“The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.”
—Melian Dialogue, Thucydides
VIII-12
Great Power Politics
“Did you know about what Vincent was doing to his kids?” There was no heat in Shiv's question. He spoke in pure monotone and stared at Veronica without acrimony. He simply wanted to understand, and what followed afterward would not be uncontrolled emotion but consideration. “Did you know?” he repeated.
The Councilwoman was crouched over her stone table once more. Her dimensional dress billowed around her, spilling into the room. She had been casting spells that altered the fabric of space, for reasons recently uncertain to him, but judging from her posture and the slight flush of heat in her biological architecture, Shiv got the impression she had just survived a battle of some kind.
In her hand was a gleaming quill, golden-feathered and pitch-black of tip. She whipped words onto a page, every stroke a slash. She imparted the fullness of her wrath through action rather than expression or word, and only when she was done did she lift her face and cock her head. “She revealed herself to you, then?”
“Yeah. And I'm going to take that as a yes since you are avoiding my question.”
“Not avoiding anything. I'm simply confirming what matters more first.” Veronica laid down her quill, and the darkness at its tip vanished. Shiv noticed a few sparks of Dimensionality bleeding away from the quill and suspected she was writing on more pages than one, or perhaps marking a series of similar parchment elsewhere with a singular stroke. True Dimensionalists had some pretty impressive spells in their repertoire. “But yes, I did find out. And it did disgust me.”
“But you didn't do anything about it.”
Veronica stood up to stretch, and a faint shadow of the Songbringer manifested, though she was turned away from both Shiv and her granddaughter, staring at the nearby hearth flame that roared and crackled. Dim embers spilled over into the room, filling the air with a gloomy ambiance. It burned, but it burned weakly, and there was an inebriation spreading through the air, an exhaustion that radiated from the woman behind the stone table.
“There are costs to great power politics; there are costs to domestic politics; there are costs to any system. All of them are secondary in some fashion or another.” Veronica held up a hand, interrupting Shiv before he could cut into her with some acerbic judgment or insult. “It doesn't make anything right. It never does, but it is a trade. The nobility will band together against the capital if I press down upon them too hard. That doesn't mean I don't do anything. Things like these have repercussions. It is the entire reason why I allowed you to form your Unforgiven. However, Legend Vincent Stormhalt was a special circumstance. Much like yourself.”
“Because he was a Legend.”
Veronica nodded, and there was no judgment in her stare. She seemed weary, unlike ever before, and she continued her explanation. “I won't fault you for this outrage. There are times when I wrestle with the morality of those I protect, and those I view with privilege and pleasure. If they were only weaker, I would cull them. If they were only more pliable, I would cement my shackles around their throats and use them as hounds rather than people. They already behave in such deplorable, animalistic ways anyway. It would only be fitting. But the damage a Legend could do to a society is immense, especially when they are already integrated into this society before it reaches the zenith of its powers.”
“It's more than just personal power, isn't it? It's also influence, connections; it's family.” Shiv shook his head. “This is part of the mythology thing you were pitching me earlier: everyone in House Stormhalt keeps invoking his name like he's some kind of god, even after everything he did to them.”
A rasping scoff slipped out from Veronica. The noise she made reminded Shiv of himself. She possessed a measure of the same scorn, only an echo of the roaring flame he felt—but it was there nonetheless, and that made him loathe her more. In some ways, it would have been better if she was a total psychopath, caring for nothing, desiring only power and influence. In other ways, however, tangible moments of humanity were an exploitable weakness. If he wanted to push her, he could potentially use this as an angle to persuade.
“It's not easy for you to understand, especially with what our society and culture have done to you, but in a family, children revere their parents. In this world we live in, safety is a luxury above all others, and when your father is a mythological pillar of not only your house but your entire society, when his actions alone lift you into the halls of pleasure, privilege, and security, you will do everything you can to force yourself toward love. To force yourself to maintain that facade of valorization or adoration.”
Veronica hesitated, then offered another morsel of information. “I had the matriarch of House Stormhalt removed. Did you notice how they don't speak of their mother? Not Miriam, not Veinhult, not Havel. Their father is close to being divine, but the mother, well, she might as well have not existed.”
