‘Evil seeds, once planted, grow without hesitancy or remorse. Be always on your guard against the wiles of the evil one, lest your soul be ensnared by his cunning.’
-Excerpt from the Book of Life, as spoken by Yordinari Ye’reshua, the Champion of Truestar.
* * *
...Memories stirred in a mind long since twisted with madness. They were memories of pain – both of giving and receiving. They were memories to cherish.
* * *
The thane is dead! Long live the thane!
The cry had gone up like a clap of thunder, announcing the death of a great and terrible man. All of his adult life, Jirith had been the envy of everyone around him; men wanted to be him, women wanted to be with him. And now the grey-hued body lying on the funeral pyre (so still, it seemed) played games with the mind of a diminutive eleven year-old boy who knelt to one side, stiffly dressed in the finest royal livery. They seemed like rags to him.
“I bestow upon you – Vasper, son of Jirith - the title of Thane of Serapis and all the powers and responsibilities that go along with it. May the gods of your patronage guide your steps and strengthen your hands.” The king intoned, appropriately reserved for the somberness of the occasion. He laid his hand lightly upon the young thane’s head, a gesture of approval and sympathy both. “You may rise, Thane.”
The boy rose to roaring applause, his new subjects joyously celebrating his ascension as the pyre was lit in graphic demonstration of the transfer of power from father to son. Jirith’s heir was the picture of restraint; expressionless and emotionless even as he watched his father’s body consumed by the flames. Never cry, his father had taught him. He was determined not to disappoint his father’s memory.
With the ritual of ascension complete, the rest of the ceremony began; a whirlwind of feasting and celebration that the guest of honour remembered only as a dismal blur in an exceedingly black day. Sooner or later, the guests had all taken their leave and the boy’s mother had absconded to the family chapel to mourn her husband’s loss. He was alone in what was now his throne room, sitting in the thane’s high seat – his father’s seat. If he had even spoken a word since taking the vows of his office, he could not remember it.
Yellow torchlight briefly flooded into the moonlit chamber as someone entered through the eastern doorway, quickly banished once more with the door’s closing. Soft and deliberate footfalls padded across the room, in no apparent hurry. Vasper looked up to see a darkly robed figure approaching through the dismal twilight. It took a few seconds to recognize the shock of orange hair that was somehow frizzy, despite being cropped short, and the sunken grey eyes and sparse goatee that accompanied it. He had never been told the man’s name, but remembered seeing him with his father, always speaking in low tones that no one else could hear. Curiosity pricked at his mind, the first sensation he could remember feeling since his father’s death. What does the man want? He wondered.
“My lord thane,” the man said softly, bowing before the throne, “I am called Rathamir Darguhl’dar. I was your father’s humble servant, and now I am yours. My life and my service belong to you and you alone.” The voice was rather high and nasal, but carried an unmistakable and almost unsettling authority. The man knew himself to be of great importance, though his simple appearance suggested otherwise. Vasper had to admit he was intrigued by the mystery.
“The thane accepts your service, Rathamir Darghul’dar, and offers these promises to his servant: For obedience - just rewards, for loyalty - trust, and for efficacy - praise.” He spoke the words he had heard his father say in such situations and reached out to tentatively place his hand on the shoulder of his newly sworn supplicant. In turn, Rathamir placed his opposite hand on the thane’s shoulder and nodded his head in submission, completing the ritual of the vows.
With that done, the man stood, folding his hands in front of his face, to scrutinize the young thane who was clearly confused about how to proceed.
“You have questions, thane.” He said, matter-of-factly, a shrewd grin on his face. “Ask whatever you wish. A wise man knows his servants as well as they know themselves. Or better.”
The boy nodded his head slowly and decided to start with something easy. “Your name is different than most I’ve heard. You’re not from Unver, are you?”
“Ah, you are an observant one. That’s good.” Rathamir replied. “You are correct, I am not Unverian. I come from Vogrod, a country far to the east.”
“I have heard of this place,” said the boy, “they say it’s very cold there all year around; as cold as here, maybe.”
“You are quite correct, my lord,” answered the robed man. “The cold in Vogrod is quite deathly for the unprepared. Throughout the ages, conquering armies without number have broken themselves against the fury of the Vogrodian winter. It is a merciless foe; though one I have not had the occasion to battle in a very long time. I have lived in Serapis for many years and most of those I have spent in service to your father.”
