Chris Evans - A Darkness Forged in Fire

Faltinald Elkhart Gwyn, recipient of the Order of the Amber Chalice, holder of the Blessed Garter of St. DiWynn, Member of the Royal Society of Thaumaturgy and Science, and Her Majesty's newly appointed Viceroy for the Protectorate of Greater Elfkyna of the Calahrian Empire, was not amused. He should have been in the viceroyal palace hours ago, but his carriage and procession were currently stopped dead.

"Malodorous cesspool," the Viceroy said, raising a scented handkerchief to his nose. Smells bubbled and oozed in the sweltering cauldron of five thousand merchant stalls jammed into an area originally intended to hold a fifth that number. Beasts of burden were as numerous as the flies that swarmed around them, buzzing black clouds surging several feet in the air with every swish of a dung-crusted tail. Cinnamon, raw meats, curdling milk, mustard, cardamom, and the bitterly sharp tungam nut assaulted the nose and watered the eyes and almost distracted the marketgoer from the underlying stench of sweat and raw sewage.

The carriage door swung open and a lieutenant in the green uniform of the Calahrian infantry saluted. The market smells washed into the cabin and the Viceroy fought the urge to gag.

"Sorry for the delay, your grace, but one of the outriders' horses knocked over an elfkynan's stall, and the merchant won't let us past until we pay."

The Viceroy sighed behind his handkerchief. "Is that all? Fine, shoot him."

The officer blinked and opened and closed his mouth. "Sir?"

"To delay the Viceroy is to delay the work of the Empire, which is tantamount to revolt." Of course, shooting a merchant in the bazaar as one of his first acts as newly appointed Viceroy would cause no little unrest in the country, he realized, and he was not unhappy at the thought. It was time for the Empire to forge a new path in the world even if Her Majesty did not agree, and to do so he would set Elfkyna aflame.

The lieutenant coughed, clearly lost on the word "tantamount." The word "revolt," however, registered with him like a cannon shot. "Your grace, I don't think it's as bad as all that!" The murmur of a growing crowd indicated that it wasn't yet, but could be if given the right provocation.

The Viceroy lowered his handkerchief and gave the officer a smile that showed teeth and not a hint of humanity. "Really? Bring me that news parchment," he said, pointing to a tattered scroll of paper pinned to the wall across from the open door. The lieutenant yelled at a sergeant, who quickly retrieved the parchment, handing it to the officer who in turn handed it to the Viceroy.

"Can you read this?" the Viceroy asked, pointing to the large black letters at the top of the scroll.

"It's the Imperial Weekly Herald, your grace," the lieutenant said slowly.

"Of the Calahrian Empire, yes. And below that?"

The lieutenant squinted. " NORTHERN TRIBES STAGE PEACEFUL PROTEST , a story by Her Majesty's Scribe Rallie Synjyn."

The first twinge of a headache blossomed behind the Viceroy's eyes. The very idea of a reporter of events struck the Viceroy as running counter to everything he believed in. Spies for those in power were one thing, but informing the governed was quite another. The masses did not need to know, only to obey. Clearly, Her Majesty's Scribe Rallie Synjyn was a thorn that needed plucking.

"The natives are growing restless. They have been without proper leadership for too long. Order must be restored." The state of affairs was indeed deplorable; things were not disorderly enough, a fact Synjyn and the Imperial Weekly Herald continued to convey.

Two years ago, in a sop to Imperial brotherhood, Her Majesty had appointed an elf from the Hyntaland to oversee Elfkyna. It did not turn out as Her Majesty wished. For one thing, the elfkynan weren't actually elves, and harbored a deep resentment of those that were. Three centuries before, an explorer looking for an eastern sea passage to the homeland of the real elves in the Hyntaland discovered a new land by mistake. Convinced he really had found the Hyntaland, the explorer insisted on proclaiming the natives elf-kind, despite the fact that the elfkynan were a somewhat short, stocky race that looked nothing like elves and far more like humans, though the Viceroy deplored the idea.

A second problem had been the previous Viceroy's capricious, brutal, and above all, bloody reign. An iron fist in an iron glove. How…appropriate, the new Viceroy thought, refusing to even entertain the pun-that the last Viceroy was murdered by the elf commanding the Iron Elves regiment, Her Majesty's colonial troops from the Hyntaland.

The scandal had rocked the Empire. The elves of the Hyntaland, once viewed as the Queen's most loyal colonial subjects, were now seen as the duplicitous beings they were. The Iron Elves were disbanded, their soldiers placed aboard a galley and sent south across the ocean to the desert wastes, while their officer was court-martialed and cashiered from the service, but not, unfortunately, executed. Evidence apparently existed that suggested the previous Viceroy had in fact been working for someone else. While Calahr was mortified by it all, the elfkynan rejoiced in the Viceroy's demise, and much of their growing resentment was deflated. The urgency to appoint a new Viceroy diminished, and it took considerable maneuvering within the royal court for Gwyn to finally secure the posting. In the meantime, the work of the last Viceroy had simmered in the heat with no one to stir it up.

Well, that was all about to change.

"I expect to be in my palace within the hour, Lieutenant. Someone is going to be shot in the next ten seconds; I'll leave it up to you who."

The lieutenant saluted and closed the door. Orders barked out and the sound of metal ramrods rattling in musket barrels sent up a cry among the crowd. The carriage swayed as people ran.

"Fire!" The musket volley echoed off the mud brick walls, followed by screaming. The carriage began to move forward again, the squelch of things beneath its wheels adding to the din. The Viceroy closed his eyes and allowed himself another smile. Things had indeed changed.

Four hours later the Viceroy stood among the ruins of his palace, looking for someone to blame. He took a calming breath and surveyed his new home. The palace was little more than a collection of tumbled blocks of sun-dried mud. It reminded him of a potter's wheel left unattended, the wet clay slumping and fracturing as it dried into soft, meaningless bits.

Shattered pieces of statues representing deities once venerated now suffocated under sheets of lichen, slowly eating away at them until not even the memory of their godliness remained. Had the previous Viceroy actually lived among this squalor? He considered that. The man had been an elf, one of the races close to nature and all that rubbish.

The lieutenant followed the Viceroy's gaze. "The last Viceroy never took up residence here, your grace," the lieutenant said, his voice quavering slightly.

"Always off on some kind of expedition or other. Searching for buried treasure, no doubt," the Viceroy said. It was a poorly kept secret that the previous Viceroy had spent the bulk of his time, when not antagonizing the elfkynan, tearing up the country in search of magical artifacts. The elf's search had ended, badly, at the little garrison fort of Luuguth Jor.

"They say he was looking for signs of the Stars, your grace, trying to find where they had once been. He had maps and wizards and everything to try and find them."

The Viceroy looked closely at the lieutenant for the first time. He had the look of a wax toy left too long in the sun. Everything about him drooped, from his eyes to his stance. Middle-aged, only a lieutenant, and assigned to guard duty in a backwater like Elfkyna, he was the epitome of the Empire today: soft.