God Rising: The Cult of Ainz
Written by: AtheistBasementDragon
Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots
Chapter 188: Enlightenment
...Forton...Main Hall...
When Neia had gone, Albedo rose from her place at the head of the table as the delegates enjoyed their morning meal. "My King has made his will for the future known, and you have received an invitation from the Pope to see the nature of the work her people perform. Of course, we are happy to use the [Gate] spell again to bring in your observers at your leisure. Naturally we do not expect to settle everything now, but these are the subjects we wish you to consider, brought to you straight from my master's hand."
Albedo took up a document that was resting next to her plate and began to read it. "A single international currency to ease trade and prevent a single nation from manipulating the market. An international bank to which each nation contributes a founding sum, and from which each nation may borrow for peaceful projects. An international grain reserve to stave off famines. A two house system of international legal authority. One house whose membership is apportioned by size, the other where every nation, great or small, is represented equally. Along with a Great Speaker who will approve the laws and measures passed by both houses, and who must be approved by majority every ten years. A code of laws for the treatment of great monuments, civilians, and captives, to be presided over by an international tribunal. My master asks that when you return to your homes, you draw up your own proposals for these, and when we meet again after the Synod, that we negotiate this system's implementation."
Ambassador Akrotiri raised his hand, and Albedo gestured to him. "Yes, Ambassador?" She asked in her naturally sensuous voice.
"And if a nation chooses not to participate?" He asked. "What then? This is far beyond the scope of my power to agree to."
Albedo smiled radiantly, "My master, in his wisdom, anticipated this question. His answer was, 'Then nothing.' You simply will not gain benefits from it, though you may petition for admittance later, it will fall to the other nations to agree or not."
"Forgive my impertinence as I do not intend insult, but if I may, one thing more. The... General who departed, the stories that have come to me of her actions do not align with some of the laws you have proposed. Are we to believe that these laws on treatment of monuments and people will be honored when she is not only free, but in command?" He pushed further.
Albedo folded one hand over the other and closed her eyes to keep her fury from showing. 'How dare anyone criticize anything done for My Love!' She thought while keeping any outward sign of anger from showing. She opened her eyes again after taking a deep breath.
"General Baraja's actions are under review and an investigation was decided upon last night, we are sending our agents to interview battle survivors from both sides to learn the truth of what happened, and if it is necessary, then she will be the first one subjected to the international tribunal. It will be so, in order that all the world will know that nobody is above reproach. No matter how close they are to the throne." Albedo promised sincerely. "Now please, enjoy your morning meal, my master will no doubt join us after, and relay his intentions in greater detail, and then you are invited to spend the day at ease before you return to your homelands."
That brought silence to the table as Albedo sat, and then the buzz began.
Zesshi glared at Enri with both her black and her white eyes each hard as steel. Enri did not flinch, but there was no sense of relief to her either.
'Did I... just get her killed? Did I just sign Neia's death warrant?' Enri wondered with an aching sense of guilt gnawing at the pit of her stomach, she placed a hand there, 'I wish I were with you now, Enfi, I could use your comfort...' She thought to herself more profoundly than she had in months.
"Excuse me." Enri said quietly and stood up. She quickly left the room as fast as her feet could carry her without casting off her dignity or seeming to be engaged in the retreat she truly felt she was undertaking.
Her feet carried her out of the hall and to her quarters, where to her surprise, she found someone waiting outside for her.
"Enri, right?" Lakyus asked politely. "I'm Lakyus, Neia said you wanted to talk to me."
Enri nodded hastily and opened her door. "Yes, thank you, thank you for coming. I... honestly am surprised to see you."
"You're surprised that a person you asked to see, bothered to show up where you invited them?" Lakyus asked with a bit of amusement and a whimsical smile that spoke of her noble heritage.
Enri managed a nervous laugh as they entered her quarters and shut the door behind them.
She locked the door and gestured to a table. "Can I offer you anything?" She asked politely as Lakyus set her sword against the wall next to the chair and sat at the cream colored ornately carved round table.
