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\chapter*{Interlude: Flow}\label{interlude-flow}}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{\nameref{interlude-flow}} \chaptermark{Interlude: Flow}

\epigraph{``If you are to win the most then you must win always, else you
will find a hundred more knives pointed at your back for every victory.
This is both the promise of imperial greatness and the fate of imperial
death.''}{Extract from `The Behaviours of Civil Conduct', by High Lady Mchumba
Sahelian}



The fighting had broken out at midday and lasted until half a bell
before nightfall.

Neither the Magisterium nor General Basilia had wanted to roll the dice
by continuing the battle in the dark. Helikeans kataphraktoi harassed
the retreating Spears of Stygia as they retreated, loosing arrows in the
back of the phalanx, but after the day's losses those were but a drop in
the bucket. It wasn't like the phalanx could break, either: the leather
collar around the neck of every single slave soldier served as a
reminder that the displeasure of their masters would be both swift and
final. Magister Andras sent out crossbowmen to chase them away, but like
mayflies the famous cataphracts of Helike simply danced away and found
somewhere else to sting.

Magister Zoe Ixioni set down her glass of wine, having drunk as deep as
she dared given the night still ahead of her. The viewing pavilion that
had been raised for the members of the Magisterium that accompanied the
Stygian army but would not be involved in the day's fighting -- the
majority of them -- was rather luxurious and privately paid fund, a
gesture of thanks from Magister Andras and Magister Kyra after they were
appointed to command of the Stygian army. The twins had sent most of
their time in the Magisterium as part one of its the lesser parties, the
Herons, but they were not fools or unskilled at games of power. They
were making the most of the opportunity they'd been given.

``We hold the field,'' Magister Gorgion murmured, drawing her attention.
``Is that not\ldots{} worrying?''

The young man was prodigiously fat, which Zoe had once noted to run in
his family, and though he was now the head of what remained of the
Laskaris she had several times regretted bringing him into the fold.
Though a steady ally -- he was terrified of being assassinated should
she withdraw her protection -- he was also nervous and hesitant,
requiring constant reassurance. Would that it had been his older brother
that their mother had left in Stygia, when she went out on campaign. The
older Laskaris would have been a more fitting partner than the dregs the
White Knight's wrath had left Zoe to work with.

``It does not matter,'' Magister Zoe quietly said. ``This, too, serves
our purposes.''

The ranks of the Magisterium, by tradition, could never number higher
than ninety-nine. In practice actual membership usually fluctuated
between seventy and ninety, only every rarely approaching that limit,
but these days their ranks were rather more thinned. The White Knight
and the Ashen Priestess had slain over a third of the Magisterium in a
single day during Kairos' War, and though replacements had come forward
further losses had since been suffered to war and intrigues. Considering
those slain by heroes had been the finest war mages of Stygia, and a
great majority of the Black Vines party that had effectively ruled since
the Carrion Lord's intervention decades ago, the ensuing politics had
been\ldots{} fluid.

As a member in good standing of the Black Vines, Zoe had certainly felt
the ground grow unsteady under her feet.

The coalition that'd succeeded at taking the reins and stacking the
Courts and appointments had then promptly collapsed in the wake of the
disastrous campaign into Procer, leaving as successor an even shakier
alliance. The Ivory Tile party had widely been seen as the only rival to
the Black Vines, before the last few years of war, but they'd lost too
many of their prominent members to either heroes or defections. They'd
survived long enough to be the tallest dwarf, however, and to burnish
their reputation in this time of danger to Stygia they had allied with
the only real military party left in the city: the Herons. Though the
lesser of the two partners, the Herons had only been brought into the
fold at the price of their leaders, the twins of the Sideris, being
named commanders of all Stygian armies in the coming campaign.

