‘Well, no.’
‘That’s because they can’t get out of bed, never mind rule a fucking city.’
Shella and Clodi shared a knowing smirk at their brother.
‘And Dannu,’ Shella went on, ‘is completely clueless. She doesn’t know the first thing about governing. This is our best, maybe our only opportunity. If it works, then by the time Obli has given birth, and is capable of going back to work as our beloved queen, then the assemblies and courts will be up and running, and there won’t be a thing she can do about it.’
‘I hardly think Pavu will just stand by and watch, while you re-constitute democracy,’ said Sami.
‘He’ll do nothing. Kylon and the others scare him shitless.’
‘Yes,’ Sami said, ‘but there are only six of them, against thousands of wardens and police.’
‘Remember that six of them were enough to clear the upper floors of Tanni’s wardens. They haven’t dared come up here in a third. And anyway, I’ve been recruiting…’
From behind Shella’s left shoulder, Polli cleared her throat.
‘Don’t mind her,’ Shella said to Sami. ‘She still doesn’t trust either of you. Thinks you might go running off to Dannu or Pavu with the plan.’
She caught her young assistant’s eye for a moment, and smiled at her. Polli was turning out to be an invaluable help, clever and loyal. Maybe a little too loyal at times.
Clodi and Sami laughed as Polli glowered at them.
Shella grinned at her siblings. Polli was probably right. She shouldn’t be telling Sami and Clodi too much, but it had been good to see the two of them starting to relax after being withdrawn for so long. The atmosphere in the mage’s tenement had changed overnight with the arrival of the Kellach Brigdomin. The wardens had scattered, terrified, once Shella had ordered Kylon to clear them out. Tanni’s forces still occupied the ground floor, which meant they also had control over the main gate, but they had left Shella and the others alone since that night.
Dissidents had started flocking to the tenement, once word had got out that she had taken over the upper floors, and she had found jobs and rooms for them all, until the place was bursting at the seams.
Officially everyone had a role in the public services, managing the construction of canals, roads and housing, and administering a hundred other projects, but Shella had also given the brightest and most experienced the task of designing a new constitution, one that could be implemented quickly. It would retain Obli as monarch, but reduce her powers, and elected officials would take over the running of the government.
She had cultivated a network of contacts throughout the city, all of whom now awaited her signal. There was a thirst in the half-built settlement for the restoration of democracy. Pavu’s brutal and officious wardens had become loathed by the general populace, who, if her spies were correct, would support her if she acted. There was still a residue of ill-feeling directed towards her personally, due to the dark powers she possessed, but the memory of the harsh times they had shared in the Basalt Desert was changing all the time, as each survivor re-imagined their own role in what was fast becoming a founding mythology. Thanks partly to the discreet whispering campaign she had been waging, Shella was now being remembered for her heroic role in rescuing the migration during the violent volcanic eruption, while Obli, who had been adored by the masses at the time, was being portrayed as a tyrant, obsessed with her rule.
There was a knock at the main doors, and Bedig entered. He was the tallest of Kylon’s crew, a member of the Brig clan. Long braids of red hair hung down his back, over the steel and leather armour he always wore. It was all cleaned up and polished now, as was he. The handsome young Brig ran Shella’s new hand-picked squads of Rakanese guards, all recruited from trusted sources.
With him walked Bowda, her cunning spymaster, and general plotter. His features were gaunt and severe, and his black robes made him appear sinister. It was an effect Shella was sure he played up to, and one he had probably learned from his days as an agent for the Spawn Control Board back in Arakhanah.
‘Good morning, you two,’ Shella called to them, as they approached the circle of couches and chairs.
‘Morning, mage,’ Bedig grunted, as he sat. There was a long, low table next to the couches, filled with plates and bowls of food, and cups and jugs. While Bowda remained standing, Bedig poured himself a glass of pressed fruit juice. In the Rakanese tradition, everyone helped themselves, and Shella had not hired any servants, unlike the new royal court.
‘Anything to report?’ Shella asked.
