“I trust you all enjoyed our brief recess?” Orenda asked as she took her seat, once again, before the assembled members of parliament. “I would like to address the valid economic concerns I see the new legal system has inadvertently created. I will admit that I was not under the impression that so many members of the nobility were in such dire economic straits. This information seems rather strange to me. I will admit that I don’t understand it in the slightest. Under the new tax code that we’ve implemented the conditions should be favorable to everyone; this is mindless math. I shan’t be accepting payments in pigs or fish.”

“Your majesty,” the duchess of Seaweed District explained, “districts who find their assets more... difficult to liquidate... are gonna have ourselves a real hard time under this system.”

“It seems to me that you were having quite a difficult time under the old system,” Orenda said, “these numbers aren’t exactly new for you. And I will say that when I entered this great nation, I came in through the port at Seaweed, and I found it to be in great disrepair. Public services in your district are severely lacking.”

“I’m from Seaweed,” Sarya said, “we had ourselves a famine when I was a youngun. Lost a lotta folk… lost myself two perfectly good parents… they… they cut what we had to favor me...”

“How does a fishing district have a famine?” Orenda asked.

“They say that when the queen is angry,” Sarya said, “the fish don’t bite.”

“Then that should no longer be an issue that would require address,” Orenda said.

“With all due respect,” the duchess said, “the port has been fished dry, and even if it hadn’t, ain’t a soul buyin. It’s cheaper to get the stuff from the Water Continent.”

“Do people want that?” Orenda asked, “Wouldn’t it need to be preserved? Do people prefer salted fish to fresh?”

“Hey, I got somethin to say to her,” the duke of the Agricultural District said, “Y’all still out here runnin rodeos. I ain’t seen no plans to cancel ‘em.”

“I ain’t got no plans to cancel ‘em, Lorry,” the duchess seemed exhausted, “I need the money; we need the tourism.”

“Y’all still got races?” Lorsan asked, “Cage fightin’? How y’all runnin them if you’re gonna be out here runnin around talkin about you can’t afford to pay humans to fish, can’t afford to pay ‘em to run the hotels and bathhouses and whatnot? What’s the plan there?”

“I don’t know,” the duchess admitted, “Ask the merchant’s, the fishers, the hospitality guilds.”

“We done give you our projections,” the head of the merchant’s guild said, “We’re havin a real hard time, but I reckon we’ll get by.”

“I don’t think she’s accurately representing her constituents!” The duke of the Sage Lake district declared, “Ain’t no way they’re sayin what she’s sayin! The merchants are the hardest hit!”

“Nah, darlin, we got ourselves a hell’uva boost,” she said, “we got ourselves a real generous donation from a new home goods merchant lookin to set up a brand. She’s writin herself a cookbook, writin another’n on sewin, that new school’s openin up in the Agricultural District, and that same member’s lookin to get into the textile art game, sellin, and I reckon she’s done went and joined the artisan’s guild too. She wants us to use the money to fund other human start-ups and god willin and the creek don’t rise that’s exactly what I plan on doin.”

“A donation from who?” The duke snarled, “I didn’t see no-”

“You didn’t do the readin!” Lorsan shrieked, “All y’all out’chere actin like ya can’t read!”

“Move!” Came a voice at the door, and the human guard was momentarily startled before his face beamed with pride.

“Announcing the honorable Xaxac Brigaddon the Second!” he decreed as Junior came huffing in with a piece of machinery the size of his torso. Had it not been for his shifter strength it would have likely been quite difficult for him to carry. A strange murmur came from the members of parliament, some in amazement and some in disdain.

Junior gently set the machine down on the desk in front of Orenda, then leaned it forward dangerously to tug the long tail that protruded from it, apparently in an attempt to get it to lay exactly how he wanted it. The tail had trailed behind him and continued out to the hallway, making it impossible for the guard to close the door.

“All y’all watch this!” he said, “First, I caught lightnin’ in a bottle, an’ now I’ve caught sound out the air.”

He leaned over the contraption and fiddled with the various knobs and dials, then took hold of a piece of metal and moved it upright.

“Who the hell is that?” The duke of the Mountains of Death asked as if he had not heard the guard’s proclamation.

