《A Beacon for Mankind》


 1 - Jack

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Jack


    Let me tell you about the good days and the war. I grew up in the town of Sunmount, tutored at first by my mother. When I got too rowdy for her, I moved on to state school, which was doing the strange new reform-era thing of educating boys and girls side-by-side. I liked the girls, and the girls liked me. When I got too rowdy for state school, they sent me back home, and I only just barely managed to collect a good-standing diploma on my way out the door.


    Somewhere along the way, we had gone from comfortable to rich. My father was in engines at the time, engines for automobiles, and as years ticked by the demand screamed and screamed until the automobile business felt like a money typhoon. In a typhoon, no one cares if you''re working or not, and so at home I remained in our small town manor screwing around from eighteen to twenty-three years of age.


    This was the season I was living, barleywine and songmaids, on New Year¡¯s Eve of ¡®36 in my mountain hometown. It had only just begun to show the cracks of boredom and malaise. By eleven at night I was piss drunk, shirted and tied in the Western way. The hearth of the local tavern had warmed its cherry wood beams, and I was availing myself of the comfort with a face pressed slack against the grain. Despite how I might have appeared, drink in hand, I was mostly lucid.


    Two toddling kids ran in from the cold and I almost knew their names. Sunmount was the kind of town where you almost knew everyone, which is very different from knowing almost everyone. It wasn''t unusual to see kids in taverns in small towns at that time. Paxana before the war cast every field as the collective backyard, every river as the collective washroom, every public house with a fire as the collective family den. It was an island of accord, at ease through strict discipline, united under the luminous hand of our beloved emperor.


    Tom and Violet were laughing. I had rented us a room, a little box with mats and pillows and a low table just off the tavern¡¯s inner hallway. There were a handful of these rooms, with woven walls so thin between them that you could hear every titter and thump from the fellow in the next one. The idea was you¡¯d sit on the floor and drink and a songmaid would come to tell you jokes or sing old songs or do a little more if you were bathed and tipped her right. Tom and Violet didn''t need a songmaid, though, on New Year¡¯s or ever. They were in love. They had been in love as long as I had known them, through five years of state school, in love from first sight before they¡¯d even worked up the nerve to talk face-to-face.


    Violet was an orphan, her parents having died in a fire when she was eleven. I always thought that was just about the worst age for it. She was old enough to know them, really know them, and yet never get any good time together like a daughter should. I never told that to her face, of course. She¡¯d had a hard enough time without boor Jack Clearwater Jr. rubbing her nose in her sorrows. Still, I was glad she had Tom. I think we all were.


    I¡¯d paid a hefty stack for a tavern room on New Year¡¯s, and I was glad to see them enjoying it. They never seemed to do anything more than gaze into each other''s eyes and share little secrets. We were all provincials, the four of us, although you wouldn''t know it now. There was an innocence to us all that came with the fresh, chilled air of an artisan town.


    Our fourth was Murdoch Boll, and he was late. I heard the front door open with another chilly gust, and I thought it might be our man, but instead a pack of khaki-uniformed enlistedmen careened inside. The Army at that time grew larger every time you blinked. None of these fellows were above corporal, or sober, or older than me. They were laughing to themselves and singing a bawdy marching song as they advanced on the bar.


    I turned back to the tea room I¡¯d bought and was not in. Above the low table, a framed painting hung proud and centered. It was a family honorary, common in our parts, commissioned to mark the deeds of some ancestor in days of old. The man in the painting was small and ferocious, his muscle all sinewed with purpose. He wore the late-medieval armor of a lightsman knight, furious as he charged with a two-handed sword through the southern woods. His chest bore the seal of the State of Centon, our home, before it was a Paxanan prefecture. I did not recognize the family crest below.


    Beneath the painting Tom and Violet were now kissing. Even their kisses seemed innocent, so pure with that love that can only begin in adolescence. I could never kiss that way if I tried. Violet had always been exceptionally pale, with that coal-black hair people often told her evoked the Cat Witch of old. The temple priests had raised her through her teens, and from the start they had raised her demure. I never saw her in those days wearing anything less than a proper women¡¯s gownrobe and pinned hair.


    Tom, for his part, was tan and tall and handsome. That''s one of the reasons I liked him as a pal, ¡®cause he never got sore at all about my own good looks like some of the other state boys did. I¡¯m not trying to boast, I¡¯m just being honest. We were a good looking crew, me and Tom and Violet and Murdoch who had still not arrived.


    A squat, sturdy songmaid came bounding past with her gownrobe half-open and her bosom spilling out with a heavy, rhythmic bounce. A bearded young Army man was chasing after her, and they both were just near cackling with laughter. I felt a little rush of excitement in my chest as I watched the two funny-looking people disappear around a darkened tavern corner.


    That¡¯s about when the bastard private grabbed me. He was tall, well-fed for a lowborn peasantson. He thought the calendula pin on his khakis made him big as the emperor himself. ¡°Hey peeper, how¡¯s the peeping?¡± the drunk private asked, rudely spinning me around to break my view of the rented tea room.


    ¡°Those are my friends,¡± I told him, slurred a little.


    His eyes moved on to the next contention. Two of his buddies came up on each side, cornering me right near that cherry wood beam in the warmth of the fire. The two Army lackeys kept me firmly in place while the tall private grabbed at my tie.


    ¡°Watercourse,¡± he said, recognizing the embroidered mark of the fashion house. I hoped very much he would prick himself on the silver tie pin. ¡°Rich boy.¡±


    ¡°Buy us a round, rich boy!¡± the more hickish of the two lackeys shouted. His spit hit my face and I couldn''t hide my sneer.


    ¡°Why should I?¡±


    I batted the hands of the tall one away, and he drew closer. ¡°No matter how rich your father gets, you¡¯ll still be lowborn like us.¡±


    ¡°Lowborn, yes. Like you, no.¡± Sunmount was an artisan town, as I said, a tradesman town, and we relished every opportunity to stress that we were not and had never been peasant farmers.


    At my remark, the third private made move to ransack my pockets. ¡°Watch it, crook,¡± I snapped, thinning on patience.


    ¡°Hey!¡± The tall one bopped my chin from below with the fatty base of his thumb. ¡°You are talking to a hand of the Calendula Throne.¡±


    He pointed to his pin, as if I¡¯d not already seen it, as if his recent enlistment would confer any weight to his drunken words. ¡°Go chase a songmaid,¡± I said with a roll of my eyes, and in the next moment found the other two fools doing their best to force me into martial salute.


    ¡°Industry serves the state,¡± one shouted. A hiccup and a burp followed. ¡°Industry salutes the state!¡±


    I shoved the fool off, and he looked about ready to deck me. Then a young man like a wolverine hurled him backward. The private skidded on his bootheels, not falling, and managed to avoid landing ass-first in the burning hearth. ¡°Leave him be,¡± said Murdoch Boll, and I was very glad to see that our fourth had come.


    ¡°What are you going to do, Wyld man, eat me?¡± the lead private asked scowling Murdoch. He was too intimidated by the tough man¡¯s pugilist posture to dive into blows.


    Murdoch drew a wallet from his trouser pocket and flipped it open to reveal the gold badge within. A marigold and lighthouse stood surrounded by the words, ¡®Integrity Office.¡¯


    The privates jolted to salute the officer two years my senior. ¡°Carry on, happy New Year,¡± said Murdoch, and as much as I wanted to see him dress them down he simply waved the young bumpkins over to the bar.


    ¡°Happy New Year, Captain,¡± said the obsequious three.


    Murdoch and I sized each other up. He looked tougher, more dignified, more stately than the last time we¡¯d met. He was not a young state school graduate now but a man. ¡°I was starting to think they had cancelled your leave,¡± I told him, and met him in a handshake that became embrace.


    ¡°I can take it when I need it, so long as I barely ever need it,¡± Murdoch smiled. ¡°Good to see you, Jack.¡±


    I looked over at the tea room once again. ¡°Hey, Tom! Violet!¡± I called. ¡°Murdoch¡¯s back!¡±


    We met them as they rose in the small, warm room with the low table and no chairs. Tom and Violet hugged Murdoch in turn, and Violet kissed his cheek. It was, in the best way, like the state school lunchroom all over again. Clasping Violet¡¯s hand, Murdoch made some quiet comment about the shade of purple of her gownrobe being a good match for her eyes. I certainly hadn¡¯t noticed, myself. As much of a snappy dresser as I endeavored to be, I didn¡¯t know the first thing about hues and undertones.


    As the pleasantries cooled into ease, we all sat down, either leaning on our sides like noblemen or crossing our legs to circle the little black table.


    ¡°How¡¯s Paxlight?¡± Tom asked of Murdoch.


    ¡°Crowded,¡± said Murdoch. ¡°You can¡¯t get an inch to stand on the streetcar running board.¡±


    Violet, across from me, caught my eye and gave me a smile. ¡°Sounds like your dad needs to sell them more streetcars,¡± she said, referencing Paxcorp¡¯s recent expansion into the public transit sector.


    Murdoch slapped his knee. ¡°I missed you all like hell, I¡¯ll say that. You and the Sunmount food.¡±


    Just as he said it, a barmaid passed, and I flagged her with a raise of two fingers. She was about my age, maybe a year younger, and she was one of the ones I hadn¡¯t seen around too many times before. The matron of the tavern had brought in some extra girls from the next town over for the New Year¡¯s rush.


    The barmaid stopped, a tray of empty glasses in her hands. ¡°Say,¡± I said, ¡°could we get two skewer plates and a bottle of, oh, something good? What do you want, Murdoch? Barleywine? It¡¯s all on me.¡±


    I didn¡¯t need too much of an excuse to spend the Clearwater family money, and Murdoch¡¯s return home was certainly a worthwhile occasion.


    ¡°Grandhill Reserve,¡± the captain said, ¡°if you¡¯re buying.¡± He winked as he said it. He knew Grandhill was a favorite of mine as well.


    I turned back to the barmaid and nodded to confirm the order. I held up four fingers and said, ¡°Four glasses.¡±


    The barmaid looked a little cross. ¡°You¡¯re going to need to pay more for two more in the tea room if you¡¯re all staying in here,¡± she said. ¡°We only have you down for two.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fine,¡± I said. ¡°It should have been four in the first place. Put it under Jack Clearwater Senior. Senior, that part¡¯s important.¡± The last thing I wanted was to have them accidentally bill me in place of my father.


    ¡°Is he here?¡± she asked.


    I pointed to the ceiling. ¡°He¡¯s in the Lordsuite room upstairs.¡± Then I really took a good look at that little barmaid, and a flash of one of my bad ideas came to my head. ¡°Hey, you want to join us? We could make it five.¡±


    The barmaid looked offended that I¡¯d even asked. ¡°I¡¯m not a songmaid,¡± she said. ¡°You¡¯ll need to talk to the barmatron if you want entertainment.¡±


    I rolled my eyes, teasing her. ¡°Oh, come on, not like that. What kind of cad do you take me for?¡±


    Murdoch butted in, ever calm. ¡°Let her do her job, Jack.¡±


    I put up my hands and smiled broadly. ¡°You¡¯re a million bucks.¡±


    The barmaid left, carrying the empty glasses. I looked over at Tom and saw he had his arm around Violet¡¯s shoulder. ¡°So what have I missed?¡± Murdoch asked, adjusting himself to get comfortable on that narrow, planked floor. ¡°Aside from the three of you graduating.¡±


    ¡°You know, Tom didn¡¯t technically graduate,¡± I said. I always liked to mention this as a point of pride, since Tom was a much better, smarter student than me, and somehow I had managed to graduate, and Tom Trussford hadn¡¯t.


    ¡°That¡¯s true,¡± said Tom, ¡°because I¡¯m doing an expedited non-degree transfer to the Army Engineering Labs in Paxlight.¡±


    ¡°Tom Trussford joining up?¡± Murdoch asked with surprise.


    ¡°Not joining up,¡± said Tom. ¡°Civilian engineering for Army research. All the good jobs for young engineers are in military tech these days. It¡¯s the only way you really get to build something, not just be a clerk until you¡¯re thirty. All the private sector bastards want Westerners or senior staff for their design teams. No offense to the old man, Jack.¡±


    ¡°Murdoch, you should have seen me trying to twist Tom¡¯s arm into leaning on my dad for a spot at Paxcorp,¡± I added. ¡°He¡¯s too proud to beg. What can I say?¡±


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    Tom shrugged with modesty. ¡°I just want to make my own way for a bit, you know? Do more than automotive.¡±


    Violet took a drink from her ceramic cup. ¡°Murdoch, this means you and Tom are going to be living in the same city again. Isn¡¯t that exciting?¡±


    ¡°Maybe on paper,¡± said the bearded Wylder. ¡°I¡¯m almost never in Pax, though. Integrity Office covers the whole Paxanan Order. Territories, Dawncastle¡­¡±


    A thought struck me and I had to share it. It was too exciting to keep to myself a second longer. ¡°Hey, Murdoch, you know who is thinking of joining up?¡±


    Tom took his arm off Violet, and I could see that he was stewing a little. The subject had touched a nerve.


    ¡°Not you, Jack. Surely,¡± said Murdoch, with a sound of incredulity.


    With my eyes, I indicated Violet herself. Murdoch¡¯s incredulity only grew. ¡°No. Violet? Really? Nursing Volunteers?¡±


    ¡°National Sorceress Corps,¡± said Violet.


    Tom let out an audible sigh. He wasn¡¯t the kind to get cross too easily, but when he did, he could really simmer in it. ¡°I didn¡¯t want to get into this tonight.¡±


    A bit of a stilted moment followed this, wherein we all wondered whether to press on regardless of Tom¡¯s obvious disdain. The return of the barmaid with the liquor and the barbecue broke the silent moment. We sat as she poured, and Murdoch and I both greedily dug into the food as soon as it was within our reach. The lovebirds followed shortly after.


    ¡°By the way,¡± said the barmaid, who had no sense of charm, ¡°the matron says you need to pay cash before you leave, because the bill for the Lordsuite room was all prepaid.¡±


    ¡°Ah, shit,¡± I said. I hadn¡¯t thought that far. It wouldn¡¯t be as easy to sneak things onto my father¡¯s tab if he had paid and closed it up in advance. ¡°All right, well, this is for you in the meantime.¡± In my drunken state, I handed her a wad of gildnotes from my pocket, just to get her off my back, to feel the brush of her finger against mine.


    ¡°Thank you, sir,¡± she said with a bow, and departed.


    I took up my own cup, which Murdoch had filled with liquor, and raised a toast. The others followed. ¡°To friendship. Forever.¡±


    ¡°Forever,¡± the other three echoed.


    Then we all tossed back the liquor. Its pungent strength seemed to break the spell of sourness on Tom¡¯s face, replacing it with an astonished cough. ¡°Holy hell, Murdoch,¡± he said. ¡°That tastes like gasoline.¡±


    I already felt flash-drunk just from the fumes. I grabbed Tom¡¯s ear, grinning, as I watched his face flush. ¡°Happy New Year, buddy,¡± I beamed.


    Just as I said it, there was a terrific thud right behind me, through the wicker wall of the tea room I was sitting against. I damn near felt someone¡¯s head and shoulders knock against mine¡ªthat¡¯s how flimsy the divider was. Accompanying the bump, I heard the high sound of a woman¡¯s moan of pleasure.


    Proximity to such debauchery, reveling in its ambience while enjoying a bottle of liquor, was one of the many reasons I preferred the intimacy of a tea room to the chaos of the main tavern hall. Pointing a thumb to the wall behind me, I cracked a joke at Tom and Violet¡¯s expense. ¡°That would be you two right now if me and Murdoch hadn¡¯t stormed the gates of the tea room and broken up your little moment.¡±


    It was not true, of course. They hadn¡¯t considered anything so lewd, not before marriage, as far as we knew. I think I had a good enough sense of Tom to see it in his eyes if he was keeping such adventures from the group.


    There was another thud and another moan. I think it was the man¡¯s that time, though I¡¯m not sure. I would have found it a laugh, except that my expensive cup of Grand Hill Reserve almost spilled across my lap. ¡°Hey, if I waste my drink ¡¯cause of you, you better name that kid after me,¡± I shouted over my shoulder.


    ¡°I think it¡¯s a songmaid,¡± said Murdoch, smirking. ¡°You¡¯re not getting any godchildren out of that one.¡±


    ¡°All the more reason for Tom and Violet to get to work,¡± I cracked.


    ¡°You know that we both want to do things right,¡± said Violet. She tolerated the occasional off-color remark from me or from Murdoch, though she never herself participated. It was that priestly disposition that made her take it all with calm.


    ¡°Do things right what? Wait for marriage?¡± I said, ¡°Shit, let¡¯s marry you right now. Murdoch, how far do you think we need to go to find a priest?¡±


    I expected him to join in with me in the silliness, but he did not. ¡°Jack,¡± said Murdoch, ¡°you¡¯re being an ass.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m being a supportive friend. I¡¯m trying to encourage fruitful union of men and women for the glory of Luminous Paxana.¡±


    ¡°My parents,¡± Tom started, trepidatious and unsmiling.


    ¡°They¡¯ll cut him off if he marries a common-born orphan,¡± Violet finished for him.


    ¡°Oh,¡± I said. I¡¯d heard inklings, rumors of some kind of tension, but I hadn¡¯t known it was so serious. ¡°Oh man, what a joke. Violet, you¡¯re not, I mean, it wasn¡¯t your fault what happened. You¡¯re as good as they come. Your parents were good stock. I mean, hell, them and my folks all went to the same¡ª¡±


    ¡°Still not lightsmen,¡± Murdoch interrupted, and it was true. Murdoch was a Wylder, and their people had their own system of clan honorifics to contend with. Violet and I were both run-of-the-mill artisan lowborn Paxanans. Tom, on the other hand, was a descendant of the lightsman knights. His blood carried a certain honor that could easily be diluted with the wrong marital pairing. Still, it pissed me off to think of his meddling parents driving a wedge through something that had proven itself ever so real through five years in school.


    ¡°So what, Tom?¡± I said. ¡°You¡¯re just going to let your parents push you around?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± said Tom. ¡°I¡¯m going to make my own way. Two years at the Army Labs and I can get an engineering staff job, assuming I don¡¯t screw it up. Those pay way more than I¡¯d get from your dad at Paxcorp. Enough to get a house in Paxlight, some servants, start a family. Like Vi said, do things right, even without my own folks chipping in.¡±


    I swallowed. Two years was a long time. Two years in the National Sorceress Corps sounded even longer, and I hated to think of Violet and Tom apart. ¡°Violet,¡± I began, perhaps overly generous on behalf of my father in the depths of my drink, ¡°I bet my folks would give you a place on their house staff for the two years. That way you wouldn¡¯t have to enlist.¡±


    As I said it, I saw a certain seriousness in her eyes, and I wondered if I might have accidentally offended her by asking her in effect to be my servant.


    ¡°I want to make my own way, too,¡± she said. ¡°The nursing term is four long years, but the sorceress term is only two for apprentices. That¡¯s one of the reasons I¡¯m doing it. And I think I¡¯d be good at it. Shrineborne, our family, we¡¯ve always been connected to Pax ritual. I¡¯d go crazy just waiting around for Tom.¡±


    The grumpy barmaid came around again, interrupting her. ¡°The matron says to pay soon so she can close up the books for the tea rooms.¡±


    ¡°All right, all right,¡± I snapped at her. Having been invested in Violet¡¯s explanation, ¡°All right, jeez, just give me a second.¡±


    As I said it, a roaring chant swelled from the hall outside. ¡°Ten, nine, eight.¡± The patrons were counting.


    As I heard the numbers go down, I realized what was upon us, and I rushed to pour another round for my friends.


    ¡°Quick, quick, quick,¡± said Murdoch. Equally pressed with the urgency of the situation, he helped me distribute the cups as I set down the bottle.


    ¡°Five, four, three,¡± the yelling grew louder outside.


    We raised up four ceramic cups filled right to the brim with Grandhill, toasting again and only spilling slightly as we did so. ¡°Happy New Year!¡± the four of us shouted, putting all our troubles aside for that moment of rebirth.


    ¡°To the nation and the emperor,¡± said Murdoch.


    We all downed the liquor, throwing our heads back. I slammed my cup on the table. ¡°The nation and the emperor,¡± I said to Murdoch, unused to hearing him speak thus. ¡°Did they drill that into you in officer school?¡±


    As I asked him, Violet and Tom shared another kiss, gasoline liquor on their breath. Then Vi looked over at me and Murdoch. In an act of feminine mercy, she gave us two bachelors each a kiss on the cheek to ring in the New Year.


    ¡°Murdoch, we really need to find you a girl,¡± said Tom.


    ¡°I¡¯m all right,¡± said Murdoch, unreadable.


    ¡°And Jack,¡± Violet added, ¡°we really need to find you a girl who lasts more than thirty minutes.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the good in that?¡± I laughed. Then I slumped back, almost felled by the totality of the liquor in my veins. I was vaguely aware of the other three doing the same, with heads and shoulders falling onto pillows of the tea room floor. Silence washed in like a tide as we stared at the ceiling and heard the thumps of the antics nearby.


    ¡°Really, Jack,¡± said Tom, barely audible in his mumble. ¡°What are you going to do with your life?¡±


    ¡°Tom, that¡¯s personal,¡± said Violet, quietly chiding him.


    ¡°He got plenty personal with us,¡± Tom retorted.


    I didn¡¯t answer, and somewhere to my right I heard Murdoch giggle at a memory. ¡°I still remember ten-year-old Jack coming up to me on the schoolpath bridge, saying, ¡®Hey, you look tough. You should stick with me because I¡¯m going to be a great man someday.¡¯ And here we are, a year out of school. Or more. What now?¡±


    I heard the way he said it, not mean, just honest. He had a point. ¡°What now?¡± I said back, considering the two words together. Pushing myself back to sitting, I groaned and gathered my resolve. ¡°Now, I¡¯m going to go pay the check for your broke ass, mason-son.¡±


    Passing revelers, I wandered down the dim tavern hallway until the festivities were behind me. I was close to the stairs, which rose proud and sturdy in an arc going up to the second floor of the structure. Just to my left was the last of the tea rooms. Its sliding panel door was shut, and there was a strip of light shining through the crack from within.


