Prologue: The Day Before

Prologue:  The Day Before

"They thought that they lived in the final hours of mankind.  The light of human freedom and independence was like the dusk before the seemingly inexorable darkness that encroached on them.  The skies had blackened from the malice born across the waves.  Cruel figures swept through the sickened clouds and terrorized the innocents below.  In the Hall of the Archons, the last great king of man, Cambruin, fell on bended knee to the imperator of our order.

They say that he begged that the full measure of our number be added to the defending army - what was left of it.
They say that he wept for the lives to be sacrificed that humanity be preserved but a few seconds longer.
They say that the imperator bid the king to rise and stand proud, just as the capital city would stand untouched throughout all that the demon lord would throw at us.

As the armies of the demon lord jeered at our walls and shouted their hubristic claims, the paladin orders marched out from the gates.  The armsmen stared in horror, wondering what madness had overtaken them.  The monsters wasted no time, jumping on the first men they found.  The explosions rocked the battlefield, and their forces went silent.  Their archers let loose arrows tipped with that vile metal that they so loved.  They sought to take these men alive, but as the arrows passed through their armor the second set of explosions rippled along the field.  Confused and broken, some few of the monsters used their magics, and the third and final thunderous crash of explosions swept across our number.  Unwilling to bring death to the men before them - for the monsters were unwilling to consider the idea that not all of humanity could be taken as slaves - they broke rank.

What came after was like all the miracles that had ever been prayed for.  Armed with the greatest technomagic that our most genius of artificers had devised - the Shields of Saint Rylan - the paladins swept through the monstrous masses with a swiftness and skill that could not be countered.  With their wills and number broken, the Armies of Reclamation beat them back and retook every single inch ever taken from Megalan control and cut their way to the demon lord's own castle in ten days' time.  Humanity reclaimed its freedom and future in a single blow, rising again from an ocean of blood.  We defeated them so utterly that not even their most insane of advocates have ever uttered the word 'war' since."
"And," Rodrick asks, bored.
"And now," I growl, "one of them is standing before our greatest hall, snapping pictures like some damnable tourist."
"I think it actually is a tourist," Ember chirpily notes.

I stir my coffee, glaring silently at the thing that's happily looking upward at the massive marble stonework before it.  The halls of the paladin order have stood a hundred feet tall since before Megalos City was even a farming village, and since that time not a single enemy had ever set foot upon its vaulted steps.
Not until the Reconciliation.
Now they slither, ooze, fly, and swarm wherever they damn well want.
"Just let the damn thing go about its business.  We can't kill it, but it sure as hells isn't getting what it wants here."  Rodrick turns and goes back to his food.  He always was a calmer man.  Nothing seems to ever bother him, but the other side of that calm is that he's never gotten his Animosity Index above 78.  He dislikes the monsters as much as anyone, but he just doesn't have the hate in him to do well in the tests.  I'd worry about him if I wasn't certain he'll be perfectly comfortable going career military after he graduates.

I don't have his calm.  I can't help but feel the burning sense of insult in the way they walk through this city as though they'd earned the right.  How many hundreds of men gave their lives in the last few days of the war alone, and now we simply swing the gates wide to let the monsters in.  They must be turning over in their graves.

"Why, oh why couldn't we be more like Caithness?  No more letting them roam our streets looking for unprotected children.  Over there they have the good sense to shoot any monster that comes within a mile of their walls instead of inviting the damned things in - Like we did with a damned Ushi-Oni of all things!  And to think, some race traitor-"
"We aren't supposed to use that phrase anymore," chimes in Ember.
"Yeah, like I'm going to ignore the fact that some bastard condemned the next generation to another wave of those things because he saw a pair of breasts and couldn't keep his pants on."  I turn back to my drink, stewing in my own disdain.

