Chapter 16:

Forges Burning

Zellar put a hand through his damp hair before thrusting his head back into the bucket again, splashing the sweat off of his face. He breathed deeply, marveling in the lightness of the air, the coolness emanating from his scalp. Some nights were beautiful enough to justify. "Send him in," he said without bothering to look over his shoulder.

He waited until he heard the telltale clacking of boots on stone before casually unclasping his cloak and dropping it to the ground. He wanted, very much, for the scene that greeted Will to be oddly informal. Zellar clasped his hands and straightened his back waiting for the boots to become uncomfortably silent.

"Sir," the voice began and Zellar dropped into his chair, facing the doorway now. Will stood there, his expression guarded. The corners of his mouth were still turned up though, with that customary smugness which Zellar had always found so distasteful in the man. He smiled.

"Adjutant, I see. You're rising in the world."

Will nodded, his usual smirk flashing across his face. "And your promotion, General. Congratulations."

"Yes," said Zellar, pausing to douse his head again. "It's good of you to mention that." He snapped his fingers at the guards, both good loyal men from Trosk's squad. "The two of you, out! The Adjutant and I must have complete understanding." Silent as smoke the guards drifted out.

Will arched a sardonic brow. "To understand? Truth to tell you, Z…" He paused, catching himself. "General. What is there to understand?"

Zellar poured a cup of wine and thrust it across the table. Will started to hold up a forestalling hand. "Drink, Adjutant, I insist. And were you making a report or questioning the word of a superior officer?"

Will paused again. He picked up the cup, but did not drink. "I apologize for any offense I may have given, General."

Yes. He'd always been clever. Zellar merely smiled, anticipating how much more enjoyable this would make the exercise. Some things required literal explanation. "Why are you here, Adjutant?"

The answer was not long in coming, but the subtle shift into alarm in Will's bearing was not lost on Zellar. It was, indeed, extremely gratifying. "You sent for me, General."

"Good!" He crossed his legs, shrugging out of his loose tunic. "Good. You're keeping up well. Tell me, what exactly did you have to do to get this appointment? Are you one of Slade's spies?"

Will opened his mouth wordlessly. After a moment he sank into a chair without asking permission. He leaned forward, his gaze very focused now. "You didn't call me here just to tell me these things, General. After all these years-"

Zellar exploded to his feet, his hand slapping across Will's face. "Do not forget your discipline again, Adjutant. It is very tiresome."

The shape of Zellar's palm was red across Will's otherwise whitening face. "The Lord Minister-"

"Yes," Zellar drawled, "precisely. The Lord Minister. I will have no more of your insolence, Adjutant. Just whose man do you think you are? Still, make a good display and I might… overlook this." He settled back into his chair, enjoying himself tremendously.

"Display," Will repeated tonelessly, then flinched away as Zellar started to rise again. "I cannot…" he swallowed. "Without the Lord Minister…"

"What," Zellar asked with open curiosity, "do you imagine the Lord Minister needs you for, Will? This is his city now, or so he thinks. He hardly needs another butt-boy."

Will stiffened, but refrained from bristling. A pity. Zellar had been hoping for another excuse to hit the man. Instead, Will focused on the other implication. "And what do you need me for?"

"There is to be a curfew. You already would have known that of course." Zellar shrugged. "A sword is useless unless it's tested. And the rats scurrying around in the walls must be driven out, and killed. Enforce the curfew, Adjutant. Sternly. Make a few arrests. Kill one or two to make the point."

"The Lord Minister wanted these affairs to be as quiet as possible."

Zellar snorted. "Graig again? He's not a military man. And you aren't in as high favor with him as you seem to think. He was rather disappointed that you've made it necessary for me to find the historian for him."

