The Uncrucified

Entry V - The Last Night

Before our eyes, Dinas Rhydd has raised itself from mud and sticks to wood and brick, weathering armies and invasion like the oldest mountain stone. It grows as life will on the old bones of a great city that once toiled beneath our feet. My Pristine Guild weaves a golden thread through it, tying outpost to outpost, smithy to baker, heart to heart. Only now do I understand the power of this golden web. Like silk, it seems fragile, but holds strong the fabric of Creation.

I realize now how little I understood about this balance as a young woman, fresh from school and full of plans and ideals. I could only see a small part of the weave and attempt to pluck at it without any knowledge of how everything beyond my small vision changed when I did so.

Despite entering the academy with an unorthodox educational background, I graduated top of my class, even managing to gain the respect of a few of those poor jeering souls that had tormented me upon my first arrival. With my father's sponsorship, my membership to the Guild became a surety.

And then I learned the special kind of torment that was the droll, mindless monotony of working as a clerk in the Administrative branch. I tried to remind myself that every scribe and clerk had to pay their dues and earn their keep to become a Factor before our voices could truly be heard. Instead, the reality was a self-perpetuating system of seniority and complacency that kept the Administrators where they were and the young, eager clerks toiling away in shackles of paperwork and drudgery. I made friends in mutual agony at the branch, but I knew in my bones this life was not my place in the world.

Ahrun would be my savior again by allowing me to become the head of operations for his excavations and shops, expanding my reputation even further than the Administrative branch as a sharp-eyed manager with shrewdness that equaled my father's. If there was one thing I learned about the world then, it was that reputation meant nearly as much, if not more, than skill and financial backing.

For as much as my father trusted me, however, one fear kept me awake at night.

I had complete control over the approval and arrangements of his caravans. I would be responsible for every coming and going. I had every accounting in my ledger and knew exactly the formula of our profit versus projected loss, calculated risk, and profit margins for every product in our stores. However, when it came to hiring labor, I couldn't bring myself to pretend I was someone who hadn't walked those streets as a slave only a few years ago. I couldn't look away from the sluggish husks of the dream-eaten the whip legions offered up like day old trash when I went recruiting.

Would Ahrun really and truly allow our profit margins to suffer because I chose not to hire the cheap, easy labor? I hated myself for doubting, but I couldn't help but think that it was one thing to liberate a slave girl whom you had grown fond of and entirely another to risk your profits for faceless dregs you didn't even know.

The night I finally confronted him about my business plan involving the season's caravans, after many days of avoiding the conversation, I prepared my papers and defense of more expensive labor to an insanely tedious degree. Ahrun listened quietly, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, as he usually did, while I talked myself in circles about every defense for the reason why I chose to hire the laborers I did and how we could make up for the loss with several other tediously organized contingencies. Finally, I felt his hand on my shoulder, the depths of my discomfort dawning on him.

"Kalara..." He said simply. The sternness of the way he said my name made my words stick in my throat. I expected the worst to come next.

"...I asked you to become my head of operations because I trust your judgement. Completely." He smiled that small, content smile until a fit of coughing took him and he had to go looking for a handkerchief. When he could finally speak again, his voice wavering a bit from the exertion of it, he said. "Besides, I'm getting older. You'll eventually take the entire thing over so I can spend my time completing the maps I've been meaning to work on all these years before I'm too senile and blind to finish them!"