The Republic of Selegania Boxed Set: Volumes One through Four

by Daniel Lawlis

  King Verwil suddenly stood upright while releasing a loud “WHAT?!!!” his eyes full of fire.

  Then, as suddenly as the anger had come he immediately sat back down to the chessboard. Such an outburst from a normal king might come from the most trivial annoyance, but to the Metinvurs, who valued icy calculation, precision, and cunning, such an outburst, even for a king, was nearly unthinkable.

  “Your trepidation was well-founded in sharing these most gloomy tidings,” the king said with a furrowed brow, “and your head remains attached thanks only to the exquisite news you first shared with me. I pray you did not exaggerate it out of an instinct for self-preservation,” the king added, while moving a pawn and taking the duke’s bishop.

  The king then looked up with icy eyes towards the duke and said, “You may recall that it was your idea, and your idea alone, to release Valder—now referred to most profanely as Smokeless Green—upon the people. It would bring us extraordinary riches, wreck the societies of our morally weak rivals, and forever remain within our complete control, thus allowing us to turn the ocean of Valder into a desert whenever it fancied us. Do you recall these predictions?”

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “Good. Now explain to me what is going on. Is one of our own agents betraying us? How can an outsider undersell one of our agents? We have kept Valder to ourselves exclusively for millennia. No other country has it.”

  “The only possibility, Your Highness, I believe is the seeds.”

  King Verwil’s brow frowned severely, and Duke Galdfrey gulped nervously.

  “Ah, the seeds. Yes, I do recall that those were my idea,” the king said, looking carefully at the duke, “yet I also recall that you assured me that these seeds would yield only seedless plants. You do recall that, do you not?”

  “Of course, Your Highness.”

  “And do you still retain confidence that our botanists competently inserted only such seeds in said barrels?”

  Galdfrey paused only a brief moment before giving the only answer that would allow his head to stay attached: “Of course, Your Highness.”

  “Well, then, I suppose there’s no point in getting too worked up, is there?” King Verwil said with a chuckle not even Duke Galdfrey could ascertain to be false or sincere, diligent student of the king though he was.

  “Perhaps you thought it was a bit reckless of me to distribute those seeds, did you not?”

  “His Majesty’s stratagems often exceed my own humble understanding,” Duke Galdfrey said carefully, with affected sincerity.

  “Well, there’s no shame in admitting that. But I have faith in you, Duke Galdfrey. Tell me why I suggested it.”

  There were many times in the king’s presence that the duke had to make great mental exertions to affect sincerity in his hypocritical answers, but the truly nightmarish situations came when faced with questions to which the desired answer was not immediately clear. He had assumed the king had suggested sending out the seeds due to the king’s eagerness to execute the project with the greatest celerity, and the seeds provided a way by which the product would be disseminated on its own, thus obviating the need for the already overstretched Varco agents to assume the full task of distribution throughout the targeted countries.

  But it was clear now that the king was hinting at a shrewder strategy, and he had not even the faintest supposition as to what it might be.

  “No need to torment yourself, Duke Galdfrey. Let me explain to you the difference between the way a king thinks and the way a duke thinks. It will be in our interest for the targeted nations not to know we are behind the proliferation of Valder, yes?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Could the threat of prison force a distributor to reveal his source?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “And if that source is a Varco agent, that means trouble for us, even if neither the traitorous distributor nor the arresting police officers knows the source is a Varco agent, yes?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “What kind of trouble, Duke Galdfrey?”

  “It could require an allocation of Varco agents to free the arrestee. It could require the Varco agent to kill numerous police officers to escape. In brief, it could cause many problems and put Your Majesty’s desires in peril.”

  “Very good. Now do you still fail to see the advantage of the seeds?”

  It hit the duke like a bolt of lightning, and he found himself thinking that, perhaps all this time he had believed himself to be allowing the king to win at chess, in reality the king not only did not need his artificial mistakes but was also fully aware of them and laughing inwardly at the duke’s misplaced deference.

  “If the distributor is planting his own Smokeless Green, there is no one higher up the chain for him to betray to authorities in exchange for leniency. Such a man is entirely and utterly expendable!” the duke nearly shouted, sincerely amazed at what he perceived to be the king’s brilliance. “He can be made a scapegoat . . . he can become the main target of police and military action while distributors under our agents are mostly left alone.”

  “Close,” the king said calmly. “Now tell me why I was so furious.”

  The duke’s good cheer quickly left him, as he felt as much at a loss as he did moments before, and with his newfound respect for the king’s intellect, he now felt quite doltish by comparison.

