[Closed and Obselete.]

. . .

(Rated for Language)

Prologue

The very first Chair of Wind and Darkness was not so very different than the one you might be sitting in now. It was very simple, white wood and wicker, and it stood on four elegantly swooping legs before a desk so that it could spend its quiet days near the window that overlooked the lawn, the stone courtyard and the stately trees outside.

It sat, in all its years, in a little airy room beside a small desk while the gauzy curtains blew in from the window and swept, billowing, against it.

It was such a chair that, looking at it, you could easily see yourself sitting in it, could easily imagine that the book on the desk was yours as it ruffled from page to creamy page, blown into a chaotic flurry by the breeze. The feeling could arise that all those neat, black-inked, handwritten pages were yours, paragraphs and words that compounded to build personal secrets, dreams, hopes; all the good things in life and all the bad, unhappy things you only lived through by screaming your outrage at the sky - the things you’ve endured and looked back on and understood. And forgiven.

You could easily imagine that, to see the chair. What you could not imagine would be that this plain, serviceable, simple chair reigning before an evenly plain desk and a single, beautiful book could be the Chair of Wind and Darkness, something that you’ve doubtless known about your entire life. Though likely never by that name. And likely never in that way.

Chapter One

In the dream it was raining. Raining was not ordinarily a bad state for the weather to be in, but in the downtown sector of the city Barduev, it was an inconvenience which made the Agra-Wazir District particularly challenging to get through - the sunken sidewalks and muddy, flooding gardens lay a level below the street. Shan Tefur’s boots and the bottom of his long black jacket were completely soaked as he stood beneath the looming columns of the Provincial Development Building, the only government building on this street and therefore the only one with a raised porch.

He ran thin white fingers through his dripping dark hair and looked left down the avenue towards the Kier District and the general direction of his apartment. A glance up the street towards his destination and he leaned forward a bit to glance up a the stinging misty curtain that wasn’t allowing him to see either. He stepped back a pace on the porch and paced for a moment in the pre-moonlight shadows, drying his hands uselessly on the soaking edge of his coat.

As he turned once he caught a quick glimpse of the guards who had been following him since the Academy Block. They were huddled under the porch roof of some dark house, miserable in water that was up to their ankles in the depressed stonework - five... no, six of them, right there across the street. Still, their presence irritated him, and he sighed, rubbed a hand across the back of his neck and took a step out from under the overhang.

“Strazhas!” he shouted across the street, cupping his hands around his mouth so that the noise carried through the rain. The call had an astonishing lack of volume through the downpour but still they heard him. Strazhas were trained to hear in the dark, in the rain. And they had no choice now that he had seen them - they slipped around the corner of their building and disappeared into the alleyway as if they were just a handful of old friends out for a walk in the soaking night. They were still going to follow him, of course, they were just going to do it a little more discreetly.

He swore and looked right and left again sharply, up and down the street through the downpour. He ran a and down his dripping face, moving a bit and craning his neck to see down the now empty alley. It occurred to him that he was wasting time, that at this point getting wet was the least of his worries. Finally he went to the opposite side of the porch, turned and ran for the edge, with the mind to jump far enough so as to get to the area of semi-dryness under the next porch, sunken though it was. He tripped pushing off the edge and landed on a knee in the wide, soaking street in between, bruising his palms and getting himself thoroughly drenched. He pulled himself up with his long, once fastidious coat tangled around his leg and shin-deep in water, and he kicked the rain-water in an arch of spray towards the main street. Shan saw the movement beyond the rain as the inexpertly trained Strazhas dispersed and spread out, waiting for him farther up the avenue, drier than he and, for the moment, under a porch roof.

The clock on the mantel piece in the City Director’s office had a miniature pednulum that swung back and forth, back and forth, tick tock, tick tock, a rythmic cheerfullness that seemed out of place in the middle of the night, with the rain pounding down on the city. Shan watched it almost furtively without so much as turning his head, watched it expressionlessly as back and forth it ticked and seconds, minutes, went by. He let his eyes flicker away from it, stared straight ahead at the water-logged window beyond the deserted desk and felt his jaw just barefly from the strain of trying to stay absolutely still. He was well aware of the Strazhas over in the doorway, standing just behind him and to his right so he couldn’t quite see them - but their reflections shone clear on the bombarded far window. Shan realized he was rubbing his fingers up and down the one slowly drying edge of his jacket where it rested over his knee. He stopped; and after a moment’s consideration he flung in down and away from him to that it draped gracefully down over the edge of the cushioned chair. He sat back, sighing as if he was merely impateint and had not a care in the world. His jaw moved again. Still, he did not look at the Strazhas, who were still standing there, quiet breathing in the doorway. Instead, his eyes were drawn inevitably back to the clock, the pendulum that swung itself back and forth so zealously, and in it’s polished glass face he saw himself in the chair, saw the Strazhas over there beyond his shoulder.

