Chapter: 249 - Risks and Liabilities (Patreon)

<Contains content which may be considered grimdark>
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Tala took a deep breath, centering herself.

The City Lord was leaning towards her, clearly interested in her explanation.

She had just asked him to remove her collar, allowing her to violate the ruling of the House of Blood, and he didn’t reject her outright.

We might be able to do this. He just wants to know ‘why.’ I can give him a good ‘why.’ “He’s the Pillar; I’m the Eskau; what more can I say? I cannot allow him to go into danger without me.”

He scrunched his nose. “That is why your House’s council should have approved your participation. They said ‘no.’ Why should I allow you to go around their decision?”

She hesitated, then reworded this first reason. “Pillar Be-thric will die if I don’t go with him. I cannot let him go alone.”

“Why would that sway me in the slightest?” He looked genuinely confused. “As I’ve said, the safety of a House’s Pillars is their business. I trust that isn’t the only reason you have?”

Well… that was negated more quickly than ideal.

-Next idea?-

Obviously. “Because this shouldn’t involve you at all.”

His head titled slightly to one side. “Interesting. Go on.”

“If I weren’t human, I would follow him on this venture, and it wouldn’t involve you or a collar or anything. I might be reprimanded, but that would be my choice, the consequences solely mine to bear.”

“Ahh, but it you weren’t human, this venture would be unnecessary.”

“That is hardly the point.”

“I disagree, but go on.”

She took another breath, finding her balance before continuing, “The only reason you are involved at all is this stupid collar.”

“The collar that you want me to remove.”

“Precisely.”

“The collar that is meant to prevent you from acting in ways counter to your sponsoring House.”

“…Yes?” She was not aware that that was the supposed purpose. I thought it was a mandate by the City Lord.

-Yeah, that’s what we were told.-

“The collar which is currently preventing your from acting against the express ruling of your House.”

“…yes.” She grimaced. Well, when you say it like that…

“So, you see the problem? Your argument is that I should remove your restriction, because you want to do the very thing the restriction is meant to guard against.”

“I…I thought the collar was a requirement required by you, at your will, and by your discretion.”

He shrugged. “That is both true and false.”

She cocked her head to the side, a slight frown creasing her features. “Explain.”

The room suddenly warped, and Tala was on her knees with no memory of falling, breath driven from her lungs, heart stuttering in her chest.

Her aura control, and authority over anything, her own body included, was utterly gone.

Her gate was held in a vice-grip, her flow of power cut off as completely as if she were born without one.

The City Lord hadn’t moved, but his face was stony, utterly without mercy.

Anger or fury would have been less terrifying.

“You do not command me, human child. I’d thought you understood that.” The pressure vanished, the crumbling walls and half caved in roof pulling back together under the City Lord’s power.

When did that break? The sound of dripping drew her perspective back to herself, and she was able to see streams of blood running down her face from the corners of her eyes and out of her ears. The dark, crimson liquid was dripping onto the floor from where it gathered on her chin.

“I will not tell you again.” His voice was perfectly level, perfectly controlled.

Tala nodded, barely keeping a rein on her panic. Pull it together, Tala.

-Are you alright?-

Not in the slightest, but…but I need to try this avenue. She slowly stood, giving a deeper bow than usual. “My apologies, City Lord. If you would be willing, can you explain what you mean?”

He smiled, all traces of displeasure gone. “Well, every City Lord forbids human advancement, unequivocally, as it sets a bad precedent, and it never ends well. If a House is willing to take on liability and risk, a prerequisite is that collar.” He pointed to her unnecessarily. “That eliminates the problem once their gamble fails.”

“If I may, what sort of risk?” She was still fighting to keep her emotions under control. She was not used to being faced with such overwhelming power, and it was rattling to say the least.

“It depends. Ten times the worth of any damages owed due to unlawful actions of the elevated human. That part is the most commonly invoked. If the human does something so heinous that they execute her, the House owes the City ten founts for every rank the human was allowed to advance before their fall to inevitable failing. If the human is banished into the wilds, it’s twenty founts, because someone has to be sent after her to kill her properly.”

Tala frowned. “Forgive me, City Lord, but wouldn’t the collar kill me, were I to be banished?”

