by Matt Wallace
“Gens, from what I’ve seen, feel no loyalty to any people outside their own kith-kins. Feeling loyal to Crache and loyal to its people are not the same thing. When it comes to people, Gens are loyal to the people inside that Gen. But at least, outside the Bottoms, Gens see citizens protected and cared for by Crache. In the Bottoms people do not matter. It teaches the Gens entrusted with running things there that they can do whatever they like without consequence. If they saw Crache invested in those people, they might think differently.”
“What if we lack the resources to feed and house so many, especially those too weak or old or infirm to provide function for that care?”
“The attempt would be enough,” Dyeawan insists, bitterness creeping unchecked into her voice. “Ignoring a problem you can’t solve is not itself a solution. It only allows the problem to grow.”
Her hypothesis ignites an excited volley of mixed chatter among the half dozen young planners. They spend the next two hours debating and discussing methods of practical implementation for Dyeawan’s theory. Every disagreement is used as springboard to new ideas rather than as the foundation for an argument. Dyeawan isn’t certain what she is witnessing here, but the interactions of these people are like nothing she has experienced.
By the time Edger adjourns the afternoon session, Dyeawan feels almost drunk. She isn’t sure any of them truly understood her points, or that she was speaking of real people and very real pain. They seemed to treat even the direst description of the Bottoms as an exercise for the mind. Dyeawan wonders if Edger doesn’t cultivate that kind of detachment among them, separating them from the reality of Crache so that they may plan its life and future without emotion.
The others rise, and navigate the simple maze of the table before filing out of the chamber. They all pause to offer a few kind words of parting to Dyeawan, several of them enthusiastically suggesting she join them for activities later in the evening. Dyeawan smiles and bows her head, responding in kind to each fellow planner. She is aware of how much she should be enjoying this, their display of the kind of acceptance and camaraderie she’s spent her entire life dreaming about. Yet she feels only emptiness and despair.
She and Edger remain behind when the rest of them have departed.
Edger raises his broadest, most jovially smiling mask to his face. “I believe that went exceedingly well for your first session.”
Dyeawan has only raw honesty left in her after hours of forced pleasantry. “When we first met I thought those masks were for you, to allow you to express yourself in a world that denied you that ability. But they’re not, are they? Those masks. They’re to put other people off. They might pity you or be repulsed by you when they first see your face, but in either case they are in control and see you as inferior. Those masks disturb and unsettle them in a way that puts you in control. It forces them to take you seriously, because we always take things that frighten us seriously.”
She doesn’t know why she’s telling him this now. It’s one of many observations she’s hidden in the back of her mind so no one would become aware of how much she sees. Perhaps she no longer cares what Edger knows about her.
Edger continues holding the mask in front of his face for several silent moments. He finally lowers it to the table.
“You continue to surprise and impress me,” he says.
“Do I belong here?” she asks him plainly.
“You belong here perhaps more than any of us, Dyeawan.”
“But is that the only reason I’m here? Is that the only reason you made me a planner?”
Edger hesitates, rolling the handle of his disused mask in one hand.
“No.”
“Why twelve people at this table?”
“Because it has always been so.”
“That sounds dangerously close to mythologizing, Edger.”
“I fear we crossed that threshold long ago.”
“But now you are thirteen.”
“We are thirteen. Yes.”
Dyeawan looks down at herself, fingertips involuntarily plucking at the material of her tunic. They lightly touch the smooth, polished surface of the concentric circles pinned below her shoulder.
“I saw the looks on their faces when you gave me this. The planners closer to my age, the ones who attended this meeting today, they looked like they were being given a gift. The planners who are closer in age to you looked like something was being taken away from them.”
“Your insight has clearly grown to match your powers of observation.”
Dyeawan ignores the compliment. “Was something being taken away from them, Edger?”
“Yes. The teat was taken away from their mouths. And it was long overdue.”
“I don’t understand.”
The air moves swiftly from Edger’s neck through Ku the wind dragon’s mouth and backbones. It may be a sound of exasperation, or perhaps anger, Dyeawan can’t be certain.
“Becoming older affects us in many different ways, Dyeawan, some of them beneficial and some of them detrimental. Many of my elder colleagues amidst this table have suffered mainly ill effects, I’m afraid. They become set in their ways. They become convinced the ideas they conceived and implemented decades ago, which were admittedly brilliant for the time, need not be changed or further innovated. They resist new methods and new discoveries. Observing this, I’ve strived to fill this table with fresh young minds imbued with fresh young ideas. My elder colleagues have been particularly resistant to that.”
“But before today there was a balance,” Dyeawan says almost without thought, as if the words were a muscle reacting to being prodded.
“Correct. There was division, but it was equal because we were twelve. Six of the new guard and six of the old.”
“Now we are thirteen,” she repeats, this time with understanding.
“Your presence tips the scales toward the future and makes them feel even more like part of the past. Their voluntary absence today is a form of protest, not unlike a mass tantrum. It’s funny, really. The older we get, the more we become children again. It’s a futile gesture, however. Whether they are here or not, there will no longer be a stalemate over every petty issue.”
