The pub reader held up his broadsheet theatrically and cleared his throat. The circle of listeners around him held their silence politely.

"Ahem, let's see," he squinted at the tiny font, "the Chancellor of Minmay today accepted a formal initiation into the Greater Council of Inath. The honour was bestowed for his achievements in battle against the traitor Duport..."

A small cheer went up at the mention of that battle. Bards and storytellers had earned plenty of meals by simply telling and growing the tale of the legendary battle.

"Quiet now," the reader hushed the crowd, "and the spread of bene... ficient? knowledge to all mankind. The King Ektal proposed his lifting to the Council once the prestigious University of Minmay completed construction on a branch in the capital territory. "

This portion of the news was met with a more mixed reaction. Anxious murmurs met hopeful whispers.

"Those people at the University, ruining our land and lives," spat one of the older men. An old farmer, one of the rare few who refused to use the new techniques and were now being forced to by the barons. After that first massive harvest, everyone had to use it to earn enough money to pay for the new farming tools.

"Now look here, Minmay has done right by us and he said the university was good," another man spoke up.

"Easy for you to say, you're a piyo farmer," the first snapped back. Piyos hadn't dropped that much in price, but the cheapness of windeyes had made the exchange of piyos for bread very favourable.

The piyo herder shrugged, "hey, you're growing them now, aren't you? And isn't your life easier too? I don't hear you complaining too much about your back with those new seeders. "

"I give up nearly a third of my harvest, and so do my neighbours. Just to keep that thing and the plow working," the farmer grumbled. He glared at the blacksmith sitting at the back of the crowd, "those Ironworkers. Getting fat off our backs. "

"I'm not an Ironworker," the tough woman spat back, "and that the new steel everyone wants? I have to buy it from them. Can't even make my own iron any more. "

The reader coughed to head off the impending argument, "I still think it's good to have these new things. "

He was immediately drowned in a chorus of boos, although most farmers seemed to distance themselves from the loudest protestors. And some looked as if they agreed with the reader.

"You sit there all day offering to read those fancy words, how would you understand our troubles?" the complaining farmer snapped. But he didn't leave, they had all paid to hear the latest gossip after all.

The reader flinched but recovered admirably by changing the topic to a letter from the neighbouring village's sheet. The crowd gathered around eagerly, the drama of the paka milker's daughter and the mayor's son was good stuff. The raised tensions dissipated slowly. But not forgotten.

"This is very disturbing news. "

The Chancellor rocked back on the chair. Rocking chairs were a new product but of course the Chancellor would have the newest ones.

"Yes, it is," the other man in the room said, putting down the letter. "Ironworker masters stirring up trouble," he said with a shake of the head, "the peasants are especially bad news. The fact that the gangs are growing cannot be ignored. "

"I was already aware of Ironworker discontent," the Chancellor said, "it's not really a secret any more, Willio has turned a few apprentices into spies in his own guild and even they know of the conspiracy. "

"The Ironworkers are a distraction. The root problem is the peasants. I had no idea why so many of them are angry at the changes when we have helped the peasants so much. "

"Cato," the Chancellor cut in, "the Ironworkers are powerful. Even if they are not influential masters, they are still masters. More than a tenth are directly implicated. There are indications that this conspiracy goes beyond the Ironworkers guild too. Some of the carpenters refuse to meet me at all and the rival weavers have stopped making any complaints. Very unusual when those weavers pound on my door every week. "

"But how many people is that? They may have money, Minmay, but the only way they could hire so many people," Cato waved his hand over Danine's increasingly frantic reports, "is if the peasants they are arming also have grievances. "

"The peasants don't matter Cato," Minmay shook his head, "the Ironworkers are rich, and even though the Order of Knights is being obedient, they can still be bought. I've controlled the distribution of the new guns and spellcannons, as well as steam engines. There will be no rivals for the Guards. "

"You can't rely on the Guards, Minmay, they were recruited from the peasantry! Plus, your own spies agree that a number of alchemists have completely stopped showing up on Academy grounds," Cato sighed, "we have to give them something before it all blows up. "

"Then I'll just hire the Knights. Without magic, the peasants are not a problem. In fact, I should start accumulating retainers now. "

Cato looked conflicted and he frowned down at the table for a long moment, "Minmay, I have told you those stories from my world before. Perhaps this is a good time to give some voice to the peasants. "

"You should recall I never agreed with that point of view, Cato. " The Chancellor sat still in his chair, meeting the younger man's eyes. "Some checks might be required, to ensure future Chancellors cannot abuse their office. I hope to turn the Knights into that, but peasants?" He shook his head derisively.

