"Too long have unrighteous ways dominated our holy Father Church! Priests and nuns dress improperly, and flaunt their flesh in tight garments and revealing fashions. No, all should be equal in the eyes of the Lord and the Founder, and so I have imposed standardised full-body dress regulations for all who have taken holy orders! Even I shall dress in this way, in loose robes. It is a mark of my humility that I dress like a common village priest. And those who say that I have been putting on weight recently are too concerned for my health. I overcame the recent curse that left me nauseous and weary each morning, and I am sure that this weight gain shall be gone by the end of the year. I intend to go on a private pilgrimage with my personal aide and bosom companion, Cardinal Benedict, to help me pray it away."
– Pope Gregory II, The Proclamation of Mandatory Decency
…
The echoes of the thunderclap reverberated through the graveyard.
"So. The Overlady of the North," said Francoise Athenais coldly. "You kidnapped Princess Henrietta. You plundered the treasury. You murdered the comte de Mott."
"You're a self-centred dog – and a usurper too," Louise countered. "I'm going to enjoy destroying you."
The two women eyed each other up. The overlady was wrapped in a slightly sooty black robe with her face concealed by the hood despite the heat. Two pinkish-yellow eyes burned in the shadows of her cowl. Her left hand was pointed at the other woman's head, her armoured gauntlet bleeding malevolence into the air. A single ruby gleamed on it, like a droplet of blood.
The Madame de Montespan was still wearing her academic's mantle from earlier in the day, though she had lost or abandoned her cap. Her teal green hair hung was hastily tied back, and her green eyes glittered in the sunlight. All around her, her layered wards left a blue haze in the air. She had her wand drawn, and she kept it pointed at the overlady.
The wind picked up. A garland of flowers was blown off a grave by the breeze, and rolled between them. Louise began to pace to the left, Francoise Athenais to the right. Each looked for a moment of weakness in the other to exploit.
"You can't break my wards," the older woman said, voice low.
"You'll have to lower them if you want to cast," Louise countered.
"Time is on my side. My men will be here soon."
"Will they? You'd have to lower the spell keeping me from fleeing." Louise paused. "And that assumes they're not distracted by… all the fires. How did you get here this fast?"
"You're predictable."
"I tripped one of your perimeter defences, didn't I?" Louise tilted her head. "The gate to the graveyard?"
"It was an obvious way out." They continued to circle, watching for a chance to strike. Tension built between them until the very air seemed to hum like a bowstring.
"Mreeep?" asked a white cat quizzically, wandering into the space between them and looking from one woman to the other in bewilderment.
"Pallas?"
It was only after the slight echo failed to go on echoing that Louise realised that the Madame de Montespan had spoken at exactly the same moment as her. Not that they sounded anything alike, of course. Or looked alike. Not one bit!
"So you kidnapped my cat," Francoise Athenais said, her voice low and quiet.
"Pallas is your cat? She just started following me around!" Louise glared at the cat. "Did you betray me to her?" she asked it, making sure to keep her hand pointed at Montespan.
"Mraa."
"Was that a yes or a no?"
"Mraaaa mraa," Pallas clarified.
"It would of course be entirely in accordance with your previous behaviour to do that," the other woman said, as if she hadn't heard a thing Louise said. "Yes. After all, you must have known how much I value my pets. Of course you'd try to steal one of them. They're a pedigree breed. Your loathsome wickedness means that you desire to despoil and steal wherever you can."
"I didn't steal your cat. She just decided to follow me around," Louise repeated, clenching her teeth as the ruthless feline blackmail from earlier began to make a lot more sense. "You can have her back if you want."
"Aha! So you've cast some malevolent spell on her! To turn her into a weapon against me!" Montespan narrowed her eyes, sighting down her wand. "Or worse, you've enthralled her! Oh yes, we all know what witches do with cats they wish to make into a demonic familiar!"
Louise turned red, her hand shaking with rage. "No! I did not… you…" She took a deep breath. "What are you, stupid? Or do you just not listen to a single thing I say – because you're a stupid idiotic whelp!"
"Your attempts to plead innocence and your base insults will have no sway! One such as you was never innocent! Cannot be innocent!" Francoise Athenais snapped. "So of course you'd make poor innocent Pallas nurse from-"
Louise had heard quite enough, thank you very much, and so tried to set the other woman on fire. Pink fire surged forth in a roaring wave which broke against Montespan's wards. The blue haze flickered and one layer of it cracked and wavered alarmingly, but held strong. The surroundings weren't so lucky and the summer-dried grass and trees of the graveyard went up like oil-soaked tinder. Pallas, displaying the reflexes of… well, a cat, vanished with a yowl.
But Louise hadn't been casting to kill, and-
Well, okay, she had been. But given it hadn't worked she wasn't going to just stand there and throw fire at the wards. It would just open her up to a counter. While Montespan was still blinded by the fire and smoke, Louise ducked back, getting behind a nice and solid mausoleum. She thought about what she knew about Montespan. Skilled earth mage, honourless dignity-lacking cur who profaned her body outside of marriage, apparently Eleanore had meant that she was really good at handling real wards, not… never mind what Louise had thought she'd meant.
What would an earth mage do in these circumstances? Louise tried to get her breathing under control and began to slowly mutter to herself, building up power in her gauntlet. She knew that Montespan wouldn't be able to keep up that strength of warding if she went on the offensive. Even if she was fortifying her wards with artefacts and imbued objects, the limits to the will of a mage meant that she couldn't keep her power in her defences and attack at the same time.
Which would mean that Louise would need to coax her into attacking something – preferentially not her – and then jump out and shoot her with lightning, preferably in the back when she wasn't looking, which was the de la Vallière way of doing things and had worked rather well for generations. Even her father apparently had a habit of stabbing demon lords and minotaurs and dragons in the back with ice blades when they were focussed on her mother. Her mother was admittedly very distracting.
And Louise had something which was nearly as distracting. Or at least annoying.