Already there was talk of formalizing the alliance, of merging into a
single greater party, and in Zoe's opinion there was sense in it. The
Herons typically advocated that Magisters should train as generals
instead of simply leaving such duties to slaves, while the Ivory Tile
was the champion of the politics of Haides the Elder -- that balance in
the League must be maintained, at the price of war if necessary. There
was compatibility in ideals, even in the long view, which made such a
merging possible. And after the leaders of the Herons had today scored a
draw against General Basilia, perhaps the finest commander to come out
of the Free Cities this generation, they would now have the prestige to
take such a step without simply being gobbled up by the Ivory Tiles.

It was near enough to decided who the rulers of Stygia would be in the
coming decade, bar disaster. Magister Zoe Ixioni watched the corners of
the pavilion, where other magisters were speaking to each other in low
murmurs, and smiled at nervous young Gorgion.

``Aretha the Raven, who twice defeated a Helikean field army using
mostly sailors and whores, once said that in the Free Cities a general
has more to fear from victory than defeat,'' Zoe softly said. ``Commit
the words to memory, Magister Gorgion.''

She rose to her feet gracefully and took her leave from the young man,
refusing the serving slave that came to offer her a full glass of wine
and instead leaving the pavilion entirely. There was another tent, close
by, where one could relieve themselves in privacy and relative comfort.
Zoe began to head there but slowed her steps as soon as she was out of
sight and then stopped. Before long, the woman she'd been waiting for
arrived. Magister Phryne's gaunt face was said to have been made this
way by the strange magics she delighted in using, for she had once been
a great beauty. Whatever the truth of that, Zoe had always found her
appearance unsettling. Her politics, though, were almost painfully
straightforward.

``The Pale Chariot will lend its support,'' Magister Phryne said, with
remarkable bluntness.

Zoe nodded. She'd expected as much the moment it became clear that the
Herons were headed for positions of influence. The Pale Chariot as a
party boasted only a half dozen reclusive mages whose personal cause was
the safeguarding and improvement of magical knowledge in Stygia, so they
tended to be left outside of political calculations. Which meant
relatively few people bothered to notice that the only appointments they
every sought outside the Court of Arcane was a single seat in the Court
of Trades, which they always fought hard for. It was meant, Zoe Ixioni
had bothered to notice, to safeguard their common interests in the
steelworking industries whose profits happened to \emph{pay} for all
these costly experiments they liked to indulge in.

A detail of little import, unless you also knew that the leading Herons
had strong investments in the very same trade and would not hesitate a
moment to use their newfound prominence to stack the Court of Trades and
award themselves all those lucrative contracts currently funding the
Pale Chariot coffers.

``For which you have our gratitude,'' Magister Zoe said. ``The
Keepers?''

``You have ours,'' Magister Phryne said. ``Amyntor Eliade is not
affiliated with us.''

\emph{No}, Zoe thought, \emph{but he does happen to be my cousin}. The
magister offered a demure smile and nothing else, for over a decade of
diplomacy had schooled her well in keeping her thoughts hidden.

All that was left, now, was to take the plunge.

---

Merchant Prince Mauricius did not have an office, not in the sense his
predecessor did.

Though the Princely Palace was his since he had been elected to the
ancient and respectable office he now held, the old merchant had bought
enough servants on those grounds to know it was as a leaking sieve.
Perhaps he would see to mending that, should the mood ever take him, but
until then he saw absolutely no need to keep any private papers and
affairs out of his manse. Instead, when he was not attending sessions of
the Forty-Stole Court or giving audience in the palace he preferred to
retreat to his favorite establishment -- Sub Rosa, tucked away near the
Irenian Plaza at the heart of power in the City of Bought and Sold.
There the merchant prince sipped at his Yan Tei rice wine, imported from
across the sea and served warm.

A fine delicacy, he decided, and an interesting experience. The latter
was perhaps more important, to a man of his advanced age. Novelty often
interested him more than simple luxuries. What point was there in being
one of the wealthiest men alive, if he did not use that wealth to
experience everything under the sun? This particular evening, however it
was not simply for the service he had come to Sub Rosa. The obsessive
secrecy of the establishment was what he had sought it out for, not the
foreign drink, for the diplomats he was to meet were not of the sort
that it was diplomatic to entertain these days. The Tower had few allies
left, and if Mauricius was reading the currents to the south correctly
it was soon to have even fewer.

