Chapter 10

The young man at the desk briefly stopped writing and looked up at the Baron, clicking his tongue and immediately going back to writing.

“Since you are here I assume Leibensburg has fallen.” His voice was clear and carried an air of refinement, but was also full of annoyance.

“Not yet, no, but it is only a matter of time at this point. The Prince’s Elven mages are dead and the walls will fall any moment now, they may even have already fallen, hence the rumbling.”

The man stopped writing and looked up, looking almost offended.

“There is no need to refer to me in the third person, we’ve met in the past, and I greatly respect your work. You may refer to me as Willhelm, if that pleases you.”

“Third person? Does that mean...you’re the prince I was sent here to do battle against?” The prince frowned indignantly

“You’ve forgotten me? That’s rather rude. What, did you get struck on the head or something?”

The Baron rubbed his eyepatch.

“Shot actually.”

“Oh…my sincerest apologies.” He quietly resumed his writing.

“Yes, I am prince Wilhelm Hauptman Reikspal. Ruler, well, I suppose former ruler now, of Leibensburg. We have met before, about five years ago now. I was touring the Empire and you saved my life while I was skiing in Bvaria. I would have died upon the rocks that day had you not grabbed me at the cliff's edge...does any of this sound familiar?”

“Can’t say it does, unfortunately.”

Wilhelm frowned.

“That’s a shame, a real shame, Baron. That is what they call you, yes? Just Baron?”

“Just Baron. Not really sure why, but so far it hasn’t caused any confusion.”

“Fair enough, everyone understands what you mean when you just say ‘The Baron’ so it works. Must be nice to be so prolific, many people I’ve met did not even know the Empress had a brother! Though that does make it easier to travel, I don’t have to worry about kidnappers.”

Wilhelm let out a small chuckle and the Baron stood there in awkward silence.

“So, do tell, what are you writing so furiously that an enemy combatant entering barely gives you pause?”

“We all have our secrets, Baron, can you allow this to be one of mine?”

The Baron put his hand to the hilt of his saber.

“Apologies. While I do value privacy, I am sure you understand I have a job to do.”

Wilhelm let out a long sigh and turned his papers around.

“I am forging documents, this room is filled with a lot of sensitive information currently, and I would very much like to throw my sister off the scent of my allies.”

The Baron picked up one of the papers and started to skim it.

“My my, so forthcoming! That is quite an interesting idea, most people just destroy everything. So, why tell me everything with so little pushing? I could ruin everything now that I know what you are doing.”

The prince smirked and let out a small chuckle.

“Because you’re going to let me continue my work, and then you are going to lie to the Empress. You got here and killed me as I was escaping through a tunnel, failing to retrieve my body but at least stopping me from burning the rest of my important documents.” He gestured to a pile of ash on the floor, there were still bits of unburnt paper visible and had some unreadable writing on it. The Baron spit at his feet and drew his saber halfway.

“And why should I do that?”

The prince slowly pulled a drawer slightly open, obviously hoping the Baron wouldn’t notice. the Baron did, infact, take notice, but couldn’t quite make out what was in it. Nothing Good, the Baron quietly mused.

“Because you agree with me. The Empire is out of control. It’s imperialism is as harmful as it is unsustainable, just think of how much trouble the Empress had quashing such a small rebellion within the Imperial core. The Empire of old would have squashed me in a matter of days, it took her four months despite the unbelievable power and resources of the Grand Imperial Army. It took her far too long to engage me and my allies in Holenstadt, the Army was mustering near the southern border to invade the Assai’id’s Confederation and simply couldn't reach us in time to stop us begin things got out of hand. Imagine what would happen should a genuine rebellion start! The Empire would crumble within days.”

“Wait...what do you mean ‘genuine rebellion’? This isn’t genuine?”

“No, to be honest I did not think it would get this far, but I underestimated the Empire's ineptitude and our conquered people’s anger. If I was serious about leaving the Empire’s yolk I could have done it, but unfortunately I was not, I do not have the resources to actually do that yet.”

