The Great Baths of the Vitharr capital, like so much of that gaudy, filth-ridden place, were swollen, garish and crumbling. Lady Ci's uncle, the director of an engineering cooperative responsible for the continuous maintenance and repair of the Home World's imperial palace, had always told her, if ever she was to invest in real property, never to place a single silver tael on anything even remotely related water. No pools, no aqueducts and uncertainly no bathhouses.

Water, empty and unbound, had insatiable hunger for all things prone to mold and rot. It ground mountains to plains, plains to rivers and rivers to oceans, a slow-motion nuclear blast levelling all things in its unwavering, tyrannical trajectory.

No, Lady Ci would never invest in water. She would become it instead.

It was no secret why legionnaires preferred to meet in the bathhouse, discussing their battle plans and reminiscing of wars past as the thick steam masked the wafting wisps of opium smoke passing out through the mouth of one and into the nostrils of another. In the baths they were naked, covered only by a thin sheet at the waist and often not even that, allowing those most courageous and valiant to display their accoladed scars and let their flesh lend tenure to their words. It also, naturally, had the added benefit of excluding any pesky females who might be otherwise inclined to encroach into their manly officer dominion.

How persistent, how unimpeachable these little barriers had been. Women were allowed into the army, of course, but no lady would bare herself to such scrutiny and so they remained non-commissioned, becoming discouraged and eventually ejecting themselves altogether. Women were permitted, much the same, to sit for the imperial examinations, but with families unwilling to invest their life-savings in the tedious, life-absorbing special administrative education for their daughters, they never entered the bureaucracy either.

Ci Xiao, unwilling to play out the script so carefully crafted for her by generations of compliance, had opted to serve in both.

In a universe where every scrap of wisdom and parcel of knowledge was carefully stored away, accessible at a moment's notice, it took a lifetime of training and remolding for a young, pliable mind to hold onto even a single piece of data by rote, yet Xiao, blessed with a memory outstripping that of even the finest computers, memorized every work of the Twelve Philosophers before she had even the ability to understand a single word.

When she finally sat for the county exams at the tender age of twelve, she was disqualified only for citing sources so ancient and obscure that the proctors themselves were uncertain of the quotations' authenticity. As a child of merchants, the local magistrate would not even bother hearing any appeal on her behalf, so she had waited, stewing for three, long, agonizing years before finally realizing she need only rest with the classics and distinguish her true brilliance elsewhere.

It would not be the last time she would sacrifice her dignity on the altar of success.

All it took was one, and once the levee was breached, soon came the flood. The empire was in a state of permanent and intensifying malaise, half the population of the most talented and remarkable of every generation banished to commerce, the academy or monastical orders while the army languished and the bureaucracy bled competence with each passing hour.

All Xiao had to do was establish one tiny, insignificant school in her new magisterial county and suddenly, there it was, the hole in the wall, the puncture in the suit, the chink in the chainmail. Women from all the across the empire had flocked to the college, and despite the fact that perhaps only one in the every hundred thousand was pliable and gifted enough to learn her methods, it was more than what Lady Ci needed to surround herself with enough allies that her promotion became inevitable.

Or, not quite so, for without any warning or prediction, the qualifications for the office of govern had been changed. The examinations were a precursor for entry into the magisterial level - as before - but now, to rise higher, one needed military service as well. For what cause, it was never explained fully or in public, but Xiao and her women received the message nonetheless. Perhaps it would have ended there too, had not the Cassian Order chosen that exact moment to collapse, and desperation morphed the impossible into the perfunctory.

With the no central authority of any kind on the Cassian Inner Worlds, the myriad shipping lanes between the Cassians and Imperials became fraught with pirates and raiders of all sorts, and in the confusing jumble of rival factions, merchant fleets and mercenary forces, the legion found itself without the diplomatic or bureaucratic rigor to protect the Empire's most valuable asset: its trade.

Ci Xiao could do just that, however, and the Imperial Joint Chiefs, facing oblivion at the hands of an Emperor who would sooner demand their heads than their resignations, had little choice but to recognize her talent. Her county had found the way to house, feed, train and filter through millions of women on a desperate path to salvation, and now she did the same for the millions of merchants in the Cassian Inner Worlds looking for the same.

It was an unqualified success. Trade continued to flourish even as the Cassian planets imploded, devouring themselves. Xiao squeezed every drop out of the Inner Worlds, increasing output year over year despite the carnage, despite the disaster, despite the widespread starvation and disease. The merchants traded arms to every side, moved crops from one starving city to another, hoarded medicine during epidemics and murdered whoever thought it wise to renegotiate marked-up prices. And Lady Xi defended and supplied them every step of the way.

In the end, their reticence had only a price in silver. Once she paid it, and paid it to an incredible premium, Xiao surpassed her other allies and confidantes at the magisterial level. Decades of toil and commiseration had finally come to fruition as she skipped the provincial assignment entirely and was seated directly on the Central Imperial Committee, whispering into the ears of the emperor Himself.

And then, just as she had topped the summit, reached the pinnacle, and stepped within a foot's distance of the throne itself, all those left behind got just a little too impatient. Xiao would come to blame the Party - its new ideas, new fanatical philosophies and destabilising, radical influence - but at first she had not had the faintest idea why all those women had fled her school in droves, returning to their universities and corporations, cluttering the journals and newspapers with demands and reformations:

"Why should only the best and brightest of us pass through, when they'll pick any man at all for the job?"

"Why should we change to fit outdated structures and not have those structures change to suit us?"

And, of course, the most incendiary, "why should His adolescent son inherit the throne when His eldest daughter is far more qualified?"

It was all too much, too fast. The empire was tolerant, perhaps the most tolerant society humanity had ever devised, but even it had its limits. One could hold whatever opinion they cherished whatsoever; they just needed to keep it to themselves.

So, just like that, it all melted away. Xiao was but a few short months from the ancient Emperor departing and having a young, malleable, idiot to puppet about as she pleased, but it was all for naught. The demonstrations and publications were all Xiao's enemies at court had needed to isolate and subdue her. The Emperor, dying, delirious and already prone to irrational paranoia formally barred women from even sitting on his Central Committee. On his ascension, the new Emperor, wanting only to stamp his councillors' orders before retiring to his playpen, happily exiled Lady Ci to the barren wastes of Septimi without having even the faintest idea what had even just happened.

So now, she was here, cold, miserable and alone, her only companions four Cassian prostitutes offering her endless praise for fear of having their hides whipped. It had taken some time to become accustomed to it, but mercifully, the voyage here had been long and uneventful, time enough to convene with the ancients now too antiquated and esoteric to speak to anyone but herself. Perhaps, she acknowledged privately, she had risen too fast and desired too much. Perhaps her victory had thrown the moral balance of the universe into chaos, and now it was her duty to recentre the cosmic scales.

Though meant as nothing short of banishment, saddled with aged commanders put out to pasture and miscreant, brigand recruits now purged of more elite, disciplined legions, it was infinitely more than she had ever enjoyed as a lowly county magistrate: the resources of an entire planet, three moons and a trained, if unruly military force, facing a clear and (most importantly) external threat in the Party.

Her enemies may have expelled her as far as possible away from the magnificent treasures and tantalizing intrigues of the imperial court, but they also, unknowingly, deposited her nearest the only expansive opportunity the Empire had discovered in over centuries. The universe was vast and empty, difficult to traverse and colonize, even more difficult to rule. The settlers sent out from the Home Worlds never returned, and most, if not all, were never heard from again. Thus, when, after seven generations travelling the cosmic desert in a lonesome and increasingly incestuous colony ship, imperial settlers had discovered not just the fertile Septimi, but a whole civilization nearly on the verge of collapse, the news had breathed new life in a decaying, fracturing empire.

But that had been many decades ago now; the colony had been well established even when Xiao was just a child and hearing her first stories of the wondrous, bountiful, virgin solar system but a few short light-years away. The decadent, complacent courtiers who so jealously guarded their personal power at the expense of the entire human race had lacked the ambition to see that discovery through to it logical end. Xiao, on the other hand, had no such discouragement. If she could come within a hair's breadth of ruling the empire with nothing more than a measly county, a whole planet would be more than enough to finish the Party, perhaps all the Cassians entirely.

She just needed to rule Septimi first. Solidify the base and expand from there. Make her own allies if the universe refused to produce them for her.

And so, quite understandably, losing nearly the entirety of the world's northern continent to a band of religious fanatics caused a certain level of distress. It was perhaps one of the few if not only reasons she would ever be willing to strip down and lay out war plans with that mouldy group of sagging braggadocio generals, and it was certainly was the only time she would ever do so in the presence of Aeplerad deVoffrarr.

All those quirks and twitches, those slight disablements and bizarre characteristics that had first struck Lady Ci as merely pathetic, worthy of some sympathy even, had now evolved a far more vile and sinister flavour in her squirming mind. That the Gretwalder never seemed calm or collected, always endlessly fidgeting about, clasping and unclasping every muscle and nerve at irregular and visually disturbing intervals, was not just evidence of some terrible nervous anxiety as the governor had first fancied. No, it was becoming clear the man was wracked with guilt, festering with doubt and prone entirely to nerves of a very real, very justifiable nature indeed.

