Chapter 31: Ledas : Kingsman
Ledas fell into his thoughts outside of the Wraith's office. He knew nothing about hero summoning aside from the fact that the Thalassian Emperor was summoned and that he was a potent magical healer of sorts.
There were rumors spread by bards that Zarat’s king and Elsomere have summoned one hero each this year and that half a year ago Catfolk’s hero won in battle against Zion’s. He had no idea what they fought over though. He surmised that there were five of whose existence he knew about, without any idea why they were summoned.
Knowing he had to conduct such a ritual was jarring. The ritual looked convoluted: a lot of small extra effects affected the summoned person, and in the setup phase there were a lot of variables already written down, without any description of what they did. Some functions looked like they were leading to something outside of the ritual itself.
“What if I fuck it up by an accident? Will they hang me? They will hang me! Olaf, what the fuck have I done!?” he completely zoned out.
He tried to figure out the few new functions he could remember but hadn’t encountered before. That said, when he began he felt something unexpecting. He was excited like he was when his father would give him lessons.
He felt the need to assert to himself that everything will be fine by recalling the week’s events.
“I barged into the mage’s examination. Nailed it, got hired, got a battlemage as a combat trainer, amazing garbs, a place to live in comfort, and a high salary. Performed a ritual on a massive. Now I will perform The legendary ritual of summoning an otherworldly hero, or even many. I am cool as fuck! If my father could see that…”
His expression turned sour as his self affirmation talk failed.
Smoothy patted him on the shoulder. "So you got assigned an etiquette teacher?"
"Yeah," Ledas nodded, trying to get back to the current moment.
"Sad, ain’t it? Any ideas on why?" Smoothy tilted his head sideways.
"I scared the tailor, and guards, not to mention that accidental joke to Baron Karian yesterday."
"So you ARE self-aware!" Smoothy pretended to clear the sweat from his forehead." Just don't fuck up in front of the King or Generals. They won't be as accommodating."
"I'll do my best."
"Your best is terrible. Most villagers have better manners than you. Come, I'll show you how to bow properly before your teacher arrives."
"Is bowing that important?" Ledas sounded confused.
"Oh, gods! I knew you were a vagabond, but I didn’t know you were a vagrant!" Smoothy was moving at a faster and faster pace.
“You know I am not local, right?” Ledas found a good excuse for himself.
“Of course, I know. You speak with an elven accent.”
“Really?” Ledas was in the Elven nation of Mirage for less than a month a decade ago, he didn’t speak like an elf.
“No, I am messing with you. Though the way you drink I can tell you were in Darbin and Thessalia”
“You looked at what I told Wraith?” Ledas squinted at him.
“You added ice to brandy, it is a Thessalia thing, we add herbs in Arshakion. You dipped bread into the beer a couple of times, only dwarves in Darbin do something so foul.” Smoothy mimed the dipping action.
“Do you have a book of strange habits?”
“Yes, I do. Issued to all agents. You spent at least a few years in Zarat and Partha. That’s why you know the language almost without a discernible accent, but don’t know local customs.”
“When you're traveling as I did, learning the language is more important than knowing local customs.”
"Then I'll have to teach you how to prostrate yourself asking forgiveness when you inevitably fuck it all up!" Smoothy patted the mage on the shoulder.
Ledas ignored the jab. "Do you think they'll allow me to take the beast's skull for target practice?"
Smoothy ignored the question “I skipped breakfast, and it's noon. Order something to eat for me too. Preferably pork ribs…”
The day went quite smoothly. His quarters were already prepared when he got there. Two floors: the bottom one - a big circular room for rituals and work, and the top one - personal quarters with a bed, wardrobe room, mostly empty magical wine shelves, and a dining table.
Ledas would have loved to look around and pay attention to his new residence, but he felt uneasy under surveillance.
He had dinner with the spy attached to him. Right after, it took him around half an hour to figure out how to bow properly to different people, and how to prostrate in a “Don’t kill me please” pose.
Training with Baron Karian in the ‘cistern’ was shorter, but magically draining. The baron showed him how to use state of art barrier spells, not the half-century outdated ones Ledas used. Ledas felt like it was an extremely complicated version of the ‘Catch’ game. Karian was aiming slightly off target and telegraphing his spells, but nevertheless, it was a scary experience to catch elemental spells at full speed even with a barrier.