"For you…" Will's breath cut off in a hiss. "You just want to test the results of the drills that Mrell let you add to the training, don't you? You just want to see how effective your methods have been." He shook his head. "It's the spectacle you want." Will glanced warily at Zellar. "You'll never-"

Zellar burst forward, his muscular arm snaking around Will's startled throat. He dug in, not enough to asphyxiate the man, but sufficiently to make breathing uncomfortable. "I wouldn't?" he hissed in Will's ear. "You'll do as you're told you loose-lipped fool or I'll have your head." Emphasizing the point by jerking Will's head to each individual word, he breathed, "Graig does not care enough." Unsatisfied, his free hand drifted down to his belt. Will would, as he had always suspected, require a sterner form of persuasion. "You know what's needed here, all of you always have but nobody does anything! Mrell was too old, too afraid of dying and as for the other traitor…" He trembled in rage, his arm falling away from Will's throat.

The smaller man fell to the floor, gasping for breath. "You can't bury a man with the time that you have, General. Not one like Bowie. To do it, you have to make people remember his character!"

Zellar shook off the words, his belt loose in his hands. "And I trust that you will remember my character, Adjutant." He stepped forward, his hand forming a fist. Some things required literal explanation.

Cool air brushed past his skin, sweeter than the touch of any lover. It was the flickering of torch light, though, that convinced Rohde to open his eyes. He was floating in air, along a passageway only barely illuminated and then not at frequent intervals. Floating…

It was the rumbling around him that finally put the piece of information before the historian that was eluding him. "Claude?"

He couldn't see, not well enough in this light, but the answering voice, as though gravel had gotten caught in the golem's throat, was unmistakable. "You awakened…"

The golem had always had a penchant for comments that were cryptic at best, and so Rohde tried to organize his scattered thoughts rather than demanding a clearer answer to the thousands of questions that he had. It would be in vain. He'd seen Bowie press Claude often enough, during the days of the war to know that. He had discovered a secret passage then, where the strange device of the Ancient's had deposited him. "Why are you here?" he asked, deciding that he could at least learn something even if its immediate meaning eluded him.

"You made it move," Claude rumbled at him. "I have to bring you to the others."

Rohde almost asked a second question, but his mouth stayed closed. What was the point after all? He was exhausted, on the run from his life. He'd merely have to trust that the golem's "others" would be friends, or at least not enemies… How foolish of me. We're going to a hidden part of the castle. He fought for Bowie however much of a relic himself he may be. There was nothing to be done but to trust.

Rohde tilted his head back watching the irregular interplay of shadow in this vast tunnel that seemed to be mostly composed of darkness and Claude in nearly equal measure. As an historian he knew every story of trust in the lives of men. Misplaced, betrayed, upheld, redeemed, uncertain… As time passed Rohde began to distinguish sounds. There was an even clicking, whirring sound independent of Claude's rocky lumber following behind them. A stab of light hit the ceiling for a moment and was gone before it finally occurred to him. "It's… is the device following us?" He tried to keep the excitement from his tone by force of habit as much as any other reason.

"They called it the Cannon," Claude said, his red-tinted eyes the only constant points of light in the darkness around them.

"And-" Rohde began to ask when Claude halted abruptly and a grating sound of stone directly in front of them accompanied a burst of light overwhelming to the historian's dark-adjusted eyes. Blinking owlishly, the room took shape in front of Rohde.

It was a roughly carved out circular room, as much dirt as stone it seemed to him. There were other faces, at least seven or eight, spread around a handful of tables, dotted with tankards of beer. Rohde frowned, perplexed by the incongruity. Was he in a hidden underground bar?

Air suddenly rushed past him, as Rohde fell from Claude's grasp. He thumped into the seat of the device which had discreetly purred to a halt just below him. Rohde let out a startled breath.

Across from him, a tall, rangy man had risen and strode across, peering intently at Rohde's face. "You found the cripple," the man said, presumably to Claude, but without taking his eyes off Rohde's face. "Not much use in that."

"He made it move," Claude rumbled.

The man's mouth became a small line. "Well. If he's one of Bowie's boys, suppose we'll have to keep him safe. Look at whether or not this blows over."

"What blows over?" Rohde hadn't decided to speak, but he was thinking of the purge that had taken place in the last days of King Lars of Thornwood, nearly three hundred years ago. He didn't need to know exactly what was going on to look for a historical connection; castle guards didn't simply murder guests in their beds on a whim.

