The Red-Columned Palace

When the trireme returned to Aether, Falco and Kenneth both raced for the palace. They were home at last and wanted to see everyone they had left behind! Through the Crown Prince's mind images of his father and mother and sister and brother-in-law raced through his head, but the most constant image was Rowena's countenance.

Upon reaching that five-story tall red-columned maze of a palace that served as Aether's capital as well, Falco stopped and looked down at Kenneth. The caracal stared up at him and Falco gave a smile before entering the palace and began to navigate the passageways to reach the throne room, Kenneth following close behind. It was easy enough for them to navigate, yet when the reached the throne room they found it to be completely empty.

The throne room was a large room with five and thirty steps that lead to the alabaster throne, more a glorified stool than anything else that was placed before a statue of the Earth Bull, a deity that resembled a great bull with fur of lapis lazuli and horns of silver. To the sides of the steps were statues of a past Divine Deucalion, both in a sitting position with their hands on their knees. As tradition dictated, the statues portrayed the Divine Deucalion as idealized, being young and athletic. What would have been flesh was gold and the hair of the statues were made of lapis lazuli, for as the Divine Deucalion was a god on earth, they would be portrayed as gods were with flesh of gold and hair of lapis lazuli.

Looking to Kenneth, Falco inquired: "Where is everyone?" Kenneth meowed in response, to which the Crown Prince of Aether replied: "I don't know either." Walking up to steps to the throne, Falco then addressed the statue of the Earth Bull, inquiring: "What have you to say? Where is everyone? What do you know of this, Prisoner-in-the-Earth?"

Although a symbol of puissance and affluence, the Earth Bull was chained in a cavern beneath Aether and it was feared what would happen if he was ever to break free. On occasion Aether would judder, caused by the Earth Bull pulling at his chains, trying to escape and he could be heard booming and barking as he pulled at them. His priesthood all looked forward to the day he broke free, but everyone else thought them mad. Had the Earth Bull not been chained under Aether and the deity favoured by the bandits and rebels who had been the islands first settlers and later the crown princes who had come before Falco and his father, the current Crown Prince doubted this deity would have been his kingdom's patron, he did not even see a reason to like this deity. Of all the gods in all the world, the Earth Bull had been the only one, until the ascension of Menes to be appeased with throwing a man into a bull pit to be gored to death. Ever since Menes had ascended to the throne, immolations to the Earth Bull had been forbidden and instead his priesthood appeased him with airs and pujas of vintage.

The statue gave no answer. No booming, no barking, no juddering, nothing from the Earth Bull. Was he asleep... or had he escaped in Falco's absence? Or perhaps... Perhaps the Earth Bull had finally found peace.

Was it truly possible? Falco wished it was so, but that left Taurus unaccounted for. Where was he? Where was his father? Where was his mother? Where was his sister and brother-in-law? Where was his father's golden tiger Aedan? Where were the exiled prince and princess from Leto Alboin and his sister Scholastica? Where was Buri, the ambassador from the Ulgen Khanate? Where was Publius, the ambassador from the Commodian Republic? Where was Frumentius, Falco's lifelong friend?

Where was Rowena?

"Falco?"

Falco turned and saw Rowena standing in the entranceway to the throne room.

Rowena was sixteen twelvemonths old and stood at a height of five feet and six inches. She was a slender young woman with light skin, large reddish-brown eyes and red hair that was long and straight. She was fairly attractive with an honest face, a cute mouth and good legs. As was the case of anyone considered the comeliest gentlewoman of anywhere, it was an exaggeration at best with the exaggeration including her mouth being the cutest and her legs the best. Her attire consisted of an amber coloured breastband and a brown perizoma and she kept her hair in a ponytail.

"Rowena, where is everyone?" Falco inquired as he approached her, Kenneth following after him and then proceeding to rub against Rowena's legs.

Rowena knelt and stroked Kenneth's back, before answering Falco with: "Oh, Falco, your father has fallen ill. No one knows what it is, one group of doctors says it is one thing, another group says it is another. Would that there were more healers on Aether."

In all the world there were three kinds of magic users: clergymen, healers and druids and on Aether, Achilles was the only person who had studied the magic of all three. As his student, Falco knew a little bit of healing magic, bringing the number of healers on Aether to two individuals. A healing spell could take hours to do its work depending on the injury or ailment and if one did not know what the ailment was then the spell would do nothing.

If his father was ill, then Falco knew that his mother and Aedan were with him yet his untrustworthy sister could have been anywhere in the palace. That only left the locations of the rest.

"And what about everyone else?" Falco asked.

"The ambassadors are in their quarters, as are Alboin and Scholastica, and Frumentius has been keeping an eye on the Priesthood of the Earth Bull." Rowena replied. "He thinks Taurus is behind your father's illness, but it seems it is just a natural illness however he also reports that Taurus is planning a usurpation with the support of your sister and brother-in-law."

"I can't say I am surprised. Eithne is still unhappy about our father refusing to name her his coruler, even though with her refusal to learn how to govern he has every right to step over her."

A female Deucalion was not unheard of. There had been many over the centuries, but Eithne believed she should be the next Deucalion simply because she was the firstborn of the current Divine Deucalion. Needless to say, Eithne was not fit to succeed her father.

The sound of footsteps passing by the throne room caused Falco, Rowena and Kenneth to all look to the doorway to see who it could have been. When a scullion passed by with a goblet upon a plate, they both relaxed.

Rowena let out a sigh of relief, uttering: "I was expecting Taurus."