“Wait, so you launched the rebellion to...teach the Empress a lesson?”

“In a way. My rebellion had two goals; to show everyone that the Empire is weak, and to show my sister that the Empire is weak. Those are two separate goals, though they may sound similar. My goal in showing everyone that the Empire is weak was to goad people into rising up, though to be honest I didn’t think it would be quite as effective as it was. I just wanted the various peoples we've attempted to assimilate over the years to sense weakness and rise up at a later date after preparing and bolstering their numbers and armaments, retaking their lands and preserving their cultures and way of life and all that. I really should have expected all of Holenstadt to have revolted, it is filled to the brim with dissidents. It was only conquered some 50 years ago after all, we haven’t even eradicated their ethnic names or clothing yet. I hear your mercenary company was contracted to deal with them, correct?”

The Baron rubbed his eyepatch again.

“Yes, in fact that is where I lost my eye...wait...so, what you’re ultimately getting at is, this whole ordeal...is your fault?” He gripped his sword even harder than before.

“You’re saying that I lost my eye because you wanted to mess with your sister!?”

Wilhelm’s eyes widened at this sudden display of anger and lunged for the half open drawer, drawing a pistol and aiming it at the Baron. The Baron drew his own pistol at lightning fast speed and shot, knocking the gun out of the young prince’s hand. Wilhelm grabbed his hand in pain and the Baron rushed forward and grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt.

“Give me a reason! Give me a reason to abandon my duty and trust the word of a child who’s temper tantrum robbed me of my eye and killed over 5,000 of my fellow countrymen!”

“Baron! Please, allow me to finish! After I have laid out my plan you can decide whether or not to kill me! Things will continue as planned, whether I live or not, it’s inevitable! Just listen to my plans and be convinced!” The Baron waited for a couple of seconds and tossed him back down into his seat, going back to white knuckling the saber at his hip.

“Go on, explain your genius plan like your life depended on it, because it does.”

Wilhelm adjusted his collar, then he picked up some papers and handed them to the Baron.

“I am doing this as a sign of goodwill, those papers contain the names of some of my collaborators, though even if you take those names to the Empress it won't end my plans, they are already dissidents who are suspected by Der Landwerte, it is only a matter of time before they are ‘harvested’. Their loss would sting, certainly, but everything could continue roughly as planned without them.”

The Baron’s grip on his weapon softened and he put the papers down on the desk and sighed.

“Go ahead, explain the rest of your plan. You’re not out of the woods yet, but luckily for you, I have calmed down. The fact that my eye was missing didn’t really sink in until I had a person with a name and face to blame.”

“You have nothing to apologize for, I imagine would be rather miffed if I was missing my eye as well." The prince shuffled his papers around and grabbed the one he was writing on earlier.

"Now, where was I? Oh yes, the goals of the rebellion. To summarize the first goal, I wanted to show everyone that the Empire was weak so that the various peoples we have incorporated would begin to fight against it with more fervor. For the most part I was allowed to travel around the Empire and do whatever I wanted, my sister was young and her reign was strong, she felt she had little concern about me usurping her, so I saw quite a bit of the world on her dime. During my travels, I developed an appreciation for different cultures and races of the world, a very strong appreciation, in fact. I became an anthropologist, a practice brought to us by the otherworlders somewhat recently, and when I returned to the Empire, I developed a distaste for our practices. The Empire conquers people and incorporates them into the Imperial fold, assimilating anything that is useful to that end but attempting to destroy everything else. I wish to stop this practice before it can do any more harm, allowing the various different cultures that can still be saved to preserve their ways of life. If things continue the way they are, Brzęczyszczykiewicz, renamed to Holenstadt by my father 50 years ago, is in danger of completely losing their original Brzęci culture. Soon enough there will be a whole generation of Brzęci who have no memory of their country’s past, free of the tyranny of the Empire. Did you know the Empire and Brzęczyszczykiewicz were allied in the past? 100 years ago the Empire could never have conquered Waffenstadt without their help, and look what that earned them! A knife in the back and an iron fist slowly choking the life out of their culture! And before that, the Empire was allied with Waffenstadt, who’s previous name was purposefully lost to time, using their aid to conquer Leibenstadt, another culture lost to time! And now the Empire has allied with the Orkney Isles! Though they are only allied because Orkney is afraid of getting the same treatment as the other surrounding countries, the Empire is still planning to use their aid to invade the Assai’id Confederation. Then what? When does it end? What happens after we assimilate every other human nation? Attempt to assimilate the non-humans? I doubt it. I believe the Empire would devolve, would turn into what those summoned ones described to us all those years ago. Tell me Baron, have you heard of the empire from another world, the Nazi empire?”

