SulNES: Intemperate Grandiosity
- Thread starter TheMeanestGuest
- Start date
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
Curse of the Cayanist, Part One:
His head throbs as the guard leads him by the arm through the doors of the Audencia. He would be sick, except he was already, recently. “I told you, you can’t arrest me,” grumbles the grizzled man, gut pronounced through his tunic, blue eyes sunken in a lined face, his thick beard, sideburns, and hair quickly going unkempt, little whorls of white spreading in the black. “I’m on the roll of Teccho’s company. And I’m a citizen.”
“Oh aye,” says the guard, an uncomplicated man named Daran. “Citizen of the sea, you. Think your tongue’d fool a ‘Zethi bred, southie?”
Now the guard is marching him faster in retaliation. Great. He catches a sign of some debate down a marbled hall, a few lesser parliamentarians late to the deliberation hurrying to squeeze into their court robes. Such pompous princes, he would laugh if there were laughter left in him. The parliamentary chamber he is marched past is all alight with faded grandeur, its cupola high above admitting fine light -
crimson light his only cowl
he stands beyond the fray as if not seeing it
“No,” he says softly, the throbbing in his head increasing. Not again.
“Already told you, sot, y’aren’t to be tortured. But comport yourself for the magistrate, or you might be.”
“The magist…rate.” Oh, right. He had said something like that. Damn tavernkeeper, selling him like market-day fish. He’s not going back there. Which was fine, since he owed him money.
Up and around a wide flight of stairs, the hall containing the magistrate’s suite of offices in the Audencia was nice, if a bit drafty. Damage from a bladed weapon of some sort had taken a chunk out of the thick wood of the door, still unrepaired following the coup, but aside from that, a few scorch marks, and the conspicuous absence of decoration, it is exactly the type of office one might expect a great man to occupy. A lot of hard-looking men in the hallway outside the magistrate’s offices, a lot of weapons. His anxiety intensifies.
When he enters the office, the grey eyes of the magistrate meet his. A lord, in a fine cloak and surprisingly practical-looking breastplate. A presence. He appears to be examining a small architectural model of a tor that some pipsqueak of a bandoliered grammatarch appears to be gesticulating at. Tch. Grammatarchs. The little cowards rarely show themselves far from safety.
“Zakkas dal Kassyraqua,” Daran announces far from enthusiastically. Zakkas sees the boy wrinkle his nose – oh he’ll have to smell much worse than that before he gets on. As for the magistrate, he’s also younger than he expected, if slightly more salted than the one playing toy soldiers. When did everyone become so young? City run by children and no wonder it’s all gone to hell.
“Hello, Zakkas. Will you take some beer?” Zathander gestures to a chilled pitcher, freshly tapped from the parliamentary ice-house. The silver beaded with sweat. A droplet slides down.
Zakkas’ face slackens, and a dull voice emits. “Your empty eyes grasp dominion…but you know not…all things, are unthings…” He blinks. Not again. Great Tesch, no, they’ll have him for heresy. Why is it getting worse now? “I’m sorry, I don’t know what...came over me.” he finally drifts off, insincerely.
The soldier’s leather glove is tightly grasping him by the arm, still, in the awkward silence that follows. His other hand is near his gun, says the old part of him. But the magistrate does not loudly order him arrested for impiety, or possession, or the various other crimes he is guilty of for speaking to a magistrate with the part of him that’s broken.
“Siadre, why don’t we continue this tomorrow?” Siadre nods. "Sounds good, my lord." The grammatarch packs up his models and goes, shooting Zakkas a nervous look as he does, which Zakkas doesn’t answer.
“You’re a curious man, Zakkas.” says Zathander after a very unwilling Daran leaves while muttering saints’ names to himself.
“I’m sorry, sir Magistrate, but what do you want with me?”
The magistrate crosses a leg. “You were a cayanist of some note.”
“No longer, though.”
Zathander pours the glass and holds it out to him. “Please.”
Zakkas hesitates, looking at the goblet like a poisoned chalice. But it has been too long. Far too long. The beaded water looks so cold and crisp, he can practically taste it – He sighs and plunks the goblet down on the table a few seconds later, wiping the froth from his beard with a sleeve.
“Better?”
The man grunts.
"So if my men put it to your employer Teccho, he would attest to you being a simple baggage handler?"
Zakkas takes a breath and sighs, long and slow. “Magistrate. If you want me to take my girls and leave, I will. But the College disbarred me.”
“Do you think the writ of a Teschi magister runs to Sul?”
“Ah.” Zakkas rises, unsteadily, grasping the pitcher off Zathander’s table, pouring himself another glass. “I think, Lord Napharneschi, I know full well just how far the College will chase a man who wrongs them.”
“But now, Keros’ overthrow and the war has set us against most of the College. The old College may pass away entirely.”
“Stop,” says Zakkas. “You think you’re the first to try? And that…reaction. I had. It’s because of you. You want the College gone, but I don’t. Yes, I hate the magisterium. It’s corrupt. But it serves the realm, even now.” He drains his second glass.
“Lordlings like you, who meddle, who think they know deep things, can you even feel what the College does? What it trammels? You want to twist the strings, but the strings are a skein- and the skein covers a cauldron, and if you tear it –“
A tearing pain ripping through his temple, the hot rush of blood in his brain –
Lilath, the Bractemenn always called him, for reasons they could never explain, Lilath, they laughed at him in their lilting tongue, at the clumsiness of his feet, the ungainliness of his song and way of life. Lilath, they whispered in hushed awe when he raked a field with desolation, pulled out death and withered a field of crimson blooms to pour the blood back into the ashen face of a dying knight.
LILATH! Roared Kittantéi as the crimson-skinned fiends swarmed him, grasped his arms and legs and stabbed and stabbed at any entrance to the shining plate they could find, elbow thrashing as a freed buckler found Mahlen jaw. Not shouting for help, but ordering him back, for he was their shield, too important to lose-
Crimson lightning and ashen cloud on the horizon, and the godling surrounded by a shining symbol in molten ruin hovered as his voice pervaded the smoking field of a thousand skirmishes. Space bending to magnify his might. Throbbing not with hatred, but a tone between pedantry and curiosity, and it said, he said, Mahol said -
“What is the philosophy of increase?”
Zakkas’ unfocused blue eyes resolve on Zathander’s grey, cool, contemplative ones, looking down at him as he takes a knee next to the fallen man. He helps the cayanist into a sitting position, as the throbbing vision gradually withdraws. He blinks, twice, understanding. Who this magistrate really is.
“The seeming-touch…you’ve consorted with them,” he growls. “It’s why the visions came…the College will burn you.”
“In the days of Atten, there was no distinction in the law,” says Zathander. “The elder art pulled from above, and below, and between, and the spoken word bound land, and being, and sea.”
“And you think yourself Atten.”
“Not even close. But I think I can restore the elder law.”
“And what, you’ll wager your city in your gambit to restore some imaginary Sul that was? The world has suffered for men like you.”
“A learned man lives in squalor while his two daughters languish, and the people of a once-proud city live in misery, cold, disease, poverty, and fear. But all of them, dal Kassyraqua, remember what this place once was, and what it might be again.”
Zathander puts his hand lightly on Zakkas' forearm.
“Now it’s my turn, you sad old man. I am the voice of all of Sul's people, you and they included, and I will break every College law if it gives you what you deserve. But I recognize, even in ignorance, that there are some laws I should never break, and I will need an honest man to advise me on which. You have shown great honesty, Zakkas. Now tell me if you can show discretion.”
The cayanist humphs, his curse withdrawing for now.
“I suppose you put on a decent show of it. Give me what I need, and I’ll do the same. But don’t make me cross the pale, and know that I will leave if you do.”
“We have a deal,” says Zathander.
His head throbs as the guard leads him by the arm through the doors of the Audencia. He would be sick, except he was already, recently. “I told you, you can’t arrest me,” grumbles the grizzled man, gut pronounced through his tunic, blue eyes sunken in a lined face, his thick beard, sideburns, and hair quickly going unkempt, little whorls of white spreading in the black. “I’m on the roll of Teccho’s company. And I’m a citizen.”
“Oh aye,” says the guard, an uncomplicated man named Daran. “Citizen of the sea, you. Think your tongue’d fool a ‘Zethi bred, southie?”
Now the guard is marching him faster in retaliation. Great. He catches a sign of some debate down a marbled hall, a few lesser parliamentarians late to the deliberation hurrying to squeeze into their court robes. Such pompous princes, he would laugh if there were laughter left in him. The parliamentary chamber he is marched past is all alight with faded grandeur, its cupola high above admitting fine light -
crimson light his only cowl
he stands beyond the fray as if not seeing it
“No,” he says softly, the throbbing in his head increasing. Not again.