“That’s the interesting quirk of the relationships between the Houses and the City Lords. If their act of banishment killed you, that wouldn’t be banishment, now would it? As such, to honor their ruling on their own members, we remove the collar. But.” He held up a finger. “But we don’t want an uncollared, advanced human out and about, so she has to be hunted down.”

Could that work?

-Do you really want this guy, or one of his enforcers hunting you down?-

No, but it is a possibility…Let’s call this the worst case scenario, but it could work.

“Now, it basically never happens, because the cost is so prohibitive to the House.”

Tala blinked. “Excuse me… It seems that you are speaking about this like there are quite a few humans that are, or have been, in my position.”

“Am I? I suppose after millennia it seems that way. You are the only such in this city.”

“Oh…Alright.”

“But as I was saying, banishment to the wilds basically doesn’t happen. Banishment to another House or city doesn’t happen, because there would have to be another House or City Lord willing to take responsibility for you, and you’d have just proven yourself to be a horrid burden.”

She grimaced, remaining silent.

“Now, for you, as an Eskau of all things, they’d never banish or kill you while your Pillar lives, not with the particularities of your specific arrangement, but that is precisely your concern.”

Tala nodded but didn’t interject.

“If he were to die, I could see that as grounds for your death or banishment. As a former Eskau at that point, they might opt for banishment, if you’ve been a good little Eskau up until then. That would also make them look much better to the other major Houses. It’s never a good look when you have to execute your own Eskau.” He clapped his hands, smiling magnanimously. “That’s your solution! If your Pillar dies, you can be banished to go save him, so long as you can avoid my hunters long enough to succeed.”

She gave him a non-amused look that bordered on disrespectful, but the City Lord just waved it off.

“You just need to learn necromancy and avoid those hunters too. Your Pillar would never be the same, of course, but you’d have him back.”

Tala scrunched her face but moderated her tone to respond. “I do not believe that would work for me, but thank you for the suggestion.”

“No one likes a groveler, child.” His tone was jovial, but it had a hard edge. “I was mocking you. Use that spine, which makes you so interesting. Don’t pretend it was anything else.”

“Yes, City Lord.” She grit her teeth, her tumultuous emotions joining together as irritated anger.

“That’s more like it.” He quirked a half smile. “Now, what if the collar kills you? They just have to pay for the replacement of the collar. It is a simple and relatively cheap solution.”

“Then, why would any House ever execute the human any other way? If I may ask.” She added the last hastily, despite her continued anger.

“You may. The answer is: They really don’t. Generally, the collar is triggered, and the matter is over. The body is utilized very specifically towards the benefit of the City Lord as a peace offering and apology for wasting everyone’s time. But even if that weren’t the case, we would dispose of the corpse, because we can’t allow the whole process to have any positive incentives.”

“Utilized?”

“Yes, gated humans who have died with their gate intact keep a remnant of connection from their body to the next world.”

“So, you somehow use the corpse to make another fount?” Tala couldn’t keep the disgust off of her features.

“What? No. Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not that type of connection. A gate is a pipe through which magic can flow. The connection that remains after the human’s death is more like a solid cable. No power will ever flow through it again, at least not in the way you are meaning.”

Tala frowned, uncertain of the utility of such a thing.

He sighed and shook his head. “I suppose I shouldn’t expect you to understand the implications. It isn’t like you’d have been given extensive lessons on the Doman-Imithe.”

Her eyes widened, but she held her tongue.

“Yes, the Doman-Imithe, the broken world. The backside of the coin on which Zeme exists, balancing on the border between the void and power. Now, a dead, gated human deposited in the Doman-Imithe increases the cohesion of reality in that location for both the Doman-Imithe and Zeme. A body from Zeme, tied to the next world, and decomposed in the Doman-Imithe. It draws the three together.”

“Wait, but if that’s true…If I may ask, why wouldn’t there be a massive program to give gated humans amazing lives, encourage lots of children, and then put their bodies in the Doman-Imithe when they die of old age?”

“An excellent question. The first reason is very simple: The stabilizing effect from a single unranked gated-human corpse is less than the damage done by opening a door to the Doman-Imithe. Higher ranked humans? Now, that is worth it.”

