Purpose. Direction. Intent. These were the things that Shirrin had spent the st twelve years grasping onto, the things which had kept her afloat through all of her maniputions. For twelve years, the final goal of destruction for Peleus and Chrysopolis and Macaria had been her north star, far in the distance but guiding her day and night. No matter how much adversity had faced her, all of the jarls of Trabakond joining against her, Macaria battling her spies at every turn, that unbreakable purpose had kept her moving forward.
But it was beginning, by degrees, to gutter out. Shirrin could feel it in her chest, a sucking implosion, mud spilling down a sinkhole and inexorably drawing her down with it. If her purpose shattered, if she forgot what she was doing and why, then death was all that would remain. Assassinate Peleus, then end her own life and be done with it.
For days, Shirrin had brooded, slinking around the halls in a shroud of magical secrecy, refusing to be acknowledged or to acknowledge others in turn. She had even failed to continue her regime of sleep deprivation for Peleus, spending her nights instead gazing out at the stars, trying to seize some message from those distant divinities and finding nothing, nothing at all. No amount of silent contemption, nor any outburst of rage and spite, nor delving deep into memory, could fix the cracks in her core direction. Shirrin was locked in pce, unable to fall back into ruin, but unable as well to progress.
Her favorite pce in the Pace was the same as it always had been, the lonely veranda overlooking all of Chrysopolis, letting the vista of that corrupt pce sprawl out before it, a feast for the eyes. Though the view no longer filled her with the contentment that it once had, nothing did, Shirrin still found it a good pce to brood, the fair breeze and bright sunlight holding her back from the deepest pits of despair. She would often sit, knees curled to her chest, magic wrapped tight around her like a shawl, and think about oblivion.
Thus it was that the soundscape from that veranda had become so familiar to Shirrin that she was acutely aware of any unusual changes to it, changes such as, for instance, the sound of men shouting, at first muffled and distant but soon growing closer. Shirrin unfurled herself, frowning out of curiosity, deciding whether the disturbance was even worth investigating. It was. Miserable as she might have been, there was no reason not to look into an unusual event taking pce within the pace walls.
Sure enough, there was a crowd forming, out at the edge of the pace grounds. There looked to be a few score of them, and though Shirrin could not make out their words from so great a distance, by their tone she was sure they were angry. Not merely a crowd, then, but a mob. A mob of only a few score wasn’t a real danger, the pace guard would keep them at bay easily and no doubt the mob’s members knew that, but that a mob would dare to approach the pace at all was still very exciting. Had Peleus’s reputation fallen so far, so quickly? Or was there some other offense that had riled them all up? Either way, Shirrin needed to know more.
Her long legs meant that, when Shirrin put her mind to it, she was more than capable of crossing distance rather quickly. She swept down from the veranda, down the spiral stairs and through the winding passages of the pace, and none dared to interrupt her. That was, not until she was out onto the courtyard, the howling of the mob an overpowering sound. The pace guard had indeed assembled, fshing their bdes to ensure that the mob would stay well away from the Emperor’s person without any need for bloodshed, and as Shirrin approached, they began to look concerned. A few men, hesitant and visibly frightened, turned to face her.
“It would be best if you didn’t come any further,” said one.
Shirrin turned upon him immediately. “And why would that be?”
“Because they’re here about you,” said another guard. “Anti-Trabakondai rioters, they say you’ve been corrupting the Emperor.”
“And do you believe them?” Shirrin said, raising an eyebrow.
“I’m here to defend the Emperor. That’s all.”
Shirrin stepped around the man, squinting at the mob before her. Something wasn’t right.
“What has them riled up? They moved in suddenly, as though something’s set them off.”
The guards nearest to Shirrin mumbled uncertainly, but another one down the line spoke up. “They were saying some nonsense about a spy or an infiltrator. Probably just picked up a poor drunk and decided to bme it all on him.”
Shirrin scowled. This was, in a sense, all that she had needed; a reminder of the rot that infested Chrysopolis to its very core, the hatred and greed that its vast wealth bred. The mob was no danger to her, but instead an opportunity. If they hated her so much, then let them hate her, and the Emperor, too, whom she had supposedly corrupted. And what better way to make them hate her than to wound them?
