《Between Faith and Reason》


 Through the Looking Glass

    The body of the fire dragon lay in the cavern, though Daisy was hard-pressed to say whether it was cooling or whether its internal fires were slowly consuming it.  Her intention had been safe passage, but the drake had not been agreeable, one thing led to another, and then her dragon staff misfired and dropped a short ton of ice on its head.  There would doubtless be consequences to that, but leaving her actions behind her had been what had brought her to the dragon¡¯s cave in the first place.


    The portal was obvious, a transition from the brown ice of Jupitre¡¯s floating icelands to the dark gray basalt of¡­ she supposed it would be Marz.  The ways of dragons were a mystery, the portals between planets less so with the dawning age of soulcery, but Daisy didn¡¯t have the time to commission a portal from a painter who had been off planet.  So far as she knew, nobody had been off planet, giving dragons the monopoly on portals.  And for whatever reason, dragons kept one portal to the adjacent planet at either end of the planet they were on.


    The mural was lovely; large enough to admit a dragon, it portrayed a cavern unlike the one she was in, lit with burning natural gas jets.  Like any true work of soulcery, it was manifestly a perfection of the art involved: in this case oil painting.  She wasn¡¯t certain whether the flickering of the jets was a trick of the light, or a natural aspect of the murals.  Soulcery wasn¡¯t her specialty; she was a Bachelor geometer but hardly up to the task of working magic with numbers.


    But she was woolgathering, and more to the point she was dithering.  It was a momentous decision, leaving Jupitre, but she supposed the choice had long since been made.  Still, it was one thing to make up your mind, another to accidentally kill a dragon, and yet a third thing to actually step through¡ª


    Daisy stepped through the portal.  Her first impression was of the curious lack of any sensation involved in doing so, she had supposed that there would be some indication she had stepped into an oil painting, the second that of overwhelming heat.  She had studied what fragmentary knowledge survived from the Age of Loss, and the refraction by light sphere sorcerers, and had dressed for Marz¡¯s substantially warmer climate.  She wore a wide-brim hat with a high crown, loose balloon-sleeved v-neck shirt, baggy long pants gathered at the ankle, and buttoned pockets¡ªyou couldn¡¯t wear and therefore couldn¡¯t buy any other kind on Jupitre¡ªadorning a long, loose, light vest.  All of them were a shade of green which complimented her emerald eyes, and stood out vibrantly against her prematurely white hair.  The sole articles she¡¯d kept from her Jupitre wardrobe were her heavy brown leather shoes, spiked for traction and durable enough to traverse rocky terrain.


    Her clothes, of course, were of fabrics which could be wetted and dried, and as sweat broke out on her skin she summoned water with an act of will, dousing herself and her clothes.  She had practiced the maneuver before leaving home, but it was considerably more difficult on Marzian soil.  It made sense, Marz was the fire planet, the planet of the element diametrically opposed to Daisy¡¯s sorcery.  Still, if she experienced such difficulty, she wondered how apprentice sorcerers even began their work with the element.  She supposed they must make an investiture of the element, and begin their work with manipulating existent pools of water.


    The jets of natural gas lit a cavern as expansive as the one she had spelunked to get to the portal.  It was, as so many pre-Loss relics were, built to draconic scale.  Expensive works of silver and gold abounded, and Daisy almost lamented that she was no thief, even from a dead dragon, for there was more wealth in the main cavern alone to pay for dozens, if not hundreds, of withdrawals from the Repositorium of Knowledge.  Not that she would patronize such a dubious institution, simply that it was an easy reference for absurd expenses not worth themselves.  She thought she saw daylight if she continued forward, so she ignored the side rooms likely containing only more appeals to draconic covetousness and entered the next cavern.


    Dominating the room, there was a massive construct of metal on wheels, in two parts.  The one she approached first was simply a cylinder on a metal bed, towards the back of the cavern.  The other was rectangular, with vents along the top, and it was coated in frost despite the heat, a clear indicator of the use of fire brands.  There were steps into the leading car, but Daisy elected not to meddle with a device she did not understand and walked past, and out of the cavern.


    With no real notion of where she was going, Daisy elected to follow the rails which had emerged from under the presumable vehicle.  Rails were an investment of time, energy, and effort, so presumably these led somewhere.  Shielded by her hat, she peered at the orb of Heaven, trying to judge the time of day.  Going by the crick in her neck, it was close to noon, which meant she¡¯d know whether the sun set in the west or the east by end of day.  That was a comforting notion to a woman whose life had been devoted to the measurement of space for the last four years.  One final note she made was the angle at which the cavern¡¯s mountain home rose from the peak of her staff, a reflexive consideration.


    There was little in the way of vegetation¡ªno, there was nothing in the way of vegetation, which made sense when you considered the lack of water on the fire planet.  There were, however, any number of interesting geographic features, even if they were obscured by heat distortion.  Craters adorned the landscape like raindrops on a pane of glass.  Distant mountains loomed where they weren¡¯t obscured by walls of pure flame.  Even contemplating those fires, Daisy reached for her sorcery again to douse herself with water.


    She was suspicious that a fire dragon had guarded this portal because it was located somewhere inhospitable to regular mortal life.  It explained the lack of open cabin in the transport she had observed back in the cave; they would rely upon the secondary effect of the fire runes to keep the cabin at a bearable temperature.  She wondered idly what all that flame was for, when the surrounds were already so hot.


    The trek went on for some time, and Daisy wondered if she shouldn¡¯t have investigated the transport after all.  At least with the orb of Heaven having set and the stars being out, she knew she could reckon time much as she would have on Jupitre.  The sun set in the west, and she was traveling north.  Presumably, that was away from the equator, as she couldn¡¯t imagine people settling somewhere she found bearable only with repeated applications of water sorcery to cool herself.


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    She looked back and saw the mountain range she had emerged from much reduced in scale, and her geometer¡¯s mind had her planting her dragon staff on the ground and using the etchings on its side to gauge distance.  She was no light sorcerer, but she had learned a trick from her mentor amongst the Unchained.  Holding a sphere of conjured water, she directed her focus inward, towards her spirit.  She was no saint, but the water shone with an inner radiance reflecting the alignment of her soul with the One God.


    By its light she made a quick comparison to the mountain¡¯s previous elevation, and judged she had been walking perhaps nine hours.  Even for a fit young woman, that was a bit much, in her opinion.  It was night, anyway, and she didn¡¯t relish walking on the rails in the dark.  Moving enough to one side to avoid any vehicular accident, she laid out a collapsible envelope filled with water to soften the stony ground.  Not having anticipated a long trip so much as a need for funds, she had more silver than food, but she did have some of the latter and ate the simple fare gladly and was quickly asleep.


    The dawn awoke her, and she set out once more for¡­ well, wherever she was headed.  There were, at least, no attempts on her life in the night, which suggested her migration to Marz had yet to be traced by her enemies.  Perhaps they feared to tread the ground of a planet closer to the orb of Heaven.  She shook her head; women and men such as those held nothing sacred.  Then, too, they had made a thorough mockery of her before her departure, perhaps she was a solved matter.  Wishful thinking, women and men such as those also held grudges as she held the sacred.  Daisy made the sign of the God-Star, fingers splayed over her heart, and uttered a brief prayer apologizing for judging others and asking for the intercession of the Virtue of the Mother, who bore wisdom in matters of wrath.


    The sun was high in the sky before she saw what was definitely a city skyline and not more heat distortion, and it was midafternoon before she approached a high arched building built out of whitewashed stone.  Initially, she had taken it for another distant lake of fire reaching over a hill, for reasons she would realize as she got closer.  Her first impression of the city she approached was of whitewashed walls and even greater heat distortion above its skyline.  One building stood closest to the rails, and it was this building she approached.  Thick columns and sloping walls were adorned with platforms and cubbies, and from them stared statues.


    Gargoyles, once she resolved them from the distance, stared down from on high, their hideous faces each individual and surely enough to frighten away even the most intrepid of demons.  Even a brief inspection revealed all manner of curved or spiraling horns, long forked tongues pouring from sharp-toothed maws gaping to admit the Enemy and his hosts in a single bite.  Hands more resembling claws dangled over knobby knees or goat-like haunches, and what lacked bat-like wings possessed thagomizers.


    Bands of what appeared to be copper lined the building, and the entire roof from wall to peak burned with a constant fire.  When Daisy stepped through the arch admitting the rails, she realized the purpose of the metal bands and the fire on the roof.  It was actually quite clever, and she felt a hopeful admiration for the people of Marz.  The fire on the roof must be rune branded; the heat from the fire would rise, while the heat in the conductive copper bands would be drawn out to fuel the fire, and the bands would draw the heat of the building they were wrapped around.  The result was an interior cool enough to be livable.  The whitewashed stone would practically be an afterthought, the white paint reflecting the light of the sun.


    Inside the building was a high ceiling, another more natural means of encouraging a cool interior, and curiously more gargoyles.  Surely, they were a faithful people to devote so much time and artistry to the banishment of evil.  Stout square columns reached for the roof, but it appeared from their angle that the walls themselves were load-bearing, likely to accommodate the weight of the copper bands and roof.  Small windows would be of benefit in such a hot climate, glass or open space readily admitting heat.  She hadn¡¯t seen any trees in her trek into town, and so assumed that bleached and resined wood was simply not an option available.  Then, too, such a thing would be flammable, and they clearly put great stock by their flame brand cooling for their building, ominous though the look was.


    There were tanks to either side of the rails, and to one side several people built along stocky, stolid lines.  Their skin was tanned, their hair short or worn in queues, and they wore trousers in light shades such as cream and light gray, and leather vests over bare or white-shirted chests.  Like her, they wore hats, though theirs bore dips in the crown and narrower brims.  She greeted them with a cheerful wave and an inquiry as to where she was, which was met with stony silence and what she couldn¡¯t help but find slightly hostile stares.  There was, she noted with some chagrin, no getting around inconspicuously to judge by the workers in the hall.  It seemed likely they were there to operate the massive pumps which led to the tanks, and Daisy realized that the rear car of the vehicle she had seen so curiously coated in frost was likely used to transport water.


    Daisy hesitated as she took her next few steps, then elected to proceed confidently as though she walked on foreign soil every day of her life.  A few hostile stares were nothing next to assassins and other servants of the Lord of Lies.  She tried another simple greeting, but the only reply she got was a word she made out as ¡°water¡± in the inquisitive.  She shook her head, and silence once again hung heavily in the expansive room.  Giving it up as a lost cause, something about the exchange nagging at her, she strode towards the smaller doors opposite the archway she had entered by.  They did not appear to lock or possess knobs, simply swinging outward, although there was a second set likely intended to keep heat from entry or cool from escaping.  The gaping hole to admit the railed vehicle was the greatest flaw in this grand design, but perhaps she had missed shutters to be brought down and her exchange with the dragon had disrupted a scheduled delivery.


    Galvanized by the notion that Waterborne cultists might be proceeding after her even now for the unintentional¡ªthough likely inevitable¡ªdeath of their patron, she strode into the sparsely-populated streets.  Looking at the signs, many were visually evocative placards, but she realized she was unable to read the native language.  That was a problem.  Thinking back to her interactions with the working hands in the tank building, she realized she might not have a common tongue at all with the people of Marz.  Still resolved to her course of action, she strode down the streets, smiling and nodding at those she passed, still receiving stony glares in response.  The creams and grays of the pump workers, coupled with the brown of undyed leather predominated, and Daisy got more than a few stares of disbelief or amazement at her bright green attire.  If plants were as scarce as water, she optimistically thought that perhaps there simply wasn¡¯t an industry of making dyes, and she was not offending the sensibilities of the people she passed.  Only time would tell.

 Jovian, Lider, and Loon

    Once again beginning to overheat, Daisy conjured water.  By now, she was practiced enough to just wet her clothing, but evidently the sorcery caught someone¡¯s attention, because she heard what were halfway-decipherable words in Jovian.  Daisy caught herself looking around for the shouting voice before she had even made the God-Star or chosen an appropriate Power to thank for Providence.  She supposed her relief and the sense of urgency would speak for themselves to the Lord.


    The source of the talking was quickly apparent, for the man was a good foot taller than anyone else on the streets, and being given a wide berth at that.  But no, he was standing on a crate.  His clothes were dirty and ragged, but his dark brown hair and beard were neatly trimmed.  His skin was subtly different in color than that of the other Marzians, more of an olive hue than tanned, and it lacked the weathering of the populace.  It seemed she was not the only one to have traversed the space between planets.


    ¡°Come, come!¡± the man called to her.  It was a little late to not trust in the One God, so Daisy strode over to the man.  He stepped down from his box with a flutter of his light brown robe, and asked, ¡°Please to be telling m-m-me, y-y-you from Ort-t-th come?¡±  Daisy¡¯s brow furrowed.  His accent was thick, and she wasn¡¯t sure after all if he was speaking the same language she¡¯d learned as a child.  To further complicate interpretation, he stammered over the consonants in pronouns.


    ¡°Orth?  Beyond Marz?  No.  I come from Jupitre.  How is it you speak Jovian, if you haven¡¯t been?  You¡¯re clearly not native.¡±  Daisy wondered if this entire trip had been a fool¡¯s errand and she had strayed from the One God¡¯s will entirely.  Perhaps she would be happier handing over her mind to the Repositorium of Knowledge and submitting to the will of those who ran the Kingdom of Air.


    The man clearly found her own speech as confused as her own, for he was some modest time before losing his befuddled expression.  Then he shook his head.  ¡°I-I speak Draconic, not Jovian.¡±  This made a surprising amount of sense to Daisy.  The Kingdom of Air was a draconic empire through and through, and so the native tongue would have to be some corruption of their own tongue.  The man was not the one with the impenetrable accent, her own speech suffered from linguistic drift.  She asked if the Marzians spoke Draconic, and he shook his head after a few moments.  ¡°A dialect of Lider I speak.  It¡¯s the lingua franca.  Though the conversations go much like ou-ou-ours.¡±  With the passage of time, she found it easier to understand his accent, compensate for her own, what have you.  And the stutter was hardly worth noting, though she admired the bravery of a man with a speech impediment standing on a crate and addressing a people.


    She said as much, and he shook his head.  ¡°Th-th-they not listen.  I-I do not speak Marzeilles, and my Lider is Loon, so I am as a raving madman to them.  It is m-m-my curse.  I-I was to witness for the One G-God and nobody listens.¡±  He seemed a very gentle soul, but when she said as much he cocked his head and shrugged.  ¡°Gentle?  What has that to do with m-my Calling?¡±


    Daisy let out a breath with such force that he looked at her suddenly, and then launched into a brief explanation of the nature of divine inspiration.  ¡°The Supreme Creator, of the Trinity, grants two forms of divine inspiration, and both are necessary for success.  He grants prophecy, as you are blessed with, and wrath, which perhaps you are not.  It is a central teaching that prophecy without wrath is unheard.  Well, prophecy even with wrath might go unheard, but at that point the problem is the listeners.¡±  She realized she was discussing theology with a perfect stranger.  ¡°I¡¯m Daisy, what is your name?¡±


    ¡°I-I am R-R-Ruler.¡±  The geometer¡¯s toy, or was he destined to be king?  He shrugged and laughed weakly.  ¡°I-I am much more a geometer, but m-my m-m-mother thought I would rule fey nephilim.¡±


    Daisy remembered, this time, to make the sign of the God-Star and thank the One God for His mercy, then square looked at Ruler.  ¡°I would be willing to teach you the inspiration of wrath, if you would not mind being my guide.  You speak a dialect of a lingua franca while I do not have even that much.¡±


    Ruler appeared to consider her words, or, perhaps, his own.  Already they were developing a pidgin between their two dialects.  ¡°I-I am gifted with telepathy.  With y-y-your permission, I-I would use it to give y-you the meaning of others¡¯ words, and give y-you the words to say.¡±


    Daisy recoiled.  Telepathy was a gift of dragon kind, and her experiences with dragons had been those of power-grabbing, covetous, conniving sorts.  Their only virtue was their longevity, that their touch upon the lives of those they influenced was often so light as to leave their pawns unharmed in their lifetime.  She wondered how she could have been so wrong, as to judge a dragon servant trustworthy.  Ruler clearly traced the thoughts going through her head, though she had not felt a psionic touch, for his hands were open, palm up, and he was shaking his head.


    ¡°M-my dragon, sh-sh-she believes in coexistence.  She was the first recipient of my L-Lord¡¯s Word, His divine message.  There is a terrible war to come.  Dragons must learn to coexist, if the-e-ey want to survive.¡±


    Daisy¡¯s thought was that this was laudable, if it were true.  Still, she would not trust the words of a human, without taking into account Heaven¡¯s eyes.  She conjured a small sphere of water, and reached out magically towards Ruler.  It wouldn¡¯t tell her if the dragon had misled him, but it would tell her whether he himself believed what he was saying.  To her partial relief, the orb of water shone with an inner light, brighter even than the light she could summon plumbing the depths of her own soul.  Not only was he a Godly man, there was every possibility his prophecy was divinely inspired, for she had never seen so bright a soul outside the pastors of the Unchained.  She weighed her options, before finally letting down her emotional walls and encouraging Ruler to make contact with her mind.


    Communion was immediate, and swift.  There was no need for the intermediary of speech, though many concepts were tied to Draconic-Jovian words where there was only a small difference in sound.  ¡°I don¡¯t prefer to communicate like this, as it requires focus and it robs me of my stutter.¡±  The word stutter was similar in their languages, but his carried a connotation she didn¡¯t recognize.  When she asked, he elaborated, ¡°Since my many-times-great grandfather, the von Mind lineage has taken pride in our boldness by leading adventuring companies despite our stutter.  We are confident.  We are proud.  What we are not, evidently, is wrathful.  I was a diplomat for a team working under my dragon when the One God gave me my mission.¡±  He switched back to speech.  ¡°I-I can use m-m-my telepathy to give y-you the meaning of others¡¯ speech, and the words you need.  If y-you trust me.¡±


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    Daisy measured the weight of his words, unfamiliar with telepathy but inclined towards trust in the sincerity of his mental touch.  His soul, after all, had glowed with the light of the One God, brighter even than her own.  ¡°Very well.  I will teach you wrath, if you will intercede on my behalf with these Marzians.¡±


    Ruler barked a laugh.  ¡°They call the-emselves, so I-I-I gather, the Ranks of the Damned.  This is the Kingdom of Hell.¡±


    ¡°This is Marz.  The fire planet, but hardly Hell.¡±  Ruler shrugged his indifference.  What he¡¯d said was true.  There was, however, one remaining issue before him, before he could accept her offer of assistance.  What was her faith, and how strong was she in her faith?


    Daisy let out a woof of air.  That was not a light question, nor was it unreasonable from her own origins in the Kingdom of Air.  Then again, this was the Kingdom of Hell, evidently.  How many planets in Heaven¡¯s orbit considered themselves damned?  But Ruler¡¯s question.  Daisy was, she said simply, a Witness.  Ruler gestured for her to elaborate, and she cast about for a way to summarize the teachings of her faith.


    It called itself the Order of the Broken Chain, or simply the Unchained.  They had been founded as a response to draconic autocracy in the Wholist Church, and so aside from their belief in a direct relationship to the One God, common to every Witness sect she had encountered, they were anti-imperialist, anti-isolationist, and generally inclined to question authority.  Ruler laughed and shook his head, but refused to elaborate until she had said her peace.


    The tools of oppression were violence and fear, and with faith in a benevolent God and a peaceful afterlife, they broke those chains by spreading the Good Word.  Then too, since the sacrificial death of the Savior by suffocation in the vacuum of space, it was no longer necessary to be slaves to sin.  Those, too, were chains they believed were broken.  Or were to be broken.


    Ruler was smiling warmly.  Daisy wondered how much he understood from what she had said, but linguistic barriers were rapidly disintegrating, and she realized a light psionic touch was smoothing what wrinkles remained.  But what of his faith?  Obviously, if it was contingent to their relationship that he knew the tenets of her faith, and given his divine mission, he was a deeply religious man.  But what did he believe?


    He had, he replied, had kept his mother¡¯s faith.  As a geometer, rather like Daisy, she had been enchanted by numbers and the consistent physical laws of the universe which enabled the celestial orbs to remain in their orbits around Heaven.  So it was that she came to be of the Clockmakers, likening the One God to a precision craftsman who had created the Heavens and Orth.  Ruler smiled and chuckled.  His mother would not have approved of Daisy¡¯s sorcerous light.


    While he was not an Orthodox Clockmaker, those who believed that candles were against the will of the One God, for if He had intended for humanity to toil in the dark, He would have given them the eyes of cats.  Similarly, and a custom which he had kept out of long habit from his childhood and apprenticeship, they took a nap at noon for one hour, give or take, sleeping away lunch and the midday fog.


    Beyond that, there were other intricacies of their faith, of course.  This or that rite, devotional clockwork; a great many of the Clockmakers were craftswomen.  But Ruler could tell that Daisy¡¯s interest was like his own: did they have compatible beliefs in One just God.  Further, he could tell his answer didn¡¯t satisfy in that regard.  He had explained the mechanics of his faith, some of the customs, but not his fundamental relationship to the Lord.


