The Manitushu Revolution in Flightless | World Anvil

The Manitushu Revolution

Author's Note: Content warning for reference to sexual violence
The Manitushu Revolution took place in late 451 in the Kingdom of Tanish. This is believed to be one of the most accurate accounts, written by the last Oracle of the Gell dynasty who currently lives in exile in Maloa. It is believed she wrote this account for the benefit of associates in Maloa who wished to understand the situation in their neighbour across the desert.  

The Manitushu Revolution, As Remembered by the Last Oracle of the Gells

There are many accounts of the uprising popularly known as the Minatushu Revolution. Those in power now will tell you it was a noble reclamation of the throne for the rightful heir, while the straggling remnants of the previous dynasty will say it was a murderous coup. As in all things, the truth is somewhere in the middle.   I had the dubious honour of being in the thick of the events that unfolded in the year 451. I will not pretend that I do not have biases against the main players, but I detest both of them almost equally, so I hope that this account will be fair. As this is my personal recollection, there are some details that I'm sure will be seen is irrelevant to others. But to me, they are intrinsically tied into my experience of the revolution that I cannot recount it without including them.  

Significant Figures

To begin, allow me to briefly introduce the significant figures that changed the course of history in Tanish that year.
  • Ben-Asir: the Great Prince. You may elsewhere see the name written as Shar-Ben-Asir, as in the tradition of the Tanishites, the Great Prince adopts the prefix meaning ‘blessed’ once his father becomes king. In my estimation, Ben-Asir is anything but blessed and I refuse to refer to him as such.
  • Seluku of House Minatushu: a descendent of one of the losing factions of the Tanishian Civil War, and self-proclaimed rightful heir to the throne of Tanish. He was the leader of the rebel group known as The Society, the instigators of the revolution.
  • Shavi: a soothsayer, a concubine, and my best friend. Admittedly, her role in the grand scheme of things was minimal, but I mention her too often in this account not to mention her here.
  • Myself, Kaylis, who was the Oracle of King Shar-Nutesh at the time of the events. As Shar-Nutesh died several years before the revolution, my duty was to interpret his will as relayed from beyond the grave. To disclaim my biases: I am of Kalian ancestry, but my gift with Tanishian Divination was discovered when I was 4 years old. I was taken to the capital, Zedda, and had lived there ever since. I do not remember my parents, nor my mothertongue, and I do not think I write from a Kalian bias. I do speak from the bias of a former member of The Sun Maidens, which ought to say enough about my biases against Tanish. All of us were broken by the state, but I consider myself one of the healthier ones for finally recognizing that.

Background Context

Although 451 is considered the year of the revolution, it was actually only the year that the rising tension broke the surface and became apparent to the common man. As far as I know, Seluku had been involved with The Society for some years, although none of us in the royal court knew of his deception. Seluku was in it purely to seize power, but I think some of the other leaders had more noble goals. The man whose sister was taken for The Ascension to Rekeh, and the woman who was a former Sun Maiden, for instance, both wanted to tear down the institution that had hurt them. Most just recognized the corruption, greed, and selfishness that permeated all levels of the royal court.

  I was initially approached by members of The Society when I was 18 years old, a year after the death of Shar-Nutesh and my appointment as Oracle. They asked for my cooperation in overthrowing the Gell dynasty and installing Seluku on the throne. At the time, I refused. I had an honoured and respected position in the court, Shar-Nutesh was a good man and would be a wonderful king, and also…. Honestly, the thought of defying Tanish never occurred to me. I’m sure you’ve seen adult mastodons kept in pens by a simple rope around the ankle. When they are very small and young, they learn that they can’t escape the rope. Once they grow to adults, their strength is more than enough to snap it, but the helplessness was ground into them during their upbringing that they don’t even try. But then, maybe I wasn’t like a mastodon. I’m pretty sure they, at least, realize they are captives.

  But I’m getting off track. As I was saying, I didn’t even consider joining them. They had wisely not given me enough details to point fingers, and so I let the matter drop. The Tanishian government seemed insurmountably powerful, and it didn’t occur to me that a small group could cause it any significant harm.

  There is one other event that occurred previous to 451 that I must mention. In 450, Ben-Asir pulled Shavi from The Sun Maidens a year before she was set to age out at 24. He wanted her to become one of his concubines and did not wish to wait. In retrospect, this was a defining character trait I should have been more cognizant of.

