It was hard to say how impressed they were with North Watch. The place looked a lot better than it did when I’d arrived—internally, anyway. Cleaning out the dust and clutter we could do, but I wasn’t equipped to rebuild the broken masonry. Even so, by the time we reached home, the new arrivals were too exhausted from the long hike to do much more than find the beds we’d prepared and fall into them. I had regularly Healed the pain such an unaccustomed journey caused in feet and legs, but Heal did not help straightforward fatigue. Fortunately, though I hadn’t been planning to start bringing people home this early, preparations had proceeded enough that beds were ready. They weren’t the most comfortable things on Ephemera, but evidently no worse than the women were used to.

That had been in the early afternoon, after a trip that took significantly longer than usual, between the slow pace of all our refugees and the need to stick to the most remote paths where fifteen people stood a better chance of slipping by unnoticed. It was more tiring than the usual run for me, as well, as I’d spent part of the journey patrolling up and down the line, dispensing Healing and making sure nobody got lost or left behind.

Things had gone fairly smoothly upon our arrival; Goose and Twigs immediately stepped up to help get everyone settled into the barracks, Donon had set to work cooking up rations for everybody for once they were up, and the rest of the lads had wisely not gotten underfoot.

I figured the timing worked out pretty well. The new recruits were going to need a lot of rest after that hike, but having crashed not long after noon they should be in shape to begin training after breakfast tomorrow.

North Watch was quiet when I awoke just a few hours after collapsing into my own bed. I definitely could’ve used some more rest, but I’d get that overnight; at that moment my mind was racing too fast to let me drift off again.

Donon was still at work in the kitchen, having prepared the customary pot of spicy crawn stew for dinner and then some, in case some of our new arrivals woke and wanted to join in. With that done he was baking trays of the local flatbread, which I actually sort of liked; it kept very well, probably due to the khora byproducts included, so preparing it ahead of time was good sense. I was betting on Jakkin and Jadrin, possibly Adelly, being used enough to physical exertion to be less wiped out than the others. When I returned to the mess hall with a bowl of stew and a piece of fresh bread, however, nobody was about except for Kasser and Harold crafting and assembling crossbow components at their usual table.

They did that a lot; I wasn’t sure whether I should make them take a break. I was strict about people not getting overworked, and when it came to cleaning the fortress nobody objected, but these two really enjoyed their long sessions working at their actual crafts and talking quietly together. I was reluctant to bust it up if they didn’t need the intervention. And I did need the crossbows… But still.

At the moment, I decided to let them be, and sat down to get some calories in me.

Somewhat to my surprise, three spoonfuls in I was joined by Miss Minifrit, also carrying a meal. I noted that Donon had given her two pieces of bread, I suspected because she wore her customary low-cut dress. Donon’s thing for goblin ladies was clearly a relative preference, not an exclusive one. He had better not get grabby with any of the new girls, or one of them would break his nose, and I’d let her.

“Konbanwa,” I said as Minifrit sat down across from me.

“And to you,” she replied without missing a beat. “I gather every part of this fortress which is not completely uninhabitable is to your credit?”

“Most of it. Some of the gang were here when I arrived, but they were amazingly willing to live surrounded by dust and mildew.”

“Men,” she sniffed, and I suppressed a smile, not raising any of the several very obvious objections that came to mind. “North Watch itself, though. For as important as it was during the Liberation, one so easily forgets this is even out here. I am surprised the beastfolk and dark elves did not try to secure it during the last century, or at least knock it down. I wonder, Lord Seiji, are you sufficiently acquainted with Fflyr history to realize the symbolic importance of launching your campaign from this base?”

“I’m afraid not,” I admitted. “Frankly, I can’t even get a straight answer on how far the fortress is from the edge of the island. People say it’s a limn or so, but that seems like an awfully long way from the thing it’s supposed to be guarding.”

“It’s about a limn’s travel from the old landbridge,” said Biribo, hovering above me as usual. “But that’s through a winding mountain pass. It’s maybe a fifth of that if you could go straight overland. North Watch is as close to the edge as there’s space to build a defensible structure. You can see the cliffs and mouth of the pass from the battlements. Well, barely, now. Back in the day they’d have kept the khora well clear of the road and the fort’s walls.”

Minifrit watched Biribo curiously, without the fascination, horror, or other emotional reactions he’d earned from her employees. Several had even squealed at how cute he was, which I found absolutely mystifying.

“As you have installed my girls in a single barracks,” she said, “I trust you’ve no objection to me taking over the attached officer’s quarters. I am accustomed to having my own room.”

