Gran Basileus Part 2

Nythana levitated at the last moment before she would have hit the ground, and she touched down gracefully at the foot of the church tower. All the nearby pedestrians stopped in their tracks as she landed and stared at her with uncertainty on their faces. But such was to be expected when someone dropped out of the sky.

“Good afternoon,” she said to her freshly captive audience, curtseying politely. “I’m Nythana, a mage and one of the new tributes. I have some questions about the kingdom.”

Everyone looked at each other with wary eyes.

“Try a better approach and see if it helps,” Mycelium suggested.

Mycelium didn’t need to be so dry about it, but the bundle of fungal roots was right. She would have to change tactics.

“King Basil sent me to learn more about the kingdom and its history from the people themselves. Is there anyone that can help me?”

An elderly man stepped forward.

“I can answer some of your questions, Lady Mage,” he said. “Please come with me to my home.”

He turned and hobbled off, and Nythana followed. As she walked, everyone around her immediately looked away when she turned towards them.

“Why is everyone so afraid of me?” Nythana thought.

“Perhaps it could have something to do with your dark mage cloak,” Mycelium said.

Nythana glanced down at the cloak with its black fabric and embroidered spell circles, and she scrunched up her face in embarrassment.

“Oh,” she said.

“Yeah. Next time think before you leap.”

The old man led Nythana to a modest house two streets away made of black bricks and mortar. Inside, he introduced her to his wife and guided them to their living room.

“What did you want to ask?” he said, settling at his table with a grunt.

“I’ve heard a bit about this kingdom’s history,” Nythana said. “But after looking around the kingdom, I’m wondering if it was true. This doesn’t seem like a kingdom that lost all of its women and children and took in replacements from the kingdom that killed them.”

“Ah, I can see why you’d be confused,” the old man said. “It’s all because of King Basil. He’s worked tirelessly for more than sixty years to make this a reality. How could we watch our own king work so hard and not work hard as well.”

“Is that so?”

“My wife here was one of the women that was brought from Dirthomor Kingdom.”

Nythana flinched so hard she nearly fell over backwards in her seat.

“Did you just say Dirthomor?” she asked after recovering her balance.

“Yes, Dirthomor. The kingdom that invaded Basileus in the war.”

“What are the odds of that?” Mycelium remarked. “You were born in the kingdom that slaughtered Basileus’ women and children.”

“How am I supposed to bring this up to King Basil?” Nythana thought, clutching her head.

“Is everything alright, Lady Mage?” the old man asked.

Nythana straightened herself and released her hold on her head.

“Yes, of course,” she said with a fake smile. “Just a mild existential crisis. Please, continue.”

“Er… alright. Well, things were difficult for everyone at the time, and King Basil was swamped by domestic complaints day in and day out. Many thought that His Majesty would side with his own citizens instead of hearing the complaints of the women that were brought over. I’m ashamed to admit that I was one of the ones that thought that way. Thankfully, I was wrong.”

His wife chuckled lightly, and he gave her a sheepish grin before looking back to Nythana.

“I tried to bind her down and make her obey me,” he said. “But when a disturbance between us was reported, and we were brought before His Majesty, it was me on the receiving end of His Majesty’s ire. It didn’t take long for everyone to realize that His Majesty would treat every case with equity and fairness. By his decree, we were all citizens of Basileus Kingdom now, whether it was one of us that was born on this soil or someone that was brought in from Dirthomor. And anyone that complained about it was reminded that the aggressors were dead and all that was left were the survivors. His emphasis was always that since everyone was a victim of the war, nobody was a greater victim than anyone else. We all had our own circumstances, and we needed to make the best with what we had.”

“I can’t imagine that working well,” Nythana thought.

“Nor I,” Mycelium agreed.

“Were people okay with that?” she asked aloud.

“No,” the man said starkly. “No, we weren’t alright with it.”

Nythana raised her eyebrows at the bitterness in his voice. It was the bitterness she’d expected to find sewn in among all the citizens. And yet…

“We gave him a hard time over it and argued with him at every opportunity,” the old man said. “But our protests were met with the same response every time. We needed to be patient and work together to make the best with what we had.”

He sighed in frustration.

“Honestly, had His Majesty merely sat on the throne repeating those same things over and over again, we may have rebelled against him,” the man carried on. “But that isn’t who King Basil is. His Majesty actively helped with the reconstruction efforts, and personally oversaw the restoration of our agriculture and mining economies. We eventually understood that his words were wise and came to regret the way we acted towards him.”

“His bitterness seems more directed inward than at the king,” Mycelium said. “How fascinating.”

So, Lium noticed it, too. His anger is towards himself. And yet I can’t help but wonder…

“Were there never any rebellions?” she asked aloud.

“There were people that whispered of rebellion, sure, but every time they started talking, they were straightened out by the soldiers that witnessed the downfall of Dirthomor’s army. Everyone that saw it knew that any attempts at overthrowing King Basil would be met with total annihilation.”

“Hmm, the perfect combination of hard work, patience, fairness, and fear,” Mycelium remarked. “I doubt anyone but Basil could have forged this outcome.”

“In the end, he never failed to be kind. Even when we scorned him, he treated us well. Most of us regretted how difficult we made his life up until the day we died.”

“I see,” she said. And that’s the man that proposed to me.

“Did you have any other questions?”

“No,” she said. “That was what I was looking for. Thank you for your time, sir.”

“My pleasure, Lady Mage.”

Nythana went around and asked several more people similar questions in different parts of the city and got overall positive answers from all of them. There were some minor complaints, but it truly seemed like people were happy with the king and his kingdom. The people she talked to showed her to the orphanage and homeless shelter, which turned out to be the best-kept buildings in the low-income sector. The directors of the two institutions were more than happy to explain how the facilities were run.

As the sun started to sink towards the horizon, Nythana sat on a tower near the “slums” watching the sun move slowly towards the walls of the city.

“It’s easy to tell exactly how much work King Basil has put into this kingdom,” she said. “He’s developed programs for helping his people get back on their feet when they’re down on their luck. The homeless shelter is less of a shelter than an employment resource center. He funds the orphans’ education, and it’s an open secret that he donates the money he saves by minimizing his own food budget to the orphanage so they can have better meals.”

“So we were told,” Mycelium agreed.

She looked up at the changing sky.

“And then there’s me,” she sighed.

“What about you?” Mycelium asked.

“I’ve been alive for almost a hundred and thirty years, but what have I actually done with my life?”

“Aside from exterminating hundreds of dark mages and creating revolutionary magical technology?” Mycelium asked.

“We were only researching magic to kill time and make things more convenient for us. And the dark mages were little more than a food source for me.”

“You’re the only person that could talk about dark mages like that so casually.”

“It’s true, though. Everything we’ve ever done was for ourselves. For a century, I’ve kept my head down and lived from day to day without paying attention to anything but myself.”

Mycelium was quiet for a long time.

“Alright,” they said after a while, “What do you want to do about it?”

“Perhaps it’s time I stopped thinking about myself and started doing something for others for a change.”

She stood and stretched.

“You’re really thinking about accepting his offer, aren’t you?”

“I am,” she said. “You always say that I rush headlong into things without thinking through it first. Maybe having people relying on me is what I need to make me think before I act.”

“That’s a poor excuse, but I doubt I can do anything to stop you,” Mycelium said in resignation. “Please don’t do anything to get us burned at the stake. I really do want to colonize the earth like a proper fungus one day.”