03 – Tantrums of a golem

Tessera’s angry golem glare was fascinating. So fascinating that Paul spend the first part of the mayor’s welcome speech trying to decipher all the positions and movement of all moving parts on the face instead of actually listening. The brightly glowing green eyes certainly helped.

Mayor Orzo’s welcome and introduction of Ambassador Archdrew, honoured representative of both the Punic League and the Puny Cult, halted and fell silent as he felt the tension in the room and realised that the attention wasn’t actually on him.

Archdrew chuckled as Tessera glared. “My my, you truly must be desperate,” commented Archdrew, stroking his beard. “You tricked me,” Tessera snarled. “Care to explain what’s going on?” Count Montefel asked.

“He.” Tessera pointed at Archdrew, “Hunts. My. Kind.”

“So first of all,” Archdrew responded, “I’m here on a diplomatic mission.”

“Secondly, it’s not usually me who does the hunting.”

“And thirdly, yes the cult and his kind don’t get along. It’s quite amusing you’re asking both of us for help at the same time.”

“His kind being?” the count asked.

For a moment Ambassador Archdrew silently looked at Tessera and Tessera looked at the ambassador, eyebrow raised. Finally the silence was broken by Archdrew. “Either a lich or a free spirit. I’m not sure. I don’t think he’ll tell what he is as long as I’m here.”

And again there was thick silence.

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When Montefel had established that nobody was about to get murderised (killing Tessera was shown to be in conflict with at least 5 different clauses and sub-clauses of the terms of parley, which everyone agreed to respect), Orzo could finally explain what was going on.

In short, he was worried about the Huns.

The Huns had invaded the Eastern Latin Empire from their north-western border, ransacked the cities of Thrace and pillaged its countryside, and marched all the way up to the walls of Constantinople. They had demanded and received tribute. Then they had cut a swath of destruction on the way out.

Contacts travelling from the north had confirmed what Orzo already feared: the Hunnic general Attila was preparing for a raid on the West.

Rome, weakened as it was, would not be able to protect them. Diplomats send to negotiate trade (and sue for peace) returned from Attila with demands of total surrender, mountains of gold and barrels of blood. Almost as if he was deliberately mocking imperial law.

All this meant only that Ravenna would need to defend itself. The mayor looked at them all, trying to appear both weak and strong. The cities of North Italy could band together and make a stand, he said. Ravenna could hole up behind its walls and hope the Huns picked softer targets. Or maybe one of the three powers represented here could offer them something better.

Tessera wanted to go first, Montefel wanted to speak last, and Ambassador Archdrew was content to go in the middle. So they settled in to present their case.

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Tessera began by looking around. “I’m afraid I can’t offer you any painless options,” he said quietly.

“Twenty well-trained possessors could probably safeguard your city, but there’s a reason possession currently carries the death penalty throughout the empire and beyond. You would have to trust these twenty men absolutely, because they could steal and kill without repercussion.”

Count Montefel looked like he wanted to interrupt, but the mayor stopped him with a gesture and Tessera continued.

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“Realistically, if you let me train twenty possessors, you can expect at least one of them to go on a murder spree. Eventually they can turn into liches which are even worse. You’d probably have to assassinate all of them at some point, because you cannot control a possessor through threats.”

“Keep this in mind as you consider the next option.” Tessera was beginning to orate now, excitement creeping into both his expression and his voice. “You could summon Exi, the bearer of a thousand torches. She could tear the whole Hunnic horde limb from limb on her own. She is faster than they are, and she could maintain her form for two days. I have bargained Exi down as far as is reasonable. Her price is the free sacrifice of 923 rich young men, or the half-life of twice as many.”

Now Chief Peddler Mancot’s eyes were bulging, and he looked like he wanted to shout something, but he too kept quiet.

