Episode 15: Five Long Years

Alessandro Komaru sits down beside the fireplace, handing his wife the glass of dark wine as he does. The wine is a gift from the vineyards of the Bellatrix, a heady red rich with the flavor of a thousand years, resonant oak, warm spice, and the barest whisper of plum. He knows it's not her favorite, but he trusts her to drink it.

She does.

He smiles at her. "It's a little strong for me as well, but we all must pretend to like it because, years and years ago, one of my ancestors did." She starts to respond, but he puts a finger to her lips. "Shh. You're beautiful in the firelight, and I just want to look at you and enjoy the night." She is dubious, but humors him. As he sips his wine, the flickering blaze turning his skin coppery, she yawns, and then yawns again. "Tired?" he asks with obvious sympathy, and as she nods, her eyes flutter and shut. He sighs. "So am I, my princess." With practiced ease, he catches the long-stemmed glass as it slips from her opening hand. Not a single drop of blood-red wine spills. As she slumps into the couch, he shifts her against the pillows, settling her in to rest comfortably among silk and velvet. Then, he pulls a letter from within his kimono. He sets it on the table before the couch, and places the glass atop it. The two empty medicinal packets, their contents dissolved in the depths of the wine, go beside the glass, silent explanation of his deception.

His lips brush hers one last time. Then, he goes.

In Sebastian Komaru's nursery, Alessandro slips past the unseeing nurse and drifts inside to press a kiss against the child's cheek. His youngest son, scarcely two years old, does not wake, and Alessandro moves away, silent and invisible, a shadow lost in the darkness of the Palace. At Hideo's door, he steps out of his veil of darkness long enough to smile at the guards and nod a greeting before entering. It does not surprise him at all when one, a young man with a face scarred from action in the East, tells him that Adriana is inside. He enters their bedchamber.

The twins are curled together in their bed, and in seeing them, Alessandro feels like an intruder, the unwitting voyeur to a scene he has no place in. He stands at the doorway, scarcely bearing to breath. The mood fades as suddenly as it began, turning Adriana and Hideo to seven-year-old siblings again. But as he steps forward towards the bed, he sees that Hideo's eyes are open, and watching him. The boy speaks first, voice scarcely carrying across the room. "You're leaving us."

Alessandro nods. Nothing can be hidden from the boy. "You'll have to take care of your sister for me. Keep her safe."

Hideo's voice is taut with emotion, scarcely a child's at all. "I will."

Alessandro hears his words. He leans down to kiss the boy, and then his daughter. Adriana stirs, but slumber does not surrender its grip upon her. The Crown Prince gazes upon the two children, fixing their memory in his heart, and then rises decisively.

Only when he reaches the door does he stop and turn. "Hideo," he asks, "what are you?"

The boy shakes his head at his father's question. "I don't know."

Alessandro closes his eyes for a moment. "Ah," he sighs, sad. "I love you both."

Hideo's eyes are golden in the darkness. "I know."

His last stop is the easiest, and soon the comfortable weight of the Royal Sword across his back joins the cool pressure of the Royal Mirror against his chest. Then, long strides carry the Crown Prince of Komaru into the crypts beneath the Royal Capital. There, amidst the skeletons of two thousand dead, the Veiled Guard waits.

It does not take long for the call to come.

Across the Eastern Furnace, atop the peak of a great pyramid of carved basalt, Ruriko Minamet staggers back as the Black Pharaoh bats her away with His arm. He turns His gaze to Komaru Meiko, her body suffused with the brightness of the Light, and His lips part to show only more darkness. His voice tears at the fabric of reality; already, it has drawn the dead back to stand beside Ruriko. Now, He speaks to Name Meiko. She has time to shout her defiance, and then He Unmakes her.

The cloud of Meiko's blood engulfs Ruriko, but before she can feel anything, it too vanishes. There is nothing where the proud lady once stood. Ruriko slices again at the body of the Pharaoh with her emerald sword, and again He swats her back like an insect.

Then, He Names her.

Ruriko stands still for an instant, and then makes her decision. She runs to the vaulting arch that enters the temple of the Black Pharaoh, touches the cold hardness of its stone, and speaks two words.

Shadow fills the portal, and the Veiled Guard step through.

Eight Masters come, each bearing a weapon born out of antiquity itself. Each wears the flowing cloak, and each wears the heavy armor of an age long past. Armed with a blade of flickering fire, a spear that sings, a chain and razor that moves of its own will, a whisper of bone-handled death, six of the Masters move to engage the Black Pharaoh.

Behind them, Alessandro Komaru steps through.

He follows two of the Masters to where Ruriko Minamet stands beside the fallen Roberto de Flourent, the shades of Verity Touraine and Kiya Minamet shining behind her shoulders. One of the Masters bends to where Roberto lies, and bathes him in healing radiance even as the Black Pharaoh Unmakes one of His attackers. The other Master, scarcely more than a boy, manages to smile at Ruriko as he confesses, "I opened your letter."

