webcrawl/APGTE/Book-7/tex/Ch-035.md.tex

\hypertarget{interlude-east-iii}{%
\section{Interlude: East III}\label{interlude-east-iii}}

\emph{``Red runs the Tower's mortar.''}

-- Praesi saying

Within an hour of entering Ater, Akua Sahelian was sought out for a
conspiracy to overthrow the Empress. By the end of the day, no fewer
than seventeen such offers had been made to her.

``It is all very tasteless,'' she mused. ``A defeat against an invading
enemy -- Callowan, too, how classical -- paired with a great gathering
of nobles at the imperial court, everyone scheming to overthrow the
Tower and a vague sense of doom looming over all these proceedings. One
would be forgiven for thinking they'd stumbled into a tragedy written
now by Adomako. Any moment now we will stumble into a scene of overdone
symbolism.''

The golden-eyed sorceress paused.

``A wounded gazelle being fought over by lions,'' Akua decided. ``It's
always lions, isn't it? There is an excessive fondness in our writing
for the beasts, Kendi, given their general uselessness.''

``You are mad,'' Kendi Akaze harshly replied. ``And not even in the way
fools honour. Do not think I will not sell you out to the Tower at the
first opportunity.''

Perhaps it was the presence of the Amaranth around her neck, the way the
ancient artefact drowned out all the pettier emotions, but Akua had
found herself growing fond of the man. He was remarkably straightforward
in his hatred of her, and though he had not attempted to kill her since
their mage duel in Kala she suspected it was only a matter of time until
he tried again. She did not blame him for this, of feel particularly
offended. She had led the man's sister and several of his kin to their
death at the Folly they named after her, and that was a better reason
for hatred than most.

``I expect several of the nobles who approached me for treachery did so
on Malicia's behalf,'' Akua amusedly replied. ``Not that my having
committed to nothing will soothe her fear of me in the slightest.''

``And why should she not fear you?'' Kendi said. ``All the world knows
you seek her throne.''

``Naturally,'' Akua agreed, draining the last of her cup.

She had lost the habit of pairing wine with antidote. The taste was no
longer familiar to her, after drinking from other bottles. Her fondness
of it had thinned. Her fondness of many things had thinned, the
sorceress thought, and rose to her feet.

``Let us be off, Kendi,'' Akua said. ``There is time to be wasted and I
would waste it elsewhere.''

Out in the City of Gates, not these luxurious apartments that felt like
they were closing in on her from every direction. Like a noose slowly
tightening. Kendi made an unpleasant comment about her intellect,
charmer that he was, but he followed. He always followed.

How else, Akua thought, could he find the moment to stick the knife?

They went into the streets of the capital, followed by a horde of
shadows. Spies belonging to three dozen different lords and the Eyes,
soldiers, Sentinels and two -- no, three assassins. Really, an
illusionary veil? Akua had first made her reputation bleeding
\emph{fae}, this was insulting. She informed the man as much after
melting off his limbs in a cloud of acid before turning to ask her other
would-be assassins to try it again tomorrow, for she was not in the mood
for sport today. Her shielding spells came up quicker than the arrow
came down, so a few blood-curling screams later the last remaining
assassin fled.

``Someone will succeed,'' Kendi told her. ``Sooner or later, you will
fail.''

``I can always count on you for perspective,'' she replied, patting his
arm fondly.

He looked like he'd swallowed a lemon, which put her in a good enough
mood to make up for the sloppy assassination attempts. Even the Jacks
would have done better, and they'd only been around for a few years on
top of being led by a whiny heroine. Akua found, as she walked the
streets, that Ater was a pot about to boil over. The capital had swelled
with refugees not only from Nok and the outskirts of Thalassina but now
also the swaths of the Wasteland that'd been ravaged by the civil war.
It was said that the City of Gates held half a million people within its
walls, but she knew that to be inaccurate -- it was usually closer to
three hundred thousand, only growing when famine struck other parts of
Praes.

At the moment, though, she suspected that there truly might be five
hundred thousand people in the city. A disastrous number to try to keep
fed during a siege, no matter how full the Tower's granaries, and the
city was poorly equipped to host them besides. Large swaths of the
capital were abandoned, and though it was better than living in the
streets making a home in those districts was barely livable. District
mages would keep the sewers working, the wards in good state and keep an
eye out for epidemics but wouldn't really go out of their way to help
beyond that. There were only so many of them and the city was enormous.

It'd once been custom for wealthy nobles to patronize sections of the
city, but Malicia had stamped out the habit to consolidate her control
over the capital. Would she reconsider now? Unlikely, Akua decided. The
situation was too volatile for the empress to be willing to take on such
a risk. Her wanderings through the half-ruined streets were noticed not
only by spies and soldiers but also by the refugees themselves: someone
must have recognized her, for a crowd began to gather. And, as crowds
were wont to be, it grew angry. At first she wondered if she would have
to retreat under shield spell as a mob tried to tear her apart, but then
laughter choked up her throat as she made out what was being shouted.

``Down the Tower,'' the crowd shouted.

``Death to Malicia,'' the crowd insisted.

