The Withered Land: Dragons and Marauders

Dragons and Marauders, Part Seven

Kolag Y'phree had left the Quarry-master back in his dark, damp mines under The City and returned to the municipality's Government Hall, in the metropolitan inner district beyond the walls of his centrally-located, many spired castle.

"I don't like where this is going, not at all. I think we're exposing ourselves and The City to far too much risk to no great purpose," she said, the words rushing out past her lips were driven by displeasure and disbelief. "You have to realize that the general public have no idea that here, in this place, we are experiencing a regenesis of Old Science,Tekk-dominance over the other territorial provinces nearby. They're still living at ground-level, still caught up in the day-to-day distress of living in a society whose better days are long behind it, in a world where everything is winding down."

"People are tired, weary, after many dozens of solar heliars of living under The Wound, watching their once great civilization gradually fall into medievalism and savagery. In such circumstances, their hunger for security and order overrides their common sense and they fall into a resurgence of mysticism and myth. They search for something special, something greater than themselves, beyond their collective abilities and perceptions, to pull them out from the grips of desperation," he said.

Standing under the light filtered through the vast stained glass skylight in the rotunda next to his Audience Room, Kolag Y'phree sighed, his eyes at half-mast as he regarded his guest, who prowled his boardroom agitatedly. That guest was his Grand Vizier, his de-facto Prime Minister, who spoke to him with such bald familiarity, he could just barely tolerate the chiding disapproval in her voice. Under different circumstances, he would have shouted her down and commanded her to be silent, but the Vizier was Karliandras Dru'ell, one of his most trusted, and most knowledgeable, Cabinet members. She was shrewd and she was as much a fighter as he himself, albeit in a different arena. He resisted his natural combative impulse to control the conversation, to wrestle it away from being a debate, and forced himself to listen.

"We are committing our resources far too publicly to the pursuit of greater and greater technological reclamation," she said. "People who've just experienced the unsettling chaos of bank closures and services-guild collapses, not to mention increasing power grid failures and food riots, do not want to know that their leader and their government are more interested in securing more tonnage of a rare and fanciful mystery metal than fix the City's crumbling physical infrastructure, re-establish trade relations with the more agronomic outlaw provinces surrounding us, or lower the price of meat."

"But we are in an ever escalating arm's race with those self-same outlaw provinces you referred to, not to mention simultaneously supporting military actions protecting The City from other warlords who have threatened our autonomy since our failed succession from the Emperium," Y'phree said pointedly.

Karliandras Dru'ell levelled a fierce glare at the warlord. "And who is, through ever increasing tribute to the Office of the Exchequer, paying for those military actions? And what are they getting in return for that tribute? And, most importantly, how in the Nine Galactic Hells do we keep hold of the reins of power over a dissatisfied population who are beginning to think maybe things were better under the Emperium than under YOUR rule? Certainly not by letting word of our obsession to have a monopoly on Ikarenium resources spill out onto the streets..."

Kolag Y'phree pursed his lips and coolly regarded the Vizier. She was a middle-aged, pear-shaped, milky-skinned fat woman, taller than the average height of most women in the City, but not spectacularly so, and that still left her a head shorter than Y'phree. She wore her iridescently black hair in an unfashionably short cut with straight bangs across her forehead hiding her widow's peak. Her round shoulders and most of her back was bare. A wide brass collar wound around her short, thick neck. Over her heavy and bountiful bosom was a metallic brassiere of wound metal coils. Nothing else encased her torso. Due to a rare neurological skin disorder, she dressed quite immodestly, wearing very little clothing. She was afflicted with a hyper-sensitivity to touch that was, on the planet Earth, called "Dysesthesia", but was referred to on Teshiwahur as "kr'i'ternagus". Among the peoples of the Withered Land, the abnormal, uncommon disease was thought of as a divine punishment, a type of stigmata, visited upon those chosen by the Cosmic Gods who were destined to leave a dark mark on history. Educated Teshiwahurians knew better: it was a genetic disorder, a sign of neurological synaptic failure, a corruption of the flesh. The unpleasant and discomforting sensations that clothing and other things brushing against her flesh induced caused occasional involuntary tics, making her appear preoccupied or inattentive, though, truthfully, she was anything but distracted. She wore a multicolored, floor-length diaphanous skirt that floated lightly upon her wide buttocks and thick legs. Yet despite her stout, chunky figure, she carried herself with the grace and agility of an athlete ... or a feline predator.