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Chapter Text

Cliopher had never exactly planned to become a traitor to the Empire and, by association, one of the Terrors of Astandalas. But he could pinpoint the exact moment when it began.

He had been visiting his favourite cheese shop on Zangora Square, browsing the offerings from Alinor and trying to think about whether he would be able to attend the Yrchester cheese festival (and trying very hard not to think about how miserable his work had become, under the new Director). He had just paid for a small wheel of the soft, mild cheese that spread so easily over bread, when he heard a commotion outside the shop.

Imperial Guards were scattered throughout the square, nailing notices to boards and posts, or using their spears and impressive muscles to intimidate people from crowding around the notices. The nearest - and largest - of the guards was very stiff and grim-faced as he tacked up the notice and then locked the glass door. Of course, the moment the guards moved away, the people drew closer.

Cliopher dodged the large guard and went to the nearest board, peering between the heads of two men in front of him. He saw the words Notice of Execution at the top, and he was almost certain his eye had caught Red Company lower down, but the jostling of the spectators had kept him from reading it properly.

"Read it out!" cried someone from behind Cliopher, and "What's it say?" called someone else.

"There's to be an execution tomorrow," said a man up at the front, speaking slowly and officiously, apparently dragging it out for his own enjoyment.

A woman interrupted him, cutting straight to the heart of the matter: "They've caught Jullanar of the Sea!"

Everyone around Cliopher was gasping and exclaiming, so his own little groan of dismay went unheard.

The square was filling up. It took a great deal of determination for Cliopher to work his way close enough to one of the posted notices to check all the details, but there was nothing particularly helpful in the smaller print: the execution was to be at noon. Jullanar Etaris (he latched onto the name, never published so far as he knew, and found it somehow ill-fitting), known by the sobriquet Jullanar of the Sea, had been remanded by the authorities in Alinor, where she was attempting to pass as an upstanding member of society. As she had already been tried in absentia along with the rest of the Red Company, there would be no pause for hearings or appeals before sentence was carried out.

The list of charges against her included menacing the Prince-Heir of the Empire and sundry noble guests, collusion in the theft of a priceless historical artifact, unauthorized entry into the Palace of Stars, collusion to kidnap the Prince-Heir while he was on progress, collusion in the theft of one boat and destruction of divers other boats belonging to the Imperial Guard, stabbing an Imperial official, disruption of Imperial tax collections, menacing tax collectors, theft and destruction of various impounded goods in the Customs House of Ulstin-le-Grand, multiple counts of unauthorized border crossings, multiple counts of lying to Imperial officials, multiple counts of lying on official documents, multiple counts of tax evasion, and assorted lesser charges. Cliopher could connect many of these offenses to the best-known exploits of the Red Company, but he didn't recall any officials getting stabbed in the songs of Fitzroy Angursell.

Cliopher returned in a daze to his little room in the Palace. It was only when he got there that he realized he was no longer carrying his package of cheese. He had no idea where or when he had dropped it.

He sat up most of the night, staring into the darkness and thinking. He wrote to Basil and Vinyë. At some point between when he left the cheese shop and when he woke from a fitful sleep in the darkness before dawn, he ceased to be a loyal and law-abiding servant of the Emperor.

He went to the Ministry of Trade, where he had been recently enough employed that the cleaners thought nothing of letting him in, and under their unsuspecting gazes he forged several documents on official paper in the former Minister's handwriting. When the cleaners bade him a good day and left, but no one else had yet arrived, he picked the lock on a cabinet to reach the official seals. So long as he didn't carry the seals out of the office, the anti-theft charms would not be triggered. Once the false papers were carefully stamped and back-dated, he returned the seals to their places and re-locked the cabinet while the ink was drying. He made it to the refectory in time to force down a decent breakfast, in case it would be a while until he had a proper meal again.

He got to his new office at the same time as his colleagues, placed his personal letters in the outgoing mail slot, and made certain that his desk was in order with the most recent report lying ready upon it. He informed his colleagues he would be working in the Archives today, then stopped by the Censors' Office, where he joined some of his "friends" in their self-congratulations on the capture of a dangerous criminal (though he was quite certain the censors had contributed nothing to that effort). When everyone was looking the other way, he popped into the storeroom to pull out the slender volume of the Secret Collection and tuck it into his kit.

He hadn't had time to learn the songs at the end of the book yet. Some of those were sufficiently obscure that he could even play the tunes on his oboe with no one the wiser, although he preferred to do that in the more remote unused rooms of the Palace rather than his own little apartment.

He returned to his room and changed his gray-brown secretarial robes for a private outfit that was almost as nondescript but somewhat more practical, including an overcoat and thick-soled boots in case he had to visit some region even chillier than Astandalas in autumn. He packed a bag with a pair of sandals (he could hope!), a single change of clothes, his writing kit, and added all the less-perishable, less-squashable food he could find in his cupboards. At the last moment he stuffed a light-globe in at the top, and pulled the bag's drawstring closed.

He did not have a plan. All his thinking last night had not brought forth a brilliant scheme worthy of the Red Company which could nevertheless be carried out by a single individual with no magic or martial skills. He could write a perfect chancery hand. He knew the laws to a nicety. He could sing the Lays, and dance aōteketētana, and recite multiple versions of the story of Aurelius and Elonoa'a. He knew many ways to start a fire without magic.

He could start a fire; that was the only thing that he could imagine might be of any use in this situation.

He was going to go to the execution square. He was going to look for ways to disrupt the proceedings. He was, very possibly, going to get himself arrested or killed. More likely, he would be forced to bear witness to the death of a person he had admired more than half his life. It was not at all probable that he would manage to free Jullanar of the Sea and escape with her, but if that did happen he wanted to be prepared.

He meant to arrive at the execution square with a couple of hours to spare, to find himself a good vantage point. For what, he still was not quite certain. But when he got to the street leading to one of the entrance points to the square, he found that the access was narrowed by barriers, and people were shuffling forward in a ragged queue.

"What's this for?" he asked one of the people who was waiting.

"Checkpoint to get into the square," she told him.

He frowned. "Why did they post notices if they don't want people showing up to watch?"

"Yeah!" called another man further down the line. "Why's that?"

"Because it's the Red Company, you fools!" snapped someone else.

The friendly-looking woman Cliopher had originally chosen to speak to just shrugged. "They're searching everyone before letting them in. Confiscating anything that might be enchanted." She glanced at the strap over Cliopher's shoulder. "And going through their bags. They take people with bags aside."

Cliopher touched the strap. "Ah. Maybe I'll drop this off at home and come back, then." He smiled around at the crowd, and headed along the street to the next access point to find another line waiting there.

He circled slowly around the outer edges of the square, finding snarled traffic and frustrated people all along the route. Some took it in stride, only natural that there would be precautions for the Red Company. Others, especially anyone who was not interested in the execution itself but happened to have business nearby, were volubly annoyed about the whole thing.

Halfway around his circuit, Cliopher paused to look up at a vaguely-familiar building. It was primarily residential apartments, but there had been an old man who lived there and sold rare books from his home. Cliopher had followed him once to a storeroom on an upper hallway, looking for a volume of Voonran poetry that included translations on the facing page, which Cliopher had hoped might be a place to start learning the language. He recalled that the hallway itself had balconies looking down upon the square.

He went into the building and wandered toward the back. The ground floor seemed to have no access to the square, so he went up the first flight of stairs he found. A man saw him and demanded suspiciously to know what he was doing there, and Cliopher dredged up the name of the old book-collector.

"He's dead," said the stranger. "His collection was sold. I think Hedolon Books bought most of it."

"Oh," Cliopher said. "Thank you. I'll go ask there." He turned back down the corridor and waited around a corner until the suspicious man had gone.

Two storeys above ground level, he found the balcony access that he recalled, from a large dusty room that seemed intended for parties for the residents, or perhaps meetings or banquets. The balcony doors were locked, but the lock was nearly as simple as the cabinets in the Ministry of Trade, susceptible to the limited skills Cliopher had acquired during his petty-theft phase.

From this vantage, he could see that the square was already half-full of people. A platform had been erected in the center of the square, but it held a headsman's block rather than a gallows. Not a pleasant sight, but he was glad to know that the full gory ritual of hanging, flaying, and quartering a traitor would not be used in this case. Likely they couldn't make enough space for the horses to pull in four directions. At least a beheading would be swift, though perhaps it offered fewer opportunities to intervene.

He had no idea how he would be able to intervene in any case.

Forcing himself to focus, he looked past the block. Off to his right were viewing stands erected for the nobility of Astandalas, with padded seats and curtained boxes for the higher families. At the center of those stands was the canopied dais waiting ready for Emperor Artorin. The Emperor rarely left the Palace, and then only in a heavily-draped palanquin. In his few years in Astandalas, Cliopher had only seen him once, from across a crowded convocation hall. He had not been able to see any detail besides the dark skin and bright eyes, and he had been vaguely disappointed not to feel the instant tug of connection that had struck him when he first looked upon the Emperor's portrait. But he was older now, and more cynical, and knew his place in the Imperial court. It was not to sit at the Emperor's feet or anywhere near them.

Well. He had been thinking perhaps it was time to leave the court. Today seemed like an excellent day to make a break.

He looked down from the tiny balconette he stood upon, finding it higher than his memory had suggested. He thought he might be able to hang from his hands and drop down without breaking a leg, but it would be chancy. And he couldn't climb back up again, which meant this building would not offer an escape route from the square as he had vaguely imagined, assuming that he ever had something or someone to escape with.

Further along the line of jutting balconies, however, he saw what seemed like builders' scaffolding. He retreated back inside and walked along to the end of the banquet room to get access to a different small balcony. From here he could see that the building's facade of golden bricks had somehow been damaged and was in the process of being repaired. The planks of the scaffolds had been removed, perhaps to prevent people climbing upon them. But the frame was still standing, and the ragged gaps in the bricks offered a selection of handholds up the side of the building.

Cliopher dropped his bag, toed off the clumsy boots, and rummaged for the sandals he had packed. It might be chilly, but he could feel his footing better with the sandals that had molded to his feet over the years. Feeling more grounded as he stuffed the boots away, he slung the bag back over his shoulder and leaned over the balcony railing. His sedentary job in the Palace offered little opportunity for staying in shape, but his muscles had not wholly forgotten all the sailing practice that he engaged in during his growing years. Climbing used many of the same muscles if not the same skills. With the handy scaffold frame to hold to, he descended easily down to the square.

Several people called out as they saw him climbing down. He could not quite tell if it was cheer or mockery, but one yelled "That's one way to get past the Imperial Guard!" He hoped none of them would be pointing the guards in his direction.

Just to be sure, he hurried away into a thicker part of the crowd and pulled off his overcoat as he walked. Unfortunately it was too bulky to fit in his bag, so he tied the sleeves around his waist. It almost felt like wearing a sarong.

He dodged through the crowd, finding it harder to slip through gaps than it had been when he was fifteen (and not carrying a stuffed bag). The great clock at the edge of the square tolled eleven, meaning he had less than an hour to get himself into place for whatever he was going to do. It was becoming more and more difficult to avoid facing the fact that he really had no idea what he could do. But he had to get closer, in any case.

A swirl in the press of people drew his attention to someone - a stooped man with a cane and unfashionably-long grey curls a bit like Buru Tovo's - pushing through more rudely than Cliopher had dared. He managed to slot himself in behind the old fellow, and they made progress toward the block at the center of the square. At one point the old man stopped and scowled back at Cliopher through a pair of thick spectacle lenses, then gave a grin that showed surprising strong white teeth. He didn't tell Cliopher to stop following him.

They passed a large man who stood like a rock amid the current of milling people, and the old man gave a muffled exclamation of surprise. Cliopher wondered if he, too, had recognized that this was one of the Imperial Guard who had been in Zangora Square yesterday. But the fellow wasn't in uniform now and didn't seem to be armed aside from his large fists. Cliopher wondered how many other plainclothes guardsmen might be seeded throughout the crowd, and his hopes sank further.

Then the people in front of him were suddenly sinking to their knees, and Cliopher realized the old man had in fact led him quite close to the headsman's stand. And then he turned to see why everyone was kneeling, and descended into obeisance himself as the Emperor's palanquin was carried past to the viewing stand.

The curtains were partly drawn back, and Cliopher had a momentary glimpse before he ducked his head. The Emperor floated serenely above the crowd, expressionless and still, but his eyes glittered more brightly than flat gold leaf could ever portray.

Cliopher felt a flutter of doubt. He had been so certain, all those years ago, that he was called to serve this man, and he had tried so hard to find a ke'ea that would lead him there, only to find all paths closed, and his career stalled several removes from the service he wanted to offer.

Now, he was considering throwing it all over to support one of the worst enemies of the Empire, only because he had loved Fitzroy Angursell's poetry for years before he ever saw Artorin Damara's portrait. What did he really know about the Red Company and whether they deserved to be spared punishment for their very well-publicized crimes?

For that matter, what did he really know about the Emperor? He knew enough of the workings of the court to be fairly sure that the entrenched corruption went back for generations or even centuries. The rot was no fault of Emperor Artorin, who had been trying to stem the worst practices ever since he was anointed. But it was like using a coconut shell to empty a lagoon, and little clear progress had been made since Cliopher had come here. Did the Emperor even want the Red Company to be executed, or might he agree with some of their criticisms of the Empire? He had pardoned the rebels of Galderon, after all.

The palanquin passed, and people rose to their feet again. The viewing stands were filling up with brightly-dressed nobles, and everyone was chattering excitedly as if at a party or a grand opera. They pointed and exclaimed as the Emperor's chair was carried directly up to the dais and he shifted to the golden throne that awaited him, while silver-robed priests and other attendants swarmed around.

Cliopher managed to use the opportunity to get a little bit closer to the executioner's platform, until a layer of white-kilted, leopard-pelted spear wielders blocked his way. The executioner already waited on the platform, hooded in black with the long-handled axe against his shoulder. The hands of the great clock were drawing near to upright as another phalanx of Imperial Guards came pushing through the crowd, escorting the cart that bore the prisoner.

Jullanar of the Sea was a short woman, middle-aged and mousy and looking rather lost before a crowd of people who had come to see her die. Cliopher knew she had no magic at all, just as he did not. And yet there was something about her that caught and held the eye, as if she had a great role to play in the world, something more important than climbing the steps of the platform at the urging of the guards' spears. Even barefoot and clad in scratchy burlap, with hands shackled before her, she stood out like an actress upon a darkened stage with magelights focused upon her.

Quiet spread outward from the platform as everyone watched the small woman walk to the block. A spear haft pressed down on her shoulder, but instead of kneeling she turned to look toward the Emperor's dais.

Cliopher followed her gaze. Emperor Artorin sat upon a golden throne, carefully shaded from the sun by a striped gold-and-white canopy. He was wearing black silk which nearly blended with his skin, but the gold trim and embroidery outline the edges of his flowing garments.

He stood from his chair, raising a hand to fend off the priests and attendants who would have rushed to his side. Everyone in the viewing stands knelt as the Emperor stepped forward to the very edge of the canopy's protection. His golden eyes were fixed upon the prisoner.

