“So we’re going to war for cake.”
“If you wish to put it that way, sire.”
Archon did not want to put it that way. He wanted to do battle with a real enemy, not put down a rebellion of peasants refusing to make gateaux.
“I heard we’re going to war for cake,” Adrianna said, bustling in with a big tea pot full of tea. She was obsessed with tea. Archon had never drunk a drop of tea in his life, but it didn’t stop her from bringing it every what she considered to be afternoon.
Smithers gave her a vicious look. She was an old servant, and should not be speaking to the king at all. In Archon’s fathers time, servants laid on their faces when the king was present. It was proper and correct, though it made dinner time service rather slow.
“You have to stop confiding in the servants,” Smithers hissed, rather unfairly, as Archon obviously had not so much confided in Anna as been overheard by her.
“I would trust the woman who drains my bath a thousand times more than the politician who seeks to marry his daughter to me. I also trust the man who sharpens my sword over the one who begs me to plunge it into the flesh of his enemy. My servants are the ones who are the closest to me, and I trust them implicitly.”
“You do everything backwards, Archon.”
“Do I.”
“You do,” Smithers said. “I credit it for your survival thus far. Nobody is able to predict your next move. They never see you coming, because even you don’t know what you will do next.”
“Save me the analysis, Smithers. Get me to this rebel planet.”
Chapter 3
A bright star appeared in the sky over Zeta, a planet with an old legend about the end of days beginning with a bright star appearing in the sky.
Archon was not aware of that legend, and if anybody on the planet had actually noticed the arrival of a new star, he didn’t care. This journey was boring. The reason for it was boring. The outcome would no doubt be boring.
His only hope was that the rebellious villagers would actually be putting on a proper rebellion, and that there might be some sport in quashing it, but he had his doubts. It was hardly going to be a fair fight, and unfair fights were tedious.
Still, he had nothing else going on, and this was the closest thing to a fight, so he took it.
Archon and his war crew detached from the main warship in a smaller shuttle, and descended to the planet’s government buildings which were constructed suspiciously like a castle. There was no need for a government building to have ramparts, but this one did. It also had turrets and two towers, a rather obnoxious spire, and a flag with a crown on it. The crown of Archaeus. Archon was familiar with it because he’d worn it rather recently. The entire construction filled him with a dubious sense of deep misgiving. Could a building be arrogant and smug? Apparently so.
“Who lives here?”
“This is the home of General Naxus. He is the magistrate of this colony, and commander of your armies here.”
“And he built this place?”
“He did, I suppose. I’m not sure.”
“I’d like to know who was responsible for this.”
“Responsible for the building, sire?”
“Yes.”
Smithers gave Archon a searching, curious look. He clearly did not understand why Archon was fixated on the building. Perhaps he thought it represented an outpost of the monarchy. But Archon did not consider it that way. Especially not when he entered the building and found himself looking at multiple portraits of a particularly dubious looking personage who had shaved all the hair off his head to reveal a single scale right at the top of it. It was considered desperate to have to remove hair to show scales in Archon’s realm, but apparently this fellow did not care about appearing desperate. He simply cared about appearing everywhere.
While Archon was thinking these thoughts, he was being lead into a great room with many windows. It looked a lot like the room with great many windows Archon had recently held his ill-fated fuck banquet in.
Standing in the very middle of the unfurnished space was a fellow wearing Archon’s colors. It was the same lizar from the paintings, and he was even more smug and punchable in person than he was in his portraits.
“This Is General Naxus,” Smithers said. “He has been in command of this colony and its armies for the past ten years.”
Naxus bowed, but not very deeply. Archon did not bother with a greeting. He had taken an instinctive and immediate dislike to Naxus.
“In command? There is a rebellion.”
“Humans are rebellious,” Naxus said calmly, appearing not to notice the king’s insult coming in place of any customary pleasantries.
“They're humans? I didn’t know we had humans in the kingdom.”