    Clockmakers believed the One God had set the world in motion, and believed in absolute free will.  Once started and wound, Creation went along its course in ways defined by the rules that ordered reality.  Of course¡ªRuler tapped his head¡ªthat didn¡¯t mean He wasn¡¯t speaking.  There would be a war on dragonkind for their heresy, and the One God had chosen Ruler to warn humanity of the incoming upheaval.  So while there was free will, his faith made room for the benevolent intercession of the Lord.


    Daisy nodded.  Her own faith emphasized freedom from oppression and sin, his own the fundamental orderliness of the universe, but both held the beneficence of the One God.  Did Orth believe in the Savior¡¯s sacrifice?  Ruler nodded vigorously.  On Orth, the Savior had come¡ªthe Savior had come to Orth?  Did He pass through each of the planets before dying on Jupitre?¡ªRuler had been getting to that.  The Savior had sacrificed Himself to the cross on Orth, dying for their sins, in the small nation of Icehold.  What followed was mutual incredulity.  The Savior had died on both Orth and Jupitre, neither of them doubted the other, did that mean he had come to every planet?  How could the Savior die more than once?  Had He not risen to Heaven after his resurrection?  Ultimately, they agreed on a passage of the Gospels, ¡°With the One God all things are possible.¡±


    It was around then that Daisy noticed the sheen of sweat on her face, and that Ruler as well looked overheated.  With his consent, she doused them both with water, and asked how people survived this Hellish¡ªshe laughed at her own choice of words¡ªclimate.  Ruler replied, ¡°Wa-Wa-Watergate takes shipments of water from a dragon and distributes them throughout the Kingdom of Hell.¡±


    So Ruler had been charged with a divine mission to warn of a war to come with dragonkind.  What did that say of the dragon who had given him his psionic gifts?  Ruler shook his head.  Presumably, she would remain above it.  Or, and his visage abruptly grew grimmer, she would die in the ensuing war.  But he was charged with his divine mission, and he would carry it out.  He had no desire to be devoured by a giant fish; or either by a very small fish.  Daisy cocked her head in a question.  Ruler pulled taught his robe, and his abdomen was lumpen in a manner Daisy would have attributed to a hernia.  He explained that it was his thorn, a gift from the One God to keep him humble.  A gutfish, which was a kind of abomination eel.


    Once again Daisy found herself recoiling from this holy man.  Abominations, after nephilim, were a favored tool of the Powers that Were.  They bred horrific monsters as a final recourse when lies proved insufficient.  She herself had encountered them only once, but they gleefully publicized the successes of these monsters putting down insurrections.  Ruler waited patiently for her to get over her squeamishness, only to proceed and inquire more.


    His gutfish was capable of telepathy at a reasonable distance, being a venerable member of its species, and had cold, draconic thought processes.  It kept him from entangling his own motives with those of the Lord.  It also allowed him to utilize his electrical runes without his arm going numb, drained of the energy to relay impulses.  Evidently the creator of the eels had intended their capacitor cells to be used punitively, but they were immensely useful in this age of elemental brands.


    He showed her his hand, and she saw the scars of electrical brands.  Then, too, he showed her the revolver he carried, a novelty to her.  On Jupitre, like her dragon staff, guns were breech loading but single shot only.  Ruler, however, was enchanted with a different aspect of his gun.  There were contacts on either side, designed to spark when he applied current.  Proudly, he told her it was truly a gun which couldn¡¯t fire both ways.  It had no mechanism by which to do so.


    Daisy nodded, though she had her doubts.  Her own hand bore a fire brand which enabled her to fire her gun without use of flint, and she wondered if it would allow her to fire Ruler¡¯s gun.  Still, with his radiant soul and their compatible faiths, hopefully it would never come up.

 Retrofit a Dragon Staff

    Daisy redirected the conversation towards her own wrath; which she acknowledged lacked prophecy and so could wreak injustice, but that was her own demon to face.  This revolver mechanism, could it be retrofitted to her dragon staff?  It was a breech loader, but the stock could be cut, she supposed¡­ she was not an expert on smithing.  But Ruler affirmed that Marzian technology could craft revolvers, if not one of his particular design.  He pointed out a few people passing by, wearing hip holsters.


    Daisy looked around again, at the whitewashed buildings bearing larger or smaller flames and banded with copper.  Those were, however, the features she noted least.  The gargoyles made sense now, if the people of Marz believed themselves to be in Hell.  They were, indeed, a devoutly religious people if they sought to purify their corner of Hell and scare away the Lord of Lies and his host of fallen angels.  Already they invested so much time and effort into their architecture; load-bearing walls notwithstanding, their understanding of fire runes and their consequences was cleverly applied.  In the time since the Age of Loss, even if they had been deceived by those who told them they were in Hell, they had recovered a great deal of knowledge.  Even on Jupitre, there were not such creative abuses of branding¡¯s natural effects.


    But a smith.  Daisy had been so busy examining a particular gargoyle, possessed of horrid goat¡¯s eyes bulging from a frog-like head which vanished into blackness with its depth, that she nearly walked into someone despite the uncrowded streets.  She would have to pay more attention.  Only Ruler¡¯s timely tug on her arm had prevented a collision.  She supposed she might have minded the familiar contact more if he hadn¡¯t been of clearly pure intention.


    The smithy they found had rifles and revolvers on display, as well as daggers and the odd saber.  They were, however, held to the display with locked bands of steel.  Avery greeted the smith in what Daisy supposed as Lider.  The woman working the forge, her skin more weathered even than the norm on Marz, turned to face them while admonishing her adolescent apprentice to continue tending the bellows despite his obvious curiosity about these strangers.  She bore a round scar above her left temple, and Daisy thought of dragons.


    Daisy felt the tickle of Ruler¡¯s psi as the words of the smith were given meaning to her.  Daisy approached, and asked if there was any hope of fitting a revolver mechanism to her rifle without destroying it.  She spoke haltingly at first, unaccustomed to speaking while reading a prompt, although thinking of it as reading a book gave her more confidence.


    The smith held out her hands for Daisy¡¯s rifle, and with a small amount of misgiving she handed it over.  The smith sighted it, examined the breech, and even spun it competently over one hand, before handing it back to Daisy.  ¡°I can try.  It won¡¯t be cheap.  What part of Helland are you from, that you don¡¯t even speak Lider?  I won¡¯t do weapons work for a servant of a cold dragon.¡±  Daisy sent a shocked look at Ruler, who shook his head and shrugged.  ¡°I can feel the psi,¡± the smith said, tapping her temple.  Ruler replied evenly that he served an air dragon.  The smith harrumphed, but admitted that wasn¡¯t within the confines of her ban.  Daisy fished out weights of silver, and the smith raised a dubious eyebrow.  ¡°You can come back when you have proper coin.¡±


    A little disappointed, and more than a little dispirited, Daisy struck out to find a pawn shop¡ªshe shuddered.  The Repositorium of Knowledge was like a pawn shop for pieces of one¡¯s mind.  Maybe not a pawn shop.  But surely there was a bank or something similar?  She asked Ruler.  He said he didn¡¯t have wealth worth counting but spiritually, so he¡¯d never given the matter much consideration.  Besides, the signs were in Marzeilles and didn¡¯t have minds to read.


    Daisy squared her shoulders and went about looking for an imposing building.  Okay, so with the flaming roofs and hideous gargoyles, they were all imposing.  And high ceilings seemed nearly universal, at least in this affluent part of the city.  Even the smithy had been built tall.  She would ask directions as soon as she found someone who looked reputable.  Or at least wasn¡¯t glaring at her green clothes.  Maybe she should buy some clothes in the local colors.  Lack-of-colors.  But asking directions.


    The first person she asked simply walked away, and Daisy was so stunned as to let her.  Faithful they might be, but Marzians were certainly not friendly.  The next person, she blocked his path with the length of her dragon staff.  ¡°I asked a reasonable question, you can reasonably answer.¡±  Or so she assumed she¡¯d said, still reading Ruler¡¯s mental cues.  He looked at the steel pole blocking his path, and even gave a half-hearted shove against it, but he didn¡¯t step around and finally directed her to a columned building a few blocks away.  She thanked him, and the pair moved on.  Ruler made an admiring comment as to her ability to invoke wrath in the name of a good cause.


    The bank was imposing.  They were all imposing, but the bank especially so.  They had walked past it, and Daisy had assumed it was either city hall or a church building.  There weren¡¯t the massive windows that marked churches on Jupitre, given the climate and nature of cooling, but there were caryatid columns of a sort rather than load-bearing walls.  Of a sort, because they portrayed hideous giants being climbed by plaintive human-sized figures, rather than beautiful women.  More gargoyles.  She¡¯d been encouraged by them at first look, but now it seemed they represented an oppressive element of the culture¡¯s preoccupation with damnation.  The doors of the bank, too, were carved stone, showing in relief thieves meeting various gruesome fates.  She thought to herself, ¡°What thieves break in and steal¡­¡±


    Within, the air was comparatively cool, and she wondered if the bank, despite lacking obvious copper on its walls, might have cored its columns with copper.  It had the flaming roof, and with an earth sorcerer it was a simple enough matter.  A metal sorcerer could even abrogate the need to cast the molten copper into the core, shaping it as though liquid.  In any event, it was a relief.  But tarrying was not in the cards, the bank employed finely-tailored, immaculately-groomed, and impressively-muscled men and women to make sure everyone was seen to their business in the most efficient manner possible.  ¡°How might I be of service, ser, madame?¡±  The polite bouncer¡ªundoubtedly a bouncer, but undoubtedly polite¡ªdidn¡¯t look twice at their attire, but also stood between them and the majority of the building¡¯s main hall.


    Daisy communicated her need to translate weights of silver into local coinage, and at the sight of some substantial amount of valuable metal, something eased in the bouncer¡¯s body language.  She asked, as an aside, whether she should keep some in reserve or whether they would be spending long in Helland.  Ruler replied quietly that so far as he knew, nations on Marz had names such as South Helland, West Helland, and Helland itself.


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    ¡°So no, no reserve needed.¡±


    Evidently translating raw ore into coinage was not unheard-of, and they were shown into a large room with an elderly bespectacled woman in it.  She asked how much copper they would be translating into coin.  Told they had silver and not copper, her frizzy eyebrows nearly vanished into an impressively wrinkled and incredulous forehead, but she shuffled around the room and found a different scale to consult.  Silver was a rarity on Marz, but not unheard-of.  Mostly used by the water traders, so easy enough to convert into something actually valuable.  Daisy was surprised to hear silver referred to as less valuable, but she supposed the climate would impact that.


    The old woman asked for Daisy¡¯s denizen papers, and Ruler hurried forward with his own.  She once again raised her eyebrows impressively high, but shrugged and took the silver after filing away a copy of the information on Ruler¡¯s papers.  They strode away from the bank with Daisy¡¯s pockets lighter, but filled with denominations of local coinage.


    ¡°You need denizen papers?  How do I get those?¡±  Daisy asked Ruler, who had no ready answer.  He had naturalized himself as an ostensible South Hellander, but she was in Helland proper.  For now, he would supply his own when they had to make a purchase.  Daisy was in for more unsettling experiences, before the day was out.  The smith, looking at Ruler¡¯s papers, shook her head.  She couldn¡¯t do gun work for an ace of hearts.  You needed to be of a black suit to get weapon work done, and above a deuce to get a gun.  She looked intensely again at Daisy, and she felt a headache coming on before Ruler interposed himself and she realized the smith had been about to interrogate her psionically.  More dragon nonsense.


    Dispirited, Daisy walked out before she or Ruler faced further scrutiny.  She asked if she should buy herself some more traditional garb for the region.  Ruler shrugged and said that if anything it was likely smoothing their path to have what would be ostentatiously expensive dyes in her clothes.  As long as she could avoid getting mugged, it should be fine.  And speaking of which, they should duck into the shop to their left, they had picked up two tails outside the bank.


    Inside, a number of glasses and cylindrical objects were on display.  Daisy was immediately curious, and on looking through one of the glasses found it made things appear larger.  From there she went to one of the smaller cylinders, overhearing through Ruler that anything she broke she bought.  She peered through it, first at the shopkeeper and then through the small high windows, finding she could see the far distant sky as though it were close.  She asked Ruler what these things were, and he identified the first as a quizzing glass and the second as a telescope.


    Enchanted with the device, Daisy took it to the counter and asked how much it was.  The shopkeeper indicated the tag held by a string to the telescope, but upon seeing Daisy¡¯s incomprehension took on a calculating expression and named a price.  Daisy heard in her head, clear enough she thought at first he had spoken Draconic, Ruler say, ¡°He¡¯s ripping you off.  I don¡¯t know the right amount to pay for this, but he¡¯s inflated it knowing you don¡¯t know what it¡¯s worth.¡±  Daisy looked at him and nodded, then shrugged and fished out the suitable number of coins.  She wanted the device that much.  Ruler asked her how it was she didn¡¯t know what a telescope was.  Daisy replied simply that Jupitre was a vast place of foggy skies, and while one could measure some geography and the brighter stars from a high elevation, a ¡°telescope¡± would be largely useless against the cloud cover.


    She asked how much it would be to have it mounted on her cross staff, indicating the dragon staff.  The shopkeeper seemed perplexed by the staff, and Daisy launched eagerly into an explanation of the markings on the side and cords tied to the stock.  Geometers were nothing if not practical, and her rifle was usable to perform measurements of the heavens, not just mountains.  With the telescope, she suspected she could manage an unparalleled degree of accuracy.  To say nothing¡ªand she said nothing¡ªof being able to shoot a mosquito off a friend¡¯s shoulder at two hundred yards.


    Looking abashed, the shopkeeper introduced himself as Penitent Soul.  Daisy replied that she was simply Daisy, and her companion was Ruler.  The latter name evoked surprise, and Daisy asked Ruler if his name had a different context in Lider.  He replied that he had used the meaning of one who rules, rather than one who measures, thinking it would be less remarkable.  Daisy shrugged and returned to business.  Penitent Soul was a student of the heavens, in his spare time.  He would mount the telescope on her staff for free, provided she helped him with the measurements to produce his own cross staff.


    When she, in turn, expressed surprise that he did not already possess such a thing with his impressive array of observational equipment, he replied that study of the heavens was widely regarded as unseemly.  They were, after all, the Ranks of the Damned, and it was not their place to regard Heaven.  Indeed, it was proof of their condemnation that the sun burned the eyes of those who stared into its light.  Where was she from, that such information was not common to her?


    Ruler apologized and replied that they were recent acquaintances, and that he was an emigre of South Helland, where things were a bit more liberal.  Despite being a nonanswer to the question actually asked, it resembled a meaningful reply and seemed to satisfy Penitent.  Daisy indicated the manner in which she wanted the telescope mounted on her staff, and inquired as to the possibility of a locking hinge to let her sight both down its length and orthogonal to it.  This once again got her a strange look, but Daisy brooked on the lack of firing mechanism and her not having unlocked the breech loader to veil her intentions.


    Ultimately, after having marked a long metal rod with notches and symbols, tied a few knots in some lengths of cord, and given Penitent a guide to their meaning, Daisy left the store with a marvelously accurate tool of navigation and endangerment.  Ruler grumbled that she had still paid far too much for what amounted to a toy, but Daisy shook her head.  There was no price too high to pay for knowledge.  Of course, saying that brought to mind the Repositorium and its rates of payment, and she shuddered.  Not everyone knew the value of knowledge, or of sanity, nor the relationship between the two.


    Ruler confirmed they had taken too long in the shop to keep the attention of their tails, which meant their plan had been a common mugging and they had not attracted the interest of the wrong kind of people as yet.  He asked what she planned on doing next.  Daisy peered at the sky, Heaven¡¯s orb setting in the west, and asked about where they might stay the night.  Ruler replied that he had been sleeping rough, in the shade of a copper-banded building.  Helland did not encourage indigents nor travelers.  If she didn¡¯t want to overpay for a hard cot and a blistering round of Bible study, she would do the same.


    Daisy considered making an issue of it, insisting that surely there were some industries which did not possess warehouses and housing for its traders, before recalling her water mattress and deciding it wasn¡¯t worth the struggle.  Ruler seemed impressed with her camping equipment, and Daisy considered whether there was room to let him share the bed with her.  She trusted her water sorcery to be accurate; he would not respond lustfully to such an offer.  As they settled on the mattress in the shadow of a building, Daisy the big spoon, Ruler asked a single sleepy question, as to what was next.  Daisy scrunched up her face thoughtfully, knowing he couldn¡¯t see her face, and said that from what she¡¯d heard from the locals, a visit to Watergate¡¯s Church was in order.  She did not miss Ruler¡¯s shudder, but elected not to inquire.

 Infernalist Doctrine

    ¡°Y-you¡¯re still set upon this?¡± Ruler asked.  ¡°They¡¯re not¡­ it won¡¯t be a pleasant experience.¡±  His words were slightly squished as he pulled this way and that, shaving with a small knife and a mirror of light sorcery.  She had wondered how a man in ragged clothes kept neatly groomed, and now she knew.


    Daisy shrugged off-handedly.  ¡°I want to know more about the culture.  That means knowing their faith.  It can¡¯t be any worse than¡­¡± She knew she was trailing off and leaving questions to Ruler that she wasn¡¯t ready to answer, but she didn¡¯t know what to say other than, ¡°¡­Jupitre.  Are you willing to serve as translator?¡±


    ¡°I-I-I can¡¯t, actually, as the services are held in Marzeilles, but it won¡¯t matter.¡±  She pressed him, but he refused to elaborate on his enigmatic statement.  It seemed some lessons were best learned first-hand.


    The church building was¡­ well, what was it?  Striking, Daisy would allow.  All the buildings of Marz were, but this was something else.  The climate defied wheel windows, so instead the architects of the Church building had made elaborate friezes between arches in the style of the bank building.  Very much in the style of the bank building, in fact.  The friezes were all depictions of human figures in torment at the hands of goat-legged demons, frankly less horrifying figures than the gargoyles themselves.  The main columns were more hideous giants climbed by plaintive humans, and flying buttresses resembled nothing so much as gnarled upthrust claws.  At the peak of the Church, so far as to defy resolution without the aid of her telescope, there was the figure of a man, painted in the tanned colors of the local populace, burning in what she were supposed were glass flames which danced with the light of the true fire behind it.


    There was an arch over the main doorway, or so she presumed the doors could open, for a smaller door beneath slowly admitted parishioners.  It was between the spread legs of a massive gargoyle with anatomy of horrifying implications, leaning forward to form a portico beneath its scarred and parasite-ridden torso, supported by a multiplicity of arms, greeting those beginning up the steps with a threefold menacing leer.  Each of its arms and legs bore massive stone cuffs, made to appear to be held down into the ground by lengths of chain.  Or so her soul devoutly hoped they were merely carven images, and the demon defending the Church doors was not truly a bound spirit.


    To either side, making the Church as much a defensive structure as a religious center, there were what might be termed ¡°gardens¡± of broken statuary, a grim view of fractured faces and tangled limbs.  These were not entirely of whitewashed basalt, but also obsidian or rust red, creating the eerie impression of being made of actual varietous dead.  On the heels of that observation came the realization bones, or casts of bones, also decorated the gardens.  Daisy tried not to look left, right, or up as she proceeded towards the sanctuary, though she was not so tunnel visioned as to miss the presence of truncheon- and revolver-bearing enforcers in priestly garb flanking the colonnade.  Everywhere, she saw a single letter or numeral embroidered into a card suit.  In the downcast people making their way up the steps, it was a heart lettered with an A or the occasional 2, while the enforcers, whatever their official role, bore 3¡¯s embroidered in white upon the suit of clubs.  Fitting, she thought grimly, that the ones carrying truncheons bore clubs.


    Within the church was a vast chapel directly beyond the doors.  There was no narthex; this was not a social occasion and this was not a place to gather except in worship, evidently.  The interior bore massive reliefs of a penitent congregation flagellating itself, and Daisy hoped that such mortification was not a part of the services themselves.  Looking back at the threes of clubs, she wasn¡¯t certain they would let her leave.  Ruler was huddled in against himself, but she thought he would have warned her if their services involved mortification of the flesh.  The columns supporting the walls were flaming interruptions; glass, but seeming to flicker with inner light, highlighting the evident rhetoric of the populace being in Hell.  Above, the chandeliers that lit the space were shaped into accusatory arms with pointing fingers, and at the front was a large brazier of fire in which a stone Savior burned in effigy forevermore.


    Daisy had planned on taking a seat towards the back, but it seemed people filed into the chapel from the back forwards in the order they arrived.  As such, she and Ruler were seated in the middle of the chapel.  She felt uncomfortably visible, between the bright colors of her clothing and the lack of a suit on her back.  She looked around, spying a few people in colored clothes, most of them hearts of four or five.


    Her inspection of her surrounds was interrupted by what she initially thought was a literal whip crack, but was in fact a lash of psionic power.  The priestess at the head of the chapel wore her hair so short as to stand directly out from her head, and so the trepanation scar was apparent even from Daisy¡¯s distance.  Daisy realized with a dawning dread why Ruler had said it wouldn¡¯t matter that he couldn¡¯t play translator.  The priestess didn¡¯t even attempt to speak, might even have had a broken and crooked jaw, but delivered her sermons directly to the scorched psyches of her congregation.  With every sentence Daisy felt herself wincing, until Ruler caught her eye and the lashes were somewhat muted.