Cliopher glanced aside quickly. Jullanar Etaris - Jullanar of the Sea - was gazing up at the Emperor, and her mouth was open in awe.

Cliopher looked back toward the Emperor. A breeze had come up, making his black-and-gold garments ripple about him, and the tassels of the canopy twirled in the wind. The blank serenity of his expression, all that Cliopher had seen in his two glimpses so far and in every painting, had been replaced by a frown. His eyes were blazing so brightly that Cliopher could feel a headache building even at this distance. Several people were bowing their heads, muttering prayers, shading their eyes.

The Emperor took one, then two steps forward, out of the canopy's shadow. Sunlight gleamed from his bare head, and all his gold embroidery lit up as he raised his hands - in offering or command, Cliopher couldn't quite tell. Several of the priests kneeling to either side jerked their heads up in alarm.

The headsman's block exploded.

Chapter Text

A terrible brilliance shone everywhere - not just radiating from some central hub but filling all the air, as if the Sun had come down into the square to investigate. Cliopher didn't feel flames or smell anything burning, but he couldn't see clearly. He had fallen away from the platform, tossed in a heap with many others from the crowd. People were screaming and crawling over each other, trying to get away.

He wasn't certain which direction 'away' was, but the searing white light began to shrink to a coruscating point, which he guessed was the executioner's platform. Or the remains of it. He knew the bloody wooden block had turned to mist and the headsman had been blasted away in the other direction; that was the last thing he had seen while his eyes still worked. The prisoner might have been blown to bits along with the entire platform, but strangely he didn't think so. He hadn't seen or felt any splinters; the structures seemed to be simply gone. People were screaming and flailing all about Cliopher, but it sounded more like confusion and fear than agony. When he pushed at the bodies pressing on and under him, his hands weren't slipping in blood or... fragments.

Squeezing his eyes shut against the glare, he pushed away someone's foot and managed to get to his knees. His bag was caught on something, the overcoat tangled about his legs, and he couldn't stand up. Then another person fell upon him. Not a very large person, but they fell hard as if from a height. Cliopher was squashed flat again, groping and pushing against a coarse scratchy fabric.

It felt like burlap. Cliopher gasped and opened his eyes reflexively, then immediately snapped them shut against the swirling, pulsing colours.

His hands found the woman's arms, the chain between them, then her shoulders and head. "Are you all right?" he said into her ear, and she jerked in his grip. Her hand spasmed against his chest, but stopped trying to pull away.

He fumbled the twisted overcoat from around his legs, trying to wrap it around her shoulders. "Take this!" he gasped at her. "Cover yourself." He jerked at his bag and found that whoever had been holding it down must have moved away.

Somehow he got to his feet, still holding onto the prisoner's shoulder until she got the overcoat draped around it. With her wrists shackled, she couldn't put her arms into the sleeves.

Cracking his eyelids cautiously, Cliopher still couldn't see very much, but he thought he made out the bulk of the nobles' viewing stands off to one side. That would be the highest concentration of the Imperial Guard, he thought. "This way!" he gasped, and tugged her in the other direction.

They stumbled together across the cobbles, trying to avoid stepping on the people who had fallen. The square was full of chaos and people crying out in alarm, wandering in every direction. The screams of fear were becoming more confused; someone was singing, and others mumbling or shouting disjointed phrases that made no sense. A massed chant was growing louder behind them, near the viewing stands, probably something to be avoided.

Cliopher peered through obscuring dark spots in his eyes. A shower of multicoloured sparks seemed to be drifting down from above, but they didn't burn his face or hands so he ignored them. Could he lead the prisoner through one of the square's regular outlets? Would the guards still be manning the posts, or drawn inward to the center of the trouble? Would fleeing people choke every passage? He had thought to escape through the same building where he came in, but which direction was that? He tried to steer her - the prisoner - Jullanar of the Sea! - toward his best guess, but a clot of shouting people blocked the way. Some of them were swatting at the little sparks, or trying to catch them like fireflies.

Someone jostled him sideways, and someone else's elbow landed in his eye although he didn't think it was deliberate. His companion had her head down and shielded with the coat, for concealment as well as protection. She yelped and staggered, and Cliopher realized someone had stepped on her bare foot. His own toes had received a few such insults; perhaps he should have kept the boots on after all.

No, he realized, he should give her the boots. He reached for his bag. "Here, I have shoes," he offered. They were right at the top of the bag, and large enough that she could stuff her feet into them quickly, but not so large that they would threaten to fall off at every step. Cliopher tried to make some space for her to pull them on, but it still seemed that people might charge in from any direction.

He looked up to see the old man - was it the same old man? - swinging his cane like a sword at the swarming sparks. The less-dazed staggered away, opening a space around the crazy man.

Then someone else was beside them, a solid bulk against the jostling elbows. "Need to get her out of here," a deep voice rumbled. "More guards coming."

If this man knew who 'she' was and wanted to get her away, Cliopher would accept the help. "There's a balcony we can climb to," he insisted. "This way!" He hoped at least there wouldn't be many other people heading that direction.

They found the correct building, and made their way under the scant protection of the balconies. There had been little flower boxes here, probably for roses, mostly emptied for the coming winter and now broken and spilling soil, trampled by many feet. The builder's scaffold frame, when they reached it, was toppled over. Cliopher climbed a little way up the broken bricks and braced himself on a corner. "Up here," he said, pulling on the woman's arm and pointing to the balcony above. The large man followed - perhaps Cliopher had been mistaken to think him one of the Guard - towing along the old fellow who was singing snatches of song in a language Cliopher didn't even recognize, while his wild cane-swings kept others at bay.

The prisoner was smaller than Cliopher, with hands bound and the overcoat threatening to slide off her shoulders and too-large boots, but she climbed up without protest. The large man lifted up a piece of the scaffold, leaning it against the wall and bracing it with his own weight. Cliopher balanced on the frame and lifted her right up, holding her feet steady on his shoulders while she strained up to catch the lower railing. His arms quivered as he pushed up on the soles of her boots. Then she caught the lower railing of the balcony and inched her shackled hands upward, until she could get a knee on the edge and climb right over. The door that Cliopher had left unlocked opened and then shut behind her.

Cliopher looked up, realizing the flaw in his plan. He could not reach that railing himself. He studied the bricks again, but his very limited experience with mountain climbing suggested they were not to be trusted.

And then she was back, Jullanar of the Sea, tying a short length of rope to the railing. Cliopher recognized one of the curtain ties he had scarcely noticed when he was focused on getting through the building instead of what resources were inside it.

The big man lifted Cliopher just as he had lifted the woman, until he could grab the rope and scrabble with his feet against the bricks to pull himself up. The woman reached over the railing to help him with both hands.

Then he was sliding over the railing and reaching back in his turn to help, not the big man, but the old fellow with the gray curls and the spectacles. He proved surprisingly spry and pulled himself up quickly as soon as the rope was within his reach. The cane, which he had somehow attached to his belt, now clattered across the balcony.

Cliopher looked down blankly at the large man who had helped them. His arms fell several feet short of the rope even when he balanced on the now-unbraced and precarious scaffold. Below, in the square, the milling confusion and distracting sparkles were beginning to clear; the priests and the Guard were shaping into some kind of order. The big man turned away, looking for other options. The exits from the square were indeed jammed, and there seemed to be fighting at some of them. One or two people were looking up with interest at the figures on the balcony.

Jullanar brought another curtain tie, which she handed to the maybe-not-really-so-old man, who tied it around his own wrist and hung upside-down from the balcony railing to extend the rope further down. Jullanar and Cliopher braced him as he, astonishingly, managed to raise the large, muscular fellow far enough to catch hold of the first rope. And then they were all hauling together to pull the big man up, and they tumbled in a heap through the doors into the meeting room.

The 'old' man popped up to his feet first, retrieving his cane and offering a hand to the prisoner. "Oh, that's better," he said once the balcony doors were closed. "Quite a confusion aura out there, but it seems to be worst for the strongest magic users." He shook his head to clear it.

Jullanar of the Sea laughed and embraced him. "Damian!" she half-sobbed. "Damian!"

"Keep moving," he told her briskly. "They'll be behind us soon enough, but I think I know where we are."

Cliopher's jaw dropped open as he looked at the man whose grey hair and cane and thick spectacles were belied by his strength and agility. This was the famous Damian Raskae?

Apparently-Damian-Raskae clapped the big man on the shoulder. "Come on, Masseo. Gadarved, no dawdling!" He gave Cliopher a sharp look before heading out of the room.

Jullanar paused to frown at the big man - Masseo Umrit? Really? - and at Cliopher, but she gestured at them to come along as she followed her friend.

The big man, who seemed no older than Cliopher and perhaps a bit younger, looked perplexed. "I'm not actually..." he began.

"Well, neither am I," Cliopher said, half in a daze even without being subject to magical confusion. "But I think we're stuck with them now. Let's go!"

They followed two of the most infamous members of the Red Company along the hall.

By the time they had descended the first flight of stairs, they could hear shouts and heavy boots in the hall below. Cliopher paused and looked up, but surely the roofs were a trap, not an escape. Damian and Jullanar, experienced fugitives, only hurried down all the faster. They reached the ground floor and continued further. Cliopher, trailing last, caught one of the outer doors opening just as his head descended out of view.

The basement floor had pipes along the ceiling and magelights flickering well apart on the walls, so that they charged from shadow to light to shadow as they hurried along one hall and then another.

Then they came to a heavy door bound in verdigrised copper. Damian turned the handle and yanked, but the door didn't budge. "Gadarved!" he snapped, gesturing at the lock.

"Erm," said Cliopher. Should he tell them he wasn't Gadarved, or merely that he couldn't pick this lock? He pulled out the quill-paring knife that had served him for the cabinets in the Ministry of Trade and the flimsy balcony doors. "I don't think this is enough to -"

Jullanar plucked the small knife from his hand and then turned to Damian. "Hold still," she demanded, and reached into his gray curls to pull out a curved pin. "Yes, this will do." She knelt before the door lock, wielding both small tools. "Does anyone have a light?"

Cliopher reached into his bag and pulled out the light-globe he had stuffed in there, it seemed years ago. When he tapped it to life it flickered like the ones along the hallway.

"Here, I'll hold that," said Damian, and the light steadied in his hand. "You put this away. We can't leave evidence lying around behind us." He shoved a tangle of grey at Cliopher in return; a wig, apparently.

Cliopher studied the famous swordsman while stowing the wig in his bag. His real hair was a honey-coloured haystack, short but sticking in every direction. The lines on his face were half-smeared makeup; underneath he seemed to have a very pale complexion that would be very memorable. His eyes were pale as well, like the sky on a humid day, but the heavy spectacles diverted attention from them.

The big man came back from the nearest intersection. "Guards coming," he told them in a low voice. "Just two, though. They didn't see us, they're just checking the whole building."

Damian Raskae fingered the cane at his belt. Of course, Cliopher realized, it probably wasn't a cane at all. "Jullanar?"

"Almost done," she said, chained wrists twisting awkwardly around each other.

Cliopher moved back next to the big man. "Aren't you a guard?" he whispered.

"Not after today," he murmured back.

Then the door opened and they all hurried through, closing it as quietly as possible.

"Give me another hair pin," Jullanar demanded, and stabbed it into the lock to leave it jammed. It might pass for properly locked, or it might not. They hurried down the corridor before the guards could give that door a try.

The halls on this side of the door seemed very similar: another basement with pipes along the ceiling. Damian led them through several of these corridors to another door (faster to unlock) and then some steps leading down. The new tunnel was damp, and apparently connected to the city sewers at some point, but the smell was not unbearable. The globe Jullanar was now holding was the only light.

They went around a corner, up some steps and then down and back into another tunnel. "Not too much further," said Damian, peering at a mark on the wall.

"Right, then. Now seems a good time." Jullanar swung back and held the light globe toward Cliopher. "Who are you?"

He choked. "I... I'm..." No one, came the thought from his years of struggle in the Imperial Bureaucratic Service. But an older voice in his head wanted to proclaim, My dances are aōteketētana! The words tangled in his throat.

"You're not Gadarved," said Jullanar of the Sea. "And you're not Masseo. You said you're in the Guard? City, or Palace?"

"Palace, but -" the big man went very still as Damian Raskae leveled a narrow blade at his throat, the cane-shaped wooden sheath held ready in his other hand for defense. "I'm not Masseo," the big guard admitted. "I'm his son."

Everyone stared at him.

"Masseo never said anything about a son," said Jullanar slowly.

"He doesn't know." The guard's face was flushing to a deeper, richer brown colour. "I've been looking for him, but then I found you instead."

Jullanar and Damian exchanged glances. Jullanar twitched a considering eyebrow and made some comment in a language Cliopher didn't even recognize.

"Where are you from, then?" Damian demanded abruptly.

Carefully not touching the blade still pointed at him, the big man made an odd gesture fist over fist, as if he were presenting a spear at attention. "Luvo Omo from the island of Woodlark in the Azilint. On Zunidh."

"Why are you in the Guard?"

"They pressed me because I'm strong. I thought Palace Guard wouldn't involve as much fighting as the Army."

Damian looked at Jullanar, who shrugged.

"I brought this," said the guard - Luvo. He pulled a heavy-jawed bolt cutter from his coat pocket. "Thought it might be useful."

Damian stepped back and waved his sword-sheath at Jullanar. "Go on, then."

Luvo bent down and began inspecting her shackles.

Damian didn't lower his sword, but turned it toward Cliopher. "What about you, then? Whose son are you?"

Cliopher shrank back from the most dangerous swordsman in five worlds, if not nine. "I'm not related to anyone from the Red Company, so far as I know." Then, clear as anything, he heard his grandmother's voice: Stop babbling, boy! Head up, and answer plainly. So he braced himself and said clearly, "My name is Cliopher Mdang of Tahivoa. My island is Loaloa." And then he faltered. Instead of properly naming his dances, he explained, "In the Vangavaye-ve. Also on Zunidh."

"Oh!" Jullanar looked up from Luvo's work. "Are you one of Basil White's cousins?"

He stared at her. "You know Basil?"

"He tends bar at an inn not far from where I live. Or... lived. He's a charming fellow." Dimples appeared beside her mouth as she told Damian, "He told a story about his long journey from distant islands, along with his brother the explorer, and also his cousin who had gone on to work at the Palace of Stars. His cousin who taught him Shaian using Aurora, and who insisted one day he was going to marry Jullanar of the Sea."

Cliopher felt his face heat.

Damian barked a laugh. "Didn't take that fellow long to suss you out! Was that how you got arrested?"

"Oh no, Basil didn't recognize me, or at least he didn't say anything to anyone." Her expression darkened. "It was my mother-in-law who denounced me to the magistrate. After blackmailing me to marry her son, she decided I wasn't making him happy enough."

Luvo straightened up. "You'll need something heavier to get the cuffs off, but I can break the chain right at the welds."

"Do we have time?" Damian said doubtfully. "They must be combing the city up there."

"I will certainly be more inconspicuous if I can wear the coat properly. And maybe that wig, as well," she said thoughtfully.

