\hypertarget{interlude-south}{%
\section{Interlude: South}\label{interlude-south}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``Coincidence is just fate bereft of faith.''}

-- Dread Emperor Malevolent I, the Unhallowed
\end{quote}

Kallia liked to think of Mercantis as what would happen if a city ate
other cities until it grew fat.

It helped her fix the story of this place in her mind and that was the
most important thing for someone who wanted to prowl its nights. Which
she often did. Though the Painted Knife was the leader of the band of
five that had been sent to the City of Bought and Sold, she preferred to
leave handling the merchant lords to Rhodon. The Royal Conjurer had been
a powerful man in the court of Helike for many years, before fleeing the
Tyrant's ascension, and he knew how to deal with the fat schemers that
infested this city like maggots would a corpse. And where he struggled,
well, there were few in Mercantis whose buried skeletons could not be
found out when Alain and Angelique both took to looking for them.

The Relentless Magistrate had toppled three merchant lords, two of which
had been members of the Forty-Sole Court, since arriving in the city.
He'd done this by proving materially and in excruciating detail how they
were breaking the laws in the Consortium, causing a feeding frenzy among
rivals. Angelique's own work never saw the light of day, the very
lucrative -- and technically legal -- trade of poisons and favours she'd
begun at the highest levels of influence granting her access to halls of
power where no foreigners would ever be allowed to stand otherwise.
Rhodon had not been shy in using them to get obstacles out of the way
when it came to the task the Grand Alliance had assigned their band:
burning Praesi influence out of the city.

And yet, for all the work of those three, in the end it was Teresa and
Kallia who found the first hint of the plot. They'd gone drinking
outside the city on one of the outlying shores, the Grizzled Fantassin
calling an old acquaintance who'd `put on the yoke' and become one of
the mercenaries permanently contracted to protect Mercantis instead of a
proper army. Teresa drank and brawled with the man through the evening,
but when their glances took on another tone Kallia made herself scarce.
She'd gone out to look for another place to drink -- and perhaps a man
of her own to throw backs with -- but instead what the Painted Knife
found was an assassination.

Two corpses later a grateful mercenary captain told her everything he
knew, which in truth wasn't much. Many officers had recently been
offered large sums of money to accept retirement. The captain had
refused, preferring the soldier's life, and now wondered if some of the
other mercenaries he'd thought uninterested in retiring were corpses
instead of truly gone to Dormer. Come morning, Kallia brought the oddity
up to Teresa and watched the old woman's face harden.

``Someone's tightening their reins on the mercenary companies,'' the
Grizzled Fantassin said. ``Placing their own officers in key
positions.''

The Painted Knife grinned.

``A plot,'' she enthused. ``We must defeat it.''

Finally, something she could do instead of exploring the city and
struggling with the impulse to cut everyone in this place who owned
`indentured servants'. Even Wastelanders despised slavery, for all their
many other sins. They brought their findings to Rhodon, who punctured
their ardour.

``It is Merchant Prince Mauricius consolidating his position,'' the
Royal Conjurer said. ``This is not likely to be a large enough scandal
to topple him should it come out, and even if it were such an outcome is
not desirable. His most likely replacement is more inclined to the
Empire than the Grand Alliance.''

The Consortium usually kept its Praesi clients at a distance, Rhodon
explained, but the sheer amount of coin the Dread Empire poured into the
city meant it tended to have friends in high places. The perceived
high-handedness of the Grand Alliance and plans of a great city at the
heart of the continent had only encouraged that trend.

``Seems odd he'd bother,'' Angelique told them over dinner, after being
informed. ``The Merchant Prince already controls funding for mercenaries
unless contradicted by two thirds of the Forty-Stole Court. What are
these men going to listen to, if not the money?''

``Yet he is not a man with a reputation for pointless action,'' Kallia
frowned.

``No,'' Rhodon murmured. ``So what is it that has the man afraid of
being contradicted by two thirds of the Forty-Stole Court?''

And so once more they went on the hunt, for anything that would turn so
many of the most powerful men and women in the city against Mauricius
was bound to be important. Teresa returned to the outer shores to try to
get a grasp on how many of the mercenary companies were being subverted
and meanwhile Kallia set her finest bloodhound on the hunt.

