Wherein honor and dignity are set aside somewhat (Ch 3)

From the earliest days of his childhood, those most formative and fragmented shards of memory, Mel knew he was meant to be king. It had been drilled into him in just about every conceivable way, and not a few ways that weren’t too conceivable by the average person.

Playing with the other children was out of the question. Any influence they might have had on him would only lessen his royal dignity, his aloofness. And so, Mel didn’t speak like them. He didn’t act like them. He wanted different things, and he went about getting what he wanted in different ways.

As things stood, Mel didn’t speak like others. He didn’t act like them. His desires? Safe to say, they were distinct from everyone else’s. Kingly so far.

Things were more specific than that though. Meals were an ordeal all their own, eaten at set times, in set courses with set utensils for set uses. Meals would take no less than half an hour and no more than thirty-five minutes. He had to entertain his guests with his charm and his wit. He had to pretend to drink, and he had to drink, and he had to stay sober, and he had to get drunk. And he had to stay dignified and regal all throughout.

As things stood, Mel ate separately from most everyone else. The times were set, the company was elite, the wine was good if at times lacking in quantity. The major difference between now and his erstwhile childhood meals were that now he had proper silverware and porcelain as opposed to crude wood carvings. The food too was much better. His manners were just as good as they were then. Back then, he had been forced to study for his kingship in all possible ways. He was to be a fit and stunning masculine specimen. He was to know all there was to know about his fledgling kingdom. About its history, its culture, its people, strengths, weaknesses, industry, economics, politics.

 

As things stood, Mel knew everything there was to be about the kingdom he served. The greatness, the doctrine, the history, the decline and the rebound. Everything that mattered, and most of what didn’t.

 

Yes, Mel had truly achieved everything he had been prepared for. Bar one thing. Mel was no king. Mel was consort, spouse, and high priest of the Pontiac prophet, the twenty second of her line. All in all, Mel was rather content with his position in life. His surrounding was posh, his company sophisticated, his whims and whispers could crash lives and bring nations to a spectacular end. Sometimes he even considered making a positive mark on the world. He usually contained these urges.

 

The day was getting late. He rose from his soft plush cushions, truly luxurious things they were. Satin and white, fluffy yet firm. The lack of anything solid underneath let the cushions morph and flex into the shape of his body. Walking out of this secluded room and into the vast church complex, Mel found the world was similarly pliable and flexible. The world could bend just a bit more, and Mel would bend with it.

 

Someone else however, could not. He was not calm and collected. He had not been raised to be a king. Mel doubted he had been raised at all judging by his actions and manners. But he had returned from the farthest edges of the map. And he knew more about the progression of Mel’s schemes than even Mel himself. Unwittingly, Mel hoped.

 

And so, experiencing a cocktail of feelings ranging from nervousness to salivating expectance, Mel welcomed Ranger Dolstoy into a secondary dining hall for a late breakfast.

 

He was taken aback by the changes such a long journey had on Dolstoy. The thick brown hair that had once hung back in a long braid was now streaked with a strand or two of silver grey. The once youthful face scarred and sculpted by an addition of lines around the mouth and across the forehead. Mel had to admit, the effect was startling; not quite handsome, but far from ugly, his height and posture would draw the eyes of any in his vicinity. And unless they were self-possessed to a near psychotic degree, they would pay attention to whatever he had to say. And they would consider his thoughts, and probably agree.

 

Mel’s self-obsession had long passed the point of psychotic and reached a pinnacle of egotism wholly unrivaled this side of the silver sea. So, he carefully headed forwards with his interrogation, undaunted and unchallenged.

 

“Ranger Dolstoy my good man! I see you’ve finally returned from your long foray out into the vast unknown! Tell me, how fare the farther plains and Jepchy bay? Is old Faerdyer still the terror of the coast?”

 

Dolstoy gave Mel a quizzical look. Perhaps it was the slight discomfort that always came with addressing one of a much higher station. Perhaps it was the familiarity with which Mel was opening the meeting. Or maybe it was just the Dolstoy had been standing in the room for some time and had not yet been invited to sit.

