Trickster's Choice [Trickster]
Canon Status: AU. Very AU.
Genre: Fantasy, adventure, romance.
Rating: PG.
Characters: Trickster I (James Jesse).
Pairing: None.
Warnings: Crackcrackcrackcrack.
Notes: Dear Tamora Pierce, I am so very very sorry. If it helps, I *love* the books I am shamelessly ripping off. (The title made me do it!) Written for the piper_trickster Alphabet Challenge, prompt "C is for Choice".
Summary: The role of long-lost heir to the throne and incidentally direct representative of a god will be played by James Jesse. Who gets to fly, so should stop complaining about all the work involved.
The first day of Rain Month, commonly called Trickster’s Day, in the twelfth year of the reign of King Edward V. Keystone City on the Mercury Islands.
“Stop, thief!”
James didn’t bother looking behind him-that was a sure way to get caught, in the crowded streets of Keystone-but he could tell when the pursuit gave up by the sounds. They hadn’t been trying very hard anyway. It wasn’t like the meat-pie seller was going to be beggared by the loss of a few pies, when she had the best business in the district. And she wouldn’t go to the Watch, unless she wanted to lose her entire business. Southwind District had no use for the King’s Watch.
Slowing to a casual stroll, James bit into one of the meat pies. They were the best in Keystone, well worth the risk of stealing them rather than spending his hard-earned money on lesser fare. Besides, the risk itself was worth more than the pies. It was the reason he was wandering around Southwind District looking for something worth the trouble of fencing.
Of course, there was nothing worth his time. That was the problem with Southwind District: while he could be confident that he wouldn’t find the Watch on his tail because no one in Southwind District was rich or respectable enough to be safe calling them in, no one in Southwind District was rich enough to have anything of value other than the occasional family heirloom, and James always felt bad about stealing those.
If he wanted to make a profit on the day, he would have to leave Southwind District for a wealthier neighborhood. Oldmarket would be a better bet, or if he felt truly adventurous even the Hill, although that was dangerous. The Hill was wall-to-wall old nobility, people who would not hesitate to call in the Watch or simply take matters into their own hands.
James decided he was too lazy to go change into the clothes he kept for those rare occasions when he wanted to blend in on the Hill. Oldmarket it was, then.
He dropped by his hideaway, a single room in one of the rickety inns by the river, to drop off his ill-gotten gains. Sal, behind the bar, smiled as he walked in.
“You’re up early, for you,” she said.
James gave her one of his best smiles in return. “A charming woman regaled me with the virtues of something called a ‘morning’, and I decided to see one for myself.”
“And?” asked Sal. “What do you think?”
“I think I should never have dreamt of doubting the word of such a wonderful woman.”
He was gratified to see her blush. They both knew he didn’t mean it, but it was good to keep in practice. “Oh, you!” she said, waving a hand at him. “Go away and charm someone who doesn’t know you with that Eagletown speech of yours!”
“I hear and obey, o beautiful one,” James replied with an elaborate bow, and then he vanished up the stairs before Sal could find something to throw.
* * *
Oldmarket in the afternoon was busier by far than Southwind, where most people were at work even during the heat of the day. However, Oldmarket had been where the merchants set up shop for centuries, since long before the Neronic Conquest that had led to it being renamed Oldmarket. Generations of kings had not changed the place. James was willing to bet that even the relative locations of the tailors, jewelers, and booksellers were the same as they had been a thousand years before.
The best efforts of generations of Neronic kings to build up Newmarket in Central City across the river hadn’t been able to fight tradition, and all the best sellers of anything one might wish to buy were still in Oldmarket. That made the district the best place in Keystone City to go for a walk that ended up lightening other people’s pockets.
James sauntered along the street, mingling with the rest of the crowd. They were a mixed group, of all walks of life and from all over the Islands and beyond, so he blended in with no trouble. He loved Oldmarket the best of all the districts of the two river cities; where else could he hope to see the new nobility brushing elbows with people like him who would never be allowed near their opulent, boring houses?
In actual fact, it was difficult to get anywhere near those of the new nobility who came to Oldmarket in person at all, what with their guards who would not hesitate to kick a nobody like James out of the way. Still, there were ways.
He caught sight of a group of men-at-arms, surrounding someone who had to be new nobility. Old nobility came to Oldmarket often, as it was convenient to the Hill where most of them still lived, so they never looked so nervous. The two women at the center of the group looked as though they expected brigands to jump out at them from the booths of fine cloth.
James might as well give them something to be nervous about.
