Fortia, Maisara and Waeh all shook hands.
Kassandora would be killed tomorrow. This war would be over by the end of the week.
Before Zawitz became the capital of Lubska, it was Kaczaw. Once an ancient capital, with a royal palace that housed royalty, now the city was a tourist hub, an educational powerhouse, Lubska’s second largest industrial zone and a historical relic. Today though, Zawitz returned to its ancient roots: Epan nobles were being hosted in Vavel Castle, and people were out in the streets. If not for the cars and trams and trains, the planes in the air, the smoke from factories in the distance, the tarmac and concrete and tower blocks, it could have been a city of the past, with golden sandstone and cobblestone streets in the city’s old town.
President Jozef sat in one of the rooms of Vavel castle. High-ceilings, with royal ancient royal wallpaper, all brown and red. And paintings on the walls. And huge windows tall enough for Divines to fit through. They had a good view of Kaczaw as a whole, but today he wished that the windows could be removed. Another massive strike protest had taken form in Lubska, people were out in all the streets. Several highways to Kaczaw were blocked off, the airport had been shut down too. It’s two train stations had the same fate. The city had been put to a complete and stop. “Not Our War!” Posters were hung up on every building and someone was flying a small plane across the city with a banner trailing behind it: “Back To The Mountain!”
Jozef sighed. He could not do much with it, and it would look bad in front of the other leaders but there wasn’t much he could do. The Doschian recession had spiralled even further out of control and now was spreading to Lubska. People had no work to occupy them and a news cycle that was difficult to tear their eyes away from. Jozef understood though, it was just as difficult for him to stop paying attention to the divine war in Kirinyaa as it was for them. Watching it, he got the feeling as if he was seeing history being made.
The other Epan leaders arrived. It wasn’t the whole continent, it was only those who were relevant to the continent’s decision making. Aimone had taken to calling them the Gang of Five and the name stuck. King Wissel Ellenheim, first of his name, King of Doschia arrived first. He always did, in a dark uniform and a short cape fit for movement. Saksma followed in behind him, half again his height, Doschia’s national Goddess. With long golden hair and blue eyes and a dark coat and a cold face that looked as if it was about to tell Jozef off for the sorry state of Kaczaw right now, she looked like all the stereotypes of hardworking industrious Doschia rolled into one.
But then she saw Olonia, Lubska’s own mascot Goddess, and warmed up with a cheery smile. The two Goddesses exchanged a hug. Olonia was just an inch shorter, with hair of pure white akin to Lubskan snows. In a green coat that hung low, ever-modest, and that hair done in a traditional braid that hung over her shoulder.
Artois entered, Paida behind him. Both Rancais, so both dressed excellently. Artois in a dark coat and a scarf, Paida in a dark brown with a scarf of dark blue. It brought attention to the woman’s eyes. She also hugged Olonia and Saksma. Aimone with Agrita, Rilia’s king and Goddess. Homely, joyous, pleasant, but Aimone had been looking more tired recently. Maisara’s putting down of Anarchian’s in his land had brought a toll onto the man. And finally Richard VI. Unfortunately Aliana was missing again. Then again, it didn’t matter. Divine Mascots were mere representatives.
“I pre-emptively apologize for the issue at the airport.” Artois and Richard had both come by plane. Their landings had to be delayed by an hour as the planes circled the city in the air and police cleared the runway of protestors.
“Do not.” Artois said immediately. “The situation is better here than in Aris.” Jozef shook his head. There had been a time when he was fully aware of the news in other countries, now though, all he could do was keep up with the sad state of Lubska and keep track of Kassandora’s war in Arika.
“The entire north of Rilia is shut down.” Aimone said. “I saw you actually have police who aren’t on strike.”
“Are yours?” Jozef asked incredulously.
“Striking and understaffed.” Aimone said as the mascot Goddesses took their positions, each one standing behind the leader of their respective nation. Agrita was especially hard to pull eyes off. “We had a third quit outright when Maisara came in Wissel.” The Doschian king sighed as Jozef looked away from Agrita.
“I do not think it would do much anyway. In Doschia we can’t even keep the protests contained.” He said. “That’s why I called the meeting. Epa is crumbling apart in our hands.” Richard crossed his arms and leaned back.
“If it was at least our issue, I’d understand. But what are we supposed to do about a White Pantheon war?” The table fell silent.
“We’ve stemmed them by launching an official complaint.” Jozef said. “Send a letter to Elassa to explain the situation and then officially denounce the war.”
“Elassa?” Wissel asked. Jozef shrugged.
“It’s a White Pantheon War officially, but Fortia didn’t do herself any favours with Melukal.”
