Rebellion of History: A Tale of Raal

Rebellion of History: A tale of Raal

The man sat on and old oak chair, under a small, bent tree by side of the dirt road. It was a quiet hour in the mountains, the sun sinking slowly behind the hills to the west. In the distance a billowing plume of dust was slowly approaching the small mountain village he called home. He closed his eyes, breathing in the sweet musk that came with the settling of night. He'd expected this visit from the Empire of Raal for a long time now.

Larat rose slowly from his chair, pulling his black robes about him, and glanced to his right at the large wooden building that was certainly the target of this troop of soldiers. The town's library; one of the larger libraries in the southern reaches of the expanding Empire. He had been notified of its impending doom by the first wave of soldiers that had passed through last spring. Such buildings were a cause of much pain to the empire. The Emperor believed that all the people of his Empire were to learn their histories as the Empire saw fit, wiping clean the memories of the true past of these people. However the libraries kept the past alive for them, showed them that the empire wasn't all that had ever been, and this had been the spark of many rebellions throughout the northern reaches of the continent. The Emperor had finally decided it was time to smother any residual burning embers of fight the villagers may have had.

Larat patiently awaited the arrival of the soldiers, enjoying what would likely be his last time in the library's shadow. To his left, the sparsely populated village was clear of activity, the people having gone inside their little thatch huts at the appearance of the soldiers.

He walked up to the large oak doors of the library placed between the twin white pillars thick as blacksmiths and twice as tall. He gently pulled the small worn latch on the door and stepped inside. An aisle led straight across the room, to a desk at the opposite end of the library. On both sides of this aisle were a dozen shelves reaching an arm span over Larat's head. Slowly, he walked down the center of the building, savouring the moment, as it would be the last he spent in his home.

He stopped by the desk at the rear of the building, and glanced at the map that lay there, held open by an odd array of paperweights; a glass tumbler, a bowl of potpourri, a painted rock one of the village children had given him this past summer. The smile that had crept upon his hardened features at the memory of the child vanished as his eyes traveled across the map. A large red smear reaching from the north-western peninsula of the Hammerhead Coast to the south-eastern reaches of the Khalak mountains identified the extent that the Empire of Raal had expanded to over the years. Within this red border, were several blue dots, each marking a city he would visit once the soldiers were gone. He had some unfinished business to attend to...

Behind the desk stood another oak door, this one smaller than the main entrance. His private room. He placed his hands against the warm wood, opened it slowly and walked inside. This room was small, with a bed along one wall next to a small side table. On the table sat a small bowl of clear liquid, the only decoration in the room. Carefully walking around the bowl, he approached his bed, and pulled back the covers to reveal a fist sized piece of a bluish coloured metal.

"Litash" he murmured, picking it up. A rare metal in the surrounding mountains, he had needed to use much of his influence in the mining towns to acquire it. He placed the metal in the bowl of liquid, and watched as it began to sizzle; bubbles forming and breaking the surface of the liquid with a sizzling crackle.

Making sure his door was wide open, Larat left the room and returned to the desk to stare at the map. There were cities in the Empire that were ready to rebel, and such places were just as dangerous as the cities which opposed the Empire directly. Perhaps he could stir up some trouble in the mining towns further north. His contemplation was interrupted by the sound of approaching hooves. They came to a halt just in front of the library doors.

A voice called from outside, "Where is the keeper of this library? We would speak with him!"

Slowly, Larat headed to the door, took a deep breath then quickly opened it, stepped out, and slammed it shut behind him. "I am here," he said. "And why would a soldier of the Empire travel such a great distance to speak with poor me?" he drawled sarcastically.

"We have come to purge the village of Gebaris of the lies brought forth by your books, keeper," the soldier said. "And I had thought Larat, the keeper of this building would be older than you, boy."

Larat glared at the soldier. "I'm older than you, lieutenant. Where is your captain? Dead on the road perhaps? Killed by some monster without a name? A knife of the Empire buried in his back perhaps?" Larat stared at the man. "What is your name, boy?"

The lieutenant's face had gone red with barely contained anger. Larat nearly smiled at seeing him close to shaking in his saddle as the rest of the troop, about a dozen or so other riders, all turned their heads to stare at him.

"Ill not answer any of your questions, keeper. Ill not let you befoul my name with your curses, or your games." The lieutenant glanced at the riders to his right and nodded at them. "Go inside, start the fires, the rest of us will keep watch out here." The men nodded and dismounted, grabbing tankards of oil from their saddlebags and walking into the building.