"Igni!" she snapped. "Go throw fireballs at her from the fire and draw her attention!"
Igni poked his head out from behind a burning tree. "Can do, overlady!" he said cheerfully, and vanished into the smoke.
Something rumbled behind Louise. That sounded like a golem-like rumble. Yes, that was certainly a bunch of granite golems made from tombstones, Louise thought when she peeked. Oh, wonderful. They were in fact golems who looked just like Viscount Wardes. The stone was almost exactly the same colour as his hair.
They were advancing on her hiding place.
Well. She couldn't say that she objected to destroying golems which looked like this.
…
Hoofs beat on the road. There was something peculiar about their pattern. Nevertheless, the distance melted away like a candle under a blowtorch. Onlookers gawped to see this wild ride.
No doubt the attention drawn was because of the speed. Nothing else. The fact that it was led by a fair maiden who was riding a unicorn was an irrelevancy. The fact that the aforementioned unicorn had glowing red eyes, was frothing madly at the mouth, and had apparently been stitched together from several other horses to replace missing limbs was a negligible detail. And of course nothing about the rider could have been drawing attention.
Nothing at all.
Oh, and of course it was scarcely even worth mentioning that the rider was being followed by a pack of wolves. Who were being ridden by foul-smelling goblins.
"Woooooolfies!" cackled Fettid madly. "Woflies are the worstest worst!"
"I are composing a new poem 'bout this. It are called 'The Charge of the Dark Brigade'," Maxy declared. "Ahem. 'A kilometre. A kilometre. A kil-urk'." Maxy slumped over in his saddle, a large knife sticking out of his back.
"Bad job, Fettid," Maggat said approvingly.
"Oh, sirs," Fettid said, fanning herself with her hand, "this are praise what do make a jen-tell maven's heart go boom boom boom what like hearts do normally but quicker."
"Should I brings him back from the dead place?" Scyl asked, casually plaiting dead spiders into the mane of his slathering red-eyed murder-wolf.
Maggat considered it. "Later," he said. "The henchess are leaving us behind and we no is needing distractions like poetry." He spurred his wolf onwards. "Come on, you scum!" he roared to the others. "If the henchess leave us behind, I'll kill you all!"
A minionish warcry rose up over the fens around Amstreldamme.
"Today are a good day to die then come back then kill them all and loot them!"
…
The hissing acid burned into the perfect face of the Wardes-like golem, leaving it to stumble around blindly. Swinging its sword around, it managed to dismember a pillar, a bush, and one of its own compatriots. It comprehensively failed to dismember or even locate the overlady, however, who blew it apart with a lightning bolt as it tripped over the severed arm of one of its companions.
Louise paused for breath, gasping for air. The smoke made her cough and splutter, and her lungs burned. She pulled out a handkerchief – black silk lovingly embroidered with demonic sigils by Jessica– and tied it over her mouth. It helped a little bit, but not enough. Fire crackled and burned all around her. She could see the boundaries of the outer wards that surrounding this place outlined by the grey-black smoke pressed up against the invisible wall like water in a glass bowl.
Gosh. This really was cathartic. And it was her birthday today! She'd almost forgotten. Demolishing golems that looked like Viscount Wardes was almost relaxing, apart from the part where they were trying to kill her.
"Get back here, you wretched goblin," she heard Montespan hiss from the other side of the mausoleum. "Stop hiding in the fire. And stop throwing fireballs at me. It's not doing anything, but it's getting on my nerves."
Nerves thrumming, she crept closer and closer, keeping something solid between her and where she thought Montespan was. She couldn't have been this quiet in her armour, but that just reminded her that in this robe she was as vulnerable as a snail without its shell. Though considerably faster and less mucus-y.
Louise waited. Yes! There it was! She was chanting! From behind her cover, Louise stepped into sight and unleashed a storm of lightning bolts. The outer ward shattered entirely and the inner one flickered before Montespan threw herself to the ground. She snapped out a few words and the glow shifted in colour and grew brighter. This time when the next lightning bolt hit her there was only the barest flicker of her defences.
And something clicked in Louise's head. Whenever she threw magic at her, her wards wavered – even when the madame should have been protecting against her lightning wind-magic. Only Louise wasn't using wind magic, was she? She was using Evil magic pretending to be wind. And she had been able to push her gauntlet through the big barrier trapping her in this place.
So, the overlady thought, barely scheming at all, logically if a little bit of Evil was damaging her wards then a lot should break them totally.
Now, how to do this?
But somehow she already knew. It was like there was something in her mind which had just been waiting for her to have the right thoughts to know how to do it. Her gauntlet whispered to her, saying words which were right on the edge of comprehension. She could almost understand them. Almost. There was something missing. They were somehow incomplete. But even the limited amount she could glean was enough for her purposes.
Louise pointed her left hand at Montespan, raw Evil writhing around the steel. She spoke a single word. And all the magic in the area shattered. The other woman's wards – both personal and otherwise – were extinguished like a candleflame in a hurricane. The magic reinforcing the walls of the city was snuffed out, and spiderweb cracks raced along its surface. Even the magelights on the watchtowers flared and then burned themselves out.
Um. The overlady's eyes widened. That hadn't been quite what she'd expected, but she wasn't complaining.
Francoise Athenais collapsed to her knees, eyes wide in vacant shock. She dropped her wand, hand shaking as if she was afflicted by palsy. "Wh-what did you do?" she whispered, barely audible over the sounds of the burning graveyard and the breaking stone.
"I see you failed to comprehend my true power," Louise said smugly. If she was to be quite honest, she had no idea what she'd just done, but she wasn't about to let this woman know that. "It was always part of my plan to let you think you were winning – just as it was part of my plan to fool you into arresting Eleanore de la Vallière on false pretences," she added, improvising wildly. "I was there to make sure the plan I led you into went off without a hitch."
"Wh-what?" Francoise Athenais stammered.