"No, nothing, thank you. I'm here because my friend asked me to be, she said you wanted to talk to me, and I assume it is urgent, given what she said, and that makes refreshments a low priority in my mind." Lakyus replied with an inviting smile and she tapped her hand on the seat of the chair across from her. "So please, sit, let me listen to you."
"Alright... can I ask, what did she tell you?" Enri asked anxiously as she went to the chair and sat down across from the adventurer turned military leader. 'Wow, she's definitely a priestess, she has such a warm aura about her, so relaxing...' Enri thought as she looked at the blonde woman's gentle smile with only a slight turning up at the corners of her lips and eye contact that was not a hardened stare. Her posture was relaxed and her hands out and opening.
"Well, she told me about her confrontation with you... everything." She clarified, "What was said, and what was done, from first to last."
"Oh." Enri said and snapped her mouth shut like a bear trap.
"It's alright, I'm well acquainted with Neia, how she was, how she is... I'm not going to gainsay you for any of it. If you want the truth, I'm... impressed, profoundly so. People seldom stand up to her over anything, and I've 'never' seen anyone argue with her except her wife, and maybe CZ. That takes real courage, and however you feel about it, you should be proud of yourself for that."
Enri blushed at the praise, a faint rose tinging her cheeks. "Thank you, but after I've had time to think things over, I don't feel like I was brave, I feel like I was kind of a judgemental bitch."
Lakyus laughed at the way she said it, and putting a finger under Enri's chin, tilted her head up. "It's alright, as a priestess, it isn't my job to judge you, just relax. It's my job to help you. I may be an apostate, but I do believe in the value of lending an ear or a well-wishing word to one who needs it. Or... if I can, maybe offer good advice. Whatever you need."
"Do you do that for Neia?" Enri asked faintly.
Lakyus let out a frustrated sigh, "No. I try, but... she and I are friends, even close ones, and I've tried many times. But she always begs off of it, always another task, another battle, another meeting. She just won't make time for it, and can you imagine anyone less than the Sorcerer King himself 'making' her do something she doesn't want to?"
Enri shook her head vigorously, "No, I can't. Definitely not."
"Me neither." She said with a hint of frustration. "But this isn't about her, I'm here for you, so... what would you like to talk about?"
"You were at the Battle of Wheaton or... the Massacre of Wheaton, if that description works better." Enri said in a small voice, Lakyus nodded, but didn't say anything. "You were at the Golden Fortress, where Neia did... what she did, to the Breaker and the Overseers and... the owners." Again Lakyus nodded without speaking.
"You have been with her since Prart, and worked with her briefly before that, you go a few years back, don't you?" Enri asked.
Unable to avoid speaking, Lakyus answered, "Sort of, I mean, yes to all of that, but most of that was strictly professional. We didn't start to become friends until Kedyn, and then not really until Prart. Years ago, it was just one encounter, and that was it. Why?" Lakyus asked her uncomfortably.
"In all that time, did she ever try to... I don't know how to put this... keep her hands clean?" Enri asked as her fingers fidgeted with one another on the table.
Lakyus felt a light of understanding start to dawn at the question. 'So that is what is bothering her...'
It was a struggle for the adventurer to keep herself from laughing. The taste of blood hit her as she bit her tongue to keep the inappropriate reaction from coming out. "No, no she never did that. If anything it is the opposite. She barrels forward relentlessly, she's like the wind, always in front or striving to be. You want my honest thoughts, it is... frustrating, she has a hard time letting go of dirty work and leaving it to others to do. It's one thing to set the example, it is another to never let others 'follow' that example. At Prart she insisted on being the one to execute all hostages that her enemies brought up to torment us behind the walls. Who does that more than once? You may think it sounds noble of her, but it is reckless, reckless to the point that the nobility of it is a vice and not a virtue."
Enri thought that over for a moment, and the silence stretched out until it was shattered by Lakyus folding her hands into her own lap and leaning forward urgently. "Listen to me, do 'not' compare yourself to her. Do not try to 'be' her. Do not 'envy' her. Look at what being how she's become has made her do, what it's made her into. Is that what you want?"