Larat watched them go, and turned back to the lieutenant. "Not sure of yourself, are you lieutenant?" The man grunted questioningly. "If the Empire holds so much sway," Larat continued, "why bother keeping such a large guard out here? The villagers are cowed out of fear of you, you could ensure a more complete job were done."

The lieutenant laughed. "Firstly, keeper, I do not trust you, and would ensure that you are watched. And secondly, often are the times the ambush comes from inside the library rather than outside. Should you have planned anything of that sort, we can return with more troops than is necessary to destroy your useless little town. The Empire is always in need of more slaves, I'm sure your town could provide."

Larat stared back at the library, to one of the small windows, through which he had just seen a lick of light. He smiled in spite of himself. He turned to the village, where a small amount of motion was visible in some of the trees as the villagers watched their past burn.

Larat turned back to the soldiers. "I'm afraid that you are burning down my home," he said to the lieutenant. "We can't have that, can we?"

The lieutenant tilted his head questioningly as he stared at Larat "What are you mumbling about, boy?"

Suddenly, a massive explosion of light and fire erupted from the building behind Larat, blinding the soldiers, accompanied by a deafening bang that echoed off the mountains behind them. Stone and wood rained from above as a giant ball of fire rose from where the library had once stood. Larat stood perfectly still, his robes billowing in the wave of wind caused by the explosion. Splinters flew everywhere, striking the soldiers and Larat, and larger pieces of burning wood began falling from the sky.

From the trees closer to the village came a flurry of movement as several figures dropped down from the boughs, and several arrows soared out at the soldiers. Two of the soldiers fell with arrows in the side of their head, and within seconds the villagers had drawn weapons and descended upon the soldiers. The ensuing chaos was quick as all but one of the soldiers were slaughtered, blood pooling around the bodies. The villagers quickly took the horses away from the fire and attempted to settle them, killing those who would not be calmed.

Larat slowly walked towards the one living soldier, who lay pinned on the ground by a much larger villager holding a knife to his neck.

Larat kneeled down by his head. "Before this is over, lieutenant, I would know your name."

Straining against the knife at his neck, the lieutenant spat in his face. "I will answer none of your questions, keeper of nothing."

Larat calmly wiped the gob of spit from his cheek. "Will you not? And who will remember you when you are gone? Your name will be lost forever; no one will learn from what you have done, no one will know the truth of the people who died here. You will be not but dust under the Empire's spiked foot. I will ask you again, one last time, what is you name, soldier?"

The lieutenant looked at Larat. His jaw clenched. "The Empire will crush you," he whispered.

Larat quickly grabbed the knife from the villager pinning the lieutenant, and put it up against his neck. Slowly, he leaned forward so that his mouth was near the soldier's ear. "Your Empire will burn, and it will be your doing, and your Emperor's doing, and we, those of us who fight him, will not forget why it happened." Quickly the knife drove down into the lieutenant's throat, and the wide eyes slowly faded to gray.

Larat stood up, and glanced around. The villagers were all standing around him and the lieutenant's corpse. "He would not give me his name," he said to those around him.

One of the villagers, the burly man who had been pinning down the lieutenant, approached him. "What of these corpses, Storyteller? Where will they go?" He asked in his deep voice.

Larat smiled, Storyteller is what they called him, the one who told them where they are from, why they are here, and the many wonderful secrets of their past. "They will burn with history," he said simply.

The villager glanced up at the burning building and turned back to the corpses. Slowly, one by one they were tossed onto the flaming remains of the library and the smell of burning flesh filled the air.

Again, the large villager approached Larat. "And where will you be staying, Storyteller?"

Larat glanced up and looked to the west, where civilization and the rest of the empire lay waiting. "Stay? I will not stay my friend. What has happened here is a big deal to the village, but to the world, it is small and insignificant. There is much I have not seen, and many people I must meet. If the rebellion is to be a success, then I must be a part of it."

The villager frowned. "Where will we learn of our past if not from you? There are no books left."'

"I will return when the Empire has been purged from our land, and then I will rewrite the books for you, my friend. You must protect the village until that time. I'm sure the Empire will want to see what happened to their men."

The villager smiled. "I will protect your home, Storyteller."

Larat smiled, and joined his friend in walking over to the horses, which had been moved to a space under one of the trees lining the road. Larat found a long-legged black mare to match the colour of his black robe, and mounted the ornate saddle. The lieutenant's horse.

He started the horse down the dirt path at a walk, then slowly picked it up to a canter, and soon was speeding down the mountain trail at a dead run. The times were changing quickly now, and soon, as usually happened when ignorance took hold of the world, history would repeat itself. Soon people would realize what was happening to their lives under the Empire, and they would rebel. The greed of the Empire would anger the people, and Larat would be there when the rebellion of history began.