And, worst of all-

``Warlock, Lady Warlock,'' they shouted. ``Sahelian. \emph{Save us,
Sahelian}.''

\emph{Save us, Sahelian}, Akua dully repeated. Had anyone ever spoken
more absurd a sentence? It would have been the work of a moment to whip
these dirty, desperate people into a raging mob. The fear was thick
here, the Black Queen's name on half the lips. The Queen of Callow would
come and kill them all, they said, like she'd done to the refugees
that'd tried to cross into the Fields of Streges. She was here to bury
the Empire, bury them with it, and it was all Malicia's fault.
\emph{Five years ago you would have rioted at anyone trying to overthrow
her}, Akua thought. How quickly gratitude faded in the City of Gates.

``They'll turn on you too,'' Kendi said from behind her. ``Tear out your
throat like animals. It won't last.''

It would have been so easy, to whip them into a frenzy and send them
rioting into the streets. To sow the seeds of a chaos only she could
calm and through that, oh through that she would rise. Climb the Tower
until there was nothing left above, no one worth bowing to. So Akua
climbed a broken house, a sea of people gathered before her, and told
them the truth.

``The Black Queen will not kill civilians,'' she said. ``The Army of
Callow quarrels only with the Tower. Stay indoors, stay out of the way,
and you will be safe.''

It was not what they'd wanted to hear, she thought, as a rippled went
through the crowd. They'd wanted blood, wanted death, wanted something
to sink their teeth into. It was easier than going back to their hovels,
afraid and cold. So she gave them something more.

``I have nothing left but my magic to offer you,'' Akua said, ``but that
much I will give you. Bring your wounded, your sick. I will see to
them.''

Something more than fear and cold. The first few were children -- broken
limbs, coughs, lungrot -- but by the time she was done with them already
people had begun to act. To organize. A run-down mansion that was clean
and dry was opened to her, beds dragged into the great hall and what
clean linen there could be rustled up volunteered. Strangers did this
who had not known each other for an hour, with a smoothness that
surprised. \emph{Jino-waza}. A few hedge mages came forward and she
taught them a spell to boil water and conjure clean water before
continuing with the work. They came in as a trickle, already a line
running outside for half the district and kept in order by large men
with makeshift cudgels, but the trickle never slowed.

Akua's magic did not tire. Fingers reattached, infections burned out,
broken bones soldered. Cuts closed, parasites flushed out, nerves
regrown. She had done this all many a time, after the Army of Callow saw
battle. With Night instead of sorcery, but she was only better for the
change. She was not sure how long she healed, the faces and people
blending, but eventually she found she was drenched in sweat. The
Amaranth kept getting caught in the red silk collar, so she set it down
to the side and returned to the work. Immediately the heat washed over
her, form the fire and the people and the Wasteland's pounding sun, but
she mastered herself. A man was ushered in with his young daughter.

She had a fever, which Akua's finding spell told her was from an
infection in the stomach. It would be more tedious than difficult to
heal, which she informed them of. The man -- a tall, heavy sort with
soldier's scar -- looked heartbreakingly relieved.

``I knew you'd come through, Lady Sahelian,'' he said as she began the
spell. ``You've always done right by us.''

Curious, she spared the man a glance.

``I mean no rudeness,'' she began, and he snorted.

``I was only a soldier,'' he said. ``But I served under you at First
Liesse. Would have at the Second too, if my wife hadn't gotten pregnant
with my youngest. The name's Kamau.''

There was, to her dim horror, open pride in his voice at having served
her. \emph{How desperate must you be, that the memory of my follies is
the raft you now cling to?}

``I was never disappointed by any of those I led into Liesse,'' Akua
said, uneasy at the lie.

At feeling the need to tell it.

``It's been hard times since,'' Kamau admitted. ``What with your lord
cousin taking over in Wolof, some of us were sent away. We tried to head
south, but it\ldots{} didn't go well.''

``The Green Stretch turned you back?'' she asked.

``No, not them,'' the man said. ``Callowans on the other side of the
Wasaliti. Just farmers, at first, but then the Legions -- the Army of
Callow, I guess they call themselves out west -- got bloody too.''

He grimaced.

``We lost my wife fleeing back to the Blessed Isle,'' he admitted.
``It's only this one and my son now. I have no words for how grateful I
am you're helping her.''

His eyes turned harsh.

``Would that you'd killed them all at the Doom, Lady Warlock,'' he said.
``We'd be better off for it. Next time, yeah?''

Her throat tightened, the magic flowing from her palm into the girls'
belly almost wavered. \emph{I used you}, she almost told the man\emph{.
I used you all, until you were spent and dead and when you were I never
looked back. Can you not see that? Can you not see that soldiers swung
the swords but I own every death?}

``It was a bitter day for all who knew it,'' Akua croaked, lips gone
dry.

``Been a lot of those since you started the wars -- I hear the scholars
call them the Uncivil Wars,'' Kamau said, but suddenly paled. ``Not that
I meant this was your fault at all, Lady Warlock, I-''

\emph{Could not possibly speak a sentence more damning than that one},
Akua thought. But she painted a smiled on her face, moved the lips and
soothed his fear.

