A Perverted Path to Victory

Sara Brown

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The ancient, gnarled elf harrumphed her way through the crowd, not paying any of the kneeling sycophants the slightest bit of attention. It had been the better part of a year since Sara had last suffered the misfortune of her presence, and she hadn’t changed in the slightest. The distinctive ears of her kind were still misshapen by age, growing so long they had begun to droop, forming crescent moons that dangled from the sides of her wrinkly head. Her white hair was frizzy and puffed out, unkempt for untold years, and its tangles bounced with each of her wobbling, erratic steps. As far as Sara knew, as far as anyone knew, elves didn’t age. Period. A thousand years or ten thousand, their skin didn’t so much as dimple, yet here Amillya was. The world’s foremost Prophet of Passion, and she looked old as dirt. She had a cane in one hand, and though it had the appearance of wood, it clacked like stone every time she used it to bear her weight, creating a distinctive click-click-click noise as she dragged her limping way towards Sara, one crooked finger raised in furious reproach.

“I told you!” She crowed, shaking her hand. “I fucking told you, didn’t I? But no, noooo, you had to go and fuck it all up! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“As a general rule, no,” Sara said, crossing her arms. “Care to enlighten me, or are you just here to bitch?”

The dead silent rooftop was unnerving. She knew the Imperials were a hierarchical society, prone to bowing and scraping at the feet of anyone considered their superior, but she’d never seen them quite like… this. If Sara didn’t know better, she would have thought a spell had been cast over the party. General Borek, his advisors, the nobility and the wealthy merchants, all of them were frozen in place. The only evidence they still lived was the fact that their chests were moving with each breath, and even then, it was a subtle thing. The only ones who weren’t bowing were Sara, Evie, Hurlish, and…

Mayaran?

Sara didn’t glance over her shoulder, but she did focus her Blessings to the woman behind her. The dark-skinned mage was the only other person to have not fallen into utter supplication at the mere sight of Amillya, and she didn’t seem to be showing the ancient elf much respect, at that. Her hands were slipped into her robes, her expression that of long-suffering exasperation.

“Gods, I hate coming here,” Amillya huffed, thwacking her walking stick against the ribs of a partygoer who was in her way. The kneeling woman leapt aside as if dodging a bullet, scrambling on hands and knees to clear the elf’s path. “It’s even fucking worse than last time. What, the newest batch of kids have even bigger sticks up their ass than the last set? Shit, I hope not. That’d have to be big enough to kill someone.”

Amillya finally reached Sara, who hadn’t uncrossed her arms. The elf stared up at her. Sara stared down.

“Well?” Sara said. “What are you here for? You might’ve noticed that I didn’t ever come to your annoying-ass temple again. I was hoping that’d give you a certain kind of message.”

“You think I wanted to be here?” Amillya peeled her lips back and spat to the side, revealing missing front teeth Sara had never noticed before. “No, no, girl, I’m here to tell you how bad you fucked up.”

“Yeah, you already said that,” Sara sneered. “Get on with it.”

Their frozen audience thawed slightly at that, but not in the way Sara would have preferred. The emotional tone of the crowd was becoming tinted by shades of discomfort and offense. Sara didn’t know who Amillya was to them, besides an obscenely old and foul-mouthed elf, but she was clearly someone they didn’t expect to be disrespected.

Like I give a shit.

“I told you not to draw attention to yourself!” Amillya barked. “Now look what you’ve done!”

“Yeah, you told me that how long ago?”

“Slightly more than a year,” Evie provided, affecting a practiced, disinterested disdain, like a secretary who’d been forced to allow someone unpleasant into their employer’s offices.

“Yeah. Over a year ago. And again, I’ve got no fuckin’ clue what I’ve done. You’re gonna have to be more specific. Is it the Empire? The guns? Whatever Graf was talking about?”

“You’re a Champion!” Amillya all but screeched. “You should know when you fuck up the world. That’s not something you do on accident!”

Sara rolled her eyes. “That’s not going to cut it. We both know I’m doing shit no Champion has ever done before. And when you’re dealing with the kind of timescales the gods are, me taking a shit in the wrong part of the woods could fuck up their ten-thousand-year plan.” Sara snapped her fingers impatiently. “Come on. I know you’ve got a lot of experience swallowing, but break your old habits and spit it up already.”

Before Amillya could fire back her retort, the dull, disgusted lilt of Mayaran butted in. “Gods, you are insultingly profane.”

Sara, Evie, and Amillya slowly turned toward the mage. She was still standing, her glare filled with contempt.

“You know,” Sara said, looking the woman up and down, “I was thinking everyone else here was being a pussy for bowing to some crazy old elf. But you seem like the type of woman who would look a lot better on your knees.”

“You are disgusting,” Mayaran stated plainly. “And if you think your so-called charm will work its wonders on me, I assure you, it will not. And I most certainly will not be impressed by your dubious claim to the station of a Divine Chosen, a status which you seem so eager to tarnish.” Mayaran grinned a politician’s grin. “I understand that we are on the same side of this conflict. Allies. Sworn to cooperate, rather than fight. Yet the longer I’ve been in your presence, the more I’ve become disappointed by this fact.”

Sara couldn’t help herself. Already pissed off by having to attend this dick-sucking competition of a party in the first place, then thrown into confusion and irritation at the appearance of Amillya, she didn’t have time to deal with some uppity mage. She activated Gift of Lust, targeting it on the woman a dozen times over.

Mayaran stared at her, unblinking.

Shit. Is she really straight?

