Cheeth

There is a burning, festering wound in reality in its iciest north. It is a place where the laws of physics are traded for the laws of EVIL. Ashes and brimstone churn in its nethers, and monstrous chants and laughter echo off of its jagged walls. On the cliffs of this great, hellish pit, devils and demons torture one another. They sing dark songs in exultation of their master, the great Chcurex, their friend in the heavens and the architect of too many failed apocalypses. Above all, the fiends look to the center of the Fiendrift with depraved interest. They are cheering. They are celebrating the wedding of man and Evil.

It is time for the first dance of their wedding.

Bhoural shot up in cold sweat. His hands raced over his body, instinctually afraid that he’d been injured. His gaze focused on Jhep, his bodyguard and squire, who was startled at Bhoural’s awakening. “What happened, sire?”

Cheeth would not show weakness to his subordinates, Bhoural thought, acutely aware that Cheeth could be watching.

“Nothing that concerns you,” replied Bhoural gruffly. “Nothing but a pointless dream. Now help me don my armor, boy.”

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The year was 1699 H.E., and Bhoural’s crusade against Chcurex had brought him further and further north. On the night of his wedding, the defeat of a Demagogue would have seemed impossible to Bhoural. Now that he was at tier 10, more than 4 times as strong as he was on that night, to mortally wound a demagogue was a daily frivolity.

Bhoural gazed at the defaced interior of the Janxanian basilica of Batlayke township. A great circle of wires and profaned trinkets issued out of the great covenant ark that acted as the basilica’s altar. The ark had been defaced by the demagogue Bellat-Than. His body, and the body of the many Janxanian zealots who had attacked the basilica with Bhoural, were strewn all about. It was harrowing. The basilica’s poet and congregation leader, Tsappa, stood beside him as cleanup crews swarmed the sanctuary: “We are grateful for your intercession, great hero. How may we repay you, Bhoural?”

Bhoural caught wind of Farra and Klyra turning their heads when the word “repay” was mentioned.

Cheeth would take something from these people, something justly deserved thought Bhoural. To do otherwise would be to show weakness and effeminacy. “If it weren’t for us, the angel of the ark, Terea, would still be under Bellat-Than’s thrall, no?”

Tsappa squinted nervously at Bhoural, “Er, I don’t follow your logic, my lord.”

Bhoural cleared his throat and leered at Tsappa. “We saved your ark from Bellat’s corruption. We deserve it.”

“But we need that ark!” Cried Tsappa, “We’ve lost most of our congregation fighting Bellat-Than. We’re… if we lose Terea, we’ll be defenseless. The ark is our heritage. it’s stood here for centuries!”

Bhoural studied Tsappa’s frantic reaction. Cheeth would not back down from what he is owed. To do so is to show weakness and effeminacy. “If your congregation is righteous and deserving in the eyes of fate and the adventurer’s blessing, they will triumph. They will not need the ark.” Bhoural marched torwards the ark.

“How can you do this to us?” cried Tsappa. “We’re brothers under Janxan’s light. This is sacrilege!”

Bhoural turned to Tsappa: “We were brothers under Janxan’s light.”

As Bhoural neared the ark, he felt a stone strike his rear breastplate. He turned. A titan child’s hand was extended towards him. He’d thrown the rock.

It is weakness and effeminacy to leave an act of aggression unpunished, thought Bhoural, fearful of the eye of Cheeth. Bhoural lifted the ark over his shoulder in a feat of considerable strength, walked by the child, and kicked him prone with a metal greave. He heard the child gasp desperately. He saw the back of the child’s skull crash against the slate flooring. He could tell there would be bruising, pain. There was even the possibility of a skull fracture.

Bhoural felt disgust and regret begin to rise up in the root of his psyche, spreading quickly to his stream-of-thought’s fore. He could tell that he would want to vomit or heave from the horrors he’d inflicted in a few seconds. Bhoural absolutely could not allow this to happen. Cheeth would punish him if he consciously registered, even for a second, remorse for the atrocities he committed. So Bhoural did what he always did when his conscience began to nag at him in moments like these: he turned it off. Like a little switch. Simply. Quietly. And like that, all the agony was gone.

