Vincent

There was no theatre as grand as the Agora.

In its centre were four rows of stone benches, arrayed in a semicircle, in the middle of the auditorium floor. A theatre within a theatre, the stone benches were set around four simple stone blocks, where those Parliament had invited to speak to were allowed to sit.

The benches were unadorned, flat stone, weathered with age and use. The stone blocks even more so, where splinters and cracks were left untreated, so that even the most powerful people in the City, be they chiefs of the City's various bureaus, the Lord Captain of the Armies, or even the heads of the Guild of Flamecrafters, would be reminded of their places as servants of the City.

That the powerful did not rule the City outright was proof of the truth of such symbols.

Vincent followed his master at the back of a procession of nearly fifty Crafters. Their uniform colour of their red coats, the symbol of their status as graduated members of the Guild, wormed and wound its way through the halls in near silence.

The procession was lead by one of the guildmasters, Bracken Howel, and the procession includes some of the greatest names of the Guild. Among them were Bernard Umver; renowned for metallurgic advances, Cassiopeia Saval; inventor of the nearly miraculous Coldstone, and Olivia's own master, Garland Kohl; widely regarded to be the Guild's warmaster.

It occurred to Vincent, as he followed his master at the end of this procession, that his master's own apprenticeship was the chief reason she was chosen.

The procession entered the theatre through one of the entranceways below the stands, directly onto the floor of Parliament, where the group congealed into a ball, as they approached the stone benches.

There was one man waiting for them as they approached. Grey hair hung loosely down the man's back, his army parade uniform immaculate, medals and awards gleaming in the firelight. He stood somewhat theatrically as they approached, one boot set on the stone bench as if he were halfway to climbing it, one hand resting lazily on his sword, with the embossed pommel stone, depicting the wall with a sword jutting out from the top, pushed into prominence.

The Lord Captain Gregor Edmoral stared down at them, imperiously, from his perch. He didn't speak until the Crafters had approached, and began moving into their own semicircle to listen.

The Lord Captain held up a hand, to silence the quiet. Vincent scowled, and shook his head in disgust. "Thank you all for coming. As you may have guessed, or been told, Golems have been sighted by the watch at the Last Wall. We have confirmed sightings of eight of the creatures."

That announcement washed Vincent's irritation away, leaving him with a feeling of cold dread. Instinctively, he glanced up, to look at the only adornment in the massive and otherwise austere auditorium. Hanging high above, in a City where nearly every scrap of fabric is recycled, four massive tapestries commemorated the heroism and sacrifice of invasions past. Three of those tapestries, all but the First, had Golems. And in all of them, stopping those monsters of stone was a near thing.

And unless Vincent recalled his history wrong, eight Golems was more than in any other invasion combined.

"The boy there is right to look," Gregor announced, pointing at Vincent. "The Golems are the most terrible enemy the City has ever faced. Even now, they have breached the walls in three different places, and the Gloam has reclaimed land that we have spent half a century claiming."

The members of the Guild began whispering among themselves, until Gregor held up his hand again, and this time brought the crowd to silence. "The army is mobilizing, crops are being harvested and brought inside to hardened points, and our artillery is being deployed. But the Guild insisted that its members have the power to halt the invasion, and I am willing to try anything to keep the Gloam out of the districts. I asked for a response to eight Golems, and they sent me you."

"The Guild has arranged you into eight strike teams, six Crafters to a Golem. Soldiers on the watch will direct you to the point in the wall each Golem will hit next, and there, you will try your hand against it. I can only hope for your success, and ask you to call upon the heroism of your forebears in the Guild, some of whom have been stitched onto those tapestries."

Gregor coughed, and pointed over to one of the entrances of the auditorium, where a mixture of soldiers and black-clad civilians were gathered.

Vincent blinked, and a ripple of fear washed through his body. Not civilians. Shadows. Hitmen from the Bureau of Oversight, meant to evaluate a Crafter as their mental condition deteriorated from the use of the Craft, and end their lives if they deteriorated too far. "There are soldiers over there to guide you to your destinations, and the shadows are mandatory. I won't speak of why, but I'm sure you know."

At that, Vincent scowled. Everyone who could craft knew the reason the City mandated an entire bureau to watch them. Everyone knew that each time they wielded the flame, used the Craft, it burned them in turn. It hollowed out their minds, devoured their desires, and left them with little except the need to burn.