"I have a spare shirt in my bag," Cliopher offered. "Oh! And these." He rummaged for his writing kit and pulled out two of the forgeries he had made. He traded them for the snipped chain that Luvo passed to him, and tucked that out of sight.

Jullanar shrugged into the coat properly, then reclaimed the light globe to inspect the papers. "Jouna Varga?"

Cliopher swallowed. "They are common names where I come from. I thought Jouna might be close enough to make it easy for you." His own papers said Kip Varga, but he didn't want to say that he had planned for them to pose as husband and wife.

She turned from the identification papers to the travel pass. "A gate pass to Alinor?"

Cliopher winced. "I thought we could go to Basil. I didn't realize you lived so close to him. I made a pass for Zunidh as well! But that gate is further away."

"This seal is very good, it looks quite real," she said admiringly.

Damian sheathed his sword and reached out to brush a finger over the seal. "The magic seems right, too." He frowned at Cliopher. "Who helped you make these?"

"No one. I used to work in the Ministry of Trade so I know all the procedures. These were made inside the Ministry offices with the correct stamps, paper, pens and ink, so the magic was automatic." He hesitated a moment before adding, "Anyone who sees it will think that's the Minister's own hand. That's the only false part. Aside from the names. And the permission."

Jullanar laughed. "Basil said you have beautiful handwriting, but he didn't say you could mimic others!"

Cliopher ducked his head in embarrassment while she carefully folded the pages and tucked them inside the overcoat. "Here are the spare clothes I brought," he offered. "They're, ah... warm."

"Better than burlap." She handed the light globe to Damian and hurried down the corridor to change in dimness while all of them turned their backs.

Properly clothed, with the long coat and the boots not looking too oversized, she did appear much less like an escaped prisoner. She fussed with the wig, muttering about no mirror and not enough pins to hold it in place, but with some help from Damian her light-brown locks were soon concealed by something the guards would not be looking for.

Damian took the lead through the underground tunnels, using the light-globe to peer at marks scratched on the brick near each intersection. The sewer-smell slowly grew stronger. When their path ran beside one deeper channel (fortunately with only a shallow trickle at the bottom), he had Cliopher toss the shackle-chain and the shapeless burlap overshirt aside.

"You need new spectacles," Jullanar told Damian the third time he adjusted his lenses. "I'd think you could find a proper lens-grinder in Astandalas the Golden."

He just shrugged. "I didn't want to wear the good ones to a fight. This ugly pair is better for disguise, in any case." He threw her a sideways look. "Married?"

She snorted. "Divorced by now, I expect."

"But... blackmail, Jullanar?"

Cliopher felt slightly guilty for listening in, but he had to follow closely to see his footing by the light of the globe. And also he was rabidly curious. Luvo followed further back, either more sure-footed or trying to provide a rear guard.

Jullanar sighed. "I would have fought harder, but he didn't seem so bad as his dragon of a mother. And I wanted... a life. A family. I thought it would be all right."

"And did you get a family?"

"Benjy - he's four - and Samantha is just a baby. It was... almost enough. But now I don't know if I'll ever see them again. Oh, I hope Ben's mother doesn't get the care of them! She'll poison their minds. Maybe Olive can help, but her health is unreliable." She wiped at her eyes and then dredged up a grin, nudging Damian with her shoulder. "How are your lot? You must have more by now, surely. I know you and Pharia were together when the spell took you."

Damian ducked his head. "Seven."

"Seven! It was three last I knew."

"Pharia was brought to bed with twins not long after the Silver Forest. They came early - so tiny, and so fragile. We were... distracted, for a while."

"I didn't go searching, either." Jullanar sounded regretful. "I went back to Galderon, back to the rebellion. We sent a petition to the Emperor. Oh, I knew I should have gone with that petition!"

Cliopher blinked in puzzlement at this, but just then Damian gestured to a cross-tunnel. "This is where we go up."

"Where are you taking us?"

"I have a safe house. But..." He scowled back at Cliopher and Luvo. "You two should head back to the Palace."

"Can they?" Jullanar asked, and turned to them. "Did anyone see you? You didn't resign or leave some sort of letter behind, did you?"

Cliopher shook his head. "I told people I would be in the archives for the day, but I doubt anyone cares. No one pays me much heed except when they want something."

Damian turned to Luvo, who shrank down a little. "It's my off day, but some other guards definitely saw me in the square, before. I'm not sure about after."

"We should all stay together until we learn more about what happened," Jullanar said decisively. "While we're already in disguise, we might as well gather some rumours. That business back at the square must have shaken up the entire city."

"Pharia was planning a diversion, but I didn't realize it would be so big," Damian mused. "And then she was supposed to cover our tracks and meet us at the safehouse."

Jullanar stared at him. "Damian, that definitely was not Pharia's magic back there. It had Fitzroy written all over it."

Cliopher gaped. He had stolen Jullanar of the Sea from the execution square, more or less as he had intended. More unexpectedly, he had done it with the help of Damian Raskae. And Masseo Umrit's son. And Pharia Cloudbringer was also involved somehow. Every one of these discoveries had been shocking and wonderful. But now... "Fitzroy Angursell is here?" he squeaked. "In Astandalas?"

Jullanar frowned and turned to Damian. "You must have realized. Didn't you know? Damian - Fitzroy is the Emperor."

Cliopher sat down hard on the slimy bricks of the tunnel.

Chapter Text

Less than one hour after their joyful reunion, Damian Raskae and Jullanar of the Sea were arguing, hissing at each other in a strange language. It made Cliopher's heart break a little as he and Luvo followed them silently through the city streets. A heavy pall of cloud lay across the sky, gloomy as twilight although it was early afternoon.

The argument seemed to be a continuation of the one that had started in Shaian in the tunnels, about whether Emperor Artorin was or was not, in fact, Fitzroy Angursell. Both agreed that there was a strong physical resemblance, which was a revelation in itself; the Wanted poster that Cliopher had tacked up in his bedroom in Gorjo City all those years ago did not have many features in common with the Emperor of Astandalas.

"We always knew that he had to be some Imperial by-blow," Damian had pointed out.

"Apparently not a by-blow after all!" Jullanar had responded.

"But I've seen the Emperor more than once," Damian said.

"From how far away?" she asked.

"Never mind about my eyesight, the man has no magic! Nothing strong enough to feel across a room, anyway. If he had the least hint of Fitzroy's magic, we would have noticed. If you don't trust my magic sense, what about Pharia's?"

Certainly Cliopher had always understood that Emperor Artorin, the living symbol of the Empire's magic as well as all its other glories, was himself no kind of mage - very much unlike Fitzroy Angursell.

"What about the magic that blew apart that executioner's block?" Jullanar ticked off points on her fingers. "Firstly, a massive explosion - isn't that Fitzroy all over? Secondly, no one was hurt, or at least not directly. The blast threw me up in the air and dropped me down gently - classic Fitzroy. And then the sparkles filling the air, that's one of his trademarks too!"

Damian threw up his hands. "So he was nearby! Probably somewhere in the viewing stands, disguised as a noble or a priest-wizard or something. That was what Pharia planned to do for her diversion, and Fitzroy could have had the same idea. It doesn't mean Fitzroy is the gods-forsaken Sun-on-Earth!"

"He was staring directly at me, Damian. He recognized me. His eyes were glowing gold. You know what that means."

Cliopher did not know what glowing eyes meant from Fitzroy Angursell, but it was common knowledge that looking into Artorin Damara's eyes would get one blinded. But he had also heard that it was safe enough from a distance, at least for a short glance. In the moment, he hadn't been able to resist looking.

At that point they had climbed the last set of steps up to the street level, and the argument had changed languages as they passed among the clusters of dazed and disheveled people - some bloodied, some babbling, some being led by friends - all stumbling homeward after the debacle in the square. But the words 'Fitzroy' and 'Artorin' and occasionally 'Pharia' cropped up more than once. Cliopher hoped no one else noticed, and that the language they were speaking was rare enough that few understood it even in the heart of the Empire.

Possibly the two Red Company members also disagreed on whether they should be bringing their new acquaintances any further. Damian cast suspicious glances over his shoulder more than once. Cliopher wondered if perhaps he should just break away from them and head back to the Palace, after all.

But it was disheartening enough to think of going on a very short adventure with the Red Company only to return to his singularly unrewarding work in the Ministry of Health. Having half an adventure and leaving before finding out the end of the story would be unbearable. Cliopher had to know if the Emperor was truly Fitzroy Angursell. Apparently Luvo felt the same, so they both followed the bickering pair through the unsettled city.

There were Imperial Guards everywhere. Damian and Jullanar dodged them without even seeming to notice, until they turned into a side street and found it blocked by a checkpoint. They had already been seen, and would only draw attention if they turned away.

"We have to cross the cordon somewhere," Damian said in a low voice, glancing back one more time.

Jullanar nodded and leaned more heavily on Damian's cane, one hand clutching her back as if it pained her. She pulled out the identification papers that Cliopher had created for her.

Cliopher hesitated over his own, perfectly genuine papers. Though he lived at the Palace, there was no reason he shouldn't be in the city at this time; he could say he was visiting friends. But the guard checking the papers was also laboriously recording each name on a list. If someone came to the Ministry to verify Cliopher's identity, what would he tell the Director? So he reached into his writing kit instead for the new forgeries he had made for himself.

Perhaps it was a mistake. The guard peered at Cliopher's paper and said, "So you're a Varga, too?" He looked back and forth between 'Kip' and 'Jouna,' who did not bear much resemblance to each other.

"She's my -" Cliopher realized belatedly that he could not claim they were married, when Jullanar was disguised as a much older woman. It was not impossible, of course, but it would seem strange and memorable. "Aunt," he finished almost without a pause, but then he panicked again over their dissimilarity.

"My late husband's nephew," Jullanar filled in easily.

But we wouldn't have the same name, then! Cliopher thought. Except that, in Astandalan custom, she would have taken her husband's name, so it did work for anyone who didn't know the traditions of the Wide Seas. Which was almost everyone in Astandalas.

"Such a dear boy, come all this way to help me out," Jullanar purred.

Cliopher swallowed and let his Wide Seas accent grow thicker. "I didn't know Astandalas would be so big, or so crowded!"

"Were you in the execution square?" the guard asked suspiciously.

"Such a disruption," Jullanar commented without answering directly. "It was all very confusing, and people pushing in every direction, so rude!"

The guard snorted. "And you?" He turned to the others.

Damian's well-worn papers, whatever their provenance or the name written on them, were inspected and handed back without comment. Luvo held out a small metal badge with his papers.

"Ludvic Omo." The guard stiffened. "You're with the Palace corps? Why didn't you help them out?"

"Not in uniform," Luvo said. "And I was on the wrong side of the crowd. Too many people in the way, and half of them needing help to get home." He waved at the rest of the group, and Cliopher tried to look like a lost newcomer to the Golden City who needed an escort. And for some reason my aunt isn't good enough? He pushed the thought away and concentrated on looking innocent.

The guard on station huffed. "Best get back to your barracks right quick, guardsman - they've called in everyone from leave."

Luvo saluted. "Thank you."

As soon as they were around the corner, Damian turned on Luvo. "Why did you show your badge? They'll remember that."

Luvo remained as calm as ever. "They would have written down my name anyway, and checked later. This way they'll remember me and not you."

Jullanar looked at him more closely. "He said your name is Ludvic, not Luvo?"

This made the big man furrow his brow a little, but he answered easily enough. "Luvo is what my mother called me. Short for Lusseo, she said. But that wasn't Shaian enough for the Palace Guard, so they changed it."

Jullanar nodded. "Which do you prefer?"

He considered. "Ludvic is fine when I'm with the other guards. I'm used to it. But for... my father's friends, I'd rather be Luvo."

Cliopher looked down at the 'Kip Varga' papers he was re-folding. "It's the other way around for me," he admitted. "Kip is what my family called me because there are other Cliophers in the family. But when I came to Astandalas I used my official name. To avoid explaining, but also... Kip makes me feel like a child again."

"Kip, that's what Basil called you," said Jullanar softly.

Cliopher half-chuckled. "Well, Basil can get away with it since he did know me as a child, after all. But Cliopher seems more..." Grownup. Competent. Shaian. Professional. "Appropriate," he decided.

They continued into a maze of narrower, less-travelled streets, where the magelights were dimmed.

"It really can't be Fitzroy," Damian said at last, making Cliopher want to groan.

"I looked straight at him," Jullanar returned.

"But -"

"She's right," came a new voice from the shadows.

Jullanar whipped out the light-globe that she had tucked into her coat, and Cliopher gasped as someone in the silver-grey robes of a priest-wizard stepped forward to meet them. They didn't have the metallic mask of one of the high Ouranatha wizards, just the simple ceramic style worn by lower-ranked acolytes of the god-emperor.

"Pharie," Damian began. It sounded like 'Fairy' or Cliopher's cousin 'Ferry' rather than the infamous name he was assuming it must be.

She pulled off her mask to reveal a complexion as light as his, yellow hair spilling out from under her hood. "Better discuss it inside." She jerked her head toward the building they were standing in front of, and led them all around the side and up an outside staircase to a wooden gallery, to another staircase and another gallery, until they reached the last door on the third storey on the back side of the building.

Apparently Cliopher had been trusted enough to bring him to the safe-house of Damian Raskae and Pharia Cloudbringer.

The apartment was tiny: one room divided into an eating area (table, two chairs, cold-storage cabinets) and a sleeping area (small bed, lumpy couch, chair with the stuffing trying to escape). Nothing matched, nothing seemed particularly personal although Cliopher found himself trying to identify the patterns woven into the blanket folded across the bed. They weren't Astandalan, and he didn't think they were Zuni although there was some similarity with a northern Dairen style. An alcove that might be a water-closet was separated off by a curtain.

Damian claimed the wooden chair nearest the door but waited to sit, first gesturing the two women to the other chairs. Jullanar slumped with a sigh on the questionable upholstery while Pharia perched on the second wooden chair like a very proper aristocrat. Cliopher took the far end of the couch, only grateful that it wasn't one of the Late Decadent eating couches. Luvo ignored the unclaimed end of the couch and stood out of the way as if trying to fade into the fraying wallpaper.

Damian produced bottles from the storage box that proved to be an aged cider, refreshing and only mildly intoxicating. Cliopher remembered the food in his bag and pulled out offerings of bread and cheese to set on the table. Seeing this, Damian rummaged for plates and a knife.

Cliopher sipped gratefully at the cider, which had only the slightest vinegary bite to indicate it had sat in the cold box for a bit too long. As he had anticipated, it had been a long time since breakfast. But not as long for him as for Jullanar, who fell eagerly upon the simple fare. Damian had put twice as much on her plate as the others, but Cliopher wondered if he should offer his portion as well.

Jullanar polished off two pieces of bread and then looked up at Pharia. "So, Emperor Artorin really is Fitzroy."

The elegant woman nodded. "He is. He surprised everyone with that outburst."

Damian leaned forward. "You're certain he wasn't just concealed somewhere underneath the Emperor's dais, using the priest-wizards to hide his own magic?"

"I'm quite certain, dear. I saw - and felt - the moment when his magic broke its bonds and exploded across the square. I admit I couldn't see very much for the next few minutes, but when the dazzle cleared the Emperor had collapsed. They carried him back to the Palace on a litter."

