Enlightened Empire

Neither grandfather nor grandson had spoken a word, even after the door to the grand court had closed with a bang. Corco turned to walk towards the throne, still in no hurry to speak. In the end, it was on Caelestis to break the silence. Eager to explain himself, he walked towards Corco, his arms spread wide.

"Laqhis, is this about the gossip in the city? You wouldn’t believe those ridiculous rumors from the commoners, would you? Personally, I am appalled by their audacity! Believe me, there is no way Pacha would-"

"Stop."

The grandson hadn’t spoken before, but his firm, indifferent tone muted the grandfather’s attempt at an excuse. Corco had stopped three steps short of the throne. He was not his second brother, so he took a seat on the stair which led up onto the dais before he continued.

"The spy you saw three nights ago was one of mine."

"..."

With the old man’s voice taken by the revelation, Corco gestured at the carpet towards his front.

"Have a seat."

Apprehensive, Caelestis moved up and sat down in front of the dais to face his grandson, Corco in between himself and the throne. The one stair of height difference was already enough to force the elder to look up to his descendant. He waited for Corco to speak up, but the prince had begun ignoring his elder again. Instead, he looked down onto the fingerprints he had collected earlier, lost in thought. The elder could feel sweat form on his upper lip. Finally he broke the oppressive silence with a shaky voice.

"Laqhis, you wouldn’t believe the words of some simple warrior, would you? Please don’t do anything rash that would hurt the family later. I know your values mirror mine. We all want the same: For House Pluritac to prosper. Is that not the truth? So please, do not ruin our reputation any further and make sure those rumors stop. If you have any problem with Pacha we can solve them between ourselves, without the involvement of outsiders."

At last Corco stopped playing with the paper in his hand and looked up. His eyes were dull and his voice was flat, bereft of any emotion.

"You think this is about Pachacutec? I don’t care about my new uncle, or about your own... infidelities. There’s much bigger issues for me to worry about."

He held the prints out towards his grandfather.

"You know what this is?"

"...it is the paper with Amautu’s fingerprints, is it not?"

"That’s right. It has yours too, by the way. This whole fingerprint thing didn’t just fall out of the sky, you know? I learned this method long ago, long before I returned to Medala."

The ancestor’s eyes opened wide in realization, but Corco ignored his elder’s struggles and continued on.

"Before the Pachayawna took the body back, I’ve taken samples off of dad’s... father’s corpse. In fact, I have the samples with me."

To prove his words, Corco pulled out another piece of paper from his deep pocket sleeves.

"When I found father in the wax, I took fingerprints from the entire surface. This is a copy of the original. Anyone who touched the wax would have seen his state. They knew what happened to the emperor and didn’t say a thing... and now I have your fingerprints to compare."

"Laqhis..."

"Honestly, I’m surprised Chaupic didn’t tell you about the fingerprint issue. He was there when I took them, after all. It seems even his word is worth more than yours."

"Laqhis, you don’t understand! Please listen to me!"

In a panic, the old man tried to defend himself. He scooched back and forth in his uncomfortable, cross-legged seat. Corco remained dead quiet. This time he made no attempt to interrupt the elder’s plea for forgiveness.

"Titu worked all his life to unite the empire, to return it to peace and prosperity. He was a good emperor as well, achieving all he set out to do. Yet as he neared his end, he saw an entire life’s work fall apart before his eyes. When Titu died... the empire was in chaos. The foreigners stretched out their claws to take what was ours, both from the east and from the west. The Ichilias were making trouble for us, again. Then there was that prophecy from the priests, which only made matters even worse. A good part of the houses are still focused on their prayers alone. They have yet to come to the capital for the assemblies. Instead, they merely sit at home and wait for the end."

The old man rubbed his eyes with a heavy sigh, weary from the burden placed on his shoulders.

"Not to mention, he had always hated his choice to send you off all those years ago. He had always wanted to meet his son again, to apologize. I just... couldn’t let him go like that. So I preserved the body after death, to delay his journey. So he would stay with us for longer. So I could... fix things. Show him that he did well. Show him that his life mattered."

A flustered Caelestis ran his fingers through his hair and grabbed onto his scalp.