The man, who had started to walk away, looked over his shoulder. His mouth retracted again. "Look. Sorry for the briefness o' speaking. We got a crisis here, and you're not much use in a fight. You want details covered, talk to someone with time on their hands." He tilted his chin towards the far right corner of room.

Rohde peered that way, though the light was too smoky and dim to make out detail. He wished for a moment that he could see to whom he was being directed, and jolted forward. He gazed down in shock at the whirring, rolling device beneath him. It had responded to his desires! He heard the rumbling of Claude, following right behind him.

The device purred to a distinct halt at another table. An older woman sat at it, her face and hands weathered. Grey streaked through her bright red hair. Her mouth smiled, but no joy touched her eyes. "You must be one of my son's friends."

"Your son's… you mean, Bowie?"

"I'm Kailena," she said. "For as long as you'll be staying with us, don't hesitate to ask for your needs." A little of the remoteness faded from her expression then. She paused, her eyes running across him. "You probably need some kind of treatment for your legs."

"Wait!" Rohde leant forward, clasping her rising wrist. "Thank you for the hospitality. But I need to know what's going on."

"You came from the Castle, didn't you? You must be able to tell us more than we can tell you. Padric over there has only started gathering everyone because we feared…"

Rohde leant forward intently, but as he did so, heard the sounds of shouting in the distance. He turned, and peered in the same direction, into what he realized must be the tunnel leading out of this place. A shrill scream split the air, and there was a sound of steel on steel.

The tall man, Padric he supposed, burst to his feet. "They're finally strikin'! I was right!"

Rohde, without conscious volition, found himself whirring down the passageway at Padric's side, as the other men sprinted after them, some wielding blades. In the background was the telltale rumble of Claude's following momentum.

And with a flash of insight that came so flatly that Rohde never even questioned how he came by it, he knew what they would see as they came out into the city proper. Castle guards, bringing open war to the streets of Granseal.

The air was heavy; smoke tinted with the unmistakable scent of incense and sleeping herbs mingling. Her head swam, but, reassuringly, her limbs still felt certain rather than dizzy. Sarah kicked her legs out from what was, she realized, a heavy woolen blanket. Cold air stole across her thighs.

She frowned striving to put the pieces together. Why was she undressed? She shrugged and started to hop forward only to gasp as a wall of wooziness struck the breath out of her. She tried to fall back onto the sleeping pallet and managed to be panting on the ground, hands and knees. It was freezing in the tent, despite the burning of the fire that was coming clearer to her.

She shook her head, hoping to shake off the cobwebs of incomprehension. She was wearing only a thin cotton shift… Slowly she raised a hand, running it across her skin, searching, probing for the telltale wound… She winced but managed to refrain from a gasp as her fingers pressed the sore spot, between her ribs. Only sore. Proof then that she'd been healed. That she was safe. The pent up sigh was not long in coming.

The desperate run across the plains flashed in front of her eyes. She and Kazin had been desperate. Sarah, more heedless than anything else… That long flat distance, taunting them, challenging them to be faster than Trosk and his killers... That alone had nearly finished them off, but returning to the camp they'd come across a Galamani force of all things, hiding in the rain and the trees. Kazin had done the only thing he could do, hoping that it would be enough against the impressively armored war-party. He'd started a lot of fires.

Sarah could remember fighting all the more desperately knowing that the two of them were cut off from the rest. From Bowie or Jaha or Chester who would have done everything to protect them… two exhausted mages against the entirety of a Galamani army, even from the rear? She swallowed, a reflex against the fear that she now had the luxury of feeling. Battle after battle, running for their lives… And to think that she'd mourned the passing of the war, safely ensconced in Granseal. How vain she'd been!

She tried to rise again and uttered a mild curse at the unsteady sensation in her legs.

"You ought to be abed, Lady Sarah."

Swooping down on her from seemingly nowhere, Frayja's pinched face appeared only a few hairs above her head. His breath was sour… and old. Instinctively she huddled away from him, drawing her arms across her chest. "It was a battle…" she wasn't able to complete the thought, to make it a question. Bowie will need me again. She started to rise off of the pallet.

"You must rest," Frayja declared.

