Wave Mandate

by Schneider, A. C.

  And she walked off.

  “Erin!” called Jonas. He started to chase after her but this time someone caught his arm.

  “We have to talk, Jonas.”

  Jonas looked over his shoulder to find Blumbrock holding his arm with one hand and offering him a drink with the other. “Not now, Representative.”

  “Please, call me Blumbrock.”

  Jonas closed his eyes, willing forth patience. “Blumbrock,” he repeated. “I told you I couldn’t accept the position.”

  “So I remember. But I’m afraid that’s not going to be an option for you.”

  Dunner looked askance at the Ipsidian tycoon. “I don’t believe that’s for you to say, Representative.”

  “Blumbrock,” he corrected, “and you’re right. But it is for Parliament to say, as well as at least a dozen of the top Island corporates and many of your Academic colleagues.”

  “I’m barely into my Professorship, for which I didn’t even take the examinations. I’m not qualified.”

  “With all due respect, Headmaster,” he paused, swishing his drink around in his glass, taking a long sip and audibly exhaling before continuing, “you don’t know what qualified is. Do you think you’re being asked to head up this institution because of your academic prowess?” He laughed briefly. “No. You’re being asked to fill a political post. Rub elbows, collect funds.”

  “You gotta be kidding me.”

  “Jonas, consider your position for a moment. The Academy’s destroyed. Who’s going to fund its reconstruction?” Blumbrock paused for a moment to let that sink in. “The Orisius fiasco was a huge blow to public trust. The good news is big corporate likes you. Parliament downright loves you. You’re the conquering hero of the Mandate Race. You singlehandedly defeated Orisius-”

  “If by singlehanded you mean with the full help of Halbard, the Grand Mother herself serving as my Prophet, and the fact that he teleported away, none of us possessing the power to stop him, then yes, I suppose I did.”

  Blumbrock ignored Jonas’ sarcasm. “The Academy doesn’t need a great Academic right now. What it needs is a larger than life figurehead. A name. An idea to rally behind.”

  “The last man to say something like that to me turned out to be a traitor,” recalled Jonas.

  Blumbrock was done playing games. “This is my world, Academic. Here, I’m the duelist and I’m telling you that if you want your Academy back, you have to be its face for a while, and you have to decide right now if you’re up for that. Money doesn’t often wait around these parties for very long and those funds are going to walk right out that door if I don’t make an announcement soon.”

  *****

  It was Caras 4’s turn for dominance of the Osmosian sky and the farthest moon was clearly visible away from the lights of the Representative’s mansion. She looked to be almost alive, with her perpetual super storm covering most her expanse, shifting the texture of her surface to the casual observer, even from this distance.

  Below, the sea’s surf was loud and soothing, crashing against the bluff and retreating in a rhythmic loop that washed away all sense of urgency and anchored the watcher to the uncomplicated present.

  Kelerin asked Analel out there to talk, but sometime between when they left the party and reached the edge of the bluff, the need to get things out in the open was carried away with the tide. They now stood together in mutual silence, feeling the spray of the ocean on their faces and being happy enough to accept that they didn’t have to have all the answers. Not yet, anyway.

  “There were a lot of moons,” said Analel, breaking the silence at last.

  “Over a hundred, at least,” confirmed Kelerin.

  “You think that much?”

  “At least,” he repeated.

  “Where was that place?” she asked, still wonderstruck at the memory of it. Kelerin shrugged his shoulders, picked up a rock with his good arm and tossed it into the waves. She continued voicing her thoughts aloud. “It’s amazing what a couple of days can do to your life.”

  “Yeah.” Kelerin kicked absentmindedly at the sand beneath his feet with the toe of his boot. “I have absolutely no idea what tomorrow’s going to be like. Not a clue.”

  “I can’t imagine…” Only then did Analel realize how callous her last comment had been. Kelerin’s whole life had gone up in flames. She looked to the sea, wondering what she would do if one day she woke up and poof, the Prophecy was no longer - and immediately felt guilty.

  “There’s one good thing that came out of all this,” ruminated Kelerin, drawing Analel’s attention back to him.

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “At least now I know what you look like.” Analel felt her cheeks go flush. She reached up and pulled her hood down over her head, covering her face before peeking out again with a shy smile. He smiled back at her. “Com’on, let’s head in.”

  When they reached the pillars, Kelerin lifted up his slung arm and said, “You do realize how ridiculous we look together with these things on, don’t you?” Analel laughed out loud, just as Blumbrock began calling for quiet from up on the balcony Kelerin and Dunner had stood upon earlier. Shushing sounds spread throughout the Portico and beyond as the crowd attempted to quiet itself down.

