webcrawl/APGTE/Book-5/tex/Ch-131.md.tex

\hypertarget{interlude-a-hundred-battles}{%
\section{Interlude: A Hundred
Battles}\label{interlude-a-hundred-battles}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``Under pale moon,}

\emph{Across the snow}

\emph{As the dead croon}

\emph{And flies the crow}

\emph{Did we not lose,}

\emph{A hundred times?}

\emph{Did we not win,}

\emph{A hundred times?}

\emph{Our iron wrought,}

\emph{Saw use earnest}

\emph{It rusted not}

\emph{Left unburnished}

\emph{Did we not lose,}

\emph{A hundred times?}

\emph{Did we not win,}

\emph{A hundred times?}

\emph{We came and went,}

\emph{Unconquered few}

\emph{We Tyrant's get,}

\emph{The tried and true}

\emph{Did we not lose,}

\emph{A hundred times?}

\emph{Did we not win,}

\emph{A hundred times?}

\emph{Weep not for us,}

\emph{For in the annals}

\emph{Our stele reads thus:}

\emph{A hundred battles}

\emph{For we did lose,}

\emph{A hundred times}

\emph{And we will win,}

\emph{A hundred times}

\emph{`till falls the age,}

\emph{And end the times!''}

-- ``Dead In A Hundred Battles'', Helikean soldier's song
\end{quote}

``I win,'' Kairos Theodosian laughed.

``- death,'' the Hierarch of the Free Cities said.

The Tyrant wished and the candle was lit.

No heartbeat passed before the wroth of the Choir of Mercy descended
upon him: it was immediate and unflinching. Even as his lie echoed
across the hall the curse laid upon him by the Grey Pilgrim tightened
its grip, seeking to smother him. Ah, it was worth every irksome moment
where he'd been denied the pleasure of blatant lies to now have the
Peregrine's little mistake smash the Ophanim in the back of the knee
just before they could tidy up all the loose ends. Mercy's cold purpose
forced against him, an immeasurable sea of pressure against his soul,
and the Tyrant of Helike was going to lose this. But he knew, even as
his last good eye shrivelled in its socket, that he had bought a
candlespan of life before that loss occurred. And that made all the
difference in the world, didn't it?

``I have vexed you, I see,'' the Tyrant gregariously said, addressing
Mercy. ``Well, if you would allow me a-''

They did not, in fact, allow him a rebuttal. The full weight of the
Choir's attention descended upon him and he tasted blood in his mouth,
as the Ophanim finally grasped that they would not be allowed to murder
the Hierarch before they'd dealt with him. Stories were such a funny
thing, weren't they? Like, say, `wicked villain is sentenced never to
lie again by the champion of a Choir, then in a moment of delightful
hubris speaks such a lie'. It was the kind of story that'd need a
thundering, righteous Choir to smite that uppity servant of Below. Not
the sort of thing you could do while simultaneously serving as the
hidden knife of the Heavens in someone else's tale. It wouldn't matter
that the Choir had the \emph{capacity} to serve in both roles
concurrently. Fate would punish such lackluster commitment with failure
on both fronts.

His left knee pulped. The Tyrant was not certain whether that was his
own doing or that of the angels, which rather amused him.

Kairos has once been told he would not make it to his thirteen nameday,
a prophecy croaked by the dry lips of the ancient thing that laid in the
crypt deep beneath Helike. And it'd told it true, it had. A hero might
have thought, perhaps, that their kind and benevolent Gods had cured
them of their many miseries. Kairos Theodosian knew very well what
manner of deity he served, though, and so never once deluded himself
into believing this -- indeed it was a relief, when he first came into
his favourite of his aspects. Wish. What a pretty bauble it had been,
seeing the wish of others. Even more so when he learned it could be used
to \emph{do} things, to bridge the gap between the possible and the not.
For a price, of course. It was then the he understood the prophecy,
forged anew by darker hands.

Twelve times the Tyrant of Helike would be allowed to see come and go
the day of the year where he had been Named and die on the dawn of the
last. The Gods Below, magnificent monsters that they were, had presented
him with a beautiful dilemma: would he spend his thirteen years of
reprieve in mediocre obscurity, or would he \emph{spend} the years to
reach for glory? For that was the nature of wishing: all could be had,
for a span of the life he might have lived.

