Ruthless: Path of Conquest

Rotter began to speak from behind the podium.

“My name is Jeremiah Rotter, and I am one of those who experienced Orientation beside this man,” he began, gesturing toward James. Some loud whooping came from the crowd. “Yes, that’s right! It was amazing. If anything, he understated all the crazy shit he did!” There was laughter. James kept his expression neutral, though he found Rotter’s words slightly embarrassing. “Seriously. He didn’t mention the time he saved us from a pack of coyotes, for one thing. But I have a problem with something he said.” A slightly nervous hush fell over the crowd. James raised an eyebrow.

“It’s the wording of this loyalty oath. The citizenship pledge doesn’t mention James personally once!” James returned his expression to a careful blank. He thought he knew what was going to happen next. “So I’m going to rewrite part of it for myself. I pledge allegiance to the Fisher King and to the ideals for which he stands: protection of the innocent, justice for all, and the promise to reconquer the Earth for humanity and our allied species. Only our sacrifices honor the fallen. Only victory can bring peace. Only we can win back the world. May all the gods bless the Fisher King!”

Rotter stepped down to raucous applause. James tried not to smile. He felt Mina’s eyes on him, and he knew what she was wondering. Did you arrange this?

It had been Mina‘s idea to make everyone swear allegiance to the country rather than to James personally. That was a real stroke of genius, James thought, because they didn’t all know him yet. He couldn’t reasonably make everything about himself. And no one could have any reasonable objection to pledging allegiance to the place. This place, and the community it would harbor, was meant to protect and maintain their lives, after all.

James wouldn’t even accept a religious exemption to this requirement, he had decided, because there were so many gods in this new world. The idea that some god could have a superior loyalty claim to the place that was directly keeping each and every citizen alive was unacceptable to him.

Loyalty to the person versus loyalty to the place weren’t so different.

But James had considered whether it was possible that he could secure a promise of the former by asking for an oath about the latter.

He didn’t want to force the issue, but just in case, he showed the citizenship oath to Rotter in advance. Just to get the brown noser’s opinion on the wording.

“It doesn’t mention you directly,” he’d observed immediately.

“Oh, no, it doesn’t,” James had replied with false humility.

So the answer was no. He hadn’t arranged this. But he had hoped and suspected that it would happen semi-organically.

James didn’t comment on Rotter’s answer. He walked up to the podium and called for more public comment.

“Yes, you. Then you. And third will be you.”

Then he returned to his seat beside Mina and Yulia, and he took baby James into his arms. The next few speakers, he thought, should take a while.

Dave Matsumoto took the stage next.

“I’m Dave Matsumoto,” he said. “I haven’t known James Robard long, though we’ve apparently lived in the same apartment complex for years. But yesterday I learned the most important things about him. He’s strong. Impossibly strong. Incomparable to what I expected from a human. And he will throw himself into danger to defend us. Hell, just to feed us.”

Matsumoto mentioned his military service, he compared the war he had fought in to the circumstances they now found themselves in, and he joined Rotter in taking the citizenship oath to James personally.

Then Amalia Rosario, who had been one of the scouts for James’s group back in Orientation. Similar to Matsumoto, she mentioned her military service, though more briefly. She said that she knew James was the best person for the job, and she compared him to Teddy Roosevelt, which he found flattering.

“There are always three possible options in any given situation,” she concluded. “There’s doing the right thing, doing the wrong thing, and worst of all, doing nothing. I think James will do the right thing most of the time, but more importantly, I know from personal experience that when you’re in danger, he’ll never do nothing.” She likewise opted to take the loyalty oath to James specifically.

Did I save her at some point? James questioned. He was almost certain he hadn’t. There were others in the wolf pack fight who had brushed close with death—but she must be referencing the fact that he brought the whole battle to an end by killing the Wolf King. There was a slow glow of pride spreading over his face, even as he questioned whether he deserved so much praise.

But most importantly, he felt Mina and Yulia looking at him with pride. That was exhilarating. That made it real.

