Enlightened Empire

Chapter 29 What Really Matters

Corco had never thought much of his father. Although in the past, after the prince had been left in charge of his own dependents for a few years, he had begun to understand the emperor’s pains, it was still hard for the prince to forgive the man’s actions. Corco had still resented his father for his cowardice and lack of faith. He was convinced: The emperor, with the full power of House Pluritac behind him, would have had the strength to fight back against the evils of Medala’s capital if only he had been determined. With true conviction in his own son’s abilities and a willingness to take risks for the benefit of the empire and its people, he would have fought to keep Corco home, rather than send him away, into an uncertain future.

His split feelings had spurned the crown prince on all these years. One of his greatest goals had always been to go home and prove his father wrong, show him just how perfect the neglected son would be as ruler of Medala... and rub it in his brother Amautu’s face in the process, him and his vicious mother Spuria. Not only would Corco make up for the shame he had received during his exile some seven years ago, he would also, at last, get the chance to take revenge on his own mother’s killers. Although he didn’t know just who had poisoned mother and son back then, with his father’s resources and Corco’s own knowledge, finding the truth should be an easy feat.

Once Corco had learned that his father had died, it had knocked the ground right from under his feet. Everything he had done, everything he had worked for, it all felt hollow from one moment to the next. The fire which had driven him throughout these years had been replaced by a void, burning far more fiercely than his resentment ever had.

While Corco was still immersed in his blurred thoughts, a knock on the door interrupted his rambling mind. Even so, rather than react, he still stared at that paper in his hands, at every single letter on the page. Although the words had been written in a very formal and dry manner, the meaning of the letters had made his fall not one bit softer, maybe because he hadn’t even managed to hit the ground yet. In his dazed state, he didn’t even notice when the door opened and someone entered the room. Only a knock on the desk before him drew his attention and made him look back up, into the illuminated faces of his friends.

At the head of the group stood Fadelio, the one whose knock had brought him out of his wallowing. Behind him, Corco found his cousin Atau, his ward Brym and his partner in crime Ronnie, all with worried looks.

"What are we going to do, Boss?" Fadelio was the first to ask.

"...I don’t know," the prince answered, exhausted.

"Laqhis!" This time he didn’t knock on the desk, he slammed it. Finally, the familiar name brought Corco back from his never-ending tumble. Almost no one outside of Medala even knew about the name ’Laqhis’, let alone what it meant to all of them. As he remembered the bond they shared, the oath they had sworn five years back, he realized that in his daze, day had turned to night. Only the lamp Brym held in his hand had returned some light into his study. A look outside the window showed Corco a black mirror, and his own apathetic face looking back at him.

"How long have I been sitting here?" Laqhis asked his friends.

"Not that long, only been half a day," Atau answered with a grin, though even he still couldn’t hide a tinge of worry in his voice.

"Father’s dead," Corco said, repeating something all of them knew. Still, it had to be said again, to state the facts. After all, it would change all of their plans from now on. At last, he remembered something he had forgotten, something important. Startled at his realization, Corco shot up, ready to follow up on one of the many confused thoughts he had grasped at while he had been lost, falling in the dark. "Who brought this letter over? Where did the messenger go?" he asked towards Brym, panicked. Now that he had grasped onto a proper thought, he was unwilling to lose another second.

"He went away long ago," a timid Brym replied. "He just brought us the letter, asked for pay and left. Since the seal was genuine, I gave him the money and let him go. I thought is was more prudent to bring the message over to you."

"I followed the man back through the city and asked around a bit. Seems like he was a Bornish sailor. Went back to the harbor after his visit here. Dropped the letter off right before their ship left for who knows where, so no doing there," Atau added before Corco could rue his lack of foresight.

"Perhaps the letter is an elaborate fake?" Ronnie tried to pitch. If the letter was fake, all the problems it had caused would turn to smoke as well.

"Impossible." While everyone else had been focused on their talk, Fadelio had taken a closer look at the document itself. "The writing was done with a brush, not a feather quill. On top of that, the writing is in proper Medalan, rather than the new version Laqhis has been teaching. It is not a script and language many people would know, even in our home. These are the words of the upper class, after all."

"The seal is genuine as well," the warrior added as he brushed his hand through his hair, distraught himself. "It’s not something to be casually forged. The color of the ink is a deep red, the colors of the imperial line. The recipe for the ink is only known to a handful of warrior officials within the silver palace. If the letter was faked by anyone, it would have been a member of House Pluritac itself. So if the letter isn’t genuine, there is only two more possibilities: Emperor Titu was either dead or in a considerably weakened position when the forgery was done. In either case, we will have to return as soon as possible and act fast before our position within the court becomes any weaker."