``I always was a spendthrift at heart,'' Kairos confessed. ``It is the
nature of princes, my friends, to waste the treasuries of their
fathers.''

Alas, the Choir of Mercy was growing no fonder of him. It must have been
quite cross, he mused, that its greatest strength was hamstrung by its
own champion. For Mercy was not the mightiest of the Choirs, the most
farsighted or the most beloved: it was the most flexile, befitting of
its purpose as the tier of loose ends for the Heavens. Yet now it must
pass its thread through on very particular needle's head before it could
attend to greater purposes, namely the continued existence of Kairos
Theodosian. Anaxares, glorious mad son of Bellerophon that he was, was
attempting for force his verdict upon the dealers of verdicts, and
though he was not succeeding neither was he \emph{failing}. The
Seraphim's crushing strength slid over the Hierarch like water off a
duck's back, though his own burning indictment found bite but no flesh:
even with Bellerophon's fury at his back, the Choir of Judgement
remained the Choir of Judgement.

It was like watching a man attempting to wrestle the sea, and every bit
as gloriously absurd as that sounded.

The Ophanim, sadly, did not seem to agree. And in their impatience as
finishing to choke out the Hierarch -- oh, that one detail must have
burned Tariq like acid when he'd emerged at the crucial moment and
unleashed his patrons like a dagger in the side -- they decided the time
for subtlety was past. If a tight grip would not suffice, then a fist
would have to serve. The Tyrant, Gods take him if he lied, had no parry
against such a stroke. Even simply receiving it would burn through the
last of his life in the bat of an eye. Of course he didn't \emph{need}
to have such a parry, not strictly speaking. The Ophanim smiting this
entire temple into barren ash would mean\ldots{}

Darkness flooded the broken House of Light, the cold night soothing
Kairos like a cold press as it cooled the blood seeping out of his
pores. His head lolled back, the bone of his neck feeling like they were
made of wobbling pastry, and he grinned malevolently as a match was
struck a mere foot away from him. It was the sole light to be had, and
it cast Catherine Foundling's face into sharp relief as she lighted her
pipe. She puffed, glowing red embers burning as she did, and spat out
long stream of wakeleaf.

``You want to burn Kairos, burn Kairos,'' his beloved enemy shrugged.
``But you don't get to burn the rulers of half the continent with him.
Archer's escorting them out, under protection of the Hierophant. Until
they're out of the way, hold your hand.''

It was a superb thing, the way the Black Queen could so address a Choir
and expect to be \emph{obeyed}. She'd survived so many close calls with
angels she'd somehow come to believe she could match them, and through
that utterly crazed belief become something that could genuinely give a
Choir pause. And so Mercy found itself peering into the Night, wondering
if the battle laid out there to be fought would truly result in its
victory -- and hesitating, for the consequences if it didn't would be
utterly \emph{disastrous}. Against any other foe it would have struck
regardless, but Sve Noc? The blood-soaked goddess of theft in victory?
Losing might just have \emph{consequences}. And even the villainess was
preventing the full exercise of their power, she was letting through the
wroth still shattering him bit by bit. Their hand held, and convulsive
laughter escaped his throat until he choked on it. How long would it
take for them to grasp that every time she got away with that, she came
harder into the story of \emph{someone who could get away with that}?

``You're about to die,'' the Black Queen told him.

``Well spotted,'' Kairos cheerfully replied.

He spat out a thick glob of smoking blood afterwards, but it was well
worth the trade.

``Now would be a good time to pay up what you yet owe,'' the Queen of
Callow said.

``Indeed,'' the Tyrant of Helike mused. ``Allow me then to grant you the
greatest gift of all.''

The red burn of her pipe was the sole light in the dark, and what
allowed him to be certain he was addressing \emph{her} instead of an
endless void. It also revealed her sigh.

``It's a monologue, isn't it?'' she said, sounding resigned.

His fingers clenched, not out of surprise or dismay but because a swath
of flesh and muscle on his arm had gone dead and dried up in the span of
a breath, contracting the rest. Yet the rebellions of his own body were
nothing new to him and did not truly distract from the great pleasure of
having someone who \emph{understood}. Not someone who agreed or
sympathized, for indeed either of those things would have spoiled the
broth, but someone who\ldots{} followed the cast of his dice. It was
such a rare, precious thing.

