It was only natural that there would be many unusual adjustments for Remun in transitioning from the ward of his own father to emperor of the largest and most populous realm in all of Azoth. The past week had been a litany of accustoming himself to the numerous and often strange customs of being the Sashul of the Salished Empire. Among those changes was Remun’s very appearance. Prior to the cremation of his father and the subsequent coronation ceremony, his advisor Irssun had toiled diligently to give Remun the appearance of a true Sashul. His nappy, unruly hair had been combed and greased into a straight, flowing mane. He wore silk robes every day now; immaculate white and trimmed with golden yellow, royal purple, or crimson, with a matching sash draped over the shoulders. White cotton pants and slippers were occasionally visible underneath his flowing robes. Remun appreciated his new outfits, as he found them quite comfortable in the sultry Nyssos air, but there were other aspects of his new appearance that Remun did not welcome. Chief among those were his new beard.

A good beard was vital to a Sashul’s authority, Irssun had explained to Remun. The tradition of thick, black beards went back a thousand years, to the Saliszi warlords who descended from their mountain-nestled kingdoms in the Godsfang Mountains to conquer the Rainlands. Coming from the cool mountain vales to the North, the Saliszi were a naturally-hairier people than the Rainlanders, whose humid lowland home warranted no need for extra warmth. The ethnic Saliszi came to grow their beards out in order to distinguish themselves from the vanquished Rainlanders. Even to this day – after hundreds of years of interbreeding between the two peoples – most peasant men could only manage patchy scruff on their chins and jawlines. A large black beard was a symbol of wealth, power, wisdom, and masculinity; the patchy whiskers that grew on Remun’s chin and down his neck would simply not do. Irssun therefore ordered a servant to shave Remun’s facial hair down to stubble, and had another fashion a long, black goatee onto his face with horse hair and thick gobs of some sort of paste dabbed around his lips and chin – a much more respectable facial ornament for a young Sashul, to be sure.

But how it itched! There were many times when Remun could do naught but fantasize about tearing the false beard off and scratching every bit of hair off his face. He frequently tried to scratch at an errant twinge of itchiness under his nose, but rarely did his attempts get past the old spymaster Irssun, who would immediately slap the Sashul’s hands away from his face.

"Leave your beard be, your majesty," Master Irssun chided once again. "Your beard must remain intact if you wish to command even a modicum of respect from your lords. And we can ill afford to have you appear weak today."

Remun nodded in accord, and begrudgingly set his arms upon the armrests of the throne and diverted his attention from the nagging twinge at the corner of his lip to the vast throne chamber spread out before him.

The throne chamber was a massive, opulently decorated space fit for a Sashul - the Sashuls of the previous centuries, who exercised absolute rule over the Salished Empire at its zenith. When the word of the Sashul was the law for every lord in the Rainlands, the Arm, and the Sullied Coast, and the Drathan wizards lived in fear that their pagoda spires would one day be felled down with chains forged of Salished steel. Those days had come and left, but the palace built by mightier Sashuls maintained all the splendor of generations past, even if it were only just a thin veneer.

Columns of polished stone rose to a vaulted ceiling perhaps fifty feet above the floor of polished lyestone tiling, where the cornices of each column spider-webbed across the ceiling in a dizzying arabesque moulding. The intricate moulding spread across the ceiling, drawing back around three skylights positioned above the very center of the chamber, which infused the entire space with golden rays of sunlight. Tall, vaulted windows on either side of the chamber gave a view of the verdant courtyard gardens just outside, and manicured specimens of lacy cycads were positioned in alcoves between each window to allow some of the verdance within the chamber as well. The entire space was designed to draw the eye to the far side of the room, to the raised dais upon which the Sashul's throne, a towering seat nestled within its own recessed alcove carved from pale lyestone and dazzling insets of iridescent abelone shell. The builders of this palace meant for courtiers and visitors to have their focus dominated by the enthroned Sashul, but for Remun - imprisoned in a tiny cell for the past decade - the vastness of this space threatened to swallow him.

"Your majesty," one of the Sashul's Guard heralded from the far side of the chamber, "the viziers of the Dominion request your audience. Shall I grant them entry?"

Remun gave a quizzical glance to Irssun standing beside him, who gave the Sashul a twirling motion with his hands, gesturing for Remun to let them in already.

"You shall." Remun called across the chamber.