“Speaking of my father,” the boy began, almost reluctantly, “how exactly did you serve him? I’ve seen you with him before, but he never introduced us.”
“The time was not right for us to meet, young one.” came the reply. “Not until you were thane, instead of merely his son. As for the answer to your question, that is a thing that cannot be answered simply. It is something you must ultimately experience for yourself to understand, though I will try to give your query at least a fleeting satisfaction.”
The young thane was not sure he understood what his increasingly mysterious servant meant, but he gestured for the man to continue, nonetheless.
“On some matters, I served as an advisor to your father. He would sometimes ask me to involve myself in certain important affairs of state, and would have been when you had seen us together. This accounted for only the smallest portion of my service, and merely served as my public face in front of questioning eyes. Though my official title has ever been that of Advisor to the Thane, the larger portion of my work was something only known to your father and myself. For reasons I will not reveal to you now, it was important that others did not learn of the true nature of our relationship.” He paused to see the look of dawning comprehension on the boy’s face and continued.
“I tell you this so that you will understand the necessity of secrecy in our dealings together. No one must know what passes between us – not your closest friends, not your favourite aunt and uncle, nor even your dear mother. The things I will teach you are for you alone, as you alone will hold sway over Serapis.”
“The things you are going to teach me?” asked Vasper, suddenly more than simply curious.
“Yes, my young thane, for that was my primary service to your father. Teacher and mentor, advisor and confidante – I taught him to wield true power, to make full use of the resources at his command. It is unfortunate that our time was cut short in such untimely fashion, there was so much more I wanted to teach him.”
“What do you mean, ‘untimely’?” the boy queried, “My father died of natural causes.”
“Think you so, young one? Was your father a very old man?”
“No, not very old. No more than fifty years.”
“Was he very sickly, then?”
The boy shook his head. “He was strong and healthy, as far as I could tell. But the surgeons said his heart just stopped, and that was all.” Tears threatened to well up, but the young thane fought them back.
Rathamir chuckled, grimly. “Nobody’s heart ever ‘just stopped’. When a heart stops there is a reason. For some it is old age, for others sickness or injury, but there is always a cause.” The teacher laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder to calm him, as if he sensed that the young heartbeat had quickened. “I happen to know beyond doubt that Jirith was an exceptionally healthy man - that was another thing that I taught him. Someone was involved in your father’s premature death; someone who hated him quite passionately.”
Realization dawned on the young thane’s face, “You know who it was, don’t you?”
“Perhaps I do. But you are not ready to properly handle that kind of knowledge, just yet.”
The boy stood, furious. “Rathamir, I command you – if you know who killed my father you must tell me!” Tears that could no longer be quelled ran down his cheeks. “I must know who did it!”
The teacher put his hands up to calm the young boy. “My thane, you must trust that I know what is best right now. In time, you will know everything you need to know, but first you must learn to master the power you have at your command. Once you do that, there will be nothing to stand in your way.”
The child blinked away his tears and looked deeply into the older man’s deep-set eyes. “I will be stronger than my father - he still died, even with all of his teaching. Promise it, Rathamir. Promise that I will be better than he was!”
Rathamir nodded, large smile on his face. “My promise you have, my lord. My tutelage with you will have an important advantage over your father - youth. You are the son of a great and powerful man, but you will be far the greater. This I promise. This I have foreseen.”
* * *
The first lesson was to take place the next evening, after a long day spent hearing complaints and proposals from various commoners and minor nobles. It was a very dull way for an eleven year-old to spend the day, and he discovered all too soon that the high-seat, which was obviously made to be occupied by someone rather larger than himself, was none too comfortable a place to spend so many hours. Most of the overly complicated dialogue went far above the young thane’s head, and by the end of the day he had become quite proficient at deferring to the virtual legion of advisors and counselors that stood by to assist him.
By the time his responsibilities were finished for the day it was all Vasper could do to stop himself from breaking into an undignified trot as he made his way through the manor’s labyrinth-like private wing to his own lavishly-decorated bed-chambers. With every step, his excitement rose in anticipation of what he might learn that night. After what seemed like a small eternity, he reached his destination and threw the doors open with abandon to stumble inside.
“You made a fool of yourself, today.” Rathamir’s voice echoed sharply from the darkness. The boy turned to see the humbly robed form standing in the shadows to the hinged side of the heavy doorframe. “If your father had seen your performance, he would be rolling over in his grave.”