When the servants finally ushered in two unremarkable young men, of dark
hair and simple clothing, the merchant prince cocked an eyebrow.

``That is an impressive glamour,'' Mauricius greeted them.

He could almost see something around the edges giving it away, though,
and held back a frown. He had begun to see much too well for a man his
age, even one who had access to some of the finest enhancing rituals on
Calernia. He was not certain whether or not to be pleased by the
implication of that.

``Your compliment does us honour, Your Grace,'' a pleasant speaking
voice replied. ``This one humbly accepts the praise on behalf of his
mistress.''

The glamour fell, revealing a young man -- though in a Praesi with
golden eyes, as this one was, that semblance meant little -- in fine red
silks, dark of skin and finely formed. A Wasteland aristocrat, unlike
the formal ambassador of the Tower in the city, and Dread Empress
Malicia's personal envoy. The other figure remained cloaked and hooded,
standing still as the envoy slid into the seat on the other side of the
table. The young man had not waited for permission, Mauricius noted, for
all that he was using that obsequious Praesi formal diplomatic language.

``You forget your courtesies,'' the Merchant Prince mildly said.

``This one was wary of waiting, Your Grace,'' the envoy pleasantly
smiled. ``For this one's mistress has grown uneasy of\ldots{} long
waits, in beautiful Mercantis.''

It was said that the Dread Empress of Praes knew black arts that let her
make a puppet of a body far away, Mauricius knew. There were a hundred
rumours of the like about every one of the madmen who claimed the Tower,
of course, but this one had been repeated across enough years that it
had the ring of truth. Was one such body, then, under the cloak?

``Pull down your hood,'' Mauricius bluntly ordered.

The stranger obeyed, but it was not some dark-skinned homunculus that
the Merchant Prince was gazing upon. It was, he found with a shiver, his
own face. Immediately he reached for the rune carved onto the side of
the table, which would-

\textbf{``Freeze.''}

Mauricius froze. The face of the insolent youth with golden eyes was as
a blank mask.

``I dislike handling such matters personally,'' Dread Empress Malicia
calmly said. ``But the free rein you have given the band of Named in the
city forces my hand. I congratulate you for that much, Mauricius.''

The Merchant Prince fought, strained to break the spell.

``A Name?'' the Dread Empress said, sounding surprised. ``Or a claim, at
least. Either way, it means that \textbf{Ruling} you is unfeasible in
the long term. Which leaves me with only the less civilized path to
take.''

Mauricius tried to scream as the thing wearing his face eagerly came
forward, and even let out a small hiss when it lunged forward with a
lamprey-like mouth and tore out a chunk of his throat.

``I do apologize,'' Dread Empress Malicia conversationally said, ``but
my diabolists assure me that you must be devoured whilst living for the
surface memories to be absorbed and the shape to become permanents. I
would have had you poisoned beforehand otherwise, Mauricius.''

Pain, Gods the \emph{pain}.

``Farewell, Merchant Prince,'' the Dread Empress of Praes said. ``May
you choose your enemies more wisely in your next life.''

---

When the Magisterium appointed generals, by ancient custom these
hallowed individuals were bestowed with a whip.

The reason why was simple: by law, no freeborn Stygian could serve as a
soldier. To hold a military command was to rule over slaves, for which
the proper tool was not sword or spear but the simple whip. Magister Zoe
Ixioni has served as a diplomatic envoy for the Magisterium for over a
decade and served on the Court of Manners for two consecutive terms as
the formal representative to League councils -- which while without
practical power, was a very prestigious position -- so she was quite
aware of how the rest of the Free Cities thought of Stygian armies.
\emph{The finest soldiers that were ever badly led}, Theodosius the
Unconquered had famously called them.