"Does the Chancellor not have a duty to the people of his territory?"

"I don't see how letting uneducated peasants make decisions can help with that. The Chancellor has a duty to lead, the people have a duty to follow. Why do you care about the peasants so much?"

Cato whirled to face the Chancellor, "because I wish to improve the world and our technology. Through education and an equal opportunity for everyone, including and especially the very numerous peasants. In the end, the power of a state comes from its people. "

"Those same peasants are the ones who are going to riot! And if the Ironworker dissenters are the agitators, they will be targeting that same technology you love so much. I will need to convince them to go along with it. And if they will not listen, I make them. "

"And you are going to pay the price in lives to do this?" Cato was almost shouting now.

Minmay's voice was still level but the hardness in it could cut stone. "I will, if I must. "

The two men looked at each other for a long moment. Then Cato got up and turned to go.

"Cato," the Chancellor said from his chair as the other man reached the door, "your University is the best way of improving our chances against the monsters. It is the best chance we have for a better life in the future. Deal with the technology, let me handle the politics. "

Once the other man had gone long enough to not overhear, the Chancellor raised a tiny bell and rang it.

A tall man in an elegant uniform appeared in the doorway to the private study. "Chancellor?"

"Arthur, Cato does have a point. Please arrange for informants in the Guard as well. We need to identify who we can trust. "

"Sir?"

"Once the contracts for Knight retainers have been responded to, all the dissenters in the Guard will be arrested and purged. Please also create a list of key conspirators from the guilds to be arrested on that day as well. We will have to be fast and thorough to dig this out before the traitors can sink their roots more firmly, time is of the essence. "

"Yes, sir. "

"Oh and I shall need the services of Nightshade, please contact the party. "

Minmay tried not to wince at the look on Arthur's face. He merely closed his eyes and nodded. That group of people had a certain reputation after all, and most decent men and women did their best to avoid them. Whether as employers or... victims. Information sources, that group called it. No, Aesin would not be happy.

Alone in the room, the Chancellor poured himself a glass of strong spirits. "Aesin, my wife. I am sorry but it looks like your popular charities have not been sufficient. I hope you'll understand I do this for our daughter. "

"Damn that chancellor! May the monsters burn his university down around him!" the old man slammed a fist into the table. The woman and much younger man sharing the room flinched from his anger.

Wearing the wooden brooch and long robes of the formal uniform that identified them as master Ironworkers, the three of them were sitting in one of the larger buildings in Minmay. There were a lot of big nameless buildings now and the old man had taken care to not have his stand out too much.

It wouldn't do to have the Chancellor know they were fomenting rebellion after all.

"Hadra, we got less than fifty pledges at yesterday's speech," the young man said, "the new soup kitchen seems to have persuaded some peasants that the Chancellor isn't so bad after all. "

"It won't last, it can't," the older Ironworker snarled, "no one lives on charity. If they cannot find new ground to farm or apprenticeships in guilds, they will still be unhappy. "

"He just needs it to last long enough, Cato set up two new firms last week and they're hiring peasants. Lots of them. " The woman said timidly.

Hadra's words were still acidic. "Isn't that just more charity? What can the peasants do unless he has a farm up his sleeve?"

"Word is that he's getting them to spin thorndown and do woodworking," the woman said, "they say he's paying them in coins. By the week. "

"Pah, more charity," Hadra snorted.

"They say he's planning to make them do ironworking next," the young man added. Too casually. The woman winced and they braced themselves.

Surprisingly, the old grouchy Ironworker did not explode. "You two youngersters think I have a loose temper, eh? Narvo and Tinard, you two are too new to know the business," he growled, "they're no threat. Ironworking is an art, one peasants cannot understand. No one will buy anything they build. "

"Will we be making sure of that?" the woman, Tinard, asked.

