\hypertarget{chapter-35-stroll}{%
\section{Chapter 35: Stroll}\label{chapter-35-stroll}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``Seventeen: always agree when offered to share in the rule of the
world by a villain. The three to four heartbeats of sheer surprise that
will earn you are a golden opportunity to kill them before it comes to a
monologue.''}

-- `Two Hundred Heroic Axioms', author unknown
\end{quote}

The Dead King kept a good table, for a corpse.

It was a little surreal that after that last bit of dramatics we were
expected to have a meal, but wasn't that diplomacy? Vivid theatre,
followed by long stretches of tediousness. There were half a dozen kind
of spiced meats on the table I didn't recognized but tasted delicious,
with the only dark mark on the affair that it was apparently expected
that undead attendants would cut my meal for me. I dug in with reluctant
enthusiasm, since it was unlikely I'd get to eat this fine a meal for
months yet. The cooks at the palace had been weaned off the more
complicated fare they'd learned from Mazus and the Fairfaxes and gently
guided into making the simpler fare I liked better -- if it used to
squawk and had since been roasted, odds were I'd enjoy it -- but they
seemed to have taken that as a challenge to put all their efforts into
dessert. Which, well, I had not found it in myself to deny. Masego had a
sweet tooth as well, and blueberry tarts were one of the few plates that
were never at risk of coming back full when sent into the Observatory. I
laid off the wine, though out of politeness I took a few sips. It still
tasted like ash to me, as all lesser spirits had since I fully claimed
my mantle. Setting down the silvers, I politely dabbed away the bit of
sauce on my lips with the provided cloth and leaned back into my seat.
Meal time with the Woe tended to be a riotous affair, but not today.

Trading barbs with the Dead King as audience would have been a little
too much even for Archer. The abomination sitting the throne waited
patiently, by all appearances pleased with how quick we'd been to dig
in. I caught his eye, purely by happenstance, and when I faced those
yellow orbs the throne room went dark. Sighing, I put down the cloth.

It'd been about time for something to go wrong, hadn't it?

A quick look around told me I was no longer sitting in the throne room.
This was the pitch black of nothingness, not deep shadow. The cloth had
disappeared into the dark the moment it left my fingers, and the table
had followed suit the moment I took my eyes off of it. The only visible
thing around was a standing man, and my brow rose when I took him in.
The throne-sitting corpse had not been the Neshamah of millennia ago.
This, however, was. Pale and mess-haired, with those thick eyebrows and
calloused hands. Closely-shaven as he had been when I'd last glimpsed
him, a heartbeat before he wrought the doom of Keter.

``There is no need for alarm,'' the Dead King spoke in Ashkaran.

I forced a frown in my face.

``I'm afraid you've lost me,'' I said.

No amusement bloomed on his face. He did not strike me as offended by
the lie, either -- if he even knew it was one. What had been spoken was
simply put away behind those golden-brown eyes, to be studied at his
leisure.

``My apologies, then,'' he replied in Lower Miezan. ``Would you walk
with me, Black Queen?''

I rose to my feet, swallowing a snort when the greatest abomination ever
born to Calernia chivalrously offered me his arm. \emph{In for a
copper}, I mused. I looped my arm into his and allowed him to lead me
through the nothingness.

``I judged a private conversation to be in order, before negotiations
began,'' the Dead King said. ``As reparations for the imposition, the
least I can offer is an interesting sight to accompany it.''

The darkness bled out. It was like watching a painting in reverse, I
thought. Instead of splashed of colour being put to canvas, strokes of
black were removed and bared the sights beneath. He'd not lied, at
least, about it being \emph{interesting}. The two of us stood dozens of
miles in the air, watching the slaughter that took place below. It was a
siege, or at least an assault part of one. Surrounding a Keter near
identical to the one I'd seen in Creation, hundreds of thousands
gathered beneath colourful banners to take a run at the walls. My eyes
lingered on the few heraldries I recognized. Most of them Proceran, but
a few Callowan ones as well. The bells of House Fairfax startled a
finger clenching out of me. That banner had not flown in the wind since
the Conquest.

``Sixth or Seventh?'' I asked.

There could be no doubt, after all, that it was a crusade beneath me.

