Dealing with Freedom, Fire in a Wet Place, and The Limits of What Knowledge May Say

Part One: https://steemit.com/writing/@bardbarian/he-who-will-not-be-tamed
Part Two: https://steemit.com/writing/@bardbarian/the-lies-we-hope-for
Part Three: https://steemit.com/writing/@bardbarian/one-way-and-another

Part Four
4.1
Sara held the title of “Queen”, bestowed by the Lords and Ladies of the Senate. She was the chief executive: while they deliberated on and passed legislation, she had wide authority and discretion in enforcing it. Her administration was formed and served by her command. She was also the chief of state, which is why the Confederation Envoy Carlton was a frequent, if not warmly welcome, guest in her quarters in the capitol. Today, like most days, she held court in her reception hall. Key lords and ladies were present, as well as the envoy, and each vied for time or bided their time. The Queen had enough attention for all of them. In fact, it was commonly remarked upon that Sara Lee, the Blue Queen, had remarkably powers of observation and recollection. And more than one precocious lord had taken note of the weight in her voice, the power her words carried.

Lady Clare was a retired Senator and Sara’s right hand. Save for the guards, they were the only members of the administration dealing with the business brought before them.

“My Lady, while I do enjoy the comedic interlude,” Carlton spoke. Or wheezed. He had laughed recently so he was out of breathe. “I must say, I travel on a monthly basis to the confederation. And the view from the heavens is clear: this lovely city, jewel of your plane and indeed one of the most populous and prosperous in our beloved star circle, is not sinking into the sea.”

“Do not twist my words, sir,” Lady Gwen Smithson of House Greenwood was one against many, “I simply present for the Senate’s consideration the fact that the tides have risen every year for the last hundred, and the aggressive excavation of the previous administration-”

“I have heard your accusations against the noble predecessor of the honorable queen, and I have had quite enough of-”

“I say, Carlson, you need not defend Victor Creed every time. Let Lady Greenwood finish so we may move on.”

“Thank you, I suppose, Lord Hellsmith.” The junior Senator gave up facing the other legislators and turned to the rookie Queen instead. “Queen, I lay these studies at your feet. I simply ask that you review them.”

“Is it not true, Lady Greenwood, that you have petitioned the third court to hear your rebuke of the senate in this matter?” Clare was not a bit dulled by her decades of experience. “It would seem to be improper for the monarch to involve themselves in a case in the courts.”

“But, Clare, in the past-”

“In the past the independence of the judiciary has been ignored with malice,” Sara spoke. She continued despite Carlton’s bristling. “We hold the freedom of the judges to consider their cases in higher regard than it should be, such is the need to undo the damage done by our predecessor.”

The young Lady Gwen Smithson of House Greenwood wanted to argue, wanted to force the issue. The others wanted to move on to other business. They were speaking amongst themselves already about other matters. Gwen demurred. She moved to remove the files she had placed presumptuously on the Queen’s desk. Clare placed a hand on the files and waved her off. Gwen smiled and wanted to say something in thanks, but the Queen spoke instead.

“Now, Lord Hellsmith, I believe your office has filed the report of industry for this quarter. Thank you for your patience, we shall close today’s meeting with your presentation.”

“Yes, thank you, Queen.”

It took a long time to go through all the details of day to day life in the city. Thousands of pages, millions of numbers, all to say that the production and consumption of goods was more or less the same as it had been when Creed ruled.

“And thus, I must conclude, the policy of the previous administration would be best to carry forward.”

Lord Hellsmith was not pleased with his own words. Envoy Carlton fairly beamed, the other senators had been following along and stood in sullen silence. Sara could feel it: they were torn. No one of them liked the idea of “citizen work duty”, but no one of them could figure how to keep the city running without it.

“Thank you, Lord Hellsmith. Are we to infer the Senate is asking us for our guidance?”

“Queen, I-” Lord Hellsmith looked to a few of his fellows, and then continued “we are laying this matter at your feet, Queen. We are at the limits of our abilities, there are only bad choices before us.”

