Unconquered Pt. 05

Ember, pleased at that, had thought that the hard part was done.

But then the paperwork showed up. There were gods throughout Nex-Ho, and they needed written confirmation that their contracts would be upheld. Then there were the guilds, who needed to be assured that the Unconquered would protect and lead them. Then there were the merchant families, the local aristocrats, and the slaves themselves. The slaves needed a dispensation from the Unconquered, and then the question had come: Where would they live? Where would they go? What would they do?

And Ember found that answering that was not as easy as lifting a building and dropping it on the heads of some devils.

At least, it wasn't until June, in a flare of irritation seeing him looking down at the massive pile of paperwork the governor had dropped onto his desk, said: "Okay, Ember. Remember how the power of the Sun himself flows through your veins, allowing you to accomplish what no human could normally do?"

"Yeah?" Ember asked, wringing out his wrist.

"You need to do that more so," she said.

"What?" Ember asked. "I'm not using my powers. See? No glowy!" He wriggled his wrist. "And if I had my powers, I'd be able to be all...cool and rad and neat, right?"

"You're reading," June said, her voice soft.

Ember looked down at the papers. The words swam before his eyes - and he didn't have a single idea what they meant anymore. He groaned and sat down, his hands going to either side of his face. He worked his fingers in and groaned. "Auuugh, no! I can't read! I never learned how!"

June sighed, shaking her head. She crossed her arms over her chest and stepped across the small office that the governor had given them for the dispensation of his first edicts as the Unconquered. "The Unconquered takes what humans can do and just makes them more so. Humans can fuck. So, Unconquered fuck so good that mountains orgasm." Ember opened his mouth to ask the first of many, many questions. But June just kept going. "A human can lift a weight, so an Unconquered can lift a building. A human can fight a man, so an Unconquered can fight an army. Got it?"

Ember frowned. "A human can learn to read. But an Unconquered can learn to read really fast. A human can lead, but an Unconquered can lead...in...a more gooder way," he said, slowly.

"Yes. It's all in the use and channeling of mana, as well as your own inherent skills," June said, nodding down at him. "That's what Goat was watching you for - to see what your inherent fighting is like. And-"

"Chirp!" Ember said, clapping his hands.

The drawer to his left opened and Chirp sprang out, then shifted from their bat form to their humanoid form, their rump settled on the side of the desk. They beamed at him, fangs glittering in the lamplight. Ember giggled, then stood, so he could press his nose against theirs. June mimed vomiting, then blinked and stood up straight. "Wait, they live in your drawer?"

"It's comfy!" Chirp opened the drawer with their foot. Ember had made them a little bed out of a small carton of napkins and cloths. He had also used a pen - back when he had been able to read and write thanks to the power of the Unconquered, before he had psyched himself out of it - to write what he was pretty sure were the words: Chirp's love bed. He could still see plenty of hearts that he had drawn, to indicate the amount of love implied.

June groaned. "You are going to give me sugar starvation," she whispered.

"What do you need, Emby?" Chirp asked. Then they frowned. "Embro? Bye! Sleep? Sleepy?"

Ember frowned. "I kinda like Emby."

June put her hands over her face. "You're doing this on purpose."

"Maybe!" Ember said, then giggled as Chirp leaned forward to kiss his head, their giggles squeaking out around his hair as they nuzzled him more and more. Ember, finally, got to the point: "Chirp, can you teach me to read?"

"I can...I'm a scribe!" June said, her eyes wide.

"Yeah, but Chirp is my saris," Ember said.

June scowled, her tail stilling. Chirp looked between her and Ember - but before they could say anything, June made a 'tssh' noise and tossed her head. "Fine," she said. "Fine, you two have fun." She started to walk away - and Ember felt a flare of nervousness in his gut. He and June teased one another. Well. Mostly, June teased him. But had he gone too far?

"I'll go and fuck your mom, okay?" June said, calling over her shoulder.

Ember nodded. "...wait, what?"

"I think she's joking," Chirp whispered.

"I'm not!" June's voice was muffled through the door. Then, even more faintly. "Hey there, Charscaros, you're looking good..." The voice grew softer, and he heard a pair of footsteps moving away. Ember slowly laid his head down on his desk.

"Why do people want to fuck my mom so much?" he asked.

"She's-" Chirp stopped themselves. "So! Reading! Writing! Lets get to it!"