“Already told you, sot, y’aren’t to be tortured. But comport yourself for the magistrate, or you might be.”
“The magist…rate.” Oh, right. He had said something like that. Damn tavernkeeper, selling him like market-day fish. He’s not going back there. Which was fine, since he owed him money.
Up and around a wide flight of stairs, the hall containing the magistrate’s suite of offices in the Audencia was nice, if a bit drafty. Damage from a bladed weapon of some sort had taken a chunk out of the thick wood of the door, still unrepaired following the coup, but aside from that, a few scorch marks, and the conspicuous absence of decoration, it is exactly the type of office one might expect a great man to occupy. A lot of hard-looking men in the hallway outside the magistrate’s offices, a lot of weapons. His anxiety intensifies.
When he enters the office, the grey eyes of the magistrate meet his. A lord, in a fine cloak and surprisingly practical-looking breastplate. A presence. He appears to be examining a small architectural model of a tor that some pipsqueak of a bandoliered grammatarch appears to be gesticulating at. Tch. Grammatarchs. The little cowards rarely show themselves far from safety.
“Zakkas dal Kassyraqua,” Daran announces far from enthusiastically. Zakkas sees the boy wrinkle his nose – oh he’ll have to smell much worse than that before he gets on. As for the magistrate, he’s also younger than he expected, if slightly more salted than the one playing toy soldiers. When did everyone become so young? City run by children and no wonder it’s all gone to hell.
“Hello, Zakkas. Will you take some beer?” Zathander gestures to a chilled pitcher, freshly tapped from the parliamentary ice-house. The silver beaded with sweat. A droplet slides down.
Zakkas’ face slackens, and a dull voice emits. “Your empty eyes grasp dominion…but you know not…all things, are unthings…” He blinks. Not again. Great Tesch, no, they’ll have him for heresy. Why is it getting worse now? “I’m sorry, I don’t know what...came over me.” he finally drifts off, insincerely.
The soldier’s leather glove is tightly grasping him by the arm, still, in the awkward silence that follows. His other hand is near his gun, says the old part of him. But the magistrate does not loudly order him arrested for impiety, or possession, or the various other crimes he is guilty of for speaking to a magistrate with the part of him that’s broken.
“Siadre, why don’t we continue this tomorrow?” Siadre nods. "Sounds good, my lord." The grammatarch packs up his models and goes, shooting Zakkas a nervous look as he does, which Zakkas doesn’t answer.
“You’re a curious man, Zakkas.” says Zathander after a very unwilling Daran leaves while muttering saints’ names to himself.
“I’m sorry, sir Magistrate, but what do you want with me?”
The magistrate crosses a leg. “You were a cayanist of some note.”
“No longer, though.”
Zathander pours the glass and holds it out to him. “Please.”
Zakkas hesitates, looking at the goblet like a poisoned chalice. But it has been too long. Far too long. The beaded water looks so cold and crisp, he can practically taste it – He sighs and plunks the goblet down on the table a few seconds later, wiping the froth from his beard with a sleeve.
“Better?”
The man grunts.
"So if my men put it to your employer Teccho, he would attest to you being a simple baggage handler?"
Zakkas takes a breath and sighs, long and slow. “Magistrate. If you want me to take my girls and leave, I will. But the College disbarred me.”
“Do you think the writ of a Teschi magister runs to Sul?”
“Ah.” Zakkas rises, unsteadily, grasping the pitcher off Zathander’s table, pouring himself another glass. “I think, Lord Napharneschi, I know full well just how far the College will chase a man who wrongs them.”
“But now, Keros’ overthrow and the war has set us against most of the College. The old College may pass away entirely.”
“Stop,” says Zakkas. “You think you’re the first to try? And that…reaction. I had. It’s because of you. You want the College gone, but I don’t. Yes, I hate the magisterium. It’s corrupt. But it serves the realm, even now.” He drains his second glass.
“Lordlings like you, who meddle, who think they know deep things, can you even feel what the College does? What it trammels? You want to twist the strings, but the strings are a skein- and the skein covers a cauldron, and if you tear it –“
A tearing pain ripping through his temple, the hot rush of blood in his brain –
Lilath, the Bractemenn always called him, for reasons they could never explain, Lilath, they laughed at him in their lilting tongue, at the clumsiness of his feet, the ungainliness of his song and way of life. Lilath, they whispered in hushed awe when he raked a field with desolation, pulled out death and withered a field of crimson blooms to pour the blood back into the ashen face of a dying knight.
LILATH! Roared Kittantéi as the crimson-skinned fiends swarmed him, grasped his arms and legs and stabbed and stabbed at any entrance to the shining plate they could find, elbow thrashing as a freed buckler found Mahlen jaw. Not shouting for help, but ordering him back, for he was their shield, too important to lose-
Crimson lightning and ashen cloud on the horizon, and the godling surrounded by a shining symbol in molten ruin hovered as his voice pervaded the smoking field of a thousand skirmishes. Space bending to magnify his might. Throbbing not with hatred, but a tone between pedantry and curiosity, and it said, he said, Mahol said -
“What is the philosophy of increase?”
Zakkas’ unfocused blue eyes resolve on Zathander’s grey, cool, contemplative ones, looking down at him as he takes a knee next to the fallen man. He helps the cayanist into a sitting position, as the throbbing vision gradually withdraws. He blinks, twice, understanding. Who this magistrate really is.
“The seeming-touch…you’ve consorted with them,” he growls. “It’s why the visions came…the College will burn you.”
“In the days of Atten, there was no distinction in the law,” says Zathander. “The elder art pulled from above, and below, and between, and the spoken word bound land, and being, and sea.”
“And you think yourself Atten.”
“Not even close. But I think I can restore the elder law.”
“And what, you’ll wager your city in your gambit to restore some imaginary Sul that was? The world has suffered for men like you.”
“A learned man lives in squalor while his two daughters languish, and the people of a once-proud city live in misery, cold, disease, poverty, and fear. But all of them, dal Kassyraqua, remember what this place once was, and what it might be again.”
Zathander puts his hand lightly on Zakkas' forearm.
“Now it’s my turn, you sad old man. I am the voice of all of Sul's people, you and they included, and I will break every College law if it gives you what you deserve. But I recognize, even in ignorance, that there are some laws I should never break, and I will need an honest man to advise me on which. You have shown great honesty, Zakkas. Now tell me if you can show discretion.”
The cayanist humphs, his curse withdrawing for now.
“I suppose you put on a decent show of it. Give me what I need, and I’ll do the same. But don’t make me cross the pale, and know that I will leave if you do.”
“We have a deal,” says Zathander.
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Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
I also concur with the Captain-Marshal's reservations that all final enforcement of the will of the court must pass through the state militia, and if necessary, the Parliamentary Guard. We are willing to countenance the establishment of an office of Civil-Inquisitor, who may bear arms in the service of the Curator, for the investigation and prosecution of crime and the apprehension of criminals, but any requisition of the people’s arms beyond this must be approved by the Captain-Marshal.
OOC: There's no specific concept of "police" in Sulan law and physical security for the courts themselves and enforcement of sentences can be provided by the militia/Parliamentary Guard. Zathander is willing to allow something like a warrant officer/bounty hunter for the courts, but not a permanent standing armed force - if it's needed the Civil-Inquisitor can requisition militia support or round up a posse.
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Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
OOC: No orders yet, I expect orders tomorrow, but I will post these points as I process them, and sorry it's so late for everyone since it has consequences in regards to orders.
-
The Sunless One speaks to the courts
To the laws proposal of the just and fair Kostyl Lipets, we cannot support a criminal court that does not invoke divine justice. The law’s well-intended demands of ”learning”, and other virtues, is far more vague than explicit virtue, and does not bring justice to those that are without learning but embody justice themselves. A man has read a thousand books and still beats his children. The only true path to common justice is an evaluation of zeal. Of course, this is a fickle matter, an outline of virtue. Long have people talked to chase the fruit. But you know as I do: those guided by a true heart do not commit crimes, and good faith brings truth of will and peace to the heart. Nowhere in the supposition is this explicit, and we know what men without faith treats that which doesn’t inhibit their power. Is there no faith in the law, the unfaithful can act carelessly and reap blood from the citizen.
Therefore we deny the code of the courts, with sorrow in our hearts towards the good intent of the law. Understand that this is out of brazen care for the needy, and if the law shall pass, we will administer our justice as well as we can under a black sun.
We cannot commit to a motion that denies lawful commitment. And be wary, for I know that if this passes, the citizens will know firsthand, the hungry will know of it, the poor will know of it. They are good and faithful people, you are leaving them in the night. It is the path to disorder. If you are to revise it ever so slightly, to ensure the limitations of those bound to darkness, bring in the word of faith to the courts, and the people will love you. I am a humble man, I know my place in this world, and I don't ask for gold, only patience: Say that the positions require faithful virtue to be competent enough to judge.