"Every step you've made has been part of my great plan – and Francoise Athenais, may I say you've played your part perfectly." Louise smirked at her, knowing that she could see it. "What a perfect little pawn you've been. Running around following the false trails and implications I set up, moving the guards away so I could steal the Malevolene Fragment for myself." She thought a laugh would improve matters, and so she laughed at the Madame de Montespan. After all, it was pretty funny. She was falling for it!
"B-but… that's…" Francoise Athenais looked around wildly. She was crying. She was actually crying! Louise's smirk grew wider. This was perfect!
"But you've played your part. So I'm going to have to dispose of you. Don't worry," Louise said, eyes narrowed, "I'll tell that rotten stinking dog Wardes that you died like a… a cur. And then I'll kill him too."
The Madame de Montespan turned snow white, her pupils shrinking to tiny pupils. "N-no," she breathed. The look she shot at the black-robed overlady was pure hatred. "You… you c-can't… he…"
"Just watch me," Louise said. "Maybe I'll trap his soul so I can play with it at my leisure."
Louise felt that maybe she was going a bit far. Clearly when she let her mouth do the talking, she… um, well, had de la Vallière ideas. But on the other hand, it was an unsettled question in theology as to whether it was acceptable to steal the souls of really, really bad people and torture them. Yes, some people said it was completely unacceptable, but on the other hand there was a major school of thought which held that the emulation of the Lord was the highest form of virtue, and hence if the Lord saw fit to condemn wrongdoers to eternal torture, then it must be acceptable for men too.
Francoise Athenais let out a wordless shriek of apprehension and horror. "No!" she moaned. "No no no. He's mine! You… you can't have him! I'll st-stop you!"
Something deep inside Louise quite insistently suggested she should just kill her and just get it over with because nothing like this could ever end well. It didn't sound like her de la Vallière blood, though, which was generally quite fine with gloating. It certainly sounded like a quite good idea, though. Maybe it was time to stop playing and…
Montespan managed to get one hand to the necklace she wore. "Founder forgive me," she whispered. "Jean-Jacques, forgive me."
Then she clutched the necklace tight and whispered a forbidden word, then tore it off.
A wave of magic blasted Louise off her feet. The shockwave sent tombstones tumbling. The walls of Amstreldamme, already weakened by Louise's magic, crackled and crumbled. A thick mist swept in from nowhere, grey and cold and bitter, and the sunny sky suddenly became overcast with bruise-coloured clouds.
"Lou!" It was someone incredibly handsome and manly speaking to her through the gauntlet, which probably meant it was Jessica. Pleasant butterflies churned in Louise's stomach, fighting with the much less pleasant butterflies of terror – which were probably some kind of nasty moth anyway. Or maybe wasps. "Bad news! We can get-"
"I know!" Louise shrieked. "I can tell she's bad news! Now go away! I don't need warm romantic fuzziness from you!" She rolled out of the way, glad for once that she wasn't wearing her armour and managed to get behind a still-standing tombstone. She had the gut feeling that something solid and stone between her and Montespan was something she'd need in the near future. She was probably blowing herself up to try to kill Louise or something.
No such luck.
Francoise Athenais hung motionless in a column of darkness which reached up to the charcoal-grey clouds. Blindingly bright lightning arced within the cloud of artificial night. Something was happening in there. Darkness was swirling into her, and her skin was growing paler. Every vein was a line of pitch under chalk-pale skin.
Louise had no idea what was going on, but was pretty sure it couldn't be good for her. "Okay, gauntlet," she whispered to her left hand. "Let's try doing the whole 'make all the magic going away' thing again!" She gritted her teeth and tried to draw on the Evil power once more.
But she couldn't feel the power there. She felt drained and tired. Was this how most other mages felt when they were low on willpower? She never normally felt like that. "Fireball!" she tried. A ball of pink smoke rushed forth, but it was smaller than usual and lopsided. It hit the column of blackness and was snuffed out. Louise silently cursed wards in her head.
Fine. So she had thrown all her will into that counter-magic spell. And now Montespan was using some totally blatantly evil power up. Even as she watched, four wings spread out behind the Madame de Montespan, as black as the night's sky and speckled with stars. The world itself greyed and died around her, losing something vital. Her eyes burned blue with icy certainty and dark veins criss-crossed her skin. Her hair moved like it was caught in an unseen hurricane.
On the plus side, she had broken the wards around this place. So now was the time for her to expediently tactically withdraw as fast as possible.
"Slow her down!" Louise shouted at Igni, and then legged it.
"Minions…" hissed the grotesquely transformed Francoise Athenais. "It's been proven that they're just trained goblins, not beings in their own right. And Eleanore de la Vallière was wrong when she said that goblins were a degenerated form of minions. I don't believe in minions."
Igni screamed. Louise turned sheet white. She could see through the red. He was fading, like an illusion whose caster had ceased to empower the spell. Desperately, he threw fireball after fireball at the monstrous winged woman, but the balls of fire were mere images, meaning nothing and doing nothing.
He grew fainter and fainter, his screaming fading along with the rest of him, and then he was gone.
Louise dropped down behind a gravestone, shaking. One of the minions she actually knew the name of was dead. And not in the sense they usually died. Actually dead. Through… through some kind of horrible evil trick thing and… and Montespan had turned into a demon or an angel or something or… or…
She stuffed her ungauntleted hand into her mouth and tried not to make a sound, as a sixth sense told her that the monster was looking her way. Louise didn't even need her de la Vallière blood to tell her to hide and that it would be really quite stupid to try to fight someone who could apparently disbelieve you to death. Though it was telling her that anyway. Extensively and at length.
"Is this all part of your plan, overlady?" the monster asked mockingly. "Am I playing right into what you expected? Unlike you, I am pure."
Louise severely doubted that. For one, Montespan had just turned into what was probably some kind of dark angel of an Evil god. For two, she was also a cheap fiancé-stealing hussy who did horribly improper things before she was even married. For three she was also a lying treacherous witch who was literally a traitor. And for four, she had just turned into an Evil monster. Louise understood that she had raised that point twice, but it was a really really important point. One possibly even worth raising a third time.
