.

  Shatter Mother and Father. Seriously, Ella. Shatter them and the House. We were never more than stones on a stones board to them. If you hadn’t killed me I would have killed them and broken you out, eventually. It was the only way.

  Ella nodded. “I am sorry, Tells. I shouldn’t have done it.” He’d talked about his plans often enough, to gradually take control of the House and—

  No, no, I waited too long. He gave a self-deprecating laugh. Who knows if I’d’ve ever had the balls to go through with it? Turns out you did, though.

  The memory rose up in her of the last night, after she’d stolen his yura, discovered she could slow time. He was the only one with keys, other than Mom and Dad, who never visited her. Was her only chance to get out, she’d thought. Only now, the memory was as though she saw it through his eyes too, without the blame she’d always imagined.

  It was like washing salt from a wound. A constant pain suddenly gone. Too good to be true. “You really aren’t mad? Not some vengeful spirit come to haunt me?”

  He laughed. No. I’m just glad I can finally talk to you.

  She relaxed. “Either way, I am sorry Tells. You probably could have saved our House. I was too caught up in my own rebellion, my own hate, to think of anything else. You had plans.”

  Yeah, well, look where they got me. He laughed again.

  She smiled back. “The traveled road’s easy to map, right?

  When you’re dead, it’s all traveled road. A pause, then Friends?

  Ella made the show of a grimace. “Do I have a choice?”

  Another grin. Just like old times, huh sis?

  Ella stepped onto the main walkway, Tower rising ahead. “I guess. Except I can’t kill you anymore.”

  Ella passed the afternoon in what was becoming a routine, balancing Sablo’s steady stream of books—for a Councilate servant sworn off his family House’s business, he still had a surprising array of private interests—as the Arbiter and other judicial officials passed through his chamber.

  She left as the sun was low in the horizon, ledgers done and a meeting with Tai scheduled for sunset. This was the fourth time they’d met since she’d agreed help him, but it still felt surreal somehow. That she should have lunch with the Arbiter and meet his enemies that night.

  Which one are you going to date, anyway?

  She scowled at her brother. Already a pest. “Which what?”

  Telen scoffed. Sablo or Tai.

  “I’m not dating either of them, Telen. It’s not like that.”

  Mhm.

  Tai was waiting at the bridge, dressed as a poor farmer this time, complete with a weathered handcart of turnips. She’d chosen Brinerider silks. “Good day sir,” she said, nodding to him and turning to cross over to the fields. “You seem to have fallen in the world.”

  “In the eyes of a fancy woman yes,” he said, a gleam in his eye. “But farmers are respected among my people. Without them, what are we?”

  “True enough,” she said, making a mental note to add it to her growing list of Achuri cultural traits, most of them things Markels had missed. They turned down a quiet path, Tai’s cart bumping over the ruts in the dirt. “How fares the Ghost Rebellion? Are you still yuraloading your recruits?”

  “Now more than ever,” Tai grimaced.

  “Any more deaths?”

  “Aye. And plenty that fail too.”

  She frowned. They’d talked of this before. “Have you noticed any pattern?”

  “Not that I can see. Is there something we should look for?”

  Ella bit her lip. “Not that I know of. As far as I can tell, the voices have something to teach us—tell them to look for that. To argue against whatever the voices are trying to convince them of. If I was there to meet them...” They’d talked of her meeting the rest of the rebels, but there was little benefit in it, and much risk. If Sablo knew she was even meeting Tai… She glanced around, a sudden tightness in her throat, but there was no one around.

  “Aye. Any news from the Councilate?”

  “Yes,” she said, coming back to the conversation. “There was something. Confirmation that Coldferth at least has stopped using their dockhouses entirely. They’re sending all their yura by personal courier in small amounts to their bluffmanse in Newgen, and storing it there.”

  Tai’s eyebrows rose. “Good to know. Though I don’t know how we’d ever touch them in Newgen.”

  She nodded. The enclave was guarded like a fortress. “How goes the overall strategy? Are you winning? Your attacks are certainly all the talk in the Tower.”

  “The attacks are going well, and our numbers keep growing but—I keep thinking about what you said. About needing to be different than the Councilate. To avoid repeating their mistakes. I don’t think we’re there yet.”

  She nodded, thinking back to her conversation with the Arbiter. “Things have changed now. It’s not as though you could go back to whatever system the Achuri had before the Councilate came.”

  Tai’s cart caught in a rut, a few turnips spilling out. He bent to pick them up. “Aye. An
d with as many foreigners as we have in the force—“ He shook his head. “I don’t know how we’ll do it.”