(OOC translation/simplification: The courts justice system proposal has no outright requirement of the ”deep legal experience, learning, and above all, judicial character” to have anything to do with the brotherhood’s faith or faithful virtues. You may not care about the brotherhood here, but I do OOC believe that with the increased zeal of Sul’s population, you might get yourself into some trouble here. Probably it will be enough if you add "of faithful virtue" to the requirements to the individuals in question.)
-
The Sunless One speaks to the courts
To the laws proposal of the just and fair Kostyl Lipets, we cannot support a criminal court that does not invoke divine justice. The law’s well-intended demands of ”learning”, and other virtues, is far more vague than explicit virtue, and does not bring justice to those that are without learning but embody justice themselves. A man has read a thousand books and still beats his children. The only true path to common justice is an evaluation of zeal. Of course, this is a fickle matter, an outline of virtue. Long have people talked to chase the fruit. But you know as I do: those guided by a true heart do not commit crimes, and good faith brings truth of will and peace to the heart. Nowhere in the supposition is this explicit, and we know what men without faith treats that which doesn’t inhibit their power. Is there no faith in the law, the unfaithful can act carelessly and reap blood from the citizen.
Therefore we deny the code of the courts, with sorrow in our hearts towards the good intent of the law. Understand that this is out of brazen care for the needy, and if the law shall pass, we will administer our justice as well as we can under a black sun.
We cannot commit to a motion that denies lawful commitment. And be wary, for I know that if this passes, the citizens will know firsthand, the hungry will know of it, the poor will know of it. They are good and faithful people, you are leaving them in the night. It is the path to disorder. If you are to revise it ever so slightly, to ensure the limitations of those bound to darkness, bring in the word of faith to the courts, and the people will love you. I am a humble man, I know my place in this world, and I don't ask for gold, only patience: Say that the positions require faithful virtue to be competent enough to judge.
(OOC translation/simplification: The courts justice system proposal has no outright requirement of the ”deep legal experience, learning, and above all, judicial character” to have anything to do with the brotherhood’s faith or faithful virtues. You may not care about the brotherhood here, but I do OOC believe that with the increased zeal of Sul’s population, you might get yourself into some trouble here. Probably it will be enough if you add "of faithful virtue" to the requirements to the individuals in question.)
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
OOC Part 2 of pre-order stuff. Part 3 incoming.
Karpyr will attend both Zathander's feast.
Karpyr will attend both Zathander's feast.
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Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
BROTHERHOOD VOTES and RESPONSES ---
PUBLIC VOTES on the following matters are needed:
1) To support or oppose the war declaration with Horizan
1b) To pledge allegiance to King Hazzen VIII of Tesch and his Emissary, requesting aid for the same
1) Good people are people of peace. But Sul is not the only place where the Brotherhood was unjustly expelled. We support the war with reservations of justice: the fight shall be on the roads, not in the cities. If Horizan starves or is sacked or any of these fair treatments are broken, we will denounce the war. And you know that wrath beckons wrath.
1b) We abstain from this judgment. I have not met Hazzen, so I cannot judge his character. As such I cannot judge such a proposition. Let his will come to us, or he come to us himself, let him speak to the people. Such a declaration is not a good judgment when made behind curtains and doors of whispers.
-
2) To support or oppose a ransom for Keros' soldiers
2b) Appoint a suitable organizer for ransoms, of whom Captain-Marshal dal Tellem is Zathander's preferred candidate.
2 and 2b) Keros' soldiers are men of the beast. Ransom is earthly liberty bought with greed, not with good spirit. We oppose the ransom, however we will allow repentance. Repentance puts them under the jurisdiction of the Brotherhood. Let them be absolved through display of good faith. Let them work in the soup kitchens and the fields. Let them reshape wool into clothes for the needy. Let them listen to the good words of the books, the words wisdom from Zathander's just court in teachings, and the sacred proverbs of the monks. Let them return to the earth and live in good peace within our city. The Brotherhood will serve accomodations within our homes. And have they served the people for a year, they will be released to continue their service to the city.
Do they refuse service, they turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the world, and will be treated accordingly.
(OOC: To be very clear, this will put the soldiers under the jurisdiction of the Brotherhood, allowing the Brotherhood to pass befitting judgment.)
-
3) To support or oppose the repair of the Ortoran Gate - estimates are in, and a proper stone repair will cost 15 WP.
3a) Zathander proposes a down payment of 4 WP from the State Treasury be made to start the construction, but this is the Intendant's purview for approval.
3 and 3a) That which has fallen shall come together again. Rebuild the estates.
-
-
We accept the gift of Zathander to build more accomodations for the needy. And they shall know who brought the gold to the streets. Zathander, it was Zathander who brought bread to the people. We will sermon it with full bellies and relieved smiles.
PUBLIC VOTES on the following matters are needed:
1) To support or oppose the war declaration with Horizan
1b) To pledge allegiance to King Hazzen VIII of Tesch and his Emissary, requesting aid for the same
1) Good people are people of peace. But Sul is not the only place where the Brotherhood was unjustly expelled. We support the war with reservations of justice: the fight shall be on the roads, not in the cities. If Horizan starves or is sacked or any of these fair treatments are broken, we will denounce the war. And you know that wrath beckons wrath.
1b) We abstain from this judgment. I have not met Hazzen, so I cannot judge his character. As such I cannot judge such a proposition. Let his will come to us, or he come to us himself, let him speak to the people. Such a declaration is not a good judgment when made behind curtains and doors of whispers.
-
2) To support or oppose a ransom for Keros' soldiers
2b) Appoint a suitable organizer for ransoms, of whom Captain-Marshal dal Tellem is Zathander's preferred candidate.
2 and 2b) Keros' soldiers are men of the beast. Ransom is earthly liberty bought with greed, not with good spirit. We oppose the ransom, however we will allow repentance. Repentance puts them under the jurisdiction of the Brotherhood. Let them be absolved through display of good faith. Let them work in the soup kitchens and the fields. Let them reshape wool into clothes for the needy. Let them listen to the good words of the books, the words wisdom from Zathander's just court in teachings, and the sacred proverbs of the monks. Let them return to the earth and live in good peace within our city. The Brotherhood will serve accomodations within our homes. And have they served the people for a year, they will be released to continue their service to the city.
Do they refuse service, they turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the world, and will be treated accordingly.
(OOC: To be very clear, this will put the soldiers under the jurisdiction of the Brotherhood, allowing the Brotherhood to pass befitting judgment.)
-
3) To support or oppose the repair of the Ortoran Gate - estimates are in, and a proper stone repair will cost 15 WP.
3a) Zathander proposes a down payment of 4 WP from the State Treasury be made to start the construction, but this is the Intendant's purview for approval.
3 and 3a) That which has fallen shall come together again. Rebuild the estates.
-
-
We accept the gift of Zathander to build more accomodations for the needy. And they shall know who brought the gold to the streets. Zathander, it was Zathander who brought bread to the people. We will sermon it with full bellies and relieved smiles.
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Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
The streets bustled as the courts were rebuilt in writing and stone. Gates slowly rose as artisans browsed the markets for entertainment. The soup kitchens abuzz with hope for the new days. And at the corners, it still rang loud: "Leash the Beast! Leash the Beast!", perhaps one day to be true. But two new words had begun echoing: "Just zeal." Just zeal, only zeal, and only zeal of justice; that was what they heard the preachers sing. A new court to bring justice to the people; and they called for it to be just zeal. Let virtue be the foundation of the city, not books of the wealthy. Let the spirit of the good poor shine throughout the halls of court. Let law ring true to the lawful.
Let no more punishments be unjust. Let the new books of court law bring in only people of good faith.
"Just zeal," the preacher sang, and they murmured in answer, "just zeal."
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OOC That's all before orders, which will show up later today.
Let no more punishments be unjust. Let the new books of court law bring in only people of good faith.
"Just zeal," the preacher sang, and they murmured in answer, "just zeal."
-
OOC That's all before orders, which will show up later today.
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Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
OOC: I will be setting aside funds in the autumn season to build the Hospice of Orebhas, since my summer funds are currently spoken for.
Official amendment to my orders - take up a collection on Karpyr's behalf from the many noble guests at Zathander's gathering to begin to assemble funds to build the hospice, with an appropriately stirring speech on how we must care for the wounded veterans who will be injured in the battles to come.
