Thepraetorialegionnaires guarding the gold-plated gate were armed and in uniform, heads protected from the sun by crimson and whiteeffiyehs. The guardhouses on either side of the gate held yet more soldiers, while spiderlike automatons like the ones guarding the shores of the Warden’s Island scuttled after the soldiers on mechanical legs.
Their Zip guns were a newer model, with handles for a soldier to take control of and direct the automaton’s fire if necessary. Someone had painted the automaton’s casing Legion crimson, with the roaring lion’s head of the House of Sa’Liandel standing out in gold paint on two sides.
The legionnaires were deft at managing the flow of people onto the palace grounds, from bureaucrats to everyday workmen and women. One needed the proper paperwork to enter, and the writ given to him by the wardens’ governor for delivery of the border reports was enough.
The legionnaire with a single gold chevron on his shoulder studied Soren for a long few seconds before nodding sharply. “Leave your velocycle. I’ll take you inside.”
Soren shook his head. “It goes with me.”
He thought he would have to argue more, but the officer just made an annoyed sound and waved at him. Soren dismounted his velocycle to walk it through the golden gates and into the massive courtyard of the Imperial palace.
Palace wings stretched toward the walls surrounding the massive building. The exterior arcades stretched down one wing, across the curved front of the palace, and down the other wing, providing sheltered walkways for officials and servants. The officer kept a steady pace across the flagstone courtyard for the pillared main entrance with its vaulted roof section rising over a pair of massive double doors.
Soren knew he couldn’t bring his velocycle into the building and reluctantly left it parked outside. He pulled the ledger containing the border reports from the satchel and tucked it under one arm. Several legionnaires stood at the entrance, and Soren nodded at the closest one.
“Make sure no one touches my velocycle,” he said.
“No one will touch it,” the officer replied.
The grand foyer they walked through was filled with a tiled mosaic that covered the walls and floor in an array of colors. Gas lamps in sconces provided clear illumination, adding to the brightness that came through the open windows near the ceiling that vented hot air.
The officer seemed to know where he was going, which was a good thing, because keeping track of the winding path down a dozen different hallways and up a level left Soren wondering where they were. He’d never been inside such a massive building before. It was like a mini-city with the number of hallways, inner courtyards, and a whole mess of people they passed.
“Sit,” the officer said when they finally made it to a large, surprisingly airy antechamber.
The officer disappeared behind a guarded door. Soren eyed the full benches along the wall, the people sitting in clusters on the floor, and didn’t miss the wary looks given him. For all that wardens provided an integral job for every country, the citizens were never quite welcoming of them. Wardens had the right to cross borders everywhere needed to cleanse the poison fields, but it was the poison they worked with—that ran through their veins—that made people not want to be around them.
Soren shifted out of the way and resigned himself to a long wait with everyone else. He was surprised, then, when a beautiful woman in a flowing white dress mantled at the shoulders with colorful feathers swept into the antechamber. Everyone clamored for her attention, but she ignored them all in favor of Soren.
She bowed to him. “Chief Minister Caelum will see you, warden.”
Soren bit his tongue, wondering how he’d earned an audience with the Imperial empress’ highest ranked advisor so quickly, but he wasn’t going to question it. He nodded at the woman and followed her into a large workroom filled with clerks all clattering away at their typewriters. They didn’t stop, moving deeper into a separate, grand office decorated with a wealth most people would never see in their lifetime.
Chief Minister Caelum sat behind a large, ornate desk. The paperwork covering it was neatly organized, as were the bookshelves filled with folios and ledgers lining one entire wall. Windows overlooked an inner courtyard beyond a narrow arcade, allowing for continuous shade from the sunlight. The room wasn’t stifling hot; the mechanical fan hanging from the ceiling and the one standing in the corner with its face pointed at the desk helped with that.
“We were told to expect you last autumn. Instead, someone else delivered the border reports. His Imperial Highness was displeased,” Caelum said in the trade tongue.
Dressed in the robes of his office, head covered in an elaborately patterned and decorated brimless, round cap, the Chief Minister was a man who looked to be at least three decades Soren’s senior. His face was tanned, the wrinkles at the corner of his blue eyes deeply entrenched from years of squinting through sunlight. He had an air about him that spoke of confidence and power, but it wasn’t enough to make Soren bow before the man.
“I’m a warden. I go where my governor tells me to,” Soren said.
Caelum studied Soren with unblinking eyes, letting nothing of his opinion about that fact show on his face. “His Imperial Highness gave strict instructions regarding your arrival when he returned from Bellingham last year. You are to be accorded all manner of support and access to the private wings of the palace. You come bearing the border reports?”
“I do.”
“I will see to them.”
Soren didn’t offer up the ledger. “I was instructed by Vanya to give the reports to him.”
“HisImperial Highness,” Caelum stressed the title, “is briefed on the reports, as is his mother, the empress. They do not handle the minutiae of what you bring us.”
“Are you going to sit there and tell me to ignore a direct order from your Imperial crown prince?”
Caelum frowned deeply, but Soren remained rooted where he was. He had his orders, both from the governor and from Vanya. He wasn’t about to ignore his duty no matter what the Chief Minister would prefer.
Perhaps the Chief Minister was well acquainted with the stubbornness of wardens, for the man stood and picked up the telephone handset on his desk. He turned the dial a couple of times, the different sounds of each number coming through the receiver as tinny noise.
Caelum pressed the handset to his ear, speaking into the bottom portion. “Send for His Imperial Highness’ majordomo. A warden has arrived who has been ordered to meet with him.”
