"Schwanengesang"
The Presidium
34 Searing 122 Steel
The Presidium
34 Searing 122 Steel
"Mind if I take an early lunch, Your Excellency?"
First Minister Brenner Dornkirk glanced up from his paperwork to his secretary and offered a slight smile. She was a lovely woman- a portrait of Zaichaeri beauty with her hourglass figure in a smartly tailored uniform and her blonde hair worn up in a Victory Roll.
"Not at all, Ingrid, but would you mind turning on the phonograph on your way out?" She nodded in answer to his request, and stepped to the corner of the room to lift the lid. She glanced at the record that was already on the turntable. The First Minister had been listening to it frequently, of late. He was an obsessive sort. She imagined that was how he'd reached his current position, but she was glad to be on her way out for how sick she'd grown of the maudlin music in which he'd been immersing himself of late. She placed the needle onto the wax and set the record to spinning.
"See you in an hour." She offered with a dainty wave over her shoulder as she sauntered out the door.
Brenner glanced after Ingrid until the door shut behind her, and then he sighed lightly. He glanced down to the documents before him ... More allowances for the non-human population of Zaichaer. How odd, he thought, that he should find himself in the position of championing the cause of the subhuman class. He'd never borne any particular love for such creatures, save for a few salient exceptions like Eitan Angevin. But Brenner, despite all his idealism, had a proper Zaichaeri pragmatic streak. He knew all too well that their cooperation would be pivotal to the war effort. They could not succeed on the Northern front if the disgruntled denizens of the city proper were clever enough to take that opportunity to assert their wants and press their causes. He recognised, early on, that they would have to get ahead of that- and so he'd enlisted the aid of Florian, who'd then put him in a room with the unofficial mayor of the Knob, and here he was. He signed his name with the usual flourish, and landlords were no longer legally permitted to deny residency to non-humans on the basis of their race alone.
Sighing, he placed the papers into his outbox and wheeled his chair back away from his desk. He rose and slipped a small, brass box from the inside pocket of his double-breasted uniform jacket. Snapping it open, he withdrew a cigarette and placed it between his lips. The lighter he used had been a gift from Eitan at one of their shared birthdays when they were still adolescents. Smoking had been one of the many vices Brenner had brooked as a teen, and one he'd only recently picked up again. It didn't muddy the mind the way drinking did, so it was something he could do to take the edge off earlier in the day without it negatively impacting his duties to the state.
He glanced down at the lighted and spun it between his fingers. On the front his initials were engraved: "B.S.D." and on the back, a favourite quote of his younger days- "Burning bridges like they're cigarettes". He smiled, remembering the melody attached to that particular lyric. It had been one of those songs that felt life-defining for a strident youth poised to take on the world and suffer no compromise in the doing. He'd have been proud of the man he was today. He'd made sacrifices, aplenty... Amputating the parts of himself that didn't serve his greater goals. He had elected to be civilised, rather than evolved... for evolution was about giving into the animal in oneself, and civilisaiton was about overcoming the bestial bits and rising to exemplify humanity for humans were, after all, the paragon of animals. He took in a slow drag from his cigarette.
Still, his mind wandered to those whilom, wanton days when he'd explored the animal in him... Eitan had been his cohort in those unseemly adventures, and he recalled how he'd rationalised his behaviour in the language of the soldier. Men could bond together in ways they could never connect with women. This much was true, but that did not excuse... He exhaled, and such guilty thoughts disipated as if amidst the smoke that billowed toward the ceiling.
Brenner pivoted round to regard the city... his city, through the floor to ceiling window that served as his backdrop when visitors sat across from him. Zaichaer was why he'd given up on youthful fancies and devoted himself to the pillars of civilisation. And Zaichaer was worth it. He smiled, and those little pangs of regret that had pricked at him moments earlier were summarily dismissed. He remembered who, what and where he was, and that the future was halcyon bright.
The flash, too, was bright but far from halcyon. He saw it before he heard it- a flicker in a distant corner of the city, followed by a thunderous boom. His eyes widened and the cigarette fell from his lips to the floor- And so it had begun. The war had come home.
* * *
"Status report." Brenner demanded in a booming tone, to be heard over the bustling activity of the tactical office. By the time he'd arrived, there were klaxons sounding throughout the Presidium- perhaps they were city-wide, but it was impossible to tell as loud as it was in the immediate vicinity. "First minister!" A terrified young man with red-hair and blue eyes raised his arm in a hail, "There's been an explosion in the Knob, and... Excellency, there are reports of Mists. We are scrambling airships and initiating presidium defence protocols."
"Why aren't non-essential personnel being evacuated yet? The Presidium is the prime target for any offensive action."
"We haven't been able to reach Her Esteemed Excellency the Grand Marshal, First Minister... No one has clearance to-..." Brenner cut him off,
"On my authority, begin evacuating all senior staff to the command bunkers and get all lower level staff off the premises to shelters safer neighbourhoods."
"Aye, Your Excellency!"
"What's your name, Soldier?" Brenner asked pointedly.
"Schermer, Excellency. Tobias Schermer."
