Solo Taking Up The Reins

[Alses]

e

Timestamp: 3rd Day of Spring, 514 A.V.

She woke abruptly, drenched in sweat, jerking bolt-upright in the acres of bed that surrounded her. Sodden silk sheets peeled away from her corpse-pale form, and pale moonlight stole in around the edges of the curtains. What sleep she’d managed had been fitful, uneasy, tossing and turning and unable to drift off despite utter tiredness wrapping its grey tentacles around every fibre of her being. Her senses – her mind – had been battered and bruised by the panoply and spectacle of yesterday, by the pomp and ceremony that had accompanied her coronation? Investiture? and she’d retired with a sigh of profound relief to the sanctum of Elysium Hall.

Unfortunately, the towering new vastness of the Hall was yet to become home to the deeper reaches of her psyche. The ceilings were too high, the lights were strange, the four-poster grandly sprawling, all acres of silk and richly-embroidered hangings, quite different to her simple bed back in the Towers Respite…the list went on and on.

Rather than being supported by her home, it being her sanctum sanctorum in the larger bastion that was the city, she felt instead diminished, intimidated by the grandeur of its dimensions, the sumptuous richness that Lhavit had lavished on her, all undeserving. She felt unprepared, that was it, unready for the magnitude of the tasks that lay ahead.
Doing things without a plan was something Alses couldn’t abide, it went against the grain of her soul, the quirk that had kept her safe in magic thus far, even though she’d sailed close to the edge of permanent consequence more than once since settling in Lhavit.

If only the place wasn’t so Syna-blessed nice – but it was. And she now had a duty, a set-in-skyglass loyalty, on top of mere volunteerism that had seen her risk life, limb and sanity for the sparkling city.

She always had been fond of sparkles.

Drifting aimlessly, now, as the perspiration dried on her pale skin, Alses made her way through the palatial room, hands absently trailing over the still-unfamiliar ornaments. She peeled back, cautiously, one of the heavy curtains that shut out the outside world, flinching back at the sudden flood of colour-stealing light, the baleful glare from Leth’s single eye high overhead.

Quickly, she let the heavy fabric swing back into place with a soft rustle, blinking rapidly to let her eyes adjust back to the rich gloom. Her thoughts – and tired eyes – turned once more to sleep; she even went so far as to mount the shallow step to her bed and gaze down at the rumpled tangle of silken sheets, comforters and down-stuffed duvet, but the clammy dampness of it all, and the unsettling smell of nebulous night-terrors still clinging to the sheets chased all thoughts of slumber from her mind.

Soon, Alses was sailing through the corridors of Elysium Hall, looking far more like the haunting ghost than the glorious Councillor Radiant of the daytime, privately very glad that she’d not engaged any staff as yet – what they’d make of her antics, her odd behaviour, was anyone’s guess.

In short order, she was closing the doors to the library behind her. Inexplicable phenomenon? Library. Sudden interest in a topic? Library. Insomnia? Library. Nebulous dread, panic and overall lack of preparation? Library!

Libraries – if not her own, then the grandly sprawling Bharani or the specialised Towers – held the answers to most of life’s dilemmas, and even if they didn’t, there would be some fine fiction of one flavour or another to take her mind off the problem gnawing at her brain.

Thus it was that she’d gravitated to the place.

Overhead, the great wash of the skyglass dome glowed, a cool and mysterious blue with mixing and mingling shades of purple flowing in and out of ascendancy. The glowglobes, too, in their sconces around the edges of the room, held the same cold radiance, despite everything. They had been tuned by the Constellation to the warm end of the spectrum, it was true, but in the dead of night there was only so much that a priestly tuning could do; warm red and gold a flickering and fitful minority amongst the strangling thicket of blue and purple.

Fortunately, whilst the light might have been cold, showing the influence of Leth loud and clear, the intrinsic heat of the skyglass was a constant and kept the room comfortably warm. Even better, there were double-glass lamps around for just such a situation as this one, and the light they cast was as warm and friendly as she could wish for.

There was actually a fine writing desk back in her room, as it happened, a very handsome construction tucked away in the cosy antechamber that served as a sort of morning nook; it was the first part of the house to receive the sun every morning, and took advantage of that fact with tall windows and a near-transparent skyglass dome, but she’d always preferred to work surrounded by books; as much for their comforting smell and the whispering silence as for the knowledge they contained, close at hand.

One of the nooks on the mezzanine floor had quickly become an impromptu home office for her, the table littered with information and papers from the Shinya, the Seiza, and from her own investigations – she’d learned early on not to blindly trust information that was presented to her; always cross-check, cross-reference, cross-examine and flay the documents until they bleed secrets.

Sometimes, of course, that just wasn’t possible and she had to accept what was written down on faith – which rankled – but the general approach had always served her well, and she saw no reason to change it.

In a nice leather folder – stamped with the sigil of the Seiza – were her briefing papers, a flood of information she’d been wading through ever since she’d received them. Perhaps a quick revision session, a little refresher, would settle the butterflies in her stomach and make sleep a more likely eventuality?