The Baron’s eyes widened.

“The Nazi party of Germany?”

People from my world talked about the Nazis? Does that mean this world is familiar with my world’s history?

“You are quite the learned man, Baron. I learned about this from the summoned one, Joshua Miller after he harassed the Baron of Waffenstadt for alcohol and drugs. So, I assume you know about the murder of eleven million? Eleven million humans, killed by other humans, based on what? An imagined difference. Imagine what we would do, given the opportunity, with the nonhumans! A people whom we have genuine biological differences!”

The Baron was still reeling from the mention of the Nazis.

Out of any situation I would find myself in, discussing how to stop my country devolving into a naziesque racial panic with a rebellious prince in the secret basement of a fantasy castle town being destroyed by an artillery barrage ranks fairly low on what I would have expected.

“Joshua described a concept to me during our week long binge mooching off the Baron of Waffenstadt called Fascism, though I only vaguely remember it because I was high out of my mind off of a drug he introduced me to he called 'magic mushrooms'. But, from what I remember, it describes the Empire perfectly!” Wilhelm was starting to get frantic, talking as fast as he could and wildly gesticulating as he was talking.

“Prince, I am so sorry, but, can you please slow down, this is a lot to take in at once.”

The prince seemingly realized he was rambling, as he took a deep breath, and closed his eyes, holding it for a few moments before breathing back out.

“Apologies, I just get really excited talking about history and concepts from another world. Here-” He began to reach into a drawer and the Baron eyed him dangerously.

“Don’t worry Baron, I’m parched is all.” He dipped his hand the rest of the way into the drawer and withdrew a small bottle with an amber liquid in it.

“Scotch from my trip to Orkney. It would be a shame for this to go to waste, scotch gets quite the premium over there. Well, a premium for empiresmen, stingy bastards. Very protective of their booze that’s for sure, especially when it comes to ‘Empire dogs’ such as myself.” He produced two small glasses and filled them with scotch, handing one to the Baron.

“I wish we could have ice, but we are currently under siege. Speaking of which, I should probably wrap this up and make my escape, if you’ll allow it of course.” They both gave cheers and clinked their glasses together.

“I’ll consider it, you are quite the interesting conversation partner, though you did take my eye.”

They shot back their scotch and the prince returned the glasses to their drawer.

“Anyways, where was I? Oh yes, Fascism! The way Herr Miller described it to me was...something about...ultranationalism? and the fighting of a concept called ‘the other’. Miller theorized that after the Empire was done with their current 'other', which he identified as the Assai’id Confederation, they would turn their eyes onto the Orkney Isles, then onto the closest nonhuman population, Orcland, then the next closest nonhuman population, and so on and so on until there was no one left and it begins to eat itself up, creating different in and outgroups to juxtapose itself against. I wish to avoid this in any way we can. I thought about attempting to build what the elves call a ‘Republic’ with democracy and whatnot, but I wish to wait and see how their Republic and their Democracy works out before I attempt it here, many people are suspicious of ideas that come out of Elfdom, we are at war after all, so using their society as an example to model ourselves after is quite the hard sell as of late.”