``Need not explain anything,'' Akua said, then withdrew her hand from
the girl. ``It is done, dear. Be careful to drink only water until
tomorrow, and don't eat anything even if you get hungry. Your stomach is
very sensitive, you'll spew it right back up and it would hurt you.''

The little girl gravely nodded, and her father led her out after another
round of apologies that she dismissed. Akua felt faint, as she next man
was ushered in. How many of the people she had healed today were in the
capital because of an action she had taken? Her folly had been used as
the pretext for the Grand Alliance to go to war, for Ashur to ravage the
coasts of the Empire, but there were faults closer to home. It was her
banner raised that had begun the civil wars that were still raging
across Praes, her schemes that had\ldots{} Akua laid a hand against the
wall, dizzied. She felt Kendi's eyes on her, considering.

Forcing herself not to move with unseemly haste, she put the Amaranth
back on and let the ancient grief of the crystallized tear wipe away the
knots in her stomach. She returned to the work, learning from men as she
did that the High Lady of Kahtan had sent mages do imitate her and now
dozens and dozens of highborn were doing the same. When finally she
tired, her magic grown sluggish, she told the people as much. Some
refugees wept as she went, but more cheered and even more bowed. It
sickened her. She turned to the Taghreb woman who had first thought of
using the mansion, had risen through the crisis as a leader of sorts.

``I am using you, you know,'' Akua said. ``To raise my reputation.''

It was true, she thought. It must be true. It was one thing to spare a
man, a forgivable whim, but this\ldots{} she had purpose, reason. She
had taken an opportunity offered. The other woman shrugged.

``Maybe,'' she said. ``But what does that matter, to the people you
healed?''

Akua flinched away from her, from it all, but she was not to be allowed
to retreat in peace.

``That was reckless,'' Kendi said. ``She could have turned on you, told
the crowd. You just came close to dying.''

``I am always but a moment away from dying,'' Akua replied, forcing
nonchalance.

The dark-skinned man rolled his eyes.

``Yes, \emph{mile thaman Sahelian}, lovely,'' Kendi said, ``but I don't
mean philosophy-``

``Neither do I,'' Akua curtly interrupted. ``Do you think my return to
flesh came without a price? Somewhere in me lies a way for the Empress
to kill me with a word. I do not speak in \emph{metaphor}, Kendi, when I
say I am only ever a moment away from death.''

That silenced him, though she was not sure whether the quiet was
thoughtful or surprised. No doubt he would soon begin to consider how
the Empress might be incited to put her life to an end. Tired of it all,
Akua moved towards the centre of the city. The Black Knight, at least,
could be relied on for cold company. Marshal Nim was not the Legion
headquarters of the capital but instead at her own manse, which Akua
promptly headed to. That the servants allowed her and Kendi to enter was
a surprise, but not so much of one as the fact that Nim was very
obviously drunk. As mfuasa were trained to Kendi went to a corner just
out of sight, where he could easily be forgotten, but his gaze missed
nothing.

``Marshal,'' Akua greeted the ogre. ``It appears you have me at
something of a disadvantage, drink-wise. Will you not offer me your
hospitality?''

Only the Black Knight did not stare her down coldly, call her a snake or
sent her away. Instead, to Akua's dismay, the ogre twitched and then
wordlessly gesture for her to sit. Most chairs here were built with
ogres in mind, and the bottles on the table were closer to a barrel than
what the sorceress would have meant by the term, but Akua found a carafe
of terrible Aksum gold and a glass that was not larger than her head.
She took a sip, then grimaced.

``This vintage is a war crime,'' Akua noted, ``and I should know.''

Marshal Nim stirred, as did the golden-eyed mage's hopes, but they were
just as swiftly dashed.

``You were right,'' the Black Knight said.

``As is only natural,'' she replied, hiding her alarm.

``Malicia doesn't trust the Legions as far as she can throw them,'' the
Black Knight said. ``I am to share command of the defences with the High
Lady of Kahtan.''

Who commanded the largest of the highborn armies come to reinforce Ater
as well as the largest coalition of nobles not under Malicia's thumb. In
olden days that would have made High Lady Takisha the Chancellor, but
nowadays it mostly meant that the Empress was scheming to kill and
discredit her.

``I can't even blame her, after Kala,'' the Black Knight cursed. ``They
deserted, Sahelian. \emph{Deserted}!''

A bottle of wine hit the wall, shattering with enough glass spraying
everywhere that it would need wheelbarrow to clean up. Akua eyed the
other woman clinically. Nim was drunk, obviously, but more than that she
was despairing. Not only had she been decisively beaten by Marshal
Juniper on the field -- which must have stung, considering the Hellhound
had not been all that highly thought of among the upper ranks of the
Legions -- but in the wake of that defeat almost a third of her army had
deserted rather than fight. Now she had only her last loyalists and the
skeleton legions that'd been left in the capital, a force weaker than
the one Marshal Juniper had already beaten.