“Each basic attack spell is in use. There are 14 popular ones, and you should be able to cast the defense or counter instinctively. Understood?”
“Yes, Sir.” Ledas spoke only with “Understood,” “Yes, sir.” “No, Sir,” luckily for him, Karian explained everything in the simplest of possible terms, because he had no idea what to say when he failed to understand, nor did Karian ask questions.
“Are you going to keep the Yes/No/Understood?”
“Yessir.” Ledas wasted to give a salute, but he had no idea which salute it was appropriate to give, so he just streighted up.
“Good. No lessons tomorrow. Join the knight at their training the day after. Tom will be your caretaker.”
“Understood,” Ledas said and bowed.
Lessons with an Etiquette teacher started after the sunset. The instructor arranged a play where he pretended to be the king and asked Ledas to act accordingly. That way he could see how Ledas would act to fix problems as they appeared.
“Don’t put your hands behind your back”, “Keep your back straight” He would instruct.
“Knee should be at a straight angle when you kneel.” He would adjust his student’s position.
“Don’t bow while you kneel, that’s what you do when admitting guilt!” He would order.
“When you kneel, put your hands on the knee and look directly at the king. Good!” And sometimes he would smile.
“There is no need to keep your eyes open, you can blink!” Only for that smile to disappear when he would palm his face.
”Don’t address Arshakion as ‘My Liege’ before he takes you in service, that’s the first you should
say. Arshakion is like a title, but when you address him you should not use it, all rulers of the land for the last 340 years took the name Arshakion after Arshak the First.”
“When you address the king and generals, use Sire, not sir!”
“Now let's memorize all the people you have to call Sire.” He would show a prepared list with visual descriptions of the people mentioned.
“You can address all lower nobles as ‘Paron’ and higher ones as ‘Minister’”
“During the formal meeting, there will be only a few women, for all of them ‘Lady’ will suffice”
“DON’T SCRATCH YOUR FACE!” He would occasionally beg Ledas.
“Did you just cast a self-calming spell on yourself? The throne room is protected from unauthorized magic. You won’t be able to cast it.”
“Smoothy, did you just teach him how to bow properly!? That’s a good job! Did you teach him how to prostrate?”
“With such a good apology pose he will be fine. Just don’t talk too much and you will be fine.”
“HANDS OUT OF THE POCKETS!”
The lesson ended after midnight, but Ledas felt that it took an eternity. It felt so tiring that he couldn’t remember how he fell asleep.
Ledas woke up under heavy and warm blankets. He went to the big mirror in his new bedroom. He forgot to close the curtains at night, so when morning came, the sun crept through the big window and lit the room.
He looked in the mirror to find that he was still quite warm, the room itself was warm. He looked almost fine, he smiled widely to his face. Well, his lips looked a bit pale.
He finally had a chance to look at the room properly.
The top floor had a bedroom, wardrobe room, and bathroom with impressive plumbing and magical heating, though without any valves and levers. It took Ledas a couple of minutes to figure out that it was a magical device and another five how to use it. When he poured a bit of magic into it the water came, and some experimenting made the bath produce bubbles.
Ledas assumed he broke it until he remembered that he read something about that in a book called "Summoned Heroes: How Otherworlder's Technology Affected Industrialization" by Ignacius Cole.
Ignacius Cole - the ex-court mage from the Mages guild whom Ledas no longer hated. He felt that the only reason he and Olaf stayed alive and not buried under the rubble in Vishap’s Belly’s stables was the paranoia the mage had. Yes, it was a coincidence, but he didn’t care much.
He looked around the bottom floor which was just one massive study with bookshelves along the walls. Cole left at least ten books he authored here. Was it hubris or a gift for the future court mage? Ledas didn’t know.
“Aerobath is a mundane invention brought by Hero Mateo, something he requested a magical craftsman to build for him. Arcane Variant commonly used runs on magic, so only concept can be attributed to him, the actual invention was performed by a group of dwarf mages from Darbin’s office of the Guild.”
Ledas returned to exploring. Sadly for him, the wardrobe contained only a dozen hats of all sizes, bathrobes, and towels.
