While it was by no means “cool,” Daisy appreciated the lack of flaming rooftops in West Helland. Evidently, it was near the North Pole, separated by a mountain range and a lot of troops from The Armed Nation. It was curious the kind of detail that caught your eye when you were fighting for your life.
But that, Daisy reflected, might be getting ahead of herself.
Daisy, along with Ruler, Irons, and Corrie, had whipped the crowd into a frenzy. “How many of you struggle to afford food?! How many among you subsist on a ration of water you’re forced to supplement with wastewater?! How many among you have had enough?!” There was a great cheer. “The Lord did not make some people to be kings! ‘He will take your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, even your best, and give them to his servants.’ ‘You will cry out in that day because of your king whom you will have chosen for yourselves; and the One God will not answer you in that day’! Do not your donjons rule from on high?! Do not their banks contain wealth enough to feed your families for years to come?! Have you had enough?! We march on city hall! We take back what is rightfully ours! ‘Don't be afraid of those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul’! Women and men of Marz, of Helland, follow me!”
Daisy led the assembled mass of people on a march through town, throwing inspirational phrases over her shoulder and letting her helpers do the rest of the rabble rousing. Not that these were rabble. If anything, they were the purer souls in “the Kingdom of Hell,” people of simple faith and honest repentance, though their punishment had been far beyond the measure of any sin they might have committed.
They did not make it as far as the city hall. Dressed in uniform, armed with rifles, rows of spades appeared. Without hesitation, they fired into the crowd. Daisy, fearing for her life, summoned a wall of water between her and the riflemen, which slowed the bullets enough that they veered off-course or merely bludgeoned her. But in such a densely-packed crowd, even missing meant someone got hurt. The crowd, full of cheer and fervor, rapidly panicked. They were low-caste diamonds, or colonized peoples not even given a rank; they had no weapons, they had no training, this had been a lark until the moment it turned into a nightmare.
That was when Daisy noticed that the roofs of West Helland were not on fire.
As Daisy fled, reaching out through Ruler’s gutfish to find Irons and Corrie and make sure they all fled to the same safe house. It was not a defeat today, but a demonstration. In the last several days, they had made contact with numerous people of West Helland, and there was a plan. An unarmed people facing a despotism that robbed them of their very humanity in the eyes of the ruling class could not do much. But an organized resistance, engaging in guerilla warfare, could do a great deal. City hall would know Daisy’s wrath but soon. As Irons tended her injuries, Daisy relished the coming day of reckoning.
Cell-based resistance movements were tough nuts to crack. But they still had the fatal weak spot of a connection between each person and at least one other cell. Sufficient brutality and willingness to extract information, a trifle with air sorcery, would eventually root out the cells. However, and Ruler had to be credited with the idea, when you had a light sorcerer there was no need for anyone in any cell to know anyone in any other cell. It was still psychologically useful to put people into groups of two, three, or four, allowing them to feel fellowship and support one another, but beyond that, it was a dead end—provided you had a light sorcerer. From their safe house, Corrie’s small flat, Irons and Corrie took care of fetching food and selling water, while Avery and Daisy worked their sorcery. Avery would, having a reliable city map built over the previous days, conjure a light show in the houses of trusted—or even semi-trusted—members of their resistance. Giving off a neon glow, he provided instructions or encouragement or both. Then, with instructions to write any requests, reports, or clarifications on a clay tablet, he would scry upon the location he had just refracted light into, and find out what they had learned.
Daisy, meanwhile, was taking an unarmed populace and turning them into an armed populace. Just as she had in jail, she turned the acidic carbon dioxide in her exhaled breaths into black powder, assembled into charges and given wax-soaked cord as a fuse. It was grueling work, requiring a great deal of focus, and her failures to maintain her focus left her with tingling limbs and cramping muscles. With the part of her mind not maintaining the focus on her breath, Daisy reflected upon what she was wreaking. Sorcery was predicated upon faith, specifically the faith that what one was doing was the One God’s Will. Many theorized this was the reason dragons had developed psionics for their servants; one could not serve a dragon long and believe in their obeisance to the One God, or else they would have to put on an elaborate song and dance.
