Striking Chains

by Kris Schnee

  He was in a constant struggle for cash, but he spent little. Meanwhile he was gaining skill as a scribe to compliment his errand-running. He did a couple of runs on the Quartermaster's behalf to visit various shops and the port district, handling paperwork and lugging around supplies that needed supervision. At first the errands were just busywork, but he was learning from them. How did the machinery of the State really work? Dominic could soon explain purchasing orders and bills of lading, which pushed him to learn arithmetic and better understand the flow of money and information.

  Temple Island's whirl of activity never ceased. Dominic felt that a thousand things to do were within his reach, every one of them fascinating and worthwhile in its own way, and his only regret was that he had to choose one over another and not embrace the whole world at once.

  He lay in his bunk, trying to rest. Nearby he heard a Servant muttering to himself. "We're Servants of the sacred land / The lives of countless Bound, like sand / The Citizens, we make them stand / And listen to the master plan." The little chant was one of many that helped people work the right bit of thought through their heads to cast a spell. They didn't seem to be necessary, especially the ten-verse one about the cobbler's girl. It was just poetry, meter, discipline. He'd already gotten past the initial stage of learning, where other Servants insisted he recite the one about how "I'm a happy fluffy bunny", loudly, while trying to move sticks around. And while naked.

  Just as Dominic was drifting off into a nap, Ben burst in through the barracks door. Ben whipped off his mask and ruffled his hair. "There's no end to it! To sickness and pain!"

  Dominic shaded his eyes against the burst of slanted afternoon light. "You want to make your job easier? Just tell people to stop getting hurt and sick."

  Ben had been spending his days assisting Citizens and Servants who worked side by side in the great hospital. From what Dominic heard, the man was getting good at the basics of healing by mundane and magical means. But Ben mainly complained of having to empty chamber-pots and take notes. He didn't realize how much medical jargon he was using, and how easily it was coming to him.

  "You're learning," said Dominic.

  "I'm only treading water."

  "What?"

  "Swimming uselessly. Both of us are." Ben looked around at the small collection of Servants who were dozing or idle. "Let's go somewhere."

  They donned their masks and walked to the Underbeach, where the eternally stalled waves made soothing noise but left enough quiet for private conversation. They sat at a balcony cafe, eating grilled fish with the practiced awkwardness of people who had to fool with masks at every bite. The places with private rooms were beyond Dominic's pay.

  Ben said, "Need a bigger mouth on this thing. Anyway, I've been watching where the money flows. To really have a voice here, you need gold and silver. Did you meet Pierre the Scrivener?"

  Dominic nodded. "He wouldn't shut up about studying numbers. Apparently you can map out the relationships of everyone in a village, and use the map to spot traitors." It hardly mattered what the people were actually saying, so long as you suspected one of them and could see who he knew, who he talked to. Pierre spoke luridly about vast imagined conspiracies against the State and how to stroke information out of the paperwork, with such enthusiasm that it made Dominic uneasy.

  Ben said, "There's more to his theories. He watches what people pay for and has it all sketched out. Beautiful, really. Money flows up from the Boundless One, through the bounties He pays for inspection work and finding magic users and other jobs he wants done. Then, it flows up to the Citizens, and up to the Bound through them being fed and all, and rains back down on us in the form of Citizens' taxes." Ben drew a great loop in the air with one hand. "And we're lurking in the roots so far, doing odd jobs and hoping a bit of the rain reaches us. We need to get up to the fresh air and go on missions."

  "You mean, go and make the rounds of the villages? Yes, we ought to do it eventually." Dominic would miss access to the library and the constant discussions among the State's brightest people. Still, at any given moment most Servants were out visiting the towns and making sure all was in order. Ben was right that there was money in that: there was a "job board" saying there was a reward for a volunteer to visit District This or Village That and check on things. There didn't seem to be a requirement for any particular Servant to visit specific places; they were their own masters, driven by the need for pay.