The Legions of Terror she had been fighting to preserve were effectively
dead. The soldiers that'd walked off the field at Kala would not be
returning to anyone's banner any time soon and the Tower would not
forget or forgive that desertion -- no matter how earned it had been.
Even the legionaries who had stayed would be asking themselves why they
were still fighting for the madwoman in the Tower that'd turned two
thirds of the continent against them. \emph{Her Role was broken at
Kala}, Akua decided. \emph{She failed in the central conceit of it,
which was `the general of the Empire's armies'. She must either find a
different Role or lose her Name.}

And Akua, who had tried to save her life and helped at every turn, was
here in her moment of weakness. \emph{I could promise you the Legions
you want and mean it}, Akua thought, \emph{and for that you'd follow
me.} It was the right place, the right time, with the right history
behind it. The Gods Below were offering a Black Knight of her own on a
silver platter. All it would take was making promises that Akua
genuinely believed would be in the interest of the Empire: the Legions
had become one of the pillars of Praes since the Reforms, they were
well-worth preserving and kept separate from politics exactly the way
Marshal Nim wanted them to be.

All it would take was for Akua to speak sweet nothings with a silver
tongue.

``You are a fool.''

Oh dear, that'd been her speaking hadn't it? No matter, she could still
salvage this.

``Are you truly so weak-willed, Black Knight?''

Not only was this distinctly not a sweet nothing, Akua thought, but it
was arguably the opposite. An insulting something? She drank a bit more
war crime to wash down the taste of whatever madness had seized her. Nim
was shaken out of her daze by the insults, at least, which was a form of
progress. Towards nothing pleasant, but progress anyhow.

``Even if I smash your head in for that, I'll still be dead before the
month is out,'' the Black Knight said. ``I know what a pattern of three
is, Sahelian. I have won once and since suffered a draw. That boy will
have my head soon enough.''

``Then find a way to lose on your terms,'' Akua harshly replied. ``Are
you a Marshal of Praes or a maudlin child? Defeat need not mean death.
Even Fate can be gamed. As for your precious Legions, what did you
expect?''

``That they would stand behind their Black Knight,'' Nim roared.

``They did,'' Akua calmly replied. ``You are not him.''

That cut deep, she saw, but she was not done.

``Did you think this would be easy, Nim?'' she mocked. ``That you would
earn a Name to pluck ripe peaches from the tree? \emph{You are
villain}.''

She threw her own glass against the wall. It shattered most
satisfyingly.

``You are the Black Knight of Praes,'' Akua hissed. ``Have some
\emph{fucking pride}. You lost and your ideal is in tatters, what of it?
Do you think a hundred of your Name have not stood where you do, all
ashes in their hands and blood in their mouth?''

``It can't be salvaged,'' the Black Knight replied, eyes wild. ``We all
saw-''

``Then raise it again from the ground up,'' Akua cut in harshly. ``Or
are you so enamoured with being the lesser of your predecessor that you
can not do the same he did? This was never going to be \emph{handed} to
you, and it offends me that for even a breath you thought it might be.
You are Named to struggle, to rise above what you were. If you cannot
tolerate the way of the world, then \emph{change} \emph{it}.''

Marshal Nim rocked back.

``I -- you,'' she stumbled. ``What is this, Sahelian?''

``A disappointment,'' Akua scathingly said. ``I thought better of you,
Marshal. A petty idealist you might have been, but you did not lack for
spine. The Hellhound did not take if from you on the field, so where was
it mislaid?''

Nim looked as lost as she was drunk.

``I thought you would,'' she said, hesitated.

Make an offer, she did not say.

``What are you, that I should?'' Akua said, rising to her feet. ``Naught
but a broken thing which knows not what it wants or what it seeks. You
have no design, no fire, not even a plan. You call yourself Named but
you are a dandelion, a victim of wind and whims.''

She was panting, by the end of that. And wondering if it was the Black
Knight she was castigating.

``Stand on your own feet, Black Knight,'' Akua Sahelian said. ``What use
could anyone have for you before you do?''

And so she rose to hers, dizzy. And looking at Nim's face she felt like
cursing, like weeping, like screaming at the top of her lungs. Because
when she had walked into this room the Black Knight had been a woman who
might had made a deal with her, but now she looked at Akua like someone
who wanted to follow her. Like ragged Kauma in the ragged mansion,
handed scraps of a fate and yet so odiously grateful. Did she need to
set fire to the city, before someone at last screamed enough? Akua fled.

``She will know what you are in time,'' Kendi said. ``And hate what she
sees then.''

``She should \emph{already} hate me,'' Akua bit out.

By the time they got back to her manse it was dark, and so the highborn
came out to play. The ones that had approached her during the day were
fools and amateurs, but those who fully intended to see the Empress
usurped now came crawling out of the gutters. The invitation she
received was not signed, but that was the way of such conspiracies. She
put on a cloak and returned to the streets, Kendi following dutifully,
to see what the conspirators had to offer. One could not topple the
Tower without the support of powerful backers. The heavily warded manse
she was led to by a guide was dark, and she was brought to a room where
twelve sat masked at a great table.

Amused, she stared down the woman at the head of tit.

``You are sitting in my seat,'' Akua said.

There was a ripple. Laughter, offence, some just surprised by her gall.
Kendi disappeared into a dark corner, already forgotten by almost
everyone in the room.