With that, the Sashul's guard posted at the far side of the chamber drew back the gatelike doors, allowing entry to sixteen to twenty men. They were dressed in fine robes of crimson or blue, many with chestpieces of banded lamellar armor covering their torsos and arms. Each man sported a fine beard - some had knappy braids twisted about one another, others had the locks of their beards held together with bands of iron - but each beard was magnificent and regal in its own regard. Sheathed swords jingling at their sashes indicated that these were martial men. They were the viziers, the lords entrusted with fielding and commanding hosts of Salished warriors.

"Your majesty," the man at the fore of this party began, coming to a stop a few paces before the dais. "We met briefly during the coronation, but I suspect that you may have forgotten me during the course of the ceremonies. Please allow me to properly introduce myself now."

This lead vizier, a younger man with an impressive mane despite his fewer years, took to one knee and drew a sword from an exquisite sheath of stingray leather, pointing it down into the lyestone tile. The blade caught the light and scattered it with an opalescent sheen, the sort of shine that steel can only carry when tempered with a human soul.

"I am Dimaza, son of Izadrun," the young vizier proclaimed. "My father served beside your father; fighting in the halls of Arshadar against the minions of the traitor Vissaban. Like my father before me, I have become a vizier in the service of the Sashul, and I shall protect his realm and his subjects until my dying breath - as did my father. It is my hope that we may shed blood together in the defense of the Dominion, as our fathers did a generation ago."

"I know of your father," Remun replied, recalling the name Izadrun from one of the texts he read in his captivity. "The loyalty of your father was well known, and I have no doubt that the same steadfastness runs through your veins."

"Then know these next words are not lightly spoken, young Sashul," Vizier Dimaza returned to his feet and returned his blade to the sheath in a single, fluid motion. "I am concerned."

"What concerns you, Vizier?"

"My companions and I sense a great danger. If I may speak truthfully, your majesty, loyalty is in short supply in this Dominion. We know that many of your lords would not heed the call to arms if I were to levy their fighting men to battle. The warlocks too know of the disunity throughout the Dominion, and I fear they seek to capitalize on it."

"The warriors of the Dratha are on the move, your majesty," an older vizier said ominously.

"I would not be so sure," Irssun dismissed with the wave of a hand, stepping out from beside Remun's throne to address the viziers. "I too have heard startling reports from the Ashlands: soldiers marshaling to the borderlands, scouts moving eastward... I have complete confidence that this is a feint. As the spymaster of the late Sashul, I have come to understand that deception is a weapon that the Dratha are far more inclined toward than any blade. What we are seeing in the east is the Congress of Masters asking us to tell them how weak we really are. We will not take their bait so easily."

"Thankfully, that is not for you to decide, spymaster," Vizier Dimaza retorted before turning to Remun. "Irssun may whisper whatever he likes in your ear, young Sashul, but know that he answers to your command, not the other way around. Hear this, your majesty. The Shelf of Vorgul must be fortified. We can hold back any invasion coming up the pathways up the shelf, but if their forces reach the high country near Zar Salis then it will be a difficult fight to win."

Irssun stifled his laughter with a loud snort. "I have kept Davorgada and his kin safe from Drathan plots since before you were in swaddling clothes, vizier. Accomplishing such a thing required some semblance of competency. A vizier needs only to know how his enemy dies, I must know how the enemy [i]thinks[/i]. The Dratha do not mean to invade us now. It's too obvious, too brazen. It's totally unlike something the Masters would do. An invasion is a tremendous risk on their part, a risk that hinges on the recalcitrant lords doing nothing or perhaps even joining forces with the invaders. Do you find that a likely scenario, vizier?

And what might you suppose one of the rebellious or recalcitrant lords would prefer to do? Join briefly with the rest of the dominion to fend off a Drathan invasion and enjoy another generation of relative autonomy from Nyssos? Or stand by and let the Drathan armies lay waste to the Rainlands and utterly subjugate their holdings? A Drathan invasion would unite the Dominion because, to speak candidly, the Salished Empire is the lesser of two evils as far as a restive lord is concerned. The Congress understands this; what they want to know is if we are too weak and too frightened to act rationally."

"You think you know everything, don't you?" Dimaza sighed. "You think that because you have your spies all over Azoth telling you things you are all-knowing and all-seeing. But you didn't scale the citadel of Arshadar, and you weren't there to hear Vissaban utter his final words before the old Sashul ran a blade through his gut. But my father was, and he told me what transpired there."

"Something dark drives Khalul, and we must never let it take him here."