Shirrin advanced, ignoring the protests from the pace guard. As she did, she drew up her magic all around herself; her body stretched, growing taller and yet more gaunt, and the shadows twitched in her presence such that even the dim light filtering through the winter clouds had little effect upon her. The mob noticed her approach, their shouts of general anger turning into yelps of warning that the Witch-Queen herself was now upon them. She pushed up to the very edge of the mob, standing between two of the pace guards who had been holding them at bay, and gred at the rabble before her.
“What is this?” she said, pying up her Trabakondai accent. “Have the city’s starving dogs finally run out of scraps and come to beg at the Emperor’s door?”
None of the men before her, almost all of them city-dwellers of some means, could restrain themselves from hurling invective at the Witch-Queen. She grinned. They were furious.
“I assume that is not why you have come, then?”
Again, more screaming, more rage, more hate. Shirrin shook her head. “Enough. Have you no better thoughts than to hurl slurs and profanity? The object of your anger is right here! Throw a stone, tear me limb from limb, don’t just stand there and yell.”
Shirrin spread her arms wide, daring all before her to advance. To the credit of the mob, they were not cowed; though cautiously, a few of them nonetheless started moving forwards. While they did, though, Shirrin reached into a pocket of her doublet and produced a bottle of sandy-yellow powder, uncorking it and preparing to let it spill.
“Let’s see if you can get to me before the effects of this nasty little concoction take effect, hm?”
And just as she expected, all resistance broke. Like leaves before a sustained wind, the mob bowed back, letting even the pace guards rex for a moment. But they did not flee, and though at first it may have appeared that they were utterly intimidated, Shirrin began to notice movement. A second ter, the source of that movement became clear as a small cluster of figures pushed their way to the front.
“Howl and posture all you like, witch. You won’t poison your own spies, would you?”
Five of the figures were Macarian men. Between them, they were just about able to keep restrained two of Shirrin’s servants. One was Frasalu; the other she recognized as a lesser member of the gang by the name of Magrell. Instantly, Shirrin’s aggression cooled to a steady tension as she tried to work out how to keep the two of them safe.
Shirrin sighed theatrically. “It seems you are more cunning than I had given you credit for. Then I shall state my case: hand over my two servants, intact and unharmed, or else I will show you that just as I have under-estimated you, you have under-estimated me. Deal?”
“You’re lying,” one of the men said. There was a murmur of agreement from many of the others.
“Nothing but a trumped-up alchemist!”
“We’ve got her by the hair now!”
“You can have your minions back when you join them!”
That was that, then. The peons would need a show of power, real power. And as much as she wasn’t looking forward to that, there was really only one trick left up her sleeve that was both dramatic and rapid enough to get it done. Shirrin turned her head skyward, focusing her mind to a sharp point, and began a low, droning chant.
When it comes to magic, most ritual is, more than anything, a crutch, a means by which those of little skill can ensure the effect they wish for. A true witch can change her shape or imbue power into a brewed potion with little more than a word and a gesture. But in some cases, the words are the key portion, for the witch is dealing with things beyond herself, things which see her will as the mere whims of a verminous, base creature. Words spoken in the ancient tongues of the gods turn human intention into semi-divine edict. And so it was, that as Shirrin recited the primordial formue, her words were heard in some distant part of the empyrean, and the listener came down to the nd of mortals to sate its curiosity.
The summoning appeared at first as a mere gust of wind, typical for a winter’s day. All present felt a sensation of strangeness, unease, one which grew as the wind came suddenly to swirl and wrap around Shirrin, sending her bck hair flying and nipping at her clothes. The chant came to an end, and Shirrin spoke in calm, clear sentences, still in the same ancient tongue. All were held in suspense.
Then, she pointed her finger forward at the men holding Frasalu and Magrell. All at once, the two prisoners were encircled in the middle of a tiny whirlwind which pushed at the men holding them with overwhelming force. One by one they lost their grip and were hurled away by the force of the wind. Magrell and Frasalu tried to break for it, but the whirlwind remained in pce, and just beyond it was a ring of Macarians ready to spring. This was where the second part of the pn came into py. Shirrin took the bottle of yellow powder and hurled its contents into the air, letting them be picked up by the elemental of wind. The powder scattered everywhere.
A panic broke out. Men shoved past each other, shoved each other to the ground, trampled over their countrymen in order to escape the cloud of yellow dust. Magrell and Frasalu, suddenly understanding, remained exactly where they were; and sure enough, the wall of the cyclone around them kept the powder well away.
