Pauper's Empire

by Levi Jacobs

  “And much as I hate to say it,” Feynrick said, grin not reaching his eyes, “we need to plan on doing it without Tai.”

  “What?” Aelya snapped. “You’re just going to give up on him after a day? Assume he’s dead and move on?”

  “No, girl,” the Yatiman said, “I hope to the genitors he’s yet alive. But he’s just one man and we’ve got an entire city here to save, if we can.”

  “Well I’m going, at least. And I’m taking the Blackspines with me. They’ll handle whatever the fox man can throw at us.”

  “And if the city’s attacked in the meantime?” Marrem asked. “You can’t make these decisions for all of us.”

  “Better than making no decision at all.”

  “We’re going to make a decision, lass,” Feynrick said. “It just might take a minute or two to make the right one.”

  “Fine. What then?”

  “If what I’m hearing is right,” Marrem said, “the only reason Sigwil killed those Broken at the fort, and the only way you survived today, other than Ella killing a bunch of them in timeslip, is through this resonance harmony. So I’d say we need to focus on that.”

  “I agree,” Ella said. “I haven’t gotten anyone else to learn how to do it, but there’s been so little time.”

  “Make time,” Feynrick said. “Take the whole barking militia and teach em if that’s what it takes.”

  “Yes,” Ella said. “I can do that. We need to do that.”

  “And what about Tai?” Aelya asked. “So we are just going to forget him?”

  “No,” Feynrick said. “We need the milkweed, right enough. To calm you down, if nothing else.”

  “And he can defeat Broken on his own,” Ella said. “Not many, but it’s something.”

  “We’ll dispatch our best woodsman, then,” Marrem said. “See if they can follow his trail. The eastern woods you said? Might be he’s just lost.”

  “Tai doesn’t get lost,” Aelya said, wishing for her anger back. She hated worrying. “He can just fly up and look where he’s going.”

  “Unless he’s lost his resonance,” Ella said, for all her blood and airs looking worried too. Aelya wanted to like the woman. She knew she should. But she just couldn’t.

  “Well it will be good to know either way,” Marrem said. “If the woodsmen find something, they can report back and we’ll have reinforcements. Now. How do we start with this resonance?”

  The lighthair stared for a moment. “Best to start with those who’ve already overcome a voice, I think. Teach them to tune their resonances, then use them as teachers for new groups. We’ll want to practice helping people overcome, too, but the more we can save that for when we’re actually under attack, the better we can actually defend ourselves.”

  “I overcame my voice,” Aelya said, stepping up. Knowing she needed to do this, and hating it. “Yuraloaded in the rebellion. How do we start?”

  The lighthair’s face was unreadable. “You start by coming with me.”

  44

  Secrecy and patience. With these do we become gods.

  --Author Unknown, Book of the Ninespears

  There were butterflies in the forest. Not the small, yellow-winged insects you’d see flapping between squash vines at the height of summer. These were massive blue and iridescent creatures with spiraling antennae, drifting like clouds through the dense autumn foliage.

  Fisher loved them. They would run together, Tai limping on his broken leg, chasing the butterflies down, laughing, lost in the wonder, the forest untouched this far out.

  They’d never had time for this kind of thing when she was alive. Were always too focused on begging change, selling yura, getting closer to their goal of escaping to Worldsmouth. Tai laughed, dropping panting onto a log furry with moss. What a waste of time that had been. Another mistake on his part.

  It’s okay Tai, Fisher chirped, so real he could almost see her, fyelock black-and-white hair spilling over thin shoulders, eyes dark and animated. You didn’t know!

  He had fought it at first, fought the realization that it had all been a mistake. Their gang, the rebellion, the city’s current struggles, all of it. For what? If he wanted to be happy, he could do that right here. And now he had a chance to give that to Fisher too.