    I paused, swaying, barely present in the world in my liquor delirium. I put my eye near the lighted gap in the doorframe, peering through and, slowly, saw the third of the drunken privates spending his hard-earned enlistment bonus within. He sat against the corner, khaki trousers at his ankles. A black-haired songmaid with ornate hair and an open gownrobe knelt at his knees, her head below his navel.


    The private stared ahead in a daze, glass of beer in hand. Then he saw me and smiled. ¡°Hey, it¡¯s the peeper,¡± he said, amused. ¡°I guess he really is a peeper after all.¡±


    The songmaid raised her head and looked at me. I thought she might have been one I had been with before, though at the present moment I couldn¡¯t quite remember. ¡°I¡¯ll be free in twenty minutes, peeper,¡± she said with a smile.


    In a trance state, I wandered on, not answering. I climbed the wooden stairs, at two times using my hands for balance, and ascended to a dignified landing outside an ornate private room.


    This door was more than ajar. It was mostly open, and inside a whole oval of business magnates was seated around a large wooden table. They were all tuxedoed for the occasion, all male and all middle-aged. This, a plaque beside me announced, was the Lordsuite Room.


    I saw my father near the head of the table, listening intently. The discussion was between two men I knew vaguely as Lowell Rockran of Threewell Group and Ferris Bandy of Tri-Gem Industries. Both were heavy machinery corporations, consortia that could have been construed as rivals to my father¡¯s own employer, Paxcorp. At holiday times, however, they all got together and acted more like friends than enemies.


    ¡°What do you think, Jack?¡± said Rockran, asking for my father¡¯s input. ¡°Would a war be good for business?¡±


    I saw my father taking on a diplomatic tone, the kind he used when he wanted to disagree with my mother without starting quarrel. Even with the slight sagginess of his current face, I recognized him at once as the dashing and vital man who had raised me in my childhood. ¡°The light of the Emperor¡¯s dominion over rich land is good for business. War is but one tool in the statecraftsman¡¯s kit to achieve this.¡±


    ¡°Then what would you have Paxana do, Jack?¡± asked Clarence Shorston, a government man I only loosely knew was from Cabinet.


    ¡°Uplift the rest of the people of the Sunberth,¡± said my father, referring to the whole of the East with its old folk name. ¡°Get them to stand with the emperor, know their strength. There are one hundred and fifty million people in the Sunberth Midlands, double our numbers at least. A whole continent just off our west shore, right across the street, wasted in squalor. Imagine tripling our strength, our population, with a union like that.¡±


    ¡°All peasants,¡± said Ferris Bandy.


    ¡°As we were just fifty years ago,¡± my father retorted. ¡°Under the illumination of our emperor now, we could uplift them in only five.¡±


    ¡°And what if they resist us?¡± asked Shorston. ¡°What if they don¡¯t want union against the West?¡±


    A pause dragged on. I started to fear that the barmaid on the first floor was harassing my friends for the money I owed her. ¡°If they resist us,¡± said my father, ¡°then you can make use of your Army Corps, Mr. Deputy Secretary, and these industry men will finally have their war.¡±


    At this, we locked eyes through the open door, and my father swallowed. ¡°Excuse me, gentlemen,¡± he said, and slipped out of the Lordsuite Room to meet me in the dim hall.


    ¡°I trust it¡¯s urgent,¡± he said, a hand on my shoulder.


    I was surprised by how slurred and hoarse my voice came out as I replied. ¡°I need money for the matron.¡±


    At this, he began fishing for his wallet in the inside of his tuxedo lining pocket. ¡°How much?¡±


    ¡°Two hundred notes should do.¡±


    He paused when he heard the amount. ¡°Did you get songmaids?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± I said. ¡°Just food and a bottle.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s too much for a well bottle. Don¡¯t let her take advantage of our station, son.¡±


    ¡°It was a Grandhill Reserve,¡± I explained. ¡°I let Murdoch pick. He¡¯s back from Paxlight.¡±


    ¡°The Wylder boy, Murdoch Boll?¡± asked my father.


    ¡°Yes. He¡¯s a captain in the Integrity Office now.¡±


    At this, my father looked pleased. I was so relieved to see him pleased and not furious. With a touch of residual sternness, he handed me the banknotes I needed, plus a little more for a tip for the surly barmaid. ¡°Good for him. Was that all, son?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± I said, a little shaky at what I was about to say.


    ¡°No?¡±


    ¡°I changed my mind, Father. About the Deputy Secretary. What you said to me before. I¡¯d like him to try and get me a posting in Paxlight after all.¡±


    I felt my father sizing me up. I felt him trying to figure out if I was serious or just in the throes of another revelrous whim. ¡°You¡¯re drunk?¡± he asked.


    ¡°I mean it,¡± I said back.


    He sighed and took a step back, glancing at the men in the room to see if he was needed.n¡°With your scores, you won¡¯t do better than assistant to a secretarial assistant.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a fine place to start,¡± I told him. ¡°You can tell the Deputy Secretary I¡¯m committed. I won¡¯t embarrass him.¡±


    ¡°What brought this about, Junior?¡± my father asked. He had been trying to get me to do this for months, and up until that night, I had had none of it.


    I bit my lip, glancing down the stairs, and spoke with honesty. ¡°It was Tom. He reminded me who I¡¯m supposed to be. This is our time. Our nation¡¯s time. I want to be a part of it and actually make something of myself. I don¡¯t just want to sit around town another year.¡±


    I saw him taking this in, and he patted my shoulder again. ¡°That¡¯s good, son. That¡¯s good. Honor these words with follow-through when you wake up tomorrow afternoon. And show me you¡¯re serious. Happy New Year. You¡¯re right¡ªthis is our time. Make me proud.¡±

 2 - Tom

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Tom


    I had insisted on accompanying Violet on the Searoad Line train from Sunmount up to the place where she would meet the convent girls. She initially told me that one of the temple priests would do it, to not put me out in the little time I had left to spend with my parents before I set off for the Army Engineering Labs. I insisted, though, and explained I could head straight back from dropping her off to my new job and new accommodations. I insisted for the sake of getting the time with her alone.


    It was hard to find time alone with Violet, not because of her constraints, but because my family in Sunmount was quite demanding of my time whenever I appeared in Sunmount. Normally I might have been flattered by the attention, but at the start of ¡®36, I had only Violet Shrineborne on my mind.


    We sat side-by-side in a plain wooden compartment in a second class car on the Sea Road Line, heading north. It was a steam engine, I remember. I remember the smoke billowing above us, the scent just faintly coming in through the open window. I remember staring out the window with her beside me, watching the countryside pass.


    She wore a formal gownrobe for travel, and I wore a suit. Rail travel was rare for us then. It was an occasion, something to be celebrated and treated with respect. The very sight of a train always thrilled me before the war.


    Violet was quiet, pensive, with her hands placed on her lap, one over the other. I didn¡¯t always know what to say to her when she was quiet, whether or not to break her spell of concentration with some idle remark. When the countryside view grew monotonous to me, I returned to scratching arithmetic in my notebook and plotting out itineraries.


    We were almost alone in the car. I say almost because, opposite the two of us, an old man snored with a cane in his hand and a newspaper on his lap. He¡¯d been asleep when we boarded, and the jolts of the line did not seem capable of waking him.


    ¡°Wow,¡± I said, without realizing I was speaking aloud. It was a figure in my own arithmetic that had spurred the remark.


    ¡°What?¡± said Violet beside me.


    I set my pen down in the crook of the journal and looked up at her. ¡°This would have taken us fifteen hours just ten years ago. Now we can make it in eleven.¡±


    ¡°They made a faster train?¡± she asked.


    ¡°Not just that,¡± I said. I felt the ramble of locomotive passion warming up within me. ¡°I mean, the PNR C51 does have a slightly better mainline speed than the C50 class. But a lot of this route has been upgraded to double track, so we don¡¯t have to wait for trains coming south to pass through. We can just go straight up, almost nonstop.¡±


    Violet always listened when I talked, even when the talk was about machinery. She was patient that way. She was kind. She opened her mouth, about to ask a clarifying question, when I caught sight of a somewhat miraculous machine charging down a nearby line across the meadow.


    ¡°Look at that,¡± I said, pointing to the train and its cars. ¡°That¡¯s a TM 3.¡±


    ¡°The funny box?¡± Violet asked, following my pointing out the window.


    ¡°You see how it¡¯s moving with no steam engine? It pulls power right from the cables on top, the things that look like telegraph lines. No smoke, no nothing.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve seen those in Grandhill,¡± said Violet.


    ¡°You probably saw the TM 2. Very similar, but there¡¯s one big difference. The TM 2s we bought from the Almenreich. The TM 3s we made right here in Paxana with our own hands.¡±


    Violet laughed at me. I wasn¡¯t expecting her to laugh. I looked over at her, letting the TM 3 disappear, and saw her smiling broadly. Her face was a woman¡¯s face now, a miraculous face, and I could have pulled it out of a crowd of ten thousand in an instant. It was the first and last face I thought about any given day.


    ¡°I love you,¡± she said.


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°Because you love trains, and you love our country, and you love me.¡±


    I never understood why she found my love of trains so charming¡ªjust as she probably never understood my love of trains.


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    ¡°I do love all those things,¡± I said.


    ¡°Equally?¡± she asked me.


    After a moment of trepidation, I saw she was only teasing. Smiling back at her, I gave her a kiss. ¡°Don¡¯t make me choose.¡±


    At my teasing back, she smacked me lightly on the chest. ¡°I¡¯m kidding, I¡¯m kidding,¡± I laughed.


    I tried to kiss her again, but saw the hesitation in her eyes and stopped short.


    ¡°We¡¯re going to get in trouble if they see we¡¯re not chaperoned,¡± she said.


    As many times as I tried to tell her Paxana was changing, she still felt beholden to the old ways. A young man and woman in love, unwed, were not generally allowed to cavort alone through the countryside.


    I looked over at the snoring man, who had slumped to the side. ¡°I don¡¯t think anyone cares,¡± I whispered, and pecked her cheek.


    The way the train lines and stations were laid out, we arrived at the Paxlight City headquarters of the Army Engineering Laboratories late in the afternoon. Her own destination, the convent, was far across the city and almost to Archcove. I walked with Violet through the laboratory gardens, which were public, and carried our things. On the street, I noticed many a young couple walking together without being wed. The culture in the city of Paxlight, I could already tell, was far more Western than in Sunmount.


    At the quieter end of the garden, in the shadow of the proud laboratory, I set both our trunks down on a stone bench. ¡°Here it is,¡± I said to her, raising a hand to show off my new workplace. ¡°I have a few hours before I need to report. I just figured you could come and see it with me before we go to the convent, since it¡¯s on the way.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think we¡¯re going to the convent,¡± said Violet, to my surprise. ¡°Together, I mean.¡±


    I scoffed. ¡°You can¡¯t cross Eastwall alone. You¡¯re not a shop girl.¡±


    ¡°No, they¡¯re sending a sister out to escort me. I wrote the headmother with our itinerary and I think she¡¯s sending someone here.¡±


    ¡°Here? To the Army Engineering Labs?¡± I asked.


    ¡°I imagine,¡± said Violet.


    I stepped back. Suddenly, my throat was tense and my chest was stiff with the feeling that I was about to lose her. It wasn¡¯t a matter of losing her for good, of course, but even a few months apart felt like an impossible chasm to cross in my present state of lovesickness.


    I looked her up and down and she scowled.


    ¡°What?¡± she asked.


    ¡°I¡¯m putting every detail to memory so I can draw you in the margins of my blueprints.¡±


    She blushed, as I had hoped she would. ¡°Awh,¡± she murmured.


    Determined to leave a lingering impression on my sweetheart, I continued my charm offensive. ¡°We¡¯ve passed a couple thousand girls just this past hour, Violet Shrineborne, and there hasn¡¯t been a one a half as lovely as you.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s your professional opinion?¡± she asked, teasing fondly again. ¡°Might you need to jot down some equations, run a statistical analysis just to be sure?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m only saying,¡± I chuckled, ¡°I have enough of a sample size now to say for sure.¡±


    She came close to me, seemingly less afraid now of being chided for a lack of chaperone. ¡°For sure?¡± she asked, and I felt the moment coming when she would kiss me of her own initiation. Then a young woman¡¯s voice interrupted us.


    The girl was a slim figure I would come to know as Josephine Wistree, a sister of the National Sorceress Corps. She was perhaps two years our senior, but still seemed young. To my shock, she wore black trousers with a modified black gownrobe and coat. I think she may well have been the first woman in trousers I had ever seen outside of a Western motion picture.


    ¡°Violet?¡± she asked, ignoring me.


    Violet took a step back from me just as quickly as she had neared. She turned to Josephine Wistree and gave a deep bow. ¡°Sister,¡± she said.


    Josephine introduced herself and said she was from the Eastwall convent. Placing a black-gloved hand to her belly, she bowed back at Violet.


    ¡°This is my chaperone,¡± said Violet, meaning me, and it was disappointing to hear her say it. Chaperone. How pedestrian.


    ¡°Thomas Trussford, Army Engineering Labs,¡± I said, though in truth I would not be officially inducted for a few hours yet. I thought presenting myself by occupation would give me some semblance of legitimacy. Along with the statement, I gave a slight bow, and to my annoyance Wistree did not return it.


    ¡°I see,¡± said the sister. ¡°Well. Come on then, Violet. You¡¯ll be hungry if we don¡¯t get back for dinner.¡±


    Violet looked surprised, but she did not resist the sudden and unglamorous parting of ways. ¡°All right. Well, goodbye, Tom.¡±


    I wanted to hug or kiss her, but I held back. I could tell from the way she had called me her chaperone that she didn¡¯t want such affection in front of a convent sister. It pained me to watch her pick up her own heavy valise, and for a moment I thought of offering to accompany the women just to carry the luggage. It was clear, though, from Josephine Wistree¡¯s brusqueness that she did not want me tagging along.


    ¡°If they keep me here in Paxlight, I can visit on the weekends,¡± I told her.


    ¡°That wouldn¡¯t be proper, Mr. Trussford,¡± said Josephine. ¡°She can write you, and visit when she¡¯s on leave.¡±


    To my further annoyance, I saw Josephine Wistree¡¯s gloved hand press against Violet¡¯s back as she guided the new inductee toward a streetcar. ¡°Goodbye. Goodbye!¡± I shouted, suddenly scared that I had wasted our moment of farewell by being cross. ¡°I¡¯ll write you, Violet.¡±


    And she was gone.

 3 - Murdoch

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Murdoch


    The afternoon following New Year''s Eve with Jack and the rest of the state school crew, I awoke in my family home in Sunmount with a dreadful hangover. Being closer to thirty than twenty by a hair now, I could not take my liquor the way I had in my younger days. That, and I was now unaccustomed to drinking, because the responsibilities of captain in the Integrity Office did not leave much time for the kind of revels one found in the lower ranks of the service.


    My mother and my sisters had very kindly left me be as I slept in well past the time that the Boll family is typically up and active. Close to noon, when I fully roused myself and resolved to put the weariness behind me, I drank two glasses of stream water and bathed myself in the family washroom. Then I dressed in fresh linens, which my eldest sister had washed for me in kindness, and knelt in prayer at the family shrine in the main room of our modest home.


    It was a cold, clear day, but the windows were nonetheless open. We Wylders are often teased for not minding the cold, and I must admit there is in fact some truth to it. There''s a certain hardiness, whether from culture or blood I do not know, which allows us to brave what most Paxanans would consider unacceptable frost.


    Invigorated by the January breeze, I gazed at the suit of furred, antlered armor that hung proud from the center of the shrine. An axe and a flintlock rifle were below it, weapons that had been used in fierce combat against Paxana¡¯s own troops in the time when the Wyldmen had not yet been illuminated by the light of the emperor. Reverent with imagined scenes of that time long gone, I shut my eyes and began my prayer.


    "Noble forefather," I said, addressing the ancestral spirit of the House of Boll, "Guardian of this home, thank you for protecting my mother and father and my brothers and sisters in my absence. I carry my sword as you carried your axe to protect and bring honor to my homeland. On the line of battle, you answered the call of the Wyldman elders to your last breath against Paxana."


    I felt some need to address this in prayer, since prayer was one of the only circumstances where I could be frank about our failed independence war without drawing looks of suspicion from my Paxanan peers.


    "You did not humiliate our line with surrender. You fought to the death and died with honor. Help me keep the strength to live by your example, even as I fight for the Calendula Throne you resisted. And when I meet you at the deathgate and you welcome me into the everafter, let me have done enough in my day for you to say that I kept the flame alive."


    I thought of going on, though I was not sure how to proceed, being rusty in prayer from so many months away from the home shrine. It was the sound of light steps behind me that made me pause and raise my head. Turning, I saw my mother approach.


    I think of my mother always in terms of colors, checkerboard red and white, in woven reeds, spirals and bears and other patterns sewn into her gownrobe. A Wylder gownrobe is not like a Paxanan gownrobe, not exactly. It has far more intricacy to the design and far more life.


    "You look like him," she said. "Your great grandfather. I remember him old when I was young."


    I rose upon realizing we had not caught up in two days. It was easy to spend all my time out and about mucking in the mountains with my brothers and sisters while my mother tended the home. In this moment, I realized more effort on my part was deserved by the hardworking, gray-haired lady before me.


    "Mother, I was going to walk the temple gardens. Would you join me?"


    She hesitated.


    "My knees aren''t what they were, and I usually catch the eleven o''clock comedy hour with Quintus on Radio Paxana."


    "We have a radio now?" I asked. In the days that I had lived in that home, a radio would have seemed an unthinkable extravagance.


    She nodded and looked bright. "The pottery''s doing well. People still want handmade sets for entertaining and holidays, even if the restaurants are going for the factory junk. We have some export clients, too. Someone wrote us from Kaichura for twenty pieces. Kaichura, all the way across the sea. Can you imagine that?"


    "I''m not surprised. It is the best," I said to her.


    She glanced over to the kitchen where I indeed could see a gleaming new radio on a table. "Will you stay for the show?" she asked.


    I paused. I felt I owed my mother my time, but the trivialities of radio comedy programs were not to my taste. In my head, I made note to come and see her again in the evening. Then I stood. "I think I could use the fresh air," I said. "I need to work on my swordsmanship."


    "Oh, I cleaned it for you," she said to me, and presented me with my own officer''s saber.


    "I thought one of the boys had taken it," I told her, accepting it with two hands in the reverent pose. "Thank you."


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    "It''s beautiful," she said to me.


    This was high praise coming from a Wylder woman who had long been taught to respect only the axe and reject the slender curve of Paxanan swords.


    I faltered. "It''s never been tested in battle."


    "It''s well made," she said. As an artisan, she knew materials, and she had clearly spent some time with it during the cleaning. "It won''t fail you."


    I returned it to its military sheath and kissed her head.


    Two hours later, I had made my way to the gardens alone, and I stood on a deep oak wooden bridge over a lily-padded pond. It was made to look old, almost medieval, but I knew for a fact that it had been funded only a decade ago by industrial money. The money of heavy industry was most closely concentrated in Paxolite and Archcove, but there was still a little bit of it trickling into the smaller towns here and there. I knew in time there would be nowhere in Paxana untouched by the march of capital.


    With the stone on my bare chest, I trained with the saber, going through both ritualized stances and the more practical combat methods I had been taught in officer school. I wore my olive officer''s trousers and belt, and no shoes. Even in the chilled air.


    After a little bit of this, I noticed a man approaching. He was grayed all over, wearing a vest and turtleneck sweater. I recognized him warmly as Jack Clearwater Sr., one of the aforementioned industrialists. He was father to my good and generous younger friend, Jack.


    "Junior tells me I should call you Captain now," Jack Sr. said to me when he got near enough to speak without a shout.


    Once again I sheathed my saber and turned to bow to him. "You''ve fed me at your table a hundred times, sir," I said. "You can call me whatever you like."


    Seeing that the man was not just passing by, I stepped down off the bridge and we shook hands. "Congratulations, son," he said to me. "I hope you had a good time last night."]


    "I did, sir," I said to him. I considered thanking him directly for bankrolling our evening, but I thought better of it. Matters of personal family finance between Junior and Senior were best left unmentioned by outsiders. Turning from me, Jack Sr. looked out at a couple of state school beauties in pink gownrobes walking along the lakeside. "Any of these southern small town girls catch your heartstrings?" he asked me, hopeful.


    "I''m only here a few days," I said back. "I''d rather see my friends."


    He turned back to me. "Aren¡¯t you cold?"


    "I am."


    "By design, then."


    I nodded. "Yes, sir."


    The older man accepted this. He accepted my bare feet and bare chest and Wylder ways. My advancement in the Army with a clean record at a young age was more than enough to make me seem a stand-up citizen to him, even with the Boll idiosyncrasies we''d carried from the north.


    We walked down the garden path with no one else around. "I take it you''re acclimating to the cold for your next assignment," he said. "You told me once that you try to adjust to the cold if you know they''re sending you somewhere with a chill."


    I was surprised he remembered this. It had been long ago that I said it. I suppose one doesn''t get far in business without being an attentive listener. Unable to speak about my upcoming mission, I hesitated, searching for words. He saw straight through me in that moment.


    "And I take it," he added, "from your silence that it''s classified."


    I chuckled at his intuition. "I always suspected one doesn''t make it in business without a gift of insight," I said back to him.


    The man clearly had designs, although I did not yet know what they were. "Well," he said, "I''ll lightly suggest you prepare for a change in plans. I''m having your reassignment postponed."


    This struck me as exceedingly odd. The man was only a private industrialist, after all. "I wasn''t aware that Paxcorp had the power to dictate IO postings."


    "We do not, but Deputy Secretary Shorston has some sway, and he happens to be a buddy, so I called in a favor."


    "I see," I said.


    "Now I''ll call in another," Jack Sr. went on. "I need your help, Murdoch."


    I watched him as he unfolded a carbon-copied document and presented it. Taking it in hand, I read it silently. It was an intelligence report from what office I did not know detailing a plot being furthered by unknown parties to foment war with the nation of the CCNCU to the north.