He tried to keep his eyes on the time piece, but nervousness got the best of him and when he went to run his fingers back through his hair, he realized that his hand was trembling. He look at it for a moment as if it was some foreign thing that left unchecked could do him harm - he smiled for the Strazha’s sake, pretended to be unconcerned and even amused. He clenched and open his hand several times and shook it, but the trembling persisted. It fell down beside him to conceal itself amongst the folds of his jacket and gripped the fabic at his leg tight enough to whiten his hand and keep it from shaking. He pushed his hair back again, this time with his left hand and rested his elbow on the carved arm of the chair. He put his head down and without moving his hand ran his fingers back and forth across his forehead, half to dry his face and half to disguise the fact that we was wide-eyed, studying the Strazhas in the glass reflection of the clock face.

These were not the Strazhas from the street. Those had been poorly trained, hastily conscripted; they were runners, which was to say that their sole purpose was shadowing people in the streets. They reported on where their targets went and where they came from, and that was the extent of their duties. They were not, as a rule, well-trained to do this. Stealth was normally of little importance most days in busy Barduev, and what stealth was required the more experienced Strazhas could figure out on their own.

These were Strazhas Elite, the equivalent to military Kasimovs, and yet in amy ways more dangerous because they killed without discretion. without declaration of war. Shan had been a Kasimov, obvious to whoever noticed the slim, dark coat and the row of three silver stars on the collar. That fact would not keep a handful of Strazhas Elite from killing him, if they had orders to do so. Especially if they had orders to do so. They had been waiting for him in the hallway, despite the fact that he had used the less frequented steps rather than the side portico. They had followed him up the steps without talking, never making a single noise on the red carpeted stairs. He had know thay were right there behind him the entire way up to the second floor. He hadn’t looked at them. An hour had gone past and still he had not looked at them. He just sat in his chair and stared unflinching at the clock, waiting for the Lord Sovereign while his right hand trmebled uncontrollably amongst the folds of his damp coat.

There was light in his eyes...

He wished he had caught himself when he had fallen. He hated to fall.

There was light in his eyes...

There was bright glare coming from the window - it slid across the pillow and into his eyes, unwelcome sunlight that had come too early. He turned away from it but the light followed him, illuminated the white wall and made it reflect back. Morning - after all, there was no getting around it. And there was light in his eyes.

He sighed and kicked off the sheet, which somehow through the course of the night had gotten tangled around his leg. Stupid sheets. He pushed himself up and sat on the edge of the bed, running his hands through his hair and studying the long, slim military coat that lay in a mess on the floor, a black puddle of heavy fabric. The three silver stars on the high collar were just barely from under a carelessly thrown fold, identical points of light in a night sky. Some light from the window slid over it and momentarily illuminated them. Beautiful? Yes, he thought, yes it was. But it also stood for something in which he no longer believed, and he was beginning to wonder if through all the innumerable things he had done he had ever once believed it. The last time he had worn it; when was that? Well, he had worn it last night, but seriously went out and worn it as a uniform, worn it to show everyone who he was, what he stood for? Wearing something because it happened to be available and wearing something because you believed in what it stood for were two different things completely. He shook his head and chose not to think about it; of course he had believed it, so does everyone when they first start something. It’s not a condition of whether or not you go on believing it, you begin something and you get used to it. You never sit around debating about it. He wasn’t without purpose to such an extent that he didn’t have better ways to spend his time than to sit here and carry on a one-sided debate about his life.

As if it would matter.

Shan stared at the jacket for a moment longer until it came to him that while he was staring, it was still on the floor. What the hell was he doing reminiscing when his coat was laying in the dust? He got down and picked the jacket up, irritated with himself for being careless enough to let it lie there the whole night, for taking so long to get it off the floor. He laid it over the back of a nearby chair, picking a bit of whitish lint off of the back with his finger nail, and the thick feel of the cloth brought back the memory of the dream.

