I hadn’t slept in three days since I spoke to that Goldman.

My spells allowed me to operate without sleep for however long I wanted to. The Rested Mind spell cleared out all the wastage from my brain, allowing me to stay lucid and operational. Ever since I discovered that spell all those months ago in the Harrow Woods, I hadn’t slept at all. I’d always continue working on my magic, continue working on a way to meet my goals.

I wanted to introduce a safe and reliable method to weave and cast spells so that this world called Allmother could enjoy an age of prosperity and plenty, a post-scarcity utopia without war or human failings. In doing so, I had worked tirelessly to meet my own ends so that I could one day meet that very goal.

It had helped me remain unmolested and content in the coming days. Still, I made sure not to make Reizenbrahm aware of that, always appearing slovenly and testy so that he could observe the consequences of his irrationality.

And it had worked, somewhat. In the past few days, while Reizenbrahm had tried his best to work me to my limits while at the same time interrogating all the half-lucid Goldmen in his dungeon, he had gone markedly easier on me.

It hadn’t hurt that I genuinely tried my best to fulfill his desires, but alas, reality itself reasserted itself once I caught Jogmomich, Janina’s demonic counterpart, hard at work fulfilling her end of our bargain.

Unfortunately, she was far too deep in her works to talk to me. I would love to ask her what exactly she made of her favor to Rezdnaq Qandzer. It wasn’t any of my business, but I would love to learn more about the inner workings of demon politics.

Janina’s solitary confinement cell was so small that it gave me a pang of claustrophobia. Dark grey bricks covered the walls, floors and ceilings, and there was only a single candle light that illuminated the space, enough for the gem-eyed subspecies to see clearly, but far too little space for me to work with any peace of mind.

“Hello?” I asked the ethereal form of Jogmomich. “How goes your work?

She did not reply, predictably. She was more visible, now, and I could finally make out more of her true form. Her clothing was striped in white and black, and covered her whole body like a skin-tight spandex. The black stripes extended past her outline further than her white ones, and her face was somewhat similar to Janina’s, only older and more carefree, which seemed to be a running pattern with these demons.

“Hello, Jogmomich?” I reiterated. “I need to know my progress with her.”

All I’ve learned from the weeks of tending to Janina was that I had succeeded on imparting her with some Wisdom. Still, I needed to know exact numbers in order to understand my timeline.

Jogmomich’s form shifted, and she looked up, and then towards me. I felt a thrill of exhilaration at finally gaining her attention. “You want to know your progress? You have imparted upon her… four Wisdom so far.”

Entire droves of prisoners had died, almost eighty in number, and that was the extent of her improvement? It was enough to make me sick. “How far do you reckon that I have left until she is healed?”

Jogmomich swayed her head as she spoke. “About twenty additional points of Wisdom,” she said. “You are becoming better at the spell, but frankly, I don’t see you making her better within the three or four months you have allotted yourself.”

“Do you have any suggestions?” I asked.

“I am not allowed to give you any suggestions,” she said. “Your big sister was very insistent that you only learn on your own.”

I stomped my foot. “Dammit, my life is on the line!” I shouted in Arabic. I almost wanted to summon Rezdnaq Qandzer again, but I stopped myself just in time, for fear that I would die from the backlash of summoning her once more. She had told me I got lucky doing it once already, summoning her here, and I didn’t want to take the chance that she might not have been lying.

“To tell you the truth,” Jogmomich continued. “In this highly specific situation, there are three-thousand, two hundred and sixty-nine timelines within a single deviation, pertaining to your current situation. Of them all, there are exactly three where you succeed in helping Janina regain her sanity.”

“Okay?” I gesticulated wildly. “And you are only telling me this now?”

Jogmomich shrugged, like someone utterly unattached from the situation. “Maktub.”

It is written. I chuckled, wide-eyed and ready to tear her apart with my bear hands. “The Second Tenet, I assume?” As a demon, she had to be careful not to grant her corporeal counterpart enough power to eclipse her, else the Deep Universe would exact a punishment upon her.

“You’ve caught on,” she nodded rapidly. “Very good, little girl.”

