Snippet #1690019

The cost of any great change is never low. If the innovators are lucky, it is paid in time and money alone. But for those who have no such patience nor an excess of resources, it seems most often to be paid in blood, and not always that of the guilty. Sometimes, the innocent among us are the casualties. Perhaps there was no such thing as innocence in the world that Revelation was on that day. I disagree. There was much, and much was lost.

---

The morning of David Gilgamesh’s Parliamentary hearing signaled the beginning of a cold snap; most of those with windows awoke to find them somewhat frosted over, the glass covered in a textured coat of white crystals. The Prime Minister himself, his son at his side, approached the government building in silence equally chilly, breath misting out into the air in steady streams, indicative of, if anything, the fact that he was entirely nonplussed with the state of affairs.

Was he guilty of that which he was being accused? The simplest answer was yes, though there was more intricacy to it than that damned Minerva and her pet nobles would ever understand. Truly, the only reason he was enduring this spectacle at all was because, once it was over, he would have publicly discredited the crown, and would in all likelihood force his bitter enemy’s abdication, leaving the girl Loki to scramble after threads and try to avoid having her own strings tugged at his will.

Seth, for his part, seemed a fair bit less certain, if the way his eyes were rapidly moving about said anything on the matter. “Patience, boy,” Gilgamesh intoned, not entirely without kindness. “It will be over with in due time.” What he diligently avoided saying was that this, all of it, was in truth little more than a primer for the day’s true events. Everything that was said in this hall would be said with deliberate care, while the rest of the city was being prepared for his eventual dominion over it, and in turn, his heir’s.

The duke himself was not well-known for his own ability to wait, and perhaps due to this, his words startled the younger man into sedateness, even as they crossed the threshold of the hall. The great room that served as the meeting place for Revelation’s legislature was today rearranged for the proceedings: the Parliament-elected Magister would sit at an elevated bench, on the dais usually reserved for the three thrones occupied or left vacant by members of the royal family. Today, though, justice was to be the supreme arbiter, and all other considerations of blood and birth must kneel before it.

Well, that was the intended symbolism anyway. Whether anyone still believed such things or not was beyond his ability to know; he supposed that upstart Taylor might think it. He certainly didn’t. Two smaller tables were placed in front of the bench, facing it, and at one, the Princess sat. The other was as yet empty, and it was into the chairs here, high-backed and wooden, that Duke Gilgamesh and Seth seated themselves. The rest of Parliament, the Queen, and a few guild representatives (including, he noted with distaste, that simian soft-heart Forgefire) were off to one side.

Seems Minerva needs her whelp to fight her battles now, he thought to himself, but then perhaps this would play to his advantage. Instead of some nameless Crown attorney losing the case, it would be the very person who’d need what shreds of credibility she could salvage most, and to have failed here would certainly go far towards ensuring that those shreds were insubstantial.

The Magister entered, and everyone stood as he proceeded to the bench and took his chair, gesturing for the others to do the same. “I understand that we are here in the matter of the Crown versus Duke David Gilgamesh; I will hear opening statements from both parties.”

With that, the Princess stood, and their little game was on.

---

District Delta

This is it. What had begun fifty years ago was ending today. Gilgamesh’s people were going to be underground, planting bombs under strategic locations and government buildings. Just as the Facility has disappeared as ash on the wind, so would all the other fixtures of the oppression of his people. The palace where the Queen sat on high and refused to help them, the Parliament building where laws were continually made to oppress them, the Guild that posed the largest threat to their continued equality, and the several Guard barracks that would provide them with opposition as they marched to take Alpha.

A glance to his side informed Azazel that his wife looked troubled. It was an expression she had been wearing too often lately, and he wondered sometimes if his methods did not sit ill with her. He knew that on some level they probably did, but she was not in truth one of those who could understand so keenly how it was to be looked upon as nothing but freakish vermin, in the way rats are gazed upon in a laboratory. For so long, they had been pushed down, forced to subsist on the dirt underneath the feet of everyone else, but no longer.

“Be at ease, my love; no great change comes easily, and it will all be for the better. You’ll see.” Idealist though Aram was, he could be perfectly pragmatic when he needed to be, and this was one such moment. She simply stared at him sadly and shook her head.

