Pauper's Empire

by Levi Jacobs

  Ella nodded. “Likely because you were only eating winterfoods, so there was a lot of uai in your system.”

  “And a lot of time to think. You ever been through a real winter?”

  Ella pulled the shawl closer around her. “I’m about to. Maybe we should try that, try getting the students together once a day to talk about their voices.”

  “Couldn’t hurt.”

  Ella sighed. “It’s just so frustrating to have two people overcome in the same day, at the same time, and not know why.”

  Tunla took a draught from her mug. “You’re worried about the Councilate.”

  “Damn right I am. We all agreed yuraloading is too dangerous, but having soldiers reliably overcome their voices was our only edge against their numbers.”

  “That and Tai.”

  Ella bit the tip of the quill, ink bitter in her mouth. “Tai’s resonance is amazing, but he still couldn’t have moved air like that without the boost he got from overcoming his voice right then. He says he can’t do it again and I believe him. We need to find a safer way to overcome and teach it to our militia or we don’t stand a chance when they come back.”

  Tunla took another sip. “Maybe they won’t come back.”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice.” Ella glanced at the sun, but she was still bad at using the Achuri system of timekeeping. The irony of the broken Councilate hourglass in the square was not lost on her. “How many fingers till Marea comes?”

  Tunla glanced up. “Three or four. Maybe a hand. Enough time for a glass of dreamleaf.” She raised her eyebrows in an unspoken question.

  “Dreamleaf? I still need to write up these notes, and interview Marea, and we were going to hire a boat to meet that elder later today—”

  “A glass or two isn’t going to spoil any of that.”

  Ella started scribbling again, trying to recall Gil’s words. “You go ahead. I’ll just catch up on some notes.”

  Tunla put her mug down on the page. “Ella. Life is not only about work. What’s the point of all this if you don’t let yourself enjoy it sometimes?”

  “The point? We just talked about the point. The Councilate is going to wipe us out.”

  Ella tried to pull the book away, but Tunla pressed her mug down. A bead of tea was staining the ink. “And you have to save the city all by yourself?”

  Ella sighed. “I know it’s not rational, but I—I realized something, the day the rebels attacked Newgen. I saw that all my goals and projects, they were all about me. Researching so I could write an entrance exam. So I could get into the Thousand Spires. So I could become a Council adviser. I spent a long time with a lot of dying men that day, and I understood how meaningless life is if you never do anything for anyone else.”

  Tunla pursed her lips and nodded. “True. But it’s not that great if you never do anything for yourself either. Just wait till you have a kid. You’ll understand.” She lifted her mug and turned to her daughter. “Come on. Your mom needs a drink before our next meeting.”

  Tunla’s daughter rolled her eyes. A reedy kid skidded to a halt at their table, out of breath but talking nonetheless. “There you are—Tai says—meeting now—Tower—“

  Ella held up a hand, smiling at the boy’s earnestness. Probably one of the many street kids who knew Tai from before the rebellion. “Whoa! What meeting?”

  The boy nodded. “Right now. He’s got a body—from the forest.”

  Ella glanced at Tunla. “Can you handle Marea? I should probably be at this.”

  Tunla waved her on and Ella paid the bill—twenty-two marks for their drinks, near Worldsmouth prices. She crossed the square following the boy, past a group of men working at the stone outcropping in the center, finally taking down the shattered hourglass. Worry knotted at her stomach, that Aelya and Tai had found another body so quickly. It had something to do with yuraloading and the Councilate army still at Gendrys. She just knew it.

  How could this all have started with her one experiment?

  Her mood matched that of the general assembly when she stepped into the Tower’s central amphitheatre, grateful to get out of the wind. Tai stood on the stage with Aelya and a group of militiamen, making no effort to hide the badly mutilated body of a Councilate soldier. Marrem and a few others conferred on the front benches, and as usual a contingent of the Cult sat farther back, red necklaces worn outside their shirts.