“That child is a misbehaving disgrace. Discipline him,” said Bhoural as he exited the basilica, pointing to the battered titan boy.

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Bhoural entered his townhouse on Afreyatz Avenue on light feet. He made no effort to disguise himself, unless being outside of his Emerald Ursa Armor counted as a disguise. He had been inconveniently called here to discuss matters sensitive to the great, Northern Crusade with the offensive’s architects. He was obliged to make a detour to his townhouse to rummage for the Alabaster Goose, a relic he’d found during his vendetta against Url-Rafam. He was unable to send a valet to do the job because the goose was in a safe that only he knew the combination for.

It was very early in the morning. Bhoural walked through the house, arriving at the bedchamber and kneeling in the closet where his old sundries were kept. As the safe opened, he sensed a presence behind him. It was Yanla. He’d hoped to avoid this exact confrontation, choosing the time she’d be least likely to be in the house.

“You’re supposed to be at the convent,” he complained brusquely.

“I forgot my coat,” she replied standoffishly, “You’re supposed to be up North. You can find time to come to your house, but not your wife, I take it?”

Cheeth would admit to no wrongdoing thought Bhoural. Wrongdoing is weakness. Wrongdoing is effeminacy. She must not fault you.

“Yes,” barked Bhoural. “That’s exactly right. I have a continent to save, and you have lives you need to save. You agreed that I’d be indisposed from being with you during the Crusade. I have to be elsewhere now.”

Yanla scoffed. “How often have you been in Bursual on this Crusade? It seems like it’s no problem for the Empyrean’s wizards to warp you down in the city whenever. You really can’t spend any time with me? Am I supposed to be content with your letters? We haven’t even had our honeymoon.”

Cheeth would not allow a woman to upbraid a man, least of all a husband, thought Bhoural. “You are grateless. You are shameful. I’ve paid for this house. I’ve given you comfort in my absence. I’ve let you continue your work at the convent. I fight for your protection every day in the North, and this is the thanks I get. Disgraceful! You owe your comfort to me.” Bhoural was repulsed to do it, but he felt the need for theatrics in this situation. He extended his hand. “You will kiss my wedding ring before leaving. You will affirm your devotion to me as my wife. And you will never criticize me so thoughtlessly again!”

Yanla recoiled at Bhoural’s demands. Her mouth was half agape. Bhoural had no time for this. He stamped his foot. “Now!”

And Yanla’s lips disingenously landed on Bhoural’s fist. Bhoural saw despair in her eyes. Real despair, ‘I don’t want to be wed to you anymore,’ despair, ‘I’m going to be late to the convent crying for 2 hours’ despair. ‘I’m trapped with you,’ despair, and that made Bhoural think about how he was also-

Nope.

He absolutely could not go there. He had to stay away from that. It would cost him his career with Cheeth.

Time to turn it off.

And he did. Now he was looking at the face of a distressed soldier woman, and it meant nothing to him. He had other places to be, so he stormed out of the room.

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Bhoural and Eydan were en route to discuss these successes and plan further with other heroes crucial to the conflict. In the old Khatru fortress they wandered, through a ponderous mess of cold and hostile stone corridors to the keep’s darkroom. They had sensitive matters to discuss, and within the darkroom’s lead-lined walls, they would be invulnerable to the magical eavesdropping of enemy spellcasters, or even the likes of Gods like Wyzzyx or Chcurex.

As Bhoural entered, and as he laid eyes on a room empty save for him and Eydan, he intuited why Eydan had called the meeting. The two sat with curt politeness, crossing arms at one another.

“Please confess you’ve been only behaving so wretchedly because of Cheeth’s constant watch,” began Eydan. “If you’ve really bought into him heart and soul, here ends our friendship.”

Bhoural considered his words carefully. “I’ve been put into a position where I have to behave like Cheeth’s always watching. I’ve hated every second of it.”

Eydan clutched his temples in aggrieved annoyance. “What did I tell you? What did I tell you? Answer me that, young master. I warned you about Cheeth, and did not mince my words warning you. He’s got you and your beliefs by the bollocks.”