Worth a shot.

e

[Alses]

e

Alses’ study nook in her library was an island of warmth and welcoming light in the otherwise-dark and deserted house, the smell of books and new wood familiar and comforting to her as she read.

Her eyes danced over the fine copperplate, drinking in the words and storing them in the endless recesses of her compound mind.

State and Government
A common misconception is that the government is the same as the state over which it has authority; not so. A state is the territory physical over which a government’s writ holds sway or is legally held to have power, whereas the government is the administrative and legislative – ie, lawmaking – body with authority in said state.

The state of Lhavit, then, is the celestial city itself and, by dint of the Shinya presence, the Misty Peaks which surround us. The government of Lhavit is Zintila, the diarchy, the Council of Radiance and the ancillary departments which report to those bodies.

Lhavit’s system of governance, then, is a fusion of several basic systems that has evolved over the centuries since the city’s founding and serves the needs of the celestial city well. As the new Councillor Radiant, you answer for your actions only to the highest echelons of the executive branch – Zintila Herself and the twin diarchs. All other departments in your remit answer to you as the ultimate authority.

As Councillor of Magic and Foreign Affairs, it is your responsibility to see that the djed-aware population of the city keep to the law and comport themselves in a fashion conducive to the harmony of the city.

The Towers in particular may present entrenched and effective opposition to your reign; it is imperative that you learn to work with them and that they learn to work with and respect you and your office. Other key players include Lady Elena Lariat, late of Sahova, and the Alchemist Sakana Dai, both of whom are difficult individuals to pin down to an agreement or a course of action of any sort.

The degree of control you exert over the mages of Lhavit, especially in the early seasons, will largely depend upon your own personal power and the common perception of you and your office.

Alses frowned at that last sentence. It looked ominous, chiming with the slightly condescending tone of the rest of the section, as though whichever scribe had been tasked to produce it for her didn’t really believe in the new Council.

Or in her.

It is also your responsibility and prerogative to represent the city and her interests in any formal contact with governments, states or nations from beyond the writ of Lhavit. The city has relatively regular contact with the Inarta of Wind Reach, and thus it is imperative that you acquaint yourself with at least the basics of Inartan culture and the language, Nari at the earliest possible opportunity.

We also receive trading galleons from the port city known as Zeltiva on a more infrequent basis, and so some appreciation of this city-state and its workings would not go amiss. Formal contact between our two cities is, however, so sparse as to be almost non-existent, and our interactions tend to be restrained to sea-captains and ensuring they and their crews obey the laws and ordinances of the Diamond of Kalea for the duration of their stopover in our city.

Whilst it might behove you to deal with the first few who arrive during your tenure, the task has often been left to the Master of the Port and the Shinya Master on duty at Port Tranquil; both are experienced at dealing with shipmasters and their sailors, and respond quickly to disturbances or disagreements.

Lovely.

Ignoring the mildly condescending tone that rather characterised all Seiza communiques thus far, Alses made a mental note to keep up with the happenings down at Port Tranquil, in case such an opportunity should present itself. It would be nice to find out what was going on in old Zeltiva, after all – it had been years since she’d had any contact with the place.

It is also vital for you to remember, as Councillor, that whilst your ambit is that of Magic and Foreign Affairs, you have a wider duty to all of the citizens of the city. As such, you must weigh up the greater good of all of Lhavit versus the benefit of the subset you principally represent. You cannot pander to the mages at the expense, potential or actual, of the other citizenry.

Finally, it is crucial that the Councillor appreciates that every citizen has a measure of power, and acting in concert that power can be overwhelming. Both salutary and reprehensible examples of this can be found in the recent events surrounding the earthquakes which rocked us, and it is vital to understand that policy action – or inaction – can have wide-ranging consequences for the entire city.

Be careful.

Alses sighed. The Seiza really did have a knack for ending their documents on a happy note.

e

[Alses]

e

There was more – much more, in fact, all about the laws and ordinances of the city and how they applied – or didn’t – to her new position, and Alses ploughed grimly on whilst the bells crawled by. The passage of time was…difficult…to measure, with the curtains drawn tight over the windows and the skyglass glowing azure and bruise-purple overhead, but even by dead reckoning there were bells upon bells before Syna’s welcome light brought glory to the world.

Joy.

Alses leaned back in her padded chair with a crackle of bone, enjoying in a distant sort of way the feel of the upholstery on her naked skin. It was some ungodly bell, and the grey poisons of tiredness were marshalling their forces for another assault on her eyes and brain.

Mind humming with facts, figures and conjectures and wide yawns threatening to split her face in two, it was perhaps time to try for that elusive nymph of sleep again. Syna might banish most of the symptoms of tiredness when the dawn came, no matter if she stayed up all night, but Alses would pay dearly for it in the following nights. Something to be avoided, on balance, all things considered.

Rising in a crackle of bone, rolling her neck and feeling her vertebrae pop at the motion, sluggish from the long period of inactivity, slumped in a comfortable chair and simply reading page after page of impenetrable, pompous documentation.

Padding back across the rolling acres of plush carpet that led to her bed, dodging through the archipelago of claw-footed end tables and cabinets, the sight of her bedside table made her pause, reconsidering her trajectory.