  Analel tried stifling the last of her giggles but Kelerin would have none of that, whispering to her with feigned disapproval, “A little decorum, please,” and she burst out laughing again, a few of the surrounding guests turning to Shush her more forcefully.

  “Sorry,” she whispered apologetically to all around, flashing Kelerin a look of mock anger.

  Blumbrock began to speak: “Thank you all for coming, especially the Prophecy. It is truly an honor. I know the hour is late, so I’ll be brief. You are all no doubt familiar with the unparalleled events of the last few days. We’ve lost a landmark staple of our Islands but we’ve gained an entirely new world to explore and settle. Some of our most celebrated turned out not to be quite who we thought them to be, while others, like my son, have shown exemplary character, representing the very best of what we Islanders are capable of.”

  “Hear, hear,” erupted from various sections of the crowd. Kelerin had to smile. He could only imagine the look of mortification on Dunner’s face, wherever he was at the moment; knowing him, probably looking for a boat to defect to the Mainland in.

  When the crowd subsided, Blumbrock continued. “Another such exemplary man is Professor Jonas.” More rounds of hear, hear, this time far louder and uniform, spreading throughout the room. “Most of us are intimately familiar with the great service Professor Jonas has afforded our Islands over the last two years. Most of us have also heard about the tremendous feats he’s performed over the last few days. Feats characterized by the utmost bravery and skill, and that most likely saved our Islands from dangers untold.

  “It is for these reasons and others, that on behalf of Parliament, members of the Academy and the Prophecy, I hereby humbly request of Professor Jonas to take up the post of Headmaster.”

  This time the crowd erupted in full blown cheering. Blumbrock turned to Jonas, who was waiting in the wings of the balcony, and clapped enthusiastically as well. Over two minutes of celebration had passed before Blumbrock held up his hands for quiet. It took yet another minute for the room to settle down enough for him to continue.

  “And finally, as these recent events have taught us, we can no longer stake our future solely on what we’ve come to expect from the past. Instead, we must also look to the horizon for possibilities of a grander future. It is with these thoughts in mind, and as Representative of Castious and the owner of the ship that officially won the Mandate Race, that I intend to submit a bill to Parliament recommending, not only the reconstruction of Academy Island, but for the first official settlement on the Mandate to house a secondary Academy outpost-” Murmurs throughout the crowd gained momentum and quickly grew into more cheering. Even Jonas seemed surprised at this part of the announcement. Blumbrock did not wait for the cheering
to subside this time, his voice rising to compete with the humdrum of the crowd. “-that will guide our farthest foothold as it spearheads Osmosian interstellar exploration and settlement. I can think of no better instrument than Headmaster Jonas’ Academy for this most paramount of roles.”

  Blumbrock raised his glass from the balcony in a toast, and a thousand hands down below followed suit. “To the Mandate,” he announced.

  The response resounded far into the night sky, seeming to reach the very stars every imagination had turned towards.

  “TO THE MANDATE!”

  Epilogue

  House of the Patriarch - The Mainland, Osmos

  The Patriarch had been around death and killing his entire life. So much so that death seemed more the norm. Life, a fluke; a natural occurring abnormality destined to be corrected in one way or another, more often sooner than later.

  Before the birth of his sons this perspective had been straightforward and simple. But then came Bar-Kan, and soon after, Bar-Kas. It was then that things changed for the Patriarch, although he didn’t realize exactly how until recently.

  He still believed death was coming for all, himself included. He was prepared for it. Prepared to receive the spoils he collected in this world through his brutal efforts when he arrived in the next one. But he also began to believe he could cheat the process, at least in a certain respect. He began to believe that through his children, he could be immortal, both in this world and in the next. But with his two sons dead he’d been robbed of this possibility, robbed of his immortality. To die was natural, but as every Mainlander new, to be stolen from was disgraceful.

  Which brought him to the matter of the Clan Fathers, whimpering, cowering in the face of Island blustering over their precious Academy. The Fathers were weak and that made it easier for him to maintain his control over them. Indeed, he worked hard at keeping the Clan Fathers weak, but if war with the Islands was in fact on the horizon, he would need to make them strong again. However, once strong and battle hardened from fighting the Islands, the Clan Fathers might believe themselves powerful enough to challenge his authority.

  Lastly, there was the medallion. He still couldn’t believe Bar-Kas had succeeded in pulling off his raid, destroying the Academy and placing him in this predicament, but he would be lying if he didn’t admit to a large part of him being proud of the boy’s accomplishment. And yet, what of the medallion his son had promised him, should he have succeeded? When his First Clan fighters returned and informed him of the raid on the Academy, and then rumors reached his ears of the assault on Caras 4, he sent search parties to the distant moon in hopes of recovering the elusive prize. They turned up nothing and he had them all summarily executed shortly thereafter.