    "Is this legitimate, sir?" I asked. We had fought the CCNCU twice before, before they had fallen for the allure of the cult-like Clementic faith. The prospect of fighting them a third time in the throes of their Clementic fervor was alarming indeed.


    "Men I trust say it is," said Jack Sr.


    "Who''s behind it?" I asked, meaning the plot and not the intelligence report.


    "Army officers," said Jack Sr., pointing to the document itself.


    "That''s all you know?"


    Jack Sr. cleared his throat. "They call themselves the Rekindler Group. We don''t know who or how many, but we need to stop them."


    I swallowed. I was not entirely thrilled to be put in this position by a friend. "You understand I''m obligated to share this intelligence with my superiors."


    "I understand you''re obligated to proceed with your investigations in a manner which will not risk sharing classified information with the enemy," said Jack Sr. All pleasantries in his tone had given way to a deadly serious demeanor. "Since your suspects would be within your own officer corps, I think you would do best to keep your circle tight, Captain Boll."


    He was making himself as plain as he could. I found it unlikely that my own Integrity Office superiors might be participants in treason, but nonetheless I took his warning to heart.


    I folded up the document and prepared to pocket it when I saw him reach out his hand. "Best if I keep that," he said, "if you''ve put it to memory."


    I had, and so I handed it over. "I can''t promise you any news while I look into this," I said, "but I will be looking."


    "That''s all I can ask, son," said Jack Sr. "Hope you weren''t looking too forward to time in the snow."

 4 - Violet

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Violet


    It was a long ride on two different streetcars to get all the way from Paxlight City over to the convent. There were dozens of people in the open-air cars, dozens and dozens, and they didn''t seem to have any of the sense of courtesy or decorum that I had come to expect from the small-town people of Sunmount. I don''t think we would have even been able to board the second one, much less sit down, except that Miss Wistree''s black robes carried a certain intensity of aura that made even the most brazenly uncouth citygoer slide aside.


    With my heavy valise on my knees, I sat with this strange girl and tried to keep the names straight as she told me all about the various sisters who were currently living at Eastwall Convent. "You''ll get to know them very quickly," said Josephine during a transfer. "They''ll make sure of that. They won''t let you forget them."


    I didn''t know exactly what she meant. In fact, I didn''t know what most of what she said meant, but I nodded along politely and did my best to take it all in like the good student I was.


    By the end of the second streetcar ride it was entirely dark. There were dogs barking in the hilly neighborhoods surrounding the castle-like convent, and in truth I would have been rather frightened, except for the utter confidence that seemed to radiate from Josephine. I suppose if you''ve lived in a place long enough walking about it feels just like being in your own bedroom, even if there''s hardly a moon in sight and the sound of angry hounds bouncing through the alleys.


    My valise was growing quite heavy now, and I missed having Tom to carry it for me with his broad, pure smile. He often said things that seemed to suggest that I was the more innocent of the two of us, but it wasn''t true. It was he, by far, who was pure, the purer of heart. I loved that about him. I loved the effect it had on me.


    Josephine, who did not have a bag, got a little ahead of me as we climbed the asphalt road up the hill to the convent. I saw warm light, electric light, inside on the second and third floors. I knew the building was far too old to have originally been fitted with electricity, and so I put together that this must have been a relatively recent renovation.


    With each step I took up out of the city, the din of people and dogs was replaced with an unearthly silence. Silence, I felt, was appropriate for such a holy place as a National Sorceress convent. I was used to silence at that. It was the prevailing sound in the temple where I had spent my formative years. Silence and I got along famously.


    As my eyes adjusted, I saw the large, rounded, wooden double doors of the convent entrance before me. Above it was a symbol of the deathsgate. People often ask me why I chose a deathsgate convent over a lifegate convent, those being the two prevailing schools of ritual that were present in Paxana at the time. I always tell them it was simply a matter of opening and convenience, and that when I had contacted the National Sorceress Corps they had told me that the most appropriate opening was with the Eastwall Convent, which only dealt in the deathsgate school. If there''s a deeper answer, some perverse fixation with the afterlife that drew me to the left-hand school, I''m still not consciously aware of it.


    Josephine Wistree caught me staring at the deathsgate symbol, and she must have seen a look on my face that she interpreted as fright. "Don''t worry," she said, although I was not frightened, "we don''t go through death¡¯s gate, we just reach in and grab what we need now and then."


    This confused me more than it elucidated. I hadn''t even considered going through a deathsgate, and I didn''t really know what reaching in to take things would entail. For all my familiarity with the folk faith of Paxana priests, true witching ritual was entirely alien to me on the night I arrived at the convent.


    Using a large, heavy key, she unlocked the front door and led me inside. There was electric light warming the huge medieval stone hall. Because the walls had not been made for cabling, all the electrical wires simply ran down the walls, along the gutters to wherever the generator lay.


    There were no other sisters about, and we had the place to ourselves, at least for the moment. Large castle staircases ascended into the dim of the dormitories above. "You can leave your bag there for when we go to the bunks," said Josephine, pointing to a spot at the base of one staircase. "You''ll have to carry it yourself. We don''t have any manservants. Headmother says they would be a disruption."


    I put my bag down and felt very grateful to be free of the burden, if only for a few minutes'' time. This girl, Josephine, was blond, like my friend, Jack, but she had a sort of animal sharpness in place of Jack''s good-natured ease. It was funny that despite this, she still had such a youthful cadence to her speech.


    "You''re older than most of the girls who come in," she told me, "but that won''t stop them going after you. You''re still just an apprentice. Don''t forget it."


    "Stop who going after me?" I asked, trying to figure out what ¡®going after¡¯ meant in this context.


    "The other sisters," said Josephine, making a beckoning motion to guide me into the dark of the first floor hall. "Don''t dawdle."


    "Where are we going?" I asked. I felt trepidatious, leaving my bag behind and proceeding where the lights did not shine.


    "To the kitchen," said Josephine, "aren''t you starving?"


    The mundanity of the word ¡®kitchen¡¯ reassured me. Surely, I thought, nothing bad could happen in a kitchen. I picked up my step, and keeping close behind my new sister I followed her around a corner.


    The kitchen was pitch black, and I expected her to fetch a candle to light, but instead she pressed a switch on the wall and electric lights flashed on with such incredible quickness that I couldn''t help but jump at the turn from black to white. "They don''t have electric lights where you''re from?" Josephine asked, clearly laughing at me. "You''re not a farm girl, are you?"


    "No," I said, and I was proud to make the distinction clear. "Sunmount is an artisan town. We just like the old ways. I''m sure we could plenty afford to buy electric lights if we ever saw a need for them.¡±


    It seemed, even in just a couple sentences, I had already bored Josephine with my stories of home. She was ignoring me, rifling through the contents of the pantry. "Well, good," she said, half listening. "Farm girls can''t cut it here. What do you want to eat? We have day-old bread, pickled carrots, pickled fish, pickled pickles."


    I clasped my hands and tried not to be too much of a fusser. "Whatever''s convenient."


    Josephine laughed again. Nearly every other thing I said got a snarky chuckle from the sister, and I didn''t know why. "You really will starve if you''re that much of a push-around."


    I wasn''t sure what to say, so I stayed silent, and the blond girl in the black robes began making two sandwiches with pickled fish and carrots. One, I optimistically assumed, was for me.


    "Do you read Blue Lotus stories?" she asked me as she worked.


    I noticed she had not washed her hands since coming in from the street, but I did not want to protest.


    "Sorry?" I said.


    "You know, Faith Goodhouse? Edna Youngspring?"


    I scowled and attempted recollection. "I never studied them in school."


    Josephine made a noise. "What boarding house did you go to?"


    Now it was my turn to chuckle. "I didn''t go to boarding school," I said. "I went to a professional state school and lived in the Sunmount Temple with the old priests."


    "You went to school with boys?" asked Josephine, astonished. "And you went home every day to the temple?"


    "Yes," I said. I was unashamed of this.


    Josephine shook her head. "Then you have a lot to learn."


    Before I could ask for clarification, she handed me a sandwich. We stood together, eating greedily at the counter, and I only then realized just how hungry I had been since afternoon.


    "We can''t leave a crumb or Headmother''ll lash us," Josephine said with a mouth full of food.


    "Lash us?" I asked back while chewing. It felt like a funny little secret between the two of us to both be talking with our mouths full. The priests and the teachers back home would never have allowed it.


    "Not literally," said Josephine, "well, not for crumbs anyway."


    I nodded and swallowed. "So should I start with Goodhouse or Youngspring?"


    "Hm?" said Josephine.


    "You said I have a lot to learn, so where should I start?"


    Josephine chewed, laughed, and talked all at once. It took skill for her to not spit crumbs onto the floor or the counter as she did so. "Oh, you sweet little thing. Um, Goodhouse." She swallowed her bite. "But not her new stuff. I think the Culture Office got to her. She tries to pretend now like what happens between girls is all about friendship."


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    "Oh," I said, further confused by her rambling.


    "I have a printing of Virgins in a Woodshed," Josephine went on. "I''m going to lend it to you, and when you''re done, you can give it back, and we can go to see the Inparlor Revue. Then you can consider your unofficial NS education to be off to a proper start."


    After we finished our makeshift little sandwiches and made perfectly sure there were no crumbs left as evidence of our deed, we returned to the main hall and ascended the large stone steps to the convent dormitories. I knew just from their height that the steps had been cut for men, although they were old, which meant the men had been small, which meant they weren''t too terribly inconvenient for us girls to scale. It was only the heavy valise in my arms that made the ascent at all precarious.


    On the way up, Josephine told me that the convent had used to be a fortress back in the days before the illumination. It had been a convent for quite a while, though, even before the founding of the NS had been founded to bring the witches under state dominion. It had a reputation, as she told it, for being one of the best.


    Just as we were nearing the top of the stairs, exhausted and spent, she let out a little grousing huff. "Oh," said Josephine, "if you went to a crummy state school, you probably had a boyfriend there, didn''t you?" She said ¡®boyfriend¡¯ as if it was chicken pox.


    "Yes," I said.


    Josephine mimed gagging. "Eugh."


    "We''re still together," I said, trying to get out ahead before she said too many other awful things.


    Josephine made a show of glancing around me. "Where?" she asked, mocking. "Is he a ghost? I don''t see him."


    "He''s going to be an Army engineer," I said.


    "Army this, Army that these days," Josephine complained. We had now reached the dim hall at the top of the stairs, and I saw that there were still some candles in sconces in the places where electricity had not yet been installed. The candles were all unlit. "One day they''re going to put boots and helmets on the NS and put us in the trenches with our spellbooks," she said, ¡°mark my words.¡± Then she turned back to me with her arms crossed. "Has he put it in you?"


    "Hm?" I said, surprised.


    "You know," said Josephine.


    I did know. I had heard enough about such things from Jack¡ªhis exploits and encounters. I had never experimented with such things, even by myself, and certainly never with Tom. There was a great joy, the older priests told me, in doing things the proper way, and I looked forward to it.


    "No," I said to answer her question, although I really didn''t want to give her the pleasure of an honest answer. I thought it was quite presumptuous the way she thought she could ransack all the private little details of my life.


    "That''s good," said Josephine. "There''s still hope for you."


    "Why?" I asked.


    "It makes things harder, for certain ritual, if you¡¯ve done it."


    We reached the western dormitory room, which was full of five younger NS sisters and one NS apprentice. Despite the evening hour, everyone seemed very much alert and awake. The electric lights were on, and I could see the twinkling city of Paxlight to the west through the round-topped medieval windows. It was, admittedly, a marvelous view.


    The dormitory room consisted of five bunk beds, meaning ten mattresses. It did not seem to be at full capacity, as at least two of the mattresses were bare and unmade, and I only saw six girls in total. One of them, with red hair and freckles and a strong sort of face, leapt up when she saw me. She couldn''t have been older than nineteen herself.


    "Oh, way down on the old wheat farm, I love my daddy and I love my mom," she crooned, singing a more popular farm song in an exaggerated provincial ccent.


    "Hey, hey, Marina, they''re not farmers, they''re ar-ti-sans," said Josephine.


    She said this before any sort of proper introduction, and I was very displeased to see her resort to mockery of my hometown as a very first impression for my new sisters.


    The one apprentice, Luma, who hardly looked eighteen, laughed as well. "Ooh, ar-ti-sans," she said.


    I glanced at Josephine to try and figure out what in all planes could have spurred such immediate vitriolic derision and false accusations of peasantdom. "It''s your gownrobe," Josephine explained to me as I set down my valise. "It''s considered old-fashioned here in Paxlight."


    One of the older sisters, whom I later learned was named Mea Mull, called out from her upper bunk in the back of the room. She was darker-skinned than I was used to, perhaps mixed with some foreign persuasion. "But you can take it off," she shouted, bold and bawdy.


    As Mea shouted it, Marina the redhead dropped down from her bunk and approached my valise. "Here, let me help you with your bag," she said, and I was grateful that someone had finally offered to do so.


    "Don''t let her take that," Josephine warned me, though I didn''t know why. Perplexed, I put up a hand to bid Marina pause.


    "Everyone," said Josephine, "this is Apprentice Violet Shrineborne."


    Marina looked like she really did have eyes to take my bag, possibly for ill, but I kept her at bay. Seeing the stares of the group upon me, I felt some need to stand up for myself and my choice of attire. "I was raised to think Western clothing was scandalous for a lady," I said in my defense, observing the sheer white nightgowns of the girls. It was really quite a shock to see so much of so many strangers all in a common space.


    "A ¡®lady?¡¯" said Luma. "Hah! You got the wrong convent!"


    Marina turned her eyes from my valise to my hips and the drape of my loosely-tied gownrobe. "Maybe we think your clothes are scandalous," she said, fire-eyed. "After all, you can just reach up and grab everything."


    To my shock, Sister Marina slipped her hand onto to my knee and then quickly ran it up along the bare skin of my inner thigh, parting my gownrobe. I jumped back in surprise and gave out a yelp, too startled to immediately be furious.


    "Hey, Marina, she only wants that from her state school boyfriend," said Josephine, continuing to mock me.


    "Boo!" Luma cried from her bunk.


    "Boyfriend, boyfriend," Mea Mull chanted with derision.


    At that point, I was tired and fed up, and I wouldn''t take one more second of all this disrespect. "Look, everyone," I said firmly, stamping my wooden-soled travel shoe and making quite a loud sound on the stone floor. "Sisters, with all respect for your convent, I''ve had a long day. All I want is to wash up and go to sleep, and I''m happy to tell you my whole life story in the morning."


    "You scared her off, Marina," shouted Mea, scolding the sister who had tried to take a swipe at my girlhood. "You''re too touchy-feely."


    "Hey, touch is how she shows her love," said Luma.


    Marina shrugged and rolled her eyes at Mea. "No problem, I''ll just touch myself."


    At this, Marina''s spectacled lower bunkmate, Lora, looked up from the book she had been trying to read in bed. "I know," Lora grumbled. "I can hear you, nightly."


    This was all far too much. Josephine, perhaps sensing that I was at my limit, showed me where to lock my valise beneath my bunk and gave me a key. "They''re all talk," she said to reassure me. "Come on, I''ll show you the washroom, linens, and nightgowns."


    Suffice to say, I was incredibly relieved when she led me out of that menagerie and back to the hall. "Oh, don''t look like such a doe," she said, remarking on my expression. "You''re probably the oldest one in there, save for Mea. Have a little backbone."


    I had half a mind to give her some nasty retort when we saw a third figure looming in the darkness. The figure was tall, wearing ornate black robes with trousers underneath in a similar fashion to Josephine. Like me, she was pale, although her eyes were smaller and she had a sterner construction to her nose and jaw. This was the headmother, Helena Heprose, and although she was clearly well into her fifties she was truly a statuesque sight.


    "Lot of noise after hours, Sister Wistree," said the headmother. Although her voice was quiet, it possessed a resonance that cast a chill across the whole upper hallway. I wondered if it might be supernatural in its strength.


    "Sorry, Headmother," said Josephine, suddenly respectful and deferent.


    I watched my guiding sister bow, and so I hurried to bow as well. "Sorry, Headmother," I said, aping Josephine.


    "Rise and present," said Helena Heprose.


    "That means name and station," Josephine murmured to me.


    "Violet Shrineborne, Apprentice, reporting, Headmother," I said.


    "You must need dinner," said the headmother, and I wondered if this was a test.


    I glanced over to Josephine, who remained silent and gave me no clue as to what to say back. "I really just want to wash up and get to sleep, Headmother," I said diplomatically.


    "No need for ''ma''am,''" said Heprose. "¡®Headmother¡¯ is fine."


    "Yes, Headmother," I said.


    "Present your transfer scores," said the headmother.


    I froze. I could still hear the titter of the sisters through the closed door of the dormitory, no doubt gossiping about me and sharing impure thoughts in electric lamplight. "My transfer scores are in my bag," I said, indicating the dormitory behind me.


    "Then recite them," said the Headmother.


    I swallowed. This was a test indeed.


    "Paxanan, ninety-first percent. Mathematics, seventy-eighth percentile. Sciences, ninety-second percentile. History, eighty-ninth percentile.¡± I had left the most embarrassing placement for last. ¡°Classical Courtspeak, forty-second percentile."


    The Headmother made no noise at this, but she didn''t seem to scowl, and it relieved me. "Well, let''s not have you translating Midland poetry," she said.


    If that was the worst she was going to say about my low scores in the Midland language of Courtspeak, I could certainly take it. "No, Headmother," I said.


    "And your certification of ritual aptitude?" she asked.


    This was the real point of pride, and I must admit to you now that I took some relish in relaying the information. "Class Double-S, Headmother."


    Again, she made no noise, but I watched her eyes change. "You know," she said, "that alone puts you ahead of all those alley cats in your dorm wing. Even Wistree here isn''t Double-S."


    Josephine seemed like she was in a hurry to explain away my high marks, as if they might otherwise make the blond sister seem unfit by comparison. "She was raised in a temple, Headmother," she stuttered, "by priests."


    "Is that so?" said the Headmother. She stood a good deal taller than me, and I looked up at her as she took a step closer.


    "From eleven onward, yes," I said.


    For reasons I did not know, Josephine Wistree looked uncomfortable, and she made a move to try and excuse herself from the conversation. "I''ll get the basin running for you, Shrineborne," she said. "It takes forever for the hot water to reach the second floor."


    I nodded. "Oh, and don''t forget the book."


    "Book?" said Headmother Heprose.


    "Nothing, Headmother," Josephine said quickly. She clearly did not want Heprose to know about what we''d been discussing in the kitchen. "A cookbook, but I forgot it at home."


    I was surprised by the boldness with which Josephine Wistree lied to the headmother. Anyone proficient in ritual, especially deathsgate ritual, was certainly at least somewhat able to detect an obvious untruth. Whether or not Headmother Heprose could sense the dishonesty, I could not tell.


    Josephine continued rapidly down the hall, and Headmother Heprose turned back to me. "Well, Shrineborne," she said, "you come to the National Sorceress Corps at a very interesting time. I hope you''re not afraid of the heavy stuff."

 5 - Jack

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Jack


    A couple days after the new year began, I took the Searoad Line north toward the city of Paxlight from the southern Centon Station near Sunmount. My father, having believed me when I stressed the seriousness of my commitment to a political career, had telephoned for his man at Cabinet and explained that he had a bright young son who was willing to do almost anything in order to get his foot in the door. Less than forty-eight hours later, through mechanisms I was not entirely privy to, an arrangement was made and a job offer for a position in Archcove was presented.


    True to what my father had warned that night in the tavern, it was the lowly job of assistant to an assistant. The pay was hardly anything, and I wouldn¡¯t have even been able to afford to live in Archcove if my parents hadn¡¯t arranged to get me an apartment. I suppose I could have lived at a single men¡¯s hall, the way Tom was planning on living at the Guild Hall in Paxlight while he worked at the Army Engineering Labs. It all sounded a bit stuffy and smelly and cramped to me. Besides, not being a descendant of artisans, I wasn¡¯t eligible for membership in that fraternal organization. So, an apartment had been found, and all the plans had been arranged for me to finally move away from home.


    Speaking of Tom, I knew that he was in Paxlight, and I knew that he had escorted Violet to Archcove or somewhere near it just a few days prior. I should have liked to take the train north with them, but there were two good reasons why that hadn¡¯t occurred.


    The first, as I said, was that I had needed time at home to make sure I really did have a job and confirm all the practical arrangements. The second was that I was strongly inclined to travel first class, as my father allowed and my mother recommended.


    It was my preference, not because of the amenities so much, but because of the interesting conversations one would hear in the first class carriage. I justified to myself that the extra cost of the ticket would be worth it just for the chance of picking up on some gossip or political intrigue that might give me an edge at Cabinet. This, of course, was fanciful, but it made me feel better as I wrote a check for the money to cover the ticket.


    I knew Tom and Violet, for their part, would have been nestled comfortably in each other¡¯s arms in second class. It would have been presumptuous for me to buy a place in their box, and it would have been awkward to buy a first class ticket and then walk back and forth between the rattling carriages just to say hello and goodbye a few times more.


    So here I sat, alone in an armchair facing forward, as the proud locomotive chugged forward in gleaming midday sun. Some odd little electric box passed by on the neighboring line and I paid it little notice. Lunch that day was a fish fillet with green beans served on a porcelain plate and included in the price of the ticket. I sometimes worried to myself that I might reach a portly weight just from taking advantage of all the free meals that came with various high-class accommodations. I felt the need to indulge in them all¡ªand the free drinks too¡ªjust to get my money¡¯s worth. So far, a rotund figure had not found me, and I remained trim.


    Finishing my plate, I slid it to the far end of the small table where I was seated. Then I removed my napkin from my collar, folded it into a diamond, and lay it on top. There was a certain ceremony, an order to these things, to show the waiter you were done. It was a wordless dance between you two, and when you did it right everything was smooth.


    Most of the other passengers in the car on that trip were older, either single men or men with their wives. Almost all were sleeping. There was something about the midday sun and the rock of the train that turned all of them into babies in the crib. There had been a shift change right at noon, and the mimosa I had ordered to accompany my meal was brought out not by a man but a young, slim waitress in a skirt, blouse, jacket, and heels.


