To The Citadel and Back (Part 3) (Closed)

[LordLeopold]

Stevens's foot skidded across the stone and he nearly fell, but the duke managed to catch himself on the wall and keep upright. Ahead of him, Marietta was cautiously picking her way forward toward the dull sunlight at the end of the passageway. They were under the abandoned mansion, in what must have once been a back exit of sorts. Along one side of the passage was a raised platform, along which they walked, made up of heavy stones laid against the wall. Below the walkway was what must have once been a gutter or sluice for drainage from the estate outside; clay pipes protruded from the wall at regular intervals, and the entire passage was damp and chilly. The ceiling was low enough to force the duke to stoop slightly, but the timid maid ahead could stand straight and barely scrape the top of her head. Stevens doubted that anything flowed through this passage except during the heaviest of storms, like the one that had blown through a few nights ago. Aside from those infrequent showers, he imagined the passage was usually unused. No servants were left to scurry out this back way, no hot baths were being drawn in the house above that needed to be drained out this tunnel to the outside world. I wonder how she knew about this exit... Stevens thought. Then he remembered the unabashed, casual way in which the young noble had swung himself out the window. He'd been to this place before and probably left someone behind, fleeing the scene alone. Stevens frowned and ground his teeth.

Marietta paused as she reached the end of the tunnel, waiting for the duke to catch up to her, and then stepped outside. Stevens followed. The passage ended with an unadorned hole poked in the side of a shallow bank. Covered in low, yellow weeds, it sloped gently down to a large stream. On the other side of the small river, the bank was almost identical, and Stevens realized he was standing on the edge of a man-made trench. High walls from the exclusive manors sprung up at the crest of each bank, blocking off an exit except any that might exist far up- or downstream. The stream below was wide and shallow, sunlight piercing straight to the muddy, rocky bed. Flowing rapidly, the water carved through wide sandbanks and mudflats, at times babbling fiercely and at others quiet and nearly motionless. Tunnels similar to the one from which Stevens had just emerged also opened up along the bank to either side, some with heavy sheets of water sliding down from them to the canal below. There was a sweet, thick smell in the air, like something decaying. The duke had a few moments to take this all in before Marietta traipsed off along the bank and he was forced to follow her.

They walked downstream along a tiny, hard trail, packed down and narrow like a dogs' pathway in a fenced yard. It wagged and snaked through the grass, up and down the hill, passing in front of each drainage opening, smaller pathways linking it to those dark gateways when it didn't pass close enough by them. Steep little valleys had been worn into the ditch every few yards where water collected during downpours, and the two stepped or leapt gingerly over them. A few times the duke thought he espied a rat's tail in the grass, but the creatures fled at their approach, and all he really saw was a rustle of stalks and a small cloud of dirt.

Little changed about their surroundings for several minutes. On either side, the wall seemed little changed from property to property, and only occasionally would its stone change shades or a guard tower punctuate a change in ownership. After some time, however, as the walls became obviously newer and cleaner, and Marietta's pace increased, Stevens realized that they must be coming to the edge of this wealthy quarter. He was not sure, however, whether it would be safer to leave this ditch once they were able to access the streets. Before he had left the Armory earlier that morning, the officers had assured him that the Entente's army had the entire city under control. But if the City Guard had rebelled against all the monks, as they apparently had in this rich quarter, the streets might not be safe at all. And if any of those wanted posters were still fluttering about... They might yet come after me, again! Stevens thought.

The walls to either side suddenly ended. Emerging from the manor-framed ditch, Stevens felt uneasy and a little queasy. At the other side of the final walls were two plots of land that had been scraped clean and leveled. Stone and wood were scattered about them in the first stages of the medieval construction of what would eventually become large manors. Workers were trudging back and forth among the first stacked stones and columns being hoisted into place. String held between stakes in the ground marked off the future wings and walls. From the looks of the construction, these houses would be massive, easy rivals for the larger mansions of the city. It was what was pressed up against the very limits of the sites that surprised and unsettled the duke. Shacks, leaning heavily to one side or the other, were pressed cheek-to-jowl in a splintered row at the edge of the site, their warped walls marking the outer sides of where the perimeter walls would someday stand. Looking into the water at the bottom of the trench, Stevens saw children leaping about naked in the stream, women rubbing shirts together in the water and chatting quietly, dogs slurping up the smelly drainage and barking furiously. Homes were tumbling down the banks of the channel, almost falling into the water. Most were rickety wooden things, a few somehow stacked to two or even three stories, with half-dressed men hanging out the windows and standing on the roofs, smoking pipes together and yelling back and forth. A line of laundry was stretched from a house on one side of the bank to another opposite, the clothes dragging the loose cord almost to the water. Looking up the stream was a similar sight with no end.

"This is your neighborhood, eh?" Stevens asked Marietta, who was standing at his elbow. She didn't reply and began chewing her lip. After a few seconds she tromped off up the slope and through the construction site, toward a narrow street between two rows of homes. "Cheerio..." Stevens muttered and followed after her as fast as his aching knees would allow.

[LordLeopold]

Stevens followed the waifish figure past the edge of the construction site and into the narrow alleyways of the slum city. The roofs of these shacks slanted down to his shoulder level, most still slowly dripping water from their cracked and rusty edges. He had to dodge under fallen pipes that had once served as chimneys and duck through narrow spaces where walls had begun to collapse in toward each other. Underfoot the ground was stripped bare, the red mud coating the bottom and sides of his shoes. A small trench of syrupy, muddy rainwater drained through the alleyway, and Stevens shuffled bow-legged over the tiny stream, which Marietta easily walked beside. The duke noticed with what care she raised the hems of her dress, obviously not paid for with her own money, and how measured her leaps over piles of refuse or corroding boards were. She had obviously made this dash home many times before. Side-stepping a matted, three-legged dog that was groaning into the drainage stream, Stevens emerged from the alleyway and into what passed as the street.

The dirt here was bright red also, a color and slippery consistency that Stevens hadn’t seen elsewhere in the city, where thick layers of gravel, sand and paving usually hid the ground beneath. Water left over from the heavy rain was still collecting in deep trenches and puddles along either side of the road, and the heavy silt made it look like blood seeping up around a nasty scab. The road itself was slick and red, torn bare by years of rain and wind, eroded on either side until it looked like an old turtle’s back. What served as gutters on either side often did no better than provide a collecting pool for the run-off, which created massive puddles that leaked into the huts on either side. There was as much rotting and worn wood as fresh lumber or clay buildings up and down the street. Few shops were open out to the street, but many houses seemed to be little more than adirondacks, with their innards open for a passing pedestrian to see. What the duke could see was certainly not pretty: The closest open house seemed to be some sort of makeshift inn where a row of bunks against one wall served three hung-over men, and a burly woman with only one eye sulked along the other wall, leaning against an old barrel.

It was surprising how many people were in the street, mostly silent but some grumbling to each other and glancing about furtively. There were some skinny children with shaggy hair, and a few women hunched under heavy sacks and buckets, but most were angry men, from peach fuzzed youth to dotage, moving in menacing packs, clawing at their beards and stomping their boots in the mud. Stevens, keeping his eyes on whichever band was nearest, stepped over the moat at the edge of the street and scrambled as best he could to the top of the mound. Realizing Marietta was not beside him, he turned back to the alleyway. She was standing there, clutching a rope of her hair, eyes wide and lips quivering as she looked around the street from the grizzled faces to lecherous eyes. The duke could easily guess what terrible memories were beginning to cross her mind, and he picked his way toward her, careful not to fall, outstretching his hand and smiling. “There, there, dear girl,” he said, bringing himself to smile as best he could. “We’ve only a short way to the Citadel, I’m sure…”

“You shove off!” A coarse woman’s voice cried, and Stevens leapt back as a woman easily the size of a bison charged to Marietta’s side. Draped in a dirty, torn dress that looked like an old tablecloth and obviously missing several teeth, the rest of which were broad and blackened, the woman was a horrible and frightening sight. She put her arm around the tiny girl, who shrieked at the touch and began slapping at the woman’s bulk. “Ey, what have you done with my niece?” the woman bellowed, stepping menacingly toward the duke.

“Er, I daresay,” Stevens stammered, holding up his hands in a gesture of innocence. “I found this poor girl being barbarously treated by a young man I can only assume is her master’s son. I assure you I had no part in it. The name’s Lord Leopold Stevens, madam,” he yammered, bowing slightly and hoping fearfully that she had heard the name before. Perhaps his reputation would precede him; from the horrified look on her face, she seemed severely displeased.

