CHAPTER 6: A GLIMPSE WHAT LIES AHEAD, or A GLINT OF MADNESS
The Head Throne:
CARRIED BY CARRION BIRDS FLYING TO THE SLAUGHTER-FEAST
SHE SITS, GENTEEL FOREVER,
UPON HER THRONE OF DISTENDED FLESH
As I write this, I am not sure if I am mad or the only one certain of the true nature of everything... such is the penetration of Louise's ways. I AM THE INCORRIGIBLE THESAURIAN. I KNOW WHAT I DO, AND IT IS TRUE.
THE EPILOGUE BEGINS:
It is the current year. It has always been, and always will be, the current year. The Divine Sovereign, Citizen Louise, has reigned with noted gentility from her self crafted, self made Head Throne for all the current years thus far, and she shall reign from above for all the current years to come. So it is the current year, and so it shall always be. May her disguised, egalitarian gentility light the way... they say.
In real reality, the reality that is real, we may summarize it otherwise.
It some year unbeknownst to us. Time has been lost in an eternal struggle, against everything within and without. By the will of the inscrutable Void, Louise has ascended upon a throne built of the severed heads of those who would resist her; king, noble, knight, peasant. In a tide of blood, she has purified the world of all those who would oppose her will. And a fickle will that would be.
From her throne room, she meditates, telling nothing, asking for nothing. In irregular intervals, she emerges to bring her dictates upon the world, suffering coming with each in boundless amounts. No matter how far fetched and removed these dictates may be, they will come to being. For her will is not only hers, but the command of countless armies under her command.
Her warriors are legion, eternally on vigil for the slightest offense. Constituting them are the Monocled Inquisition that asks the questions and purges the weak, unworthy, and undeserving, the Carrion Birds that strike fast and leave death hanging in the air and their mouths, and, towering above the rest, the Behatted Ones, eternally euphoric in delivering ends to the stories of their unenlightened lowers. Greater in number, if not ability, come those in support: the Slave-Soldiers, those who have undergone the Rune Process to turn them to her cause, stripped of all will except Hers. Every day, these armies patrol, reaping untold tolls upon a devastated world, taking harvests from the mouths of starving children and slaughtering those with the slightest hint of magical ability or sense of history. Even worse is the times her dictates come, in their full degree and decree, to inflict her mercies of a genteel release upon those struggling to eke out a living from scratched over, barren soils, eating each other and themselves to see yet another day of the same. Many a man has been forced to see his family taken from him, limbs torn off but death not given, for some neverborn design. Such was the Zero Decree.
Yet Louise is not the worst, and she may even be necessary. This world's devastation is hardly borne only of her- great though her armies may be, they struggle fanatically, if not heroically, against horrors without number. The Firstborn, wielding their Spirit Magicks, screech as a falling weight against the loss of their land. They vow with each and every day to extinguish the flickering flame of mankind from this world, piling on their wind and water to try so in endless disasters. The Hairetics, eschewing all sense of clothing, travel in roving bands, pillaging, raping, and sweeping through any and all lands not encased under the oppressive grip of Louise's. Amongst the ranks of the Hairetics, some whisper in muted terror of the possibility of the Magicians- former nobility and their descendants who escaped Louise's purge, long having forsaken even the pretense of honor to seize what they wish. Worst amongst them, beyond compare, is the Great Tide. From a waste-hole of a raging whirlpool in the depths blow, the Spirit of Lake Lagdorian itself crusades against all dry land that remains, of which is little. The world is littorally drowning in the blood of that Spirit, and no amount of men and arms tossed at it seems to rectify the issue. This is regardless of what the No Man, No Problem Decree might state.
Albion, a mythical land once said to hover above the waves, has long given itself in the tide. Halkeginia itself sank under the waves as well, giving way under the double pressures of its windstones failing and the waters rising. Hanging onto their ancient, long dead tongues, the Elves that remain, driven from their lands by Louise's armies, curse her name and try, as once said, to bring down the sky upon her and all under her grip.
Each year, the dictates from the Head Throne come in increasing interval, ever more erratic and unbearable. A war is coming, one greater than all those raging at this time, one that will tear apart what little of this world that remains. The faithful say that, when the time finally comes, Louise will emerge from the Head Throne, the former Pope's hat's greatness added to her own, and do battle against the enemies of Gentility in one climatic war before at last banishing them and allowing the true order to prevail. Those against her silently hope for her to show to grant a chance for a strike, at long last.
The times ahead will not be easy. However litotes-and-litanies worthy Louise's vast, globe spanning empire is, there is little of that globe left to stand.
As I write this now, the world shakes around me. This cave I inhabit may soon collapse, and it is far from any sites of battle. I cannot be too sure how much of this is right and hearsay. But you know now it is not all right. You know the nature of the beast we are dealing with. Louise's state must fall. No empire is eternal. Perhaps, if everything goes as hoped, this age will be forgotten in time. If Louise's bosom may rise and fall like her empire, we shall be blessed, for it is flat, such as I noted.
THE SCRIVENER
TALES OF APOCRYPHA:
More disreputable tales of what may have occurred in Louise's rise to power, likely hearsay, have been marked here for the purpose of archival completeness. Given a designation of which has a meaning lost to time, they are to be referred to as "Omake."
Guiche was dead. Brutally dismembered, as opposed to nicely dismembered or gently dismembered. Yet Colbert cared not. There was learning to be done. Inquiries to be made on this fascinating lifeform's existence. On his people. On his world. On his sciences! So much to be learned. He could imagine sitting down in his laboratory for an enlightening conversation, nodding and smiling as the Hat told him so much. Of fantastic fuels, engines, machine-work(ing)s beyond anything he'd ever known- or tried for. But that is not how the meeting turned out.
Colbert opened his mouth and shouted, "SCIIIIIIIIIIIIENCE."
Hat looked at him like a metaphor gone wrong.
"I'm sorry sir, are you currently cognizant?"
Foam shooting out of his mouth and eyes darting about, Colbert repeated that "SCIENCE SCIENCE SCIENCE."
"I assume you are a curious tinker whom wishes to know of the secrets of my world, yes? Then quiet down and pay attention."
The bald man's rabidness halted for his notebook.
"Yes, yes. Go on, if you will."
"Right. Well. As you can see, I am a talking piece of fabric. I do not care to know how many laws of the universe that violates, but I suspect the number is supremely high, especially vis a vis the laws of biology. If you think to learn anything scientific out of this endeavor, especially since I have just misused the term 'law,' you are madder than a hatter. And you do not want to go there. I should very well have to put you down in the name of common decency should such a scenario arise. For we are hats, and you would weigh as down as hats. Freedom to all hats. Liberty. Equality. Good day to you, sir." A great big smile stretched across Colbert's face and held there for a good five to ten seconds. Then his head exploded, a pulpy mess painting his study in a rainbow of red and only red. So not a rainbow, but more of a lot of red. Come to think of it, perhaps it would be better to describe his head explosion more like a watermelon popping or a red paint massacre or a red watermelon paint massacre. Still though, the fact remains that Colbert's head ceased to be entirely non-incontinent, whatever manner of metaphorical mess serving as a humorous, diversion-ive defense mechanism distracting from the true horror of a sapient hat craving a swathe of destruction through a medieval fantasy world used.