  Tai nodded to her, and Aelya gave her a considerably less friendly look. The girl was thorny.

  “Looks like we’re all here, then,” Tai said as they settled. “Sorry to pull you away from your work, but we found something during our scout in the woods, and it’s a big enough threat that it can’t wait til our next regular meeting.”

  “Did you find what is killing them?” Arkless asked, pointedly not looking at the body.

  “Tai killed this one,” Aelya said, and some of the Cultists gasped. Eyebrows raised as she explained they’d come on a long-dead body in the forest, and then this woman had attacked from the sky, drawing Tai into a battle of resonance. “They destroyed half the forest fighting each other. Broken, we’re calling them.”

  “But Lord Tai was victorious?” This from one of the Cultists.

  “Aye,” Tai said, “but she was the strongest wafter I’ve ever met. Possibly as strong as I am.”

  Ella’s heart clutched at this. Tai was their strongest fighter by far. If the Councilate had figured out how to make fighters as powerful as he was…

  “Do you think she was responsible for the other deaths?” Ella asked.

  “Hard to say,” Tai said, without looking at her, “The body we found was surrounded by broken trees and torn up earth, but we couldn’t find any tracks. A wafter might have been able to do it without touching down, but Aelya and I have a theory that this one may have been some kind of yuraload gone wrong. If she was…”

  “The others might be too,” Ella said. “And they might have died on their own, like some of our yuraloads did.”

  “But you say she fought you?” Lumo asked, smoldering pipe in one hand. “This thing would not be possible with a yuraload. They do not have control.”

  “She didn’t really have control either. She was strong, and even copied some of the things I did. But she wasn’t like a normal person. She didn’t talk, she just… screamed.”

  “Still, that’s not a yuraload,” Ella said. “It could be her powers were that strong because she’d just overcome her demon. But to do that, and then happen to be where you were, and attack…”

  Tai nodded. “Seems like too much of a coincidence.”

  “Unless the Councilate has figured out a way to time their overcomings.” She had thought about how powerful this would be, but had no idea how to do it.

  “She was too crazy to just be overcoming,” Aelya said. “Something in her was mecked up.”

  Marrem stood. “Let me have a look at her. Maybe I can tell something from the body. Tai.”

  She and Tai crouched over the body, Marrem prodding the still-pliant skin as she asked him questions. The rest of them set to talking with each other, some coming to her and Lumo with ideas, but nothing made sense. Yuraloads couldn’t control themselves—though that would explain some randomly dying. If the woman had overcome on her own, that would explain her power, but not the bodies found earlier: she wouldn’t have attacked other Councilate soldiers.

  Ella shook her head. What was going on?

  “You all should see this,” Marrem’s called, cutting through the din.

  They crowded around—all but Arkless—as Marrem used a shears to finish slicing the front of the woman’s stained uniform. Something was wrong with the skin underneath, but Ella couldn’t see what. She strained to get a closer look as Marrem finished the cut, then laid the flaps open.

  Ella gasped. Tattooed to the woman’s skin, from just under the breasts to her navel, was a Councilate broadsheet, headlined with one word: SURRENDER.

  7

  The room exploded in talk, everyone
pushing closer to get a better look. From his vantage, Tai could read the words clearly. Tattooed in block type under the title were two columns of text: We have been lenient on you thus far, but your manipulation of yura trade goes too far. We assume, if you are reading this, that you have defeated our messenger. Congratulations. We are creating many, many more where she came from. You cannot defeat them all. Surrender now and in consideration of the savings in lives and military gear we will offer you terms. Continue your struggle and be destroyed entirely. Council representatives await you in Gendrys.

  Tattooed between the columns was a simple map of the Genga, leading from Ayugen on the right to Gendrys at the left, where it met the Ein. A star was tattooed around Gendrys in red, as though the authors had been uncertain they would know where Gendrys was.

  Anger boiled up in Tai—that they would threaten war again, that they would send fighters against a city that just wanted its independence, that they would tattoo their threats on the skin of their own soldiers—just for cheaper yura. The tattoo said directly this was about the moss.

