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The night’s council was already foreboding winds of change. Ma-we had always represented the ruling power of the Council, she standing as King over her children. It had been comprised of twelve members, four standing: Gabrielle, PalaHar, Tizrela, and Ardon, the remaining eight being selected for each given council gathering. In time, after Legion had captured Memphis, a twelve-member Regent Commission or Council was added to the King’s Council with Gabrielle acting as head – she being given title of Pontifex Maximus, chief bridge-builder. At that time, Mihai was granted standing membership on Ma-we’s council. Later, near the beginning of the Third Age of Men, around the time when PaulNomikos revealed new secrets regarding the Athenians’ unknown god to Dionysius at the Areopagus, Mihai was lifted up to replace Gabrielle as head of the Regent Council, she being given the title of field marshal. Tonight that was all changing.
Tonight Mihai stood as king - or a king. Few believed she represented the King, Lowenah/Yehowah, Ma-we to Mihai. Lowenah was present as she had always been except…except this night she wore only her golden ankle-length tresses as her royal garb, something very different from past councils. And she created a forced absence while the children gathered, something so uncustomary for her. She had also maintained a low profile, allowing court officers to stand in for her and make arrangements with the appointed councilors.
Then there was the new field marshal, a stranger to most, not from this realm, and not of their kind. This was most disconcerting to many, angering to a few. And knowing her escort tonight was even more troubling for them, seeing that the one chosen to be escort at an official gathering usually reflected the escorted person’s opinions. It was bad enough to have that troubling child prance Mihai around the room, surely some of Mother’s mischief. But to have her, Mihai, the king apparent, request Zadar escort the new field marshal? Oh, that did not bode well at all…not at all.
There was something queer about that young fellow, Zadar, a most likable fellow for sure, and quite a romanticist with the women, but he had a dark side about him, stories whispered concerning his conduct on the battlefields much like his sister, they had been told. He and that sister of his…he was far too close to her… she having too much of a hold over his mind, some said. It was told once that that girl, Darla, was overheard telling the boy, ‘It’s better negotiating with a corpse, easier to come to an agreement it is.’ And he just stood there, laughing. And that kind of an opinion did not set well with the majority of the Council and their supporters.
So here they were this eve, hundreds of the Empire’s wisest and most ardent overseers gathered for a very important, official meeting. The question now was, ‘Who would sit the Council?’ At least Mother had taken her station at the head table, and it appeared that Mihai was making her way to the head of the Regent Council, and that girl still remained sitting high up in the bleachers, bringing a sigh of relief to a few. The court officers were hurriedly seeking out the members who were to sit the councils this night. All waited with bated breath, knowing well that the composition of the clouds often foretells the future weather.
Mihai created no surprises by her choices at first. True, SymeonKephim and PaulNomikos were outsiders, men from the Realms Below, but they had taken well to their new home, likable and respectable fellows, knowing their place in the social order of things, not making a fuss. They had both worked diligently to adapt to the ways of these people, accepting the long-established customs found here.
Then there were the councilors of renown, long-standing members of Mihai’s council who were: AnamParedreuo, at times addressed as ‘Governess Anna’, but better known just as ‘Anna’ or ‘Lady Anna’; EuroaquiloIllyricum, the ‘StormWind’, warrior and protector of Mihai in deeds and wisdom, who sat down beside Paul; PlanetesAntistrate, commonly called ‘Planetee’, a fearsome warrior, drunk or sober; and TereoAprupneo, referred to as ‘Terey’, best fighter pilot in the Empire, second to none in the TKR – 17, better known as the ‘flying corkscrew’, but whose exploits had cost the woman her health long ago, forcing her at times to a sickbed with unstoppable nose bleeds and chronic bowel disorders.
Also seated at Mihai’s table were some of her long-time councilors well known to children of the Empire: OfhieSanternano - chief construction officer for all civil engineering jobs on EdenEsonbar; CrilenianTorpedee – diplomat and Keeper of the Scrolls of Peace; KyseninaGerzion – Watcher Over the House and secretary for Mihai’s council; DarlaRosa – an Ancient whose prescience of insight and foreknowledge offered the council visions into hidden secrets of cosmic wisdom; and DornanceZaboren, troubadour and herald of kingly matters, Maiden to the Crystal Gems and Maker of the Singing Stones.
The one person who troubled many in the crowd was the last seated at Mihai’s table - TolmetesRhedEpi – ‘the Mad Charioteer of the Sudan’. At least that was the reputation this Off-worlder had brought with her upon arrival into this realm. Tolmetes was battle-hardened by continuous frontier guerilla wars in this realm, in which she had enlisted for over twenty years. The woman’s glistening brown skin rippled with muscular firmness while her coal-black eyes burned with wild excitement for adventure. It was said that her mother was an Ethiopian princess and her father descended from the kings of the Heruls.
Tolmetes had already lived up to her name for being mad and wild, at least in a fight. Flying an old T-4 fighter-bomber she, in lone combat, had destroyed four Stasis Pirate fighters over Exothepobole in a skirmish a little over a year before. It had been rumored that the woman had told acquaintances that ‘war was a gift from God and not to be wasted with good deeds and diplomacy’. For Mihai to place this person at her council table on such an important evening did not bode well for those who hoped for peaceful outcomes to future events.
