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Chapter 20

It had been a difficult season for the First.

As summer had passed and the leaves began to turn, tensions had continued to rise in Vadal City. The cooler autumn air did not bring with it calmer voices. Three great armies had grown larger by the day as the city prepared for a war that many whispered was a figment of the Maharaja’s fevered imagination. Industry and commerce were continually interrupted as Supreme Phontho Jagdish turned all of Vadal’s resources toward defensive preparation. But this was a war without a visible enemy, or a front line, because no one knew where the unseen demons would strike from, and many believed they were never going to appear at all. Harvests that should have been sold were stockpiled. Bitterness grew as merchants left with empty wagons and bankers were left with empty pockets.

Meanwhile, Vadal’s still vast population of casteless suddenly becoming whole men, and all that entailed, legally and socially, had rocked the city’s elite. Now led by a lunatic priest with a hook for a hand, the casteless were demanding outlandish things like sufficient food and clean water in exchange for labor so cheap that it threatened to undermine the worker caste’s importance. Phontho Jagdish had work for them to do now, shoring up the city’s defenses, but what about afterward?

Dangerous fanaticism seemed to be lurking around every corner, as those who had recently been considered the vilest form of criminal now preached their madness on the street corners for all to hear. The fanatics spoke with boldness and impunity, seemingly unaware that they should be too ashamed to spew such lies to the gullible and desperate.

Offense was often taken. At first the commands of Jagdish had kept the violence to a minimum, but an increasing number of duels were fought every week. The warrior sell-swords who made their living by serving as duelist champions on behalf of offended first casters—those who won at least—grew wealthy, but not nearly as wealthy as the workers of the foundry district, who were churning out Fortress rods—a once unthinkable evil—at an alarming rate. It was said that the city known for its perfumes and flowers now stank of Fortress rod alchemy. The peace and quiet was often shattered by sudden test firings of the vile weapons, and reasonable men feared the calamity that would come from the cancerous spread of such evil tools.

Even more frightening than the so-called guns, magic was being traded freely in every market. So much demon flesh and bone had been collected from the attack on the Capitol that the Maharaja’s forces paid for their entire expedition off what they peddled to hungry wizards, who were flocking to Vadal to buy vast stores of the stuff at a discount. All that was required for those wizards to procure for themselves decades’ worth of magic was to promise to stay in the city for a time, in order to serve the Maharaja should the demons come. It was a proliferation of powerful magic and a collection of wizards the likes of which no one had seen before, and the organization that normally controlled such things—the Inquisition—was a shadow of its once great self.

The Protectors—all of whom were here by now—seemed more worried about preparing for an enemy that might not exist than the enemies who were clearly right under their noses…like the strange Fortress foreigners who wandered about the city, seemingly baffled by color, beauty, and sunlight.

There was also a bold new Order called the Defenders of Lok, but it appeared to the tradition-bound First to be an odd conglomerate of disparate groups, without direction beyond the curt pronouncements of the barbaric giant who commanded it.

As if this chaotic mix was not enough, rumor was that every ancestor blade in Lok had already arrived or was on its way and would soon be here. Bearers were restless and terrifying. What were three great armies gathered when compared to the danger presented by eleven men who it was said could defeat an army on their own?

And worst of all, among those eleven lurked the terrifying specter of the most dangerous criminal who had ever lived. Black-Hearted Ashok—sword breaker, Thakoor killer, the non-person fraud who’d stolen Vadal’s name and brought endless shame to their house—now roamed their lands a free man, seemingly bound by neither Law nor decency, and he was wed to the defiant rebel witch who spouted outlandish prophecies while trying to organize all the untouchables into an army.

Such upheaval made it inevitable that the first caste would feel threatened. It was a ripe opportunity. The possibilities to cause strife for his own advantage were endless. The Capitol was weak. Ruled by a librarian in the Maharaja’s absence, it was barely clinging to relevance. Rada was beyond his reach for now because the ancients had chosen her to be the administrator of what remained of their systems, but she was too distant and ignorant to stop him from completing his great work.

With the smallest push, he could easily set this entire place on fire, and then rule over the ashes.

It took all of Omand’s considerable will to refrain from meddling.

As tempting as it was to pit these fools against each other for his amusement, from the city’s shadows he waited and plotted, puzzling over the machinations of the ancients, and biding his time.

For there were demons beneath the Martaban.


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Framed