  “Don’t flog yourself, Duke Galdfrey. Even kings miscalculate. My hope had been that a handful of independent distributors would arise from the seeds. Their ambition would be kept in check by the finite nature of their resources and by their rivalry amongst one another. With the seeds distributed amongst several individuals, no single individual would become powerful enough to pose much of a threat to our plans. But if most of the market share of Sivingdel is now in the hands of a single distributor—and we are of course assuming that no Varco agent is betraying us and selling independently for personal gain, a most unlikely possibility, given our excellent returns—it seems quite likely that most of those seeds did somehow end up with one individual.

  “That means somewhere near Sivingdel there has to be one very large farm, yes?”

  “A likely proposition, Your Highness.”

  “The other fact that vexes me is you say the quality is reportedly higher. I confess that was a most unforeseen factor to myself, which is why I say even kings miscalculate. I would not have expected the quality of Seleganian soil to be so superior as to make a significant difference in the Valder planted there. But even from this good may yet come, as we may wish to eventually make it our preferred location for harvesting.”

  There was an awkward pause, as the duke waited for the king to continue, since his pensive face left little doubt that he had more to say.

  He then looked directly at the duke and said, “Let us not become overly worried about this lone individual. Let us first find out everything we can about him. Everything,” the king repeated with ice in his voice and eyes. “We will then decide whether this is a man who can be ignored for the time being. We may find him useful to our own ends. Or”—and as the king said this his hand calmly pushed his rook into the duke’s queen, in a move the duke had genuinely not seen coming, which sent a chill down his spine, as he now felt more certain than ever that the king was well aware of his fake chess mistakes of the past and was fully able to choose between exploiting his fake mistakes or his real ones, “we may find it necessary to destroy this man.”

  The duke gulped nervously, feeling a bit of peculiar sympathy for the individual.

  “Let us hope it is not Irkels. That could create a very nasty reallocation of our already strained resources,” the king said.

  The duke felt a chill go down his spine. He had not even considered that possibility.

  “Tell me everything you know so far.”

  Chapter 27

  IT’S THE LAW OF THE LAND!

  SUPREME COURT DENIES REVIEW OF SISA CHALLENGE

  The headline, dis
tributed throughout the towns and cities of the fifteen states of Selegania, was met with different reactions by many individuals, a few of which merit attention.

  Senator Hutherton nearly fainted in a state of euphoria and had to read, and then reread more than a dozen times, the propitious title, but only after approaching three random passersby in the street and demanding with a wild look in his eye and an even more unnerving expression on his face that they read the headline, did he allow himself to believe it, after which he shucked off his shoes and went sprinting two miles down the street before he realized that not even the inhuman exaltation, and exorbitant amount of Smokeless Green he had ingested, could contend with the limitations of a body long accustomed to lethargy. Charley horses made his calf muscles feel as though they were about to tear to pieces, and he limped home, a wide smile still plastered on his face.

  Senator-attorney Megders felt the impotent rage and overpowering sorrow that his now celebrating counterpart had felt when the news of SISA’s invalidation had occurred many months ago. Although his client still had a trial ahead of him, with the constitutional defense off the table this left only a fact-based defense or negotiating for a plea bargain. The fact he had been arrested by the chief of police himself in the act of selling Smokeless Green from his store made contesting the facts as inviting as a narrow, icy pathway bordered on each side by a black, seemingly bottomless, abyss. And the prospects of obtaining a plea bargain, or even a semblance thereof, from an enraged, embarrassed, vindictive prosecutor’s office were comparable to asking clemency of a man whom one has just seriously wounded in a failed murder attempt and who now stands above his would-be assassin poised to inflict the injury of his choice.

  He didn’t know how he would face this client, whom he had met under the unethical pretense of already being his attorney and whom he had dissuaded from accepting a most-lenient plea bargain. When the idea of handing the man several hundred thousand falons as an “I’m sorry” and suggesting he abscond until a circuit court struck down SISA—thereby creating a circuit split and virtually ensuring that the Supreme Court would have to hear the case—the idea did not sound as ridiculous to him as he felt it should have.

  Righty Rick’s reaction was one of careful consideration and deep introspection, as he had no immediate cause for either the triumph of Senator Hutherton, or the dismay of Senator Megders, given that this recent event was to him the apotheosis of the proverbial two-edged sword, for this event virtually ensured his chosen career would be ensconced within the domain of the outlaw, yet had SISA been overturned he may have found his meteoric accumulation of wealth to quickly dissipate, no longer propped up by the artificial value arising from his product’s illegality.

  The reaction of a perhaps long-forgotten character was of particular importance in the ensuing drama.

  Chapter 28

  When Irkels had emerged like a cobra on the hunt from the hole that the elusive Tristan had used to effect his narrow escape from the imposing forces aligned against him, he might have continued deep into the forests, chasing the reclusive wizard, who had for a brief time made those trees his home.

  Yet a chance visit to the nearby town of Ringsetter had altered his pursuit of the wizard inexorably and set the chief of the Varco on a very different quest.

