The Providence of Fire

40

“Neutral ground” turned out to be a dilapidated wooden warehouse down by the docks, a huge, cavernous place stacked ceiling high with crates and barrels, reeking of salt, and tar, and mold. Pulleys and tackle hung silently from the rafters overhead, ropes as thick as Kaden’s wrist ending in great steel hooks. It was only the apparatus necessary to the movement and storage of heavy cargo, but late at night, in the flickering light of their storm lantern, the silent lengths of rope with their rusting tackle seemed morbid, menacing. Gabril had offered to host the secret meeting in his own palace, but the others had refused, insisting on neutral ground. That insistence, too, seemed menacing.

The three of them, Kaden, Kiel, and Gabril, paused just inside the door, allowing their eyes to adjust to the darkness.

“You must remember,” Gabril murmured, “that these people hate your empire, but their hatred bubbles up from different wells.”

“But you’re all in agreement,” Kaden replied. “You see eye to eye on the basic issues?”

The First Speaker frowned. “For a long time we hoped to fight the same foe.”

“Not the same thing,” Kiel observed quietly.

“It is a bond,” Gabril said.

Kiel shook his head. “A tenuous one, and delicately balanced. I have seen it plenty of times.”

Gabril turned to stare at the Csestriim. They had been working together for days, since Kaden’s visit to the First Speaker’s palace, and the two had developed a delicate verbal dance, Gabril trying to ferret out Kiel’s history while Kiel deftly deflected the questions, always turning the conversation away from himself.

“You claim to have seen a great many things,” the First Speaker said.

Kiel shrugged. “I watch carefully. The point here is that a common foe makes for a fragile foundation. A single shift in the balance and alliances crumble.”

“A shift?” Kaden asked. “We’re about to take a sledge to the whole political edifice.”

“And we would do well to hope it doesn’t fall upon us,” Kiel replied.

Gabril shook his head. “Hope is for fools, but your councillor is right. I have shared ta and unleavened bread with these men and women, but there are those here tonight who would stab me in an eyeblink. Or you, if they see an advantage.”

“Remind me what keeps us from getting stabbed?” Kaden asked.

“This,” Gabril said, tapping his skull with his fingernail. “These,” gesturing to his knives.

“And this,” Kiel added, patting the leather case at his side.

Kaden took a deep breath and nodded. The work of the last few days felt a flimsy aegis, a few words inked on parchment, but if those words failed, it seemed unlikely that Gabril’s smarts or his skills with those knives would keep them safe.

* * *

The three of them were, by design, the last to arrive. Better to be waited upon, Gabril insisted, than to wait. Such blatant disrespect struck Kaden as an odd way to win a dozen suspicious nobles over to his side, but Kiel had agreed with the First Speaker, and so they had delayed their arrival enough that as they approached the center of the warehouse they found a small open circle from which the barrels and crates had been shoved aside. Someone had lit a few lamps around the perimeter and arranged a few of the lower crates as seats, but, with the towering stacks of merchandise on all sides, the space felt like the ill-lit bottom of a deep well.

The people there, most dressed in nondescript, deep-hooded cloaks like Kaden himself, sat or stood uneasily, as though trying to keep as much space between themselves as possible. A few held muttered conversations, but all conversation stopped when Gabril stepped into the circle of light.

For a moment, no one said anything. Then a wiry gray man, his face badly pitted by some childhood pox, leveled a finger at the First Speaker.

“You endanger us all by calling this meeting. Your notes-”

“-were coded,” Gabril said, shaking his head. “As they always are, Tevis.”

The man knocked the explanation aside with an impatient hand. “The tyrant could have broken our codes.…”

Gabril started to respond, but Kaden stepped forward into the lamplight. “The tyrant is right here,” he said, pushing back his hood, turning his head slowly, allowing everyone a nice long look at his eyes. For one heartbeat, two, three, there was no response. Then Tevis was reaching for the rapier at his side while two or three others broke out in exclamations, part fear, part anger.

“Traitor!” Tevis snarled at Gabril, his slender blade bare.

“You are startled,” Gabril said, laying his palms slowly on his knives, “and so I will allow you one chance to unsay what you have said.”

Tevis’s eyes darted from Gabril to Kaden then back.

“What is he doing here? Where did he come from? Explain this!”

“I would have to imagine, Tevis,” a new voice drawled, “that the boy came here to do just that. Unfortunately, you waving your skinny little wand in his face seems to be … what is the word you educated folk use? Impeding the explanation? Is that it?”

Kaden tilted his head to consider a very fat woman reclining in the shadows. Unlike many of the others, she seemed to have made little effort to disguise her identity. She wore a sumptuous green dress, sparkling rings on every finger, golden bangles around her wrists, and a pendant necklace draped across her enormous bosom. Kaden guessed her to be somewhere in her mid-fifties, but she had the rich, smooth skin and hair of a much younger woman.