  Look, Fisher half-hissed half-squealed. He couldn’t quite see her pointing, but he looked that direction anyway. A giant vermillion butterfly drifted above the curling ferns, wings shining in the dappled sunlight. Get it, Tai!

  He hitched himself up despite the pain in his leg and began chasing it down. He owed her this. Owed her all the chases through the forest and simple games and delights she’d never had.

  And Curly too, she said, between laughter as he stumbled through the thick ferns. Do you think the funny man can get Curly too? Wouldn’t it be pearly Tai?

  “Maybe he can, love,” Tai panted, butterfly fluttering just out of reach. “I don’t—I don’t know how he does it.”

  Nauro had found Fisher’s spirit, somehow. Captured her in the fox. Maybe he could find Curly’s too, capture him in a fox, bring him here. He’d said the ninespears had power over voices—revenants, he’d called them. Who knew what they could do?

  I will find you, he’d said. I am your only solution to this problem.

  That was confusing. What problem?

  Nevermind, Fisher said, reassurance rolling off her in waves. We don’t want the strange man to hurt another catdog. Look Tai, an orange one!

  The confusion stuck with him, though, through a long series of chases through the forest, through their quiet time at a stream catching fish, through all the joy and contentment he felt now that Fisher was around. It nagged at him still as he gathered wood for a fire and the sun set in a blaze to the west.

  Fisher sighed, gazing into the flames. Isn’t this nice, Tai? Aren’t you glad Nauro found me?

  “Yeah,” he said, gazing into the blue twilight of the star. It was confusing, how fast it had happened, but mostly it felt like a relief. All the running, all the fighting he’d been doing, and for what? The more he did, the more they would want him to do, until his resonance wasn’t enough, until he finally made the kind of mistake that had killed so many in the rebellion.

  They don’t know you like I do, Tai. They couldn’t forgive you like I do.

  Aelya hadn’t forgiven him, that was for sure, and she was his oldest friend there.

  Still not as old as me, right Tai?

  He could almost see her in the firelight, small form snuggled up against his side like she used to do winters, huddled around the chimney in Marrem’s smokehouse.

  The Councilate lady wouldn’t forgive you, that’s for sure. And Marrem would be disappointed, and Lumo. And after that was just Feynrick and Arkless and people he knew less well. The Cult of the Blood. Would any of them understand? Would any of them forgive him, when he made another mistake?

  No, Fisher said simply, snuggling deeper into his side, small hand on his. Because they don’t love you. I love you. I could never stay mad at you. Remember? I gave you this.

  She reached up and tapped the goldbeetle shell in his pocket, where he’d kept it since the day she’d recovered from her shock sickness. Where he would keep it until he died.

  I never gave one to anyone else. Not even to Hake. We’re special Tai, you and me. And now we can just play. We’re safe out here.

  Safe. The word brought back thoughts of Ella and Feynrick, of the Broken attacks on the town. Brought back the confused fog. I will destroy you utterly, Semeca had said. His friends. She was going to destroy his friends. Shouldn’t he help them?

  No, silly. It’s not safe there. You have to stay here. With me. She gave him a bright smile, trust and love in her eyes. Right?

  Right, he said, relaxing again. He couldn’t do what they all wanted him to. They would end up dead, like all his friends in the rebellion. Better to stay here, with Fisher. He could make her happy, at least.

  Every day, Tai. For the rest of our lives.


  45

  How can every man be capable of magic, and yet so few posses it? This is the illusion of our time, the illusion the gods seek to preserve: that magic has left the world. It has not left the world, brothers, it has been suppressed—because they know it will be their downfall. And so we must carry the torch in the darkness, lest the gods snuff the last of our light.

  --Author Unknown, Book of the Ninespears

  Ella relaxed as another wave of uai hit her, this one high and fast, like a thousand bees had suddenly taken flight in her bones.

  Another overcoming. It was working.

