Final Confessions of A Goblin Emperor 3

Chapter 2

Moriaz Ret took me south that night, by way of carriage. I was unbelievably saddened by being forced out of my home, but at that point I was slowly but surely becoming more and more awed by everything around me.
We picked up Feiy shortly thereafter, the guardsmen of the agent beating the living tar out of the minister in the process. Shockingly, it didn’t disturb Feiy in the least to see her father bruised and beaten, she was merely excited to be going on with her life.
The carriage ride was wondrous, in fact the carriage itself was wondrous. The interior of that great thing was almost obnoxiously plush with its swaths of black fur and puffs of lilac purple pillows. It was an obscene thing to ride through the country in, but I was so absorbed by the object that I didn’t care.
He took us south over the next week, stopping his grueling pace twice a day, once for breakfast and again for dinner. He was a man who loved efficiency, his crew was tireless, his horses were, for the most part, dead in a few days and quickly replaced. It was magical to be on the open road the wind whipping by as the climate went from steppe to bayou. It became apparent that we were headed for the port of Prophet’s Strait, the crown jewel of the colonial trade belt. Our host confirmed it on our third night of travel.
“In a week we will reatz te port of Zenerzeer, nezu, I cannot pronounce it in my tongue, tere you will board the zip tat is called te Rezoran. You will be taken to Karkintrax from there. Hopefully you won’t need to zee me again,” He whispered sadly, more to himself.
“What’s the matter master?” Asked Feiy in her sweet little voice, genuinely concerned.
“The world, the plaze I’m taking you, but you’ll find out all about that vary soon little onez.”
He didn’t speak to us for the rest of the night.

We lost our mysterious guardian the next morning, he simply shook our hands and walked away in a little nowhere town, I never saw him again. I wish I would have known him better. It seems funny how people walk in and out of our lives, bringing to us their own burdens and joys, secret evils and even more secret goods. The man down the street who has never been kissed, or the little old lady who’s been stealing trips to the brothel before church services all her life can stamp through our worlds, and we’ll never know their story. Whatever Moriaz Ret’s tale was, it wasn’t a happy one, and that’s all I’ll ever know, and I regret it.
We continued to be rushed through the countryside towards Prophet’s Strait, and as we drew nearer our spirits mounted. By the time we were there the two of us were nearly pissing our pants with excitement.
When we finally disembarked from our rolling mountain of plush, however, our excitement died. Prophet’s Strait was nothing of what it promised to be. The streets were flooded with the reeking smokes of factories and refineries. Everywhere, dirty little children begged and pleaded for coins, save the red-skinned natives, who merely sat there, relying instead on human goodness for their rewards. But there was no goodness, there still isn’t. The world is a shit heap, and children who can’t fight for their dinners die, even if their souls are clean as linen. Only the evil things in this world survive, the truly righteous, who are aliens to this world, simply shrivel up and are swept away by the great broom which we call ‘The Will of God’. And we’ll put candles on their graves for a day, and the next we’ll go back to our dinners, our families, our homes, all the things that would have saved those departed innocents. Oh, and we’ll laugh, we’ll have a ball and we’ll have company. Those departed will swiftly be visited by their new friends, the worm and the mole. I pray that one day all of us complacent bastards are thrown into the fire, just as we subjected those poor children to the ice of the slaying night, and the lightless morn. But I’m ranting, excuse me, I’m one hundred and ten, I feel a little entitled to it.
To move onward, Prophet’s Strait was the worst hell hole I had ever seen, or would ever see again. That place was one of evil, but thank the Goddess I had Feiy there, she kept me balanced in that sea of inhuman humanity. Nothing could dampen her neat little soul, and so we forged on. The carriage-men saw us to the pier, after they sat down for a long session of drinks, which were probably well deserved after the carriage ride that Moriaz Ret put them through. They took the two of us to the Rezoran a grand old frigate from the Elven fleet, it had triangle sails. I was delighted to see it was filled with other children, some a tad older than me, some a bit younger, but all of them colonials or natives. We were fed upon boarding, a hot cup of craw-fish stew and a hard biscuit, but it was something. Feiy spilled her cup on the back of a delightful little blond boy who was standing near her, that’s how I came to know Letharius Zybaylis.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, and I order you to stop. Letharius Zybaylis was a much better man than other members of his family. He was more than just the father of the Flesh Emperor, my great enemy; he was a charming, upright man. He was a thinker and doer, and I fell in love with him the moment we met.
“Forgiveness master,” curtsied Feiy in a dismissive manner.
“It was my fault ladyship.” He said bowing to her, “May I have your name? I think that would be good penance for your soup.”
“Lady Sonata Feiy Irimidia Seleneme Harrows.”
“Feiy for short?” he responded with a weak smile
“Very well then, and this is my friend, Lord Enath Jorus Brashfall.”
“Blessed night Lord Brashfall, pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Blessings on you too, Lordship, but we have yet to take the pleasure of your name,” I returned, happy merely to have his attention
“Letharius Westmark Zybaylis, where are you folks from?”
“Deep Springs, in the third Magistrate,” I fired back, almost too eagerly.
“Deep Springs? Truly? I lived only a day’s ride from the place, I lived in Black Meadow.”
“Well it’s good to have your acquaintance, are there others from your home here?”
“Two actually, Valian Artanya, my very best friend, and his half-sister Lita Kespus. We’re sharing quarters, in fact, we have an extra pair of beds, maybe you’d like to make the party five?”
“It could be exciting, what are your thoughts Feiy?” She shrugged, unconcerned.
“Count us in, it could be fun.”
“Well then, come on, we’re on the third floor down.”

