Savage Legion

by Matt Wallace

  She’s also learned never to trust others’ opinion of what she can and cannot do.

  Dyeawan, free of her makeshift tender, draws in as much air as she can hold and seals her lips shut. She abandons the oar rings and drops below the surface of the water, letting the rowboat float away. She strokes her arms against the depths, letting her legs float weightless behind her as she moves her body easily through the water. After a lifetime of pulling herself across the earth, swimming underwater is like a dream.

  She reaches the nearest grate in little more than a minute. Her hands are scarcely large enough to encompass one wrought iron bar, and the spaces between the bars aren’t wide enough to fit her body through. She expected that. Dyeawan examines the spots where the grate meets the stone, discovering hinges on one side and a large square pad of steel protruding from the other. That pad seems to be the only piece of metal truly tethering the grate to the wall.

  Dyeawan extends an arm out into the submerged chamber and tries in vain to usher one of the crackling blue fish toward the lock without touching their body. Herding them quickly proves to be futile. She knows what she has to do, and probably has known since the first acorn of this idea fell from the evergreen tree that is her mind.

  Dyeawan lets go of the iron bar and places her hand over the grate’s lock pad, gripping it tightly. She lets the rest of her body float as far out into the chamber as possible while keeping a hold on the lock. Her other arm stretches deeper still, poised and waiting. She begins to feel a silent protest rising from her lungs to her throat, both seeming to painfully constrict, but she ignores it, concentrating solely on the task ahead of her.

  Several of the luminous serpentlike fish glide by, just out of reach. With each missed opportunity Dyeawan feels the pressure within her body mounting even more desperately and painfully, and each time it becomes more difficult to ignore. Finally one of the creatures swims close enough to her hand to be seized, but Dyeawan forces herself to wait. She keeps the splayed fingers and thumb of her hand perfectly still, letting the creature become comfortable resting in that spot.

  When she’s sure it is relaxed and unaware, or possibly when her aching lungs finally demand it, Dyeawan moves her hand through the water as quickly as she can and seizes the crackling blue/black fish.

  The hand around the creature’s snakelike body is immediately punished, but Dyeawan holds tight and tenses the muscles of her face to keep her lips sealed. The rest of her body is treated to waves of sharp pain. She feels sparks scorch her palm, and it’s all Dyeawan can do not to let her mouth fly open to swallow a gallon of seawater, but she also feels the pad under her hand give way, separating from the wall.

  The entire grate swings open, dragging her body with it. Dyeawan releases the luminescent sea serpent and takes hold of the grate with both hands to prevent her from being flung across the chamber. Her palms and fingers are stinging and numb at the same time, but she manages to right herself. She quickly wriggles her body through the space no longer barred by the grate.

  Dyeawan doesn’t swim as much as she pull herself along through the water-filled shaft beyond, her lungs on fire and her entire skull feeling as if it’s expanding from within, threatening to burst. Her eyes register light ahead, and not the ghastly blue luminescence of those damned charged serpent fish. It’s sunlight, rays filtered through the water of the island’s bay. She digs harder and faster against the narrow walls, pulling herself along at a desperate pace. Every piece of her is screaming until she clears the end of the shaft and enters the open depths of the bay, bathed in a sun that seems so near and guides her like a beacon to the bay’s surface.

  Her first breath is agony and ecstasy wrestling for control. Several times she drops back below the water and has to flail her exhausted arms to regain her posture above the surface. As the precious air fills her, Dyeawan is able to force a renewed calm over her body that enables her to float atop the water without constantly working her arms. The fire in her muscles and her lungs finally begins to subside and her gasping returns to shallow breathing.

  It feels almost better than being back in her bed.

  She hears wooden oars lapping gently and rhythmically against the calm surface of the bay. Dyeawan, her arms protesting as vehemently as her lungs did beneath the water just moments ago, turns herself around to watch a rowboat far larger and more pristine than the one she abandoned in the chamber approaching her. She sees Quan’s lanky torso rising high above the boat. He’s happily crewing the oars all by himself, enjoying the afternoon sun. Quan pilots the vessel alongside where Dyeawan is bobbing above the water.