Where had he been going? He couldn’t remember. It was the first coherent dream he had had in a long time, and now he couldn’t remember it. It had been raining, he recalled. Raining in Barduev. God, he wished it would rain. He wished the water would just pour down out of the clouds, wash away the dust on the street, in the gardens, in the air. They said that this was the worst drought since the Academy was built, and in his dream it poured. What was the sense in that? No reason, he thought, no sense.

The rain, that brought him back to his coat, which had gotten soaked. The coat... ah the coat. Why couldn’t he forget about it? He fingered the silver stars on the collar, sighed, ran his hands over his face and sat back down on the bed. Stars. Three silver stars, the rank of a Kasimov. Three ranks down from a general, at the age of twenty-nine. Not as if it would matter. No more days of glory and war for him, just commendation from the government - you did well but the military has a better use for officers that aren’t from old money. Sit around and do something interesting. And because you’re a war hero, you get to keep the medals. Because you’re a war hero, you get to keep the coat.

He sighed, rubbed the back of his neck and noticed the pistol that was lying on the bed-side table. Damn. It occurred to him and not for the first time that it was incomprehensibly stupid of him to leave it out like that. He wasn’t an officer anymore; he wasn’t in enemy territory - what was he thinking, that some assassin was going to creep into his apartment in the middle of the night? He removed the clip and threw it in the drawer, irritated with himself and whatever drunken recklessness had prompted him to leave it out in the first place. For the love of God, no one was interested in killing the pointless Kasimov who had been relieved of command. Lovely, he thought, you lose rank and you become paranoid.

He had fought so many battles in heavy, long black. So many men had saluted him that day they had taken Peremid. And now here he was, waking up too late in an apartment that was too small, dreaming about rain in Barduev and wasting his life away. Three identical starts in the night sky indeed. And here he was sitting down again, back in a circle.

Disgusted, he got up and turned to go wash up in the cramped bathroom. As he washed his face over the sink, he thought about the falling in the street. He hated so much to fall. He hated more to fall in the street. Everyone could see you in the street. Of course, everyone would be right there, ready to offer help and to get you up and on your way again. Ready to embarrass you. Private falls did not hurt so much. When you fell alone, in your apartment, in a deserted alley, your pride did not fall as hard. You didn’t have to get right up, dust yourself off and pretend it didn’t hurt. You could take your time. You could stay where you were, right where you were, until you could get your shocked muscles to stop hurting. First it would be the knees. Then it would be the arms. Then the legs. And you could put your trust in the ground until you could stand up again.

Chapter Two

The speaker’s voice boomed out over the civilians heads in the dark auditorium, loud, harsh and graced by hollow distortion as it echoed over the hundreds of the packed-in working class and thundered up to a vaulted ceiling. It seemed even louder over the left side, over the leagues and leagues of deserted chairs, empty but for the dozen or so Kasimovs lounging high up in the consecutive middles of the far-back rows. Some of them had a boot hooked up on the back of the chair before him, as if to demonstrate to whoever cared to look that he was thoroughly hot and bored; which of course he was perfectly entitled to be, as a Kasimov. The people were perhaps too respectful, too intimidated to sit near them. Of course they had stared before the lights had gone down, little children who looked wide-eyed at the military dress sabers and the long coats, the medals that glimmered in the dark heat. They had doubtless been told not to talk to Kasimovs, not to approach them - those, on a higher plane of soldiery. High and strong like glossed granite, more polished around the edges.

The speaker , distant down there in a pool of artificial light, wore the brown uniform of the meth-maritime, a long defunct navy that somehow still thought itself old and glorious. It was not. The Kasimovs... cared not. They were there out of military obligation, not because they wanted to be.

Shan sighed and put his head down, feeling the beginnings of a headache pounding back behind his eyes. He pushed his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair and leaned back in a single motion, wished furtively for rain to wash away this atrocious heat. The fact that he was all decked out in full Kasimov regalia didn’t help at all: the stars on his cuffs now as well as his collar and shoulders; the silver Nival Award he had gotten when they had taken Peremid, small and old and more ornate than they made them now, military sabers crossed in high relief over the state cross; and all the medals on his chest that he’d won coming up through the ranks.

