"The, uh, nobility was somewhat… shortsighted in its goals," he continued, "and misjudged the amounts needed to feed everyone. Now with war here and on the ground, the supply of food has stopped completely, and there are no reserves. So the poor riot in hopes of… I don't know what. Justice, I suppose."
"Justice? This is abominable! No food? Do children go hungry too? That's insufferable! I'll see that Karsus fixes that problem first thing!"
"Karsus is-" again Candlemas swallowed his words, "-too busy."
"Not to see me, his only living relation, he's not! I'll be busy too, filling his ear with what's right and what's wrong! But we can't just sit here. Come, Candy. We'll walk!"
"Walk?" the mage balked, grabbing her hands. "No, Sita, you can't do that! It's not safe!" By the gods, he knew Aquesita was misinformed about her cousin's true nature, but for any noble to show her face in the streets now would be certain death. Wards or not, the crowds would tear her apart. "No, Sita! We must remain here! We shouldn't even have come-"
"Nonsense! The empire needs us, and so does my friend, and the poor. Come!"
Before he could stop her, short of knocking her flat and trussing her, Aquesita had popped open the carriage door and hopped out, skirts flapping. Candlemas scrambled after her, shouting as did her driver and footmen over a greater roaring.
Aquesita stamped into the street, then stood frozen, pointing, disbelieving.
Down at a crossroads, past a barrier of rubble and furniture, raged the riot. Ragged poor suffered under the brutal hands of city guards and soldiers. None of the guards plied silver-tipped clubs any more. It was all blade work. As Candlemas watched, unable to turn away, some fifty guards and soldiers with long lances chopped into the crowd while a hedge wizard in a garish uniform sent lightning crackling amidst them. The terrified mob boiled and bled and fled down the street toward the city center, leaving twitching victims and leaking corpses behind. Some of the slowest had been children.
The screaming and shouting was awful, but the crying of Aquesita was the worst for Candlemas.
"Love of Mystryl, Lady of Love," she whispered. "I didn't know it had come to this. I didn't know… but Karsus knew, didn't he?"
Gently Candlemas put his arms around her, but she pushed him away. She wanted truth, not dumb comfort.
"Yes, Sita. He knew. All the leading nobles knew. But they did nothing about it, and it just got worse. I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry too," she sobbed. Tears coursed down her cheeks, but her plump mouth was firmly set. "Sorry I've been so blind, so coddled, and so stupid. But no more. I'll see Karsus, and this will stop-"
Her voice seemed to rise into a high, whining scream that no human made. It was a missile arcing across the sky. Candlemas grabbed Aquesita's head and pulled her down just as a rollicking explosion jarred them both off their feet. Not far off, screams filled the air. The bomb had landed smack in the city's center.
With a short cry, Aquesita grabbed her skirts and ran toward the site of the disaster. Candlemas jogged after her, puffing. City guards, blood-spattered and weary unto death, tried to stop her, but she evaded them and ran on. By the time Candlemas caught up, she'd gotten to the end of the street and stopped cold.
What he saw made his blood run just as cold.
The great fountain at the center of town, a high fluted, complicated affair of many spouts and cherubs and fans, boiled red. Rose-colored spray filled the air, staining white marble, and a frothy pink bubbled in the many pools. Candlemas's jaw dropped at the horrific sight, but Aquesita's words were even more chilling.
"The prophecy! The sign. A fountain of blood. Oh, and look!"
Weeping, Aquesita stepped over a dead man. Rubble and corpses littered the plaza, but Aquesita picked up a ratty bundle of white feathers. Candlemas didn't even recognize it until her voice came faintly, "Our storks, The guardians of the heights, the wings of Mystryl, our feathered friends. This is a sign, too."
Reverently she laid the bird down, as if laying the entire empire to rest. For the first time she saw the limits of the devastation. The fountain had pumped itself clear, spraying clear and merrily again, but blood spots lingered everywhere like the fingerprints of mischievous imps.
"It's the end, Candlemas." Her haunting tones chilled the mage. "The end of the end, the end of everything. The Netherese Empire will fall now, and no one can prevent it."
Not even Karsus, thought Candlemas. Not even him.
Much later, as the sun set, they got back to the castle. Their driver had finally abandoned the carriage, cut the traces, and mounted Candlemas and Aquesita bareback on the horses. As they wolfed soup and bread in the kitchen, servants and hangers-on buzzed about the portents of disaster.
Even the feared "rain of skulls" had come true earlier when a stray explosion on the underside of Ioulaum opened a forgotten cavern. Bones and skulls had gushed in a stream like snowmelt, and only then had people recalled that Ioulaum had cut his enclave from the Rampant Peaks, either Bone Hill or Thunder Peak, where tens of thousands of orcs had been exterminated in a war lasting sixteen months.
Yet no one knew Ioulaum's thoughts, for the ancient and venerable mage had gone missing. Great Karsus himself had tried to contact Ioulaum with his strongest palantir and drawn a blank. The sages of Ioulaum proclaimed that their master was not dead, but, they hinted darkly, he might have abandoned the city because "sinners" had "resisted his will." Faint hearts and weak resolve had disappointed the master, they warned. As penance, to appease Ioulaum and show their true devotion, everyone must reapply himself to his work and carry out the archwizard's final orders: intensify the war and destroy the city of Karsus. And this too matched prophecy, for wasn't the loss of Ioulaum be "the disappearance of the first of the brightest?"
But what, they asked, did it mean for the empire, if these were portents of its demise? Prophecies had come and gone, and little changed. The city had not winked out of existence. So perhaps they meant nothing, and the church sages would invent new ones?
Fatigued, fretful, Candlemas excused himself from Aquesita. He had an idea to offer Karsus, he explained, one that might stop the hostilities. Aquesita asked what, but Candlemas didn't want to "dilute the magic" by repeating it. Kissing her smudged forehead, he left her wondering.
He wondered himself if his idea would work. He hoped Karsus was still listening. He needed just one more favor from the mad mage.
Candlemas found Karsus in the highest workshop overlooking what remained of the city and the distant enemy, Ioulaum. The madman still wore his ridiculous general's costume, though he'd abandoned the drooping helmet. He was surrounded, as usual, by slavering toadies who complimented his every notion and laughed at his feeble jokes.
Nor were any dissuaded by the destruction so visible from the balcony. In fact, they planned more mischief. Two apprentices were explaining their latest fiendish invention. By thinning heavy magic with a grease spell, they could form a slush. Into the slush they could sprinkle fleas containing the blood of cows sickened with anthrax. Once flung into the city, the slush would ooze down gutters and storm drains. At the least, rats at the lowest levels of the city would be plagued with anthrax. At the best, the ooze might filter into water reservoirs and sicken hundreds at one stroke. Karsus loved the idea, whooping with delight, and ordered the pair to develop it immediately.
Candlemas stood stock still, fists clenched tightly at his sides to keep from screaming and slamming the apprentices' heads together. He was not a violent man, had never warred or fought, but he could see sometimes justice needed to be dealt swiftly with a sword or club. Pounding these capricious fools to death would be a good start. Bashing Karsus over the head, locking him in a chest, and tilting it off the city's precipice might be wise, too.