Well, why not? She needed a good night’s sleep, after all.

It was the work of a chime, at most, to retrieve the darkly-glittering bottle from its little hiding place, another tick to flick the silver cap open and another to tilt a dark-purple stream of liquid straight down her throat, a draught measured out by long experience as something that would knock her for six for a few bells, no more.

As opposed to something that would see her sleeping through the entire day. Alses fell, all undignified, into bed, her legs already feeling heavy and sluggish even as she pulled the covers half-heartedly over her. She was out like a light as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Syna bless the Sweet Oblivion.


A


Alses woke with a start the instant Syna sent her very first outriders dancing over the horizon. She’d slept deeply, the result of Sweet Oblivion, but apparently not well for all the aid that the drug had given her; tiredness and lassitude tugged at her body, and it felt only marginally under her control as she stumbled from the bed, trailing covers and comforter absently behind her.

As she descended towards the baths in the bowels of the earth, the temperature rose and the air became humid, cargoed with lazily-drifting whorls of water vapour drifting up from some source always just beyond the gentle, stately curve of the stairs.

Rounding the last descending bend, she was presented with a beautiful sight; a marble and skyglass bathing chamber, a sunken pool steaming softly in the centre of it all with skyglass columns rearing out of the drifts of vapour.

The water-droplets coruscated with the reflecting light, every pillar wearing a radiant corona, beaded with moisture rising off the hot pool. The cabinets lining the walls of the room were all waterproof, keeping towels and terrycloth wraps nice and dry, something Alses would be very glad of when the time came to emerge from the water, but for now all her attention was captured by the glittering pool, gentle wavelets lapping at the marble lip.

Supplied with abundant hot water from the hot springs far below the city, the baths of Lhavit were always a truly glorious experience, relaxing and calming and all-over wonderful – and never mind the occasionally slightly-sulphurous smell; that was what philtres were for.

Hot, mineral-rich water wrapped her in its welcoming arms as she slid into its liquid embrace, sighing in perfect pleasure as the heat struck through her skin, warming her clear through to her core. Quickly, she left the shallow edges of the bath, drifting towards the centre, flat on her back and with only the oval of her face exposed above the surface, mind freewheeling as her hair wove and danced between her horns, gently wafted by the currents which circulated in fresh and clear hot water from the depths of the earth.

‘Politics is hard,’ she thought idly, slightly sadly – although the thought wasn’t cargoed with the absolute urgency and rising fear of earlier; all that had been rocked away by the gentle motion of the soothing water.

‘Now, who do I have to meet today?’ she wondered absently. This would be her first proper day on the job – yesterday didn’t count, what with all the pomp and ceremony of the coronation; she had only a blurred impression of smiling, bowing, be-suited people, and doubtless their impression of her would be just as fragmentary.

‘There was a secretary who’s not a secretary,’ she recalled, vaguely. There was some reason – a historical reason, of course – for the unusual title, but for the life of her Alses couldn’t remember it, no matter how hard she tried.

‘And some scribes, or clerks, or other bureaucrats,’ she recalled, too, remembering a double line of them all smiling nervously at her, their new boss. She’d hoped fervently at the time she hadn’t looked as out-of-her-depth as she’d felt, that they hadn’t been able to see that she was in so very very very far over her head.

She turned over moodily in the water, dunking her head below the surface and letting the waving snakes of her hair swirl around her, between the glittering spires of her crown-of-horns and in front of her tight-shut eyes, brushing her face with a thousand tickling touches.

e

[Alses]

There was little enough time to sulk and cower in the baths, though; Tanroa’s river was forever carrying her forward, the stately march of the ticks and chimes and bells dragging on her consciousness, insistently pulling her forward, a niggling voice growing into a chorusing shout to galvanise her to action.

Stirring water-sodden and heat-relaxed limbs in graceful slowness, Alses took herself to the edge of the baths with a few brief strokes and levered herself out, shedding cataracts of water that quickly drained back into the steaming pool. She padded silently around the circumference of the bathing chamber, absently opening one of the cabinets and pulling out a thick, fluffy towel, wrapping herself in its yielding, absorptive warmth.

Once again, Alses idly blessed the silence of the house as she wandered through it, all unconcerned, the moisture from her bath being soaked up by the yielding cotton and, admittedly, sometimes by the rugs.

Back in her vast bedroom, she trekked over to the wardrobe and its attendant mirrors, supported by tiny gilt figures she’d not even noticed before, becoming calmingly absorbed in chasing every drop of moisture from her crown-of-horns until she was perfectly, radiantly dry.

The sodden towel went into a substantial lacquered vase that seemed to be there for the purpose, and Alses slipped her robes on in a whispering rush of fine silk, hunting absently through the jewellery on her bedside table for the ornate pin designed to rest at her throat, one of the many little symbols of the Council she’d been given yesterday.

This time, thankfully, she didn’t prick her finger with the sharp needle point; getting blood out of the cream and gold silk she wore would be hellish to say the least. One minor catastrophe averted, and with the heavy gold sigil gleaming at her throat, Alses took a very deep breath, wavering.