 

“I also haven’t been fed.” Dolstoy almost murmured. But he didn’t, and Mel didn’t catch on to the slight undercurrent of disgruntlement lining Dolstoy’s statements. Self-obsessed to be sure.

 

But only to a point, and soon Dolstoy and Mel were both seated at table’s end, serving boys running hither and dither. Mel shooed them away with a wave and opened his interrogation. Accordingly, Dolstoy answered his first probe.

 

“Faerdyer is still kicking, all the way up to the league’s lands. Or waters, I suppose is a more accurate way to put it. Oh, we’ve made some headway with him. He’s decided he’s the focus of the prophecy of the sea lords. We can probably use this to make inroads to Jepchy, maybe even the other side of the silver sea.”

 

Dolstoy paused for a moment to chew on his food, eggs, and bread mostly. Expensively imported from the best Worstone’s industrial farms could offer.

 

“If you really want to understand the situation there, I’m afraid you’ll have to ask someone else though. Faerdyer had just left on a tributary mission to the farther empire beyond the sea. Anyway, I wouldn’t get my hopes up just yet. Things have always been rocky with the Farther empire. Why, they didn’t even leave word for me to return! So, I’m blind to half the world when it comes to the silver sea and its power struggles.”

 

Mel had already known this. He had carefully planned his moves around the mysterious farther empire on the other bank of the silver sea. Just the thought of the delicate and double-faced court intrigue there past the edge of the world was enough to make him tingle with excitement. The fragile position his secret envoy was in, the periodic updates, sent through a series of encryptions and middlemen. The pure delight he always found when trying to fit a face and a personality to a collection of rumor and hearsay, from a culture about which he knew very little. Mel allowed himself to shudder with pride, just a bit, at how he had outmaneuvered even the ranger corp.

 

But so long did he spend on this contemplation of his brilliance, that he completely failed to register Dolstoy’s blank stare. And as Mel turned his attention back to his quarry, he found that something had shifted in the man. Behind Dolstoy’s eyes, a certain shine took shape. The man smirked and leaned back in his chair. The traction between the floor carpet and the nearly spiked tip of the chair leg kept Dolstoy comfortably stable. He went a step farther and crossed his legs on the seat. Then he let go of the table. Mel was at once impressed with his balance and morbidly curious as to what would happen without the carpet on the floor. He determined that the next meal he shared with Dolstoy must be in the marbled main hall. Perhaps the Pontiac would find an excuse for a feast.

 

Seizing on this fleetingly rare moment of reverence from Mel, Dolstoy leaned forwards on the chair, now radiating the air of a proper acrobat.

 

“I would imagine there were things much closer to home for you to worry about Mel. After all, aren’t we constantly fighting encroaching horrors from the south? Maybe we should make sure the Orphics are still raising their required levy?”

 

At this Mel’s round face broke into a true grin, not just the cheery façade he put up for the world to see. Playing along, he replied:

“Yes, we should also make it clear that we expect every town knows when the next comet is coming. We must be ready to use the gifts of the forefathers after all!”

 

Dolstoy’s smirk warmed a bit, and his mouth lilted open with a slight outbreath that might be construed as amusement by some. But his mouth quickly moved to vocalize and interpret his thoughts once more:

 

“What else have we been forgetting to do Mel? I don’t think I’ve rubbed a ceiling in a long time. That might cause us some real trouble.”

 

“You joke Dolstoy, but some would think it absurd that a man sworn to the prophet would be so impious!”

 

“Alright then Mel, here’s impiety for you: don’t you think this place had gone downhill since I left? Have you seen the state of the mountain?”

 

The jovial tone of the conversation had put Mel on edge. He had been prepared for some probing question or revelation disguised as a jest. But no such thing came, and so little by little the edge of Mel’s wariness dulled.

 

“Why of course, it’s nothing compared to what the world has to offer to you rangers! The great palaces of the north and their stained glass must be quite alluring for one as superficial as you! Spires of ivory and marble, woven through great gardens of roses and fruit trees, green and blue, sculpted, and natural all at once. Such beautiful harmony. What does this squat building with its paltry wooden frame, surrounded by a barren waste of a rock have in comparison? Our piety is not as grand as the opulence of the great kings!”

