New Enemies
Chapter 50
As the sun rose on a beautiful summer morning, its light glimmering through her office window, Maya prepared to leave.
Her office. Maya had an office. She was so important she had Clerics, tens of them, making things ready for her. As an Acolyte, a Councillor, and a debated miracle, she had ascended so far she sometimes felt vertigo. To keep herself sane, she refused any Servants, considering that the first step down a dangerous road. So she reviewed her own itinerary, confirmed orders, and personally checked her travel bag.
“Flux has confirmed the food,” she said to herself. “Note provided the weapons. The Shields' carriage should be waiting for me.” She rifled through the papers again, checked each signature. All were present, accounted for, as expected from the Clerics.
“Everything's going to be fine,” Applekill said. The Spirit sat on her desk, a great brass surface with its papers neatly organised. Half of her was burnt and burning, always would be. “I know we've got everything sorted.”
“You might, but I don't,” Maya said. “I just need to be certain.”
She walked across her great office, with its banks of chairs, bookshelves, and oak-panelled walls, and to her travel pack. Her gold-fringed, white robes swayed as she moved, free to flow now she no longer wore armour. She would bring her own clothing and grooming products, which she checked through next. Everything was accounted for; everything was there.
Maya was ready. It was hard to believe, but she was.
“I told you,” Applekill says, putting her tongue out at her human.
Maya sighed, stretched, and went to her window. Though she'd forgone most of the trappings of being a Councillor, she couldn't turn down an office with a view of the Journey as it dropped south, graceful water dancing through the land, followed by heavy barges laden with goods. The grassland surrounding it shone like an emerald. If she went to the far left of her office, she could see the saplings of the Planted Forest, now five years into its regeneration. At the far right was the Great Road as it began its journey east.
She would soon follow the Great Road to the eastern Front. Her latest batch of Acolytes, her best and brightest, were scheduled to reinforce there, and Maya had decided to go with them as a combined holiday and morale-boosting trip for the troops.
Of course, they could just fly to the Front, but there were... security concerns preventing that. Besides, Maya wanted to enjoy the trip, to travel through parts of Geos she'd never seen and get to know her latest batch as more than just their teacher and Councillor. This would be her first break since she became a Councillor, so they would travel by carriage, a two week journey, a two week rest.
“Yeah, and don't you deserve it?” Applekill asked.
Maya smiled. She couldn't wait.
Someone knocked on her door. Maya frowned: she wasn't to meet the convoy for another hour.
“Enter,” she said.
“See you,” Applekill said before disappearing.
Contegon Councillor White entered, her white robes bright and crisp as the day. Time had treated her well: she still looked much the same as when she led the Hereticum against Maya.
“Tone,” Maya said with a smile. “This is a pleasant surprise.”
“Good morning, Acolyte Councillor,” the Contegon Councillor said, echoing Maya's smile. She stood at the door, gripping the handle.
“Please, come in. Sit down. I was just admiring the view: I'm going to miss it.”
The Councillor entered the office and closed the door behind her. Walking stiffly, as someone of her age would, she pulled a chair up to Maya's desk. Maya would offer help if it wouldn't offend her friend. And she liked to think the Contegon Councillor was her friend, with all they'd achieved together.
Maya sat too. “You haven't come to say goodbye, have you?”
“I haven't.”
Maya licked her lips. “You won't dissuade me from going: we've been over this a hundred–”
Tone raised her hand to stop Maya. “I understand your reasons, and I don't begrudge you a holiday. But I thought you should know that Lord Councillor Blind aims to bring the use of Disciple technology to a vote at the Council session tonight. Whilst you're away.”
Disciple technology. It was the big debate, the question on every Councillor's lips. Note, Artificer Councillor and a close friend of Maya's, had pushed for its use at the behest of her Station. Maya and Tone both agreed that, with the population still recovering from the Second Invasion, technological advances could tip the tide of the war further in Geos’ direction. The debate had gone public, people protested to argue their cases. A wrong call would determine Geos' success in the war.
Maya went to the window again, watched her city. “Go on.”