Sara had to admit, it’d been a while since she’d guessed someone’s preferences wrong. Either the lady wasn’t into ladies, or she wasn’t into Sara in particular. Either way, using Gift of Lust to melt her into a puddle wasn’t in the cards.

“Why aren’t you bowing to old Amillya over here, then?” Sara asked, smoothly pivoting plans. “If you’re all about keeping proper respect for stations and whatever, I’d think you’d be breaking your back to bend double for her.”

“Because,” Mayaran said, raising one hand to the side of her head, “Unlike you, I am not in the presence of my betters.”

With dramatic flare, her hand lifted black curls to reveal the long, pointed ears of an elf. They weren’t half as long as Amillya’s drooping freaks of nature, but they were long enough that the mage was clearly a pure-blooded elf, unlike Nora, whose mostly human ears only had a pointed tip. Seen in this light, Sara’s appraisal of the woman’s features— her hawkish nose, sharp cheekbones, and imperious bearing— took on a different, more ephemeral light. She wasn’t just born with the facial features so commonly associated with nobility. She was physically lithe, so thin and willowy beneath her robes that a human would have been severely underweight, had they possessed the same build. The poise and composure she held herself with wasn’t the product of long training and practice, but simply the innate gracefulness that those of other bloodlines lacked. An elf through-and-through.

Sara still didn’t give a shit.

“Okay?” She asked, drawing the word out. “What, are you really saying that being an elf makes you better than me? Better than everyone else here?” She looked between Mayaran and Amillya. “Besides, isn’t there, like, some seniority thing going on here? I know you’re not nearly as old as that crone, even if you’re pretty geriatric yourself.” She paused, as if considering a question, though she knew the answer perfectly well. “How do elves age, anyway? Does it take you a hundred years to stop shitting in diapers, or do you act like real people until you let all that arrogance go to your head?”

“General Brown!” Borek hissed, lifting his head just enough to stare her in the eyes. “Mage Mayaran is correct! There are lines even you cannot cross! Contain yourself!”

It was the wrong thing to say.

“Really? Really?” Sara sprinkled excitement into her voice, making a show of spinning around to crouch down before General Borek, putting their eyes level. “Because I’ve been wondering. I keep pushing and pushing, and aside from a few little places here and there, nobody seems to push back. You know how your Adjutant bought my services, right? With promises of equality, fairness, and rights for your people? All the things I haven’t been seeing at all?”

“I have tried very hard to accommodate your eccentricities, General Brown,” Borek pleaded angrily, “But you cannot speak to the Honored Elven in such a way!”

“Piss and shit,” Amillya spat, “it is even worse than it used to be. Can’t believe that.”

“And how long has it been since you crawled out of your cave, Amillya?” Mayaran interjected, talking over Borek’s next sentence. The man fell obediently silent. “One of the most ancient of Elven kind, High Prophet of a Goddess, and here you are, cavorting with this… this childish trash.”

Amillya’s crooked finger returned, a long fingernail threatening to stab into Mayaran’s chest. “Watch your words, girl! Just because you’re right doesn’t mean you get to insult the Champion of my Goddess! That’s for me to do!”

“And,” Hurlish drawled, appearing as if from nowhere behind Mayaran to clap a massive paw on the woman’s shoulder, “I don’t much like it either.”

Mayaran rolled her eyes without turning around. “Oh, dear. The leadsmith threatens an Elven mage. How I must be trembling.”

Hurlish’s eyes narrowed.

Sara and her wives each had their own way of threatening people. It was a skill that came up frequently in their lines of work, and they had developed their own preferences. While Sara and Evie preferred clever retorts and hidden barbs, Hurlish’s strategy was more direct. She didn’t threaten, per se. Just… demonstrated.

Her fingers began to, with all the slow, ominous inevitability of a hydraulic press, close over Mayaran’s right shoulder. The hidden runes within the mage’s robes burst alight, colors flashing and sparking from the cloth-woven wards. The material under Hurlish’s palm began to glow a bright, cherry red, with dark smoke rising from the edge of Hurlish’s tuxedo sleeve. The scent of burning cloth filled the heat-shimmering air. She’d chosen a classic spell to defend herself from grappling: fire, and by the look of it, a great deal of it. It was unfortunate for Mayaran, then, that it was Hurlish who had grabbed her, with all the uncanny Skills granted to the world’s first gunsmith. Runes spread further and further down Mayaran’s right side, each brighter than the last, increasing the heat, yet Hurlish didn’t so much as flinch. Sara’s eyes began to water, forcing her to blink rapidly as the hot air tried to dry them to shriveled husks.

Mayaran seemed unbothered at first. Then, as Hurlish’s fingers continued to close, she began to squirm. She opened her mouth to say something else, feigning indifference, then gasped slightly, shrinking down and to the side, trying to slip out of Hurlish’s grip.

It didn’t work.

The ambient emotion surrounding Sara, the sense of a party, had completely dissolved. What had begun as a gathering of allies had now devolved into a gaggle of nervous wrecks, watching the argument like a powder keg’s lit fuse.

“You’re all pissing me off,” Amillya declared. “I Wish we were somewhere we could talk privately.”

Evie’s lip curled. “Well that’s unfortunate—”

Sara blinked. The party was gone. She and Amillya were standing in a cool, damp room, one with a lumpy, dirty floor and lichen-covered brick walls. The air tasted old and stale, filled with the scent of mildew, and there was nothing around them save for a few rotting barrels.

