The Duelist 11, page 24
Twenty-six? That was more than double my earlier Rank. Teivel Tas had been Rank Twelve when I’d killed him. I’d skipped two whole classes. But I remembered Gavlain Mec told me the highest possible Rank to achieve was sixty-four, for the Sacred Sixty-Four, so I knew it was very possible that I was still one of the lowest-Ranked men in the room.
Not that it mattered. I was now a Councilman twice-over.
“Who are you?” I asked the Terran Councilman who’d told me my new Ranking.
“Ssyril Gen, of Terr,” the lizard-man said. The other eight Terran Councilmen were all glaring at him, as if they could glower him into silence, but he ignored them. “I ascended to the Council two seasons ago, when my father died.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said automatically, and Ssyril nodded in acknowledgement.
“Thank you, Councilman Brightwood,” he said. “He was a good man. He saw problems in the Council, much like you and Councilman Crevan do. Much like Shaw Aras did. He respected Aras greatly and was saddened when he passed.”
“Shaw Aras was a good man,” Sha-Kane agreed from the pulpit. “Like your father, Councilman Gen, he was not blind to the plights of the Peoples, even though he was born into a rich family and a Council seat.”
“Do you mean to imply Councilman Crane earned his death?” Councilman Sar demanded, and his coral cockatoo feathers ruffled in indignation.
“Was I being too subtle?” Sha-Kane asked blandly. “I thought I was stating that outright. Crane agreed to a Duel, and he lost. He lost because this Council is, as Alex rightly said, poisoned.”
I expected annoyed chatter to rise up, but none did. I couldn’t tell if it was because the Council respected the osprey-man or because they were still too stunned by the fact one of their own lay dead in a heap on the floor.
“The Council was not founded for noble causes, only so the Ashers of Blood could laud supposed superiority over the rest of Aventoll,” Sha-Kane went on. “That desperation to cling to power is what made the Council blind to the fact that the simple solution to the Scourge was to restore Balance to Aventoll, to worship the Sun and the Moon in tandem. When the Island of Lycae pointed this out, and refused to contribute to the system of power being set up, this Council murdered them, Cursed their Island, and stole their seats, dooming them to centuries of wandering.”
“And when you saw an opportunity for yet more power, this Council jumped at the chance,” I said. “I have no doubt the Sacred Sixty-Four were good men, noble men. But this Council has tainted their legacy, perhaps irreparably. The Wolfmen of Lycae, the sky-warriors of Nata, the Archivists of Eng-- anyone who has stood in the Council’s way has been met with unwavering violence. So when Sha-Kane and I say we saw a machine in Teivel Tas’ workshop, and we know it was designed to control the Scourge, we know it was created at the Council’s behest. Open the memorial chamber. Now.”
I glared around at the room and dared any of them to defy me, to say I was wrong, but they were all silent, until Ssyril raised his hand.
“Councilman Brightwood,” he said. “It didn’t start that way.”
There was uproar. The Terran Councilmen surrounding Ssyril all made loud noises of anger, and several leapt to their feet, but all Sha-Kane had to do was raise a hand, and the entire Council fell silent.
“What do you mean, Councilman Gen?” the osprey-man asked calmly.
“The machine was created several decades ago, a near-century,” Ssyril said. “My great-grandfather passed down stories of it. The Tinker Tas family created it to ward away the Scourge for good, so that the Ashers were not necessary. It was meant to be a way to protect Aventoll forever. There are not enough Ashers to cover the entirety of the world. If demons attacked in small villages, there were often no Ashers to save them.”
“But once the Council realized this machine could do their job for them, I imagine they took steps to hide it,” I said, and the lizard-man nodded.
“Seventy-five seasons passed with no Red Skies. The Council did no work, but languished with its power. Alem, as the home of the Council, was thought to be the most blessed, when in actuality, it was simply the home of the machine, and therefore, the Scourge were most repelled.”
“And if a few people got killed because the signal didn’t stretch far enough, I suppose it was of no concern to the Council,” I said coolly, and Ssyril had the good grace to look ashamed.
