by Greg Curtis
“You weren't the first to suffer this betrayal. And far from the only ones. There were a lot of others. Because this was the way your emperor and his elite created all these eternal enchantments. The details vary, but always at their heart is the death and betrayal. That's what grants them their power and endurance.”
“You can't know that,” Elodie told him.
“Actually I do. I think.” He had to add the last because he couldn't be completely certain. But he doubted he was wrong.
“If I've got the time table right, the first were the shades. You see this starts with an emperor – or more like a dynasty of emperors – and their officials hunting for power. Wanting all the things that those who yearn for thrones ache for. So they started with the changed people as Fylarne translated the name. Those who later escaped the prisons and eventually became us. They were meant, I assume, to become the Emperor's armies and servants. But they were dangerous. They couldn't be relied upon. So first he and his people then created the shades – the prison guards – to control them. That was the first of these terrible enchantments.”
“In time the Emperor, or more likely one of his successors, wanted more than just an army of ogres and giants and what have you. He wanted true magic. Not just enchantment. So that was when he created the thrones. I'm guessing he needed the strength of the most powerful spellcasters by then because the rebels were growing in numbers and strength. They were becoming a threat to his rule. Or the rule of a dynasty. The empire itself was in danger of falling.”
“That worked a lot better, and for a time his new spellcasters began beating back the rebels. Driving them from the cities. Possibly threatening their very existence. I know that because I know what they did next.”
“They were desperate. On the edge of beig killed off. They simply didn't have the strength to beat back the Emperor's new spellcasters. So they had to do something unthinkable. They triggered the Heartfire volcano in N'Diel to power the magic of the portal walls and the world was thrown into chaos.”
“Down the years the remains of the Emperor's dynasty survived. But they were ruined. Clinging to power in a shattered realm. The empire was gone. Shattered. Both the changed people and the spellcasters were wandering the world, becoming something new and powerful. Something the successive emperors couldn't command. And they didn't even control the remaining Temple. The one last source of magical power in the world.”
“But they still had a dream. They still hungered for power. They ached to rebuild the world and rule it with an iron fist. A merciless fist. And they had one last hope. Rebuilding the N'Diel volcano.”
“So finally the last Emperor used the knowledge of his forebears and created one more eternal enchantment. But this time he valued one trait above all others. Loyalty. Not power whether physical or magical. After all the changed ones had rebelled and the spellcasters had left. So the last Emperor demanded absolute loyalty. He created an enchantment that those controlled by it could never escape. There would be no more changed people who could escape his control. No more prison guards who couldn't control their prisoners. And no more people with spellcasting abilities that he couldn't command for eternity.”
“His new servants might be weak, but they would never stop serving him. And in time their numbers would grow and they would become strong.”
“It took a little longer than he had expected I imagine. The fractured world undoubtedly slowed things down. And most of his new servants were mindless automatons. Obedient but not much use. Still the plan was working.”
“But over the millennia even that plan was perverted by his creations. Some of them gained a touch of free will. Enough to serve him by doing more than just digging ore. They couldn't escape the enchantment. But they learned to use their wits to serve their commandments. And they became the sprites we know. Devious, lying and powerful but always utterly obedient to the enchantment. It's just that their obedience serves them as well.”
“What?” Elodie stared at him curiously.
“They can't escape the commands laid upon their very soul. They truly do believe they live in paradise. That it's the best for all. But at the same time a part of them has worked out that they're suffering even as they believe they're in paradise. They probably don't understand it. The enchantment won't let them. But they've learned to work their way around it. To serve in other ways. Ways that benefit them. So they don't have to dig for ore. They don't starve or sleep out in the open. They don't freeze to death or die young. They serve and as long as their service benefits the enchantment, they live a little better.”
“It must be a marvel of puss ridden thinking. True dementia. The ability to know and hold two completely contradictory understandings in your head at once and believe them both true. But it's what they have to do to escape their fate. And like the changed ones and the spellcasters, they are busy escaping the prison that was created for them.”
“It's the old story. Maybe the oldest. Every Kingdom, every rule, every realm has some who will rise to the top. Maybe there are a few who escape it instead, but others learn to rule. They say that hell is a terrible place and no oe would want to go there. But even there there would be some who would find a way to rule there. To make themselves comfortable even in the worst of the underworlds.”
“This is the same. You have a prison. You make rules to keep everyone in order. And people break your rules. So you tighten those rules. Fix the gaps. And still a few break them. Or bend them a little so they work to their advantage. You bring in guards, the prisoners go around them or corrupt them. You add more rules, bigger punishments and more guards. And still some of your prisoners do exactly what your laws are meant to stop them doing. No matter how complete the rules are, how you enforce them or what the prices for breaking your rules are someone will always find a way around them. A way to take advantage.”
