Chapter 109 – The Palendurio Crisis

Mirian made it down to the canals with only a few people pointing and shouting about her, then dropped her night camouflage as she flew inside, taking several twists and turns through the reinforced caves, passing a boat full of very surprised laborers moving supplies through the waterways. Once she was out of sight, she landed and cast detect life again, but all she saw were the forms of people moving about on the boats through the tunnels. There was no cluster of twenty of them moving together.

She wandered through the passages, seeing if there were any boats smuggling people out inside crates, or Palendurio Guards riding the rafts, but found neither. She cast detect metal, enhanced to have a mental component so no one else could see the glow, hoping that if the guards had taken off their armor she could detect it, but the usual merchants were carrying around too many goods with metal in them for anything to look out of place. She would need a more specific divination spell, and she didn’t have one. Always next time, she thought.

The group seemed to have disguised themselves and dispersed. This cycle, she wouldn’t find them, but she’d know where to wait next time. At this point, she was sure the guards were impostors of some kind. The murder of the guard at the gate was evidence enough of that. But who? she wondered.

By then, she was tired, and low on mana. She headed back to the inn for dinner.

The commons of the Bard and Lion Inn was ablaze with rumors. Mirian ordered a meal from the counter, then sat in her usual corner. All around, everyone was talking.

“—heard that the guard just came in wands blazing! Literally, that thing burned like—”

“—what in the hells were they thinking? Couldn’t have been the guard, why would they do that? Why would anyone do that?”

“—talked to a woman who said they saw a pile of bodies—”

“—explosion, outside the city. He said it was an attack, saw spells getting flung about—”

Mirian started eating, when a man sat across from her.

“This seat taken?” he asked.

“It is now,” Mirian said.

“You hear what happened?” he said, peering around the room, then out the window. “Can’t believe it. The Akanan Embassy, attacked! I heard it was the Praetorians,” he said.

Mirian shrugged. “It looked like the Palendurio Guard to me. Then again, anyone can wear that armor.”

“You saw it? Damn. Did they really attack the crowd?” He didn’t actually wait for her to answer, though. Clearly, he had a lot of nervous energy and just wanted to talk. “There’s a rumor going around that there was an attack north of the city. You think the attack on the embassy was retaliation? And the Akanan merchants are in on it. Damn, always knew they were scheming. They talk to each other, you know? Back each other. You think they might try to retaliate?”

Mirian leaned back, really looking at the man for the first time. He certainly looked worried. But she’d heard that rumor before, in tomorrow’s broadsheets. It seemed a bit early to be suspecting the Akanan merchants of anything. Do the Akanan merchants already have a reputation like that? Or is there a campaign to spread the rumors? “Where’d you hear that from?” Mirian asked.

“People are talking,” the man said.

“So… someone on the street? How would they know if the merchants were conspiring?”

“The Akanan merchants are always talking to each other! Everyone knows that. Any time a new shipment comes in—”

“How do you know they talk?” Mirian asked.

The man abruptly stood, pushing his chair out. “Why am I talking to you?” he said, annoyed.

“I don’t know. You’re the one that sat down in front of me,” Mirian said.

The man glared at her, then left, muttering something about “young brats” as he did.

Interesting, Mirian thought.

***

The next morning, Mirian counted five broadsheets discussing the attack as ordered by Governor Palamas, and eight mentioning the rumor about the Akanans preparing to retaliate by burning warehouses, stores, boats, or sometimes even Palendurio apartments. Six of those eight called for patriotic Baracueli to defend their nation from Akanan sabotage. The language the newspapers used was surprisingly similar. Of course, the average person probably didn’t cross-reference twelve different papers every day, so who would notice?

The rumblings in the streets continued all morning. Then, as Mirian watched from her balcony, the riots started. Over by the docks, a warehouse burned. At lunch, she heard that a mob had seized five merchants by River Station and beaten them, possibly to death. Meanwhile, a march of citizens to Ducastil had been attacked with sparkfire cacaphony and several other spells, and two Baracueli had died in the resulting panicked stampede.

Throughout the day, there were more mob attacks, and people came and went from the streets. It seemed most people were trying to figure out what was going on, but as the day went on, it seemed that rumor became fact, and soon the crowds were roaming about with purpose. There were several more attacks on Akanan merchants. On the river, two boats burned.

Mirian watched it all, aloof and impartial. It felt like a puppet show playing out before her, but only she could see the strings.

The next day, the Baracuel Army marched into Palendurio to restore order.

That just led to street fighting. Unlike the guards, the soldiers didn’t have crowd-control spells, so instead they were using force push and the occasional combat spell. Meanwhile, the crowds threw bricks and formed blocks to push back against the soldiers. A few magi were part of the civilian crowds, so it wasn’t purely one-sided, but in several cases, the soldiers fired into the crowd, which usually got them to run, but only temporarily. Then they’d be back, larger than ever. More rumors spread of strange explosions.

By the 23rd, the street violence seemed as perpetual as the wind.

“Where are the Arcane Praetorians?” Mirian asked a woman at the Bard and Lion that evening.

“I heard they’re not here. Went on some secret mission down south, and never came back. Well, it’s a good thing they did go south, you know? There’s that horrid Persaman general threatening Alkazaria, but it’s our Praetorians holding him back. I don’t know why everyone’s so mad at Akanans now. It’s the Persamans we need to chase out of the city. I’m sure they’re just waiting for their opportunity,” she said.

Mirian contemplated that. She thought about what Nicolas would say about it all. If the mob violence was organic and spontaneous, they should be targeting the Persamans as the timeline has changed. Every cycle, the southern time traveler makes more progress, but the events here stay the same. It must be planned. I wonder how many people it takes spreading a rumor for it to take hold?

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That night, Mirian watched from high above the city as mobs tore about the streets, battling guards, soldiers, or the mercenaries the Akanan merchants were hiring to protect themselves. Outside the city, she would occasionally see an orange and violet flash of light as a minor magical eruption took place.

“Did you hear? Akana Praediar is declaring war on us!” the chef told her in the morning as he set breakfast down in front of her. “It must have been a surprise attack. There’s explosions all around Palendurio. But the Baracuel Army is here, in the city! They should be out there, fighting.”

By the 25th, Hanaran was likely starting to gather her forces to move north, though no one in Palendurio was talking about it. The trains north had stopped running, which told Mirian the damage to the tracks had severed all the lines to Cairnmouth. Midday, the General of the Western Armies, Kallin Corrmier, occupied Parliament.