    I was astonished to see her, a shapely hourglass in her little rouge uniform. Her hair was a bob like a pageboy, and she had a button nose and a sweet smile and couldn¡¯t have been any older than me.


    ¡°I can¡¯t believe you can balance in those things on a moving train,¡± I said, watching her approach. My eyes started at her little feet as she caught her balance, then worked their way up until they found her eyes.


    ¡°Thank you, sir,¡± she said, ¡°and apologies for the delay on your drink.¡±


    I traded a ten-gildnote bill for the glass, which was perhaps an excessive tip. I hoped she¡¯d see it as a token of affection as much as thanks for her service. ¡°No problem at all,¡± I said. ¡°Are you from Paxlight?¡±


    ¡°Not initially, sir,¡± said the waitress, standing above me. I very much liked to have a woman stand above me. ¡°But I live there now. I¡¯m from Archcove.¡±


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s where I¡¯m going,¡± I said, sitting up with excitement. ¡°I¡¯m moving to Archcove for work.¡±


    The train jolted on a bump as we passed through farm fields, and I watched her instinctively shoot a hand out to grab for the brass side railing.


    ¡°Here, sit with me,¡± I said, motioning to the armchair opposite. It was a gesture of mercy to spare her from nearly falling again and again. It was also an invitation to lessen our formality.


    I saw her glance back at the kitchen car, probably to see if a stern boss was watching. Then she sat across from me.


    ¡°I can for a minute.¡±


    ¡°Swell,¡± I said, grinning. ¡°I¡¯m Jack. I¡¯m going into politics, you see, so it¡¯s important for me to know the lay of the land. I¡¯m not from Eastwall.¡±


    ¡°Oh, I know,¡± she said with a little bit of a smirk. It felt like lightning jolting through my cheeks to see her business-like demeanor break into the creases of a smile.


    ¡°How do you mean?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Everyone from Eastwall just calls the city Pax,¡± said the waitress, referring to the grand and haughty mid-island prefecture that boasted both Paxlight and Archcove.


    ¡°Ah, Pax,¡± I said. ¡°Thanks for the tip. Say, it¡¯s unusual for a woman to work on a train, no?¡±


    The waitress nodded like she had heard this a few times before. ¡°Yes, but Mr. Laycross wants Eastwall Rail Group to have all the feeling of a Far West luxury rail line, so he made a point to hire male and female attendants starting in ¡¯32.¡±


    I nodded. ¡°You get that question a lot, I¡¯m sensing. Laycross, he¡¯s a good chap. We summered at his place in Willow Bay in ¡¯26. Ah, I suppose I sound like the worst sort of low-born merchant brat, don¡¯t I?¡±


    ¡°Not the worst by any means, sir,¡± she said, in a way that made me wonder what other sort of vile creatures she was dealing with up here in first class. Eager to keep things light and amiable, I unfolded a letter and handed it to her.


    ¡°Take a look at that address and tell me if that neighborhood¡¯s rotten,¡± I said. ¡°That¡¯s the apartment I found last week in the Archcove Gazette when I decided I wanted to start at Cabinet Hall.¡±


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°You can just decide to work at Cabinet Hall?¡± the waitress asked. She didn¡¯t mean me particularly, but rather one in general.


    ¡°If your test scores are good enough,¡± I said. I didn¡¯t have the heart to give her the truth about how the world works, all chums and phone calls.


    She skimmed the letter, which included a clipping of the listing. ¡°This is a good apartment,¡± she said. ¡°There¡¯s a bakery under it. My friends and I used to get spoon cakes there.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t take it slow anymore. I knew at any moment she could be called away and I would lose my chance to really get to know this lovely young thing with a real career job. I could just see the way my hand would fit under the side of her bob as I caressed her ear and picked her up by the waist. I imagined her skin would be hot, perhaps slightly salted with sweat, from all the difficult balancing.


    Making a move to check my wristwatch, I smiled. ¡°I have a few hours in Pax before my connection to Archcove if you¡¯d like to show me the town.¡±


    She put her hands on the arms of her chair and stood, not looking cross but nevertheless a bit reserved in a way I couldn¡¯t understand. ¡°I should check on the other patrons, sir,¡± she said. ¡°Enjoy your visit to Pax and your new apartment.¡±


    I held no ill will toward the girl for the rejection, and I still tipped her well for a coffee right before the train pulled in. Who knew what personal life or odd tastes might have been keeping her from a rendezvous? It wasn¡¯t anything about me or my shortcomings, I was certain.


    I connected on a regional train to Archcove, deciding not to bother with the clamor of the streetcars and cable cars. It was a fast train, an electric train, and before the sun had even touched the water I was there on the east side of the island we call Paxana.


    We had received instructions by telegraph on how I should get myself into the apartment, because the landlady wouldn¡¯t be available to meet me until near dusk. Doing as the telegraph commanded, I let myself in and strolled around this empty corner unit, gazing out on the docks and the pretty little roofs of eastern Archcove.


    Though Archcove did not bear the namesake of our nation¡ªthat honor, of course, falling to Paxlight¡ªit was the seat of government and seemed to be growing just as fast as anywhere on the globe. Although people in Pax were loath to admit it, it had left that sister city somewhat in the dust.


    Beyond the docks I saw our luminous emperor¡¯s own battle fleet at sea. At the time, I did not know the strike groups by heart. I could not have told you about the battleships Diamond and Deepshore, the carriers Bluebeast and Redcastle, the Safflower-class cruisers and the January-class destroyers that escorted them. I only knew that once upon a time the Far West powers had used great ships to push us around, and now we had great ships of our own and no Westerner would ever tell us how to run our lives again.


    I had just completed my second circle of the empty apartment, wishing as I walked that I had been able to find a furnished one, when I heard the knock. Before I could answer, the old door of the unit swung open, hitting the opposite wall with a sound that made me jump. It was, I presumed, the landlady, a Mabel Netsman in her sixties, with a hunched and stubborn build.


    ¡°Oh, you startled me,¡± I said. ¡°I was hoping it would be those damned movers with my things, pardon the language. Jack Clearwater. Thank you for the use of your apartment, Mrs. Netsman.¡±


    She bowed to me and I bowed back. I¡¯d been raised right enough to know my manners. ¡°Honored, Mr. Clearwater,¡± she said, all politeness. ¡°My husband said we shouldn¡¯t rent to a young stag, but I assured him you¡¯re well bred and won¡¯t impugn the dignity of the building.¡±


    Did I really seem like such a cad that this had to be the first thing out of her mouth? I wondered it to myself as I hurried to find a self-effacing joke. ¡°No, of course. I do all my dignity-impugning out on the town.¡±


    To me this was a crack remark, but she didn¡¯t seem to laugh in the slightest. So I paused for an awkward moment and then went on. ¡°And I¡¯ll be so busy with work, ma¡¯am, you won¡¯t even know a man lives here. My mother¡¯s name is Mabel too, funny thing.¡±


    ¡°If you have any trouble,¡± said the stern woman, ¡°I trust you¡¯ll let me know.¡±


    I sensed she was about to leave again without so much as a chat. Her lack of hospitality had me suddenly feeling a little lost. I wasn¡¯t used to being on my own without a mother or a mother figure around to help me with the little things.


    ¡°Would you happen to know where I could find a couple more suits?¡± I asked, in a bid for some attention and guidance. ¡°Can¡¯t be wearing the same old gray into Cabinet Hall five days a week.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s a department store two blocks west. Is that all?¡± the woman said, curt.


    ¡°Yes, well, I mean, what else would there be?¡± I was struggling to converse in a way that wouldn¡¯t seem to annoy her further. ¡°Should there be? I wouldn¡¯t know. Thank you for having me again.¡±


    I bowed and she departed. The next week, I started my job at Cabinet Hall wearing a sharp navy suit in the latest Western style that I had indeed picked up at the department store on Miss Netsman¡¯s recommendation. It was only upon arriving at the administrative pool that I realized everyone else was in brown or gray.


    My direct supervisor was the Assistant to the Master Secretary, a tall and slim man with a thin mustache named Edmund Depper, who seemed close to thirty and very bitter about it. I could only assume that he''d expected better things than being an assistant, even a high-powered one, at an age when so many were having their third or fourth child.


    He met me with an air of displeasure, which seemed leftover from whatever he''d been doing that morning. "Come with me," he said, and I followed him in a brisk stride through an open floor of men working with phones, typewriters, and notebooks. There were files scattered everywhere, thousands at least, all open or stored in heavy stacks.


    Edmund Depper, I found, was a clear speaker, and I appreciated that. It made it possible to understand him even as he walked quickly and faced away from me. "We do not use type girls at Cabinet Hall, Mr. Clearwater," he told me. "They can''t get security passes, so we do all our own typing and notes."


    I was doing my best to take in the culture of the floor as I followed my man. No one, I noticed, was wearing a pocket square. That would be a simple enough change to make to blend in. With a sly gesture, I removed my own and hid it in the pocket of my trousers. All the while, I kept pace with Depper. "No problem," I said.


    "You will need impeccable shorthand and longhand. How are they now?"


    "Excellent," I told him.


    "They could always be better. Buy the 122-88 Paxanan Handwriting Guidebooks and drill."


    As he said this, we arrived at an office marked: ¡®Assistant to the Master Secretary Edmund Depper.¡¯


    "This is my office," he said, although it was fairly obvious from the plaque. "I have a telephone line to the Master Secretary. His office is up the hall. If someone comes to you with an urgent matter for the MS, who do you go to?"


    I was so flustered by everything he was throwing at me that I did not at first pick up on MS being Master Secretary. After another second, it all clicked.


    "You, sir," I told him.


    "Me." He nodded. It seemed like that had been a quiz, and I had answered to his liking. "I''m like the liver of the Office of the Master Secretary. I filter out all the waste before it reaches the bloodstream. It''s not glamorous, but it''s crucial. Do not go directly to Master Secretary Knollblum."


    "Except in an emergency," I offered.


    Edmund Depper shook his head negative. "You don''t know how to tell what''s a real emergency yet. Everyone acts like every little thing is an emergency."


    That made sense to me, and I fell in line. cc"Understood."


    He seemed to switch modes, coming in closer to me and pressing a finger into my chest. "You should know, Clearwater, I''ll be evaluating your conduct strictly on its merits, with no outside political consideration."


    By this, it seemed, he meant to allude to my father. "Good," I told him.


    "Is it?" Depper asked.


    I stood tall. "That''s the only way I''d want it."


    Again, I seemed to have pleased Depper in my response. He softened, like he''d been expecting to hate me and now realized I was not quite as rotten as he¡¯d feared. "Good," he said. "Then maybe we''ll get along."

 6 - Tom

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Tom


    I knew what to wear for my first day at the Army Engineering Labs because I had asked and a man had told me. I had brought pressed white shirts and tan trousers from home, fully expecting both to be covered in grease within a matter of days. If they had wanted me to wear working man¡¯s clothes, I would have happily picked some up, but the man I spoke with told me that shirts and ties were fine.


    It cost me just a few gildnotes to buy a couple ties from a shop between the lodge and the labs. I didn''t need fancy. Plain was fine. I arrived a little earlier than the morning rush on my first day, to make a good impression, but when I got inside I saw that there was already a dawn shift hard at work with lathes and milling machines. It was loud, and they all looked very focused, so I didn¡¯t want to interrupt. I simply walked past the lathes and continued into the modern facility until I reached a man who looked like he might be in charge.


    He had a square, tan head and was just below my height. He wore an olive Army uniform, but had foregone the hat. His hair was starting to gray, and I thought he might be roughly the age of my father. Since he didn¡¯t seem to be working with any dangerous machinery, I fely it was safe to try and get his attention.


    ¡°Excuse me,¡± I called out. ¡°Sir, I¡¯m looking for Major Summiter.¡± Summiter was the man to whom I was intended to report.


    The olive-uniformed officer turned around, clay on his hands from whatever he was sculpting. ¡°You found him,¡± he said, and I realized the man himself was Summiter.


    Because of the clay, I did not offer a hand to shake. I gave the slightest bow and spoke. ¡°I¡¯m Tom Trussford. I was told you can tell me who to report to for lab work.¡±


    ¡°You found him too,¡± said Summiter. By this he meant that he himself was to be my direct superior. Following the clarification, he did indeed extend a hand, and I gripped it firmly for a shake despite the clay that would transfer between us. I thought it important to show him that I was not at all afraid of getting my hands dirty.


    Despite my quick reciprocation, he noticed me noticing the muck. ¡°An engineer who doesn¡¯t have to wash his hands by lunchtime is not appropriately applying himself,¡± the major told me, and this would come to be something of a credo in the engineering labs in the years to come.


    Leaving his sculpted model of a naval torpedo be, he motioned for me to cross the shop with him. ¡°Wear glasses?¡± he asked as we passed a few idle milling machines.


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Then you need to keep safety goggles on you. New lab policy. You¡¯re too valuable to the Army to end up blind.¡±


    I had known that aeronautical pilots wore goggles, as did motorcyclists, but I hadn¡¯t heard of them being used in a machine shop context. Already, I could tell that things were different in Paxlight than in the shop class of my state school.


    ¡°I¡¯m surprised to be working directly for an officer, sir,¡± I said to him.


    ¡°You¡¯ll find you¡¯re an Army man in all but name once you¡¯ve been here a while, son.¡±


    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    I watched the square-headed major wash his hands at a sink. There was a second faucet, and so I joined him at the long basin to wash his clay from my own hands. ¡°What will you have me do?¡± I asked.


    Summiter dried his hands on a towel and turned to me. ¡°Today we have the luxury of time,¡± he said, ¡°one day we won¡¯t, so we need to get better at building the tools that will build the war machine of tomorrow.¡±


    I followed what he was saying, the idea of building the tools that will build things. It was not what I had expected to be working on when I first arrived. ¡°My background is in civil engineering more than machine tooling, sir,¡± I said in full disclosure.


    Summiter seemed to react to this with a snap. ¡°You have no background,¡± he said. ¡°You¡¯re fresh out of state school, and a smart man is a smart man. Calculus stays the same no matter where you apply it.¡±


    I was surprised to hear this remark from him, and, though it was delivered as a retort, it seemed in substance to be a vote of confidence. He was saying, in short, that he thought I could be trained to do anything.


    I dried my hands, and Summiter led me away from the concrete machine shop floor into an office filled with books and prototypes and blueprints. There was one large central desk which I took to be the major¡¯s.


    ¡°Have you worked with electric motors?¡± he asked me.


    Now this was a topic of excitement. ¡°I¡¯ve read all about them, sir, but no. I¡¯ve dreamed of it. That¡¯s all. On the way here, actually, we saw a TM 3 and I¡ª¡±


    ¡°We have coal power coming out of our ears through the grid, and still our machinists are slaving on belt mills,¡± Summiter groused. ¡°Have you ever used a manual belt mill?¡±


    ¡°Yes, sir,¡± I said. ¡°Back in school.¡±


    ¡°We got rid of them here. Know why? Feel the floor.¡±


    I stood in silence, as did the Major, and we both felt the ground below our feet. It was utterly still. ¡°No shake,¡± I said, surprised to not detect the rumble of belt mills just outside.


    ¡°Belt drives shake the whole damn building,¡± said Summiter, ¡°and there go your tolerances on a tight cut or bore. You can¡¯t do anything precise with all that ruckus going on. Now we need to do for the rest of the nation what we just did here. I want you to take a look at those ugly electric mills the boys rigged up out there and draw me plans for a mass-production model.¡±


    This was a lot of responsibility. I wondered if he might already have a mass-production model drafted, and he was simply testing me by seeing if mine would be as good as his own. ¡°What¡¯s the timeline, sir?¡± I asked.


    He looked surprised to hear this asked. ¡°Quick as the wind, Trussford. Quick as the wind.¡±


    I would come to know that this was the timeline for everything at the Army Engineering Labs. There was never a deadline because everything was always supposed to be done as quickly as possible. It was exhilarating and exhausting all at once.


    Standing beside the desk, I noticed a window with curtains pulled partially open. Through it, Summiter¡¯s office looked down on a partially subterranean production warehouse. In the center, to my astonishment, an unpainted steel light tank stood gleaming silver on the concrete floor. It had heavy treads, a round dome, a long barrel, and a burnished finish. It was just about the most fearsomely advanced war machine I ever could have imagined at that time.


    ¡°Wow. I¡¯ve never seen a Mark II in real life,¡± I said, referring to the common chassis type of Paxanan light battle tanks by name.


    ¡°Well, you still haven¡¯t,¡± said Summiter.


    At first, I thought he was just pushing for secrecy, but then I understood his true meaning. The tank down on the production floor was not a Mark II at all. I gazed at it, taking in the details, and realized the sight before me was a completely cutting-edge state secret.


    ¡°You¡¯re right, that turret looks over twice the size. Secondary cannon, new crown shape. That must be the¡ª¡±


    I was about to say ¡®Mark III¡¯ when Major Summiter pulled the blinds shut.


    ¡°Classified,¡± he said. ¡°Stick to your station and draw me an electric mill, Trussford. You¡¯re a part in a large, important machine, not a boy on a field trip.¡±

 7 - Murdoch

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Murdoch


    I got back to Pax from my winter leave in Sunmount about a week after the start of the new year. The Paxlight Integrity Office was one of the smaller offices, and when I was there I was usually the ranking officer, which meant I had the run of the place. When I was not there, the privates and corporals who staffed the desks were often left to their own devices, and I knew from experience that they had a tendency to dally about and hardly get a lick of work done when stern eyes weren''t upon them. As such, I knew that my first task upon returning was to check up on exactly how much progress they made.


    Dressing in uniform daily simplified things. It took a lot of the time out of deciding what to pack, what to wear. It also made everyone give you heed, both in the halls of the office and on the street. I had earned my uniform and my rank of captain. I''d worked hard for it. I felt I filled the shoes.


    Walking up the stairs to the front door of the red-roofed Integrity Office, I took in the clamor of the city. It seemed there were more automobiles in Pax than even just a few months before. Jack Clearwater Sr., I knew, was hard at work on that.


    I opened the door and indeed saw two young privates, a Mr. Mellor and Mr. Shield, sitting at their desks.


    "I want all your daily reports from the span of my absence," I told them without a hello. I wanted to set an urgent pace, as my senior officers had done for me when I was in training. "I want to read everything."


    "Yes, sir," said Private Mellor. He stood straight to salute at the sight of me, and so did Private Shield. That was a good sign. It was good they had not grown too soft.


    "At ease," I said. Then I turned to Private Shield with further instructions. "Telephone Army Engineering and see if they can send a Mr. Thomas Trussford over here."


    I knew Tom was just blocks away, at his new job, and I knew that he was one of the few people I could trust in confidence to discuss this strange prospect of a treasonous officers¡¯ scheme to force war with the CCNCU. I figured he was as good a place as any to start my investigation.


    "For?" asked Private Shield.


    I scowled at the impertinence, scratching my beard. It was none of his business. "Lunch," I said back.


    "No other information?" Private Shield asked.


    "No, Private," I said, with a tone to get him to leave my business be. "Just call it in."


    As I said it, I heard a crack of rifle fire in the yard outside. I tensed a little, reflexively, and Private Mellor saw me. "Marksman training, sir," he said. "They¡¯ve been going since Tuesday."


    "No rest for the infantry," I said to the slender young man. Though the Integrity Office and the general infantry were both under the purview of the Army Corps, we had very different roles and very different internal cultures.


    "Shut those windows so we can hear ourselves think," I told him. I hung my long olive coat on a rack, and my hat with it.


    "Do you need porters from the barracks to get to the station?" Private Mellor asked me, and it took a second to even remember what he was referencing.


    "I''m not going to Dubhamer," I said in response.


    Dubhamer was an icy little rock of an island far to the north that had been split in two between Luminous Paxana and the CCNCU, with the Clementics holding the northern half and us keeping grip on the southern half. There was a fortress there, with a tank battalion garrisoned, and my original orders had been to go north to investigate their fitness. Now, with my mission changed through the meddling of Jack Clearwater, Sr., all that was off.


    The two privates exchanged unsure glances as I said it. "Oh?" Private Mellor asked.


    "I''m not to be disturbed," I told him and shut myself in my office.


    I was surprised to see Major Everett Coybrook standing inside. He was reading a paperback from the shelves, a novel, and seemed like he had been in there quite a while. Though I had always known Major Coybrook to be a pleasant conversationalist, a middle-aged man with a modern sensibility, he seemed quite displeased today.


    I saluted when I saw him, taking my own turn to express formality at the sudden presence of a superior. "Major," I said.


    "Book of the Lightsman Duelist," said Coybrook, referencing the title of the novel in his hand. "Do you come from a lightsman family, Boll?"


    It was an odd question, since to my knowledge there were no Wyldman lightsmen. The lightsmen knights had been founded and cemented long before the Wylders had been illuminated into the Empire. It was either rhetorical, or he did not know I was a Wyldman, or he was confused.


    "We Wylders have our own martial traditions, sir," I said. "I do come from soldiers."


    "At ease," said Coybrook, and I lowered my salute. I put my hands in my pockets and took a step toward him.


    "I''m surprised to see you, sir."


    "I came in while your desk boys took lunch. They get soft without an officer minding them, Murdoch. They let things slip."


    It annoyed me how he said it, like it was my fault. I knew just as well as him that the privates dawdle when unwatched. Still, I answered only with respect. "I''ll see to shaping them up."


    Coybrook tapped his hand on the novel he was holding. He had a reddish undertone to his hair, although it was mostly brown, and he looked a bit like one of those long-nosed dogs you sent out hunting. "I got a very¡­ alarmed call from a General Ravenridge."


    "Oh?" I asked. I could tell from his tone that this was a subject he had come to discuss.


    Coybrook nodded. "It seems the civil government attempted to lean on one of his captains, to block your transfer from Pax to South Dubhamer."


    This was Mr. Clearwater''s doing. The civil government member in question, whoever it was, was surely his friend. Jack Clearwater Sr. had meddled in my schedule to try and free me up to investigate the Rekindler treason, and in doing so he had inadvertently kicked up an Integrity Office hornet''s nest. Nobody in the IO brass, especially Coybrook, liked putting up with civil government nonsense.