Damien got up next. He told the story of how James had fought the alpha coyote to save him and his group, even though it was invisible and incredibly fierce. James found the account slightly exaggerated, but he also knew Damien had been semiconscious or completely knocked out for the whole incident. He must have heard what happened from someone else in his group. Rotter? Then Damien moved on to the fight with the wolf pack, which was presented in full dramatic detail. And he concluded by taking the loyalty oath to James personally.

He really could have gotten a blessing from a god of storytelling, too, James thought.

Then he rose and called on a few more people, and the pattern repeated.

Avery Daniels stood up from the crowd this time. She had apparently accompanied Alan and Mitzi from somewhere down the road. James was pleasantly surprised that she was still alive. It had been a long time since he saw her, when she drove him home on the first day of the apocalypse.

“I have had the good fortune to experience the impressive qualities of both King James and his Queen,” she began. James looked over at Mina, who mouthed the words, “Last name.”

Oh. She was in Mina’s Orientation. It will be good to hear someone from there praising her as well, especially since I intend for Mina to be in charge whenever I’m gone.

Avery explained how James had served the community as a prosecutor. She had only been in court a couple of times, and James was impressed with how much she seemed to have observed. Specifically, it was surprising how much she remembered of what he had done in dealing with other defendants. She must have been horribly nervous back then. She was trying to gauge how I would treat her by how I treated everyone else. Those observations wouldn’t have been very useful, most likely. No two cases were alike, and the prosecutor’s office trained its attorneys to deal with specific circumstances very differently based on a number of factors.

Then she started talking about Mina. “Our new Queen defeated the final challenge of our Orientation, facing a monster that was far beyond her level in order to save the entire rest of the population of our group. Thanks to her, the deaths in our Orientation were, um, kept to a reasonable level…” Avery’s face took on an obviously troubled expression. It was clear that some of the death and destruction she’d witnessed was still affecting her.

But after a few seconds, she continued, “All of this was after Mina solved the mystery of what—and who—the monsters were that were killing and eating a few of us every night. She chased the Wendigos away, or—I don’t really know—at least persuaded them to leave or something.”

I really need to ask Mina some more questions about the Wendigos, James thought. They sounded horrifying when she mentioned them, and they basically vanished from the scene. Unless there are some additional details to the story, they’re still out there. And I think she would’ve mentioned a Wendigo Xenocide.

Avery turned and looked at Mina, and James saw tears in Avery’s eyes. “I want you to know that I’m so glad that I can be here where you and your husband are. You’re such kind and good people and—” Her voice broke down into sobs for a moment—“I know that I’m only here thanks to you! So many of us are—” She swallowed whatever she was about to say, sobbing again. Then she wiped away tears and snot with the sleeve of her blouse until James approached softly and gave her a handkerchief.

“Thank you,” she said, smiling slightly.

He smiled back at her, trying to keep the guilt from showing on his face. For a moment, he felt like a little bit of a fraud. As he sat back down, he reminded himself that everything anyone had said about him was because of something he’d actually done. He had risked life and limb over and over, and apparently so had Mina. He knew it from her story of Orientation, of course, and he had also spoken some with Yulia about her experience. But it was quite another thing to hear testimonials from the beneficiaries.

He turned to Mina as he had this thought and whispered, “You make quite an impression, my Queen.”

She shook her head gently at him, but couldn’t keep herself from smiling. “I’m afraid I’m starting to resemble you,” she whispered finally.

After Avery had wiped away her tears, she made the same pledge as everyone else, voice quivering as she spoke. James was surprised that she didn’t add “and Queen” to the oath, but he figured she just didn’t want to be different. It was obvious to him that Mina had impacted Avery more than he had. She approached the royal couple to return his handkerchief, which she had at least neatly folded, before she returned to the audience.

Then the next speaker came and stood on stage.