Alessandro Komaru chuckles. "I do that too, with my wife's mail. Please give me the sword, Ruriko." Another Master is annihilated.

Ruriko stares at the Crown Prince in shock, and stammers something about his duty at the End Times. Alessandro frowns, shakes his head, and says, "This is about my duty now. Give me the sword."

She does so. He holds it for a moment, gauging its weight, and then he looks at her. "How do I use it?"

The shadow of Kiya Minamet envelops him, and her voice whispers, "Let me show you."

Alessandro understands. He brandishes the blade, and charges the Black Pharaoh.

The Black Pharaoh finds Himself facing a single foe, holding His own Name in its hands. He shows it His teeth before He Names it, reveling in the reins of terror that He holds.

He Names it.

Its Name is Sokar.

The Black Pharaoh's smile vanishes.

How can it have His own name?

The mirror at Alessandro's chest flares with silvery light. He doesn't understand what has happened, not entirely, but he has seen enough battles to know an opening. As the Pharaoh's smile falters, he lunges at the dark man, and He staggers backwards to avoid Alessandro's slash.

As Alessandro beats and feints with the short jade sword, nimbly evading the fists of the Pharaoh, the Veiled Guard form a circle around him. This is a rhythm the Crown Prince knows, a whirling dance he excels at. Bit by bit, the two foes whittle away each other's defenses: the jade sword shatters the spear the Pharaoh conjures, even as the impossible strength of the Pharaoh's fist shatters the bones of Alessandro's left shoulder. Staggered by the pain, the Crown Prince struggles to maintain consciousness, and as he does, he sees an opening.

Nine inches of jade emerge from the Black Pharaoh's back.

Speaking as one, three voices - Ruriko, Kiya, Alessandro - name Him: Sokar.

The Black Pharaoh thunders His agony, and the sky itself opens up as He rages and begins to die. His flesh erupts in a fountain of darkness and light, the brightness of the Sun and the coils of a black serpent. Alessandro releases the sword, steps back, turns to Ruriko, and manages to smile, his sword arm held behind his body. Then, the black tendrils wrapped around his arm spread to engulf the entirety of his body. Still smiling, he slumps to one knee, and then falls.

The black tendrils slash the air wildly around him, and vanish. At their center lies a simple man, forty years old, dark-skinned and dead. The great black asp that lies atop his breast hisses once, and then fades into nothingness.

In the hilt of the great sword still slung on the Crown Prince's shoulder, the clear, golden crystal begins to glow.

At the base of the pyramid, ten thousand Easterners, Black Serpents no longer, turn their weapons against each other. Deprived of their unity against the army Sone Yukashii leads, they have no chance of victory.

Komaru has won Sokar's War.

-//-

The village of Mintfield lies in the north of the County of Bluedown, once a part of Touraine lands, but now firmly held by the Sone.

Cerise de Vereaux sits by the fireplace. She is pretty, but tired, and the last two months of her life have stripped away much of her youthful beauty. She holds her son Renato in her arms. Nine years old, the boy fusses at her affection more and more every day. She has come a long way from her home, all to save him. And, of course, to save herself.

The door shudders under a fierce kick, and Cerise screams. A second kick shatters its hinges, sending it crashing to the floor. The man that bursts through the door is disheveled and wild-looking, his clothes dirty and torn in places. Once, he might have been handsome, but now, only the sword he holds in his hand is clean.

His lips spread in a feral smile as he sees Cerise, and in his cultured voice, he croons to her, "There you are, bitch. You have no idea how much I will enjoy doing this."

She shrieks again, and tries to run upstairs, but her son thrashes in her grasp and kicks free. "I hate you!" he screams as he runs at his father.

Toyokuni Sone cuts him down without a second thought, and then continues his advance on the boy's mother.

Outside the house, Cerise's screaming draws a handful of frightened villagers from their homes. The twenty riders surrounding the house discourage them from doing more than watching and wondering.

Toyokuni catches up to Cerise halfway up the stairs, as the burly farmer that owns the house runs out to shout at him. Toyokuni briskly hamstrings Cerise and steps past her to slash the farmer across the face. His sword cleaves into the man's skull, and he has to kick the farmer's body off of it, spattering blood and brain matter across his boot.

Cerise sobs and wails as she tries to drag herself back down the stairwell. Toyokuni casually inspects the rest of the second floor. In one, he sees the farmer's wife, and waves his sword at her cheerfully, "I'll be with you shortly." He does not bother to look out the covered windows at all. Confident of no further surprises, he calmly walks back out to find Cerise at the base of the stairs.

"Cerise," he says patiently, "it didn't have to end this way. You shouldn't have run. If you'd just obeyed me, everything would have been fine."