Sara snapped her gaze back to Amillya the moment she regained her bearings. “Bring Evie and Hurlish here.”

“No,” the old woman said, “You can tell them about it later. Fucking the Champion of Amarat doesn’t afford them any special privileges.”

Sara reached under her buffcoat and pulled a miniscule pistol from its hidden holster, cocking the crystal hammer as she leveled it at Amillya’s forehead. It was a small, short-barreled weapon, firing a measly .30 caliber ball, but it was stuffed with enough blackpowder that there was a decent chance it would turn into a hand grenade the instant she pulled the trigger. A weapon of last resort, but a deadly one.

“Bring Evie and Hurlish here,” Sara said once more.

“Do you think that thing can scare me?” Amillya huffed.

“Do you think Amarat wants her Prophet and Champion fighting because you’re too stubborn of a bitch to bring my wives along with me?”

Amillya stared at her for a long second. She blew out an irritated puff. “You know, I know I’m not the easiest person to get along with, but you sure jump to extremes. Worse than just about any other Champion I’ve met, I’d say.”

“Bring Evie and Hurlish here,” Sara repeated tonelessly.

“Fine.”

There was no fancy flash, no magical spray of coalescing particles. One moment they were alone in the mysterious room, then they weren’t.

Evie had barely appeared before her rapier also flashed into existence, its tip pointed at Amillya. Hurlish was still holding an invisible shoulder, smoke trailing from her burnt tux sleeve. She blinked several times, then shook her wrist out, extinguishing the smoldering fire.

I swear to god, I’m going to bill Mayaran for the damage to that suit.

“So,” Sara said, lowering her pistol, prompting Evie to reluctantly dismiss her rapier, “what is it you wanted?”

“To warn you, girl,” Amillya growled. “That you attracted too much attention. The kind you aren’t ready to deal with. I don’t know what you did last week, but even I felt it. The gods got pissy that day, girl. Throwing Divine temper tantrums like I haven’t seen in a long, long time.”

“Last week?” Sara thought back, racking her brain for what she could have done. “Only thing that happened last week was us taking a small rebel mining outpost. It was barely a battle.”

“Really?” Amillya’s bushy eyebrows wriggled like worms, her gaze flicking to Hurlish and Evie. “What about you two? She telling the truth? Didn’t do something stupid last week?”

“Not outta the ordinary, no,” Hurlish said, crossing her arms. She was too tall for the room, and had to bend her neck slightly forward in the cramped cellar.

“She hardly even fought in that battle,” Evie confirmed. “It wasn’t necessary. Our rifles and cannon swept the enemy aside with ease. It was only after the battle, when Master Graf came to visit, that we became aware of any oddities occurring on the day.”

Amillya’s knuckles tightened around her cane. “Graf? He came here? To the jungle? What? Why?”

“To visit Evie,” Sara said. “And to see the first battle she was in command of.”

“I wasn’t in charge, dear.”

“Whatever. First battle you advised for, I guess. Same thing.”

“Are you certain?” Amillya challenged. “That’s all he came for? He didn’t do anything else?”

Sara frowned. “You sound like General Borek. He didn’t believe Graf would be in the Empire for no reason, either.” Sara snorted. “As if visiting Evie is ‘no reason.’ The arrogance of that prick.”

“Well if it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t Graf, what were the gods shitting themselves about?”

There was a prolonged, muted silence. Evie looked contemplative, Hurlish bored, and Amillya frustrated. Sara spent the time wondering where they were. She couldn’t hear a single thing. Not the distant thud of feet on a street above, nor the hustle and bustle of some manor or mansion that the room’s lone door attached to. Considering their means of arrival, she supposed they could be anywhere in the world.

“Does it even matter why the gods are flipping out?” Hurlish eventually asked, if only to break the silence. “Whatever’s happened, happened. Now we just gotta deal with whatever comes next.”

Amillya stuck her tongue between her lips and blew a long raspberry, profoundly dissatisfied.

“Fine. But there’s not much to prepare for, I’ll warn you. You aren’t ready for what’s coming.”

“Try me,” Sara said.

“You wish, girl.”

Sara looked Amillya up and down. “No. No, I really don’t.”

“Won’t ever know what you’re missing, then.” The bones of Amillya’s wrist made an audible click as she flicked her hand, dismissing the idea. “Whatever. Not what I’m here for. Do you want to hear what I have to say or not, girl?”

Sara considered. On one hand, Amillya’s magical abduction of her hadn’t won the woman any favors in Sara’s book. On the other, she was, quite literally, a prophet. Someone ordained by an all-knowing Goddess to spread word of the future that was to come. And she’d be lying if it wasn’t a relief to have someone to talk shit to who could actually sling insults back.

“Alright,” Sara said, forcing her reflexive irritation down. “Hit me. What have you got?”

Amillya cleared her throat with a phlegmy ah-hem, her knuckles crackling like firewood as she gripped her staff.

“Champion of Amarat,” she began formally, “Twister of Binds, Chain Breaker. You have fought well, accomplished much, and found victory where others have failed. You have been allowed freedoms that no other of your kind has been entrusted, and you have used them well.” Amillya took a deep breath, brow furrowing.

“But,” she intoned, the single word echoing loudly in the cool air, “there are limits to what you can be shielded from. Your Goddess warned you of this, and yet you persisted. Worthy though your goals may be, there are many whose dreams would flow down a different stream.”