“Tell me,” I said. “What makes these three timelines so special, that I manage to save Janina?”

“Work on your Geometrical Ritualism,” she said, using the exact same terminology that the Inquisitor used. “And make sure that—” She stopped, and grunted. Her expression fell from a knowing smirk to a grim and flat expression. “I have said enough. Your—and my betters for that matter—have determined that.”

With that, she disappeared.

I didn’t have to have an Intelligence in the fifties to know that I was absolutely not making that timeline. I could if I truly pushed myself, but I had no interest in going above and beyond my means, risking my own sanity, and therefore, my son’s wellbeing for strangers who had only taken advantage of me thus far.

What I needed to do right now was to free myself, post-haste. My progress in that avenue had gone appreciably well, but every day that passed, I felt the urgency mount. This city would soon see war, and I wanted absolutely no part in that.

Reizenbrahm opened the door to the isolated chamber, dragging in one more hapless man without any lucidity in his eyes, and his grim eyes demanded of me once more a most grim undertaking.

000

“I have spoken to everyone that I can regarding Janina’s disappearance.”

Losinda had walked into Daiclovius Reizenbrahm’s archery practice. Their field was expansive, and the target was almost three hundred treleres from him.

It was one of his rare breaks from his work. His mental health was taking a hit, and though he had been a seasoned warrior in his time, that didn’t equate to the wholesale slaughter of addled and helpless prisoners of war, all to solve a problem that had been weighing on his mind like an anchor.

There was a time in his youth when he could strike hit around the center of the target from this distance, but with all that was going on, he could hardly find the concentration to hit the target at all. His newly improved physique should have been of help, but all the mounting stress and anxiety made him tremor uncontrollably.

“Who told you to speak to anyone,” Daiclovius asked, nocking another arrow and drawing it back on his bow.

“You would have me sit behind and not investigate the matter?” She asked. Daiclovius stabilized his hands and for a split-second, saw the target lined up with his arrow and he let loose. It hit the edge of the straw around the target. “I would like to know who spoke to you about Janina’s disappearance.”

“She did,” Daiclovius said, lining up another shot. “She told me she could not handle the war.”

It ached to slander her daughter like this, but it was easier to explain away such a happening with weakness rather than try and cover for her virtuous heart. He had to make this small concession, that Janina was merely a deserter, to protect her from accusations that she was more; an attempted murderer and a madwoman.

“Did she also tell you that she loved a man?”

Daiclovius’ shot went wide, even wider than normal. It had, indeed, struck the next target over. She turned to her wife questioningly. “She deserted because her man had died.”

“And did she tell you that?” Losinda asked.

“Yes.” Daiclovius insisted.

She stared at him for long seconds, searchingly. Fear gripped Daiclovius’ heart, but he schooled his expression and waited her wife’s suspicions out. Finally, she exhaled, and looked at the floor, her shoulder’s slumping. “Then she lied to you. Janina loved a woman.”

“What?” Daiclovius asked. He had heard of this, of course. He had presided in many a court case where a homosexual was either tried, or bore witness to a trial. It was a prohibited practice in the country, one that Daiclovius had long-since chalked down to the shortsightedness of men in power, and society’s unwillingness to move on from antiquated practiced, but never had he for a moment considered the idea that his daughter may have been afflicted—no, may have been one such homosexual.

“I…” Losinda paused for a moment. “I don’t know why she lied to you. Me, I understand,” she folded her arms, almost as if to hug herself and give herself comfort in these trying times. “But you were always on her side, no matter what.”

All sorts of scenarios ran through Daiclovius’ head. What did Janina really try to do in Reza’s room, and if it was not something as straightforward as an attempt at murder, did his daughter really try to do something unthinkable to the Goldman?

No. Impossible. Even deeply affected by grief, Janina would not veer into a territory so evil. Surely, Janina of all people would not take someone against their will, and he had already interrogated Reza comprehensively; she gave a full accounting of that night that was devoid of lies.

Unless, of course, she had skipped a few parts, omitted some crucial details, and jumped right to the part where Janina had tried to kill her.

