The city had changed in his time as Lord Regent. Seranthia's great wall was no longer used as a quick and easy way to execute dissidents, leaving their corpses for the dogs. The rebuilding of the wealthy districts and squalid slums was well underway, and the market houses of the raja were again sacrosanct places where emissaries and trade delegations could engage with each other effectively. Yet there was little trade between the houses, for basic needs such as food and shelter surpassed requirements for Louan-made timepieces and Alturan-made armour. The streetclans still dominated the poorer districts, a problem unfortunately low on the list of issues to address.
The Lord Regent of the Empire rumbled along the Grand Boulevard in a drudge-pulled carriage, heading directly for the Imperial Palace. With him were his wife Amelia and adopted son Tapel. Lost in thought, Rogan's soldierly instincts suddenly made him look around.
At first he wasn't sure what had alerted him. Then, as soon as the carriage drew in sight of the Imperial Palace, he knew there was going to be trouble.
The Grand Boulevard was a broad avenue as straight as a rule, so wide a stone couldn't be thrown across it, and so long one end could not be seen from the other. Manicured parks with beds of scarlet flowers lined both sides of the street, and the statues of famous men and women from the past frowned down on the people below.
These people were now all heading in one direction. They were shouting and waving their arms.
Rogan could see a huge crowd assembling in Imperial Square, where the palace looked down haughtily on the common people below. Nothing in Seranthia was done at a small scale, and the Imperial Palace was no exception. A monumental edifice of crenulated walls and towers, with peaked white roofs poking from behind the battlements, the hundreds of windows only hinted at the size of the interior. Highest of all, rising from the palace above Imperial Square stood a tower with a railed balcony, from which the Emperors of the past had addressed the people of Seranthia.
Before he could open his mouth to alert the driver, the crowd grew thick around the carriage and Rogan knew it would be impossible to turn around. He leaned out the window, heedless of the people shouting in the street.
"Forward!" he growled at the driver. "Get closer to the palace!"
The drudge picked up speed, and space opened up in front of the carriage so that they were able to properly enter Imperial Square.
"Scratch it!" Rogan cursed. They were so close! He hoped the soldiers would see his carriage and send out some men.
He turned to Amelia and Tapel, both looking frightened. When they'd docked after their long voyage from Castlemere he'd been so concerned about the state of affairs he hadn't bothered waiting for an escort to arrive. His poor judgement may have jeopardised the lives of his family.
"Don't worry," Rogan muttered. "I'll sort this out."
The drudge could go no further and the carriage drew to a halt. Seeing this display of wealth at a time when farmers had no drudges to plough the soil caused a wave of resentment to surge through the densely-packed crowd. Stones bounced off the doors of the carriage and the angry people began to rock it, causing Amelia to shriek.
Someone up ahead was raising the mob, making speeches from a wagon cart, with the crowd responding to each remark with a roar. Rogan began to get seriously worried for Amelia and Tapel. He didn't have his armoursilk with him; it was too expensive to maintain, and the same applied to his zenblade. He wondered if he should have left his family back in Sarostar, but he knew Amelia would never have listened. Or would she have? When it came to her son's safety, she was all ears. He should have at least left Tapel in Altura.
Through a gap in the crowd Rogan saw the speaker. Of course it was Bastian; he'd never had any doubt. Rogan had tried to open serious talks with the former mason, but the man always refused.
If Bastian turned the mob against them, they would die.
~
BASTIAN was pleased. He'd never managed to gather as many followers in one place before. And now some lord or lady was here, with Bastian holding his or her life in the palm of his hand. It gave him a heady sense of power.
"The Evermen haven't deserted us!" Bastian cried. "It's we who have deserted them!"
The crowd replied with a roar.
"There are those who say they weren't gods; that the Evermen never looked over us. Of course they were! Think about the wonders of Stonewater, the great machines and the golden light of the Pinnacle, now destroyed by the Alturans! What about the Sentinel, now off-limits and under guard? Who knows what our western occupiers plan to do with the statue that has guarded our harbour for an eternity?"
The crowd surged and ebbed. A hundred paces away, the carriage of whatever fool noble was trying to get into the palace rocked from side to side.
"It's a plot to control the people, yet it's a plot that cannot work, for the evidence is there for all to see! I follow the Evermen, and no one can take that away from me!"
People shouted their approval. Bastian decided it was time to change tone.
"My name is Bastian, and I am a mason. My father before me was a mason, and back when Xenovere was the Emperor my father led a team of a hundred men in his workshop. Xenovere made sure the Toraks didn't get all the building work. Who needs Torakon's lore when you're building a man's simple house? Yet now they have the Toraks building a wall around the Sentinel and none of the work has gone to a single man from Tingara or Aynar!"