  I was happy that this had happened. What a short-sighted fool I was. She had been planning to return to her home village, Dashu, when she turned 24, and I would rarely ever see her again. As a concubine, she remained in the palace and I selfishly got to keep her around. If she had left, she would still be alive today.

 

The Betrayal of Ben-Asir

The short, unusually intense summer of 450 came to an end and the year 451 began with long, warm autumn days. During the first month of autumn, Shavi whispered to me to excitement that she was pregnant. I was delighted for her and knew she would make a wonderful mother. Bear with me, please; I assure you this information holds more importance than mere gossip between long-time friends. The father of Shavi’s child was, of course, Ben-Asir, who was embarrassingly childless even after 12 years of marriage. There were other children from other concubines, but his wife appeared to be barren and the child of a concubine was not eligible for inheritance.

  In the fifth month of 451, my loyalties to the Gells and Tanish as a whole came to question. If not for this event, I wonder how different the future would be. Would I have realized how rotten everyone around me was? Would I have aided The Society and helped Seluku usurp the throne? I don’t know. It’s hard to imagine now what life would be like without this hanging over me. Here are the basic facts:

  At the start of winter, I was in Tirasha with Ben-Asir to complete The Ascension to Rekeh. This is a religious even that takes place every six years in Tanish, involving the sacrifice of a young girl. The night before, Ben-Asir came to discuss the procedure for the next day in my room. Then he sexually assaulted me.

  We were friends when we were children. He used to visit the temple complex where the Maidens lived to learn about divination. He was nice. He always talked about his big dreams to strengthen the country when he grew up. As the Great Prince, he managed to convince almost everyone that he was a caring and benevolent ruler. Even I was fooled before that night. I really believed his smile and concern for the poor were genuine. One of the only clear pros of the revolution is that Seluku ensured Ben-Asir’s true nature was revealed to the populace and he will go down in history as the monster he was.

  So. What do you do after something like that? I certainly didn’t know. I went through with the ceremony the next day, forcing myself to be in the same room as him, and spent most of the journey back to Zedda confined to my room on the boat. As soon as we were back, I went to the head of the Sun Maidens, a woman who was dominant maternal authority figure in my life since I was taken from my birth parents as a toddler. I was sure she would know what to do. She was the one who explained that it is the Oracle’s duty to maintain purity as a servant of the gods. She chastised me for allowing myself to become corrupted by the “pleasures of the flesh”. Pleasures of the flesh! What camelops dung. I’ve spent the last five years thinking of all the words I wish I’d been emotionally stable enough to say to her then. She commanded I tell no one else, but I admit without guilt that I told Shavi. She, at least, offered a sympathetic shoulder and delightful descriptions of what she would do to Ben-Asir if he wasn’t so protected by his title and guards.

  I do apologize if this section of the report is unduly personal. However, even the official Tanishian accounts of the revolution cite the treachery of the Gell’s last Oracle as a significant factor in the revolution, so I feel the need to explain my motivations.

 

Open War Begins

My treatment by Ben-Asir and dismissal by the head of the Sun Maidens when I had always seen myself as a respected and significant member of the royal court drove me to seek out The Society. I admit that I did not seek to overthrow the government out of any noble desires to see an end to the suffering of the Kalian people or to put a stop to the corruption in the royal court. I reacted out of pain, grief, and anger. I wanted revenge on Ben-Asir, and that was the end of it.

  My desire to see Ben-Asir made to suffer pain and humiliation increased after I realized that I was pregnant. I did my best to hide it from the rest of the court, all while ferrying information from the top tier of government to The Society. Thanks to my contributions, supply caravans through the desert were disrupted, their goods distributed to the poor. Ambushes could be planned to pick away at the strength of the military.

The Society went from a background concern to the primary adversary of the kingdom. In the seventh month, the Kalian Confederacy – in exile in Shupilu since the Tanishian annexing of Kalitria in the late 5th century – pledged their support to The Society and assisted in arming them. Skirmishes along the southern border with Kalian militias occupied the military. These came both from guerrilla assaults across the border, to uprisings in Kalian villages in occupied territory. Troops along the Zel river, the heartland of Tanish, became scarce. This made it all the easier for The Society to take action.

 

The Birth of a "Princess"

Let me back up. Before all the fighting started, something else happened. Shavi was removed from the palace and taken to a quiet retreat in the mountains for the duration of her pregnancy. They said it was for her health. I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to her. With her gone, I just… didn’t know what to do. There was no one to talk to or discuss plans with. The only people left even remotely trustworthy were those in The Society.