Official amendment to my orders - take up a collection on Karpyr's behalf from the many noble guests at Zathander's gathering to begin to assemble funds to build the hospice, with an appropriately stirring speech on how we must care for the wounded veterans who will be injured in the battles to come.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
Karpyr is fine with the fund delay. : )
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
I've made a fundamental edit to the repentence of Keros' soldiers. There I've edited a few of the decisions and underlined that repentence will put the soldiers under the penal jurisdiction of the Brotherhood.
Orders - Karpyr
Orders - Karpyr
Spoiler :
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The Intendant takes the floor
Briefly, in response to my honorable Magistrate and Captain-Marshal, I believe their complaints are well founded. I would support the office of Chief Inquisitor, serving under the office of the Curator, and directing the efforts of the lawyers of the state. I also agree that the proposal for the Judicial Police [ooc: can’t currently access googledocs and forget what I named them] should be incorporated into the state militia, but I believe they should at least be considered a different department. I think that those who enforce the laws of our city, and handle crime and punishment, should be considered separate from the military defenders of Sul. We are not an occupying force holding power by strength of arms, and therefore, the laws we pass should be enforced by a more civilian body.
But on to more important matters.
I know that my honorable colleague Karpyr has good in his heart, but if we are to fear the plagues of faction and tyranny, we must fear their spectre in his words.
Let us remember why we rose against Keros in the first place. We did so, of course, out of a sense of justice, and, yes, of faith. But why were these senses, the most important senses in man’s political being, offended?
Friends, we all remember the crimes and abuses of that monster’s reign: the killings, the false charges, the disappearances in the night. The defiling of the holy legacy of Sul. But never, ever, EVER forget the REASON that Keros did these things. While he ground our people into dirt and broke our temples, fires, and waters, he did so in the name of FAITH. He claimed the mantle of the College, the approval and terrible power of a body only he could contact and which he ensured that only he could influence, and he used that burning fire of faith and duty (which, I remind you, he truly believed his actions were furthering!) to act in a manner reprehensibly selfish, tyrannical, and most certainly unfaithful.
This is not to attempt to exonerate him, or defend him whatsoever. I merely wish to remind you of the reasons for which we have created this body, from documents signed in blood in dark alleys and knives lifted wet and red from chests. I wish to remind you of the principles and risks we stand to fight here, in this chamber, as the city of Sul! We will find him, we will catch him, we will try him, and he will face judgment for his crimes.
But how could we have avoided a Keros? How can we forever prevent the return of a monster in such a form?
Keros, as despot, ruled in the name of faith, and drew the law he claimed to execute from it. But he himself was above that law! Note that the faith and zeal which he claimed to apply was untouchable, inner, immune to outside argumentation and pressure. The law stemmed from the “divine” will of his whim and the steel and fervor of his men, and we suffered for it. How we suffered, friends, how we suffered! May we never forget...
This suffering is why I wrote our law. With a code, with courts chaired by men with proven careers in the interpretation of letter and argument, with long experience in the application of a justice that may not always feel fair, that may leave tears and ill sentiment, but always stems from the same font and is, as a system, as an aggregate, the best way to order a society, we must not depend on the whims of a personal faith of a single man! The law I have proposed today is ultimately fair, is divinely inspired, stands to end chaos, and puts itself above a fickle claim of faith by lending a dependable structure to our political lives.
So with this all said let us turn to the request our friend Karpyr makes of our law.
He requests something simple, apparently benign: merely that the judges of the criminal courts be required to be men of faith. In support of this proposal, he notes that “deep judicial learning and character” is an impossible quality to verify.
Let me first defend the existing language, and explain why we may in fact verify these qualities.
We have, in our city and in our society, schools and associations devoted to education in the matters and application of justice. These institutions, in my view, are more than capable of producing men who are qualified, wholly and completely, to take positions in our new courts. And if a degree or certification is believed to be insufficient on its own grounds, it is a simple matter to investigate the character of such lettered men by speaking to their professors, their relations, their friends, their enemies, and the people who fill their lives.
Of course, these schools are inaccessible to those without wealth or connections. I recognize this, and so does the code. I remind you all today that I myself have no degree in laws, but I bring before you a code that, besides a few points of contention, seems to be acceptable. Furthermore, I am recognized in two communities: that of merchants and economy, and that of the poor of this city, oppressed as the rest of us under Keros and oppressed as well by the grindstone of poverty. It was there, without accreditation, that I built my reputation as an arbiter. And I beg you, try to find a single case in which I committed injustice. One time that I cheated a man from a fortune that was rightfully, with full weight of evidence, his. Find me a time, a single time, on which I denied justice to a child, a family, a sparring pair of clans. You will not, because I myself am a man with a verifiable background in judicial reasoning, the making of justice, and the composure of a man of the law. I know there are many others like this — robbed of a title by virtue of birth, but all the same accomplished and gifted adjudicators who are as qualified to chair a bench and decide a case.
But faith... faith is not like judicial character. A man can act like he has it, and play the part of the pious, but retain a heart blacker than blood-soaked soot. We see this, among other examples, with Keros. He ruled in the name of faith and virtue, but we all know the true stain of his crimes. On the other hand, there are men (and I know many) who are so busy by the trials of the material life and the responsibilities of leading families and dependents that they cannot engage in the demonstration of faith. They cannot grace the steps of a temple for want of time away from the shovel, hammer, or stall, and they cannot grace a donation box with a clink of coin for want of the sustenance they need to live and work another day. But are such men not faithful?! Foregoing all in favor of the holy responsibility they owe to their relations? And what of those who choose to practice in a different manner? I grew up in the North, and I will say that, while we know the same religion, while we know the same duties and guidelines, our temples look nothing like those of Sul. Are we less faithful just for praying on our knees, with hands grasped tight behind us, and expressing our belief in a different manner?
Given that we cannot confirm whether a man is merely pretending to be faithful or truly acting on the good word, we must then ask how this proposed clause would in fact be evaluated.
Perhaps we could let the College, that arbiter of morality, decide our judges. But not only would that further remove our justice from our own people, but they already have their voice with their designated spot on the appropriate board.
Perhaps we would merely let the popular will show us, and leaders of faith of Sul would tell our men of laws who would or would not pass muster.
At this point I wish to tell you a story. It is a simple tale, of nothing more than what transpired as I walked with my men to this chamber this very morning.
As we passed through a market we passed by a group of preachers and a few followers, those of the Brotherhood our friend Karpyr shepherds. Their cries to leash the beast have comforted me these past months, filling me each day with new fervor as I seek to arrange the laws which will guide us forward. I know that they hunger for justice, and I strive to sate this appetite.
But this morning, as we passed, they chanted a different refrain. “Just zeal,” they cried to us, called to us. And so I turned, and they saw me, and they fell upon our party.
At first it was merely louder, then they seethed with anger, and in the end my men and I fled with pebbles bouncing from the armor of my gradi.
I will note that the market had emptied well before that time, and the worshippers and their leaders were the last standing in that corner of the square. Where had stood hundreds, at my reckoning, stood only a dozen or two. Where had stood Sul, in her vibrance and her brilliance, stood only her self-proclaimed faithful and two dressed in the image of their chief, Karpyr.
I do not wish to levy accusations of assault or assassination against members of this court. As I have said, Karpyr is a good and dedicated man. But I wish to relay this tale.
I ask you, now, who would say who is faithful? Would it be some person, some organization, who would tell us what to think of a man in terms of a quality we have established as impossible to evaluate?
Or, perhaps, would we see the situation we already see happening. A situation in which a self-proclaimed prophet and an indisputable swayer of men does not like what he sees in the votes of others. So he attempts to force the vote and to sway the law in his favor, by manufacturing public support in the name of HIS faith and letting this fester around the city. He threatens the Judiciary that problems may ensue should they not respect his will, and proceeds to rally his followers against government although no others have shared in his concern. He claims the mantle of sole interpreter of insubstantial faith, and then claims that a man of justice and religion has not sufficiently reflected these qualities in a law code based on them.
In other words, despite the piety displayed in the law code, it lacks the mark of Karpyr’s particular faith. And this, gentleman is what he proposes. Not that we should respect religion and the good in our laws, but rather that his lonesome opinion on what is right by the heavens shall rule.
And we have already seen what he does when he does not get his way in his regard. If my troubles on the way to this chamber today are not enough evidence, have you not heard the rumors of what he presides over in the runs? I am loathe to lend strength to words of base speculation, but we cannot ignore how sustained these tales have become.
What would happen if we were to add this clause?
The demonstrations against me and my policies, and for “zeal”, may cease, but should a judge ever fall into disfavor, we would see the Brotherhood motivate demonstrations across the city. Any trangressor could be termed insufficientpy faithful, a condemnation likely backed by “popular demonstrations”. And then, in order to remain coherent and proper, this judge would have to be sacked despite doing nothing but his duty, just not the duty which Karpyr wants.
