At one in the afternoon, Harlan emerged from his office, Mercedes had been waiting since eleven.
“What is this I hear about you teaching Joan magic?”
“You know what I already said about teaching you.”
“So you trust this woman who you’ve barely had a dozen conversations with? I brought her to you, I put her in charge.”
Harlan took a deep breath, and Dawn told him, as gently as she could, not to blow up on the young woman.
“I am not going to speak about this, because the only things I can think to say are needlessly cruel and hurtful. Now, what did you come to get me for?”
“A messenger from the empire arrived, I told him to wait.”
“I will see him now, where is he?”
“The jail, it was the only way to ensure his safety once the citizens heard who he was.”
“Alright, let’s go.”
“Let’s?”
“It would reflect poorly on both of us if I went to see the messenger without my advisor.
Put aside your feeling that I’ve wronged you.”
She bit her tongue, but the wording greatly bothered her.
They made their way through the streets, people came up to him to ask questions about the night before. Harlan told them that he would pin a paper explaining what happened on the town notice board later.
It would be a heavily embellished version of events, only what the people needed to know. Harlan wanted his tactics to remain his, this was another part of why he planned to only make golems for his real army.
People could sweep the floors, guard the citizens, farm the crops, but killing was for him and his, things that would never reveal secrets or hesitate on orders.
The guardstation had quite a few people loitering around, each of them were those who proudly displayed their brands. Without anyone sharing the idea, keeping the brand became a sign of rebellion, they acted with free will despite the mark upon them.
“If all of you have time to sit and threaten a messenger, please find work or find a hobby. If you report to the farms or the walls you will find the first, if you go to the workmen district you can find both.”
Most of them left, but Harlan did not move his eyes to watch them nor did he stop to speak.
He wanted to project a man who was caring to his people, but stern.
When Harlan entered Joan’s office she gave her seat to him and stood on his left.
“It’s been half a day since you lost your battle, what message is this?”
“I was told to see what this merry band looked like, an outsider who has no allies who made enemies of everyone around him, a soldier who only survived because she was discharged for insubordination before the end of the war, and a false princess, whatever did happen to the real Mercedes Dantes?.”
“I see, the man yesterday was to rattle his saber, you are here to rattle the cage.”
Harlan laughed in a mocking manner.
“First I am disappointed in the mages, now I’m disappointed in their speakers. Did you think I did not know about these things? That I would put complete unknowns in positions of power.”
“What power? You have nothing here, no farms, no trade, your army numbers in the hundreds and that woman doesn’t even command them.”
“Yet I slaughtered 10,000 without a single loss. Tell me then, how pathetic must it be to lose to people without power? I do hope that whoever ordered the attack against me killed themselves in shame.”
The man stood from his seat, and Harlan forced him back down with telekinesis.
“Will this continue as a conversation, or do I need to turn this into an execution?”
The man stopped resisting.
“I was sent to see if you would be receptive to joining the empire.”
“Now why would I want to do that?”
“You would remain as a sovereign, no slaves would cross the border in or out, and trade would resume.”
“Your first mistake was that you man yesterday lost his head and told me outright that what you want is my magic. Your second mistake was giving me an offer that most people would take, but my brother is a merchant and a lawyer, what you’ve done tells me that you think I am a fool who will take a deal that only exists to get you what you really want, which is something he does to people who he does not respect.
And lastly, you think I am here for money or a title or fame.”
“I will bring back a message that another negotiator will be needed.”
“Which direction do you wish to go? I can send you 100 miles.”
“North.”
Harlan opened the gate and the man stepped through without hesitation.
The three of them sat in silence for only a moment, Harlan had no desire to drag this out.
“Joan, tell me what he meant.”
“I was a soldier, but, before the fall of Elfique, I was charged with insubordination for refusing to follow orders.”
“Yes, that is what insubordination means. I need context, what did you refuse to do?”
“My captain was rival to another man, and so when a promotion was to be given, he asked that I plant a letter which would imply that his rival was selling information to our enemies. I went above my captain, I told him what he asked me to do, and then I was discharged for not following his order.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
“I feel there is something more here. Why would you be discharged for refusing to commit a crime?”
“It was not a crime, and within Dague culture, such things are considered normal, if you can trick someone, then they deserve to be tricked.”
She awkwardly chuckled, Harlan could see how much speaking of this upset her.
“She has shown a lack of judgment, her inability to put aside a crude sense of fairness would hinder her ability to do what must be done to safeguard the interests of the nation and enforce policy for the royal family.”
Harlan placed a hand on her shoulder.
“If your culture tells you to do something wrong, and you rise above that, it shows a great deal about your character. But, I also think we need to have a talk about Mercedes. I decided it was best for her to continue playing that part, she can be a stabilizing force for the Dague who hold loyalty to the crown.”
“Then the royal family is all dead, Elfique is dead.”
Harlan wasn’t sure what he was feeling from her, she was confused and jumped from happy to sad.
There was little love left between her and her nation, but it was her nation.
“A nation is its people. I don’t want this to be Elfique, I want this nation of ours to be better.
I trust you will be loyal to me, because it is the right thing to do, not because you were born here.
