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Murphy was hungry for chicken meat. As it was, he didn't have any money on him, but his hunger didn't seem to mind and so he donned a big cloak and slipped into Polis. The market was full of peasants standing at their posts, calling to the crowd. One of them stood beside a cart stacked with small cages. The birds inside were well tended and fat, their feathers gleaming in the sunlight. The Trickster's mouth started to water as soon as he saw them and he was tempted to take the whole cart for himself, consequences be damned.
Polis had strict rules about thieves, but the Skairäv was positive he could get away with a bit of mischief. He approached the clueless farmer, ready to stash at least a few cages beneath his cloak when, suddenly, out of the High Tower came Azgeda warriors, seized him and dragged him to the Commander's quarters.
As it so happens, the old flamekeeper had died the night before the new Commander's ascension ritual and his apprentice, being a cowardly floatkru, had fled, leaving the new Commander without her ceremony. Heda was furious. So much so, she nearly struck the trickster down when her guards shoved him at her feet.
Ah! But Murphy is not so easily destroyed! It took him just a moment to assess the situation and then it was just a matter of putting his silver tongue to good use.
"My! Has the ritual not been completed yet? I thought for sure my master had done it before passing away and I was going to inform the flameseekers of the good news!" he bowed very low and smiled charmingly at the young Heda. "Worry not, my mighty Commander. This mistake will be corrected momentarily!"
And swiftly he started ordering people around as if he'd done so all his life: prepare a long warm bath for the Commander - for she cannot ascend covered in blood and other nasty things, you understand. Fetch her some treat to eat - and half a boar for himself - ascension ceremonies require a lot of exertion and they would all be hungry before they finished. And so on and so forth.
But, as you know, Murphy was a bit of a fool. Being a nokru raised by skaikru a, he did know very little about anything. About ascension? Not know a thing. Where was the flame? He had never laid eyes on it.Yet, as little as he knew, he was cunning and for three days straight he orchestrated ritual after ritual for the Commander to hop through. Always making sure he, himself stayed fed, clothed and dry.
At the end of the third day, the Commander was starting to lose her patience with the Taleteller. She sent her guards to retrieve the trickster from the flamekeeper’s rooms.
And, can you guess what they found? A second fox had come into the city! The trickster Emori, having heard tales of the new and handsome flamekeeper, had come sniffing about and found her husband in quite the situation.
“What is this!” screamed the Commander in a rage when the guards brought the two tricksters into her throne room. “A priest entertaining Nokru filth!”
It looked dire for both tricksters. Husband and wife looked at each other, smiled a sly and private smile and put their magic to good use. When they spoke, they did so with such cunning, nobody could help but fall into the charm of their enchanted tongues. “But Commander! Don’t you know? The flame has to be cleansed before it can be passed on to the next Commander! And flamekeepers have been using Nokru for that for as long as there have been Commanders!”
The Heda narrowed her eyes. Of course what priest did or didn’t do was a mystery to everyone. But using Nokru seemed a little fishy. “It is true”, said Emori. “My father and his mother before him and his mother’s mothers and fathers have been cleansing the flame before me. It took me a little bit longer, for this is the first time I had to do this ritual on my own! But here it is!” and with reverent fingers, she presented a little disk with the Holly Symbol etched onto it.
“Now”, said Murphy, “for the ascension to be completed you must sleep with the flame balanced on your forehead. The flame cannot be touched until the sun rises, and it cannot fall off your head. Once it’s done you will know the names of the previous commanders and share their mind and spirit.”
And so the Commander was ushered into her rooms and made to lay on her bed. With reverence, the false flamekeeper put the small disk onto her brow and bowed his way out of the room.
For the whole night, the Commander lay on her back, without moving, thinking of how great a Heda she would be once the flame was inside her.
When the day came and nothing happened, she rose in a fit of anger and called her guards to bring the flamekeeper and his filthy nokru helper. But when the guards entered flamekeeper’s rooms, both tricksters had left and they where nowhere to be found. As weren’t six cases of chickens and all the palace’s silver.
And that is the story of how Murphy and Emori tricked the commander.