Chapter 395

Time became a blur, it lost all meaning to those who had no way to so much as move their eyes from the changing scenes. The only thing the heroes of mankind could conclude with certainty was that there were more demihumans gathered together in Tovijar than any writer or scholar or adventurer had ever seen gathered together before. The walls of the city became large in their eyes as the breadth of the Frost Queen's ambitions were displayed in stone, and then shrank as their view expanded to the many buildings of the city.

Worse in a way than their numbers, was the number of demihuman species to be found. Some were familiar to the point of being common, orcs and goblins certainly. But also rarer varieties all but unheard of outside of a brief stint of training years before that told the heroes of humanity that such peoples existed.

'If we wanted to destroy them, we should have done it years ago.' Alain thought when he saw the scale of the work. Buildings were still going up, construction lined the streets, material made of stone harvested nowhere near where the building was taking place.

Educated warriors, the reality of that was lost on none of them. 'Trade. Vast trade throughout Demalbion and the logistical skill to control it.' Alain's blood chilled as he saw scaffolding of wood manned by dark dwarves. The rough voices of the dark bearded folk with their grim faces were matched by their stern pointed gestures that seemed all the more absurd given that they were having to crane their necks back to look into the faces of the ones they were yelling at.

"...And I'm telling you that there's no way under the stone sky that this is going to stand! You get those stones laid yesterday you muscle brained lummox of an orc!"

The scene of the angry supervisor was gone out of hearing in the cacophony of city noises. Wolflike people held up cloth or metal goods in broad carts while smithing stone spitters brought hammers up and down in a rhythm that would have been familiar in any human city in the world.

'If I closed my eyes, it would almost be like Kami Miyako…' Heaven and Earth thought to himself before the city vanished from view when the palace doors of the Queen of Frost groaned open.

Rough hands from large orc champions hid the world from the views of the prisoners as they were picked up out of their cart and thrown onto shoulders still frozen in their final pose.

Their carriers brought them up the steps where things were quieter, the steps of the orcs could be heard by those the thick armored brutes were hauling like sacks of potatoes.

It wasn't until the doors closed them off from the outer world that they could hear the voice of their captain again.

"See them to the most comfortable quarters you can." Cenna said and gave a concerned look toward them all.

"Don't worry, you won't be frozen for much longer. And you're not in any danger… not… not yet. Please don't force that to change." Cenna pled to his Scripture, and though he knew for certain that they could not move even enough to blink an eye, he felt their accusing stares fixed firmly on himself, and it broke his heart to see it, even if it wasn't really there.

Dominic folded his hands into his lap, Yarvin's unexpected words brought to mind things that he hadn't considered. But at the same time, and while the others' voices went up and tempers flared among the other Cardinals, it was his slave's hand on his shoulder that kept him calm.

'Damn the days we live in…' The fire-tempered Cardinal thought. The gentle hand on his shoulder was a connection he could not break, not even to shout down the anger at his table.

"...If we don't accept this change, we will die! All of us and everything will go with it!" Raymond shouted at the withered, wrinkled face of Yvon, who pounded on the table with a still firm fist that rattled the various dishes and toppled most of their cups…

"Change itself will kill us! Even if there are more half elves than elves, breaking them will take years before we can use them for common labor! And if that one is telling the truth," Yvon jabbed a finger toward Yarvin, who kept his head bowed and did not flinch at the aggressive gesture, "then we will just replace one problem with another! The farms must be worked, our economy is already in decline, by what magic do you think to conjure up a workforce from?! The undead?!"

"If he is a God as rumor and power both suggest… why not?" Berenice snapped back. "The will of the gods is absolute! If he is a God, then he is the last God we have and we're supposed to defy him?!" The only woman among the cardinals looked at Yvon with disgust. "Don't tell me this is about devotion, I've seen how you treat your servants. Even he," she jabbed her thumb toward Dominic, "isn't as brutish as you."

"I beg to differ." Raymond muttered so quietly that over the tumult, nobody could hear him, his eye found Dominic deep in rare, quiet contemplation. The memory of the scars on Nua rose freely to his mind, thus far none of them knew they were lovers, as far as anyone could tell, Raymond's work was born solely out of his affection and guilt over Zesshi.

None could see the hatred that burned hot as a volcano beneath the surface of the Cardinal. 'I will not forget.' He promised as he recalled the way the former slave thrashed when nightmares claimed her dreams. More than one of those, he knew from her own lips were the product of Dominic's own lash.

"The law is the law, but laws can be changed." Maximilian pointed out, his temper flared the least of the lot, and because his voice was firm and steady, it carried the weight of reason. "I believe we do need to buy time for ourselves, but we cannot go on as things are. It simply can't be done. We can't survive just trading among our cities, how long will it be before we are reduced to selling off our own country, acre by acre anyway? The law exists for the nation, not the nation for the law."

Dominic finally spoke up again. But when he did, it was so devoid of temper that the very fact of his calmness settled the others down. "We settle on one thing now. We nominate the Allfather of Nazarick as a God. And we make ourselves the first to do it. Host the nations here in Kami Miyako, our preeminence as the place where the Gods first appeared will give us precedent and justification. That will distract the other nations from the question of the elves… for now."

"And the dozen stolen ones…?" Berenice asked, her body shivered as if the snow were still raining down on her while rocks flew in all directions, reduced to pebbles and dust from the once mighty peak.

"We can agree those have to go back… it looks bad… very bad, if our country is tolerating raids on others in violation of our treaties and laws." Maximilian urged, and even Yvon didn't try to argue.

"At least we agree on that much… perhaps we can arrange for some gradual liberation? Perhaps allow slaves to work for their freedom and then underpay them…?" Ginedine proposed.

"That would pair well with stiff crimes that will let us sentence them to long periods of labor." Yvon suggested, his own temper cooling little by little as if Dominic's unusual calm spread out over the rest of them.

Berenice crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Any plan like that requires caution. Ample caution, but if there are no objections to the deification at least, I'll handle the proposal personally and get Necran to sign it and send it out to every human country."

They waited in silence among one another, the Six Cardinals of the Theocracy were each lost in their own thoughts as the wave of events that rolled in like a tidal wave of epic proportions, washed out as thoroughly as it had come in.

No hand was raised in opposition.

"Then the motion is carried… I'll see it done." Berenice said and rose to her feet, pushing her chair back herself. "Forgive my early exit… this is already a bit much, and there is a great deal to do if we don't want our capital to be turned into a crater."

No one objected, and before she was out the door the others echoed her sentiment, leaving Dominic to speak with Yarvin alone.