Although he was a fence for stolen goods, Marko covered that line of work by posing as a merchant whose trade in spices, mostly the ones that were allowed by the Empire and some that were not, took him between the Seat and Brunley often. He had spent a fair amount of time there, and he often complained to Catelyn about the run down slums and the kill-or-be-killed attitude of the residents there. She found it hard to believe it was worse than the prevailing sense of despair and fear that hung over the people of the Seat, but he simply sighed and insisted that it was.
Despite Marko’s warnings, Catelyn had convinced him to provide her with instructions on how to navigate the Brunley Channel to get there without detection. Most trips he smuggled in what he needed on a wagon, but he also used couriers for smaller parcels and he had recited the route they used to get through into Brunley proper without trouble, and she had memorized it.
It wasn’t as though she were happy about this move, or her destination, it was just the only choice for her. She had actually reached this conclusion sojourns before, when she had formulated her escape plans, after looking at all of her options.
She could not go west to Belkyn, even though she had fantasized many times about the Grand Gate opening before her, letting her out into the wider world, to the endless plains of the Barrens. The Empire held as much, if not more, sway over the city of Belkyn than the Seat. It shared much in common with the Seat, and the Emperor would surely have sent men there to search for and apprehend her as well.
Catelyn had not considered relocating north to Forma, as any woman could attest to the cruelty and misogyny of the men of Forma. Forma was little more than a refuge for the worst of the worst; lifelong criminals, rapists and murderers. The Emperor used the place as a breeding ground for his soldiers. Any woman within the city limits of Forma was purely viewed as breeding stock.
She’d heard relatively good things about Aldus; that its proximity to the Wall of Regret, and thus to the world beyond the Empire, had given it something of a reputation as a trade city, a rich target for an aspiring thief. The problem was, the only way to get to Aldus was to go through Forma, and she didn’t intend to take that risk.
She’d even considered simply living in one of the Channels, but although some people did settle there, the channels mostly served a utilitarian purpose; and was where many of the Empire’s factories and the manufacturing of goods took place. She could find living space, she was sure, for many of the old factories had become run down and abandoned, but the best she could hope for in the channels was to survive. To live, to earn coin and find marks to target, she would need to leave the channels each night and roam far to get to the residents of a nearby city.
That left Brunley.
And so, with nothing left of her old life and nowhere else to go, Catelyn made her way carefully towards her new life, towards an escape from the danger that was threatening to engulf her.
END PART ONE PART TWO
Chapter 11
Uriel sat upon the gold-gilded throne which stood like an enormous spike in the center of his audience chamber. The throne had been fashioned quite simply, and resembled nothing more than a high-backed chair, a back which reached up six paces to the ceiling high above.
He was in a rage. His brow quivered, and was dotted with beads of sweat from the exertion of trying to keep himself under control.
Uriel had personally committed an untold number of atrocities and violent acts in his prime. And he had never before felt as vehemently towards any of those victims as he did now, towards every living soul that resided in the Seat.
He was so livid that he was beginning to think he would soon become violently ill. And then just violent.
He had, on more than one occasion, entertained the notion of exterminating every last living thing within his domain. Such thoughts had always seemed to simply be a bout of distemper that would pass. But this; this refused to abate.
As he sat with his fingers pressed into the armrests at his sides, knuckles standing out tense and white from the iron grip he maintained on the golden throne, he wished to murder everyone and everything that had drawn a breath this day.
Strangely enough, or perhaps ironically, it had all started in the most petty of ways; with a song.
Music had been the first of many “diversions” that Uriel III had outlawed when he had taken control of his Empire. He had always hated music, but in particular, he hated music which involved singing. There was something in it which aroused sheer, unabashed disgust deep inside of him. Hearing songs sung by choirs as a boy were some of his worst and most violence-inducing memories.
And so after he had usurped power from his father, Uriel the Second of his Name, he had put a stop to music in every form, declaring it forbidden throughout the Empire. Initially, as with many of his more restrictive commands, there had been resistance and rebellion against his novel ideas. But following half a dozen Purges and the exertion of his Will, the people swiftly came around to his way of thinking. They always did. Or at least, they did publicly.
Uriel knew that music, despite his proclamations, and his efforts to quash it in every possible form, had refused to die. Instead people had held onto it covertly, passing the traditional songs on in the privacy of their homes, where his men were not around to overhear. Outwardly they obeyed their Emperor, but inwardly they clung to this one minor rebellion, humming tunes to one another in the dark of night.
Uriel had wished to obliterate whole sections of the Seat as punishment for this blatant disloyalty. But it had been Enaz and Ortis together, who had convinced him to allow his subjects this small victory. They had argued that without allowing the people such small tokens of the past, such small hopes, the people would stop caring at all. About anything, even him. Especially him.