    ¡°We are the Ranks of the Damned!  We live in the Kingdom of Hell!  The One God examined us and found us wanting, we are guilty and condemned!  Even our rulers, though their sin may weigh less heavily, were found unfit for the Kingdom of Heaven!  Never forget that the One God knows all!  This is the justice of the caste system!  Each and every one of us was assigned from birth to a suit and caste, and it was led by the Spirit, who visits even us condemned souls in Hell to grant us an ordered society!¡±  Every sentence was a declaration, whipped directly into the minds of the congregation.


    ¡°Work hard, for you toil for the Lord!  There was no mention in the Apostle¡¯s letters that work ended in death, and there is no rest for the wicked!  The One God sees into your soul and knows when you do not apply yourselves to your just and, may the Lord will it, redemptive labors.¡±


    Daisy felt an immediate surge of dismay, and the Gospel came to her mind, ¡°Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.¡±


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    The priestess went on in her sermon.  ¡°Some souls were simply weak, prone to temptation; they are put into the ace caste, where they will not face the great temptation of abusing power!  Some souls needed the structure of a holy order, and these were inducted into the suit of clubs, keeping society orderly!  And some are perhaps closer to redemption, in need of purgation rather than punishment for their sins; these are the souls which are chosen by the Spirit-led dealers of cards to be our leaders, our prophets!  For in a world populated only with those who have earned the One God¡¯s wrath, a world of sinners, we could not trust the word of an alleged prophet to be anything but the words of the Archenemy, who lays claim to all souls in Hell!


    ¡°Do not think that the eventual redemption of those in purgatory, elevated above you on Mount Olympus, working their way out of their state of fallen Grace, means that you will escape from your own torments in Hell!  You may think that you have hardened your heart to the punishment of the One God¡¯s wrath, but you will pass into a torpor and be born again to Hell, fresh and defenseless, ready to learn once again the Lord¡¯s deep and abiding hatred for you!¡±


    Honestly, Daisy felt the woman would have done well to punctuate her sermon with a few regular statements, then she remembered that Ruler, his skin now shining with sweat, was softening the psychic blows of the sermon.  She tried to make a mental note to ask why he could only translate languages he knew, while the priestess clearly transcended linguistic barriers.  Perhaps it had to do with the invasiveness of the psionic tendrils of thought.  Another whip-crack brought her attention to the front of the chapel.   It was more vitriolic platitudes, and Daisy finally could no longer stand to accept it laying down.  The priestess was misleading her congregation, oppressing an entire city it seemed, with a ridiculous caste system and Infernalist doctrine unlike any Daisy had heard even on Jupitre.


    ¡°What do you make of me, then?!¡± Daisy demanded in Lider.  Even as he was gesturing for her to sit down and be silent, Daisy appreciated that Ruler was doing as he had promised and giving her the words she needed in the tongue she didn¡¯t know.  ¡°I came directly from Jupitre to Marz, and I never died.  I am alive, and I tell you that this planet is Marz, not the outer circle of the universe that makes up Hell!  You are on the fire planet, but if it is Hell it is one of your own making, not one in truth!¡±


    Avery jerked and Daisy felt the blunted recoil of a psionic rebuke.  ¡°You are now in Hell, deluded though you may be!  It was not another planet; rather, it was another planet but also another plane of existence!  You cannot know whence you came from relative to where you are!¡±


    ¡°I can, in fact.  I am a Bachelor geometer, I can show you the positions of the stars and prove with mathematics that this is the fourth planet from the Heavenly orb of the sun!¡±


    ¡°What is your caste, impudent whelp?!  I am the authority here, while you do not even speak civilized Marzeilles!¡±


    ¡°I have no caste, I have no suit, I came to Watergate through the portal by which water makes its way to Marz from Jupitre!  Answer that, blasphemer!¡±


    ¡°You are the blasphemer!  You died! Your last memories before you came to Hell are doubtless an illusion created by your mind to deny the horrible truth!  It is true, that some souls are so corrupt and hateful that they come to Hell as they were on Orth, and you must be prepared for the special torments the One God has saved for you!¡±


    ¡°You, and all this congregation, must know that you deal in lies, brought forth from the Lord of Lies, who wants all to give up on Salvation, the only means by which he gains souls!  ¡®As sin entered into the world through one woman, and death through sin, so death passed to all men because all sinned.¡¯ And then, ¡®If by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one; so much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Christ Savior¡¯!¡±


    ¡°I will not debate scripture with an allegedly suitless interloper!  The dealers of cards will see through your deceit, strip you of your casteless clothes, and brand you properly that you might never again blaspheme and be heard by anyone, in this congregation or any other!  The Savior, whose blessed mercy allows that we might suffer and toil in the hottest depths of Creation, declared that those who broke His least commandment against calling another a fool would be in peril of the Hell of Fire!  And what do you call me, a priestess, in claiming that I do not know my own scripture!?¡±


    They went on in this vein for what seemed to Daisy mere moments, though it must have been longer for the exchange of vitriol involved.  Finally, the priestess ordered Daisy to report to the city hall, where a dealer of cards could assign her the eternal fate which would be her caste and suit.  Daisy had had enough.  ¡°I can prove by water sorcery my purity, and so I shall!¡±  Daisy concentrated and summoned a sphere of water into her hand, but a psionic slap, even blunted by Ruler, broke her concentration.  The entire room rocked with the force of the priestess¡¯ wrath.


    Daisy¡¯s focus lost, the water poured down off her hand and spattered to the floor.  ¡°You waste water?  This is how you show your purity?!  There is no such sphere as water to quench thirst in Hell, there is earth and air and fire!  You waste our time with nonsense!  Begone!¡±


    Daisy, feeling dispirited, rose and walked from the Church.  It seemed that summary dismissal by the priestess trumped even¡­ whatever purpose posting guards at the exit to the building served.  She sighed.  Ruler slumped against her as they exited, the effort of translation and shielding them both from the priestess¡¯ psionic attacks evidently having taken its toll upon him.  She stood there, holding up his weight, until he seemed steady on his feet again.


    He laughed weakly.  ¡°Y-you certainly know a thing or two about wrath.¡±


    She shook her head.  ¡°Do not forget.  Wrath without prophecy is injustice.¡±  She wrapped an arm around his shoulder, and felt a frisson of relief at the contact with another, non-hostile human being.  Ruler continued to stand on his own two feet, but leaned into the contact and the crook of her arm, and the two of them set out to find somewhere to while away the time until town hall opened the next day.


    Struck by a thought, Daisy asked Ruler, ¡°What did she mean, that there is no water sphere?  Is there such a thing on Orth?  I feel like we talked about it.  You¡¯ve seen me conjure water.¡±  Ruler sighed and shrugged.  His own element was not impacted by Marz¡¯s elemental alignment, but he had seen no evidence of water sorcery in his time on the planet.  He had also witnessed the practice of using fire to boil waste to extract the water from it by distillation, so no he didn¡¯t think they had any concept of the water sphere.  This was shocking to Daisy, who had not imagined so much could be lost during the Age of Loss and yet to be regained in this, the Age of Steel.  She wondered what wonders¡ªhah¡ªthe next Age would hold, for the current Age had surely gone on quite a while.  But if Marz and Jupitre were any indication, perhaps the next Age would be another Age of Loss, all knowing surrendered to the Repositorium for gold, forgetting the temples that once made the gold sacred, all thinking surrendered to dogma, forgetting that faith without reason was death.

 A Favor

    City hall, as it turned out, was in the same building as the bank.  It was one and the same institution.  ¡°You can¡¯t serve both God and Greed,¡± Daisy thought to herself.  When Ruler gave her a quizzical look, she realized she had chuckled.  Though, she had to admit, her first thought was that he was just kind of perched in her mind like a carrion bird.  But then he chuckled at her passage from the Gospels, and when she vented her concerns about his presence in her mind, he shook his head and reminded her that psi was taxing for him.


    The bouncer, a man with a neatly trimmed beard this time, seemed perplexed by her demand to be nationalized.  She iterated her desire several times, before demanding to speak to his boss.  He shook his head and tapped his suit, emblazoned with a four of clubs.  ¡°Oh, so you¡¯re the ranking thug.  Take me to the four of hearts, then!¡±  He looked at her incredulously, and looked her up and down in a frankly appraising manner she would have taken offense at were she not painfully aware of the Marzian obsession with castes.


    Ruler stepped forward with his own denizen papers, and made a polite entreaty to appeal the case of his friend.  Daisy was about ready to take a chunk out of the ceiling with her dragon staff when the man finally acceded to Ruler¡¯s request and took them to a well-appointed office up a flight of stairs.  There was a small gargoyle at each corner of the room and walls of shelved clay tablets.  Before them, not sweating in the slightest, was a young woman Daisy judged to be her junior.  Such were the perks of a caste system, she supposed.  No ladder to climb.


    ¡°I am Frozen Hell, how do you suppose I am going to help you?¡±  Once more, Daisy repeated her request to be dealt a card and nationalized.  She also asked how a people without a concept of water magic on account of the heat nonetheless had a concept of freezing things.  ¡°Copper freezes well below the temperature of the human-habitable¡ª¡± an interesting qualifier ¡°¡ªregions of Marz.  Don¡¯t ask stupid questions.  If you wanted to be nationalized, you should have applied for citizenship in Honeystone or South Helland, wherever you came from.¡±


    ¡°I came from Jupitre.¡±


    ¡°And what territory is that?  Did The Armed Nation finally yield?¡±


    ¡°The Armed Nation?¡±


    ¡°Whatever they call themselves, ¡®Tanith,¡¯ I would have thought they would be ¡®East Helland¡¯ but perhaps some whimsy struck the honorable Black Donjon.  In any case, you still should have applied for papers in Honeystone.¡±


    ¡°Jupitre is the planet from which your deliveries of water arrive by rail.  The large building on the edge of town?  Leads to a cave with a dragon in it?¡±  Led to a cave with a dragon in it, she supposed.


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about.  If you¡¯re looking for water, that does sound an awful lot like Tanith, they have natural sources of water thanks to their dragon.¡±


    ¡°What say I go find someone who knows what they¡¯re talking about?¡±


    Frozen¡¯s eyebrows shot up.  ¡°You¡¯re an illegal interloper and you dare to insult a four of hearts?  Good luck finding your way up the ladder with that attitude.¡±


    ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t I insult whoever I please?  It¡¯s not as though I can lower my status any more than it is.¡±  Without waiting to hear what Frozen had to say in retort, she strode out of the room, almost forgetting to make sure Ruler was keeping pace with her.


    ¡°Well.  That was disheartening.  What¡¯s y-y-your plan now?¡±


    Daisy quirked a grin on one side.  ¡°I have the canny of a native Jovian and a light sorcerer yoked to my cause.  Now I find out how an ace of hearts can become a ten of clubs.¡±  Ruler stared at her curiously, but he caught on quick enough when she walked them to a part of town where copper linings had been stolen off a few buildings, the whitewash worn away by time.  ¡°Look inside, if you would, Ruler.¡±


    ¡°Certainly.  What am I-I-I looking for?¡±


    ¡°A pawn shop pretending awfully hard not to be a pawn shop.  A fence.  They¡¯re the twitchiest of criminals because they¡¯re the least able to be protected from the law.  An unexpected guest will get us one step up the ladder.  The thought of a bought fence will buy us up the next step, until I¡¯m whatever caste I care to be.¡±


    Ruler grinned.  ¡°I am doing some quality learning from you.¡±


    Daisy waved a dismissive hand.  ¡°This is fundamental skulduggery.  Come from the planet of the Lord of Lies and you learn a little cunning.  Now then, if you wouldn¡¯t mind?¡±  It took them the better part of several hours, but they found the fence.  Telescope cocked to be parallel to the length of her dragon staff, Daisy applied her booted foot to the door¡­ and nearly fell over.  Ruler chuckled, while Daisy scowled and said he could have warned her the door was barred.  He asked about her cunning, and she sighed.  ¡°What did I do to deserve this help, Lord?¡±


    She leveled her rifle at the knob side of the door, snapped her fire-branded fingers over the trigger, and with a roar her dragon staff blew a large chunk out of the formerly locked and barred door.  Once again, she applied her boot to the door, slamming it open this time, and walked boldly inside.  Inside was a twitchy-looking man, much as Daisy had suspected she would find.  She thought he rather resembled a rabbit.  ¡°We¡¯re not here for you.  We¡¯re here for your boss.  And we¡¯re not even here to upset your boss, we¡¯re here to make her a little money.¡±


    Daisy tried not to flinch at the tentative touch of psi against her mind, but shot Ruler a look directing him to rebuke the touch.  The slap was smaller and gentler than that of the priestess, but then it was only Ruler and only one recipient.  The fence seemed to take it in stride, reassured perhaps that he was as yet not in manacles.


    ¡°Tired of being castless, eh?  That¡¯s fair, that¡¯s fair.  Bold Virtue has papers.  You¡¯re not the first Waterborne to want a cushy new start.  Though, couldn¡¯t you have just knocked?  That door is getting added to my fee.¡±  Daisy doubted she could afford to repair the door, she was by no means wealthy.  She had hoped to trade in favors with someone of sufficient status not to need her money.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want your cheap counterfeits.  I want legitimate papers, issued by a crown caste.¡±  If aces were at the bottom, it stood to reason that Jacks, Kings, and Queens were at the top.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you look at Bold¡¯s papers and tell him whether they¡¯re cheap counterfeits.¡±  With a greasy smile¡ªperhaps more like a weasel than a rabbit¡ªhe splayed papers across his countertop.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, you seem to have mistaken me for someone to mess around with.¡±  Daisy reached for her magic, and with effort centered her will on a small orb of water.  She lofted it across the room, from her standing at the door to Bold.  She watched his shallow breathing and tossed the water in his face just as he drew breath.


    Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    Spluttering and coughing, Bold wiped his face with his hands, and Ruler cocked his head.  ¡°Hey, ¡®B-B-Boss,¡¯ h-he made contact with someone while he was spluttering.  W-we may not have much time.¡±  Daisy replied that Ruler could obscure their forced entry and she¡¯d block the door with her staff.  ¡°Y-you want m-m-me to maintain an illusion while translating?  That¡¯s a lot to do at once¡­¡±


    ¡°Then you talk to the fence.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t mess with Bold Virtue!  I¡¯m not nobody!  I¡¯ve got cred, I¡¯ve got protection!¡±


    ¡°You have jack squat.  The fences with status have guards like at a bank.  Ruler, negotiate.  I think more than my staff might be called for to bar this door.¡±


    ¡°Let m-m-me make this simple, B-Bold.  All we want is your boss.  We-we¡¯re not cops, we¡¯re a source of revenue with nothing to lose.  Give us y-your boss and we¡ªthank y-you.¡±  Daisy, back propped against the door, raised an eyebrow and asked what he¡¯d done.


    Bold replied for Ruler in a somewhat squeaky voice.  ¡°A cheap trick is what he did!  He¡¯ll never find her!  You may have found me, Hell knows where you could have bought that information, but you won¡¯t find my boss!  She¡¯s not public!¡±


    Daisy swung the door open to permit Ruler past her, and said over her shoulder, ¡°You¡¯re still mistaking me for someone to mess around with.¡±


    ¡°So are you!¡±  Bold cackled as Ruler stopped short, confronted with an athletically-built woman bearing a three of clubs across her entire chest.  She raised a revolver, and Daisy knocked it aside by reflex with her staff.  The shot embedded itself in the stone of the floor, then ricocheted into the wares lining Bold¡¯s store.


    Spinning her dragon staff to build up momentum, Daisy aimed for a sharp rap to the temples of the enforcer, but the woman blocked it with what looked to be a common truncheon.  Taking the fight a little more seriously, Daisy was about to go for the woman¡¯s shins when she realized the thug still had a revolver in her off-hand.  Daisy was about to take either a bullet or a truncheon blow to the head when the woman reeled, putting a hand to her head.  Daisy would question providence later and put the woman on the ground with a two-handed strike of her staff.


    As they left the neighborhood, Daisy asked Ruler if she had him to thank for her foe¡¯s timely incapacitation.  He chuckled.  ¡°Bright light in the eyes.  N-nobody¡¯s ever ready for it.¡±  Daisy smiled and said that, at least, he was learning a bit of wrath.  ¡°Now w-we go search the wealthier districts.  This could take a while.  Can w-w-we get a bit of food, in the meantime?  I-I¡¯ve left off begging to follow your quest¡­¡± Daisy nodded, chagrined that she had given no thought to such concerns for Ruler, and had just eaten from her rations when she was hungry again.  She inquired what there was to eat around here.  ¡°Oh, just a few varieties of cactus¡ªwhat¡¯s a cactus?  A drought-resistant prickly, waxy vegetable, I-I-I think I would classify it.  Squash.  Peppers.  And vent fish.  Y-you¡¯ll want to check for bones, they¡¯re made of iron.¡±  Iron bones, in a fish?  ¡°Abomination fish.  Swim in the north seas.  That¡¯s all I-I know.¡±


    They set out for somewhere that smelled tasty, gave up that quest, and set about finding someplace that smelled like vegetables.  Within an hourglass, by Daisy¡¯s judgment, they found a place selling what she supposed would be a relative luxury of chilled sliced squash and cold filets of vent fish over rice.  This time, she let Ruler bicker over the price they paid, mindful that she would be stretching her resources to accommodate two unless she wanted to resort to begging from the doubtless-uncharitable Marzians.


    The next morning, Ruler related the appearance of Bold¡¯s boss to Daisy, so she could search the markets while he searched houses.  She appeared to be a woman who affected an impressive handlebar mustache, or a man who favored cosmetics, either way an original on the repressive and regressive planet of Marz.  Perhaps Bold had been right that she was above such petty concerns as ¡°society¡± and its ¡°rules.¡±  Which made her quite likely the exact kind of person Daisy was looking for.


    After two days of meeting three times a day to check in, Ruler had struck gold.  How many people¡ªhe omitted a gendered pronoun in referring to her¡ªwith fine makeup and a handlebar mustache were there who maintained a pallor on this planet?  This time, Daisy was polite.  She knocked courteously on the door to the woman¡¯s estate and handed over one of her graduate cards as a Bachelor geometer.  It would likely mean little, but cards made the social wheels of high society go round, if Marz was anything like Jupitre.


    Sure enough, they were shortly told, ¡°Madame will see you now,¡± and shown into a drawing room.  Daisy didn¡¯t mean to be surprised, but she was nonetheless when the furniture was upholstered rather than ergonomic stone.  Upon sitting upon it, she realized it was camel hair.


    The woman behind the desk was small; she barely saw over the top of her desk despite a very high chair indeed.  Her skin was fair, her hair dark, and her eyes pits into which Daisy suspected she might fall forever.  This was a face of power, of scarcity borne of inconceivably vast resources.  Also a face with a handlebar mustache.


    ¡°Bachelor¡­ Daisy.  You do not use family names where you come from?¡±  Daisy shook her head.  ¡°You caused quite a stir with my underlings.  And it¡¯s rather hard to keep valuable goods locked away when one¡¯s lock has ceased to be.¡±  Daisy nodded acknowledgement and apologized.  ¡°So.  You want to be a higher caste.¡±


    ¡°I want to be a high caste, as opposed to no caste at all.¡±


    ¡°Ah, right.  Right.  The Jovian thing.  It can be arranged, but why would you want a place on Hell?  Why not run back to your own ¡®planet¡¯ if the portal is accessible as you say?  Unless you are damned, and it was a one-way trip?¡±  Three questions, and not one breath in which to answer them, Daisy thought, resisting the urge to raise an eyebrow.  ¡°That is why you speak Lider through your familiar.¡±  Interesting choice of words for a friend.  Huh.  I guess Ruler is a friend at this point.  That was fast.


    ¡°We¡¯ve had Waterborne want to be naturalized before.  Their little cult doubtless found a wellspring and have been siphoning off water since at least the Age of Stone, but then they get tired of their politicking and think they can do better here.¡±  Daisy vehemently protested that she was no Waterborne.  ¡°Why the plant name, then?  Not even one that grows well here.  I had to consult a text of archaic draconic just to find a picture.¡±


    ¡°That ¡®archaic draconic¡¯ is likely Jovian.  What will it take to get me my papers?¡±


    The woman before her¡ªit rankled not to know her name¡ªcrossed her arms over her chest.  ¡°I would have two things from you.  A demonstration of your alleged ¡®water sorcery,¡¯ and the promise of a position of status when things come crashing down.  I have no doubt you will be the focal point of the unrest to come.¡±  When Daisy shot a surprised look at Ruler, the woman chuckled.  ¡°I¡¯ve heard the prophet¡¯s ravings.  Some third of the population is trepanned; nephilim factor heavily into our copper economy, as no human can survive the temperatures of the copper seas; we¡¯ve gotten demands of outrageous price increases from our contacts to the south.  So I will get you papers¡ªnot as a ten of clubs, but I will get you a seven of hearts and see what you do with it.  And in return, you will remember the kindness done to you by Hard Minded, when you are at the epicenter of a collapse.¡±  Daisy made a mental note not to underestimate the cunning of native Marzians just for not being born into the Kingdom of Air.  She also noted that her new ¡®friend¡¯ evidently had more pull, wisdom, or both,  than she had thought.  She would give Daisy papers just to hedge her bets against a societal collapse which seemed, to most of the populace, more than a little far-fetched.


