webcrawl/APGTE/Book-2/out/Ch-065.md.tex

\hypertarget{epilogue}{%
\chapter*{Epilogue}\label{epilogue}}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{\nameref{epilogue}} \chaptermark{Epilogue}

\epigraph{``Your mistake, Queen of Blades, is in thinking that virtue is the
province of Good. Every Tyrant who has ever claimed the Tower, every
fool and every madman, had the seed of greatness in them. Courage,
cleverness, ambition, will. We may lose our way, we may lose ourselves,
but every time we get\ldots a little closer. You think I am afraid of
death? I am a droplet in the tide that will drown Creation. I take pride
in this, even in my hour of failure. Empresses rise, Empresses fall. But
the Tower?

Oh, the Tower endures.''}{}



-- Last words of Dread Empress Regalia the First

``It's an ugly thing, isn't it?''

There was truth in that. So many tales had been woven around the throne
of Praes that the lies could no longer be told from the truth, but there
was no denying the thing was ghastly. Stone and iron welded together
brutally by a man without a single artistic speck to his soul. The first
Warlock had many talents, it was said in the records, but creation was
not one of them. The pile of stone was squat and rough, the back of the
seat slightly crooked towards the left and the iron used to keep it
together had dripped onto the floor when heated. After Triumphant had
brought down the Tower on her killers in a final act of spite, it had
been found intact. Not a single loose stone had so much as touched it.
The people who'd dug up the room had all gone mad and killed themselves
within a week of unearthing it.

The throne of Praes was not for the sight of meek souls.

``It should be,'' Amadeus said. ``They had a firmer grasp on the truth
of what we are, back then.''

An empire cobbled together out of warring tribes and kingdoms who had
failed to unite even in the face of the invading Miezans. A lie agreed
on by Taghreb and Soninke, by the orcs and the goblins, that the peace
forced upon them by the foreigners could survive their leaving. Praes
was not a Mtethwa or Taghrebi word -- it was Old Miezan, ripped from the
hands of the enemy and held aloft as a trophy by the first Dread
Empress. Maleficent had known, he believed, all the peoples of the
Empire should be remembered the clang of shackles every time they spoke
of their nation. That way they would never forget the War of Chains,
forget that there had been a time all had been humbled. \emph{Once we
could not look beyond our own knives and petty disputes, so Creation
buried us. Remember.}

A hopeful woman, Dread Empress Maleficent. She'd been hopeful all the
way until the High Lord of Wolof had stabbed her in the back and stolen
her throne, laying bare the truth of her empire: power gained through
the spilling of blood will be taken by the spilling of blood. Always.
Praes could be held, but it could not be owned. There would be no Dead
King to reign forever here, no Tenets of Night all must bow to. The
Dread Empire would have a hundred thousand Tyrants, all of them lost and
grasping beyond their reach until their doom fell upon them. And the
Tyrant would rise anew, with fire in their eyes and unquenchable
ambition in their stomach that Creation would deny -- but oh, the
craving. Wasn't the craving what it was all about? It was an unusually
poetic thought for Amadeus, a man not particularly prone to sentiment
outside of some very defined boundaries. He did not linger on it.

A thousand poets had etched their sentences on the soul of the
Wasteland, but he was not one of them. The legacy he sought was of a
different sort, if no less elusive.

``We all know it's a lie, Maddie,'' Alaya laughed. ``Look at all those
pretty gildings close around the throne -- close, but not touching. Some
lines even Praesi won't cross.''

The hall was empty, would have been for the better part of a bell. Alaya
always put up the most vicious wards available to the mistress of the
Tower whenever they claimed this place for their drinking. Tonight they
had, by informal agreement, chosen to sit by Dread Emperor Malevolent
III. `The Pithy', the histories of Praes named him. As far as Amadeus
knew, he'd done little in his ten years or reigning save for putting a
goblin rebellion and failing spectacularly at making the empire a naval
power. The Ashurans had sailed straight into Thalassina and burned the
half-built fleet: the only surviving captains had immediately defected,
setting themselves up as pirates in the Tideless Isles and becoming a
recurring blade in the back on the Empire's merchant shipping.

There would be, he knew, a little detail about the man he did not know
that would surprise a laugh out of him when linked to something Alaya
said to him tonight. She'd always delighted in weaving little hidden
jests in her words for him to find later when thinking back on them.
She'd been like that even the Sentinels had come for her at her father's
inn, before the soft but deadly games of the seraglio had honed that
skill into a blade that cut as often as it teased. Many a lord and lady
of Praes had woken up in the dead of night weeks after their audience
with Malicia, shivering when they realized the full implications of a
seemingly innocent sentence. Amadeus took the bottle when the Dread
Empress of Praes offered it, tossing back a gulp of terrible wine and
grimacing at the taste.