“A’ight so what I want’cha to keep in mind,” Junior told Orenda, “Is that this is barely gonna work, on account’a I only got the one tower back at the house, but I put that antenna up on the tallest tower I could find on your roof, so we’re just gonna try ‘er out and see what the hell happens. You remember how I told ya that sound was just a vibration? A’ight, well the whole universe is made outta energy, and vibrations make waves, like throwin’ a stone into a pond. You can convert sound energy into electric energy and send that out and it oughta pick it up at the tower back at the house- oh, also I need to build an absolute fuckton a towers, not just for this but I do also wanna make a big ball of lightnin and just keep knockin it around the- ok so there’s a bunch a’ energy in the air, like in the firmament, and that’s where the lightnin comes from, and if I put some energy into it I can get more outta it and just knock it from tower to tower until it’s a big ass ball and we can drain outta that- but that ain’t neither here nor there- but I do wanna do that eventually, but also, I got another idea for wires, like I was tellin ya about- this is the wireless version but the wired one ya couldn’t evesdrop on- but this’in ya can put on like… boats and shit- but either way, y’all watch this!”

“Junior, please,” Orenda said, “I am begging you to get some sleep.”

“Now what we gonna do,” he explained as the machine hissed to life with a sound Orenda, and many others, found disagreeable, “Is radiate them signals outwards; it radiates so it’s a radio, ya’ get what I’m sayin? It’s gonna radiate them electromagnetic waves outward and the tower at the house is gonna pick ‘em up.”

“Electromagnetic?” Orenda asked, “Radiation? Junior, I’m sure this all quite impressive, but I’m in the middle of an important meeting and I do wish I had a way to contact you. I’d love it if you could keep a mage on staff so that I could scry you. I would absolutely love to look at this, but I’m afraid it’s simply quite bad timing, and had you let me know beforehand that you were coming it would have been much more convenient.”

“You’re listening to Rabbit Radio!” A tangy female voice rang through the room, “Communication quick as a jackrabbit! This is Solomaur Brigaddon, live from the Burrow!”

“Solo, this is Junior, you hear me?” Junior spoke into the contraption he held, which was connected to the large machine by yet another wire.

“You ain’t loud and clear,” Solomaur answered, “But I hear you. You sound tired as hell.”

“I ain’t tired. Why’s everybody keep sayin that?”

“It’s a scry without magic!” A woman who’s plaque proclaimed her to be the leader of the artisan’s guild observed. “That’s going out to Brigaddon Burrow? That’s a two day ride!”

“A’ight everybody,” Junior climbed onto the desk, “Who wants to let me build a big ass tower on your land and maaaaaaybe dig it up to lay wire? Who’s tired of havin to go out and find somebody what went to some fancy mage school to deliver a message? If ya can’t do that you gotta sit down an’ write a letter, then wait on it to get delivered. If I start construction on ever’ bit a this simultaneously, I can have a communications network spannin the whole continent within the next three years, year and a half if we hustle. Them nobles lookin at me like they hate me- ain’t nothin an elf with a copper hates more than a human with a silver- but get in on the ground floor, on accounta this is gonna be big.”

“He had ‘em an’ he lost ‘em,” Mary Sue said, “Sure wish he’d’a got daddy’s charisma.”

“This is very impressive,” Orenda whispered to her in an attempt not to be overheard by Junior lest it hurt his feelings, “but we’ve not worked anything out with the nobility. We’ve accomplished nothing.”

“How far apart do them towers have to be?” the duke of the Agricultural District asked.

“Right now I need um up in pretty much ever’ district,” Junior explained, “It’ll work at your house from the one I got at the Burrow. You’re… the only one I don’t need nothin from. They only got so big of a range, so if we want the whole system to work we need all the towers so we can bounce ‘em off each other.”

“I have no idea how that works, but I love it!” the duke of the Agricultural District proclaimed. “I want a radio!”

“That’s just a stupider, more expensive form of scrying,” the duke of the Sage Lake district argued.

