The Higher Price, Part V

The sound of a thousand footsteps marching in well-disciplined order echoed off the empty shells of what had once been Kaladon's beautiful homes and buildings. Smoke hung lazily in the morning heat. Irrigated gardens lay waste, their unripe crop tampled and beaten. The fountain on the Melitene lay shattered, its well-fed mechanisms broken. Doors lay open, empty eyes of skeletal adobe buildings staring into the narrow streets. The crackling of still-simmering fires replaced the lost sounds of commerce and bustling activity.

The acrid stench of the blackened city irritated the Enforcer's throat. Despite himself, he couldn't keep tears from welling up in his eyes. Everything about this was wrong. He hadn't wanted to destroy such a beautiful town. How could he guess they'd abandon the city? It's not what he'd have chosen. He just didn't understand: what power did Soderini have over these people? A man so obviously lacking in discipline and authority, how could he lead? How could these people just abandon their birthright? Well, the town could be resettled, the fields re-planted; the League would have stability and order. Kaladon could be erased from history, if necessary, as if it had never been. Such a waste. What mattered was the place, not the individual people.

The young leader of the Zeare's Commandoes approached the Enforcer.

"We've searched the whole city, sir. Nothing. Nothing was left untouched. And all goods have been consumed by the fire."

"And the bodies? Where did they finish their evil act? Was it poison?"

"That's just it, sir. There aren't any bodies. Not one. Not even the old or sick. Each and every one of them has disappeared. All but this one."

Two soldiers manhandled a tall, gaunt figure forward. They threw him down onto the dry ground in front of the Enforcer, not far from where they'd stood two days before. He was smeared with his own blood and bruised in several places from brutal treatment.

"Ah, Soderini, the great Rebel. I see you wear your own blood, in the manner of all criminals who meet justice. Where are your co-conspirators?"

Soderini attempted to rise, but one of the soldiers slammed him back down with the side of his sword. He mumbled something.

"Get him up."

The two soldiers lifted him by his arms, and Soderini managed to lift his head. When the Enforcer looked into his eyes, he saw the same defiance he'd found at their last meeting.

"Where are your fellow criminals, rebel?"

Soderini coughed and spat blood, but finally cleared his throat enough to speak.

"We have all chosen the path of the criminal, Enforcer."

The Enforcer grew impatient. "Yes?"

"We have chosen exile. And freedom."

Exile. Exile. Where would they go? No harbour was safe for them anymore. It was inconceivable: no civlilized isle would welcome them. They'd be outcasts. A mote on the fringe of the League. If this story were true, they'd be long gone, and the Zeare's fleet was delayed. There'd be no way to track them down; scattered on the trade lanes, flung to the furthest reaches of the league.

"And yet you, alone, were left here for my troops to find. That seems most unlikely to me."

"Nevertheless", Soderini said, pausing to cough, "We have chosen exile. We have manned the ships of merchants, seized during the Great Uprising, and not a single person has been left on League soil. And no Kaladonian will ever again step foot upon League land until they can be free. By the ancient laws of battle, and the laws of your wretched Charter, we formally surrendered our title to this city, this island and our citizenship."

The Enforcer mulled this over in his mind for a moment. There were no bodies. And there was nowhere else to run on this island where they wouldn't soon be found. They must have fled; it had to be true.

"And why were you left behind?"

"To give you a message."

"And what message would that be?"

"One to take to your Zeare and her Tilarium and all the bond-holders and fat merchants and money-changers of the League."

"And what", the Enforcer asked impatiently, "would that message be?"

"Just this. That history will show, perhaps not today, or tomorrow, or in a generation, or even in the memory of your grandchildren. That history will show that you shall answer for your crimes."

"You will die slowly, a mockery to the crowds in Terin. Your people are exiles. Order has been restored. What have you won, Soderini? You've laid waste to Kaladon, your home, and now you have nothing." The Enforcer motioned for the soldiers to shackle their prisoner and take him back to their camp. As the guards picked him up and started to drag him away, Soderini made to speak, and the Enforcer bade the soldiers wait.

"Order decays, Enforcer." he coughed. "Like a fist holding water, people inexorably slip through your grasp. The tighter you hold, the more escapes. You can rule today, you can have your law. And you can rule this empty city, if you wish. But you don't rule Kaladon. Kaladon was never this place, these houses, these streets. Kaladon was its people, each alone and all together. And we're free. Freedom, enforcer, freedom is stronger than order."

His feet trailing over the cobblestones, the soldiers carried Soderini away.

The Enforcer wandered through the crumbling town as the soldiers scoured the wreckage for the booty they'd been promised. He grimaced at the sight of the copper statue of the first Zeare, no longer looming over the square but scattered around it in burned, battered pieces. He smiled and shook his head in amazement, and strode down to the abandoned town's harbour. The city could be re-settled. A prize for the Tilarium! Soon enough, soon enough. Order, precious order, was restored.

He didn't notice several of the soldiers quietly claiming some of the shattered statue, hiding the slags of copper in their packs. Mementos, of course, nothing more than mementos. More pillaged junk to add to old soldier's tales, to sit by hearths and be forgotten. For the soldiers, those pieces of the statue, symbols simultaneously of authority and rebellion, were grand prizes. They'd add zest and a bit of proof to the famous tale the soldiers would carry back to their homelands, of the sacked city of Kaladon. A tale that would be, thanks to these Zearial troops, widely told and well-known. Despite the best efforts of the Zeare and her agents.