    For all these thoughts, I kept quiet. "I see," I said diplomatically.


    "Trying to spare yourself some frostbite, Boll?" Coybrook asked, bitter and mocking. I resented the accusation of duplicity, and I resented the accusation of laziness even more.  "I thought your blood was made for it."


    "It''s not my doing, sir," I said truthfully.


    "No?"


    "I¡ª"


    "Are you going to tell me I didn''t just hear you tell the privates you''re canceling your rail leg?"


    I felt my blood chill. He had caught me in this one. It was obvious from what I had just said outside that I had already known I wasn''t going north to Dubhamer. I needed to act very quickly indeed to not have this blow up in my face.


    "I wanted a day to catch up on office affairs," I told him. I¡¯ve been told at various points in my life that I speak with a serious monotone, which is not usually to my advantage. In the case of lying, however, it proves very helpful. "I was going to set out for Dubhamer tomorrow."


    "What is going on here?" Major Coybrook asked, raising his voice and pointing at the ground. "I don''t like it. I don''t like angry generals telling me stories of intrigue in my ranks. This is the kind of thing IO is supposed to stamp out."


    I had committed to the lie now, and I was deep in it. "I don''t know, sir. I''m as baffled as you at least." I hoped, if the whole truth ever did come out, that the court-martial would find my lying defensible¡ªon the basis that Major Coybrook might have been a suspect in the Rekindler scheme.


    "Well, one thing''s for certain," said Coybrook. "You''re leaving for the far north tomorrow morning at dawn. No later."


    "Yes, sir," I said.


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    "You''ll report to Major Blackwell of the South Dubhamer Mechanized Division and begin your report on division readiness."


    "Yes, sir."


    "You report to Blackwell, but he is not exempt from your honest assessment. What you write comes straight to me alone."


    "It''s not my first division audit, sir," I said to Coybrook.


    As a new captain and as a Wyldman, I was used to having to reassure the senior staff that I was actually competent. This, however, was a fairly extreme example of brass condescension. I supposed it was preferable to have Coybrook think I was daft, instead of having him think me a liar.


    "That was a very stupid thing you did, presuming you could change your transfer date," he went on. "It makes you look involved in this whole mess of the civil government trying to squeeze us."


    "Do you think I''m involved, sir?" I asked bluntly. I felt this directness would put him at ease, and perhaps also give a stronger impression of my innocence.


    "No, I do not," said Coybrook. "But I don''t know why they would block your transfer in particular. And I think the mild sea air in Archcove makes one lazy. I think the north will do you some good. Draw that bear blood out."


    "Yes, sir," I said.


    There was a pause, and Coybrook continued to stare at me. I watched his serious, beady eyes scan my face like he was trying to solve a puzzle. "You''re holding back," he said at last.


    I clasped my hands together and nodded. "If the major will permit my speculation, sir, perhaps there''s a problem with division readiness in Dubhamer someone wanted more time to resolve before my inspection."


    Major Coybrook thought and murmured. He seemed to buy this. It was a good lie, in the scheme of things. He set down the novel and gave me a nod before opening my office door to leave. "Carry on, Captain Boll," he said, and proceeded to the exit.


    For the rest of the day, I beat myself up very roughly about being caught in such a stupid situation with Jack Sr. and Major Coybrook and so much dishonesty. Several times I wished that I¡¯d just told Jack Sr. to run it up through proper channels, so as to keep me from getting involved in a tangled web. After dusk, when I got back to my officers'' lodging, I subjected myself to a grueling exercise regimen that served to partially flog out the guilt in my bile. I went to sleep, exhausted, and the next morning I woke up very early to catch the train north on the Searoad line out of Pax.


    As Integrity Office men, we rode on civilian trains for most deployments, since we did not travel in large enough numbers for a military car to be prudent. They paid for second class, which was more than enough for me, and gave us a little to cover our food and accommodations wherever we were headed. I would be taking one long day¡¯s ride from the prefecture of Eastwall all the way up to the northern tip of the island of Paxana.


    Since I would be getting in quite late, there was no ferry to meet me right at the station and take me north across the Sea of Paxana to the island of Dubhamer, where Fort Firclaw lay in wait. I would need to spend the night in the town of Nilafossam, which had the honor of being the northernmost inhabited settlement on the entire isle of Paxana. It was also deep within the Wyldlands prefecture, House Boll¡¯s frost-gripped ancestral home.


    After our initial talk, Coybrook had seemed to calm down, and through his network of gentleman officers he had secured arrangement for me to stay in the guest room of an Admiral Marshall Richfield. I knew Coybrook well enough by now to know that there was a second purpose to this. There were tensions between the Army and the Navy at that time, and they were growing worse. Staying with Richfield, I had put together, was part of the IO¡¯s plan to stay relatively pleasant with the Navy and position ourselves as appearing more reasonable than the hardheads in the general Army leadership.


    I got in late at night, after dark, and the cold was so intense whipping through that little mining town that even I needed to pull my overcoat tight. I was grateful for respite when the older, stocky Admiral Richfield picked me up in his motorcar with his elegant younger wife, Noel, in the side seat.


    Admiral Richfield was in his Navy uniform, which was a deep, proud blue and covered in medals. Noel was in a blue and white winter gownrobe in the Eastwall Paxanan style. Neither one was a Wylder.


    ¡°Thank you again, Admiral,¡± I told him, as we were having dinner in his dim dining room. The whole house had something of a nautical theme, with anchors and model ships serving as decor.


    A cold blast of air from the east hit the windows with such fury that both I and Noel Richfield jumped in fright. We both chuckled seconds later, just from nerves. ¡°Welcome to Nilafossam,¡± said Richfield. ¡°I¡¯m just glad it¡¯s not me you¡¯re here to audit.¡±


    ¡°Although I¡¯m sure you would pass with flying colors, Marshall,¡± said Noel, flattering her husband.


    ¡°IO only reports on Army readiness, not Navy,¡± I said in reassurance.


    There was a low boom and a flash of an explosion out at the frozen sea cliffs across town. I looked over, out through the window, and worried for a moment that an accident may have occurred.


    Holding up a hand, the walrus-like Admiral sought to reassure me. ¡°Mining charges,¡± he said. ¡°We¡¯re building submarine pens into the cliff.¡±


    ¡°In the dead of night?¡± I asked.


    ¡°All hours, till it¡¯s done,¡± said Admiral Richfield. He drank a thick-looking scotch from a glass. He had poured himself a strong drink, with no chaser, and done the same for Noel and myself.


    ¡°It means ¡®I don¡¯t know,¡¯¡± he said, after a large gulp. ¡°In Wyldish, ¡®Nilafossam.¡¯ A man reached the north point and asked his Wyldman guide, ¡®What do you call this place?¡¯ and the guide said, ¡®Nilafossam.¡¯¡±


    Richfield then guffawed at his own anecdote. I realized too late that I should have laughed as well, lest I appear disdainful.


    ¡°Oh, he knows that, darling,¡± said Noel. She was fairly typical in her Paxanan coloring, with dark black hair and pale, smooth skin. To describe her, she almost would have sounded like Violet, but in reality the two seemed nothing alike. Noel Richfield was taller and fuller, and had a sort of coarseness to her beauty that made her seem like she was eager for the world. ¡°Captain Boll is a Wylder by blood,¡± she explained to her husband with a smile.


    ¡°¡®N¨ªl fhiosgam,¡¯¡± I said, explaining the proper pronunciation of what had become the name of the town. The story the admiral had told sounded true enough.


    Noel, who seemed in her forties or thereabout, watched me sip my own scotch with a strange expression in her eyes. ¡°Do you like the liquor, Captain?¡± she asked.


    ¡°Very much,¡± I said.


    ¡°Just as well you¡¯re moving on to Dubhamer, then,¡± said Admiral Richfield. ¡°This town has a way of making liquor taste a touch too sweet.¡±


    I could tell he was speaking from experience, and I felt it was a good sign that he was comfortable enough with me to be that vulnerable about the pull of vice. I swallowed and decided to engage in a scheme that had served me a few times before.


    ¡°I stopped for a drink,¡± I said, lying, ¡°on my way here from the station. I can¡¯t remember the name, but I didn¡¯t stay long. It was full of pansy types.¡± I was skillful, the way I stressed those words, acting like I was searching for the right terminology while holding back incredible disdain.


    The admiral and his wife looked to each other in surprise. ¡°Not the Lavender Spa?¡± asked Noel.


    I pointed at her and slapped the table. ¡°Yes, that¡¯s the place.¡±


    ¡°Oh, Captain,¡± said the admiral, holding his forehead with a laugh. ¡°Anyone in town could have told you not to go there.¡±


    ¡°A rookie¡¯s mistake. I ran out quick,¡± I said.


    The admiral went on. ¡°We have a lot of those types in the Navy. I¡¯m not of mind to purge them from the ranks like some.¡±


    I was surprised to hear that. I was surprised to hear anything besides the most cruel vitriol about the existence of homosexuals in our Luminous Paxanan Order. ¡°You¡¯re a sentimental one, Admiral,¡± I said.


    Admiral Richfield shrugged. He was getting increasingly rosy with each sip of the scotch. ¡°They do good work for our emperor. That puts them above a thief or smuggler in my eyes. Let¡¯s just hope they never get a VD flare-up. We¡¯d have a hell of a time getting them to wear Prime Attacks.¡±


    I scowled in confusion. ¡°Prime Attacks?¡± I asked. I had never heard of such a thing.


    Richfield seemed eager to engage in show and tell. He fished in a little box, which I thought was a cigar box. Then he passed me a silvery foil square with something circular concealed within. There was a cartoon of a soldier printed on it, along with the words, ¡°Prime Attack, Latex Condom.¡±


    ¡°A health effort from your Army Medical Corps,¡± he said, with some amusement.


    I examined the shiny object between my fingers, pensive and thoughtful. Richfield finished his glass of scotch and drew a cigar from the box where the condom had been kept. ¡°Smoke, Captain?¡± he asked, offering me one.


    ¡°No, thank you, sir,¡± I told him. I started to make a move to stand as well, but he waved me off, pouring himself a second glass as he ambled toward the master bedroom.


    ¡°Noel can make up your room for you,¡± he said. Then, with a groan, he shut himself in the bedroom with a new, full drink and lit cigar. It was a rather unceremonious departure, but not an unpleasant one.


    In the sudden silence, I felt Noel turn to me. I hardly knew her, but she seemed to have taken a liking to me in a way I couldn¡¯t fully understand.


    We stared at each other, sitting on the same side of the heavy wood dining table. Our chairs were turned to mostly face each other. She took a slow drink of liquor, not looking away, and tried to read me. ¡°When he goes in, he¡¯s in for the night,¡± she said.


    ¡°I see.¡±


    Then, inch by inch, I saw the woman in the cotton-lined winter gownrobe begin to move her right leg outward. Her two legs parted, with her bare toes sliding on the wooden floor, and she laid one slender finger on her lap to tease the folds of her gownrobe apart near her waist. One flap fell away, and with her legs wide I could see in the candlelight that there was no undergarment to conceal her. She slid her hand downward toward what, to me, was foreign domain. All the while, she watched me.


    ¡°Show you your room, Captain?¡± she asked, with a low voice.


    I leaned forward. My chair creaked. I knew I was in a tricky position, and that if I snubbed her too severely she might turn around and tell nasty lies to her husband out of sheer bitterness. With shallow breath, I silently asked my ancestors for the gift tact as I thought. Then I brushed her face and kissed her cheek.


    ¡°You¡¯re a lovely woman, Mrs. Richfield,¡± I said, trying to find sincerity. ¡°I¡¯m just not made for the stuff.¡±


    It was true. I didn¡¯t know why. I had just never found myself to possess an interest in womanhood the way the boys of the state school and officer training always did. Making another excuse, I told her I wanted to visit a Wylder shrine before midnight, and bundled up to leave the admiral¡¯s home for a walk in the dark.


    After several blocks, I reached the Lavender Spa, with gas lamps burning in the windows and a wooden sign swinging in the wind. The gusts coming in from the sea at that time had become a veritable snowstorm.


    I stood alone outside the spa. Then I reached for my neck and removed the captain¡¯s pins from my collar. I knew I could not put the men inside at ease if they feared I was there to rat them out on behalf of the Integrity Office.


    The ice on the wind cut my cheeks, but I stood still. I felt too nervous to go in. To kill time, I drew a pack of cigarettes from my pocket. They had gone stale, because I hardly ever smoked them. Removing one from the pack, I lit the tip, and spent twelve long minutes debating whether to give in to the strange vice I¡¯d grappled with since adolescence.

 8 - Violet

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Violet


    It only took me a matter of weeks to learn what Headmother Heprose meant by the ¡®heavy stuff.¡¯ There were two parts to living at the Eastwall National Sorceress Convent, and they couldn''t have been more different.


    The first part was life with the girls, the sisters and apprentices. That part was a bit like being tossed into a chilly lake with everyone splashing you, having to swim when you hadn''t expected to be going in at all. The girls were unbelievably rambunctious, and they took every opportunity imaginable to try and get a rise out of me or in some way invade my privacy. My only respite was that I was older, and that I was on the taller side, and that it was clear the headmother favored me because of my good marks and my knack for listening.


    The other part of it all, though, was the instruction itself. It was soon obvious one of three Headmother Heprose had chosen to treat with special attention. Josephine, my de facto mentor, was the second. Mea, the darker-skinned sister full of wry snark, was the third.


    Instruction was not at all chaotic, or lascivious, or noisy. No one spoke out of turn. The stakes were high, and we all knew how furious Headmother Heprose could get if a sorceress was failing to live up to the Corps¡¯ strict expectations. I preferred the strict tension of instruction, I must admit, to the chaos of dormitory life.


    By the third week, I was standing in the shadow of the convent spires in the back garden and cemetery that formed our grounds. A gray wall surrounded the overgrown expanse, to separate us from the city beyond. Because we were up on a hill, nobody in any of the buildings in Archcove could see down into the premises. We were, as usual, very much in private and alone.


    I was alone with Josephine, Mea, and the headmother that day, just a few strides from the convent''s back wall. We were all dressed identically in the National Sorceress Corps uniform of black trousers, black hoods, and black robes. The first time I had put on trousers, I¡¯d felt constricted. I was not used to having material resist me when I moved to take a long stride or step. Quickly, though, I realized their liberating power. I realized, too, why boys seemed so free and rambunctious when they put on this sort of attire. With trousers and a blouse, one could almost do anything, bend or leap in any position, and not have to worry about keeping her layers all proper. I knew within the first hour of wearing them that these garments would completely transform the way I moved through the world.


    I say the four of us were alone in the garden, but in truth there were three more. These three were men, prisoners with shaved heads, chained and shackled, shirtless in the dirt. All three of them knelt, silent, having been well prepared for us by the Secret Police who had delivered them to the headmother that morning. The youngest seemed to be in his early twenties, and the oldest in his forties, though the cowls covering their eyes made it hard to tell their ages with precision. Above them stood the silent white stone of our convent''s deathsgate.


    I was in a line with Josephine and Mea, all three of us standing at attention. Headmother Heprose, as usual, was instructing.


    "All three of these men have been condemned to death," said our headmother, extending a hand in the direction of the prisoners. I had heard a rumor from the girls that morning that the incoming prisoners were Clementics. I didn''t know much about Clementics, but I knew they were some kind of cult, a fanatical religious faith that had spread to our neighbors, the Vernans, in the north. I knew that the luminous government and emperor were dead set on keeping Clementism out of Paxana at any cost. I knew that they said it was a cancer.


    ¡°So,¡± the headmother went on, "seeing as they are already sentenced to the grave, you can think of what we''re doing here as just a little stop along the way. Do what you will to them. Search their minds. This will be graded."


    I shifted my feet and tried to cultivate focus. The test, the headmother had told us that morning, was information extraction. We had been doing similar the past week, with goats and other livestock, showing them certain objects or foods and then using deathsgate ritual to search through their minds for the memories. The way the headmother spoke of it, this was one of the most important skills a National Sorceress had to learn.


    Josephine, who always stuck close to me, pointed to a raised white burn on the nearest prisoner¡¯s skin. It was a few inches wide, in the shape of a half moon, on his underfed chest. "Were they branded for Clementism?" she asked me in a murmur.


    I noticed that the other two men had the same exact brand. "They do it themselves," said the headmother, overhearing Josephine. "In devotion."


    I considered this. It seemed awfully dangerous for members of any secret society to put a permanent mark of it on their bodies. "Not so good for hiding out. For traitors, I mean," I said.


    The headmother seemed a little annoyed by our chatter. "Yes, well," she said, "if we catch and kill enough, they''ll probably get wise, but for now they do these cattle brands like they''re serving themselves up for the Secret Police on a platter."


    Mea chuckled a little at this, and from her chuckle I knew she was nervous. She always got a bit jokeier once she was nervous. "The great spirit Codannahar consumed the flesh of wicked men," she said. "Maybe we should, too. Make a meal of them."


    Whenever the headmother was tense, she took it out on Mea, and this was no exception. "Sister Mull," she snapped, turning to our third, "we are not communing with Codannahar. We are performing a basic memory extraction examination. You first, don''t dawdle."


    I did not envy Mea going first. It seemed hardest to go first. She approached her prisoner, one of the younger ones, and fully removed the black cowl that had been partially obscuring his face. Mea let the cowl fall to the dirt. With a better view of the man, I could see that he was Paxanan. He looked very much like the sort of fellow I could see pushing a cart down the street. Adjusting to the brightness of a clear winter day, the man blinked and looked around. He looked shocked when he saw the white stone deathgate above and behind him.


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    "You''ll have a short trip," said Mea, sardonically, referring to his imminent death.


    "I don''t go to your afterlife," said the prisoner. Considering his circumstances, I thought his tone was surprisingly calm. "I join the Clementic Eternal."


    "Sure. Hey, what''s with the half moon?" asked Mea. I could feel the headmother growing sour as she watched the half-foreigner ramble. "Is it waxing or waning?"


    "Waxing," said the prisoner.


    "Ah," said Mea.


    "It stands for mercy," the prisoner explained, holding his head as high as he could while on his knees.


    "Mull, no dawdling," Headmother Heprose murmured.


    "I''m warming him up," said Mea, terse. She then stepped forward and placed her bare, ungloved palm on the shaved head of the man.


    "Eternal protect me," he murmured to himself.


    "We''ll see," said Mea. She shut her eyes, and I felt a sudden cold wind blast upward from the ground. I watched it take up Mea''s wavy hair as it flew like a spirit into the clear, cold sky.


    From the gust, I could tell Mea had entered the man''s mind rather roughly. His scream of disorientation further confirmed this. Just a moment later, the man fell back, landing with a thud in the sparse grass near a gravestone. Hot, opaque, almost chunky red blood flowed from his mouth, nose, and eyes, so vivid that I thought it might be painted first. Just like that, he was dead.


    Sister Mea stumbled back, and with concern I noticed she had darker blood running from her own nose. "Agh!" she shouted, stumbling, nearly falling.


    "Mea!" Josephine cried out, and made a move to try and catch the girl.


    "Back, Josephine!" the headmother snapped. "She''s fine. Let her be. All right, whatever you two do, don''t do what Mea did."


    Mea looked like she might faint, except that she was too angry to faint. "You rushed me!" she shouted at the headmother, furious. "I was working up to it."


    In the span of a blink, Helena Heprose snapped her fingers, and a new gust of deathly cold air threw Mea down onto her backside. The grass around the splayed sister shriveled up with frost as Mea stared up with fearful, wounded surprise.


    "Never use that tone with a headmother," said Helena, pointing a warning finger at the frightened sister. "Shrineborne, you next."


    I swallowed and tried not to overthink what I was about to do. "Just like a goat," I said to myself.


    The headmother nodded, "Just like a goat."


    I approached my own prisoner and removed his cowl. This man, too, was young, and I saw from the redness and wetness of his face that he had been weeping.


    "Oh, she''s got a crybaby," said Josephine, who also got glib when her nerves were turning shaky.


    "Quiet, please," I said with calm.


    "Won''t be quiet when you''re at a terror bombing site and they''re scraping old ladies off the walls," said Josephine. "Interrogation can''t always wait for the right state of mind."


    I didn''t appreciate Josephine throwing wrenches into my examination, but I knew that her broader point was true. We couldn''t always expect the luxury of time and ethereal calm when we were out there in the field dealing with enemies of Luminous Paxana.


    In a silent moment, I caught the gaze of the prisoner. Then I put my hand upon his buzzed head and shut my own eyes.


    "Show me how you got the bombs," I said to him, trying to spur his memory so it would be easier to see it in my own mind. I knew only from what Heprose had told me that these men were would-be bombers.


    Nothing manifested in my mind¡¯s eye. I started to sway just so slightly as I held his skull, trying to use the rhythms of my body to connect to the rhythms of his mind. Then I found my way inside his thoughts, and he showed me the small congregation of a secret underground Clementic church. The faces of the worshippers were a little too blurry to make out.


    ¡°Not the congregation,¡± I said to him, nearly whispering, "Show me the bombs."


    I searched and searched, and I felt our connection straining. I didn''t want to put too much force into his mind and have him wind up dead like Mea''s subject. "I''m not seeing them," I said, speaking so the headmother could hear.


    "Breach the mind wall," said Headmother Heprose. Of course, I had already done so.


    "I''m in his mind," I said back. "He''s never heard of any bombs."


    "They weren''t ours," said my prisoner, speaking aloud to my surprise. I could feel that it was truth as he said it.


    "Impossible," said Heprose. "The bombs were found in the very same district where you Clementics meet."


    I searched deeper and found nothing. "I don''t think he even knew about them."


    "He''s playing you, Violet," said Heprose.


    I considered whether this might be true, but I didn''t think so. "No, there''s no resistance," I said back. He was giving me his mind willingly, all that it contained. He was not resisting.


    Again, I heard the headmother''s voice turn irritable. "What''s more likely, that the whole of the Secret Police got it wrong, or an apprentice sorceress can''t make a reading?"