“I do not think it wise to trust the Duke,” she said simply, but before he could respond, he caught the voice of his lieutenant and looked away. Ishtar sighed softly and disappeared back into their home. She doubted she’d ever see him again, but he would not be pleased to hear she was entertaining such thoughts, and so she clasped Sigrun’s little hand and turned from him, whispering her sad-eyed farewells to the wind.

---

Underneath District Gamma

As it turned out, there were no bombs being planted underneath the palace or the Parliament building or even the barracks. David Gilgamesh and those associated with him wanted as much of the city’s best infrastructure preserved as possible. What they really wished to destroy was everything outside of District Beta, and to this end, a ring of explosives was being set in Revelation’s sewer system. The Domes were being preserved, but the rest of it, as far as those affiliated with the Duke and his friends were concerned, could burn and only make the city stronger for it.

The magi marching on Alpha would never make it that far, but they would get far enough to be killed, en masse, in the resultant conflagration. The charlatans and the mindless laboring filth would go with them, and something much more precious would be returned in their stead.

To ensure it, half the private armies of Gilgamesh and those with him were currently marching, as surreptitiously as one can march such a large contingent of humanity, to meet them. The resulting melee would be confusing, bloody, and most of all drawn-out, which was exactly what the plan required.

---

Amon, Victoria, and Scheherazade were in the same group of assassins, each also containing an explosives specialist from either the Guild or elsewhere (Amon hadn’t specified on purpose). The job of the rest was to protect this individual from any encounters with the bomb-setters, who were also bound to be travelling under armed guard.

They encountered the first such contingent not three minutes after first entering the tunnels. Rounding a corner, the group was able to see the retreating backs of five men, as well as the bomb they left in their wake. Amon was the first to move, and closed the distance without noise, springing upon the back of the person who looked to be the technician and driving his shortsword through the man’s neck. The result was utter chaos, something his unit would have known to expect but left the enemy in muddled confusion.

His own technician immediately made for the explosive, trusting the others to keep the opposition well away from him.

---

District Gamma, aboveground.

The magi and the soldiers met, in fact, on the border between District Delta and District Gamma. When the two fronts were forced to a stop by each other, Azazel was for a moment confused. Some of the men clearly wore the livery of House Gilgamesh, and for this reason, he initially expected them to be allies. All of that changed the instant the first one fired a crossbow bolt straight through the heart of Aram’s oldest friend and trusted second-in-command, sending the man toppling over, clutching ineffectually at his chest.

It was then, he supposed, that the world went straight to hell.

---

The Nexus, Parliament Building.

“You will hear evidence today that not only has Duke Gilgamesh resorted to kidnapping and extortion to force votes in his favor, but also that he was and still is the driving force behind the current magi rebellion.” Loki watched a few incredulous looks pass over faces; why would someone who clearly despises mages so much aid in their violence towards other citizens? Are you truly all that simple? But no, that wasn’t it. They just hadn’t spent the last year and a half of their lives discovering it, piece by agonizingly-small piece.

She’d never been the sort to deliver good public speeches, and it was showing. Though her arguments had been systematic and sound, she was boring them, and she knew it. Gilgamesh himself had elected to skip any statement in his own favor, and the reason for that was becoming apparent. She was digging her own grave.

Gritting her teeth, Loki discarded the rest of the planned rhetoric and cut to the quick. “You have all seen it. You know what corruption looks like, what face it wears. Perhaps that face is yours as well, but it is certainly his. I have grown up in a city where this man is Prime Minister, and I have known no other. But even I am not so steeped in his influence to believe that there is nothing better for Revelation than a man who so deftly manipulates, so easily resorts to the worst of crimes to achieve his ends. Even I am not so blind as to ignore the evidence laid out before my eyes. And I can only hope fervently that you are not, either.”

She took her seat, leaving a few looking somewhat offended. Good; offended meant they’d actually sit up and pay attention, rather than assume the end before the proceedings had yet begun. The next part was up to Caelin; he was going to call Lord Chandler to the stand and reveal the narrative concerning young Benjamin, as well as in what circumstances the boy had eventually been found, and any other evidence he happened to have in his possession. She hadn’t asked, but simply trusted him to do what was best. Then Garbiel would be allowed to say his piece. Depending on how things looked by then, and how Gilgamesh’s own cross-examinations of these people went, she had one more recourse to make.

All she could do now was sit back and watch the events unfold.