“Let’s get one thing straight!” barked Bhoural. “I do not believe in anything I’ve been forced to do. I’ve been under constant duress. Cheeth explodes at me if I show the slightest bit of softness. None of what I’ve done is sincere.” Bhoural spoke with monstrous exasperation. He could tell Eydan didn’t recognize this temperament. His unleashed anger was equally unfamiliar. For the first time in years, he didn’t have to reflexively censor any of his negative feelings. Perhaps that was why he encountered such difficulty in regulating his anger here.

Eydan continued rubbing his temples. “So privately you hate your god, but publically you’re indistinguishable from a diehard Bishop of Cheeth. What remarkable moral fortitude.” Bhoural had nothing to say for Eydan for some time. “If there is any of the integrity l instilled in you remaining, promise me now to wring yourself free from the surly bonds of Cheeth. It’s right thing-“

“It’s not that simple!” hissed Bhoural, “It’s not that simple. Our party relies on the Empyreans too much at this point. They’re our links to the rest of the anticrusade. I know Cheeth, he would know if any of us left his sphere of influence, and he would make our lives hell. The blowback would be too great. I’d be unseated as lord here, and then some asshole favorite of Cheeth would be put in place to supplant me. More evil would come from leaving Cheeth than from staying with him.”

Eydan shrugged unsympathetically. “I hope that in your dalliances with that bastard, you’ve come to realize that Cheeth is the root of the Autocracy’s Good-flavored Evil. All the jingoism, all the conquest masked in the language and posturing of goodness. Even if we defeat Oluns and rid the steppe of Chcurex, we’ll be doing it on Cheeth’s terms. Have you heard about the Negligence motion in the Silver See? They’re motioning to dissolve the Grand Duchy of Bursual for their gross negligence in containing Oluns. Guess who’s going to annex it.”

“The Autocracy?”

“No. Marvax personally. And that means Cheeth, personally, is going to rule over the steppe with his son as proxy.”

Bhoural sunk into abject despair. He reflected over everything that rule under Cheeth meant. No education unless you were blue-blooded. A revocation of nobility for all non-humans. Police. So much police. A gauntlet strangling everybody’s throats, over and over and over again. For four years, Bhoural viewed himself as a sort of sacrifice, someone who would deal with the necessary evil of Cheeth so that nobody else would ever have to. He wasn’t saving people from Cheeth, he was dooming them to Cheeth. “So if we leave the crusade, our lives are ruined and Chcurex grinds my subjects into the dirt. If we stick to the crusade, Cheeth becomes King of Bursual and grinds my subjects into the dirt. A lose-lose.”

“No, Bhoural. There’s a third way.” Eydan produced a small, spartanly decorated paperback book titled A Compromise.

Bhoural stared for a few moments in disbelief at his mentor. “You’re a negativist?” He balked. As he watched Eydan nod, he realized how stupid his own question was. Of course Eydan was a negativist. He was constantly speaking negatively about adventurers. He did nothing but complain about his job as Bhoural’s adventuring companion. He’d been subtly teaching Bhoural all his life that adventurers were not the good guys.

“I want you to read that tract, cover to cover. It’s short. Consider this my final lesson to you. I’ve long awaited your philosophical maturity, for the right moment to share this text with you. I promise you there’ll be nothing forthcoming that you don’t already agree with.” Eydan paused nervously, “That is, I hope you’ll agree with everything.”

Reluctantly, Bhoural opened the first page and read those famous, centuries old lines: The gods have proven themselves thoroughly unfit as custodians of the universe… By the 4th page, Bhoural was completely transfixed. It was the ultimate criticism of Positivism, the unspoken ideology of the Autocracy. It articulated everything he had hated about the way the world was run. The Gods of Good unfairly appointed themselves as masters of the world. The adventurer’s blessing mandated that only adventurers would rise to power anywhere. Because the Good gods (Cheeth especially) defined the terms of Good and Evil, they could behave as amorally as they desired. And then there was Balthian Colonialism, how certain parts of the world, like the Floru Steppe, were kept miserable and Evil so that Adventurers could go places to pillage, loot and conquer for personal gain. Most of all, the tract criticized the continued existence of mortal suffering, ignorance and misery when the gods could eliminate it with the snap of their fingers.

Bhoural was exhausted by the time he read through it. Eydan looked at Bhoural with measured excitement.