Ledas took good care of himself and went downstairs where Smoothy was sleeping on a couch waking up instantly when Ledas stepped down the last ladder.
“Morning, Court Mage.”
“Morning, Court Mage’s assigned watcher.”
“Hey! I am also assigned as your personal bodyguard and personal reminder.”
“hmmm…”
“So please keep the time of your awakening and sleeping the same, so we can dismiss Salty when her duty is over.”
“Salty?”
“Do you think I was looking after you 24/7? I need to sleep too, you know!”
“I have never seen her…”
“She is not talkative, plus she is your watcher and bodyguard, not a personali reminder.” Smoothy went to the door and knocked a code on it.
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“What was that?” Ledas inquired.
“I told her that you are up, so her duty ends for today.”
“Oh…”
“Are you going to do what a lot?” Smoothy started to put on his boots.
“What?”
“Oh-ing”
“Oh…” Ledas covered his face with his hand ”You are right.”
“Let’s go for the breakfast”
“I thought they would bring it.”
“It’s too early for nobles to wake up. We are going to the kitchen to earth with servants.”
This time, it went smoother; no one was visibly tense by his presence. Others still didn’t initiate any conversations aside from “Good Morning” s and “We have chicken soup and Otherworldly pancakes. What would you like?”
“Better eh?” Smoothy grinned.
“Yes, at least people are not frozen in fear due to my presence.” Ledas put a piece of bread into his soup. Despite not conversing with other people he felt that no one minded him, which made him feel relaxed.
“I am not amazing?”
“It feels like that gold piece was worth it. Can I ask you for something?”
“Go on”
“My friend didn’t know I would be staying in the castle for so long, he is probably worried at the moment that I didn’t come back yesterday.”
“Oh, the brute-looking guy, Olaf, right?”
“Yes”
“Already done. He didn’t ask questions. Maybe cause scared the shit out of his colleagues.” Otherworldy pancakes quickly moved from Smoothy’s plate into his mouth. “Nervous?”
“About meeting the King?”
“Yup!”
“I figured out the way to prostrate correctly, if I fuck up royally it will be your boss's issue, not mine.” Ledas smiled nervously.
“I still can’t believe he hired you despite what I wrote in my report…” Before Ledas could ask Smoothy continued “That you are mentally handicapped and lack common sense.”
“Why did he even select me?” Ledas never believed the justification that Wraith gave. “I saw other mages at work in the barrier room. They were not incompetent, just a bit lazy and unenthusiastic.”
“The mage who checked the results said that your ritual language was drastically better than anyone else’s.”
“Huh?” Ledas turned his head to the side. “Are you joking again?”
“You learn quickly.” Smoothy grinned.
“I have a good teacher.” Ledas smiled with a wide genuine smile as threw a simple telekinesis spell under the table making one of the ‘otherworldly’ pancakes from Smoothy’s table fly towards him while Smoothy wasn’t watching.
“Thief!” Smoothy snatched the thing mid-air as it almost reached his ward’s mouth. “Mine! Well, I’ll be taking you away, until you stop your thieving ways.” Smoothy spoke in a sarcastic lighthearted manner.
People around looked confused, with a couple of them giggling and chuckling.
After they left the kitchen the spy leaned forward and whispered “Kid, you do stupid things when you are anxious. It will get you killed if you don’t learn how to manage that. There are some new schools of healer’s of mind, some say they are better than priests.”
Ledas’s face grew pale. He agreed with Smoothy’s assessment. “Do you get books on these types of things too?”
“I will be able to answer that question after Arshakion becomes your liege and you take the oath.”
The preparation for the meeting with the king felt strange. He was offered a maid to help him take a bath, but he quickly declined, arguing that Ignacius Cole left his perfectly fine bath with bubbles.
A barber came to his room and seated him in front of a mirror. He tried to comb Ledas’ hair, only to comment that it was improperly cut, and took out scissors.
…
“Hey, Ledas, do you like having hair that long?” Ledas remembered how Flynn would offer to cut his hair on the first day he joined the troupe.
“Is there something wrong with it?” Ledas asked the kid. He was maybe a couple of years younger than him.
“Yeah, it hides your face, and we performers trade our faces as Anmir said?”Flynn seated Ledas and took out scissors.