A small elbow presses me in the rib.  I barely have to turn to see Ember's puckish grin beaming up at me.  "Hey, if you keep up that scathing stare at your coffee, it'll never cool down!"
I stare blankly at her.  She continues to smile at me until I realize she made a joke.
"Hah," I state flatly.
She grins as though she just won a prize.  She's always like this; randomly cracking wise with puns or jokes so elaborate that the punchline is buried under mountains of vocabulary or references.  I still remember when she did the same thing to the Ancient Languages professor in Hieroglyph form.  It took him five days to realize that she'd actually written her name in the form of "man asking question-small bird-road" purely so that she could shout "to get to the other side!"

She's going to be an amazing addition to the artificer corps.

"Come on, Vic, chill out.  We all know you've got everything wrapped up.  This is just a double-check to show off how awesome the graduates are."
"Yeah," Ember pipes up, "besides, we know you'll win already.  You have the appropriate nomenclature."  Rodrick and I both think on that for a second.  Ah.  I'm appropriately named.  Victor.  So I'll win.
"Hah."
She bounces in her seat as a show of success.

I sigh and push the coffee away.  I don't need this anyway.  I need as clear a head as possible.
"Getting to be about time, eh?"
"We've still have a good half-hour before we need to report in."  After years of waking up at oh-six-hundred exactly, having three days off and our evaluations at thirteen-hundred has felt like unimaginable decadence.  The only caveat has been that we continue to wear our armor - which we're proud and happy to do.  We made it.  We survived Sentinel School.  The other students all talk about how happy they'll be to see the other paladins stand and salute as they walk by.

It's funny to me that they're so pleased about something so small.

We pay for our drinks and sit up from the green, metal table.  There's a daunting moment when it settles on us that we're marching toward the Hall of the Archons, where the imperator and all other high ranking sentinels work for the safety and protection of all humanity.  This megalith of stone predates all recorded history, back to the very first paladins to fight against pre-mamono monsters.  Men and women of distinction bearing the finest of arms walk in and out with an easy confidence befitting their station.  There's a sense of almost religious awe.

It's only marred by the snake.  Blotchy yellow scales the color of rotten wood lead up to the half of a woman with skin the color of over-creamed coffee.  As always, they never clothe themselves properly.  It's wearing little more than a handful of scarves and sashes that somehow manage to cover its nakedness while leaving its shoulders and hips exposed.  The presence is bad enough, but why do these monsters abhor modesty?  The indecency, the disrespect, and the outright gall all serve to fill my throat with bile.  It turns as we approach, and gasps as its eyes go wide.

I smile in satisfaction.  The damn thing at least recognizes its place.  It knows that the paladin orders slaughtered thousands of its ilk, and only by the restraint of the Megalan government are we not regaling each other with song while wiping the stains of the last of them from our boots.  It stares for a pregnant moment, before lowering itself slightly to the ground, placing a limp fist between its teeth, and frowning thoughtfully at me.  "Oh, wow," it sighs throatily.

My own smile leaves as quickly as it had come.  "What," I growl.
A hand wraps around my shoulder as Rodrick softly lands on my side.  "Come on, buddy, no time for purging; we've got evaluations."
Another, smaller force pushes on me as Ember leans against my side.  "Yeah, man, can't afford a tribunal today.  You won't win that one."
I'm forced away from the monster before I even fully process what's happening.  A half-shouted cry of "Hey, wait up, gorgeous" issues from behind us.
I roughly gesture backward, "Gorgeous.  It called me-"
"Yeah, well, that's hardly its fault," Ember smiles.  "The women's dorms all agree with it."

I don't like being reminded of my looks.  Regardless how great a problem it has been for so many men, people still for some inexplicable reason consider being handsome to be a blessing.  Being average is a blessing; handsomeness is a liability if not a disability.  The men on the training yard all laugh that it's good that I'm so skilled at the sword since the monsters will always go after me first.  If I play my cards right, though, they will all have been wrong.

A handful of others climb the steps of the hall, all wondering at the splendor.  I lower my head, still feeling the churning discomfort in my gut of having to have dealt with one of those things on what should be a proud and triumphant day.
"Come on, Ninety-eight, don't let it get to you," Rodrick says as he claps a hand on my shoulder.
"He can't help it.  Comes with the number."
"And speak of the devils."