``Gods Below, Catherine,'' he grinned, ``why would it be anything
else?''

His throne was half-sunken into he ground now, his attendant gargoyles
made rubble, but still he clasped his scepter and his head loosely kept
Theodosius' crown. All was as it should be.

``It is said among my people that the hour of death is also the hour of
revelation,'' Kairos said, ``for when the distance between life and
death grows thin so do the veils that keep our eyes from hidden truths.
My own father, for example, called me as \emph{grotesque imp} as he
died. Which was remarkably perceptive for the old drunk, I assure you.
Still, I'll admit stabbing him those seventeen times might have served
as something of a hint.''

Talking should have, by all earthly laws, precipitated his death. Taken
him tumbling down the cliff of annihilation, an already strained body
and soul snapping like a twig under the added strain. Instead, the
Tyrant of Helike found the trembling of his hand slowing, the blood in
his throat drying. He was, after all, villain speaking his death-words:
earthly laws were the lesser set of those now applying to him.

``I stabbed my father too,'' the Black Queen mused. ``Twice. And it
wasn't even the same person both times.''

Well, now she was just showing off. And by amusing him doing almost as
much to kill him as the angels were, which was quite inconvenient.

``Don't interrupt,'' Kairos chided. ``This is a monologue, not
\emph{repartee}. As I was saying, in the spirit of my rapidly
approaching annihilation, I would therefore offer revelations.''

And did he not have a great trove of these to spill over the ground,
painstakingly gathered one betrayal at a time?

``We begin with the corpse of an angel,'' the Tyrant of Helike said,
``though of course there can be no such thing.''

It was months ago he had first dangled that truth in front of her and
knew she had been digging after it ever since. As well she should, for
it was the very devil in the details -- in a manner of speaking.

``In glorious old days,'' Kairos Theodosian wistfully said, ``there was
once a woman who broke in Evil as one would break in a stallion. From
triumph to triumph did she march, west and ever pursuing, until by the
shores of a great lake she met in strife a hundred priests-elect of the
Hallowed. And these holy souls did scour themselves to bring forth the
great spirit they worshipped, one that cast judgement upon all it
beheld, and behold her it did.''

Ah, what he would not have done for a glimpse of that grand moment.
Truly, there never had been nor ever would be a match to Dread Empress
Triumphant.

``For that presumption she slew it,'' The Tyrant ferally grinned, sharp
teeth bared, ``bearing tall banner, and wrote her rage in blood across a
hundred trembling tribes. That which was not a corpse sunk into deep
waters, turning into bones that dreamt, and there was left to slumber.
Some across the years learned of this, and of the great works that might
wrought from such a thing, but none were so bold as to attempt to make a
sword out hallowing petrified.''

Ah, but heroes lacked for such beautiful ambitions. The living kin of
that dreaming thing came too easily to their help, he'd always thought,
and so there was no need for ingenuity unleashed.

``That hoped-for boldness still escapes our kind,'' he mourned, ``but a
lesser manner of soul did grow \emph{desperate} enough.''

How could Cordelia Hasenbach not be, when doom covered her home and kin
as the south tore itself apart in a war with no end nor meaning? There
had been so little left to lose, and in the end the First Prince
answered first to \emph{duty}.

``This is no coincidence,'' Kairos reminded his peer, ``for indeed there
are no coincidences. This one least of all, however, for it is a harsh
sword long in the swinging. There is a thing out there that delights in
intercession --''

He paused, allowing for dramatic arrival should it be in the cards. Only
silence answered.

``No?'' he mused. ``No, I suppose not. Not while the Hierarch still
breathes.''

Even should she wear a different face when she arrived, Kairos amusedly
thought, all that would change would be that the crime of
\emph{personation with intent to confuse the court} would be added to
her tally. If it was as he suspected, her very name would prevent her
from putting herself in such a situation even should she desire it.
Setting aside the thoughts, he returned to the thrust of his speaking,
though he did not there was not anger in the Black Queen's eyes. Ah,
noticed his little trick had she? That the wards around Lyonceau made
escape more difficult when the fabric of Creation was troubled. Which,
given the presence of two Choirs in wroth and the high priestess of
Night wielding the very stuff, was very much the case. It ought to keep
the hostages close long enough for his purposes.

