by John Bierce
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Tea in the Park
They split up for the afternoon. Alustin and Artur went to arrange things for their expedition upriver, while Hugh and Godrick went to go figure out their plans for the evening.
Talia and Sabae, meanwhile, almost got in a fight against Havathi Sacred Swordsmen.
It had started out innocuously enough— they’d intended to just do a little shopping and explore the city a bit.
After visiting a number of weapon shops and bookstores, Sabae decided to breach the conversational topic Talia had been avoiding the whole time.
“So are we just not going to talk about you and Hugh?” Sabae asked.
Talia blushed. “Sorry. I didn’t want to be one of those people who talk about nothing but their new relationship and annoy their friends.”
Sabae rolled her eyes at that. “Two of my best friends just started dating. It’s definitely something I want to talk about.”
“Honestly,” Talia said, “I’m still a little in shock about the whole thing? I spent more time preparing myself to get turned down than actually expecting Hugh to decide he was interested. I’m still halfway convinced that he’s going to change his mind at any moment.”
“Not going to lie,” Sabae said, “I thought the same. Godrick was the only one who actually expected you to get together, I think. I doubt Hugh’s going to just up and dump you, though. That would be really out of character for him.”
Talia sighed and put a volume back on the bookstore shelf in the wrong spot. “I really hope you’re right about that.”
“So… how are things actually going, then?” Sabae asked, moving the book to its proper spot.
“Good, mostly?” Talia said. “In a lot of ways we were just more immediately comfortable together than anyone else I’ve dated, but there’s also a lot of confusing awkward moments too? I’m trying to take it slow because I don’t want to make Hugh uncomfortable, and I’ve dated more than he has.”
“So, uh… there is one thing I’ve been wondering for a while,” Sabae said. “Since you, uh… well, since your tattoos tend to interfere with your cantrips and make them set things on fire, how do you handle casting, uh…”
Talia gave her a confused look for a moment, then turned alarmingly red.
“Anyone I’m dating has to cast them for both of us if we don’t want to have healers get involved again,” Talia said finally. “So I can’t date anyone who is mind-blind or bad enough at magic that they can’t cast those kinds of cantrips.”
“Wait, again?” Sabae asked. “Did you set fire to some poor Clan Castis boy?”
Talia turned even redder, though Sabae didn’t see how that was possible.
“Myself, actually,” she finally said. “Anyhow, I’m taking it slow with Hugh, so can we change the subject to literally anything else now, please?”
Sabae nodded, struggling not to laugh.
She failed badly.
Talia was still red in the face and shooting glares at Sabae when they stepped out of the bookstore, which was probably the only reason she didn’t attack the Havathi Sacred Swordsmen the instant they crossed paths.
Sabae was the first to spot the Swordsmen. There were five of them— an entire Hand, with several attendants as well. Only two of them were actually carrying swords— two others carried spears over their shoulders, while the last carried a whip made out of a living vine on their belt. The Swordsmen were all dressed in their white and bronze uniforms, and marched abreast, forcing other pedestrians to go around them.
She almost went for her shield on her back, but remembered where she was just in time. She grabbed at Talia’s wrist instead.
The Swordsmen and Talia noticed each other the instant Sabae moved, and two of the Swordsmen immediately went for their weapons, including the whip wielder. The others were as quick to stop them as Sabae was with Talia.
Which, to Sabae’s surprise, proved totally unnecessary in Talia’s case. She didn’t even twitch to move for her own weapons, and her expression was a flat glare towards the Havathi. Sabae slowly let go of her wrist.
The silence dragged out for a long moment until the Havathi woman in the center carrying a spear spoke.
“Sabae Kaen Das and Talia of Clan Castis,” she said. “You know, until recently, our intelligence reports spoke of Talia as the most dangerous of Alustin’s apprentices, and you as the least dangerous, Sabae, but you were the one to deliver the killing blow against Sanniah, weren’t you?”