    I felt myself getting prickly, and I knew that I could not sustain the mind connection in that state. I removed my hand from the man''s shaved head and watched him slump over, unconscious but not dead, from the exhaustion. It took all my concentration to not fall over from dizziness as I turned to the tall, hooded headmother.


    "I don''t know what to tell you," I said. "Respectfully, ma''am, I¡¯ve reported my findings, per the test. They never saw any bombs. That¡¯s my determination, per the evidence."


    The third hooded prisoner, the older one, spoke gruffly under his cowl. "You''re all going to feel pretty stupid when you find out it really wasn''t us who hid those bombs."


    I watched Headmother Heprose stare at the cowled man, and for the first time she seemed to really consider that these Clementics might be falsely accused. "Dismissed, everyone," she said, changing her tack. "Josephine, get leywater and houndspaw for Mull. She''s going to be quite shaken up for a bit."


    Josephine looked frustrated to be denied her own examination. "I was ready," she said, stamping her foot with petulance. "I was ready to make my assessment. I was going to get the information for you. Honest."


    Helena Heprose waved a dismissing hand, and for the first time since I''d met her, I heard her curse. "If the Secret Police intelligence really is fucked, I can''t waste our last man on an exercise. I''ll go in myself."


    I looked over at Josephine, who did not retort. Together, the two of us helped lift woozy Mea from the icy circle of grass where she had been knocked. As we made our way back inside, I saw Headmother Heprose pull the cowl off the third man and prepare herself solemnly for a solo psychic entry through his mind wall.

 9 - Jack

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Jack


    Believe it or not, after a few weeks at Cabinet Hall, I actually knew what I was doing. At least, I thought I did, and I carried myself like I did, and I had learned to dress in such a way that on the outside I appeared like I did. Gone was the flashy navy suit I had bought, relegated to the closet for nights and weekends only. In its place was the standard gray that seemed to be so common among my administrative set. I carried a notebook, and my handwriting was good, and I generally seemed like a chap that others could rely on.


    As such, my persnickety superior Mr. Depper had actually entrusted me with a few key assignments in the field. One of these assignments was to visit various government facilities, mostly military facilities, where administrators or other personnel were requesting a visit from Cabinet, in order to address some issue that was affecting their production. In the case of the Master Secretary, he usually offered when asked to send Mr. Depper on his behalf, and Mr. Depper now, in turn, sent me. This meant, in a roundabout way, I was something close to the physical manifestation of the Master Secretary of Paxana. That felt quite exciting indeed.


    It was with this excitement of responsibility that I walked into the weapons armory of the Grandhill Army Arsenal with a man named Roger Colbank. Colbank was a Logistics Office administrator, and, although he managed several locations, the Grandhill Arsenal was by far the largest.


    I had never been to Grandhill, and I liked seeing a new city, even if this one did have something of a fishy smell on account of its sizable harbor. We were at a great stride with Colbank as we walked past dozens of rows of Army equipment shelving. "I''m just glad your office is finally getting something done about this," he said to me. "By our estimates, the Army would be short over 4,500 Springbolt rifles and several thousand ammunition cartridges in the event of a full mobilization. What''s the point of a soldier if you don''t have a weapon for him?"


    To illustrate his point, Colbank opened a large rifle rack with a key. Despite it having room for over thirty, there were only six rifles stored within.


    "Well, it sounds like we need more," I said, for lack of anything better to say.


    "Oh, thank you, Mr. Clearwater." Colbank smiled. I realized I had accidentally given him the impression that I would see to correcting this shortfall. Of course, I had no such power. "My gosh," he went on, "you wouldn''t believe how hard it is to just get a clear, simple answer from most of the people in Cabinet Hall."


    I put up two hands to try and calm him from his exultation. "Before we get ahead of ourselves," I said, "I''m just a second assistant. All I can do is pass your concerns to Mr. Depper."


    I was trying to position things such that Colbank would like me and see me as an ally, regardless of whether or not the Master Secretary actually helped him out. It seemed to be working, and Colbank patted my arm. "You sell yourself short," said the man, his disposition sunny. "You''re one door down from the Master Secretary himself. He''s probably one of the most influential men in the entire nation."


    I knew full well that he was probably just saying that so I''d feel responsible for helping him, but I still let it land in my heart. He was right. I was influential. For the first time in over two decades, I was making something of myself, and it was only getting better.


    This was the hubris I carried in my heart on the night I made my first massive mistake.


    I was working late, as I was oft to do, writing a report in longhand cursive on the shortage of Army rifles at the Grandhill Arsenal. In fatigue, I let my hand drop a little, smearing the ink. It wasn''t so bad that I would have to redo the whole page.


    Just at that moment, I heard a noise, and a man I knew as the assistant to the foreign secretary came in looking agitated. After a beat, I remembered his name was Nelson Sailpost. He was a couple years older than myself, roughly Murdoch''s age, but he had none of Murdoch''s grit or warlike sensibility. If anything, he spoke with a sort of overwrought, mothering cadence.


    As he entered, he spotted me in the near-empty office. "Oh, thank heavens someone''s still here," said Sailpost. "What''s your name again?"


    "Jack Clearwater," I said. I was grateful to be far enough away from my father that I did not need to specify ¡®Junior.¡¯


    Sailpost went on. "The ambassador from Arcfortdom is here, and I need to go pick up the FS from home so he can come work out this aluminum deal."


    FS was Foreign Secretary¡ªa man named Flinter. He was known to be a bit of an abrasive personality who always worked hard to get the most for the nation.


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    "How can I help?" I asked.


    "Just keep him happy until I get back with Flinter," said Sailpost. "He being the ambassador, of course. He''s downstairs in Flinter''s office."


    I wiped the ink off my hand with a rag and lay the rag down. "Do you want me to pick up Flinter instead?" I asked, standing.


    Sailpost hesitated. "Can you drive a motorcar?" he asked.


    I didn''t want to say no, although I could not. "I''m a quick learner," was my answer.


    Sailpost considered this. "Best not," he said. "Flinter''s door''s unlocked."


    Following Nelson Sailpost''s request, I left my desk and walked downstairs to find the ambassador from Arcfortdom, Paul Ternoir, standing alone. He was tall and pale and wore a black suit. When I walked in, he was observing the personal photographs on the shelves of the Foreign Secretary''s office.


    I bowed deeply. Believe it or not, Ternoir was the first person from the continent I had ever met, and I could immediately tell by his posture and facial features that he was not Paxonim. I felt very excited to have the opportunity.


    "Mr. Ambassador, sir," I said with utmost respect, "I''m Jack Clearwater from the Master Secretary''s office."


    Paul Ternoir returned the bow with some surprise, like he hadn''t been expecting it. He indicated a small statue of an Arcfort woman rider on a horse carrying small cloth flags of Arcfortdom and Paxana. Arcfort was renowned for its riding culture all throughout the Sunberth, and the statue, I presumed, was intended to be a gift from Flinter to his ambassadorship.


    "Is this your doing?" the ambassador asked, pointing to the miniature rider.


    "No, sir," I said. "I imagine the Foreign Secretary arranged for it to be made, sir."


    "I can only guess at the meaning," said Ternoir.


    At this, I took a second glance at the statue, and tried to derive some geopolitical message from the presence of the Arcfortdom and Paxana flags side by side. I swallowed and tried to offer a reply that would not offend the ambassador. "I imagine it means freedom through kinship, sir, the freedom of the open plain."


    Then, falling into it naturally, I decided to recite the first relevant Courtspeech poem that came to my head. I''d always had high marks in Courtspeech, and I knew it was the primary language of Arcfortdom, just as it was the primary language of the Midlands.


    "A rideress carrieth she the banner of she freedom to traverse a broad field open. They the stars and they the fires of camp illuminate they the great people Arcfort."


    Ternoir looked amused at this. I hoped he was pleased as well. "A Paxanan who knows his Courtspeech poetry," he said.


    "It was one of my favorite subjects in school, sir," I told him. "Our Paxanan culture came from the Midlands, too, you know. Centuries ago."


    I said it only as a historical fact, a small point of interest to tie our two peoples together in spirit. At my words, though, Ternoir gave me a quizzical look, as if wary of a trap. "You are not like the others of your people," he said, stepping closer. Then he picked up a framed photo of the Darkland ambassador, Somman Rivachai, shaking hands with mustached Boyd Flinter. Both in the photo were smiling and heavyset.


    I pointed to the ambassador from Darkland and tried to make more conversation. "That''s Rivachai on the left. I met him. I helped on a deal for rubber from Darkland, gaskets and tires for new Paxanan aircraft. With aluminum from Arcfortdom, our nations can have the best Army air wings in the Sunberth."


    "Our nations?" the ambassador asked.


    "Paxana, Darkland, Arcfortdom," I said. "Working together for peace."


    Those exact words, which Ambassador Ternoir later relayed to Boyd Flinter, spelled my doom. Hours later, after Flinter had managed to cool off the whole situation, the FS dragged me back into his office and slapped me hard across the face while Nelson Sailpost watched in horror.


    "Arcfortdom is not a nation!" Boyd Flinter screamed at me. I had made the fatal error of presenting Paxana, Darkland, and Arcfortdom all as co-equals in my remarks. This, apparently, was a very grave taboo.


    "It is a Paxanan protectorate! Eighty thousand Paxanan men died in the dirt and snow of the north to take Arcfortdom from the Vernans and put it under our sphere. Better men than you! And you spit on their graves when you blather this nonsense! Paxana is starving for natural resources. We need every scrap of metal we can get to stand toe-to-toe with the Far West in a fight, and that means we cannot ever give these medieval horse people the idea that they can negotiate against us in trade as a sovereign power!"


    I had never in my life had a man as angry with me as Flinter was that night. As soon as he finished speaking, spit flying into my face, I dropped to the floor at his feet, head down and bowed. "Yes, sir. It won''t happen again, sir," I said.


    I fully expected him to kick me, for all the fury in his throat. "No, it will not," he said, "because you will never get within a hundred feet of this office. The only reason I''m not kicking your ribs is I blame Sailpost more than you for letting an idiot consortium brat into government affairs."


    I heard Nelson Sailpost work up the shaky courage to speak. "I''ll resign if you ask, sir," he said to his boss.


    "And, Clearwater," said Flinter, "if I ever hear a rumor you''re pulling strings against me with your business connections, your father will be thrown so far out of Paxcorp that your parents will be shining shoes at Pax Station before December."


    I kept my nose to the carpet next to his shined shoe. "There won''t be any problems from my family, sir," I promised him. "I''m here on my own, strictly on my own."


    Flinter stepped back and made a gesture to show I could return to my feet. "Get out of here, both of you," he said, "before I really do fire you. Clearwater. The Master Secretary''s office can keep you if they like. But I won''t have you involved in FS duties ever again."


    "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Apologies again, sir," I said, and I hurried out of his office with Sailpost beside me.

 10 - Tom

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Tom


    A few weeks into working at the Army Engineering Labs, I was walking out of the front doors at five in the afternoon with my nose in a book as usual. There was a lot to learn about electric mills, and I was determined to learn it all. Many of the most relevant texts were in Crisaynish, with Crisaynish being the language both of the Crisayni Empire far to the west and the Kaichurans to the east across the Sunrim.


    My Crisaynish was far too poor to allow me to understand the material, but thankfully there were a couple of men in the lab front office who were willing to translate relevant passages. I would go through the books at night, using the included diagrams to determine what was of interest. Then I would mark a section in pencil and pass it off to the translators when I arrived in the morning. At the end of the day, leaving the office, I would take the books back with included handwritten translations.


    I stepped down the few concrete stairs to the front garden. Most of the men from the lab were hurrying to catch a departing cable car, but I consciously decided to let it go. There would be another one in ten minutes'' time, and I was in no hurry. I actually preferred the cool of the front gardens to the cramped accommodations of the lodge where I now lived.


    I had a touch of black grease on my white shirt, which I took as a mark of pride. There was a roll of blueprints under my arm. I walked with my nose down, eyes scanning the translated note on state-of-the-art mill configurations.


    As I reached the curb, a black motorcar pulled up in front of me so suddenly that I almost walked into it. It came to a halt as if to deliberately block my way, and I stopped short. Then I saw the back passenger window of the car roll down. Inside was my superior, Major Summiter, dressed in uniform and wearing his cap.


    I shut the book, sliding the translated page out just a little to keep my place.


    "Tom," said the Major.


    "Major," I said back with a nod. Not officially being Army, I was not instructed to salute.


    "How are the electric mills?" Summiter asked.


    "Unwieldy, sir," I said, "but getting more compact every day. I''ve actually been learning a lot about the practical applications. From what I''ve been reading from Kaichura, the biggest advantage of a full electric conversion is actually the modularity of the machine shop setup, the fact that you can arrange more efficient factory patterns that don''t have to revolve around the placement of the central drive belt. It¡¯s¡ª¡±


    Major Summiter put up a hand to stop me, chuckling at my passion.


    "I was expecting an answer like, ''It''s going well,''" he said. "I''m happy to hear the specifics when I''m in the office, ideally in the form of a written report."


    "Of course. Sorry, sir," I said with a smile. "I suppose I got carried away. Yes, it''s going well."


    "Can the work survive until tonight without you?" Summiter asked.


    I hesitated. I wasn''t sure what line of inquiry would follow. "It can, sir," I said.


    Summiter slid aside to leave an open space on the back bench of his luxury motorcar. "Get in," he said, motioning for me to open the door. "This''ll be an education for you."


    I opened the door, which swung smoothly on an oiled hinge, and got in. The high-end upholstery of the cab muffled the noise of the street outside as I shut the door again. The car began to move, and Major Summiter leaned forward to speak to the military driver.


    "To Paxlight Field," he told the young man.


    I was surprised to hear this. "Are we going to be flying?" I asked him.


    "They''re flying. We''re watching," said Summiter. "Tri-Gem Aviation wants to show off some new planes. They''re coming over from Archcove to court us for a military contract."


    I suddenly felt underdressed. "We''re being courted and I''m showing up with bearing grease on my shirt?" I asked, looking down at the black stain just above my waistband.


    "We can get you a change," said the major. He was in a good mood. "Where do you live?"


    "At the Guildson Men''s Lodge," I told him. "I rent a quarter room."


    "Bunking with a load of potmakers?" asked Summiter.


    I was surprised to hear him remark on the Guild Lodge with disdain, but I supposed that it must have sounded rather provincial compared to being a big-time Army officer. "Pax isn''t cheap," I said, to explain the choice of lodging.


    Summiter shook his head. "Well, that''s too far the wrong way. What''s your Western shirt size?"


    "Fourteen-inch neck, thirty-two sleeve."


    Summiter leaned forward again. "Driver, stop at the plaza up there and buy him a shirt and sweater. Did you get those numbers?"


    "Yes, Major," said the driver, with attentiveness.


    I looked out past my boss and saw a mess of black cars filling the street, so many that they were in each other''s way. I had never seen a jam like that before. "I didn''t know there were this many motorcars in the whole country till I moved to Pax," I remarked.


    Summiter nodded. "The future of man is the motor. In a factory, a train, we can use coal power, but every car, plane, and tank needs oil, and Paxana is starving for it."


    I understood the scope of the problem. We were coal-rich and oil-poor, and the latter was hurting us daily. "I''ve heard of efforts to try and liquify coal as a petroleum substitute," I offered.


    "In the Almenreich, yes," said Summiter, referring to that great and verdant land far to the west. "There are two men working on the method. We''ve sent liaisons to learn what they can from each of them."


    I scoffed. "Gosh. It seems like every time there''s a new frontier for industry, it''s the Almenreichers getting there first."


    The car inched forward, and as we sat in the traffic, Summiter opined on his view of the world''s affairs. "They''re the most hardened of the hard-born peoples," he said of the Almenreich, "and the most like us. The Kaichurans are the most advanced in the world, yes, but they''re easy-born. Their god gave them a land of corn and riches. The Kaichurans have no need for synthetic petroleum. They have oil flowing underground, up to their necks. Any problem, they can solve with money. But we must struggle, and in that struggle perfect our warrior heart, and with that heart we will win."


    "Against whom?" I asked him.


    "Everyone," said Summiter, "in the race to master the physical world."


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    Summiter''s driver managed to maneuver the car through the traffic and over to the market square. He shifted it into park, but kept it running, and got out to buy me new clothes per Summiter''s request. With the two of us alone, I took the opportunity to voice something I''d been thinking for a while.


    "I''ve been thinking it might be good to open an Army Labs office in Archcove."


    Summiter grunted. "You''re wading into a years-long argument with that one."


    I suppose I could have expected this to have already been proposed. Still, I made my case. "Pax just isn''t the center of industry anymore. The government''s in Archcove. The major shipyards. Even Tri-Gem. I mean, they''re only flying out here to Pax because they want the contract."


    Major Summiter considered his response. "Being far from Cabinet Hall might not be the disadvantage you think."


    I scowled, trying to take in his meaning. "You''re saying Cabinet would meddle with Army projects if we were close at hand?"


    "I''m saying everyone has an opinion," said Summiter, "sometimes it''s better to let us work in peace."


    The driver returned with the clothes, which fit me well, and we made good time once we left downtown driving over to the overcast airfield. Lacking a coat, I put my hands in my pockets and shivered as I walked with the major to join a dozen other Army and Navy personnel. They were all men, mostly in uniform, ranging in age from their twenties to their fifties. I didn¡¯t recognize a one, but I knew by the shine of their medals and their proud dispositions that they must have been somewhat important.


    On the side of the airfield, parked on asphalt, I noticed two familiar varieties of plane. The first was the gray-painted A-10 Honeybee, a biplane fighter in service for nearly a decade. The second was the A-3 Chickenhawk, a biplane bomber. They were variants of Western designs, but entirely domestically produced. This was a massive point of pride for the nation, and for myself as well.


    Standing with Major Summiter, I introduced myself politely when called to, and otherwise kept quiet. This was not a domain in which I was comfortable enough to be chatty or make comments out of turn. Before long, with all of us clustered on the tarmac, our attention was drawn by sound to a handsome white triplane overhead. It neared, did a soaring backflip above us, and swung down with grace over the grassy fields of Eastwall.


    As the buzz of the triplane prototype faded, I heard a man huff with amusement. He was older than most of us there¡ªmid-fifties, I guessed¡ªwith a kind, pale, round sort of face and a large gray mustache in the middle. I could see from the olive and gold of his uniform he was an Army Corps general.


    He leaned in to speak to me. "It¡¯s a good try."


    "Not impressed, General?" I asked him, watching the triplane. I felt proud of myself for identifying his rank simply through his shoulder-stitched insignia.


    Shortly after I said it, we heard a tire screech, and the prototype slowed to a stop on the runway ahead. On cue, a pencil-mustached aircraft executive in a pinstripe suit approached Major Summiter. This man I knew through the Clearwaters. He was Edgar Lowton from Tri-Gem, and he had come to make a sale.


    With a showman-like flair, he halted a stopwatch in his hand. "It can take off from a short-style carrier deck, too," he said of his prototype, speaking directly to my boss but keeping his voice loud enough that the whole gang of officers could hear.


    Major Summiter, scowled and crossed his arms. "Edgar," he said, having clearly also met Lowton before. "Everyone I talk to in the field says the future is monoplanes, and here you and Tri-Gem are going up from two wings to three."


    "It¡¯s by far the best for dogfight maneuvering of the options we tested," said Lowton, perhaps a touch defensive in his response.


    Brushing past me, the large-mustached General Dell stepped in. "And what about top speed and climb?" he asked.


    Now Edgar Lowton was dealing with both Dell and Summiter at once. "Our design spec assumes an environment where our fighter is already up and positioned at air-to-air altitude for offensive action," said the man from Tri-Gem.


    "You sound like a politician," said Dell, surprisingly blunt. "Your answers do not inspire confidence, Mr. Lowton."


    The pinstriped man smiled with nerves. "Respectfully, General Dell, the speed-first doctrine of the cavalry might not exactly translate to modern warfare."


    From the looks on the faces of Summiter and Dell, I knew Lowton had misstepped. Summiter stuck a finger toward Edgar Lowton in anger. "The General knows more about warfare than you could ever hope to," said my superior. "When he has concerns, you listen."


    "I meant no disrespect," said Lowton, now stuttering. He now had the disadvantage of a large crowd watching his faltering performance.


    Summiter shook his head. "It¡¯s a no. It¡¯s going to be a no."


    "Herman¡ª" Lowton protested.


    "Isleman already pitched us a monoplane fighter, and we turned that down too, so you¡¯ve got a high bar to beat."


    "Herman¡ª"


    "Don¡¯t interrupt me," Summiter snapped. "Every gildnote we spend on air-to-air is a gildnote we don¡¯t have for desperately needed infantry arms. Now, if I put one of my pilots up in an A-10 Honeybee against your triplane and run them both right now on a straight race out to the port and back, plus maneuvers, are you honestly telling me you would beat the Bee by the twenty-percent benchmark we require?"


    Edgar Lowton gritted his teeth. I could see in his eyes that he now knew he was defeated. "Not with the port race, no," he said.


    Major Summiter seemed to appreciate his honesty, and nodded in an effort to cool things down. General Dell showed a mote of compassion. "It was a good showing, Mr. Lowton," said the grayed cavalry general, smiling and patting the aircraft representative¡¯s padded shoulder. "I¡¯ve always believed in Tri-Gem. Don¡¯t let this get you down. My door¡¯s always open. I¡¯ll be rooting for you."


    Edgar Lowton bowed with respect. "Thank you, General. Major. It¡¯s an honor to have the opportunity."


    In this show of decorum, tensions were lowered, and Lowton walked off to debrief with his junior engineers. With the industry men gone, I took the chance to tell Summiter what I had been thinking since I first saw the pencil-mustached man.


    "I know him," I said to my boss.


    "Oh?" said Summiter, surprised that Lowton and I might have a connection.


    I nodded. "He¡¯s friends with Jack Clearwater Sr., who¡¯s on the Paxcorp board. I grew up with Jack¡¯s son, Jack Jr."


    General Dell, who was still nearby, joined our conversation. "All the consortium men know each other," he said with a rich, husky voice. "And all their wives know each other, too. I, for one, think it¡¯s good to have the voice of commerce in the Army¡¯s ear. Their greed makes them warn us away from wasteful fights. They want Paxana rich."