  His hands clenched into fists, and he took a moment to breathe as Marrem pushed them all back, reading the text in a loud voice.

  In the hush that followed Aelya snorted. “They’ll offer us terms? Like we go back to being darkhair slaves instead of being killed outright?”

  “I think it’s at least worth considering,” Gellonel said, a minor grain trader who’d joined the rebellion early. “If they really have fighters this powerful—“

  “We cannot give in to them,” a Cultist cut in. “The Blood is more powerful.”

  Tai was surprised to find himself agreeing with the man, at least in principle. He didn’t know if he was more powerful, but surrender would be suicide. A return to prison camps.

  “He is, no doubt, quite powerful,” Arkless cut in, corner of his mouth quirking, “but that’s not the issue. This is clearly a bluff. The Councilate—“

  “A bluff?” one of the militiamen with Aelya cut in. “You think trees tall as these pillars blew over, and I got this,” he gestured to a cut along his face, “from a bluff?”

  Arkless held up a hand. “Clearly, the woman was powerful. But look at the facts: of the three bodies we know of, and the others we’ve heard tell or smell of, this was the only one to arrive in live and fighting condition. Whether it was chance, or the Councilate really has some new technique, the fact is most of what they’re sending either turn on each other or die before they get here. If they had an army of them, if they wanted to take Ayugen, they would simply do it. Them sending a single fighter with a tattoo on her chest says to me something quite different.”

  Heads were nodding in the chamber. “We need to go, then,” Tai said, fists still clenched. “Call their bluff. Find whatever it is they’re doing, take whoever it is they sent as representatives, and let them know we can’t be intimidated. That we’re independent and we’re staying that way.”

  Arkless raised his eyebrows. “More political hostages could be useful. We aren’t making good enough use of the ones we have.”

  “We should go,” Aelya said. “But not you Tai. This one was already hard—“

  “And more importantly,” Gellonel spoke up, “it’s probably a trap. Maybe they want us to think exactly what Arkless said, that they don’t have many real fighters, that they’re bluffing. Maybe it’s true, even. But if Tai had trouble handling one, what would happen with ten?”

  I’d destroy them, he wanted to growl, but the man was right. He’d beaten this one with wits, not strength. He couldn’t rely on just his resonance anymore.

  “And he would leave us totally defenseless.” Marrem was still examining the body. “It’s not worth the risk.”

  “We’re not totally defenseless,” Aelya cut in. “We have the militia, and with more funding we could feed more men, create a ring around the city.”

  “It doesn’t sound like the men did much to help with this one,” Marrem said, gentle but firm.

  “He didn’t give us a chance,” Aelya muttered.

  Tai held back saying they wouldn’t have done much good anyway. Not against that Broken. “At the very least we need to know more. So maybe I don’t go as a parley. Maybe I just fly over Gendrys, see what I can from the air, or walk into the town—“

  “That’s still falling into their trap,” Marrem said, pulling the Broken’s uniform closed. “If this one flew as high as you, others can.” Tai exhaled, frustrated, and she looked at him sharply. “You’re the one who wanted this Council, Tai. The one who wanted to abide by its decisions. Now you have to abide by this one. No one wants you to go.”

  Tai worked his shoulders. “Aye,” he growled at last, feeling frustrated and embarrassed and childish all at once. The one thing he did well, and they had to keep him from it. Mecking circle and mecking politics.

  “The notion to gather information is a good one,” Arkless put in, “though I agree Tai is too valuable to risk in it. Smugglers, on the other hand, while none of them are directly my agents, can be paid for more than goods. Let me put the word out, and see what turns up.”

  “And let me gather more men,” Aelya said. “With more scouts in the forest, and closer in to the city, we can at least warn people a Broken is coming. If just one of these things gets all the way into Ayugen…” She shook her head. “There might not be much of the place left to save.”