Enri bit her lip, "'...You thought we could be decent, that this war was going to be just a skirmish writ large, but you thought wrong...' 'there has never been anything decent about it' That was what General Baraja said to me. What she did was wrong!" Enri slammed her fist on the table hard enough that it wobbled, "But her soldiers are not ambushed! Her friends are not at risk! She's seen not even a whisper of defiance! All her enemies are dead or wishing they were... Suchala, Yuri, Remedios, Astraka, and the various nobles that plagued her in the past... dead, all dead. But I am presented with 'one' enemy, and not only is Boabdil still alive with an army to oppose me, but all my gains rose up in riots or rebellions, and my soldiers paid the price!"
Enri was transfixed and staring at Lakyus' beautiful eyes, but there was no desire in her look for anything but an answer. "If I don't have to be a monster to win, then what do I have to be?! If I'd done what Neia did, a lot more might have lived than have died. And I asked for 'her' to be tried as a criminal. Am I really just trying to keep my hands clean so I can pretend to be something I'm not? So I can avoid guilt? So I can avoid dealing with what I'm presented with? If I threw away my conscience, would I have done a lot more good than harm? Have I been blaming the Theocracy's vile knights so much, for what they really had no choice but to do, and trying so hard not to be them, that I ignored how necessary it was to be just that way?!"
Barely a breath passed between one question and the next. Her frenzied words flew like hail in a storm from clouds to earth, and only being an adventurer, used to using her ears to gather information quickly, allowed Lakyus to be sure she'd understood Enri clearly.
"Enri... General Enri." Lakyus said quietly as the peasant General seemed to lose herself in her own series of questions.
Enri seemed not to notice, she went on in a hushed voice as if she had no real idea that she was speaking at all, distant, lost, as if Lakyus herself were not even present. "Tens of thousands of commoners are dead by now, I have no illusions about who my best friend is... Lupusregina is a sadist, she revels in violence and bloodshed. I have no illusions about Master Sun, my strategy officer. He is the definition of practical. Together, unchecked by my conscience and supported by General Nimble, they will restore order quickly. The region I conquered contained... at best estimates, somewhere around two hundred and fifty thousand people, not counting soldiers, between the cities, towns, and villages of the large region."
A deep breath came and went from Enri's bosom, "I left them there, all of them. The riots began minutes before I was summoned. I could have stayed, I'm sure the Sorcerer King would have permitted it, but I made my escape and left those two in command. I think... somehow, I knew that what they'd do would work, and I didn't want to be the one to do it, but I knew it needed to be done. I wonder how many people are still alive now? Neia wouldn't have left, but then, she wouldn't have had to. What am I supposed to do? Please, tell me!" Enri said and brought herself back to reality, and remembered Lakyus was there listening to her.
Lakyus took the hand of Enri in her own, "You do what 'you' do, General Enri. I'm not going to tell you what is wrong or right, because there are precious few moments in war that there is anything but wrong to be had. But you do what 'you' do. You're a person who cares about life, all life, it's made you into a figure of legend in the eyes of many, even your enemies remark on your character. If you want to keep being that person, then make the choices that keep you that way. Go back, reclaim command, and bring order as 'you' do. Maybe you were too kind before, you misunderstood the nature of the Slane Theocracy or their ability to incite chaos. But you are a woman who learns from her mistakes. Take a harder grip, but without the brutality that defines your opposite number."
"But I..." Enri began.
"No." Lakyus said with quiet force, "I've seen war, death, battle for longer than I like to admit, I've never known a middle path, but maybe there is one, and maybe you're just the one to find it. You're incredibly rare, as a peasant, you've been powerless, on the receiving end of fear from monsters, humans, and human monsters. But now you walk among Kings and Queens as a person of power yourself. People who would have ridden past you without a glance, now seek to know your mind. Generals who would have thought the old you to be nothing but fodder, now look at you with admiration even as they try to defeat you. You have a chance that comes not once in a thousand years. A chance to change war. You tried one way, it didn't work, now try another."
"But what if I fail again...?" Enri asked in a small voice. "Other people will pay for my mistakes again."
