Alexander would die without returning me to the fold, or that I would take up the baton and prove as dangerous and unpredictable as was my way. And now the card has been played, and you're going to follow through. I hope you find me nothing but a disappointment, Angela. I hope to do nothing more than ruin your plans in this chamber.
But that's not what I said, of course.
'He produced a letter of reinstatement. It was in his…' His crazy room? The old ballroom where he was hiding from the talking engines? What to say? 'In his desk. Considering the state of the Manor, I'm not sure what became of the letter.'
'Not sure what became of the letter,' Angela repeated. 'And then you come to us armed, and in the company of a foreigner. What are we supposed to do with this, Jacob?'
Here was the tricky part. My father was dead. Patron Tomb was, mostly likely, dead. Neither Angela nor I had any standing in the Chamber. Not officially. So it was a matter of brute personality and tradition, and deciding how much information to make public.
'I swear to you, the last thing I want is to be standing here. This is not the role I would choose for myself. Not in this city, and not with my history. But we don't always get to choose what comes to us, do we?' I held the shotgun loosely in my right hand, resting my left on the podium. Kept my eyes moving around the room, looking at each startled Councilor in turn. Still, only Bright looked comfortable. Angela looked unsure, so that was a start. 'My father is dead. He died today, defending himself against the scourge that has gripped our city. A scourge, I would like to point out, that this Council has hidden from the city at large. My father loved this city. Gave his life to it, to growing its power and securing its citizens. He died for it. And there is nothing he would want more than for his son to continue that task. So I am here, not because I want this seat, nor because it is my duty. I stand before you because you need me. This city needs me. And I was raised to stand up when I was needed.'
And I sat down.
They didn't buy it, most of them. A couple of the Founder's were wet-eyed, and at least Lady Bright was nodding to herself. Angela looked pensive. Plumer was having none of it.
'You're a brat, and an egomaniac. This Council has done fine without you and, frankly, has been doing fine without your father ever since his little trip. So, thank you for the interruption, it was amusing, but I'll ask you to get the hell out of this Chamber.'
'He deserves a vote,' Veronica said. Plumer whirled on her.
'You! You're supporting this' — he threw an arm at me — 'criminal? Do you honestly believe he can be a Councilor in Veridon?'
'I don't know,' she answered. 'But apparently his father did.'
'His father!' Plumer shouted, strutting around the circle. The three original speakers had returned to their chairs, except for Angela. She stood still, watching me. Watching my trick unfold. 'For all of this young man's pretty words, I think we knew Alexander Burn. Knew who he was, and what he stood for. I hardly think that he could be trusted to name a successor, not in his state of mind.' He squinted at me and made his mistake. 'Died for the city? Hardly. Died in the dark, drunk and crazy, more likely.'
I vaulted the podium, sensibly leaving the shotgun on my chair, and landed softly about five feet from the fat man. I strode at him, hands calmly in pockets, hurrying into his space. He stumbled backwards, and I followed.
'There are a great many things I will tolerate, Mr. Councilor. You can insult me all day, and twice on Saturday. You can degrade my family name. You can question my taste in clothes, or wines, or gods. You can even threaten me, although I wouldn't suggest it.' By now we were nearly to his dais. He pressed his back flat against the marble stairs, his emblem of two feathers aflame poking out from behind his chubby shoulders. I smiled. 'But I will not have you speaking poorly of my father. Not today. We will have our differences, you and I. We will have our agreements. Let's start this relationship off with an understanding, though. You do not say such things about my father. Agreed?'
'Agreed,' he whispered. I backed up.
'Frankly, I don't care if you vote for me,' I said, addressing the room, although I still stared at Plumer's fat face. 'I don't care if you think you can manage this without me. But you're wrong. You're all locked in here, talking about what might be happening outside. Trading pieces of information for political favor, acting against each other all the while. Gambling the good of the city to gain a little more power for yourselves.' I began to walk around the room, slowly, looking at the Councilors as I passed. 'You're doing it right now. Trying to decide what advantage it will be to you, if I claim this seat.'
Some of them wouldn't meet my eyes, either out of fear or contempt. Some did. There was amusement, there was fear. There was maybe a little hope. I didn't like the burden that brought to me, to my name, but hey. We don't always get to choose what comes to us.
'I'll tell you this. There is no advantage. I'm not here to play your games. I'm here because everything is falling apart, and unless you act immediately to put it back together, you will not recover your city.' I stopped in the center of the room and turned slowly in place. 'Veridon will be lost to you.'
'Listen,' Plumer said. He had crawled back into his seat, and seemed to take comfort in being able to look down at me. His voice still quavered when I looked at him. 'Listen, I know things are dire. We are here in emergency session, after all. Many of us left our families undefended to be here. We're taking this very seriously.'
'Undefended, yes… tell me about this curfew. Who's enforcing it?'
'The Badge, of course.'
'And yet on my way over here I didn't see a single agent of that fine institution. Why is that?' Confused looks around the room, then realization, then embarrassment. 'None of you left your estates undefended, did you? You each selected units from the Badge to reinforce your own house guards. Didn't you? Issued false orders about patrol routes and roadblocks, most likely in your rival's territories, and reassigned those units to your homes. And between the fifteen seats of the Council, you have emptied this city of its only defense.'
'Now look, certainly that couldn't account for the entire force. Could it?' Plumer asked. Angela answered him. She was still on the floor, watching me strut around. I wondered if they had to install a special ramp, or some kind of mechanical lift, for her dais.
'Probably not the entire force, no,' she said. 'But enough. And something could have happened to the balance.'
'Something?' I said. 'Something, Ms. Tomb? Tell me, what happened on the docks yesterday morning. What is the official report?'
'A fire,' she answered, keeping her face calm. 'The conflagration swept the docks, killing many poor citizens of the city. And quite a few officers, for that matter.'
'Quite a few. But we both know that isn't what happened. Because I was there. And the officers I had the opportunity to speak with about this' — I turned to Plumer and smiled — 'while incarcerated, I'll admit, Mr. Plumer; I do have a reputation to maintain — those officers believed that that is what happened. Which means that the Badge itself doesn't know the truth of the matter.'
'The truth of what matter?' another of the Councilors asked. Angela didn't take her eyes off me, didn't move. Waited. I nodded to her and addressed the Council.
'There was another attack on the river. An attack by these cog-laced dead, the former Fehn. It was brought about by a device that I was hired to deliver, a device that apparently transformed most if not all of the Fehn into these creatures.'
'So it's the Fehn that are attacking us?' one old lady asked, fluttering a fan at her face.
'No, my dear. Not of their own will, at least. They have been changed, by a man recently come to our city. A man who claims to hold the power of the Artificers in his hands.' I held up my hands. 'Before you gasp and exclaim that the Artificers have been gone for a hundred years or more, please consider the nature of the attacks that you have seen.' I let my eyes linger on Lady Bright. 'Consider what force could do such a thing. What sort of power it takes to move the living and the dead.'
'Who is he?' Veronica spat, and I saw a little of the madness in her. 'You've met him, so tell us who he is. We'll hunt him into the earth.'
I turned to Angela and held a hand out to her. She gave me a quizzical look. Didn't she know? She had to know. Didn't she?