No. That couldn’t be. Daiclovius refused to believe it. Janina may have been plagued by her own demons, bothered by all manner of difficulties, but she would not perpetrate such an evil. That wasn’t possible for one such as her, one that knew all too well what it meant to be a woman in their society. Arranged marriages with men they did not love, forced to bear heirs, bereft of rights by necessity, as taking legal action against a husband would be tantamount to social suicide.

Janina would not do any such thing.

“My love?” Losinda asked. “I… I know this may be hard to understand, but just because she may be different does not make her any less worthy of our love.”

Daiclovius chuckled and gave her a sidelong glance as he faced the target, bow in hand. “You say that, but was it not always you that sought to chase her down the path of the dutiful noble wife by hook or by crook?”

“Daiclovius!” she exclaimed, scandalized.

Daiclovius turned to face her fully. “You always did make her life more difficult.”

Losinda’s shock and horror slowly morphed into a neutral, albeit somewhat contrite expression, befitting a chastised noblewoman. “I am leaving in a week,” she said. “I’m taking the children to Filomena. I implore you to join me. You are old, too old for anyone to expect you to fight.”

It hadn’t even occurred to Daiclovius to stand and die for Aellia. For so many years, he had lived independently from the nobility, taking in the cultures of the world and enriching his life however he could as the discarded dreg of the Naval Incursion with too much money in his hands. To stand and die for Aellia was the rhetoric of the young, the patriotic, and the stupid.

He would leave, but only when he had secured Janina’s health, and not a moment later.

“One week?” he asked.

Losinda nodded, and turned to leave.

Daiclovius gritted his teeth, feeling a stab of shame for having taken out his anger and irritation on her. Losinda was least deserving of his ire. In fact, he was deserving of hers, for having invited Reza to his house to begin with, for having entertained wild notions of immortality and kinghood, words spoken by someone he had held dead to rights, someone who would say anything to crawl away from rightful punishment.

But if death was her rightful punishment then, what was his punishment now?

How long could he hide behind the veneer of innocence when he had directly benefitted from her actions, illegal actions, and even encouraged her to work hard in her illegal pursuits? Daiclovius bent the law for the sake of justice, for how just could the written word be if it did not have human eyes and ears?

In all of his estimations of her, Reza never struck him as treacherous. It was she that called for him right after Janina went mad, when she could have done any given thing with her and dressed it up as some sort of accident. She had been diligent in her duties, popular with his youngest daughters, and at the beginning of it all, it was her that gave him a new lease on life, healing his crippling disability.

He snapped his bow in half and threw away the broken pieces, connected by string, and screamed into the air.

000

“You have a week to heal Janina.”

I resisted the urge to massage my temples, and instead cast a spell to lower my blood pressure. “Why?” I asked.

“War is here, Reza,” he said. His shoulders were slumped and his expression radiated defeat. “We cannot afford to linger for any longer. You have seen it yourself; the other side have madmen of their own, harnessed for this war.”

What was I supposed to suggest as a counter? That he leave without Janina while I stay behind and drag her insanity-riddled self off to the woods where I could slowly sacrifice hunters and foragers to heal her mind? Should I suggest that I stay and help with the war effort, where I could procure hundreds of prisoners of war for his grisly endeavor?

Was there even a right answer to this impossible task of his?

No. I wasn’t about to wage war against a people I had no enmity with, for the sake of people that kept me prisoner and bore prejudice against me.

“What am I supposed to say to that?” I asked him, my voice quiet and low. “Do you realize—”

“Reza, I apologize,” he spoke in Classical Arabic, or Parsi. “I should not have treated you the way that I have, but understand that you are my only hope, so please. Do this for me.”

I swallowed. “I never meant for all of this to happen.”

He closed his traffic-light green eyes and sighed. “I know.”

With that, he turned to leave.

I had finally succeeded in winning over the old man, which would make my inevitable betrayal marginally less predictable.

I activated the ‘Commune with Demons’ spell, and could feel my senses shift laterally, to a dimension I barely understood. “Jogmomich.”

She appeared, folding her arms.

“Can we heal her within a week?”

She rolled her eyes. “The Akashic Tapestry is vast and impossibly large, but there is not a single one where you could do that.”

