Post by devilinthedetails on Jul 2, 2018 8:09:00 GMT 10
Title: The Sun Never Sets on the Carthaki Empire
Rating: PG-13 with warnings for references to execution and assassination.
Prompt: Dominion
Summary: Kalasin, Kaddar, and their dominion.
The Sun Never Sets on the Carthaki Empire
Kalasin and Kaddar were sprawled on low marble benches by a pool in the imperial palace’s gardens, rippling the serene surface of the water with their outstretched fingers and inhaling the sweet aroma of the lotuses blossoming in the dying sunlight, when a captain of the guard raced down the pebbled path to the bank of the pool, where he knelt before his emperor and empress, awaiting recognition.
“Arise.” Kaddar lifted a hand from the water and gestured for the captain to stand on sandaled feet. “Report.”
“Your Imperial Majesties.” The captain bowed to Kaddar and then to Kalasin. “An army squad was apprehended on palace grounds.”
Kalasin’s forehead furrowed. Carthaki legions weren’t permitted to set so much as a toe upon palace grounds. Soldiers who violated this precept could be executed in brutal fashion.
“What was the squad doing on palace grounds?” Kaddar’s rumble deep in his throat reminded Kalasin of the terrifying roar of a lion who territory was encroached upon however unwittingly.
“They claim to have gotten lost and not realized they were on palace grounds, Your Imperial Majesty.” The captain appeared to find it impossible to speak to such an exalted personage without bowing though this time he confined the movement to a duck of his head.
“How credible do you believe their claims to be, captain?” Kaddar’s eyes were sharp as curved swords that could behead soldiers.
“They seem to be bumbling country bumpkins from the outskirts of the empire who have never seen such civilization, Your Imperial Majesty.” The captain shifted in the pebbles, plainly discomfited at offering any verdict on the veracity of the trespassing soldiers’ excuses. “It is my opinion that they could get lost in a canvas sack nonetheless the grandeur surrounding our great Thak City.”
“Very well, captain.” Kaddar’s face remained cold and hard as iron even after the captain’s assessment that the soldiers posed little threat, and Kalasin’s stomach twisted with worry about what fate that foreboded for the lost legionaries. “Have the soldiers brought to my throne room where I will sit in judgment upon them.”
“All will be done according to Your Imperial Majesty’s will.” The captain gave a final bow before scuttling off to ensure that Kaddar’s commands were obeyed.
She and Kaddar returned to their quarters so he could don the elaborate ceremonial regalia that symbolized his absolute authority over all of Carthak while she could slip on a shining crown that complimented her shimmering silk dress that swished across the tiles when she walked. As he escorted her, arm tucked beneath hers, to the throne room, Kalasin squeezed his elbow for emphasis when she commented, “You can’t be thinking of executing those soldiers for getting lost.”
“They won’t be executed for getting lost.” Kaddar’s expression was severe and unreadable as it often was when he wore his ceremonial regalia. In his ceremonial regalia, he was not a man but a tireless emperor of an ambitious, forever hungry empire that boasted the sun never set on its borders. “They’ll be executed for trespassing on palace grounds.”
“You’re splitting hairs, Kaddar.” Kalasin was tempted to yank her arm off Kaddar’s as they approached the throne room. Only the reluctance to undermine her own power at court by making her quarrel with her husband visible prevented her from doing so.
“Better than splitting an empire,” Kaddar hissed like a cobra striking at unwary ankles. They had arrived outside the gilded doors of the throne room, which a bowing herald opened to announce them to a squad of cowering, cringing soldiers chained to the floor as they knelt in the fear of justice and the hope of clemency. “The last time soldiers were at liberty to march on palace grounds, the empire courted collapse, Kalasin.”
“The legions aren’t going to revolt against you because a squad of stray soldiers is allowed to keep their lives after losing themselves on palace grounds.” Kalasin’s whisper was fierce as Kaddar’s hiss, and it demanded all of her discipline not to roll her eyes at her husband’s lack of proportion—because Kaddar was prickly as a cactus about any public slight to his dignity from her or anyone else—as they progressed at a stately pace to the dais on which their thrones perches and presided over the proceedings.
“You can’t say that when my tenure as emperor began with bloody years of squashing rebellions to bring the more traitorous nobles in my dominion to heel.” Kaddar’s breath was hot as fire in her ear as he guided her up the stairs onto the dais, where they unlinked arms to settle in their separate thrones.
