Young Writers Society

Author's Note: I'm front-loading a lot of the setting information for this project, so I'd appreciate help where this becomes overly clunky or confusing. Thanks for reading.

Two men stood to one end of a large wooden platform, leaning against its guard-rail. The older of the two was just beginning to show his middle years with an expanding girth and a dusting of premature gray in his dark hair and beard. He wore the florid yellow of a Marcillian diplomat, edged in the silver of a senior ambassador. It was, both men acknowledged, an atrocious clash of color.

The second man was younger, taller, lighter of hair, and broader of shoulder; and yet for all that his expressive manner and strong jaw marked him as cut from the same cloth as the first man; bred from the same line. His own diplomatic robes were edged in bronze-colored thread, to indicate his junior status. He held an unfurled scroll in his hands, trying to ignore the sound of winches and pulleys gradually edging their platform toward either the heavens or catastrophe.

“‘Your duties number four; two of which are specific to your embassy, and two with which you, as an experienced member of the diplomatic corps, will already be well familiar.’” The younger man read the scroll in Wenrian, a dialect of Imperial Marcillian all but unknown in this kingdom.

“Of utmost importance is the maintenance of the Thranduin River trade routes. Specifically, the Imperial Barges transporting bullion from our feudatories in Mieran to Imperial Marcillia must not be disrupted, and your discretion to meet this goal will be absolute.”

“Which seems simple enough on paper,” the older man interrupted the reading, “as the river trade route runs almost entirely through the lands of allies or vassals. And yet less than half of the ore marked by the masters of the mint as leaving the mines makes its way to the ledgers of the harbourmaster in Dyre.”

“Half?” Asked the younger; incredulous. “How does one lose half of an Emperor’s thrice-cursed ransom? You could buy an army with that silver, and another the next year, as it keeps on flowing downstream.”

The elder frowned, “You will watch your tongue Danti, even in Wenrian, else you form coarse habits.”

The younger bowed perfunctorily and touched two fingers to his forehead in a gesture of apology and submission.

The elder continued his explanation, “Imperial Ambassadors had spent generations pointing fingers at each other, blaming the corruption on a neighouring jurisdiction further upriver. No doubt most were taking a portion of the missing bullion for themselves at each port of call. The dispatches grant absolute discretion, but they assume the problem is local bandits or avaricious barbarians, when corruption in the Chancellery is probably the lion’s share of the problem.”

“If the problem is so clear, why give the wrong tools for its solution?” Quizzed the younger.

“So that it remains a provincial problem. I hear the Chancellor’s own mansion is near enough gilt in precious gems and metals. He may not be in the market for armies, but a share of the missing silver no doubt finds its way to his own purse.”

Danti pursed his lips in disapproval, returning to the scroll, “‘Secondly, you will at all times preserve the dignity of Imperial Marcillia. To this end, you will present yourself at the local court with the bearing and manner of a gentleman of high birth and conduct yourself at all times with the honor befitting one of such rank; limiting local fraternization where appropriate.’”

“You’d think we were mincing merchant’s sons out for our first jaunt into the provinces and looking for a good time,” growled Danti. “ ‘Limit local fraternization’ indeed. Did you see the ‘Marcillian Quarter’ on the way in? High walls and guards on the gate. I doubt if more than fifty local townsmen speak with Imperial Citizens on a regular basis, let alone fraternize with them.”

“You are probably right, but then I do not think it is the talking that the letter is warning against,” the elder corrected, before looking down and wishing he had not. It was some two hundred feet down, to a hard and unforgiving outcrop of stone. Would one even feel the impact of such a fall, or be squished to a gelatinous pupl too quickly for the pain to register? The pulleys groaned at the weight of the lift as it continued its ascent.

“I’d heard old Niddia was traced to a brood of six, each by a different woman,” Danti smirked, referring to the previous, now disgraced, Imperial Ambassador to Insvar’s Falls. He returned to the scroll.

“‘You will advocate within the primitive local judicial system on behalf of those Imperial Citizens living in the foreign territory, ensuring a local awareness that the Imperial Banner has been unfurled to protect the lives of its subjects and will be again if they are unduly degraded.’”