  So now he’d been robbed of his immortality, robbed of the medallion and he might be forced to set himself up for his own deposition in the near future, robbing himself of power.

  It was for these reasons and these alone that he agreed to see the man who claimed to have a message from his son. If the man turned out to be lying he would make sure his death was slow and painful. The man was being brought in now, an unkempt beard of several months’ growth covering his face coinciding with the timeframe in which his son was supposedly killed. His head was bald and his face had been badly beaten some time ago, the scars still not having faded.

  Could this man be telling the truth? Could this man have knowledge beyond what he himself had already learned, and that he would deem to be invaluable?

  The man shuffled into the chamber, his legs and arms shackled with chains leaving just enough room for constrained movement. The Patriarch figured this man was most likely regretting his request for an audience with the ruler of all the Mainland right about now, and the thought made him smile. First Clansmen guarding the man forced him to sit in a chair opposite.

  “Your name?” demanded the Patriarch. Like all things coming from his lips, it was a decree, not a request.

  “My name isn’t important,” answered the man, and although he didn’t know it yet, the Patriarch decided then and there he would kill him.

  “Then what is important, if I might be so bold as to ask?”

  The man reached for his belt around his waist. Immediately, the two First Clansmen positioned on either side of him had their knives drawn to his throat. The man didn’t seem to register them, which impressed the Patriarch. Clearly he too understood the natural state of death. This revelation didn’t change the Patriarch’s mind about killing him, but perhaps, in respect for the man’s acceptance of death, he would make it a faster ordeal than he otherwise might have. Waving off the guards, they took a step back, remaining vigilant in watching the stranger’s every move.

  The man removed his belt, unfastening a false buckle from its front. The guards looked nervous, and for good reason. Having missed the secret compartment, the Patriarch might now have to execute them as well. It was so hard to find good, competent people these days, he mused.

  The man removed something from the compartment and tossed it onto the table. The patriarch at first let it sit there, not wanting to let the man know how much he’d been waiting for this particular item. The man, in turn, sat perfectly still, as if he didn’t rightly care how the Patriarch reacted. Slowly the Patriarch reached out and grasped the medallion, inspecting it closely and then asking the man, “You got this from my son, Bar-Kas?”

  “I didn’t get it from Bar-Kas.”

  “It will do you no good to lie to me!” growled the Patriarch.

  The man remained unaffected. “I got it back from Bar-Kas. I was originally given it by your other son, the First Son, Bar-Kan.”

  This, the Patriarch was not expecting. He studied the man for a moment, deciding he could determine the veracity of the stranger’s words a later time, and returned to studying the medallion. He reached inside his tunic and pulled out an exact replica of what he now held in his hand. Side by side it was impossible to tell the two medallions apart. For the first time the man showed signs of interest - not so much emotion, but perhaps curiosity.

  Rising from his chair, the Patriarch walked over to a long console lining the wall. Taking the medallion the man had brought him in both his hands, he twisted its outer edge and it came free from the rest of the shape, a thin, circular strip of mock Ipsidian. Inside were the circuits of a spherical data drive. The Patriarch set the drive down on a reader pad atop the console. A ring of light poured forth from inside the sphere, while at the same time, projectors around the room hummed to life. A moment later, a holographic star chart from the vantage point of Osmos’ celestial system appeared in dazzling realism, filling the entirety of the chamber. A digital course began plotting itself, extending outward from Osmos through the expanse of interstellar space. All visuals zoomed in to fly along the charted course, converging on a distant star, stopping at a singular planet surrounded by well over a hundred moons. Holding its position there, the moons began to travel in an intricate and mesmerizing orbit around their host.

  Everyone in the room, including the hereto emotionless man, was staring out at the image surrounding them in open wonderment.

  Finally, without taking his eyes off the planet before him, the Patriarch, in an awe filled whisper, decreed,

  “Pay him.”

  Author’s Note

  My house, Israel

  I really had an amazing, fun and torturous time writing this - all in good ways. Hope your reading experience was similar (minus the torture part).

  There was, what I hope you found to be, satisfactory closure to the major story arc thus far, along with plenty of open ended plot teases and relationship teases to keep you pining for the next installment.

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r extras and bonus leaks about characters and future storylines, not to mention the occasional contest and/or giveaway.

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  Until next time - Enjoy!

  A.C. Schneider