en passant

[Delahada]

Responsibility was not a thing that a person chose to take up, Salvador had discovered. It was a chore that was thrust upon them, whether they liked it or not. He had never asked to be a king, and yet here he was, seated on a throne positioned at the center of a raised platform. Before him, one step down, were two long tables. There was an open space at his feet between them, and a long rug that stretched all the way to the doors at the other end of the hall.

The throne had been Gallo’s idea. He had joked about building it out of LEGO bricks. Prickly and uncomfortable, he had said, just like being in Salvador’s presence. He regretted not punching the crocodile in the teeth. It would have vastly improved the quality of his grin.

Too whimsical for their master, Dama had said, calmly intervening before his temper surfaced fully. With the Opal PathFinder still clutched tightly in her grasp, she had suggested crafting him a throne of living wood. She could plant the roots right into the rotting floor of the hall.

“Master!” An eager and particularly bloodthirsty goblin had shrieked. “Build your throne out of the bodies of your slain enemies!”

Salvador had raised a brow at this, not entirely dismissing the idea. The Blight brought him dozens of such carcasses daily, as it slowly crept ever outward, sluggishly expanding the borders of his domain. That was quite a creative and terrifying use of his resources, he thought but did not say.

Allow me to make you a throne of ice, my lord, the naiad Charca had signed to him with her watery fingers. Hard and frozen, like your impenetrable heart.

He had frowned at this suggestion. Much as he tried to make himself and others believe that was true, deep down he knew it was not. Despite the discomfort of the lie, there was something inspiring about this idea, too. Hers planted a seed that festered before it grew.

“Must I have a throne?” he queried irritably.

“You must, sire!” The same eager goblin had shrieked. “You must have a place for you to sit while your subjects grovel before you!” They cackled delightedly at the very idea.

Salvador sighed, pressing his fingers hard into his temple to massage his irritation. This fanaticism made him too well known for his liking, and it was all Gallo’s fault. The crocodile had not even been present at the time, but he could hear him laughing at his expense.

“Sire, if I might suggest…” A short, round man with pointed ears stepped forward.

He was an elf, Salvador remembered. Ridiculed by his peers for not being stereotypically tall, athletic, and beautiful. They had spoken once. What was his name?

The elf cleared his throat and introduced himself, as if he could sense Salvador’s thoughts. Or perhaps he was quite used to people forgetting who he was for being such an outcast. “Roydark Iethi,” he said. “Your, um, well, the elected Mayor of Eastgate.”

Someone to his left tittered, and sneezed in apology when Salvador looked at them sharply. “Self-appointed Mayor,” Lauren Burton said. That one had a grin full of nasty teeth when she smiled. Not dirty or rotten so much as sweetly mean. Cheshire. Definitely other, though he had yet to determine precisely what, much like the Hanks. Loyal to him, for certain. There was no doubt about that.

Self-appointed or not, Iethi was very good at his job. The elf had a mind for manipulating the masses, was calculating if not necessarily cruel. He kept order in the village, largely with the help of the dragonkin, Constable Monsheax. There were seats for each of these people at the long tables before him, where they convened daily in a small council to discuss the governing of so many displaced people.

Salvador dropped in upon request, and sometimes unannounced, approximately twice a week. The mere suggestion of his involvement was enough to keep things running smoothly, Lauren had told him. Though he had his fair share of viciously loyal followers, the majority of the citizens of Eastgate held him in a high regard of fearful respect. This suited him just fine. He didn’t want to make friends with the people. His people. He couldn’t quite believe it still.

“Your throne, sire,” Mayor Iethi was saying, “is a symbol of your station, if not actually the seat of your power. Its mere presence in this room, whether you are on it or not, will be a constant reminder to the people of Eastgate of to whom they owe their loyalty. This village is a refuge, but to many of its people you still remain quite a mystery. Give them something to look upon, when they are here, that will remind them under whose protection they have settled, and to whom they owe their fealty.”

In the silence that stretched after the mayor’s little speech, Salvador heard the whispers of a thousand different distant voices. Some of them real, and others not. The closer it got to his season the more difficult it was to discern them from each other.

Who. Are. You? Cutting a look to the side, he squinted hard at Lauren’s madcap grin and swore he saw smoke billowing behind her. An image of someone with many legs smoking a hookah. He shook his head with a slow blink, realizing that was a long ago memory from a tale someone had read to him once. He had rather liked that story. Especially the second part.

Who was he? Son of She Who Tends the Dead. The Autumn Prince who became the King of Rot and Ruin. Unspeakably destructive powers were saturated in his blood. And that was the answer.

Blood pulled from the bodies of his enemies, shaped and crafted with the strength of his will alone. Frozen solid into a cold, hard seat of sharply crystallized red. On the wall behind it was hung his standard, the golden sun rising over water on a field of red. Sunrise on bloody waters. Light pouring in through the windows of the hall lit the throne up and reflected its crimson glow into the room. This was the king’s seat.

Beside it were effigies for the rest of his court, added in afterward. A smaller throne on his right crafted of twisted roots that broke through the dais floor, twining together into the semblance of a seat, though it was often empty. To his left was a large basin on a short pillar, no taller than the arm of his chair; it was filled always with fresh, clean water. A chaff of wheat was bound up and woven through with tall grasses, placed to the right of the throne of roots. A seat crafted of seashells beside the basin. A chair carved from bone, draped in soft furs to the right of the grass. Sprouting from the walls at either end of this lineup were two large willow trees, the center of their trunks bolstering the foundations, the branches of one oozing a sticky substance all the way to the floor.

Before him were the tables, lined with eight other chairs, four to a side, for the small council of Eastgate. One was reserved for Mayor Iethi. Another for his public relations specialist Lauren Burton. The loudest and most fanatic of his goblins had a seat, and so too did Constable Monsheax the dragonkin. Though the Hanks hardly ventured from the Carnicería, there were places for them as well. And one for Mamorel Fiedlerson, who tended to his pigs. The last was reserved for Gallo, that wise and mouthy crocodile.

Rows of regular, flimsy folding chairs lined the rest of the hall. The sort that could easily be removed to open up the floor should situations warrant. Salvador was vaguely aware that the people of Eastgate enjoyed gathering in this building for celebrations, whenever the weather was too unforgiving to house such parties outdoors. Though he never attended such functions himself, no matter how much his PR specialist tried to coax him into doing so.

One side of the board was set, for him, like this. When he closed his eyes he envisioned the game, the checkered squares, the shifting pieces. Rubbing his hands over the cool, glossy surface of crystalline armrests, he could hear the coppery chime of his mother’s approval come to him from far away. For a fleeting moment he smiled, and then he opened his eyes.

“Good of you to join us today, my lord,” Mayor Iethi said politely. The rest of the small council filed into their seats. The others to his left and right remained empty. Lauren tapped a stack of papers together to line them up, thumping the stack onto the table. Constable Monsheax’s wings flared and stretched as they struggled to fit into their seat. “Shall we get started?” the elf asked.

Salvador shifted sideways, slouching into the icy cold corners of his throne. He leaned his elbow to the armrest, his jaw to his knuckles, and turned his other hand over with a grunt. The message was clear to those who had gathered.

Council was now in session. You may begin.