Chapter 39 – Masquerade’s End
It was the night of the Jubilee, and, to General Steroth’s relief, everything had gone perfectly according to plan. The delivery of the various dignitaries’ gifts to the Empress had come and gone without him receiving word of any attempted coup against the Empress, and the parade afterwards had gone flawlessly without a single hint of an assassination attempt. By the time they had reached the Summer Palace and the ball had begun, General Steroth had allowed himself to relax the slightest fraction, resting content in the fact that the day had gone by without disaster. I suppose we scared the Master into hiding after all, he mused, glancing out the window as he did so.
Never a particularly good dancer himself, he stood at the far end of the spacious ballroom, slowly turning his head back and forth from the colorful conglomeration of noblemen and noblewomen dancing about and the night sky beyond, where flashes of fireworks rose from the city proper. The warm light of recently lit candles filled the ballroom, flickering off the jewelry the dancers wore and the frescoed image of a ship at sea upon the ceiling to make the chamber difficult to look at. General Steroth kept feeling his eyes sliding from one glittering object to another without quite ever realizing what they were looking at in the first place.
Even General Steroth himself wore a custom version of his usual uniform, an austere black uniform with gold lace and the vast array of medals that the Empress had deigned fit to give him on either shoulder. While normally General Steroth did not wear his medals, seeing them as being the peak of ostentatiousness, for tonight’s celebration the Empress had made it clear that she would not allow any exceptions.
“A successful day, would you not say, General?” Captain Erevex said as he sauntered over to where Steroth stood. In contrast to Steroth, he wore the same light blue uniform as the rest of the royal guard and could have been mistaken for any of his men if it weren’t for the eyepatch covering his right eye.
The General looked at the captain of the Empress’ guard with some confusion. “Aren’t you supposed to be overseeing the palace’s defenses?”
“Believe me, that’s well taken care of,” Captain Erevex said reassuringly. With a flick of his head, he gestured, leading General Steroth to see that a pair of guardsmen carrying pikes stood before every door into the ballroom. “No one is getting in or out of here, General.”
General Steroth nodded his head. “Good. You have done your work well, Captain. I apologize for my prior misgivings towards you.”
“There’s no need for an apology,” Captain Erevex said, still smiling smugly. “You were absolutely correct.”
General Steroth sharply glanced at Erevex in confusion. “What do you…,” he began to say, before he realized the full import of Erevex’s words. He looked down, and saw that Captain Erevex held a narrow knife in his left hand, which he had concealed within the sleeve of his uniform. The tip of the knife was pressed to General Steroth’s side. “I knew you were a traitor,” General Steroth said bitterly.
“Indeed, not even to mention the rest of the royal guard,” Captain Erevex said, taking delight in Steroth’s discomfort and shock. “You’re slipping in your old age, Steroth; the signs were right there if you were willing to act on them. There are no limits to the wonders that coin can buy you if you only know how to properly apply it. Oh, and if you try to warn anyone, then I will stab you with my little poisoned blade here. Just a word of warning.”
General Steroth ground his teeth together, cursing himself for falling into such an obvious trap. “So, you were the Master all along?”
Captain Erevex wagged a finger in General Steroth’s face. “Wrong again, General. No, the Master was someone even closer to the Empress. A blood relation. Blyth Vay.”
General Steroth blinked, the room seeming to spin before him as he wrestled with this revelation. “Crown Prince Blyth…but why?”
“Oh, I’m sure he will tell you himself, when he feels like it,” Captain Erevex said. “If you are good and behave yourself, there just might be a position for you in the new regime. Emperor Blyth is nothing if not forgiving.”
At that moment, three blue fireworks went up, one after the other, from the roof of the Winter Palace. Upon seeing those, Captain Erevex’s smirk turned into a gleeful expression of absolute triumph. “Perfect.” Turning, he snapped his fingers, and his men acted as one, slamming each of the doors into the ballroom with a simultaneous metallic clanging. This attracted the attention of the ballroom dancers, who looked around in confusion. However, whenever one tried to approach the guardsmen, they warded them away with a gesture of their pikes. Very quickly, the atmosphere in the chamber changed from eager celebration to unease steadily edging into panic.
The Empress, storming over to where Captain Erevex and General Steroth stood, said, “Captain Erevex, I demand to know why your men are acting in such a way.”
