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wasn’t that far to the manor, a fanciful piece of architecture sprouting delicate towers and elegant domes that was perfectly capable of holding the population of the entire Dukedom at a pinch, and was about as defensible as a sand castle. This, of course, was exactly how the Emperor wanted things; he did not want his landholders to be able to mount any kind of effective defense of their realms.
Oo must be fast built i guess
“Why is this storm so warm?” Delia asked, through the downpour. There wasn’t much lightning and thunder, but the amount of rain coming down was almost enough to drown out her words. “There’s a war out on the frontier,” Kordas reminded her. “The Emperor never stops trying to conquer someone.
Oo
which was not in a tower, something this manor had a superfluity of. She didn’t care for towers, except to occasionally go up one to look at the view. She didn’t like the way they swayed a little in a high wind, she didn’t like the eerie sounds the wind made up there, and she preferred the feeling of being on the ground.
Hmm good points plus the stairs
Delia didn’t know the story of how Duke Valdemar—Kordas’s great-grandfather—had gotten a mage-built manor as a “gift” from the Emperor, but she knew why it had happened. It was all part of how the Emperor kept control over his nobles. You couldn’t safely refuse his offer
Oo
And Delia? Delia wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for the fact that she and Isla had no brothers. When their father had died, the Emperor had swooped in, assigned the Baronial title and estates to one of his sycophants, and cut Delia out completely. She’d been lucky to be allowed to take her personal belongings with her when he unceremoniously threw her out. Could be worse. I could’ve been forced to marry the Emperor’s puppy to cement his position.
Bastard
they kept well ahead of the new Baron and most especially his wife, snatching up treasure after family treasure before the interlopers even laid eyes on the pieces to know what they were losing. Then he’d ordered her horse—pony, really, she had only been thirteen at the time—put her up on it, and led the whole cavalcade back to the Gate
Ah 13 that a hell of an impression
to impress upon you how all-powerful the Emperor’s mages were. And their very impracticality was supposed to make you squander resources. You were supposed to look at this gorgeous piece of architecture, realize that nothing you owned would look anything other than shabby within its imposing walls, and spend money you didn’t have to fill all the enchanting empty rooms with suitable furnishings.
Oo
And if you overspent on show, the Emperor could use the fact as proof that you were not fit to be in charge, and replace you with someone else.
Oo
instead of doing what the Emperor assumed they would do, they adapted the manor to how people in this Duchy lived, rather than “living up to” the manor. The result was that entire sections had been given over to storage—there was enough food alone here to feed the entire human population of the Duchy for two years at this point.
Heh
What Merrin didn’t know was that the magnificent desk he had in his private office also had a spell on it. Anything that he wrote on it was reproduced in Kordas’s study, on stacks of paper kept in a drawer in Kordas’s desk for just that purpose.
Clever
One look had been all that it took to seal the deal. And within days, Kordas knew every letter of every word that Merrin sent to the Emperor. I do regret losing that desk, a little.
;)
“Are the Emperor’s fake Golds ready?” Isla asked. “Because if he actually reads the dispatch, being told about a Gold foaling is going to make him want the ones you promised him.” “All this year’s tribute horses are ready,”
Heh
Actually I have a very good idea of what he can handle as a rider. Remember, I was a hostage at the Imperial Court until I was eighteen. He’s a terrible rider.
Oo
“The number of times you’ve put on that expression of ‘yes, dear, I am listening to you’ when I’m droning on about the horses has not been lost on me.” She shrugged apologetically.
Point
It was a question fraught with pitfalls, because officially, he and Isla were childless. Neither of them had been prepared to surrender one or more of their children into the Emperor’s household where they would become, as Kordas himself had been, hostages for their parents’ behavior. So all three of Isla’s pregnancies and births had been conducted in absolute secrecy, with only three people being aware of the truth: Cestin, Delia, and Kordas’s cousin, Hakkon Indal.