She spits at him. He slashes the tip of his blade across her face, and chides her, "That was unnecessary. Come on, Cerise, say you're sorry."

Her tears mingle with the blood that flows freely down her face. Whimpering, she tries to drag herself to the doorway. Toyokuni kicks her in the ribcage, shattering bone. "Stop that."

She looks towards the corpse of her son, and mouths something gurgling and inarticulate before she collapses entirely. Toyokuni studies her for a moment. "Faking, are we?" He pokes her in the shoulder with the tip of his sword, and she barely moves. He sighs, "I guess I'll have to wait until you wake up to continue this."

A voice at the door chuckles coldly. "I wouldn't hold your breath." Amber Touraine steps into the house, sword and dagger in his hands.

Toyokuni bares his teeth, but keeps his voice level. "Excuse me? Who are you to address me in that way? You face the Marquis of Greenquilt, sirrah."

Amber chuckles, a harsh, hungry sound. "Someone who enjoys nothing as much as killing Sone bastards like you. Although watching you kill each other is a close second." He advances on Toyokuni.

The Sone marquis cuts tentatively at the Touraine, testing his defenses. Amber's riposte nearly takes Toyokuni's ear off. "So, the Touraine have decided to invade, have they?"

Amber shakes his head, and maneuvers to trap Toyokuni in a corner. "Just to get the woman. It's so sad that I was delayed by lack of support from the rest of my family. Truly, I will report her death and yours as a terrible tragedy. I only wish," he says, his voice dripping with venom, "that I could have arrived quickly enough to save her."

Then he lunges, and the world is not vast enough to grant Toyokuni shelter.

As Patience Touraine reads Amber Touraine's report, the premonition of doom she feels crystallizes into a cold, hard knot of horror. Tired, old, she crumples the report and hurls it into flames as she holds in tears and struggles to understand how Cerise de Vereaux came to die in Mintfield, her throat slit as she cradled the body of her dead son.

-//-

In the months following the Komaran victory over the Black Serpents and Alessandro Komaru's death, the Royal Council acknowledges Adriana Komaru as the new Crown Princess with scarcely a whisper of dissent. Kimiko Sone's appointment as Regent is equally smooth. Alessandro Komaru's funeral and internment in the family crypt beneath the capital marks four days of national mourning, and many of the kingdom's luminaries travel to attend it and Adriana's subsequent coronation. The Crown Princess herself is quiet and sad, but she recites the ancient oaths of her office without a single misstep. When she accepts the fealty of the kingdom's dukes and duchesses, her voice is strong and high, carrying like birdsong across the Hall of Kings. Rumors whisper that Ciarra Lacroix herself is present in the capital for the funeral and coronation, but if she is, she makes no public appearances.

In the East, organized military opposition ceases entirely with the death of the Black Pharaoh. The Minamet immediately find themselves besieged by marauding desert nomads, but they function in small groups with no obvious coordination. It is not a war that can ever be won, but the Minamet are experts in fighting it.

Years begin to pass.

As the Komaran army disbands in the east, it scatters thousands of armed peasants across the kingdom. Many become bandits, but soon even these find themselves tempted by a new possibility: across the desert, the Church of Inner Light has issued a call for armed settlers to colonize the Aten river valley and bring the Light of the Church to its inhabitants. The Church, self-appointed administrator of the river valley, offers land and power to any man who can hold it for five years, and though it stops short of offering actual noble titles, every member of the Royal Council can see that the landholders in the East are on a path to become as powerful as the kingdom's own nobility.

In the north, the Yuasa family turns introspective for a time. Once again, teams of rangers sweep the countryside searching for heretics and cultists, but this time the inquisition is both highly coordinated and extremely discreet. Aided by the destruction of the Pharaoh in the east, the Yuasa round up and purge more than fifty small Aten cults from their territory in the space of two years. In fact, the only trouble the Yuasa have is in the east, where the Minamet launch a series of lightning assaults and recapture half of the holdings they lost during Sokar's War. But before the Yuasa can prepare their counterattack, their rangers uncover an entirely new heresy.

Meanwhile, in the south, the death of the Marquis of Greenquilt in the contested County of Bluedown heightens tensions between the Sone and Touraine families. In the wake of his nephew's death and his wartime acclaim, Sone Yukashii consolidates his position as the leader of the Sone family by earning the support of Toyokuni's widow Mylene and marrying his newly-recognized son Cole to Midoko Komaru, Duchess of Miyako. Under Yukashii's hand, the Sone become model citizens, but the constant raids on both their southern border and the County of Bluedown keep his attention occupied. From her seat on the Royal Council, Sidonie Sone starts keeping a posted list of "unexplained" raids that she clearly attributes to the Touraine. A week after Sidonie posts her list of grievances, Patience Touraine answers with her own list of attacks on Touraine holdings. The matter comes to a sudden resolution when Lucien Skye peacefully ejects the Sone forces from the Duchy of Skye with his own mercenary army, composed of veterans of Sokar's War.

