Princess Sien raised a questioning eyebrow. “In that case I would hate to go against you in something you think you are good at. You’ve every right to feel proud of this victory. You’ve helped ensure the safety of this town and eliminated a warlord who has done great harm.”
Mari let her distaste show. “And all I had to do was kill a lot of people.”
“I see. You don’t like causing deaths.”
“No. Even when it’s totally justified. Even when it’s the only good option.”
“But you do it anyway,” Sien observed.
“I don’t have any choice, Princess. How else do we stop people like that? If you know another way, please tell me.”
Sien watched Mari for a little while without speaking. “As you say, we have no choice. But I understand you participated in the combat, in firing your Mechanic weapon at the warlord’s soldiers. As commander, you didn’t have to do that.”
“Maybe not.” Mari gave the princess an angry look. “But how could I tell somebody else to do something I wasn’t willing to do myself?”
The princess nodded. “I see more and more why people follow you, Lady Mari.”
“Feel free to explain it to me sometime,” Mari offered, feeling irritable.
Sien’s lips curved in a wry smile. “It’s not my place to do that. I will say that the choices we make define us to the world. You seem to make difficult choices for the right reasons.”
Mari laughed. “I wish I had choices, Princess Sien. It seems more like I’ve got lots of things I have to do, and then whatever choices exist are between bad or worse.”
“Really? I understand you even granted a merciful death to a troll. That was a choice.”
Mari looked away, agitated and angry over feeling defensive about her action. “Why not? Why shouldn’t I have done that?”
The princess’s expression was impossible to read. “You felt sorry for a hideous creature whose only function in life was to kill.”
“That wasn’t the troll’s fault,” Mari replied with a scowl. “It had to die. I know that. That didn’t mean it had to suffer. It wasn’t like Raul. It didn’t choose to be what it was.”
“You speak truth.” Sien glanced out of the window again. “Tiae has suffered at the hands of those who care nothing for the pain others endure. Yet we came to this state in part because of those who hesitated to punish, even those who most deserved it.”
Mari leaned back again, watching the princess’s face. “Alain knows a lot of history, but I don’t.”
Sien gave Mari a startled look. “You depend upon a Mage for knowledge of the world?”
“Well… yes.” Mari couldn’t suppress another sudden, brief laugh. Mages believed the world to be an illusion and most knew practically nothing of it, let alone any history. “I know that’s a little strange. But Alain’s not a typical Mage, either.”
“Obviously,” the princess observed. “The entire history of Tiae’s troubles is too long and complicated to force upon you at this time, but in short, my parents were well-meaning but naïve. So I’ve been told by those who knew them well and who I trust, for my memories are those of a very young child.” Her face was shadowed by old grief. “They would not act against those who were acting against them, and they would not take steps needed to stop those who defied them. Perhaps they were already trapped in this Storm you and your Mages spoke of, helpless before the fate that had come to Tiae in their time.”
“What happened to them?” Mari asked.
“Eventually, one of those they would not confront brought about their deaths. My brothers and sisters and I were all too young to assume the throne, so a regent was appointed.
“The regent,” Sien continued, “was my uncle, a man as hard as my parents were soft. Where they would inflict only the mildest of punishments, and then only reluctantly, he dealt death as a common remedy for wrongdoing. And my uncle greatly expanded the list of those things considered wrongdoing. He killed many enemies but created far more in the process. One of them ended his life and his regency. By then Tiae was in great turmoil after the combined excesses of kindness and harshness. But there were other problems, mostly the rage of our people against the Great Guilds and the repression the Great Guilds ordered as punishment. There are few records surviving from that time, but I suspect the Great Guilds had demanded many of the most severe actions my uncle took against his own people.”
“I’m very sorry,” Mari said.
Princess Sien eyed her. “If you still represented the Mechanics Guild whose jacket you wear, your words would mean nothing. I would regard you as just one more agent of those who helped destroy Tiae.”
Mari nodded. “I had to decide whether I would keep defending that Guild. I realized that I couldn’t.”
Sien sighed. “After my uncle was killed, the next regent died within weeks. Then my eldest brother, who was close to reaching the age at which he could rule, was slain by poison, for by that point many others thought they saw the way to power over Tiae.”
Mari looked away, not wanting to see the sorrow on the princess’s face. “I guess it just got worse after that.”
“It did,” Sien confirmed. “Full-scale riots erupted in the cities. The army fell apart as officers and politicians vied for control. The Great Guilds unleashed spasms of violence that fed the chaos instead of suppressing it. Trade collapsed as the roads became unsafe. In the midst of that, my brothers and sisters and cousins and I became pawns. Powerful people, or people who wished to be powerful, wanted to control us, and to kill the ones they didn’t control. Tiae broke into two parts, then three, then shattered completely. The royal family died person by person. I was traded for a while among captors wishing to use my royal status, narrowly escaping from the last thanks to some still loyal to Tiae itself. Those brave men and women died to save me. I hid. I fought. I survived. I learned how to judge who I could trust and who I could not. A single mistake would have doomed me.”
“How did you survive?” Mari asked. “I’ve only gotten this far because of Alain.”
“I had no Alain,” Sien said, averting her eyes from Mari. “I did have those who still believed that Tiae meant something. Who were willing to run the greatest risks in what seemed a hopeless effort to keep one small part of Tiae alive.” She paused, staring out the window. “I eventually ended up here. I have done all I could to help Pacta Servanda hold out, to remain Tiae, while the rest of my country sank further into barbarism.”
The Princess looked at Mari again. “Why did the Great Guilds do nothing? They left what had been Tiae. They left us to suffer. Why? Did they no longer wish to rule the commons here, or consider us not worth the effort?”
Mari shook her head. “They were afraid. Every tool they were used to using to control the commons had failed. Trying something else would have required them to change, and both the Mage Guild and the Mechanics Guild are dedicated to not allowing any change.”
“That is… stupid,” Sien said. “They control the world. Shouldn’t that be their priority?”
“They control the world because they haven’t allowed any change,” Mari said. “The Great Guilds have long since made that tactic into their whole reason for being. Change must not happen. Yet change did happen in Tiae, and anything else the Guild did would open the door for greater change. What would happen to the world’s stability if the Bakre Confederation restored order in Tiae with the help of the Guild and then decided to stay, thereby doubling its size and power? What would happen if the Confederation moved into Tiae and instead of restoring order the social collapse in Tiae spread into the Confederation? So the Great Guilds did nothing, because the Great Guilds feared doing anything else.”