Chirp shifted to their tiny bat form and began to buzz around the room. Their wings beat so fast that Ember couldn't even see the movement - and they zipped from the desk to the wall repeatedly. Within a few seconds, the whole room was covered in hanging scrolls, each one containing several symbols, inked on them by Chirp's tiny paws. When they had finished, they shifted back to their humanoid form, their feet dripping with ink as they sat on the desk, panting and smiling. "So, these are the six hundred characters of the Old Speech, the foundational language used across the Land. Thanks to being penned by one of the Unconquered, uh, I think the Third One, all language variations use it."

"How?" Ember asked.

"Cause she was the Unconquered," Chirp said, grinning. "It's the same way you can, uh, uh, uh..." They lifted their hand, waving it in the air.

"Fuck your ass without lube and have it feel good!" Ember snapped his finger and pointed it at Chirp. Their face flushed deeply.

"I was going to say lift buildings!" They squeaked.

Ember nodded and stood. "Right! So, what does that symbol mean?" He pointed at it.

Chirp smiled. "That's the basis for the word ryu, which is the foundational word for dragon, god, wind, tempest, earthquake, bad decision, good decision, and..." They paused. "And other things."

"What other things?" Ember asked. "also, wait, wait, how can one word mean so many things?"

"It's not a word. It's a symbol. Symbols make up words - if you combine ryu with, say, thur there, then it becomes inflected with the aspect of earth and violence. Depending on how you combine the symbols, it'll mean either earthquake or bad decision. If you invert the two, then ryu becomes the modifier to thur, and depending on its orientation to the axis of the pattern - which can be either vertical or horizontal or both - it changes the word's meaning!" They clapped their hands together. "Easy, right?"

Ember frowned.

Slowly, his head began to glow. Golden flames wreathed his shoulders, his arms, then flickered down to his ankles.

Then he nodded. "I get it," he said.

Chirp's smile faded ever so slightly. "Good!" They said. "Now, we just have six hundred symbols - also known as characters - and each can be combined-"

"-sixty three trillion, one hundred ninety five billion, two hundred two million, six hundred thirty six thousand, nine hundred times," Ember said, his voice growing slower and more doleful until he turned to face her.

Chirp smiled. "It's a lucky number. Also, by the time you hit the five hundredth, the magic takes over and it gets a lot easier."

"Dear gods, I hope so," Ember whimpered.

***

When Ember finished signing papers, giving edicts, asking June which edicts to give, and finishing all the busy work it took to set Nex-Ho to rights, he felt like he had to sleep for a week to get his brain to feel even slightly normal. Chirp and Xora took him to his bed and, rather than fucking them silly, he settled merely for the delight of tonguing Xora's hot, tangy pussy, then tonguing Chirp's perky, cute ass, and then falling asleep to the comforting, pleasing sounds of his Lunars mewling and squirming and writhing in orgasmic pleasure.

When he woke, it was to June rapping on the door to the room the governor had given them. She had a huge, shit eating grin on her face.

"Your mom's pussy tastes real good," she said, with more emotional satisfaction in those six words than anything Ember had ever heard from her in his life. He pinched the bridge of his nose - and June continued, her voice still gloating. "Also, Jerin Kah's finally awake."

After the battle, Chirp had been somewhat alarmed to learn that she had put several hundred thousand times the lethal dose of yellow eyed frog venom into the Infused Knight. They had been even more alarmed when the chirgeons and doctors and healing gods of Nex-Ho had given their prognosis: Three days of bedrest and he'd be right as rain. Chirp had hidden behind Ember for the next few hours before calming down - but Ember had seen to setting Jerin Kah's imprisonment up properly. Fortunately, Nex-Ho had a cell made for contain rampaging gods. Also, the captain of the guard, Varish, was willing to let bygones be bygones once she was ordered to do so by the governor.

And so, Jerin Kah awoke, dressed only in his loincloth, in a chamber of solid steel, five feet thick, with only a single window of magic hardened glass at the front, which itself could be covered with a cube of solid steel that could be flash-welded to the rest of the massive brick if anyone tried to wriggle out of the window. The same kind of magic that let an announcer speak to the whole of an auditorium was wired into the guts of the cell, letting Jerin Kah speak to Ember.

"Well," Jerin said as he looked around the white painted interior of the cell. "Homey. Reminds me of Iremire."

