The Fey Conquest, # 11— "Making Aliyah"
- David Parker
- Oct 2, 2023
- 5 min read
[Short stories, images generated by hotpot.ai]
When Maka related she was going to “make aliyah,” the feebler members of her council quailed. She still had kept the prophecy of doom a secret, and with her position had pressured Naori to do the same. But knowing Naori, that wouldn’t last for long. She had a duty to Aestheyas.
‘Make aliyah’ meant ascending the mountain of the Sovereign Esper, Leonyde. There, the wondrous and terrible esper ruled through the ether all Espers, along with everything West of Iceglass. Failure for the areas East of Iceglass to offer Leonyde tithes, nearly a century ago, had angered Leonyde, and he felt the same for the West who did nothing about it.
But the truth about Leonyde’s anger was that Iceglass was hopelessly infected with covens and cabals, along with the dark espers they served. These were meant to be extinguished by the martial orders throughout their whole land, but their people had largely abandoned a military spirit; in addition to this, they appeased the dark forces by giving up their children as food, sometimes going completely mad and doing so enthusiastically. There were plenty of villages who were hold-outs, but they lived in fear of the powers of ruin. Indeed, these villages paid tithes not to Leonyde, but to the covens, in order that their children may be spared. Over the course of the century, Leonyde became unapproachable, refusing even offerings to please him. After a party of priests presenting the offering had been destroyed by Leonyde, he wasn’t visited anymore.
“No one has approached Leonyde in decades. And even then, it was to make him an offering, which he refused, and it did not quell his anger,” said Doctor Skerrit. “Now that we have Doctor Emeriss, surely we have the edge we need,” said Warren.
Doctor Emeriss Karval had rejuvenated the mobilization process, his instructions thorough, yet succinct and precise. Soon, after he lent his aid, few of those who joined the war effort were ever found in idleness, and he was working on pressing others into service.
However, Maka had numerous misgivings.
Morris, called The Boar (or the Pig when he wasn’t around) along with his men had become nearly irresistible in battle due to their glut of magicite they plundered. According to reports, which were finally making their way to Sovereign Valley, The Boar used captives to do his labor, treating them and feeding them poorly, though death upon refusal was swift. He and his men grew all the fatter, having a never-ending feast. As for the women, to his ‘credit’, Morris preferred laughing whores to ravishing terrified women, and though those of his men were not banished or executed for using force, they were usually mocked and bullied into doing otherwise. Preferring happy prostitutes, The Pig and his men showered them with favors, consuming everything they seized like drunk sailors.
Dunbar, the Fletcher, outside of his realm of control, was called Dunbar the Lecher. He treated the female captives as chattel, and he and his men using them with bitterly shameful desire. A miser as well, he confiscated entire estates and their people, leaving the needy behind and having a train of captives three times the size of these intruders from Ivalice. They were fed poorly, and all of them alike were kept as slaves. Those who showed no sign of doing anything useful were not fed. After his men were bedecked in runes, he forced Fey conscripts to receive them, on pain of death for refusal, after he had already broken their will to resist. Dunbar’s stomach for spilling blood was indifference. Once he tired of screams he would kill those who resisted, and often his boredom of screams resulted in unintended mercy. However, when one very foolish (or very brave) Fey male was heard to call him “Scumbar,” the result was quite unspeakable.
Weez the Badger, the most terrible of the three, was abominably cruel, using as system of brutality to break the will of his captives. He used them as meat shields in battle, his men opting for runes and archery to get the best of those who resisted. He treated the female captives no better than The Fletcher, and some things he and his followers did were too terrible to mention. Weez looked for any excuse to torture the pitiful Fey Folk, yet Weez was without pity. Weez was also without fear, and his men imitated him, inspired by both his prowess and monstrous courage, and also being violent like him. Irrespective of runes, Weez and his men gloried in spilling blood, and they were very good at what they did.
As for Swain, he was guilty by association, and Maka panicked that he might be somehow more terrible than all three combined. How could anything good come from Ivalice? Yet there were mixed reports of what he was like. In the beginning, he sounded like the worst of the Tyrants, because he taxed them and let them live to tell the tale. As the weeks rolled on, some named him their protector, yet he continued to seize both levies and property, and at least one village had been destroyed entirely. She forgot which one. But whatever he was, he was from the same hellhole as the other three, and so far he had done nothing to stop them.
Was she really intended to marry Swain, as Naori prophesied? She had a terrifying lack of knowledge. Why would Leonyde abandon them and act in favor of the hounds of Ivalice? Was Naori’s vision real? With Doctor Karval’s help, they were surely waking the heart of her wayward people. She feared Leonyde just as much as Naori’s oracle, but Aestheyas was never wrong. Why would Naori lie?
Better to hope in Leonyde than reject a real oracle.
And maybe— just maybe— Leonyde’s power could stop them.
*-------------------------------------------*
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