``Gods, I'm not sure why we keep drinking that swill,'' he said.

``Nostalgia,'' Malicia mused. ``Of all the spirits made on Calernia,
though, I will concede that the ones made in the Green Stretch are the
worst. By far.''

She pulled deeply at the bottle when he passed it back, wiping the
smooth back of her hand against her mouth without even the pretence of
manners. Times like this, Amadeus could still glimpse the girl he'd
known. The one with the laughing eyes and the burning ambition, still
unhardened by the dark days ahead of her. And yet, save for a few
conversations by moonlight, he'd never known much of that girl. It was
the promise of Malicia to come he had truly struck a friendship with.
The half-tread path between smiling Alaya and the hard-eyed Dread
Empress who would rule over the Wasteland.

``It tastes like dirt and lack of prospects,'' he said after taking
another drink.

Alaya snorted. If one of her courtiers had ever seen or heard her do
something so undignified, they would have thought their senses to be
lying before they believed it to be truth. It still warmed him, after
all these years, that she trusted him enough to allow that small part of
herself that belonged only to her to flicker into life in front of him.

``Truly,'' she said, ``the taste of home.''

She raised the bottle in a mocking salute to the throne.

``To the Green Stretch,'' Amadeus toasted. ``And the most glorious mud
in all of Creation.''

The tone was sardonic, but the memories ran deeper than that. Back to a
time where they had been nobodies in the breadbasket of a failing
empire: him thinly clad in a Name he'd put on as a deserter's cloak, her
as the great beauty of a town so small it was not on all maps. They'd
rise, hadn't they? Gone further than they had any right to. \emph{Not
that right ever mattered much to either of us.}

``It actually costs more to have it brought to the Tower than to buy the
wine itself,'' Alaya admitted, tone amused. ``I buy it in crates to
satiate my conscience.''

``You have entire crates of this horror somewhere in the Tower?'' Black
said. ``Truly, your arsenal is a fearsome one.''

Thunder crackled outside just after he spoke, lending his words a
strangely ironic weight. There was always a storm of sorts around the
Tower, raging or preparing to rage. Wekesa had informed him the rapidly
shifting weather patterns across the Wasteland were linked to the
phenomenon, though Amadeus had not inquired further after making sure
that link could not be exploited to control said weather. Pity, that.
The desertification of the Wasteland would never be entirely undone, but
it could have been mitigated with the right tools. Laying back against
the marble pillar, an old friend by his side, Amadeus watched the
unfolding history of Praes made mosaic across a floor and said nothing.

``Hasenbach has flipped Ashur,'' Alaya finally said, and the amusement
was gone.

He did not ask if she was sure. Her agents had penetrated the
Thalassocracy deeper than Eudokia's, and they did not make mistakes.

``We still own his son,'' he said.

``He's just a voice in their committees, until his father dies,'' Alaya
said.

That was always the problem, with Ashur. They genuinely believed in
their tiers, that a higher-ranked citizen was fully deserving of the
authority granted to them and that trying to overreach before promotion
was worthy of contempt. The Baalite hierarchy had sunk so deeply into
their society that even centuries after the Hegemony had become
irrelevant to the larger affairs of Creation, eclipsed by younger and
greater powers, the tiers were still held as sacrosanct. As long as
Magon Hadast lived Ashur would be a friend to Procer. A wary and
self-interested friend, but that would be enough if the right promises
were made. They would be, of that Amadeus had no doubt.

``That girl becomes more dangerous to us every year,'' he said.

``That girl \emph{is} us,'' Alaya said, ``forty years ago, looking at
the stars from a different land.''

The dark-haired man did not reply immediately, silenced by the accuracy
of the thought. They'd always known that there would be a price to pay
for what they had done in Procer, for the lives he'd had Assassin take
and the wars Malicia had kindled with gold and soft words. The First
Prince was finally coming to collect. Did he regret it? No, the thought
came immediately. It had been a strategic imperative for the Principate
to be paralyzed during the Conquest if it was to succeed. That war had
always been going to find their doorstep. All their plots had done was
delay the first knock by a few decades.

``Levant, now Ashur. She's trying to forge an alliance against us,'' he
said. ``Dear Cordelia might get her crusade, after all.''

The tone was light, the implications were not. If Hasenbach managed to
forge her broader, continental version of the League of Free Cities she
only had to wait until the pretext for a Tenth Crusade fell into her
lap. Amadeus held no illusions about the fact that it would.

