‘How? This is your ruler, right?’
‘No — creator not ruler. Our society is democratic — there is no one ruler, but a working, interchangeable council of elders. Frater Mercury’s work was in enabling us to exist and to breed more, but he has only ever advised.’
‘What’s he doing in our world?’
Artemisia seemed for the very first time to show concern on her face. ‘I am not entirely sure. He had not. . alerted any elders of intentions. It is a surprise to all of us. He has since left only a handful of messages.’
‘I’m guessing you’ll need to locate him,’ Brynd said.
‘A possibility, yes.’
‘We’re going to have to combine tactics — your nation, and ours — if we’re not only to fight together, but also to live together peacefully. If you would head back to your world,’ Brynd indicated the gate, ‘I would like to meet with your elders. They should speak with Jamur Rika. We should begin diplomatic discussions immediately.’
Artemisia nodded. ‘It could take a while to assemble them, but I will.’
TWO
To Brynd the obsidian chamber situated high up in the Citadel was becoming the nearest thing he knew to a home. As a soldier he could spend months away from the normal elements of life: family or friends or the comforting familiarity of daily routine. The Night Guard had long replaced his family and friends; as for a home. . well, being shipped from mission to mission for more than half his life had long relieved him of any attachment. In that sense he shared more with the nomadic tribes of the Archipelago than with the people of this city.
The obsidian chamber had been the main war room for mounting the defence of Villiren. Blood-red volcanic glass lined the walls, upon which cressets were burning, mirrored in the glossy surface, and in the centre of the wide room was a vast oak table. A fire crackled in a grate. Thin, arched windows on one side revealed the harbour of Villiren, or what was left of it, and the sea beyond. The weather was unusually fine today: a few clouds scudded over the horizon, but other than that the choppy sea was a deep blue, the sky above slightly paler.
Brynd had spent many hours in here. Though he had seen more than his fair share of combat, much of his expertise had been concerned with logistics: food supplies, civilian evacuation procedures, military tactics, enlistment, all the time negotiating with the city officials — whenever they felt like engaging professionally, that was. Brynd hadn’t seen the city’s portreeve for many weeks now, the man presumably having long since fled. Now the city had fallen under military rule, and this suited Brynd just fine — it made Villiren all the easier to annex from the Empire.
He cleared the maps and draft budgets from the table and heaped them on his desk to look at later. Then poured himself a glass of decent wine that had been ‘rescued’ from the crippled cellars of a bistro by the citizen militia and took a sip.
There was a knock at the door and he called for them to enter. A muscular and the most thuggish-looking of the Night Guard soldiers, Brug, poked his shaven head around the door. Brynd could make out the tattoos on his thick neck as he stretched into the room. ‘Commander, Jamur Rika says she’s ready to see you now.’
‘Does she, then?’ Brynd muttered. ‘You’d better bring her in.’
‘Aye. She’s a bit forward about it, if you ask me. Demanding, more than asking, to be brought here. Not the girl I remember.’
‘She’s Lady Rika now, Brug. Not a girl.’
‘Not much of a lady, if you ask me. That the South Tineag’l vintage?’ Brug said and indicated the bottles on the table.
Brynd nodded.
‘Waste of a good wine, if you ask me.’ Brug turned and exited.
Brynd lit some incense and then waited in silence, contentedly watching the flames of the fire. He closed his eyes; he could hear the footsteps of several people in the distance, possibly in the corridor beneath the chamber. Somewhere else was the crackle of cultist magic: hopefully they were working on Brenna-based munitions, very useful high explosives. Further away, possibly outside, was the smell of freshly baked sourdough bread.
Footsteps in the doorway: he opened his eyes to see Jamur Rika walking briskly towards him, accompanied by Brug. He rose to meet her, and bowed his head slightly.
‘Jamur Rika,’ he announced, ‘welcome to the obsidian chamber.’
‘So this is where Commander Lathraea spends his days?’