After that, there was no more opportunity for debate as Kaddar called the assembly to order with a crack of his hands that cut like a whip through the arches and pillars of the cavernous room. “You legionaries are accused of trespassing on palace grounds, an offense for which you can be cudgeled to death before your legion by the members of your own century if you are found guilty of such a crime against the empire. How do you plead to these charges?”
“Guilty, Your Imperial Majesty.” Only one of the soldiers was brave enough to gasp out a response. “We beg your mercy.”
“What cause would I have to grant you mercy, soldier?” Kaddar leaned forward in his throne, arching an eyebrow outlined in kohl.
“We were lost, Your Imperial Majesty.” The soldier stumbled over his words as he had onto palace grounds. “We intended no treason.”
“Your intentions matter no more than dust in the wind.” Kaddar sank back into his throne so a shadow obscured his darkening features. “You may have been lost but the empire would be lost if soldiers were free to cross palace grounds with impunity. At sunrise, you will be cudgeled to death by members of your own century to serve as an example to your legion. You will be imprisoned until dawn, but you may ask your guards to bring you priests or priestesses of any deity with a temple in Thak City to prepare your soul for departure from this life.”
As the guards dragged the obviously numb-kneed soldiers, who seemed too stunned by the swiftness of their sentence to protest the cruelty of it, to their feet, Kaddar summoned a slave boy in the garb of an imperial messenger to his side, where the boy knelt before him.
“Tell the centurion who commands these errant soldiers to have his men draw lots for a death detail and warn him that if his discipline of his century stays so lax as to allow its members to wander like lost sheep over palace grounds I will order the century decimated.” Kaddar’s command was eerily punctuated by the clangor of manacles as the prisoners were hauled from the throne room to the fetid cells where they would be locked away to rot until the last dawn they would ever see break like a golden egg yolk over the River Zekoi.
As the boy planted his forehead against the floor in an obeisance of acknowledgement and then darted off to deliver Kaddar’s message, which sent shivers spiking down Kalasin’s spine, Kalasin struggled to force a single word through tingling lips. “Decimated?”
“One in every ten men is killed.” Kaddar’s voice was rough as sand describing one of the ruthless punishments that kept the fearsome Carthaki legions in rigid line to vanquish all menaces to the empire. “The soldiers draw lots to see who lives and who dies. Those who draw the short stick are beaten to death by the bare hands of their fellows, and those whom fortune favors must renew their oaths of loyalty to the empire.”
“I know what decimation is.” Kalasin straightened her spine so Kaddar wouldn’t spot how it shuddered. “I just can’t believe that you’re threatening an entire century with it because a squad of soldiers got lost on palace grounds.”
“I know I won’t have to carry out my threat.” Kaddar was cool and haughty, and Kalasin heart ached to scream at him for his callousness. “The centurion will not want the stigma of having his century decimated no will he want the survivors slaying him in vengeance for their fallen comrades, a form of mutiny that is not uncommon in Carthaki legions after a decimation, though the mutiny itself may lead to to further decimations in a game of escalating high stakes.”
“We’re speaking of lives, Kaddar.” Kalasin’s fists clenched the arms of her throne so tightly that her knuckles blanched like ivory. “You sound as if you’ve forgotten that.”
“That’s because we aren’t speaking of lives.” Kaddar shook his head. “We’re speaking of empires—how they rise and fall. What is an empire, dearest?”
“I’m your wife and empress.” Kalasin’s chin lifted for battle and her gaze shot a thousand arrows into his. “Don’t patronize me, darling.”
“I’m not patronizing you.” Kaddar didn’t flinch from the arrows her eyes unleashed upon him. “I’m probing your political philosophy. Now answer my question if you would be so kind, sweetest.”
“An empire is any sovereign entity ruled by a leader who proclaims himself to be an emperor.” Kalasin flicked her fan as if his question were an irksome mosquito to be warded off with strategic swats. “Empires may sound grand, but there are some empires beyond the Roof of the World smaller than a Tortallan duchy.”
“Yes, and some empires are vast and diverse as Carthak.” Kaddar nodded as if he were her tutor rather than her husband, and Kalasin’s blood boiled in her veins at his blatant condescension. “That is, however, only one definition of an empire and arguably the least useful. You see, an empire might more practically be defined as any country that has subsumed another nation into itself or that wields significant power beyond its borders. By both those standards, Carthak is an empire as is Tortall, the land of your birth.”