“What do you mean? What could I..? What did I do wrong?” the boy managed to sputter, embarrassed and indignant at the same time.
“Think like a thane, boy!” Rathamir strode forward suddenly and stepped into the light, tapping the side of his head with his fingers. “Never allow someone else to do your thinking for you! The ability to think for oneself is one of the few real gifts that anyone truly possesses, whether the lowliest shamble of humanity wasting away in a prison cell, or the highest king sitting on his throne. Give away that gift and you abdicate all your power along with it, which may have little enough meaning for the prisoner, but for the king, means everything. Hold onto your power, Thane, and never let go, or you will soon find yourself the puppet of smarter men, or worm fodder like your father.”
“What was I supposed to do?” the eleven-year-old cried, “I don’t know anything about how much tax an innkeeper should pay, or where to build a farm to get the best yield of barley, or the proper placement of a flying buttress! Tergo’s beard, I don’t even know what a flying buttress is, and the very sound of it makes me want to burst out in laughter!”
Rathamir quietly took a seat on one of the straight-backed chairs around the expensive ebony table that took centre-stage the spacious antechamber. The chair had been intricately carved out of a single block of the hardest ironwood and was richly lacquered with a shiny black finish. Fine gilding frosted the edges, speaking volumes about its value; it was one of the plainer pieces of furniture in the room.
“It is perfectly normal for you not to understand these things at your age,” the teacher said softly, gesturing for his pupil to sit across from him, “However, it is imperative that you learn. The next time you feel the need to defer to your advisors, have them educate you on the subject instead, and then – “
“Make my own decision.”
“Exactly - solidify your authority and increase your knowledge at the same time. That, my young friend, is the beginning of power.”
“Then I’ll do better tomorrow, I promise.” said the boy.
“You are learning already,” Rathamir smiled. “And that is only the beginning of all that you shall learn. But I am not here to teach you about the technicalities of government, or economics, or even warfare - you have council-appointed tutors enough to cover those sorts of mundane subjects. You will find my lessons to be of infinitely more value than any of the day-to-day things that most men, rulers or otherwise, learn.
“The first thing you must master, if you hope to succeed as a thane, is people. First you must become the master of your own people – those who serve you. These are the easiest to gain influence over, as they already think of you as their leader. Eventually, you will learn how to master those whose station is above yours – people that you are meant to serve, such as the King. But when you have achieved the ultimate mastery, when you command the secret thoughts not only of your friends, your allies and your superiors, but also of your enemies and rivals, then you will know that true power is yours.”
“What kind of power do you mean?”
“The power to know both your friends and your enemies better even than they know themselves. The power to inspire loyalty, fear and even worship, even in those who are hardest set against you. The power to dominate the weak, and manipulate the strong to do your bidding. In time, your power will make it possible even to forge the very destiny of a person – any person, anywhere, anytime.”
As the tutor spoke, the darkness began to deepen in the room until all light seemed to have been banished, save what radiated from the teacher’s darkly cloaked form, illuminated with an ominous glow that burned itself so powerfully into the young thane’s mind that even into his adult years its impression would return to him from time to time when he closed his eyes. Ever, though, did the colour of that light elude his memory.
“Someday,” spoke the master, all aglow with the dark and mysterious energy, “when your power has come into its ultimate completion, you shall become the mighty star around whom the fates of all the great and small in Serapis, Unver and Giliathor beyond, shall orbit. When that day comes you will have only to reach out your hand to the Dalgo board and move the pieces where you will. In that moment, you could challenge the gods themselves.”
The unnatural light disappeared suddenly, leaving an utter normalcy in its going that made the strange lightshow seem an event of pure fancy. It was an unsettling feeling, to say the least, as neither room nor teacher displayed the slightest hint of anything out of the ordinary.
“But, first things first,” said Rathamir, pointedly, “are you ready to begin your journey to greatness?”
The child jumped eagerly to his feet, keen intensity on his face. “I am ready!” he cried.
“Then we shall begin.” Declared the teacher.
* * *
The time has come for you to enter the next level of your teaching. I await you in the serpent’s belly. Come quickly.
Rathamir’s note was typically simple and to the point, written in the precisely cursive script that the Thane recognized as belonging to his tutor.
