The suns were long set, but still the thick heat of high summer burnt the tongue and made bones heavy. Within the city of Lianthre, people took solace in the evening’s mild respite from the days heat, thankful for their cold baths, grateful, even, those whose weekly wages did not run to fuel for their fires. Even the many taverns of the city served cold meats, raw fish from the western coast, or plain breads and cheese, sometimes garnished with pickles. No oven burned.
None stirred from their homes but the hardiest of drinkers, determined to struggle through the oppressive heat to their cups. They could be found late at night in any city, the accomplished drinkers, fighting the weather from summer through spring. Of course, the best drinkers stayed where they were, no matter the season.
Nothing could deter a seasoned drunk from travelling to sup his ale, but they were the only people walking the dark streets. They were safe from cutthroats and footpads, but even the safest of cities pose their own dangers. Danger was not something a man could avoid, whether he lived in the company of people, or alone in the wilds but for the woodland creatures. Under the bright glare of the sun danger often lurks. During the night, even one such as this, danger looms.
Thieves did not prowl the streets. Something worse roams the alleyways of the greatest city in all of Rythe, the capital of the world as much as it was the capital of the continent of Lianthre. Thieves existed, but those that made it past their childhood years did so through an enhanced sense of self-preservation. At night, the city belonged to the Protectorate, the enforcers of the Hierarchy. While the Hierarchy remain aloof, above the petty lives of their human charges, their will was carried out by the Protectorate — a guard of sorts (should the guard practise torture and murder as a deterrent rather than a punishment), an occupying army, a legion of judges and executioners. Their features are as alien as the stars themselves, for no aspect of their countenance could be considered human. Though their actions do not mark them peculiar to humanity, it is the excess, the unstinting attention to pain in all its guises that is remarkable.
Outstanding, in some respects. They are masters of the suffering of others.
The streets belonged to the Protectorate, not the thieves. Among the creatures of the night, Protocrats were above all others.
Still, what kind of continent would it be were humans not granted some rights, some sense of autonomy? The humans believed they were governing themselves. It was a delusion the Protectorate encouraged. People shouted and railed against one another, debating taxations, rights and aid, state of the continent’s roads, trade. The topics of debate were often varied. Their discussions took place during the light of day, when it was easier to believe in self-governance. They discussed most everything, and forgot what was forbidden. The forbidden topics had been so for so long that they skirted around them without thought.
A world the size of Rythe could not contain but one continent. Never did they discuss what lay across the expanse of ocean surrounding the continent of Lianthre. Never did they think of raising their own armies — the Protectorate was the army. That was their domain, and had always been so. What sense in debating what could not be changed? As a monkey thinks nothing of its tail, forever chasing its body, sometimes seemingly acting of its own accord, the humans thought nothing of the Protectorate running in the streets. But, somewhere, deep in the recesses of the human mind, there is a special place reserved for the terrors of the night. A child might let it come to the fore, and cower under the covers in the candlelight. A man has no such luxury. He must function. The terror must be pushed down into the darkest corners of the mind. Had the people of Lianthre shone a light into the shadows of their minds, they would recognise the face of terror there. It wore dark cloaks, with its hair long, covering unnaturally long ears, framing hawkish faces of pale skin, pale enough to seem blue under a bright moon, skin that would never tan, never darken. Expressions seem forgotten upon their faces, but the human imagination could paint one just as easily as a human mouth could be turned to a smile or snarl.
Within the dark pit where terrors of the mind clawed incessantly toward the light they would see Protocrats rising up from the abyss, howling and gnashing, rending flesh with teeth, bright steel catching the light from the hopes of their thinking minds, as the terrors they studiously ignored tore through their numbers shredding lives along the way.
But they did not think of those dark places in their minds. They thought of food, and work, and making love to their wives. They thought of their children, their ale and nights inside the safety of a tavern. They shut the cellar door on the terrors of the land. It was enough to live…how could a man live if he sees death stalking the streets every day? Such a sight could cripple a man with fear.
Perhaps, all said and done, it was best not to see it.
Like the minarets of the Hierarchy that towered this night, reaching into the black sky, the Protocrats’ masters lording over all from within. Rarely seen, never asking for anything at all, never taking. How easy to ignore them, the Hierarchy. Did they even rule? Lianthrians wondered, wordlessly, on dark moonless nights such as this.
But not for much longer.