``The Free Cities are where we can kill this in the egg,'' Alaya said.
``The more that war spins out of control\ldots{}''

The more Hasenbach's allies would be tempted to ignore her overtures of
peace and order to get involved and claim their cut of the spoils. The
moment two forces belonging to two different of her would-be crusaders
met with swords out her entire enterprise would collapse. Alaya had the
influence abroad to ensure that much. If it happened. Neither of them
trusted anybody currently involved in the war to make this happen,
unfortunately. Sending in the Legions of Terror, while tempting, would
give Hasenbach a gathering cry for all Good and banner for her damned
crusade. Which meant a smaller, more measured intervention.

``Wekesa will meet me by the Wasaliti,'' Amadeus said. ``We'll all take
a ship down through Mercantis.''

From there, he would see where the weakness in the Good League was.
Penthes, most likely, for Praesi influence had gained ground there in
recent years. However little of that was currently left, it did not
matter: the Calamities had done more with lesser openings.

``Squire will be getting her vote and veto earlier than anticipated,''
Alaya said mildly.

``It was always the plan she would get them eventually,'' Amadeus said.

``After you schooled her properly in ruling,'' Malicia murmured.

And there was the rub, he knew. It was one thing to entrust to a
seventeen-year-old Callowan girl -- with occasionally more mouth to her
than sense -- half of the territory in the Empire \emph{after} he had
taught her what he knew of ruling, quite another to do so \emph{before}.
Alaya's fears were not unwarranted, he thought. For at least the first
year, Catherine was likely to butcher and coerce her way through
anything she perceived as an obstacle. She would do so mercilessly and
without hesitation, too, because there was something utterly ruthless at
the core of Catherine Foundling. Callowan defiance, perhaps, but married
with something brutally pragmatic. Something that would use what it
could not break and break what it could not use. Sabah had once told him
that Catherine was what a child of his and Hye's would be like, and
though he'd batted away the notion he had not denied it. It was, he
knew, a dangerous sort of attachment.

``The deep end is where she learns best,'' he said.

``You sound proud,'' Alaya noted.

Amadeus laughed quietly into the great and empty hall.

``Two years, Allie,'' he said. ``She has been at this for two years, and
already two heroes are dead at her hand. Everything they sent against
her, she has \emph{scattered}. Armies, devils, even a demon. Gods Below,
a few months ago she all but \emph{mugged} an angel.''

He reached for the bottle and took a swig.

``Proud?'' he said. ``Proud does not do it justice.''

Alaya took back the bottle and drank deeply before setting it on the
cold floor.

``Affection,'' she said fondly, ``has always been your weakness. One you
turned into a strength of sorts, but still a weakness.''

That was why they'd always functioned so well, they both knew. Because
Alaya could see the things he was blind to and take the measures he
would not, because he was willing to make the leaps of faith when she
had run out of faith years ago. Nefarious had much to answer for. He'd
died by Alaya's hand, and Amadeus had not been willing to step in the
way of a hatred so earned and bloody, but if he had\ldots{} Poison would
not have been his weapon. He would have unleashed the reserves of
viciousness Wekesa had deep inside of him, made it a death no one would
ever forget as long as Creation stood. And Wekesa would have done it,
without even needing to be asked, because his oldest friend loved Alaya
too in his own way. In a way less trusting and more aware, he thought,
but that did not detract from the depths of it. Warlock had wanted her
on that throne as much as Black did, after the civil war, wanted to see
the hint of the laughter they'd known return to those dark eyes. Wanted
to see the fear gone from them.

``Before I go south,'' he said. ``There is still one matter to attend.''

``Heiress,'' she said.

``She has defied Imperial authority twice, Alaya,'' he said. ``First
with the demon, then again at Liesse. She was planning on capturing the
Hashmallim, for what purpose I do not know.''

``I do,'' Malicia said. ``And I trusted your apprentice to unmake that
plan.''

``She needs to die,'' Amadeus said bluntly. ``Loudly, badly, publicly. I
don't understand why she's still alive at this point. We've done worse
to people of blood as old for lesser offences.''

The Dread Empress of Praes took the bottle and brought it to her lips.
She drank for a long time, and when she leaned back against the pillar
her smile was a dark thing.

``It's not about Heiress, Maddie,'' she said. ``It never was. It's about
her mother.''

Amadeus' brow rose, but he did not interrupt.

``Tasia Sahelian,'' Alaya spoke, relishing the words. ``High Lady of
Wolof. A tick, Maddie. A tick I could not get rid of, and who bound
others to her schemes. And now I am about to \emph{break} her.''

A game that broad would have had surface stirrings, Amadeus knew, and
calmly his mind revised every major event to have happened in the last
five years in the light of what she had just said.