“A bit rude of me, I suppose,” Sabae said, “but in fairness, she ambushed us from a distance. Worse, she turned her back on a Kaen Das. Never a smart idea.”
Several of the Swordsmen glared, but none made a move.
“Has your master even told you what you’re looking for, Sabae?” the Havathi leader asked. “Do you even know?”
Sabae raised an eyebrow and put her smuggest smile on her face. “Find Imperial Ithos, retrieve the Exile Splinter, activate the Heartburner.”
A brief look of surprise crossed the leader’s face, but was rapidly suppressed. To Sabae’s pleasure, however, the Swordsman with the whip took her bait.
“Activate the what?” he demanded.
Sabae smiled even wider. “Seems our masters aren’t the ones hiding details about the contents of Imperial Ithos,” she lied.
The crowd seemed to sense that something was up, and people were rapidly ducking into shops and dodging away nearby.
“You know, Sabae,” Talia said. “I’m disappointed. For an elite combat unit, they’re walking depressingly close together. Some malicious mage could take them all out with a decently destructive spell.”
“It is disappointing,” Sabae said. “Tragically low standards on the part of the Havathi.”
The whip wielder opened his mouth, but the Havathi leader raised her hand to interrupt him. Sabae got a better look at the woman’s spear as she did so— it appeared to be carved entirely from volcanic stone filled with deep cracks in the shape of spellforms. Deep inside the cracks, Sabae could see what looked like a hollow space in the center of the spear, with something moving slowly through it.
The Havathi woman stared thoughtfully at her for a moment before she spoke. “I can’t imagine your first encounter with us gave you much reason to like us, did it? That is unfortunate, and entirely our fault. I’d like to offer our apologies for Sanniah’s attack upon you all.”
From the corner of her eye, Sabae could see Talia giving her a confused look, but Sabae kept her expression flat and her gaze on the Havathi.
“Despite what many would have you think of us,” the woman continued, “Havath does not seek to extend the borders of the Dominion merely for the sake of conquest or power. The Dominion’s goal remains what it has always been— to bring peace to the masses, and keep them from being constantly swept up in coups and power struggles between the great powers. Surely you’ve seen the results that can have on the commons, on innocents who merely want to live their lives and take care of their families. The means we must pursue to ensure their safety is at times regrettable, but gentle means are seldom enough to bring drastic change.”
Sabae smiled, recognizing the territory she was in now.
From what she knew of the Havathi, they were absolutely convinced of the rightness of their cause. For all the destructiveness of their conquests, they weren’t overly cruel to their conquered populations, and were quite dedicated to preventing famine and disease in their territories. Though many more resources flowed in from Havath’s provinces to Havath City, the tribute was hardly crippling. And they certainly weren’t wrong about the destructive results the constant feuding between great powers brought to the people of the Ithonian continent.
Frankly, Sabae doubted she’d be able to defeat an intelligent Havathi in an argument about the moral imperative of their empire. Not that she thought they were correct— the failures of the Ithonian Empire and its brutal cruelties in its later years were both damning indictments of imperi
al ambitions, to her mind. Empires required an outward frontier, or they’d inevitably turn their violent attentions inward on their own populations. Likewise, no matter what they claimed, the primary purpose of an empire was always funneling resources inward.
No, the problem was that cleverly winning a debate against an opponent of strong convictions didn’t change minds. That only happened over time via the planting of seeds of doubt and their patient cultivation.
Pursuing winning a debate against an opponent in circumstances such as this was, more often than not, just a way to impress one’s own allies and assuage one’s own pride.
Her grandmother had spent years warning her of the idiocy and uselessness of that path in most situations.
But, when you don’t think you can win one game… play another game entirely, and don’t let your opponent know you’ve switched.
“Why does that matter?” Sabae asked.
The Havathi blinked in surprise, and Sabae struggled to keep a smile off her face.
“Why does what matter?” the woman asked.
“I am, as you pointed out already, a Kaen Das. Why would you possibly think I care about the fates of the weak or of petty moral concerns? Any justification for power beyond power itself is foolish, and merely shows your own weakness and dishonesty with yourself,” Sabae said.
