Chapter 10

"Uh, Aric. May I call you Aric? We are deeply sorry for what happened. The people of the city of Galicia don't normally behave like this or cause problems like this for anyone. We're normally more careful to not force ourselves on others," began the Chancellor quickly.

He was starting to sweat heavy at the expression on Aric's face.

When Aric and his family came to visit him the morning after Aric had awakened, the Chancellor went around trying to shake everyone hand and greet everyone cheerfully. He made it a point to talk to Rayne and her daughter a bit and mention often that he had known Matt's family since David and he were small boys.

But when he got to Aric and held out his hand, he saw the scowl on his face and he drew it back a little nervous.

This was the man who in one night destroyed a quarter of the warehousing district, a guild was completely gone because of him, and he had frozen the entire harbor to save his wife. It took ten engineering firms working around the clock with heating furnaces placed in various places all around the harbor to melt the ice enough so that the ships could move around in it.

They still had a fear of icebergs floating in the harbor because all they could do was break up the ice, they couldn't melt it all. Only time and the sun could. He was very sure that he didn't want Aric as angry at him, as he now appeared to be.

If Brianna and Aric had not spent a large part of the night softly and slowly reacquainting themselves with each other, he might have been in more of a surly mood. But afterwards Brianna made him promise to behave. She knew for her he would do it simply because she asked.

But he didn't have to like it.

"That's what I keep hearing, yet you had slavery right out in the open. You didn't even seem to care who it hurt long as it wasn't you. I find it hard to believe that others have never disappeared like this before.

"How do you think I felt about how casual everyone was about it? Or the people who told me that I had better give up trying to get my family back because they were gone. What kind of people are you all?" asked Aric quietly.

The Chancellor sighed and looked at Aric with a resigned look.

"Yes we were wrong. But you didn't have to face those guilds every day of your life. You were right, people did often disappear. Anyone who questioned or complained about them often went missing until there was no one left to complain about them. How do you think I felt about having to pretend everything was alright to the citizens when it wasn't? We just didn't have the tools needed to get rid of them," stated the Chancellor.

"You have some of the richest people in the world here, why didn't you use them to help you? You could have purchased any number of mercenary guilds to help you. Why didn't you? " asked Aric with some mild annoyance.

"You answer your own question. Those same rich people were the biggest clients of the slavers. They didn't want to change how everything worked.

"You can't find a wife? Then you visit the slavers and check their stock and suddenly you have your own personal whore. All you need to do is feed her, and often times not as well as you eat. You need cheap labor but don't want to pay the going rate? You visit a slaver and get a slave to do it for free, minus the purchase price. See the wealthy and affluent had no reason to help us remove them," responded the Chancellor.

"My husband and his family were never like that," said Rayne heatedly.

"No they weren't, but they were among the minority instead of the majority. If more people had been like that we could have stamped them out. But enough were doing it under the table that they had a reason for not wanting to bring what they were doing to light," said the Chancellor facing Rayne.

"So what's changed now? I hear your setting all of the slaves free in the city," said Aric dryly as he stared at the Chancellor.

The Chancellor suddenly coughed and turned a little red

"I uh ... I um ... well I hope you don't mind, but it's because of you," stammered the Chancellor staring at Aric.

"Excuse me?" asked Aric as he raised a single eyebrow.

"We needed the change and we weren't getting the help of the citizens. So once it was publicly made known what you did earlier this week, I used that as an excuse to clean up the slavery market," said the Chancellor nervously.

"So let me get this straight, somehow my name carries more weight for one nights actions than the whole time you've been here in office?" asked Aric

The Chancellor sighed.

"Yes, yes it does. You had been sung about as a legend for seasons. But no one had ever seen you. Your daughter was more visible, but the most powerful slavers guild in the city took her captive. They were using that as a basis to prove how powerful they were.

"Rayne, please don't scowl. And yes before you ask I was made aware you were held captive the night before you were rescued, but I had no way to save you. They were too powerful. If they could take you captive, someone with far more power than we had, what chance did we stand," said the Chancellor quickly as he noticed Rayne making a dangerous face at him.

"But once Aric came into the city he decimated that entire guild in one night. He blew up all of their warehouses. A few other legitimate ones were harmed, but that is an extremely small price to pay for the end result," smiled the Chancellor.

"Then there was the fact that one of their wealthier customers tried to leave the city with his purchases. It doesn't matter that it was Aric's wife and granddaughter that were purchased. But the fact was that as the customer was trying to quickly leave Aric froze the ocean to stop him, boarded the ship, and took the slaves back and freed them.

"Suddenly the rich want to distance themselves as far as they can from their slaves. The other slavers guilds are now suddenly pulling up stakes and leaving all their stock behind. No one wants to cross Aric. He's being called the liberator of the slaves. In one night Aric has totally crushed the slavery market in Galicia.

"We can now get the wealthier patron to help clean this up because we, ahem, made it known that you were our guest and took a dim view of how everything was when you came to our city," smiled the Chancellor.

"WHAT! Are you using me to..." started Aric, but before he could go on Brianna laid her hand on his forearm.

She could see that Aric was a heartbeat away from becoming really angry. And the Chancellor drew back at the start of his heated tirade. At her touch he quieted down completely. The touch reminded him he gave his word to try and control himself.

"I believe what Aric is going to ask is what is to stop you from using him to strong arm the citizens into doing whatever you want them to now? I don't believe any of us authorized you to use him, or any of us really, that way," said Brianna diplomatically.

"We don't plan too, but we couldn't pass up this opportunity either. But to be honest, we know that the Spencer family has lots of friends here. And we wouldn't want to have Aric or any of his family come back for us if we abused his name. I'm sure you would hear about it if we did," said the Chancellor nervously.

Aric stared at him for a moment. Then he sighed and said "Long as you use it to only remove the slavery market I'll learn to be ok with it. But if I ever learn its being used to further political agendas I'll be back," said Aric firmly.

"Good, Good! That is all I can ask for. Were the accommodations ok? Was everything provided for you?" asked the Chancellor changing the subject.

"Yes thank you, everything was fine," smiled Brianna.

"Is there anything thing else we can do for you?" asked the Chancellor smiling.

"Well since you just asked," said Aric now with a smile.

"That was nice of him to give us these horses for everyone," said Aric with a wide smile.

"You blackmailed him into it," said Brianna smiling as she leaned back further into him.

"He could have said no, and I would have still left with no hard feelings," said Aric.

"But he knew he might not have had your upcoming support either," said Caelan smiling.

Everyone was riding horses as they headed to the Sisters of the Sacred Blade guild headquarters.

Aric had asked provisions and horses for a trip to the guild. He wanted enough that they wouldn't need to stop at too many Inns after what everyone had just gone through.

The Chancellor didn't even stop smiling at the request. If anything it got bigger. He said that this was the very least they could do for Aric's help and had eleven horses saddled and laden with supplies for them all. He asked when they were leaving and Aric said as soon as the horses were saddled. Aric was ready to start back for home.

When they were ready to leave Brianna went to get on her own horse but Aric said he wanted her to ride with him. At first Brianna was going to balk, because she was capable of riding a horse on her own just fine and two on a horse would tire it out faster than just one rider, but something in the way Aric looked at her caused her to change her mind.