  “The issue with that,” Gellonel said, “is the same as it’s always been: the city’s coffers just can’t feed many more than we are. Not at these prices.”

  “Then we force the merchants to lower their prices,” Aelya said.

  Arkless cleared his throat. “I can’t lower prices on stock I don’t have. Though we do have the option of selling some of our political capital to bring in food.”

  “Meaning?” Aelya asked.

  “Arten Sablo,” Arkless said, “imprisoned this last month in the prison camp’s jail. I don’t doubt his family wants him back—he is, after all, fifth in succession to one of the twelve Council houses—and he does us little good here.”

  “So we… trade him?” Tai asked. “For food?”

  “Exactly. It would give my agents a good cover story for gathering information, as well. See if we can’t hear through rumor what is too dangerous to see ourselves.”

  Heads were nodding around the room. “Do it,” Tai said. “Somewhere neutral. The middle of the forest, maybe—there’s an abandoned village there, if I remember right. Negotiate the terms beforehand, so it’s just a trade off. Food in wagons, something we can easily check and transport back.”

  Arkless inclined his head. “I’ll see it done.”

  “Great. Okay everyone, I know we pulled you away from what you were working on, so if there’s nothing else—"

  “More funding for the militia,” Aelya cut in. “Now. Before they attack.”

  Tai looked to Gellonel, the city’s de facto calculor. “Is this possible?”

  The Achuri merchant worked at his coat. “It could be. But it will mean cuts elsewhere, cuts we can ill afford.”

  “Do it anyway,” Aelya said.

  “Those in favor?” Marrem asked. A few hands raised, looking to Tai. He didn’t raise his hand. More men were not going to solve this problem.

  “Resolution fails,” Marrem said.

  Aelya cursed and stormed out.

  Marrem cleared her throat after a moment and called the meeting to a close, saying a brief thanks to the ancestors. People began to file out.

  Tai followed, turning over the meeting in his head. What Arkless said made sense—if the Councilate had an army they’d have sent it, no matter how powerful that woman had been. But what if the they were still learning how to make Broken? The woman had seemed alive enough to make it to Ayugen. What if tomorrow there were three? Or three hundred?

  His shoulders knotted. Three hundred would be a disaster. Unless Ella’s school made more progress, they might have to start yuraloading again. That or be taken ove
r. Be destroyed entirely, in the Councilate’s words.

  A hand caught his arm outside the Newgen gates. Tai turned and found the man with the fox, his thin face framed with longish hair of black, gold and red. A true mix-blood, such as you found only in the cities. The fox trailed a few paces behind on its leash, watching them. Arkless had said this man was the first to bring in a Broken body.

  “Aye?” At the man’s blank look Tai switched to Yersh. Of course he wouldn’t speak Achuri. “Yes?”

  “I saw the body back there,” he said, voice melodious and pleasant. “I am glad you survived, Lord Tai.”

  There was something off about how he said Lord, as though he didn’t really mean it. “Yeah. Me too.” He pulled his arm away, eager to be gone before the man started spouting Cultist rhetoric. “Good day, then.”

  “If you ever want to talk about it,” the man said, not raising his voice, “I’m around.”

  “Thanks.” Tai strode away. Talk about what? And how had he known about the body?

  Tai turned to ask, but the man was fifty paces off, loping with his fox toward the center of town.

  8

  She was a slender woman, wiry really, almost past her birthing years, belly round with a last child. Could I touch the bridge of my nose to hers, tell her we were connected still? Tell her I too had borne that last child, felt the bittersweetness of its kick? I could not.

  --Aymila Reglif, private journals

  Aelya chewed a wedge of dreamleaf, standing on the walkway of the old Councilate prison camp and watching men slink through the woods. They’d repaired what they could after the ousting, square wood walls patched here and there with fresher timber, but she doubted the place would ever stop smelling of smoke or concentrated human bodies.

  Weiland lounged next to her, lanky body leaned against the rough timber poles of the walls. “Think it’ll work?” she asked.