43 (704) - Matthas, Come Out!

Ilesias Mahid sat on a stack of marble blocks, looking over the head of one of the site healers... a Yeoli innovation, to have at least two medically trained on every construction site. He tracked the search for Matthas by the whistles echoing all the way from the lake.  He set his teeth as the medic pulled his forearm straight.  He'd fought past the flash of agony to see Jorasa get the Coronet out of the area.  Then Gian had managed to corral his charges that had scattered like a covey of quail when Ili screamed.

The marble slab had smashed his blocking arm, then fallen and ripped his trousers, leaving a bleeding gash from knee to ankle.  He was fortunate that the heavy slab had slid sideways and not crushed his foot, boot and all.

His leg had been the first tended, and was a minor throb under the hot, swollen pain  of his arm. “It is fortunate, honoured Mahid,” the fessas medic said as he laid a fast loop of setting plaster splint on the arm.  “...that the slab didn’t hit the joint.  That would have needed Haian skill.”

“Yes,” he gritted. His injuries were there, like recently splintered teeth, in his consciousness, but he had to keep his focus on the hunt.  That scorpion had to be caught. It was a stain on the Mahid that he was still at large, still alive and not only unsworn but actively attacking the Imperium. “He’s like a cancer cell.”

“You...all... will be like a good immune system then,” the fessas sniffed.  “Just let that set before you do anything... your own medic should put a more permanent cast on, after the swelling subsides.”

“Thank you.”

The man picked up his bag and trotted down to the nearest ladder to slide down to his colleague already working on okas injured in the building accident.  Ilesias tested his feet and balance, slowly getting up.  The blood drying in his boot squished and crackled but the leg on that side held him. His head was steady.  He took another swig of the water full of remedies and slung the container on his belt.  I’ll need that again, soon.

He headed over to where the searchers had gathered, in the  opening in Holy Alley where the sculpture fountain trees began.  “Janirias.” He addressed the Coronet’s personal guard.  “Anything?”

“No, Ser.” The man jerked his chin to indicate Amitza sitting on the other side of the pavement.  “She says she can out-wait him, he disappeared around here and we’ve searched the whole University wing overlooking.”

“Excellent. I’m going to have this seen to and check on the Coronet Reg---“

A voice whispered out from the Plaza, thinned by sheer distance, despite the acoustics of the Presentation balcony.  “Maaaaatthas.... Maaahid... the Godssss call youuuuu.  You’re done. Come home.”

“What?” Janirias turned as if he could see through the row of buildings between them and the Presentation plaza.

“Come out, Maatthhhaaasssss.”

“It’s the Coronet. He’s trying to appeal to a crazy Mahid.”

“It could work.”

“Maybe.  Tell Amitza not to move.  We’ll send out a page and keep some of the guard out here to back her up in case she’s right.  Or if the Mahid comes crawling out of the hole he’s in, in response to young Ilesias’s calling.”

“Matthasssss!  Let it go.  Give in to the Ten. Maaaaaatthasssss.”

42 (703) It's the Right Thing

Ili jumped out of the chair as the Steel Gate shut with a thud that echoed up to the ceiling of the reception hall.  He caught his toe on the edge of the chair, just as the bearers set it down with a clack, fell forward, managed to tuck and roll before bouncing up onto his feet.  “Where’s Gian? Nuni and Didi and Hasha and Rik are all out there still!” The class came hustling in, escorted by Sereniteers.

Two guards closed in and kept an eye on the chair bearers. “They did good, got me in here fast, don’t bother them!” Ili snapped.

“Protocols, Coronet Regal.” One of them said. Ili couldn’t tell which one of the guard he was, through his helmet.

“Ili! Ili are you all right?” “That WAS Matthas!” “He hurt Ilesias Mahid, did you see? Did you hear the crack when that marble hit him?” “Is he all right?”

“Children, please.” Gian said quietly into the babble. “We don’t know yet.  And before you ask, Ili, Nuni, Hasha, you may not gear up and help hunt for him. He is a danger to you, not a hide and seek partner.”

