The Good Emperor: Phargentes the Younger

After a decade of civil war and strife, where figure after figure emerged and attempted to claim dominion over Peloria, where at last in disgust Deneskerva and Jar-Eel attempted to raise up a prosthetic Red Emperor, the true Red Emperor returned. Previously, when the Red Emperor had died and suffered a lengthy absence, he had returned in a Carmanian Mask, Magnificus.

This time, he returned in a Mask from the Provinces, from Tarsh, stalwart loyal Tarsh, conquered by Argrath and then delivered into the deathly grip of Mularik Ironeye, liberated by feuding between the two "heroes" over a toll, then delivered at last into the hand of Annstad of Dunstop, a lover of Jar-Eel and of Argrath, who managed to play both sides against one another and satisfy all parties. Phargentes the Younger, though, was said to be a member of the old Tarshite royal family, a son conceived by Moirades at the moment of his liberation from the world by Jar-Eel, and thus Phargentes was said to be Jar-Eel's child as well. 

Many have had their suspicions about this. The truth is unlikely to ever be known, given the circumstances of Phargentes's rise and fall. 

This is what we know, or rather what his supporters said. When younger, Phargentes was well out of the line of succession, and was known as "Phargentes the Fool" for his seemingly dissolute attitude towards ruling and rulership. His greatness remained in abeyance until the Ilaro dynasty was driven from Tarsh, and it is then that he began to display both the marks of a great war-leader and the subtle understandings of the Illuminated. At last, after the disastrous Battle of Dwernapple (some say at the urgings of a repentant Jar-Eel and Deneskerva), with the Proxy Emperor dead, Phargentes determined to attempt the Ten Tests. 

He succeeded, and then, so he said when he returned from the Red Moon, his eyes alight with the glow that the survivors of the old days knew was that of the true Takenegi, he purged the ranks of the Egi, who had betrayed the Red Goddess and befuddled her. 

Only one satrapy swore to Phargentes the Younger directly, but he won the loyalty of the remaining parts of Saird and the Redlands quickly. The power with which he crushed the Heartlands led the West Reaches to humbly submit shortly thereafter, and he rewarded them richly for their loyalty where the Heartlands had faltered. 

What there is left to tell is well-known: how the King of the West met the King of the World in battle and the former's grand armies were reduced to so much dust and grease, the immortal wizards fleeing from the onrush of mortality, how the Arrolian Properties were returned to the Empire with triumph, how the plots of the Aldryami were broken to tatters by the Greater Moonburns, how the old allies were brought into the Empire as full citizens, and at last how Phargentes marched south and avenged his former Mask's humiliation. 

What followed thereafter hurts even to think about. I can still remember the Joy of those days, the hope and amazement, the possibility that the New Way would carry forward the promise of Sedenya to the rest of the world, not at some remote date, but in this day, with these hands, these eyes. Has this been forever lost? Are we well and truly sundered from our Goddess by the Empty One?

An unorthodox painting of Phargentes the Younger, depicting him in the days of his youth, perhaps in Jillaro or Mirin's Cross. This is associated with a strange text which posits that the Hero Wars were in the end really about an effort to drink from Uleria's cup, which they insist is actually a bowl or grail, and thus achieve communion with the primordial spirit of the world. Many were the people who sought greater depths of madness to reconnect with Great Sedenya. 

A painting of Phargentes the Younger after becoming the Mask of the Red Emperor, done in the same style as the previous one. The artist or artistic school apparently uses visible breasts and feminine hips to convey direct connection to Sedenya (the effect is somewhat stunning on the few Venerabilis and Magnificus paintings we have). This may represent Phargentes shortly before the Battle of Dantolfol, or possibly afterwards.

I make no comment here. Well, one comment: would only that Phargentes had been so beautiful and terrible in reality!