Hey, if any of you are concerned that this story seems to be getting progressively darker and more sad, I have written a segment concerning that at the very bottom of the page, but I warn you that it is sort of long.
Other than that, enjoy the next chapter from Mercury's POV.
Fates carved in stone
Mercury POV(early spring of 294 AA)
"It is too hot", Mercury scoffed at the cup of tea presented to him.
"I am sorry, my lord, I will do better in the future", Kanra, his replacement aide, apologized and moved to remove the tea from his sight.
He stopped her hand before it had a chance to reach the tray with the two porcelain cups, one full and the other still unused, along with a teapot on it, and said, "no, leave it".
"Yes, my lord", Kanra meekly obeyed, curtsied and moved back, as if he could disintegrate her flesh by a simple touch. Well, he probably could, but that would be terribly messy and a complete waste of energy and a somewhat competent aide.
Kanra was a human female in her mid-twenties with long auburn hair and hazel eyes, who had replaced Ilumëo as his aide during the final stages of her pregnancy. When Mercury had first been introduced to her, she had curtsied at every opportunity, and even now, three weeks after their first meeting, she had yet to stop the insistent curtsying.
Mercury did not like her overly submissive nature. It was far too meek to do this job to his liking. If he had complained that his tea was too hot to Ilumëo, she would have bluntly told him to blow on it if it bothered him that much, though, now that Mercury thought about it, she would likely not have gotten the tea herself in the first place.
That was another of Kanra's qualities that he did not like. He would say fetch and she would immediately fetch. Never even once did it occur to her to delegate such menial tasks to others, and because she lacked that trait, she was falling behind in keeping up with his schedule.
Part of why Mercury kept giving her these tasks and kept complaining about menial things, like getting him a new pen because his current one was off in some miniscule way or telling her that one of his pictures looked slightly crooked, was because he was hoping that she would eventually show some backbone.
An aide, or his aide at least, should have enough backbone to be able to be stared down by the most powerful men and women in the Alliance and not flinch, something that Kanra certainly could not boast off, but neither could she show too much backbone and begin to refuse his serious orders.
It was a delicate balance, but one that had been mastered by every aide de camp provided by the Uluth family for four centuries now. In the end, Mercury could console himself with only having to put up with her for another two months.
"Would that be all, my lord?", Kanra questioned in her usual submissive tone.
"No, have some biscuits brought in here as well. Lord Karl prefers the brown ones with sugar frosting", Mercury ordered, and almost before he had finished, she had run off to fetch the items herself, a peon through and through.
Why Ilumëo had saddled him with this one, Mercury did not know. Perhaps her more competent ones had some other failures that were worse than this one's. Mercury trusted that Ilumëo had had her reasons for doing as she did, but even Mushu had picked up on the girl's overly submissive nature and constantly treated her as if her place in his pack was much lower than even the newest of Mercury's Varangian guards.
Kanra soon after returned with a bowl full of the biscuits that he had requested, and soon after, Lord Karl requested entrance, despite being invited here by Mercury. Mercury studied the man's miniscule expression change as he slowly came to grips with the tea and biscuits on the desk.
Mercury had not specified why he had invited him here in his invitation, and it had certainly been telling that the man's obvious concern, when you looked past the layers of false confidence and complacency, was whether this would be the time when his death sentence would be given to him.
"Please, have a seat, Lord Karl", Mercury politely gestured to the empty chair on the other side of the desk.
"…Thank you, Lord Mercury", the man replied and warily sat down, obviously still not trusting Mercury's intentions.
Kanra quickly set about filling the previously unused teacup, not even bothering to ask whether he wanted something in it, as Mercury had specified that none should be present at the table. Perhaps he should have her transferred to a maid position instead? It would certainly fit her submissive and curtsying nature better.
"Have a biscuit", Mercury offered, "I think that they are to your liking". They were his favourites after all.
The tea was the man's favourite brand as well, and the lack of any additives at the table was also because Mercury knew that the man never took any in his tea. Mercury could actually see the earl's eyes shifting from the tea to the biscuits to the tray without anything to put in the tea, and just to rub it in, Mercury slowly and purposely stretched out and took a biscuit, before meticulously taking a bite of it.
Other people would have assumed that he did it to show that they were not poisoned, but that was hardly the case for Mercury. No, Mercury did it because he knew that the earl would understand exactly what he was doing. He was not telling him that it was not poisoned, as much as he was all but screaming that he knew all of the earl's private little traits and habits.