Shiv called on his Snapshot skill and zoomed back to all the moments he spent in the Highcradle. “So you're saying that they poured all of their house's sins into her? The father was immortalised as a god while the mother became a demon responsible for everything he did, as some kind of fucked up sense of projection to balance the scales?”
“Somewhat, but not quite. If she had been a great power herself, if she had possessed great influence over the house or done them a great favor beyond being a beauty of passing measure, then they too would have worshiped her. Alas, she died a Master—respectable for someone who rose out of nothing, but all nobles yearn to pass as Heroes, if only for the glory of being recorded in the annals. Her name has been struck both from her house's records and from the mausoleum, for she was not buried but incinerated, and her ashes cast carelessly without dedication or remembrance.”
On the topic of her death, however, Shiv had another question. “How did she die? Was it one of her own? Did Havel kill her too?” He caught an erratic blink in Veronica's eye. She didn't know Havel did it. Shiv couldn't help but smirk. “Oh, really? Who did you think murdered Vincent?”
“Veinhult,” Veronica said. “A special detachment of Inquisitors was dispatched to the scene in the aftermath. They used bio-scans and Divination to recreate the scene of the ambush. In every simulation of the past, it was Veinhult who held the giant spear and struck him down from behind after contriving a trap to help betray their position to the Frost Giants. All of this was supposedly his masterplan. And you say it was Havel?”
“Be careful,” the Dryad of Lies hissed. “We cannot unveil too much. Secrets are our currency. As the Faceless Queen touched us, we can touch her as well.”
Shiv took a page from Veronica's playbook. “Well, this leads into another question of my own: If Veinhult was the one who supposedly killed his father, why didn't you cut him down? Murder of a Legend and patricide in one make up a pretty big and ugly sin.”
“So is forcing oneself upon their children and torturing them,” Veronica answered with something that existed on the very borders of a snarl. “And it would be a foolish thing to do; it would leave House Stormhalt dramatically weakened in the aftermath. Bringing Veinhult—bastard son of the house—to stand trial would leave him without anything to lose on top of being lost in the throes of his trauma. At the same time, the rest of the family would share his volatility, and their position in Vermind would be threatened by other nobles—especially minor nobles—seeking a dramatic ascent. The revelation of why the boy did what he did would create a political and cultural crisis like no other.”
Shiv hummed in understanding. “Because why didn't the Ascendants know? Why didn't the Inquisitors protect the children? How could this be allowed? He was the family patriarch. How could a Legend be like this in the moral, ethical Yellowstone Republic, ruled by the righteous faith's chosen people under the System?” He watched Veronica react to each of his words and felt a faint resonance from her obscured, empathetic core.
“Correct, but far worse than you can imagine. A revelation of what Vincent Stormhalt was doing would have created a civil conflict among the nobles. A good portion of the nobility would have joined in protesting whatever sentence we would have enforced upon Veinhult, for his actions, though treacherous and vile, were understandable.”
“Nobility being understanding.” Shiv couldn't help but laugh. “It's one of theirs that did all this. Anytime something fucked up happens, it's them doing it.”
Veronica winced. The expression appeared so rarely on her face that he thought she was actually suffering from physical pain. “For once I wish that were true. For once I wish that it was so simple a thing, but no. It's power that allows them to perform and indulge in depravity. It's power that allows them to escape the consequences. If you empowered most of the peasantry, well… They never had the opportunity to enjoy the privilege of being above others. This isn't to say everyone would become a monster, but think of those in destitution and hardship. Think of what constrains them. And think of how they act when they are given power over those weaker than them in reality.”
Shiv did, and he got the picture she was portraying. “So, what's the argument? Everyone's a piece of shit if they have the proper motivation to be?”