The group stopped at the corner booth to bargain, as far as nobility ever understood the term, with the man selling imported silks. James strolled casually over to the wool-seller opposite, keeping the noblewomen in the corner of his vision but not looking at them directly, which would draw the attention of their guards. From the looks on the women’s faces, they were demanding a better price with the arrogance only the new nobility could manage. They had unpleasant faces. He was going to enjoy this.
At last they received a price that suited their exacting standards, and the older of the two women produced a purse of silver and gold coins. As she counted out meticulously the exact sum she intended to pay, James acted.
Getting between the horses of the men-at-arms was only a matter of tumbling forward at the right moment. Of course, most people could never have managed it, but James wasn’t most people. Springing to his feet, he deftly plucked the purse from the noblewoman’s hand before she realized he was there and made his exit. The men-at-arms were too slow to catch him while he was in their midst. They probably hadn’t been expecting him to vault over one of their horses as if it were no trouble at all, though, to be fair.
Bringing horses to Oldmarket was stupid. They might be some protection against attack, might be good tools of intimidation, might spare their delicate noble riders’ feet and keep them away from the common rabble, but in a crowd they were slow. People scattered from their path as the men-at-arms pursued James, but not fast enough. They would never catch James on horseback.
It was only a matter of time, however, before the guards realized this and chased him on foot instead, so James kept running, dodging through the crowd with the ease of long practice. He left the streets where more expensive goods were on sale, turning instead to those where his simple, inexpensive clothing was no longer an identifying mark. One more blond young man could vanish in the crowd.
Apparently those noblewomen paid their men-at-arms well or else extracted harsh punishments for failure, because they were still following, shoving bystanders out of the way. James swore under his breath and turned down a random series of side streets. He tucked the purse into his tunic, where it would not be seen. Someone who looked like him with such a full purse would signal “Thief” to anyone with eyes to see. Most people didn’t have eyes to see, but he wasn’t about to let himself get careless and fall into such a simple trap.
The noise of pursuit was turning into a more general commotion. That was all to the good. As shoppers began to argue with the guards and each other, as merchants shouted in offense as their goods were jostled, fewer and fewer people would notice James. All he needed was to find somewhere quiet to wait until the men-at-arms gave up and went home to Eagletown District with their hard-faced ladies.
The street he was on was seldom much used these days. He probably shouldn’t have turned down it at all; he was safest in the crowd. Still, if he could get off the street and out of sight of anyone looking down it, it might not make a difference. What he needed was a nice, deserted building.
As if in answer to his thoughts, a tall building loomed on the right. It looked like it had once been grand, in the old fashion, with the asymmetrical structure of Mercury Islands buildings from before the Conquest. It was larger than any such building James had ever seen still standing; even the High District homes of the old nobility were smaller, more a collection of ordinary-sized houses than a single giant structure, and the public buildings that had been a part of Keystone City had been demolished after the Conquest, when the first Neronic king had wanted to make it clear which of the sister cities was now the capital. This one must have escaped somehow. It looked more damaged by age and neglect than by looting; even the glass was still in most of the windows. James guessed that whatever had saved the building from destruction had also kept ordinary people out.
The door was closed, but the glass was broken in one window on the second story, and there was a convenient wooden overhang under it that didn’t look unstable. James glanced around, making sure that there was no one else to see what he was about to do, and leapt, flipping up onto the overhang to dive neatly through the broken window, tumbling as he hit the floor, which fortunately was still solid under him.
He sat up and looked around him. He wasn’t on a true second story, but rather on a balcony that stretched around the single immense room. Half of Oldmarket District could have fit into the two levels, James thought. Whatever this building had been, it had been important to be so big. And wealthy; the railings were covered in thick dust (James realized with dismay that after his roll on the floor, so was he), but his appraising eye could see that they had once been elaborately carved from expensive wood.
Looking down onto the lower level, he saw yet more evidence of what had been beautiful and costly decoration. The paint on the walls had kept remarkably well; he could still pick out faces and images, although they were none he had ever seen before. Silver gleamed around the back wall, where all the decorations grew only more elaborate as they formed an immense arched backdrop to…a single chair, as plain in design as the rest of the room was chaotic, that nonetheless still shone silver in the gloom.
James drew in a sharp breath. He recognized this building now. It wasn’t silver, but quicksilver, that reflected the light from the windows. He was in the old Temple of the Trickster, god protector of the Mercury Islands from before the Conquest.