‘I can do this,’ she thought, and then spoke aloud, reassuring her reflection. It didn’t help much.


A


It wasn’t actually all that far from Elysium Hall to the proud Radiant Tower, but Alses felt far more self-conscious on the short stroll than she ever had before. The bows, curtseys and other signs of regard and respect, those she’d long ago become used to, bestowing smiles and the occasional motion of thanks when warranted, but this…this was different.

Perhaps that was the Shinya guards, both of whom she knew were following her, at what they naively presumed was a ‘safe’ distance. Poor things; they had no conception of the distance her power could reach, nor of the so-distinctive glitter and shimmy their disciplined minds exhibited in her world, as noticeable as a shout in a library or a rude word in a temple.

Alses wasn’t an idiot, and neither were most of the citizens nearby; they moved out of the way of the guards almost as quickly as they did her. She shook her head in wonderment; who’d ordered a protection detail, of all things, for her? How much danger could there be in Lhavit, of all places, her starry sanctuary and fortress?

Then again…her thoughts turned darker as the bright spire of the Dawn Tower hove into full view, shining brilliantly in the sunshine. Zintila had warned her that the Matriarch of that powerful House didn’t like her – or rather, her position, and her meeting with Lheili hadn’t exactly disabused her of that notion either. Perhaps that was what they were guarding against, or maybe just more generally assigned to protect her from whatever harm might suddenly throw itself in front of her.

Such musings took her to the very gates of the enormous Radiant Tower itself, a rival to the much older Shinyama Pavilion nearby, just a short distance across the skyglass flags of Springwater Square.

Places of power like to keep an eye on one another.

Little time to marvel, though, at the wonderful architecture and the blazing skyglass, prismatically tuned to reflect a rainbow; the Shinya on either side of the open gates came to attention as she approached, and her oh-so-subtle escorts made a fleeting exchange of authority; a split-tick swapping of nods and then a peeling-off of those distinctive auras at her back, melting away into the larger melange that was the crowds filling the Square, enjoying the market at one end and the entertainments, the Crystal Fountain and the stunning view at the other.

Nothing for it but to continue, then – especially since she was being watched by the two guardsmen. Discreetly, of course, but watched nonetheless. She inclined her head in greeting to them both and spoke a relatively cheery good morning to them – since there was such a thing as manners, after all – before squaring her shoulders as much as she was able and facing up to the double doors and her date with destiny.

‘Seize the day, Alses,’ she thought to herself as encouragement, even as the doors were swung wide and she sailed elegantly through them and into the beautiful entrance hall of the Radiant Tower.


A


Inside, the place was cavernous, but purposefully so – the whole entryway had the feel of a place expecting, indeed, designed for, large numbers of people. Elegant benches and scalloped alcoves filled with yet more seating dominated, clustering around the fluted skyglass pillars that held up the rest of the vast edifice that had suddenly become her office.

White-and-gold drapes broke up the soaring vaults of the entrance hall, catching the eye and dividing the space into something a little more welcoming, a little more personal, and enormous displays of lilies and other Lhavitian flowers perfumed the air and lent the place a bit of the human touch, but there was no getting away from the fact that this was an imposing entrance hall, a new centre of power in Lhavit, and the figures at the reception desk at the far end – in front of a grandly sweeping double staircase that led to the rarefied upper echelons of the Tower – were stick-figures reduced into insignificance by the scale.

[Alses]

One of those very figures glided forward – and it was a glide, too, an elegant shimmer without any extraneous motion – powering across the acres of buttery marble floor to greet her with a shallow, flawless bow and a welcoming gesture from one white-gloved hand.

Alses instinctively took the opportunity of his genuflection to assess him. Average height, and therefore taller than her, with blonde hair slicked back by a faintly-perfumed pomade – jasmine, she noted approvingly, after a delicate, discreet sniff – and dressed in a restrained charcoal-gray ensemble. The sun-and-stars of the Radiant Council glimmered at his throat, the mirror to her own crest, and in one hand he held a glossy black document case, doubtless bulging with important papers.

His aura, though, that was what she was more concerned with, an instinctive assessment of his character writ large in light and sound and phantom touch and taste. His was pearl-gray, just like his suit, shifting and rippling like the sea and with bright gold highlights dancing and spangling all through it, a shimmering nebula.

Difficult to get a grasp of, slippery as a fish, like punching cloud or grasping fog, it tried to flow away from her probing sight, to hide and obfuscate its deeper reaches – but against a master there was no defence, nowhere to hide.

Alses permitted herself a small, secret smile, even as the man straightened up and looked her in the eye. “Good morning, your grace,” he intoned smoothly, voice like butter. “And welcome to your Tower once again. We met at your coronation, but briefly: my name is Mercadier, if it pleases. I served Lady Talora as her executor on matters magical, and I understand it is hoped I can continue to serve in a similar capacity for yourself, at least for a time.”

Alses blinked, slightly wrongfooted already even as she followed the dapper man through the double doors and onto the great sweep of the Grand Staircase that soared skywards, the gilt nymphs and spirits wrought into the balustrades glittering in the abundant sunlight. “Your...grace?” she echoed, faintly, over the ringing clack of her boots on marble.

