A bck bird fluttered in through the window of a rented building on the edge of Chrysopolis. Inside, waiting for the arrival of their master, were about a score of Trabakondai street-thieves, talking rowdily amongst themselves in the casual dialects of their kind. The bird nded on the windowsill and observed. By all appearances, they were in high spirits, energized and ready for the appointed meeting; unlike the bird, they were not troubled.

  A few of the faces recognized the bird, not loudly enough to interrupt the general flow of conversation, but enough to turn and begin making jokes about the bird’s refusing to make its presence known. If the bird had lips instead of a beak, it may have smiled affectionately at the familiarity. But as it was, there was only one thing to do.

  The bird swept down from the window, then transformed into a woman. Shirrin stood before her spies in her usual accoutrement, the bck tunic and grey hose, shrouded in a filmy cloak of translucent bck material. She cpped her hands together and said, “I see everyone is present. I have no new orders to give you this week; but instead I ask merely, what tidings come from the city? Tell me everything you know!”

  Frasalu’s people organized themselves a little bit, shedding some of the looseness of a street gang in exchange for the subtlety of a spy network, though none of them had really been trained for it. One by one, they revealed what information they had been able to find, or what they had not been able to find, as the case was for each one. All knowledge, from the movements of the poor gangs to the rumors spread by the rich and powerful once wine and lust had loosened their tongues, was important. Most important, perhaps, was the knowledge that the bckmail scheme against Bellerophon was continuing to work perfectly. The man’s financials had continued to degrade, but the threat itself remained quite effective, and the gold extracted from him had all been hidden away in a certain spot in the city sewers, just as Shirrin had requested.

  And then it came time for Frasalu to speak. She reiterated what had already been said about Bellerophon and the schemes involving him, including her own brief analysis of his character as a craven obsessed with his own pedigree and reputation. Shirrin expected her report to be entirely made up of that which Shirrin already knew, when Frasalu reached the st portion of her report.

  “He also mentioned, briefly, an assassination plot. I presume, based on the tone of the hour, that this is an assassination plot by the Senate against the Emperor.”

  Shirrin’s heart leapt into her throat. “Did he say so explicitly?”

  Frasalu shook her head. “He merely mentioned it offhandedly, assuming we would already know the context. I couldn’t ask any further without breaking our cover. But it being a plot against the Emperor would add up.”

  Indeed. Though it had been almost a century since the st time, in the annals of Macaria’s history there were countless incidents in which the Senate took matters into its own hands. Many an Emperor had fallen under a hail of knife-blows or been strangled in his sleep at the orders of an angry Senate. But this would not do; an assassinated Emperor would only mean that another man would take his pce, and the anger Shirrin had spent so much time allowing to build would dissipate.

  “Are any of you in position to learn more of this?”

  The Trabakondai looked amongst each other. It became obvious by the ck of responses that the answer was negative.

  “If any of you are close, or think you could get into position to learn more surreptitiously, then do so. I may need to take matters into my own hands, and I wish to know as much as possible.” Shirrin looked about the room. “If anybody has any information at least on par with this, speak up now; otherwise, we are dismissed.”

  Shirrin rushed back to the pace that night full of a sudden fear. Peleus’s assassination would be the one thing that stood a substantial chance of nullifying the entire pn. Predicting who would become the new Emperor would be functionally impossible, and without foreknowledge of the man’s predilections and personality, maniputing him into the same position that Peleus was in would be a chariot race in the dark, Shirrin not even knowing if the finish line existed. Peleus had to live.

  Fortunately, if there was one thing Shirrin knew how to do, one skill above all others that she had spent the st twelve years honing to a razor’s edge, it was how to spy. With all other concerns set aside, even sleep reduced to the bare minimum, Shirrin spied as she had never spied before. In the form of flies and gnats she stalked the Senate chambers, listening in on any conversation for even a hint of covert meaning. In the form of ensved scribes she needled individual senators, speaking with coded tongue about matters which she could pretend to understand. The senators, to their credit, kept good security, and acted with intense awareness of the fact that the Emperor kept his own spies within their ranks. Those letters which Shirrin managed to intercept were all written in cipher, the discussions on the floor spoken in inference and implication. A spy possessed only of ordinary human means would have stood no chance of learning anything of value.

