Oath, chapter two

 Hi all! I have been quiet for a bit! This was because I caught a bad cold for a week. Right after that I had to move to my fall dorm; I have been very busy! But now that I am settled down, I can start posting again!

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Atticus the cloaked had become the cloaked emperor. He envisioned a stable realm that could be ruled in peace, at any cost. This would be the challenge that he had to overcome in the second age. 

While he did want the empire to maintain stability, he also wanted it to be ruled competently. The cloaked emperor’s heirs had all married off to the thieves he had helped put in power. Because of this, they were more interested in getting riches and pretty things rather than ruling with any degree of competency. The emperor was old and would have to pass power to a successor, but to who?

Adding pressure to this state was the fact that a prophet had risen in the land. Known as the prophet of the grain, they rose unrest among the farmers and threatened to conquer the empire to enforce their strange religion. 

The final blow between the emperor and his progeny occurred when the crime family his eldest son married into helped the prophet steal the key to the capitol of the empire, the same key that the bandit king had stolen in the first age, helping the cloaked emperor rise to power. Instead of using this magical key immediately, the prophet fled to the hinterlands and began raising an army.

The cloaked emperor turned to an unlikely source. Back in his days of exile, he had struck up an alliance with Cedric the fox. This vagabond had long since died,  but his family still ruled a ramshackle slum in the hinterlands, the distant Mechant republic of Landa. He left the cradle of the empire and journeyed to this city, only bringing his most trusted companions and guardsmen. The following is an excerpt from The Broken Shield, a historical drama that dramatized this event. It may not be entirely accurate, but it was written by a contemporary dramatist, Barthinius, in his late age. 

(Chorus):

In the city of Landa

Where trees and roofs collide

Where citizens sit on hills

Where wealth shifts like the tide

A mighty company comes

Of grim and grey soldier

Of gold and purple banner

Here comes the great emperor!

(The emperor and his royal guard stand far stage right)

Fiathys:

 My lord! Why do you refuse our company? Are we not the most trusted men in your retinue? Would we not throw ourselves into the jowls of death at the slightest command? Have we lost your favor like you have turned your back on your sons?

Atticus, The Cloaked: 

No, my guardian and friend, I trust you as I trust the constellations to light the firmament at night, I trust you with my life Fiathys!

Fiathys: 

Then why must you leave our watch to speak with the patricians alone? The presence of power is like a liquid, it leaks through the cracks and hits the floor, until the cracks are broken by those who have tasted the dribbles. Then it pours out, landing on the ground; it is wasted. Do you not see that this land is full of snakes and those who would do you harm?

Atticus, The Cloaked:

I am speaking to old friends! My friends,

as proven by our own bond Fiathys, are only those I can trust. The gods smile on those who have wise friends, Fiathys. Your fear that I do not trust you would become their fear tenfold if I was to approach them with my guards.

Atticus, The Cloaked: 

Your wisdom is surely what made you emperor my lord. I shall escort you back when you have finished speaking with these strange friends.

(Atticus moves to stage center, where Madrine is sitting at a table, servants at either side. Fiathys walks off stage right.)

Atticus, The Cloaked:

I address the lady of the ruling house of Landa! The dynasty of the fox!

Madrine:

You speak as if we have never met Fiathys. Has my stature or the chasm of time stolen your memories from you? Does distance and poor recollection absolve us of our sins?

Atticus, The Cloaked:

My lady, I only meant to give you the respect that is fitting of your position. I wished to honor you as a fellow sovereign.

Madrine:

The dog may sniff the hind of another dog to greet it, but it will sit dutifully before its master. The perception of a man is shown through how he greets another. You have granted me no honor, emperor.

Atticus, The Cloaked:

I have traveled across the table of the world to see you. I have left my empire in a time of war and corruption, and I am mocked by you? Would you had rather me never returned? Should I sit in my throne unrepentant!? My heart burned every day I was apart from you, if you suppose for a moment it was an easy task for me to…

Madrine:

I had long since healed my broken heart Atticus. Now you return, long past the time allotted for repentance, and open up a scar. This scar will fester and burn more than it did before!! Leave me, emperor! And return not! I want nothing to do with you. We will never want you.

Atticus, the emperor:

Do you refer to yourself as we? Is that the “we” in which rulers often refer to themselves? Or are you speaking for our child too Madrine? I had heard whispers and rumors, but I did not dare to think… 

Madrine:

Out!! I wish no pain to befall our progeny. The path you pave is one only of abandonment and agony. Out!!

(Atticus falls to his knees, trembling)

Atticus, The Emperor:

I am an old man, my empire is crumbling into discord, and my children follow thieves and layabouts. The path I have paved has inflicted pain for many of us. You do not owe me anything Madrine, but you can not decide for our child.

(Silence)

Madrine:

You may speak with him then.

(End scene)

It had come to pass that the emperor had conceived a bastard child with the daughter of Cedric the fox; his mother named him Hazel, according to legend this is because he had the same brown eyes as his father. 

The old king began to groom this man for leadership. He began to support Hazel’s political endeavors by turning a blind eye to his military campaigns on the edge of the empire and began to anonymously donate large sums of money to his coffers. Many historians speculate that these acts were more because of guilt than succession.

Eventually the republic of Landa overpassed the crumbling power of the cloaked empire, and the last bastions of the realm were bought over with favors and populace support.

 The final transfer of power occurred when the emperor died, and Hazel was named “First patrician of the republic.” Hazel had conquered many of the lands formerly belonging to the emperor, and stamped out the last traces of “the prophet of the grain.” Because of this, the senate recognized his support with the masses because of it. They granted him many powers and essentially usurped the empire, ruling instead from the city of Landa.

The dead emperor, out of pragmatism, or perhaps guilt, had ended the second age.