Edeard watched the dislocated folk of the palatial district pour into the surroundings. The looks on the faces of the native residents were disturbed, shocked. He felt as though he stood in the middle of the two fronts. Men and women outside their homes standing guard, dressed in plain, tough-weave clothes—the worker’s wear—versus the sudden influx of families in silks and suits. His keen eyes caught many of the now-refugees take off their jewelry and stuff them into their pockets. They stayed in the roads, clogging up the lanes with their slow traffic, too proper to sprint through. Or perhaps too shameless to care being seen by the masses.

He was about to leave when a group of men, masons or quarry workers, walked alongside the procession of carriages with sledgehammers slung over their shoulders. As if to keep guard. Guard against what, Edeard thought. The families in those carriages had lost everything already. Surely any grievances ended there.

The problem was he was in a hurry. He needed to ascertain whether or not insurgents were getting equipment from the city’s grey markets. But if matters escalated here, he would always remember himself as the one who should’ve been there. It wasn’t long before he was vindicated; a group of citizens had gathered at the other end of the road with makeshift weapons. They stood in front of the line of carriages, stopping them. Edeard strained to hear their demands.

“Too long have the wealthy have stood at the apex of this city,” said a tall man in a plain suit. A shop owner perhaps. “It’s time you left us with something. Give us all your precious metals.”

The other members of their party had hammers and chisels in their hands. They surrounded the carriages and began to chip the thin foil of metal off the cars’ various decals. The drivers looked back at the cabin nervously, but stayed put. The refugees did not confront the men. Taps echoed throughout the neighborhood. Edeard couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he knew this was wrong. What if it was deserved? What if the wealthy of Ralagast really did put the city in this state? Surely not all of it could be attributed to the machinations of mathematicians; there was the still the human element. It was too difficult. He had killed innocents before from premature decisions. The face of that man came back. The tall, nameless man from the riots who only stepped in front of his rapier because he thought someone was in trouble. Edeard couldn’t move. His mind raced towards nowhere.

Noise pulled him back into reality.

A confrontation had begun in the streets below. Edeard blinked when he saw that it was between the citizens themselves. The hammer-wielding guards and the men at the end of the street. They were inches away from butting heads.

“These people have paid enough, no?” A mason said.

“Their greed put us into this mess!” Came the retort.

“Their greed built this city.”

“Don’t tell me you’re on their side!?”

“Why must there be sides? Their homes are gone. They’ve nothing left.”

“Your debts don’t go away just because you’ve destroyed the means to repay it.”

“Spoken like a banker. Tell me, once you’ve stripped them of gold and pearls, should we begin to worry about your greed?”

Edeard realized the workers hadn’t been wary of the refugees. They were escorting them away. As they argued, local law enforcement showed up to mediate, or as close to enforcement as the city had without the Knight’s Guard. They were just ordinary men and women in homemade uniforms. Edeard left the scene, thinking, his head filled with more questions than ever before. The system had worked well for a long time. Districts appointed their own peacekeepers. And the Knight’s Guard stepped in when matters became violent. But with the Knight’s Guard occupied with an organized attack, the city only had its own citizens to protect itself.

He arrived at the alleyways were the grey markets were located. The tight geometries had all emptied out. Metal siding had been slid over the shops. The residents were laying low until this disaster was over. He found Jetrois’s shop closed and the front door locked. Edeard twisted the knob past its limits, strolling inside. The young woman lived behind her workshop. In the day she worked as a mechanic for the locals. In the night, who knew? Edeard found her in the homely kitchen in the far back sipping from a steaming cup. She leaned against the wall, staring out the small window which gave them view of the canal. Without turning, she said “You’re paying for the door.”

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Edeard had wasted enough time.

“The gas lines were sabotaged by Valve-freeze devices,” he said. He pulled out his own and tossed it on the kitchen table. “I just want to know if you were involved.”

“Only we knew our own city’s machines well enough to make those devices,” Jetrois replied.

“Is that an admission?”

“They threatened us and our families. We caved in. You won’t find a single grey market who didn’t help make the sabotage happen. Some of us were even motivated to help. Something about having enemies in the palatial district.”

Edeard sat down heavily on a chair, wiping his face with his hands.

“You tried to warn me, didn’t you?”

“Was it not questionable that I had such a machine premade just in case you came in to my shop?”

“No. It was too subtle.”

“Maybe you weren’t looking.”

