by L. W. Jacobs
Ella shook her head, fresh breeze tainted not only by her failure to win a single mock arbitration so far but by the corruption of the system. “And what of all the Councilate subjects who aren’t even citizens? What of the Achuri, should they wish to file against the Houses fighting proxy battles on their soil, with their resources?”
He nodded. “A sad incongruity of progress. Until new subjects are sufficiently educated and informed, they don’t even know to file such suits.” He leaned forward to take another cake from the tray, heavy pendant pressing against his shirt from the inside. “And until they are found to be citizens in good standing, either by the incorporation of their protectorate or their own efforts in Worldsmouth, they have no legal foundation on which to challenge citizens and Houses.”
“An incongruity?” Ella took a hold on her anger. It would do no good to reveal her sympathies too baldly here—not when she had the ears of the city’s most powerful man. “It seems an injustice against the people we are purportedly trying to help.”
“Yes. But it’s the best we can do.” Sablo sipped at his tea. “It’s inevitable that peoples will collide as civilization grows. At least we intend to uplift them instead of making them into serfs, as the Yersh did.”
Ella lifted an eyebrow. “The mines and camps here do not look so different to me.”
“Ah—but that is the essential difference between the Councilate and the Yersh—we are economically driven. They brought only a new system of governance—a king—while we bring innovation as well as a better form of rule. Innovation the Achuri crave just as much as the Yati did, as much as the At’li and Minchu likely still do. So, they choose themselves to work so hard, to try to catch up with modernity.”
“That may be. But years of service and cultural erasure seems a steep price to pay.”
He took her hand, voice patient. “Ella, I understand scholars of your persuasion are apt to see erasure here. But no one is forcing them to it—it’s the Achuri themselves that want draft boats, blast forges, the secrets of Seinjialese metalwork and Yersh glassmaking. It is not our fault if their own handcarts and earthen huts begin to pale in comparison.”
This was not likely a battle she would win. At least today. Time for conciliation. “Well, let’s just hope they don’t lose all of what makes them Achuri as they also become Councilate.”
If they become Councilate, she added inside. The thought gave her a secret pleasure.
Sablo smiled. “But how nice to discuss such high topics! There are few in my office who dare think or talk so big. Let’s hope that one day, our Achuri brothers join us at the table as the Seinjialese have.”
She inclined her head. “Let’s hope they do. For now, I believe your ledgers are calling.”
“Right. I’ve an associate meeting me here in a few minutes. If you don’t mind walking back unescorted?”
Councilate chivalry. Oppress the masses but Descending God, don’t let a woman walk unescorted. She smiled. “I’ll be fine.”
Ella took the narrow wooden bridge back toward the busier part of the enclave, making a mental list of the laws Sablo had referenced to research later that night.
Should have taken me up on those law classes.
Ella stopped in her tracks, head coming up. The walkway was empty except for a young page hurrying somewhere. But she could have sworn—
The law lessons. You know—when you all you wanted to hear about was theology and the latest speeches given in the city?
“Telen?” An image flashed in her head—her brother, handsome and smiling, kicking and bleeding out on the floor of her cell. She shoved it down. “Tells?”
The very same.
“You’re a…voice?” Ella glanced around, then kept walking, albeit slower, mind spinning with thoughts of ancestors and revenants and parasitic voices. But she was done with those now—right? She’d gotten rid of her voice. “Is it really you?”
Of course it is.
Ella thought fast. “What was Dad’s favorite drink?”
Yersh brandy, barrel-aged from the west slopes.
“What color were the tiles in my cell?”
Pea green. You hated it.
“Poddy’s favorite part of the yard?”
He snorted. The far corner under the acacia bushes. You two used to hide there all day, writing your little stories.
Ella breathed out. “Telen.” It really was him. Guilt crashed into her chest, long pent up. She had killed him five years before, trying to escape their parents’ house. “I’m sorry. I just needed to get out, and you were—”
I was being an ass. I’ve had a long time to think about it, little sis, and I don’t blame you. He was using the serious tone she only heard occasionally, when something would break through his banter. We were both under a lot of pressure then, and I—I thought if I did what Dad wanted, I could get you out eventually.
“I still didn’t mean to kill you,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “The vase wasn’t supposed to break like that.”
There was no other way. And it’s amazing, what you’ve done. How you got out of the ports, the calculism thing—
Ella shook her head. “You’ve seen my life? All of it?”
I’ve been here the whole time. I just couldn’t speak, because that other thing was here.
Her heart clutched, eyes smarting. Somehow, it meant so much, that he’d seen it. That she hadn’t been alone all this time. “You mean LeTwi? Why didn’t you talk to me then?”
I don’t know. This is a weird place, Ella. I’m not really alive or dead, I’m just—here. And while LeTwi was here, all I could do was watch.
She felt frustration from him then. Telen had always had a temper.
You too, Smellumia! he snapped back, using his old name for her during the year she’d refused to bathe.
She smiled. “It really is you.” It was confusing but—relieving, too. That someone knew what had happened, what she’d gone through.
I know it all, little sis.
“Everything?”