The old man grunted, "if need be. "

They did not point out the contradiction in his statements. The young man might like to prod his senior in the guild but they were not suicidal.

"We have to step up our recruitment efforts," Narvo said, "the peasants know each other, we can use that to seek those who are dissatisfied. "

"Indeed," Tinard added, "but if you have a way to recruit faster without Minmay noticing, I would like to hear it. "

"It is too early for that," Hadra cut in, "we need more weapons and the gangs need to train with them first. Without a solid core, it will not work. "

The deliberations were rudely interrupted by a loud hammering from the front door. Metal on wood, someone was banging on it with an armoured fist. "Open up in the name of the Chancellor! Open up or we will break down your door!"

The commanding voice from below didn't give them any time, it was immediately followed by a loud crash. A mini ram. The three Ironworkers froze for an instant, then they burst into a flurry of action. Then they froze again.

Tinard smiled, "nuh uh. You're not going anywhere, either of you. "

While the two men scrambled towards the door of the room, she had instead drawn two pistol bowguns from her concealing sleeves and was now pointing them at the men.

"What treachery is this?!" Hadra hissed.

"You sold us out to the Chancellor?" Narvo exclaimed. A bit too late to notice that.

The woman gestured with her bowguns, indicating that they should move away from the door. Instead, when the barred front door of the workshop cum residence below smashed open, Narvo bolted. With a crack, the woman fired the bowgun at him but the dart missed and exploded a brick in the doorframe. He took the chance to disappear.

The older man glanced towards the short corridor outside, as if contemplating the same action, but Tinard still had one bowgun. Then the Guards had charged up the stairs and shot him down with a disruption bolt wand.

She dropped the bowguns and raised her hands as they came into the room, "quick, one of them ran, he might have escaped out the back already. "

The leading Guard waved and the rest of the team continued down the corridor and began checking the rooms. There was a shout, the young conspirator had escaped through a window. The team began to give chase.

"Why... why did you... betray us?" the older Ironworker twitched on the ground, unable to move from the magical shock. Although the Guard sitting on him might have something to do with that. "Where is your pride as an smith?" he spat through gritted teeth.

She looked down at Hadra and shrugged, "every woman has her price. "

Kupo popped her head out of her apothecary-clinic. The reason for the noise became apparent with the torches and marching crowd. A lynch mob or riot.

She wiped her sticky fingers on her heavy work clothes and began to change. War or riots always brought a flood of injured people and it was one of the best times to make money, and also one of the riskiest. The Oath of Pastora dictated that healers could not turn away anyone who could afford the cost, regardless of race or affiliation. Even a lowly Fuka slave of Illastein would be treated if someone presented the money.

However, warring sides were not always reasonable in allowing healers access to enemies.

Kupo wasn't bound by the Oath, having been kicked out of the Order and not yet formally reinstated, but she thought of herself as a healer. And her clinic was one of the few who had a documented higher survival rate. Her cures for the death-heat worked far more often than anyone else's.

Cato's antibiotic program was slowly bearing fruit. Tulore's curse-breaker could be concentrated with Kalny's expertise, and Kupo had tested it on sufficient desperate patients to work out a dosage range between the original curse-breaker formulation and high enough to kill even the patient. She and Cato were still collecting statistics on dosages and responses, trying to find out how much of the precious and expensive antibiotics was actually required.

The other new antibiotics were not yet ready for human testing. They had been broadly classified into three classes, based on which combinations had cumulative effects, but all the new antibiotics from bacteria or fungi were toxic in one way or another. Kupo and Tulore were working on chemical modification but it was slow going.

She put on a clean full body apron and began to sterilize the stone altar in the operating room with disruption magic. Sanitary practices sounded insane and a waste of time and money, until Cato's statistics showed that surgeries conducted under clean conditions suffered far less infection.

The first patient staggered into the waiting room, leaving a trail of blood from where his broken leg bone punched through his skin. His friend held up him from the shoulder. The Pastora healer waved him into the operating room. She had gotten no further than putting the man to sleep with alcohol when a pair of women hobbled in.