    Summiter was still thinking over what I¡¯d said. "I didn¡¯t realize you were so connected, Trussford," he mused.


    "I wouldn¡¯t say connected," I said with humility.


    The older general cleared his throat. "As much as I¡¯d love to chat, Herman," Dell said to Summiter, "the regiment calls. Good to meet you, Tom. My hopes are high for you."


    "Good to meet you as well," I said with a bow.


    "Be seeing you, Zadoch," said Summiter, teaching me Dell¡¯s first name in the process.


    Dell smiled warmly and got into the back of his own private car. I watched it as it began to drive at a low speed down the airfield tarmac. "You can call a general by his first name, Major?" I asked, unclear of the levels of formality required between the upper ranks of the brass.


    "All the Army men know each other," Summiter shrugged. "All their wives know each other¡­"


    Then a second later, there was a ghastly and roaring explosion. I looked over in its direction and saw the hood from General Dell¡¯s black car flying straight up into the air. A huge fireball lit up the gray horizon, engulfing the vehicle. Smoke billowed and people were shouting, and in that instant I couldn¡¯t believe my eyes.


    Then action took hold of me and I began sprinting for the car. I arrived about the same time as a couple of other military men, leaving Summiter behind. I could see that the explosion had been centered under the dash, and that the driver was dead, his head blown open in two places. The image seared into my mind¡ªthe blood and the flesh half-blackened where a living man had just been. It was my first time seeing anything like that. I¡¯ll never forget the sight and smell.


    "General!" I shouted, looking in the back seat and seeing the limp form of Dell amid the overwhelming smoke.


    "Someone call for an ambulance," one of the Army men behind me said to another.


    I heard the flames and saw the orange roar engulfing the upholstery of the front seats. "This fire¡¯s spreading," I said over the noise. "We need to pull him out. General Dell, can you hear me?"


    "Yes. Yes," said the general, croaking.


    With the help of another man, I grabbed the mangled back door and pried it off. My hands bled from the twisted edges as I gripped it, but I didn¡¯t care. Then, putting the door aside, we reached in and grabbed General Dell.


    With a grunt and a cough, we pulled him out of the roaring flames and smoke onto the tarmac. One of his legs, except for a few gory strings, did not come with him. I stared at the wound and his grimacing face, and for the first time I really understood that our nation had foes without mercy.

 11 - Violet

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Violet


    There was never any point in my twelve years living with the temple priests that I expected them to lay unwanted hands on me. When I first arrived and was taken into their care, I was so young and so shaken from what had just occurred that I didn''t have the wits to cast suspicion. As I grew older, and more aware of the ills of the world, I still retained full trust and confidence that I would be kept safe in my place of living. Every one of those Sunmount priests, young and old, has my utter respect and admiration. I lived and worked beside them, and like them I kept to a vow of chastity, and although the priesthood was meant only for men they never made me feel like anything other than another of their brethren. For this, they have my eternal gratitude.


    The same, as you might surmise, cannot be said of the trouble-making girls at the Eastwall convent. From my very first day, I knew I was an object of fixation. I told myself their heckling and grabbing was simply an expression of jealousy, since there had been some comments suggesting I was spoiled as a favorite of the headmother. If there was any other reason for their interest, I was too na?ve and good-hearted in my thinking to put all the facts together.


    Nevertheless, their handsiness was plain, and I slept most nights in that bunk with the idea in the back of my head that I had to be vigilant. I''d even debated sleeping in my clothes for propriety, but I decided that would bring more mockery than respite. As such, I settled for the Western-style nightgowns that the other sisters preferred, and tried not to think about the way the sheer fabric was presenting me as I walked through the dormitory.


    Then, one moonless night, with a fitful storm thrashing outside, my worst fear came true. I woke with a start from an unpleasant dream and found a woman''s hand pressed hard over my mouth. From the pressure of it, I could not scream, and my eyes shot open with a sudden understanding that something quite unpleasant might be in store. In the dark, I saw that all the other sisters were asleep. There was no gang waiting to subject me to some secret initiation. The hand, thankfully, belonged to Headmother Heprose, and she knelt over me as she made a motion for quiet.


    Believe me when I say I was quite relieved to see that it was her. She beckoned for me to come, pointing to the open dormitory door that led to the hallway. It was clear she did not want me waking the sisters in my departure, so I slipped as quietly as I could up from under the covers of my bunk. I did not stop to put on my shoes or look for any more clothing. I followed the headmother, who was dressed in her robes, and when I reached the hall I found Josephine also in her nightgown.


    It was rare that I saw Josephine in undress, because she had been assigned to the dormitory on the opposite side of the second floor from mine. In the light of the candle the Headmother held, I inadvertently found myself staring through the fabric of Josephine Wistree¡¯s nightgown, realizing her body was in shape and color quite different from mine.


    "We''re leaving tonight," said the headmother. There was an additional smoothness to her voice when she spoke in this low, secretive tone, "The three of us. Sister Valekind will mind the girls."


    I didn''t know where we were going, but I knew better than to ask. In times of action, the Headmother wanted only the most practical questions. "Should I get my bag?" I said to her, indicating the locked trunk beneath my lower bunk. I knew that I could not move and open it without waking all my other bunkmates.


    "You''ll get everything you need from the Secret Police," said Headmother Heprose. "Get changed."


    As she said this, she handed black robes and trousers to me and Josephine. We paused as we held the outfits, unsure whether to return to our bunks or go to the washroom.


    "With haste," said the Headmother, looking impatient. As such, we both removed our nightgowns where we stood, changing into the NS robes while our superior watched us in silence. Josephine, I was well aware, was watching me as I dressed.


    "What''s happened?" she asked, to fill the silence.


    "Violet was right," said the headmother. "There was a bombing at the military airfield in Pax. Same kind of bomb they seized downtown. Not Clementic."


    "We''re going to go mindsearch the suspects?" Josephine whispered.


    "I already did," said the Headmother. "I just got back from Pax¡¯s Secret Police headquarters, and I got us a lead in Dawncastle."


    "But, that¡¯s¡­" Josephine gasped. She was quicker than me at putting the whole thing together. "We''re leaving Paxana?"


    "Dawncastle is Paxana," said the Headmother. "That''s clear from the emperor, clear from the Western treaties, clear for just about everyone except for these independence thugs. Dawncastler separatists, they¡¯re the new prime suspects. They just took the leg off the most decorated general in the Army Corps. High Command wants blood, so the Secret Police are going to sail us to Cauldrontop, and we''re going to rip up the town till we get our men."


    I thought all this through. In my twenty-three years, I had barely considered Dawncastle at all. In my mind, at that time, it was a remote land, a peninsula of poor and provincial people who spoke an odd language and had for a century been our subjects. They wore colorful gown robes, and had unusual ways, and beyond that I really knew nothing.


    "I don''t speak Dawncastler, Headmother," I said. I remembered from my classes that my teachers had described it as a very tough language to learn.


    "Neither do I," said Josephine. She sounded afraid, like she didn''t want to go.


    "And you don''t speak goat, but you could still crack their minds just fine," said the headmother. "I want you with me, and I don''t want a word of this to anyone till we''re back."


    I saw that the headmother was wearing a purple armband on her black sleeve. It had a white circle with the letters ¡®NS¡¯ painted on it in black. The specific shade indicated that she was a National Sorceress headmother. When we finished dressing in our blouses, trousers, and robes, the headmother handed similar armbands in blue to myself and to Josephine.


    "This will put the fear of the deathsgate into anyone who looks at you wrong," said the Headmother, urging us to wear them. Jo and I both took them and put them on, covering our sleeved left biceps. "Headmother," I said, looking down at the blue below my shoulder. "This armband''s for a sister, not an apprentice."


    When there was no answer, I looked up at the headmother''s eyes. They seemed to flicker orange in the candlelight. "So make yourself worthy of it," she said, and did not speak further on my rank.


    Everything had been arranged to be carried out swiftly and with secrecy. A black car driven by a secret policeman had come to meet us at the convent, and it cut straight back through the rainy dead of night to the quay at the Archcove docks.


    Rain poured in sheets, bouncing off concrete and shipping pallets. I remember the way the yellow electric lights illuminated cones of it as it came down. Josephine and I had been seated in the back of the car, and Headmother Heprose had ridden next to the driver. The three of us women got out, and the driver remained. We walked in a cluster from the car toward the dock, our long robes flapping in the salty wind as we advanced. The headmother, naturally, was in front. I was glad she was, because it was so hard to see that I worried I might take a wrong step and plunge into the depths of the ocean if I was not careful.


    The docks, I realized, ran day and night, and so even at this hour there were lowborn workers whispering about us as they stared from the shadows. No one dared come close. When we got down to the end of the quay, we saw a Navy captain standing at the start of a gangway behind him. The rickety metal ramp ran to the deck of a twelve-man torpedo ship. I would learn soon enough that the ship was LPO Pirouette, and that the captain was a distinguished officer by the name of Xander Norquary.


    His ship, unlike most I had seen in that harbor, was painted black. It was long and low, with a wide, flat deck, and seemed like it was designed to be unnoticed. There was an elevated bridge in the center, stiff and square, with windows that looked out on all four sides. I could not tell what was below or how many people were aboard.


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    "Sorceress," Captain Norquary said with respect, bowing to our headmother.


    "This is everyone," said the headmother, dispensing with formality.


    The Navy captain nodded. He had dark hair and sideburns, and a face both handsome and kind. I felt in that moment that I could trust him. "The Secret Police are already aboard," he said, speaking only to Heprose and ignoring the two of us sisters. "We expect some storms in the Sea of Paxana and arrival at Cauldrontop before first light."


    I couldn''t believe we were really crossing the sea, really leaving the home isle. I had never expected any of this when I first arrived in Eastwall.


    "Good, Captain, lead the way," said the Headmother.


    Then she walked aboard Pirouette, and the two of us followed. There was a narrow walkway around the side of the bridge, with a railing to stop you from plummeting over the edge. The headmother went first, and both Josephine and I hung back a few paces as we followed her and the captain toward the aft.


    "I''ve never been outside Eastwall before," Josephine said to me in confession, "and I''ve never been on a ship."


    "Neither have I," I said back to her. It made me feel better that this city girl was even more provincial, in her own way, than myself. I had never left the isle, but she hadn''t even ever left her own home prefecture.


    "Still," I said, "we should try to seem put together in front of the Navy and the Secret Police. We''re representing the convent and the whole Corps here."


    "I just can''t believe she chose us," said Josephine.


    "I can," I said back. "The rest of the sisters are green, daft, or flying off the handle. This is a serious assignment."


    Josephine paused, and I paused too, and with the storm and the rain and the rocking of the ship the whole thing seemed quite dramatic. Her blond hair clung to her rosy face in strands, with her hood just above her eyebrows. She looked at me with a strange sort of reverence. "Yes, Sister Shrineborne," she said, in reference to my armband.


    The sea was quite rough once Pirouette left the port. Headmother Heprose had gone up to the bridge to discuss official matters with the captain and his first mate. Josephine and I, meanwhile, had been told to sequester in a small yellow room with two small portholes and a single cot.


    It was warm, although not as warm as we would have liked after being out in the freezing rain. Everything we had worn on the walk from the car to the ship was soaked straight through. I had removed my top robe and blouse, as well as my socks and shoes, hanging them all to dry from metal hooks near the door of the cabin. The length of my robes had mostly prevented my trousers from getting too soaked, so I kept those on for the sake of preserving scant modesty.


    I sat on the bed, examining the electric lamp above and the welded metal drawers. It was all so modern, and yet so unglamorous. I felt grateful to not be seasick from the rocking of the ship.


    Josephine removed her own black clothes and hung them up by mine. She kept only her cotton knickers on. Now, in the plain light, I could see indeed that her fairer coloring recurred in its own way all across her body. I watched her walk from the hooks to the bed with the storm gnashing just past the portholes. Then my thoughts went to home.


    "What are you thinking?" she asked me, as she saw my eyes searching in middlesight. Josephine was an intuitive one, and she could tell in that moment that I was trying to reach beyond our plane.


    "I''m trying to reach my parents," I said in honesty.


    "You can do that?" she asked. I could tell she was surprised.


    I swallowed, and then I shook my head negative. "No, it never works."


    Josephine''s hair was still soaked and matted. She reached a hand up to touch it, feeling its flatness, and pulled it back to hide its length behind her neck like it was slicked with pomade. "Do I look like a boy with my hair like this?" she asked me.


    I looked her up and down.


    "Not really," I said, for obvious reasons. There was nothing about her figure that was masculine.


    She pulled one strand of blonde hair around and held it like a mustache over her upper lip. "How about now?" she asked.


    I felt too exhausted to engage in repartee. "You just look like Josephine," I said.


    She let her hair fall against the sides of her face again.


    "Well, I am."


    Then, as I thought she might, she got onto the bed with me. I couldn''t help but watch the way the curves of her body changed when going from standing to lying. So much of it, although she was fit and taut, was still dependent on gravity. She stared at me as I stared ahead and tried again to reach out to my parents.


    Then, softly, Josephine placed a hand on the place below my ribs where my abdominal muscles were tense. I said nothing, and I did not stop her. I could feel her watching me to see what I thought, but my face showed little. Squirming up on the bed, she pressed her nose into the side of my jaw. It was a firm nose, firmer than mine, and narrow as well. Then she pressed her lips to the spot where her nose had just been.


    "I''m not jealous of your boyfriend anymore," she said, like it was a confession. "I just think every girl needs a friend while she''s in the Corps."


    I looked over at Josephine and thought about what she was saying. This was all so new to me, so strange, that I barely had the words for it. To be honest, I didn''t even have the thoughts for it.


    "And if you''re not even engaged to him, and if you''re not doing anything with a man, then it''s nothing bad at all," Josephine went on. "I''m sure your boyfriend wants someone looking out for you, looking over your shoulder, when you''re in danger."


    I continued to listen to her, and still said nothing. I felt her fingers slide upward, toward my ribs, sticking a little in places from the clammy cold of the rainwater that had drenched us. She moved her hand like she was appraising the landscape of my body, the firm spots, the spots that would give.


    With her index finger, she began to draw a slow, tender circle on my left breast. The skin tingled, and some other things changed in a way I had not expected and did not understand. After a shallow breath, I decided to lay a hand on hers, to get her to stop. The result was that I pressed her hand against my own beating heart.


    We looked at each other again, face to face, and I saw melancholy mixing with whatever else made up her youthful countenance. "You don''t have to like me, Shrineborne," she said. "I''ll keep on liking you anyway."


    At that moment, the metal handle of the cabin door creaked unlocked. Thinking it might have been a sailor, I jumped, and grabbed a pillow to cover my shirtless chest. Josephine turned, not covering herself, and watched the door half open. Thankfully, it was only Headmother Heprose.


    The headmother looked us over, and I could not tell what she was thinking.


    "Three hours to port," she said. "Try to sleep."


    "Yes, Headmother," said Josephine.


    I watched the door shut again. I did, in fact, sleep, and Josephine made no further moves I could call impropriety.


    Dawn came much quicker than either of us would have liked, given our exhaustion. Rising, we found our clothes mostly dry, and we dressed in full before going up top to see where Pirouette had taken us.


    A breathtaking golden dawn shined through the scattering storm clouds far to the east. Above us, the skies were clear, and the air was immaculately clean. I gripped the railing on the deck of the ship and saw the Dawncastle city of Cauldrontop sprawling ahead. Nearly every building was painted some bright color, mostly red, and the roofs were all shaped in that whimsical Dawncastler style. It was indeed poor, I could tell, because the roads were dirt and there was hardly an auto in sight.


    The hills behind the city were tall and verdant. I could hear the motor of the torpedo boat chugging, pushing us forward into the harbor of Cauldrontop Bay. Josephine joined me at the rail, looking out at the strange land, and kept a foot of distance.


    A bright red bridge spanning the mouth of the bay stood before us, quite low indeed. I turned back to look at the bridge behind me, and wondered if Pirouette would clear it. Then a new motorized action answered my question.


    "Look," said Josephine, pointing ahead.


    With wonder, I watched the middle sections of the bridge begin to mechanically raise, like two hardcover books, clearing the center of the mouth so that Pirouette could enter.


    "We built that," said Josephine, "for the Dawncastlers. We''ve built them lots of things. Army engineers did. People like your boyfriend."


    I was relieved to see that Josephine was cheery, that she was not too put out by whatever hadn''t happened in the night. "Oh, he''s not in the Army, technically," I replied.


    "Still," said Josephine, "it was his sort of people. Smart people."


    As we passed through the space where the bridge had parted, I saw dozens of Dawncastler kids in quilted robes standing on the sides of the raised bridge. They looked down at the two of us and waved in earnest excitement.


    Headmother Heprose came up behind. "So much for port before sunrise," she said, displeased. "You two should think about coming below."


    I scowled and wondered why she would say that. Then I remembered the stories Tom had told me of assassins taking shots from afar to try and kill Paxanan politicians. "You don''t think there''d be, what, a sniper, do you?" I asked with fear.


    The Headmother considered her response, then spoke. "It might make our work a bit easier if less than the entire city of Cauldrontop knows there''s NS arriving."

 12 - Murdoch

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Murdoch


    As it turned out, there was no regular ferry to South Dubhamer, so I sailed across on a military barge packed full with rations and mail. Then I rode with the supply truck crew on a rough dirt road across thirty miles of tundra until we reached the citadel of Fort Firclaw.


    The whole time I sat in the truck, gazing out at the blasted white landscape, I thought of how we Wylders had never considered Dubhamer worth settling. We thought it an icy, unforgiving land fit only for seal hunting expeditions and fatal exile. As we rumbled on, I imagined those exiled Wyldmen wandering aimlessly through this wilderness, looking for nonexistent comfort till they died. Their bones may very well have been beneath the tires of the sixwheel I now rode.


    The great stone citadel itself was in the midst of a snowy expanse between high cliffs. These cliffs serve to shield it from the worst of the northern winds. Just north of the fort, in a place where there was no road, there was a tree line. Somewhere in the tree line was the unmarked border that separated the Paxanan territory of South Dubhamer from the CCNCU-controlled North. The island, as far as I could tell, had no civilian population. Our only presence was the citadel, which seemed fairly well run and well supplied, considering how far it was from proper civilization. I had been told there were CCNCU bases present on the island as well, but I never saw them.


    I arrived in the late morning, having taken the barge at dawn. In Nilafossum, I had bought an extra lining for my overcoat, and a padded hat. I was well prepared for the chill, and it did not bother me. Upon reaching Firclaw, I met with the men in charge, and I quickly made arrangements to have the whole battalion muster for inspection and demonstration. I had been taught by my superiors that an Integrity Office man should appear by surprise and call muster as quickly as is feasible. This stops the division commanders from sweeping any shortcomings under the rug.


    In the span of an hour, the division did muster. I simply watched with a quiet disposition from the wall of the citadel as they did so. Then, with all 1,800 infantrymen and 160 tank personnel standing at attention, I walked down the snowy stone steps to make my assessment.


    The sky was clear and the wind was calm. Both these facts were a blessing to the men, because I would have called an immediate muster in almost any weather. I could tell right from my first approach that some of them weren''t dressed for the cold. This concerned me, because I felt it meant they weren''t engaging in the proper combat exercises. If one was truly out in the field every day, I reasoned, he would know what to wear when going out for muster.


    This battalion, per its records, was a mixed tank and infantry battalion. Sure enough, there were forty-eight Mark II light tanks painted with white and gray tundra camouflage in a grid on the right side of the enormous muster formation. I knew from my reading that a full-strength mixed battalion was supposed to possess sixty tanks, and sure enough I saw twelve empty spaces where twenty-four men stood without their vehicles.


    I would address the tank situation soon enough. I started, however, with the men who were nearest to me. These were the infantry enlisted. Walking between the rows, I decided to single out a teenage private who had rested his Springbolt rifle against his leg in the snow. I could see that he had done it so as to free his hands and breathe on them for warmth.


    I approached rapidly, using a stern tone. I didn''t mind that my Wylder accent came out a little when I conducted inspections. I felt it might give me a strangeness, an animal quality, that garnered respect. "What is the mark on the stock of your rifle, Private?" I asked him, standing but a foot away. I watched him resist the urge to look at me, staring ahead.


    Immediately, he knew what he had done wrong, and he picked up the weapon, standing stiff. "Sir, the calendula, sir," said the private.


    "Why the calendula?" I asked.


    "Sir, because this rifle is the property of the emperor, sir."


    "And why would you place the property of your emperor in the sleet and muck at your feet?"


    The private swallowed. "Sir, I acted in poor judgment, sir."


    The private seemed deferent, and he''d corrected his mistake. "See you don''t again," I told him and moved on.


    After a few more corrections of various uniform errors, I reached an officer, a Captain Cameron Lovewell. I identified him by matching his rank and station to the battalion documents I''d received. He was tall and slim, which was a common build for a Paxanan officer. He had dark brown coloring and a certain dashing beauty to his appearance.


    Not letting any of this sway me, I extended a hand to shake. "Captain," I said.


    It was a firm and brief handshake, one of mutual respect. "Cameron Lovewell," he said, treating me as an equal. We were equals in rank, it''s true, even though I was currently in charge of evaluations.


    "Is this your armor?" I asked him.


    "Front half is mine, First Battalion. Back half belongs to Captain Hearther, Second Battalion," Captain Lovewell explained. Both, as I understood it, reported directly to the division¡¯s commanding major, Blackwell.


    "Can you tell me why a number of your men have arrived at roll call without their vehicles?" I asked the captain.


    "Failed to start," said Lovewell.


    I walked with him as we spoke, trying to keep my voice loud so the armor men could hear. "How many?" I asked.


    "Fourteen," said Lovewell.


    ¡°Mm.¡± I nodded and looked again at the shivering tank crews.


    "Two men per tank. Mark IIs take a driver and a gunner-commander," said Lovewell.


    "Officers?" I asked. It varied from division to division whether the gunner-commanders were officers.


    "Every fifteenth Mark II has a lieutenant as gunner-commander. The rest, various enlisted, trained in armored warfare."


