End of Empires - N3S III

[Jehoshua]

That's an intriguing system you have going on there. Seems similar in some ways to the old roman religious system, in which you had the state cult with a slew of various other cults incorporated within the broader sphere of roman pagan religion (such as the cult of Cybele for example, with its eunuch transvestite priests). The main difference being that there is a bit more of a teaching/doctrinal character to the high ward (pontifex maximus analogue), whereas the roman religion cared much more about the pax deorum and right practice than matters of dogma. That and your cults (orders) took up temporal aspects subsuming formerly state prerogatives into their religious practice.

I think the implicit risks for your system (if you handle matters suboptimally or outside involvement muddies the waters and you fail to resolve things, I'm not stating matters of inevitability here) I'd suppose are that precisely because your system as far as I'm reading it appears to have more of a doctrinal emphasis, and you entirely lack an overarching civic cultus (religious orthopraxy) which all are obliged to follow (the orders being competitive and separate) are that internal competition and dispute within the Oecumene could lead to order/s splitting off from the oecumene due to political/theological conflict. With all the diversity in your polity (with disenfranchised Kings, many ethnicities, remnant and crypto-aitahists in addition to the aforementioned orders), there are plenty of avenues in which such conflict could emerge. At any rate, it will be interesting to watch how things develop from my little Kingdom far away in the west

 

[Masada]

The Federation is about as complicated as Halyrate but is a little less diffuse so I've decided to write something up as well.

What the hell is the Federation?

The Federation is a federation (surprised?) of five constituent states which have agreed to a shared defense and foreign policy. The Federation is nominally controlled by the Pentapartite Council which has, five members drawn from each of the five states. The Sitters on the Council are usually but not always the heads of state of each of the constituent states of the Federation.

So does the Pentapartite Council run things?

In practice, having all these important personages in the one place is rare, so the actual business of ruling is delegated to the Standing Council. The Standing Council draws on a pool of representatives nominated by the Sitters and is always in session with members shuttling back and forth between their home states and the Caroha. The Standing Council tends to be more representative of the actual strength of the member states with the Union contributing the majority of the members.

So the Standing Council runs things?

Some things. But standing behind the Standing Council is the Secretariat which grew, sorta, out of the Council that governs Caroha. Functionally speaking, the Grand Secretariat is the executive and the eyes and ears of the Standing Council. Secretariat staff therefore occupy a range of functions. Some ensure that the Federation fisc receives its fair share of revenue (the Board of Donatives) while others ensure that the wishes of the Standing Council are carried out (the Board of Assurance). The Federation military is handled by two separate parts of the Secretariat called the Board of War and the Board of Seas. The remaining Boards have a grab-bag of roles, from the Board of State which handles the administration of Federation land (including Caroha itself) to the Board of Works which overseas the maintenance of fortifications.

So the Secretariat runs things?

Sorta. Not quite. Because operating in parallel to the Secretariat is the Censorate. The Censorate handles, as the name suggests, the Census and is also tasked by the Pentapartite Council with watching over the Secretariat and states to ensure probity. A slightly different section within the Censorate called the Directorate handles the threat of insurrection, treason and keep watch for signs of invasion. These guys and girls - this is the Federation - have close to unlimited power to execute their mission.

So who actually runs things?

It depends. The Federation is a complicated beast because the elite move across the different arms of government quite frequently. With the exception, I guess, of the Censorate and the two military boards which are kept separate and the Pentapartite Council because of its size. Interpersonal relationships - outside of a handful of roles - are far more important than the actual role and individual might hold. So someone with a lot of pull can make a relatively minor role rather more important than it might have been under a weaker personality. At present, the Board of State and Standing Council share a lot of members in common. So the Board of State has been able to subordinate the Board of Donatives to its will for the moment. The Pentapartite Council its widely tipped in its next session to do a shake-up of the boards, so it's likely this situation won't last.

What are the constituent states?

In order of importance:

The Union of Aitah - The Union of Aitah is the largest member state both economically and in population terms. The Union itself is comprised of a grab-bag of states. Although, these have more or less conceded most of their functions to the All-Union Senate. The Union, contrary to what most people seem to think, isn't an exclusively or even largely a Seshweay state. While it certainly captures the main Seshweay population centers on the Sesh River and Mahid, it also captures a range of other groups who make up just shy - I'd guess - of the Union's population. The Union has a reasonably coherent shared elite (and increasingly non-elite) culture which is what keeps things together. The Union does not rule Caroha although Caroha, culturally, is well and truly part of the Union culturally and intellectually.

The Airani Roshate - The newest member of the Federation, the Airani are Aelonist Aitahists and regarded as being sorta, well, strange by the more established members of the Federation. The feeling is mutual although this hasn't translated to anything more than a bit of wariness. The culture of the Airani Roshate is probably the most distinct of the member states and the least influenced by the (civilizing) influence of the Federation.

The Republic of the Peko - The Peko is a bit of a strange kettle of fish. On paper it's a Maninist state in an otherwise Aitahist Federation. In practice, the Perkovans are considered to be Aitahists, for all intents and purposes, and consider themselves, well, to be Aitahists and Maninists. Nobody seems to see this as a theological issue and while Orthodox Aitahists think some Perkovan religious practices strange but long exposure has at least made them a known quality. The Pekos government is based on the Union's and while some of the Synothal Orders are present they have little influence in government. Something the temporal elite of the Peko are rather keen to maintain. Culturally, the Perkovan elite share much the same elite culture as the rest of the Federation. The process... is less complete among the lower orders.

The Republic of Oscadia - The Oscadians are refugees who fled the Satar, settled in and around Caroha, and then conquered themselves a new state with the collapse of the Moti Empire. The Oscadians really hate the Satar and have all but wiped them out, at least, culturally in the Upper Sesh. The truth being that most Oscadians have more than a few Satar females in their recent ancestors. This can be explained by the Oscadian habit of taking Satar females as concubines while raising the resulting offspring as Oscadians. This used to be the exclusive prerogative of Oscadian chiefs in the old country but the conquest and the availability of eligible females saw the practice become ubiquitous. Near-constant Satar raids from the Tehpran and Ashelai Exatai and the demands of the occupation have seen the Oscadians become a nation under arms with the whole adult male population expected to be able to bear arms in defense of the fortified settlements that dot the Upper Sesh. Uniquely, the Oscadians do not elect their Senate with members drawn from the most militarily successful members of the clans. The First Liberator the head of the Oscadian state is always a military man of the highest order. For this reason, the Oscadians have an outsized role in the Federation army, supply a large number of soldiers - mostly pike modeled on the Accans - and being one of just two member states (the other being the Airani) who still have their own army independent of the Federation. The Oscadian military, in practice, functions as an adjunct to the Federation military forces in the region and simply provides a (very large) retinue of hardened veterans for the First Liberator to use as he sees fit.

The Republic of Neruss - Neruss is a city state and the smallest and weakest member of the Federation. It's notable chiefly, I guess, for having a vote on the Pentapartite Council. It make salt and has never fallen to an enemy either.

How does this all work in game terms?

Iggy and I, more or less, represented the two largest states of the old Federation with varying degrees of influence over the other members. I had pretty good call on Neruss and Dremai. He had rather more to say about the Faron states and we sorta split responsibility over the Peko. In this round, I'll retain the Union, Neruss - which is a member of the Council largely by tradition at this point - and decent influence over Oscadia. The goals of Oscadia being quite a bit different to the Union. I believe I can model them at the Federation with NK arbitrating. We've done it in the past. The Peko is a bit more problematic because it's quite a different beast, again. I think I'll have influence over that. But I imagine I'll be consulting with Perf quite a bit over this and that. Cicero will obviously handle the Airani. Like I did with Iggy, we'll send joint orders. So if you want to talk to the Federation, you should probably talk to us both. If you want to talk about a particular state, you should send it to the appropriate person. We can be questioned separately about this and that but you probably shouldn't take the word of one of us as being 100% binding unless we indicate it as such. I'd like to think Cicero and I have discussed most foreign policy issues in detail so I don't foresee that being a huge problem.

 

[Luckymoose]

Prince Eater

Other Chapters: (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8)

Naevu, Professor of the Faith
Lemdeh 910 SR​

A soft song played in some distant alcove. The gently plucked strings carried through the bustle of the Birthing Chamber. Yet still the skittering of peacock feet and their fanning feathers reached his ears.

Atop the many-feathered bird throne a sunken, sleeping figure did rule. What a sad old sight. A dozen legates from the world over did plead at the High Ward's feet. Paid to speak, whether or not anyone listened.

Naevu shifted on the submerged shelf, turning to the other end of the pool. A boy's voice, sweet and uncorrupted, read to him. Naevu allowed himself a moment of meditation, to fall through to some distant time lost.

The boy had no name, not to Naevu. He simply called him Three, for he was the third. And Three was no master orator, not yet, perhaps never. Three was a child, still, but he read The North Kings in the Faron tongue. It did not matter the reader of the tale, or their skill, in fact. For Naevu knew each line's gentle curve, each syllable committed to memory. The mind builds on what it knows, not what it hears. Those lines became the rolling Kern at night. A thousand stained sails visible by moonlight.

The long pool, a shimmering mirror, reflected the pillars and paintings and loiterers by its side. The waters were warm, and the steam rose high to form a cloud as in the high mountains. Condensation formed on the domed ceiling and rained down as a summer mist. Naevu sat adjacent to a marble pillar, and he rested his arms along the pool's edge, one hand caressing the details of the masonry and the other dangling in the water's warmth.

He shut his eyes to trace the lines in his memory, and he ground his teeth at every mispronunciation or hesitation. Faron was a song, a blessed tongue driven by motion. One did not play the wrong notes and hope to produce the correct melody. Why should one expect otherwise with language? And he wished to snap, to get angry and beat the child, perhaps, but he did abide.

A woman screamed, followed by a sudden and remarkably big splash. So did the mirror sheen of the pool fade into a ripple of waves and crashing droplets. The waves overtook him, rising high above the pool's edge. Painfully, the waters shot up his nose and burned in the back of his throat. All the while ruffling his beard and soaking his hair.

The first to emerge from the disturbed waters was an amply breasted woman. Her flesh was like sundried clove, and so too were the hands upon her hips from down low. The culprit rose behind her, grasping her breasts in both hands and kissing her neck. Naevu knew this girl as Ibilie, a Siran singer with a vocal range beyond any he'd known before. He'd never seen her in this light, in the bare flesh. In a playful dance of eroticism.

Soon the others returned to the center of the pool, swimming as they so did, and the youths made their way to the gentle shelf nearby. There they did what no one minded. Ibilie's face pressed to the marble, waist bent over ledge, and breasts squished into the tiles. There her lover did take his liberties with her, and she sang.

Three read on, but who cared, really? Ibilie slid down the tiles, until her breasts rested upon Naevu's splashing hand. The youths gave a sensual glance, inviting. He was old enough to know the signs. Their statuesque forms were a far cry from his elephantine body. Had he been like them once? He must've been. No, that was a lie. Sirans practiced the physical forms, to hone their bodies. Naevu loved cake.

A sun rose in some distant recess of his mind. The thin white waist skirt was all he wore, and soon it rose too beneath the water. Oh, the things I would do, he thought. Elbows cracked and muscles groaned as he slid his full weight from the pool. Not this hour. Not in a thousand. Though, he did not hide himself from the youths. No, he wanted them to see his self-denial.

A whistle brought the slap of bare feet on wet tile, carrying the dresser. The young man paid no mind to the ravaging in the pool. The dresser removed the wet waist skirt and began the not-so-easy task of clothing Naevu's gut in the professorial cloth. The cloth twisted about his body three times, layering and tucking to make one significant piece into the intricate white vesture of his rank.

Naevu leaned, allowing the dresser to kiss his neck in acknowledgement of his service. The blond boy Three read on. He was six or seven, maybe. Naevu never bothered to learn, not since . . . Naevu slapped one hand against his forearm, creating a sudden pop to jolt the boy.

