2. N
Every city had its own king. It hadn’t always been that way, at least, not according to the historical records that almost no one read anymore, but as the Predators became increasingly aggressive, and the cities increasingly isolated,
each one became a mostly self-governing and self-supporting entity, the only practical means of transportation between them being the Gate system, which only the powerful were allowed to use.
Oh, in theory each city was supposed to send aid to the others, but in practice, with all of them being under a simultaneous state of siege, that didn’t happen.
The best you got was if Alizarin, the city blessed with the talents of Lord Reyavalic Artificer, happened to send you plans and a couple of samples of a new weapon or Machina.
Along with well wishes. For a price, of course …
at least for the plans. The well wishes were still free.
Those prices continued to get higher. Lord Haldeen Gatekeeper tugged at his collar, as he waited for his turn.
The Farspeaker interview had become very personal, very quickly.
He’d been confronted by a terse “Report in person” from the king’s personal aide, which necessitated a quick bath, a hasty dressing, and a rush to the King’s Tower.
He was glad to be fairly far down the lordly pecking order …
the lords by birth went first, and King Alliard, to his credit, heard the bad news calmly.
Haldeen glanced up under lowered brows at the king.
Elves lived centuries if not killed, but Alliard had visibly aged under the weight of his office.
Gray hair had already crept in at his temples, and he had set the fashion for ‘leaving the face as it is’.
Deep shadows and pouchy eyes told of the lack of sleep and stress.
Alliard’s appearance gave Haldeen all the information he needed about the situation.
“How bad?” the king asked Lord Pilias Agronomer, the Great Lord whose responsibility covered everything involving food production except the algae vats and the ration-making.
The Lord Agronomer looked up from his sheaf of papers.
Haldeen recognized the papers were a prop.
Pity the lord who didn’t know his data from the top of his head when the king asked.
“The last agricultural post fell. Four hundred acres equivalent lost when the things broke in. Twenty-four elves died as well. No more outstations, and no more easy reach to the sea. We’re cut off, and on our own.”
King Alliard looked over the map, embossed into the table, and made hand-passes over it to set what remained of the city’s reach aglow.
From his seat in the further row, Haldeen could see the dead-candle look of the farming stations, aquaculture, and mining colonies that once served as assets for the city.
Veridian might not be the greatest of the cities, but was in the top tier. Was.
Alliard rubbed his hand across his brow. “When?”
“Third hour of the afternoon,” the Lord Agronomer replied.
Haldeen muttered under his breath.
“Thank you, Lord Agronomer,” King Alliard replied, not looking up. “But, as you are a lord-appointed Agronomer, with no more agriculture to oversee, your titles and honors are hereby forfeit. Remove your sash, Pilias.”
Haldeen felt his belly tighten, and heard the muttering from the others in the seats around him. Decades, even centuries of dedicated service, and it was gone in an instant. King Alliard cleared his throat. The room went quiet. The king wasn’t finished.
“Until and unless we can get the aid that we’re supposed to be receiving … that we were promised … we’re completely reliant on spell-made food now. I need someone to take up a new role. Lord High Provisioner. Sash looks a lot like the Agronomer’s, but will have a fancy badge on it. Oh,
and it comes with the requirement that you increase our ration bar output. The means by which you do so are up to your discretion, within limits. Pilias, want the job?”
“Yes, my king,” the newly reminted lord said. Haldeen could hear the obvious relief in the lord’s voice. For a single moment, he’d lost everything, and faced being turned out of his mansion and tower, and having to return to the city proper, as just another mage among the rest.
Damn shame, he’s managed to use his magic to continually increase our harvests, a little more with each reaping. Well, maybe he can do the same with the tanks.
Pilias nodded again, quickly, as the king continued.
“I’m doing you no favors, Pilias. It’ll be your job to increase the assessments so we can feed everyone. You will be the most hated person in the city, and take the spears, so I don’t. Collecting, inventorying, and dispensing. Tighten the accounting. Ten more percent production. Take one morsel …
one … beyond your allotment, and I’ll hang you from the city walls to serve as an example to the next one to take the sash. You’re sure you want it?”
Pilias nodded again.
King Alliard gestured with his chin, “Pick up your sash, High Lord. Never forget that the difference between civilization and anarchy is three missed meals.”
