by Matt Wallace
“Most of the Gen elders are hiding in their circus,” Kellan explains. “They probably have a few Aegins in there with them, and mayhap even a few Skrain. They’ve done their best to seal off all roads leading into the circus. Their barricades are shoddy, but we haven’t bothered to test them.”
“Figured we’re better off,” Talma adds. “Let ’em die in there. When the fruits and vegetables in their bazaar rot and their fancy cooks in their fancy stands run out of noodles, they’ll begin to know what hunger in the Shade feels like every day.”
Talma is the elder who marched their prisoners out through the city gates alongside Kellan to meet Evie’s army. She is a rough-looking lump of a woman with long shocks of gray hair and a weathered face. The apron she wears is stained with blood rather than soot, and a meat cleaver dangles from its belt by a leather thong. Evie has learned Talma is, or was, a state-sponsored butcher who cut up what offal and rancid chunks of meat the Tenth City bothered to allot for its poor. She also serves her community as a midwife, and seems to be something of a sage among them, or at least a respected senior member.
In either case, Evie appreciates that Talma has taken the time to clean the blade of her meat cleaver since the battle.
They are all currently met in a tavern, the city revolt leaders and Evie, Mother Manai, Lariat, Sirach, and Yacatek. Bam guards the doors along with Diggs. The tavern sits on the edge of the Shade, which appears to be the Tenth City’s version of the Bottoms. It doesn’t face the sea as the Bottoms do in the Capitol, but the secluded and neglected streets crowded with shadowy hole-in-the-wall spaces and dirty, forgotten people are a spot-on match.
Evie is struck by how all Crachian cities seem to be copies of one another, with only small details of architecture and landscape differentiating them. Even suffering seems to be doled out in equal measure and with similar organization. It is as if Crache has designed its cities that way.
Blinking to break her focus on that bit of humanity staining Kellan’s hammer, Evie looks up at the blacksmith’s stony yet surprisingly warm face.
“So, stragglers aside, you’ve put down all the Aegins and Skrain in the city?”
“Hai,” Kellan affirms. “Them that survived are locked in the dungeons. Some we boarded up in their own barracks. I’ve younglings guarding both. Good boys and girls. Do what they’re told. They won’t harm or torment them unless one of us tells ’em to do so.”
Evie nods. She is struck with an appreciation of the two. Though she hasn’t known them long, she is amazed at how Talma and Kellan appear to have rallied and organized their people in such a short time, and after such spontaneous action. She is also impressed by the respect and obedience they claim among their community to be able to achieve those things.
The two of them have recounted to Evie’s council how they became the unlikely leaders of a sudden rebellion within the Tenth City. There was obvious unrest after the gates were closed and the city sealed up tightly, with anyone forbidden to either enter or leave. Decrees were posted explaining that an inclement storm threatened the city, but the skies remained as blue and clear as a summer portrait.
To discourage any large-size gatherings or congregating of the people to discuss the matter, the city’s Aegins, supported by Skrain soldiers, were dispatched into the Shade. Their increased presence only roused more suspicion and disquiet.
Naturally, as an elder of the Shade, people came to Talma to ask what was happening. At first she tried to calm and placate them, assuring her friends and neighbors that this was nothing more than the usual tamping down of the Shade by the city. However, the questioning not only persisted, but grew more worried and frightened and widespread.
Finally, Talma took it upon herself to directly approach the highest-ranking Aegin and their companion soldiers. Talma began questioning them about the city being sealed. When she demanded to know the nature of the storm that was supposedly swelling in the east, the Aegin, surprised by the seemingly ragged little woman’s boldness and no doubt caught off-guard, sputtered something about tornadoes. Talma has seen generations born and live and die in the Shade, and not a single one among those waves of humanity had ever witnessed such a phenomenon.
When she laughed openly in their faces, one of the Aegins struck her with the pommel of their dagger. Talma still wears the lacerated bruise on her wrinkled temple.