So… If I fail, I’ll be killed and dumped into the Doman-Imithe…

-I hear it’s lovely this time of year, all that snow.-

I suppose the seasons are aligned with Zeme, yeah? What’s your point?

-No point, I just like snow.-

The City Lord sighed, bringing Tala’s focus back to him. “Now, is there anything else?”

“I suppose there is nothing I can do for you to get you to remove the collar?”

“Of course there is. I will happily remove it pre-execution, for your banishment, or off of your corpse.”

Her eye twitched “I meant that you remove it so that I can follow Pillar Be-thric on his mission?”

“Not a single thing.”

She hesitated. “If my House had approved my going along with him…?”

“I’d have changed the parameters of the collar. It wouldn’t have come off.”

She nodded. “I expected as much. Thank you, City Lord.”

“Now, stop being so…jittery, and let me work in peace.” He spun back around and reached for a non-existent cup.

With a silent sigh, she bowed slightly and departed to get him another drink.

As she walked, she felt a frown grow across her features. Wait… I know a cup was there…Does he just obliterate them when they’re empty?

-I don’t think I saw it go anywhere else.- After a moment’s pause, Alat continued. -No, it was there until a bit ago, then it simply vanished when he knocked you to the floor.-

Now that she considered it, she’d never taken any dirty cups down to the kitchen. She’d only gotten new ones.

-He might just stick them in a dimensional storage?-

Yes, he’s so wealthy that he has a pocket dimension for singly used, dirty cups.

-Now, that’s flexing your wealth.-

Tala grinned, feeling a bit more emotionally level. The City Lord hadn’t been the solution, but he had given her a lot of information.

The remainder of her time attending the City Lord passed uneventfully, and she departed as the sun set.

She’d taken the remaining time to think, and she had come to a decision.

I’m going to have to kill Be-thric without being implicated or setting off the collar. They would banish me, and I can make a break for the human lands.

-Oh, yes. That should be quite easy. Once we succeed, we’d only need to cover a few hundred miles, avoiding a pursuing Revered, more than likely.-

Or more than one.

-True, or more than one.-

Is there a better option? She quirked a smile as she waved to the gate guard on her way out. I could take a reality drake, now. I should be able to mess up an arcane Revered, if I absolutely have to.

-That might be a bit optimistic, but it sure would be interesting to see what an over-abundance of siege orbs could do.-

And in the worst case, I die free and fighting. Tala nodded to herself. I’ll keep looking for other solutions, but this is the plan until I find something better.

There was a long silence as she made her way back to the District of Doors and the House of Blood’s hold.

Finally, Alat sent an affirmation to Tala. -It’s not a sure thing, but it is a fighting chance.-

Maybe even literally.

Alat chuckled. -Well, we should make more siege orbs, then. If our last line of defense is ludicrously over the top applications of power, we might as well shoot for the moon.-

Ahh, yes. More little bundles of death. After all, we have a raid tomorrow. If this gambit is to succeed, we need to gather enough worth and wealth for the House that we can argue for banishment over execution by collar.

-To be useful!-

And win our freedom or die trying.

*      *      *

Tala took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and grinned.

This is it.

She pulled out a pair of siege orbs. She had been amplifying them to the point that the spheres almost distorted towards one another. I didn’t actually consider that I’d be using them for something this close to their intended purpose so soon.

-Breaching, sieging, same difference.-

She grinned. One only lays siege to that which one cannot breach.

Alat chuckled in response.

Before her were the heavily fortified and magically reinforced front gates of the House of the Rising Sun.

Soldiers of the House of Blood were already subduing messengers, minor members of the House, and common folk who had been near at hand when they arrived, moving them away from the doors in question.

Be-thric stood beside her in nearly complete armor, radiating power and deadly focus. Besides the squads of soldiers, they were on their own.

Well… that wasn’t precisely true, or really true at all.

Meallain stepped up beside Tala, her thick armor not hampering her in the slightest. “Let’s get this show on the road. I’ve been wanting an excuse to kick these idiots' beaks in for decades.”

The elf had arranged for her own arrival, by some means, after insisting that she wouldn’t miss this raid for the world.

It was to be a precision strike.