"Please…" Why was it so hard to speak? Her thoughts still scattered the harder she tried to corral them into some useful shape. "I can help."

"Indeed you might be able to," Frayja nodded several times before turning his back and throwing some herbs clenched in his palm into the fire. "You might be able to tell me-"

"Please, Frayja! I can still heal." Her eyes were beginning to distinguish shapes better out of the smoke and shadows floating all across the tent. The older priest's lips pressed together, his arms coming to rest tightly against his sides.

He brought one of those palms up to her cheek, tilting her head back. He stared into her eyes. "You mean it, I suppose." He sighed deeply. "It is very tiresome to have patients who wish to do more than they can. You should know better, if you are a healer."

"Frayja…" She was unable to sound angry. Where had all of her energy, her passion gone?

"Lord Kazin would not wish you to tax your strength."

Kazin… Her head swam with urgent confusion. How could she even look at Kazin anymore after the things she had said? The things he'd done? Kazin was… "He's been here?" she asked, disinterestedly picking up the implication.

"Lord Kazin's concern was deeply touching to see. You have powerful friends, Lady Sarah." Frayja lapsed into a pregnant pause before resuming with the most obvious theatricality, "And yet, speaking of Lord Kazin, I must wonder if he has ever seemed to you—"

"Please," Sarah repeated. It seemed to be the only word that she knew.

Frayja turned away from her, tending the fire in silence for what seemed a long while. The silence gave Sarah time to pull herself back up onto the cot, her head swimming with urgent exertion. She reached a hand out, clenching her arm. Her fingers dug into the flesh for a moment. She needed to gather herself. She needed to stop reacting so impulsively. "Thank you," she said at last, her voice wavering slightly. "How bad was it?"

Frayja did not look back at her. "A knife in your ribs. You had lost a great deal of blood by the time you were brought to my care." He added significantly, "I understand that you have Lord Kazin to thank for insisting upon your immediate retrieval as well."

"He had… I mean, we," she corrected vaguely, "lost the others."

"Perhaps," Frayja conceded, though what he was conceding was lost on Sarah. She frowned, trying to pull her thoughts together enough to focus on his tone. "He feels things too much, I fear." At last the rotund priest turned around, a bowl of steaming broth in his hands. Sarah's nose wrinkled even before he said, "Eat," in what he must have fondly imagined to be his most enticing voice. He pressed the bowl on her. "You must eat. You will not leave this tent otherwise."

"Must I?" Sarah had brewed blood broth often enough to know that it was invaluable to a patient who had actually lost blood, and to know how intolerable a substance it was. Then she picked up on the second thread of his thought. "You mean I can leave?"

Frayja waved a dismissive hand. "You would unless I sedated you. Eat and you'll find your legs again."

With more acceptance than resignation, Sarah grasped the warm ceramic, gritting her teeth against the heat in her palms. She wanted to gulp it all down at once, but she knew that that too would have been foolish. Instead she blew on the surface to cool it. She took her first spoonful, her enthusiasm already fading. Playing for time to avoid the impulse not to space out her mouthfuls she asked, "Can you tell me what happened? What our position is?"

Frayja smiled, shifting his shoulders downward. He'd started to tense, but perhaps that was just Sarah's imagination. "I was not as close to the fighting as you were, so I'm sure you could tell me more of that." He shrugged expansively, aware perhaps of how little information he was giving her. "We do not appear to be badly off, but there too I have not been closely involved. Lord Bowie asked me to look into the front lines of the injured. You and Sir Jaha have been the only major cases." He hesitated, then hurried on as if to forestall her next question, "And Elric. He's gotten himself killed, it would seem."

Sarah paused, diverted from asking after Jaha's health. Frayja's voice revealed… what? Not contempt, precisely, but something close to it. There was a cold expression in his eyes. "Elric," she said, covering the fact that she didn't know what to say. "That's… a great pity."

"Yes," said Frayja and as quickly as that his customary manner was restored. "You should finish that broth. I'll fetch your robes."

"And Jaha?" she called after him.