“That was the case for decades… and then Kavo Alda came,” the lizard-man continued, and several Councilmen flinched at the name. “He explained how the Asher magic could be harnessed to cause Red Skies, to intimidate the people of Aventoll and remind them of true power. Over time… people had begun to argue against the continued existence of the Council. Hereditary appointments gave no chance for new blood, new ways of thinking. And the Council was threatened, so they listened to Alda. The machine could be used to defeat any enemies, the patterns could be broken. The Ashers of Blood could rule supreme over all of Aventoll.”
He spoke so strangely about it all, so detached. It had been his family, his own father, who did these things. His wealth had been built on the backs of these atrocities.
“That ends now,” I said firmly. “The Heart of Aventoll has been healed. We have the opportunity to make Aventoll better for everyone. If the Moon and Sun are worshipped in tandem, the poison that allowed the Scourge to set foot on the Islands will never fester again. The Wolfmen understood that.”
“The Wolfmen are sacrilegious,” one Councilman cried out, and I looked over to see an Alemic man was the one speaking. “Mercedes is the Sun, the one true Goddess!”
“The Moon created the Scourge out of jealousy,” I said. “Perhaps a mistake, perhaps deliberately. But if the Moon is worshipped, no harm will befall Aventoll. Are you truly going to let untold millions suffer forever, just so your families can cling to your wealth?”
At the very least, none of them said ‘yes’ aloud. But none of them said ‘no,’ either.
“Open the memorial chamber,” I told Ssyril, and the lizard-man stepped down to the center floor.
His eyes flickered to Crane’s body, but he seemed more fascinated than upset. Maybe he’d never even seen a dead body before.
The Terran Councilman stood in the very center of the floor and held his Duelist Stone in his hands. Then he cupped his hands around the Stone protectively and closed his eyes.
“Gen, of Nata,” he said quietly, and a circle began to rise from the middle of the center floor. It was about five feet in diameter and rose up in a smooth column. When it had reached about seven feet in height, I saw it was hollow, like a tube, and had a gap that could fit about four people in at once.
“You have doomed us all,” one of the Councilmen spat at Ssyril, but the lizard-man ignored him as he looked at me.
“I will no longer be part of the problem,” he said. “I do not want my family’s legacy to be blood and greed.”
“Thanks to you, it won’t be, not anymore,” I said, and I waved Sha-Kane and Sinopa down to the center floor.
The three of us crammed into the tube, and it sank back down. I watched the lit rectangle slowly narrow as the tube lowered, and we stood in perfect darkness for a moment before another rectangle of light appeared, this time at the bottom of the tube, and it stretched upward until the three of us were standing in a chamber not unlike Teivel’s workshop.
The room was octagonal, and on seven of the walls there were eight narrow strips of marble that had been carved into detailed reliefs of fifty-six of the Sacred Sixty-Four, similar to the reliefs in the hallway outside the Council Chamber. Against the eighth wall, that presumably had once borne the reliefs of the Lycaen Ashers, was a machine identical to the one in Teivel’s basement.
“There it is,” Sha-Kane said grimly, and for a moment he sounded so similar to Horus that I thought I’d brought the falcon-man with me instead of his father.
“There is it,” I agreed, and I drew my earth guardian sword again. It hummed in my hand, like the magic in it could sense the wrongness of the machine, like it wanted to destroy it, even though swords were inanimate and didn’t ‘want’ anything.
I approached the infernal contraption and raised the blade high above my head. Zoie and the others would have destroyed Teivel’s research. Jenner would have returned to Eng and done the same to the cleric’s workshop. All that remained was this thing, and the Council’s tyranny would end.
The motto on the outside of the Hall came to mind. By Mercedes’ Favor, By Aventoll’s Need.
“For Aventoll,” I declared, and I brought the sword down and sliced the machine in two.
Chapter 16
I didn’t stop at one blow. I slashed again and again and divided the contraption into ever-smaller pieces. I kept going until the machine was in so many bits I’d lost count.
