She drank her Kava and reached for the first letter, a parchment envelope with the White Council’s seal prominently displayed on the top. Master Lucknow hadn’t wasted any time, she acknowledged sourly; he’d convinced the council to approve Emily’s position as a roving representative without portfolio. She scowled as she scanned the long and detailed notes, all of which danced around the question of just how much power she had and just what she was meant to achieve. Get the two sides to the table and then... and then what? Master Lucknow might be hoping she would fail, particularly if she didn’t have a set goal. Or he was just so desperate to wash his hands of the whole affair that he hadn’t given the matter any real thought.
Putting the envelope aside, she started to scan the reports. The detailed files on Alluvia suggested the kingdom had been heading for trouble a long time before Emily had arrived in the Nameless World, but it was impossible to be sure. Revolutions, by their very nature, were difficult to predict. She wondered, as she continued to read, if the New Learning had triggered the unrest. People didn’t rebel when they were constantly ground down. They rebelled when they saw a hint a rebellion might succeed.
That’s not the problem, she reminded herself. The problem is building a new world afterwards.
She sighed as she read through the reports. The kingdom had been unstable for years. There had been no attempt to compromise, no attempt to reshape the kingdom to meet reasonable demands for reform. There had been too many parties with too many interests in maintaining the kingdom in a state of stasis, making peaceful reform impossible. Alluvia should have been a rich land. There were so many tax exemptions that it was a minor miracle anyone got taxed at all. She had a nasty feeling, reading between the lines, that the burden fell on the peasants, the people least able to pay. It wasn’t an uncommon pattern. The resentment it brought wasn’t uncommon, either.
They should be able to come to terms, she thought. But it’s going to be very hard to find common ground.
Her heart sank. She’d be astonished if anyone on either side trusted the other. Anyone who tried to make a compromise, any kind of compromise, would be overthrown by his own people. The commoners regarded the aristocrats as slavedrivers and the aristocrats regarded the commoners as property... she sighed. Alluvia lacked the freedoms of Randor’s Zangaria and they had been few and far between if one didn’t have a title. It was starting to look as though the best she could do, the best she could hope for, was to convince the aristocrats to go into exile without a fight. She was pretty sure it wasn’t going to happen.
She sighed as she read the reports covering the genesis of the rebellion. None believed the rebellion had come out of nowhere. Some argued that the Levellers were behind the whole affair, speaking of them as though they were lurking under every bed. They spoke of the Levellers as though they were a vast conspiracy, a hidden power so great that they only had to reach out their hand to take the world. The reports became near-hysterical as they went on and on, leaving Emily rolling her eyes. If there really was a conspiracy that powerful, and she rather doubted it, resistance was futile. The more reasonable reports blamed local forces - commoners or aristocrats who thought they could direct the storm - or Alluvia’s neighbors. Only a handful of reports blamed Emily herself.
I know I didn’t do it, Emily thought, wryly. And yet it’s very hard to prove a negative.
The reports became irritatingly repetitive, to the point she started scanning for names and places she hadn’t read a dozen times already. No one agreed on who was in charge in Jorlem City. The reports darted from low-ranking aristocratic names to commoners and names that were obviously affections. Common Man? Speaker of Truth? Emily had to smile. The Levellers often adopted new names, styling themselves by their dreams and idealisms. She wished, suddenly, that she’d spent more time working with them. She might have been able to steer the movement in a more productive direction.
She glanced up as someone knocked on the door. “Come!”
Silent peeked inside. “My Lady, the master wishes to see you in his study,” she said. “He said the wards will show you the way.”
Emily stood, almost knocking over the chair in her haste. Void had made it clear - very clear - that she was not to try to enter his private chambers. She respected him too much to try. Besides, Void would have every right to dismiss her - or worse - if he caught her sneaking into his lair. And yet, she was curious. Common sense told her that Void’s bedchambers and workrooms wouldn’t be that different, but... she didn’t really believe it.
The wards enveloped her as she walked into the corridor and up a flight of stairs she was sure hadn’t been there before. She could sense the power crackling around her, the wards snapping and snarling as if they resented her presence. It was easy to believe they were alive, on some level. The tower was ancient, handed down from sorcerer to sorcerer. It was welcoming to its master, but rarely to anyone else. Even apprentices and servants weren’t immune.
A really powerful sorcerer could live alone, meeting all of his needs through conjuring, she thought. But no one has that sort of power. Not now.
She pushed the thought aside as she stepped through an arch into a midsized workroom. It was charming, in an odd kind of way. The walls were lined with all sorts of charmed devices, from simple wands and staffs to strange assembles of wood and metal that didn’t seem to have any real purpose. Void wasn’t an enchanter - he’d said as much - but he’d studied