“For the record, my father wouldn’t appreciate being called an emperor.” Kalasin scowled. Her father would react to being called an emperor about as amicably as he would to being accused of tyranny. This was certainly not a conversation she would share in her letters to her family.
“Yes, he styles himself king, but titles aren’t the substance of empires.” There was a trace of amusement at her huffiness in Kaddar’s tone that made Kalasin grit her teeth. “It doesn’t matter in terms of his empire that he calls himself king any more than it matters that the Old Ones for the first thousand years of their empire claimed to be a republic like the Tyra of today because they couldn’t bear to declare themselves an empire even when they ruled unchallenged over the Eastern and Southern Lands. History remembers them as a mighty empire regardless of their qualms about being considered such, but the problem with empires is that what takes careful centuries to construct can crumble about our ears in a day. Ask your friend the Wildmage who rampaged through this palace when my uncle offended her if you doubt that.”
“You’re taking rather a long time to get to the point, and I tire of your brooding.” Kalasin wasn’t in the mood for her husband’s morose musings on the toppling of civilizations and emperors.
Ignoring her reproach, Kaddar tapped his fingers on his throne as he finished, “Carthak was once a republic like the early Old Ones until a general took his legions and marched on Thak City. Thak City couldn’t resist him, his troops overran the city, and he had himself crowned emperor, but because he was determined that no general could overthrow him as he had Thak City, he decreed that no solider should ever set foot on palace grounds. Any emperor who softened that stricture was rewarded with assassination. Troops, as the first emperor realized from experience, can be the downfall of empires, and the sun will not set on Carthak during my reign, Kalasin.”
“A squad of lost soldiers is different than legions of attacking ones.” Kalasin had the despairing sense that she would never convince Kaddar of this.
“Yet it only takes one trespassing soldier to assassinate us. The soldiers die at dawn.” Kaddar pushed himself out of his throne in an abrupt sign that he regarded their conversation as complete. “Whether you accept that fact or not doesn’t change it or their fate.”
“You’ll never be secure on your throne if you fear every stray soldier. No amount of gruesomely executed soldiers will take away your paranoia if you let it control you as it did your uncle.” Kalasin rose and strode out of the throne room with her nose in the air to prove to him that even if he ruled an empire, he could never have dominion over her.
Rating: PG-13 with warnings for references to execution and assassination.
Prompt: Dominion
Summary: Kalasin, Kaddar, and their dominion.
The Sun Never Sets on the Carthaki Empire
Kalasin and Kaddar were sprawled on low marble benches by a pool in the imperial palace’s gardens, rippling the serene surface of the water with their outstretched fingers and inhaling the sweet aroma of the lotuses blossoming in the dying sunlight, when a captain of the guard raced down the pebbled path to the bank of the pool, where he knelt before his emperor and empress, awaiting recognition.
“Arise.” Kaddar lifted a hand from the water and gestured for the captain to stand on sandaled feet. “Report.”
“Your Imperial Majesties.” The captain bowed to Kaddar and then to Kalasin. “An army squad was apprehended on palace grounds.”
Kalasin’s forehead furrowed. Carthaki legions weren’t permitted to set so much as a toe upon palace grounds. Soldiers who violated this precept could be executed in brutal fashion.
“What was the squad doing on palace grounds?” Kaddar’s rumble deep in his throat reminded Kalasin of the terrifying roar of a lion who territory was encroached upon however unwittingly.
“They claim to have gotten lost and not realized they were on palace grounds, Your Imperial Majesty.” The captain appeared to find it impossible to speak to such an exalted personage without bowing though this time he confined the movement to a duck of his head.
“How credible do you believe their claims to be, captain?” Kaddar’s eyes were sharp as curved swords that could behead soldiers.
“They seem to be bumbling country bumpkins from the outskirts of the empire who have never seen such civilization, Your Imperial Majesty.” The captain shifted in the pebbles, plainly discomfited at offering any verdict on the veracity of the trespassing soldiers’ excuses. “It is my opinion that they could get lost in a canvas sack nonetheless the grandeur surrounding our great Thak City.”
“Very well, captain.” Kaddar’s face remained cold and hard as iron even after the captain’s assessment that the soldiers posed little threat, and Kalasin’s stomach twisted with worry about what fate that foreboded for the lost legionaries. “Have the soldiers brought to my throne room where I will sit in judgment upon them.”
