Chapter 32
Saw Yatha watched Dol’s interview with Lillian with disgust. His device alerted him to the cell’s activity a few minutes after it began. All of Saw’s suspicions of his Supreme Leader came into sharp focus. Saw had installed the hololens in Lillian’s cell during her first day on trial. He’d hoped he would be able to gain some secret knowledge of her plans, her powers, or, though it was unlikely, her penance. He had never expected to see Chieftan Dol anywhere near the Princess, let alone offer her freedom in exchange for allegiance. How weak. After all the Merlain had suffered at the hands of the Coellum. After all, the Merlain sacrificed to see their way of life spread to all other realms.
Zungher had just said, “So, I do a good turn by letting you live, and you do the same by willingly coming under my authority. No more killing. No more war. Just peace, quiet, and cohesion,” when his view was interrupted by an incoming call from the Chieftan’s office.
“Come at once,” the assistant ordered. “It is the most immediate priority. A transport is waiting for you outside.”
Saw tossed the device on a nearby table and sat for a second. He couldn’t unknow what he’d knew. He had two choices. The first was to confront Dol and command him to step down as Supreme Leader. The second was to defy the order and escape on a self-imposed exile without any allegiance to anyone but himself. While the second option seemed attractive at first, Saw quickly understood that he couldn’t leave the people he loved to suffer under a leader who would lead them directly into ruin. If he left, he would live out his days as a restless wanderer. He’d spent too many days like that as he hunted Lillian. Home felt so rewarding. No, he couldn’t leave again. He would have to confront Dol. He would have to force him to see reason.
When Saw stepped into Zungher Dol’s office, he saw the Chieftan working furiously at something on his desk. Saw cleared his throat, and Dol, startled, looked up. “Ah, Saw, thank you for coming on such short notice. There is a matter of grave importance that needs to be taken care of immediately, and you are, I believe, the man for the job. It has to do with the Princess.”
Saw’s stomach tightened, and he pressed his teeth hard into each other. Was he about to get assigned something to dirty his hands in his leader’s corruption?
“Before you begin, Chieftain, I should let you know I have a confession to make,” Saw said, fishing in his cloak for his device. The interruption stopped Dol short.
“I’m happy to hear you, always, but can’t it wait?”
“I don’t believe so, your Grace.” Saw turned on the feed of Dol’s interview with Lillian and tossed the device to his leader. Dol barely managed to keep the device from falling to the ground. When he got a look at the device, all color drained from Dol’s already pale skin.
“You were spying on me?” was all the Chiftan could manage.
“So, you don’t deny that its you. You speaking to our people’s sworn enemy, trying to work a deal with our sworn enemy. Work a deal where she goes home and lives and lives to plot our demise.”
Dol set the device down and held his hands up to Saw, “I believe there has been a grave misunderstanding.” He pointed to a chair, “I’ll you’ll just —”
“I don’t think I misunderstood anything,” Saw boomed. “Ever since I returned, I’ve had this nagging, pesky thought playing in my head. A thought that you were trying to convince me that you had lost your way, that you had gone soft, that you were more concerned with not losing the war than you were with winning it. But I did my best to keep those thoughts confined. I never expected to see my Supreme Leader groveling at the feet of the Coellum as I just witnessed. How dare you? You have lost all right to be our ruler, and unless you relinquish your power before the star rises in the morning, I will make sure all the realms see what I have seen.”
Dol’s eyes bugged, and his knees gave way. He plopped down on his desk, unsure what to say except, “I think you’re missing something. I —”
“What am I missing, your Preeminence? What?” Saw took a step closer to Dol. “Am I missing the official documents selling the Merlain people and all its acquired power to the Coellum?” Step. “Am I missing how the Princess infiltrated your mind with her wicked thoughts and turned you against your own kind?” Step. “Am I missing how our once great and powerful champion has turned politician easily able to change his opinion to save him from doing anything difficult?” Step.
