Chapter 3: The Regal Lathos Dynasty and the Age of Power
"…The Heir, though he has come, must be hidden within our ranks, for this is a time that will bring strife within the Mesaica due to the traitorous spies of wicked Galbrethi. It shall be divinely assured that the Begai will sink to shadow. But it is very much likely that they will take our hope and peace with them to their stony grave, for this is an age not bereft of great and terrible deeds, an Age of Power that will test the Sons of Kon. Though the water of the present is bitter, our final landfall will find us in the Land of Hope, the future…"
-Daev Mendis II, The Volumes of the Blue Order
General Mendis ruled over the land for nineteen years, as a steward in place of the Royal Line. During that time he oversaw several great projects of building and social reform in the demilitarized period. The foreign enemies of the Konai had been effectively defeated and the military was no longer so vital. Yet Mendis, being a general and understanding the need for a standing army and navy, kept the armed forces about 80% of their wartime strength, but cutting the treasury budget for military projects in half. He writes:
"It is not enough to expect our men to defeat any force in the world by just sitting and doing nothing. The very essence of military readiness and defense is the practice it takes to prepare for the unseen battle and the unknown hostility that lurks across the sea. Therefore, let it be decreed that the men of war apply themselves to great tasks of building and learning, searching for more ways to increase their renown in Deanda."
This policy of innovation became very popular in a short time, not only with the military, but also with the general population of about 615,000 citizens. In reflection of this, a flood of devices and contraptions were developed and invented during Mendis' reign that increased the efficiency of the Konai life. The population in turn continued to increase. It would reach a relative peak in around 870 B.C. of about 700,000 people.
Mendis' rule was cut short when the Mesaica decided that Mendis did not have the royal authority or permission of the people to rule. This move was most decidedly political, by a Royal Senate that coveted the power of the Daevini. Mendis agreed to abdicate the throne and subject the nation to the rule of the council, which promised to choose an able and willing monarch, a promise that took thirty-three years to fulfill. During this time Mendis was still a strong figure in the Konai political realm, accepted into the Mesaica for his outstanding work as a national leader. Secretly though, Mendis had also joined the Blue Order, a legendary group that had pledged itself to the preservation of the Royal Family and its line.
Mendis, along with the other Blue Order sages, believed that most of the work in the Mesaica was being directed by a secret conspiracy. It was in fact discovered to be true by Konai anthropologists in the 1800s. Viscount Begas III of Galbrethi in the Mesaica had bribed and bought nearly a third of the Royal Senate into his power as explained in the Black Manuscript of the Galbrethi Shadow Lords. This book, discovered in the late 1700s laid to rest many of the questions before anthropologists about Galbrethi, a land which many Konai histories sparingly mention, save in passing and with very much negative bias.
So Mendis and the Blue Order had realized that the House of Begas had gripped the assembly in a hostile hold. In light of this, the lost heir of the Yangi line was hidden from the Mesaica, doomed to only have his descendents come upon the throne. Upon one of the outgoing trade ships, the boy and his mother, Isana III, were sent to a haven made for them in the south of Gaul, later known as Spain. There, the line would survive until its return in nearly a thousand years.
Begas' plan was to end the kingdom by making the Mesaica in charge indefinitely, and then to disrupt and terrorize the members into his submission and eventually declare him the king of Deanda.
The Blue Order was able to foil the plan of Begas II by organizing votes against the Begas bloc. Wessex the Younger, Daevma of Memranda, who became the appointed regent, had no idea of all the intricate secrets behind the opposing secret societies, one of the reasons he had been unintentionally chosen as the Regent. The Blue Order had backed Mendis, while Begas II naturally pushed for himself. The two blocs were tied, and the tie vote fell to Daev Tagas of Jakanda, who voted for neither of the two major candidates but chose Wessex, who had shown a great capacity for fair and good judgment.
Both parties, the Blue Order, and the House of Begas, sent representatives to Wessex when he went to his bedchamber to rest. First to speak to him was Traga Madar, the Keeper of Xenoz-Ramba and member of the Blue Order. Madar only warned Wessex of a dangerous man that may visit him later in the night and that he would ask Wessex, or threaten him, to choose Begas II's grandson as the first king of the new line. Then Madar left out the palace window and joined the Blue Sages at the Cavern Cathedral. Then, Vidquathi, the Chief of Arms for the Galbrethi court came to Wessex with a wave edged dagger at his side and spoke harsh words of retribution and pain if Wessex did not choose the House of Begas as the new dynasty. Vidquathi then left the room out the door and stuck the dagger upon Wessex's door with a note in rude characters, saying:
"In six years the power of the hand of Begas will destroy you if you have not named the House of Begas the successor… Six years…"
These nightly visits happened annually for five years in a row as Wessex readied Deanda for transition back to royal rule. Of his highest candidates for the throne were Lathos, the grandson of Mendis, and Begas III, the grandson of Begas. Both displayed the strength and will to rule the land, but Lathos displayed the qualities of grace that Begas did not, the qualities that Wessex had searched for.
Thus on the last nightly visit, Traga Madar once more visited Wessex and asked him what his decision was, for it would be announced the following morning. Wessex, knowing from where Madar had come from, told him that Lathos would be king. But Vidquari, standing outside, broke down the door and charged Wessex to kill him.
Madar threw himself against the sword of Vidquari to save Wessex and caught jagged blade among his bones. With his main sword stuck, Vidquari charged Wessex with his naked hands and took hold of the Regent in a choke hold. The Regent was being suffocated but took hold of a nearby gemstone upon his desk and crushed Vidquari's hand with it. Vidquari took a wavy bladed dagger with his other hand and held it high over his head to make for a deathblow to Wessex, but the Regent took the Chief's other sword blade from his own sheath and ran his heart through with it.
Thus the plans of Begas II were foiled and this was the last he heard upon his deathbed in Galbrethi before dawn arrived. In darkness his plans died, and he died with them. A disgruntled House of Begas began to plot against the new Royal Line in Xenoz.
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