The Gretwalder was planning something, and though his words would never illustrate a single detail, his body was intent on betraying the entire plot. Xiao knew something was afoot: it could not be by some coincidence that the VLF had suddenly, mysteriously, perhaps almost magically become a dominant martial power just on her colony's border.

The only question now demanding answers was who might be behind it? The Party, clearly; that and the Gretwalden were entities hardly considered mutually exclusive. Mostly mutual exclusive, perhaps, but not entirely so. Would a man as prideful, ignorantly aristocrat and openly misogynistic as Aeplerad find common cause with a radical feminist equalitarians? Xiao's intellect had counselled no, but the man's own jittery eyes seemed to never cast anything but doubt.

The governor watched impatiently as the talcum-covered slave scooped fine, radiating coals onto the hookah, warming it and releasing little jets of steam that mingled and dissipated with the stale musk of the swarming bathhouse. Xiao's pupils hungrily shrunk to mere pinpricks at the sight of the soft, pale orange opium being unwrapped from its package of delicate chiffon paper and slowly placed into the hookah when it lightly sizzled and melted in a delectable, gaseous sludge. Lady Ci closed her eyes, inhaling deeply the serene gas, finding perfect tranquility between her infinite breaths, only to be rudely awakened as from wet footsteps splashed on damp marble.

Aeplerad had arrived, his frenzied hands playing a comically choreographed ballet as he desperately fought to keep the ridiculously undersized towel about his waist. At his side stood the indefatigably cheery security chief, so lanky and lean the linen laid on him as more of a shroud than a thin veneer of modesty. Although the bumbling, humiliated entrance of the supposedly great lord was by now entirely unsurprising to the governor, her council's reaction to the admission of Kang caught Lady Ci wholly unaware.

"Shawn!" Commandant MacGregor jumped from his stone perch at the governor's side, a look of genuine jubilation glowing all about his huge, globular cheeks. "Kang Shawn!" He pittered and pattered around the pool, rushing up to embrace the also beaming officer. "As I live and breathe, how have the gods thus spared thee, O brash one?"

"Why, Kanshou, know thee not thou do blaspheme?" Kang laughed. "'Tis the stars that chart my course now." The chief made two lazy strokes on his chest as if he were about to sign the Eight-Pointed Star before both men merely erupted in raucous, leery guffaws, pressing each other close once again before finding a seat at the bench together, chattering like schoolmates reunited after the longest of lonely summers.

The governor could hardly miss that her Commandant elected to remain on the side of the Gretwalder instead of returning across the pool to her. She vacuumed another long, lavish burst of smoke to ease her rapidly unsettling mind.

Her senses sharpened, she became aware of Aeplerad's intense, but halting gaze: two curious (perhaps lascivious, even) eyes darting seemingly randomly about, yet always resting right on the governor's chest, just at her blotchy, drooping, mastectomy-scarred naked chest, always resting there and always when he thought she wasn't looking. And from her chest, he could not help but travel down her strong but varicose legs to the powdered feet of her two attendants, tracing up again their tight but fearfully weak, pale, alabaster bodies to the plastic, ornamental palm leaves they hovered hypnotically over the sprawled, smoking Xiao.

He was totally, completely, hopelessly enraptured. She did not know how or why, but the governor would take every possible advantage of it. There was nothing more delightful, more undulating then the presence of obvious and underscored fragility.

"Gentlemen..." Lady Ci began, speaking slow and sensuously as the heavy air and smoke passed leisurely through her heavy lungs, "...my lord. Thank you for joining us this day. I thank you, Gretwalder, personally, for abiding by imperial custom for this war council. We are aware such proceedings seem very odd indeed to foreigners such as yourself, but given time and familiarity, we are sure that you and your people more generally will learn all the diverse comforts and luxuries our soon-to-be-shared civilization has to offer."

The Gretwalder was utterly perplexed. "Our people do... bathe, your eminence." He raised his eyebrows, gesturing, befuddled, to the cavernous enclosure about them. "Septimi people built these pools wherein we now-."

The governor pressed her fingers together, silencing the lord before he could pronounce another single syllable of infantile, broken imperial speak. "We have no interest to hear barbarians defending barbarians. In its stead, we would much rather become elucidated as to the exact series of events which somehow led to the wholescale abandonment of nearly one whole third of this measly province to a band of poorly armed, disorganized rebel fanatics, and in particular, we would, as matter of extreme urgency, like to hear your most wise and astute counsel as to how we shall retrieve it!"

How easy it was to jam a man like Aeplerad firmly back down into his miserable, pathetic place. Alone, outnumbered, in a room peopled entirely by the civilized and sophisticated, he had no one with which to parlay his scandalous mockery or Luddite charisma. He was a counterfeit now stood up to the examination light of his betters, and just as those most beautiful yet tender of flowers, he wilted under the heavy gaze of the glowering sun.

The Gretwalder, his hands shaking, nervously, hectically attempted to tie his towel together so as to address the assembly, whose toes were now one by one retreating from the turquoise, saline waters, tensing up in preparation for some dramatic spectacle of public humiliation. He held a quivering fist to his face, coughing and panting several times in great exaggeration to clear his throat, and was just about to finally rise, perhaps dropping the robe and baring all (just as wretchedly as the governor had schemed all along) when, quite without expectation, Kang's hand gently pressed Aeplerad back into his seat, and he rose in the lord's place.

"My lady, with all due respect," he addressed politely, genuflecting with expert and precise rigidity, "there are matters of a far greater urgency, even than this, a most serious matter indeed."

"Citizen Kang," the governor began, wishing she could suck in one more puff while speaking to keep composure, "there is absolutely nothing, nothing at all that could possibly-."

"That's Centurion Kang, my lady!"

Xiao was so stunned it took more than a moment to locate the source of the traitorous disruption, and yet, with an act of vainglorious, entirely ill-deserved dignity and officiousness, the interlocutor identified himself: the Commandant standing up beside his long-lost colleague.

"There's not a man present who can call himself a servant of the Home Empire more brave and true than him, your eminence," MacGregor belched, his liquor-soaked words jumbling about the moistened marble. "To hear him not, there is folly no worse, my lady."

A fire raged within the governor hotter and higher than any molten core or eruptive volcano could ever hope to match, and her tongue, like an electrified, razor-backed whip began tearing into her commander before her brain could deign to intervene, immediately launching a tirade of, "Thou outrageous, bearer of most vile, profane filths! Fuck thy whole family to forty generations of servitude and swindlery. I'll have thy scum-ridden commission for that, thou putrid egg."

Xiao was leaning forward, froth practically spewing from her furious mouth and prepared to go far further, but out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the looks of the other commanders about her, their faces screwed, brows furrowing and arms crossed. She could see many legs straightening, preparing to stand, readying to leave, and with it, she saw her error.

She scowled, scrunching together a face so twisted and cracked it would have left even the most unfeeling of souls with nightmares and hauntings for the rest of eternity, but still she bit her tongue. She breathed, long and deeply, inhaling so much of the pure, ashen white smoke that for a moment, she was quite unsure whether or not her seething lungs would pass it, before once again adopting the visage of peace and tranquility. Kang, of course, smiled through it all, as was his most unnatural of natures.

"We could have your commission for that, Commandant. We could, MacGregor, know that. We could. But we are lenient, and, of course, it would be perhaps too pernicious to terminate such an... illustrious career on the grounds of ceremony, the mere foundation of our entire, heavenly culture, after all!" Xiao laughed, almost maniacally, but she noticed no one else was joining her, thus necessitating a more total retreat. "You may speak, Centurion, but know we will not be interrupted a second time."

"My lady," Kang addressed the governor, but instead of purely directing his words and focus towards her, he just so slightly turned his body, speaking more clearly and directly to the other commanders gathered about the pool. "Since your address to the Gretwalden, and at your very behest, my office has conducted a series of investigations into the various linkages between the VLF and the Party. Indeed, as we speak, my agents have now interrogated some several hundred thousand suspected agents and political unreliables in all levels of Vidar society, and it seems clear that such relations between these two forces are more adhesive and insidious that you or us could have possibly imagined."

Kang looked down at his master, who, the governor could tell, was evidently trying without even a hint of success to not appear at all surprised or flummoxed in any way, and continued. "We, the Gretwalder and I, have determined that this VLF invasion of the Northern regions is just the opening of a series of bold and daring attacks the Party seeks to carry out against this planet's defences in prelude to an impending invasion."

A wind of whispers and mutterings seemed to percolate through the bathhouse mist, but Kang continued on. "We understand fully the desire to reclaim lost territory, but right now, at this dire moment of national security, in response to a credible and imminent threat, I am afraid we must focus all efforts at a much higher, wholly planetary scale and reorder all forces to defensive manoeuvres as per General Order 12-Shahhis-1/A sections 370 to 457."