There were no more temples to the Trickster, not in the two and a half centuries since the Conquest, but he had seen, tucked away in corners of Keystone City where none of the Watch would ever go, shrines small enough to go unnoticed by any Neronic passersby, shrines at the center of which always sat a plainly-carved miniature chair.
Once, when he was little, James had asked why people were bowing to the empty chair. His mother had told him to hush, but later, in the privacy of their room for the night, she had told him that those were shrines to the Trickster, who had had to go away a long time ago but had promised to come back some day. She had refused to tell him anything more, but James now knew the rest of the story anyway.
In the days before the Neronic Conquest, the Trickster had been the greatest god of the Mercury Islands, and their kings had ruled with his blessing or not at all. In those days, Keystone City had been the capital and Central City the shadow sister. And then, two hundred and fifty years ago, the conquerors had come from lands far across the sea. Their god was Neron, and the line of kings who ruled by his will were the Neronic kings. The Trickster had been banished from the land, the royal family had been killed, and Keystone City had been left to fall to pieces as the conquering kings made Central City the capital instead. Somehow, it seemed, this temple had been forgotten when it should have been destroyed.
James looked around the balcony for a way down. The stairs looked a trifle rickety, but they were better than trying fancy acrobatics above a stone floor. At the very least, they would break his fall.
The stairs were considerate enough not to collapse under his feet, and James walked across the immense room to the chair where, once, the kings who were also high priests of the Trickster had sat on his feast days. For whatever reason, it seemed in better condition than the rest of the temple. It was barely even dusty, as though someone had been there recently. James looked around, sneezing again, but there were no footsteps besides his own.
“Maybe the god’s been here,” he muttered to himself. It was remarkably easy to believe in this place, even for James, who had never thought much of his gods, that the Trickster had just had to leave suddenly but would be back as soon as he could. He remembered his father teaching him a prayer of sorts to the Trickster when he was a boy. It had been years since he’d had time for prayers more complicated than “Please let me not get caught,” but that had been the only thing other than acrobatics his father had ever taught him, so he had never quite forgotten it. James found the words on his lips as if there had been no years. “And the Trickster said to the last king, ‘We are beyond tricks, and we are lost, and not your children nor your grandchildren nor their grandchildren will see me return, but return I will to your people, in place unexpected, when the children of Neron have forgotten to watch for me. Tell your people to remember and prepare for the one I will choose, the one who can stand against the sky.’ And we are still waiting for the Trickster’s choice.”
“I didn’t say it in so many words, you know. Astonishing what people will do with a little poetic license.”
James spun around. He hadn’t heard anyone come in, but someone was standing behind him…someone whose features were a blur, whose clothing was every color of the rainbow, who glowed azure and gold in the dusty air.
It was the Trickster.
There were only so many gods, after all, and the one standing in the middle of the Trickster’s temple lighting it with the Trickster’s colors was hardly difficult to identify. James wasn’t sure how to react upon meeting a god. He eventually settled for bowing very deeply indeed, on the grounds that gods tended to get very testy if they felt they weren’t being respected.
“If you don’t straighten up, it makes it very inconvenient to talk to you,” the Trickster said.
Then again, maybe not. James stood up, sneezing yet again as he did so.
“That’s better. Introductions would be traditional, but I don’t think I need one, and you should probably know who you are by this point. Which brings us to business.” The Trickster’s multicolored clothing took on for a moment something of the character of a palace official’s uniform. “I’ve been quite a while getting back, although by a stroke of luck not nearly as long as I feared, so I’d rather not waste time. You’re going to be the king of the Mercury Islands. Questions?”
“What?!”
“ ‘What’, what?”
James managed not to sputter incoherently, although it was a close thing. “Why do you want me to be king?”
“Well, your father’s been dead for three years, so it’s not like I have much in the way of choice.” This did not make James any less confused. “Look, what is your name?”
“James Jesse,” he replied automatically.
“No, not that ridiculous Neronic name you’ve been using, I mean your real name. The one your father gave you, not that he used it either. The one his father gave him, and so on and so forth.”
James had learned enough history to see where this was going. “Giovanni Giuseppe. Giuseppe, like the kings before the Conquest.”
“Exactly! I hoped there was a brain in there somewhere. I trust you can fill in the rest, because if you can’t, you should go marry some intelligent woman, have as many children as possible, and hope one of them inherits her brains. I can’t afford to hold your hand all the time.”
James grinned. “I don’t think that’s a problem. So, I get to be the long-lost heir? Cool.” He thought about the King’s Watch, about the army, the navy, the King’s Mages. “Or maybe not, unless your plan involves me being cut into dozens of little pieces.”