  Ben said, "I don't just mean leading prayers and studying grain shipments in every little hamlet. There's military work to do, too. If we want to really make the lives of the Bound better, we need to help push back the frontier so the westies can't burn our homes and infect our people with more plagues."

  "I don't know a thing about war. Well, not very much. And we're practically at peace these days with the west." Cross-border raids were what the barbarians used to say hello. The State's enemies were constantly pushing on the fringes, north, east and west, with only the southern sea as a friend. It seemed to be a natural tension, not impending war.

  "They'll always need healers. I'll buy a couple of Bound for flunkies, train them up in mundane bandaging and wound-cleaning, then go west and hire out to whatever Citizen is looking to push back. You should come too! They'll need... ah, whatever it is you're doing these days."

  "They're starting to call me 'Dom the Quill' down there."

  "Yes, magic! You've showed me a few spells already. What were they called again? Flowing With the Will, and Buoyed By the Strength of Many?"

  "Shape Wood, and Control Wood." Dominic preferred the less fancy names. "And Scribe's Aid and so on. Best I might do is help raise a rampart faster than a regular -- what's the word for the builders?"

  "Engineer."

  "Right. And only if it's made of wood and maybe dirt. Maybe certain kinds of crystal or coral, not that you'd use those for walls." Not magically useless stone or metal, of course. Dominic started speculating aloud about the application of magic to war, given that a Servant's tricks weren't all that much better in a fight than a few good crossbowmen. The advantage seemed to be more in the mask, the "persuasion" Jasper had mentioned after striding fearlessly through the rebels.

  "Think about it," said Ben, interrupting Dominic. "We could do a lot better for ourselves out there, and accomplish more."

  Dominic scratched under his mask. "I suppose I've been here too long. All right. Give me some time to learn magic that's more relevant to war than to basket-weaving. Then we can combine that trip with an inspection job."

  * * *

  One morning Dominic woke to find Ben staring at a letter, held out by a masked messenger. "My turn," said Ben, looking pale.

  The letter-bearer said, "At noon," and left.

  Ben turned to Dominic and clutched the paper enough to crumple it. "I'm assigned to commit an execution."

  It wasn't how Dominic would've wanted to spend the day either. Both of them had seen one public stabbing already, in a market square with hundreds of people jeering for the death of some thief or other. One of the younger Servants had been assigned the job. This wasn't a task that people could volunteer for; this one had a strict schedule. Now, by chance, it was Ben's turn.

  "What was it like for you, with that bandit?" asked Ben.

  Dominic shook his head, dressed, and leaned against the wall. "It happened in a battle, not some formal execution."

  "Still."

  "I didn't have time to think. If I hadn't been running on fear and excitement I probably would have been killed, myself, instead of casting a spell I didn't even know I could use."

  "Well, I know in advance that I have to kill."

  Dominic patted him on the back. "You can do it. It's just some criminal, right? He's been condemned by the State; it's not your decision. We'll be with you and I'll buy you a drink afterwards."

  * * *

  They skipped breakfast. Dominic and a dozen other Servants joined a gathering crowd that stood in the hot sunshine, surrounding a wo
oden platform. A Citizen was doing the formalities, reading out a writ of execution against another Citizen. They brought him out, gagged and blindfolded, and tied him to a pole. Dominic let out a breath; he'd feared they'd make Ben kill a woman. The convict was a rapist, someone who'd abused his power over the Bound. It'd be relatively easy for his friend to follow orders.

  At last the Citizen judge called Ben up and put a sword in his hand, a ceremonial one with a sacred triple-triad design but tapering to a point too fine to see. The Bound in the audience hooted and jeered for blood. Ben stood on the platform and gripped the blade with white-knuckled fingers.

  "You have to do it, Ben," Dominic told him. The prisoner was helpless and his face was hidden, making him almost possible to treat as a trussed hog that needed slaughtering.

  Ben's face was masked, too, but his whole body trembled. "I... I can't."