    With a nod, Daisy stood and summoned a sphere of water.  Minded drew breath sharply, and gazed in fascination at Daisy¡¯s handful of water.  At Hard Minded¡¯s direction, she revealed the light of her soul, still bright enough to be a light in the dark.  On her own initiative, she turned to the light of Hard Minded and was surprised to see a dim glow, not the opaque blackness of an unseen depth.  Minded laughed, doubtless aware of what the dimming meant.  ¡°I am not entirely an evil woman, Daisy.  I had ideals, ones I like to think back fondly upon.  By securing my status after whatever chaos you wreak, I secure the wellbeing of my allies.  My family.¡±


    Those were words that would come back to haunt Daisy as she wondered whether she had dealt with the Marzian equivalent of the Repositorium of Knowledge, or if she had found a redeemable soul amongst the Ranks of the Damned.

 A Long Days Night

    The next order of business, at Daisy¡¯s insistence, was finding a reliable cartographer.  Ruler¡¯s comment was to not bet on the reliability of a people who considered astronomy taboo, but in his own geometer¡¯s way was curious as to what they would find, particularly when Daisy mentioned that tapping into a ley line would facilitate casting her water sorcery.  Water was, after all, a valuable commodity.  Ruler asked Daisy how one traced ley lines to begin with, and she launched into a discussion of the dimensions of a planet, as well as the natural landmarks and joining places which marked intersections of them.


    The first store which looked promising turned out to be a bestiary of stuffed and treated animals from around the globe of Marz.  Not being able to read the local signage was a distinct handicap in finding such a specialized merchant.  Ultimately, they resorted to Daisy¡¯s patent tonic of blocking people¡¯s way with a long rod of steel and asking them very politely to answer a simple question.  It took three tries, but they did ultimately secure directions to what they were assured was a reputable cartographer.


    Inside was a shop full of clay tablets.  Daisy sighed.  Such a thing was going to be heavy, expensive, and prone to breakage.  Unless they had cases¡­ which would also be clay or ceramic.  She turned to Ruler with a bleak expression, to gauge by his reaction, which led to him asking the shopkeep if she had any ceramic maps.  The woman behind the counter, heavyset with long gray hair, nodded a bit proudly.  ¡°That we do, sir.  If you¡¯ve an eye for quality, ceramic is the only way to go.  Durable, shatter-resistant, waterproof, and much lighter.  What region are you looking for?¡±  Ruler looked over at Daisy.


    Daisy indicated she was looking for a world map.  ¡°I¡¯m afraid we don¡¯t have anything like that, nobody knows just how big Hell is.  Not to mention, the nephilim are cagey about their demesnes.  There¡¯s only one rail line through them, even, and it passes through the only city of theirs we¡¯ve ever seen.¡±  Daisy commented that, for an unknown planet, the woman certainly knew a lot.


    The woman behind the table preened.  ¡°Retributive Sin¡¯s maps are the best, because I am Retributive Sin and I¡¯ve traveled the length and breadth of Helland!  Even visited Tanith on a special visa, though I can¡¯t guarantee I got everything!¡±  She proudly pointed to her four of diamonds on the breast of her shirt.  Daisy went on to ask about a map showing as much of the globe¡ªthat got her an odd look¡ªas much of ¡°Hell¡± as possible, oriented to the globe of Heaven setting in the west.  ¡°Well, you don¡¯t want much!¡±  The woman laughed.  She turned to metal shelves behind her and started checking clay labels.  ¡°Let¡¯s see now¡­¡±


    In a matter of moments, she had pulled out a piece of ceramic the size of a serving platter.  To Daisy¡¯s dismay, it portrayed a rectangular map, and the long side was the longitude of Marz.  Ruler counseled her not to be hasty, and she took a second look at the map.  Major landmarks, as well as cities and villages, were grooved into the ceramic and dusted with something dark to make them stand out.  Daisy asked if the woman knew how far they were from the equator, and got a blank look.  She sighed.  This was not going to be easy.  Not to mention, she couldn¡¯t read the names of locations written on the map.  She asked, ¡°Madame Sin¡ª¡± and was cut off with a laugh that they could call her Retty.  She was, she said, simply too old for formality.  ¡°Retty, then.  How much is this map?¡±  Being told, she counted out copper coins and laid them on the counter.  ¡°Do you have an oven on site?¡±  Retty once again clearly prided herself upon her shop, because she replied that she certainly did.  ¡°I am¡­ a foreigner, though I do have papers.  Would it be possible to apply clay to this lovely map, and let me write my transliterations of the names, and have you bake it for us?¡±


    Retty looked thoughtful.  ¡°I could do it.  It would take a few hours.  I close soon.  If you pay up front, I can get it ready for you first thing tomorrow.  It¡¯d be a little more for the water to wet the clay, though.¡±


    ¡°That is no problem.  Do you have a vessel?¡±  Retty hefted an urn from beneath the counter, though she protested that she had a stock and charged a market rate for it.  Concentrating, Daisy summoned water into the urn, and Retty stared open-mouthed.


    ¡°That¡¯s a neat trick.  Do you have a tube in your sleeve?  Where¡¯s the reservoir?  You made it look like sorcery!¡±


    Daisy sighed.  ¡°What element do you assign to the Jester, Raquelia?¡±


    Retty gave her a strange look and replied, ¡°Air, of course.¡±


    ¡°And the Knight, Camael?¡±


    ¡°Earth.¡±


    ¡°Where is the balance?!  That¡¯s three earth Virtues, three air virtues, and only one of fire!¡±  Daisy practically shouted the last words of her question, unable to believe a society could at once know so much and so little.  She had no idea how it had happened and she didn¡¯t like it.  Even on Jupitre they had a concept of earth sorcery, even if it wasn¡¯t the most popular.  Ruler patted her on the back, making soothing sounds.  Daisy knew she was overreacting, that Retty wasn¡¯t the source of this disconcerting misunderstanding as to the fundamental nature of reality, but she was so tired of coming up against it.  With a suit and a caste, she could work, but the work she was suited to was taboo¡ªtriangulation or preaching¡ªor would have the Waterborne after her if they weren¡¯t already¡ªconjuring water, which would admittedly make her a mint.


    Ruler apologized to Retty and said it had been a long day.


    Retty asked if it wasn¡¯t the more natural thing, that there be fewer Virtues of fire, when Hell itself was a never ending flame, and the One God Himself was a holy flame as well?  Daisy just groaned and shook her head.


    While Daisy stood, numb and tired to her very soul, Ruler saw to it that Draconic runes were grooved into wet clay and, leaving the payment and jug of water on the counter, walked them both out of the shop.  ¡°L-let¡¯s find somewhere cool to sleep for the night and get y-you some rest.¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s nowhere ¡®cool¡¯ on this miserable planet,¡± Daisy moaned.  ¡°I haven¡¯t been cool since I stepped through the gate.  Maybe I should have let the death cult come for me.¡±


    ¡°No no no, w-w-we¡¯re not talking like that.  Y-you were sent by the One God for a reason.  Everything that happens is for a reason.¡±


    Daisy hiccuped a sob and shook her head.  ¡°No, no, not let them take me.  But opposed them.  Fought them with my dragon staff.¡±


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°Daisy, I-I-I have seen you brave, I-I have seen you wrathful, and I have even seen y-y-you perpetrate the odd violent act.  But I-I-I would be sincerely surprised for you to kill someone.¡±  Daisy looked up at him, just a bit bleakly.


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t it be better if I did?  I could go back to Jupitre, where it¡¯s cold and the people¡­¡±


    ¡°The people?¡±


    ¡°Well, okay.  So outside my geometer sect and church people kinda sucked.  The Kingdom of Air isn¡¯t known as the Enemy¡¯s realm for nothing.  But I had something!¡±


    ¡°Y-you have m-m-me.¡±


    Daisy sighed and nodded.  ¡°That I do.  I¡¯m teaching you wrath.  And, evidently, how to make a mess of oneself in a shop.¡±


    Ruler laughed.  ¡°You want to see messes, y-you should have seen m-m-me when I was learning to control m-my stutter.  The frustrated tears that young lad shed!  But w-we should get you some sleep, just the same.¡±


    In the shadow of a building, next to the copper strip where it was coolest, Daisy laid out her mattress and was in the process of filling it when a gruff voice said.  ¡°Drop the staff and put your hands behind your head!¡±


    Rather than comply, Daisy straightened and turned slowly, holding her dragon staff in a two-handed grip which would let her use it quickly as either a staff or a rifle.  Behind her had been two uniformed threes of clubs, and now that she faced them she saw they had their truncheons out but not their revolvers.  Not facing two pistols with one rifle¡ªshe looked, and Ruler had not drawn his revolver¡ªshe adjusted her grip and took a step forward.  ¡°I don¡¯t think so.¡±


    The thugs¡ªshe had no doubt they were not acting officially; they had not asked for her papers, which she had now, and they had defaulted to Lider rather than Marzeilles¡ªgrinned at one another and asked if she was going to take them both on.  In reply, she spun her staff in a way that unreadied both their truncheons, and then caught it with a kick to rap one of them smartly on the head, knocking him off-balance.  She¡¯d hoped it would floor him, but she¡¯d missed his temple and¡ªonce again supporting her theory of ¡°thug¡±¡ªhe had a thick skull.


    The thug she hadn¡¯t struck cursed, and with one doubtless-stinging hand reached for his revolver.  That simply wouldn¡¯t do.  Once he pulled a gun on her, she would reply in kind, and as Ruler had said, she wasn¡¯t a killer.  Dragons aside.  While the first thug reeled, she swung her dragon staff in a wide ark and probably broke the second one¡¯s hand.  Unfortunately, it was the hand holding the truncheon, not the one with the gun.  But the thug wasn¡¯t looking at her now, he was looking at¡­ Ruler.


    ¡°I-I-I am warning y-you, I-I have compunctions about using this but I will if I-I have to!¡±


    ¡°Pity for your ¡®compunctions¡¯ but we don¡¯t have any.¡±  The first thug said, also drawing his revolver.  Daisy decided it was time for decisive action and leveled her dragon staff.  Seeing the bore for the first time, they realized they were matched, two guns for two, and she was holding a rifle where they had pistols.  Everyone stood, muscles tense, until Ruler declared they were leaving town, and that they could leave two bodies behind or not.  This evidently suited the thugs¡¯ needs, because Daisy and Ruler were able to back down the alley into the next street and round the bend without issue.  The thugs had seemingly followed them at a distance, because they had shadows until they reached the city limits, but after that they seemed content that Ruler and Daisy would do as they said.


    Outside town, they circled until they found the rail connecting Watergate to Oracle City, the next settlement and capitol of the Kingdom of Hell.  Except evidently, and Daisy gave Ruler a good-natured shove at this, there were nations outside of Helland.  Tanith, wherever it was, would probably be their ultimate destination, because Helland was one big lost cause.


    Well now, Ruler contradicted her there.  There was Hard Minded, and Retty.  There were good people in Helland.  They just lived under an oppressive caste system which had lied to them at great length.  With a sigh, Daisy acknowledged the truth of that.  Weren¡¯t they going to get some sleep?  They had been, yes.  Except she realized she had left her mattress in the alley where the two thugs had interrupted them.


    ¡°You see what I mean, about perhaps violence against people might be more practical?  We¡¯d be sleeping in a nice cool alley on a water mattress¡ª¡±


    ¡°Next to two cooling bodies?  I-I-I¡¯ll pass on that.¡±


    ¡°They wouldn¡¯t cool much, here.¡±  This time it was Ruler who playfully shoved Daisy, though he apologized immediately after.  ¡°So what¡¯s next?¡±  Ruler tugged thoughtfully at his beard, considering.  He asked if she didn¡¯t have some ideas herself.  She¡¯d wanted a rank for something after all, hadn¡¯t she?  ¡°Well.  I mean, I planned on being a high club.  But as a ranking heart, I can still do some of what I had planned¡­¡± Ruler egged her on.  ¡°I thought I would use water sorcery¡ªevidently a minor miracle on this morality-forsaken planet¡ªto preach the Unchained Gospel.¡±  With a grin to indicate it was for show, Ruler stopped in place and crossed his arms.  Why not Clockmaker Gospel?  ¡°You want to preach Clockmaker Gospel, you knock yourself out.  But some of us have more charisma than others.¡±  Ah, but he had a prophecy.  Shouldn¡¯t she heed the Will of the One God and help him spread it?  ¡°I¡¯ll make fertile ground, but you said it yourself.  It¡¯s your prophecy.  And while I¡¯ll believe the One God wants me to help you be heard, I¡¯m not shouldering your prophetic burden.¡±


    It was then that a bolt of lightning shot horizontally over their heads.  There were several, and Daisy lamented not knowing the language, much less the dot code, though she was relieved to learn there were some modern conveniences on Marz.  Well, no, that¡¯s not fair.  They had been very clever about their use of fire runes.  But still, if they had lightning relays¡­ ¡°What do y-y-you want to bet that¡¯s bad news for us-s?¡±  Ruler asked with a grin.  ¡°A lightning relay at this time of night?¡±  Daisy gave him yet another shove.


    ¡°Way to be an optimist.¡±


    ¡°Says the w-woman who wants to upend the social order of an entire planet because sh-she finds it distasteful.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re certifiable!  Even Jupitre¡ª¡± memories of the Repositorium and battles of public opinion with death cults drew her up short.  ¡°Okay, so maybe Jupitre has its problems too.  But at least here it seems to be¡­ oh, demon dung, should we just go to Orth?  Is Orth as insane as Marz and Jupitre?¡±


    Ruler shook his head.  ¡°Not so insane, but I-I-I have a divine mission, remember?¡±


    ¡°Sarx!  Yes, okay, so we¡¯ll go to Oracle City, use my shiny new caste papers, and start preaching the Gospels.  I think we did agree that they¡¯re not that different between Clockmaker and Unchained, didn¡¯t we?  Certainly suitably different from the Infernalist thornseeded nonsense they preach in the churches here.  And I¡¯ll make us money¡ªand enemies, you and your compunctions had better be ready for that¡ªby selling water.  I can¡¯t do it endlessly, but I can probably make us a fair bit of coin doing that.  Do they¡­ I mean, it sounds disgusting but it really is a simple matter, do they keep cesspools?  You said they distill water from it.  Oh, but it would be a valuable resource.  So I¡¯m drawing water out of the aether.  More work for me.  Thank you, oh Lord, for judging me one of your tougher soldiers.¡±  Ruler laughed at that one.


    As the lightning beacons arced lightning overhead, they set their sights on the distant tower lit by the beam and set about walking towards Oracle City.  Ever the optimist, Ruler pointed out that at least they were headed north, so it would be cooler.  ¡°¡®Cooler¡¯ is a relative term,¡± Daisy retorted, but even she laughed at her stubborn pique.

 To the Common People

    Daisy had thought she was used to Marz architecture from being in Watergate.  She had been mistaken.  She was utterly unprepared for the combination of Marzian brio with the seemingly gravity-defying styles of Jovian aesthetics.  It took her some time to trace the bridges between towers, the flying buttresses arcing through the air, the gargoyles mounted atop a single brick of stone, to realize that everything was rooted in thick, solid foundations.


    Oracle City was the capitol of Helland, and it seemed it was going to make sure that everyone knew it.  She was surprised it wasn¡¯t a pilgrimage site, except for the oppressive caste regime would suffer under the exchange of ideas such a mecca might permit.  The foundations, the lowest levels, bore towering reliefs of fire and torment, while arms and mutilated giants and pyramids of carved heads supported archways with seemingly little regard for those traveling on the ground level of the city.  Teeth loomed ominously over one overpass, only to be trod upon unaware by those on the next tier up, themselves being watched by the ever present and ever more demonic-looking gargoyles, all hanging by claws biting into simulated flesh of a massive wiry arm holding a cyclopean eyeball in its hand.  Running like blood down the sides of the buildings and buttresses were copper and glass, and fire topped rooftops and minarets at all elevations until it was impossible to be certain what was and wasn¡¯t aflame.


    The buildings seemed to reach into the sky like grasping claws, and Daisy experienced a second shock in the main square of the city which housed the great cathedral of Oracle City.  When asked at the gate what the intention of their visit was, Ruler had supplied that they were, in fact, pilgrims, an answer which earned him a repressive scowl until Daisy presented her seven of hearts.  The guard had muttered under her breath, ¡°What, got a high caste in the draw and you¡¯re too good to speak directly to a mere three?  Going to have your servant explain?¡±  Daisy wasn¡¯t sure how much of that she had actually heard and how much Ruler had relayed for her entertainment, the hubbub of the one mobile group, the merchants, making hearing difficult.


    Daisy thought hopefully that she was getting used to the heat of Marz, having to summon water less often, as it was going to be their sole source of income.  And they would need income soon.  Daisy¡¯s rations were all but depleted, and the ground was an uncomfortable bed.  They sought out a pottery shop, and in short order bought a piece large enough that Daisy would not have to be overly precise with her sorcery, easing the strain of repeated castings.  It had a wide neck and a mouth for pouring, and now they just needed to attract a crowd.  Which, given the unique architectural style of the city, might be just a little more difficult than Daisy or Ruler had anticipated.


    There were people on the streets, though they were likely the poorest, to judge by their demeanor and clothing.  There were even beggars, something that had been markedly absent from most of Watergate.  Daisy went over to one and, with Ruler¡¯s borrowed Lider, asked if he would like some water.  He looked up at her with bleak eyes, and croaked something she couldn¡¯t have deciphered had she spoken the language natively.


    Overcome with concern, she cast, and filled her jug with water.  She cupped her hands in front of herself, and beckoned for the man to do the same.  Eyebrows raised in disbelief, he mirrored her, and she poured water into the bowl of his hands.  He drank thirstily, and then hesitantly, looking about like an animal of prey, cupped his hands again.  Daisy repeated the process three times, not yet draining her urn but seemingly quenching his thirst.  He thanked her, vigorously, repeatedly, and she realized this was achieving her ends rather well, as his histrionics were doing what histrionics did and attracting attention.


    The people who came to her were aces and deuces of hearts, although there were some clubs of uncertain caste standing at the edge of the assembled group.  Affecting a wide smile, but seeing a downtrodden and thirsty people, she announced, ¡°Free water!  Pay what you can!¡±  Hubbub arose at this, water being so apparently scarce on Marz, or at least in Helland.  The first person to stumble forward held out her hands for water, and finished off the urn of water.  The crowd began to disperse, muttering that they should have been so bold, when Daisy cast once more and repeated her cry.


    The crowd was confused.  But another desperately thirsty person stumbled forward, and others broke from the crowd and ran off, to return with vessels of their own.  Daisy made little money at first, but then the woman who had first come forward lay coins of copper at her feet.  As she worked, the pile of coins gradually grew, until finally one of the police standing at the perimeter came up to her and demanded to know if she had the relevant paperwork to be running a business.


    Daisy was no stranger to corruption, and had no doubt that it ran deep on Marz as it had on Jupitre.  But she didn¡¯t know the proper amount of currency to offer the officer, and guessing too high or too low would be a fatal mistake to her ambitions.  She glanced at Ruler, who shook his head, before relying on charm alone.  ¡°How much would those papers cost, officer?  I¡¯m not from Oracle City, things are a bit more relaxed where I come from.  I would be most appreciative of help filing the correct paperwork.  I am, after all, a seven.¡±  The officer did a double take at her mention of her caste, and she saw the policewoman was a mere two.  Mere two?  Be careful, Daisy chided herself, that you don¡¯t buy into the system now that you¡¯re not at the bottom of it.


    Daisy thanked the One God for the fortune that favors sleep-deprived sorcerers flying by the seats of their pants, as the officer named what Daisy judged to be a modest sum from what she had made already.  Then the officer cleared her throat and asked if she might partake of this free water.  Daisy was surprised, but happily complied.  She couldn¡¯t avoid trouble forever, but she would delay its arrival as long as she could.


    With a trailing crowd stopping them every block or two, Daisy was led into a building where the crowd stopped, up a staircase, across a bridge or two, and within an hourglass was the proud holder of a license of business.  At Ruler¡¯s suggestion, she also asked for a permit for public speaking, but this, she was told, would only be issued by the Church.  Which, she supposed, made sense for a repressive regressive religious regime.  ¡°The Kingdom of Hell¡± was far too dignified for such a thing, perhaps she would think of them as 4R.  But no, that kind of designation was the sort of thing geometers like her found tantalizingly full of meaning.  ¡°Helland¡± it would remain.  And at least she knew who she¡¯d be picking a fight with when she began speaking in public.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    The next stage of Daisy¡¯s plan would require more coin, and more to the point someone literate in Marzeilles.  So with few wrong turns, she made her way back to the street, and once more cried out ¡°Free water!  Pay what you can!¡±  The crowd from before had begun to disperse, but the core of it had remained, perhaps hoping for their turn.  It was enough to break Daisy¡¯s heart.  When one person remained on the perimeter, counting their coins over and over, looking guiltily at the pile at Daisy¡¯s feet, she sent Ruler over to offer a different kind of payment.  Shortly, she had a second helper, organizing people into a line.  Their name was Hot Irons, but Daisy overheard, possibly again with Ruler¡¯s help, them introducing themselves as ¡°Ser Irons¡± as they organized the crowd.


