When the Night Gets Dark

[HistoryDude]

The obstacles were initially easy to overcome -
They were simple things like a path of raised ground
Or the continuous beating of a drum,
Which caused most of their group to look around.

That was eventually easily dealt with by a spell to muffle magical noises.
After that, the obstacles got far more difficult.
The first sign of that was the voices -
Each voice was different and each was magnificent.

That was, of course, the problem.
The voices were convincing, and they were giving out instructions.
An additional thing that wasn’t helping was the column -
The column that was blocking conscious thought and deductions.

The voices caused doubt - attacking personal insecurities.
The mad emperor heard many unique voices that spoke of contradicting things.
One attacked him, arguing that his reign was filled with impurities
And that his arrogance would destroy his empire, meaning that he had betrayed his ancestral kings.

Another whispered that he was nothing more than a hallucinating madman
(And perhaps that was his inner doubt, finally given form by his own delusion).
Its whispers were convincing, and they began
To make even enlightened Dristar question his beliefs and his great conclusion.

(Perhaps that was the last moment that he could’ve been saved -
Maybe that was the last chance the Romano-Mongol Empire had to remain.
If so, the final tragedy was engraved
Then - not after the Final Pain.)

It was the last voice that was the most beautiful and glorious,
And so it was that voice that Dristar heeded - even to his own undoing.
It appealed to his own vainglorious
Nature - it encouraged his lone wolf tendencies that had been brewing.

It whispered that he did not need these sorcerers and gods -
After all, their pride was why his trip was necessary in the first place, was it not?
No, it was their foolishness - their stupidity - that caused wads
Of enormous tragedy. Thus, Dristar was trapped in a spider’s web - or at least caught.



Author's Note: I feel like this storyline has been going on for a long time. It'll end soon enough - perhaps in a way that surprises you... regardless, I'm kind of curious if you guys want more supernatural shenanigans or if you'd prefer I got to the end of Dristar and his son's desperate (but doomed) attempts to save the empire (that is, Book 4). This isn't official in any way - just curiosity (and a desire for commentary and concrit).

 

[HistoryDude]

The last voice led enlightened Dristar away from his companions,
And it convinced him to drop communication’s scythe -
Even suggesting that he use magic to summon a canyon
To drop it in forthwith.

Enlightened Dristar didn’t do that -
Mostly because it was a waste of magic -
But he did get rid of what he was supposed to be using to chat.
It fell into the depths pelagic.

The third voice guided the mad emperor toward
The cabal of sorcerers who intended to overthrow the gods.
The other voices did not want to make Dristar suspicious by appearing to be in accord,
So they argued, hoping to make it seem as if they were at odds.

The first two voices argued for fighting,
Which only made Dristar more certain in his course,
As they had planned by not uniting.
He soon felt a force.

He knew that such a sign indicated that they were getting closer
To his goal and would soon be able to truly change the past.
(It did not appear to the temporal stranger that he was a poser -
That he wanted something besides what he asked.)

 

[HistoryDude]

Thus did enlightened Dristar walk toward his own end gladly -
Deluded into believing that his path led to glory.
He threw away his old comradely
Spirit in exchange for a lie that better fit his internal story.

The voice acted as a devil to Dristar,
Promising eternal glory and power while guiding the temporal stranger to Hell.
The mad emperor was convinced that, since he had made it this far,
His efforts could act as that scheme’s death knell.

(Of course, if he had been more lucid, he might’ve questioned a mysterious voice
That only spoke inside his mind.
Sadly, his actions had blinded him to that choice.
He truly believed that the strange voice and his conscience were aligned.)

He walks into the ocean at a siren’s call,
But he is not so far gone as to drown.
He walks on water at nightfall
In search of a way to preserve his crown.

He followed the instructions of a voice -
Straight into the greatest storm Earth had ever known.
This sign caused him to rejoice
Because it meant that he was near the many divine thrones.