“Teacher, he was just as surprised as Ili,” Rik shouted. “He’s running. We could—“

“No, you may not.” That was Captain Idiesas. How did he get here so fast? “Boras, take these two chair bearers to the Ivory chamber, ask them what they saw, pay them and get them out of here.” He turned to Gian. “I’d appreciate you attending your charges up to the Muunas Laughs Schoolroom, if you please.”

That was the schoolroom deepest inside the Imperial section. Gian just nodded and they all started moving that direction, toward the Ifornamiian staircase.

“Captain.” Ili stood as tall as he could, right in front of the Captain of the Guard.  “Assembly is in session, They’re all safe. I might be able to do something from here, without endangering myself at all!”

He started to just say ‘no’ he could see it as clear as if he had the word painted on his lip. Then he stopped.  “What can you do?”

“I can call from the Presentation Balcony... it’s built so that my voice will carry all the way to the Temple... maybe to where they’re hunting Matthas.  I can try and call him out.  He wasn’t trying to hurt me. He was just working as if he were a real okas.”

“He won’t answer,” Didi said.  “We should just find him and chop him up into tiny bits for getting people killed.”

Nuni looked at him.  "Ili why are you doing this?"

Ili glanced over and shrugged.  "It's the right thing to do." He hadn't turned away from the Guard Captain. 

“Captain Firnean, please let me try.”

He looks down at me as tall as the Aras statue in the Temple. I hate Matthas. I’m afraid of him. But if I can tell him he’s sinned... he’ll come out. He’ll be saved. Isn’t that part of what our job is? To talk to ALL Arkans?

“It doesn’t matter if I don’t like him. I shouldn’t treat him any differently than any Arkan.”

He nodded abruptly.  “Wait for two tenths, with your peers, Coronet.  I will fetch you and escort you.”

41 (702) I Have the Correct Mousehole

Amitza eased back into the cooling garden from Upper University Walk, and scanned the open space, dart tube rock steady in her gloves.  Noise from the construction site still echoed as they fought to bring order back to chaos two buildings over.

When the noon bells sounded, she didn’t move, casting an apologetic prayer up to Selinae in her head.  The rogue Mahid could not have vanished into thin air.  He had to be somewhere near here. A half dozen people had seen him enter here and Janirias had swept all the way to the Lake and back.

This open area was the last place he’d been seen.  He had to be hiding somewhere.  Janirias and the Sereniteers were searching every University office that had a window on this street. The cooling tree's leaves shivered in the breeze, waxed paper and leather leaves thin as Pages stock scattering the mist of water droplets released on its timed cycle.

Every sculpted tree was connected to the water system, just as the fire posts were here in the Aitzas quarter, and had its own little water driven timer in the trunk. The sweat of her exertion dried on her back and along her hairline, from when she and Janirias and the four Sunborn Elite had pursued directly, trying to drive the Mahid into the Sereniteers closing in.

She eased down to sit, cross-legged, her back against the windowless wall. He might be Mahid. But so am I. How dare he threaten the rightful Imperator and Ili... the Coronet Regal, I mean.  His people killed Joras and the rest of that guard detail.

He was actually working as an okas stonemason.  It was sheer chance that Ili had seen him face to face and close enough to recognize him. He wasn’t attacking Ilesias, he just fled.

Janirias spotted her from an upper window and silently waved an all clear. She nodded, slightly, the barest minimum of motion.  He’s acting very strangely for a Mahid.  Even for a Mahid operative. They tend to be odder than a five-wheeled cart, to begin with. His most effective attempts on Minis were the first two. The attempted kidnapping and the dart after the Ten Tens.  If not for the Temple’s intervention, Minis would have died.

The poisoning IN the Temple was just incompetent.  How on the Earthsphere had he thought that would even work? He was obviously running out of resources and ideas. Not that Mahid are particularly good at the idea part of things. She mentally shrugged, including herself candidly in that last thought. Sofonisba has ideas. The Dowager has ideas. I just follow orders and play faib. 

