Lafskolwolk’s Chains

[garentoft 9265]

Lafskolwolk’s Chains

by

Lord Alban

Published 417 E.S.

 

For Adele,
I promised that I would write while you were travelling.
 

The Kingdom had been ravaged by civil war for decades. Those who remembered a life before the war were far and few between, for as the dawn of the year 178 A.L. came upon the Kingdom, did only those who had been born before 113 A.L. remember a time without war. A hundred and thirteen years since the landing of our people on the shores of Zanjylund came a great calamity, a split in the royal family caused the people to split themselves between three factions, those who had sworn themselves, as it were in those days, King Willem II, the legitimised bastard son of Valdemar I; those who swore themselves to his younger, yet legitimate brother, Tomasz; and third of all, those who had came to lose faith in the royal family during the years of hardship, and proclaimed themselves to stand in the name of the Republic, where no man should lead with sole power.

 

Of course, King Willem II had passed long ago, only two years into the years of conflict had he been assassinated by a man only remembered as the White Crow, who none had heard nor seen of since the attack. He was succeeded by his son, King August II, who had lived well into his old age, yet passed some ten years ago. After August came Valdemar II, who reigns to this very day.

 

If you ask the other side, you had King Tomasz I, who wrought his armies together like steel, building a staunch base for his support with old military officers of the Kingdom, who held a great love for him. But even he was not to escape from the finality of death, and he was succeeded by King Diedrik I, who takes his name from the very founder of all our people. Diedrik, despite his old age, still lives.

 

Indeed, for us historians, the trouble is discerning perhaps how to differentiate between the lines without coming off as too inclined towards either side, hence why I take myself the liberty of describing both sides as monarchs of our realm by their own respects, something which likely will change once the war ends, if it ever does, but during this time can become a matter of life and death.

 

So do remember this, that if you run into a soldier clad in gold and red, that the line of our monarchs goes August I, Frederik I, Willem I, Valdemar I, Willem II, August II, and then Valdemar II, who is our current King. And that if you come upon a soldier clad in black and white, that the line of our monarchs goes August I, Frederik I, Willem I, Valdemar I, Tomasz I, Diedrik I. And that if you come upon a soldier dressed only in a simple brown, that we have no King, and that our people shall rule themselves by their own will. 

 

Frederik L. Lafskolwolk

 

He leaned back in the chair with a heavy sigh, before moving to close the book. Forty-three years, he lamented, forty-three years and we’re still at war. Indeed, nothing that was in his grandfather’s writing could ever quite encapsulate the torment that Rickard felt. His grandfather had been an old man at the time of his writings, one who had seen the joys of growing up without the darkened cloud of war looming over his head. The man came to father children late in his life, mainly for the sake of supporting his side in the war, while Frederik L. Lafskolwolk claimed to be non-partisan in his writings, he had been a republican through and through, and only saw fit to have children when he had justly decided on his path back in 178 A.L., where he had written the book much less as a slice of our Kingdom’s history, but rather as a tool to indoctrinate his children in the future. His father, on the contrary, never got to grow up at all, indoctrinated into becoming a republican fighter since the day he was born, he only just married to conceive Rickard before being captured and executed by Willemite forces.

 

Rickard, however, had been lucky enough to escape any sort of indoctrination. His mother had been nothing but a tavern wench, and held only allegiance to the coins that were slipped into her hand. He grew up in the warm confines of this tavern, where it felt as though the war never quite came. Soldiers came and went as if it were nothing, hell, once they got drunk enough, you would witness those from different sides making merriment and singing with one another as though they weren’t going to kill each other as soon as the next day.

 

One day, when he had been in his older teens, practising his sword fighting in the room that belonged to him and his mother, a great fire had begun to spread through the tavern. Even a tavern, it seemed, could fall victim to the brutalities of warfare. Screams from men and women bellowed as people were no doubt murdered all across, while the sizzling of the fire lurked ever closer. He had seen fit there to escape through a window, landing in a soft cradle of hay, before running as far as he could with his sword in hand, until he arrived at the town of Letzengard, having only escaped with his father’s blade and his mother’s diary. Even now, he did not know what the fate of his mother had been when the tavern burnt, and the lack of clarity perhaps offered him some sort of comfort, the hope that his mother were still alive somewhere out there, looking for him still.

