As A Stranger Or A Friend?: The Swallow And The Drowned Sailor

Wilkes - 11 Sun's Dawn, 1246 A.D.

It was just before dawn, and I'd spent most of the night not sleeping but making every effort to vomit quietly. I was deteriorating quicker than expected, but now that I had Fay beside me again, I couldn't be distracted by my poor health. She'd asked me to help her remember the events of the attack on the Wreath of Eyes, and while I'd been truthful in telling her that I would, I'd never told her when or how, so I could think more carefully about how to explain things to her. And anyway, once I was through with executing my plan, we would be starting our new lives together, so she would hardly care about what happened that night. But I needed to hurry. With my condition so rapidly worsening, I needed to quickly set in motion the events to topple The Pale Kingdom.

It was the largest of all the kingdoms and empires of Oepus, so the goal might seem overly ambitious to many, especially given how weak I was. However, as vast as their empire was, it was also dangerously fragile. All it would take was one spark to set the whole thing ablaze, and that great fire would not just destroy them; it would swallow the world too. Because unlike many of the empires and kingdoms of the Common Races, The Pale Kingdom was not one large mass. They had the continent of Seyes in their pocket, but the rest of their reach was in swaths all around Oepus. So, even if The Pale Kingdom only weakened, those other empires would jump at the chance to begin claiming foreign lands that were seated uncomfortably amongst their own. Such a thing might give one pause; how many innocents would suffer and die as a result? But then again, how many had already suffered and died because of them? The events that followed Mother Frère's supposed kidnapping were a grim reminder of the amount of death needed to keep them afloat, so perhaps leveling it all was not such a bad idea.

Just days after her disappearance, there was a 'disturbance' within Seyes Palace caused by the many Allmother concubines housed there. It was a bloody business that nearly ended with the slaughter of the Fourth Prince, though in the end, he was protected by his wife, a young elven Allmother of thirteen when she reportedly hid him in her chambers and barred the door. The stalemate only lasted an hour, as Imperial guards quickly swarmed that part of the palace and murdered those concubines and their children to dissuade any continued acts of violence on their part. The Imperial family did their best to conceal what had happened, but word still managed to travel; after all, a prince of The Pale Kings nearly dying was a notable thing. And once it spread, even more blood was spilled.

There were witch hunts for Allmothers in some territories by extreme loyalists, citing that Allmothers were born to be subjugated and so must be reminded of that. The mobs successfully killed four Priestesses of Shanta before large detachments of knights of the Order of Rameses were sent to those regions to quell unrest. While that was enough to stop the killings, anyone could plainly see it was a move by The Pale Kingdom to assert its hold over its territories and to re-establish the idea that only they could kill Allmothers. After a few months, things finally settled, but the detachments were never removed from their postings, and all known Priestesses of Shanta were made to travel with a minimum of two knights each. This appeased their more ignorant sycophants and gave them complete control of those women; two birds with one stone. I had to say, whoever orchestrated the plan was quite the mastermind.

But that was not enough for the Fourth Prince. After all, the ego of the proud Admiral of the Pale Navy had been injured when his cowardice became public knowledge. No doubt, he jumped at the chance to attack us when Mar-Dur approached him with the offer in an attempt to remind everyone of his might. I gathered that is why he did not stop at destroying our settlement but also torched the whole of the Wreath of Eyes following the loss of his ships in our bay. He'd even gone so far as to claim that he himself felled Mar-Dur, this after reportedly discovering a helpless Allmother aboard his vessel. And what a lucky 'find' she was because she wasn't just any Allmother; she was nobility. A refined creature being exposed to pirate's cruelty and lack of hospitality, and one that supposedly prostrated herself at his feet when he rescued her. Of course, any who knew her name in earnest knew that was not true. The woman who would be the Eighth Marchioness of Mern, Lady Beatrice Everhoss, better known now as Mother Everhoss, had a firecracker's temperament and was quite the troublemaker. For her character to be so derided could only mean one thing: she'd been Mar-Dur's bargaining chip and the key to our destruction.