End of Empires - N3S III

I require a minor extension, due to the fact that I just got a working computer again and oh my god so many people want my attention now.

Come to kill me?

I have considered it. But I think I would prefer a different relationship.

Ah, come to proposition me. Kind of you, but I don't swing that way.

Funny. Haven't you ever wondered what's behind the curtain?

Behind the curtain? Is it a peeping tom?

I'm going to show you something, and then I'm going to ask you a question. If you say no, I'll leave and you'll never know anything more. If you say yes, you'll come with me and find out how the world really works. Ready?

Oh, on tenterhooks.

…

Oh. I see.

Not what you expected?

No, not at all. It's...hmm.

Well, what do you say? Want to go down the rabbit hole? You can never go back.

...yes.




Shadow

I'd been called back to Sirasona suddenly. It was very unusual: they'd actually pulled me out of a somewhat delicate scheme involving Piriveni smugglers, a barrel full of pearls, and an Uggor girl with truly astonishing flexibility. But, mine not to reason why, so back I went like a good little soldier; I only hope the guy they sent to replace me handled it all right. He wasn't someone I recognized: the Vialocutor's the only one who knows all of us, and sometimes I'm not sure about him. Anyway, I came in through the back entrance (they'd let me in on the secret, eventually, and no, I'm not going to let you in on it) and was looking forward to a night in a decent bed, if nothing else. Alas, 'twas not to be, because hardly had I gotten settled down when a man arrived and told me the Vialocutor wanted to see me immediately. I wasn't happy about it, but you can't say no, so I followed him off to the Vialocutor's office. It's a sparsely furnished affair: desk, few chairs, shelves, no windows. To look at it you'd never imagine that the secret business of half a continent passed through this room. Of course, if you didn't already know that you'd never be standing here in the first place, so there wasn't much point trying to impress anyone.

Usually the Vialocutor's alone. I suppose he must have clerks, but I've never seen any. This night, however, there were two other people in his office, a man and a woman. The man was middle aged, close-cropped brown hair greying at the temples, and wearing brown leather. The woman had one of those ageless sort of faces that might have been twenty-five or forty-five, pretty enough in a subtle sort of way, and dressed in modest Accan-style, hair covered and everything. No identifying marks on either of them, and I didn't recognize them. I waited in the door for a minute, thinking I'd interrupted a meeting, but the Vialocutor motioned me in impatiently; clearly these two were meant to hear this, whatever this turned out to be. He didn't introduce them, or even acknowledge their presence, and I knew enough not to ask. I sat down and waited for the Vialocutor to give me instructions, as he'd done half a dozen times before. He didn't, though. He was holding a piece of paper and looked...uncertain? Worried? It was hard to say; I'd never seen him wear anything other than the mask of cold competence that most of us affected in Seniar. After a moment he seemed to make up his mind, and slid the paper across the desk to me.

This was getting somewhat alarming. If the Vialocutor wanted to communicate in writing, that meant he was worried about being overheard, and who could possibly overhear anything here, in our sanctum sanctorum? I unfolded the paper, uncomfortably conscious of the intense scrutiny of the two strangers. Even unfolded it was small, but densely covered in a spidery scrawl. It was one of our ciphers, and not just any, but one of the new ones from the west; difficult, and surely overkill for this sort of thing. I could do it in my head, luckily; I didn't know many others who could. Still took me a while. When I'd finished I took me a moment to process what I'd just read. When I did, I whistled softly, drawing an angry glance from the strange man. I had to admit, they'd been right to take all these precautions. I handed the paper back to the Vialocutor. He was staring at me, and I knew the question. I nodded, and without a word he touched the paper to the candle and watched until it was nothing but ash. I stood, bowed slightly, and left the room, filled with a mixture of excitement and dread. Time to disappear.

The Crippled Prince

Part One
Part Two

Part Three:

“I would kill your children, your grandchildren, and anyone with the Atteri name. Burn down your nuccion, smash your table, and wring the necks of your pretty little birds. And if I don’t walk out of your gates in an hour, my men will do it for me.”

-Arto Rutarri, The Lay of the Unbowed

---

The Saritella had been the largest bank in Atracta for generations. Like all banks, it was owned partially or wholly by one of the nuccia. This was an Atteri establishment, their fortress. Its locks designed by the Sephashim, its vaults guarded at all times by thirty armed men. But the Saritella was more than a vault; it was a symbol. It was where people came to do business. Even if the vaults were empty, and for all anyone knew they were, it was trust that kept them coming.

At least four bowmen posted on nearby rooftops should have seen the intruder coming. They would have pulled a string, which would have rang a bell, which would have caused a porter to pull another string, which would have caused a dozen angry guards to boil out of the basement into the street like enraged wasps. But their positions had been noted by certain individuals for weeks. Their rotations were learned, and the changing of their watches, and when each of the four men achieved their rooftop, they found several swords pointing at each of their necks.

A very large man dragging a very large hammer behind him walked through the front door of the Saritella. The hammerhead was made of steel, with a spike on one end, and it screeched as the spike carved a deep groove into the polished marble tile. The immense handle, practically a sapling, was carved into the tentacle of a kraken.

“My apologies, sir, but you will have to check your warhammer at the door,” said a guard in immaculately polished gilded armor.

He swung the massive hammer upwards in an arc that took the man in the chest, crushing a huge hole in his armor and sending him flying, screeching and sliding back across the tile. He did not move. The doors slammed open, and six crossbowmen stormed in, taking positions behind the hammer-wielder.

The soft clicking of the talkati counting machines that had filled the room came to a complete stop, as every notary, factor, merchant, errand boy, and assorted worthies of Atracta turned to stare at the situation. To their credit, nobody screamed.

“I have a message to deliver,” said the man.

“Very well, Kelekephi, you have our attention,” called out an aristocratic voice from the gallery above the teller’s stalls. A man stood there, in black robes embroidered with golden thread. A swath of yellow-golden silk wrapped around his mask, indicating how unimaginably wealthy this figure was. "No need to damage the help."

“You humiliated our Prince and destroyed alliances made with time and care,” said Kelekephi. “Your era of influence in Vantyris is over.”

The man laughed. “THAT is what you came here to say? Alxas will have you arrested for treason within the day.”

“Alxas-ta-Vantyris is dead. And you will not interfere in the succession.”

The man was at a loss for words, but only momentarily. “Dead? WHAT succession? If what you say is true, Altrias is the new High Prince.”

“This is a warning, Atteri. Kill me for the insult if you must, but know that Vantyris will be guarded.”

One of the Atteri guards, hiding behind a pillar in the balcony and holding a crossbow of his own, said softly, “The men are in position outside, sir.”

The Atteri banker clenched his fists, calculating the costs of killing a nuccios in cold blood, considering whether or not the Atteri himself would have his head on a platter for starting a civil war right here and now. He tilted his mask up a fraction, the universal gesture for ‘no’.

“Your account will be charged for the guard and the floor,” said the Atteri banker. “Now, if you don’t mind, GET OUT OF MY BANK!”

“Do not interfere,” repeated Arexas Kelekephi. He spat on the floor and walked out of the bank, hefting the hammer over his shoulder, the silk-swathed man rattling off numerous instructions to his attendants as he left. That would definitely get through to the old bastard in Acca, Kelekephi thought, if nothing else did.

Whether it would get through to Sirasona, well...that ship had sailed. On a long voyage.

---

Zna had always been afraid of cities and their great towers, stone piled on stone piled on stone. Defying nature and crowding thousands of people into a space of land that could never feed them all. It would end in disaster one day. Fire and death would overtake them all, and then monsters would emerge to feast on the remnants of humanity. This, he knew. But the forests of the world were many, deep, and green. Once this final debt was paid, he would vanish into one of them forever. At least, he would like to.

The ivory tube contained a name on a scrap of paper, Etho, and the location of his home, as well as further instructions. Etho was a slight, jumpy-looking carpenter who worked at the Silver Harbor. Zna became a quiet presence in Etho’s house, his terrified wife moving about their tiny house like a stiff little temtu, the legendary stick-men who dwelt in the deepest Nuvn forests. The children, of course, loved their “uncle Zenna” and the little toys he carved for them out of scraps of wood they brought him.

Etho’s gambling debt was owned by some nuccion or other, and this was his opportunity to clear it. And all he had to do was allow a strange man to come into his house, learn to impersonate his mannerisms and speech patterns, and make a wig from his curly black hair. It was lucky that they both had brown eyes and were similar heights, but of course, such things had been accounted for before by the Accans. And then, of course, one day he had to disappear. He would be given a new life, a beautiful life, in the Kelekephi nuccion in Kurchen or Parta.

Zna had expected to have several months to familiarize himself with the harbor before his masters urged him on. But he had been with Etho and his family only eight days when he saw a red hyacinth next to the lintel. His preparations were barely in place. But eight days had been enough.

On the day of the High Prince’s return from Sirasona, a man named Etho walked through the guarded gates to the Silver Harbor. Of course such men were checked; the guards knew each one by sound and sight. Etho was a friend to them; he had built a new door for Adras’ home last season, and charged him half of any city craftsman’s price. It was men like this, helpful, skilled men, who received jobs at the Silver Harbor. He asked Adras about his wife’s ailments, and Irlym if his cousin’s flocks had finally come in for the winter from the marches. They had not.