``Sixth,'' Neshamah replied. ``The depths of that failure led to the
birth of the Seventh, in many ways. The Choir of Contrition is hard of
learning.''

``My own encounters have left me less than fond,'' I said. ``The first
hero I fought was sworn to them.''

``The Lone Swordsman,'' the Dead King drawled. ``Ah, those pesky
Hashmallim. All those centuries and they still believe the right sword
in the right hands can accomplish anything. Their string of failures had
made them increasingly heavy-handed. Mercy is the the Choir to watch,
for subtlety.''

``And Judgement?'' I probed.

``That sword only ever clears the scabbard when something needs to
die,'' the abomination smiled. ``No coincidence, that the current White
Knight is one of theirs. The Heavens have pressing need of blood on the
ground, and the man will serve to herd the others towards the fated
abattoir.''

``They can be beaten,'' I said, watching a wooden ramp collapse under
stone thrown from the walls.

Hundreds fell to their screaming deaths in the pit below.

``In a manner of speaking,'' the Dead King said. ``Praesi have slain and
tricked them into falling, as have I. Yet the Choirs stand, for their
existence is fixed. A dead angel does not detract from the whole. It
remains as it ever was.''

``They have to play by the rules,'' I said.

``Oh yes,'' Neshamah murmured. ``And they will pay for that, in time.
That delightful child in Helike wove a trap for them right under the
Intercessor's nose. I expect the end of that play to be nothing less
than \emph{magnificent}.''

The Tyrant, he meant. I forced myself not to stiffen. I'd expected him
to take a swing soon, either a Procer or whatever nation was limping
heaviest at the time. This was a hint there was another game afoot,
though. And I doubted it had been offered lightly.

``He's offered me eternal friendship,'' I said, hoping to shake a little
more loose.

The abomination grinned.

``To me as well,'' he said. ``And the rats, though they ate his envoy. I
confess I quite enjoy his sense of humour.''

The Tyrant of Helike was mad, this was well-known. I was starting to
wonder if it was perhaps \emph{too} well-known. Behaviour could seem
erratic without actually being so, when you failed to grasp what someone
was truly after.

``But I digress,'' the Dead King dismissed. ``We did not take this
stroll to speak of the League of Free Cities. It appears we have a
common foe, Black Queen.''

``Procer,'' I said. ``I would have preferred not to fight them at all,
but Hasenbach left me little choice.''

``She is an interesting one, their First Prince,'' Neshamah said. ``A
shame that her understanding of what a crusade is was so lacking, but it
is too late to leave the saddle once the lion is ridden. She must follow
through or break the Principate for a few generations.''

``A matter of some interest to you, I imagine,'' I said.

``Come now, my young friend,'' the Dead King laughed. ``Do you take me
for such a fool I would want the Principate to \emph{fall}?''

``Without Procer there's little left to contain you,'' I pointed out.
``The Dominion and the League might manage to salvage parts of the south
and Callow would hold the passes to the east, but you'd be trading a
single mighty opponent for several weaker ones.''

``I could bring ruin to them,'' the Dead King mildly said. ``Drown the
Lycaonese in death, devour every field and city from the Tomb to Salia.
I could have done this when they were grown fragile from their war of
succession, and none would have been able to stand against me. Yet I did
not.''

``Because it'd have hung a sword over your head,'' I said.

``Not immediately,'' Neshamah mused. ``They would have allowed me to
glory in it for some time. Lovingly tended to my legend, my thousands
years of darkness -- or, more likely, my few centuries. They would have
been willing to pay that price twice over, to have me bare my neck.''

``And yet here I am,'' I said. ``Invited to speak of war. Because
there'd be two heads but only one sword. It's how you survived
Triumphant, isn't it?''

``She was a great woman,'' the Dead King fondly said. ``There was a
\emph{clarity} to her that I'd never seen the likes of. But you
misunderstand my intent. I do not seek to use you. My war on stillness
will not be waged in so half-hearted a manner. This is merely a welcome,
Catherine Foundling.''

``To what?'' I asked.

``That most rarefied of societies,'' he laughed. ``We few immortals.''

``I can die,'' I flatly said.

