Valkyrie's Shadow

Empire in Chains: Act 3, Chapter 16

Empire in Chains: Act 3, Chapter 16

Chapter 16

The pride in the headmaster’s tone rose as they ascended the wide stairwell to the second floor of the academy’s main building. Upon reaching the top, the atmosphere seemed to change.

?This is kinda interesting, I guess??

?They’re getting very aggressive here…?

Structurally speaking, there was little difference from what they saw on the first floor. What was presented along the hallways, however, was as Florine termed ‘aggressive’.

Ludmila walked over to examine a poster nearby. It was roughly as tall as she was, portraying the gallant figure of a stylish Imperial Knight wielding a shining spear atop a well-groomed steed in equally stylish tack. With a panoramic backdrop of the Azerlisia Mountains behind him, the man gazed out at a distant something with a resolute expression.

“‘Do your part’,” she read the bold script of the poster softly. “Is the Imperial Army continuing to recruit even with the recent reorganisation?”

“It does, yes,” the headmaster nodded. “Even with what’s happened, our institutions need to ensure that talent goes where it will be needed in the future. The students from the Imperial Magic Academy who join the army become officers. Missing a decade of officers simply because broad staffing requirements were reduced would be problematic in the long term. The same is true for any organisation, but, unlike a rural fief or business that can readily supplement their needs from a pool of derelicts, our students are a precious and rare commodity carefully raised.”

?Okay, I thought Clara was gonna strangle this guy but I might just beat her to it. Does he think that putting a hammer in the hand of a random person magically turns them into a master artisan??

?Many people do think like that, but his attitude is disappointing coming from the head of a highly-lauded educational institution. It is as if he thinks that everything will work perfectly as long as there is a competent person at the top.?

They already had a sense that something along those lines was going on, but the headmaster’s callous statement cast an unsettling shadow on the already-disconcerting nature of the Baharuth Empire. While it was understandable that people could perceive success and failure as absolute measures of quality without considering everything that went into the result, the mass dehumanisation conveyed in the headmaster’s words was something else entirely.

As they continued down the hallway, the posters plastered regularly along the walls of the corridor turned their path into what seemed an oppressive marketing effort. Every imperial ministry was represented, though it felt as if the Imperial Army and the Imperial Magic Academy made up for almost half of the advertising. In addition to the recruitment posters, inspiring imperial iconography and images labelled as locales within the nation were everywhere.

“Do all students of the academy go on to join an imperial institution?”

“If you consider the aristocracy an institution.” The headmaster nodded in response to Clara’s question, “Over half of our graduates will go on to serve as Nobles of the Empire, their wives or their household retainers, acting as members of the provincial administration. Of the remainder, four out of five join the regular ministries.”

“I guess that’s why the army and Ministry of Magic have so many posters,” Liane said.

“In part,” the headmaster replied. “Even with the work of the academy, however, magic casters are scarce and few people in general are willing to join the military. Most who enlist in the Imperial Army enrolled in the academy with the intent to do so in the first place, so I feel that the effect of these posters on recruitment is somewhat minimal. The main purpose, I believe, is to uplift and maintain the image of the Imperial Army in the eyes of the students.”

Every poster did seem to be made to inspire those that viewed them. Many themes were common as well. Order, security, strength – they all lent a sense of firmness or stability. As the army was also its policing force, it made sense that they would want to be seen as reliable allies rather than a threat of force to the citizens. This was especially true for the members of the nobility who made up the majority of the student body whose families had lived through the Bloody Emperor’s rise to power and subsequent purges.

?Maybe we should put up Ludmila posters in the Royal Villa so the other Nobles aren’t so scared of her.?

?That’ll probably backfire – she’ll just get more frowny when she sees the posters.?

Ludmila turned her head to frown at Liane and Florine, who innocently smiled back at her. They observed a few more classes before Florine addressed the headmaster.

“Are classes for the arts being conducted in another building?” She asked, “Aside from the courses that deal with aristocratic conduct and imperial history, humanities appear to be lacking. Literature, language, music…cultural aspects beyond what is taught out of pragmatism appear to be absent.”

