Chapter Five, A Feast of Friends

The following Friday, the Great Hall of Crestfall

As the light of day left to die past the rolling crests the cloak of dusk claimed the cityscape. Flambeaus were lit to guide the path to the place of the Feast. This reformed palace of Vizzari’s crimson court, where magisters would dine and bloat themselves on the fruits of conquest, contained atmosphere of undying glut. Save the awful spirit in the air of this wake. The spirit of those dead rulers remained, save the decorations took on more whites, golds and sapphires over the old reds and blacks. When once this banquet was designed as reverent toast to Drakoni perseverance, it’s theme had been tainted with mark of tragedy. A trial of their togetherness in the torrent. An attempt to force celebration among rot & ruin.

The attendants’ spirits were low. Obliged to partake, they yet could not shake off that funereal malaise. This sentiment, evident on the stern countenance of the servers & noblemen alike, and even on those jesters & minstrels deigned with alleviating the fog with their arts. Even they, of the lowest rung of prestigious pretenders, could not perform with their true heart’s resonance. Troupe and troubadours played futile flutes & soulless shows against the pallor. This grand hall held the airless aura of an ill-catered charnel rather than the dining place of proud citizens of the realm. All could feel it, but none dared make mention of it.

Drakkon carried this miserly air about his visor. Disdain and suspicion shown on every crease of his face. Where once his bearing was so radiant & polished as to reflect the shine of his divine grade, he looked now gaunt and pleated, as though he had not eaten nor rested in weeks. The Lord refused to dine upon any of the meals, so delectably prepared for all to partake. Claiming (rather nebulously) his appetite was upset by a thirst for vengeance – a thirst apparently rivaled by his liver’s swelling urge to wash down any sober thought.

This indulgence was much to Corinna’s displeasure. She sat beside her husband at the foremost table, barely masking her distaste for the reeking stench. The food was kept far from them, both ‘fasting’ in their ways to deal with the blow of mourning and the assured arrival of another war soon to come. The Lord forestalled all but his chalice, which he called to be continually filled; swearing off feast for sake of wine & pitchers to purify his gut. While the Lady inhaled ground herb to settle the existential stirring in her stomach, which fled at the thought of eating. She found the few smiles Drakkon graced her with unnerving, with his teeth painted crimson colour all too reminiscent of blood. “My Lord - My Beloved,” The Empress-consort cast calm plea, “my Light. May I be excused from the celebration for a time? I wish to gather my thoughts before addressing our honored guests.”

Drakkon allowed a tempered nod. The motion of which draped his graying raven mane over his face, hiding the hurt behind his eyes. One of the bolder courtiers whispered, “again?”. Then Corinna departed from the Hall, disappearing into the shadowy corridors just beyond. Meanwhile Baron, who kept up appearances by mingling amongst the diners and sharing halfhearted words of hope, upon seeing her take her leave began to weave his way out of the throngs of nobles towards the exit.

“Leaving so soon, are we?” Mordaunt asked rhetorically, blocking Baron’s path. “And before our guests could hear a song from the legendary bard himself? I believe many would feel spurred to see you here only to slink away without humoring their weary ears.”

“Would you not prefer a passing toast to our Lord? Oh, I forgot, he ‘rarely partakes of such mortal indulgence’. Yet surely he would not turn down another glass for his sake?” The bard sighed, knowing full well he would be unable to escape this militant obstacle in Mordaunt who martialed demands of locals & their Lord. “Aye, I would be remiss to deny them such grace! Even if my heart feels far heavier than my lyre and my voice dulled by so much wine. Would you do me the honor of heralding my performance while I prepare a quick tune?”

With a devious gleam behind his pale blue eyes Mordaunt obliged and brought the attention of the Hall to its center where the Bard waited. The bitter conversations died down as did the sounds of the banquet save for the occasional clanging of plates & silver utensils or relentless chewing of the gluttons among the audience. Baron, brought stool & lyre, began to strum somber, mournful strings. He played the instrument as though it were an extension of his body and soul, with such succinct flow & perfection that even his rival musicians and poets were impressed or envious of his natural talent.

A melancholic verse began to flow from Baron’s lips to match the minor chords he lay, blowing a tune that veered near a dark aria. “Where is the love which once filled all our days? Where is the light of our happy cause? Alas our hope is set ablaze, all our alms covered in gauze,”

His sad, subversive song kept on, “…All our hope leaves, carried away by the baleful Fall breeze, and all our tears drape low into the seas… for naught but thee, and never mine…no meaning through to find. Would that Reign wanes, should bring such Spring rains!”

