webcrawl/APGTE/Book-5/tex/Ch-054.md.tex

\hypertarget{chapter-36-bid}{%
\section{Chapter 36: Bid}\label{chapter-36-bid}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``Peace is the killer of empire, for when strength is not spent
outwards it is instead spent within.''}

-- Ghislaine of Creusens, twelfth First Princess of Procer
\end{quote}

I couldn't ever remember being afraid of the dark, even as a child. Of
what might be lurking in it, sure, but the dark itself? No.~Long before
I'd acquired patrons whose dominion was night, I'd liked a little shade.
The fights at the Pit had often taken place late -- even after lining
the pockets of the city guard, Booker had been warned to keep her
business out of sight -- and summer after sundown was where the coin had
been best at the Rat's Nest. Legionary leave did not change no matter
the season, but come summer a lot of dockworkers earned a little more
coin by fishing in the Silver Lake and a lot of that coin ended up spent
on cheap ale. Which was, to my remembrance, the only kind the Rat's Nest
ever stocked. I wondered what Harrion now\ldots{} I frowned at the drift
of thoughts, unsure how it'd started or where it was headed. Did it even
matter? Oh, I was standing surrounded by thick and cloying darkness. And
it was soothing, serene. It would have been so pleasant to just\ldots{}
float away, leaning into dreamlike thought. \emph{Snow, tears and barren
laughter}, I suddenly remembered. I'd laid down to die, once and the
world had refused to take me.

There would be no takebacks.

``More fruitful than a direct assault would have been,'' I acknowledged
out loud.

I struck at the ground with my staff, and the dark rippled out. Like a
stone tossed into a pond, my will wrinkled the fabric of this half-world
outwards in a wave. The span of what surrounded me was endless, I
thought, and my act had been little more than a shout echoing in a
gargantuan cavern.

``Is that to be your trick?'' I asked the dark. ``Obscuring the path? It
won't work.''

I cocked my head to the side and pricked my ear. The utter silence of
this place was broken only by my own breath, which in this strange
stillness seemed almost crassly loud. I was afraid, for a moment, that
it would drown out what I was waiting for -- but it was an empty worry,
more born out of nerves at the calibre of my opponent than grounded
thinking. My deliverance came in call harsh and hoarse, a distant
cawing. I followed Komena's echoing caw, and limped forward into the
dark. The Youngest Night left as swiftly as she'd appeared, for we'd
agreed that she should avoid the Dead King as much as we could afford
to. Neshamah would not be as dangerous working through Masego as he
would be in person, but Hierophant was plenty dangerous enough on his
own -- and not without experience in the matter of disciplining lesser
gods. My hobbling steps forward felt purposeless, without a destination
to behold, but I forced myself to keep moving. If I could not trust the
Sisters to guide me in the dark, then who \emph{could} I trust? And,
after what could have been either half an hour or an agonizingly long
day, the trust bore fruit. The darkness rippled, and not through my
will: I'd made enough progress, it seemed, to warrant refinement of the
trap.

I almost stumbled when I my good foot came across a step, but I caught
myself on my staff. I felt around cautiously and found out it was the
first of what seemed like sprawling stairs going up. If this realm had
been the Tyrant's to shape I would have taken this turn as a petty
slight to make my life more difficult on account of my bad leg, but
somehow I suspected the Dead King believed himself above that. I made my
way up the stairs, observing from careful groping by foot and staff that
at least they were broad and lightly sloped, and only halted after a
long flight up when I felt this place grow\ldots{} shallower. Frowning,
I slowly raked my fingers through the air and let the fabric of this
half-world thinner on my fingers. I exerted a pinprick of will and the
small ripples than ensued had less to rippled through -- and, more
interestingly, they revealed some sort of veil in front of me. The way,
as always, had to be forward. I stretched up my arm and tore down the
veil, flinching at the wave of sound and light and colour that washed
over me. I had, it seemed, exposed a doorway. I took a moment to compose
myself, to let my eyes grow accustomed to the change in light, and only
then tread through the threshold. Immediately, looking down I felt shaky
for the height. I had come to tread over what looked like a gargantuan
pane of glass, like a skylight put up through the sky.

