Beggar's Rebellion: An Epic Fantasy Saga (Empire of Resonance Book 1)

by L. W. Jacobs

  Confidence returning, Tai nearly stumbled into the miner.

  It was the song that saved him—the man was humming some kind of song under his breath. Tai stopped mid-step, then carefully set down his lantern. A drinking song, if he placed it right. Lighthaired workers sang it in taverns, about a young sailor’s addiction to roses. He crept ahead and looked around the bend, hoping it wasn’t the brawler. Not that he knew what the brawler looked like.

  A man in his middle years squatted facing the wall, lamp beside him, tapping a chisel against what might have been remnants of yura. He was lighthaired, but the sandy head of the Yersh, not the platinum of Worldsmouth. Still, it was funny for a lighthair to be—

  The whistle stopped. “You can come out from there, lad, whoever y’are.”

  Tai started. The man didn’t sound ill-willed, and Tai felt no resonance. “Apologies. I—don’t really know my way around down here.”

  The man nodded, patchy blond beard catching the lamplight. “You were the one the collier was chasing a while back?” He spoke with a true Yersh accent, higher and clipped than Worldsmouth speakers.

  “You saw that?”

  “Couldn’t hardly not, running past like that. Y’nearly knocked my lamp over.”

  “Sorry, I—”

  “No need to apologize to me when it’s the colliers, boy.”

  “The colliers?”

  “Aye, the ones that run this mine.”

  “I thought Coldferth ran this mine.”

  The man cracked a smile, revealing wide-set teeth. “Coldferth’s what runs the mine up there. Down here, it’s the colliers. Y’must be new here?”

  “Just today, actually.” If it was still today—he’d lost all sense of time in the dark.

  The man held up a forearm, surprising Tai with the old Achuri resistance form of greeting. “Ilrick.”

  Tai locked arms with him. “Tai.”

  Ilrick dropped his arm. “What are you in for?”

  “Got into some trouble with a lawkeeper,” Tai said. Dislike of the colliers or not, it was probably better not to tell a lighthair he’d attacked a group of Councilate soldiers.

  Ilrick nodded. “Doesn’t take much these days. You’re Achuri?”

  “Yeah. Most people don’t see that.”

  “Easy guess. About all they send down here anymore, what with the camp filling up.”

  Tai’s stomach knotted. The camp. He hated the thought of Curly and little Fisher in there. “How long have you been down here?”

  Ilrick shrugged. “I come and go.”

  Come and go? “How—”

  He cut off, Ilrick holding up a hand. Sounds echoed from up the passage, two or three men’s voices. It was hard to tell what they were saying, but Tai thought he caught lamp. Of course.

  Ilrick was suddenly all business, tucking away his tools. “Looks like you got company. And if you got company, I do too. You know how to fight, Tai?”

  Tai hesitated. Yes, but not in tight spaces? No, but my resonance is stupid powerful?

  Ilrick nodded as if he’d answered. “Then we’d better run. Come on!” He ran.

  Tai hesitated just a moment, then followed.

  Ilrick took a different path down the caves, splitting into a warren of narrow passages, sometimes climbing walls, others stooping nearly to all fours, never hesitating at a fork or an apparent dead end. Tai followed as best he could, shadows dancing as the lanterns swung madly in their haste.

  Have you thought at all that we don’t really know this guy? Hake asked, out of breath as though he’d been running too.

  Yes, Tai thought back, but we do know what those brawlers—the colliers—would have done to us back there. I’d rather take one on than three.

  While you’re lost?

  It was a valid point. “Where are we going?”

  “Back door,” Ilrick said without turning. “A back door, at least.”

  Tai stumbled. “There’s another way out?”

  Ilrick nodded, slowing. “Lots of ways out, if you know where to look.” He held up a hand and they listened, caves quiet behind them. “Might have run ’em off. Not many colliers what could follow that path without a guide.”

  Hake grimaced inside. I know I couldn’t.

  “Well—thanks for taking me with you.”

  “Don’t sweat it. Pool’s ahead.”

  “Pool?”

