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The Relentless Magistrate had toppled three merchant lords, two of which had been members of the Forty-Sole Court, since arriving in the city. He’d done this by proving materially and in excruciating detail how they were breaking the laws in the Consortium, causing a feeding frenzy among rivals. Angelique’s own work never saw the light of day, the very lucrative – and technically legal – trade of poisons and favours she’d begun at the highest levels of influence granting her access to halls of power where no foreigners would ever be allowed to stand otherwise. Rhodon had not been shy in using them to get obstacles out of the way when it came to the task the Grand Alliance had assigned their band: burning Praesi influence out of the city.

And yet, for all the work of those three, in the end it was Teresa and Kallia who found the first hint of the plot. They’d gone drinking outside the city on one of the outlying shores, the Grizzled Fantassin calling an old acquaintance who’d ‘put on the yoke’ and become one of the mercenaries permanently contracted to protect Mercantis instead of a proper army. Teresa drank and brawled with the man through the evening, but when their glances took on another tone Kallia made herself scarce. She’d gone out to look for another place to drink – and perhaps a man of her own to throw backs with – but instead what the Painted Knife found was an assassination.

Two corpses later a grateful mercenary captain told her everything he knew, which in truth wasn’t much. Many officers had recently been offered large sums of money to accept retirement. The captain had refused, preferring the soldier’s life, and now wondered if some of the other mercenaries he’d thought uninterested in retiring were corpses instead of truly gone to Dormer. Come morning, Kallia brought the oddity up to Teresa and watched the old woman’s face harden.

“Someone’s tightening their reins on the mercenary companies,” the Grizzled Fantassin said. “Placing their own officers in key positions.”

The Painted Knife grinned.

“A plot,” she enthused. “We must defeat it.”

Finally, something she could do instead of exploring the city and struggling with the impulse to cut everyone in this place who owned ‘indentured servants’. Even Wastelanders despised slavery, for all their many other sins. They brought their findings to Rhodon, who punctured their ardour.

“It is Merchant Prince Mauricius consolidating his position,” the Royal Conjurer said. “This is not likely to be a large enough scandal to topple him should it come out, and even if it were such an outcome is not desirable. His most likely replacement is more inclined to the Empire than the Grand Alliance.”

The Consortium usually kept its Praesi clients at a distance, Rhodon explained, but the sheer amount of coin the Dread Empire poured into the city meant it tended to have friends in high places. The perceived high-handedness of the Grand Alliance and plans of a great city at the heart of the continent had only encouraged that trend.

“Seems odd he’d bother,” Angelique told them over dinner, after being informed. “The Merchant Prince already controls funding for mercenaries unless contradicted by two thirds of the Forty-Stole Court. What are these men going to listen to, if not the money?”

“Yet he is not a man with a reputation for pointless action,” Kallia frowned.

“No,” Rhodon murmured. “So what is it that has the man afraid of being contradicted by two thirds of the Forty-Stole Court?”

And so once more they went on the hunt, for anything that would turn so many of the most powerful men and women in the city against Mauricius was bound to be important. Teresa returned to the outer shores to try to get a grasp on how many of the mercenary companies were being subverted and meanwhile Kallia set her finest bloodhound on the hunt.

“The Merchant Prince’s affairs are all protected by law,” Alain Monduc said. “Even his most mundane papers are considered as being ‘of state’. There is no way for foreigners to access them, which will limit us to witnesses.”

Kallia did not know the average lifespan of a witness in Mercantis that a wealthy man wanted dead, but at a guess she’d venture days. Meaning that if Alain’s investigations were caught on to, their sole evidence was going to be swiftly disappeared.

“Ah but that’s where you have it wrong, darling,” the Poisoner girlishly smiled. “There is simply no lawful way for foreigners to access such papers.”

The Magistrate looked like he was choking on sheer outrage, to the Poisoner’s open delight, but when copies of such papers appeared on his table just before noon her mastered his anger.

