That was just what she and Parsons were talking about, wasn’t it?
The only disappointment was how quickly the ending turned perfectly happy and uncomplicated. The flower girl married the gentleman professor without ever really addressing his faults.
“That isn’t how it ends!” Parsons snapped.
“It’s not?”
“No. It’s not supposed to be so sappy. I’ve read the original. She says, ‘What you are to do without me, I can’t imagine!’ And she leaves. To be perfectly honest I wasn’t entirely satisfied with that ending either because I thought she ought to really give it to him good. And the worst is that she says she’s going to marry Freddy, that dullard.”
“Oh, no, that’s very unsatisfying. I thought she should marry Pickering.”
“Well, in the original Pickering is very old. But I agree, the actor they got to play Pickering was handsome enough and if they were going to change it anyway they might as well.”
“He was more than handsome enough.”
Parsons smiled halfway and Velsa dared to hope they had sufficiently bonded over their hatred of the ending. For some ridiculous reason, she still wanted Parsons to like her. “If we go around to the back of the theater sometimes you can see the actors coming out and get them to sign the playbill,” Parsons said.
They stepped outside, but it was raining now. And more than that, there seemed to be some kind of panic going on: women and men rushing around, huddled over newspapers, crying things out to each other.
Velsa’s throat felt like it was stuffed with cotton balls. Something had happened. And she wasn’t home.
“What is all this?” Parsons asked. She tried to find someone she could speak to, shoving her way past the rest of the theater audience, and lighted on a paperboy.
“Special afternoon edition, miss!” he said. “The discovery of the Fallen Lands!”
“Give me one of those.” Parsons grabbed the paper he was holding and fumbled for her money. “Two of them, even.” She gave the second paper to Velsa.
FALLEN LANDS REDISCOVERED
LAND OF “EARTH” IS A SOURCE OF MODERN INVENTIONS
Electric Light, Phonograph, Photograph, Steamship First Created There
“ONE OF THE HERALDS OF THE MODERN AGE,” SAYS LORD JHERIN
The article explained that Kalan Jherin had, in fact, known about Earth for the past thirty years, but had taken great care to investigate the world and all of its creations for the safety of his people before allowing them to be recreated.
The Wodrenarune discovered a wealth of wonderful machines in this land, but he could not share them with the people until they had been refined and redeveloped on home soil. The Fates warned him that he must ensure our safety, the reporter gushed. ‘The first step was to undergo years of careful study of the lands of Earth and how their inventions impact them as a people,’ said the Peacock General.
The article seemed a tad defensive about the long gap of time between Earth’s discovery and this revelation. The Fallen Lands, for all their wonders, are still a desperately dangerous place like the ancient tales describe, full of violent people who know nothing of magic.
Parsons was shaking her head.
“I’ve known about this for a long time,” she said.
“The…Fallen Lands? This article is true?” Velsa pretended she was surprised, which really wasn’t difficult. The extent of it still seemed hard to believe.
“Yes…I’ve been there,” Parsons said.
“You’ve been there?”
“When I was a girl, when I was still flesh and blood and my parents were working together on developing the railroad, my parents went there lots of times. They took me with them when I was eight, so I could see a world run by machines with my own eyes. I’m sure I would have gone many more times, if things had been different.” Parsons bit her lip hard.
“What does it mean? I mean—does this actually change anything? We already have these inventions.”
Parsons looked so distressed, and Velsa didn’t think this was an emotion she expressed lightly.
“What’s wrong?” Velsa asked.
“Kalan didn’t want to share this news. But it’s gotten too hard to control. There’s just too much of this stuff, too many questions about where it all comes from… Calban himself can hardly keep his mouth shut. But…I’m afraid of what the next headline might be.”
“What else do you know?”
“I shouldn’t tell you the details,” Parsons said. “They were told to me in confidence, and fates, I hardly get any respect as it is, I won’t be known as a gossip. But, a great deal of our energy has gone to developing the tools of war. Lord Jherin won’t want to give the Miralem a chance to descend on Nalim Ima and pick our brains. He’ll want the first strike, the element of surprise. The very moment this news dies down—I expect we will declare war on them. And it will be the ugliest war this world has ever seen.”
Chapter 14
The city was in an uproar that day. When Velsa got home, Grau was outside talking to the neighbors. Everyone was on the streets in chattering clusters. The sorceress downstairs claimed she’d known for a long time. The family in the apartment across from Grau and Velsa were obviously upset at Kalan Jherin for withholding the information for so long, but they voiced these concerns carefully. The whole time they spoke, the woman clutched her baby like she expected him to be torn from her arms.
The next morning, word spread like lightning: Kalan Jherin himself was to make a rare appearance on the tower balcony. The whole city rushed in, filling the streets and the palace squares.
Grau and the other sorcerers were offered reserved viewing in the palace garden, and it would be deeply disrespectful not to go. Velsa wished she could stay home with Sorla. She didn’t want to look at the man who said she was a cursed soul.
Directly below the balcony was a large group of musicians guided by a man waving a small wand around, with strings and horns and drums and more variety of instruments than she could name, playing grand, stirring music as everyone filed in. Grand—but also rather tense. If the music at Calban’s party said go upstairs and have sex, this music said bow to your great leader more effectively than any words.