“Ey, you took her away from her housework? You old blighter!” She raised the sack of potatoes she was carrying over one shoulder and threw it at Stevens. It hit him across the face and knocked him to the ground, where he hit the dirt on the seat of his pants and skidded down the hump several feet, smearing his trousers with red clay. “Now she’ll lose another one! Damn you!” A small crowd was beginning to gather around the quarrel, several men taking pipes out of their pockets and chewing the stems appreciatively, as if at the theater. Two began flashing pieces of coin at each other, as if beginning a bet.

“Well upon my word!” Stevens cried, pulling himself painfully to his feet, hearing his joints creaking loudly. “I save this woman from a lascivious attack and you assault me! This is simply uncivilized! I was merely trying to return to the Citadel when…”

“The Citadel?!” One of the men in the gathering crowd yelled out, waving his arms angrily, his face turning crimson around his scraggly beard. “You’re with the monks, ain’t ya?” Stevens was taken aback at the man’s theatrics but slowly nodded, hoping this yet might be his salvation. Rather than relieved, however, the crowd seemed incensed. The children who had gathered fled, and several people began shouting at the tops of their voices. As the crowd quickly grew, a few men stepped forward, raising their arms and shouting shrilly enough to quiet the rest. One of them, a middle-aged, fatherly man with tears in his eyes, took off his shapeless, soiled hat and stepped out beside Stevens. He cried out, overcoming obvious emotion:

“Those monks,” he began, and those in the crowd who had still been complaining to each other quickly silenced themselves. “Those monks came in with this army of theirs last night. We were all there to see it. They chased down the City Guard,” there was a chorus of boos and hisses from the crowd, which was still growing about them, but a raised hand from the speaker silenced those, too. Looking around, it appeared to Stevens that the entire neighborhood was flowing to this spot in the street, some rolling up their sleeves with menacing looks on their faces. Turning back to Marietta, Stevens found that both she and her large aunt had disappeared somewhere in the crowd.

“I know what we think about the City Guard.” the man kept it up, and the faces in the crowd nodded viciously. “But at least they was from our city, huh? These new soldiers, who knows? Well they’re in our city now. They took the whole place over. And we saw what they did to my boy Tommy last night!” A man in the crowd shouted something incomprehensible, and the angry cry picked up throughout the gathering. Although the cries were more distinct now, they were jumbled together and flowed into one angry river of tirades. The duke knew he could understand what was being said around him if he concentrated on one or two of the voices, but there were too many to choose from, too many shouting out and immediately going silent to pick one strand. All he sensed was a feeling of violation, of horror and revulsion and fierce independence.

“I think we oughta make them pay!” the man yelled out, another voice in the maelstrom, but it was obvious that those around him had already thought of this. Stevens thought he saw metal blades glinting above the men’s heads, heavy ropes and chains wrapped around fists, eyes narrowing into feral slits. “And if this guy,” the man gestured to Stevens, who leapt in fear, “Is with the monks and all them, we should start with him!” The duke felt his knees give way under him and swayed to keep steady. The man turned on him, pushing him toward the crowd. He felt heavy hands land on his shoulders, grab his arms and legs and hold him in place. It was an unreal feeling, staring into the inchoate, screaming crowd closing in around him. The sound was unbearable, the screams and shouts becoming a primal jungle roar in his ears. He whipped his head from side to side, yelling whatever futile protests came to his mind, kicking and swiping with his fists, gnashing his teeth as the furious bodies moved down upon him. All the faces were blurred into a single crying dirty body, a disgusting mass that could barely be called humanity.

But abruptly he felt the pressure on him lowering, the anger and heat drawing away from him. Looking beyond the writhing mass about him, he saw five men with spiked helmets on horseback, waving sabers in the air and charging at what was now a riot. All the figures surrounding him were turning, facing these new attackers, pushing toward them and away. Hands let go of his body and his attackers were flowing on either side, moving down the street. Before he fell to his hands and knees, he saw the first few men hit the horses like fog hitting mountains. The mountains began to crumble, and horse and soldier hit the ground under a thousand pounding fists. Falling to the ground, himself, the duke felt his arms and legs sink into the wet, crowd-churned mud. He cowered there as the last of the crowd moved past him, lowering his face to the ground. Shaking and tingling, he felt like his body was coming apart. His forehead sank into the clay, which was cool and wet against his cinder hot skin. The street smelled like old boots and manure, the smells of life. Digging his trembling fingers into the mud, he realized he hadn’t breathed in half a minute and gasped, collapsing fully into the ground, letting the red clay and rainwater dig into his body. Lying there, he let the minutes pass. Sleep slowly descended upon him.

A high-pitched scream and a jet of heat drew him awake, and Stevens raised his head. Five dead horses were in the street ahead, but no soldiers’ bodies were to be seen. Instead, there was a smoldering crater from which a skeletal, black torso was clawing the clay. Oily smoke rose from the scorched earth. The crowd had shattered back into single men who were screaming and scampering in all directions, some running past the duke, terrified, others trying to climb up and over shacks, others simply running in confused zigzags to nowhere. There was a heavy metallic crunch and clink from somewhere out of sight, around and down one of the narrow streets that intersected the sad one he was now on. Noises like taunt metal cords being plucked and thick pistons hissing rose in the air, and Stevens heavily pushed himself to his feet, covered in mushy red clay that sloughed from his front and face, falling in clumps to the ground. As dozens of men ran from the intersection, waving wildly and screaming, Stevens moved toward it, his head cocked, his fear of death greatly diminished in the afterglow of surviving a near assassination. He saw a spindly, angular piece of metal, draped in cable and tipped with spikes, move slowly from around the corner and plant itself in the mud. It pivoted, pulling something heavy into view, and Stevens frowned.

“Oh God have mercy on me,” he muttered as his feet stopped moving and terror quickly overtook him again. Clanking and jittering into view was a looming, eight-legged machine, barely holding itself up, huge metal pieces pulling and wheezing in conjunction to keep its body in defiance of gravity. Jets of steam and smoke blew from the contraption’s metal body, oil and water flowing from grates on its sides. The square metal head moved mechanically to face him as it clomped around the bend, jerkily moving into place like a slow second hand. He could make out the forms of men moving inside it through the slits in the metal panels that made up its side. It was a spider tank, built by the Engineer’s Guild for the Entente Army that had fought in the first Gisela Tournament. That had been years ago, but the improbable instrument still existed. And judging from the long, steaming mandible moving beneath its ungainly head, the machine was still lethal.

“Dear Lord, I hope they recognize me…” Stevens said, and stepped forward, waving his hands above his head and smiling. “I say, gentlemen!” he cried, “It’s Leopold Stevens! I’m alright!” The gears beneath the tank’s headpiece clanked together as the gunner moved its magical armaments into place. “Good gracious,” was all Stevens could manage before a bright jet of energy shot from the tip of the thick, wand-like protrusion beneath the cockpit and landed in the street a few yards ahead of him. A burst of fire and noise threw a cascade of red clay into the air, and the duke dove away from the blast, covering his head and closing his eyes tight. Almost immediately he stumbled to his feet, nearly falling back on his face in the slippery mud, and began running for the nearest cover. Beside him, a shack exploded in a ball of flame, the roof shooting into the air and the bottom half of a man smashing through the second floor of a building on the other side of the road like a macabre cannonball. Behind, the tank began clanking down the street, following the fleeing malcontents.

[LordLeopold]

High Priest Caspar Knaut, his body still aching in a dozen places, shifted from one buttock to the other and wheezed. On top of his stiff woolen robes was wrapped a heavy shawl, dyed as black as the ecclesiastical garb underneath. He was bareheaded, and felt the cold air pricking at his balding head uncomfortably. Pulling back his glistening white skin, he tried to form a stained, yellow smile at the guest sitting across the room from him. High above him the ceiling floated, somewhere in a mist of cobwebs and shadows. The room was littered with the detritus of an office long inhabited by the same scholar: papers, sticks of chalk, moldy remains of half-eaten lunches. A heavy desk, an indispensable piece of furniture for any of the High Priests of Ai'Bron, dominated the front of the room where he quivered sickly. A large tapestry hung behind him, depicting some monstrous battle scene. He coughed again.

Looking down at his hands, fresh scars shining above the lumps of veins, he thought about how close he must have been to dying in the past day. How much closer his brethren fighting the rebellion must have been to death because so much care was diverted his way, to keep him alive despite the incredible injuries he had suffered. He could still feel the burning grip of Aesphestos' magic imprinted in his flesh. It felt like he was still being squeezed roughly like a child in a rough blanket wrapped too tightly. Bunching the scarf up around his neck, he sighed and felt his lungs press against his ribcage, which seemed a little small. He may have survived the immediate attack, but he knew that whatever had happened to him would eventually end his life, if something deadlier didn't intervene in the meantime. Raising his hands to his eyes, he massaged the globes, watching lights dance on the inside of his eyelids as he did so. It was undeniable. He was old.

