Valkyrie's Shadow

Empire in Chains: Act 3, Chapter 20

Empire in Chains: Act 3, Chapter 20

Chapter 20

?Why are you so keen on this guy??

?Because he sticks out like a sore thumb? After meeting with Frianne’s grandmother this afternoon, you can’t tell me that you’re not curious about him at all.?

?Maybe I am, but I also know that there are a lot of other reasons why he might have popped up here. He could be on the run from someone or something and now he thinks he’s safe. Or he could be one of those wandering warrior types on some sort of weird journey to hone his skills. Or he has some legitimate reason behind becoming a slave like I said before.?

Following the conclusion of the day’s events, a member of the Arena staff led them from their booth, down into the bowels of the colossal structure. To Ludmila’s surprise, many men and women were wandering the clean, well-maintained stone corridors. They gathered around the quarters of various contestants who had battled that day. The strange slave that Ludmila had come to see was no exception.

According to Lady Frianne, fans would often come down for the chance to see or speak to their favourites. In the case of the wealthy, they could pay for time together and even purchase sexual services. People were attracted to the strong, in various ways.

“Eh…” Liane frowned at the line ahead of them, “how many women are here to see this guy?”

“He’s new and exotic,” Dimoiya said. “The way he handled his opponents and how he exited the field had a big impact too. Strong, stoic types are really popular.”

?Haaah~ After all that talk, Ludmila is the one that has us line up for a man.?

“It is not a problem for you to be seen here, is it, Lady Frianne?” Clara asked.

“It isn’t considered improper,” Lady Frianne answered. “Most interactions here are entirely innocent. The…other sort of meeting happens later in the evenings.”

A pair of young women came back the other way with beaming faces. Several minutes later, another group came by with similar expressions.

“Looks like we have a real charmer,” Dimoiya said. “That’s pretty rare for arena slaves…or anyone fighting in the arena.”

When it came their turn, they found themselves in a tidy, albeit small, room. The man that they came to see was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor. He had changed into a white shirt with loose, brown pants. Not a trace of the carnage he had wrought could be seen.

The door shut behind them as the arena official left the room. Looking up at them, the slave’s dark gaze crossed over each of their faces.

“So,” he said in a light voice, “we meet again.”

“Well, I did say that we would see what you were made of,” Liane replied.

“So you did,” he offered them a lopsided smile. “And so you have. By your look, however, it seems that your group has come for a different purpose than the others.”

“Our friend had some questions,” Clara said. “How might we address you?”

“Akli.”

“What does it mean?”

The man’s smile faltered almost imperceptibly. Clara gave the man a flat look.

“It is a name suitable for someone in my position,” he met Clara’s look with one of his own. “Hmm…I’ve not yet felt anything like this in the region. Are you a queen from some country nearby, perhaps? If I’ve heard correctly, the Emperor here does not have an Empress.”

?This man is trouble. He understands far more than he lets on.?

“Where are you from?” Ludmila asked, “Your name is unfamiliar. The language that you are speaking is unknown. The school of combat you’ve demonstrated is not from this region.”

“The Merchant at the market told you, did he not? A land from beyond the Great Steppe.”

“This means little to us.”

“If it means little to you, then saying more would mean even less.”

?Are ya gonna stab him??

?Shush, you.?

“Then do you have any questions for us?” Florine asked, “You seem to be here for some purpose. We haven’t come as enemies – perhaps an exchange of information would be acceptable?”

“I do have questions,” Akli seemed to reluctantly part with the admission, “but answers can be dangerous depending on who gives them and even when and where they are received. Before me are five of the most dangerous women I have seen since I last saw my homeland, so you will forgive me if I seek my answers elsewhere.”

“Wait a minute,” Dimoiya said, “there are six of us here. Who isn’t dangerous?”

“You,” Akli replied.

“I feel insulted somehow…”

The man’s gaze went to Dimoiya at her disgruntled words. Dimoiya sniffed and looked away.

“It would be better if you were not so evasive,” Ludmila said.

“I am curious to know how you’ve come to that conclusion.”

“Because for now,” she told him, “you are a curiosity. You are on the way to being considered a problem. If you reach that point, you will find that all of your efforts at evasion will have been for nothing.”

“Resorting to threats, now?”

“Problems are to be addressed.”

The man fell silent, eyes gauging her from behind his unreadable expression. After several moments, he shifted in his seat, adjusting his legs and crossing his arms.

“I am here for a rumour,” he said. “One suggesting that a great calamity has once again befallen our world. Beings of great power that only appear once a century. Are you familiar with this event?”

“You mean beings such as the Eight Greed Kings who appeared five centuries ago? Or the Demon Gods from two centuries past?”

With an eyebrow raised in a confused expression, the man appeared to silently mouth Ludmila’s words.