 

The tone was still jesting, but Mel was not being entirely unguarded. Calling the marvels of the north palaces, fit for kings was slightly inaccurate, though the distinction was subtle. Did Dolstoy know of the error? Would he reveal even if he did? Perhaps he would simply overlook it in the jesting spirit of the conversation. So twisted and gnarled were the patterns of thought behind this line of questioning that it wound right back around to being completely useless to Mel.

 

The farthest edges of the map. Mel’s thoughts returned to whatever exotic wonders lay there. East, beyond the Caspian. West, far beyond the Gelton Islands. And north, past the grasslands, there in the spirit lands. And as he ruminated on this potential, a realization hit him: Dolstoy had been gone for a long time. How long exactly wasn’t important to this thought, but at least two years was enough for the impact to register: two years of travel, and barely had Jepchy bay been reached. Slow. Very, very slow. Something was up.

 

“Have things been tougher out there than in the past?”

 

“Why yes, things have tougher everywhere, haven’t they? Even here.”

 

Mel blanched at this. What had Dolstoy noticed? The poor state of some of the railing on the descent? The slowed and quieted hubbub in the town below? Or perhaps the slightest of cracks in the massive glass window at the hall’s southern end. But how had it noticed it from so far away?

 

Peripherally, awareness of another unkempt personage made its way to Mel. The thought of the window at the end of the hall had brought this being to mind. And indeed, next to the servant’s entrance, there stood Ruthela. No puzzlement or amazement were visible on Mel’s face as he realized the magnitude of this fact.

 

Neither emotion was appropriate. For this had been exactly what he had been planning for. But it was all wrong. What had he missed? What had Dolstoy missed? He had missed something, for his next question was completely irrelevant to the events at hand. So irrelevant was his query that it slipped Mel’s mind before it had time to register. He simply stared at the red headed cloaked figure at the end of the room. Ruthela. How perfectly it had gone. And yet just a bit too fast…

 

Frustrated at Mel’s lack of responsiveness, Dolstoy shook him. Perhaps a bit harder than he had intended to. Though perhaps not.

 

“Mel? Mel, I know that the window is fascinating but that won’t work this time. Why have you started double assignment of keeper’s duty? I don’t care if it’s for a fairy tale like the story of Dragons, it’s bad precedent. And don’t tell me this was somehow reached by consensus; I know that any decision that big would be entirely within your purview. So look at me and explain!”

 

Mel was now indeed looking at Dolstoy. Understanding, slow but inevitable, had finally run its course. And Mel was ashamed.

 

Not of his scheming. Not of his abrasiveness. Not of his blatant disregard for all proper form and ceremony over the past two years. No, Mel was ashamed only of his failure to channel Dolstoy towards the proper path of inquiry. Belatedly, he realized Dosltoy was not going to reveal whether the marshes had sent out new armies. Whether Meyrkopp and Worstone had finally succumbed to their underground counter-governments. No, only the petty squabble of doctrine and faith. What else had he expected?

 

It barely occurred to Mel that he hadn’t broached any of these topics himself. He had simply hoped Dolstoy would bring them up. And perhaps in time he would have. But now it was too late. Ruthela was striding towards them. And all Dolstoy’s attention had gone to her.

 

“And you, my daughter? Have you also been raiding the libraries for status and honor?”

 

Ruthela didn’t stir at this jab. But she buried her face in her father’s chest. Mutely, she shook her head. Then she sobbed.

 

“Really Mel, after all this time, propriety and etiquette down the drain, and you can’t even find some children’s story for my daughter to call her own?”

 

At this Mel almost blushed. Dolstoy’s tone had turned serious, his attention turned to his daughter.

 

He mumbled an excuse and fled the room. He would make it up to his old brother in arms. Time and status had not so eroded whatever bond those two had forged over the years.

 

Schemes already brewing, a litany of other duties unfurled in Mel’s mind. He would attend to them. Then he would attend to Dolstoy. Then he would discover just how deeply the rot had spread throughout the plains.