“Well,” began Bhoural with little breath, “it does a great job of laying out the problem, but I didn’t catch what the solution was.”

“We are the solution, Bhoural. The correct policy is to cooperate with Cheeth until we find an opening to oppose him and his minions. There’s a cavalcade of people who have an axe to grind with the gods of Good. Look at how far we’ve come! We’re tier 12. We have a shot at reaching tier 20. We could use our heroes' prerogative to destroy the very institution of adventuring. We could be the ones to unite all of the world’s Negativists. It’s the only thing that keeps me sticking with these stupid Balthians and this stupid adventurer’s blessing.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Bhoural shook his head after thinking for some time. “I don’t know. Most people that want the gods gone don’t have good intentions for wanting them gone. Are you suggesting we ally with Oluns and the Throng? It’d be Evil.”

“Evil is a word invented by those that call themselves good to discredit any opposition.”

Bhoural leered at Eydan. He found his mentor’s words uncharacteristically slogan-like. That word rang in the back of his mind portentuously: Evil. “It’s a lot to think about.”

“Take your time,” said Eydan, “but know that time is limited.”

Bhoural stood up to leave the room. It then occurred to him that he should ask Eydan about something he couldn’t ask him in earshot of Cheeth. “Eydan?”

“What, Bhoural?”

“I’ve been having a recurring dream about.. I think it’s hell. There’s someone dancing in it. It’s a lot like the dream I had about Yanla and our marriage.”

Eydan sighed. “It’s meaningless, Bhoural. Just stress.”

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At the chapel of the Ruby Raven stronghold in the heart of Bursual, Bhoural communed with Cheeth. He was keen to fill in Father on the progress he had made in the Northern Crusade that week, as well as the details of the meeting he’d been called for in the Bursual Stronghold.

The front has moved to Nayshap thought Bhoural, We suspect that the Demagogues Tol-Baraz and Ussyk are coordinating the efforts to resupply the main camp of the Throng of Chcurex. Therefore, we’ll ambush them, I trust we’ll place their location in a few days. That will force a confrontation, if not push the mass of the Throng back towards the Fiendrift.

Cheeth hummed affirmatively. This is all promising news. Do you have an idea for how quickly you’ll organize the raid?

Two, if I had to guess a number, Father.

Very well. I’ll hold you to that estimate.

Bhoural stood up from kneeling and moved towards the door.

One more thing, Bhoural hissed Cheeth, deep into Bhoural’s psyche. The darkroom in the Keep. I saw only you and Eydan enter that hall in the last 3 hours. I saw only the two of you leave. Now, I’ll ask you, and I’ll know if you’ve lied. Who was at the meeting in the Darkroom?

Bhoural froze. He did superbly well, hiding his abject terror from his god beneath a completely deadpan veneer.

Cheetah lost his patience. With overwhelming divine force, Cheeth hurled his son into a nearby buttress at 120 kmph. Masonry flew everywhere. The thumb of Cheeth’s divine, immaterial body was placed firmly on Bhoural’s carotid. Answer me!

Yes, Father! It was just us two! I didn’t plan it!

So it was Eydan’s plan to speak to you out of my earshot, then?

Yes, thought Bhoural, with very little blood going to his brain.

And what was the purpose of this meeting?

Bhoural simply could not form any sort of thought in reply to Cheeth.

Did he ask you to turn against me?

Yes, gasped Bhoural.

Did you smack him down immediately for treason, or did you, in any capacity, entertain his request?

Bhoural, utterly exasperated, cried out: Yes.

Crunch. Cheeth crushed Bhoural’s throat like a tin can. Shameful. You stupid, treasonous, wretched excuse of a man. I have given you everything. I have shown you fatherly love and discipline. I have invited you to give your heart up to Righteousness and Justice. And for three years, I have not been your true teacher. You cling to childishness. You have chosen that malfeasant, pathetic, adventurer-hating sophist over me. For what? Because he fed your delusions that you might become a physician one day

Bhoural hacked, trying desperately to get air down his throat. Yes.

Is it because you share his hatred of adventurers, Bhoural? Would you like all of this to be over? Do you wish you could have been a doctor or a flower arranger or an interpretive dancer or some other wretchedly feminine excuse of a career? Do you believe his fictions? That I’m the problem? That the people who fight in the name of justice and order are the villains?