He was unprepared for this and must have gone to ground the first instant he could. He improvised. But I will out-wait you, Matthas Mahid.  You are a very big, very venomous mouse and I believe that I have the correct mouse hole.

She could sit in this patch of shade all day long.

40 (701) We Beg Your Indulgence

Minis took a deep breath and stepped out onto the glass bridge across to the Crystal Throne. On the other side, Kyriala matched him coming the other direction. His heart was pounding not because this was the official opening of the latest Assembly, but because he and Ky were going to make it official.

Now would not be the time to slip and fall to my death off the glass bridge, dragged down by the weight of ceremony.

He wore the Imperial white and gold satins under the Robe, as usual.  He was used to that.  The elaborate ‘Sun Rising and Blessing the Moon’ collar rising behind his head was the problem.  It gave him a golden halo and the ancient old head-dress was meant to have his hair woven into it, between strands of gold strung with topazes and given fire with brilliant cut diamonds. Tenii had brought the two Imperial mane artists and all their sketches for the elaborate braids that would be woven through the head-dress and then the perfectly smooth falls of hair down his chest.

“No,” he’d said to their crestfallen faces.  “I realize that you want to bring back all that glory and pomp but I don’t have time to sit still for three days while you do all that.  Neither does my Imperatrix.  Same for her.  Neither of us want to overbalance and get dragged to the floor by our head-dresses!”

Kyriala wore the most ancient of designs, from the Ilesrian Era, with her outer-most robe a waterfall of blue and silver sapphires and diamonds.  As she stood on glass bridge, her hems fell below on either side, like suspended rain glittering.  Her head-dress was silver, diamonds and sapphires, with hematite accents and edges.

Her defiant red Dyer streak was woven in like a strand of lightning. She smiled at him across the Crystal Throne and he had to smile back, even as they made their careful way toward each other.The Assembly of Arko was silent, the Speaker ready to strike the first spark of the session candle. It’s amazing.  No one has even coughed.

His gold and gem encrusted comb stretched out toward her stiff silver fan and just as they met at the Crystal Throne, he stepped up to stand before it, she blew him a kiss invisible from below. She turned in front of him so that she stood before him and he steadied her with his hands on her shoulders, gold seals winking against her silver rainstorm of a dress.

Noon.

The Speaker struck the spark and lit the session candle.  There was a slight disturbance at the door as a page slipped in, bearing the first of likely a dozen messages, one of the Sunborn Elite guards on his heels.

As one, everyone raised their hands to their heads and the noon prayer rose up, surely pleasing to the Ten. It’s amazing. Everyone says they cannot sing well, but put them together and make it a prayer then it becomes something astonishing, every time.  Ten bless us.

Just because of their unorthodox entrance, and Intharas’s Special Edition, everyone had to know what was coming, but they still held their breaths. Minis couldn’t help smiling.  Not properly solemn at all.

“The Imperator by vote and the Imperatrix beg the Assembly's indulgence and have requested a short amount of time at the beginning of the current session for an announcement.” The Speaker paused for a moment. “Any objections?”

Someone’s sleeve dog yipped and suddenly everyone was laughing.

As the ripple of laughter faded he turned toward them. “Imperator, Imperatrix.  Please proceed.”

Kyriala snapped her fan open, to cover her patting his hand. She didn’t have Socks in her sleeve, though she swore there was room for a pair of house donkeys in her sleeves, and at least one cart in her train.

“Assemblypeople of Arko.  The Imperatrix and I are very happy to announce that the Ten have blessed us and she is with child.”

Last Two Days

Happy New Year!  As you can see there was no post yesterday and there will not be one today.

I am, as a New Year's present, be starting another comment contest.  Twenty good comments will get you a passing mention in the text. Fifty comments (of more worth than 'ooh' 'ooh' or merely clicking on the buttons!) shall get you a spear-carrier character in Arko. (If you are into role-playing, we'll see if your character interacts well.) A hundred comments and I will write a short story about your character.)

I have to have Ili deal with an aging Jiaklem.  Domoctopus's live quite a bit longer than wild ones but he's very old. Breeding would kill him.