That single act proved to be an unexpected spark. The fuse was already in place, grown from years of oppression and neglect and being spat upon by men and women in those uniforms. Watching the same representatives of that city, that nation under whose yoke they’d been crushed for so long finally lit it.
Those who witnessed the assault on Talma seized the Aegins and the Skrain, drowning the armed and more experienced fighters in righteous fury and abused bodies. Those who quickly heard of the events unfolding flocked to participate. The ranks of the sudden revolt swelled quickly and grew hotter with each new soul it absorbed.
Kellan, it seems, only intervened when that initial act of civil disobedience and defense turned into rioting. He seemed, in fact, a rather passive and thoroughly levelheaded individual by nature. His little shop rested on the border of the Shade and drew patrons both from within and outside. Kellan didn’t want to see the shops inside the Shade consumed nor the people of the Shade loot the businesses that operated around the confines of the area.
He helped Talma rally the Shade and focus its citizens’ ire where it belonged: on the armed enforcers of the state. Though his nature bent toward easiness, Kellan obviously possessed strength and a leader’s hand to which the people responded. He and Talma proved a formidable duo.
From what Evie has gleaned, the mistake of the Aegins was underestimating the fervor of the Shade and the threat that boiling anger presented. If they had marshaled the whole of their forces, they could have easily put down the unrest. Instead, they dispatched only a handful of their dagger-wielding peacekeepers to quell the burgeoning riot. When more reports came that the Shade remained unsettled, they sent yet another handful of Aegins and Skrain. They waited hours to finally reinforce that contingent.
By the time the commander of the Tenth City’s Aegins and the captain of the Skrain detachment reinforcing them both realized the true breadth of their mistake, it was too late. Their forces were depleted, the rabble they detested was mobilized, armed, and legion, and the real fight was over before it had even begun.
Overcoming the military arm of the city proved to be the only key needed to unlock control over every street and edifice. The citizens of the Tenth City, the Gen members, and those who served them either capitulated or retreated immediately once the revolt spread beyond the Shade. None of them were accustomed to violence of any substance, let alone the fiery brand of rebellion that swept through the streets.
In the end, it was as if the imaginary storm the city had conjured to subdue the people finally manifested within its own walls.
“The Arbiters and Council members have done a better job than the Gen leaders,” Kellan continues. “They’re all holed up in the Citadel. They’ve managed to shut it up tight. Breaching it would be a chore.”
“Our people would be willing and able,” Talma adds. “But it would require a great sacrifice.”
“We’ll wait until it is absolutely necessary,” Evie says. “And when that time comes, my forces will take the Citadel. Your people have done more than enough, and been through more than enough.”
Talma says nothing, but it’s clear in the way her gray, ancient-looking eyes fall on Evie that she is impressed.
“I have a question,” Mother Manai says. “What’s the Citadel?”
“It is to the Tenth City what the Spectrum is to the Capitol,” Evie informs her.
“It used to be a temple,” Sirach notes.
All heads turn toward her. She has been sitting off to the side during this meeting, occupying her own table and her own mug of wine.
“A temple?” Evie asks her.
“
Yes. It was where the people of this kingdom kept their gods before Crache finally came for them. Gods of hearth and harvest. Gods of stone worshipped by the masons who built this city. Gods of love and gods of war. Like most people, they had both. They came to the temple to praise and petition in the light of the morning and the first light of the moon at night. Then the Skrain smashed the idols, killed all the priests, and gutted the vestments to make room for their glorious bureaucracy. Anyone who remembered the old gods out loud was murdered. Later, anyone who remembered those people and spoke of it simply disappeared. Just like their gods.”
No one else speaks right away. Evie is taken more by Sirach’s tone and manner than the content of her speech. The constant gleeful revelry in even the direst of situations and subjects is completely gone from her comrade and lover. Sirach sounds haunted. She looks haunted. She is speaking of the thing that creeps in on her in the quietest of moments, and perhaps in her dreams.
