Page 5 of Elvenbred

His answer exploded in his mind, and he almost laughed out loud. Of course! Lord Veritalin had been the one to insist on training female Manipulators in that last batch, saying they could not afford to waste a single elf that showed even the slightest ability as a Manipulator, regardless of gender or birth. And he had argued against it, because, of course, females were flighty and unreliable, and overemotional. Inevitably (well, look at his wife, just now!) they let their emotions get the better of them, and blew things out of proportion, and ruined well-laid plans and disciplined action.

And so it had been here. The city was critically short of resources in every birth-class, but there were limits. One cannot make a swimmer into a flier, just by wishing it so, and so it was here. They should never have trained any female Manipulators, and this proved it—and it was now going to be on Lord Veritalin’s head, not his. He chuckled, albeit weakly. At least he was pulling an ingot of gold out of the fires of destruction.

It was exhausting, however, this game of made-lord against hereditary-lords, piled on top of the stresses of keeping the city’s (and his) secrets, and the moments when his own mind betrayed him. They were all against him—yes! Even his own wife! Not that there was any affection between them, of course; it was strictly a contractual affair, as most marriages among the lords and the rising were. He needed someone able to do the reams of calculations he required to tune and maintain the Gates. She, the third daughter of a minor lordling of diminished station, with no “appropriate” partners in view, got her family’s chariot hitched to a rising star. Together, they made a rising couple, always genial in public and generally polite in private, and the two of them with the obvious brains to legitimize the new title. But the least she could have done was to show some gratitude.

He rubbed his forehead, wearied by the day, and waited for the Farspeaker to chime. Making others wait. A privilege of being the king.

He considered the increasing arguments with his wife. There had been a polite peace between them, but that seemed to be eroding. What had she expected him to do with the calculations he’d asked for?

He started to piece together other comments, other slights. Had she turned on him? Was she conspiring behind his back? Well, he didn’t think so. Not because she wouldn’t, he knew she would, but because she couldn’t. She was surrounded at all times by his magical and mechanical spies, spies that were more reliable than flesh and blood ones were. And while it was barely possible that she had power to negate those, she had neither the training nor the knowledge to be able to do so.

He paused for a moment of fond thought about those spies. The part he could not say out loud … the other component of the Gate experiment. Just a trickle of power from the Gate here, just enough to test and see if he could open the World Gate, and send a probe through.

This probe, different in being part machine, and part living. An abomination to the Council, that crossed every ethical boundary in the books, but was necessary. A probe he could give simple instructions to, and which could survive on the far world, and that should, in theory at least, be able to continue to function without the freely-available, ambient magical power of this world. Go there, explore, and return with a sample. Simple instructions.

He leaned over the work-table, knowing that he’d put off sending it, dithering a bit. Until he did, the exercise remained deniable, the whole experiment one firelance from being an unfortunate lab accident. The attack, the creatures, the dead Manipulator, and the argument with his wife had all firmed his resolve. No more debate.

He would send the probe. Tonight.

And with more luck, this will give me such good results that the Council will see the need, wipe away these stupid resistances, and eagerly give me every rebellious, recalcitrant criminal that exists in the prisons to make more such creatures.

The Farspeaker chimed. The king, ready for his report. Time to stretch my wits.

2

N

Every city had its own king. It hadn’t always been that way, at least, not according to the historical records that almost no one read anymore, but as the Predators became increasingly aggressive, and the cities increasingly isolated, each one became a mostly self-governing and self-supporting entity, the only practical means of transportation between them being the Gate system, which only the powerful were allowed to use. Oh, in theory each city was supposed to send aid to the others, but in practice, with all of them being under a simultaneous state of siege, that didn’t happen. The best you got was if Alizarin, the city blessed with the talents of Lord Reyavalic Artificer, happened to send you plans and a couple of samples of a new weapon or Machina. Along with well wishes. For a price, of course … at least for the plans. The well wishes were still free.

Those prices continued to get higher. Lord Haldeen Gatekeeper tugged at his collar, as he waited for his turn. The Farspeaker interview had become very personal, very quickly. He’d been confronted by a terse “Report in person” from the king’s personal aide, which necessitated a quick bath, a hasty dressing, and a rush to the King’s Tower. He was glad to be fairly far down the lordly pecking order … the lords by birth went first, and King Alliard, to his credit, heard the bad news calmly.

Haldeen glanced up under lowered brows at the king. Elves lived centuries if not killed, but Alliard had visibly aged under the weight of his office. Gray hair had already crept in at his temples, and he had set the fashion for ‘leaving the face as it is’. Deep shadows and pouchy eyes told of the lack of sleep and stress. Alliard’s appearance gave Haldeen all the information he needed about the situation.

“How bad?” the king asked Lord Pilias Agronomer, the Great Lord whose responsibility covered everything involving food production except the algae vats and the ration-making.

The Lord Agronomer looked up from his sheaf of papers. Haldeen recognized the papers were a prop. Pity the lord who didn’t know his data from the top of his head when the king asked. “The last agricultural post fell. Four hundred acres equivalent lost when the things broke in. Twenty-four elves died as well. No more outstations, and no more easy reach to the sea. We’re cut off, and on our own.”

King Alliard looked over the map, embossed into the table, and made hand-passes over it to set what remained of the city’s reach aglow. From his seat in the further row, Haldeen could see the dead-candle look of the farming stations, aquaculture, and mining colonies that once served as assets for the city. Veridian might not be the greatest of the cities, but was in the top tier. Was.

Alliard rubbed his hand across his brow. “When?”

“Third hour of the afternoon,” the Lord Agronomer replied.

Haldeen muttered under his breath.

“Thank you, Lord Agronomer,” King Alliard replied, not looking up. “But, as you are a lord-appointed Agronomer, with no more agriculture to oversee, your titles and honors are hereby forfeit. Remove your sash, Pilias.”

Haldeen felt his belly tighten, and heard the muttering from the others in the seats around him. Decades, even centuries of dedicated service, and it was gone in an instant. King Alliard cleared his throat. The room went quiet. The king wasn’t finished.

“Until and unless we can get the aid that we’re supposed to be receiving … that we were promised … we’re completely reliant on spell-made food now. I need someone to take up a new role. Lord High Provisioner. Sash looks a lot like the Agronomer’s, but will have a fancy badge on it. Oh, and it comes with the requirement that you increase our ration bar output. The means by which you do so are up to your discretion, within limits. Pilias, want the job?”

“Yes, my king,” the newly reminted lord said. Haldeen could hear the obvious relief in the lord’s voice. For a single moment, he’d lost everything, and faced being turned out of his mansion and tower, and having to return to the city proper, as just another mage among the rest.

Damn shame, he’s managed to use his magic to continually increase our harvests, a little more with each reaping. Well, maybe he can do the same with the tanks.

Pilias nodded again, quickly, as the king continued. “I’m doing you no favors, Pilias. It’ll be your job to increase the assessments so we can feed everyone. You will be the most hated person in the city, and take the spears, so I don’t. Collecting, inventorying, and dispensing. Tighten the accounting. Ten more percent production. Take one morsel … one … beyond your allotment, and I’ll hang you from the city walls to serve as an example to the next one to take the sash. You’re sure you want it?”

Pilias nodded again.