Shirrin threw an arm over her mouth and rushed forward, weaving effortlessly through the scattering mob, though fighting with every step against the summoned elemental. Eventually she made it to the edge of the maelstrom, and with a short phrase commanded the wind to part, allowing her to join Magrell and Frasalu within the spirit’s aegis of protection. Another phrase commanded the wind to follow, and step by careful step the three of them retreated out of the chaos of the mob and back to safety. The guards had fled, same as the rioters, leaving nobody to stop the trio from retreating.
Eventually the protection of the whirlwind became more troublesome than helpful, disturbing nothing more than floor-dust and the local insects. With another phrase, Shirrin commanded the elemental to disperse. There was a strange moment of vacuum, the overpowering wind pulling Frasalu and Magrell towards their master, and then it was gone.
“Did you really poison all those people?” were the first words out of Frasalu’s mouth, as soon as she was no longer drowned out by the sound of the wind.
“In a sense,” Shirrin admitted. “Though I doubt a diuretic will do too much harm.”
Magrell looked confused, no doubt due to not knowing the meaning of the word “diuretic”; Frasalu looked confused because she did know it. “Why did you have that on you?”
Shirrin dismissed her concern with a gesture. “You’d be surprised the number of conditions it treats. Now, I know neither of you would come within a tenth of a mile of the pace without reason, so expin yourselves.”
They did.
…
Shirrin stormed through the hallways of the pace, gripped by a cold sweat of terror, stress, and regret. A sermon by the very Patriarch of the church, bming the Trabakondai for Peleus’s excesses? Mobs of Macarians showing up in the Trabakondai neighborhoods? If nothing was done very, very quickly, the situation could rapidly escate into an absolute bloodbath.
Her reflexive reaction, more of a self-excusing plea, was to say that she never wanted this, but even Shirrin knew that that was nonsense. It had been her and her alone who had pushed Peleus to his breaking point, and with him pushing the entirety of Chrysopolitan society as well. It was only natural that the Trabakondai, the foreigners who had never quite found their pce, would be the first to become subject to the city’s downfall. And yet, Shirrin could not help but feel sympathy for them.
It was an odd sympathy, one whose origins were something of a mystery. After all, the first step in this whole pn, the very thing that had allowed Shirrin to infiltrate the city itself, was the spending of thousands of Trabakondai lives as though they were cheap silver coin. Shirrin was not Trabakondai. She was an infiltrator, a pretender, one who used a supposed and entirely invented Trabakondai background to make use of the political might bound up in their archaic and scattered political system. Perhaps it was merely the city-dwellers who held her attention, being as they were, like her, the victims of this whole grand edifice, the ones against whom the violence of Macaria was brought. Or perhaps twelve years amongst the Trabakondai had steadily begun to rub off on her.
Or perhaps this was merely another symptom of the all-consuming guilt threatening to erode at Shirrin’s very soul. Perhaps she’d gone so soft that any harm coming to anyone who she did not directly hate would have elicited the same response. If she could have slowed down and thought about it, maybe she would have decided it for the best if the Trabakondai district burned.
It didn’t help that she was paying the price for her summoning. The spirit of elemental air, having completed its task of escorting Frasalu and Magrell to safety, now settled into Shirrin’s body and awaited repayment, extracting interest on the te sum all the while. Like most spirits, the creature of wind exacted its wages in blood. With every step Shirrin took through the hallways of the pace, the creature drank another microscopic fraction of her blood, vanishing it into whatever un-space offerings go. Already her body was noticing the ck of blood volume, growing pale and frenetic as the heart beat harder to compensate and blood was drawn away from her skin and extremities.
When this business was over, Shirrin would make her way to market, purchase a mb, and allow the spirit to devour its corpse; but that would come after she had secured the safety of the Trabakondai, and not before. There was only one way she could think to do that, at least not without entirely derailing her plots into militia creations and servile spirits, and that was in the heart of the pace. It was the middle of the day and, due to Shirrin’s own colpse, Peleus was rejuvenated. Which meant that he was in his parlor, engaging with guests.
Shirrin flew into the room, drawing up what strength and force of will that she could. Peleus was in the middle of conversation with a pair of men that Shirrin had never seen before, no doubt senators or other such men of import judging by their apparel. Either way, both men retreated at once before the wave of her arrival. Peleus frowned; he, at least, could tell that something was different about her.
“Shirrin? I haven’t seen you so alive in days.”
“There is something we must speak about. Urgently.”