In other words, Karpyr’s proposal would give him a sufficiently soft veto power on any judge, and set a precedent for applying such clauses to any legislation. We would bend to a fragment of Sulan society, and surrender control of our destiny to the voices of a fervent few.
Is this not, in essence, what Keros did? Give himself the corrupt and final say in all matters, sanctioned by a veneer of religion and empowerment?
I hope in my heart of hearts that Karpyr did not intend and does not intend all this as evil. I merely ask that he and his flock respect the laws the way that they are designed, and recognizes that they as written the best way to manage justice in Sul.
But, if he did...
If he seeks to become a traitor, a tyrant, and a Keros, let him say it plain. It would be the honorable, faithful thing to do.
Briefly, in response to my honorable Magistrate and Captain-Marshal, I believe their complaints are well founded. I would support the office of Chief Inquisitor, serving under the office of the Curator, and directing the efforts of the lawyers of the state. I also agree that the proposal for the Judicial Police [ooc: can’t currently access googledocs and forget what I named them] should be incorporated into the state militia, but I believe they should at least be considered a different department. I think that those who enforce the laws of our city, and handle crime and punishment, should be considered separate from the military defenders of Sul. We are not an occupying force holding power by strength of arms, and therefore, the laws we pass should be enforced by a more civilian body.
But on to more important matters.
I know that my honorable colleague Karpyr has good in his heart, but if we are to fear the plagues of faction and tyranny, we must fear their spectre in his words.
Let us remember why we rose against Keros in the first place. We did so, of course, out of a sense of justice, and, yes, of faith. But why were these senses, the most important senses in man’s political being, offended?
Friends, we all remember the crimes and abuses of that monster’s reign: the killings, the false charges, the disappearances in the night. The defiling of the holy legacy of Sul. But never, ever, EVER forget the REASON that Keros did these things. While he ground our people into dirt and broke our temples, fires, and waters, he did so in the name of FAITH. He claimed the mantle of the College, the approval and terrible power of a body only he could contact and which he ensured that only he could influence, and he used that burning fire of faith and duty (which, I remind you, he truly believed his actions were furthering!) to act in a manner reprehensibly selfish, tyrannical, and most certainly unfaithful.
This is not to attempt to exonerate him, or defend him whatsoever. I merely wish to remind you of the reasons for which we have created this body, from documents signed in blood in dark alleys and knives lifted wet and red from chests. I wish to remind you of the principles and risks we stand to fight here, in this chamber, as the city of Sul! We will find him, we will catch him, we will try him, and he will face judgment for his crimes.
But how could we have avoided a Keros? How can we forever prevent the return of a monster in such a form?
Keros, as despot, ruled in the name of faith, and drew the law he claimed to execute from it. But he himself was above that law! Note that the faith and zeal which he claimed to apply was untouchable, inner, immune to outside argumentation and pressure. The law stemmed from the “divine” will of his whim and the steel and fervor of his men, and we suffered for it. How we suffered, friends, how we suffered! May we never forget...
This suffering is why I wrote our law. With a code, with courts chaired by men with proven careers in the interpretation of letter and argument, with long experience in the application of a justice that may not always feel fair, that may leave tears and ill sentiment, but always stems from the same font and is, as a system, as an aggregate, the best way to order a society, we must not depend on the whims of a personal faith of a single man! The law I have proposed today is ultimately fair, is divinely inspired, stands to end chaos, and puts itself above a fickle claim of faith by lending a dependable structure to our political lives.
So with this all said let us turn to the request our friend Karpyr makes of our law.
He requests something simple, apparently benign: merely that the judges of the criminal courts be required to be men of faith. In support of this proposal, he notes that “deep judicial learning and character” is an impossible quality to verify.
Let me first defend the existing language, and explain why we may in fact verify these qualities.
We have, in our city and in our society, schools and associations devoted to education in the matters and application of justice. These institutions, in my view, are more than capable of producing men who are qualified, wholly and completely, to take positions in our new courts. And if a degree or certification is believed to be insufficient on its own grounds, it is a simple matter to investigate the character of such lettered men by speaking to their professors, their relations, their friends, their enemies, and the people who fill their lives.
Of course, these schools are inaccessible to those without wealth or connections. I recognize this, and so does the code. I remind you all today that I myself have no degree in laws, but I bring before you a code that, besides a few points of contention, seems to be acceptable. Furthermore, I am recognized in two communities: that of merchants and economy, and that of the poor of this city, oppressed as the rest of us under Keros and oppressed as well by the grindstone of poverty. It was there, without accreditation, that I built my reputation as an arbiter. And I beg you, try to find a single case in which I committed injustice. One time that I cheated a man from a fortune that was rightfully, with full weight of evidence, his. Find me a time, a single time, on which I denied justice to a child, a family, a sparring pair of clans. You will not, because I myself am a man with a verifiable background in judicial reasoning, the making of justice, and the composure of a man of the law. I know there are many others like this — robbed of a title by virtue of birth, but all the same accomplished and gifted adjudicators who are as qualified to chair a bench and decide a case.
But faith... faith is not like judicial character. A man can act like he has it, and play the part of the pious, but retain a heart blacker than blood-soaked soot. We see this, among other examples, with Keros. He ruled in the name of faith and virtue, but we all know the true stain of his crimes. On the other hand, there are men (and I know many) who are so busy by the trials of the material life and the responsibilities of leading families and dependents that they cannot engage in the demonstration of faith. They cannot grace the steps of a temple for want of time away from the shovel, hammer, or stall, and they cannot grace a donation box with a clink of coin for want of the sustenance they need to live and work another day. But are such men not faithful?! Foregoing all in favor of the holy responsibility they owe to their relations? And what of those who choose to practice in a different manner? I grew up in the North, and I will say that, while we know the same religion, while we know the same duties and guidelines, our temples look nothing like those of Sul. Are we less faithful just for praying on our knees, with hands grasped tight behind us, and expressing our belief in a different manner?
Given that we cannot confirm whether a man is merely pretending to be faithful or truly acting on the good word, we must then ask how this proposed clause would in fact be evaluated.
Perhaps we could let the College, that arbiter of morality, decide our judges. But not only would that further remove our justice from our own people, but they already have their voice with their designated spot on the appropriate board.
Perhaps we would merely let the popular will show us, and leaders of faith of Sul would tell our men of laws who would or would not pass muster.
At this point I wish to tell you a story. It is a simple tale, of nothing more than what transpired as I walked with my men to this chamber this very morning.
As we passed through a market we passed by a group of preachers and a few followers, those of the Brotherhood our friend Karpyr shepherds. Their cries to leash the beast have comforted me these past months, filling me each day with new fervor as I seek to arrange the laws which will guide us forward. I know that they hunger for justice, and I strive to sate this appetite.
But this morning, as we passed, they chanted a different refrain. “Just zeal,” they cried to us, called to us. And so I turned, and they saw me, and they fell upon our party.
At first it was merely louder, then they seethed with anger, and in the end my men and I fled with pebbles bouncing from the armor of my gradi.
I will note that the market had emptied well before that time, and the worshippers and their leaders were the last standing in that corner of the square. Where had stood hundreds, at my reckoning, stood only a dozen or two. Where had stood Sul, in her vibrance and her brilliance, stood only her self-proclaimed faithful and two dressed in the image of their chief, Karpyr.
I do not wish to levy accusations of assault or assassination against members of this court. As I have said, Karpyr is a good and dedicated man. But I wish to relay this tale.
I ask you, now, who would say who is faithful? Would it be some person, some organization, who would tell us what to think of a man in terms of a quality we have established as impossible to evaluate?
Or, perhaps, would we see the situation we already see happening. A situation in which a self-proclaimed prophet and an indisputable swayer of men does not like what he sees in the votes of others. So he attempts to force the vote and to sway the law in his favor, by manufacturing public support in the name of HIS faith and letting this fester around the city. He threatens the Judiciary that problems may ensue should they not respect his will, and proceeds to rally his followers against government although no others have shared in his concern. He claims the mantle of sole interpreter of insubstantial faith, and then claims that a man of justice and religion has not sufficiently reflected these qualities in a law code based on them.
In other words, despite the piety displayed in the law code, it lacks the mark of Karpyr’s particular faith. And this, gentleman is what he proposes. Not that we should respect religion and the good in our laws, but rather that his lonesome opinion on what is right by the heavens shall rule.
And we have already seen what he does when he does not get his way in his regard. If my troubles on the way to this chamber today are not enough evidence, have you not heard the rumors of what he presides over in the runs? I am loathe to lend strength to words of base speculation, but we cannot ignore how sustained these tales have become.