Ma-we’s - Lowenah’s - choices for her council troubled many as well, even some of her older council members. The first four, though, did not threaten the old ways. As expected, Mother had Lord PalaHar and Lady Tizrela seated to her right and left. From days of long ago those two had been called the Cherub Stones (lit: 'music of the gods'). Next to be seated were Lord Ardon and Lady Tashi, also expected to be on the council. These four were advocates for more peaceful solutions to the Rebellion, all being involved in procuring the armistice that ended the Great War. They hoped that, if given enough rope and time, Asotos’ League of Brothers would disintegrate under the weight of its own internal strife, leaving the Children’s Empire to merely go in and clean up the twisted remains.
But then, to the chagrin of many, the people watched Zadar hurry forward, pulling on the hand of an embarrassed field marshal, Trisha, as she nearly stumbled her way to Ma-we’s council table, being seated along side Tizrela who turned and smiled warmly at the woman. Trisha was unknown to most, but not all. A select few were privy to the woman’s arrival some years before and her education in the arts of combat. She had taken quite quickly to guerilla wars being fought on the frontiers of the Empire, making somewhat of a name for herself, and advancing quickly up the ranks. Some called her cruel, others ruthless when it came to the fight. If she ever had remorse, it was never revealed, her eyes hiding any and all secrets of emotion.
NoazOhfehr, BruunTaciak, and DinChizki were veterans of the long wars of the Rebellion, heroes of the Great War and advocates for total war. DinChizki was credited with saving the army at Memphis by ordering a daring, suicidal counterattack against Legion’s shock troopers in the Battle of the Tower Gate, thus opening a way of escape for thousands of trapped soldiers through the breech of the North Passage Wall. These men were not diplomats, but soldiers, viewed as mercenaries of violence and destruction. Many faces frowned in displeasure at seeing them take positions at Ma-we’s table.
Richard Finhardt and Tabitha Copeland were two strangers from the Lower Realms and unknown to all but a few. What was known of Finhardt was that he had been raised in a military society and nurtured in the ways of war. From infancy, h
is father had trained him to be a soldier. By seventeen he had received the status of fighter pilot, flying wood and canvas warships of his day, and by eighteen he had acquired the title of ‘ace’, sending seventeen enemy ‘flying coffins’ to the depths below by war’s end. He cast another eight from the skies several years later during another civil war.
Tabitha Copeland was a surprise, well-liked but not trusted by the diplomats in the council. The woman’s green eyes cast rays of merriment and mirth when she entertained her new friends and acquaintances. She listened intently to the tales as Ancients told of the world of yesterday, often writing down her conversations at evening’s end. An historian, anthropologist, mathematician, and librarian, a ‘bookworm’ – as she called herself – and… and a brilliant tactician and strategist, it was said of her that she had once calculated the mass of the Orginian Nebula by triangulating different locations from telescopic references on EdenEsonbar and superimposing the factors of the speed of light over time against the gravity effect, doing the math in her head. But why Copeland at this council? Her presence made no sense to them.
And then there was HoiOnarasis, ‘Mountain Wolf of the Jahouk’, a name given him by his soldiers after the First Battle of Memphis, a well-deserved one. Sweeping south, out of the Pass of Korteniaz, his two brigades slammed into the northern flank of one of Legion’s chief officers, General StokJakke’s First Corps, breaking up its advance against Mihai’s ravaged Seventh and Twelfth Corps, sending it into a rout which was not halted until it reached Memphis far to the south. Light cavalry commander, fighter and heavy bomber pilot, tank commander, tug, tender, and frigate captain, army, marines, navy command - what was there in his long military history that HoiO hadn’t been or done? He was a most qualified and able soldier, but he was no statesman. His statesmanship came at the point of a sword.
But most troubling of all was a hooded, blonde fellow who made his own way to the council table. Mother grinned, motioning him a place beside Ardon who politely bowed his head in salutation, he showing no expression to give away his feelings about the man. The mysterious Mr. Garlock, or ‘Jebbson’ to his friends - of whom there were few - sat, pulling back his cloak to reveal a handsome, bearded man with long hair that fell to his shoulders. What powers or wisdom did this Garlock possess that proffered his presence at the King’s table and one so close to the head as to be seated next to a chief councilor? An Off-worlder for sure and said to be curt, blunt, bold, and aloof as to the Empire’s strategies at making war – and a close friend of Tolmetes and Darla - too close, some complained.
Garlock lived, squirreled away in a laboratory at Oros, coming to Palace City on occasion, and then only to disrupt meetings at the War Department with some brainy new invention or idea he had come up with, or so it was told. And he managed to get Mihai’s and Mother’s ear way too often. Some complained of him as being uncouth in using his boyish charms to seduce the women of the land into doing his bidding. Others believed the gaze from his piercing blue eyes sufficiently powerful enough to mesmerize the innocent of heart, giving him passage into the victim’s soul in order to bend her reasoning to his will. The women close to him would only smile at such accusations while their eyes drifted dreamily upward.
Yes, the night did not bode well for those hoping for peaceful solutions to troubling problems. Still, there was Ardon, chief councilor and close confidant of Lowenah. If anyone could pull a peaceful solution out of the fire, it would be him. He was unflinching in respecting the value of diplomacy, believing it had saved the Empire down to this day and would eventually lead to the end of the Rebellion and a return to a peaceful universe. Yes, Ardon was the key. He must succeed. The future of the Empire rested on his shoulders. Diplomacy was the answer to real peace and a returning to the way it used to be. Oh, for the way it was then! Ardon could make that happen…