“Anmir?” Ledas asked the boys.
“You don’t know him, he was leading the troupe before Olaf had to step in.”
“What happened to him?”
“Woman took him away from us…” Flynn said with a dramatic tone and removed an imaginary tear from under his eye.
“He knocked up a hot girl in a village in the south Partha. Her father almost lynched him there.”
“...” Ledas didn’t properly understand what that meant.
“Now he’s a farmer there, raisin triplets.” Arty chuckled at his own words.
“Oh…” He only had a vague understanding of what they meant.
“Just don’t go around knocking up girls with your pretty face of yours” The voice of Olaf rang from a distance.
“I am twelve, don’t you have to be older for that?” Ledas objected.
“Arty’s thirteen, and girls already ask him to do things with them, if not for Anmir’s situation he would have been a father of a few bastards already.” The two older boys looked at Ledas who visibly was struggling to put things together and held their laughter.
They had the ‘How children are made’ talk with him while Flynn cut his hair and chuckled at Ledas’ reactions when they explained what a ‘sword-point wedding’ was. That was an important talk that his father had completely forgone.
…
“Magister, do you like it?”
Ledas looked around. He zoned out again. He was in his room with the barber standing behind him.
“Fi…” Ledas wanted to call Finn and ask his opinion on what Flynn did with his hair this time. But it wasn’t Flynn. The image of battered corpses lying in the rubble posessed his mind. He felt his stomach churn. A surge of bile filled his mouth, causing searing pain to radiate through his chest and throat as he gulped it back.
He signed the stylist to go downstairs with his hand, which the man instantly obeyed.
He had retched in the bathroom and washed his mouth. The acrid taste lingered on his tongue.
Smoothy’s suggestion to get a mind healer or a priest sounded like an amazing idea at that moment.
He washed his mouth and looked in the mirror. The barber did a haircut and waxed it to make everything sleek. Before heading out to the king the barber adjusted his hair and clothes once again without saying a word. Ledas calmed down, but he was still dizzy.
When he entered the throne room no one was there but guards. A guard at one of the doors further made a sign to him to approach and pass through the door.
There were five people in the war room discussing something passionately.
Two massive and muscular men dominated the room like big bears. One of whom Ledas recognized from the descriptions as the King Arshakion or King of Arshakion, or just Arshakion, the other was his cousin; General Drakon who felt even more imposing.
An image of the general piercing the primal beast's neck, delivering the death blow popped in his mind he shuddered, too many reminders in one day.
“Why are you standing there with your mouth open? Get in,” Drakon barked at him.
Ledas hadn’t noticed his jaw-dropping. “Yes, Sire.” He exhaled that he got it correctly, the general was a Sire.
“Is that the brat you got?” Drakon’s voice was as low and aggressive as it can get. “You didn’t mention he is twelve!” Drakon exaggerated.
“Yes,” Wraith was calm, and compared to the king and his brother who were good two meters he looked… small.
“So you bet ten talents of gold on a kid?” Drakon bellowed.
Ledas calculated in his mind. Ten talents of gold were 300 kilograms or thousand big gold coins or ten thousand small gold coins. He earned 6 small gold coins a month - 3 grams each. That was a great salary. He would have to work over a thousand years to earn that much gold. “Is the ritual that expansive” he thought “they will hang me if I fail…” his knees weakened.
“I told you who his grandfather is, plus he has already proved himself competent with the barrier.” Wraith grinned.
Ledas felt that everything happening here was some kind of light political sparring.
The king appraised Ledas and listened to these debates, along with two others whom Ledas recognized as Treasury Minister and Infrastructure Minister.
“You said they are not even related. He looks nothing like Ledas Sanders.” Drakon looked at Ledas and paused. “Actually… no. I can sense a similarity here.”
“Huh…” Ledas’ eyes went wide. He didn’t look much like his father, his father had darker skin and black hair. Well, it looked to him that the General was seeing things that were not there.
“Where did you get him?” General no longer spoke aggressively, but still was quite loud.
“Alfy recommended him. I think your daughter asked him to do that.” Wraith slightly changed his posture.
Ledas looked around. It was a medium-sized room with no windows and a map in the center around which the men stood. It was the most detailed three-dimensional map he had seen, his eyes defaulted to it. He was afraid to look at the General or anyone else in the room.