Keeping low, Louise lurked in gloom cast by the suddenly overcast sky. She screwed her eyes shut, trying to minimise their glow, and tried to call on all the will she could manage. There was just a dribble. She felt tired and drained enough that she could barely manage a fireball. A bell chimed and the earth shook once, then again.
"Where are you, overlady? Come out, come out, wherever you are," Montespan called out. With a flapping of wings she swooped low overhead, trailing shadow in her wake. Louise kept low and prayed to the Founder that she wouldn't be seen. The thick smoke from the fires were her friend here, and she was just glad she'd tied the handkerchief over her mouth. Despite that, the urge to cough was growing. She crept through the smoke and flames, even as overhead Francoise Athenais raised a hand and a column of black light exploded out of the ground accompanied by the chiming of a bell. Earth and mud and bits of skeleton rained down from the blast.
Teeth clenched together, Louise tried not to scream. She just had to wait for the monster to realise that Louise wasn't stupid and that something like her would have problems going into holy ground. Which would mean that the sensible way to go would be to straight back through the walls, into the church and to seek sanctuary there. Which meant she could catch Louise there at the little door in the walls.
Once she did that, Louise could run in precisely the opposite direction, discard the robe and hide the gauntlet, and become just a young noblewoman running from the terrible fight occurring near the graveyard. The risk of being identified or losing the gauntlet was less, all things considered, than the risk of being torn limb from limb by a dark angel thing.
She edged her way around a crypt, making sure to keep the low marble structure between her and the twisted woman on the other side. Yes. Keep on that way, she thought as she watched Montespan turn back towards the city walls. Just a little further…
When the time was right, she made a run for it. Heart beating in her chest like a hammer, legs and arms pumping, she fled. The noise of the fires should cover her footsteps and the winged woman was some distance away anyway. She hurdled a row of low graves, not even sparing any thought for the tombs she was jumping over, and sprinted down a row of burning yew trees. Their smoke was perfumed and made her gag, but she forced herself to run. The low wall surrounding the burial grounds was getting nearer and-
-and the Madame de Montespan dropped out of the sky, black wings wide. Black veins crawled across her too-pale skin. There was a look of dreadful terrible glee in her dark eyes. She held a long spear made out of the night's sky and wore armour that seemed to be made out of meat. What could be seen of her mundane clothing was very burned indeed.
"I knew you'd go this way," Montespan gloated. "The only sensible way to go would be flee to the church, which meant that logically you'd go exactly the opposite way hoping to outsmart me."
Curses, Louise thought. Along with a long chain of rather ruder words.
Montespan took a step forwards. "What? No clever phrase? No cunning plan. I outsmarted you, you pathetic weak little mortal who drapes herself in borrowed power. What are you going to do now?" She smiled too widely. "I don't believe you have the strength left to cast a single spell," she said cruelly.
Louise staggered as a sudden headache split her skull. It felt like something was… was sipping at her head! Like it was a teacup.
The ground shook.
And then a giant bone hand tore out of the earth and grabbed the Madame de Montespan, pulling her down underground.
Louise stared at her left hand and the gauntlet. "Did you do that?" she asked it suspiciously. All around her across the burning graveyard the ground was rumbling. Skeletal and rotting hands thrust up from the broken earth. "What did you do?" she screamed at her hand.
"Overlady!" shouted Maggat, riding up on a wolf with glowing red eyes. "We is here!"
"Maggat!" she called out. Yes! There were at least twenty minions riding Cattleya's wolves, and they were all old elite minions festooned in loot. She might even get out of here.
"Where are Igni?"
"She made him vanish," Louise blurted out, shivering. "He's dead! We need to go! And…" She trailed away.
A figure approached, riding a pale equine.
They were a necromancer. Yes. They were quite clearly a necromancer. It wasn't the skull faced helmet with the enlarged fanged maw which gave the impression. It wasn't the robe the colour of dried blood. It wasn't the armoured corset under the robe made to resemble a rib-cage, complete with very supportive skeletal hands. It wasn't the fact that the living dead were obeying her every command.
It was all of those things combined, especially the last bit.
And they were riding a unicorn. A rather corpse-y but not quite dead unicorn. A very familiar unicorn. It glared at Louise.
Louise froze, caught between the urge to hide behind a tombstone and to just run away from Montespan. The other woman almost certainly wasn't dead.
"Minions!" she ordered. "Kill the necromancer!"
Maxy tilted his head. "Kill the henchess?" he asked, and shrugged. "Well, if it are your orders-"
"Stop!" Louise blurted out, to disappointment from the minions. "Henrietta?"
"Who's that, my overlady?" Henrietta's familiar voice came out from beneath the helmet. "I am just your Voice."
Louise sprinted over, dodging the attempts of the mad possibly undead unicorn to gore her. "We need to go," she shouted, pulling herself up into the saddle behind Henrietta. A small white shape shot out of the undergrowth, and sprung onto Louise's cloak with a desperate and panicked "Mraaaa!"
"Why? Now we're here…"
"That won't stop her!" Louise squeaked urgently.
"Really? Because the book said that-"
"Drat the book!" Louise shouted. "She's… she's some kind of dark angel thing . I don't think she needs to breathe! And she'll disbelieve the hands away if we let her!" She slapped the unicorn on the behind and it started. "Go! Go!"
A rumbling of earth from where Françoise Athenais had been dragged down made her point even more emphatically. Black light erupted from the ground and a single giant finger came rocketing out of the ground, crashing down and crushing a tombstone.
Henrietta swallowed loudly. "I believe retreat may be the better course of-"
"Run away!" Louise shouted.
The next few minutes were a mad flight across the countryside, with Louise clinging on for dear life. Behind her, the pillars of smoke rose higher and higher under the localised and far too circular cover of the clouded sky. And then the clouds suddenly dispersed.
