A Perverted Path to Victory

David Brown

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“I never realized how loud it would be out here,” David said, looking around. “Movies showed some of it, but they really toned it down. I can barely hear myself think.”

“I find myself surprised as well,” Garen replied, one hand’s fingers twisted into the odd shape which maintained the rain-repelling spell above their heads. “Though it seems inarguable that of all our various test subjects, this crystal will have by far been privy to the greatest volume and variety of life.”

“If those are the variables we’re looking for, it should definitely show,” David agreed.

They were walking through the dense jungle, Garen’s blunt-nosed wedge of spellcrafted energy clearing the overgrown path ahead of them. Another piece of manifested magical energy hung overhead, keeping them both dry, despite the morning downpour. Birds chirped and whooped in the trees constantly, undeterred by the heavy patter of rain on wide, thick leaves. The canopy was so dense that walking beneath it wasn’t anything like strolling the streets during a storm. It was more like a water park, each of the dozens of foliage layers collecting larger pools of water in their vast leaves until the weight grew too great for them to support, upon which point they collapsed, dumping a veritable waterfall onto the layers below. The collapsed leaves would rebound immediately, ready to let more water pool. Idly, David wondered if their water-catching shapes served an evolutionary purpose, or was just a matter of coincidence.

He had many questions like that. As could be expected of a rainforest, the creatures which inhabited it cared little for the miserable conditions. It took all of David’s self control to not stop and stare at every shadow that passed them by, as they numbered in the dozens. He saw snakes as thick as his arm coiling their way up trees, climbing to a higher vantage point for some reason or another (To leap? Sleep? Hunt?), and he saw flashes of some simian creatures flinging themselves through the highest layers, though they moved too fast for him to properly give them a name or description. Some had been larger, some smaller, and some had traveled in groups, while others were alone. The presence of companions didn’t seem to be correlated with the size of the creatures, and he wondered if he’d been seeing only one species, or a multitude.

“Too much to discover, too much to learn,” he muttered remorsefully, tugging at his soaked trousers, trying to flick the mud off the hem.

“Oh?” Garen asked. “What particular curiosity caught your eye this time?”

“The monkeys,” David said, gesturing towards the treetops. “At least I think they’re monkeys. They’re too fast for me to get a good look at.”

“Would you like me to capture one for you to study when they next swing past?”

David laughed tiredly between deep huffs of breath. “No thanks. You start spoiling me like that, and we’ll never leave this jungle. I’d want to take a look at every little bug there is.”

Garen chuckled as well. “Well, once you have properly advanced in your study of the arcane, you will have far more time on your hands to pursue passing interests.”

David didn’t have much to say to that. Months of effort spent toward spellcasting, and not a spark to show for it. It was beyond discouraging. David was still trying, because of course he was, but a solid effort was the only thing he had to brag about. There’d not been an ounce of progress.

Garen’s faith that David would someday cast a spell had more and more become better described by that word: faith. In his old life, David had considered faith an ugly word. It was a belief firmly held despite the absence of any evidence, reason, or logic, and completely unbecoming of any respectable person. The only time the word faith had passed David’s lips was either in passing reference to a foreign notion, or spoken in a caustic, cynical tone.

Things were different here, of course. When it came to the gods, who even David couldn’t argue didn’t exist, ‘faith’ was a word nearly synonymous with ‘loyalty,’ or perhaps ‘trust.’ The gods existed, and they did aid their followers. David had kept track, and he’d been the recipient of six total Divine miracles thus far, from three separate gods: the first miracle, which brought him to this world, was from Amarat. The other five times hadn’t been nearly as spectacular, but they’d been further proof all the same. They had come from religious Healers attending wounds he’d gotten in the course of his experiments, and of those, two had been acolytes of Amarat, two the disciples of Olivan, and one a follower of Daylagon.

The discrepancy in representation wasn’t a coincidence; besides Amarat and Daylagon, the churches of Tulian were severely understaffed, even when accounting for the small local population. Exploring the intricacies of the Divinities (if they were ‘gods’ at all, despite what Sara insisted) and their factionalism was another item on a long list of things he wanted to investigate, but didn’t have the time for.

Garen, for his part, was a faithful man, yet he’d earned David’s genuine respect anyway. He worshiped the god of magic, Talavan. Garen viewed the art of creation itself as an act of worship, and, when he was feeling contemplative, admitted to David that he accounted more than a small part of his lifelong success to the favor of his god, rather than his own talents. Therefore, in Garen’s worldview, David would gain the ability to cast spells. Whatever was afflicting him would eventually be surmounted, because even if David wasn’t capable of doing so himself, Talavan was. Garen never seemed to give the alternative a single thought.

For David’s part, he’d steadily come to terms with his situation. Lacking magic in this world, in his line of work, was almost like a disability. And in his years of teaching, he’d had plenty of students with disabilities. Blind students, Deaf students, students without a hand or an arm or working legs. Except for a select few— those who hadn’t seemed interested in his class in the first place— they’d all ended up flying through the coursework with no more difficulty than their able-bodied peers. The Deaf students paid close attention to the interpreter the University bought in, the blind students listened intently to audiobook versions of the textbooks, and those who lacked limbs always made clever use of prosthetics to help them through the fieldwork, or were humble enough to ask for aid when needed.

When he’d first started teaching, David had found students like that inspirational. Later, they were unremarkable. It wasn’t as if the hardest part of an education was reading the words on a test or physically entering the lab, after all. It was applying what you were taught in a purposeful, meaningful manner, and doing so in a way that proved you understood the lesson at hand.

So that’s how David had started to think of himself. A student with a disability, but one who tended to forget he even had it until someone else unhelpfully pointed it out. Of course he’d keep trying to cast a spell until the day he died (it was magic, damnit!), but if it turned out he never could, so what? He could still learn about it, test it, witness it. He’d never met a student who was mad they couldn’t put a mineral sample into the spectrometer themselves; only when they drew the wrong answers from the data did they grow frustrated. So far as David was concerned, as long as he could work alongside mages to help their spells take form, or could lean over the shoulder of an artificer as they etched runes into glowing steel, he would be more than content. Sara had given him the gift of a more fantastical world than he’d ever believed could exist, full of all the wonders he’d ever dreamed of, and he’d be damned if he ended up bitter just because he couldn’t poke his head into one rabbithole among thousands.