They passed him his work-mask, the silver-edged piece of lacquered wood that was his pass into the Silver Harbor. Being a modest, traditional man, he walked into the guardhouse to switch masks, giving a friendly wave to the guards as he left and passed through the gates to the Harbor. But Etho did not walk to the drydocks where Prince Altrias’ fine new flagship was being constructed, or to the wrecking yards where Taracis’ ancient pleasure yacht was slowly being broken into scrap.

The tube had also contained a key to the harbor watchtower, which stood out at the end of an artificial jetty, at least forty feet high.

A messenger boy had already brought Etho’s superintendent, a master craftsman by the name of Valtas, a message that he had fallen ill and was seeking a cure at the vedas that day. Valtas was a busy man with a lot on his mind, and besides a note of mild annoyance crossing his face, he did not trouble himself about the sudden ailment of one of his many workers.

Twenty four years ago, a half-naked Taudo boy covered in the dirt of the forest had walked through the gates of Tan and outshot twenty eight of the Princedom’s greatest marksmen in a contest. When the boy was presented, wide-eyed, with a bag full of sparkling metal, he replied that he had no use for it, but would they please give him some marzipan for he had heard many tales of the taste. Satisfied, he disappeared from the world’s recorded memory, but of course there were those with more discerning eyes who would not forget this display.

The unforgotten boy, now named Zna, masked as Etho, walked down the jetty with a mallet and a bucket of pine tar, looking busy until he saw a moment to enter the watchtower. The watch guards were changed four times a day, as he had learned days before when he took the mask and voice of a day laborer. The High Prince would have been wiser to dock his ship at High Harbor. But some Princes had no time for such high security. More the pity.

The watchtower was simple, spare: A prayer scroll of the war god, extra masks hung near weapons. A stone spiral, ascending upwards. The guard, watching the seas above. There was a bow hung on a peg by the door, just as they had promised there would be. A bow, a bow a bow. Not just any bow. His bow. It had been easy for his masters to smuggle his own bow into a guard barracks, after all. It looked like any other, but it FELT his own. Zna caressed it lovingly, testing the heft, the springiness of the wood. He strung it there with string of his own.

“Guard, come quickly! Something is terribly wrong!” he called up in Etho’s voice. No, something was terribly RIGHT.

The guard stuck his neck over the edge of the stairwell and an arrow passed cleanly through the eyehole of his mask in half a second. Tricky things, masks. But he had hit targets smaller than an eyehole from much greater distances.

“Shadow bless you,” said Zna, walking up the stairs. He closed the man’s eyes, well, eye now. Now he walked the Path of Shadow, as will all men.

The guard had fallen inside the tower rolling down the stairs a bit. Zna stripped him, taking off his clothes and mask, and neatly folding his own next to the naked corpse. Zna knew that from this height, nobody would recognize him as an impersonator. The guard’s own red mask would be all that they saw. People only ever saw masks. Probably their greatest weakness.

Time passed, and the sun rose slightly higher. Twice, Zna considered fleeing before the changing of the guard. But then, he saw the ship in the far distance, approaching with silver sails and the Sunburst of Taleldil painted on them in red. He had always known it would end this way. Well, not exactly *this* way, but something like it. Standing somewhere he should not be, doing something he should not do. At least this was his final transgression.

The ship slowly drew up to the dock, and a gangplank was lowered. Now was the time.

He looked for the silver mask. And he looked, and looked, as guards trooped off the ship. This was not as it should be. Suppressing his panic, he looked harder, and saw a man standing on the deck with the mask of a lowly guardsman but a much richer cloak and a much haughtier demeanor, talking to a wizened old man with curly grey hair on the sides of his head. How clever of them to take off his true mask. Perhaps these Accans were smarter than he thought. But not smart enough for him.

“May the blessings of the Shadow be upon you,” whispered Zna, and he drew his bow faster than a sigh.

Alxas-ta-Vantyris fell to the deck of his warship, clutching his neck, pierced straight through with a steel-tipped shaft from afar. A gentle patter of blood sprinkled the deck. Had he been wearing his ornamental armor for his speech to the Seniar, it might have protected him. But he was not.

Guards were converging almost immediately on the tower like a swarm of angry bees. He saw them pounding down the jetty, as a few arrows, slim pale imitations of his own, clattered and clamored against the walls of the tower below. Oh they would surely not let this happen to the next High Prince. But there would be no other Zna.

Zna had been stripping off his clothing as soon as the arrow left his fingertips. Finally he ripped of the stolen mask, his face profaned to the world, and leapt from the tower. His beloved bow clattered to the ground on the ledge he had just left. The last thought he had before hitting the water, with amusement, was, I am an arrowshaft! And then he hit. This was a deep harbor, very deep. And the water was so cold. They were bound to follow him and spear him with a trident, he thought. How quickly could they launch a ship?

He would swim for the bay and out to sea, for hours, then hope to turn north and swim back to some empty coast. But more likely, the sea would take him. In fact, he knew it probably would take him. The monsters would wrap their tentacles around his waist and drag him into the deep for his crimes. His many sins. At least now, a child and her mother would be happy. Their father would not have to leave them ever again. He opened his eyes underwater and saw the creatures of the deep in the sparkling water below. And for once, he was no longer afraid.

Prince Eater

Other Chapters: (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8)


They camped on a beach under the stars a day west of Naesre. Their carriage parked a ways up a hill, horses tied to a palm, and the driver sleeping on its roof. The night was warm enough to sleep under thin blankets, but cool enough to be comfortable.

Three had crawled into a nook beneath a piece of driftwood. The boy'd learned the lesson from the Alonites, it seemed, for he never exposed himself at night. Not anymore. Naevu, however, had the pleasure of resting up against a steep embankment of sand overlooking the Lovi Sea. Ibilie laid her head on his leg, breathing slow in sleep.

She never slept alone.

Crickets played a lullaby, urging him to give in. The sea rolled gently up the beach, the tide coming in once more. The moon and stars reflected flawlessly on the water. Yet, when he shut his eyes he saw only the dawn. The night was no longer his friend. Sleep escaped him. The pure pleasure of laying one's head down and drifting off into a dreamscape, gone.

He combed Ibilie's hair with his fingers, watching the horizon over the sea. She was a beautiful woman, even more so than she'd been the first time he met her. Her voice improved, and without a doubt she possessed the finest in the world. He let himself smile, rubbing her cheek gently.

A gift from your sister, as Elea Gyldwin put it. That's what this girl was now.

She'd taken to Aelea in Lemdeh like a young woman to a lover. And that wasn't far from the truth. Aelea bragged on her new companion's skill. Her appetite. Naevu gulped, sliding his hand to Ibilie's neck without a thought.

They'd traveled for weeks, from Cyve to Mahid by sea and by carriage from there on. Another day remained before he had to give her away, to her new friend. Her new master. A man she would please however she could. A job to be done.

Ibilie told him she couldn't sleep in the cold. The warmth of another kept her safe, secure. He'd warned her away, told her he didn't think it a smart decision. But he couldn't let her cozy up to the driver and Three rejected the idea of being smothered. Naevu wondered if the boy copied him, seeing it as the proper way, or if he simply was afraid of his own thoughts.

The truth was Naevu feared his own thoughts, too.

He shut his eyes to the dawn waiting in his mind. The sun over the Seniar, rising as he sailed away. The land of Light left behind for the north, the cold and dangerous north. The way Elea Gyldwin had shuddered at his command, barking in Satar to burn her. Feverishly touching herself, his breath in her ear.

Would she have let him touch her, then? How would it have gone? Would he have broken, on the edge after so long?

He felt a tugging on his finger and opened his eyes. He'd moved his hand to Ibilie's face, to her lips. She'd taken one in her mouth, awake. He gulped, regretting it immediately.

No, he thought, but hesitated to speak.

The young Siran rolled in his lap, staring at him with stark black eyes. The yellow orb moon in the night sky shined in them, off center, like a lamp in a long tunnel. Her breaths were quick, thoughtless. She sat up, blanket falling from her. Breasts exposed as she pressed into him, not to kiss his lips but his neck.

Unfamiliar.

Her hand was fire on his thigh, sliding up under his vesture to grab hold of him. His body was far ahead of his mind, prepared to take what it'd been denied so long. Her fingers worked skillfully. Her body rocked against him, as if she'd expected it all along.

He tried to speak, "Stop," but his traitor tongue released only a soft moan.

She took it as a plea to continue. Licking his neck, she straddled his leg. Eager. Wetness slid on his thigh as she inched closer. She moaned in his ear. He wanted release, to feel every inch of her.

Naevu grabbed hold of her shoulders, pulling her from him. She grinded against his thigh, warm and slick, biting her lip.

"Stop," he whispered, voice cracking. And her hand released him. She stilled. Ibilie stared at him, bemused.

She raised a palm to his face, wiping at something. "You cry?" she asked as if she'd done something terribly wrong. He raised a shaking hand to his face, grabbing the back of hers. Moonlight illuminated the wetness on palm.

When he looked back up, she was crying, but he didn't know why. Why was he? Ibilie collapsed in on him in embrace, hugging his neck and weeping into his shoulder. Naevu rubbed her back, not wanting to let her go. The sea and sky were blurry to his eyes. He shut them and the tears flowed free.

He heard a voice and sighed.

"I can't remember her face," he said, forcing the words out. He shivered to his own admission.