“O, that Light is but a lie, a promise unkempt & pissed in the wind! It holds no Living Truth, o ho, that dark veiled deception for which we all die!”

Silence pervaded the Hall around the bard’s seditious song save for tearful snivels from several guests which were swiftly wiped away by handkerchiefs. Baron readied to take his bow as the applause began to ring. All the while a trustee approached Mordaunt, who placed himself close the front of the hall, and delivered to him sealed parchment. He leapt to present these to his Lord with a cold whisper explaining their meaning. Inside: reports of Baron’s movements in the past few years coinciding with attacks from the People’s Protectorate. And blasphemous inscriptions, in Baron’s scrawl, decrying Drakkon as a pretender taken from one of the Illuminaries the bard built.

Baron mouthed more words to his strong declaration but before his treacherous ballad could be given the rallying conclusion, the same lord the bard gained a vengeful momentum towards trumpeted its end. Hearing this insult dedicated to him, he slammed the table with a thunderous thud as black sword broke out in his hand. Drakkon screamed a garbled & indistinct roar, howled back from bouncing acoustics of the dining hall. A stream of simmering hate. A single catharsis in his shout to cut off the performance which betrayed him before the eyes of all.

Irate, Drakkon vaulted up from his decadently decorated table and read the contents of this evidence of treachery aloud to the audience. The indignation & enmity rippled through his roar as he announced his decree of retaliation. “You hath sung your last song. Performed your last dance. I hereby declare you a heretic and brand you as suspect in the murders plaguing this great city and all good people of our Domain! Arrest the traitor and ensure him transported safely to await trial before the eyes of all the tribes!”

Puffing swears, jumbled backbiting & uproar assailed the Great Hall at this horrid revelation. One nobleman, so affronted by the fact that this man who had only just made him shed tears for the beauty of song, now revealed to be potentially responsible for the horrors that befell Crestfall, went so far as to toss his goblet at the bard. The cup stained his hair & beard with wheat ale. “Do not harm him my good people! I ensure ye that Justice shall be had before the season’s turn. But we must not stoop to beast hood like this ill begotten ilk to smite it!”

“Justice?!” Baron spat as Mordaunt’s men bound his limbs & dragged him away unkindly. “Like that which you showed to Vilas?! The ‘Grace’ that was given to Kee’tan?! Or the druids? Ha! How merciful to condemn me for a crime I had no hand in all to flatter your raving, vain paranoia! O, what shall ye do when the Imperium’s helm runs out of peasants & plebs to fling against the walls of all the Holds which revolt in the name of reason?!”

“SILENCE, SLAVE!” Drakkon bayed in rage. “One more word from thy despicable mouth and I shall have thy traitorous tongue severed! This sympathy for the rebels is nigh admitting guilt! & we yet have much evidence of thy plots, thy snares!”

His hand (quivering with ire unending) skirted over his ceremonial sheath, returning the blade there. Leashing his rage to not wield it to quiet Baron’s heretical gibbering for good. “Half my mind is bent on slicing that snickering jaw from thy head! But as thou uttered defaming curses against the seat of my Divine Dominion – to which thy loyalty is lapsed, despite all it hath given thee - thou shall be brought before a high court at Felhenge. There, at the seat the druids forfeited by falseness, ye shall face those peers thou bark wicked transgressions at.”

Following the lord’s affirmative signal his champion escorted the defamed Baron, with his famous face stolen by black cowl, from the presence of the good people. As he led the warriors and their prisoner away, Mordaunt gave one last look back at the occupants of the hall. His cold eyes fell on the banquet participants, seeing them for the glutted ghouls they were soon to wilt away as. With one masterful play he had ensured that Crestfall’s high society members would be eaten by the plague tainting their fastidiously placed meals. Were it not for his stony persona he would be tempted to tears of glee to see how well his ploy played out. But he contained his impolite pride in the coming punishment and unrest. The die is cast…

Heretics in High Places

Summer’s Fall, Solsheathe 20th of the 17th year AD, Hill Court at Felhenge

Clouds of incense smoke stretched out like ghostly fingers to stroke & pall the faces of all those atop Felhenge, readied for their Aeon’s trial. Above, in welkin court, the Autumn Aurora arrived early to hover over the proceedings; spectral spectators riding the rivers, star stream tilting. Waxing golden & violet glows against the burgeoning bleakness. Ephemeral hues & phantom flashes dart the heavens crest, leaking eerie aspect of Eos’, dawn goddess, promise into evening, of her kin’s course. Baleful Judgement, cast in cloud mesh, marching for Astraea’s approach over the seat of stone circles & the Lord’s makeshift throne of fell slab. Dreary overcast from the west threatened Eos’ blessing of ever-dawn. Astraea’s Just touch, nocturne’s hug, sent shivers beneath cloaks and made more still hark how the sky held wan auguries in its drifting expanse.