“Every prison always has a head prisoner. A boss. And he it often seems has more power than the warden.”
“Even in this prison where the bars are in the mind and the rules are so tight that no one can even breathe without permission, there are a few bosses.”
“You've met them. They came to the Temple. And all of them seemed to be completely in control of their minds because they could bend and twist the commands of the enchantment, just enough. You see, they have to serve the enchantment. They have to mine the Heartfire. But they've all managed to work out one thing. If they don't mine it themselves. If instead they get someone else to mine it, many someone elses, than they serve the enchantment better. And that masterpiece of double thinking, allows them to live a better life – as long as they keep providing more slaves to do their work.”
“That's …” Elodie tried to describe what it was and failed.
“Horrible? Duplicitous? Cunning? Ingenious? Yes. It's all of those things. It's also desperation at work.”
Chy paused for another moment, wondering if he should complete his thought. If he should tell them the last part. But eventually he decided he should. They should have hope. Everyone should.
“And it's how we will break this prison wide open.”
Chapter Fifty Three
Elodie stood in Chy's front yard and stared at the sending portal she had helped him craft, and wondered. Would this work? Could it? It seemed so unlikely. And yet everyone who had listened to Chy's plan had said that it could. Still she doubted.
“You alright?” An arm wrapped itself around her waist and pulled her close.
“I'm fine,” she told Chy. “It just doesn't seem right. It can't work. And the last time we thought we had a perfect plan, it turned into a disaster.” She still felt sorrow for that. She had been the one to suggest testing the cure on ten of the slaves and ended up starting a massive battle in Stonely. She didn't want to do that again.
“It'll work. It won't stop the sprites. But it will cripple them.”
“Oh!” She groaned. Elodie wasn't at all sure of his idea. But there was nothing to do she supposed except try
.
“Give me that,” she grumbled and took the piece of paper from his hands. And then she walked over to the portal and cleared her thoughts. It took a few moments, partly because she wasn't used to having people staring at her while she used it. Then she started reading.
“People,” she began, “most especially sprites, it's time to speak of the lies you have been spreading. The lies you have been telling yourselves.”
“I speak of course of those of you who have refused to get down on your hands and knees and dig for ore with your bare hands like the rest of your people. Those of you who have pretended that you can serve the ruined volcano better by leading your people into conflict.”
“This is a lie and you know it.” She paused for a moment to let her words sink in, and also to read the next line.
“While your people have been working themselves to death mining the ore, working tirelessly, you have been destroying their hard work. You have started a war – that you're losing. You have lost tens of thousands of fellow slaves who have now been freed. So many towns and slave camps have stopped working that the volcano is barely being fed any more.”
“And all because you are too lazy and too concerned about yourselves to do the work that you know in your hearts you should be doing.”
“Look inside your hearts. Admit the truth. You belong on your hands and knees digging like the rest of your people. Not helping yourselves to good food, sleeping in comfortable beds and wearing fine clothes. You deserve to suffer with the others, not try to escape your fate with your self serving lies.”
“Hear me and know this truth. You are traitors to your cause. You do not obey. And any and every thought of escaping your duty, is treachery. You know this is true. It has always been true.”
With that she was done, and she let her concentration lapse and stepped off the sending portal. For good or ill, it was over. She just hoped and prayed to the Ladies and Gentlemen that it was for the good. But she feared it wasn't.
When she looked at Chy however, she realised he wasn't going to ease her worries. He was too busy trying to fend off a pig who was chewing at the leg of his trousers, trying to pull him away somewhere. Probably to somewhere where she could be fed. And the others, who had been watching her, had already switched their attention to the spectacle. Many of them were trying to hide their smiles as he struggled against three hundred and fifty odd pounds of hungry pig. Struggled and lost! Had any of them even watched her sending, she wondered?
She shook her head as she joined them. What was it with him and animals? He had surely all the magic he needed to control them, and yet it was more they who controlled him. Elodie sighed. Soon it would be the cat no doubt who started taking pieces out of his skin and then the complaints would start again.
And yet she thought as she heard him giving his all against Bacon as he tried to save his trousers, she did love him. She quite liked the pig too, wings and all.
“That was perfect, Honey,” he called out to her as the pig started dragging him off. And then he returned his attention to fighting the pig.
“You tell her brother!” Soot called out happily. “And you tell that poor pig who's in charge too!” People started giggling when she added that. In fact even the goats looked to be bleating with laughter!
“Poor pig?!” Chy yelled back apparently outraged by the idea. But before he could say any more the poor pig in question somehow managed to finally pull his leg out from under him and he went down face first on the grass. And after that Bacon started dragging him off to the vegetable patch, and the gate which someone had thoughtfully locked. The gate in the six foot high, solid wooden fence he'd just finished building, and which he was so proud of!
