by David Hair
‘Because that would just lower the value of it,’ Calan explained. ‘The market assesses the value of a coin by the estimated reserves. Just adding coins lowers the purchasing power of what’s out there, to no gain – and it means those who do have coin are suddenly poorer, while sellers just raise their prices. It’s called “inflation”. We’d have major food riots in days.’
‘We’re having food riots anyway,’ Dirklan put in. ‘The churches are dealing with hundreds of people begging alms every day. Where we’ve lost control, gangs are looting and using the stolen goods to purchase supplies, which they sell on the black market. They’re becoming rich while everyone else starves, or uses the last of their savings to subsist.’
‘For us, there’s no magic spell to conjure up money,’ Calan told Lyra, ‘but we could at least redistribute lots of it back to us, if we were, um, legally flexible.’
He fell silent, while Lyra was wondering if flying away and hiding out in the countryside to escape this unholy mess was actually an option.
Except they’ve already told me that secession and flight would result in the massacre of loyal Corani and imperial families all over the empire. I’d be responsible for a bloodbath.
‘But I thought you said opening our own bank wouldn’t work?’
‘Ah . . . but there is another way,’ the Treasurer said. ‘It’s illegal, at present at least, but if it were not, what I would do is – secretly, of course – forcibly purchase a moderately large bank – say, Gravenhurst Stronghold, who operate only in this region. We would give them a royal warrant to produce coin, which would fund the loan that we make right back to ourselves. It’s fraudulent, but it would get us through to spring, maybe even summer. Our soldiers and staff would be paid and other loans kept solvent.’
Lyra sat back, processing this. ‘So we’d forcibly take over a bank to make them lend to us?’
‘Exactly. We’d need to pass the law in secret – if it became known, every bank would close its Pallas operations in a flash, for fear that we’d seize their assets. We’d purchase Gravenhurst in utter secrecy, buying the loyalty of their key people, inject our reserves into their books, issue the warrant and lend ourselves the money we need.’
‘And if you succeed?’
‘As long as people believe the bank is solvent and their loan to us valid, we’re saved. If not, our currency will collapse, our bank will be destroyed, and that will drag us down with it. We’ll be forced to stand trial – or run.’
‘Kore on high, are you serious?’ Lyra blurted.
‘Deadly serious,’ Calan replied evenly.
‘And obviously,’ Dirklan added, ‘if anyone were to tell the bankers or any of the guilds what we were doing, the game would be up and no one would ever extend us credit again, which would trigger the fall of your regime and leave thousands of good people destitute – and that’s without even mentioning the carnage of the following rebellion.’
Kore on High . . . it’s against everything I thought I stood for – but the alternatives . . . She forced herself to think through the possibilities. Makelli would say we must do what is necessary, regardless of morality . . . and I thought him heartless.
‘So either I accept that we’re being ousted and do nothing, or I dirty my hands in a way that could destroy us later, even if we survive the immediate danger.’
‘You could put in that way,’ Calan responded. ‘I don’t suggest this lightly, Majesty, truly. It goes against everything I’ve been taught to value – and even then, it will only work if we hold our own in the battlefield – in other words, if we can defend Pallas. But if they are to put up a fight, our soldiers must be fed, armed and paid.’
It felt utterly wrong, but then she imagined her enemies sweeping in and making the Pallas streets run with blood. ‘Do you support this, Father?’ she asked at last.
Dirklan rubbed the eye socket under his eyepatch. ‘My people can keep it secret. If we spend the loan well, we stay in the game. If we do nothing, we’re going to lose. So I’m for.’
She looked at Calan, who licked his lips, then said, ‘It’s my only idea, Milady – the only one with a ghost of a chance. I’m willing to try it, even though I wrote many of the laws we’re talking about breaking. The question is, are you? How far will you go to survive this crisis?’
He’s that desperate, Lyra thought, that he’d break his own system.
‘Should we not involve Grand Prelate Wurther and Knight Commander Levis?’
Calan shook his head emphatically. ‘Wurther would instantly move his not inconsiderable wealth and that would alert the market. And frankly, Lumpy wouldn’t understand what we’re doing anyway, so why ask him?’