He had buttoned the numerous tiny catches of his rounded collar high and tight this morning, as it was meant to be done - but heat can undo even the most rigorous military training, and it had long ago been unbuttoned and loosened up. He was perversely pleased to see that he wasn’t the only one succumbing to the heat; even the Kasimovs who were still enlisted had their jackets half unbuttoned and their collars turned down.

Only one of the solitary meth-maritime captains was present, alone, a row down from the dramatic, dominant Kasimov black. He was a lean, middle-aged man with just as many medals as the Kasimovs, but he didn’t seem affected in the slightest by the heat. He kept himself still and straight, kept his red collar with it’s five golden bars up and tight, as if to make some sort of statement. The Kasimovs all outranked him, on every account. If keeping up an immoveable face was making a statement, they were secure in their rank and felt it was a statement they did not need to make. Well, they were; Shan wasn’t in the least. He didn’t like the meth-maritime for the same reason he didn’t like Strazhas, for the same reason that a hawk, having been transformed into a blue bird, is afraid of the other hawks. Here he was no longer in a position to give orders, to say who the Strazhas stalked and guarded and who they didn’t. Here he was a civilian with a long coat. The paradox terrified him.

That’s not a long coat, his friends had laughed at him when he had come back to the officers tent with silver stars and a coat that screamed promotion! before any of them had even been considered as candidates. Hell, long is an understatement, it’s down past the tops of your boots. They had made fun of him incessantly that first night, partially because he was their friend and it seemed natural. Partially because he was a Kasimov and they weren’t and a very small part in every one of them hated him for it. So they had gotten drunk and had slapped him on the back and had laughed at the hate to chase it away. And years later, here they all were, Kasimovs in the throes of glory and honor and high society, enlisted men with reputations as soldiers. And here he was beside them, cast off and relieved of command, first to rise and first to fall. Ironic indeed.

Not much had changed overall, he thought, leaning back in his chair as he listened to the speaker drone on about taxes and government. They were all plenty older now, a few more scars here and there, a few more medals. But nothing had truly changed. The enlisted Kasimovs of fine militaristic power leaned back in their chairs and exchanged discrete looks and made subtle fun of the meth-maritime captain a row below them. Despite his self-discipline, the captain’s fair hair dripped sweat and stained the back of his slowly wilting, crimson collar. A handful of the Kasimovs above and behind the man silently delighted in this - no officer, conscripted or free, ever missed the opportunity to prove to the meth-maritime that they were not so terribly impressive as they seemed to think. Kasimovs were, as a rule, arrogant. But then, the meth-maritime were arrogant, too. Probably even more so, and it made them fair game.

Shan took another deep breath as his fingers unconsciously found their way back to his hair. He went to unbutton his cuffs and then put his arm down again, sighing noisily. What he needed was this damn heavy coat off...

“You all right?” A Kasimov next to him nudged his boot with a foot and leaned back in his seat. Shan looked over at the unfamiliar face - the officer was much younger than the rest of them, probably just promoted. Unfortunately for him, he had happened to be in Barduev when the meth-maritime held it’s monthly lecture, which all the military personnel in the city were of course required to attend. It suddenly occurred to Shan that fifteen Kasimovs, the entire number present, was a staggeringly huge portion of officers to be in one city at one time. Kasimovs were normally rarer than... he thought for a moment, slow and hazy in the overwhelming heat... rarer than decent air conditioning... “I ask,” the young Kasimov said to him, “because you look like you’re about ready to dissolve.”

Shan looked over at him and almost smiled, but the youth’s eyes went immediately down to the cross of state at his throat and then down across the myriad of medals.

“Look, kid, the day I pass out from the heat while someone’s watching is the day I commit suicide the old-fashioned way.”

“Spoken like a true Kasimov.”

“Thank you,” Shan smiled with exaggerated gratefulness, nodded and faced forward again. “Spoken... like a kid who just got promoted to the Kasimovs.”

The young officer grinned at him, a spot of light-heartedness in the midst of grim Kasimov Ideal. Shan figured it would last for about three more weeks at the most. “I’ve just never seen a cross of state before,” the kid told him finally, eyes flickering up to Shan’s face and then almost adoringly down to the medals again. The speaker was still going on and on about military ideals and the navy captain turned his head a bit to hear what they were saying. The two Kasimovs a seat over from him were playing cards very discretely. They were also both cheating, just as discretely.

