by Levi Jacobs
And topping it all was the Tower. Ella had to stop a moment, despite herself, to gaze up at the thing. Fifty-some floors of steel and glass, rising from the waters not as a traditional stepped pyramid but one smooth, solid spiral twisting ever higher and narrower, to a top so high it appeared hazy in the sunlight, seven-armed squid of Galya gleaming at the top. Walled entirely in panes of colored glass, it put the rest of the enclave to shame.
And she was going there, to meet the highest authority in the city?
To ask him for money?
Ella straightened herself and kept walking. Yes she was.
It was as grand on the inside as the out, a hollow cone of space and light, massive pillars descending from the ceiling to punctuate the enormity of the central space. Music tinkled from chime players in the central courtyard, incense wafted, plush rugs soft under her feet. A sweeping stairway beckoned at the rear, spiraling up and inward toward the massive glass cupola high above. It would lead mainly to apartments for the wealthiest of Newgen, with House Galya and the Councilate itself housing their offices at the top.
Taking a deep breath, Ella started up. She knew the girl Aelya had been right—she would likely find little aid among the darkhaired people of the city. It was amazing Tai had helped her as much as he had, considering what her people had done to his.
That left her homeless, markless, and dependent on the strangers of a society not known for its generosity. Her one hope was Arten Sablo, the man she had met on her first day here, who had offered aid in her search for the thief. Whether he’d been earnest or not remained to be seen—he was, after all, nobly born and the highest local representative for an empire she trusted not at all.
Ella paused in her thoughts—it was odd, having LeTwi gone. Like there was a space where he’d normally speak, an intellectual retort she could almost hear. But he had really gone with the yura overdose—and while there was more space inside now, it still felt a touch hollow.
The walkway was busy, lighthaired men in long-tailed coats and women with their hair braided and tied stepping up and down the long spiral of red-carpeted stair. None gave her a second look, but Ella couldn’t help feeling out of place, somehow—that her dress was too shabby, her hair unwashed, that someone at some point would realize she wasn’t really like them, wasn’t simply on a stroll from her expensive apartments and well-placed husband. She had preferred the company of the sailors, on the Swallowtail, and viewed her interactions with her clients as a sort of game, a role to be played. Actually being here, in Councilate society, with nowhere to retreat to, felt entirely different.
Maybe because she had never really been in polite society. She’d been locked in her father’s house since age eleven, and all her mother’s etiquette lessons or the books her brother brought still didn’t add up to the socialization most of her peers would have gotten. And when she’d escaped, she’d spent her time on the docks, in the slums, passing as a Yersh peasant to avoid detection. Meaning that now, among what should be her own people, she felt a fraud.
Ella began walking again, nodding to a group of women chatting as they made their way down. Technically, she was a fraud. Aygla was not her family name, nor was the history she’d invented for herself, or her calculism credentials. If her true identity was ever discovered, she would have bigger problems than Odril and the debt of a few thousand marks.
No reason that it should, but still Ella had to steel herself a few times more before reaching the Arbiter’s offices, nearly at the top of the Tower, ground floor a dizzying drop off the railing of the spiral walkway. A polished-looking young man stood behind a high wood counter, and greeted her in impeccable Councilate Yersh. “Good day, madame. What can we do for you?”
She summoned her mother’s poise. “I seek an audience with the High Arbiter, if he is in.”
“I’m afraid he’s a very busy man. What is the nature of your business?”
To beg money seemed like a bad response. “A follow-up, to a conversation we had last week. Just a few words.”
“I see.” The man’s hair was oiled to a sheen, swept back in a fashion she suspected was too new for her to have heard of it. “Well, he’s taken up in arbitration for the better part of the afternoon, but if you sit in audience, you might catch him between sessions.”
Ella extended a hand to him, feeling foolish though she knew it was the proper thing to do. He kissed it. Thanks Mom. “Thank you sir, I will.”
The arbitrarium was a few turns down the spiral walkway, doors guarded by lighthaired lawkeepers standing at rigid attention. Ella slipped in, again feeling wildly out of place as a few of the audience members turned to look at her. She found a seat in the rows of benches, an attorney at the front giving a lengthy argument. The Arbiter sat on a dais above the rest, dressed in robes of state. He looked older than she remembered, and less kind, though his distant expression could just be from boredom.
The arbitration was something having to do with mineral rights, with House Coldferth having impinged on the underground holdings of a minor House. As she waited for the arbitration to finish, Ella realized there would be more to ruining Odril than simply summoning him to court. She would either need to hire an attorney—something she could scarcely afford, at present—or teach herself the legalese these men rattled off with such nonchalance.
Finally a recess was called, and Ella stood as the arbitrarium began to empty, watching for where the Arbiter went. She found him striding up the walkway toward his offices, and had to run to catch up with him. “Arbiter Sablo!”
He turned, eyes at first cold, then warming on sight of her. “Hello. Miss—Aygla, was it?”
Her brows rose involuntarily. “I’m surprised you remember.”
He smiled, revealing a set of perfectly white teeth. “Couldn’t forget a face like yours. What can I do for you?”