“They will come for you, Champion,” Amillya said. Her eyes began to lid, her focus elsewhere. She was quoting something profound. Sentiments so vast and complex that the human mind could barely put words to them. “Creatures ancient, creatures new. The foul and the honorable, the depraved and the decrepit. Those which seep and slither, soar and crawl, and all the things which move between. You have plucked the tangled web of their living dreams. You can be hidden no longer. They are coming.”

Amillya slumped, breathing harder than can be explained. Sara and her wives were silent, slowly digesting what she’d said. It was ominous. Dangerous.

And, Sara slowly came to realize, really fucking vague.

“Is that it?” Sara asked.

Amillya looked up at her. “What?”

“I mean, is that all you have to say? Just that?”

The elf’s eyes narrowed to a slit. “You have received a prophecy, girl.”

“Not a very useful one.”

“You insipid little bitch-”

“I mean, really,” Sara interrupted, “what was your plan? Tell me a bunch of creepy bastards were coming for my ass and then leave? That’s all you have? That doesn’t tell me shit. I mean, sure, it sounded good,” Sara admitted, making a grand, sweeping gesture, “with all the talk about ancient stuff and creepy-crawlies or whatever. I think it would have been better if you made it rhyme, though, like those old Greek prophecies. At least then you’d have an excuse for it telling me nothing fucking useful.”

Amillya’s eyes flashed. “Do you think this is a game? Some joke?”

“I mean, I’m literally Level 17-”

“Shit!” Amillya spat. “There it is! I knew you’d say that. All the Champions do, eventually! I thought you weren’t going to do it, to compare this entire reality to one of your childish little fantasies-”

“I’m pretty sure it’s almost exactly like it,” Sara snapped back. “Seriously, what did you expect? That I’d hear you tell me that a bunch of unbelievably powerful things are coming to kill me and everyone I love, with nothing more to it than that, and I’d just stand there with a dumb little smile, nodding like an idiot?”

“If you’d actually taken time to listen, girl, and perhaps use what little is left bouncing around your skull to analyze what I said, you might have noted that not all of that which seeks you out does so with intent to kill.”

“See, there we go,” Sara said, pointing. “That’s something actually useful. Why are you trying to rely on me figuring that out for myself? Did Amarat not give you a choice on how you’re going to phrase things? Is that part of your ‘rules’ or whatever, that you have to be so vague about everything?”

“You couldn’t fathom the role I play in the turning of the clock,” Amillya spat. “To explain to you the nature of Prophecy would be explaining an ant the nature of the stars.”

“Well you could at least give it a shot,” Sara fired back. “Maybe that would have made this whole thing worth my time.”

“If you cannot figure out the most basic of ideas from your god-given warning, then you’ll most certainly fall prey to those that are even now seeking you out!”

“And what are those, exactly?” Evie interrupted. She was far more concerned with Amillya’s vague warnings than Sara had become, incensed as she was. “What comes to threaten us?”

“Anything,” Amillya snapped. “Everything. All the things I warned you about before, child. The great, ancient spiders on the web of time, patiently waiting for the right strings to be plucked. Creatures that are as far beyond you as the gods are beyond them. A thousand years of prophecy have been ruined. Have you any idea what that means? What plans have gone awry, what ancient plots and schemes you’ve disrupted?”

“Okay. Come on. For real, though. Do you have anything actually useful to say?” Sara asked. “I know this is probably your whole shtick or whatever, delivering vague, ominous prophecies, but you need to give me something actionable. If there’s a giant sea monster swimming towards Tulian, I can start preparing for that. But unless you’re literally talking about a giant time-spider, I can’t do shit.”

“No, it’s not a giant spider, you twit. And if I knew the specifics of what you needed to concern yourself about, wouldn’t you expect me to tell you?”

“No.”

“No.”

“No.”

Amillya glared. “Fuck all three of you.”

“Still no,” Sara said.

The gnarled elf slammed the tip of her walking stick against the ground, filling the small space with a brief echo.

“What matters,” she declared loudly, “is that they are coming. Whether you are responsible or not, a Champion is in the world, and someone has killed a great many Fates. They will assume you are responsible, and they will act accordingly.”

“Whoever ‘they’ are,” Sara said, “they’re coming to do what? You said they’re not all coming to kill me, so what does that leave? They want to talk? Question me? Help me, even? What’s their goal, their motivations?”

“That depends on too much for me to say. I have sensed the stirring of things so old they’re little more than a blurry memory to even me, girl. Some will pass you by without you even noticing them, I’m sure. Remnants of older worlds didn’t survive to this Age by taking risks, after all. Others will make themselves known, or fail to hide themselves, but do little else.”

“And some will be violent,” Evie guessed.

“Some will, yes.” Amillya looked at the feline, a brief flicker of sympathy passing over her face. “You picked a poor wife, child. She attracts things that you cannot protect her from.”

“I don’t think you’ll want to say that to her twice,” Hurlish’s low voice rumbled. “And besides. We didn’t pick Sara. Your Goddess played matchmaker for us.”

“She did for her,” Amillya specified, swinging her cane towards Evie. “Not you. You’re an accident, big girl. Amarat never gave a shit about you.”

Sara’s eyebrows rose. “Hold on. What do you mean by that? Amarat literally guided me towards Hurlish’s shop. How could she not be involved in us meeting?”

“Setting you two up to meet, maybe,” Amillya conceded, “but not stay together. That was on you. When I said the gods are pissed, I meant Amarat, too, girl. You haven’t been playing by her rules. Half the people you’ve surrounded yourself with aren’t the ones she wanted at your side, and I don’t think she wanted events to go a fraction as far as they have.” Amillya sniffed. “But I guess you did well enough that she hasn’t been heavy-handed about correcting your mistakes. If you had, she’d have sent me here with a lot more specifics about how I’m supposed to be doing this little meeting.”