In exchange, I will do everything I can to make sure that in 10 years, you can look back at this and see that you made the right call.”
“I will hold you to that, and I will keep her secret.”
“Thank you. Now, unless there is something else, I think I should teach you magic.”
“I’m sorry, I should’ve said so before, but I was tested once, I can’t use magic”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m very sorry-”
“People can lack the drive to get as far as me, but they can always learn how to use simple magic.”
“I’ve tried before, but I lack the ability.”
Harlan’s eyes flicked black for just a moment, it was a simple yes or no question.
“Is the belief that you must be born right to use magic common here?”
“Belief?”
“Everything makes so much more sense. The stunted magical growth, the ability to even register known mages, the reason that slavery can exist like this. Magic is partly mental, if people believe so strongly that they can do it, they won’t. Oh this is wonderful.”
“What? That sounds horrible.”
“What do you think is going to happen when it gets out that I can train people who have been told definitively that they cannot use magic?”
“You can raise an army of mages unlike anything the world has ever seen.”
“No, I can raise an army of mages like I know them. Every single person in the army back where I am from can use magic.”
Harlan brought Mercedes and Joan with him to the audience room.
It was wide, private, and everything that they could break had already been removed.
“Mercedes, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t need to hoard magic, I need to spread it as far as I can, and only hoard the most valuable magic. So, I will teach both of you.”
Harlan went through the same thing he did with everyone he taught anything.
They freak out when they are in a sensory deprived state and then Harlan has to stop them from hurting themselves.
A week later, Joan was sensing and using basic elemental bolts, she was a natural, and she was fully brought to his side.
Mercedes was sensing, but barely able to use touch magic, Harlan knew that he could find a way to make her better at it, but he decided to let her wallow in ineptitude for a little while longer.
The new negotiator arrived, a Cast made of gold.
Joan led him into Harlan’s office flanked by golems made in the same shape as the normal ones with their tentacles and small bodies, but they were made from Cast flesh and bone. Harlan spent his nights, and these four were the only ones that he got done in the last week and he hoped they would upset his enemies, as according to what he had been told, Cast couldn’t be brought back with necromancy.
The Cast were inorganic, they were metal, but magic didn’t see it that way, and he had to use both metalworking magic and his flesh shaping together by modifying his sigils.
Until this point, he had been using the same sigils he knew from whatever that spell was that killed the evolved skinwalker, yet now he had been forced to add things to them by taking what he knew of spellcrafting runes. He has been nauseous for days as a result; sigils disliked change, and Harlan had no experience actually changing them until now.
“I hope you know better than your predecessor.”
“We are willing to grant you this land, and more, you would gain control of two more towns of this size and a dozen villages as well as being allowed to trade with imperial merchants. We have seen your work on the fields, you might make it a month before your people start to starve, and then we are going to come in and get what we want.”
“Carrot or the stick, now, that didn’t seem to work out well last time. So, what’s changed.”
“We are giving a real offer. You have one month to decide, then we are going with option two, a Hand of the Empire shall be here with an army.”
Mercedes and Joan were noticeably shocked by the news.
“A Hand…”
“Send me through a gate, 200 miles north.”
Harlan did as asked.
Joan and Mercedes breathed easier now that he was gone.
“So, my advisor, my captain, what are your thoughts?”
Joan answered first.
“We can’t fight one of them, take the deal.”
“We aren’t going to fight one of the hands, both of them are busy fighting the Stones of Lith, and of the Fingers, Helik and Sholl are the only two not on the frontlines, and they aren’t on the frontlines because they got their shit kicked in by the weakest of the stones and they need more training.”
“How can you know that?”
“My god will give me some information. She isn’t going to tell me troop formations and warn me about assassins, but what I asked for is either public knowledge or known rumors within the empire.
I didn’t push back against him because it would reveal that I can find these things out and that one month is a whole lot better than the week I was going to ask for.”
“Then I have no issues with how this meeting went.”
“Mercedes?”
“We need the food, and we can break the deal later. Those fields aren’t going to produce anything for months and we don’t have the time.”
“I’m not going to break a deal, it reflects poorly on me as a ruler and the nation as a whole.
I hear how people speak about Dague, and I know what it is like to be seen as something you aren’t just because of where you are from or what shade your skin is or the color of your eyes.”
“Instead of worrying how it looks, worry about us starving to death.”
“I… I have a plan, and you aren’t going to like it, nobody but me is.”
“Nobody likes starving to death either.”
“I will handle it.”
“How will you?”
“By finding an ally who I know exists, and hoping that I have something she wants. Trust me with this.”
“Fine.”
“I trust you fully, Sir Fomoria. If you claim this ally exists, then they do, and if you must leave to find them, I will keep this town safe until your return.”
“Thank you, Joan. Now, you are both dismissed. I need to bathe and get ready for bed, tomorrow I will start my search for her.”
----------------------------------------
They huddled together in their tree homes, hiding from the monster outside.
Their leader was forbidden from directly saving them from a threat such as this, and they had not taken their training seriously, because such a thing was not natural for their kind.
Then a shadow flew over the forest, and the monster fled only a dozen feet before being cut to ribbons.
It looked down at the remains of the thing and realized someone was breaking the rules.