Ella steeled herself—she hated asking for help. “I—do you remember my predicament regarding the thief?”
“Indeed I do. It isn’t too often that our women are preyed upon up here. I was sorry to hear it. Have you found the guilty party?”
“I have.” To say the least. “Unfortunately, he refuses to settle out of courts, so I’m going to need to file a hearing.”
“Ah. And you came to intercess on your behalf?” His tone was distinctly cooler.
“Oh no. I have little doubt he’ll be found guilty. I came to—offer you a trade.” She’d been rehearsing how to say this all morning, but it still came out stiff. “I find myself in need of some money, and would offer you a trade in calculism, until such time as my suit has cleared.”
“Calculism? Aren’t you a scholar?”
“I am. And not a professionally licensed calculist, sir, but studied informally for my house, sufficient enough that my work only needs a cursory inspection before approval.”
The Arbiter nodded, still striding up the walkway, and Ella held her breath. An Achuri street tough had been willing to help her—would the highest Councilate officer do the same?
“A lot of people come to me for help,” he said finally, “and many of them asking for money. But not many offer something in return. How much do you need?”
She cleared her throat. “Just enough for rooms, sir. I can manage the rest.”
His expression softened at this, and he glanced at her. “Ascending Gods, girl, have you got nowhere to sleep?”
“I don’t. I was—staying with a friend, but she couldn’t keep me anymore, and the robbery left me totally destitute.”
“Take rooms in the Tower, then,” he said, tone decisive. “Bill it to my account, and anything else you need. I’ll let the bursar know.”
“The Tower!” She’d been imagining something simple, likely in Riverbottom. “But I—“
“I’ll have nothing else. The city isn’t safe for an unaccompanied woman, and I am partially to blame for that. But I will take you up on your accountancy offer. My offices, first thing tomorrow.” He turned to her, nearly to his door now. “Sound
fair, Miss Aygla?”
“More than fair, sir. I thank you.”
He gave a half-chuckle. “Don’t thank me till you see how complex the finances of a Councilate servant unable to own stock but still in possession of multiple enterprises in Worldsmouth can be.” He took her hand, and gave it a perfunctory brush. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
“Certainly.”
Ella began the long walk down a little dazed. As nice as Sablo had been at the tavern, she’d still somehow expected him to say no. Expected to be sent back out onto the street, and have to use her resonance to steal money, to hole up somewhere like the places she’d stayed after escaping her parents’ house.
Instead she was staying here. Ella shook her head, still feeling under-dressed, under-cultured for the grandeur of the place. If it wasn’t for the men talking petty politics and the women pettier matters she remembered from her mother’s parlors, she would have felt daunted. But no, this was still the Councilate, was still the inbred, myopic system of money and governance she’d learned to hate years ago.
The pepper-haired woman in the Tower offices raised her eyebrows at the request to rent a room on the Arbiter’s accounts, but sent a message upward by use of a small cylinder in a tube with a crank, and received a reply just a few minutes later authorizing Ella. The downside was she wouldn’t let Ella register under a different name. She would have to trust that Odril wouldn’t try anything here, with so many lighthairs and lawkeepers around.
Her room was a third of the way up the Tower, a simple studio—one bed and a table and a curtained area for the privy. Simple save for the far wall, where a single pane of cast blue glass stretched from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. Ella walked to it with a gasp. Outside, the lamps of Newgen were just being lit, reflecting on the water, sun going down in a blaze behind the forested hills to the east, all cast in a deep, azure blue.
She had never seen anything like it. Ella stood a long moment, transfixed by the view, by the sheer scale of the place, fear of heights held in check by the ledge of rooms below, tower pyramiding out below her. Then she locked the door, dragged the bed flush against the window, and curled up looking out the window. She was a mess inside—lonely, unsure of what to do next, indebted to too many people, and at the same time grateful for a safe place to stay, excited by what she’d discovered, and liberated by her new power.
Odril couldn’t touch her now. Or at least, it would take a lot more to touch her. She timeslipped deeper now than he could, and all the brawlers in the world wouldn’t matter if they couldn’t catch her. He could set some kind of trap, but as long as she was careful, stayed in the Tower or public places, she should be fine.
The resonance didn’t help her with her oath to ruin him, though—not if she wanted to help Tunla and the other women in the process. There was still a part of her, an angry core element, that wanted to attack him, to give him some of the pain she’d felt—but if he survived she would be at fault, and if he died his contracts would transfer over to someone even worse.
So she had to ruin him legally. What she’d seen in the last few days was a solid basis for legal dissolution of his assets, especially if she could get some of the ledgers as proof—she was hoping Tunla could help with that. But the arbitrarium today had been daunting—Councilate legalese and the complex restrictions in which the barristers had argued today was entirely different from the scholarly language she knew so well.
And she couldn’t count on the Arbiter’s help. As kind as he’d been in accepting her trade, she remembered his frosty tone when he’d thought she was asking for help with the arbitration.
Amazing, that a Councilate Arbiter might actually be concerned with justice.