    As the day grew long, Daisy declared she had concluded her business for the day.  Of course, this ushered in protests from the few remaining in line, but she had Ser Irons keep the line from growing any longer as she finished with those who had been waiting.  Irons stood in a middle distance from them, their garb considerably more worn and dirty even than Ruler¡¯s.  Daisy asked if they knew a place they could get food.  Irons looked hungry, though no longer as parched, and looked around.  They knew where to get food, this much was obvious, but there was some internal dilemma going on in their mind.  Daisy added, with a gesture to the pile of coins at her feet, that it could be somewhere nicer, and that of course, ¡°Ser Irons, you are invited.  You were invaluable today.¡±


    Irons eagerly led them to a building, up a flight of stairs, and across a bridge that met another in midair.  Shortly, they were eating an absolutely vile tortoise soup that Daisy supposed she would have to get used to.  The people of Helland clearly couldn¡¯t spare cropland¡ªor more likely the water¡ªto grow spices.  They ate at approximately the same pace, Ruler and Daisy out of distaste and Irons presumably out of the caution of one who routinely misses meals.


    ¡°So, Ser Irons,¡± Daisy began.  They looked up from their food with a mixture of caution and curiosity.  ¡°I was wondering if you knew your letters.¡±  Irons looked perplexed, but nodded and indicated they had received a standard Church education.  ¡°Excellent.  I need to have something printed, but I don¡¯t know how to read Marzeilles.  Do you think you could help us with that?¡±  Irons looked at Daisy, looked down at their mostly-empty bowl, looked at the now-heavy pockets of Daisy¡¯s vest, and then back at her face and nodded.


    Daisy was relieved on several fronts.  First, if literacy were available even to one of Irons¡¯ clearly limited means, she could count on the written word to spread information.  Secondly, Irons being willing to help meant she only had to sell water as often as she needed coin.  She wanted to help, but being a water seller was not the best way she could achieve that, unless she mixed it with Scripture.  And thirdly, that she could have something printed meant that movable type was not one of those strange holes in Marzian technical knowledge.  To not know basic astronomy!


    She couldn¡¯t imagine it; or she couldn¡¯t have until she were forced to live with it.  She wondered idly if Retty might hold that map until she could lead a populist movement back to Jupitre.  She hadn¡¯t talked to Ruler about it, but it was the most feasible means of spreading his message throughout the thoroughly dragon-run Kingdom of Air.


    The next week followed a predictable order, their nights spent sleeping on the streets and warding over overzealous police officers with a combination of caste papers and dragon staff.  The second day, Daisy spent much of her coin on a print order, the third she went out with Irons and Ruler just sort of scattering broadsides from the parapets, and the fourth she sold water again.  The fifth, sixth, and seventh days followed this same pattern.  The only thing that made it distinct was what Daisy and Ruler did as they sold water.


    ¡±You know there was a Savior!  He is enshrined on minarets, burning alive for your sins!   But that is not the end of the story,¡± Daisy lowered her voice, encouraging people to lean close even as she continued distributing water.  ¡°The Savior rose again!¡± she cried.  ¡°He appeared to special people, and gave them the Word of God.  You know this too.  You hear that He died for your sins¡ªbut!  You cheapen his death!  You proclaim that the burden of your sin, your personal sin, is so much greater than His divine mercy!  I am here to tell you that the Enemy has not won!  The enemy cannot win!¡±  Okay, Daisy had to admit that a good declarative statement lent itself to giving speeches, and the priestess in Watergate had not been all wrong.  On stirring up crowds, she clarified to herself.  She had her theology all out of whack.  ¡°The Savior is the Son of the One God, and His mercy is infinite!  The Lord desires that all souls be brought back into the fold, not just a privileged few!¡±


    At first, it seemed like nobody was listening.  Daisy took a sip herself from her urn, making speeches being thirsty work.  It was on the seventh day when she heard a small voice, from somewhere in the middle of the line, asking, ¡°What of us, then?  The Ranks of the Damned?¡±


    ¡°I am here to tell you that you are.  Not.  Damned.¡±  Daisy said simply.  ¡°You are on the fire planet Marz, and if you made the trek to Watergate, you could go¡­ well, don¡¯t do that, because Jupitre isn¡¯t a whole lot more pleasant, unless you prefer the cold¡ª¡±


    ¡°So we are in Hell!  What good is one damnation for another?!¡± Another voice cried.  Discontent spread along what had been an orderly line moments before.


    Daisy was flabbergasted.  She stood there, and then Ruler, bless his heart, piped up.  ¡°Go to South Helland, and find the cave holding the dragon gate there!  That will lead y-y-you to a temperate place, with good people like y-yourselves, without the constant and oppressive need for rune cooling of the buildings, without a caste system!¡±  Daisy¡¯s head whipped around to Ruler, who looked slightly strangled as he realized he had stepped too far.  You can¡¯t uproot someone¡¯s perception of life all at once, they¡¯ll reject even good news.


    ¡°But that¡¯s not the important part!¡±  Daisy declared after a pregnant pause.  ¡°The important part is that you are not damned!¡±  That was when the headache of a psychic assault came down upon Daisy¡¯s head.  She nearly dropped her urn, had the next person in line not grabbed it for her.  Ruler, too, was reeling.  She looked around through bleary eyes and some instinct drew her eye to a club in camel leather.  He was concentrating intently, to judge by the look on his face, and he had one hand to his temple.  ¡°Ruler!  Over there!¡±  She pointed at the figure, but Ruler looked back to her and shrugged, as if to ask what he was supposed to do about him.  With a groan, Daisy leveled her dragon staff, ever an entertainment to juggle with her urn which was now in another¡¯s hands.  The psionic club clearly recognized a rifle when he saw it, for Daisy¡¯s headache redoubled.  This was, in the end, his mistake.  By taking his focus off Ruler, he enabled Ruler to focus on defending Daisy, and while he claimed his psi was small change, it was sufficient to shield her from the club¡¯s attack.  Rather than get shot¡ªwhich Daisy thought she rather convincingly pulled off being about to do¡ªthe club nodded, and ducked into an alley between buildings, leaving them to their water selling.


    ¡°Well.  W-w-we got s-someone¡¯s attention.¡±

 Making People Into Persons

    ¡°The Good Lord our God wants His people to rejoice in His Name!  His Good and Holy Name!  Your preachers tell you that your Lord hates you and has cast you into a fiery Hell for all eternity, to be reborn again and again unprepared for the literal Hell you are about to endure for lifetime after lifetime!  Eternal, conscious torment, for sins you no longer even recall!


    ¡°That is not my Lord.  That is not the One God.  That is not my Heavenly Creator.  And it is not.  In.  The Gospels!  ¡®For the One God so loved the world, that he gave his only born Son, that whoever believes in him¡ªdo you believe in Christ Savior?!¡±  The crowd that had assembled let out a collective cheer.  ¡°I said do you believe in Christ Savior?!¡±  The crowd let out another, louder cheer.  ¡°The One God didn¡¯t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him!¡¯


    ¡°Now tell me, lads and ladies and liminally-gendered!  Does that sound like the Lord you were told consigned you to Hell for all eternity?!  Does it seem, to you, to make sense that the Savior would die, burnt at the stake in Hell for your sins, only to leave you there forever?!¡±


    The crowd shouted ¡°No¡± emphatically.


    ¡°The Lord our God has paid for our sins!  As it is written, ¡®You were bought with a price;¡¯ ¡®you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Christ Savior and in the Spirit of the One God.¡¯  Can I get an ¡®Amen¡¯?!¡±


    ¡°Amen!¡±


    ¡°But I am just a sorcerer, I am no priest.  Let me hand you over to a true holy man, a fellow in true possession of the Lord¡¯s Spirit, a man who is gentle and humble at heart, just like our Savior!  Hear his words, and take them to heart just as you took mine!¡±  Daisy walked over to Ruler and said quietly in Jovian, ¡°They¡¯re all yours.¡±


    Ruler took his place in front of the crowd.  The trepanation scar on his head was clear for all to see, and there was a collective intake of breath, a drawing back.  This was the kind of sermon they were used to, one with a psychic whip crack of emphasis.  But Ruler was no Helland priest, and he caught them off-guard with that.  He spoke softly, and put not even the least hint of psi behind his words.


    ¡°S-s-siblings in the One God.  Children of the L-Lord.  As surely as the One God made the heavens, He made them to a precise design.¡±  His voice carried, as he had learned from Daisy, despite a relatively low volume.  ¡°Calculations can be made to prove that this is just one more of His beautiful planets.  But that is not why y-you should listen to m-m-me.


    ¡°You should listen to m-me because I-I-I carry news of what is to come.  There will be a time of great trial.  A time that Marz, with its great patronage by these powers, will suffer unduly through.  I-I do not stand in contradiction of m-my companion!  I stand by her message, for the L-Lord has said, ¡®The One God Himself is who goes before you.  He will be with you.  He will not fail you nor forsake you.  Don¡¯t be afraid.  Don¡¯t be discouraged.¡¯  There will be trials, but the S-Supreme through His Spirit and for the sake of the love of His Son will carry you through them!  But dragons are not the friends of humanity!  I-I-I have been given to carry a great prophecy of a war to come, a war between dragon and man, that dragons would have be a war between man and man!¡±


    Daisy watched quietly, filing away where he lost their attention and where he brought it back.  She also noticed that Ruler didn¡¯t stutter when he recited Scripture.  She was also impressed by his focus, continuing to translate his words for her even as he recited them aloud.  Still, the time came when the requisite ¡°miracle¡±¡ªshe hated framing it that way, but the people had no concept of the sorcerous sphere of water¡ªwas necessary.  She set their urn, the same one they had started with, on the ground and conjured water into it.  She felt parched.  She drank enough water, but it was always possible with sorcery to overextend oneself and she worried she was approaching that point.


    As they dispersed water, taking donations as they did so, Ser Irons brought over an older woman, who introduced herself in a tongue that was unclear to Daisy.  She looked over at Ruler in a question; the last few days had been strenuous for him as well, he had been exercising his psi unlike any other time in his life.  But he shook his head; the woman was not speaking Lider.  Daisy apologized and spoke to Irons, asking if they could translate.


    ¡°This woman, she says you are welcome in her home.  Her husband is there, he cannot come to see you because he is too old for the crowds.¡±  Daisy wondered how old the woman was who came nonetheless, but she knew men were more fragile under their bluster.  Presumably¡ªah, yep, Irons went on, ¡°She would like to invite you as her guest, but if you would speak some of the encouraging words you have said, but to her husband, she would appreciate it.¡±


    With a quick look at Ruler, Daisy nodded her assent.  She slipped a few coins to Irons, asking if they wouldn¡¯t mind getting something from somewhere nearby, intentionally getting too much for just the three of them.  Irons smiled appreciatively at her intent, and disappeared down an alley.  Daisy realized only moments later that she was unable to talk to the woman.  She wondered who in the audience had been translating for her.  Her next worry was whether Irons would be able to find them.  Then again, Irons could read street signs.  They probably had gotten an address.  Heaven above, they might have been the one translating for the woman.


    Following, however, took no speech to communicate, and so she followed the woman to her home, less paying attention to their surroundings and more to her gray bun.  Anything to avoid paying close attention to the worn and ragged ace of hearts on the back of her vest, in better repair than any other article of her clothing.


    The door they walked through was an irregular wedge of stone, well away from any copper banding to reduce the temperature.  Once inside, despite having thought herself used to the heat, Daisy began to sweat.  She had seen worn and threadbare souls, the manifestations if not the sorcerific realities of reliance upon the Repositorium of Knowledge¡­ but she had not had much exposure to the realities of crushing poverty.  That was, perhaps, the ultimate lie of the Repositorium.  By the time one had no alternative to destitution, one was barely sentient, and fell off a berg to hit the theoretical Diamond Palace at the heart of the planet.


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    Inside the door, likely not an intentional eccentricity but a castoff leaving of some masonry project, were a low table and two slabs, one to either side of it, obviously intended as both seat and bed, all of fire-baked clay.  Though she supposed it wasn¡¯t necessary in the heat, the lack of blankets harrowed Daisy, and there were not even pillows.  Perhaps that was normal on Marz, she tried telling herself, but she couldn¡¯t quite believe human beings would keep on keeping on in the face of such poverty.  She thanked the One God she had sent Irons to obtain food, even cheap food, as whatever they had left sitting on the table was clearly spoiled.  There were two urns and a small mount in a corner of the room.  They smelled like a burnt chamber pot, and Daisy recalled that she had been told they boiled their waste to obtain water from it.  It was, admittedly, a practice she¡¯d considered in desperation, but sorcery was at least clean.


    All this she took in over a matter of moments, but by the time she had wiped the dismay off her face it was clear the old woman had seen it.  Laying on the far slab was a thin old man.  He called to the woman in a hoarse voice, and she hurried over and used a rag to sponge water into his mouth.  Then she prepared to feed him, and Daisy hurried to try to arrest her action, even if it meant abandoning the pretense of having too much.  If he was too ill to get out of bed, he was likely too ill to endure a round of food poisoning.  That could even be why he was ill.  Through gesture and pantomime, as well as Irons¡¯ name, she managed to convey that food was coming.  The old man, however, grumbled and complained, only to be shushed by the apologetic woman.  She held his hands in hers, and it was clear to Daisy they loved each other as only people who only had each other could.  She started to ask about children, relatives, before realizing one element of their translator relay was still absent.


    Daisy was ready to send Ruler out to find them when they ducked in, carrying a clay jug full of some kind of stew.  Mashes and stews were popular on Marz, a way of incorporating water into the meal by the ingredients and get around the high cost of pure water.  That much Daisy had learned.  By now having lost her appetite, Daisy invited the couple through Irons to eat as much as they willed.  The man tried to protest, to rise, but even that effort was taxing for him and eventually he waved a hand and accepted being spoon-fed by his wife.


    The man, at least, was hydrated.  Casting back through her memories, Daisy realized the woman had been in line¡ªshe was not going to stand in someone¡¯s home and think of them as ¡°the woman.¡±  She asked through Irons and learned that they were Mam and Ser Dutiful Labor.  Daisy made a show of eating some of the stew, but mostly she talked, reviewing points from her sermon that day.  When her throat grew hoarse, a condition that had afflicted her more and more, she gave the stage to Ruler.  Finally, with more than half a jug of stew and a full urn of water, Mam Labor clasped her dirty hands on Daisy¡¯s, and she was painfully aware of the fact she had summoned water for her ablutions that morning more than of any sense of contamination.  ¡°Thank you,¡± she said.  ¡°Ever since they reduced the water rations a week ago¡ª¡± Daisy thought back and realized that was a few days after she had arrived.  Guilt already running in overdrive, she wondered if she was the cause.  So concerned with the possibility, she missed the rest of Dutiful¡¯s thanks, but smiled and nodded before slipping out and into the streets¡ªwere they marginally cooler, even, than the hovel abode of the Labors?


    The next day, Daisy took up her position where she had sold water for the previous week.  However, this time she did not start by summoning water, but by shouting.  ¡°Enough!  It has been enough!  Do you know where I have been?  I have been in the home of two of your elders!  Their conditions were appalling, both living and health!¡±  She saw Ruler flinch in concentration as a word or phrase didn¡¯t translate neatly.  ¡°I see many familiar faces, and that should not be!¡±  The assembled line looked taken aback, some abashed, others turning to go.  ¡°Not because you shouldn¡¯t seek out assistance!  Do not take that to be my meaning!


    ¡°People of Marz!  This is enough!  I have spoken of the heresy that Marz is an Infernalist Hell of eternal suffering, but now I speak of the ramifications of that alleged Hell!  The caste system is a lie!  The One God wants for you to better your lot!  And again I turn to the Gospel, the Word of the Savior who is the Word, the One that your Infernalist leaders have hidden from you, to say ¡®I tell you that there will be more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance¡¯!  The One God is not a wrathful God consigning you forevermore to a predestined fate!  The Wholist¡ª¡± Daisy cut herself off.  While the Wholist Church thrived on Jupitre, she had seen no evidence of it on Marz.  So her point as to Wholist doctrine concerning divination would be lost on them.  She tried to recover her equilibrium and bull on ahead.  ¡°The One God so loves you that He suffered the ultimate punishment on your planet to buy your redemption!  Those in power have lied to you, or been lied to themselves, but the system by which Helland runs is not right!  It is not just!  And it is not Godly!  They have taken the Lord¡¯s Creation and made a Hell on earth!  And I say we go to the cathedral at the center of Oracle City, and we tell them we will not stand for it!¡±


    The crowd stood stock still, seemingly shocked into silence.  Daisy wondered if she had failed to prepare them sufficiently for her radical views.  Even if they were the truth, anything sufficiently outside the scope of one¡¯s worldview would be rejected.  As the silence went on, Daisy began to despair.  Then a voice cried, ¡°We deserve¡­ enough water!¡±


    ¡°We deserve to become deuces and even threes, not see the children of threes placed over us!¡±


    ¡°We deserve to not be in a Hell of their making!¡±


    ¡°Down with the Donjons!  Down with the castes!¡±


    Soon, the entire crowd was declaring their discontent.  But still they were looking to Daisy for leadership.  That wouldn¡¯t do.  She could not afford to be the linchpin of a revolutionary movement, unless there were no other choice.  So she raised her voice again.  ¡°You are the masters of your own destinies!  There are more aces than any other caste, you hold the power to decide!¡±  She started walking in the direction of the cathedral, but kept her pace slow.  As energy rose in the group, she slowed, and then stood in their midst, and finally was lagging behind the noisy mob.  She watched as they strode up the steps of the cathedral, and then broke as a wave upon its doors.  They were sealed.  From the shadows and behind statues, clubs strode into view.


    Daisy wheeled and saw that the entire square was cordoned off.  She nearly cursed, she should have known that publicly speaking would have its disadvantages.  As clubs approached, she looked to Ruler.  The first woman to grab him, he grabbed her forearm and with an electrical crackling sound her arm went limp.  Then he drew his revolver, swinging wildly from side to side, trying to buy himself space, but he was slowly being hedged in.  Daisy, meanwhile, was spinning her staff as quickly as she was able to deflect truncheon blows, but the mob had broken and she was rapidly growing more and more outnumbered.  Her staff was wrenched from her grasp, and she had no martial training without it.  She went limp, but endured several blows before being wrenched upright and manacled.  She looked around for Ruler, but didn¡¯t see him, though she heard him shout, ¡°I love you, Daisy!¡± followed by a thud.


    Perhaps, she thought to herself, the Savior was not commemorated for His love, but as a warning to those like herself who thought they could challenge the social order.  Then again, He rose again.  Assuming they didn¡¯t put her to death, she would be back as well.

 Mock Trial Soup

    Their case was evidently intended to be a great show of legislative power, as their judge was none other than a nine of hearts.  Then again, in such a caste-ridden society, maybe an eight would be the lowest given the permission to judge a seven of hearts.  Which, evidently Hard Minded had done good work, because she was treated as one of that status.  Though nobody had been able to understand her from the moment Ruler was clubbed unconscious, thrusting her papers in the face of the nearest club had gotten her looser manacles and a cell which was at least clean-ish.  Unfortunately, this had been far enough from Ruler that he couldn¡¯t make psionic contact and help her be understood.  So she had set about her plans¡ªbut that was getting ahead of herself.  Or behind.  She wasn¡¯t sure.  In any event, before the critical point, they had been marched into a courtroom, set for tribunal before a judge in priestly vestments.  Wonderful.  Infernalists were known for their just and forgiving nature.  Daisy quietly thanked the Lord that sarcasm wasn¡¯t a sin.


    She had, however, been marched in alongside Ruler¡ªand incidentally Hot Irons¡ªhis robes dirtier than they¡¯d been when she¡¯d met him, and so she had the unique opportunity of observing the mockery of justice which passed for the Marz judicial system.  The only positive statement she could make about it was that injustice was evidently swift.  In less than three sandglasses, they had been pronounced guilty.  The club who had made a psychic assault upon them testified as to the substance of their sermons, one or two terrified and bruised aces of hearts affirmed that they had been incited to riot with the promise of free flowing water.  The final piece of ¡°evidence,¡± waved angrily by the priest-judge, was one of the tablets Daisy had printed.  It actually took longer for the priest to sermonize regarding the caste system than to pronounce their sentence.


    ¡°Though she was dealt the seven of hearts, a prestigious position indeed, look what she has done with the mercy of the One God!  She neglects to learn the tongue of the people of the Kingdom of Hell, preferring the tongue of the itinerant ¡®Liders.  She has distributed her water rations among the undeserving, and grasped for more power!  The power of the donjons is great, of the Ranks of the Damned they are the least hated of the Lord¡¯s children, and yet she thought she could overcome them by virtue of an unruly mob!  Fortunately, she made the grave error of enlisting base elements, aces and deuces all, and knowing their place they reported her heretical actions to the priesthood of the Kingdom of Hell.