I look up and immediately see what he means.  Standing at one of the columns atop the stairs is James, the only person to ever get a perfect 100 on his Index.  I'd be fine letting him have that if he wasn't also constantly hounding me at second place in weapons.  He narrows his eyes as he looks down at me.  "Hey dumbass, this is for the graduating class, not the remedials."
I take the final step to stand on equal ground with him.  "Well damn, and here I never even figured out how you tricked them into putting you in the wrong dorm."

For a moment we just glare at each other, but he's the first to break.  He always is.
He cracks a grin that goes from ear to ear.  "Good to fuckin' see ya, man."  He sticks his fist out.
I pound it as I walk by.  "And you.  Come on, we have work to do."
"I'll be in in a bit," he calls back, "this view is just too damn gorgeous."
My eyebrow twitches.  I look backward for only a moment to see that he's right.  The entirety of the capital sprawls outward in every direction.  The old stone still polished to a beautiful gleam in the noon sun.  The seat of humanity, and the oldest empire in the known world, gleaming white as though to remind all who ever see it of the strength of its purity.

And then we step through the burnished electrum doors into the hall proper, and the sighs of wonder escape without a thought.  Ancient statues gaze solemnly and nobly across the corridors, seemingly doubled in size by the floors that have been polished to an almost unnatural reflectiveness.  The whitest marble reflects the light of the sun from a single open point in the ceiling, filling the entire building with ample light.  The central hall is decorated with murals of battles unknown to history anywhere else, showing the ancient battles of men against dragons, liches, demons, and twisted aberrations forgotten to the modern age.

"This is where we have the privilege to prove ourselves worthy."
With that, I stride forward trying to use boldness to hide the fact that I am nowhere near worthy of the presence I've been given here.  A fellow student has been posted outside the door to the office where we report in.  He pulls himself taller and inhales to fill in his breastplate as we walk past.  The room inside is spartan and quiet, filled only with a single figure residing behind the one point of color - an aged cherrywood desk.  The balding, moderately obese man has a small, clear meritorious seal upon the one pauldron he wears, indicating a simple tenure of service.  He flips open a ledger on one side of the desk and absently asks "Names?"

"Ericsson, Rodrick."  He wordlessly lifts his quill from one ledger and moves it to the other.  He then pauses.
"Barrow-born, Ember."  The man raises an eyebrow as he looks over his ledger, but then finds the name and jots something down on the list.  He pauses again.
"Victor."
"Family name?"
"None."
"Epithet?"
"None."
With that he actually looks upward to inspect the three of us.  "I see." He returns to the ledger, frowns for a moment, and then jots down another note.  "Exit, turn right, proceed to the end of the corridor, then turn left.  You are to wait on the training grounds until you are summoned."  We salute, turn, and exit.

A large metal gate opens into the massive training grounds where a full three hundred of our fellow paladins step into rank and file and await their summons.  We nod at each other, split off into the handfuls of remaining number of our original classes and step into attention.

And then we wait.

It takes about ten minutes for the first name to be called.  After that, another two.
Then three.
One again.
The hot sun begins to bake us in our breastplates as the list of names slowly ticks down to the point at which mine will inevitably be drawn.

Ember is the first to be called.  She purses her lips in the particular way she does when she's trying not to smile at attention.  I don't know why that's always been so difficult for her, but she's always worked around it.

Rodrick is called almost immediately after.

I spend the next three and a half hours waiting for my summons, only for the proctor to stop with one hundred of us still standing on the courtyard.  "Attention, candidates!  We are temporarily ceasing evaluations due to unexpected difficulties and due to temporal constraints.  You will be housed and fed on-site until tomorrow morning, when evaluations will continue.  Sentinel Rutherford will direct you to your temporary quarters."

The lean, dark-haired man with a goatee steps forward, assembles us in a line, and takes us almost a full mile through the halls and corridors to what is very obviously a newly arranged series of cots placed in what looks like a storage room.  On each is one sheet and one plate bearing our "dinner."  I separate off toward one of the corners the second we're dismissed.

