Anya: Paragon

The kidnapper slithered from the window, flopped onto the floor of the alley then was up and running. This damn city, he thought, their goddamned games and goddamned houses so full of assholes that a crooked man can’t earn an honest living. The alley was oily in the dark and he slipped and slid in his haste, not seeing the stars above or the the rotten sick below. And when he turned the corner he didn’t see the cloaked figure waiting, didn’t see the blank darkness where a face should be and didn’t see the flash of power from an outstretched hand. He didn’t feel the ground come up to meet him either, his brain had boiled before he hit the ground.

“They always think they can run,” Anya said, more to herself then her companions. She put one booted foot on the back of the man’s neck and stooped to confirm her kill. Blood poured from ears and eyes, and his last rattling breath made little bubbles in a puddle, the best part of which might be horse piss. A clean kill, but she sighed as she straightened up, thinking of the night's events. Well, not sighed, a creature with no breath doesn’t so much sigh as emit a trill of mental energy, the telepathic equivalent of a wet blanket.

“Now, now, let’s not begrudge the dead a final jog, praetor.” The thought-voice of Captain Maizel was like a silver bell, or a shaft of starlight that pierced the filth of the alley. She rounded the corner, following the steps of the dead man albeit with considerably more grace.

“After tonight I’ll begrudge him everything,” Anya answered in thought, “the girls are to the healers?”

“And this fellow to the ghoul-works.” Maizel answered verbally, more as instruction to the men that followed her, men that regarded Anya with visible trepidation. Armed with spears and armored with steel breastplates and dark red pantaloons, these were no rabble but men in service to the Prince. All the same, it’s one thing for them to follow orders from an Oprachni, another to find a Blackclad and their kill. Anya slipped off the corpse and retreated to a respectful distance behind Maizel as she delivered her remaining orders: such and such family representatives would be informed, building owner to be given this notification and so on.

Then it was over, and the pair walked briskly, threading through the winding, narrow streets until they emerged at one of the wider boulevards. Even at night the main streets of Ivograd bustled with life, but a bubble of empty space seemed to surround the pair even on the most crowded sections of road. Both were clad in the black leathers most of the Oprachni wore, and the badges of office they carried were as good as a magic cloak so far as the people around them cared. They walked in quick silence so far as people might observe, for what little chatter passed between them passed from mind to mind.

After some time they came to their destination, the Monastery of the Oprichnina, fortress, school and dormitory all in one. They didn’t go to the small common area set out for city business, but to the area reserved for the Oprachni themselves. Ages ago how to easily secure an area in a city like Ivograd had been asked and the answer was simple. At least, simple for a race that can travel without moving: the iron door. Not a door of any kind in the practical sense, but panels of glass two inches thick, set in spiked, cold wrought iron, a door that cannot be opened, only passed through. The pair simply walked up to the door, exploded into motes of light which disappeared, quick as a fleeting thought, and the women reassembled on the other side.

They parted ways then, each to the particular spaces set aside for them. The relationship between each Oprachni and humanity varied: for some human comforts were as incomprehensible as a book to a boulder, and what little time they were not engaged in their business they spent in alcoves carved into the rock of the Monastery. Others, Anya among them, maintained more… domestic apartments. Deep in the maze of tunnels and chambers Anya entered those rooms set aside for her, a cozy group little apartment. A sitting room, a bedroom just big enough for a snug bed, the little comforts a more human mind needs to consider a place “home”.

She stripped off her cloak, and the diadem of her office: a wide strip of sheer black silk, wrapped around the face it gives the appearance of only darkness beneath a hood, the symbolic anonymity of the Prince’s Shadows. Folding it carefully she sees on the little table a letter. It is not unusual to leave notes, but the seal upon this letter is most memorable one, the seal of the Prince of the City. Anya held the letter in hand and cast her mind back to the last time she had held such missive, nearly two years earlier.

She had taken a leave of her duties, searching out a cherished cousin, only to find her both much changed, and much in need. For a time Anya had adventured, dwelling among the lawless, the vulgar, the ernest. She had fond memories, of her companions at least, their many and varied psychological states, their at times arms-length relationship with reason. But in time they had found themselves at a parting, having established a new home, far to the south, for refugees that she had hoped to bring under the good graces of the city. She had failed, her efforts brought to naught by the actions of upstart houses of the City. Even now though she smiled to remember that they themselves had come out of the fracas without advantage, having spirited away the better part of the treasure those houses had sought.