He laughed nastily. “For once, you speak the truth, ‘Empress.’ They are my men, not yours, and as of this moment, I no longer recognize you as the ruler of Waed.”
“What nonsense is this?” the Empress snapped.
“Emperor Blyth sends his regards,” Captain Erevex said sweetly.
The Empress paled. “Blyth?” she said. “But why would he do all of this?”
“Frankly, I don’t care, ‘Empress,’” Captain Erevex said breezily. “All I do care about is who pays me, and how much. He offered me and my men more than you did, plain and simple.” He gestured out the window towards the Winter Palace, saying, “The Royal Guard hold both palaces by this point, and will soon let the Master’s hired thugs in to help reinforce our numbers. Meanwhile, those still loyal to you in the army will spend the night scouring the streets, searching for a threat that is in here rather than out there. Isn’t it glorious?”
“Sooner or later your deception will be uncovered, Erevex,” General Steroth said. “Do you really think that, even with hired criminals to aid you, your guardsmen could hold both palaces against an assault from my army?”
“It doesn’t matter whether or not we can hold them,” Captain Erevex retorted. “They won’t dare to attack, not while we have the Empress and the rest of the cream of the Empire’s elite right here.”
Captain Erevex shoved the Empress’ by the shoulder, forcing her towards the center of the ballroom. He gestured towards General Steroth, who slowly walked over and joined the Empress and the others in a large, huddled group in the center of the ballroom. The rest of the guardsmen formed a circle around their prisoners, pikes held out before them. From their eager expressions, it was clear that they were all too willing to resort to violence should any of their prisoners attempt to escape.
“What are we going to do?” a distressed noblewoman, a countess from some distant province, wailed.
“We can pay you,” the Duke of Northern Regel said. “I have a share of the province’s taxes, especially set aside…whatever the ransom is, I can pay it.”
“Shut up,” Captain Erevex said curtly. When his group of prisoners continued talking, their voices slowly rising in a tide of anxiety and panic, he bellowed, “Shut up!” Instantly the hall fell silent. “I don’t want to hear a word from any of you, unless I speak directly to you first,” Captain Erevex said, pointing at the crowd as he spoke. “For the moment, stay here, and remain silent. My Master, Emperor Blyth, will decide what he wants to do with you all in his own time. Some of you, he will no doubt demand a ransom from. Others he may kill. Whoever he spares he will no doubt insist swear an oath of loyalty to himself.” His eyes swept across the group, seeing expressions of confusion, acceptance, and defiance on a few select faces, notably the Empress and her general. “Things are going to be very different in Waed from this day forward. Welcome to the dawn of a new era. I’m so glad you are all here to witness it for yourselves.”
“This coup is madness, Erevex,” the Empress said. “You are throwing away everything to follow Prince Blyth, an ailing man whose strength fades by the day. His reign will end soon regardless, and then where will you and your men be? If you and your men surrender now, then I will grant you all full pardons. Be warned; I won’t repeat this offer.”
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Captain Erevex considered this, then walked over to where the Empress stood. He slapped her across the face, the sound echoing through the perfectly silent ballroom. Gasps of horror arose from several present. “Keep your worthless offers of forgiveness to yourself, Yelezna. You were so blind that you didn’t notice your base of power being eaten away beneath your feet, and now you have no power left whatsoever. I warned you once already: speak again, and I may just forget Emperor Blyth’s command to deliver you to him alive.”
As General Steroth helped the former empress remain standing, holding her protectively, he glared steadily at Captain Erevex, who turned uneasily away. Captain Erevex turned at the sound of a door opening. Into the ballroom walked another of his guardsmen, who marched up to Erevex and saluted him smartly.
“Report,” Captain Erevex said, calmly wiping a smear of blood off the back of his hand as he did so.
“Both palaces are completely secured,” the guardsman informed him. “Anyone loyal to the former Empress has been disposed of or imprisoned. The army remains unaware, for the moment, of what we have done.”
“Wonderful!” Captain Erevex said. “I so love it when everything goes according to plan.”
“Well,” the guard said, wincing slightly. “There’s one other piece of information from the Emperor.”
Captain Erevex shrugged. “What is it?”