A bit of Louise felt that was probably good news, and maybe they should go back to confirm that Montespan was dead. The rest of her decided that was stupid and ordered that they keep on running away.
…
The graveyard was a ruin. Overturned bones and half-exposed caskets were scattered everywhere. The ornamentation was largely on fire, and the bits which were not on fire were still smouldering. The unquiet dead still shambled around, torn from their rest by the dark magics of Princess Henrietta. Only a few tombstones were still standing, although a few of the lurking corpses had taken it upon themselves to right them.
A hand thrust itself out from the broken earth. The Madame de Montespan clawed her way out of the filled in grave. She was utterly filthy and her dress was torn into tatters, especially prominently with two long slashes down the back. Her left hand twitched repeatedly, as if she had palsy. She staggered to her feet, leaning on the grave, and rubbed her bloodshot but entirely human eyes.
Then she cursed under her breath because doing that just ground more mud into her eyes. This really, really hurt. Stupid useless pain.
"Milady! Milady!" called out a guard. "Thank the Founder you're alive! Was it…"
"It was the Overlady of the North," Francois Athenais said, gritting her teeth because there was grit in her teeth. She staggered, and almost fell. "I… I was hit in the head. I don't… it's all fuzzy. Help me get back to my townhouse," she ordered.
"Will you need a healer, milady?"
"I… yes, I have one on my staff," she said, frowning as she concentrated. "My magic saved me from being crushed. I'll just need some rest to recover from my aches and pains." She glared at him. "And give me your jacket," she added. "It's not decent to walk around looking like this."
Limping and battered, bleeding from multiple shallow cuts and with bruises all over her body, the Madame de Montespan was helped back to her home where her servants immediately saw to her. She hissed in pain as her personal healer splashed various stinging cleansing potions over her injuries to prevent the taint from the graveyard earth from sickening her, even as other servants prepared a bath for her. Then she tolerated, barely, the ache of the water mage sealing her disinfected wounds.
"No other injuries? Any headaches or the like?" her healer asked.
Francoise Athenais shook her head. "Just the scratches and the bruises and the normal exhaustion from using too much magic," she said darkly. "I nearly got that vile witch, too."
"Well, I'll be keeping an eye on you, my lady," the other woman said. "It's a miracle you're as unhurt as you are – but then again, you handle wards very well indeed."
Montespan nodded. "Indeed. No miracle, just skill," she said. "Now," she pulled a face, "a bath to get all this mud out my hair."
Carefully she closed the door behind her, making sure the room was empty, and shed her filthy clothes. With a sigh of relief, she sunk into the steaming water.
And her eyes bled to the blackness of the outer darkness, tiny flecks of light whirling in the nothingness.
"My lord," she addressed the thin air. "The mortals suspect nothing. This host is… quite adequate. And with such a position of power in the university, your will shall be done."
"Most malevolent work, Baelogji," the voice whispered, the air buzzing. "You have always been the foremost of my servants. You followed me down from Heaven, and this time you have outdone yourself. Evil prevails."
"I will feed further on her soul and consume her memories, the better to keep up the pretence," the thing wearing Montespan's body said. "Your works shall be taught in the lessons of men."
"Just as I planned. Do not damage her soul too much, though. It shall be useful when it is reforged into a weapon. Perhaps I shall pass it to you to wield. Or perhaps it shall become armour – after all, she was an earth mage and an expert with wards."
"Yes, oh Non-Existent One. Most generous of you." The dark angel smiled. "Ave Athe!"
"Ave me indeed. Maintain control of this body and the university. Do not let this mortal world influence you unduly, and you shall be richly rewarded indeed." And the presence departed.
The woman's eyes bled back to their usual teal-green, and humming to herself, she began to gingerly scrub at herself with a sponge, wincing every time this useless mortal flesh forced her to feel pain.
…
The portal was just ahead. Away from the smoke and fire and demonic members of the Regency Council, it was a lovely summer evening. Louise slipped from the back of the unicorn gratefully and staggered on suddenly jelly-like knees. She was covered in soot and dirt and… and… she just wanted a bath!
"Gnarl," she said into her gauntlet. "Open the portal right this instant."
"It's me," Cattleya responded. "Just a moment! It's a bit… hard, you know!"
"… where's Gnarl?" Louise said, one eye twitching. It wasn't that she didn't trust her sister with the… okay, it was that. She didn't entirely trust Catt to not get her stuck in the Abyss.
"We're… not entirely sure," Cattelya said. "Just a tick! Really!"
Behind her, Henrietta struggled to stop the unicorn from trying to gore Louise, and in the end resorted to punching it in the head. It staggered, dazed, and stopped misbehaving.
"Well, I think that went quite well, Louise Françoise," Henrietta said in a delighted voice.
Louise opened her mouth. Louise closed her mouth. "How?" she asked. She really wanted a drink. Her mouth felt as dry as a chimney, and about as smoky. "How could that possibly have gone well?"
"You're not dead."
That was a good point. Louise did not let it dissuade her. "Henrietta," she said, face like thunder. She crossed her arms and tried for her best glare. "Why are you casting black magics and despoiling the peace of the dead?"
"Hmm?"
"Since when were you a necromancer?" Louise snapped.
"Mrraa!" Pallas said disapprovingly, backing up Louise.
"Oh! That!"
"Yes. That."
"I taught myself from your library," Henrietta said, sliding off the stunned unicorn. She took her skull-faced helmet off and smiled widely. Her hair was fetchingly dishabille after being mussed by the helmet. "It's really quite easy. It's basically just water magic, you know. Well, the schools I studied. And I am a triangle-class water mage."
Louise cursed to herself. She knew she shouldn't have bought those books on necromancy – but they'd been so academically interesting! And she needed to know how to counter necromancy. And – her shoulders slumped – oh no, no, no, now her eldest friend was a wielder of the dark arts. "This is all Gnarl's fault," she growled.
