Final Confessions of a Goblin Emperor 9

Chapter 8

There is one last memory of my school days. The worst. The most painful
It was a kiss.
It was Letharius’s kiss.
Our little banquet for graduation was wrapping up and suddenly his arm was around me.
“You know your friend sure has a nice setup here!” he was so drunk it was it was beyond belief.
“He is a man of means, certainly,” I returned demurely.
“I guess he can screw pretty good too, otherwise you wouldn’t be buzzing around. Or is it his pocketbook you’re in it for?”
“Ha ha ha,” I laughed, almost sinisterly, “You can read me like a book. The money isn’t bad, I’ll admit that. But truly I do care for him, and him for me. I am in love.”
And he kissed me!
“Just because he can do that doesn’t mean he loves you. I know plenty of guys like him. They want one thing. Maybe you’re in love with him, but he sure as hell don’t love you.”
I had nothing to say. I gestured slightly and Letharius’s arm jerked off my shoulder unnaturally.
“Here’s the big bad sorcerer again!”
“You have a drinking problem Letharius,” I hissed as I swung my arm wildly and he was again pushed back, this time stumbling into an ottoman.
“It’s the drink Enath, it just seems to find its way into my hand. I don’t have a problem.”
And he nodded off.

I made a clean break, and not just from him, but from all of them.

I ran away from it all. Nestro and I disintegrated after that night, and after a handful of letters we went our separate ways. Love dies like anything else, without particular auspiciousness. My bags were packed the day after graduation, letters were written to the others, save Lita who I just couldn’t write to.
I saw Erita to her new dormitory and Evith to the train, they would fit in well in the Empire, they deserved better than the colonies. We all deserve better than what we get handed, but what are we to do?
I love fresh starts. I’m a cloud, I disturb, I redirect, but I don’t change anything. I vanish and I’m not missed, I appear and I’m barely wanted. Never hated, never loved, though I know that’s a lie, plenty of people love me, plenty of people hate me.

College was something else, especially for me. I was very antisocial. Only eleven students are admitted to Ruda Aztar, fully paid, usually taken from low ranking nobles and wealthy merchants. Two or three always die though so a graduating class ranges between eight and ten in size. It is expected that upon graduation the mages will serve a four year term in the Elven army, or longer.
We were War Wizards, very disreputable in the sorcery community. I have a higher aptitude than those who were in my class. Most of them were soldiers or knights who had been selected for some sort of latent magical talent. They also weren’t a terribly bright lot. It was an almost exclusively male school, they were a very jockish lot, and the women, what a bunch of sluts! I liked them, all of them; I didn’t have to be deep or probing to get along with them. They were simple, they were kind enough, half of them joined up with my regime after the Adameth Affair.
None of us had to share quarters, which was glorious. I loved having my own room to sleep in. We were provided uniforms, black robes with white leggings and black shoes. Which I also enjoyed thoroughly. With uniforms there is a lack of stigma, no need to look perfect, it diffuses awkward social situations, gaps between the rich and poor.
I never really made friends with any of them, though they all admired me for my proficiency. Many of them showed up shit-poor mages. Terrible, just terrible, I was the only one with any true magical training, with good form and proper control. They all were casting divination spells out of their motion spheres and using fire energy to perform evocation. It was preposterous.
Lady Kiemandra straightened them out.
What a bitch!
It’s no wonder her Guild had the highest mortality rate in history. Her training methods were brutal. Day three one of our number was already dead. He burst into flames right there on the field. Fine looking young man too, I’m sure with a lovely family and a charming little girlfriend tucked away somewhere.
She wasn’t the self centered little aristocrat I had met in that parlor all those weeks ago. She was a ferocious taskmaster, her purple eyes cold and unfeeling as her cruel lash bore down on us.
Literally, that bitch had a whip!
It struck me only twice though, in all five years of training, only twice. Once while I was slacking at transmutation and had turned my chicken purple instead of blowing it up. The other time I messed up a form when we were fire conjuring. The only mistake I made in Guild training.
A Guild is an interesting development in the wizard’s community. When it’s warlocks it’s called a coven. A Guild is a group of wizards who study a particular part of magic to an extreme end and then put that mastery to use for economic purposes. In every case a Guild mage is given tremendous respect and treated with the highest level of professional regard.
Save Ruda Aztar mages, we were mercenaries, not scholars. At least that’s how the world perceived us. I’m not trying to be weepy. This whole thing seems like a sob story doesn’t it? Poor Enath, the world’s so big and scary, wah wah wah. I’m just telling the truth, I’m not trying to be a downer, this story is sad and moany, I’ll admit that. But don’t for a moment think I’m being undue, or that I’m concerned, every life has its rough patches, I wouldn’t change any of it, because I’ve had a hell of a time. Just making things clear, I’m not bitching.
But we weren’t exactly held in high regard. I like that. Low regard is so much more fun, you can do so many more outrageous things. We were always wasted. And Lady Kiemandra, despite her religious bent really didn’t give a flying shit what we did with our free time. I would attend a few odd parties, observing from a corner, quick with a joke when the party turned my way. But I was a watcher, not a doer. That was my first lesson in psychology, watching boys be boys. All men can be broken down into three categories, men who love sex, men who love themselves and men who love sleep. There’s a subcategory under men who love sleep entitled men who love to drink. Among men there are only sots, pompous pricks and lazy shits, that’s all. If you can give a man what he wants then he’ll follow you to the grave. And once you have the men then you’ll have the women.
There was one requirement for graduation that I loved more than anything else I got to do in college. We had to spend at least two months on contract to a private party. This could mean the Army or Navy, Expeditionary Forces, Magical Researchers, Wealthy Citizens, etc. It gave us real world experience. Those were some of the few times I was truly happy in those years.
I’ll relate my tales to you. Scribe, make five separate headings for each tale, I want them each to be individual chapters.
What?
That’s fine, I don’t care. I suppose we shouldn’t waste paper. Just make what I’ve said in this chapter an introduction to the first one if you’re going to get so antsy. This first one’s short anyway.