``The gold,'' he said after a long moment. ``The reparations you levied
on her -- you knew she'd pay. You never thought it would make her
withdraw the orc tribute petition.''

``One move at a time, for the last decade, I have slowly emptied her
coffers,'' Alaya said, still smiling. ``Inconsequential laws she paid
the fine to break. Tariffs raised on goods she needed. Bribes offered
she needed to match. And down went the treasure of Wolof, one aurelius
at a time.''

``She still \emph{has} coin,'' Amadeus said. ``Her network of spies has
not been reduced and her subversions in the bureaucracy continue.''

``Oh, she has coin,'' Dread Empress Malicia murmured. ``Silver, to be
exact.''

Amadeus' eyes sharpened. ``Procer. I thought you'd cut off the flow.''

``I did not,'' Alaya said. ``And now she is dependent on it so stay
above the waterl. Her overextension will reach a peak when she sinks a
fortune into restoring Liesse -- whose infrastructure, I am afraid, is
about to collapse.''

The dark-skinned woman put down the bottle on the floor, and the cold
clink of it was like an executioner's axe.

``And then the silver will stop.''

That would end her, Amadeus knew. The loss of face when she had to
publicly default on the many commitments she'd made would shatter any
credibility with the rest of the nobility. Her own family would rise in
revolt to remove her. It would go further than that though.

``The Truebloods,'' he said.

``Will, within a year, end as a political entity in the Empire,'' she
said softly.

Because Heiress, emboldened by her continued toeing of the line going
unpunished, would make another mistake. Give Malicia another lever to
pry apart the Truebloods and deal with them individually. \emph{The
Reforms could begin again}, he thought, but those promised skies were
too sunny. In the Wasteland, that was always the prelude to the worst of
storms.

``If Tasia is willing to take those risks,'' he said, ``it means that
her end game can be reached within a year.''

``That is my assessment,'' she agreed.

He closed his eyes. Liesse, it all came back to Liesse. That had been
the prize mother and daughter both had wanted out of the rebellion, and
not merely to steal some taxes.

``Heiress,'' he said. ``She has a different plan. What is it?''

There was a long moment of silence, marred only by the patter of the
rain outside.

``Do you trust me?'' Alaya said.

\emph{A year ago}, he thought, \emph{you would not have needed to ask.}
A year ago, though, he would not have pressed for answers in the first
place. Four words she had spoken, with so many deeper meanings behind
them. \emph{After all these years}, she was saying\emph{, after all the
times we have hurt each other without knowing or being allowed to let it
stay our hand, do you still believe in this? What we have built, the two
of us. All the sacrifices we made, the choices we bloodied ours hands
with, do you regret them? Even though the chasm is deep and the way
across long, though the darkness is thick and we are both so, so tired
-- will you make that leap of faith again, if I ask you?} Amadeus closed
his eyes, and leaned back against the pillar. Gently, he threaded his
fingers through Alaya's.

``Always,'' he said.

Because he was the Black Knight and she was the Dread Empress, and
together they had twisted the strands of Fate until they snapped.
Because he was Amadeus and she was Alaya, and though the children they'd
once been were long dead the dreams they'd woven together under
starlight were not. She rested her head against his shoulder, and for a
long time they did not speak.

``A `jolly good time','' she eventually said.

He snorted. The Tyrant of Helike's words as he threw the south-east of
the continent into sheer bloody chaos.

``One day,'' Alaya continued, ``we will have foreign allies who are not
complete imbeciles. By sheer dint of odds, it has to happen
\emph{eventually}.''

``That'd be the day,'' Amadeus said wistfully. ``But until
then\ldots{}''

``Even if the heroes come,'' she said.

``Even if the angels rage,'' he said.

``Even if all of Creation stands against us''

``We'll \emph{win},'' they whispered.

In the distance, thunder rumbled.

Neither of them flinched.

---

Akua Sahelian let the sorcery seep into her body. Old stones from the
first foundations of Wolof, having drunk deep of the ancient magic
there, surrounded her in an unbroken circle. Turning the power within
them to the purposes of healing had been the work of an afternoon, one
of the first tricks with high arcana her father had ever taught her. The
sorcery came and went in tides a prefect match for her heartbeat, alone
in the warded room she'd had prepared in the lower levels of the ducal
palace of Liesse. She would have to sit there on her chair of
lightning-struck oak for a full bell to finish healing the last of the
wounds inflicted on her, so Heiress closed her eyes and thought. Sleep
would have been so very restful, but it was no longer the kind of luxury
she could afford. Not now, when here plans truly began. Not now, when
the enemy prowled around her seat of power in search of weakness.