A practised smile creased his smooth features. “Indeed, ma'am. It was decided that 'your grace' would be the most appropriate honorific for a member of the Council. Initially, 'Your Radiance' was proposed, but as that is one of Syna's titles we felt it wasn't quite...” he tailed off, meaningfully, but Alses was still stuck a little earlier in the conversation.

“'Decided'?” she asked, pausing on one of the many landings of the Staircase and looking up at Mercadier framed in a shaft of sunlight from above. “Decided? How? Did you all sit around the big table in the Council Chamber and actually have an actual debate about this?”

He looked shocked, turning to face her with widened eyes and parted lips and a disquieting ripple thrilling through his pearly aura. “Oh, no, Councillor! We – by which I mean the staff – have a smaller meeting room several floors below the Chamber. We used that.” A pause. “Is everything quite all right, ma'am?”

Alses shook her head, but more in wonderment than anything, as they passed the third floor landing. “You mean to tell me that, last season, amid fire and riot and death and all the other horrible events, you found the time to sit down and debate how five people should be formally addressed? Syna above!”

Her…secretary? Assistant? – she’d forgotten his proper title - looked mildly disapproving. “Five important people. The wheels of government must continue to turn, your grace, even if a portion of the city falls apart - as we saw in Winter. Relief and repairs could not have been orchestrated half so effectively without efficient allocation of resources and tasks from the Tuwele, once the initial chaos had died down, and once we established a safe route of communication with the Temple of the Sun we were able to arrange Shinya detachments with much greater ease. Inavalti,” he clarified, quickly.

“Your goddess' gnosis mark – not that I need tell you, of course,” he added hurriedly. “We made good use of the far-seeing ability of Her Taiyang priests to find trouble spots and safe routes for vital supplies and people.”

There was no time to continue that line of inquiry further, however, for at that point they reached the seventh floor and the double doors under the gilded arch that proudly proclaimed ‘Magic and Foreign Affairs’ to all and sundry that passed beneath the portal threshold.

Alses felt oddly jarred, a sensation of déjà vu washing over her as she padded – silently now, the marble and polished wood floors strewn with rugs and sprung on cork to minimise noise – across the acres of waiting room, down a plush hallway that could have taken a coach and four and finally through several imposing sets of double doors and further antechambers to arrive in a very grand office indeed – her own.

Between beautifully-carved skyglass pillars, it was lined with mahogany and brass bookshelves, a quartz-shielded fireplace crackling merrily under a truly spectacular mantelpiece. As a whole, her office was light and airy, pleasantly flooded with sunshine from two banks of broad windows and a covered balcony affording a glorious view out over Lhavit, a rainbow panorama of lesser domes and minarets stretching almost to the blue-hazed horizon and the snaggle-toothed mountains of the Unforgiving.

Alses knew what it looked like, of course, but it was one thing to approve plans and blueprints and quite another to stand in the solid representation, to see the fruits of others’ labours and to know that it was all hers, from the paintings on the walls – serene land and seascapes, mostly - right down to the brilliant white feather quill resting proudly in an ornate inkstand on the desk.

Mercadier let her feast her eyes for a few moments before bringing her back to the matter in hand with a delicate steer towards the desk and an unclasping of his document case, two little metallic snaps of doom heralding the beginning of the business of the day.

“Welcome to your department, your grace. I trust everything is to your satisfaction?”

[Alses]

Alses – still settling into the plush chair behind her new desk – gave him a slightly wry, cautioning smile. She wasn’t going to say everything was splendid until she’d actually seen everything; to do otherwise would be foolish at best. “All that we’ve seen in the five chimes or so we’ve been here, yes.”

There was a ripple in Mercadier’s aura, a sudden and heady burst of summer roses and static lightning on her skin, the beginnings of a certain reassessment, perhaps, a change to his opinion of her. “I suppose I couldn’t have hoped for a better response,” he murmured in reply, practised pianist’s fingers riffling through a broad sheaf of papers inside his case. “Now, to business if we may, Councillor?”

Alses steepled her fingers pensively and looked at the man opposite her, a level burning gaze from an unblinking Ethaefal and a master aurist rolled into one. “A moment,” she requested, “Before we begin?” There was the rising lilt of a question to her tone, but nothing short of a command to her body language.

Alert and dapper Mercadier picked up on it, of course, looking up and painting the very picture of alacrity and attention for her. “Of course, m’lady. You are the Councillor, after all.”

Alses shifted a little, still unsure of the uncomfortable newness of the title and its privileges; it still felt rather like she was playing pretend, even with the solid magnificence of the Radiant Tower all around her. “The staff,” she began. “Who exactly do we have working for us?”

Mercadier blinked at her for a moment, his aura flushed with pearly reflections bouncing off one another – confusion. When he saw that she was apparently serious, he tried to regain some of his equipoise. “Well, we’re a very small department right now,” he murmured, voice smooth and placating, buttery and comforting. “There’s myself, of course, and my secretary – you’ll need to appoint your own personal secretary; that’s one of the items for consideration today – a couple of general clerks and dogsbodies to write out any messages you might wish to send and to collate any information we might collect, and there’s Hanei and his small team, down at the Wizard’s Registry.”