"Ah." Frayja halted for a moment. "Well. Injured, but nothing that can't be quickly healed. His only misfortune," he called over his shoulder starting to walk again, "is that he seems to have misplaced his axe."

Bowie had wandered through the camp, calling out to the various comrades that he encountered, stopping to speak an encouraging word to one or two as he went on his way. After all, encouraging words were not entirely amiss under the circumstances. They had repelled an ambush force with a bare minimum of losses…

Bowie shook his head, muzzling his rage that it had come to that. That he'd been so useless. No crimes, Galam whispered. His demons walked with him, wherever he went. Parmecia and Grans, Astral and Galam, Zellar and Graig, his mother… All of it jumbled together. He sighed, his pace dropping off to an aimless amble.

He missed Astral more than ever. His old mentor would have known what to make of the situation, would have tempered Bowie's instincts towards rashness with the planning that was necessary. Still. He couldn't pretend that he hadn't made some progress…

It was galvanization that was needed now. The troops… his friends, he fumbled to correct himself, needed something solid they could be proud of. Granseal turned against them… There was the roach in the pudding.

Bowie had already asked much of his friends, of the scant support he'd found amongst the guard. They'd faced Zeon and his devils. They'd fought the ferocity of Galam's full strength. He'd asked them to ride forth again, risk their lives again. Already some of them had given their lives. And now… could he rely on them not to turn against him? Granseal… If only there was some way to resolve that!

But the answer to Granseal, he reasoned now with a cooler head, had to lie in Galam, whether he willed that or no. Galam might wish things otherwise, but Bowie wasn't so certain of that any longer. Would Galam truly have wanted Granseal's best fighting forces in the city if they meant to provoke another war? That wasn't just desperation, it was foolish. But in that case, surely whoever was behind the closing of Granseal would see that too? Surely…

He closed his eyes for a moment and took several deep breaths. The men could not see him looking dispirited. That would be the end. And a plan, of sorts, was beginning to suggest itself to him. "Eric," he called out, recognizing the centaur from a good dozen feet away.

Eric's body pivoted and moments later he came to a full halt in front of Bowie. Bowie blinked. Even after over a year of fighting alongside his friend, Eric was a startlingly impressive specimen for a centaur. "Lord Bowie." The centaur folded his legs, dropping to the closest kneel he could approximate.

Bowie frowned. "That cut, has it been looked after?"

Eric shook his bloodied face. "It's nothing, my lord. A stray lancer. I was careless, but the lancer even more." His eyes remained bright and unblinking.

Bowie signaled for the two of them to keep walking. "You told me when I first met you that you'd been on some sort of quest. Searching for artifacts?"

Eric smiled. "A sword. I've heard that it's been seen in Rune, though and another man now wields it. Or wielded it. Against the devils. That was how I met Rohde, you know.

"Working caravans," Bowie pressed, clenching his fists to steel himself against memory of those friends left in Granseal. "As a bodyguard?"

Eric's lips creased, the good humor sliding off of his face. "I take it that you find my past actions relevant?"

"In better times an honorable position might have been found for you. But as a bodyguard…" He sighed. "I'm considering one or two smaller missions…" He shook his head. "I may be asking some incredible things of you all in the near future."

"You have done incredible things, my lord. We would all be honored to follow your audacity to its fullest extent."

Bowie came to a decision. "Until I ask to see you again, I want you to watch over Sarah for me. I'm worried about her. And can you find Taya?" He grimaced, thinking of the panic the sorceress had displayed in that last battle. It had nearly cost them their lives. "I'll need to speak to her."

Eric angled his head downward, his eyes unusually intense. "And after the war, my lord…"

"Ah," said Bowie. "After the war, Eric..." He paused, wondering about the fallout. Who would be implicated as the traitor in Granseal? Or was it worse and were there traitors? And how long before Rune turned its attention towards them? Was that going to be Eric's request? "After the war," he repeated, "many things should be possible."

Eric held his gaze for several moments longer before nodding his head and kicking his heels against the earth as he sped off.