“Well, that’s a bit dim, sir!” Sara wondered why the Envoy was still here, “in a position such as this, we stay the course! Well, wise King Creed designed this policy to better the city as a whole. You are troubled because, for some petulant reason, you are trying to fix what is not broken!”

“Enough! Why are you here, you pig of a man. This policy enslaves a quarter of our people!”

“Gwen! Lady Greenwood, that is enough.” Clare signaled the guards as the young senator struggled to get at the Envoy.

The Blue Queen Sara Lee stood. “Hold.” The room froze, all were silent. Gwen straightened herself, Carlton came back from cowering behind a guard, who stood at ease. “We will not tolerate war in our home, and we will not tolerate an unhappy people. This matter will need deep thought, but a change will come. Prepare yourselves accordingly, ye noble houses.”

It was the end of business for the day. Clare and Sara were left alone.

“Clare, how to solve this problem?”

“Well, Sara, I do not think we ever solve problems. The best we can hope for is to make our problems more palatable.”

“Well, free the slaves, that certainly sounds good. But Kent is no friend of forced labor, and even he sees no way forward.”

“Lord Hellsmith is the most conservative progressive I have ever known. Something of the fire of young Gwen may be needed.”

“I know enough of fire. These rebels, they want to burn the structure away and leave nothing behind.”

“I think, my Queen, we would be better to live in the ashes free than in our palace staffed by slaves.”

“Well, you are right. I must, tomorrow, end this duty work nonsense. The reforms already done, the ones you and I wrote on day one? They helped me sleep but were not enough.”

“Yes. It is time. You have sat for six months, you have the trust of the Senate, they will see this through if you tell them the way.”

They sat quietly. The sun had set, the lights were bright enough that the pages could be read despite being set high up in the arched ceiling.

“You are indeed your father’s daughter.”

Sara was taken aback, but smiled. “I am not sure if that is a compliment.”

“That is because you know him as he was. And yes, it was meant as a compliment. He was in line for the throne, you know. Yes! Don’t look so surprised, you know he was both the Sergeant-at Arms of the Senate and Captain of the High Court. A man of impeccable reputation and duty. His only enemies were those no-one worked with anyway.”

“Well, such politics were not written down, I only know of my father’s...actions.”

“Oh, yes, he became Creed’s lieutenant it is true. But that was not the man I knew.”

“You were a friend of my father’s?”

“Yes, indeed! And your mother. She and I shared a name, we had many jokes about that. I was his work wife. Hard to think I was ever that young, or that the business of politics was ever that jovial.”

“What happened. How did-I mean, I read the motions and procedures Creed used, I know how he did it, but…”

“Yes, I know. How did good people go along with such evil things? Well, Sara, you heard a little of it today. The status quo is a powerful weapon.”

“This farm-factory nightmare system is hardly the status quo.”

“Well, no. The needs of the city can also be used to beat down the freedoms of people, especially the lower classes.”

“All of this is standard issue, we have a long history of balancing these all out. How did my father...Clare, he told me some of what he did.”

Clare bowed her head in a rare moment of shame. “My child, I have no reasons for you. Creed built his influence for long years before the killing started. But by then there were none of us left pure, no-one who felt they could survive Creed’s fall. Some of us,” Clare bit back tears, “I knew what would happen, and we went along at first anyway. Your mother, my name-sister, she knew too. But she was stronger than I because she never compromised.”

“Is that, is that why…”

“I’m sure of it. You know, your father commanded respect because of his service, but he and your mother both held a certain power in their words. She gave up pleading with him to reform, and commanded it.”

Sara shifted. It was the first she had ever heard of this. She studied every word.

“She commanded everyone to listen, and to see. I heard her. Lord Lionheart, Hector, he heard her. A few others. From that moment we were free of Creed’s mindgames. But Jon. Creed had laced magics on him in particular, and he could not break free. They were friends. Perhaps that is why Creed held your father tightest.”

“Don’t stop. Tell me.”

“Your mother walked closer and closer to him. She knew. He begged her to leave. He was rabid, a cornered animal. Like there were two minds fighting in his head. And he…”

“I need to know Clare.”