The Trickster waved a glowing hand. “No, no, nothing like that. The plan is that you and I work out the usual king’s contract, and then you go about like a good little long-lost heir fomenting rebellion until you can throw the Neronites in the river where they belong.”
There were at least three problems with this plan that James could see. He pointed them out. “What kind of contract? And it may have escaped your notice, but it’s not like my family’s been storing up wealth and power in the last two hundred years. How am I supposed to lead a rebellion with nothing? And if it comes to that, what about Neron? Is he supposed to sit back and let his king get overthrown?”
“Oh, good, you do have a brain. The king’s contract allows me to give you a few helpful little tricks, lets you call on me and vice versa, and generally makes you officially one of my favorite little playing pieces. As for the rebellion and Neron, I’ll tell you more about them once we’ve concluded the contract.”
James thought about this. On the one hand, he was willing to bet the crown he might never wear that the Trickster wasn’t telling him about everything in the king’s contract. On the other hand, he probably didn’t have much of a choice. “What do I have to do?”
From the tone of his voice, the Trickster was grinning, although it was impossible to see his face clearly. “Once we’ve worked out the contract, you just have to sit in the Quicksilver Chair and that’s that.”
Working out the contract wasn’t nearly as quick as the Trickster made it sound, not least because James insisted on having a detailed explanation of everything he could possibly be required to do. He expected the Trickster to get annoyed, but the god seemed, as far as James could tell, to be pleased every time James pounced on a vague phrase. Eventually, however, it was done.
James looked at the Quicksilver Chair with suspicion. “All I have to do is sit?”
“That’s all. And then I imbue you with a drop of my power, just enough to connect us but not enough yet for anyone else to see, and we’re in business.”
“And it won’t hurt me or kill me or make me wake up a year later?”
“No, no, and no. It doesn’t take any time in mortal terms at all.”
“All right, then.” Gingerly still, he sat down, half-expecting the ancient seat to crumble beneath him.
It didn’t. Instead, James felt his head swim for a moment as his vision seemed to dissolve in a swirl of blue and gold. Then he was sitting on the Quicksilver Chair, in the Temple of the Trickster, face to face with his god, and nothing seemed to have changed.
“I don’t feel different,” he observed.
Now he could tell the Trickster was grinning. That was the first change. “You will. I’ve given you a little present, to help with the next part. Go jump off the balcony.”
“…What?”
“You heard me, I know you did. Don’t worry; would I set you up for a fall?”
“You’re the Trickster,” James pointed out.
“And you’re the only Giuseppe I’ve got,” the Trickster returned. “Go on. You’ll be fine, on my honor as a god.”
James had always been afraid of falling. He knew he could take care of himself on the heights better than almost anyone in the sister cities, but the sick clench of terror didn’t know that. The most difficult thing about the day, god and all, was the moment when he climbed over the railing on the balcony and stepped out into empty space.
Nothing happened. He was, he realized, floating on thin air.
“Good, isn’t it?” The Trickster asked, abruptly disappearing from the floor and reappearing in the air next to James. “If you find someone who needs convincing, show them that little trick. They’ll believe. On that note, you’ll find you can see lies. That one won’t last, but without it you might find it difficult to get started building your rebellion.”
“And other than this, how am I supposed to build a rebellion?” James asked, drifting slowly toward the ground. “Without any organization, any allies, any money? All the money I have right now, I stole off a couple of nobles in Oldmarket. It’s what I’d call a tidy sum, but it won’t last long on this kind of scale.”
“There’s an organization already,” the Trickster said. “They’ve been waiting for me, rather than the other way around. They’ll need your help, to get them recruits and anything else you can manage, but you aren’t alone. What I need the lot of you to do is win. Win small, win big, it doesn’t matter. Every time my people win against Neron’s, I get stronger and he gets weaker. By the time you take back the Islands, I need to be strong enough to take care of Neron myself. Until then, try not to let the king know there’s one organized rebellion getting underway, or Neron will notice. I’m going to have a job to keep him distracted as it is. Any more questions, or can I leave you to it?”
“How do I find this rebellion?”
“Find your mother. She didn’t just happen to marry a Giuseppe, you know.”
With that, the Trickster was gone. James’s feet touched the floor. He was once more alone in the temple. Now, however, he was alone in his temple.
He sneezed. “First thing I do, I’m getting this place dusted,” grumbled Giovanni Giuseppe, future king of the Mercury Islands, as he walked off, for the first time, on the road to his destiny.