“All will be done according to Your Imperial Majesty’s will.” The captain gave a final bow before scuttling off to ensure that Kaddar’s commands were obeyed.
She and Kaddar returned to their quarters so he could don the elaborate ceremonial regalia that symbolized his absolute authority over all of Carthak while she could slip on a shining crown that complimented her shimmering silk dress that swished across the tiles when she walked. As he escorted her, arm tucked beneath hers, to the throne room, Kalasin squeezed his elbow for emphasis when she commented, “You can’t be thinking of executing those soldiers for getting lost.”
“They won’t be executed for getting lost.” Kaddar’s expression was severe and unreadable as it often was when he wore his ceremonial regalia. In his ceremonial regalia, he was not a man but a tireless emperor of an ambitious, forever hungry empire that boasted the sun never set on its borders. “They’ll be executed for trespassing on palace grounds.”
“You’re splitting hairs, Kaddar.” Kalasin was tempted to yank her arm off Kaddar’s as they approached the throne room. Only the reluctance to undermine her own power at court by making her quarrel with her husband visible prevented her from doing so.
“Better than splitting an empire,” Kaddar hissed like a cobra striking at unwary ankles. They had arrived outside the gilded doors of the throne room, which a bowing herald opened to announce them to a squad of cowering, cringing soldiers chained to the floor as they knelt in the fear of justice and the hope of clemency. “The last time soldiers were at liberty to march on palace grounds, the empire courted collapse, Kalasin.”
“The legions aren’t going to revolt against you because a squad of stray soldiers is allowed to keep their lives after losing themselves on palace grounds.” Kalasin’s whisper was fierce as Kaddar’s hiss, and it demanded all of her discipline not to roll her eyes at her husband’s lack of proportion—because Kaddar was prickly as a cactus about any public slight to his dignity from her or anyone else—as they progressed at a stately pace to the dais on which their thrones perches and presided over the proceedings.
“You can’t say that when my tenure as emperor began with bloody years of squashing rebellions to bring the more traitorous nobles in my dominion to heel.” Kaddar’s breath was hot as fire in her ear as he guided her up the stairs onto the dais, where they unlinked arms to settle in their separate thrones.
After that, there was no more opportunity for debate as Kaddar called the assembly to order with a crack of his hands that cut like a whip through the arches and pillars of the cavernous room. “You legionaries are accused of trespassing on palace grounds, an offense for which you can be cudgeled to death before your legion by the members of your own century if you are found guilty of such a crime against the empire. How do you plead to these charges?”
“Guilty, Your Imperial Majesty.” Only one of the soldiers was brave enough to gasp out a response. “We beg your mercy.”
“What cause would I have to grant you mercy, soldier?” Kaddar leaned forward in his throne, arching an eyebrow outlined in kohl.
“We were lost, Your Imperial Majesty.” The soldier stumbled over his words as he had onto palace grounds. “We intended no treason.”
“Your intentions matter no more than dust in the wind.” Kaddar sank back into his throne so a shadow obscured his darkening features. “You may have been lost but the empire would be lost if soldiers were free to cross palace grounds with impunity. At sunrise, you will be cudgeled to death by members of your own century to serve as an example to your legion. You will be imprisoned until dawn, but you may ask your guards to bring you priests or priestesses of any deity with a temple in Thak City to prepare your soul for departure from this life.”
As the guards dragged the obviously numb-kneed soldiers, who seemed too stunned by the swiftness of their sentence to protest the cruelty of it, to their feet, Kaddar summoned a slave boy in the garb of an imperial messenger to his side, where the boy knelt before him.
“Tell the centurion who commands these errant soldiers to have his men draw lots for a death detail and warn him that if his discipline of his century stays so lax as to allow its members to wander like lost sheep over palace grounds I will order the century decimated.” Kaddar’s command was eerily punctuated by the clangor of manacles as the prisoners were hauled from the throne room to the fetid cells where they would be locked away to rot until the last dawn they would ever see break like a golden egg yolk over the River Zekoi.
As the boy planted his forehead against the floor in an obeisance of acknowledgement and then darted off to deliver Kaddar’s message, which sent shivers spiking down Kalasin’s spine, Kalasin struggled to force a single word through tingling lips. “Decimated?”
“One in every ten men is killed.” Kaddar’s voice was rough as sand describing one of the ruthless punishments that kept the fearsome Carthaki legions in rigid line to vanquish all menaces to the empire. “The soldiers draw lots to see who lives and who dies. Those who draw the short stick are beaten to death by the bare hands of their fellows, and those whom fortune favors must renew their oaths of loyalty to the empire.”