"Are you alright, your grace?" the monk across from him asked nervously, and Knaut lowered his hands, smiling weakly again. "A bit of the flu," he replied, and clasped his puffy fingers together on his lap. The ache in his joints moved outward through his marrow, toward his fingers and the top of his skull. He felt as if he was being ruined from within, as if the scars from Aesphestos' attack went deeper than his skin or even his flesh, down to his spirit.

Outwardly, he only continued to smile and scooted his chair forward a bit. "You were saying, my son?" The younger monk drew a breath, apparently unsure of how to continue but painfully aware of how he couldn't take his frightened report back. He would have to press on.

"Twelve monks. Just came in. Stabbed in the Bazaar." Knaut stopped dead, his mouth open slightly, air feebly sucked into his throat.

"Stabbed by whom?"

"Uh," he managed, the implications of what he was saying giving him a few seconds of pause. "City Guardsmen, we think." Feeling faint, Knaut leaned against the edge of his desk, closing his eyes tightly as the world spun around him. The fact that, for the time being, he was ultimately and utterly responsible for the Citadel and all his brethren in it, suddenly acquired an even more frightening weight than it had only a few moments earlier. He drew himself back inward, tying together his frayed emotions and focusing them, kicking around furiously in his head for a solution. Finally, he drew himself straight.

"Draw all the monks back to the Citadel and eject all the City Guard." As the monk tremulously stood and left the room, Knaut leaned back in his chair, his meager strength slowly draining. Civil war he thought to himself.

*******

Around the manor that the day before had housed the Baron of Radasanth there was little horticultural cheer to be had. What little grass and flowers were left on the ground were coated in mud and flattened. Entire swaths of earth had been torn and smashed into mudfields. Shrubs and vines had been ripped up and were lying in smoldering fires at the corners of the estate, where they were poked by sniggering conscript soldiers. Topiaries shaped like fanciful animals had been slashed by swords or scorched until they were no longer recognizable, so that the estate was littered with their remains like a strange graveyard. Gravel paths which had formerly been rolled flat were now gouged and scattered. A gardener was sitting on the stump of a distinguished old tree that had been felled by a dull blade, weeping into his shirtsleeves. The only thing constructive in sight was a gang of Ozternbergian soldiers in their spiked helmets and thick, drab uniforms, hacking away at hedges and rosebushes to clear a landing strip for their dragons across the remains of the garden. They were using the few garden tools that hadn't been smashed or stolen by the invaders. Outside the bounds of the wall, a contingent of powder-blue clad soldiers with immaculate golden helmets, each topped with a stuffed dove, marched in a continual loop around the property, the few remaining members of the baron's personal guard forced to march in time along with them.

Max Immelman grumbled angrily to himself as he paced back and forth, watching the progress of the landing strip construction. His polished black boots were quickly picking up the goopy dirt which was being churned to the surface by the construction, but he ignored it: just as he ignored most of the intelligence report that was being read back to him by a severe adjutant with a black armband. Immelman looked out of the corner of his eye at the band and kept grumbling. It was a sign of personal fealty to the Nar'oth, the messiah of his nation and herald of the end of evil in the world. Joseph von Ribbentrophen, a minor noble and mediocre military mind, was now the savior of the world and attracting a far more devoted following than the Emperor, himself. But he was something aside from minor and mediocre, Immelman feared. He was also mad, and this was the most fearsome thing of all. The reincarnation of the greatest emperor his people had ever known, and the only human king to stand at the Battle of Caradin, should at least be a little more worthy of respect than that.

"... an army is reported to be moving from the east..." Immelman heard through the buzz of the intelligence report, and quickly ended his reverie to face the officer, who was a bit startled by the sudden attention and nearly dropped his parchment.

"The east?" Immelman barked. "An army? Who? The Forgotten?" The officer blinked slowly, collecting himself.

"Our scouts flew too high to see distinctly, but they claim to have seen several banners of the governments of this continent." Immelman sneered and waved for the officer to continue, but deeply was troubled. If Corone had turned against them, there was little hope of holding the city. Entente forces could perhaps defeat an outside force, but if native armies attacked the city, it was not a great puzzle to decipher who Radasanth would support. Immelman shook his head and turned to ask the officer another question when a deep roar and a gust of wind slapped his body. The sky darkened for a brief moment and the officer's paper was torn from his hand. Shouting at the men on the landing strip, who were scattering and pointing at the sky, Immelman looked up and frowned. An enormous dragon had just buzzed the landing strip, and was wheeling through the air, probably preparing to swoop back down. Several more dragons were circling, far higher above, so high they seemed to be buzzards in the sky. It was a standard Ozternbergian landing. It appeared the Nar'oth and his entourage had returned.

A few minutes later, Immelman snapped to attention as the Nar'oth's dragon cantered to a stop in front of him. It was a muscled, red-skinned beast with a squat neck and a huge single horn extending from its brow. Spreading its wings one last time before finally folding them along its back, the beast briefly covered the sun, which shone through its membranous wings like the moon through fog. Its tail was long and snaked back and forth of its own accord, nearly clobbering a nimble-footed attendant soldier with the bone club at its tip. As the dragon settled on its haunches, several men rushed to link heavy chains to its bridle and saddle, keeping it in place for its rider. But that man didn't wait for them to finish, and leaped from the dragon's back, his jackboots thumping into the mud heavily. As Joseph von Ribbentrophen stepped forward, he unlatched his heavy dragonhide riding cloak and tossed it at a lieutenant, who nearly buckled under the weight. He was a large man, broad across the shoulders and face, who was no less imposing as he lurched forward, face red, mouth stretched thin. Most striking, however, was the disturbing burn scar across his forehead and shaved scalp. It took the form of a dragon, its tail curling nearly to the bridge of his nose, its wings spread above his eyebrows and its head snapping at his dome. Disgustingly painful to look at, it was the mark of the Nar'oth, the first sign of the end times.

"They fucked us, Max!" von Ribbentrophen screamed, tearing off his thick gloves and tossing them at the dazed lieutenant as he marched forward, boots pounding heavily with each step. "They nailed us right in the ass!" Immelman's mouth dropped in shock, and von Ribbentrophen grabbed his shoulder as he marched past, whipping him around and nearly pulling him alone. "We need some place to talk about this alone," he nearly shouted in Max's ear, and Immelman raised a hand weakly, managing to say "Perhaps the Baron's former quarters?" von Ribbentrophen, incandescent with rage, gritted his teeth and nodded, and Immelman managed to take the lead as best he could, steering the seething savior into the manor and up the stairs into the dingy room.

As Immelman closed the door, von Ribbentrophen marched to a chair that seemed to be made of sticks and threw himself into it. The wood groaned and the Nar'oth cursed, jumping up to his feet and pacing back and forth across the ratty carpet, eyes jumping from one spindly table to another. One was layered with maps and documents, all stained with red wine. A carafe was lying on its side atop all of them, and von Ribbentrophen yelled something incomprehensible, grabbed the glass, and threw it against a brass mirror standing in the corner, where it shattered. "Damn!" he cried, grabbing one of the heavy maps and, with some effort, tearing the thick animal skin it was painted upon. Immelman, screwing his courage up, crossed his arms and waited for the Nar'oth to calm. After a few minutes, seeing this was unlikely, he asked the only vapid question that came to mind.

"The coronation went smoothly?" he managed. von Ribbentrophen had been urgently called back to Ozternberg by a carrier pigeon. They had all been informed that the Emperor had died and that, by ancient law, the Nar'oth must bless the ascension of his heir. von Ribbentrophen snarled at Immelman and slammed his fist on the table.

"There was no coronation!" he shouted, his scream echoing off the stone of the tiny room's walls. Immelman, shocked silent, stood, his face locked into a stupid gape. The Nar'oth tore at his collar, loosening a button, and breathed deeply. His face lost a few shades of red. "It was all a trick," he continued, more calmly but still transparently furious. "We were tricked so I would leave and the monks could get into Radasanth. When I got there, the Emperor was fine. The old cocksucker was shocked to see me!" Immelman's jaw dropped at the lèse majesté, but von Ribbentrophen continued. "I flew back here and I went to our empty main camp. We looked like idiots! It's sheer luck I found you here, I just flew until I saw smoke and figured that you'd fouled up something else!"

