The Astrological Society of Khalidi

Naguib stood with his hands together behind his back, looking out of the window in the Astrological Society tower. The sky was just beginning to purple with twilight, and the parapets and minarets of the city below him swept for miles below ending, brutishly, at the city walls. The rivers carried on into the distant snowpeaked mountains and, far beyond, the tenuous borders of Empire fluctuated under the pressures of barbarian Hordes.

The stairs outside his door creaked again - someone had been standing outside for almost fifteen minutes. He turned to the bronze astrolabe which dominated the room adjusted a small axis at its base to reflect the order of the stars as had been predicted countless generations ago according to the flawless calculations of sages generations ago.

Flawless, until last night. The great North Star had been almost a full millimeter away from its predicted location. The Society was in an Uproar, much to the amusement of the population at large. And, why shouldn't they be amused? How could they understand the unfathomable distance a millimeter makes, or the significance of the change? Indeed, no one understood the significance, himself least of all. As Vizir to the Emperor and Chair of the Imperial Astrological Society, the thing he understood best was how little they understood about the nature of the stars above, and their influence upon the face of the planet.

He had spent all day talking to the dangerous priests of Erathis, discussing at length whether the empire affected the stars or the stars would have an effect on the Empire. He did not know, and was implied for treason before the meeting was through. The librarians of Ioun sent a meek dwarven understudy to ask how to update their records, and how this changed the established prophesy. He did not know, and sent the youngster to the ire of his superiors. The dark-eyed undertakers of the Raven Queen had been loitering outside the tower all day, disappointed in the lack of loose-lipped society members going to and fro.

It had been a very, very long day and he looked forward to recording the trends and prophesy for the evening and embracing the sweet death of sleep. However, it seemed impolite to do so before the student or newshound or assassin outside his door had an audience. And so he waited, with his back to the door, as the last rays of the sun fell behind the mountaintops.

There was a knock.

"Come in." Naguib automatically grabbed a book from the bookshelves which dominated the walls throughout his office and home. The young man, slim enough and with the pinched expression of elven heritage, stepped through looking sick with nervousness, and hovered near the door in case he needed to flee. The lad was very young, and had probably only been just initiated into the order to continue his study. Clearly, he was aware of how far above his station he was hovering.

"I am sorry, Vizir, to disturb you so late. You see, the thing is, about last night."

Naguib thought he was much better about hiding his frustration than he actually was, and attempted to rub his eyes to mask his annoyance. The initiate looked as if he had been struck across the face with one of the rafters above them, and stumbled in his words. He took a deep breath, and tried again.

"Last night, the stars were... singing to me."

Old Man in the Bar

"Oh Gods, not this story again" Johnny One-Eye muttered as he pushed the grime around the inside of a cheap tin mug before filling it with Ale and passing it to one of the wide-eyed travellers passing through town. Young enough to have forgotten life in the Empire, born a generation too late to know what life was like when you could walk a road unarmed. Back when everyone knew how to read, could go to university, when you could afford to have a few poets or philosophers around.

Those wild halcyon days of the Holy Human Empire, when the dwarves worked hard in the mining camps and the elves were crammed into row-planted forests to keep them in line, and everyone paid taxes. One-Eye spit into the mug to clean off a spot before laying it out to dry.

"So, we're ambling up toward the old capital" the old, drunken pile of rags was just getting started, "And we're just close enough to see the parapets above the walls when all of the sudden" He slammed his mug on the table for dramatic affect. "A column of fire shoots up from the imperial palace all purple and blue and screaming like a banshee."

He drank until a small voice from the back begged to know what happened and then rubbed his mouth with the back of his wrist.

"Well, I says to Vinnie and Tom, I says to hell with this, we're taking the caravan back to the inn and waiting until this blows over, and they say this kind of thing happens all the time in the big city. Hah!"

"So I come back the next day" At this point in the theatrics he leans back, staring at the sagging rafters. "And the capitol city is empty. The buildings are still there, but there wasn't nobody! Not even a blade of grass! Miles of empty city! Imagine that. The greatest city in the world, gone! I didn't know what to do. I slept in some missing blokes house, and by the time I woke up, my damn mule was gone too! And the laughter, I could always hear someone laughing a few feet away but whenever i'd turn there was nobody there."

"But the strangest part is, by the time I had walked back to the town..." And he threw back his hood and opened his milky white eyes.

All three of them.

He couldn't see the reaction of the small band, he guessed they were 4 or 5 among them, but he heard the gasp, and that was enough to lower his hood back over his features.

"Hark my words, lads, and stay far from the old capital city. There's nothing there but death and empty streets. 'tis the Devil's city now."