  But Shirrin was not possessed of ordinary human means. After a few days of activity, pcing bribes for information and haunting the halls of power, Shirrin had an idea of which men were most involved in the plot. Bellerophon, to little surprise, was not one of them. He obviously knew of the pn, and used his influence over the anti-Peleus party to give it the clearance to act, but he was not involved in the plotting. No doubt he wished to hedge his bets. Instead, Shirrin centered her focus on Senator Temon, a grey-haired fellow with stout shoulders and a hardy will. He was implicated in too many conversations, the recipient of too many letters, not to be involved.

  Shirrin vanished from the world; in her pce, a dozen other forms spent day and night trailing Temon’s every movement. A fly buzzed in his wake as he moved about the Senate chambers. An unassuming sve boy snatched quick meals of roasted snails and meat pastry while trailing behind him as he walked through the market. At night, a tiny crow stole quick bursts of sleep while roosting in his rafters, waiting for him to move.

  It was an exhausting existence. When, two days ter, it finally paid off, Shirrin was near to the brink of her endurance, about ready to call it all off and hope for good luck. It was a day when the Senate was not meeting, a day when the business of politics should have been set aside for family and other affairs. And, indeed, much of the day was set apart for exactly that. Shirrin learned entirely too much about how Temon treated his wife and daughters, things that hardened her resolve to include the Senate in her final destruction of Chrysopolis and all it stood for. But in the ziest part of the afternoon, while his wife led the sves in preparing the evening meal, Temon stole secretly away.

  The tiny crow followed him across Chrysopolis, all the way to the home of another senator, Iphitos. Such visits were, of course, the bread and oil of the wealthy; but this one was clearly not the typical house-visit. Temon did not announce himself at the front door, and was not met by any of Iphitos’s sves; instead he slunk around to the back door, a pce usually reserved for cooks and trash-carriers, and was met by Iphitos himself, watching the street for onlookers.

  There was only one onlooker. But neither Iphitos nor Temon saw the crow, not when they met at the doorway and not when it slipped in through a second-story window. But the crow was too obvious, too noisy for the insides of the house, and so it was not a crow, but a dragonfly which slipped in through a crack in a door and overheard the hushed meeting.

  This was the final preparation, or one of the final ones, before the act itself. The pn was already solidly in pce, going by what the men said to each other in half-whispers, and were it not for the need to push one another past the hedgerow of fear, the meeting would not have taken pce at all. As it was, there was all too little information to be gained. When the crow left that building, it did not know how the assassination would take pce, nor even did it have a full accounting of who would be involved. But it did know perhaps the most crucial thing: when.

  …

  Peleus did not like to think of himself as a paranoiac. Such thoughts were not his. He was a warrior, a hero, a very straightforward kind of man. Respect was rewarded with respect, and disrespect with disdain. Of course, the st winter had sorely tested him, but such was only to be expected; never before had he allowed someone so craven and so venomous as Eteocles into his inner circle. His instinct, as keen as that of a lion, had driven him to the brink of madness while Eteocles was so close.

  But Eteocles was dead now. With him gone, the conspiracy evaporated, leaving only helpless rage in its wake. Certainly, there were rebels, greedy elements in the Senate who wished to see the treasury looted, Trabakondai rabble-rousers starting riots in the hippodrome, and so on. But this was not betrayal, instead being merely another type of war. Sometimes, as was the case with the Senate or against the Church, it was a war of words and symbols. Other times, as with the rioters, it was a far more conventional sort of conflict, the type that could be resolved with bdes and blood. Both theaters of the conflict were wars that Peleus was winning. All was right with the world, and Peleus could walk with his chest out and his head held high.

  Such confidence would be of great use when it came to the first Day of Judgement that year. It was an important part of the Emperor’s power, after all: the right to adjudicate those bureaucratic disputes which the courts had not been able to bring to a satisfactory close could change the fortunes of entire noble cns, ignite or settle lengthy feuds, even save or end a human life. For one day out of every month aside from two months of winter, the Emperor set aside his urels in exchange for a gavel.

  In order that all of the cases could be gone through, the Day of Judgement began as soon as there was even a hint of light. Awoken by their servants and dressed in the dark, Peleus and all of his highest-ranking bureaucrats gathered in the grand throne room of the pace, lit by great bonfires, festooned with tapestries and stinking with holy incense and the blood of sacrificial offerings. The petitioners formed a great line before them, usually in pairs but often in threes or fours, stretching fully across the room and out the back doors. Many had been waiting since the night previous, and all knew that there were substantial odds they would never get to speak a word before the Emperor.