From Gabril’s description, she could only be Kegellen, the sole person in the room not descended from nobility. According to the First Speaker, she was the Annurian akaza, the lord of the criminal underworld, absolute master of everything from smuggled goods to imperial bribery to assassination. She hardly looked the part, but then, Kiel hardly looked like an immortal Csestriim historian. The important thing was that she had power-more power, if Kiel and Gabril were right, than any of the assembled nobles, at least inside the city of Annur. She could be a crucial ally, if they could convince her.

Tevis rounded on the woman, rapier still drawn. “And the fact that you’re here, defending him, is an indication of just how low this council has sunk.” He spat onto the dry dirt. “I swear to Intarra, Kegellen, if you lived in Nish, I would have seen you hung a dozen years ago.”

The fat woman just yawned, holding a puffy hand to her mouth. “A good thing, then,” she said as she lowered it, “that I don’t live in Nish.” She turned her attention back to Kaden. “Now, Gabril, my beautiful boy, why don’t you explain to this august assembly where you found our most noble Emperor? I promise Tevis will sit down and listen politely…”

“I will do no such-” the man began, but the woman talked right over him.

“… or I will have my ministers cut off his shriveled testicles and feed them to him in a broth of brandy and ginger.”

Tevis’s eyes bulged. “You don’t frighten me, you fat bitch,” he began, but another man, shorter, with a wide face and fleshy nose, hauled him hastily to a seat on one of the crates, whispering something furiously in his ear. Tevis glanced back at the woman, hesitated a moment, then shook off his companion. Rage twisted his face, but Kaden noted that he did not stand, nor did he speak again. The others watched the woman warily.

Kegellen ignored them all. “Now,” she said, spreading her hands in invitation, “Gabril, you delicious rock of a man, why don’t you explain where you found yourself an emperor?”

Gabril shook his head. “The Malkeenian will speak for himself.”

Kaden breathed out a slow, quiet breath, then stepped forward. Gabril and Morjeta had warned him of the difficulties entailed in his plan, warned him dozens of times over, and while Kaden had understood those difficulties intellectually, the true challenge of what he faced was only now setting in. The nobles were already clawing at each other’s eyes; there was every chance that the offer he’d come to make would lead to blood on the floor of the warehouse, but there was no going back now.

“My name is Kaden hui’Malkeenian, son of Sanlitun hui’Malkeenian, the Scion of Light, the Long Mind of the World, Holder of the Scales, and Keeper of the Gates. I am the heir to the Unhewn Throne.”

“Nice list,” said a tall, broad man with a huge, red-gold beard-Vennet, according to Gabril’s description. “You come here to rub our faces in your pretty polished titles?”

Kaden fixed the speaker with his burning eyes, waiting until he looked away. “No, Vennet,” he said quietly. “I came here to tell you I am done with them.”

Glances darted like swallows in the dark silence that followed, men and women sizing up Kaden and then one another, tempted to see their own advantage in his words, but wary and uncertain.

Tevis narrowed his eyes. He had slipped his rapier back into its sheath, but kept one hand on the pommel.

“What do you mean by done?”

“Just that,” Kaden replied evenly. “I am giving up the titles. Giving up the Unhewn Throne.”

Kegellen pursed her lips, flicked absently at one of her dangling earrings with a fingernail. “Giving them,” she asked mildly, “to whom?”

Kaden shook his head. “To no one. Perhaps I misspoke. I said I was giving them up. What I meant was that I plan to destroy them.”

The air in the room went suddenly taut as the summer sky before a storm. Kaden shifted his eyes from one face to the next, watching the reactions, memorizing them-the twitch of an eyelid here, a jaw clenched, a fingernail picking nervously at a fleshy knuckle. Tevis’s lips were drawn back in a half snarl, a cornered animal uncertain whether to attack or flee. Kegellen twisted a golden bangle absently around her wrist again and again, the motion as simple and repetitive as the moving meditations of the Shin.

“Then what?” Vennet asked finally. “No more empire? Back to the good old days when we all ran our own kingdoms?”

“We did not all have kings, Vennet,” Gabril said.

Vennet smiled a broad, contemptuous smile. “Of course. You desert dwellers will be overjoyed to return to your savage customs.”

“I’m sorry to hear that you consider his customs savage,” Kaden said, taking a small step to put himself between Gabril and the bearded man, “as I have drawn heavily upon them in my remaking of the empire.”

For several heartbeats no one said anything. Wind gusted through cracks in the warehouse walls, tugging at the lantern flames.

“Making it into what?” Vennet asked finally.

“A republic,” Kaden replied. “A government of shared responsibility.”

