The Song Guardian

2: The Council

The Council Chambers, at Shy

The Chamber, as it was called, was precisely that, a chamber. It was round and as tall as two houses, crowned in a wondrous colored glass ceiling. The walls were made of the finest hardwoods, panels decorated in fine carvings, flower motifs, leaf motifs, both at odds with the flower and leaf-deprived landscape that dominated the province of Thallica and the smog and dirt that daily was ejected into the ever-thickening atmosphere. They ought to have a Master of Fresh Air, and clean up the city instead of opening up more mines we don't need, Danthrey mused as he looked around at the gathered faces, wondering how he was faring.

Shy was the name of the council's seat, built high on a mount that commanded a panorama view of the ocean and the ply of the steamers and barges ferrying coal and ore to the cities of the other provinces. Danthrey had called the meeting as was his right, calling on the Articles that gave him the right to present evidence in a case being presented against a defendant, the defendant being himself in this case.

The case had been brought by the Council Master himself. He was still studying the seal as it lay on the table, next to the parchment. Fultergroot his name was, a toad of a man with a stomach that hung below the etiquette of decency, small pig-like eyes and sagging cheeks framed by the kind of face that schemed and plotted to keep his affairs in correct order, no matter the decisions that needed to be taken, or the other people such decisions made miserable. All as long as it fit within his grand scheme of self-preservation.

He stood with feet splayed, staring at the seal and snorted, then raised his head and fixed Danthrey with a stare that lasted longer than was comfortable. 'Is this it?'

Danthrey nodded.

'This is quite an accusation you are making.'

'Not an accusation, merely illumination,' Danthrey said silkily. 'It is the same likeness, of that there can be no doubt,' he said, raising a hand to straighten the curls in his long grey hair hanging below his shoulders on his chest, something he did when feeling uncomfortable. He was motioning to the two symbols, one from the parchment, an observation made my a mariner of old, and the one he had sketched from memory, the day he had seen the boat from the decks of the Black Ship. No could call his own memory into question, so the move, while a bold one had served to draw an undeniable connection.

Danthrey of Olcander was not what could be called a humble man. Forthright, correct, erect of back, fine of cloth and sharp in sight, if he wasn't called Danthrey then he was simply known as the Master of Engines, one of the five Master of Machines. Of the other Machine-Masters, all were assembled around the large circular table – being the Master of Ektromagnetos, the Master of Mills, the Master of Levers and the Master of Flying-devices.

Danthrey had the first premonition something wasn't quite in order when he passed the Halls of Time. A cavern of ingenuity, this was a monument to the fine workings of the human mind. Here was displayed in chronological order, every invention small, big and gargantuan that had ever been made, a record in time of where the great civilisation had come to and where it was going to. It was here he noticed the smug expression on the face of Egwart Pobblethract, the Master of Levers. He'd been talking in idle conversation with the Master of Ektromagnetos Humford Lombor who, at some unheard remark from the lips of Pobblethract had turned and smirked in his direction, hands folded within the sleeves of his Master's gown.

'And you believe this comes from foreign shores?' The words came from Emilan Drastovàs, the flamboyant Master of Trade.

'I do.'

As for the others, there was support of course from the quarter of Master Pyginius De Lorthial, the Master of Words, and Narrus Otillis, the Master of Weaponry.