“Copies are not strictly illegal,” Alain stiffly said. “And there is some leeway in the process of gathering evidence for a trial.”

Angelique looked rather robbed by the lack of explosion, which was probably half the reason the Magistrate had forced himself to be cordial. Weeks of following paper trails and Kallia being sent out to follow men and eavesdrop on their conversations at night ultimately led the Relentless Magistrate to an odd conclusion.

“Mauricius is not preparing a coup,” Alain announced, “but preparing against one. Every single measure we’ve unearthed was defensive in nature.”

Which made little sense, for the First Prince had strictly warned against trying to remove Mauricius from his position and the Black Queen had shrugged her assent. Even if Kallia did get her hands on something that could topple the Merchant Prince, she was to pass that information to the Grand Alliance instead so that it might be used as leverage in negotiations. So who was the Merchant Prince afraid would remove him?

“It could be the Tower,” Angelique said. “Rumour has it that he had murdered the man Malicia wanted as Merchant Prince instead.”

“The Empress has a reputation has a practical woman,” Rhodon replied. “It would be unlike her to force an enemy where she could court an ally instead. Besides, meddling too deeply in the affairs of Mercantis would see it react harshly. It would look for protection against her, not fall in line.”

“Let us pray the Empress fumbled the pig, then,” Teresa said. “It would be a gift of the Gods for Mercantis to go the way of the Grand Alliance. We could use the gold.”

Kallia looked questioningly at Alain, but the other Proceran seemed just as baffled by the expression. Arlesite, the man mouthed with a shrug.

“But whatever it is he’s afraid of, he’s nearly covered,” Teresa continued. “He’s got a little over half the mercenary companies in his pocket now. The key officers at least.”

“If it were a Praesi plot, he would not have spent a fortune of his coin warding against it,” Alain opined. “He would have passed the matter to us. He’s certainly not been shy about using us as bears in his pit so far.”

True enough. The verbal duels of the Royal Conjurer and the Praesi ambassador had turned into a form of local entertainment and they’d all been tacitly allowed to go after Praesi spies in the city so long as there was little collateral damage.

“There’s not many people left who could pull off a coup,” the Poisoner noted. “The Black Queen is in Praes, the Free Cities in another civil war and even the merchants would balk at taking the Dead King’s coin.”

“If there is no outside backing, it has to be an internal enemy,” Rhodon mused.

“Which makes no sense,” Angelique said. “Only the Forty-Stole Court could depose him and it’s more divided than it was before he was elected. He’s been playing the faction that wants a rapprochement with the Grand Alliance against the Praesi stooges to carve out a faction in the middle. No one has the votes to depose him, so what is it that he’s afraid of?”

Kallia sighed. She’d never enjoyed plots and schemes. It had almost gotten her killed in Levante when she’d failed to figure out whose body the Spirit of Vengeance wore during the day, if the- suddenly she paused.

“What if the vote were rigged?” the Painted Knife asked. “You said that the Empress might want to be rid of him, Angelique, and Rhodon you once told us that his most likely replacement is in the Empire’s pocket.”

The Royal Conjurer hummed.

“Mind control?” he said.

“I was thinking of possession,” Kallia admitted. “I have known spirits that could ride men unseen and nudge their thoughts.”

“It would explain why he might expect to be able to use the mercenaries against the Forty Stoles and not be murdered for it afterwards,” the Poisoner mused. “If he freed them and then made a show of returning control, it might instead strengthen his position.”

“The entire city would sing his praises,” Alain agreed. “A man can do much, with the love of the people behind him and debts of gratitude among the great.”

“The best contracts are those you snipe another company to,” the Grizzled Fantassin grinned. “Let’s see if we can’t get all that gratitude headed our way instead, yes?”