Above me the sky was darkened by eclipse, a blinding ring of light with
a hollow of night at the heart of it, and the clouds around us were a
hazy penumbra of light and shadow. Below, though, thousands of feet
below, three great armies were warily observing a truce. The League of
Free Cities was milling uncertainly without a camp of its own, its large
baggage train spread over the plans and guarded by knots of soldiers
from half a dozen different city-states. The Army of Callow and the
Legions-in-Exile had retreated back into their camp, though leaning down
with a wince -- Gods, the ground beneath me felt too slippery for this
height -- I noted that Juniper hard ordered the siege engines to be
turned on the League and the drow to be recalled behind the palisades.
It was the armies of the Grand Alliance, though, that found their
situation most uncomfortable. Split in two by my own host and the forces
of the Free Cities, even after the night's losses they remained the
largest of the armies on the field but also the worst-positioned. The
calibre of officers on either side had told, I thought. Many of my
commanders were young and fresh to their ranks, but they'd also been
trained to lead a professional army. The Dominion's war leaders were
clever and brave, but also clearly outmatched.

``This has been most entertaining.''

My eyes flicked up, and I found I was no longer alone on this expanse of
glass. I had expected to be looking upon the King of Death, but what I
found instead was Neshamah. In the flesh, as he had been in the long ago
days of the Kingdom of Sephirah he'd ruled and ruined. His appearance
was from late in his reign, I thought, perhaps as late as that dark day
where Keter's Due had gotten its name. Scholar pale and thin, he was
closely-shaved but his dark hair was messy. Full red lips quirked as I
met his gaze. Just like I remembered this eyes were a shade of light
brown that the glow of the eclipse made into molten amber. On his brow,
the copper circlet that was the crown of a kingdom long dead sat high
over one of those strange Sephiran tunics: one sleeve long and broad but
the other short and tight, the patterned bronze and red cloth sweeping
down to his ankles with a broad sash belting it around the waist. He
had, I suddenly realized, spoken in Ashkaran -- that dead tongue Masego
and I had stolen learning of from Arcadian echoes, along with most of
what I knew of the Hidden Horror.

``You know I don't speak that,'' I said. ``Dead King, we meet again.''

``My apologies,'' Neshamah replied in Lower Miezan, lips twitching. ``We
meet again, Black Queen.''

Staff rapping against the glass-like ground as I moved, I limped in a
half-circle around him. I would not be allowed, I suspected, to leave
this place before conversation was had. But that hardly meant I had to
remain his captive audience, rapt and unmoving.

``Your manoeuvres below were worth the watching,'' the Hidden Horror
idly told me. ``It was an inspired skein of treachery, and a victory
deserved.''

``Night's not over yet,'' I said. ``Though I have to say, you're being a
great deal more civil than I expected.''

Neshamah idly traipsed across the glass sky, the clouds above him making
his eyes shift from gold to bronze like passing seasons set in an
ageless face.

``I am a mannerly man, Catherine,'' he lightly said. ``And you have
given me no reason to act otherwise.''

It almost felt like I was back in the Pit, for a moment, an opponent and
I slowly circling as we took each other's measure. Waiting for an
opening, for a weakness. I remained painfully aware that I had a lot
more of either than the Hidden Horror.

``No?'' I mused. ``Yet you called an immortal, when we first met, and
well\ldots{}''

I shrugged, raising an arm in a nonchalant display.

``I'm hardly that, these days,'' I said.

The old monster's face was like a mirror, I thought as I watched him for
a reaction. There would be nothing there to see I had not placed there
myself.

``Are you not?'' he smiled. ``High priestess and herald of an apotheosis
you ushered into this world by your own hand -- would something as base
as age or disease take you, Catherine Foundling?''

``The years will kill me, one of these days,'' I said. ``If nothing else
gets around to it first.''

``Ah,'' the Dead King smiled. ``But how \emph{many} years would it
take?''

