Enlightened Empire

Chapter 361: Switching Sides

For the first time in years, advisor Iyo saw hope. As he descended the stairs towards the archives of Rapra Castle, he gathered the courage for the big decision he was about to make. When he saw that only one unarmed official was keeping watch outside the archives, he let out a sigh of relief. As soon as Iyo appeared, the watchman stood up from behind his desk, to show his respect for the higher-ranking official.

“Official Iyo, hello,” the watchman said. “What brings you here? You know the archive can’t be accessed without permission.”

“Good day, official,” Iyo replied. As he spoke, he tried to keep his expression as steady as possible. “I have not come to visit the archives today. Instead, I have come to inform you that King Corcopaca requires your assistance.”

“Is that true?” the commoner asked in a suspicious tone.

This was one of the many young commoners who had become officials under King Corcopaca over the past five years. Most of them were locals from within the city, so they still held some amount of respect for the old high official Iyo. Cheating him wouldn’t be too hard.

“There is not a hair of deceit in this official’s words. Here are your orders.” Iyo held out the paper with the king’s seal that he had faked earlier. “Since this official is unaware of the king’s exact needs at this time, there is no telling whether these orders are urgent or not. Thus, please make your way to the king’s retreat post-hate.”

For a while, the servant read the orders in silence, but he couldn’t find anything wrong with them. Iyo himself had made sure they were up to standard.

“But… I can’t abandon my post without a replacement. What if someone comes here and wants to enter the archive?” the commoner asked in the end.

Of course, Iyo knew of the castle’s regulations and had planned for this response. Still, he pretended to think for a while, before he replied, “in that case, this official will lower himself and take up the post for a while. Now hurry, there is no time to lose. And this official’s time is valuable as well. Do not waste it.”

After a heavy nod that showed that the servant understood his new orders, he left his desk in front of Saniya’s archives and disappeared up the stairs. Now, Iyo was all alone.

There truly is no time to lose, he thought as he ignored the official’s desk and rushed past it, straight into the archives. He didn’t have much time before his lies would be exposed, so he had to try his best to find the targets of his operation quickly.

As he searched through the long rows of shelves within the archives, Iyo reflected on the past few years. Although his current actions were dangerous, he realized that this may be his last chance if he wanted to achieve something in this life.

In his original vision, this place, Rapra Castle, was supposed to be his stage, the setting for his great rise to fame, power and wealth. However, reality had hit him hard, again and again.

Back when Lord Sawo was still in charge of the city under orders of House Ichilia, Iyo had been one of the lord’s closest advisors. While Sawo had dreaming of a great future for himself, Iyo had worked hard to make it a reality. While the city lord had been out getting drunk with his incompetent band of warriors during another one of their endless banquets, the advisor had been stuck in this castle, doing all the important work to keep Saniya from falling apart.

However, his efforts had never been rewarded. Rather, Sawo had always shown scorn for the hard-working official. Maybe he felt threatened by Iyo’s talents, or maybe he had never forgotten that Iyo had advised against Sawo’s arrogant attempt to establish himself as one of Medala’s lords, against the wishes of their old master Divitius Ichilia. Either way, Iyo had seen no future with the self-important warrior.

Thus, as soon as he saw the opportunity, he had chosen to jump ship. His chance had come when the Ancestral Hall in Arguna had split up the Medala Empire after the death of the last emperor. The resulting compromise established a new Kingdom of the South, and with it a new lord of Saniya.

As soon as the new king appeared, Iyo chose to side with the legitimate ruler of the lands, and against the upstart Sawo. His choice had proven wise. Sawo’s embarrassing excuse for troops were crushed by the king’s elite mercenaries with almost no resistance. Thus, the city had fallen into the hands of King Corco, and soon the Chawir marshes followed.

However, despite his obvious abilities and dedication, Iyo had once again not received the appreciation he deserved. At first, he had still been optimistic, and his role in the castle had still been important. Because he was the only proper official who was familiar with the day-to-day operations of Saniya and the Chawir marshes, King Corco had to rely on his expertise to quickly get acquainted with his new domain.

Yet soon, the king’s own officials had learned everything he had to teach about the lands, and Iyo’s value diminished. Back then, King Corco hadn’t even tried to use him properly. How was this fair to him, who had given up his position in House Ichilia to support the king?

Worse yet, the city changed more and more as the years went by. All kinds of strange things were developed here. Commoners were no longer acting like commoners any more, Saniya didn’t do politics like most Medala estates, and their economy was a mess he couldn’t follow at all, much less after the king’s foreigner accountants introduced new ways of writing and calculating the treasury’s budget. More and more, Iyo was being left behind.

In the end, he was left to organize the regular banquets and other festivities held by the crown. This was the only part of Saniya life which hadn’t changed at all. Though the banquets in Saniya were more lavish and more frequent than those in other estates, they were still fundamentally the same.

Thus, Iyo was familiar with their operation and well-suited to his new work. This way, his high position in the castle was also retained, and he received high wages for what his new master called ‘organizing the numbing of the ruling class’.