``And that thing, Catherine,'' he drawled, ``it has been waiting a very
long time to kill another: one who claims rulership over dust and bones.
But is a cautious crown that lairs to the north, one that does not often
leave its shell. It took cornering and opportunity, to bait it out.
Defeat on the horizon and victory at hand, how could even such a leery
thing not be tempted? It scuttled out and lost a finger or two but got
to witness the truth of its foe in exchange.''

One of his kidneys had just melted, the Tyrant dimly noticed. Oh dear,
that was quicker than anticipated. Mercy was refining its technique.

``A fair trade, as these things go,'' he rasped out.

He mastered his voice a moment later, with great effort.

``It would not have mattered,'' the Tyrant said, ``if not for the hidden
sting of augury. You see, there was a plan. A warden for the west,
besieged. Her ears open to whispers. And as the sky darkened, inch by
inch the finger would tighten until the trigger was pulled.''

His only functioning arm snapped up, for the other was a desiccated
waste, and he snapped his fingers.

``Death, dead,'' Kairos said with relish, for it had been a pretty plan
indeed. ``That was the trick, you see: letting it eat someone's whole
world before they mattered, and then make them \emph{matter.} Too late,
then, to shake free of that story and the chains it brings. Quite a bit
more would die along with it, of course, but then victory is not without
costs. The clever crown caught on early, now, and it flees back to its
lair. It would shed the chains binding it for a set more pleasing, if
you let it.''

He met the Black Queen's gaze, with his bloody red eye.

``Don't let it, Catherine,'' he said. ``It does not \emph{deserve}
this.''

He hacked out a wet laugh, for deserving hardly ever mattered.

``And so here we are now, at the crossroads of it all,'' Kairos
Theodosian said. ``The crossbow has been forged, and aimed, but the hand
that wields it is closed to intercession. Its quarry is a lion rampant,
and forewarned, but there are a great many hunters gathering to hunt it.
It would lair again, let the danger pass, but it cannot simply vanish --
lest it be followed, crossbow in hand. To survive now it must either cow
the hunters or break the crossbow.''

And even then, the Dead King would not ever truly trust the first of
those two. Even cowed, the great Names of Calernia might still be nudged
into rolling the dice. It had made striking fresh bargain with it after
the Graveyard disappointingly easy. He'd been looking forward to the
challenge of convincing Keter to ally again after betraying it so often
and cheerfully.

``And so back it went to its old friend Kairos,'' the Tyrant drawled,
``who happened to have a grain of sand on hand that fit that hallowed
mechanism quite nicely. There was a need for some expertise to see it
through, which was helpfully provided, and now we arrive at the moment
of truth.

He grinned, his teeth gone red for the bleeding of his gums.

``Yes, Catherine, I see the question is on the tip of your tongue. Say
it.''

She studied him, unblinking.

``What happens when a Judgement-corpse is wielded, if Judgement is
dead?''

The right question, as he had expected. She had yet to disappoint.

``Truth of truths, my friend,'' he chortled, ``I already gave you the
only answer to that question worthy of being spoken.''

A Rochelant, when they had first begun this dance of theirs.

``That's the entire point,'' she softly quoted, ``finding out.''

He'd be dead long before that riddle was answered, naturally, but what
did that matter?

``Now,'' the Tyrant cheerfully said, ``you two distressing damsels stuck
bargain with me in Salia, and I promised you a good reason to keep
warring on Keter. I am a tyrant of my word, and so here it is:
\emph{Keter will keep warring on you.''}

Surprise, for though she was clever and ruthless and dangerous, she did
have an inflated sense of the threat she truly represented to an entity
like the Dead King.

``Your coalition does not scare the King of Death,'' Kairos told her,
not unkindly, ``your petty assembly of armies and treaties which you so
wastefully wring your hands over. He fears only one thing in all the
world, and I have torn through the perilous nets she wove against him.''