"No, actually, it isn't," Henrietta contradicted her, squaring her jaw. "I did this all myself. Because, Louise Françoise, I am going to help you slaughter the traitors who locked me in a tower for nine months and then we can go lay waste to Albion for the affront of them murdering my true love." She took a breath. "It's the least I can do to help you when you've done so much for me."
"You pulled the Madame de Montespan underground with a giant hand made of bone," Louise wailed.
"She was going to kill you," Henrietta pointed out.
"I don't even know where the giant hand came from," Louise babbled, tears running down her sooty face. She realised she was getting incoherent and shaking like a leaf, but now the adrenaline crash was bearing down on her and she couldn't stop it. "It doesn't make any sense!"
"I sort of woke everything in the graveyard," Henrietta admitted. "I don't know where the giant bone hand came from either. Maybe a dead giant was buried there."
"Why would there be a dead giant in a Brimiric graveyard?"
"Maybe it saw the wisdom of the Founder and converted?"
Louise felt that was very implausible, but wasn't prepared to argue the point. Not when there were other more important things to try and fail to come to terms with. "And wh-what on earth are you wearing?" she said, eyes blurring.
"Something I had Jessica make me. It's very classical," Henrietta said, with a twirl. "The deep red and the steel matches your own armour! But with a necromantic twist!"
Louise sagged down against the stone of the portal, glaring at Henrietta. "The skeletal h-hands? Really? On your… your…" Louise blushed. "Your chest."
Henrietta looked down at her front. "What about them?" she asked.
This earned her a flat glare. "They are… they are… are they hands from a male skeleton?"
"You know, I didn't think to ask. It doesn't matter, anyway – they've been dead for a long time," Henrietta explained. "It's not like they're reanimated or something – Jessica varnished them so they can't move at all. You can try wiggling them if you want."
The overlady's blush deepened. "I… I believe you," she said quickly.
"Apparently the Abyssal masses expect it! Wasn't Jessica clever? And they're actually very supportive," Henrietta added. "Honestly, I must say that this entire 'corset that resembles a ribcage' get-up is far better than anything the court tailors ever made me. I wonder if I can find a way to keep on wearing it once this is all over."
Louise opened her mouth. Louise closed her mouth. "… are you seriously contemplating wearing a corset – at court, no less – which looks like a ribcage which… which uses hands to support your ch-chest?" she choked out.
"Well, not seriously," Henrietta said. She sighed. "But I'm sure my sweet prince would have liked it…"
There wasn't much Louise could say to that. She snivelled, tears running down her face. She was a mess. An emotional mess. The stress of almost dying was hitting her all at once and… and that dratted corset was making things even worse. It was certainly making her feel very uncomfortable. She entirely supported Henrietta taking it off. Unfortunately, part of her treacherously wanted to be the one who removed it, preferably after a candlelit dinner and some hand-holding, and would like to see her wearing it more often in future. Cursed wretched de la Vallière instincts resulting in amorous inclinations towards pretty female necromancers!
She felt two warm-yet-skull-covered arms surround her. Gratefully she sunk into Henrietta's hug, and let the warm sun beat down on her.
"There, there," Henrietta whispered. "You're alive, yes? And you're not hurt in any major way."
"… gonna be covered in bruises tomorrow," Louise muttered into her friend. She shifted her head so the skeletal hands weren't poking her in the eye.
"And I'll take a look at them," Henrietta assured her. "It's okay to cry. This was probably the worst birthday ever."
"… missed my birthday last year." Louise thought. "Still worse."
"There, there," Henrietta said, lifting up Louise to support her over one shoulder. She blotted her eyes on her robe. "Things are going to be okay. And you got back a fragment of the tower heart, right?"
Louise sniffed. "Yes," she managed.
"So that's something."
"Yes."
"Come on. The portal's opening. Let's go home."
…
Things were a bit of a mess. The party decorations were rather singed and the furniture was scattered. Louise felt a bit more solid after Henrietta hugs and a water-magic assisted cleaning of her face. Nevertheless, she simply wasn't in the mood to deal with anything big.
As a result, when she met the welcoming committee of Jessica and Cattleya, she was rather irked to find there was one question she had to ask.
Louise shot a flat and very weary glance at Jessica. "Jessica, is there a reason you're currently a man?" she asked.
Jessica squirmed. "Demonic things," she said awkwardly.
The overlady considered the matter. "Very well," she said. "Keep on with whatever you were doing."
"Uh. Don't you have the urge to… um." Jessica swallowed. "Try to tear off all my clothes or something? That's what usually happens."
Louise frowned. No, she didn't feel the urge. "I have a headache and I need to wash my hair," she said bluntly. "I've just had the worst birthday ever. I really am not in the mood for that kind of nonsense."
"Awesome," Jessica said, looking slightly less morose. "I wasn't really looking forwards to that bit. And… uh, well, the male stripper we got you went home and most of the party decorations got set on fire and… uh. Well, we saved some of the cake!"
"I had to beat the minions off with a zweihander!" Cattleya said brightly.
"… yeah, that's why we couldn't save most of it, because they bled on it and no one wants minion blood on their cake," Jessica admitted.
"I'll make you some tea!" Cattleya said brightly. "Everyone will feel better with some tea in the, right? It'll be jolly nice all around!"
"I…" Louise began.
"I could certainly do with some tea," Princess Henrietta said wistfully. "I grew rather fond of it with my sweet prince. As an Albionese, he drank vast amounts of it. I… every time I drink it, I think of him."
"… very well," Louise sighed. "And I need cake."
"Don't you want to wait for your presents?" Cattleya asked, sounding shocked.
"Tomorrow. Really. I have had a very bad day. But if you want to do something nice for me, you could make sure my bath is run – and hot.
This was actually pretty good cake, Louise admitted to herself as she sat on her throne with a plate, a fork and a cup of tea that Cattleya had made for her. She hadn't had the heart to tell Catt that she didn't want tea. So she was going to eat this cake while they prepared her bath and then she was going to sink in and try to forget everything that had happened today. She needed the sugar anyway.