``That remains to be seen,'' an indistinct voice replied through the
mask.

``Does it now?'' Akua mused.

It had been hours since she used magic. She was still exhausted, but her
disdain for this farce lent her strength. Power billowed out tearing
through the anchored illusion forcing shadows and then, obeying her
will, cutting cleanly. One after another, twelve masks dropped. Some
were hastily caught, but not enough.

``High Lady Takisha,'' Akua noted, locking eyes with the woman at the
head of the table. ``How bold.''

``I'll have to kill you for this,'' the High Lady of Kahtan coldly said.

She laughed, scornfully, in the woman's face.

``Ah yes, so that instead these fine conspirators might instead support
\emph{your} bid for the Tower,'' Akua said, running a finger across the
table. ``No doubt you gathered this little event because you were able
to climb it on your own. You are known as a woman highly lacking in
ambition.''

A moment of silence.

``She has you there, Muraqib'' a masked man carelessly said.

``Without my support and that of my vassals, you have no chance of
success,'' High Lady Takisha evenly said. ``This will have a price.
First comes the restoration of the Name of --''

``No,'' Akua said.

Startled surprise. This was not, the sorceress knew, how this
conversation was meant to go.

``Pardon?'' High Lady Takisha said.

Akua was so very tired of this, she realized. Of the cloak and dagger
plots, of the pit of hatred and betrayal that was the Tower. Of this
empire of endless teeth, guzzling down its own people not to achieve
anything but for the mere purpose of continuing to exist. And they were
part of it, too, these masked fools before her. Teeth in the maw.

``You do not make demands of me,'' Akua said, and it felt \emph{good}.

``You are mistaken if-''

``Who are you, Takisha Muraqib, that I should take heed of you?'' Akua
asked, honestly meaning the question. ``All I see is the last rat
standing. What have you won, what have you done, that your displeasure
should give me pause?''

``Hard talk, coming from the Black Queen's concubine,'' a man bit out.

``I would have more power as Catherine Foundling's bedwarmer than you
ever have or ever will wield,'' the golden-eyed aristocrat laughed in
his face. ``That's why you're here, all of you, in this room instead of
halfway across the city plotting to back someone else.''

She swept the room with her gaze.

``So let us dispose of the pretence that you are owed for this
conversation, that this is a favour done onto me,'' Akua said. ``You are
vultures circling a wounded lion but too afraid to take the plunge. I
need you?''

She moved her lips into a smile.

``You need me,'' Akua corrected, ``and you, High Lady Takisha, are
\emph{still} \emph{sitting in my seat}.''

Silence stretched out, and something like relief welled up. At last, she
thought, the end. They would balk and turn on her, Malicia would end it
and- and Takisha Muraqib, hatred in her eyes, rose to her feet.
\emph{No,} Akua thought. \emph{No}. \emph{How can you not seen that I
have nothing to threaten you with, no one behind me? You are a High Lady
of Praes, the sharpest of irons, so why are snatching defeat from the
jaws of victory? Why, you misbegotten Hellgods, do I keep
winning?}Appalled, Akua Sahelian took her seat at the head of a table
where twelve of the most powerful lords and ladies of Praes sat.

``They measure your back for knives already,'' Kendi told her as they
left. ``You will not be forgiven for this.''

``Then why,'' Akua sadly asked, ``did they let me do it to them?''

She returned to the manse, sagged into a seat, and closed her eyes.
Exhausted beyond words. Behind her she heard Kendi moved, but somehow
she was still startled when pain bloomed on the side of her head.

---

Akua woke up. The Gods were laughing and Akua Sahelian woke up. Her back
hurt, and fingers found a bloody scar on it, but she was breathing and
when she rose in her bed she found Kendi Akaze seated across from her,
eyes smiling. On a low table before him there were two objects. One was
the Amaranth, smashed to pieces. The other looked like a strip of bone,
carved with so many rows of small runes that it was hardly recognizable.

``Lodged in your spine,'' Kendi amiably said. ``It was difficult to
remove it without paralyzing you, but I managed.''

``Why?'' she croaked out.

``Because you are in pain,'' he said. ``And I want you to drown in it
without your necklace to save you.''

``This is madness,'' Akua hissed.

``Is it?'' Kendi said. ``I followed you today. You have won the people,
the Legions, the nobles. The Empire is in the palm of your hand, the
Tower yours for the taking.''

He leaned forward.

``And what do you think of that, Akua Sahelian?'' he asked.

He was not lying, she realized with anguish. She'd known it too but
shied away from looking the truth in the eye. After a lifetime of
scheming and murdering, after struggling and betraying and burning every
bridge there was to burn, the Empire was in the palm of her hand. She
let it sink in, settle into her mind, until an answer came from the
heart of her.

Akua threw up all over the marble floor.

``That's what I thought,'' Kendi said with cold, hard satisfaction.

---

Catherine Foundling was coming to kill her.

