The Wise Men Who Choose Eternity, Not Eternity (1)
Usually, those who are on the verge of death show one of two patterns of behavior: They accept their fate and mutely give up, or they struggle to the last minute, to the last second for survival.
The Marquis of Montpellier was one of the latter men.
He crawled to me and fell before my feet, even after the swords-elves had cut great gashes into him.
“Aaah, well… Your Highness, Your Highness… Please, spare me, just spare my life!”
The Marquis continued his desperate pleas, his mind by now addled by the attention the elves had already furnished onto him.
“If you only let me live, I… I shall become Your Highness’s dog! If you bark, I will bark and… if you die, I’ll pretend to die!”
Here he was, such a miserable creature who had such a strong attachment to life.
He had said that he would bark if I barked but wasn’t even willing to lie and say he would offer his life to save mine!
“Gaju is the ancestor of the Ghurn family, and that Countess of his, she talks with my government. And the eldest son of the Baltes family, from the central region, he likes to talk with the wives of imperial vassals.”
And all of a sudden, the Marquis of Montpellier started to spill out all the dirty little secrets and private affairs of the nobility.
“And I know a lot more! I have evidence of corruption committed by so many nobles! If you only let me live, I will furnish Your Highness with all my information. With it, you can punish, threaten, blackmail and coerce all the nobles would dare disobey Your Highness’s orders!”
I understood now why and just how broadly he had moved among the nobles of the kingdom.
“Please, please have mercy on me! Then, I will become Your Highness’s dog!”
The Marquis was clinging to my feet. I stared at him, then slapped his hands away as if removing dirt from my boots.
I looked across that vast snowfield, upon which the first rays of dawn were already shining.
I had spent the night watching the Marquis suffer, but it hadn’t been as exciting as I had hoped it would be.
After all, my current troubles were too complex to be solved by the capture and culling of an imperial dog. The blood of the north’s dead could only be repaid in an equal spilling of blood, dram by accursed dram.
We had a long way to go, and one’s man’s death was of little consequence in paying the blood debt.
I stood from my seat and glanced at Gunn.
Her alabaster white skin was covered in blood, and she approached me with an expressionless face.
The sound of her footsteps falling in the snow reached the Marquis’ ears, and he knew what they meant.
“Your Highness! I will shut my eyes and ears from the empire! And much of what the kingdom has lost will come to your hands, I promise this!”
Gunn grabbed the Marquis by his hair and bared his throat.
“A billion! A billion!”
Gunn’s sword touched the skin on his throat.
“Maybe… Ah! We can unseal the tower! Yes!”
The final defeat that was in the man’s voice raised my hand, and Gunn removed her blade. A thin trickle of blood dripped from the throat of the Marquis of Montpellier.
“Break the seal on a tower?”
“Yes! It means that with my authority as ambassador, I can allow the training of wizards and the re-opening of the tower. All of it had been restricted under the treaty.”
The Marquis hung his head in shame after having thrown out this final lifeline.
“Tell me more,” I said as I sat down again, watching the Marquis most intently.
“Hah! First of all, I must explain what the treaty is.”
* * *
As the explanation of the Marquis carried on, I could feel the muscles of my face stiffen.
What he described was not a treaty; it sounded more like the terms of surrender.
Not one of the sections had a single article that was beneficial to the kingdom.
No, what the treaty said in effect was that ‘I will sever all my own limbs and become your dependent.’
Even a lunatic would think twice before doing something that drastic.
The kingdom had to gain the empire’s permission whenever it wanted to train new troops and even knights.
The number of knights in the kingdom could not exceed a certain number, and the kingdom had to furnish the empire with a list naming each and every single knight. The list had to include their proficiencies and all other relevant details.
There could be no omissions, which in itself was a nonsensical clause.
However, there was a still more humiliating and disastrous provision.
While the knights and soldiers were still allowed to train, all wizardry was banned. In essence, the formation of wizards and the use of their tower was illegal.
The tower door had been sealed, and no magical research could be conducted. Improvements and training in war magic were prohibited, and only the healing magic could be taught.
Unless the person was a total idiot, no one would choose a wizard’s career in such a restrictive work environment.
Moreover, wizards are the exact opposite of idiots; no, they are a tribe of humans whose brains rotate rapidly.
Surely such extraordinary and gifted individuals must have departed the kingdom for places that were more welcoming to the study and training of the magical arts.
I had always wondered why no wizards had aided us in the northern war, and now I knew: It was not that they had failed to participate, but rather that they were absent entirely.