“Greed…? Well, there were eight and I suppose they might be considered kings, but they are not known for any specific vice or desire. Perhaps they did something that did not sit well with the locals here? I have also never heard of these ‘Demon Gods’, but it sounds so generic it could mean anything. The timing seems correct, however. I can at least say with certainty that the ‘Eight Greed Kings’ are beings of the calibre I am referring to. With them comes change. I am here to investigate the nature of that change and what it may mean for the world.”

“If that is your purpose, then why come here as a slave?”

“The rumours are not very nice ones. Something about an Undead being that destroys armies of hundreds of thousands with a single spell? I don’t know how many times that story has changed between its source and the other parts of the continent, but the key details are consistent enough that it merits investigation. Discreet investigation.”

Making a name for oneself in the Arena was far from discreet. It lent credence to the idea that he was more concerned about who might notice him on the way than who would upon his arrival. Additionally, going by the number of people that had come to see him – themselves included – his actions did provide a way to quickly gain access to information.

“This rumour you follow is close enough to the truth,” Ludmila said, “but it only happened once. Things have been peaceful within our realm since then.”

“Your realm…this quaint little ‘Empire’?”

Lady Frianne bristled at his dismissive tone. Dimoiya frowned and adjusted her spectacles.

“Quaint?”

“Such a tiny, backwards nation would not qualify as an empire elsewhere,” the man shrugged. “Even in my short time here, exposure to your wealthy elite at the slave markets speaks volumes of what the people here believe themselves to be. It is no surprise, however: anyone would expect this out of ignorant barbarians from beyond the edge of civilised lands.”

?I kinda liked this guy before, but now he’s rubbing me the wrong way.?

?Don’t you always call this region a backwater of a backwater??

?Well, yeah, but I don’t go out of my way to be insulting about it.?

?Maybe he’s trying to incite us into doing something? He calls us dangerous, yet he seems completely at ease. There are too many contradictions between his actions and his attitude.?

“What will you do once you have your answers?” Clara asked.

“Sell them to those with questions?” Akli tilted his head, “I assume you do not believe that I will continue to languish in this place for no purpose. The compensation for gladiators in this arena is decidedly lacklustre compared to elsewhere.”

“I don’t see why you went to all of this trouble,” Liane said. “You could’ve simply asked Merchants that travel between here and the lands beyond the steppe. It isn’t as if we keep foreigners out.”

“Because Merchants only see what they see,” Akli replied. “That much should be common sense, even for a place such as this. As for the latter, what I said before is the answer. This is a savage land filled with primitive peoples and their primitive ways. It would be sheer madness to expect those that dwell here to conduct themselves in a civilised manner.”

Again, Lady Frianne and Dimoiya stirred at Akli’s blasé tone. It seemed that the pride of the Empire’s citizens was very much a weakness that could be exploited. The way that the two women visibly struggled to contain themselves suggested that they knew they were being provoked, yet could not help but react to his barrage of insults.

“Are the people from beyond the Great Steppe so lacking in common courtesy?” Clara frowned.

“Does common courtesy exist in these lands? Most of what I’ve witnessed is pure sophistry.” He gestured towards Ludmila with an open hand, “The lady here appears to be the only one amongst you who follows the rules. The rest of you lack a certain weight. Thus, you cannot be trusted.”

“How long will you be here for?” Ludmila asked.

“For as long as I need to find my answers.”

Ludmila nodded slightly before turning to leave the room. On her way out, she addressed one of her Shadow Demons.

?Keep an eye on this man. Do not interfere with his activities and don’t lose him. I don’t know if he has any way to detect you or who is watching him, so be careful. I will contact you once we confer with Lady Shalltear.?

The man was clearly an enemy according to her Skill. Though she perceived him as such, there was nothing inherently wrong with what he had said. What sort of threat he represented was unclear.

?You’re doing that thingy.?

At Liane’s words, Ludmila looked up from her brooding. The way ahead was clear, but it was not for lack of visitors. All around her, people backed away with nervous looks. They did not seem to understand what was going on as they pressed against the walls: only that something was passing through the hall and it would be wise to stay out of the way.

Someone took her left hand, squeezing her fingers lightly. Ludmila glanced over to find Clara smiling at her.

“Let’s not spoil the mood, shall we?”

The others joined them, though Lady Frianne and Dimoiya continued to trail behind. Ludmila wrestled down her feelings, yet she couldn’t help but continue mulling over what they had learned from Akli. They left the Grand Arena in silence. It was only after the door of their carriage shut and they were on their way that anyone saw fit to speak.

“Lady Frianne,” Clara said. “Dimoiya. How much do you know about what that man spoke of?”

