[An address by Legate Domhnall Guivarch.]

[Erudiche]

Amid a fraught and contested League of White primary, Domhnall Guivarch speaks to a small crowd of political notables and passers-by on the Pyramidal plinth, overlooking the Plaza of the Well. He assumes the traditional Baz'eeli Oratory Pose, hair fragranced with myrrh, voice clear and carrying out.

Friends, Ephians, and countrymen, I bid you greetings, beneath moon and sun and all the stars which speckle Mother B'aara's sable cloak. I will speak to you here for a short time. Here, where ten years ago Ibtihal was put down by the Grandmaster of the Cinquefoil Rose. Where the miracle of water returned to our Well, expiated by blood. Here, where nine years ago there was blood in the streets, as the Rose and Janissary struggled for control of our Citadel. Where thousands died without the Shade. Where the first embers of democracy smouldered. Where an oath was pledged, between the White Kerchiefs, the scholars of the Fuqaha, and all those who wished for a better life.

The meaning of these things? That the dispossessed and downtrodden, the powerless and abandoned, the miserable and enslaved -- those that were nothing --

-- might become something.

Today I stand before you, a Legate of the Assembly, a Legate of the White League. Below our feet are the ground bones of a decade of struggle, of sorrow. The remains of a thousand Vahds who died nameless and unmourned, all the many unavenged and unhallowed dead, parched and scorched forevermore.

Behind me is the seat of the Assembly. A hall of privilege. A hall of perfidy and politics, of wheeling and dealing. Let me be clear, however. Behind me is not the seat of power in Ephia's Well. Behind me is not the home of our rulers. The Pyramid is a zoo, a menagerie, a place of entertainment. True power does not lie with the Pyramid. It lies, as it always has, with the people. Not merely the Voiced, but the many thousands of Voiceless. The rightful rulers of Ephia's Well. Those whose power has been usurped.

I was elected by the Voiced, by my League, with the intent to put forth an agenda of reform. An agenda which would restore to the people their stolen, ransomed rights. For all my progress, for all my labor in pursuit of this goal: the reform of criminal law in the common favor, the issuance of free Voices, the reduction of the accurst Citizen Tax...

... it has not been enough. Not nearly enough.

There are many who have designs upon this seat and dream of wild and vast reformations. They speak in the corners of crooked houses and in the alleys and narrow back streets of this crooked, creaking Citadel. Which they, with their new designs, would make straight and sound. But each of these new and ill-conceived designs is deranged in its heart, for they see their demons as though they were alone and original. And not as only one of countless others whose nightmares all proceed, like a hideous garden grown from a single seed. I was among them, these blind dreamers, but am no longer.

He turned, and made a sweeping gesture to the Pyramid looming behind him in the starlight.

The building behind me is a tomb. It is a place of evil. it is a place of corruption and of darkness. Any of my League who should replace me will find much the same.

Our battle is not with the Purple. Not the Gold. It is with the abomination, the monstrosity, of greed, mammon, and cruelty which sits behind me. With the vile system which weighs one man's life as more valuable than another's. I shall continue the battle. Until the very moment of my death, I shall work to restore to the people their stolen rights, their stolen dignity. I shall honor the pledge of the League of White, I shall honor the sacrifices made by the first blossoming of that Rose.

The system of Voices must be abolished, and it must be abolished within our lifetime. I will not rest until this is so. Until to all men is restored their birthright. Until their usurpers are punished.

Live and drink, my beloved people, and Up the White.