But she couldn't forget what had happened today. On the plus side, she'd got another bit of the tower heart, and that meant she could now maintain more connections to relay towers. On the minus side – Founder, where to start? The fact that her sister was in jail? That the Madame de Montespan was apparently some kind of demonic-y dark angel-y whatever-y thing? That Princess Henrietta was now practicing necromancy and seemed to be frighteningly good at it for how recently she must have started?
Much as she hated to admit it, she couldn't help her sister right now. She was exhausted and she didn't know how long it would take for her will to recover from the draining of using that pure Evil magic. Not to mention that the Overlady of the North rescuing Eleanore de la Vallière from jail would put her parents in danger. No, she… she had to trust in her mother and father and that their influence could keep her big sister safe for now.
Henrietta was… a problem. Everything was going horribly wrong if the crown princess was actually a practicing necromancer – and worse, she was doing it to help Louise! Louise didn't want to be helped like that! Except she'd probably be dead now if she hadn't been helped and she didn't want to die and… argh, argh argh. There was no way out. Especially since, according to the history books, the royal family was actually fairly good at Evil magic. After all, Louis de la Vallière had been the son of the king, and he'd come by things honestly. So Henrietta had it in her to be a really powerful and wicked dark queen and if she did that… um. Well, it'd be bad.
And double worst, that necromancer outfit caused all kinds of feelings in Louise that she really didn't want to deal with. She thought of Emperor Lee. She felt the same sort of warm fuzzy feelings about him too. And Jessica was a very handsome man and oh look, now that she had some sugar in her and was feeling a bit better, now she could feel the hot butterflies that the incubus aura caused. Why was her heart so inconsistent? Maybe if she could find some way of sharing- no! Stupid evil thoughts. Louise viciously bit into a slice of cake. She had to try to get Henrietta off her current path, before… before she started using human skulls tied together with chains in place of a chemise. That was a thing necromancers did, right? And that darn ribcage corset was bad enough already!
No more thinking about Princess Henrietta wearing only things made of bone.
Which meant the most immediate problem was that the Madame de Montespan was either possessed or had been a demon all along. Louise wasn't sure. It was tempting to suspect that she had actually been a literal creature of the Abyss, but the bit of her which could feel Evil was sure that she had got much, much more Evil when she'd done the thing with the necklace. And… uh, Louise had been monologuing at her a little bit. So maybe she'd done something very stupid to not die.
Probably should have just killed her.
There was a clatter behind her and a little white head appeared poking over the edge of her throne.
"Mraaa?" asked Pallas, sniffing at the cup of tea.
"It's tea," Louise said. "Do you want some? Do… do cats drink tea anyway?" She poured some out into the saucer. "If this kills you, it's not my fault," she added.
"Prrrrup," Pallas said, lapping at the tea happily. Presumably because there was milk in it.
Louise stared down at her. What a peculiar little cat, to drink tea like that. Maybe Montespan had fed her cats tea. She seemed like the sort. "So, Pallas," she said, talking at the cat. "Your former mistress is probably possessed by a demon, and it's her own fault."
"Mraa."
"I'm glad you agree it's all her fault and she's a stupid fiancé-stealing witch. But what kind of demon do you think it was? It has the power to… to permanently kill a minion by not believing in them. Would it work on anything, do you think, or is it just minions because they're made magically? Out of life energy and… and whatever else goes into them."
"Mraaaa?"
"Perhaps it isn't important." Louise smiled to herself. All that money she spent on books of dark lore was paying off. "I've read that this kind of empowered disbelief is common among the servants of Athe the Doubter."
Pallas hissed, tail going upright. What had her acting like… oh, Louise realised. The Jester had just entered the room. Sensible cat.
"So, if she's possessed by one of Athe's demons, I need to find out what it is and how to banish it. I'm not sure I can kill her like that, and," Louise sighed, "I… I want revenge on her. Not some demon." She didn't say out loud that there was a particular horror to possession. She wasn't entirely sure that Montespan deserved that. And even if she did, Louise would be showing that she was the better woman if she freed her first before she burned her to death. "And…"
"Hail to thee, Overlady of the North!" the jester announced with a hop and a skip, waving his bell-laden club around and only hitting himself in the head once.
Louise gathered herself up, and assumed her most commanding expression. "Be gone," she ordered. "Leave my presence."
"Corrupter of Princesses!" countered the jester. "Destroyer of the Pirate Fleet!"
"I didn't corrupt her! She… she sort of did it herself!"
"The Bruxelles Bomber!"
That bit was mostly true, she had to admit. "Just go away!" she snapped.
The jester shook his bells. "All hail the Pharaoh of Deni-" he began.
Then he was hit in the face by a ballistic Pallas. All four sets of claws were out and she began mauling his face viciously, yowling like a berserk thing. The jester swung wildly, trying to get the furious feline off his face, but couldn't hit the little creature. He stepped backwards and with a shriek fell down the stairs.
Pallas leapt gracefully away, and stalked back to Louise's throne. "Mraaaaa," she informed Louise, before leaping up onto her lap.
"Good girl," Louise told the young cat fondly, stroking her. "You are a clever little kitty, aren't you! Aren't you?" Pallas began to purr. "Yes you are."
And so sitting on her giant evil throne, stroking the white cat on her lap in between eating bites of cake, Louise began to… scheme.
…
The duc de Richelieu stared out over Bruxelles, a look of bitter wryness worn on his face. He had put a lot of effort into assuming control of this place. He had scraped and bowed and tolerated the queen's idiocy and the blathering moronic nature of his predecessor in this role of the chief justice. He had earned this position through long suffering, and now he was truly in a position to wield power as he wanted to.
And yet he found himself surrounded by fools at every step of the long, winding, and covered-in-nasty-brambles path to power.
