[NTGC] "Long Live the King"

Apr 29, 2010 23:06

Title: "Long Live the King"
Characters: Erazema
Word Count: ~2100
Summary: I had a conversation with ratzeo about what's going on in Erazema's head, and though he (of course) gave me no concrete answers, we talked about the two most likely possibilities based on the knowledge we've been able to glean. I tried to share this information with lunapome and
starbird, but condensing the conversation down to an abstract summary ended up with me sort of verbally flailing and not being very coherent, so I thought it would be easier to explain it narratively. So consider these two snippets as separate possible versions of canon. (Unless, of course, she's just been mind whammied or blackmailed or otherwise is not in possession of her own mind and will, in which case this whole thing is non-canon.)
Notes: The title is meant to refer to Coldplay's "Viva La Vida", which lunapome suggested as Erazema's image song.

1.

"Your god is dead and you've been tricked."

It would be easier if she could pretend to ignore the words of that damned gnome, but Erazema Nathandem is a general, and tactical success requires using all the information she has at her disposal - even if that information is frightening. And she has never been one to run from what frightens her.

Instead, she chose to seek out her fear, gathering any and all information she can acquire in order to verify the claim and letting her prior research on the Imaskari languish. As Pharaoh, she has access to a great deal of information. Of course, as Pharaoh, her behavior also garners a lot of attention, including that of the Anhurite clergy who have acted as her closest advisors - advisors she no longer knows if she can trust.

And what do they think of her? A Pharaoh is allowed her whims, even sequestering herself in a library; but though she has cut off contact with them that doesn't mean they aren't aware of her actions. If - if Anhur is truly dead, and Garagos his false replacement, and if they have known this all along, surely they are monitoring her research, and are aware of her suspicions. And then - what? Is she more useful to them as a living puppet or a dispatched obstacle?

If all this is true. If ...

No.

In a single smooth motion, no less graceful for the rage behind it, Erazema draws her falchion and slices through a stack of books on the table before her. Faithful Avenger cuts true, pushing through the pages as easily as flesh and embedding itself into the table. Erazema releases the hilt of her weapon and sinks into her chair, clutching her head into her hands.

There is no "if" to hold onto any longer. The last several hours of her research have been merely confirmation of the truth, and if she is to maintain any self-respect she can't indulge in denial. The question is no longer whether Garagos killed her god and usurped his power, but when - and even that question is almost answered. She knows it happened within the last decade. Her successes in battle, the glories she won in Anhur's name, were instead taken by this stranger god.

And yet Anhur was alive not so long ago - before Erazema was trailed by the banner of a commander, to be sure, but not before she first picked up a sword. Not before she was liberated from being a slave of Anhur's church to become a follower of Anhur himself. His was the hand who first guided her as a warrior, his the name who gained power from her prayers before battle. And when, in those intervening years, had Anhur's hand been replaced by Garagos' as the one who lent strength to her sword? Before which battle? When had Anhur's faithful servant, unknowing, poured her devotion into a foreign god?

She didn't even realize, couldn't even tell when the god who was both sword and shield to her was replaced. Her faith was once the single pure force in her life, the one constant among the upheaval of war and her military succession. Indeed, she believed that Anhur himself guided her rise in the ranks, pushing away obstacles so that she could sooner and better serve his dogma. Was that all false? Was her faith delusion? Not a Crusader for Anhur, has Erazema just been a fool believing herself holy, raising her sword to a ghost? She'd sneered at the dwarves of the Black Ash Plain, desperately praying to a skeleton for protection; laughed as her god cut Gorm down. But in the end, is she ...

No. Never.

Erazema Nathandem is not a pathetic dwarf digging for rocks in the ground. She is a warrior, a commander, and, yes, a Crusader. She is Pharaoh of Mulhorand, when no other slave or woman had the strength to break through the barriers before her. She may not have known whose hand it was that guided her to victory, but she won those victories nonetheless. She had the strength, even if Garagos was the one who gave her the tools to use it.

And Anhur ... was not.

Perhaps, then ... Perhaps Anhur's death was meant to be. Erazema embraced his mission as a child, but clearly she didn't need him to accomplish it. She has survived, and succeeded, when Anhur had not.

Yes. Anhur simply fell to the stronger god; his weakness was his downfall; his death was his own failure, not hers.

"Garagos ..." Erazema murmurs the name into the silent library. He has been her god, even if she didn't know it, and he has led her to glory.

And he can lead her to more. For Anhur's mission, though not Anhur himself; for Erazema and all the oppressed she represents; for Mulhorand herself.

Mulhorand is on the verge of true greatness, with Erazema herself at the nation's head. Murghom and Semphar are already a part of her empire, while Unther is a breath away from collapsing into Mulhorand's lap. Even Thay is now within her sights. It would be foolish to throw all that away now - foolish twice over to do so over misplaced sorrow for a god who died before she needed him.

Pharaoh Erazema Nathandem rises to her feet, and begins to plan for war.


2.

The Pharaoh of Mulhorand hasn't left her library for seventeen days.