Bowie watched him gallop away, pondering Galam again. What had it really availed them to seize Astral? They were locked into a conflict with two enemies… but if the Galamani had the support of a traitor within Granseal then there was no need for the elaborate deception they'd planned out. Galam was as isolated into this conflict as Bowie himself was. Isolation… '"You will be alone in doing this,"' he murmured to himself, remembering. '"One more hour, my lord,"' he quoted. Graig.

His shoulders started shaking. Graig. He'd known, he realized, from the very beginning. Bowie barked a gust of laughter, filled with scorn and fury. "He goaded me… he goaded me!" It was so obvious, so clear… How had he ignored it?

But why? Bowie's teeth were clenched so hard that they were beginning to ache. He willed himself to calmness, willed himself to think. The root of the matter was that he was reckless. He'd always had the unfortunate habit of thinking after. When things were too late. When things were already lost… When there are no crimes left. He set his jaw. It had to be Graig. The old man had goaded Bowie, had delayed him, trapping him out in the field. Acting alone? Was Mrell with him? The king?

Bowie did not want to think so, but it was the only possibility that fit. I underestimated him. Graig, he realized now with the benefit of distance, wasn't really as unpredictable as Astral had believed. He was just unprincipled. I challenged his power in his own house and he… Yes, the conclusion was undeniable, but it only made him feel sicker. Graig had responded with alacrity and vigor to what he saw as a threat presumably because it had seemed worth the risk.

"My lord?"

Bowie blinked and found, to his discomfort, tears in his eyes. "I… yes?" he said, steadying his voice away from the telling quaver.

Frayja bowed his head to him solemnly. "You look to be sorely in need of counsel… but the principle that I have come to speak of is godliness. Yet it may serve your purposes just as well."

"Speak sense man!" He regretted the loss of temper as soon as the words fled from his mouth, but he choked off the apology. Granseal betrayed to one dying man's ambitions and all on his own foolishness… Oh, Graig had been clever, very clever. The staged insults, the feints, the carefully scripted giving in…

Frayja's hand descended onto his shoulder. "My lord. A service must be held for Elric. The men will be more at ease. It will allow you to linger here… politically."

Bowie shook off the confusion, sorted through the implications of what little the priest had said that he'd caught. "Your duties?"

"The Lady Sarah is mostly recovered and Sir Jaha is not seriously wounded. Elric requires different ministrations and a show of normalcy may do much to bolster morale."

"Yes… yes." Bowie nodded several times. "See to it, Frayja. See to it and leave me."

The priest hurried off, his lips pressed together. He'd probably had some other favor that he'd wanted to ask, but there was no time for it now. The beginnings of a plan? Well, Bowie had at least that much. A funeral might serve his purposes. And it would limit the number of people coming to him for the moment. The beginnings of a plan indeed. It would simply have to become… more.

Zellar's head was pleasantly muddled from the sex as Dia rolled off of him. He inhaled air deeply, ready for that bracing crispness of cool air to add the final savor to the sensation. He was wont to leave his windows uncovered whenever they lay together so that the freshness of the air might calm him when they were done and also because it amused him to imagine any passersby hearing the sounds of Dia's ecstasy.

Yes, he thought, clamping his hand against Dia's backside and pressing her body hard against him, it was not such a bad life in between a woman's legs. He smiled, shifting position to allow her to slide back on top of him in that all enveloping warmth. Her hips tensed slightly, and then as though catching a kink in her back, she fell forward on him, rather like an avalanche, but considerably more welcome. "Oh," he grunted. It was one of her habitual eroticisms and it never failed to arouse Zellar. He breathed in deeply as she settled into a slower, steadier rhythm and tasted the scent of smoke.

"Stop," he snapped, sitting upright and jerking his torso away from her. She gasped very quietly, a little shuddering sound that was not lost on his ego. "The king will be wanting me, in a few minutes if not now, I imagine." Obedient as ever, she slid off of him though with some slight reluctance. Fumbling for his clothes, Zellar took a moment to look back at her. "Stay like that. We'll finish when I return."

He turned away and stepped briskly out into the halls of Granseal's castle. It amused him to know that Dia would take his instruction to heart; she always did. The folly of wishing to please.

