Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

Well, it wasn’t as if he was wrong, Elyos mused, his gaze drifting to the lonely scrap of moss clinging to the damp stone wall — the only companion he had in this hollow place.It wouldn’t hurt, he thought, to have a final conversation before death swept him away like dust before the wind.

He exhaled slowly and began, voice soft and almost contemplative:

”I was but a lad of twenty summers when I took my vows and passed the holy examinations,” he said, fingers idly tracing a pattern in the dirt. ”I was given a modest temple, barely more than a hut with a bell, in a village so small that it barely warranted a name.”

He smiled faintly, the memory both bitter and sweet.”I spent my years among those good folk, blessing their harvests, tending to their sick, burying their dead — until, of course, that village was no more. They had been forced to coexist with some bandit group, giving them food monthly if they were to proceed with their lives unbothered.”

His voice grew quieter, darker.”One day, I walked alone into the forest, seeking either parley or death. Strange, isn’t it? Even the most black-hearted thieves hesitate to raise a hand against a man of the cloth — fear of the gods’ wrath clings to those that were blessed with reason ”

He chuckled, a hollow sound that barely stirred the stale air.”Among those brigands, I found familiar faces — the lord’s own toll collectors, laughing and feasting with the same men who preyed upon us. Still, they let me go, after I offered them blessings and said Mass — a priest’s theater played for wolves, as if they were not all going to burn in the hells .”

He spat on the ground and then he shook his head. ”I was a fool then. I did not see the truth: they let me go not out of mercy, but because they feared nothing — not the law, nor retribution. They had lords to shield them.”

He paused, as if tasting the bitterness of those old days all over again.”A few years later, it became unbearable. The village tried to flee. But as you well know, serfs are no freer than cattle; to leave the land is to defy chains forged in law. We were caught. The elder was hanged. The rest fined beyond their means.We tried to explain of the bandits, as we did many time, of course it didn’t work”

Elyos’ voice dropped to a murmur.”Six months later, we tried again. This time, we broke apart, each group fleeing by different roads. I led one. We dressed ourselves as a band of traveling pilgrims, and perhaps by the grace of the gods or the indifference of guards, we passed unharmed.”

He looked up, his eyes tired but burning still.”We waited near the city for the others. They never came. Later, I learned that understanding they had no money to pay the fine , they had been sold into slavery. Our deliverance was an accident, nothing more.”

A heavy silence fell, but Elyos continued, his voice steadier now, driven by a need to confess:

”From that day, the path was set. I roamed with a growing band — first a dozen, then a hundred. Wherever we went, we saw only misery. Lords who taxed their people into graves, armies that tore up fields and salted the earth, governors who drank wine sweetened with the blood of the poor.”

His hand clenched reflexively, as if still grasping a dream already slipping through his fingers.

”And so,” Elyos said, a faraway gleam in his eye, ”a seed was planted. Watered by disillusionment, fed by the suffering of innocents. I came to believe... that it was not enough to bandage wounds. Not enough to bless graves. No, if life was to change, it was the world itself that had to be remade.”

He leaned closer, his voice lowering to a fierce whisper:

”I dreamed of a land where power was not hoarded by the few born in marble halls... but entrusted to those who spoke with the voice of the gods. A land ruled not by crowns or swords, but by the cloth and the star. A nation where priests, wise and just, would hold the reins of rule — guiding with mercy, chastising with righteousness, raising the lowly and humbling the mighty.”

Elyos gave a rueful smile, filled with both pride and sorrow.”That was my dream. A kingdom of the faithful, where virtue would sit upon the throne... and not the whim of bloodlines or greed birthed from the belief that blood inherited power.”

As he finished Elyos slowly raised his gaze to meet Alpheo’s, silent yet expectant, as if, in this last hour of his life, he sought the judgment of the one man he had once named enemy. A question shimmered in his eyes without ever being spoken: What do you think?