Oo
No, it was due to his own upbringing, which was decidedly not normal, at least insofar as his own experience deeper in Imperial territory went. His father and his grandfather had both been adamant that sex was not a husband’s “right,” no matter what other people in the Empire said. Nor was it his right to order women about as if they were pet dogs. This, of course, was in direct contradiction to all the examples he’d had at the Emperor’s Court.
Good
Kordas had gotten the feeling when he’d arrived on the other side of the last of the Portals that summoning him had been something of an afterthought, and probably not even the Emperor’s afterthought. It was far more likely that some flunky on inventorying the thousand or so children at the Imperial Court had noticed that
Oo
There were not many female mages among them—so Hakkon had told him—because female mages, unless they were very powerful indeed, were treated like breeding stock for the purpose of making more mages.
><
This was typical. You needed someone like Hakkon to make sure you got your share of food at meals, that nothing was stolen from you, that you weren’t beaten or worse by the predators among the children.
Oo
Jonaton interrupted him. “So, we know about a thousand years ago, something cataclysmic to magic swept over, well, everything, right?” he said. “We do?” Hakkon whispered to Kordas.
Heh i had forgotten this wasn't THAT far back
“Are you sure of this?” he asked. “Well, of course I’m not sure,” Jonaton said crossly. “It’s magic. It has built-in fuckery. Other mages could stop us—and will, if they’re in the Emperor’s service. But I am willing to make that Gate and use that Gate,
Oo
sitting on the floor on enormous cushions stuffed with buckwheat hulls or crushed nut shells that had molded over time to exactly fit the shapes of their skinny behinds and backs, positioned just out of slapping range
Out of slapping range Oo
“That’s the reason the High King became the Emperor and the Empire grew! The High King had the only powerful magical artifacts and constructions that still worked! And he had most of the only mages that were left, even though about half of them died keeping that shield up.” Dole added, “Not that the ones who died then wanted to. They had no idea what they were up against, though the High King knew.
:(
“That bad?” he asked in surprise. Had the Emperor’s people been harassing his without his knowledge? “No-oo, not exactly,” Lesley assured him, calming his alarm. “Just—I’m Landwise, as was my da, and my da’s da, and his before him. I can feel it, Kordas. It’s like a great big lump of poison sitting out there to the east and south of us. All my life,
Oo
The way things are going, Kordas sees it—and, word has it, the Foreseers, who have ever more distressing visions—it’s either be preyed upon by monsters there, or by the Emperor here,” her sister said, with a clenched jaw. “I’ll take the monsters. At least they’d be honest about destroying us.”
Point
Kordas realized that these were not solely the games they were presented as, as much as they were personality tests. Senior students, who had played the games for a considerable time, wound up divided into different educational tracks, and matched against tougher and tougher opponents. Kordas connected the types of bullying and maneuvering his early classmates engaged in as corresponding to the three games.
Oo
Nobody in the high ranks sees anyone as a person—instead, as they have been taught, they are game pieces to be moved around, traded, and expended against each other. Martial, economic, and psychological domination are their only three games. I learned the three games as well as the school’s brightest—but I only ever played as below average for them. The Fourth Game is the show.
Oo
training for sociopaths
“I’m perfect for what’s ahead of us!” “You can’t argue with that,” Kordas pointed out. Endicrag sighed. “No,” he admitted. “I can’t. Off you go with the Duke, lad,” he added. “If you get eaten by something, at least make sure it’s memorable.”
Oo
Luckily, there wasn’t anything up there the Emperor wanted—or at least, nothing he wants badly enough to open a second war front, while he’s still enmired up to his ass in the first one. The whole expedition was a slow push to find anyone and anything to exploit. Just—no sense of adventure from anyone but me, only a strict military operation with an eye for plunder.
:(
Now, the kind of distance we’re trying for today is like me punching my whole arm into a narrow tunnel lined with spiders. I think we have it all set, but I’ll throw away the shot if I get ‘bitten’ even once, understood? So catch me if it goes badly.”