The Havathi leader gave her a shocked look, then collected herself.
“Very well, then,” she said. “If it’s crude power you respect, then consider this— Havath’s victory is inevitable. We are better organized, wealthier, and have more great powers than any other nation. Allying with us is the smartest course of action.”
Sabae laughed. “It’s not crude power I respect. How power is wielded is even more important than how much power one has, and Havath is nothing if not crude with its power. And the Havath Dominion won’t last long against the Exile Splinter and Heartburner.”
Sabae really hoped Talia didn’t take her seriously, and knew that she wasn’t actually so callous. She’d spent her early childhood among the poor of Ras Andis, moving to Stormseat only after her father’s death, and she didn’t think so little of them at all.
The whip wielder opened his mouth to say something— probably angry bravado— when a cough interrupted him.
Not the Havathi leader’s cough.
Everyone turned to see a wooden statue watching them. It wasn’t a particularly large statue— only around Sabae’s own height. It seemed to be more grown than carved, and was spectacularly lifelike. High cheekbones, stern expression, and a bald scalp that took shiny to a whole new level— it was literally polished.
Zophor.
It also seemed worth noticing, to Sabae, that the statue stood atop a branch large enough to swat Indris out of the sky with ease, which had moved alongside them without making a sound.
Zophor’s statue stepped gracefully forwards, and smaller branches wove themselves into a ramp that he descended to the street. The ramp unwove as he stepped off it, and the whole branch shifted back a bit, but remained in sight.
“Now then,” Zophor said, in a smooth baritone, “this does seem a tense situation, doesn’t it? Everyone heavily armed and on edge? Why, something unfortunate could happen if someone got too worked up. And that would be tragic, wouldn’t it?”
Sabae saw her chance and seized the initiative.
“Tragic indeed, sir, and it would be entirely my fault,” Sabae said. “My grandmother’s often warned me about my bad habit of getting worked up over petty annoyances, and that I need to learn that they simply aren’t worth my time.”
Zophor’s avatar smiled widely, and most of the Havathi glowered at her, though their leader simply watched her expressionlessly.
“Your grandmother sounds like a delightful woman,” Zophor said. “Is it anyone I might have heard of, by any chance? You seem familiar to me, somehow.”
Zophor definitely already knew who she was— Sabae suspected he’d listened to every word of their confrontation— but she played along anyhow.
“Ilinia Kaen Das, sir,” Sabae said.
“How delightful,” Zophor said. “The granddaughter of my young friend Ilinia! Come, walk with me— I would love to hear how she’s doing.”
As they followed Zophor, Sabae made sure to smile sweetly at the Havathi.
Quite a few citizens of Zophor shot interested looks at the lich’s avatar as Sabae and Talia strolled through the streets alongside him, but they didn’t appear surprised or shocked. Sabae suspected Zophor interacted with his subjects more often than most great powers did.
Zophor had quite a few questions about Ilinia— many of them about the incident at Midsummer, of which the lich seemed surprisingly well informed.
Eventually they came to a park, built onto a great suspended platform between three of Zophor’s trunks. The park was filled with gentle, grassy hills, and a stream ran from one support branch, across the park, then flowed into another support branch.
Sabae hadn’t considered it before, but the city’s water and sewage systems must run through the insides of the various branches and trunks.
Children laughed and played among the grassy hills, and clambered over a cage in the shape of a dome rising out of the ground, woven entirely of living mangrove branches. There was a great mangrove fence surrounding the park keeping any of them from falling, even higher than the chest-high railing surrounding the streets and bridges.
Zophor led them to a small table with several chairs around it. The furniture was all grown out of living mangrove branches, and had leaves protruding from out-of-the-way spots. It rose straight out of the ground, and Sabae was certain it was just a part of the greater tree.
“You know,” Zophor said. “When I was a child in Ras Andis, there was a folktale about an enchanted mirror called the Heartburner, which turned the hearts of anyone who lied about loving someone to ash when they looked into it. I wonder if it’s still popular?”