Although it pained him, in a way, Vasper had to admit that Rathamir had become much more than simply a teacher – he was also a friend, a mentor, even a father in many ways. More of a father than his actual father had been, at any rate. Strange as it may have seemed to him, it made perfect sense; even while the former Thane had been alive, there had been little time to spend with his son. The boy had spent more time with Rathamir in the past six years – every day, without fail – than he could have hoped to spend in an entire lifetime with his barely-there specter of a father.
In the years since Jirith’s death, Vasper had spent his days acting as much the part of the Thane as he could muster, despite the restraints put on him by the intermediary council. The council was an ever-present thorn in his side, scrutinizing his every act and holding final authority over Serapis until the Thane’s coming-of-age, which was a day that would not come yet for far too many years. In the meantime, his decisions were at their mercy. His nights had been spent exclusively with Rathamir, from whom he learned more about the arts of manipulation and subtlety than could be considered strictly benign. To the student’s credit, his teacher seemed quite impressed at how little time he had needed to wrap most of the councilors around his little finger.
He thought it strange that his tutor would summon him in the middle of the day; he couldn’t recall ever having been in Rathamir’s presence except in the dark of night. He knew there would be a good reason, but the departure from his normal routine made the young thane anxious. Without a moment’s further delay, he swept his long riding cloak over expensive robes and headed down the hallway, locking the chamber doors securely behind him.
“Go fetch my horse,” he commanded the servant who met him in the corridor, “I will be walking to the outer courtyard - I expect it to be saddled and ready at the bottom of the terrace steps when I arrive.”
The servant bowed low, seeming mildly alarmed at his master’s request. “Will you be stopping along the way, your lordship?” came the sheepish reply.
“No, I will not.” Vasper responded loudly, “I will be taking the most direct route possible, as I have important business to attend to and I will not tolerate any delays!” The servant stood motionless for a moment, as if trying to calculate how much time he had.
“In case I miss my guess – and I rarely do – you have less than five minutes to carry out my orders. I suggest you run.” The servant took the suggestion, having been witness, over the years, to his master’s wrath directed toward more than one unfortunate soul.
“And make sure the straps are tight, or the kudghz will have an extra portion of protein in their supper tonight – and not just from the horse!” Vasper yelled after him.
Fear had proven to be an effective tool for motivating the Thane’s servants, a fact that he had quite enjoyed exploiting. Every so often, he made sure to arrange for one of the staff to experience an ‘accident’, usually of the grisly variety. Aside from being a source of amusement for the Thane, these incidents also served as graphic reminders of the sorts of occupational hazards the servants might encounter, if not careful.
A second servant met the Thane as he approached the doorway to the outer terrace steps. He also bowed low before trailing just behind his walking master. “I was informed you would be riding to the city, my lord. Shall I arrange an escort?”
“No escort is required. I will be riding solo, as usual.” Vasper replied.
“As you wish, my lord. May I remind you that the council does not look favourably upon your being in Verdistat without protection?”
“I’ve been doing such for the last three years. If the council wants to make an issue out of it at this point, they have my permission to indulge themselves in an excruciating death. Preferably somewhere out of my earshot.” He laughed.
Vasper stepped out onto the terrace, breathing in the mid-day breeze. There was a crispness about the air in Serapis that he had always enjoyed; it was cold and unforgiving, like he was. Pulling the cloak tighter around his body to shield him from the elements, he stepped onto the stairway, noting, with satisfaction, that his horse was waiting for him at the bottom. The servant stopped his busy fussing with the saddle-straps the instant the Thane stepped down from the steps and bowed low, offering his master the reigns. The Thane took them, wordlessly, and gracefully mounted the muscular beast.
“When shall I tell the guards to expect you back, my lord?” asked the servant.
“When I arrive, obviously. If I am not present for council tomorrow, you have my permission to send out a search party.” With that, the Thane spurred on his horse and rode speedily out the manor gates.
Starting at the high manor walls was a wide, paved road that ran through snowy foothills and rocky outcroppings as it twisted and curved its way down the Manor-Hill towards the outer walls of Verdistat-proper. Manor-Hill itself commanded a breath-taking view of Serapis’ capital, which, though not as large a city as Unverferth or Feragill, was afforded the formidable natural fortification of the Verdsilion Mountains that surrounded it. The Thane had traveled down that road untold hundreds of times at every possible time of day and in every imaginable type of weather. He knew every one of the myriad twists and turns by heart and, were it to be necessary, was sure he could make it safely to the city with his eyes closed.