“It's that everyone can be a monster if they are prevented from feeling the weight of the lash and if they are shaped wrongly by a series of malignant experiences.” She gestured toward herself and then Shiv. “I am the way I am because I chose to be a junior representative instead of taking on the front lines and becoming a warrior in the field. I think that if I was a soldier, I might be something like you, hateful toward the nobility in all their incomprehensible ways, hateful toward my fellow blessed, for they refuse to take up the responsibility. The mantle of great power comes with nothing at all?” She scoffed sarcastically. “How absurd. But as I took hold of the reins of power, I realized then that people are disappointing. It only takes a little thing to twist someone. A poorly spoken series of words can break a heart. A momentary absence. A lost promotion. A bully with a banner behind her or him.”
She narrowed her eyes at Shiv. “Time spent in a prison without justification or proper processing.”
Despite everything, that made him grin. “Well, if you're still hung up about that, I've moved past that already. That and a lot of other things.”
“No, you simply don't want it to affect you anymore, which is commendable, but it is always going to be part of your experiences. If I tell you to snatch someone, a budding Legend, and shove them into the Rubix Well, will you listen to me? Especially if I give only an order and no justification, if I tell you that I intend to experiment upon them for the benefit of the Republic?”
“No.”
“Correct,” she declared. “But now I want you to realize that a great many members of the Inquisition will simply nod and carry out their orders. For orders are orders, and the higher-ups can deal with the consequences no longer on their shoulders. It is simply their arms and hands that operate while my will and my mind flow through them. How quick they are to make themselves slaves, how quick they are to cast themselves in the role of a weapon instead of a whole person. Abdication is also a choice. Not everyone is committed to responsibility. And not everyone learns that responsibility comes with its own rewards and blessings.”
“So, because things get messy, you don't punish Veinhult, which is also tied to why you didn't punish Vincent.”
“The latter was too powerful, but he had it coming. The former was weak, but why should I have punished the poor child for striking down his bastard of a father?” Veronica drew in a long breath, and she turned to regard her grandmother. “But here I stand, in the shadow of hypocrisy, do I not? I'm not unaware, but I am… not my own myth either.”
“Because what would the Republic be without their Pillars of Faith? What would the Republic be without the Songbringer's song, the Endbreaker's shielding storm, the Starhawk's all-piercing arrows?” When Kathereine joined the conversation, she was far more somber than Shiv could ever recall. “I get these flashes, boy. Moments of understanding and empathy. They don't last long. They're like a fading note, a distant hymn. They greet me, and I remember who I was, not this story of what I am.”
The Songbringer began to hum, and those were soft notes, human notes, filled with warmth, empathy, and borderline understanding. It was like she still retained a shadow of what it meant to be purely human, to be so vulnerable and so embroiled with community and misery. “But then it fades, and I am myself, and I am beyond consequence, and I am beyond everything. I regret only in increments, between breaths, in between verses. I suffer and I revel and I forget. Soon this moment of mine, this present where I can talk to you as I was, will pass again. I will be myself, and my granddaughter will be my minder, to wipe away my sins, to bury it and the people I hurt.”
As she spoke, as her words flowed, going from speech to a series of lyrical notes, he felt his Dryad tremble. It went from accepting her speech as a silent truth to grumbling about how she was lying, that now she was falling away from humanity. Perhaps a few heartbeats ago, Kathereine was, but now the Songbringer endured as the person vanished.
“You know, Longinus thanked me when I killed him,” Shiv said quietly. “He thanked me when I tore his godly shell open and butchered the man inside. Through it all, he was fighting himself. He was screaming. Everything he did tortured him. Everything his story made him was agony on his heart. But then there are people like Vincent. Just power, not even godhood, and they feed into that mythology. They are sin incarnate, and they do everything they can to taint your Divinity. So why don't you reshape this? You've had centuries, you had—”
“I had to make choices. Republics are built on choices. I, though substantially influential, do not stand as the sole tyrant above all others.”
Shiv's lips twitched. “Seems that way to me, though.”
“Because I presented to be so. Sometimes power rejected is power manifest in politics. But enough about this sordid affair. We can debate about the nobility and the vile cultures and myths later. I want to hear about the Faceless Queen. She revealed herself to you. What did you learn? When did she show herself? How did she speak to you? Did anyone else have any knowledge that she was there?”