``The Merchant Prince's affairs are all protected by law,'' Alain Monduc
said. ``Even his most mundane papers are considered as being `of state'.
There is no way for foreigners to access them, which will limit us to
witnesses.''

Kallia did not know the average lifespan of a witness in Mercantis that
a wealthy man wanted dead, but at a guess she'd venture days. Meaning
that if Alain's investigations were caught on to, their sole evidence
was going to be swiftly disappeared.

``Ah but that's where you have it wrong, darling,'' the Poisoner
girlishly smiled. ``There is simply no \emph{lawful} way for foreigners
to access such papers.''

The Magistrate looked like he was choking on sheer outrage, to the
Poisoner's open delight, but when copies of such papers appeared on his
table just before noon her mastered his anger.

``Copies are not strictly illegal,'' Alain stiffly said. ``And there is
some leeway in the process of gathering evidence for a trial.''

Angelique looked rather robbed by the lack of explosion, which was
probably half the reason the Magistrate had forced himself to be
cordial. Weeks of following paper trails and Kallia being sent out to
follow men and eavesdrop on their conversations at night ultimately led
the Relentless Magistrate to an odd conclusion.

``Mauricius is not preparing a coup,'' Alain announced, ``but preparing
\emph{against} one. Every single measure we've unearthed was defensive
in nature.''

Which made little sense, for the First Prince had strictly warned
against trying to remove Mauricius from his position and the Black Queen
had shrugged her assent. Even if Kallia did get her hands on something
that could topple the Merchant Prince, she was to pass that information
to the Grand Alliance instead so that it might be used as leverage in
negotiations. So who was the Merchant Prince afraid would remove him?

``It could be the Tower,'' Angelique said. ``Rumour has it that he had
murdered the man Malicia wanted as Merchant Prince instead.''

``The Empress has a reputation has a practical woman,'' Rhodon replied.
``It would be unlike her to force an enemy where she could court an ally
instead. Besides, meddling too deeply in the affairs of Mercantis would
see it react harshly. It would look for protection against her, not fall
in line.''

``Let us pray the Empress fumbled the pig, then,'' Teresa said. ``It
would be a gift of the Gods for Mercantis to go the way of the Grand
Alliance. We could use the gold.''

Kallia looked questioningly at Alain, but the other Proceran seemed just
as baffled by the expression. \emph{Arlesite}, the man mouthed with a
shrug.

``But whatever it is he's afraid of, he's nearly covered,'' Teresa
continued. ``He's got a little over half the mercenary companies in his
pocket now. The key officers at least.''

``If it were a Praesi plot, he would not have spent a fortune of his
coin warding against it,'' Alain opined. ``He would have passed the
matter to us. He's certainly not been shy about using us as bears in his
pit so far.''

True enough. The verbal duels of the Royal Conjurer and the Praesi
ambassador had turned into a form of local entertainment and they'd all
been tacitly allowed to go after Praesi spies in the city so long as
there was little collateral damage.

``There's not many people left who could pull off a coup,'' the Poisoner
noted. ``The Black Queen is in Praes, the Free Cities in another civil
war and even the merchants would balk at taking the Dead King's coin.''

``If there is no outside backing, it has to be an internal enemy,''
Rhodon mused.

``Which makes no sense,'' Angelique said. ``Only the Forty-Stole Court
could depose him and it's more divided than it was before he was
elected. He's been playing the faction that wants a rapprochement with
the Grand Alliance against the Praesi stooges to carve out a faction in
the middle. No one has the votes to depose him, so what is it that he's
afraid of?''

Kallia sighed. She'd never enjoyed plots and schemes. It had almost
gotten her killed in Levante when she'd failed to figure out whose body
the Spirit of Vengeance wore during the day, if the- suddenly she
paused.

``What if the vote were rigged?'' the Painted Knife asked. ``You said
that the Empress might want to be rid of him, Angelique, and Rhodon you
once told us that his most likely replacement is in the Empire's
pocket.''

The Royal Conjurer hummed.

``Mind control?'' he said.

``I was thinking of possession,'' Kallia admitted. ``I have known
spirits that could ride men unseen and nudge their thoughts.''

``It would explain why he might expect to be able to use the mercenaries
against the Forty Stoles and not be murdered for it afterwards,'' the
Poisoner mused. ``If he freed them and then made a show of returning
control, it might instead strengthen his position.''