"Who?" asked Ibilie. She held him so tight he thought he'd choke. But it felt good, like a spring morning. Tears smeared against his neck. Her full weight settled in his lap.

"Hyra." He tried to see her, but his mind played tricks on him. He found only the disease, the sickly flesh and fever. A weak voice. Pustules. "She was beautiful."

A voice crying out for him.

"Your love?" she asked, pulling her head back to look in his eyes.

"No," Naevu corrected, "my child."

He hadn't said that in a long time. The thought burned in his chest. Ibilie glanced down the beach, where the driftwood sat.

"Like Three?"

Naevu nodded. He hoped the boy slept soundly.

"She died?" Ibilie asked. Her crying somehow made him feel better. And she didn't even know.

"She got sick," said Naevu. He brushed hair from Ibilie's face, where it had stuck to wet spots. "Very sick. No one could help her."

"This is not your fault," said Ibilie. She kissed his cheek. Naevu grit his teeth.

"No," he admitted. But he didn't believe it. "Then, I was a different man. I would have gladly-" He paused to force her eyes on his. "Gladly have shown you how little you know. I thought what I was doing was important." He smiled, shaking his head. "I'm a fool, Ibilie. A terrible fool. I made a mistake I can never take back."

"With a woman?" she asked, cupping his cheeks. Naevu nodded.

"She was nearly free of me," he said with a short laugh. "A year more, that's all. So short a time. Yet, I couldn't give her a single breath worth." He let his head droop, unable to look Ibilie in the face. Finally, he pulled her hard in a hug. "As brilliant as you are. As magnificent. She was like you, Ibilie. So much left to do. Pure potential." He felt his body shake. "I owed her that much."

"You weren't there."

"She wanted me to be. But I . . ."

"A woman," Ibilie agreed, nodding into his shoulder.

"I thought I had time. She called for me, but I-" He clenched a fist behind Ibilie's back, hoping his fingers would tear holes in the flesh of his palm.

"Now you don't," said Ibilie. "You feel guilt. You won't give time."

"I don't deserve time," he replied.

"For the boy," she agreed, voice muffled by his clothing. "Suffer."

"Suffer."

"Oh you, who would shrink from honest combat to pursue treachery in darkness, tremble at what is soon to come upon you!" ~ High Prince Arteras of the Scroll

"Free me from hell." ~ Taleldil (from a vision of Zalkephis)


This boy's family lived in the distant west, in the land where the mountains rose suddenly from the plain like sentinels of the sundown; where the steppe stretched on for a thousand miles in every direction and you could see the shadows of clouds against the earth. He was born in the slanted sunlight, on the slopes of the Nelhai, where grass gave way to aspen, and then gnarled pine. He had never seen more water than the mountain lake where his father had taken him for the monastery's blessing, and to him the brook that ran by his family's estate seemed an odd thing – the intrusion of life into an otherwise barren land. Oryan, his mother named him, for the blonde hair that looked like a dusting of snow on his scalp, and she had raised him to be a great warrior of the Vischa, like his father.

His father.

He meant to leave the estate before his father returned.

And so this boy slipped out of the house one evening and began to walk – downhill, through the yellowing grass and into the emptiness of the steppe, his only possessions a curving, patterned steel knife, a wooden mask, a child's bow and a few arrows. It would have been smarter for him to follow the road, probably, but then there was the very real possibility that he would run across his father and a few of his friends, and he rather wanted to avoid that conversation. So he instead set his course by his own shadow – each quick step inside the shade every time and he was bound to head east.

He continued like that for what felt like forever before slowing down. Panting slightly, he stopped completely, and looked around him, left right, behind, and in front. To his left lay the pole star. A good sign. He just needed to keep it on that side for a while, before he found the main road.

He started to walk again.

Sleeping at sunrise under a covering of thin grass, he set out again at night, and over and over continued like this, feeling oddly disconnected from the world around him. He heard people, from time to time, in the day, but he refused to stir, huddled in the deepest stands of green and yellow, fearful that they might be his father, or his men. No human company: only the grass, and the sky. It crackled and rustled about his feet, and sometimes he would hear an owl calling over the still of the steppe, but he barely saw animals at all. It went on like this for a week before, one day, as he was walking along, he saw the sun rise a little differently.

Glinting off a thousand shivering facets, the sun rose reflected in a lake a thousand times greater than anything Oryan had ever seen before. He slowly descended the hill to the lakeside, approaching the shore religiously. His battered shoes filled with mud, and he made to drink the water, only to spit it out for the salt.

A salt lake? He barely understood. But he had seen the maps. He looked at it with dismay, and began to walk again, his feet leaving prints in the mud wherever he went, sometimes winding in loops around where a threatening-looking animal might lie.

Another week would pass until he saw what he had expected to see only a few days after his journey began – the pillar that rose from the lake like the thumb of some ancient god, rising impossibly, sheer from the waters, leaving him to marvel at how men could have placed it there – and the gates of the great city that sprawled on the lakeside, guarded by lakatar and manticores and a dozen other strange beasts whose names he did not know, carved into the stone. Arhat. It was here that the boy intended to vanish entirely.

The guards paid this little boy no mind, and he walked halfway down one street before he realized that he had no idea where he was to go. He looked around, as if for help, and then shrugged, continuing on down the street. It curved here and there, little curves that followed the contour of the land, and finally terminated in a square where the market stalls had not yet opened, and half a dozen caravans were packing for the day's travel.

He approached the likeliest of them – the ones that regarded everyone around them suspiciously, the ones who might be most in need of this local boy to guide them, and it was only when he sidled up next to the wagons that he realized they wore masks of metal, like the High Prince's own guard; like his father.

That gave him pause.

But they had spotted him. He stood, rooted on the spot, and they stood, regarding him impassively through their masks. The rest of the crew had stopped loading their wagons, and stared at him, too. He tried to speak, but couldn't.

Finally, one of them turned to another and said something, his accent staccato. The other laughed, and stepped forward, reaching to grab Oryan.

He reacted on instinct, and there was only air where the man's hand passed.

“Let me ride with you,” he said, and the second man turned to the sound of his voice, cursing. “You need a guide, don't you?”

The man swiped at him again, and again he slithered to one side.

“You are not from here?”

More than one man made to seize him, but he avoided all of them, darting to and fro like a rather oversized rabbit.

“Iva,” the first man said, and at the sound of his voice the others stopped instantly. He turned slowly to Oryan, and said in a quiet, lilting accent, “You wish to join our caravan?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who we are?”

“No.”

“And that does not scare you?”

“No.”

“Very well.”


It was an unusual occasion, to put it mildly.

High Prince Alxas-ta-Vantyris of the Vellari Exatai was to cross the Kern Sea, arrive at Sirasona with a contingent of his Accan guards, and address the Concourse – the ruling body of the Halyrate. Hundreds of people would be in attendance, and none of them knew beforehand what Alxas would say. Most of the rumors had it on good authority that he was simply there to talk about trade deals and rather boring minutiae; indeed, few of the audience were barely paying attention when he began his speech.

Most of them were paying attention by the end.

A full-throated, almost histrionic condemnation of the Alonite Order had been delivered more or less in the face of the Order's head, one Elea Gyldwin, and Alxas had called for the Concourse to expel the Alonites in terms that seemed rather frighteningly reminiscent of the Sixth Century RM, calling on them to “burn the witch.”

What followed was probably not what Alxas had intended – instead of taking his advice, the Councourse's opinion swung radically to the other side, with every Synothal Order issuing statements of support for the Alonites. Worse still, even the Sadorishi – easily the most pro-Satar of the Orders – turned on Alxas, pushing him from the city as quickly as possible. In his wake followed half a dozen lynchings of Accans in their Quarter; indeed, Alxas barely escaped without meeting an angry mob himself. Divided, the Maninists might have been – on the nature of the place of Aelona in their cosmology. But Alxas had flung hostility in the face of the entire Concourse.

Immediately afterward, the news spread throughout Gallat, and the anti-Accan violence started to intensify in several cities. The High Ward called for a stay in the violence – as did the Alonites themselves – and this helped a little. But the level of fury was hard to contain, and it began to have political ramifications shortly thereafter, as the Cyvekt raised tariffs on the Accan merchants. The rest of the Aitahist world followed suit; coupled with the nervousness of the Accans in Gallat and their neighbors, the Vellari were very close to being shut out of the trading business altogether for a short time.

It had become clear to everyone involved that Alxas had seriously miscalculated his position – that he had assumed the Sadorishi had just as much interest in destroying the Alonites as he did, or perhaps even that they had a grudge against the entirety of the Aitahist world. Instead, he returned to Atracta at the head of a battered entourage, and his assassination by an unknown bowman seemed more inevitability than tragedy.

In his place, through a clever series of power-plays, his brother Idraxis managed to take the mask despite his affliction, and he rapidly set about to putting his brother's ruined house in order. Taking the name Zakraphetas, his first priority seemed to be to reassure everyone that he was not his brother. He made no sweeping proclamations about the Alonites; indeed, he practically ignored what was going on on the other side of the Kern, instead shoring up his power base at home. To the Cloud Evynai, who had wandered without a homeland since the Wars of Prophecy, he gave a new Princedom on his northern frontier, one which would conveniently guard against the further advance of the Zalkephai. He found further support among the younger nuccia against the old guard of the Tepecci and the Atteri, but he made little use of this accumulated political capital, instead turning to the pursuit of scholarship, setting up new prizes in the Sephashim and increasing its funding.