“She did not.” Aimone said coldly. Agrita behind him broke procedure and leaned down, officially Divines were merely supposed to keep watch.
“Did not is an understatement, she massacred an entire city.” Jozef had forgotten how sweet Agrita’s voice sounded, it was like verbal honey with the way she pronounced each word with that Rilian accent.
“Agrita.” Aimone shut her down and the Goddess straightened and blushed.
“Apologies, I did not mean to intervene but don’t beat around the bush. She-“
“Agrita!” Saksma said loudly from behind Wissel, she softened her tone after a moment. “Now’s not the time.”
“But what Agrita says is true.” Wissel said as he put his elbows on the table and leaned forwards. “Let us not beat around the bush, Fortia did massacre Melukal.” They had all brought their own documents with them. Jozef had just brought every piece of data he considered important, whether or not it would be used didn’t matter. This meeting was something he hoped would happen, but he had more important things to manage.
Wissel dropped his orange folder on the table and brought out a piece of paper. “I’ve sent diplomats to every Arikan country. Ausa actually allowed us to conduct a survey of White Pantheon opinion among the population.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“And?” Jozef asked.
“Less than one percent.” Wissel said. “My men struggled to find even one person in favour of the Pantheon. The most supportive was that Kassandora had gone too far with the Military Implementation Bill but that were wasn’t any need for a full on invasion of Kirinyaa.” He took a sigh. “Granted, this is Ausa and they’re about to start their own Reclamation War, but I assume the other Arikan nations are not too different.”
“The ones that border the Jungle are the same.” Richard said slowly as he brought out his paper. “We have conducted our own surveys. I’ve never seen such unanimity of opinion.”
“They let you?” Wissel asked.
“No.” Richard replied flatly. “We sent school professors. What are the Arikans going to do? Arrest teachers for taking surveys?” Richard’s question didn’t need an answer.
“In Doschia, support is overwhelming to ending the war.” Wissel said. “Well, to go even further and sanction the Pantheon. How we are supposed to sanction them, I’m not sure about.”
“Internet conspiracies of course.” Richard said. “But it’s more that no one has really realised there’s nothing to sanction. I don’t blame them, but it’s misdirected anger.”
Artois made a grand gesture with his hands. “Lovely Richard, lovely Wissel. I weep for your people that your people haven’t got the message yet, mine have.” Wissel and Richard both turned to look sourly at President Artois. The Rancais man held his cool though, as did Paida behind him. She stared the two kings coldly. “In Rancais, they’ve got the notice you can’t sanction the Pantheon, do you know what they’re calling for?”
“What?” Wissel asked.
“A trial on Maisara and on Fortia and for Rancais to formally leave Pantheon Peace as a sign of protest.” The four other leader’s faces went pale. Artois somehow made it even worse. “And it’s become an election issue. This isn’t just a joke or theories or just demands made by a crowd anymore, we are actually discussing how to put White Pantheon Divines on trial in our parliament.”
Aimone took a deep breath and added his own thoughts. “Obviously it won’t happen though.” Artois shrugged as Paida shook her head.
“Obviously, do you even to say anything about the farce of people talking about putting Fortia in cuffs?”
“But it’s a real issue.” Wissel said. “Misguided, but real, at this point you can safely assume the default for people is that they hate the Pantheon.”
“The Pantheon doesn’t do itself any favours.” Richard added. He made a show of looking around the room. “But it’s the Gang of Five again.”
“It is.” Aimone said, happily rubbing his chin that the name had stuck.
Richard nodded. “So I think I know what that means.” Wissel nodded and leaned forwards.
“How to break Pantheon Peace.”
“We’re not ready yet.” Richard said.
Wissel scratched his chin and shook his head. “You can’t be ready for it, but Kirinyaa can be used as a lesson, we see what happens when a country breaks Pantheon Peace.”
“You get invaded.” Aimone said flatly.
“The question is how. I thought they would do a quick-takeover. A landing in the capital and a coup.” Wissel said, Jozef found his turn to speak.
“Not comparable, Kirinyaa is loaded with Divines at this point. And it’s not weak Divines either.” The mascot Goddesses all made glum faces as they shared looks. They weren’t weak either but… Well, they weren’t Kassandora or Fer, much less a Neneria, Anassa or Olephia. “If we force them into a land-war, then there’s a chance. The slower the front moves, the better our situation, but we can’t stop a lightning strike on our capitals.”
“Not yet.” Wissel said.
“I don’t see how ever.” Jozef said. “Minor Divines, maybe, but Zerus? Elassa? Allasaria?”
“Allasaria has not been seen for months now.” Richard added and Jozef shrugged.