Bowda glanced at Sami and Clodi, then shared a raised eyebrow with Polli.
‘Fine,’ Shella sighed. She turned to her siblings. ‘You two, scram for now. Let the grown-ups talk.’
Shella noticed a smirk on Polli’s lips as Sami and Clodi huffed and tutted their way to the door.
As soon as they were gone, Bowda sat, and took a cup of rice wine.
‘High Mage,’ he said, ‘if I may begin?’
She nodded.
‘We may have made a breakthrough in our plans to infiltrate the wardens,’ he said, a dark look in his eye. ‘A small group of sergeants, all veterans from before, and none of them too happy about the way things have been going.’
‘Where are they based?’
‘Over by the eastern clay-pits.’
‘And you’ve made contact?’
‘Just last night,’ he nodded. ‘They want full immunity if they come over to our side, and they want to keep their jobs, and their apartments.’
‘Is that all?’
Bowda shrugged. ‘They’ve sensed the mood of the people, and know it might turn ugly at any moment. If it does, it’ll be the wardens the mobs will target first.’
‘Okay,’ she said, ‘we can agree to that. Get them to give us a list of every company they think will remain loyal to Dannu and Pavu.’
Bowda nodded, and drank his wine.
‘Bedig?’ she said.
The young Brig smiled at her, his red beard trimmed short. They were brutes, she thought, but quite pleasing to look at.
‘The night passed peacefully, mage,’ Bedig said. ‘Nothing from the patrols. Klai’s got the fourth squad at the west stairs today, and Kilynn has the fifth over on the east side. Usual crowds outside. Tanni’s lot are keeping them quiet.’
Shella smiled to herself. Not so long ago, any mob outside her house would have been calling for her head. Now, they were here to beg for jobs, or favours.
‘Thanks, boys,’ she said. ‘Polli, what’s on for today? And sit, girl. I can’t keep craning my neck to look at you.’
Her young assistant came round from behind her shoulder, and sat on the couch to her left.
‘High Mage,’ she said, her eyes sharp, ‘you have a meeting this morning with the planning heads to discuss the next ten-day work schedules, then the property team are due to arrive over lunch, they want to present their proposals for the housing extension in Garden District. I’ve kept an hour free after that for you to sign off your correspondence, and then…’
‘Enough!’ cried Shella. ‘It’s probably better if you just let me know on an hourly basis. That way I won’t want to kill myself.’
‘As you wish, High Mage.’
The main doors opened again, and two more men entered. She smiled at Kylon and Rijon, feeling a twinge of pride at the calibre of allies she had attracted.
‘Good morning, lads,’ she said. ‘Sit yourselves down.’
She waited as they each took a seat. She noticed Bowda eye the Holdings priest with a touch of suspicion, or maybe jealousy.
Kylon was dressed in black, trimmed in sliver, and looked as brooding as he usually did. In the early days, Shella had teased him endlessly, trying to make him smile, but she had long given it up as a waste of time.
‘Good morning Mage Shella,’ Rijon said. ‘I have a report for you, from the Holding embassy in Rahain, if you’d like to hear it?’
‘Sure, Rijon,’ s
he replied, reclining and picking up a glass.
‘I was in contact with them last night,’ he said. ‘They informed me that the Rahain delegation has been sent out, and should be arriving here this afternoon.’
‘What?’ Shella cried, sitting up. ‘Already? I thought the senate had just decided the other day?’
‘It only takes a few hours to travel to the Rahain front lines when you go by winged gaien,’ Rijon said. ‘The delegates flew out yesterday morning, with orders to approach Akhanawarah City today.’
‘Shit,’ she muttered. ‘They’ll go straight to the palace, only to find Dannu minding the shop.’
They all watched her.
‘Bowda,’ she said, ‘make sure I hear of it as soon as the Rahain approach the city. Bedig, have every squad standing by all day, ready to assemble in the central courtyard at my order. No, wait, we can’t all go.’ She took a sip of orange juice. ‘Leave two squads, along with Klai and Kilynn. The rest will be coming with me.’
