That burned a spendthrift plenitude of fine candles their wax-and-lavender scent filled the chamber, overlaying metal polish and cloth and the sweat of fear from the crowd of well-dressed courtiers, clerics, advisors and officials. Outside day’s gray light was fading into blackness under clouded heavens, but the great room was brilliantly lit, by gasoline lanterns of silver fretwork hanging from the galleries around it, and by a huge chandelier salvaged from a magnate’s mansion in the center of the ceiling thirty feet above. The long stair behind them was black marble carved in vinework, rising to a landing and then splitting in two, curling up to the second story and the gallery that overlooked the throne-room. The chairs were massive gothic fantasies in jewels and precious metals, gold for his and silver for his consort’s the materials had been salvaged from luxury stores and worked up by Society-trained artisans. This hall was the place he’d first unsheathed it in earnest nine years ago, and where he’d first spilled a man’s life with the steel. Then he turned on his heel and walked to the larger of the two thrones that stood on the new dais at the foot of the staircase his left foot automatically knocked the scabbard of his longsword out of the way as he sat. That and the easily adapted heating system were why he’d picked it as his city palace, back right after the Change, and he’d had workmen busy with it ever since. The map covered one wall of what had been the main hall of the city’s old public library, built in Edwardian times with a splendor of gray-veined white marble and brass inlay. Winds racing out of the Columbia gorge howled amongst the empty skyscrapers, and drove rain that spattered audibly against windows hidden by tapestries shimmering with gold and silver thread.

Norman Arminger-he rarely thought of himself as anything but the Lord Protector these days-stared at the great map that showed his domains, and those of his stubbornly independent neighbors it covered the whole of the former Oregon and Washington, with bits of the old states of Idaho and northern California thrown in.

A Meeting at Corvallis by S.M. Stirling