Anya flipped the sheet over and began working on the 398th parchment. Almost done.

She'd filed a few thousand papers, attended five committee meetings, and given two reports-one on Luthe, the other on vampires. Grueling, boring work, but it needed doing. Once in a while. Besides, her prayer-for-petitions business was turning a small profit now.

"Anya?"

Anya looked up and rubbed her eyes. The coppery-skinned, green-black haired woman at her office door was Ahn-Aru, head of the Bronze Faction. Anya knew she meant well, but they weren't exactly friends. "Sad Ivory? May I help you?"

The younger...elder smiled faintly. Anya wasn't the only one struggling to get used to her being older than Sidereals who had been Exalted for centuries. "By allowing me to help you, yes. I will explain. With every elder who dies, we risk knowledge being lost. Chejop in particular was a heavy blow, though he had passed on much of what he knew. Though there have been some issues regarding you-your relationships, your background as a demon-I for one say you've proven your worth."

"What do you want to teach me and how much will it cost?" Anya asked bluntly.

Sad Ivory's eyebrows climbed up past her bangs. "The only cost to you will be your time, and an obligation to your sifu. I would like very much to begin teaching you a Sidereal martial art."

It was Anya's turn to raise her eyebrows. "The ones that twist reality into pretzels? I'm in."

"As quickly as that?" Ahn-Aru pulled a bit of pastry from somewhere and took a bite. "You seemed reluctant at first."

Anya offered her a glass of experimental soda she'd tried making from ambrosia. "You're the new faction head. You've got to be trying to build up obligations and make ties. All of a sudden you're the underdog and you're scrambling to pick up the pieces. You want something from me, even if it's just to have me in debt to a sifu. But honestly, it's worth it. I used to be able to change history with the wink of an eye."

"Well," Ahn-Aru said, taken a little aback, "you won't be doing that for a little while yet. And learning the Sapphire Veils of Passion style may be taxing, but in all honesty I believe it's...no innuendo intended...up your alley. Oh, by the way...what is this beverage? It's quite good."

"Call it Anya-Cola," Anya told her. You didn't argue with a successful formula. "Who'll be teaching me?"

Ahn-Aru tapped her forehead. "Myself. Is that well with you?"

Anya offered her a high-five and was pleased to see that the gesture had spread. Americans were...cute. "You're on."

Chapter 73-Blank and Pitiless As the Sun

Buffy uncurled herself. The pain in her gut was only pain. Whatever poison was making her woozy was harder to ignore. Two Dukanthas stood in front of her. She breathed out a bloody spirit-copy of herself and let it dissipate, taking the toxin with it. Just one Dukantha now. Just pain. She raised the Scythe. If she had to fight to the death...she wasn't dead yet.

Dukantha wasn't even looking at her. He was staring at Charles Gunn. Who shouldn't be in the arena. Who was going to get himself killed.

"Run, little man," Dukantha said. "We have no special quarrel with you. Live a while longer."

Gunn shrugged. "Why? Not like I've got anywhere to be." He flexed his arms casually, but determination shone in his eyes. Followed by...something else. An axe of blinding white light sprang to life in his hands, and glowing plate armor burst into being over his body. "Buffy's the good guy here. You're trying to kill her. I'd say that makes your ass worth kicking."

Dukantha laughed, the same boisterous laugh Buffy associated with cartoon pirates, but as he opened his mouth to make some derisive remark, a booted foot slammed into the back of his head. He didn't fall, but he did stagger for a moment. "Toldja this style worked for me," Cordelia said cheerfully.

"I didn't say you wouldn't be good at it," Gunn muttered, as Dukantha caught his axe and shoved him away. "I said you were appropriatin' slave culture."

Cordelia got in another two kicks-"I learned this style from a god in Yu-Shan!"-before Dukantha turned and casually slapped her away. Gunn abandoned his intended response to swing his axe of light at the Lintha's legs, but Dukantha jumped nimbly over it.

A sword whistled through the air, spinning around the axis of its guards, and slashed across his face. "Direct your aggressions toward someone of a stature to threaten you," Scarlet Whisper said as she dropped down out of the stands. Her sword circled back to her left hand.