She looked around the room dismissively. He had never seen her looking so warrior-like. Had her snug grey uniform been black she could have passed for one of his own Night Guard. A gold, jewel-studded ceremonial dagger was fitted to her left hip, and her black hair had been cut shorter than he remembered, shorter even than Eir’s. All the soft lines of her face, the creases around her eyes, the gentle mannerisms he recalled when he first saw her on Southfjords just months before, had taken on a harsher definition. Her transformation was sudden and disarming.
‘And most evenings too, it seems,’ Brynd said, effortlessly moving to his feet. ‘My Empress. .’
‘Please don’t call me that yet,’ she replied.
‘My apologies.’
She smiled wryly. ‘I don’t feel comfortable with what isn’t yet certain. We are annexed — does this mean we are part of a republic? A freetown? I can hardly be Empress of just a city, can I?’
Brynd frowned and shared a glance with Brug. The big man simply shrugged and smiled to himself.
‘Perhaps we can clarify some of those matters today,’ he said. He started to move towards the table when the door to his office opened again and into the room walked Jamur Eir, Rika’s sister, and Eir’s companion — bodyguard and lover — Randur Estevu. Eir smiled serenely and greeted Brynd like an old friend, as she always had done. Randur, on the other hand, simply bowed with a ridiculous flourish; Brynd couldn’t be certain if he was being respectful, sarcastic or a fool — or possibly all three. While Eir wore a simple brown tunic, Randur was dressed in some fancy new shirt, frilled cuffs, a ridiculous collar, and his glossy cape. There were even a few braids in his hair.
‘Is that a new sword, Randur?’ Brynd indicated the rapier sheathed by his side.
‘What a keen sense of sight, commander,’ Randur replied, then — with a zing — he whipped the rapier out. Light shimmered off its surface. ‘Fancy giving it a test later? I could do with the practice. Bored out my arse a lot of the time.’
‘I’ll see if I can spare a moment,’ Brynd replied.
‘I understand if you don’t want to lose to me.’
‘I will see,’ Brynd said, cutting him short. ‘Meanwhile, I would appreciate it if you adhered to martial policies: weapons are not to be carried about the Citadel, only upon exit to the city’s streets. If we can’t have discipline inside these walls, how the hell can we expect to export it outside?’
Randur sheathed his sword while glaring at Brynd, then grunted. He strode to the table, whereupon he began pouring himself some wine. Eir took a seat beside him, while Rika claimed her place at the head of the table. Brynd moved to her side.
Together they all waited patiently while administrators began to file into the room: lawyers, moneylenders, construction managers, cultists and then some more members of the Night Guard, who lined the room with their arms folded as a reminder of just who was currently enforcing the law in Villiren.
Brynd was expecting thirty-three individuals, but it felt like three times that when they were confined in this space, despite them maintaining a respectful volume, speaking only in hushed whispers to the people beside them while they waited.
Brynd rose from his seat and waited for them to fall into silence.
‘Citizens, welcome,’ he began, ‘I have summoned you here with difficult aims: to forge a new civilization, a new culture, a new Empire, to make provisions for the defence of the whole island and against the potential return of the Okun. And we need to do this together.’
He let his words sink in, and scrutinized the faces around him — some were passive,
some wide-eyed.
‘Any previous affiliations with the Urtican Empire are now terminated, and Villiren is a free, independent city currently under military rule, serving Jamur Rika, who is here seated beside me.’
All eyes turned to Rika, who sat with serenity amidst the whispers that now spread around the room. She waved her hand for Brynd to continue.
‘At this time we are continuing to use the legal framework of the Empire. Villiren is a city without politicians, and many of you would probably think the place better because of it.’ He got the laughs he intended, and smiled as he palmed the air. ‘But I confess, these are serious times, and we face two problems that define our legacy. The first is this: the reconstruction of the city and the unification of a broken people. That is where you, the builders and bankers and lawyers and agriculturalists must talk openly. We must create employment for a people who have nothing, and we must feed them well. They must feel that they can participate in their own future, too. But the second problem may well prohibit any of this from happening.’