The plan was weeks in the making. Angelique had to burn through most of her favours and it still wasn’t enough: they had to knock out guards so they could enter the Court unseen. Alain guided them through the halls, as the only one of them who’d ever been in here before – when he had presented evidence in trials – and Teresa paid off the mercenaries that’d agreed to help them smuggle in the barrels over the last few days. It still almost when to the Hells when an early guard patrol ran into them, but the Painted Knife got in close and dropped them before they could raise alarm. They rolled the four great wooden barrels with them into the great hall after Alain kicked the door open, to the great anger of the merchant lords in assembly.

The Royal Conjurer obeyed Kallia’s shouted order and gathered his magic, striking down with great gouts of flame and blowing up the barrels. Mist swept over the hall, still holy and in heavy enough a cloud that it would disrupt either spells or possession.

And then, to Kallia’s horror, nothing at all happened.

The shouts from the furious merchant lords got louder and the Painted Knife wondered if she had just ruined the relations between the Grand Alliance and Mercantis when one bloodcurdling scream pierced through the din. Merchant Prince Mauricius dropped out of his seat, screaming in a way that no throat could, and when he rose flakes of his face began to crumple. Underneath was a pitch-black skin, but there was nothing human about it.

“Devil,” someone shouted.

Kallia cocked her head to the side. Huh. They’d been wrong but it had worked anyhow, so… win?

Win, she decided, and grinned.

Penthes’ tall walls had kept the city in the war long past the time where a man less desperate than Exarch Prodocius would have surrendered.

Penthes has lost all its territories save a few holdout river fortresses, stood without allies and the city was beginning to starve. The supplies and mage support the Tower had sent were not enough for a city-state of that size to stay fed when encircled. Now that Basilia’s army was equipped with proper dwarven siege engines, the walls were no longer a surmountable hindrance either. In truth, if not for the presence of the Bellerophon army beneath the walls Basilia would have already ordered the city to be stormed. She’d had a swath of the southern walls reduced to rubble by trebuchet bombardment, but she was wary of committing her army to investing the city if there was a chance the Republic would strike at her while she did.

Helike still had the finest army in the Free Cities, but its numbers had thinned. Basilia had long been aware that one severe defeat was all that stood between her and the Helikean army ending as a fighting force for a few years. It was why she’d been so aggressive in her campaigning: so long as she was on the offence, she could force the battles on terms favourable to her. Now that streak of victories had been dragged to a halt, first by the presence of Bellerophon at the siege and then by what had followed Basilia’s army entrenching for a few months: diplomacy. The Secretariat had been the first to send envoys, but Mercantis had not been far behind and eventually even Atalante – at the urging of First Prince Cordelia, her agents said – had sent representatives.

Nicae and Stygia already had envoys, arguably, as Magister Zoe Ixioni and Princess Zenobia Vasilakis were personally leading the troops their vassal states were contributing to the war. Not that the vassalage was official, or for that matter Zoe Ixioni’s rule. Officially speaking she was still only a magister, though one who’d been voted emergency powers by the Magisterium without an end to those powers every being specified. Basilia tended to think better of Zenobia, who at least had no pretend she was anything but an absolute ruler when she’d crowned herself princess of Nicae. Regardless of the petty details, the fact was that six cities of the League all had envoys or armies here beneath the walls of seventh and last.

General Basilia found it highly amusing that while the city of Penthes and its ruling exarch had been made political nonentities, the siege of Penthes itself had turned into a diplomatic hotbed for the entire League of Free Cities. It was the sort of irony Kairos Theodosian would have delighted in, she suspected, and might even have gone out of his way to arrange. She had not, but Basilia was no Tyrant. That was not her calling, nor did she feel as if it should be. Ye of Helike, do as you will. The testament of the last Theodosian had not invited his people to follow in his wake: they were to do as they wished and nothing else, that was the very point.

Basilia had found her own wishes leading her to the walls of Penthes, to the threshold of what might very well be the defining hour of the League of Free Cities.