"Aeu," Naevu told the boy. He'd misread it for the twentieth time. Naevu repeated it thrice.

A pheasant of some sort, possibly a Satar steppe bird, flexed its wings in a potted fern nearby. It waited and watched for servants to spill food upon the floor, as the other birds did. The old man's fetish would not be missed in the slick, bird feces infested halls. Naevu sighed. The whole place smelled of animal sh#t and ejaculate and an obnoxious orgy of southern perfumes.

He resigned himself to tumble into a nearby, unoccupied cushion mound. Well, unoccupied in the sense that the only other occupant was unconscious and wine-soaked. Three followed, reading along but hesitating when confronted with tricky Faron words. Here a fan-girl waved an indigo fan at him. He stretched in the cushions, unashamed of the wallowing hog noises he loosed on the chamber. The fan-girl scurried away to tend to others, possibly frightened by his bulging belly and beastly groans and inappropriate scratching.

The Sirans expressed their love in new and exciting ways each time he glanced their way. They were not static in their positions, and he caught himself being lost in their performance. They explored newer, riskier positions and orifices and combinations of the two with every passing moment. In a way, it was a blessing to deny such powerful, beautiful lovers. He felt the pit in his stomach rising, yearning for attention, yearning for release.

A figure in furs, done up tight, crossed his vision. For a moment he groaned, unable to see his Sirans at play, but there he saw the figure's entourage and stood. It was no easy feat for a man his size to stand from lying. He rolled, truly, from the cushion to the floor on his knees. But he got up, by the Light he did.

Three youths, two boys and a girl, trailed the figure packed as mules on the high mountains. Their eyes sunk deep in their pale faces, and the blonde hairs upon their heads were dangerously near grey. They were Lusekt, or must've been by his reckoning, and not a damned thing worth looking at.

The figure was more elegant, a familiar face. Cold and stiff and drained of all care for the smaller things in life. Black hair traced white flesh. Her eyes grey-blue stones set hard on him. The musicians did not stir her, or the Sirans now playfully licking, or the elderly professors, a pair, which did walk by her with groping hands. Naevu silenced his pupil, waiting where he stood by the cushion pile for what must've been a vengeful spirit so intently focused upon her goal.

The Lusekt corpses peeled the furs, which he now saw were powdered with glistening snow, from her shoulders. And underneath she wore the professorial cloth, wrapped reverse to his in the feminine style. She was but bone wound up tight in pale life.

Naevu kissed her lips, as familiars did. There was none of the excitement of yesteryears passed. No playful seduction. No tightening of his crotch. His hand fell on bare shoulder, rubbing raised, toughened flesh there. Scars?

So the dead walk.

"Aelea," he said, breaking their greeting. "You're alive."

"For no lack of trying, I assure you," she replied. There was coldness on her tongue, worse than any northern winter. She patted a hand about his belly. "Fatter."

He gave a noncommittal grunt.

"And these," he said, gesturing to her followers.

"Refugees," she replied, not turning to them. The Lusekt appeared astounded by the warmth, happiness, and smells of this new place. "Where Zeek hands cannot reach." She snapped her fingers at Three, and the boy came to her. She combed through his hair. "Where is the other?"

His gut sank. "In the hole where I left her," he said, gulping. To keep it light was, of course, his prerogative. "Pox," he added.

"Calligrapher, as I recall," said Aelea. "A fine girl gone too soon. Our dear master never lost us."

"But we've lost him."

"Pox?"

"The same."

She shifted her weight, standing as a dominate figure beside Naevu's failed posture. No emotion in her eyes. She shooed away her entourage, and they broke off to raid food servers, no doubt. Aelea led him back to the cushions, where they sat. Her straight back never gave to the comforts of the cushions. Naevu wallowed once more. His new position gave no line of sight to the Sirans, who now moaned louder. He grumbled.

Naevu spoke the only words he could think of. "Our Lady guides." It was all there was to say. What poem does a man say to a woman surely dead, a vision by the waters? He reached for her wrist, caressing it gently. Her heart did beat.

Aelea laughed. No, it wasn't a true laugh, more a specific burst of breathing. He amused her.

"And Xulas deceives," she finished for him. Her words swiftly moved to Savirai, a tongue he'd not spoken in years. "My deepest condolences for your girl, and our master . . . may he have done his best."

"You're not here for old times," said Naevu, releasing her wrist. She adjusted the cloth about her boney torso.

"No," she agreed. "I am here about a song yet written."

"The best sort."

"Are we undeserving?"

"Of?"

"Guidance." She paused, but Naevu had nothing to say. "Xaishas. What was it in the old tongue?"

"Lusk," he replied. He watched her with suspicion. Aelea's hands crept underneath the cloth wrapped round her figure.

"Do you know what the masters do in Xaishas," she said, hissing the Satar. Rhetorical. "They flay children's feet and follow their footprints." Naevu cleared his throat. Aelea slid closer in the cushion pile. She guided his hand under her garb, along the back. What had once been smooth and beautiful now rose in hard ridges spread as an oak's roots.

"Monsters," he whispered.

She sighed, all the while forcing his hand over every scar from her buttocks to her neck to her stomach. Her breasts were shrunken from malnutrition, and he did not want to touch them, but she made him. All the times he'd fantasized about her, about breaking her and making her his, boiled in his mind like liquid disease and churned his gut.

"Blood and tears to Her house lead. When they kick in the door, flesh meets steel. There is no one to help. There is a place," she said, pointing to her throat, "where they stab the men and children. Drown in blood."

"You saw this?"

"I lived it."

"But how?" She led his hand below her navel, where the scars had order. He traced them, and knew they were Satar characters. He refused to comprehend it.

"Men are men," she said, releasing his hand. Naevu sat up as she uncoiled her clothing, letting it bundle about her waist. White flesh streaked red with a thousand scars. He raised his eyes to hers, not wanting to see. "They like us. We're trained like dogs, they say. 'Your Lady will save you.' And they spit in your eyes and f#ck you like an animal in a pool of piss, beating you with a leather thong until you tear inside and out." She never raised her voice. Cold, hard as stone.

"Aelea . . ."

"Does this bother you?"

"Of course."

"It's a game for them. They want to keep the stubborn of us alive to use and abuse. To prove their exatas." She rubbed a scar on her belly. "Idiots," she said in Cyvekt, for the word was harsher in their mother tongue. "What did hesitation do for the assassin in Gurach?" She stared away from him now, across the pool and into the thick steam cloud. "How long," she asked. "Does this dim torch burn?"

"Long," replied Naevu, understanding her.

"Ten thousand," she said, dressing once more.

"I know the count."

"Twice the number that killed a prince. Yet, here we are."

She was calculating and calm. The images burned in his mind. He could smell the blood.

"I'm here about a song yet written," she reiterated, not looking back at Naevu.

"You should see a physician."

"I'd rather a songwriter," she said.

"I'm not a lyricist, Aelea, I'm a historian."

Aelea turned to the Sirans, watching a scene Naevu could not.

"We are soft. We have strayed. The Path forks, Naevu. Do you see?"

"No."

"Ah," she said in realization. "You see only the Path we've walked, not the Paths ahead. Always looking back, to write what we've done. My quill is a brush, brother. A bird must be painted in flight, for if not it is a mere figment of imagination. Guess work and what ifs. A moment to be acted upon, where the faintest hesitation spoils."

"A song yet written," he said, nodding. A moment yet occurred. That's what she sought. "And what can a historian offer this song?"

"Context," she said, staring back into his eyes.

"Causation?"

"Immolation."

Naevu averted his eyes. Aelea stood, staring down at him as if a menacing statue. She exhaled softly.

"Who would you have me see?" she asked.

He feigned a laugh.

 

[m.t.cicero]

Naesre, Maehoui Roshate, Faraghir i'Karghae
911 SR (Other chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7)

Pahalar yo Szaebalata & Aeragh ieo Ghohaeraena
The Jabralah's Son & The Merchant Heir​

The wind had blown ships from every corner of the known world, or at least every corner that mattered, into Naesre’s harbor. Aer had been coming this way for long enough to know a word or two in most tongues spoken by the usual arrivals. Seshweay, Faronun, Cyvekt, Gallatene, Opulensi, Parthecan – today he even heard a couple of words from a faraway language, though he could not recall the name of the country. Tsumongter…Tutsongmer…Termerang? Tsututsongtermerangagang? Before he could expend any more mental energy in his attempt to recall the proper name of this fabled, exotic jungle locale, his thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice.

“Aer!”

Familiar and, now, unwelcome.

“Aer, it’s been far too long!”

That slight Peko accent, which he had never truly taken note of before, now reminded him of a squealing pig. After some hesitation, Aer finally turned to acknowledge the source of the voice, who stood on the deck of the ship which Aer had come here for in the first place. It was his father’s ship, and Aer was here to confirm that the goods which it was expected to contain were in fact on board. Necessary experience for a son of a merchant family, but it also brought Aer into contact with someone for whom Aer no longer held any desire to see. Meshevah, a merchant captain hailing from the lush valley to the east, ran down the gangplank with far more enthusiasm than befit a man of forty years and embraced Aer. Until a couple of months ago, Aer might have found this embrace comforting, to say the least. Meshevah had been Aer’s lone outlet, and what they had been had seemed fine to Aer. But now, seeing this far older man, Aer could feel nothing but disgust, both at the sailor and himself. He quickly pushed himself away and tried to get right down to business, hoping to get through this ordeal as quickly and painlessly as possible.

“I have the manifest here, Meshevah. I’ll just check over the hold and let you-”

The Peko sailor leered at him, “We can take our time down there, Aer, it has been quite a while.”

Aer sighed, “Just let me check the cargo, Mesh.”

+++​

Everything appeared to check out; the Peko had never swindled his family before, and this shipment proved to be nothing out of the ordinary. Aer began to make his way back up to the deck.

“Where are you going?” Aer looked back to see Mesh looking at him expectantly.

“I’ve got some other ships to check. We’ve got some new business in Acajura coming in, and father asked me to-”

“Is something wrong, Aer? You’ve always been able to make time before.”

Aer looked at the Peko merchant with something resembling pity. “No – not today, Mesh.”

Mesh gave him a look that would make one think he had been stabbed in the chest. “Oh-”

“I’ve really got to go.”

Aer rushed up the stairs and off the ship. He was pained; only now was he realizing that Mesh had been taking advantage of him for years. Yet he also felt pride, for now he had met somebody with whom he felt he could have an equitable, healthy, normal relationship, if one could for a moment stretch one’s definition of normal. Somebody who made him feel no guilt.

Pahal.

Before boarding the Acajuren ship, Aer reminded himself to ask his father soon to get somebody else to inspect the Peko ships from now on. His younger sister Paehlie needed to start learning about the family business anyways, and he could be reasonably sure that nothing foul would befall her when dealing with Mesh, as she wasn’t his type. He would still teach her how to wield a knife though, just in case, though perhaps he would actually get Pahal to be her mentor. The Siran knew how to fight.

***​

Pahal twirled his knife around his thumb, desperately trying to stave off the boredom which seemed to always threaten to overwhelm him when his uncle came to visit. Ibaecar uin Parceala, Rajabralah and the lord Sahres of Asocae, only ever spoke of matters of state, even when he paid visits to his brother’s villa in the north of the city. Pahal’s father, Jabralah Szaebalar uin Parceala, did not appear to take any more pleasure in these visits than did his son, but keeping up appearances was a small price to pay to remain in the good graces of one of the Roshate’s six most influential men. This villa itself had been a gift from Ibaecar to his younger brother, and the fact that he lived in a gift was not lost on Szaebalar.

“…the Cyvekt want to pursue a war with the Zeeks? What do you think the Aya’ses will say? Those old Seshweays are too busy soiling themselves at the prospect of another war with the Satar. Do you seriously think that they could get behind a starting war with Satar? And not just any Satar, but faraway, zealous and crazed Satar whose defeat will only empower the Satar which they actually fear?”