Though he didn't want to move on from the other topic, he decided to shelve it for now. She said he would have some time to argue with the nobility, and if he was going to start making his own influence over the Republic known, he would start from the top down while also moving bottom up. Faith was a blade that cut both ways, and with one of the nobility’s beloved gods completely on his side and without degeneration taunting her, Shiv saw himself inflicting great change through dreams alone upon the unrepentant patriarchs and matriarchs.
For example, if he had pulled Veinhult's nightmares and transplanted them into Vincent, he suspected that the Harbinger would find the patron Legend of House Stormhalt to be eminently breakable.
“We'll skip over the bullshit,” Shiv began. “I don't think she's infested my Garden of Wounds and Broken Things either. I don't think she's capable of skipping out of context. She didn't seem to know about our conversation in the theater. I brought up a bit about mythology and seeing my actor on stage. Don't think she got the reference.”
The atmosphere in the room changed instantly. The flames in the hearth crackled aloud, fingers of vibrant orange reaching for the ceiling. Veronica's dour expression broke into a flash of light and vivacity. “Keep going.”
He recounted everything that happened at House Stormhalt. The argument over inherited properties was a non-factor before the enigma of the Faceless Queen. The Councilwoman heeded Shiv’s tale, and Kathereine leaned down to whisper in her ear. It wasn’t a necessary action on their part: Avatars and Ascendants could commune internally, for theirs was a shared vessel.
“But it is,” the Harbinger insisted. “She’s sunken back into her demented state again. The performer god has swallowed the briefness of the woman and now myth shadows person. But this can be to our advantage. We know that the person exists still in the shadows. The mortal that came before has not been subsumed completely. The possibility of freeing the individual from within the rotten Divinity is worth exploring. In the best case, if we do this right, if we manage to get them, secure them some equilibrium, we'll replace all the Ascendants and free the people within. We could execute a usurpation without blood, without any cultural damage whatsoever. The myths would stay intact, and the Republic would live up to its ideals.”
But that's only if it's possible later. We don't know nearly enough right now. Don't dream too big, Harbinger. We got leagues to go before we can make any desperate plays like that.
“How strange of you to be the pragmatic one,” the Harbinger mused.
Well, I am your shadow in a way, right?
The skill just laughed.
“Sending you to House Stormhalt was the best choice I could have made,” Veronica said, her eyes pointed down as she consumed everything she'd just learned. “The Faceless Queen revealed herself only partway through proceeding, and you think that's because she is still a singular existence?”
“Yeah. Seems to be that way from how she behaves. The Queen's dramatic, but she usually does things for effect too. If she wanted to throw me off, she would have been there from the moment I stepped through the front door. There are a lot of considerations psychologically.”
“And you think she's slowly trying to subvert you,” Veronica added. “To turn you against the Republic.”
“I think she's trying to prime me to do a series of things that benefit New Albion. She doesn't need to subvert me to turn me against the Republic. Our arrangement here is... Well, you know our arrangement here. Let's not bullshit each other. But she's playing a game, a really big game, and I don't think either of us can see all the pieces yet. Coming to Piety is part of her game, and having me more volatile, more suspicious of the Republic's culture? That's another piece as well.”
“Of course it is, but what is her masterstroke?” Kathereine began tapping on the table using an incandescent finger.
Veronica's gaze snapped down to her grandmother's metronomic action and glared. “Stop that.”
Kathereine’s index froze mid-fall.
“Did she say anything else? Any other revelations other than how she was there in person, witnessing the murder and Havel being the perpetrator rather than Veinhult?”
“Quite the impressive thing to arrange on her part,” Kathereine interjected. “She masked the past. She fooled all our Biomancers, Diviners, and Investigators. Whatever she did in Havel's absence cleared him of all suspicion. Which leads to even greater paranoia. How many other things has she arranged? How many other things are we to question?”
“If you want me to answer that question, everything,” Shiv replied. “Because so far, the worst thing about dealing with her is how she seems to know absolutely godsdamn everything.”
