Authors: Scott Michael Decker
I
n addition to a primary talent, everyone has several secondary talents. How many of you here give yourselves baths with your trace chemathonics? How many wash your dishes without getting your hands wet? How many are recording my lecture in memory you've set aside by rearranging a few neurons and increasing the adrenalin in your hippocampus? My point is that we all use our trace talents without a thought for how we'd otherwise live. Now, I want you to imagine life without them. What would that be like?—From an anthropology symposium entitled, “Without Talent: Prehistoric Man.”
* * *
Seething, Guarding Bear turned onto the main avenue and looked toward Emparia Castle, squinting into the half-eclipsed sun.
His bowels ground and heaved.
Why am I so afraid? he wondered. Flying Arrow's an empty sack of wind compared to his father! I'm afraid because Flying Arrow thinks war solves everything. Smoking Arrow knew when to make war, when to make peace.
* * *
During the heady days after the rebels' massacre of the Imperial Battalion, the Brothers Bear received oaths of fealty from the village elders of the Caven Hills, asked for commitments of personnel and other resources, and organized delegations for visits to villages beyond the area. As a result of their victory, their face among their fellow Caven Hills natives had grown.
Face they'd gained by besmirching Smoking Arrow's, who'd have to retaliate against them to regain his face.
Instead of retaliating, the Emperor sent an unlikely agent.
Their spy network reported that a delegation from Emparia City had arrived in Nest. The delegation traveled under the Imperial insignia, a blue and white quiver of six arrows. The Imperial emissary, Aged Oak, executed the chief tax collector, assumed the position, and through intermediaries requested an audience with the Brothers Bear.
Quickly, they sent an envoy to Nest to negotiate a meeting place and time. Designing their own banner, they commissioned uniforms for themselves and a hand-picked detachment of warriors. After their intermediary arranged a time and location, the Brothers Bear placed two low platforms twenty paces apart in the middle of the selected meadow and secreted warriors around it.
As the Imperial delegation approached its assigned platform, the soldiers broke formation to encircle it. Their swords loose in their hands and their electrical shields activated, they expected treachery. The peasant-rebels hidden around the meadow were the knife poised to strike that everyone saw and knew of but no one acknowledged or mentioned.
Aged Oak checked the surroundings. Looking satisfied, he ordered a subordinate to plant the Imperial insignia and stepped forward to settle himself on the dais. “Sit!” Aged Oak barked. The warriors at his command lowered themselves to their haunches. Only then did he look toward the Brothers Bear.
On his own dais sat Guarding Bear, a green bear claw on a gold field fluttering above him in the breeze. Brazen Bear slouched against the side of the foot-high dais, picking at his teeth with a twig. Across their laps lay their swords.
Aged Oak scowled at them, making no obeisance.
How arrogant! Guarding Bear thought, staring back.
Obviously, neither would bow first.
Brazen Bear spat out the twig.
An Arrow Warrior rose. “Lower yourselves to the ambassador of the Lord Emperor Smoking Arrow!”
Guessing that Aged Oak had ordered the warrior what to say and do, Guarding Bear didn't avert his gaze.
Neither did Aged Oak, a small man with silver hair and a wrinkled face.
He looks like a monkey, Guarding Bear thought. The other man's skin lacked the dry, parchment-like texture of the very old.
The warrior stepped forward. “Rebel scum! Put your faces in the dirt or I'll do it for you!” Seeing that neither brother even looked at him, he strode toward them. As he crossed the halfway point between the daises, an arrow impaled him in the temple, killing him instantly.
Guarding Bear smiled at the wrinkled emissary.
Several warriors rose to aid their fellow but settled back to their haunches at a bark from Aged Oak. “We seem unable to haul up the anchor,” the wrinkled man said. “I'm Aged Oak, here at the behest of the Lord Emperor Smoking Arrow, sixth of his lineage.”
“I'm Guarding Bear, Overlord of the Caven Hills, first of mine.” 'Anchor'? he wondered.
Then, as if on a signal, both men bowed to the same depth for the same duration. For either to bow lower or longer would admit inferiority.
“Overlord, eh?” Aged Oak said, laughing. “Who's your crewmate?”
'Crewmate'? Guarding Bear wondered, unoffended, seeking the key to this man. “A simple peasant who took the heads of forty Imperial warriors in a single day, Lord Oak. Abase yourself to his eminence, Brazen Bear.”
Grinning, his brother stood and bowed, then sank to the ground and found another twig.