“Well I’m glad I’ve got her approval,” Sara drawled sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “And I’m glad you traveled all this way to kidnap me and tell me nothing useful.”

“Ignore her,” Evie suddenly said, before Amillya could open her mouth again. The feline stepped in front of Sara, focusing on Amillya. “She’s frustrated with you, but it would be foolish to throw away even what few scraps you can offer us. You’re a Prophet, yes, but you are more than that. You have lived untold lifetimes, and seen more than we could ever dream. Maybe Amarat didn’t tell you everything, but what can you tell us? I know little of your kind, both Elven and Prophet, but I know you can tell me more than what is revealed by Divine inspiration. How long do we have until these foes arrive? Will there be any use in fighting any of them, or are they all as beyond us as you claim? If they can be sated by reparations, offerings, or sacrifices, what might they favor, so we may begin stockpiling it?”

“See what I mean?” Amillya glared at Sara. “You’re a bad fit for her. She deserves someone better.”

Hurlish looked at Sara like she expected a pistol to fly from her belt once again, but Sara didn’t do any such thing. She took the abuse without a murmur of protest, her expression barely changing. Far be it for her to correct anyone who had something good to say about Evie, no matter how insulting it was for Sara.

“As for your questions,” Amillya said to Evie, “I can answer a few. No, you can’t fight any of them. Those that are coming to you are entities which can feel the flow of Fate being disrupted, and they think they can do something about it. The least among them is beyond anything you can imagine.” She scowled thoughtfully. “Maybe your pet Archmage could scatter a few of them. Not together, mind you, but a few of the least powerful, if they come alone. His type tend to be paranoid enough to prepare for things they should have no right to challenge. But only if he knew long, long in advance.”

“Which is information I presume you don’t have.”

“No. Might get ready for the Fae Court, at the very least.” Amillya cackled lightly. “If they aren’t all busy dealing with that other shitstorm you stirred up. Oh, the things I’ve been hearing from them as of late.” She glanced at Sara once more. “They’re furious with you, you know. That woman was never supposed to reach the sea. They’d made sure of it, until you showed up.”

“Nora?” Sara clarified.

“Who else?” Evie asked rhetorically. “Hopefully her journey to the Locks of the Sea will distract the fae, then. Regardless, I will warn Archmage Garen of them, and seek his advice in preparing for their arrival. What of the other matters? If the Fae Court is the least among what comes for us, you were unfortunately rather correct. I cannot fathom what foes we might need to face.”

“Demons, for one,” Amillya said. “From which Hell, I don’t know. Their wars are unending, and I doubt even Amarat herself could tell which among them is well-poised enough to spare attention to our Plane at this particular moment. They’ll be the ones your wife is best suited for dealing with, at least. You’ve encountered their sort before, yes?”

“A single demon,” Evie confirmed. “And though Garen said it was among the most pathetic of the Hellish spawn, it put up quite the fight.”

“Yes, well, I’m sure that will change once your wife figures out how to be a real Champion of Amarat. The Hells shouldn’t be ignored, but they are a squabbling, evil brood. It will take them the longest of all to rear their heads, I suspect. If they ever do at all. And they’re the sort you’ll be best prepared to face.”

“Noted. And beyond them?”

Amillya’s scowl deepened, contorting her whole face. On her wrinkled, parchment-colored skin, that was quite the accomplishment.

“Those spiders I mentioned. Singular threats. Creatures which concern themselves not with the turning of days, years, or, decades, but the endless churn of millennia.”

“Elves?” Hurlish guessed. “I know they’ve been shitting bricks lately. Even the couple I’d managed to actually convince to talk to me about smithing have fucked off to their capital. Something about the Emperor calling them all back or whatever. If the big guy is pissed at Tulian, there’s not much we could do to stop him from rolling over us.”

“True,” Amillya, said, “but even still, this empire and its ilk aren’t what I’m speaking of. Those bricks you mentioned them shitting, they aren’t common finds. Collector’s items, practically.”

“Huh?”

“Sara can tell you later. And I wouldn’t worry yourself either way. They’re not going to their little capital to cook up some war plan or whatever. Not like they’d need one to kill off Tulian, anyway. They wouldn’t even need their Archmages to wipe your city off the map. No, they’re going to the capital to hide. For shelter against what’s coming.”

That sent a slight tingle down Sara’s spine. Ever since she’d started worming her way into this Imperial society, the oft-referenced, rarely-seen ‘elves’ had been the great big boogeyman lurking in the dark. Of those who objected to the use of Tulian firearms, it was their fear that the centuries-old civil war might finally escalate to the point of Elven involvement that had them quaking in their boots. It was taken for granted that if the Emperor decided to send out his elvish Warriors, the conflict would be ended in the few days it took for them to spill an ocean of blood.

And if they’re running off to hide…

Despite what Evie and Amillya seemed to think, Sara was taking this conversation seriously. She just needed more evidence than she was being provided. There was no point in worrying over things she had no way to anticipate, and it pissed her off that Amillya had confronted her so publicly about it. She’d had plans for that party, and now she was in some decrepit cellar, getting told things that could do little more than spike her blood pressure.