“Everything you’ve mentioned is unnecessary in our curriculum,” the headmaster replied. “We are raising the future leaders of the Empire. Such subjects are the purview of entertainers and wastrels and are thus inappropriate for students of the Imperial Magic Academy.”

“So you have no Bards at all?”

“None.”

“Many of these subjects would be useful for diplomats and ambassadors.”

“Fact and reason are sufficient for any of our foreign relations,” the headmaster intoned. “The Empire deals from a position of strength.”

?Uh…did he forget who we are??

?Stab him with a ‘cold fact’, Ludmila.?

She glanced at Florine. In addition to everything else, the headmaster’s dismissive attitude towards arts and humanities must have infuriated the gentlest member of their group for her to say that.

“What of religious studies?” Clara asked, “Or at least those that revolve around interacting with the Temples and those who are from nations where religion holds great influence?”

“The Empire is a secular state. The only studies conducted concerning the Temples or any similar organisations revolve around the application and upkeep of their contributions to public health.”

“Public health…what does this include?”

“Healing services, mainly. They continually petition the administration to include their ideas of moral and spiritual ‘health’ in our institutions, however. The Temples’ penchant for spreading non-mandated values through temple education is particularly problematic. Much of it is unhealthy, superstitious nonsense that we must suffer due to the necessity of divine magic.”

?I know I’m not the most religious person out there, but this guy really doesn’t hold back.?

?I wonder if he expresses himself this way outside of his little fortress.?

He probably did. With the Imperial Administration’s overt measures to hamper and undermine the influence of the Temples, Ludmila imagined that many would consider it licence to openly display the same attitudes.

They stopped outside another classroom, where magical applications for civil engineering were being explored. A few students in the back glanced at them curiously, but Ludmila was too occupied with her thoughts to respond in any way.

The systemic way by which the Empire suppressed the influence of institutions outside of their control was more than a bit unsettling. If the Imperial Administration could create its own religion and prop up the Emperor as some sort of god, they probably would have no qualms purging the Temples in the same way that the Emperor had removed every political obstacle to his authority.

It was sometimes said that the laws and policies of a nation reflected its character, but never had Ludmila imagined that a secular nation could feel so cold. No, rather than secular, the Empire seemed to deny anything that could not be manipulated to provide physically tangible advantages. The Temples were viewed as something like a troublesome Ministry of Health that was also infringing on education. Humanities were only employed so far as to mould the people into a form that pleased the ruling elite.

As far as they had seen, the ‘leaders’ desired by the Imperial Administration were not leaders at all – they were managers and bureaucrats: functionaries performing sterile, government-mandated roles within their designated departments. Irony abounded since the Sorcerous Kingdom’s Undead servitors would be considered the perfect bureaucrats and soldiers according to the values expressed by the headmaster, yet the Empire constantly shied away from integrating them into their nation.

The chime of a bell filled the air, a sound emitted by some sort of magic item placed inside each classroom. Students filed out into the halls and more than a few stopped to gather around Lady Frianne. She handled each of them in the manner reflected by the princess’ mask she wore. No matter how many approached her, she did not waver in the slightest.

Respectable as that was to witness, Ludmila’s attention was focused on interactions between the students. After a year of study, the conduct of commoners was much improved from those attending on the first floor, but it seemed that the internal stratification that the academy sought to eliminate was just as strong as ever if not more so. At a glance, she could tell which groups were made up of Nobles and which were made up of commoners and it was not due to their apparel.

High Nobles left their classes in the company of other High Nobles. All of them had an entourage of minor Nobles as well. A few small groups of minor Nobles existed separately from them, but it was less frequent than that on the first floor. Commoner students were either in their own groups or very rarely a single one could be seen in a High Noble’s entourage.

?I thought it was a good idea at first, but this plan of theirs to break down social barriers is not working as I expected it to.?

?As I said, the gap is too wide. Shuffling people around changes little. The status and influence of these students’ houses define them: they won’t stop being Nobles because they’re separated from their groups. They’ll just do as they’re taught and seek out the most beneficial alliances in their new environment, just like Liane and I did with Clara.?

?There’s nothing wrong with initiating relationships out of pragmatism.?