"What did she just say?" Cordelia asked as she got to her feet. Her boots had spiked heels that seemed to be made of white stone-jade, maybe?

Buffy lurched forward, Scythe whirling in her grip. "She said," Buffy growled, slicing at Dukantha's hamstrings, "'Pick on someone your own size'."

"Four on one is hardly a fair fight," Dukantha chuckled, not that he seemed remotely disturbed by the idea.

Buffy shrugged and brought the axehead end around again. "I'm Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I don't do fair, not against the Forces of Darkness." Her guts felt as if they might spill out the moment she let her armor go.

Dukantha stepped aside from the Scythe, caught Gunn's axe with a burst of water that shoved it away and Gunn off-balance, seized one of Scarlet Whisper's swords between his teeth, and tripped Cordelia just before her spike-heeled boot could put his eye out. It was as if he had no weaknesses at all. That couldn't be right...could it?

So far no amount of force had done more than bruise him. He didn't seem to have any weak spots. Maybe he could be transformed? But Buffy didn't have any powers like that.

Wait a sec. She was ignoring something.

Dukantha blasted away with fire with both hands as Gunn threw himself in front of Cordy. She couldn't change the imperative Kimbery had embedded in his brain, no more than he could change hers. But she might be able to work around it.

"Dukantha," she yelled. "Forget them! Your fight's with me, remember?" Green fire curled up from the corners of her mouth.

And Dukantha obeyed. Kimbery had tasked him with killing Buffy, not her friends. "Come on. Come get me!" Buffy shouted. "Let them alone!"

Over the rim of the arena, Ferem Feyrendal, with his sandstone complexion, appeared, followed by obsidian-black Maheka Thaan. It was about time, but they wouldn't reach the fight before it was over. Well, she had left them behind.

Dukantha brought his immense sword down at Buffy, and she caught it on the middle of the Scythe. The Scythe flared brilliant green. Her middle wanted to buckle, but she held. Gunn swing his axe at Dukantha's back, but unfortunately the Lintha hadn't taken her literally enough to just forget the man's existence; he flicked his great daiklaive backward to intercept the blow. And as he did so Buffy turned and ran.

Some of the audience was already clearing out, but many were still there to watch the battle, real or not. Buffy raised her hands and made the most dramatic parting motion she could manage. "Out of my way!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. The words might or might not have carried; if not, the gesture was enough to convey the compulsion. The crowd scooted, and Buffy leapt over the restraining wall into the seats, turned a flip, and came down facing Dukantha. "Go on!" she shouted. "Blow me up!"

Dukantha hurled green fire and black water at her, and Buffy dropped to the ground. The roaring maelstrom of energies shot over her and crashed into the lower part of the crater wall with an explosive rush. Buffy scrambled back to her feet as the seats beneath her began to slide and fragment, and rode the avalanche all the way down to bury Dukantha in rubble.

Giles and Wesley came running up beside Gunn, Cordelia, and Scarlet, despite Buffy's frantic attempts to wave them off. The Lintha prince would be free in minutes at worst. But as Buffy reached stable ground, Giles slapped a dart into her hand, and she understood. She jabbed the dart into Dukantha's hand where it protruded from the mass of rock. "Thanks. That'll get-"

The pile of rock erupted as Dukantha burst free.

Wesley realized their mistake at once. As a creature of Kimbery, Dukantha was as immune to the Cruciamentum toxin as any other.

But there were other options.

Wesley was never going to have the sort of power Buffy and many of her friends had developed; he accepted that. But there were powers in the universe in which every Watcher received some basic instruction, and he had learned more in the libraries of Yu-Shan. He prepared his thoughts accordingly.

"C'mon, Duke Antler, chop my head off!" Buffy was near the brink, Wesley suspected; she showed no clear sign of injury, but Dukantha had outright run her through already. Dukantha obeyed-what Buffy thought she was doing, Wesley couldn't fathom, but the big man lunged at her with sword outstretched.

Wesley flung out his hands in a chopping gesture-the Sign of the Hooded Hangman, the texts here called it. And a strand of silvery metal knit itself together between them, barbed wickedly yet fine as monomolecular wire, and hurled itself like a bolas at the pirate lord.