“He drew his sword, the ceremonial sword of the High Court, and ran her through. And as she died he saw. Too late, or just in time: I only know it nearly broke him. We saw right there Creed’s power, and his evil: to make Jon, the strongest of us, kill the only woman he ever loved. He was that powerful, but no more. Jon was free after Clare died.”

“And that was the start of the resistance.”

“Well, certainly. There were a dozen of us in the Senate that heard your mother’s words cut through the Dream, and a quarter or so of the people proved resistance to Creed by nature. Hector nearly went mad, Jon sent him away with the free senators’ children into the western woods.”

“Daniel was among them.”

“Oh, your Daniel, the Dreamwalker? Well, I certainly didn’t recognize him.”

“I hardly do now, myself.”

“The fight we are in changes us all, even long after the fighting proper has stopped.”

“But he most especially. Clare, I think he is trying to use the same magic that Creed did, perhaps with good intentions, but I-well, I suppose I should have known its very nature is to corrupt and twist, it simply should not be dealt with.”

“Perhaps. But Daniel, I know he loves you. He will listen.”

“I had a chance to turn him away from the Book of Dreams before, and I did not.”

Clare started. “A...Book of Dreams?”

“Yes, he got it from my father. I think.”

“To think, the magic could be written down, explained. Perhaps it wasn’t magic at all. I think your father said that Creed came from the university after all. A man of science might very well design something beyond my understanding.”

“No Clare, it must be-no, it is what we would call magic proper, and I realize now it must be gotten rid of, lest it hollow out the very ground this city is built on.”

When Sara said this, there was a whisper in the dark corners of the rooms and a movement of air that brought a moment of unease. Both women noticed it, neither acknowledged it, and they turned their conversation to lighter things.

4.2

The old man was a strange wizard indeed. Lione and Hector, as the old one called himself, wandered from homestead to homestead. Just as Lione had done from east to west, Hector led them from west back to east, closer to the Gray City. Lione was keenly aware. He tried to distract himself from it.

The people of the wood loved Hector the Hermit. The men were all friendly, the women opened their doors, and the children crowded around begging for a trick. He would fein impatience, but his shining eyes couldn’t lie and he always made a coin or flower appear. Hector’s eyes were of special note. He would kid and josh, often telling falsehoods in such a dry tone as to border on lying. Lione had learned to look in Hector’s eyes as much as listen to his words. His eyes didn’t just not lie, but they seemed to clearly show the truth.

Whenever there were sick people, Hector would forgo the tricks and go straight to work. Lione watched him like a hawk. Hector hid his mending magic in orders for herbs and for the ill to be put in a new position. But it was obvious to Lione that Hector mended wounds with a power greater than a simple country doctor could command with medicine. The men would call him outside after meals to look at a chainsaw or a generator, and in the same way he would drawl and josh to hide the way he mended even metal and plastic with an unseen force.

Even with all this, Lione wondered if the healing power could be used to tear down as easily as build up.

They were tonight caught between homesteads, there was a heavy rain. The cave was dry, but small. The fire kept them warm. The rocks were not conducive to sleep. It would be a long night.

“What a way to live,” Lione said sarcastically. At least he tried to sound sarcastic. Hard to do when you are hungry. And wet. And very very tired from trying to not be wet and hungry. At any rate, the old man did not seem to catch the sarcasm.

“Yes, yes. I too prefer the woodland life.”

Lione scoffed internally as he dabbed at some of the mud on his face with his last red handkerchief, no longer clean nor as deep a red. He looked at it fondly. His whole wardrobe had been replaced with woodland garb other the last several weeks. The red handkerchief was frayed, but he kept it anyway, perhaps to remember his past, perhaps to deny his present.As he moved to put it away, he saw that Hector had noticed it. In fact he eyed it with no little interest. For almost the first time in his life, Lione felt a bit embarrassed. He tucked it away. Mumbling this or that. Trying to come up with an excuse for such a frivolous trinket out here in the wilds.

“It is a nice cloth, though it’s seen better days.” The old man had a more serious tone. There was intent in his voice. Something he wanted to, very carefully, find out.

“Yes, I used to have quite a few. I was known for them. I’m a little ashamed to say actually.”

“Such things seem...less important out here, I suppose.”