And it's a damn good thing I did.  The conversations start immediately.  My ears are assaulted by whined complaints that we have seventeen hours with nothing to do, pointless strategizing for how to pass evaluations, and random chatter about what they all did during their free time.  The one bit of good luck in all of this sits down in the cot next to mine.  "Always the center of attention, aint'cha?"  James grins while he unceremoniously drops himself into the bed.  His grin only widens when he sees the plate of food available to him: a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, an apple, and a tall glass of water.  "Huh, we're bein' treated fancy, eh?  Guess that things didn't go as they expected."
"Technical difficulties?"
"Seems like it."

The next few hours are spent in the noise of conversation.  Then, finally, silence as the massed people all began to succumb to the varied stresses of the day and the relentless boredom of having nothing else to do but sleep.

---

"Northlander, Ellen!"  I don't know much about her other than she once panicked and fired a bow during one of the focus drills.  She hit the succubus mannequin square between the eyes, though, so she got points for good instincts.
"Fielder, Jonas!"  He was the fastest runner in our entire class.  No one could beat his times.  I remember hearing that he made a one-hour ten-mile once.
"Heartbreaker, Rann!"  The only one I know who has actual and extensive experience with monsters.  Apparently he grew up in a demon realm when his father remarried.  They don't talk anymore, and the only thing he's said about living in Hyrnan or about his sisters-in-law was that "those damned Dark Elves can all burn in a fucking pit."

There are only ten of us remaining when the proctor finally calls "Victor!"  Relief and renewed tension both flare up in my chest, but I don't let them show.  I march forward and step through the door that he opens for me.

A single wooden chair faces a window that covers the entirety of the wall.  On one of the armrests is a metallic grip that I immediately recognize as an indexer, though a newer version than are used at the academy.  A calm, feminine voice orders "Take a seat, candidate."  I do so without hesitation.
"Grip the indexer."

The moment I do the lighting dims - on both sides of the glass.  The mirrored surface turns transparent and I find myself staring straight at the chest of the monster on the other side.  Strange, floral colors run like lines throughout its pink-purple hair, matching the tinges in the pupils of its serpentine eyes.  Its skin is unnaturally smooth, like the plastic of a mannequin, and is only barely covered by ribbons of cloth that barely qualify as clothing.  It's a Succubus - the first I've ever seen in person.

It spots me at the exactly as I see it, and its eyes go wide.   "Ooooh," it sighs, "they sent in a real morsel this time."  It places a single finger between its teeth and bites down.  Its chest presses against the window as it begins pulling the fabric down.  "Hey, big guy, you know they've been showing me cute boys all day, and I've gotten real-"  I focus myself inward.  The sooner I do this, the sooner I can stop looking at this thing.

I recall my focus word, and open my eyes again to the vaguely human-shaped creature in front of me.  It rubs one blistered appendage along the pock-marked, oozing flesh of its chest and burbles up a mouthful of pustulent rot that drips down its chin and hits the floor with a sickeningly wet slap.  With the other tendril of sponge-like fat it then reaches down between the pallid pillars of maggot-ridden meat that support it and reaches into itself.

It's too much for me and I almost immediately dry heave, blinking back my watery eyes as the vision fades.  The thing shuts up, suddenly dropping its attempt at seduction and puffing its cheeks out in resignation.  "You know, when they said I'd have a chance at fucking one of you if I took this job-"
It's interrupted as the lights brighten and the glass becomes a mirror once again.  The voice calls "Please move on to the next room, candidate."  I smile bitterly at my reflection, who looks simultaneously triumphant and like he's about to be sick.  I lift myself up and walk into the next room.

The next room is completely empty, save for two things: a figure in heavy plate armor, and a small weapons rack with a pair of longswords.  I can't help but feel relieved; something about having a sword in hand just makes the world feel better.  The figure moves as I do, walking to the other side of the rack and lifting a sword as though mirroring my actions.  "Candidate," begins the voice again, "you are to be tested on proficiency of arms.  You may begin at any time."