``So can I,'' the Dead King said. ``So can she. And there have been
others before, who came close yet passed in the end. But I have great
hopes for you, Black Queen. You have crawled through the cracks in a
most fascinating way -- never before have I seen anyone reach apotheosis
by \emph{accident}.''

I bit my tongue before I could deny him. He was wrong. Had to be. I'd
carved away at myself piece by piece and put a mantle over the remains,
but I was hardly a god. Even a lesser one. If that delusion made him
civil and open to negotiation, however, he could keep it.

``She,'' I said instead. ``The Wandering Bard.''

``The Name changes,'' he said. ``The faces as well, swift as seasons.
The Role has not. Intercessor she was and will remain.''

``She's got her hands all over this war,'' I said. ``She was in Callow,
before it all went to shit. In the League too, before the shockwaves of
that rippled across the continent. I know better than to believe she
won't pop out again.''

``She encountered a nasty little setback in the south,'' Neshamah said.
``And has remained\ldots{} discreet, since. But do not believe her
absent because she is not before your eyes. She has as many irons as
there are fires.''

I bit my lip. Should I? It was a risk. But when would I ever have an
occasion like this again to speak with one of the few entities that
might have a decent grasp of her? The Wandering Bard was a shadow cast
on everything I had been trying to accomplish.

``What is she after?'' I asked. ``I used to think it was destroying what
was made of Praes, but this is too much. Too large. She didn't need a
crusade to accomplish that.''

``I thought I understood her, once,'' the Dead King pensively said.
``Then she ruined me with a smile on her lips. A dozen times again did
the two of us dance that dance, and yet even now she remains inscrutable
in her intent. Know her to be your foe, and that in this game of ours
there is nothing more dangerous than allowing the others to grasp your
heart's desire.''

``But I should trust you,'' I said. ``Because Evil is one big happy
family, give or take the occasional knife in the back.''

He laughed.

``Never trust me,'' he advised. ``Or anyone else. Those are the last
remnants of who you once were seeking to shackle you. You will betray
me, if we make bargain. Or I will betray you. That is the nature of
things.''

His arm left mine and he smiled gently.

``I need you to understand, Catherine, that none of it should be taken a
slight,'' Neshamah told me. ``That even if you wound me most grievously,
there is nothing to bar you from seeking me out for alliance in
centuries to come. That if rip out the heart of you, it is not a
declaration of war: it is simply a single tide in a very old sea, and in
time it will pass. All things do, in the end. Save for us.''

``You do not sound like a man who wants to make an alliance,'' I said.

``Yet I will listen to your offers, and accept them should they suit,''
the Dead King said. ``I am in no hurry. Neither are you, though you have
yet to grasp that truth.''

He patted my hands affectionately.

``You are about to begin a journey, Catherine Foundling. They will hound
you,'' Neshamah said, ``to the ends of Creation. No matter where you
flee, no matter how you plead and bargain and reason. They will scour
the impurities from you until all that is left is the devil they feared
all along. And when you rise from that grave of ash, crawling through
blood and smoke?''

He smiled.

``I will be waiting on the other side.''

I swallowed, though my mouth was dry.

``The day is yet young,'' the Hidden Horror said, looking down at the
slaughter that once took place beneath his walls. ``Let us return, and
speak of earthly treaties.''

A drop of darkness touched the world, and like ink in water is spread.
It was mere moments, before I sat before the table again. The meat on my
plate was still warm.

My hands were trembling, and I could not bring myself to believe it was
not warranted.

---

I watched moonlight wash over the Crown of the Dead in silence. We'd
spoken with the Dead King for more than an hour after the meal was
finished, but I'd been unable to concentrate as much as I should. Hakram
had done most of the talking, presenting our offer and terms of
alliance. Nothing I hadn't known before. I'd provide the invitation out
of his Hell, in exchange for limits on how much he could swallow. No
promises of assistance in the defence of Callow required, none offered
in his battles against the Tenth Crusade -- though I'd left the door
open for further dealings there. I did not intend to ever cross that
threshold, but the pretence that I might should be enticement in its own
way. Neshamah was, after all, preying on my desperation. He would suck
that teat try if he could. No accord had been reached. The Hidden Horror
told us the offer was worth considering, and that he would do so with
due diligence. We were to meet again tomorrow at twilight, for further
discussion of the proposed treaties. It was not a refusal, at least. I
suspected that if the Dead King had been uninterested in the terms he
would have made that clear without stringing us along, but that was just
a feeling. As Akua had pointed out afterwards, the longer we remained in
Keter the better his bargaining position became.