Sabae smiled at him as they all sat around the table. “You know, I actually seem to recall hearing that same story when I was young. I wonder how well-versed your average Havathi is on children’s tales from Ras Andis?”
Talia burst out laughing as she understood, and to Sabae’s surprise, Zophor chuckled with her.
“I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced,” the lich said. “I am Zophor, at your service.”
“Talia of Clan Castis,” Talia said. “I love your city, by the way. I doubted it when I heard, but it’s even more impressive than Hold Yehal.”
“High praise indeed,” Zophor said. “I visited Hold Yehal when I was young, along with a few other tree cities, and it was far and away one of my favorites. Most tree cities only utilize one or maybe two types of trees in their construction, but Clan Yehal has included every type that thrives at such a high altitude. It’s delightfully heterogeneous. Could I offer the two of you tea?”
Sabae nodded, and within moments, one of Zophor’s huge branch hands descended and set a steaming iron teapot on the table, along with three cups. The lich had clearly already prepared the tea before asking.
Zophor noticed that she was eying his teacup and smiled. “Some liches dismiss the importance of eating, drinking, and other pleasures of ephemerals like yourself. I’m far from one of them, and I can’t help but note that most of the oldest liches around still concern themselves with such things. Attempting to distance yourself from ephemeral life seems a recipe for eventual madness, I fear. But, of course, retaining the ability to taste is one of the trickiest parts of transitioning to lichdom, and most seekers of lichdom are fleeing old age, and have little time to spare for such things.”
Zophor poured tea for each of them.
“Besides, I would simply miss tea far too much for this. Have you ever had Tsarnassan fermented tea before?” Zophor asked.
Sabae and Talia shook their heads.
“It is something of an acquired taste, and many never learn to enjoy it, but you two seem to be the types to be
comfortable enough with risking something new,” Zophor said. “The Tsarnassans select the tea leaves carefully, from only the plants with the richest flavor, and then, after drying the tea, they ferment it in buried clay pots high in the mountains for at least two years.”
Sabae eyed the tea cautiously. She’d never seen tea this dark before, and it gave off a powerful— almost pungent— smell. It wasn’t a bad smell, just a strange one.
“I am afraid that I need to apologize to you both,” Zophor said. “For I eavesdropped on your conversation with the Havathi. I confess that I am curious as to how truthful you were, Sabae. Is that what you actually think about power in and of itself?”
That was not what Sabae had been expecting to hear. She quickly took a sip of the tea, burning her mouth a little.
Zophor was right about it being an acquired taste. It wasn’t bad, just… strange, and a bit overpowering.
“Do you know much about Clan Castis?” Talia asked.
Both Sabae and Zophor turned to Talia in surprise. Zophor’s expression was more polite than Sabae’s, who was desperately hoping Talia wasn’t about to offend him.
“I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting anyone from your clan,” Zophor said, “but I’ve heard much about you. It behooves a wood lich well to keep track of powerful fire mages, for obvious reasons.”
“Do you know what Clan Castis’ greatest weapon is?” Talia asked, then took a sip of her tea.
“I can’t help but feel,” Zophor said, “that this is something of a trick question. The obvious answers would be your peerless fire magic or your fabled tattoos. I suspect you’re about to say that it is neither of those.”
“This is really good tea,” Talia said, taking another sip. “I might have to pick some up. But yes, you’re right, it was a trick question. Clan Castis’ greatest weapon is its reputation— as fire mages and belligerent barbarians. It colors and constrains others’ opinions of us, and limits their predictions of our behavior. Because that’s the thing— people want to believe the reputation. People prefer to believe that reputations are reliable, and they’ll focus on anything that helps them to believe that. We’ve learned to use that to easily manipulate others into overestimating our combat prowess and aggression or into underestimating our intelligence. Not a unique lesson, by any means, and one that I’m sure Sabae’s grandmother taught her.”