"This is pointedly absurd, and we will not hear another word of it!" Xiao snarled.

"I must again, with all reverence, interject, your excellency." MacGregor rose once more from his bench to stand with his friend. "We have not yet had time to establish the same local connections and intelligence networks that our esteemed compatriot, Centurion Kang has made here." (A trivial point shared entirely unnecessarily for the enemy party to note, Lady Ci thought to herself.) "We have no reason to doubt our friends and every reason to suspect an enemy as unforgiving and unpredictable as the Party."

The governor was completely aghast. With a hideous sense of irony now overwhelming her, she found herself as perplexed as the Gretwalder had been but some moments ago, a state which, as evidenced by his continued, empty-eyed staring at her naked chest, had persisted to the present. "Our own haruspex did calculate the likelihood of invasion-."

Again, the commandant interrupted her, having learned precisely nothing from coming within the slimmest of margins of losing his post, reputation and future at the snap of a finger. "I, like many of the officers, I'm sure," he said, gesturing around the room, "do not place such inestimable faith in those disquieting, dare-I-say, muculent devices so beloved and beknownst to the more grimy and profane of the enlisted men. If Kang, a noble and distinguished fellow as I have ever seen, has evidence of Party invasion, by all means, we must immediately redirect our efforts and prepare for the worst."

"Here, here!" the commanders cried out, as if in unison, before the governor had even the opportunity to respond. She could see men from the farthest edges of the pool now standing and moving towards Kang and the commandant, mingling about as if they were to receive orders from them and not her. It was clear she had lost them, and with that, she bowed her head and conceded defeat. She could rid herself of one belligerent commander, but hardly do the same to each and every one of them. At least, not all at once. Thankfully, she was still patient.

"Very well, we stand convinced," Lady Ci declared. "Our legions shall stand down from in the northern frontiers and instead work to build an appropriate planetary defence. Gretwalder, we assume your administration is capable of finding, training and supplying an adequate workforce for any and all defensive infrastructure?"

"Of course, your worship," Aeplerad proclaimed, his cheeks strangely flushing by nothing more than being the subject of the governor's focus and not her ire.

"Good. We will require a million new slaves each week, every week until this invasion comes. We will provide some time to assemble the necessary administrative apparatus for such an undertaking, but in the meantime just provision us with as many as you have available."

Finally, the governor turned to her commanders. "And commandant!"

"Yes, my lady?" MacGregor asked, almost indignantly, as if not at all expecting any orders from the likes of one such as her.

"We must furnish a small reconnaissance expedition to find the enemy, if they truly are already in transit to strike."

"Of course, your excellency," he bowed.

"And you are to lead it," the governor added, blanking her face entirely to hide even the smallest glimpse of malice or spite.

"Is that truly wise? Sending away the First Commandant just as one is preparing their grand defence?" MacGregor was wide-eyed and reddening, his already flaming sideburns turning positively to cinder.

"There is not a single man in all the universe I would trust more with such an important mission, good sir, and besides," Lady Ci pointed to the lumpy, half-rotting carcass of the Executive Officer, "our fine Commander Rao is more than capable of assuming defensive preparations."

And just like that, the commanders, once unified, had been split down the middle, the entourage of the Commandant grumbling over their poor assignment and the company of the Executive Officer praising their miraculous fortune. MacGregor scowled, just about ready to raise an objection, but he read his colleagues as well as Xiao, and chose instead to withdraw.

"As you wish, my lady." He bowed, and left, ten of his closest commanders and confidantes storming out after him.

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The contrast could not have possibly been greater, and as such it was a juxtaposition made lovingly both by and for this strange but effusive medium of television. That their ideas and positions might clash as well was almost wholly irrelevant, eclipsed entirely by the colourful, striking, visually bleeding distinction of the images.

On the right stood the epitomized ideal of assimilation: a tanned - to the point even of daring melanoma - hide and braided blond locks with just enough natural black at the roots (hidden, thankfully, to the cameras) to betray their bleached origin accompanying a plain face and lips with angular, raised cheekbones, a clear indication the mouth had no childhood practice in dragging and lifting his vowels in jiawen tones, perhaps having never acquired his ancestral tongue at all. He was garbed in a loose-fitting grey muslin tunic pinned on his right shoulder by the customarily elephantine and tasteless Vidar-style brass pendant encrusted with faux-jewel crystals surrounding one large, impressive-looking but most probably worthless gemstone. On his chest was flashing a gold plated star, once popular with nearly all religious devotees, but which had been slowly dying as the Vidar themselves began abandoning such ostentatious jewelry for the popular and trend-setting, but more subtle jiaren designs.

He was, in other words, a gross, almost insulting caricature of what even the most insulated, conservative, ignorant Vidar would have shunned more than a hundred years ago, and he was absolutely perfect for the screen.

His opponent was far less cartoonish in appearance, but his general demeanour and wardrobe choices also exhibited an exaggerated and melodramatic interpretation of "pure" jiaren culture. He sported well-tailored silk brocade pajamas, buttoned with small, but evidently real pearls, dripping with such a harsh, extreme crimson that the cameras almost caught a radiant red aura about him. His fingernails were long and painted acrylic black and every inch of skin made up, blanched beyond even its natural unseemly paleness. His black morass of long, straightened hair hung neatly at his sides as fat, glossy, velvety lips parted to reveal sparklingly white, dazzling teeth, pressing against the fat, rounded cheeks of a native jiawen speaker.

The debate commenced in Vidar with yellow jiawen subtitles superimposed at the bottom of the screen. The moderator, a floating (but also braided) head lying just on top of the subtitles began the proceedings.

"The Vidar Public Broadcasting Service would like to thank you, ladies and gentlemen of Vitharr, in joining us for this, the first and only televised debate of the special election for the Walden of Viothgarr. All eligible jiaren voters are reminded to register their property and citizenship documents with the new Vidar Election Commission before the deadline of Saint Rigel's Day; that is 14 Augustis in the jiaren calendar. As per the Gretwalden's Act of Election, only those male voters who register real property holdings worth equal to or in excess of forty taels, producing a father or paternal grandfather of imperial citizenship may cast a ballot on Election Day. It may take some time to authenticate any documents presented to the Election Commission, so voters are asked to register ahead of the deadline, as early as possible. And now, I would like to introduce the candid-."

"Actually, I would like to respond to that," cut in the red-clad debater on the left.

"Sir, the debate has not even officially begu-."

"No, with all due respect, sir," he interrupted again, waving his arm in the air to hold the attention of the audience. "I think the debate began when you listed off those particular election rules. They're very important, and I think the Vidar people have a right to hear them debated, because the Gretwalden certainly never offered us that courtesy when they were passing this ridiculously stringent, openly insulting Act of Election."

"I...," there wasn't a second camera to cut to the moderator's face, but his voice was clearly faltering, flipping helplessly through his futile script hoping beyond hope for any direction in what to say next.

The candidate simply ignored the moderation and turned to the man beside him instead. "Now you, Sir Egbert, you were appointed temporarily to the Walden Viothgarr. You voted in favour of these draconian, anti-democratic, sexist, elitist election laws, did you not? Can you possibly explain to the voters out there why you would completely betray all the morals of our people for the sake of personal political power?"

"Don't answer that, my lord!" the moderator screeched, completely in hysterics, but Egbert calmly, politely, raised his hand and replied, "all is well. It is a perfectly acceptable question, and the people have a right to know why their representatives vote in the way they do. I think where my opponent, the merchant Song Theodore Victor, not that he seems to care to introduce himself, errs, however, is in attributing some pejorative moralization to acts which are entirely in keeping with the customs and ways of Vitharr, our adopted homeland."

"On the Home Worlds, suffrage for local elections is universal, and all jiaren vote by class," Song shot back. "Whoever gains the support of a majority of the classes wins, ensuring social harmony and peace among the orders. It's been that way among our people for millennia, and changing that now is a blatant seizure of power by the landed gentry, such as yourself and the powerful Walders from whom you bought your appointment."

Egbert rolled his eyes. "T. V., we have tried to be civil with thee, but if thou continue spouting slander at my person, I will be forced to point out the not inconsequential number of vast estates thou have to thy name and certain impertinent rumours as how thou gained such spectacular wealth."

"I could be the richest man in all the Empire, and I still would not walk within ten metres of the Election Commission to register my holdings, and trust me, I am absolutely not alone in that sentiment. Not when our people are being harassed by government agents in their workplaces, detained and questioned illegally for hours on end, having their homes vandalized, sometimes burned to the ground, stripped naked by angry crowds and, most horrifically, publicly beaten and humiliated, all for being jiaren! Every day we hear of new atrocities against our people, more indiscriminate firings, more evictions, more bonfires, and now we're expected to register our names and properties?" Song was particularly livid at this point, his widening, crazed eyes nearly as glowing now as his ruby suit. "Not in a million dynasties would I do such a thing, and it's approaching criminal that thou would demand thy fellow countrymen to do it now."