"He was my son! The least I could do was let him start his journey in good spirit! Once the new emperor was crowned and the empire was at peace, I would have broken the wax casing myself! But I could not tell you. I could not tell a soul. How could you understand my pain? In your position, I would have failed to understand as well... but it was my duty as a father. To me, there was no other way."

As the body of Caelestis crumpled into a heap, Corco straightened his spine. His eyes still dull, he looked back down onto his own clothing and retrieved something else from his sleeve: A green glass vial filled with a viscous liquid. The prince opened the vial to pour its contents onto the carpet to his front. Caelestis followed his grandson’s hands with his eyes, as his body rocked back and forth, in a futile attempt to seek comfort in front of the throne. Finally, the silvery liquid had escaped its confines and formed a drop on the floor between the two men.

"Quicksilver?"

"That’s right. It’s the blood of the earth. The holy metal. Quicksilver... or mercury. Depends on who you ask, really. We use this stuff all the time. Though when I say ’we’, it’s mostly the Medala priests. Most priests don’t get very old, especially the seers at the sites of pilgrimage. You wanna know why that is? It’s because mercury is toxic. Getting just small amounts in your bloodstream is gonna kill you.

"But mercury is heavy, and in pure form won’t easily absorb through the skin. If you only ingest a tiny amount, you can actually survive it. Still, you’re not gonna end up unscathed. Do you wanna know the symptoms for quicksilver poisoning? I bet you already have an idea. I couldn’t check my father’s physical symptoms, not with the state I found him in, but one of the more frightening symptoms is a loss in mental capability. Memory loss, confusion, insomnia... all things my father suffered from, according to everyone I asked. Surprising, right?"

"..."

Without a word, Caelestis swallowed hard and nodded his head. Not once did his eyes leave the deadly drop.

"Okay, now here’s the big question: Quicksilver is an exclusive resource. Only the priests are allowed to own it. Sometimes, in special cases, a member of the imperial family might be able to scrounge up a bit. However, I wasn’t even an official prince up until a few minutes ago. So where did I get the quicksilver from?"

Rather than let his elder interrupt his speech, Corco answered his own question, with a voice as heavy as the drop in his front.

"I found it inside of my father’s body."

"Wha..."

When the elder looked back up to his grandson, his eyes were wide in shock and a drop of sweat had begun to collect on the tip of the old man’s nose. He seemed incapable of a coherent answer, but from his flustered appearance, Corco could guess very well just how trapped he must have felt. He showed no sympathy.

"You didn’t expect that I guess. I know how to get the quicksilver back out of the body, even long after his death. I can show this in front of a crowd too. Let’s say in front of the ancestors, or in front of the lords. It’s easy for me to prove how my father died. He was murdered. Slowly poisoned to death with quicksilver.

"Now comes the next big question: Who could do something like that? Someone with the status necessary to get his hands on the quicksilver. Someone who, shortly before his death, suddenly spent every meal with the emperor, which would make it easy for them to slip the poison into his food or drink. Someone who had something to gain from the emperor’s death. Or maybe, they had something to hide."

With a soft clink, Corco placed the empty vial onto the stone step of the dais. Emotion returned to his eyes, but they felt even colder than before. He looked back up to his grandfather, to the man who had killed his own son. He hadn’t even mentioned his spies or what they had seen in the ghost yard, but he didn’t need to. Even with just this, he had more than enough evidence to prove the elder’s guilt.

Corco watched the man’s face transform as he went through the emotions. From a wide-eyed panic back to hunched contemplation, as he tried to look for more excuses, for another way out. His search would prove futile. Finally, his tensed shoulders slumped down and his entire body lost its force. Once again, like on that night of the banquet, the elder looked his age. However, this time he didn’t just look tired. Tears had formed in his eyes as he spoke with a disappearing voice.

"You think this low of me? That I wanted to kill my own son?"

He hung his head and began to mumble to himself.

"I... didn’t want for this to happen. For any of it. One day a priest approached me and he gave me this medicine. He called it black quicksilver. He said it would make things a bit harder for Titu, that once he took it, he might need assistance for a while. I didn’t think it would be this... dangerous. How could I have known?"

The old man looked back up, into the sharp eyes of his grandson.

"I understand. You want to ask: Why would I want that, make things hard? But what else could I have done?"