  Before she can manage a word aloud, Edger leans over the boat’s stern. He’s shielding himself and Ku from the sun with a silk parasol the rich red of heart’s blood. Small circles of glass that appear to have been painted black are held over his eyes by thin, intricately woven leather straps. Despite everything Dyeawan has just endured, she consciously notices for the first time just how pale the man is; he must not venture outside the Cadre often.

  “You are a strong swimmer, little Slider,” he says brightly. “And it surely is a fine day for it, I must say.”

  Dyeawan stares up at him, a rage she can’t remember feeling before welling in her guts. It’s surprising, both in its intensity and how good it threatens to make her feel. She’s never truly understood just how integral to her survival it has been, suppressing her darker feelings, never letting the putrid circumstances of her existence overwhelm her, either with sadness or fury.

  In this moment, she knows how empowering that fury would be, but another thought stems it, the question of where it will lead her if she allows that tidal wave of emotion to crash freely.

  “Would you really have let me die in there?” she asks evenly.

  Edger leans even farther over the side of the rowboat. The glazed eyes of his expressionless face stare at nothing somewhere past her right shoulder, yet somehow Dyeawan imagines him smiling. The body of Ku the wind dragon convulses gently against the man’s throat like a small, beating heart, and through the bone flutes perforating the creature’s hide the voice made of wind that belongs to Edger whistles to her.

  “What do you think?” he asks.

  HEAVEN’S HOSTESS IS HELL’S HANDMAIDEN

  LEXI CAN ONLY IMAGINE THAT the agents were paired by the Protectorate Ministry for their shocking contrast, which is either uproariously humorous or deeply disturbing, depending on the beholder.

  She spotted the first one from the cooperative’s bazaar right away; it was impossible not to, as the man towers a full two heads above even Taru, is slender as a willow, and draped head to toe in midnight as all Ministry agents are. As if his height and frame weren’t striking enough, the man’s head is shaved completely bald and shines like a beacon. A storm-tossed ship could follow it all the way to shore.

  It isn’t until she and Taru approach the archway to the bridge leading to Gen Stalbraid’s towers that they notice his companion. The second agent is a head shorter than Lexi, as round as a wheel of cheese and four times as pale. His ghostly complexion is made even more off-putting by the slick of hair atop his head that is even darker than his uniform and the equally black and oily beard that covers most of his bulbous face.

  Lexi greets them each with a deep bow. “Agents.”

  “Te-Gen,” the towering skeletal one says in a surprising baritone.

  “Te-Gen,” his squat companion echoes, his voice alarmingly high-pitched.

  Taru says nothing, and the Ministry men seem happy enough to ignore the Undeclared.

  “The Ministry honors Gen Stalbraid with its protection,” Lexi assures them, her tone, expression, and posture all affecting the practiced benevolence of her hostess training.

  The agents trade a silent glance, both of them unsure how to respond to that. They are not known for their imagination, thus neither of them can imagine a scenario under which they have been dispatched, not to spy on Lexi, but to “protect” her.

  “It i
s the charter of the Ministry,” the tall one begins, staggering each word as if he has to think about the next one to follow, “to protect the machinery of the state. It is thus our mandate to preserve and monitor each part of that machine in equal measure.”

  “It is always beneficial to understand one’s place in the whole,” Lexi replies without missing a beat or even the slightest crack in her welcoming smile.

  “Or one’s place outside it,” Taru adds quietly but with what might as well be the conversational force of breaking explosive wind.

  The Ministry agents shift their feet uncomfortably, their black gauntleted hands tightening around the handles of their daggers.

  Lexi’s smile remains unshakeable. “Well said, Taru,” she commends her retainer.

