Taleq had succeeded in his plan to kill the King of Neolandia, but was not yet safe. King Ilehas was extremely popular, and there was a concrete risk that the people would have risen up to avenge him. First, therefore, Taleq circulated the news that the king was gravely ill: this allowed him to gain time.

But he was aware of how precarious his position was. A very small mistake would have been enough to cause his ruin. They were days of tension: the population of the capital was aware that something terrible had happened within the walls of the royal palace (gossip, it is known, flyes faster than dragons), but no one knew exactly what, and the most unlikely theories took hold.

Luckily for him, Taleq had the support of a very influential group: the dark magicians.

In recent years, their number had quadrupled: in Neolandia, in fact, both the dark magicians of Katolis and Duren, exiled from persecution, and those of Del Bar, fleeing the civil war, had found asylum. It was no longer a small number of scholars of arcane arts: by now the dark magicians had become a real social class, esteemed, rich and powerful. One of them, in particular, was in charge of a regiment of the Neolandian army stationed in the fortress of Walyah: it was Colonel Demetrios, a grumpy Katolean magician who had distinguished himself during the war of 1240 and who had served directly under Taleq's orders in the Delbarite campaign.

Taleq decided to ask for his help: it was a risky gamble, because Demetrios could have turned against him in the name of the late Ilehas.

The Colonel did not. Moving with forced marches, he and his men soon reached the capital, and were instrumental in strengthening Taleq's position. He was then able to remove from the government all those ministers who opposed him and replace them with people he trusted.

Another problem that Taleq had to solve was that of the queen: remember that Ilehas had married Shirin, the very young daughter of King Ahling, to legitimize his claim to the throne. Two children were born from that marriage, Princes Ahling and Kasef, the oldest of whom was barely three years old.

By the time Taleq had imprisoned the royal family in a tower, watched by his men, but that state of affairs certainly could not continue forever. To secure his power, it was necessary to eliminate Shirin and her sons.

It must be said, in honor of Taleq, that he did not assassinate the queen or her children: he confined himself to imprisoning them on the Isle of Yener, and granted them a sufficient income to make them live comfortably.

"I have committed many sins in my life," he writes in his Chronicle, "but there are limits I have never crossed: killing children is one of them."

Shirin would have died soon after of malaria, according to many poisoned by order of the same Taleq: but I think that the dark magician was sincere, because the children of Ilehas all reached old age.

On July 10, Taleq felt strong enough to announce to the nation the death (officially due to illness) of the king and of his entire family. Few believed his words, but thanks to his popularity and the soldiers of Demetrios, no one rebelled.

Taleq also made another announcement, far more important: since there was no heir, the Neolandian royal line was extinct. Taleq then assumed the temporary position of Protector of Neolandia, and everyone, both his supporters and his enemies, expected that he would have worn the royal crown, or that he would have appointed king one of his supporters. Taleq did neither of those things. He was aware that he was not loved enough to name himself king: the memory of Ilehas was still too fresh in the minds of the people. So Taleq proposed one of the most revolutionary ideas in the entire history of humanity, to the point that some doubt that he could have conceived it only in the few days of the coup, arguing that he must have had it in mind for several years, waiting for the right moment to put it into practice.

With the famous June Decree (12 June 1244) the monarchy was definitively abolished. After nearly four centuries, Neolandia ceased to be a kingdom and became a magocracy, governed by a council of fifteen dark magicians, elected every three years, and presided over by a High Director, chosen among the councillors themselves. The elections were, of course, restricted: only magicians could vote.

It was the birth of the Magic Republic of Neolandia: the first non-monarchical nation of the continent since the fall of Elarion.

The first elections were held on July 6, 1244, and Taleq and his supporters won an overwhelming majority. By doing so, Taleq was able to become the High Director in a legitimate way.

The people had no particular objection: for a peasant, the difference between being governed by an oligarchy and a monarchy is rather negligible, and the magicians also enjoyed considerable prestige in the eyes of the people.

Quite different was the reaction of the nobility, which suddenly ceased to be the ruling class and found itself in a subordinate role: in various cities, the Neolandian nobles organized real revolts.

They underestimated the power of dark magicians.

The nobles had always been trained for war, and many of them were also at the head of detachments of the army: if they had coordinated, they would probably have succeeded in occupying the capital and ending the Republic. But the proud aristocrats of Neolandia were not able to organize a common front: none of them was willing to give the command to the others. Instead, the dark magicians were organized and determined to defend at all costs the position of power they had just conquered. Within a few weeks, the rebellion was crushed, and its leaders executed. According to some sources, more than two hundred nobles were killed in that short civil war, while losses among the dark magicians did not reach twenty. The nobility of Neolandia would have never recovered from such a blow.

The Magic Republic of Neolandia represented undoubtedly a major political experiment. Never before had a kingdom given so much importance to knowledge: new libraries were opened in all the cities of the kingdom, and Neolandia was the first nation to establish public schools open to all, in 1258.

Unlike the nobility, black magic did not depend on blood ties: even the son of a farmer, if gifted with talent, was perfectly capable of achieving excellence. The system of state examinations for magicians, established in 1295, allowed even people of humble origins to participate in the government of the state. Of course, it was still an oligarchy, but how different it was from neighboring countries, where power was in the hands of the ruling houses and the nobility!

Obviously, these drastic internal changes forced the Council of Magicians and the High Director to radically change the country's foreign policy. The war with Katolis had been the obsession of Ilehas, who had intended for that purpose all the economic and human resources of the nation. The priorities of Taleq and the dark magicians were different: first they had to ensure the internal stability of the country, then it was necessary to give new life to the national economy. None of these goals could be achieved as long as the country remained focused on war.

It was time to ask for peace.