I step back into the center of the room while the armored figure continues to mimic me.  I try not to smile, but the simple comfort of the weight in my hand makes it difficult.  I was meant to carry arms; not even James could show me up in raw combat skill.  Even with nothing else I'd still be able to protect myself from monsters so long as I had this.  It doesn't matter whether or not I'm facing a trained sentinel, I won't have any trouble proving my proficiency.

We face each other, and the figure stops moving.  I nod at him, respecting that he's given me the first move but inwardly mocking him for giving me any sort of advantage.  I step forward, lift my blade, and thrust.
I'm momentarily deafened just as my arm goes completely numb.  The figure moves with a fluidity and speed that I hadn't even recognized as he parries my blade with almost enough force to knock it from my hands.  He moves again, and I'm immediately put on the defensive.  Strike after strike wearies my arm and tests my abilities to dodge, parry, and counter.  I barely get three swings in before my back hits the wall.  He doesn't let up, lifting his blade to the ceiling and bringing it down with force.

The combat ends as the edge of a blade rests gently on my shoulder.  There's a sharp intake of breath from the armored figure.  I straighten myself, breathing heavily, and remove the tip of my blade from my opponent's neck.  It takes a moment for the voice to begin again.  "Well done, candidate.  Return your weapon and continue into the next room."  I pass the sword to my off hand and offer my right to the weapons master.  For a moment he doesn't move, before eventually taking it.
I return my weapon, and I move forward.

Past the door is the simple, stone corridor that leads out to the last of the trials; the one that is made public to those who wish to see it.  Resolve and skill are tested first, and followed by courage.  I proceed down the corridor, listening to see if I can hear the test before it comes to me.
I can.
A dull clamor issues from the door a hundred feet away, and it grows as I stride forward.  The sound is like a thousand discordant drums, or the striking of blade on blade, or cannon fire.  By the time I reach the door it's already reaching the point of discomfort.
Then I open it, and am almost deafened.

Two walls have been placed down the center of the large courtyard, creating a corridor some fifteen feet wide that one may travel through down the center.  Along the outside of the courtyard are raised stands where a handful of sentinels and a larger number of paladins-in-training watch to see what awaits them if they continue down the path of service.  They aren't the source of the noise, however.
The source of the noise is the series of hundreds of holes along the walls that continuously fire thousands of metallic balls the size of my fist.  At the base of each wall is a small trench, and as the training balls crash into the walls at the opposite side they fall in, and roll back into the launchers.

There's no way to avoid being hit.  The launchers are randomized, and even a monster wouldn't have the reflexes to avoid each and every striking orb.  The only path forward is to take the hits.  Each one of them strikes with enough force to break bone, and at the end a half-dozen healers await, ready to tend to the candidates that pass through - and to stabilize those who don't.  Some stride slowly forward, proving their mettle and the absolute endurance that they have honed.  Others run, taking as few hits as possible to avoid being knocked unconscious before reaching the end.  The former call the latter cowards.  The latter call the former idiots.

I wonder what I'll be called.

I still remember how the instructor began, teaching each of us of the sacred Litanies of Saint Orris.  Those incantations draw upon the inherent divine within each pure, untouched man, and grant us the strength to defy monsters as paladins proper.  They are taught only to those who serve in the sentinel orders, not to artificers or regular military or anyone else.  These sacred incantations are our gift and right, and the power that held back monsterkind for three thousand years.

---

"Five are the shields that guard against darkness, and four are the blades that we bring to bear."

"The first instinct of those who are worthy to become chosen is the righteousness of action that compels us to step into battle rather than to surrender or succumb.  Many are the threats of the battlefield, and many are the weapons of monsters.  While our first mission must be to destroy them, the unprotected destroy only themselves.  By this word we overcome our frailty, and become something more than prey."

---

Had I never stepped within the halls of the Librarium Solus in Kethalos I would never have seen that scroll in the section on old paladin orders, and would never have found one of the extremely few written codices of the words of power.  I did, however, and on a whim I found something that I should not have seen for another five years.  I'm not superstitious, but there are times when one must assume that fate has been guiding you, and so I took it and I learned.  They say that each word requires intense focus and a month of purification to learn.
But I am pure.  I have scoured myself of my weaknesses and my flaws, and have never once abused myself.  I have taken in all the wisdom my teachers could give me, and have honed my body and spirit insofar as I can.

