by Tim Akers
"Which brings us here." I looked nervously around at the crows. Was Crane watching us through their eyes, just waiting for the moment to strike? Shivers ran down my arm. "You know, I've shot this guy through the heart twice now. I'm used to that solving matters."
"Bullets can't solve everything, Jacob. But yes, he might be a tricky one to pin down. Not sure how we're going to know that we've finally put an end to Mr. Crane, and not one of his possessions."
"Seems the possessed ones fall apart," I noted. Had a brief image of my father's face emerging from the collapsing body of Ezekiel Crane. Realized I had stopped walking when Wilson bumped into me. "Sorry. Just making some plans for Crane."
"You and me both," he whispered.
We were halfway across the square now. I could see a pair of nervous guards at the gate, watching our progress. As long as they didn't start shooting, either at us or at the crows, I was pretty sure we were going to be okay. Unless Crane decided to wait until we were nearly there before he ordered his feathery minions to attack. He seemed to enjoy that kind of cruelty.
"If he really is broadcasting his consciousness, if that's how his possessions work, then it's just a matter of figuring out where he's broadcasting from and going there." Wilson said. "The crows are clearly acting in the same role as the maker beetles. I never thought about it, but I suppose you could use anything for the makers. We don't really know enough about the technology to say what it is that makes them special."
"Apparently Crane does."
"Apparently."
"Is it just a matter of killing the crows?" I asked. Wilson shot me a nervous look and inched closer.
"Too many of them," he whispered. "How many do you have to kill, how many does it take to hold his consciousness? There's too much we don't know. And those pipes play some kind of role, too. Some kind of antenna."
"What's an antenna?" I asked.
"Like a lightning rod, but for sound." Wilson shrugged. "I've never seen one, actually."
"Another myth. We don't have much to go on here. We did manage to disrupt his signal for a while there, in the Manor Tomb."
"Yeah. Maybe something to do with how violently the possession ended." Wilson sheathed his knives and wiped his palms on his pants. I had to admit, I was sweating pretty good now, too. "Might be that it caused him some kind of pain that he had to recover from."
"I like the sound of that." The guards were edging away from us. The crows were still parting along our way, but I got the feeling that they were closing the gap behind us. I turned around. Yeah, the whole damn flock was on our tail. "Though maybe he doesn't."
Wilson turned to see what I was looking at, and the color went from his face.
"Is it too late to just run?" he asked.
"Probably. And those boys aren't going to just open the door for us." I raised my voice and waved to the guards. "Hi there! Hello! Uh… they aren't with us."
The two boys in guard uniforms were pale and getting paler with each step we took toward them. I held my hands up, then realized I was still holding the shotgun. Slung that over my shoulder, and gave Wilson a look. He swallowed nervously and sheathed his knives.
"We're just here to, uh. To talk to the Council. We're friends."
They weren't buying it, and the crows behind us were crowding our heels. I started walking faster. That didn't seem to make the guards feel any better.
"You're sure we can't run?" Wilson hissed.
"Positive," I whispered out of the corner of my mouth, then addressed the guards. "Look, I'm Jacob Burn. My father is…" Dead, I thought. Lying face down in the basement of the Manor Tomb, surrounded by a horde of the mad, ravening dead. "Alexander Burn. I'm here on his business."
"We have orders to keep you two out," one of them said, finally finding his voice. I stopped walking when he held up his shortrifle. "Specific orders."
When I stopped walking, the crows bunched up behind me. They began to flap their wings in frustration. Started clamoring up my legs, fluttering onto my shoulders. Their hard talons cut into my coat. I tried not to move.
"Listen," I said, doing my best not to shout. "I'm a little freaked out right now, and I'm sure you are, too. What I want, more than anything, is to get these godsdamn birds off of me and get inside. So just open the door, okay?"
"Gods, yes, please open the door," Wilson gasped.
