sufficient to freeze her in place. “Watch.” She stood, flinching with every stroke as the bosun set to work on the next sailor. “Consider this your first true lesson,” Vaelin told her. “All actions have consequences.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
So, the Emerald Empire existed for a thousand years before the rise of the Merchant Kings?” Vaelin asked.
“Closer to nine hundred, give or take a few decades,” Erlin said. “I must say, in all my travels I never heard tell of a single dynasty that lasted so long. But everything fades with time. What was strength becomes weakness. So it was with the Emerald Empire.”
Vaelin glanced over at Ellese as she came to a halt a few feet from their perch close to the ship’s prow. The sun was high in a cloudless sky and sweat shone on her brow and the bare skin of her arms as she laboured to drag air into her lungs. Sehmon, who had opted to take an equal part in her training, stumbled to her side an instant later, his breathing even more ragged.
“Was that six laps?” Vaelin asked Erlin, who shrugged.
“Wasn’t counting.”
“In that case we’d better make it another two, just to be sure.” He met Ellese’s gaze and jerked his head in dismissal. She swallowed a sigh before filling her lungs and setting off on another full-pelt lap around the deck, Sehmon following a few paces behind.
“Strength became weakness?” Vaelin prompted, turning back to Erlin.
“Quite so. Before the empire the Far West was just a clutch of competing kingdoms in a near-perpetual state of war, rather like the Realm before King Janus came along, but on a much grander scale. Mah-Shin, the First Emperor, wiped out the old monarchies, killing every member down to the fourth generation, and declared it his intention to craft a dynasty that would achieve the perfect harmony between Earth, Heaven and man. This so-called harmonic principle was an old idea even before Mah-Shin’s birth, the goal of the many ambitious conquerors that preceded him. However, only he ever came close to putting it into practice, founding the Emerald Empire on the twin pillars of an extensive bureaucracy and a canon of written law.”
A brief drum of footfalls and Ellese stumbled to a halt once more, back bent and chest heaving. Sehmon took another second to arrive, sinking immediately to his knees, groaning with every breath.
“One cup of water each,” Vaelin told them. “Then climb the mainmast.”
“How . . . many . . . times?” Ellese enquired between breaths.
“Until I tell you to stop.”
She nodded and started towards the water barrel, pausing when Vaelin spoke her name. “Would you leave your brother lying there?” he asked, pointing to Sehmon.
For the first time in days a glimmer of defiance flickered across her face. “He’s not . . . my brother.”
“He is now.”
He held her gaze until she set her jaw and moved to Sehmon, taking hold of his arm and dragging him to his feet. “Get up, you lazy sod.” She prodded him towards the water barrel. “And don’t even think about calling me ‘sister.’”
“Heaven,” Vaelin said to Erlin. “The home of the Far Western gods, I assume?”
“They don’t really have gods, not as we would understand them. Rather, Heaven is the source of all fortune, good or bad, and also the wellspring of what we term the Dark.”
“The Music of Heaven,” Vaelin murmured, recalling Ahm Lin’s tale of how he had been conscripted to serve one of the Merchant Kings once his blood-song had been revealed.
“A rare gift,” Erlin said. “One of many, as we well know. Those that possess them are said to enjoy the blessing of Heaven and are thereby elevated above the rest of humanity, for when they die their souls will take their place in Heaven. The spirits of the non-blessed will remain earthbound, contained within tombs and placated with offerings from their descendants, lest they become restless and disturb the balance.”
“And did the First Emperor achieve his goal? This perfect harmony.”
“Many a Far Western historian will insist he did. It was under Mah-Shin that military and civil appointments were made on merit rather than privilege. He established laws that banned arbitrary imprisonment and guaranteed rights for all from the lowliest peasant to the wealthiest landowner. He also began construction of the great web of canals that even today links all corners of the Far West. Prosperity and justice were his legacies, at least that’s what the official record would have us believe.”