  A few days later, Ben-Asir’s wife allegedly fell ill and retreated to her bedroom, where she was seen by very few people over the next few months. In the ninth month of the year, I lost even the promise of seeing Shavi again. She and her child both allegedly died during childbirth. I was told it was a difficult birth that claimed Shavi’s life, and the resulting child was stillborn. The loss of a concubine, especially among such turbulent times, mattered very little to anyone except her friends.

  At the same time, it turned out that Ben-Asir’s wife had been pregnant during her seclusion. She gave birth to a healthy baby girl, and celebrating the birth of the Great Prince’s first legitimate child gave the royal court something to have indulgent parties about among the chaos.

  If you possess any critical thinking skills, I am sure you share the same suspicions about the baby’s true mother that I had.

 

Another Loss

Only shortly after Shavi’s death, I was no longer able to keep my pregnancy secret as my child had become evident in my stomach. Rumour spreads quickly through a court desperate for gossip besides news of rebel attacks, and within a few days, every noble in Tanish had heard that the Oracle had abandoned her vows and been intimate with one of the palace guards. The guard in question, Balash, was indeed a friend of mine but for whatever it matters in my own account, he was only ever a friend.

  But, it little matters what I say about Balash now, just as it didn’t matter then. For the crime of defiling the Oracle, he was sentenced to death. Naturally, I went to The Society for help. They were growing in power and certainly had the ability to interfere with an execution and rescue Balash.

  However, they refused. Seluku himself told me that Balash could serve the Society better as a martyr, even though he wasn’t a part of it and had no interest in revolutions. Because they weren’t willing to risk a rescue attempt, even though interrupting an official execution and rescuing a falsely accused commoner would have been excellent publicity, I planned to rescue Balash myself. The day before I could, though, the head of the Maidens gave me a noxious drink of some unknown herbal source. All I remember of the ensuing week is a haze of horrible pain and the worst nausea imaginable. By the time I could leave my bed again, my child was gone and Balash was dead.

 

The Orchard Fire

I was angry with The Society for refusing to help with Balash, but what really pushed me to rescind my allegiance with them was the burning of the Gishur Orchard on the 18th day of the tenth month. The Gishur Orchard was the largest grove of Ishud Trees in Tanish, owned by some distant relation of the royal family. It doesn’t matter precisely who; he’s dead now, I’m sure. For many generations, it was the top supplier of Ishud seedpods throughout the kingdom. Even here in Maloa, incense from Ishud seedpods is highly valued, so I am sure you can understand why losing their largest orchard was a big blow to the government.

Unfortunately, it was also a dire blow to the population of Kalian slaves who worked the orchard. Most of the adults on the ground managed to escape the blaze, but the children climbing through the upper branches were not so lucky. Hundreds of children burned or fell to their deaths during the fire. It was no accident; Seluku knew fully well that slaves were at work in the orchard when he ordered the blaze set. He saw the slaves as just another asset owned by the Gell dynasty that he sought to destroy.

  I had lost my loyalty to Tanish when I realized they saw me as nothing but a pretty bauble to symbolically represent a king they had no intention of heeding. I lost my loyalty to The Society when I realized Seluku’s goal was to replace Ben-Asir as more of the same. Even some of the leader figures in The Society, especially those of Kalian descent, lost their faith in the movement after that.

 

The Red Day

At the beginning of the eleventh month, Ben-Asir, his wife, and the child they claimed as theirs travelled to Tirasha, the port city at the mouth of the river, to present the infant princess to the god Rekeh at the old temple. I accompanied them on this trip.

  Due to the instability in the kingdom, they considered remaining safe in Zedda. Ben-Asir requested that I look to the future and see what the trip would entail before deciding if he would go. I threw my lots as requested, and I saw death. I did not know the precise details, but I knew this trip would end in disaster. I told him not to worry and all would be well, and so the fate of the Gell dynasty was sealed.

On the 12th day of the eleventh month, I was visited by Shavi in my dreams. She came to me with a plea: save her daughter, for tomorrow she would be killed. I know that many in Maloa are skeptical of Tanishian soothsayers’ claims to be able to commune with the dead, so I will not insist you believe my account. Simply understand that I awoke the next morning with a deep-rooted resolution to rescue the baby from whatever the day would hold. Before the sun fully rose, I slipped into the royal chambers and stole away with the child.