She glanced over them and shook her head for them to wait, they had only light wounds, arrow punctures in leg and shoulder.

Kupo managed to set the man's bones, after cleaning the wound with alcohol. She dosed him with a mild concentration of curse-breaker, collected the payment from his friend, and looked up to find five injured people waiting for her.

It was going to be a long night.

Landar huffed as she tweaked the line again. Making the tiny shield mobile was not too difficult. But the controlling circuits to determine where the shield moved were problematic. They had to be aware of where the shield was to determine which active line was the closest.

But that was the fun part. The part which created the spell forming circle inside the experimental iron cube was getting tedious. It was fun to build the first hundred or so times, when she was still learning new things and working out the bugs. But the design had more or less stabilized now, so it was boring.

And every time she built a new circle for enchanting objects that performed the function of casting spells from an external power source, she needed to reconstruct it. While Landar had more or less memorized the entire thing, she still made mistakes even when looking at a diagram copy of past circles. Two hundred threads was too much to expect anyone to build correctly the first time.

She looked out over the open floor of the warehouse. The threads and sheets of thick paper spacers were almost a carpet. Yes, while she was concentrating like this, Landar could keep the entire circle in her head, point to any section and dictate what it did.

But how much more could she keep in mind? Already, it took hours to get started and Landar was loathe to break her concentration. She hadn't stepped out of the warehouse other than to wash for the last week, working from the crack of dawn well into the night just to make a little progress. Maybe she was lacking in intelligence, but Landar felt that she would soon hit her limit.

Just thinking about what the interceptor spells would require gave Landar a chill. A magical power sensor could be restricted to a single cone by surrounding it with magical barriers, and to determine distance and speed, she would need two preferably three sensors linked and computing the intercept. Add a way to track and calculate change in position over time. Link all of that to the circle that automatically cast disruption bolts at incoming attacks.

Or she could design a disruption bolt that had a sensor at the top and would home into any source of magic signature. And the launcher would have to gauge the power and direction of incoming attacks and create an appropriately powered disruption bolt, only the launching spell itself would be as complicated as a spell forming wand while itself being casted from a spell forming wand...

No, there was no way she could build that. It would be easily twice again as large as the circle she was building now, probably more since it was more than just two spell forming circles. The logical links required would be insane.

Finding the problems in the design, another impossible task. Oh, with a lot of testing and work, and perhaps months of time, she could probably do it. But the circle she built would be the only circle able to create the final device. Building another enchanting circle would take the same months to test.

What she needed for some substitute for these threads. They worked decently for what Landar had built them for originally, repetitive and simple enchantments. And while they had grown to handle hugely complex tasks, mere multi-function threads meant as useful shortcuts were reaching their limits.

If only she could keep the tedious well-known parts out of her mind, and not have to think about them, maybe Landar could handle more complex circles.

It was theoretically possible, she supposed, nothing stopped her from baking an entire thread pattern into a block of steel, with little hooks for her to tie incoming and outgoing threads. Threads were huge, from the perspective of the enchantments, like how magic circles were huge compared to the final enchanted object, and the steel would let her build much more robust enchantments that would last longer. But a steel block was not easily changed, unlike threads, and every spell you wanted a spellforming wand to cast obviously required a different casting process and therefore a slightly different spell forming thread pattern. That was why she used threads in the first place.

She didn't notice that she had stopped working on the shield test. Of course, to... what was that word Cato said?... to abstract out the process of a spellforming wand, to create a steel block substitute without needing to rewire anything, Landar would need to have a thread pattern that could create the power transfer and spellcasting sections for a spellforming wand for arbitrary spells, given an input to control what spell was casted by the final wand.

So the block would thus need to receive instructions on the precise steps of how to cast the desired spell, probably best done with new special threads for the control of the spellforming template block, ones that told the block what to do, rather than normal threads that told the circle what to do. The information was all there, it was possible. It would probably be hideously complicated, but she could do it. There was a certain elegance in the way that Landar was going to make a magic circle to build the thing... she would call it a spellforming template for now.