He glanced towards his aide-de-camp. “Captain, get a badge for the High Lord’s sash. Something big and massy that he can use for armor to protect his heart for when there is unrest.”
Haldeen studied the king. One was never quite sure when the Alliard joked.
“You were muttering a moment ago, Haldeen,” the king said, still staring down at the table. “You might as well go next. Your estate … closest to the wall where the Big One attacked.”
“Yes, my king,” Haldeen replied. “You’ve already heard the inventory depletion, the combat losses, and the effect of driving away the one attacking the wall. Umm ….”
Haldeen came to a stop, because the king was giving him a steely-eyed look.
Not a glare, not yet, but … best weigh his words with absolute precision.
This was where he’d planned to advise the king about the success of the new Machina, but the garrison officers had simply reported the facts, and he saw treacherous waters.
He waited for the king’s pleasure before proceeding.
He really did not want to get into how the Machina had been lost, not here, and certainly not in front of the others.
The king kept that measured gaze, and held his eyes.
Haldeen had no idea what to expect. The lords sitting closest to him leaned away, while those further leaned in, the better to see.
Council meetings rarely got more exciting than this …
one lord deposed, then reinstated, and a second caught under Alliard’s famous cold stare.
The king held his gaze, silent for ten heartbeats.
Then ten more. Haldeen knew better to fidget or turn away under that gaze, but he felt the sweat run down his back, and the fear turn to nausea.
Was he about to lose everything as Pilias so nearly had?
“Am I to understand,” the king said quietly, barely above a whisper, “that my Lord Gatekeeper remained in sight and at risk and in close proximity to an attack, and did not seek shelter as commanded? You are, for the time being, essential, and I do not care for being flouted.”
“Escape was fundamentally cut off, Majesty,” Haldeen said quickly.
“It is a problem with my tower—which was built and designed by former Lord Haleysian Architect—that I intend to correct immediately. Using only material, and not magic, may I add.”
He already had an idea; it would be undignified to slide down a pole in all his robes of state, but the city firefighters already used such poles to get from their sleeping quarters to their equipment, and it was exponentially faster than trying to run down that same spiral staircase.
Already in the back of his mind, he was making improvements to the simple pole …
a sort of casing around the pole that could slow descent, with a footrest and handholds … .
“Do so, and make the end design available to everyone, immediately,” the king replied. “I should be the only entity removing one of my lords from his position. Not some random Predator.”
Nervous titters all around the room; the king smiled grimly.
Yes, a joke, and as close as the king ever got to humor.
Under the laughter, Haldeen heard the lord whisper to his benchmate, “… moment Haldeen started explaining, he was losing. Had to have his duty explained to him by the king. That will leave a mark.”
He turned around to look at Haldeen, perfectly aware that the Lord Gatekeeper had heard every word. “Wouldn’t you agree, my Lord Technical.”
Haldeen, faced by a lord-by-birth, could only nod his head.
No matter how high he rose, he remained a lord made, and there was always a lord born to remind him how easy the fall would be.
The lord-by-birth, his point made, turned back to share a comment with his benchmate.
Alliard could be touchy about talking to the back of someone’s head, and not even a lord-by-birth had immunity from that displeasure.
Haldeen mopped his sweaty brow. The king had turned to the next unfortunate …
a garrison officer having to report on the depletion of the firelances, with the Makers next to him getting pinned under that stare for a high-estimate for the time needed to fabricate more.
It appeared to Haldeen that the matter of the destroyed Machina would not be a subject for comment. At least not yet.
He relaxed a little, then thought back to the Lord Agronomer’s …
correction, the High Lord Provisioner’s …
report. Third mark of the afternoon. The same time as the attack on his side of the city, and the furthest away from the last of the farm stations.
Haldeen’s eyes went to the map that King Alliard gestured towards as he grilled the garrison officers, measuring distances with his eyes.
The farm station, made of magic-fused stone, and well reinforced and shielded, had stood at the extreme edge of the city’s ability to support.
The station had held out against previous attacks until reinforced by Machina and …
Skydancers … and the farm station remained sufficiently important to commit the city’s precious reserves.
Except, they hadn’t been sent north to the station.
The king had deployed them to defend the city itself, to the south …
on Haldeen’s side, on the opposite side of the city and furthest from the farming station …