1 - The City Will Feel My Upset

I wasn’t happy and the city was going to feel it. I sat in the office of the Chancellor of the University of Arko and both he... and the President, whom I had insisted be present, stood before their own desks, since I had decided I wanted to sit while they explained to me where my tutor had so suddenly gone, on ‘leave’. 

My two bodyguards, both Mahid, stood perfect and still on either side of the office door on their faibalitz skates, their onyxine uniforms turning them into two black columns, both muscular and rigid enough to hold up the roof. Their impassive faces showed nothing, sky blue eyes cold, sharp and empty. The Chancellor, sweating all along his hairline and over his upper lip folded his gloves together properly, shaking, glanced back at them, clearly wondering if I would order them to punish him if he answered me in a way I didn’t like. 

I heaved my fat little body forward, my jewels and gold chains ringing, picking up one of the Chancellor’s pens. His office had a massive plated glass window looking out into the central garden, with the top of a weeping willow waving gracefully outside. A peaceful scene compared to the two older men standing in sweating fear in front of me and what I might do.

He’d already given me an answer I didn’t like. “You tell me that Jitanzas has ‘gone on an indefinite leave’, Chancellor,” I said. I was wearing my faib skates as well and swung the toe of the one repeatedly against the desk’s polished leg – clack, clack, scratch, clack -- scarring the wood.

“Yes, Spark of the Sun’s Ray.” He gave me the commonest of my titles and swallowed audibly before continuing. “At the most exalted’s Divine Father’s request.” And that was the limit of what I could do. I wanted to scream. Jitanzas, though he was my tutor, had been a friend. He’d taught me to read. He’d been with me as long as I could remember. He’d started to teach me my letters and numbers from when I was a baby, more than eight years ago. Even if I was only ten it was an eternity to me. Of course I was about to turn eleven, so I should be able to bear this more easily.

I knew what had happened. I had made a mistake. I had made the mistake of loving someone more than Father. And he’d made them go away. My mistake. I felt I was choking. The room was too close and closing in on me hard. I threw the pen and hit the President on the head with it, but nothing broke and he was too frightened to flinch.

Father would have just ordered it... Mahid would have come to Jitanzas’s bedroom in the Marble Palace in the night and he would be gone and the University would have to pretend that he had not ever been my tutor; pretend he had been called away somewhere. I leaped to my feet and the two gray-haired, old men flinched back from the desk as I did so. I was taller on my skates but I still felt small.

“I’M HEIR TO THE CRYSTAL THRONE AND SOME LESSER CASTE DECIDES WHO SHALL BE MY TUTOR? BECAUSE HE HAS TO ‘GO ON LEAVE’ WITHOUT MY LEAVE?!”

The President whispered. “No lesser caste, Chip of the Divine Sun. The Sun’s Son Himself.”

I stood, chest heaving, helpless in the face of my Father’s decree. “Mahid, it stinks of lies in here. I desire that window opened. Open it now.”

It was a window designed to frame a view, a single sheet of Arkan glass with no fittings to allow it to be opened. The Mahid to the left of the doorframe glided forwards on one skate, caught up the heavy visitor’s chair behind the Chancellor and hurled it straight through the glass and down a floor onto the paving below. “As the Spark wishes,” he said and ghosted back to his place by the door.

The raining crash of the glass was loud and suddenly the outside noise was more obvious, including startled exclamations and the sound of running feet below as students rushed over to the mess.

“Overzealous, Mahid, but good. Chancellor, send the bill for my Mahid’s obedience to my household.” I glided to the door across the smooth stone floor, wheels clicking, and the other Mahid had it open for me already. “President, attend me.”

Outside the University the sun hit me hard, even this early. It was late enough that the sun was a full fist over the Rim of the cliffs around the city, shining down on Arko. I liked him. I didn’t want to lose him. It had been a complete surprise to me when I had gotten up this morning and was handed a note from Father telling me Jitanzas was no longer my tutor. That He’d be 'interviewing for a new one shortly'.

Even this early the streets were full of people, and as I turned in a circle to see the President puffing after me, an express courier’s whistle blasted down the street. My Mahid had their skates on as well, to keep up with me and the President was forced to run even though I wasn’t pushing very hard. His face was red already.

All these people around me, content in their own castes, content in their nasty little lives and with one word my Father had changed mine. I hated them for their indifference. They had their lives and their friends and I didn’t. How dare they? How dare they be happy?

At the Lion Bridge I stopped at the top and waited for the President to come puffing up behind me. “President. Your heightened colour clashes badly with your tunic and over-robes and I am offended. Take them off.”

He gaped a moment, mouth dropped open and then began stripping off the pieces of clothing I’d mentioned. He wore an undershirt and his pot belly hung over the belt of his kilt. “I don’t like any of what you’re wearing," I said. "It’s all offensive.” The crowds that normally streamed across the bridge had quietly vanished or drawn back when they’d seen my odd little procession, the doves circling over the Temple suddenly louder.