It was the other guard who broke. Dropped his shortrifle and jumped for the small sally-gate cut into the larger door. He threw it open and dived through. Since he didn't bar it behind him, I took that as invitation enough.
"Yaaaa!" I yelled, throwing my arms over my heads and startling the crows away. Wilson's spider-arms sprung out, clearing his shoulders and the cobbles around us. We both leaped for the door. The second guard watched us go, the weapon in his hands forgotten.
"I have orders…" he started, then realized that he was about to be left alone with all those crows. He was right behind us in a breath. He threw the door shut and slammed the lock home. We lay there on the floor staring at each other. Waiting.
Outside, there was the sound of a thousand crows taking off at once, a sound like a tornado of shuffling velvet. They did a pass around the square, cawing and brushing against the gates, terrible and loud. And then they were gone. It was quiet, inside and out.
"Now," I said, standing up and brushing the fear from my lapels. I addressed myself to the guard who had sensibly run inside. "I have business with the Council. If you'll just escort us there."
"You'll need to leave your weapons with us," he said.
"Nonsense. This is not the kind of day I feel like being unarmed. Wilson?"
Wilson stood up and produced knives and talons. They took the hint and, gathering as much dignity and authority as they could manage, led us into the Chamber Massif.
The fifteen seats. It was originally eight, or possibly nine. Certain early accounts mention the nine heads of Veridon, but at some point there were only eight. I wondered if those early accounts were mentions of the purged family of the Makers that had missed the historian's blotter. In time, eight became ten, then eleven. Finally fifteen. The additional seats were purchased or declared into existence by Council writ, as the two factions in the Council wrestled for power, waned and waxed. Old families that had lost their seats were brought back into the Council by majority vote, some of those votes purchased or extorted. And new families came into the fold from the ranks of the freshly rich, the appropriate votes again purchased or threatened into existence. I know that my father had voted to raise up some rich rabble, all to pay the mortgage on the estate, or keep the Furnace running for another year or three.
So now there were fifteen. The Founders held six of those seats, with two more families who were so old that they thought of themselves as Founders, no matter what their peers said behind their backs. The rest were held by industrialists. Alliances wavered, votes were sold, but those two factions were the status quo.
As was arguing. Always arguing. As they were when we walked in, prodigal and monster, escorted by two terrified guards who didn't know what their role in this fiasco should be.
The Chamber itself was designed to hold eight (or possibly nine) grand seats, each on its own dais. As the Council had grown, so too had the number of seats. But not the room. For all of its vaulted height, leading up to a glass dome that had been commissioned to give the room a sense of majesty that was lacking in the original martial fittings, the floor of the Chamber was crowded. And there had to be room for pontificating, so the fifteen daises of the Council members were clustered around the walls of the circular room, allowing plenty of room for the current speaker to strut around the center and berate all of his fellow Councilors equally. And while only one speaker was supposed to hold the floor at a time, there were currently three people down there. Two men and a woman. If that's the word for Angela Tomb. Two men and a nightmare.
I don't know what they were arguing about. Whatever it was, they were serious enough about it to not
notice a couple of armed thugs who in the past had threatened more than one person in this room. The guards paused at the edge of the ring indicating the beginning of the Chamber, blubbering as if to announce our entrance. I clapped them on the shoulders and walked past, keeping to the side of the floor, circling around to my family's traditional seat. Each of the daises had an emblem carved into the front, proclaiming the family who held it. The empty seat I was heading toward showed a long, narrow pyramid with the top chopped off, and a curl of fire at the base. The symbol of the Deep Furnace, and the traditional logo of the family Burn. Made me smile to see it.
No matter how engaged the three on the floor were in their argument, and how much conversation was passing between the still seated Councilors all around, it didn't take long for people to see me. First one fell silent, then another. Someone yelled, either in alarm or disgust. Eventually all the voices were silent. They watched me climb the narrow stairs to my seat, set the shotgun across the podium, and settle into the cushion that my father held for so long. I could smell him in the chair, well-oiled leather and alcohol, smoke that hung in the bar hours after the rest of the family was asleep. The sting of gunpowder on my cheek as he took the shot that kept me alive, then helping me to my feet. I shook myself out of my reverie and looked around the room. Everyone was looking at me, with a mixture of surprise, horror and amused calculation.