    ¡°The sentence for such heresy is simple.  For claiming to be able to conjure water, for inciting rebellion, for defying the caste system, and for throwing away everything she was granted by the One God¡¯s Grace, Bachelor Daisy¡ª¡± when they found her cards, they evidently took Bachelor for a surname.  In her nastier moments she wondered how such a backwards culture could read more than their own tongue.  ¡°¡ªwill be jailed until her cohorts in crime, Hot Irons and the nameless Ruler, expire of dehydration.  Then, bound, the three of them will be thrown into the lake of fire east of Oracle City, where she will burn to death with the stench of her roasting fellow heretics.¡±  The priest-judge banged his gavel.


    Just as well she had set about her plans.  She was a water sorcerer, specializing in the spiritual aspects of the element.  But with the Age of Steel, advances had been made based on the lunar calendar.  The four classical elements each had a second-order element.  How shadow and light fit in, Daisy made a mental note to ask Ruler about.  But water¡¯s second-order element, acid, was nearly as versatile as her native water sorcery.  While it could not show the light of the soul, it produced a number of alchemical compounds out of others.  For instance, something in the spent vapors of exhaled breath could be converted into a substance bearing a great resemblance to gunpowder.  So, hands cupped, she exhaled, and converted the spent vitality of her breath into black powder which she packed into the lock of her cell.


    What she would do when she had escaped occupied a large portion of her conscious mind as she set about using excrement to stick powder to the wall, that she might have a fuse rather than blowing off her own hand.  She needed her staff to be effective in combat, and it would be a fight getting out of the jailhouse.  Like everything in Oracle City, it was built on a grand scale, and housed a likely uncountable number of clubs.  So she had first to gain access to the armory¡­ she sighed.  She could likely wield a truncheon, if only she could get one off a club guard.  Wielding two would be better.


    It only took a day, at most.  She admittedly didn¡¯t have the best grasp of time in her cell, focusing as she was on her sorcery.  Ruler and Irons would be alive still.  She snapped her fingers, and lit the long trail of black powder.  It caught on the first try, and ran up the door of her cell, exploding the lock with a painful bang.  Daisy, however, wasn¡¯t leaving just yet.  She laid against the far wall of her cell, doing her best to look unconscious.  She heard shouting, and while she didn¡¯t understand it, it was the result she desired.  She felt something hard prod her, and grabbed for it, but evidently the club was more sensible than that.  She jerked on the truncheon, but it moved with the guard¡¯s hand, and she broke Daisy¡¯s grip on her truncheon with a skilled twist.


    What happened next was surprising even to Daisy.  There was a second bang, and more shouting.  The club standing over her ignored it, but the shouting went on and there were several more concussive bangs.  Peering around the club in her cell, she saw clubs running, not in an orderly march, but in the posture of Hell-bent¡ªshe nearly chuckled¡ªfleeing.  Then she saw someone she had not expected at all; it was Ruler and Irons.  He held his revolver, somehow, and shouted a command to the guard that she drop the truncheon and lay on the floor.  She slowly turned to face him and growled, ¡°I knew it had to be a trick revolver.  But no, captain can¡¯t fire it and says to leave it with the poor sap, maybe he¡¯ll club his own brains out.¡±  Ruler repeated his command, and the guard lay on the ground.


    Daisy relieved her of her truncheon and said, ¡°You have a remarkable sense of timing.¡±


    Ruler shook his head.  ¡°Y-you don¡¯t carry powder, but you have a rifle.  I-I-I figured the moment you blew out of your cell would be the moment to shoot the lock off m-m-m-my own cell.¡±


    ¡°How many guards are dead?¡±


    Ruler looked proud.  ¡°None.  Th-they¡¯re not accustomed to prisoners having guns, and the rounds normally loaded in m-my revolver are blanks.  They just ran when I-I-I leveled and fired.¡±


    ¡°You carry a trick revolver that isn¡¯t even loaded?!¡±


    ¡°I-I know.  But the shockwave is enough to blow a lock.  Isn¡¯t it brilliant?  Now come on, I-I-I have two rounds and we need to get to the armory.¡±


    ¡°You know where it is?¡±


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    ¡°Getting clubbed in the head doesn¡¯t keep y-you out as long as people think it does.  The door is different.¡±  Ruler took her hand, and pulled her along.  Irons grinned and showed her the evidently-universal thumbs up.


    ¡°Do you two need water?¡±


    ¡°We need out of here more than we need water, I think,¡± Irons said.


    They came to a door which was, in fact, different than the others, even if they couldn¡¯t read the signs.  It was also guarded by two fours of clubs, which meant revolvers unless they could surprise them.  Which they couldn¡¯t, seeing as the alert had gone out.  Ruler fired his revolver in their general direction, getting them to duck, and then Daisy went for a double-tap to their heads with her borrowed truncheon.  They both went down, but it took repeated application of the truncheon to keep them down; Daisy was used to the mass of her staff doing the work for her.


    Ruler used his last round¡ªDaisy had been counting¡ªto blow out the lock on the armory, and Daisy was reunited with her beloved dragon staff.  Not that she loved it in any lethal capacity, but the rifle-cum-cross-staff had been a gift upon attaining Bachelor geometer status.  It was still loaded, and Daisy shot the lock off a chest in the middle of the room and scooped as many copper coins as she could carry into her vest pockets.  Ruler was in the doorway, relieving the guards of their ammunition, and Irons came into the room with Daisy and picked out a small springblade after a cursory search.  She hadn¡¯t known they were proficient with such a thing, but each day on Marz she learned something new.


    ¡°You¡¯re going to actually use that ammunition?¡±  Daisy asked Ruler.


    ¡°Stranger things have happened.¡±


    In the process of breaking out of the jail¡ªnot a prison, for they were all slated to die within a few days¡ªRuler did in fact use his pilfered ammunition, but only into the ground or ceiling.  Evidently he had taken to heart her wrath lessons not requiring the taking of human life.  Once they were on the ground level, Daisy asked Irons to take them to the northbound train station.  Following the ace of hearts, Daisy and Ruler hurtled down the streets of the city toward the rail station.  With luck, they had sown enough chaos to evade capture until a train was leaving.


    Luck was with them.  They didn¡¯t even buy tickets, just grabbed onto the railings of the last car as it was pulling out of Oracle City.  Their next stop would be Honeystone, and then West Helland.  There was no ship to Tanith, or they¡¯d have taken it.  They knocked on the passenger car, and explained that while they had no tickets, they¡¯d left in something of a hurry and had plenty of coin.  Hopelessly overcharged but not much caring, they bought passage aboard the train.  In one of the passenger compartments, cooled much like the buildings of Helland, Daisy watched out the window as lightning beacons went by, taking note when they fired that it might be the point at which they had a hostile welcome in Honeystone.


    In Honeystone, the train stopped, and loud voices declared that there would be a search made of the compartments for dangerous felons.  Daisy broke the glass of the train compartment window, using the butt of her staff, and the three of them clambered out, up the side of the next train bound south, and out the far side of the station.


    Honeystone continued the trend of each city of Marz being something Daisy was utterly unprepared for.  A vast silver sea lined the northern half of the coastal city.  She wasn¡¯t sure what the sea was made of, but it was not water.  Further, the docks appeared to be stone, but extended far out into the sea.  But the most dumbfounding thing of all were the shipworks.  In what was becoming a stream of luck Daisy couldn¡¯t help but attribute to the One God preserving His prophet, living stone was carved in the shape of a ship in several massive quarries.  Large blocks of stone were being hauled away, for use in the other cities of Helland, but with a crack the silver liquid of the northern sea was allowed to fill one of the basins in which a ship had been carved, and the stone boat¡ªa stone boat!  Of all the oddities of this planet!¡ªdetached, evidently buoyant in whatever liquid made up the sea.


    As a first order of business, they all bought clothes in the local style of tunic, trousers, and vest.  They booked passage aboard a ship to West Helland, claiming to be a family looking to vacation.  Daisy still had her papers, and if her name on them raised eyebrows, they were apparently still valid.  They were, plausibly, a family.  While Daisy was fair and redheaded, Ruler was olive-skinned and had brown hair like Irons, and all three of them were lanky.  As the city became distant on the horizon, Daisy whooped and kissed Ruler on the cheek.  He blushed, and she remembered his words as they had been arrested.


    ¡°Did you mean what you said, or were those rather like last words?  When we were being arrested?¡± Daisy asked him.


    Ruler flushed from his neck to his ears to his nose.  ¡°I-I meant them.  D-D-Daisy, you are an incredible woman.  And y-you share m-m-my love of¡ª¡± Daisy felt the crack of a psionic slap and looked around in alarm.  ¡°No, no, that¡¯s my gutfish.  A family heirloom of sorts.  Reminding m-me that I¡¯m worthwhile.  Also the firing mechanism nobody can ever figure out for m-my gun.¡±  Ruler cleared his throat.  ¡°Daisy, I-I love you.  And given that death seems to be hounding us, Ieey¡¯m not going to delay telling you that any longer.  You don¡¯t have to love m-m-me too, but I wanted you to know my feelings.¡±


    Daisy stood there, slightly unsteady, and put a hand on the railing of the ship.  A stone ship, some distant corner of her mind marveled.  She¡¯d kissed him out of genuine affection, but did she love him?  She put a hand to her temple, and took a centering breath.  Ruler stood there, and while there was yearning on his face, it was clear he was making a concerted effort to remain neutral while she sorted through the thoughts in her head.


    Finally, she said, ¡°I do not love you too, Ruler.  I just haven¡¯t considered the possibility in the first place, so to declare love would be reactionary and shallow.  But I don¡¯t not love you.  I will think on what you said.  And I do bear you great affection, the kiss wasn¡¯t a show piece.¡±


    Ruler nodded.  Irons chimed in with, ¡°Come on now!  We could all be dead tomorrow, you may as well find joy where you can!  You want to kiss him, kiss him!¡±


    Trying to put away thoughts of their young adult companion, Daisy draped her arms over Ruler¡¯s shoulders.  ¡°Well, Ruler?  Are you up for some maybe-platonic kisses?¡±


    ¡°I-I-I don¡¯t promise any great talent for the pastime, but I-I wouldn¡¯t mind.  M-my heart can be patient.  Does it go against any of the tenets of your faith?¡±


    Daisy raised an eyebrow.  ¡°To kiss?  Maybe if I had taken holy orders.  But I¡¯m not bucking for the Gatekeeper¡¯s job, I just want him to let me through those golden gates.¡±


    ¡°That means kiss!¡± Irons exclaimed.  Daisy and Ruler laughed, and then they kissed.  At first it was tentative, touching noses and tilting both their heads the same way and then the other.  Finally past figuring that out, they pressed their lips together.  Ruler¡¯s beard was slightly ticklish, but not scratchy, and Daisy¡¯s water sorcery meant they were both well-groomed and recently-bathed.


    He was warm, relative to her, and his lips were themselves soft.  He didn¡¯t presume with his tongue, for which Daisy was grateful.  She preferred her kisses shallow, from her limited experience.  She laughed.  Ruler drew back, concern written on his face.  ¡°No, no, not you.  Just you apologized for a lack of experience, when I¡¯ve kissed all of three people.  I¡¯ve kissed a number of cheeks, but not¡­ not like that.¡±


    Now Daisy colored, and Ruler smiled warmly.  ¡°Then w-we can both practice.¡±  Then his breath was hot over her mouth, and they tried again.  He was warm, he smelled like flax and fresh sweat, and Daisy wondered to herself if it might be love after all.

 Woman Versus Planet

    ¡°So what brought y-you here?  To Marz, I mean?¡± Ruler asked.


    Daisy considered the question.  It was fair enough, they had been through two weeks of sermonizing and good-natured theological debate, to say nothing of a breakneck flight from jail.  But where did her story begin?  ¡°I suppose it started¡­¡±


    Daisy was born on Jupitre, to a family which, while at times dysfunctional, was at least not of the dominant Witnessate sect of the Eternalists, nor to the multifarious cults of the Enemy masquerading as righteous worshippers.  She had, in short, been one of the Unchained.  They were reactionary, as most things in the Kingdom of Air inevitably had to be if they were to defy the norms of the fallen world.  They were anti-isolationist, and anti-imperialist.  Everything the Wholist Church and the Eternalists who were their offshoot hated and feared.  But that had become relevant much after her birth.  Or, perhaps, if she looked at who her parents were, much before.  All she knew when she was a small child sliding along the frozen bergs of air and water was that her parents reminded her that she had no obligation to say the Creed of Loyalty at school, but still made her go to school.


    In school, she had excelled at ciphering.  It wasn¡¯t a popular subject, not considered necessary to master the more prestigious spheres of sorcery or write rabble-rousing pamphlets against the ¡°regressive and repressive¡± or even ¡°heretical¡± faiths which believed in direct relationship with the One God.  Daisy had not seen the sense in such rhetoric even from an early age, perhaps because of the influence much before of Unchained parents.


    They attended a small congregation a considerable walk from home, which had the good fortune to be upwards through the clouds on the hyperactive walk there, and then a joyful sled ride downhill on the way home, punctuated by bridge crossings.  She didn¡¯t think until years later of the fact her parents always arranged for there to be a sled for the ride home.  But at church, the doctrine was that the Creator Supreme loved His children, and that through the ignominious death of Christ Savior by bodily launch into the vacuum of space and His meteoric return, the One God had made a way for all mortals to know Him personally, and be freed from sin.  Sin could still entangle one, it wasn¡¯t a cult like the Named who deluded themselves to be beyond sin.  But it was analogous to a trip up an icy berg, footing only sure if you knew how to look, rather than iron manacles from which there was no escape.  Thus ¡°the Order of the Broken Chain.¡±


    But she was getting sidetracked from ciphering, and from another religious dead end she had avoided despite said talent.  Alleged to be spread across every planet, the Coven of Geometers was a women-run order of calculators and triangulators, mapping the stars with cross staves and numbers rather than relying on dead reckoning.  The Coven had its own faith, not compulsory but highly encouraged; the Tops of Eight.  It related the holy number eight with a line drawn across its middle to numerological concepts of limits and infinity, and had to Daisy seemed entirely too fanciful for her by-now well-ordered mind.


    It was, however, out of worries for her religiosity that her church pastor had taken her aside and begun to teach her water sorcery.  He had said that with a sufficient grasp of water sorcery, she could know the depths of her heart, her very soul.  It had brought up the realization of how close her rationalist inclinations had come to getting a stranglehold on her faith, because she had struggled for the first time in a long time to master the art of sorcery.  Even given a bowl of water, she had trouble believing that the One God willed¡­ much of anything for her life, much less that she make the water so much as tremble.  It had taken many fruitless nights of prayer to the ceiling before she had realized her faith.  She still couldn¡¯t explain what had changed in her heart.  All she knew was that one night, just as she was about to become a Bachelor of Geometry, she realized she believed, and in one motion conjured a ball of water into her outstretched hand and filled it with her inner light.


    A Bachelor geometer, a proud water sorceress, and a critically reasoned Unchained, she came into a world armed to the teeth and ready to oppose everything she thought or said.  The Coven of Geometers was no stranger to this fact of life of Jupitre, they had equipped every Bachelor with a dragon staff, ostensibly only for dragons.  A cross staff and rifle of unique design, it had a breech-loading rifled barrel capable of accepting common lead ammunition and turning it into accurate projectiles, again ostensibly for dealing with dragons, but also effective at taking out demagogues at range.  Daisy had never seen the sense of that either.  ¡°Thou shalt not kill a human being.¡±  Dragons were fair game, but the very Word of God, the Savior whose Mercy allowed anyone any hope of attaining Heaven, forbade the taking of human life.


    So it was that she tried to oppose the death cults and Eternalists¡ªthemselves a death cult, but so iconic and pervasive as to practically be their own category¡ªin the court of public opinion, with facts and arguments, with persuasion and truth.


    In the Kingdom of Air, home to the diamond citadel of the Lord of Lies.


    She tried not to hate, but she misliked seeing people misled with out of context quotes and pomp and fanfare.  Without question, the Savior had lectured about Hell.  But the Draconic word for Hell and the Jovian concept were two very different things.  Hell was literately the place of consumption, for dragonkind could across the ten varieties eat anything.  But in the Jovian loan word it had taken on the dimensions of¡­ well, it fit very well with Infernalist doctrine.  The Savior had never spoken of eternal conscious torment, but preachers in death cults¡ªsuch as the Waterborne and the Eternalists¡ªspoke of it often.  It put fire in her blood, and it was the thought of the gentle luminous glow of her soul reflected in a ball of water that kept her from violence.


    As she¡¯d said before getting sidetracked, so it was that she tried to oppose the death cults in the court of public opinion, armed with facts and arguments, with persuasion and truth.  She was foolhardy, but she had been certain as youths are certain of the rightness of her position, of the good and reason in human beings.  Ironically, the same thing that made her so certain of victory was the same thing that had led to her defeat.  She had not, in school, been taught critical thought, but only rote memorization and the tricks of calculation.  Indeed, it was endemic of Jupitre¡¯s education system¡ªshe would remember later that it was a system¡ªthat critical thought was buried under the demands of trivial pursuit and simple answers.  But she was getting ahead of herself.


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    Under Jovian law, at least in the district of the state of the octant of Jupitre in which she resided, allowed anyone to file a suit of appeal for blatant defiance of the Will of God.  This had been used in the past to persecute the Coven of Geometers when they had proclaimed that Jupitre was not the center around which the orb of Heaven circled, which was why she knew of it.  She filed a suit against the Eternalists themselves, the prevailing religion of Jupitre.  She was prepared with quotations, facts, measurements of space, and an as-yet undaunted spirit.


    She was utterly unprepared for what came next.


    A rain of vitriol poured in from all sides.  Not only she, but the Coven of Geometers, the Unchained, and her family faced the deluge.  She was attacked, much as she had been bullied in primary school, as a heretic.  She belonged to the geometers, and as everyone knew, geometers believed they had some special ¡°in¡± with the One God.  This was not true, but splashed across broadsides were the words ¡°Tops of Eight¡± with the word ¡°Top¡± in bright red ink.  Never mind that she didn¡¯t belong to that faith.  Never mind that in the same article they pronounced that her faith was some little nothing nobody had ever heard of, and so who was she to claim she knew anything of religion?  Everyone knew of the Eights, but nobody had ever heard of the Unchained, but everyone knew they were heretics, worse than the Named.


    She was attacked personally.  Branded a harlot, simply because she was comely.  Arrogant, for challenging an institution dating back to the Age of Loss.  Stupid, for she had never once made a pilgrimage to the Repositorium of Knowledge¡ªwhich she had, in fact, but had declined to leave a part of her mind behind in exchange for their wealth.


    Things got worse from there.  And she had turned to desperate measures.  She accused the high hierophant of the Eternalists of encouraging his parish to harass her.  She mentioned threats to her life, made by people she had never met nor heard of before.  Daisy counted on the law to shield her, but her faith was misplaced.  Her home in her berg had been defaced with human waste, but when she was out with their child, sorcery or direct draconic interference had collapsed the cavern, killing her husband.


    The name of her child?  Rose.  Plant names were popular on Jupitre, and they had an advanced science of hydroponics somehow despite their educational system.  She was alive and well, or had been when Daisy had fled Jupitre.  She¡¯d left Rose with her parents, who professed the sincerity of their faith but had obediently recited the Creed of Loyalty when pressed.  It had been a sorrowful moment for Daisy, to read of her parents being humbled so.  The Coven of Geometers came under persecution, their gathering sites defaced, pickets screaming obscenities during their lectures.  Her school she had been educated in was brought under an unnecessary and invasive quality and standards review.  And as for her church, the place she had done her growing up, the home that a fellow parishioner had so kindly opened, it was treated similarly to her own home, and collapsed.  That was when she had decided she was going to leave.  It wasn¡¯t enough to estrange her from her family, they meant to dismantle and humble everyone she had ever respected or looked up to.


    It was not a proud moment when she had sighted through her rifle to consider taking the life of the high hierophant.  She had set down her rifle and left her position on the berg, unable to conscience such an act.  ¡°Don¡¯t resist him who is evil.¡±  She resolved to leave, if the planet wanted so badly nothing to do with her.  Or evil to do with her.  She started seeking out ley charts, books of old lore, leaving behind herself a trail of destruction as death cultists hounded her every¡ª


    Death cultist?  It¡¯s a dramatic title, admittedly.  But it is one whose beliefs lead inevitably to death.  The Eternalists were her archetypical example.  They were an offshoot of the Wholist Church, but they were nearly identical in doctrine except for the ends to which they put their resources.  They revered dragons as nearly Savior figures, just like the Wholist Church, but their heresy ran deeper.  Daisy could quote the scripture which was the foundation of their faith, in the highest echelons of demon-worshiping elites.  ¡°This Good News of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole universe for a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.¡±  They had taken Wholist doctrine, itself a tool of the draconic elite, and turned it further from the Word to serve their ends.  For as is prayed, ¡°Glory be to the Supreme, and to the Savior, and to the Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.¡±  The Glory Be served their purposes and glorified their purposes.  They would distort the Gospel so that the world would never end, so that their heirs could revel in the wealth thieves broke in to steal for all eternity.  For if the Good News never made it from Mercurie to Neptoon, the end would not come.  They reveled in death eternal, in an unending void into which they could slip, free of the judgment to come.