Tevis threw his hands in the air. “’Shael save us, a republic? Meaning every filthy, dirt-grubbing peasant has a say and a stake?”

“It would be inefficient,” Kaden said quietly, “to bring every filthy, dirt-grubbing peasant to the capital for the sake of governance. I propose something more limited.”

Kegellen narrowed her eyes. “A council,” she said, tapping a finger against her fleshy lips. “You want to have a council.”

Kaden nodded.

“A council?” Tevis spat, lips drawn back in a sneer. “Of whom?”

“You,” Kaden replied. “You will provide the spine. Plus representatives from those atrepies who are not here in the city.” He gestured over his shoulder to Kiel, who slipped the rolled parchment into his hand. Kaden held the scroll up to the light, but made no move to unfurl it.

Vennet snorted. “What is that?”

“A document,” Kaden replied, “setting out the new laws, prerogatives, and responsibilities. A constitution.”

Kaden could never have come up with the thing on his own. After eight years in the Bone Mountains, he knew maybe one Annurian law in a hundred, and had almost no sense of the governing structures of foreign states and nations. He remembered from his childhood that Freeport and the cities north of the Romsdals formed a federation, that the Manjari had an empire like the Annurians, but with an empress instead of an emperor, and that the Blood Cities all insisted on their own independence, alternately fighting and trading with the others. It was an absurdly small base of knowledge for the drafting of a constitution that would govern a polity the size of Annur.

Gabril had proven useful, outlining the traditions of his people, as had Morjeta, whose training in the Temple of Pleasure had afforded her a surprising amount of time for the study of politics. In the end, though, it was Kiel who put it together. The historian seemed to know every detail of every human culture since the fall of the Csestriim. He anticipated the general problems of human governance, the specific problems posed by a transition from empire to republic, and provided plausible solutions to both. Morjeta and Gabril had both stared at the historian with increasing awe as they worked and reworked the document.

“How do you know all of this?” the First Speaker demanded at one point.

Kiel smiled. “It is my work.”

His raised his brows. “You memorized every detail, every name and date?”

“Yes,” he replied mildly, then gestured them back to the scroll.

Kaden had insisted on one thing only: that the document be simple. It was going to prove difficult enough to convince a score of suspicious, scheming nobles to put aside their historical rifts and grievances without presenting them with a five-hundred-page treatise. Kiel resisted, arguing that any lapses or oversights would lead, eventually, to the fragmentation and dissolution of the government, and the historian saw lapses and oversights everywhere. He wanted to address each possible contingency, outlining solutions to debacles ranging from assassination of council members to double taxation on long-distance merchants.

“I have studied republics, Kaden,” he said, shaking his head. “They start with the noblest of intentions, and they tear themselves to shreds.”

“How long does that take?” Kaden asked. “The shredding?”

Kiel spread his hands. “There are dozens of scenarios. Decades, sometimes. Maybe a couple of centuries. Not long.”

Triste laughed out loud at that. “If we make it through the next few months, I think we’ll all be happy. Come next summer, Kaden can start worrying about deflation and price-fixing and whatever else it is you’ve been talking about.”

“Come next summer,” Kiel replied, “Kaden will not be in charge. Not if we are successful.”

“One page,” Kaden said, cutting off the conversation. “We’re doing this to deny power to Adare and il Tornja, not as some experiment in the founding of a political utopia.”

“While we are doing one-” Kiel began.

Kaden shook his head, held up one finger. “One page.”

And so, as he stood in the damp warehouse, flanked by piled crates and musty barrels, ringed with hostile, baffled stares, it was one page that he held up.

“This,” he said quietly, “is the constitution I propose for Annur, an Annur ruled, not by an emperor, but by representatives from the various atrepies, people familiar with and dedicated to the traditions, history, and interests of their people.”

For a moment there was silence, the calculation of possibility and risk.

A slender, ink-skinned woman with red nails and a shaved scalp-Kaden took her for Azurtazine, from the southern island of Basc-shook her head. “How many?” she asked carefully. “How many representatives?”

“Forty-five,” Kaden replied. “Three from each atrepy.”

Azurtazine pursed her lips. “To be chosen how?”

“By you,” he said, “each for his or her own territory.”

Kiel had protested endlessly against the method, arguing that the nobles would scheme to promote their family and friends, then use their newfound power to crush both their political and personal foes. The new system, he pointed out, would be hopelessly tied to the interests of the few and the rich.

The point was a good one, but there was no chance that these remnants of an old world order, families who had spent hundreds of years hoarding their grievances and counting their slights, would allow any government in which they were forced to share power over their own restored lands. Doubtless there were better systems, but il Tornja and Adare would not be fighting the Urghul forever, and by the time they returned, the fledgling republic needed to be established firmly enough to deny them power.