“Maybe, ifin ya’ can scry,” Junior admitted, “but you ain’t my target audience. I’m gonna sell the hell outta these fuckers. In the next ten years, they’s gonna be a radio in ever house in Uril. And then? Then we start radiatin’ the shit out of um. We pick a frequency and just start castin out on that broad range- broadcastin- and anybody with a radio in they house can tune into that frequency and hear it’. We tell everybody to gather round the radio at a certain time on that certain frequency, and we get musicians like this little lady,” he pointed at Sarya and asked, “You wanna sell more sheet music? You get that fiddle and you play it into this microphone and once folks hear it see how many wanna buy it.”

“Wait, all of those things will pick up all signals?” An earth elven man, apparently the head of the Free Press and Printer’s guild asked, “We could scry the whole kingdom at once? We could ‘broadcast’ the news?”

“You can broadcast whatever the hell ya’ want, I don’t give a shit as long as the money spends,” Junior told him, “but it ain’t gonna travel real far if I can’t get these towers up. You can buy yourself a gen-uine Brigaddon brand radio (patent pending) and say whatever the hell ya want, to whoever the hell ya want.”

“I don’t know about all that,” Orenda said, “if anyone can listen in it seems to be the sort of thing that may need to be regulated.”

“Yeah, regulate the hell out of it, I don’t give a shit,” Junior shrugged, “Might have a real hard time though; it ain’t really meant to be regulated. You can tune into different frequencies- that’s how quick the energy vibrates- so I don’t know what’d stop ‘em from just switchin the channel and movin to a different tower.”

“People could spread misinformation,” Orenda said.

“You can’t stifle innovation, Rendy,” Junior said, “These fuckers are hard to make, but I figured it out. If I can figure it out, somebody else could. Which, by the way… shit what’d I do with my packet? I had a packet with schematics- I need ya to sign- had some trouble at the office in town-”

“Your dumb ass left it on the table in the kitchen,” Mary Sue pulled it from her bag and threw it at him, but he managed to catch it in the air.

“Right, I want in on this new patent system under them new laws. This here is an absolute fuckton of my inventions, and some stuff I’m collaboratin with some folk in Kaiwai and-”

“Your majesty, this is insane!” The Duke of the Northern Mountains District interjected, “You can’t possibly trust that contraption! Look at it! He says it runs on lightning and invisible… radiation? Sound waves? This here’s a dangerous, unregistered, misunderstood form of magic. We’re looking at a monkey with a wand- he don’t know how to use it; that right there is gonna explode like that tower outside!”

“It may be a bad time to talk of towers,” Orenda whispered, but then what he has said truly sank into her brain. “I’m sorry- did you say, ‘monkey with a wand’?”

“This motherfucker wanna see somebody go ape?” Junior snarled.

“Don’t attack him!” Mary Sue said, “It’s what he wants. It’ll prove him right!”

“He can be right, I don’t give a shit,” Junior said, “Hey, you wanna know a secret, ya knife-eared fuck? I am an animal- an’ so are you. You think you’re special, but if’in I cut you open I ain’t gonna find no magic star stuff. I’m gonna find blood an’ flesh an’ organs. Wanna try ‘er out?”

“Don’t goad him!” Mary Sue grabbed her brother by the back of his shirt and pulled him from the desk, causing him to shriek and nearly fall on top of Orenda, but he clung to the surface so that he did at least remain upright and on his feet, though he found himself on the floor beside the desk. He seemed afraid that the motion would hurt his machine and cradled it lovingly in his arms.

“What the hell happened outside?” Junior asked, “What’s all the rubble? Did a human do that?”

“No,” Orenda said, “A contingent of mages was apparently unhappy with the architecture. I am curious to know whether or not anyone knows anything about that. Actually, love,” she turned her attention to the human guard by the door, “Could you go and summon someone to find Sonny or Bunni Brigaddon? Don’t pull Bunni from her work- if they can’t find them please find me Ms. Barbra Allen. Someone who can tell me what we’ve learned from the attack.”

“Yes, your majesty,” the guard said, placed one hand in the small of his back and the other over his heart, bowed, and walked into the hall to ring for a servant.

“Thank you,” Orenda said.

“I have more new business,” the duke of the Agricultural District said, holding up another folder, “can I just… I’m pretty high up, can I just throw this? I’m just gonna throw this.” He wrapped the protective ribbon around the folder and tossed it in an attempt to have it soar past the lower rung of parliament, and he did succeed, but it landed on the floor a few feet in front of Orenda’s desk.