“Here it is,” Garen announced.

David looked up from his feet, where he’d been keeping a close eye on the muddy terrain to avoid breaking an ankle on some gnarled root. Ahead of them, just a few feet in front of where Garen had come to a stop, was a small, unassuming wooden crate. It was two feet wide by two feet tall, and the thin wood was soaked all the way through, the nails which held it together already showing signs of rust, despite only being out in the elements for a single day.

“Should we set up a perimeter or something?” David asked, glancing trepidatiously at the close-pressed trees. Curious hunters had brought the University more than enough corpses of strange jungle creatures. He’d had as many as he could preserved in denatured alcohol, with the exception of duplicates of the same sex and those too large to fit into any reasonable container. It had only been a few months, but he was running out of storage room, filling the University’s basements to overflowing with the ominous, sediment-filled jars.

“There’s no need,” Garen said, reaching down to begin prying open the crate. “My wards will warn us of any approaching danger, and my Oath more than allows me to defend myself and others against simple beasts.”

“You can still be taken by surprise though, right?”

“That is what the wards are for.”

“So, what, you’ve got some kind of alarm system?” David pressed. “How does it work? Does it detect anything physically capable of harming you, or does it sense hostile Intent, or is it more convoluted?”

Garen paused, lifting his hands off the crate to smile wryly at David. “You know, when an Archmage says something purposefully enigmatic, most just shrug and move on. We are not the sort of people who easily and freely offer explanations.”

David only dignified that with a derisive snort. They both knew what he thought of incurious people. Garen looked at him, that same smile still on his face as he considered his response.

“Intent,” he eventually said. “I rely primarily on Intent, with the capacity for harm as a prerequisite for my awareness to be drawn towards the source. It wouldn’t do to be alarmed by every wasp and ant that has taken offense to my presence.”

David nodded in understanding, then paused. “Wait. Does that mean that when an ant bites someone, it’s trying to kill them? They really think that their tiny little bite is going to kill a person?”

Garen chuckled. “Oh, yes. As far as Intent is concerned, there are few creatures with a heart more foul than an ant. They are not evil creatures, not like Demons, but their hate, once summoned, flows without reservation.”

“Huh.” David scanned the ground, suddenly paranoid about finding himself standing in a fire ant bed. “Can you do that with any animal? Sense their emotional Intent? There’s a lot of evolutionary biology questions that could be answered by that. Even evolutionary psychology, if you want to start getting involved in that whole mess..”

“Why don’t we focus on the task we came here for?” Garen suggested amusedly, turning back to the crate. Responding to the command of his limp-wristed wave, the crate’s nails pulled themselves from the wood, stacking themselves neatly on the ground nearby. The crate’s walls fell down a moment later, revealing the contents.

“Damn,” David swore, shading his eyes. “Guess that answers that.”

The amethyst geode within was shining bright enough to blind, giving an underglow to the entire jungle. Having been mined in the volcanic regions and islands with which Tulian traded, the geode was among the largest their traders had acquired, about three feet across, having been split expertly down the middle so as to spare as much of the natural crystal formation as was possible. Those volcanic regions, populated by a number of wealthy merchant republics, had been the source of much of Tulian’s trade goods, and David desperately wished to visit them some day. The sheer volume of sulfur and crystalline geodes they could provide, and at such reasonable prices, promised to make for an absolutely fascinating geological study. Another item among thousands to be studied.

“An impressive result,” Garen agreed. “Though I still doubt that hiding geodes in the jungle would be a viable way to charge them for our burgeoning industries.”

“Of course not. But it does help tell us what kind of greenhouses we’ll need to construct. How much longer until the charging proximity tests are done?”

“Another week or so, I believe, though Tinvel would be better aware than I.”

“Sara won’t like that.”

“She doesn’t like anything which delays her construction projects.”

David chuckled lightly. “Go easy on her. She’s got a lot on her plate. Once we get mechanized farming implements, Tulian’s industries will really take off. We’re doing the hard work now, setting up the basis for what comes next, so this is where rushing matters the most. The sooner we get things done, the sooner our progress can start snowballing.”

“Snowballing?” Garen repeated without comprehension.

“Exponential growth,” David supplied. “When you roll a snowball down a hill, it sticks to the snow, and it gets bigger all the way down.”

“Ah. I see the metaphor.” Garen waved his hands, repackaging the geode, thankfully hiding its light. “For all her caution in advancing too far, too fast, one would think your daughter might wish to avoid Tulian becoming a rock tumbling down a hill. Crashing boulders are notoriously difficult to control.”

David shrugged. “After a certain point, she won’t have a choice. Progress begets progress. Not as quick as either one of us could bring about deliberately, of course, but still, it’s inevitable. I’ve told you all about it. Ten thousand years to the first steam engine, and two hundred more until we put boots on another celestial body.” David eyed Garen, who was using his magic to lift the crate so they could head back the way they came. “You’re a wizard. You’ll probably live to see stuff like that.”

“I likely will,” Garen agreed passively, “though I am not so sure your technology will take the same path it did on Earth. I have not been to other planets, David, but I have been to other Planes. Places where the water is air and the air is water, and the creatures which leap between make no sense to the eye, their angles connecting in impossible, incomprehensible manners–”

“Oh, like non-euclidean geometry?”

Garen paused midstep. He didn’t look like he was used to being interrupted while he was waxing poetic about the wisdom garnered by being an archmage, much less by someone who claimed to understand a fraction of what he was speaking of.

“What?” He asked simply.

