"Mind control?" said Derek with a quick chuckle, "surely you jest, I—"
"I've faced it before. Felt it crawl like maggots through the skin on my scalp, pierce my mind, and try to play with it. I even had to develop a special passive resistance to it. So you can drop the act. It's over," I said.
Derek tried to argue a little more, but Kol had gotten off her throne and was standing by my side, facing Derek. The chief minister grit his teeth. He started endearing Kol. Telling her about how much he loved her father, how he had served him loyally for so many years, and how long he'd known Kol herself. He'd practically seen her grow up. He was like an uncle to her. Doesn't she remember the time she came to him for advice after being scolded by her father? Or the time he'd taught her politics and history as her personal tutor? Surely, he had proven his loyalty long ago. There was no reason to doubt him on the words of one elf, although he did not say that last part out loud, only implied it.
"You can stop trying to buy time," I said, raising a hand, "it'll take you a lot longer to brainwash her from that distance."
Derek couldn't help but widen his eyes. "How dare you imply that I—"
"Derek," said Kol, "quit it."
"No, princess, how could—"
The chief minister let out a yell and slumped to the ground, his body involuntarily twitching. The ghost of the arc of electricity that I had shot towards him still lingered in my vision. I reminded myself to use light magic to protect my eyes the next time I used this spell.
---
Derek's interrogation wasn't hard. Being able to resist his mind control magic, and having fire and lightning on my fingertips, made the middle aged demon terrified of me. I made sure to only meet him during the day, just in case the Immortal of Evil tried to help him out at night. Thankfully, the night sky remained tame and uneventful. Perhaps only the moon seemed a little brighter than usual, but that might well have been a figment of my own imagination.
Derek revealed, sometimes directly and sometimes inadvertently, that not only had he controlled the previous king with his magic, he had also been manipulating the army and diplomatic core in order to fuel conflicts with the Lux Republic and to organize raids against the Singing Horde. He also confirmed that his mind control magic wasn't perfect. In fact, it was more of a mind suggestion magic, which amplified certain beliefs and manipulated others. He also revealed that the magic had a small residual effect, one that would slowly poison anyone who tried to resist it for too long. The late king had probably suffered from this, and might have lost a couple decades or so of life to this effect. Hearing that, Kol steeled her heart, and ordered Derek's execution.
Rounding up the rest of the priests in the royal court was also quite easy. Trying to figure out what to do with them was a little trickier. In the end, they were interrogated, and if Kol held the slightest suspicion that they'd been involved in her father's death, they were executed. The rest were stripped of their rank and privileges, and imprisoned.
The priests of the Heavenly Eye were spread throughout the kingdom, and most of them seemed to work independently of each other. There was no organized and centralized church, which meant even the worship of the Heavenly Eye, the traditions, rituals, and beliefs involved, varied from place to place. Even among the different social classes, there were different customs and beliefs about what the Heavenly Eye was and how he helped his faithful. In the end, we decided only to gather up all the priests in the capital and interrogate them.
Interrogation revealed that there was a small cell of priests who were also involved in brainwashing key targets to incite a general hatred of the Lux Republic and Singing Horde, and which contributed to many deaths through the same condition that afflicted the king. These priests were also executed on the princess' orders. It was decided the rest would be locked up until a solution was found. Small teams of elite soldiers were sent around the country to round up all the priests of the Heavenly Eye that they could find. By the time the king's funeral arrived, most of the priests of the Heavenly Eye had been captured, and Princess Kol was in complete control of the kingdom.
---
The king's funeral was a somber affair. Grief hung over the capital like a shroud, and the wooden casket bearing his corpse was thronged by ordinary people as it made its way through the streets to the graveyard outside the city. The demons believed that since kings were only deputized by the Heavenly Eye to rule the material world, once they died and left this world, they were just as insignificant to the Heavenly Eye as the rest of them. The strange self-deprecation of the demons before their god was a little tough to get used to, but somehow it seemed to fit the Immortal of Evil's manipulative image.