"My favourites", Lord Karl finally decided to continue being polite and quickly reached for a biscuit, "you must have done your homework on me".
"I have", Mercury admitted with a faint smile. It truly was amusing to see for how long the earl would continue to keep up the façade, but that was not why he had called him here, "and I understand that you lost your eldest son in the war and no longer consider the second-eldest as your son?"
"Yes, he ran off with a harlot and took the family heirloom and some jewels with him", Lord Karl lied.
"I see, then I regret to inform you that my patrols found his body earlier this week", Mercury lied, "he appeared to have been robbed by bandits".
"I already only had one living son", the earl declared, even though Mercury could see his jaw working at the tale that both of them knew was a lie.
"And a daughter", Mercury added.
Lord Karl's eyes snapped to Mercury's in mere fractions of a second. They were filled with worry and fear at what Mercury might do to his little girl.
"Do not worry, I am far too old for her, and already married besides", the last bit was tacked along mostly as an afterthought, but Mercury was still able to witness the earl relax considerably, now that his worst fears had been waylaid.
Before the earl could utter another syllable, Mercury cut him off by continuing, "but I know certain others that are neither. Tell me, Lord Karl, would you be willing to strengthen your bonds to the Alliance provincial government by marriage?"
It was a trick question, as there really only was one acceptable answer in such a situation. Refusing would attract far too much attention as to why he would not want his daughter wed to the best possible match, especially for a man in Lord Karl's position.
"Well, it is not normally my practice to sell my children off to strangers that they have never even met", the earl tried to go for a third option; stalling.
"Hmm, but I thought that your youngest son, Garth was it, was to wed the duke of Ceunon's daughter in the place of his elder brother, which died honourably in battle last year, and it is my understanding that neither of the two have ever laid eyes upon one another", Mercury noted, before he decided to toss the man a rope, "but I am sure that that situation is different from the one that I am proposing. I will of course allow you to get acquainted with the one that I have in mind before anything becomes solid".
"Thank you", Lord Karl breathed out a sigh of relief, "who do have in mind anyway?"
"Well, you see, due to certain losses in the nobility over the course of the last year, I have been forced to bring in others to fill the vacant positions", Mercury explained, "the newest addition will take up the title of duke of Aberon, and he is looking to strengthening his tie to the province with a marriage through his 15 year old son".
Lord Karl gulped as he digested the news. It was easy for Mercury to anticipate what went through the man's head. Not only would his daughter's husband, and any future children of theirs, inherit far more lands and estates than his remaining son ever would, but the fact that the boy was only 15 ensured that he was not yet too old to have his thoughts influenced.
The offer was so good in fact that no sane person would ever dare to refuse it…unless they thought that the Alliance's grip on the province for some reason would shatter and all of the nobles and their families, which it had brought in, would be rounded up and executed.
It was one of Mercury's favoured tactics to ensure that the Alliance kept its presence solid throughout some of the more troublesome provinces, as intermarrying with the citizens of the particular province was a quick way to blur the line between us and them.
If Lord Karl ended up agreeing to the offer, and there really were no reasonable justifications not to, besides instigating a rebellion, that is, as though Mercury had never met the kid in question personally, he had been assured that he was quite charming and apparently had a thing for girls with black hair.
"I am sure that we could arrange for a few meetings to let the kids meet each other and see where it goes from there", Lord Karl grudgingly said.
"I am sure that they will be quite productive", Mercury showed a reassuring smile, "now, as I am sure that you are quite busy, I will not take up any more of your time".
"Not at all, my lord, meeting with you in person was my pleasure", Lord Karl politely answered and rose from his seat to properly make a small bow, before he excused himself from the room.
After he had left, Mercury turned to Kanra, whom had remained quiet and out of sight for the most of the meeting, and curtly said, "you are free for today after you have had this tray removed and told my next appointment that I finished earlier than expected".
"Yes, my lord", she curtsied and began picking up the tray and the used porcelain cups, which were only half-empty, before she tried curtsying once more with the filled tray in her hands, and only after that did she finally leave the room to do the only thing that he had needed her specifically to do.
After she had left, Mercury sighed in exhaustion. It was becoming more and more troublesome to keep up the façade and it was beginning to affect his manners as well. Damn them for attacking him after such a short while. It would have been far better for his schedule if they had chosen to attack later on, like after next month's event for example.
It was not even like he had disposed of any concerns during the failed ambush. All of the dead had been mere pawns on his board anyway, pawns that would have been removed in time as well, and the one important thing that he had actually gained from the battle could have easily been gained at a later time as well.