All the while, Sha-Kane and Sinopa watched me in silence, and when I was finally done, the machine was just a pile of jagged metal and fizzing wires.
For good measure, I then reached deep inside myself and summoned my Asher ability. I felt my hands begin to heat up, and I pressed my palms to the heap of scrap until all that remained was a smoldering pile of gray ash. Some part of me couldn’t help but be a little amused by how the machine had been built to run on transformation magic, and now transformation magic had destroyed it so no one could ever use it again.
“It’s over,” I said with a heaving breath, and I turned back to face the two Councilmen.
“On the contrary, Alex, I think it’s just beginning,” the osprey-man replied. “But this is definitely a huge step in the right direction. The Council can no longer threaten people’s safety to get its own way.”
“But if you healed the Heart of Aventoll, what’s to stop the Council from insisting they’re the reason for it?” Sinopa asked.
“We spread the word,” I said with a shrug. “And we reform the Council. I’m thinking democratically-elected candidates, eight from each Island-- including the Wolfmen Tribes. And women and non-Ashers should be allowed to have a say in how Aventoll is run, too.”
“I know Ariav would appreciate the opportunity to have a say in government,” Sinopa said with an approving smile. “You have my backing, Alex. My full support.”
“Thanks, Sinopa,” I said earnestly. With the destruction of the machine, my anger had evaporated. Maybe it was relief over succeeding in what we’d come to the Council Hall to do, or maybe it was just the sudden absence of crushing pressure. “I just wish the rest of the Council would be as up for it.”
“Change doesn’t happen all at once,” Sha-Kane said. “But I’m sure we’ll figure out the details somehow.”
“And you may be overestimating their conviction to the current system,” Sinopa added. “For the past several generations, it has been made clear that any son who does not agree with the control of the Scourge and the puppetry of the Red Skies will be killed, and another son will take his place. I suspect some of the younger Councilmen, certainly, would prefer something kinder but were too afraid to speak out, lest they be killed.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I agreed, because most of the Council had been pretty silent during my confrontation with Councilman Crane. Only a handful had actually spoken out against me. Many of them could have been paralyzed by fear. It was still a bit cowardly, but it gave me hope that change could happen, and that it could stick.
Sha-Kane, Sinopa, and I climbed back into the strange tube and reascended up into the main Chamber to see no one had moved since we’d last been there. Ssyril Gen was still in the center floor standing by Crane’s body, and the Terran Councilman watched as we stepped out of the tube before it vanished back into the floor.
“Councilman Brightwood?” he asked, like he had a thousand questions but didn’t know how to phrase them.
I knew how he felt.
I stepped forward, and Ssyril stepped back to make room for me. I still held my earth guardian sword in my right hand, and it glowed brighter than anything else in the Chamber, even the Council’s Duelist Stones.
“This Council’s tyranny over Aventoll and the Peoples ends now,” I announced in a stern voice. “No more will this be a governing body that serves the few at the expense of the many. No more will power be something bestowed by blood. It will be earned and divided equally among the eight Islands, whatever faiths they hold, whichever gods they worship.”
I’d expected some of the members to murmur disapprovingly, or shout out that I was an upstart or a blasphemer, but they were all silent. Perhaps Sinopa had been right.
“This imbalance and arrogance were what first poisoned the Hearts of Aventoll enough for the sickness to take hold,” I continued. “For the Moon to create the Scourge. If we want the Hearts to be free of rage and injustice, then we must first empty our own hearts of those things. And it starts here.”
“Who are you to make these demands?” Councilman Felin asked as he rose from his seat and glared at me with yellow eyes. “You are but one Councilman in a Hall of more than sixty.”
“I hold two seats, as of a few minutes ago,” I pointed out. “But more relevantly, it’s what’s right. What reason do you have for the power you hold? The status? The wealth? That you’re an Asher? There are hundreds, maybe thousands of Ashers across Aventoll. Ashers who have earned their abilities through fighting against the Scourge themselves.”
“Their bloodlines are untested,” Felin scoffed. “You would have us throw away centuries of traditions because… what? You don’t like it?”