Damian stiffened. "Wait, why? He's done far more in the past without showing any strain."

"I've been thinking about that ever since I slipped away," said Pharia. "In the immediate aftermath, I was drawn into participating in the chants, trying to shore up the magic all around him. I wasn't at all certain if I wanted to do that or not, so I contributed as little as I could get away with. But I got a good look at the structure of those bindings, and what happened when they weakened."

She took a delicate bite of bread and cheese, then a long sip of cider, somehow making it seem the epitome of ladylike grace to drink from a bottle. "If anyone in the Ouranatha knew before today that he was a wild mage, they kept it very quiet. At a guess, only the highest echelon might have had any inkling. You see, the Emperor is the hub at the heart of the magic of the Empire. All the power of those hundred generations turns upon this axle at the centre."

Jullanar caught her breath. "That secret he kept hinting at but could never tell us. Half the time I thought it was a joke, or some poetic allegory, but it was real!"

"Precisely. Now that I know this, I finally understand the power that scattered all of us across the nine worlds, and stole Fitzroy away. He was summoned, as the heir. He tried to escape, but the magic of the Empire hunted him down and pulled him here, to the heart, to be bound into that structure. Now - and from the day of his coronation, I presume - there are many, many bindings wound about him."

She looked around at the rest of them. Cliopher could see how that must have been a terrible thing to happen to the free-spirited poet who had always resisted the Empire's oppression, but as he looked at the reactions from Damian and Jullanar he had a feeling that there was more to it that he didn't grasp.

Pharia huffed. "There are many bindings, spun from schooled magic, which everyone knows is incompatible with - inimical to - wild magic."

Jullanar dropped the last piece of bread on her plate and covered her mouth, brows quirked with dismay.

"As you know, the wizard persona I have cultivated has brought me into the Emperor's presence more than once over the past decade. The fact that I never sensed anything, that no one seemed to know he was a wild mage, even that he could not detect my magic under my disguise... those things tell me that his magic was entirely suppressed. For years, ever since we were separated."

Cliopher looked from one worried face to the other. Being non-magical himself and having no friends or family who were particularly powerful, he had never paid very much attention to the ins and outs of such things. But he had learned a little from his association with Saya Dorn. "Isn't that sort of thing accounted as torture?" he asked.

Pharia nodded. "For such a great mage to lose access to his own magic, to be swaddled and suffocated with contrary powers all keeping him in line... I cannot imagine what it may have done to him, what it must have felt like."

Jullanar's eyes were bright with tears. Damian's frown was obvious even around the heavy frames of his spectacles.

Luvo spoke up. "It's worse than that."

Everyone turned to look at him.

"I don't know how bad it is for a mage to have his magic bound," said the guard slowly, "but even for a non-magical Emperor, there are taboos surrounding every action he takes. It's part of the training for the Guard. We have to keep people away, because anyone who touches his skin will be burned. That happened to one of his attendants early on - one wrong move, and she took days to die."

Jullanar sucked in a breath.

"Anyone who meets his eyes at close distance will be blinded. There's a blind man in the city who used to be Eritanyr's healer. I don't think this Emperor ever blinded anyone, but after a few close calls, he mostly looks over people's heads now. He's not allowed to eat or drink certain things, or to walk in the light of the Sun or the Moon, or to touch the ground with his bare feet. And he chooses his words so carefully - all the Inner Guard comment on it. He can never speak his mind."

Fitzroy Angursell had been very frank and very scathing with his opinions. Cliopher remembered, "I heard that several people committed suicide early in his reign because he criticized them."

"The cherry trees," Pharia said elliptically. "A faction of wizards created a second spring because the Emperor said it was a pity the cherry blossoms died so soon. It caused terrible disruptions to the weather all over Ysthar, and people whispered of how extravagant it was. But from all I heard he didn't ask for it. He just made a comment."

"I remember one year, the City Guard went to every bookstore looking for copies of a book to be burned, because the Emperor didn't like it." Damian turned to Pharia. "Was it poetry criticism?"

She nodded.

"But Fitzroy used to love to argue, to debate - about poetry, history, architecture, anything!" Jullanar exclaimed. "You mean he can't do any of that anymore?"

"If the Emperor likes something, he'll have hundreds of it the next day. If he doesn't like something, all examples will be eradicated from existence."

"And not to be able to touch anyone! He was always so affectionate... it mattered so much to him, to have his friends close -" Jullanar bent her head and wiped at her cheeks.

"The Emperor refuses to take a consort, or even a concubine," said Damian. "Everyone says it's selfish, irresponsible, abrogating his duties..."

"It would be six months of purification rituals before he could touch anyone," Luvo put in.

Cliopher added, "There was a courtier who accidentally drank from the Emperor's teacup and had to do three months of purification after the fact. He claimed it was worse than fire ants, although... I'm not certain he comes from a place where there are fire ants."

"And suppose the Emperor did marry! Can you imagine if he had a child with magical ability? Knowing that they would be bound just as he is..." Pharia shook her head in dismay.

"We have to free him," Cliopher concluded. And then realized that all eyes in the room were on him. "Well, don't we? You didn't know - no one knew - where he disappeared to, or whether he was imprisoned or how. Now you do know, and you know he's being tortured. Every day. If we were all willing to risk our lives to prevent her from being executed -" He waved at Jullanar, "- then how much more would we do to free Fitzroy Angursell from more than a decade of torture?"

"He's right," Jullanar gasped. "We have to find a way!"

"It's a little more complicated than that," said Pharia slowly.

"More complicated than freeing a condemned woman in front of ten thousand eyewitnesses?" Cliopher asked.

"The Emperor is the anchor of the magic of the Empire. Without him, it could all fall apart. Look here!" She pointed to the magelight on the wall, which was slowly pulsing dimmer and brighter. "We had his help getting Jullanar away. He took two steps into the sunlight and unleashed a wave of wild magic - a fraction of the sort of thing he used to do in the past - and now spells and magical devices of all kinds are acting up all over the city. Perhaps everywhere in the Empire. And that effort left him unconscious."

"Is he in danger?" Jullanar asked worriedly.

"He seems stable enough, but when I left, the healers were saying they had no idea what was wrong or when he would wake. The high Ouranatha doesn't share their secrets, but I saw them conferring. They knew it was something to do with the magic." Pharia looked around at the rest of them. "Don't you see? Extracting Fitzroy from the schooled bindings could kill him, quite aside from disrupting all the magic everywhere in the Empire. We need to think about this before we can consider any action. It could literally destroy worlds, if we're not careful."

They all contemplated that.

"We used to fight against the politics of the Empire," said Jullanar slowly. "The wars of expansion, the oppression of conquered people, the way the schooled magic could drive wild magic users insane..." She frowned.

"Most wild magic users," Pharia corrected.

"Yes. Well. But of course the Empire has spread many good things as well - roads, trade, education. Printing presses. And how much of that depends on magic? How many things in a typical household rely on magic? Lights, clocks, plumbing, heating, cold storage for food -"

"Or in a typical community," Pharia added. "Wards and treaties with non-humans like fairies, giants, minor local divinities -"

"Water treatment," Cliopher put in. "Desalination. Weather controls."

"So you're right, Pharia. We'll need to study the situation carefully before we can actually do anything," Jullanar said at last. "Find a way to get Fitzroy out without destabilizing the whole Empire. Maybe we can convince the magic that he's dead so it would re-center on... his sister is his heir, isn't she?"

"Would he even agree to that?" Pharia asked. Cliopher blinked, thinking of the rumours that the Emperor had refused to wed his sister, and in fact barely talked with any of his family.

"If we need to do research first," said Damian, "seems like it will help to have allies inside the Palace. People who could get close to Fitzroy, maybe carry messages to him." He looked at Luvo, and then at Cliopher.

"I'm not Inner Guard," Luvo said at once. "Nor likely to be, since I don't have a drop of noble blood."

"It's the same for me," Cliopher admitted. "Without family ties or a patron or, well, a lot of bribe money, I have no chance of being promoted to a position where I'd be allowed to see the Emperor, much less -" he gulped "- confer with him, or pass messages, or lay plots."

"Normally, that would be so. But everything is stirred up right now," said Pharia thoughtfully. "That means opportunities. Chances to insert yourself, volunteer, claim that someone asked you to help."

"That's right!" Jullanar exclaimed. "You said you're a secretary, right? If the Emperor is ill, there will be more healers called in. They will need pages, aides, people to take notes and carry messages. In a situation like that, you just act like you belong and someone will find a job for you."

Cliopher stared at her. It was a stratagem straight out of the exploits of the Red Company. And it might work for some short-term scheme, like sailing over a reef once on the spring tide. But for the longer term, such tricks would run aground on the sclerotic, stratified shoals of the Palace bureaucracy. Everyone near the Emperor was jealous of their status and eager to find a reason to put anyone else down if it would make room for them to rise.

Could Cliopher play that game in the sort of cutthroat way that would get him to the inner circles of the court? He had seen all the tricks, and scorned to use them himself. If he changed his strategy, the mild contempt that had been aimed at him would become active hatred. Did he have the sort of twisty, ruthless mind it would need to wade through all of that, in order to succeed?

In order to free Fitzroy Angursell from the worst threat he had ever faced, a system that had already kept him prisoner for nearly twelve years?

While Cliopher was trying to decide what he could say to the expectant gaze of Jullanar of the Sea, a thump and a muffled curse came from the curtained water-closet alcove, and he realized someone had overheard every treasonous word they had been saying.

Chapter Text

Damian was on his feet at once, the slender blade pulled from his cane to point at the alcove. Luvo moved in from the side, surprisingly swift and silent, and with a look at Damian to coordinate he pulled the curtain aside.

Two small figures, clinging to or perhaps grappling with one another, peered out of the darkened alcove. One pushed the other aside and stood up straighter. "Hello, Da!"

Damian's sword dropped. "Kasian! What are you doing here?"

The boy stepped forward, tousle-haired and mischievous, perhaps ten or twelve years old. He resembled Damian strongly with eyes and hair slightly darker, his skin tinted golden from the sun. "We wanted to meet Jullanar of the Sea."

"But what made you think we would -"

The boy, Kasian, rolled his eyes. "We can read, Da. There are notices up all over the city. Of course we knew you would get her free. And, wow! Everyone's talking about it now! We had to dodge three guard squads on the way here!"

Damian passed a hand over his eyes. "How did you know about this place - and how did you even get in here? It's locked and warded."

"The window to the water closet isn't warded," Kasian returned.

"That window is too small to -"

But Pharia was talking at the same time. "You were supposed to be keeping an eye on your sisters!" she said sharply.

The second boy, half-hidden behind his brother, flinched back. But Kasian just shrugged. "Ulee and Cael are taking care of them. But we had to come, Ema." He looked straight at Jullanar. "So you're her? Jullanar of the Sea? Did you really steal that diamond right out of the Palace of Stars?"

Jullanar had a hand over her mouth again, but this time her eyes twinkled with amusement instead of tears.

"And what do you have to say for yourself, Rafe?" Damian demanded.

The second boy edged forward. Though similar in appearance to Kasian, he was a shade paler, slighter, more hunch-shouldered. His wheat-yellow hair was neatly combed and his warm clothes buttoned up to the chin. "I-I..."

Kasian sighed extravagantly. "He just wants to hear more about Fitzroy Angursell and his music."

"Boys," said Pharia sternly, "this is not the time for stories. The city is swarming with guards, as you said. And those matters - those names - are not to be bandied about! You could get us -"

"All executed for treason," Kasian finished in sing-song mimicry. "Just like she was executed?" He waved to Jullanar.

"A month of prison rations might change your attitude," Damian said darkly. "Now, both of you - sit! And no interruptions." He pointed sharply at the empty half of the couch next to Cliopher, before turning to Pharia. "How are we going to get them back home?"

The boys sat on the couch, Kasian at the opposite end where he could listen to his parents conferring with each other at the table. The other boy at first sat tightly against his brother's side, but then a sharp elbow prompted him to move further into the middle.

Cliopher offered him a smile. "Hello," he said. "I'm Cliopher. I didn't quite hear your name. Is it Rafe?"

The boy swallowed, glancing toward the others. "Raphael," he murmured, barely audible.

"I helped, a little, with the escape from the square," Cliopher explained. "It was all very confusing, though."

Raphael just nodded. Luvo had been drawn into the discussion of where guards might be posted in the city streets and how they might be avoided. Jullanar and Kasian were following that discussion closely.

"So you like Fitzroy Angursell's music?" Cliopher asked.

That prompted Raphael to turn and look at him briefly. Then he ducked his head, muttering "- The b-b-best!"

Cliopher smiled. "It certainly is. Can I show you something?" He reached into his bag and pulled out his writing kit. From it he extracted a sheaf of reports, and from the center of the reports he pulled out the Secret Collection.

Raphael's mouth dropped open when Cliopher showed him the first page, with the musical notation and words efficiently packed together to save space. Cliopher flipped towards the back. "There are some songs in here that I'd never heard of before. Take a look." He handed the slim volume over.

Raphael paged quickly through the first part and stopped at one of the obscure songs mid-way through. His lips moved, and Cliopher could just barely hear him humming - in key. The boy was certainly musically trained, if he could sight-read such sparse notation without an instrument for reference.

The discussion over by the table had shifted to how - and when - Jullanar could be spirited out of the city. What disguise might work, whether a trading caravan would provide good cover, which portals were closest or went to the safest place or had the most bribable guards.

Jullanar snapped, "Why would I leave before you've found a way to get Fitzroy free? He needs my help as much as I needed yours!"

"It's too dangerous for you to stay," Damian objected, and then the three Red Company members were all hissing furiously at each other. Luvo stepped back warily, and even Kasian turned away to pretend he was no longer listening.

Cliopher was interested to learn how his childhood heroes made their plans, and he might need to know some of the details in order to get back safely to the Palace. But it was easier to stay clear of the ongoing argument, so he turned back to the boy beside him. "How long have you known your parents were from the Red Company?" he whispered.

Raphael shrugged. "They d-don't t-talk about it a lot."

"We always have to pretend they have different names," Kasian put in, not as quietly. "And now we're supposed to stop our sisters from saying things!" He rolled his eyes.

Raphael turned a page and jerked in surprise. "Oh, I didn't know there was a third verse!" And then he was singing again, without a hint of a stutter.

Cliopher was impressed the boy could read by the faint glow of the struggling mage-light across the room. Then he realized that the pages of the book actually appeared brighter than their surroundings, even though Raphael's shy hunch should have cast them in shadow.

Kasian noticed too, and hissed to his brother, "Rafe! Turn it off!"

Raphael stopped singing. "Huh?"

"You're glowing, turn it off before Ema notices!"

It was too late. Pharia had turned away from the table to look at the two boys, and her motion drew the attention of Damian and Jullanar as well.

"What is that?" Damian barked. He stepped closer to the couch, and Raphael quickly shot to his feet, holding the book to his chest. "Is that music? I've told you you're not to waste time on that sort of thing."

"It's n-n-not a w-w-w..." Raphael began.

