CHAPTER TWELVE - THE ROOM OF IVY AND KEYS

Golden routines seized hold of Tanner once more, and she sank into the ritualised life of a judge. A year passed, and she thought nothing of it. She wrote letters when she needed to, but she found that she needed to less and less. She had her books, her cape, her little room where she kept her clothes and boots, her automatic quill that clicked for hours upon hours every day, her satin gloves for cultivating luck, her gleaming lenses that she cleaned daily, right before going to bed. She grew used to the sound of her name in the mouths of others, and grew used to being called Sister. Sister Tanner. The year came and ended, she graduated from being a probationary judge to an actual judge, there were rites aplenty, and she barely remembered a single one. What did any of them matter? She had work to do in the morning. Sometimes, she found herself sitting alone in her room, illuminated by the soft blue light of the walls, resting in a chair she'd picked out years and years ago... a heavy one, broad-backed, not easily lifted, capable of seating her frame with comfort. She felt her feet sinking into the thick carpet she'd managed to pinch from another judge on their way to retirement. She poured a little glass of citrinitas, the half-luminous liquid casting oleaginous shadows over the room, like the droplets of shimmering fat on the surface of a stew. She luxuriated in the blue light, leant back, drank slightly...

And she could see her hair turning grey, her skin wrinkling, her back stooping, her flesh growing more and more pale as she starved it of sunlight...

Didn't mind. Not at all. She wasn't unhappy with how things had turned out - she had her purpose and her outlets. She was an engine which functioned as it should - a trapped wasp that was pleasingly restrained, all the better to admire it... but it could fly from the web, just from time to time. Stretch its wings. Keep limber. She moved through her life cycle in the way she was meant to, and she felt animal satisfaction at that fact... but even so, there was a time and a place for a cathartic wriggle. She indulged in hobbies, too. Read long books, took long walks, slept regularly, rose at the right hour, slowly refined and perfected her routines until even a few seconds difference was noticeable. She was at the point where she could legitimately notice when putting on her stockings was taking too long, the slightest difference in her routines was noticeable, such was their regularity. Increasingly, she found herself wearing her little golden pince-nez, even had a temptation to attach a small chain, like she saw some of the older ladies doing - and this was a philosophical debate that raged in her head for months. Legitimately, months of internal debate before she decided not to buy a little chain.

This was Tanner's life.

And when she went out to work with people, when she received her briefs... she realised that it wasn't such a bad life. Damn good one, in fact. She was fortunate - her luck-cultivation worked, the lodge continued to burn a flame for her to keep her insulated from witchcraft, and she even began to indulge in the habits of the Fidelizhi. Just subtle ones, but... she consulted the newspaper for the movements of stars, and sometimes wore a little hint of a god. Just a little. An earring, or a necklace, or a little ribbon tied around her wrist, or something else equally subtle. When done at the right time, in the right way, she could almost feel a weight settling on her broad, powerful back, a god murmuring little directions into her ear. Rite and repetition consumed her life with hungry abandon. And she welcomed it.

Another year passed. She reached the age of twenty three - arrived at the inner temple at fifteen, spent seven years studying, and now she was a full-fledged judge. Twenty three years old. 8400 days. Each day was worth 0.0001% of her life - and as such, most of them were irrelevant, most of them were easy to forget, and slid from her mind practically before she settled into bed, a little cap on her head to protect from the cold, her fingers lightly scented with vinegar where she'd been clearing ink from them.

Honestly couldn't say what had happened on the day the brief came.