Tessera continued: “I’m afraid necromancy has become mostly obsolete due to recent advances in golemmaking, but there’s still potential for the burning men–”

“Porca Vacca! No!” now Orzo himself interrupted him. “I was told you could offer help, but all your proposals so far are mad, reckless, and illegal. You would desecrate the very last remnants of the covenant of Rome! Even if it worked we would be turned upon by our neighbours. Tolerating possessors whilst planning their assassination? Sacrificing free men? Deploy burning men? They have been banned ever since the scorching of Pompei.” The mayor covered his eyes with his hands and sighed. “Do you have any useful proposals? Anything that isn’t insanely risky, won’t see us declared enemies of Rome, and won’t see my citizens revolt if they find out?”

Mayor Orzo leaned towards Tessera, looking tired. When Tessera felt comfortable in the silence, confident that he was being listened to, he replied speaking quietly once again. There was some sadness in his voice now. “My strength lies in esoteric, forgotten knowledge. I may be stronger than most spirits, but I am not stronger than an army, nor are my allies. If you declare anything unusual taboo, I am of no use to you.” Tessera paused, blinked, then took a sip from his goblet. It was odd how a simple flickering of the brightness of his eyes could so clearly bring to mind to notion of blinking, without any physical movement at all. He continued after adjusting his posture: “I don’t think that burning men were responsible for the loss of Pompei, though I grant that that point is irrelevant to our discussion. The problem with burning men in the late republic era is that they were slaves. Only a true patriot should ever be given the power that comes with the self-fanning flames. To attempt to control burning men by threatening their families, as your people did, was foolishness. They would have had to be phased out even without the disaster at Pompei.”

Tessera leaned back, folded his arms and dimmed his eyes, indicating he was finished.

Golemmaster Farfal raised his hand and, receiving a signal from Orzo, he spoke: “It is interesting to me that you come back to the idea of freely given blood yet gain. But that aside, regarding the summoning ceremony for Exi, would it be possible for not all the victims to be rich young men? Based my understanding of magic rituals, it might be possible to sacrifice perhaps the half-life of approximately 200 rich young men and the half-life of 4000 poor young men, so long as they are all willing?” Now looking at Orzo and Mancot: “The rich men would have to make a sincere sacrifice that we couldn’t hope to fully compensate them for, except perhaps by elevating their families, but for some poor men 10000 dinari will be enough to convince them to give up a half-life, and some slaves might even be capable and willing to participate if we give them their freedom.”

“Regarding the first point,” Tessera muttered without sitting up, “the Huns are crueller than you, and more vicious. You must either become just as ruthless as them, or leverage the compassion that your people have to do what they cannot.”

“Regarding the summoning ritual, you are probably right. So long as the flavour of at least some of the offered life-force is pleasing to Exi, the rest can compensate quality with quantity. I’ll discuss it with her.”

“How can we trust Exi?” Captain Dolmades asked calmly, “As I understand it we’d give her a ton of power, at great cost to ourselves, and yet we’d have no way to control her. She has no reputation here that could be damaged, and there is no prospect of a long-term business arrangement that could be jeopardised. Why on earth would she attack the Huns and not, say, attack Ravenna?”

Tessera blinked lazily and drummed the table with his fingers. “Don’t think I don’t care about insinuations of dishonour,” he dawled, his voice clear once again. Tap-tap-tap on the table. “The problem is you’re right, you lot don’t know Exi. The last time Exi manifested was 5 centuries ago, and that was on the other side of the ocean. You have no way to confirm what I’m saying, it’s a known problem among the elder spirits, and after 25 centuries we still haven’t solved it.” Tap-tap-tap. “For what it’s worth, I know Exi and she is a spirit of honour. I would stake my life on it, if that helped, which it doesn’t. I’ve known Exi for over two millennia, during which she’s never broken a promise… OK, except that one time when a summoner tried to leverage the exact wording of a contract to breach the spirit of their agreement and…” Tap-tap-tap. “...right. Just don’t be a nitpicker and she’ll be fine.”

Silence descended as everyone pondered his words. Captain Dolmades did not look completely convinced, nor did the others, but they had nothing more to add.

Finally Tessera returned to his resting state and the council turned to Ambassador Archdrew.