Etched upon nearly every face in the crowd were the heavy creases of allegations against the much beloved Baron. The infamous bard had been a beacon to many; a true messenger of the Muses & herald of Astarte’s lusting passions, Erosian mirth and ever a champion of the plebs. Few could deny that his Illuminaries had provided the fruit of ancient & practical knowledge alike (& allowed an alternative service for second sons & daughters to flourish) to the people of all tribes and station. Few there sought to see him meet such a fatal sentence. But as his crimes were of a dour nature, the severity of the proceedings ordered religious treatment from all.

The Lord of Living Light exuded no such radiance of his namesake. Nor warmth from his place of elevation over the congregation. Seated on his throne – a toppled & reshaped black stone of the Druid hill, with a relic of fury affixed to its back: those tangle horns of Bellieus - beside his lovely, if weary, Impress, Corinna, Drakkon’s visage embodied winter. Casting countenance of that mournful gloom which loomed over the court’s hearts & minds. Betwixt circle of stone pillars the court bated their breath.

While the other champions presented themselves as silent guardians, dispersed amongst the throngs of courtiers, sages & nobility (and their elegant courtesan escorts) encircling the scene, Mordaunt stood out before the Court, below the throne. Standing tall & firm upon the hill of stone. His aura as prosecutor, as formidable as his master’s intimidating stature. While his poise was calm & courtly, in his eyes a gleaming hunger for justice bore into the soul of the accused. The chill of the air was seen in his sight, but his body never shook its granite against that pre-frost of imminent hallowed season. If anything, it made him more alert, sharply awake to his argument. That Baron would suffer the brunt of the elements, and his rhetorical fury.

Azarra, meanwhile, had been relegated a position on the peripheral of the proceedings, much to her displeasure. This she deemed a move of blatant disrespect against her position. Her envy scalded holes through her sockets whenever her gaze passed over Corinna. Perhaps this humiliating seat of mere spectator was the result of her conniving? How could she not be plotting to push her further? That unworthy consort, sunk into the embroidery of her powdered position beside Drakkon on her throne of judgement. Yet she, the mother and true giver of guidance, was sequestered; sent out among social climbers, austere sages & tangential nobility. Shut aside beside those ungainly, churlish sorts of a class she thought she’d clawed her way high above.

Her thoughts droned with tempestuous jealousy. Azarra spared a glance at the accused. Reflecting fleetly on how she first hired Baron to spread the word of Drakkon in her favor. Through skills applied now to subvert the reign of her & her son. Something she did not want treated lightly. She sought it so, that this ungrateful spinner’s end might rend a rift between that harlot, slinking behind regalia, and the son that her wretched guile had bedeviled. With such partiality for the bard written on that soured succubus’ face she could see how the split between would restore her to imperial luster, of which Corinna was undeserving of.

The crowd’s wind muffled whispers were silenced with the Drakoni champion’s declaration over and their star prisoner – ragged and worn, with intelligent but troubled brow. Mordaunt spoke in impressively lurid voice of grand office. “Oh, loyal people of this great Imperium! Oh, children of our Living Lord! Before you, in fetters: the man guilty of most profane treason & blasphemous conduct against our Emperor Drakkon!”

“Such treachery is made more deplorable by his coveting such high station. This famed bard who helped sound our rally to glory becomes a whispering deviant, seeding song of discontent. Let his tale of renown, exaggerated and un-earnt, be tarnished by the truth of his treachery! His tongue and wit hath spurned us! Split our sides with forked trident of treasonous will! We hath unearthed evidence of his involvement and propagation of People’s Protectorate propaganda and designs of revolt. Behold this trickster hellion and hear those who shall affirm his guilt unto all.”

The air hung every heart in attendance with tense tethers as Mordaunt called forth the accusers. To Azarra the way the man’s nostrils broadened wildly during his address and the way his boar snout overshadows the rest him, and constantly made his countenance appear eerily over eager. Beneath his mask of emissary of the Lord’s justice he possessed a crooked hunger given the unsteady, dusky ambiance of the trial’s setting. The declaration of ardent assurance flamed in his glare; the guilt of the accused already decided. Those in the crowd who spot this trait bobbed along in trust that this flare must simply be a sign of how compelled by the Lord’s work this zealous disciple was.