"It was those scheming horseshit monks, I know it!" he cried, slamming his fist into his palm. "And we're not going to grin and bear it like a bunch of faggots!" Immelman, shocked to feeling faint at all the coarse language, moved to a chair and sat down. "First we're going to take care of these monks. We're going to get von Mansfield," Hearing one of his friends' names, Immelman blanched, but didn't interrupt. "Then we're going to end this Generalissimo charade and get rid of Stevens and his brother once and for all. We’ll firebomb them from the kyat dragons if they don't go willingly. Then..." rubbing his hands together, von Ribbentrophen's eyes gained an eager glint and he began chuckling, his mood visibly improving. He stood up and sat down several times, the medals on his uniform clanking, muttering things to himself and counting out numbers on his fingers.

Immelman sat back in the chair, crossing his arms, assessing the situation. So the monks had engineered the whole thing. It made a sick sense: They had distracted the Nar'oth and staged the siege in the city to present a reason to seize military power and present the Ozternbergians with a fait accompli when von Ribbentrophen returned. The attack on the Citadel, the Baron's attempt to destroy the Entente beginning with the monks, it had all been an act, and Peter O'Mally had orchestrated it all. Something about it didn't seem right. If the City Guards were in on the ploy, as they must have been, why did some of them seem to be revolting now? And if the monks had wanted to take over the Entente, couldn't there be a less risky way to go about it? Taking Radasanth, too, seemed unnecessary.

"What the hell are you doing here, anyway?" von Ribbentrophen asked, and Immelman looked up, slightly confused but quickly regaining his confidence.

"Right now, preparing to try the war criminals from the attack on the Citadel. They're being kept in the wine cellar before we send them to the House of Ministries. There's a treaty..." Immelman was cut off as von Ribbentrophen leapt to his feet.

"Release all of them," he said dismissively, waving his hand regally. "We'll have trials all right, but they'll be of Peter O'Mally and his kind. I've been expecting this for some time, but nothing this big," von Ribbentrophen rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his mania slowly dissipating. "I assume you have the city under control, at least?" he asked. Immelman nodded. Both men jumped, suddenly, as a wave of sound hit the building, causing the glass shards on the floor to jump and both men's bones to rattle. Both men cursed and ran to the small window, squeezing into so both could see. Out over the city, a dusty mushroom of smoke was rising into the air, like soot from a dragon's snout. Although it was already breaking apart in the wind, it still hovered menacingly over the cityscape. Another rumble filled the air and several lightning bolts jumped up and down between the sky and earth. Immelman's mouth went dry.

"Those damn monks!" von Ribbentrophen shouted, and turned for the door.

*******

Baron Marion raised his head from the rocking cart he was splayed out across, trying to see beyond the wobbling wooden platform to the men and horses riding alongside him. His leg had been wrapped firmly between two splints, and a bedroll had been placed under his head for comfort. Joel the Hypnotist was riding to his left, that he could see very easily. Some young man in very fine riding clothes - he looked very much like the Baron of Concordia, and Marion guessed the foppish boy was the noble's son - trotted on the other side. Above, the twisted branches of fruit trees passed quickly, the mottled sunlight streaming through them giving him a slight headache. He wasn't sure how close they were to Radasanth, but it didn't matter. Joel, he knew, had everything quite well in hand, especially since the other armies had met up with them a few miles back. Looking up at the small, hard pears growing overhead, he imagined what it would be like to be back in his mansion, with his wine in his hand and his woman in his bed. Magnificent!

Beside him, Joel tugged his hat closer over his eyes and smiled.

[EarlStevens]

Our man dashes forward, his head forced downward, trying to push smoke and dust aside with flaps of his arms. He watches the ground flicker past his kicking feet, trying not to look up as his ears rattle with another explosion and flecks of stone whiz past his ears. Whatever lassitude he felt earlier in the day has long since been left behind - his only concern now is the edge of the square ahead, and the bare hope of freedom. He assumes that Witherspoon and Darby are running to either side of him, but the buzzing in his head makes it impossible to pick out footsteps. He doesn't dare lift his eyes, and thus he runs, alone, toward the seemingly infinitely distant goal. Three days ago he wasn't sure he'd ever leave his tiny cell, squished and smashed at the bottom of a stone shaft. He'd longed for some great expanse around him, sunlight and cool wind over a hilltop. Now he curses how damnably unconfined he is.

Our man's running is suddenly ended as he is forcibly thrown to the ground, as if he has run into a wall and cracked his forehead against brick. Brain spinning, he raises a hand to his temple and looks up, hoping against hope that he has finally reached a building and with it an open door to safety. But there is nothing. The edge of the square still seems miles away. His running, which he realizes has left him breathless, sweating and already aching, seems to have done little good. Turning from side to side, he sees Anthony and Silas also looking about, dizzy and sprawled on the ground. The chicken and dragon are nowhere to be found. Our man groans and draws himself up, pushing off the ground. At least the explosions have stopped. Perhaps O'Mally has fended off the scarlet priest. In fact, the air is eerily calm, like the space under a bed sheet on a summer evening. Looking back up at the far freedom of houses and streets, our man mutters a curse. All that running for nothing? But he quickly realizes his folly as the air in front of him twists and fragments like a mirror shattering, the houses and stores across the square splitting in halves and thirds before disappearing entirely into a webwork of black splinters. As if a curtain, the very air itself draws back, revealing the priest O'Mally had called Alvar standing before them. It is immediately clear that, if there has been a victor in this battle, it has not been our ally O'Mally. Alvar smiles, oily and cruel, and steps forward, raising his crosier in the air.

Knowing you are about to die: It is a much less disconcerting feeling than he had expected. There have been a few fleeting moments in his life in which our hero thought he might be on the verge of passing. but nothing as certain as this. Before the moment was too shocking to effect realization, but now it is obvious. In an instant, though, he realizes what this strange world of Fairie is truly about, and smiles. "So the secret of life only comes right before death? A tragedy," he thinks. Looking beyond the smiling face of mortaliy before him, he sees another stark white, smiling mask atop a pillar of black, standing silently at the edge of the square. His manservant has returned. Yes, it all makes a lot of sense now. Resolution sets in. Our man raises his own walkingstick, gripped tight and until now forgotten in his hand. With a flick of his wrist he twists the shaft and a blade protrudes from its end. Alvar sneers at the stinger, and our man finds that the thin cane is growing heavy in his hand, turning from wood to lead in a few heartbeats. He staggers forward, trying to lift the weapon and make a stab at the priest, but it is too much, and he drops the staff to the ground where it thuds heavily. Our man leans forward, gasping, the effort of holding up the giant weight draining his strength after only a few seconds.

"Hey!" Anthony jumps to one side of our man, Silas to the other. Seeing them both appear from the corners of his eyes, our hero grins and waves in mock resignation.

"I've softened him up for you," he says, and Anthony barks a short laugh.

"Thank'ee," he says, raising a hand. "Silas, throw me whatever you've got in that case!" Witherspoon nods and throws open the clasps of his huge leather case with a wriggle of his arm and reaches inside. He throws something over our man's head, and Anthony snatches it at the end of its arc. Yelping as if he has grabbed a coal by accident, he drops it almost instantly. Both our man and Alvar look down at the black dagger lying in the dust. One might expect such a smooth blade to shine in the sunlight, but instead the weapon seems crafted of shadows, dark as the underside of a raincloud, giving no glint or reflection. Its blade is flat and razor-thin on one side, serrated and even grimmer on the other. It ends in a sharp point, and on the whole looks entirely like an animal's stinger.

"Poten-fah," Alvar says, his voice oddly wavering. And that is all he gets out of his mouth before a streak of silver hits him in the face, throwing him nearly to the ground. He reaches up to the glistening blob on his head, dipping into it with one hand. Trying to scrape the stuff off, he only seems to sink further in its clutches, as the goop hangs to his hand and stretches as he pulls his arm away. Expanding over his body, the metallic liquid seems like a devilish version of an Uncle Remus story. Our man steps back, watching the vile mess spread down the priest's neck and arm. A gurgling scream escapes from his mouth, barely visible as a shallow scoop in the slime.

"You were caught in a loop trap," our man hears O'Mally say as the bald high priest steps around him, staff held high, moving between the trio and their writhing enemy. "You only get anywhere once you stop running." He says, as if this suffices for an explanation. "Hold still for a few moments, I'll transport you to the Citadel." Anthony frowns and shakes his head.

"The last time you did that, we didn't end up where you wanted us to go. Blazes, what if you end up dumping us in a nimbus cloud a mile up this time?" O'Mally turns his head, looking out of the corner of his eye, and reveals a cut curving from the middle of his forehead to his ear, a swath of red pouring down his face. Our man grimaces and Anthony stops complaining.