  She pushed through the brawlers crowding the main hall, unused to this many people in the quiet caves. Volunteers had poured in since yesterday’s attack—more than one hundred, last she’d checked. The air felt hotter and the chambers smaller with all these people but it was working, this was the third overcoming they’d had after months of very few. She veered out of the main cavern, torches lighting a smaller series of caves they’d set aside for mindseyes and timeslips. This felt like one of their resonances.

  It was—she stepped into the low room of ten or so mindseyes to find them all wide-eyed, but none so much as the elderly woman in the corner, gasping and staring into the distance as a younger man held her up.

  “Put her down!” Ella cried. “Step back everyone, step back!”

  One of the previous two who overcame was a mindseye. The man had nearly gone insane from the burst of power that came after overcoming. For a wafter or brawler, it meant great physical strength for a short time. For a mindseye, apparently, it meant seeing so deeply into the minds of others around you that you were in danger of losing yourself.

  The students pushed back, creating a ring around the wide-eyed woman with resonance pouring off her. It was almost uncomfortable, standing in the room with her, as though Ella’s bones would disintegrate from the high-pitched whine.

  “What happened?” she asked Dayglen, the thug-turned-militiaman in charge of teaching them. He’d been the first of the mindseyes to be able to tune his resonance.

  “Don’t know,” he said. “We were going through it again, and making harmonies, and she just started shaking, and then this.”

  Two mindseyes and a wafter. What was the pattern? Was it just that the mindseyes were good at tuning their resonances? But so were the mosstongues, and they’d had no one overcome.

  “Did she say anything? Do anything strange beforehand?”

  Dayglen shook his head. “Just looked kind of distracted.”

  That was normal. The woman had likely been arguing with her voice. “Did you do anything different? Something different happen with the harmonies?”

  The militiaman shrugged. “Not that I remember. Though we had three of us going at once.”

  Tunla appeared at the door, sheet of papers in her hand. “Okay,” Ella said. “Give her some time, then keep practicing. I’ll be back in a few fingers to talk with her.”

  She needed to find the pattern in who was overcoming. It tickled at her, like a word in Achuri she almost understood. “Tunla. What news?”

  “Slips are getting better at it. Almost bored with it, except their uai runs out so fast they can’t get much practice in.”

  “It doesn’t run out fast to them, trust me. What of the wafters? Mosstongues?”

  “Wafters are still stuck. Epsley’s doing his best, but,” she shook her head.

  “Too physical,” Ella said. This was the pattern they’d found so far: the more physical the ability, the less easy it was to change pitch, to try and tune to someone else’s resonance. Brawlers struggled with it the most—so far, Sigwil was the only one who could do it, and he just barely—followed by wafters and mosstongues. “What I can’t figure out is why two wafters have overcome.”

  “Two? Was there another one?”

  “The man here, and Leglin back in the attack, before he was killed.”

  Tunla watched the room of mindseyes. “Maybe who’s overcoming has less to do with whether they themselves can tune, and is more about how close they are to someone who is harmonizing. The wafters’s chamber is right next to the slips.”

  “Yes! That would explain two mindseyes overcoming already. They are good at tuning and their uai lasts a long time.” She should have seen that before.

  Tunla snorted. “By this time they must all know each other’s secrets in that little room.”

  “And likely ours as well. It would explain why of the hundred-some people we’ve taken in, two of the three to overcome have been in that room.”

  “So we’ll have a bunch of overcome mindseyes when the next Broken come. Pearly. We can read all their insane thoughts.”

  Ella sighed, suddenly feeling exhausted. “It would still help, but you’re right, we need to get more of the brawlers and wafters to overcome. Or better yet, to figure out how they overcome, and then save them for when the Broken really do attack. There has to be a pattern here.”

  Tunla eyed her. “You get any sleep last night, Ella?”

  “I—yes. Some. But I needed to read that ninespears book, and there were still people up, practicing.”

  “Maybe you should go lay down.”