She actually stopped for several hours, at one point, to consider whether she honestly believed it was right to bomb colonizer buildings. People could be hurt, even if they timed the demonstrations to when the buildings should be empty. Ultimately, her conclusion was that she believed in what she was doing, and working water sorcery to gaze upon her soul and reassure herself of its luminescence.
She took a break after that to drink water from an artfully etched pewter pitcher. It was a depiction of ‘Liders soaring on the updrafts of a plain of fire, detailed enough to show the exhaled breath of the flying messengers. Its soulcerous enchantment rendered water put in it cold, as were those high elevations at which only ‘Liders could survive. Asked about it, Corrie had said bitterly, “We used to be a passionate nation of craftswomen. Now we satisfy the quotas.”
Irons returned, looking tired but happy, and asked if the next charge was ready to be put at the drop site. Daisy pushed her drink away and then returned to transmuting black powder.
As they knew it would be, the response to the bombings was swift and brutal. A curfew was imposed, and all individuals out and about needed to show their work designation and demonstrate they were on an efficient route to or from work or errands. But they couldn’t actually penalize any of the people, because they couldn’t prove anyone had done it. The soldiers, the spades, walked around with rifles at all times, and the remaining buildings of the Helland occupation were kept under guard. All expenses for an empire already pushing resources over the Eka-Alumina Sea, the sea Daisy, Ruler, and Irons had sailed across.
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Daisy was in no rush. She let the crackdown stew, let resentment grow, and in the meantime preached a verse at a time through Ruler. She also worked on teaching Irons to use water sorcery. Corrie was still new to her faith, she might yet be a seed scattered amongst the stones, but Daisy was confident in Irons’ belief and commitment. They started small, mindful of the difficulty of working water sorcery on the fire planet. Daisy explained to Irons, “‘If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’’. Of course, it is not as simple as that. You need to focus, you need to know what you are praying for.” Praying? I thought this was sorcery. “It is a kind of prayer. And to work water sorcery on Marz, you will need to pray very hard indeed. Once you are practiced in it, that is when you can will something to be and have it happen.” Daisy dipped her fingers into the bowl of water and blew on her hand, feeling the coolness of the water as air ran across it. “First is the investiture. It is a technique of making sorcery easier by attuning to an element. Be aware of the water on your fingers, feel how it’s the same as the water in the bowl. Repeat it as many times as you need.
“Then, repeat after me: ‘Lord, I strive to believe it is Your Will that this water ripple, that I might serve the cause of bringing about your Kingdom on Marz. Please fill me with Your Spirit and let me be faithful.’” Irons repeated after her, Corrie looking on with clear envy. Irons repeated the prayer, looked down at the bowl, and sighed. “It’s okay, Irons. It takes practice. And you’re starting with what is likely the hardest element you could on this planet.” They tried again. And again. Meanwhile, Ruler found ever more converts to their cause, as the harshness of the crackdown with no results led to resentment.
“Why won’t the dragons just sweep the city with their psi?” Corrie asked one night. “I understand why their servants won’t, they’d run the risk of being counterattacked, but dragons have so much more powerful minds!”
Ruler looked at Daisy, who gestured that it was his show if he wanted to share. “Dragons took an active role in human politics before. It ended poorly for th-them. Now, the fullest extent they’ll get involved is helping and guiding guilds and the like. Th-they’ve gotten bolder, in the last Age, which is the reason for the prophecy I-I-I carry. They will cross the line—already have, on Orth—and humans will rise up for the final time against them. So the One God has entrusted m-me to relate.”
“I hope they don’t cross that line now of all times.”
Daisy shook her head. “They represent an untouchable elite above even the donjons. I strongly suspect they rest easy knowing they will be at the top of any hierarchy that forms, and if their servants are not capable enough to defend themselves… explain it again, Ruler?”
