THE MEN IN BLUE - THE CULT (?) OF ANNILLA "In the Lunar Empire to the far north, the religious and political philosophy accepts every being and force as part of the Cosmic Plan, the great Balance, and thus Chaos, the Forces of Darkness, and empty Sorcery is all accepted - within certain limits, of course. Normal Lunar citizens, of all the different degrees of citizenship, are just as sceptical about chaos, trolls and similar monstrosities as the inhabitants of other realms. Most of them are quite confident in the power of their priests and nobles to control the destructive forces of the cosmos for the good of All. Some, however, aren't.
While studying Lunar Law in the City of the 10 000 Magicians, I once
met a rugged individual who claimed to be, or have been, a member of
the Spoken Word, before he "learnt too much" and had to flee or be
killed. He most vehemenlty argued that he still was a fervent believer
in the Lunar faith and loyal to the Empire as an idea. It was, in
fact, while I was having a friendly and pleasant metaphysical quarrel with an
Irrippi Ontor colleague, that this weird man stepped in on my
colleague's side. He referred to himself as 'Vulpes' but I do not
believe it was his true name. He many times hinted that he did know
'great secrets' but added that he couldn't really reveal them. The
last day I saw him, he handed me a grime-covered scroll, mumbled
something about 'they are on to me', and disappeared. I never saw him
again, but heard that he had been killed in a barroom brawl,
officially by a hillman over some religious issue. I do wonder,
however. This is what he wrote, translated from New Pelorian.
"It all began with this gangland killing. It was really done by some hillfolk terrorists, my Overseer told me. They had just succeeded in masking it up as bickering thieves, he said. I asked to know the source - wanted to know if there was something more. 'Divinations' he claimed. That was not odd - who ever heard about a useful divination? My buddy Tarpocrates - back when I had buddies - used to say that gods wanted man to think for himself.
Well, there were five dead - and none of them had his head left. Strange, I thought. Not so, said the Overseer. 'The hillfolk of the southernmost provinces used to be headhunters. Some of them still are.' I questioned that, quite politely. We were a long way from the southernmost provinces - far up north, actually. All fanatic Orlanthi I'd seen there had been second sons of second sons of chieftains, jealous of some uncle. All had went to Imperial schools, all spoke better New Pelorian than Stormspeech. And besides, if they had wanted it to look like a gangland killing, _why leave their trademark_!? I was quickly pulled of that case, and soundly punished. I heard that just a day after, divinations of greater potency revealed the "actual killers". They were all sentenced to crucifixion.
While serving as a prison guard, one day one of the prisoners, a
nobleman who had committed a murder, disappeared. When another guard
brought the man his dinner, there was a big hole in the wall.
We were all quite worried about it, but became even more worried when
another prisoner, an old man who had been there longer than some of
the walls, started to babble about "the biggy spiders, yes, they
carried the gentleman away". The we were told not to worry by this
superior guy sent to check this out.
'He obviously dug himself out' the Bigwig told us.
'With what' we asked, 'his spoon? Through solid rock? In _one_ day?'
'The man who was responsible for the prisoner will be punished for
his laxity in letting the man obtain some means to dig the hole. Some
magical trinket, obviously.'
However, the one responsible for this particular prisoner had been
the master of the jail - he yelled and kicked, and had status enough
to raise quite a rumpus.
Then Bigwig called in 'a specialist'.
He was my first Man in Blue. We were told he was a seer, and that he
would find out exactly what had happened.
The guy wore dark blue robes, dark blue breeches and blue suede
boots. He wore one of those deep hoods which always makes your eyes
being in shadow - like Darkmen wear in daylight -and sure as
Danfive's bracelets the hood was dark blue as well.
First, the man viewed the hole. He said the last thing we had
expected: 'An earthquake.'
'An EARTHQUAKE?' the master of the prison said.
'My magic tells me so, and it never fails. Are you _sure_ there were
no tremors, no shaking whatsoever on the night of the flight?'
The master thought long and hard, and suddenly he said: 'Now that you
say so, there _was_ tremors that night.'
Then the Man in Blue turned to us guards and asked the same
questions. Several of them started to say the same things. They
suddenly remembered shakings, or tremors, or rumbling sounds. I sure
didn't. But the scary thing is, after he had asked the question, I
was no longer sure whether there _hadn't_ been any strange sounds or
movements. I no longer could clearly remember!
I figured it was magic. I had built so many bridges and houses - that
was during my time in the chain gang - that I _knew_ an earthquake
would have had more effects than that strangely smooth hole. I went
directly off to an old contact of mine, a scolarly man who worked as a
money-changer. I told him to use his magic on me to find out if I had
been enspelled in some way.
'Now', he said 'you haven't.'
'In fact - Vulpes, have you not used any of your own magic for _how_
long?'