``The entire city would sing his praises,'' Alain agreed. ``A man can do
much, with the love of the people behind him and debts of gratitude
among the great.''

``The best contracts are those you snipe another company to,'' the
Grizzled Fantassin grinned. ``Let's see if we can't get all that
gratitude headed our way instead, yes?''

The plan was weeks in the making. Angelique had to burn through most of
her favours and it still wasn't enough: they had to knock out guards so
they could enter the Court unseen. Alain guided them through the halls,
as the only one of them who'd ever been in here before -- when he had
presented evidence in trials -- and Teresa paid off the mercenaries
that'd agreed to help them smuggle in the barrels over the last few
days. It still almost when to the Hells when an early guard patrol ran
into them, but the Painted Knife got in close and dropped them before
they could raise alarm. They rolled the four great wooden barrels with
them into the great hall after Alain kicked the door open, to the great
anger of the merchant lords in assembly.

The Royal Conjurer obeyed Kallia's shouted order and gathered his magic,
striking down with great gouts of flame and blowing up the barrels. Mist
swept over the hall, still holy and in heavy enough a cloud that it
would disrupt either spells or possession.

And then, to Kallia's horror, nothing at all happened.

The shouts from the furious merchant lords got louder and the Painted
Knife wondered if she had just ruined the relations between the Grand
Alliance and Mercantis when one bloodcurdling scream pierced through the
din. Merchant Prince Mauricius dropped out of his seat, screaming in a
way that no throat could, and when he rose flakes of his face began to
crumple. Underneath was a pitch-black skin, but there was nothing human
about it.

``Devil,'' someone shouted.

Kallia cocked her head to the side. Huh. They'd been wrong but it had
worked anyhow, so\ldots{} win?

\emph{Win}, she decided, and grinned.

---

Penthes' tall walls had kept the city in the war long past the time
where a man less desperate than Exarch Prodocius would have surrendered.

Penthes has lost all its territories save a few holdout river
fortresses, stood without allies and the city was beginning to starve.
The supplies and mage support the Tower had sent were not enough for a
city-state of that size to stay fed when encircled. Now that Basilia's
army was equipped with proper dwarven siege engines, the walls were no
longer a surmountable hindrance either. In truth, if not for the
presence of the Bellerophon army beneath the walls Basilia would have
already ordered the city to be stormed. She'd had a swath of the
southern walls reduced to rubble by trebuchet bombardment, but she was
wary of committing her army to investing the city if there was a chance
the Republic would strike at her while she did.

Helike still had the finest army in the Free Cities, but its numbers had
thinned. Basilia had long been aware that one severe defeat was all that
stood between her and the Helikean army ending as a fighting force for a
few years. It was why she'd been so aggressive in her campaigning: so
long as she was on the offence, she could force the battles on terms
favourable to her. Now that streak of victories had been dragged to a
halt, first by the presence of Bellerophon at the siege and then by what
had followed Basilia's army entrenching for a few months:
\emph{diplomacy}. The Secretariat had been the first to send envoys, but
Mercantis had not been far behind and eventually even Atalante -- at the
urging of First Prince Cordelia, her agents said -- had sent
representatives.

Nicae and Stygia already had envoys, arguably, as Magister Zoe Ixioni
and Princess Zenobia Vasilakis were personally leading the troops their
vassal states were contributing to the war. Not that the vassalage was
official, or for that matter Zoe Ixioni's rule. Officially speaking she
was still only a magister, though one who'd been voted emergency powers
by the Magisterium without an end to those powers every being specified.
Basilia tended to think better of Zenobia, who at least had no pretend
she was anything but an absolute ruler when she'd crowned herself
princess of Nicae. Regardless of the petty details, the fact was that
six cities of the League all had envoys or armies here beneath the walls
of seventh and last.

General Basilia found it highly amusing that while the city of Penthes
and its ruling exarch had been made political nonentities, the siege of
Penthes itself had turned into a diplomatic hotbed for the entire League
of Free Cities. It was the sort of irony Kairos Theodosian would have
delighted in, she suspected, and might even have gone out of his way to
arrange. She had not, but Basilia was no Tyrant. That was not her
calling, nor did she feel as if it should be. \emph{Ye of Helike, do as
you will.} The testament of the last Theodosian had not invited his
people to follow in his wake: they were to do as they wished and nothing
else, that was the very point.