“Non-euclidean geometry,” David repeated, tracing a series of lines in the air. “Like, euclidean geometry, even you have that here in this world, even if most of your math is pretty far behind where it might have been if you didn’t have magic. Euclidean geometry is the basic stuff you already know. Like, parallel lines never connect, perpendicular lines only cross once unless they’re on a sphere, that kind of thing.”

“That is not a field of math,” Garen protested. “That is basic reasoning.”

“Basic reasoning is actually the most advanced field of math,” David said, still bobbing his way through half-useless gestures as he tried to remember what little he’d picked up from his time reading internet articles and talking to other professors. “Saying two and two makes four is easy, but proving it is way harder–”

“No it is not.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“But it is simple!” Garen protested hotly. “It’s a matter of trite definitions! One is an entity unto itself, and each iteration is another labeled increment, and they can be combined–”

“Anyway,” David said, forcefully moving on, a cheerful smile blooming on his face despite the awful weather, “non-euclidean geometry is the type of geometry that doesn’t follow those basic rules. Or, I think it does, but there’s also extra rules…?” David trailed off for a moment, trying to recall exactly, but shook his head. “The point is, there’s types of geometry that can’t really be seen in real life, at least not by humans, but can still be empirically proven to exist, and they don’t make any sense to the human brain, since they mostly occupy other dimensions and stuff.”

“I thought a different dimension was where you came from.”

“Same word, different definition. See, there’s dimensions as in, like, parallel realities, which I think were pretty much only theoretical until I got dragged here, and then there’s dimensions like length, width, depth.”

Garen gave up on the pretense of walking. He began to float above the terrain, turning around to face David, consternation plain on his face. “And you say there are more ways to measure something than their immediately identifiable properties?”

“I mean, kind of?” David couldn’t stop smiling. Here he was, chatting with this world’s equivalent of a nobel laureate, and he was the one explaining things. “This wasn’t my field, I gotta admit. But, for example, time is a dimension.”

“It is not.”

David laughed, despite his breathlessness. “You’re gonna get real tired of saying that.”

“Then explain your reasoning.”

“I can’t. Not properly, anyway. All this stuff was discovered by people way smarter than me who worked in different fields. But time is a dimension, I can promise you that. After all, you can measure it, can’t you?”

“Not physically.”

“But you can measure it. It’s predictable. Sorry, Garen, but if you’re gonna trust me on all the other stuff, you’re gonna have to trust me on this one. There’s at least four dimensions we can measure.”

“At least?”

“Well, some people think there’s more. There’s been all kinds of crazy numbers thrown around. Ten, twenty, thirty, or infinite, whatever. But we’ve only got a solid grasp of four.” David chuckled. “If we can even say we have a solid grasp on time, anyway. But yeah, time is a dimension.”

Garen, floating a foot off the ground, was in a daze.

“This… is not something you should share freely, David.”

“Huh? Why? I’m a teacher, not a secret-hoarder. You hated the way old Archmages hoarded knowledge, didn’t you?”

“Yes, David,” Garen said, equally bemused and frustrated, “but Mages across the world have already learned how to manipulate the three traditional dimensions. What would become of the world if they learned the same techniques may be applied to time itself?”

“Isn’t there a god of time? Shilia? Wouldn’t she get pissed off?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps she would laud and aid those who seek to study her domain.”

“Well. I guess until you do your own studies, I’ll keep quiet on that one. But I may have told some of our students already, back when I was teaching them geometry.” David’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Geometry! That’s what we were talking about. So, right, those impossibly-angled creatures sound a lot like non-euclidean geometry, right, and if they do fit those principles, studying them may actually be helpful for figuring that sort of thing out.”

“They drive men mad, David.”

“I’m sure we can find a way around that.”

Garen sighed, dropping to the ground once more. He cast a caustic look over his shoulder.

“Are there any other world-obliterating revelations you wish to reveal to me, while we are in the privacy of the deep jungle?”

“Probably?” David shrugged. “Most of the big ones I barely understand myself. It’s possible to recreate the process which powers the sun in a laboratory, for example, though we’re not doing that any time in my lifetime. Or, uh…” He searched his brain. “Every star is a sun like ours, and the vast majority of them have planets around them, some of which might contain life?”

“Rather large focus on the sun, it would seem.”

“It’s a big deal.” David hooked his boot on a root, stumbled forward, and straightened just before Garen glanced back at him. He cleared his throat. “You already know heavier-than-air flight is possible, but did you know it’s possible for an aircraft to go faster than the speed of sound?”

Garen arched a bushy eyebrow. “Aircraft in particular, no, but I don’t find it hard to believe. The distinctive crack of a whip is born from its tip breaking the sound barrier, much like the arrows of the greatest archers, and, of course, the bullets of the Tulian army.”

“Wait, you know what the sound barrier is?”

“Of course. Spells which manipulate audible vibration rely heavily upon the principle.”

David’s eyes lit up anew, a child’s giggly excitement welling within him. “Okay, you’ve got to tell me more about that.”

Garen’s smile returned. “Of course. But only as we return to Tulian. There’s far too much work waiting for us back in the city for us to spend the rest of the day trading half-remembered theoreticals.”

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Sara Brown

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They did not arrive fashionably late to the party. They arrived catastrophically late, well after the first and second courses of meals had been served. The sun had set long ago, and the guards at the entrance to the venue had to be roused from a game of marbles, shocked that any guests were still arriving. It was an intricate little game, incorporating loose stones and the cobblestone grout as part of a wide field of play, and she was mildly surprised her Blessings hadn’t overheard discussing it or explaining the rules. The guards hastily knocked aside the course as they spotted Sara and her wives, jumping up and crossing their spears over the door, steeling their expressions into rigid decorum.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sara said, waving them down. “It’s our fault we were late.”

Determined to make up for their obvious lapse in security, they didn’t so much as flinch.

“Your names, My Ladies?” One asked. She was a woman, but her voice had a deeper, rougher rasp than most men. Beneath her helmet, Sara could see deep scarring across the woman’s face, likely the result of spellflame so intense even the healers could not salvage the flesh.