Almost. I tend to shut down when you, y’know, shower and stuff.
Her face heated. “And you’re not ashamed of me for taking a different name?” Mother and Father would be mortified. If they even thought she was alive.
Shatter Mother and Father. Seriously, Ella. Shatter them and the House. We were never more than stones on a stones board to them. If you hadn’t killed me, I would have killed them and broken you out eventually. It was the only way.
Ella nodded. “I am sorry, Tells. I shouldn’t have done it.” He’d talked about his plans often enough, to gradually take control of the House.
No, no, I waited too long. He gave a self-deprecating laugh. Who knows if I’d’ve ever had the wattle to go through with it? Turns out you did.
It was like washing salt from a wound. A constant pain suddenly gone. Too good to be true. “You really aren’t mad? Not some vengeful spirit come to haunt me?”
He laughed. No. I’m just glad we can finally talk.
She relaxed. “Either way, I am sorry, Tells. You probably could have saved our House. I was too caught up in my own rebellion, my own hate, to think of anything else. You had plans.”
Yeah, well, look where they got me. He laughed again.
She smiled back. “The traveled road’s easy to map, right?
When you’re dead, it’s all traveled road. A pause, then: Friends?
Ella made the show of a grimace. “Do I have a choice?”
Another grin. Just like old times, huh sis?
Ella stepped onto the main walkway, Tower rising ahead. “I guess. Except I can’t kill you anymore.”
Ella passed the afternoon in what was becoming a routine, balancing Sablo’s steady stream of books—for a Councilate servant sworn off his family House’s business, he still had a surprising array of private interests—as the Arbiter and other judicial officials passed in and out.
She left as the sun was low on the horizon, ledgers done and a meet
ing with Tai scheduled for sunset. This was the fifth time they’d met since she’d agreed to help him, but it still felt surreal somehow. That she should have lunch with the Arbiter and meet his enemies that night.
Which one are you going to date, anyway?
She scowled at her brother. Already a pest. “Which what?”
Telen scoffed. Sablo or Tai.
“I’m not dating either of them, Telen. It’s not like that.”
Mm-hmm.
Tai was waiting at the bridge, dressed as a poor farmer this time, complete with a weathered handcart of turnips. She’d chosen Brinerider silks. “Good day, sir,” she said, nodding to him and turning to cross over to the fields. “You seem to have fallen in the world.”
“In the eyes of a fancy woman, yes,” he said, a gleam in his eye. “But farmers are respected among my people. Without them, what are we?”
“True enough,” she said, making a mental note to add it to her growing list of Achuri cultural traits, most of them things Markels had missed. They turned down a quiet path, Tai’s cart bumping over the ruts in the dirt. “How fares the Ghost Rebellion? Are you still yuraloading your recruits?”
“Now more than ever.” Tai grimaced.
“Any more deaths?”
“Aye. And plenty that fail, too.”
She frowned. They’d talked of this before. “Have you noticed any pattern?”
“Not that I can see. Is there something we should look for?”
Ella bit her lip. “Not that I know of. As far as I can tell, the voices have something to teach us—tell them to look for that. To argue against whatever the voices are trying to convince them of. If I was there to meet them...” They’d talked of her meeting the rest of the rebels, but there was little benefit in it and much risk. If Sablo knew she was even meeting Tai… She glanced around, a sudden tightness in her throat, but there was no one around.
“Aye. Any news from the Councilate?”
“Yes,” she said, coming back to the conversation. “There was something. Confirmation that Coldferth has stopped using their dockhouses entirely. They’re sending all their yura by personal courier in small amounts to their bluffmanse in Newgen and storing it there.”
Tai’s eyebrows rose. “Good to know. Though I don’t know how we’d ever touch them in Newgen.”
She nodded. The enclave was guarded like a fortress. “How goes the overall strategy? Are you winning? Your attacks are certainly all the talk in the Tower.”
“The attacks are going well, and our numbers keep growing, but—I keep thinking about what you said. About needing to be different than the Councilate. To avoid repeating their mistakes. I don’t think we’re there yet.”
She nodded, thinking back to her conversation with the Arbiter. “Things have changed now. It’s not as though you could go back to whatever system the Achuri had before the Councilate came.”
Tai’s cart caught in a rut, a few turnips spilling out. He bent to pick them up. “Aye. And with as many foreigners as we have in the force—” He shook his head. “I don’t know how we’ll do it.”
She steadied the cart for him. “Well, I have a few ideas. One is that you can’t let wealth be the only marker of prestige in your new society. There has to be something else too.”
Tai nodded. “We used to have winter festivals, where we’d crown champions in song and speech and sport. Before the Councilate came.”
“Yes! Something like that. And whoever makes the decisions for the society, they can’t be chosen just on the basis of wealth. Or they will just use the system to make themselves richer.”
Tai nodded. “I will keep that in mind. Our elders used to be chosen just on the basis of age, and number of descendants, but…”
Her eyebrows rose—fertility for political power? “Well. Something like that, at least!”
Turnips replaced, they continued on, sun dropping below the western hills behind them. “I got my kids back,” Tai said, quietly.