If we stayed here long enough, there'd be no time for further
preparation of Callow.

That should have weighed on me. The possibility that this dark gambit
would come to nothing, and I'd walk from Keter with nothing to show for
it. But it wasn't what my mind was lingering on. To him, all the
treaties in the world were nothing but play-acting. I'd gotten a glimpse
of what Neshamah believed Creation was, and it was nothing that a
makeshift bargain could truly change. The kingdoms, the armies, the
borders -- they were just ink on maps. The Pilgrim was willing to let
Callow burn if it meant the Grand Alliance turned its swords to the
Kingdom of the Dead, but the abomination had never once been worried
about that. Gods, he didn't even need to \emph{fight} them did he? He
could just wait them out. Let the petty feuds of mortals tear apart that
ambitious edifice. A century or two of keeping to his borders meant
nothing to a creature like that. As long as the Serenity kept churning
out soldiers, kept growing within the hellscape, he would pull further
ahead. \emph{Because his realm doesn't fight itself, while Calernia is a
tinder box no matter the era.} And that was the entity I meant to use
for my purposes. It scared me, that he'd outright said he wouldn't much
care if I did. Because it meant that all of this was a passing
distraction to him. Nothing that really mattered.

The flare of the match drove back the dark, for a moment, until I
flicked it away. The wakeleaf in my pipe brought a sharp taste to my
mouth when I inhaled, pouring away when I spat out a stream of smoke.
The highest ring of the Silent Palace offered a beautiful view of the
madness below. Wyverns passed the skies, silent save for the batting of
wings, while in quiet streets the dead marched in blind patrols. Athal
had brought me to the balcony when I'd asked for a view, and I'd
remained here ever since. My hands itched for a bottle, but I'd forced
myself to indulge other vices. I could think of few things more foolish
than getting drunk in Keter, much as it would have relieved me. Hakram
had already come and gone, getting me to eat from a plate when I did not
truly need to and then sitting in silence. Offering wordlessly to
listen, if I wanted to talk. I had not taken him up on it, for once.
Neither Indrani nor Masego had come up. They tended to avoid me, when I
was in a mood. Vivienne had passed to discuss the treaties for a half
hour, and left when she realized my mind was only halfway there. It was
time, I supposed, for the sixth to make an appearance.

Akua Sahelian was a sight, under moonlight, and how I'd shaped her had
little to do with it. She'd had a touch of the eerie even before the
changes, that too-perfect look Praesi highborn had bred into their
lines. Soninke more than Taghreb, true, but the difference was less than
you'd think. Aisha was from a family long past its glory, and she was
still worth more than a passing look. Diabolist's grown of silver and
blue bunched up around her body as she leant against the balustrade by
my side. I drew from the pipe and blew the mouthful of smoke out.

``And here you are,'' I said. ``The proverbial devil on my shoulder.''

``Is that to be my purpose?'' Akua mused. ``Let us spin wicked weaves,
then. You lack not for enemies to entrap.''

``You've got games afoot,'' I said. ``I knew you would when I let you
out. But I am not in the mood for them tonight, Sahelian.''

``No,'' she said softly. ``Evidently not. You spoke with the Dead King,
without our knowledge.''

My fingers tightened against the dragonbone shaft. I forced them to
loosen.

``I did,'' I admitted.

``Such a creature can foster madness with but a sentence, when speaking
to the weak-minded,'' she told me. ``I would not put stock in what it
peddled.''

``An interesting thought,'' I said. ``Since a lot of what it peddled
sounded like Praesi rhetoric.''

``We have our exalted,'' Akua said. ``Triumphant, Traitorous. The
Maleficents and the Terribilises. Yet there is reason we do not hallow
Trismegistus' name so. Terror and awe are not treasured bedfellow among
my kind. Our favourite gods are those that bleed.''

``God, huh,'' I mused. ``I keep hearing people throw that word around.
Been guilty of that as well. But to this day I'm not sure what it
means.''