Having saved the beginning of a new nation, her companions had found themselves rudderless. She had offered to journey with them on the long road north to Ivograd, but found them curiously reluctant. So instead she had taken more exclusive paths: she had wandered, day and night, meandering along the bare rock of the mountains, listening, always listening. Until she found it, the merest root of the great organism that is the living city, the living stone that was as her own flesh. As she passed through the door to the Monastery, so she passed into the living stone, becoming pure thought, pure energy, drawn through the living stone as dew is drawn through the roots of a plant. So, some time later, she emerged from the stone within the Monastery, and made report to her superiors. Before she could be briefed, the sealed letter, the command to present herself before the Prince.

It is always claimed that the true power in Ivograd lies with the Boyars and their assembly, the players and their endless machinations in their great game. The position of Prince, who by explicit law may leave no legacy to any heirs, nor any largess to other relations in life, is seen as more a ceremonial head. A more palatable face to present to the assembly and the people then the Oprachni themselves. All this Anya knew, any child of the city could have told you that, but even so Prince Oleg was not what she expected.

Prince Oleg had occupied the station since before Anya’s birth and as she stood waiting in his chambers, seated behind a desk of polished mahogany the size of a small rivergoing boat, she thought he must have grown sideways every year in office. Shiny of pate, ruddy of complexion, he had the well scrubbed pleasantness of a fat, happy baby. Yet for all that cheer he radiated, there was something unspeakably old behind his eyes.

He shooed his functionaries from the room and they made pleasant talk. He pinched a face at her description of the predations of the Abbey to the north, nodded contemplatively at their decisions and laughed uproariously at the final outcome. Then he came it: “appearances”, he said, “we cannot escape appearances.”

The debt that she had incurred on behalf of her cousin, and the subsequent reduction in the fortunes of other houses, had, he explained, created the appearance of an impropriety, of collusion between the Oprachni and House Romanoff. Anya began to plead her case for impartiality, but he silenced her with a smile and a wave.

“I have assurances that in this matter you are beyond reproach,” he said, “and a solution of mutual advantage has presented itself.” With a schoolboy’s smile he explained it: her responsibility to house Romanoff would be satisfied immediately, from his own purse. She, in turn, would consider this and certain other things as a signing bonus. For, he elaborated, she would enter into the training and then service as one of his elite, the hand-picked members of the Prince’s Shadows.

It was an experience rather like being drawn steadily into a bath of hot wax: so very pleasant save for the lack of volition on her part. As she inquired into the details, she realized that even though she should like to have this be a choice, she could see no way to avoid the path he had laid out for her. It all seemed so logical, after all, the position was one she had coveted, the debt one she could never otherwise satisfy. Yet as she affixed her mark to the parchment of appointment that appeared at his command, she couldn’t help but think she would one day look back on her logic and wonder if she should have been more foolish.

Yet time seemed to have proved her worries premature. After being bustled from the Princes presence (she vaguely remembered he had to mediate a pressing matter of grazing rights), she had not seen the Prince himself since. A good thing too, for the next several months had left even a sleepless creature like her exhausted. Training, theory, examination, she absorbed what felt like a lifetime of arcane study. When it was done, and her crystal brain felt like sand, she was issued new garb and arms, and the diadem that would mark her when she moved among the people as a forbidding presence even among her fellow Oprachni.

She was expected to excellent, and she was. Her duties were varied, and while she was always under a senior member of the Oprachnina, she was steadily given wider latitude. She would conduct the most delicate negotiations, where the expectation was that at a moment’s notice she could deliver horrific violence. She would play the heavy for others at times, at other her presence, along with others of her station, could serve to caution even the most… rambunctious of crowds. And when such caution was not heeded, she employed the tools she had been given, liberally.

She found the work most gratifying.

At the same time she had found herself growing closer with others, even as she was more cut off from the world of flesh. Captain Maizel, in particular, grew to be a close friend as well as mentor and field commander. It was at her urging that she explored new sources of power, pushing herself to master sources of psionic energy outside of the normal forces she had learned to manipulate. Maizel felt it important that Anya master internal sources of power.

So it had gone, and now, again a summons from the Prince. To what end, she did not know.