Sir Egbert turned his face from his opponent directly into the camera, pointing furiously at Song as he denounced, "this is exactly the same alarmist, radical, closeted-Party rhetoric we've been hearing from Song and his extremist supporters since the commencement of this campaign. Have there been some problems? Of course," his eyes were downcast for just the slightest moment of contrition before continuing, "but there have also been legitimate threats of Party activism within the lower orders of our community, those same lower orders our Song here, is so passionate to re-enfranchise. It's actually quite amazing to see it: this is a man who continuously bemoans the 'commiserated state' of the class of people most likely to be traitors and radicals, while openly despising the support of good, patriotic jiaren-Vidar like you viewers at home. I think it's very clear that Song knows he will never win by convincing honest, noble, morally upstanding people like you and so he'd prefer to change the rules so that all manner of radicals, feminists, brigands and terrorists can unfairly tilt the election in his favour."

"That is so far from the truth, I honestly have not the faintest idea where to begin," Song responded, shaking his head and gritting his teeth. He sighed, gripping the lectern. "The truth is, my lord Egbert is a complete and total puppet of a corrupt and incompetent Gretwalder who is openly and transparently raising racial animus in our society to distract from a nearly unending list of failures and disasters from an overlong and unwelcome stay in office. And rather than standing up to these numerous and horrific injustices, Egbert continues to be a spineless sycophant, possibly plotting happily the genocide of his very own people for the price of a prestigious but entirely inane rubberstamping Gretwalden seat."

"I..., I.... No, I, I have to respond to that," Egbert pushed forward, swatting away the suggestion of the moderator who was pathetically flailing about, attempting to impose any sort of order whatsoever to the proceedings.

"And what kind of name is 'Egbert' anyway?" Song attacked, not even wanting for Egbert to conjure forth a response. "Have you at home ever meant any jiaren, in all your life, by the name of 'Egbert'? No clan name either, just 'Egbert'. Must be pretty challenging to meet the ancestry qualifications with a name like that, but I guess the rules just don't apply to the Gretwalder's plaything like they do to everyone else."

"That is a direct and personal insult on our heritage, and we demand an immediate retraction!" Egbert was beyond irate, his outward calmness wholly lost, replaced with a vicissitude of tan-faced rancour.

"I will apologize when the Gretwalder apologizes for the over five hundred thousand of our people - our people, Egbert, thine and mine - who have their employment over spurious claims of espionage. I'll apologize when the Gretwalder shows contrition to the Zhang family of Voffrarr, and the Smith family of Vightjarr and countless other, poor innocent families who have lost their homes to looters and xenophobes spurred on by the Gretwalder's public remarks."

"This is becoming a circus. I will not dignify this by continuing-."

Egbert removed the tiny microphone from tunic and began stepping away, but Song kept speaking, shouting now, knowing that the cameras would cut out soon. "I'll apologize when the Gretwalder takes accountability for funding and supporting the VLF, a terrorist organization that calls jiaren 'devils' and has tortured to death countless of our people."

The moderator's head was gone from the screen now, and two guards began dragging Song away from the camera, all while he continued to scream. "Research! Look it up! The VLF invasion was a government conspiracy. The Gretwalder orchestrated the VLF attacks. He's been behind them all along. Look it up, I tell you!"

The screen finally cut to black.

"How many people saw this?" asked Aeplerad, hunched over his aching, flopping stomach, feverishly tapping his foot against the ground.

"No one, my lord," Kang answered, setting the tablet down on the Gretwalder's desk now that the video was complete. "I was uncertain as to the outcome of the forum, so I ordered the cameramen to prerecord the debate rather than broadcast it live. There'll be an announcement later this evening explaining the event had been cancelled following a sudden and highly contagious illness arriving in Mister Song."

Aeplerad sighed deeply, the tapping instantly abated. "Prescient as always, Mister Kang. I remain in thy debt."

"It is a pleasure to serve, my lord," Kang said, smiling with supposed delight.

"And what of Song, in reality?" Edgar, the Keeper of the Scrolls did ask, a furrow of concern still hinting at his brow.

"Detained. We can keep him for as long as we wish, but since he did not technically commit any form of blasphemy, we would be required to publish his statements to charge him for such traitorous ramblings." Kang's smile was dropped for merely a second as he proffered the meagre, "I counsel, given the political consequences, it is probably safer simply to release and then monitor him."

"Thou are right, of course," Aeplerad accepted, rather reluctantly. "I want thee also to jam all communication channels whatsoever that are not routed through any servers, transmitters or censors we do not control. Devise whatever reasoning thou must – it shouldn't be too difficult given we've embarked on a war-footing now - but make certain such messages spread no further." He smiled, "Still, the real question, though, is how he found out."

"Found out what?" Edgar asked, startled.

"Thank you, Keeper," Kang broke in, dismissively. "Thou may leave us now."

Edgar looked to his patron for confirmation but was dispatched with an absent-minded wave of the mind. He sulked, screwing his face rather obviously to remark his dissatisfaction before taking his leave.

"We need to take back the North before this gets out of hand, Kang," Aeplerad said, pressing tired, ragged face into his cold, clammy hands. "The people are turning on us. Every day the country is disunited; we're a day closer to annihilation. I can feel it."

"Give us some more time. I just need a few spies to report on their numbers, tell us their positions, and then we can take back-."

"We do not have any more time, Kang!" the Gretwalder propped himself flimsily off his desk to confront his security chief. "They could be fortifying the entire region for all we know."

"More reason to wait until we have obtained some form of clarity!"

"All thou ever do is wait!"

Kang dropped his smile entirely this time, pointing a finger right into the Gretwalder's chest, his lord's eyes widening in sudden fear. "I did a great deal more than that when I saved you from the governor's wrath. Had I not devised that Party invasion, the legions would have captured all the VLF leadership, and how long does thou think thou would have survived their interrogation then, hmm? My estimation is not all that long indeed."

The Gretwalder gulped, but though he could not summon the will to meet Kang in the eyes, he still mumbled to himself, "and how shall I produce these million slaves, Kang? Don't you see, we have simply traded one poisoned dish for another. What shall befall us when we finally do dine?"

"Just a few more days," Kang begged, retreating from his master, "that's all I ask."

"I'm summoning the most powerful Walders to discuss an invasion plan tomorrow, Kang. You will have from now until our forces are martialled at the border."

"This is lunacy of the sheerest kind," Kang laughed, half-mad perhaps, his eyes bulging with frustration, but lips unable to do anything but grin.

"At the very least, it is lunacy we shall direct," the Gretwalder pronounced, terminating the discourse once and for all.

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It was only after stuffing the thirtieth document between the folds of her billowing gown that Mila finally began to appreciate the true value of this Vidar Cassian women's fashion.

The whole castle was electrified with activity, a blinding blizzard of white paper mingling with heavy sheets of greying snow. There were stacks of dossiers piled in myriad burning mountains inside the courtyard and still more black clouds of smoke rising from outside the walls. There were shreds and scraps of various edicts and orders dusting every surface and impeding the progress of every boot. Every cabinet, safe and secure container in the whole fortress had been strewn open, their papery guts spilled out through every hallway and corridor, the eviscerated remains of more secrets than an army of spies could steal in a lifetime.

And Mila was to do all the stealing herself.

So few of the maidservants and chamber-girls had ever learned to read that the castle's seneschal had hardly had need to consider the national security implications of employing the female household staff to dispose of any and all documents on the day of evacuation from Vihorr. The armoured men, their fat-fingers toying rusted swords and greedy eyes ogling shiny coins were so concerned with the transportation (and unexplained disappearances) of the fortress' vast quantities of silver taels, they could barely spare a glance at sticky-fingeredness of any other sort.

Mila was making her final perusal of the Walder's study, her dress now precariously overburdened and threatening to slip from her body when she was finally interrupted by Karl's rapping at his own doorframe.

Mila dropped to her knees immediately, her face downtrodden, staring abjectly at the floor. "Apologies, my lord. I knew not if this room had yet to be cleared for disposal."

"There is nothing of which to bemoan, my dear," the Walder replied, gesturing for Mila to rise once more. "In fact, I had very much wished to see thee here." He pressed himself to her, wrapping his arms around so tightly Mila nearly went limp, preparing for him to feel the stolen papers and discover her at last. Instead, she felt her shoulder grow damp as a deluge of silent tears met her neck. She began gently caressing the hairs on the back of Karl's neck, kissing his ear and down his cheek, squeezing him in an assiduously studied facsimile of loving embrace.

"Here," the Walder withdrew, coughing and straightening himself out with great effort, his countenance still cloaked in the unmistakeable depression he attempted to eschew. "I shall open that safe for you."

"What safe?" Mila asked, but Karl had already began shifting an elaborate tapestry of the Holy Nova. He removed the image from the wall, and though the wood panelling beneath bore no obvious signs of anything suspect hidden behind the boards, the Walder's hands found a pressure point somewhere within the woodgrain, and with a slight, nearly inaudible click, three panels slid away to reveal a heavy, iron door. Karl pressed his thumb to the metal whereupon, which a much deeper and louder, more irritating clang, the safe was opened.