“Almost everything,” Veronica rebutted. “As you said before, she didn't know what you were referencing while you were in the theater. She doesn't know what we spoke of while you were in my presence.” The Councilwoman ran her hand along the roughly carved sigils lining her stone table.
“Is it the runes that are warding us?” he asked. “The markings on the stones? Or is it the Songbringer?”
Veronica hummed. “Good question. Perhaps both. This leads into another inquiry: Why did she manifest in House Stormhalt? Could she manifest anywhere else? Is she tied to you in another way beyond your skills, perhaps infecting you informationally, through your knowledge of her existence? Can she exist in two places at the same time? We need to learn these things as well.”
“Already making plans on my end,” Shiv said. “Me and mine aren't going to be talking out loud anymore. We know she can read or listen in on telepathic communications. We know that she can see my skills, unlike anyone else. She knows when I'm getting levels and what I evolve. It's like she has access to my status sheet at any time she wants. So even if she's not inside my soul, she has a glimpse behind the screen, and she knows a little too much—especially about things Backstage.”
“So if she doesn't follow you out of context, that means she has a means of accessing your mind and memories.” Veronica paused. “Only in part, however, since she doesn’t know about the theater? Which wasn't even warded.”
“Ah, she fears me, then,” Kathereine concluded with a smirk. “Rightly so. Even a Legend of a conniving little birdkeeper is nothing beneath the wrath of a god.”
“That, or she's unable to hide herself from you specifically.” Veronica’s eyes flashed, and a smile spread across her features. “I see. I see. Deathless, I have a demand.”
“Well, this is going to be good,” he said dryly.
“I want to do something daring and bold. Something inspired by your recklessness. I suspect the Faceless Queen is trying to bait me into a series of actions. There are two avenues ahead of us: If she's appearing in your Gate, then that means she is likely luring out all her enemies, but also trying to lure me out besides, because I have spent years trying to uncover the true extent of her nature. If this is the case, and she knows there is a risk of such, then if I appear in person with her, with grandmother in tow, she would be pinned and judged socially. Unable to exercise her Legendary powers to the fullest extent, she would be effectively more at risk than at any other point in her existence.”
“But so would you,” Shiv replied. “Away from the public, away from your warded chamber, inside my Gate, surrounded by people you can't fully trust? Doesn't get any more exposed than that. It's a pretty big gambit.”
“Correct, and she knows far too much about my personality and behavior. A disquieting, disgusting amount that makes me feel demeaned. I wish to remedy this, and I see in your eyes you do as well. So, let's do something surprising, as I said, something breathless and vulgar. I want you to be an Avatar for the Songbringer.”
Shiv's mind went empty. “Huh?”
“What?” Kathereine squealed, her voice going off-pitch in a moment of over-hysterical outrage.
“I will hide away inside this room. If she can visit herself upon me, if she steals information that she does not have and glimpses things about my skills or mind while I am alone here, then we gain more information about our adversary, and as we have established, she dares not peek in on us while grandmother is present, so you would be shrouded from her awareness as well. Which will allow you to ambush and put her on the back foot with whatever you choose.”
“Yeah, but the big fucking problem here is that I have to wear Kathereine!” Shiv sputtered.
“You will not refuse me! I refuse you!” Kathereine snarled with all the haughtiness she could muster. “He’s cultureless! He’s a staggering brute who only uses language to brutalize and terrorize. He is a destroyer of all things precious to my Domain. Allowing him to take on my mantle—even for a picosecond—will see me split down to the foundations of my faith!”
“On second thought, I’ll do it, Veronica,” Shiv said, stepping forward. “Let me put her out of her misery right now.”
Comedy 40 > 42
“Are you two done being children?” Veronica asked.
“He is the only child present!” Kathereine seethed, pointing at him. “Is this about the maid-girl? I said I didn’t mean to have her—”
“What maid girl?” Shiv asked.
“Irrelevant,” Veronica rebuffed—only for the Dryad to send images of Kathereine standing over a hollow-eyed girl, no older than Shiv, probably younger judging from the texture of her skin and the softness of her features. The poor maid didn't look like she was dead, but for all intents and purposes, whatever constituted her mind was now a hollowed ruin.