She honestly, with absolute conviction, with absolute certainty, could not say what had happened before the brief arrived. She must've had breakfast - but she didn't remember what it was, and couldn't pick the memories of today's breakfast apart from the litany of other, identical breakfasts she'd had over the years. She must've risen, but all she vaguely remembered was a little satisfaction at having her favourite pair of thick wool stockings available. Always liked these ones, they were her newest pair, and she was terrifically fond of the way they just... stayed, didn't slip down, and felt pleasingly airy. That was it. The sole memorable point of the day up to that point. She'd mumbled greetings to other judges, but she always did that. She'd checked the newspapers in the judges' reading room, but she always did that. She'd hummed over the star signs, wondering if there was an appropriate god that ought to ride on her back today... but she always did that. And like on many days, she decided it was worth being fully human - the stars weren't favouring any of the gods she liked, and anyhow, it wasn't healthy to have a god riding around on you all the time, gave you a permanent hunchback. Not an unusual decision for her to make. She settled into an easy armchair near the fire, noting by the clock on the wall that she'd arrived a good half an hour before she needed to do anything, as had been planned out beforehand, as she'd been doing for nearly two full years. She had her time, her chair, a newspaper, and a tiny cup of tea from the communal samovar, something donated from a distant city of some description, and lavishly ornate.

She was an eel in a favourable stretch of water - nothing could worry her, nothing could concern her.

Gradually, others drifted in. Judges, her colleagues, her peers. Not her friends, though. Not because she disliked them, just because... well, she didn't know them. Didn't feel the urge to. She had her systems and her inclinations, and adding new, chaotic points didn't quite factor into the harmony she'd slowly cultivated. One day, she'd die and be mourned by this lot, and they'd scratch their heads and wonder who she'd been, what she'd done, but would generally agree that she was a decent judge who'd done all a judge could be expected to do, and that was an honour in and of itself. History was made of people like her, history rested on people like her, not the fruitcakes she read about in the illustrated news. Just... people who sat down, did their jobs, and didn't bother anyone. People for whom their most distinguishing characteristic was their shoe size. She was proud to be among the ranks of the Shoe-Distinguished. The Footwear Ziggurat. The Well-Heeled Hierarchy.

Anyhow.

She murmured greetings to them, and buried her nose in the news, forgetting the articles a second after she'd read them. Sometimes she even forgot the article midway through reading them, but soldiered on regardless. On one occasion she forgot what a sentence was about before she reached its end, and reread it about six times before moving on, and forgetting the whole thing immediately. Something something riverbed shantytown. Something something the committee for communal commutations and commitments has issued a new report on committee communing. Something something vicious murder, very scandalous, not up her alley at all - another judge had that one, Gulyai, he liked that sort of thing. And so on and so forth. She sipped her tea...

The clock struck...

The briefs came through. Tanner lifted her eyes warily from the newspaper. In her effortless routines, there was one point of stress. The briefs. Every day, the outer temple's scriveners sent in the limited briefs they'd prepared on behalf of the judges - people came to the scriveners, the scriveners made the briefs, and the judges pored over the ones they felt like working on. Most judges managed almost half a dozen briefs at once, some managed more, managing less was only acceptable for the very elderly. Tanner was still working through about four, she'd wrapped up the judgement for one just yesterday. Still had to sort out the billing, though. Almost wished she could get herself a pupil, not for the teaching, just for the billing. Someone had to chase up the clients who were capable of paying, make sure they weren't skimping out. She had ink to purchase, blast it. Ink, and clothes, and all manner of silly things. And the temple had to pay the cleaners. The usual mumbles came through - people wondering why the scriveners had let this brief through, when it was clearly beneath them. People humming over the more prestigious ones. She heard a brief, tense argument break out between two of her colleagues over a nice little case of indecent assault. Pair of Inchers - judges that measured their success based on how many inches they received in the illustrated news. Indecent assault of a well-heeled lady earned plenty of inches. The more fame a judge acquired, the more likely they were to get special requests, mediation duties, the well-paid stuff that bought good claret, with good meals to accompany it. Not Tanner's method at all - in her mind, the only time she wanted to appear in the newspaper was when she became a judge (as per tradition, not per preference) and when she died. Nothing more.