It was somewhere in the midst of this that he was nearly assassinated in the middle of the night by an unknown man, who unfortunately was killed before anyone could make him talk.

Meanwhile, Zakraphetas was careful to respect the treaties that his predecessor had signed – including the gift of land on Aldina to the Sadorishi to build a fortress there. It was only after the fact that the Satar realized they had been somewhat swindled on the terms – the Sadorishi had obtained exemption for taxation for themselves and their associates, and they rapidly set about making everyone on the island an associate, either by incentives or outright buying them. It was all well within the terms of the treaty as negotiated, but no doubt further aggravated an already troubled Accan nobility.


As the chaos began to slowly unfold in the north, those in the o'Aya'se ta Caroha might well have smirked. Through all the hawkish rhetoric that flew back and forth, the most exciting things that happened in the Seshweay and Sierdhe lands was the founding of the Chorus of Aelome, a large unit of Aelonist heavy infantry composed of Sierdhe youths and trained in shock tactics – designed, many speculated, to defeat the vaunted Accan pikes, should things come to war.

But it did not look like things would come to war. The Council at Caroha had little interest in prosecuting the Halyrate's war for them, and instead sought to improve things across the o'Aya'se, building a new road system through the south of Sierdha, and funding new irrigation systems and the cultivation of olives across its southern coast. At the same time, a native cotton industry began to develop in the Sesh Delta and the Oscadian regions, fed by the waters of that ancient river, and these new products began to feed a native cloth and clothing industry that rapidly advanced – especially after the founding of an official guild (standardizing thread counts, sending samples as gifts far and wide, and so on). Already, they had surpassed anything else in the region, and found ready markets for their new goods in every direction – even the Accans, once the furor over the so-called “Burn the Witch” speech had died down.

Cloth became a powerful economic tool in the arsenal of the Carohans; most importantly, it opened markets in the Halyrate, and the enormous Piriveni capital quickly became rather more accessible to the Aitahists.

But these new goods were relatively mundane compared to the spectacular new building project undertaken by the o'Aya'se: a massive new temple in Mahid, The Temple of the Lady Eternal. A long, brilliantly colorful building with a line of domes down its central hall, it made use of tiles with half a dozen new colors, never before captured in tile or perhaps in sight. The deep blue of the ceiling resembled the sky itself; the red of the walls gave it a suffusing glow, and the golden light that filtered from the yellow-stained windows was said to exhibit a peculiarly mystical effect on pilgrims who visited the temple. This would be coupled with a choir loft, strategically positioned for the songs of the Aelonists to carry through even the noisiest of crowds.

Meanwhile, both the Council at large and the Sierdhe in particular invested heavily into the Peko region, with much of the land being bought up by the Sierdhe jabaralahs; they looked to build new orchards and plant a variety of new crops. At the same time, a missionary push extinguished the last remnants of the Cultists in the region. Perhaps worryingly for the Seshweay, they were replaced almost entirely by Aelonists – with a corresponding growth in the influence of the Sierdhe.

Across the Lovi Sea, the Hailsians, too, made no moves towards militarization. A fairly cordial relationship with the Aya'se, and an alliance with the Daharai, meant that they only really had to worry about the Kothari – and the Kothari seemed to have no interest in their northern neighbors for once.

Instead, the Haifaio directed its sailors further and further afield. As we shall see, they and the Conclavist missionaries that followed in their path managed quite a lot of good in the south seas near Sudeomerae, but the events most impactful on Hailsia itself were another arm of the expedition, one whose goal was to seek out new islands beyond Sudomerae itself. Charting a small archipelago, they were the first to encounter the local tribes who told them of the great southern continent, one which the tribes called the “All-World” in their own tongues. A detachment of ten of the ships was sent to continue sailing south until they had found it, but they were never heard from again.

Much more important was what happened to those ships who were left behind.

Anchored off of the tropical archipelago, several of the sailors went ashore, at first in pairs, then in whole shiploads, mingling with the locals in any number of ways. Before too long, disease set in, a terrible fever that left the crew in spasms. After this began to take a terrible toll on the fleet, the majority of the ships decided that if those other ships wanted to come back to Hailsia, they would probably know the way, and they therefore had no reason to stay. As one, they fled back to Hailsia at top speed.

Only half the survivors made it back to the land, and quite a few of them were still sick with the tropical fevers. In a stroke of inspiration, some of them were sent along to the House of Medicine, where they crossed paths with one Ario of Kalos. The young Daharai lad, on mission from his master, the acclaimed lecturer and surgeon Torcias Neros to acquire some of the remedies and extracts that the Faronun produced in Dremai, became intrigued with the illness – not least in how it did not seem to spread from person to person like the illnesses he had studied before.

Even Torcias did not know the true nature of disease, of course, but most of the greats of medicine in this age knew it was something to the effect of terrible airs passing from one person to another, and that close contact transmitted illness. This new disease seemed to break all the rules – it had spread quite rapidly while the afflicted were in the south, but not at all now that they convalesced in the House of Medicine.

It was the seed of a discovery, one that would take quite some time to germinate.

Meanwhile, in repayment for their cooperation and general kindness, Ario was only too happy to give a beautifully illustrated copy of the Body of Man, a detailed encyclopedia of the anatomy of the human body. The Faronun were quite impressed; it had clearly been influenced by the work of Niro of Cynta, with his exquisitely realistic painting style, and more to the point it was the product of years of study and illustration by Torcias. It showed the full structure of every bone, ligament, tendon, and muscle in the body, and its more impressive observations were almost immediately added to the canon of Truths in the Ieraitan Laia.

Torcias, for his part, had moved onto other studies. Indeed, Ario had been sent on his little investigation on the first place because of Torcias' curious discovery that clove extract suspended in oil would acquire an anesthetic quality, one especially useful in dentistry. He had left the medical applications of this to other people, and by the time Ario informed him of his intriguing discoveries in the House of Medicine, Torcias was deep into the investigation of dozens of other essential oils.

While these high-minded pursuits continued apace, the rulers of the Daharai had rather more practical concerns in mind. An Accounting – the summing of all people and properties – took place over several years across the Republic, and managed to increase tax revenues as the Inan discovered dozens of tax havens, loopholes, and hamlets which had somehow vanished from the map entirely.

At the same time, the Exarch created a new Order, that of the Circle and Square, whose purpose was to establish peace and security through the far east. To that end, a great fortress was raised in the shell of the bull-fighting stadium of Leun, the Naronistras. Old walls were strengthened, and roads were built across Auona, linking the greatest of the Daharai cities there. More important still, the Inan leased ports from the Alar and Acajuren, with the intent of minimizing the importance of Asardias, and, more dangerously, to shut the Parthecans out of the business of trading cotton in the first place. The overall goal here, of course, was to restrict this trade to the Daharai alone – it had already proved lucrative in the past, and they were pushing further into markets like the Shuhar and Tsutongmerang.

All this was threatened, however, by the sudden creation of a Carohan cotton industry we saw above. While the Daharai still counted many among their customers, the production of high-quality cloth in the region threatened what had been a veritable monopoly of the island country, and they were still scrambling to respond by the close of the decade.

Even as all this transpired, a relatively innocuous arrival to Epichirisi began to attract the attention of the Red Chamber after she had been spotting ministering to the poor and healing the sick. Rumors that she was the Seventh Aitah were hard to substantiate.

The various smaller republics around the Daharai continued much as they had for centuries – that is, trying desperately not to get noticed by the larger powers around them. The Aortai had begun to construct a new port on the Bay of Spitos, but were somewhat surprised by the request of a Cyvekt missionary detail, who they gladly took in and showered with gifts upon their arrival. The Aelonists proceeded to put on several spectacular displays of poetry, music, and general religious fervor, which earned more than a few converts among the impressed local population.

Rihnit, meanwhile, imposed new and somewhat surprising restrictions on their recent acquisitions in Sealis and Aran. These rather unpopular moves proved to nearly be the undoing of the kingdom, as many in the cities agitated – anonymously, of course, leaving graffiti everywhere and taxes unpaid – to have the cities join the Halyrate, where life seemed to be rather better.

Bryha and Serkos made relatively little noise of their own – the Bryhans sent an official delegation to Tabares to negotiate an alliance there – one which ended with the larger republic helping the Tabaresi to build a new fortress on their southern border, while Serkos seemed more or less content to do essentially nothing. Piracy became a slightly greater problem in the region, but no one could point to who, exactly, was responsible: many fingers were pointed to Serkos for its unsavory reputation, but some also to Bryha, to Ieras, even to the Daharai themselves.


For centuries now, the power of Parthe had gone uncontested on the easternmost fringe of the world. A number of things fed into this – the declining power of the Acajuren under an ineffective leadership, the collapse of Leun at the hands of the Daharai, the failure of the Daharai to penetrate much further than the Indigo Gate, the distance from the Halyral power centers to Parthe proper – but no matter what the causes, Parthe had been left to itself, even with the fall of the monarchy and the rise of the Republic in its wake. Continuity of government was surprisingly strong, with the Archives providing a number of bureaucratic and foreign services in one organization, and no navy on the Kitaluk Sea could challenge them.