“Well, it won’t be the last one you see, I’m sure. You’ve been in the Kasimovs what, a week? I got this three years in - give it some time.”

The young Kasimov remained expressionlessly fixed on the medals. When he glanced up and realized that Shan was looking at him, he smiled quickly and apologetically and made himself busy looking at the meth-maritime on the podium. His thin hands flitted nervously over the edges of the coat that lay in his lap. The plainness of the coat was what drew Shan’s attention, plain black with only the three silver stars of a Kasimov on the collar. As Shan’s had been at the

beginning, as it had been at the end, before the myriad of medals that he no longer wore when he went out, no longer loved. Because he no longer believed in them, long since disillusioned. And for what reason had he been relieved? ...told that the future lay with the young Kasimovs, the Kasimovs to whom ideology meant something. For what reason had he been relieved... for those who still had the ambition, imagination and the drive to command? (They said this to

the man who had just single-handedly master-minded the victory at Aeiso, who had long ago taken back Peremid).

He had pointed this out to the political officers who had come to relieve him of his command.

The government, the war effort is forever in your debt, they said in attempt to appease him.

Thanks so much, said Shan, refusing to be appeased. You’re all heart and it’s been a real pleasure, but I’m a Kasimov and I intend to stay one.

You have nothing to offer anymore.

Really.

Kasimovs go on in life, they said as if they could possibly know. Some Kasimovs lose rank. Sometimes they go back to living as civilians and realize in the final result that they already gave everything they had to offer to the State. That they’re better off elsewhere.

What the hell is this? Shan said furiously. We just crushed the Aeiso rebellion into the ground for God’s sake. Or are you perhaps referring to financial offering?

They did not like that. You had no orders to march on Aeiso, the political officers threw in his face, dredging for something, anything, to throw him off.

The military had orders to put down the revolt. Mine was the closest legion.

Really? All that action... just couldn’t wait for another medal? the officers said, smiling humorlessly.

What the hell...

Kasimov Livny could have handled it.

Livny? He wanted to scream it at them but in the end just stood there with his thumbs hooked in his belt. Livny was unholy hammered on the entire Aeiso campaign. He was seven days away with an army that wasn’t ready to move.

He could have handled it, Kasimov, they said, getting defensive.

This doesn’t have anything to do with Aeiso, he told them in quiet outrage that was threatening to become a whole lot louder.

No answer to that. They cleared their throats, as if it was not a topic open for discussion. You’re relieved of command, Kasimov Tefur, one said. We’ll have your papers now... Now, Tefur.

He... hit one of them. And about two seconds later, fine, billowing,

Kasimov black went down in a swarm of gray jackets. Shan pulled his saber out from under himself as he fell and took the sudden barrage of punches and kicks, finally managed to twist it out of its sheath. The political officers struggled up and back in a hurry. Shan rolled on one knee and with effort pulled himself up against the opposite wall, rumpled and breathing hard, as dishevled as it was possible for a Kasimov to be. A thin streak of blood ran down his cheek where one of the officer’s wedding rings had caught him. They were all staring at the saber clenched in his slowly trembling fist, wide-eyed as people caught in a cage with a wild animal. The job of a political officer was to talk; the job of a Kasimov was to kill and they were afraid of him with a weapon.

You want my papers, dammit? Shan rasped, gasping for air. Fine. See this? He let go of the wall with effort and pulled his rumpled certification out of his jacket. He threw it at them but it anded on the floor at their feet, pages flying. Fine, take it. Take all of it. He threw his sheath at them and they parted quickly, shoving each other back. Let me the hell out of here.

He fell on the steps outside. A handful of soldiers threw away their cigarettes and came over at once to help him, but he still had his saber and when he looked at them they pretended they had been going elsewhere. The political officers that lingered in the doorway didn’t touch him. They all knew he had fallen from more than just the steps.

He struggled to his feet while his body ached and advised against this. He walked down through the camp, bloody and disheveled with a saber clenched in his fist and everyone affected not to notice. At the entry post they took his medals, which they promised would be sent ahead to him. Only about half of them actually got delivered (the rest “lost in transit”).

Shan did not like political officers, either.

And he lived, breathed and bled Kasimov. So too would this kid - and someday, somewhere, he might live long enough to lose it.