A gloomy younger judge sloped off with a tattered little brief describing a dangerous and careless - dull work, but it had to be done. An elegant woman in a fine black cape strode off proudly from the table of briefs, perusing a nice thick wad of paper talking all about some unsightly divorce proceedings she expected to have some fun with, her half-moon spectacles glinting, her hair pulled into a severe tower. A ludicrously dandy man with a silk pocket square depicting pheasants in flight hummed curiously as he checked over a little dispute over employment. And a man with a face like a sallow corpse stooped over to a pair of little metal urns at the side of the room, depositing a handful of stone counters into them. White and black. Right. Not everything the scriveners received was good meat - some was settled quickly and easily at the door, some was dismissed entirely due to nothing being violated, and some... some was simply beyond the judges.

There were things they couldn't prosecute, not under the laws of the city. Cases which proceeded lawfully and were dismissed by Parliament were written up, the grudge-ledgers filled properly, and the papers were then burned and added to the catacombs beneath. Cases which ended at the door with satisfying satisfaction were deposited in white counters - the law had worked, the law was simple, the law required no appeal. A win. And laws which were dismissed out of hand as beyond the remit of the judges were deposited as black counters. Absolute failures. Reminders of limitation. Usually it was tax business, or complaints against the Erlize, or issues which happened in the no man's land beyond the city walls, where judges held little sway.

She returned to her news. She didn't need a brief right now, she'd look them over after the fatty cuts had been taken by the others. She preferred the leaner stuff - she didn't go out enough to warrant the cash the fatty cuts provided, disliked the prestige they accumulated, and despised fighting with others over them. If they wanted them, they wanted them. She was content to let the jackals snap away at the briefs. It was likely that this would've been the end of her memory - she'd have slipped into a news-reading reverie where she learned nothing (by design), and would've come to when the briefs were ready for her, and then it'd just be a normal day of work. Could already feel the little metal rings of the automatic quill tightening around her fingers, locking them into the approved positions.

It should've been that way. All the days preceding it made it seem so.

And then...

"Sister Tanner?"

Ah. Brother Rumdol. She blinked up at him, the chair making her shorter than someone else for once. He was a tall, refined man, the sort of person who agreed with her on the point that being well-dressed and well-composed was a sign of respect for one's clients. Gold pocket-watch, three-piece black suit, interesting moustache, cape with a velvet collar and dark hair that was flicked-up around the ears, almost like a pair of horns. His height made him seem imposing, his dress made him seem elegant, his accessories made him seem a little dandy-like... but his face, with high cheekbones and absurd moustache, shiny eyes and flicked-up horns of hair, almost theatrical eyebrows... he was something between the archetype of the elegant judge, and a comic actor. Somewhere between the judge and the clown. She knew his face was practically elastic when it wanted to be, stretching into smiles and frowns which always felt exaggerated. The moustache might've been an attempt to rectify that - use hair to sew the face into a more regal appearance.

It hadn't worked. He just looked like a clown with a moustache.

"Hm? Something happening?"

"Little bit. Don't suppose you nabbed one of those briefs?"

"No, not yet."

"Good, good. Alright, come along. Big fellows want to talk with you."

...what?

Why on earth would the senior judges want to speak with her? She hadn't even seen them since her proper graduation, they were busy. Always busy. She blinked a few times, slowly folding her newspaper over and over until it was a proper size... no, clamp down on the nervousness. This was a minor interruption to the routine. She was summoned, so she'd go. She rose from her chair, feeling it sigh in relief behind her, and clumped after Brother Rumdol as they began to undulate through the great tiled labyrinth of the inner temple. They moved through the areas where the judges worked, to the areas where the students were trained, and further beyond still, to places which actually went aboveground. The court of Lords of Appeal - the people to whom all judgements were symbolically submitted, the highest judges, chosen by seniority, by application, by sheer force of will. It wasn't a position of much official authority - they acted like normal judges, but instead of squabbling for briefs, they surveyed all the most important, and let one or two drop like crumbs for the lessers to feed on greedily. But when the time came for decisions of a large nature, most people deferred to them. They didn't rise to their position - they seeped to it. Their progress to authority was matter of passive oozing, and by the time they were finished, they seemed to have exerted no effort to arrive there, yet it was impossible to imagine them anywhere else. There would always be Lords of Appeal. There would never not be Lords of Appeal. And if one vanished, another would congeal out of thin air, meandering sluggishly out of the walls and into a comfortable chair. And everyone would accept this.