But everything changes eventually, and this was no different. The intrusion of the Daharai into the region was only the most obvious of these changes. Quick on its heels came more news – word that the High Ward of Gallat had ordered the construction of the fortress city of Raos in the inner valley of the Corocya, and that the Piriveni had invested heavily into schools and temples across southern Beratca.

More troubling, though, was word that the Acajuren had begun to give certain privileges which had always been the purview of Parthecan merchants to other, more unsavory types – Daharai, Piriveni, even Cyvekt or Accans. A slight tightening on entry and exit restrictions did not pass unnoticed either, and the Parthecans turned their attention fully to their neighboring Republic.

Things were afoot in Acajura – political maneuvering by the Speaker Santhurjao had led to the New Conclave of Didea, an agreement between the central powers-that-be and the Middle Cities of Acajura. Didea, the most prominent among these, had been given a number of investments to push it back to the forefront of Acajuren commerce, but a far more startling move was the relaxation of the old restrictions on religious proselytizing within the limits of the Acajuren Republic in the Middle and Southern cities (though not the old cities around Iolja itself). Within days, it seemed, new temples sprang up dedicated to Maninism and Aelonism and even Ardavan, as a mission from Zakraphetas received welcome at the court of the Speaker himself, and stayed for half a year before moving onto the Middle Cities.

These reforms – along with some backroom dealings – made the separatist movement lose a lot of the traction it had gained over the past half a century, though it flared back to life in Gadia, where the lease of part of the port to the Daharai was not terribly popular.

Parthe regarded all of this with some concern, but obviously there was little reason for intervention quite yet. Instead, the Republic was content to continue funding efforts to further entrench their commercial interests along the northern shore of Athis, particularly in Beratca and Ereithaler. The Royal Road was rebuilt with some investment, while the drydocks at Nacitsa expanded to accommodate new demand from both the state and the merchant marine; its insatiable appetite led to huge swathes of Purolincaltose being clear-cut.

But far more importantly, the Parthecans themselves found themselves answering numerous requests from the various religions to proselytize in Parthe, which they granted on the condition that these missionaries respected the rights of the Parthecans to their religious privacy.

Immediately, missionaries from the three faiths one would expect moved in, each with varying degrees of success. The Ardavani built three new temples in short order, and earned not a few converts, especially among the Taludites, while the Aelonists continued to work their contacts in the trade network to their fullest advantage.

But it was the Maninists who benefited most from these arrangements, as the Piriveni reached a stunning deal with the Parthecan government to integrate a branch of their bank into the country as a Neun of its own. Rapidly, the Piriveni moved in, drawing on their enormous resources of credit to push into Parthecan markets, and pointing to the massive advantages of this credit system to push Parthecan merchants to convert on a purely practical basis. This proved significantly more popular than the traditional appeal-to-the-heart method of conversion, and Parthecans were soon converting in steady numbers – almost alarmingly so, as the Piriveni were soon competing with the Taparsuneun themselves. While they could not command quite the same reach and there were some cultural misunderstandings that the Parthecan natives obviously lacked, they made spectacular gains in the first few years.

But the Taparsuneun had not been quite so naïve as first believed – they used many of the newly converted Maninists to penetrate Halyral markets to a much greater degree than they had been able to previously. Indeed, some of the Taparsuneun agents formed a new Order with relative ease, and the net effect was less economic dominance of one side or the other, and more a general mingling of the two sides in a vast zone that stretched from Sirasona to Parta.

Further along the coast, the Parthecans watched without so much as a word of protest when the forces of Ereithaler moved in and annexed Dicara with the aid of some Alonite forces from the Halyrate. Ereithaler seemed to have relatively extensive ambitions, as they turned from this conquest almost immediately and began to shuffle their forces southwards; before the bards of the country had even finished writing the songs of the last conquest, the next began.

Anhalter had survived for centuries now by playing one side off the other in exquisite fashion, but they found that in the new political climate, with a dozen different factions in the Halyrate vying for power, one or the other would be bound to help Ereithaler out. The breakthrough came when the Alonites negotiated a simple deal – Ereithaler would turn a blind eye towards a northward push of Maninist religious influence, and give the Alonites a cut of either conquest in return for their support and the general acquiescence of the Halyrate.

It began subtly enough, with a push from the Maninist elements in Anhalter driving them eventually to a civil war in 808 RM without so much as a whiff of intervention before then, but it was obvious to those in power that outside forces had manipulated events.

It didn't matter.

Alonite and Ereithaler forces stormed into the country from south and north, and only a year later, the remaining resistance was localized almost entirely to the eastern mountains.


Nor had the Alonite incursion into the north fully played out yet. The shattering of Anhalter and its reintegration into the Maninist fold was one thing, but to fund the venture, they had turned to a surprising source: the banking families of Acca. While most of them couldn't stomach loaning money to the Alonites, the rising and clever Velexi family had finally bit at an outstanding offer from the Halyral forces – a generous share of the assets that would be obtained from the fall of Anhalter. Anhalter, in turn, turned to the Tepeccis to fund their own venture, and soon both families escalated their financial involvement for fear of losing what they had already put into it.

And then, all at once, with the conquest of Anhalter complete, the Alonites reneged on their word and left the Velexi bankrupt, while the Tepecci had lost thousands as well. Coupled with rising tariffs from the increasingly alarmed Aitahist and Aelonist states around the Kern, and a Piriveni scheme to help the Taudo impose a new custom on passage through the strait of Inm-Anmar, the Accan nuccia found themselves in the midst of the largest financial crisis in centuries. The resulting bank run completely imploded the Velexi nuccion just as it had started to gain a distinct advantage over the more conservative, so-called “Golden nuccia” of the Tepecci and Atteri.

But the financial crisis would have a greater impact than the Alonites had perhaps foreseen. Though they and most of the other Halyral orders could fall back on the Piriveni banks instead, plenty of the other Synothal orders had assets in the Accan nuccia – and more to the point, so did most of the Kern Sea powers. Utter chaos reigned for almost a year, with the Piriveni only too happy to jump into the gap, along with the Atteri – the only nuccia who had emerged relatively intact from the whole debacle (though they themselves had had to weather a few bank runs).

This was exacerbated by a continuing – even growing – food crisis in the south of Athis, one which eventually spiraled into a fully-fledged famine in Southern Athis – worst in the Peko. The Nahari regions of the Halyrate, though better able to secure sources of food from Gallat and Selessan, suffered themselves, and it was into this climate that the supposed Seventh Aitah walked.

She had come from the south, as foretold, but the hint of an accent gave her away. She had been born a slave in the Satar states, and somehow escaped into the south of Athis. The continent lay open to her.

At once, she had gone deep into the desert, convinced somehow that the Savirai would be her people; she went among them, healing, preaching, and generally fulfilling signs, before finally arriving in the realms of the Order of Mirai, in the northeast of the Face of the Moon. She had expected to meet resistance, but the people of the region were generally eager to take her in and protect her, to see if she indeed fulfilled the signs, and perhaps offer her up as the true Seventh Aitah. Eventually, they sought to ensconce her with the Alonites, who would doubtless know exactly what to do with her, and sought to avoid contact with some of the potentially unfriendly orders – the Sadorishi came to mind.

Moving northwest, she neared the court of the Aelonists in Tarvaen, only to be informed at the last moment that this country, too, had been caught up in trouble – evidently the Sadorishi, nervous at the growing power of the Alonites, strongarmed their way into the country, forcing the local rulers to choose between resistance or meek acquiescence (in the end, the king himself and much of his court would choose to voluntarily join the Alonite order, but the Sadorishi had effectively taken the southern half of the country).

She had almost nowhere left to go. Ereithaler had seemingly no religious allegiance now, allying with the Maninists and Aelonists in turn when it suited them. The Ethir and Stettin states were clearly only target practice for the Halyrate and Ereithaler. That left two places.

Thus it was that a strange woman with a foreign accent arrived at the Alonite safehouse in Vana, seeking asylum.

Fresh from the banking catastrophe, the Accans were still reeling when they were hit by yet another blow. The death of the High Ward Montoss now – at the height of Alonite power in the last century – led to the election of Elea Gyldwin in her place. Most famous as the subject of the “burn the witch” speech from scarcely a decade prior, she wasted no time in pushing a new agenda through the Concourse, the first item of which was the dissolution of the Accan Quarters.

Inviolate for centuries, the Accan Quarters had been established practically at the beginning of the Halyrate, tying the two sides of the Kern together. In some cities, the Accans in Gallat numbered almost ten or fifteen percent of the population; quite suddenly, they had the rug pulled out from under them. There would be no massacre here – they were imply informed that they would have to join a Halyral order and forswear loyalty to the Vellari, or face expulsion from the Halyrate.

It was a daring move, and one that met with immediate outcry from across the Kern. High Prince Zakraphetas, only barely removed from an assassination attempt, could scarcely believe the mess his predecessor had gotten him into – but even had he been able to smooth things over before, that would have been impossible now.

The truth of the matter – that the Halyrate, though it had owed its survival to the Karapeshai in days of old, scarcely cared whether it earned the enmity of the Satar now – had become clear, but what had become still more clear was that war was imminent. Even staggering under the blows they had just been dealt, the Vellari nuccia could mobilize an enormous fleet. And so they did, gathering for an uncertain war where even who numbered on the two sides hadn't yet become clear.

