looked like fun, and I don’t want to be saddled with the job either. I don’t mind doing a share, certainly, but I don’t want to spend my days divvying up strayed cattle any more than you do.”
Vond considered this. “Fair enough,” he said. The next morning Vond set out to conquer Hluroth, and Sterren set out to establish the Imperial Council.
CHAPTER 34
The Chancellor’s Guard came in handy on occasion; it had saved Sterren a good deal of trouble to simply tell Alder, “Take as many men as you need, but I want Lady Kalira of Semma here in an hour.”
Then all he had to do was sit in his chosen room, a small study on the second floor of Semma Castle, and wait; an hour later, Lady Kalira glared at him across the table.
“I’m here,” she said without preamble. “What do you want?”
Sterren noted, with hope and admiration, that she did not call him a traitor or otherwise insult him. “Your help,” he said.
Her angry glare softened to curiosity. “What sort of help?” she demanded warily. “In running the empire.”
“Empire!” She snorted.
Sterren shrugged, using both the Ethsharitic shoulder bob and the Semman gesture of spread fingers and a downturned palm. “Call it what you like,” he said. “Like it or not, the warlock has united several kingdoms now, I can’t say how many since he’s in the process of adding at least one more even as we speak, and I think I can call it an empire.” He had had plenty of time to improve his Semmat in recent months, and spoke it easily now. “I didn’t come here to argue about names,” he concluded.
“Maybe I did, though,” Lady Kalira retorted.
“I hope not,” Sterren said.
For a moment neither spoke. Then Lady Kalira said, “All right, what’s your offer?”
“You know Vond named me chancellor,” Sterren said.
“Whatever that means,” she answered, nodding.
“He’s just decided that it means I’m to take care of all the administrative details that he doesn’t want to bother with,” Sterren explained.
Lady Kalira considered this, then smiled. “And I suppose,” she said, “that you intend to palm the job off on me.”
“Not exactly,” Sterren said. “But I admit you’re close. I want you to tell me who I should pass it on to.”
“Should?”
“Yes, should. Who could do the best job of it, and who would do the best job of it. I know I’d botch it.”
“You do?” She eyed him carefully.
He nodded.
“I think you’ll need to tell me a little more of what you had in mind,” she said.
“What I had in mind,” Sterren told her, “is an Imperial Council, a group of the best administrators we can find, who would actually run the empire. Vond isn’t particularly interested in doing that, and neither am I. Besides, Vond isn’t going to be around for all that long, and I don’t suppose I’ll be very welcome once he’s gone. A group of well-respected natives would be able to keep things going smoothly, regardless of what Vond and I do.”
“Why isn’t he going to be around very long?” Lady Kalira asked, staring at him.
“I can’t tell you that,” Sterren replied uncomfortably.
“You said the same thing months ago, and he’s still here,” she pointed out.
Sterren shrugged again. “So far, yes,” he said.
“And you still say he won’t be for long?”
“He can’t be,” Sterren insisted.
“Why not?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Sterren said again.
Lady Kalira considered this, then asked, “Can you tell me how long he’ll be around?”
“No. Maybe a month, maybe a year or two. I don’t think he can possibly last five years.”
“Did you hire an assassin, or something?” she asked curiously. “The cult of Demerchan, perhaps?”
“No,” Sterren said. “Why would I do something stupid like that? He isn’t doing me any harm. In fact, he isn’t doing much of anybody else any harm, either. Look at the peasants out there, they’re doing just fine! Nobody’s complaining except the deposed nobles, and even you aren’t really suffering much! And here I am, on top of it all, offering you a chance to get back into running the government!”
Lady Kalira studied him closely and then shook her head. “I don’t understand you, Sterren,” she said, “I don’t understand you at all.”
“I don’t care if you understand me or not; I just want your help in putting together this council. I thought seven members would be about right, no ties in the voting that way. And I don’t want it to be hereditary, exactly, since we can’t afford to have any infants or incompetents on it; but perhaps members could have the right to appoint their heirs. I don’t want any of the deposed kings on it, either, it wouldn’t look right unless we included all of them, and I hope that you, as a Semman, will see why I don’t want that.”
Lady Kalira smiled involuntarily at this reference to her former sovereign. Sterren took this as encouragement.
“I suppose princes or princesses might be all right, but I’ll leave that up to you,” he continued. “I don’t know much about any of the people around here; I never really got to know most of them. I’d like you to choose the people you think I really need to have, to start. You’re welcome to take a seat on the Council yourself, if you like, and I thought maybe the steward, Algarven, would be a good choice, but I’ll defer to your judgment.” He hesitated, then said, “I think we probably don’t want all seven to be Semman. In fact, I think a good mix of nationalities would be wise, but on the other hand, Semma is the capital province, so at least one or two... What do you think?”
“I think,” Lady Kalira said slowly, “that I need to know more about the duties of this proposed council.”
Sterren smiled and said, “What would you suggest? Vond has claimed building and conquest for himself and left everything else to me. I prefer to leave it to a council. What would you recommend?”
“You’re really serious about this?”
“Oh, yes.”
She sighed.
By the time Vond returned from the successful subjugation of Hluroth, they had selected four of the seven councillors and were discussing meeting schedules.
CHAPTER 35
It was the ninth of Harvest, in the Year of Human Speech 5221. The Empire of Vond extended from the deserts in the east to the ocean in the west and from the edge of the World in the south to the borders of Lumeth of the Towers in the north.
Vond had turned back before attacking Lumeth and had returned to his citadel trembling.
“I heard the whisper there, even over the power I draw on,” he told Sterren. “I’d forgotten what it was like. Foul, dark muttering in my mind, awful!” He took a deep breath, then released it slowly.
“I almost think I can still hear it,” he said, “but I know it’s just my mind playing tricks on me.”
Sterren hesitated, then said nothing.
“Well,” Vond went on, “I know where my limits are now, at any rate. I don’t dare ever venture past the borders of Lumeth or Kalithon or Shassalla, but here on the south of them, I’m all-powerful.”