Shan only realized he was drowsing with his head on his fist when the meth-maritime/Kasimov pissing game reached its conclusion and woke him up. The kid had lit a cigarette though the auditorium was non-smoking. The Kasimovs hadn’t corrected him; the good captain, a row down, had gotten up and reprimanded him. The Kasimovs, ever defensive of their own, despite the circumstantial right or wrong, had pulled rank. By the time Shan had become as alert as he possibly ould with the horrendous heat and that pounding headache, the kid had dropped his cigarette on the floor and ground it down with the heel of his boot, obviously trying to brush aside some of the imminent trouble. The older Kasimovs - his protectors, tormentors, idols - got up, a few of them. Some words were exchanged, some grabbing and shoving occurred before the meth-maritime started to pull back his arm to hit Livny across the face.

...Livny? Damn, Shan thought as he recognized the fair hair, the tall figure, long jacket hanging unimpressively opened and crooked. I took Aeiso for you.

Livny had his fist clenched in the meth-maritime captain’s collar, but the kid had a grip on Livny’s wrist. Shan sighed, jerked at the tight cloth at his throat and pushed himself out of his chair. He pulled the kid off-balance and down back into his seat and shoved Livny back, breaking his grip on the captain’s collar just before the captain swung a missing blow that would have broken Livny’s nose. Livny struck Shan’s arm away and rounded on him, only to recognize belatedly the calm darkness of his expression, the cross of state and the highly polished Kasimov’s stars. It seemed that there was nothing he could think of to say, so finally Livny just nodded. Shan nodded minimally back at him - unholy hammered on the entire Aeiso campaign - and looked beyond Livny to the captain.

“Sit down,” he commanded in the stark, dead silence.

The captain ran a hand over his immaculately combed hair and smoothed out his crinkled collar. “Is that an order?” He sounded out of breath.

“Just sit.”

“The Kasimov almost shoved me over the row. It’s easy to fall here.”

“I know that,” Shan said, gripping the side of Livny’s jacket in his fist. "That’s why I want you to sit down.”

The meth-maritime sat, pristine and righteous in all that old, naval,

pseudo-glory.

“Thank you,” Shan said hoarsely and, running his fingers through his

drenched hair, sat down himself, pulling Livny down into the chair next to him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Shan whispered furiously and evenly in Livny’s ear as Livny fell back and completed the motion. Livny shoved his hand away but Shan grabbed the shoulder of his jacket and rammed him back again. “You know what happens if they catch you in a fist-fight with a maritime officer?”

“Don’t talk to me in that damn supercilious tone...”

“You’re irrational, think for once, or maybe you look forward to

loosing rank...”

“You mean like you?” Livny said poisonously, prying his fingers off and fixing him with his cold, pale-eyed stare. He jerked his jacket straight and got up again, reeling away to recover his original seat a row up. The kid had already taken it and didn’t move even when Livny glared at him - Livny ended up sitting by Shan again.

The kid also managed to overhear that last part of their conversation.

“You lost rank?” he said, now really interested. Shan threw a look at him, irritated in this pounding, pounding, heat... The meth-maritime captain turned around in his chair.

“Thought you meth-maritime actually paid attention to your own lectures,” Shan said to him, agitated. The captain ignored him and instead answered by producing a cigarette and finding a lighter for it. The young Kasimov glowered incredulously, and nudging the officer next to him with his knee, looked pointedly at him to make sure he noticed. The captain leaned back and sighed, letting the smoke leak out in tendrils from his lips and nostrils; it curled upwards, thick and white, overpowering in the heat.

Shan tried with great effort to ignore it - the enlisted Kasimovs would have said something, but at exactly that point the speaker introduced someone else and all the civilians far over to the right stood up. The Kasimovs griped under a collective breath and pulled themselves up straight, once more out of militaristic obligation, sabers rattling and clinking dully against black belts. The captain looked irritated, tossed his head in irritation and slipped his cigarette between his lips, shoving his lighter into a pocket.. As a result he was about five seconds later on his feet than the Kasimovs. They perhaps felt... somewhat pleased about it, but the meth-maritime pulled his jacket straight and adjusted the gun in his belt, making a much nobler picture than the Kasimovs, who stood hot and exhausted in disarray, medals crooked and black jackets hanging long and unbuttoned in the stagnant heat.