As the Walder poked his animalian long, bony neck into the surprisingly deep metal corridor, Mila padded his shoulder, lulling, "Karl, concerning what thou did say to me..."

"Concerning what, Ethel?" He brought his head out again, a thick, maroon folder between his fingers.

"Thou certainly know the words," Mila twisted her mouth in scorn, but lowered her eyes as if her words left her in imminent terror. "Do not make me repeat them."

The lord plopped the folder in Mila's hand before hobbling towards the ransacked liquor table. "Please do not burn these. Place them in my carriage, and I shall join thee in a moment."

"My lord!" Mila upbraided him, as Karl stood, his back turned, holding each nearly opaque bottle to the light so as to ascertain the level of its contents. "You cannot ignore it!"

Karl tensed and threw a bottle at the ground in a feeble attempt to cow his woman into submission, but his diminished body, even in a fit of evident rage, could not do more than cause a pathetic bounce as the bottle, remaining intact, merely rolled benignly towards its intended target. Mila, quietly, courteously, raised the glass from the floor and placed it back on the table, over which a now shaking Karl was bent, his teeth chattering.

"Karl, this thing, this ... secret," Mila whispered, rubbing the whole of his backside now, pressing herself onto him as warmly and compassionately as she possibly could act, "it's tearing thee up inside."

"It was a mistake to ever tell thee," the Walder mumbled through gritted teeth.

"That is precisely the wrong idea, my love." She now wrapped her hands around the back of his neck, massaging hard and firm as she nestled her chin onto his shoulder. "You must tell everyone now!"

Karl pulled Mila's hands off him with such ferocity she was momentarily startled into believing he may have accessed some previously unseen reserve of fortitude. "Stop this, Ethel! This discussion flirts freely with treason! Know thee no love of country?"

Mila flung herself dramatically to the ground as a gravely offended character might do in a stage production: her skirts spattered and ruffled, her hair loose and uncollected, her cheeks red and flustered. "No, Karl, no! I know love only of thee, cannot thou see it? How dare thou challenge my patriotism when thou are my only country? Thou are my nation, Karl! Thy tongue, my language. Thy arms, my army. Thy love, my oath."

Karl rolled his eyes and returned to the bottles. "This reeks of womanly fancy and their poetic hysterias."

Mila crawled towards him on all fours, sobbing profusely, reaching her arms around his right ankle like a petulant, shrieking child. "Please, my lord. Fall not on thy sword! I could not hope to bear it! It is the Gretwalder who delivered these tidings onto thee, not you yourself! Accept not the fate of martyr for an unholy cause. Finger thy master and let thyself be so saved."

The lord set the flasks down again and lowered himself, finally a soft, but fragile smile returning to his face. "Fear not, sweet child. Fear not," he spoke, reaching out to stroke Mila's now unruly hair. "Thou see I am not despairing as before? There is no sword on which to fall. I was mistaken; we are not abandoned. We leave this castle, yes, but now I know we shall return!"

Mila looked up, trying faintly to register whether those eyes above her where filled with genuine hope or had merely descended to helpful delusion. "Thou speak true?"

Karl's smile was sincere enough, but a lingering despondency betrayed the persistent doubts still gnawing at his soul. "Yes, my dear. Yes, it is true. We evacuate today, but our commanders and generals meet tomorrow, in the capital. We shall fight our way back; Aeplerad has promised!"

The clattering of two suits of armour could be heard from down the hall, and the two quickly jumped from the floor, smoothing out their tunic and dresses, though Mila left hers intentionally untidy to conceal some new papery lumps.

"We stand ready to escort you, my lord," the corporal announced, offering a stiff and customary salute.

"Excellent, excellent," the Walder waved him off. "Please take this consort to our carriage, and we shall join you presently."

"No, my lord, I wish to stay with thee always!" Mila cried, rather deliberately causing an awkward and uncomfortable scene.

Karl grabbed Mila by the hand and whispered quietly but in harsh tones that only she could hear and suffer, "There are still affairs not fit for even thee, Ethel. Know thy place, woman, and keep it well."

He let go off her and spoke loudly enough for all in the room to here. "Now, Consort. Do please take your leave," he said, handing her back the maroon folder. In all the excitement, he did not even feel how it had grown suddenly lighter from the time he had removed it from the wall.

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The plan had been simple and agreed to by all, lacking the usual discord and controversy the Gretwalder had come to expect from such an assembly. Perhaps it was because he had summoned them in secret, away from the libelous scroll keepers and peeping masses or perhaps it was because they'd been martialling their forces for months now and just needed an excuse to field them, but when Karl and Aeplerad gathered at the Great Harbour of the Vitharr capital that bright, unseasonably warm Saint Sirius morning ("dog day" so the recruits had dubbed it), they found to their great surprise a most impressive force indeed. A hundred regiments, more than ninety thousand men were milling about the docks, loading themselves onto hastily commandeered cargo vessels or dragging heavy artillery onto precariously overburdened frigates.

Ninety thousand on the shores and twenty thousand still within Vihorr itself was infinitely more than the VLF could possibly have put to its banner. Even the most liberal of estimates suggested a force of barely fifty thousand, and most of those would have to be tied up defending the main mountain passes with the jiaren colony, the most likely location of the legion invasion the VLF did not yet know was never going to come. All Karl's remaining forces had to do was surprise attack the beaches from within Vihorr, giving enough time for the main force to make landing and relieve them. Since there could not possibly be any preponderance of VLF on the south-east coastline, Karl's troops would easily match their strength and once all Walder forces were linked, they would spread out and sweep diagonally upwards, overwhelming each VLF garrison one by one and pinning all remaining forces in the north-west for one final annihilation within four days at the maximum, a week in the direst of circumstances.

Kang, as was his fussy, bureaucratic nature, had counselled incessantly for caution and deliberation, but such were the universal tools of all jiaren; they found no situation which failed to require additional procedure and contemplation. The Vidar spirit was not one to become too preoccupied with the obtaining of lengthy provisions, the securing of supply lines and logistical support, establishing local networks or other such nonsensical ramblings of ancient and forgotten imperial tacticians. While jiaren sat endlessly peering over the rotting pages of antiquated thinkers, pondering the outdated dilemmas of times long passed, Vidar simply preferred to fight.

Now, the Gretwalder and Karl stood at the bridge of their motley flagship, a full kilometre long, 200 metre wide fuel tanker, outfitted with dozens of heavy cannons, thousands of ground troops, most of the army's supply and an entire flotilla of fishing craft from which Aeplerad's personal forces, the trained core of the army, would land. Their fleet was entirely shrouded in the twilight mist of the snowy coast, a dense fog so impenetrable the whole of their force would be nearly all invisible until their ships made the final, fateful approach to the shore. Of course, for the time being, that meant the enemy was cloaked as well, and Aeplerad huddled anxiously with his lieutenants, awaiting word of contact from the forces on the ground.

"The landers are in formation," the Gretwalder's captain announced. He was a grizzled foreign veteran from numerous horrific campaigns of the Inner Worlds, having served both Cassian Walders and jiaren mercenary companies, often simultaneously, often for the mutual exclusive ends (though this was never publicly displayed with much distinction on his resume) and the only man standing on the deck with any experience whatsoever in live, unsimulated combat.

"Signal the Vihorr army," Aeplerad ordered, straightening his body to stand tall and erect over the balcony's iron railing, already imagining the best angles from which to depict himself in a victory tapestry. "Request contact update."

"Acknowledged," the signals officer replied. "Vihorr reports: ten kilometres from the coast, and no contact still."

The Gretwalder pressed himself tightly to the railing, hoping most fervently that the pressure would keep his body from exploding in a nervous fit, but still his arm began to shift uncontrollably, gripping and releasing the cold, clinging metal over and over.

"Avast!" the officer cried out, scrambling to find a stylus and tablet on which to scribble. "Contact made! Vihorr is issuing strike coordinates."

"Tell all batteries to open fire immediately!" The captain bellowed.

It took a few minutes for the order and coordinates to circulate throughout the ship and all the other vessels carrying cannons and artillery of countless varieties, but eventually a steady, deafening stream of firebolts began piercing the heavy mist, scatteringly illuminating the ominous ring of death now descending upon the coastline.

"Ceasefire!" cried the signals officer. "Friendly fire! Ceasefire!"

"Repeat?" asked the captain. Unlike most military vessels, the bridge of the tanker had been built only a few metres higher than the main deck, and the batteries below, uncovered and unmuffled, were bursting eardrums, pushing glasses off trays and causing the uneasy of stomach to vomit profusely over the balcony. Every hand rushed to every ear, and all forms of communication abruptly cessated.

The flagship lurched violently to starboard as a plume of tarry-black, oil-drenched smoke engulfed its rear sections. It took precious seconds for any sort of message to pass from stern to bow, but the screams as well as the enlivened flames lighting up the deck pre-empted the official report that a far port cannon had run too hot and exploded, along with several barrels of ordinance.