    The thing about those who think they¡¯re righteous, their fervor is great.  While she had no doubt the upper echelons of the Eternalists knew exactly what they were up to, their adherents were misled rather than evil.  At least mostly.  Those who came for her in the night were gleeful at the opportunity to take human life under the aegis of defending their faith.  But they had not approached quietly, and her dragon staff, wielded in its third capacity as a quarterstaff, had left them with little worse than broken limbs.


    Giving up on an easy search through lore for the location of Satern¡¯s draconic gate, Daisy fled for the gate to Marz.  It had been located long before by cultists, the Waterborne.  When she arrived, they refused her entry.  She was infamous by then, even beyond the octant in which she had been raised.  Such was the obsessive invasiveness of the persecution she had faced, they knew she was a water sorcerer.  The Waterborne would not let anyone break their stranglehold on their market.  They were not, however, a fortress.  Daisy had snuck inside their encampment, only to behold the more fearsome guardian of the portal, a fire dragon.


    While soulcery had existed for much of an Age, there were not many gates between planets.  From what she¡¯d heard, Daisy would much rather have gone on to Orth, but actual travel between planets was severely restricted by the inability to paint a portal of somewhere one had not seen.  She would have to ask Ruler when her telling was done¡ªand she was nearly done¡ªwhy light sorcerers didn¡¯t master painting and then use light sorcery to scry on other planets and make a mint selling portals to entire new markets or parishes.


    She confronted the dragon, who evidently kept the cultists as best as it could on the Jovian side of the portal.  Of course, they had heard, in their adventures, that clearly some bought or snuck their way through and escaped.  Though, if they were not a cult, what was there to escape from?  She had killed the dragon entirely by accident, her grip slipping and her fingers sparking to fire her dragon staff at the ceiling and drop a pile of ice on its head.  Daisy supposed she was lucky the entire iceland had not collapsed.  She suspected the Waterborne would use the death of the dragon to emigrate wholesale, assuming their leaders didn¡¯t crack down on it.  Assuredly, they would raise their prices, free from draconic oversight.  For reasons likely relating to the Wholist Church, dragons liked to pretend a benevolent facade, and so had likely limited their price fixing.  And so she had come to Marz. But what was Ruler¡¯s story?

 Grandfathers and Callings

    ¡°Well, I-I-I come from an unusual family.  W-we trace our lineage through a few grandads back to the renowned D-D-Dragonslayer¡­ oh, who y-you won¡¯t have heard of.  But the story starts there, in a sense¡­¡±


    Some number of greats-grandfather Mensura had been afflicted with a great stutter.  Almost entirely by accident, he found himself leading an adventuring company, and by virtue of overcompensation and the generally murder-hobo-ous nature of adventurers he possessed the most social skills of anyone in the group.  So it was that, stuttering and stammering over some words¡ªnearly all words under pressure, and pressure was not uncommon¡ªhe navigated the social waters of rulers and authorities who did not entirely appreciate having a band of armed and armored mercenaries wandering through their realm, killing whatever monsters and criminals they would, and generally not fitting into the neat organizational scheme of autocracy.


    Then he met the Dragonslayer.  She was not, at the time, the Dragonslayer; she was, in fact, considered a bit of a joke as an adventurer.  She was a little person, wielding a full-sized sword inherited from her adoptive father.  For all that it was too big, she was actually quite damnably good with it, though she ultimately discarded it in favor of two smaller blades.  She joined his party, and for all that she had the social skills of an outsider as well, she deferred to him, the now-experienced adventurer.


    He was not just experienced, he was articulate.  He still tripped over words, much as Ruler himself did, but he was proud of himself.  He was a self-made man, and Ruler took to heart what became the family ethos: It is brave to speak when speaking will make others think me a fool.  Especially considering that Mensura had led the woman who would go on to be the Dragonslayer.  Or knew the Dragonslayer.  There was a little haziness in the chronology of his retirement.


    Every son and daughter¡ªthere were unquestionably both in the lineage¡ªwas afflicted with a stutter, and expected by family tradition to take on the mantle of party leader.  There was, by Ruler¡¯s time, a system by which this occurred.  The child born and named for their pater¡ªagain, against tradition¡ªthey would be brought up to be proud of overcoming their stutter, explained the mechanisms of crutch words and the power that came from overcoming.  They would be sent to a sorcerous school to learn air sorcery, later light sorcery, and then to a Coven of Geometers, were one available.  Sending a boy to a Coven posed a number of problems and social issues, but by now the family had made a tradition of solving problems.  Often, the protege would stay in a rented apartment near the coven, or in a pinch in a supply closet emptied for the occasion.


    Upon Associate graduation from the Coven, the former child¡ªyes, I-I know, almost all adults are former children.  Almost?  I-I-I would argue some are still children¡ªwould be introduced to one of the psychic abominations known as a gutfish.  The reason for this was¡­ strange.  Mensura had not himself been sorcerously trained until later in his life, he had been a mystic.  When he sought out a mage¡¯s college, he experienced the curious sensation of psychic contact.  The entity contacting him initially expressed derision at a man going about claiming to be a leader with such a stutter.  It was rebuked soundly.  The family ethos.  Mensura had replied to the contact with the strong sentiment that, if opening his mouth invited derision, daring to do so when he had something to contribute was an act of bravery, and that he was very brave indeed.  The contact lightened to nothing, and he was left to ponder the meaning of the whole ordeal.


    He was not left to wonder long.  The abomination, the gutfish, reached out again and said it could fix his mind, if he would take it on.  Its present host was not ambitious enough for its liking, and would be glad to be free of the burden.  He countered that he would take it on only if it did not attempt to ¡°fix¡± his mind.  No doubt he was mindful of the risks of magic which was, at the time, not even understood as psi, but also he had no intention of letting go of his source of pride.  He was introduced to a professor at the academy of sorcery, and then experienced the painful event that was the inhabitation of a gutfish.  The creature resided inside his stomach, feeding on what he fed upon, reaching out with psi to sense those around him.  It was a potent advantage in the dark, where only some nephilim and spirit mages could see.


    As he¡¯d said, graduates from the Coven of Geometers were introduced to a gutfish.  He had one himself, and the scar to prove it.  Their psychic abilities were unique.  To them, sightless eel-looking things, minds shone like light in their ¡°vision.¡±  It hadn¡¯t come up, or he would have explained at the time.  It was unlike her water sphere, there was no judgment, there was only awareness.  She wanted to meet the thing?  She was by all means welcome to make contact with it, his normally rested, it was content that he was doing both dragon¡¯s work and Lord¡¯s work, and for whatever reason this satisfied its demands of ambition.


    Daisy felt the tickle of a very gentle psionic touch against her mind.  ¡°Tickle¡± was the only way to describe it, though she cast about for a more suitable word.


    She wasn¡¯t sure how one communicated telepathically, so she simply thought to herself, ¡°You¡¯ve watched Ruler and I grow closer, why haven¡¯t you said anything?¡±


    ¡°Oh, like you didn¡¯t recoil in disgust at my presence inside him.  ¡®Tool of the Powers that Be¡¯ I think you thought of me.¡±


    ¡°Sorry, D-D-Daisy, it¡¯s¡­ like that.¡±


    Ruler was speaking aloud.  Daisy decided to reply in kind.  ¡°No, no, it¡¯s absolutely right.  Does it have a name?  I would like to apologize.¡±


    ¡°You want to apologize, you get on your knees and¡ª¡±


    This time Daisy was surprised by the psionic slap because it was followed by a heated argument by Ruler.  ¡°Y-you will be respectful towards her-r-r, or I-I will become a monk.  A monk, do you hear me?!¡±


    ¡°Yeah, yeah, you¡¯re in love and I¡ª¡± Another slap.  ¡°Well sarx, you¡¯re serious about that.  Okay.  Be nice to the lady.¡±


    ¡°Again, I-I am sorry about it.  This is why I was traveling alone with my prophecy.¡±


    ¡°Your dazzling people skills didn¡¯t have a role, chum?¡±


    Daisy laughed.  ¡°I¡¯m sorry, it¡¯s just so ridiculous!  A stomach-living eel abomination is critiquing your social skills when it¡¯s tried to alienate me three times in the last minute!¡±


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    ¡°You want alien, you get a gutfish.  We¡¯re as alien as they come, sweetheart.  Sorry, Madame sweetheart.¡±


    ¡°Why doesn¡¯t its psi¡ªagain, do you have a name?¡±


    ¡°My name is unpronounceable by your meat-tongues.  You could call me Uriel if you wanted?¡±


    Daisy replied dryly, ¡°I¡¯m not quite blasphemous enough to call a human-made abomination the same title as the Virture of the Student.¡±


    ¡°You watch your mouth!  I¡¯m dragon-made, and proud of it!  A dragon set Ruler on his present quest to get himself ganked or I¡¯d be pitching a fuss and shocking his insides!¡±


    ¡°Even more blasphemous.  Pass.  Ruler, you¡¯ve never named it?¡±


    ¡°I communicate with it telepathically.  There¡¯s never been a need.¡±


    ¡°Speaking of that.  Why doesn¡¯t its psi hurt?  Telepathy isn¡¯t comfortable in my experience.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a skill issue, too¡ªDaisy.  I¡¯m a centuries-old abomination born to wield psionic power, while Ruler here has all the finesse of a drunken rhinoceros.¡±


    ¡°Y-you should have told m-me I-I-I was causing discomfort.  I-I can be gentler, albeit more slowly.¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s fine, I just¡­ wait, why not have your gutfish relay the meaning of the Marzeilles words for things and what to say?¡±


    ¡°Do I look like a¡­ well, I suppose I mostly look like a bulge under Ruler¡¯s robe.¡±


    Daisy¡¯s voice grew cold.  ¡°You know the difference between a parasite and a symbiote, little thing?  One of them gets to stay in its host.¡±


    ¡°Alright, sure, I can do that.¡±


    ¡°But you were telling me¡ªvia the long road¡ªhow you came to be on Marz, Ruler?¡±


    With the advent of the Age of Steel¡¯s advances in magic, gutfish served a secondary purpose, one upon which Ruler relied.  Gutfish were derived of electrical eel stock.  Rituals gained elaborations over the generations, and what had been added to the ritual with the second-order sphere of electricity was branding an electric rune on the hands of the graduate.  Normally this was not resorted to, or required an electric pile to be carried, or else the impulse of nerves would be deadened by its use to a sometimes-dangerous degree.  But the gutfish, originally having the ability to punish a disobedient host, served the same purpose as a heavy and bulky electric pile.  Thus when they were arresting Ruler he had attempted to shock those grabbing him, but they had been too numerous.  Then, too, his revolver was specially designed to be a gun that could not point both ways, requiring an electrical impulse to trigger.  Those were not the only uses of it, but those were the ones Daisy had seen thus far.


    In his travels, a sponsored and celebrated part of every generation of his family, Ruler had come into contact with a yellow dragon of air.  It had seemed serendipity, though Ruler now suspected the guiding hand of the Lord in the entire affair.  He had been wandering through the Sevens when he encountered the drake.  She had introduced herself in Draconic, but telepathically.  Like his gutfish, her telepathic touch had been painlessly gentle.  He¡¯d felt the little monster squirm excitedly in his stomach at the touch.  This had been the only reason he hadn¡¯t fled, the war on dragonkind being widespread on Orth.


    She¡ªSritzan¡ªhad been in the air at the beginning of their conversation, but gradually lowered to the ground as it went on.  She had been watching him, it seemed, and having conversations with his gutfish without his awareness.  Which was only natural, as before his trepanation he had no psi outside what his gutfish relayed.


    Sritzan had seen the way the winds were blowing.  What the Dragonslayer had begun could not be stopped without a radical change in the way her people did things.  They had changed things once before, from open warfare to games of intrigue.  But this would not suffice, they still arranged society as they saw benefitted them.  They failed to see what was on the wind.  There was, she felt, a particular poetry to recruiting the party leader of the Dragonslayer to try and preserve the existence of dragonkind.  The proof of their mortality would be proof against their mortality.


    She wanted to find a way for dragons and humans to coexist.  She had sired nephilim, but they had not been able to integrate sufficiently in the face of the antipathy towards all things draconic which prevailed.  She needed a trueblooded human if she was to spread the word of peace before the fires of war consumed her kin.


    Ruler had responded by asking what her idea of coexistence looked like.  The cold war between dragons had taken lives, toppled nations, and generally sown chaos and misery for all but them.  This was the reason for the revolution in the first place.  Sritzan replied that she wanted dragons to be full and integrated members of society.  They might rise to positions of authority by virtue of their long lifespans, but there could be limitations.  Their wealth would be routinely dispersed, by some kind of human-run agency.


    He was skeptical, but his gutfish was eager and excited.  As a family heirloom, it had a long view of history, and ultimately this zeal decided the matter for him.  He would, on a trial basis, be the agent of Sritzan.  He reserved the right to terminate that agreement at any point, a stipulation to which she agreed.


    After several years of approaching government leaders in the Sevens and meeting with a number of perplexing entities which made up those leaders, Sritzan had explained the process of trepanation.  Ruler lifted his bangs and showed the faded scar.  He had been nervous, naturally, but the nephilim child of Sritzan expressed confidence and familiarity with the procedure.  He was put to sleep using an obscure application of water sorcery, and when he woke up he had¡­ not a headache, but he had received a slap from his gutfish as he moved to touch his forehead.  The world around him seemed strangely vibrant, and he was able to actively seek out Sritzan telepathically.  She told him theirs would always be the strongest bond, unless he took a mate.  His gutfish, curiously, had not protested despite their arguably comparable intimacy.  They were, after all, of dragon-make.


    He had struggled to learn to use his psi, but eventually acquired a satisfactory degree of mastery.  It was on the night he set out from Sritzan¡¯s domain on another quest that he was approached in a dream by a messenger of the Lord.  The angel showed him many terrible scenes of warfare and death, and told him these were the things to come.  Whether there was bloodshed was not the question, the question was whether humanity would survive in any great numbers.  It was his duty to spread the word of the war to come, the war against the false prophets that dragons represented, from Mercurie to Neptoon.  Greatly distressed, he asked what would become of his now-friend Sritzan.  The angel had replied enigmatically that she would be paid back as she had paid others.


    Ruler¡¯s first reaction had been skepticism.  He¡¯d been psionically awakened, any number of strange entities could contact him now.  Something had just overcome his mental shields and presented him with his nightmare vision of the future.  He reached out to his Lady, Sritzan, and told her all that had happened.  She replied that he should greet the vision by name, and demand its name in turn.  Shaken, he continued on his way until the following night.  Once again, the angel had appeared, this time showing him a landscape with a cave where he might find a dead dragon and a portal to Marz.  He pronounced himself Ruler, descendant of Mensura, leader of the Dragonslayer, and demanded to know to whom he spoke.  The angel replied, for it was an angel, that it was the Power of Wisdom, Willamina, and that his time to act was short.  He awoke at once and made contact once more with Sritzan.  She told him to go.  If she would be dealt as she had dealt, so be it; her people would fall.  Humanity, at least, would carry on their memory.


    And so, following a vision from an angel, he had made his way to Marz.  Where he had not been listened to.  Not to mention, with the prevalence of trepanation on the planet, he wasn¡¯t sure anyone wanted to listen.


    Having shared their respective stories, Ruler rested his head on Daisy¡¯s shoulder, and they intertwined their fingers.  Perhaps it was love.  Perhaps it was survival forging a bond.  But for now, they would enjoy this companionable touch as they sailed on to their next destination.

 One of Us

    Word had evidently not spread as far as West Helland of their criminality.  There was some trouble at the dock over their being hearts visiting a colony nation, but no mere three of diamonds was going to tell a seven what she could and couldn¡¯t do.  She was stamped, issued three papers, and informed that a requested verification of her travel visa would go out with the next ship.  Sent with the request was a spirit magic copy of her caste papers.  She said that was fine, and didn¡¯t say that she eagerly awaited their attempts to arrest her.  She just hoped Irons and Ruler could get away with disappearing into the city.


    Within hours, they had secured port quarters for themselves.  The quarters they had acquired included a full bedroom for Daisy, but only token servant quarters for Ruler and Irons.  When Daisy attempted to insist that Ruler take the larger bed, her sense of justice offended, he demurred.  When pressed, Irons explained that, should someone intrude and find Ruler in her bed, that she had taken him¡ªahem¡ªas a lover, and that would do a great deal to counteract her assigned status.  Well, they were going to counteract a whole lot more status; he nonetheless insisted on taking the servants¡¯ quarters.


    They made a print order¡ªmore expensive in West Helland¡ªand distributed tablets.  While they might be heretics, they weren¡¯t going to be ashamed heretics, and that might make persecuting them harder, assuming it wasn¡¯t another kangaroo court.  They were acutely aware that news of their heresy could arrive any day by boat, and that at longest they had until Honeystone officials got the official request for validation of her papers.


    ¡°The Savior died for all sin, not just the sins of the elect!  It is a lie spread by those in power to legitimize their control of your planet!  Yes, planet!  You live on Marz, fourth planet from the orb of Heaven, not even the most distant!  I myself come from Jupitre, and I can tell you it is a cold and beautiful place!¡±  She¡¯d just leave out that it was the closest mortal approximation of Hell there was, being the Kingdom of Air.  The odds any of these people would ever see Jupitre seemed slim, and she would encourage any curious individuals to return to Orth.  ¡°The Supreme Creator does not hate what He created!  How could He, being a God of love?!¡±  Once again, Daisy offered up a silent prayer of apology to that priestess she first confronted, for proclamations were something sermonizing lent itself to.  At least when you were trying to get attention.  At least she didn¡¯t¡ªto be fair couldn¡¯t¡ªaccompany each proclamation with a psychic slap.  The words of the gutfish, still curious in their greasy gentility, came into her mind that she could always seek a draconic patron long enough to get trepanned, if she wanted to be able to.


    Ruler wandered on the periphery, the short range of his own psi no longer relevant, and spoke Lider to the people, telling them of the oppression of the dragons.  Daisy noticed that even though he took a noon nap, his gutfish had no such compunctions.  But it was his distance that led Daisy to initially be ignorant of the fact he was being confronted.  When his gutfish finally signaled distress, it took her time to wade through a crowd curious to know where she was going.  The crackle of psi was palpable, and suddenly the words of those around her were not accompanied by the gutfish¡¯s translation.  Irons was shouting, although Daisy wasn¡¯t sure what.


    She hurried.


    Irons blended into the crowd, but they were watching carefully.  Hand to his temple, clearly trying to resist a superior force, Ruler stood opposite three individuals each with their hair kept short, clearly showing off their trepanation scars.  Daisy didn¡¯t hesitate to rap one of them in the head with her staff and then demand to know what they thought they were doing to her prophet.  They turned to face her, looking confused, while Ruler laughed weakly and sagged against a wall.  ¡°Th-they can¡¯t understand you, Daisy.  M-my gutfish was busy helping shield me.¡±


    ¡°Then now that they¡¯re distracted, translate!¡±  Daisy waited for the presence of the gutfish in her mind, though it was a little unsettling to see the words to say appear before she¡¯d finished her thought.  ¡°What do you think you are doing with my prophet?!¡±


    One of them¡ªa four of spades, what were spades again?  Military?  Colonial police?  Something like that¡ªturned to her with a sneer.  ¡°Your prophet?  Who might you be?¡±


    ¡°I am Bachelor Daisy and I am the wrath that makes prophecy heard!  Now answer my question before I concuss the rest of you!¡±


    They took a step back at that, and Daisy wasted no time in closing the distance.  They seemed not to have remembered their psi, or perhaps were spooked by Ruler appearing to hold the three of them off on his own.  ¡°He¡¯s spreading heresy.  The real kind, not whatever you¡¯re printing on these tablets.  A war between dragons and humans will never happen, there are rules in place to keep it from happening.¡±


    ¡°If it won¡¯t happen, then why do you care?!¡±  Daisy was still incensed, and the gutfish was snickering in her mind at the possessive pronoun.


    Then Ruler went rigid and stood upright, light shining down upon him with particular intensity.  ¡°The days of dragons are numbered by My hand, they will not oppress My people for much longer.  For I have seen the souls sent on to Heaven, those turned from My worship and those lost to violence.  The proxy war has gone on long enough.  So I have said, and so it shall be, that the people shall rise up and put an end to their oppressors!¡±  Ruler slumped against the wall again.