The new speaker was also meth-maritime. He thanked his predecessor and started in on something long and arduous about the State ideal. Shan sat down again in the dark, collapsing back into his seat and wiping palmfuls of sweat from his hair. A half a moment later the new speaker mentioned the name of the Lord Sovereign and the black wave of Kasimovs sighed up again in the heat, silhouettes that rose against the dingy windows far up behind them. The wave sank down again, but Shan stayed perched on the edge of his seat, fingers of his left hand curled around the chair-back before him, ready to pull himself up again. The speaker was obviously the type that enjoyed keeping his audience attentive.

His voice, loud and discontent, echoed out over the auditorium: “Over the years the meth-maritime has bided its time, waiting for its own chance to be recognized, to once more prove its immeasurable worth. It was in the final days of the siege on Aeiso that it finally got its chance...”

“...to run and hide on the ocean while the Kasimovs blew the damn doors down...” Livny interjected under his breath, fumbling with his lighter and a forbidden cigarette.

The meth-maritime captain turned around partially in his chair. “Shut up.”

Livny, a row up, leaned back nonchalantly, letting his lighter click shut and breathing white smoke. “Nah, it’s just a fact, we went in there with about a million men and took the city and you... well, what did you do?”

The captain turned around again and leaned back, putting his boot up. “A little something called naval gun fire.”

“Oh sure, naval gun fire...”

“Shut up both of you,” Shan said to them without looking over. He took his fingers away to run them through his hair and they left greasy marks where they had been clenched on the wooden seat back.

Livny looked over and blew a jet of smoke up and down at his face. "What you don’t like talking about Aeiso?”

“Dammit, I took that city for you...”

“Aw, I’m touched...”

“You should be, I lost rank over it.” Shan reached over in irritation, snatched Livny’s cigarette from between his fingers and threw it away, grinding its ashen ruin into the floor. Livny hardly seemed to care - he let his head fall back against the seat, proclaiming to the Kasimovs above him Shan’s treachery and the fact that he was now out of cigarettes. The kid, a row up, leaned forward to give him one of his from a freshly open packet - brand new like everything else about him.

“Seriously?” he asked, presumably about Aeiso.

“Yeah, no kidding, he broke a political officer’s jaw when they came to relieve him, too...”

“Wow.”

The captain whistled lowly between his teeth, shaking a cigarette out lazily between his fingers.

“Oh shut the hell up all of you.” This was just to much, this heat, up here in front on windows that didn’t even open anymore...

The Lord Sovereign’s name was mentioned and they all heaved themselves up again, put their legs down in boredom, lazy and hot irritation, for the required fifteen seconds before collapsing back again.

“The meth-maritime struck with precision, with speed,” the speaker went on while Shan fiercely willed Livny to keep his mouth shut. “... a major victory for the naval powers...”

As they sat back down Shan was quickly made aware of how little effect his mental powers had on real life, because Livny swept his coat out of the way and said “Ah come on, I’ve known some women that hit harder than meth-maritime.”

Some Kasimovs laughed quietly. The meth-maritime captain spun around, white-knuckling the back of his seat. “What the hell is your problem?”

“You are my problem.” Livny went on without even hesitating, putting his cigarette to his lips again, still talking slowly and absent-mindedly, as if he really didn’t care even to grace the meth-maritime with the fullness of his attention. “You and the rest of that idiotic group you march for, pretending to be officers of the state when you’re really just a bunch of undisciplined sailors...”

Shan shook his head in disgust. “For the love of God.”

Livny looked over at him and smiled, lolling in his chair. “You. Got. Thinner,” he announced from nowhere. “How’s the wife?”

“I’m not married, you lunatic.”

“Ahhh... but I knew that, didn't I? What, you and Kyra never got together?”

“No.”

“Ah well,” Livny sighed. “Probably for the best.”

Shan threw him a look.

He pulled himself up again and so did Livny, swinging his legs down in annoyance. The captain got up, too, but still half-turned around and still clenching the wooden back of the seat, quietly and rapidly criticizing Livny on his views, his obvious lack of experience in real war... As they sat yet again, Livny made an incredulous face at the captain and gestured to him with his cigarette to calm himself.

“Can’t you just shut up and sit down?” the captain hissed, falling back into his chair.

“Excuse me?” Livny asked in offended pride. “Shut up and sit down? This idiot at the podium’s making hash out of the Kasimov Ideal.” He turned his just marginally to drown Shan in a suffocating cloud of smoke.