Aeplerad was still pressing his face against the railing, his hands clasped firmly to his ears as the captain ordered a ceasefire. The fires were quickly brought to heel by the tanker's regular crew, no strangers to sudden flaming outbreaks, and the commander called for a report from the ground.

"Bad targeting. Three friendly regiments broken, though not destroyed. Unclear if enemy has been hit whatsoever," the signals officer screamed back, now completely unable to register the actual volume of his voice.

"Gretwalder," the captain called, as his lord solidified his drooping face just enough to not seem so impossibly, all-encompassingly terrified. "I advise Vihorr should reform and advance. We can begin landing and take the enemy by melee."

Aeplerad gulped. So, they were to clash swords after all. This was one problem he could not bombard away. He held the railing in a vice-lock for dear life.

"Yes," he said, squeaky and unsure, his voice scratchy and mewling. "General advance."

A loud, ear-scathing sound of desperate metal clinging hopelessly to clunky, rusting iron hull cut shrill and unsettlingly across the momentary silence. With a deep rumble, the burn-out husk of the exploded battery broke from the ship and hurtled towards its ocean grave.

"Vihorr reports on enemy size," shouted signals.

A barrage of glowing red comets shot high into the sky, bathing the total darkness in a supernatural evanescence of clear and blinding red light.

"Greater than expected resistance; perhaps thirty regiments," cried out the signals desk.

As the comets fell their red became deeper and darker, colouring the night in an iridescent gore. Most did not even see the lightning flash from the coast, but what was undeniable was one moment the flagship was accompanied by a steaming tugboat on its starboard side, and the next it was gone, the flattened wreckage bubbling below the surface before it had even had the chance to burst into flames.

"More than forty regiments! It's the whole VLF force!"

Aeplerad felt his body go stiff and unresponsive, angling himself to fall against the command map console. Only Karl was in earshot as he mumbled to himself, amidst the sound of wailing artillery bolts arcing back and forth across the sky, "they knew...."

"Enemy is dividing into pincer," reported signals division.

"My lord!" the captain squalled. "We must land immediately! We still hold the advantage; we must merely beach faster, before the ground force collapses."

Aeplerad remained completely unmoved, his placement in time and space becoming increasingly mystified. Karl gripped his shoulders and steadied him. "My lord?" he asked, his previous swell of courage and optimism receding with every moment spent staring into those fearful, senseless eyes. "Please, sir. We must advance. Please, I do beg thee. Advance."

Aeplerad nodded. Unable to bear his inferior daring to prove more courageous than him, he breathed deeply, shook the whole of his body from head to toe and walked upright to the captain as if nothing had ever happened. "Continue to the shore."

As the flagship stabbed through the foggy veil, the artillery bolts now being fired into the armada at regular intervals no longer passed to and fro indiscriminately but became squarely focussed on the Gretwalder's vessel. Flash after flash fizzled all about the beach as the tanker swayed and rocked to the dance of explosions and detonations throughout its hull and surrounding waters. One barrage flickered so excruciatingly bright, threatening nearly to capsize the awesome vessel, that it revealed the flagship to be utterly and entirely alone beyond the misty gates.

"Where are the support ships?" the captain demanded, beating a furious fist into the radar map before him, now clearly showing the tanker well apart from the remaining armada.

"No response, sir," the signals officer declared, his voice strained and harried. "All communication down."

"It's a trick!" Aeplerad exclaimed. "The Walders! They're in on it! They sold us out! They mean to destroy me here and divide the country amongst themselves!"

Karl and the captain exchanged nervous glances, not knowing if they needed to restrain their commander, but the Gretwalder was howling so mightily that a good portion of the bridge crew was tuning into the conversation, eager to find some reason to pull away from the incessant onslaught. "Vihorr reports six regiments destroyed," called out the signals desk.

"No, my lord!" Karl pleaded, trying to muster his faltering courage as he felt himself pressed by the hungry, encroaching eyes of the bridge officers. "They are just the reserve. We are the core. They just need us to lead them, and they will follow. Surely," he said, scrunching his face into a smile of pathetically feigned optimism, "surely there is no ruse."

The first wave of light craft was pouring agonizingly slowly from the tanker, as the choppy, dark waters made orderly deployment increasingly hazardous. As each line of ships fought tenaciously against the treacherous current, a burst of artillery fire found their marks, spraying the flagship with an internecine haze of shrapnel and meat.

"We must pull back," Aeplerad murmured, not fully in the conviction of an order, the consequences of his actions striking him as little more real than the moves on a grisly game board.

"It is but an issue of equipment!" the captain screamed, more to the mutinous crew, most of whom had now entirely abandoned their posts and were crowding around the command map. "We can afford the losses, but we must press on."

"Ten regiments destroyed. North-west line is broken."

"Aeplerad," Karl grabbed a hold of his leader's jacketed arm, gripping as tightly as an infant in a crowded venue afraid of losing touch with his beloved guardian. "My people... your people are dying. We cannot abandon them. Have mercy, please, dear stars, have mercy!"

A shell whistled overhead, momentarily abridging the debate as the entire bridge fell to the deck, clinging onto whatever they could as the bow was buffeted viciously upwards from yet another explosion in the smoldering ruins of the ship's stern.

The Gretwalder did not even bother to stand back before shrieking, "Retreat! Retreat!"

"My lord..." Karl sobbed, his body still pressed firmly to the deck, tears flooding down his tortured visage as his hand flopped pitifully about for Aeplerad's. "Please, I beg thee."

"South-east line breaking!"

"I beg thee."

Aeplerad locked eyes with his subordinate, and where Karl had hoped to find sympathy, decisiveness and compassion, there was only disgust. The lord picked himself up once again, pointed to the captain and barked, "thou are relieved. Lieutenant Aeplewolf," he addressed the signals officer, "order the whole armada to return to harbour. All landing craft will return immediately or risk abandonment."

"Thou cannot banish thy own forces now as well!" protested the now-discharged captain. "This betrays all sense of Cassian honour!"

"Sergeant!" yelled the Gretwalder, his only feature now a distorted grimace, his voice a shrill, banshee wail over deafening impact of another missile. "Restrain this man or remove him overboard. We express no preference."

"Vihorr has gone silent," the lieutenant mumbled to no one in particular. Not a soul could hear against the sound of the weeping engines commencing their dreadful escape.

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"We are, each of us, a corpse yet living," Karl began, officiating the terse ceremony between the Walders Viherr, Vighurr and himself. Then, on second thought, Karl mused, perhaps it was miserably pedantic to cling to such titles now that such places had been all but lost for eternity.

None of the assembled lords had waited for the formal debrief when the flagship had finally returned the morning after the perilously aborted assault. Their impatience, though likely impetuous given that Kang would be watching any such furtive gatherings intently, turned out to be quite serendipitous, as the heavily damaged tanker had scraped against the harbour, vivisecting its shredded, metal guts, and it slowly, agonizingly, throughout the course of the day, sank to the bottom of the bay with nearly seven hundred soldiers still unable to be unloaded. Assuming these three gathered lords had lost their ground forces in Vihorr (a reasonable conclusion given they'd received no transmissions of any kind for several hours), the Walders collectively had wasted close to thirty thousand lives. They had achieved precisely nothing.

Stunningly, after what was unquestionably one of the greatest military catastrophes of all of Vidar history, the Gretwalder had disembarked his capsizing flagship - the haunting wails of drowning men echoing throughout the Great Harbour - and been greeted by thronging fanfare. Karl had not left the capital for more than a day, and yet Vitharr seemed now immersed in a reality entirely divergent from the world he had only left the other morning. Every Vidar man to whom he spoke appeared utterly convinced beyond all hope of re-persuasion that their country was under attack by a clear conspiracy of Cassian Partisans, VLF terrorists and Jiaren sympathisers, and that the Gretwalder had returned from a tremendous but costly victory against Party invaders from Cassia Prime. That such a piddling fleet could have traversed across the ocean in such a short time would have been difficult to believe, but that it had reached the stars was patently absurd. And yet, of course, there was not a single mind in all the capital that seemed prepared to fancy otherwise.

That Kang and the Gretwalder were deliberately stirring things up was beyond question. The three Walders had all been privy to instructions from such people to do precisely that, but it was now clear that Aeplerad's previous insistence that all actions be undertaken "within acceptable levels" was being reinterpreted with increasingly liberality. The interrogations and purging of jiaren from the government administration, something in which Karl and his fellows had participated, was not spreading to all corners of society, with bakers, street-cleaners and brick-layers being targeted and dismissed for the same "national security" concerns as army commanders and police chiefs had been in months previous. Besides the (now-abandoned) northern regions bordering the jiaren colony, the Vitharr capital housed the largest enclave of jiaren, once having been mostly affixed to the central regime, and now with every passing hour more and more of their districts became engulfed in flame, with a stream of fleeing, destitute refugees growing larger and larger.