“What do they fear so deeply?” Evie asked. “General Borek mentioned many things. Leviathans rising from the deepest trenches, histories being rewritten, stars shifting place in the sky. What of all those events so concerns them, and by extension, us? What should I order to be investigated?”

“There’s little I can tell you of use in that respect as well,” Amillya replied. “Those who will confront you subtly, you will never see coming. Those who need not hide?” She shrugged. “They will not hide. You will see them coming from a thousand leagues away, turning the land to cinders with every stride.” Her face hardened. “You’ve made weapons like no one has ever seen, girl. Things the Gods kept a lid on for as long as I’ve been alive. For as long as there’s been Champions. But for what’s coming, they won’t be enough.” Amillya spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I’m a Prophet, girl. But even I don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

Evie chewed on that, looking pensive. There was nothing she hated more than indecision, and this had forced more than its share on her. Hurlish seemed vaguely irritated, but for all Sara knew, that could have been lingering resentment from Mayaran fucking up her tux’s collar. Hurlish had never been one to get overly bothered by the big picture things. She happily left stuff like this to Sara and Evie, content to provide them the tools they needed on their way.

Sara had her own thoughts, of course. Mostly, she was on Evie’s side of the fence. She was pissed that Amillya had come all this way just to chastise and abuse her, then give her nothing more than vague warnings in return. Sure, it would have come off smoother if Sara hadn’t pressed her on the details and let the old elf majestically saunter off into the darkness after giving her dramatic ‘something big is coming’ speech, but that wouldn’t have been much more use. All Sara’s pressing had done was reveal the thinness of what Amillya had to offer.

At the end of the day, however, Amillya had tried to give them a warning. A shitty warning, mostly containing information that they would have figured out on their own, but it was something. At the very least, Sara doubted she ever would have connected some cataclysmic event to a minor skirmish over a half-finished mining outpost.

“How long do we have?” Sara asked.

“A matter of months, at most,” Amillya replied. “I don’t have much of a sense for it, but I can tell you that much just from experience. It takes a long time for things buried this deep to burrow their way to the light.”

“And has another Champion dealt with something like this? Have you seen how they dealt with it?”

“No. I’ve seen things like this happen, but they’re usually why a Champion shows up. Hardly ever seen them show up on account of a Champion.” She snorted, an ugly, wet noise. “And certainly not because of a Champion of Amarat. Not since I was young, anyway. Your sort aren’t supposed to fuck things up this bad, girlie. You’re supposed to be the subtler type of Champion.”

Hurlish chuckled. “Yeah. Subtle.”

Amillya pointed a crooked finger at the orc. “Your wife acting all fucked up is what got us in this mess, blacksmith. Maybe if she was more normal…”

“The world would still have collared slaves,” Sara finished, staring the elf straight in the eyes.

Amillya sucked a breath. “Yes. Yes, I suppose that’s true. You’ve done some things others couldn’t, I’ll admit.” She made a hocking, hacking noise, then spat a wad of phlegm on the stones, wiping her mouth. Sara ignored her.

An idea was beginning to form in Sara’s head. Thoughts stuck to one another as they tumbled through her churning mind, some messy, half-formed vision of what she was dealing with bouncing its way across the proverbial landscape. Nothing concrete, nothing that she could actually give words to, much less voice, but something.

“Before we go,” Sara said, announcing the end of the meeting as if it was already beginning, “I have a question about someone.”

“Oh?” Amillya’s wrinkles crawled up her face, lifted by the bushy caterpillars over her eyelids. “And who’s that?”

“Graf Urs.”

Sara saw it. Not something easy to spot, not something Hurlish or Evie or anyone else could have caught, but something. A little spark in the darkness of Amillya’s pupils. Recognition.

Respect.

“What about him?” Amillya demurred. “Wouldn’t your fucktoy there have all the answers you need about her daddy?”

“He is not my-”

“What is he?” Sara asked.

Amillya snorted. “You already know that. He’s a mercenary. A sword for hire, and a very, very well-used one.”

“No. What is he?”

Evie glanced at Sara, confused. Amillya’s crooked back straightened just a touch.

“A soldier, girl. A Warrior, an Irregular, a Knight, whatever you want to call his sort. And a strong one, too.”

“No,” Sara repeated. “When General Borek came to challenge him at the behest of his Emperor,” Sara said, holding up three fingers, “he listed off three things. ‘Mountains fall, stars vanish, and the hand of Graf Urs nears his sword.’” Sara leaned in, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Not many people in this world understand what it means when an entire star vanishes, Amillya. The kind of power that’s involved in taking a trillions tons of nuclear energy, all that burning, swirling hydrogen and helium and the iron ball at its core, and snapping it out of existence. But I do. You do. And I bet Emperor Aydrion does, too. So why did the hand of Graf Urs getting so much as near his sword top that little trio of disasters? I’ll ask you again. What is Graf Urs?”

Amillya licked her lips. Evie took a step back, and Hurlish unfolded her arms, curiosity piqued.

“Graf Urs,” the Prophet eventually said, whispering, “is proof that the Gods are fallible.” She raised her arm, energy gathering within the tips of her fingers.

Sara’s hand snapped out, seizing the old woman’s wrist. Amillya stared at her, looking genuinely, truly shocked for the first time since Sara had known her.

“You’re not leaving on that,” Sara growled. “This isn’t a prophecy. This isn’t some vague bullshit. You actually know this one. I want an answer.” Sara smiled, sickly sweet. “It’s only fair, isn’t it? After everything else you had to say was so useless?”

