Sarah Zettel - Reclamation

Cor eased the sledge around a tight corner, and the High House slid into view.

The High House was an honorary name for the King’s dwelling. It squatted level with the other buildings behind its own set of carved walls. Even in broad daylight there were six guards at the gate. Cor shouted to them and they hauled back the iron gates to let the sledge through. The courtyard on the other side was empty. They saw no one until they pulled up to the stable. A couple of Bonded hustled the wagon indoors and Cor with them.

“Good luck.” She waved as she left Jay on his own.

“Thanks. I’ll need it.”

The blood-warm rain started down before he was halfway across the courtyard. Jay ducked his head and hauled on his hood to try to keep himself dry. He peeked under the edge to get his bearings. The door lamp glimmered invitingly four feet above the courtyard.

A wind shear drove straight down out of the sky with such force that Jay staggered. He gripped the stair railings and struggled to climb up to the main doors.

This. This is what we’ve wandered for centuries to get back to. This is what we’re ready to go to war with our own kind over. He stumbled into the doorway. I swear, if I didn’t think they’d just abandon me here, I’d tell them we don’t want this place. Tell them it’s a dying, corroded heap of rocks. I swear the only reason I keep going is so that someone will get me off this forsaken world.

“My Lord Messenger,” said a man’s voice.

Jay straightened up. Your day-use name, the first of whatever series you might be lumbered with, was often not so much a name as a description. Jay’s was Messenger for the Skymen and the skinny, wrinkled man in front of him was Holding the Keys, King Silver’s chief secretary and step-and-fetch-it man. Next to him stood a Bonded boy carrying a basin of steaming water in one hand and a plate of biscuits in the other. A clean towel was slung over his arm.

Jay read the scene. The King wanted to see him, now. The footbath and food were the polite greeting for an arrival, but he wouldn’t be given time to sit down and enjoy them.

“The King wishes you to attend her at once,” said Holding, while Jay stripped off his boots and quickly rinsed his feet in the basin as the boy set it down. “She sent me to see that you do not delay.”

Jay frowned. King Silver was young, greedy, unreasonable, and hadn’t learned not to whine in meetings yet, but she wasn’t easily panicked. He donned the pair of slippers that the boy produced from the pouch at his belt and wolfed down a biscuit that tasted like wood chips. Something must be going on. Something unexpected.

Jay followed Holding through the stone halls. The lamps in the great hall were lit. The audience was expected soon, then. The Seablades must have beaten him through the gates.

The corridors Holding led Jay through were stone-cold, despite the heat of the day outside. Coal fires in the hearths took off some of the chill but the clay statues and bas-reliefs set against the walls did nothing to soften appearances.

Holding the Keys marched Jay straight to the King’s private study. It was one of the few rooms on the second floor that sported a real door. Holding knocked.

“Whoever it is, you had better have Messenger with you!” shrilled the King from the other side.

“I have, My King.” Holding swung the door back and stood aside.

Jay marshaled his wits and walked across the threshold.

The study was a jumble of precious wooden furniture piled with vellum scrolls and clumsily bound books. It had been built around one of the eight “shadow pillars” that helped support the High House. Silver said her great-great-great-grandmother had ordered the House built over them, as a reminder that the Kings of Narroways were supported by the Nameless Powers.

Jay had actually considered saying a grace for Silver’s grandmother. The pillar and its weird, blobby shadows had sent the Unifiers looking for the underground chambers that had yielded their only real clues to the workings of the Home Ground.

King Silver stooped over her chart bowl, the Realm’s equivalent of a globe. It was literally a deep bowl with a map of the Realm painted on its inside.

“There is word,” she said, not giving Jay any chance to observe formalities, “that a contingent of soldiers from First City, maybe as many as one hundred, has vanished. Now, where, Messenger of the Skymen, do you suppose they have gone?”

Even by the standards of the Realm, Silver on the Clouds was a tiny woman, which might account for her perpetual belligerence. The scarlet ribbon tattoo that adorned a King outlined her jaw and brow. It stretched badly whenever she gathered her face up into a frown.

Jay mustered a calm tone. “I expect they have gone to take up a new position in case their delegation fails to make peace with Your Majesty.”

“I expect that is the truth. Further, I expect that I would not have to worry about them if you would loan me a few of your Skyman miracles so my generals could fend them off. Or perhaps your masters are not so anxious to see Narroways the sole and whole power of the Realm as you have said.”

So we’re back to that. “ Majesty, I have asked for weapons. I have been refused…”

“Then you will ask again!” she shrieked, and Jay took a step back. “I will tell you this, Skyman, this war eats at my city. My commanders grow uneasy. A King with uneasy commanders is not long safe, Skyman, and I treasure my safety. Be assured, if I must hand my name back to the Nameless Powers, I will not be doing so alone.”

“You are winning.”

“Yes.” She rested her hands on the edge of the bowl. “But I am winning slowly. If this war we make is not finished soon, Skyman, I will cease to win at all. I will lose and the walls of Narroways will come crashing down over my funeral pyre.”

She pushed past him. “You will stand beside me and hear what the Seablades have to say for themselves.”

“As always, Your Majesty.” Jay did not shake his head at her back, but he wanted to. There were days he seriously regretted helping Silver depose her grandfather.

Holding the Keys, with his typical efficiency, had assembled King Silver’s honor guard outside her door. She had expected them to be there and breezed into the center of the ranks. They snapped to attention and marched forward, leaving Jay and Holding to fall into step behind.

The procession reached the threshold of the audience hall and a dozen Bonded touched tapers to the lamps hanging from its rough walls just as the King stepped in. Light flickered against gold and steel jewelry only to be absorbed again by the dull colors of the clothing of the assembled courtiers.

Like everyone else, the Seablade delegation raised their hands before their faces as the King’s procession passed. Jay read the marks from the corners of his eyes. Nobles, all of them. Three family members, one of whom was Heart of the Seablade. Jay suppressed a sigh of relief. He would at least be able to get some accurate information about First City’s plans. That might just be enough to placate King Silver.

King Silver mounted her dais and stood there. Kings did not have the luxury of sitting through their audiences. Silver could stand for hours without fidgeting, a skill that amazed Jay in spite of himself.

Silver lifted her chin. “It having reached my ears that my kindred in First City would send me words concerning our war, I have brought myself and my Witness forth to hear them.” Her voice was too high and thin for the chamber, even though it was bolstered by the ringing formalities of the high command dialect. “Therefore, choose who among you will speak and let the others bear back witness as to my attentiveness and the full nature of my answer.”