“Functional?” I asked. “Can I make her even a little functional?”

“She’d be dangerous,” she pointed out. “Angry. Liable to snap and kill anyone at the drop of a hat, except of course for her family and anyone else that she implicitly trusts. I need not tell you that you are not on that extremely short list of people.”

“Any timelines where I manage to escape scot-free, with my child?”

She smiled mockingly. “You know I can’t tell you.”

A predictable response. Suddenly, she stood straight, looking around in confusion. “A temporal distortion is upon us.”

“What?” I stepped closer. “What does that mean?”

“We have shifted,” she said. “Everything has shifted.” She furrowed her eyebrows.

“And the timelines?” I asked.

She froze. “You… you don’t remember? The time I told you, just a moment ago?”

“Told me what?” I asked, and I immediately began to remember. Two different recollections of parallel events.

“The path to healing Janina and achieving your goals are intertwined, and not at all without risk, but they are feasible, though I cannot say more.” She had said.

“In a week?” I had asked, and she had nodded.

I staggered back, blinking the memories away.

“You are within my influence,” Jogmomich explained. “Though usually, that doesn’t shield mortals from the effects of temporal distortions.”

“How can history change? Who changed it?”

She shrugged. “This happens all the time. I’m not usually caught inside of them when it does, but this isn’t a rare occurrence. The fact that it worked somewhat to your favor, that’s a little rarer.”

“Rezdnaq?” I asked.

She chuckled. “That’s unlikely. No. While this could have been the actions of any given Archdemon, it could just as easily have been the ripple-effects of an origin severing.”

“And what is that?” I asked.

“I’m not really sure, myself.” She said. “And I can’t really tell you what I do know. Not now, at least. The Red was very insistent that you grow and learn organically.”

I scoffed as I fished out the Focus from my pocket and inspected the diamond. Though the demon was shifty as always, my hard work would not betray me.

I could feel myself closing in on a breakthrough any day now, and when I finally did, I would not be long for this house.

Reizenbrahm gave me one week, but I would give myself three days.

000

Inside her yurt, Aisha sat cross-legged, a rudimentary Geometric Ritual in front of her on the floor, drawn with white paint. With a flex of her will, she activated the spell, summoning the cadre of imps beholden to her.

The shifty, stick-thin figures were sights to behold. They had long, animalistic ears that grew on top of their narrow heads, and were hairless and gray from top to bottom, without even any sexual organs to speak of, and big, round eyes.

There were enormous as well, easily the size of their tiny fists. They were the lowest of the low, the mad dregs of humanity that only barely managed to luck into the state of demonhood, and were thusly incredibly easy to put to use if one had the aptitude.

“One of my geases broke,” she began. “What did you see on your journey?” One of them had no doubt responded to the failure of the spell, and acting on her orders, went to tie up loose ends.

She just needed to know what it was that disrupted the spell, and whether the soldier let anything slip.

“Ambient magic was thick there,” one said. It had a pot-belly and eyes that were far too large for its head. If it jerked its head forward, Aisha would expect the eyeballs to dangle by their optic nerve. “Yes, very thick.” Its voice was normal, masculine and calm, incongruous with its ugly, monstrous form. It was a wrongness that made her stomach churn every time she heard it. It crouched and started digging into its ear like some sort of ape. “The witch was hard at work there.”

So the gem-eyes had one of their own.

“Was she formidable?” She asked.

“Oh, yes,” it continued. “She—”

An instant later, a white, shining sword cleaved its head off. It burst into black smoke, reformed into the same imp it once was, and rewinded in time until it disappeared into nothingness.

Behind the imp was a woman, a Parsi like her, with wide, crazed eyes and a blood-thirsty grin. The sword was, in fact, an appendage of the woman’s, one that grew from her back, covered in white bone plates. It still had some lingering black smoke on its tip, which was indeed a sword. “Do the smart thing, little girl,” she said. “And give me what I want, when I want it.”

“And what is that?” Aisha found her voice a half second too late to conceal her fear.

“You will know.”

With that, she disappeared in a flash of green. The other imps had long fled, leaving Aisha to reel from the improbable encounter.