And he turned back to his mug, satisfied in his day's work.

Until the small voice in the back, with the mark of Ioun on his forehead, piped up once again. "Sounds more like the Summer Queen's work, if you ask me."

The entire bar seemed to focus on the bookish eladrin, who seemed to shrink under the attention like a wilting flower.

"The what queen?"

"I - I was joking of course. The Summer Queen rules over the Feywild. Sometimes travelers will see dancing purple flames and disembodied laughter before being stolen away into the Feywild. But," he laughed "Even she couldn't steal a city."

Dissatisfied with this answer, the crowd returned to their drinks. And the young librarian, returning to sit with his four friends, felt the empty stare of the three-eyed drunk long after he had gone to bed and fitful rest.

The Trap

"Just so that we're perfectly clear," The Economist said to his bodyguard as he reviewed his notes, "This is clearly a trap."

Their cart ambled along slowly, drawn by the glowing eyes of a partially built horse its head bobbing eerily on a skeletal stalk of a ramshackle neck. The Bodyguard held the reigns easily in his hands, hawkishly peering down the light forest road. Maryland is Bandit Country, and the autumnal bursts of red and gold did little to mask the menace in each step.

"Only a few more miles" The Bodyguard lied. He had no idea. They would follow the tube until they found the break. They could sleep at the settlements in Baltimore if they had to. He hoped they wouldn't have to.

"What the fuck are we going to do if the break is past Philly? We don't have citizenship." He crossed his eyes and spoke in a high pitch "Oh hallo Kublah Kahn, Wurr jes' hear to fix tha Tube!"

He looked up from the tattered text in repsonce to the calculated silence. "Well!? We can't even go around. Those Luddites so much as see a bead that shines the wrong way they'll do God knows what."

"We'll go around."

The Economist Snorted, but didn't voice his concern regarding the surrounding patrols. Hunger's headache had made him cross, and forget the fact that they had a shipment of repair materials due for Newark anyways. He always got nervous when they lost sight of Silver Spring anyhow.

They had been sent to fix The Tube, which lolled a few dozen feet to the right. It was the supply chain between Washington and the front lines in Brooklyn. They had been promised Citizenship without Military Service if they were successful. That meant they could be granted access to Philly or even Anacostia. Someday their kids could go to school and be a bureaucrat and set foot on The Hill. The only safe place in the world, The Hill. For all his complaining, The Economist knew it was worth the risk.

The Bodyguard, on the other hand, had dreams of the fortune that could be found in the Staten Island Colonies. He had a strong swingin' arm, and that made him a valuable comodity just behind the front lines. There was a lot of money to be made in the slow, steady conquest of New York, and a lot of trade caravans settin' out from there. He liked The Economist because he knew what the hell he was doing, but someday he wanted to have his own little security company, make a little money without his neck on the line.

The Tube hummed for a few moments, then stopped. In the distance the imposing walls of Baltimore sat squat and glowing with light electric. The Economist did a lot of business in Baltimore - He had a reputation. He could get into some citizen only spots without too much hassle. The price of doing business while the president promised an imperial march to Boston. Take the North Atlantic. Drive out the bandit. Citizenship for All who would Take Up Arms. Citizenship for All in Victory.

The Economist didn't get it. He didn't believe in the magic of the eastern seaboard. The God-President was so sure that each of the old cities was important to the prosperity of their people but he didn't see how Boston was any Different than Raleigh. The Old Country was dead. It had shrunk in big ol' bites down to 1600 penn. ave, and burst out from there in bloody burning conquest.

At the end of the day, the nation lived on through pure bloody-mindedness. And it was bloody-mindedness that left the wake of barbarian secessionist luddite bodies in the burning wake of the citizen-soldiers who made their bloody-minded march north to Boston and whatever barbarian king resided there now. If there even is a boston anymore. All they had was the honor of scouts on that point.

Calope

Calope was a bastard born in the arms of a courtier and thrust into the bittersweet world of city high society. His half-elven blood and mysterious lineage more than made up for his lack of standing with the almost paralytically bored capital city youth. Free of responsibility and armed with a perfectly limited understanding of the value of money, they flirted with artists and intelligensia and prepared to inherit and squander their parents fortunes in farmland and connections with the imperial upper crust. After his mother's passing, Calope squandered his modest inheretance within a year, and then floated along on his wit and charm as a scholar perfectly happy to lie if he needed to fill in the gaps. It was not long before he could no longer bear the musty interior of an ill-used personal library or the monotony of tutoring and enscribing, and he set out on the modestly exciting life of a trader of rare books and antiquities.