The proceedings swiftly spun about an effigy of Baron as a traitorous turncoat. Fellow artisans of Illuminarie played parts as witnesses and (perhaps motivated out of envy) denounced his sonnets & sermons as designs of rebellion. Mordaunt hungrily led the chains of rhetoric from the speakers against the skald. One man, an Alrith, confessed then to crimes done under Protectorate banner: the murders of the noble Bastiones and the champion’s family.

Erratic whispers crackled through the court as a subtle murmur returned. The Court felt unease to be putting one of their own champions on trial for so heinous a crime. Few dared to gaze up at Drakkon on his throne for fear of witnessing his expression or, worse still, meeting his eyes. The confessor, a feral looking man with an unhinged stare stumbled before the scrutiny of the court. His dark attire, remnants of a uniform that bore the stitched sigil of the People’s Protectorate across it. The circles of defeat beneath his eyes and furrowed brow made the man appear already broken, a prisoner in his own body.

“Confess again to these good people what thou did to those poor people. Tell them of the mothers and how thou treated my kin for thy seditious cult!” Mordaunt goaded.

“I-We… yes, we gashed out their bellies and festering guts… ‘twas a symbolic act against the ‘holy’ wardens who kept us all imprisoned in perpetual famine. For tragic abuse from they who let the poor, unprivileged, people of their province fade to famine while they filled their fat bellies. We were there on behest of intelligence from our commanding agent, Baron. Aye, he told us that our tormentors were housed here. He allowed us entry into the walls and payment for their elimination. He said they were too much of a threat and that competition to his political prowess could not stand if we, the hope of the People, were to triumph. For we need a noble leader, he says! As did we poison the aquifers of Crestfall with blight; their stocks with rot.”

Tears trickled from the tattered man’s eyes in sad, jagged drops. He shook beneath the scrutiny of Baron’s aghast and sickened look, not wanting to meet the face of the man he was betraying. Baron interjected and called to his former fellow. “Alrith, you craven! Why do you lie so?! You desecrate the livelihood & future of our realm for small survival? What monster here do you take the fall for? I did not think you were one to crumble beneath their tyranny?!”

More tears fell from his cheeks as their eyes finally met. In an instant the animosity in his burning gaze was replaced with tragic glint of hidden insight. “They have my family…” At this forbidden exchange of telepathic signals Mordaunt pounced on the witness. Brought him to the ground with a mean blow.

“Hark! I know this man as a captain of the Protectorate but not as a callous murderer! He defames himself – wherefore I can only assume, perhaps fearful coercion? - that the real sinner can escape the light of truth! The code of the protectorate is not to strike wanton fear into innocent hearts but to try and free them, help them liberate themselves!” Baron blurted, exasperated & near spent. He flailed a chained fist at Mordaunt. “Listen not to the lies the gilt dog of Drakkon, here, pried of the mouth of this good man. This court follows the tread of our Lord’s lap-hound, supping the gore of his master’s endless war! Hear mercy, not machinations!”

“He shames the very premise of loyalty! He mocks our champion after gutting his family!” Pustules of people spat ardently against the accused. His denial only enhanced his guilt.

Drakkon roared abrupt adjoining to this debacle, stirring the tension in the swarms evermore. “So, you confess to your involvement in the marauding syndicate that tears at the fabric of what we have built, all together! You are a malignant mind spurring machinations for that treacherous group which plots to bring murder upon our mothers and babes! To write their obscene manifesto in the ruins of guiltless bodies! Why should we weigh a liar’s code as worthy of merit?! Savage conspiracy against all civilized peoples this is!”

The background murmur of the crowd ended instantaneously. Clamor, crushed by the sheer thunder from him & anticipation of a coming storm. Delphine, slinking beside Azarra, clung tightly to her cloak almost shrouding herself in it. Not for warmth but for wanting to disappear in its folds. To be free of the pain of witnessing such a fatal rift in those she had long cared for. Azarra, however, yearned then for blood as much as Mordaunt. This frightened Delphine, shivering more than before seeking her assurance. To be so distant of heart when their figures were so near gnawed raveningly at her marrow.

Baron’s features contorted miserably. Trembling with bitter stitch, he pushed past Mordaunt and stared directly up at Drakkon. Though bound he showed no thrall’s posture but stiff disobedience. He would have offered a cheeky grin were his own temper not so enflamed. “I will not claim to be anything that I am not. As all bards – and all people - are bound to follow the strumming of their own heartstrings, so too am I pressed to pursue & play the resonant tune of truth. I do not deny my allegiance with the Protectorate. I embrace, honestly and fervently, that my soul burns for the people. I should have adopted the ideals of their crusade sooner.”