  She steadied the cart for him. “Well I have a few ideas. One is that you can’t let wealth be the only marker of prestige in your new society. There has to be something else too.”

  Tai nodded. “We used to have winter festivals, where we’d crown champions in song and speech and sport. Before the Councilate came.”

  “Yes! Something like that. And whoever makes the decisions for the society, they can’t be chosen just on the basis of wealth. Or they will just use the system to make themselves richer.”

  Tai nodded. “I will keep that in mind. Our elders used to be chosen just on the basis of age, and number of descendants, but…”

  Her eyebrows rose—fertility for political power? “Well. Something like that, at least!”

  Turnips replaced, they continued on, sun dropping below the western hills behind them. “I got my kids back,” Tai said, quietly.

  “You did? That’s great!” Then she realized what it meant. “Prophets—did you attack the prison camp?”

  “I did. We did. Though we didn’t free everyone, just my kids.”

  “I would have heard about that! Still, that’s great.”

  He did not look great at the mention of it. “Ella, the prison camp, it’s… it’s horrible.”

  She nodded, sobering. “I have read accounts of the camps in Yatiland and Seingard, and they were heavily edited, I’m sure.”

  “It’s—you just have to see it.” He stopped and looked at her. “Do you want to see it?”

  “Me? I—well yeah, I do, but… how?”

  He grinned. “We fly.”

  “Fly?” Her heart gave a lurch. There was a reason she’d never jumped from the cell window in her parent’s house. She hated heights. Still—curiosity had her. And to fly? “Well, why not?”

  He stepped closer, leaving the cart, and taking her around the middle. “You’ll have to hold on. We need to get pretty high to not get seen.”

  She was suddenly aware of how close he was, the strength of his hands on her. “Ah—yes. Of course.” She looped her arms over his shoulders. “So when do we—“

  With a vibrating shock of resonance they were up, shooting off the ground like a Seinjial’s arrow. “Oh God!” she squealed, before she could control herself.

  Tai slowed. “Are you okay?” She was pressed against him, head next to his.

  Ella closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. “I’m fine.” She just couldn’t open her eyes.

  Flying was more pleasant then—just the whoosh of air, deliciously cool after a warm day, and the solid feeling of Tai breathing next to her, his resonance like the ringing of a temple gong.

  “Okay,” he said after a time. “You can open your eyes now.”

  She smelled it first—the reek of too many humans trapped in one place, like slaver’s carts in the flats outside Worldsmouth. She opened her eyes to only air, then turned and looked down.

  And gasped, too shocked for a moment even to be afraid. The camp was packed, a mass of human bodies crammed within the walls, too quiet for that many people, just a low murmur. Like a funeral.

  “See that cart to the left?” Tai asked, his voice gone cold. “Those are bodies. The ones that died today. They’re not getting enough to eat, and half are sick, and the Councilate has armed some of them against the other ones, to keep them all from rising up.”

  Ella saw the cart, gagged. It was too horrible for words. And then she noticed the sheer drop of air between her and the ground, and her heart clutched for a different reason. “Down,” she whispered. “I need to go down.”

  Tai dropped them without speaking, angling back toward where they’d come. Ella closed her eyes again, but gone was the wonder of it, the sweet closeness, her heart all horror and her belly all fear.

  They touched down, Tai’s resonance dropping. He bent over, paling from the bends, and Ella sat down hard, for a different reason, heart being fast.

  “It’s awful,” she said at last. “I knew they were doing bad things, but—“ She didn’t have words. They weren’t even like humans in there.

  “I thought I would be done when I got my kids out,” Tai said, voice still weak from the nausea wafters got. “But—I can’t. I can’t let them do this. If you were there, on the ground—“

  “I saw enough. Prophets. But there are so many guards. Can you do it?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Some of the others are not as convinced, but I—I can’t let that stand.”

  She stood, dusting off her dress. “Seems like you should be able to convince them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you’re the one everyone talks about. The wafter who’s higher and faster than everyone else, the one who single-handedly stole the yura from a Galya mine compound. You’re known, in the Tower.”

  “I’m—just another fighter.”

  “I doubt it. At least, I doubt the rest of them see it like that. You’re the one who makes all these daring strikes work.”

  He picked up his cart again, stooping his back like a lowly farmer. “Well, me and your yuraloading.”

  “Well. All I’m saying is, don’t doubt yourself. You’re precious.” Ella stopped, heat rising in her cheeks. “I mean, you probably have more clout than you think.”