But, even when one lies in the deepest, darkest pits of despair, one must never discount that astonishing, near phantasmic nature of misery: that it adores company. For it was then, treading through the smothering crowd of elated madness, all but contemplating the most efficient and painless method of voluntary euthanasia, that Karl's dearest, darling angel-star radiated her brilliance onto him once more. For Ethel, the sultry songbird that she was, found herself not infrequently in jiaren taverns of subtle disrepute, humming gentle jiawen love tunes for the public (and offering additional services in the later hours), and such places just so happened to be a favourite of one Mister Song Theodore Victor.

How the two had become acquainted was not detailed with any exactitude, but Karl lacked the personal jealously needed to press for further details. Of greatest consequence was that now the three exiled Walders and the jiaren political dissident whose race they had actively antagonized only short weeks ago now sat at the same bar table, separated only by the charming Ethel, smiling sweetly and aiding the parties along to a settlement.

"I doubt it not," Song concurred, languidly. "That I escaped Kang's custody with my life now seems less a stratagem and more an oversight. If the Gretwalder is causing this furor to obscure his failures in the North, as you say and as I have believed for some time, then this disastrous adventure spells the most foreboding of omens indeed."

"The capital may be enraptured, but I doubt the country is with him," Ethelrad, the Walder Viherr offered. "We have participated in his conferences; even with us there are never more than six or seven Walders fully in his camp."

"Seven of fifteen..." Song pondered. "And without you, only four. It seems not so insurmountable."

"The clergy is with him," Karl pointed out, his hand scratching over his mouth in uneasy contemplation.

"They have no say in the crowning of Gretwalders," Albert, the Walder Vighurr objected.

"It still bares to be said," Ethel fought back, placing a tender arm on Karl's shoulder. "Right, dear?"

"Yes, my darling," Karl replied, smiling for the first time in what felt like many months. "It does. This lunacy started in the temples. We will need at least some support there to end it."

"I fancy the solution to such a dilemma is fairly transparent," Ethelrad offered, his flabby, fleshy face stretched uncomfortably wide in utter fascination with his own genius. "After Aeplerad is ousted, we nominate an ecclesiastic as his successor."

"The other Walders would never agree," Karl shook his head. "A clergyman has never occupied the office, and that the Gretwalden would break from the Ways of Elders in a time such as this seems a proposition most unlikely."

"Of course, but just offering the prize has some value still. It could silence the temples in those one or two months we need to transition the government."

"Gentlemen," Song interjected, wincing rather prudishly, "we dance about the issue at the heart of this, I do believe. Which of us shall actually become the Gretwalder?"

The three lords stared back at the jiaren greatly perplexed, never assuming for a single instant that them and Song had ever constituted a single "us".

"That is talk for another day," Karl replied, diplomatically. "There can be no utility in dividing the lords on a question so premature as that one, not when the primary objective lies so near. When I stand in the Great Hall and reveal that Aeplerad ordered me to surrender Vihorr to the enemy, the Walders will have no choice but impeach him. Selecting an unworthy successor now just provides unneeded excuses to take no action at all – such is always the primary choice of that body."

"Can we even remove the man should he be impeached?" Vighurr asked, trying to recast his cowardly hesitancy as necessary due diligence. "With the army all gathered in the capital and the crowds on his side, it might be futile to dislodge him."

The table grew silent, the suicidal consequence of their fantasies only now just reaching them. Mercifully, Song broke through the quietude.

"The best part of sullying yourselves with the dregs of jiaren businessmen such as myself, is that we are more well known on the imperial market than even the behemoth of a man such as Aeplerad," Song sneered. "He may at present possess a formidable host, but once I lure away his creditors, it will disband upon the missing of its first promised tael."

"Oh, T.V. Thou are a cunning knave, indeed," Ethel cheered, placing a conspicuous hand right at his lap and causing the agitated Song to tug at the tightening collar of his pajamas.

"So, it is agreed?" Karl asked, wanting now to pull his songbird to an alternative cage posthaste. "I shall denounce the Gretwalder in the next sitting. You, Viherr and Vighurr, will move and second a bill of attainder against the Gretwalder, and finally, thou, Song, will rally your supporters to the Great Hall to shield us as we make the move."

"Agreed," the three others confirmed, to varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Karl stole a long, harried breath, absorbing all the inscrutable nerves, tensions, worries and fears of the callow cabal and with a deep, enlivening exhalation, his hand clenched tightly to that of his lover, he released them.

"Very well," he said. "May the stars shine bright upon us."

And with that, they dispersed.

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He had to seal the chamber. That was the only way this was ever going to work.

But what if they couldn't? The thought began to gnaw away at the conspirators, chipping slowly but surely at their sanity like a tiny woodpecker knocking almost imperceptibly, but with undeniable steadfastness against the gnarled tree of their schemes. Kang and the Gretwalder held something on each of them, something they hadn't even dared mention in their meeting, much less wished divulged on the public record. And so, each of them, their stomachs wrapped in knots, muscles stiff and straining, lounged about their seats in the Great Hall, projecting a face of calm and contentment to their colleagues while inside they roiled in abject terror.

Karl's hopes continued to be buoyed, however, but the thunderous applause and shouting still ringing out from the Heavenly Square just outside the hall. With so many jiaren now unemployed, they had little else to do but protest their gross mistreatment, especially given the widely circulated rumours that Song's campaigners were to distribute hampers of food and silver to the attendees. The politician took to his platform just after ten in the morning, the sun just having barely creeped over the bleak, winter horizon, showering a pyrite glow over the mangy, scum-laden masses.

At first, the crowd appeared almost entirely uniform in character – a misshapen, but formidable conglomerate of some forty or fifty thousand heads, tuques and scarves bobbing up and down to the flow of chanting and raves – but now Song could clearly identify a thin layer of human detritus clinging to the outer confines of the crowd, pulling away every time the mob stepped back and gathering at the rear like milky calcium in an underused water glass. Song did not quite trust his eyes enough to spot all the details, but it was clear they were not all clad in the grimy pajamas and crusty-coated suits of his jiaren supporters.

Inside, the gallery of the Great Hall slowly began to swell in attendance, with a large, though eerily silent crowd milling about. Kang's guards were entirely scarce, with only a sergeant-at-arms posted to each entrance of the chamber, and seemingly no one else in all the vast complexes of the Gretwalden and Heavenly Square. Karl had fancied the audience might be nothing more than a spill-over of the rally outside, but this flight of fancy crashed rather violently into the misty mountain of reality as soon as they broke into a chorus of jubilation upon the entrance of the Gretwalder and his retinue.

Aeplerad waved, his cheeks flushed with self-admiration, tossing kisses and miming embraces to the adoring gallery as more and more Vidar pressed against the balconies, filing into the hall and seemingly grasping every particle of oxygen from Karl's asphyxiating lungs. The Keeper of the Scrolls could barely be heard as he shouted above the fray for the chamber doors to be sealed and the session to be brought into order, but the already suspiciously underhanded sergeants were powerless to arrest the stampede of well-wishers who flocked now to the outer rings of the chamber itself. Before the lords had even a chance to react, they were completely surrounded by these ululating onlookers, the guards still not bothering to ebb the flow.

"In this world there are sheep to sheer and lambs to slaughter," Song called out to his supporters in jiawen so crisp and clear it could have graced the palaces of the Emperor Himself, "and though we, the gentle, law-abiding, hard-working folk of Septimi have thought ourselves the vaunted, valued sheep, we discover now the true intentions of those pursuing to as lambs so roast us. But we, we dutiful sheep, we precious, devoted sheep, have kept faith with our masters, growing them a long, heavy woolen coat, and so dutiful, so devoted have we been that this coat has now grown to smother all our bodies and cover now even our eyes to see, our ears to listen and our mouths to speak."

Song waited just a moment, but the energy of the crowd lifted him further and so he shouted into the microphone. As he did, Karl stood in the hall, his volume also raised but to no avail, for the Keeper could hear him over the clamour of the plebeians. The rally continued on.

"And now, as the wool still grows, weighing us, pinning us, anchoring us in place, we cannot run even as the master creeps behind, taunting he will kill us, though our ears are too muffled to hear his word and our eyes are too shielded to see his blade. And so he slaughters us, he slaughters us, stains our precious wool, rots our meat even, for he does not deign to eat us. Let us say again, he does not care even to consume his meal. No, to men as him, to men," Song pointed to Great Hall behind him, "such as them, the killing is the meal. The flesh is better torn than eaten, and their bellies full the more from suffering."

"Keeper of the Scrolls! I raise a question! I must raise a question," Karl and Ethel broke through the crowds now milling about in the aisles and raced to the podium in the centre. "Edgar, please," he said, winded from the jog and the incessant bellowing. "I must have the floor."

"This session cannot hold, my lord," Edgar replied, the Gretwalder within earshot, but so enveloped by his chanting admirers to be rendered entirely benign to the conversation. "We shall adjourn to tomorrow and try your business again when we have wrested control from the vermin."