 

Someone knocked on the door, followed by the simple query: “You ready?” It were, of course, Viktor, who had come to befriend in Letzengard eight years ago. Were he of his grandfather’s convictions or those indoctrinated into his father, surely he would feel ill at ease by his friendship, if he hadn’t simply murdered Viktor upon the realisation of who he were. Viktor was, which one may consider to be highly problematic considering Rickard’s family history, the son of Willem, which would bear little significance if that Willem were not Willem III, the son of August II, and thus, according to the Willemites, Viktor was the heir to the throne, who would succeeded his father, perhaps in a time of peace.

 

Viktor, nevertheless, was his best friend. Or his only friend, rather. Rickard was not the sociable type, what had happened to his father had made him that way. He feared people, well not people, but he feared the possibility that one may manipulate and indoctrinate you into a certain type of thought without you even realising. Why, then, had he chosen to befriend only he who stood to gain the most from manipulating him for his cause? It was rather simple, when one’s ancestors had been the cause of a war that had lasted over a hundred years, one came to hate oneself, and it was Viktor’s self-hatred that attracted Rickard to him like a moth to a flame.

 

They both yearned only for the same thing, to be free of the chains of their ancestors. Frederik who had chosen to send the Lafskololwolk family, which had previously been a prestigious family of historians, scholars, and scientists, with great status within the Kingdom, down the path of rebellion and Republicanism, which had cursed it with near extinct, as those few who remained besides Rickard fought every day for the Republic they were manipulated into believing in. It fuelled within Rickard the desire to break with this, to stand up for what he believed was right, which would have been no problem if Rickard himself had the faintest connection to any school of thought, beyond the one that prescribed him to fear the very thing he desired. The only cause which he believed in were the cause of not believing in any causes, a paradox.

 

“Yeah.” came Rickard’s response finally. He had honestly forgotten where they were going, ever since he had befriended Viktor he had been thrust into, what was to most people, a life of luxury, where he resided in the Palace within the Capital. It did not fall in his nature to decline offers, despite his lack of desire for any of them. He had never wanted to live in this Palace, but when Viktor had posed the question, he nodded his head with gratitude and accepted. The same had occurred recently, when Viktor had promised to make him the Archchancellor once he inherited. Rickard did not have the slightest passion for government nor for power. He only desired to be unbound by the chains of his grandfather’s sin.

 

Of course, such desires had little to do with whatever public appearance Viktor had gotten him into. The most frequent one were to watch military parades and imagine that he had any sort of idea that he understood how an army functioned beyond the bare basics. He simply applauded and cheered for the passing soldiers, yet worst of it all were that he always had to specifically greet his own regiment, the small force that Viktor had convinced his father to assign to him of all people, the one with the specific task of rooting out the last Republican insurgents in Baumkretz, where his last remaining relatives had been heard of.

 

Days passed after the parade, in which the only thing Rickard could think of was the departure date for the mission at Baumkretz. A week, six days, five days, four days, three days, two days, one day, the day. The regiment had gathered outside the palace, lined up all proper in their uniforms, saluting him as he made his way past all of them. He didn’t speak a single word to them, nor did he greet them in any way. He had no care for these soldiers assigned to him, he had no reason to gain attachment to any of them, what point would it serve if they were to die, anyway? Was that not the destiny of any soldier, to fight and die? Only cowards survived, he thought.

 

With their weapons and armour properly packed onto the back of the carriages and carts, they set off towards Baumkretz. It was an isolated stronghold of the Republicans, completely surrounded by Willemite territory by now, but the old fortifications of the Baumkretz had stood the test of time, and allowed Republicans to continue operations, as siege equipment was currently preoccupied in the east. They had, however, been allowed a few experimental weapons. Cannons, a larger siege weapon using gunpowder capable of firing powerful projectiles over a vast distance. And a smaller, similar piece of machinery, that had yet to be named properly, they also utilised gunpowder to shoot projectiles, but over shorter differences, and were carried by soldiers themselves. As much as Baumkretz was a mission to wipe out the remaining Republicans, it was also a mission to test their new weaponry, perhaps moreso than it was the former.