“The Chamber has discussed this at length, and the Roshate itself has no interest in following Cyve into the inferno. And yet, the faithful of Sira will doubtless want to aid in the liberation of their brothers and sisters in the north. The Wards have already been whipping their flocks into a frenzy; Speaker Ogharala has resources at his own disposal, and it’s difficult to control him, especially when he’s so far away in Alemade. Brother, the only way we can gain from this is to harness the energy of the Aelonists, and yet maintain our distance from the enterprise, so as not to enrage the Seshweay or the Halaeghir.”

“Of course I agree with these sentiments completely, Ibae, and I see a way in which we can not only meet these goals, but achieve a far more permanent success. You see, elder brother, our people are great horsemen, and the jabralahs are feared from Parthe to Acca. They are a tested and true force, to be sure, but they leave us dependent on the rest of the Faraghir for good infantrymen. How much do you think we can rely on the Seshweay, or the Peko, or even the Oscadians? The jabralahs also lack a clear association with our faith, and should these Lays become more frequent Sira ought to have a dedicated force which fights for Aelome, an Order along the lines of those of the Halaeghir, rather than some lord or another. We can leverage this opening; wars have been fought in our country over faith, and so we should have no trouble finding men willing to serve in a holy force. This…this Chorus of Aelome will take our people’s fervor and from it create a feared infantry force which can fight the forces of darkness which enround us.”

Pahal perked up at this. While he was certainly a skilled horseman, as any self-respecting Siran would be, he always felt most at home fighting on his own two feet. And to fight for Aelome…Pahal had felt more and more that he was becoming one with the Light as of late.

Aer.

“Thanks to both the Cyvekt and the Seshweay, we have a chance now to develop a true, effective infantry tradition. By taking cues from both of their martial techniques, we can develop a Siran way of combat – on foot – that will ensure that a Siran will be equally fearsome whether on horseback or off. What say you, Ibae?”

“That is…I will bring this to the Pearl Chamber immediately. Your martial genius is unmatched, Szae. I’m glad that you’re on our side. I will be sure to tell you how they receive it, but I would not assume that you should hold any doubt, brother.” Ibaecar stood and gave the traditional Siran gesture of farewell, opening his arms and bowing his head. Szaebalar and Pahal bowed in kind. With that, Ibaecar took his leave.

As the Rajabralah exited the villa, Szaebalar turned to his son. “I do hope that you can see why it is necessary for you to attend these meetings, my son. For one day you will be a jabralah and your cousin Baghaehar will be a Rajabralah, and I don’t doubt that you will have to advise him as well. Ibaecar and his line take after your grandfather a bit too much, with their minds stuck in books and prayers all of the time without giving much thought to the real world. It was your grandmother who saved your grandfather time and again, as her pragmatism always served to moderate his fervor. She has passed her wits down to me, and I can sense that although you are rough and impulsive now, I have managed to pass those same wits to you. You will do what needs to be done, and you will protect your ever-naïve cousin when it is his time to serve in the Pearl Chamber. Embrace your brashness now, and let it burn while you are young so that by the time you are my age you can serve the realm with a collected patience. At the same time, you need not fear that you will lose your bold heart, for when you need it, when swords clash and horses charge, when all you love is at stake, it will burn with a radiance as great as ever. You are a man of the greatest passion, Pahalar; a gift from your mother, to be sure. Take hold of it, and I have no doubt that you will serve the Succession with unmatched distinction.”

Pahal was unused to such warmth from his father, who was usually chastising him for committing one indiscretion or another. Szaebalar must have seen the shocked look plastered on Pahal’s face, for he gave that wry smirk which was the closest thing he had to a smile.

“Now, you’ve been making it obvious for the past hour that you’re eager to go somewhere. I hope you haven’t left her waiting for too long.”

Pahal blushed, though he knew it was not for the reasons which his father suspected. As Szaebalar walked away with a chuckle, Pahal dashed out the door with a lover’s speed.

+++​

The two disentangled their bodies, Pahal giving Aer a gentle push as the Seshweay rolled over to lay beside him. As he felt his heart slowly return to its normal rhythm, Pahal took a moment to admire his lavish surroundings, feeling both awe and indignation at the lavishness of the Seshie’s home. His sense of awe could have easily come from the sensation which Aer gave him however; bathed in the goodness of the Light, Pahal could swear that sometimes he could see Aelona’s face, her blue eyes, and hear her voice clearly, speaking a strange tongue. What Aer could give him was everything, and yet, all Pahal could manage was…

“You’re good, ieo.”

Pahal consciously used Aer’s connecting name. Even now, after months, the Siran still felt the need to maintain some distance from this Seshie. He didn’t want this relationship to transcend the physical, as he didn’t want to give, or perhaps more accurately he was afraid to give too much of himself emotionally or – Light help him – romantically. In his core Pahal knew, or at least should have known, that these barriers were worn down each time he saw the Seshie. To show any emotion, other than perhaps anger, of a strain particularly bitter and sarcastic, was anathema to the upbringing his father had provided. Szaebalar’s single display of affection today had been an exception, and was the first time in recent memory that Pahal had a positive interaction with his father. Pahal feared that showing emotional vulnerability to another man, even Aer, would compromise his honor and make him appear weak. Thus, Pahal was determined to maintain his façade for as long as he could. And yet it seemed that time and again Aer could see straight through him.

“So, what’re you thinking about, Pahal?” the Seshweay said, his eyes wide and glistening, shamelessly revealing how smitten he was with the Siran.

Pahal’s brow furrowed. “Who do you think you are - my girlfr-” He stopped mid-sentence, suddenly recalling that he did want to mention something to Aer. “Alright, well there is something. You’ve got to promise not to tell anyone about it though.”

“Promise.”

“Well, my father and my uncle have plans for…for a new kind of Siran army. And, well, you’re not a bad fighter – for a Seshie, of course – so I figured I’d let you know about it.”

“What is it?”

“Well, they want to call it the Chorus of Aelome…”

+++​

Climbing the final steps to his father’s villa, Pahal was exhausted. He and Aer had gone on to talk for hours. He’d never been able to do that with anyone. Aer just had a way of getting through to him that nobody else had. Well, nobody except his sister. Kaghie and Pahal had always been there for each other, since their father had always had to deal with politics. They’d also helped each other through their mother’s death, after which they had each become the only one the other could talk to. Lost in these thoughts, Pahal almost ran into a figure emerging from his home. Instinctively, the Siran wound back his arm, ready to punch, before recognizing the pudgy cheeks on the face in front of him.

“Aelome’s tits, what are you doing here?”

“Oh, Pahal-Pahalar! N-nothing, m’lord. I was just on my way out.”

From the terrified look on Jaer’s face and the sweat beading down it, Pahal was surprised he couldn’t smell the piss the Seshie pig must have taken upon seeing him.

“Yeah, damn right you’re on your way out.” You’re lucky Aer’s a good lay, thought Pahal, when immediately something deeper within him said A good lay? Yeah, sure, of course that’s all he is to you. Keep telling yourself that.

Jaer almost rolled down the steps leading down from the villa. Pahal snickered at the sight, hiding the pain he felt whenever he was reminded that his sister had apparently chosen to take up with this pig.

Pahal entered the villa and sought out his sister. Finding her in her room, fixing her hair, he sat down on her bed, which appeared to be newly made. “What do you see in that kid?”

“Oh, Jaer? He’s nice, he really is, Pahal. You should try being nice sometime, you might get a girl willing to go beyond a one night stand.” She turned her head to give him a knowing look, though he could not be sure what knowledge she hid behind it.

“Kaghie, he’s just so…pathetic. How can you be with a guy whose body is the same consistency as dough?”

“Ah, well what kind of guy do you prefer, Pahal? Lithe and fit, a good fighter like you?”

For a moment, the color of Pahal’s face became indistinguishable from the whites of his eyes, before turning a red as deep as blood. “For Light's sake, I don’t know what you’re babbling about.” He immediately realized that he had overreacted, as the jokingly knowing look on his sister’s face immediately gave way to something more confused. Pahal was about to storm from the room when her voice called him back.

“Oh, so you really are…”

Damn it – no use lying to her. I can’t lie to her. “So what if I am? What of it?”

Kaghie smiled again, this time with a warmth which was both genuine and understanding. At the same time, her eyes twinkled mischievously. “Who is it?”

Pahal immediately turned around again towards the door. “You’re not getting anything more outta me tonight, alright, sis? ‘Night.” He walked briskly from the room.

***​

The next day, Aer, after looking for what seemed like hours, finally found his brother-in-law and his girlfriend in the market. “Hey, Jaer, Kaghie!”

Kaghie smiled when she saw him. “Aer! Come over here!”

Aer pushed through the throngs to meet them, and when he got close Kaghie was immediately on his arm. “So, Aer, are you still looking for someone? I might just know the boy for you.”

“Thanks, Kaghie, but no thanks. I think I might have found him already.”

“Oh, really Aer? You’ve found the one? Well, I’m sure that I’d love to meet him someday.”

Aer chuckled. “I have a feeling you two would get along.”

 

[tuxedohamm]

The Nobility of Naran
On Naranue Kúrak

The táelics of Naran at one time represented the clans of each city within the empire. With the dramatic decline of Naran, there was a cultural shift in how the families were represented. While some stayed behind, many members of the táelics loyal to Naran, and capable of travel, moved to the few cities that remained within the control of the Ónnaran.

The Táelic u Nuín, Táelic u Léon, and Táelic U Húnnáhá became the only táelics not displaced. The relocated táelic leaders quickly set up house within Naranue, Leon, and Unnaha. With the formation of the Míotáer, the council that elects the Ónnaran, the táelic leaders began jostling for power amongst themselves as whichever táelic the current Ónnaran belonged to typically enjoyed greater influence within the state.


Táelics:
Name: U Nuín
Locale: Naranue
Current Leader: Áláéne Ón Nuín, 58. Head of U Nuín for 21 years.
Leader Succession: Eldest son inherits
Description: The original táelic of Naranue. U Nuín has a strong influence within Naran even at their weakest. In the past, the Ónnaran was always the same as the head of U Nuín. Only since the formation of the Míotáer, has that changed. U Nuín is also the largest of the táelics within Naran since virtually no members chose to remain outside the state as it declined.

Name: U Léon
Locale: Leon
Current Leader: Róráí Ón Léon, 63. Head of U Léon for 5 years.
Leader Succession: Eldest male inherits
Description: The original táelic of Leon, and one of the three táelics to have not been displaced. Self-proclaimed “Guardians of the Pass,” many members are found in leadership positions in the military. While outwardly they rarely focus on the politics involved, it is rumored that the On Léon often wields great influence with whoever is the current Ónnaran.

Name: U Limach
Locale: Naranue
Current Leader: Níall Ón Limach, 34. Head of U Limach for 8 years.
Leader Succession: Elective within táelic
Description: Originally the táelic set up in Limach after its fall to Naran centuries ago, U Limach was often seen as the táelic of the merchants. Many traders within Naran traced their lineage to Limach. However, as Limach fell from Naran’s control, some members moved to Naranue. As with all the táelics that are displaced, there are those that question the full loyalty of the members, however U Limach within Naran have always denied such claims.

Name: U Dael
Locale: Naranue
Current Leader: Díarmad Ón Dael, 39. Head of U Dael for 4 years.
Leader Succession: Eldest son inherits
Description: Often thought of as a poor táelic due to their early acceptance of anyone into the táelic when it was first formed, most who managed to make their way to Naranue from Dael were among the better off in U Dael.

Name: U Lótúna
Locale: Unnaha
Current Leader: Óran Ón Lótúna, 43. Head of U Lótúna for 6 years.
Leader Succession: Elective within táelic
Description: Formed within the southern colony of Lótúna, few made their way back to Naran once Noaunnaha took control. U Lótúna is the smallest of the táelics.

Name: U Húnnáhá
Locale: Unnaha
Current Leader: Rógan Ón Húnnáhá, 53. Head of U Húnnáhá for 10 years.
Leader Succession: Eldest male inherits
Description: The first of the táelics formed after the conquest of the encompassing city, U Húnnáhá is the táelic of the sea. While, some traders originated from U Húnnáhá, many sailors call the táelic their own.