Still, he had enjoyed five months of relative peace since the ambush, and he supposed that if it had not been this group, then it might have been another instead. Probably the elven one, but Mercury had other plans for dealing with that one soon enough.
The months of peace had enabled him to show the ordinary citizens of Albion and Lav Fjäll that as long as they kept doing what they had always done, there would not be all that much of a change to their daily life, not yet anyway.
As soon as they were ready, he would begin to introduce the changes, privileges and duties that were mandatory for the rest of the Alliance citizens, and only once the province had been properly stabilized would the citizens be allowed to vote on whom they wanted to represent them in the Tribunal.
It had been one of Mercury's first lessons about conquering foreign populaces; institute change slowly, because no populace likes changes forced upon them, even if the changes are quite clearly beneficial for them.
Fear was a good tool to keep a rebellious populace from rebelling, which was something that Mercury knew quite a lot about, but if you wanted to ever be able to turn your back on them, then fear was a poor long-term strategy to employ.
Contentment on the other hand made sure that nobody would even bother to begin thinking rebellious thoughts, and Mercury had discovered that the key to ensuring that a populace was content did not lie in either patriotism or concepts of chivalrous leaders.
No, though many noblemen enjoyed the notion that their subjects loved them because they were chivalrous and righteous, Mercury had managed to outlive them all by keeping in mind that most people had simple desires.
People wanted to be fed, make sure that their children could grow up with hopes for a better future and that they could have something to spend their time on. The first and the third were easily obtained by simply allowing them to continue whatever job that they had before the invasion, and the second usually came as they realized that if their children had any special talents, then there were plenty of scholarships to schools that could give them the chance of a better future than their parents.
Once all of the basic demands had been met, you just needed to provide entertainment to distract them in their spare time, which was usually done by a mixture of reading The Report and providing certain sport tournaments for them to gather at and watch.
The commoners would let you get away with quite a lot as long as you kept them fed and entertained, whereas keeping nobles and other powerhouses in line took a far different approach. Mercury should know, considering that he had managed to sneak a law through the Tribunal, which entitled him to issue Special Orders, the effects of which were nationwide and required a three fourths agreed upon Tribunal vote to be repealed, and all he had to do to get it ratified was to get the consent of three ranking supreme commanders and at least one archduke, all of which were easily obtained.
The intent that the law had been passed under was to allow Mercury to secure Alliance interests if he encountered a foreign threat in a province and had no time to go through the usual much slower channels to put a stop to it, and since Mercury had been careful to not use it overly much, not unless he absolutely had to, the amount of people that even knew that it existed was quite small.
In fact, Mercury had used this privilege of his quite recently, and as if he could sense that Mercury's thoughts had turned to that subject, his next appointment knocked on the door at that very moment.
"My lord, everything has been readied for your arrival", Supreme Commander Rowannon, a dark skinned human in his late fifties, bowed as he entered the room, quickly followed by Commander Elladan of Mercury's Varangian Guard, who said, "I would like to provide your escort during this, my lord".
"Suit yourself", Mercury shrugged and rose from his chair, not bothering to argue that there were more important things that the commander could use his time on, "I am sure that it will be quite dull. Now, Supreme Commander Rowannon, lead the way".
The trio quickly departed the office with Supreme Commander Rowannon in the front, Mercury in the middle and Elladan at the back. When they reached the hallway leading to Mercury's office, four of the stationed Varangian guards moved to follow them to provide an escort, but Elladan waved them away, already knowing that Mercury wanted the group as small as possible to avoid drawing attention.
Once they reached halfway down the hall, which was decorated by having the entire Rider War carved into the sides of the marble hallway, Supreme Commander Rowannon looked both ways to ensure that no unwanted eyes were present, before he pushed down the head of a small dragon carving on the wall and then pulled down on the handle of a torch-turned-noflam.
Almost completely silently because of the freshly oiled hinges, a door appeared in the midst of the carved picture, which swung inwards to allow the trio to pass through, before it closed again behind them. They were now in a narrow tunnel that was lit by the original dwarven lanterns, instead of the Alliance's noflam versions.
These tunnels, which quickly began to descend downwards, were not constructs that Mercury had had built, but rather something that had been discovered when they had searched the palace for exactly these kind of secret getaways back when Mercury had first taken up residency in Ilirea Castle.
Soon enough, the walls transformed from cleanly cut stone blocks to a solid rock tunnel. They were now travelling inside the very cliff that Ilirea Castle was placed on. The tunnel continued for quite a while after that, eventually transforming into one of dirt walls with wooden support beams preventing the walls from caving in, until they finally began to go upwards again.
