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FOUR DUCHY SOLDIERS bundled their package into the corridor outside the office of the Bureaucrat. The sergeant of the small unit dropped his end to knock. The corner of the package hit the ground with a loud thump. It let out a loud groan.
“Shuddup!” The guard kicked the package for good measure.
“Come,” Rowle said from inside.
The door creaked open. The guard cohort shuffled nervously inside. Rowle was at the door in a rush. The sergeant jumped.
“Acka! Oh, Acka!” Rowle called sweetly. “The Duchy have brought us a present. Well, put it down then.”
The package was delivered with a thud to the ground.
“Excellent, excellent!” Rowle ran her hands over the sacking and ropes covering the prone form. “And all beautifully wrapped too. Tell your masters I am pleased. Now, go! Off with you. My present is for me to unwrap and me alone.”
More shuffling ensued in the doorway. Rowle heard the sigh Acka made and called him in.
“Come Acka, my present has arrived,” Rowle said.
The package groaned. Acka went over to the prone form on the floor. He felt the sacking bundle. It smelled of pitch and sweat. There was movement, at least.
“A-a-ah! Naughty, Acka. My present and I shall do the unwrapping.”
“Yes, Your Eminence.”
There was a purr as Rowle extended her claws. She ran a talon along the length of the sacking. Then a slow ripping fabric noise. An odd swishing, juddering noise that only cutting woven sack seems to make. Rowle pulled the sack away with a flourish and threw the sacking at Acka.
“Dispose, please. And find me something to sit my present on.”
Acka returned dragging a long box.
“Put it up on the box then,” Rowle said.
It took Acka quite a while to try to right the body from the floor. He sat him on the box, but the limp form kept slumping over. In the end, Acka relied on laying the unconscious body full length on the box, like a mock laying in state. One arm slumped unceremoniously from the box.
“Now,” Rowle said, “does the present have a name?”
Silence from the box.
“Hello?” Rowle leaned in close and felt slow breath on her face. She blew back. “Are you in there?”
Then a prod. Nothing. Then a slap. Nev groaned.
“Better.” She slapped him again. “Wake up.”
She rounded the form and reached up onto a shelf where a bowl of water sat. In the same movement, she completed the turn and soused the water over Nev’s face. He spluttered and then coughed.
“Wake up.”
Nev sat up slowly, Acka leaning in to help. Sitting set off a massive bout of coughing. He gasped for breath. Rowle slapped him again. Nev cried out.
“OKAY! Awake! Enough.”
“I will decide what is enough. You would be wise to remember that.”
“Who are you?” Nev said.
She slapped him again, “You will speak when spoken too.”
“Ok,” he said.
She swiped toward him again and he raised his arm reflexively.
“Feisty present,” Rowle said with a laugh in her voice. “Good.”
“Nev,” he said.
“Pardon?”
“I’m called Nev.”
“Well, Nev. Let us establish some ground rules here. Acka, the collar.”
Acka had obviously come prepared, as she reached forward mumbling apologies and clapped a plastic collar around Nev’s neck. Nev felt an ominous cable trailing from it, over his shoulder and down his back.
“Good. Now, slapping folk is so tiring, and I do not wish to be doing all the training, so let me explain. The training collar works like this...”
There was a click from somewhere in the room and the collar whirred. A finger wide pipe at the center of the collar started contracting. Nev gasped.
“Ah, good, you can feel that?”
“Yeh.”
“Excellent. Now, it can get tighter quite quickly, yes?”
“... gh...”
“Good.” Another click from Rowle. Nev sucked in air.
“Soooo,” Rowle said cheerfully, “if you disobey, the collar reminds. If you leave the bounds of my compound, the collar reminds. Is this clear?”
“Very.”
“Good. Now, take the present to a basket somewhere and feed and clothe it. Then we can begin to see if he is useful enough to live.”
Acka turned to leave.
“Not you, Acka. Delegate. You are needed here.”
Acka hailed a guard and relayed instructions. Nev was taken out. Rowle sat on the box and stretched out her legs.
“Everything aches these days, Acka.” Rowle sighed. “And there is just so much to do. Now we need to find some privacy from those priests, hmm? Perhaps we should just have some rounded up and disposed of.”
A strained sound came from Acka’s throat, but no proper words. Rowle tutted.
“Yes? Spit it out.”
“I think that might not be... I think there might be,” Acka stuttered.
“What?” Rowle snapped. “I hate groveling, tell me.”
“Well, My Eminence, if one was to have it known that the Bureaucracy are hostile to priests...”
“Yes?”
“There may be repercussions? Perhaps unrest among the superstitious classes.”
“My, my, my, Acka. There really is more to you, isn’t there? Hmm? And what do you think we should do, eh? We need to shuffle off those Tinkralas and their little friends for a span, so we can get in there undisturbed.”
“Perhaps, a different kind of emergency?”
By the time Acka had finished, the streets in the main Duchy city of Ur-Hab were in chaos. The main gate to the Under-folk had breached and River-folk bandits had swarmed up, taking Tinkrala priests left and right. A surprise uprising against the new religion by factions of the old animists. The Duchy guards, normally far from lax, taken by surprise. Fighting in the streets between Duchy and River-folk now raged.
In the Bureau, the higher section of the city and really a proper town in itself, the taller denser offices and residences, extra barriers, and extra guards had been posted. There seemed to be little surprise present. The only real surprise featured a small new office beyond the barrier that only seemed open after curfew. There was a stream of folk who entered that office, shiftily, with citizens arrests.
––––––––
ROWLE PUSHED NEV FORWARD into the stench of the Sanctuary. She had guards posted outside the door but had no need to deploy them since the collar was proving so effective.
“So, my young friend.” Rowle was all smiles and purred, “we put you to your great task.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t sound so mournful, young Nev. This is a task that I think will be most distracting for a technician of your reputation. It is a worthwhile enterprise. I think you will find it... interesting.”
“What is that smell?” Nev said.
“Ah yes, the perfume of the Sanctuary takes a little time to get used to.”
“Gods, I’ll say. What is it? Something dead? A creature?”
“Oh, not dead, young Nev, far from it. But the tissues of the flesh are so... fragile... transient... But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let us begin at the beginning. This is the Vat. Those superstitious buffoons would call it Ki or The Presence or some such other mystical nonsense. You will refer to it as the Vat. It was once, so I am led to believe, the great hub to this world. A control device, if you will, albeit an organic one. Your job now, your unique calling, is to learn everything about it, all its pipes and fluids. I need you to work out what it does, how to make it work better, and how we can harness its greatness.”
“Okay.”
Rowle turned on her heel and would have slammed the door to the chamber if that were possible. Instead, it closed on its own accord and fitted back into place with a hiss. The pressurization of the door closing made the jungle of pipes and wires rustle hurting Nev’s ears. It was how he nearly missed the voice when it called his name.