"Iremire Cauldron?" Ember asked. "You...right, that's where the Regency makes people like you."

Jerin Kah chuckled. He laid back against the small cot in the room - his hair flowing as if in a stiff breeze. Rose petals fluttered around his body and he gleamed under the lights, like he had been freshly oiled. A tiny ding sounded as his teeth gleamed. "Don't talk about me like I'm some kind of devil, Emby," he said, his voice a casual croon - somehow sounding more confident while he was in jail than when he was out on the field. Maybe it was because he knew Ember wouldn't be able to easily punch him while he was in there. "I'm an Infused Knight of the Regency that you, if you were the true Unconquered, would serve."

Ember made an irritated 'tsk' noise, crossing his arms over his chest. Xora and Chirp were sitting out of view of the glass, the governor smoking her third thacka stick for the minute. The stick was crumbling to ash under her sucking breaths, while Ember looked back at the glass window. "The Unconquered destroys evil empires. The Regency burns down villages and enslaves people. Ergo, evil."

"What a simplistic view of things," Jerin Kah said. "We keep the Land safe. There are threats all around us. Devils, Akuma from below. Fair Folk from beyond. Behemoths from below. The Locust People from above." He pointed upwards. "You don't even know what most of those threats are because the Regency stops them. Because people like me stop them." He flicked his tongue along his lips. "Shall I tell you of the Locust People? Of their clockwork monsters and their swords of starfire?"

Ember scowled. "You're talking to the frigging Unconquered. Do you think I'm going to be scared of a monster? We're made to fight monsters!"

"You're made to die to monsters," Jerin Kah said, casually. "If an Unconquered can be killed by an Akuma, they can be killed by anything, darling." He sat up, then clasped his hands to his knees. His smile was playful. "Do you know why most of your villagers survived? Why only those that would not surrender were killed? Why I courted your mother so gently, so kindly? Because I wanted to draw you out, to talk to you. I didn't quite expect you to be so sneaky - shows me for underestimating you." He shrugged, expansively. "I expected you to stomp out and try to fight me man to man, not letting your Lunar Wife-"

"Sairs," Ember snapped.

"Whatever," Jerin Kah flipped his hand.

"No, not whatever!" Ember said, stepping over to the window, glaring in at him. "You respect Chirp, or I come in there and kick your fucking ass. Got it?"

"How forceful," Jerin Kah said, his voice soft. "Your Lunar...your...your Saris..." He smiled, the term coming out only after he had let there be enough to a lapse between the word Lunar and it - the magic that made Chirp a Lunar Wife clinging even to his tongue. His head cocked to the side. "Most Unconquered keep them safer than putting them on the front line."

"I'm cool like that," Ember said, then sighed. "So, you kidnapped my family to talk to me. Talk."

Jerin Kah nodded. "Join us," he said, simply. "The Regency controls seventy five percent of the Land. Most of the gods owe us fealty in one way or another, and we have all the weapons the Regent could build since the death of King Bahul. With you in our arsenal, we could beat back every bandit kingdom, every independent state, and make the Land secure against all threats. Not just for this cycle, but forever." He smiled. "And before you get high and mighty about chains and toppling thrones, think about this for just a second..."

He stood, suddenly, then began to pace towards the door. "What...gives you the right...to throw the biggest chain of all around the world's neck?" Jerin Kah's green finger pressed to the glass, smudging it slightly. His breath fogged the glass and his finger swept - making a circle. "The world has no choice but to follow where the Unconquered leads. Unless someone or something kills you, you will shape the Cycle to come. And if you're here to free slaves...how does it feel knowing that you've made all of us your slaves, with your power?"

Ember stepped back. His cheek throbbed, and he felt like he'd been slapped.

Jerin turned away. "I do expect at least three pretty prison guards to seduce, or else I get cranky." He flipped his hand and walked back to his cot.

"Ember-" Xora said, her voice husky. She reached for him - but Ember was already walking away. He hurried away from the prison - and lost himself in the crowds of Nex-Ho. He found himself at the edge of the river and flung himself down, sitting with his legs over the side. He could see men in boats poling along, sweeping the river clean inch by inch. He watched the river flowing by and tried to think around what Jerin had said. But...

He had a point.