“Sara Brown, Evie Brown, and Hurlish of Tulian,” Sara said, pointing accordingly. “And before you send anyone to do it, no, I don’t want anyone to announce our arrival. We’re late enough as it is. Maybe some of those rich bastards in there will already be drunk enough to think we were there the whole time.”

One of the guards coughed in surprise, while the leading woman’s melted lips quirked into as much of a smile as they could manage.

“The herald inside will announce you the moment he sees you, but if you’d like, I could have one of my fellas here pass word of your request, My Ladies.”

“Would you?” Sara asked. “And you don’t have to call me by any title. I’m just Sara.”

The woman’s eyes, though unable to open much more than a squint, slid disbelievingly over Sara and her wives.

Hurlish, of course, was wearing her amazing tuxedo, as alien to this world as it was obviously a product of the highest fashion, tailored to exacting perfection. No one would mistake Hurlish for a noblewoman, not with her worker’s build and permanent, casual posture, yet no Imperial commoner would dare call someone dressed like her anything less than “ma’am.”

Evie, on the other hand, exuded the aura of a wealthy socialite. Her dress, paid for by the same Imperial request as Hurlish’s tuxedo, was as fine a garment as anything ever worn by a Hollywood actress. Made of rich, royal blue silk, it hung off her lithe frame with all the dignity of a Queen’s crown. It hugged her hips and her modest chest, while flaring out slightly to allow her legs to move freely, its hem long enough to hide the flat, practical footwear beneath. The entire garment was designed to draw the eyes upward, starting at her toned calves and trailing upward to her sweeping hips, then her tanned, bare arms, and finally her exposed shoulders and clavicle, cut low enough that even her modest chest would have shown cleavage, if not for a silvery ringlet covering the crease of her breasts. It was placed at the dead center of her chest, half the cool metal touching her skin, the other tied into her dress, the attachment point for wispy, sheer sheets of shoulder lace looping over her upper arms. Together they formed an inverted V, one that pointed directly upward.

The dress, ultimately, was designed to do one thing: draw as much attention as possible to Evie’s neck. While Evie had acquired a deep, full-body tan during her time in the southern jungles, as had nearly all of the formerly pale northerners amongst the Powdered Lead, Evie’s skin looked ever so slightly different tonight. There was a ring around her neck where a judicious application of white powder had been scattered, creating what looked to be a stark tan line.

It was the same tan line she had sported when her collar had been first removed.

It would be familiar to the elite party-goers, who, per the Adjutant’s orders, had already ordered their House mages to begin copying Garen’s spell to free the slaves across the city. To someone like Sara’s old self, the meaning of the dress would have been entirely lost. To elite politicians, it was as subtle as a brick to the chin.

Though it was still more understated than Sara’s own outfit for the evening. She had also abused the Imperial offer of funding for dresswear, having a particularly expensive, jewel-encrusted one commissioned, but she’d only done that with the intention of sending the gemstones back to Tulian, for use in artificery experiments, while the dress itself— made of fine silk worth far more than gold— would be secretly sold in order to help pay the Powdered Lead’s wages. She felt no guilt whatsoever over dressing her wives in the expensive finery; Evie would have looked insultingly out of place wearing anything less than she was, and selfish though it may have been, the opportunity to get Hurlish in a proper tuxedo was something Sara couldn’t miss. It was only Sara herself who had never intended to wear something so hideously expensive. It would have sent the entirely wrong message to her audience.

She couldn’t blame the guards for not immediately recognizing that they were there for the party. Sara, who’d been in the lead, was dressed as a bastardized version of an Imperial Hunter, mimicking the longbow-wielding few who were brave enough to delve into the jungle on their lonesome, tasked with the often-deadly responsibility of bringing back fresh meat for the city’s markets.

The general design had been her dad’s idea, of all things, inspired by the “buffcoats” which had replaced gambesons in the later age of blackpowder. She wore a thick, undyed leather jacket, not quite long enough to be considered a duster, ending as it did at the upper quarter of her thighs. Pulled tight over her bust, with a thick cloth cinched around her waist as a belt, flaring the leather out over hips to help emphasize her goddess-enhanced figure. The coat was festooned with pockets, buttons, and strategically-faked scratches and patched holes, additions which well-hid the fact that this was actually the first time the jacket had ever been worn.

There were also four prominent, empty spots for holsters on her belt, which made it clear to anyone who so much as glanced at her that this was an outfit for fighting, not a fancy ball. Despite that militant bent, however, her arms weren’t covered by leather, instead sheltered from the jungle’s stinging insects by long green sleeves, dyed to match the Powdered Lead’s now-iconic undershirts and gambesons. Her pants were also green, for the brief stretch that they could be seen before they disappeared into thick, sturdy boots, a set of which covered her well above her knees. These she had been forced to commision locally, as she and Hurlish, ignorant of any real type of leather working beyond that necessary to make a scabbard or sword hilt, hadn’t been able to figure out how to get the material be flexible enough.

Wearing what she was, Sara understood why the guards had hesitated to let her in. If described in more Earthly terms, this was the outfit of a frontiersman, not a noblewoman, though it lacked the stereotypical moccasins and coonskin cap. Not quite a military uniform, not quite a civilian outfit, it was best described by what it lacked: wealth. No matter how someone chose to interpret her apparel, no one but those who’d suffered a recent blow to the head would think she was trying to fit in among the influential and powerful.

Though the finished product may have ended up looking masculine in a different light, between the high boots and figure-hugging leather, Sara was proud that she’d put together something that straddled the line between Evie’s exquisite dress and Hurlish’s tuxedo. The three of them were a sliding scale of femme to butch, though no one in the Empire would have thought to describe them as such.

“The word has been passed,” a guard said, returning from within the building. “You may enter freely, My Ladies.”

“Not a Lady,” Sara reflexively reiterated. “Just Sara.”