“I don’t know how long it’s been since someone’s done that,” Amillya murmured, looking at Sara’s hand around her wrist. “A thousand years? A hundred?”

“Answer the question.”

Without warning or a microsecond of transition, Sara was standing across the room. Evie and Hurlish were to her left, their poses unchanged. Seeing as Sara’s hand was doing nothing other than clenching empty air, she dropped it, standing straight.

“Graf Urs,” Amillya said, her voice filling the mossy, ancient chamber, “is a lucky man. When he was young, he survived something he shouldn’t have. I don’t know what it was, but it hardly matters. A knight charging down the hill at him, or an arrow flung for his eye, or maybe a boulder crashing down from a trebuchet. Whatever it was, it was certain death. But Graf Urs, in that particular moment, found himself possessing just the right combination of traits. Clever, quick, and lucky. He survived it. That earned him favor. Grace.” One of Amillya’s fingers tapped the top of her cane. “Earned him some Experience, as a Champion would probably call it.”

“Now,” she continued, “that’s not all that much on its own. This is a wide, wide, world, and it’s older than you’d believe. People have gotten lucky before. Some of them have gotten a whole hell of a lot luckier than Graf Urs did on that day. But you know what’s different about him?”

“He can use it,” Evie murmured, as if recanting an old tale.

Amillya nodded to her. It was a sharp, respectful nod.

“He could use it,” she agreed. “He wasn’t just clever. He was smart. He stayed in the battle that almost killed him, and after a while, his side ended up winning. Whatever he’d done, it got noticed. Made him that little bit more important. Got him a place on the front lines of the next battle. And when he was there, fighting for his life again, you know what happened?”

“He got lucky again,” Amillya said, answering her own question before any of them could speak. “Damned lucky, I’d guess. A one-in-a-million shot. He lived through the kind of thing that some people, most people, would see for themselves and clap the dust off their hands and say ‘well, this whole war thing was nice, but I’m going right the hell home, because I’ve had enough.’ And they would have been right to do it.”

“But Graf Urs didn’t. He didn’t go home. He fought another battle. And another. And another, and another, and on and on and on. And in some of them, a lot of them, Graf Urs got lucky. He survived things he shouldn’t. He got promoted to places no commoner should be, and he made people so uncomfortable with it that they had to start making shit up. Saying he was blessed by the Gods, by Fate, that he was from some fuck-off-forgotten Noble lineage or the long-lost child of some Champion a world away.”

“But he wasn’t.” Amillya’s fingers drummed on her wooden cane. Sara recognized that material, now. Her dad had a collection of it in his office, back on Earth. Fossilized wood. “Graf Urs wasn’t blessed by the Gods. He wasn’t chosen by Fate. He was damned lucky. Random chance had struck him again and again, and unlike every other better, smarter prick out there, who would have taken their winnings and gone home a long time ago, he kept going.”

“Graf Urs wasn’t the first person this has happened to, of course,” Amillya said. “Some of them end up legends. They throw a wrench in the works, fuck up the plans of some minor power or piss off one God or another. Most of the time, that ends up with them getting shunted aside or struck down by the powers that be. Can’t let that bent nail in the floorboard stand out too much, after all. But back sixty years ago, a lot of shit was going on, and none of them quite got around to it. Maybe they thought the others would deal with it, or maybe he happened to be in just the right place, just the right time, and the hidden things trying to shove him off a cliff just happened to be pushing from opposite sides. Lucky again, I guess. So nothing happened.”

“The problem with that, Sara, is that Graf Urs wasn’t like all those other folk that came before him. He wasn’t just lucky. Like you already know, he was smart. Damned smart. A genius, maybe, at least when it comes to killing folk. Once the people in charge of him got the proper excuses all lined up, he got put in command. He wasn’t just a soldier anymore, but a leader. And not just any leader.”

Amillya paused then. Her eyes were looking up and to the side, as if she was working hard to recall something, like a few decades were the same amount of time for her that it was for a human.

“You’ve got famous leaders on your world, Sara. You named some of your guns after one, in fact. Napoleon. But there’s others, too, aren’t there? Plenty of them, even in the short little breath that your world’s been kicking. Alexander. Giap. Zhukov. Arthur. Subutai. Yi Sun-Sin. The type of people who see battles like others see art. You’ve fought him, I know. Even if he didn’t really want to win, you could tell. Graf Urs is one of their sorts, isn’t he?”

There was silence. Sara realized she was actually expected to answer.

“Yes,” she said simply.

“He is. Hell, he might be better than them. I’ve only got a bunch of dumbass teenagers who told me about all those other fellows, but I’ve seen Graf Urs. He’s the real goddamn deal.” She snorted at herself. “No. Not god-damned. That’s the whole problem.” Amillya shook her head, clearing her thoughts.

“Napoleon. We’ll go with him, since you probably know him. He won a lot of battles, yeah? Time after time, victory after victory, he beat impossible odds. He took his enemies by the throat, shook ‘em until something broke, then dropped ‘em in the mud and kept on marching. Impressive, impressive stuff.”

Amillya’s eyes glittered in the darkness. “But what if he’d been born here? What if, Sara, Napoleon had won those battles in this world? What if every time he fought, every time he won something he shouldn’t have, he got tougher? Faster? Harder to beat, thinking quicker on his feet, and all the more successful because of it? What if he won his battles not across Europe, conquering and killing and moving on, but all over the world, fighting for some people, against other people, until they all came to hate or fear him? And what if he, instead of getting surrounded on all sides by all the people he’d riled up, just… left? Went somewhere else to fight? What if Napoleon fought for no other reason than to fight? No Leipzig, no Waterloo, just an endless, endless march. A defeat here, a defeat there, sure, but nothing that ever got him killed. Just beaten. And he kept going, and going, and going. For years. Fighting all the while. What if he did that here? With the system the Gods made for us, where victory and excellence are rewarded by the universe itself?”