For their part, the Accans on the other side of the Kern almost universally joined the Piriveni Order, though not an insubstantial number left for the other side of the Kern.

With war on their minds.


Though conflict seemed to be brewing in the north of the world, in the south, they worked hard to defuse what tensions existed – particularly those religious in nature. Rumor had it that the Grandpatriarchy had made some sort of peace with the Kothari Redeemer, but none could suss out exactly what the details were.

And despite proclamations from the Kothari Exatai reminding anyone and everyone that the Shuhar were still their vassals in rebellion, the southern empire went untroubled by invasion or even sanction for much of this decade. Instead, the peaceful interlude allowed them some luxuries they had not been afforded for quite some time. Most notably, Carhas II was able to negotiate the establishment of trade houses in Krato and distant Arrunehtar to better facilitate exchange with both lands – not to mention make it a good deal safer.

This was a fairly rousing success, as exotic timbers and nuts became a surprisingly hot commodity in Krato and the Trahana lands – though far more valuable, obviously, were the gemstones from the south, and the ivory harvested from the deeper jungles. While Krato had once been a source for ivory in its own right, the denudation of the Yensai by the march of Satores some three hundred years earlier had destroyed the habitat of the native elephants – and now ivory was as scarce there as it was anywhere else.

Similar merchant-mindedness seemed to prevail in the empire of Gaarim, where the country set about improving roads and strengthening ties to both Tsutongmerang (which was to be expected) and the Khoskai (which was not). All this made a great deal of sense for the empire – what was more surprising was its construction of a small fleet near the capital that was outfitted along Tsutongmerangic lines, readied for a long voyage, and then sent eastward on a grand journey that rounded the straits and sailed along the coast until it reached Leuce, in the Kothari Exatai, before turning back and sailing home.

While it was pure symbolism, it was powerfully done, and it marked a new era in Gaarim. Merchants began to ply the waves in every direction, particularly to the Airendhe and Tsutongmerang itself, and while others continued to control much of the trade going into the empire, they now at least had some control over that vast source of wealth.

The Zarian, meanwhile, turned up their nose at such vulgar activities, and instead looked inward. Specifically, inland, as their newest king, Cerjin II, pushed his soldiers deep into the jungles, driving out the tribes who had dwelt there for hundreds of years and seizing their villages as their own. While the Zarian were able to secure considerable territory, they had some trouble getting much productivity out of the rainforest; their planting patterns had been more suited for the coastal regions and less so for the interior.

But the biggest movement in the south came around Tsutongmerang, where the schemes of various factions pulled the state in half a dozen different directions. The most obvious move was that of Xochipepe of the Prosperity, who assembled a great fleet and army to conquer the few remaining independent cities of the isle they called Mashineshtotang, just to the south of Tsutongmerang itself. The conquest, supported by the Truths, took several years, starting with a march on the inland city of Kahera, resulting in a bloody siege that eventually led to the burning of the volcano-worshipers' capital in a spectacular display of violence. Advancing in a great procession, the soldiers then fought independent states one after another, bringing each to its knees in turn, and though persistent rumors of cannibalistic tribes plagued the army's sleep at night, this never came to pass. By the end, only one city remained still in resistance, though the siege lines were noosed tight around it.

Compared to this, Itoshia of the Truths had rather less spectacular accomplishments. His influence extended mostly to the waves around the capital proper, where he set up a series of patrols by semi-independent privateers whose job was less to loot passing ships, and more to force them to dock at the city itself in order to pay fees to the Triads. This proved less popular with the major powers, but it was not too unusual in the world at large.

Perhaps most intriguing was a cultish religion set up by Tepin, the leader of the Talents, whose unsavory Dregs beat up more than a few Conclavist missionaries in the interior of the main island. They instead began to worship the strange stone totems that dotted the interior, and resisted the interference of the more established religions fiercely, calling themselves a revival of the old animist beliefs.

But unusual as it was, the Talents' new faith could not compete on the larger scale with the huge influx of Conclavist money and missionaries, spearheaded by distant Hailsia. The missionaries reached deep into the isle of Mashineshtotang, and into the southern reaches of the Shuhar Empire – everywhere spreading the gospel of Doru o Ierai: that the purpose of man was to uncover the universal Truths that were woven throughout the universe.


Shattered for centuries, the successors to the old empires in the west had gone through so many phases of squabbling and attempted reunification that one would be entirely forgiven for thinking that the current time was nothing more than the next in this line. For Tiagho had begun to beat the drums of war, and while one might have expected their designs to be focused on the Highland states of Dula, Tara, and Anraugh, they instead went eastward, smashing the smaller state of Nedama with fairly little trouble in a battle by Lake Ndeos.

At the same time, they worked to secure their western flank, allying with the Taidhir, though a similar effort to bring the Raighama into their alliance was rebuffed, with the smaller state pointing out that they had little interest in joining with the power who had been a long-term enemy. Nevertheless, between Tiagho and the Taidhir, they had the power to be a real force in the cradle.

The Khoskai, meanwhile, seeking to break out of the traditional trade routes that funneled all of their wealth through the Airendhe (and, obviously, made them dependent on the Trahana), began to rebuild the Grand Canal, an ancient edifice from the Dulama period which had lain in disrepair so long that it was entirely unusable. Hiring engineers from the academies of the old Dulama cities, they managed to scrape together quite an impressive workforce – one that was able to build a new and enormous canal with a complex lock system for ascending the lands between the Rivers Thala and Thuaitl – but they did not quite have the money to make the effort a success by the time the decade petered to an end.

Rumors of a treaty between the Dula and the Khoskai, to counter the central alliance of the Taidhir and Tiagho, abounded, but there was nothing substantive; at the same time, reports from the south indicated that Gialla had invaded Ochu – but that there was nothing here but the normal order of things where the successor states were locked in constant combat.


Ossified and immense, the Empire of the Trahana had been seemingly frozen in time for years – even with the rise of the Golden Ships. Perhaps this had something to do with an intellectual and artistic stagnation, as the Decadence had been the style for decades now. Perhaps, though, it had something to do with the ancient Dowager Empress, who had lived long past her prime, and continued to rule through her son, whose ability to resist was minimal, at best.

The opening finally came with the death of the Dowager Empress, not only removing the single greatest figure of the old guard in Trahana politics, but also leaving the young and impressionable young Emperor vulnerable to influences from any number of his courtiers. The first to catch his ear – and thus the most successful early on, were the nobility of old Trahana, those who had the bloodlines stretching back the furthest, almost to the first days of the Empire. The Emperor, rather confused by the kindliness of his new “advisers”, passed what they hoped would only be the beginning of certain laws taxing the establishment of new “corporate” ventures like the constituents of the Golden Ships.

But the Golden Ships had already begun to strike back, and while they had not yet caught the ear of the Emperor himself, they were able to insinuate a force of advisers into the capital themselves, and, truthfully, they did know rather more about what was going on in the outlying regions than the old nobility did.

It was they that sponsored the construction of a series of new lighthouses on the southern islands, which had once been a great hazard for navigation along the Airendhe route, but now would be guarded by a magnificent series of lights.

Further along the coast, both Naran and Hariha looked to expand their share of the trade along the Ocean. Pulled in several directions at once, Naran's taelics could not agree on a place to focus their military force – some advocating for war in the south, others in the north, or even the west – but they certainly could agree that building a larger fleet was a desirable thing. For, once, Naran had the greatest and proudest fleet in the region, and though they were surpassed by the Noaunnaha now, many felt like they ought to reclaim that glory if they could.

Hariha needed no program of shipbuilding, for they were already one of the greatest navies on the Sunset Ocean. Instead, they looked mostly to expand their hold on existing markets, signing an alliance with Cuivar and extending feelers north to see which Reokhar successors might be most amenable to the same sort of deal. As it turned out, most of them had a certain wariness of Hariha, especially Havur, which sat on their border, and had in fact signed a deal with the distant empire of Tin Tan Tar, looking to discourage a Harihan assault.

In that distant empire, the intellectual developments of the past three hundred years were reinvigorated by the work of Kieng Huae Kieng, who expanded the probabilistic calculations of his predecessors and introduced a theorem which would later become one of the cornerstones of probability analysis. More importantly, Kieng displayed a singularly practical genius as well, suggesting a number of innovations adopted by his government, including the introduction of paper money, carefully regulated (though it only happened in fits and starts, as the people distrusted this new idea greatly), a state gambling house, and a state insurance company as well.

Meanwhile, the upper Kolgir valley was colonized with surprising rapidity, owing not a little to the adoption of a new type of plow better able to cut steppe soils, and a heavy infusion of government money. This had the natural effect of somewhat unnerving the local Vischa nobility, and it spurred more than a few of the Kyumai raiders in the area to target Tin Tan Tar as they had their southern enemies previously.

Darkened skies presented something of a problem to agriculture throughout the western half of the world, clouded by volcanic ash – and this drove many of the less careful countries deep into debt as agricultural revenues fell far below the expected levels.


Only a couple of decades removed from the tumultuous creation of the Exatai, the Vischa seemed to be in no mood for a serious conflict. Some trumped up excuse was found to launch a series of raids against the Kyumai (and they didn't have to look far, because Kyumai raids on the Vischa had almost simultaneously begun to intensify)... but this was rather transparently an attempt to grab loot and livestock from their steppe rivals and to give the imperial comitatus something to do, not an attempt to take territory or win a long-term conflict.