Ember had learned how to read in a few hours. He had pushed himself hard and figured out how to give each slave a home, a way to support themselves, and even where to send them if they couldn't fit into Nex-Ho. He had been glowing by the end of it and felt tired and wrung out. But he had done it. His fingers tightened on the stone side of the river channel, and he felt the stone creaking against his fingers. He forced his hands to let go.

"Ember?"

Ember jerked his head around - and saw his father walking out of the alleyway. He looked just as Ember remembered him: Bronzed from working in the sun, muscular from heaving and moving stuff, and calloused in his fingers from long labor with farm tools. He had a bit of a sore around his throat from the slave collar, a sore that his fingers touched. But it was a sore that would fade, and fade fast. He sat down beside Ember and looked down at the river. A long silence stretched between them.

"Stinks, doesn't it?" Dad asked.

Ember looked at him. He opened his mouth to argue - to agree - but then Dad pointed.

"This river needs better godly management," he said, shaking his head. "There has to be someone skimming on their prayers. Using them in the casino instead of cleaning the river." He sighed, then grinned at Ember. "But I hear that you already fixed that up - booted some godly heads."

"Mostly threatened," Ember said, his voice growing bitter.

Dad reached out and drew Ember close, his arm looping around him. "Ember, honey," he said, quietly, his gruffness tinged with the sweet warmth that Ember remembered, before his perennial string of absolute fuckups had made him hard and angry. "You don't get to choose the world you get. You don't get to choose the life you get. Sometimes, you get born to a farmer and have to deal. Sometimes, you're born to a King, and get to choose your way in the world. All you can do is what you can do." He looked down at the river, his hand sliding up and down Ember's shoulder. "Beating yourself up for the Cycle is taking the blame off the people who deserve it."

Ember closed his eyes, leaning into his father.

"Find those assholes and kick their butts," Dad said, his voice growing tight. "You've got the chance."

"But what gives me the right?" Ember asked, drawing away a bit.

"Not a damn thing," Dad said, looking him square in the eye. "Nothing gives you a right - you have to make a right. Once, Rataka was run by a satrapist from Nex-Ho. They took half of what we earned until the lot of us teamed up under the headwoman and we drove him out with his tail between his legs. We made it right." He bumped his knuckles against Ember's chin. "You make things right by doing the right thing. Now, some people might say that an Unconquered makes things right by just doing them. But we know that's a pile of horseshit."

Ember bit his lower lip.

"Do right, what's really right, and you won't go wrong," Dad said.

"Right, but how do I know what that is?" Ember asked.

Dad shrugged. "When I wasn't sure if I should join in the rebellion, I asked Chari. By the way, can you tell your friend, if she wants to fuck Chari, she doesn't have to sneak, right? Chari, Tusa and I are in a-"

"Greatideabrilliantbye!" Ember sprang to his feet and ran.

***

Xora and Chirp looked at one another.

"Beat them up," Xora said.

"Yeah," Chirp said.

"The Regency is a slave empire," Xora said, her eyes flashing. "Their Legion conquered my homeland - that's why I'm a...why I was..." She trailed off.

"Good King Bahul would spit if he saw what the Regent has turned his kingdom into," Chirp said, bobbing their head.

Ember clapped his hands together. The three of them were in the apartment that the governor had given them, and he felt a great sense of relief at hearing their words. "All right!" he said. "We're going to take down the Regency and bring peace, freedom, and justice to the lands...now how do we do that." He started to pace. "Right now, the biggest threat we've got to face are those Infused Knights. I've asked June - she doesn't know how the Regency makes them. According to the stories, they're only a tiny bit less strong than a Lunar." He nodded. "So, they gotta go."

Xora nodded. "Well, um, in my home village, if you wanted to get rid of a fishshark infestation, you find the nest and get the mother and just...hook your fingers under the gills." She crooked her fingers. "And throw her really really really hard in some other direction. If she flew far enough, it'd trigger her migration instinct - since the migration happens when the chaos storms get really fierce and..." She blushed, trailing off. "T-Then the whole...the hive...goes..."

"Or we blow up the research lab!" Ember said.

"That was kinda what I was...trying...nevermind," Xora said - then blushed as Chirp hugged and nuzzled her.

Grabbing June and Goat and getting June to make the map of the Land of Ten Billion Gods was the work of a few minutes. June accepted the idea of taking on Iremire Cauldron without much of a flinch, and it made Goat cackle. "Now you're thinking like an Unconquered!" he said, beaming. "How are we going to get there?"