  That day would come to be known as the Red Day. From this point on, I can only summarize what I’ve learned from merchants or official reports that made it to Maloa. Here is what I have heard:

Throughout the kingdom, assassins from The Society made their move. Members of the royal family were cut down on the street, strangled in their beds, shot by arrows through open windows, or, in the case of Ben-Asir and his wife, poisoned over breakfast along with every noble at their table. The Executors of the Will, and their immediate heirs, were murdered as well. None who claimed lineage from the Gell family were spared – neither the very old nor the very young.

 

The Manitushu Dynasty

In the evening, a soothsayer named Amata came forward claiming to be the Oracle of Ben-Asir. I happen to have been friends with Amata and know that she was passed over to become the Oracle specifically because she couldn’t commune with the dead, so I highly doubt she had any such connection with him. If she did, well, it was probably a rope of slime between two awful people. Seluku positioned himself as the Great Prince. Seluku, who had carefully kept his ties to The Society hidden, took charge of the military and gave them the orders and information to root out the “vile terrorists”. His former allies in The Society, who had thought they were set to become diplomatic advisors once he took power, found themselves scapegoated and killed.

  The lack of Executors of the Will, and Amata’s assurance that King Ben-Asir welcomed the ascension of a living king that he would serve only as advisor to, led to Seluku becoming the first living king of Tanish since the founding eight hundred years ago.

  By the time the twelfth month ended, the situation had mostly stabilized. Seluku was king and set himself up with a circle of nobles different than Ben-Asir’s courtiers, but just as self-centred and corrupt in their own ways.

What is the point of revolutions? Look how may people died to put Seluku on the throne. Children burned to death in the orchard, soldiers thrown against each other in battles that were only diversions, rebellious idealists executed by the man they’d pinned their hopes on…. Seluku is just as corrupt as Ben-Asir, his court filled with just as much decadence and self-absorption. People fought and died for this, and it didn’t make their lives any better. As long as there are people with power, there will be those who abuse that power. All of it is so pointless and I lie awake at night thinking about all the people I know who died for such a stupid reason.

 

The Last of the Gells

But what of the lost princess of the Gell dynasty? The morning of the Red Day, I took that infant and what supplies I could and fled. I knew I had no hope of reaching my estranged family in Kalitria, so I went north, into the depths of the sea of sand known as the Eni Belul. It was a long, arduous journey and several times I feared we would both die. I suppose it was a blessing I had been so close to having a child of my own, because it meant my body was prepared to feed the infant and so she survived. I saw through mediation that Seluku sent soldiers after us, but they lost our tracks after a sandstorm.

  And so, at the closing of the year, I found myself stumbling across the southern border of Maloa, half dead and carrying a baby too exhausted to wail. I had named her Lila, as I refused to use the name her monster of a father gave her. Lila, who is now for all intents and purposes my daughter, and I have settled well in Maloa. I am grateful to this country for the new lease on life it has provided me.

  My daughter is now five years old. Friends have asked me if I intend to return to Tanish one day when she is old enough, to reclaim her birthright. When asked this, I look out my window at the girl laughing while climbing trees or playing in the mud, and think, why? Why would I take her back to a life in the royal courts of Tanish? To start a new revolution and overthrow Seluku, just so that she could be a queen surrounded by nobles just as awful as the ones she overthrew?

  No. The ruling parties of Tanish deserve each other. Our life is here in Maloa now, and we will not be going back.
Date
Kelan, 451 - 28 Udan, 451

Location
Tanish, northern Free Kalitria

Causes:
  • Discontent with result of the Tanishian Civil War
  • Oppressive treatment of Kalian people
  • Extreme class inequality

Goals
Overthrow the Gell dynasty, install Seluku as Great Prince, start a new Manitushu dynasty

Methods:
  • Assassination
  • Disruption of trade routes
  • Military strikes

Result
Manitushu victory, downfall of the Gell dynasty
Parties
  • Kingdom of Tanish
Leaders
  • Seluku
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Cover image: by Look and Learn
Article template
Generic article
World
Flightless
Category
The Kingdom of Tanish in Kaabara's Southwest
Author
Nightfoot
Publication Date
20 Jan, 2018
Creation Date
4 Jan, 2018
Last Update Date
20 Jan, 2018
Visibility
Public
Views
597
Favorites
2
Comments
1

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