Shiv grimaced. That was the thing the Republic worshiped, that he was supposed to bring into Gate Piety.
There were times a stand needed to be made. To deal with the Faceless Queen was necessary, but to make a bargain and allow the Songbringer to install herself within his soul? Well, that was certain suicide, and not only for himself. He couldn't help it, but even if he couldn't, that meant other people paid for her madness.
“Veronica,” Shiv said as gently and professionally as he could, "I know what happened to the maid. I know enough. I don't know her name, but I know her face, and I know that she's effectively brain-dead. I'm not bringing Kathereine into the Gate without you. You're the only one she listens to, and if she goes off course and loses control, it's not me she's going to have to contend with. You made Adam a Demisaint of the Republic. I want you to consider the political upheaval if someone inside his Gate dies because of her actions. And I can guarantee that anything that could have resulted from killing Vincent would be nothing compared to the Paragon's reprisal. Let's not get too greedy here.”
Veronica seemed indifferent to his protestations at first, but the moment he brought up Adam and the risks, there seemed to be a flash inside of her, a flicker of understanding behind her eyes. She too was absent from herself, but not in the same way. She was hyper-focused on seizing political or power advantage against an incomprehensible foe. Now the person had re-assumed their station, and the Councilwoman was in recession—and so Shiv's reason reached home.
“An alternative solution,” Veronica said. "Something that might not work, but something we can test nonetheless. The Songbringer does not descend upon you. I try to channel her through the mirror. You have that at the Gate, yes? I trust that you didn't throw it away in a fit of childish fury.”
“I left it near the waste organ in my restaurant, but yeah.”
“Waste organ?”
“A court leviathan needs to take shits.”
“Ah, I see.” She frowned. “Distasteful.”
“So is mentally destroying a girl for whatever reason.”
“Fair is fair,” Kathereine said, her tone slightly airy, as she suddenly stood her own critic. “I am not even sure why I wanted to test those maladies on that poor girl. She was screaming by the end, weeping. Veronica, you heard her. Why didn't you stop me?”
A snort left Shiv. It was a rough snort. He did judge Veronica for that, but he also sympathized. It was hard being the minder of an unstable god. But hard wasn't a good enough excuse.
“We proceed with the mirror as my proxy,” Veronica continued, ignoring both of them. “Kathereine will project her presence through the mirror. I will remain here. Is this agreeable?”
Shiv huffed. He was the Vincent in this equation. Being a Legend made you valuable to everyone, and people bargained for rather than forced your hand. “Yeah, I’ll play.”
“Good.” Veronica breathed out. “Now, was there anything else she told you? Anything else pressing or important?”
There was something else. The Faceless Queen made an offer to unveil Veronica's past and give Shiv an edge. She also hinted at the contours of her greater scheme: to have Shiv seize control of the Republic out from under Veronica, and to do so with the backing of New Albion.
“Do not lie to her outright. Between the Songbringer and her own capabilities, she is likely by far your superior in delving through lies.” The Harbinger's warning was proper but unnecessary.
“Yeah,” Shiv said, offering Veronica a taunting smirk. “But that’s between me and her. I’m scheming off the side.”
The admission was bold and irreverent, but took a bit of sting out of things, for stating his intent to subvert and confuse in the open was more courtesy than she got from any domestic or geopolitical rival. “You still haven't learned your lesson from playing between games? Fine then. Sink deeper into your own mess and come back to me when you need me, but next time I will demand more control—and a proper penance on your part. You will make a mistake, and you will find yourself in desperate need of someone who understands the Great Game.”
“That's nice. I know two people like that. Good to have choices.” Over-needling Veronica was unwise. Though he wanted a shot across her bow so that she would bid more.
The Councilwoman breathed in and scowled. “You are an aggravating person, Shiv. There are moments I yearn to tell you just how I feel with the fullness of my power.”
“Fuck you too, Veronica. But maybe we can agree on ‘fuck the Queen and New Albion more.’ Isn’t that the essence of great power politics anyway?”
“Lamentably. Truly lamentably.”