It was true that the Magisterium tended to choose its appointed generals
for their skill in magic or intrigue rather than more straightforward
military skills, which the oldest of the slave-officers of the phalanx
were expected to be able to discharge on behalf of their masters. By
association, interest in military matters was seen as either eccentric
or outright distasteful. It was slave-work not fit for freeborn
Stygians, much less members of the Magisterium. It was one of the
reasons why the Herons had been a minor party, never swelling beyond
nine sitters in Zoe's lifetime. Now Andras and Kyra Sideris, the same
twins leading the party that had lingered in irrelevance for decades,
were being welcome into the camp to raucous cheers.

Giving away all their weapons save the whips to serving slaves with
great ceremony the twins took off their helmets and let the glorious
black locks whip free. They were a handsome pair, nearing middle-age but
still in the prime of their life and wearing their armour with an ease
that hinted at the truth of the old stories saying they'd spent a few
years in Proceran fantassin companies during the Great War. The Spears
of Stygia that had fought and bled during the day were not granted the
same welcome, simply allowed to file in through side gates so the
wounded might be tended to and the irreparably crippled discreetly
poisoned.

Zoe left the Sideris twins basking in their glory, instead considering
the nature of what some Atalantian philosopher-priest had named the
`dilemma of the sword'. If authority came from the sword, then who could
rule save soldiers? Like most claims out of Atalante, it was empty air
when the priests claimed to have thought up the question: it had been at
the heart of Stygia for centuries, a millennium almost. In the days
after the fall of the great empire of Aenos Basileon, it was the eldest
daughter of Aenia that had first risen to prominence. Ancient Stygia,
under the patronage of the great cranes Retribution and Redress. The
ruling polemarchs raised a great standing army and crushed the haphazard
militias of their neighbours, forcing them to pay tribute, and for a
time the Free Cities had been in Stygia's palm.

Until the army deposed a ruling polemarch and installed in her place a
popular officer instead.

The aftermaths of the coup, which ultimately failed, broke the back of
the Stygian Empire. Delos and Atalante regained their independence, the
tribute system collapsed and it was made law that never again would a
freeborn Stygian serve as a soldier. Slaves, owned by the council of
leading sorcerer-nobles that had succeeded the polemarchs, would be the
city's only warriors. Much time and thought was spent on how these
Spears of Stygia would be kept under control, the methods crafted being
wide and varied, but the most important of them was the collars.
Enchanted leather bands that every slave-soldier would wear around their
neck, which were linked to two greater artefacts: the Leashes. Through
the Leashes, sorcerers could choke or kill a single soldier or a
thousand with but a word.

This had solved the dilemma of the sword, some argued, but in truth it
had simply moved around the pieces. It was barely a century before the
first general tried to use the Leashes and command of the Spears of
Stygia to take over the city by force, only stopped when the Magisterium
instead choked every single soldiers in their own army to death by
spell. Chastened and wary, the Magisterium ruled that no appointed
general would ever be allowed to hold the greater artifacts and created
the position of Keepers of the Leashes. Two Magisters, never of the same
party or kin by three degrees of the appointed general, would be charged
by the Court of Honours to serve as guardians and wielders of the single
most important artefacts in Stygia.

Over the years additional precautions and checks had been added to the
nature of the position of Keepers, but the institution had largely
functioned as intended.

``It is madness, you know.''

Zoe glanced at the man at her side, eyes lingering on the noble lines of
his face. Amyntor Eliade was a well-formed man, for all that his family
had been disgraced when his eldest sister, a recently seated magister,
had attempted to abolish slavery and destroy the Leashes. Nephele Eliade
had so despised chains, it was said, that the Gods Above had granted her
a Name for it. Zoe, who had ounce counted her as a friend as well as a
cousin, knew better than to believe it simple hearsay. That bout of
futility had destroyed Amyntor's chances at amounting to anything in
this lifetime, but Zoe's cousin had decided to redeem the family name
for future generations by seeking an appointment as one of the Keepers.
He would, he had told the Magisterium in a passionate speech, dedicate
his life to preserving what his sister had sought to destroy.