I didn't answer that, for the truth was that I wasn't sure. My body now
was no stronger than it'd been before I came into my Name, not without
Night being woven into it anyway. Pain and exhaustion and so many things
that'd felt\ldots{} distant while I was Sovereign of Moonless Nights had
been returned to me in full, but I had not taken sick since being
proclaimed First Under the Night. As for age, though? It hadn't been
long enough for me to be sure of whether or not my aging had resumed in
earnest. It didn't feel the same way as it had under my Name, when I'd
still grown but there had been something contrived about it -- like I
was matching a vision, not following nature's writ. And it was
absolutely nothing like it'd been after Second Liesse, where I had been
frozen and fixed unto myself. My blood was still red, and had not become
gray nor dark, so it might be that I did not share the stretched
lifespan of the Mighty who partook in Night. On the other hand, I had
come into the priesthood of the Sisters after the devouring of Winter:
it was unprecedented grounds we were treading.

``Priesthood is not godhood,'' I said. ``That path you claimed I would
walk, I set aside. You are not all-knowing, Dead King.''

``Do you believe the Intercessor's strength lies in martial might?'' he
amusedly asked. ``Or mine? You traded a power that shackled you for one
whose burden and perils others will bear in your stead, while binding
them to you in purpose. Winter's theft earned you regard, however
accidental its execution, but it is your work in the Everdark that
suggests you could in time be a peer.''

He chuckled.

``Making peace with the dwarves and wheedling an army out of those
unruly sisters in the bargain,'' he said, tone approving. ``You traded
that ill-fitting mantle for more than fair price. One of these days we
will have to trade secrets, Black Queen. I rather wonder what you traded
the Kingdom Under for a stay of invasion.''

My heart skipped a beat. Was he implying I'd made actual peace between
the dwarves and the drow? Or rather, was he implying that the Firstborn
still held the old Everdark? I hadn't, though, the overwhelming majority
of the drow was marching in exodus towards his own northern borders. Did
he \emph{not know?} It could be a trick, I thought. \emph{I only have
the smallest slivers of Sve Noc with me}, I thought. \emph{The rest is
with their people}. That would allow them to move unseen to most
sorcerous means, and it was true that with his armies investing the
Principate the Hidden Horror's attentions might currently be elsewhere.
Unless he was lying to me, I thought. But if he wasn't\ldots{}

``Agree to disagree,'' I warily said.

Anything more elaborate than trite vagueness might get me seen through,
given who I was dealing with. I'd rather seem a little slow than tip my
hand if he truly didn't know about the exodus.

``In at least one instance we do agree,'' the Hidden Horror said, ``The
night isn't over yet, Black Queen.''

Looking into those patient golden eyes I almost shivered. He was
speaking of more than the dawn Akua had held back for a few hours. Night
was coming for Calernia, the kind that would be followed by no morning
if it ever fell.

``Patience has never been my strong suit,'' I spoke with false calm.
``Even less so when it pertains to my Woe -- one of which you've gotten
your skeletal hands on.''

``It was not I who sought him,'' Neshamah demurred. ``And what could do
I but answer, when my presence was so earnestly petitioned?''

``You've had your laugh,'' I said. ``And while you came close to
breaking the armies below, the scheme was outed. There is no point in
you lingering, Dead King. Leave him. Leave here. This is not the field
where you want this contest to take place.''

``You demand of me what was willingly given,'' the Dead King chided.
``And offer nothing in return. What reason do I have to grant your wish,
save that you wish it?''

``I have forged,'' I said, ``a band of five.''

``You have botched a band of five,'' he replied, amused. ``How many do
you believe will still serve your purpose, when choices are to be
made?''

``Enough,'' I said. ``I chose them knowingly. I demand nothing from you,
and if it was a threat I'd offered I am not known for my subtlety in
their speaking. I am stating that you have nothing left to find in this
place save defeat, and not even the useful kind.''

``I suppose,'' Neshamah mused, ``that I should simply snap the
Hierophant's neck and retire, then.''

My fingers tightened around the ebony staff. I'd known going in that he
would try that angle. Whether or not he could actually do that was in
doubt, but I had a parry anyway. So long as the Grey Pilgrim lived to
the end of this, so would Masego. I'd not forgotten the sight of the
Peregrine wielding resurrection with but a word at the Battle of the
Camps, unmaking the death I'd snatched from my clash against the other
heroes. I almost forced a smile, but that would have been a mistake. No,
let him see how the prospect of my friend being snuffed out like a
candle grieved me. Let him believe I was willing to fight him anyway.