“A pity he didn't test his hooks against fish more difficult to catch, eh? If only recruits are available, Bear, you send recruits.”
“Since when are recruits in their thirties, Lord Oak? They weren't recruits,” Guarding Bear said, sneering. 'He talks like that fisherman from Cove who stayed at our village last year,' Guarding Bear told his brother with talent. The Arrow Warriors, shielded, couldn't intercept the telepathy.
“Someone's fed me a red herring,” Aged Oak said.
'If he's from Cove, how loyal to Smoking Arrow is he?' Brazen Bear asked.
'Indeed,' Guarding Bear replied. “What else did the Emperor lie to you about?”
“What did you do, Bear, with the money you pirated from the Lord Emperor's tax collectors?”
“Tax collectors? I've seen no tax collectors, Lord Oak.” 'Why did the Emperor send a muckraking clam-digger from
that
backwater?' he asked.
'Perhaps no one else would muddy their hands,' Brazen Bear sent, 'or perhaps he's the son of Towering Oak, the Commanding General.'
“You can't fool this old salt, Bear! You're Overlord of the Caven Hills and responsible when your sailors mutiny. Who killed the tax collectors?”
“Infinite knows, Lord Oak. I find it odd that taxes concern the Emperor more than lost lives. Besides, do you know how stubborn these people are? I consider myself fortunate, Lord Oak, if they
feed
me.”
“You call yourself their Overlord?”
“No, Lord Oak, you misunderstand,” Guarding Bear said. “That's what
they
call
me
. I occupy this position at their bidding. I govern with the consensus of the governed, as all leaders should. If I conspire with people they don't like, they'll have my head off my shoulders.”
“Then let me talk to whoever's in charge!”
“The peasants have appointed me to that position, Lord Oak. I thought that was clear.”
“I had no idea this was such a scurvy, ill-mannered crew!”
“Even in our ignorance, Lord Oak, we know when taxes are too high.”
“Ah, yes—taxes. When will you deliver the forty-five clams per family, Lord
Overlord
?” Aged Oak disparaged the title with his emphasis.
'Is
that
the key to unlock this man?' Guarding Bear asked his brother.
'He doesn't care how
much
he collects,' Brazen Bear replied. 'He wants to end the mutiny, throw a sop to Imperial sharks and dig up a few clams.' The flame-haired Bear chuckled mentally.
The tousle-haired Bear shrugged at Aged Oak. “Since few families in the area earn more than fifty taels per year, the Emperor will get only twenty. You can inform him—”
“I'll inform the Lord Emperor of nothing!” Aged Oak spat. “The tax is forty-five clams, and forty-five is what he'll get!”
Guarding Bear leaned forward. “Listen, Lord Oak, for every warrior of mine who died, your precious Emperor lost three. If he wants more rebellion, I'll happily oblige. If he wants reasonable and orderly tax collection, I can arrange that too. Twenty, Lord Oak—not a tael more.”
“You can't possibly get away with this!”
“Consider what'll happen if no one brings the rebels to justice. The whole Empire knows about the insurrection and is laughing at Smoking Arrow. His loss of face is so great he might have to fight off the armies of the south, west and north. Everyone in all four Empires
already
thinks him weak. Twenty, Lord Oak, and if he wants a tael more, he'll pay in blood.”
“
You'll
pay in blood, Bear!” With a wrinkled hand, Aged Oak strangled the sword in his lap.
“I doubt it, Lord Oak. Have you tried to collect taxes in Nest? What about the villages around the Caven Hills? They're much better off than we are, but you'll meet the same resistance. Ask the Emperor to tally how much he squeezed from the Caven Hills last year, and the year before that. He'll get much more, Lord Oak, if he has our help.”
Looking off toward the trees, Aged Oak sat back.
'You've hooked him!' Brazen Bear whispered mentally.
“I see you already have that information, Lord Oak. Good! We can conclude our business promptly.”
“I still have to consult the Lord Emperor—”
“Arrow feathers!” Guarding Bear spat. “The Emperor appointed you chief collector for this prefecture and granted you the power to make your own decisions! He stipulated only that you return with a few 'rebels' to throw to the dogs, eh?”
“How perceptive, Bear,” Aged Oak said, shrugging.
'You were right about the scapegoats, Brother,' Guarding Bear sent. “Since you won't be able to collect anything but excrement from the Caven Hills, Lord Oak,
we'll
do the collecting.”