‘What d’you mean?’ someone called, a slender man with a thin moustache, who was called Derrouge.
‘I’ll show you,’ Brynd replied. He called her name, and a minute later Artemisia stooped under the doorway at the back of the room. Everyone’s gaze followed Brynd’s own, and soon people at the back began clamouring to get out of her way.
‘It is quite all right!’ Brynd shouted. ‘Please, remain calm — this is our ally, our comrade!’
In full war regalia, Artemisia marched through the parting, gasping crowd towards Brynd, and there she stood, towering over the room.
‘What is it?’ Derrouge asked.
‘She is Artemisia,’ Brynd replied, waiting for the room to settle. ‘A friend.’
‘Greetings to you all,’ Artemisia announced, and Brynd thought he could see a smile on her face.
‘You may recall that our recent battle here in Villiren was fought against a hitherto unknown race. Well, it transpires that in the world where this race originated, another war was being fought — against Artemisia’s own people. She, too, was fighting the same enemy that we were.’
Brynd related the information he felt comfortable sharing about the breaches of the Realm Gates and the appearance of the Okun. With the gathered throng remaining in silence, he explained to them their situation: that their economy had been wrecked, that Villiren risked hyperinflation unless the moneylenders stopped giving money away and throwing people into debt; that the city had been annexed from the Empire, that Urtica had been notified, that they did not know where they stood in legal terms, and that these issues were the least of their concerns.
He refrained from telling them about the potentially false histories that all of these people had grown up with: the Church, it seemed, had offered a different explanation to the one Artemisia had brought with her, but that was another matter for another day. The split of humanity into a different dimension was perhaps too much to discuss at the moment. However, he clearly gave a context to her presence, and to that of the Okun, which had invaded Villiren so recently, and which were still being discovered in rubble-strewn pockets of the city, mostly dead, occasionally alive.
‘The forces from other worlds,’ he said, ‘are going to continue flowing into ours. This cannot be stopped. They will bring with them — no, they’ve already brought with them — their long war. One side,’ he gestured to Artemisia, ‘is looking to settle alongside us. Their long-term opponents are. . well, you have all met their ambassadors, the Okun. Their opponents would see all our cultures destroyed, humanity effectively cleansed, to make way for their repopulation of the Boreal Archipelago. You would have no farms, no banks, no buildings. No life.’
The noise in the room began to increase. Brynd waved to calm the hubbub, yet it had little effect. He caught the eye of his soldiers, who looked to him for guidance, but he shook his head. These weren’t people who needed threatening — they had to work with him. Artemisia, it seemed, wasn’t one for patience. She lurched forward, withdrew her twin blades from over her shoulder, and rested them on the table.
Everyone fell into silence, staring at the massive weapons, and then at her. No one dared say a thing.
‘Thank you,’ Brynd muttered.
Artemisia stepped back, satisfied.
‘As I was saying,’ Brynd continued, ‘we can assume the Empire as we know it — our culture as we know it — is not as it used to be.’
One of the moneylenders, a man with a narrow face and blond beard, leaned forward and interrupted. ‘How can we believe. . what she says? What’s to say we’re not being used?’
A chorus of voices flowed and ebbed around the room.
Randur Estevu, surprisingly, stood up to answer. ‘This foreigner,’ he said, ‘saved the fucking lives of Empress Rika here and Eir.’ He gestured to them both. ‘As well as saving my arse. I was bringing these women all the way across to Villiren, due to. . events in Villjamur. Artemisia saved us from Urtica’s men, cut down anyone who tried to capture us, and brought us all the way to Villiren. Not only that, but while you lot were probably pissed out of your faces, she killed a fair few of the Okun in the city on the way to see the commander here. Shitting hell, I’d personally vouch that we can trust her. For what it’s worth.’
‘Thank you, Randur,’ Brynd said, ‘for your colourful contributions.’
Randur slumped back in his seat and folded his arms. Eir placed a hand on his shoulder.
