Ilúvatar Voronwé (vajra) wrote in caeleste, @ 2009-09-23 17:23:00 |
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Entry tags: | ilúvatar voronwé, ithacles, the heir, vedette uthral |
embers of the fire (vedette, ithacles)
"You must be joking," Lady Vaelrun said stiffly. "This Council is above reproach."
"Was," Ilúvatar said bluntly.
He should have watched his tongue.
He stared at the wall for a time. Then began pacing. In simple green tunic and breeches, with the legs stuffed into the tops of his boots, he looked more the warrior and less the lord. It was all fine silk, at his mother's insistence, but there was nothing in him that felt like dressing in silk. Dravath killed, a performance ruined by Drow, and Etain cloistered in her room. Weeping. Why was she weeping? She would not even acknowledge his presence, let alone answer his questions. No way to know why she wept. No way to guess who she wept for. The only thing he knew, for certain, was that they had no leads to the identities of Eiron'aith's conspirators. And what remained of the Council was screaming angry in his ear, even Maeglin, demanding to know how such a scene could have happened. And why Dravath was allowed to go to the show in the first place. When he tried to explain that it was the one place they knew he'd be - the one place he would be found without incident - they angrily reminded him that there was an incident, and though no bystanders were hurt, many were telling the story that one was murdered. Dravath's connection to Eiron died with him. Now he was the sole victim of a dead race's final attack, and the inability of the Magister to protect him was a sore point for all to see.
"What's worse," Maeglin roared. "You brought that dog Ithacles into this!"
"Etain is his aunt, his blood," Ilúvatar replied in a calm tone. "If I could have-"
"Don't finish that sentence. I love you as a son, you damned fool, but don't you see what this has cost us?"
Ithacles. The Prince of Faustben, the one who broke the Leironuoth out of his prison and set him loose on the world. Then one Leironuoth had killed the other, and suddenly the first was the true Leironuoth again. Except for that very public show that proved he was not. Ilúvatar did not know how to demonstrate to the people, how to show them, that ... how could Flaithriaoh be something in which Ilúvatar was not even certain he believed? It didn't matter. Ithacles had a reputation as a meddler and a ne'er-do-well with most of the common folk. Whatever blame remained after it was foisted off on Ilúvatar's shoulders was apportioned swiftly to Ithacles. There was no way he could answer such concerns. Ithacles might or might not have done the right thing in the past, but there was nothing he could say now to make the situation better instead of worse. Even the truth was dismissed as a lie by his closest friend, or at least not all of the story. When Maeglin screamed, people died. Usually a great many. Ilúvatar had honestly though his fellow Sylvan Elf was going to draw steel on Lady Vaelrun. The old Grey must have thought so, too - for when the dangerous light appeared in the General's eyes, she found silence somewhere beneath her tongue and set it loose upon her throat.
"I am ordering a thousand soldiers into the city," Maeglin said stiffly. "Under your command, but I have given them deployment instructions."
"A thousand?" Ilúvatar was surprised. "So many have never been in the capitol since it was re-purposed."
"Where did these Drow come from?" Maeglin asked - rhetorically, since neither of them knew. "When will they return? In what number? I won't be surprised by them again."
Now here he was, with Etain's weeping faintly audible upstairs, and no one admitted to her sleeping chamber, while he tried to determine what to do next. They were adrift and bereft of even of the meager guidance that Etain could give them. Assuming that she would give them any guidance. Assuming that guidance would do anything except cause more death. Whatever his instructions, too many had known. He did not want to think the Thunderbolts were working against him, but it was possible. He did not want to think that one of their number had even loose lips, which while innocent was no less dangerous to their mission. The only positive outcome was the enlistment of near five hundred more men into the Thunderbolts. Adventuring in a performance hall with dashing deeds and beautiful females seemed the sort of adventure young men could embrace. And for every two who hated Ilúvatar, there was one who did not. Were these new men trustworthy? Who had given advance warning of their arrival? He could not make himself think that it was Etain, but if the goal was simply to have Dravath killed - something he'd suspected of her before - then she might, even if it resulted in their deaths. Etain did not have every wit she'd possessed as a girl, and most of what was left seemed fractured and ruined.
Much like the once-great House of her husband.
"She weeps," Baila told him.
"For what?" Ilúvatar asked gruffly. "She had her revenge."
"Perhaps," Baila suggested quietly. "For that precise reason, my Lord."
She had wed herself to ruin, given birth to it, watched both matrimony and matriarchy bring her nothing but misery. If her reason was not fractured he would find himself surprised. Yet her fractured reason had nearly cost them their lives, had cost them a great deal of capital with the politicians, started a widespread panic about surviving Drow living in or around Terestai, and done nothing to solve their immediate troubles. Baila watched him watch the wall, and when the second could not bear the silence any longer, he began whittling a piece of wood. Perhaps a flute for his bow. Ilúvatar grimaced at nothing. This was something like a funeral. And so less than a week after taking power, he might have to fight his way out of Terestai just so he could return to living in exile. There had been a demonstration, a large one, and though no one had died it was a near thing. Someone had taken the brunt of a brass-strapped club to the head. Ilúvatar promised publicly that the next soldier to harm a civilian without cause would be hanged. Him, I will hang, and not an ounce of shame in those words. Since then the demonstrations had died down, but only because he had wisely added that the same was true of civilians. It kept the peace, even if they all hated him for it. Military discipline was a hard thing, most especially with civilians, but he would not have the peace broken.
What little remained.
"Maybe there is no use for us left," Ilúvatar said at last, quiet. "I knew what my purpose was, once. I followed a great king. My axe rode to the sound of his call."
"There is nobility in that," Baila answered gravely.
"And in this?" the Lord returned. "Hanging civilians for attacking soldiers? Causing a panic in the city? My king would never have done such things."
The second shook his head. "These are hard times, my Lord. Refugees turned away at the border, fighting farmers in the fields of the plains. Drow reappearing as though they'd never gone - only become stronger. A world that faces death from the blighted lands of the south. Your king never contended with such issues."
"I would not envy him," and his voice was rueful, but also damning to him. "Sometimes I envy him his peace, Baila."
There was a long pause, this time. "I cannot envy the dead while hope remains. But it is a near thing. Even I have slipped, my Lord, and felt my shame for it."
"What did you do to make up for it?"
"I stole life from the wicked," and Baila's laugh was short.
Ilúvatar answered it with a short laugh of his own, before a knock sounded out. No doubt Ithacles or Vedette. Or both. Baila moved to answer before he could, though a flimsy wooden door protected them only from friends. Enemies would have kicked the door down and proceeded with their work. When one could feel tension on the streets, in the air you breathed, it made every moment a miserable one. Nothing he could do about that. If that last thought entered his head one last time today - that there was nothing he could do - Ilúvatar might burn the whole city out of spite, with his new recruits at his side. Cheering as though sacking a city from the inside was a fine thing. Ilúvatar thought that perhaps it was.
A shake of his head cleared his mind, as the door opened.