“Of course the judicial system is assumed to be primitive simply because it is not Marcillian”, the elder commented, thinking of the fantasies peddled as Foreign Studies at the Imperial University. “And while the degradation of the lives of imperial citizens has certainly been an excuse for the dispatch of imperial armies, it has never, in truth, been the reason.” He had now busied himself with the cuffs of the sleeves, which had somehow half folded in on themselves. He cursed the formal wear aloud, while secretly blessing it for distracting him from the emptiness below.

“‘You will keep the chancellery abreast of significant changes to the political dynamic of the local territory. As it is a primitive feudal monarchy, this will include all marriages and fraternizations within the royal family, foreign marriages and alliances on the part of the nobility with military powers outside of the kingdom, and all incursions into, and excursions out of, the territory by parties of war. The scope of our diplomatic interest in such affairs is made clear by your other duties.’”

Danti could read no further, his face having darkened with his reading of the scroll, “So, all at once, we’re to be dallying in every corner listening to gossip about the royal family, mapping out the infinite web of noble marriages, liaisons and alliances, and riding with scouting parties as they scour the borders for foreign incursions? And this is not even our primary task?” His grip tightened on the scroll, scrunching the edges of the paper with his barely restrained fury.

“Absolute nonsense, I agree,” said the elder, his own voice somewhat more relaxed, being well used to the unreasonable demands of superiors. “I do wish we had been allowed access to my predecessor’s offices before this introduction. We are woefully underprepared for even a passing introduction.”

“‘You will, of course, make yourself available to local dignitaries to further spread the light of civilization and high culture on fallow ground.’”

“A terrible mixed metaphor, you can tell he never studied at Garala,” Danti criticized, being a fresh graduate from the school of languages and music himself.

“Signed ‘His Excellency Bruli Vegnecius, Chancellor of the Republic of Lenoa, Viceroy to His Magnificence, Maximus IV, Emperor of Marcillia.’ Head grifter more like,” Danti cursed.

“Nonsense,” the elder corrected mockingly, “as a senior minister, Bruli is of course beyond reproach by such as ourselves,” he gave a sigh of relief as the cuff finally righted itself.

With a heart-stopping shudder the ropes snapped taut in their pulleys, and the lift came to something that might be mistaken for a complete stop if one ignored the strong winds that kept it tilting from side to side like an ocean-going ship.

Both men hurried from the lift to the firmer ground of the loading bay four hundred feet high and built into the scarred cliff-face. Danti cursed the circumstances that had led them both here.

A huddle of servants stood in the docking back, already moving crates of supplies into the lift for the return journey. This smaller contraption was intended primarily for the movement of persons, but with so few ways to move goods from the keep above to the city below, its function was, by necessity, mixed.

The city. A glance backward gave Danti a look at it. He had probably near enough the best look there was to be had: from directly above. He had lived in the island cities of Wenria and Lenoa, and ventured to the Imperial Capital itself once or twice, and the city of Insvar’s Falls suffered in comparison to any of the three. He could see the dimunitive figures of workers on the docks, loading and unloading various river galleys and barques with wool and wheat, iron and wine; the various goods of trade with the other cities of the Lower Thranduin. Nested between the two major distributaries of the Great Thranduin River, as well as the cliff the diplomats had just ascended, the city was rapidly growing beyond its historical bounds, grown fat on Marcillian trade. Uncivilised, certainly Danti conceded, but then I’ve had near enough of civilization for one lifetime.

Two men strode forth, clad in chainmail and wearing arming swords at their sides. Their cloaks were long, and colored burgundy and azure respectively. “Ambassadors Claudius and Danti,” spoke the blue-cloak in halting Marcillian, “I am Sir Heinrich Halfsteader, sworn sword to the crown of Insvar, and my companion is Sir Otto Firwaters, similarly honored. On behalf of his Royal Majesty King Karlus of Insvar, I welcome you to the Citadel Sternborg, the seat of House Insvar. Queen Vanna and Princess Brinja will grant you an audience shortly. Please submit yourself to a search for arms.” The knight spread his hands in a gesture to demonstrate his request

Claudius stepped forward to meet the knights to give their greetings, and began to explain why a search of arms was beneath the dignity of their office. He spoke slowly and expressively, though the knights seemed disinclined to give any ground on the matter.

Danti gave one last look to the personnel lift, swinging in the wind by its supporting ropes as it began to descend. A hangman’s noose, he finally decided, that’s what the damn thing reminds me of.