Yes.

Cheeth took the liberty of rearranging Bhoural’s face with another punch. Half the Orc’s teeth spilled out of his mouth.

Let me tell you about the truth, Bhoural. The undisputable, irrefutable, painful truth. You were not meant to be a doctor. No soldier titan in existence was meant to be a doctor. It is a biological impossibility for you to be a doctor. Every soldier titan was created centuries ago, spontaneously, by the Daemon God Bheruz for two purposes: to kill, and to obey orders in the name of killing. Your kind was directly responsible for eradicating 90% of the world’s population centuries ago. I don’t care if you can read or pretend to practice medicine. You, and every other soldier titan in existence, is demonstrably stupider for having been born a soldier titan than if they were born from normal parents. Every lieutenant-titan was also created by Bheruz to issue commands to these soldiers to kill in the name of Evil, because soldiers by themselves were too stupid to have any strategic thinking of their own. That is what is happening here. Eydan is biologically programmed to hate all that is good and sacred in the world, and you are biologically programmed to fall into his schemes to destroy all of that. Now, is Eydan and Evil your true master, or is Cheeth and Goodness your true master?

Bhoural rasped. He could feel blood, black and syrupy, dribble into his larynx. You are.

What was that? I didn’t hear ‘You are my father, and Eydan is a pathetic, Negativist charlatan’. Do you want to try again, my son?

Bhoural hacked pathetically. You are my father, and Eydan is a pathetic, Negativist, charlatan.

I thought so. Cheeth tried sounding assured and smug, but he could not conceal the trembling, frothing fury in his voice. Now, there’s good news, Bhoural. As an soldier, you may be stupid and impossible to leave unattended. But you are very good at killing things. I am going to use you to completely annihilate Oluns, and salt the rift on which he stands so throroughly that there will never be another Bison’s Chosen for centuries. The possibility of anything Evil emerging in the Floru Steppe, let alone anything Negativist, will be so remote that the Tooth Fairy becoming Autocrat will seem magnitudes more likely. However, there will be punishment for your brief and very foolish time spent bewitched by Eydan. First of all, every word that comes out of your mouth, for the rest of your life, will be in Balthi. It is the language of humans. It is the language of Gods. It is the language of Goodness. You are not fit to speak anything else. Is that clear?

Bhoural scoured for the intellect to speak his most broken language. Yes, he replied in Balthi.

Could you speak in full sentences, my son?

...Me do father speaking the Balthi-way from out on here.

That’s it. This will be a reminder of your stupidity and your gross unfitness to think for yourself in any capacity. Second… I will not be punishing Eydan. I will not even be dismissing Eydan. You are going to walk out of this chapel, and the first thing you are going to do, Cheeth paused for effect, is beat Eydan so thoroughly, so brutally, so close within inches of his life, that when you demand him to become a thrall of the Emerald Empyreans for treason, he will have no choice but to accept. This is how you will atone for your momentary infidelity to your father. I don’t need to remind you of the consequences for failing, do I?

No.

Then leave. What are you waiting for?

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That evening, Bhoural called Eydan into the darkroom for another meeting. He requested for the lead lining in the room to be removed in advance, so that Cheeth could witness Bhoural exact his retribution. When Eydan entered, shut the door behind him, and sat in the chair across from Bhoural, Bhoural stood up and mauled the man that had taken care of him all his life. It was cruel irony: Bhoural used all the medical knowledge he’d learned from Eydan to make his mentor’s torture as drawn-out and horrendous as imaginable. He twisted nerves that Eydan never knew he’d possessed. He dislocated bones in ways that defied mortal anatomy. The torture was so excessive and gruesome that it would be grossly distasteful to describe it in any further detail.

