Page 13 of Ironhold, Trial Two

“We could give you trouble you don't want as well,” she says. “Or we could pay the normal price and pass in peace.”

The gang member steps back. A flicker of fear crosses his face. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I like that we were able to defuse the situation without violence, but I don't like people being afraid of me. I pull my hood up again hurriedly, and we pass through into the city.

Even the space within the walls doesn't seem as bright and clean as it does when we pass through it as part of the parade. There are many twisting back streets here, some lit by flickers of magical light, others left in shadows.

As we pass an alley, I can see half a dozen men surrounding a smaller figure, apparently administering a beating. Lady Elara pauses, seems to concentrate for a moment, and a few rats scurry in from the shadows biting at the ankles of the attackers. They yelp and back off, giving the figure they're attacking just enough room to make a run for it, quickly disappearing from sight around the corner.

We keep moving.

“I don't understand why you're showing me all this,” I say to Lady Elara as we walk through the twists and turns of the city.

“I want you to see some of what the city really is,” she says. “Aetheria claims to be the greatest city in the world. Maybe that part's even true. But he also claims to be a beacon of light where the rest of the world is dark and dangerous, uncivilized and brutish. I want you to see that, just because the city sweeps the worst of its excesses into the back streets, that doesn't mean they aren't there.”

“I know that the empire is cruel and evil already,” I say.

“But you don’t see how much that affects everyone, even here,” she counters. “No one benefits from the way Aetheria is set up except a small group of nobles. Even they lose children to the Colosseum. The people I work with try to help people.”

“Like you did in the alley?” I say.

“A small example, but yes. Controlling your powers can let you change things for the better.”

“And where does the arena fit into all of this?” I ask.

Lady Elara pauses. “It is a number of things at once. On one level, it is a distraction for the masses, to keep them from revolting. It is also a way to take people with talents from around the world and make them a part of Aetherian society, if they survive. It is a place where nobles can play out power games among themselves. It is a place to dispose of enemies or make a public spectacle of justice."

“That’s a lot of things at once.”

“There’s more,” Lady Elara says. “But we can talk about it once you’re ready.”

“Where are we heading anyway?” I ask. “To your home?”

She shakes her head. “Not for what I have in mind. Follow me.”

She keeps leading the way through the streets, until finally we reach a garden filled with stone monuments that appear tobe memorials to the dead. There is a gate in the middle of the memorials, with steps beyond it, leading down. Lady Elara opens it.

“Where are you taking me?” I ask.

“To the only place we can truly be safe.”

Chapter Seven

I followLady Elaradown into the spaces below the city, along paths that she clearly knows well. At first we walk through crypts, passing rows of funeral urns and long forgotten monuments. I get the sense that there are watching eyes following us as we go.

We go through other tunnels that look as though they are parts of the city that have been buried by later layers of construction. There are sewers here that are vast and vaulted, built on a scale that makes the hovels of the slums look pitiful by comparison. There are tunnels that seem to be forgotten spaces between the foundations of different buildings, and others that seem to have been constructed by hand.

It would be so easy to become lost down here. I try to remember the way, but I'm not sure if I get it all. Lady Elara is providing the light, a simple glow formed from illusion to cut through the darkness.

“I thought your talent was for beasts, like mine?” I say as we walk.

“I am fortunate to have two talents,” she replies. “As far as most of the city is concerned, I am simply an illusionist. I produce pretty ephemera to entertain the other nobles. They see me as a dilettante, debauched and almost without a thought in my head. I'm very careful to maintain that façade. It means there's less chance of them seeing me as a beast whisperer.”

Her last words carry a hint of fear. It's easy to forget that as powerful and important as Lady Elara is, she might still be killed were people to find out about her other talent.

“Is that why we're so far below ground?” I ask. “So people won't see us practicing?”

“In part,” Lady Elara says. “And the catacombs have always been a place for those seeking to hide from the authorities. It has been home to cults and gangs, to those with a talent for speaking with the dead, and simply for those with nowhere else to go.”

She keeps leading the way deeper into the catacombs. Eventually, coming out into a large space that lets in light from far above. Moss crawls around the walls, and there is a statue at the heart of the room of a woman, a snake coiled around her arm, a bird on her shoulder, a wolf and a panther sleeping beneath her feet.

---