``If that is what it takes,'' I roughly said. ``Gods forgive me, if
that's what it takes. Too many lives are on the line.''

``Ah,'' he smiled. ``There we are. One more mooring, snapping for the
tide. How many would be needed, before you truly took the plunge?''

Nonchalantly, he waved a hand.

``A conversation for another day,'' he said. ``We have nothing but time.
Let us speak, instead, of lives.''

``Your plan has been outed,'' I said.

``One plan,'' he said. ``One winter. One year. And how many deaths will
it have cost you, even should prove the victor here?''

``You speak as if you were the invaded and not the invader,'' I said.

``You speak as one who sought to bargain with me,'' he mildly said.
``For one such invasion.''

I'd fully intended to betray him when offering that pact, though he'd
known that from the start. Still, I almost winced. It was an incomplete
truth, but still a damning one. I wish I could say that I'd not
understood the scope of what I threatened to unleash then, and I
supposed I hadn't. But I'd suspected, even back then, that it would be a
horror unlike any other. I'd been willing to bargain with the King of
Death to keep the Grand Alliance at bay, and that I'd been
outmanoeuvered by Malicia in the attempt was the sole reason I wasn't my
signature on the treaty that let's the monster out of its lair. And the
truth was, looking down at the fragile truce below me, that I still felt
I'd been \emph{right}. Now that there was a greater threat for all to
behold, all the petty games of power and story that'd condemned my home
to be either a ruin or pack of tributaries had gone by the wayside. Oh,
there were still other considerations but it was telling that while I
was just as much the Arch-heretic of the East as last year suddenly
everyone was willing to cut compromises and deals with me. It was the
breathing room I'd needed, an opportunity I would never have had
otherwise. If I'd known before leaving Keter that it would all work,
even with these horrid costs, would I still have done it?

It was more damning than anything I'd done that I wasn't sure what the
answer was.

``No such bargain was made,'' I said. ``I understood what would come of
it, if too late, and slew the one who made it. At least one time too
few, but how many people can claim to have killed Dread Empress Malicia
twice?''

I was not a fool, so I would not admit to such an ugly truth when the
Dead King might be displaying this conversation for anyone to see and
hear. With the way a grin flickered across his face, gone in the
heartbeat it took for his eyes to pass from gold to bronze, I suspected
I'd just neatly sidestepped exactly such a trap.

``We were speaking of lives, I believe,'' Neshamah said, circling me as
I circled him.

His footsteps were a whisper on glass, a contrast to my trudging boots
and sharply tapping staff.

``So we were,'' I agreed.

``Rhenia has fallen, did you know?'' he asked. ``Hannoven months ago,
but the Lycaonese hold nothing but the last fortress of Twilight's Pass.
After it the heartlands of Bremen will fall, and with them the armies
that would defend Neustria. It will be the end of them.''

``They've held you back in Cleves and Hainaut,'' I said.

``For now,'' the Dead King said. ``How long can that last? No, the
simple truth is that the Principate was not prepared. And then that
delightful Theodosian child struck at its allies and its back. Even if
you bring Callow to their aid, you but delay the inevitable.''

``Would you say,'' I cheerfully replied, ``that you are invincible, and
your victory is assured?''

``A bold attempt,'' the Hidden Horror commented. ``Though it makes a
poor evasion. Do you disagree with my words, Black Queen?''

``That the Grand Alliance spent a horrendous amount of soldiers etching
a bitter stalemate in Callow?'' I said. ``No.~That its loss is written
in the stars? Hardly.''

``Imagine what you might do with ten years,'' Neshamah idly said. ``If
my armies withdrew, and truce was observed unfailingly. If you were
allowed to truly muster this continent for war, instead of piecing
together foes and friends in a broken coalition of mistrust.''