“He’d be something else entirely,” Sara said cautiously.

“Exactly,” Amillya hissed, her entire body crooked forward, leaning heavily on her cane, as if she were being physically dragged by the words that she was now spitting rapid-fire, one after the other, consumed by her own passion for the story she told. “But then, then you need to know this, Sara Brown. He still wouldn’t have been the first. Our world has seen Napoleons. We’ve seen Yi Sun-sins and Khans before. They’ve become great, powerful people, terrible and awesome in their might, even as they fought outside the plans of greater powers and the Gods Above.”

Amillya spat a thick wad of phlegm on the cobblestones. Her ears, drooping with unfathomable years, quivered with every word. “But we haven’t seen Graf Urs before. Ever.”

“Why?” Evie’s voice was barely above a whisper.

“Those lucky things? Those random coincidences that started his career, unbidden by Fate and Divinity alike? They never stopped. On and on and ON again, they just kept happening! Impossibly! I don’t know numbers like your world does, Sara, but maybe your father could tell you! What are the chances of one man, one brilliant, maddeningly competent man, winning those million-to-one odds so many times? Not two times in a row, not three times, but a hundred times! A thousand! What if every time he came up against a limit, the things the Gods had put in place to prevent one person from becoming too powerful, it happened again!”

Her voice had risen until it was shaking the room, filling Sara’s ears with the thunder of her incredulity, of a woman older than almost anything else alive being taken to her wit’s end by the impossibility of what she was beholding.

“On and on and on he went, fighting, killing, and nearly dying, so close, so many times, but never all the way there! By the time he was doing things the Gods couldn’t ignore, it was too late! He was involved in too much, too important, and they fought and squabbled over him like children! They did that for so long that none of them could do anything at all to control him, or guide him, or even just damn well KILL him! They couldn’t do it! He mattered too much now, enough that any death one of them caused would fuck up every other God’s plans, and somehow, SOMEHOW, they hadn’t seen it coming! Because at every fork in the road they could see, he should have died! He should have! But he! Never! Did!”

Amillya threw her head back and laughed, a loud, echoing cackle, shrill, inhuman, and achingly loud. Hair raised along Sara’s arms, and before she realized what she was doing, she’d drawn her pistol, pointing it at Amillya even as she backed away in shivering fear, the sights weaving as her eyes went in and out of focus.

“And then!” The elf laughed hysterically. “And then you know what happened? Graf Urs turned thirty! Thirty fucking years old, he was! And that was when he fought the last thing in all the world that could’ve killed him! And you know what it did? It RAN!”

Sound roared through the chamber, shattering stone and making the ground leap and tremble, an earthquake begun around them. Hurlish wrapped Evie in her arms, shielding her from it all, and the feline pressed herself into her wife’s chest, ears flattened and tail tucked between her legs. Amillya ranted on, uncaring, uncompromising.

“THAT’S what Graf Urs is, girl! Sara Brown! Champion of my God! Graf Urs is impossible! He shouldn’t exist! All my life, I wondered if there even WERE other Gods! If they weren’t just the many faces of one cold, capricious being, one we all unknowingly followed, but no!” She laughed even harder. Blood, thick and dark, began to trickle from Sara’s ears. “They’re not! They really are out there! That’s what Graf Urs is, child! He’s proof the gods can fuck up! He is their fuckup! They’ve kept this world spinning for so long that it had to happen eventually, but they weren’t ready for it! Graf Urs, the Impossible! Graf Urs, the Aberration! Graf Urs! Just another! Fucking! Man!” She straightened entirely, her back cracking and snapping as she shouted one last time. “And the Gods don’t goddamn know what to do about it!”

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. Sara’s vision cleared, tears streaking down her dust-covered face. She was pointing her pistol at the empty air over the city of Ta-Pet, aiming right through a crowd of startled onlookers. Evie and Hurlish were beside her, Hurlish kneeling down, her entire body covering Evie’s trembling form like a thick, green blanket.

Guards began to rush towards them. The crowd of socialites exploded into motion, some running away, others forward to help, others standing still as statues, getting in the way of everyone else.

Sara Brown, Champion of Amarat, didn’t know what happened. She’d asked a question she wasn’t ready for, and she’d paid the price.

But she still had a damned good poker face.

“Sorry about that,” she said as she turned to General Borek, grabbing a napkin from a table and lightly dabbing the blood dribbling down her jaw. “I forgot I had a meeting double-booked with this party. My bad, you know how it is. Thankfully it didn’t take too long. I hope I wasn’t too missed?”

General Borek looked at Sara’s bloodied face. At the gun still held in her shaking right hand, which her white knuckles wouldn’t let her release. At Evie and Hurlish, who were crouched together on the floor. Hurlish was whispering comforting words in her wife’s ears, gently stroking her cheeks. Evie was nodding slightly, agreeing with whatever was being said.

“N-no,” Borek stammered. Then he cleared his throat, stabilizing himself. “That is, no, of course not. I’m glad you were able to… to make it back in time.”

Sara smiled and nodded gratefully. She was the Champion of Amarat. Once upon a time, she would have thought there was no one alive who could have seen the lie behind her eyes.

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