What would happen if we were to add this clause?
The demonstrations against me and my policies, and for “zeal”, may cease, but should a judge ever fall into disfavor, we would see the Brotherhood motivate demonstrations across the city. Any trangressor could be termed insufficientpy faithful, a condemnation likely backed by “popular demonstrations”. And then, in order to remain coherent and proper, this judge would have to be sacked despite doing nothing but his duty, just not the duty which Karpyr wants.
In other words, Karpyr’s proposal would give him a sufficiently soft veto power on any judge, and set a precedent for applying such clauses to any legislation. We would bend to a fragment of Sulan society, and surrender control of our destiny to the voices of a fervent few.
Is this not, in essence, what Keros did? Give himself the corrupt and final say in all matters, sanctioned by a veneer of religion and empowerment?
I hope in my heart of hearts that Karpyr did not intend and does not intend all this as evil. I merely ask that he and his flock respect the laws the way that they are designed, and recognizes that they as written the best way to manage justice in Sul.
But, if he did...
If he seeks to become a traitor, a tyrant, and a Keros, let him say it plain. It would be the honorable, faithful thing to do.
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Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
Karpyr's fierce visage smiles to the court, then he sighs resignedly.
"Friends. It saddens me that the Intendant would call me a devil like Keros. And I think it demonstrates my qualms when a man who prides himself on reading doesn't know how to listen.
So Keros called himself faithful. You all know that. And you know as well, whether all false faiths are virtuous. The Intendant decries our order for its faith, after it was driven out as dogs by the Beast. And the Intendant calls this faith, not vice. Does he tear apart all books if he finds a falsehood in one? If this is this the virtue of good judgment that he principles, I find it ever so true that we need the concession of faith.
For yes - does this man, priding himself on good stewardship, know of the concept of concession? I asked for the addition of three words to a code, and he answered with a thousand. He looks for a devil, rages towards a pond and breathes fire. He looks to a soup kitchen and calls it a fester. I said three words and he yells a thousand, naming me the Beast.
This man of the people, he mocks the meek under him, those who serve the peasants in his name. And he blames me for the ill will of citizens. Again, I question whether his books leave him without the ability to understand the good judgment of the innocent, the meek, the people. He gets yelled at, brings his anger to the court, threatens a blind priest and calls it justice.
I asked for a simple amendment of three words, words that secure virtue the Intendant fails to display, while he denounces the monks who feed the poor for him.
Myself, I will turn the other cheek. Unjust threats are just that. I am but a man in rags. And I trust in the judgment of this court, even if I were not to trust the Intendant. I know that those of books aren't. And I have soup to serve to the poor. Would he Intendant care for his people, he can join me in the kitchen.
Blessed be the Intendant and you all, if you choose to be."
Karpyr bowed as the crowd mumbled.
"Friends. It saddens me that the Intendant would call me a devil like Keros. And I think it demonstrates my qualms when a man who prides himself on reading doesn't know how to listen.
So Keros called himself faithful. You all know that. And you know as well, whether all false faiths are virtuous. The Intendant decries our order for its faith, after it was driven out as dogs by the Beast. And the Intendant calls this faith, not vice. Does he tear apart all books if he finds a falsehood in one? If this is this the virtue of good judgment that he principles, I find it ever so true that we need the concession of faith.
For yes - does this man, priding himself on good stewardship, know of the concept of concession? I asked for the addition of three words to a code, and he answered with a thousand. He looks for a devil, rages towards a pond and breathes fire. He looks to a soup kitchen and calls it a fester. I said three words and he yells a thousand, naming me the Beast.
This man of the people, he mocks the meek under him, those who serve the peasants in his name. And he blames me for the ill will of citizens. Again, I question whether his books leave him without the ability to understand the good judgment of the innocent, the meek, the people. He gets yelled at, brings his anger to the court, threatens a blind priest and calls it justice.
I asked for a simple amendment of three words, words that secure virtue the Intendant fails to display, while he denounces the monks who feed the poor for him.
Myself, I will turn the other cheek. Unjust threats are just that. I am but a man in rags. And I trust in the judgment of this court, even if I were not to trust the Intendant. I know that those of books aren't. And I have soup to serve to the poor. Would he Intendant care for his people, he can join me in the kitchen.
Blessed be the Intendant and you all, if you choose to be."
Karpyr bowed as the crowd mumbled.
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Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
The Magistrate Speaks
Gentlemen, and friends. May I remind you that I am the only member of this Judiciary to possess a degree of laws. While I am loath to intervene in the city's domestic matters, I feel bound both by the qualifications the Intendant extols, and my duty as Lord of Sul, to pronounce upon this dispute. I regret to begin with a reprimand, but my good judges, we must not bandy about personal slights in these hallowed halls of state. To fall against each other like dogs, when in our hearts we hold the same goal of justice both earthly and divine, would justify the aspersions against the mob cast by Magister Keros and his ilk to denounce all enlightened, republican government.
We must prove him wrong.
We must prove the superior morality and wisdom of the people of Sul.
And so, we must perform the action for which the magister lacked the faculty: Compromise.
I propose that the requirement for those to be judges of our city's lower courts be described as such: "Men of established learning, civic and religious virtue." Ultimately, let I remind you gentlemen, we are this city's supreme Judiciary. We Stratti are the final arbiters of both civic and religious virtue. And if a judge comes forth who shows a lack of virtue, of either the earthly or divine nature, we Judges retain the privilege of dismissal.
As such, let me propose the following clause: That any petty judge accused of a breach or moral propriety by a Strattos of Sul be subject to a vote of censure by this Judiciary, to be followed by a reprimand, a fine, or dismissal as the gravity of the accusation requires.
We speak in generalities, when the truth of the matter is plain: No judge who is unacceptable to the Intendancy will stand. No judge who is unacceptable to the Brotherhood will stand. We shall find men in possession of the qualifications, both secular and religious, who are acceptable to all factions, and who possess the virtues in all areas that are required to serve our city. I do not believe any judge of Sul will fail to present himself at the shrines on the festival days, nor will he find himself unlettered and unwritten. We shall seek all these things in our city's future judges.
And we cannot argue about the qualities of men we do not know. I do not doubt that all our city's judges will staff our administration with their own trusted associates.
And as I trust you, my fellow Judges, I trust them.
Gentlemen, and friends. May I remind you that I am the only member of this Judiciary to possess a degree of laws. While I am loath to intervene in the city's domestic matters, I feel bound both by the qualifications the Intendant extols, and my duty as Lord of Sul, to pronounce upon this dispute. I regret to begin with a reprimand, but my good judges, we must not bandy about personal slights in these hallowed halls of state. To fall against each other like dogs, when in our hearts we hold the same goal of justice both earthly and divine, would justify the aspersions against the mob cast by Magister Keros and his ilk to denounce all enlightened, republican government.
We must prove him wrong.
We must prove the superior morality and wisdom of the people of Sul.
And so, we must perform the action for which the magister lacked the faculty: Compromise.
I propose that the requirement for those to be judges of our city's lower courts be described as such: "Men of established learning, civic and religious virtue." Ultimately, let I remind you gentlemen, we are this city's supreme Judiciary. We Stratti are the final arbiters of both civic and religious virtue. And if a judge comes forth who shows a lack of virtue, of either the earthly or divine nature, we Judges retain the privilege of dismissal.
As such, let me propose the following clause: That any petty judge accused of a breach or moral propriety by a Strattos of Sul be subject to a vote of censure by this Judiciary, to be followed by a reprimand, a fine, or dismissal as the gravity of the accusation requires.
We speak in generalities, when the truth of the matter is plain: No judge who is unacceptable to the Intendancy will stand. No judge who is unacceptable to the Brotherhood will stand. We shall find men in possession of the qualifications, both secular and religious, who are acceptable to all factions, and who possess the virtues in all areas that are required to serve our city. I do not believe any judge of Sul will fail to present himself at the shrines on the festival days, nor will he find himself unlettered and unwritten. We shall seek all these things in our city's future judges.
And we cannot argue about the qualities of men we do not know. I do not doubt that all our city's judges will staff our administration with their own trusted associates.
And as I trust you, my fellow Judges, I trust them.
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Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
Responding to Zathander -
"Thank you, my friend. That is all I ask. Just zeal."
"Thank you, my friend. That is all I ask. Just zeal."
The Magistrate proposes a wise compromise. The next draft of the code will reflect it.
OOC: Moscow doesn’t believe in tears, and also doesn’t believe in places where I can pull out a laptop and connect to wifi, apparently. I will update the law code document as soon as I can.
OOC: Moscow doesn’t believe in tears, and also doesn’t believe in places where I can pull out a laptop and connect to wifi, apparently. I will update the law code document as soon as I can.