It was apparent that some minimal amount of attention had been put into our accouterments, the floors were lined with cheap carpet and the walls had been painted a dingy blue. I really remember that place for its smell. Goddess above, how it reeked! But those are ocean smells, and bitching doesn’t take it back.
I hit it off with Letharius and Valian right away. Valian was a quiet man, very thin, and very plain. He wore a pair of thick rimmed spectacles that he was constantly pushing up his nose and appeared to never have endeavored to combed his hair. As I later found out, he was a genius of sorts, brilliant in the fields of science and engineering, in addition to being a sound military mind. Letharius pleased me even more, he was a moderately handsome farmer’s son, and he knew how to command a room’s attention. He had brilliantly blond hair and a pair of earth-green eyes, which I can still recall, down to an exact spot. Feiy bonded with Lita just as quickly. If there has ever been a more misunderstood friendship it is the friendship of Lita Kerena Arsilla Kespus and Sonata Feiy Irimidia Seleneme Harrows. The moth, even the great beautiful Luna Moth is attracted to fire, that’s all I can say that makes sense. Lita Kespus seeped despotism and evil, Feiy secreted minimal amounts of ambition, but other than that was as white as the driven snow. But perhaps it was that naivety that brought the two together. After all, it isn’t like Feiy knew that Lita would grow up to become The Black Mother, suckling the infant king of evil on her bleeding tit.
We all got along well enough, though I did not like Lita, I could certainly pretend to, if just for Feiy’s sake. The boat ride lasted three weeks on the high sea, we were felicitous, and didn’t encounter any form of a storm or high wind. We all soon settled into a semi-regular schedule. We rose with the sun, ate what was shoveled at us, and then played around the deck until the two moons rose in the sky, when we would all either bed down or sit up and tell stories.
One night I had the pleasure of sharing a long discussion with Feiy and Letharius.
“Do you think there’s anything up there Enath?” Letharius asked somberly as he looked at the moons, “I mean, anything other than rocks and the other stuff our space schooners brought back all those centuries ago.”
“My father always said that there were many creatures up there, all of them different from anything we have here.” Feiy whispered brightly, “He said he had visions of it all, that there were bright colored glass trees, and fluorescent mosses, and flying horses that lit up the night!”
“Your father said lots of things Feiy, and anyways, we have flying horses here on Soralia.” I murmured, almost shooting her out of the air.
“Not like these,” she said bitterly, “Once we’re done with school I’ll buy a ship and we’ll go up there and show you.”
“Space travel is prohibited now, his mighty imperial lordship Emperor Karkinias the 33rd has made it so.”
“It won’t be forever.” interjected Letharius, “I’ve heard whispers from the guards that Karkinias the 34th is different from his father, that he turns everything on its head, that up is down and man is woman when it comes to the prince. Odd things to say, no? But maybe he’ll re-legalize it.”
“Either that,” answered Valian who had just walked over to join us, “They’re referring to the Prince’s habit of stealing the Empress’s make-ups and playing at husband and wife with Prince Thespasian Kiemandra of the Elves.”
“That’s treason!” screeched Letharius covering his ears, “You know that the Tri-Partite signed a ban on homosexuality, in addition to seditious behavior and heresy. Any article of the Triple Alliance that is violated can result in death! Those guards shouldn’t spread such vicious rumors about their Gods chosen prince. Such slander could be labeled sedition.”
“You’ll make a good Imperial toady someday Lethy. You seem to already have taken to enforcing worthless laws,” snapped Valian back harshly.
“There is no such thing as a worthless law, they’re all passed for a reason.”
“I’ll give you that!” roared Valian, Feiy and I curled up in a corner, all this talk of politics was beyond us at the moment. “Those laws were passed to get Theyton to join the Alliance, everything’s about the Alliance. The Gnomes would never join forces with a ‘Wicked Race’ like ours unless they made steps towards improvement. Karkinias wants soldiers and navies, so what if a weirdo or two has to die. Who cares, so long as his court rules the world…”
“How could you make such accusations against our glorious Emperor. His majesty already rules half the world as it is, if you count the colonies, why would he need more.”
“Just to have more! People always want more, you know why? Because they can, objects, no matter how sacred, corrupt absolutely. The Emperor has half the world, so logically, the only thing left to want is the other half of it!”
“Shut up Valian, this is why people don’t like you.”
The two held each other’s gazes for a split second and then Valian stamped off back to the room. At my side Feiy was sobbing quietly.