It meant that he was close to the center of the action -
A spot where he could ensure that history changed to his benefit.
The mere thought caused him an explosion of satisfaction.
He wanted to cause his doomed and abandoned past and his new vision of history to separate.

Thus does the final act of enlightened Dristar’s Saga begin.
Thus does that temporal stranger walk into a turbulent storm for a dream.
Thus does he commit the ultimate sin.
Thus does a man try to make time’s river flow downstream.

 

[HistoryDude]

He smiled at the thought that then entered his mind.
In his books, there had been a strange spell… but it had been powerful.
Indeed, it had been the most powerful spell he could find.
It succeeded, and, for an eyeblink, he felt all-powerful.

After all, the spell had affected the entire battleground.
Instead of the Aegean background that had existed…
A new environment surrounded the fighters and even produced the sound.
The new setting might have seemed vaguely twisted.

Enlightened Dristar, naturally, felt right at home in his new pocket universe.
Even better, his action had taken everyone else by surprise and let him get out a few attacks without retaliation.
Soon, though, he began to hear chanting in verse,
And he felt an unfamiliar sensation.

He felt doubt about the reality of any of his memories…
Worse, he felt random and inexplicable bouts of anger.
Immediately, he tried to think up possible remedies,
Producing much magical and artificial clangor.

This move did nothing except increase the annoyance of the other beings
That he had trapped in a place of his own making.
They reacted differently - some continued messing with his feelings.
Others went for more direct methods of breaking.

 

[HistoryDude]

That was how the duels began.
Dristar, faced with the possibility of being literally broken,
Decided to extend his lifespan
And ignore his feelings that were making him emotionally broken.

Survival remained difficult, though.
He was surrounded by beings that were attacking him in a thousand styles.
It was very difficult to fend off every blow
And avoid becoming a bunch of ash piles.

Given the circumstances, it was perhaps admirable that he held on for as long as he did,
But no one can survive an ambush forever.
As he just barely managed to avoid losing his eyelid,
He began to wonder how much longer he could keep this endeavor.

He briefly considered surrender,
Yet a new plan entered his mind -
A plan that was as glorious as the sun in splendor.
Indeed, the sight of the sun and the feeling of the wind

Was what reminded him of the power that he had over this realm.
He imagined that the sun and the stars hid their face from the fighting,
And so it was, which briefly overwhelmed
Him before it inspired him to rig things in his favor - even minor things like lighting.

Far more useful, though, was his power of what the battleground was.
He imagined iron bars separating him from his attackers, and they emerged.
He smiled, as the dimension obeyed his thoughts like they were laws.
He thought of the sea, and the entire area was submerged.

Then, he remembered that he couldn’t breathe underwater
And, to rectify that, imagined that this was a substance like water that humans could breathe in.
Unfortunately, the time that he spent editing the battlefield was not wasted, for the slaughter
Had resumed. Everyone knew that attacking him was a bad idea, so they settled for ignoring him and his skin.

 

[HistoryDude]

Enlightened Dristar didn’t react well to being ignored -
He viewed it as a personal insult.
Thus, he tried to get everyone’s attention by summoning a fjord,
But this show of power had no result.

The other combatants knew better than to anger the person who controlled their surroundings,
Which left the mad emperor no choice but to do increasingly crazy (and stupid) things.
He turned to summoning people, including famous crowned kings
As a way to get the attention of the powerful - especially those with wings.

Eventually, he succeeded - to his everlasting regret.
A sorcerer finally deigned to respond to his taunt…
By changing the circumstance so that he was less of a threat -
That is to say, his foe made Dristar regret his want.

Indeed, the first thing that the man did was drag them back into reality as it truly existed.
He made their new fighting ground a mundane Aegean island,
And then the man listed
All of the reasons why fighting was a bad idea on that land.

Enlightened Dristar heard only meaningless words,
And he was determined to get the first move in.
He summoned animals to attack - specifically birds
Intent on pecking out his foe’s eyes and skin.