Behind this arc of raiding and counter-raiding on the frontier, the heartland of the Exatai passed through a quiet, if not entirely happy, period.

Meanwhile, the High Prince invited several of the greatest Eskana Valley notables to his court in Arhat, letting them participate in the politics of the capital for the first time – but this only somewhat alleviated the problems there, as court politics only lent a noble a little influence over the affairs of state. The most influential of these lords, Yuryas, used his new proximity to the High Prince to push for investment directly into the Eskana, pointing out that while the Prince was investing heavily into his homeland, little of the money found its way across the Nelhai.

Despite the minority's discontent, the investments certainly proved worthwhile – while much of the rest of the world felt the heavy impact of the darkening skies, the increasing crop yields from around Lake Eskha managed to offset the losses elsewhere in the Exatai, and though there was no growth, the land suffered few of the famines and depredations that other, nearby lands did.

The Telha Exatai suffered rather more. The River Einan froze over for three consecutive winters, and so, too, did a number of the rice paddies in the lowlands, their crops withering in the cold. Even the Rath Satar, with little to no agriculture except for a few scattered farms around Asihkar, turned a little bleaker, with the grasses fading to withered clumps of brown, and a few scattered dust storms rising out of the east. But the country weathered the crisis, and the High Prince Pharaxes was still able to implement a broad program of monastic building by the end of the decade, coupling this with a series of persecutions of what few heretics or heathens remained within his borders.

This met with general approval among the populace, who were, after all, looking for someone to blame for the crop failures, or perhaps looking for a little more land somewhere, but with rather less approval among the merchants, who grew concerned that perhaps the less pious might not want to make the long trip through Tephran territory.

But for the moment, the pogroms extended only to natives, and efforts of the Exatai on either size of the Tephrans – with the Vellari extending trade feelers in either direction, and the Vischa building a series of trading posts to better secure the steppe route – increased the flow of trade regardless. And after 804 RM, the greatest threat on the Tephran borders diminished somewhat, though through no actions of their own.


Not long after the speech at the Concourse, a woman by the name of Aelea arrived in Cyve. Bearing almost more scars than skin, she had been an Aelonist living on the island before she went on a mission to Sarkanda, in the shadow of the Zalkephai Rashai. It was there that she had been tortured at the hands of the Zalkephic zealots, and released as an example to other would-be martyrs. Her arrival in Cyve prompted pity from many, but little else – she was given a Wardship to tend to in the western section of the island, and largely ignored until she began to make a play for the High Wardship – the ruling theologian in the country.

The death of Hygren, last High Ward of Cyve, left the path open, and Aelea managed to wrangle her way to a successful election – promising nothing less than a holy war – what she called a Hymn – to conquer Sarkanda and expel the Zalkephai, freeing the tiny Aelonist population from hardship. To this end, she began to marshal the many friends that she had acquired in her travel – from as far afield as Sierdha, Parthe, and the Halyrate, not to mention the Ethir, Ereithaler, and of course Cyve itself. Though Athis had been embroiled in a number of new conflicts as we have already seen, the call to war did not fail to earn recruits, seeking a victory against the ancient enemy.

Across the sea, the Zalkephai, too, had been gearing up for war, but they of course had little knowledge of the Cyvekt buildup. Instead, they had begun to ready against the Vellari, whose political difficulties – not to mention their isolation after the infamous speech – had seemingly pulled them in another direction entirely. But something stopped the Zalkephai at the last moment – probably the raising of new forces in the northwest of the rival Exatai, or the surprising level of competence displayed by Zakraphetas, or perhaps the rumors of alliance between the Vellari and the Exalai.

Whatever it was, they did not march, instead letting their forces go home for some time. Those who did not ventured out as priests into the far north, snowshoeing and skiing across the endless wilderness and prodding at the heathen Varasar.

The invasion fleet came with the dawn, hundreds of ships and over fifty thousand men.

The invaders landed on Sarkanda, at Xaishas, and here, on the beaches, the first of what would be many battles was fought. The Zalkephai had received some warning of the incursion from a surprising source – the Sadorishi in the Halyrate had given them word, and men, and it was with great shock that the Alonite volunteers found a thousand of the Sadorishi (and some number of others) drawn up on the shore, with nearly ten thousand Zalkephai berserkers beside them.

Faced with this, the Hymnal forces were given pause. Attacking into the teeth of the Zalkephai forces seemed like a suicide mission, even with their far greater forces. But if they were to refuse battle here, they could simply be followed; Sarkanda was not that large an island.

After a bit of deliberation, a plan was arrived at, and a small part of the invasion force sallied forth. Landing on the beaches, the first Aelonist forces disembarked on the island – thousands of elite heavy infantry from the Chorus of Aelome, the fanatical force from Sierdha. This was the signal that the Zalkephai had been waiting for, and they charged at the enemy with a great shout, intending to drive them immediately back into the sea.

But even as the full fury of the Zalkephai crashed upon them, and the Sadorishi into their flank, the Chorus held strong, digging their heels into the sand.

For they knew that they only needed to hold for a short time, as another force landed just to the north, and another, just to the south, and another, and another. This initial beachehead was enough to distract the Zalkephai – especially since the Chorus stubbornly refused to die – and finally, on either side, the Hymnal armies pinched the Zalkephai between them. Flights of arrows scattered amongst them, and the Halyral volunteers flung a hail of crossbow bolts into the mass, and then, singing one of the familiar bardic calls from the Aelonist repertoire, the Sierdhe cavalry charged full force into the exposed Zalkephic flank.

It was evident from here on that battle would be won by the Hymnal forces, but the slaughter that resulted gave even the most hardened of warriors surprise. Even a surrounded force can take quite some time to die, if it has no inclination to surrender, and no one in this war gave quarter. The beaches were soon stained red, and the few survivors on the other side – mostly the Sadorishi – trudged into the distance, hoping to give battle another day.

This provided the template for most of the battles of the Hymn, with the allied forces crossing Sarkanda in a long, grinding campaign, taking each fortified position with only a great deal of effort, and lives. But it was judged worth it quickly enough – especially once the cheerful crowds in Xaishas emerged from their homes to welcome the liberators. The Hymnal fleet achieved naval superiority quickly enough; the rather small blue-water Zalkephic fleet simply could not match them in numbers, and the Cyvekt ships soon put fire to many of the smaller ports all around the Sea of Chamar.

Aelea had her revenge, but it was far from the end of the Hymn.

Able to pick their battles now, the Hymnal forces continued their advances. A large detachment, the Chorus of Aelome, who had already proved their mettle in battles in the south, assaulted Yevel, with the ancient castle of Seabreak standing in their way. After some three months of siege, they were able to reduce it only with the aid of a curious concoction of burning pitch one of the Aelome commanders had seen used once in his travels to the distant east. In the north, the Parthecan forces, aided by their great navy, slipped from island to island, promising the locals a rather more lenient time than if they were to fight the more fanatical of the Hymnal forces; they began to make headway even on the mainland.

But here was where the Aelonists' advantage ran out. The Zalkephai forces skied their way around the Sea of Chamar with surprising speed and deftness, and they appeared out of nowhere in the depths of the winter to strike at the Parthecans, nearly catching their fleet at the mooring, and certainly killing a number of them before they were able to flee into the water.

The Zalkephai continued to organize their response, holding their own fleet back from the sea, deep within the river system, and only issuing forth when they thought they could achieve some advantage – thus were small victories like the battle of Zianvi won over tiny detachments of the Hymnal fleet.

In the end, though, the stalemate would not be broken: the one side had the land, and the other, the sea. But with the coming war between the Accans and the Halyrate – one where the Aelonists would doubtless have to pick a side – that was bound to change.


Frozen coasts have an eeriness all their own. There is no sound of waves, for the water closest to the land is solid, and the water near the ice's edge is half frozen, too, just a clattering like the sound of shavings of snow in a drink. The ice itself begins at the shore, pulverized by waves for months before the waves, too, freeze solid. A person could walk along the rocky shore, and hardly tell ice from rock for a stretch some ten paces wide; one was black, and one was white, but otherwise, they had the same shape, the same size, and the same consistency.

Yuki sat there for many days, wrapped in old furs, the white tufts around the edges of the leather like the mane of some southern cat, watching the snow and showing no interest in the coming or going of the day or night. This land had been retaken by her people some time ago, but the rest of them had readied for the next enemy assault, standing at the watch with their spears; one of them brought Yuki hot food every day out of pity. They whispered that she had lost a brother, or a father, or a mother or a sister or a lover in the war, but none knew why she stared so.

And so the One Who Brought Her Food paused one day and asked her why she sat there and watched the sea. And she did not turn to acknowledge him; she only said, “It is not yet time.”

He carried the words back to his fellows, and they agreed it was something strange, but they paid it little mind. And so Yuki sat again for days and days, watching the accumulation of ice at the edges. One would not think that water could freeze when it is so driven by the sea, but one after another, the blocks of pack ice would freeze in place, grinding to a halt as they locked in an endless tapestry, or perhaps a mosaic of thin blue veins across an endless white. Many wondered if Yuki had frozen in her seat, for surely it could be none too comfortable sitting where she did, on the sharp rocks regarding the sea, with the wind biting at her face and peeling the skin right off.