He began boldly. “But I did not order the deaths of the Bastione bloodline – that is a lie! Nor did I wish for any massacre inside that place. Not a whisper did I hear of some seditious conspiracy to turn Crestfall’s sanctum to a pestilent crypt where innocents are ignominiously buried! Someone else schemed this! I am willing to be a martyr but not one put to death over another’s crimes – let me die only for mine! Only through verse and philosophy hath I shaped any plot against you, and I stand by my declarations against the injustice of this Imperium, but I share in your tears for this senseless slaughter. The only conspiracy I know of is the one which is casting me in the mold of a maniacal murderer! When I am ever just a poet who cares too bloody much. Yet ye frame me as a sorcerer who spawned this horror!”

Drakkon forwent his throne. The black marble behind him, with relic coronet of the Forest Lord fastened to it, swathed his looming stature; cast the shadow of horns below. All awaited with unease, suspended with morbid curiosity & trepidation of what the emperor would do to this admitted traitor. Even the Empress rocked with unnerve as her husband and sovereign abandoned her side to confront one of their oldest friends. This friend and former star: prostrated before the highest court in disgrace, at the mercy of an unforgiving Lord. Mordaunt swerved back, clasping the other prisoner by the neck, knowing that this was no longer his official sanction but a deeply personal matter unfolding before the eyes of the world.

“Why?” The emperor’s tone austere, save carrying every syllable in profoundly painful undertow. “Why betray me thus? Why lie and defame my name when I have given you all?”

Baron met his consternating watch unabashedly. He could feel the world narrow, shearing all around in singularity of his old friend’s stalactite stare. A nauseating spiral churned as his core passion seeped into his stinging speech. “When I pledged myself to your cause, ages past, I did so because I believed you to truly deliver the world a green chance. I thought you would grant your promises – not to me and those who helped raise you to your throne of grandeur and opulent pedestal but to the people and the realm. I had faith you would bless all our tribes with unity, or at least grant them their sovereignty. I dreamt that in your triumph you could replenish our lives with renewed meaning in our ability to craft an equitable society-”

“-And I have done this. I shook the foundations of the old world and sent the state of the Dread Serpent toppling into the void. I propped up the Drakoni Aeon as promised and remolded our world from Divine essence. Vizzari is no more! Their Serpent: dead! I fulfilled my promise to my champions and made you the herald of Light. I granted you safe harbor for future generations to learn & flourish in this garden I groomed. Yet you inverted this gift and made it a blade with which to pierce at my heart!”

“Nay!” Baron erupts with impassioned indignity. Fuming with scorn, yet with vigorous candor. “You hath lopped of the Vizzarion’s dreadful head, aye, but only that your own neck may splinter and sprout from the wound like that of a hydra’s. Even your title of ‘Imperator’ is one of many stolen from them. One crown was shed so another duplicitous gemstone may sit upon that heavy head. A thousand serpents are one in you! The mark of your malice is more titanic than this realm yet knew. Such cruelty for its own sake. As though some noxious addictions of yours, that all of us below must be flayed for!” Spitting spite, he stood with feet planted as the stone pillars of this court, refusing to bend before his Lord nor the pressure of that darkened glare. “Under your rule you unite us only in bonds of suffering. Your boot steps upon every throat that dares utter the desire to live for themselves and not speak every breath for your vanity! Any head that fosters a mind of free will is lopped off by your executioner’s axe!”

Acrimony rang through Drakkon’s pupils. Blinded with hate. Yet, paralyzed by tolling rancor & in eye of his own storm, Baron presented his charge. “You became the harbinger of oppression greater than our ancient enemies in the Vizzar! At least the Magistrate’s malice had its limits, and they knew it, even in avarice, too chaining for one man to hold the reins, all heads of states. Our people are divided more than in any age in the gulf between the impoverished and those chosen few who serve you in absurd affluence! Your militarism and expansion beyond promised riches for all. But all that was pocketed into the treasury of a few arrogant nobles who benefited from your sadism. The rest turned to rot and harvest of rue! The People cry out for a chance to breathe beneath the weight of your duplicitous throne! This throne of lies that you raise higher every day, further pummels the backs of the people who brought you to it!”

Drakkon’s monolithic frame towered over Baron who retained his brave poise even while assailed by burning words. “My will commands the movements of the stars! The planets above: as gems orbiting my crown and shining at the behest of my Grace! All that is earthly, all that is corporeal is blessed by my Light and holy touch which gave it this chance to flourish in merciful existence! Those who are cursed with plague and poverty are those who hath squandered my light- my gift – to wallow in the mire of mortal misery… They are impure souls and ungrateful heretics, dregs dwelling in filth & fallacy! Black-hearted heathens who deserve not to bask in the halo of my Divine glory!”