  Ilrick nodded, starting to walk again. “Aye. This backdoor’s through a pool. ’S’why they haven’t found it, is no one likes to swim in the dark.”

  Apprehension rolled off Hake. Ah, Tai?

  Tai shrugged it off. They were in it now, one way or another. Get out or die.

  Ilrick stopped a ways ahead, at a narrow pool like any other they’d passed, depths impenetrable in the lamplight. “It’s a quick swim,” the miner said. “Have to leave our lamps here, but I got more on the other side.”

  Tai exhaled. He was already lost. “All right.”

  “You’ll want to strip,” Ilrick said, stuffing his clothes in a hole high up in the wall. “There’s no light down there, so you’re gonna have to follow me, but it’s pretty simple, just one turn.”

  “A turn? Underwater?”

  “Aye. Deep breaths now.” Ilrick took his lantern, placing it with the other one next to the clothes, then blew it out.

  The darkness was immediate, total, Ilrick’s voice loud and close. “It gets deep quick, boy, but just stay near the top and follow the feeling of me swimming. All the air out?”

  Tai exhaled with him, heard the man suck in air, then a splash of water. Tai took a breath and jumped in after, pushing down the fear.

  The water was warm, almost too warm to feel. A foot kicked him and he took off after it, ducking under the water. If the darkness had seemed complete before, it seemed doubly so now. Tai’s head scraped rock and he froze, wanting to go back. He pushed himself on, swimming lower, trying to feel Ilrick’s strokes. There. Maybe. He swam hard, lungs wanting to hitch.

  It’s just fear, he told himself. Control yourself. It’s just fear, it’s not real. Ilrick has to live too. Follow him and you’ll be fine.

  Except he couldn’t follow him. Tai slowed, trying to feel a current. Hadn’t he said there was a turn? There—Tai thought he heard a scrape and swam after it. He ran into rock. He swam left, lungs starting to hitch in earnest. Darkness. There was only water and darkness—and maybe a glow over there.

  Tai kicked toward it, lungs burning. The light was still so far off. His head hit rock and he kicked harder, closer—

  Tai broke the surface, gasping, cave water bitter in his mouth, the air sweet. He heard voices, Ilrick calling to him, but for the moment, he could only gasp and tread water.

  “You made it!” Ilrick called again. “Over this way, then. There’s a place to get out.”

  When his heart stopped pounding Tai swam over and pulled himself out.

  To a loaded crossbow.

  “Wha—”

  “Sorry, boy,” Ilrick said, standing behind a giant of a man. “Standard procedure.”

  8

  And by virtue of being the noblest and most upright man the world had seen, on the day the Prophet defeated the last Archdemon, he ascended into the sky on a flaming lance, promising one day to return, when we had learned to follow in his stead.

  —Yersh Book of the Eschatol

  Odril was taking breakfast when Ella rose the next morning. He looked up from his plate with a dribble of egg on his lower lip. “Did you finish the books?”

  “I did.” She laid them on the desk near his office. They’d taken most of the night.

  “Good. I’m leaving for the day. Business in Newgen. Don’t go anywhere, hear me? I have people watching this place.” He turned back to his food, sucking air through his nose. A strange pendant hung from his neck, a circle pierced with nine spears.

  Ella let out a breath. “With all respect, Odril, the terms of patronage don’t go this far. A calculor should be free to come and go as
she pleases, so long as the patron does not require her work, and even then only for a reasonable amount per day.”

  Odril snorted. “Calculor. It’s in the contract. You don’t go anywhere.”

  “What?”

  He shrugged, taking down another forkful. “You signed it. Look, one of these days, I’ll take you to Newgen, show you off. Till then, just relax. Read your books. There’s nothing worth seeing here, anyway.”

  Ella’s mouth worked. The contract. Currents stain his contract. “Yes, my lord. Is there anything else my lord requires at this time?”

  He took no notice of her tone, waving her off. Ella stalked back to her room, pulling down the braids she’d so carefully tied. Like hell she would stay here all day, waiting to answer his every whim. She wouldn’t do that for ten times the price. It was why she’d never accepted patronage, even from a pushover like Olgsby.