Foundling has unleashed her twisted little goblin again, the one with
the thief's name. The wretch was officially out on manoeuvres, but he'd
really been haunting the roads in and out of Liesse. There'd been no
lack of targets: even after her loss of face, Heiress' allies were
legion. They were coming to her city now, flocking to make a darker
mirror to the Empress' court in Ater. Not all of them made it: twice
already an entire party had disappeared without trace in the night. Both
of them had been headed by members in good standing -- if not high
authority -- of the Truebloods. Aisha Bishara was picking the prey, she
knew, surgically removing the most reliable of Akua's allies before they
ever made it to the protection of her walls. It wouldn't be enough: word
has spread and now the Praesi were coming in larger, heavily armed
groups. More than a single cohort of goblins, however brutal, could
handle.

Not for the first time in the last moon's turn, Heiress' thoughts turned
to the city she ruled over. To the battle that had taken place there and
the infinitely more important events that had unfolded behind it. She
could admit it, in the perfect privacy of her own thoughts.

Liesse had been a disaster.

Out of her ten-odd objectives when the Fifteenth had left Marchford,
only one had been met. Forcing support for her bid as governess. That
was it. As for the others? The Hashmallim, instead of being trapped in a
dimension she owned as fuel for the next part of her plan, had been
essentially bullied into resurrecting Foundling. \emph{Resurrection}.
The sheer effrontery of that, she reluctantly had to respect. The Squire
was still an ignorant thug, but she was an ignorant thug who'd spat in
the eye of the Heavens. A little of what it meant to be Praesi had sunk
into Catherine Foundling, whether or not the other woman wanted to admit
it. The Lone Swordsman was dead, as she had wished, but his death had
empowered the Squire in ways she could not yet fully understand. Far
from weakening her rival, the killing had added an another blade to her
arsenal.

The devils she'd meant to use to thin the population of Liesse -- to
spill so much blood the grounds would be consecrated to the Gods Below,
to flush out the rebels and make room for her coming allies -- had been
turned on themselves within half a bell of being unleashed. The sheer
amount of contracts she'd permanently lost through that was painful to
think about. The demon she'd secured as the blunt tool she would
occasionally need? Now in the hands of the Apprentice, the same man
who'd turned her bindings into a meat grinder as easily as pouring
himself a cup of wine. Had she been the kind of woman who shivered in
fear, Akua would have at that. The son of Warlock with a demon dating
from Triumphant's -- may she never return -- day in his hands was not a
notion she cherished. Another asset lost. If she could have turned
Masego to her purposes the problem would not have been quite as keen,
but she had no angle there.

Apprentice had, as far as she could tell, no real vices. He did not
drink much, ate often but of peasant fare and socialized but with a few
people -- all of them either family or members of the Fifteenth. It had
been mildly interesting to learn he played shatranj with the Adjutant
and talked spellcrafting with the Duni Senior Mage, but there was no
\emph{lever} there. Sex was similarly useless as an approach: as far as
she knew Masego had never lain with either a man or a woman, or even
shown interest in either. She had agents of both genders do everything
but show up in his bedroll naked and the man hadn't even noticed, most
of the time. Frustrating, especially since Apprentice was the only of
Foundling's Named contingent it was even slightly possible to bring to
her side. Trying that with the orc was a fool's errand. Heiress did not
sigh, even in this room where no one could hear or see. Apprentice would
be building his mage's tower soon, she knew. Perhaps he could be tempted
with exotic materials or test subjects. It could hardly be a worse
failure than the seductions, anyway.

Akua knew she should not be focusing on Foundling, not when she had so
many more pressing matters to attend, but her thoughts seemed unwilling
to abandon the Battle of Liesse. That some of her objectives would not
be met, she had expected. It was inevitable. But a failure of such
magnitude?

Foundling had ripped her way through one contingency after another,
quipping even as a walking corpse. An entire host of devils, neutered
then slain. The Lone Swordsman, lured into her path, beaten bloody and
then tricked into ending his pattern of three. Her burning of the only
way into the church had barely slowed her down, and there was Chider.
Chider had been her trump card, her assured victory. Stealing the Name
of Squire had been certain to work as long as she was owed a victory
against Foundling, and had. And given her an aspect more dangerous than
ever before, not to mention restored the fullness of the Name. She
hadn't \emph{known}, that the demon had crippled the Name. Her spies in
the Fifteenth had not reported as much on the walk to Liesse. There
would be a reckoning for that failure yet. Chider had always been
supposed to die permanently, either at Foundling's hand or Lord Black's,
but for her to be disposed of faster than you take a bath?