The knowledge of that circled Malicia's thoughts like a vulture, never
close but never far. Amadeus' little orphan, turned into a brutal
warlord, was marching on Ater to kill Alaya of Satus. Malicia tried to
set the thought aside, but all the news brought to her only made it
stand out more starkly. Her impostor in Mercantis had been unmasked, the
devil slain and now the Forty-Stole Court was maddened with rage. They
had cut all ties with the Tower, placed the Empire under embargo and
offered a fresh round of loans to the Grand Alliance at courteous terms.
And, worst of all, they had sought the protection of \emph{Empress}
Basilia of Aenia.

A title the entire League of Free Cities had recognized after the fall
of Penthes, along with the worrisome one of `Protector of the League'.
Not only had the entire League of Free Cities followed Mercantis in
severing ties, but now all its ports were closed to Praesi ships and the
city-states were mobilizing for war. To join the war against the Dead
King, Ime believed, but she could not be sure. All Malicia could know
was that there was only one large military force on Calernia uncommitted
to warfare, and that it was her hard-bitten foe. That hatred would
linger for decades, lead the south to oppose her for the rest of her
reign. If she had one.

Catherine Foundling was coming to kill her.

Ashur was still sundered in two, but it was no longer starving because
Malicia no longer controlled the fleet meant to blockade it. The
necromancers that'd usurped the fleet of Nicae through use of Still
Waters no longer took her orders. They had taken to raiding the coasts
of Ashur and the League for plunder and corpses. For now they traded
with Stygian slaver ports for supplies, but that would be clamped down
on by `Empress' Basilia. They'd have to find other ports of call
eventually, and Malicia feared that the Tideless Isles -- scoured clean
of corsairs by Ashur -- would appeal. Her own masterstroke turned pirate
might begin raiding the coasts of Praes.

Out west the Dominion had been stabilized by the First Prince's clever
diplomacy after the Isbili were wiped out in some sort of blood magic
ritual, but the Black Queen had won the higher prize by making the
leading couple of Levant her pupils. Procer itself was finally
collapsing even in the face of Hasenbach's inhuman efforts to keep it
together -- the first secession had happened six months later than
Malicia's prediction, which was a staggering delay. The First Prince had
kept together her empire with little more than letters and diplomacy as
it tumbled into utter ruin. Malicia was genuinely admired the feat, but
Hasenbach had not lasted \emph{long enough}. The collapse was happening
too early, there was nobody left in the Grand Alliance in a position to
contest Callow's influence.

And Catherine Foundling was coming to kill her.

And all the ruinous reverses abroad were nothing to what trouble had now
fallen on Praes. Wolof had been knocked out of the war, the alliance of
Aksum and Nok subverted by a foreign power and now Okoro was cowering in
its fortresses. The Clans had elected a leader, but Malicia was
uncertain whether or not it had been Chieftain Troke Snaketooth. All the
informants of the Eyes had gone silent overnight, and while the orc
she'd made bargains with had been in the lead last she heard, there was
no telling who had triumphed. Worse, the horde of greenskins was not
only going nowhere Nok but it was very clearly marching on Ater, burning
and pillaging everything in its path. Malicia was now facing the
distinct possibility that even if the Grand Alliance retreated the Clans
might still sack a weakened Ater.

Ater itself was slipping her fingers. She could feel in the way that
Rule was weaking, the wat fewer people truly saw her as the Dread
Empress of Praes. Sentiment in the streets was turning against her, the
Legions were a mutinous wreck riddled with desertions and the nobles
come to attend the imperial court had plots the way stray dogs had
fleas. She'd remained ahead of them, so far, but she was a dancer with a
shrinking stage to dance on. Gods, even district mages were getting
murdered out in the ruined districts. With a goblin steel blade, so it
was likely some Legion deserter stirring up trouble. The only force
Malicia could still truly trust in was the Sentinels, and the thought
had rage frozen in her throat.

These were the same soldiers that had nailed her father to the floor of
his own inn, \emph{and} \emph{Catherine Foundling was coming to kill
her}.

The brutal little bitch could not be bargained or reasoned with, she was
out for blood and no matter what Malicia threw at her she seemed to come
out on top. The battle in the Wasteland that should have broken her army
had instead seen it \emph{reinforced}, Marshal Juniper crowned the
finest general to come out of the War College and Sepulchral bending the
knee. It was even more ridiculous than Wolof, where even captured she'd
somehow still claimed victory. Next she would be struck by lightning and
somehow gain the power to call on storms, the absurd chit. There was no
going around her, either. The First Prince no longer even bothered to
read her letters and with Mercantis turning on her she no longer had an
intermediary.

Only strength would make the Queen of Callow listen, and while the host
gathered in Ater's shadow outnumbers the Army of Callow it was not
Malicia's. It belonged to a hundred different nobles, too many of them
traitors. And even if it gave battle, the empress was not certain it
would win. The Army of Callow had humbled even the Legions, which had
triumphed against the armies of the old Praes handily. Malicia still had
the Tower's arsenal, and for the first time in her reign she was
deploying the artefacts and horrors that a thousand tyrants had sealed
in deep vaults, but she had\ldots{} concerns. Even should these powers
bring her victory, it might be the kind worse than a defeat. Yet what
else was she to do?

Alaya did not want to die, and Catherine Foundling was coming to kill
her.