“That's a school of tuna if I ever saw a dolphin, Bear.”
'I think he agrees. Now make him squirm!' Brazen Bear emitted.
“Now that we agree, I have a few stipulations about my position as Overlord.” Guarding Bear reached into his sleeve for their list of demands.
“One moment, Bear. I can't give you a single strand of seaweed, but I
can
write a letter to the Lord Emperor. Official correspondence needs the proper humility, something you obviously lack.”
“Why would you do that?”
“I need a man with your ambition, Bear.”
The twig fell from Brazen Bear's open mouth.
“Why
me
, Lord Oak?” Guarding Bear asked, equally shocked.
“Listen, Bear, in a very short time, you've rallied quite a crew and now command an impressive fleet. You've also incurred the Imperial wrath. Quite a hazardous course you've set, trying to make headway with such a new navy against the stiff gale of Imperial law. To gain the safe harbor of legitimacy, you need me. Isn't that the wind you need to fill your sails? The wind I need is to gain distinction for quelling the mutiny and dredging up the Emperor's clams from this backwater. You may know how to tangle the Imperial rigging, Bear, but
I
know how to haul the ship of state by its hawsers. My line's ancient, accepted, and in some places revered. Your lineage is shit, please forgive my bluntness. Without me, you'll die a pirate. Without you, I'll run aground. Together, Bear, Infinite knows, eh? We could eventually make landfall on the Imperial Ruling Council.”
'That's the key to him!' Brazen Bear told his brother. 'His ambition! Aged Oak cares less for Smoking Arrow and Scowling Tiger than
we
do. Once he spears the big fish in
our
little pond, he'll sell us on the Emparia City fish market!'
'Look at his warriors' faces, Brazen Bear. He's baffling them by speaking like that.' Guarding Bear asked aloud, “What about my brother, Lord Oak?”
“What's your crewmate do?”
“Surveillance, reconnaissance, covert operations.”
“Excellent—a captain to lead the ship and a first mate to keep the crew at their nets. You'll need courier networks, covert shore parties, safe harbors, supply ferries and false-bottom sea chests. You already have a few red herrings to throw to the Lord Emperor's sea lions, eh?”
Guarding Bear smiled.
“Good. What do you say, Bears—permission to come alongside?”
The Brothers Bear glanced at each other for a quick consultation. 'He's a slimy eel, but long as we know that, eh?' Guarding Bear whispered.
Nodding, Brazen Bear said, “Permission granted, Lord Oak.”
Grinning and standing, Aged Oak stepped off his dais and walked toward them, past the ring of Arrow Warriors and past the dead man.
'What the Infinite is he doing?' they asked each other, tensing. 'Fire on him when he's two paces from us!' Guarding Bear ordered his archers.
At five paces from the Brothers Bear, Aged Oak stopped, bowed and smiled. “Please make my crew walk the plank.”
Brazen Bear sent a psychic signal to their rebels, and the brothers leaped toward the contingent, swords out and swinging. Descending upon the meadow, rebels in green and gold made quick work of the killing.
“You
do
fight well,” Aged Oak said, grinning.
“Were some of them spies?” Guarding Bear wiped his blade with the sash of a dead man.
“I've no idea—probably. The Emperor has lookouts everywhere.”
The three of them laughed in unison, dispelling the tension. Brazen Bear ordered all traces of the brief skirmish obscured.
Seeing the man up close, Guarding Bear gasped. “You're young! How old
are
you?”
“Twenty. My name's Aged Oak because of my shriveled skin. Not even the Imperial Medacor knows what causes all these wrinkles—something to do with my psychic reserves.”
Guarding Bear frowned, the man young for his position. “How did you become a chief collector, Lord Oak?”
“After you annihilated that battalion, Scowling Tiger asked for the Emperor's advice. Smoking Arrow called for a volunteer from among the lesser nobility to sail his ship through these diplomatic shoals. Only I stepped forward.”
“
Why
? It's probably the worst post you could find.”
“Exactly. In this Empire, if you're not born to lofty position, achievement is the only way to rise. My father's Prefect of Cove and Commanding General of the Eastern Armed Forces. Since I've got four older brothers, all I'll inherit is a tiny fief worth less than a bucket of fish heads. Oh, I won't murder my brothers, Bear, but I'll become Prefect even if I have to scrape the barnacles off the Emperor's wallowing stern. Your peasants are so obstinate and poor, I'll gain immense face if I succeed. Are you sure you can collect and deliver twenty clams?”