She had heard of a nearby town, and lost no time getting there, taking the farm’s wagon and what little money she could find. The so-called town turned out to be not much more than a village. But it did have a tailor. Finally rid of the farmer’s wife’s drab hand-me-downs, she made sure her new clothes included a hood and a veil, should her appearance be an issue.
She also learned something she found intriguing, and which the farmer hadn’t bothered mentioning. Unlike the vast majority of humans in Maras-Dantia, in this world they had a command of magic. At least, some did. These adepts belonged to the Order of the Helix, a sect with as much sway in the empire as its political masters.
The Order’s nearest lodge was in the region’s administrative centre, a provincial city a day’s ride away. Compared to the sleepy hamlets and villages she passed on the road, its bustling streets gave her a measure of anonymity. More importantly, it connected her with a strand of the empire’s web.
Jennesta had no trouble finding the Helix lodge; prominently located, it passed for a major temple. She was less lucky trying to penetrate it as anything other than a supplicant. The Order was male dominated. There were females in its ranks but they were few, and hardly any had real power. Rebuffed, she looked for a weak spot.
The Order’s local overseer was an elderly, addle-headed bachelor who had never met anything like Jennesta before. She captivated him with ease. In half a year she had become his indispensable aide, and was grudgingly admitted to the Helix ranks under his patronage. By year’s end she occupied his position, thanks to the judicious administering of poison.
She had a power base.
The ruthless efficiency with which Jennesta ran the lodge, and reports of her outstanding magical abilities, attracted the attention of the Order’s upper echelons, as she intended. The upshot was a summons to the capital, and Helix’s headquarters.
Competition for preferment was much stiffer once she entered the Grand Lodge, and advancement was frustratingly slow. Applying pressure on obstructive officials, swearing oaths she would later break, forming fragile alliances, corrupting the susceptible, bullying the weak and eliminating rivals needed all her guile. It also took time.
Another two years went by before the Order of the Helix was hers.
She immediately turned her attention to infiltrating government. As magic and politics intermingled in Peczan, she had already earned a certain notoriety that opened previously slammed doors. By virtue of her position at the pinnacle of Helix, she was automatically granted access to the citadels of the ruling class and the parlours of the influential, despite their thinly-veiled resentment of a female. Once again, she set about climbing.
A further year of machination and murder passed. She completed it as an upper-ranking official; a position of considerable power, though short of the highest. Any hopes she might have had about reaching the apex of empire were allowed to slip away. It wasn’t that she didn’t have an insatiable appetite for power. It was simply that she had all she needed, and saw no point in wasting more time laying siege to the summit, where she would be too noticeable in any event.
Jennesta never stopped thinking about orcs. She thought of the Wolverines in terms of revenge. And she thought of the orcs of Acurial as an opportunity.
It had long been her ambition to command an unparalleled army, and given their inexhaustible passion for warfare, no race was better suited to fill its ranks than the orcs. In this, Jennesta was perpetuating the dream of her mother, the sorceress Vermegram, who long ago mustered the orcs of Maras-Dantia. With such a force, and armed with the instrumentalities, Jennesta saw no limit to conquest. But like Vermegram, the magical means to totally control the race had eluded her. The orcs who served her in Maras-Dantia were kept in line with iron discipline and brutal punishments; the doctrine of fear Jennesta applied to all her underlings. That had proved insufficient, as the actions of the cursed Wolverines attested. The irony was that she had all but perfected a method of control when her father consigned her to this world. A world whose only orcs inhabited a distant land.
So she was intrigued, during her fourth year, when she started to hear rumours about military action against Acurial. This wasn’t because Acurial posed any kind of threat to the empire or its interests. It was motivated by a desire for expansion, a hunger for natural resources and to bolster Peczan’s influence in the region. But even a dictatorship must occasionally placate the opinion of its subjects, particularly when planning to send their young into combat. The orcs reputed passivity went some way to assure people that an invasion would be a walk-over, but a pretext was needed.
It was Jennesta’s idea to put out that the orcs had magic at their disposal, destructive enough to menace the empire. Ignorance about far-off Acurial was so prevalent that this story was widely believed. Jennesta earned kudos for the ploy, but her request to accompany the invasion force was ignored. She set about fresh intrigues to get what she wanted.
The invasion was launched, and succeeded, with minimal Peczan casualties. Which seemed to confirm that Acurial’s orcs were too passive to resist; something Jennesta still found hard to believe. The empire’s bureaucracy ground into action and started to administer what was now a province. Draconian laws were enforced. Helix lodges were established. While all this was going on, Jennesta fought to curb her impatience, never an easy task, and continued her campaign to get to Acurial.
Half a year into the occupation she gained a concession. On the principle of knowing your enemy, she had argued for being allowed to study the orcs. Her hope was that this would take her to Acurial. It didn’t. But Peczan shipped back a sizeable number of orc captives. They were paraded through the streets of the capital as living tokens of the empire’s triumph, then handed over to Jennesta for what was officially referred to as “appraisal.”
She was confounded by what she saw. These orcs did indeed seem passive, even submissive. Her instinct was to test their apparent meekness to its breaking point. On her orders they were humiliated, demeaned, beaten, tortured and subjected to arbitrary executions. The majority offered no more resistance than cattle sent for slaughter. But a few, a very few, snapped out of their apathy and tried to fight back with a ferocity she knew of old. This convinced her that the race’s martial tendencies were not so much absent as dormant, and could be reawakened.
She told her superiors about it. She demonstrated it to them by having selected subjects goaded to fury. The fact that at least some orcs were capable of defiance was no surprise to them. The situation in Acurial was becoming troublesome. There had been organised attacks on the occupying forces, and they were escalating. Jennesta persuaded them of the need to send an emissary to shake things up in the province. Her Helix reputation, and not least her ruthlessness, landed her the role.
But shortly before she was due to leave, she saw her father.
From time to time, Jennesta would walk the streets incognito, usually at night. She did it partly to gain a sense of the city’s mood, but mostly to hunt for victims when she felt in need of sustenance. She went out alone, certain that her powers could better anything the city might threaten, though there were those who would have assassinated her given the chance.
She found herself in one of the more sordid quarters, as she often did. Such places tended to have an abundance of people who wouldn’t be missed. There had been the usual minor inconvenience of men trying to approach or harass her. Most turned away when they saw her look. The persistent were given a taste of the Craft, leaving them stung or injured or worse. Jennesta remained unperturbed.
Weaving through a street that seemed to house nothing but taverns and bordellos, something caught her eye. A man was walking some distance ahead. Like her, he was hooded, and he had his back to her. But she thought she recognised his frame and gait, although there was sign of a slight limp. Certain she must be mistaken about who it might be, nevertheless her curiosity was stirred, and on impulse she followed him. He was doing his best to keep to the shadows. She did likewise.
After trailing him for some time through bustling streets they came to a quieter but no less run-down district. At one point the man slowed and looked back. Luckily for her, Jennesta was able to take refuge in the gloom of a cloister. Hidden by a crumbling column, she got a fleeting glimpse of his face. It was thinner than when she last saw him, and he looked drawn. But there was no mistake.
Very little shocked Jennesta. This was a rare and notable exception. But surprise was soon replaced by cold fury.
It seemed her father hadn’t seen her, and continued his journey. She followed, doubly careful not to be spotted. He led her deeper into the low neighbourhood. Others lurked in the shadows here, but father and daughter both radiated something the night dwellers found unsettling, and they went unmolested. The streets became lanes and the lanes narrowed to twisting alleys. At last they arrived at a blacksmith’s shop with adjoining stables, so