Dukantha, committed to his killing blow, nonetheless reacted, though to what cue Wesley could hardly imagine. The sword flicked back from Buffy's neck to interpose itself between him and the flying guillotine. Half the writhing wire twisted around the great blade...and the other half whistled past to wrap around its target: Dukantha's neck.

Dukantha's eyes went wide in disbelief as the wire cut deep into his flesh, severing muscle, tendon, and bone. No mortal, his gaze said, could possibly kill him, an Exalt, one Chosen of the Demon Sea.

And then the wire vanished into mist as Dukantha's head slid back and to the left to topple onto the ground.

Everyone's head turned toward him expectantly, even Scarlet Whisper and the Earth Aspects. It took him a moment to realize what they were looking for. He'd just struck the killing blow against an Exalt who made Buffy look like a child just learning to slay vampires, even if all the rest of the damage inflicted had been at her hands.

But no auras flared around him; no visions appeared. No Exaltations seemed to be available just now. Scarlet Whisper was the first to shrug and look away.

Then Buffy wavered, staggered, and slid bonelessly to the ground.

Buffy swam in a sea of pain. Her armor had fallen away to reveal a web of second-degree burns criss-crossed with deep cuts. Worst of all, the stab wound in her guts seemed to have torn open some kind of sac. Her intestines slid and sloshed around in there, burning. They were trying to carry her off the battlefield; she was struggling to keep her arms crossed over the rent in her stomach, but they persisted in flopping away.

I'll heal back from this eventually, but how long? Weeks? She'd be vulnerable to more attempts on her life the whole time.

You can recover faster, Sineya rumbled, and offered up the last of the inner fire of transformation they'd been holding in reserve.Strengthen yourself. The gift she offered wasn't healing, though; it was part of the tainted nightmare Sulumor had imposed on her. The surrender of her morality. Silly little killer. What morality have you ever had? You choose what you will and will not do. Vow what you wish to vow, and do it. The oath in her mind wrote itself out like fiery letters on a wall: to protect those who depended on her. When have you ever done otherwise? Sineya played it back in her mind: Then the last thing she sees will be me protecting her. It hadn't gone that way; she'd found an alternative-but she'd been ready to sacrifice all existence to give Dawn a few more moments of life and not-betrayal. Who will you protect, what good can you do, if you are dead?

Buffy could not be sure if she released it or if it fell from her grasp, but she felt morality slide from her fingers. She fell with it into the void...

...And caught herself. She had chosen; she had sworn. Buffy had her absolute freedom, and yet the framework on which to make a true decision. To be the good Slayer, even without that internal compulsion most people required.

Willpower welled up inside her, and with it the fire of possibility. Cordelia cried out somewhere in the distance. Fire ran through Buffy's veins and pulsed in her beating heart. She struggled free from grasping hands and stood. Liquid brass and molten lava flowed through her arteries.

"Buffy, don't-" Whoever it was cut off as scars of black stone began to fill in around the edges of her gut wound.

"Don't freak," Buffy wheezed. "I'm gonna be ok." Well...that one was kind of a stretch. But she was back on her feet. Okay would have to come back later.

"I trust you told her no."

Mnemon looked up. Her command tent was wearing thin. She'd have to have it repaired. The woman standing over her had to be a Sidereal, to address her so familiarly when Mnemon had no memory of her. "Why would you trust any such thing?"

The Sidereal inhaled sharply. "Mnemon, my name is Anys Syn. I head the Center Convention. I am, to put it simply, the power behind the Scarlet Throne. I understand your need to prioritize, but-"

"The empty throne," Mnemon said acerbically. "Chejop-" She thought that was the name; she had known him a while. "-is dead, the Solar Anathema are running wild, and I still don't have the political capital to name myself Empress." She stood up and turned to face the familiar stranger. "If marrying the Despot of Gem will secure power for me, I don't care if she's Anathema or a demon outright. Have you got that?"

Anys Syn took a moment to collect herself. She was formidable, but she was no Chejop. "The Despot is new to both political and Exalted power. You're over four hundred and a daughter to the Empress. I don't see what you think she can offer you."