Name: U Túlufaé
Locale: Leon
Current Leader: Dólan Ón Túlufaé, 37. Head of U Túlufaé for 7 years.
Leader Succession: Ritual challenge of current leader
Description: Members of U Túlufaé are all “civilized” steppe people from the Vischa tribes that chose to remain and somewhat assimilate into the culture. The táelic’s notable difference is its use of ritual combat to determine the leader, though it is not to the death, and often ends before the first blood is drawn.

Name: U Dáakáía
Locale: Naranue
Current Leader: Galué Ón Dáakáía, 38. Head of U Dáakáía for 3 years.
Leader Succession: Eldest son inherits
Description: A mixture of nobles from There that had been loyal to Naran and some former members of U Dael, the táelic formed and found its way to Naranue during the civil war in Ther.

 

[Hightower]

Alright, I think I've cleaned up my PM backlog. Please let me know if you think I missed a message from you.

BTW Hightower I thought of the "Trahana Decadence" being a name given by its detractors to the pseudo Baroque style currently in vogue, rather than a political movement. But it's fine if it gets applied to both, and I like your faction details.

Great stories everyone, keep em coming.

Ah. Well, I sort of considered it a mix of both--not a political movement, but just a period of general political malaise (with spurts of activity by imperial leadership, of course). Helps set up my future plans anyway.

 

[Perfectionist]

Part the First
RM 799 – Harrit meets the world. The world is unimpressed

After collecting his wayward scrolls, Harrit scampered out of the door after his new charge, pursued by the Declarant's witticisms. The street outside the Merefic wayhouse was mercifully clear, and he just caught a glimpse of a white-clad figure disappearing around the corner. Harrit took off after her. He was not, it must be said, a particularly athletic young man; his sprinting gait displayed all the grace and coordination of a newborn giraffe. Despite its appearance, however, it was undeniably effective at covering ground, and Harrit caught up to Elisa before she'd gone another block. He grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her around to a halt; then, realizing what he'd done, he wrenched his hand away as though it had been burnt, averted his eyes, and tried very hard and not with complete success to suppress the urge to run in the opposite direction. A bit of background digression in the service of characterization may be called for now. I suspect it scarcely needs to be said that Harrit was not very good with girls at the best of times, regarding them as a strange and foreign species, dangerous when provoked, unpredictable even when in a good mood, and best left alone in their particular environment; not unlike a hippopotamus, in most ways. He had once unwisely made this comparison within earshot of the wayhouse's hired cook, a Sattoros woman with an impressive girth and an equally impressive ability to make everything taste like grey, and suffered several severe bruises from the woman's rolling pin before he was able to make good his escape. This experience had not, all things considered, improved Harrit's opinion of persons of the female persuasion, and one of the things he liked best about being the Declarant's private secretary was that it allowed him to avoid them almost entirely. This particular girl was supposed to be even more changeable and flighty than the rest of the breed, and Harrit had no experience that would indicate otherwise.

“Hello. You're Harrit, aren't you?” The girl's voice was rather kind and friendly, and lacking that tone of affronted dignity that Harrit had been dreading. It was sufficiently encouraging that he looked up from his shoes into the smiling face of Elisa, and managed a small nod. “I thought so. I've seen you a few times, but I don't think we've been introduced. I'm Elisa” And she bounded forward – Harrit having unconsciously retreated half a dozen paces after his interruption – and gave Harrit a quick hug. Harrit was shocked and embarrassed in equal measure – it was, of course, a perfectly respectable way for Merefics to greet each other, but Harrit preferred to avoid it even with his friends in the Order, let alone strange pseudo-initiates he'd never met before – but Elisa hadn't left him any choice but to endure the brief Ordeal as stoically as he could. After what seemed like an eternity to Harrit, but barely a second to anyone else, Elisa broke away, not at all put out by Harrit's sudden attack of paralysis. “What do you need?”

Harrit took a moment to recover himself, and then another moment to realize that he hadn't thought of an excuse. 'The Declarant told me to stop you from doing anything stupid' seemed like one of those things that might bring out the rolling-pin, and no brilliant lie or evasion seemed to be springing obligingly to mind. He opened his mouth in the hopes that his brain would catch up later. “I...er...well the Declarant said – that is I thought I might follow...not that I was following, but...um...” he trailed off miserably.

Elisa didn't seem to even notice his discomfiture. She thought for a moment, then said brightly, “Uncle Tarasos sent you to look after me, didn't he?” Harrit nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, he's so sweet -” Harrit's eyes bulged a little at that - “but he really worries too much. I'll be fine.”

Harrit's brain was working again now. “But don't, uh, Aitahs have companions, or something? I remember hearing stories about Tauras when I was little, and the Seshweay talk about the Hundred.”

Elisa's eyes lit up at that. “Of course, you're right! Oh, how stupid of me, and of course Uncle Tarasos would see it at once. You shall be my first companion.” She paused for a moment, then continued, a little uncertainty and hesitation entering her voice for the first time, “That is, if you want to. I wouldn't want you to have to follow me because Uncle ordered it. I don't think that would count, somehow. “

Harrit briefly considered agreeing and taking this seemingly heaven-sent way out, but after a moment's consideration decided the Declarant probably wouldn't approve of 'she sent me away' as an excuse. So instead Harrit had to deny the completely true implication that he was only there because he'd been ordered to be. “No, no, not at all, Elis- uh, Lady. Taras-The Declarant just suggested it, but I want to follow you. No, someone has to, the world's full of evil men, and...uh...well, heretical Cultists, or such...” Harrit trailed off, as he realized that this much, at least, was true, and that he was perhaps the least qualified person in the world to deal with them.

Elisa brightened once more at that. “Marvellous! In fact, I know what...” She drew herself up, assumed a stately pose, and said in stentorian tones, “Harrit, I hereby name you my Flamebearer, and first of my companions.” She looked for a moment quite majestic, white clothes dazzling in the bright noon sunlight, but the effect was quickly spoiled when she burst into laughter and hugged Harrit again. “Didn't I sound ridiculous?” she managed to gasp out between explosions of laughter. She recovered herself after some time spent leaning on Harrit, and added “Oh, and don't call me Lady, please. I prefer my name; I don't want there to be some sort of distance between us. Or between me and the people.” Then she turned and started walking off briskly down the street. “Come on,” she called over her shoulder. “Let's go save some people.”

*****​

That first afternoon wasn't a particularly fruitful as far as Elisa was concerned, though it was certainly stressful enough for Harrit. They didn't find any converts, nor any people who particularly wanted saving. They did find a number of surly Sadorishi in no mood for nonsense; when Elisa cheerfully announced herself to them, Harrit in desperation physically pushed her aside, and explained as quickly as he could, tripping over the words, that his sister was regrettably and incurably insane, and that he was taking her for her weekly stroll. That bit of quick thinking avoided what had looked like an inevitable savage beating, but earned him the intense opprobrium of his charge. Elisa had refused to speak to him for an hour after that, and ignored all his attempts to steer them back towards the wayhouse. The uncomfortable silence was only broken when Elisa discovered a baby bird on the edge of the street, and in her excitement completely forgot that she was angry with Harrit. Nothing would do but that Harrit cooed and sighed over the chick appropriately. After a few minutes of this Elisa's excitement turned just as suddenly to distress, and she insisted upon climbing the building to replace the bird in its nest. Harrit didn't see a nest, and wasn't going to be climbing any buildings even if he did, but Elisa, as usual, ignored him, scrambled up the two story building, and then returned two minutes later, her face alight with the afterglow of a good deed done well. It was getting late, the streets were almost empty, and Elisa at last agreed that there were probably no more people who wanted to hear her message, and if there were it would be good for them to wait til morning anyway, and so they at last returned to the wayhouse.

It had been a day full of new and unpleasant experiences for Harrit, and he was very much looking forward to a night in his bed, uncomfortable though it might have been. The day was, however, not yet over, and fate and the Declarant had one more surprise in store for Harrit: when he arrived at his cell, he found it already occupied by someone he didn't recognize. Harrit was too tired for his usual caution, so he shook the interloper awake and demanded to know why he was in his bed. All he received in return was a string of curse-words that are decidedly not supposed to be said by Merefics, in the midst of which he managed to discern a request to 'read the note and f#ck off,' before the stranger rolled back over and, judging by the rather enthusiastic snoring, went straight back to sleep. Harrit looked around and saw a note pinned to the door. He removed it, with some difficulty - whoever had attached it had possessed considerably more strength than poor Harrit – and took it to a nearby lamp, where he read it and groaned. I did say all times, it read. It wasn't signed, but of course it didn't need to be; no one was more qualified than Harrit to recognize the Declarant's handwriting. So, with a heavy heart and heavier limbs, Harrit made for Elisa's cell. There was a second cot waiting in the cell, and the girl was expecting him.

“Oh, there you are,” she said brightly, showing hardly any fatigue at all. “Uncle said you're to sleep in my room now. I suppose it's fitting, Flamebearer close to keep an eye on Aitah. I hope you don't mind.” She looked so honestly concerned at that last question that Harrit's furious condemnations of his sleeping quarters, the Declarant's orders, and Elisa's moods, died on his lips, and instead he mumbled out an assent and made straight for the smaller, newer cot. He laid down, closed his eyes, ignored the sounds of Elisa changing behind him, and resolved to pretend he was entirely by himself. And in the morning, Harrit thought, he'd go and have a good serious talk with 'Uncle' Declarant, and insist on his old room back, if nothing else.

*****​

He didn't get the chance. Elisa was awake with the dawn, and that meant Harrit was also dragged, very much against his will, back into the realm of the conscious. “Come on, get up, busy day!” Harrit groaned, and sleepily rolled out of bed, landing with a crash on an unsympathetic floor. He struggled to his feet, and saw Elisa in the door, silhouetted against the rising sun. She looked for a moment very terrible indeed, but the moment didn't last before she was scampering off, a receding cry of “Follow me” coming through the door. Five minutes later Elisa's head reappeared in the door; Harrit, still half asleep, had not followed, and exactly where she had left him, still staring east, as if possessed by some exalted vision – a vision of three more hours of sleep and a half-decent breakfast, to be specific. But Elisa wasn't taking no for answer, and he allowed himself to be herded out the door, down the stairs, and out of the wayhouse before he knew what had happened.

“Come on,” she repeated, and set off down the road. Harrit followed, and after some time they arrived at their apparent destination, a large, ornate, three story building on the rich side of town. It was still early, and there was little traffic in the street, but every now and then a well-dressed but somewhat disheveled figure would emerge from the building and saunter off somewhere, a distinct spring evident in their step. The mists were slowly receding from Harrit's brain, and it only took him a few seconds to realize where they were. When he did, he goggled and grabbed Elisa's arm as she set out for the door. “You can't go in there,” he gasped out.

Elisa cocked her head quizzically. “Why on earth not?”

“Well, it's a...um...well it's not really the place for an Aitah,” Harrit was blushing and becoming ever more uncomfortable. “It's a...a...a low place. A house of ill-repute.”

Elisa stared at him. “You know you can just say it's a brothel?” Harrit started visibly and his blush reached the tips of his ears. Elisa laughed softly. “I'm not an idiot, Harrit. I know what this; I've been here often enough. But it's an Alonite brothel, and I thought last night that it would be a good place to go, what with them knowing quite a lot about Aitahs. So stop being silly and come on.” And she grabbed Harrit by the arm and dragged him into the brothel, with him spluttering incoherent protests the entire way.