“I know nothing of that,” Kellan says, hesitantly, though his words are more careful than defensive. “It has been the Citadel my whole life.”
“Mine too,” Talma adds, and in her voice Evie hears genuine sympathy for the knowledge Sirach carries.
“No one is blaming you,” Evie quickly assures them both. “These were things that were done long ago, before our parents’ parents were born.”
“Not so long to the descendents of those who survived,” Sirach says.
Evie aims a stern gaze at her, leadership and practicality overriding her sympathy in that moment. “Nevertheless. There is nothing we can do about that. We’re here to discuss now. What happens now, and how we move forward.”
Sirach stares back at her openly, her face still hung with bitterness and sorrow, but she says no more.
“What of the city larders?” Mother Manai asks. “Are they contained inside this Citadel?”
Evie knows her closest advisor is intentionally leading them down a new path, and she’s grateful.
“No,” Kellan says. “The big Aegin in charge says they have an emergency store there, and I’d wager the Gen Circus has larders of its own, but the city grain and whatnot are stored separate from ’em both. We set others to guard those too so’s they don’t get sacked.”
“Very wise,” Mother Manai replies. “They won’t be stocked from outside the city walls for a while, I’d expect.”
Kellan and Talma exchange nervous, unchecked looks. Evie watches them without comment, suspecting the source of the sudden shift in their moods, yet not wanting to assume.
“We could barely believe it,” Kellan says. “How many you have with you, in that army of yours.”
“The Skrain told us the real reason they sealed up the walls,” Talma adds. “Hoping to save his skin. But we never expected…”
“Does it trouble you?” Evie asks. “We came here for the same reason you did what you did. We’re on the same side, I assure you.”
“Oh, we believe you, General,” Talma says. “We don’t worry at your intentions as regards the Skrain and the like.”
“Then what concerns you?” Evie says, pressing her point.
Kellan sighs. “As your woman here says, the city stores might not see new feed for a while yet. You’ve brought a lot of mouths with you.”
Lariat snorts derisively. “Without us, the Skrain marching to this city will string you all up by your toes and leave ya to dangle.”
Kellan has a reply on his tongue, but Talma intercedes.
“We’ll all face what’s to come together,” she insists. “As you said, General, we’re on the same side. We just want to be sure we haven’t traded one cruel master for another.”
“I’m no one’s master, I promise you. Your people have suffered, and they will have all they need. As will the rest of the people in this city who have harmed no one directly. My army will make do with what’s left.”
Kellan nods. He seems at least somewhat appeased. “And where will your army take shelter? Who will we clear out to make room for so many? The Gen Circus?”
Evie shakes her head. “We’ll need to move our forces inside the walls eventually. For now we’ll make camp outside the city.”
“Lot of our’n won’t sit with that,” Lariat says. “They’ve come a long way and fought hard. They need to see some reward from it. A little bit of comfort.”
“There are Sicclunans for whom this city is ancestral land,” Sirach chimes in on Lariat’s heels. “They deserve to come home.”
Evie looks from them to Yacatek, the final representative of her army’s separate factions, waiting to hear the Storyteller’s protests.
Yacatek says nothing. Her eyes and her expression offer Evie more of the same.
“We’ll camp outside the walls,” Evie repeats. “But we’ll give leave to our people in groups to enter the city, one at a time, to enjoy the amenities. We’ll also organize patrols to keep the peace and enforce order in the streets, as well as reinforce your guards at the larders, the barracks and dungeons, the Gen Circus, and the Citadel. Is that agreeable to all present?”
Evie makes sure the question has some command behind it, and it appears to be enough to dissuade any further objections or issues.
“Good,” she concludes. “As for parsing rations—”
She is interrupted by a Sicclunan soldier, who Bam and Diggs have apparently permitted entrance into the tavern. They all watch the soldier trot over to Sirach and whisper something for her ear alone.
“Good work,” she commends the soldier when they’re finished. “Keep a constant watch on their movements.”
The soldier bows their head briefly and retreats.