After climbing down Manor-Hill, the road ran a somewhat straighter course through ruling house fief-lands, most of which were occupied by vineyards, orchards and crop fields of varying types. The peasants of the ruling house knew better than to look up from their labours to identify the hoof beats that thundered past. It was a lesson they had been quick to learn since a number of thatched-roof cottages had been burned to the ground. At the end of the Manor-Hill road stood Verdistat’s towering outer wall, into which was built the Thane’s Arch, serving as a portal between Manor-lands and city. Traditionally the Arch gate had been kept open to allow free travel from the city to the thane’s seat. The previous thane, however, had put an end to this tradition in the later years of his rule. The gate had been kept locked ever since.
The Thane, of course, could not use such an obvious entrance without being immediately recognized. Leaving the road, he trotted into the surrounding woods, following the line of the wall. After a ten-minute foray through the trees, he arrived at a brick lined ditch that sloped beneath the city wall. Constructed in secret, the tunnel appeared as nothing more than one of the many drainage culverts set about the walls to let out water during heavy rains. Through this tunnel, however, no water would drain, and the storm-grate was actually a cleverly disguised gate that would only open for someone who knew which of the lining bricks to press, and in what order.
The culvert came out inside the walls into a seldom-visited alley in the foreign quarter. After checking that the exit was clear, Vasper pulled the deep hood of his cloak overhead to hide his identity, and rode out into the city. A short ride brought him to the dilapidated tavern that was his destination. Loose shutters made a half-hearted attempt to hide the poorly lit interior from passers-by, and a badly worn sign hung precariously over the single, small doorway. The name of the tavern – The Wyrm’s Revenge - was barely legible and most of the paint on the vaguely serpentine shape had long since worn away. Rathamir had taken to referring to the place simply as ‘the serpent’.
Once inside the tavern, Vasper was greeted by the slickly patronizing voice of the proprietor, whose light-green tinted skin, lanky frame and greasy black hair, along with his long and slender fingers – seven on each hand – had never failed to produce images of lizards or salamanders in the young thane’s mind.
“Greetings, Thane. You are well today, I trust. You are looking for your Vogrodian friend, yes? I believe he said he would be about shortly – you may as well pull up a stool.”
A raucous shout boomed from a patron in another part of the gloomy common area. “Oye, Terrgill! Get yer ugly, pointed ears over here with some more ale, ye cursed Nyxi bastard!”
Terrgill smiled serenely and walked into the other room with a tankard full of a murkily unwholesome-looking liquid.
“I had always heard that Nyxi were terribly sensitive about their ears.” Vasper told the smirking tavern-keeper upon his return.
“Oh yes, very sensitive indeed.” Terrgill answered, gesturing wildly with his rangy hands. “For, on the first day, the creator looked down upon all he had made and chose, as his most favoured children, the Nyxi and the Elves. Upon them, he made a mark to show the special care and blessing he had given them, and so the ears of Nyxi and Elf lengthened and pointed. But, upon the Nyxi he bestowed the larger portion of his blessing, and so their ears were made longer still, and even more beautiful than those of their Elven cousins.
“So it is, you see, that there is no graver offense that one can make against a Nyxi than to insult his ears. In ancient times, before the rending of our homeland, great wars were waged and races ended, over such offenses.”
The Thane looked skeptical, “You certainly don’t seem overly upset about it.”
“I’m sure it would bother me more, if I hadn’t poisoned the drink.” The Nyxi said, matter-of-factly.
“No wonder I never drink here.” The Thane grinned. Terrgill’s stock had just gone up.
He respected the tavern-keeper in a grudging kind of way, race aside. The Nyxi had been refugees, originally, or so the stories told. Once a proud and powerful people, they had abandoned a mighty kingdom in the face of some cataclysm that had destroyed their homeland; accounts varied on this point. Whatever their reasons, they had been living among humans for two-hundred years or more, and could be found thriving in all but the most intolerant nations.
In Serapis, however, cultural divisions ran deep. The Nyxi in Verdistat kept almost exclusively to themselves, hiding behind the fences of the city’s Nyxi quarter. Terrgill was an exceedingly rare breed, venturing into other parts of the city, not only out of necessity, but to run a tavern in the foreign quarter, where his kind were particularly reviled. Vasper wondered what Rathamir’s involvement was with the tavern-keeper; he was more hateful of Nyxi than anyone the young Thane had ever met.
The tutor’s voice, coming from behind, snapped Vasper out of his reverie.
“The serpent’s belly awaits you, Thane.”