"As was I." said Falco. "Being before a statue of his Twin and Shadow, I would not be surprised if he suddenly appeared because this deity had told him I had returned." The High Priest of the Earth Bull had always been an unusual position amongst priesthoods. Every priest or priestess referred to their patron deity as their parent, but the High Priest of the Earth Bull alone referred to their patron as their Twin and Shadow. It had always been like that and Falco could not understand it. No one could and yet very few questioned it. "I go to see my father, will you walk with me, Rowena?"

"Of course, Falco." Rowena replied with a smile. "I have missed you... W-We all did." A faint blush appeared upon her cheeks to which Falco smiled at.

The two made their way out of the throne room, Kenneth following after them. Neither the Son of Tigris or the Daughter of Alfred wondered where Achilles was, for both were well aware of his custom of spending an hour praying at the Fane of Honoured Monarchs Past every day and with how long he and Falco had been away, it was likely he would be praying until dinner.

Through the halls of the palace the three strode, walking by the occasional individual walking by. Eighty-thousand people lived in the red-columned palace that was divided between depositories, ateliers, armouries, chapels, workplaces and monarchial accommodations. It was not hard to pass someone by, usually a potter, scullion or agent looking to exchange goods with foreign agents.

As they walked, Rowena inquired: "How was your mission to Tethys?"

"Oh, it was one of the dreariest things I ever went through." Falco replied, almost groaning as he thought back to his time on that island. "The people on Tethys are the most cheerless people I have ever met, never smiling and only singing death songs, and their ceremonies are equally as cheerless, with their colourless effigies and dark, unlit fanes."

"It certainly sounds dreary." Rowena commented, looking to Falco with a surprised look. "And I always thought the ambassador from Tethys only brought people with him who had personalities similar to his own."

"I would have preferred that was the case." Falco chuckled. "Then things would not have been as they were. How is Buri? Is he still ill?"

The ambassador of the Ulgen Khanate had been ill when Falco and Achilles had left for Tethys. It was nothing serious, yet could have proven a liability, possibly even becoming fatal, had he been serving in the defense of his khanate's northern frontier. Buri and Falco had become good friends with him proving as good a master of the blade as Tigris and Achilles were while Buri's Commodian counterpart Cicero was as contemptuous as the inhabitants of this monarchy as any other Commodian was, earning nothing but the dislike of everyone on Aether.

The Commodian Republic was corruption incarnate with brutal retaliations against slave uprisings, a long series of successful conquests on the mainland and the optimates, the Republic's elitist conservative political faction opposed all political reforms. This oligarchical, slave-owning, elite-controlled and extremely violent system of government was a danger to all the world. The Commodians had contempt for all monarchs, felt superior to their neighbours and considered any monarchy to be an illegitimate form of government, causing Falco to wonder just why they had sent an ambassador to the Kingdom of Aether then. Soldiers, generals, senators all, felt greater than any monarch and they used that as a justification for their conquests. Their two consuls were both optimates, Sulla and Publius by appellation, were two of the worst people that could have been elected to their positions. Sulla had done much to contribute to the evils of his nation and was a man of questionable courage, for he was noted for frequently going after the henchmen of another optimate for profiting off of the conscriptions of yet another optimate, but would not for after their master himself or indeed anyone's master. Publius on the other hand was a corrupt loan shark who extorted the poor with exorbitant interest rates and had aims to be elected dictator even if it meant plunging the Commodian Republic into a position that would require him being given full authority of the state.

The Commodian Republic had a rival in the form of the city state of Minerva, a direct democracy in contrast to the diarchic republic of the Commodians. It never granted rights to anyone who was not male, wealthy or a citizen, actively counted on slavery and formed an association of other city states that it dominated both economically and militarily, claiming taxes that it imposed for membership. No ambassador had come from Minerva yet, but Falco worried if an ambassador from Minerva would be any different from having two ambassadors from the Commodian Republic.

Both Minerva and the Commodian Republic were opposed by the Cambyses Empire, a monarchy like most other nations in the world. It conquered, but not as much as the Commodian Republic and allowed those they conquered to keep their customs and religions as long as they acknowledged the Shah's authority and paid taxes. They also tolerated slavery, but did not exploit it as the Minvervans did. The occasional rebellion aside, it was considered the to be one of the most heroic superpowers on the mainland alongside the Ulgen Khanate, or at the very least the lesser evil compared to Minerva and the Commodian Republic.

"Buri has recovered." Rowena answered, looking sad as she spoke. "If only the illness he had suffered was the same your father suffers. That it isn't has me frightened. Some people say he might die."

Falco stopped in his tracks and looked to the side. He had no desire to become the Divine Deucalion so soon, yet what people were saying certainly explained why Taurus had been planning a usurpation. The High Priest must have believed that if the Divine Deucalion died in the Crown Prince's absence, then he could have easily usurped throne. A good plan, if not for the fact that Tethys was only a three-day sail away. Still, what people said and what was were as alike as a kind word was to a whiplash, meaning Taurus may have been planning a usurpation based on rumour.

"Does he look like he well?" Falco asked, looking to Rowena, who had stopped when he had.

"Not particularly." Rowena looked to the left, as she saw something appear in the corner of her eye. "Yet he does not look particularly well either."

Falco followed her gaze and saw a horn poking out from around a corner. It must have been Taurus, wearing his bull mask like he always did to hide his deformity. He then looked to Kenneth and saw the caracal looking in the same direction with his ears flattened against his skull.

He did not feel like seeing the High Priest of the Earth Bull and Rowena shared that feeling. She had never liked seeing him in the twelvemonths prior, but ever since Taurus had killed her father, she did not even want to be in the same place as him. Taking the Daughter of Alfred by the hand, Falco led her down a different route, Kenneth following.