Landar looked down at the doodles on her notepaper and saw the parallels to the magic circle. The magic circle abstracted away the process of the alchemist personally casting the enchantment, so that the alchemist only worried about the design of the desired circuit and not the process of making circuits. This spellforming template abstracted out the process of creating a spellforming section, so the alchemist only worried about the design of the spell the spell forming wand was to cast, and not the mechanics of the spell forming wand itself.

In fact, Landar swept her eyes out across the massive circle laid out across the floor, she could abstract other things too, virtually all functions of a spell could be logically grouped and abstracted out. Movement, spell boundaries, magic power detection, even logical control circuits!

She jerked forwards and began to tear apart one and a half weeks of work. This was more important than some lousy shield.

Landar looked up in a daze. What? Her arms felt like lead and her skin was sticky with sweat. The gentle midday light had been replaced by the dim glow of liquid Light lamps. Against one wall, a table held a dinner plate with food that lay forgotten and ignored.

She stood in the middle of the warehouse floor, surrounded by a veritable carpet, with a large black rope in her hand. The main control line, with so many activation threads running out in all directions that she couldn't see most of her hand.

No no, she couldn't be distracted now! Not now! The template wasn't anywhere close to done and Landar had to keep the image of the circle in her head. If she lost it now, she would take all day to get it back and... Landar mentally scrabbled at the thoughts, but they just scattered like rats into the dark corners of her brain.

Landar stumbled a little, feeling the tears building in her eyes. She was so close! Er, well, not really but it was so frustrating to lose her thoughts like that! There was a sound, something outside the warehouse. People shouting?

She dropped the control line and stormed towards the door, whoever had disturbed her would get a firebolt to the face. Tears flying, she flung it open, a ball of fire building in her hand.

Landar squeaked in surprise as Cato rushed in, followed by more familiar faces. Omal, the alchemists, even the cook? Wait, university staff?

She turned to see them spreading out over the floor and-

"No!" she screamed as the idiots began to trample over her circle threads. What if they broke it! She would have to recheck all the lines! "Stop it! Get away! What are you all doing?!"

Landar jumped into the circle, landing in a clear spot, brandishing her ball of fire wildly. "Back off! Get out!" she yelled wildly, the crowd drawing back. There was more shouting and commotion from outside the warehouse and the crowd surged forwards again, pushed from behind.

"Landar!" Cato ran over, running over her threads! Somehow that was even worse than seeing the Recordkeepers do it. They were just clueless, Cato should know better! He knew how sensitive circles were. The sting in her chest made the world turn blurry and she tried to wipe away the tears, futilely.

Landar snarled at him but he caught her hand, "sorry Landar, but this is an emergency. I know you'll have to build it again, but-"

"But what?!" Landar shouted. She tried to twist out of his grip, this was so unfair! How did Cato get so strong? And why... why... the threads were already breaking under the outdoor boots the staff were wearing. It was over, she had to rebuild.

"This circle was important!" she yelled into his face. Her anger seemed to be running away with her, filling her with an unbounded rage at his sheer insensitivity.

"More important than a civil war?" Cato said, facing her levelly.

"Yes!" she snapped reflexively. Wait. "Civil war?" she blinked, as all her thoughts seemed to crash to a halt, "What? No, wait, don't distract me, this circle is the most important thing!"

"Have you even left this place in the last two weeks?" Cato asked, "the peasants are rioting out there, we needed a place to take cover and this test range was the best choice. "

Indeed, with steel reinforced concrete walls, enchanted with disruption shields, barred and meshed window slats, and heavy cast iron doors, the magic testing warehouse was impenetrable without siege weapons or lots of magic. The tendency of the creations inside to explode was famous, and this 'warehouse' was probably the strongest structure in all of Ektal save the fortification walls of the border forts themselves.

"But... but how?" Landar muttered. Peasants? What about the Guard? Or even the Knights? And why?! Landar looked down and saw the ball of fire still hanging above her hand. And the large berth the university staff was giving her and Cato.

Oh Selna, did she just threaten the entire university with her magic? And even Cato too?

