My Bodily Form

Out of an abundance of caution, Valens had made two grappling hooks, lashing together two long lengths of leather reins, with bent sheets of steel on the end of each. These had been hammered, with the help of the Yellow pit crew, from a spare wheel-rim, and Valens had worried that the thin sheet would bend back to its original, unhooked shape under his weight. That had not been so as he descended the Cathedral of Sacred Beauty, and now, as he crossed the acropolis to approach the palace, he saw that it had been a good instinct to bring a second.

The gates of the palace were meant to secure it from the outside, not to trap a large enemy force within, so now the gate facing the cathedral was held shut by a line of guards with just the weight of their bodies and their armor, trading blows whenever the rioters inside managed to push a crack open.

Valens circled left, to a corner of the palace where the outer wall came in from the seaward cliff of the acropolis to cut across its flat top. He tossed the hook up, caught it in the parapet, and began his ascent, praying that he would not be noticed by a guard on top of the walls halfway up.

Once he pulled himself over the crenellations and onto the walkway beyond, he found that no such danger had been present. Much of the guard had been at the hippodrome this morning, not the palace, and were now underground with Alexios, or else had been killed covering his retreat. Those few still atop the walls were trying to defend the walkway alone, swinging a long axe in wide arcs to keep back five or ten angry Aureliopolitans, or placing themselves in the doorframes and stairways of towers and bracing behind a shield. Neither guards nor mob seemed able to tell at a glance whose side Valens was on, some of the guards recognizing him as a guest in the palace, some of the rioters recognizing his face from that of the Shadowman impersonating him, but most simply dismissing him as a man armed but not attacking, with no clear allegiance. As he ran along the wall, they concerned themselves with each other, rather than press the issue.

In one of the courtyards within, he saw the aftermath of a battle fought by two skilled practitioners of the Elemental Disciplines, and reached out again for his companions.

All three of their minds touched his at once. Though he was still not well-practiced with this sort of thing, he pooled the signals, so that all four of them might hear what any said in their minds.

“All of you, give me a report on your condition.”

“Hadrian reporting, your majesty. I’m still at the gatehouse, where you last saw me. Neither the crowd nor the guards still loyal to Alexios have posed a threat. Is all still going according to High Prefect Petrus’ plan, inside?”

“Hadrian, that was a Shadowman, impersonating me.”

“What–”

“Rufio reporting, Valens. Atia and I are safe, for the moment, but…”

“Atia reporting, father. The two of us are in the throne room. Alexios is here, with his whole family save his sister. The mob outside are trying to beat down the door, and there’s someone shouting with a voice that sounds a lot like yours. We’re about to–”

Valens snapped to a state of focus, a tunnel vision that left no room to manage these psychic connections. He sprinted for the next courtyard, where the doors of the throne room lay.

He leapt from the outer wall to the main palace structure’s tile rooftop. Under other circumstances, the shock of the jump might've been felt hard in his knees; exercise and magical ancestry only went so far to offset the ravages of time on bones and tendons. But his veins were squeezed tight, his muscles unbound from their normal limits, pain blocked out by rage. From there, he came to the courtyard before the throne room and threw himself into the branches of a laurel tree. Branches snapped under him as he came down in half-controlled fall, landing on one knee in the grass below.

At the throne room doors, two dozen strong men from the city's waterfront beat with an improvised battering ram, a short fallen marble column impressively hefted to chest-level. Several of the figures crowded behind them turned sharply, including one with the face Valens saw in his washbasin every morning, save its gray, dead eyes.

Valens did not give it a chance to speak, anyone else a chance to interfere. He flung the scabbard from his blade, and before it had hit the ground, his sword was crossed with its copy.

It quickly became clear to those looking on which Valens was a warrior with over a century of experience, which was an imposter with a fake sword. As the two blades bit together, Valens had total control of the joined weapons, deflected his opponent's tip into the stonework of the courtyard's surrounding arcade. The entire top half of the mimic-sword shattered, the fragments dissolving into smoke. He pressed the attack, and the Shadowman defended desperately with its broken weapon.

Whatever capabilities these monsters were born with, swordsmanship did not rank high among them; its only advantage was its unimpeded eyesight, though Valens had by this point could make sense of just about anything that blurred across the center of his vision. Never did he need to take a hand off the hilt of his monstrous sword to make a Sign, supplement his senses with magic; he could have fought this thing in a pitch-black tunnel, by hearing alone.