“I know.” Edeard nodded knowingly. “I don’t actually know what I’m doing. I just… thought believing in the right thing was enough.”

“Is that why you’re here? Do you want me to agree with you?”

“No. I just came here to make sure. I’m taking the long way to the palace. There’s still a lot of fighting out there.”

Jetrois sat opposite to Edeard, bearing on him a hard look.

“I don’t envy your job,” she said. “I’m just a mechanic. I fix carts and tinker. Your job? All that power at your fingertips. All that judgment at the slightest mistake. It’s—”

“I saw a dispute take place before coming here. Between the residents of the burnt homes and the people in the surrounding district. I saw the fight escalate. Then I saw it resolved by good samaritans.”

“That’s… a good thing? Right?”

“I’m not unnecessary, Jetrois.”

“Edeard, the district enforcers were always to satiate the faux nobility of us common folk. The ‘we know how to police our own’ bullcrap. We all knew the result if something like this were to happen. Fires and armed men. Real problems, not petty disputes. We can’t protect ourselves from outside threats without the Knight’s Guard—”

“I didn’t say the Knight’s Guard was not needed. I said I’m unneeded. I’ve exposed their operation to Lord Jace. That’s all I’ve done in these past few days. Knowing they were exposed, they probably accelerated their plans.” Edeard retrieved his passenger paper. “Nothing. No new orders. That means the palace has been taken. Do I run back and face victorious enemies? Or do I stay here where problems are resolved without me?”

Jetrois turned away.

“No matter,” Edeard sighed. He pulled out a sketch of that doctor’s daughter and showed it to Jetrois. “Happen to know her?”

“Nope. What’s it to you?”

“Oh I’m being threatened by some man who said he’d expose me to the insurgency if I didn’t find his girl, who had joined them for personal reasons.”

“Well looks like his leverage has been sprung. The rebels are already out there, fighting for us common folk,” Jetrois quipped.

“I know.” Edeard pocketed the sketch.

“You’re still going to try and find her?”

Edeard walked out of the shop and went back on the move. The other knights would need his help. He knew that. His work was still important. But he didn’t hurry as he once would have.

--

The fires were not restricted to the palatial district. An island of stability had developed in the sea of chaos. At least forty men and women. Young, unscarred, their hands with barely a callus on them, were taking to the streets escorting beasts of burden. Those beasts dragged along makeshift cages made from once luxurious carriages.

“Here we are… giving the city back to its people!”

And other such nonsense. Jorge carried his axe with the head by his ankles, keeping it close to his body as he shimmied behind the crowd of citizens. Seeing his size and his weapon, they were eager to let him through without molestation. The mass exodus from ebbing flames continued. The arcane sleet was still falling. The maelstrom above the palace still spun. He glanced over to the demonstration. Families in torn clothes sat in those cages, wet, homeless. Their shoes had been stripped. Their pockets turned inside out. The light in their eyes, gone. Many of them had dark marks streaked across their face; scars soon to be formed from their time so close to the flames.

The crowd watching was quiet. Jorge wondered what must be going through their heads. He was sure what was going through his; this was none of his business. How other civilizations handled their civil matters wasn’t the place of one man to judge. And he would not judge. He was headed to the palace because a friend was there. That was all.

“This isn’t right, son.”

“I wish you’d stay dead, old man,” Jorge muttered.

“This is the dawn of a fair and just society, where we will no longer be shadowed by people who falsely horde what never belonged to them!” It was a young man orating at the front of the line. He was playing the crowd, but the crowd was his fellow insurgents. Citizens stood on the sidewalks with umbrellas, murmuring, torn. It was cathartic seeing enemies fall, until they saw who they were underneath. Human. Concerns travelled through the citizens.

“How do we know they’re to blame for the recession?”

“We’re not starving. Anxiously close, but…”

“I have a distant relative in the palatial district. He’s told me they’re all doing poorly. I don’t know…”

“We don’t even treat our murderers like this…”

No one moved. They simply watched. Then came a commotion at the back of the line. One by one the wheels on the cages were shattered and the bars bent by bare hands. The insurgents rushed to stop it, but they were easily tossed to the side. Only one carriage was left. Jorge strode towards it, axe ready.

“Who the hell are you—?”

Jorge grabbed the young man and threw him, gently, onto the road. He tore apart the last carriage, then without a word, resumed walking to the palace. The prisoners gathered their families close. The young man hollered in the air, something about a sprained wrist.

Jorge didn’t know if he had the right. But he felt slightly better.