Still, as one of the king’s first allies, shouldn’t he deserve more respect? Wasn’t it rude to just push him aside into a position that was so far removed from the real power of the castle? Where could he go from here? Wasn’t this the end of his path as an official?

Even if he couldn’t read the silly ‘new Yakua’ script of Saniya, since he preferred the noble depth and complexity of classic Yakua, wouldn’t there be any more suitable work for a man of his abilities? He could achieve far greater results for his master in the treasury or with the army instead.

So why exclude him like this? Why prefer some lowly commoners and foreigners over a trained warrior servant like himself? It surely wasn’t down to his qualifications, or to his abilities. Apart from prejudice due to his Ichilia past, Iyo could think of no reason for the king to disregard him like this. Although the sudden stagnation in his career was beyond his understanding, he had no choice but to endure over the past few years. In time, Iyo had begun to accept his fate.

However, this year had brought him a pleasant surprise. At last, the King of the South had begun to lose his stranglehold over the southern kingdom.

With the formation of the league of lords, Iyo’s chance had come again. As a resident of the castle, he understood the king and his forces better than most. He was certain that King Corco wouldn’t survive this crisis.

Maybe if he had acted decisively, the king could have worked out a compromise with the lords, but he no longer had a competent advisor like Iyo by his side, so he had just given in to the threats of Governor Mayu. With the weakness he had shown so far, the king’s fate was as good as sealed.

Now that the writing was on the wall, Iyo had chosen to once again switch allegiances, before his current master would be destroyed by his own incompetence. However, he couldn’t just travel to Puscanacra and ask for employ in Governor Mayu’s court. Otherwise, the governor may consider him a spy, or worse, a traitor.

To prove his value and get into his new master’s good graces from the start, he had to bring useful gifts. Thus, he had come here to Rapra Castle’s archive, to collect some gifts that would be of value to his master Mayu.

Only during this chaotic time would the archives be guarded by just a single commoner official, so his window of opportunity was very slim. To grab this chance, he had even learned the useless script of Saniya so he could navigate the shelves. Even so, the unfamiliar characters took a long time to decipher, and his own nervousness didn’t help him either. Although he had just sent the watchman halfway across the castle and wasn’t expecting him back within at least half an hour, he still felt like someone could come here at any time.

However, everything went smoothly. After a search that felt like an eternity, he had finally collected a good number of documents. All of them contained vital information that would prove invaluable to his new masters. Some summarized the kingdom’s budget, while others contained the number of troops and weapons the king could call upon in times of war.

Most importantly, he had also found the patents for many of Saniya’s most important technologies. For now, they were still stored here until the patent office was established, so Iyo would never let the opportunity slip by to take what his master had been searching for so desperately over the past few days.

In the end, he had collected so much that he couldn’t hide all of it under his robes anymore. Unlike the classic scrolls used in most castles around Medala, the documents here were stored in large folders of stiff paper, so they were much harder to stuff away within a sleeve. It was another useless innovation from a ruler who was too obsessed with change, but it didn’t make much of a difference.

Iyo would simply carry all the documents by hand, out in the open. If he met with another servant on his way out, he could just come up with some cheap excuse and send them on an errand before they asked too many questions. For now, his authority in the castle was still enough to walk through the front door without being questioned. That was all he needed.

However, as soon as he left the archive, he realized that all his authority wouldn’t help him this time. Three figures were blocking the stairs that would lead away from the archive and back up towards the castle’s front gate.

One was the watchman he had just lured away, returned far earlier than Iyo had thought. Next to him stood Admiral Atau, one of the king’s close confidantes and an excellent fighter, which snuffed out all his hope of resistance. However, the final figure was the one Iyo was most familiar with, but it was also the most surprising, and someone he hadn’t expected to meet again in this life.

“City Lord Sawo,” a breathless Iyo addressed the banker by his old title. As soon as he noticed the three figures who were clearly waiting for him to exit the archive, he felt trapped in a nightmare.

These people should never appear together, not here or anywhere else. Why was the old city lord back in Rapra Castle? Had Sawo finally returned to take revenge for Iyo’s past betrayal? Before he had noticed, he lost his grip and the documents dropped from his hands. Loose pieces of paper danced in the hallway and turned the ground in front of him into a mess.

“There you see it, Admiral: Just as I predicted,” Sawo said in the same smug tone that Iyo remembered from years past. “How fortunate that King Corco invited this great master into the castle, otherwise I could have not stepped in now. Who knows what could have happened without this master’s warning. Not that this is much of a surprise, mind you. Once a traitor, always a traitor.”

The irony of these words coming from the former Ichilia servant and former city lord Sawo d’Ichilia wasn’t lost on Iyo, but no one else cared. In truth, he didn’t feel like laughing either. Without resistance, the advisor was taken away by the infamous Admiral Atau, while his former master watched on with a satisfied grin. Now, Iyo’s last chance was truly gone.