‘Aye, mage,’ Bedig said, standing. ‘I’ll get to it.’ He nodded to her, then to Kylon, who grunted.
Bowda also stood, and the pair walked together from the room.
‘Unlikely friends,’ Rijon smirked as they left.
‘Bedig gets on with everybody,’ Shella shrugged. ‘He’s a happy lad.’
‘Bedig watched,’ Kylon said, in a low voice, ‘as the Rahain murdered his mother and father, and led him and his twin brother off in chains.’
Shella raised her eyebrow. ‘What happened to his brother?’
‘Still a slave,’ he replied. ‘Or dead. Bedig walks each day weighed down with the shame of having left him behind while he escaped. I told him not to despair, that the knowledge that he was free would sustain his enslaved brother in his darker moments.’
She gazed at him. ‘You’re in a grim mood this morning.’
Rijon shrugged. ‘He’s angry that there’s still no news of the Kellach Brigdomin fire mage the Rahain captured,’ he said. ‘The Holdings embassy has intelligence that states she is still alive, but nothing else has been heard of her.’
‘If the Rahain had executed your friend,’ Shella said, ‘I’m sure we would have heard. After all, didn’t they parade her through the streets a while back? If they were going to kill her, it would have been then.’
Kylon said nothing.
She looked at the Kell warrior, a low pulse of anger rippling outward from him.
‘You really hate the Rahain, don’t you?’ she said.
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘They’re just people, like you, and me. Most of them are kept in chains of ignorance and servitude. Their leaders have enslaved them, just as they have my people. As they intend to do to you.’
‘They have done nothing to us,’ she said. ‘They’re not affecting us in any way.’
‘Then why are we sitting here, none of us Rahain, yet all speaking their language? It is but a first step. The Rahain wish us all to be slaves.’
‘There you go again,’ she sighed, ‘with your forecasts of doom. Look,’ she said, ‘the Rahain have been sitting behind their damn wall for nearly two thirds now. If they were going to attack, surely they would have done so before we had built so much of the city. If they’d attacked when we were all still living in tents… but they didn’t. And now they’re sending a delegation. At last, they want to talk to us. So long as it’s not Dannu they end up meeting.’
Kylon shook his head.
‘You really intend to speak with them?’ Rijon asked.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Who else? Dannu? Pavu? Don’t make me fucking laugh. Maybe Obli at her finest could have faced up to them, but she happens to be a little busy at the moment. No, it has to be me.’
‘I’m not sure I should be present.’
‘You’re probably right,’ she said. ‘You can stay here, or head back to your consular office.’
She glanced at Kylon.
‘You’re coming though.’
‘Aye.’
The message arrived as Shella was sitting down to lunch, the members of the property management team settled and ready to begin their presentation.
‘The Rahain delegation has been spotted, miss,’ Jayki whispered in her ear, ‘entering the western districts.’
She stood.
‘Apologies all, but you’ll have to excuse me.’
‘But, High Mage,’ one protested, ‘it’s taken days to organise this meeting, surely you can spare us five minutes?’
‘Nope,’ she said. ‘See Polli, and reschedule.’
She walked to the door before anyone else could complain.
‘How many?’ she asked Jayki, as they hurried towards her private rooms.
‘Two carriages,’ he said, ‘and about twenty guards.’
‘Okay. Alert Bedig, tell him it’s almost time.’
‘Yes, miss,’ Jayki said, then turned for the stairwell.
She went through to her personal office. Polli looked up from the desk.
‘They’re here,’ Shella said, without stopping. ‘Fetch Kylon and Bowda.’
Shella entered her own rooms, and got changed. She pulled on a set of long black robes, and was just finishing her hair when Polli knocked, and entered.
‘We’re ready, High Mage,’ she said, bowing.
Shella swept back out into the office. Kylon stood waiting, fully armed and armoured, towering beside Bowda, whose stoop made him appear shorter than he was.
‘All in black, I see,’ Shella said. ‘Good. At least we’ve made an effort to look the part.’
‘The dark mage, and her minions,’ Bowda cackled, rubbing his hands together.