As the morning wore on, every single person who got up, without fail, had something nice to say about James. Even the ones who James had only vaguely remembered, or didn’t think he knew at all. Some of the latter spoke in vague terms or only mentioned things James had done since returning to Earth. Every speaker concluded by reciting the citizenship pledge as a loyalty oath to James personally. The ritual of it had clearly developed a certain momentum.

As the various speakers got up to praise him, the same or similar notifications played in front of James’s face several times.

[Sufficient experience accrued. Fisher King leveled up!]

[…]

He couldn’t easily block them out. Far from focused on some specific objective, he was glorying in every aspect of this moment. The feelings of power over, and admiration from, the crowd. The way he had orchestrated this whole small-scale revolution in people’s sensibilities and what they expected from a government. The looks on people’s faces. His wife’s hand, held tightly in the palm of his own.

I’m so lucky, he thought. I’m remarkably fortunate. Once upon a time, I would’ve said I was blessed. Now that I have a literal blessing from a god, it feels weirdly less appropriate. Even though I consecrated this ground to Anansi, his connection to what’s happened is tenuous at best. Most of what’s happened, I couldn’t credit to Anansi even if I wanted to. It was hard to put into words exactly what imaginary force he wanted to praise for his present circumstances instead.

But there was so much to be thankful for.

His beautiful family, still intact and now enlarged, somehow all together in this world that had been torn apart. Somehow, he felt certain that his mother and sister would have survived too. Even though the System had purportedly killed half of all the humans on Earth, if its initial announcements had borne out. And James had gone from a mediocre lawyer bored with his work to a king acknowledged by a whole fledgling community of people as their leader.

It feels like fate, he decided. Like some cosmic force of destiny put its thumb on the scales for me. Maybe there’s some cosmic force for order out there that really appreciates that I rejected Apophis. It was hard to imagine that he and his family deserved all the credit for this themselves, after all. It just seemed like too much. My cup runneth over, as the Bible says.

After some time had passed, and another speaker returned to her seat, James took the podium again. “I’m sure there are more of you who would like to speak today. The reception has been truly humbling. But there are a couple of friends here who helped guide some of our new residents to the Fisher Kingdom, and I don’t believe these two friends of ours are staying. I’d like to escort them to where they’re going, and I am hopeful that I can do that and be back by tomorrow morning at the latest. I believe it’s about midday now, so we need to wrap things up. I’d like it if we could make these meetings a weekly occurrence, though attendance is optional. One thing that’s become clear is that I would really enjoy hearing more of people’s stories about their Orientation experiences and about their lives before the System. There have been a lot of great stories today, and I think it would be nice to end future meetings with a story. They don’t have to be about me—” This drew a chuckle from the crowd—“or even my wife! For now, would everyone who hasn’t already taken the pledge please stand and recite it if you’re willing to? Then we will adjourn.”

The crowd obediently rose as a body to their feet. Even several of those who had already pledged their allegiance stood, James noted. Only Alan, Mitzi, and a very few others remained seated. Of those, one of them was sitting in a wheelchair and placed his hand on his heart for the pledge. Two others had already come up and sworn their loyalty. James only counted two people who seemed uncomfortable with the idea, who he imagined would be leaving shortly.

“I pledge allegiance to the Fisher King and to the ideals for which he stands: protection of the innocent, justice for all, and the promise to reconquer the Earth for humanity and our allied species. Only our sacrifices honor the fallen. Only victory can bring peace. Only we can win back the world.” Though the sound of individual voices in the gallery had been muted before, the combined voice of the mass of people swearing loyalty to James in sync had a powerful resonance now. Each syllable seemed to echo through his body. The words already spoken bounced off of the walls and echoed so that the sounds wrapped around each other and embraced James like a warm coat.

It really was humbling.

Mina walked up beside James, the baby clutched close in her left arm, and the picture felt more complete. Then Yulia appeared on Mina’s left as well, and the picture became fully complete.

If I live to be a thousand years old, I’ll never forget today. It really can’t get much better than this.