Because who would you rather trust? Someone who oozed naturally into power by passive process, or some ambitious striver with good hair who fought, kicked, and brutalised their way to the top?

Tanner didn't really think about it very often. Just... something that existed. Nowt more to it than that.

Rumdol said nothing as they walked, his soles were whisper-quiet on the floors, and his dark cloak helped him blend into the shadows - sometimes, it was easy for Tanner to forget that he was there at all, and that she was just being pulled along by an inevitable, invisible string. A leash attached to a loyal hound. She banished speculation - no idea what they wanted, but she knew she'd done nothing wrong. She did good work, there was... oh. Oh. Would they drag her up to the Lords of Appeal to tell her if her mother or father had died? Had something happened to Eygi? Had something happened with the Erlize, something to do with that Algi business? Oh, gods, gods, Algi had found her mother and was currently trying to get her to pressure Tanner into putting up obscene posters, gods... catastrophe whirled into her mind like an old friend, settling around all her sparking neurons and snuffing out the comforting flame of routine. She started clasping her hands over and over, inviting luck. Dragged pince-nez out of her pocket and mounted them over her nose. Cursed herself for not inviting a god onto her back. Reminded herself of being a judge, all the work she'd done. Ran her tongue over her teeth a few times, imagining she could taste the sweets she'd handed out, the ritual candy that ended a grudge and settled a case. Flexed her fingers a few times, feeling the strained muscles where she'd worked a little too hard...

Routine and catastrophe warred in her mind. And her face became stiff, refusing to emote. As it always did when she was frightened.

A door presented itself.

"Go on, then."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

She nodded jerkily. Rumdol shot her a sympathetic look.

"If it helps, I like to imagine that they've got bad toenails. Those shoes they wear, no way they have good toenails. Probably all yellow, maybe ingrown. Not clean, not attractive, not comfortable. So just imagine that you have better foot health than them."

She blinked.

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Well, try not to do it too much. Old men's toenails aren't healthy to have on the brain. Still!"

He slapped her cheerfully on the back.

"Good luck!"

Tanner didn't budge. She was much too sturdy for budging. A small smile for Rumdol, and she watched him slither away into the dark, the velvet collar of his special cape looking like the skin of some exotic animal. Like watching a mole burrow away into his... burrow. Hm. She knocked cautiously... a loud, hoarse summons brought her inside. The room was small, cosy, excellent arranged. It had an appearance of effortless luxury, the sort that nervous worriers like herself aspired to, and the oozing Lords of Appeal managed to achieve automatically. They emanated it like an animal emanated musk. A crackling fire in a black fireplace, and a handful of weeping candles scattered here and there. Books so old that the titles had long-since worn away and all that remained was anonymous leather, mottled and whorled. A crystal decanter of wine glittered in the firelight. The ceiling was painted with coiling ivy, black and purple and darkest green. There were papers here and there, but most were secluded in thick wooden boxes. If something could be locked, it usually was, and the walls hung heavy with ancient keys. All about was the vague scent of spice, something warm, cloying, strangely dusky. Made her think of setting suns and rippling fields - the eventide exhalations of some forms of greenery.

Ivy ceiling, slate-coloured keys, anonymous tomes, incense-scents... there was something mythical about this place.

And in this curiously mythical palace, sat its king. Or rather, one of many, but they were invisible, he was here, and he would do.