The trio eventually climbed up a ladder and through a trapdoor into a seemingly abandoned house, though it was far from abandoned, as four guards were constantly posted here around the clock. It was however convenient to allow those on the outside to continue assuming that it was abandoned.
The four guards handed each of the three a regular brown unassuming cloak, which they quickly put on, but kept the hoods down, as it would draw more attention if they were up. Mercury received a pair of coloured contact lenses to conceal his eyes, which he had found to be enough to fool all but those that saw him on a regular basis, as everyone kept expecting to see his silvery dragon-like eyes and therefore did not look twice upon any that did not have them.
After finishing with their disguises, the trio exited the house unnoticed and suddenly found themselves in the south-western part of Ilirea. They received some horses from a checkpoint underway, and before they knew it, they had crossed through the gates of the outer wall without so much as a second glance by the guards there.
Once out, Mercury and his two companions rode south for quite a while, before they headed east at a particular crossroad and then north a short while later. Confident that they had lost all possible pursuers, the trio continued on to a nearby fort, which had many guards patrolling the outer walls.
Only by revealing his identity and telling the password to the guards in front of the moat surrounding fort did Supreme Commander Rowannon get them to lower the drawbridge. Once the trio were inside the fort, the drawbridge was immediately closed again and Mercury's and Elladan's identities were confirmed, before they were allowed to proceed inside the actual fort.
"I hope that our security measures are to your satisfaction, my lord", Supreme Commander Rowannon asked as they moved through the halls of the fort.
"They appear adequate, but your greatest strength is still your anonymity. Make sure to retain that", Mercury answered, "which one has been prepared for me first?"
"Number 207, my lord", Supreme Commander Rowannon answered, but upon encountering a stern look from Mercury, he elaborated, "uhm, a white specimen of approximately 600-800 years of age upon expulsion according to calculations of its size. It appeared to act as a spokesperson for the rest when we first encountered it".
"Excellent, I believe that I know that one", Mercury nodded as he digested the information.
They passed several guards on their way, all dökkálfar warriors that were supposed to be masters of mental defence, until they finally reached a solid iron door, which was where Supreme Commander Rowannon parted from the other two to continue his other duties, before Mercury and Elladan proceeded inside.
The room inside was an ordinary prison cell, if rather well-lit, and on either side of the inside of the door, a ra'zac guard equipped with a two-handed battle-axe stood at attention. Mercury wordlessly nodded to each of them, upon which they wordlessly nodded back, before he moved to sit in the chair on the opposite side from the pedestal that was placed at the centre of the room from where the door was, thereby not obstructing the view of the pedestal from the ra'zac guards.
Elladan took up position at Mercury's shoulder, but remained stoic and quiet, as he was supposed to. There was placed a red pillow on top of the stone pedestal directly in front of Mercury, and atop the pillow, there was an enormous white gemstone, which could have fooled anyone into thinking that it was a diamond if not for the swirling lights inside of it.
Without a word, Mercury extended his mind towards the eldunarí and released the first of the spells that kept it dormant. Upon release, he felt an entity stir from within, but he had not removed the spells that stopped it from extending its consciousness beyond its own eldunarí, so there was nowhere else for it to go than meet with Mercury's conscious at the edge of its mental border.
Hello Umaroth, it has been a while, Mercury greeted the remnants of the old dragon.
You!, Umaroth exclaimed, you were responsible for those men that stormed the sacred chamber, and now you have taken me somewhere that I do not recognize. What is the meaning of this? Even if Estildirin has fallen, help will come-
You have been asleep for almost a year now, Mercury cut him off, Alagaësia, as you know it, fell two months after Estildirin did. And before you attempt anything reckless, allow me to inform you that there are two ra'zac guards, whose minds you cannot even perceive, standing ready to destroy your eldunarí the moment that they suspect that something might be wrong.
The old remnant of a dragon seemed to mull this over for a while, no doubt debating the validity of his statement, before it suddenly perked up, you have changed.
Yes, everyone does eventually, Mercury acknowledged, though he suspected that the old dragon meant something else.
No, I meant that you, your essence, have changed, Umaroth elaborated, you are-
I am, Mercury cut him off again.
…Why?, the question was a loaded one, as it carried many questions behind it, but Mercury chose to answer the most important of them first.