``The world has gone mad,'' Zoe replied. ``We do what we must to weather
the storm.''

``It will threaten the very foundations of Stygia,'' Amyntor warned.
``What is it that has so moved you to act, Zoe? You have always been
cautions. It cannot be the would-be Tyrant, we have known hundreds, or
even the alliance with the Tower -- your own Black Vines were ardent
partisans of it for decades.''

Magister Zoe Ixioni thought of that stately hall where the First Prince
of Procer had entertained the greats from all over Calernia, where
powers had sparred and found victory or loss. She thought of what had
followed in the wake of those days, the Peace of Salia with its Truce
and Terms. \emph{The world is changing}, she thought. There would be no
returning to the old ways after this, no matter what some of her
colleagues might delude themselves into believing.

``The tide rises, cousin,'' Zoe murmured. ``We may either rise with it
or drown.''

And Zoe Ixioni had not spent decades climbing her way to power so that
she could see it all collapse over her head. Amyntor sighed.

``So be it,'' he said. ``I expect Nephele would have smiled of it, if
nothing else.''

Zoe was less certain, as Nephele Eliade had been surprisingly farsighted
for all her moral naivete, but she knew better than to voice the
thought. She parted from her cousin, meeting Magister Phryne's eyes as
she passed the other woman and receiving a nod. It was done, then.
Magister Zoe passed through the crowd of servants and magisters, both
parting for her, and was received with wary eyes by the Sideris twins.
They had come down from their great war chariot, but both lingered near
it. The prestige of the gilded thing was impressive to those easily
impressed, which these days was too many of the Magisterium.

``Magister Ixioni,'' Kyra Sideris greeted her, tone friendly in a way
her eyes were not. ``Do you come to offer congratulations?''

``I do,'' Zoe said. ``Your conduct of the battle was exemplary. All of
Stygia is in your debt.''

Surprise from both twins, and the wariness thickened.

``You overpraise us,'' Andras Sideris carefully said.

``If so, that is fortunate,'' Magister Zoe replied, ``for you are now
both relieved from command.''

There was a heartbeat of surprise, then Kyra began to laugh. Her brother
did not, eyes darkening.

``Such a dismissal would require a vote of the Magisterium,'' Andras
began, then froze.

All around them the Spears of Stygia began to stream in. Armed and
ready, pushing the surprised magisters that had not been part of the
conspiracy away from the edges of the forming circle.

``This is treason,'' Kyra hissed, and she raised her whip.

The enchantments laid on it found no purchase on the collars binding the
slave-soldiers, for the sorcery of both Leashes had already been used to
sever the control of all lesser artefacts in the camp on the slaves.

``Surrender,'' Zoe gently said. ``While you still can.''

``We are \emph{winning}, Ixioni,'' Magister Andras urgently pressed.
``Even now the Helikeans will be considering terms-''

``Terms have already been reached with General Basilia,'' the diplomat
said. ``We will, tomorrow, offer our formal surrender and submission in
exchange for which we will allowed to rule Stygia largely as we wish.''

Some small cities taken by Nicae would be returned as well, which would
serve as a useful sweetener for the people when they returned home.

``That treaty will be worth nothing, when Basilia next grows hungry,''
Andras scorned.

``It will be guaranteed by Cordelia Hasenbach, First Prince of Procer,''
Zoe Ixioni smiled.

The utter startlement on their faces was a pleasure to behold. The
Spears began to arrest members of the Ivory Tile and the Herons, the few
magisters who'd sat the fence of the coup -- for this was very much a
coup -- looking on nervously.

``You lie,'' Kyra Sideris accused. ``She refused the Magisterium when we
reached out, what could you possibly offer that would be worth her
while?''

``The Magisterium,'' Zoe said, ``will formally abolish slavery.''

