ISMENE AND THE VOICE samples, 3/3

Harmonia, in ambit.

From ISMENE AND THE VOICE, soon posting:

“I’m sorry, Harmonia.”

Her father’s emphatic tone didn’t turn Harmonia away from her view of the landscape. Dream knowledge told her what she saw; and it told her she hadn't achieved these things yet. Columns of smoke, sure signs of industry, rose up from the once-ruined cities. No Tyrenian factories here; this was all new construction. There were riches out there. Metals. Timber. Jewels and weapons. A bountiful future.

Is this what she wanted to do? Of course, Harmonia thought. There’s so much use I can put this place to.

“I’m sorry. I was wrong, and I should have seen how—”

“You don’t see at all,” she scolded her father. She did turn, then. “You’d have me on a string if you could, even now.” He wasn’t wearing the robes of a Prytane, she noted. Instead of black-with-gold, garlanded in red, he wore the flat red of her youth. The dress of the family. She wore the ranking clothes, the jeweled badge, now.

“Father," she prompted.

“You know I did what I had to,” he protested. “You'd do the same with—”

“I do what I like,” she cut him off. “Tell me what good you are, or I’ll send you down there.” She pointed at the valleys behind her.

He blanched, and she reveled in it. There was a faint, derisive sound from one of the servants waiting by the door. “I’ll get results,” he said, trying to retain a scrap of dignified calm. “You know I’m a capable negotiator.”

“I’ll decide who’s capable,” she said.

“Of course.” He amended meaninglessly. “I won’t give you reason to complain. My connections are valuable still; you don’t need to throw away decades of work just because—”

“I’ll complain as I see fit,” she said, deceptively calm. Her father picked up on it, because he didn’t immediately brush past her comment. “I don’t think you understand your position. You aren’t here to negotiate. You’re…”

She noticed the vibration under her feet. Her father wasn’t paying attention, either. He was looking past her, out the window, and Harmonia spun around.

Distant earth was falling inwards in strips, in rows that must be terrible chasms at ground-level. Dust stirred up as Harmonia’s new workshops and tenements tore apart. She thought of the stock in her warehouses and cursed. And out of the earth—out of it…

The roots were plantlike, maybe, but they were too much of metal and gleaming green light. They rose up out of the rents in the earth, displacing industry and forest alike. Their scale was terrific. They extended for so far, ripping up and curling in on themselves, forming masses and coils and…

Harmonia realized that the unearthed roots clearly radiated out from a central source. The Castle. They were raising up, coiling and congregating inwards towards the center—

“No,” she muttered. The window cracked across. The Castle’s roots descended on her. “No! You said you’d—!”

“Ma’am?” Tiy’s voice broke through before Harmonia knew she was awake, in bed, at home. She oriented herself a moment later. Her servant stood at her bedside.

“Oh, thank the gods,” Harmonia said. Her dread at the loss of all her empire was replaced by a faint relief. She’d lost nothing; it was all a dream.

The Voice had betrayed her in the dream, she thought. How silly. But it was a pity that she’d never get the backing to develop the place. Better to work on her father first, she thought, sitting up and batting Tiy away irritably. Couldn't lose time with fantasies.

Still… it was a nice thought.