Her advisors worry, she knows; she has shut herself off from their counsel, accepts communications from them but replying sporadically, takes food occasionally when she remembers to. Yet she isn't sure whether they worry about Erazema herself, or what Erazema may have found out.

"Your god is dead and you've been tricked."

She closes her eyes and grits her teeth against a scream of frustration. The words of that damned gnome have echoed in her head for those seventeen days, and as the time wears on the echoes seem to take on different inflections - cutting with scorn, then dipping with pity, or vibrating with mocking laughter. They have goaded her on in her research as she pores over false and incomplete historical records to try and discover the fate of Anhur. She searches for a murdered god and lying priests. She searches for the extent of her blasphemy and the depth of her failure.

Her hand turns pages of a book reflexively, her eyes moving over the text without seeing it. The information that comes from this one is the same as what came from the last book, the way that blood that comes out of one body looks the same as what came out of the previous one. Death is death. And this book tells her, just as the last one did, that Anhur is dead.

Is this it, then? I have no god, and a church full of clergy who are either ignorant or apostate?

Her eyes burn, but not with tears. She wonders if that's strange; if she's supposed to weep now. What does one do when one's god is dead?

What, she wonders involuntarily, did the dwarves of the Black Ash Plain do to mourn Gorm after he fell? Gorm was their protection; without him, they fled before Erazema's army.

Without Anhur, who holds the enemies back from Erazema?

By reflex, her hand goes to the hilt of Faithful Avenger, her weapon, her tool, the extension of her body that enacts her will. By something other than reflex, she pulls the falchion up out of its sheath and -

- doesn't lower her arm to her side, but holds it there, the blade against her torso. Just a twist of the blade, a turn of her arm, and the place where her neck meets her chin is soft, yielding - Faithful Avenger knows exactly how yielding -

There is a moment, as she stands holding her own weapon to her throat, when she sees herself as if outside her own body, sees a woman who is both killer and corpse. And for all the world, she can't tell if being one or the other makes a difference anymore.

If she has been fighting - fighting and killing and dying - for her god, and her god is dead, her god is nothing - then she has been fighting and killing and dying for nothing, and what's the difference between dying for nothing and just dying?

Am I going mad? she wonders. Is this what one does when one's god is dead? After the weeping and fleeing, is madness all that's left?

Mulhorand has a mad Pharaoh and a dead patron. And the only ones left to lead the nation are ...

The clergy.

Of course. The realization burns through the haze of encroaching hysteria. It was foolish of her to even consider the possibility that they might not know, that they were as innocently ignorant of Garagos usurping Anhur as she was. Erazema is a divine warrior, but certainly not the same as a cleric who can commune with their god. They must know; they must know, and they must have intended to keep their unsuspecting Pharaoh as their puppet, letting her believe herself powerful and effective while she was just a figurehead to lead the country. Even now, when they surely suspect that she has discovered the truth, they are so secure in their power that they are leaving her alive. Do they consider her so impotent, that they bide their time to kill her? Or do they assume that she will go mad, and that she will be all the easier to manipulate? Either way, they win. Garagos wins.

No!

Erazema never admits failure. Not in battle, not in politics, not as a dirty slave child whose body was owned by the church. She springs to her feet, retrieving Faithful Avenger and returning it to its scabbard; reaches for her breastplate and helmet so that she will be fully armored -

For what?

For fighting her way single-handedly through the combined might of Anhur's false clergy and Mulhorand's armies? For seeking vengeance upon Garagos for her murdered god? For raising a revolution against her own regime?

A general without an army, a Pharaoh without a nation - Erazema is nothing but a woman with a sword, and no god to back her against the military and religious might of Mulhorand's traitors.

Her fingers uncurl from their grip on her armor. There is no fight she can win against them, physical or political. She wasn't mad, earlier, to see herself as both a killer and a corpse; she was right. She has more battles to fight as Pharaoh, more soldiers to kill; but in the end, she is as good as dead, and Garagos and his priests have only to choose when she will die.

She closes her eyes, letting the knowledge of her death settle in her mind like a bitter draught accepted down the throat, and it is easier than she expected. A soldier always dies; she knows this.

But there is always something that outlasts the soldier. Erazema's government will not survive, and neither will the religion she championed. But she has been fighting for more than herself alone, more than her individual faith in Anhur and her ascension to the throne. She has raised her sword for Mulhorand herself - Mulhorand, which Anhur exhorted his followers to protect like their mother - and the nation will remain even after Erazema joins her god.

She seizes upon the idea, too weak to be called a hope. If she can't hope for victory, she can at least fight in her despair. She has always been strong for her nation, even when she didn't know who was truly guiding her sword. She is the one who has inspired revolutionary change in Mulhorand; she is the one who is building it into a true empire; she is the one who will alter its very standing in the world. She can make Mulhorand powerful such as no other single nation has ever been, and even if the Anhurite clergy twist that power for their own use, it will remain hers.

She can do this as a Crusader - even dying - of a god of war - even dead.

Pharaoh Erazema Nathandem sinks into her chair, and begins to plan for war.


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