Chapter 1: Prolog

People Need Hope

 

A young man was sitting in an alley, dead-drunk. Short silver, greasy hair stuck to his anguished face. Once smart, black eyes were now sunken within their sockets, forlornly gazing into emptiness. While garbed in tattered rags and dirtied by the dust from many days’ travels, his sturdy body still had a seductive air to it.

There’d always been something irregular about him, perhaps it was the burning hatred in his eyes or perhaps it’d simply been his presence. Regardless, both of these were gone now. Gone with a futile feeling human’s call ‘romantic love’.  

While people tended to try and hit it off with him, this guy, Tamas, was a sucker. Born as the result of a nobleman’s drunken escapades with a maid, he was sold to another noble family to be their son’s manservant. There, he fell in love with his master’s older sister.

That girl recognized his intelligence and capitalized on it. Using her ‘magic touch’, she played the poor sucker like a fiddle. He poisoned her brother, his master, and blamed it on her paternal uncle’s family thereby eliminating all heirs. Long story short, she used him; and then, like all such girls are bound to do, she discarded him.

Needing legitimacy, how could she marry an illegitimate child like him? And she told him as much while in her new lover’s embrace. Luckily, that poor sod still had some sense in him: when the lady ordered his arrest, he used his skills to escape. The expression on her face was priceless, by the way, she likely expected him to meekly get arrested.

Back to the present, I am about to recruit him. Who am I? Someone who found a forgotten backdoor in the multiverse. I do not know how it came to be, or who left it there, but I am barely able to use it. Not very well, mind you, but well enough to enjoy a life of travel… and plotting.

Undoing my invisibility, I appeared right in front of him. That unfortunate fellow took a minute to compute that a large object had materialized right in front of him. Then he sighed,

“Has my sorrow even summoned the Xashash now?”

I chuckled and replied, “No, if there is such a being, we are not acquainted.”

“Huh?”

My response must have gotten through his drunken stupor, for his pupils suddenly contracted.

“What…”

I patiently waited for him to fully recover his senses.

Sensing that something unusual was happening, he circulated his energy to rid himself of the poison. Then he slowly rose to his feed, grabbing the hilt of his weapon before speaking,

“Who send you?” and after a quick perusal of my appearance and lack of proper weaponry, he added, “If you value your life, piss off. Despite everything, I won’t just die.”

“Haha, then just what will you do? It didn’t look like you had any thought of competing with Lord Gaston.”

“Did he send you?”

“Nah, no one send me. That kid did send a couple of knights, though. If you have to worry about someone, that’d be Lady Cybele de Robini.”

“Why, did she encounter some misfortune?” Tamas’ face betrayed a hint of worry.

“After all that, you still worry about her? A sucker indeed.”

“What? No…” After a moment of thought, he added, “I did, but I will never again act on it.”

“Really? Even if I tell you that I intend to kill her today?”

“You!” Tamas exclaimed and his hand tightened its grip on the weapon’s hilt. A moment later, he sighed and dropped it. His hands now loosely hanging by his side, he started again,

“… are right. Even though I know she betrayed me, I am still not completely over it. I’ve loved her all my life, after all. As they say, old habits die hard.”

“Then what will you do once those feelings vanish? Seek revenge? Go after her? Or your family?”

“Ha, what use would that be. I just wish I knew why she did it… If all I gave her was loyalty, I’d understand. But that is not the case. I made her the heir of her house. If only she’d given me a little more time, I would have made her head. Even though there’d have been resistance because of my status… It’d have been possible. With a little hard work…”

And so he kept on rambling and rambling until, finally, I interrupted him.

“Now, that is a little too much nonsense for even me to bear listen to.”

“Nonsense? How so?!”

“In the first place, she never cared for hard work. Come, let me show you, the mind of the lady you so admire…”

---

“My lady, may I ask you an impertinent question?”

“Perse, when have you ever abstained from asking impertinent questions?”

“Ah, well, that…”

“No matter, ask, you are one of the few people I trust, thus, I won’t have your head for asking a mere question.”

“Ah, then… could I ask two questions, my lady?”

“Haha, just get it over with and ask already.”

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“Firstly, why does my lady trust me?”

“I trust you because I understand you.”

“You understand me?”

“Yes, truth be told, we are quite similar, you and I. You sought to become my lady-in-waiting because your family is poor. Through me you can meet the son’s of houses with standings incomparable to your own.”

“My lady knows me well. There’s a saying, ‘Tis the rich man’s world. The sun always shines for him who is of wealth.’ What can a daughter do but marry a man wealthier than herself?

“But, my lady, you already are the heir to your house, do you really share my concerns?”

“Yet I used to be but another count’s daughter. And even now, whether or not I can live a carefree life depends on my marriage with Lord Gaston.”

“Do you really need to marry the lord? While he has a lot of money, he seems to be more interested in your status as heir to the county than your affection. Lord Tamas on the other hand… Ah, my apologies.”

“Was that the question you intended to ask originally?

“Indeed,  Lord Gaston certainly does not love me. And that is precisely why I chose him over Tamas. Well, that as well as his personal wealth and family background.”

“I understand why you’d wish to gain his wealth, my lady. But could you not have kept Lord Tamas as a lover? He seemed much smarter than Lord Gaston. After a few years… Carriage accidents are quite common these days.”

“You do not understand. If he did not love me, I might have kept him. I originally approached him because I thought him similar to yourself: a desperate child trying to make a living for himself.

“Turns out, he was just a naïve kid starved for affection. Back then, I had no choice but to use him, but he’s much too dangerous to keep now that I am the heir. You should have seen the look of betrayal in his eyes when I confessed my love for Lord Gaston. Yet I did not expect him to evade capture, I thought he’d be too shocked to react.”

“What does my lady intend to do about him?”

“Isn’t that obvious? He needs to die.”

---

While watching my recording, Tamas’ cycled through quite a number of expressions: doubt, shock, betrayal, hurt, hate, and finally, resignation.

“I’ve been a fool.”

“Indeed you have.”

“Ha…” he sighed and with his back against the wall of a house, he let his body slowly glide to the ground. His voice full of exhaustion, he mumbled,

“Why’d you show me this?”

“I wish to observe the choice you make.”

“Haha, what choice do I have? Revenge? What for. It’s clear now that she’ll never love me.”

“And your family?”

“I gave up on familiar love a long time ago.”

“That must be why you fell for her trickery this easily.”

“Perhaps, what’s it matter now?”

“I still wish to know what you intend to do now. What do you hope for?”

“Hope? Ha. What’s there to hope for but a bar with plenty of ale.”

This fellow desperately needed a new hope, so I offered him a chance:

“How about joining my family?”

“What? I don’t even know who the hell you are!”

“You don’t, but it’s not like you’ve got anything better to do. Why don’t you take a chance?”

“Take a chance, huh?”

He pondered for just a moment before continuing,

“Very well, I will join your family.

“But keep in mind that I’ve learned my lesson, never again will I devote myself so easily. If you do not offer me anything worthwhile in return, you should not expect too much.”

“Of course. If you had not learned your lesson, I’d have been disappointed. I am Jebel, welcome to the Family of Keshan.”

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