Paul Kidd - The Council of Blades

"Where to, Toporello? Will you not cast a vote with your brethren?"

"Never!" Toporello's parade-ground shout almost stripped the plaster from the walls. His huge voice stilled the rabble like a thunderous magic spell.

"To sell our honor to Colletran hands? To cast aside a prince who has served us long and well?" The old man whipped out his hands as though trying to fling them clean of dirt. "Do it if you will-but these are no colleagues of mine, nor do I care to remain within their fellowship!"

"And where will you go?" Ilego made the question into a fabulous little joke. "Will you pack up your toys and refuse to play?"

"A free company is what we once were-a free company we remain! House Toporello takes its blades elsewhere!" Orlando cast a glance that ripped lines of fire across a dozen men. "You, Marello-and you, Ambrosi! Join the jackal pack-but make way for better men!"

Toporello turned to go. Suddenly, a young captain jerked out from the crowd and followed at his heel. They were joined by a second, then a third, all small holders who commanded scarcely two hundred men. Ilego cast them out and let his wild voice echo through the hall.

"Then go! But forfeit your palaces, your holdings, and your lands!"

"My jewels were stolen, and the loss never killed me. We've concentrated upon fripperies and forgotten where we came from-who we are!" Standing in the doorway, Orlando Toporello rammed his old-fashioned helmet down across his skull. "Roll in your furs and sweetmeats like a pig in its own dung! A soldier's domain should be bounded by his breastplate, nothing more!"

The dissenters marched away en masse, leaving chaos in their wake; the contempt of Toporello had left a schism in the hall. Half the nobles shrieked out demands to give Gilberto Ilego the crown, while others leapt forward offering their own names.

Cappa Mannicci gathered up his last few rags of dignity and left the chamber. His movement instantly stirred a new furor; for a whole lifetime, this man had ordered Sumbria's lives. Now, men shrilly clamored for advice, pawing at his robes. Ilego saw his chances of an immediate election begin to fade away and leapt down to pursue the departing crowd.

On the steps of the council chambers, a vast mob of citizens had collected in a swirling mass. There were soldiers and tinkers, fishwives and priests. The whole population clamored to Cappa Mannicci for their answers, parting about him like a sea of pleading hands.

Mannicci lifted a weary gauntlet, told them that he was their prince no more, and turned as a beggar thrust at him from the crowd. The beggar raised his knotted staff-Mannicci tried to hurtle himself away-and a blast of flame exploded out to rip the mob apart.

Bodies churned and voices screamed; the air stank of scorching flesh. Civilians fled in panic, trampling their own neighbors under their feet. Soldiers shouted, fighting through the tide as the city of Sumbria instantly went mad.

"The prince is slain! Prince Mannicci has been slain!"

Cappa Mannicci's body had been utterly atomized. With him had died a score of citizens, guards, and Sumbrian nobility. Burned, wounded men dragged themselves across the blackened steps, cinders crunching beneath clawed hands as they screamed out in agony. From the council chambers, the remaining Blade Captains simply stood and stared as Gilberto Ilego wandered over to the place where Prince Mannicci had died.

"The prince has been slain by the Blade Captains!" A woman reeled across the road, clawing at passing soldiers with burned hands. "They've killed him! They've killed him!"

"Ilego ordered it!" A young noble clutched his injured, screaming father tight against his heart. "Ilego's killed him to secure his crown!"

"No!" Gilberto Ilego ran blindly down the palace steps, standing amidst the ruin of his plans. "Brigands! It must have been brigands…"

"Brigands with a spell staff?" a soldier snarled from the foot of the steps in hate. "Aye-brigands with their pockets full of Ilego's gold."

A dead assassin was produced-a mere rag hurtled back and forth between the talons of a growing crowd; the corpse wore Ilego's livery beneath its beggar's rags. Ilego screamed out his denials into an uncaring mob. He retreated as the first stones began to fly, then saw his own soldiers smash hard into the citizens. A wild melee erupted, bursting like a plague sore to spread its foul disease. Ilego's men fought to hold the crowd back from their master's hide; soldiers from other families instantly lunged into the fight to defend the panic-stricken crowd. A crossbow fired, a woman screamed, and the fight poured through the city streets like molten fire.

Abandoned at the eye of the storm, Ilego helplessly screamed out his innocence to the uncaring city walls.

"No! I didn't kill him!" Ilego tore his own robes between his hands. "I would have been prince! Me! Gilberto Ilego, Prince of Sumbria!" The man reached out to running soldiers in appeal. "Why? Why would I kill him? I would have had everything…"

Ilego slumped down into the cinders, and let the last prince of Sumbria drift through his grasp like sand. He sat in blank incomprehension as he heard his city tear itself apart.

"Svarezi…"

Ilego's eyes went wide as realization suddenly struck home. He lifted up his face and stared off into the empty sky. "Svarezi."

Hurtling ashes to the winds, Ilego leapt to his feet and felt his face drain white with rage. He shook an impotent fist at the clouds and bellowed out a wild scream of despair.

"Svarezi!"

Blades clashed in Sumbria's streets, while all around, a city burned.

"Aaaaaaaaawk!" Tekoriikii tragically held up a small glass bottle, nudging it hopefully toward Lorenzo's hand. "Aaaaaawk! Aaaaaawk!"

"Um… look, Tekoriikii, I know what it says on the bottle, but I don't think it quite works the way you think."

"Aaaaaawk!"

Sighing unhappily, the artist took the bottle, read the label, and began vigorously shaking the pot of Old Pappa Floonbat's Patent Medicinal Hair Restorer. The bird, now miserably keeping an old gray military blanket draped across his rump, shuffled awkwardly about, then uncovered his plucked, bare backside.

Lorenzo liberally splashed hair restorer all over Tekoriikii's featherless regions, then began massaging the medicine into the poor bird's flesh. Tekoriikii whimpered and closed his eyes, slumped in apathy as he mourned the loss of his magnificent orange tail.

He could scarcely dare to look in the mirror to see if the tail feathers had begun to regrow; instead, the bird sat and stared miserably at the painting of Miliana leaning against the attic wall. He gave a soft, pathetic call deep in his throat and sadly closed his eyes.

Lorenzo turned his own face away from the painting. Bedraggled, demoralized, and crushed with guilt, the artist let his chin sink to his breast with a dull, unhappy sigh.

Tekoriikii curled his long neck around and placed his head in Lorenzo's lap. The artist scratched wearily at the bird's silly plumes while both creatures let their thoughts wander along the same sad paths.

Evicted from the palace, they now hid in cheap lodgings above a smelly old alchemist's shop-one of Lorenzo's main suppliers for esoteric chemicals. Terrified that Lady Ulia would silence them by the most obvious means, Lorenzo had managed a disappearing act and had lain low for many long, tedious days.

… Leaving Lorenzo and Tekoriikii all the more time in which to contemplate their failings. They gazed through the broad, wide-open window across the city roofs, and together sank into despondent, guilty gloom.

In the distance, a crowd's shouting rose into a formless roar. Bedraggled and demoralized as they were, man and bird ignored the chaos and watched seeds spiral down from the sycamore tree that shaded the windowsill.