And there it was, I thought. The bargain to be made. And it was quite
the prize, wasn't it? Gods, what I could \emph{do} with ten years and
the promise of a war with Keter at the end. The League could be brought
to heel and then into the fold, the Tower brought down on Malicia's head
and the Liesse Accords made to bind even her successor. A decade of
recovery for my bruised kingdom who'd known constant war for years now,
and once the recalcitrant to the east and the south of the continent
were brought into line we'd have a solid, lasting peace -- the First
Prince would not countenance war where a single soldier might be lost
that could instead be sent to hold back the Kingdom of the Dead when it
returned. It got me everything I wanted and saved what had to be
hundreds of thousands of lives. I'd warned the others that the Hidden
Horror would approach us with tantalizing bargains, all the while
thinking myself beyond that temptation. And I couldn't, wouldn't,
shouldn't make a pact with him. But Gods, what a prize it would be.

``Ten years,'' he mused. ``No, perhaps a decade is too little to move
you. Would you like, Catherine Foundling, to purchase a \emph{century}
of truce?''

I flinched. That was a different prize, and perhaps even more tempting.

``If you are truly as a mortal as you insist, then the dead will not
trouble Calernia in your lifetime,'' Neshamah idly continued.

``And what would you want in exchange, Dead King?'' I asked.

``A paltry concession,'' he smiled. ``I would require the keeping of
what lands I have already seized.''

Which would be what? Rhenia, Hannoven, parts of Bremen and Hainaut. The
Principate would be losing more than half the Lycaonese principalities,
which was a chunk of territory, but to be blunt it was mostly mountains
and fortresses assaulted by the ratling warband every spring. Hainaut
was more of an issue, since it was a foothold for Keter on the southern
shore of the Tomb, but what little word I'd had of that front implied
the principality was on the verge of collapse anyway. I'd offered him
rights to more than that when I first sought to make a bargain, though
admittedly it'd been under false pretences. If the Dead King kept his
word, though, the Principate would have a hundred years of peaceful
northern border to prepare. If the First Prince agreed, and if it spared
her own people annihilation in addition to all the rest I genuinely
thought she might accept. And I'd back her, in the aftermath, to the
fucking hilt. To expand the Grand Alliance, and then every step of the
way.

The two of us, and the Pilgrim if he could be talked into it, we could
get Calernia on proper war footing. With ten decades instead of one, the
situation with Praes and the Free Cities could be properly seen to
instead of hurried. The drow would need a home, but Masego had helpfully
ripped a chunk out of Arcadia that could be put to use. This could work,
I thought. Of course, it was possible Neshamah would just let the
ratlings pass straight through the northern principalities he'd occupy
and disrupt the peace without breaking his word. And there'd be benefits
for him as well, I thought, or he would never have made the offer in the
first place. I was about to bring up the Chain of Hunger when I realized
what I was doing and closed my mouth. I'd been considering the
practicalities, working out the details. About to try finding his angle.
I had, in essence, already accepted the deal he'd offered.

Gods. I'd known what he was doing from the start, and still here we
were.

``We will speak of it again, Black Queen,'' the King of Death said. ``At
this peace conference you hve schemed.''

There was a deafening crack, and the glass floor beneath our feet began
to splinter.

``You did not test me,'' I said.

The Hidden Horror met my eyes, and for the first time there a flash of
irritation in the golden gaze.

``Am I chattel, Black Queen, to be led to the altar with blinders on my
eyes?'' he said. ``Am I to willingly embrace the ways of defeat simply
because we are at odds? I think not.''

He leaned forward, face cast harshly.

``This game, as all games, I will play on my terms and only that,'' the
Dead King said. ``I have learned what I wanted from this communion, and
when I have taken what I wish from this ruin I will forsake it as well.
Not a moment before, Catherine, and petty tricks will not force my
hand.''

Neshamah flicked a wrist dismissively.

``Remember that, when we speak again. Youth only earns so many
allowances.''

In rain of glass I fell through the floor and passed through air and
darkness until I landed in another place. Light was peeking through
cracks in a door before me, and I opened it. Above me dark clouds pulsed
with rings of sorcery, but beneath my boots were the still-paved streets
of the ruins of Liesse. My hands were trembling, I saw. I grit my teeth,
and put the inarticulate dread that'd sunk in my guts aside. I still
needed to find the others wherever they'd come out in the city.

The night was not yet over, even the monster of monsters agreed.