The thought made her pause. It was the sort of thing LeTwi would say—would have said—but it wasn’t LeTwi now, not his voice, just her. He was gone, as surely as if he’d been a friend who’d gone away, and she felt the loss, the absence, even if he hadn’t really been a friend. She wasn’t sure what he’d been. But she was sure now that he’d been linked to her resonance like Tunla had said.
It was just her now. And little as she liked it, much as some other core part of her wanted to run, like she’d ran three years ago, she knew she needed to stay and fight.
Ella stood. Winning meant a lot of knowledge she didn’t have—knowledge of Councilate laws, knowledge of the courts, knowledge of barrister strategy in attack and defense. But these were things one could study.
And Ella knew how to study.
A few minutes found her back in the Arbiter’s offices at the top of the Tower, the same slick-haired young man glancing up at her. “Can I help you?”
“You can,” she said. “I’m here to file a lawsuit.”
17
We have to push them to the extreme, past the extreme, past every extreme—cold, exhaustion, hunger, violence, isolation—to bring on the transformation. Without it, they are only so much meat.
--Riglen Sablos, founder of the Titans, Yiel 11
Ella’s first day in the Tower passed without incident. Sablo was out for the day, but she found a stack of his personal business ledgers waiting for her in the rear office. They were every bit as complicated as he’d warned, and she spent most of the day sorting them out, leaving late that afternoon weary but satisfied she’d done something to repay the debt she owed him.
She met Tunla that night—or tried to. She’d written an address and time on the note she left when she escaped Odril’s office, assuming Tunla would be able to come, but the Achuri woman didn’t show. Ella waited an hour or more, watching shopfronts slowly close along Sandglass Square, sun catching in the giant hourglass the Councilate had erected there. The bells rang every half-hour, like they did in every conquered city, as if trying to drown out whatever local system of time had been here before hegemony.
Achuri children played in the cobbled open space, and she entertained herself trying to understand their words, a mix of Achuri and Yersh, but worry kept distracting her. Why hadn’t Tunla come? Had she not seen the note—had Odril seen it instead, and was planning an ambush? Did he have the women locked up—was he refusing them food, as Tunla said he sometimes did? She would feel awful if they were being punished for her.
Finally, Ella stood. It was stupid to go back to his office, stupid to think he wouldn’t have some plan in place to get her back. Had maybe locked them up hoping Ella would come back. But she was reasonably sure she could timeslip out of anything she saw coming. And she had few friends here, maybe only one, and she was worried about her.
So Ella struck resonance a few streets away from his office, late evening traffic slowing to a halt around her, air gelling. It felt like she could resonate for days, like overcoming her voice had also widened her store of uai—still, no reason to push it. She ran the rest of the way to the office, though running in this deep in slip was more like swimming.
It looked normal from the end of the street—no Arlo or other obvious guards outside, no broken windows or signs of struggle. Ella moved closer, nervous despite knowing only a timeslip in slip would notice her at this speed, in which case she’d be faster and they likely run out of uai first.
Nothing looked amiss. It was after working hours, so the main office room was dark, but peering in the narrow bedroom windows she could spot lamps and candles. Ella circled to the far side, to the room she knew to be Tunla’s, crouched and opened the window. She was there and unhurt, frozen in the act of massaging her foot.
Ella let out a deep breath, then against her better judgment released the slip. Time slurred forward, and Tunla’s head snapped up at the sound of the window opening. “Ella! What are you doing here?”
“Our meeting,” Ella hissed, looking around. “You didn’t come.”
Tunla shook her head. “Couldn’t. Odril’s got us locked up in here, until you come back.”
“’Til I come back? I’m not coming back.” The guilt she’d been fearing hit—they were locked up because of her.
&n
bsp; All the more reason to get them out.
“How did you get out, anyway?” Tunla asked. “I saw your yura run out.”
Ella grinned. “I pleased my ancestor.”
“You what? Ella that’s great! I—normally we have a song, I would sing it for you, but,” she glanced around, “maybe better not to draw attention just now.”
“Sing it for me when you get out. “
Tunla took a step closer. “But how did you do it?”
Ella shook her head. “It’s funny, I’ve been thinking about that all day. I didn’t please him, Tunla. It’s more like I… fought him. He was always an intellectual, and always taking the other side of debates from me. And I guess somewhere in there I realized I disagreed with his basic position, and he was holding me back.”
“So what?”
“So when Arlo threw me back in my room, I took another eleven balls,” Tunla goggled, “and LeTwi came back, but it was like he was drunk. And I noticed, the more I fought with him, the drunker he got—and the more control I had over my resonance.”
“So you… fought him.” Tunla sounded disbelieving, then winced, likely at something from her own voice.
“I guess so. I’ve been thinking of it almost like he had something to teach me, but he couldn’t say it. And once I finally figured it out, then he was gone.”
At this the Achuri woman nodded. “We have an expression in Achuri, that our hindrances are our greatest teachers.”
“Although, he wasn’t happy about leaving. He wanted to stay, wanted me to believe him. Actually, I’m not really sure it was a he—it started sounding so strange toward the end.” Ella shook her head. There was so much more to learn.
Tunla was still squinting at her. “So the secret is overloading on yura?”
“That, and arguing, at least for me. Have you heard any other versions? Know anyone who’s done it?”