“I know what decimation is.” Kalasin straightened her spine so Kaddar wouldn’t spot how it shuddered. “I just can’t believe that you’re threatening an entire century with it because a squad of soldiers got lost on palace grounds.”
“I know I won’t have to carry out my threat.” Kaddar was cool and haughty, and Kalasin heart ached to scream at him for his callousness. “The centurion will not want the stigma of having his century decimated no will he want the survivors slaying him in vengeance for their fallen comrades, a form of mutiny that is not uncommon in Carthaki legions after a decimation, though the mutiny itself may lead to to further decimations in a game of escalating high stakes.”
“We’re speaking of lives, Kaddar.” Kalasin’s fists clenched the arms of her throne so tightly that her knuckles blanched like ivory. “You sound as if you’ve forgotten that.”
“That’s because we aren’t speaking of lives.” Kaddar shook his head. “We’re speaking of empires—how they rise and fall. What is an empire, dearest?”
“I’m your wife and empress.” Kalasin’s chin lifted for battle and her gaze shot a thousand arrows into his. “Don’t patronize me, darling.”
“I’m not patronizing you.” Kaddar didn’t flinch from the arrows her eyes unleashed upon him. “I’m probing your political philosophy. Now answer my question if you would be so kind, sweetest.”
“An empire is any sovereign entity ruled by a leader who proclaims himself to be an emperor.” Kalasin flicked her fan as if his question were an irksome mosquito to be warded off with strategic swats. “Empires may sound grand, but there are some empires beyond the Roof of the World smaller than a Tortallan duchy.”
“Yes, and some empires are vast and diverse as Carthak.” Kaddar nodded as if he were her tutor rather than her husband, and Kalasin’s blood boiled in her veins at his blatant condescension. “That is, however, only one definition of an empire and arguably the least useful. You see, an empire might more practically be defined as any country that has subsumed another nation into itself or that wields significant power beyond its borders. By both those standards, Carthak is an empire as is Tortall, the land of your birth.”
“For the record, my father wouldn’t appreciate being called an emperor.” Kalasin scowled. Her father would react to being called an emperor about as amicably as he would to being accused of tyranny. This was certainly not a conversation she would share in her letters to her family.
“Yes, he styles himself king, but titles aren’t the substance of empires.” There was a trace of amusement at her huffiness in Kaddar’s tone that made Kalasin grit her teeth. “It doesn’t matter in terms of his empire that he calls himself king any more than it matters that the Old Ones for the first thousand years of their empire claimed to be a republic like the Tyra of today because they couldn’t bear to declare themselves an empire even when they ruled unchallenged over the Eastern and Southern Lands. History remembers them as a mighty empire regardless of their qualms about being considered such, but the problem with empires is that what takes careful centuries to construct can crumble about our ears in a day. Ask your friend the Wildmage who rampaged through this palace when my uncle offended her if you doubt that.”
“You’re taking rather a long time to get to the point, and I tire of your brooding.” Kalasin wasn’t in the mood for her husband’s morose musings on the toppling of civilizations and emperors.
Ignoring her reproach, Kaddar tapped his fingers on his throne as he finished, “Carthak was once a republic like the early Old Ones until a general took his legions and marched on Thak City. Thak City couldn’t resist him, his troops overran the city, and he had himself crowned emperor, but because he was determined that no general could overthrow him as he had Thak City, he decreed that no solider should ever set foot on palace grounds. Any emperor who softened that stricture was rewarded with assassination. Troops, as the first emperor realized from experience, can be the downfall of empires, and the sun will not set on Carthak during my reign, Kalasin.”
“A squad of lost soldiers is different than legions of attacking ones.” Kalasin had the despairing sense that she would never convince Kaddar of this.
“Yet it only takes one trespassing soldier to assassinate us. The soldiers die at dawn.” Kaddar pushed himself out of his throne in an abrupt sign that he regarded their conversation as complete. “Whether you accept that fact or not doesn’t change it or their fate.”
“You’ll never be secure on your throne if you fear every stray soldier. No amount of gruesomely executed soldiers will take away your paranoia if you let it control you as it did your uncle.” Kalasin rose and strode out of the throne room with her nose in the air to prove to him that even if he ruled an empire, he could never have dominion over her.
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!