  The judge called out over the noise. "Servant, this man is condemned. You will carry out justice in the name of the Holy State. Now!"

  Ben looked around at the eager faces, the stern judge, and finally back at the covered face of the doomed man. Ben screamed and ran two steps forward, driving the sword with both hands into the victim's chest. Men and women cheered. Now that the decisive move was done, other men came up to slit the prisoner's throat and finish the job. Ben staggered back as though he'd been the one struck. He hopped down from the platform and shuddered, obviously trying not to vomit inside his mask.

  Dominic grabbed him and led him away, saying, "It's done. You did the right thing. It's awful but you saved someone else from having to do it. And at least you got it over with in your first few months."

  Sooner or later, Dominic's turn would come too, and he'd have to prove his courage the same way.

  * * *

  Dominic attended a lecture given by Ben. The professional medics (most of them Citizens) had little time to spare for anyone but their students, but being considered ignorant and near-useless meant that Ben could easily get permission to instruct others in public.

  "Don't worry," Ben told a group of around a hundred Servants and Citizens who'd gathered at a small theater. He sweated, fidgeted, and had trouble meeting anyone's eyes. It was as though addressing the curious crowd was as hard as conducting an execution. "I can't leak any magical knowledge since I hardly have any. What I'm allowed to talk about today is more helpful to the State, the more people know it."

  Sanitation, Ben called it. He discussed his experience with the plague and what he'd learned about Seaflower's water supply, and the capital's, and what was known of wounds and disease among professional healers. "Simply being clean seems to drive sickness away. We can save as many lives with soap and clean water as with spells."

  Ben grew more confident as his lecture went on and a few people asked questions. "If angry spirits are involved, then none of us have ever found them with our magic."

  At the end, Dominic congratulated him and gave him a spare coin, as many of the audience had done. "You impressed a lot of people."

  "Drinks are on me," said Ben. "By the One, that was better than my last appearance on a stage! Why do we have to do both sorts of public display?"

  They made their way to a favorite restaurant that had plenty of privacy for the masked. Dominic said, "The killing happens when someone hurts the State. If everyone would just follow instructions, the way you're helping them do, there wouldn't be any need."

  "I'm not sure of that." Ben sighed. "I still want to get out of town. There's work to do besides congratulating ourselves on knowing a little more than the Bound."

  * * *

  Dominic paced in the dormitory, bothered by things he'd seen in the harbor today. He found the ever-busy Quartermaster, Barger, and offered to help him unload a crate, to get a moment to speak with him. "I saw a Citizen bribing his way into getting his deliveries unloaded before anyone else's. I think he was trying to undercut his competition in the clothing market."

  "Eh; it happens."

  "It's illegal. I walked up to the crooked dockmen and the merchant and threatened to arrest them. And... they laughed at me."

  The Quartermaster paused in his work. "That's not really our turf. You're lucky they didn't try to teach you a lesson."

  Dominic sputtered. "Teach me? We're Servants! I could've had them executed if they laid a hand on me."

  "And what would that have accomplished? We'd have fewer sailors and merchants, and it'd be that much harder to enforce the important rules."

  "Did you just say that the rules of the State aren't important?"

  Barger's cat stretched and batted dismissively at the air. The man said, "Oh, they all matter, but some are a lot more worthy of our time. Ideally every single Citizen would have a Servant watching them at all times, but we just don't have that many. We can only be like Citizens who each have a bunch of Bound to supervise. Going after every little violation would be like a farmer chasing a bunch of wayward chickens, running back and forth after them."

  "Then how do you supervise the chickens?"

  The Quartermaster grinned. "Simple. They come running to whoever controls the food. Literally and otherwise. The Citizens have to come to us for the big things like ship docking permission. A certain amount of skulking and smuggling goes on beneath our notice -- I could tell you stories from my misspent youth -- but that stuff's not dirt clogging the wheels of the State. It's the grease that lets them turn."