“Elassa and Zerus then. Alkom too. I don’t want a Sun descending on Zawitz.”
“Maisara is untouchable.” Artois said. “When she was clearing Rancais, every time she’d enter a building, she’d return without a scratch. Covered in blood, but not a scratch on her.”
“So unless you have a way to defend us…” Richard said. Wissel smiled and pulled out a piece of paper.
“After the Artica situation, I did some investigation. I believe it was Olephia’s prison.” He pulled out a map of all Arda with a line drawn through it. The red marking started in Artica, entitled Point X, hit Igos perfectly and went into Rilia and then further through central Epa. “She would have gone through Doschian territory too.”
“And?” Jozef asked, whenever the conversation strayed into these topics he was always disappointed in his own nation’s lack of expertise in the matter. He had absolutely nothing to offer.
“This is a map of the White Pantheon territories in Epa we know about. You can thank the Ministerium fur historische Angelegenheiten for this news.” He brought out a ruler on the map and put it down to resemble Olephia’s flight path. “It hits the White Pantheon’s Paladin Headquarters exactly. It’s not even a stretch to say that is where Olephia was heading to.”
“So Olephia wanted to destroy the Paladin HQ, I…” Aimone trailed off and chuckled before pulling a sarcastic tone. “Well why would one of the Daughter-Goddesses want to destroy the Paladin HQ? It really makes me think.” Agrita chuckled at the joke behind him as Richard leaned forwards and shook his head.
“Olephia was caught in the first century. The Paladins only returned to Epa in two-hundred twenty after Pantheon Peace enforcement was finished.” Wissel of Doschia smiled and motioned with his finger.
“Exactly.” He said. “Unless Olephia found out in her imprisonment what had happened, there is no reason to head there.” Artois shrugged.
“Not much of a lead.”
“It’s the only spark in the dark we had.” Wissel replied promptly. He brought out another report, it was photocopies of pictures of an ancient page. “Written by General Eleyad Gallahan, commander of the fourth Legion of Arascus in the Great War. In elvish, we had to bring in translators to decipher it.”
“So what did you find?” Richard said. Wissel proudly brought out another report and hit the page with his fingers, then passed it around. There was one for everyone, but Wissel read it out loud anyway, just from the tone, Jozef could tell how happy the King was with this discovery.
“One-hundred-thirty-two miles east of Black Bear, slight tilt to the south. Two hundred seventy south from the coast, straight south. One hundred, sixty-six northwest of Four Crests. All directions are given straight as the crow flies and rounded to the nearest mile. For reference, I am using Goddess Kassandora’s mileage system and not Maisara’s.” The king finished, the five men shared looks. How very elven it was, the language didn’t have a single word that didn’t need to be said.
“Black Bear and Four Crests are obviously codewords.” Richard said.
“Are they?” Wissel asked. “This is a report from his own writings.” Aimone chuckled.
“He gives Kassandora the Goddess title and not Maisara.”
“Fitting for one of hers.” Artois said. “But it is though, what place has four crests?” Jozef blinked. It was so obvious he didn’t even want to believe it at first.
“Vroczis does.” It had one crest split into four parts, the city had been under kingdoms in the past and in the age, to honour that, they incorporated the four ancients crests into one. Wissel leaned down with a smile.
“And Neustadt.” Jozef knew that was the capital of Doschia. Wissel lowered his tone as if about to spill a secret, the man was practically brimming with joy at this point. “It’s built on the ruins of Kollin.” He brought out another picture. “This is its crest.” A black bear standing on its hind legs.
“I see.” Richard said. “And you line those up.” Wissel nodded as he started drawing lines on the map.
“We don’t know exactly what a Kassandora mile is, but…” Wissel said. “When we checked with the maths, then the distances lined up perfectly. No matter which one you substituted for a variable, Eleyad Gallahan’s distances lined up.” The three lines converged perfectly over the Paladin’s Headquarters in Doschia.
“It still doesn’t explain why Olephia was heading there.” Aimone said.
Wissel shook his head as he started ruffling through his notes. “But it does.” He said and brought a piece of paper. “But it does.” He repeated and put it down. Jozef stood up to lean over the table. Another piece of Gallahan’s work, translated: Directions to Arascus’ Divine Armoury.
Jozef blinked as he felt blood drain from his face. The other leaders shook their heads, eyes wide. Even the Goddesses in the room looked stunned. Wissel crossed his arms. “And we all know which group of Divines was kept in the armoury, I’m sure.”
Iliyal leaned back. He drank some coffee for the energy, and some whiskey to wash out the taste. Another article was going up today, in Doschian this time: ‘Why we need to trial Goddess Fortia.’ Kassandora would truly proud be of him.