A furtive man was sat in a chair large enough to swallow him whole, swaddled like an infant in a cape that was a gunmetal grey, soaked by dust, by smoke, by age. The shade of a moth, and the man's glasses were focused on the fire, turned to opaque circles of white. A moth, hypnotised by the fire, but far too comfortable to pursue it. He was bald as a baby, his eyebrows were thin as weevils, and his chin was covered in a loose cloud of beard, so loose and so curly that it seemed more like a cloud. Like his breath was freezing around him, ready to be harvested by the lessers who would doubtless cluster around this great double-barrel of the law, this apex of practice, to whom judgements were rendered, from whom briefs were dispensed. He was small enough to be picked up with no effort, and it was hard to imagine him walking anywhere - he was a man destined for the sedan chair. But he towered over her, and she bowed her head respectfully when he turned in her direction, his mouth tightening in an intelligent fashion, his eyes glinting with steely will. His hands slowly emerged from the swaddling cape, and clasped in front of himself. A bright gold ring hung from one finger, and it seemed a miracle that his slim hands could manage to hold it aloft without snapping. He was the sort of man, in Tanner's mind, that exemplified one of the stranger beliefs of the judges.

That the ideal judge was an illiterate baby. Because the golden law would be so simple that even a child would understand it and its significance, and so simple that you wouldn't need to consult it - the principles would unfold like scientific axioms, one after the other after the other. The ideal judge was an illiterate baby, because when an illiterate baby could become a judge, then the law was flawless. He seemed to emulate the baby element, even in his old age, though she doubted he was illiterate. Still, nice to know the old dream wasn't forgotten. She supposed.

"Ah. Sister Tanner. You may sit. Wine?"

His voice was fast and clear, each 't' enunciated precisely. A creature of softness producing a voice sharper than a razor. Tanner shook her head silently as she sat in a chair opposite, feeling the warm red leather give way around her. It was a good chair for dwelling. There were chairs for sitting, there were chairs for lounging, and there were chairs for dwelling - this was of the third species, the kind of chair you lived in and never left. Maybe the chairs regrew the Lords of Appeal when they died off - grew them like fruit on a tree. She twisted her hands over one another, inviting luck. Looked through the pince-nez, and saw her superior, someone who was of a like mind to her, who had devoted his life to the work she devoted herself to with equal zeal. She saw the world in the luckiest way... and she almost believed it.

"Doubtless, you're curious. Why you've been summoned here. I apologise for taking time out of your day, I'm sure your work is pressing upon you."

"Nothing urgent, my lord."

"Good. I'm glad. I hate to deprive people of their labour, it offends me on a personal and professional level. I was offended by such things when I was your age. I will not prolong my offence, of course. Are you... aware of the condition in the north, sister?"

A slow blink.

"I'm... aware by osmosis."

"Clarify?"

"I'm aware passively. I hear things, I read things, but I can't say I've studied it. I won't profess to total ignorance, but I won't pretend at confidence."

"Ah. I see. Though... hm, I see you have the illustrated news with you, just under your arm?"

Did she? Oh, goodness, she'd forgotten to leave it behind in the news room, oh, goodness, she hated the idea of having inconvenienced someone, and... no, focus. She unfurled the paper, unfolded, spread forth at the lord's direction over a nearby table. She moved delicately, terrified of shattering something valuable - the decanter glimmered mockingly, mocking her with its weight, its delicacy, its value. The rubious liquid within seemed to her to be as volatile as some explosive fluid. A single crack, and she'd waste valuable wine, and stain something irreparably. The lord pored over the newspaper, turning the pages with a single outstretched finger.

"...ah, here we are. I recall it from earlier. You see?"