Freshman year, my first foray into the world of free-lance wizardry, arguably my tamest. I was to serve as a private instructor to the Viscount of Caquilza, a twelve year-old boy, and his three sisters. They were under the ward of their Uncle, the Baron of Zilia.
It was a week and a half travel, Zilia and Caquilza are far Northern provinces. Both are only loosely bound to the throne so there was tremendous autonomy among the local rulers, who were all descended from ancient Elven Chieftains.
I loved it up there, the moment I got off the train. It was colder and the trees were all conifers, not maples and oaks like in the lower realms. The houses were a little more rustic. There was very little stone used in construction in those parts. It was very clear that the Viscount held tremendous power over the region, There were no banners of the Elven Nation but instead flags of the Viscounty, green and orange numbers.
The estate of the young nobleman was an expansive log lodging that stood an impressive four stories tall. There was a tremendous garden planted at the front of the estate with a grove of apple trees planted in the rear.
And so two months passed swiftly, two hundred days came and went. The noble family was very handsome and their Baron protector very gentle and affectionate. They were unruly and refused to listen to any of the history that I so desperately tried to impart to them. Some people cannot dwell on the past, it stifles them. People who don’t think about the past are not people you want to consort with in any sort of a dire setting. They cannot be depended upon because their actions follow no sort of pattern. Without dependability trust is impossible.
I often had to accompany them during their romps in the forest. I can’t for the life of me remember their names. They were good, good children though. The Baron, whose name I also can’t place, though I know his surname was Cadrecha, would educate me about various things when I wasn’t attending to the children. He was a very demonstrative man, everything he did could be learned from. I learned about a plethora of arctic and subarctic plants from him, and what’s more, he taught me about governance.
He had three sayings, Food, Family, and Faith. That was his entire summation of human beings.
Food, without it, no one can live. Soldiers will fight and die for many causes, but even the most tame mannered grandmother will rise up if she goes hungry long enough. To ensure loyalty keep your people fat and full, lest they become lean and angry.
Family, of all bonds, none is stronger. A mother will willingly die a hundred thousand deaths in defense of her children, as will a father. It is thereby that a band of loving fathers is capable of overturning legions of mercenaries, no matter how superior their arms.
Faith, faith in the heavens and faith in your ruler. If one is to follow another there has to be an ability to depend on the one to be followed. Without it a ruler becomes a head without a torso. Faith is fostered through dignity, pride without arrogance and above all else, decency. Men will follow murderers, fascists, fanatics and freaks, but not pigs.

So I learned how to rule a civilized agrarian society. I thought it merely useful observation at the time. Little did I know that years later I would put it into effect on my own empire.
I learned of animal husbandry and selective breeding in the Northlands as well. There’s no place for weak cows or weak horses in those lands, only the strong can be allowed to survive, an idea that I agree with thoroughly some days.
More than husbandry I learned how to care for the magnificent horses of the North and how to ride them. The Northlands traditionally provided huge portions of cavalry to the Elven Army. I was taught a few military maneuvers and such from saddle, not that I was very good. But yet again, it would come in handy years later when I had to train my first division of horse men.
I didn’t have to fight at all during that half year that I spent among the Northern Elves. Rather disappointing, though I did intervene on behalf of the young Viscount who got in a fight with a young Duke from a neighboring region during a particularly heated ball. Just a few augmentations, like I had used when I fought, just enough to even the odds.
My time there ended all too soon it seemed. It had been a hell of a time. I went back with my pockets jangling full and a weak little beard covering my face. It got cold up there, what else is there to say.
My education resumed. I continued my harsh studies under Princess Kiemandra who had recently sent off a graduating class to aid the army. Needless to say she was in a terrible mood. But she mellowed out ever so slightly before my next trip was to take place.
The next was one of the most exciting, for I was assigned to a detachment of the Elven Army which was tasked with trading to the black barbarians of the northern part of the Dwarven territories.
The division was under the command of one Major Letharius Zybaylis. My isolation from college friends was to be shattered ever so slightly.
We were in for an adventure to say the least.