The next day, and for the rest of the trip we were on good terms again. To be honest, that was kind of boring, but better boring than hostile.
On the month of Jelkometh on seventy second day of that month we disembarked from that reekish ship and into the Capital city of Karkinthrax. Karkinthrax was different than Prophet’s Strait. It’s in my old age that I realize that it lacked the filthy stench of capitalism and was instead marked by the strained perfume of dynastic imperialism. Here the mighty and the weak were all forced down to their knees, beneath the feet of their Emperor. No dreams could be crushed here, because there could be no dreams. Only the Emperor could better your lot, or worsen it, there was no grinding responsibility to weigh you down. When fate is lifted from your back suddenly there is very little to worry about.
It was the third town I had ever seen with paved streets, and none to the magnitude of this place. The boulevards were wide, the streets were long, and nowhere to be seen was a discernible end. The city was its own country, its own continent, maybe even its own world. Karkinthrax, in all its endless history had never once been sacked, and only attacked once, needless to say the assault fell through. I of course altered this record when I was thirty-nine, but it still makes the place no less impressive.
We children were dragged through roads towards the rail-station on the other end of the city, the walk lasted all day of course, but we made it by the time the moons were rising. I enjoyed seeing the city though, the imperial treasury with its thousand minarets, the green-domed university of science and literature in the merchant’s district, and of course, the Imperial Palace. What a thing to behold. The palace covered four square miles, its tallest tower had thirty stories at its pinnacle. It was constructed entirely of imported black granite, straight from the heart of the Southern Colonies. Inside, though I could not see it, was a city of villas and gardens, filled with fabulous creatures, taken from the lands of the dwarves and the orcs, giraffes, leopards and zebras, and a thousand others, all drawn up to entertain the royal family.
I begged to stand in its presence longer, but our escorts promptly refused me and any others who asked, we had places to be. So our slog continued. We made it to the rail-station at moons-rise, as said before. We were swiftly divided up and packed on to the train. Now, so many people paint trains as magical and enriching, and I will tell you outright that they are not. They’re filled with smog and smells and a person can scarcely mover around without elbowing his neighbor. Accelerate this all to forty-five miles per hour on shaky box-carts and you’ve got a mobile mountain of pain. It was like the ship again, only worse, because now we were confined to our box cars. I languished in those stuffy exhaust tubes for eight days, waking up, eating, sitting going back to sleep and then starting over again. What a hell it was!
I thanked whatever being was in heaven when I was finally permitted to disembark from that hellish device eight days later. And as I rose my eyes up; all I could see for miles were beautiful pines and cedars, intertwined with decorative purple and white lilacs. We were in Bvellcaetia, land of the Elves. The launching point of the next stage of my life.