All around Velsa, people did bow their heads. She forced herself to do the same. The music played on, strings growing more frantic by the moment, drums pounding, as the highest officials filed in to take their places in the garden’s inner courtyard.
The music came to a grand finish, and then it got very quiet. The crowd didn’t even whisper.
High above them, in the front tower, doors burst open, the hinges creaking.
“Rise,” Calban said.
They looked up. Calban stood to one side of the palace balcony with several other officials, mirrored by the Red General Lisandra on the other side. Into the space between them, attendants carried a palanquin. It was a seat, surrounded on all sides by gauzy curtains and the Wodrenarune’s banners, topped with an ornate little roof. Calban pulled strings to lift the front curtain, revealing the man sitting within. From this distance, Velsa couldn’t see him well, but she knew well the black wings of his headdress from the prints that were in every apartment and every public building.
The cheers were deafening as the Wodrenarune stepped off his chair and bowed deeply. He gripped the railing, and surveyed what must be a sea of people from his vantage point. He was a tall figure with a refined, sharp beauty. He wore long elegant robes with draping sleeves, his dark hair in a stiff braided loop.
“Please accept fate’s blessing,” Calban said.
The people lifted their hands, and Kalan lifted his. Velsa lifted her hands too, her heart feeling more traitorous by the moment.
Kalan returned to his seat, shadowed by the roof of the palanquin. He never spoke a word to the people. Calban leaned in to listen as he spoke, and Calban relayed his words.
“Lord Jherin has come to see you all now because of his concern for you,” Calban said. “As most of
you know by now, it is becoming increasingly painful for him to speak to mortals, because he spends so much time in communion with the spirit world and the voices of the fates. So I hope you will accept me as his humble servant.”
The people cheered again.
“What a splendid crowd,” Calban said, lightly. “This has been a delicate matter for us. You know the Fallen Lands from old histories and legends. We traded with them centuries ago—millennia, even. We gained some useful innovations from the people of that world. The war chariot and cavalry, which were so crucial in the ancient conquests of Sarda the Sorcerer King, were believed to have originated there, and some say that the original palace buildings at Atlantis are modeled after the city of Rome. But ancient texts also warn that they were a very touchy people. Magic is such an underground practice there that many people don’t even believe it, much less know how to use it. Sometimes trading parties were murdered without questions asked, and so we stopped trading with them long ago, particularly as some of their great cities fell to more barbaric peoples. We’d written the place off as the Fallen Lands.
“However, early on in Lord Jherin’s career as the Wodrenarune, the fates told him he should try to find the way back to the Fallen Lands. And so, he began to search the portals, finally meeting success some thirty years ago. We were all shocked at what we found—in this world without magic, machines had progressed far beyond anything we could have imagined. Devices we have invented in the past century or two like the printing press and the clock, they came up with centuries ago and have since improved upon.
“But that was only the beginning. We hardly knew what to make of the devices we witnessed. Lord Jherin knew this was what the fates had instructed him to find, but we had to be careful. Some of these devices are very dangerous if not built and operated properly. And the humans of Earth are still hostile to our peoples, and riddled with diseases. Lord Jherin did not dare tell the public at large about this place until he could be sure the portal was secure. No one should attempt to travel to this realm without proper sanctions, and anyone who attempts will face swift and severe punishment. This is a matter of health and safety for us all.”
The Peacock General spread his arms. “With all of that said, I believe that the greatest benefit we have found in this new realm, which I like to call Earth as they do, is the culture they have developed. Many of you will have heard the phonograph, which is so like a singing crystal, only much cheaper and easier to produce. The price of these devices will continue to fall as we gear up our factories, and I bet in a few years every bricklayer and shoemaker will have a phonograph and a wealth of records in the home, a library of cheaply printed novels, and he will be able to take his family on the new railway to the seaside in less than an hour and enjoy a day without a care in the world. In the more prosperous countries of Earth, this is how families live. In Nalim Ima we are already starting to see what the new world will look like, but within a decade, Lord Jherin makes a promise to you: every city and town under the Wodrenarune’s banner will have electric lights, a reliable post service, and will be no more than a day’s carriage ride from a railroad station!” Calban didn’t seem to be simply parroting propaganda—he spoke with genuine conviction. “This is Lord Jherin’s promise of a new world, and what a world it will be!”
The crowd erupted in a roar of enthusiasm as Calban went on. Labor laws would increase for the benefit of workers, new factories would provide thousands of jobs in every city. Schools would keep vagrant children off the streets, the number of well-trained police would increase manifold, and libraries would be built in every town.
Even Velsa felt herself lured by the idea of this world. It sounded too good to be true, but maybe it wasn’t if Earth really had all those things. No wonder Dennis was homesick.
Calban’s speech was followed by Lisandra, who explained how these innovations would increase the strength of the military, and then another brief speech by Parsons’ father about new inventions everyone could expect to see soon, like the telephone and the airplane.