The other sorcerer’s response was quick.
Looking bored, he cast a spell to turn the birds to naught but ash.
Then, he summoned a wall of bricks
Meant to fall on top of the mad emperor’s head and end their clash.

Enlightened Dristar responded with his own spell of deflection,
So the bricks turned into fresh water, and the island witnessed rain.
After that, he cast a spell of detection,
Hoping to predict his foe’s moves ahead of time and be spared much pain.

In response, his foe merely smiled and murmured,
“None of that, my most arrogant of enemies… my plan is not to be denied by something as simple as that”.
Thus, the immediate future was left undetermined,
As the mad emperor’s attempts to end the battle early fell flat.

Finally, his foe played his last card.
He cast a spell, and blue light shot at enlightened Dristar.
It hit, and the temporal stranger was knocked back at least a yard.
However, its lasting effects were to be far more important to the madman named Dristar...




One or two more chapters until the end of Book 3... and next chapter actually features a Romano-Mongol not named Dristar!

 

[HistoryDude]

That light briefly blinded him,
But, when he could finally see again,
His mind was filled to the brim
With a single emotion - the shock of men.

For, while his surroundings were familiar,
They were something that he didn’t wish to see.
He saw bars with just a hint of silver,
Meant to keep men unfree.

He frowned and attempted to remember the circumstances that had brought him here,
Yet nothing came to mind except the blue light.
He sighed for the thing that caused him the most fear
Had come true - some of his memories were lost to eternal night.

Desperately, he searched for his necklace and his old tomes on magic,
But he saw nothing except empty air around him.
That caused him to become manic.
He searched the area that was dim.

His efforts were for naught,
So he turned to his own untrusted memory,
Hoping to keep even a single magic spell amongst his thoughts.
He also thought on how to make any possible betrayers pay for their treachery.

He remembered a few spells, notably the one to make fire.
Desperately, he attempted to cast it, and yet nothing happened,
Much to his ire,
Though the failure strangely also made him saddened.

He meditated on why the spell failed,
And only three possibilities came to his mind.
The first was only that someone had created a spell so detailed
That it blocked off all other magic of mankind.

The second and third options were far more outlandish to enlightened Dristar.
The second was that magic was derived from the gods,
Who were now abandoning this planet for its star.
The mad emperor hoped that this wasn’t the case, as it would make all magic nothing more than a game of odds.

The third possibility was that his entire trip to the past had been nothing more than a hallucination.
Enlightened Dristar rejected this immediately -
His mind could not create a world of such detailed station.
It could only follow what it had already known previously.


Okay, fine, so Romano-Mongol people (besides Dristar) return to the narrative next chapter. He is in the empire, though.

 

[HistoryDude]

And yet his convictions were soon tested,
For a man entered his cell.
To his shock, enlightened Dristar recognized this man, who didn’t appear very rested.
Indeed, the man’s appearance was like a bombshell.

For the mad emperor recognized this man -
As fathers always recognize their sons.
(Some say that Dristar wept as the lynchpin
Of his delusion perished, and he heard the sound of drums)

His son did not look happy to be there.
His fists were clenched,
And the mad emperor was on the receiving end of an unkind glare.
Worse, his face looked like it was drenched.

All in all, his son looked like some strange cross between sad and angry.
The reason why soon became clear, as Alp told his father of his predicament.
“I want you to know that I was against this, and, frankly,
I think it’s a bad move. That does not mean that I think you’re innocent.”

He paused, as if choosing the words that would best convey his opinion.
“You have abandoned this nation for some strange quest.
Who did you want to take command of the war? Who did you want to govern this dominion?
How could you possibly think that the course of action that you took was the best?

You abandoned your subjects. You abandoned me,
And for what? Are you delusional, as the council thinks? Did you discover some strange knowledge, as the bards will surely tell it?
As of this moment, your options are three.
You can refuse a trial and wait here until your throat is slit.