Basilia had found her own wishes leading her to the walls of Penthes, to
the threshold of what might very well be the defining hour of the League
of Free Cities.

It was not delusion on her part to believe that. Zenobia and Ixioni
agreed: there was an urgency in the air, a desperation. At first the
Atalante priest-philosophers that'd been sent as delegates had only
visited to sneer and snipe at the proceedings, but now they came by
every other day and were negotiation in earnest. They couldn't afford
not to, when Delos had sent one of the highest-ranking members of the
Secretariat -- Nestor Ikaroi -- as its representative and begun to
seriously back a reform of the League of Free Cities. The preachers were
terrified of being left out in the cold, surrounded on all sides by
states bound in alliance. Still, for all that the talks were moving it
would have been a lie to say they were \emph{succeeding.}

``Ikaroi isn't moving an inch even when we give ground elsewhere,''
Magister Zoe noted as the day's talks ended. ``He's usually a reasonable
man, so I expect he's under orders by the broader Secretariat.''

Basilia made a noise that conveyed both agreement and disgruntlement.

``His current concessions are not insignificant,'' Princess Zenobia
said. ``Formal recognition of the imperial realm of Aenia and you as its
empress is not something I thought we'd get out of the Secretariat
without putting a sword to their throat. The scribes hate change the way
a cat hates water.''

``They would have been forced to bend on that sooner or later,'' Basilia
said. ``I hold the land, even if they might wish it otherwise. Getting
me named protector of the League is where the power lies.''

In practice it was not Basilia herself who was named but the imperial
office of Aenia, which she happened to hold. It had been her notion to
name the empire that would unite Nicae, Stygia and Helike together after
the great Aenos Basileon, the sole claim to unifying authority in the
region that predated the foundation of the League. It was the general's
intention to follow in footsteps of Basileon and unite the Free Cities
once more, but she knew she must be careful lest she follow in the
footsteps of Dread Empress Triumphant instead. Even if she could take
all of the League by force, she could not hope to hold them. No, better
to first unite the western cities -- Helike for soldiery, Nicae for
trade and Stygia for fields and mines -- and let her successors finish
the work.

For that, though she needed an edge that would prevent the four other
cities from turning on her empire in a decade after the dangers had
passed. Something that would set Helike apart from the rest. To secure
that she'd proposed to the other cities of the League the creation of an
office under its auspices: protector of the League of Free Cities. She'd
been careful not to outright step on the powers of the Hierarch, instead
suggesting the protector would lead the armies of the League in time of
war and see to the defence if its borders against all foreign powers.
Tying that authority to rule of Aenia had been the scheme, as it would
ensure that Basilia's line would have hereditary power over the League
of Free Cities.

Delos was balking at that, Ikaroi's suggested compromise of Basilia
herself holding such power for her lifetime and then it being subject to
election like the office of Hierarch being the most they were willing to
offer. Atalante wasn't as entrenched in its opposition but was demanding
instead that anyone holding such an office must follow the House of
Light, which was\ldots{} controversial. Trying to throw slices of
Penthesian territory at the Secretariat had yielded no further
concessions, even when Basilia had gotten serious and offered
strategically important border fortresses. Mercantis seemed to be
playing all sides, Merchant Prince Mauricius' envoys propping up Delos
and Atalante publicly while making her assurances of support in private.
So long as the privileged position of the City of Bought and Sold was
maintained they would not go against her, they swore.

Considering Mercantis had served as middlemen when she'd needed siege
engines from the dwarves, Basilia could not simply toss the snakes out
of her tent the way she wanted to. She might need the Consortium again
before it was all over.

``Delos has a particular distaste for hereditary power,'' Magister Zoe
said. ``I am not surprised they're proving to be the most troublesome
holdout. Atalante was ruled by queens, once, but the Secretariat had
held the power for millennia.''

In some form, anyway, as the scribes insisted their current government
was descended from the provincial one Aenos Basileon had placed to rule
over the city, thus making them the sole true descendent of that
founding empire. Every city save Helike and Bellerophon claimed some
kind of relation to the old empire, actually. The Trakas of Nicae
claimed descent of the man himself, Stygia that the Magisterium was a
regency council until restoration of the empire, Penthes that their
first exarch was Basileon's chosen successor and Atalante that the man
himself had been buried under their city -- and so they were the
custodians of his empire, until the Gods Above raised him from the dead.