“Because it’s unjust,” I said flatly. “For you to have so much unearned. For you to be dictators over those who you tricked into thinking they needed you. You do know that you’re supposed to care about other people besides yourself, right? It’s called being a decent person. It’s what true leaders do.”
“Bleeding hearts make for bleeding wounds,” the Varthan Councilman said dismissively, but I stood my ground.
“It’s not about bleeding, it’s about giving a shit,” I said. “If you hold a position of power, it should be because you care about people and want to work to improve their lives. Parents toward their children, teachers toward their students. Authority means responsibility.”
“What if we simply killed you?” Felin said it so calmly, so casually, that I was almost impressed. “And took your assets for our own? Buried the rumors of an upstart Traveler as fanciful tales about a man who wrought nothing but destruction.”
“If you want destruction, then it’s a good thing you’re working with Kavo Alda,” I warned in a low voice. “And if we’re making easy threats, I have one for you: either you start giving a shit about the people you claim to serve, or you will be removed. The Council is going to reform.”
“And who’s going to reform it?” Felin sneered. “You?”
Once, I might have felt uneasy about that question, but as I looked around the Chamber, I saw that while there were many Councilmen who were staring at the cat-man with admiration, just as many were looking at him with fear or even disgust.
“Yes,” I said firmly.
“But he won’t be working alone,” Sha-Kane said as he stepped forward.
“He won’t,” Sinopa agreed. “Do not try to put the blame of this on Alex’s shoulders. It’s been known for generations that the Council is deeply broken. Everyone outside of Alem knows it. Alex is simply the first man who has been able to do something about it.”
“So, what’s it going to be?” I asked, and I addressed not just Felin but the entire Chamber. “Terrorize Aventoll with Kavo Alda for more wealth, or actually help the people you claim to serve, and help me rid Aventoll of a Nightmare?”
A very old Engish man stood from his seat. He was probably what Jenner would look like in another thirty or forty seasons. He was so old that even when he stood up, he was hunched over.
“Councilman Madoc,” he introduced himself, and he nodded at me in greeting. “I ascended to the Council when I was still quite a young lad, not even twenty-five seasons. Now I am almost a hundred. I remember the last Red Skies. That machine was placed beneath this Chamber shortly before my father died. He told me it was meant to bring peace to Aventoll. But in the intervening decades, I watched myself and my colleagues become complacent, hedonistic, entitled.”
Madoc paused for a moment and shook his head in shame. It was like a specific memory he was especially embarrassed about had suddenly come to the forefront of his mind, and he was trying to push it away.
“I admired Councilman Aras,” he went on, and he looked at Sha-Kane. “He resisted the temptations so many of us could not. He saw how we had drifted from our purpose, that we were no longer serving Mercedes, but instead ourselves. I am sorry to say I was complicit in that. I am an old man, and it is too late for me to fix all of my mistakes, but I would like to help you, if you would have me. I would like to leave this world better than I found it.”
“Of course,” I said. “We’re all servants of Mercedes. The Ashers on the other Islands understand that better than here. Alem needs to remind itself that all of Aventoll’s people matter. Thank you for standing with me, Councilman Madoc.”
“I would stand with you, too,” Ssyril said, and he drew himself up to his full height. His gaze was proud, and his expression was determined.
“And me,” another Councilman said, a Natavian man with the glossy black plumage of a raven. He stood up from his seat, despite the fact that Councilman Sar was glaring at him.
“Me, too,” a Varthan Councilman added. His golden skin was dotted with leopard spots the color of freckles.
One by one, Councilmen rose from their seats in a declaration of loyalty to their Islands and their peoples. It wasn’t all of them, not by a long shot, but it was at least half. Plenty enough to encourage real change.
“I offer myself up as Mercedes’ humble servant,” a final Councilman declared. He caught my eye in particular, and I couldn’t help but stare for a moment, because he looked human. After a moment, he noticed I was staring and nodded to me respectfully. “Councilman Erys, of Alem.”
