Chapter 24: The Viceroy

As we explored the wreckage left behind by the massive White Dragon, I marveled at its power. What’s more, I started to see the looks in everyone’s eyes as they began to fear what would happen if the beast woke up, or worse, if its dark-scaled cousin would return. Fear sometimes has a way of turning the best of us savage.

“Chissler, that forked-tongued bastard,” cursed Saria Kaves, the ‘honorable’ Minister of Fire. “Just what I need when we’re on the brink of war with the Water.”

“You must calm yourself, my lady,” said Eramar soothingly.

“Don’t call me ‘my lady,’ and don’t tell me when to be calm! I’ll decide when it’s time to be calm!” replied a fiery Saria Kaves from her desk.

“We don’t know the situation. It may not be as dire as you believe,” consoled Eramar, composed as ever as he attempted to sway the Minister from her passions.

“Oh, really,” said Saria sardonically. “Who’s been cracking down on the Ministries like some zealot witch hunter for the past five years? Who imposed laws to put us virtually at the mercy of the military and the other Ministries? Who’s been prosecuting more and more Elemental sympathizers for petty, trumped-up charges that are little more than fabrications?

“And it’s obvious that most of those prosecutions and allegations were politically motivated. I can tell you that without even making an investigation. He’s already got the media in his pocket, demonizing anyone who even thinks of supporting the Ministry of Fire. If a man like that is coming here, it can only be for blood.”

Eramar held his infuriatingly calm demeanor. Saria both loathed and valued that about him. Of all her advisors, he was the one man who could view almost any situation with objectivity and logic.

“I agree that the Emperor is not as friendly to the Ministry as other Emperors in the past. However, I don’t think that the Emperor himself would come all this way just to announce the dissolvement of the Ministry of Fire. As much as he may dislike Elementals, he still needs us to maintain order throughout the Empire; otherwise, he would’ve disbanded the Ministries a long time ago.”

Sound and logical as always. Why do you have to act so much like Alastar?

“He may not be coming to destroy us yet, but let me ask you this,” Saria leaned closer for effect. “What’s going to happen to us when that snake no longer needs us?”

Eramar exhaled, and Saria finally saw a little emotion in his posture as he put both hands behind his back. “My inevitable conclusion is that he will cast us to the wind, but I don’t ever see a time that he can logically say he no longer needs us. The Empire is on shaky ground as it is, what with the Emperor making enemies of all our old allies while seeming to give our adversaries a pass. As long as we stay strong and keep order in the Empire, Chissler cannot make a move against us, the Imperial Senate will see to that.”

Saria had to concede that point. The Ministry of Fire still had allies in the Senate, but not nearly as many as they did in the past.

“Meanwhile, the Emperor just slowly chokes us to death with his laws and administrations. The Ministry of Fire is on the brink of financial disaster from his taxes alone. He doesn’t overtax the nobles on his side of the political spectrum or any of his nonhuman allies; no, just the Elementals and anybody with the least bit of attachment to how this nation used to be, back in the days when honor still meant something. The point is that he may not have to kill us, his legislation alone could be the ruin of all the Ministries.”

Saria slumped into her chair. They stood in her private office located near the top of the volcano. From there, Saria could watch all the young Grunts in the training yards below working diligently to become the Elementals of tomorrow. A group of Firsts trained in discharging fire through their Psionic Weapons. A group of Seconds sparred in hand-to-hand martial arts nearby.

My children ... my family ... my home. All of it is being threatened, and that bloody bureaucrat is tying me down so that I don’t even have the tools to fight it.

Saria’s office was a large room with a chair and a working desk at the center for filing paperwork. All around her throne/desk, she had assistants buzzing about on the holographic computers, filing and running diagnostics on all the various missions occurring throughout the universe. This was the room where all the important decisions were made.

From this room, the Ministry gave out orders to agents in the field. It was where they received jobs that seemed to be their only source of income since the government had stopped funding them five years ago. Where they made alliances and orders from various merchants and noblemen still willing to trade with them.

It was where they tried to help out as best they could with all the goings on within their territory. The place where they tried to maintain contact with the few nonhuman allies they had left, where they monitored the activity of the other Grand Ministries, who were constantly poking and prodding the Fire’s territories for any sign of a chance to invade. It was also where they received notices from the Emperor’s office of every new catastrophe that the egomaniac dreamed up to torment them with further.

As many assistants as Saria had, she still had plenty to do herself. Writing with pen and paper was considered a lost art, so naturally, any documentation or filing meant for the Minister’s eyes only was done with pen and paper. She still kept the quill that her teacher and former friend had used before her.

An old-fashioned and ancient item, much like the man who used it, but it also felt warm and familiar at the same time. The feather for the quill remained intact through psionic manipulation, and the light blue color still dazzled brightly in her office of mostly black and gray metal.

They decorated her office with red and gold curtains to keep up the pretense that the Ministry still took pride in its colors. But lately, the Ministry of Fire didn’t have much to be proud of, and if the Emperor had his way, they would soon be ruined from the inside out.

Saria clutched the pen to her breast. As much as ‘he’ had hurt her, as much as she said she hated him, she refused to let the pen go. In many ways, it was her only reminder of happier days, of a love that could’ve been. She had tried to throw the pen away many times, but she found that she simply could not be parted from it. As she clutched it to her breast, Eramar had the decency to remain silent, respectively turning away.

Struggling to get ahold of herself, Saria whispered to herself, “Why? Why did you have to leave us?”

Just holding the quill to herself instantly brought resolve back to her heart. She knew that she had to go on; if not for her sake, then for the sake of everyone who depended on her to be the strong Minister they expected her to be. I’m getting too old for this.