The king was buried in a simple grave next to a tree on a hill. There wasn't even a special place for the graves of royalty, so he was buried in the next available grave. The procession of soldiers stayed until all but Princess Kol and some of her family members remained. I also pretended to leave, but turned invisible to stand guard instead. After the persecution of the priests of the Heavenly Eye, and the large support base for the prince, there was reason to be cautious. However, nothing happened today.
Kol knelt by the grave for a while. Her family members walked away after saying a few words. She'd said these people were only family by name, most being so distantly related that she'd never met them outside of formal occasions. The only real family she had left were her siblings, but they were all plotting against her now.
A lonely demon woman knelt by a grave late into the night. I leaned against the tree, invisible and silent.
---
The queen's coronation was a surprisingly simple affair. All she had to do was do a few rituals with ceremonial staffs and altars, and host a small military parade where her generals pledged their allegiance to her. Gifts came poring in from powerful families and rich merchants, all of which were quietly cataloged and stored away by bureaucrats and palace officials. The whole thing lasted a single day, and was handled efficiently and quickly. At the end of the parade, the new queen was escorted into her palace, robe flowing far down the hall. She untied the robe, letting it fall to the ground, before turning around and sitting on the throne.
The robe was collected by her new chief minister, an inoffensive middle-aged woman who had been an official for over a century. The new chief minister walked up to the queen, bowed, and wrapped the robe on the back of the throne. Then, with a solemn prayer to the Heavenly Eye, her ministers welcomed the reign of the Demon Queen Kol Izlandi.
---
I spent a month going around the Izlandi Kingdom, meeting demons of all sorts, trading for important goods like seeds, tools, and tool-making techniques. Kelser went around gathering the same from other areas. I'd wanted to cross over into the Lux Republic or the Singing Horde, but the fact that they were worshiping different gods made me decide otherwise. These gods could be immortals I had never met before, or they could have been either of the immortals that I had met before. In either case, I didn't want to risk going into a country that might be worshiping the Immortal of Madness. Being sent into the future again would be catastrophic.
And so I made plans to return to the double river basin once again. Meeting up with Kelser, I left for the city of Tephon once again. Queen Kol was busy on an expedition to the North, where the Lux Republic had taken the king's death as an opportunity to capture a few frontier towns. I still met her to say goodbye before coming back to the South.
Despite all the changes throughout the kingdom, Tephon had not changed at all. Surprisingly, there had not been a single priest of the Heavenly Eye in the city, with the only ones who came from this city having moved to the capital some time ago.
Somehow, Bain Rusta had been allowed to stay on the throne. The queen's intelligence officers had revealed that it was only the ministers and family members around Bain Rusta who had been supporting Prince Alek, and that Bain Rusta was just a very weak ruler, who could be manipulated easily. Wanting to prevent turmoil in the city and having bigger fish to fry elsewhere, Kol was happy to replace Bain Rusta's entourage as the real power in Tephon.
Bain Rusta welcomed us with a small feast in his estate. He asked me when the trade route would be opened, and I told him it would take a while, since we'd have to make some high altitude roads and tunnels. Perhaps a few decades, even with all the magic using humans from the other side working on it.
In the morning, Bain Rusta decided to see us off all the way to the final village before the mountains. A small military procession formed around us, holding small public feasts in the towns and villages we were crossing. Kelser and I decided not to run off with magic, because Bain Rusta was also using the opportunity to gather a few local seeds and tools as gifts, which we had missed back in the capital and in Tephon.
Surprisingly, Bain Rusta accompanied us all the way to the mountains, going well past the final village. He simply would not take no for an answer and I figured it would be rude to dismiss him after he'd made all this effort. When we finally arrived at the foot of the mountains, Bain walked up to the very end with us, leaving his soldiers well out of earshot.
He bowed lightly. "Your wisdom and intelligence is unparalleled, great elf. May we meet again, one day."
I do not know why I felt a vague sense of unease at his words. But I thanked him and left for the mountains, with only a hint of quiet discomfort.