  There was one other early arrival which Peleus thought strange: that being the Witch-Queen. She arrived mere minutes after proceedings began, dark and gangly, and pnted herself like a watching tree in a shadowy corner behind the throne. The Witch-Queen had not made an appearance at the other Days of Judgement which had taken pce during her time of servitude in the pace, and that was suspicious. Peleus had long suspected that she was working fell magic under his nose, attempting to curse him whenever she wasn’t serving him. In order to make sure that wasn’t the case without detracting from his ability to work, Peleus called up three of his bureaucrats during a pause, and gave them all the same order. They were to listen to the Witch-Queen in shifts, informing him at once if they caught a whiff of magic.

  It was good that Peleus had people to which to delegate mental tasks, for those tasks which fell to him alone were already quite taxing. With each case that appeared before him, even as the facts were being read out, there were already so many factors to consider.

  First and foremost was how each potential ruling would benefit him. Would one family or the other be particurly grateful? Was one compinant feeling grievance toward the bureaucracy which could be relieved? Of course, there was also the matter of appearances. To make a ruling which was too btantly motivated by greed alone would harm Peleus’s reputation, providing more fuel to the fire that propelled the Senate in their pathetic rebellion.

  And knowing which rulings would appear unfair, versus which ones could be righteously argued, meant drawing upon his knowledge of the Macarian legal code, that vast web of documents stretching back a thousand years, and doing so without spending too long in thought, or too often having to ask for advice. The Emperor could not afford to look selfish or unjust, but neither could he afford to look stupid or indecisive.

  It was a good thing, in some sense, that no report came of the Witch-Queen performing any kind of witchcraft, for hearing such a report would have shattered Peleus’s focus like Eteocles’s sternum before Bdethorn. As it was, by te morning, Peleus could already feel weariness at the edges of his mind, though there was much more to go.

  The Emperor paused, giving brief thanks to the Golden Lord as the next set of petitioners squabbled momentarily over how they were to introduce themselves. Apparently this was the sort of legal dispute in which the names listed off for the petitioners was part of the question. As the sun rose into the sky and the city came to life, so too did the throne room. It had been half empty when the proceedings started, but now the galleries on either side were well and crowded with various officials. Peleus’s attention naturally fell towards an unusual knot of people on his right, wealthy men passing one another whispers and looks without a sve in sight.

  That was odd. And it only grew odder. One man burst from the knot, rushing into the middle of the throne room. He was older than Peleus, his beard long and streaked with grey, but the strength of youth had not quite left him. The Trabakondai guards surrounding the throne moved, then suddenly rexed.

  “I have a charge to file, but I won’t rely upon the whims of a false Emperor to settle it! I accuse you, Peleus, of being unfit for the position of Emperor, and subverted against Macaria by the Trabakondai witch. The sentence? Death!”

  And from the knot of senators came an echo, a resounding cry of “Death! Death!” Many of them rushed forward, drawing knives from their tunics, while others remained where they stood, watching the proceedings, and others ran from the chamber or fell to their knees in sudden remorse.

  Peleus was not afraid; the six fighting men with spears who stood at his defense would be a match for an entire Senate chamber’s worth of old aristocrats with little knives. But then something happened which was far more unexpected than a mere assassination attempt. The Trabakondai guardsmen had formed a perfect half-circle around the foot of the throne. But two of them turned, whipping their spears around to strike at their own fellows, one of them even managing to impale another before his victim could even react. Suddenly it was not six against many, but two and many against three. Peleus had been betrayed!

  Immediately, he leapt from the throne, reaching for his belt to draw Bdethorn and fight for his life. But, of course, he was unarmed. For the Day of Judgement, the Emperor could not appear in his status as general and soldier, but as a wise adjudicator, which meant his only weapon was a simple tool knife, scarcely better than the men who had come to sy him.

  With the Trabakondai guardsmen distracted fighting amongst each other, the senators advanced, some of them angling to take down the guardsmen from behind, while others spread out to encircle the Peleus. The thought that he could flee never even occurred to him. All around, people fled the throne room, calling for help or yelling for Peleus’s blood. He leveled his knife, swearing silently to himself that the first man to attempt to take his life would die by his hand.

