Scream of Stone

75

8 Eleasias, the Year ofLightning Storms (1374 BR) The Chamber of Law and Civility, Innarlith

Marek Rymiit stood on the dais of the senate chamber, in the place normally reserved for the ransar. The significance of that was lost on no one, especially Marek himself.

“My dear friends, one and all,” Marek shouted over the din of the assembled senators, who quickly began to shush each other and turn their attention to the dais. “Please rise for three of your number, any one of whom would make a fine, steady, and resolute ransar.”

Marek then introduced Aikiko, Asheru, and Meykhati to thunderous applause. All three of them held up their hands in conciliatory gestures, calling for quiet even as their gloating smiles and limpid eyes soaked up the admiration of their peers like a spider draws the essential fluids from a doomed fly.

“Thank you, Khazark,” Meykhati said, and Marek grinned and bowed, charmed by the senator’s use of the Thayan honorific he’d only recently revealed to the Innarlans. He’d revealed it to Meykhati first, in fact, at the same time he’d cast a spell over the senator that suppressed his willfulness and ambition. “We three stand before you, humbled by the grand traditions of the city-state we love so dearly, our hearts swelled with pride over having rescued Innarlith and her people from the vile clutches of the inhuman Pristoleph.”

Another thunderous ovation, but when Marek scanned the faces of the senators, he saw no few scowls among the dead-eyed grins.

“I come here today to deliver a message of a personal nature,” Meykhati went on, speaking the words Marek had recited to him that morning. If any of the senators, many of whom had known Meykhati for decades, detected any wavering in his sincerity, none would question it. “With a heavy heart, but a firm dedication to a greater purpose, I formally withdraw my name from your consideration to serve as the next Ransar of Innarlith.”

What followed was a dead-pan murmuring no more sincere than Meykhati’s statement. The murmurs were replaced by applause when Meykhati bowed to the room and took a largely ceremonial step backwardbut he didn’t leave the dais.

Aikiko stepped forward even as Meykhati stepped back, and raised her hand, silencing the assembly.

“My fellow senators, hear me,” she said. “I stand before you, like Meykhati, reluctant to set myself above any of you. I call for a new way. Let us set aside the post of ransar and let the senate itself hold executive power. Let us lead by consensus, and by the communal will of the aristocracy!”

That was met with applause as well, though many of the senators appeared confused. That made Marek smile. They were afraid of the reality of the power they told each other they already had.

“An idea worth debating further,” Asheru called out as the din once more died down. “But I offer another. There is one among us whothough compared with those of us born and raised within her walls is something of a newcomer to Innarlithhas time and again proven not only his worth but his loyalty. His steadfast determination and progressive ideas have brought a new economy to Innarlith and cowed the rise of a worker’s armyor have we forgotten those dark days when foreign agitators appealed to the baser instincts of the Third Quarter?”

Shouts of “No! No!” and hisses followed, and Marek hid a chuckle with a hand to his mouth. After all, he was the foreign aggitator they so feared.

“There is one man who, I believe, should be granted the post of Ransar of Innarlith, with all the duties and privileges so implied,” Asheru went on, “and that man is Marek Rymiit.”

Marek didn’t flinch at the heartbeat of silence that weighed so heavily over the room before the senators broke into another round of applause. Maybe they knew what was happening to them after all, even if they couldn’t voice it or give it a name. They certainly couldn’t stop it.

Marek shook his head and waved his hands and said, “Alas, my dear, dear friends, I must of course decline that most singular of honors. My duties as khazark of the enclave, and the diplomatic status that post confers, would of course make it impossible for me to serve as your ransar. I do, however, offer my services to the next ransar, to the senate, and to the people of the fine city-state of Innarlith, so that I might advise and help in any way.”

A less enthusiastic round of applause followed, and Marek, ever taking the pulse of those around him, knew that the senators were tiring of speeches. Though more was said, Marek pressured in ways both magical and mundane to move the proceedings along, once more without a vote, and when the congress was finally drawn to a close, he took a deep breath and tried not to feel as though he’d made a narrow escape.

The junior senators made their way out of the chamber first, and Marek was held back by a veritable mob of well-wishers and sycophants, led by Asheru. They made their way slowly along the aisle, Marek telling them all what they wanted to hear, and the mob returning the favor threefold. Only when they passed through the outer doors did the senators disperse, wandering off in groups of half a dozen or less.

When he’d entered there had been a pair of black firedrakes guarding the doorsfully a third of the remaining creatures after Pristoleph’s wemics, and so long without a ransar to follow, had killed or scattered the bulk of them. But they were gone.

Marek took a deep breath of fresh air and fought back a nettling feelingthe inescapable sensation that he was being watched. His attention was drawn to one of the many reflecting pools that dotted the gardens surrounding the Chamber of Law and Civility.

A bird unlike any he’d ever seen stood ankle-deep in the thin layer of water. A sort of crane, Marek guessed. It stood on legs like twigs, a foot and a half tall. Its long, sinuous neck was twice that length, and its red-accented head was tipped by a needle-like beak. The bird’s eyes found Marek’s and the Thayan detected a sparkle of intelligence that should not have been there.

He looked behind him, then to one side, and began to cast a spell that would spirit him away to the safety of the enclave. A wemic burst from a concealing hedgerow and leveled a spear at Aikiko, who let rip a shrill, girlish scream unbefitting of a senator.

Marek opened his mouth and uttered only the first syllable of his spell when a kick to his head shook him, blew the spell from his mind and left the casting ruined, and staggered him.

He turned as quickly as his considerable girth would allow and had just barely enough time to take in the creature that stood behind him. It was as though the crane had somehow melded with a man. Its head was the same red-marked, beaked head of a bird, the eyes sparkling with more than intelligence. Marek saw a fierce humor there, and a sort of gloating that made his face flush. The rest of the creature’s body was humanwings replaced with long, graceful arms, the sticklike legs fuller and too long for a normal man. One of those legs seemed to twitch, the bird-man leaped a foot into the air, and the leg swept around. The creature’s foot smashed into Marek’s right temple and darkness enveloped him as he thought, The Shou…?