He gestured. An article on the movements in and out of the shantytown - she'd read this article, by which she meant she'd flicked her eyes over it out of habit, without taking in a damn word. She read it again, quickly. The shantytown - which lacked any official name, because naming it made it real, not just a temporary stain on the city's aesthetics - was always being altered. They talked about demolishing parts of the slums and rebuilding them in some glitteringly new form. They talked about moving people out by force, throwing them into the wilderness and hoping for the best. They talked about moving people into the city itself. They talked about regulating them, about the divisions between the shantytown communities. All sorts of talk. Inevitably, though, they needed to go. The Parliament couldn't allow it, the city was growing hostile towards it, and the inhabitants had never desired to be here for long. They wanted to go back, back to the north, the moment the routes were open, their funds were in place, their homes were habitable. But the push of reclaiming land was slow, arduous. And building civilisation up again was harder still. Sometimes shipments of people went back north, rushing along the river with hungry eagerness, but it was never many. Never enough. These were the dredged survivors of a dozen kingdoms, and of those dozen, none were fully habitable again, six hadn't been reclaimed at all, four were heavily contaminated and midway through cleanup, and two, two, were maybe eligible for resettlement. But on a tiny scale. Farmland was contaminated, mutants were rife, the air itself was poison in many places.

Unpleasant reading. Half of Tanner's briefs seemed to come from the shantytown, people eager for mediation. Rarely had the money to pay her, so it was all pro bono stuff. Unpopular with the judges who wanted to actually build up a retirement fund one of these days. Not Tanner, she intended to die in this place.

Anyway.

The lord was talking.

And it was her duty to listen.

"They're considering getting back to Rekida, you know. They say the routes are more reliable. The mutants pushed back. All manner of business has started up - there's been a small settlement there for some time, but there's rumours of it expanding, and quite soon."

"...I see, my lord. Interesting times."

"Quite. And opportune times. Let me come right to the crux of the issue, I won't keep you longer than necessary. The settlement near Rekida is owned by Fidelizh. Fidelizhi companies fund it, Fidelizhi soldiers guard it, and even the Rekidan citizens returning home do so from Fidelizh, with Fidelizh's blessing, having lived in our riverbed for some time. In all respects, this city has a great interest in the settlement, and in the reoccupation of the destroyed city."

His eyes glinted.

"And there's not a single judge."

Tanner felt a cold hand clasp around her spine.

"Ah."

"Quite. Quite. At present, the settlement is small, and is... like a barnacle, clinging to the outer wall of the old city of Rekida. The individuals inside go into the city to scout, to clear, to slowly reclaim it, block by block, street by street, room by room if at all possible. Once enough is cleared, they intend to bring more Rekidans in from Fidelizh, coming back home to reoccupy the buildings. Once the process has begun, we anticipate it to accelerate rapidly. Rekidans clear the streets, allowing for more Rekidans to come and settle, who in turn clear more streets. Not a single judge monitors conditions there, at present. Authority is ad hoc, clumsy, to my understanding. The company which funds the settlement and provded much of the up-front investment has a charter from the Golden Parliament to enforce the law, but their authority is bound up with time. Once the expansion begins, their capacities will quickly be outstripped."

Tanner hummed uncomfortably.

"We... don't exactly have an outpost there, my lord. I mean, the Judges of the Golden Door have never stretched that far north. I've not even read about us doing mediation work up there, I thought they had their own system north of the Tulavanta."

"Quite. Quite. Quite."

He hummed to himself, rolling his shoulders underneath his cape. Seemed to be debating whether to make this trilogy into a quartet, and a second later, he resolved the question.

"Quite. We do not. Historically, and speaking in terms of direct legal authority to judge, sentence, fine and so on, we are confined to Fidelizh, where we were founded, and Mahar Jovan - but with outposts and influence spreading across multiple cities. Even if we do not have the immediate right to judge, we have the right to mediate, to advise, to lecture, and even to judge some smaller cases. The north has traditionally been resistant to this, a woeful state that might be blamed on a whole suite of factors. But at present, the north is unoccupied. The Golden Parliament wishes to have a colonial interest in the reoccupation. The north lacks leaders, it lacks cities, it lacks much. We have, before us, a rare and potent example of virgin soil where we may build unopposed. Our influence in the riverbed settlement has grown, our role and our authority is increasingly respected even by these foreigners - we stand at a highly unusual crossroads. The opinion of the Lords of Appeal is that we are not to remain on our present path, nor are we to remain paralysed."