    I folded my arms and looked them over. They weren''t the worst I''d seen, but they were far from the best. "Twenty-six tank men with no tanks to man. What do they do all day?" I asked him. This was getting at my deeper point, that I suspected the division of failing to drill. It was an understandable shortcoming given the inclement weather, but that was no excuse.


    "General base duties," said Lovewell, sounding hesitant.


    "Have you reported these engine failures to Home Command?" I asked.


    Lovewell swallowed and looked like he was trying to be diplomatic. "In a sense," he murmured.


    I had no time for political speech. "What do you mean?"


    He obliged me and laid it out. "The Mark II is expected to have a ten percent failure rate in icy environments, even in proper condition."


    I shook my head at this. "Do you expect the enemy to attack only in summer?"


    At this moment, he appeared to break from formality and regard me as someone he could trust. "That would be an excellent question for the Mark II design team," he said with some bitterness.


    I nodded, and I understood his point. He felt they were doing the best they could with the mediocre tanks they had been given. Whether or not that was true, it was his position, and I would record it as such in my report.


    We shook hands again, and to my surprise I felt him slip a piece of paper into my tender palm as we touched. I paused, subtly pocketing the paper in my overcoat, and tried to collect myself. I could tell he didn''t want anyone around to know what we had just done.


    "Thank you," I said, caught off-guard, and moved on. Selecting a Mark II tank crew almost at random, I approached. They were from the Second Battalion, toward the back. There was a sergeant standing beside the tank and a corporal standing next to him. Both were a little older than me and looked alarmed to have been chosen.


    I looked at the number on the tank and used it to address them. "Crew 136, at ease." The sergeant and corporal looked confused, and stayed fairly stiff. "Any known operational issues with this vehicle?" I asked.


    "No, sir," said the sergeant.


    "Good," I said. Then I pointed across the plain to a lone spindly pine. "I want you to move as quickly as you can without accident and destroy that tree with your main gun."


    After I said it, I calmly extended my hand from my sleeve and began to track the second hand of my wristwatch.


    "We don''t have live shells in the cabin," said the corporal, trepidatious and faltering.


    I did not acknowledge him. Instead, I just continued to watch the second hand tick across the face.


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    The corporal turned to his sergeant. "We don''t have live shells in the cabin."


    "Your timer has started, by the way, gentlemen," I said, in case it was not clear.


    The sergeant looked flustered. "Well, go to the armory!" he shouted to his corporal.


    The corporal took a second to process the command, then ran off. "Armor-piercing or high-explosive?" he asked as he jogged.


    "High-explosive," the sergeant called to him.


    While the corporal was fetching the shells, the sergeant scrambled into the tank and dropped down inside. He turned the engine over and I heard it whine in vain. Then, on a second try, it properly started.


    A minute later, the corporal came jogging back from the armory holding two tank shells. He looked like he might trip, which caused a few of the other men in the muster to panic. I wasn''t worried, because I knew the designation of those shells, and I knew that a simple fall from chest height would not be enough to ignite them. They had fuses that needed to be primed just before firing.


    "Sergeant, take ''em," said the corporal.


    The sergeant stuck his head out and the corporal passed the two shells up. "In, get in!" the sergeant shouted.


    Both men clambered into the small round-top tank and together pulled the lid shut. The Mark II tank jerked backwards as it began to drive, and a few other tank crewmen reflexively stepped from their lines.


    "Mind your formation," I said to them, stern. I would rather they nearly be hit than show that kind of panic in a roll call environment.


    Inside, the tank crew seemed to get their bearings. They drove forward and turned to exit the muster formation. Still glancing at the second hand, I watched the tank drive about forty feet away, then halt. The turret turned with a creak, aiming, and the main cannon raised up in height.


    Then there was an enormous booming sound as the Mark II fired. If there had been any mountains nearby, I''m sure they would have suffered an avalanche just from the sonic effect. Thankfully, all our surroundings were flat, leading up to the cliff faces.


    There was a second of nothing, and I was almost sure that the shot was a bust. Then an explosion felled the tree I had pointed out. To my surprise, the very first shot was on target.


    I took note of the final time, then I lowered my arm and covered my watch with my sleeve. When I looked up again, the tank crew had emerged from their top hatch, grinning. I suppressed the urge to congratulate them, and stayed strict, playing the character I knew I needed to play as an inspector. "What do you want, a cherry bun?" I snapped. "Get your armor back in formation. Infantry! You''re next. Ready up. We''re doing marksmanship tests."


    That evening, with the sun still in the sky, I sat in the near-empty officer''s mess of Fort Firclaw and ate a bowl of soup. The officer''s mess was well arranged with imported chairs and framed paintings of lightsman knights on the walls. It was not mealtime, and so the room was almost empty.


    I had two reasons for eating outside of regular hours. The first was that I didn''t want to consort too closely with the men of the base, even the officers, lest they somehow sway me in my assessment. The second was that I wanted privacy enough to unfold the scrap of paper from Lovewell, and I had not yet been allowed to unpack in my own accommodations.


    I brushed frost off my beard and glanced around. Seeing that I was alone, or at least that my shoulders blocked view of my hands, I reached into my pocket and retrieved the paper note. I unfolded it, and saw that he had written in plain print text, "CHECK NORTH TREE LINE." I read it a few times to make sure it was as I first thought.


    I knew there was indeed a north tree line. I had seen it as I had approached, but it was not part of the base. I wasn''t sure why this was of interest or what he wanted me to check. It did not seem written in a tone that one would use to court a personal rendezvous. Confused, I folded the note up and re-pocketed it.


    After some internal debate, I decided to visit Captain Lovewell in his quarters. The upside to this was obviously that I could get to the bottom of whatever he had meant by his note in the quickest fashion. The downside was, if he didn''t want to be seen with me, this may in some way endanger whatever his scheme was. After all, he could perfectly well have not slipped me a note, and just met with me in private later in the day. Still, I decided to take the risk.


    To get from the officer''s mess to the officer''s lodging required a walk up precarious stone steps on the outside of the northern face of the citadel. Although there was no storm coming in, the northern face was the gustiest face, and a few times on the way up I had to stop to catch my balance lest I fall. I buttoned an extra button on my overcoat so it would not act as a sail in the evening wind.


    I marveled at the sight of the large gun emplacements that all faced north, toward land that on paper was held by the CCNCU. I saw no Clementic flag or trace of existence on the horizon. It was their land, I realized, in name only. I thought it likely that a time would come when we would unite Dubhamer.


    I reached an exterior landing near the parapets and found Lovewell''s door. Coming close to it, I knocked twice, hearing my fist echo on the hollow metal. "Captain, it''s Murdoch Boll. I thought we should talk about your readiness and..."


    I froze. A strange feeling had overtaken me. I knew, perhaps through ancestral guidance, that something was not right. Putting my hand on the knob, I turned it, and through providence I had already known that it would be unlocked. Slowly, opening Lovewell''s room, I felt a freezing draft cut through me. The windows on the far side, facing the courtyard, were wide open.


    Knowing this was not normal, I rushed across the room and looked out. Straight below me, four stories down, I saw the beautiful Captain Lovewell dead from a fall on a roof below. I felt my whole body tense, then turn to action. Rushing back to the wall near the front door, I hit the alarm.


    Only seconds passed before the nearest MPs rushed in with their rifles readied.


    "Sir," said the first MP, looking to me for guidance.


    "Captain Lovewell." These were all the words I could say, and I was surprised by how acutely emotion had taken me in that shock. Lacking a voice, I pointed to the window, and both men looked down as I had.


    "Secure this room," I told them thinly, trying hard to regain my authority. "Don''t touch anything. Don''t let anyone in. Find a ladder to get me to the body."


    "Yes, sir," the first MP said, and I was glad to have no pushback in these orders.


    Sometime after dark, after I determined that Lovewell had indeed died from the injuries of a sudden fall, I entered the citadel''s windowless communications center. What I saw when I went in was one operator sitting with feet on a desk, lazily reading a magazine. He must have been terribly frightened when he saw me, perhaps expecting that I was coming in as part of my IO duties. He jumped, dropping the magazine on the ground, then picked it up and hurriedly closed it.


    I was not there to exact discipline on the young man. "Can you get a telephone call to the main isle?" I asked him.


    "There''s one direct line," said the operator. "Pick it up and it connects."


    He pointed to a red receiver connected to a large telephone battery. I picked it up and indeed the line went live. A man who sounded about thirty answered. "Armor Command," said the operator on the far side.


    I tried to speak with urgency and calm all at once. "Put me through to the Integrity Office. This is Captain Murdoch Boll. B-O-L-L."


    My reasons for calling home should be obvious. Lovewell had handed me a note in such a way that, to me, suggested a conspiracy somewhere in the citadel. Only hours later, he was dead. There was no way it could be a suicide.


    The Armor Command operator on the line gave me bad news. "This line only reaches General Ravenridge''s office, sir, but I can relay a message."


    I scowled. "Ravenridge?"


    The operator on the phone tried to explain. "He has command over the base at South Dubhamer. Was there a message you wanted us to pass along, sir?"


    I had to be clever at this. I knew if anyone was going to be rotten, it was probably Major Blackwell, the division commander. I also knew Blackwell and Ravenridge were commonly known to be thick as thieves in the brass. This meant I couldn''t trust Ravenridge either, despite him being a general and decorated veteran.


    "Tell the Integrity Office division readiness seems acceptable. Some personnel concerns. Full report forthcoming."


    "Anything else?" the Armor Command operator asked.


    I saw my way through. "Yes. Get a message to a Mr. John Clearwater Jr. at Cabinet Hall. Tell him your father asked about northern wildflowers. Lots in bloom in Dubhamer. I think Sarah Paul should come take some samples. Got that?"


    I prayed silently to the ancestors that Jack Jr. would not be too daft to get the message. "Yes, sir," said Armor Command, with static in the line.


    Just as I heard the words, I saw a shadow creeping up behind me. I turned rapidly, hanging up, and saw Major Claude Blackwell entering. He was, as I said, the commander of the whole division, which meant he commanded the citadel as well. He was the only one here, I reckoned, who had a strong claim to tell me what to do, even though Integrity Office investigations were supposed to be independent.


    Blackwell had a narrow face and brows that seemed tense. There were hollows in his cheeks that caught the light of the electric lamps in a way I found quite eerie. "Sir," I said, and continued saluting, but didn''t.


    "I''m sorry you had to witness that," said Blackwell. I didn''t like his tone at all.


    "I''m sorry about your man," I said back, standing my ground.


    Blackwell was wearing a scarf along with his uniform, and he played with it in thought. "We get one or two suicides a year in the winter season, usually once they''re too deep in drink or..." He paused as if deciding whether to share a secret. "Captain Lovewell had struggled with morphine withdrawal."


    I had seen morphine withdrawal before, and Lovewell seemed far from it. "He seemed fine this afternoon," I said, watching my tone.


    "They do until they don''t," said Blackwell. I noticed the operator was once again trying very hard to busy himself in his magazine, so as not to be involved in the conversation. "I''ve already selected a new captain for the First Armored Battalion. A Rupert Sanestrand. We''ll move him into the commanders¡¯ tower as soon as Lovewell''s things and body are cleared out."


    I didn''t like the speed with which the thing was progressing, or the authority Blackwell was exercising. "I ordered the MPs to leave it undisturbed," I said.


    Blackwell shook his head. "Yes, well, I''m the base commander, Captain Boll. It''s not a crime scene. It''s a common suicide, and it''s bad for morale to let it linger. If you disagree, by all means, write as much in your report."


    I could have tried to escalate, but I didn''t want Blackwell knowing I suspected a conspiracy. I decided to opt for tact. "Can I access Lovewell''s effects, sir?" I asked, hoping this would provide some path forward.


    Blackwell looked displeased that I''d asked, but he assented. "If you wish. Whatever hasn''t already been sent south with the supply trucks."


    I went on. "I will be continuing my evaluation of the base, regardless." I thought this would serve two good purposes. One, to make it seem like all was normal, and two, to give me good reason to keep snooping.


    "Naturally," said Blackwell, difficult to read.


    I was getting hot in my overcoat, but I didn''t take it off, because I knew that soon I would be facing the night cold again. "I''ll need a personal vehicle, something that can get me a few miles out from the fort."


    "For?" asked Blackwell.


    I was aware I was taking a risk by asking, but there was no good way to get out to the tree line purely on foot. "Integrity Office business, sir," I said.


    Blackwell paused. Now it was his turn to decide whether or not he wanted to force the issues of rank and independence. "I can give you a reconnaissance horse," he said.


    It seemed tactical, like he didn''t expect me to ride, like he thought that would be enough of an inconvenience that I would simply change my mind. Little did he know I was an excellent horseman in my own right.


    "That''ll be fine, thank you," I said, and made mental note to set out at morning light.

 13 - Jack

    <h3 style="text-align: center">Jack


    At some point in my tenure as Depper''s assistant, I got a phone line installed right to my desk, which I thought was very modern and also created a whole lot of extra work and bother. My desk was in the open pen in the center of the administrative floor at Cabinet Hall. The receiver of the phone was not very good, and I had to speak rather loudly to make sure I was understood on the other side. The men at the desks around me did not seem to appreciate the disruption. My duty, though, was to Depper, not to my seatmates, so afternoons found me cradling the receiver with my shoulder and trying to take notes on whatever urgent matter was at hand.


    "I understand that, Mayor," I said, speaking to a man who had been hoping to speak to the MS, not myself. "What the Master Secretary is saying is, after the industrial road has been paved, you need to make sure at least two of those lots are set aside for military arms plants. We are facing a serious rifle shortage and we need the cooperation of local government to get this sorted."


    I listened as the mayor listed all the relevant obstacles. I had brought up the rifle shortage with Depper, and he had allowed me to see about getting the matter resolved. The caveat was that he would not lift a finger to help me. So, here I was, trying to work it out all on my own with a million other things on my plate.


    "Yes," I said to the mayor, "he''ll do his best to attend your campaign announcement speech. Thank you again."


    A courier from the first floor walked by and dropped a message on my desk. I hung up, rubbing my eyes with exhaustion, and knew there was little chance the MS would actually attend the mayor''s event. "Send a card is more likely," I muttered to myself. Then I spoke up to catch the courier before he could head out the door. "What''s this?"


    "From Armor Command," said the Cabinet courier. He had nothing else to say, and so he left.


    I opened the note. The message had been relayed from Captain Boll at Fort Firclaw. "What?" I said aloud in confusion. I had no idea why Murdoch would be reaching me from Dubhamer through official channels. The note itself, something about my father and a girl I did not know, appeared to be nonsense.


    Irritated and distracted, I folded up the message and put it in my pocket. It''s with embarrassment, I admit, that I had no sense of urgency when I read it. Just at that moment, Edmund Depper approached from behind. "Can you work tonight?" he asked.


    "Yes," I said. I tried to say yes to everything, no matter how inconvenient. I figured that was a simple rule I could make for myself, to help my career.


    "What?" said Depper, sensing my hesitation.


    "Nothing. I can," I said.


    "What?" he asked again, more insistent.


    I wasn''t used to having Depper actually care about my personal life. "My father''s visiting. I was going to see him for dinner, but I''ll cancel."


    Depper for once seemed to be in a good mood. He put his hand on my shoulder, and I sensed some odd sensitivity within him. "Go see your dad," he said, and did not ask me to work the night.


    That evening, I arrived at the place that had become tradition whenever my father was in town. The name was Bistro Moderne, and it was a Western-style establishment with both a restaurant and a full bar. Tonight, it seemed exceptionally busy. I was grateful my father always insisted on making a reservation.


    I wore my typical work suit, which was gray, and struggled to get through to place an order at the bar amid a packed throng of rich, tuxedoed men. Unable to make it across the floor, I gave up. I would have to wait until my father arrived and order my cocktail at the table.


    Listening to the four-piece band, I put my hands in my pockets and tried not to seem out of place. Then I looked ahead and saw one of the only women in the room walking toward me. From her features, I figured she was Paxanan, but she wore a face of makeup with a red lip and a red women''s suit in Far West style. She was well-built, with curled black hair, and looked possibly twenty-nine or thirty. She had a chilled glass of beer in each hand.


    To my surprise, she came up to me, although I was sure that I did not know her. There was no way a woman of that grade could escape my memory.


    "Someone bought me this," she said of her second beer, handing it over. I accepted it, and realized she had simply approached me because we were both alone.


    "Cheers," I said, and our glasses clinked together. Then we both drank. I watched her, and I watched her lips leave a red stain where they touched the rim. "Seems like your lip paint gets around," I said, pointing.


    "It''s called lipstick," she said. "And I like to leave something to remember me by."


    If I had been more canny, or more paranoid, I would have expected this was some kind of trick. In the moment, however, I did not think myself important enough to be tricked, and I was also used to women taking the chance to approach me in their own right now and then. So, I simply smiled. "Where did you pick that up?" I asked, referring to the makeup habit. It was unusual at the time, even for the city set. "Crisayni? Have you been taken in by the ways of the Far West?"


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    "What does it look like?" she asked, and moved her free hand down the side of her body to show off her Western red skirt and jacket.


    With that, I decided she wanted me. "It looks like I''d like to eat you alive," I said.


    She scoffed and laughed with a fake reproach. "What a forward young man you are."


    I doubled down. "You got me a drink. I should make it worth your while."


    She glanced over at a group of tuxedoed men and seemed to know them. "In theory, I''m supposed to be welcoming the crown prince to Archcove."


    "Benedict''s coming here?" I asked with astonishment. It was rare for a royal to ever leave the walls of the palace over in Pax. The thought of him showing up in a bar, like some common businessman, was almost unfathomable.


    The woman turned back to me. "Rumor has it he wants a government posting."


    I nodded. "Maybe he''s what Cabinet needs."


    Taking another drink of beer, I checked my watch. The woman had soft, rouged cheeks and big brown eyes. At this distance, I could smell her perfume. I was just about going crazy at the thought of her slipping away. "My father won''t be here for another twenty minutes. Why don''t we go find an empty banquet hall and see what''s under the tables?"


    My proposition came too late. The side door of the bar burst open, and, to my shock, Prince Benedict himself entered Moderne. He wore not his ceremonial robes but a black tuxedo. There were medals on his chest, along with a large gold calendula boutonni¨¨re. He carried a shiny cane in his hand, like a gentleman, like a star.


    The men in the bar cheered and mobbed him, pushing past me and the mysterious red-suited woman. The prince, who was on the shorter side, beamed and raised his hands in greeting. He was not particularly handsome, but he was not ugly either. He had a small moustache and wire-rimmed spectacles, and had such an incredible aura that you felt pure awe just from seeing him.


    "Rain check, Clearwater," said the woman in red.


    Even in that moment of astonishment, I still noticed the strangeness of these words. "You know me?" I asked. All at once I had the feeling there was some scheme afoot.


    "It''s my job to know," said the woman in red. She winked at me, teasing, taunting, and stepped away to join the mob as they followed the prince to an adjacent banquet hall.


    "Hey!" I called out after her, "your name. Damn." In the chaos of the moment, I had let her get away. Whatever private banquet hall was holding the prince''s event was not one in which I was welcome.


    I drank my beer alone in the bar, cursing my missed connection. Shortly after, my father arrived in the lobby, and we both got seated and ordered our usual steaks.


    "How''s Cabinet Hall?" he asked me while we were eating at the small, gold-edged table.


    "Busy," I said. The band had paused for a bit, which suited me, because I did not want to yell.


    "Busy''s good," said my father.


    "How''s Mother?" I asked.


    My father smiled. "The same. The men at Paxcorp are all impressed when I tell them what you''ve been up to. A few years under Knollblum and you''ll have a springboard into your pick of industry postings."


    I chewed and thought. I knew he had some desire to see me follow his footsteps in private industry, but I hadn''t thought he would bring it up so soon. "And what if I decide to stay in government?" I said.


    To my relief, he wasn''t angry. "Then bully for you, of course, son," he said, clapping his hands together. "I support you in anything you do. I''m not one of those legacy nags."


    I can''t tell you how relieved I was to hear that. I blotted my lips with my napkin and heard a roar of laughter from the banquet hall behind me.


    "The crown prince is here," I said, pointing a thumb toward the closed doors.


    "In this restaurant?" asked my father. He was just as surprised as I had been.


    "Believe it or not," I said. "No retinue, no ceremony, just walked in like a mortal man."


    My father took a drink and shook his head. "Things are changing faster than most people realize."


    "What does it mean for us?" I asked.


    He shrugged. When he did, his tuxedo buttons puckered just a little, and I could tell he''d had it tailored about seven pounds ago. It was not my place to tell him to take it out. "Well, my job''s easy," he said. "Keep making better automobiles and selling them at fair market price. You''re the one in the labyrinth of politics now."


    "I think you''re understating your hand in things, Father," I said. I knew that the goings-on of government intimately affected the affairs of Paxcorp.


    He chewed another bite, and the gristle gave him time to think. "That''s for me to know," he said. Then I saw something flash across his eyes. "Heard from Murdoch?"


    When he asked it, I remembered the note for the first time since it had arrived on my desk. "Yes, actually. I meant to mention I got the most baffling communique from him through Armor Command this afternoon."


    Instead of trying to recite it, I simply passed the note to my father. He put on his spectacles and read it by dinner table candlelight. With each word, his face grew more stern. "I don''t know any Sarah Paul," I said, "or a damn thing about wildflowers. Is this some secret between you two?"


    "Yes," said my father, "and it''s not about flowers. He must be under observation."


    I was surprised to see my father looking so grave, and I felt foolish for not having passed him the message first thing. I watched him try and think through the code. "Sarah Paul," he said. "Secret Police."


    This was all quite mysterious. "Don''t tell me he''s in trouble."


    He folded the note again. "Let''s hope not. Tell me. Who''s someone in the Army you trust absolutely? Someone I could go to with this in total secrecy?"


    I scowled. I knew almost no one in the Army. The people I did know, I had no way of knowing whether or not they were dirty or clean.


    Then one man at the Engineering Labs came to mind.


    "Well," I said with a sobered sigh, "Tom Trussford. If you can reach him."