It was a relief when Ime came to meet with her, a distraction from her
thoughts and their downwards spiral. \textbf{Connect} told her that her
spymistress' loyalty had weakened but not in a harmful way. The nuance
was hard to read, but Malicia had learned. Ime must have thought of
running, then. She had not, Malicia remined herself. For now, that was
what mattered.

``Akua Sahelian spent most of yesterday healing refugees,'' Ime said,
moments after being seated. ``She then met with Marshal Nim in her
private manse. Late that evening, she disappeared into a warded location
-- my agents were slain trying to find out with who. There were no
survivors.''

``I will summon her to the Tower, then,'' Malicia said, cocking an
eyebrow. ``As was the intent from the start. With the alternative being
death, she will give us the names and facilitate a purge of the most
disloyal.''

``I thought you might say that,'' Ime evenly said. ``But she's too
dangerous to be allowed to live, Malicia. She has too much support while
yours wanes.''

Malicia stilled.

``What did you do?'' she harshly asked.

``I used the kill switch,'' Ime said.

The empress mastered her anger. Only she had been supposed to be able to
give that order. Yet another way her authority was weakening.

``Now we have no match for the Hierophant,'' she said. ``Which might
well lose us the siege.''

``It's much worse than that,'' Ime said. ``I used the artefact, but
she's still alive. It was removed, Your Majesty. We no longer have a
leash on her.''

Malicia's fingers clenched. The Warlock -- or close enough -- was now
free to act against her without deterrent. And she could not simply
order her killed, because even should such an attempt work and fail to
trigger an uprising against her killing Akua Sahelian might well get her
killed by virtue of there being no one able to stop Wekesa's son from
mauling the defences of the capital. Her mind spun, looking for angles,
but there were none. No answer, no clever trick.

From her silence, Ime must have come to the same conclusion.

``I advised against recruiting her,'' Ime quietly said. ``She's always
been a risk-''

``I \emph{know} what you advised, Ime,'' Malicia barked out. ``I assure
you, there is no need to remind me. I deemed it necessary at the time.''

She'd meant to kill the Sahelian or surrender her back to the Grand
Alliance's custody the moment an arrangement was reached, either way
ending her as a threat. Where had she found a mage trustworthy and
skilled enough to find the artefact in her spine, much less remove it?

``We need to prepare to pull out of Ater,'' Ime advised. ``Set our
enemies on each other and approach again from a better position. It
might be time to seriously consider wedding either Sargon Sahelian or
Jaheem Niri. It keeps them committed and us in the game.''

Jaheem Niri was already married, not that he wouldn't murder his wife in
a heartbeat to become the imperial consort. The prospect of marrying
either was repulsive enough that Alaya felt physically nauseous. She
closed her eyes, looking for any other way. Ime stayed silent for a long
time, then rose to her feet.

``I will prepare what I can, Alaya,'' the spymistress said. ``Think on
it, that is all I ask.''

The empress stayed alone in the council room for a long time, with only
silence and that ever-present thought for company. Eventually she rose
to her feet, the sky outside turned to night. Sleep, she thought, sleep
would put it all in perspective. But her quarters were not empty. On the
table by the enchanted window, a woman was leaning back her seat, boots
against the rim of table two hundred years old as she looked down at the
city. Fair-haired and tanned, she had in her hand a crystal glass from
Malicia's personal cabinet that she was refilling with wine from a
silver flask. In her lap lay a lute, old and worn but still beautiful.

``I am told you are particularly vulnerable to Speaking,'' Alaya said.
``I wonder, would I even need to vocalize to make you kill yourself?''

The Wandering Bard turned to offer her an insolent blue-eyed grin and a
sloshing toast that spilled wine on her leathers.

``Those who live by the sword tend to get killed with swords,'' the Bard
shrugged. ``You know how it is, I'm sure.''

``You are on the Red List,'' Malicia said. ``Kill on sight.''

``And yet here I am,'' the Bard noted, ``still breathing.''

A moment of silence.

``So you are,'' Malicia conceded.

The other woman laughed throatily, by the sound of it already well on
her way to drunk. The empress knew better than to believe it made her
any less dangerous.

``Have a drink with me, Dread Empress,'' the Bard said. ``I had\ldots{}
well, I wouldn't call it \emph{luck} all things considered, but it was a
fateful draw.''

Best to humour her for now. Malicia stepped aside to take a cup from her
personal cabinet, which as she'd suspected was wide open already, and
took a glass match for the Bard's own. She set it down on the table,
eyebrow cocked, and took a seat of her own. Casually, as if this were
not the knife's edge. The Bard set down the lute on her lap to lean
forward, pouring Malicia's glass uncouthly full from her flask. The
empress politely took her cup, breathing in the scent, and froze. She
took a tentative sip. It was truly horrid wine, somehow tasting of mud,
but Alaya knew it well. She'd been drinking it for years with someone
now lost to her. Her heart clenched.

``Fate's a bitch,'' the Wandering Bard confessed. ``I should know, I've
served as the closest thing Calernia has to one since before\ldots{}
well, written calendars really. Only the Riddle-Maker's older and his
kind didn't really bother with that sort of thing.''