"Then you'll be the same as Neia in that respect. The same as every person ever born in fact, others almost always pay the price for somebody's mistakes. It's just as true for me as for she as for you as for all. Mistakes are inevitable, aren't they? Just do your best, learn from where you go wrong, and improve. Don't dwell on what you can't fix, only take from it what you can so you don't repeat the mistake." Lakyus smiled weakly as she thought of her own gravest error, and her years of unknowingly wounding Keeno.
"Lupusregina Beta said something like that to me years ago. I asked her about whether I should become a chief, she told me I'd make mistakes and to think about scenarios where I was or wasn't chief. It's because of her that I took that job. It's also why I felt OK taking this one when His Majesty brought it to me." Enri smiled with equal weakness as she recalled the memory.
"Was it good advice?" Lakyus asked rhetorically, fairly certain of the answer.
"It was then, and yours is now." Enri smiled genuinely, her lips spreading over her face and gradually lighting up. "I've learned something from all this, just like Neia learned from her enemies, I must learn from mine. I will temper my mercy. My gentle touch, will now be wrapped in a glove of steel."
She stood up with her back straight and eyes fixed with resolve, for a moment Lakyus couldn't help but notice that she seemed much taller than she truly was.
The apostate priestess stood up and held Enri's shoulders, she locked gentle and understanding eyes on her opposite number, "I know you'll do great, just be careful not to lose your way, it's harder than you know to find your way back. It can be done, but better to not get lost in the first place. Now get going, you've got a region to restore order to."
Enri nodded solemnly, "Thank you, that helped a great deal, I guess I owe both you and Neia one for this."
"I think I can speak for her as much as for myself when I say, no, you don't. If for different reasons. But that's a story for another time. For now, let's go see His Majesty, and go back to where we're both needed most. To our soldiers, and to our friends." Lakyus released her grip and Enri gestured to the door.
"After you, Lady Lakyus." Enri said with a pleasant smile on her face and a polite bow of her head.
Lakyus inclined her head in turn, went to the door, opened it, and they went out together.
...Kami Miyako...
Yvon was not one to waste time, he walked with crisp steps despite his wizened age, his every motion that of a man who seemed younger in his motions than his body should allow. Full of dread intent he made his way out of the building where Dominic now sat alone, or more likely as he considered it, with a secretary drafting an order with the new laws he'd shouted in a fit of temper.
He looked around as he left the building, barely suppressing a smirk as he saw the hungry people near the building shouting for bread or meat or 'something'. The grounds around the main building had once been immaculately kept, now as he saw it, not even a bit of grass grew, plucked to the last blade for the small nourishment it might offer to the desperate people. The trees were dead and without magic, would never grow again, even the bark was gone, stripped to be boiled until it could be chewed up. Most of the people were no longer wearing shoes, and nor could shoes be bought anywhere, as the cobblers who made them had sold all their leather. A shudder went through his old body. 'To think they'd go so far as to eat their footwear, and raw leather...' He pondered, 'and still Dominic refuses the obvious solution. There's no reason or sense to keep livestock around when we're going to run out of even dead humans if it came to that... to think even he would have some softness, some weakness about him. The fool. The gods won't come save us if we refrain from learning the lessons they teach.' He rolled his beady eyes, and went to his carriage.
"Home, Master?" The elf coachman said through chattering teeth.
"No, take me to the barracks of the fifth battalion, quickly." He said, and seated himself inside. The coachman wasn't naked, but he wore nothing that would protect against those conditions. The ride would be that much more uncomfortable for him as they sped to Yvon's chosen destination, but about that, there was no reason to care.
Yvon folded his arms in front of him and glared at the wall of the inside of his carriage, he tapped his foot impatiently as he felt the carriage take one turn after another, the bumps in the road grew tiresome but he endured until they reached their destination. The coachman scurried down and yanked the door open and flung himself down onto the frozen stone, barely making a noise when the pain struck his knees and arms. Yvon stepped down on his back and from there to the ground. "Wait here." He said, and went inside.