No, that had not been part of the plan.

By dying, Foundling had inserted a flaw into Akua's plan. The ripping of
the Name should have incapacitated her for hours, \emph{would} have if
she'd not been a corpse, and so bought Heiress the time she needed to
deal with the Lone Swordsman and imprison the angel. An ironclad victory
had been wasted on a matter that had ultimately proved trifling, and
there would be no second pattern of three. Creation did not embrace such
tedious repetitions. The work of two years had been wasted: provoking
Foundling and then fleeing on the Blessed Isle, the messy draw at
Marchford\ldots{} Akua had spent much time to guarantee herself a
victory when she needed it most only to find that triumph utterly empty.
It was enough to make her blood boil.

And there had been that final conversation, in that dinky little room
where her companions had been turned into bargaining chips under her own
nose. When Ghassan's soul had been ripped from his body as Foundling sat
quietly next to her, forcing her to watch. \emph{And this time there
will be no bargaining to save you}, Foundling had said. There had been
something in Squire's eyes, when she'd said that\ldots{} Akua Sahelian
had been raised among people who killed for sport and bound the very
denizens of Hell to their will, but what she had seen there had made her
flinch. She'd asked her mother, once, why her hatred for the Dread
Empress ran so deep. Why it was so personal. \emph{I met her eyes, when
I surrendered}, Mother had said. \emph{And what I saw there scared me.}
Heiress understood, now, how that single moment could consume someone.
She remembered the calm implacable certainty in the Callowan's dark eyes
and felt her hand tremble, if only for a moment.

She could not concentrate on Foundling. Squire was the brazier she'd lit
so everyone would watch the flames and ignore the knife. \emph{Killing}
Foundling had never been her purpose. The results of that would have
been disastrous: Akua would have become the slated successor of the
Black Knight, the last thing she wanted. Dealing with Lord Black from
anything but a position of power would be\ldots{} dangerous, to say the
least. Heiress' game had always been with greater opponents, and the
rivalry with Foundling had served as an apt smokescreen for it. There
were only two people in Praes who could stop her: Dread Empress Malicia,
First of her Name, and Tasia Sahelian. For all her failures she had,
after all, gotten what she needed from the rebellion. The first prize
was Liesse. Deep in the south of Callow, where the Empress' reach was
weaker and old sorcery was woven into the walls. There was power there,
power that could turn the work of decades into the work of months.

The second prize, the most important, was a story. \emph{Heiress uses
devils. Heiress uses demons.} \emph{Binds them, commands them, makes
them her own.} She was just starting to be known in the Empire, and
already her Name was fundamentally intertwined with diabolism in all the
stories. That was the deeper plan, the masterpiece she had crafted over
the years. The Name of Heiress after all, was in many ways inferior to
that of Squire. It strengthened her body and her sorcery, but not as
well as her `rival's' did. The applications of it were perhaps a better
fit for her, allowing her to manipulate and deceive with a deftness
beyond her years, but when it came to combat it was flatly outmatched.
That much had been made clear in Liesse. Both were transitional Names
meant to lead into something else, but Squires were bound to become
Knights. A Heiress, though? A Heiress could become anything.

\emph{Heiress uses devils. Heiress uses demons. The worst of
diabolists.}

Already she was beginning to transition, and the moment she did she
could finally put all the forces in motion. Begin crafting the key to
the cage, the way out of the trap she had been bound by since her birth.
A year, that was all she needed.

A year and she would change Creation.

---

The Wandering Bard, lately Almorava of Smyrna, sat on a stone by
moonlight and idly strummed her lute.

It made a noise like a chorus of cats drowning. The sound was made all
the more jarring by the fact that she had not, until that moment,
existed then and there. Or since the Battle of Liesse, really. She'd
watched from a distance as William killed the Squire and known what it
meant. That the Lone Swordsman had lost, that Liesse was lost, that the
rebellion was over. There had been no need to linger, and she'd not had
the heart to watch William die. Whether or not he had deserved better
was debatable but he had \emph{tried}. Badly and often in ways that were
misguided, but he had been trying to do good. It was a shame, that his
story had never been going to end well. William of Greenbury would have
been a very different man, in ten years. She knew this because she could
feel the shape his story would have taken with her fingertips, if he had
somehow managed to pass the hurdle that was Catherine Foundling and all
the monsters behind her. It was not to be. Contrition used its heroes
until they broke, and in breaking parted the clouds to allow the shine
of the sun to triumph.

It was sordid, the Bard felt.