Klin went to retrieve it with a sigh, and Orenda noticed that he no longer staggered when he walked; she thought this was a rather short amount of time to have sobered up.

“Just about ever one of y’all owes me money,” Lorsan declared, “My merchants are sick a’ exportin on credit. We’re here to collect. Y’all might not be representin your constituents, but I am. I need enforcement from the crown because they all about to pay what they owe.”

“Oh,” Orenda opened the folder Klin handed her and read over the data contained within, shipments of food and textile goods had outstanding debt in almost every district. Lorsan was right, and under the new system he was well within his rights to demand payment so that he could distribute it to the individual claimants. But right now? When he knew the other districts had no money with which to pay them?

“Damn,” Junior said, “They broke as shit. How do ya let yourself get in that kinda situation? My parents ran a plantation under the table and we never went that broke.”

Mary Sue put a hand on his shoulder and agreed, “Yeah they… I bet they’re pretty desperate for money. I wonder… how many of them nobles got land? Wonder how many’d be willin to sell it? Wonder how much blood we could squeeze from a stone?”

“You need land to build these towers,” Orenda said quietly, “Duke Agalon is putting pressure on them. I think he’s trying to help you.”

“Under our new system,” Orenda said to the parliament, “The Duke of the Agricultural District has filed a formal grievance. The crown has reviewed his claim, as well as information provided from the merchant’s guild on the behest of individual claimants. It appears that under the old feudal system wherein this debt was incurred, the goods were distributed to various landowners who would distribute them as they saw fit- this means that many of you are claimants both in a leadership sense- and in a very real sense as individual debtors under his suite. The crown rules that these debts do not need to be paid today, but shall provide a rather generous grace period of ninety days. If these debts have not been paid in full by the time allotted, the crown shall seize such property as can be said to have fair market value equal to any remaining debt left outstanding, which shall be determined by public auction, to get the good Duke the monies he is very clearly owed.”

“I wanted it today, but I’ll take it,” Lorsan said, “but I’ll tell all y’all this- we ain’t sellin a damn thing to nobody what owes us a copper. We ain’t givin on credit no more. Y’all said it ya’selves, I ain’t my daddy. Bought the only good thing that dead fuck ever did for me was arrange a marriage with a smart woman. Y’all wanna know how to run a district- blood ain’t supposed ta be blue. It’s supposed to be red. Y’all so goddamn inbred ya can barely stand up. Get some new blood. Family tree’s supposed to fork.”

“That’s it!” The duke of the Sage Lake District shouted, “That’s it! This boy’s done lost his goddamn mind!”

“You challengin me, Erl?” Lorsan stood and leaned over his desk, “Because I am absolutely here for it! You went to that fancy academy in Satra- I went to military school! I will whoop your ass up one side a’ this trainin ground and down the other! Put in a formal challenge! I will fuckin end you!”

“You a healer!” the duke of the Sage Lake District countered, “You ain’t gonna do shit!”

“Make it formal then,” Lorsan shouted, “Or sit your ass down. Some of us was on the right side a’ history and ain’t gotta hide behind assassins knockin towers down and shit!”

“Lorasn, sit down!” The duchess of Seaweed demanded.

“I ain’t talkin to you,” Lorsan told her, “you in particular skirtin a thin line, Esta. They’s a tell all book ‘bought to come out and folks gonna learn some shit about you. So you keep ya’ damn mouth shut. You spent half my childhood runnin ya’ mouth about my mommy. You needed a slap in mouth for half a century!”

“Lorry?” the head of the merchant’s guild looked up, and Orenda felt the atmosphere in the room change. It had always been heated, but this shift was palatable, noticeable. This wasn’t political or economic, this wasn’t surface level; this was a deep, personal wound.

“Sit. Down. Erl.” Lorsan leaned over the desk to glare at the duke of the Sage Lake district, and his eyes narrowed as the stones in his ears began to glow.

The duke of the Sage Lake District sat down.

“That’s what I fuckin thought.”

“Announcing Ms Anilla, advisor to our great empress,” The human guard, true to his word, announced, “And the esteemed Sonny Brigaddon, Captain of the Royal Guards!”