Alses blinked. “Is that it?” she asked, slightly nonplussed. She’d always assumed that there was some intangible bureaucracy administering magic in the starry city, keeping the Towers in check, regulating the independent mages as they went about their business, planning for the future…And instead, it seemed as though a skeleton framework – and presumably some smoke and mirrors – had kept the whole edifice going.

This time, it was Mercadier’s turn to give a wry twist of the lips. “Indeed, your grace. That is the full extent of our manpower at present.”

Alses was having some difficulty with this. “So what – how in the name of Syna did Lady Talora and Lord Aysel manage all the magic in the city with such a skeleton support?”

A smile. “Benign neglect, mostly,” Mercadier admitted. “And taking the concept of delegation to such a point of metaphysical perfection that they barely had to do anything at all.”

Alses sighed. “Concise, elegant, and as informative as a brick,” she informed him tartly, letting a flash of irritation spike through her calm mien. He didn’t flush, not physically, just reaching up to smooth his blonde hair back distractedly, but his aura belied the embarrassment nonetheless.

“I’ll do my best to explain, Councillor – or at least, explain my take on how they did it, anyway; they’ve always kept quite close-lipped about a lot of things, after all.” He cast his gaze skywards, ordering his thoughts for a chime or so. Alses waited patiently, using the opportunity to further scrutinise the man’s aura, to get a grasp on how the magic flowed and swirled around him as his soul threw it off in coruscating curls and curlicues.

It was oddly restful, actually, that pearl-gray colour and a soft-silk susurration glissading over her skin and whispering in her ears. All too soon – she’ lost herself momentarily in the shifting sea of shade and hue – he collected himself and brought her back to the shallows with his clear, precise voice.

“I think it’s because they demonstrated their power in a very final way,” he mused. “Lord Aysel executed Weisur Twilight. Head of House Twilight, master of their Tower and one of the finest Morphers to come out of there for quite some time, and the Night Lord…well. That has to command respect and fear; no-one wants to be the next one under the blade.” He steepled his fingers. “So, Aysel has his sword. Lady Talora…well, she has Aysel, and he – as I’ve mentioned – has his sword. We shouldn’t forget that they have the support of the gods, too; that’s a powerful thing. I can’t help but notice, Councillor, that you don’t have a gnosis…”

His voice tailed off, the rising inflection making it a question. Alses bristled and then tried not to – little would be served by antagonising her primary subordinate.

“We don’t,” she replied, slightly coldly – it was something of a sore point, even if Syna had her reasons for it. “Although we have met Syna, at least.”

He nodded and then continued as though nothing had happened, the pearly currents of his aura sluicing over the momentary difficulty, returning to normality like a river recovering after a stone in the flow. There, at least, they were kindred spirits; ‘sorry’ was a horrific word when it actually meant something, to be avoided if at all possible.

“And lastly, of course, they are the city, in a way. They’ve been here for five centuries; ask any Lhavitian to imagine life without them watching over us and they’ll look at you as though you’d grown a second head. That’s a great deal of influence and power built up over time, none of which – alas – you possess as yet, your grace.”

There was a pause for a few moments, the only sound in the mostly-empty Tower being the steady tick-tock of a rather fine clock in the antechamber, the noise echoing softly through the open doors.

“I agree with you,” she sighed, a long exhalation of breath as she settled back into her plush chair and gazed blankly up at the painted ceiling overhead. “Yes, I can see how the diarchs did it; mages – or at least the ones who survive – don’t tend to be stupid. Bloody-minded, selfish, occasionally insane, yes, but stupid? No. You don’t step out of line when everyone remembers what happened to the last idiot who tried it.”

[Alses]

“But I’m not Aysel or Talora,” Alses continued, still looking skywards. “So we’ll have to prove myself to…well, everyone, really.” She shook her head once, sharply, and then abruptly brought it down to stare directly at Mercadier once more.

“So. What papers do you have for me to look over in that case of yours, Mr. Mercadier? What business is there for a Councillor Radiant to do?”

He smoothed back his hair once more – Alses was quickly coming to recognize it as a nervous gesture – and snapped open the case, skilfully rifling out the papers into an ordered sheaf.

“Letters of congratulation on your accession, your grace, in the main, along with a few tentative requests – mostly from the independent mages – and a couple of invitations it might be wise to heed, along with a few dossiers on individuals that might be suitable for the position of secretary. Oh, and a report on the various parts of the new department, if it pleases.”

Alses blinked. “Are you not a secretary?” she asked, mildly confused. He covered a smile with one hand, but it was clear as day in his aura, a bright and merry skipping burst of sound that she had to fight to keep from acknowledging.

“My title is Permanent Secretary, your grace,” he agreed, “But that was under Lady Talora. If it displeases you, it’s most certainly within your power to change it.”

Alses pursed her lips. “Doesn’t help me much when I don’t know what it means,” she replied finally. “You said you were her ladyship’s executor on matters magical; would you care to clarify?”