“I understand that the world is much larger than most lend thought to,” Lady Frianne replied. “And there are many large, powerful nations – much more so than the Empire – out there. Still, the way that he put it…”

“It was mean!” Dimoiya scowled, “People usually only see the world around them in the ways that they know, but he didn’t have to mock us for knowing less than he did. The way he looked at us…it’s like when some of those High Nobles’ kids at the Academy look down on everyone around them as poor and powerless. Er, not you, prez.”

“Imperial Intelligence doesn’t reach that far?” Florine asked.

“I suppose this means you’re acting in an official capacity now…”

Lady Frianne looked at each of them, and they nodded.

“This is too big for us,” Clara said. “All we can do is gather as much information as we can and deliver it to our liege.”

“Are you going to question ‘Akli’ any further?”

“I think Ludmila was right to leave,” Clara replied to Lady Frianne’s question. “He was too ready. It was as if he was assured of every outcome had we decided to act.”

“He had some magic stuff on him,” Dimoiya said. “Or more like inside him. Something in his mouth – maybe one of his teeth. There was an item inside his arm and in his leg and under one of his thumbnails.”

“The way he phrased his answers was suspect, as well,” Lady Frianne added. “He probably had a Contingency spell on him.”

Ludmila turned her attention to Lady Frianne at the mention of the unknown spell.

“What does Contingency do?”

“It’s an enchantment placed upon a target that is paired with a second spell. When the conditions defined by the spellcaster are fulfilled, the companion spell triggers. Since he was speaking so evasively, I suspect that he was trying to avoid its activation.”

“Do you have any idea what might have happened?”

“No,” Lady Frianne twisted her lip. “It’s nearly impossible to tell since someone powerful and shrewd enough to cast Contingency will have several placed upon their target to prevent the Contingency from being foiled. For instance, if the first Contingency was that he answered a specific number of the wrong questions, the companion spell might have killed him. Or he might have exploded, killing everyone around him. A second Contingency would be placed to trigger if he was examined for a Contingency spell, killing him or blowing him up anyway. Or teleporting him to a predetermined location. The conditions and outcomes are only limited by the imagination and the power of the caster.”

None of that had even occurred to Ludmila as something that was possible. Akli appeared well within his rights to call their little corner of the world primitive.

“There’s one thing I don’t get,” Dimoiya said. “Why did he treat Ludmila differently? What did he mean about ‘rules’ and ‘weight’?”

“He meant what he said,” Ludmila answered their questioning looks. “The way we were raised and how we interpret the world around us is reflected in the way that we carry ourselves. I’m not sure if this is a good way to put it, but the culture of nations like Baharuth and Re-Estize is ‘hollow’. They are built on fallacious notions and easily crumble when put to the test. Akli appears to understand this; he considers any leverage derived from such cultures lacking. Sophistry, as he put it.”

“How can you dismiss an entire nation’s culture like that?” Frianne frowned.

“He’s not. Many elements of Baharuth’s culture have real substance. The problem lies in perception and scale. One’s behaviour is framed by boundaries defined by culture and perceptions of reality. Other people from different cultures – or even people within the same greater culture – have different sets of boundaries and so you get differences in behaviour. Certain boundaries do not matter to some and can be readily shattered, bypassed or ignored. If you ever wonder why Demihumans keep raiding you or some people seem deluded or inexplicably stupid right up to the end, this is why.”

On the other side of Clara, Florine nodded with a look of understanding.

“I’ve worked for months with Demihuman tribes,” she said, “so I get what she’s saying. People who are raised in complex societies become dependent on the economic and social constructs that develop out of them. Civilian Nobles are a prime example of this. We exist to occupy a central position in Human society; without it, we are but a tiny fragment of what we could be. How others perceive us is dependent on what they recognise out of what surrounds us. Say we put Dimoiya in front of a hungry Troll–”

“What!”

“–little of what she can say matters. Any recourse a civilian would be accustomed to employing means nothing. Her status means nothing; her household isn’t around to support her and there are no Imperial Knights to protect her. No bribe or threat can dissuade the Troll – Dimoiya is just a noisy meal. All she can do is fight to survive because she doesn’t speak the same ‘language’.

“Conversely, if she is somehow captured in a war between Re-Estize and Baharuth, her captors will be considering her fate along different lines. If she claims that she is a Noble, they will probably start thinking about how much of a ransom they can get if they return her unspoiled.”

Beside Lady Frianne, Dimoiya pouted.

“So he is acting like one of those High Noble brats.”

“Everyone’s behaviour is influenced in similar ways,” Florine told her. “It’s just that Akli’s culture seems different enough that it becomes grossly apparent. You may not be wrong about him looking down on us: to him, we’re primitive barbarians.”

“So why did he only show ‘respect’ to Ludmila? She’s a Noble, too.”