I clear my head, trying to ignore the explosive crashing before me.  In through the nose, out through the mouth.  I clear my mind of all thoughts of weakness, of avoiding pain, of accepting failure.
And then I speak.  The first letter has barely escaped my lips when the feeling of sickening wrongness grips me.  I try to stop, but the second letter pulls itself out of my throat as though it were a chunk of stone being pulled out of my lungs through my voicebox.  Searing, scouring, ripping pain fills my lungs, neck, and mouth as the word forces itself from me.  If anything, I feel the sickening twinge of fear that I'll have come all this way only to pass out before even facing the final challenge.

And then it stops.  The word is complete.  The pain lingers, but has lessened to the point that I can at least taste the iron in my mouth and the trail of liquid that's dripping down my chin, creating a handful of red lines that streak down my armor.  I look forward again, noticing that the crashing ahead of me is muted.  The world itself has taken on a slightly golden tinge, as though I was staring through a lens.  I lift myself back up to my full height, shaken, but proud.  I did it.

I step forward, and am untouched.  The metal orbs swerve violently to avoid me, or else come to a stop a few inches from my body and fall away from me.  Barely audible over the constant explosions is the sound of voices.  I look out over the walls, and see widened eyes staring back at me.

And then the sound is behind me and the world returns to the colors it ought to be.  I step forward past the final door to a handful of older men behind a long desk.  A trio of monitors rest in front of them.  I stop and stand at attention before them.
They stare at me.  Two of them blankly.  One of them with a grin that stretches from ear to ear.  He's groomed himself for this, apparently, pulling his mane of grey hair into something resembling a ponytail and flattening the flaps of muttonchops that usually stick straight outward.  I'd smile at seeing professor Moore here, but that would be improper.

"Well," he starts in his usual, affable way as he claps his hands, "I think we can send him out and bring in the next one."
The other two turn, slowly, to face him with the same shock as before.  "You knew," one asks.
"Not at all.  Can't say I'm surprised, though."  He smiles at me, then at them, as though the smile were enough of an answer for any question they could ask.  It isn't, and he finally adds "He's quite the paladin, Victor."

He turns back to me and, still smiling, asks "How did you learn that, anyway?"
"Sir.  I learned it from a scroll in the Librarium Solus four years ago."  I pull the same, vellum scroll from my breastplate.  Today marked the first time it had ever left the lockbox I keep for personal belongings.  Professor Moore's eyes widen, and he gestures for it.  I step forward and place it on the desk before him.
One of them collects himself after this and presses a switch on his desk.  A pair of paladin servicemen immediately enter in through the one other door at the side of the room.  "Candidate Victor, you are to be escorted to one of our guest rooms, wherefrom we will summon you when we have decided what to do about this, this," he looks around the room for a moment, "this unprecedented breach of secrecy."

I salute and step out of the room, flanked on both sides by the paladins that take me to a small room not unlike my old dormitories.  Every surface is perfectly clean and maintained, but there is still a scent of dust in the air.  I imagine this is where servicemen would have stayed had the hall ever come under direct attack.
Well, I'd been expecting this.  I take a deep breath, relax, and do what I always do when I'm alone: pace violently until I'm not anymore.

---

It's three hours before the door opens again, and one of the two paladins simply states "This way, candidate."
Good, I haven't been dismissed entirely.  That was one of the possible outcomes that I'd considered possible.  I step out, and am led down the halls and corridors until we reach a particularly large pair of electrum doors.  "Continue onward."
I nod to one of them, and I do.

The doors open to the ceremonial chamber, where a full hundred candidates file in and take places in order before the raised center, upon and around which are various flags of particular orders, Megalos, and the seal of the paladins: a bladed shield marked with the old chief god's emblem.