‘Come on then, my minions,’ Shella said. ‘We need to save the city from Dannu.’
They hurried down the stairwell to the eastern guardroom, where Bedig had assembled all but two of the new squads.
Leah, the Lach archer, and Baoryn, the Rahain renegade, were also waiting, and were talking with Jayki and Braga. Everyone was armed.
They stilled when she entered, and turned to face her.
‘We’re going to the palace,’ she said. Eyes blinked, and faces looked surprised. She realised with a start that several of them probably thought that the coup was about to begin. Maybe it was.
She turned on her heels and went down the hall to the stairs. Descending, she came out into the open air of the tenement courtyard. She strode towards the main gates, then stopped a few paces away, watched by a handful of Tanni’s wardens on duty.
Behind her she heard her company move in and fill the courtyard, and she felt Kylon’s presence at her right elbow.
‘Wardens!’ she called out. ‘Move aside, I command you.’
The guards looked around, heavily out-numbered by Shella’s force.
Kylon nodded, and Baoryn stepped forward, a crossbow in his hands. The renegade Rahain walked towards the wardens, motioning for them to put down their spears, and move to the side.
‘Stop!’
Shella turned her head to see Tanni running from a door to the right, a dozen wardens filing out behind her.
‘High Mage!’ she panted, as she came to a halt before her.
‘Listen carefully, Officer Tanni,’ Shella said. ‘I’m going to the palace, to meet the Rahain delegation.’
‘But my orders…’
‘Were given by the queen, who is presently not at liberty to amend them,’ Shella said. ‘As she surely would, if she knew that the future of the city was depending on the diplomatic skills of Herald Dannukanawara. Don’t you agree?’
Tanni looked at a loss for a moment, and Shella could see the woman weighing up her options.
‘I’ll be expecting you to escort us there, of course,’ Shella said, smiling. ‘For our protection.’
The warden pursed her lips, and nodded.
‘Open the gates!’ Shella called out, and soldiers from her company ran forwards to remove the bar, and pull the doors wide.
‘After you,’ Shella said to Tanni.
‘Form up!’ the officer shouted, and led her wardens through the arched tunnel gates. Shella followed, with Polli and Bowda at each shoulder, and Kylon and Baoryn to either side. Behind her, Bedig, Leah, Jayki and Braga each led a squad.
They moved out onto the street, where the usual crowd was standing. The wardens had pushed them back from the road, and they lined the pavements, each straining to catch a glimpse of the dark mage emerging from her internal exile.
Though the palace was only a few hundred yards away, across the main square in the centre of the city, their passage was slow, as more crowds gathered, curious to see what was happening. Groups of wardens closed in as lines of excited people clustered on either side.
‘Are you ready, High Mage?’ Bowda whispered to her.
She swallowed, keeping her nerves down. This was turning into something she should have foreseen. She had intended to meet the Rahain, then return to her tenement and carry on as before, but her symbolic act of walking the streets, in disobedience of the only order she had ever been given, was setting off her plans early.
‘We might need to alert our contacts,’ she whispered back.
‘I did so an hour ago, High Mage,’ he replied.
She chuckled.
She heard her name called out, and it turned into a chant, repeated by thousands as she walked to the palace gates. Shella flushed. Being an object of adulation felt alien and uncomfortable, and she avoided eye contact with any of the cheering public. At the same time however, she couldn’t hold back the surge of pride that rippled through her.
In the vast, walled off gardens at the front of the palace, Shella could see the carriages the Rahain had brought with them. Each had a pair of enormous reptiles harnessed at their front. They stared at her, with piercing yellow eyes.
‘Gaien,’ she heard Baoryn mutter, as they left the crowds behind them, and passed through into the gardens. She looked over at the renegade Rahain, Kylon’s most loyal soldier. She had heard the Kell warrior had protected Baoryn’s life when he had been captured, and had refused to allow anyone to touch him.
Ahead, she saw that her company had come to a halt. Tanni was speaking and gesturing to the wardens guarding the main entrance to the palace buildings.
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