"I'm sending you back to the Citadel," O'Mally says. "There you should...." he doesn't finish, as a rush of magic from Alvar flings the silver fluid from his face and to the ground, where it evaporates instantaneously. With a roar, the priest launches from the ground toward O'Mally, smacking him across the head with his staff and slamming his knee into the older priest's kidney. O'Mally crumples to the ground, but Alvar kicks at the dirt, causing an echoing explosion that launches his opponent into the air, where the crimson priest grabs the front of his robes and flings his body nearly twenty feet away. O'Mally hits a large semi-unearthed paving stone with a crunch, his body limp. Alvar spins to face our trio, now holding O'Mally's crosier in one hand and his own in another. Our man senses magic rushing into both weapons from Alvar's body. The red priest extends both staffs, touching their tips together. Joined, they glow and hiss with a heat that vaporizes the sweat on our hero's body.

Alvar and his weapons are smashed to the ground by a huge boulder, which then lifts itself into the air again and pounds down on the priest's body for good measure. Looking up, our man realizes the rock is merely an appendage, attached like a hand to a larger hulk of rock and dirt which towers above them, blocking out the sun with its height. Gasping, our man steps back, grasping at the ground for his weapon, which has returned to its normal weight. Atop the huge body, however, is a pea of a head, bald and glistening with blood.

"O'Mally!" Anthony yells, and the head turns and nods. It is indeed the priest, who has encased himself in a massive suit of stone. He steps forward and smashes a ton of rock on Alvar, who at this point seems almost certainly deceased. Anthony hoots, waving his arms excitedly: He is now holding the black, sharp weapon in one hand. Our man doesn't feel quite so excited, and looks over to Silas, who is equally unsteady, chewing his lip and watching the half-golem with shifting, fearful eyes. There is something unnatural and frightening about the priest-cum-statue, and our man doesn't know whether to cheer on the pummeling that his potential murderer is receiving or not.

"When you get to the Citadel..." O'Mally begins again, but his words are swallowed by an explosion that throws our man, Silas and Anthony onto their backs. Most of O'Mally's stone casing has been blown away by Alvar, who is now standing again, still wielding two crosiers. Both glow with a ethereal light, something like bottled lightning. His body half exposed, the rock crumbling around him, O'Mally stumbles back. Alvar lifts the crosiers and a wave of burning energy slaps his enemy, tearing away the last of the stone, tossing O'Mally back. The older priest skids across the ground but flips in the air and lands on his feet, a magic shield bracing him up. He holds one hand out to our trio, pushing them several yards back from the battle. The other he points at Alvar's black onyx arm, his lips moving silently and impossibly quickly. Looking down at his arm, the crimson priest's eyes open as red-hot crevasses begin opening across it surface, hissing steam and spreading with popping, whistling noises. His fingers begin breaking apart, falling to the ground and shattering. One crosier slips, and O'Mally opens his fingers. The shaft flies to his hand, and he immediately points it to our trio. Our man feels an unfamiliar cocoon of magic envelope him, and then the world jars around him, stopping and starting fitfully. Then all goes black.

[LordLeopold]

Stevens ducked into an alleyway barely wider than his chest and stumbled sideways slightly as he caught his breath. He gasped between his teeth, gritted against the pain in his muscles and joints. His body was flooded with anxious excitement at the explosions and death from which he had just extricated himself. His hands shook. A quaking sensation was beginning in his knees which would, if he didn't start walking soon, probably force him to sit down. People were screaming to each other and to nothing in particular in the street outside, splashing in the mud as they rushed in fright, from menaces real and imagined, in every direction. A terrified man with a gash down his forehead stumbled on the ridge of the eroded mud and screamed as a beam of fire hit him in the back, evaporating half his body in a misty red puff. Stevens gulped his bone-dry throat and scrambled further back in the alley, his boot squishing something and knocking a cloud of bottle-blue flies into the air.

Although slim and cramped, the alley was long and tortured, its kinks and odd turns a rough description of the unplanned nature of the construction around it. As the duke squirmed between two half-collapsed board walls he saw a heavy metal leg draped in thick steel cords pierce the remains laying in the middle of the road. He shuddered and withdrew further down the alley, which took a sharp right turn and swallowed him further into the body of the slum.

Down the alley was shockingly silent, with all the noises of war outside muffled below hearing. There were no windows or doorways into the passage that the duke could see; apparently the space had simply been created by the poor architectural skills of the laymen who had thrown up their homes in this part of the city. Indeed, the alley grew and narrowed from one building to the next, in some places falling into deep grooves where foundations had been planned and abandoned. Knee-deep puddles formed in these gouges, which Stevens flung himself over as best he could, inevitably wetting his toes at least a bit at the far edge. The clay below was wet and sticky, and stumbling along the duke felt like he was wading up a stream. He fumbled along as much by pushing himself along the splintered walls with his quivering arms as skidding with his unsteady feet. Above the sky was quiet and still. There were no clouds, the sun was unseen over the edge of the roofs, and the air was free of birds. Stevens felt almost as if he were the only person in the world, and was surprised to find the feeling liberating. His nerves were less ragged here, even as he made his way forward toward the certain end of his serenity, where he would again be dumped into hysterical chaos. He knew quite well what rioting lay ahead and behind, but the intermediate and immediate stillness was all that filled his mind. With this thought he realized that he hadn't felt so relaxed in quite literally years. Pausing, he leaned against the wall, his body no longer shaking, and held a hand to the side of his face.

He had thought about it as little as possible until now, but with this whiff of pleasant freedom his memories of his time before Althanas came flooding back. Quiet days of sunlight glinting from the caps of small waves, the sails pulling ropes that croaked against each other, a whistling breeze in the air. There was a satisfaction in those days, a satisfaction he didn't know how to feel again. There was also the feeling of quiet friendship with his butler, Bunter. Bunter, who had disappeared with him on the water that fateful night that had ended with him washing up on the shores of Corone. Stevens had once felt sad thinking about Bunter and his failed searches for the man, but now all that filled his chest when he imagined the stoic valet was a nostalgic resignation. Thinking about his time in Althanas he felt something entirely different. That man burning in the street, that girl raped in the mansion, that dead monk on the cobblestones. He clutched at his neck and leaned all his weight against a wall. Dragged down by a heavy guilt, his knees buckled and he nearly fell over, catching himself against a loose plank and barely staying on his feet.

A few dozen feet in front of him, one of the walls quivered and swung out at waist level. The trap door snapped into place and hung, suspended like a saluting arm across the alley. Voices hissed through the opening.

"Quick, get them out there. At least they'll be safe," a woman's frightened voice said, and a man's grunted back at her. Two tiny, scrawny children were pushed into the alley as the door quickly swung shut. The children's faces were black and grimy with huge tear smudges under each eye. Both were still rattling with sobs under their baggy, torn clothes. One was holding what looked like the ragged remains of some kind of stuffed toy. Each was so young and thin that their sex was hard to determine, and so frightened by the fact that their family had ejected them into this lonely alley that Stevens was unwilling to approach them no matter what kind of welcoming smile he might be able to force onto his face. He merely stared into their frozen eyes, wondering what they would be doing now if he had never come to Althanas at all, if this army hadn't come to their city and caused everything to tumble down atop their lives. The duke stepped back from them and turned, retracing his steps back down the alleyway.

In what seemed like no time he stepped back out into the street, ignoring the scorched corpse smeared across the muddy hump. There were significantly fewer people screaming and running past. Pillars of smoke were climbing into the air, one a few houses down on the street, flames engulfing the remains of a flimsy building. Glancing around to make sure the way was clear, Stevens struck out along the street, following the wake of destruction and death along the road. The spider tank had dug deep holes in the mud as it had clanked along, and its tracks were easy to follow even if the remains of its targets were not still smoldering along the way. Rumbles and screams could be heard faintly along the way, growing louder by the block. A man with no legs sat at the side of the road, looking down as if still confused that he only had smoking stumps instead of thighs. Stevens grimaced and rounded a corner, following the trail of the tank.

He stopped cold at the scene in front of him. The tank was sprawled across the remains of a flattened building, its legs splayed out, tendrils of wire and gushing, burst hydraulic beams spread around them. Its body was cracked open, a hatch at the very top swinging by one hinge. The pod that served as its head was rocking back and forth on its top, severed completely from its body. What looked like two hundred people were clustered around its smoking frame, chanting some terrible, incomprehensible shout. Some of them seemed to be passing blood-coated bodies above each other's heads in a weird victory demonstration. The bodies bobbed and moved like noodles on the surface of boiling water. They seemed to almost be alive again, but one was missing its head and another was mangled so badly that it barely seemed to be a human corpse at all. Five men stood on top of the remains of the weapon, waving swords in the air, nearly slicing the green plumes off each others' helmets. One of them was leering across the crowd, the men on either side of him avoiding his gaze. The golden cords at his shoulders made it obvious who he was. Looking out, his shaded eyes met Stevens's, and the duke saw the smile on his face falter, but not entirely disappear. The colonel raised a hand in a grim wave, the smile on his face forming a vicious V. Stevens, consumed by a clash of anger, surprise and muzzled thankfulness, simply raised a hand in response. He didn't even feel the club come down on the back of his head, drowning all in blackness.

