Chapter 9 (Part I): Revolution

Officers of the Law face a difficult situation when a regime changes hands violently. During the interregnum there is no clear or binding law. There are only the values and morals that brought the man to the service of the public to begin with. A man who donned the guard’s uniform to bully others will find the opportunity to indulge his abusive nature unfettered, but a man who took the oath to protect and serve with sincerity in his heart will find no greater opportunity to prove his valor.

-        Kingstown Guard Captain Retger Schroeder addressing the city’s remaining guardsmen the day after the death of King Hylas.

With the king’s death, Syliva had declared herself queen and even held a rather awkward coronation ceremony for herself the next evening at the amphitheater outside of the city. She spoke at great length about the inadequacy of the previous ruler, her nebulous plans for the future of their kingdom, her intentions regarding neighboring countries, and generally praised the good fortune of the people for being blessed with her leadership. Once Syliva’s speech was finished, she returned to Kingstown and immediately began making numerous appointments to bureaucratic offices and military posts in order to promote her “Firebrands” into key positions.

Most of the Firebrands were Nationalist extremists who’d distinguished themselves for their participation in the ongoing street violence, particularly the night of the king’s death. However, some moderate Nationalists practically trampled each other to join the Firebrands when they thought they saw a ground-floor opportunity for success under the auspices of a new regime, and some of Syliva’s closer, more reliable business partners were given public offices. They took them gladly, like wolves being offered the job of shepherd.

Contrary to Baryd's promises, though, most of the people, even among the Nationalists, had not taken Syliva’s succession well. Many were disturbed when they heard what had happened. The casual, even gleeful way with which the dragon had dispatched the king, his children, his servants, and the city guards assigned to the mansion terrified them. Sylvia had known she couldn’t count on the support from the moderate Nationalists for very long, but she had, in fact, lost most of it on day one.

Some extreme Monarchists celebrated the end of what they saw as a corrupt bloodline but for the most part they also were frightened by the dragon’s sudden, aggressive move to seize control of the kingdom. The Neo-Monarchists, though, were not frightened - they were outraged. They’d had no love for the king but they also felt the dragon had no business involving itself in the politics of Caelia’s people. They shouted that only a person could rule over people, and that Syliva was not a person. She arranged for a court ruling to legally declare that dragons are people (for certain legal purposes, anyway) but that didn’t seem to assuage them. Not only did the Neo-Monarchists vilify Syliva, they now posthumously declared King Hylas a tragic hero, spreading the story of how he had confronted the dragon and demanded that his guards should be spared. 

Of course, now that Syliva had declared herself queen she felt comfortable officially declaring threats to her life or sovereignty to be acts of treason and had basically declared all Neo-Monarchists to be enemies of the state. She attempted to deploy the guard against them, but found that much of the guard had deserted their posts after what she did to the men stationed at the king’s mansion. She still had her personal security forces though, and her Firebrands, so she unleashed them onto the streets of the city, tasking them to hunt down the Neo-Monarchists and arrest them.

The Firebrands, though, were difficult to manage, and Syliva wasn’t especially motivated to do so, so that had gotten out of her claws fairly quickly. She felt reasonably comfortable though lounging upon one of the castle’s parapets and watching the violence roil below. 

Whoever died, it was fairly entertaining either way.
While Syliva basked in chaos, on the far side of the city Vinny fretted over Azraea’s intentions, “This would be considerably less subtle than my normal approach…”

“Yes,” Azraea said as she put the finishing touches on her makeup, “and after giving it some thought, I realize it doesn’t really promote the interests of your people, so it was wrong of me to ask you to participate in this.”

“Well…” Vinny sighed, “There are plenty of ethnic Gnomans out there who are citizens of this kingdom, so while helping you get involved this way might not serve the Gnoman Empire… some of ‘my people’ are still in danger out there.”

“If that’s how you feel, then perhaps the best thing would be for you to follow at a distance and ‘observe’. I’ll leave it to your judgment whether and when you should get involved.”

“Fair enough,” he agreed and began gathering up his own things, “What’s with the get up?”

Azraea wore the same black outfit Vinny had gotten for her the night they snuck onto campus, but now wore her fatigued leather jacket over it. The jacket offered more emotional protection than physical protection, but she also thought the ensemble just looked, well… rebellious. She figured he was probably referring to the garish makeup she’d stopped to apply, though. She’d painted her face coal black, and then over that she’d quickly painted on a bright white skull.