Genre: Fantasy, adventure, romance.
Rating: PG.
Characters: Trickster I (James Jesse).
Pairing: None.
Warnings: Crackcrackcrackcrack.
Notes: Dear Tamora Pierce, I am so very very sorry. If it helps, I *love* the books I am shamelessly ripping off. (The title made me do it!) Written for the piper_trickster Alphabet Challenge, prompt "C is for Choice".
Summary: The role of long-lost heir to the throne and incidentally direct representative of a god will be played by James Jesse. Who gets to fly, so should stop complaining about all the work involved.
The first day of Rain Month, commonly called Trickster’s Day, in the twelfth year of the reign of King Edward V. Keystone City on the Mercury Islands.
“Stop, thief!”
James didn’t bother looking behind him-that was a sure way to get caught, in the crowded streets of Keystone-but he could tell when the pursuit gave up by the sounds. They hadn’t been trying very hard anyway. It wasn’t like the meat-pie seller was going to be beggared by the loss of a few pies, when she had the best business in the district. And she wouldn’t go to the Watch, unless she wanted to lose her entire business. Southwind District had no use for the King’s Watch.
Slowing to a casual stroll, James bit into one of the meat pies. They were the best in Keystone, well worth the risk of stealing them rather than spending his hard-earned money on lesser fare. Besides, the risk itself was worth more than the pies. It was the reason he was wandering around Southwind District looking for something worth the trouble of fencing.
Of course, there was nothing worth his time. That was the problem with Southwind District: while he could be confident that he wouldn’t find the Watch on his tail because no one in Southwind District was rich or respectable enough to be safe calling them in, no one in Southwind District was rich enough to have anything of value other than the occasional family heirloom, and James always felt bad about stealing those.
If he wanted to make a profit on the day, he would have to leave Southwind District for a wealthier neighborhood. Oldmarket would be a better bet, or if he felt truly adventurous even the Hill, although that was dangerous. The Hill was wall-to-wall old nobility, people who would not hesitate to call in the Watch or simply take matters into their own hands.
James decided he was too lazy to go change into the clothes he kept for those rare occasions when he wanted to blend in on the Hill. Oldmarket it was, then.
He dropped by his hideaway, a single room in one of the rickety inns by the river, to drop off his ill-gotten gains. Sal, behind the bar, smiled as he walked in.
“You’re up early, for you,” she said.
James gave her one of his best smiles in return. “A charming woman regaled me with the virtues of something called a ‘morning’, and I decided to see one for myself.”
“And?” asked Sal. “What do you think?”
“I think I should never have dreamt of doubting the word of such a wonderful woman.”
He was gratified to see her blush. They both knew he didn’t mean it, but it was good to keep in practice. “Oh, you!” she said, waving a hand at him. “Go away and charm someone who doesn’t know you with that Eagletown speech of yours!”
“I hear and obey, o beautiful one,” James replied with an elaborate bow, and then he vanished up the stairs before Sal could find something to throw.
* * *
Oldmarket in the afternoon was busier by far than Southwind, where most people were at work even during the heat of the day. However, Oldmarket had been where the merchants set up shop for centuries, since long before the Neronic Conquest that had led to it being renamed Oldmarket. Generations of kings had not changed the place. James was willing to bet that even the relative locations of the tailors, jewelers, and booksellers were the same as they had been a thousand years before.
The best efforts of generations of Neronic kings to build up Newmarket in Central City across the river hadn’t been able to fight tradition, and all the best sellers of anything one might wish to buy were still in Oldmarket. That made the district the best place in Keystone City to go for a walk that ended up lightening other people’s pockets.
James sauntered along the street, mingling with the rest of the crowd. They were a mixed group, of all walks of life and from all over the Islands and beyond, so he blended in with no trouble. He loved Oldmarket the best of all the districts of the two river cities; where else could he hope to see the new nobility brushing elbows with people like him who would never be allowed near their opulent, boring houses?
In actual fact, it was difficult to get anywhere near those of the new nobility who came to Oldmarket in person at all, what with their guards who would not hesitate to kick a nobody like James out of the way. Still, there were ways.
He caught sight of a group of men-at-arms, surrounding someone who had to be new nobility. Old nobility came to Oldmarket often, as it was convenient to the Hill where most of them still lived, so they never looked so nervous. The two women at the center of the group looked as though they expected brigands to jump out at them from the booths of fine cloth.
James might as well give them something to be nervous about.
