Silenos felt a stab of anger at the tedium of directing his grotesqueries to simple reconstruction, when he might otherwise be spending his time rebuilding the arcane defences once at his disposal. Then he remembered why. His cape moaned its agony, as if to an unheard cue, and he allowed himself to bask in the satisfaction of having punished the one responsible.
He saw the King Galukar stiffen from the corner of his eye, and smiled ever deeper. It had been a long time since that particular monkey had dared say anything about Silenos’ methods. Evidently, even his dull mind had finally realised the obvious facts of their new stations. How long would he last, were he to attack Silenos this instant? A minute, perhaps two. There weren’t so many grotesqueries within immediate reach of them, it would take a while to call in the forces needed to properly crush him.
Silenos buried the thought, having better things to do than continue swilling the taste of progress around his mouth, and turned to the girl.
“You are to prioritise being seen conducting the reconstruction.” Silenos informed her, watching her jump at being addressed in that satisfying way she had. “It won’t do to have the impression among your people be that you are some simple puppet for my whims.”
Quite apart from the fact that she was, and Silenos generally disliked being fully understood in his actions, it would damage the morale of the people if they perceived themselves as fully beneath an external force of conquest. Best to let simpletons think of themselves as free, they chafed at management.
“You will focus on minimising further death, to start with, and then once the city is properly stabilised you will push further into rebuilding efforts using renovations and changes detailed in the report I had sent to you. It contains the plans for a city made in the image of House Shaiagrazni’s, and I will see it followed to the letter.”
“Of course.” She replied, nodding with all the haste of one who had the image of Silenos’ new coat fresh in her mind. But then she paused, swallowing, licking her lips nervously, and speaking again without prompting.
“May I ask you a question?”
Silenos braced himself for exposure to the depths of human stupidity, and nodded.
“You may.”
The woman delayed only a moment before finding the courage to do so.
“You made me your puppet here, put me in charge of your new Vassal state. Why? Why not my brothers? You must surely know how women are perceived in these lands.”
He’d known as much, of course. It had in fact been why he’d selected her. Better to have a vassal who was not entirely certain in her standing, and could not turn her back to her own court, than one who was confident and secure within the city he’d left them to rule. Silenos had no interest in facing a rebellion, nor finding out the Dark Lord or some other party had subverted his latest conquest out from under him.
But he did not say as much, instead keeping a cool face and meeting her eyes more openly.
“Because I saw a considerable potential in you.” He lied. “You have a quick mind, a dynamic intellect, and a manner of considering things that I suspect will lead to considerably skilled leadership in the future. I intend to cultivate that, and give it the opportunity to blossom. In my people’s homeland it was considered standard for women to receive all the opportunities of men, and refraining from such a state is mere waste.”
Her eyes could not have grown brighter, even if Silenos had set the woman’s brain on fire. He drew satisfaction from the sight of a manipulation well executed, then noticed her smile. It was a soft thing, wide and easy, unguarded. It reminded him rather of Ensharia’s.
“Now begone.” He continued, gesturing her away. “You are consuming too much of my time, and I have more important matters to attend to than you.”
She seemed rather confused for a moment, but nodded dutifully and turned to take her leave.
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Galukar watched the girl take her leave, frowning as she went. He felt a stab of pity for her. Losing a father and a Kingdom in one day was bad enough, finding herself under the thumb of Shaiagrazni…He shuddered.
But not so much. After all, he was under that same thumb now, and found himself chafing at it far less than he ought to have. In his youth he’d no doubt have been killed already after heroically throwing himself at the caster, all roaring vigour and flailing swings. Maybe he’d even have wounded him. Maybe not. He was too tired for such puerile indulgences anymore.
“Was there any reason in particular you decided to dismiss her so bluntly?” He found himself asking, not entirely expecting the caster to turn and reply.
“She must not learn to see me as anything less than a superior, not until my grip here is cemented.”
“I see.” Galukar replied, studying the caster. “Well, you’ve taken the kingdom, at least. Taken it well, and with the losses suffered I doubt any among it will have both the means and inclination to seize it back. For now at least, I’d call this a victory. What say you to a drink? In celebration.”
That had the caster turning around at last, affixing Galukar with a look that harkened back to when they’d first met. All frosty and jagged, edged like some barbed thing of natural armour.
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“I was not aware I had said anything to indicate that I might indulge myself in such primitive a pastime as recreational cognitive impediment.”
Galukar understood even less of the man’s words than was normal, but he was able to gauge the rough gist of what had been said. He felt himself bristle at the obvious contempt on display, but felt himself shift more at something else. Something hidden beneath the surface.
“There’s no need for such hostility.” He replied, trying again, despite himself. “This is a time for anything but that, surely. You did well, you made progress. Relax.”
“The last time I relaxed, I found myself hurled through dimensional walls and into a realm of silly little apemen forcing me to fight in their silly little wars out of self preservation.”
It was difficult not to match the rage, but made easier by the recollection of those damned flesh abominations.
“These are hardly comparable circumstances-” Galukar tried, then fell silent as the caster snapped again.
“What is your motive in asking me these incessant questions?” He growled. “You’ve never been particularly curious before, not about anything and least of all about me. And you’re far from friendly to practitioners of my arts. I’d think you simpering for self-preservation, but I know you care too little about your own death for that. So what in the world is your motive in this petty attempt at subterfuge?”
