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Firemoon 41, 2553 R.M. — Bladrill Castle, Bladrill, Litheran
HIS VICTORY WAS ASSURED. His power was unchecked, his authority unlimited. Nobody would oppose him. Nobody could oppose him. Not until it was forever too late.
King Uthak Tairyth allowed a wry grin to creep onto his handsome face. Decades of planning were finally about to come to fruition. With just a snap of his fingers, Litheran would move at his command.
Tairyth sat up straight in his silver-plated throne. Clutching his regal scepter in one hand, adjusting his high crown with the other to put on his most kingly air, he turned to one of his valets and said in his gentlest voice, “Son, we are in need of a scribe. Would you find one for us, please?” The scrawny young page bowed his head toward the King and left through the throne room’s high, double doors, his face rosy with relief.
Several minutes passed and the valet entered with another individual. He was a tubby youth with hair the color of smoldering ashes and more freckles than face. He was dressed in an outlandish robe mottled with alternating green and red splotches and a green, low-brimmed cap topped with a red feather that flapped back and forth as he walked.
“Introducing Barus Cirey, your Majesty’s newest royal scribe,” the valet announced in his best orator’s tone, his youthful voice crack betraying his attempt at professionalism.
The King held out one hand, being sure to show the jeweled rings on each finger. “Thank you, young man. Please leave us now. Take the rest of the day off.” The page nodded and quickly dashed from the chamber, a look of relief on his young face.
The King stared at the oddly dressed scribe. He was shaking like a caged bird that just discovered a hungry cat. Even when Tairyth snapped his fingers and cleared his throat, the scribe refused to meet the King’s tawny gaze. The King banged the base of his scepter on the tile floor, startling the young man into jumping several inches off the ground. “Men do not get positions as scribes in our castle unless their work is immaculate,” he announced, coolly leveling a stern glare. “Your penmanship must be far less shaky than you, or our scribe master would never have hired you.”
“Y-y-yes sir, sorry sir,” the scribe babbled, eyes wide with anxiety. He cleared his throat. “The scribe master s-says m-my penmanship is u-u-unparalleled, sir.” He shook his head rapidly and pressed down on his ridiculous clothes as though to smooth out some unseen wrinkles. “J-just in awe of b-being before y-you today, sir. Truly a g-great honor, sir.”
Tairyth smiled and the light glinted off of his pearly teeth. “You are too kind, dear scribe. Indeed, far too kind.”
Barus’ face flushed, turning brighter than the freckles that consumed his visage. “Wh-wh-what can I d-do for you today, sir?
The King knit his bony hands together. “We cannot sleep at night, Babus...”
“Um, it’s Barus, s-sir,” he said with a twitch. The scribe’s eyes widened in realization, and he quickly cast his gaze to the ends of his pointy shoes. “Not that it’s important sir! S-s-sorry sir.”
“Right,” Tairyth snorted, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “Anyway,” he continued, keeping his tone mellow and his voice low, “We cannot sleep at night. We are constantly preoccupied with worries for the safety of our people. Every day, our dear and loyal friends throughout Litheran are killed: slaughtered like sheep at the hands of those vile shape-shifters.”
Barus was silent for a moment, his face contemplative. “Do you mean, p-p-perhaps, the Ladrian sir?” he asked worriedly.
The Ladrian, the ancient race of shape-shifters, were a subject of great interest to Tairyth. They were, as a race, rarely found and even more rarely captured. As the rightfully appointed King, it was his duty to protect his people from any and all threats, even if the general populace did not see the danger behind the Ladrian’s subtle advances.
At first glance, Ladrian appeared the same as ordinary Humans. They talked, walked and acted like normal intelligent beings. They had been known to hide in Litheran and other countries like they had rights to belong there. Under their veneer, each had a shining and brilliantly colored mark indelibly burned into their skin granting them the power to change their shape. Thus, they could take on the appearance and traits of any living being. This gave them power beyond comparison, but more than that, a belief they were superior to all others.
A quiet panic had been growing among Litheran’s elite due to the shadowy dealings of the Ladrian. The aristocrats feared the Ladrian would soon seek to place their own tyrant on the throne and on all other seats of power in their nation. Already, eighty-three high ranking Litheranti patriots, mostly those who spoke out against the rise of the so-called “Shifties”, were found dead, each with conditions similar to a fatal accident or heart failure. That was in the last year alone. The King knew the work of these Ladrian assassins. He recognized the poisons and tactics they used.
The King grinned in a way that could be described as either hopeful or vengeful, it was hard to tell which. “Ten years ago,” he said to his scribe, whatever his name was, “when our good father was King, rest his soul, he set a law in place that Humans are not to fight against the Ladrian, that we may have peace. The Ladrian have taken advantage of our so-called ‘peace’ and risen up against us. We have seen with our own eyes that this wretched law has brought only Human suffering. The Ladrian have become a threat to national security and to public peace. We hereby decree that law and all those related to it shall now be annulled.”