“Martial Nobles are something like the reverse of civilian Nobles,” Florine explained. “When you strip away all of the status and social constructs around them, you still have a Human who can beat up the Troll. As long as they stand, other Humans will gather around them and try to build something. Every Human nation starts with some sort of martial individual who ends up leading the community and carves out a place to start building a civilisation. They are humanity’s version of the Lord-type individuals from races with social aspects to their nature.”

“You’re making it sound like civilian Nobles are useless.”

Florine shook her head at Dimoiya’s unhappy words.

“We have our advantages,” Florine said. “The problem is that those advantages depend upon other things. Civilian Nobles become more prominent when it is believed that the strength offered through other avenues has surpassed the benefit that martial Nobles offer. In Re-Estize, this happened very quickly because it established itself in a relatively safe place. I would say that the existence of the Adventurer Guild, while economically efficient and convenient, also contributed to its weak military position. This weak position not only affected its ability to defend against other nations but also the capacity to enforce its own laws. It would have happened in the Empire as well if the Imperial Army was not founded early on.

“A Noble from the Empire might scoff at military threats from a Noble of Re-Estize because he knows that their retinues and levies are not strong enough to challenge the Imperial Army. As Ludmila says, what they leverage to assert their position is perceived as lacking. Between aristocrats of both nations, however, social forms are still observed because various avenues of competition make the gap between the two nations small enough that it is better to be civil.”

Dimoiya made a long noise as she digested Florine’s words.

“So the reason this Akli behaved the way he did was that he believed the Empire is so pitifully weak in every aspect that any ‘leverage’ its Nobles employ is irrelevant.”

“And the reason he behaved himself when talking to Ludmila,” Liane said, “was because he could somehow sense or infer that he would have been stabbed–”

“I wouldn’t have stabbed him,” Ludmila shot Liane a look.

“–or worse. He used ‘weight’ to describe the net sum of every factor he could measure from Ludmila. Civilian Nobles like us are trained to convey the political influence, economic clout, martial strength and network of connections that we have at our disposal. This works great when everyone’s on the same page. But, to those who don’t respect or appreciate it, we look weak. Every piece of us that one doesn’t recognise turns us more into a single, flimsy individual in their eyes.

“When a martial Noble does something seriously, however, everything about it screams ‘I am power’ and everyone – Human or otherwise – can feel it.”

Their carriage stopped at a checkpoint leading into the First-Class District. After a brief inspection, they rolled forward again and turned to head towards Dimoiya’s home.

“It seems obvious in hindsight,” Lady Frianne furrowed her brow, “enough to wonder how I’ve never considered it that way. In normal situations, our martial Nobles don’t project themselves as Lady Zahradnik does, but it becomes glaringly apparent when they’re out in the field. They are a pillar of strength to their allies and a powerful foe to their enemies.”

Dimoiya disembarked once they stopped at the gate of Erex Manor. She waved happily at them as they continued on their way. After turning the corner, Clara looked across at Lady Frianne.

“I assume you’ll be keeping an eye on Akli,” she said.

“Oh yes,” Lady Frianne replied. “He’s not someone I’d want to lose track of. Imperial Intelligence has eyes as far as the opposite side of the City State Alliance; our awareness of things beyond that is limited to what we hear from Merchant traffic crossing back and forth over the Great Steppe. From what I hear, the steppe peoples make crossing with a military force next to impossible, but, at the same time, what this man potentially represents is a cause for worry.”

“Did it help you to decide?” Clara asked, “Things are growing beyond our little corner of the world.”

Lady Frianne looked down at the table between them. Her finger tapped it lightly against its surface.

“You are asking much of a duke’s daughter.”

“You are the best choice,” Clara told her. “It is more for the good of the Empire than it is for ours. Not only is this state of affairs untenable, but utterly wasteful. And it isn’t as if we’re asking for anything terrible.”

“That may be so,” Lady Frianne replied, “but my cousin and many others may see it as treason regardless. Personally, I agree that working together with your group is in the Empire’s best interests. From a political standpoint, however, things are more…prickly, as Willem would say. Having four young and capable noblewomen who can smoothly interact with our aristocracy is the best way to turn them in support of moving forward as a member of the Sorcerous Kingdom’s hegemony. Lady Zahradnik’s work with the Imperial Army may expedite things as well. The Temples will likely not budge, of course.”

“Nothing forceful is required. We just need a friend in the Empire.”

“A friend, huh. Now you’re playing dirty.”

“Nobles aren’t afraid of getting a bit dirty.”

Clara smirked, extending her hand.

“For the Empire?”

The finger on the table stopped. Lady Frianne looked out the window. After a long moment, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She turned back with a smirk of her own, taking Clara’s hand.

“For the Empire.”