The building was broad, made of rough cut stone rather than brick giving it a rustic appearance. The grounds were stripped like everywhere else, and given the many armored soldiers who walked around, and the fact that he'd had to pass through a gate framed by large walls in order to get in, it wasn't hard to conclude that hunger hit even the best fed, the soldiers.
The heavy wooden door opened easily enough despite its weight, without even a squeak. 'So, they're still keeping the same high standard of operations despite circumstances being what they are, good.' Yvon thought as he went straight to the commander's office.
He breezed through the door without a second thought, the scent of blood rich in his nostrils, the Cardinal of Light took a deep breath to savor the stench of slaughtered demihumans. A miasma of violence hung about the place like a fog, to those who were attuned to the spirit of the places in which they walked.
The commander looked up at the unexpected disturbance before he popped up and rendered a salute on recognizing the Cardinal. "Sir!" He said emphatically.
"Relax and be seated Commander." Yvon said smoothly as a serpent.
The armored officer slowly sat back into his chair, watching with a sense of caution as the Cardinal went over to the door and carefully closed it, his slowness akin to one who did not wish to be taken note of.
"I need fifty of your most hardened killers. Or your complete silence if you refuse." He said in the same low, silk voice he'd used before.
The commander sat formally and in silence as he turned the requisition over in his head.
"Do I want to know what for?" He asked gruffly. His lips pursed tight above his bushy black beard and his green eyes held on Yvon as if he were trying to read the contents of a book whose cover was closed.
"Not if you want a full meal. I need them for a special harvest." Yvon answered, "Now will you cooperate with my unofficial requisition, or not?"
"Why not make an official one?" The commander asked hesitantly as his instincts screamed at him that something was amiss.
"Because, Commander Montec, this is a delicate matter that I'd rather Dominic not be... bothered with. If it works out, your men eat, your battalion eats, and we'll keep this city from eating its own people. If it fails, well..." He opened his arms and turned up his hands to show their emptiness, "then what is lost but an afternoon for you and your men?"
Montec thought it over, his stomach growled angrily, and Yvon cracked a smile, "Double rations isn't much, when it is double barely more than nothing, is it? Hardly fit for training on, definitely not good enough to fight a defense of this city on. Now are you going to cooperate with my 'harvest' or not?" His voice was silky smooth and hard as stone. Montec, the veteran of scores of fights, felt his toes scrunch in his boots, like he was standing on quicksand and had to make a choice about what to do or drown in the moment.
"Fine. I'll send them to your residence within the hour, with written instructions to obey you no matter what." Commander Montec replied with greater calmness than he truly felt.
"No matter what?" Yvon asked emphatically, hunching forward just a bit, enough that Montec felt ill at ease at the question, and leaned back unconsciously.
"Yes, this company has exterminated entire villages, it even includes survivors from the ill fated attempt on Gazef Stronoff's life. They shrink from no order. You tell them what to do, and they'll do it, and the more brutal, the better." Montec replied with a deeply felt confidence, knowing that in this, he spoke the absolute truth.
"Good. I had best not be disappointed." Yvon replied, and without so much as a salute, he wheeled about and made his exit.
Commander Montec was true to his word, not long after his return to his quarters, there were fifty soldiers in the yard of his manor. 'Efficient.' He thought approvingly and went out to where they had formed themselves up in five ten man rows. They were large, powerfully built, wearing full plate and many of them having at least a piece or two of enchanted gear that marked them as veterans of many a campaign.
Yvon made his way out of his house, within, he was sure some of the animals were looking out the windows at the unfamiliar sight on the grounds of their owner's estate. He didn't bother to look back, it didn't matter to him.
When he reached the front and center of the formation, he spoke simply and directly. "The back ten of you move around to the side and back of my manor. The forty in front, enter my home, and kill every elf inside. I have roughly one hundred of the animals working around the manor, miss none. You may stab or cut their throats, but nothing more. Leave the people alone, but kill the animals. Then drag their bodies to the kitchens."
There was silence for a moment. Nobody moved.
Yvon felt wrath rising as they seemed to disobey, then he chuckled as he remembered, "Oh, yes, fall out, then return here when it is done."
Without question, the front forty began to file into the manor with swords drawn. They crowded the entrance and he could see through the windows the way they spread out to search the large manor home.