[EarlStevens]

Our man opens his eyes to a blanched, far-away sky, open and free of clouds all the way to the sun. He stares into the white ball for a few seconds before it hurts and then sits up, blinking. Rubbing away the burning from the globes of his eyes, he slowly stands. Shoulders and neck aching, he moves his knuckles to them, trying to massage them to normality. Some weak wind is licking his face, but it isn't strong enough to blow away the wet, slick feel of the air or the fetid smell. Taking a blind step, he nearly stumbles over some rise on the ground, and catching his balance, his shoes splash through a shallow pool. He opens his eyes again, a spot in his vision glowing where he had stared at the sun.

He is standing on slightly uneven slabs of white stone, square puddles marking where the marble has sunk or risen as a block. Lines of dirt with tiny rows of grass are piled along some of the chinks between blocks. A few wet, rotting leaves cling to the rock, plastered as thin as Bible pages. Some of the stone is swirled with other, darker minerals, and the entire surface seems to be blackening with age and grime. Turning on his heel, our hero confronts the edge of a huge dome plated with stripes of oxidized copper against which his head must have been propped against earlier.

"This is a roof," he says to no one in particular, and looks around for its edges, for some hint as to where O'Mally's magic has sent him. As he walks toward the close horizon of the roof, a songbird swoops out of the sky and springs along beside him, chirping and dipping into puddles, fluffing out its brown feathers and pecking at the water. Its a cheery figure on the desolate stone, but our man finds himself looking around the roof for the baleful silhouette of his manservant, trying to find a narrow finger of night standing against the sky.

He reaches a slope in the roof so unexpected he almost falls down the surface. Standing at the cusp of the incline, he can see perhaps thirty feet of marble leading to the edge of the building, beyond which there is some terrifyingly indeterminate drop to the unseen ground beyond. Our man can see the tops of columns and the edge of another roof rising above the far edge of the roof, made of a similarly worn stone. "I'm still in the city," he mutters to himself and, damning caution, wobbly side-steps down to the edge of the roof. Tweeting anxiously, the songbird flies away, zipping past his shoulder and suicidally diving beyond the end of the ledge.

As our man peers over the edge to the street below, his heart begins to race, feeding the dizziness in his head. He is hanging at least sixty feet above a cobbled boulevard bordered by wide walkways punctuated with well-trimmed spikes of evergreen trees. Across the street, a forest of columns holds up an enormous facade with indecipherable runes etched across its surface. Despite the pale sunlight, the unadorned stone is exceedingly grim, and the imposing stone building seems about to overcome the street and slam into our hero's perch like an Argonaut's nightmare.

The brown spot of the songbird is erratically spiraling in the empty space between the overhanging tips of his shoes' soles and the spikes of the helmeted heads of the soldiers below. Two lines of them are stomping across the cobblestones, one of them shouting guttural orders to the others. From the roof he appears a tiny figure waving a crop a hair's breadth wide, the other soldiers two centipedes grunting alongside him. Our hero, wiping his sweaty hands on his smeared waistcoat, steps back from the height and toward the bronze dome.

Silas and the Viscount Darby are stumbling across the patchwork of marble and puddles as our man steps back onto the flat roof surface. "Thank God," Witherspoon says as the three meet, slapping our man's shoulder reassuringly. Darby, breathing heavily with a waxen face, merely nods and motions for our man to follow him.

"Where are we?" our hero asks Witherspoon, whose face is considerably more flushed.

"The House of Ministries," Witherspoon replies, falling into step beside him as they follow Darby. "The house of government, more or less. Beautiful inside, really. No better place for a parole hearing." Our man snickers but Witherspoon doesn't give the knowing grin of someone making a joke. "Don't spread that around," Anthony says over his shoulder as they rounded the green dome.

"Wasn't O'Mally sending us to the Citadel?" our man asks, a and Witherspoon does smile this time.

"Seems he missed!" Anthony turns his head and snarls: "Wouldn't be the first time. You're surprisingly flippant for two people who nearly died." Witherspoon grimaces, but our man, shocked into remembering what has just happened, stays somber.

"Well, is there a way off this roof at least?" he responds, and Darby shrugs dramatically.

"Well that's exactly..." with an splintering crunch like a cold watermelon being kicked, Anthony's sentence dies in his throat as his leg punches through the roof to the knee. All three men stop in their tracks, dramatically waiting for the other shoe to drop, glancing nervously about. When nothing happens for a few seconds, Witherspoon looks down at where Darby's leg had disappeared, and his mouth again forms a smile.

"Oh, you've discovered a trap door!"

[EarlStevens]

The three men dig their fingers between the edge of the decaying wood door and the grainy, eroding stone surrounding it, breaking off pieces of both under their fingernails. "Alright, steady now," Darby mutters under his breath, and our man sucks in a lungful of moldy breath before heaving in union with his fellows. Although rotted through in some parts, the door is still heavy and waterlogged, and takes a few uneasy seconds of straining before it groans open. Its sopping weight takes over as the team push the doorway fully open, and it swings heavily, its hinges shredding and the entire door coming apart as it thuds against the marble on the other side of the hole in the roof.

"Well," our man says, rubbing his hands together and peering down at the half-lit stairs below, "I don't mind going first." Darby markedly shrugs again. Before he turns to descend, Witherspoon pushes his walkingstick back into his hands.

"You lost it in transit," Witherspoon says, "Should prove of use in a scrape." Our man nods approvingly and turns down into the steps, a last glimpse of the checkerboard of reflected sky and mildewing stone quickly giving way to a dusty, cloudy semi-darkness. Fragments of the door are strewn on the creaking wooden steps below like shavings on a craftsman's floor, and our man kicks them down the stairs as he descends. The stairway, so vertical it's nearly a ladder, creaks mightily as Silas and Darby follow him, but the structure holds until they all reach the stone floor. Unlike the rain-slick roof, this attic is dry and suffused with fine dust and the smell of dessicated wood and leather. The roof is high enough that all the men can stand without stooping or worrying about scraping the tops of their heads. Indeterminate piles under sheets of burlap and yellowed cotton surround them on either side, making a sort of pathway meandering into the darkness.

Aside from the now blinding light streaming through the roof entrance, softer light is entering the attic space from an array of glassless windows, curving into an unseen distance behind piles of detritus, following the curve of the copper dome above. Our man approaches one of them, and gripping the stone on either side, leans his nose out, looking down into the belly of the building. Dizziness strikes him again, but not as badly this time; he is closer to the ground, now, but the interior of the building is less imposing, if equally somber, as the exterior.

He is looking down into what must be the central atrium of the House of Ministries, topped by the dome. Light is weakly shining from above his head, and by screwing his neck around he sees that the dome above him is centered on a sort of amber-tinted skylight, a circular jewel in the middle of a copper crown. The interior of the dome is divided into quadrants, onto which paintings of some mythological sequence have been frescoed: A dragon and a woman hover over a scene of men striding across an open landscape, dark figures leap over a burning city, men and elves bless a sword, figures wave a flag on a brown sanded shore. Unable to make sense of the narrative, our man turns back down to the floor below.

Blue-tinted columns are visible on the fringes of an elaborate marble inlay on the floor. An intricate pattern of shapes radiates out from what must be a towering statue at the center of the room. It's unclear from this height what exactly the statue is, but it is clearly monstrous in comparison to the people moving in its shadow. These figures surprise our hero, as most of them seem to be chained together in a line far longer than those of the needle-tipped soldiers outside.

"Parole hearing?" our man turns to Silas and points out the window, and the red-suited man takes his place at the window.

"Hm, quite unusual!" he mutters. "I've never been put in shackles..."

"Alright, gentlemen," Darby says, "Enough, we're not on a tour of the place, we need to get out." He pauses for a moment. "And get help for O'Mally." Our man nods, and Silas, his eyes focusing on one of the manacled men below for an extra second, follows them both through the moldering piles of rubbish, pushing through cobwebs and stepping over stray chair legs and rolled up rugs. Our man notices that the chicken and dragon who had been with them earlier were nowhere to be found, but no one was mentioning them, so he keeps it to himself. It is with that thought that our man suddenly realizes that the enervation of the past several hours had been sapped from his body. He felt oddly lighter than he had that morning, as if the motion of fleeing from the fighting in the Citadel and the rest of the city was creating a sort of inertia within him that kept him moving and vital. As the echoes of battle become more distant in his ears, he feels the sounds of life reentering him, as though reverberating through a long and distant tunnel.