We’re at war with the elves? Why? I guess that means more reading to do when I get the chance...

“And to that end I wish to shake my sister’s confidence in the strength of the Empire. I predict that my rebellion will cause one of two reactions by her, either she will become more lenient to different cultures, allowing conquered peoples to speak their own languages and have their celebration and traditional dress and whatnot, or she will double down on her forced cultural assimilation, which will lead to even more anger and more organized rebellions. Both of these will accomplish what I want, to varying extents, which is the preservation of other cultures and the weakening of the Empire as a whole. Another possible end for the Empire that Joshua predicted was that the world would unite against the threat of the Empire, which could work for me and is not without precedent in our world, such as the great Elven empire which came to power and was reduced to 1/15th of its former size, then further reduced by the ongoing civil war against the Elven Republic, but ultimately a world war would most likely lead to more bloodshed than I would like, during and after the war.”

A great explosion shook everything surrounding them, knocking papers and books to the ground and almost knocking the Baron off his feet.

“Do you get what I am saying so far? I fear we are running out of time and I really should be going.” He stood up, revealing he was wearing thigh high shorts for some reason, and started walking to the corner, flipping over a rug and revealing a trapdoor.

“This leads to the river Leiben, I have some trusted comrades waiting for me there, they will pick me up and take me to a secure location. I am sure you don’t mind.”

The Baron walked over to him and handed him his bottle of scotch.

“Here, you’ll be needing this.”

The prince’s eyes lit up.

“So you’ll let me go?!”

“Yes I will, I wish we had more time to discuss the details, but I will support your cause...well, not immediately. I will wait before I have built up my forces quite a bit first! The Grand Imperial Army can muster 500,000 men if they need to, so I’ll need a coalition able to match that before I raise the flag of rebellion. But trust me, I will.”

The prince opened the trapdoor and sat down on the edge.

“Thank you, Baron. I knew you would listen to me. I heard from Joshua you used to party with him 10 years ago after your wife died, he said if anyone would agree to work with me, it would be you. I just didn’t think we would meet in quite this way, or that it would go quite so smoothly, though maybe smooth isn’t the right word.”

As they shared a brief chuckle, the Baron was gifted with a memory of something the Baron used to do when dealing with wanted men he wished to protect, reaching into his inside pocket and grabbing a small silver coin, bending over and handing it to the prince.

“When you meet your men, tell them you will be heading for Bickenstadt city, find a shop called ‘Der Angepisste Fischhändler’ and ask for Johan, they’ll know what to do. In the meantime I will tell everyone that you have perished. As for the coin, it’s an ancient currency used by the people before my ancestors. There are only 100 of them in existence now, the rest melted down by the Empire for their own coinage despite mine and my father's pleading. If you show that to ‘Johan’ he will guarantee you the finest conditions. Though, if you lose it, I will have you drawn and quartered.”

The prince took the coin gingerly, running his fingers along the strange runes that covered the edge of the coin.

“Baron, I will protect this coin with my life. While I am in your custody, do you think you could fund my anthropology? I think you would find the results interesting, if nothing else, and if my trips are outside the Empire to learn it would be harder to connect us should I be discovered alive.”

“Sure, Wilhelm, and while you’re at it you have unfettered access to my castle’s library. What’s mine is yours, my friend, all you need to do is ask for it. Good luck.”

The prince smiled and nodded his head reverently.

“Oh, and before I go Baron, in the bottom right drawer I have a personal journal. I have written about my reasoning for all this, I want you to read through it when you get a chance, after that you can decide what to do with it.”

The Baron smiled and began to push the prince into the hole.

“I’ll see if it’s good enough to sway people to my side. Ok now, time for you to go.”

“Wait actually I’m supposed to sit on that rug over ther-NOOOOOOO”

The prince screamed in pain as his bare legs scraped against the coarse stonework of his tunnel.

"Oh."