“Not at all, help yourself.”

“I had wondered,” she said idly, eyeing me over a piece of bread, “given the circumstances and how these things usually go, whether I should expect to be installed in your chambers, Lord Seiji.”

“Ah,” I said with a wince, “no matter how long I live here, I just keep forgetting how things work in primitive societies. No, Miss Minifrit, I assure you nobody has any…untoward designs on your person, or that of any of the others. I don’t think any of the lads here would cause a problem, but if they do, let me know and it will be firmly dealt with.”

“That is…mostly a relief,” she said mildly. “You would hardly be the first man whose bed I’ve warmed to secure my safety and comfort. Perhaps that can still be discussed.”

I hadn’t even considered such a thing. Now I suddenly couldn’t help noticing the way she had subtly leaned forward over the table, hovering skillfully on the edge of spilling out of her plunging neckline. Minifrit had at least a decade on me, maybe as much as two, but she was undeniably beautiful and possessed of that rare hourglass shape that one tends to see in comics more than nature—

My fingers clawed on the smooth akorshil of the tabletop as I shut my eyes against a flash of memory. For an instant, someone’s scream of pain echoed in my skull.

“And there it is again,” Minifrit said softly, her gentle voice a contrast to the acute look in her eyes. “I have known men to be repulsed at the idea, but you are not the type, and this is clearly not that. Closer to what I’ve seen in girls after they’ve been cornered in an alley by a group of toughs.”

Son of a bitch. The clever minx had deliberately prodded me to see how I reacted. I needed to stop recruiting women who were smarter than me or I was going to lose control of this whole operation.

“These things must be worked through, Lord Seiji,” she said, still quietly, “not left to fester. There is no perfect process, but—”

“Minifrit,” I interrupted, “I appreciate your concern, but I would appreciate it even more if you dropped the subject.”

“As you wish, my lord.” She was smooth and nonconfrontational and still I had the creeping suspicion this was not the last I’d heard of the matter. “What, then, is to be my role in your burgeoning campaign of villainy? I hope you do not expect me to pick up a crossbow and storm the walls of Gwyllthean.”

“There will be no storming of any walls,” I assured her, “and no, I rather think that would be a waste of your abilities. I had in mind to leverage your management experience, actually. In the short term, you know your girls better than I, and also have more experience organizing people and a business. I’d like to learn from you, in that regard, but more immediately I’ll need your help in setting up a training schedule. We’ve got crossbows, which everyone needs to practice with and that’ll be the backbone of our military strategy. Likewise, Sakin is going to teach everyone about guerrilla tactics. Goose will train the girls in hand-to-hand combat, both armed and unarmed. I don’t mean to focus on those skills but I want them all to be able to defend themselves at need. It would be incredibly stupid to assume all our operations will always go according to plan. And of course, everyone needs enough time to eat and rest.”

“Wise,” she agreed. “Adelly and Jadrin also have fighting experience. Following an initial few tests to see who is how skilled at what, I propose that breaking the trainees into smaller groups under different coaches will enable them to learn faster.”

“There, see? You’re doing it already. I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

She smiled faintly, but pressed on. “And this…Sakin. Where exactly did he learn to carry out guerrilla warfare?”

“That’s something of an open question,” I said sourly.

“That guy is trouble, Lord Seiji. I can tell it at a glance, and that’s the worst sign of all. Someone who’s as much trouble as that and doesn’t bother to hide it? Exponentially more massive trouble, unless you are very certain you have his loyalty. Or an unbreakable leash on him.”

I wasn’t about to openly admit to her that I had neither.

“Right now, I can’t afford to dispense with his expertise, but… Listen, as we start having him coach people, I would appreciate being notified of anything…interesting that Sakin does or says. I don’t expect any specific problem out of him, but I’m not blind to the fact that I’ve got a tiger by the tail.”

“A tiger?” Aster inquired, sitting down next to me with a bowl of stew.

“Oh. Like a lion, but bigger and with a striped coat.”

“Ah.” Minifrit nodded. “I understand, my lord. What, then, is the plan? I am taking it as given that you have a reason for gathering the population of Cat Alley under your aegis, rather than simple kindness toward the downtrodden.”

I absently stirred my stew, considering. My instinct was to keep my cards close to the chest, but then again we wouldn’t get far if the people I was specifically entrusting to help administer my growing army were in the dark about what we were doing. Aster and Minifrit both watched me intently, waiting.