Evocative
There was the usual salutation, to him by his shortest possible title, from the Emperor by his longest possible title, which took up half the page, then the important part.
Oo
And the Emperor’s dunderheaded idiot Knights of the Throne would refuse to ride a mare or a gelding. This made absolutely no sense at all, of course. If Kordas had been an enemy commander, one of his first moves would be to send a loose, wild mare in heat out onto the battlefield
Oo
Normally, you would just herd them, like cattle. But these were mostly stallions, and allowing them to be loose in a herd was not just asking for trouble, it was sending trouble a hand-made, gilded, and highly decorated invitation. So instead, they were harnessed up in three “strings” of ten each.
Oo
the Doll had not exaggerated. The breeches, boots, and coat in particular were so closely fitted to his body that if they had not been cut in some fashion that allowed for a great deal of “give,” it would have been like being strapped up in tight bandages. And he’d have had to dislocate a shoulder to get into the coat.
I never would have thought...
He passed his hand over his eyes again and said bitterly, “Then this place must be like swimming in a sewer for you. Gods.” Star answered, “The sewers serve a noble purpose. And, while the amount of deceit here is profound, there is also truth in abundance. Torturers are very sincere in their desire to harm.”
Oo
Humans, especially, are able to function with scores of truths in conflict inside of their minds. Including the truth that there are things you may never understand and that you must accept that as a truth to survive by.”
Hmm
Depending on how many people we can evacuate, they’ll have to spread themselves out so we don’t overwhelm the area with people and animals and all the shit they produce.” He raised an eyebrow. “I mean that literally. Kordas’s father was the first one to see the sanitation problem and allow for it.
It's truly overwhelming when you include horses and livestock
And because our—call ’em sanitary facilities—are going to be crude at best, we’ll need to spread ourselves out. If we poison our water, we might as well slit our own throats and get it over with, otherwise it’ll be a miserable lingering death for about half of us, if not more.
Oo
When anyone is preoccupied only with staying alive, it is damned near impossible to embrace the fact that a better future is even possible. That’s why poverty is a form of suppression—it keeps the people without power from thinking too big.
:(
These hostages would go home as proper little examples of the Empire; without compassion, without empathy, thinking of no one but themselves, willing to exploit anyone and anything.
><
Eighteen years ago, the Secretaries realized they existed only to stamp documents with the appropriate seal, file a copy, and send the original on its way. So they . . . created documents making themselves all Lords, appointing themselves manors and pensions, and left, leaving this one in charge.
I'm Sorry but mwehahaha
Whatever their origin story, an asshole was an asshole.
:)
He told himself that whatever he plundered from the Empire for his people were resources that wouldn’t be available to the Empire against his people. Audacity will win the day, he thought, and had the City Armory unobtrusively carted out
;D
That is their reaction, their frustration. Always near enough to sense, never near enough to locate.” “This is wrong,” he managed. “I would—rather see demon pacts.” “No, my Lord Duke,” Star replied. “You most certainly would not.”
Oo
“I just realized—I’m not sure I’ve explained to all of you why I hate this place. I want—it isn’t revenge on this City, it’s more like—I’m inside a hulking, poisoned, rotting monster that isn’t even aware it’s destroying itself with every footstep, it just keeps plodding along, causing misery and eating misery, instead of being put down
:(
I begged him, Kordas. I begged him. To let you live—the Emperor wanted you to be in the Fights, and if you survived it, you’d get a Barony. I came a hairsbreadth away from the Emperor making me fight you, then. He went through so many cruel ideas, man, I must have looked as pale as beach sand.
Jeebus
a set of bright yellow molten-metal knifeblades—no—claws ten stories high punched upward through the center
Oooh pissed off the wrong parents
“They’re my horses, not the Duchy’s,” Kordas reminded him. “Find something else to do with all those meadows. Try sheep. Or cows. Become famous for cheese.”
;)