The inside was sumptuously furnished, the walls covered in Sesh tapestries and the room filled with intricately carved sofas covered in comfortable looking cushions. It was clearly a prosperous place; the denizens of the den, men and women both, even wore silk as they strolled about, an incredibly expensive luxury so far from Acca. Not very much silk, of course, Harrit noticed, his eyes bulging from their sockets. It was still early enough that some of last night's patrons were hanging around, but, fortunately for the delicate sensibilities of our man Harrit, only a couple of pairs of people were at that time occupying the sofas. Well, one pair and then a quartet, but never mind the distinction. Harrit positioned himself as close to the door as he could while remaining within earshot of Elisa, and resolutely stared into space, contemplating the infinite mysteries of the universe and trying very hard to ignore the goings-on around him. Elisa, meanwhile, paid the goings-on no mind at all, as though she'd seen them a hundred times before – as, of course, she had – and strode purposefully to the bar at the side of the room, where an expansive woman wearing a small shipload of red linen was cleaning glasses. “Hello Demira,” she said, cheerfully as always. “Poet!” came a chorus from the room, and Harrit jumped; he had thought them too otherwise occupied to notice. But clearly this was something of a ritual or running joke, because Demira – who must be a Poet, he supposed – was smiling right back at Elisa.

“Hello girl,” Demira boomed – her voice was just as large as the rest of her. “Have you finally decided to leave those stuffy Merefics and join an Order that knows how to live?” Elisa shook her head, and Demira laughed, a strangely high and clear laugh for such a large woman. “One of these days I'll convince you. So, why are you here at this late hour?”

“Well, it's not that I've decided to leave the Merefics, exactly, but I do think things have changed a bit. You see, I'm Aitah.”

Demira took this admirably in stride. “Good for you, girl! Always knew you'd amount to something. So, come here because we're the only people who'll say the name in more than a whisper, in this Sadorishi infested hell-hole?”

“That's exactly it, Demy. Uncle Tarasos is clever and all, but this is a bit outside his area, as he told me, and you're the only other one I can think of who might know what I ought to do.”

“Hmm,” Demira rumbled, and looked over Elisa's shoulder. “And who's this, then?” she asked, pointing at Harrit.

“Oh, that's Harrit,” Elisa said proudly. “He's my Flamebearer.”

Demira emitted another high-pitched peal of laughter. “Doesn't look like much of a Flamebearer,” she said in a stage whisper. “Doesn't look like much of an anythingbearer. Isn't he the Declarant's weedy little secretary? Ah, doesn't matter.” She refocused her eyes on Elisa, and a close observer would have noted that her gaze seemed unusually perceptive. “So, you want to know what you ought to do? Well, first thing you ought to do is be careful; I'd hate to see your pretty little head end up on a spike. I suppose the Declarant completely forgot to suggest that?” Elisa nodded, and Demira made a disgusted sound. “Bah, Merefics. Never quite in the same world as the rest of us, even the really clever ones like Tarasos. The second thing you ought to do is make it damned clear to that boy over there that the Flame he's bearing shouldn't burn anything – though looking at him I doubt that'd be an issue.” Elisa was listening attentively. “Now, the thing about Aitahs is-”

Harrit missed the rest of the conversation. He was distracted. One of the brothel's inhabitants, a dark-skinned woman from somewhere in the far south, had emerged from a side room and sidled up to him. She was wearing more than most of the others he could see, but that wasn't saying much. “Hello, handsome,” she said, her voice rather deep and growly. “Here for some fun?”

“No, here with a friend,” Harrit replied, trying to be as short and unfriendly as he could. The woman was undeterred.

“Oh, well, she can join in too. We don't discriminate here.” She smiled a devilish smile. “And we do like Merefics. First time's on the house.” She reached out to touch his cheek and Harrit jolted away as though scalded. “Oh, I see,” she said, assuming a pose of exaggerated contemplation. “Not your type, eh? Randel!” At that a man, this one pale and fair and clearly with at least some Ethiri blood, pulled away from the bar and approached the unfortunate Harrit. “This one doesn't like me,” the woman pouted.

“Ooh, well maybe I can take care of him.” The man, presumably Randel, took a step back and gave a Harrit a long, comically lascivious once-over. “Yes I know just what to do with you.” He stepped closer to Harrit, who was on the brinc of panic. “What do you say, big guy?”

Harrit was just about to scream and bolt for the door when divine intervention rescued him.“Oh, stop teasing him.” Elisa, apparently done with her conversation, materialized at the man's side, and Harrit had never been more glad to see anyone in his entire life. “You can't make him any redder without turning him into a tomato.”

“Ah, spoilsport,” they complained, but they left Harrit alone, whispering to each other as they went, and occasionally looking back at Harrit and bursting into laughter.

“Come on, Harrit. Demy knew what to do. Let's go,” and Elisa pulled him towards the door.

Strangely Elisa stopped in the doorway, and turned to face Harrit. Harrit obligingly stopped, but when thirty seconds had passed and Elisa had neither moved nor spoken, his desire to get the hell out overcame his politesse, and he went to brush past her, but she moved sideways to block him. He repeated the attempt on the other side of the door, and Elisa repeated her blocking maneuver. Harrit could feel his need to get outside becoming desperate, and he considered for a moment taking a running start and simply bowling her over. It didn't seem like behaviour befitting a Flamebearer, so instead he said, “Um, Elisa, excuse me. You're in the way.”

Elisa drew herself up, put on her imposing voice and stern expression again, and intoned, “Impossible!” Harrit started to interject that yes it was possible, as she was currently occupying the physical space necessary for successful traversal of the door vis-a-vis entry or exit, but she cut him off and continued. “I AM the Way.”

And then her stern mask dissolved into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, and she leaned on the doorframe to keep from collapsing. Harrit watched in bemusement, and chalked another one up to the unknowable intricacies of the feminine mind. After some time, Elisa managed to compose herself. “You're not laughing,” she observed, sounding profoundly disappointed. “I thought of that last night too. Don't you think it was funny?” Harrit nodded slowly and uncertainly. “Oh, you're hardly any more fun than Uncle,” and she flounced outside.

Outside she caught Harrit's arm and pulled him around to face her, and she was suddenly very serious. “Harrit, why are you uncomfortable with what they do in there?”

“Well, I suppose it's just not...well, not entirely seemly, I suppose. I suppose I sort of think they ought to be doing better things? Or maybe...” He trailed off under Elisa's gaze. He hadn't noticed before – he'd been avoiding eye contact as best he could – but her eyes were really quite extraordinary: large and very blue and just at that moment seeming to peer straight through him and into the deep recesses of his mind. She sighed, managing somehow to put an enormous amount of disappointment and sorrow into it, and despite himself Harrit felt badly for letting her down, even if he wasn't sure what exactly he'd done.

“This city's full of Sadorishi, you know,” she said, her voice seeming to come from very far away. “Towers and barracks and armories, and all of it good for nothing but killing people. Somehow that doesn't make you uncomfortable, though, does it? Being around people who carve out other people's intestines is fine, but a prostitute is too dirty. People go there,” she gestured to the brothel, “to feel loved, you know. Maybe just for a minute or an hour, but they still know love. That's what they do, and it's just what we're supposed to do, us Merefics, only done in a slightly different way. It's more good than any Sadorisk has ever done. The world would be a much nicer place if there were fewer soldiers and more prostitutes.”

Harrit shivered for a moment under the intensity of her gaze, but then she broke away and in seconds was her usual merry self, leaving Harrit both slightly in shock, and amazed by her ability to go from puerile jokes to dead serious theology and back again in less time than it took a Moti savanna weasel to kill a rabbit.

*****​

Well, things seemed to be getting a bit serious there for a moment, so it's a good thing that Elisa shortly spotted a blind beggar on the side of the road. You could tell he was blind, because he had a sign helpfully explaining his situation: blind, homeless, gay, new in town, please help. Beggars were a relatively uncommon sight in Hurena – though this was typically because the Sadorishi scooped them up and put them to work – and Elisa thought that this was her first real chance to do some proper Aitahing. She relayed that idea to Harrit, and then, as usual, ignored his objection and approached the unfortunate beggar. He was holding a bowl, and seemingly had enjoyed a fairly profitable run, because it was nearly full of coins. Elisa knelt next to him and watched him for a moment, sitting there stock-still with his sightless eyes fixed on some unknowable infinity.

“Is someone there?” the beggar asked, his voice raspy and cracked. “Please, I haven't hurt anyone, I just want some food.”

“Oh, you poor man,” Elisa exclaimed, her voice brimming with compassion. “I'm not a guardsman or anything. I want to help you.”

“Oh, thank you kindly miss. Everything helps, and the Light loves charity.” He shook the bowl slightly, and the coins made an encouraging clinking sound. Elisa, however, did not add to the pile, as the beggar had hoped, but instead stood up and huddled with Harrit for a minute.

“I think I should try to heal him, Harrit,” Elisa whispered “What do you think?”

Harrit agreed that healing was indeed a properly Aitahish thing to do, but tentatively ventured the opinion that blindness might be a bit ambitious for a first go, and wouldn't it be better to start out with something easier, like a cough or a headache. Elisa brushed those objections aside. “Oh, no, Harrit. If you don't strain yourself you'll never get better, that's what Uncle used to tell me. And besides, there's no one here with a cough, but there is someone here who's blind.” And with that she knelt in front of the beggar again, and peered at him intently.

“Uh, what are you doing?” the beggar asked, and a particularly keen and dispassionate observer might have noticed that his voice was somewhat less raspy and cracked than before.

“Hush,” Elisa chided him. She pondered a moment, then turned to Harrit and said “You don't know how this works, do you?” Sotto voce to the beggar, she added “Sorry, I'm a bit new at miracles.”

“Mirac-” the beggar started to say, but Elisa shushed him again.

“I don't know, Elisa,” Harrit said uncertainly. “You're the Aitah. I mean, in the stories it just sort of...happens. Look, if you could do it you'd know how to do it, but you don't, so you mustn't be able to, at least not yet, so we really ought to leave and go find something a bit more reasonable.” To his dismay he saw that Elisa had stopped listening, and to his further dismay he noted that a small crowd was slowly gathering in the street, hoping for a bit of free entertainment. He tried to pull Elisa away, but she shook him off and turned back to the beggar, leaving poor Harrit to turn back and try to disperse the curious bystanders. Of course, his claims that all was well and there was nothing to see here only increased their conviction that the crazy girl was about to do something worth watching, and so Harrit's efforts were rather counterproductive.

After another minute spent deep in thought – and as the beggar started shifting nervously on the ground – Elisa came to a decision. “I suppose I just have to sort of will it,” she said to herself. “Well, let's give it a try.” She grabbed the beggar's head with both hands, ignored his strangled cry of “what are you doing you crazy b#tch” as the delusional rantings of the severely afflicted, and tried to focus on the man's eyes. Nothing happened, so she tightened her grip and started slowly shaking the beggar's head from side to side, doing her best to focus her energy – or what she supposed must be her energy – through her hands and into his head. This motion became increasingly violent, and the beggar's protestations increasingly insistent, until finally she pushed the man backward at the same time that the beggar decided he'd had enough and tried to jerk free. Their combined efforts resulted in the man toppling over backwards and sending his bowl flying into the air. It seemed to hang there for a moment, spinning and sending coins in all directions, before coming crashing down towards the face of the now recumbent beggar...who reached out instinctively and grabbed it.

Elisa gave a little cry of delight, the crowd applauded – not a bad performance, after all – Harrit stared in disbelief, and the beggar simply said “Damn.”

“You're most welcome, you poor man,” Elisa said triumphantly. “There's no need to thank me, for this is just what I do.” The beggar had been showing no particular inclinations towards gratitude, but Elisa thought it only right to clear things up on that front immediately, lest he make an embarrassing scene. “Go now and work and love and live.” That sounded like the right sort of thing to say, she thought.

And with that she stood up and strode purposefully off down the road, Harrit trailing behind, in search of more unfortunates to help. The little crowd quickly dispersed, and nobody remained to watch the beggar gather his scattered coins, or to hear his muttered complaints. “Stupid Merefics, ruining a man's livelihood, have to do it all over now, busybody do-gooders,” the beggar send, his voice brimming with righteous outrage, and he spat a few unprintable curses after the retreating duo before picking up his bowl and his sign and slipping into an alley.

