Ancient Purpose
“T he expenses are exorbitant,” the lord-mayor said as he pointed to a rendering of one of the designs for Sacor City’s new gates. They needed to be replaced after the damage they had received during the recent war with Second Empire.
Officials and generals peppered the mayor with questions, but Zachary Hillander, the high king of Sacoridia, hung back.
He had already examined the designs in detail and was tired of endless dreary meetings full of bad news.
He drifted to the window. The mayor’s second-story office looked out onto the Winding Way, the main street through Sacor City, and it was starting to snow, the season’s first. First snows, he thought, were always beautiful, clean and fluffy, and charged with change.
But this year, it portended a difficult winter.
People hurried about their business down on the street. Carts, horses, and pedestrians all created a scene of ordered mayhem as they traveled in one direction or another, much like the shifting flurries that descended upon them.
It was an ordinary enough scene, but the city was just getting back on its feet after war, and there were challenges ahead.
Shortages abounded, the most concerning of which was foodstuffs.
The countryside under assault from the Darrow Raiders had forced farmers to flee their lands, leaving crops untended.
Despite the rationing that had been imposed on the city’s inhabitants over the spring, summer, and fall, scarcity was going to be a problem over the winter.
Rhovanny and the Under Kingdoms were happy to help, but at a price.
The treasury was feeling the strain of fixing the wounds of the city, feeding the citizens and livestock of the realm, and maintaining the army, which he ordered to remain at full standing.
His counselor, Les Tallman, joined him at the window. “Ah, it is snowing. The clouds rather looked like it earlier.”
“It’s melting as soon as it touches the ground.” Zachary glanced back toward the mayor. He and his audience were leaning over the drawings.
“Tiresome, isn’t it?” Les said in a low voice. “Going round in circles and rehashing decisions that have already been made?”
“I should be training with my troops, but there is always some other meeting I must attend, some other urgent business that requires my attention.” That wasn’t even counting the difficulty of bringing the lord-governors to heel in their obligations to supply soldiers and arm them.
More trouble much greater than the Darrow Raiders or Second Empire was coming, but they would not be swayed by a threat they could not see.
“We’re living in unusual times,” Les replied.
Les was a valued adviser and friend, but Zachary missed Laren Mapstone, colonel of the Green Riders, and his friend and confidant since boyhood.
Her years of experience made her an invaluable adviser, but she’d been taken captive by the king of Varos who coveted her special ability as a “truth-teller.” It was too soon to hear anything of the rescue mission he had sent to Varos, but he prayed for word nevertheless.
Les leaned closer to the window and there was a surprised uplift to his eyebrows. “I say, is that Sir Karigan?”
Zachary gazed out once more. At first he could not see her, but then he’d been looking for a Rider in green astride a chestnut gelding.
And yet, she stood out. Among the city folk hustling here and there, she drew his eye.
A slim woman sat upon a tall, white, high-stepping stallion with a proud, arched neck.
Instead of green, she wore a black longcoat draped along the stallion’s flanks, a waistcoat and breeches of silver-gray, and a neatly knotted white neck scarf.
Her unbound hair had grown long enough to brush her shoulders.
But was it her?
She guided the nervous stallion expertly through the crowds.
When he started to rear, she did not panic, but brought him down and continued forward.
It was only when she glanced aside, her cheeks pink in the cold, and snow flecking her crown of brown hair, that he could clearly see the patch that covered her right eye, and knew with certainty it was her, Karigan G’ladheon.
The warmth of delight and desire rushed through him, but it was tempered by frustration.
Despite the permission, nay, the encouragement his wife had given for him and Karigan to pursue a relationship, this was the closest he had been to her in months.
She’d taken leave to attend to clan matters in Corsa, and he, too, had been traveling to reinforce his authority among the balky lord-governors and to see conditions down at the D’Yer Wall.
Her appearance provoked mystery. Why was she garbed so? Where was she going, and from where had she acquired the horse? The stallion pranced and tossed his head, but she kept marvelous control of him with nearly imperceptible cues from hands and legs.