The emperor’s hue distorted to a lurid purplish glaze. His visage, appalling to witness, let alone be the target of that wrathful look. “You dare before the highest decry my radiance, my ordained rule as hollow?! I am the sovereign of heaven and earth and you, in your hubris deny me?!”

“’Tis you who are bloated with hubris & fattening fallacy, Drakkon!” Baron spoke up, stretching his resistance. Though his voice trembled, this was not from cowardice before facing an exacting verdict but from the sorrowful blame and guilt that burdened his soul, that it should come to this. “You are blind to the plight of your people. Seeing only the glistening reflection of illusory luxury. How many sons have you sent to die for empty titles or others when they disobeyed? How many farmsteads were torched when their tribute was not to your satisfaction? Ah, how many ancient writs are travestied for a circle of sycophants to supplant real wisdom with inflations of your ego? Your diet of wyrms and eyeless drakes?”

Storm light struck burning through aurora. Bolts to herald the inclement Helwinds. “My wisdom gives them Light, reason for life! They Live through me, those that do not veer into black veneer of sorcery & curses against all proper Order! I never claimed that the revolution of this planet to my Aeon, in full sway, would be peaceful. Nay, I warned of much sacrifice, to no avail to lesser hearts as thine! Those who heed not the cost of greatness!”

“Greatness?” The defendant thrust forth trident of his tongue. “All these hollow worshipers who chant a dumb litany of petty praise, resounding in your ear with what you want to hear that they may rise to suckle the teats of luxury. But it will not mute the sounds of your people’s whimpers and screams for change. Never shall you silence cries for truth & a right to make life our own!”

“Heaven strike thee! This pitch of blasphemy, alight by my Thunder!” Drakkon verged on spontaneous combustion from his indignation. In the drapery of early evening above, the great constellations winked resistance to walls of heavy bouts. The star sign of the Wyrm, Zar’Rion, and its rival dragon of fyre & wing, Astralis-Drakonis, collapsed in cyclone river of evenfall.

“Let your Divine Grace strike me dead without hand then!” Baron lifted his chains, cursing the heavens, daring their wrath. “Show them your eminent Will manifest as Malderath’s blessing upon me! Ah, but you are no storm god. No rebuke shall light me but that of your malice. Ha! Look at these spurious reverent & frail flatterers you collect! Your courts: so obscenely adorned with frivolous affluence. Yet the masses beneath your high throne and lofty towers are shackled in servitude with a dearth of substance and a travesty of life granted to them for their burdensome loyalty. How many souls most drown in the wake of delusion before you realize what you have become?”

“I am a god of Storm & Sun! I could bid daylight return or a fork of lightning make ash of thee! Alas, these baleful gales are most befitting Our mood; painted in the weather. For my mercy tempers the tempest, covers this court in my Aegis. That ye face wrath of living hands, are strangled by the throat which thought to speak for all of them. Unless repentance moves thee!”

“You are blind to your nature.” Admitted the cursed rebel, with somber & more intimate intonation to his ‘merciful’ Lord. “You are no god at all. Only a man encased in the deception of your vanity, capable of seeing only what you desire to be true. You are a tyrant, a villain! No more divine than a grain of sand or a snow-capped mountain! Nay, even less! This thing, this husk, before me is no creator, no king, but a monster that betrayed everything it espoused!”

The crowd: horrorstruck at this blasphemous claim. They whipped wildly in their places as Drakkon unsheathed his notorious meteorite sword and poked the obsidian edge at Baron’s bare throat. Cries of ‘Traitor!’, ‘blasphemer!’, ‘kill the covetous lout!’ rustled through the spectators. Along with a rather vehement call for the ‘sodding bard’ to have his innards torn out and fed to his fellow ‘rebel dogs’. Braver souls in the audience even dared voice support for Baron, pleas for mercy. Though they hid their faces and shushed their mouths before anyone could pinpoint who said such things as ‘hear him out!’ or ‘he sings the song of truth with soul of a skald!’. Mother Azarra looked particularly appalled by this public proclamation of heresy and clung to Delphine’s fluttering hand for comfort. Delphine however still felt little warmth emanating from Azarra and could not free herself of that imprisoning dread, that inching trepidation that tragedy’s curtain was soon to fall and nevermore rise from this stage.