“I still have contacts inside the Lords. Blind knows you're going to the Front, somehow, and has decided to bring a vote without you. His voting bloc will fire down Note's idea and set us back years.”
The bright sun glared off the windows of a building opposite Maya's office, bright and painful. “How can he do that? You need weeks to bring a motion like that.”
“Well, he knows the rules, Maya. He plans to use his Emergency Powers to raise it.”
Maya shook her head. “That'll just result in a deadlock.”
“No, it'll mean he wins, because he will then invoke an obscure rule which says someone who votes against a motion cannot raise it for three years. If he introduces a motion against Disciple technology, and wins the vote, it will silence us for years. The only way our voting bloc could prevent him from killing the matter for three years would be for those present to abstain...”
“Which would mean he would win the vote anyway,” Maya said. “At least short-term.”
“Exactly. It would give him a big victory in this fight, especially publicly.”
Maya closed her eyes. The rules of the Solaric Council were many and contrived, a set of laws grown over decades to prevent abuse of the system. Sometimes they encouraged it, as in Blind's case. Really, the rules were weapons, a force to use if you understood them: like Cyrus Force. And Blind would bring his power to bear at the first Council meeting Maya would miss.
Maya sucked air in through her teeth. “How do we stop this?”
“You know how.”
The Council was split almost perfectly on the debate, four Councillors on either side with two regularly abstaining, so even one of them not voting would tip the balance. When to raise the vote was a tactical point, with neither side having blinked yet. Tone was right, she did know how to prevent Blind's victory: launch a counter-ambush by attending the Council session.
“I suppose I could catch the carriage up after the Council session....”
Tone smiled. “I know that you could. As do most people in Aureu.”
A subtle reminder of the security concerns: the last time she publicly left Aureu, there was a fifty percent increase in crime as Gangs and muggers took advantage. Hence the secrecy around her current holiday plans. The double-edged sword that is power had cut her again.
“Damn you, Blind,” Maya sighed.
Tone gave her a sympathetic smile, though Maya knew she did not approve of her risking herself at the Front. The Countegon Councillor thought Maya's job was to ensure people did the right things, not to do them herself. “He does what he thinks is right. You cannot blame him for following his conscience.”
Maya sat down heavily. “I was so looking forward to this break. My Acolytes will be devastated.”
“Not as devastated as Note would be.”
“You've made your point, Tone,” Maya snapped.
The Contegon Councillor raised her eyebrows.
“Sorry,” Maya said. “That was rude.”
“It's fine: during my first season on the Front, I was denied leave after Disciples attacked. Instead of celebrating my sister's birthday, I shut down metal creatures. I was not, as you aren’t now, best pleased.”
“Man plans, Lun laughs,” Maya said.
“Indeed.”
Maya imagined her Acolytes' faces when she told them she wouldn't be coming with them, disappointment and hurt. She'd try to explain the importance of the vote, the cruelty of political machinations, but the Council was a holy entity to them, so it was unthinkable that they should snipe and plan so. Obviously, Maya hadn't had quite such a favourable view at their age, but, well, she was a Heretic, wasn't she?
“I'll cancel my plans,” Maya sighed.
“It's for the best,” Tone said, not without sympathy.
“I hope so.”
Tone stood and straightened her uniform. “I'll see you at the Council session tonight. Don't worry. The look on Blind's face ought to be worth cancelling your plans for.”
“It better be,” Maya said with a small smile.
“Let's hope so!” the Councillor called back as she left Maya’s office, closing the door behind her.
Maya sighed and stood. Sacrificing for the good of others had become as natural as flinching, but that didn't make it easy. She reached into her robes and pulled out Candle's ring, her only physical connection to the man she'd fought with, and Nephilim, who had taught her about the world then ordered her to save it. The ring was plain, tarnished by time, but still worth so much.
“I am sorry that your plans have come to naught, Maya,” the Spirit inside Candle’s ring said.
“Thank you.”
It appeared before her and offered her a cold hug, which she gratefully accepted. “It seems to me that you are doing the right thing though.”
“The right thing is never the easy thing, though, is it?” Maya asked.
“If the right thing were easy,” it said gravely, “no one would hesitate to do it.”