The darkness thinned, and the Ophanim wasted no breath in stepping
harder on his existence. Kairos spat out blood that looked like boiling
pitch, burning a streak down his own chin. The hostages must be close to
out of danger, then. Yet it was as had been ordained, for now that he
had spoken in pride through the lessened gloom he was allowed to see if
his pride was to be deemed arrogance after all. Was the net truly
broken? Would a thousand years of fury and madness poured into a single
man be enough to humble a Choir? For all his scheming and deals, the
truth was that the Tyrant had no idea.

No longer was Anaxares the Diplomat flattened into the ground by angelic
verdict, he saw, mended only by stubborn will. Yet that did not mean the
Hierarch was winning. It was, to his eye, a shattering deadlock. The
will of Judgement was hammering down from the Heavens, to no avail, yet
Anaxares' scathing dismissal of that authority was not resulting into
his own judgement biting into the Choir's flesh. It was a tight embrace
between entities that could not bend and a man that would not. It would
not be enough, Kairos saw. In time the Tyrant would be slain, and when
that moment came Mercy would choke the life out of the Hierarch.

Too strong. Even after all the schemes and the lies and the hundred
petty victories, the servants of the Heavens were simply too strong.
Like a rat biting a lion's tail, their rage had been a splendid but
doomed gesture. Yet there was glory in that too, the Tyrant of Helike
thought. In firing an arrow at the moon and coming close before it fell
back down and took you in the throat. Even in defeat he would have no
regrets, for --

``If you will not come to me,'' the Hierarch said, rising to his feet,
``then I will come to \emph{you}.''

Anaxares of Bellerophon rose while under angel's wroth, and for that
insolence the flesh was peeled from his bones by fervent fire.

``Oh,'' Kairos breathed out, genuinely moved. ``Oh, you splendid
madman.''

The Hierarch of the Free Cities was swallowed whole by shimmering heat
that for a moment chased out of even the darkness of Night. And when it
went out, he was gone. The White Knight dropped to the ground living,
but unconscious, and the Tyrant of Helike felt a laugh bubble out of his
throat. Not a rat biting a lion's tail, how wrong he had been. This was
a king swallowing poison. He was with them, now. Standing among them,
obstructing like only the sons and daughters of Bellerophon could.

``Gods keep you, Hierarch,'' Kairos said, and for the first time spoke
the title with respect.

\emph{Gods Below keep you, Anaxares of Bellerophon, and it is a pride to
call you Hierarch of the Free Cities,} he thought. \emph{Die as you
lived, my friend, without peer in your madness.}

``And now we have a war, Catherine,'' the Tyrant of Helike said. ``The
war that will bring this age to an end, one way or another.''

The Black Queen looked at him through the dying gloom, her face a cool
mask.

``On your feet, Kairos Theodosian,'' she said. ``That much you are owed,
and not a single thing more.''

It would have been a lovely thing, he thought, to dance with that one
until one of them died of it. A lovely thing indeed. Matted in sweat and
blood, one knee a ruin and both legs half-gone, the Tyrant of Helike
pushed himself up. He stumbled forward, legs failing him, and knew he
would die before he touched the ground. And it came, it came as he knew
it would. Like a whisper across his skin, soothing the pain like a kind
hand flicking dust away from his shoulder.

Below was watching.

The attention itself was as a question, for what man or woman alive had
paid finer dues than the Tyrant of Helike? And so, at this later hour,
he was asked for his wish. So many tantalizing possibilities flickered
in the back of his mind. Curses that would rend the continent asunder,
the strength to wound even the Choir that was about to take his life or
even a loop in the hole -- a few years more, if he could talk his way
into keeping them. \emph{O Wicked Gods of mine, do you not know me
better than this? All I have ever wanted of you was the answer to a
single question, and only in this moment could it be asked.} One
staggering step forward, and he wet his lips as he spoke.

``lo,'' he croaked out, ``and behold\ldots{}''

Another step, his knee giving out. If he could only prick his hear, he
thought he might\ldots{}

``I have\ldots{}slain-'' he whispered.

Ahead of him the veil lifted, and terrible light was revealed. And in
that moment he finally heard it.

``-the Age of Wonders,'' the Tyrant finished, smiling with pure childish
joy.

And to the sound of applause only he could hear, a moment before light
engulfed him, Kairos Theodosian died.