“Kindness toward the downtrodden is, in fact, a cornerstone of my strategy,” I said. “Where I am from, there are universal standards of human rights, and great prosperity shared with the whole population. This is not because the people in charge care about anything but their own power—that’s the only thing people in charge ever care about—but because they have the benefit of centuries of refining the craft of power on which to draw. And the fact is that a properly cared-for populace is more productive and less likely to revolt. You take care of your people if you want to keep them. Otherwise, some asshole like me will come along and turn them against you.”

Aster smiled; Minifrit tilted her head contemplatively to one side. Both remained silent as I continued.

“I have to get into a position to dispense kindness first, though. Healing is a start, but I can only Heal people right in front of me. To make broader, systemic improvements, I need a broad system.”

“What about those healing slimes?” Aster asked.

“Healing slimes?” Minifrit echoed incredulously.

“I’m formulating a strategy to leverage those,” I said, “but there’s an issue of slime biology that provides a hurdle.”

“Slimes are pretty easy to cultivate,” Biribo explained. “Once you get one, all you gotta do is feed it and it’ll eventually divide once it reaches a certain mass. So, if Lord Seiji’s enemies get ahold of any of his special slimes, they’ve immediately got their own endless supply so long as they’ve got compost to feed ‘em. Duplicating slimes starts out slow, but that’s the kinda growth that increases exponentially.”

“That’s why I’m only trading regular slimes to the goblins,” I added. “Just trying to keep some assets held back to leverage as I need them. I don’t like how ruthless it is, considering how much those healing slimes could help people, but right now my position is weak and I have to hoard every advantage I can get.”

“These slimes…” Minifrit prompted.

“They’re basically just slimes infused with my Heal spell,” I said. “Living, high-quality healing potions, in essence.”

Her eyebrows climbed. “Well. That would be a powerful thing to unleash on the world. But I do see your point about strategy.”

“I have an idea for how to dispense them to the population and use that to secure my own power, but I need to be in the right position to begin with for that to work. Once I control the crime and banditry on Dount, that plus my established contacts in the merchant and goblin communities, and the leverage it’ll give me over Clan Olumnach, will enable me to decide who gets robbed, and when, and why. And how roughly. I can use that to get the general population on my side while weakening any organized opposition within the establishment. But to get there, I first need to bring all the outlying bandit gangs under my control. And,” I added with a frown, “Lady Gray and her entire organization must be crushed. The goal for now is surreptitious control, of the kind that won’t provoke Clan Aelthwyn or the King, but arriving at that point means we’re going to have to shed a lot more blood.”

“Hmm.” Minifrit would never do anything so gauche as play with her food, but she leaned back in her chair, hands folded in her lap, to consider the plan I laid out. “It should go without saying that a point will inevitably come where you have to face mass armed conflict with established powers. I think, however, your strategy is the best way to aim for that position, Lord Seiji. Irrespective of the conflict between the goddesses, making yourself popular with the people is always guaranteed to invite retaliation from those in control—but also provides leverage you can use against them, because the control of nations inevitably comes down to the control of people. Then, too, when it comes to the eternal battle between the Hero and the Dark Lord, you’ll be very well positioned. A Hero’s real power is belief in his heroism; if he’s trying to murder a ruler beloved by the people, much of his crucial support will be cut off.”

“You’re an educated woman, Minifrit,” I acknowledged.

Her lips quirked in an ironic little smile. “For an old whore?”

“Those are two words I would never apply to you.”

“Ah,” said Aster, “so you do know when it’s best to keep your mouth shut, you just sometimes refuse to?”

“On principle, yes.”

“Well, at least one of them is indisputably accurate, but I will accept the compliment,” said Minifrit, still smiling. “And you, Lord Seiji? I gather just from your comments last night and today that the old legend is true, about Heroes and Dark Lords being called here from another world. I would expect that to leave you very much in the dark as to how things work here, but you do seem to have some insight into the currents of politics.”

“You’re not wrong,” I admitted. “I’d have been dead in the first five minutes without Biribo. And the specific political structure of Fflyr Dlemathlys remains a bit over my head, aside from the basic observation that it’s stupid and doesn’t work and this country is perpetually one bad harvest from total collapse. Before I came here, though, I somewhat obsessively studied human behavior. You could call it a…fixation of mine, from an early age.”

“That’s a dedicated course of study in schools where you’re from?” Aster asked.

“In fact, yes, though I majored in music at university. No, mostly just on my own, on the internet.”

“Which is…?” Minifrit prompted.