It was not delusion on her part to believe that. Zenobia and Ixioni agreed: there was an urgency in the air, a desperation. At first the Atalante priest-philosophers that’d been sent as delegates had only visited to sneer and snipe at the proceedings, but now they came by every other day and were negotiation in earnest. They couldn’t afford not to, when Delos had sent one of the highest-ranking members of the Secretariat – Nestor Ikaroi – as its representative and begun to seriously back a reform of the League of Free Cities. The preachers were terrified of being left out in the cold, surrounded on all sides by states bound in alliance. Still, for all that the talks were moving it would have been a lie to say they were succeeding.

“Ikaroi isn’t moving an inch even when we give ground elsewhere,” Magister Zoe noted as the day’s talks ended. “He’s usually a reasonable man, so I expect he’s under orders by the broader Secretariat.”

Basilia made a noise that conveyed both agreement and disgruntlement.

“His current concessions are not insignificant,” Princess Zenobia said. “Formal recognition of the imperial realm of Aenia and you as its empress is not something I thought we’d get out of the Secretariat without putting a sword to their throat. The scribes hate change the way a cat hates water.”

“They would have been forced to bend on that sooner or later,” Basilia said. “I hold the land, even if they might wish it otherwise. Getting me named protector of the League is where the power lies.”

In practice it was not Basilia herself who was named but the imperial office of Aenia, which she happened to hold. It had been her notion to name the empire that would unite Nicae, Stygia and Helike together after the great Aenos Basileon, the sole claim to unifying authority in the region that predated the foundation of the League. It was the general’s intention to follow in footsteps of Basileon and unite the Free Cities once more, but she knew she must be careful lest she follow in the footsteps of Dread Empress Triumphant instead. Even if she could take all of the League by force, she could not hope to hold them. No, better to first unite the western cities – Helike for soldiery, Nicae for trade and Stygia for fields and mines – and let her successors finish the work.

For that, though she needed an edge that would prevent the four other cities from turning on her empire in a decade after the dangers had passed. Something that would set Helike apart from the rest. To secure that she’d proposed to the other cities of the League the creation of an office under its auspices: protector of the League of Free Cities. She’d been careful not to outright step on the powers of the Hierarch, instead suggesting the protector would lead the armies of the League in time of war and see to the defence if its borders against all foreign powers. Tying that authority to rule of Aenia had been the scheme, as it would ensure that Basilia’s line would have hereditary power over the League of Free Cities.

Delos was balking at that, Ikaroi’s suggested compromise of Basilia herself holding such power for her lifetime and then it being subject to election like the office of Hierarch being the most they were willing to offer. Atalante wasn’t as entrenched in its opposition but was demanding instead that anyone holding such an office must follow the House of Light, which was… controversial. Trying to throw slices of Penthesian territory at the Secretariat had yielded no further concessions, even when Basilia had gotten serious and offered strategically important border fortresses. Mercantis seemed to be playing all sides, Merchant Prince Mauricius’ envoys propping up Delos and Atalante publicly while making her assurances of support in private. So long as the privileged position of the City of Bought and Sold was maintained they would not go against her, they swore.

Considering Mercantis had served as middlemen when she’d needed siege engines from the dwarves, Basilia could not simply toss the snakes out of her tent the way she wanted to. She might need the Consortium again before it was all over.

“Delos has a particular distaste for hereditary power,” Magister Zoe said. “I am not surprised they’re proving to be the most troublesome holdout. Atalante was ruled by queens, once, but the Secretariat had held the power for millennia.”

In some form, anyway, as the scribes insisted their current government was descended from the provincial one Aenos Basileon had placed to rule over the city, thus making them the sole true descendent of that founding empire. Every city save Helike and Bellerophon claimed some kind of relation to the old empire, actually. The Trakas of Nicae claimed descent of the man himself, Stygia that the Magisterium was a regency council until restoration of the empire, Penthes that their first exarch was Basileon’s chosen successor and Atalante that the man himself had been buried under their city – and so they were the custodians of his empire, until the Gods Above raised him from the dead.

Not that the old stories had ever mattered much, save when Bellerophon tried to get the empire formally dissolved by the League every few years and those same cities balked.