  A few minutes later, she heard his footsteps in the hall, then the door closing. Ella changed clothes and waited, not wanting to run into him on the street. He worked in New Ayugen—Newgen, they called it—and that would be the best place to find her thief. Men of the Swallowtail’s class would live and work there, not here in what she guessed were the slums of the city. She needed to find her money fast if she was going to find it, and that meant risking Odril seeing her. But if she found the money or at least the thief today, it wouldn’t matter.

  Plus, she swore she’d never let anyone lock her in again. Five years was enough. Ella gummed her ball of yura and went out.

  Ayugen was another riot of unfamiliar sounds and smells, darkhaired people muttering to themselves as they went about their work. The Achuri apparently felt no shame in talking to their inner voices.

  Not like you do, either.

  “But I’m not a normal northerner, remember?” She smiled, remembering Tunla’s words. She hoped to see the woman at least once more before she left.

  Newgen was a hulk of wood and stonework, set a few hundred paces away from the regular city, walls easily ten times her height, with fabulous glass and stone buildings rising above it. Four men guarded the thick stone gateway, blue bands on their arms marking them as Councilium-licensed yura fighters. “Ho, miss,” one called. “What’s your business here?”

  She put on her best air of nonchalance. “Come to see an acquaintance.”

  He nodded, her fine silver hair and olive skin apparently all the proof he needed that she belonged.

  The road changed to a finely jointed wood walkway on the other side of the gate, watercourse gushing out beneath her to a shallow lake that filled the walled interior. The buildings sat on separate islands, as they did in the Worldsmouth delta, ornamented towers and high stone walls connected with bridges of iron and stained glass. The pale blue waters made a pleasant sound running underneath her, and she was amused to see a few pleasure boats plying the shallow waters of the enclave. A touch of Worldsmouth, Tellemsworth wrote, only without the smell.

  At the far end of the enclave, perhaps five hundred paces, a giant spiral pyramid rose from the water, walled entirely in glass, spiraling higher and narrower as it climbed to its peak, well above the enclave walls. That would be the Tower—half Councilate statehouse and half luxury quarters for the single and elite, it was House Galya’s stake in Ayugen’s booming economy, said to be the most expensive building ever built. Galya’s seven-armed squid stood at the top, worked in shining steel.

  Ella made herself start walking. Money was clearly thick—six thousand moons would be small change to many of these people. The broadsheets spoke of fortunes being made in the south, but it was another thing to see it. Couples strolled in the latest finery, and imported incenses of candlewood and clove drifted in fragrant sheets across the water. With the high walls blocking any view save sky, she could easily pretend she was back in the capital.

  Yuck. The sooner she was out of here, the better. Where was her thief in all this?

  Between the islands of shops bordering the walk, she could see bridges arching back to private residences and boardinghouses. He could be anywhere. Grinning to himself at the money he’d made off a stupid Worldsmouth girl working without a license.

  Ella felt her anger rising, forced herself to think. What would a thief do with six thousand moons? “Waste it,” she muttered. “He would go and spend it on drink.” Captain Ralhens allowed no dreamleaf on his ship, citing too many casualties from people falling overboard—a practice much lamented by his passengers. She’d already narrowed the list of her customers to those poor enough to care about six thousand moons. Three of the four she’d come up with were also Councilate military, escorts to higher officers on the ship. They were likely to be drinking at the veterans’ saloon, a fixture in any Councilate port or city.

  And what will you do when you find them, ask them pretty please if they stole your money?

  “No,” she muttered. “I’ll either get a reaction out of them or an address, and go search their place.”

  Better hope your yura holds out.

  She interrupted a stiff-looking man’s self-talk to ask after the veterans’ saloon. He red-facedly directed her down a side street, and within a few hundred paces, she found the place, a water-level establishment open to the breeze, pungent scents of sage and dreamleaf wafting from within.