“He wished to warn you that the twins the Master has been hunting for weeks, and their guardian are still free.”
Captain Erevex stared at the guard for a moment, then simply threw his head back and laughed. “Children? The Emperor is worried about children?”
“He is concerned they may try to free the Empress,” the guard explained.
Captain Erevex’s laughter turned into outright guffaws. “I’d like to see them try.”
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As he slowly awoke, a very bewildered and frightened Prince Grevel found himself being half-dragged, half-carried through the Winter Palace, held between two of the royal guards, each of which had one of his arms clutched tightly enough that it caused him pain. The last thing Prince Grevel remembered, he had been celebrating the Empress’ jubilee along with the rest of the court, when, he realized belatedly, one of the royal guardsmen had swapped his current glass with a different one without him noticing. He had drunk from it thoughtlessly, then swiftly fallen asleep a short while later. After that, he had awoken in the dungeons beneath the Winter Palace, besides the dead body of his manservant Zaril, whose throat had been messily cut open. Now, as he continued to be pulled along, a writhing Grevel desperately tried and failed to break free, wanting nothing more than answers to his current predicament.
Even in his drugged state, Grevel noted that they were steadily making their way deeper into the palace, heading towards the throne room itself, from which his aunt would arbitrate matters of state. As they entered the chamber, the scene that greeted them made Grevel almost wonder if he was still asleep, as it struck him as being so strange as to be surreal.
The entire throne room looked as if it had been ransacked, portraits and tapestry torn down or destroyed, furniture thrown about like a whirlwind had just passed through the chamber. The only thing that remained intact was the throne itself, on which perched his cousin, Prince Blyth, his pale, almost bloodless face unnaturally flushed, though with excitement or anger Grevel could not tell. On Blyth’s left stood a short, gnomish man, who seemed thoroughly disinterested in the tableau before him. To Blyth’s right stood a woman, wrapped in bloodstained bandages, who wore an iron mask which concealed her face. Her hands, too, had metal gauntlets strapped to them. The woman was breathing deeply, the sound loud enough that Grevel could hear it even across the chamber, but otherwise she remained motionless. The floor of the throne room had been painted with a set of concentric circles, each of which had a dense, small set of runes written around it. With a sickening lurch in his stomach, Prince Grevel realized that what he was looking at was a diagram made not of paint, but dried blood.
“Blyth,” Grevel said in a hushed tone. “What is all this?”
“You will refer to me as Emperor Blyth, Cousin,” Blyth said coldly, glaring down from where he perched on the throne. His face spasmed with pain, then he added, “I have overthrown the Empress. Now, I rule Waed, not her.”
“But…why?” Grevel wondered. “We’ve both always had everything we’ve ever wanted. Why go to all this trouble to-”
“You’ve had everything you ever wanted!” Blyth raged, cutting his cousin off mid-sentence. “You look at me, and you possibly wonder why? Are you blind? Very well. It will be irrelevant soon, so I shall tell you. From birth, I have been cursed with this illness, with blood so weak and thin that I could not exert myself, could not even stand without assistance. The Empress’ hemomancers tried their best to aid me, creating blood bindings that would strength me as best they could, ameliorate the worst elements of my weakness, but they were next to useless. I would never rule Waed, would never be able to claim my birthright. I would be dead long before my own mother, the Empress, had passed away.”
Prince Grevel looked at his cousin in confusion. “I know all of this already, Blyth.”
Prince Blyth raised his finger triumphantly. “Ah, but here we come to the part of the story that no one save myself and a foolish old man knew. While the Empress herself had not inherited the gift of hemomancy, which instead went to her sister and then to you, I did as well.”
Prince Grevel’s mouth hung open in amazement. “What?”
“Indeed. It was such a weak talent that it evaded notice from most of the hemomancers the Empress sent to attend me, which worked in my favor, in the end,” Prince Blyth said. He took a deep, shuddering breath to steady himself, then continued. “As soon as I realized what I was capable of, I began studying obsessively, trying to learn and master everything I could about this art, to try and find a way to heal myself, to recover the strength and health that should have been mine by right. Then, after years of searching and learning in secret, I reached the only possible conclusion: that if I wanted my birthright, there was only one way to obtain it. The Third Unthinkable. I must steal the life and health of another.”
