The Great Rift by Edward W. Robertson Read Free Book Online Page B

reasoning that had led the leader in question to take those positions in the first place.
    Most of the time, it was even more abstract than that. Say a young woman appeared to live a noble, upright life among her clan. She also had bright, wise things to say about the holy scrolls and the right way to lead a well-lived life—and her deeds matched her words. These things would be noticed by her clansmen. Tucked away. And if a crisis struck—if the current chief died, or went mad, or had a philosophical revelation indistinguishable from madness—that bright, noble young woman might find herself elevated to the chieftancy in the blink of an eye.
    How the public reached these decisions as to whose integrity was greatest and whose position was most convincing was as nebulous as it was sudden. Sometimes there was no open discussion at all, yet with less warning than a flash flood, a formerly beloved clan-chief wound up replaced. Most perplexing of all, most leaders welcomed being replaced. To the norren, leadership was a burden, a leaden net of unwanted responsibilities, judgments, arbitrations, and bureaucratic wheel-spinning that left them precious little time to pursue the highest virtues: arts, craftsmanship, and tribal warfare.
    Meanwhile, the few norren who desired political office were typically those who lacked the brains to ever be granted it. Many of the most thoughtful spoke little at all, preferring to be thought of as mentally crippled rather than exposing the wisdom of their philosophies and thus putting them at risk of a sudden promotion to power. And the more cunning leaders, upon discovering firsthand how unpleasant the demands of the crown, scepter, or wolf's-head could be, took to deliberately espousing theories of life and scripture that were flawed, flagrantly heretic, or outright nonsense, hoping to have the mantle snatched from their shoulders and draped over those of some other sucker. Often, the public saw through these deceptions and played along anyway in a stubborn effort to call the chieftain's bluff.
    The result was twofold: the policies of clans, villages, and territories could suddenly become bizarre or outright self-destructive, leading to regular turnover at the top and a widespread degree of low-level chaos that the regimented politics of the capital in Setteven found laughably easy to exploit (and which Dante found maddening to try to keep up with). And in the rare cases when a mayor or chief stuck fast to his or her position for years or decades, their realm might be stable, but the leaders themselves were often resentful and bitter of their responsibilities—sometimes poisonously so.
    The man who opened the door was one of the latter.
    Old even by norren standards, gray colored the mayor's head, brows, and beard. He was lean like jerky is lean, but had lost none of his 7' 6" height to old age, or in any event had plenty to spare. As he towered two full feet above, Dante suddenly understood how it felt to be a dog that's just been discovered snatching up the roast.
    "Are you the mayor?" Blays said.
    "Are you knocking on the mayor's door without knowing who the mayor is?"
    "We're friends," Dante put in quickly.
    "Doubt that. Don't often feel like taking a hammer to the heads of my friends."
    "We're here to help. A clan of norren was taken as slaves—"
    "And now they're gone, and the rest of us still got to look out for ourselves." The old norren lowered his face inches from Dante's, filling him with the same vertigo that might come from being stared down by a mountain peak. "Unless you're looking to become a part of my doorstep, get off of it."
    Blays stood his ground. "If you change your mind, we'll be sleeping on your town's lawn."
    Something shifted in the old man's eyes. He closed the door hard enough to make Dante blink. Laughter trickled up from the plaza far below.
    "He's got my vote," Blays said.
    "He's hiding something."
    "Tall as he is, he could be hiding a pike up his ass and you'd