The group stopped at the corner booth to bargain, as far as nobility ever understood the term, with the man selling imported silks. James strolled casually over to the wool-seller opposite, keeping the noblewomen in the corner of his vision but not looking at them directly, which would draw the attention of their guards. From the looks on the women’s faces, they were demanding a better price with the arrogance only the new nobility could manage. They had unpleasant faces. He was going to enjoy this.
At last they received a price that suited their exacting standards, and the older of the two women produced a purse of silver and gold coins. As she counted out meticulously the exact sum she intended to pay, James acted.
Getting between the horses of the men-at-arms was only a matter of tumbling forward at the right moment. Of course, most people could never have managed it, but James wasn’t most people. Springing to his feet, he deftly plucked the purse from the noblewoman’s hand before she realized he was there and made his exit. The men-at-arms were too slow to catch him while he was in their midst. They probably hadn’t been expecting him to vault over one of their horses as if it were no trouble at all, though, to be fair.
Bringing horses to Oldmarket was stupid. They might be some protection against attack, might be good tools of intimidation, might spare their delicate noble riders’ feet and keep them away from the common rabble, but in a crowd they were slow. People scattered from their path as the men-at-arms pursued James, but not fast enough. They would never catch James on horseback.
It was only a matter of time, however, before the guards realized this and chased him on foot instead, so James kept running, dodging through the crowd with the ease of long practice. He left the streets where more expensive goods were on sale, turning instead to those where his simple, inexpensive clothing was no longer an identifying mark. One more blond young man could vanish in the crowd.
Apparently those noblewomen paid their men-at-arms well or else extracted harsh punishments for failure, because they were still following, shoving bystanders out of the way. James swore under his breath and turned down a random series of side streets. He tucked the purse into his tunic, where it would not be seen. Someone who looked like him with such a full purse would signal “Thief” to anyone with eyes to see. Most people didn’t have eyes to see, but he wasn’t about to let himself get careless and fall into such a simple trap.
The noise of pursuit was turning into a more general commotion. That was all to the good. As shoppers began to argue with the guards and each other, as merchants shouted in offense as their goods were jostled, fewer and fewer people would notice James. All he needed was to find somewhere quiet to wait until the men-at-arms gave up and went home to Eagletown District with their hard-faced ladies.
The street he was on was seldom much used these days. He probably shouldn’t have turned down it at all; he was safest in the crowd. Still, if he could get off the street and out of sight of anyone looking down it, it might not make a difference. What he needed was a nice, deserted building.
As if in answer to his thoughts, a tall building loomed on the right. It looked like it had once been grand, in the old fashion, with the asymmetrical structure of Mercury Islands buildings from before the Conquest. It was larger than any such building James had ever seen still standing; even the High District homes of the old nobility were smaller, more a collection of ordinary-sized houses than a single giant structure, and the public buildings that had been a part of Keystone City had been demolished after the Conquest, when the first Neronic king had wanted to make it clear which of the sister cities was now the capital. This one must have escaped somehow. It looked more damaged by age and neglect than by looting; even the glass was still in most of the windows. James guessed that whatever had saved the building from destruction had also kept ordinary people out.
The door was closed, but the glass was broken in one window on the second story, and there was a convenient wooden overhang under it that didn’t look unstable. James glanced around, making sure that there was no one else to see what he was about to do, and leapt, flipping up onto the overhang to dive neatly through the broken window, tumbling as he hit the floor, which fortunately was still solid under him.
He sat up and looked around him. He wasn’t on a true second story, but rather on a balcony that stretched around the single immense room. Half of Oldmarket District could have fit into the two levels, James thought. Whatever this building had been, it had been important to be so big. And wealthy; the railings were covered in thick dust (James realized with dismay that after his roll on the floor, so was he), but his appraising eye could see that they had once been elaborately carved from expensive wood.
Looking down onto the lower level, he saw yet more evidence of what had been beautiful and costly decoration. The paint on the walls had kept remarkably well; he could still pick out faces and images, although they were none he had ever seen before. Silver gleamed around the back wall, where all the decorations grew only more elaborate as they formed an immense arched backdrop to…a single chair, as plain in design as the rest of the room was chaotic, that nonetheless still shone silver in the gloom.
James drew in a sharp breath. He recognized this building now. It wasn’t silver, but quicksilver, that reflected the light from the windows. He was in the old Temple of the Trickster, god protector of the Mercury Islands from before the Conquest.