He stripped down to his sandals until I glared pointedly at them. The last he would remove were his gloves and they dropped on top of the pathetic pile of clothing. “Better,” I said. I scooped up the bundle and dropped the silks and fine cottons over the railing into the river. “You have my permission to go, President.”

I spun around him and back down the hump of the bridge, leaving him naked in the open. The pigeons had given me an idea.

My Mahid and I skated down to the Fowler’s Market and I opened every cage, filling the street behind me with a rising cacophony of wings and screeching birds and disorder as the escaping fowl messed in the street, flying up to join the city flocks or ran up the sides of buildings, claws scratching.

A turkey seller, a Purveyor of Fine Birds, both Two and Four Legged, made the mistake of trying to beg me not to release his stock and I watched as my Mahid beat him. “Find a Sereniteer and have him put in the Marble Palace dungeon until I say.”

“As the Spark of the Sun’s Ray wishes.” His wife and children cowered in the back of the booth, eyes shut tight, unable to close their ears against his cries.

I didn’t care that the sun blazed down on the white marble streets of the city, it was all dark, dark as me, dark as the inside of my head with my eyes closed.

The horse market was on the way to the Great Press and when I let them go they caused enough chaos that my skate wheels were too fouled to turn freely and I had my footwear changed again. I chose to walk, listening to a whole herd of half-panicked animals clatter into the streets.

The smell and heat and noise of the Press felt better, closer to what I felt, closer to the rage I felt. I couldn’t weep. He was gone. My companions... I didn’t like any of them. I was alone and I had to be alone because no one would dare be loved by me. I made the mistake and didn’t know where my tutor was, whether my love, whether my regard, had hurt him, killed him. I didn’t know.

The Press was enormous and the clatter and roar and hiss, the men adjusting their levers, maintaining their stations where the ink flowed and the paper slid through the big machine. I stomped straight through the sea of desks, each with its lamp and its diligently toiling scrivener, up the stairs to the speaking trumpet clamped to the railing right outside the high editor’s open office.

“Intharas, attend me.” The high editor looked up from under his green eyeshade, shoved his wheeled chair away with a squeal as he came to his feet, hurrying to come out to me. I decided he wasn’t quick enough and swung around to face the cone of the trumpet. I could almost hear his dismayed in-breath as I yelled “STOP THE PRESS!”

Intharas had stopped where he stood, as the pressmen jumped to obey bringing the whole clanging, howling clattering beast to a halt and every eye in the room was turned to me where I stood. I had control of this, at least. I had control of something. I had control of them. They had to obey me. In that I wasn’t helpless. I grinned at them and turned back to Intharas. “Much better, Terren. At least now I can hear myself think.”

“Of course, Spark of the Sun’s Ray.” He didn’t even grit his teeth even as he offered me his own chair. “Understandable. The noise is often unbearable.” His eyes flickered to the unnaturally quiet press room and I could feel how every instant of silence hurt him. Every moment the press was not running was another moment his next issue would be late. I didn’t have a reason for stopping the Press, other than I could. “May this lowly one offer the exalted one kaf or some other refreshment?” He continued.

I let him hover for a moment, looked around the office and then out onto the platform over the ink reservoirs. “Don’t bother. I’m not thirsty or hungry. Intharas one of those barrels of ink over there isn’t set up right.”

“Let this worm have someone fix that, Spar –“I cut him off with a wave of my hand and got up and out, making him follow me.

“Not a problem, Intharas. Why, look at that.” The barrel of red ink was standing just fine. But it was on the edge of the platform and was about a third full when I put my hand on it and pushed at it. I smiled beatifically at him, set both hands against the top edge of the barrel and shoved it over and off the edge of the platform. The top burst and ink splashed almost half way across the room making everything look as though the scribblers and their desks and papers had all been slaughtered.

There was an even more profound silence except for the drip of ink off spoiled paper and the edges of desks and even off people sitting very still, hoping I would not notice them. Perhaps they were glad it only looked like blood.

“Well. I suppose you can get everything started up again Intharas. You have my gracious permission.” He didn’t offer to say anything as I left, skirting around the inky carnage though I did leave a trail of red footprints on the floor and up the stairs.

In the time it took me to walk over to the law courts I was starting to calm down, finally. I stopped to watch while a pair of chair-carriers, with an old man in their chair, face off against a small herd of animals in their way, a horse, a mule and two donkeys who were braying loudly in the face of the lead bearer.

The older man in the chair raised his voice and hurled his cane, and then his sandals at the donkey over the head of the lead bearer, making him duck.

I felt a bit better and thought that the law courts would calm me down further. Any application of law, of justice, away from the Marble Palace, away from Father’s will, was soothing. It was logical rather than arbitrary.

Then I’d go down to the arena, the Mezem, to see if any new men had been brought in to become ring-fighters. The ring-fighters and the whole establishment built around them, as crazy wild as it was, was more honest than most of the rest of the city.