Prince Grevel’s eyes fell to the circle on the floor, then returned to Prince Blyth. He shuddered slightly, saying, “You cannot be serious. This is insanity, Blyth.”
“It’s survival, Grevel. Would you not do the same in my place?” Blyth said, waving a hand at the two guardsmen, who finally released Prince Grevel, who sank to the floor, wheezing softly as he did so. “Having set out on this quest, I began carefully smuggling as much treasure as I could from the Empress’ personal accounts – in small amounts, so miniscule that individually they would not be noticed, yet would add up into a great fortune of my own. Using this wealth, I bribed Erevex and his men, and through them began carefully constructing a web of spies and followers throughout the Empire, all under the guise of ‘the Master,’ to prepare for the day of my ascension to the throne. Nevertheless, I soon realized one obstacle remained in my way: the specific technique used for stealing the life force of another. So abhorred was this technique that no book or scroll could I find that did more than barely hint at the proper process. I was on the edge of despairing, until I remembered the story of Vasil Reinhand, former court hemomancer to the Empress before his experimentations were discovered.”
Reinhand interrupted at this point, saying, “the Empress never saw the genius or useful applications for my experiments. Emperor Blyth wisely has.”
“Indeed,” Blyth said, nodding sagely as he did so. “I will admit, my first instinct was to turn to Reinhand’s apprentice, the widely respected Gerok, for assistance, especially considering he already knew of my secret. But his accursed loyalty to the Empress was still too strong. When he tried to have my scheme exposed, I had him killed, but his apprentices escaped, nearly leading to disaster for me. Fortunately, not realizing who I was, they came right here, to this very palace, to deliver a letter from Gerok exposing my plans to myself. Beautifully ironic, no?”
“Did you kill them, too?” Grevel asked somberly.
For the briefest of moments, a shadow passed over Blyth’s face, but his confident attitude quickly reasserted itself. “There were…complications preventing me from acting, but I have sent my guardsmen after them, whom I expect to hear from at any moment. Regardless, I then turned to Vasil Reinhand, who agreed to teach me his techniques. Now armed with the ability to steal the life of another, I had only to choose a target.” He smiled bitterly down at Prince Grevel. “Who do you think I chose?”
“Cousin, you’ve gone completely mad. This will never work. Please, see reason,” Prince Grevel pleaded.
“Silence!” Prince Blyth screamed, standing up from the throne, before wobbling back and forth unsteadily. He weakly sat back down, then continued in a quieter voice, “You took everything that should have been mine by a twist of ironic luck. Your health, your popularity, your talent, even the throne – all of it should have been mine. I am simply returning my belongings to their proper owner, by whatever means necessary.”
Prince Grevel spun as if to flee the chamber, but the guardsmen standing behind him drew their swords and moved to block him.
“Anyone in this room could kill you in a matter of moments, Cousin,” Blyth warned. “The process will be long and painful, yes, but you will live – I want you to live. While I rule Waed, you will be the invalid, too weak to even lift his head. You will suffer, as I have suffered, for the rest of your days.”
Before Prince Grevel could respond, another guardsman ran into the room, shouting, “My Lord!” as he did so. He was bleeding profusely from several wounds, and his right arm dangled at his side as if broken.
“What is this?” Prince Blyth demanded.
“It’s the apprentices, and their cursed guardians,” the guardsman said, wheezing heavily. “They escaped. They’re heading to the Summer Palace as we speak.”
“No!” Prince Blyth shrieked.
“They’ve doubtless gone to free the Empress,” Vasil Reinhand said.
Blyth stiffened, eyes staring off into the distance as he considered this. “Then we will have to act quickly,” he said at last. He pointed to the guardsmen. “You three, take Vasil Reinhand and Prince Grevel. Aid Reinhand in whatever ways he needs to prepare the ritual. Sangue, attend to me: we must prepare the palace to resist an attack. I have not worked this hard, come so far, to see it all far apart from the actions of twin apprentices and their mangy guardian.”
The two guardsmen stepped forward and grabbed Grevel once more, dragging him between them as they followed Vasil Reinhand, who left the chamber hurriedly. As they marched along, Prince Grevel closed his eyes, resigning himself to his fate. No one can save me now, he thought. Except, that is, those two apprentices.