Damian's hand shot out, snatching for the book. Raphael flinched back as if he expected something worse than a grab. Cliopher's breath was quickening as he reacted to the boy's alarm, but what could he do?

"What is this?" Damian demanded, looking at the slender volume. "Fitzroy's music? You could be arrested for having this! Where did you get it!"

"I gave it to him," Cliopher said, rising to stand at Raphael's shoulder.

"Oh! Is that the Secret Collection?" Jullanar sounded amused, her tone injecting gentle humour into the confrontation. "There were only six copies ever printed, and I thought they were all destroyed."

"I took it from the Office of the Imperial Censors," Cliopher admitted. "They asked for my help to carry some things to be burned, and I... must have missed one."

"Did you really? How wonderful!" Smiling, Jullanar lifted the book from Damian's fingers.

He released it, but he wasn't ready to be mollified yet. He rounded on Cliopher. "And you gave that to my son? It's treason for him to have that!"

Cliopher stiffened. Surely they were all committing treason simply by being here in Jullanar's presence without handing her in, even the boys who had been involved in her escape. But he didn't think it would be helpful to say so.

"Music," sneered Damian in tones dripping with contempt. "And magic, strong enough to draw someone's notice. And treason to boot! Are you trying to turn into Fitzroy, boy? I won't have it, do you hear me?"

"Damian -" began Pharia.

"Fitzroy Angursell is the greatest!" Raphael burst out suddenly. "I'd be p-p-proud to b-be like him." His voice cracked with emotion and he lost some of his forcefulness, but stood firm with his chin quivering.

"Fitzroy Angursell betrayed us all and left us to die!" Damian spat, looming over the boy. His hand was clenched in a fist, but he forced it down to his side and then turned to pace a circuit of the room, fighting for control.

"That's not true, is it?" Kasian asked. "He's a prisoner. They're torturing him. You said!"

"Fitzroy didn't betray us," Pharia said soothingly. "But, it was always dangerous, associating with him. The more so as time went on. We all risked terrible consequences. Jullanar very nearly paid those consequences today, and Fitzroy, it seems, has been paying for years. We don't want to see you boys in that kind of danger, and that's why we want you clear of this entire business."

"We're going home," Damian croaked, returning to look down at the boys. "Come on, Kasian, and... both of you. I'm taking you home, and while we are in the streets you will do as I say and you will not say those names. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Da," said Kasian meekly. Raphael bowed his head.

Jullanar suggested, "Would it be better for Pharia to take the boys instead, and you could help Luvo and Cliopher back to the Palace?"

Damian gritted his teeth. "We have a plan. We're sticking to it. Now come on, boys."

Everyone watched them leave, and Luvo stuck his head out the door for a quick look around. Cliopher took a shaky breath when Luvo clicked the door shut once more.

"Please tell me you have this place warded for silence," Jullanar said as the atmosphere in the room slowly unclenched.

"Yes, yes, we're safe enough," Pharia said briskly. "But we do need to get moving. First of all, Jullanar, you need to know the escapes from this place, in case of need."

Jullanar took a deep breath and blew it out. "Actually, before that, I was wondering if you could do anything about these shackles? Luvo was able to remove the chain but couldn't get the cuffs themselves, and I recall you were always trying to pick up some tricks from Masseo."

Pharia snorted. "You know it was always Fitzroy that Masseo wanted to work with, since he could heat up a forge in seconds and keep the temperature steady for hours. But I'll have a look."

Jullanar pushed her sleeves up, and Pharia examined the cuffs. They looked like quite solid metal.

"Are those welded on?" Cliopher blurted, appalled at the idea. But the skin of Jullanar's arms did not seem to be burnt or blistered.

"It was one of those cold-welding spells, I think," said Jullanar. "They said something about my reputation for lock-picking... oh! I should give your knife back."

"Keep it, I have another back at my room," Cliopher told her, inwardly pleased at the thought that Jullanar of the Sea would be carrying a gift from him and finding it useful. He noticed she was also still holding the Secret Collection, which would only be appropriate and yet he felt a wrench at the thought of giving it up. He began thinking how he might get his hands on the other copy he had 'accidentally' set aside in the censors' offices.

"Yes," said Pharia abstractedly, "Masseo had heard of those cold-welding techniques and we did give it a try once or twice, but of course it was easier to work with heat, especially when Fitzroy was around. But I think I see the edges here, let me see if I can loosen them." She traced a finger carefully over one of the cuffs, back and forth repeatedly, murmuring under her breath.

"Only if the magic won't attract attention," Jullanar added.

"Hush," breathed Pharia, between phrases of her soft chant. After a minute, she lifted her hand away. "I've softened it. Will you be able to cut it now, do you think?"

Luvo produced the bolt-cutter again from his inner pocket, only unobtrusive because his frame was so large to begin with. With some difficulty he got the tip of the jaw between the shackle and Jullanar's arm, and once the first cut had been made it became easier. After cutting all the way through, he gripped the two halves of the shackle and pulled them apart by main force until Jullanar could slip her wrist free.

"Well!" she gasped. "At first I didn't think you looked much like Masseo, but now I can certainly see the resemblance."

Pharia shot her a sidelong look and they both giggled like schoolgirls.

While Pharia was working to soften the second shackle, Luvo said softly, "I didn't know. My grandfather wouldn't talk of him. I didn't even know his name until I was sixteen and about to leave. That's when my mother told me he wasn't really dead."

Jullanar exchanged glanced with Pharia. "You don't share his surname?" she murmured.

"Umrit means no-name. It's used to refer to outcasts. He didn't tell you this?" Luvo's brow furrowed.

"He didn't, but it makes sense now. He would never speak much of his family or where he came from. We only knew the name of the island, nothing else."

Luvo considered before explaining. "He was sentenced to death for loving my mother, because she was only fifteen and he was sixteen, an adult. They did all the rituals, broke his staff, disowned him from the family, but instead of throwing him off the cliff into the sea, they threw a carved doll instead, and they exiled him. And he took that name. The name of an outcast."

Pharia had finished her chanting. She and Jullanar were watching Luvo solemnly.

"He made it a proud one," Luvo concluded. "So, when I left, I decided to look for him. But I couldn't find many clues. I ended up being pressed for the army, and... here I am." He cleared his throat and lifted the bolt-cutter to the second shackle.

Cliopher was not an outcast, but he hadn't been home since he left. It took so long to travel, or even to send a letter. He felt so far away and isolated from his family, but he clung to the knowledge that he could see them again, that he would, some day. He couldn't imagine what it must be like to be truly exiled and never welcome to return.

"I never found any clues either," Jullanar said. "Twelve years, and nothing. And now there are four of us in one city. With you. Maybe that means some fate is starting to gather us all together again. Maybe... maybe you'll get to meet him. You do look like him, you know. Not your face, so much as your build, the way you move. Your voice is similar, but I think his accent was softened by the time we knew him."

"So's mine," Luvo admitted. "Probably not the same way." He picked up the bolt-cutter again.

"Right!" said Pharia once the second shackle was pried free. "Put those on the table and I'll dispose of them where they can't be tracked back to us. And now, Jullanar - escape routes! There's the window in the water closet, but as you've seen only a child could get through that. It lets out onto the gallery in any case, which would probably be guarded. So, if someone comes searching, the place to go is up through this hatch in the ceiling..."

She showed Jullanar how to climb onto the wooden table to reach a hatch cleverly concealed among the ceiling tiles (Cliopher hadn't noticed how out of place those decorative tiles were in this shabby little flat; he hoped any searchers wouldn't notice either). The two women climbed into the space one at a time, rejecting the offer of a boost from Luvo by saying Jullanar had to learn how to do it herself.

Pharia's voice came through the hatch, oddly muffled. "From here there are three escape options. I'll show you, but we have to move carefully over these joists here and try not to alert the tenants down below."

The two of them shuffled further away, leaving Luvo and Cliopher alone together.

Cliopher shifted uncomfortably. "It's a long way back to Zunidh," he offered.

Luvo nodded.

"I haven't been back home since I left, four - almost five years ago. I've only been able to get a few rounds of letters back and forth." He hadn't seen anyone from his family except for Basil, who was just over the border, and Dimiter, who was gone now. He had held Basil's new boy - his namesake! - but hadn't seen Vinyë's son starting to walk or speak.

"I haven't sent any," said Luvo, and then shrugged to soften the stark words. "My mother doesn't know how to read. Neither did I, when I left."

"I'm sorry," said Cliopher. "I know it's not the same. But I know what it's like to miss home. I hope... I hope you find your father."

Luvo nodded, still subdued, still distant. Then he lifted his eyes to meet Cliopher's, and though he didn't smile Cliopher felt as if the two of them understood one another well enough.

They heard some scuffling sounds, and heard Jullanar's voice once again in the ceiling. "But Pharia, what is Damian's problem with your son? I've never seen him like that before!"

Pharia, closer to the hatch, gave a sigh. "It's a long story, Jullanar."

"And claiming that Fitzroy betrayed us?"

Cliopher glanced at Luvo, wondering if the big man felt as uncomfortable as he did about eavesdropping - or as curious. But perhaps as a guard, Luvo was used to remaining silent and pretending not to overhear conversations.

"He knows that's not true. He does know it. But for a while... for years, we thought it was true."

"Is that why he didn't want to admit that we need to help him?"

"No... I don't know. Maybe. Do you remember when we were in the Silver Forest, right before we all split up?"

"Vividly."

"Then you remember Fitzroy and Damian were arguing."

"It wasn't anything new, though. It wasn't serious. Was it?"

"It was all the same old arguments. I took Damian aside to give him a chance to calm down. And you remember how Fitzroy had explained that he was the reason the Silver Forest would tolerate all of us, that without him the forest's curse would cast us all far away?"

"So... you weren't in place to see Fitzroy was the first one affected."

"We didn't know any of that. As far as we could tell, the Forest suddenly turned on us. It was fortunate we were holding on to each other, so we were displaced together. But we didn't have any supplies - food, water, tent, sleeping rolls - and we ended up in a very remote place. We didn't know what direction to go, or even what world we were on. Later we learned it was the edge of one of the deserts of Daun. Damian spent every minute of that first day just trying to get us water and shelter. And then my labour started."

"Oh! He said it was early, but I didn't realize."

"Yes. And we had nothing and no one to help us. The boys nearly died. I nearly died."

"And Damian thought Fitzroy had done that to you."

"It was months before we got back to civilization. Months before we could fall asleep and believe both boys would be alive in the morning. Raphael was so small and... he was late to start walking, late to everything, always fighting another illness. He still falls prey to fevers every winter. But eventually, we made it back to Ixsaa, we rejoined Kasiar and the other boys. Ulass and Cael were old enough to start learning the sword, and you know that's always how Damian communicates best. But he could never do that with Raphael."

"Oh," Jullanar breathed.

"And Raphael, being sick so often and confined to bed, found consolation in music. And then he started to show some magical talent. We're still not certain how strong... but he will be strong."

"Turning into Fitzroy," Jullanar quoted.

"Just so. We did, finally, get a letter from Faleron which he sent to Kasiar. From what he said, we realized the entire company had been separated and the curse fell hardest on Fitzroy. So at least we knew it wasn't something he had done to us deliberately, but Damian still found it hard to forget all the resentment he'd been hoarding for all those years. And of course it hasn't been easy to keep our identities hidden all this time, either. Damian forbade Raphael to study music, but we know he's been practicing in secret. When we came to Astandalas, Damian told Raphael to keep his magic hidden - which is important, to keep us from the notice of the Ouranatha! But of course pushing it down just results in unpredictable outburts. We need to start training him soon, but I can't persuade Damian it's the best thing to do."

"You have to push him," Jullanar said. "You know what Damian is like. He'll see reason if you force him to face it. You can't just let him terrify your little boy!"

"Jullanar, you don't know what it's like -"

"Yes. I. Do. Benneret isn't so bad, but I've had to stand up to his mother more than once about the kind of discipline she wanted to use on the children. And she's terrifying! At least Damian loves you and he isn't blackmailing you. You can make him listen."

Pharia lowered her voice, but the whisper was still audible through the hatch. "I've been wondering if something is affecting Damian's mind. Some outside influence. You said this isn't like him, and you're right. Something seems wrong, but I can't find out where it's coming from."

Cliopher glanced nervously at Luvo, wondering if such an influence might lead Damian to reveal what he knew about Jullanar's escape, perhaps even without realizing he was doing so. That could certainly be dangerous for the people who helped Jullanar, especially the ones who were planning to walk right back into the Palace.

"Maybe I can help," Jullanar offered.

"You're a fugitive!"

"Well, when we get... everything... sorted out, with Fitzroy and all the rest. Do you think it would help to get away from Astandalas? Maybe whatever - or whoever - is affecting Damian has something to do with the city."

"I hadn't thought of that," said Pharia slowly. "But it's not so easy to up and move with seven children, you know! And his mother is planning to come here, as well."

"Oh, I wish I might see her again! I'm certain she would find a way to put everything that has happened into some sensible context."

"You are saying that you envy me my mother-in-law?"

"Ha! If only I could steal her and install her in place of mine!"

They chuckled together, and then Pharia said regretfully, "But come. It is time for us to be going, and you need a chance to rest after all that's happened!"

Chapter Text

Sunset was early at this time of year, so it was already dark and cold enough that people were not lingering in the streets if they had anywhere else to be. Pharia led Cliopher and Luvo through back alleys, along galleries clinging precariously to tenement buildings, and over fences. Luvo, for all his size, was surprisingly agile, and Pharia managed her priestly robes with aplomb, leaving Cliopher feeling like the clumsiest member of the party as he tried to keep the bag slung across his chest from tangling on fence-posts or knocking over flower pots. He was relieved that they weren't going through tunnels, at least, as he could still detect a faint sewer whiff on his sleeve.

As they went, Pharia explained the plan. "I know where we can cross out of this circle of guards, putting us in a different neighbourhood. Cliopher will head straight for the Palace. Luvo, you give him a few minutes' head start, then head back outward to the nearest guard post. Run a bit - we want you to be sweaty and out of breath. Tell them you were pursuing a person wearing a burlap shift underneath street clothes, who ran when you challenged her."

There was a pause as they navigated an alley choked with obstacles, treading in single file.

"I'll need to give a description," Luvo said when they bunched together again.

"Keep it simple. Similar to Jullanar in general ways, not too much detail. Say her hair was tied back so you couldn't tell if it was curly or not, and she had a long coat over the burlap. It has to be a different colour than what she is wearing."

"Blue," Cliopher suggested. "It's a popular colour - many professions wear different shades of blue."

"Good thought. With the magelights wavering, you couldn't be certain of the exact hue. Got the idea?"

"Did she have shoes?" Luvo asked.

"It had better be the boots I gave her, people may have seen those as we were leaving the square," Cliopher admitted. "That is - assuming you want it to match up with some real witnesses."

"That will work. We need to give her something better-fitting in any case - in fact, we'll need a full disguise before she can leave, but that's a matter for tomorrow."

A part of Cliopher thrilled to hear one of the legendary Red Company planning out their schemes. This was much better than listening to heated arguments! But he wanted to understand more. "What is Luvo's goal here?"