There was no unburning what was burnt. No undoing a Crafter's madness.

Gregor then tapped his hand to his chest once, the note drawing their eyes back to him. "Burn brightly," he said, and he held his salute for a long moment, before he stepped down and dropped away from the benches, approaching Crafter Bracken Howel and holding out his hand. The two men embraced warmly, and the other soldiers waiting in the distance took this as their cue to approach.

Vincent listened as a few of the soldiers approached with clipboards, calling out various names. Knowing he wouldn't be called, he listened instead for his master's name. But before he heard it, a red-coated figure waded through the crowd and approached.

Vincent recognized him instantly. The man had visited his master every few months, mostly for tea, and to hear about the project at the orphanage. The man's hair had greyed considerably since the first time Vincent had seen him, but the grey had nothing to do with age or infirmity. On many Crafters, the grey hair might look to be a sign of a fraying will, breaking against the power it wielded, but on Garland Kohl, the grey hair reminded Vincent more of an officer's sword. A mark of power,

"Master," Olivia said, holding out her arms.

"Olivia," Garland said, a smile on his face as he embraced his apprentice. "I am glad you're here."

"That makes one of us," Olivia said, looking around. "This is some high-class company I'm mixing up with. I take it you're the reason I lost this lottery?"

"It is. The guildmasters were keen to have better known names come in your stead. But the guild knows less about war than I do about plumbing."

"He's not kidding," Olivia said to Vincent. "He wouldn't know how to unclog a sink without the Craft."

Garland then turned to him. "Finding you here is a bit of a surprise. Good to see you again, Vincent. Been to the tailor recently?"

"Shut up, Master," Olivia muttered.

"Sorry. I might just be feeling my mortality today."

"Why is that, Crafter Kohl?" Vincent asked.

"Crafters have stopped Golems before. We were involved in every one, and stopped half of them ourselves. But we have also failed, and died trying. Do you know what the Crafters who succeeded and the failures had in common?" Garland asked.

Vincent shook his head.

"They died."

"Master," Olivia chided.

"This is important, Olivia. No Crafter has ever fought a Golem, and lived through the experience. We have brought them down before. But it cost us everything. Even if we succeed in spectacular fashion, I am going to lose friends tonight," Garland said, fixing Olivia with a hard stare.

"Master, you've never been good at pep talks, but that was abysmal."

"Right, I'm sorry," Garland said, and shook his head sadly. "I just can't see this decision as anything other than a terrible mistake."

That, more than anything else he had heard, left Vincent terrified.

"Didn't the Lord Captain listen to you?" Olivia asked.

"The Lord Captain listened to the council, who are too burning eager to prove the strength of the Guild to the City. Lionel Adams was the only one who spoke against this madness, and you'd expect the word of the only person in the room to have lived through the Fourth to count for more."

"Are they really that eager for a little glory?"

"A little?" Crafter Garland laughed. "Put aside the politics. Who in the City hasn't imagined themselves standing on a wall, with a Golem laid low in front of them? As much as I disagree with this plan, I am going to fight."

Garland shook his head, and pointed to one of the soldiers with a clipboard. "That's your group over there. Bracken Howel picked you personally, and besides him you'll be only other Crafter I trained for war. I trust his judgment, so I'm comfortable with where you're placed. But you've also been given Saval, and that troubles me."

"Why is that, master?" Olivia asked.

"Her research has left her more frayed than she ought to be. Like a piece of linen that's been washed too many times. Be careful."

"We're going to battle Golems. There isn't anything less careful we could be doing."

"Don't be glib. A Crafter broken by their own power is as dangerous as an invasion. In part because those ash stains in Oversight worry too much about the politics of killing a Crafter, and not enough about the danger that Crafter poses. Just remember the creed of the Guild."

"To live is to burn," Vincent and Olivia said, at the same time.

"Exactly. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Golem to bring down," Garland said, and he turned away, his long read coat billowing slightly, before he marched away,

He hadn't said goodbye. He hadn't wished them good luck, exhorted them to be brave, or offered them any encouragement. He had only warned them to be ready to risk their lives, and showed them a resolve so firm it barely seemed to notice the storm.

There was a lesson in that, and Vincent couldn't help but wonder if his failure to understand it was the reason he had not earned the coat.