“At least the Glorious Republic is staying out of our way,” Princess Zenobia drily said. “I suppose that is the best to be expected out of them, lack of direct harm.”

Everyone’s positions were calcifying, Basilia felt. She knew the feeling, knew how it could be the death of progress. She’d seen it at work in Helike, in the years before the Tyrant had restored the city: factions biting at each other around an indolent throne, no one winning or losing anything of worth. No one was going to move much from their current negotiating positions and that might be the death of this entire enterprise. Bellerophon’s absence was an integral part of the stalemate, Basilia finally decided. The Republic was made up of mobs and madmen, but they were part of the League – and without them coming out on either side, Delos and Atalante felt they still had some breathing room.

If nothing else, some form of accord with the Republic would allow her to at finish off Penthes for good and turn up the pressure.

“We’re done for the day,” the general said, rising to her feet.

“Indeed?” Magister Zoe said, cocking an eyebrow.

“I must talk to some people,” Basilia said, meaning People.

Getting to the Bellerophan camp wasn’t difficult, or even being noticed when she approached: as usual they had at least twice the number of sentries they needed. Getting one of those soldiers to acknowledge that presence was more difficult, even with a company of kataphraktoi at her back. She pounded at the gate until they were forced to admit she was there, and then a harried-looking general was rustled up to speak with her. Two blank-faced kanenas stood behind him, which no doubt did little for the man’s confidence about getting through this conversation alive.

“I seek to address the People,” General Basilia bluntly said.

“As a foreign despot-”

“I am a general in service to no crown,” Basilia corrected.

The man looked taken aback, looking back to the kanenas. Their faces were still as a pond and just as unreadable.

“There are no diplomats with the army,” the general said. “You must head to Bellerophon and make your request there.”

“That would be inconvenient,” Basilia said. “Might I not simply, under observation by the kanenas, make my address and let Bellerophans convey it to the people by scrying ritual?”

“Bellerophon does not use scrying rituals,” the man replied without missing a beat, “which are trick of wicked foreign tyrants and have never worked, may a wind of locusts blow in their faces for a hundred years.”

Basilia blinked. Bellerophon absolutely did use such rituals.

“Do you perhaps have an alternative with superficial resemblances?” she hazarded.

“Communication rituals are a recent innovation of the Republic,” the general shamelessly said. “They can serve similar purposes on occasion. It is not, however, in power to accede to your request.”

The kanenas frowned and the man winced.

“As I have no power,” he hastily added, “for it rests entirely in the hands of the People, may they rule peerlessly and without mistake for another thousand years.”

Basilia waited to see if the general was going to start bleeding from his eyes. Ten heartbeats passed and he didn’t, which was a promising sign.

“How may such a request be accepted or denied?” she pressed.

They had no answer to give her, so negotiations ended for half an hour while they went away to figure it out. Another woman entirely returned to answer, with two different kanenas at her back. Basilia decided not to ask what had happened to the general. From what she remembered of Anaxares’ mournful ramblings, that would be a good way to get the man killed.

“Your request can be accepted or denied by a provisional vote of the entire camp,” the woman said.

“May I ask for such a vote?”

An hour later she was informed that she could. It took another two hours after she did ask, and then they conceded that a provisional vote would be held. It was dark by then but while Basilia sent for food and took a pause to piss, she did not wander far. If she did, she was sure to lose these people. It took until Morning Bell until the votes were counted, but the kanenas found an irregularity with some of the ballots – some had been written in ink that came from Delos – so another vote had to be held. Three hours later, Basilia was woken up from her nap on her horse to be informed that the vote had gone in her favour. Though bone-tired and aching from the restless night, she took the only shot she was likely to have.

No doubt by next week the People would have cooked up a new law that made even her unlikely station unfit to ask questions of the Glorious Republic.