There were no more temples to the Trickster, not in the two and a half centuries since the Conquest, but he had seen, tucked away in corners of Keystone City where none of the Watch would ever go, shrines small enough to go unnoticed by any Neronic passersby, shrines at the center of which always sat a plainly-carved miniature chair.
Once, when he was little, James had asked why people were bowing to the empty chair. His mother had told him to hush, but later, in the privacy of their room for the night, she had told him that those were shrines to the Trickster, who had had to go away a long time ago but had promised to come back some day. She had refused to tell him anything more, but James now knew the rest of the story anyway.
In the days before the Neronic Conquest, the Trickster had been the greatest god of the Mercury Islands, and their kings had ruled with his blessing or not at all. In those days, Keystone City had been the capital and Central City the shadow sister. And then, two hundred and fifty years ago, the conquerors had come from lands far across the sea. Their god was Neron, and the line of kings who ruled by his will were the Neronic kings. The Trickster had been banished from the land, the royal family had been killed, and Keystone City had been left to fall to pieces as the conquering kings made Central City the capital instead. Somehow, it seemed, this temple had been forgotten when it should have been destroyed.
James looked around the balcony for a way down. The stairs looked a trifle rickety, but they were better than trying fancy acrobatics above a stone floor. At the very least, they would break his fall.
The stairs were considerate enough not to collapse under his feet, and James walked across the immense room to the chair where, once, the kings who were also high priests of the Trickster had sat on his feast days. For whatever reason, it seemed in better condition than the rest of the temple. It was barely even dusty, as though someone had been there recently. James looked around, sneezing again, but there were no footsteps besides his own.
“Maybe the god’s been here,” he muttered to himself. It was remarkably easy to believe in this place, even for James, who had never thought much of his gods, that the Trickster had just had to leave suddenly but would be back as soon as he could. He remembered his father teaching him a prayer of sorts to the Trickster when he was a boy. It had been years since he’d had time for prayers more complicated than “Please let me not get caught,” but that had been the only thing other than acrobatics his father had ever taught him, so he had never quite forgotten it. James found the words on his lips as if there had been no years. “And the Trickster said to the last king, ‘We are beyond tricks, and we are lost, and not your children nor your grandchildren nor their grandchildren will see me return, but return I will to your people, in place unexpected, when the children of Neron have forgotten to watch for me. Tell your people to remember and prepare for the one I will choose, the one who can stand against the sky.’ And we are still waiting for the Trickster’s choice.”
“I didn’t say it in so many words, you know. Astonishing what people will do with a little poetic license.”
James spun around. He hadn’t heard anyone come in, but someone was standing behind him…someone whose features were a blur, whose clothing was every color of the rainbow, who glowed azure and gold in the dusty air.
It was the Trickster.
There were only so many gods, after all, and the one standing in the middle of the Trickster’s temple lighting it with the Trickster’s colors was hardly difficult to identify. James wasn’t sure how to react upon meeting a god. He eventually settled for bowing very deeply indeed, on the grounds that gods tended to get very testy if they felt they weren’t being respected.
“If you don’t straighten up, it makes it very inconvenient to talk to you,” the Trickster said.
Then again, maybe not. James stood up, sneezing yet again as he did so.
“That’s better. Introductions would be traditional, but I don’t think I need one, and you should probably know who you are by this point. Which brings us to business.” The Trickster’s multicolored clothing took on for a moment something of the character of a palace official’s uniform. “I’ve been quite a while getting back, although by a stroke of luck not nearly as long as I feared, so I’d rather not waste time. You’re going to be the king of the Mercury Islands. Questions?”
“What?!”
“ ‘What’, what?”
James managed not to sputter incoherently, although it was a close thing. “Why do you want me to be king?”
“Well, your father’s been dead for three years, so it’s not like I have much in the way of choice.” This did not make James any less confused. “Look, what is your name?”
“James Jesse,” he replied automatically.
“No, not that ridiculous Neronic name you’ve been using, I mean your real name. The one your father gave you, not that he used it either. The one his father gave him, and so on and so forth.”
James had learned enough history to see where this was going. “Giovanni Giuseppe. Giuseppe, like the kings before the Conquest.”
“Exactly! I hoped there was a brain in there somewhere. I trust you can fill in the rest, because if you can’t, you should go marry some intelligent woman, have as many children as possible, and hope one of them inherits her brains. I can’t afford to hold your hand all the time.”
James grinned. “I don’t think that’s a problem. So, I get to be the long-lost heir? Cool.” He thought about the King’s Watch, about the army, the navy, the King’s Mages. “Or maybe not, unless your plan involves me being cut into dozens of little pieces.”