Huh. Now that I thought about it, somehow this hadn’t come up in the last two months. How did you explain the internet to a medieval person?

“It’s…a decentralized system, under the control of no particular nation, which contains the entirety of human knowledge and enables instant communication between any two devices connected to it. Most of these devices are small enough to carry in your pocket and almost everybody has one.”

Both of them stared at me in open disbelief.

I shrugged, feeling a little defensive. “I had questions, and I lived in a time and place in which there is no excuse for ignorance, so I sought out the answers. I just wanted to know why people are so awful to each other. Being surrounded by the general shittiness of human nature, I was driven to understand it. Since it’s not like you can do anything about how much people suck, at least you can gain some comfort from comprehension.”

“So you are telling me,” Minifrit said slowly, “you had access to a scholarly resource the likes of which would make any sage on Ephemera weep with envy, and the best use you could think of for this was to seek validation for your misanthropy?”

Aster unsuccessfully tried to bite down on a smile, and ladled stew into her face to cover it.

“No need to have a go at me,” I chided. “Most people use the internet for advertising, pornography, scams, and advertising pornography and scams. And looking at pictures of cute animals. My purposes were downright dignified.”

“Well, that makes your tall tales a great deal more believable,” Minifrit admitted with a soft chuckle. “That is exactly what the human race would do with a tool like that.”

“See?” I pointed my spoon at her. “You don’t even disagree. Everybody loves to argue when I complain about human nature, but not because they actually think I’m wrong. People are just argumentative.”

“All right, then, what’s the answer?” Aster asked once she’d swallowed. “Since you have all that knowledge, tell us why people suck.”

“Because the pace of technological development outstrips that of biological evolution by orders of magnitude,” I said immediately.

She blinked. “What?”

“Animals evolve to occupy certain niches in their environment. Humans are a species of great ape which is still precision-engineered to thrive in the environmental niche we occupied about two hundred thousand years ago: living in nomadic hunter-gatherer groups of not more than one hundred and fifty individuals on the savannas of sub-Saharan Africa. But then some absolute dickhead invented agriculture, and now nobody lives in circumstances like that. We’re all full of instincts and compulsive behaviors that existed for a purpose then but don’t apply to our circumstances now, and which constantly drive us to act in ways that make it hard to get along in the actual societies we live in.”

“Huh.” Aster blinked twice, then turned to Minifrit. “I admit, when I asked him that, I didn’t really think he’d be able to answer.”

Minifrit propped her chin in one palm, smiling at me with an open if faintly mocking expression. “Give us an example?”

“Gossip,” I said without hesitation. “It causes nothing but strife and contention; it’s a compulsive behavior for most people, and a tool by bad actors to exert control or just cause trouble. And people do it because if you’re a savanna-dwelling monkey living in a group of barely more than a hundred, knowing what the other members of your group are up to is immediately relevant to your survival. It was useful hundreds of millennia ago, and people can’t stop doing it even though it’s not anymore. Most human behavior is shit like that.”

She smiled more widely. “Go on.”

I wasn’t sure where this was leading, now, but it felt good to be able to talk about this stuff; it seemed like I’d been sitting on it for far too long.

“I think my favorite anecdote has to be the story of Stockholm Syndrome,” I said. “It’s the name for the phenomenon of people who have been kidnapped falling in love with their captors.”

Aster frowned. “Wait, people do that?”

“Oh, I’m sure somebody has somewhere,” I snorted. “There’s no behavior so asinine that some idiot didn’t try it. But no, Stockholm Syndrome isn’t a real thing. It’s built on the elements of real things, more predictable behaviors leveraged by all kinds of people. There are ways of getting human beings to relate emotionally to things that are obviously bad for them. Such tricks are used by organized religions, for military training, and by assholes who beat their wives to keep them subservient and loyal. What I enjoy is the story of Stockholm Syndrome, not the made-up diagnosis itself.

“See, Stockholm is a city, and once there was a bank robbery there which turned into a hostage crisis. So the Stockholm police attempted to raid the bank to free the hostages and take out the robbers, but they badly bungled the attempt and just caused a pointless confrontation which put the hostages in more danger. Well, after it was all resolved, one of the hostages came out and complained bitterly about the botched raid, because, obviously. So the police paid a famous psychologist—that’s someone who studies and treats mental illness—to explain her behavior in a way other than the obvious truth, that she was justifiably irate because their incompetence nearly got her killed. And so, he created Stockholm Syndrome, accused her of being in love with her captors.”