Galukar was not a politician, really. He had always been a ruler more fit for battle than peace, and had left the governing of Arbite to his advisors and hands since long before any sought to turn against him. Even so, he was canny enough to realise when his pretences had fallen away.
He gave them up with relish, never liking the sensation of hiding behind a mask of any kind at all. Not even to a Fleshcrafter.
“Very well then.” He replied, not flinching as Silenos Shaiagrazni affixed him with that demonic gaze. “You have changed, and not in the way you think. You were always callous, cruel…Always evil. But never so drastically as this. What you’re doing, with the coat, with the cripplings…It’s performative. Ever since Falls died.”
Shaiagrazni’s eye twitched.
“Falls is not dead.” Was all he said, in a brisk tone unreadable as any singular emotion at all, but certainly conveying something.
It would have been a small thing in a normal man, but Silenos Shaiagrazni was not normal by any stretched definition. His denial was obvious and uncharacteristic, something Galukar knew all too well was a sign of some deeper crack in his emotional stability.
Whatever the caster claimed, he was not some ineffable bastion of knowledge and logic. He felt, just as any other man did, and Arion Falls’ death had him feeling. Feeling enough to deny that it had ever even occurred. Feeling enough to discover some moral line, at last, that he would not cross, and keep him from reanimating his apprentice.
Galukar keenly recalled the abominable constructs roaming around the city, feeling some whisper even then of the awe he had been struck by upon first seeing it. If the master of things like that were to lose his senses entirely, it might well spell the end of the entire world.
“If you’re sure.” He said, slowly, carefully. Well aware that he was not speaking with the most predictable of creatures.
Silenos Shaiagrazni snapped, but not violently. His anger came out as a contemptuous scoff, and a sidelong glance edged to a skin-opening point.
“Begone, I am tired of this conversation.”
It had been a long time since anyone had seen fit to order Galukar around like that, and just for a moment he was half-tempted to disobey. But he didn’t, climbing to his feet and taking his leave with only the barest reluctance. It would be foolish not to.
The relationship between himself and Shaiagrazni had been rather dramatically rearranged, of late.
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It was a strange sort of silence that followed Silenos after Galukar’s exit, the kind that made room for contemplation and thought. The kind that made room only for the contemplation and thoughts that were most unwelcome.
His mind drifted to the past, the favoured refuge of any rebelling cognition, and revisited recent victories. They had been many, and easily won. But perhaps not as easily as they might have been. The more he scrutinised himself, the more imperfections Silenos found in his past reasoning, the more errors stuck out at his appraising eye.
Many things had occurred before him, many horrors and atrocities, no small number of which had happened at his own behest. But none had ever disturbed him the way he now stood disturbed. To feel the treachery of one’s own intellect was not of House Shaiagrazni, and he found himself hastily scrambling for long-forgotten lessons learned as a mere apprentice to rectify the issue.
The answer, in the end, could not have been mistaken. It was Silenos’ brain. His rewired, mangled intellect made pliable and intuitive where it ought to have been mechanical and pneumatic. He had recrafted it for politicking and emotional prediction shortly after arrival, to better plan around the unpredictable nature of humanity, and in doing so had introduced something…New.
Rationality, on occasion, surrendered to impulse. Sentiment infested him like calcifying tumours, growing with tendrils running deep and parasitic into the meat of his brain. It was distracting Silenos for one thing; but what was worse was how it influenced him.
He had felt a sense of annoyance, even regret, upon hearing of Arion Falls’ loss. Silenos had intended to one day see the boy rise through the ranks of House Shaiagrazni, and had fully believed him to hold potential enough to become one of their finest- with enough centuries of honing and study. To see his great talent snuffed out the way it had been was…Beyond wasteful.
And then there was the matter of Ensharia. She had been a useful ally, and his first in the New World. But it had been her own stupidity driving her away, not any error of Silenos’.
To let either of these misfortunes distract him as he had been was a fallacy beyond description, and would lead to disaster sooner or later.
Emotions.
That was Silenos’ problem. That was his curse. The petty, unpredictable little synaptic spasms he’d unknowingly set upon himself by reconfiguring his cerebrum. Well, he knew what the aberration was now, and he knew just how to fix it. He raised his hands to gently touch fingertips down atop his scalp.
Then hesitated.
It would be a time-consuming work, but not one he couldn’t afford to devote his attention to. What truly stayed Silenos’ hand was the recollection of his work earlier the day, how he’d plucked at the strings of Queen Ado’s mind to ensure she moved in accordance with his plans.
That was not the sort of thing one managed with logic alone. Like it or not, Silenos had found his skill in moving others enhanced by the empathic knowledge of how they were feeling and what they might be inclined to do. It was, after all, the entire reason Collin Baird still remained by his side.
Could he…But no, Silenos had already created a strong enough region, and that strength would be improved faster with his full, untainted genius directed to crafting yet more engines of war and infrastructure. His hesitation was folly.
Silenos’ focus was broken by the opening of a door, and he turned to see Collin Baird hurriedly scrambling into the room. The boy had more than just his usual look of dull panic about him, eyes hot with frantic urgency and adrenal potence. Silenos got to his feet even as the words reached him.
“It’s the Dark Lord.” Baird gasped. “Another army, led by him personally, sighted heading this way.”