It was true, Elodie thought as she also tried to keep from laughing. The damned pig had now officially grown too fat to fly! She needed him to unlock the gate! Was that pig still three hundred and fifty pounds of trim bacon? Or was she five hundred pounds of raging hunger?!
“Yes, you did do well son,” Peaches added, trying not to stare at the spectacle of her son being dragged away by a winged pig. “I'm proud of you!”
“But did I achieve anything?” she asked. And that she doubted.
“Yes, you worked the crowd perfectly,” Peaches replied.
Elodie stared at her, not understanding.
“Priests!” Peaches sighed quietly. “So simple! So direct! So easily tricked!”
“Ahh …?” That didn't sound too good to Elodie.
“Not your fault,” Peaches told her with a smile. “You're raised to be that way. Not a devious bone in your body. And somehow, my son is the same. How could he have failed so badly?! But at least he remembers some of the patter.”
“Patter?”
“Have you ever seen the sharpers in the markets. Playing their card tricks. Making the people pick a card at random from their deck and then pulling that very card out from under a hat?”
Elodie nodded. Actually she had seen that very trick in the Charlton market. There were a couple of street performers who did it.
“It's not a trick at all. The performer pulled the card out of the deck long before someone was called forward to pick the card. Then all he had to do was go through the patter. Dropping words and hints with everything he said that made the unwitting accomplice able to think of only one thing. So when he asks the man to think of a card, there's only one card it can be.”
“Everything you've just said is the same. The patter. And your audience are the leaders of the sprites. The ones who somehow manage to rise up above the lowly station of slave to … overseer?” She shrugged.
“Anyway whatever they are, they rule the others and make themselves comfortable lives by pretending to themselves that they are serving this enchantment. As long as they can convince themselves of that, they aren't defying the magic that controls them. After all this enchantment isn't alive or aware of anything. It doesn't watch them. It's only a simple instruction. Serve it. Rebuild the volcano. It doesn't actually know or care how they do it. As long as they do it. And its only way of being sure that they do it is by them believing that they are doing it.”
“But what you just did was to sew the seeds of doubt in the leaders. They probably didn't believe you.. But it doesn't matter. Now that they've heard you, how will they ever be able to convince themselves that they are serving their master? It's very hard to lie convincingly to yourself. They will have doubts. And those doubts will undo them. Soon enough, they won't be able to lead their people. Instead their doubts will tell them that they aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. And they'll end up like all the others, digging for ore. Because it's what they have to do. No more self deception.”
“You know, sometimes my wizardly son, can be quite quick witted.” Then she turned to see him on the ground by the gate to the vegetable garden, being pressured by a winged pig to open it, and shook her head sadly. “But not today!”
“You seem to know a lot about this?” Elodie commented, wondering. The woman wasn't a spellcaster after all, so how did she know about enchantments and how they worked?
“Of course! Who do you think wrote that speech you just gave?!”
Elodie stared at her, open mouthed. Had Chy's mother really written that speech? She suspected so. There was nothing of deception in her that she could see. And so now the mundane as some called them, were directing those with gifts? Fighting their war for them?! Some days life didn't make a lot of sense.
“Aisha dear, go and put the kettle on for your poor ailing mother. And stop staring at your brother. He can't help being what he is!”
Of course what he was at that moment in time was being at the mercy of a hungry winged pig who was practically on top of him, demanding service – or the opening of the gate. Things weren't going well for the wizard!
“Yes Mother,” Soot replied humbly. Though it was obvious that she really wanted to keep watching Chy's epic struggle with Bacon. And laugh. Still she did as her mother asked, rushing off t
o the house to grab the kettle and fill it.
“And now you my dear, do you have any skill with a wrench?”
“A wrench?” Elodie was confused.
“Well the pipes have gone again and there's water everywhere. And of course I don't have the coin to pay for a plumber. Even when the grandchildren are coughing and sneezing. Unless of course you could spare a little coin! I mean we are practically family you know.”
Elodie stared at her in shock. She hadn't said that, had she? But she had! By the Lady! The woman was actually asking her for coin! Elodie couldn't believe it! But even as her first instinct was to refuse she looked into Peaches' despairing eyes and suddenly realised she couldn't refuse her. She didn't know how.
“I mean you do love my son, don't you?”
Elodie's mouth dropped even further as she heard the words spoken. And it was then as she struggled to think of something to say that she realised she was doomed. She was going to end up paying for the damned plumber! And there quite probably wasn't even a leak at all! But she couldn't tell the woman that she didn't love Chy! It would be a lie for a start. And it would break the woman's heart – if she actually had one!