Jackal Among Snakes

“Your gift?” Argrave repeated, staring at the towering god of war. “I think it must’ve been lost. Maybe the ship crashed, or the caravan was robbed by bandits. I’ve been in a place where it’s been rather difficult to deliver gifts.”

Sataistador shook his head. “You couldn’t have missed it. You’re wearing it right now.” He raised a hand and pointed. “Your head. Your skin. Your heartbeat. I gave you life, Argrave.”

Argrave bit his lips, but couldn’t restrain himself from joking, “You’re my dad?”

Durran snorted and suppressed his laughter silently, but Sataistador crossed his arms and sighed. “I kept Erlebnis off your back. I couldn’t tell him about the heist per our arrangement made in the White Planes. But that didn’t prevent me from getting involved in other ways. I distracted him while you plundered his vault.”

Argrave blinked, processing that quietly. Anneliese stepped up to stand beside him and asked, “How could you have known when we began the heist? It all took place inside Erlebnis’ realm.”

“I made other deals in the White Planes. Someone informed me where Erlebnis had decided to manifest after his failure in the Bloodwoods. I went there, and watched for suspicious movement. When I saw it… I pounced on the opportunity. His location was strategically unassailable, but only if Erlebnis himself defended,” Sataistador illustrated clearly. “You used the master of the centaurs—Sarikiz—to fragment Kirel Qircassia’s realm. You know, then, what my entry would mean. Erlebnis dared not risk the same fate for his realm, so he chose to fight and repel me. In so doing, you were given the freedom to succeed.” He raised his hands up, gesturing at them. “Even if you look like fops, I can’t deny those are divine artifacts you bear. So, to repeat myself, congratulations.”

Argrave spared a glance toward Anneliese. She gave a nod of confirmation, even though it was still up in the air whether or not she could read gods as well as she could people. Even without her confirmation, Argrave could see that what Sataistador put forth was reasonable. It had struck him as odd that Erlebnis had taken so long to arrive.

Argrave held his arms out. “So, what, did you come seeking payment for that?”

“I think you should know what the word ‘gift’ means. Unless the meaning has changed the years I’ve been in my own realm,” Sataistador shook his head. “Our business, I suspect, regards something else entirely. Perhaps you aim to kill me—I doubt it. Perhaps you seek to ally with me. I’ll take payment if you wish for me to do something, but given you don’t lack for forces…” he looked at the Alchemist. “…it must be something else. I have my own reason to be here, too.”

Argrave didn’t deny it, but something still pulled at his mind. “Why would you give us a gift?”

“Because I suspect you would be a better acquaintance than Erlebnis,” Sataistador looked around contemptuously. “He’s content waiting millennia to make deals. He rarely takes losses when he trades. Your life, by comparison, is rather short. You’re more likely to give and take more freely. All that matters is what you want.”

“Information,” Argrave said plainly.

Sataistador raised his brows. “That’s all?”

“Yep,” Argrave confirmed. “To get it, I suppose I need to know what you want. We robbed a lot from Erlebnis’ vault, but I can’t see how any of this stuff is of use to you. You seem to be content living on your lonesome. Your weapons are definitely as good as, if not better than, anything we have.”

Sataistador ran his thumbs along the scimitars at his waist, and Argrave could hear the dim hum of power in the air. Those weapons of his weren’t ordinary. He fixed Argrave with his deranged green eyes. “Do you know why gods fear me, Argrave, even when I travel alone?”

“I suspect you’re about to tell us,” Melanie called out.

“The gods fear me because I am alone,” Sataistador pointed out, looking around. “They have all these possessions, all these trivialities tying them down. Cities. Towns. Worshippers. Money. Artifacts. Books.” He focused back on them “I don’t. I have the weapons at my side, and nothing more. That makes me the most dangerous god of them all. I am my only, and greatest, asset.”

“Okay… you prove my point,” Argrave nodded slowly. “What could I possibly tempt you with?”

“I came here to this lake unimpeded,” Sataistador ground his sandals into the sand. “I walked by your countless fortresses and settlements. I walked within them, sometimes, and though they stared, pointed, and noticed me… I could’ve torn them apart. It’s what I’ve always done. Emperors build these vast empires, enriching themselves until they think they’re on top of the world. But I come alone, picking away at their sprawling cities one by one. They don’t know where I’ll be. They can’t react in time. I tear out their roots piece by piece until they starve like wild dogs, feasting on each other,” Sataistador said with enthusiastic venom. “When their support falls out from underneath them, they learn why it is foolish to rely on other people. You demonstrated the same principle to Erlebnis, I suspect.”

Argrave said nothing in response, but Sataistador had poked at an issue Argrave knew existed. Vasquer was a vast territory. Even with [Worldstrider], even with Elenore’s connections… their power could not be everywhere at once. It was why he had built Blackgard, to concentrate the population and make it easier to defend. Having a madman like Sataistador as their enemy, whose only objective was victory and destruction, would be a nightmare.

“I hope you’re just bragging, and not implying anything,” Argrave said after a time of silence.

Sataistador looked out to the lake. “You claimed that I was inferior to another. I thought it foolish, provoking bullshit meant to entice me to play into your hands. But when I was watching where Erlebnis had claimed this mortal realm… I saw the man named Mozzahr emerge.” Sataistador slammed a fist against his palm, and Argrave felt a wave of power. “He had just endured Erlebnis’ full strength. It was clear from the artifacts he carried that he had been in the heart of his vault, yet he bore no noticeable wounds. He effortlessly dispatched countless of Erlebnis’ servants.” He smiled and looked at Argrave, clenching his fist tightly. “You wanted information? Let’s count that as another gift. Mozzahr lives.”