In name, at least. There would be no more slaves, but there would be a
great many indentured servants -- it would be easy enough to simply pay
slaves less than their upkeep required and let that debt trickle down to
their children as it did in the laws of Mercantis. It would maintain the
old practices with a deniable veneer, not unlike the practices of Ashur.
If there were some troubles, well, it would not be difficult to pass
laws through the Court of Order that stripped debtors the rights
reserved for free citizens of Stygia and further tilt the advantage away
from the freed slaves.

``You'll die for this, Ixioni,'' Kyra Sideris raged, fingers tight
around the whip. ``I'll have my revenge, I swear it.''

Magister Zoe considered that for a moment, then nodded and walked away.

``Kill them both,'' Zoe ordered a slave-officer as she passed him.

She did not stay to see it unfold, for she had a formal letter of
surrender to draft.

---

It was as the White Knight had suspected: the Merry Balladeer's song did
not simply reach ears, it reached souls directly.

In other circumstances that would have been a mere interesting fact, but
Antigone had been taught the `ways-of-seeing-the-world' -- there was no
word in any language knew that accurately translated the word in the
tongue of the Gigantes -- and that meant she could follow the resonance.
The Balladeer's song, a cheerful ditty from Salamans about a priest and
the three goats outsmarting him, marked out every ensouled undead in
hearing range for the Witch of the Woods to smash without needing line
of sight. Two Revenants died before they even realized what was
happening and with every Bind in a range of a mile crushed to dust the
lesser dead were nothing more than a witless horde.

They had struck hard and struck fast, but there came a time where the
dice had to be rolled anyhow. Only Antigone had the strength to destroy
the bridge the dead were raising, but it would take her time to perform
such a great working. That meant it was time for blades to talk. They
found a hill with a singe narrow path up and Hanno, tired of the
elaborate schemes that seemed to plague the world, instead made it all
simple: he and Rafaella held the path, the Stalwart Apostle saw to
healing and the Balladeer sang. The White Knight raised his sword and
shield, his missing fingers itching at the stumps, and let death come
knocking as Antigone's spell swelled behind him.

It was the simplest kind of fight there could be: the dead came and they
were funnelled up the path. And they kept coming, corpse after corpse.
Revenants, eventually, but paltry things compared to the Scourges, and
Hanno's sword bit deep. The Valiant Champion tossed away the born that
tried them, crawling up the slope, and even as a great wyrm followed by
flock of buzzards came down screaming on them the sorcery of the Witch
of the Woods was unleashed. Hanno felt the Light coming, swift and clean
in a way it had not been in too long, and even as in the distance a
pulsing black sphere spun and began to swallow up the half-finished
bridge he climbed the wyrm.

It ended with his sword going through the skull as Rafaella dragged an
entire flock of buzzards into her domain, emerging bloodied and wounded
but victorious even as Hanno crawled up the broken remains of the wyrm
and came to stand atop the skull where his sword was still stuck up to
the hilt. The Valiant Champion climbed up to his side, still bleeding
even after the finest healing of the Stalwart Apostle. Some of the
wounds would scar, not that Rafaella was likely to mind. The two of them
stood together and watched hundreds of pounds of stones being sucked in
by Antigone's great spell, ripping to pieces a great bridge of stone
that must have been the better part of a mile long.

``We will have to sweep the other bank,'' the White Knight said. ``Else
they will be able to simply resume the work.''

``Tomorrow,'' Rafaella grunted. ``We fought good, but tired now. No wine
here, very dread.''

``Dreadful,'' Hanno absent-mindedly corrected.

``Not full,'' Rafaella reproached. ``This the problem, Hanno.''

He chuckled, the smile staying with him. It was an old game they were
playing, but one he regarded fondly. The Valiant Champion was the sole
survivor of the band he had led to defeat in the Free Cities, perhaps
his oldest friend in the world after Antigone herself.

``Let's see to the others,'' he finally said. ``We can retreat into
Twilight afterwards, when-''

He froze, something flickering at the edge of his vision, and turned.

In the distance, far to the south where Hainaut lay, the night sky lit
up with falling stars.