“Can you elaborate?” Rafiq added.
Aisha sat in a chair next to Rafiq, Zawar in a chair beyond him. Opposite of the three of them, the five Glorestrian guards also sat.
In addition, of course, the First Slime of Glorestra and his retinue of mages stood near the entryway to their too small and very stuffy meeting room.
“Most certainly,” The—Aisha was running out of names to call this . . . —First Prince . . . said. “You see, for a hundred and seventy years, it was knowledge that there were three types of mages.
“To reveal a fourth would upend the entire system. Not to mention—these mages do not fit a niche in our society at all, and as far as we know, are few and far in between. The two cases we know of are delinquents.
“In concern of potential panic or fear to the populace, let us conceal this knowledge for now. This is all in consideration for our lasting social cohesion.”
Aisha squinted at the First Prince and frowned. She didn't buy that at all. Was the First Prince trying to hide them? Was he invested in them in some way?
The mage most directly behind the First Prince reached forward and tapped him on his left shoulder. The mage's right hand held their staff.
“Ah!” He exclaimed. “Yes, the time! I almost forgot, thank you. It was nice talking to you, Legislator Rafiq. I must be going now.”
The three closest mages to the door filed out. The First Prince followed, and then the final three mages stepped out, keeping him nice and safe in the middle of the pack.
Nobody closed the door to the little meeting room.
Aisha snorted. “What a convenient bail.” She waved her hand in dismissal.
The Prince left suspiciously quick. Did he not want to continue covering up his little ordeal? Hmm . . .
The guards relaxed visibly, some sighed in relief. A great nuisance and tension had left the room. Thank Heliux for that. Aisha liked to believe it was the First Prince who had that effect, but for people besides her, the Prince's entourage of mages was probably the cause.
Rafiq sat there in silence for some time, stroking his chin. “Guards, you're dismissed.”
“Alas, you are most generous, Legislator Rafiq.” The second guard stood, bowed, and left.
The other guards gave similar little niceties and hurried out the room. Just a tad bit too quick, Aisha decided. Maybe they needed to relieve themselves or the like.
“Heliux forbid we actually need these guards for something," Aisha said. The day they needed the guards for defense of the city or its populace, they were all doomed. They were obviously cheaper than keeping mages as soldiers and guards, but also a thousand times weaker.
“Hey!” Zawar chastised. “Their presence does a great service in keeping an illusion of order. Fifty pounds of metal armor and a pointy weapon immediately sobers troublemakers.”
Aisha gave Zawar a mischievous grin. “You're jesting.”
“Yes, yes, we all know they're useless,” Zawar winked, then tossed his arms in the air. “They couldn't even catch two mages they had never seen before! Woe is Glorestra!”
“Okay . . . It's kind of fair that they couldn't prepare for that. Unique circumstances aside, they're still bad. Maybe we should cut our garrison?”
“Or increase funding for training and discipline. Maybe even anti-mage techniques,” Rafiq grumbled.
Aisha glared at him.
“What?” Rafiq returned the glare. “Diuskel's advocate? Yes? No? Whatever.”
Zawar grinned.
“Nevermind any of that. Let us head back to my office, I have a very intimidating amount of . . . imported goods on my desk and more matters to discuss, before I let you go.”
The three of them stood and left the empty meeting room. Aisha and Zawar followed Rafiq, their steps clacking against the stone floors, as they headed up the grand flight of stairs, and leftward through the legislature. They passed door after door, turned right, then left again, into the very deep recesses and bowels of the third shinier building in Glorestra. All of this, to get to their destination.
A broom closet.
Erm, actually, the room where the most powerful man in the building—during most times, the previous ten minutes excluded—worked in what was little more than a glorified storeroom.
A storeroom for fancy papers that determined policy and moved resources around like pieces on a game board. These papers were what Rafiq called “imported goods” earlier. The aboveground was too hot and dry and had too little water to give to plants, so Glorestra imported it all from the cavernous cities.
Who were they kidding? Glorestra imported everything from the cavernous cities.
Glorestra had meager amounts of livestock, tiny personal gardens, some basalt textile industry, and various scavenging through the tempest.
The aboveground was so devoid of natural resources, Aisha thought it dumb that even a handful of cities exploded in population above.
Rafiq pushed open the door to his tiny office. His candle did not flicker, and neither did llumifruits give off a faint, warm glow. Darkness consumed his room.
He picked up a piece of flint and another of steel, which sat right next to his lone candle. He struck the two together above the candle, until sparks flew and ignited the wick.
The shadows reluctantly shrunk back by the dim light.
“We really need to get you better lighting here,” Zawar said. “It's like a cave.”
Rafiq grunted. “Fine, I'll hang up a string of llumifruits later.”
“Will you?” Zawar raised an eyebrow.
Rafiq waved his hand. He walked around his desk and pulled out his chair, taking a seat.
“Oh, wonderful,” Rafiq's voice oozed with sarcasm. He picked up the paper at the top of the stack, skimmed it, and placed it to the side.
“Do I . . . need to be here?” Aisha asked.
Rafiq hastily repeated this for a couple others, until he picked up and moved almost the entire stack, and found a paper at the bottom. “Ah! Here.”
“What assistant put that stack on top of your current work? What lackluster performance,” Zawar noted.
Rafiq outstretched his hand, holding the paper.
Aisha took a hesitant step forward. What was on that paper? What could possibly pertain to her?
Rafiq waved the paper her way.
Aisha guessed there was one way to find out what was on that paper—short of asking Rafiq, of course. She continued her steps and took the paper from Rafiq's hand.
Aisha read the paper.
She looked up at Rafiq, eyes wide and mouth agape. “Y-you’re putting me on the . . . the search caravan for the Second Prince?”
Rafiq nodded, he put both elbows on the table, and rested his head on his fists. “His Majesty himself has signed for it. You finally get to leave your stuffy tower and go have fun.”
“I'm sorry, this doesn't seem like fun. I was more thinking about merchant caravans and harvesting wild animals . . .” Aisha frowned.
“It's because of your ability to track traces of spell usage,” Rafiq said. “Also, it has been agreed to let you in on merchant caravans if you do this. This is simply the favor asked.”
Ah, there it was, the permission from the higher-ups. No corruption necessary, just a whole lot of luck getting the attention of the First Prince.
No, actually, everything the First Prince did counted as corruption. Awesome! Aisha was recognized enough to be the receiving end of acts of corruption! Aisha was joking, of course.
Yet, why did the Prince's inclusion in this twist Aisha's stomach?
No matter, this was her key to leaving the tower behind her.
“I . . . I see,” Aisha's frown vanished. “I suppose this is okay.”
“It leaves tomorrow morning, you'll meet them at the western gate. Keep the paper with you.”
Aisha nodded. “I will, thank you.”
“Don't thank me. Thank no one.”
“What do you mean?” Aisha tilted her head. Okay, that line caught Aisha off guard. Rafiq worded it weirdly, to say the least.
“The First Prince wants you to leave,” Rafiq said. “I have a suspicion that things are going to get bad here.”
“Hmm.” She didn't know what to say to that. Something squirmed in her stomach. What was the First Prince planning? Why would he want Aisha to be out of the way? M-maybe he wasn't scheming anything. Maybe this was a gesture of good will, to finally let Aisha do more interesting activities for Glorestra, better befitting her mage status.
Aisha trusted Rafiq, he hadn't gotten to the top legislator position for nothing.
“Well, you're dismissed,” Rafiq's face creased with stress.
Aisha turned to leave. She crossed through the doorway when Rafiq spoke up again.
“Aisha?”
“Yes?” She glanced over her shoulder.
“You may want to burn that essay.”