“Hahaha ha ha!” I could do nothing but laugh, for this kingdom was not even a country in its own right.
It had long since lost its sovereignty and had become an imperial vassal. It would not be strange at all to call it another province of the empire.
Everyone but me in the kingdom had known this as fact.
I studied the Marquis of Montpellier, then. How absurdly dazzling the fact that this little man, his skin now bleeding from a profusion of cuts, had been the hound-master that had kept so many royal dogs on the leash!
He seemed to notice that my general political knowledge was severely lacking.
“I cannot utterly strike the clause from the treaty, but it is possible to loosen the constraints to some extent. As you know, the recent damages the north has suffered are great indeed,” he quickly stated, his face pale.
“And that is thanks to whose actions?”
His face became more desperate by degrees of magnitude.
“We can temporarily allow the limited training and research of war magic, and lift the seals of the tower to at least its third floor.”
I learned that the tower was not a simple building.
It was a great spired pagoda constructed by wise men of yore that had accumulated the many mysteries of the world in their minds, and their tower so became a gateway to those secret sciences.
And each level of the tower represented an increase in the complexity of the lore and gadgets contained therein, meaning that a release on the third floor’s seal would allow the study and application of magic corresponding to the third level of mystery.
It was a tempting offer, except for the fact that a foreign ambassador was making it. Still, the proposal was enticing.
So what should I do?
The Kingdom of the Dead, which the empire had made over four-hundred years ago, no longer existed. The present Leonberg kingdom was a small country that could be blown away if the empire gave a big cough.
First off, I knew that my first priority was to buy myself some time.
“There are many things I can do besides that,” the Marquis stammered.
Even if he looked relatively calm on his exterior, I could see that the depths of his soul scratched at his heart, as if he was a man in the shadow of the gallows. I was worried.
It was a simple matter to cut the ambassador’s throat and be done with it. I could pull out Twilight and end the cowering man in a heartbeat.
However brief such an expression of my hatred would be, its aftermath would cause a political storm of terrible magnitude.
I would have cut the Marquis’ throat without a second thought had I still been unaware of the treaty’s existence.
Now that I knew the true state of affairs, a great investigation into the north by imperial officials would most definitely be conducted if I killed the man. Every action that I had planned and would plan was expressly forbidden in the treaty.
Organize your thoughts and reach a decision.
“Very well. It wouldn’t be a bad thing, raising at least one imperial dog in my kennels.”
The Marquis fell in love with my words, for he so loved his life.
When faced with certain death, he didn’t seem to care about his pride or honor at all. Or maybe he figured that he would get his revenge on me, so he was willing to do anything to escape his current predicament.
“You will never regret this!”
To my ears, it sounded as if he was saying that he would ensure that I would regret my actions.
“By the way,” I said after he had exhaled in relief and stared up to me, “If you want to be a dog, then lie down like one! Heel boy, heel!”
The Marquis of Montpellier fell flat to his face, burying it in the snow as he prostrated himself before me. His body trembled, his ass in the air, and I could hear that he was having trouble breathing.
I laughed at his pathetic display of subservience. All that remained was to put a leash around the nasty little dog’s neck, and I just so happened to have a suitable leash for the likes of him.
At that very moment, I activated [Poetry of Domination] and channeled the usurper’s powers from the depths of my soul to strengthen the effect.
“Swear that your master is me, not the Emperor of Burgundy.”
“Hah, I swear that my master is not the emperor, but His Highness and soon to be Majesty, Prince Adrian Leonberger.”
The Marquis was somewhat unaware of what he was doing and what I had done to him.
“I swear before all those present that from now on into eternity, my destiny rests in your hands.”
When I heard him adding words that I had not told him to say, it seemed as if his surrender was complete.
However, the human mind is a subtle machine and difficult to corner. I knew that it was impossible to fully convert him to my service, no matter how hard I struck him with [Poetry of Domination]. In time he would forget his oath, and only the shame of this morning would remain in his memory.
Even if such a day came, though, the Marquis had left his mark on our little contract and could not dare overturn his oath.
He had betrayed his emperor and had sworn a blood oath before me. He now had to furnish me with imperial secrets and information that should not fall into the hands of enemies of the empire. On top of all that, the contract he had written in his own blood on a piece of parchment had even been stamped by the Montpellier family seal!
“Uh? Huh!?” he stammered as he saw the book of blood that he had written of his own volition. He knew that something had gone terribly wrong, even with his mind in tatters and his will conquered. I then rolled his oath up, inserted it into a cylinder, and hung it on a thin chain around my neck.