Landar's anger washed away like a candle in a breeze, replaced with sudden horror. She dispersed her firebolt with a pulse of power. "I'm sorry," Landar gulped. The tears in her eyes spilled over. It was all she could do to just apologize over and over. Oh no, how dumb could she get?

Cato just hugged her, patting her hair soothingly. "It's all right," he said, "you didn't shoot anyone. It's all right. "

He continued to hold her as she cried unintelligibly. After some time, Landar's crying had subsided into a leaden weariness. Seated in a chair at the side of the warehouse, she had one of the few seats. The rest of the staff squatted or sat on the stone floor, her ruined circle folded up in one corner. She just looked at Cato dumbly, the fog in her mind dulling any thoughts.

Cato glanced at her condition, eyeing her up and down. Landar coloured in embarrassment as he lingered on the stains on her dress. "And how long ago did you eat? Or even drink anything? You sound terrible," he asked, he traced a gentle finger on the black bags under her eyes, "you have been missing sleep too. How long?"

Landar thought back, but all she could remember was a maze of lines and logic. Sleep? Um. She gulped and looked away. "Two days?" she whispered timidly.

Cato shook his head at her, "Landar, I warned you the last time you did this and you promised me. I still think shutting yourself in here is unhealthy but you were at least keeping yourself alive last week. What happened? I haven't seen you for three days and you're half dead. "

"I... I was building, a new idea," she said weakly. Oh, yeah, that promise. She had even broken the promise to take care of herself. The tears threatened again but he hushed her with a hand on her head, the other hand still holding hers.

Cato looked back out over the messy threads, it was impossible to read now of course, if anyone but her could even understand the thing at all. "What were you building?" he asked, "did the mobile shield work?"

Landar shook her head, "I wasn't building that. It's... a magic circle for magic circles. " She cast about for an easy way to explain, but the scurrying thoughts didn't want to line up in her head. "Make spell forming wands by instructions on how to cast spells. Abstraction. Special threads to control spellforming template. Movement templates, logic templates, everything templates! Abstraction, that's the key idea. New threads, new patterns. "

There was another deeper idea, one that had come to her in her frenzy but now just lurked unseen. It was even bigger than her initial abstraction, but it didn't want to surface now. "Abstraction," Landar whispered to herself, trying to coax it out, the idea returning to her in more detail as she spoke, "no more threads. Just special new threads only. Circle describes function, not design. Everything template? Template for templates? Need more abstraction. Abstraction of the abstractions, no control line, templates talk to each other. Templates talk using templates, pass template as message. Live input, automatic testing. Find errors immediately. "

Cato blinked and frowned, "Landar, were you trying to build a compiler?!"

"I... compiler?" Landar blinked up at Cato. She was dimly aware that what came out of her mouth made little sense, but it all lined up in her head. That was a new word though.

He proceeded to give a short explanation about Earth computers and their programs. Yes! That was it! A spell compiler! Sort of. A template for making templates was analogous. The fog lifted as her excitement blew it away but Cato caught her hands as they twitched towards the rolls of thread on the table. Landar relaxed again.

But it wasn't the end of her idea. "The idea of templates," Landar hurriedly explained, "you can use templates as messages between the templates of the spell. Spell functions and messages are the same thing. All are templates. Templates to manipulate other templates and even themselves!" This wasn't working. She bit her lip, "I don't know how to explain it! But it's needed for the other idea, the big one, to put many interceptor launchers on the wall and coordinate them so they don't all shoot the same thing. Things and interceptors are represented by templates, you pass them around to track them, the launchers and detectors create them. "

Cato seemed to understand though, as his eyes were incredulous, and more than a little bit respectful. Landar shrank back, not sure she deserved that after she had broken that promise.

"That's a parallel of object oriented programming!" Cato was clearly amazed but Landar didn't understand why.

She just blinked at him dumbly. She knew it was exciting but Cato seemed to already know what she was talking about, there was no way she could have explained her thoughts in any coherent fashion. She had to build something, or at least write it down. Her hands twitched again but Cato was still holding them.