Ice, let her be ice. Smooth and cold and polished enough this old
monster would see only her own reflection.

``You will not distract me with interesting fragments of history,''
Malicia said. ``You came here with a purpose.''

``It's the only way I can go anywhere,'' the Bard snorted, then drank
deep of her cup. ``Gah, definitely not a \emph{lucky} draw. But as I was
saying, my good -- well, you know what I mean -- empress, I feel like
the time where we were enemies has passed. At least temporarily, yes?''

``You killed Sabah,'' Alaya evenly said.

``You liked her,'' the Bard noted. ``So did I. Most people did, I
imagine, when she wasn't eating or killing them. But she needed to die
so I could get my way. So she did.''

Ice, ice. She would not think of kind smiles or the children left
behind, for where would that lead her? Only ice would see her live out
the year. Malicia moved her lips into a smile, did not let it reach her
eyes.

``And how many of my troubles can be laid at your feet, I wonder?''
Malicia asked.

``The funny thing is,'' the Bard said, ``honestly not that much.''

She waved a hand dismissively, trailing wine all over the table.

``I work through Named,'' the Bard said, revealing nothing the Eyes had
not already told her, ``and Named haven't been your problem. Your empire
has been going to shit because you Role doesn't match your Name.''

``Is that so?'' Malicia politely smiled.

``You've been ruling like a Chancellor,'' the Bard said. ``But the
Chancellor's not meant to be on top of things in these parts. A Dread
Empress is meant to add, inspire, create. You've been dividing,
lessening, binding. Chancellor's work, and that's why it's all been
going downhill: you no longer have other Named on your side to
compensate for that.''

``I told you history would not distract me,'' Malicia said. ``Did you
think namelore would?''

``I just like to talk,'' the Bard artlessly confessed. ``But let's be
all business, if you want. You have a problem: Catherine Foundling very
badly wants you dead and there's no one left in a position to stop
her.''

``Ater still stands,'' Malicia said.

``Said every Dread Empress who ever got murdered,'' the Bard replied,
rolling her eyes. ``It's not a \emph{siege} that's going to decide this.
You've got an empire's worth of stories come home to roost in Ater,
Allie, and that's what kills or saves you.''

``And here I had thought it would be a blade,'' Malicia smiled.

The Bard snorted.

``Sure, if you want to be obtuse about it,'' she said. ``The blade's
just the natural consequence of the story turning against you. It
doesn't drive the carriage, it's a destination. And you're in luck, my
friend, because it happens that destination your-head-on-a-pike just
isn't doing anything for me. It's a bit of pain in my ass, to be
honest.''

``What a fortunate happenstance,'' Malicia said. ``I, too, would prefer
to avoid my decapitation. You have thoughts on how this might be
achieved?''

``I'm all about thoughts,'' the Bard agreed. ``Just so many thoughts. So
lemme share one with you: do you know when a Named is most vulnerable?''

``At the end of a pattern of three, presumably,'' Malicia said.

While those did not necessarily end in death for the villain involved,
that did seem to be the prevalent trend.

``Nah,'' the Bard slurred, ``it's just before they come into their Name.
See, that's the spot where they're riding fate but they're not really
\emph{protected} yet.''

The empress considered the other woman a moment, drinking shallowly from
her cup.

``I am told,'' Malicia said, ``that Catherine Foundling is coming into a
Name.''

``Defence isn't how you win this game,'' the Bard said. ``So we're going
on the offensive, you and I.''

Malicia's eyes narrowed.

``How?''

``It's not set yet, what she's turning into,'' the Bard said. ``So we
nudge it so it becomes what we need. The east that is land and armies
and politics, all the things that pass, instead of the \emph{East} --
the story, the idea. Old Evil and buried grudges, the other half of the
world. She's only as dangerous as what she keeps, you see.''

She was starting to.

``And when she transitions?''

``There's this joke I love,'' the blue-eyed Bard enthusiastically said.
``It's from Ashur so, you know, it's not actually \emph{funny}, but it's
great anyways and it goes like this -- and stop me if you've heard it
before!''

She cleared her throat, which somehow had her spilling a third of her
cup over her own lute and then cursing before wiping it off effectively
with her sleeve.

``Right so there's this man who goes to a priest, a Speaker,'' the Bard
said. ``And he says that his daughter's taken up with some Praesi,
proper smitten. So he's come for advice because he needs a time, a place
and man to officiate.''

The Bard began chortling, already taken with her own joke.

``So the Speaker gives them, only the man comes back the day after all
riled up,'' she said. ``Says it was a disaster. Why, the priest asks.
Did the wedding not go well? And then the man erupts: wedding? I was
asking about-''

``-a funeral,'' Malicia finished.

It was easy enough to infer from context. The Bard pouted.

``I don't know why people keep doing that to me,'' she whined. ``No
wonder you're a villain.''

Malicia ignored her\ldots{} ally's petty moaning, herself taking petty
satisfaction in having caused it.

``A time, a place and a man to officiate,'' Dread Empress Malicia mused.
``That is all?''

``That's the good thing about Catherine, Allie,'' the Intercessor
grinned, all teeth and malice. ``You can always count on her to bring
the knife.''