You can accept the trial and die with dignity when you’re found guilty,
Or you can attempt to flee your own nation and hope some fool sponsors a government in exile.
No matter what, though, Tengri will make his will known. What he decrees will be.
The council says you’re insane. Perhaps that’s true, but you can still die like a Roman and a Mongol, even if you’re senile.”

On that note, he left the room, leaving the mad emperor with a lot to ponder -
And leaving enlightened Dristar feeling very unenlightened.
He shut his eyes and stopped thinking about the beautiful cities that were yonder.
For the first time in years, he felt frightened.

He was afraid of the future - both of himself and his empire.
He was afraid of the possibility that he had doomed his people.
If only he hadn’t dreamt of the possibility that he could ascend higher
Than this crude state. If only he hadn’t tried to be like the proud eagle.

His eyes opened.
He knew which option he’d take.
He would take the choice that granted his family the most hope and
Die in combat - for his son and heir’s sake.


A/N: There's one chapter left in this penultimate book. Book 4 won't have overtly supernatural elements - we shall return to the war and intrigue of the Romano-Mongols... and see their final fall.

 

[HistoryDude]

It would not do for men to say that Dristar died a coward -
They could him call reckless or mad all they wanted,
But cowards always towered
Over all other men in infamy - they were always, by disgrace, haunted.

Let them kill him,
But he would die a death worthy of a descendent of Genghis Khan,
Even if his afterlife could be grim.
At the very least, he could take comfort in the fact that his throne would go to his spawn.

And so enlightened Dristar - called the mad emperor - spent his last night on Earth planning on how to die in a manner befitting his culture.
He did not sleep before that duel at dawn, instead mentally steeling his mind -
For the moment when his corpse was taken by a vulture
And he ran with the rain and the wind.

Dawn came, and the man who had once been a temporal stranger was brought to a silent amphitheater
With nothing except the clothes on his back and his sword.
The old emperor took a small amount of comfort that his execution wouldn’t be treated as a spectacle like those that were once seen as theatre.
In the corner of his eye, the dethroned man caught a small crowd who subtly knelt to the man who had been their lord.

The Ruling Council saw none of that, for they were busy choosing their champion.
They formally announced the trial by combat and the charges -
Ruining the old empire’s halcyon
Days, dereliction of royal duty, and abandoning the nomadic tents for marshes.

Then, at long last, they blew a trumpet, and the duel began.
The man died as he lived - in a clash of blades.
He fought as hard as he could to extend his lifespan,
But the council had chosen their champion well - he was a true ace of spades.

Dristar managed to hold his own for hours,
And yet even his considerable experience wasn’t enough.
In the end, none of his powers
Could save him from the inevitable - his usurpers believed that they had called his bluff.

A sword cut open Dristar’s throat,
And the man died laughing.
He did not gloat,
But his last act was one of defiance, even as he was subjected to a thrashing.

Dristar’s last words were simple - “your throne will crumble and my legacy will reign”.
In that moment - in that single moment, he sounded like none other than the ancient prophets.
(Some say that he proved that he was sane,
As he spoke a Doom that denied the unlawful usurpers their lasting profits.)

Dristar’s last thoughts were a hope that he was mad and delusional -
Not because he wanted the comfort of eternal paradise and not nothingness,
But because he wanted to allow his empire to survive and thrive, in all of its beautiful
Splendor and opulence to cover up the rot of illness.

In the nigh-empty stands, Prince Alp - Emperor Alp now, he supposed - watched his father die with dignity.
He watched his father die in a manner befitting their glorious clan at the hands of proud hypocrites,
And he began to plot on how to reclaim the monarchical power and all its brilliancy.
There had to be some men who knew how wrong this was - there had to be some dissidence…


End of Book 3. Book 4 will begin soon, but there will be a hiatus as I prepare the more mundane (but hopefully no less fascinating) book, where the war will continue as intrigue pits the Romano-Mongols against each other, concluding with the empire's final fall... and one last bit of hope for their culture's survival.