“Intervening directly would be a loss of status for th-them. It is all about how many pawns and how capable they are, because applying draconic might directly is a sign of weakness. The D-D-Dragonslayer killed one of the weakest exponents of dragonkind because h-he ruled a nation directly.”
Aside from the grueling work of coordinating an ever-growing resistance, Ruler was looking for Helland weapon stores. They had no illusions of stealing them, but if they could mine Helland’s rifles then they’d have a fighting chance. Clubs and cleavers were not an even match for proper swords, but with the advantage of numbers they’d have a decent odds.
When they were almost ready, they sent out the message again. This time, it would not be about even feigning a resistance, but making a statement. At precisely noon, hundreds of casteless and diamonds, and by now even a few spades, poured out from work assignments and housing and gathered in the square before city hall. They already had ranking spades following them, and Daisy had not made an appearance, but as soon as they had gathered, Ruler gave the signal to disperse, an eight-pointed starburst above the crowd. They had made their point. The people would not tolerate much more.
There was retribution, of course. The Powers that Be could hardly let it be any other way, but they couldn’t punish everyone in any personal way. A few people were arrested, those who missed work were identified where their managers hadn’t walked out as well. That, fortunately, had been the majority. Resentment was climbing the ranks of the diamonds, Daisy knew they counted even a six of diamonds among the ranks of the resistance. And they had picked up an incredibly valuable tip. A name almost lost to the ages, West Helland had once been known as Crafton, known for its fine workmanship of metal. The Crafton Resistance was born.
In the end, it was the spades’ own zeal to arm and defend themselves that allowed Daisy to make her next move. Breastplates and rifles were commissioned en masse, urine was requisitioned, where before it had been a valuable source of distilled water. And all of it went to the same complex of buildings, as those more privileged spies were able to relate to Ruler. This time, it wasn’t just Irons and Corrie risking their lives to deliver charges to the drop sites. It was a relay race of excusable movements through the city, passing packages with unpracticed clumsiness that made it all the more deniable. Some of the Crafton Resistance were arrested, charged with treason and terrorism and heresy, in some combination or other, but by and large the charges landed where they were supposed to.
Through it all, business went on as it was supposed to. Workers went to work, water rations were given out, and while a rough sketch of Daisy in the garb she had arrived on Marz wearing was circulated, not many people were arrested. Declarations that any sign of light sorcery would be taken as treason were posted; they had cracked the few they had arrested, but without a consistent schedule or any idea of who was a member of the Resistance, little could come of it. The tension hummed in the air, ever more of the populace reaching out in whispers to their neighbors, their staff, even their superiors.
The bombing went off clumsily, and Daisy regretted that she lacked the military training to make it a great success. Ruler was scrying on the area, and they watched as individuals afraid for their lives and being fired upon and dropping their charges. However, enough made it to the compounds to blast away the soldiers’ arms and armor. The breastplates were buried under rubble, and a truly impressive concussion and burst indicated that their gunpowder had gone up. Daisy was thankful that their lack of water sorcery meant they couldn’t rely upon the combination of acid and fire runes to run their rifles, because now… now it was swords against improvised weapons. They couldn’t pick them off from a distance, and numbers would count for far more. Even so, she prayed for the souls lost in the attack. Corrie in particular seemed affected, she knew some of these people personally and they were dear to her. Crafton—Daisy would not think of it as West Helland again—was a close-knit community, for all the efforts of the spades to break up camaraderie with diamond caste assignments.
Another demonstration was in order, this time with weapons, but when, and where, were questions she didn’t have immediate answers to. Smashing the vault at city hall wouldn’t actually accomplish that much in the grand scheme of things, it was all script the Ranks of the Damned elites could recolor and reprint. As Ruler relaxed from the taxing monitoring of so distant a site, Daisy reclined on her seating block and pondered next steps. She’d never led a revolution so successfully before, and while there were proverbs about planning for failure…
