It was a newly elected senator, Julius Scaeva, who first proposed the notion of giving more powerful braavi gangs—such as those who control the docks and warehouse districts of Godsgrave—an official stipend from the Republic’s coffers. He argued that it would be cheaper to pay the thugs than organize an official police force to combat them, and that the gangs themselves would benefit from a period of stability. Scaeva financed the first payment from his own personal fortune, and was rewarded virtually overnight with an astonishing drop in the crime rates of the Nethers. This saw his popularity skyrocket—among the merchants who plied trade through the docks, the citizens who had previously been caught up in the wars between the Luminatii and braavi, and from the thugs themselves, who rather enjoyed being paid for simply getting paid. It was after this coup that Scaeva first came to be known among the mob as “Senatum Populiis”—the People’s Senator.
The names his opponents called him behind closed doors, of course, were far less flattering.
But only when the doors were firmly closed.
Chapter 28: Venom
1 Mia managed to study the many faces adorning the weaver’s chamber during these ministrations, and she often found herself visiting Marielle with little more than a scratch to be mended, just so she could get another peek at the collection. The masks were wonders, collected from all corners of the Republic.
Mia recognized the voltos and dominos and punchinellos from Itreyan Carnivalé, obviously. The fearsome war masks from the Isles of Dweym, carved of ironwood into the likenesses of horrors of the deep. The flawless, bone-white visage of a Liisian Leper Priest, and a eunuch’s blinding cowl from the harem of some long-dead Magus King. But the weaver seemed obsessed with faces in all their shapes and sizes, and it seemed she’d collected no end of strangeness to feed that obsession.
Among the weaver’s collection, Mia saw golden wonders fashioned in the likenesses of lions’ heads, similar to the cat-headed statues out in the Ashkahi Whisperwastes, and the figures on Mouser’s blacksteel blade. She spied a rotting hangman’s hood, a blindfold crusted with what looked like dried blood, the death masks of a dozen children, some no more than babes. Faces made of wood and metal. Bone and desiccated skin. Ornate and banal. Beautiful and hideous. The weaver collected them all.
Mia sometimes found herself close to pitying Marielle. It must be an awful thing, she supposed, to have power over the flesh of others and no power over her own. But then she’d remember the horror Marielle had made of Naev’s face. And much as she tried to hold on to it, as important as she knew it to be, her pity would slowly die.
Only ashes in its wake.
2 Eighteen was the minimum age for One Who Shone, a tradition that extended back to the legion’s formation. The Luminatii’s founding doctrine was astonishingly detailed, and its entry requirements exceedingly strict. Interestingly enough, the codices did not prohibit women joining their ranks, though no woman in history had actually done it.
Yet.
3 Mia had heard tell of magikal weapons, of course. Lucius the Omnipotent, last Magus King of Liis, supposedly had a blade that sang as he slew his foes. The legendary hero Maximian wielded a sword known as “Terminus,” which reportedly knew how every man under the suns—including its master—would die. Itreyan legend was replete with tales of blades with minds of their own.
Of course, Mia suspected that Pip’s knife was no more capable of speech than donkeys are of turning cartwheels. But still, whenever she greeted the boy, she made a point of saying hello to “the Lovely” too.
Here is truth, gentlefriends: when in doubt, it’s best to be polite when dealing with lunatics.
Chapter 30: Favors
1 His last pair. The good chronicler had broken his spare set during a wrestling match with a copy of At His Majesty’s Service, the autobiography of Angelica Trobbiani, a courtesan during the reign of Francisco VI. All copies of this “treasonous smut” were hunted down and burned under order of Francisco’s Queen, Aria, after her husband’s death. The copy in the Red Church athenaeum is the last one in existence.
The book, having inherited some of its author’s infamous temperament, is understandably upset about this fact.
2 What became of the boy’s beloved knife was anyone’s guess.
3 The third branch of the Republic’s bureaucracy, the first and second being the Luminatii and Administratii. Far smaller than their sibling organizations, the Obfuscatii are the Senate’s information-brokers and rumor-mongers. Concerned largely with internal threats to Itreya’s security, the organization is as old as the Republic itself. Its founder, Tiberius the Elder, was known to have stood among the insurgents who overthrew Itreya’s last king, Francisco XV.
Some rumor even places Tiberius’s hand on the blade that killed poor Franco himself.
Chapter 32: Blood
1 Though much of its heartland is now more a wasteland, the coastal regions of Ashkah are still some of the most beautiful in the world. Leaving aside the natural splendor of sites such as the Thousand Towers, the Dust Falls of Nuuvash, or the Great Salt, there is still something about watching the sunsrise over a magikally polluted hellscape that simply takes the breath away.
Of course, the sand kraken, dustwraiths, and other monstrosities of the Whisperwastes are liable to do that too, hence Ashkah’s lack of any real tourism industry.
Chapter 34: Pursuit
1 It occurs to me there is no word to describe the noise a camel makes. Dogs bark, lions roar, drunkards mumble.
What the ’byss do camels do?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks as deep as the Dark to the following: Amanda, Peter, Emma, Paul, Justin, Allison, Nancy, Kim, Young, Mike, Melissa, and all at Thomas Dunne/SMP, Emma, Kate, and all at Harper Voyager UK, Rochelle, Alice, and all at Harper Collins Australia, Mia, Matt, Lindsay, Josh, Tracey, Samantha, Stefanie, Steven, Steve, Jason, Megasaurus, Virginia, Kat, Stef, Wendy, Marc, Vilma, Molly, Tovo, Orrsome, Tsana, Lewis, Shaheen, Soraya, Amie, Jessie, Caitie, Louise, Marc, Tina, Maxim, Zara, Ben, Clare, Jim, Weez, Sam, Eli, Rafe, AmberLouise, Caro, Melanie, Barbara, Judith, Rose, Tracy, Aline, Louise, Anna, Adele, Jordi, Ineke, Kylie, Julius, Antony, Antonio, Emily, Robin, Drew, William, China, David, Aaron, Terry (RIP), Douglas (RIP), George, Margaret, Tracy, Ian, Steve, Gary, Mark, Tim, Matt, George, Ludovico, Philip, Randy, Oli, Corey, Maynard, Zack, Pete (RIP), Robb, Ian, Marcus, Trent, Winston, Tony, Kath, Kylie, Nicole, Kurt, Jack, Max, and Poppy.
The people and city of Rome.
The people and city of Venice.
And you.