Saw was inches from Dol. Where once Saw revered this man, a man who brought Merlain from a backward and impoverished realm to a leader in every aspect, he observed an old, sniveling weakling. It disgusted him.
“Will. You. Step. Down?”
Dol stammered, “I promise… if you’ll… I don’t think you’ve seen everything.”
“I think I’ve seen enough.” Saw raised his gloved hand to strike his leader, but Dol’s reflexes were reactivated, and he quickly put the desk between him and Saw.
Carefully, Dol eased his hand below his desktop to find the panic sensor alerting his assistant of trouble.v“If you’ll give me a moment, Saw. That’s not why I called you here. I —”
Saw, aware of the sensor, dove across the desk and tackled Dol off his feet. The two men landed with a thud on the floor. Dol’s head clipped the window frame, and blood started to stream into his eyes.
“Saw,” Dol said, trying to regain his breath, “you must stop this.”
But Saw was alive with fury. He clutched Dol’s feeble neck with his gloved hands and began to squeeze. “No, you must stop,” Saw grunted. “You must stop.”
In a matter of moments, Dol stopped. Saw stood over his foe, his chest heaving. Stepping over the body of the former Chieftan, Saw looked down over the grand city of Valdrin. He was it’s savior. He was its defender. While all Merlain slept, he and he alone had thwarted its greatest threat. He congratulated himself and turned to leave, but then his eye caught the crumpled body of Zungher Dol on the floor, and reality began as the adrenaline began to fade.
The Supreme Leader was dead, there was no way to convince people it was natural, and Saw was the last person to see him alive. After trying to save his people, he’d assured his execution and left Merlain without a leader. What to do? What to do? Saw sat down in the Chieftan’s chair and began to think. As he thought a plan began to take shape. It would be risky, but if he was successful with a certain level of distraction and success in terminating Lillian, he might be able to figure out a way to come out of this stronger. It was at that moment that he set his sights on securing his place in the Merlain folklore by naming himself the next Chieftain. All his efforts would have to be toward this end and vilifying Dol or he would have just signed his death certificate.
Saw swung around to Dol’s device, still glowing on his desk. The first plan of action was to clear all appointments for the foreseeable future with the Supreme Leader. If no one saw him, then it would be easier to convince people he was not dead. With that done, Saw sent a message, in Dol’s name, to the tribunal to speed up the trial and pass the sentence the next day, or their positions would be in jeopardy. Then, Saw drafted a document naming him as the hand-picked successor to Dol at the moment of his death. The trickiest part was Dol’s signature, but with several practices, Saw was able to mimic Dol’s characteristic scrawl well enough to be believable. At least believable enough to serve its purpose until he could develop a story of how Dol died where Saw was a hero instead of a murderer.
The final detail was what to do with Dol’s body. Too many people needed access to the office and if left undealt with, the whole building would reek in a few day’s time. Saw then remembered the kitchen Dol had built next to the office. There was freeze module there that would do the trick, at least for the time being. All he needed to do was buy some time. Buy some time until Lillian’s termination. Then, all could be made well in the middle of the Merlain victory. Tragedy was so much easier to swallow in the middle of overwhelming success.
Saw grabbed Dol’s body from under the arms and began to tug. Saw noticed there was more blood to clean up than he’d thought. He’d have all the rest of the night to clean it up. He was on a new course now and he couldn’t stop it. Dol’s body slid out of the office, through the kitchen, and locked tightly in the freeze module. Saw set the temperature as cold as it would go.
Then, he fished around for any cleaning supplies, and set to work on making Dol’s office appear as it always did – tidy, steril, and formidable. As Saw scrubbed on his hands and knees cleaning up the mess he’d made, he comforted himself that all great leaders started by cleaning up the messes of the predesessors, why should he be any different.
As the star rose on a new Merlain day, Saw, in the newly refreshed office of the Supreme Leader look out with optimism on what his reign would accomplish.