"Ah!" the viscount Darby cries, and our man thinks he can hear it more clearly than his heavy breaths from a few seconds earlier, the muted look of surprise on Darby's face a bit clearer than the smile on Witherspoon's face on the roof. They have reached another trap door, this one considerably more intact than the one outside, with a large brass loop for a handle attached to one side. The three men crouch down around it after Darby flings it open, its well-oiled hinges making no noise. A ladder, which probably once led to the doorway in the ceiling, is lying on the carpeted floor below, and Darby mutters a curse under his breath. Our man gauges the distance the best he can and, in one quick motion, grabs the edge of the trap door, swings down, hanging by his fingers for a moment, and drops heavily onto the carpet, folding his legs under himself as he hits the floor to absorb the fall.

"Come on," he calls up to the two surprised faces above him.

[LordLeopold]

Stevens came to as his seat jostled underneath him, bouncing his head painfully against a plank of wood. He tried to lift his hands to the tender spot but found them unnaturally heavy; looking down at his wrists he saw two heavy metal bracelets locked around them. Between them was strung a thick, oily chain no more than a foot long. Stevens was briefly startled before another bounce of his seat knocked his head again, harder this time. Reaching clumsily back, he rubbed at the swelling bruise, one hand dangling oddly at his collar bone as he did so. He was sitting on the floor of what must've been at one point a hay cart - pieces of hay were jabbing into the back of his calves like little sticks. His back was resting against the wood making up the side of the cart, and with another jostle he could feel a second bruise, already formed and hardening, across the back of his neck and shoulders. I must've been walloped earlier, he thought to himself, and passed out. And now I'm someone's prisoner. How unpleasant.

Looking to his left and right, he was surrounded on almost all sides by men who looked like battered tramps: dusty, grizzled men with cuts over their eyebrows and swollen lips. Most wore clothes they seemed to have worn since mid-puberty, either too small or so dirty and torn it was impossible to tell their original color or exact shape. He was initially repulsed by them, but it was impossible to scoot away, as they were to both sides of him, and his body was aching horribly already. As he looked down at his own body, however, he realized his own riding coat and pants were slashed, muddied and worn. His face felt grainy from caked dirt and his neck itched from what must now be several days' worth of stubble. His hair felt matted, a greasy lump pressing down on his head. Despite years of breeding and culture, he couldn't look too much different than these men. The thought was not comforting.

Two soldiers, each with one hand on their rapiers and another on a billy club tucked into their belts, stood at the other side of the cart. They had the uniforms, polished boots and spiked helmets of Ozternbergians. They leaned against the side of the cart and looked over the prisoners, as if trying to decide who would attack first. There were about a dozen to pick from, a few of them with sacks pulled over their heads and tied into place, their arms drawn tightly behind their backs instead of hanging in front of them. Inspecting them from a few feet away, the Duke saw flares of green and smudged symbols across their clothes that meant they could only be one thing: City Guardsmen.

"What is this, where are we going?" Stevens asked, somewhat impetuously. The soldiers ignored him, but a few of the prisoners looked at him askance, trying to deter him with their eyes from talking any more but not wanting to seem like they were allied with him. Finding no answer, Stevens tried another tack. "See here, I don't think you know who I am." At this, the soldiers did seem to show a slight bit of interest, glancing at each other with a somewhat conspiratorial look. A few of the prisoners snickered, but the rest seemed more worried than amused.

"Alright, who are you then?" The soldier asked in the hard tones of his native land. Stevens, sensing a tone of deep sarcasm, began to wish he hadn't spoken but felt obliged to continue, in the vain hope they might recognize him through his beggarly appareance. He stiffly moved to one knee, crouching a bit to rise a little closer to the soldiers' level.

"Leopold Stevens, your generalissimo," he said as confidently as possible. The soldiers looked at him, then each other, as if unsure how to continue. Taking the initiative, one of them turned toward the unseen driver of the cart.

"Hey!" he yelled, "Turn around, we've got Leopold Stevens in here! Turns out we picked him up by mistake!"

"Shut the hell up, Gregor," the invisible driver's voice replied wearily as the soldiers laughed harshly. The prisoners who had sniggered earlier continued their cruel, quiet laughter while the rest of them looked embarrassed. Stevens felt his face blush as the laughter subsided and one of the soldiers leaned toward him.

"I've seen Leopold Stevens," he said, his wide face grinning, "And he's uglier than you." The soldier straightened, put his boot on Stevens's shoulder and kicked him back on his rear, causing a jolt of pain from his tail bone. Stevens felt like leaping at him, pelting him in the face with his fists, but instead just simmered, his face still red. He knew there was really nothing for it. He was truly a prisoner, his ragged appearance as damning as any striped jumpsuit and serial number. Resigned to his fate, he merely tried to appreciate the passing scenery as best he could while suppressing his angst.

The buildings passing on either side were growing taller, older and grander. As the road took on an incline, it seemed to broaden to either side of the cart, and sandstone and brick gave way to granite, limestone and marble. The huge bourgeoisie mansions of the merchants' quarter had either been incongruous and garish or hidden behind blank walls, but these buildings had obviously been built with the aesthetic of the street and each other in mind. Trees had been planted along the walkways, which were interspersed with gurgling fountains and wide benches. This was public architecture, a series of the sundry aspects of a feudal society with the sensibilities of Antiquity.

The cart jerked to a stop, several prisoners toppling over with the suddenness of it. Two more soldiers appeared at the open back of the cart, and without saying more than “go on now!” and “get moving!” the soldiers began pulling and pushing the prisoners out onto the street. Stevens stumbled and nearly fell as he was basically thrown from the cart. Nobody moved to help him – in fact most of the prisoners backed further from him, certain he was trouble. “Be careful with that one!” the soldier who had kicked him called to his fellows on the ground. “He’s important!” Stevens ran his tongue over his teeth to get rid of the nervous, angry energy the mockery excited with him.

As the soldiers herded them away from the cart, several more soldiers, these of a different nationality, fell into place beside them, their faces blank with the boredom of having done the same thing all day. These men were clad in gray, with soft boots which made no sound on the street, unlike the heavy soles of the Ozternbergians. Narrow swords swung at their sides, and their fair faces had the look of hungry ermines. All were lithe and tall, swaying slightly as they walked. Stevens recognized them as Niederoster soldiers, another contingent of the Entente of the Light. Although Niederoster’s nobility spoke the same language as the Ozternbergians, these soldiers were of some conquered tribe or nation which spoke another tongue and were known for their animalistic fury in battle. The darker-uniformed Ozternbergian soldiers stood a bit apart from them, tapping their fingers on the hilts of their swords.

Stevens was so busy surveying his captors that he nearly tripped again as his feet kicked against a short step. Catching his balance, he followed the rest of the prisoners up the stairs, a small rise from the street to a massive block of a building with a set of columns like the needles of a monkfish’s teeth. Each stair was only half a foot or less high, but each was wide enough to fill two or three strides before another step up was required. The stone of the stairs was whiter and cleaner than the rock of the enormous building, which was stained with streaks of black and whose chinks between blocks looked like gaping fissures at points.

Flanked by the soldiers, the prisoners – the hooded among them nearly falling on their faces at each step up – ascended the stairs and walked through the crenulated columns, of which there were off-set rows. Several sets of iron doors, taller than a man but squat and inconsequential under the unadorned rock that descended from above, had been flung open and the prisoners passed from the slanting shadows of the entrance into the soft light of the inner atrium. It was a bit like a cathedral, with a sort of transept leading from the entrance to a wider and higher inner space, topped with a dome. Columns lined the walls, these glistening and polished, blue with mineral swirls of black and frozen fossils splattering their surface. The marble underneath made each footstep a booming echo which jumped off the rib-like arches in the ceiling, across the indistinct friezes of the walls and bounced among the pillars.

Crossing the atrium, they passed a towering marble statue in the center of the hall, a severe woman. Stevens wasn’t sure which mythological figure this was, but the blindfold and the scales in one hand made it apparent which she would have been in London. A man in rags and another with a corolla balanced on his head, each smaller than a child, stood in awe at her feet on the pedestal. As they slowly shuffled past, Stevens could see his reflection in the polished black stone, distorted somewhat by the shape of the rock but still distinct. His whiskers were flecked with gray, his hair a tangled smudge across his head, mud caked across his clothes, which was flaking off in dry clumps that littered the ground as he walked. His back was slouched like a laborer’s, his mouth sagging in an intended frown. I’m not that old, Stevens futilely thought to himself.