“It seems like you’re giving up a lot,” Triste had said, shaking her head as she studied one of the final drafts.

Kaden almost laughed. “That’s the point. I can’t match anyone strength for strength, blow for blow. Not Adare. Not il Tornja. Not the assembled nobles.”

“Then how do you control them? How do you win?”

The vision of Gabril in his shadowrobe danced through Kaden’s mind, of the attacking guardsman lunging forward, of his spear piercing the cloth, missing the body inside, then driving into the flesh of the other soldier. If the Shin had bothered to fight, that was how they would do it.

“There might be more strength,” he had said, staring at the drying ink on the parchment, “in simply standing aside.”

Faced with the sharp glares of Annur’s nobility, he was starting to question that decision. They could well have been a pack of hungry, late-winter wolves stumbling upon a deer carcass, snarling and sizing each other up, wondering who was going to get a bloody haunch, who was going to starve in the blood-soaked snow.

“And what,” Kegellen asked, still twisting those bangles as she eyed him, “will your role be in this great enterprise? Or do you long to return to a contemplative life in the mountains?” She smiled brightly, but her dark eyes were shrewd. Kaden forced himself to meet her gaze, to deliver the words as he had practiced them.

“I will be your servant,” he said, voice level.

Kegellen laughed, her cheeks and chins jiggling with levity. “How delightful! A strong young thing-with burning eyes, no less! — to rub my aching feet and pour my wine.” She glanced about her, false irritation flickering across her face. “And speaking of wine-why did no one think to bring any?”

Kaden ignored the last question. “The council will vote on every law, deciding on the direction of the republic and upon the surest paths to reach our collective goals. I will not be a part of the council. As Servant of the Annurian Republic,” he went on carefully, “I will not have a vote, nor will I have a veto over what you decide. My only role will be administrative. I will call the meetings, and I will see to it that the laws you set in place are executed according to the spirit in which you intended them.”

Fifteen sets of eyes watched him. Kaden forced himself to breathe easily, steadily.

“Why?” Kegellen asked slowly, lower lip turning out in a frown. “Why would you want this? You could be Emperor.”

“I spent most of the last ten years beyond the borders of Annur,” Kaden replied. “I saw another way.”

“Great,” Tevis snorted. “Another way. How enlightened. Or maybe it’s that you lost your power already, let your sister seize it, and now you’re trying to claw back any pathetic bit that you can.”

Tevis’s crack struck close to the bone, but Kaden had prepared for it.

“You’re right,” he replied evenly. “My sister and the kenarang have taken power for themselves. They tried to see me killed, and, if we succeed in what we are doing, they will try to kill you, too.”

The revelation had the intended effect-shocked faces, indignant exclamations-but Kaden rode right over them.

“You are right about Adare,” he continued, “but you are wrong about me. If I wanted power, I would hardly offer myself as your servant.

“Right now, Adare and the kenarang are in the north. When they return, they will either find their power kept nicely warm by their minions here in the city while the rest of you keep meeting in damp warehouses by the docks, or they will find a republic, a ruling council led by you, deciding the fate of Annur.” He shrugged. “Whatever happens, I have no intention ever to sit the Unhewn Throne.”

For a long, tantalizing moment, he thought he had them. Oil hissed in the lamps. Somewhere lost in the darkness above, birds shuffled on the rafters. No one spoke. No one moved. Kaden watched the faces, willing them to see the opening, the chance at power, to lunge. Tevis was nodding, licking his lips. Azurtazine studied him appraisingly, breathing out slowly between pursed lips. They all saw the risk, but their conspiracy had always been dogged by risk. They had all dreamed of an opportunity like this, but none had dared hope for it. Kaden waited, his face calm, eyes still, his hand extended with the parchment. He had them. They would take it.

Then Tevis shook his head.

“I want more.”

Kaden frowned. “More what?”

“More representatives on the council. Six from Nish. We hold the northern passes through the Romsdals. We keep the Ghost Sea swept of pirates. I want more.”

“The council is based on equal representation,” Kaden began, but Tevis cut him off.

“We’re not all equal.” He flicked a contemptuous thumb at a short man with wide-set eyes. “Channary? Hanno? They were added to the empire in the last century. They’re barely even atrepies.”

Kaden felt his stomach cave even as the chorus of voices rose in fury, smashing the silence into shards. The shouts and recriminations washed over him.

“Si’ite provides the silver…”

“The population of Kresh is three times that of…”

“Aragat deserves more seats…”

“… more votes…”

“More power…”

He shut out the words. It was obvious he had already lost, and the protestations, for all their difference, were all the same: a litany, the power of which he had long ago forgotten, a desperate string of syllables stronger than any prayer, the ancient, ineluctable chant of humanity itself: I want … I want … I want …