Improbable wasn’t the word. Incredible was.

She’d only read about it in the oldest, half-rotten manuscripts, heard tell of it from the more powerful demons she dared talk with. Origin Severing, to reach through all of space and time itself to kill a single demon.

That was the enemy that had disrupted her geas. There was no doubt about it.

But it wasn’t her enemy now. It was obvious from her words; that woman knew her, and Aisha had never seen her in her life. Also to consider were her words, to give her what she wanted, when she wanted it.

She stood up and left her yurt. Her buraq stood outside, the man-faced horse grazing dumbly on some grain she had left for it. It was a dimmer specimen of its species, one that had taken quite easily to the role of steed that the slavers had given it.

Fortunately, the commander’s tent wasn’t so far that she needed to use it for transport. Aisha resorted to merely walking, marching through the hot sands of the Dhahab desert, the jewelry festooned around her jingling with every step, from her bell anklets, to her bangles, and the necklace fastened with numerous diamonds and gems.

The… horrifying incident aside, the enemy witch had, in a way, answered her question. She was formidable in her potential. Whether she was truly an enemy or not stood to remain; a witch as formidable as her would likely not tie herself to a country that didn’t see her as one of their own. It stood to reason that her current motives were purely mercenary, or that she was being forced to work for them against her will.

Aisha chuckled to herself. That was one powder keg ready to devastate indiscriminately. She almost pitied those rock-eyed subhumans, if they really had taken her against her wishes.

There was nothing an angry madwoman wasn’t capable of.

She arrived at the commander’s tent in only a minute, and entered with a quick greeting. “Peace be upon you.”

“And also with you,” the ruddy-faced, head-scarf wearing man, seated before a desk with an unfurled map, replied. Small wooden pieces were spread about the map, likely troops. Most of them were still bunched in the Western Dhahab where they were stationed, a good chunk of men at that.

“The enemy has someone like me,” Aisha began. “She is Parsi, and formidable. She is also in Altaluvia.”

“Does she know of our plans?” He asked, rounding the table to come face her. Dressed in his chainmail armor lacquered in shining white to reflect light and keep him cooler as well as noticeable for his men, General Salih was a strikingly handsome man, though his constant scowl whenever he saw her ruined most of the effect. “Or is she just a traitor?”

The ‘like you’ went unsaid, but she still heard it. Oh, it must have burned him to have to work so closely with a woman, and one that practiced magic no less. There was nothing he could do about that though, not if he wanted to win this war of aggression.

“She is an unpredictable factor. I say we only send the amount of troops necessary to take the capital garrison and see how they are affected before committing all of your forces.”

“Yes,” he said. “Because you are so fond of wasting my men with your experiments. Hundreds are gone thanks to you, with nothing to show for it.”

“Except, of course,” she gestured to the exit of the tent, and with a scoff, he walked out while she followed. “The stability of our portal.”

She overtook him and led him towards a downward slope where a sea of tents stretched into the distance. Not so many soldiers were milling about; the midday sun was high, so most were napping after their lunch meal. In an empty spot at the center of the mass of tents, undisturbed by all, even the winds and the shifting sands, was a circle inscribed with all manner of arcane glyphs, all inlaid in knotted ropes. Each knot was meaningful, and the distance between each knot also held meaning.

“It is done,” Aisha intoned wistfully. “As of right now, it is merely collecting ambient energy. In a few more days, you will have a stable gate to Altaluvia.”

He nodded to himself for a moment. “That is… faster than you initially predicted.” That was mostly because that initial prediction was a lie specifically designed so she could impress the high sultan when she exceeded expectations.

A small part of it could be attributed to luck as well. Magic was wildly inconsistent, and improvements could sometimes come in dramatic lurches.

“I advise that you hedge your troops, general,” she said. “If you send too many in at the same time, that leaves us vulnerable to the enemy’s actions.”

He began to speak slowly. “I will take your words into advisement, provided you can deliver. A victory within the week will do wonders for our beleaguered vanguard at the front.”

Her job of informing the general done, she returned to her tent once more, intent on pressing the imps for all the information they had on the enemy witch.