"There are several, two in particular. First, he's reporting a plausible sighting in the wrong area of town. Secondly, Luvo can then volunteer for a more important guard position because he has seen the fugitive more recently than anyone else. The third possible advantage, depending on how badly they've organized this mishmash of City Guard and Palace Guard and army, is that perhaps the cordons and checkpoints will be disrupted, making it easier for all of us to move about the city. But remember, the main goal here is for both of you to get close to Fi-" she cut herself off as they rounded a corner and found a few loiterers clustered under an awning, speaking to each other in low voices. Once they had passed the group, she resumed, "Get close to him. Use any advantage you can."

Cliopher gulped. It felt wrong to try inject a dose of realism into the planning - after all, the Red Company had pulled off far more elaborate schemes than this, hadn't they? And Cliopher had been the one to say they should free Fitzroy Angursell; he did not want to be the one whose doubts sank the entire plan. But as he thought of the ranks upon ranks of disapproving nobles who would stand between a lowly Islander and the Emperor of five worlds, he felt he had to say, "I really don't know if that's going to work."

"I have a plan to help with that," Pharia assured him. "Your first goal will be to get to the Palace, then see if you can get hold of a medical assistant's uniform."

"Steal one from a laundry, perhaps?" That had been a ploy in a few of the Red Company's deeds.

"Yes, that would be ideal," Pharia responded. "Now, quietly for this next bit, the streets will be busier here."

Cliopher was already trying to think of the closest laundry to one of the Palace infirmaries. But wouldn't medical assistants have their uniforms cleaned close to where they lived, rather than where they worked? That was Cliopher's habit. He ought to have taken his uniform to the laundry today, in fact, if he hadn't been so busy with treason.

(Was it truly treason, if the Emperor himself had been the one to blow up the headsman's block? Sadly, he suspected that made it even worse.)

They were leaving the area that housed some of the poorer inhabitants of the city (not the very poorest, the street-sweepers and trash-haulers, but the servers and cooks and shop assistants who couldn't lodge at their place of employment), and coming into a neighbourhood that held individual houses, if small and jammed together and sometimes subdivided. These would be for the clerks, masons, carpenters, sign-painters and the like who did most of the city's business. The streets were clean, tree-lined in some stretches. The magelights were closer and brighter, only pulsing a little.

For the next few streets, the quality of the houses continued to improve (accountants and shop-owners and artisans, Cliopher thought), and there were also more people about, walking alone or in groups, sometimes standing on corners to converse. Many of them were wearing professional robes although Cliopher could not always decode the colours in the uncertain light. He caught a snatch of one conversation that seemed, in fact, to be about the magelights and why they were affected by the day's magical disruptions. The parties to the discussion were not in agreement about the precise cause, but they seemed quite forceful in their opinions.

Pharia headed into an open square with brick-paved walkways beneath stately trees of different types. Most were bare of leaves at this season, but a cluster of pines offered a small private space between them. "Here we are," she said with satisfaction.

Cliopher looked about in puzzlement. Was this where they were supposed to split up?

But now Pharia was pulling out various items from pockets or perhaps bags concealed beneath her robes. "All right, you two, stand together - just there."

Cliopher obediently waited elbow-to-elbow with Luvo, while Pharia laid out her bottles and pouches of powder and sprigs of plants he could not identify on the shadowy ground just before her.

"The Guards have magic detectors," Luvo warned. "Even the ones who don't have much magic themselves."

Pharia's teeth flashed in the darkness. "They don't really have enough of them to cover the entire city, but I do take your point. That's why we're doing this right next to the Imperial College's School of Wizardry. Even if the spell is detected, they won't be able to follow the traces very far without getting confused by other magic."

"Oh, that's clever," said Cliopher, who hadn't recognized the area since he'd only seen the parts of the college that faced toward the Palace. "And what is the spell?"

"Serendipity!" she said with relish, still fussing with her bottles. "Don't think I haven't seen your doubtful frowns, Sayo. And you are not entirely wrong. In the past, many of our escapades only succeeded thanks to the aura of luck and coincidence that surrounds the most powerful of mages. Right now, that mage is lying insensate with his magic half-bound and half-free, so there is no knowing if that famous effect still holds. I have no such aura about me, but I can cast a spell that will have some of the same effects, for a short time. In fact, it was my association with him that taught me how to make the common serendipity spell more targeted and effective. I will center it upon the two of you, and specifically on your ability to persuade. The strongest persuasive effect will last until, oh, about midnight I should say. And then a lesser luck enhancement should stretch into the day tomorrow. Do as much as you can during that period - to reach him, to establish your right to be there, to find out the plans of the priest-wizards -"

"Will it help us to wake him?" Cliopher asked.

She stilled, her face in shadow. "I'm not certain. If he can be persuaded to waking, this spell might help. Regardless of the reason, if he does wake, and his magic is not entirely out of his reach, he should recognize my work upon you and you may be able to use that to gain his trust."

"Will anyone else recognize this spell on us?" Luvo asked.

"Some of the priests may, but serendipity spells are shifting and easily mistaken for other magical effects. They may think it is merely residual magic from your presence in the square earlier - you should suggest that, in fact, if anyone asks. Now, quiet please, this will only take a few minutes."

She chanted words while sprinkling them with sharp-scented liquids and musty-smelling powders. Cliopher suppressed a sneeze. She shook plant branches over their heads (Luvo had to duck) and waved a wooden wand at them. Then she fell silent and began at once tucking her supplies back into their concealed places. "Come along, quickly, in case anyone grows curious. The only creature nosier than a cat is an academic wizard."

Pharia led them from the square into one of the college buildings, a long hall with lecture rooms off to either side. The door swung open easily and no one tried to stop them, but Cliopher did notice that some of the people along the hallway stopped talking to watch their progress suspiciously.

Pharia began to speak and gesture as if she were leading them on some tour. "This building is mostly lecture spaces, but there are chemistry labs in the basement. Most of our experiments will of course be done in the magical workrooms, but when we need to compound ritual components with no contamination from other magical sources, that will be done here."

Cliopher nodded alertly, trying to look like an earnest... new student? He was a bit old for that. Potential assistant?

An older woman was walking toward them with a deep frown.

"If you need to draw any supplies," Pharia went on, "you must present the proper form, signed by me and Domina Trobrian here."

The woman approaching them looked slightly mollified by the name dropping, but said frostily, "If you wish to give a tour, Domina, they are to be scheduled in advance. Earlier in the day, for preference."

"Of course, Domina! I had planned a proper tour for the afternoon with Dominus Divorie - did he forget to tell you? But I was needed at the Palace. And then it took us hours just to get here through those checkpoints, and Dominus Divorie had left. I'm terribly sorry for disordering your evening schedule, I only thought to give a brief orientation."

The older woman sniffed haughtily. "Dominus Divorie is too forgetful of such things; next time, coordinate directly with my office." But then she added, "If you use the west door and cut through the archives, you can avoid the checkpoint on Zangora Boulevard."

Pharia bowed in thanks, and Cliopher unthinkingly followed with a bow of gratitude in the second degree - perhaps a little too showy outside of the Palace, as the Domina frowned at him before stalking off with a snort to intimidate a gaggle of students.

Cliopher glanced at Luvo, who seemed stiff and blank but offered a minute shrug. They followed Pharia out through the doorway the Domina had indicated, along a short covered walkway, and into another building. Again the door was unlocked. This building was quiet, and the only people they saw were busy reading or writing at small desks.

"This is the archive?" Cliopher asked, feeling a small pang of envy that was not entirely reasonable. The Imperial Archive in the Palace, to which Cliopher had some access in his secretarial role, was the finest in the Empire. But the Imperial College was likely to have volumes on topics he had never even thought of, and he wished there were time to explore.

Pharia nodded, but did not keep up the pretense of giving them a tour. She led them through a maze of corrdors to an exit on the far side of the building, and once more out into the streets. This was the face of the college that Cliopher had seen before, the long row of shining facades replete with the promise of knowledge. The other side of the street had businesses calculated to appeal to academics: bookstores, tea shops, quirky restaurants, a music-and-dance hall.

"Do you think I should change my name?" Cliopher murmured, dropping back next to Luvo.

The big man looked down at him doubtfully. "Why?"

"Well, if I'm to go back to the Palace, but suddenly I'm not a secretary anymore but a healer's assistant? Should I use a different name, different papers?"

Luvo considered. "How many people in the Palace know you by your old name?"

None of them, Cliopher wanted to return savagely. But the fact that nearly everybody mispronounced his surname didn't mean they wouldn't recognize him or notice if he suddenly had a new name and profession. "None of those people would be close to the Emperor," he offered.

"But you won't be either, not all of the time," Luvo pointed out.

It was true. Cliopher was bound to cross paths with his old colleagues at some point.

"Here we are," said Pharia at last, when they were two blocks away from the college. Cliopher realized she had been waiting for an opportunity when no one was on the street nearby. "Cliopher, the Palace is -"

"I know the way," he told her.

"Good. Keep your papers ready. Luvo, around the corner and up Zangora Boulevard is the nearest guard post. Run there and tell them your story."

Luvo blinked. "You want me to tell them that the fugitive ran into the Imperial College?"

Pharia grinned. "Oh yes. Firstly, it's just what she would do. Secondly, more than half the people there will resist being questioned on principle. Quite a few of them probably would be willing to lie for her, if there were anything to lie about. Most likely they'll all tell different lies that don't match up. A nightmare for the Guard."

Luvo frowned. "And you think this nightmare will win me a promotion?"

"Be persuasive," she said, patting him on the arm. "Now get going, Cliopher, you want to be well away before the search starts."

"What about you?" he asked.

She raised a brow. "I do know my way around the City Guard, thank you very much."

Cliopher's face heated. "I didn't mean - that is..." He cleared his throat. "Thank you for all the help you've given us."

"You're helping us," she told him sternly. "Don't forget it." And in a blur of her silver robes, probably assisted by a bit of illusion magic, she was gone.

Cliopher glanced at Luvo, who shrugged and then saluted him. He headed back to the Palace. When he looked back, Luvo was jogging up the street.

Cliopher passed through two more checkpoints on his way back to the Palace. He was used to some Guard presence in the city, but they were really pulling out all the stops for Jullanar. He showed them his Cliopher Mdang papers and explained that he worked in the Palace and was heading home. At the first stop, he said he had heard a rumour about that Red Company woman being spotted, was there any truth to it? The guards didn't answer and hustled him away, but they were clearly unsettled; they forgot to write down his name.

At the second post, just outside the Palace grounds, he explained his late return by using Luvo's story that he had been helping some people who were disoriented from the magic in the square. The Palace guards here were more suspicious, but as Cliopher did in fact live and work in the Palace, his documentation passed inspection and he was let through. He headed straight for the Voonran wing, the shortest route to his little room, until he was inside the building. Then he diverted to one of the laundries, nearer the core than the one he normally patronized but far enough out to cater to mid-rank staff and assistants rather than nobles.

The first laundry he had planned to check was too crowded, so he went on to the next. That one seemed busy enough for the staff to be distracted, but (he hoped) not so densely peopled that someone would see every move he made. There was a line as people waited to drop off their dirty uniforms before dinner, but Cliopher took a deep breath and elbowed his way to the front. "Sorry, sorry," he said with what felt like an obviously-false smile, "won't take a moment, I promise!"

People grumbled.

Cliopher leaned over the counter and spoke quickly, trying to soften his accent into something more Astandalan. "I'm so sorry, I just dropped off my uniform a few minutes ago -"

The laundress frowned. "I don't recall you."

"Perhaps it was closer to half a bell. But I realized I left a note in my pocket, I really need the information on it -"

"We check the pockets before cleaning, it will be set aside," she assured him.

"But I need it tonight! Please, can I just check?" He looked over at the rack just visible around the corner as he was leaning forward, and - serendipity! - there was a set of pink-and-cream healer's robes at the end. Even as he looked, another staff member hung a cook's apron on the rack, covering the robes. "They're right there, do you mind if I check?"

The people behind him were jostling and complaining about the delay, and the harried laundress said, "Oh, all right." She lifted the counter-leaf to let him through, and he hurried over to the rack, pretending to look at the clothes in the middle. When he thought no one was watching, he pulled down the healer's uniform and stuffed it hastily into his bag. Then he held up a crumpled piece of paper triumphantly. "Found it! Found it! Thank you so much, I won't bother you any further!"

And then he was out of the laundry and rushing along the hallways toward his own room, feeling as if fizzy water was running through his veins. His hands were shaking, his mouth dry. He felt vaguely ashamed of lying, more so of stealing, and thrilled to have gotten away with both. The enhancement of luck and persuasiveness that Pharia had cast on him seemed to have done its job.

He was thinking only about getting to his room, getting the stolen robes on, and starting the next phase of his assigned mission. But the aroma from a refectory reminded him that he'd had nothing but a bit of bread and cheese since breakfast. He got through the food line very quickly, people parting for him when they would normally object and tell him to go to the end of the line. He inhaled a bowl of stew and a cup of over-brewed coffee (presumably offered for the night staff who would soon be going on duty), and carried a couple of rolls back to his room with no one pointing out that it was against the rules.

He shut his own door behind him, half-laughing and feeling like an entirely different man than the one who had left this morning. He quickly peeled out of his street clothes, wishing he had been able to leave those at the laundry to get rid of the lingering odour. The healer's robes were a good length but slightly loose around the chest and small at the shoulders. They smelled as if a woman had been wearing them, not entirely unpleasant, but there were some stains at the hem and on the cuffs. He hoped that wouldn't cause the healers to reject him as careless or untidy.

He sat on the edge of his bed, tearing pieces from a bread roll and chewing them as he looked numbly at the bag he had taken with him in the morning, the uniforms and writing kit he had left behind. He had thought he might never see this room again, or its contents - his books, his oboe, the Voonran chest that he hadn't finished restoring yet, where he kept his efela.

His efela! He should not have left those behind. But he could hardly have taken them along; there was little enough space in his bag as it was. And in truth, the accomplishments they marked were modest enough - finishing school, graduating from university, passing the Imperial Service exams. Those were things that he wanted acknowledgment for, but here in Astandalas people cared more about his diploma and Service certificate than about necklaces.

He lifted the lid of the chest. He needed proper baskets to hold the efela, but for now they were wrapped in scraps of old shirts. The one on top was... Navalia's. The mourning efela from his sister's funeral, made from re-strung components of her own accomplishments. Navalia had not studied Islander lore as Kip had, and made no lorekeeper's efela, but she had bought a few to mark her most cherished achievements - school and university, as Cliopher had, but also when she had kept a child with diphtheria alive through sheer force of attention, when she had lost a patient and hoped that the old traditions would help her find a way to honour the loss and move forward.

Cliopher lifted the efela out and touched one of the pink cowries, nearly the same colour as the coral bead next to it, nearly the same colour as the robes he had just stolen. That was from when she had passed her nursing certification exam; he had taken her to Mardo's shop to choose something appropriate for the occasion.