  Ella took the bridge over, eyeing the crowd. The place was packed with light- and mix-haired men, many in Councilate white. Darkhaired girls passed from table to table with platters of steaming dreamleaf tea or fragrant infusions, some with hair lightened or cut short, to appear more lighthaired. There were few other women in the tavern, and Ella caught the proprietor giving her a sharp eye as she scanned the crowd. There—Pruitt was seated with a group of Yersh conscripts around a large jug of dreamtea. Dreamtea he’d bought with her money?

  Anger flared in her as Ella pushed through the busy tables. She grabbed him by the arm.

  “Wha—”

  “Pruitt,” she said, her face inches from his. “Did you steal my money?”

  Surprise registered in his heavy features. “Ella? What are you talking about?”

  She searched his eyes. “My money. Six thousand moons. Did you steal it?”

  “I didn’t steal your money. What the hell?”

  Ella relaxed a bit—he looked genuine. “Someone stole everything I had on the ship. I’m trying to find them.”

  “And you thought it would be me?” Pruitt frowned, mouth working. “You’re lucky I don’t press charges—you’re the thief.”

  “Thief?” one of the other men at the table hooted. “What’d she take?”

  “Your heart, maybe, Pruitt?” another called.

  “She took three hundred moons,” Pruitt said, coming into his own. “And since you’re here, I think I need a little interest on top.” He stood, taking a tighter grip on her arm.

  Ella tongued the yura in her mouth, ready to bite down. “You got your books done for free. Consider that interest enough.”

  “And if I don’t?” Pruitt grinned, glass beads in his beard parting with his smile. “How ’bout it, boys? Feel like a few rounds on the girl’s coin?”

  Ella leaned in. “You wouldn’t want me to make a fool of you in front of these men, would you?” she spoke in his ear. “Again?”

  His grip tightened, and Ella was resigning herself to using the yura when three sharp metal clangs sounded. A wave of silence washed through the saloon, reaching their table last.

  Ella turned to see an older man, tall and proud in Councilate livery, approaching their table. “What,” he said in measured tones, “is the problem here?” Ella noticed the sword at his hip was steel—real worked steel, not the black iron of a soldier.

  “No problem,” Pruitt growled. “Just dealing with a thief.” The room went even quieter, every eye on them. “Sir.”

  Ella knew she didn’t look like a thief, and drew herself up. “I don’t know what the man is referring to,” she said, using the elevated tones of a scholar. “I was simply inquiring
after some of my things, stolen on the voyage here, when he accosted me this way.”

  The officer met her gaze, eyes like flint. “I’m sorry to hear of your troubles, madame. Do you believe this man stole your things?”

  Ella wanted to say yes. She wanted with all her heart to see Pruitt punished, but he hadn’t actually done anything, beyond being a faithless coward. And they’re all guilty of that. “No,” she said reluctantly. “No, I don’t.”

  “Then I order you to stand down, citizen.” He turned to her. “May I offer you—”

  “She’s a thief,” Pruitt spat. “A common thief pretending to be—”

  Half of the room rose to its feet, ringing with the sound of iron pulled from sheaths. The officer raised a hand and, in the silence that followed, repeated, “I order you to stand down, citizen.”

  Surrounded with a sea of black iron, with his whole table looking like they’d rather be dead, Pruitt sank back to the table, eyes burning.

  “At ease, men,” the older man called, and those who had risen began to take their chairs, turning back to drink and conversation. He turned to her. “I’m sorry for that, and to hear about your troubles. Are you new to Ayugen?”

  She nodded, heart still beating. “I am. Ellumia Aygla.” She held out her hand in Councilium fashion, and he took it.

  “Arten Sablo,” he said, leading her from the table. Something in her head registered his name—she’d heard it before. “What brings you to the city?”

  “I—” There were so many possible answers. If ever there was a patron a calculor might want, it was a man who could get half the room to its feet with a word. But she was having second thoughts about lying about her status, and liar or had no money to go back seemed like bad answers. “—am a scholar, sir. I’m interested in culture, in the Achuri and their historical relationship to yura, and was hoping to do some research here, before I seek admission to the Thousand Spires.”