not to mention the ubiquitous Cloud Guardians.
Soen knew from the chevrons on their breastplates that the Guardians were of the Order of the Vash-one of three separate military orders who vied for Imperial favor in the Empire. Each maintained their headquarters within the boundaries of Tsujen’s Wall, the demarcation of the older part of the city and romantically considered the most blessed by the gods. The Iblisi had a number of agreements in place with the Vash and often supported them in their dealings with the Ministry of Conquest. Their being entrusted as the Cloud Guardians-replacing the Order of the Krish-should have worked to his advantage.
But no advantage, it seemed, could get him off of the Cloud Palace any faster. There were seven towers rising from the perimeter of the garden far below and surrounding the great palace’s hovering avatria. Each tower represented one of the Seven Estates of elven society, and each provided ascending and descending shaft access to the palace. . limited, of course, to those of a specified Estate or higher. That he would mix at all with the Sixth or Fifth Estate traffic was unthinkable, and though he could see the Fourth Tower entrance, the very thought of packing himself in with the rest of the lowing herd of guild traffic made his skin crawl. He could, he knew, turn and reenter the palace itself, but that held the danger of encountering someone that he either knew or should know and thereby being trapped in yet another round of favor trading, positioning, and influence bargaining, all delivered in subtext, context, and always from behind a smile.
Though he personally had an intense dislike of being touched by anyone, he would rather push his way through a mob than deal with another politician. He managed to cut his own path through the throng and was relieved to see the wide walkway beyond leading to the Tower of the Third Estate free of all but a handful of masters and ministers. He quickly followed the gleaming path as it continued around the base of the Cloud Palace until it came at last to a nearly deserted platform and its bridge to the Third Tower.
Soen had long ago set aside the privileges associated with being a descendant of a noble House. . but at times like this, he reflected, it had its convenient uses. He quickly crossed the bridge with its crystal lattice railings and ornate renderings of the crests of those Houses that had donated to its construction. Then he passed through the archway into the tower itself.
Soen stood on a wide platform opening onto one of two shafts that plunged down the full height of the towers. This one was the descending shaft and was filled with a blue swirling light. He stepped out over the precipice without hesitation and began his slow drift downward through the air.
It was a fine defensive mechanism, he thought, as he drifted down past the occasional window cut into the curved wall. You had to have access to the Aether to use the shaft-and the only ones who had access to the Aether were the elves.
Soen frowned. The elves had not always been the only ones to command the power of Aether, he knew, but that fact was only one grain of sand in the mountain of secrets that he and all of the Iblisi kept.
Keeping the truth safe was the essence of their work.
The Iblisi’s feet touched softly on the fitted stones at the base of the Third Tower, and he stepped quickly through the arch opening into the evening air. The Garden of Kuchen spread before him, teaming with elves as was common at this time late in the day. The setting sun cast a warm glow across the wide garden. It was a beautiful place, carefully manicured and maintained in honor of the Emperor’s wife, for whom it was currently named, and shaded over all by the titanic bulk of the Cloud Palace directly overhead. It smelled green and alive and called to the souls of the elves who came to it each day that they might forget the walls they had built to enclose themselves and the desperation of their spirits that longed for open space but had compromised themselves into servitude to the Will of the Emperor in all its incarnations.
Soen hated it, for it reminded him of the true fields and green spaces that were far from this place. Having tasted of its truth, it was hard for him to endure the lie. So he walked around the edge of the garden as quickly as he could on the south side, following the fitted cobblestones of the Vira Rhonas past where they intersected with the Vira Condemnis to the south. He barely glanced in the direction of the Forums of the Estates, which stood behind rows of standing columns down the arcade to his left. Both the Circus and the Coliseum could be found in that direction, but he had little use for the games and no time for them in any event. Beyond the forums the Vira Rhonas widened, cutting a broad curving path through the heart of the Imperial City that was nearly as old as the Empire itself.
The Vira was just beginning to come to life with the evening revels. Litters supported by teams of manticorian slaves quickly jogged up and down the street, bearing their masters to and fro at their whim. A number of Fifth Estate hawkers served their guild Orders by calling out their wares to the growing crowd. As he walked down the street, Soen saw a dwarf-a rare enough sight even in the Imperial City-dancing nervously before a group of jeering elven youth. They prodded the stumpy creature with their ornamental swords.
Soen shook his head. Poor dwarf. The youth today had taken to wearing these next-to-useless engraved blades as a fashion. Now, with the news of the victory over the Last Kingdom, that dwarf was almost certain not to live through the night of celebrations.
Next his eye was caught by a string of Muserian slaves-orange-hewed barbarian elves from the southern Aergus Coast-being pulled wide-eyed behind a manticorian overseer. He walked beside them, eyeing them with mild curiosity before the overseer turned southward down the Vira Coliseum. They were destined for one of the newer noble Houses that had sprung up on the west side of the River Jolnar against the Mnerian Hills, Soen thought idly. Poor fools.
This was further complicated by the strict caste system of the Estates, which dated back to the founding of the Empire by Rhonas and which had since those ancient days been so carefully codified that progression between the estates was, by Imperial decree, to rest only in the hands of the Emperor personally.
Then there were the Orders of the Empire: guilds, elite military Orders, wizardry unions, and other specialized clans that vied to force their own agendas and ascendancy in power on the Emperor’s Will. Each had its own combination of gods they worshiped and unique pacts with other Orders, allegiances and enmities. Membership in the orders transcended castes, at least in theory. Any caste could be a member of any Order by application, but the vagaries and secrecy in the selection process were such that each Order had effective control over the makeup of its membership. The Orders were diverse-but only so far as their strength and power were supported.
None of which accounted for the rather public and often bloody conflicts of the vaunted Forums-one for the Estate Lords and the other the “voice of the common elf”-whatever that was supposed to mean.
Soen shook his head and smiled.
The Inquisitor came to the end of the Vira Rhonas and stepped onto the Gods’ Bridge. It was one of the oldest bridges of the nine crossing the Jolnar and led to the oldest part of the city, the Isle of the Gods. It was not a terribly impressive island, as such; it sat as a rocky spit of ground between two branches of the River Jolnar that obligingly flowed around it. Still, as legend would have it, it was the place where Rhonas drove his spear into the ground and declared this spot to be where he would found his Empire. The first temples were built here. There were newer and more spacious temples in the districts beyond Tsujen’s Wall, but the temples on this sliver of land were still the most revered by the Rhonasians. Soen crossed the bridge and passed among the ancient buildings. The Occuran made their home here, a privilege granted them by the Emperor just short of one hundred years ago, but now their favor was waning, and Soen wondered just how long it would be before the Imperial Will got around to evicting the Occuran as neighbors to the gods and just what the Occuran would do about it.
Soen crossed the small island and came to the North Bridge. On the other side of the river rose the squat, angular walls of the Old Keep. They were designed in a time before the Aether, when war was waged as it should be: with hand on steel. It was the oldest structure in the city and the home of his own Order.