Not that the old stories had ever mattered much, save when Bellerophon
tried to get the empire formally dissolved by the League every few years
and those same cities balked.

``At least the Glorious Republic is staying out of our way,'' Princess
Zenobia drily said. ``I suppose that is the best to be expected out of
them, lack of direct harm.''

Everyone's positions were calcifying, Basilia felt. She knew the
feeling, knew how it could be the death of progress. She'd seen it at
work in Helike, in the years before the Tyrant had restored the city:
factions biting at each other around an indolent throne, no one winning
or losing anything of worth. No one was going to move much from their
current negotiating positions and that might be the death of this entire
enterprise. Bellerophon's absence was an integral part of the stalemate,
Basilia finally decided. The Republic was made up of mobs and madmen,
but they were part of the League -- and without them coming out on
either side, Delos and Atalante felt they still had some breathing room.

If nothing else, some form of accord with the Republic would allow her
to at finish off Penthes for good and turn up the pressure.

``We're done for the day,'' the general said, rising to her feet.

``Indeed?'' Magister Zoe said, cocking an eyebrow.

``I must talk to some people,'' Basilia said, meaning People.

Getting to the Bellerophan camp wasn't difficult, or even being noticed
when she approached: as usual they had at least twice the number of
sentries they needed. Getting one of those soldiers to acknowledge that
presence was more difficult, even with a company of kataphraktoi at her
back. She pounded at the gate until they were forced to admit she was
there, and then a harried-looking general was rustled up to speak with
her. Two blank-faced kanenas stood behind him, which no doubt did little
for the man's confidence about getting through this conversation alive.

``I seek to address the People,'' General Basilia bluntly said.

``As a foreign despot-''

``I am a general in service to no crown,'' Basilia corrected.

The man looked taken aback, looking back to the kanenas. Their faces
were still as a pond and just as unreadable.

``There are no diplomats with the army,'' the general said. ``You must
head to Bellerophon and make your request there.''

``That would be inconvenient,'' Basilia said. ``Might I not simply,
under observation by the kanenas, make my address and let Bellerophans
convey it to the people by scrying ritual?''

``Bellerophon does not use scrying rituals,'' the man replied without
missing a beat, ``which are trick of wicked foreign tyrants and have
never worked, may a wind of locusts blow in their faces for a hundred
years.''

Basilia blinked. Bellerophon absolutely did use such rituals.

``Do you perhaps have an alternative with superficial resemblances?''
she hazarded.

``Communication rituals are a recent innovation of the Republic,'' the
general shamelessly said. ``They can serve similar purposes on occasion.
It is not, however, in power to accede to your request.''

The kanenas frowned and the man winced.

``As I have no power,'' he hastily added, ``for it rests entirely in the
hands of the People, may they rule peerlessly and without mistake for
another thousand years.''

Basilia waited to see if the general was going to start bleeding from
his eyes. Ten heartbeats passed and he didn't, which was a promising
sign.

``How may such a request be accepted or denied?'' she pressed.

They had no answer to give her, so negotiations ended for half an hour
while they went away to figure it out. Another woman entirely returned
to answer, with two different kanenas at her back. Basilia decided not
to ask what had happened to the general. From what she remembered of
Anaxares' mournful ramblings, that would be a good way to get the man
killed.

``Your request can be accepted or denied by a provisional vote of the
entire camp,'' the woman said.

``May I ask for such a vote?''

An hour later she was informed that she could. It took another two hours
after she \emph{did} ask, and then they conceded that a provisional vote
would be held. It was dark by then but while Basilia sent for food and
took a pause to piss, she did not wander far. If she did, she was sure
to lose these people. It took until Morning Bell until the votes were
counted, but the kanenas found an irregularity with some of the ballots
-- some had been written in ink that came from Delos -- so another vote
had to be held. Three hours later, Basilia was woken up from her nap on
her horse to be informed that the vote had gone in her favour. Though
bone-tired and aching from the restless night, she took the only shot
she was likely to have.

No doubt by next week the People would have cooked up a new law that
made even her unlikely station unfit to ask questions of the Glorious
Republic.

