All That Is Evil Is Not Dark/Chapter 39

Darin listened to the raging mob calling for blood outside the castle.

"All my best work failed to get them to turn on you. Yet this man falls from the sky and they are transformed into a wild mob in moments."

Tralin sighed deeply. "Draynor is dead, the Drakel have taken large parts of traditional land, and something I myself have since countenanced. The Brilhado are directly or indirectly tied to all of our miseries. They are scared, tired, and angry. Can you expect any more of them?"

"I suppose that I should not," Darin replied. "Oddly, however, I did. I had come to view the Derenian people as very calm and reasonable. They seemed perpetually optimistic even in the face of disaster."

"It is very easy to handle small setbacks when your world is secure. The world is no longer secure for them..."

"The world is no longer secure for anyone."

"Indeed not. That most unfortunate fact is the great problem, I fear."

"Will he live?"

"His injuries are quite severe and, unfortunately, Brilhado physiology is somewhat of a mystery even to me. However, he seems to be recovering his color and his pulse rate is steady."

"It makes little sense. What are the Brilhado up to, sending a single man here? Do you think perhaps he is a spy who encountered something he could not handle?"

"There is that possibility," Tralin responded.

"What will we do with him...?"

"We will determine what he knows, what he was/is doing, and from whence he came. We will make no assumptions. I will handle this as Draynor would have wanted me to. I will not dishonor his castle or his memory with pointless violence or speculation."

"Hmm?" Darin grunted.

"What?"

"I was just thinking that it is fortunate that this Brilhado arrived now. Had he arrived just after our return to Deren, what would you have done then..."

"I refuse to speculate on such rhetorical foolishness..."

Darin stared at Tralin pointedly.

"My king..." he began calmly

"No. You're right, of course," Tralin said, sighing deeply. "I most likely would have killed the man myself..."

"I am not afraid to say that you frightened me..."

"Frightened you. You, who calculatedly tried to pit the people against each other in civil war just to advance your religious and personal fanaticism. In the words of the great moglin humorist: you know your own self best."

"You are implying that we are alike?"

"In many ways. Certainly, you are less precise and controlled then I generally am, but that in itself only means that when I do loose my wrath, it is all the more fierce for it."

"What will we do about the people? They will not be denied."

"I fear you are right."

"Yet we cannot give them what they demand."

"No."

Clay entered the chamber. "King Tralin, the Brilhado awakens."

"Here is hoping the answer presents itself to us..." Darin said.

"It is rarely so simple."

"I know it very well."