He had helped her study for that exam, insisting she needed to use flash cards. Together they had made several sets of cards with names and symptoms of diseases, effects and side effects of medicines, pictures of the most common tools of the trade painstakingly traced from her textbooks and pasted onto the cards. And then he had quizzed her until she had all those minutiae memorized. If Cliopher had any knowledge at all that would help him to pose as a healer's assistant, it had come from helping Navalia study.

And she had helped him, insisting that he keep trying on the Imperial Service Exam when he had been ready to give up after the third and fourth failures. She had been the one to think of asking Saya Dorn who might be able to help him with the etiquette knowledge that simply wasn't in the set books. Saya Dorn in turn had sent example problems (from Cliopher's failed exams) to a friend of hers in Astandalas, and the answers had arrived just in time for Cliopher to study them before the next round of testing.

Navalia had been gone by the time he passed the exam at last. He had worn this mourning efela when he sat the test, and felt that her spirit was watching over him, encouraging him. Her spirit had moved on years ago, but perhaps her memory could help him now. Half in a daze, he lifted the efela over his head, kissed the pink cowrie, and tucked it under the stolen robe.

Cliopher had left this room in the morning hoping, with very little justification, that he might help Jullanar of the Sea to escape execution. And he had done that, had played an important role in getting her out of the square. Damian and Pharia - and Jullanar herself - had taken over from there, displaying the skills that had earned the Red Company such a fearsome reputation. But now it was Cliopher's turn again. Fitzroy Angursell was a prisoner surrounded by an army of guards and subject to tortures that Cliopher could barely understand. He needed Cliopher to gather the information to help his friends break him free.

Cliopher could do this. With the help of Pharia's spell, and Navalia's flash cards, he was going to do this. He was, however temporarily, an honorary member of the Red Company. And now he was doing his part to plan a caper even more daring than any from their heyday as Terrors of Astandalas: they must find a way to steal the Emperor.

Cliopher left his second bread roll on the table and headed out, for the second time that day, to commit undeniable treason.

Chapter Text

Cliopher's first problem was that he did not know precisely where the Emperor had been taken. "To the Palace," Pharia had said, so at least that left out any healers' offices in the city. But there were some very high-end clinics within the Palace. If His Radiancy's condition had changed while he was being moved, might his attendants have opted for the closest healer?

But that seemed unlikely. By far the strongest chance was that His Radiancy had been carried back to the Imperial Apartments, behind the Sun-in-Glory door that Cliopher had laid eyes upon only once, beyond the seven anterooms that he had only heard of in rumour, and behind seven - or no, would it be eight? - pairs of sharpened spears held by men who considered the impressive Luvo Omo a mere aspirant to the positions they held. He really did not see how any amount of magically-enhanced persuasiveness would get him past all those guarded doors.

He had better hope for a healer's clinic, then.

As he neared the center of the Palace of stars, with its wider hallways and brighter magelights and exquisite artworks, he saw a number of richly-dressed personages gathered in small groups, talking urgently with each other. He did not see any Palace staff, even the highest-ranked servants; there must be discreet back hallways for them to navigate. Certainly the nobles who caught sight of Cliopher all frowned to see him boldly walking the main hall as if he had some right to be there.

He tried to hear what they were saying but could grasp only bits. "...Thrown ten ells by the explosion!..." "...Said he couldn't think straight for two hours after that dazzlement hit, but Hirda was fine within minutes..." "...For all of these lights to be affected, the underlying structure of the school..." "...Carried him right past me! I could have touched the leopard pelts!"

"Excuse me," Cliopher said with a quick bow to this last woman, whose accent was just a shade less sophisticated than the others. He was using his very best courtly accent, but past attempts had drawn hilarity from his co-workers so he had no idea how ridiculous he might sound. Trust the spell, he reminded himself, and looked for an open-ended question. "You saw the Glorious One brought back to the Palace?"

"Oh yes, they took him straight to the throne room!" gushed the young woman.

Cliopher's heart quailed; the throne room was just as difficult to access as the Imperial Apartments. He did, at least, know where it was.

"Not that it's any concern of his," said one of the others in the group, not even looking at Cliopher. None of them had acknowledged his bow, much less returned it.

The young woman glared at her companion. "Open your eyes, Civonne! It's a healer's apprentice! You know they sent for more assistance." She did not go so far as to smile at Cliopher, but her eyes were kind as she said, "The healers are gathered in the first receiving room off the throne room. To the right of the great doors."

He gave her a bow of gratitude in the first degree, which might be overdone etiquette, but as he was a dancer he could perform it gracefully. Trust the spell, indeed!

There were four Palace guards in full panoply before the great doors to the throne room, which were closed. The receiving room off to the side had only a footman waiting there.

Cliopher bowed to him. "I'm -" he began.

"Yes, yes, good, go inside, they're waiting for you," said the footman, opening the door and bowing him in.

Cliopher blinked at this courtesy, and then at the bustle of people inside. There were Palace serving staff, unmasked junior priest-wizards, two people in the uniform of the Bureaucratic Service whom Cliopher did not recognize, and several pages bustling through the room, trying to organize a variety of tools, medicines, spell components, reference books, and a tea service on tables at the side of the room. No less than three healers dressed in cream robes with pink trim were directing these operations, but there was no one wearing the pink-with-cream that Cliopher currently had on.

He turned to the nearest page. "I understand someone sent for an assistant?" he asked.

It turned out they all had. Demands for an explanation of why Cliopher was late (and wearing stained robes) overlapped with frantic stories of problems that had diverted other assistants. It seemed no less than three apprentice healers had been injured amid the chaos in the square.

"This is Dominum Taglo, Dominus Matsudarya, and I am Domina Vasnë," said the youngest of the three. "We are all in need of an extra hand." She looked him up and down. "You have no medical bag?"

Cliopher had not even thought of that. "It was... stolen," he improvised. "While I was preoccupied." He brushed at the rusty stain on his right cuff.

"You might have taken the time to change," said Matsudarya, looking down his nose from an impressive height. "You could hardly be permitted into the Presence in such a state."

Cliopher allowed his eyes to widen, as if he had never contemplated getting so close to the Emperor, even though that was exactly what Pharia had told him to do.

Taglo, the oldest, elbowed the tall man. "At least he's not afraid to get his hands dirty, eh? And cleaned them again, I see, if not the robes."

Cliopher could not help glancing at his hands and their perpetual ink stains. Well, perhaps they were not so bad as usual, since he had done very little writing today, but the callus on his middle finger was still rather black. Was Taglo's vision so poor that they hadn't noticed, or was the serendipity spell somehow covering the stains with illusion? He folded his hands convulsively together and bowed. "How may I serve you, Domini?" he asked.

Their requests all heaped atop each other. Cliopher was frantic for the first few minutes, trying to take notes (he knew he should have brought his writing kit!), fetch tools, locate a particular book, and pour tea, until he realized that conflicting commands were providing cover for his lack of knowledge. He focused carefully on one thing at a time until they noticed that peppering him with more demands was not delivering faster results.

Another healer's assistant arrived, with the shaved head and tattoos of a noble lineage, and Matsudarya pounced on her at once. The other two seemed content to share Cliopher between them, and Vasnë condescended so far as to admit, "I didn't catch your name, Sayo...?"

He stiffened because he still hadn't decided which set of identification papers to use, and blurted, "Call me Kip." He supposed that could go with either identity since he could honestly say it was a nickname for Cliopher. But if someone left this room speaking about him, no one would connect it with a particular hinterland secretary with an unusually highbrow name.

"Kip," she said a little uncertainly, as if tasting the name in her mouth. "When we are admitted into the Presence once more, Dominus Matsudarya and Dominum Taglo will repeat their physical examination of the Glorious One. I wish to focus more on the magical aspects of his condition. That is my specialty, you see, and why I was called in for this case - the interaction between physical and magical health."

He ventured, "I had not heard that the Emperor had such a magical gift before."

"It came as quite a surprise to me, I can assure you." She glanced around the room. "I'm not entirely certain about some of the priest-wizards. But you... Am I right in thinking that you were there, at the execution square? Is that where your bag was stolen?"

Cliopher hesitated, unsure if this was going to lead to questions he did not wish to answer. "I was there," he conceded.

"How close were you to the Glorious One? Could you see him?" Domina Vasnë seemed so concerned, and she was a healer.

"I was in the thick of the crowd." He need not say how close he was to the headsman's platform. "Perhaps thirty or forty ells from the Imperial viewing stand. I could see well enough since it was so high."

"And... have you any magic of your own? There seems to be a great confusion of it lingering about you."

"No, Domina, I cannot do magic or perceive it directly. I can sometimes see its effects, though." He remembered what Pharia had told him to say, to assuage suspicion. "There certainly was a great deal of it in the square, after - after the..."

"There was an explosion, was there not? So the rumours had it."

"Ah, it was not precisely..." Cliopher frowned. "I can think of no word better than 'explosion.' Certainly a blinding light filled the entire square. The platform where the executioner and the prisoner stood simply disappeared, as if they were vaporized. People were thrown back - I was thrown back, into a heap with other people. And yet..." He bit his lip, wondering if there were details that he should be concealing.

"And yet?" She prompted gently, sounding so sincere. Cliopher liked her, not only for the resonance of her name with his sister's.

"I smelt no burns, nor saw any when my sight returned. I saw no one bleeding from a profusion of splinters. I thought that the screams I heard were from confusion and fear, rather than agony. One woman said -" Jullanar had said that she was thrown high in the air and yet descended gently, but she had also said that was 'classic Fitzroy,' so perhaps he should avoid that. "I heard someone say that there was a dazzlement or confusion effect, which fell hardest upon those with more magic. Certainly I did see people striking out against others, babbling nonsense, even singing. Many had injuries from falling or bumbling into obstacles, injured feet after shoes were lost, that sort of thing."

"But no one directly injured by the explosion? That is most interesting." Domina Vasnë lifted a hand as if tempted to nibble on a thumbnail in thought, then pulled it away in exasperation.

"Except for those who were on the platform at the time," said Dominum Taglo dryly.

"I... I cannot say what happened to them," Cliopher conceded. At least, he did not want to say it.

Dominus Matsudarya scoffed. "And yet all this well-controlled magic is believed to have come from the Glorious One, who had previously shown no such ability? Preposterous! Far more likely there was some inimical effect directed at him!"

Domina Vasnë raised a brow. "Is it? You said you could see the Emperor, Sayo Kip - what was he doing before this strange explosion occurred?"

Cliopher looked from one healer to the other in alarm. Should he encourage them to think the magic had or had not come from the Emperor? Domina Vasnë had spoken of the interplay between the magical and physical aspects of his illness, which might be important for helping him effectively. And yet Cliopher did not want to lead them too close to the supposition that the Glorious One was a mage both powerful and experienced.

Matsudarya apparently took his hesitation for ignorance. "What could he have seen, magic-null as he is?"

Cliopher cleared his throat. "The Emperor seemed, ah, interested in the prisoner. He stood from his throne upon the platform and moved forward to look at her."

"What was the prisoner doing?" Dominum Taglo asked.

"The guards were urging her toward the block, but she paused and looked toward the viewing stands."

Vasnë leaned forward. "They were looking at each other?"

Cliopher considered. "I am not certain of the precise angle. I had understood that the taboo on meeting the Emperor's eyes did not apply from a distance?" At least, it had not blinded him when he looked. But the Emperor had not been focused directly upon him.

"No one has cared to measure the precise threshold where blinding ceases to be a concern," said Taglo. "Particularly since that distance has seemed to increase with each succeeding Emperor. In the days of Zangora XVI, it is said, there was no such taboo."

"Oh," said Cliopher softly. The Emperor - Fitzroy Angursell - had such lovely eyes. And expressive, though he had seen them only for a moment. What must it be like, never to share a look with anyone?

"What happened next?" Domina Vasnë pressed.

"Well, the Emperor moved forward, as I said, out of the shade of the canopy."

Matsudarya gasped. "Into the sunlight?"

"Yes?" said Cliopher. "I saw some of the priests and guards react to that. But nothing happened immediately. He looked down at the headsman's block, and she looked up toward him. And then he raised his hand... and then the explosion."

"Raised his hand," Vasnë considered. "To cast some spell?"

"Or to defend against one?" Taglo returned. "From the prisoner, perhaps."

"Jullanar of the Sea is magic-null," Cliopher protested.

Matsudarya snorted. "We should hardly place trust in what is said in folk songs. But it is true, the Lord of Ysthar himself inspected the prisoner before the execution and pronounced her harmless. He told me so himself."

"Oh, yes!" Domina Vasnë recalled. "The Lords of Ysthar and Voonra and the Lady of Colhélhé have been called in to consult on this matter. We should tell them what Sayo Kip here had to say."

"Here they are, in fact," said Taglo, looking toward the door as it opened. "Or one of them, in any case."

The Lord Magus of Ysthar strode into the room, servants trailing behind him.

Cliopher had seen the Lord of Ysthar before, though almost as infrequently and from nearly the same distance as he had seen the Emperor. Now that he was within a few paces, he could appreciate the true artistry of the styling and embroidery on every piece of the great mage's clothing, from the cuffs of his linen shirt barely peeking out at the wrists, through several layers of velvet tunic and silk-lined brocade vest, to the cloak embroidered all over with golden roses. His head was shaved, but he had a neatly-trimmed brown beard, with gems dripping from his ears and nose.

A bow was not sufficient. Cliopher knew the etiquette although he had almost never had occasion to use it; he went to one knee and bowed his head. Not the full prostration as for the Emperor, but a clear show of submission according to the forms he had learned so painstakingly.

"Dominus Matsudarya!" said the great lord somewhat querulously, "Why are we being kept from the Presence? I'm told the Glorious One is in the throne room, but we - we! are not permitted to enter? On whose authority? Oh, yes, yes, do rise."

Cliopher got to his feet along with the healers and the other assistant.

Matsudarya answered the lord with deep respect. "The Emperor's attendants wished to bathe and dress him, saavel. As our initial examination revealed no immediate danger, we saw no grounds to insist on remaining."

"The concern is not for his Radiancy's physical state, but for his magical well-being," snapped the lord magus. "His magic may be unstable. It is certainly unstable - the effects are being felt all across the city!"

"We expect to be re-admitted any moment, my lord," Domina Vasnë added. "Is there anything in particular you would like us to check for?"

"We must first establish whether that outburst of wild magic - I sensed it from a mile away! - came from the Glorious One himself, or whether it acted upon him in some way. And in either case, how the magic led to his current state. And what his current state has to do with the disruption of the schooled magic. All of these are critical questions that may only be answered by direct examination."

"In fact, my lord," said Dominum Taglo, "we have received an eyewitness description which may include some hints -"

Cliopher tried to fade back into the corner of the room. It was one thing to share some of the details he had seen with a healer trying to help the Emperor, but quite another if those same details were shared with a mage who was likely more powerful than Fitzroy Angursell - particularly so, given that Fitzroy Angursell's magic had been bound and constricted for more than a decade.

Fortunately - or perhaps serendipitously - a distraction presented itself. The outer door opened once again, and two more great mages entered: the Lord of Voonra and the Lady of Colhélhé, both of whom Cliopher could identify only by their magnificent clothing. With the three healers, two (putative) healers' assistants, and assorted palace staff, the addition of three magi with servants of their own made the room very crowded. Cliopher retreated to the side-table and began to fuss over the tea service, trying to make himself inconspicuous.