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
Curse of the Cayanist, Part Two:
- Over forty years ago -
The tidal roar of the Fugue Sea was his earliest memory. Mother had looked after him, since Father lived far away in his high tower and frowned whenever he saw him. Adaïs was his mother’s name. She was known for her singing – in the day she sang to the sheep and the goats who followed her like Heose’s host, and at night to the worms of the magister’s serery, that they would spin their silk beneath the moonlight. That she would make the magister spin as well was hardly unpredictable.
“Life and death and life is the oldest story and the only story,” she told little Zakkas as they walked by the seashore, one chubby hand in hers, the other dragging a small stick behind him in the wet sand. They watched the waves crash down and retreat, bubbling seafoam left behind among the kelp as the flows trickled back down to the ocean. “The push and the pull, of each generation of women and men, and all living things, rising, and fading.”
At the time he did not think it special, or know to call it cayanics, but his mother taught him the core of the Ability back then. To spread his awareness outwards and feel the life essence in all things, to realize that the fundament of life is differentials of stored energy. She showed him the uncountable number of living things too small for human eyes to see, floating in the ocean, drifting on the air, crawling on the skin. That death is not instantaneous, but rather a gradual unwinding of a being into smaller, still-living components. The bound-up energy in each of these components, and the natural magic of the world, as scavengers devour the dead, and are devoured, and how much is lost in each step of life-transfer.
To understand, first, always, and then to use. She showed him how to pull the power from the decaying life matter on the beach and put it into something else, kelp and jellyfish carcasses crumbling to dust as the algae across the bay bloomed with shimmering silver light under the stars. They laughed with delight together, and in wonder. That this level of power from a mere child was exceptional went unremarked upon. That the Ability could just as soon be turned to darker purposes, as well.
Accomplished cayanists differ as to whether the Ability is influenced by blood, or whether a certain mindset, experience, or education is the key. Most agree, however, that much like learning any trade, it is best to begin in childhood. He was, as children often are, happy without knowing he was happy, firm in the idolatry of his parents in their two worlds.
But the unorthodox practices of the Kassyrene hillfolk, half-tribal as they were, had never sat well with the Teschi who colonized the island. It was a conflict long since resolved with both massacres and assimilation, such that the hillfolk were now ‘mostly’ Teschi themselves, but nevertheless it occasionally resurfaced in vicious bursts of communal violence. Zakkas’ mother had the protection of the magister, her particular gifts being very profitable to both the local College and to the magister himself – but this only intensified the resentment of the townspeople.
Perhaps the incident could have been avoided if the magister had been more discreet, or if his mistress had accepted his protection and lived closer to the College, rather than remaining in her isolated cottage among the coastal hills she so loved. Perhaps many things could have been different. But they were not.
As befitting the illegitimate child of a personage as notable as the magister, Zakkas had the right to attend lessons in the scholastic grammar school once he reached the age of seven. And this he did, until he was twelve. The lessons terminated in mid-afternoon, following which the boy purchased necessities for his mother and carried them on the long journey home.
He knew when he was still miles away that something was wrong as a bleating sheep he knew to be one of theirs ran down the path and past him. He did not go after it – he dropped his goods and broke into a sprint. The boy felt, of course, the swinging corpse long before he saw it, though he begged to be wrong. He should not have looked at the bloated, blotchy, swollen face, its beauty marred and ruined by the terrible witch’s branding the townspeople had done to it before the asphyxiation of her hanging. But he did look. He screamed, and he sobbed, clutching her hem. And then, he began to think.
It was not difficult for a cayanist of skill to feel that people from the nearby village were responsible – the little crumbs and infinitesimal scattered life-forms left behind by those living in a town were very different from those of the hillside. He had smelled this mélange before. Tearing at the sleeves of his collegial uniform in anguish, he knew exactly which village to target for his reprisal. As he gathered power about himself in a malign cloud, the hill moss turned black in his wake.
They were a small fishing village, half-transient, with a small cayan font to purify the tidewater led by a zealous preacher from the mainland. The sun had just set, and the boats were in, pulled up on the sand, the new pier only half-finished. With a gnash of his teeth, the twelve-year-old Zakkas pulled the life from all the living things on the bayside. Fish floated up, clams cracked, seabirds plummeted. And among the kitchen gardens and houseplants of the fisherfolk, vines grew. As Zakkas screamed in rage and exertion, the plants twisted and thickened, writhing around legs and arms, shattering bones. Innocent and guilty alike died in their beds and on their thresholds, slain by their plants.
The cayan brother came out of his home, robe partially undone and staff in hand, pointing towards the malign cayanist on the hillside, withering the strangling vines around him to generate a column of superheated air (not quite ignition-caliber, the boy observed with contempt) that whipped his face with razor-like winds, knocking him back onto the hillside, pinning him down. Either he is weak or means to capture me, Zakkas thought. But he will die either way.
His arms were pinned by the cayan brother’s wind-spell. But a true cayanist does not need gestures or focuses. He felt the tiny seeds of pollen in the chinks of the floorboards of the shabby clapboard walls of a cottage near his enemy. He leeched the life out of a fisherman running up the hillside with a harpoon, making him collapse with sudden exhaustion, and poured it into one of the tiny grains. A tree burst into life, growing sideways from the wall of a nearby shack, its tip formed into a sharpened wooden stake that grew and grew until it pierced through the brother’s neck as he focused on his spell. His enemy choked and gurgled his last as his carotid gushed hot blood onto his chest, bubbling and boiling as Zakkas pulled power from the brother’s blood to continue slaughtering the villagers.
Zakkas ensured that anyone in the village who had seen him was dead or fleeing. Then, bruised and bleeding, he slowly stumbled about fifty paces up the hillside, and collapsed unconscious.
It would have been difficult for a cayan disturbance of such magnitude anywhere on Kassyra to not attract the attention of a sensitive cayanos, which the magister was. As such, he was able to get to the scene before anyone else. Within two hours he had rode out with his most trusted followers and assessed the situation, finding by turns Adaïs’ body, the cayanically destroyed village, and Zakkas’ unconscious body at the center of it all.
The magister was now placed in what Emissariat circles would refer to as “a delicate situation.” His lover had just been lynched and his bastard had gone on a rampage to avenge her. But one does not become a magister for lack of ability to maneuver. And his role was relatively simple: Clean it up. Pull down the hanged corpse, burn the body with all necessary ritual. Let the official record state that the witch cursed the townspeople and was punished accordingly, then get the boy who was actually responsible far, far, out of sight. Finally, ensure that anyone who knows the truth never speaks of it again.
When Zakkas awakened, he was in his father’s tor. Or more accurately, below it. As the rivulets of blood from his back trickled into the well-mortared grate below Zakkas’ chained feet, the magister holding the cat o’ nine-tails made it clear to his son, in a voice laden with grief and duty in equal measure, that he was saving his life.
Understandably, Zakkas did not see that way at the time. His father told him something else: That he was nothing but a killer, and if he was to atone, he would ply his trade in the service of the College for the rest of his days. Also understandably, the boy’s evolving response to this admonition would come to define him.
Smuggled onto a ship the following night, he would never see his father, or his homeland, again. Only the eponym, dal Kassyraqua, defiantly taken in his mother’s dialect, and the scars on his back, would remind him of who he had been, who he had loved, and who he had hated.
---
“…of canon law, Zakkas?”
“What,” said Zakkas. He must have dozed off. Napping on horseback was a skill he had acquired from long days riding with Teccho’s baggage trains.
Zathander glanced sideways from his courser, favoring him with a knowing smile. That’s right. He was in the Magistrate’s company now. With his guards, and that boy grammatarch Siadre, who looked like he was either getting sick or scared of that warhorse he could barely control. Where were they going again? Right. To war, somewhere. Like always. Horizan – that place.
“I was saying, how strong is your understanding of canon law?”
Napharneschi had made a habit of asking unexpected questions like this. The last one had been about wheel axles, as if Zakkas made his living maintaining supply trains and didn’t just guard them.
“…I was always more of a practical cayanist, my lord.”
“Well of course, I wouldn’t have hired you otherwise.”
Zathander pauses for a moment. “Let me rephrase my question. You’ve dealt with magisters in your career, haven’t you?”
“…yes?” responds Zakkas warily.
“So, what do you think it takes?”
“To be a magister?”
“Yes.”
Zakkas dal Kassyraqua considers the question. And then sighs.
“Well, my lord. You have to be a ruthless bastard, who acts like he owns the world, and thinks that he knows better than everyone else.” He finally favors the handsome magistrate with a weary stare and a pained grimace from a developing saddle sore. “Does that answer your question?”
Zathander Napharneschi smiles again. “Why yes, Zakkas. I very much think it does.”