This is where the candidates who made it are sworn in as genuine sentinels.  The paladin orders were conscripted in the the days of the Megalan police-military, granting us especially wide authority to act throughout Megalos.  Unlike the mercenary and adventurer guilds since the reconciliation we alone have never had our letter patent rescinded or altered.  Here we become part of that unbroken legacy, able to execute the will of humanity in the world.

I spot Rodrick and Ember just as they spot me.  Their looks of open surprise and delight are all the reaction I get before the doors open once again, and every candidate in the room locks up in rigid salute.  The imperator of the paladin orders, currently Petre Heart-of-Stone, steps into the room and proceeds without any ceremony to the raised center.  It's only when he's at the center does his attendant hand to him a small sheet of paper.  He gazes over it, then over us, raising a hand to make a dismissive gesture and tiredly offers "Relax, gentlemen."

Before the imperator, "relax" means that you fall into rigid, unblinking attention.
He sighs as he looks back up again, turning slowly to look on each of us.  "Now then, I'm afraid there are some pressing issues going on right now, so I'll have to be brief.  Suffice to say, if you're standing here then you're a sentinel now.  You have proven yourselves paladins of such quality that you are fit to lead others, but in turn are expected to strive always for the highest of standards.  I expect nothing but the best of each of you."

"As per tradition, the three highest scores amongst the classes each receives one boon: a request that they may make of me here and now."  He looks back down over the paper in his hand.  "James the Tower."  From the opposite side of the center, James makes his way forward, stopping before the imperator with perfect precision.  No one is surprised by his name being called.  "What boon would you ask of me?"
"I request only that I may serve."  That's what surprises us.  Anyone who has made it to the top three of his class has already been essentially accepted into whatever order he seeks.  To officially make the request is almost hyperbolic.

The imperator smiles at this.  "Your request is granted.  You are to be initiated into the Order of the Stoneheart at the earliest possible time."  James' lips show the briefest hint of a smile.  "I thank you, sir."  Heart-of-Stone nods, and James returns to the circle.
The imperator's own order.  It is a signal honor.

The next name called is "Marcus Adeasson."  We all let our eyes turn toward the small man that steps forward.  It's odd; he almost always keeps to himself, so I haven't heard much about him.  That he was in the top three is surprising to say the least.  My intestines threaten to twist themselves into a knot even though I know my chances.

The man comes to a stop before the imperator.  "What boon would you ask of me?"
Marcus fills his lungs, "Sir, my little sister died two years ago to an accident.  I wish to request the casting of a resurrection spell."  A low sigh fills the room; resurrections are the most difficult of all known magic, and the number of healers that can perform them is just barely in the double digits.  The cost to have one performed is astronomical.
Heart-of-Stone doesn't even blink.  His eyes turn back down to the sheet of paper.  "Two years ago, you say.  February two years ago, your class scores went from 285th to 8th.  Tell me, when did you receive news of your sister's death?"
"That January, sir."

For a moment the room goes silent.  The weight of his effort and dedication settles on each of us, reminding us of the pride of our order and the righteousness that we aspire to.  More than a few eyes turn misty, my own included.  The imperator lifts himself to his full height to look down on the man.  He takes a moment to think before declaring "Marcus Twice Honored, your request is granted.  I shall see to it personally."  Marcus practically goes limp, both from the relief and from receiving a new epithet from the imperator himself.  He isn't the only one to feel it; I think we'd all be clapping had we the freedom to so do.

The small sheet of paper is studied once more.
"Victor."
And I'm walking.  The feeling of booted foot striking the floor and the visual image of the raised center seemingly moving toward me take up the entirety of my awareness.  I can hear my heart beating in my ears and feel the every twinge of the muscles in my gut.  It's as though my body, rather than my mind, was solely responsible for my actions.
And then I'm standing before the figure, eye level with the exact part of his uniform that displays the seals of bravery, zeal, purity, and noble bearing.

"What boon would you ask of me?"
"Sir.  I request a Shield of Saint Rylan."
A single gasp echoes through the room.  He raises his eyebrows.  "You do," he quietly confirms.
"Yes sir."
He looks over me for a long moment.  "Why?"

"Because no man is a slave."