Francis LaPorte and the Association of Good Fellows

At the Strike of a Match

Monday, 2 Adar, 5693

Martin Dennihy stood paralyzed as he watched in horror from the broad street of the capital the burning of the National Assembly Building. He was, himself, just outside of the Ministry of Justice where he served the state as a prosecutorial jurist, and many of his colleagues had rushed outside with him, mesmerized by the billows of black smoke which arose from the blaze of the great domed building which sat catty-corner to their own. The sound of the breaking wood crackled in his ears and the bright orange light of the magnificent blaze reflected in the terror of his warm brown eyes.

From the place where he stood, Martin could feel the heat of the fire not only in temperature but also in warning. He began to sweat as the flames licked at the sky, sucking the oxygen from the air all around them and surrounding the people in a hot atmosphere of dreadful discomfort as they quickly devoured the large wooden building. Still, despite this growing vortex of deadly heat and fiery rage, a bitter cold pierced through him, a feeling of deep, inescapable dread which penetrated straight into his core and ripped a hole inside of him. This was no ordinary fire; it was the burning of a nation, the burning of his nation. Whichever side was responsible, the other would surely seek restitution, but not in the law; everything was outside of the law now and well into violence.

"The National Assembly..." he muttered in profound disbelief as the people of Bevel stopped their business and gathered around him to watch the fiery spectacle, "they've burned it. The government... they've set fire to our very government." He closed his eyes tightly and pinched the bridge of his nose in angst. "So, this is how it ends," he mused in dissatisfied thought, "with the simple strike of a match..."

It was about the time Martin was thinking this that the crews of firemen arrived and began pumping water on the high flames of the burning legislative building with its government officers still frantically fleeing from the uncontrolled blaze. Another man ran, also, and three men followed after him. He was a boy, little more than a youth, with a rounded face, blonde hair, and bright blue eyes. He was covered in soot.

"Stop that man!" cried one of the young man's pursuers as his target barreled through the crowd. They were members of Desnik's Protection Squadron, as Martin recognized by the black uniforms they wore with their brass buttons and the runes they had stitched in white thread on their collars.

The boy bumped into Martin as he passed through the growing collection of Bevel's citizens who stood astonished with their eyes wide and mouths agape. He pushed by the jurist in a dead sprint, staining the arm of his tawny suit jacket with ashes.

Surprised, Martin looked down at the smudged handprint on his light jacket sleeve and frowned. Was the fire set? If the fire was set, could that boy have been the one responsible for it? He turned to watch the boy as he ran, darting quickly into a narrow alley. The Protection Squadron didn't chase people without a cause, even if the cause was sometimes convoluted, but in this case, Martin supposed that it might well be warranted. So, he turned on his heels and rushed after the boy who smelled like fire.

He chased him through the back alleys and streets of downtown Bevel until they came to a dead end alley. There the boy was trapped between a large brick townhouse and the great stone retaining wall of a steep hillside. There was a tall fence between, one which the boy knew he could not climb, and he stopped when he came to it, touching his hand to the thick planks of vertical wood as a prisoner would his cage.

"Hey! Boy!" Martin called, coming to a stop a few feet back from him. He wore on his face the usual look of sternness which was unbefitting to his kindness.

The boy turned around slowly to face his captor and looked at Martin with eyes filled with terror. The look, Martin thought, reminded him of hunting. There always came a time that the animal knew it had been caught and from that knowledge came the deathly terror which echoed in the young man's eyes.

Martin evaluated the boy quickly. He had soot in his messy hair and singed shirtsleeves. He certainly seemed guilty, but Martin, as a prudent jurist, sought to conduct an interview.

"Well, here's your chance, boy," Martin said. He spoke to the child directly, knowing full well the Protection Squadron wouldn't be far behind them and there would be no hope of any form of reasonable discussion once they came. "What do you have to say for yourself? Did you set that fire there?"

The boy was silent, but a deep voice called from behind the place where Martin stood and echoed fiercely through the alleyway.

"Of course he did; he's Brotherhood!"

Martin didn't need to turn to know that the harsh pronunciation was that of a PS officer, and the flats of the man's books hit roughly against the uneven street as he approached with his associates forming a human boundary for the boy to prevent him if he ran.

It had long been a problem for the Garma Center Party, who held only a few less seats in their nation's legislature than the NAGF did, how to go about the makings of a majority for the purpose and practice of law. The centrists were in a pinch in public and private life, surrounded by evil on every side. There were a precious few others, the Kingsmen Coalition and the Democratic Society of Revolutionary Thinkers being examples of two lesser parties with which the members of the Garma Center Party would gladly work, but in order to form a majority in the legislature, there had to be a greater party involved, and that left only two - the National Association of Good Fellows or the Collective Brotherhood of Men.

Now, as bad at the Good Fellows were, there was a general consensus throughout Garma that the Brotherhood was worse. They were the remnants of the old world, a political and revolutionary poison injected into Müsil by Wassel, King of Garma, before his abdication. It had been a strategic move by the king at the time, a clever plan to remove the vast northern kingdom from the war and thereby eliminate the eastern front of the great international conflict. With the war only on the western front, Wassel hoped that the wealth and strength of his great empire would triumph over the nations against whom he so bitterly fought. But, in the end, Wassel's plan only prolonged the war's inevitable conclusion. Garma became a defeated nation, forced to an unprofitable surrender, Wassel relinquished his throne in favor of the Garman revolutionaries, and the birth of the republic brought with it ideologues from the new Collective Lands to the north who were just as determined to administer that same poison Wassel had sent to Müsil back in the land he once ruled. But there had been endless violence between the Good Fellows and the Brotherhood in recent years, violence which had only grown with the rise of each group's power and influence, and now the republic had finally reached a tipping point. The match was struck. The Good Fellows had won.

"Verehren Freitag, counselor," the officer said, addressing Martin as he walked up beside him in confident stride.

Martin glanced at him glaringly. It was the salute of the Association, and not one of which he was particularly fond.

"Good work," continued the dark haired man in uniform, seeming to take no notice of his unfavorable reaction to the party greeting; "I see you've cornered the little filth covered scoundrel."

The man raised his gun and readied it as if to shoot the boy in the alley, and Martin snapped at him, appalled by the proposed miscarriage of justice.

"What are you doing!" the lawyer demanded, his eyes ablaze with furor. He counted such things as a personal affront.

"Dogs deserve to be shot," the man said coldly, "...or don't you agree, counselor?" His dark eyes slipped over to Martin with blackened interest.

Martin stared back at him, their eyes locked, the soldier's were as void as death while the jurist's flickered with a fiery rage. He could feel the tension building in his body and grabbed tight hold of the hem of his jacket in order to prevent himself from slapping him.

"I believe in justice, officer, and in law, and I expect you do the same!" Martin replied, spitting the impassioned rebuke. "Now, bring this man in alive and let our justice try him by the law!"