She left after passing along her message – offer, really – and crawled back into bed until noon. Delos and Atalante came later the same day to try to dig out of her what she’d been up to, but she put them off. It wouldn’t last forever, but thankfully the Republic had been quick in arranging for a general vote on her proposition. As soon as they’d held a vote about whether to hold a vote, anyway, which pushed the answer back another day. With typical subtlety, the envoys from Bellerophon walked into her tent as she was seated with those from Delos and Atalante.

“The Republic welcomes your recognition that Hierarch Anaxares is still among the living,” the man said.

There was surprise from the others, but why wouldn’t she? If there was to be a seat above her own in the League, best to leave it in the hands of a man either dead or uninterested in filling it. Permanently, if she could.

“Furthermore, your question over the status of the Dead King has been put to debate and the People have reached conclusion,” the man continued. “By popular vote, Trismegistus of Keter is declared an Egregious Millennial Despot and an Enemy of the People. The so-called Kingdom of the Dead is declared unlawful.”

She bit down on a grin. Ah, and there was the trick. Basilia couldn’t declare war on anyone, because when a Hierarch ruled foreign affairs of the League were strictly under their purview. As Anaxares himself had once said during the invasion of Procer, however, there could be no state of war against a state that was not legitimate. If, say, Basilia led troops of the League to ‘oversee the dissolution of Keter’ then by the Bellerophan definition of the term it would not be a war. By the look of the frown on Ikaroi’s face, he’d already put together as much.

“And the proposition over the office of Protector of the League?”

“Under the current terms of election, the People support the creation of such an office,” the man said.

Such terms being every city having a vote, same as the election of a Hierarch, but instead of unanimity only majority would be required here. Helike would vote for itself and its vassal cities, whose votes would be maintained as independent ones, would vote accordingly. To secure a permanent majority, all that Basilia now needed to do was take Penthes and dictate in their terms of surrender a permanent vote for the reigning monarch of Aenia for this office. And she’d be able to take Penthes now, because as of tomorrow she was going to request the help of the People in overseeing the dissolution of Keter. The same army currently in her way would serve as the vanguard of this worthy enterprise.

“I gratefully receive the People’s wisdom,” General Basilia smiled.

Already she could see Nestor Ikaroi and the Atalante priests reconsidering their position. But it would not, she suddenly realized, be enough. The shock of this turnabout hadn’t quite pushed them over the top. The mire would continue. When messengers entered the tent she was grateful, as the pause would allow her to gather her thoughts and think of a way through, but the way the faces of the foreign envoys paled caught her attention. Magister Zoe leaned in close to whisper in her ear.

“My people say that Merchant Prince Mauricius had been revealed to have been replaced by a devil,” she said. “The city is blaming Praes for it.”

Basilia let out a low whistle.

“Why are they so unsettled?” she asked, discreetly gesturing at the envoys.

Zoe Ixion grinned sharply.

“Because the Forty-Stole Court has voted unanimously to ask for an alliance with the Empress of Aenia,” she said. “They want protection.”

And so the calculations in the eyes of the envoys changed again. The mire in their negotiations now looked like the Tower’s work, to keep the south from solidifying in a single block. Worse than that, they knew that if Basilia began getting funding from Mercantis she might lose patience with them playing for time and decided that this could be settled with armies instead. And with that much coin behind her she’d be able to win that damned war, too.

“Perhaps reconsidering our position on the office of Protector is needed, considering the developments in the League and abroad,” Secretary Nestor Ikaroi calmly said.

There were some noises of assent from the Atalante crowd and General Basilia Katopodis smiled. She knew better than to think this her triumph entirely, but it was sweet nonetheless. Sweeter still was the knowledge that the Gods were blowing wind in her sail, for what else but Fate could this assembly of coincidence be? The Old World was ending, she could feel it in her bones. The age was crumbling to dust, its relics falling one after another, and now something else was beginning to emerge from the ruins. And under that new sun, Basilia thought, there would be room for a new way of doing things. The deaths throes of the Age of Wonders would change the League of Free Cities, she swore it.

The word shivered in approval and somehow she knew that, somewhere down Below, Kairos Theodosian was laughing.