After four months of wilderness training, the Sheriff gazed upon the high spires of the Capital once more. To his profound relief, anarchy no longer gripped the streets. Neat columns of citizens flowed around the city instead of clumping together in rebellious mobs, and not one citizen held a weapon. The only sign of the failed revolution was the presence of City Guard pairs posted at every corner; each pair saluted the Sheriff when he passed, and some pairs called out a brief, “welcome back, Sheriff.”

In the residential sector, the Sheriff searched for the Marshal of the East’s house with the hopes of salvaging the weapons that the Marshal no longer desired. However, not even a plank remained of the old building. The entire block of houses had been torn down, creating a vast open tract of land in the otherwise crowded city.

In the center of the clearing, a fifty-foot tall silver statue of the Sun King raised an impossibly clear glass orb to the sky. Sunlight shone through the lens, focusing on a point inside the circular trench around the statue’s base. At the current focal point, a flame glowed brightly enough to sting the eyes of any onlooker. Charred remnants of flowers and paper offerings laid in other parts of the circular trench. The silver at the statue’s boots had tarnished to black in the pattern of thousands of fingerprints.

The Sheriff retreated from the huge metal statue. There was no point in dwelling on the past when no trace of the Marshal of the East remained. Although he had lost one powerful ally within the Capital, others still existed. The journey to the Hall of Finance took only a few minutes. Once the Sheriff entered the lobby, finding the right door proved a simple matter: his friend always had been clever enough to achieve the best of everything. In this case, that meant the most spacious corner office with the biggest windows and most pleasant view.

“Treasurer, you old con. Still selling lead for gold?” the Sheriff greeted, kicking the door shut behind him.

A head of golden curls tilted up, startled from an intense perusal of important-looking documents. The Treasurer laughed when he saw his visitor, but the cheer of his grin did not quite reach his eyes.

“Well, if it isn’t the sharpest sword in the West.” The Treasurer stacked the papers on the side, hopped out from behind the desk, and flung an arm around the Sheriff’s shoulders. “Welcome back, my friend. Where have you been these past few months?” He lightly steered the Sheriff toward the door. “Come, come. We simply must catch up over a meal.”

While eating, the Sheriff relayed his tale: rescuing the Marshal of the East from the burning palace, fleeing to the wilderness, training, and finally returning to the Capital. The Treasurer nodded in all of the right places, absorbing the information with good humor.

In turn, the Treasurer shared news of the Capital after the failed rebellion. Once the Marshal of the West had left the city, pursuing the last remnants of the rebel force through the surrounding lands, the Advisor had brought in the Sun Army. This military force included many of the Marshal of the West’s most loyal troops, and they had wiped all traces of rebellion from the streets of the Capital while leaving neutral citizens in peace. The Advisor then claimed the throne and crowned herself Queen. Any who protested this new leadership were executed.

“Not a popular move on the Advisor’s part,” the Treasurer added in a low voice, shaking his head. “Most people are too scared to say it outright, especially when the City Guard are about, but they see her as a usurper. If you listen around, you’ll hear the whispers: ‘A cloud has passed over the sun.’ They call her the Cloud Queen.”

The Sheriff absorbed this information with a slight frown. Indeed, much had changed in his absence.

Two days later, during the weekly open court session where civilian petitioners could seek a royal audience, the Sheriff traveled to the palace to greet the new leadership. The smell of smoke still clung to the inner halls of the palace, even though the fires had been quenched months ago. Several portions of the roof and internal design still had the pallor of freshly refurbished wood, and not even a charred thread remained of the old fabric tapestries.

The Cloud Queen sat where the Sun King’s throne had once been. However, the old throne had been afire when last the Sheriff saw it; now, the burnt throne was gone, and in its place stood a plain wooden chair and desk. The Cloud Queen looked much the same as she had as Advisor: neutral expression, pure white robes, a pen in one hand, a stack of paper in front of her. She was just short enough that the sunbeams from the throne room windows missed the crown on her head entirely, casting her features in a ghostly pale glow instead of the silver luminance of the Sun King. As various visitors brought their petitions to voice, the Cloud Queen jotted down notes.

When the Sheriff’s turn came, he knelt before the dais with an elaborate flourish. A new leader meant a new opportunity to win fame and prestige through good first impressions. Pitching his voice into an appropriately humble tone, he greeted, “May your reign last a thousand years.”

“Sheriff, welcome back,” the Cloud Queen said. Looking to the court at large, she waved a hand. “Leave us.”

