Back of the Envelope

The Rest of the Story: The rest of The History of the Domini can be found here.

This is the second part of Randall Aurelius's unpublished draft of The History of the Domini. Randall's work may seem brief to those familiar with the lengthy works of the Philosophers, but this is a result of his deliberate care rather than a lack thereof. Rumors and legends concerning the early days of the Domini were plentiful when Randall first wrote this history. Randall forswore writing the more unreliable stories, and did his best to only relate what was solidly known or at least reasonably surmised. It is only due to his great care that his work came as close to an accurate recounting as it did.

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The History of the Domini
by Randall Aurelius

Part II: The Exodus

The Shades and the other slaves who had joined them were far from unified. The Shades themselves were divided. Their structure as a loose network of independent cells had protected them from the Malwer’s ferocious hunt, but left them with no hierarchy or leadership. There was fierce infighting, especially between those who had participated in the Malwer-hunting, and those who believed it to be as bad as anything the Malwer had done. Many wanted to fight against the Malwer and free all the humans from their grasp, while others thought that those who had now escaped should flee beyond the reach of their former masters. The mundane humans overwhelmingly wanted to flee.

In the end, the Shades split. About half remained behind to fight, joined by a few humans who hated their Malwer masters worse than the Shades. The remaining quarter led the vast majority of the humans to try to find a land far from the Malwer’s rule. They headed north, to warmer climes.

If the Shades expected the people to be grateful, there were sorely mistaken. Most of the former slaves blamed the Shades for the situation they were in, and they all feared their power. They shunned the Shades, and even the Shades’ own families wanted nothing to do with brothers, sons, and husbands who had been inducted. They were wise to do so, since, while the people were too afraid of the Shades to threaten them directly, they harassed and in some cases even harmed their families. The Shades soon discovered that they had as much need to protect their identities from their fellow humans as from the Malwer. The fear and resentment of the Shades even extended to those with the ability to learn, once it was discovered that there were many untrained humans among the exiles.

The Shades made several decisions during this time that has continued to shape the Order to this day. Only young men were taken to be trained, lest they take fathers and husbands from their families. They were taken in secret, so that there would be no reprisals against their families, and they were required to make a clean break with their old lives, as any contact put their acquaintances at risk. Not all the young men were willing, but they understood that once it was discovered they had the ability, they were outcasts. Finally, women were not taken. There were fewer women than men among the escaped slaves, and the Shades realized that the long-term survival of the independent humans would require children. They also worried that if they recruited women with the ability, they might deplete the number of boys with it in future generations. It should also be remembered that in these ancient days that the egalitarian impulses which are rare outside of the Philosophers even now was practically unheard of. The Shades saw themselves as warriors, and they did not believe that women were suited for their task.

Eventually, the independent humans moved beyond the reach of the Malwer Sovereignty, and settled in a land to the west of it, likely where the Novar Empire is now. Information trickled to them from the Shades and the humans who had remained behind to fight. While these warriors had been wholly unsuccessful in a direct assault, they still managed to cause difficulty for the Malwer, and to assist many among the remaining slaves who wished to escape. Meanwhile, the exodus of slaves had triggered internal turmoil among the Malwer, and the infighting would keep them occupied for years to come.

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This is the latest 597 words of a 1,440 word short story in progress.

This previously unpublished work is an excerpt from an early draft of Randall Aurelius's History of the Domini. Revelations which occurred a few short years later invalidated much of what Aurelius had written, and cast a new light on the rest. This work is more than a historical curiosity, however. It reveals the inner workings of the Ordo Dominorum's self-image at the time, what they understood of their origins and their purpose, even if much of it was vague legend rather than complete fact. Thus, it helps us to understand their motivations and the reasons they behaved the way they did during the recent crisis. It would be wise of us to take that into account before we pass judgement on them.

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The History of the Domini
by Randall Aurelius

Part I: The Malwer

Any history of the Domini must begin with the Malwer. Unfortunately, so little is known about the Malwer that every history of the Domini is, of necessity, incomplete. Nevertheless, I will endeavor to record what is known of our origins, and hope that someday the blanks may be filled.

Who, or what, the Malwer were is the great mystery of our origins. Today, the uninitiated refer to them as demons, but in the days of our enslavement we considered them gods. At a time before humans had any magic, every Malwer was gifted with it. It came to them as naturally as breathing, and they viewed their magic as the proof of their right to rule mankind.

Our tradition calls the first human to discover magic Saul. This is almost certainly not his name, and his identity is as much a mystery as how he discovered magic. Human magic only comes through training: to this date there is no verified case of any human developing this ability spontaneously or through his own meditation. It is as ludicrous as gnats forming spontaneously from dust or frogs from mud (a belief still held by many of the superstitious Novari). Many have speculated that Saul must have been taught, either by a renegade Malwer or, more plausibly, by one of the Amaranthine, although this was centuries before they revealed themselves to the rest of the human race.

Whatever the source of his power, Saul knew that magic might be the key to humanity’s freedom. However, he also knew that he did not have the ability to challenge the Malwer on his own, so he could not risk discovery by the Malwer. Saul was most likely a field slave, with little enough contact with the Malwer to avoid their suspicion. Even so, he proceeded with the greatest of caution. He found others with untrained magical ability and taught them, all the while keeping his identity hidden from his students as much as anyone else, wrapping himself in an encompassing robe every time he met with them. He knew that if any one of them were discovered, the only chance he and the rest of his students would have for survival was anonymity. His students did the same, perhaps hiding their identities even from one another. Eventually, his students grew knowledgeable enough to train students of their own, maintaining the practice of keeping their identities hidden from their own students.

The teaching spread throughout the Malwer lands, and somehow they avoided discovery for several generations, most likely because they confined themselves to teaching fellow field slaves, who had little Malwer supervision, and because they did nothing but teach and learn. While the masters continued to keep the students from discovering their own identities, some cells allowed the students to know each others’ identities. This became the only means for cells to contact one another once age claimed the former master of the current cell leaders. Even so, after a few generations, the secrecy had taken its toll and most cells had no contact with anyone removed by a generation or two. It is not clear whether the teachings were confined to men deliberately at first: it may simply have been that there were more men than women among the field slaves. It is certain that those learning magic were exclusively male by the time they took the next step, perhaps for the same reason that all soldiers are men.

It was unlikely a concerted decision, as it has already been noted that most cells had contact with only a few others. But at some point the cells began acting against the Malwer. Rather than a head-to-head war, a cell would track down and kill an individual Malwer, generally one against they held some particular grudge. Other cells, hearing of the rumors, began to do the same, and soon the Malwer found themselves being hunted and killed by an elusive enemy they could not identify. When they were spotted, by either Malwer or human, hidden in their all-concealing voluminous robes and no doubt further obscured by magical illusion, they appeared as shapeless black shadows. Thus they earned the name Shades.

For a while, the Malwer feared the Shades, and whispered that they were ghosts or demons, but no conspiracy can continue forever, and eventually the Shades were found out. At the realization that the Shades were humans with magic, fear and fury alike swept through the Malwer, and a hunt began to find the Shades and exterminate them. As an extra dead slave here or there did not concern them, they did not burden themselves with proof that a human was indeed a Shade before executing him. This hunt forced the Shades to flee. Many innocent humans fled with them, fearing the Malwer who had turned on them, although many blamed the Shades for bringing this oppression on top of them. For the first time, Shades gathered together in large numbers to fight the Malwer openly, joined by desperate humans. Thus the rebellion had begun.

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This is the first 843 words of a continuing story. There will be more.