Broken ruler of a broken world

[Scott Alexander]

It was Eith Korphorin's least favorite day of the month. He was going to have to go into Oldest-bar.

Oldest-bar was a dwelling of some sort, maybe a shelter or warehouse, the oldest building in Drachumve and probably in the world. It had been built either just after the disaster as a refuge, or maybe even before, to wait it out. As the city of Drachumphan had taken form, everyone had left the shelter and moved into new dwellings. Everyone except, of course, Omi Oitherion. The shelter had been retooled as a sort of palace, not that Omi had cared or noticed.

Eith was now the leader of Drachumve in all but name. He'd started by helping clean up after Omi's various disasters, not out of any ambition but just because somebody had to do it, and quite by accident he had ended up in charge of everything after realizing that cleaning up after Omi's disasters was the main work of the Drachumvelin government.

Now he was Senator, de facto mayor of Drachumphan, Chief Secretary to the Autokrator, Minister of Economics, and just yesterday a group of priests had, ignoring his protests, foisted the title of Governor-General Of The Colonies onto him. And that was in addition to his project of re-establishing the Oracle based on a few scattered books about how it should work written mostly in dead languages.

And yet he would have doubled his workload if he could have avoided these monthly visits to Oldest-bar.

The temperature dropped ten degrees, as it usually did around Omi. He heard the roll of miniature thunder. This wasn't going to be a good day, either.

"Come in, Yyari," said a voice. Omi hadn't even recognized him this time. That was bad. Usually he at least knew who he was. Truth and Beauty only knew who Yyari might be. The name sounded archaic; probably one of his friends from before the apocalypse.

"Truth warm you, Omi-nomai. It's your secretary, Eith. I'm here to tell you about this week's business."

"Should I destroy the world again?" asked Omi. "They said I might need to destroy the world again."

"No, Omi," Eith told him. "The world is doing just fine. I just have some documents that need your signature. This one admitting Merveilles to the Senate. You know, the tribe to the south of us? You used to tell me you always thought they would become a worthy candidate for the Senate eventually, and just this year our representative there said they'd met the last criterion. And this one, an order for a refinery to be built in Volchikoth, to get the oil flowing again. And one to establish a militia to defend the city. Just in case."

"Is someone invading the city?" asked Omi. "Should I destroy them? Maybe I should destroy the world?"

"No, Omi. Just sign here. Everything's fine. It's just in case."

To be honest, Eith had never seen Omi this bad before. Usually he was neurotic, depressed, and had the destruction obsession going on, but most days he was lucid. Sometimes he could genuinely set policy. Good policy, even. But over the last five years, ever since the complicated treaties founding the Senate had been finished, Omi had been deteriorating more quickly than ever before. Maybe with his goal achieved, he'd lost the will to fight. Or maybe the demonstrations of force that had been required to convince a few of the slower realms to join the Senate had each taken a little bit out of his mental reserve?

The truth was, not only didn't Eith know what was driving Omi over the edge, he didn't have a clue how the man's powers worked. He wasn't even entirely sure the terrifying crown he wore wasn't a very flashy distraction, and that the true power lay somewhere else. As far as he knew, any of the original Drachumvelin who had helped Omi achieve his magic were long dead, and he'd never seen fit to tell any of their descendents.

Eith had wired Omi's compound with enough explosives to kill the old man twenty times over if he gave the order. He respected the heck out of the Old Wolf, and he didn't want to have to hurt him if he could help it. But one of these days, the voices that kept telling him to destroy the world again were going to get a little too vocal, and if the Autokrator ever took it into his hands to satisfy them, Eith wanted to be able to get rid of him in a hurry.

But he couldn't do it yet. For one thing, Eith had no idea whether killing Omi - or destroying the crown he wore - would negate all the effects of the Mysterious Force, make the entire globe immediately accessible to technology, and end in the Resplendence City State and their superior machinery conquering the world in a fortnight.

Even if that nightmare scenario didn't play out, Drachumve would immediately lose the only thing that made the foreigners listen to it. The peninsula would be marginalized in favor of flashier lands like Lant, larger empires like Col, or Truth and Beauty forbid those horrible people with the pig heads on that island to the south. They'd have to reallocate so many resources to defense that their truly vital projects - the re-establishment of the Oracles, the creation of a global economy - would wither and die. Without Omi, the Senate would shatter, and the dream of a peaceful Pelagia and a melting pot of cultures would go with it.

Even as it was, it was taking all of his brilliance just to hang on. Take Aryasht's recent expansion request. If he had granted it outright, it would have made a mockery of Drachumve's policy against unlimited expansion and exploitation. If he had refused, he faced the awful possibility of Aryasht trying to expand anyway, and him having to decide whether or not to call in the Autokrator. Even if he could get Omi to understand what was going on, Eith was far from certain that the old man could turn back the Arya without getting carried away and destroying everything again.

If he was to be honest to himself, Eith had to admit he was currently controlling the world by what could only be described as a very large bluff. As long as everyone feared the Autokrator, Drachumve could live in peace and continue its mission to shepherd the nations of the world. But as soon as a problem arose that truly required Omi's help, well...

...better not to think about that.

"You know," said Omi, "there's a new play opening in Shirekeep tonight. Perhaps you should go. You would learn much."

"I don't doubt it, old friend," said Eith. He'd know the Old Wolf for the past ten years. He supposed he was Omi's only friend in the world, maybe. And so in spite of the temptation to just forge his name onto the documents, he would come to visit each month, try to keep the last survivor of the old world tethered to reality at least a little. "But I'm afraid I have too much work to do. Senate business and all that. Maybe we can go some other night, eh?"

"Don't wait too long," said Omi. "The drama won't go on much longer. I hear it might be ending any day now. Any. Day. Now."

As always, Eith Korphorin, unwilling ruler of the world, left Oldest-bar just a little more terrified than he had come.

[Funky Wombat]

Is Omi signing all the things that Eith hands him just on reflex, then?

Or are all Drachumvelin documents passed into law with things like "Doomdoomdoom" scrawled all over them?