He leant forwards.

"As such, we're interested in dispatching judges from Fidelizh and the surrounding cities to the north, to adjudicate in these... unsettled lands. Bring law to the lawless. Of all the activities a judge may perform, I do believe this to be one of the more... blessed, if I may be pardoned in utilising the word."

Tanner's brain was whirring away, thinking, thinking, thinking... wait! Objection! Not that she wanted to oppose the Lords of Appeal on every point, that would be petty and silly, but... but going north? She liked it here. She liked her room, her routines, all of it. She was a cog in a machine, she was necessary for it to function, but her loss wouldn't destroy things. She wasn't a vital load-bearing wall, she was just one column among hundreds. Maybe, yes, at some stage she'd get reassigned to another city, she anticipated that, many judges did little tours of that kind, but... the north? That was the sort of mission you gave to heroes. The sort of thing where individual success or failure meant collective success or failure. The sort of thing where her entire reputation and career would be on the line over a few split-second decisions. And it sounded cold. There'd be no citrinitas, no big beds, nothing. As a person, she didn't want to go. As a judge, she had to think of better reasons to object. Ergo...

"It's... an honour to be considered for this position, and I hesitate to object, my lord, but I'm afraid that I'm... well, I've been a fully accredited judge for a single year. There are colleagues with decades more experience, who are more familiar with these matters, and-"

The lord waved his hand idly, looking very grand and imperial for a moment, the weight of his authority shutting her up swiftly.

"And you have an excellent record. Your judgements, those I've perused, have been first-rate. No meaningful complaints have been lodged, which is unusual for a novice judge. Beyond that, we don't expect you to manage this alone, nor is the mission to rest on your shoulders completely, nor is the mission some vital act of absolute importance where failure is death."

She sagged. Alright. Getting better.

"The notion is not that you will immediately be responsible for an entire settlement of people - the notion is that you will assess and prepare. We intend to, as you say, send a cadre of more experienced judges who are better-able to deal with the unique challenges of the frigid north - I speak in terms of climate and people, if you'll pardon my vulgarity. Your role, along with the half-dozen judges we're sending from our outposts elsewhere, is to examine the settlement and lay the foundations for future work. We lack basic information, and we imagine the company lacks basic information as well - how many people are there, how many are working, what complaints are the most common, how the company deals with dissent, how much people are paid, how people are expected to live, what sort of work is performed throughout the year. That's all we wish for. Basic information, the sort that we rely on extensively here in Fidelizh. We refuse to barge in with blindfolds over our eyes, stepping on a hundred toes in the first week and promptly tainting any kind of impression of our authority. Your role is to survey. Furthermore, to give us an impression of the local authorities, the local power struggles, the matters which matter. And, if at all possible, to prepare suitable facilities for our next few teams. We do not expect the mission to rest on you, and you alone. Others judges will accompany you, and the company has promised full cooperation."

His words were soft and meandering, his speech gentle... she felt herself sink into it. Just a little. He spoke with absolute confidence, and she could almost feel herself believing it. Her mind was still warring between catastrophe and calm. On the former side... this was unexpected. She expected years and years of quiet, solid work in front of her, nothing like this, nothing dramatic. She wanted to be far away from dramatics if at all possible, and being moved around like a chess piece made her feel sick to her stomach. Not that she minded being ordered around, she just didn't like being ordered around unexpectedly. Put her in a uniform and she'd march, march, march, but break into her room and shout orders while she was in bed, and she'd feel the urge to run away near-overpowering. Uncertainty. That was it. And... the north. The north. That frigid wasteland, that place where the Great War had started, still contaminated, still poisoned, still dead. People didn't go there, people left there. On one side of the Tulavanta was life and light, on the other was long stretches of darkness and cold and death until you reached the mountains, which were somehow worse. The north was barren, even before the Great War. Now, it was a blasted heath which was allergic to healthy life.