He caught what remained of the Shadowman's sword, the underside of his own wide crossguard locked with the underside of its, each of their knuckles against the dull base of the other's blade. He stepped forward and wrenched upward, sending the other weapon flying behind him, then drove his point through the monster’s chest.

As it fell and returned to its void-black natural form, the battering ram beat one final time on the doors. With a hideous metallic shriek, they bent inwards, opening just wide enough for a single man to squeeze through. The ram-wielders, caught up in their task, had not noticed the duel just behind them. As the rest of the crowd held back in confusion, fear, or awe, they cast their burden to the ground and stood aside for Valens in deference

Though he had slain the foe he had come for, his heart still pounded, fearing what he would see within as he stepped forward.

The throne room was empty. Even Petrus’ lion automata were nowhere to be seen. Alexios and company had come and gone, the hidden passage underground shut behind them. All that stood out of place was a roll of parchment resting on the throne, sealed with Alexios' signet.

Valens approached, and took up the sheet. The crowd filed slowly in behind him, and, standing beside the throne, he unsealed the writ in their full view. If it were a concession, it was best he had witnesses who could attest that he could not have forged it.

He skimmed the contents silently, then read it aloud for the people of Aureliopolis.

“To Valens Lyrios, Emperor of the Rhatians.”

A cheer went up from the crowd.

“Circumstances have forced my withdrawal from Aureliopolis before I could give your right to rule the formal acknowledgement it merited, but rest assured, this was my intention.”

The crowd let him know what they thought of that, what Alexios and his words were worth as fertilizer.

“Therefore, by this decree, I recognize you as my co-equal. Not a junior co-emperor, not second among equals, but my absolute diarch, fit to sit either the gold or the silver throne according to whim.”

One of the ram-wielders bellowed, “He is not fit to be your footstool!”

Valens held up a hand for silence, and was sharply obeyed.

“As a token of good will, your daughter, Princess Atia, and your favored apprentice, Lucius Rufinus, have accompanied me in my unplanned tour of the eastern provinces.”

“How dare he?”

“Kidnapping brigand!”

“My sister, Princess Thekla, was unfortunately not able to join us, but I trust you will do everything in your power to prevent her coming to harm. I leave the capital in your custody, until such time as a new status quo can be established. Signed, Alexios IV Hypatios, under the auspices of the King on High, Emperor and Autarch of the Rhatians, Protector of His Church.”

“Where’s this princess?”

“Find her and bring her to the emperor!”

“Find her and kill her!”

Valens held up a hand again, then beckoned to one of the ram-wielders, a man who had not spoken since entering the throne room. “Step forward, pious son of Rhatia.”

The man, no older than his late twenties, kneeled before the imperial dias. “My emperor.”

“What is your name?”

“Theophilus, my emperor.”

“Theophilus, your emperor asks three services of you, if you find yourself competent to perform them. The first task is to take charge of this gathering of your fellow citizens, to lead them from this place under my authority. They are to return to their homes by the quickest way, going in peace and spilling no more blood this day. Any moveable goods along a straight line between this room and the gate by which they entered the palace, any furniture not nailed down or art not set into the walls, floors, or ceiling, they may take as the spoils of their fight to restore my throne. No other looting is to take place, in the palace or elsewhere. The second task, when you leave by the palace gates, is to nail this writ to that door, and to spread word of its contents. Let the whole city know what Alexios has proposed; they will hear my response, as soon as I have taken council on the matter. The third task is to find an old man named Arios in the city. He was once Prefect of the Guard, before my reign was interrupted. Send him to me; though his body is now too frail to resume that post, his services will be needed in matters of recruitment. Are you fit to these tasks?”

“I-I am, my emperor.”

“Then go.”

Theophilus took the writ, and the crowd shuffled out, a feeling of triumph counterweighed by one of quiet reverence and anticipation of things to come. Valens, after sixty years, resumed his place on the golden throne of the Rhatian Empire. He took only a few seconds to brood, before he reestablished his psychic connections, retrieved Princess Thekla’s last known location from Rufio, and set Hadrian to search for her.