    The three psions looked at each other uneasily.  ¡°Whence did you get your powers, servant?  Only a dragon can award psi.  You should be warning dragons, not mortals.¡±


    Ruler replied in a low voice, ¡°My dragon made herself known to me as Sritzan.  She is an air dragon on Orth.  She believes in coexistence, without the wasting of human life as little more than pawns.¡±


    The other conscious dragon servant, a five of diamonds, stepped forward eagerly.  ¡°Then it¡¯s true?!  There are other planets?  This isn¡¯t Hel¡ª¡±  She was cut off by the spade¡¯s angry gesture.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t over.¡±  He looked disdainfully at Daisy and her staff.  ¡°Keep on like this and you¡¯ll get nothing but trouble.¡±


    Daisy laughed.  ¡°You think I don¡¯t know what happens to prophets?  I¡¯ve made peace with my God, go make peace with your own.  For what the Lord has said will assuredly come to pass.¡±  She knelt by Ruler, and said, ¡°You really do have the gift of prophecy.  Now just to get you some wrath and we¡¯ll spread the word.¡±


    Ruler shook his head.  ¡°You¡¯ve taken that job, I think.¡±


    Irons rushed over and hugged the both of them, unusually demonstrative but not unwelcome.  ¡°I¡¯m so glad you¡¯re okay!  That was almost as frightening as being arrested!¡±


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    Someone from the crowd, which had shifted to encircle them, shouted, ¡°Way to show those bullies!¡±


    ¡°They think because they serve a dragon they¡¯re any less damned than we are!¡±


    Daisy turned and shook her head.  ¡°None of you are damned!  Aren¡¯t you listening?¡±


    The person next to the one who had spoken nudged him in the side, saying, ¡°Yeah.  We¡¯re not on Hell, we¡¯re just on the fire planet.  Dragons.  Donjons.  Both of them keep us under their thumb.  The Savior died for our sins, and assuredly it was a terrible death, but He returned.  We¡¯ll all return.  We have nothing to fear in this life, because the next is where we¡¯ll spend eternity.  And it won¡¯t be here.¡±


    Daisy grinned, immensely gratified that at least one person had been listening.  She continued speaking about love, caring, and fellowship.  She spoke of freedom from the chains of sin, and that the Word of God could break any fetter of the Enemy, who could only lie and say you were chained to the ground.


    Toward the end of the day, she took Ruler aside and spoke with him.  Well, okay, she spoke, but that wasn¡¯t all she did.  ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re okay.  I was worried when the gutfish went silent.¡±


    ¡°I-I-I¡¯m flattered by your concern.¡±  Ruler looked uncertain what to do with his hands.  Daisy took them in hers, and she kissed him.  It was a gentle kiss, and when their lips parted it was only the merest breath apart, inhaling one another¡¯s exhalations.  Daisy wrapped her arms around Ruler and kissed him again, pressing her lips more forcefully against his, sighing gently into his mouth, feeling their noses brush against each other.  Her arms wrapped around him, she was very aware that while she was tall, he was nearly as tall, and in the short sleeved shirts favored by the populace she could feel the skin of his neck on the skin of her arms.  They remained like that until his gutfish cleared its throat and reminded them they had an audience.


    Day by day, as she sermonized, intensely aware that her time was limited, Daisy made sure to provide a solid foundation in the Gospel.  Irons attracted a smaller circle of people, those who didn¡¯t speak Lider, and translated¡ªDaisy amended her thought.  In all likelihood Irons knew the Gospel well enough to preach in their own right¡ªto the people who only spoke Marzeilles.  Meanwhile, Ruler warned people of the troubled times ahead.  He didn¡¯t make as much progress as she did, but then he had the heavier burden.  Eventually, Daisy had to summon water in public, their funds running low; as before she offered it for free and had people pay only what they thought was just.  One morning, after a late start from a late-night conversation with Ruler and Irons about the finer differences between Unchained and Clockmakers, she found one of the native Hellanders preaching the Gospel to a smaller¡ªbut present¡ªcrowd.  She laughed and took the younger woman aside, encouraging her to spread the Word here, while she moved inland.


    The woman, named Excoriate Error but going by Corrie, flushed and apologized for her overstepping.  She would not presume to preach again.  Daisy rebuked that sentiment, garnering a confused look.  Briefly, Daisy looked to Heaven and prayed for this people.  ¡°I am glad you are preaching the Gospel, Corrie.  That is a necessary part of making change.  I am not moving on punitively, I am moving on because my work here, of sowing seeds, has been done.¡±  Corrie shook her head and gestured Daisy towards her typical spot, but Daisy shook her head in turn.


    ¡°Do you know what will come of dragonkind?  Do you know that the Savior and Supreme love everyone?  Then the Spirit will tell you the rest of what you need to know.  One God go with you, Corrie.¡±  Daisy was turning to go when there was a cry from the edge of the crowd.  Nephilim, from the looks of their red-scaled skin, were bludgeoning those on the periphery, though they seemed not to have noticed Ruler yet.  Briefly, Daisy asked herself if there was no end to the enemies mounted against them.


    Quickly, she asked the gutfish to look around and highlight the nephilim for her.  Aware intellectually of their location, she summoned water and splashed it in her face.  This would be difficult.  She felt the coolness of the water, and tuned into it, meditating on its nature.  It flowed, it was slow and strong.  She shared that strength.  Trying to ignore the cries of those in the crowd, she breathed deeply, feeling the wetness make her want to cough as it went up her nose.  Then she opened her eyes, reached towards the nephilim, and worked her sorcery.


    She wasn¡¯t sure, at first, whether what she had done had worked.  There was still screaming; a panicked crowd didn¡¯t calm down quickly, and people were already injured.  But the tenor of the screaming changed, from one of fear to one of anger.  She listened carefully and heard retching and coughing.  A smile spread across her face.  She¡¯d never experimented with humors before, but phlegm was the humor associated with water, so it should have worked and it did.  She had emptied the reserves of the humor into their sinuses and down their throats, making them cough and choke.  They could breathe, she hoped, but not comfortably, and exertion¡ªsuch as beating down helpless diamonds¡ªwas right out until they figured out what was going on and cleared their sinuses.


    She projected, calling, ¡°Don¡¯t hurt them!  Remember the Gospels!  ¡®But I tell you, don¡¯t resist him who is evil; but whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also¡¯!¡±  Daisy thought to herself that she had perhaps not been the best model of this, having struck down the dragon disciples the other day, but the Lord knew everyone was imperfect.  And maybe He didn¡¯t have some days like it, but Daisy certainly had days where the solution to the problem seemed like a sound crack to the noggin with her dragon staff.  She pushed through the crowd towards the nephilim, mentally having the gutfish ask Ruler and Irons to do the same.


    But the crowd was full of fire, and the nephilim fled before Daisy could make her way through the mass of bodies.  She had hoped to interrogate them, find out whether they were opposed on three fronts¡ªoy¡ªor just two.  Again, oy.  When did two massed enemies seem like the less daunting prospect?  Well, she supposed it was less daunting, but she was barely even worried if it was two.  At least, she thought wryly, it wasn¡¯t an entire planet¡¯s system of governance and religion.  Oh wait, yes, it was exactly that.  Why wasn¡¯t she shaking in her boots?


    ¡°Because you are a stone cold revolutionary at heart, and you¡¯re buying your own rhetoric.  There¡¯s nothing they can do to take away your final reward, and I¡¯m pretty sure I see something in your brain about martyrs getting the good Heaven,¡± the gutfish supplied.  ¡°And before you ask, you got used to me being in your brain about three days ago.¡±


    Daisy thought back, ¡°Wouldn¡¯t water sorcery be able to do something with the immortal soul?  I can reflect the light of mine.¡±


    ¡°Couldn¡¯t wouldn¡¯t can¡¯t, these schmucks don¡¯t even believe water sorcery exists.  Your eternal reward is assured.  Me, I¡¯ll take ageless immortality, but for a human you¡¯re as safe as it gets.¡±


    Daisy regrouped with Irons, Ruler, and Corrie.  ¡°It seems I will be staying a while longer.  I had no idea that the Powers that Be,¡± the gutfish, despite not seeming to have lungs, nonetheless managed a creditable mental coughing sound, ¡°were so opposed to what we¡¯ve been up to.  Corrie, would you like to join Irons in preaching the Gospel in Marzeilles while Ruler and I make sure things stay safe?¡±


    Corrie¡¯s eyes got round.  ¡°You mean you¡¯d actually let me do that?!¡±


    ¡°I was about to before the encounter with the nephilim.  Until I know if they¡¯re acting in an official capacity, I don¡¯t want to leave you all alone here.  And since we¡¯ve got their attention, I think now is the time to do something a little bigger.¡±


    Ruler huffed.  ¡°Bigger how?  You¡¯re already pulling people away from their work for days at a time.¡±


    Irons shuddered.  ¡°They won¡¯t like that, once it sinks in.  Meeting your quota is the only way to work off the burden you incur by being sinful.  Erm, so they say.¡±


    ¡°Now we take our sedate, quiet crowd, and we get them to march on the city hall bank.  Which is, by the way, absolutely blasphemous.  ¡®You cannot serve both God and Greed.¡¯¡±


    Irons grinned.  ¡°I¡¯ve heard you quote that one before.¡±


    Corrie looked frightened, but excited.  ¡°So how are we doing this?¡±

 Insurrection

    While it was by no means ¡°cool,¡± Daisy appreciated the lack of flaming rooftops in West Helland.  Evidently, it was near the North Pole, separated by a mountain range and a lot of troops from The Armed Nation.  It was curious the kind of detail that caught your eye when you were fighting for your life.


    But that, Daisy reflected, might be getting ahead of herself.


    Daisy, along with Ruler, Irons, and Corrie, had whipped the crowd into a frenzy.  ¡°How many of you struggle to afford food?!  How many among you subsist on a ration of water you¡¯re forced to supplement with wastewater?!  How many among you have had enough?!¡±  There was a great cheer.  ¡°The Lord did not make some people to be kings!  ¡®He will take your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, even your best, and give them to his servants.¡¯  ¡®You will cry out in that day because of your king whom you will have chosen for yourselves; and the One God will not answer you in that day¡¯!  Do not your donjons rule from on high?!  Do not their banks contain wealth enough to feed your families for years to come?!  Have you had enough?!  We march on city hall!  We take back what is rightfully ours!  ¡®Don''t be afraid of those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul¡¯!  Women and men of Marz, of Helland, follow me!¡±


    Daisy led the assembled mass of people on a march through town, throwing inspirational phrases over her shoulder and letting her helpers do the rest of the rabble rousing.  Not that these were rabble.  If anything, they were the purer souls in ¡°the Kingdom of Hell,¡± people of simple faith and honest repentance, though their punishment had been far beyond the measure of any sin they might have committed.


    They did not make it as far as the city hall.  Dressed in uniform, armed with rifles, rows of spades appeared.  Without hesitation, they fired into the crowd.  Daisy, fearing for her life, summoned a wall of water between her and the riflemen, which slowed the bullets enough that they veered off-course or merely bludgeoned her.  But in such a densely-packed crowd, even missing meant someone got hurt.  The crowd, full of cheer and fervor, rapidly panicked.  They were low-caste diamonds, or colonized peoples not even given a rank; they had no weapons, they had no training, this had been a lark until the moment it turned into a nightmare.


    That was when Daisy noticed that the roofs of West Helland were not on fire.


    As Daisy fled, reaching out through Ruler¡¯s gutfish to find Irons and Corrie and make sure they all fled to the same safe house.  It was not a defeat today, but a demonstration.  In the last several days, they had made contact with numerous people of West Helland, and there was a plan.  An unarmed people facing a despotism that robbed them of their very humanity in the eyes of the ruling class could not do much.  But an organized resistance, engaging in guerilla warfare, could do a great deal.  City hall would know Daisy¡¯s wrath but soon.  As Irons tended her injuries, Daisy relished the coming day of reckoning.


    Cell-based resistance movements were tough nuts to crack.  But they still had the fatal weak spot of a connection between each person and at least one other cell.  Sufficient brutality and willingness to extract information, a trifle with air sorcery, would eventually root out the cells.  However, and Ruler had to be credited with the idea, when you had a light sorcerer there was no need for anyone in any cell to know anyone in any other cell.  It was still psychologically useful to put people into groups of two, three, or four, allowing them to feel fellowship and support one another, but beyond that, it was a dead end¡ªprovided you had a light sorcerer.  From their safe house, Corrie¡¯s small flat, Irons and Corrie took care of fetching food and selling water, while Avery and Daisy worked their sorcery.  Avery would, having a reliable city map built over the previous days, conjure a light show in the houses of trusted¡ªor even semi-trusted¡ªmembers of their resistance.  Giving off a neon glow, he provided instructions or encouragement or both.  Then, with instructions to write any requests, reports, or clarifications on a clay tablet, he would scry upon the location he had just refracted light into, and find out what they had learned.


    Daisy, meanwhile, was taking an unarmed populace and turning them into an armed populace.  Just as she had in jail, she turned the acidic carbon dioxide in her exhaled breaths into black powder, assembled into charges and given wax-soaked cord as a fuse.  It was grueling work, requiring a great deal of focus, and her failures to maintain her focus left her with tingling limbs and cramping muscles.  With the part of her mind not maintaining the focus on her breath, Daisy reflected upon what she was wreaking.  Sorcery was predicated upon faith, specifically the faith that what one was doing was the One God¡¯s Will.  Many theorized this was the reason dragons had developed psionics for their servants; one could not serve a dragon long and believe in their obeisance to the One God, or else they would have to put on an elaborate song and dance.


    She actually stopped for several hours, at one point, to consider whether she honestly believed it was right to bomb colonizer buildings.  People could be hurt, even if they timed the demonstrations to when the buildings should be empty.  Ultimately, her conclusion was that she believed in what she was doing, and working water sorcery to gaze upon her soul and reassure herself of its luminescence.


    She took a break after that to drink water from an artfully etched pewter pitcher.  It was a depiction of ¡®Liders soaring on the updrafts of a plain of fire, detailed enough to show the exhaled breath of the flying messengers. Its soulcerous enchantment rendered water put in it cold, as were those high elevations at which only ¡®Liders could survive.  Asked about it, Corrie had said bitterly, ¡°We used to be a passionate nation of craftswomen.  Now we satisfy the quotas.¡±


    Irons returned, looking tired but happy, and asked if the next charge was ready to be put at the drop site.  Daisy pushed her drink away and then returned to transmuting black powder.


    As they knew it would be, the response to the bombings was swift and brutal.  A curfew was imposed, and all individuals out and about needed to show their work designation and demonstrate they were on an efficient route to or from work or errands.  But they couldn¡¯t actually penalize any of the people, because they couldn¡¯t prove anyone had done it.  The soldiers, the spades, walked around with rifles at all times, and the remaining buildings of the Helland occupation were kept under guard.  All expenses for an empire already pushing resources over the Eka-Alumina Sea, the sea Daisy, Ruler, and Irons had sailed across.


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    Daisy was in no rush.  She let the crackdown stew, let resentment grow, and in the meantime preached a verse at a time through Ruler.  She also worked on teaching Irons to use water sorcery.  Corrie was still new to her faith, she might yet be a seed scattered amongst the stones, but Daisy was confident in Irons¡¯ belief and commitment.  They started small, mindful of the difficulty of working water sorcery on the fire planet.  Daisy explained to Irons, ¡°¡®If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, ¡®Move from here to there¡¯¡¯.  Of course, it is not as simple as that.  You need to focus, you need to know what you are praying for.¡±  Praying?  I thought this was sorcery.  ¡°It is a kind of prayer.  And to work water sorcery on Marz, you will need to pray very hard indeed.  Once you are practiced in it, that is when you can will something to be and have it happen.¡±  Daisy dipped her fingers into the bowl of water and blew on her hand, feeling the coolness of the water as air ran across it.  ¡°First is the investiture.  It is a technique of making sorcery easier by attuning to an element.  Be aware of the water on your fingers, feel how it¡¯s the same as the water in the bowl.  Repeat it as many times as you need.


    ¡°Then, repeat after me: ¡®Lord, I strive to believe it is Your Will that this water ripple, that I might serve the cause of bringing about your Kingdom on Marz.  Please fill me with Your Spirit and let me be faithful.¡¯¡±  Irons repeated after her, Corrie looking on with clear envy.  Irons repeated the prayer, looked down at the bowl, and sighed.  ¡°It¡¯s okay, Irons.  It takes practice.  And you¡¯re starting with what is likely the hardest element you could on this planet.¡±  They tried again.  And again.  Meanwhile, Ruler found ever more converts to their cause, as the harshness of the crackdown with no results led to resentment.


    ¡°Why won¡¯t the dragons just sweep the city with their psi?¡± Corrie asked one night.  ¡°I understand why their servants won¡¯t, they¡¯d run the risk of being counterattacked, but dragons have so much more powerful minds!¡±


    Ruler looked at Daisy, who gestured that it was his show if he wanted to share.  ¡°Dragons took an active role in human politics before.  It ended poorly for th-them.  Now, the fullest extent they¡¯ll get involved is helping and guiding guilds and the like.  Th-they¡¯ve gotten bolder, in the last Age, which is the reason for the prophecy I-I-I carry.  They will cross the line¡ªalready have, on Orth¡ªand humans will rise up for the final time against them.  So the One God has entrusted m-me to relate.¡±


    ¡°I hope they don¡¯t cross that line now of all times.¡±


    Daisy shook her head.  ¡°They represent an untouchable elite above even the donjons.  I strongly suspect they rest easy knowing they will be at the top of any hierarchy that forms, and if their servants are not capable enough to defend themselves¡­ explain it again, Ruler?¡±


    ¡°Intervening directly would be a loss of status for th-them.  It is all about how many pawns and how capable they are, because applying draconic might directly is a sign of weakness.  The D-D-Dragonslayer killed one of the weakest exponents of dragonkind because h-he ruled a nation directly.¡±


    Aside from the grueling work of coordinating an ever-growing resistance, Ruler was looking for Helland weapon stores.  They had no illusions of stealing them, but if they could mine Helland¡¯s rifles then they¡¯d have a fighting chance.  Clubs and cleavers were not an even match for proper swords, but with the advantage of numbers they¡¯d have a decent odds.


    When they were almost ready, they sent out the message again.  This time, it would not be about even feigning a resistance, but making a statement.  At precisely noon, hundreds of casteless and diamonds, and by now even a few spades, poured out from work assignments and housing and gathered in the square before city hall.  They already had ranking spades following them, and Daisy had not made an appearance, but as soon as they had gathered, Ruler gave the signal to disperse, an eight-pointed starburst above the crowd.  They had made their point.  The people would not tolerate much more.


    There was retribution, of course.  The Powers that Be could hardly let it be any other way, but they couldn¡¯t punish everyone in any personal way.  A few people were arrested, those who missed work were identified where their managers hadn¡¯t walked out as well.  That, fortunately, had been the majority.  Resentment was climbing the ranks of the diamonds, Daisy knew they counted even a six of diamonds among the ranks of the resistance.  And they had picked up an incredibly valuable tip.  A name almost lost to the ages, West Helland had once been known as Crafton, known for its fine workmanship of metal.  The Crafton Resistance was born.


    In the end, it was the spades¡¯ own zeal to arm and defend themselves that allowed Daisy to make her next move.  Breastplates and rifles were commissioned en masse, urine was requisitioned, where before it had been a valuable source of distilled water.  And all of it went to the same complex of buildings, as those more privileged spies were able to relate to Ruler.  This time, it wasn¡¯t just Irons and Corrie risking their lives to deliver charges to the drop sites.  It was a relay race of excusable movements through the city, passing packages with unpracticed clumsiness that made it all the more deniable.  Some of the Crafton Resistance were arrested, charged with treason and terrorism and heresy, in some combination or other, but by and large the charges landed where they were supposed to.


    Through it all, business went on as it was supposed to.  Workers went to work, water rations were given out, and while a rough sketch of Daisy in the garb she had arrived on Marz wearing was circulated, not many people were arrested.  Declarations that any sign of light sorcery would be taken as treason were posted; they had cracked the few they had arrested, but without a consistent schedule or any idea of who was a member of the Resistance, little could come of it.  The tension hummed in the air, ever more of the populace reaching out in whispers to their neighbors, their staff, even their superiors.


    The bombing went off clumsily, and Daisy regretted that she lacked the military training to make it a great success.  Ruler was scrying on the area, and they watched as individuals afraid for their lives and being fired upon and dropping their charges.  However, enough made it to the compounds to blast away the soldiers¡¯ arms and armor.  The breastplates were buried under rubble, and a truly impressive concussion and burst indicated that their gunpowder had gone up.  Daisy was thankful that their lack of water sorcery meant they couldn¡¯t rely upon the combination of acid and fire runes to run their rifles, because now¡­ now it was swords against improvised weapons.  They couldn¡¯t pick them off from a distance, and numbers would count for far more.  Even so, she prayed for the souls lost in the attack.  Corrie in particular seemed affected, she knew some of these people personally and they were dear to her.  Crafton¡ªDaisy would not think of it as West Helland again¡ªwas a close-knit community, for all the efforts of the spades to break up camaraderie with diamond caste assignments.


    Another demonstration was in order, this time with weapons, but when, and where, were questions she didn¡¯t have immediate answers to.  Smashing the vault at city hall wouldn¡¯t actually accomplish that much in the grand scheme of things, it was all script the Ranks of the Damned elites could recolor and reprint.  As Ruler relaxed from the taxing monitoring of so distant a site, Daisy reclined on her seating block and pondered next steps.  She¡¯d never led a revolution so successfully before, and while there were proverbs about planning for failure¡­