  “What? Now? Tunla the whole—”

  “I know, I know, our whole defense depends on this. But trust me. You’re not going to figure anything out exhausted.”

  Ella rubbed her eyes, wishing not for the first time that southerners brewed ginseng beer. She could use a few glasses. “I want to try something first. We’ve been teaching the abilities by themselves, and that makes sense, but let’s take the ones that are able to tune, the slips and mindseyes and mosstongues, and pair them up with the wafters and brawlers.” There would be brawlers left over—they were the most numerous ability, followed by mosstongues and wafters. Eight in ten people were one of those three abilities, according to Kellandrials. Mindseyes were less common, with slips the rarest of all.

  “You want to see if more of them overcome, getting out from their ability groups.”

  “It’s worth a try. Maybe there are combinations of resonances that are more powerful. If it doesn’t work, I’ll take a break. I swear.”

  “Praise the ancestors for small favors. Okay. I’ll sort out the brawlers and wafters if you can get the rest.”

  “On it.” They just had to keep trying things. Something would turn up.

  Ella headed back into the mindseyes’s room. Tunla was right, she was exhausted, but she was also exhilarated. This is the kind of work she’d wanted to do her whole life. They were discovering things the best scholars in Worldsmouth had no idea about, even though the Councilate military and much of their economy depended on it. If they could crack this, it would mean a lot more than defeating the Broken. It would mean giving their little city the upper hand for good.

  Marrem’s voice stopped her before she was back to the room. “Ella! I found this thing in the main hall.”

  She turned to see Feynrick, grinning and holding his hands in the air. “Found me? Punched me, more like, and for no good reason.”

  “For trying to pinch me is why,” Marrem scowled, though she was clearly enjoying it too.

  “As I said,” Feynrick continued, “no good reason.”

  She was a little too tired to find the humor in it. Seeing their interaction reminded her of Tai, and the few times they hadn’t been so caught up in one dire situation or another that they’d been able to joke like that. Gods send Feynrick brought news of him. “What brings you to the caves?”

  “Steady supply of food, so I heard,” the Yatiman winked. “Half the city wants to get down here on account of your two square meals a day.”

  They’d been given two of the wagons that came from Gendrys, but it made sense. Nothing else mattered if they didn’t make a breakthrough here. “I imagine we can spare a plate. Anything more?”

  His grin lessened a touch. “Fraid not. Second wave of woodsmen came back without word of the milkweed. Seems your boy just disappeared, a
t least within the first twenty thousandpace of the city.”

  Ella nodded. She’d been trying to prepare herself for this since Feynrick had first said they needed to plan on defending the city without Tai, but still it hurt. He was Ayugen to her, somehow. The reason she was here and the reason she wanted to stay. She had other friends here, certainly, and loved the work, but living here without him would be hard.

  Good thing she had research to keep her mind off it. “I had a chance to read the book I mentioned, the one from Sablo’s rooms that might give us clues as to what Nauro was doing.”

  Feynrick tried another pinch, and received a slap. “And?”

  “And most of it was too scorched to make out, but I gathered the ninespears have a way of controlling voices. Of moving them from person to person, or infecting people with them. I think it’s what Sablo did to us before we reached Gendrys.”

  “Ooch. Though I don’t think Gleesfen would ever let me go.”

  “The text might have been saying it was easier to do on those who’d already overcome their voices, or who were too young to have fully formed ones yet.”

  Marrem’s eyes sharpened. “Tai had already overcome his voice.”

  “Both of them.” Shatters. “Whatever Sablo did didn’t last, but I’m guessing Nauro is better at his craft than the arbiter was.”

  “So he mighta infected the milkweed with a voice, you’re saying?” Feynrick asked. “He’s already overcome two, what’s one more?”

  Ella shook her head. “If it was easy, he’d be back to us by now. Maybe they gave him an extra difficult voice, or they have a way of forcing it to stay there, so you can’t escape, I—there’s just so much we don’t know.”