  Then, with another pair of deep bows: “Again, I extend the most heartful appreciation of my Gen, agents. Good evening.”

  They both return the bow without comment, visibly relieved as Lexi and Taru take their leave and make the long trek over the arched bridge to Lexi’s kith-kin tower.

  “They are not even assassins,” Taru remarks in disgust halfway across the bridge.

  Lexi isn’t precisely certain what Taru means by that, but it is clearly the retainer’s lowest form of classification.

  Later, sitting at the drafting table in Brio’s law library, Lexi labors over a sheet of parchment with a heron quill.

  Taru sits on the expansive rug in the middle of the room. The retainer has stripped off their armor pieces and arranged them with militant symmetry in front of them. Clad in a simple tunic and leggings, Taru is currently oiling and massaging the leather of a pauldron.

  “Begging Te-Gen’s pardon,” Taru begins tentatively.

  Frustration that is rapidly approaching irritation’s national border causes Lexi’s lips to purse. “I thought we’d dispensed with all that cloying formality and preamble, Taru.”

  “Very well,” Taru says, although her retainer’s discomfort is obvious. That long-learned formality has become a second set of armor for Taru. “Seeking the aid of that Aegin, however necessary from your point of view—”

  “Daian,” Lexi says patiently, still writing.

  Taru grunts, dubious. “Even if he is trustworthy, how much can you truly expect of him? We are dealing with such large forces aligned against us.”

  “I expect nothing from him,” Lexi says, her focus never leaving the parchment. “But I believe he will try. And any information benefits our cause greatly at this point.”

  “But one Aegin alone—”

  “He is not alone. We haven’t given up our own search, and we won’t.”

  Taru slaps a gauntlet down upon the rug in frustration. “But how can we continue with those… oddities… from the Ministry ghosting our every step? And you know they will, the second we leave the cooperative. Where they have stationed themselves they can see everyone coming or going from the towers.”

  Lexi waves her unburdened hand dismissively while her other hand continues to write. “Let them watch, let them follow.”

  Taru stares up at her from the rug, trusting in Lexi’s confidence while questioning her logic.

  “Then how—”

  “They are watching us to see if we continue pursuing the truth behind Brio’s disappearance and the attack on this house,” Lexi explains. “That’s what they expect. What they want, no doubt, is for me to continue fighting futilely with the bureaucracy to preserve our Gen’s franchise. Seeing that won’t alarm them, or cause them to act.”

  “Then which shall you choose to do?”

  “Oh, we are going to do both,” Lexi proclaims. “What the Ministry agents won’t recognize is that we are doing both at the same time. They will only see me making a last desperate attempt to preserve these crumbling little towers of ours. And, hopefully, that is exactly what they will report to their superiors.”

  Lexi signs her name at the bottom of the document she’s just drafted. She underlines the signature with a flourish of her heron quill before sheathing the quill in a small glass inkwell.

  Taru is left puzzling over the plan behind Lexi’s brash words. What that plan could possibly be eludes the retainer.

  “How will we accomplish this, Te-Gen?” Taru asks, watching Lexi emboss the document with her Gen’s state-issued seal.

  “I am going to do what I should have done months ago.”

  “What is that?”

  “Ascend,” Lexi says.

  * * *

  The pleading floor of the Spectrum is much different from the private chambers of ruling bodies like the Gen Franchise Council. Here there are no ascending steps engineered to make petitioners feel like supplicants, no plateaus like false horizons giving them heights to which they might delude themselves into aspiring. The pleading floor is smooth and level, just two stone altars separating pleaders from the half dozen Capitol Arbiters that preside over all matters involving and facing the various small hamlets and economies and communities that make up Crache’s Capitol city.

  The true difference is the galleries. Any resident of or visitor to the Capitol may attend the open sessions, and they do, every day, dozens and dozens of them filling the ingrained stone benches surrounding the pleading floor. Many come to attend matters relating to their particular section of the city, but many more come simply to have a place to go during the day or to have someone representing the Spectrum at whom to yell at about any number of issues afflicting them or their homes.