"You have doubtless missed it, staring at the Loom," Mnemon said coolly. "The Despot has connections not only with a group of friends who include the ruler of this mysterious city risen out of the sea, but with some additional...cabal. She's been seen working with both Deathknights and Exalts who resemble akuma but are not."

"A dangerous-sounding woman,"Anys argued. "She sounds like an enemy of Creation."

"Not consistent with her actions," Mnemon said, "nor with my interactions with her. I believe these unknown new Anathema may be in rebellion against their masters and working with one another. For personal power, I suspect. Which is to say, we have quite a bit in common."

"They will surpass you, Mnemon. They're Celestial Exalts." Anys shook her head. "These four hundred years of advantage will wear away, don't you see?"

"Either I'll be dead by that time, or I'll be among the oldest Terrestrials ever to live. There are levels of power we've never had a chance to master," Mnemon argued. "That does not mean we cannot. And I'll always have those years of experience on them."

"You're acting the fool, Mnemon. I'm surprised at you." Anys sounded disappointed.

Mnemon sighed and held out her hand, anima-light shining around her. "You underestimate me, Anys Syn. I appreciate your advice, but if you sought to sway me, you have succeeded " A six-winged cherub sprang into being above her palm, and she murmured into its ear. "I hope that you were not merely maneuvering for advantage, Despot Summers. I accept your proposal. Yes, I will marry you."

"I have to go," Anja said, snuggling regretfully against Alexander. "Someone has opened up a new offensive against the Mask of Winters. Some foolish new Exalt, it seems."

"This is a bad thing?" Alexander surely knew better. He was trying to distract her with humor.

"The Mask of Winters is beyond any plausible Exalt or coalition thereof who might be involved in this," Leviathan rumbled from Alexander's other side. "Whoever they are is disrupting a delicate balance. If he begins to move, no one is in an adequate position to oppose him."

"The Sage of the Depths has agreed to go with me," Anja said. "He can't match a Deathlord alone, but he'd be the core of a functional opposition. I have the intel on Thorns that he'll need. " She curled her tail around Alexander. "I'd like to think you'd come as well, but you're too involved here, aren't you?"

"I am," Leviathan explained, "but not in the way you think. This body is only a small part of me. The rest of me is liberating Jalarin from its bondage to the Wyld in preparation for a still-more-delicate operation: the rescue of the lost city of Clepsys from the Underworld." He paused for a moment. "The Sage is leaving?"

"Too many people here don't trust him," Alexander pointed out. "The Deep Sages are a minority here. The Shadow Swimmers are flipped out about their ancestor, and the Luthea know the Sage helped oppress them."

"His worship won't just die out," Anja said. "But he doesn't have much else here."

"Then I wish him good luck," Leviathan said, "and you also. If the Mask of Winters should attack openly, I will try to come with aid, but for now I expect to be busy helping against the Silver Prince."

"I miss the days when apocalypses happened one at a time," Alexander said, "but at least it waited till there were enough of us to go around."

Leviathan's laughter shook the bedroom.

"You need to know, Giles, I...think I learned something mind-altering at the end there. I'm kinda okay, but...watch me, please? If I start acting weird, or dangerous especially..."

Giles sighed. "I will tell you, Buffy. Or your friends if I judge it too great a risk. You know that you can trust me." But he didn't meet her eyes.

Well...she understood. She wouldn't be sure which pair to look at either. "I love you guys," her other head said, and she hugged Giles. "I know this look creeps you out, and I'm sorry. I think I have it because of the split, y'know? I'm Buffy Summers, valley girl-"

"-and I'm also the Slayer. They're both me. I'm getting less and less simple a person to know. I know that's hard."

"It is," Giles acknowledged. "But then, it's also what happens as one grows up. Admittedly, the scale of it is vastly increased...how do you feel, Buffy? You look feverish. And green."

"Yes to both," Buffy said. "Veins're full of green fire."

"Also? My scars itch." Her stab wounds had scabbed over in black volcanic rock and her burn scars were shiny brass. "But they're healing faster than I ever have."

"If I go bad..."

