The Sword Maiden

A System

Red-Haired rubbed his chin at Redwar's question.  "What'd you mean?"  

Redwar leaned forward.  "Where's the main water supply for the miners?"  

"A well that is on the outside of the houses.  It's close enough for all the women or children to walk to.  There's a creek beyond that, but it's a little far for them to go each morning." 

"What supplies the water for the Mayor's household?"  

"They have their own well on that side of town."  

Redwar leaned back and tapped his fingers.  "You say that the Mayor threatened to let you starve.  Who's to say he wouldn't let you thirst?"  

Red-Haired curled his hands around his mug.  "That's a mighty mean accusation to make, mister.  Our Mayor, he's just got a few kinks to be worked out, is all.  We'll learn him a lesson, and that'll be the end of it, like it always is." 

"Always is?"  Interjected Valeria.  "You mean you've had this problem before?"  

"Course we have.  Well, not us personally, but our fathers before us, and their fathers before them."   

"How does that work?"  Asked Derrek.  "I mean, surely the Mayors would've learned their lesson by now?"

Red-Haired grinned.  "Sonny, you're young.  You ain't lived as long as we have, or as this town has.  Time's Tale has been around for nearly three hundred years.  We've survived the Two Wars, several droughts, and all manner of things.  Even a Ravager raid or two."

"Men's nature hasn't changed in all that time.  The Tales' still forget, they still try to take advantage of us.  And we always show them that they can't, somehow, and that's the end of it."  

I sat back as I pondered this.  It seemed highly unlikely to me that was the case.  I was surprised none of the Tales' had been smart enough to learn a lesson from the past.  

But then again, maybe I shouldn't be.  Humans were the same everywhere.  

"Do you think you could back up and just tell us, how this town got started?"  Redwar asked.  "Because we're all pretty curious.  We've never come across a town like this before.  Oh, by the way, what is your name?"  

"I'm Mr. Lotcin, Mr. Tate Lotcin.  These two here are my brothers," he said with a jerk of his thumb to the others seated beside him.  "And who are you?" 

"I'm Redwar Volan.  This is Daxton."  He pointed to Derrek and Me.  "Those two are siblings, their names are Ravine and Derrek SwordCleaver.  And this one is Valeria SwordCleaver."  

Mr. Lotcin nodded at each of us.  "Pleased to meet you,"  he said politely. 

He turned to his two brothers.  "Joel, Bobin, you can head home now to your wives if you like."

"Alright, if you're sure you won't need us," said Joel as he stood.  However, I could tell he was eager to leave.  

Tate nodded.  "I'll be fine."  

"Watch out when you head home."  Bobin pushed in his chair.  "Mayor's Tale watching you."  

Tate rolled his eyes.  "He won't be able to lay a finger on me, now get on with you."  

Joel shook his head.  "I don't like it.  Be careful."  

"You two are worse than mother used to be, now I tell ya, I'll be fine.  Get going!"  

The two younger brothers exchanged smiles and left the tavern. 

Mr. Lotcin leaned back in his chair and called out, "Mr. Time, another one if you please!"

As Mr. Time came over with another beer, Mr. Lotcin began his story. 

"Our town was founded about 283 years ago.  It began with the first Thathians, who came from the Bretorian hills.  They were miners, who's hills had either run dry or been confiscated by the Ravagers or Bretorians."

"Now, once you're a miner, you're always one.  Our ancestors had a dream.  They wanted their own hills to mine, ones they could rightly fight for.  They weren't going to let their mines be taken from them, they wanted the legacy to pass onto their children."  

"So, we traveled until we reached here.  The hills here aren't very high, as you have seen.  But beneath the surface they're right rich with ore of all kinds.  We've found gold and silver as well.  There'll be enough to last us 'bout 300 years more, at the rate we're going."  

"We settled here, but it wasn't long before we found that those who governed us were tryin' the same tactics as those back home had.  It appeared no one was immune to greed."

Mr. Lotcin paused for a drink of beer before going on.  

"This here tavern was the meeting place when the men finally had enough.  They met here to discuss what to do about this problem, and the solution reached was to kick out the existing government and instill a new Mayor."  

"So they did that.  A couple years went by, and the hills remained profitable.  But the Mayor started doing the same thing as before.  We met here again, kicked him out, installed a new one.  Couple years passed, it happened again.  Each time it happened, the Mayor's were more clever 'n how they got around us kicking them out, and this time around we realized that if we didn't do something, soon we would be under some Mayor's thumb and never be able to get out."  

I stroked Bound as I thought about this.  Wisdom dictated that you shouldn't try the same thing over and over again.  Human nature, apparently, dictated otherwise.

"About this time, a wise old man came through town.  To this day, we don't know what his name was.  We do about know for sure he was Ravagerian."

I perked up at this.  "He was what?"  

Mr. Lotcin nodded.  "We know he was, he had the Ravagerian symbol of the time tattooed on his wrist.  'Course, we didn't see it till he was leaving, otherwise we might notta taken his advice."  

"And what was his advice?"  Redwar leaned forward.  

"He said we needed to work out a system that was..."  Mr. Lotcin tapped his fingers.  "More complicated than an ordinary government system, if'n we didn't want this to keep happening."

"We were to establish a Mayor, like usual, and obey him.  A Sheriff as well, with deputies 'n all that.  But the rest of the power would be in our hands, 'cause we switched the way the mining worked."  

"Whoever controls the mines is the one with all the power.  And we control them, because we're the ones mining.  Before, everyone mined and sold in his own way.  He mined it, he sold what he mined.  This included the Mayor, but he got an extra cut of everybody else's, 'cause he couldn't devote his full time to mining."  

"But what happened was that he'd hire others to mine for him, thus he'd mine more, get more money.  And then he had power over the farmers who supply us with food, or the blacksmith who's contracted to make mining tools.  Plus, he could buy and bring in armed men to make us conform."  

I nodded as I began to understand how it worked.  "But couldn't you have stopped giving him that extra cut?"  

"We could, and we did sometimes.  But he 'n Sherriff also need it to make a descent living.  You can't govern and mine at the same time while making enough to support yourself or your family.  If he's gonna be Mayor, he's gotta eat too."  

"Makes sense.  So, how'd you switch it?"  

"The Mayor no longer mines.  He takes over selling what we mine, and gets a share of the profits.  It's much more lucrative that way for all.  But if he tries what he's doing now, we can just shut him down by not mining.  At least then, everybody suffers, and if'n anybody was on his side, well, they change their minds pretty quick.  Plus, the farmers and blacksmith are paid by us now, so he has no control over them."

There were nods all around the table as we all realized the uniqueness of this system.  I'd never heard of anything like it.  And what was more interesting was that it'd been a Ravagerian to suggest it.