 

[HistoryDude]

The Ruling Council immediately tried to legitimize their unofficial coup.
They scheduled a ceremony to crown Alp, who wished for nothing more than to know how to control them,
But he did not, so he focused on his other goal - how to make the empire anew.
He despised it, but he accepted the council’s offer to crown him with a diadem.

The ceremony occurred upon the steps of an ancient palace -
A final legacy of when the Romano-Huns had ruled.
On those steps, Alp accepted a symbol of authority from men whose hearts were filled with malice,
And yet he did not dare to overrule any of their decisions.

He couldn’t, after all - not yet, not before he had ripped some modicum of true power from their grasp.
Thus, Alp did what any true Romano-Mongol would have done. He left for the front.
The Council could scheme like it was a dismembered asp
All it wanted in the capital, but Alp would continue glory’s hunt.

Thus did the last emperor of the Romano-Mongols walk back to the Forbidden City.
Thus did an army attempt one final campaign to recover a lost war,
While the regime they served ruled by committee
That would let the blood pour

As long as the bloodbath didn’t reach their center of power.
Dristar had left a collapsing empire for nothing, but it wasn’t like the council ever led campaigns.
Alp’s army marched to end one war, but their mood was dour,
For they knew that, in the years to come, they would face greed’s hurricane.

The army encountered no resistance on the road to Beijing.
Alp wasn’t fooled, though - he knew that he would have to face scores of people at the gate.
He was right - tens of thousands of men loyal to the Ming
Stood guard outside their emperor’s residence, as if the city was their state.

Even Alp was surprised by the amount of foes that he was facing, but he shut his eyes and prepared for the confrontation.
He mounted his horse and drew his bow. He intended to lead like his forebears,
For were not the Mongols the nation
That subdued China and made the Han deal with their affairs?

His eyes shut as he gathered his courage.
He prepared the first shot of the last foreign campaign the Romano-Mongols would ever engage in.
The arrow hit one of the defenders, and that seemed to encourage
His army, which began to charge. Soon, all anyone could hear was the battle’s din…



A/N: And so the fall begins in earnest. Apparently, I have no sense of timing, but here's a chapter, even if it has been more than 6 months...

 

[HistoryDude]

Alp led like his nomadic blood-
He fought as a horse-archer
And his arrows were like a flood,
Blanketing the battlefield in a crimson tide and forcing many departures.

During the first eyeblink, it appeared as though the Ming forces would collapse.
The first sally was successful, but Alp remained cautious.
He knew their duty would not be made to lapse
So easily, no matter how much their comrades' state made them nauseous.
Many Chinese were trampled under horses’ hooves,
Yet few surrendered.
Even so, Alp had to fight back a reckless act - he proves
Decisive in his commitment, and even holds back his force’s own members

From giving into the thrill of victory.
It is so tempting to charge - to lose oneself,
To get caught in the spell of bloodlust and fail to learn from history.
The new emperor avoids that, used to restraining himself.

He does nothing except try to weaken his empire’s nemesis
Through a hailstorm unleashed by a bow.
His orders place an emphasis
On avoiding rashness and permitting the maintenance of order, somehow.

This probing action continued
Until Yellow-Eyed Night cast her cloak across the sky,
No matter how much the more foolhardy grumbled about being shamed.
That confrontation’s end was far from nigh.

When Alp retired, spurred by the moon,
His sleep was free from dreams.
He saw no strange visions (and some men who had served with Dristar called that a boon).
He was not about to abandon the campaign on a whim, which made that military less likely to fall apart at the seams.

When he awoke and resumed that final war,
His tactics remained unchanged.
He knew of battle’s lore,
Which encouraged his caution that left his men estranged…



A/M: We're back!