There were at least two candidate Eskau for the House of the Rising Sun who were in residence at the moment. One of their protian weapons would soon be in hand.

Just this one and one more, and we’re done.

Ironically, the House of Blood in Platoiri was unusual for only having had one potential Pillar and candidate Eskau. Tala had come to learn that there were quite a few who could have participated in the contest for the position that Be-thric now held, but they chose not to for one reason or other.

But all of this was beside the point.

The plan was simple: Tala would breach the front gates and the soldiers would sweep into the hold. They would kill if necessary but avoid it where possible.

Tala, Meallain, and Be-thric would follow close behind, dealing with any major threats.

They would all be searching for one of the candidate Eskau, and when they were found, the strike force would converge, acquire the weapon, and retreat as a group.

They weren’t going to obliterate the hold, nor kill enough to start a true inter-House war.

What they were doing was technically within the bounds of the regular conflicts between major House, but it hadn’t been done in recent memory.

That’s what makes it unexpected. Tala’s smile grew.

One of their soldiers called out. “Clear!”

She had insisted that they clear the area around the entrance before she did this.

“Brace, one!” Tala called out, and they all hunkered down just slightly. White metal expanded over Tala, completely covering her, though flowing and resolving below her scalemail hauberk.

With an increasingly easy flex of her will, the two orbs changed the target of their gravitational amplification and moved.

The air tore, and the area around the gate heated up a few degrees.

An explosive boom followed instantly on the heels of the colossal crack that was really innumerable cracks and rumbles all overlaying one another so close together as to be impossible to parse.

Dust and shards of various materials ballooned outward, only to be cleared a moment later by a working of one of their soldiers.

Meallain whistled appreciatively, and Be-thric cursed.

The defenses had held, but that was to be expected from the purely kinetic strike.

What caught everyone off guard was three-fold.

First, the wall on which the hold rested, the very structure of the District of Doors that had stood for millennia, was cracked, shattered, and utterly dislocated.

The entrance to the hold had been moved backwards by a full foot. The doors were somewhat bent and buckled around the two orbs, one imbedded in each side, but they still held, entirely sealing the hold against them.

“That shouldn’t be possible.” Be-thric was aghast.

Honestly, Tala was too. The anchors for holds weren’t generally moveable without specialized magics. Yet, Tala’s attack had done just that. Moreover, the District of Doors was built with magically reinforced materials, which were designed to stand up to the secondary affects of the City Lord’s wrath, so that he’d have less to rebuild.

Good to know; my direct assault is a bit more powerful than the reverberations put off by the City Lord’s Magics. As interesting as that was, she needed to focus.

Tala looked to Meallain. “Is it safe to do the secondary attack?”

The elf frowned, clearly examining the magic and fabric of reality around the door for a moment. “Yes, do it.”

You are now orbs Bill and Ted.

Their labels, which tied them to the workings that had created them, were altered and the effects undone.

If the sound of their flight had been the slapping of a sovereign, the explosion that followed was her scream of utter and absolute rage.

Even braced Tala, Meallain, and Be-thric were thrown back. Blessedly, they all maintained their feet, sliding more than flying back dozens of yards.

The entire area was cold extremely quickly, the radical temperature change alone cracking stone in the thoroughfare. Everything was coated in thin layer of ice as the moisture was ripped from the air by the sudden cold.

The less magically, and physically, dense people around them were less lucky, and a good number were thrown, screaming, in all directions.

Blessedly, none had been very close, and they were all of sufficient rank that no one seemed to have been too badly injured, at least not on the outside of the hold.

The inside was a different story, entirely.

Through the clearing air, their soldier working his magics once again, around the now breached entrance, Tala saw at least half a dozen House of the Rising Sun soldiers scattershot through with debris from the now-decimated, previously-heavily-reinforced door.

At least a few were obviously already dead.

Few can survive decapitation by doorknob…

The soldiers of the House of Blood had been rather well prepared and off to the sides, away from the direct pressure wave, unlike Tala, Meallain, and Be-thric.

Thus, they were able to change direction and charge forward just a bit earlier, crying out encouragement to one another.

There was only the sound of groaning in response, from the House of the Rising Sun as fifty men and women of various races poured into the enemy hold.

Let’s get this done.

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