Diary of a Deicide: Part 3/3

Year 892 OHG 18th Day of the Month of Leaves

Beloved,

I must apologise for my absence. It is done. He stood on the steps of the palace of the governor that He once deposed for his tyranny and corruption, and He promised our continued protection; calling upon our continued support. I found it irksome, that a man who could clear that square of life with His dark power would act like a Marcillian politician seeking re-election.

Senedar stood beside me, on the southern edge of the square, and offered his own commentary. Look, he said, at the teacher who has become the tyrant he once deposed, only ten thousand times worse. I wondered, silently, at the flavour of tyrant Senedar aimed to become.

A scuffle began at the other end of the square. Voices were raised in protest against Him. It was some of our Voices, and their newfound followers, offering the distraction we required. Many of the adjudicators left their positions at the base of the palace’s steps, moving to quell the unrest.

Senedar indicated that our time had come, and it was as though the illusion of choice dissappeared. I could see our ascent of those steps, aided by a simple enChantment of speed and glamer. Guards, surprised, raising weapons far too late to intervene. A hurried spell, dark and deadly, warded off by that beautiful blade, and my voice.

It happened just so. He glanced, as the spell fizzled to nothing, past Senedar, who had no doubt prepared a suitably dramatic denouement, and His face showed recognition, and something else.

“I did not know,” he rumbled, like the mountains might rumble, if they bothered with us, “what you felt for her.”

The enchantment had been invoked, the blade was poised, I was free to respond. “What has been done cannot be undone, father, even by you.”

Senedar pronounced his own judgement, but I had not the ears to hear it. I met His eyes as the blade fell.

We anticipated that the Legions would dissolve into chaos with His death, but that is not the case. Somehow the marshals and adjudicators maintain control, for now. They have taken them away from the city, one last show of defiance against the coalition. Our city will not suffer the horror of unbound Breathless. Senedar does not understand why the adjudicators would not fight for the city, but I understand that He Who Guided moulded those beneath Him in His own image. He would not see our Lemuire burn to spite us, and neither will they. The city is split into factions, with mobs openly supporting Senedar, who has promised peace with Marcillia, and independence. I hear Voices pronouncing the Day of Valour upon our streets, and that our Lemuire will find a new path, that leads away from the death and horrors of He Who Guided.

Year 893 OHG Year 1 OTNP (Of The New Path) 1st day of The Month of Snow

Beloved,

I am sorry it has been so long, but these last weeks have not given me much time for leisure. Somehow, Senedar has kept many of his promises. The death of He Who Guided fractured the coalition, with the savage men of the hills and forests abandoning their allies and occupying the captured valleys, rich with produce, largely abandoned in the course of the campaign. The adjudicators maintained control of the Breathless long enough for them to engage the Imperial troops. They say the grasslands are still littered with bodies beyond counting.

I find this time, called by many the new dawn for our Lemuire, without substance. Senedar grapples with other would-be leaders, securing for himself the lion’s share of power. He has returned many prerogative rights to the nobility, securing their support. He has retained the Eyes and Voices, and uses them to engender support for his new path. Our society, they preach, has atrophied under He Who Guided. We must be led, they argue, back to the path that engenders life, of the wheel in which we find reincarnation, rather than annihilation in the realm of death. Senedar’s political detractors do not seem to understand the power of belief, of ideology, of religion, and so he continues to outflank them.

Somehow my name has entered the mix. I am spoken of. Senedar and I, the Godkillers. I do not think this will go well for me, should my lineage come out. Too much memory, too much pain. I do not think there is a place for me in Senedar’s Lemuire, or a place for me on his wheel.

The Diary of Mennes-Lin, called He Who Guides.

Year 1 OHG, Day 4, Month of Sun

Dearest,

I did not imagine that things could move so quickly, that my actions might engender so much change. Governor Caius is dead, by my hand. For so long I thought that words would settle this, that our budding parliament might offer justice in the face of tyranny. Now the parliament too is gone. They did not understand that sometimes justice demands from us what we do not lightly give. I worry, but can show no fear. Already the people of My Lemuire raise me into something I am not. They revere my name, and do not speak it. They have changed the calendar, as if the seasons come and pass at my bidding! I worry that I am not immune to the corruption of power, and so I remain among the people. I hear their concerns, though even now they bow and scrape in my presence. They think, that my capacity for great violence makes me their king. I will endeavour to continue to show them the value of wisdom.

Year 871 OHG, Day 9, Month of Wind

Dearest,

The Northern rebellion has been quelled, but I do not know what your thoughts would be on its outcome. My chief adjudicators tell me that my great power is seldom felt so far from the heart of My Lemuire, and that more regular displays of my might might ensure the peace. Was not the might of five of my legions sufficient? Do they not understand the cost of such displays? They think that the growing barrenness of the lands around the city are signs of my disfavour, not the result of the overuse of my powers. They think me the sun and stars, but all such power comes at a price.

Dietrik, one of the youngest of my adjudicator-advisors, is a giant of a man, standing nearly a foot taller than me, though he scrapes in my presence to match the sycophants who have made such a habit the norm. He offered another option. The northern tribes traditionally cement alliances through marriage, and the strongest among them is led by a warrior-queen named Sisifane. Dietrik advised that perhaps the merging of her bloodline with mine would provide a more permanent solution. The older advisors shouted him down, one calling the very notion blasphemous. I quieted them with a gesture and thanked Dietrik for his contribution.

The idea unnerves me, and I have no-one to share such doubts with. The idea is a good one, Dearest, but I feel it irreverent of your memory. A marriage to this queen, would cement my control over the north, bringing peace not only to My Lemuire, but to the northerners themselves. And yet, my love for you, my hatred for the Governor that ordered your assassination in order to punish and silence me, was enough to destroy Imperial Lemuire. I do not think family would be to the benefit of My Lemuire in the longer term of things. What kind of husband would I be, what kind of father? I have been a king for so very long, dearest. A god, who has not been called upon to be a man for the longest time.

I will consider the matter, and resolve, as I always have, to do the best for My Lemuire, regardless of the personal cost. I remember your words to me, when the governor first imprisoned me beneath his palace, and I take solace in them. “The arc of history is long”, you whispered to me between the bars, lest the guards overhear you, “and it bends toward justice”.

So shall it be for My Lemuire.