Brynd lit some incense and then waited in silence, contentedly watching the flames of the fire. He closed his eyes; he could hear the footsteps of several people in the distance, possibly in the corridor beneath the chamber. Somewhere else was the crackle of cultist magic: hopefully they were working on Brenna-based munitions, very useful high explosives. Further away, possibly outside, was the smell of freshly baked sourdough bread.
Footsteps in the doorway: he opened his eyes to see Jamur Rika walking briskly towards him, accompanied by Brug. He rose to meet her, and bowed his head slightly.
‘Jamur Rika,’ he announced, ‘welcome to the obsidian chamber.’
‘So this is where Commander Lathraea spends his days?’
She looked around the room dismissively. He had never seen her looking so warrior-like. Had her snug grey uniform been black she could have passed for one of his own Night Guard. A gold, jewel-studded ceremonial dagger was fitted to her left hip, and her black hair had been cut shorter than he remembered, shorter even than Eir’s. All the soft lines of her face, the creases around her eyes, the gentle mannerisms he recalled when he first saw her on Southfjords just months before, had taken on a harsher definition. Her transformation was sudden and disarming.
‘And most evenings too, it seems,’ Brynd said, effortlessly moving to his feet. ‘My Empress. .’
‘Please don’t call me that yet,’ she replied.
‘My apologies.’
She smiled wryly. ‘I don’t feel comfortable with what isn’t yet certain. We are annexed — does this mean we are part of a republic? A freetown? I can hardly be Empress of just a city, can I?’
Brynd frowned and shared a glance with Brug. The big man simply shrugged and smiled to himself.
‘Perhaps we can clarify some of those matters today,’ he said. He started to move towards the table when the door to his office opened again and into the room walked Jamur Eir, Rika’s sister, and Eir’s companion — bodyguard and lover — Randur Estevu. Eir smiled serenely and greeted Brynd like an old friend, as she always had done. Randur, on the other hand, simply bowed with a ridiculous flourish; Brynd couldn’t be certain if he was being respectful, sarcastic or a fool — or possibly all three. While Eir wore a simple brown tunic, Randur was dressed in some fancy new shirt, frilled cuffs, a ridiculous collar, and his glossy cape. There were even a few braids in his hair.
‘Is that a new sword, Randur?’ Brynd indicated the rapier sheathed by his side.
‘What a keen sense of sight, commander,’ Randur replied, then — with a zing — he whipped the rapier out. Light shimmered off its surface. ‘Fancy giving it a test later? I could do with the practice. Bored out my arse a lot of the time.’
‘I’ll see if I can spare a moment,’ Brynd replied.
‘I understand if you don’t want to lose to me.’
‘I will see,’ Brynd said, cutting him short. ‘Meanwhile, I would appreciate it if you adhered to martial policies: weapons are not to be carried about the Citadel, only upon exit to the city’s streets. If we can’t have discipline inside these walls, how the hell can we expect to export it outside?’
Randur sheathed his sword while glaring at Brynd, then grunted. He strode to the table, whereupon he began pouring himself some wine. Eir took a seat beside him, while Rika claimed her place at the head of the table. Brynd moved to her side.
Together they all waited patiently while administrators began to file into the room: lawyers, moneylenders, construction managers, cultists and then some more members of the Night Guard, who lined the room with their arms folded as a reminder of just who was currently enforcing the law in Villiren.
Brynd was expecting thirty-three individuals, but it felt like three times that when they were confined in this space, despite them maintaining a respectful volume, speaking only in hushed whispers to the people beside them while they waited.
Brynd rose from his seat and waited for them to fall into silence.
‘Citizens, welcome,’ he began, ‘I have summoned you here with difficult aims: to forge a new civilization, a new culture, a new Empire, to make provisions for the defence of the whole island and against the potential return of the Okun. And we need to do this together.’
He let his words sink in, and scrutinized the faces around him — some were passive, some wide-eyed.
‘Any previous affiliations with the Urtican Empire are now terminated, and Villiren is a free, independent city currently under military rule, serving Jamur Rika, who is here seated beside me.’
All eyes turned to Rika, who sat with serenity amidst the whispers that now spread around the room. She waved her hand for Brynd to continue.
‘At this time we are continuing to use the legal framework of the Empire. Villiren is a city without politicians, and many of you would probably think the place better because of it.’ He got the laughs he intended, and smiled as he palmed the air. ‘But I confess, these are serious times, and we face two problems that define our legacy. The first is this: the reconstruction of the city and the unification of a broken people. That is where you, the builders and bankers and lawyers and agriculturalists must talk openly. We must create employment for a people who have nothing, and we must feed them well. They must feel that they can participate in their own future, too. But the second problem may well prohibit any of this from happening.’
‘What d’you mean?’ someone called, a slender man with a thin moustache, who was called Derrouge.
‘I’ll show you,’ Brynd replied. He called her name, and a minute later Artemisia stooped under the doorway at the back of the room. Everyone’s gaze followed Brynd’s own, and soon people at the back began clamouring to get out of her way.
‘It is quite all right!’ Brynd shouted. ‘Please, remain calm — this is our ally, our comrade!’
In full war regalia, Artemisia marched through the parting, gasping crowd towards Brynd, and there she stood, towering over the room.
‘What is it?’ Derrouge asked.
‘She is Artemisia,’ Brynd replied, waiting for the room to settle. ‘A friend.’
‘Greetings to you all,’ Artemisia announced, and Brynd thought he could see a smile on her face.
‘You may recall that our recent battle here in Villiren was fought against a hitherto unknown race. Well, it transpires that in the world where this race originated, another war was being fought — against Artemisia’s own people. She, too, was fighting the same enemy that we were.’
Brynd related the information he felt comfortable sharing about the breaches of the Realm Gates and the appearance of the Okun. With the gathered throng remaining in silence, he explained to them their situation: that their economy had been wrecked, that Villiren risked hyperinflation unless the moneylenders stopped giving money away and throwing people into debt; that the city had been annexed from the Empire, that Urtica had been notified, that they did not know where they stood in legal terms, and that these issues were the least of their concerns.
He refrained from telling them about the potentially false histories that all of these people had grown up with: the Church, it seemed, had offered a different explanation to the one Artemisia had brought with her, but that was another matter for another day. The split of humanity into a different dimension was perhaps too much to discuss at the moment. However, he clearly gave a context to her presence, and to that of the Okun, which had invaded Villiren so recently, and which were still being discovered in rubble-strewn pockets of the city, mostly dead, occasionally alive.
‘The forces from other worlds,’ he said, ‘are going to continue flowing into ours. This cannot be stopped. They will bring with them — no, they’ve already brought with them — their long war. One side,’ he gestured to Artemisia, ‘is looking to settle alongside us. Their long-term opponents are. . well, you have all met their ambassadors, the Okun. Their opponents would see all our cultures destroyed, humanity effectively cleansed, to make way for their repopulation of the Boreal Archipelago. You would have no farms, no banks, no buildings. No life.’