- Over forty years ago -
The tidal roar of the Fugue Sea was his earliest memory. Mother had looked after him, since Father lived far away in his high tower and frowned whenever he saw him. Adaïs was his mother’s name. She was known for her singing – in the day she sang to the sheep and the goats who followed her like Heose’s host, and at night to the worms of the magister’s serery, that they would spin their silk beneath the moonlight. That she would make the magister spin as well was hardly unpredictable.
“Life and death and life is the oldest story and the only story,” she told little Zakkas as they walked by the seashore, one chubby hand in hers, the other dragging a small stick behind him in the wet sand. They watched the waves crash down and retreat, bubbling seafoam left behind among the kelp as the flows trickled back down to the ocean. “The push and the pull, of each generation of women and men, and all living things, rising, and fading.”
At the time he did not think it special, or know to call it cayanics, but his mother taught him the core of the Ability back then. To spread his awareness outwards and feel the life essence in all things, to realize that the fundament of life is differentials of stored energy. She showed him the uncountable number of living things too small for human eyes to see, floating in the ocean, drifting on the air, crawling on the skin. That death is not instantaneous, but rather a gradual unwinding of a being into smaller, still-living components. The bound-up energy in each of these components, and the natural magic of the world, as scavengers devour the dead, and are devoured, and how much is lost in each step of life-transfer.
To understand, first, always, and then to use. She showed him how to pull the power from the decaying life matter on the beach and put it into something else, kelp and jellyfish carcasses crumbling to dust as the algae across the bay bloomed with shimmering silver light under the stars. They laughed with delight together, and in wonder. That this level of power from a mere child was exceptional went unremarked upon. That the Ability could just as soon be turned to darker purposes, as well.
Accomplished cayanists differ as to whether the Ability is influenced by blood, or whether a certain mindset, experience, or education is the key. Most agree, however, that much like learning any trade, it is best to begin in childhood. He was, as children often are, happy without knowing he was happy, firm in the idolatry of his parents in their two worlds.
But the unorthodox practices of the Kassyrene hillfolk, half-tribal as they were, had never sat well with the Teschi who colonized the island. It was a conflict long since resolved with both massacres and assimilation, such that the hillfolk were now ‘mostly’ Teschi themselves, but nevertheless it occasionally resurfaced in vicious bursts of communal violence. Zakkas’ mother had the protection of the magister, her particular gifts being very profitable to both the local College and to the magister himself – but this only intensified the resentment of the townspeople.
Perhaps the incident could have been avoided if the magister had been more discreet, or if his mistress had accepted his protection and lived closer to the College, rather than remaining in her isolated cottage among the coastal hills she so loved. Perhaps many things could have been different. But they were not.
As befitting the illegitimate child of a personage as notable as the magister, Zakkas had the right to attend lessons in the scholastic grammar school once he reached the age of seven. And this he did, until he was twelve. The lessons terminated in mid-afternoon, following which the boy purchased necessities for his mother and carried them on the long journey home.
He knew when he was still miles away that something was wrong as a bleating sheep he knew to be one of theirs ran down the path and past him. He did not go after it – he dropped his goods and broke into a sprint. The boy felt, of course, the swinging corpse long before he saw it, though he begged to be wrong. He should not have looked at the bloated, blotchy, swollen face, its beauty marred and ruined by the terrible witch’s branding the townspeople had done to it before the asphyxiation of her hanging. But he did look. He screamed, and he sobbed, clutching her hem. And then, he began to think.
It was not difficult for a cayanist of skill to feel that people from the nearby village were responsible – the little crumbs and infinitesimal scattered life-forms left behind by those living in a town were very different from those of the hillside. He had smelled this mélange before. Tearing at the sleeves of his collegial uniform in anguish, he knew exactly which village to target for his reprisal. As he gathered power about himself in a malign cloud, the hill moss turned black in his wake.
They were a small fishing village, half-transient, with a small cayan font to purify the tidewater led by a zealous preacher from the mainland. The sun had just set, and the boats were in, pulled up on the sand, the new pier only half-finished. With a gnash of his teeth, the twelve-year-old Zakkas pulled the life from all the living things on the bayside. Fish floated up, clams cracked, seabirds plummeted. And among the kitchen gardens and houseplants of the fisherfolk, vines grew. As Zakkas screamed in rage and exertion, the plants twisted and thickened, writhing around legs and arms, shattering bones. Innocent and guilty alike died in their beds and on their thresholds, slain by their plants.
The cayan brother came out of his home, robe partially undone and staff in hand, pointing towards the malign cayanist on the hillside, withering the strangling vines around him to generate a column of superheated air (not quite ignition-caliber, the boy observed with contempt) that whipped his face with razor-like winds, knocking him back onto the hillside, pinning him down. Either he is weak or means to capture me, Zakkas thought. But he will die either way.
His arms were pinned by the cayan brother’s wind-spell. But a true cayanist does not need gestures or focuses. He felt the tiny seeds of pollen in the chinks of the floorboards of the shabby clapboard walls of a cottage near his enemy. He leeched the life out of a fisherman running up the hillside with a harpoon, making him collapse with sudden exhaustion, and poured it into one of the tiny grains. A tree burst into life, growing sideways from the wall of a nearby shack, its tip formed into a sharpened wooden stake that grew and grew until it pierced through the brother’s neck as he focused on his spell. His enemy choked and gurgled his last as his carotid gushed hot blood onto his chest, bubbling and boiling as Zakkas pulled power from the brother’s blood to continue slaughtering the villagers.
Zakkas ensured that anyone in the village who had seen him was dead or fleeing. Then, bruised and bleeding, he slowly stumbled about fifty paces up the hillside, and collapsed unconscious.
It would have been difficult for a cayan disturbance of such magnitude anywhere on Kassyra to not attract the attention of a sensitive cayanos, which the magister was. As such, he was able to get to the scene before anyone else. Within two hours he had rode out with his most trusted followers and assessed the situation, finding by turns Adaïs’ body, the cayanically destroyed village, and Zakkas’ unconscious body at the center of it all.
The magister was now placed in what Emissariat circles would refer to as “a delicate situation.” His lover had just been lynched and his bastard had gone on a rampage to avenge her. But one does not become a magister for lack of ability to maneuver. And his role was relatively simple: Clean it up. Pull down the hanged corpse, burn the body with all necessary ritual. Let the official record state that the witch cursed the townspeople and was punished accordingly, then get the boy who was actually responsible far, far, out of sight. Finally, ensure that anyone who knows the truth never speaks of it again.
When Zakkas awakened, he was in his father’s tor. Or more accurately, below it. As the rivulets of blood from his back trickled into the well-mortared grate below Zakkas’ chained feet, the magister holding the cat o’ nine-tails made it clear to his son, in a voice laden with grief and duty in equal measure, that he was saving his life.
Understandably, Zakkas did not see that way at the time. His father told him something else: That he was nothing but a killer, and if he was to atone, he would ply his trade in the service of the College for the rest of his days. Also understandably, the boy’s evolving response to this admonition would come to define him.
Smuggled onto a ship the following night, he would never see his father, or his homeland, again. Only the eponym, dal Kassyraqua, defiantly taken in his mother’s dialect, and the scars on his back, would remind him of who he had been, who he had loved, and who he had hated.
---
“…of canon law, Zakkas?”
“What,” said Zakkas. He must have dozed off. Napping on horseback was a skill he had acquired from long days riding with Teccho’s baggage trains.
Zathander glanced sideways from his courser, favoring him with a knowing smile. That’s right. He was in the Magistrate’s company now. With his guards, and that boy grammatarch Siadre, who looked like he was either getting sick or scared of that warhorse he could barely control. Where were they going again? Right. To war, somewhere. Like always. Horizan – that place.
“I was saying, how strong is your understanding of canon law?”
Napharneschi had made a habit of asking unexpected questions like this. The last one had been about wheel axles, as if Zakkas made his living maintaining supply trains and didn’t just guard them.
“…I was always more of a practical cayanist, my lord.”
“Well of course, I wouldn’t have hired you otherwise.”
Zathander pauses for a moment. “Let me rephrase my question. You’ve dealt with magisters in your career, haven’t you?”
“…yes?” responds Zakkas warily.
“So, what do you think it takes?”
“To be a magister?”
“Yes.”
Zakkas dal Kassyraqua considers the question. And then sighs.
“Well, my lord. You have to be a ruthless bastard, who acts like he owns the world, and thinks that he knows better than everyone else.” He finally favors the handsome magistrate with a weary stare and a pained grimace from a developing saddle sore. “Does that answer your question?”
Zathander Napharneschi smiles again. “Why yes, Zakkas. I very much think it does.”
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