Bhoural felt a hatred greater than he’d ever felt in his entire life. It was so strong, and it caused blood to pump so fiercely through his body, that he was deaf to Eydans anguish. He heard only his thudding heartbeat in his ears. The ire flayed and mangled his insides worse than Eydan’s outsides. He hated Cheeth. He hated that he was cowardly enough to concede to Cheeth’s demands. He hated that he was destroying his best friend. He hated that he had betrayed him, that he had promised Eydan to stand up to Cheeth mere hours earlier. A million hatreds were converging on the very kernel of Bhoural’s psyche, dragging extreme nausea and nightmarish derangement throughout the whole of his soul. If Bhoural were a few years younger, he would have fainted or even died from the stress. But alas, the little replica of Cheeth that lived within him dulled and sublimated all of that anger outwards, into Eydan. It is in this maelstrom of hatred that Bhoural came into contact with the very ugliest and most brutish part of his psyche.

It had a message for him:

kill. crush. destroy. kill. crush. destroy. Over and over again.

Bhoural did not give into that voice. But he recognized that it hailed from wherever his hellish nightmares did.

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There is a man dancing at the heart of Evil.

It is the first dance of his wedding to this profaned mistress.

He whirls about in its ashes. He strikes his chest and lets loose guttural roars that reach outside the crater, the alien fury of his mistress Evil jerks him around against his will. The fiends above cheer their new leader through this dance, this primal and profane tantrum. He speaks in tongues, spewing every curse to Goodness imaginable. He dances mad with evil, mad with fury, mad with hatred.

The Steppe is ripe with a profaned cause. 12 times, it has been trampled by the conquering greave of the Righteous and the Dominant, strangled before it even took its first breath. Surely revenge is at hand. Surely a savior has been born for the steppe. And here the savior dances in the nethers of all that is Evil and dreaded.

When his face becomes visible through the smoke-

Bhoural shot up in cold sweat. It was the furthest that dream had ever progressed. His sudden arousal awoke Yanla, at his side. She awoke to face him in concern. “What’s wrong?” She asked.

Bhoural realized slowly that the nightmare had concluded. He took in his surroundings. A bleach-white room surrounded him, tastefully furnished with simple but carefully crafted wicker furniture. There were judiciously placed turquoise highlights all about, the color of enchantment magic, cool and carefree in comparison to the overwhelming red that suffocated him in the dream. Through a broad, arched plaster wall, the dawn light rolled upon the room’s floor. Bhoural stood up and strode silently towards the arch, opening the mesh doors that guarded the balcony.

City streets, hilly and sinuous, unfolded beneath Bhoural. White, irregular buildings mixed with cypress trees and noble cedars, all the way down to a perfect, white sand beach. There was the sun, half hilted in the ocean beyond, blood-orange and not at all harsh to the eyes. It had not yet burned away the dew that clung heavy to the trees and the shady world below, the frigid dew felt by Bhoural as he laid his hands on the metal rafters of the balcony. Robins and bluejays whooped plaintively in the quiet morning. Early bird commuters dressed in modern Dasostaniki finery ambled silently along the hilly roads, toga ends draped along their legs: a few of them were lyre-armed street performers staking the best spots to earn spare coins from tourists. Bhoural slumbered in hell. He awoke in paradise. Palladia. The city of music, the city of dance. The city he’d fantasized about with Yanla in the infirmary so many years ago.

Bhoural felt his beloved embrace him from behind. She rested her chin on his right shoulder, and whispered: “Dearest, what’s wrong? you’re scaring me.”

And the conditions were just right for Bhoural to forget to let the little replica of Cheeth that lived inside of him reply. He answered earnestly for the first time in years:

“Just bad dream. Come on. Time for honeymoon.”

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The Palladian Acropolis, robed in bold spotlights cast on it from across the whole city, glimmered proudly as Palladia’s centerpiece. Its alabaster marble was painted in clashing, gay reds and turquoises, and theatergoers from around the world piled into its gates to witness 1706’s award winning Opera reproduction: Parsifal. They entered the Palladian Odeon, what was debatably the world’s most famous and prestigious theater (incidentally, all of the rival contenders for the title were elsewhere in the city of Palladia). In attendance were the world’s most powerful and esteemed individuals, the leaders of countries, international industry, and of course, the world’s most fabled living heroes.