"That can wait," Cato sighed, he went to the table that held her untouched dinner and pushed a cup into her hands, "drink that and try to rest. "

"But-"

"No Landar, even geniuses need to sleep," Cato smiled, "you will still remember this in the morning. It can wait. Trust me. "

He stroked her hair again, like how her mother did. Her agitation was replaced by a serene calm. She was floating in a sunlit pond with nothing to disturb her. Landar nodded sleepily and drank the water. All the while, he continued to whisper gently and pet her. It felt like she was a child again. Yes, she could sleep.

Cato looked up as Landar's breathing evened out into a deep sleep. She lay on the thin mat, her peaceful face contrasted the wild unstable mood swings just a few minutes ago. He really had to pay more attention to her or Landar could easily kill herself. She hadn't even realized how weak she had become, for Cato to so easily hold her. And that mental state couldn't be healthy, no matter how brilliant she was when in it, seeing Landar act with a mental maturity of a ten year old was disturbing.

"Is she always that crazy?" Omal asked, "I thought the Mad Alchemist was just obsessed but this is..."

Cato saw the university alchemist shaking his head, "she hasn't slept in two days. Some emotional instability to be expected. "

"Well, you're in for a hard time. Do you just like the crazy ones?" Omal nudged Cato conspiratorially, "better you than me though. "

"We're not like that," Cato shook his head.

"You two are the only ones saying that now," Omal grinned, "an Iris daughter will certainly do the university good. Is that why the Central Territory branch is starting first?"

"That's because it's closer, you should know that that article is nothing but lies," Cato rolled his eyes, "and I believe we have something much closer to worry about now. "

They looked up at the small windows, where a fire's light flickered across the roof. One of the university buildings was providing that light.

"I know the Guards have a reputation but that's a lot of rioters. I do hope we can get out of this alive," Omal said nervously.

"Me too. "

"Sir, Fountain street is being cleared, most of the fighting is now concentrated at the east near the lakeside," Curasym said, watching the recordkeepers move the little red flags across the diagram map of Minmay.

The Guard command center situated in the middle of the city was the perfect place to receive and send orders. Guard messengers ran to and fro, dropping off reports and ferrying new ones.

Minmay, the Chancellor, sat in his chair with a stony face. His nod at Curasym's report was the barest of fractions.

"The Guards are facing stiff resistance. Somehow two entire platoons had joined the enemy and they managed to steal a spell cannon," Curasym narrated as a particularly frantic report came in, "don't worry, sir, the University is locked down tight. The division there will hold the line. "

"That is very worrying news," Minmay said.

"Don't worry, sir, we can win this. There are only a thousand badly armed peasants and perhaps forty ex-Guards. We seem to have caught them unprepared, if the conspirators had time to arm the crowds we would be facing much worse. "

Minmay sighed, "it was my idea after all. "

The Guard commander shook his head, "a very good one, sir. A mass arrest with deliberate escapee plants to instigate the gangs and crowds into attacking early? You even have the perfect excuse to deploy the Guards. I must bow to your foresight. "

"It didn't take much to convince the dissenting Knights to change sides, especially when I was paying them to do what they were always going to do, just a bit earlier than they planned. The few Ironworkers though, I had to promise them pardon and a high place in the new order. "

Curasym read a new report and observed the flags being updated with new positions. He snapped out a new order at the Recordkeeper who scribbled it down and handed it to a messenger who sped off on one of the priority bicycles.

"No planning, few magical weapons, no mobility," Curasym shook his head, "trapped in the city streets between first division from the lake and second in the University at the outskirts. The third division are moving from Fountain street around the outside. We'll surround them soon and overrun them. And that will be the end of it. "

"Not the end of it," Minmay said flatly, "we still need to dig out the dissenters who did not participate. Gangs, guildsmen, merchants, even a few Knights. The list is long and only growing longer. "

"Well, I hope you have good questioners, the Guards are only good for fighting. Point us at a target and we kill it for you. Beyond that?" Curasym shrugged.

Minmay nodded but said nothing. His expression grew darker and grimmer as more messengers arrived and the red enemy flags began to be taken off the table.

Curasym was accurate that the rioting peasants were being overrun. What else could it be, when the Guards could just unleash salvo after salvo of magic into the hapless crowd? Eventually they would surrender rather than be killed. Minmay knew what else it could be called.

A slaughter.