The Emperor’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth turned in a way that could have indicated pleasure just as much as annoyance. He gnced at the two senators. They needed no more than a moment to understand his meaning, and with nods and words of respectful parting they hurried out of one of the parlor’s other side doors. Peleus shifted slowly, observing Shirrin in the manner of a falcon observing a hare, and prepared to sit on one of the room’s several couches.
“Have you heard of the upset in the city?” Shirrin said. Terror sat within her heart, warring mindlessly against power and restraint.
“Fragments, here and there,” said Peleus. He reached behind himself, plucking a plum from a bowl and taking a bite. “Something about, mmm, gang wars?”
Shirrin shook her head. As though the Emperor’s ignorance were a mere ck of instruction. “The Patriarch’s most recent sermon was… infmmatory. The ire of the city has turned upon me, and all the Trabakondai who dwell within its borders as a reflection of me.”
“Unfortunate,” said the Emperor.
“You must do something about it. Protect them, stop the mob, something.”
Peleus raised an eyebrow, biting off, chewing, and swallowing another chunk of plum. “I doubt making a speech or sending out a missive will do much to quell their anger. Such riots may be but a myth in Trabakond, where foreigners are unheard of, but here in Chrysopolis they are commonpce.”
“You know damned well that you can do more than make speeches and send out missives,” Shirrin said, her voice cracking with tension. “Send your guard into the streets! Stop them!”
“Send my troops against my own people? Over a mere bit of urban squabbling? My own wife could make such a request and I would be a fool to listen to her, Witch-Queen, so what makes you believe you hold such authority over me?”
Shirrin had no response; she had been relying entirely upon the addling of Peleus’s will, on the fragments of generosity within his heart that she damned well knew no longer existed. Her teeth ground together. She needed something, anything that could give her leverage. For a moment, Shirrin’s hands clenched and she gred at Peleus: one word and he would be at her mercy, faced with a decision between capitution and death. But that would defeat the purpose, squander every effort she had made in the st two seasons.
Shirrin fell onto one knee, facing the floor, a gesture of submission that would buy her a few extra moments. The st time she had been in such a position, so close to the floor with Peleus looming over her, had been in the captive tent, when the original deal between them had been struck. She knew what she had to do.
“You promised safety for Trabakond,” Shirrin said. “Thus was your oath. I have not resisted you all these seasons because safety for my people was assured; do not now break that oath.”
Shirrin could not remember if such was the precise wording; but she believed that Peleus did not remember either. She was counting on it.
“What do riots in Chrysopolis have to do with the safety of Trabakond? Your country remains unmolested.”
“Wherever the Trabakondai go, Trabakond follows. A people are a part of the country, are they not? Are not the Macarians as much a part of Macaria as is the ground and the trees?”
“And the Trabakondai, even those who live in this city, are still part of Trabakond…”
“And thus, if they come to harm at the hands of the Macarians, it will break the oath you swore to me at the time of my surrender.”
Shirrin heard, but did not see, Peleus take another bite of plum. He wasn’t convinced. She looked up, letting her fear and anger spill into her voice and expression, letting her body tremble with the strength of the emotion as she gred into the Emperor’s eyes.
“I have served you well, have I not? I have upheld my end of the oath, have I not? Do not break your end of the agreement, my master. Please. I beg you.”
Peleus did not allow a hint of emotion to show on his face. If passion alone, unaided by magic, could have done harm to a man, then Peleus would have come to harm in that moment from the force of Shirrin’s desperation. She did not wish to push the matter; nor did she wish for there to be blood on the streets of Chrysopolis, not yet. For a moment, or for an eon, they remained there frozen in time. Shirrin’s blood waned, her terror grew, the dread of what would come next turning from a mere specter of fear into a dull, hateful beast of certainty. And then, at st, Peleus averted his eyes.
“Very well. I shall make a show of force in the Trabakondai quarter. It is, perhaps, best, if my people do not believe they can loot and murder with impunity within the walls of my city. Now begone, wretch; I have satisfied your damnable oath, and I have more important business to attend to.”
Shirrin rose speedily. “Of course, my master. But I expect you to hold to that.”
“You have my word,” said Peleus, and then went to re-invite the two senators back into the room.
Shirrin moved swiftly out of the chamber, her heart beginning to settle. It was not until she was well out of Peleus’s sight that she noticed how much weaker she had already grown; the elemental was hungry indeed. She vanished, and a weary, blood-starved raven fpped out of the nearest window, headed for the livestock markets.
SaffronDragon