They attempted to persuade him to allow the people to hold onto such trifles, and that doing so actually worked to his favor, for even as they thought they were getting one over on their Emperor by keeping something creative and vibrant alive, they were forced to do so at a price. That cost was the constant reminder that they were being allowed to hold onto such a thing on the Emperor’s terms. That every song that was sung, no matter how joyful, would be tainted by that realization.
Uriel had nearly executed the pair of them on the spot for their own insolence. He knew that such reasoning was irrational and deeply flawed. That Enaz and Ortis were selfishly acting on their own interests, for he knew that Ortis had enjoyed the music that had been played at court back in Pyrus, and he had heard Enaz humming tunes to himself when he was especially stressed.
But the fact that the two men in his entire Empire who feared and admired him the most were willing to oppose him on this, there must be something more than he could see at work. Uriel recognized that there were times when even he could be persuaded to try another solution. And so, Uriel had relented, at least to some degree. He still demanded that there be no public performances of music or singing, and music of any form was strictly forbidden in his presence. Beyond that, it
was...permissible.
So it had been a shock earlier that day when he had strode through the halls of the Imperial Citadel and overheard a faint, but clear humming coming from somewhere. It sounded as though it was originating from several floors below where he walked. He had already been in a foul mood, as he was still awaiting word from Ortis or that the soldiers that he had commanded to carry out the Purge on the upstart Sado-Sexual Elite.
It was very unlike Ortis to keep his Emperor waiting, though it was not the first time that a Purge had taken longer than anticipated. Sometimes the men enjoyed their task more than others. Still, it had been almost half a span since Uriel had seen the fires lighting the night sky, and now from the tower, columns of smoke still rose, suggesting that the last gasp of the Purge was winding its way down. A thorough Purge could take days, but never before had any prior to this gone without any word from Ortis whatsoever. No messengers had arrived from his men. Not a single update since Ort
is had marched out of the Citadel grounds.
As he had paced through the hallway, impatiently, the hum reached his ears and stopped Uriel in his tracks.
He actually had to physically stop to gather his wits, as he could not believe that any soul would have the audacity to defy the Will of the Emperor within his own house. He bellowed for Enaz, and the slender, oil-pated advisor all but charged up to Uriel from behind. During daylight prayers, Enaz worked tirelessly to both do his own job, while keeping himself within shouting distance of the Emperor, ready to do Uriel’s bidding.
A small bead of sweat dripped from Enaz’ temple, but Uriel knew he would not dare to wipe it from his face, lest he draw attention to it. The Emperor knew that Enaz simply hoped that he was too incensed to notice. He decided to ignore it, in light of his large concern.
“Enaz, do you hear that infernal noise? The one from below?” the Emperor demanded.
Enaz stopped breathing momentarily to listen with all of his effort. After a moment, Uriel could see Enaz swallow hard, and he knew that the man was struggling to decide whether to tell if he had indeed heard it.
“From what disturbed mind would such open defiance spring forth, do you suppose?” the Emperor muttered sharply.
Uriel watched the play of emotions cross Enaz’ face, but after half a life as the Emperor’s advisor, he knew better than to answer and instead simply bowed, loudly replying “Your excellency, I shall have whoever it is put to death immediately. None should dare to defy your sacred command.”
Uriel stopped and stared long at the top of Enaz’ hairless, oiled head. He imagined what it would be like to thrust a dagger through it, right at the spot where he could see the veins in the skull pulsing as Enaz waited patiently, bent forward at the waist. The momentary desire passed and he took a deep, cleansing breath.
No, despite his anger, he knew Enaz to be a loyal and trusted servant to him.
Even if he was a little too effeminate. Though Uriel could hardly blame him for that. He himself had been the one to carve the man’s balls from his pouch, those many sojourns ago.
No, if Uriel was being honest about the source of his anger, it was Ortis who was at the eye of that storm.
Why had he not yet returned?
Why had he sent no word, no message?
Uriel turned on his heel and waved three fingers at his side, low enough for Enaz to see the approving dismissal. As he stalked away, he heard Enaz’ heels clattering through hall after hall, growing quieter with distance. Uriel looked to the sky outside the window and realized that the day was getting into late afternoon, and Uriel was getting more impatient than ever.
Someone would need to pay for that tonight. He returned to his throne room to wait, and to plot.
Catelyn sat on a rooftop, twirling her lucky ring with one hand, and chewing lightly on her lower lip as she thought deeply about her problems. This night, her problem seemed
insurmountable. She had been in Brunley for less than a span, and she hated it already.
Marko had tried to warn her, and she should have listened. She hadn’t been able to conceive of anything that could have been worse than what she had experienced in the Seat. But she now understood the depths of both her own ignorance and her arrogance; the conditions in the Seat, as bad as they seemed were downright luxurious compared to the squalor of Brunley.
The first warning to her of the grim reality of the situation should have been the smell. Even before she had exited out of the Channel and walked into the town proper, she had picked up the wafting stench in the air. Catelyn could describe it no other way than to acknowledge that Brunley smelled as though it were a massive bloated carcass afloat in a sea of human filth.