Take his manservant, Rikkert le Chauve, who at this very moment was nosily blowing his nose behind him. Though why anyone would want to take him was another question. The duc was not entirely clear why he kept the imbecile in his service. Well, no, he understood why. What Rikkert lacked in intellect, manners and personal hygiene, he made up for in being too stupid to be disloyal and a certain brute strength, probably derived from the inbreeding.
"Yer grace," Rikkert said. "Mr Wardes is here to talk to you 'bout the latest problem of stuff."
"The latest problem of stuff?" Richelieu echoed. "Oh, wonderful. A problem of 'stuff'. What next? An issue with 'things'?"
"I think he might have one of those things too," Rikket said.
Richelieu slapped Rikkert with his cane. "No, you insolent oaf," he said. "Don't lie to me. You didn't think. Your lack of thought is perhaps your most defining characteristic. Now, show him in. I've been expecting him."
Rikkert stared blankly at his master.
"Let him in. Invite him in. Show him through here. Or am I talking to myself?" He paused. "Well, I suppose it's the only way to get intelligent conversation around here," he added softly.
Wardes was eventually shown in. The duc looked him up and down. Jean-Jacques didn't look well. He seldom did these days. He never seemed to be off his griffin's back, constantly travelling around the country – and overseas. The younger man sagged down in one of the armchairs in the room while Richelieu poured wine for the two of them.
"You have heard the news?" the duc asked.
Holding his head in his hands, Wardes sighed. "Founder, I'm exhausted and saddle-sore," he said, taking the wine with a nod. Half the glass vanished almost instantly. "I was in Romalia speaking with the pope, when I heard. It's not like her."
"I quite disagree," Richelieu said sharply. "It is entirely like her." He sat back and looked around his lavish study, swirling his wine. "We need her on-board to keep Amstreldamme and the university content. Amstreldamme is where rebellions start – and where they acquire bored student mages. The last thing we need is undergraduates running around shouting 'Viva la resistance!' because they think they can pick up impressionable young heiresses and heirs by being 'heroes'." His mouth twisted in an expression of mockery. "If she's going to do things like that, you should dispose of her and get a mistress more useful to our cause."
"The cause being power?" Wardes asked hollowly.
"What better cause would there be? Ideologies, you can pick up for a thousand an ecu on any street market. None of them mean anything without real power." Richelieu sipped his wine, and rose to approach a map of the country on his desk. "Look at Rikkert. He's like a weathervane for the stinking ill-educated opinion of the street. Tell me, Rikkert, what do you think of the circumstances surrounding the Bononia Problem?"
Rikkert frowned. "I think problems are bad," he said after some thought.
"Quite so. You see?" Richelieu said. "The peasantry has all the brains of a turnip. That is, all the peasants combined have the brains of one turnip. And most nobles find that when they sit down to dinner alone, they're not the smartest sitting at the table. No, the smartest at the table would be the pork."
"Is there a point to this?" Wardes asked quietly.
"Yes. We are the smartest and most capable nobles in the country. That is why we are the Regency Council. I was quite explicit; all of us in our little arrangement needed to be able to find our bottoms without requiring the use of both hands, a labelled map and the assistance of a team of trackers specially trained at getting to the bottom of things. Unfortunately, your dear Françoise Athenais may be quite capable of finding your behind, but apparently has forgotten how to find her own grotesquely skinny one. This kind of idiotic destabilising action will be a banner for idiotic popinjay students whining about 'freedom' and 'liberty' and maybe even 'equality', though of course most students aren't actually in favour of equality as soon as they're reminded how much they benefit from inequality so they'll probably quietly remove that from their slogans."
"You have a better idea of what to do," Wardes said. "Your suggestions?"
"My suggestions? Well, here's what you need to do," Richelieu said bluntly. "Get your behind over to Amstreldamme and make your sweet consort remember how much you love her. Whisper in her ear sweet words of nothingness. Or get her stinking drunk. I don't really care. I don't see what you like about women who can fit in travel cases and have a physique which looks like a washboard with two peas on, but we can no-doubt find you a fresh one if you can't bring her under control."
Wardes sighed. "We've know each other for a long time. It's complicated."
"Well, de-complicate it. She's probably only doing it for attention because she's an irrational woman and is feeling neglected. Take a week out of your schedule and spend it on her. Or under her, if she prefers it that way."
The other man rolled his eyes, but acquiesced. "Very well. I'll certainly see what she's doing – and why."
"And for Founder's sake, don't let her execute Eleanore de la Vallière," Richelieu added. "I've put a lot of work into trying to weaken the de la Vallière power base. The last thing we need is some uppity twit braying at us because we 'accidentally' executed their daughter and now all the high nobility are madder than a hatter who's decided that his new hat is to be made out of frozen mercury. Just keep her locked up in some deep dank dungeon until some proper evidence against her can be obtained." He winked.
"Is there something in your eye, your grace?" Rikkert asked.
Richelieu turned to face him. "No, but there's something in yours," he said.
"There is, your grace?"
"Yes," Richelieu said, and punched him in the face.
"… thank you, your grace. I don't think there's anything in my eye now that your fist has knocked it out. Very gracious of you, your grace."
Wardes downed the rest of his drink. "I'll head to my townhouse and get some sleep, then set off for Amstreldamme in the morning," he said.
Richelieu paused, just before he could punch his manservant in the face again for that stupidity. "One more thing, Jean-Jacques," he said coolly. "The reports say that the Overlady of the North, aka 'I can't think up a proper Evil title' was involved in the fiasco. I dare say she is becoming quite an annoyance – and no doubt has desires on the throne, considering she has the princess and has probably controlled her mind or stolen her body or done whatever is usually done with princesses. She seems the sort, with her mannish mode of dress. She probably needs shooting in the face."
Wardes tilted his head, clearly thinking. "I know some men in the Griffin Knights who are good trackers," he said. "I'll set them to the task."
Rikkert seemed about to make a suggestion, so the duc punched him in the face again and spared the world his latest idiocy.
…
