Richard Tuttle - 13 Day War

“You keep referring to this agreement,” scowled the colonel. “Why don’t you just go and ask him?”

“Because I don’t particularly want to die this night,” answered the general. “The morning after he proclaimed my new title, the emperor appeared outside the palace. He talked to me and Donil as we were leaving the palace. That struck me as odd because we had been meeting in secret. It was not in the best interests of either of us to be seen together. That causes me to doubt that the emperor was acting of his own free will.”

“I cannot answer that question without knowing what the agreement is.”

Clint sat and thought for a moment. Eventually, he nodded. “The A Corps is returning to Despair to seize the Imperial Palace and free your father from Grand General Kyrga and whoever is controlling him.”

“And in return?”

“There will be no war with Alcea.”

“Are you Alcean?” gasped the colonel.

Clint sighed with frustration. “You are interrogating me, Colonel. Oh, you are doing it well and in an excellent manner, but this will not continue. This conversation will be a two-way conversation, or it will end this very moment.”

“You are being unfair, General. You know everything that is going on, and I truly know nothing. Think for a minute what you are asking of me. What if I were to say yes, but I was wrong? You would take your wrath out on me and my family. And if I said no, you would consider the agreement broken and take your wrath out on me and my family. What do you expect me to say?”

“I will never harm the women of your family,” promised Clint, “no matter what happens. I risked my life to save them, and I hold them harmless. If your father cheats on the agreement, I will kill him. As for you, our future relations depend on what kind of man you are. If you are honorable and reasonable as your grandfather was, we will get along fine. If you seek to continue your father’s policies of plundering the poor and enslaving them, we will come to blows. I cannot be more open and honest than that. I will never hold a person accountable for the deeds of another.”

“You still leave me in a quandary,” frowned the colonel, “but I accept your words in the spirit that they were given. I do not agree with my father’s policies. I never have. In fact, we have had numerous disagreements about them. I spoke to you on more than one occasion about the apparent snubbing of me by the emperor. I suspected that most of that was due to the disagreements we had, but now I am not so sure. Since the date of your proclamation, the emperor has been free to move about as he pleases. He has his own guards back and he once again dictates orders to Grand General Kyrga. One would think that the emperor is his old self once again.”

“But you don’t?”

“The quandary, General, is that I want my old father back. I do not want him dead.”

“And you think that as soon as you tell me that he won’t honor the agreement, that will mark him for death.” Clint nodded with understanding. “I am sorry, Taerin, but if your father breaks the agreement, he will die. If we don’t find out who is pulling Kyrga’s strings, your father will die anyway, but there is more to consider than just your father. The war with Alcea is going to be costly for the Federation. Perhaps you should be more concerned with the deaths of hundreds of thousands instead of just your father. I know that is a hard thing to ask of any son, but you are not just any son. You are the future Emperor of Barouk. Will you start your reign trying to make the world a better place to live, or will you start it by listening to thousands of women and children wailing for their lost loved ones?”

Colonel Taerin sat silently for a long time. Finally, he looked the general in the eye and nodded. “I think the emperor is under some kind of magical spell. Unless we can find a way to break that spell, he will not honor the agreement.”

“Why do you think he is under a spell?”

“There are a number of reasons, most of them small, but together they add up. The most significant is that the emperor truly has no idea who I am. I am convinced of that now.”

“The emperor has learned to control his emotions very well,” retorted Clint. “Perhaps he is afraid to let anyone know that he is close to you for fear that they might suspect the truth.”

“Father has done that well for years.” The colonel shook his head dismissively. “Sometimes he would publicly treat me like dirt to keep everyone at bay, but this is different. There is no spark of recognition in his eyes when we meet, even in private. Whatever the black-cloaks have done to him, he does not recognize me. I suspect that they just found a more efficient means of controlling him.”

“What other clues do you have?”

“He tries to write left-handed and eventually switches to his right hand in frustration. I have seen this many times since you left the palace. My father has always been right-handed, but his mind seems to think that he is left-handed. Also, my father was always an early riser, but now he seldom gets out of bed before the sun is well into the sky. Were it not for my father’s familiar face, I would swear that it was not my father based upon these small things alone.”

“Perhaps it is not your father at all,” mused the Ranger.

“What do you mean? How could it not be my father?”

“I would have to talk to a mage that I know, but I remember hearing about a spell that allows a magician to assume the body of another. If that is what has happened here, your father is already dead.”

Colonel Taerin sighed deeply and closed his eyes for a moment. He had suspected for some time that the relationship he once had with his father was long over, and he felt fairly confident that it would never return. While somewhat shocking, hearing that his father might already be dead began to make sense.

“That would explain the late rising and the propensity to use his left hand,” frowned the colonel. “I pray that you are wrong, but I will proceed as if you are right. Where is my family?”

“They are safe,” Clint answered vaguely. “Believe me when I say that they have a better chance of remaining safe if you do not know where they are. That is not a threat on my part. It is an overabundance of caution.”

Colonel Taerin nodded with acceptance. He didn’t like not knowing, but the general had been honest with him so far. “Are you Alcean? Is that why you are willing to risk your life to end this war?”

“I am an Alcean Ranger,” stated the general. “Your father was aware of that when he signed the proclamation.”

“Do you think he meant to honor the deal?”

“I do. I consider myself to be a fair judge of men, and I believe that he was sincere when we made the agreement. His true fury was reserved for the unknown man who is trying to murder his family and steal his throne. Alcea certainly meant less to him than revenge. Yes, I believe he meant to honor the deal. I suspect that something happened that night after I left his quarters. Perhaps Kyrga was alarmed when K’san did not return.”

“Well, Alcean Ranger, I will make you a deal. If you find this unknown man and prove to me that he is behind this affair, I will see to it that there is no war with Alcea.”

“That is a deal that I would heartily accept, my friend, but I fear we may be too late. Spring is just around the corner, and Grand General Kyrga will be dispatching his troops any day now. I will have my people do whatever they can to ferret out the puppet master, but I think war is coming. What can you tell me about increases in troop strength since the festival days?”

“Kyrga is continuing to build the army, and his pace is rather frantic. I do not understand it. We already have over three-hundred-fifty-thousand soldiers, yet he shows no signs of slowing down. He is offering ever higher bounties to get more men.”