The Lord of Voonra seemed preoccupied with the misbehaving magelights, and the Lady of Colhélhé was saying something about a stone in the throne room - or was it the Imperial Apartments? Cliopher was not quite clear on that point. The Lord of Ysthar began to explain to them about the wild magic he had sensed, but just then the room's other door opened - the inner door. Everyone turned to look that way.

Two Imperial Guards stepped through to stand blocking the doorway, facing the antechamber.

The Lord of Ysthar moved toward them at once. "Lord Magus Thalassior Barred, to see the Glorious One."

The two guards stamped their spears and stepped aside, allowing him through, then stepped together once more.

The Lady of Colhélhé, a grand old dame who reached back well into Eritanyr's reign and perhaps to Anyoë's, presented herself next and was admitted, then the Lord of Voonra. None of them took their servants with them.

"Dominus Matsudarya of the College of Healers" was next, and Cliopher looked around quickly for the aristocratic assistant he had picked up. The woman seemed to have left the room on some errand.

Cliopher bit his lip. Someone had said he would not be admitted to the Presence with his robes so stained. Were healers' assistants not allowed? He saw Domina Vasnë moving, and hurried to pick up her bag.

Dominum Taglo gave Cliopher a sharp look and handed over his own bag as well, then turned to the door. "Dominum Taglo of the Imperial Hospital. My colleague Domina Vasnë. And our assistant Sayo Kip."

Cliopher opened his mouth to correct the name. Surely at this point he would have to show his papers? But the guards stamped their spears and stepped aside.

Just how powerful was that spell of Pharia's, Cliopher wondered as he followed behind the healers through a doorway in a wall so thick it almost qualified as a tunnel, and from there into the vastness of the Imperial Throne Room.

On the jewelled floor before the stairs leading up to the throne, directly atop the inlaid mosaic map of Ysthar, was a litter draped in white samite with Imperial Guards standing at each of the corners looking outward. With the carry-poles removed, it looked more like a bier than a conveyance.

Upon this funereal structure, dressed in white garments with a golden over-robe, lay the Lord of Five Thousand Lands and Ten Thousand Titles, the Sun-on-Earth, the Glorious and Radiant Emperor Artorin Damara. Fitzroy Angursell.

Chapter Text

Cliopher was not, of course, permitted to approach the Emperor directly. First he had to deal with medical bags for two healers, which were to be tucked away behind a pillar at the side of the throne room, and then he had to fetch various implements for them as requested. It was indeed fortunate that he had helped Navalia with her studying, but that had been some time ago and he struggled to match his memories of drawings on flash cards to the appearance of the tools when folded and packed away.

He also discovered that treating the Glorious One himself required some different tools - particularly elegant or gilded ones, very new devices that might not even have existed a decade ago, and in some cases implements for dealing with a patient who could not be touched.
Dominus Matsudarya produced a type of thermometer that could be laid across the Emperor's forehead and read from a short distance away. Dominum Taglo sent Cliopher back to his bag several times for a type of finely-graduated scale he had never even heard of, that could apparently assess a patient's level of consciousness. Taglo and Matsudarya then fell to arguing over how accurate the scale was for someone with an uncertain, possibly unstable, gift of wild magic.

Domina Vasnë came with Cliopher on his next trip across the room to search her own bag for something that could be used to assess the speed and strength of his Radiancy's pulse.

"Gloves?" Cliopher suggested, pulling a very fine silk pair from the side pocket of her bag.

"It is reportedly perilous to touch the Sun-on-Earth even through a layer of fabric," she said, frowning. "A heavier leather pair might be sufficient, but of course they would need to be purified first." She held a stethoscope in her hands, apparently considering how closely she would need to bend over the bier, and whether her hand would be in danger as she pressed the bell to his chest.

"Anything rigid might be set upon his chest to see the pulse rate," Cliopher commented.

She frowned at him. "Are you certain?"

"Oh yes, have you never dozed off with a book lying upon your chest? You can see the pages move." Cliopher had seen the same effect with an empty beer bottle but thought it would be impolitic even to imply placing one of those upon the Emperor's chest. (He did imagine that Fitzroy Angursell would probably appreciate it, though.)

"They move with the breath," she responded.

"With the pulse." Cliopher found a pair of long-handled forceps with a promising curve and removed one of the handles. "This would do it." He held the handle up to his chest in the appropriate position.

Vasnë took a breath, then accepted the forceps-handle and also the silk gloves. "Bring that watch." Looking coolly professional, she donned the gloves as she approached the bier, made obeisance to the unconscious man, and very carefully laid the handle upon the exquisitely fine silk over his sternum. Cliopher followed in her wake, coming closer to the Emperor than he had yet been.

His Radiancy was just breathing out, the deep collar of the loose Imperial yellow over-robe framing the polished wood as it sank down. In the few moments before the next breath was drawn, they could all see the forceps handle twitching at the unmistakable pace of a heartbeat.

"Fifteen seconds, Sayo Kip," said Vasnë.

He fumbled for the watch he was holding. "Start," he told her, and kept his eyes on the sweeping hand until it had moved through a quarter of a circle. "Done."

"Eight-eight beats in a minute," Domina Vasnë reported.

"Rather fast, for an unconscious man," Taglo noted.

Vasnë retrieved her handle with the same care she had used in laying it down. Watching her, Cliopher's attention was caught by a small movement and he glanced involuntarily at the Emperor's face.

"He's dreaming, not unconscious," Cliopher said. "His eyes are moving!"

Matsudarya gasped. "You looked upon his eyes?"

"They are covered," he pointed out, but he did carefully look away. For a moment he had actually thought coins had been placed on the Emperor's eyelids, as some cultures used upon corpses to keep their eyes closed. But a second glance had showed him that it was actually small strips of gold cloth. They might be weighted, to lie so flatly, but he could see the underlying twitches of the eyelids. If it was not weighted, he realized belatedly, the cloth would do little to prevent the eyes from opening without warning, and perhaps blinding him.

"You had better use care, Sayo," Matsudarya said tartly just as Cliopher grasped the risk he had been taking, but then immediately turned back to Taglo. "This means your scale is mis-calibrated in cases where magic is involved."

"Not necessarily," began Taglo.

"Eye movement means he is dreaming, not unconscious!"

"It could be an enchanted sleep -"

"Those are only to be found in fairy tales!"

Cliopher found his eyes straying again toward the Emperor. He had already understood that the entire architecture of the throne room was designed to draw the eye toward a particular effulgent central point - but that center would normally be the throne at the top of the stairs, distant enough even for the taboo against meeting the Emperor's eyes. He was not certain just what fascination kept pulling him to break that taboo even when the Glorious One was not enthroned. Or, perhaps he did know; it was the knowledge that the man whose poetry had spoken to his thirteen-year-old self was the same whose portrait had called to him as a university graduate. Fitzroy Angursell and the Lord of Rising Stars were one and the same, and Cliopher desperately wanted to make sense of that information by staring at the man, however dangerous it might be.

He forced his eyes to move beyond the litter instead, to where the three magi were standing a short distance away. They all had their eyes close, and they were all - well, Cliopher could not sense magic, but he could see how the Lord of Voonra's silky black hair was lifting on invisible currents, and the Lord of Ysthar showed a strange blue-green glow just at the slit of his closed eyes, and the air shimmered strangely about the Lady of Colhélhé. Ordinary senses were sufficient to tell him that there was strong magic afoot. He glanced back at Dominum Taglo's consciousness scale and saw its needle shivering madly.

But it was only a moment later that the three great mages suddenly all drew in breath at the same time, and their eyes opened. Voonra staggered, and Ysthar rubbed at his eyes. The Lady of Colhélhé set her teeth and glowered at the base of the litter, as if determined to show no weakness. She turned to the other two.

"What is that -" began Voonra, but Colhélhé raised her hand sharply. For a moment Cliopher thought she was casting one of those silence spells such as Saya Dorn had occasionally used, but instead she gestured for the other two to follow her, and she walked back behind the pillars toward the same antechamber they had entered through.

"Sayo Kip. Kip?" Vasnë had said his name several times, he realized.

"Yes, Domina?"

"Put these back in my bag," she told him, handing over the forceps-handle and the gloves.

"And get us some tea!" Matsudarya snapped. "About all he's good for," he muttered as he turned back toward his patient.

Cliopher told himself that, as he was not actually a healer's assistant, he need not feel stung to be told that he was doing a less-than-stellar job. But his face was hot as he tucked the items away in the appropriate pockets

For tea, he had to go back to the antechamber, but he didn't get that far. The magi were conferring in the short hall or tunnel leading to the room. There were no guards in view, since apparently they were all considered to be within some perimeter now. For whatever reason, the magi had not used a silencing spell, and they did not see Cliopher approaching from around the curved wall of the throne room.

"- were all there when Prince Shallyr died," the Lady of Colhélhé was saying in her refined accent from Empress Anyoë's day.

"I was not," put in the Lord of Voonra, appointed just a few years ago, "and I'll thank you to leave me out of the matter."

Cliopher stiffened, wondering if he had just missed hearing some explanation of the Heir's mysterious death. He looked around quickly to make sure that no one could see him eavesdropping.

"Fine, then!" snapped the old lady. "Here's something you might care about, then: that young man was snatched back to the Palace from Colhélhé. From my territory, without so much as a by-your-leave! I went back later to trace what they had done, and I saw the path of terror they drew across my world in tracking him down. I saw the tower where he'd been exiled as a boy, without any knowledge or participation on my part. You see how much they care for our sovereignty over the magic of our worlds! It's no more than lip service!"

"It never has been more than lip service, my dear Mirella," said the Lord of Ysthar. "We've known that all along. Our appointments are more political than anything else. We may be strong mages, but the very first criterion is that we will not interfere with the magic of the Empire."

"That magic is an abomination!" the old lady hissed. "It's been true for generations, and it's been getting worse throughout my tenure - throughout my life! We can all feel it, don't tell me you don't."

There was a moment of silence, then Ysthar put in, "It's not clear where the corruption originates. Shallyr himself was an abomination, as we know too well, and his father was not much better. But the current Emperor -"

"He himself is the best that family has produced in centuries, if not millennia. But what was done to him is of a piece with all the rest of this foul mess. And we took part in it!"

"We didn't know, Mirella" Ysthar replied. "We had no way of knowing his character, only that he was closely related to both Eritanyr and Shallyr -"

"We knew he was a mage, as strong as any one of us if not stronger."

"And therefore, we knew that he could potentially pose a great danger," said Ysthar in placating tones.

"Did we know that? Or did we merely assume?"

"Well, only think if Shallyr had possessed that sort of power!"

"And so we all colluded in binding his power, trapping and limiting it."

"Collusion is a strong word," Ysthar began.

"Can you think of one better?"

Cliopher was holding his breath. He suspected the Lord of Voonra was nearly as terrified and mesmerized as he was. It was one thing to suspect such things were going on, to deduce from circumstances or to hear rumours. But to hear it stated aloud by such exalted personages made his knees quiver. He looked again to make certain no one was near.

"All of us, in our positions, experienced what it is like to fit our magic to the constraints of the Imperial School. And we're not even wild mages - we at least have the underpinnings of compatibility! But we went through our own struggles, did we not? Enough to give us some idea of what we were asking - compelling - that young man to sacrifice. It might very well have driven him mad. It might have made him into just the same sort of tyrant that Shallyr would have been."

"No, it was precisely to prevent such a thing that we -"

"That we trapped him. Held him, pinned him down for the Ouranatha to weave their webs around him. For the Good of the Empire." Colhélhé's voice dripped with sarcasm.

"The good of the people. Not merely for glory, Mirella, you know that. It was to protect all our worlds!"

"And we consented to that, we took active part, because we feared what he might be if we didn't. He was a dark horse, then, completely unknown to all of us. But he isn't now. We know his character. We've seen how he fights the corruption."

"My dear, your preoccupation with corruption -"

"You know it's true! You can smell the stink of it when the Ouranatha sink their spells into any working of magic. And true in a less arcane sense for all the structure of bureaucracy, intimidation, misappropriation, and terror."

Ysthar sighed windily at this apparent obsession of hers, but Cliopher felt all his instincts lighting up. Here was someone who recognized what he had been saying for years, what no one had ever wanted to hear from him! Here was someone he might have been able to work with, if only he had known she was a like-minded ally. If only he had been able to find others with the same concerns in positions of power.

"He's worth more than all the rest of them, we know that now. He could reform the entire structure, if he had the power."

"He's the Emperor!" Ysthar protested. "No one has more power than that!"

"He needs the backing of his court, as you well know, Thalassior. He needs ministerial support, moral reinforcement, magical nourishment, in the name of all that's holy! And instead he's had his wings clipped, an eagle forced to masquerade as an ornamental duck! And now, now he's nearly broken those bindings. He's halfway to freeing himself and being able to take wing. And the Ouranatha are trying to shore up the entire rotten edifice. So what are we going to do? Are we going to help them?"

There was a pause. Ysthar said slowly, "It's not just an empty phrase, my dear. The good of the Empire really is at stake."

"Do you think the Ouranatha truly represent the good?" Colhélhé asked.

"They are trying to stabilize the magic," Voonra put in nervously. "We can all feel how fragile it has become. Anyone who looks at a magelight can see it."

"He could hold it up all by himself, if he had the freedom to do it," she answered.

Ysthar blew out a breath. "Are you certain of that?"

"If not by himself, he could surely do it with our help!"

"Are you suggesting the Lords Magi should replace - depose? - the priest-wizards?" Voonra asked, his voice rising to a near-squeak.

"I'm suggesting we support a fellow great mage who has been trapped and held for a swarm of mosquitos to drain him dry. You're right, Thalassior, the Empire is more than just one man. But if they can do this to the most important, the most revered and exalted member of our society, then how can any of us feel safe?"

Cliopher tensed, waiting for an answer, but just then the Palace bells began to chime, and he heard the stamp of spears against the floor. It was midnight, and the Imperial Guard were changing shifts.

He backed up a few steps and then hurried toward the antechamber with his sandals slapping the floor. He deliberately barreled around the corner and nearly crashed into the Lord of Ysthar, folding belatedly into a bow of apology. "Your pardon, my lords, I was sent for some tea -"

"The servants will bring it," Ysthar snapped at him. "Get back to your work!"

"Yes, my lord." Cliopher bowed again, backed away, then turned and hurried to the front of the throne room once more.

"Where's our tea?" Matsudarya asked.

"Oh! They said the servants will be bringing some, very soon?" Cliopher supposed he was doing a fine job of seeming like a useless assistant. Was that what he wanted? He recalled suddenly that midnight was when Pharia had said the strongest effect of her spell would begin to wear off.

He turned to check on Domina Vasnë and pulled up short as he saw the four guards ranged around the Emperor's litter. Luvo Omo was standing at the near corner, carefully not meeting Cliopher's eyes. Apparently he, too, had taken good advantage of the spell's period of maximum effect.

They would both need to be more smart than lucky from now going forward.