Mercadier cleared his throat. “I collated the information from the Towers and the key independent mages for Lady Talora’s perusal and counsel,” he replied, “And then responded to any requests or concerns on her behalf. I was something of a filter,” Mercadier clarified, “Helping to keep the unimportant or the insane matters away from her desk.”

Alses raised an eyebrow. “It sounds as though you did a great deal of the work, then,” she commented, watching him for his reaction. He didn’t disappoint, almost physically recoiling, his facial features contorting for an instant before he managed to get them under stricter control.

“Oh, no, your grace! I was – am – a functionary! Her Ladyship reviewed the documents, formulated strategy and policy and merely had me act as her executor. Now that we have a dedicated person – your good self – to look after the interests of magic in the city, I will, with your blessing, focus my efforts on the information side of things and leave the rest to you and the others in the department. That said, I am of course at your disposal to offer any advice you might require.”

With a tired sigh, rubbing her eyes, Alses admitted: “We could do with all the advice I can get. This is all very complicated.”

“It’s government, Councillor. Nine thousand people, all with their individual wants and needs, all wanting to be taken care of, governed with a fair and even hand. Complicated – I’m afraid to say – isn’t the half of it.”


A


Alses sighed and held out a hand. “Let’s see the report,” she commanded, accepting the creamy stack of papers with settling-in sort of sigh, shifting slightly so as to be more comfortable as she prepared herself for some serious reading; doubtless the document would need all of her attention, especially if it was written in the same style as the Seiza documentation she’d already devoured.

“If you’ve any questions, m’lady, I am of course at your disposal,” Mercadier reassured her quickly; Alses raised her eyes from the text and gave him a slight, mischievous smile. Perhaps there were discrepancies, oddities...

“We know, Mercadier.”

They lapsed into silence, then – blonde bureaucrat and celestial politician, each engrossed in their own private thoughts. Alses’ were mostly occupied with the acres of dense text spooling in front of her eyes, the product of some very fine and overworked scribe in the depths of the Radiant Tower, doubtless, whilst Mercadier…Alses knew, from her own experiences rather than any auristic puissance, that he was sizing her up, assessing, calculating, wondering – and perhaps planning for the future, at least a little bit.

She left him to it; as Councillor Radiant she was determined to do a good job, and if that meant wading through acres of paperwork to find the elusive singing strand of quicksilver truth, then that was what she’d do. Her coronation oath had been more than empty words, after all, a representation of the trust that Zintila and the city was pouring into her.

As the sun slipped lower in the horizon, painting the grand office in all the shades of blood, Alses and Mercadier were hip-deep in the department’s general report. It was heavy going; the two of them hadn’t found their natural rhythms with one another, the easy to-and-fro of ideas and conversation that could make work fly, and so there was talking at cross-purposes, interruptions and apologies and frequent misunderstandings as the one tried to understand the other and their point of view, their approach.

It was enough to give anyone a headache – but the two of them persevered, striving grimly onwards through the contents of Mercadier’s briefcase. Rest and work bells blurred together, meaningless, until at last Alses straightened with a crackle of bone.

“One last thing, Mercadier-” she’d learned, as part of their wide-ranging discussions, that he hated his first name, preferring only the second. That was something she could respect, and so she made a point of doing so. Antagonizing a vital cog in the previous administration’s machine would surely not get her anywhere. “And then we’ll leave it for the day, if we can?”

He nodded, quite eager, before remembering himself and smoothing back his hair in that habitual gesture. “You are the Councillor, your grace.” He cast a glance out of the windows and blanched, subtly. She was watching for it, though, and caught the tensing of the muscles of his face, the tight nip of displeasure that washed over his lips and vanished. “And it is getting late, you’re right.”

‘I’m not used to heliocentric days,’ was the unspoken rider; as far as Alses knew, Talora kept the same hours as everyone else in the starry city; the problem was that she didn’t, preferring to wake and work all through the day and rest and sleep and hide in her mortal chain for the rest of the time.

[Alses]

“This doesn’t seem right at all, Mercadier,” Alses objected, waving a sheet of paper in the air rather theatrically. In one deft movement, the man had captured it out of her fingers and was furiously scrutinizing it.

“Laws and Ordinances of Lhavit?” he asked, quizzical. “But this is something every schoolchild knows!”

Alses flapped a hand. “And yet we can see a problem with it right away,” she said grumpily. “Unless I’m being extraordinarily stupid, of course. Kindly read the third Law. In its entirety, if you please.”

Still looking rather sceptical, he cleared his throat and began to read, eyebrows high on his forehead as he did so, the very epitome of a put-upon civil servant, had Alses but known it. “There will be no unlawful use of magic. Failure to register as a mage is a crime.” A pause. “What’s wrong with that, m’lady?”

Alses pursed her lips and steepled her fingers, hunching forward in her plush chair to stare intently at her subordinate opposite. There were only really a few chimes left before dusk came and stripped away her glories, but for now she could effortlessly demand the attentions of mortal men and women. “As we understand it, the major purpose of that law is to keep the Shinya informed about what mages we have in the city and how good they are at whatever their disciplines may be, correct?”

