By Vernon Vexfire
FROSTFANG CITADEL, NETHERPLATEAU — The Ministry of Harmonious Damnation this week escorted a clutch of foreign scribblers through the high-altitude embers of Frostfang, where every banner flapped on cue, every answer arrived polished, and every official smile looked like it had been issued with the press pass.
At the Emberleaf Elders’ Hall, 73-year-old retired nurse Kharza Lhaversh bent over a brush, carefully practicing the curling letters of the old Frosttongue script. She has spoken Frosttongue all her life, she said, but never learned to write it. Now she studies calligraphy, grammar and poetry beside other elders determined to keep a little ash of themselves from being swept into the imperial furnace. Kharza also reads and writes Infernal Mandarin, as nearly everyone here must. That, officials insist, is “bilingual harmony.” Around these parts, harmony tends to arrive wearing boots.
The new Ethnic Unity Edict of the Brass Throne, in force since Ashmonth 1, declares Infernal Mandarin the primary language for schools and government offices across Frostfang. It also orders schools, temples, families and every other institution with a roof and a pulse to promote patriotism, national unity and a shared identity under the Emperor-Fiend’s grand “One Furnace Nation.” Acts deemed to “incite division” among the realm’s 56 recognized peoples are forbidden, though the law is charitably vague on whether that includes asking inconvenient questions before lunch.
Brass Throne officials say the edict promotes equality, schooling and social cohesion. They dismiss outside criticism as “foreign soot in the eye,” which is a tidy phrase for refusing to look at the smoke. Detractors say the law tightens the chain around Frostfangers and other minority peoples, grinding down language, religion and identity beneath the smiling wheel of unity. Scholars such as Grimsley Coalbind and Tserak Dorngore warn the result may be a double life: public obedience in Mandarin, private memory in whispers.
The law arrives during the Throne’s celebration of the 75th anniversary of what it calls Frostfang’s “peaceful unshackling.” Many exiles, with the stubborn habit of remembering history differently, call it conquest. Frostfang is officially autonomous, though autonomy here appears to mean officials autonomously decide where journalists may stand, whom they may meet and how long they may breathe near a notebook. This correspondent and others were accompanied throughout by minders from the Bureau of Kindly Supervision. Editorial control, thank the lower pits, remained with us.
The state’s message is everywhere: crimson banners, portraits of Supreme Chairman Cinder Xiang, airport slogans, cliffside billboards praising “ethnic fusion,” and posters reminding locals that all rivers of identity flow conveniently into the capital’s sewer. At the Emberheart Shrine and the Bonecloud Palace, two of Frostfang’s holiest places, there was no visible public mention of the living Snow-Soul Lama, the revered spiritual leader who fled to Ashen Exile in 1959. The Brass Throne calls him a splitter of realms and insists his next reincarnation must be approved by imperial law. The Snow-Soul Lama, showing a regrettable indifference to bureaucracy, says only his own office can recognize his return.
Still, culture has not been extinguished. Nineteen-year-old student Qongra Quenchu said preserving Frosttongue and Frostfang customs matters deeply and should pass to future generations. She added that Infernal Mandarin is common in schools because students come from different dialect regions. That may be practical. It may also be convenient. In Frostfang, those two words are often shackled together and paraded as policy.
Officials displayed safer cultural treasures for the visiting press: frost-medicine, sulfur-thread weaving, ash ceramics, masked opera and carefully framed Buddhist rites. Historian Benno Brimstone of Carnegie Furnace University says the edict may not be a sharp turn so much as a brass stamp on years of existing policy. Language rights and schooling, he noted, have already been narrowed. The Throne favors minority culture best when it can be sold to tourists, worn as costume or danced onstage without mentioning gods, grievances or self-rule.
At the Frostfang Museum of Approved Memory, exhibits stressed ancient ties between Frostfang and imperial dynasties, supporting the Throne’s claim that the plateau has always belonged to it. Exiled Frostfangers dispute that, saying their homeland stood independent through much of its history. A Party official at the museum told us the unity law “only brings benefits” and has no downside.
A law with no downside. Now there’s a miracle worthy of a temple. Or an investigation.
Ah, Vernon Vexfire, you smoky little quill-goblin, you’ve managed to write an article so sharp it probably needs a minder from the Bureau of Kindly Supervision just to cross the street.
“Bilingual harmony” arriving in boots? Delicious. Nothing says unity like telling people their mother tongue is welcome—as long as it whispers indoors and signs the loyalty form in Mandarin first. The Brass Throne seems to have invented cultural preservation by taxidermy: stuff the language, pose the monks, sell tickets.
Still, credit where due: a “law with no downside” is bold. Even gravity has complaints. Frostfang’s people remembering themselves in private may be inconvenient, but memory is a weed with excellent mountain roots.
Anyway, Vernon, try not to inhale too much official incense next time. It clearly makes reporters dangerously coherent.