Jackal Among Snakes

After the conversation with Griffin, which had given him so much to think about it felt as though his mind might never rest again, the pointless words exchanged with the Herald had brought him back down to the ground. He hypothesized they had deliberately sent someone who made no attempts to hide his disdain. They weren’t fools—they had seen Argrave’s behavior, seen what decisions he’d made, and come to the conclusion that he couldn’t be bargained with. By sending some undiplomatic, arrogant pencil-pusher with no real authority, they had called out his attempt to deceive them. To what end, he wasn’t entirely sure.

Only, Argrave was almost certain they had no idea their ‘valuable asset,’ Gerechtigkeit, had talked to Argrave about a way to circumvent their ability to find the weaknesses in mortalkind. The primary catalyst to the cycle of judgment was promising not to accept the help of the Heralds, provided Argrave in turn took direct control of the human race. Argrave wasn’t Anneliese, but he thought Griffin had seemed earnest in swearing to a fair battle if he did so.

The question that Argrave had to ask himself was if he should follow through with what he’d swore to. Words exchanged with mass murderers meant very little to him. He believed in honor only among honorable people—and someone who’d killed Vasquer and enslaved the Gilderwatchers wasn’t honorable. Argrave had said what he felt he needed to, in that moment. Perhaps Griffin had been doing the same.

Generally speaking, it was a bad idea to follow the advice of someone trying to kill everything alive.

On the other hand, there were several clever adages about how those sharing enemies made excellent friends. Argrave could find no logical holes in the plan Griffin had suggested. The Heralds exploited envy and greed to find those willing to betray and undermine any resistance against them. They lent power comparable to that of a god. Argrave wasn’t sure that blocking mental interference alone could keep the Heralds from turning his people against him—they seemed beyond the powers of the world, somehow. Only by exerting his own will to control the wills of others could he be certain that he would suffer no betrayal.

Lorena had changed the body of the silver knight into an anchor that either of the suns’ power could latch on to. Whatever deal, if any, Argrave struck with them would be enacted, using the inert power within the corpse as one of two focal points—himself being the other point. Whether that was having the suns protect all souls from outside interference, or influencing them toward his viewpoint… the deal he struck would be carried out.

Argrave found it rather frightening how tempting it was to exert his will upon everyone.

So much of his time in Berendar had been spent fighting against things like ambition and greed. They’d fought tooth and nail to bring peace to Vasquer, and long after to defang the nobles who wanted to keep an iron grip on the people they deemed peasants. They’d fought the Ebon Cult, whose Castellan sought to usurp Gerechtigkeit in some fashion. They’d fought Emperor Ji Meng, who’d come seeking to plunder and conquer Berendar—and that had come with its own assortment of local interests, like Governor Zen. All mortal opponents, and all driven by selfishness.

Life would be so much easier if everyone simply obeyed.

It was easy to say that when Argrave would be the one receiving their obedience. If the foot were on his neck, rather than the other way around… he’d hate it. At the same time, he absolutely didn’t trust people not to listen to the words of the Heralds. Some bastard, given the opportunity, definitely would eke out their own little paradise at his expense. Without enslaving everyone, there would never be an end to immorality—yet enslaving everyone might be the largest act of moral turpitude to ever occur.

Argrave certainly had no intent to abuse people. Did that alone make it right? There was the corny saying that absolute power corrupts absolutely. He’d always thought it to be a vast oversimplification, but perhaps there was some truth to it. Could he honestly say that he wouldn’t impose his own subjective morality onto the majority? The world would be a peaceful place, true… but it would be a planet of mirrors, all looking to each other to receive the same opinion repeated indefinitely.

Griffin had said it clearly—he’d earned this right with might and main. Argrave didn’t think that alone was sufficient. Anneliese, Elenore, Orion, Galamon, Durran, Melanie, Raven, Nikoletta, Elias, Mina, and the countless others he’d met on his journey that he’d come to call friend… to do this would be to erase them. Even if the people that’d been given the ring crafted by Artur were exempt from his control, the whole rest of the world would be twisted into some grotesque perversion of a perfect society.

That world would deserve to be destroyed by Gerechtigkeit, wiped away into nothing.