  “I—thank you. I’ll remember that.” He glanced at the horizon, glowing violet with the sunset. “I should go. Are you going to be okay, walking back?”

  Such a difference from the Councilate’s false chivalry. “I’ll be fine, thanks.”

  Tai nodded. “Take care then.” He wheeled his cart off toward the forest.

  Ella took the opposite direction, toward town. It was dark enough now that Odril’s office would be done with work—partially, she suspected, because he didn’t want to pay for the lamp oil. Ella had promised to visit Tunla every night, but had missed the last few, not wanting to attract the Newgen guards’ attention by leaving every night after dark.

  The main office windows were dark, as expected. Ella still struck her resonance on approaching, air thickening around her as the scattering of people on the street froze. She did a quick search of the building and its surrounds, looking for lurking mercenaries, for any kind of trap Odril might have set. She had no doubt he knew, by now, that she’d taken rooms in the Tower, but was also not fool enough to try anything inside the enclave. Out here, however—

  The area looked clean. She dropped resonance outside Tunla’s window, where a small candle burned, and tapped the glass.

  The darkhaired woman was there in a moment, cranking the window out. “Ella! I thought you’d been taken.”

  Ella grinned. “Not yet. Are you still in lockdown?”

  “Aye. But I’ve made the books for you.” She reached down, coming up with two heavy ledgers.

  “Excellent. Thank you so much, Tunla. I’m getting you out with these.”

  Tunla nodded. “So long as you can get our contracts annulled. Life under Odril is not pleasant, but compared to his inheritors…”

  “I’ve been studying. I’m learning the laws around it. I’m sure this will work. And if it doesn’t… well, I have some new friends now. They could get you out another way.”

  “The boy Tai? He turned out to be a mercenary?”

  “Not a mercenary. A rebel.”

  Tunla’s brows rose at this, but there wasn’t the excitement there Ella hoped to see. “We tried rebelling before. That’s how my husband died. Be careful, Ella. The Councilate did not go lightly on those involved.”

  She nodded, remembering the risk of being seen here, not only for Odril but for the questions it might raise if Sablo heard. “Right. I should go.”

  “Atumbarye,” Tunla said. “May the ancestors keep you.”

  Ella nodded, feeling somehow the sacredness of her duty, not only to get Tunla and the women free, but to support the rebels, to help stop the Councilate here, before the Achur
i language and lifeway was lost. She gripped Tunla’s hand through the bars. “Ancestors keep you too.”

  25

  Oh sure, a woman might make herself useful enough to marry up, and gain a better name. Doubtless many of the noble Houses got their start this way—but you won’t find any who admit it.

  --Mdm. Kallenia, Speeches of the Day, Yiel 71

  Ella woke the next morning to knocking at her door. She sat up, blankets kicked off in the night, nightgown ridden up to her waist. The room was bathed in blue, a deep, cerulean blue, and it took her a long moment to remember where she was. The Tower. Right.

  The knocking came again. Did someone see her with Tai? Did Sablo know?

  “Just a moment!” Ella looked around, heart beating, but there was nowhere to go. She struck resonance, the knocking dropping to boulderlike thuds as time slowed. She got up, dressed, crunched a mavensytm blossom down, and thought through her options. There was no other escape this high up, and she hadn’t replaced her shank yet. Stupid. She would have to slip past them, then.

  Ella took a deep breath, dropped resonance, and opened the door.

  To two immaculate Councilate ladies. They were dressed in Brinerider silks, hair tied in elaborate haloes around their head, faces expertly done with brush and rouge. The right one was shorter, dress flame red with white lace. She spoke. “Ellumia?”

  Ella started. “Yes. And you are?”

  “Clarella,” she said, giving a stately nod. Her eyebrows had been shaved, then painted on higher.

  “And I’m Swinecka,” the other said, tall and somewhat horse-faced in a green-and-red gown. She also nodded.

  Ella nodded back, feeling suddenly under-dressed. “It’s—nice to meet you. What can I do for you?”

  “Nothing!” Clarella called. “Just a social visit. We’d heard you moved in, and thought we’d stop by. There are so few of us lighthaired women about. Single ones, anyway.”

  “You are single?” Swinecka asked, eying the room behind her.

  “I am,” Ella said, guard coming up. “I’ve only been here a few days.”

  “Yes, well,” Clarella touched at her hair, “we keep in close contact with the registrar downstairs. What brings you to the south?”