Lione looked askance at him. Hector held a sympathetic tone. It had surprised him. “Yes. Less important than, you know, trying to not die.”

“Oh, it’s all important young man. We humans are the same whether our habitat is the opera or the outback.”

Lione said nothing as he studied the crackling fire. He started to see a figure. He snapped back to his companion. “I-uh, yeah, I guess.” The figure was gone. “I miss the life I built for myself back in the gray city, if I were to be honest..”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Well, mostly I stole it. From the corrupt lords of the senate and the judges, good old King Creed’s friends. I gave some of it away. Told myself I was some sort of folk hero, but really, I stole cause I liked to.”

“In a place where we feel like slaves, crime makes us free in a way.” The old man noticed Lione’s askance eyes. “Well, maybe you stole because you felt it was really yours by right anyway.”

“I suppose, maybe. You know, I was a slave. Literally.” The old man straightened, wide-eyed. “No, really. My mother died when I was twelve. The orphanage auctioned me off a year later, since Creed made it legal thereabouts. Sold me to a high-born Household, where the Lord beat me till I did his bidding.”

“I...I am sorry.”

“It lasted five years, I think. Until I was strong enough to run.”

“Five years? A long time to wait, if escape is possible.”

“What part of ‘slave’ do you not understand?” There was darkness in Lione’s eyes.

The Hector bore his glare for a moment, and then lifted up his robe to show his forearm. Deep cuts were visible in the shape of letters and numbers. The hair on his arms did not grow back at the wrist after the shackles fell. “I was sent away from the city a long, long time ago. Not of my own will. I worked on one of the farms your Creed built. The only thing that kept me there was the fact they broke whatever limbs I did not need to work.”

The rain continued.

Lione was speechless. He did not like to be reminded how little he was, how insignificant his life had been, how small his burdens. “I guess I...I had a friend. She was my owner’s daughter. I thought...well, it doesn’t matter. You are right.”

“The pattern on your...piece of cloth,” he rolled his sleeve back down “it is an interesting one, where is it from?”

Lione appreciated the change of topic. “It’s a design my mother would draw on any piece of paper she could. She had a, a necklace with it in gold. Her only ever piece of jewelry. Claimed it was a crest of the Lionhearted, and that I was secretly royalty.”

“Where did she get it.” The question was a whisper.

“A different story every time. Once she said a prince asked her for a kiss, and she demanded it as payment. Another time she said she got it from a star that fell to earth. And once, once she said she won it at a grand ball from a king.” Lione smiled wryly. “I buried her with it.”

The old man covered his face with his hands and sobbed.

“Well, I mean, I don’t think I could have gotten much for it, and I couldn’t bear to take it from the old woman.”

The Hector reached out and placed something in Lione’s hand. It was a silver necklace in an intricate design. It was unfamiliar at first. Then Lione grabbed at his pocket and pulled out the red cloth with his mother’s pattern. He placed the jewelry next to the embroidery: they were halves of the same whole. Lione looked up sharply and studied Hector’s face, looking for the truth in his eyes.

The rain came down.

“I, Lione, I...don’t know how to tell you what I have to tell you.”

Lione retreated from him, as much as he could in the dry parts of the crag they camped in.

“First you need to know I loved your mother. That’s probably why she had a life longer than our love: no matter what, Creed was not able to rip her memory out of where I hid it,” he tapped his temple, “way deep, way far back.”

“You, you,” Lione’s face was twisted in pain, “where were you?”

“I was taken away, turned into a monster to serve Creed’s Dream.”

Lione stood, ignoring the rain. “You? You had a part in this? You helped to build the Dream that has choked my city? My people?”

“Long before you ever were it was my city, boy.” The old man’s voice boomed, and there was a light in him that held more heat than the fire. He calmed and said “do not think I do not know the number of my own sins.”

Lione stood for a moment more. He slowly sank back to where he sat before.

“I only hope you can forgive me, son.”

Lione was surprised that his eyes had watered. He put all feeling aside. He remembered the fight. “That depends, Father Lionheart, on what you can teach me.”