That’s harsh, Lyra thought, but probably fair. She turned over the pros and cons in her mind until it was spinning. Dear Kore, I think we have to do this . . .
‘Then let it be set in motion swiftly,’ she said decisively. ‘Only those who absolutely must be involved can know. We’ll publically deny all knowledge if anyone raises any suspicions.’ The words tasted bad in her mouth, but Garod and Solon were marching. This was what desperation tasted like.
I’m becoming as bad as my enemies, she worried. But what else can I do?
‘What about Frankel?’ she asked Dirklan. ‘Have you made contact with him?’
His expression was doubtful. ‘I have. I’m awaiting a response, but they’ve not yet refused.’
‘Can we trust it not to be a trap?’ Calan asked. ‘This feels like an unnecessary risk to me.’
‘I have to talk to Frankel,’ Lyra replied firmly.
‘They’re criminals, rabble-rousers and fools,’ the Treasurer sniffed. ‘The Empress should not be talking to such people – it gives them a legitimacy they don’t warrant and encourages further upheavals. I’m with Levis on this: send in the legions and cut down anyone who gets in our way.’
‘No,’ Lyra replied firmly. ‘That might be how the Sacrecours worked, but not me. They have genuine grievances and if I can hear them out, perhaps we can defuse the whole situation.’
Even to her own ears, it sounded naïve, but she refused to change her mind.
*
‘It’s a trap, isn’t it?’ Braeda Kaden said into the silence that followed her brother Tad’s announcement. ‘She wants to talk to us? Rukka mia, does the convent girl think we’re imbeciles?’
‘It’s clear that she is, at any rate,’ Lazar drawled. ‘But perhaps it can be turned to our favour?’
‘Aye,’ Gorn growled. ‘Tell her to come see us, then we’ll string up the silly bitch.’
‘She named you specifically, Wordsmith,’ Tad said, turning to Ari. ‘Why would she do that?’
‘Because she thinks he’s in charge,’ Braeda tittered, before Ari could open his mouth. ‘If it’s even her idea at all. Setallius is behind this, trust me.’
‘Probably,’ Tad mused. ‘You’ve spoken to her before, haven’t you, Frankel? She pardoned you, yes? And then you betrayed that pardon. What on Urte would she have to say to you?’
Outside the inn where they were meeting, their followers were busy barricading more streets and ransacking the houses of those who’d fled. The movement was swallowing up more of the city every night. The Imperial legions just watched, emasculated by Lyra’s unwillingness to unleash them.
She understood me, he thought. I expected her to be a sheltered, stupid noble brat, but she understood me.
‘I want to speak to her,’ he said.
The others rolled their eyes at each other.
‘That’s our decision to make,’ Tad said. ‘Braeda’s likely right: this’ll be a ploy conceived by Setallius. He’ll flood the meeting place with Volsai, close off the retreats and try to take us all.’
The room fell silent.
Then Lazar said, ‘So, knowing that, is there a way to sweep the queen from the tabula board and win the game?’
5
A Journey of the Soul
Our Greatest Enemy
We all have the potential to be the very best version of ourselves that is possible. But few of us realise that potential, because we expend our energies on that which does not allow us to grow. In this sense, we are ourselves our own worst foe.
MASTER SHRAMA, ZAIN GURU (ATTRIBUTED), C.592
The Elétfa
Febreux 936
‘Be off,’ the reedy voice repeated in Keshi. Valdyr couldn’t tell if it was a girl or a young boy whose voice hadn’t broken. Beside him, a growling Gricoama began to slink forward.
Valdyr gestured for the wolf to halt and called out in Keshi, ‘Sal’Ahm – I won’t hurt you.’ The foreign words rising in his memory came with many unwanted images of Kesh and the breeding-houses. ‘I just need water.’
‘There’s a stream a thousand paces further on,’ the young person called back.
A thousand paces . . . Valdyr groaned. He looked back, but the rift in the air he’d stepped through was out of sight. He wondered how long it would stay open – or was he already stranded here?