Baron became broadly emboldened in his conviction. “I will no longer play the purveyor of wide deception and deplorable artifice. Innumerable lives were committed to utter woe, their preventable anguish ordained by this fraudulent doctrine, this false dogma… I will not be an agent for the suppression of knowledge and free thought that your despotic agenda may prevail. Your claim to divinity is an unfounded concoction only real in the heads of those indoctrinated by the lie. Inculcated on ruse! You are a man lost to mere pose.”

The poet’s rhetoric rouses electrifying shocks in the galleries gathered on Felhenge Hill. This sacred site of the Druids, deformed into sacrilegious sham trial might as well be his burial mound if he could but hurl final cord of revelation. “With how ravenously you took from those stable granaries and crops I should expect you to look the mirror image of ole Magister Fel! Aha! What shall they say when our holy lord gains a paunch from his glut?! Or, perhaps, more fitting to say your belligerence and rape of all lands & rights you believe yourself beholden to hath shaped you the same as old Kassan! You, but the blind heir of hapless hubris. Your real father the one you took those horns from! Will you not bare for us ursine skull, your true likeness!”

And the bard-champion-turned-traitor pointed starved finger to the horns hovering over the throne in decoration. The festooned-antlered trophy which hung over the court as a reminder of Drakkon’s strength was that very Crown of Bellieus. Lifted from the temple after much muttering opposition to the move the revered relic to stay in the shade of their divine lord. As sign of Imperium wherever court is held. But he reminded all that it had belonged to Kassan, the terror of a man who nearly brought the tribes to their knees for his conquest. “You look more and more like him with every passing day. A wilted Kassan, without the kilt!”

“LIAR!” came the banshee wail of the High Mother with sudden, unsettling insistence. With harpy’s shriek she tore at the ears of the attendees with verbal talons. “Lecherous asp! My auguries prophesied that there would be a great betrayal among this court! That Saatharian rays would again creep up to strangle we high nobility in our slumbering trust. Here is that wretched snake before us! We should commit him to the balefire and burn his memory for the sake of all our reverent spirits! To tolerate such brazen blasphemy will bring the firmament down upon us!”

This pious, if passionate, pronouncement produced great concurrence. Ensnared the mob with a vicarious yearning for brutal punishment. Anger prevailed over clemency. Nameless folk called for the lecherous liar to be immured, castrated, quartered, and fed to rats. And should the line of Mother’s Azarine faithful not have been blocked by their Lord, whose Eye wavered on his mother, they would have torn him in twain and dunked the rest in the Felstream.

Yet another dissented. Silent and graceful, Corinna glided down from the rocky seat and reached for her husband’s arm in an ardent plea to stall for mercy. As balletic in form as shocking in spirit to the hostile audience around. With gentle fervor she appealed to her crowned spouse. “Please, my love! Deliver him to the folds of time’s decay but not to the headsman’s axe – and not by your own blessed hand most especially. To do so would only make him a martyr and enflame the people’s militia with dire fervor against us! We must make it known to the people that his all too well-beloved bard is a treacherous cur before we commit him unto death. Lest we enrage those blind, ignorant souls who think him a hero of legend. Put him on display as a trophy of the chains. Show the bind of fate for all that incur the holy ire of our Imperium instead. Imprison him in lasting scrutiny of the immoral path which his isolating blocks paved.”

Drakkon turned from Baron to his beloved. Not with the warmth of mercy in his eyes but rather an arctic gale that hailed an avalanche over her being, as if searching for any sign that she too may be in league with the enemy. Then he relented with a sigh. “I understand your concern. But we can withstand any blows that may come in retaliation. This conspirator must be made an example of. Given the pedestal of his position he must be executed. I will delay his death but only for a day… Come the light of morrow’s dawn, Baron, the lascivious leech, will be flayed thin before the eyes of the Drakoni.”

His commanding tone thrust her a few steps back. She felt a rift tearing at the tissue inside, widening the glaring fissure between their love. Though Corinna was a mere few feet from Drakkon she had been committed the furthest distance from him, into the yawning gulf of cold and treacherous space. Many in the crowd were confused that the Empress had stepped up to defend the admitted traitor, even marginally so through the mercy of imprisonment.

Azarra, aware of this budding unease of her intentions, sent hushed whisper to those around that “Perhaps the Impress is not what she seems?” a sentiment which travelled anonymously through the throng of wary nobles & superstitious servants. “Has she been seduced?”

Drakkon quelled the commotion by persisting in his declaration of Baron’s doomed kismet. “I will tear down the legacy of your treachery! I will make you a monument of mockery to be loathed and remembered only as a lesson to those who prop themselves up as a tainted shadow against my Light! I will burn your pitiful Illuminaries in effigy and make it impossible for your treason to be spread through any foundation of this glorious Imperium! I will erase every stain of your abhorrent existence!”