  Dominic left him, troubled. If he had arrested those people, would that have helped the State or harmed it? It was irritating to have any doubt about that. A Servant was supposed to stride in and fix things decisively, not let them slide. He mentioned that to Ben when they next met.

  Ben said, "I'm glad not to be involved in that aspect of things. Disease is everybody's enemy. On the other hand, there's only so much any one Servant can do against it."

  Dominic paced. "Wearing the mask means we should be enforcing a high standard for people's behavior. I mean, why else even have Servants?"

  "Keep your voice down," said Ben.

  * * *

  Dominic visited the job hall, where recent and ongoing requirements of the State were posted on a set of blackboards. Each district had to be visited regularly by a Servant and any local problems dealt with. The longer a territory went unserviced, and the farther away it was, the higher the payment promised for whoever did the work. There were other tasks up for a bounty as well, like assisting the harbormaster or various long-term border assignments. It was interesting to watch the numbers day by day. The State was like a living mind powered by the flow of coins from the Boundless One's authority to the Servants who set out to do His will. The system's genius was partly that the One didn't need to do very much directly, only to set the incentives for His Servant caste and watch them go.

  "Let's go on a mission," said Dominic. "You and me. We'll get some practice in by visiting a few of the coastal villages."

  "There's no money in that." The easy ones to reach paid next to nothing.

  "It doesn't matter. We're not very experienced yet and aren't ready to handle a big medical mission. Even with two of us we can scrape by."

  "Hmm, maybe."

  * * *

  For the next week Dominic focused on practical details like how to get food while traveling. He didn't recall Servant Jasper eating anything while serving the rebel village, but he'd had food with him. There didn't seem to be a rule requiring him to act mysterious and avoid eating.

  While he was sitting at a desk and scribbling figures, Barger found him. "You're thinking of heading out? How well can you defend yourself?"

  The question puzzled Dominic. "I don't expect that the coast towns will get invaded while I'm there, and I'll keep well away from any bandits."

  "Still, you should be prepared to fight if you're going to carry money, or get into any arguments. Do you own any darts yet, for instance?"

  "I hadn't bothered." Dominic idly cast the spell of Control Wood with one hand, causing his paper to float
up off the desk and jab back and forth in the air. He felt like a puppeteer pulling it along by the ghostly green threads of the Weave.

  Barger frowned. "I suggest starting a collection. I could sell you some, but crafting your own is good practice. Do you at least have a knife?"

  "Oh? Of course." Dominic showed off the simple utility knife he kept in his robe. "You really think I might need to fight someone, even on a short trip?"

  "You never know, and you're new to the Servants' life. It wouldn't look good if one of us got his tail kicked out there."

  Dominic found that convincing. He had a duty to the whole caste to look strong and competent. "All right. I'll work on that."

  * * *

  In between his other preparations, he carved wood. The eastern lands of the Baccata Holy State exported yew, a pleasantly light-colored material that was hard yet flexible. It was hard to control fine particles of sawdust by magic (to the chagrin of mages wanting to invent some kind of explosive fireball spell), so he had to do the carving work outside. With some advice from another Servant, he made a wand. It was the length of his hand, etched with whorls and curves that changed how the Weave flowed through its grain. With a hard, unbarbed point, a good sanding, and some lacquer, he had a unique and pretty weapon.

  He fell back on his beginner-level prayer chants as he got to know the dart, testing how it moved when he waved it in his hands and then when he used magic to slide it through the air. The wood was dead but active, easy to spin and flick this way and that. In a little underground practice room he learned to launch it through the air like an archer with his arrows, and jab targets. It was fun work. He imagined turning it into a style of dancing.

  * * *

  On a hill stood a curious device of wood and metal, like a brazier in the sun. It held no flame, but instead forged a ball of ice for each supplicant to carry. Dominic took the shining crystal in his hands, so cold against his skin that it burned. His body and his robe were clean for this first trip to the High Temple.