I let out a bitter laugh, jabbing my spoon into my cooling stew.

“And you know the best part? It worked. Big fancy man of learning, with the finances of a major city behind him and the importance of its reputation on the line, and the best he could come up with was ‘bitches be crazy.’ And everyone bought it. All across my world, most people believe Stockholm Syndrome is a real thing. That’s just…so fucking perfect. Humanity, summarized.”

“And so you understand what’s wrong with people,” Minifrit murmured, still regarding me with that little smile which I suddenly found myself distrusting. “And what of what’s right?”

“What’s…right? I don’t understand the question.”

She shrugged, a languid action which seemed rehearsed to strategically draw attention to her neckline, though at the moment my focus was elsewhere. Which was good; I didn’t need another of those flashes, whatever they were.

“Just off the top of my head? Loyalty. Love. Based on your story about this…Africa, was it? It’s immediately apparent why our race also developed concepts of honor, compassion, courage. Our ancestors would need those things to survive in small groups in a dangerous world. Even if you nihilistically reduce human behavior to primitive animal impulses, you can’t ignore the fact that there is good in people as much as bad. Nihilists and idealists both are equally deep up their own butts; I may be just a whore from a primitive society, but even I can see that much. The things you choose to see in people reveal a lot more about you than about people.”

I drew in a breath to calm my rising irritation. “Well, be that as it may—”

“Let me put it to you this way,” Minifrit continued. “Were you at Stockholm, Lord Seiji?”

“That was decades before I was born.”

Her smile widened further. “Then don’t allow yourself to believe you know any more of what happened there than the agenda of whoever wrote down the story, just because the agenda you learned was not the one which triumphed. You asked for my advice on the art of managing people, if you’ll recall. Here it is: you need to be able to see both the good and the bad, in both your followers and your enemies. If you expect nothing but the worst from everyone, you’ll never be able to anticipate what anyone does. Your enemies may be vile people, but they’ll defeat you if you’re not prepared for them to occasionally be brave and clever. To dismiss people as monsters may help you feel better, but that’s the only benefit it has, and it comes at a steep price.”

I found myself floundering uncomfortably for something to say.

“I don’t think Lord Seiji’s outlook is as grim as all that,” said Aster, rescuing me. “At least, I would hope not. I mean, surely you don’t think fear of the alternatives and greed for power are the only things keeping me here? Maybe at first, but I thought we were beyond that.”

I met her golden eyes, and relaxed in spite of myself. The truth was, I did trust Aster. I had already told her the big secret, that should could take her artifacts and leave at any moment with her dual Blessings intact. But here she still was.

“Of course not,” I said, deliberately glib. “Or do you honestly think I’d tolerate your constant backtalk if I didn’t like you?”

She grinned and tucked back into her dinner.

“Well, then,” Minifrit said lightly, “what about our next step? You still need to extract the rest of the girls from Cat Alley, Lord Seiji.”

“Yeah.” I frowned down at my half-eaten food. “That’s going to be harder than I originally planned. I didn’t intend to be openly at war with Lady Gray until afterward, but she forced my hand. The girls are not ready to fight and I don’t want to put them up against Gray’s thugs.”

“You have two weeks,” Minifrit said. “In two weeks is the harvest festival; that’s your big opportunity. It’s a religious event, and always a dry night in the blue light district. The only people likely to be there are Convocation preachers, come to be condescending in the guise of compassion, and perhaps some of Gray’s own gangsters. I suspect she might otherwise pull them back, given the losses she’s taken between the Olumnach bandits and you, but Lady Gray is more than canny enough to interpret your intentions from what you’ve done so far, and she will easily recognize that as your target date.”

I drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “All right. Thanks, Minifrit, it helps a great deal to know the timetable. So what I need to do is put pressure on Lady Gray and keep enough of her forces distracted and pinned down elsewhere that I can personally deal with the rest.”

“What’s the plan?” Aster inquired.

“I have…” I chuckled ruefully. “Well, several half-baked, highly improbable schemes in mind. Unfortunately, our current position, the short timetable, and the lack of available resources means I’m stymied when it comes to shoring up any of these ideas.”

“All right,” said Minifrit. “Which of your half-baked schemes do you think the least hopeless? Perhaps we can find a way to strengthen it.”

“Actually, I think I’m going to take a different approach.”

“Oh no,” Aster muttered. “He’s pausing for effect. I always hate whatever comes next.”

I winked at her. “I mean to try them all at once.”

“Yep, there it is.”