One’s Own
ShadoW
One’s Own
ShadoW
Randall P. Fitzgerald
One’s Own Shadow
Copyright © 2016 by Randall P. Fitzgerald.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
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www.randallfitzgerald.net
Cover design by Randall P. Fitzgerald
Cover art by Anna Dittmann
ISBN: 153475072X
ASIN:
First Edition: June 2016
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To Burger Buns
Part One
1
Z
Socair
The clothes that had become her standard still felt foreign on her body. Uncomfortably angled in places that seemed to make no sense, though the tailors insisted they were to accentuate her femininity. There was no need for that, so far as Socair was concerned. Her breasts did it well enough as public display went and even that was a bit ostentatious by her reckoning. As wearying as the clothes tended to be, they were the least of her problems. A season had passed entirely and the cold season, Bais, was well set into the air.
She sat now, though, in a well-warmed room listening to the stuffy ruminating of the gathered Binse. Deifir paid them close attention and so Socair did as well. The Binse of Lands was at his work, explaining the state of the harvests that had made it into Abhainnbaile before the end of the last season. The situation was not so bad, though the taking of Drocham had caused some damage to areas that were counted upon for rice production. The north, having remained free of molestation, would be more than enough. On and on he went, discussing the prospects for the Bais. They had not changed from his initial projections, but as the Binse was largely freshly appointed, every one of the new members sought to be thorough and useful and to draw as many distinctions from their predecessors as they could manage.
Socair, for her part, felt as though she were joining a game that had already begun. Most of her free time was spent reading books. A few were treatises on the finer points of battlefield command and how to position large forces, but the bulk had been about the base aspects of society at large. Subjects ranging from economic theory to the tending of farms and even texts explaining the taxes levied against various sorts of commerce, including those done in service to the Treorai. She had never imagined she’d have need to understand the workings of businesses and taxes other than how to make purchases and count her change, but without the study she figured she would fail to fully understand her post and that her participation in Binse meetings would be largely worthless.
The Binseman finished his projections. Nothing had changed. All was well in Abhainnbaile, city and province. Except the cities that had been destroyed in the previous seasons. But that was not his department. Something that Socair was reminded of duly when the eyes of the table fell upon her.
Her short hair had grown a bit, not much, but it was shaggier now than it had been. The feel of it moving as she stood bothered her. She would cut it again, though she rather liked the look. As she rose, a familiar, unpleasant look spread across the faces of several members of the Binse. There was an immediate disapproval of Socair’s appointment to Binse of War. She had been named before any of the others were replaced, which seemed to do little to deter them from sneering any chance they got.
“Little has changed in the south. The fort that Crosta had been tasked with completing has been finished and seems to be enough to police the area against the hippocamps. They have been oddly quiet in comparison to their brazen—”
“I do beg pardon.”
The interruption came from a waif of a woman, her face showing age and the nasal quality of her voice all too indicative of her manner. She was the Binse of Means, one of the most vocal among the new appointments, at least when it came to the strong criticism of Socair. She continued, seeing that Socair did not mean to rise to her interruption.
“Should it not be obvious that the horsefolk have quieted? Bais has always been a time of little disruption from their kind.”
“Traditionally,” Socair admitted, “that has been the case. Still, I have mentioned again and again that what has been the way of the hippocamps is not an idea we ought to rely upon. They have never been so quiet through the harvest season as this one. Never. Vigilance is—”
“But,” a blustery, young male voice intruded, “are those aberrations not just that? Crosta and his cohorts merely directed them away from their typical patterns. With that lot gone, surely they will return to their previous ways.”
Socair held back a sigh. Politeness was something the Treorai had tried to express to her. Diplomacy, she’d called it.
“It is, indeed, a possibility. However, the recovered letters do not suggest as much and the hippocamps would have no reason to take such advice from an elf, no matter their arrangement. Even the arrangement itself is a departure from…”
The nasal voice returned. “Or you are looking for another glory where there is none to be had. A glory that is sure to waste valuable resources over what is sure to be a harsh Bais.”
Socair bristled. “Or you wish to pull more coin from the people so that you might come in here and try to impress us with how much you’ve taken from those in need.”
The rehearsed gasps and disquieted muttering rolled around the room on cue. Deifir placed her hands upon the table and stood, prompting Socair to bow and take her seat. The Treorai spoke.
“I believe that is enough from my honored Binse. We will convene again at midseason unless there is cause to meet earlier. I will speak with each of you as