Caelestis showed a bitter smile.

"Do you know what the people call the twenty-seventh generation of House Pluritac? The lost line. The great Emperor Viribus lost all his sons after all. All six died as heroes during the great storm, as they fought to fend off our invaders. Age ninety-two, the great emperor had to take another wife, just to sire an heir and preserve the line. That was me. The six genius sons of the great defender give their lives, but the useless number seven took the throne. None of my achievements are remembered, did you know that? They still remember my brothers more than me. Those brothers who have been dead for a century, those brothers who have songs and tales written in their names... yet before I could prove my worth father forced me to hand the throne to Titu! Why!?"

The elder’s voice had crescendoed up to a shout as he had talked himself into a rage. His hands squirmed around in confusion before he pointed towards the door, to denounce those who had slighted him.

"Because Titu was the better emperor. Everyone said so. Even my own advisors betrayed me... but I am not useless. I am the former Emperor of Medala, damn you all! Titu was my son! He should have honored me! Relied on me! Instead he did whatever he wanted! He wouldn’t even visit his own father! All I wanted was for Titu to need me for once! I am not useless! I am not lost! I am Emperor Caelestis Viribus Pluritac and I deserve respect!"

The former emperor tried to look imposing, but was betrayed by his inherent nature. He flailed his arms without coordination and almost lost balance from his unstable seat, sweat dripping from his flushed face. On the shout of his name his voice cracked, the elder almost brought to tears by his own story.

Meanwhile, Corco hadn’t moved an inch. He stared down on what he had thought to be his kind, generous, honorable elder. Now he saw the man for what he really was: Vain, childish... and weak. Caelestis was everything a ruler could not be. After some seconds, the old man had still not received the consolation and support he craved from his grandson. This time, he couldn’t move Corco anymore. Thus, he accepted his fate and tried to save what he could.

"...I won’t sit here and beg my own grandson for forgiveness, so do what you must. If our family really means nothing to you, go ahead and denounce me. Tell the world what I did."

Corco looked at the old man, lost in thought. He had never intended to just expose Caelestis. He could have done that any time he wanted. No, his goal had been to use Caelestis and ruin Prince Pacha. However, Corco still needed one piece to the puzzle, to trap the old man and take away all hope. Only then would the elder give in to his demands. However, despite his best attempts, he never found that final piece. Thus, he did the only thing he could. He betrayed his morals, betrayed his feelings, betrayed his family; and he lied.

"You know, when I talked about fingerprints before, I didn’t tell the full truth. It’s true that fingerprints are different for everyone, but the prints between father and son tend to be remarkably similar. It’s a sign of their bloodline."

Again, the old man’s eyes opened in shock. Corco wondered if it was realization or disbelief he read in the old man’s face.

"Laqhis, don’t do this. We’re still-"

"We’re nothing. From today on, we won’t be allies and we won’t be family. We’ll be nothing but strangers. I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to meet with you. When I visit my father you will know in advance. On that day, I want you to stay away as far as you can."

Corco took one last look at the old man before he stood up. He burned that face of defeat into his memory, as a warning to himself. He would never become a man like Caelestis. He wouldn’t let himself be governed by his weakness and betray all the values he stood for. He would do what he had to and become the perfect ruler, even if he had to sell his soul in the process.

"Here’s what’s gonna happen next. You will go back down there and invent a story about Pachacutec’s unclear heritage. How the emperor himself told you that he suspected Spuria’s infidelity. With that amount of suspicion he will never be considered for emperor, while the lack of hard evidence will be the final doubt to preserve the honor of our house. Do as I say or everyone will know the true identity of Pachacutec Caelestis Pluritac."

"Laqhis, you still don’t understand. No matter what you do, you won’t be emperor. Father would never allow-"

"Whatever I do is none of your concern. Just do what I demand. If you don’t, I will reveal everything. It will be your end, your son’s end, your lover’s end. Preserve what little dignity you have and do the right thing. For once in your life, you can be a man. Just like my father."

His work fulfilled, Corco walked out of the room. Even though his grandfather’s last words seemed strange, he didn’t take a single look back. No matter who got in his way, no matter what other tricks they would try, he would smash them all apart and claim the throne, family be damned.