“Do you know why I chose to study necromancy?” she asked.

“No, actually.”

“The Arbarii were once supposed to have been masters of it. Supposedly, before they became the nomadic traders they are today, they had a sizable kingdom on the other side of the ice fields that lie north of here.”

Vinny whistled, “That’s gotta be a long way away. I didn’t even know there was anything north of the ice.”

“There isn’t,” Azraea said, “The Arbarii kingdom was on the other side of the world. And it was unassailable. It wasn’t an aggressive kingdom, but it couldn’t be felled because the people were masters of necromancy – it was learning about my cultural heritage that first got me so interested in the art. I experienced a sort of paradox growing up in this kingdom; almost everybody wanted me to act ‘white’, but no one ever let me forget I wasn’t. I think because of that it became very important for me to feel I had some sort of connection to my ancestors. I’m Caelian, first and foremost. I was born here, I was raised here, and I will probably die here. But it’s always helped me to remember that I’m not a Caelian whose skin is the wrong color; I’m a Caelian whose people came from the other side of the world, and the color of my skin, as much as it makes me standout in this place, honors the people who lived and died bringing me to this place and time.”

“So how did necromancy make the Arbarii unbeatable?”

Azraea smiled. Vinny was much like Kaira; the important part of the conversation for him was the part that pertained to armed conflict. “Every citizen laid to rest was given spectacular attention, preserved carefully, because in the event that the kingdom was attacked, they could be raised to fight in its defense. Not forever, of course, but long enough to overwhelm their attackers with sheer numbers, and then return to their tombs.”

“So anyone who attacked your ancestor’s kingdom had to fight every Arbarii that ever lived?”

“That might be an exaggeration, but that was certainly the idea. Of course, it went against their necromantic philosophies to summon the dead to do things for them, as opposed to with them, so the living people of the kingdom always accompanied them into battle. I don’t know if it was a strategic decision or just an aesthetic matter, but in order to make it difficult for enemies to differentiate the living soldiers from the dead ones, every soldier decorated himself with the same face paint that was applied to the dead when they were interred. Over time the paints became very ornate, a real art, but I didn’t want to spend all afternoon doing this so I’m afraid it’s a bit slapdash.”

“I suppose it’s appropriate now,” Vinny nodded.

“I thought so,” Azraea nodded, “Also I think it looks a little scary.”

“What happened to your ancestors, though?” Vinny asked, “How were they beaten?”

“Oh, plague,” Azraea said flatly, “Nasty thing carried by insects. The infected basically turned into living corpses, who just staggered around spreading it further. For a kingdom that had mastered the realm of the undead, being confronted with the unalive was mind-boggling, and the civilization partly collapsed just from the panic and philosophical schisms that followed. The northernmost Arbarii, those who made their living trading across the ice fields with this side of the world, were able to move beyond the range of the insects that spread the disease. Unfortunately, they had to move so far north that they could never permanently settle in any one place – the resources simply weren’t there to sustain a new, stationary civilization.”

“And that’s why the Arbarii are nomadic traders, now,” Vinny nodded.

“When the plague cleared away in the old kingdom, the Arbarii's rivals swept in eagerly and occupied the territory, destroying all of the crypts and mausoleums, and burning every corpse they could find. Art, literature, everything of cultural importance was either destroyed or, I hope, shipped off to other places as trophies. Worst of all, any Arbarii who’d survived the plague were taken as slaves. Those who were eking out a living on the ice escaped that fate, but they had no means of retaking their lands. In the end, they even had to swallow their pride and do business with the people who’d taken away their homes and enslaved their brothers. The Arbarii in the north couldn’t farm much, so their livelihood came primarily from trading between the two sides of the world that sustained them.”

“I didn’t think of Caelia as being an especially strong trader,” Vinny said, “I certainly didn’t know it did business with the other side of the world.”

“It did, for centuries, but after the dragon took over Caelia’s surpluses quickly dwindled until there wasn’t enough to export. No exports from Caelia, and no gold to purchase imports from across the ice, meant less and less trade. Many Arbarii traders made one final trip to this side of the world, and just stayed here.”

“Your family?”

“Yes. I imagine the fact that we immigrated to this country at the beginning of a two hundred year recession may have contributed to our being unwelcome, though Arbarii immigrants certainly weren’t the cause of this kingdom’s problems. That said, it doesn’t mean the descendant of an Arbarii immigrant can’t help solve this kingdom’s problems.”