And so the One Who Brought Her Food paused one day and asked her if she was comfortable, if she did not wish to come inside with them. And she did not turn to acknowledge him; she only said, “It is not yet time.”

From time to time, snow would fall on the ice. While northerners do not quite have the fabled dozens of words for snow that the rest of the world supposes, it is no easy task to describe that particularly heavy snowfall of midwinter – when the flurries come thick and fast from the water, and the snow has a clinging quality that lets it accumulate rather quickly. This is the most dangerous time, after a snowfall, for it is then that ice and land are indistinguishable, and one can never be sure if they are treading on shore or open water. It was after one particularly heavy blizzard that they wondered if Yuki had left her customary post – or if perhaps she had been buried.

And so the One Who Brought Her Food paused that day and asked her if she was not quite sick of the snow yet. And she did not turn to acknowledge him; she only said, “It is time.”

“Time for what?” he asked.

But she gave him no reply, and simply picked up her spears and began to walk out onto the open ice –

– and across it, toward the island that had lain inaccessible for so long to them, where the Hymnal fleet had been raiding from with impunity –

“Reconquest.”


Maps:




OOC:

Stats will come this week, along with a list of the random deaths and the subsequent positions that need to be filled.

PLEASE take note of the spending rules. Your annual income is annual. You had ten times that to spend this last turn (there are plenty of ways to notate this in your orders, and I'm fine with all of them) and you will again next turn. It's not a huge deal at present, but you'll want to take note of it for the treasury and debt stats at the very least.

That was a quick turnaround. Wonderful update, NK.

Excellent update as usual, and in very good time as well

PLEASE take note of the spending rules. Your annual income is annual. You had ten times that to spend this last turn (there are plenty of ways to notate this in your orders, and I'm fine with all of them) and you will again next turn. It's not a huge deal at present, but you'll want to take note of it for the treasury and debt stats at the very least.

Click to expand...

Whoops. That was directed at least to me, though maybe I am not alone.

Great first update to lead to rising tensions. As a minor nitpick, the Dowager Empress was not the mother of the current Trahana emperor, but his great-grandmother, who had been basically ruling for about 60 years.

Excellent update. It seems to me that the irrigation system did not work, since the lake is salty. Also the story of the introduction was interesting. By chance we will see the end of it?

From: The Cripple
To: The Witch

Much exatas. I would applaud you, if my other hand worked.

Who do you think would win if we were to do a battle-challenge, a chair-bound cripple or a...gracefully aging woman? I'd come to Sirasona myself to try, but I fear travel is difficult in my condition. And the battle-challenge was always more of a metaphor, don't you think?

Now, you should give back the things you took from my people. It's not nice to steal where I come from. If you're incapable of doing that, I would be happy to send someone to bill you for the damages. The Prince of Light has always been a loyal friend to the Satar, and I will not let a few small insults get in the way.

Shouldn't true friends stick together, as closely as we can? That Vaban though, he is a troublemaker. You should watch out for him. Send him to me if you get a chance; I'll give him a serious scolding. And listen. Whatever my father said about you, I don't believe you're a real witch.

FROM: The Beneficent and Impossibly Graceful High Ward Elea Gyldwin
TO: Supplicant

Oh, I imagine you'd win by default. It's against my principles to beat children. Your slaves and courtiers and scrapers told you you were clever, didn't they? And you believed them, because the alternative would be too terrible to bear. Ah, Moril was right: you princes never can know real truth. Prince of Light; you thought it sounded well, perhaps. We have no princes here, broken boy, and Light has no master. The meanest idiot on this side of the sea would have known that, and could have told you what a tremendous insult that preposterous title is, but neither you nor your father bothered to ask. You have my congratulations, for you have truly mastered the Aspects of arrogance and stupidity.

Now, you continue to insist that we play by your rules, on your terms. You don't seem to understand that this is what happens when we play by Satar rules, broken boy: there can be Vellari territory in Vellari territory, and not elsewhere, isn't that how you princes behave? You don't even allow our dear brothers of the north into your cities. We did not want this; WE did not want to force a painful choice, but your puppetmasters insisted. They should have anticipated just how painful it would prove.

You say want to be friends? You say you want to return to the way things were? That goes both ways, broken boy; you ask a great deal of us, and there will be no one-sided concessions out of pity. If you want us to play nice, you're going to have to play nice. I've a soft spot for children, as I said, and I don't want to tax you, so I'll lay your Path out for you: you will lift all restrictions of any kind on Maninists and Aelonists and Aitahists and Zalkephists in the Vellari Exatai; you will lift all restrictions on non-Ardavani proselytizing; you will formally and bindingly renounce your grievous error of judgment in regard to Aelona and Aelonism; you will grant all Maninist and Aelonist Orders in Vellari territory permanent exemption from Vellari jurisdiction; and you will come to Sirasona and Athsarion and you will beg forgiveness from your knees for the manifold crimes and insults perpetrated by your forebears. Do these things and then we may believe that you intend to be friends. Anything less would not be a fair deal, and where you come from they do so love fair deals.

From: The Cripple
To: The Witch

Well you are FAR less friendly than the picture books make you look. I suppose having been beautiful once and seeing it all fade away will do that to you. The Aelonist obsession with sex is a fascinating thing, but I would imagine it turns to poisonous hatred and jealousy after a certain point, when you realize your sagging body can no longer support the lifestyle you've been accustomed to, the talents you used to achieve your position having turned to dust. Or in this case, wrinkles. Seems to have happened a bit early in your case, but you know what they say about the stress of command.

Oh, I could talk about your adorable demands but I'd rather just ignore them. Just like most of your Orders ignore everything you have to say. But listen, I'll find a good husband for you after this is all over. It's clear you've advanced a bit beyond your station, and a nice quiet life will suit you much better. Not that you could bear children anymore, but I'm sure you could keep a tidy home with adequate re-training.

That was quick.

As have been mentioned in another thread, I'm breaking down with stress atm so I'm only able to superficially follow stuff like this. That said, things seemed to work out. NK, sorry for forgetting about the annual thing. I wrote my orders while my flesh seared, kind of. I have my mind on a lot of things. Sorry.

FROM: The Glorious and Merciful High Ward Elea Gyldwin
TO: The Thirty Year Old Virgin

Oh, you really do know nothing. They didn't even give you the right books, did they? I suppose proper books would have been too difficult and destroyed the delicate illusion. There's no Aelonist obsession with sex, broken boy. I understand YOUR obsession, though; the unknowable mysteries do tend to preoccupy the mind, don't they? You're really being very stupid, even for a Satar; why, if you came to Sirasona I'd even be willing to draw back that curtain for you. You might even be grateful afterwards. Ah, I suppose you don't even understand the concept of a deal, or gratitude for that matter. I shouldn't have expected so much. Go back to begging all and sundry to rescue your pride, broken boy. Maybe the Faronun or Seshweay or Palansai will even deign to save you.

From: The Cripple
To: The Witch

I'm pretty sure if YOU drew back any curtains, my eyes would be next in line to get crippled.

FROM: The Awe-Inspiring and Brilliant High Ward Elea Gyldwin
TO: The Least Successful of Atracta's Panhandlers

You know what they say about beggars and choosers, broken boy.

Actually, I suppose you probably don't.

North King,

can we assume this becomes the state of affairs after the random deaths?


Names:

Ereithaler - Angst
Leader: Commonarch Sabard (Age: 47)
Government: Monarchy
Factions:
Lobardian School Extremely influential; intellectuals. (Leader: Erdtal (Age: 60))
Nobility Influential landed aristocracy. Expansionist. (Leader: Anethaler (Age: 58))
Peasantry Disorganized, but not discontented. (Leader: Måkes (Age: 38))
Aelonist Wards Influential religious leaders. (Leader: Ceveyn (Age: 58))
Maninist Wards Influential religious leaders. (Leader: Terelthan (Age: 48))
Ereithaler Merchants Influential, cosmopolitan, international connections. (Leader: Siregebard (Age: 70))
Parthecan Merchants Localized to Kurchen. Affiliated with their homeland. (Leader: Terthecarl (Age: 72))

Musings of a sleepless soldier
During the aftermath of the Dicaran war


It was a poor night, I felt. This hallowed eve, crackling as the beaks of dawn thundered over us. But still, it was silent I believe, and the soldiers slept next to each other in peace. The war was over here, replaced with a simple act of possession: we were to sleep here for yet another month, and it was dull. I felt as if nothing was to be done here, nothing was to not be done. I assume it was the curse of being a soldier; the marching and sleeping and tent-raising was dull, yet it was mute compared to the screams and sundering hardships of the roaring battle. As such, I had blessed myself that the war had been short. Dicara was a beautiful land, I find; as soon as I was released from duty, I would allow for relocation. For why not? All of my family had died years ago; all that remained of my friends were Balbard and the noble captain. And after the war, they would return to their own villages; so would I. And it requires only one look at a maiden drawing these giant elk at a rope to know that this is where one would belong. A peaceful land. And the Ethir language, where they spoke it, it was like silken heartstrings being pulled inside my warm belly. Like I would never need mead again. And I met one fair woman in Caradan; a small village south of a lake; who, perhaps impressed by my swords, invited me to eat. I would need no less from a girl here; and no more. I would protect these people, if I had been born here.

That was quick! Sorry about no orders, NK, especially after asking you such a lot of questions: I had a particularly vicious string of exams.