"I swear to you I will find a way to cure or stop you," Giles assured her.

Buffy nodded with her right head. She couldn't keep quiet-her friends already knew this was possible and would be watching for it. She couldn't tell them the whole story; they'd move Creation to undo it again. By hinting, she reassured them she was probably okay. And she was. Probably.

"I'll get used to it," Cordelia said as she came down the hallway. "I got used to Doyle being a spiky demon and I can get used to Buffy being a freaky two-headed mutant."

"What sort of demon was Doyle?" Scarlet Whisper asked her.

"Well, I mean he was half-human," Cordy explained, "but the other half was Brachen. He got killed by an anti-human weapon, though, so, um...I guess he counted as human."

"As I understand it," Scarlet Whisper said, "the soul structure is of more importance than-" She cut off. "Buffy. I'm glad you're recovering. You have very interesting friends."

"They're always there to help me out," Buffy agreed. "They're a big part of how I lasted so long."

Scarlet Whisper took a drink from the table. "I saw as much today."

"Oh, Wes's never been so helpful before," Buffy said as her other head laughed. "Not that I'm complaining in any way."

Cordy was about to say something rude, by her expression, when a six-winged baby darted through the doorway. In a faintly familiar voice and a friendly tone it recited, "I hope that you were not merely maneuvering for advantage, Despot Summers. I accept your proposal. Yes, I will marry you."

Buffy sat down hard.

"I had thought better of Mnemon," Anys said. "But she has never been a woman of real faith. She does not disbelieve, precisely, but she knows too much."

Her companion shrugged. "I know as much as she. Do I not?"

"You learned late in your life," Anys said. "She grew up with it. Still, though, you both in your way chose to accept the tenets even with the understanding that certain...aspects were left out of the public teaching."

"What would you have me do about the situation? Am I to intimidate Mnemon?"

Anys shook her head as she opened the doors. "Mnemon will not be afraid of you no matter what abilities you demonstrate. I would prefer that you deal with the Despot herself. There remains but one final test."

Ragara Myrrun nodded and assumed his place on the meditation mat. "I am prepared." One by one he struck his chakras: crown, brow, throat, spine, and abdomen, reshaping his essence. The motions looked perfect-

The explosion hurled Anys Syn against the wall.

"Damn," she muttered, struggling to her feet. Once again, she had failed, possibly for the last time. Why? There had to be a method; it was the nature of the Exalted to do the impossible. Yet still-

Myrrun stood in the center of the room, unharmed and radiating the violet aura of an Ending. He breathed, and flexed, and the walls swelled and flexed with his motions.

Anys Syn shrieked and leaped into the air. There was a time for restraint even in the face of success.

This was not that time.

"Buffy Summers," Octavian thundered, "pour the beverages. A toast to the newest peer of Malfeas is in order."

Buffy had the uncomfortable impression that so far, the higher-order demons had been treating her as less...herself than the others. Okay, she had kind of expected that, sending a copy, but it was still annoying.

Well, no use complaining now. She took the bottle from Octavian, popped the cork, and poured glasses of chalcanth for all forty-two of the Exalts plus Octavian and Benezet. This was going to hit her like a freight truck.

"To the Perfect of Paragon! To the Reclamation! To victory!" Octavian shouted, and quaffed his cup in one swallow. The circle of Green Sun Princes did the same. Buffy gulped hers down.

The world lurched, tossing her to the floor. "Yowch! Okay, that was of the extremely high-proof..." She trailed off. The Exalts were on the floor. And Octavian and Benezet. And the angyalkae and gilmyne. They hadn't had any drinks. What the hell?

Another blast hit as she tried to stand. Only Octavian had made it to his feet. "What in all the hells is happening? Get me some information! Who's disrupting the ceremony?"

"Quarter Prince!" An erymanthos swung down from the level above. "The Deeper Well has collapsed!"

"That wouldn't create this sort of damage," Octavian snarled. "Something further has-"

"My prince," Benezet murmured. "Sacheverell-"

"What in the Pyre's name do I care about the Sleeper?" Octavian snapped, and started to turn away.

Benezet seized him by the arm. "Quarter Prince, Sacheverell is gone."