‘I need it now,’ he called. ‘I can pay.’
He scanned the landscape: he was at the mouth of a defile, a stiff climb into the rocky heights behind him. Before him was this tiny, run-down wilderness farm. He could see no animals except for a trio of bleating goats in the pens, two full grown and one a yearling. And there were two fresh mounds of earth at the rear, man-sized, marked with funerary stones.
Recent deaths . . . and only a youngster calling out . . .
Slowly, he raised his arms above his head and standing, called, ‘I’m coming down.’
‘No—’ the voice squeaked and he caught a glimpse of movement behind the corner of the hut, a thin figure with a bow. An arrow flashed and buried in the ground at his feet. He walked past it. ‘Stop,’ the youth shouted, an octave higher, ‘or I’ll kill you—’
Valdyr walked on, fixing his unwavering gaze on the shadowy figure. He knew he must be a fearsome sight to a child, clad for the wilds with his long-bladed sword strapped to his back and standing more than six feet tall, lean but strong, with his long black hair and bushy moustaches. His grim, haunted face was too pale to pass for an Ahmedhassan; he’d be seen as a ferang, one of the hated foreign devils.
‘I have coin,’ he called, grateful that he’d automatically stuffed a few in his pockets, in case he needed to buy food from a hunter. ‘Rondian money.’
‘I don’t want your ferang money,’ the boy – Valdyr was pretty certain – shouted back shrilly. ‘Go away.’
Daring him, Valdyr walked to the trough, scooped up the goats’ water and drank. It tasted like nectar and wine, for all that it was stale and dirty.
The boy – with short, raggedly cut hair as black as his, a narrow face and hawkish nose – was glaring furiously at him. The bow in his hand was trembling so badly he couldn’t aim.
Valdyr gave him a sympathetic look, then sniffed hungrily. The smell of baking hung in the air. ‘I’ll not harm you,’ he said. Slowly he drew out his coin pouch and placed two silver coins on the rim of the trough. ‘This, for some goat’s milk and bread – and the young goat.’
He has a mated pair; I’m paying more than the value of the yearling at market.
He turned and whistled and Gricoama trotted into the opening. The goats bleated and pressed against the bars of their pen. The boy yelped and cowered against the wall of his hut, on the brink of fleeing.
‘Run, and he’ll chase,’ Valdyr warned. ‘Show no fear.’
The young Keshi made a strangled noise, but didn’t move as the great wolf trotted to the edge of the small farm and paused. The boy was shaking so hard he’d dropped his arrow, but still he stood his ground.
Gricoama wouldn’t attack without permission, but the boy didn’t know that. Valdyr felt for him. ‘I won’t come near you,’ he called. ‘Please, just give us what we need to sustain us and we’ll be on our way.’
This was the only dwelling in the gully. Looking at the graves and the hacked-off hair, an Eastern mourning custom, he was certain the boy was alone.
He’s probably pretending his parents are still alive, likely going to market in their stead, making excuses for them. But pretty soon, someone’s going to realise . . .
The boy was destined for slavery.
With a soft whimper, the boy vanished into the hut and quickly re-emerged with a platter of blackened flatbread, a mash of roots and spices and a pot of goat’s milk. He warily placed them at the edge of the building, then scampered over to the far side of the goats’ pen.
‘Shukran,’ Valdyr called in thanks, then the smell of food overcame him and he snatched up the mash, spread half on a chunk of the flatbread and ate furiously, while Gricoama watched hungrily. Feeling stronger already, Valdyr packed away what was left before walking to the pen. He clambered in, gathered the yearling in his arms and clambered out again, then moved some way away before swiftly cutting its throat and butchering it carefully to waste nothing. He scraped the hide clean and stretched it out to dry, then packed away most of the meat before taking the carcase over to Gricoama, who ate as voraciously as he had.
Then Valdyr approached the hut, carrying several of the larger chunks of meat.
‘No,’ the boy called, lifting his bow again. ‘Don’t come in – I will shoot—’
His voice cracked and Valdyr, wondering what he was so desperate to hide, opened his senses to the dwyma. He could feel the dryness of the air in his skin, the parched hills and the presence of the stream somewhere in the distance. He tasted the hunger of the vultures above . . . and sensed an even younger presence inside: frightened – and female.