Various courtiers and petitioners exited, leaving the Sheriff kneeling before the throne.

“Rise. You have the ear of the common people. Tell me, what do they say of my reign in the outer lands?”

The Sheriff frowned, but he revealed what he knew. “The people admire your wisdom and foresight, but some doubt the validity of your claim. These malcontents name you not as the Sun Queen and rightful heir, but rather the Cloud Queen—‘a cloud has passed over the sun,’ they say.”

“I see.” The Cloud Queen’s neutral tone betrayed neither surprise nor offense. “Who do the people wish to hail as leader?”

Even for a Sheriff who had returned from afar only two days ago, the answer was obvious. “The Treasurer is a popular favorite. Kind and charismatic, he has a friendly face and a solid reputation as a community leader. Many believe that the Sun King might even have named the Treasurer as heir before... recent events.”

“Alas that the Sun King has passed. We may never know,” said the Queen, a brittle crispness to her voice. She waved a hand toward the door, and the Sheriff took his leave of the throne room.

The following week, in a grand coronation ceremony, the Cloud Queen publicly relinquished the throne to the Treasurer. The former took the rank of Chancellor, while the latter took the reign title of Gold King. In honor of the new leadership, a grand throne of solid gold was commissioned, and the Chancellor’s customary table and chair once more shuffled to the side of the throne. The people rejoiced, but few were more pleased and delighted than the Gold King.

“I don’t believe it,” the Gold King said to the Sheriff after the ceremony, still astonished by the solid gold crown now in his possession. The crown glittered as the Gold King turned it over in his hands, and multicolored light reflected off the inset gems. “I don’t believe it. All this time, I’m working on national finances and nobody important notices a thing—and now, all of a sudden, I’m the Gold King!” He laughed aloud.

“Careful there, your majesty,” said the Sheriff, unable to resist his good friend’s infectious jubilance. “Royals can’t just go around associating with commoners.”

The Gold King looked at him with wide eyes. “Good point. That reminds me...”

Hastily stuffing the golden crown back onto golden curls, the Gold King rushed off to consult with his advisory council, now consisting of one Chancellor only. The Sheriff watched him depart, equally surprised and pleased by this outcome. How could the Sheriff have known that a mere suggestion to the Chancellor would bring such fortune?

The following day, a confused Sheriff was summoned to the court. Upon arrival, the first thing he saw was the Gold King’s magnanimous grin and laughing eyes. As his first act of leadership, the Gold King promoted one Sheriff to the prestigious position of Minister of Peace, responsible for monitoring the voices of the people and discouraging any inclinations toward rebellion. The Sheriff accepted this position with amazement, hardly believing his own luck in having so influential an ally as the Gold King.

Where the Minister of Peace went, calm flourished and dissent quieted. His new assignment turned a resounding success in the Capital; when he walked through the streets or sat in taverns, he no longer heard criticisms or comparisons to a past regime. He soon began to spread his influence to the cities beyond, converting the City Guard to a newfound Peace Guard with fewer restrictions and more permanent methods.

As the Minister of Peace reached ever further, he heard troubling reports of fires in the countryside. A Madman, who the Minister of Peace rather suspected to be a certain Marshal of the West, was burning entire villages to the ground for speaking even one ill word about the departed Sun King.

The Minister of Peace sent a few Peace Guards out to capture the Madman, but only burnt corpses returned on unharmed horses. Upon hearing of what had returned, the Minister evacuated an entire sector of the city and personally led a few pyrotechnic engineers to check the remains. Hours later, he was profoundly relieved when the search turned up no explosives, but the acrid scent of smoke clung to every scrap of clothing and hair. He lifted the evacuation notice and allowed the fallen Peace Guards’ family members to collect the bodies.

At his wits’ end, the Minister of Peace consulted the Chancellor.

“Indeed problematic,” the Chancellor agreed. From her sleeve, she drew out a poster that promised a fine sum of gold to any who captured the Madman. “Post this bounty in every major city. Let reckless adventurers tackle this challenge while our army turns to more productive ends.”

The Minister of Peace perked up at the mention of a bounty. “Right, good idea. In the meantime, I’ll lead a small squad of elite Peace Guards after this Madman. See if we can’t hunt him down ourselves.”

The Chancellor smiled, clasping her hands. Scholarly robes swayed in a slow wind.

“Who better than a Student of Fire to track down the wayward Master of Flame?”

Hence, the acclaimed Minister of Peace became an official Hunter of one Madman.