 

[m.t.cicero]

Temple of Aerie Sahaszalesa, Naesre, Maehoui Roshate, Faraghir i'Karghae
911 SR (Other chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7)

Pahalar yo Szaebalata
The Jabralah's Son​

It had been over ten years since they had brought her here. They had been terrified children; they had no business seeing the strongest women they knew brought to such a low state. She had barely been able to walk, and it had taken a Javanian effort to get her here. In the end, their efforts had been for naught. The prayers and the dances and the songs had done nothing to save her, and yet they would return after her death. For the prayers and the dances and the songs, in the end, would save them. Now, they were no longer terrified children; they were strong. As Pahalar and Kaghalie entered the Temple of Aerie Sahaszalesa, the temple of the Sixth Aitah, each could think of nothing but their mother in her final days. She had been in love with the Faith, in love with life itself, always going to the temples to dance, sing, paint, and recite poetry. This she had imparted on her children, and she had bonded with them at the temples while their father was helping to run the Roshate. Her death had left them empty, and Pahal knew that it had hardened his heart, and that only Kaghie and the Faith had stopped him from being consumed by darkness. He knew that he may never be able to repay this debt of gratitude, and yet he would commit his every breath to serve them both.

The Temple of Aerie Sahaszalesa had an aura all its own, entirely different from the Temple of Aelome Tagharisa and the Temple of Ghenthiere Roshaesa. The latter two reflected the more aggressive nature of their respective patron Aitahs, with life being celebrated boisterously and flamboyantly by the adherents within. Aerie’s temple was far more subdued, and yet no reveled no less in the joy of life. Quiet chants praising love and warmth and happiness and all things good echoed off the walls as doctors worked in the side rooms working to cure the sick. In the great open center of the temple, men and women performed slow, deliberate dances, every step expressing a thousand thoughts before it hit the ground. Though this calm beauty did not personally appeal to Pahal, who preferred the rapid, powerful movements of the dancers at Aelome’s and Ghentiere’s temples, he still held nothing but respect for those who danced here, as their motions possessed a sublime aesthetic unlike anything else. Pahal rarely came by this place, going only for the anniversary of his mother’s death and when his sister asked him to. Kaghie held Aerie and her story close to her heart, and must have told him the tale of the Sixth Aitah a hundred times by now.

Aerie, she said, had been born in Reppaba, in the Paeghou Valley, long ago in the time when the people of Sira still had not seen the light of Aelome. She had been born to a merchant family, and had a comfortable upbringing, all things considered. She had been a generous child, always giving her parents’ wealth to the poor. Even more, she would often give her time to hear the stories of the destitute, absorbing their tales of woe and internalizing them, always seeking to understand others. As she became a young woman, Aerie learned that she could use this empathy to help others, to cure their sadness and their grief, at least for a time. She also found that she had a way with the sick, and those she gave attention to were often cured of their illness. All along, as she was helping others, Aerie could not help but feel as if she was running from something, this nagging feeling which was pursuing her, day and night. Every day when she left her house she felt naked, and every time she introduced herself to others she felt as if she was lying. She was not who she said she was, not who she thought she was. It would be just days before her nineteenth birthday, on a rather overcast afternoon, that she would discover a truth which had escaped her for her entire life. As she was helping to console a young widow, it dawned on her. The widow saw the shocked look on her face and asked her what was the matter. All Aerie could say was “Aitah…that is me…that is I am her…she is me…we are Aitah.”

Reppaba would embrace Aerie in her newfound role. All in the city knew of her compassion, her gentleness, and her skill as a healer. She would continue to serve the people, healing the sick, consoling the bereaved. History would soon force her to take on a new role, however. The War of Lies would ravage the Paeghou Valley, and every day more refugees and war wounded came arrived in Reppaba, fleeing the Airani advance. It was devastation as Aerie had never seen before. She was overwhelmed by the number of arrivals in need of both physical and emotional healing. For the ensuing months she hardly slept, giving all of her time to the masses who continued to stream into the city. One night she could take no more, and fell into a deep sleep as she was healing an injured soldier. In her sleep she dreamed, and in her dream she saw two women, who she knew without doubt were Aitahs. They looked not like anybody from the Paeghou or the entire Farbaida for that matter; their features were northern, and one of them had blonde hair that shone like the sun. The blonde spoke to Aerie, saying “I am Aelome, and this is my daughter Ghenthiere, and we are both Aitah. You are Aitah as well, as you well know. You are serving your city with great distinction, and yet that is not enough. One day, after this war is over, you must leave Reppaba. The world needs you, Aerie.” At that, Aerie woke with a start, finding herself surrounded by hundreds of people, all of whom were praying furiously. She had been sleeping for six days and six nights, with only her weak heartbeat as a sign of that she had not yet died. As she looked around, wiping the sleep from her eyes, a man came running into the crowd, proclaiming that the war had ended in Athis as the Roshate had signed peace with the Farubaida. The War of Lies was over, but Aerie’s struggle had only just begun.

The people of Reppaba were beside themselves when Aerie told them that she was going to leave, and that she might never return. As the left the gates of the city, she told them not to grieve, for it was they who had helped her to become Aitah. The people took solace from this, and by the time she was out of sight they had ceased to be sad, instead taking joy in the fact that they had been blessed to have the Aitah in their midst for so long. Slowly, Aerie began to work her way up along the Paeghou Valley, stopping at every home to heal those wounded in the war and console those mothers who had lost sons and those wives who had lost husbands and those children who had lost fathers in the war. She continued to also aid the sick and those who had lost loved ones to illness and to old age. Ensuring that she saw every patient and every grieving family to their conclusion, it took her months to reach Taret, the next city on the Paeghou River. There she spent two years healing, before leaving for Puri and repeating the process. After a time, she reached Sira and the new Aghrali Roshate. Taking time to learn the language, she continued her quest, soon discovering that the people of the Roshate had never before heard of Aitah, or they at least had not heard the truth of Aitah. The Sirans had been told by their Wards that Aitah was a she-demon who wrought havoc in the minds of their woman victims and caused them to go on rampages of destruction. When Aerie told the families she helped that she was an Aitah, they first looked at her with disbelief. As she traveled to Lumeyat, she spread the truth of Aitah, showing her goodness through her actions and her words.

The Wards of Lumeyat soon got word of the Aitah’s coming, and were filled with fear, having heard of what Aitahs were capabale of. They called for her arrest, and yet none would betray Aerie, for she had shown them her goodness. In this way over the ensuing decades Aerie worked her way throughout the whole Roshate, from Lumeyat to Naesre and beyond. After nearly fifty years wandering the Roshate, Aerie had become famous for her good works. Even as a woman of nearly eighty she maintained a youthful countenance. The Wards had ceased their attempts to find or kill her, for everywhere there were people who were willing to aid her. All around the country, people were embracing the path of the Aitah.

In 681 SR the Rosh, Ibaragar oum Nahrala II, would be devastated by the death of his wife Aghamie. One Jabralah close to Nahrala II, who also sympathized with the Aitah, would come to the Rosh and offer to give him an audience with Aerie. Though this may have appeared in any other time to be an affront to a sovereign, to offer him an audience, even Nahrala II had heard of the legends of this old woman. This meeting would end up lasting for six days, as the Rosh and the Aitah talked and talked and continued talking. The meeting went uninterrupted, as neither slept and the Rosh ordered that their meals be given in their room. After these six days, the Rosh came from the room with a sad smile on his face. The man who had been beside himself for weeks and seemingly inconsolable after his wife’s death seemed fit to rule the nation once again. He offered the Aitah one request, any desire she might have. Aerie asked and Aerie received. Within a few days she was on her way to Reppaba with a royal escort. After her departure, Nahrala II spent six days in solitude again, before again emerging, this time with a proclamation in hand. The Proclamation of the Third Day of the Tenth Moon of the Third Year of the Reign of Nahrala II would legalize the proselytization of Aitahism and Aelonism in the Roshate.

As for Aerie, she returned to crowds of thousands in Reppaba, even though few were still alive who remembered her time there. She would only live for a few more years in her home city before passing away from her advanced age.

“At least, that’s what the priests say.”

Pahal gave his sister a skeptical look, “Don’t some people say that there were just a bunch of women who pretended to be Aerie after she visited Lumeyat?”

“Some say that, but I prefer to believe the priests. Aerie was just so wonderful Pahal, that sometimes I wish I could be Aitah.”

“Well, I know that our mother loved us just as we are, Aitah or not.”

“That she did, Pahal.”

To love, and to be loved, is that not what life is all about? Is that not what Aitah has shown us time and again? Mother, Kaghie, and now Aer…they are my salvation. They all have shown me that I can be loved, and that I, who always feel the need to show strength and hide vulnerablility, that I can love.

“This is it, Pahal.”

There it was, the stone in the temple’s foundation which was dedicated to their Mother. With this we honor Eghalie yeu Raghamatase, through whom the light shone ever brilliantly.

“Do you want to read it this time?”

Normally Pahal would be averse to taking part in something so emotional, normally he would tell his sister “Who d’you think I am? You know I can’t do this girly stuff, Kaghie.” But these times were anything but normal. He had found new love, fiery love, which had ignited the Light inside of him anew, the small wick of Light which Kaghie and Aerie had preserved after the death of his mother.

“Alright, I’ll try, I guess.”

He accepted from Kaghie’s hands the last poem his mother had written before her passing.

“You for whom I rise like the sun every day

You for whom I weep like the rains when the world hurts you

You for whom I lie awake like the stars, keeping watch in the darkness

You for whom I stand like a rock, when you need comfort

You for whom I whisper like the wind, telling tales of our Faith

You for whom I am everything, because you are everything

For you are my children.”

Wiping the tears from his eyes before facing Kaghie again, the two stood in silence for a moment which slipped into an eternity.

“I think she liked hearing you read it this time, Pahal.”

“I just hope my voice wasn’t too rough; yours is always so pretty, Kaghie.”

“Oh, shut up Pahal. She liked it.”

Kaghie’s teasing smile allowed his own face to light up. As he walked out of the Temple of Aerie Sahaszalesa, enraptured by the dancers taking their practiced steps, Pahal felt a great determination well up in his heart. I will be everything. For his mother, for Kaghie, for Aerie, for Aer. For Aitah.

 

[North King]

I do not mean to sentimentalize, but is this not exactly the kind of politicking that we – that our ancestors – became Kitaluk to avoid? Ours were the people who scoffed at chiefs and kingship, who said that every ship was its own empire. Ours are lands of wooden planks; ours are songs of trade and discovery. What Kitaluk song speaks of war? What Kitaluk song speaks of empire?

What Kitaluk would sing of this time?

* * * * * * * * *​

Two Hundred and Seventy-three Years Ago

They sang a red song, set to a tune of fear.

Chanting, hacking, burning, they marched in red rows, too, one after another, rank upon rank of man, bearing aloft spear and bow. A dozen nations marched through the Land of Black Rocks, none of them from it, marveling at the warmth of the island, at the sweet softness of the waterfalls. They bore a red banner, because the army was of all of them and none of them, and Hainak was also the chief of all and none of them. They fought for money; for him; for the black rocks and red garnets. Exactly none of them fought for themselves.

The song cut the air like a hot knife, shattering the stillness of the forest. Where a man might tread soft, hoping to disturb little and leave no tracks, an army has no such concern. The hanging moss is torn; the mud churned; the men move on.

The foliage had draped over some of their heads, and as they neared the village, they resembled nothing so much as the marching of the forest itself. Hainak was not among them; he preferred to move with the main column of men, leaving the raiding to his lesser lieutenants, or simply letting them men run wild with barely a leader in sight. It is not difficult work, massacring a village.

Hooting, howling, the men knew they inspired terror in their adversaries. Some had taken to scalping their enemies, and tying the ragged trophies to the ends of their spears; most simply burned and raped wherever they went. It was not their country.

There were few armies here, and what few there had been usually pulled back to defend the cities. Certainly the Atlatuk could not hope to defend every outlying place. Hainak would take them, one by one, and those he did not burn he would add to a growing demesne. It was the first of its kind, this little empire, at least on this side of the ocean, and truthfully speaking, no one knew how to stop it.