The screaming began fairly quickly. Yvon simply went to a nearby bench that sat under a dead tree that had been stripped of its bark, and waited it all out. 'Damn, I should have brought a book to read, how boring, I hope it doesn't take too long to put down that many... well... with forty of them it shouldn't take 'that' long. It isn't like the animals have that many routes to run by, and any they take they'll just run into the last ten." He let out a breath as he tried to idle away the boredom by counting out the cries for mercy that wouldn't come, he heard the faint sound of furniture overturning as some of the beasts tried and failed to hide themselves beneath couches or beds or within closets. 'Hell, I should have just lined them up and chained them, that would have been easier, I hate the very thought of one of those animals dirtying the place where I 'sleep'.' He all but retched at the thought. Tapping his lips to keep them shut rather than risk losing some of the scant food he'd eaten.
His wrinkled face puckered up as if he'd just sucked on a now impossible to acquire lemon as he counted off the few screams he heard. The human voices and shouting were no less panicked, and storm clouds gathered over his face as the freezing wind began to pick up. 'Surely they're just panicked by the sudden activity, they can't possibly 'sympathize'.' He thought with annoyance. It quickly proved irrelevant as the screams died down, a window broke, and his frown deepened. 'Great, I'll have to replace a window.' He grumbled mentally as a scream followed shortly thereafter, causing Yvon to give a sharp satisfied nod as the one responsible was evidently cut down after making it outside. One by one the screams continued to fade, until silence reigned.
Then silence save for the barely audible cries of his human servants who could only watch as the events unfolded in front of them. Still he waited, until the front door opened and the soldiers filed out of the house and formed up, bloodstained from their work, swords dripping, bloody footprints in the dirt where grass had once grown, some were sweating, a few looked mildly disgusted, most appeared simply bored, all had blood over their armor.
Yvon went in front of them as they snapped to an attentive posture with their swords held up in front of their faces. "You've done well, and worked quickly, now you may go to my bath house and clean yourselves and your equipment off, by the time you are all done, I will have a reward for you."
That had eyes widen with anticipation at the generosity of the Cardinal, a few whispered with pure happiness about the prospect of a hot bath in the winter cold, and they quickly fell out and rushed to the large, round building just off the main house to which he'd pointed. "Go, bathe, and refresh yourselves before you eat your fill. I will send someone for you when all is prepared."
Yvon then walked away and back into his house. Stains were all over the place, blood and a bit of gore being picked up by hollow eyed human servants, but as he went from room to room, he cast quick cleansing spells, and it was gone. Every stain and drop of blood, as if none of it had ever happened and none of them had ever been there. This he did as he gave orders to the few survivors. "When all the bodies are in the kitchen, prepare them in a variety of ways, in stews, over fires, use your finest techniques to prepare a feast, I want all that meat to be as savory as it can be. Am I understood?"
Silent bows of acknowledgement were the only answers he received as he continued his own minor chore of erasing all the stray droplets or large pools. The manor was massive, and took considerable time for him to walk through.
As his feet carried him, he felt less than half his years, as if the vigor of slaughter had restored his spirit, he relaxed his entire body as if he'd been receiving a massage from the hands of a skilled masseuse, every ounce of tension fled his flesh as if in fear of the new strength he felt coming over him. He stood in the library and held his arms outstretched at his sides and gazed to the glass dome above it that let in the light of the sun, far above, the clouds parted for a moment and a beam of sunlight came down and shone over him.
Moved by the feeling of strength and lost youth in the moment, he cast his praise to the heavens, "My lords above, I am your true and faithful son, Dominic has fallen from the path, his words hint that he imagines defeat. He dares to hold sympathy for the animals and how they're used. Grant me the power to correct his folly. It is clear to me now, I never should have allowed him to lead, and our current state is punishment for that. He may have his Agante, but I have your blessing, as the light shining down from you now proves, I am the chosen one in whom you are well pleased. We will eat of your bounty and grow strong. I will gather the swords of faithful soldiers, I will feed them according to your will, and we will bring... him... down."