“Nay! Never!” interjected Baron spout of ardency that made Drakkon turn a violet shade with utmost anger. “Burn my body, burn this ‘treacherous’ flesh of mine! Destroy this earthly vessel to satisfy your rage. But I beseech you not to burn these temples to Light & Knowledge! Burn not the heart of this land, of our people and history to ash! Why toss the legacy of all our ancestors onto a funeral pyre for the sake of your own hubris when it is I, alone, affronted you! I swear upon all that once existed between us, all those bonds of friendship and the zeal we shared in bettering the world that it was solely my influence that wronged your rule! I acted on my whim and should be punished for this. But I assure you that the Illuminaries serve everyone in offering the chance to learn and thrive anew in communal understanding. Those students and instructors living in those halls are innocent of my meddling.”

With such resonance of palpable ardency in his passionate defense, a portion of the crowd were caught off guard by his heartfelt zeal for this ideal. Still, most remained cynical and thirsted to see blood shed on this hill for the hell which became their Crestfall, not far from sacred site. Mordaunt dispensed his argument on the matter coldly, further immuring the prostrated bard in suspicion. “Perhaps he only states such a desperate claim in hopes of clearing any of his slithering kin well imbedded in these institutions. I would advise, my Lord, to exercise caution and proceed with an investigation of these Illuminaries to uproot any remaining snakes.”

Even Mordaunt made a point to tread carefully with his words in the wake of Drakkon’s incensed state. “They do aide our alchemists & engineers, these schools. Better to purge them, than raze them. But if they cannot concoct any salve for the blight, it may yet be small loss. How’ere, if the colleges are but schools of revolt and they slaved for the slaughter of my line…” Manticore tears dropped as frost flakes, pouring his longing for Selene into pseudo-chalice of his fallen ‘family’, “let them be staked upon pyres of Imperium!”

“Stake your own rot, fiend! The plague is not our doing. You may have done better to make your imperative its staving & containment. But that it spread from the south to encase all East of the Ruun only shows the incompetence of the censors & stewards of this empire of ataxia!”

The enraged emperor ignored this frivolous prosecution & prompt defense. Stomped up to Baron and, with the strength residing in his one hand, pressed the prisoner to his knees in the poise of disgrace. The legendary blade gleamed with hunger even in the sparse light persisting in the darkening sky. It licked at Baron’s neck, suckling drops of his blood without any application of force from the wielder. “Any bond that once existed between us you sundered the moment you breached my trust, began this plot against my heavenly throne. I see no reason to permit you any last grace of mercy, nor should I risk humiliation by trusting your sordid tongue…”

Grim insinuations lingered in the volatile vacuum between the two men and the purgatorial moments upon which the threads of their fate hung. Drakkon sheathed his sword but held tight in his condemning intonation and in his grip, latched to Baron’s neck. “Alas, I am not a merciless god.” Then the Imperator released the defendant’s gullet & declared the censure from his own. “Come the light of Eos’ next visit, this court shall meet once more for an official show of the great traitor’s damnation. He will die, that is certain. But it must be made known as to why to every person of grand & low standing in our land, as to make his death a meaningful warning to any scoundrel harboring ill intentions against our righteous reign. Put a muzzle on him for now! Mordaunt, would you kindly show the damned party what will happen to any sniveling rats lurking in his ‘temples of light’ by demonstrating on his fellow betrayer.”

Mordaunt shoved the shame ridden Alrith to the stone slab at the center. Ushered to the chopping block to meet a long, merciless knife. Mordaunt made methodical incisions into the man’s skin and along his temple. Artful mutilations, each carved carefully as to elevate the level of pain and elongate the time these signets of Imperium brand his flesh before death arrives. Outwardly, the executioner’s expression stayed stoic, enigmatic. But the predatory flare in the eyes revealed he merely feigned lack of pleasure in tormenting a man who once fought beside him in the front. The doomed Baron caught this sinister gleam. Forced to witness, muffled & voiceless, the ghastly display of his friend’s prolonged & gruesome public death. So too did he notice the man perpetually muttering an anguished prayer: “salvae mius familia.”

The congregation of clouds, grown heavy and burdensome, wept over the assembly. Rain poured over the stone pillars and washed carmine streak. With a signal from the Lord the courtiers were dismissed, bid to disperse. The many hailed his Justice. Then scampered off into the dismal murk, submerging into the brisk bleakness that claimed the whole of the hill.