 

It took a week and a half to get to Baumkretz, which left one with far too much time to think. While the soldiers drank and spoke, celebrating their future victory, Rickard spent his time alone in his carriage, only accompanied by his own thoughts. For him, this mission was not about testing weapons, nor was it about wiping out Republicans. He had to exterminate the remnants of his family, what remained of his grandfather’s manipulation and indoctrination, the lies he had presented to all of his kin. Once this had been done, he considered that he may finally be able to move on and transcend his chains. He could settle down, start a family perhaps, and live a comfortable life. Nobility and titles would surely be afforded to him too, due to his relationship with Viktor. But for now, he could not desire any of these things, they were thoughts for the future, ones that he did not even know yet if he were capable of having earnestly. 

 

The Republicans were alerted to their presence as soon as they arrived, of that he was sure, nevertheless he reckoned that they did not have the gall to take the offensive. Instead, indeed, they allowed them time to set up the cannons from within their tents, aimed to destroy the southern wall of Baumkretzen, which had been evaluated by the military scientists to be the most vulnerable one. It had undergone renovation attempts over a hundred years ago before the war started, which were never finished properly. With this in mind, they nevertheless wished for an element of surprise, and prepared to strike as soon as night fell on the Kingdom.

 

The surprised residents of the old fort were greeted with flashes in the night, with which came the horrific booming crash of the cannons, followed by the sounds of crumbling walls. Indeed, it took not many volleys of cannonfire before the southern wall was naught but rubble, and the soldiers, armed with their hand cannons, began to rush through to decimate their enemy. Rickard was the last one through, and he walked with a freezing calm, no amount of blood, death, nor destruction would affect him much. These were not people he called about, whether it be his own soldiers, the family of his that allegedly hid out here, or any Republican that he came across.

 

And as dawn began to rise, the fort had been taken. Or was it really taken, as much as it were reduced to a shell? It was now only littered with corpses, of which Rickard carefully expected, attempting to make out which, if any, had been his relatives. He discovered three, and thought of it to be the last of his kin, yet this bore him no satisfaction. He had hoped that, upon knowing that they were all dead, and that he were the last, and that none suffered from his grandfather’s schemes anymore, that he would feel liberated and free, a new man. There would be no more chains, he had promised himself, yet he discovered that he still felt chained.

 

Rickard did not spend any time thinking as they travelled to return from Baumkretz to the capital, he had realised as soon as he stood in front of the bodies where it had gone wrong. He always obsessed over chains of evil, once forced upon you by another, a dark shadow that looms behind you, persuading your mind into actions against your will. He realised now, that such was not a chain at all, and that it was not real. These men had not been forced into anything by their grandfather, this was their own conviction. They were not products of any indoctrination or manipulation, they simply fervently believed in their cause.

 

They were honoured upon their return, the heroes of Baumkretz. They received medals, and Rickard himself was granted, ironically, the Barony of Baumkretz. The King had decided that he would one day rebuild a castle there. Rickard, however, had changed his mind. For once, he had found a cause within himself. He had become no Republican, nor one of the Pretenders, yet he had discovered what his chains were, and he, mournfully so, had decided that he must tear them off.

 

Following the ceremony, Viktor tried to greet him with a hug, but was not met with any sort of embrace but that of a cold steel dagger, plunged deep into his chest and heart. Indeed, it were not any chains of indoctrination that had bound Rickard. He had been bound by his love of another, that which he felt for his companion, Viktor. He could not, as long as he loved Viktor, push forward to do what was right for not only himself, but for all. And he could not stop loving Viktor as long as Viktor lived. This was tragedy manifest, for these two had come to love each other through time spent together as each other’s closest companion, and to see it ripped apart at the seams for a supposed greater good brought pain to even the spirits above. But such is it with all things, that that which brings us the most joy, will also bring us the most pain.

 

Rickard never did recover from his actions. He became nothing but the flames of what the idea he embodied. It is yet unclear whether his successes justify what he did to himself and his love, for while he, after seven years, had managed to bring peace to the Kingdom, where the father of the son who he murdered sat solely as King, this granted him nothing. He took his own life mere hours after the peace was signed. One could hope, perhaps, that he would reunite with Viktor, if he could bring himself to forgive him.

[CopOwl 1707]

Adele Emma Ludovar treks back into the Royal city of Karosgrad, and as she passes by the perfect shops and the rowdy tavern and into the City centre, a messenger hurries up to her with book in hand.

She pauses for a moment in question before accepting the book and flipping to the first page, where the words of dedication are written. When her eyes brush over that ink upon the parchment she hurriedly looks up, nods her head in thanks to the messenger before rushing off to sit down and read through Matyas's latest novel!