"Carry on," I said.
"What is the meaning of this?" demanded one fat bastard whom I didn't recognize. Plammer, maybe? I could never keep all the names straight, especially of the new families.
"I heard there was a meeting. I thought I should be involved."
"This… this is… it's preposterous!" Plammer yelled, his jowls flobbering.
"I would have been supremely disappointed if you had said anything less… typical, Mr. Plammer," I answered.
"Plumer!" he shrieked. "The boy doesn't even know the names of his royal Councilors, and he's sitting in Alexander's chair!" He stumbled down his dais to join the three who had abandoned their argument for the new interruption. "I ask you, my brethren, are we going to stand for this?"
"Can you stand for this?" I asked, "I mean, for terribly long. You don't seem to have the necessary constitution."
"Jacob, we appreciate the fact that you're a complete smartass," Angela said, facing me with her hands on her metal hips. "But really. The adults are talking."
"Oh, right. I guess this requires some kind of formal declaration." I stood, cradling the shotgun in my arms. "I understand. So let's see. How should this go?"
"I don't want to say that I told you so," Wilson whispered to me from his position just behind the seat, where the Councilor's servants and advisors were to stand. "But this would be an ideal time to have that letter of reinstatement."
I ignored him and cleared my throat.
"I am Jacob Burn, son of Alexander, son of Tiberus, many times son of Constance Burn, Founder of Veridon. I have come to claim my right of name, and hold the seat of Council in this chamber. As did my father before me, so I claim this right, by my blood, by my birth. Such is the law."
"Such is the right," they all murmured in automatic response. I smiled. At least they hadn't shot me yet. They recovered their sense of indignation quickly enough.
"Again, I say, are we going to stand for this?" Plumer said, walking toward me. "This Council does not recognize you, Jacob. Your name has been purged from the rolls of this chamber. Your father had you expunged from the record."
"As is his right. Just as it is his right to reinstate me."
That was met with a round of whispers. Only Plumer, Tomb and, surprisingly, Bright did not take their gaze from me. I nodded to Veronica. She frowned.
"Jacob," Angela said smoothly, "the Manor Burn is… poetically… burning as we speak. Your father is nowhere to be found. Do you have any proof of your right to stand here?"
You damn well know I do, bitch. You've been engineering this moment from the start, hoping either Alexander would die without returning me to the fold, or that I would take up the baton and prove as dangerous and unpredictable as was my way. And now the card has been played, and you're going to follow through. I hope you find me nothing but a disappointment, Angela. I hope to do nothing more than ruin your plans in this chamber.
But that's not what I said, of course.
"He produced a letter of reinstatement. It was in his…" His crazy room? The old ballroom where he was hiding from the talking engines? What to say? "In his desk. Considering the state of the Manor, I'm not sure what became of the letter."
"Not sure what became of the letter," Angela repeated. "And then you come to us armed, and in the company of a foreigner. What are we supposed to do with this, Jacob?"
Here was the tricky part. My father was dead. Patron Tomb was, mostly likely, dead. Neither Angela nor I had any standing in the Chamber. Not officially. So it was a matter of brute personality and tradition, and deciding how much information to make public.
"I swear to you, the last thing I want is to be standing here. This is not the role I would choose for myself. Not in this city, and not with my history. But we don't always get to choose what comes to us, do we?" I held the shotgun loosely in my right hand, resting my left on the podium. Kept my eyes moving around the room, looking at each startled Councilor in turn. Still, only Bright looked comfortable. Angela looked unsure, so that was a start. "My father is dead. He died today, defending himself against the scourge that has gripped our city. A scourge, I would like to point out, that this Council has hidden from the city at large. My father loved this city. Gave his life to it, to growing its power and securing its citizens. He died for it. And there is nothing he would want more than for his son to continue that task. So I am here, not because I want this seat, nor because it is my duty. I stand before you because you need me. This city needs me. And I was raised to stand up when I was needed."