“I want to know why he is coming here, Eramar, and I wanted to know yesterday,” she said as she placed the quill down.

Eramar bowed respectfully, as if she required him to. “As you wish, my lady. I will see to it immediately.”

As Eramar walked away, Saria called out to him. “And for the last time, DON’T CALL ME ‘MY LADY’!”

Despite the fact that his face was hidden from her, Saria could just imagine the smile that crossed Eramar’s rough features every once in a while.

She looks worried. Though, considering the business with the Ministry of Water, I can hardly blame her. To think that Uruks just happened to be targeted by the Water while their allies, the Air, fights against the Earth, much the same as we may be doing soon against the Water. And now the Emperor is paying a surprise visit. Could it really all be coincidence?

Eramar made his way towards the information branch of the telepaths when he spotted one of his least favorite politicians. Lord Gregory of the Imperial Senate, and also the head of Gregory Industries, a leading weapons manufacturer in the Tarrus Empire.

The man was trailed by an escort of Imperial Guards, all of them outfitted with anti-elemental equipment as if daring the Ministry to attack. He came dressed in a dark blue noblemen’s suit with large black buttons, a red tie, and a gold sash. He wore black pants and expensive green leather shoes made from the hide of the once-endangered Aldorian crocodile, now extinct.

The man’s face was flawless, of course from all the makeup and plastic surgery that went into its creation, how could it not be. Gregory made for an imposing figure with a strong chin, a long straight nose, a slight mustache under his nose, and dark green eyes that constantly displayed the man’s arrogance and contempt for life in general. The only indication of age was his slightly graying hair that held tell-tell signs of receding. Either because of pride or delusion, the nobleman didn’t correct his hair follicles like the rest of his body.

“Ah, if it isn’t my old friend, Eramar, the slayer of ... oh, whatever poor, innocent creature that earned your ire,” says the man who had an entire race hunted to extinction for a line of custom made-leather boots. “How are those extra equipment taxes I requested doing for the Ministry? I hope it’s not too strenuous for you people.”

Eramar gritted his teeth. He knew that Lord Gregory was coming as an envoy to safeguard the Emperor’s arrival. However, that still didn’t lessen the sheer aggravation of just standing in the man’s presence.

Despite his anger, Eramar forced a smile. “On the day that I cannot handle something you throw at me, you’ll be the first to know, I’m sure, senator.”

Lord Gregory: nobleman, weapons manufacturer, and senator, was one of Chiseler’s most trusted allies in the Senate, and a constant annoyance for the Ministry of Fire. The man had made it his personal mission to do everything legally possible to ruin the Ministry. If and when he started trying some illegal tactics, Eramar would be more than happy to nail him to the wall.

“Ha! C’est Vrai! You’re funny! And blunter than these other timid Elementals that I’ve had to deal with. I like that. But don’t presume too much on my good nature. I am still a nobleman, and you are still a lowly Elemental. Be careful who you make enemies of.”

I’ve fought enemies that would make you lose the rest of your receding hairline just by looking at them, Eramar desperately wanted to say, but instead sufficed for, “There was a time when Elementals were not considered so lowly.”

The man leaned so close that Eramar could smell the champagne on his lips. “That time has long passed. Now you either beg like a good dog or you get the whip. And I’m more than happy for either outcome.”

Eramar’s expression remained cordial. “There’s a reason that you were sent to find me, and I doubt it was simply to assert your dominance, otherwise, the Emperor would not bother to reduce someone of your standing to an errand boy.”

Lord Gregory’s eyebrow twitched ever so slightly in irritation.

“So why don’t you quit wasting both our times and get on with it, or would you rather try to arrest me on Ministry soil and face both a legal and physical conflict the likes of which you cannot imagine.”

Lord Gregory sneered in contempt. “Is that a threat?”

“It’s a promise,” replied Eramar coldly.

As he spoke, Eramar put just a hint of psionic authority into his voice, giving him a threatening aura. This caused his mechanical orange eye to glow a little brighter, a taste of the power he kept at bay.

The guards flinched ever so slightly, and even Lord Gregory took a step back. It wasn’t telepathy, per se. In a way, it was like a wolf growling, a means by which Eramar showed his fangs.

Being an Elemental Wielder, the highest level of Elemental mastery attainable besides Vessel, Eramar possessed a presence that, if not suppressed, could kill most normal humans within the immediate vicinity. When Eramar put psionic authority into his voice, he basically gave the senator an extremely small taste of his Elemental presence. Any more might have driven the man insane.

In any case, it got the job done as Lord Gregory yielded. “There is a messenger sent by the Emperor personally, one that is not on record. The Emperor asked me to take you to this man, and that his message be brought to the Minister’s attention before his arrival.”

This news displeased Eramar for a number of reasons. “You mean to tell me that the Emperor sent an unidentified messenger with his envoy and deliberately chose to keep it from our intelligence unit.”

Lord Gregory smiled, clearly pleased to be the one in charge again. “The Emperor may do whatever he wishes without the consent of any Elemental. He wanted the messenger’s identity to be kept secret because he doesn’t wish the request to be made known by the public. In an effort to avoid the message being intercepted by hackers, he sent me in person to tell you under the pretext of tax negotiations. Since I am forced to visit this dung heap regularly for such undertakings, no one will bat an eye.”

“What request is so important that the Emperor has his own nobility jumping through hoops to keep it a secret?”

“That is for the messenger to tell you, not me.”

Eramar detected a slight frown on Lord Gregory’s lips, and he realized that the nobleman had been kept out of the loop as well.

Lord Gregory sighed as if he had just done something completely distasteful and below him. “Well, that is all. My work here is done. I need not stay in this filthy place any longer.”