Back in the north, the Northern Heresy proves to be an insidious and widespread cult, particularly in the western reaches of the Yuasa holdings. Rooted in disdain for the leadership of the Yuasa family and the Church of Inner Light, the heresy's apocalyptic doctrines capitalize on the fear the Aten generated among the Yuasa populace. In the three years the Yuasa rangers spend fighting it, more than a dozen minor Yuasa are accused of aiding and abetting its efforts. Eventually, the Yuasa find the heresy's infiltration sufficiently pervasive that they are unable to resist the Church of Inner Light's enthusiastic offers to send Illuminators north to root out the source of the corruption. A dozen more minor Yuasa are executed by the Church, which then firmly decides that the heresy is centered in the Marquisate of Gibroth, domain of Xavior Yuasa.

In the chaos that follows, the Church of Inner Light assigns Sophia Bellatrix to be the new Radiance of Gibroth, and chastises Sachiko Yuasa for allowing such a heresy to persist in her family's ancestral lands. The Numina of the Shattered Blade is soon joined by Julien Bellatrix, Numinous of the White Branch, in leading a time-consuming hunt for heretics throughout the north.

As Sophia, Julien, and Sachiko decimate the Northern Heresy, Xavior Yuasa is called in front of the Royal Council to explain the prevalence of heretics in his lands. In a scathing denouncement of his once-protege, Faust Yuasa dissolves the Marquisate of Gibroth into a collection of viscounties. Faust's cutting commentary stands as the year's most vituperative speech for an entire hour, until Royal Council member Lissende Komaru outdoes him. She launches a particularly brutal recounting of Faust Yuasa's enthusiasm for marrying the late Crown Prince's dear cousin Romana Komaru, a lady who served Alessandro faithfully throughout the Interregnum, to someone whom the revered duke would then attempt to disenfranchise so violently. In her sweet, even voice, Lissende insinuates very directly that now might be the time for Faust to consider retiring, since his judgment in allies is so obviously deteriorating with his advanced age. It is Lissende's second scornful performance during Adriana's reign, and it is far more polished than her earlier abuse of Nadeshiko Komaru for her elopement with Jet Touraine, the repercussions of which still strain relations between the Bellatrix and Komaru families.

The Church's success in fighting the Northern Heresy brings a wave of increased enthusiasm for enforcing religious orthodoxy. In the east, the Church's colonists occupy over a third of the Aten river valley. With one exception, the entire region is firmly in the hands of the Church. That exception is the city of Spear, held by Ciarra Lacroix's forces. The Church balks at the taxes Ciarra's forces levy on caravans passing through Spear, and whispers at the forbidden sorceries practiced in the Castle of Hope, to which no Church Illuminators are ever admitted. The matter comes to a head when a fight breaks out between Ciarra's men and the Church's troops in a tavern outside Hope. At the news that the brother of a prominent Illuminatus was killed in the fight, Madelyn Courant, Numina of the Banner of the Sun, interdicts the city of Spear and excommunicates the inhabitants of Hope. Hope's occupants respond by making it prohibitively expensive for the Church to move materiel through Spear.

As tensions between the Church and the Dawning Star increase, another tragedy strikes the Royal Family.

No mother should have to bury her children.

The day starts in innocence, with a picnic in the hills north of Komaru City. With an escort of a half-dozen Royal Guards and four nurses, the Royal Children and their guests do not want for attendants. But somehow the children slip away from their chaperones and find their way to a cliff overlooking the river that wends its way down from the Iron Peaks to the east. As Sebastian Komaru treads the edge of the gorge, showing his siblings and his friends how brave he is, the rock of the cliff gives way. He tumbles down the twenty-foot drop into the river, and though Hideo and Adriana, half-panicked but working together with unconscious ease, clamber down after him, they cannot reach him before the river sweeps him away.

His body washes up a quarter of a mile down the river.

No mother should have to bury her children.

Kimiko Sone, Regent of All Komaru, walks with her daughter and her son at Sebastian's funeral as the rain drizzles down on the procession. When the casket reaches the Hall of Kings, they stop and wait as face after face offers the Royal Family its condolences.

Then, at the last, Lucien Skye stops before the Regent and the Crown Princess. He bows his head, and speaks. "Your Royal Highnesses, I feel your loss as keenly as if Sebastian had been my own child. If there is anything I can do to ease the pain of the tragedy, do not hesitate to let me know. I have left my estates in the hands of my stewards, and will remain here in the capital indefinitely."

In the 223rd year of Paraceln's Age, the kingdom has mourned for five years, and now mourns again. But the tides of fate, so long peaceful, will be balked no longer. Once again, Verity's successors will answer the call to the Castle of the Sea.