Before she had even reached the city gate, she had taken a cloth from her pack and wrapped it around her nose and mouth, lest she become violently ill.
She focused her bubble as she had neared the exterior gate leading into the city, and sensed no one guarding the entrance to the city. In fact, as she expanded her bubble outward from herself, she realized that she could sense no one at all. With some strain, she could hear what sounded like scavenging dogs coming from the bowels of nearby alleys, but no talking, no breathing, and no movement to indicate the presence of a single human being in range of her expanded bubble.
As she had crossed under an archway into the city itself, she was especially careful about where she stepped. Given the smells that assaulted her nose, she could only imagine what composed the slickness on the stones under her feet. She honestly didn’t want to know, and she immediately wished that she could bathe. She made a promise to herself that as soon as she found a livable space, she would begin looking for the components she would need to replicate the water-heating and cleansing system she had constructed at her previous roost. But her hopes of being able to find anything like that seemed to be slim, and she immediately questioned whether she had just made a huge mistake.
In the meantime, she would have to improvise something, because she couldn’t imagine waiting a span or maybe more to have a proper bath.
She’d had a harder time than normal making her way into Brunley, without her sense of smell to aid her, and she was forced to proceed slowly and carefully. It was two prayers, with Catelyn methodically picking her way down deserted streets before she heard her first human voice. She followed the voice cautiously, and at a distance, hopeful that it was a sign of habitation.
She would need to find the center of the city’s population to ply her trade.
The voices grew more numerous with each step, and Catelyn allowed herself to hope. Finally she stepped upon smoother, more polished flagstones and stopped, expanding her bubble to take in every detail, even the rancorous smells of the corrupted air.
From the information that she gathered from her senses, she seemed to be standing at the edge of some kind of bazaar. She heard quiet voices mumbling, passing near to her and whispering almost inaudible curses and invocations of protection to the Divines. Behind and beneath the multitude of voices, she heard the sound of currency being exchanged. The clink of coins caught her attention, but what held it was hearing how little of it there was.
Even through the thick cloth covering her face, she could smell the scents of cooking meats, and spices that she rarely caught the scent of back in the Seat. Some she couldn’t recognize at all. Though mixed in with the other smells around her, it did not make her mouth water, but rather the odors sent waves of revulsion shuddering through her.
She could sense the passers-by watching her, whispering about her to one another.
“Strange girl,” they called her.
“Barefoot in the filth,” they mocked.
“Afraid to show her face, must be horribly disfigured.”
Catelyn wasn’t surprised to overhear those
misconceptions. She’d been dismissed the same way for sojourns, and it never bothered her anymore.
But she knew that she stood out, so she quickly picked a path across the bazaar, feeling the other people step back at her approach, until she found herself in the alley opposite where she had originally entered the square. Then, she expanded her bubble wide and set about assessing the city’s prospects for
accommodation.
By the end of that first day, Catelyn’s hopes were already dwindling. As she felt the temperature drop, and listened as the citizens of Brunley returned to their homes, Catelyn felt a wave of memories wash over her of her first night alone in the Seat.
No home.
No safety.
No hope.
She did manage to find an abandoned building that was still standing, and that had rooftop access, so she climbed up to assess the situation. What she found, as she scanned the area with her bubble, was not promising.
Most residents of Brunley seemed to live in makeshift tents on the street, or if they were lucky, they had built themselves a shack made of four walls and a ceiling. She had been living in relative poverty for sojourns, but even her worst
days and nights were nothing compared to the abject misery of the entire population of Brunley. The Seat at least had held a wide range of differing lifestyles. Catelyn had believed herself poor before coming to Brunley. She now saw just how fortunate she had been.
Catelyn was not going to take up residence in the tent cities lining every street, and so she set about scouting for a building to squat in until she figured out what her longer term plan was. Her initial survey of the surrounding structures was as bad as she predicted.
The buildings were abandoned for good reason.
In numerous spots, the structures were coming apart, a combination of neglect and erosion by the elements. She could smell charred wood and melted iron in numerous places, evidence of the Empire’s punishments for past transgressions. And everywhere, the smell of death and decay.
No wonder these people live in the streets, she thought.
Her first two days and nights in Brunley had been some of the worst of her life, and that was saying a lot. She had been forced to eat through more of her rations than she wanted to, and to sleep for only a few prayers at a time, keenly keeping her senses trained for the gangs of scavengers that plagued the city at night.
She had needed sixteen prayers over those first two days to locate an abandoned building with even half of the right criteria she had laid out for her new “home”. The place she had settled on was, at least in principle, well suited to her purposes. It mostly kept in the heat, but the roof had a number of leaks which kept the floor perpetually damp and the air smelling of mold and rotting wood. Still, it didn’t smell as though a dozen people had died in the hallways, and she could enter and exit through a hole in the roof, the result of metal rooftop air vent collapsing through the structure after heavy rains had softened the roofing material.
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