She and her wives stepped through the threshold before the guards could respond to that, their footsteps echoing loudly in the tiled entry hall. A servant, already prepared for their entrance, quickly and professionally slid up to them, bowing slightly as he offered to guide them to the party proper. Evie accepted for the group, and then they were whisked away, climbing several flights of stairs and turning down large hallways, all throughout which many servants scurried, those on the left bringing empty plates back to the kitchens, those on the right walking as swiftly as they dared while holding steaming trays of various foods, of which roasted and glazed meat was disproportionately popular.

“Guess Borek passed word we’d be taking the city without much of a siege,” Sara noted, nodding at the servants. “This whole production is way more crap than they could have gotten ready on short notice. It would have taken all day just for them to go buying up half the city’s supply of meat.”

“Perhaps,” Evie allowed, “or perhaps they were simply ready to adapt as necessary. After all, the majority of Ta-Pet’s Houses are even now falling to Imperial troops and our own artillery. It would have been trivial to order their staff to loot rival properties for the necessary goods.”

Hurlish groaned. “Why are you telling her that? Now she’ll be all pissy about them stealing shit.”

“I think I would have heard about it, if that’s what they did,” Sara said. “But even if that’s how they got all this, so what? It’s just rich people fucking over other rich people. It would’ve been better if they’d turned out the loyalist’s food stores to the city’s poor, but even I’m not enough of an optimist to think I could convince them to do that.”

Evie scoffed lightly. “Ah, yes, dear. An optimist. That’s how you’re best described.”

“Hey,” Sara protested, her offense mostly sarcastic. “I can be an optimist about some things. Like the fact that I’m even showing up to this stupid fucking party at all, thinking I might find something worthwhile to do. That’s pretty optimistic of me.”

Through the corner of her eyes, Sara watched the servant escorting them. If she were the host of this party, she’d have assigned one of her more loyal servants to guide each guest through the halls, so that they could catch the little tidbits each said before they started properly guarding their conversations at the party itself.

If the servant was playing the role of a spy, he was doing a good job. He kept studiously moving forward, matching the pace of his guests without conscious thought. Sara knew he’d heard every word they’d said, but he hadn’t reacted much more to any part of it than she’d expect of anyone else. The fact that he flinched more at the use of profanity than her disparaging of the party’s host suggested, at least partially, that he wasn’t a spy.

Another useless, vague piece of evidence, Sara lamented. I miss when I was able to forget all this pointless shit.

Her Blessings, of course, had already pressed the servant’s face, voice, name, and even his gait into her permanent memory, as was true for every other servant and soldier they’d passed in the halls. Most identities she only caught bits and pieces of, as the majority were focusing on their work rather than talking, but she knew she’d remember every tidbit she did manage to catch for the rest of her life.

And the party will be even worse, she reminded herself. Why is it that all these pieces of shit peacocking around the place is somehow pissing me off more than hearing the screams of battle?

Honestly, if Sara dared herself to self-reflect, her preference for open combat over polite discussion probably said some unflattering things about her psyche. So, naturally, she chose not to self-reflect.

“Not that I’m against getting drunk on someone else’s money,” Hurlish said, “but I’m still not sure what you’re expecting to get out of me being here. I don’t think anyone’s gonna give a shit about what you have planned for me.”

“If they don’t, I’ll drum up interest,” Sara said. “From what I’ve heard, the old Visya kept his cards pretty close to the chest. Most of the people here won’t know much about firearms, and they’ll like seeing your little display of the captured rebel guns.” Sara sighed. “But I’ll admit, you’re not exactly mission-critical. Whenever you’re done dealing with the party, just let me know, and we’ll have some of the Powdered Lead come escort you back to the barracks.” They’d left all four of Hurlish’s guards with Tahn, naturally. Sara and Evie were enough to protect her from most anything, at least among sympathetic company. “And if I hear anyone start giving you shit, I’ll be over there in a second.”

Hurlish chuckled darkly. “Don’t bother. This is never the crowd I wanted to roll with, but if some rich fuck gets pissy enough to let me start snapping back, I’ll be all over it. You got no idea how many little noble brats came to me to get a sword ‘cause I was the best around, but still managed treat me like shit the whole time.”

“Don’t kill them, dear,” Evie cautioned, with more sincerity in her voice than most would expect. “These are our allies. At least nominally.”

Hurlish rolled her eyes. “I’m not the one you need to be worried about on that front, Kitty.”

“Sara is perfectly capable of controlling herself in polite society.”

Hurlish side-eyed her feline wife. “Yeah, Sara can. Can you?”

“Of course,” Evie scoffed.

“Even if they insult you?”

“The courts of Sporatos bathed me in more insults than you’ve heard in your lifetime.”

“And if they insult Sara?” Hurlish pressed. “Me?” She paused, fixing Evie with a meaningful look. “Tahn?”

Steel glittered in Evie’s eyes, her teeth gritting behind a fake smile. “They would not dare.”

Hurlish’s eyes lifted to Sara. “Keep her under control, alright?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Hope that’ll be enough.”

“I am not a wild animal,” Evie insisted, a claim undermined by her involuntarily thrashing tail.

“No. No, I guess you’re not.” Hurlish agreed, rolling her neck. “But that’s mostly because animals only kill when they have to. Not when they want to.”

Ahead of them, the servant picked up his pace.

It wasn’t long until they climbed the final set of stairs, being led out a grand set of doors into a large, open pavilion. As promised, their arrival went unannounced, and they were able to quickly slip away from the door, taking up a nearby position as if they’d been there for hours.

It wasn’t a usual gathering place for parties, Sara could tell, if only because of the long, twisting route required to get there, but the host hadn’t chosen it thoughtlessly. The Keep of House Malya, as was true of many other Imperial inner-city fortifications, had long since abandoned all but the most cosmetic pretenses of being a military fortress. Maybe once upon a time, whenever it had been built however many centuries ago, it had been a formidable part of Ta-Pet’s defenses, the home and bastion of a great many troops, able to shelter them even if the city’s walls fell. Not any longer.