At the base of the Palladian hill, far behind the main red-carpet entourage, Bhoural and Yanla walked discreetly up Stavrapolous Avenue. It was the one day of their honeymoon, 6 years after Bhoural enthralled Eydan to the Emerald Empyreans. Little playhouses, cheap grub stands, and red-light shops were packed densely here, with burlesque satyrs and prostitutes commanding and demanding as much attention as humanly possible. Bhoural walked quickly, realizing he had made an error trying to take the shortest path to the main entrance. He remembered that Palladia was not just the city of music, it was the city of lust. To linger here was sacrilege to the proud morals of Cheeth, hell, part of his conscience demanded he maim or kick one of these poor souls to signal his disgust with all the sex on the streets.

Suddenly, his wife called out:

“Bhoural! 42nd street!”

“Palladia Streets not number having,” blurted Bhoural.

“No, it’s what’s playing, look.” Yanla pointed towards theater entrance. There, a poster was hung, where a woman in a top hat and singlet posed before some very bold text: “42nd Street! Operetta of the Century! 10 Tap numbers and a cast of 90! The future of theater!”

Bhoural leered at the poster for maybe 3 seconds before his conscience announced: “Absolutely not.” He tugged Yanla forward to make the 8 PM doors.

“But I’ve read about this play, It’s musical theater. We don’t have to go see Parsifal.”

“We absolutely need be at theater. Kalla be there. Marvax be there. Honeymoon happen because Parsifal play happening. Remember? No turning on word.”

Yanla sighed. “Yeah. That’s exactly why I’d rather be at 42nd street than Parsifal, those people are awful. This is a honeymoon. It’s time for you and I, and yet for some reason those Autocracy assholes have been constantly shadowing us. What the hell were they doing at the Akademia Museum?”

“Looking at history-stuffs,” Bhoural grabbed Yanla’s arm firmly and coercively. “Same as us. We’re on vacation together, not make appearance rude. That what I’m saying, now come on.”

Yanla snarled. “No. That answer isn't good enough. This is the one day in three years that I get you all to myself, the one day where we get to pretend like you’re wed to me, and you spend more time talking to your brothers-in-arms than me. In fact,” Yanla let out a little aggrieved half chuckle, “You insult me in front of them. I just realized that. ‘My wife run silly little hobby clinic’.” Yanla made a pretty convincing and scathing impression of Bhoural at the museum, “That’s what you think of my work? That my pursuit of medicine is silly? That I’m a dumb broad just playing doctor? How disrespectful!”

“Stop making scene!” Bhoural grabbed Yanla with both hands and leered wickedly into her eyes. The pedestrians were, in fact, starting to notice Yanla’s theatrics. It was best to neutralize her complaining quickly and hurry over to the opera. “Listen. anticrusade nearly done. anticrusade end, quiet domestic life begin. We just need do this a little bit longer.” Bhoural intensified his gaze, “Now let’s go. No more arguing.”

Yanla stood agape at Bhoural for a few moments, and then, with a sudden and unexpected strength, she freed herself from Bhoural’s grasp. “No,” she realized, “That’s total bullshit. This is nothing like when I married you and you had the option to give up adventuring. Cheeth’s got you for life. You think he’s really going to let you retire if and when you kill Oluns? No. You’re going to spend the rest of your life globe-trotting, sicced on whoever happens to be on Cheeth’s shitlist. Away from me. You’re going to be his legbreaker forever, and I’m going to be your disatissifed wife forever. There just isn’t a happy ending here that involves Cheeth.”

Bhoural motioned to get a hold of Yanla, but the two locked eyes and sensed eachother’s intentions without saying a word. Yanla knew that Bhoural couldn’t hurt or intimidate her here. They were in public. He realized that the people here knew who he was. Even if Bhoural had license to do as he wished with his wife by virtue of being a great adventurer, he knew that he’d be debilitated by criticism for the rest of his life if things got any more physical. Bhoural knew that he was completely powerless here. He had become so used to beating or intimidating all of his problems that he was genuinely at a loss. For the second time in her life, Yanla had exceeded Bhoural’s nobility and power; she’d beat him. He tried reasoning peacefully with her.

“I have to do this,” said Bhoural weakly, “Letting Oluns win not option. Can’t go on own. Cheeth necessary.”

“Then I have to get a divorce.” Replied Yanla, hurling daggers into Bhoural’s psyche, cautiously backing away and then vanishing into the Palladian night.