She left after passing along her message -- offer, really -- and crawled
back into bed until noon. Delos and Atalante came later the same day to
try to dig out of her what she'd been up to, but she put them off. It
wouldn't last forever, but thankfully the Republic had been quick in
arranging for a general vote on her proposition. As soon as they'd held
a vote about whether to hold a vote, anyway, which pushed the answer
back another day. With typical subtlety, the envoys from Bellerophon
walked into her tent as she was seated with those from Delos and
Atalante.

``The Republic welcomes your recognition that Hierarch Anaxares is still
among the living,'' the man said.

There was surprise from the others, but why wouldn't she? If there was
to be a seat above her own in the League, best to leave it in the hands
of a man either dead or uninterested in filling it. Permanently, if she
could.

``Furthermore, your question over the status of the Dead King has been
put to debate and the People have reached conclusion,'' the man
continued. ``By popular vote, Trismegistus of Keter is declared an
Egregious Millennial Despot and an Enemy of the People. The so-called
Kingdom of the Dead is declared unlawful.''

She bit down on a grin. Ah, and there was the trick. Basilia couldn't
declare war on anyone, because when a Hierarch ruled foreign affairs of
the League were strictly under their purview. As Anaxares himself had
once said during the invasion of Procer, however, there could be no
state of war against a state that was not legitimate. If, say, Basilia
led troops of the League to `oversee the dissolution of Keter' then by
the Bellerophan definition of the term it would not be a war. By the
look of the frown on Ikaroi's face, he'd already put together as much.

``And the proposition over the office of Protector of the League?''

``Under the current terms of election, the People support the creation
of such an office,'' the man said.

Such terms being every city having a vote, same as the election of a
Hierarch, but instead of unanimity only majority would be required here.
Helike would vote for itself and its vassal cities, whose votes would be
maintained as independent ones, would vote accordingly. To secure a
permanent majority, all that Basilia now needed to do was take Penthes
and dictate in their terms of surrender a permanent vote for the
reigning monarch of Aenia for this office. And she'd be able to take
Penthes now, because as of tomorrow she was going to request the help of
the People in overseeing the dissolution of Keter. The same army
currently in her way would serve as the vanguard of this worthy
enterprise.

``I gratefully receive the People's wisdom,'' General Basilia smiled.

Already she could see Nestor Ikaroi and the Atalante priests
reconsidering their position. But it would not, she suddenly realized,
be enough. The shock of this turnabout hadn't quite pushed them over the
top. The mire would continue. When messengers entered the tent she was
grateful, as the pause would allow her to gather her thoughts and think
of a way through, but the way the faces of the foreign envoys paled
caught her attention. Magister Zoe leaned in close to whisper in her
ear.

``My people say that Merchant Prince Mauricius had been revealed to have
been replaced by a devil,'' she said. ``The city is blaming Praes for
it.''

Basilia let out a low whistle.

``Why are they so unsettled?'' she asked, discreetly gesturing at the
envoys.

Zoe Ixion grinned sharply.

``Because the Forty-Stole Court has voted unanimously to ask for an
alliance with the Empress of Aenia,'' she said. ``They want
protection.''

And so the calculations in the eyes of the envoys changed again. The
mire in their negotiations now looked like the Tower's work, to keep the
south from solidifying in a single block. Worse than that, they knew
that if Basilia began getting funding from Mercantis she might lose
patience with them playing for time and decided that this could be
settled with armies instead. And with that much coin behind her she'd be
able to win that damned war, too.

``Perhaps reconsidering our position on the office of Protector is
needed, considering the developments in the League and abroad,''
Secretary Nestor Ikaroi calmly said.

There were some noises of assent from the Atalante crowd and General
Basilia Katopodis smiled. She knew better than to think this her triumph
entirely, but it was sweet nonetheless. Sweeter still was the knowledge
that the Gods were blowing wind in her sail, for what else but Fate
could this assembly of coincidence be? The Old World was ending, she
could feel it in her bones. The age was crumbling to dust, its relics
falling one after another, and now something else was beginning to
emerge from the ruins. And under that new sun, Basilia thought, there
would be room for a new way of doing things. The deaths throes of the
Age of Wonders would change the League of Free Cities, she swore it.

The word shivered in approval and somehow she knew that, somewhere down
Below, Kairos Theodosian was laughing.