The scene set, the men began to charge in, shouting and brandishing their weapons, ready to inflict yet another atrocity –

– and only then did they realize the ramparts' stakes pointed inwards –

– and only then did the arrows begin to fall around them –

– and only then did the slaughter begin –

* * * * * * * * *​

The Present Day

She woke from a soft sleep, and found the mist drifting through the curtains of her windows. It was an odd thing to see it so far inside, almost like a child caught with their hand in the sweets' jar, frozen, trembling, waiting for retribution. She hesitated, knowing the slightest movement of air would sweep the faint spray one way and then another, and then finally until it was all but vanished. And so she lay there, transient, barely breathing: her hand rested on her husband's breast, and his moved more than her own.

Far away, the turning of the world pushed away the stars, and an instant later, a sunbeam tumbled over the black ridge west of the harbor, piercing the stillness of her room, dissipating the mist.

She lay a moment longer, disappointed.

He shifted in his sleep, and her hand slipped across his chest. For an instant, she pulled him closer, and reveled in the scent of his hair, but this woke him, and he turned to face her, his eyes barely opening. He blinked once, twice, and she drew a smile from his lips before he rolled to one side and stood, facing the sunrise.

She frowned, and it was only half in play. “Already?”

“Sorry,” he murmured.

“Just a little while longer.” She smoothed the covers over herself.

He shook his head. “This would be the worst day to be tardy.”

“What is the worst that could happen?”

“A second plague.”

“Somehow I doubt your moot could stop that.”

He sighed, stretching. “Very well then, just an empire's fall.”

She smiled. “You think you're so important as that?”

He shrugged on a robe, soft, thin cotton, supple in the hand. He laid a soft hand on her shoulder for a moment, then strode to the window. Theirs was a high tower, facing the harbor of Sanya, a deep hollow of water between two sharp ridges. The spires of rock above them looked like the spines of a dragon, glowing gold in the morning light. The sunrise was especially beautiful today.

“Do you think you'll convince them?”

“The meeting is a formality. Everyone knows of the Kennetcha already; there's nothing to convince them of. Either we finagle some sort of response, or the raids will never stop. We stop the raids, or Sanya might burn. Sanya burns, and the confederacy crumbles. No one has to be convinced of that.” Nassage was not one for histrionics. He stood there for a while, contemplating the slate roofs of the town that lay below. Black on black, with a fringe of green from the trees that clung to the upper slopes. Wild, winding streets, zig-zagging up the hillsides. Strange to think how new it all was; only a few of the city's buildings had survived the earthquake of the decade before.

“And if you do?”

He said nothing. A shiver passed over her, and she felt this impulse to again ask him to stay. But she, too, said nothing. They stayed a moment like that: him at the window, and her on the bed, and finally he broke it by saying, without looking at her: “How's this, for a closing line – 'Not all Kitaluk are heroes, perhaps, but today all heroes are Kitaluk'?”

She stifled a snort. “Leave the heroes out of it. Let them claim that mantle themselves. Just remind them what's at stake.”

He nodded.

* * * * * * * * *​

Captain Kissamak's Address to the Kitaluk of Sanya, Two Hundred and Seventy-two Years Ago

And now, I wonder at what we have done. Know this: Even if Hainak's armies have returned to their homes, they know the Land of Black Rocks now. They have marched through the forests of our homeland, and they have died on the basalt we called safe. They know we bleed.

Ganahaw turned his jealous eyes towards us for the sake of a few depots, scattered trading posts. What if the Katch turn theirs towards Sanya?

Or worse, what if one Kitaluk hires them against another again?

The peace is broken. How long before it is forgotten?

* * * * * * * * *​

Spoiler Happy Birthday, EoE :

The Land of Black Rocks, looking west

 

[Luckymoose]