Its four towers, once possessing sharply angled shingles designed to repel catapult projectiles, had been slashed flat, as had the rest of the upper level that Sara was led out onto. Where there once would have been parapets, murder holes, and barrels full of arrows, there were now garden plots, transplanted trees, and finely carved wooden furniture. Crystal lights were set on artfully bent wrought iron pillars, lighting the dark night from high enough that the insects they attracted were of no bother. The furniture was a mixture of the formal and informal, allowing guests to mingle where and how they pleased.

A pair of long dining tables were the gathering’s centerpiece, placed just far enough that a constant flow of servants could pass through the narrow gap, delivering refreshments and replacing empty plates with full ones, all without disturbing the guests by the necessity of reaching over their shoulders. Food was piled high there, and for a city that had so recently been anticipating a siege, the variety was remarkable. Further away, on the outskirts, there was a smattered series of plush lounge chairs, each circling a smoking brazier. Some of the flames had a haze which was ever-so-slightly discolored, and judging by the scent of the smoke and the relaxed, dazed posture of those closest to the flame, some sort of mild intoxicant was being burned there. Sara made a note to avoid it, at least for now. She had gotten her fill of lung damage from spending her teenage years hotboxing her car with her coworkers after every shift.

Maybe it was a testament to her growing maturity that the garden boxes were what Sara found most interesting. Rather than being filled with beautiful flowers and exotic shrubbery, they seemed to be producing actual, honest-to-god vegetables. The kind that the Keep’s cooks could make actual, regular use of. That was a utilitarian enough decision that her mind immediately tried to leap to the conclusion that the plants were performative, affecting a humility and practicality meant to impress Sara, but for once she had to discard the cynical thought. Important as she was, this was a party for Ta-Pet’s elite, and most were more concerned with politicking amongst each other than they were her. She wasn’t even the guest of honor; General Borek was. House Malya wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to impress Sara alone, particularly when those humble vegetables would likely be seen as dreadfully pedestrian by most of the other party-goers.

“I’m guessing that’s where I’m supposed to be?” Hurlish asked, gesturing.

Sara followed her motion, finding a set of guards near the eastern edge of the Keep’s roofs, their ceremonial armor and glittering pikes shielding a tableau of partially shattered weapons from the crowd. The guards were barely necessary, judging by how few were presently taking an interest in the busted-up firearms, but it was better safe than sorry, she supposed.

“Yeah, looks like it.” Sara squinted. “Damn. They didn’t tell us about that. There’s a half-finished cannon barrel there, too. Guess they found it recently, and hauled it up here as soon as they could. Probably after they’d already told Evie about the party.”

“Surprised they were already trying to make cannons. I’ll check it out, but I can already tell it was shit.” Hurlish smacked her lips. “I don’t see any beer over there.”

“Is getting drunk really wise, dear?” Evie asked plaintively, already knowing the answer.

“If you want me smiling at all these fucks, yes,” Hurlish said. “You want me here as an example of Tulian’s industries? Pointing out how shit their guns are compared to ours? Yeah, I’m gonna need some beer. No one ever liked a saleswoman that told them to shove their head up their ass.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it too much.” Sara waved dismissively. “Our guns are better enough that they’ll sell themselves. Someone pisses you off, tell them what you really think of them.”

“Within reason,” Evie interjected.

“Okay. But for the record, I like Sara’s idea more.”

Evie sighed.

Hurlish split off from them with a final wave, her black and white tuxedo drawing the eyes of nearly everyone she passed as she went to the rack of captured guns. Compared to the elaborately woven, garishly colored native dress of the Imperial elite, Hurlish’s slick black tux was a statement unto itself.

I wonder what they’ll assume it means, Sara thought. Can’t imagine many of them will guess she’s wearing it because I thought it was hot as fuck.

It was Hurlish’s sauntering through the crowd that finally alerted the larger body of guests that the “Divine Chosen” had arrived. The chatter began to pick up, heads swiveling, whispers beginning, and with a petulant, under-the-breath sigh, Sara flicked on her Blessings.

“Here we go,” she murmured to Evie.

“I’ve seen you less anxious to face your death on the battlefield.”

“That’s because out there, I get to kill the people that’re pissing me off.”

“Don’t worry,” Evie muttered, slipping her arm into the crook of Sara’s elbow. “I’m sure a few of these fools will present themselves as an opportunity sooner or later. I highly doubt they’re all the loyalists they claim to be.” Her ears flicked this way and that, taking in as much as they could. “What are they saying now?”

“Not much useful yet,” Sara said, flipping through her mental list of ongoing conversations. “Just reactions to us showing up.” She cocked her head. “And more interest than I expected in Hurlish’s display, now that she’s arrived. Apparently the old Visya kept his guns pretty well hidden. No one here knows much about them.”

“I don’t believe she will be happy about that.” Evie waved toward a passing servant, who was balancing two trays of mugs atop either hand. The woman paused, bobbing her head in lieu of the curtsy that would have spilled her burden across the roof.

“Yes, My Lady?”

“Those drinks are alcoholic?”

“Beer and spirits, My Lady,” the servant confirmed.

“Excellent. If you would place both trays by my wife over there, I would be grateful.”

“Both, My Lady?” The servant asked hesitantly, not to be rude, but to confirm she’d heard Evie’s request correctly. Evie’s accent in Kemari was still fairly thick, even if her grammar was close to flawless.

“Both, yes. She will not drink to excess, I assure you.”

“Of course,” the woman replied, bobbing her head yet again. “I will do so immediately.”

As the servant woman left them, Sara bit her cheek. “Fucking nasty. Somehow I always forget.”

“That servants show the nobility respect?” Evie asked, amused.

“That they’ll bow and scrape at the slightest little request. I bet that lady had something else she needed those drinks for, but now she’s off doing something else. Probably fucked up some plan or something, pissed off some rich prick who wanted to get trashed. All because we wanted our wife to have something to drink.”