Brynd looked around the room trying to gauge the mood. It was hard to tell: these were people who made careers out of furthering their own interests. To suddenly think about the rest of society did not come naturally to them. ‘I can understand the trust issue, but as Randur has pointed out, we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss Artemisia’s people.’
‘So who are these people? We know nothing.’
‘They’re coming soon enough,’ Brynd said. ‘Many of them are already here, south of the city.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘We find ourselves in the middle of a conflict that we can barely comprehend, and from both a military and ethical point of view the only possible way we can continue is to side with Artemisia’s people.’
‘Tell us simply, commander. Is there going to be another war?’
‘Indeed,’ Brynd replied. ‘And it might be one on a scale that we’ve never seen before, or are ever likely to again.’
‘Good,’ said one of the moneylenders, laughing. ‘Wars are good for industry. I’ve investments in arms manufacturers and I can tell you business has never been better. The mines are thronging, commander, and the ore is flowing like a river. As is the money. We’ll get some good employment out of this. You want jobs, we can get jobs. You want industry, we can create it.’
‘A river of cash,’ someone muttered, possibly the wealthy merchant Coumby, and a smattering of laughter moved around the room.
‘I want to make an offer to all of you,’ Brynd announced. ‘For your participation in our plans, I will see that you each hold valuable positions in the new society we are seeking to forge. I’ll need weapons made, a food supply chain established — you can use cultist technology freely for rapid yields if need be — and I’ll need the money to build this army. We’ll need our biggest ever enlistment programme, rolling it out across this and neighbouring islands.’
‘You’re asking us to bankroll some kind of revolution!’ someone shouted.
‘That is not untrue,’ Brynd replied. ‘It’s been the way of things in Villjamur. Given that a new landscape is the inevitable outcome from war, I am seeking your backing. As I said, each of you will find the returns from your investments and your participations to be attractive and we can have a look about forming our own regulation for you — a different kind from former Imperial policy.’
‘What form will our returns take?’
‘New estates,’ Brynd replied. ‘New markets to control, new constructions to build across the Empire, and new sta
tutes that need to be written. This will be a long-term plan, but in the first instance I will see land taken from the Empire, and handed over.’
‘I imagine these new statutes will be complex, eh?’ someone asked.
Probably a lawyer.
‘Because we’ll be sharing our world with aliens,’ a merchant blurted out. ‘Ain’t that so, commander? There’ll be foreigners here, sharing our towns. There’ll be monsters walking up and down our roads and people’ll be expected to just get on with it. Ghettos will form, mark my word. Things won’t be the same.’
‘It’s the people who leave who create the ghettos,’ Brynd said. In another time, in another setting, Brynd would have had that man roughed up for his tone. Instead he simply continued, ‘Though much of what you describe may well be an inevitable consequence of them helping us, but don’t forget they will be bringing with them their own industries, their own wealth. .’
‘They should be segregated — given their own land well away from the rest of us.’
‘Aye,’ another said. ‘I ain’t living with things like that walking the streets.’
‘Please,’ Brynd said, ‘if we’re lucky enough to be alive in the future, and to have a society, then we can discuss such matters; though I ask you to concentrate on what’s happening right now, in the immediate future.’
Once they had accepted that statement, the questions followed from those around the table for another hour at least. Each of them demanded to know some fine detail relevant to only them, creating a disparate set of conversations. There were questions concerning payments, land divisions, how much ore would be needed and by when, and whether common land would be privatized — a firm no from Brynd. What surprised him the most was that few of the questions concerned Artemisia or indeed the inevitable war and races that would be crossing into their own world.
‘I’m in,’ said a balding, fat man in the corner smoking arum weed, wearing purple robes that almost matched the colour of his cheeks. It was Coumby, someone who once owned many of the buildings in Villiren, before they were destroyed. ‘I got dealings in ores, and smiths, and the fishing industry.’ He paused to take another drag. ‘I’ve heard enough talk to last the day. I think I could be of use to you, commander.’
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