"So... that’s it? You’ll just leave everything behind and disappear?" Brym asked in disbelief. All this time, Corco was still frozen behind his desk, his face covered with the same dreary look as when he had asked his only question, still stuck in a loop of his own thoughts. Even now, he hadn’t truly overcome the sudden interruption a piece of paper had caused to his life. However, once the prince had heard the words of his ward, he realized what kind of mistake he had made. Brym sounded angry, and he sounded hurt. All of a sudden, Corco snapped back out of his own lethargic state to see the bigger picture.

This wasn’t about him alone. It was about everyone around him as well, about his second family. All these years, Corco had been the guiding light they had followed during the night. He couldn’t leave them alone in the dark, not now when all of them were lost more than ever, when they needed him the most. As he understood his own importance, the void within his heart was filled again, filled by the duty he still had towards his friends, towards his ward and towards the World. Over the past five years, their plans and operations hadn’t been about his own petty revenge, not about showing up his father or punishing others. No, their goal had always been greater, much grander than any of them. Rather than indulge in his own misery, at last the prince managed to fight off his selfish feelings and, for once, tried to be the guiding light he had wanted to see in himself.

"No," Corco said, with strength at last returned to his voice. "No, we won’t just leave you behind. You will simply have to come with us."

"But-"

"But what? What holds you here? Your family is not in this haunted house or in the city that hates us, it’s with everyone in this room. Did you forget our goals, the oath we swore? We will change the world, forever. We cannot do this here. You should know that just as well as me. In Arcavia, we have done well so far, but there’s only so much a common man can do in a world ruled by monarchs. Every time we grow, you can feel the pressure increase all around us, to cut us back down to size. By now it’s become suffocating. Just look outside the window, at the men who will still wait at the street corner, even throughout the night. Maybe this isn’t the end, maybe we could have grown some more, but with our lack of status, we would never be in charge of any territory, no matter what we try. Without legitimacy, we could never rule over the people. In the end, any attempt at revolution would be hijacked by those more radical or suffocated by those in power. Even with all the knowledge in the world, we can’t change a thing without power."

As his thoughts returned back to their usual speed, Corco pushed off from his desk. Reanimated, he began to walk around the room, through the rows of his friends.

"No, the only way for us to change anything, fundamentally, at its core, is if we are in charge of a country, and it can’t be any country. It has to be large and important enough to matter to the rest of the world. For us, Medala is that country. Don’t forget what we have been doing all these years, what we have prepared for." Corco stopped in front of Brym to address him directly. "I haven’t only taught you maths and science, but language too. You learned Medalan for a reason, as did all the other members of the Fastgrade Merchant Company. All of it was in preparation of this day. Sure, ’this day’ has come a bit sooner than we thought, maybe we aren’t as prepared as we’d like, but that’s just life. Perfect preparation won’t ever happen, so we’ll have to make the most with our resources."

"Will a hasty journey not be troublesome? Walking into a throne succession without sufficient planning seems foolhardy." As usual, Ronnie turned out to be the most fretful of them all.

"There’s still time to prepare. We can’t go right now anyways," Atau added from the corner of the room. "Once people find out that we want to leave for good, there’ll be many eager to deal with us, either to kill us out of vengeance or to imprison us for our secrets. I mean, we’re still getting regular visits from all the killers of the continent. So even if we travel back now, we can expect some sort of combined fleet of fake pirates to wait for us along the western coastlines to sink or capture our ships. As we are now, we’d never make it back to Medala. Among other things, I’ve spent my travels over the last few years to scout out an alternative route, south over the open ocean, and through the serpent reefs. But considering the usual summer storms west of Arcavia, we’ll have to wait at least three months before we can even attempt passage through that route."

"Insanity! This far out at sea and through treacherous waters! How would we navigate?" Ronnie held against.

"It’s not impossible," Corco added. "Don’t forget that our navigational tools are far beyond what anyone else has right now. They won’t even expect us to make the journey that far south. Plus, I have some other plans to remove a few of our enemies before we set off back home and gain plenty of resources in one motion."

The prince allowed himself a little smile before he continued, under the curious stares of his friends.

"Just like in all other areas, our preparations here aren’t perfect either, but it should still be enough to get most people off our backs, at least for long enough to make it home. In one fell swoop, we’ll get rid of those who seek our secrets, gain enough ships and resources to handle our plans; and we can even deal with our actual enemies on the side."

"So what is the plan?" a wide-eyed Brym asked. His previous insecurity had disappeared as if it had never even existed.

Again, Corco’s smile widened, in anticipation of things to come.

"It’s a clearance sale. Let’s hold an auction."