4.3

Smoke. Everywhere. Really hard to see when there was this much smoke. Daniel coughed and waved his hand about for a minute, then remembered.

“Oh yeah, I’m a wizard.” He stopped the aimless waving and made a pointed gesture. Smoke vanished from the room. “Well, that one certainly diffused quickly enough, but it lacked any potency.”

How come you refuse to use my ways.

“Because your ways were, like, bad.” Daniel mumbled as he flipped through his handwritten calculations. “No, no, this is all good, maybe I typed them in wrong.” He turned his attention to the computroial unit that governed the mixing of his chemicals.

My ways were effective.”

“Effective is relative.”

So is ‘bad’.

Daniel pushed away from his desk. “You know what? Fine, let’s do this. Right here, come on. Tell me again how you were misunderstood, how you wanted to make this city great, how only you could see.”

You have the book. You know everything I have told you is true.

“So just because one and one equals two, you get to resurrect slavery? Suspend due process? Hell, even today there aren’t any newspapers, you were so good at killing journalists.”

All these are such little things.

“Seem like pretty big things to me.” Daniel turned back to his work. “So the inputs are all right, mayber the spectrometer is coded wrong. Geez, this was way simpler when I was working with bleach and aloe vera.”

You know what I was contending with. You know the battle I was fighting.

“Something something, eternal life, something something. I don’t know, there’s only so much crazy I can remember.”

You have the whole Book of Dreams by memory.

“Ok, so, ok, I brag about one thing and you are just going to hold me to that standard my whole life, great. You know how little that means anyway, because someone keeps shifting the pages around” Daniel tinkered with the machinery for a moment more, and then dropped his tools and stood silently. “I know how you want me to do this. But everytime I use it, bend it how I like, well, you get louder. I’m guessing that’s a bad thing.” Daniel threw his hand up briefly. “Oh, sorry, there’s that word bad again. Comes up a lot lately.”

These tools have served you well, but you know they are far too limited.

Daniel straightened. These beakers and wires held far too little data. The computorial unit could only handle so much mathematics. The voice was right. He looked over to the tall table off in the corner. There was the Book.

Read the Book, enter the Dream, it holds the answers you seek. It has the way forward.

Daniel walked over, and touched the book.

Do it, Daniel Dreamwalker.

“I am not you.” Daniel shifted the book so that it sat square on the table. “I am not a monster. I do this because…” Daniel had to think for a minute.

You do it because of the doom that is coming, nothing more. Nothing more.

“No, no. I-someone, I need to help someone.” Daniel spun around the room, dark and dank, deep underground beneath the capitol building of the gray city. He found no remembrance of why he was there doing what he was doing. He closed his eyes, cast himself wider, reaching out to the city streets. Midday, normal traffic. He went higher, looking at the taller buildings. People at work, in apartments. Higher still, till he could see the whole picture. The city was huge, dozens of towering buildings. At that moment there were two star planes in the air, one going, one coming to the world port.

Look at this great city, I merely wanted to bring it forward into eternity. You can do that in my stead. Perhaps better than I would have.

Daniel looked about. There had to be a reason. What was it? Why was he losing sleep and hadn’t seen Sara for weeks-

No

“Sara!” Daniel shot to the Queen, there in the reception room, knee-deep in the affairs of state. She was beautiful. She kept the city alive, and well. Daniel could find no reason for what he was doing. He opened his eyes, and realized how small his basement was, how sickly it smelled. “Enough! What is this, I-I have been dreaming! You are dead and gone, there is no need for this poisonous yellow magic, this secret science. She-she needs-I could be of great help to her, if I was not so selfish. I need, I need air.” Daniel turned and twisted, looking for the door. Why did he hide it so well? He beat on the cinderblock for a minute. Then, begrudgingly, he stepped back and made the signs to open the door. He stepped out, and then back in to rummage for his coat, and then he left intending never to return.

He was in such a rush that he didn’t even notice. The Book of Dreams had fallen from its table, and lay open on the floor. Yellow whispers bled from the pages and through the air.

Image from Pixabay, words mine. Thank you so much for reading, this part got way longer than any of the others but I couldn't help myself. Criticism welcome.

-Matthew