He nodded, still uncertain as to where she was going with this.

“The fact that the Wizards’ Registry also means that any citizen can easily find a mage of the exact stripe and skill they’re looking for is a fringe benefit, would you not agree?” Again, Mercadier nodded, still feeling his way blindly through Alses’ reasoning.

“But this is Lhavit, Mister Mercadier!” she exclaimed, casting the report’s many papers down on her desk with considerable force, emphasising her point. The poor man jumped in his seat, a startling convulsion in his otherwise-placid aura and a split-tick tensing of almost every muscle in his body. “The Diamond of Kalea, where we openly and proudly teach mages!”

Mercadier habitually smoothed back his hair with a distracted hand. “I’m very sorry, your grace, I still fail to follow…”

Alses sighed heavily. “An example, then. Imagine we are newly-arrived in Lhavit. We’re a mage, yes, but not one of any especial skill. I go to the Wizards’ Registry like a good little immigrant and tell dear Hanei that I’m a novice reimancer and not much else, come to get tutelage. He writes that down and I’m free to go and explore Lhavit. All fine so far, I’m sure you’ll agree – Hanei’s very good at spotting lies and evasions, after all.”

Mercadier nodded, still confused but wanting to give an impression of keenness to follow the thread of his new mistress’ ideas.

“Then we’ll continue. Let’s fast-forward a few years. I’ve been taken on at the Dawn Tower and I’ve learned enough there to get myself up to expert reimancy. I’ve also had lessons in hypnotism from Elena Lariat, so I’m highly competent there, and I’ve even managed to get some teaching from Sakana Dai, so I’m an expert alchemist as well. Now, let’s suppose for a moment that something goes wrong one day and I massively overgive, turning into a hideous monster raining fire and flood down on the good citizens of Lhavit.”

Alses leaned back in her chair, enjoying the feel of supple leather on silk against her skin. “Now, as we all know it falls to the Shinya – with Tower support – to deal with the overgiven mage, humanely if possible and permanently if not. But where do they turn to for information on the foe that they’ll be facing? Why, Hanei’s meticulous records, of course! An invaluable source of information for just this sort of eventuality, wouldn’t you say?” A pause.

“The problem, Mercadier, is that there is no requirement in law that the records Hanei takes be kept up to date! So for all we know, we could pull our hypothetical mage’s notes out and find that they’re a novice reimancer, when anyone with eyes can see that they’re much more advanced than that! The Shinya would be blind, they’d have no real idea what they were dealing with and lives could well be lost! Entirely unnecessarily, I’d point out.”

Mercadier shifted, his eyes uneasy. “We’ve never had much trouble before,” he noted. “Most mages keep their Registry records up-to-date because it’s one of the main ways people find them.”

Alses, in her turn, raised her eyebrows. “Do they, Mercadier? Or is that merely an assumption?”

This time, he did flush, a dull red colour. She continued, slightly softer now she saw her point was getting through. “Run a check on it for me, would you, Mercadier? Ex officio, of course. You could be right, but I’m not so fond of the loophole. We know that the vast, the very vast majority of the mages in the city are honest and law-abiding and care about the city and its people, but I’m sadly certain there will always be a few needing a little extra push. Besides,” she continued, with an air of finality, “It’ll be a good reminder for the absent-minded in the population.”

Alses snapped her fingers, as though a thought had just occurred to her. “We should probably consult the Ascendant for his input and ideas, should we not? Could you send a runner to the Pavilion to ask when would be convenient for an appointment?”

Mercadier gave her a small smile, rose, and gave her a shallow half-bow, already turning to execute her orders before the day finished. “Very good, your grace.”

END

[Brandon Blackwing]

XP Award! Name: Alses XP Award: Reading +2 Socialization +2 Politics +5 Intimidation +1 Teaching +1 Leadership +3 Lore: Elysium Hall: Unfamiliar new home The Library: Solution to all problems Councilor of Magic’s Duty: keeping magic-users in check Foreign Affairs: contact with Wind Reach and Zelvita Warning: Great power comes with great responsibility New Life as Councilor Radiant: Shinya protection and pompous buildings Mercadier: Sharp Dressed Functionary Lhavit’s Third Law: Not entirely what it should be State and government: not the same! State of Lhavit: the city and the Misty Peaks Government of Lhavit: the Star Lady, the Diarchy, the Council and the Ancillary departments Notes: Yeah, I know …. Spiderman quote!!! XD I could not resist. *ahem* I have said this before, and I will say it again: you, my dear Alses, are awesome! I thought this thread, though I was already familiar with your work, would be not really that interesting, BUT! The way you weave words into sentences by itself made me want to read on and that was before I had reached the conversations. Mercadier is one hell of a npc, one I have liked from the very instant he made his entrance. The way you depicted him, the way he talks, his habit of going with his hand over his hair, … it all fits him so well. I am impressed by your skill, more than before. Truly, you are amazing. I have nothing more to say. Enjoy your grade Please delete or edit your grade request in the request forum. Comments, concerns or questions about your grade? Feel free to send me a pm.