  One senator, braver than the others, lunged forward. Peleus ducked back, then countered, driving his knife under the man’s arm and sending him sprawling. The other senators flinched back, fearful that their fate would be the same, and there was a moment of peace. Neither side could attack without pcing themselves in harm’s way.

  But there was one factor that Peleus had once again neglected. All of a sudden, he found himself fighting not alone, but with a single companion at his side: the Witch-Queen of Trabakond.

  “Rid me of these assassins!” Peleus commanded. “Kill them if you wish, but I am your master, and if you allow me to die your country will burn for it!”

  The Witch-Queen made a strange gesture with her hand, one which caused it to become obscured for only an instant. In that time, she produced a sword. An ordinary steel sword, of the kind carried by thousands of Trabakondai warriors.

  “Is that the best you can do?”

  “For now, yes. Give me a moment to work, my Emperor.”

  One of the senators was not going to give her that moment. “The witch joins her patsy! Come on, we can nce two boils in one!”

  A few of the senators surged forward, rushing in with their knives, ready to surround and overwhelm. There were two standing against the assassins now, but it was still two against twenty or more, odds favorable enough to overcome even a senator’s cowardice. Peleus squared off with his bde, ready to fend them off as best as he could; but even as the first man came within his reach, the Witch-Queen was moving.

  She lunged forward, swinging her sword in great twirling arcs, far faster than the assassins could hope to follow. Peleus was shocked, so much so that he hesitated and was very nearly impaled on an assassin’s bde. He dispatched the man, sshing at his wrist and then finishing him off with a slit throat, then stood back and watched. The Witch-Queen dodged amidst three assassins at once, her robe flowing in the air as she danced amidst them, striking in perfect rhythm with their awkward movements. It only made sense, Peleus realized, that the queen of a barbarian people would not have been able to reach her position without a mastery of the bde.

  Then all three of the assassins the Witch-Queen had faced were dead, making the tally of bodies upon the floor five. The others quailed, suddenly terrified to even consider moving forward. How could they hope to achieve their goals without being cut down? Peleus sneered at them for their cowardice; if even one of them was the same sort of man as he, they would have stood a chance.

  “I think the pill will have taken effect by now,” the Witch-Queen muttered to herself.

  “What pill?” asked Peleus.

  “You shall see,” the Witch-Queen replied, reaching into a pocket of her doublet. “And, my Emperor, a word of advice: do not break your head upon the floor.”

  “What?”

  But it was already too te. The Witch-Queen had taken a handful of powder and cast it onto the floor. Like pollen it burst into a huge cloud of dust. A moment too te, Peleus covered his mouth and tried to hold his breath, but he had already inhaled some of the cloying substance. All he could see before him was a white cloud, white like milk in the air. He moved forward, moving to take advantage and sy more of his assassins, but even to take one step forward was too much. His body was as weak as dried sticks.

  Peleus understood the Witch-Queen’s advice about breaking his head. He dropped to a crouch, then tried to fall to his knees, but his body was already numb. Finally, Peleus colpsed and lost consciousness.

  The Emperor awoke, still groggy and drugged, exactly where he had fallen. By the tone of the sunlight coming in through the doors of the throne room, it had not been long at all, though it might have been as much as an hour. The chamber stank of blood, a fact which he at first attributed to the battle. Then he sat up and saw it.

  There was a pyramid of severed heads sitting before him amidst a pool of blood. He recognized the owners of the heads immediately: they were the senators who had attempted to assassinate him, as well as the two guardsmen who had turned traitor. The question of who had made such an awful thing came to mind, but was quickly answered.

  “Forgive me for the macabre sensibility,” said the Witch-Queen, circling around her handiwork. The sword she’d conjured was still in her hand, soaking in blood. “A decent symbol of what happens to those who oppose you, don’t you agree?”

  “You drugged me,” Peleus slurred.

  “I could not very well drug each of the assassins, and only them, individually. And convincing you to swallow the antidote? Unlikely.”

  Peleus tried to stand, but an overwhelming lightheadedness forced him back to the ground. “How long was I unconscious for?”

  “Long enough for all of this. So, long enough for nearly anything.” The Witch-Queen finally tore her eyes away from the pyramid, smiling gleefully down at her master. “But don’t worry. I am nothing if not loyal to you, my Emperor.”

  SaffronDragon