She knew nothing about it. And into that nothing, she could find only negatives.

But on the other hand...

It was an order. Could she refuse? Was it rude to ask if she could refuse? Maybe she could, maybe she could legitimately just shake her head, be firm on the topic, and go back to work. Maybe. Maybe word would spread. Maybe people would look at her like she was an idiot, a coward, a slow-moving lug who couldn't pour piss out of a boot if there were instructions on the heel. Maybe she'd feel it crawling in her gut for the rest of her life, this guilt, this feeling that she'd been asked to jump, and she'd remained fixed in place like a moron, too dull to even ask 'how high'. Maybe she'd always be the person who turned down a perfectly reasonable job. Maybe she'd be... it was the judicial equivalent of being emasculated, castrated, humiliated in a visceral and enduring fashion. She'd be ruined. Her reputation would die. She'd live with the shame for the rest of her life. Everyone had that thought, what would they do when a moment of crisis came, when something was expected of them, something hard... and she'd have her answer. She'd run away like a coward and leave it to better people.

Unreasonable?

Maybe.

Didn't matter.

Maybe someone else would be more... considering. Maybe someone else would take a long walk, have a bit of tea, get on with other work... defer the decision until there was a nice big brood. That was it, a brood. Walk into the mist and hunch over a railing, stare into the flickering lights of the shantytown for a few hours, mull over the possibility, keep everyone guessing... like people did in the newspaper serials she sometimes read. Maybe she could tour the shantytown, even, have a drink, a meaningful conversation with someone she'd helped in the past, who encourages her to go north and keep helping people, remind her of where the most satisfaction in her work came from. Or give her some sort of horror story of the settlement, convince her to go north out of guilt and righteous zeal. Someone else might do that. Someone who was more inclined to brooding and considering and deferring, someone with a tad bit more confidence.

Not Tanner.

Tanner had received her orders. She was expected to fulfil them. If she didn't, then she was no judge. And if she wasn't a judge, she was no-one and nothing. She had no life outside of this place. Didn't want one. Didn't need one. Hers was not to question why. Hers was to endure. Hers was to continue. Remembered the chaos of her first week or so in the temple, the strangeness of Algi's radicalism, the terror of the Erlize, the loss of Eygi... she endured all of that. Endured by indulging in her role and her rites, in all the little mechanisms which alleviated the tension of inexorable purpose.

This was no different. Someone else could brood, if they liked. She knew what her conclusions would be.

"Of course, my lord. I apologise for questioning you, I didn't mean to be insubordinate. Thank you for clarifying."

The lord smiled bloodlessly.

"Is that so?"

"Yes, my lord. Happy to go. Thank you for choosing me, it's a great honour."

"Wonderful. Excellent. We'll make the initial arrangements, then - I admire your decisiveness."

She glowed, became practically luminous in the half-light.

"It'll take time, of course. Business to be arranged. We'll see if we can find passage with the mutant-hunters, they tend to ply the north more than most..."

She paused. The same people who'd crippled her father for good, wiped out his thoughts with a single accident. The judges had punished them for that. Made them pay up.

"...and we'll see if you can go up the river... hm, well, you have lodging in Mahar Jovan, don't you? Stay there briefly, perhaps... yes, that might be easiest, should make arrangements of time a little smoother to arrange."

Mahar Jovan. Where her mother and father were. Where her lodge was. Mother, who she'd been distant from for years. The lodge, whcih still held a kind of power over her, a kind of power that she dreaded from time to time. An anchor that crushed just as easily as it restrained. And Algi. Algi might still be there. The mad half-friend who'd become a lunatic and had almost ruined her life by association.

Her hands were starting to knead the button-decorated pleats of her long skirt.

Her toes were curling inside her shoes.

"But, anyhow. Are you sure you don't want any wine?"

This time, Tanner didn't decline.

She bloody well needed this.