Though that news had already been partially confirmed by Mial, his daughter, it still made Argrave’s breath catch in his lungs. The Castellan of the Empty had endured the full brunt of Erlebnis’ power within his vault. Under that pressure, he succeeded in both robbing him of the artifacts their group had missed and escaping from that divine realm through the conventional pathway—namely, the point where the mortal realm and Erlebnis’ realm conjoined.

“Erlebnis has been forced to break countless promises, simply because you and Mozzahr caused so much destruction,” Sataistador outlined. “All of his wealth vanished overnight. The web of intrigue that he wove found itself with nothing to cling to but air. He lost informants, valuable contacts, and many allies, and his reputation will be damaged for millennia.”

Argrave smiled joyously. “The bastard went insolvent, huh? That’s tremendous.”

“For me, yes. For you, not so much,” Sataistador shook his head.

Argrave looked to Anneliese, who seemed to wish to speak. She divulged, “Erlebnis sends psychotic infiltrators often. His grudge runs hot, but he’s not truly threatening us actively.”

“Erlebnis doesn’t hold grudges. But he is cornered, and you’ve made it abundantly clear that you are his enemy.” Sataistador crouched in the sand, drawing a diagram in the sand. “He brokered peace with the Qircassian Coalition. The price? Control over the Great Chu.” The god of war fixed Argrave with a smile. “Now, your Blackgard Union faces the Qircassian Coalition, Erlebnis, and the full might of the Great Chu. They unified by circumstance and by shared enmity.”

Argrave’s mind went at once to reports from Elenore that the people of the Chu had been spotted landing on the coast. “But the Great Chu have inherited a vast wealth of artifacts just like the ones we wear,” Argrave protested. “And their knowledge of magic is equal to ours. How could they have succumbed so easily?”

“With Erlebnis divulging all the secrets of their empire to the Qircassian Coalition, their power and his knowledge combined made it break like bamboo,” Sataistador wiped the sand off his hands and rose. “It was a largely bloodless usurpation. The same ruler that sat the throne before still sits upon it now, he merely answers to something greater above him. Not that he knows, of course.”

Argrave put his hands on his hips and stepped about, thinking furiously. This wasn’t what he’d hoped to deal with—though he knew the retaliation from the coalition would come, he had expected his allies to be sufficient deterrent to prevent it from happening immediately. He’d hoped for some time to do proper research.

“I appreciate that you’ve divulged all of this,” Argrave told him. He didn’t need to ask ‘why.’ It was clear that a loner like Sataistador benefitted from chaos—hell, it was one of his three aspects. “But we’ve still yet to touch upon what you want.”

Sataistador ran his thumb along his scimitar once again. “Fighting you, killing you… meager spoils. What would I get? Spirits you’ve torn from gods that were bound to die anyway? Artifacts that won’t suit me? No… if we were to fight, I would get nothing beyond the satisfaction of the duel. Not to mention that your momentum in your endeavors has been tremendous. You have a secret, Argrave. I don’t know what it is, but my instincts forged by war tells me that it is something rather grand. I don’t care to experience that secret firsthand.”

He looked straight up at the two suns in the sky, then raised his huge hand up to cover them both. “What I want is the most glorious war I’ll ever see. I wish to prove to Erlebnis once and for all the uselessness of his scheming before my low cunning. I wish to tear him apart, to reduce his prized emissaries to puddles of gore that fill the rivers of the Chu as I drink him like a bear might honey. He deserves to be reduced to nothing, and now would never be a better time to strike.”

His fist closed together tightly. “And the Qircassian Coalition… I wish to show them, and their ridiculous mortal empire of Chu, the true cruelty of war. All that they own—their purity, their righteousness, their smug sense of invincibility… I want to do whatever I please with them, indulge in the honest debauchery of war, and then consume their bodies to strengthen mine own. I wish to etch my figure in the hearts of men and women all throughout the world.” He looked at Argrave. “Orphans and widows should loathe me with a hatred so strong it persists for centuries. The few men that live should be crippled and broken husks that tremble like newborn kittens when they see red.”

Sataistador turned away, seeming to have some trouble containing himself. He clenched his hands tightly until Argrave heard ominous cracking. He looked back at his companions, and he didn’t need to have Anneliese’s empathy to realize they all thought the same thing: this guy’s a psychopath.

“I can’t do that alone,” Sataistador admitted after a moment, his voice returned to its usual calm. “But from where I stand, neither can you defend against them all. Your conflict with them is inevitable, as they loathe you. But with me aiding in your defense, and then the subsequent counterattack… you and I both can have the most glorious triumph in this world. To kill two elder gods… no war could be sweeter.”

Argrave held his hands out. “The Blackguard Union is a defensive pact by this point. I can’t ensure they would aid us in this, even if I do agree.”

“I’m aware. I speak to you as King Argrave, not as a member of that union,” Sataistador gestured toward them. “If we should cooperate to invade the Chu, you can have whatever information you please. Elsewise, you have nothing that interests me.”

With their gazes locked, Argrave had one question remaining. “You’ll tell us about the first cycle of judgment?”

Sataistador’s serious demeanor broke and he laughed. “Ah. It’s that. I had so many things in my head…” He looked back with a faint smile on his face. “Sure. I can tell you everything that occurred during the first cycle of judgment. In exchange, you’ll help me bring the war to the Chu.”

“Just like that? No special contract to ensure we keep our word?” Melanie looked skeptical.

“That’s burdensome. I did tell you I was a mercenary,” he answered without answering. “I like some room to maneuver. And so would you, I suspect. Now… our business is concluded, I suspect. I will leave. You will see me again when I am ready to discuss more with you, Argrave. And I hope your mind will not have changed since then.”