I was baffled. I had used magic that same day, small, everyday charms
of course. I told him so.
He shook his head and insisted - I was as clean slate a man can be
without lacking a living soul.
Then there was these people down in Tarsh. They were decent, Goddess-fearing converts, but they claimed a man in the provincial government had seduced and _eaten_ their daughter. In short, they said he was an ogre. We were sent there to 'silence those nasty rumours by performing an open and honest investigation'. We were even issued an 'information expert, a great seer'. Guess the colour of his suede boots. We weren't allowed to do diddily squat - we weren't even allowed to go through the suspect's belongings. One after one, after being 'questioned' by the guy in Blue, the witnesses suddenly realised they had been all wrong, or suddenly couldn't remember, and the alleged ogre could have been a Chalanan angel, if those witnesses were to be believed.
Finally, one young local fellow lost his temper, and broke into the suspect's home one night. He turned up at my room afterwards, saying I was the only one of the strangers he could trust. He was quite hysterical. He showed me human bones, gnawed and cracked open for the marrow, and strange, foul amulets he had found in the suspect's bedroom.
I went to the suspect's home the next morning, and it was clean as a
whistle. Even my ace up the sleeve, a local bull-man who could
'smell' chaos, found nothing.
'Never seen an un-unholier place in my life' he snarled.
They arrested that local fellow for killing and eating the girl. To
show the benevolence of the Empire, he was sent to a Teelo Norri
asylum. When I visited him, he had a big smile on his face and his
eyes were empty. He could no longer think, talk or act on his own
volition.
The last straw was when we were fighting the hillmen down by the
borders of Sartar. We were carrying out raids against their outposts,
and one day we were ambushed. I served as a scout for a troop of
elite legionaires.
Now, we had this young converted Sartarite with us, and his only
virtue in this situation was that he knew the local land, but he sure
was no soldier, and had no magic to speak of. He fervently begged our
monitor for some gift of the Goddess to protect him, and the monitor
obliged, confidently using the Chaos Gift of the Goddess.
It sure worked - the guy suddenly grew two feet in height and started
to shimmer darkly. He more or less went berserk. When we had driven
off the ambush, however, he didn't calm down. He tore the arm off
one of the soldiers. Finally the monitor mindblasted him, and I cut
his head off. The monitor was upset, but tried to calm himself.
'Obviously', he said ' all that hate-propaganda about Chaos he was
brought up with unhinged the poor boy's mind'
I agreed, and we all waited for the magic to wear off, as it was
expected to do, and as we had seen it do before.
It didn't. The monitor, who was a tough man, totally lost it. The
soldiers were really scared too. We left the corpse but I kept the
head.
Back at camp there was quite a ruckus. Finally it was told that we
all needed 'counseling'. They brought in a Teelo Norri shrink, fair
enough - I could use a mentality spirit at the moment. But she had
this advisor. This time his dark blue hood was so deep you could hardly see his
- - or her - face. Might have been a Darkman, for all I know.
And guess what? We had all imagined it. The magic had wore off, we
had just, being good, caring Lunar citizens, been so shocked by the
young convert's death that we had guiltily imagined it all.
Then I showed the advisor the head.
He stared at me for a long while, and I felt something boring into my
skull, almost physically. But I had prayed hardlt and fervently to
Danfive the nights before, and asked for magic-stopping-magic. And
when he said: 'This never happened' I answered 'No. And people will
know it.'
First, for a second, his face was furious. Then he started to laugh
at me. A cruel laugh, like a child who has a much smaller kid wholly
in its power. Then he bowed real close, and whispered:
'Do you REALLY think they would listen? You have no real proof, are in
no position to make your case public on any scale that matters, and
even if you had and could - no one would WANT to listen. They want to
think that Chaos is warm and cosy and safe. They want to think the
Goddess is in control, just like good ol' Yelm but now you might be a
little naughty yourself. The bad guys, of course, never can be
naughty. Chaos cannot be controlled! It cannot be harnessed! It can,
at most, be pushed in the right direction.'
Now I saw his eyes. They were blue. Not blue like a pale westerner's
but deep blue, all over, like an Aldryami's eyes are green.
'You are a strong fellow, Vulpes.' he continued. 'It would be a shame
to have to break you. We need men like you.'
I threw the head in his face and ran.
I have been running since. Sometimes I am afraid they will catch me and kill me, or take my mind away. And sometimes I am even more afraid that they won't bother, because they know I cannot harm them."
Next Time: The Rune Templars - the inheritors of the God Learners.
High Chairperson of the IOGTR,
"The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea, in a beautiful pea-green boat..." >From "The Owl and the Pussycat" by Edward Lear
Erik Sieurin
bv9521_at_utb.hb.se
Bodagatan 39, 2 tr
50742 Boras
Sweden
033/141731
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