He stopped, carefully placed the meat on the ground, then backed away, his eyes stinging for the predicament of the two children, but there was nothing he could do to help them except to honour his promise and go.
He returned to the trough, filled his waterskin, drank again, then washed. Gricoama finished tearing at the goat, ripped off the largest haunch and holding it between his powerful jaws, walked away. Together, they climbed back into the heights.
At the ridgeline, he turned: the young bowman was beside the hut, staring up at him. There was a smaller presence with him, a stick-figure with the same ragged tufts of hair. As they watched, the boy ran to the remains of the dead goat to salvage what he could; the bones would make a hearty stew, maybe enough to sustain them for a week or two.
Prayers were useless, but Valdyr felt the urge to help in other ways: he opened himself up to the dwyma, raised a hand and drew down the clouds clinging to the heights above, forcing them into directions they wouldn’t naturally flow. That done, he released the power, raised a hand in farewell and trudged back the way they’d come, Gricoama at his side.
In a few minutes, cloud engulfed them and it began to rain: the only gift he could leave his helpless benefactors. It wouldn’t protect them from rapacious villagers, but perhaps it might give them something they desperately needed to survive. He blessed them both in his mind, wishing that whatever powers there were might protect them. ‘Be with them,’ he asked, unsure if such a wish could ever come true.
In half an hour, they reached the small cleft where the rift had torn open – and to his enormous relief, it was still there, a tear in the fabric of existence only visible from right in front. Through the ragged black hole, Valdyr could see the surface of the giant branch of the Tree he’d been walking along. He bowed his head, clambered through and in moments the eternal night of the Elétfa had enclosed them, daylight and Kesh gone as the spatial rip repaired. The vastness of the giant tree spread above and below him once more, the stars dotting the darkness lending a ghostly light to the tree. The branch was at least thirty paces wide, descending towards the immense trunk and the stairway that spiralled upwards out of sight.
Would another branch take me back to Mollachia? He wondered what was happening there. Is Kyrik safe? What happened to Jehana and Waqar – and is Asiv still hunting me?
Just more unknowable questions.
The wolf gave him a measured look full of comprehension and his shoulders hunched, then lowered in a very human gesture of ambivalence.
‘Ysh, I don’t know either.’ Valdyr sighed. ‘Let’s go and find out.’
Freihaafen, Mollachia
Where are you, Valdyr? It’s been three weeks . . .
Kyrik grimaced, then firmly pushed his brother from his thoughts and concentrated on the task at hand, which was spooning a vegetable broth into Hajya’s mouth while Korznici held her down. The way Hajya fought against them, teeth snapping madly, berserk with rage, was heartrending, but she was keeping food down now and both he and Korznici were certain it was making a difference.
The sun shone through high clouds on the warmest day in months; snow still covered the peaks that surrounded the hidden valley but spring was coming.
At his signal, Korznici leaped clear, leaving Hajya choking on the final mouthful, retching but then swallowing before collapsing onto the grass, weeping. He longed to hold her but still didn’t dare, not as long as the ichor was still pulsing in her veins and blackening her spittle.
‘The Ogre creature was right,’ Korznici observed. ‘Sunlight and green food is helping her.’
Kyrik sat on his haunches, his eyes stinging; he hated forcing her like this. ‘Her eyes don’t go dark so often,’ he agreed, ‘and she’s more manageable.’
But that isn’t her either. Hajya’s tough, hard-headed, earthy and passionate, never weak or pliant. Will she ever be restored to her true self?
‘She will recover, Kirol,’ Korznici told him, as if reading his mind. ‘We will prevail.’
‘Dear Kore, Great Ahm, I hope so,’ Kyrik breathed.
Korznici gave him a sideways look. ‘Why do you pray to two gods who hate each other?’
Kyrik grimaced. ‘Godspeaker Paruq, my mentor, told me that all gods are one. The unifying life energy of the world is the only real god: all the different names are for the one being.’