"You're doing good work, Private. Keep it up." Brenner placed a hand on his shoulder and stalked to the crowded window, where the first shots were going off into the deathly cloud descending upon the city. Cheers erupted as the shells exploded in clouds of green, and the tactical office broke into cheers all around Brenner, but the First Minister's expression remained grim. This was only the first salvo, to say nothing of the lives already lost even if they succeeded in staving off doom for the greater city. This was no time for jubilation.
He turned and stepped back over to the redheaded man,
"Private Schermer." Brenner's grim expression caused Tobias to lose the smile he'd been wearing, "Any work yet from the Grand Marshal?"
"N-none, Excellency."
"Well, where is she scheduled to be, right now?" Brenner knew first-hand how taxing the schedule of a high-ranking Zaichaeri officer could be. Someone knew were he was at all times, and Marshal Kelgarde's schedule was doubtless even more unforgiving than his own.
"Let me check..." Tobias sifted through a few papers, and furrowed his brow. "It looks like she should be en route to a lunch on the West End."
"The West End..." With as quick and chaotic as all of this had been, Brenner hadn't even had a moment to think about the safety of his loved ones in other high-risk targets throughout the city. His parents, his brother... Eitan... Ursula Fletcher, Myles Arnnett... Lyra Al'Fractil... Their faces flashed before his mind's eye in rapid succession. Even with the mists seemingly held at bay, he didn't know what was going on in what parts of the city- He only knew where he would strike if he were their enemy, and everyone he loved was likely in such a place. The sacrifices he'd made, the risks he'd taken... Had they led to this? Would he be alone, without friends or family when all of this was through? Perhaps he already was... Perhaps everyone about whom he cared in the world was already dead or dying in agony.
"Are you all right, sir...?" Tobias furrowed his brow, as the sound of their shelling continued to shake the sky in the distance.
"I'm... I'm all right, I need to-..." The rumble of their shelling was overtaken by a greater blast, followed by screams from those at the window upon whom shards of broken glass rained down as they were knocked backward. Brenner reflexively raised his gloved hand to cover his face, as the debris flew at him.
He lowered his hand to regard the scene without, where the mists again billowed forth- faster and bigger than before.
"You should get to the command bunker, Excellency..." Tobias noted gravely.
"I..." Brenner knew that duty dictated that Tobias was correct. That the protocols were in place for a reason and his service to the State demanded he place his own life before this boy's... before the lives of his parents... of his brother and his family, who represented the future of House Dornkirk, before all he'd known and loved before, but in this moment, at long last, the sacrifices felt too great. The risks about which he'd been so stridently certain for so long felt like mortal errors. "But I am in so far in blood that sin will pluck upon sin..."
"I'm sorry, sir?" Private Shermer tilted his head, confused at Brenner's sudden lapse into poetry.
"Schermer, if the Mists advance beyond the second parallel, you have my leave to evacuate the tactical offices. We don't have enough of the gas in store to stop them if they get that close, and... By the Empty Throne, you deserve a chance as much as any of us." He gritted his teeth, "Certainly more than me." And with that, Brenner darted out into the corridor and down, down... Not so low as the bunker he was meant to occupy, but to the level of the street.
The city was in chaos. People were storming toward the Presidium in hopes of finding safe haven in the most heavily defended structure in the nation, and security forces were shooting down the desperate peasants who attempted to storm through their ranks.
"A horse!" Brenner commanded, "A horse!" The captain in charge of security, started at the sight of the first minister- looking not at all himself, and gestured for one of his underlings to oblige the demand of the man who may, at that point, have been the de facto leader of Zaichaer for all they knew. No orders had come from the Grand Marshal, and it was entirely possible she was dead by that point.
As soon as Brenner was able to mount, he ordered a path to be cleared through the perimeter for him to make his way out of the Presidium. The ride to the West End felt eternal as he journeyed, but instantly it was an ephemeral flash in his memory as he rode up to Dornkirk Manor. He could vaguely recall riding down a few desperate souls, who hadn't heeded his cries to clear the path but, like him, they had taken risks and suffered the corresponding deserts.
His grin was broad and desperate as he regarded his childhood home- It still stood. Dornkirk Manor survived! Which meant that his parents likely lived yet- And perhaps White Knight Hall stood, too. The future of House Dornkirk had not been cut down... Not yet. He rode up to the front gates, and saw his parents in the doorway gazing over his head. He waved, grinning as he dismounted.
"Mutti! Vatti!" They didn't seem to hear him amidst the din all around them. He jogged up to join them and, just as he did, his mother's eyes turned from the sky to her son- And they were not pleased to see him. There was only dread. Sylana's eyes were the first sight Brenner ever beheld as a mewling infant and so too were they the last he ever beheld as a man... A man who had achieved great things in the eyes of the State of Zaichaer, and rose to heights his lowborn ancestors would never have dreamt possible.
The streak that cracked from the sky to the ground sundered Dornkirk Manor in twain and left three singed, smoking skeletons where Melchior, Sylana and Brenner Stahl Dornkirk had stood. The winds blew the ash of former flesh from their bones- two sets bleached white with the unforgiving heat, and one set shone like chrome- its steely hands outstretched and seeking the solace of a mother's embrace one last time... but never quite reaching.
In the air... in the spiritus mundi hung a thought that dissipated with the ash and smoke that once composed the human form of Brenner Dornkirk.
"I have set my life upon a cast," it whispered, "And I will stand the hazard of the die."