  While in Ringsetter, he had barely been able to believe his eyes when he saw Smokeless Green being openly consumed and sold as if it were no different than tobacco, coffee, or sugar. A small purchase and a quick test had promptly ensured him that his eyes were indeed reporting the events accurately. From there, he had changed his disguise and gone to the city of Sivingdel, where, again, he found the substance he had known his entire professional life as a Metinvur agent as Valder being openly sold and consumed.

  Irkels knew that none other than his esteemed countrymen were up to shenanigans on a level even he had never treaded. For such a massive operation to be undertaken without his knowledge, and while he was sent on a mission looking for birds, was more than enough proof to him that he had been deposed as chief of the Varco.

  It was an old trick. Rather than killing a deposed Varco chief, it was common to send him on an isolated mission, during which the king installed a new chief and commenced a large-scale operation. Once the hapless Varco chief discovered this, tradition dictated that the only honorable solution was self-imposed exile. He could live the rest of his life without fear of assassination, provided he never approached another Varco agent again for the rest of his life. Failure to abide by this tradition would result in the deposed chief becoming the top-priority target for all of the Varco.

  But Irkels felt he was quite a bit too young for early retirement, and he was also nearly certain of who had passed this idea along to the king as his own, given that Irkels himself had once jokingly mentioned it to Selven—whom he was now virtually certain had replaced him as the chief of the Varco—as a potentially effective, but overly risky, operation.

  He would be damned if he was going to sit back in self-imposed exile while his erstwhile pupil took the credit for his idea. He had spent the ensuing years in a bit of nostalgic bliss, pickpocketing and shoplifting with an ease that made those dispossessed of their wallets and other small valuables think later that surely they had just misplaced their goods somewhere, for never had they felt even the slightest caress from the man who so casually made their property his own.

  Irkels studied the various drug peddlers carefully, for he had a very particular object in mind. He was looking for someone powerful. Someone who could appreciate the skills a man like Irkels could bring to his organization. And then, that man could help him achieve his own ends.

  Chapter 29

  Righty had an uneasy feeling as he cut through the night sky atop Harold’s back. He had told Tats to make sure he had no guards posted in his backyard, because he had something very special to show him tonight and for his eyes only.

  Righty felt about as comfortable taking this step as one would stepping onto a fallen tree serving as the only bridge between two sides of a thousand-foot cliff. But Righty knew that not only was this necessary but long overdue.

  Many things had happened over the last several months. He had bought up every ranch abutting the mountain range that served as a natural barrier between his agricultural activities and Sivingdel. For most men, the only way to travel from the ranches to Sivingdel was by going far east on horseback past the mountains and then cutting back far west before then heading north slightly towards Sivingdel, a trip that would take at least a couple of weeks. But for him it was around a half-hour flight.

  However, his insistence on keeping Harold a secret was starting to impede his ability to expand his business.

  Whereas the first ranch Righty had purchased was devoted largely to cattle with only some minor agriculture at the time of purchase, most of the other ranches along the mountain range (fourteen in total) were already devoted largely to agriculture. Righty had been forced to pay all of the ranchers far more than the fair value of their land for the same reason his first ranch had been such a tough buy—the rancher’s love of the land—and because the word was getting out quick that he could afford it.

  His last ranch had cost him about seven times the value. But he had considered it well worth it.

  He now owned approximately 600,000 acres. There was no entry to this land from the west or north without scaling large mountains. It abutted the southernmost border of Selegania. And to approach it from the east would require trespassing over many miles of private property before discovering anything illegal.

  About two weeks after his first crop had ripened, Tim Sanders, his senior-most rancher, had discovered approximately an acre’s worth of plants that produced seeds. He had paid Tim the promised $100,000 immediately. It had been a jubilant moment for Righty, for he realized now that he was no longer dealing with a finite crop whose destruction or discovery could promptly bring about his downfall.

  The moment Tim had showed him the seed-beari
ng plants, he felt that the gods themselves had descended and handed him a blank check, perhaps as part of some celestial experiment to see what one ambitious man could do with access to limitless money.

  He had offered the ranchers the choice between continuing their normal ranch work full-time or moonlighting between that and Smokeless Green cultivation at six times their normal salary, and not one seemed to think handling both would be exceptionally onerous. He had then instructed them to take all the plants with seeds and grind the bulbs into powder so that the seeds could be extracted separately for future harvesting.

  He had purchased sophisticated weight scales and begun instructing them each day how many packages he wanted and of what weights. Tim proved himself to be a rather ingenious tinkerer, and, with various odds and ends he purchased, he soon devised a contraption that collected the powder directly from the weight scale and then compressed it tightly into a bundle.

  Righty had been impressed by this, and so he brought Tim a large, fashionable coat that any gentleman would have been comfortable wearing in Sivingdel and asked him to create secret compartments in it that would enable him to carry the maximum weight possible.