Kadmi and Kahe before the Second Civil War

[Nithi Kirenion]

Yyiji Tonkothion, maybe the most patriotic Hyperborean in recent history, hated patriotism the way most people did it. That is, feeling proud because of your country's acheivements. Why feel proud? Your countrymen could be the greatest scientists and artists in history, and maybe you're still an idiot.

The way Yyiji Tonkothion did patriotism was the reverse. He'd always say patriotism was a burden. His neighbors and ancestors had done great things, so he'd better be getting up very early in the morning if he was going to be the least bit worthy of them. Each of his failures was not only his own, but a failure to live up to the example that his countrymen had set for him, not only his own shame but his country's.

Yyiji had three stories of Hyperborean patriotism he liked to tell, and maybe I'll get to all three of them some day, but for now here's the story of Kadmi and Kahe. This one starts off after Kadmi Ragumion, called Kadham Ragum during his own lifetime, had come back from Mount Yaanek. He'd been speaking out against the despot Narsi Nodorion, who had unified all Raikoth by force, and now he'd won and was sitting on Narsi's throne. Only, Narsi had ruled by fear, and now that the fear was gone, so was the rule. Free from the threat of Narsi's armies, the cities wanted their independence back, and so without the cities' allegiance Kadmi's throne in Mithoth was just a pretty chair.

Kadmi didn't want to become a dictator like Narsi, but he also had grander plans than just being a local lord in Mithoth. He wanted to unite the Raikothin cities into a confederation of peace, not of fear. But he wasn't going to be able to do it without help, and no one was going to help him. Even the armies of Mithoth were reluctant to raise their spears in the service of the guy who'd been leading the rebellion against them a few seasons earlier.

So Kadmi went looking for support, and his search took him to Kalen, the greatest of the Hyperborean cities. He'd helped liberate it from Narsi a few years earlier, but now it was back on its feet and stronger than ever. Here ruled the legendary Kahe Kalirion. There are three families in history that have called themselves "Kalirion". The first you all know; they're the modern rulers of Eluin and have barely any Hyperborean ancestry at all, though their hearts may be in the right place. Only slightly older is the family of Sethi Kalirion (Kalir Sethan during his lifetime), which included three Kaisers of Shireroth. But these two are just imitations. Kahe Kalirion was the real deal, pure blood of ancient ages, descended from kalirie in the ultimate north.

She was a master of the cold clear way, one who had suffered horrible tortures and abuses at the hands of Narsi and the Mithothin armies but who in the end had forgiven him without batting an eyelash. She'd been given the gift of supernatural beauty by Ainai, and broken countless hearts with the same benign indifference she'd shown the conquerer. She ruled Kalen so tightly and elegantly that it had quickly risen from its conquered status to become as grand as in the days of Authi, and her people worshipped her as a goddess.

So when Kadmi came to her in secret, and begged her for her help in uniting the cities of Raikoth, she laughed and told him that Kalen was doing quite well on its own.

Kadmi asked her what he could do to change her mind. Kahe thought for a while.

She'd always secretly wanted to be a goddess in truth, and not just in the minds of her people. And she knew that Kadmi had strange powers, that he had spoken to the voice of the volcano inside Yaanek and come out alive. If anyone held the secret of immortality, it was going to be Kadmi. So she told the prophet that was her price - that she would support his effort if Kadmi granted her immortality.

Kadmi told her to meet him at the garden at sunset.

There was only one garden in Hyperborea. It was by the riverbank in Kalen, the southernmost and warmest of the cities. The Kalirion dynasty had done some favor to Ainai immemorable ages ago, and in return she had blessed the garden of Kalen, so that flowers grew there that bloomed nowhere else in the world. Today, it is a sprawling belt of parkland encircling the temples, but in those times it was smaller, and walled off, and it was there at sunset that Kahe Kalirion met Kadmi Ragumion searching for the secret of immortality.

Kadmi handed Kahe a sheet of translucent stone. It was covered with swirls and curves and spirals, most intriguing, and as soon as Kahe saw it she knew, somehow, it held the secret of the immortality she wanted.

"What is it?" she asked the prophet. "How does it work?"

"This," said Kadmi Ragumion, "is called writing. The patterns in the lines are the patterns of my thought, and the patterns of my thought are the patterns of the world. So the world becomes lines on stone, and anyone who has studied the patterns can read them back and share in the patterns that created them."

"And it holds the secret of immortality?"

"On this stone," said Kadmi, "I have written the story of your life. Your tribulations, your desires, your thoughts, your deeds. As long as the writing survives, you survive inside it."

Kahe knew this was the immortality she wanted. And she knew something else, the subtext of Kadmi's thought: that with this writing, laws and orders could be carried from one side of Raikoth to another. People in Taras could understand what people in Kalen were saying, and vice versa. The entire country could be linked by these lines in a way it had never been linked before. Kadmi had not only granted her immortality, he had granted her a glimpse at his vision for his empire.

She nodded. "It is good. Your empire will not fall, like Narsi's, and you will be the mightiest king in the history of Raikoth. I only beg of you, let me rule beside you, as your queen, as you do these things."

Kadmi laughed.

"I am not to be king!" he said. "Do I look like a king?"

"But...then...who?" asked Kahe.

"Behold your new monarch," said Kadmi, and he pointed to stone tablet and its curling lines.

And Kahe, who was after all a master of the cold clear way with a mind sharp as an icicle, immediately understood. The ruler of Kadmi's new empire wouldn't be Kadmi, or her, or any man or woman. It would be a nation ruled by patterns on stone, ruled by laws and not by men. They would search out the secret principles of the world, record their patterns, and then bow to those principles as kings and queens. In that way, Raikoth would be a true theocracy - a nation ruled by the gods - for the only gods in Raikoth considered worth the name were Truth and Beauty, and their ways could be known.

This, said Yyiji Tonkothion, is what it means to be a real Hyperborean. Here's Kadmi, the most blindingly brilliant figure in our country's whole history. Here he's offered the chance to be king of all Raikoth, to wed the supernaturally beautiful Kahe Kalirion and rule the island from Taras down to Kalen with her at his side. And what does he do? He laughs, and he hands his power over to curvy lines on a piece of stone, because those curvy lines are right.

Yyiji Tonkothion said he wanted to be the sort of person who, in the same situation, would laugh just as long and loud as Kadmi did. And it is said that he did, indeed, laugh when he was offered the position of Duke of Eluin - but that's another story.