  Crache knows what its long-ago predecessors forgot, and to their total erasure from known history; the angry people in the galleries far outnumber those who rule, therefore it behooves those who rule to see them appeased. Making those perpetually discontent people believe they’re allowed to argue on a level field, both figuratively and literally, is perhaps the subtlest and most effective form of control.

  Lexi and Taru sit among them in the gallery beside the aisle that ends behind the pleaders’ altar. Thus far they’ve sat through a petition to have new sky carriage tracks diverted through Division Seven, whose pleader claimed its residents are suffering from a lack of conveyance and jobs, and a border dispute between Divisions Five and Six over a supposed “conspiracy” by the former to funnel its waste into the latter’s streets and alleys.

  For the last ten minutes, the Waterfront Division’s pleader has been arguing against the proposed replacement of the arch that’s served as the gateway to the docks for centuries. Though the commerce of the docks fuels the Bottoms, the docks themselves are considered a separate entity entirely, because those who secretly control the docks don’t want their concerns attached to those of the poor who dwell there. Thus they have their own pleader from a much larger and more influential Gen than Lexi’s humble joining of two kith-kins.

  Finally, the floor’s page announces Gen Stalbraid, representing the Ninth Division of the Capitol. There’s a brief murmuring from the galleries at that, and not just from residents of the Bottoms who’ve been without their pleader for four months. News of Brio’s disappearance has become citywide gossip, particularly after the attack on his house and wife by unknown assassins.

  That murmuring becomes a resounding wave of shock and confusion as Lexi stands and approaches the pleading altar. The surprise of the denizens from the Bottoms quickly turns to applause as they recognize the woman who has begun bringing them food and offering them aid and comfort almost every day.

  Though Taru is unarmed, forced to relinquish their weapons to Spectrum Aegins, the retainer tenses against the stone bench as they watch Lexi walk alone. The approbation of the crowd seems to do nothing to outwardly soothe their nerves. Taru’s every impulse is no doubt to stay by Lexi’s side, especially in the midst of all these unknown people.

  Lexi carries a bundle of scrolls with her as she takes her place on the pleading floor. As she does, she notices Councilwoman Burr, the fiery Ignoble from the Gen Franchise Council, seated among the galleries, watching the proceedings with a stony and unreadable expression
mortared on her face.

  Lexi finds her presence curious, but quickly forces the questions surrounding it from her head. The matter at hand is dire, and the stand Lexi is about to take will either be her first or her last. She must put all of herself into it.

  The Senior Arbiter’s name is Tang, and Lexi has hosted him half a dozen times at official functions. Lexi knows him to be an intelligent, fairly boring man who abhors pointless small talk and who only smiles with a touch of resentment.

  “Forgive me, Arbiters,” Lexi begins. “I know you may view this as highly unusual, but I must be allowed to speak before you today.”

  “Te-Gen,” Tang begins, the pace of his words careful, “this body is, of course, aware of the loss you and your Gen have suffered with the disappearance of your husband. Brio Alania was… excuse me, is… a highly respected officer of this floor. However, he is the recognized pleader of record for the Ninth Division of the Capitol, not you. To this body’s knowledge, you are not even a recognized pleader.”

  “Gen Stalbraid is the recognized pleader of record for the Bottoms,” Lexi corrects him. “Brio was the current pleader for our Gen, as was his father before him.”

  The Senior Arbiter looks to his colleagues, either for support or to convey his frustrations. In either case, ten vacant eyes stare back at him.

  Tang regards her with hesitance. “Your interpretation of the law is not… incorrect.”

  Lexi smiles pleasantly. “Thank you, Senior Arbiter. I have recently received what one might consider advanced training in Crachian law and procedure.”

  Even Taru, still seated in the gallery, is forced to stifle a laugh at the truth behind that statement.