?I agree, but the problem is that how things work hasn’t changed. Those commoners you see walking with the High Noble groups are probably scholarship students or at least ones who the High Nobles have identified as useful. Everyone else is still shopping around or trying to figure out how to appeal to those High Noble groups. The minor Nobles are in the same situation – the influence of the High Noble ‘factions’ forming in every class is too extreme. In the end, it’s actually worse than regular social interactions because these students are not limited due to distance or accessibility and everyone naturally aims for the top.?

?So in the end the web of connections becomes…broader??

?Maybe. It could also be that many of these relationships only last as long as their time here. The social fabric in this academy is woven too ‘quickly’ and everyone has adjusted their strategies to match. That’s probably why the High Nobles are snapping up specific people: they’re trying to forge strong enough bonds that they don’t get ripped away by the next big opportunity that someone else presents to them.?

Ludmila shook her head over the sheer chaos proposed by Florine. At the same time, she couldn’t help but admire the insidious design of the Imperial Magic Academy.

Humans were a race that relied heavily on social constructs to establish order. Civilian Nobles were something like the crystallisation of that order. In the Sorcerous Kingdom’s terms, it was a highly-specialised Job Class with Skills and Abilities related to both managing and leveraging the society that gave rise to it.

The Emperor of two generations previous – who was responsible for the present-day form of the Imperial Magic Academy – was probably not aware of the existence of Job Classes in the way that the upper echelons of the Sorcerous Kingdom were. He did, however, show a practical understanding of how to manipulate their growth.

Noble scions were thrust into conditions where they would employ their training as Nobles, representing their respective houses and factions while performing functions that they otherwise would have limited opportunity to in the shadow of their parents. While it was competitive and ‘real’, it was also ‘safe’: functioning like a Noble’s version of the Adventurer Training Area.

Talented individuals of both aristocratic and common origin were encouraged to develop themselves in order to appeal to those in power, though what they had seen gave Ludmila reason to doubt that there was any targeted development of Skills and Abilities. It was probably much like Re-Estize, where these aspects of Job Classes were realised through sheer happenstance and not recognised as such…or at least kept as a family secret.

At the same time, the way the academy shook up the status quo ensured that the connections and power bases formed by its students were mostly transient. The normal way in which Nobles functioned was similar to the obligatory relationship represented by the contracts that they held with both their vassals and liege. Connections were made and strengthened through trade, common objectives, political marriages and ‘help’ in the form of favours. Over time, these bonds kept in good faith became extraordinarily difficult to break under normal circumstances.

In the academy, class rosters were purposely structured to prevent this and students moved through multiple classes over the day. The time required for connections to solidify was minimised. In the end, the only thing that stayed the same and thus seen as reliable was the Empire and its ministries. Students were pushed towards seeing themselves as the elite of the Empire rather than members of particular factions or traditional aristocratic houses. Factions, of course, still existed, but they were weak relative to what one would find in Re-Estize or what probably existed in the Empire’s past.

Ultimately, this meant that the ‘fruit’ of the Imperial Magic Academy could be harvested by the imperial bureaucracy with a minimum of inconvenience or interference.

After looking in on a few more classes, the headmaster led them back down to the second floor. They exited the main building, walking across the grounds to another one nearby.

“We should have lunch before the students are dismissed from their morning classes,” he said. “The cafeteria becomes quite busy around noon.”

“…cafeteria?”

“A sort of restaurant in the school,” Lady Frianne explained. “Unlike temple schools that run during the afternoon, academy classes go from morning to late afternoon. Most students purchase freshly prepared meals from the cafeteria as they don’t have time to head out into the city or go back home for lunch.”

“I’m sure that everyone will find something that suits their tastes,” the Headmaster said. “The food is of a quality that matches Noble standards and security measures are taken to prevent attempts at meddling.”

“Meddling?” Ludmila frowned.

“The Imperial Magic Academy is a highly competitive environment. Whether the goal is to interfere in coursework, hamper a student’s ability to take tests or put them out of commission for an even longer period of time, it is not unknown for meals to be tainted or poisoned in some way.”

?It really says something when he can just casually throw that out there.?

Not that any of them could be poisoned. Still, as Liane noted, it was a reality of the imperial nobility that Nobles of the Sorcerous Kingdom did not share. No one ever wondered whether their next bite would be their last.