She would write a song for him, one day. One worth singing. But she
would not do so tonight. The death was too fresh, rawer than she had
thought it would be, and William had never been the sort to sing. He'd
been a man of thought and silences. Of impatience and recklessness as
well, but in some stories those same traits were called boldness and
courage. It was always about what you made of it, and in the Lone
Swordsman there had been surprisingly much to make of. Dropping the lute
on the mossy green earth, the Bard fished out a bottle of her haversack
and popped it open. She sniffed. It smelled like anise. Gods, it was a
bottle of that foul fig distillate Ashurans were so fond of, wasn't it?
Of the many sins the Baalite Hegemony had to answer for, bringing this
abomination over the Tyrian Sea was undoubtedly one of the worst. She
had a drink anyway. It burned on the way down, warmed her and reminded
her she was alive. That was always a comfort after she'd had a Wander.

She was currently sitting within a stone's throw of the walls of Liesse,
which told her exactly what was about to happen. How much time had
passed she couldn't be sure, but there was only one plot thread left
dangling. They must have taken their time, she frowned, eyeing the
now-pristine walls. Heiress must have been governess for at least a
moon's turn. Likely they would be arriving at exactly the right moment
to hit the hardest, having followed the instructions there were given to
the letter. To the number of heartbeats passed, even. The Bard drank
from her disgusting trial of a bottle again. Her teeth were starting to
taste like anise and an ever-expanding alcohol problem.

``You might as well come out, boys,'' she called out. ``You're not
fooling anyone.''

The elves did not appear, because appearing had the implication they had
not been previously there. They had been, they'd just decided that
Creation would not be able to see them. That was the way with the older
elves: they decided what rules applied to them. They could not ignore
more than one, but that was usually enough. Besides, she would not put
anything past these two: they had been old before they'd ever set foot
on Calernian soil. Few people would have called the two Emerald Swords
beautiful, she decided. By the standards of humans their faces were too
long and angular, their skin so perfect as to seem almost marble and
those wide eyes filled with so much contempt it was nearly a physical
thing. They were tall and slim and terrible to behold, like a coldly
shining star. The one on the left was called Dawn and the other Dusk.
They were both men, not that she could have figured it out from looking
at them if she had not already known. The Bard let out an obnoxious
whistle.

``Two Emerald Swords, huh?'' she said. ``The Forever King \emph{really}
wants her dead.''

They did not reply with words. Infinitesimal twitches, impossible for
anyone but a Named to notice, served as an exchange between the elves.
\emph{Obstacle}, Dawn said. \emph{Unforeseen}, Dusk added, deeply
offended.

``He's a bargain bin prophet, your man,'' the Bard snorted. ``He thinks
a crown and a few dreams means he can read the weaves? \emph{Please}.''

Sharp and ugly fury erupted in both of them without changing them in the
slightest. \emph{Kill}, Dusk said. \emph{Hero}, Dawn reluctantly
disagreed.

``Them's the rules,'' the Bard said. ``Can't touch a hair on my head so
long as your King doesn't give permission. And he would have needed to
see me coming for that.''

She guzzled down more or that sin against the Heavens, allowing some of
it to trickle down her chin. She wiped it off messily. Disgust twitched
across their frames. It was almost too easy to toy with them, really.

``You're going to use words to talk to me,'' she said. ``If you don't,
I'll just have to start speaking elvish -- or what's that fancy name you
folks give it again? The True Tongue?''

``Your language is carrion,'' Dawn said in Lower Miezan, as she'd known
he would. ``I will need to rip out my tongue after soiling it so.''

However soiling the act of speaking a language not elvish, it would have
been nothing to having a mere human speak their precious True Tongue.
Even a hero.

``You're such charmers, you lot,'' the Bard drawled. ``You know, I had
high hopes for your kind when you first arrived.''

She gestured expansively.

``Armada of white ships lands under the Everdark, pretty little elves
burn it immediately. You go into the woods and genocide your way through
the Deoraithe until you own the land. I told myself `old girl, these
ones mean business'.''

She grinned sharply.

``But then you stayed in your Golden Bloom, didn't you? Closed the
borders and ignored the rest of the continent. That was a
disappointment, let me tell you. You had such \emph{potential}.''

``The affairs of mortals are of no interest to the elves,'' Dawn said.

There was no intonation or inflection to the words. They were just
spoken, as if by a being made of stone. The Emerald Sword could be made
to speak a human language but not bother with the frills of it.

``Not \emph{you} elves, anyway,'' the Bard said. ``It's why they kicked
you out, isn't it? The others. The ones that breed with humans, whose
kingdom is larger than this entire continent. Lots of room there, but
not enough to fit your \emph{opinions} about lesser races.''

``The Kingdom of the Golden Bloom will remain forever unmarred,'' Dawn
said.