The Trickster waved a glowing hand. “No, no, nothing like that. The plan is that you and I work out the usual king’s contract, and then you go about like a good little long-lost heir fomenting rebellion until you can throw the Neronites in the river where they belong.”
There were at least three problems with this plan that James could see. He pointed them out. “What kind of contract? And it may have escaped your notice, but it’s not like my family’s been storing up wealth and power in the last two hundred years. How am I supposed to lead a rebellion with nothing? And if it comes to that, what about Neron? Is he supposed to sit back and let his king get overthrown?”
“Oh, good, you do have a brain. The king’s contract allows me to give you a few helpful little tricks, lets you call on me and vice versa, and generally makes you officially one of my favorite little playing pieces. As for the rebellion and Neron, I’ll tell you more about them once we’ve concluded the contract.”
James thought about this. On the one hand, he was willing to bet the crown he might never wear that the Trickster wasn’t telling him about everything in the king’s contract. On the other hand, he probably didn’t have much of a choice. “What do I have to do?”
From the tone of his voice, the Trickster was grinning, although it was impossible to see his face clearly. “Once we’ve worked out the contract, you just have to sit in the Quicksilver Chair and that’s that.”
Working out the contract wasn’t nearly as quick as the Trickster made it sound, not least because James insisted on having a detailed explanation of everything he could possibly be required to do. He expected the Trickster to get annoyed, but the god seemed, as far as James could tell, to be pleased every time James pounced on a vague phrase. Eventually, however, it was done.
James looked at the Quicksilver Chair with suspicion. “All I have to do is sit?”
“That’s all. And then I imbue you with a drop of my power, just enough to connect us but not enough yet for anyone else to see, and we’re in business.”
“And it won’t hurt me or kill me or make me wake up a year later?”
“No, no, and no. It doesn’t take any time in mortal terms at all.”
“All right, then.” Gingerly still, he sat down, half-expecting the ancient seat to crumble beneath him.
It didn’t. Instead, James felt his head swim for a moment as his vision seemed to dissolve in a swirl of blue and gold. Then he was sitting on the Quicksilver Chair, in the Temple of the Trickster, face to face with his god, and nothing seemed to have changed.
“I don’t feel different,” he observed.
Now he could tell the Trickster was grinning. That was the first change. “You will. I’ve given you a little present, to help with the next part. Go jump off the balcony.”
“…What?”
“You heard me, I know you did. Don’t worry; would I set you up for a fall?”
“You’re the Trickster,” James pointed out.
“And you’re the only Giuseppe I’ve got,” the Trickster returned. “Go on. You’ll be fine, on my honor as a god.”
James had always been afraid of falling. He knew he could take care of himself on the heights better than almost anyone in the sister cities, but the sick clench of terror didn’t know that. The most difficult thing about the day, god and all, was the moment when he climbed over the railing on the balcony and stepped out into empty space.
Nothing happened. He was, he realized, floating on thin air.
“Good, isn’t it?” The Trickster asked, abruptly disappearing from the floor and reappearing in the air next to James. “If you find someone who needs convincing, show them that little trick. They’ll believe. On that note, you’ll find you can see lies. That one won’t last, but without it you might find it difficult to get started building your rebellion.”
“And other than this, how am I supposed to build a rebellion?” James asked, drifting slowly toward the ground. “Without any organization, any allies, any money? All the money I have right now, I stole off a couple of nobles in Oldmarket. It’s what I’d call a tidy sum, but it won’t last long on this kind of scale.”
“There’s an organization already,” the Trickster said. “They’ve been waiting for me, rather than the other way around. They’ll need your help, to get them recruits and anything else you can manage, but you aren’t alone. What I need the lot of you to do is win. Win small, win big, it doesn’t matter. Every time my people win against Neron’s, I get stronger and he gets weaker. By the time you take back the Islands, I need to be strong enough to take care of Neron myself. Until then, try not to let the king know there’s one organized rebellion getting underway, or Neron will notice. I’m going to have a job to keep him distracted as it is. Any more questions, or can I leave you to it?”
“How do I find this rebellion?”
“Find your mother. She didn’t just happen to marry a Giuseppe, you know.”
With that, the Trickster was gone. James’s feet touched the floor. He was once more alone in the temple. Now, however, he was alone in his temple.
He sneezed. “First thing I do, I’m getting this place dusted,” grumbled Giovanni Giuseppe, future king of the Mercury Islands, as he walked off, for the first time, on the road to his destiny.