“You did? That’s great!” Then she realized what it meant. “Prophets—did you attack the prison camp?”
“I did. We did. Though we didn’t free everyone, just my kids.”
“I would have heard about that! Still, that’s great.”
He did not look great at the mention of it. “Ella, the prison camp, it’s…it’s horrible.”
She nodded, sobering. “I have read accounts of the camps in Yatiland and Seingard, and they were heavily edited, I’m sure.”
“It’s— You just have to see it.” He stopped and looked at her. “Do you want to see it?”
“Me? I—well, yeah, I do, but…how?”
He grinned. “We fly.”
“Fly?” Her heart gave a lurch. There was a reason she’d never jumped from the cell window in her parent’s house. She hated heights. Still—curiosity had her. And to fly? “Well, why not?”
He stepped closer, leaving the cart and taking her around the middle. “You’ll have to hold on. We need to get pretty high to not get seen.”
She was suddenly aware of how close he was, the strength of his hands on her. “Ah—yes. Of course.” She looped her arms over his shoulders. “So, when do we—”
With a vibrating shock of resonance, they were up, shooting off the ground like a Seinjialese’s arrow. “Gods!” she squealed, before she could control herself.
Tai slowed. “Are you okay?” She was pressed against him, head next to his.
Ella closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. “I’m fine.” She just couldn’t open her eyes, was all.
Flying was more pleasant then—just the whoosh of air, deliciously cool after a warm day, and the solid feeling of Tai breathing next to her, his resonance like a ringing barge gong.
“Okay,” he said after a time. “You can open your eyes now.”
She smelled it first—the reek of too many humans trapped in one place, like slavers’ carts in the flats outside Worldsmouth. She opened her eyes to only air, then turned and looked down.
And gasped, too shocked for a moment even to be afraid. The camp was packed, a mass of human bodies crammed within the walls, too quiet for that many people, just a low murmur. Like a funeral.
“See that cart to the left?” Tai asked, his voice gone cold. “Those are bodies. The ones that died today. They’re not getting enough to eat, and half are sick, and the Councilate has armed some of them against the other ones, to keep them all from rising up.”
Ella saw the cart and gagged. It was too horrible for words. And then she noticed the sheer drop of air between her and the ground, and her heart clutched for a different reason. “Down,” she whispered. “I need to go down.”
Tai dropped them without speaking, angling back toward where they’d come. Ella closed her eyes again, but gone was the wonder of it, the sweet closeness, her heart all horror and her belly all fear.
They touched down, Tai’s resonance dropping. He bent over, paling from the bends, and Ella sat down hard, heart being fast.
“It’s awful,” she said at last. “I knew they were doing bad things, but—” She didn’t have words. “They don’t even look like humans in there.”
“I thought I would be done when I got my kids out,” Tai said, voice still weak from the nausea wafters got. “But—I can’t. I can’t let them do this. If you were there, on the ground—”
“I saw enough. Currents. But there are so many guards. Can you do it?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Some of the others are not as convinced, but I—I can’t let that stand.”
She stood, dusting off her dress. “Seems like you should be able to convince them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you’re the one everyone talks about. The wafter who’s faster than everyone else, the one who singlehandedly raided a Coldferth mine compound. You’re known in the Tower.”
“I’m just another fighter.”
“I doubt it. At least, I doubt the rest of them see it like that. You’re the one who
makes all these daring strikes work.”
He picked up his cart again, stooping his back like a lowly farmer. “Well, me and your yuraloading.”
“Well. All I’m saying is, don’t doubt yourself. You’re precious.” Ella stopped, heat rising in her cheeks. “I mean, you probably have more clout than you think.”
“I— Thank you. I’ll remember that.” He glanced at the horizon, glowing violet with the sunset. “I should go. Are you going to be okay, walking back?”
Such a difference from the Councilate’s false chivalry. “I’ll be fine, thanks.”
Tai nodded. “Take care, then.” He wheeled his cart off toward the forest.
Ella took the opposite direction, toward town. It was dark enough now that Odril’s office would be done with work—partially, she suspected, because he didn’t want to pay for the lamp oil. Ella had promised to visit Tunla every night but had missed the last few, not wanting to attract the Newgen guards’ attention by leaving every night after dark.
The main office windows were dark, as expected. Ella still struck her resonance on approaching, air thickening around her as the scattering of people on the street froze. She did a quick search of the building and its surroundings, looking for lurking mercenaries, for any kind of trap Odril might have set. She had no doubt he knew, by now, that she’d taken rooms in the Tower, but was also not fool enough to try anything inside the enclave. Out here, however—
The area looked clean. She dropped resonance outside Tunla’s window, where a small candle burned, and tapped the glass.
The darkhaired woman was there in a moment, cranking the window out. “Ella! I thought you’d been taken.”
Ella grinned. “Not yet. Are you still in lockdown?”
“Aye. But I’ve made the books for you.” She reached down, coming up with two heavy ledgers.
“Excellent. Thank you so much, Tunla. I’m getting you out with these.”
“So long as you can get our contracts annulled. Life under Odril is not pleasant, but compared to his inheritors…”