Dyeawan frowns. “You used me to give you a majority over them, for control.”
“I elevated you to this position because I believe you to be an instrument for creating the future of Crache. It is that simple. Much of that will come from the ideas created in that remarkable mind of yours. Another part of that function is clearing away old ideas that are of no use to Crache any longer.”
“Why didn’t you explain any of this to me before I wheeled myself into this chamber?”
“I didn’t want to cloud your mind or your judgment with unnecessary details, particularly not during your tests and trials.”
“That is a lie.”
It is the first time Dyeawan has openly exposed one of his falsities, and the first time she has ever openly revealed her ability to discern truth from fiction in people and their words. She immediately regrets it, but doesn’t let it show through her hardened expression.
“It was a half truth,” Edger says carefully a moment later. “That was a reason, simply not the entire reason.”
“A half truth is a whole lie, Edger.”
“Do you wish to return your tunic and pendant?” he asks quickly and impatiently. “Do you wish to return to sweeping floors and ferrying messages?”
“No.”
“Then this discussion is moot, is it not?”
Dyeawan’s fingers curl into fists above the paddles of her tender, but her mind refuses to delude her on the matter.
“Yes, it is.”
Edger seems appeased by her admission. His words come slower and with less emphasis.
“You deserve to be here, Dyeawan. I apologize for not apprising you fully of the situation you were entering, but your knowledge of it would have changed nothing.”
“Will any of them return to the table?”
; “Of course not. Even if their pride would allow them to make that overture, I won’t allow it. They tipped their hand, foolishly, and in doing so only further prove why they must be swept away. Their obstinence was creating a constant stalemate among the planners, and that threatens all Crache.”
“That seems… excessive. I mean, they just skipped one meeting—”
“Should we wait for an open rebellion before we act, little Slider? Allowing them more time to plot and scheme and fester won’t solve the problem, it will only exacerbate it. This little protest, if unchallenged, will only embolden them.”
“Are you sure it’s not just you?” Dyeawan asks carefully. “Are you sure you don’t just want them gone?”
“Perhaps I do. They weary me. The mind ages, but that doesn’t necessitate it growing old. They’ve all grown old on me. Rigid. Incapable of learning new things. Perhaps I do resent them for that. It doesn’t change the issue, however.”
“What will happen to them?”
Edgar shrugs.
“They remain brilliant people. They will be reassigned to oversee other areas, the builders or the architects and so forth. They will find purpose in those roles if they embrace them.”
“Then we are actually eight now.”
“It is a number, Dyeawan, and a completely arbitrary one. It holds no power or influence over anything. I am eager to see what my fresh young minds may achieve unbidden, and today’s meeting did not disappoint.”
Dyeawan rows the paddles of her tender, wheeling herself away from the curve of the snaking slab in front of her. She turns the tender away from the stone hedge maze of a table and begins rolling across the chamber, her back to Edger.
“I look forward to tomorrow,” he calls after her.
The wheels of her tender keep spinning, and Dyeawan does not look back.
A PLOT OF CORPSES
EVIE WRINGS OUT THE CLOTH over a lopsided wooden basin and carefully folds the dampened rag into a rectangle before laying it across Brio’s forehead. His fever has dissipated drastically, but his skin is not yet cool. Brio clung to life tenuously for several nights. At its worst his entire body burned as bright as a red-hot coal in the dark and even his sweat seared to the touch. He was delirious beyond reason, experiencing funerals for people who were not yet dead, mourning Lexi who was murdered in his mind a hundred different ways. He was struck down over and over again by a half-mad giant named Taru whose betrayal he bemoaned more than his own death at their hands.
Brio was still in the throes of it when Evie was forced to leave him in preparation for their assault on the Skrain encampment. She’d forced herself to banish thoughts of him from her mind, certain she’d return to find a corpse if she returned at all. Evie is still uncertain whose survival surprised her more, Brio’s or her own.
The Sicclunan surgeon took his leg just below the knee. She proved to be a skilled cutter and healer. Though the Sicclunans may lack every resource that isn’t funneled into their war efforts, they do seem to possess knowledge in abundance. What’s left of Brio below that kneecap has been burned and sealed with oils and carefully wrapped with clean silk. Every few hours the surgeon returns to unravel the seeping bandages and replace them with clean wraps.
Brio is still incredibly weak, but he’s conscious, staring up at Evie with glassy, weary eyes like a man watching his own dreams. They’ve shaved his filthy, ratted beard and most of his hair. He looks very much like the boy Evie remembers, apart from the blue runes staining his skin and covering his face.
“The Sparrow General?” he asks churlishly in a voice that’s barely a whisper.
“Stow it, will you?” she fires back at him. “It’s hardly a name I chose. And I’m no general. It was agreed among the three parties we’d share tactical command equally, and I’m not even senior among the Savages.”
“Yet it was your plan they followed, and your name they chanted after the battle,” Brio points out.
“Are you just riding me, or are you making a point?”
Brio closes his eyes. “A smidge of both, I suppose.”
She removes the cloth from his forehead, using one corner to dab at his temples before returning it to the basin.