``Oh, sure. Pure, pretty as a painting, all that good stuff.''

The Bard paused, then smiled.

``Shame about that birth rate, though, no? How many kids you popped
since coming here again?''

\emph{None}, they all knew the answer was. That was what happened when
you murdered the original owners of a forest and tried to claim it your
own. It remembered, and no amount of singing to the trees was ever going
to fix that.

``We know who you are, Keeper of Stories,'' Dawn said. ``She of a
Thousand Faces. Speak your piece.''

``I hadn't heard that one in a \emph{long} time,'' the Bard chuckled.
``Keeper of Stories, eh? Just doesn't sound the same in Lower Miezan. I
go by the Wandering Bards, these days.''

They did not reply. They saw no further need to indulge her, she
realized with amusement. She gulped down another chunk of her horrible,
horrible liquor.

``The Forever Twit sent you to knock off the Heiress,'' she said. ``Not
happening. Fuck off.''

The wooden sword had bit deep into the stone, less than hair's breadth
away from her femoral artery. She'd never even seen Dusk move, and as
far as she could tell he was still standing where he'd always been. The
only difference was the absence of the spellwood sword at his hip.

``Do not,'' Dawn said, ``mock Him again.''

``You lot developed a temper in your old age,'' the Bard grinned. ``It's
almost cute, the way you think \emph{violence} is something that could
scare me.''

She'd accented the word in Lower Miezan the same way it would have been
in elvish. It was enough to horrify the both of them.

``You know what she intends,'' Dawn said.

``Better than either of you, or the man who holds your leashes,'' the
Bard said. ``But you know what really ruffles my feathers, Dawnie? That
he thinks he has a right to \emph{meddle}.''

Her voice had gone cold. They were both wary now.

``'cause the way I see it,'' she continued, ``you signed that away long
ago. Around the time Triumphant was kicking around. Remember Triumphant?
Lass about wee high-``

She waved her bottle around, spilling some on her sleeve.

``- scowled all the time, conquered the continent? Any of that ring a
bell? Around the time she took Callow, she turned her eyes to the Golden
Bloom. And what did you bunch of rabbit-eared sissies do then?''

She paused.

``Anyone? Seriously, it's not like you two weren't around.''

She sighed.

``You bailed out of Creation is what you did,'' she said. ``You took
your pretty little kingdom and fled right into Arcadia. And boy, was she
\emph{pissed} when she realized it. Wiped out two cities in rage.''

The Bard drank again, loosely sprawled on the stone. She knocked down
the lute by accident and did not bother to pick it up.

``And now you think you get to cut away the part of the story you don't
like,'' she said. ``Really, the nerve of some people.''

The Wandering Bard grinned nastily, the white cut of her teeth like a
slice of sharp moonlight.

``\emph{This is my game},'' she hissed. ``Amateurs are not allowed.''

She leaned forward.

``Crawl back to your forest, Emerald Swords,'' she said. ``And tell your
owner that if he ever tries anything like this again, he will rue the
day.''

Neither of the elves moved.

``I will not,'' the Bard said softly, ``warn you again.''

And just like that they were gone. As if they had never been here at
all. The sword was gone, the stone it had cut completely untouched.
Almorava of Smyrna sighed, and looked at the stars. She finished her
bottle, and she died.

The Wandering Bard opened her eyes in a crowded tavern room. People
spoke all around her, not a single one of them looking in her direction.
She sitting alone at a table in the back. She looked at her hands,
surprised not to see any wrinkles. Young twice in a row? That was rare.
She was definitely getting laid in this one, it just felt \emph{better}
when you were still young. Her skin was of a pale tan, the appearance of
most hailing from the Free Cities. Who was she?

Aoede of Nicae.

It had a ring to it. And she got tits, this time! An improvement.
Almorava had been a disappointment in that regard. Hair was a bit long
and too curly for her tastes, but she'd made do with worse. Aoede's
leathers still smelled of anise and threats, but that was part of her
charm really. She passed by the bar, snatching the bottle of liquor a
dark-haired man had in front of him and then stealing a cup to pour
herself a drink. The man in question was passed out, and she clucked her
tongue disapprovingly. Not only was this a lightweight move, by the
looks of the sun it couldn't be past noon. The man behind the bartop
shot her an amused look.

``That stuff will kill you, sister,'' he said in tradertalk.

Aoede smiled.

``Son,'' she said, ``I've got more lives than a bag of cats.''

Keeping the bottle, if not the cup, she strode out into the sun. The
White Knight was bound to be close, or she wouldn't be there.
Contrition, in the end, had not done the trick.

Maybe Judgement would.