"You misunderstand," Karl cried, leaning closer to the Keeper, "if we let him do this now, he will do never stop doing it. He will pack his fanatics into the chamber day after day, and day after day, Kang will never bring the guards to take them out, until the other lords grow tired and eventually acquiesce."

Ethel gripped Edgar, handling his bony shoulders as one might scold a troubled prodigy, teetering between two extremes of greatness and despair. "Edgar, I know thou want him gone as much as does my dearest Karl. I've heard of the ways in which Aeplerad extracts all he can from the body and soul of his subordinates. What you know of him and what he knows of you are only within the realm of my imagination, but they are undeniably all the more reason to oust such a man. And the Walders want it too. Listen to dear Karl! They won't fight the Governor! They won't keep losing armies to the VLF. If we attack, we can prevail, but it has to be now. Fight no other day than this, and victory will be yet achieved."

Karl had not the faintest idea from what hidden reservoir of political acumen his darling now spewed forth, but as greatly as he himself was moved, the Keeper was affected far greater still. He chuckled dryly to himself, coughed and nodded. Ethel led Karl all the way back through the crowds and to his seat, not caring in the least where she pulled them, so long as she was the one pulling him.

Song could see the outer edges of the horde break away entirely, their own ranks becoming more distinct from his own, gradually building in size. He pressed on, his eyes screwed in defiant rage. "And now, in the face of our extinction, it is time for the sheep to sheer themselves, to rid themselves of their blindness, their deafness, their passivity to their own slavery, and escape the gruesome clutches of their vile masters! It is time to wield the master's razor: the tool of oppression refashioned to object of liberation."

The Keeper stood, waving his hands and calling for order, the other Hall servants, miraculously, coming to his side. "The Keeper of the Scrolls has received a motion..."

Ethel placed her hand on Karl's lap, and with it, something cold and heavy dropped onto him.

"...to conduct the following proceedings in camera..."

It was a pistol.

"...moved, Vihorr. Seconded, Vighurr."

Ethel cradled her head into Karl's shoulder, whispering into his ear, tenderly, lovingly, "it's just in case. It's just in case..."

The crowd within the Great Hall was displeased. It roared with cries of "shame!", "disgrace!", "conspiracy!", and "what hide you?" Though only a very privileged few who had stolen onto the floor circling the podium could even hear the Keeper's motion, greatly exaggerated, intensely psychoanalyzed rumours of it passed in only moments throughout the entire crowd, until they found the ears even of the Gretwalder himself, who finally found cause to take the stage himself, locking a pair of bloodshot, predatory eyes at the Walder Vihorr.

"This Gretwalder," Song continued, ignoring the frantic motions of his personal guards to abandon the platform, "Aeplerad deVoffrarr, has declared war on the jiaren people and he will not be satisfied until all of us lay dejected and dying. That is not the dream of one sickened, cruel master. That is the aim of a sickened and cruel state!"

"And from what, my dear lords," Aeplerad began, prancing about the stage once more with all the confidence of an actor perfectly competent in every line of dialogue, instantly silencing the chamber which now suddenly stood entranced at his every word. "From what do you wish to hide?"

"Cowards!" shouted the gallery as Aeplerad held his arms out to them. "Lily-livers!" screamed the chamber as he dropped his invisible baton to them, channeling the audience as a half-penny vaudevillian exorcist channels an entertaining spirit.

The Keeper ordered the servants to seal the chamber, but the rabble refused to yield. Standing entirely out of the fray, the sergeants declined to get involved, and watched on as the feverish crowd began to chastise and assault those carrying out the Keeper's commands, raining fists and abuse upon them.

"Halt!" the Gretwalder cried, bringing an end immediately to the hostilities, though blood now trickled down from the contused head of a servant, moaning on the floor, pooling and spilling down each step to just below the stage on which the tyrant stood. "Cease this madness! Should thou have business, let all of Vitharr hear it. For know, Vihorr, we have many affairs of which the public is best to have known."

The threat was obvious, but the Keeper could do little more shrug. Their forces were powerless. If they were to win, they must win the mob.

Song could see his supporters turning their heads, disquiet breaking across the rally, dread slowly seeding in, so he raised his voice, now hoarse and choking to retrieve their attention. "And our masters, the shameless, two-faced charlatans that they are, they will happily claim that every restriction of our freedom, every estrangement of our liberty, every bootheel on our neck, is all in the service of some ephemeral notion of national security, but do we know the true threat to our nation, the true threat not just to jiaren but to all Septimi?"

The crowd closest to him cried, "yes!" still enthusiastic, but the farther rows were steadily becoming disengaged.

"Yes!" affirmed their now dramatically eccentric leader, shooing off his aides pulling at him to flee the stage. "Yes! We do! We have heard the news! That evil, shocking, heart-pounding news! We have heard it all!"

Karl's hands were cold and limp in Ethel's warm embrace, but as he clung to her, he felt her strength, steeling himself, arming himself for the coming fight. He pressed the pistol to his side, the defence of last resort, every fibre of his being clenched and tightened, his breathing deep and convicted, his focus narrowed to a pinpoint on the man he would destroy.

The Walder stood to confront his overlord.

"We all know it!" Song whooped. "The Gretwalder and the VLF, they are one in the same! They've been the same from the very beginning! One terrorist aiding another."

The Gretwalder eyed his opponent, cutting his hand across the air to command perfect silence, daring Karl to break it.

The lord's face twisted in malice. "Walder Voffrarr, Gretwalder of Vitharr is an open collaborator with the enemy, and for the sake of the survival of this nation, I move he be deposed."

Karl nearly fainted; the words rushing out had knocked the wind straight from him. He looked beside to his two compatriots, but neither moved to second.

Song could see metallic flashes in farther limits of the square, coming closer and closer to the platform. And with them, blood-curdling howls of anguish.

"What?" mocked the Gretwalder. "Not but a single conspirator?" He opened his arms wide, gesturing to the galleries above. "Has one seen a more miserable coup than this?" The crowd roared with laughter. "Had it not been witnessed by our very own eyes, we would have said it bares beyond belief."

Karl persisted. "This treacherous Gretwalder, this traitor to the office and the Vidar people, he did command me, in person, by his own tongue, to abandon the mountain passes of Vihorr, and so cede the North to the enemy!"

The lord was passionate, tears of rage flooding his reddened face, but nothing could be heard more than a few steps before him. Instead, he became the single, complete focus of a torrent of wrath, a fearsome hurricane of invectives, curses, hollers, spittle and rotted vegetables all whirling around his diminished core. He stood there unable to turn his back on his adversary, unable to withstand the maelstrom of torment, his body blistering under the lashing of the fetid missiles, his mind fracturing from the spectacle of humiliation.

It was not until the first sight of blood that Song finally discarded the megaphone and made cause to flee. A mass of Vidar had descended upon the jiaren, a line of make-shift pikes, cleavers, kitchen-knives, halberds, and hatchets gleaming verily at their trapped victims. In reserve, behind the veteran butchers and blood-lusty berserkers, the more proletarian genocidaires had equipped themselves with heavy rocks and brittle concrete cracked away from crumbling roads and bridges. Lead pipes and steel rebar were dragged on the ground to the tune of an ominous death rattle.

Karl's spirit finally broke, but just as he turned his head, ready to take back his seat, he saw the cheerful, encouraging face of his dear Ethel, radiating back up at him. Though before he had merely waxed poetic when he described her as a Heavenly Angel come down from the Holy Stars to guide his weary soul, he now found a truth in that greater than any chapter or verse of the Revelations. Here was a woman, utterly unknown to him but a few short months ago, who had from the very time he heard her alluring, angelic voice, been nothing but bewitching to him, a woman who had arrived just on the cusp of his greatest triumphs and farthest descents by a chance so slim it could be only providence. This was the woman who raised his joy and shouldered his burdens, pushed to higher summits and dragged him lowest depths, and all in such short a time. How he had only wanted more time.

And as she smiled at him, he saw the prophecy revealed to him in clear. He was the new Prophet, and she the new Word. The trail was marked, and she was lending him the courage to traverse it. He felt the gun still pressed to his side.

Panic overtook the demonstrators. Their lines broke and fled, trampling over one another, desperately clawing at and climbing over the platform, unable to turn left or right as the Vidar moved closer, hacking and slashing as menacingly as they were methodic. One held the victim in the place as the other severed a limb. One stabbed him through the heart as the other tore his guts. The Vidar sliced, cut and eviscerated, smashed, tortured and shattered, yelled, mocked and degraded while the jiaren merely watched, waited and died, pressed against the murderers on one side and the indifferent, silent walls of the Great Hall on the other.

Karl could not hear the agony over the din of bile still hurtling at him, but he knew it all the same. It had all happened before. It would all happen again. That was, unless someone did something to stop it.

He smiled, a single tear of pure, unfiltered joy warming his downcast cheek.

"Fuck this," he whispered, and shot the Gretwalder right in his face.