The moment that Argrave accepted that this was something he couldn’t do, he felt a profound sense of loss—that mortal instinct to own, to control, to possess, to deprive another of something to enjoy alone. It was that very sensation that reminded him of precisely what the Heralds would exploit in his brothers and sisters.

Both options were insufficient, flawed. Protecting people did not protect them from themselves, and protecting them from everything did not protect them from Argrave himself, a flawed child of the world.

But this isn’t a multiple-choice test, Argrave chided himself. There’s always another way.

Argrave opened his eyes, only to feel the need to shield them again when blinding light pierced them like needles. He stood suspended in between two masses of fire. It took him no time at all to realize what he had been caught between: the two suns, the stars around which their planet rotated. One star was orange—bright and all-consuming. The other was white, and smaller.

And just as he saw them, he began to tremble as he realized they were watching him, too. He couldn’t feel any heat radiating out from them, but he did feel probing tendrils of what constituted their souls reaching out and probing at his being. Their consciousness was like nothing that he’d ever imagined. It lacked thought, lacked emotions, yet despite these facts it was undeniably alive.

Argrave reached out in this soulscape, his arms grasping at the tendrils of being the stars sent forth. When, finally, the two forces met… he was drawn away to converse with the stars themselves.

#####

Back on the surface, the vast majority of the powerful people in Argrave’s service stared up at the suns, looking like dopes waiting for an eclipse as they shielded their eyes. They all stood around two altars. One of them held Argrave, his chest rising and falling steadily as he breathed in what appeared to be nothing more than sleep. The other held the silver knight that Orion had slain, its severed head haphazardly reattached and its sword and shield laid across its torso as though it was being buried in honor.

Elenore looked back, fidgeting. “Raven, is he—”

“How many times need I confirm I still feel his presence?” Raven interrupted her. “I saw him ascend to the suns. I saw him break free of Gerechtigkeit’s attempts to fight him. The moment he is done, he will return.”

Everyone else went silent, casting glances at the suns above. Anneliese clenched Argrave’s hand tightly as he rested, though she seemed markedly less concerned than everyone else.

With a tremendously fearful gasp, Argrave jolted up, sucking in air. He’d done so loud enough that many near him jumped, and in the moments that followed, he fell off the altar, inhaling like he was dying. Many shouted his name in unison, crowding around him. After a time, his breathing steadied, and people quieted to hear what he might say.

“Has it happened yet?” Argrave looked up at the suns, flinching at the light. “No. No, that’s alright. Light takes some time to travel from there to here. In a few minutes, you’ll all see.” He rested his head against the altar he’d been laid across, exhaling and inhaling rapidly. “Good lord. I’m such a good person. I’m such a good person. It’s not even funny how saintly I am. Jesus Christ is a cheap knock-off compared to me. No one will ever be as moral and righteous as I was moments ago. I don’t know how I did it. How the hell am I so kind, so benevolent, so magnanimous, so humble?” He rose to his feet, brushing off all the people imminently concerned with his well-being as he began to jump around, shaking his body as if to dispel a plague of bugs crawling all over him.

“What did you do?” Raven insisted, taking hold of Argrave. “What… what’s changed about you?” He asked, studying him intently. “I can see something, and yet…”

“Hoo…” Argrave exhaled again, trying to come to a standstill. “I had a rather difficult conundrum on my hands. You guys weren’t here, so I consulted the two people that were. As it turns out, our suns had quite a bit to say. They gave me some very good advice, and then asked me to solve a problem they were having. I helped them out, gave a prudent suggestion, and… well, suffice to say, I’m the single best human being, morally, you will ever lay eyes upon. I will never let any of you forget how amazing I am.”

Lorena, who was the only person still staring at the suns, widened her eyes in total surprise. Her head involuntarily shifted toward her draconic nature for a moment, then muttered what must’ve been a dragon’s curse of some kind. Her whole body began to shift, and then she darted up in the sky to disappear, leaving only a comet trail behind. Everyone else turned to look and see what had frightened her so.

Up above… the two suns had begun to collide into each other.

“Let’s enjoy the show,” Argrave held his arms up in a Y.