Zachary would not use his position to summon her to him so she could answer these questions. He refused to use his power as a king over a servant thus, just to see her. It was not how he wished it to be between them.
Not that there was much between them currently.
His wife’s pronouncement that they be together with her approval only seemed to have the opposite effect.
The unspoken, once spoken, only produced more awkwardness between them, and a desire to demonstrate there’d been no dishonor to queen or realm. It left only longing.
All too soon she was gone from view, gone like a passing dream, and he saw only the milling, bustling traffic crowding the scene. He turned back toward the mayor who was once more complaining about the lack of resources for all the repairs the city needed.
“My Lord-Mayor,” Zachary said, and all eyes turned to him.
“There is a quantity of lumber coming from the royal forestry reserve west of the town of North. My forester there has personally selected strong, old oaks that can be used to remake the city gates. There will be a quantity of pine, too, that can be used in rebuilding the lower city. I should not worry about the expense for these raw materials, for there will be none to the city treasury.”
The relief on the mayor’s face was plain, and he bowed low. “That is the best of news, Your Majesty. A most generous gift.”
“It is no gift,” Zachary said, “but a necessity. The city needs its gates intact, and you must be mindful that the city will still be providing the labor.”
The meeting rambled on, but Zachary kept glancing out the window wondering if Karigan might reappear down on the street.
He noticed Luin Prime Brynston, the head of all moon priests in Sacoridia, who was also in attendance at the meeting, watching him.
He made a concerted effort to step away from the window and apply his attention to what the mayor was saying.
Zachary did not care for the luin prime.
Brynston pursued a conservative philosophy and preached stridently against the evils of magic, a worldview his priests then took to their congregants.
Estora favored him because he came from her home province of Coutre where he had served her family, and she’d seen to his ascension to luin prime.
They were friends, though Zachary wondered how genuine the friendship was on Brynston’s part, and how much was opportunistic access to her power as queen.
When the meeting at long last concluded, the luin prime strode up to Zachary.
He offered his ring to be kissed, but Zachary ignored it, a blunt reminder to Brynston, and any who might observe them, as to who was the head religious authority in Sacoridia.
When Smidhe Hillander ascended the throne over two hundred years ago, he named himself primary in the eyes of the gods and prohibited, by law, priests from attaining any office in the halls of power after centuries of just that had led to undue religious influence on the crown and unprecedented corruption.
Naturally the moon priests were not best pleased, but as the generations passed by, they were left to manage their own affairs without interference unless their work ran counter to the crown’s authority.
The crown, however, used care in its relations with the moon priests, for their influence among the devout of the crown’s subjects was not inconsiderable, and to act rashly risked alienating them.
Brynston smiled slightly, a sardonic curl to the corners of his mouth, and gave Zachary a polite, if shallow, bow.
“Your Majesty, I noticed that something outside seemed to be drawing your attention.”
“It is snowing.”
“Ah, the first snowfall always does elicit excitement. We should pray, however, this winter is not so fierce. I fear there will be enough suffering even if it is a mild one.”
The priests of the city’s chapel of the moon, Zachary thought, would want for nothing with the tithes they received from wealthy and poor alike.
“Was there something you wished to speak to me about?” he asked. “I was preparing to depart.”
“Well, there is a matter I wish to address. Frankly, I am concerned about the prisoner releases and that these Second Empire adherents of the one god will be reintegrating into our communities. If they are truly to become Sacoridians, they must be converted.”
This view of Brynston’s had been communicated to Zachary by his proxies in court. “No.”
“No?” Brynston said with a flicker of displeasure.
“Do you misunderstand the word?” Zachary asked.
“Er, no, Your Majesty. Your response is definitive, but perhaps made without counsel.”
“Then perhaps you consider me unschooled in the matter.”
Flurries battered the window as the wind shifted. A draft of cold air crept through the room.