“I wasn’t looking for any of this,” she insists. “But I couldn’t ignore what was there in front of us. We never would’ve made it to the Tenth City, not even with the Sicclunan horses. You were dying. And even if I’d been able to heal you, even if we did make it through the Skrain vanguard, the both of us would still be fugitives, with these fucking runes on our skin and because of what you know. An opportunity presented itself.”
“So you started a revolution,” Brio concludes mildly.
“I seized the opportunity. You’re alive. We have a chance, slender though it may be.”
“We have a war. That’s what we have. And it will no doubt be a short and bloody one.”
“What would you have me do, Brio?” she demands. “What did you want to do, if not this? You wanted to change things in Crache, didn’t you? You wanted to stop the lies and the oppression and things like the Savage Legion. Wars, revolutions, what else brings about that kind of change?”
“I wanted to expose the truth,” Brio says, and now the bitterness has crept into his voice. “I wanted to bring the crimes of Crache into the light, where the people could see. They are not all tools of oppression, they simply believe what they’re told, what they’re presented with every day of their lives. The truth would have changed things, without bloodshed.”
Evie stares at the ground, unable to meet his eyes in that moment. She isn’t ashamed of herself or her actions, she simply doesn’t wish to see him in the throes of such naivety.
She shakes her head. “Someone always bleeds, Brio. Your father never understood that, and neither do you. You plead for the people in the Bottoms, but you’ve never lived their lives. You may know one truth, but Crache and its Gens have still blinded you.”
He sighs. “There is nothing to be done now, I suppose.”
“You’ve done all you can. If Spud-Bar delivered your message then it’s given to Lexi to bring light to your truth. Maybe she can, and maybe it will be enough. I hope so, because if my ‘revolution’ as you call it fails here, no one in the cities will ever know. Your truth will be the only weapon that’s left.”
“I never wanted to put Lexi in this position,” he whispers, no longer speaking to Evie.
“How are you feeling?” she asks him, certainly to change the subject, but also because she’s still worried about his condition.
“Alive. Although the smell of this place isn’t helping.”
Evie tries to laugh, but there’s nothing real fueling its fire.
The Sicclunan base camp from which they launched their assault on the Skrain vanguard is deep in a swampy marsh of foul, poison sludge. Evie thought the cursed earth over which they hiked before meeting Sirach was a wasteland, but that ground was fertile compared to the muck here. Sirach explained that’s one of the ways they keep their mobile camps hidden from Skrain patrol; no Crachian would think to venture this deep into the swamp, despite the fact Crachian mining and harvesting efforts created these sunken wastes.
A large head draped in a leather hood and stringy tendrils of brown hair poke through the tent flap, along with the double-sided hammer of a gargantuan mallet.
“What is it, Bam?” Evie asks.
“Sunset-eyed girl,” he mutters, the words sounding flattened by his thick lips.
“That’s fine, Bam, you can let her inside.”
His head and war hammer retreat, and a moment later Sirach enters the tent, an irritated expression on her face. She’s traded in her masked night warrior garb for another expansive hat whose crown is decorated with brightly dyed horsehair and leather armor, the breastplate of which has a magnificent phoenix painted on it, the fiery bird’s wings extending down her arms. Sirach has several parchment scrolls rolled up tightly and clenched inside her right fist.
“Did you order
that great ape to guard your tent and deny me entry?” she asks Evie.
“No. He just sort of… stationed himself there. He’s been following me wherever I go.”
The irritated twist to Sirach’s lips relaxes into a grin. “He’s taken a shine to you, dearest. I think I’m jealous.”
“Lariat or Mother Manai probably told him to keep a watchful eye,” Evie says, although she doesn’t really believe it.
“It’s probably for the best. I’m sure you’re already becoming a figure of some lore amongst the Skrain and the Savage Legion.”
“We picked off all their soldiers. How would they know?”
“There are eyes everywhere, even out here. Everyone employs their own spies, scouts, and informants. Information is the most highly prized Crachian currency, dearest, or rather control of that information. They may not know where we went, but they’ll find out who led the charge. Soon the Protectorate Ministry itself will know the name ‘Sparrow General.’ And they’ll kill to ensure not one citizen ever hears it.”
“You’re the bird they should be worried about,” Evie says, eager to dismiss what Sirach is telling her.
Sirach spreads her arms and glances down at the phoenix blazing from its own ashes on her breastplate.
“Being hunted and exploited to the brink of extinction should not deter one from displaying a personal flair when allowable. If anything, it makes one’s individuality more important, I should think.”
“I see how all this came to pass now,” Brio remarks wearily. “You two are exactly alike.”
Both Evie and Sirach laugh, but Evie is already shaking her head.
“Hardly,” she says.
“We’ve had the good fortune to share common goals.”
“How is everyone getting on out there?” Evie asks Sirach.
“Much better since we raided the Skrain larders. It’s miraculous how full bellies sate even the most contrary of companions.”
“How long will the supplies last?” Brio asks.
“Long enough to see us to our next battle, which will in all likelihood be our final battle. In either case, the matter will be resolved.”