``There are those that would say the term is a mere recognition of
power,'' the shade said.

I inhaled the smoke, filling my lungs before releasing.

``And you?''

``A fulcrum, perhaps,'' Akua said. ``Nothing more or less than the point
on which levers pivot. The weight of it is to be respected, but not held
sacred.''

``Except for the ones that get capitalized,'' I said.

``Oh,'' Diabolist said quietly, ``not even those. When Below taught us
of holy betrayal, it did not hold itself separate. It might be the
single truest form of worship, to betray even our patrons.''

There was a deep and abiding madness to the Wasteland, I thought. It had
sunk into the bones of that land, mottled the souls of the people that
dwelled within it. And still, part of me sung to hear the words. The
unrelenting defiance in the face of even the Gods. Praes had shaped
Callow as much as the other way around. In that tight embrace of need
and hatred, we had each served as the crucible of the other. Diabolist
would betray even the Gods, if she rose from that betrayal, and she was
in so many ways the personification of the worst and the best of her
homeland. I thought of John Farrier and his hard eyes, long lost to
Summer's fire. Of Brandon Talbot, who would ride for Callow under any
banner he could. Even of William, that tragedy of good intentions.
\emph{Would you hold a grudge against even the Gods?} I knew the answer
to that, sure as my own heartbeat. To small slights, long prices.

There were none in this world or any that stood exempt from my people's
rancour.

``You put up a fight,'' I suddenly said.

Scarlet eyes turned to me.

``What you did, Akua, it's not something I'll ever forgive,'' I
murmured. ``You showed me that, you know? That even as heroine I would
have had no truck with absolution.''

``It should not be forgiven,'' Diabolist said. ``What are you, if you
were wrong in this? That hatred should be stoked and kept burning, lest
you forget the lessons it taught you.''

I smiled ruefully.

``But you put up a fight,'' I said. ``Against odds I'd flinch at.
Against people that scare me still, for all the power I've gained. If
there is any part of you that I can respect, it's that you might have
been a monster but you were never once a coward.''

``One of my ancestor once said that the spurs to greatness are never
gentle,'' Akua said, sounding almost whimsical. ``Mother often repeated
that to me, when I balked at my sharper lessons.''

``Did you really?'' I asked. ``Balk. Even once.''

``I had a cradle-sister,'' Diabolist said. ``One who shared my wet
nurse. She was also charged with taking my canings until I reached an
age where healing sorcery would not hamper my growth, but that was a
rare enough occurrence. Her name was Zain. Common as dirt. I loved her,
I suppose, in a way that children love those who so thoughtlessly love
them back.''

It was horrifying, deep down, that nothing of what had been spoken came
as a surprise to me.

``When I was eight years old, Mother took me to the deepest chamber of
the old labyrinths and put a stone knife in my hand,'' Akua said. ``Zain
lay prone on the altar, mind clouded by potions. Yet she was aware
enough to know my face and reach out to me. She was scared, you see.
Shivering like a doe. She was right to.''

``You killed her,'' I said.

``My affection made her a valuable offering,'' the shade replied. ``I
had to be slapped twice before I cut her throat, and even then my
reluctance made the wound a shallow one.''

Akua laughed softly.

``That was the part I regretted most, in later years,'' she said. ``She
would have bled out twice as quickly, had my hand been steady. That was
my mother's lesson, dear heart. Hesitation is never a virtue: faltering
is only ever the mother of agony.''

``Your mother was a monster,'' I quietly said.

``Mother was a failure,'' Akua said amusedly. ``A far greater sin, in
her eyes and mine.''

I pulled at pipe again, standing silent under the insolent radiance of
the moon.

``How much of that was a lie?'' I finally asked.

``Not a word,'' Diabolist said. ``Why bother, when the truth serves my
purposes?''

``It doesn't change anything,'' I said. ``You still are who you are. You
still made the choices that you did.''

``Oh, that was not my intent,'' Diabolist said. ``The most important
part of this tale is the moral, as your people are so fond of having.''

The shade smiled.

``Do not hesitate, dearest Catherine,'' Akua Sahelian said. ``If you are
to cut the world, it is best to have a steady hand.''
