Eustis Grimjaw sat glumly at the Onyx Desk and listened to the wind howling beyond the leaded panes of the Chancellery window. “The roar of the departed, my personal legion of ghosts, calling me to hell”; he mused. Thoughts of the bloody civil war that swept him to power felt oppressive this day. He downed a tumbler of Gojalhka, and spread the papers before him. Estimates, Reports, Requests, Reviews… before him was endless work. He should call in his secretaries to begin responding, they were just in the next room after all...but the darkly pensive mood held him back.
The largest stack were the Executions, enemies of the state, and on top of the pile, Ludis Grimjaw. His mother. Would the country see her death as he saw it? A strike at the heart of corruption, a proof that criminals, that dark traitors, would not be coddled by the State, no matter their class, rank, or distinction? That he was ruthless was already well known, that he was incorruptible was the message he must send. But, what if the public only saw naked ambition, the effort to erase all opposition to himself. Was sedition to the state, sedition to himself? Was he himself The State?
He poured another tumbler of the raw and fiery vodka, the flames in the fireplace reflected in his glasses. Flames, tongues of fire, rose in his memory, burning trains, burning bodies, burning cities, the cost of overthrowing the Moptic Theocracy that had ruled the land with an iron fist had been rivers of blood, seas of blood, waves and waves of it. Now those who had sided with The Superstition must be swept away to build a future. Well, so be it. They had chosen their fate. Perhaps their gods would comfort them in the next world. He rang the little bell and waited for his Secretaries.