After a moment in which Brynston seemed to consider how to respond to his king’s stern demeanor, he bowed. “Of course not, Your Majesty, but I wish you would consider my views on the matter.”
“I am well aware of your views,” Zachary replied. “And though my answer should have been enough for you and I should not have to explain, it is obvious that you require an explanation from my own lips.”
“My lord—”
“Silence.”
Everyone who remained in the room stilled and quieted at his sharp rebuke.
Brynston was clearly taken aback and unused to being censured.
In his capacity as luin prime, he would ordinarily be the one who doled out orders and reprimands.
This, and it came from Zachary who was known as a reasonable and even-tempered king not given to fits of ill-humor.
To Zachary’s mind, it did not hurt to exercise the occasional bout of kingly ire, especially with the likes of the luin prime who thought too well of himself.
“It is simple,” Zachary said. “Sacoridia is not closed to other nations. We trade vigorously and peacefully with those outside our borders, and many migrate here to live and work. Sacor City alone is home to many peoples from abroad who endeavor to live harmoniously with their neighbors, bringing with them new ideas, labor, and businesses. They would not be here, and we would not benefit from their presence, if we forced our beliefs upon them. Certainly, some do convert of their own volition, yes?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. But Second Empire is not made up of newcomers. They are not looking to live harmoniously with us. They started a war.”
“I am rather well aware of the war,” Zachary replied with an acerbic note to his voice.
“But my impression from the people themselves, the ordinary folk who were not in charge, is that they are quite willing to resume their quiet way of life if given a chance. Just as we would not force conversion on newcomers, forcing it upon the followers of the one god would only embitter them. It would make them less willing to reintegrate, if not stir up another uprising of Second Empire.”
“Meanwhile,” Brynston countered, “their priests can propagandize for them to do just that.”
“We are being careful with our releases, seeking those who are not apt to cause trouble, including among their priests.”
“And what of the magic users among them?”
This, Zachary thought, was growing tiresome. He signaled to his servant to bring him his topcoat and help him into it. Perhaps the luin prime would take the hint. Others in the room did, and the floor creaked and groaned with their footsteps as they hurried to leave.
“What of them?” he asked.
“Was not one of the leaders of Second Empire a necromancer?”
“Grandmother. Yes, she was. But she is dead, and no others have shown an inclination for dangerous sorcery. If they had, I’m certain it would have happened during our recent battle.”
“What of the girl?” Brynston said. “She was used by Second Empire to take the Eagle’s Pass Keep.”
Zachary refrained from sighing as he tugged his gloves on. “You refer to the one known as Lala. We searched exhaustively for her, but we can only guess that she did not survive out in the wilderness.”
Brynston did not look convinced, and Zachary could not say he was either, but there was not much more they could do until Lala made her presence known, if she ever did. In the meantime, his focus must shift to defending the realm from the looming threat in Blackveil.
“During the years following the Long War,” Brynston said, not to be deterred, “my predecessor of that era assembled an order, a brotherhood, to hunt down magic users to purify the realm. It would seem to me it was high time to restore those warriors to their ancient purpose.”
In the era after the Long War, known as the Scourge, disease and hunger devastated the population. More insidious, however, was the death rate among magic users. It was high enough to have nearly caused their extinction. This had been no accident.
Currently, Zachary’s guard, Fastion, stood by the door keeping silent watch.
Attired all in black and girded with a longsword, he and his fellow “Black Shield” warriors were so highly trained that they were considered human weapons.
Consequently, at some point in their history, they simply became known as “Weapons.” They served not just to protect Sacoridia’s monarchs and its royal dead, but had always been charged with a higher purpose of preserving the sanctity of Sacoridia itself.
Fastion’s hawklike gaze almost imperceptibly searched the room for trouble, and should any arise, he would instantly respond with all his training and skill, woe be to any who dared challenge him.
The ancient order of warriors Brynston spoke of that had been responsible for purifying the realm of magic users so very long ago had never died out or disbanded. No, it remained alive and well.