And I sat down.
They didn't buy it, most of them. A couple of the Founder's were wet-eyed, and at least Lady Bright was nodding to herself. Angela looked pensive. Plumer was having none of it.
"You're a brat, and an egomaniac. This Council has done fine without you and, frankly, has been doing fine without your father ever since his little trip. So, thank you for the interruption, it was amusing, but I'll ask you to get the hell out of this Chamber."
"He deserves a vote," Veronica said. Plumer whirled on her.
"You! You're supporting this" — he threw an arm at me — "criminal? Do you honestly believe he can be a Councilor in Veridon?"
"I don't know," she answered. "But apparently his father did."
"His father!" Plumer shouted, strutting around the circle. The three original speakers had returned to their chairs, except for Angela. She stood still, watching me. Watching my trick unfold. "For all of this young man's pretty words, I think we knew Alexander Burn. Knew who he was, and what he stood for. I hardly think that he could be trusted to name a successor, not in his state of mind." He squinted at me and made his mistake. "Died for the city? Hardly. Died in the dark, drunk and crazy, more likely."
I vaulted the podium, sensibly leaving the shotgun on my chair, and landed softly about five feet from the fat man. I strode at him, hands calmly in pockets, hurrying into his space. He stumbled backwards, and I followed.
"There are a great many things I will tolerate, Mr. Councilor. You can insult me all day, and twice on Saturday. You can degrade my family name. You can question my taste in clothes, or wines, or gods. You can even threaten me, although I wouldn't suggest it." By now we were nearly to his dais. He pressed his back flat against the marble stairs, his emblem of two feathers aflame poking out from behind his chubby shoulders. I smiled. "But I will not have you speaking poorly of my father. Not today. We will have our differences, you and I. We will have our agreements. Let's start this relationship off with an understanding, though. You do not say such things about my father. Agreed?"
"Agreed," he whispered. I backed
up.
"Frankly, I don't care if you vote for me," I said, addressing the room, although I still stared at Plumer's fat face. "I don't care if you think you can manage this without me. But you're wrong. You're all locked in here, talking about what might be happening outside. Trading pieces of information for political favor, acting against each other all the while. Gambling the good of the city to gain a little more power for yourselves." I began to walk around the room, slowly, looking at the Councilors as I passed. "You're doing it right now. Trying to decide what advantage it will be to you, if I claim this seat."
Some of them wouldn't meet my eyes, either out of fear or contempt. Some did. There was amusement, there was fear. There was maybe a little hope. I didn't like the burden that brought to me, to my name, but hey. We don't always get to choose what comes to us.
"I'll tell you this. There is no advantage. I'm not here to play your games. I'm here because everything is falling apart, and unless you act immediately to put it back together, you will not recover your city." I stopped in the center of the room and turned slowly in place. "Veridon will be lost to you."
"Listen," Plumer said. He had crawled back into his seat, and seemed to take comfort in being able to look down at me. His voice still quavered when I looked at him. "Listen, I know things are dire. We are here in emergency session, after all. Many of us left our families undefended to be here. We're taking this very seriously."
"Undefended, yes… tell me about this curfew. Who's enforcing it?"
"The Badge, of course."
"And yet on my way over here I didn't see a single agent of that fine institution. Why is that?" Confused looks around the room, then realization, then embarrassment. "None of you left your estates undefended, did you? You each selected units from the Badge to reinforce your own house guards. Didn't you? Issued false orders about patrol routes and roadblocks, most likely in your rival's territories, and reassigned those units to your homes. And between the fifteen seats of the Council, you have emptied this city of its only defense."