He stood from his throne and moved very close to Barus. He gripped the young man tightly in his arms and the awkward scribe went instantly stiff. “We love our people, boy,” he whispered softly, face inches from the scribe's. Though his voice was kind, his eyes were full of burning hatred. “We do not want their hands tied in defending themselves against this unfathomable threat. They should have the right to fight back. They should have the right to kill the Ladrian, to protect their families and themselves.”
“B-but, if we just l-l-left them alone, wouldn’t the Ladrian stop fighting us, sir?” Barus asked weakly. His whole body was trembling from nervousness.
“Oh, Barus. Our dear, sweet, innocent, naive, stupid little Barus,” Tairyth sneared, shaking his head sadly. “That’s precisely what they want you to think. The Ladrian are a crafty people, to be sure. They would do anything to convince you they are our allies. They would do anything to make you think they want to be left alone. What they really want is war. War and dominance. Think of what would happen if we had a Ladrian warlord on the throne! This is their plan, Barus. We have interrogated enough of them to know they will stop at nothing to dominate all Humans, those they openly call their inferiors.”
“B-b-but...” Barus stuttered.
The King placed his finger gingerly on the chubby boy’s lips. “No ‘buts’, our friend. We would not make this decree if there were any other way. We would not attack the Ladrian if they would accept our envoy of peace. They have not only rejected it, some of our best men have died at their hands. We want the Ladrian, each and every one of them... dead... and we will pay any price to see it happen.”
The boy was silent for a long moment. “Why are you so intent on d-d-destroying the Ladrian, sir?” Tears filled his innocent blue eyes and his lower lip trembled. “We can just talk to them, sir. We can sort this out that way, sir. We can ask them to leave, sir. We can... we can...”
“They kill my people, scribe!” he roared, posture changing instantly from a father figure to an enraged ikne. Barus’ body went rigid from the fervor in the King’s words. Noticing he had recoiled, the King pulled in close to him and whispered again, gently, “They kill our people. We are already at war, whether we like it or not. The time for negotiations is over. We need to stop them before their power takes their ego to the next level. If we do not, it could quite literally be the end of Humanity. They have been a thorn in our side for far too long. More innocents will continue to die until these demons have been exorcized.”
Barus, his hands shaking frantically, mustered up all his remaining courage to look the King in the eye and stutter, “It’s against the law to change a decree another king set into place!” He then hastily added, “S-s-sir.”
“Oh, it is, is it?” the King asked rhetorically, his thick, brown eyebrows cocked in wry humor. “Well then, we will simply change that law too. From this time forward, a king may change any corrupt law at any time, including the one forbidding the rightful execution of the Ladrian. They are the foulest of beings, creatures born of Yxl’s own magic. Failure to destroy them would be like failing to pluck a weed from a garden: it must be done, no matter how tiresome it may seem.” He let out a bellowing chuckle so close to Barus’ face that the feather in the scribe’s cap snapped backward.
“Now that we’ve taken care of that triviality,” he concluded, “We hereby decree that any man, woman or child living in the nation of Litheran is now permitted, nay, required by law to exterminate any member of the Ladrian clan with whom he or she may come into contact.”
The King waited, then seeing that his decree was not being transcribed, shouted at the secretary. “Write it down, you obese excuse for a wingless waterfowl!” Barus jumped and took out a roll of parchment and a calligraphy pen. He began to frantically pen the words of the King.
When Barus looked up from the parchment, the King continued. “In fact, returning to the subject of hunting the shape-shifters, when one has killed a Shifty they must capture the colored smog he emits inside a solid container. This gas must not touch anything else, especially not Human flesh. It carries the Yxlite plague that gives the Ladrian their power. After they send the bottle to the castle, then they shall have their...” he hesitated a moment to think of the right word, “...reward.”
“And what kind of ‘r-r-reward’ will you give them, sir?” the scribe stuttered, unsure what to write.
“It does not matter to us,” the King said, waving a hand. “Just put ‘The thing your heart most desires.’” He gestured around him to the majesty of his throne room. “Riches, food, land. Whatever they want shall be theirs, and rightfully so. After all, they will have done their country and their King a great service: a service well worth any reward we could give.”
Barus finished his transcription of the decree. Using the ring which the King extended to him, he placed the royal seal on the bottom in red ink. He rolled it into a scroll and bowed to the King. “I will have the heralds d-d-declare this at once, sir,” he mumbled. He bowed, again unable to meet the King’s eyes, and then exited the large chamber.
Tairyth waited for the door to close tightly before he smiled again. Phase three of his plan was now complete. The plebes would fulfill phase four in a matter of a decade or three, a trivial time to wait for one blessed with his consummate patience. Money was a good incentive, and he intended to keep his promise to the letter. He would give all who helped him exactly what they most desired.
The common folk would not realize he would simply be paying them from enormous taxes he had collected and the loot from the old, abandoned and decaying castles of the Litheran League. They were simple-minded peasants who only saw things in the scope of their present needs. They would never ask for enough to make him flinch.
Monetary wealth was not his goal in life, anyway. There was something far greater. With his plan in motion, the only thing left to do was wait, and he could wait as long as it took. Indeed, for the ultimate prize they would willingly if unwittingly bestow upon him, he could wait for much longer than a few mere decades. “This,” he said to himself, “is going to be... fun.”