Evie and the others wait. Sirach runs her fingers around the sides of her neck, lacing them behind her head, then says: “Fifteen hundred Skrain have made camp half-a-day’s ride from the city walls.”
“What are they doing?” Mother Manai asks.
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
Sirach doesn’t speak. She only gazes pointedly at Evie. That devilish grin finally returns to Sirach’s lips.
“They’re waiting for the rest of the Crachian army,” Evie answers for her.
THE BODY
IT’S NOT A MOUNTAIN. IT’S a volcano.
The peak has been the dominant feature of the view from Dyeawan’s window since she came to the Planning Cadre. She never fails to take note of the flat hollow that crowns the rocky elevation, but neither did she ever truly understand what it signifies.
The reason is simple. Dyeawan never knew what a volcano was. They certainly have none in the Bottoms of the Capitol. She had, in fact, never heard the word “volcano” before. Though she has expanded her base of knowledge by multitudes in a very short time, Dyeawan only knows what she has read and what she is taught. The subject had simply never come up before.
When Trowel informed her that she was to report to the eastern base of the island’s volcano in the light of the next morning for her first challenge, Dyeawan wheeled herself to the library to research the new word. She first read up on volcanoes in general, amazed and humbled by the realization that mountains could spit fire, and enough to lay waste to any manner of flesh, stone, or steel gathered around them.
She then read up on the volcano specific to the Planning Cadre’s little unnamed island. Though the outside world had no knowledge of their existence, the Cadre kept meticulous records of their own lives and history since settling there. According to that record, the volcano’s eruptions had driven the island’s original inhabitants away, melting whatever remained. Fear of it caused ships and potential new residents to avoid and finally forget the island entirely.
Since the time of those cataclysmic events, Dyeawan further read, the fiery mountain had grown cold, lying dormant for many hundreds of years. It stood now only as a monument to the island’s past, presenting no threat to the Planning Cadre.
Yet, as Dyeawan rows her tender over the valley at dawn, she sees smoke belching from the hollow at the to
p of that supposedly barren behemoth.
It is a sight totally unfamiliar to her, even in all the mornings she has awakened to gaze out her window and up at that peak. The spirals of smoke are as black as death. They look like necrotic fingers reaching up to claw at the otherwise calm and vibrant blue of the sky above.
Dyeawan’s keen mind attempts to puzzle out not only the reason for it, but the meaning as she moves the tracks of her tender along. The path beneath those tracks is perfectly beaten. Dyeawan is further surprised to find that not only is the path smooth and flat, but it appears to wind all the way to the base of the volcano itself. She can’t imagine why such a thing would exist, and wonders if the path has been laid specifically for this challenge, whether just for her or in some time past, whenever this task was originally created.
It occurs to Dyeawan that would be very in keeping with the planners as Edger molded them; creative thought and the drive to transform the improbable into the realized, but aimed at the totally opulent. Though they solved so many practical problems, their philosophy had fallen so deeply into invention without necessity.
Dyeawan wants to win this absurd challenge to change that as much as anything else.
As she approaches the end of the path, her arms already strained from the journey, Dyeawan spots new tendrils of smoke rising in the distance. These wisps are smaller and milky white. Their source is a small cooking pot dangling above an open fire built upon the ground.
An absolutely ancient-looking woman Dyeawan has never before laid eyes upon waits for her at the base of the volcano. Behind her, a small cottage sits on the first slope, constructed from a stony material Dyeawan has also never seen. It is impossibly smooth, the jet-black surfaces of each side gleaming in the morning light.
Though it’s a new sight for her, Dyeawan has read about this, too. It is the manner of rock created by a volcano’s fiery discharge.
The woman herself is slight and nondescript. Her pure white hair is bound in a loose tail. The skin of her face is clean and bright despite the lines of age present there. She is draped in a warm shawl fashioned from black sheep’s wool that covers a simple gray tunic, much like Dyeawan’s, though the woman’s bears no insignia of any kind.