“Hoh, I got hurt a lot,” the Marquis muttered.
“That’s why I warned you to be careful, the north is a dangerous place.”
He rolled his eyes at this, the last display of his prodigious wit.
I dragged the Marquis of Montpelier with me to Winter Castle.
“Your Highness?” Count Balahard asked. The return of the Marquis angered him and his commanders. I just gave them a rough answer when they asked me why the man was still here.
“I had been attacked by the Orcs,” came the ambassador’s mumbled response.
The expressions of those around us became strange upon his words. These men had been fighting orcs all their lives, so they could see the absurdity of his statement. The difference between the wounds inflicted by orcs and the wounds inflicted by elves was a clear one.
“I don’t know what kind of orc, but he’s surely a guy who’s learned how to cut right and proper,” a knight said as he admired the wounds on the Marquis’ body. In his eyes, though, it showed clearly that the knight knew who had applied such cuts in the man’s flesh.
I had expected such cognizance from the knights.
I left the Marquis in the care of healers and then returned to my lodge. Vincent was waiting in my rooms.
“What the hell happened?” he asked me. Instead of answering him, I showed him the bloody contract signed and stamped by the imperial ambassador.
Vincents’s eyes stretched as if they were being torn from their sockets upon seeing the document.
“Think carefully about what we need to know, Vincent. Think about what you had been unable to do since the imperial treaty.”
Count Balahard’s face was filled with such utter disbelief that I could only laugh.
* * *
We had plenty of time to figure out what we needed to be done.
The Marquis of Montpellier had suffered from multiple cuts under the elven blades, and the greatest had been the blow to his heart. He had suffered even more upon his return to Winter Castle. It was only fifteen days later that he could travel, and so he left the fortress in great haste, escorted by the Silver Foxes that I had attached to him.
“It must have come from the tower,” I said. The Marquis had by then reached the capital, and he had sent an item to me.
It was a crystal ball mounted on a golden pedestal, inset with a great variety of glittering jewels. At first glance, the object looked completely useless; its only purpose was surely the decoration of a tabletop. Yet, it had a function that I could not have guessed.
It surprised me greatly to learn that the crystal ball was an artifact that enabled communication over vast distances between its central node in the capital and its extension, which was now in my possession.
“Well, centuries have passed, so I guess it’s normal if the fields of communication have been further developed through wizardry.”
I was more than happy to activate the crystal ball, and the method to do so was quite simple.
I merely had to inject a sliver of mana into the device to establish the connection.
“Your Highness,” the Marquis spoke from the sphere.
“Five fingers! Put your hand on the crystal ball and speak,” came the tinny sound of his voice, a voice that I didn’t want to hear.
“Like this?”
“Indeed! You are very good.”
As I listened to the voice of the cunning Marquis, I studied the various aspects of the crystal ball. I didn’t enjoy its presence overmuch, as it was a blatant symbol of the empire’s greed and the kingdom’s weakness.
If this crystal ball had existed in the previous wars, it would have been possible to lessen the damage.
“It’s not a common device, even in the empire,” the Marquis said in excuse, obviously having heard and correctly interpreted my sigh.
“Not many of them exist at all, but this set had been given to me in the event of emergencies, for it is a most useful tool for the intrepid ambassador, yes? Anyway, Your Highness, I had sent my requests to the mainland for the removal of the seals and the training of wizards, and I had received a positive response.”
“Good, good. Anything else to report?”
Before the Marquis had left, I had asked him for one more thing other than the removal of seals and commencement of training.
“They have also approved the request for the construction of a new tower in the north.”
I had known that even if the original tower were unsealed, the north would not directly benefit. I had asked the Marquis to arrange for the construction of a northern tower and the permission for it to hold mysteries up to the third and fourth levels. He had succeeded.
“Hoh, but can the kingdom’s current economy bear the costs required for the design and construction of the tower? As Your Highness knows, the reality is that there aren’t really architects and wizards in the north.”
“No need to worry yourself.”
“Aha, but Your Highness, a tower is a complex thing, and even the wizards of the empire can only rely on ancient texts to replicate such constructions. Also, if you create a Spire, a Senior Wizard must reside within and manage it. Without aid from the mainland, the kingdom can neither maintain nor construct such a thing. You also need someone to train wizards…”
The Marquis spoke on, repeating himself a few times, so I stopped listening.
I knew the perfect person who could manage a Spire after its erection and even manage the construction itself through their understanding of ancient lore.
Comments