Velsa could guess where Fanarlem fit into the new world. All these machines probably meant more dangerous jobs for Fanarlem to do. Slaves would be banned from all libraries and certainly they wouldn’t go to school.
Grau didn’t seem swept up by the speeches at all. “Remember how the Marnow’s farmhouse was swept away so the government could buy the land out from under them?” he said, as they walked home. “Well, where are all these factories going to go?”
“Do you really think they’ll build that many factories?”
“I think that the world I grew up in was very different from this one,” he said. “If I tell you this, I don’t want you to think I’m bothered by it, but…your skeleton is a perfect example. You know I can feel the magic within you. That includes your materials. When your skeleton was wooden, I could feel the life of those trees. This aluminum skeleton, on the other hand, is refined somehow, and it doesn’t feel the same. It’s still a good change—I see how you move more easily now. But when the whole world is like that, it feels dead to me. These things were created by people who didn’t have magic.”
“No one else seems to think the city is dead…,” she said.
“I’ve noticed,” Grau said. “Maybe I’m just too sensitive.”
Calban stopped by not long after they got home from the speech. It seemed an immediate bad sign that he would take the time to visit them, with all that was going on.
He took off his plumed headdress and bowed. “Grau, we’re having an emergency meeting tonight in the sorcerer’s hall. I need all of my team there, right now.”
“Of course,” Grau said, but the look he shot back to Velsa before he left was a combination of grim and please-don’t-worry.
Sorla watched their auto leave, and when she was assured they were gone, she told Velsa, “I went to see Dennis in all the commotion. He says he made Kessily a rabbit stew, and she got some sleep, and Flynn is meeting in the caves tomorrow after sunset. He drew a little map.”
“Thank you, Sorla.”
“Are you going to go?” A note of hope entered Sorla’s voice.
“Do you want to go with me?”
“If I could. I’ve been helping the rebellion for a few years and I’ve never been to a meeting.”
“We’ll go together. I’ll tell Grau that Parsons invited me out again.”
“Are you sure you shouldn’t just tell him the truth?”
“Not yet. Especially not now.” No, Grau was far too close to Calban right now. “But if it goes well, I will.”
Grau came home just as it started to snow. “Snow in April,” he grumbled. “What a place to live. Even the weather is displeased.” The flakes blew in from the west and pinged the windows, piling quickly on the sills. “Parsons was right. We’re preparing for war.”
“They’re not sending you away, are they?”
“There is some concern that a Miralem force may come down and head straight for the east point of Nalim Ima from around Laionesse. It’s strongly defended, but Calban says that’s near where all the production is happening, so protecting it is vital.”
“So they are sending you away.”
“Only a bit north.”
“You say it like I shouldn’t worry. Even if you’re only a day away, you’re far enough to die…without me…”
“I still say we should have tried to sneak onto that ship,” he said, with tense humor—he knew as well as she did that it wouldn’t have worked. “I won’t die, Velsa. I promise.”
He squeezed her hand, and went to add logs to the stove.
Chapter 15
Following the map, Velsa and Sorla walked a path that ran along the base of a rocky hill, and at first they seemed to be the only people out and about, but soon they came upon another figure in a black cloak. From a distance, Velsa could already tell the stranger was the same height as Sorla and herself.
Probably another Fanarlem.
The figure turned around to
approach them. Both parties regarded the other warily.
“Are you rebels?” the girl asked.
With a jolt of shock, Velsa realized it was one of Calban’s concubines. In fact, she was pretty sure it was the same one who trailed her finger down Grau’s chest. Can we really trust this girl?
“On your way to the meeting?” Sorla asked.
“Yes,” the girl replied.
“You’re a rebel?” Velsa whispered.
“Not exactly a rebel.” But the way she said it was plenty rebellious.
“Calban doesn’t notice you’re gone?”
“I’m the senior concubine, and I’m permitted to go out on errands. It doesn’t hurt to fit in an extra excursion once in a while. Calban hardly pays attention to us.” She shrugged one shoulder dismissively. “You’re the one who looks just like us,” she continued, although Velsa wished she wouldn’t point that out. “Have you ever been to a meeting before?”
“No…”
“You’re a flesh-born, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Velsa said.
“Well. Maybe these meetings won’t mean much to you like they do to me, but—”
“Velsa’s with us,” Sorla said excitedly. Velsa worried how excited Sorla was about the whole thing. That girl will get me in trouble someday… But she couldn’t get upset.
“I’m so glad to hear it,” the concubine said. “I hope our first encounter wasn’t too awkward, Velsa, but it’s all part of the fun of the parties. We do have fun, even if I still dream of a free world sometimes. Let me greet you properly now.” She bowed. “My name is Pin.”
“And I’m Sorla.”
They continued down the path together, even though Velsa still felt a little bothered by how much she resembled Pin.
Before long they came upon a Ven-Diri couple: Daramons clad entirely in black, with faces lightly powdered to look pale, and both of them wearing kohl around their eyes. This seemed to be an affectation of the Ven-Diri. The women wore floor-length skirts, picking them up as they made their way through the dirty slush of melting snow. Some of the men also wore long black robes. Their makeup suggested the pallor of the dead. For a rebellion, they looked awfully somber.
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