“If you wish to survive this evening with your sanity intact, you will have to think less deeply about such matters, my dear.”

Sara’s only response to that was a low grumble.

“Ah, General Sara, Commander Evie!” General Borek suddenly called, waving at them from across the rooftop. “I am glad to see you here! Had I known that fool of a Visya would be so stubborn, I would have delayed the festivities to properly accommodate you.”

“Oh, that would have been ridiculous,” Sara replied loudly, casting her voice across the party. “After all, today’s victory was your own!”

As various people began gossiping about that, unknowingly exposing their hidden thoughts to Sara’s blessings, she had to suppress a groan.

Here we fucking go.

She and Evie sauntered over to General Borek and were smoothly allowed entrance into the tight gaggle of fawning supporters, the practiced socialites barely thinking before they allowed someone of higher status to take their place.

Pathetic little cowards.

Using one hand and his tail to pluck two glasses of wine off a nearby table, General Borek offered them to Sara and Evie. It was a white wine of some kind, held in a thick-stemmed glass, not unlike a champagne glass. Sara and Evie both accepted the drinks, but neither took a sip.

“I was just telling these fine folk here about the remarkable proficiency of your ‘bicycles’ on the field of battle,” General Borek said, waving to several of the more scarred guests that made up the throng around him. Older veterans, Sara assumed. “And the way that they allowed your harrying efforts to do damage far in excess of your unit’s numbers. Without your Powdered Lead’s aid, I doubt we would have been able to find a suitable position before the enemy Garrison was upon us.”

Several sets of eyes flickered at the use of ‘enemy’ in reference to Ta-Pet’s garrison. Sara took careful note of each individual that did so, tallying a point of suspicion against them, all without acknowledging her recognition.

“It was not just the bicycles,” Evie replied, putting quite the effort into wrangling her accent. She didn’t try to mimic high society’s specific diction of Kemari, but rather injected her own Sporaton royal accent into the pronunciation, aiming for the role of foreign nobility. “Had you not had our artillery battery with you, I fear the battle would have been far bloodier. Tell me, General Borek. With how busy we have been pacifying the city, I have not had opportunity to review a full account of the battle. How fared our artillery?”

General Borek smiled as wide as his vanaran facial musculature would allow, happy to take the opportunity to describe the battle he had just won.

“Your First Artillery Company performed remarkably, of course. Their support to the infantry was invaluable, both at range and when the enemy came to grips. They were particularly effective at nullifying the enemy mages. Your canister shot was…” General Borek’s smile faltered briefly. “...frighteningly effective, once the enemy’s spellshields were dealt with. It is not a weapon I would ever wish to face myself.”

“You better get ready for it,” Sara said, nodding to the half-finished cannon Hurlish was currently inspecting. “It won’t be long before the rebels figure out how to get cannons for themselves. I’ve already been impressed by the rate at which they made firearms of their own.” She flashed a blinding, reassuring smile at her audience. “Of course, Tulian weapons are still far superior, and we’re the ones teaching your smithies how to produce guns. As both the True Empire and the rebels arm themselves, I have no doubt the war will grow far bloodier. Yet, sad though that may be, this will doubtlessly bring its conclusion ever closer.”

“A prayer to that,” one of the veteran-looking women harrumphed, raising her wineglass.

“A prayer to that,” the others echoed, raising their glasses as well.

Across the party, a keen catfolk’s ears picked up what Sara had said, which they quietly relayed to their companion. Even as Sara continued the conversation with Borek, her Blessings listened to the catfolk and another woman talk.

“See?” The catfolk rasped, their particularly pronounced muzzle giving them a strange accent. “Even she admits that the war will grow terrible with her weapons. How can they condone it?”

“Because it will grow more terrible for our enemy than us,” the woman replied, her voice prickling a certain itch in Sara’s memory. A voice she’d heard before, but only ever at a distance too great to make out words, and therefore not one that activated her Blessings. “And you know as well as I that wars are ended with blood. With the pressure that the Emperor and the Highest Elves have begun putting upon our peoples, even her instruments of war may be a mercy.”

“It is a foul mercy which slaughters so indiscriminately.”

“I assure you, they’re quite accurate,” the woman hummed, as if speaking from personal experience. “It is only that the True Empire has so many enemies that they seem to be aimed so widely. Tell me, have you heard of the other armies which attempt to replicate the lessons of the Chosen’s firearms?”

“Yes,” the odd catfolk responded. “They are ineffective, unwieldy things, barely more useful than an army without such expensive weaponry. Only the great guns, the, ah, can-nons, have proven useful, and only then in breaking sieges.”

“You are correct, of course. The Second and Third Blackpowder armies have been experiencing extreme difficulties. Yet here we stand in a city conquered by the blooming flower of white gunsmoke. Why do you think that is?”

“The Chosen, of course,” the catfolk said irritably, as if it should have been obvious. “Chosen alter those around them. This is known and recorded. That the army she has joined has seen greater success than others is only to be expected.”

“Mm. Perhaps.” There was the sound of the woman sipping from a glass. “But I do not think that is the only explanation. You see the woman standing with her? In the blue dress?”

This time the catfolk did hiss- literally. It was a sound of utter disgust.

“I can smell the blood on that bitch from here. She is like Tiam-En.”

“But unlike Tiam-En, she has something which holds her back. And the woman’s other wife?”

“A brute.”

A disappointed hum from the woman. “Hardly. If you think of Hurlish of Tulian’s strength is earned by her pursuing it to the exclusion of all else, you will find yourself disappointed.” Sara got the vague sense of the woman shaking her head in the negative. “No. The Imperial First Blackpowder Army succeeds for reasons beyond the Chosen. She has surrounded herself with exceptional individuals, as every Chosen invariably does, but unlike those in the past, this Chosen and companions have not been shy in sharing their gifts to the world.”

“Speak your implication plainly, Mayaran. My House will not want to sponsor an advisor who speaks in riddles.”