“Does he have the factor himself?” Drakon sounded quite calm.
“Haven’t checked.”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN’T!”
Ledas stood there without understanding what people meant.
“He is too weak to have it.” Wraith yawned.
“And there I thought you…”
“Enough!” The king’s voice was ringing, and the two stopped arguing immediately. Arshakion looked at Ledas who stood frozen and smiled “Drakon, you scared the kid so much he forgot to kneel!”
Ledas panicked as he quickly kneeled. His inner voice was in even more panic “Should I kneel or kneel with my head down?! AAAAAAAAAAA whattodowhattodoaaaaa”
"He ended up prostrating himself on the ground in the 'Don't kill me, please' position.
He prayed in his heart “Mother Of Mercy, I know I wasn’t the best of your followers but please send me to Noritz, I am a kid after all, I am only fifteen, never laid with a woman, haven’t even kissed, so I am not a man, just a kid…”
Ledas heard Wrait’s voice right in his ear and shuddered, whispering to him “No, don’t prostrate, kneel with your head up!”
“Kneel” King said with a mellow and deep voice.
Ledas quickly lifted himself into a kneel and tried to look at the king who looked even more intimidating from that angle.
The king was more than twice his size, his face and hands covered in a few old scars. His black hair and beard were as thick and manly as they could get.
He put his hands open in front of Ledas. Ledas put his small shaking hands in the big and firm hands of the king. “Drakon, the kid is so scared he can’t speak!”
General Drakon laughed in response. “Let’s hope I don’t scare him too much; he won't be able to perform a ritual.”
Ledas understood that he had to start reading the oath. “I Ledas Runewards, do..”
“Real family name,” the King interrupted him. “There is no need to hide your name in this room.”
Ledas stood for a second. He wanted to say Zanderian, but it was a fake one too. He remembered what General Drakon said about him looking like Ledas Sanders.
“I Ledas Sanders, do solemnly swear upon my honour and blood to be faithful and true to my liege Arshakion.”
The naming convention of Arshakion was uncommon, as the etiquette instructor had explained. Usually swearing fealty meant you swear it to the person and their heirs, but Arshakion who was this king’s father and Arshakion’s future kids when they were crowned would be just Arshakion and considered the same person, and he was the country and knew all his predecessors knew. Most of the kings crowned heirs while still alive and stopped wearing the name. So he swore to the country, the king, future kings, and previous kings at the same time.
“I shall serve him well in a manner his wisdom will see fit, uphold his laws, and…” Ledas got distracted for a second when Drakon burped loudly. “I shall bear him no ill will or harm, nor conspire against my liege.” He missed a few lines in between and stammered through another, and he could see the Wraith facepalm slowly every single time. Ledas thought about prostrating again but stopped himself.
“Well, that was a terrible swearing of oath,” King stated blankly “We will repeat after you finish your work. When you succeed it will be another oath, but as of a nobleman.”
Ledas was looking at the King, not moving his gaze, remembering to blink. “I will do my best.”
“That’s good.” King put a ring on Ledas’ index finger. It was slightly big but shrunk to Ledas’ finger size.
Ledas looked at it. It was silver with something small written on it with golden lines forming a spell and a text. It read as “I Serve In Glory!”. The spell was too complex to figure out instantly though.
“You are no longer required, documents on the ritual will be in your study, proceed immediately.”
Ledas left the room at a quick pace.
"So, how much time do we have before we will have to summon and leak out that we have a hero?" The king asked his ministers.
“A month, I think,” Wraith responded.
“And another to spread it,” the Infrastructure Minister added.
“Zarat’s new hero is a young woman, why are you ignoring that?” General Drakon looked displeased. “It takes way more time to make a woman into a killing tool. Give that brat more time to do the ritual properly, why am I concerned about treasury and Ashot is not?” He looked at the Treasury Minister.
“If the ritual fails money isn’t going to be spent at all. With all due respect, Wraith; I don’t believe a knockoff version of Ledas Sanders is going to make it work. I know you pay a lot of attention to the ancestry, but this is a scared kid, and without an otherworlder’s factor it doesn’t matter much who his ancestors are.”