I needed more time, he mentally shrugged, careful not to let the others in the room glean anything from their conversation, after Kilgharrah died, I lost the link that provided me with eternal youth. It took quite a while before I started aging again, nearly three decades, and since it started out very slowly, it took another decade before I even noticed it. I had to find a way to stall the aging effects, and this one was proven to work, though with certain side-effects that I had to find a way to negate before I could begin the process.
So you mean that you are still in control?, Umaroth wanted to clarify.
Yes, the other one is safely locked away at the centre of what you perceive as my mind, Mercury agreed, it takes a bit of effort to keep It there, but I cannot complain about the results, as he said the last bit, he showed Umaroth a mental picture of himself as he looked in the mirror from earlier that day.
How has anyone not noticed yet?, Umaroth asked confused, surely someone must have initiated mental contact and found out as I did?
Not really, since I am already considered unique, no one questions that this is how my mind should feel like, Mercury denied, and since the most obvious physical effects are easily changed, no one suspects a thing, though maintaining the change is apparently rather straining for the body.
…Why are you revealing all of this to me?, Umaroth wanted to know, before he came up with the answer himself, you are not planning on letting me live.
No, your fate is already set in stone, as is mine, Mercury mentally shrugged, I only want to offer you the chance to pass on bits of the wisdom that you have accumulated over the years and want future generations to know of, with the obvious exception of the topic of our previous discussion.
…Is it an offer given solely to me?, Umaroth asked nervous.
No, I have sentenced all eldunarya to death, Mercury revealed, every eldunarí will be given the offer beforehand, and I can say that quite a few of you accepted your fate with dignity and chose to leave something of worth behind. The collective tomes of your wisdom will be copied and distributed out to all public libraries across the Alliance.
You cannot proceed with this!, Umaroth's eldunarí flared in anger, but Mercury waved the ra'zac guards away from destroying it then and there.
I can and I will, Mercury stated sternly, there is nothing that you, or anyone, can do to stop me from this.
If you continue, the consequences will be severe, Umaroth threatened.
They always are, Mercury scoffed at the threat, what makes you think that I care about anything that you do to this body? It is replaceable.
Mercury knew that Umaroth's threat would be meaningless in comparison with his endgame goals, even if the threat was genuine and doable, which Mercury did not believe that it was, as the many spells placed around each of the eldunarya prevented them from influencing the outside world.
Anyway, I have a busy schedule, so I need your answer now, Mercury demanded impatiently, will you or will you not contribute any last bits of wisdom to the future generations?
I would rather die than give you a single bit of advice but this one; do not proceed if you know what is best for you, Umaroth angrily said.
And so you will, Mercury said the final words before raising the spells that put Umaroth back to sleep once again.
"This one refused, send in the next one", he ordered aloud. It would be quite a busy few weeks if he had to use even a fraction of the time that he had used on Umaroth on the rest as well.
The next one, number 209, was an eldunarí that made Umaroth's look like a pebble. Mercury learned that its name was Valdr, but whether the former dragon even understood what Mercury was trying to communicate the best that he knew how to, he did not know.
Its thinking was convoluted and strange, and the answer that it gave him after he had finished trying to explain what he wanted was equally so. It looked like flashes of memories put together to tell a story, though a fractured one that went back and forth in time and even in itself.
Mercury wrote it down as poetry and moved on.
...And Mercury is being a bit more diabolical, so no new surprises there.
And now for the little speech that I promised:
First of all, I would like to say that I know that it has been kind of dark lately. The reason for this is not because I desired the darkness for the sake of darkness, but because the storyline simply demanded that it be as such. Loivissa has been a subject of much abuse so far, but given that she is opposed to Mercury and wants to kill him(and that she was captured by him at the very start), there would not have been that many other routes for her to follow than the one that I have written. To put it frankly, everything that happens in this story is a cascade effect of earlier decisions and actions(sometimes unintended by the characters, but always intended by me to produce a certain end result).
For instance; I needed Vanir to be guilty about surviving his escape and therefore pledge fealty to Loivissa. To do that, I needed someone important to die in his stead(Blödhgarm), whom he could feel guilty towards. I then needed to find a way to have Blödhgarm actually be in Alagaësia and also be motivated to make this decision. Hence, I made him Islanzadi's bodyguard/advisor and kept mentioning that he was at her side whenever I could to make it plausible that he would do this.
So you see, during the planning of this story, I often had to start by saying what my end result should be like, and then work backwards with the how and why until it became feasible, which is why it has turned out as dark as it has. And all for the want of a nail...
Though I know that I labelled this story tragic, I mostly did so because of how dark most of its story was. Not because of its ending.