He strode along towards the audience chamber, waiting for the outcry to begin, which he assumed it would any time now. He paused along the way to glance out of one of the windows, appreciating the eminently sensible layout of the castle. Difficult to take in any kind of direct assault and high enough off the ground to have a good view of the city, yet not so isolated as to be easily starved. There were glowing fires. His smile widened and he turned the corner in time to hear the king's first bellows.

"Out of my damn way!"

He jogged the length of the hallway, anticipating the scene that would greet him. It did not disappoint. King Granseal was waving his arms, dressed in a voluminous robe, his face already red, either from the screaming or from drunkenness, or both. It was difficult to tell. Minister Graig stood before him, trying to calm the storm, his own urgency betrayed by the tightness with which he pressed his lips together. Princess Elis stood off to the side, first glancing at the one and then the other, her face pale and expressionless. Zellar paused for a moment to admire how little her sleeping gown left to the imagination. Now there was a comely wench to take into one's bed. He'd have to think on that further. The guards on duty, mostly recent recruits whom Zellar did not know particularly well although he spotted Tark, a man he'd marked down for promotion amongst them, were largely milling rather than maintaining their discipline. He'd have to make a note about that too.

"General! What is the meaning of this?" Graig's voice was shrill with a panic so poorly concealed that he may as well just not have bothered.

"Minister, I want to know what is happening out there!" The king showed no sign of recovering his restraint.

"Your Grace," Zellar said as soothingly as he could, because in truth there was nothing he was absolutely certain of at this point in time. Indeed, though he'd anticipated that something like this might follow from the instructions he'd given Will, the scene he'd discovered was far more volatile, and therefore richer, than he'd dared to dream of. "There appear to be some fires, but I think—"

"Fires, you imbecile?" Graig nearly shrieked at him. "There's a full-scale ri-" He bit the word back, but it was too late.

'Rioting? In my city?!"

The king shoved Graig aside, but the elderly minister managed to latch onto his shoulder. "Please, Your Grace, for your own safety…"

"I am their king!" He bulled forward resolutely and Graig stumbled back, falling hard on the floor. Zellar took two steps forward, well behind King Granseal, but close enough to keep him fully in view as the king strode out onto the open balcony.

Zellar offered a hand down to the fallen minister. Graig clutched, pulling himself upright. His eyes bulged and his thin chest heaved. "General, if I find that you have been responsible for this…"

Zellar glanced at him contemptuously. "Take some responsibility yourself, Minister. I am merely your executor. You wanted to curb the people. Did you ever consider that they might take that badly?"

A bellow vented from the balcony and Zellar's eyes bounced back forward. Even Graig's head turned. There stood King Granseal, waving his arms, pointing a finger, shouting incoherently down into the streets. And then the King stumbled backwards. Zellar jogged forward, shaking Graig's spidery hands off.

He slipped his arm around King Granseal's shoulders; the old man was spitting and cursing, filth mucking his face and the front of his robes. The king awkwardly straightened himself on Zellar's shoulders, falling back inside another several paces.

"My boy," the king sputtered, pulling at his beard. "They… I am their king!"

"Your Grace," Graig sidled forward quickly. "We still don't know exactly what is happening, surely if we wait just a while longer…"

"Traitors! They attacked me!"

Graig swallowed. "If we are overzealous now, then I f-"

"Guards!" Zellar shouted at the top of his voice. The seven guards present, clacked their boots against the floor sharply, and came to attention. Graig gaped at him, his face emptying of blood. Zellar paused a moment longer, staring straight into Graig's eyes. "Escort the princess to her chambers and see that no harm comes to her. Not you, Tark." Zellar turned on his heels to the king. "Your Grace. Permission to disperse the crowds?"

The silence was thunderous for a moment. King Granseal blinked rapidly, still more shaken than anything. Graig was shaking, either from fear or from rage at finding himself eclipsed and outmaneuvered. Tark stood by, watching in the background. Then the king nodded. "Permission granted, General. Do what it takes. Restore order."

Zellar quickly turned aside, signaling to Tark to form up a squad immediately, finally allowing himself a full smile. The order had been given at last… just as he and Will had always known it would.