“Not riddles, I assure you,” Mayaran assured the catfolk dismissively, her focus already elsewhere. “Just uncertainties. I’m sure I’ll be able to offer you more soon.”

Their conversation broke apart then, both moving to discuss with others, as was common of near every partygoer. It was a peculiar experience to be able to hear and understand almost every word being said at the party, understanding and comprehending it all at once. She’d gotten used to it in some respects, being in a cramped army so frequently, but now the sheer volume of useful information flowing into her skull was beginning to feel overwhelming in its own unique way.

“I don’t think they will any time soon,” Sara was saying in the meanwhile, answering a man who’d asked her how long it would take for the rebels to equal her weapons. “Even their greatest smiths lack the most basic understanding of ballistics that I and my wives already take for granted. Speaking of which…” Sara turned to Hurlish, using their fascination in what she’d been saying to tug their vision in her wake.

Her orcish wife was lifting the partially finished rebel cannon in one hand, running the other along its length, feeling out the smoothness of the casting. Short and stubby by its proportions, it was nonetheless as long as Hurlish was tall, a few inches over seven feet, and its bronze walls were as thick as Hurlish’s closed fist, which put them at ten inches or so. A massive overuse of bronze, the entire thing likely weighed as much as two of Tulian’s Napoleons, carriage and all. Judging by the bore diameter, it was designed to fire cannonballs the width of a human torso.

Impressive as that may have sounded to whatever bureaucrat had commissioned it, Sara didn’t need Hurlish’s appraisal to know that the weapon was an incredible waste. Any carriage it was mounted on would likely require expensive artificer reinforcement not to collapse under its weight, and no matter how wide the wheels, it would bog down in even lightly damp soil, much less the mud which suffused this Empire. With the cannon being only a few times the length of its projectile’s diameter, there would be very little time for the ammunition to accelerate, which meant it would require an absurdly massive charge of blackpowder to launch it. Sara wondered how they had even intended to load it; an iron ball of that size would need at least two people to lift it up into the barrel. It was easily four or five times the heaviest shot of Tulian’s industries, which were the naval 24-pounders. And gods, how would they swab the barrel between shots? Especially with the volume of powder they’d be stuffing in it. Its fire rate must have been measured in minutes per shot, not shots per minute.

Hurlish tipped it on its end, setting it down gently on the stones, so it wouldn’t simply crash straight through to the floor below, then dusted her hands off, nodding to her spectators.

“Yup. It’s shit.”

Those close enough to hear reacted either with a titter of laughter, too surprised by the mundane profanity to hide their reaction, while the others frowned sternly, disapproving of the very same thing.

“What did she say?” A man asked amongst General Borek’s entourage, craning his neck to see Hurlish.

“She said it’s shit,” Sara replied. Several of the elite socialites shot her a dirty look, to which she shrugged. “I read her lips. I’m quoting directly.”

“Is it truly so terrible?” A new voice asked, joining the conversation. Sara turned her head, looking at the woman who had just a few minutes before been gossiping about the ‘brutality’ of gunpowder weapons.

Now that she could see her instead of just seeing her, Sara got a better impression of the woman who had been so blatantly analyzing her from a distance, ostensibly to earn the sponsorship of someone else’s House.

She was dark-skinned, among the darker skinned people present in the Empire. Closer to Central African than she was to most of the Empire’s more bronzed tones, she had sharp, angular features, her entire face seeming to narrow to the point of her nose, which she was obviously to using to look down at others. Her dark black hair was wavy enough that it seemed a curling iron had been used on it, and it bounced down onto her shoulders. She wore loose, voluminous robes which hid her figure, the hallmark of a mage. Those robes glowed lightly as she entered the circle around Borek and Sara, others fleeing from her presence.

“The cannon?” Sara clarified.

“Yes,” she said airily, holding herself aloofly. “It seems like a perfectly capable weapon to me. Not as effective in the field as your wheeled weapons, but well-suited to serving upon the walls of the city, where it could smash apart any besieger’s fortifications, no?”

Against Sara’s bicep, which Evie still had her arm wrapped around, she felt a squeeze. A rapid series of flexes, nearly invisible to any watcher, yet easy enough to distinguish the meaning of through her shirtsleeve.

Enemy combatant.

“Ah!” Sara exclaimed, recognizing the woman. “That’s where I knew your voice from. I nearly killed you this morning, didn’t I?”

Mayaran’s dark eyebrows rose. “I could quite nearly say the same of you, Holy Chosen. It is no coincidence that I only chose to shield the Warriors, rather than involve myself in the battle personally. If I had turned my spells upon you…” She paused to wave her hand in front of her face, as if shooing away invisible flies. “But it is of no consequence, as we were on the same side all along. Even if you were ignorant of it.”

Forced by circumstances to be polite, Sara smiled graciously. “I am glad I didn’t try to press our advantage when you fled from our rifle fire, then. I can’t imagine it would have been a good look for me to have killed one of my employer’s allies.”

Another series of squeezes on her biceps.

Calm down.

Before Mayaran could retort, Sara continued.

“Your spellcrafting was quite impressive, as I recall. I haven’t seen any other mage which could vary the dimensions and shape of their spell without dropping it. Something you developed personally, I assume?”

“I did, as a matter of fact. Though quite an effort, word of your firearm’s effectiveness inspired me-”

Mayaran was interrupted by a wave of astonishment from the same entrance that Sara used, followed immediately after by a hush of abandoned conversations. A rumble of thunder sounded as dozens of men and women began dropping to their knees, bowing to whoever arrived.

Fucking hell. What now? Did the goddamn Emperor show up or something?

“Out of my way!” A crackling voice screeched. “Out of my fucking way! You, yes you, stop bending over like you’re trying to suck your own cock and move!”

Oh, great, Sara thought to the sound of someone scrambling on hands and knees. Someone even worse.

Sara turned around just as General Borek and everyone else finished dropping, pressing their foreheads to the top of their bent knee.

“Hello, Amillya.”

“Hello, Cunt.”

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