His first caravan was interrupted in the dead of night by a procession of wood nymphs hollaring his name. He was cheerfully informed that his father had died in lavish comfort among the faerie courts, and upon his death each of his sons would be given to a faery queen. He had the incredible fortune of being chosen by the lavish and beautiful Queen of Summer to be made a Knight in her Summer Court. He was now her agent in the material world, and he was now tasked with defending her realm. He must be like the sun, making the world bright and beautiful and - most importantly - finding and defeating the winter queen's scion who would undoubtably be searching for him. He would be wise to stop consorting with filthy traders and merchants and begin working to defend beauty and light no matter what the cost. Before he could protest, he was touched, and collapsed.

He woke, his entire fortune gone except for the clothes on his back, with the threat of an immaterial queen over his head lest he fail to find and defeat his own brother.

Thraex

Thraex leaned against the ancient stone, the sound of banging drums leaking through from the amphitheater. He heard the crowd erupt with screams and could tell without looking that a gaggle of murderers had been loosed. Half starved and armed with sharp sticks they were sizing each other up, testing the bonds of the half-witted arrangements they had invariably made in prison to cover each others backs.

"Jonas, don't pick at your tattoo, it'll come off."

Jonas was a big man, bald, and fairly thick. He was about to say that the bright red paint across his chest was itching him, and thought better of it. The remaining three lads leaned against their shields, looking rather more tense than a professional gladiator should.

"Just follow my lead, boys. Remember, we're professionals. Don't worry about the fighting, just give 'em a good show. Wounds will heal, but people will remember a good show for years."

This balmy morning, Thraex was playing the part of the Platinum Dragon, bringing order to the world. He was leading a celestial army to the demon-infested continents of the earth to drive them back, allowing all the creatures to thrive in safety. He had to admit that they looked the part.

Of course, the murderers out there hadn't gotten a copy of the program. They were likely half-killed by now, and by the time they even got on the scene they would be a bloody mess. But as an artist, you learned to work with what you had. Split 'em apart, intimidate them into a quiverring mass, knock 'em down, let the crowd have their say, and from there it was purely a matter of making as big a mess as possible.

This time was slightly different, though. A strange figure in a cloak had given him a bag of gold this morning. Now Thraex was a modestly well known figure among the local gladiatorial fighting circuit. In a year he'd probably be at the capitol. Gifts were not unheard of, but this was the day of an execution. And not just any execution.

Someone connected was in the fray today.

Thraex knew how this worked. There would be a signal. He would hit with the blunt side of his sword and tossed aside. The body gets carried to the pits, and the dead rise up and walk with a nasty headache but alive. He'd seen it done. He'd never done it before.

That was the problem. Most of the people in this job were fighters. But Thraex? Thraex was an actor. And for the earth to be cleansed, every demon must die.

The gates clanked open, and Thraex held his arms sideways to prevent his holy carriage from running into the melee in progress. There was a roll of drums, and the blaring of trumpets. Without shielding his eyes from the brilliant sun, they marched in perfect form. They followed his lead. And they stood, watching the criminal scum of the city fight and kill each other for a full minute before they noticed the presence of armed and armored professionals. Finally, they turned, and Thraex pointed his scimitar and blew a jet of flame into the air. His men charged forward. The crowd went wild.

The environment was perfect. The fight previous had been a bloody mess, packing the sand beneath their feet. They had loosed this divine retribution early enough, so it was 5 to 15. It would be suitably impressive in victory. And a few of the remaining had clearly recieved some kind of weapons training - or at least were big enough to compensate by sheer bloody-mindedness. The hot sun had taken its toll on the unprotected scum, who had been shaved and stripped of all but a cloth and gave them a shambling, malnourished appearance.

Out of the corner of his eye, a scoundrel was attempting to flank him unnoticed. A glint of metal shone in his left hand just before he pounded the earth in a charge of desperation. Thraex pretended to be observing the battle at a distance like a good general, while the crowd whooped and yelled. Suddenly he turned, staring straight into the eyes of his assailant, and bared his fangs as if to glass the sand beneath them both.

In truth, his throat ached from the burst of smokey flame from a moment ago, and he'd likely have torn something had he tried to do it again. But the young man with a guilty verdict to go with his conscience didn't know that. His step faltered, and he dropped his blade. Slipping as he turned to run, he fell in the offal and found himself unable to get up with the armored boot which had found its way on his back. He raised his arms to the crowd. How they hollared for that red, red blood. Demanding he stop wasting his time with such a tasteless morsel when he could be going for such a meal. Kill him. Kill him faster.

But somewhere in that crowd, there was a widow or a rape victim. And as he lifted the young man by his hair and dragged his lucky dagger from his windpipe down to his belly and tossed him aside.