It was empty and mostly silent in the atrium, but there were some hushed voices from corners beyond the pillars that lined the edge of the dome which hung above. He could see figures hurrying through the shadows at the edge of the room, where doors irregularly punctured the walls, but it was difficult to tell who or what they might be. Even less sure of what was happening than he had been in the jostling cart, the duke looked back down at his deteriorating shoes and kept frowning.

[EarlStevens]

Silas swings down to the carpet, landing on his hands and the tips of his shoes, and our man helps him stand up, dropping the walkingstick which he had awkwardly brought down during his leap. Darby is already down from the attic, stumbling around the room pushing furniture around, searching for something unidentified. The room they have fallen into seems to be some kind of office. Three rows of tables, each with two chairs pushed under them, are lined across the room. Piles of parchment, garnished with quills, weigh down them down. Across one wall is an array of shelves stacked with enormous ledgers, piles of scrolls and loose paper. There is an air of rapid departure to the office; several of the chairs have light, threadbare coats hanging across their backs or armrests. Although the furniture is obviously old and well-worn, it seems impermanent compared to the room itself, somehow smaller and weaker, like a new coffin recently interred in a family tomb.

"What is this, the accounting department?" our man asks, looking around. He picks up a huge sheet of paper from a yellowing stack and a cascade of fluffy, linty dust rolls off it onto the more recently-used side of the desk. “Huh… it is an accounting department.” He drops the palm frond sized parchment back onto its pile, where it coughs up a cloud of black dust. Darby grunts uninterestedly a few tables over and kicks a chair aside in futility.

“There’s nothing worth using as a weapon here,” he grumbles and walks over toward our man. “We’ll have to make do with what we have. Your swordcane alright?” Our man nods, twisting the knob and extending the blade before retracting it with another twist. “Good. Silas, pass me that dagger and keep Leo’s swordcane.” The con man picks up his traveling case from where he had dropped it from the trapdoor and undoes the clasps, pulling out the respective weapons. “Alright, boys,” Darby says as they arm themselves. “Look alive. We very well may have to fight our way out of here.” He turns toward the door, the cold black dagger in his hand cutting through the dust circulating in the air.

Silas starts after him, but stops as he realizes that our man isn’t following. Our hero is almost surprised that he is not automatically following Darby, but the silence of the rooms in the House of Ministries, the placid days insinuated by the heavy patina of dust on most of the books and papers, is such a contrast with the horrible noise of the fight earlier and the stomp of the soldiers’ boots outside, that he can’t find it within himself to face another battle. So he stands in place, Silas fidgeting beside him, as Darby opens the door wide enough for his head and peeks out into the hallway beyond.

“Looks clear,” he says. “Now we’ll go to the end…” he glances over his shoulder and realizes that no one is standing near. He faces our man and Silas, his face angry but his eyes darting and puzzled. “What are you lads waiting for?” He asks. Silas takes a step back, glancing from Darby to our man anxiously. Our hero takes a step forward, however, determined not to let Silas’s indecision leech over to him.

“There’s a platoon of soldiers out there on the street,” he insists, and Darby cocks his eyebrow. This only emboldens our hero. “I saw them earlier on the roof, before I met up with you two. Spiked helmets, heavy boots, they’re prepared for something…”

“Oh for God’s sake,” Darby responds, “Those are Ozternbergians. They’re on our side, you should know from when they showed up at the Citadel earlier. Tell me if you see anyone with green feathers in their caps, they seem to still be miffed about last night. Now, shall we?” He turns and darts out the door. Silas takes a few shuffling steps after him, his head half turned for approval, but our man holds his hand out, palm downward, dissuading him. A few seconds pass, and Darby reappears in the doorway.

“Christ! What now?” he snaps. Further emboldened, our man takes another step forward, jabbing his finger.

“And that priest in the red skirt? Wasn’t he on ‘our’ side at some point?” Darby crinkles his mouth into a grimace but doesn’t reply. Our man takes another step. “And the monks who aren’t trying to kill us don’t care if your brother lives or dies. Is anyone on my side?”

“Ah,” Darby responds, raising his finger now. “Your side.” Our man clenches his jaw as Silas, his eyes widening, takes another step closer to Darby. The viscount lowers his hand, nodding angrily, knowingly. “Silas?” he says, and the con-man moves all the way to the door, standing beside Darby. A few tense seconds strain past, the three men glaring into one another’s eyes, one uneasy stare after another. Then, without a word, Darby and Silas disappear through the doorway.

[EarlStevens]

For a minute or two, our man stands in the room, flexing and releasing his fists spasmodically, his face slightly quivering. This is totally unbelievable. He thinks to himself. In the span of less than two days, he has been asked to blindly trust the men he had risked his life escape. He had been forced into the guardianship of a man whose brother had tried to kill him. He had, more or less, been forced into a foreign city in a strange fairie world which he known for months only as the opposite side of the walls of his jail cell. And now, those same strangers who had demanded his obedience and trust were leaving him on his own. His anger quickly dampens, quieted by onrushing fear. He looks around the room with a strange, uncertain hope. "I never imagined I'd miss that deuced manservant..." he mutters to himself, wishing that one of the shadows in a corner or under a table will transform into his dark, ghoulish servant.

But the shadows remain on the ground, faded dark stains in the mellow sunlight. The dust and thick silence bind about him. The supreme loneliness of the moment quickly becomes unbearable. Our man allows himself a brief moment of disgust before jettisoning his pride and racing out the door.

The hallway outside is just as empty and silent, narrow and high. For a jolting moment our man looks up at the white strip of ceiling far above, the walls narrowing toward each other as they rise, and remembers his cold cell in the Citadel. He curses and looks down. A featureless brown carpet fills most of the floor, which is itself brown and patternless at the edges around the cloth. It is dusty here, also, but it is a grainy, sticky black dust that our man can feel working its way under his fingernails already. As the room is at the end of the hall, there is only one way to turn, and our man treads slowly, twisting his cane to reveal the blade.

No tapestries or paintings decorate the walls, which are covered in chipping, peeling paint. There are, however, a series of plinths topped with busts lining either side of the hall, all sculpted from dark marble. Too narrow for this statuary, the hall is even further slimmed by their presence. As he passes the busts - none of which our man recognizes - it is impossible not to see a thick layer of the adhesive dust clinging to their scalps and shoulders. A few of the pillars have cracked and been somehow stuck back together, the cicatrices not plastered over. The hall seems to end with a set of polished double doors, their stateliness indicating more elegant past inhabitants of the building. One of the doors is cracked open, and our man slides his fingers into the slit and opens it cautiously. Far beyond the doors, down a continuation of the hall, our man can see Silas and Darby, their backs to him, talking to one another at an open doorway. Gasping in a bit of courage, our man walks toward them.

Their conversation grows in our man's ears as he approaches. Darby is speaking more fiercely, stabbing his finger into his other palm, and thus is more audible.

"... I honestly couldn't care less," he is hissing. "Let him hang."

"But Tony, we can't leave him like this, in a place he's never..." Silas retorts breathlessly before Darby cuts him off.

"We didn't know he existed three days ago. The Ai'Bron had him locked away for Lord knows what reason." Darby snaps, counting off on his fingers, "The fact he looks exactly like Leo is frankly terrifying. And, speaking of Leo, he tried to kill him in the Citadel night before last. So like I said..." our man clears his throat, and Silas and Darby whip around, the conman shrinking back and the viscount raising his fists threateningly. When they see our man, their horror disappears, if not their shock. Silas at least seems embarrassed, but Darby simply straightens up, increasingly indignant.

"So here you are," he says. Our man nods silently. "Think we're on your side, eh?" Our man stays still. Darby shrugs. "We're not. But we're all you have."

"Vice versa," our hero says, biting the words off. Darby frowns. After an angry second, Silas sighs and plants his fists on his hips.

"Enough, enough! Gentlemen, I think we can all agree that our best chance, although some might be hesitant to accept it," Silas looks down his nose at our hero, "Is probably the Citadel. If I'm not mistaken, the government quarter is east of the Citadel, and the roads in this area are all well-marked. If we egress immediately, we should find ourselves well on our way to temporary safety. Hm?" The tension between our man and Darby is fractured as the two men look in shock to each other.

"By God," Darby says, "That's the most you've said at once in months, Silas." The con-man, though startled, barely pauses before responding.

"Why, you know that before my enforced reformation I made my living by talking suckers out of their money. And my brother-in-law always said I should be an attorney. So don't be so surprised. Shall we?" he turns toward the open doorway and steps through it. Our man clacks his tongue against his teeth, slightly surprised.

"I didn't even know he was married..." Darby huffs.