Keeping the Fire: History in the Present Tense

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The Quarters given over to the People's Alliance of Creace were six small cells all along a single hallway. Half of them, like Polena's, were along the exterior wall and had balconys and windows above a sheer granite cliff face dropping hundreds of feet below. The other three cells, given over to the lesser staff the Alliance's mission were further into the fortress. They had no windows and no silence for people lived above them and below them. Coralm had a two storied room at the end of the hall way with a window that looked out into it. Polena took great caution when she slipped away to the Archives, yet though Knight Luminary Coralm had seemed to be ever at his window, this past fortnight his room was always dark. When she did see him it was quick greetings as he was on his way to or from somewhere. He was never home through the day, left before dawn, and always came back well after dusk. After a long Fortnight, spent first in contemplative humiliation and then after in a scholar's private sort of revelry, Coralm finally invited her to dine with him. They shared a meal but none of the true comfort and companionship that such things should contain. At last, when the things were cleared Coralm began without her prompting, indeed, without even looking at her.

“The King wishes to speak with you.”

“What, after this silence?” She had been referring to Coralm at last speaking of something important but he must have thought otherwise because he clairified, “I think it is because your statement meant something to him. What do you think it could be?”

“Why do you think that I would know better than you?” she returned, pride still bruised.

“Because I know Fortress Edgar, but I do not know Fiedjan.” Coralm answered. She was better at the questioning game than he, and so he changed tactics.

“This new Westa Proper, Fiedjan after this “Reforging” I believe they call it, it is something different than we have known, the Fortress or men like me. Certainly it has been twenty years since Westa Proper adopted this expansionist mentality and we diplomats have learned to cope with it. But I think their tactics are changing again, and we were not prepared to see this. Border skirmishes and massing of troops; yes, raids and brutal suppression of crime; to be expected, the founding of new cathedrals and fortresses on occupied lands; of course, but this symbolic warfare. That is something we have not seen before. Is it something you know about?”

“How is it that you don’t know about it?” started Polena out of reflex, and then, “No. I guess that it would be beyond your scholarship since my understanding is from history, not from current days.”

“Present choices are future histories.” Coralm replied, quoting the Second Book.

“Yes, I’ve always believed that,” Polena said, feeling her ire soften a little. It felt good to be respected even if at arms length. After all, a distant relationship would be better for her anyway given her trips to the Archives. “Well let me explain, or, well… let me summarize Fiedjan.”

Coralm sat back, attentive but prepared for length. This would not be the first time Polena tried to explain something to him, and she could tell her other attempts had not filled him with confidence.

“Let me take you back to the Great Migration, almost a millennium ago. The Önea tribes come over the mountains following Kharpen Westa, the future High King. They come because they have been exiled by the Niccanorans of Flin who have conquered them and forced them into this deadly colonization. The Önea carve out a massive empire stretching over the whole west coast and far inland. It's hundreds of miles. These people do not share a common tribe, a language, or even a religion. The only thing they have is the word “Önea” and the word “Niccanoran”, only us and them. So Westa, the man, leads these “us” in twenty years of wandering where he maintains a brutal, but effective regime, and when it’s all done he tries to claim the title of High King over the Önea. He fails, it makes the largest civil war the world has ever known, if legends are true. The only way it stops is when the “them,” Niccanor, tries to intervene and retake control of it's slaves. At some point during this, Westa has a total break down and gives up on everything.”

“The hero of Fiedjan, the man whom all people of the west, in fact which the Eddinite word for “west” is derived from are named for, gave up?” asked Coralm, as if he were missing something.

“Yes, he gave up.” Polena was now too far into her story to slow down and explain the intricacies of Westa Who Knew True Suffering, the rest of the story beckoned to her, “the brutality of the Great Migration, the Civil War, the Breakdown, all of this is the prologue to the man you know from legend. The legend goes he meditates for three days in Iiss and…”

“Please skip ahead Luminary, I don’t want the history.”

“The past is the present Sir Luminary, but to summarize Westa realizes that the only time things were going well was when these thousand nations had an “us” to call themselves. So he sets about to make that “us”. He makes peace, solves problems, gives away everything he owns, and most of all he makes sure the stories of those actions spread in every tongue and every nation. From this we get the three hundred years of the Classical Period where Fiedjan rules much of Creace, we get the Fortresses, we even get the name “Westin” in place of Önea, and most importantly we get “Free Westa” as a title for a massive region of the west, a symbolic freedom.”

“So you think that this new Fiedjan is trying to do the same thing? Rename the world and control how it's story is told?”

“Trying? They already have. The Hollow Sun War, the annexation of the north into the “Protectorate”, the rebranding of the military to “The Hand of Edjin”, and most of all the millennial fervor and the claims that the High King is going to be “reborn.” All of this is the same Fiedjan of the classical period.”

Coralm seemed to choose his next question carefully. So much so he was staring entirely away from Polena.

“So... are they a danger to us? These soldiers?”

“Didn’t our own revolution spring from a single story that moved the people? It was a true story in our case, yes, but Fiedjan does not need truth, only belief.”

“Belief in this Djasho, in the claims that they have the right to control the Free Westin Interior?”

“Yes. The first poet. The progenitor of Fiedjan's speech, mother of all art she is called in some places.”

“But I thought, that Djasho did not exist.”

“Of course not, she, or maybe he, is a myth. But there is strength untold in myths and lies Coralm.”

“And that, no doubt, is why the King seeks you.” Coralm looked to her now, as if something came suddenly to his mind, but he bit his tongue. It was Polena's turn to look into the distance. Her eyes were fixed on the small fire in Coralm's hearth. It had been roaring during their meal but now it was only three husks of logs, half blackened, half the scaled silver of ash glowing orange around their edges.

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