Happy Birthday, EoE!

~~~

Prince Eater

Other Chapters: (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8)

Naevu, Professor of the Faith
Saepulum, Sirasona, The Halyrate 911 SR​

Naevu saw only the mocking face of Eskar in greened copper. Forty-three steps descended behind him, and sweat did pour profusely from every flap of flesh on his body. Eskar offered no cool water, which would have been so sweet a gift. And Naevu would offer him no conversion, either. A fair trade, if ever there was one. No, Eskar offered only a crooked smile. A welcoming pose in hammer dented metal was the reward for his great struggle. That spread legged diseased animal of a statue pointed the way to the house of his legacy. Had Sirasonans ever seen a human? He figured they had not, for legs did not work the way the statue stood.

He stopped to suck air, holding his chest. It rose and fell while his heart beat like a barbarian's drum in its mortal cage. The spring breezes of Lemdeh, wretched pollen included, were not found in the dry, unbearable heat here. Gallat's world was a different one. Not a pretty one. Not even a fine smelling one. Just different. A dusty shelf in dire need of cleaning.

Wood knocked stone below. Three pulled the heavy oak chest by one end, letting the other flop as it wished. It didn't matter how he got it up the steps, so long as he did. That's what children were for.

The Saepulum's orange bricks formed a squat, pompous box of a structure. Expected utilitarianism. Longer than tall, but tall enough to be appreciated. Sirasona had not burned. A shame, he thought, it needs the renewal.

When he crossed under Eskar's gaze, he thought only of how ugly it was. The dented face reminded him of her, at the end. He wouldn't be mean to the Eskarites. He needed their friendship. But a strongly worded letter in another's name might correct their course before they ran aground.

The Saepulum sat on a sort of dais of bricks, higher than the other boxes around it, lower than the distant High Ward's estate. It presented a decent walking platform, free from any other living being. Not even the pigeons pecked here. If one was not in the know, they would see it as desolate. Yet, the Eskarites were as their founding father had been. An Order on the move, forever away.

Set in the bricks was a black walnut double door, carved with scenes of great Maninist victories. Naevu recognized the Peregrination, and stopped studying it there. When he pulled the doors open the coolness of the interior struck him with a near orgasmic sense of relief. The sweat on his face for the first time offered a chilling escape.

There was a short hall between halls here. Across from the entranceway another pair of identical doors stood, only those carried a heavy, polished steel chain and lock about their handles. To the right sat a long wooden bench flanked by shelves of burning scented candles. Crisp, calming lavender. To the left a stone desk and elderly man scribbling with quill, both as old and rooted as the bricks around them. The walls were pale orange. No curtains, paintings, or windows.

Three heaved the trunk through to the bench, where Naevu gestured for him to sit. The elderly man continued to scratch on paper. Old, dry eyes watched the boy for a short while, until they turned to Naevu.

"What business do you have at the Saepulum?" asked the old man. He spoke in the dry, coarse voice of a man who had not used his in a long while.

Naevu approached the stone desk, still soaked from head to toe and breathing recklessly. He gathered himself before daring to speak the Gallatene tongue.

"The business of a song yet written," he said.

The old man scratched through a line on the paper. Naevu saw he'd been writing an incoherent series of numbers, but only had slashed out part of what he'd written. The other pages about the desk were similarly kept. He smiled at Naevu, showing false bone teeth held tight together by thin copper wire. Naevu's heart skipped a beat.

"We know. We know." He scratched new numbers on a blank page. Chair legs squealed against the stone floor as he pushed off from the desk. The receptionist never broke the smile, not even when he slipped the page through a brass flap on the inner wall. He only repeated his answer as he returned to the chair. "We know."

Naevu tried to carry on the conversation, standing at the desk end. But the man only smiled, and spoke no further. Was this a test of his patience? Because patience was the only thin thing about him. Naevu breathed, and took a slow stroll to the bench, not wanting to appear pleased by the seat. There he propped his feet on his oak trunk. Three removed Naevu's shoes to massage between his toes.

The old man kept his smile, eyes leering at Naevu. How long would it be? The quill still scratched numbers on the page. A mad man's record. Naevu watched Three work the knuckles of his toes in deep concentration. The blond-headed boy was still so new, so fresh. So unlike his current surroundings. Naevu leaned back, head against the bare brick wall.

Four hours that crazy, wrinkled man stared and wrote and smiled. Four hours until a note dropped through the flap into a waiting tray. No one had come or gone. Eskar failed to tame the north and they were surely taking it out on him. Naevu smiled back, silent, but in his mind he'd kicked those false teeth down the old b#stard's throat a thousand times. If I were a lesser man, he thought.

"You may enter, professor," said the old receptionist, keys jangling on his belt. He never broke that awful, all-knowingly wicked smile.

Naevu stood to stretch, cracking his back in sync with the clank of the key turning the lock. Chains slithered from their home into thin, frail hands. Naevu pulled one door open, not making eye contact for fear of being sucked into an unending, unyielding staring bout with the very face of madness.

They entered an impressive hall, five shoulders wide and five hundred feet long. A grey and gold carpet ran the center it. Painstaking detail went into its minute spiraling patterns. Two dozen doors lined the walls. All but one was sealed with chain. At the end, the carpet divided as the building into stairs, one up and one down. He groaned.

Naevu ventured to the open door, for he didn't know where to go and was not turning around to ask the mad man. Three ruffled the carpet as he pulled the chest along. Naevu poked his head into a quaint, bare walled office. There were only shelves, rows of them, lined with scented candles, yet again. No windows. Another stone desk sat center stage. A wild, grease-sheened haired woman hunched over two ledgers, quills clawing violently in both hands. She did the work of two clerks at once.

She was a tanned fleshed native. Not pale enough to be Nechekt, nor dark enough to be Siran. Born in the middle. Her eyes were focused, reflecting the candlelight like stars on the night sky. When they turned to him, he saw the dark circles under them and the thin red lines in their whites.

Naevu went to speak, but the woman shook her head. She never stopped writing, but neither did she speak. Eyebrows scrunched as her eyes drifted to the open door. Naevu held his tongue, seeing what she meant. He pulled the door closed, never having uttered a sound.

"This place is huge," said Three in Cyvekt, finally caught up with the trunk in tow.

"Shut up," Naevu told him. The boy's posture snapped straight and lips pursed tighter than an Accan anus at a Siran house party.

They walked the rest of the hall, and as he'd figured none of the other doors were unchained. Naevu arrived at the stairs, looking back briefly to see Three silently struggling with the chest. Between the stairs a pillar of bricks held a bronze plaque. It told him all he needed. An arrow pointed down, and he sighed with relief. The journey down would be easy, but he didn't dare think of the return. It was too depressing a future.

He went down the stairs with one hand on the railing to keep his balance. He'd lost it somewhere along the way. He knew not where. The trunk banged on each step. The sound echoed like a thunderstorm over Stetin lakes. Deep down, he hoped the wild haired woman lost count. That would be a justice. The stairs turned a corner and descended further. Each floor had doors of its own, all sealed by chains. For six flights that carried on. Each step went deeper into the earth.

How deep, he wondered, could the Order dig? And what was worth keeping so well defended, so far removed from the glorious sun?

At the bottom the stairs ended before a single, unchained door. The air was cool, almost cold enough to warrant thicker clothing. A sweet reprieve from the oppressive Sirasonan weather. An inscription over the door read "archive" in a verbose, multiple line explanation of the purpose and history of the room.

Naevu opened it.

A short, brown haired man with a scruffy beard and ratlike features sat atop a spinning stool near one of many tables. Tables so long his eyes could not see their end. He was smiling and pointing, hand bobbing up and down. A few incomprehensible sounds came from his mouth, obviously trying to form words. Then the man slapped his palm to his forehead.

"Aah," said the man, growling at himself. "I-I-I was gonna say something really intelligent and brilliant . . . Yo-you know, to woo you? An-an-and you were gonna be completely blo-blown away and-uh-convert-and-I'd-get-promoted. I mean, I'm just an archivist, but technically-also-an-Eskarite." The man gestured wildly, still smiling. "I-I've been sitting here for hours just picturing this moment. But now that I've seen you it's completely gone. I'd built it up in my mind. Like, I would have this confidence and, uh-" He pressed a finger to his temple. "Exatas! But no, no, no. It's all gone now. It's all f#cking gone, man. Dust in the wind."

"Hours? Why didn't you come get me?" asked Naevu.

The man jumped down from his stool. He was shorter than Naevu by a head. The ratty man approached with a shake, like a frightened puppy. He wore a long sleeved, thick shirt and pants with a number of pockets stuffed with unknown treasures. He scratched at his beard. Naevu felt a tingle in his, but didn't want to mimic.

The rat-man grasped Naevu hard on his forearm. He leaned in, whispering, "I don't get out much. It's nothing personal. Not my call, man." Three released the trunk with a loud, dust flinging bang. "You brought a child down here?" He raised his voice to Three. "Hey, little one. Watch out for the rats. Better yet, st-stand on the trunk. Three-sixty peripherals!"

"He can't understand you," said Naevu. "Who are you?"

The man fidgeted, still watching Three and scratching his beard.

"Uh-uh . . . Vikin. I'm Vikin." Vikin clawed at his chin. "I'm just . . . the kid's small, man. The-these rats, they act scared and cower. I mean, I don't see any right this moment. But," he stopped to look behind him, "they're down here, watching. A thousand little eyes . . . can I kiss your neck?"

Naevu cocked his head.

"You guys do that, right?" said Vikin.

"Vikin, leave our friend be." The voice was calm, collected, and somewhat titillating.

He saw the gold first, in chains about the neck. A tall man entered, strong and wide shouldered with broad arms. He wore a bright yellow vest that cut a fork along his torso, sleeveless. His flesh like rich earth, black as the night, carried an unnatural sheen of cleanliness. The whole of his body was hairless, save for his head where well-trimmed hair was allowed only the bare minimum length. A thin, square cut beard traced his mouth and chin.

"Jmala, I was just-"

"Enough, Vikin. Leave them be," said Jmala in a sweet yet commanding tone. He came to Naevu as Vikin reluctantly wandered off. Jmala extended an upturned palm in friendship. "I am Jmala Absadur, the fourth and final son of Sibal Absadur. It is a pleasure to meet you, Professor Naevu." Jmala's eyes sized him up. "And is this your apprentice?"

They both looked to the boy.

"My pupil, Three."

Jmala's face twisted. "How do you mean, three?"

"He is the third and has no other."

"A literal name?" Jmala smiled. Naevu's loin stirred. "We knew quite well in advance of your arrival."

"I figured as much."

"Have you brought the requested?" asked Jmala, knowing the answer but remaining cordial.

"The trunk." Naevu snapped his fingers. Three opened it. They gathered around. "Seven volumes of Parthecan poetry." The books were stacked and bound tight by leather straps. Their covers gilded in gold.

"You did these?" asked Jmala as he fingered the covers.

"Three months," Naevu agreed. "Translated, written, and bound."

"By one man?" Jmala snorted.

Naevu nodded, crossing his arms.

"You are a true artist, friend," said Jmala. "I have come to expect nothing less from fine professors of your faith. You are known for limitless talent, of both mind and body." There was something deeply appealing about the way he spoke. Was it the smile with every word? Or was it the handsome, square features of his face? "I ask you forgive my Vikin. He has an unusual mind."

"I heard that," said Vikin from the table.

"You hear many things, brother," replied Jmala. Jmala rested a thick hand on Naevu's shoulder, gently caressing the flesh. "You have outdone yourself. These will make exquisite contributions to our archives. Parthecan literature is ever more exotic in the Halyrate. They tend not to share it for fair prices."

"Gold cannot buy Parthecan treasures. That is reserved for kind tongues," said Naevu. "Very kind tongues."

"Mmm," said Jmala, patting Naevu on the shoulder. Arm wrapped around Naevu, Jmala walked him to the tables. "I believe you will find everything you seek here, and more, friend. We've had a considerable amount of time to prepare the documents. You will be given access to them for the duration of your stay, as promised, so you may copy what you wish."

Jmala walked him down the long row between two tables. The tables were built as short pieces and connected to form long, wide structures. The tables overflowed with stacked treasures, dusty tomes and artifacts from the ends of the world. Vikin went to inspect the poetry, and Three stayed with him, though they shared no common tongue. When they were out of earshot, Jmala spoke again.

"We are an Order of braggers, I cannot lie. Not often do we receive visitors expressing such generosity, by their own hand no less. When I heard of your request, I admit to having ulterior motives upon your arrival. Motives I still possess. But you are a man aware of his surroundings. It would waste breath to tell you what you already know, of what I need."

Naevu sighed. That's what it was after all. The charisma, the friendliness, the warm touch of hand on flesh. Aelea was right. They did see them as trained. He returned the smile as they stopped before a clean section of table. There were two stacks of books, one fresh and one already filled, and inkwells for his use. The stolen history of a thousand kingdoms was piled high to either side underneath large, stained sheets.

Jmala's hand rested on the nape of his neck. "I no longer partake," Naevu confessed, thumbing through the books. He could not deny the tightness in his groin. The hand withdrew.

"You no long- Was it an unusual request?"

"No." Naevu shook his head, looking over his shoulder. "Simply poor timing."

"Is it . . . or is it all?"

"All," Naevu agreed. He scanned pages filled with the names of every commanding soldier known in Xaishas.

"I have never heard an Alonite to deny needs of the flesh." The charisma had faded, as Jmala knew now he had failed to execute as planned. "There aren't many like me."

"Innumerable," Naevu corrected, "not here, but elsewhere. I assure you there are no needs of the flesh, Jmala. A man does not need the Path, he must want it. It is the same in all things."

"Alon's words?"

"No, mine. Are these records complete?"

Jmala composed himself. "They are. The last of our Order returned four months ago." Jmala paused, and then laughed. "You say there are only man's desires. You deny my wants."

"I do, and it is nothing-"

"What if I told you I possessed your greatest desire?"

"You've already given it."

"A desire no other man in this world or any other could fulfill."

"I'd be skeptical, yet intrigued." Naevu turned from the books. Jmala no longer carried the wide smile. His eyes were glazed over, as if he held back tears. Frustration or joy? "Is it something men would kill for?"

"I would say so." Jmala laughed. "I will not deny you this, Naevu. You are a kind man, a diligent man. There're not many men like you. There," he said, nodding to a covered pile nearby. "The sheet, remove it."

Naevu did. Dust formed a cloud about his face, sneaking into his nostrils to tickle his throat. He pressed his hands to his nose to stop the nonsense before it began. The dust settled and revealed the treasure Jmala so promised. Naevu did not dare pretend he knew it.

A small, three foot marble bust stained by wind balanced precariously on half its original base. Where arms had been only rough cut stone remained. The nose long ago chiseled away, a scar along the left cheek denoted a hurried hammer fall. A young face stared back at him, beautiful and imposing. Long hair once flowed from the head, but had since been destroyed. The breasts remained smooth, untouched.

Not possible.

"This is a foul trick, Jmala." Naevu felt tears swelling in his ducts. He fought them back.

"See how it feels, friend? The thing you most desire, right in front of you, yet so far away." Jmala patted his back. "A face around you everywhere, your entire life, yet you've never truly seen it. She was beautiful in life. How old would she have been here?"

Naevu gulped. "No older than twenty-four." He felt his heart sink. Fear? He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt that. He clenched his fists, wanting to turn to Jmala but unable to pull free from the image. Dare he blink and it vanish? "Where? Where did you find this?" He spit the syllables through gritted teeth.

"The Face of the Moon," said Jmala, a cockiness returned to his voice. He'd regained control. "Three hundred years ago, buried hastily in a dune near the lake. We are an Order of braggers, Naevu."

"Why?" asked Naevu, throwing every question into one, pathetic word.

"A fire once swept the land, is that not reason enough?"

"I don't know whether to love or hate you."

"So long as you feel, as Alon said. Am I right?"

"Three . . ."

Jmala stepped by to grab the sheet. "No, I am afraid not." He tossed the dusty sheet back over Her face. "May you never forget."

"A gift," Naevu agreed. He swallowed through a tight, choking throat.

Jmala gestured to the Xaishas records. "Shall we?"

 

[Gem Hound]

Happy Birthday EoE! I'll be joining as Serkos.

 

[BSmith1068]

I wouldn't mind joining. Is there a nation or other entity that I could step into?

 

[spryllino]

Tephran Exatai, Xidevi Sartashai, Ayase of Gaci, and Yensai Chiefdom are all good in the centre of the map; Hariha, Nivarberrie Eshai, Hacha, and Dula are probably the most attractive positions in the west as far as I can see.

 

[Perfectionist]

Tephrans and the Ayase are the things that most need players.

 

[North King]

Glad to have your interest! The Tephrans are powerful but, consequently, will have a lot of things/other people to deal with. I think I'd recommend the Xidevi if you want a diplomacy-focused game, the Nivarberrie if you want a war-centered game, the Hariha if you want a trade focused game, or the Ayase or Yensai if you want a more balanced game. I can expand on any of these if you want.

 

[Golden1Knight]

Vischa Exatai - Traveler Guide (Part 1)​

Who rules?

The High Prince holds much of the power, due to the careful balance exerted on the various factions. It is his duty to ensure the coexistence between those who want peace among those more attached to the old ways. Currently, it is Lucaras II (38) who holds this position. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather and his father, his political predecessors, his biggest goal is to consolidate Vischa as a regional power, and not merely another Exatai.

Local Government

It is well known that one man can not reign without help. Although the High Prince has a lot of power, there are other influential factions in the Exatai.

Imperial Comitatus: The main advisors when it comes to war, these men are the most loyal soldiers of the High Prince, and often act as bodyguards. It is also not uncommon for them to command armies in time of war. Their leader is Halaxes (43), a war veteran who has become accustomed to court life, maybe too much.

Urban Elites: The commercial prosperity of the region is reflected in the sumptuous life of these men. They abhor any idea of war, unless it is to protect their own interests. Although not seen with good eyes by more traditional citizens, they are what gives life to the Court in Arhat, promoting various social events, which aim to curry favor with the High Prince and other senior bureaucrats. Its bourgeois nature causes them to be despised by the military class. The most influential member of this group is Yalaxes (44), a merchant whose family amassed extreme wealth and power.

Steppe Nomads: Feared in the steppes, ignored by many at court. The nomads often send envoys to the capital in times of need, but are only really remembered in times of war, where their riders are very useful. Their leaders tend to lead their own warriors when at war, and have some autonomy, obeying only the High Prince. Their leader and chief representative at the court is Tharkat (34), The Fast.

Nevathi Elites: Men whose wealth and power are directly linked to the lands belonging to them, these aristocrats do not bother to leave their land and travel to the capital, preferring to manage their business and ignore the rest. However, this behavior meant that they were increasingly ignored by the court, who thought they had become accommodated and submissive. In order to have their interests heard and respected by the High Prince, these aristocrats elected the most influential of their group, Taephas (41), as their representative in Arhat.

Chairuan Monks: With its limited influence, these men represent their religion, and rarely travel to the court. They are represented by Arphares (37).

 

[Wrymouth3]

Here come the Aortai on a new path of destruction. If there are any objectors to this claim, please lash out your virulence (god only knows why you would) or hold your tongue forever.

 

[Terrance888]

I refuse to hold my tongue at all. It's a slippery, greasy thing, more suited for half truths than half lies.

 

[m.t.cicero]

Here come the Aortai on a new path of destruction. If there are any objectors to this claim, please lash out your virulence (god only knows why you would) or hold your tongue forever.

Just so everyone remembers where it is, I highlighted it on the map

 

[BSmith1068]

Glad to have your interest! The Tephrans are powerful but, consequently, will have a lot of things/other people to deal with. I think I'd recommend the Xidevi if you want a diplomacy-focused game, the Nivarberrie if you want a war-centered game, the Hariha if you want a trade focused game, or the Ayase or Yensai if you want a more balanced game. I can expand on any of these if you want.

Thanks. I think I am more interested in either the Hariha, or the more balanced Ayase or Yensai. Can I get a quick cliff’s notes brief on these guys?