Alpheo, for a moment, wished dearly for a cup of wine to warm his tongue, to savour the richness of this rare moment — two men, broken by destiny, speaking openly at last.Philosophy had ever been his true delight, second only to the thrill of politics and history , and here was a conversation worth more than any banquet he had ever attended.

He leaned back against the cold wall, smiling faintly, before speaking in that low, musing tone of his:

”You know,” he said, almost wistfully, ”your mistake was not the dream itself. It was beautiful, in its way — noble, even. No, your mistake was in believing that the rot you saw came from the class of men, from their titles and their crowns. You believed, that if you replaced the lords, you would cleanse the land.”

Alpheo shook his head slowly, almost tenderly.

”But the corruption you raged against... it was never born of noble blood or royal coin. It was born of something older, more cunning — the inheritable sin of power itself.”

He let the words sink in before continuing, voice gathering the gravity of an ancient truth:

”Power and corruption are two faces of the same wicked coin. To seize power is to invite corruption; to hold it is to be devoured by it, slow and sure as ivy crushing a wall. You cannot have one without the other. Even were your priests the holiest of men, given enough years, enough unchecked rule... they too would have become the very thing you despised.”

The words fell like a soft hammer upon Elyos’ spirit.He said nothing for a long moment, the weight of them pressing down on him, before he asked, almost in a whisper:

”Then you believe it is inevitable? That any who command must one day bring misery to those they lead?”

Alpheo’s eyes gleamed like a flame in a dying hearth.

”It is inevitable,” he said simply. ”A consequence as certain as winter following autumn. Perhaps you may delay it — a generation, if the rulers are wise and virtuous. Two, if the gods themselves weep in mercy. But corruption... ah, it always finds a crack to slip through, a door left slightly ajar.”

He leaned forward, voice soft but iron-bound.

”It is easy for corruption to enter, easier still for it to nest... but to drive it out once it has rooted itself? That is a feat beyond most mortals. By the time men wake to the stench of it, it is already too late. It festers in their laws, their faith, their very hearts.”

Alpheo fell silent, letting the finality of his words hang between them like the scent of burnt incense.

In the heavy gloom of the cell, Elyos felt as if he were seeing the world not through his own battered dreams, but through the eyes of a man who had walked farther down the road he had only glimpsed — and found only darkness at its end.

After a long moment of pondering, Elyos finally spoke, his voice steady but carrying a faint trace of awe, as if he were addressing not an enemy, but a man who had revealed a hidden doorway in a dark house:

”Then tell me... your Grace,” he asked, his eyes glinting with curiosity, ”does every form of government — every banner under heaven — lead inevitably to the suffering of the masses?”

Alpheo gave a low chuckle, one that carried no mirth, only the tired wisdom of a man who had wrestled long with such questions in the quiet hours.

”No,” he said, shaking his head, ”not every form. It is not the form that dooms them, but the cancer of absolute power itself. No matter the name it bears — king, pontifex, council, or senate — it is when the reins of power rest in too few hands, unchecked and unchallenged, that corruption blooms.”

He leaned forward slightly, his voice sharpening, as if striking a nail into wood:

”All societies, even the most virtuous, carry corruption within them like a sickness dormant in the blood. You cannot excise it fully — no man, no system ever could. The best you can hope for, the noblest dream, is to limit its reach. To chain it.”

Alpheo’s gaze grew fierce, alive with the fire of conviction.

”And the only way to do that is to divide power, break it like bread among many hands and make sure that the masses have many points of contacts with those that rule over them.”

He leaned back against the damp stone wall, the light of his passion slowly dimming into something like sorrow.

”But even then... even then, it is a battle without end.”

Elyos watched him, stunned by the depth and clarity of the words that had just been spoken.He had thought Alpheo a snake, and yet he took pleasure in the conversation they were having

A small, ironic smile tugged at Elyos’ lips.

”Well,” he said, voice dry but not unkind, ”it seems now it is my turn to ask the question.”

Alpheo, catching the spark in Elyos’ eye, gave a lazy grin. He stretched his legs out on the filthy floor and leaned back against the wall like a man preparing for a long evening’s fireside chat.