Diplomatic aftermath

[Corwin]

Queen Morwel, I request an audience at your earliest convenience

With that thought delivered to its destination, Seira transports herself and Lady Honeydip to the Court of the Stars blindly. Should Morwel agree, she will bring the two of them over to her.

[Anastasia]

The transport does not happen.

Close your eyes and rest. Close your eyes and dream. Let us meet in the firmament between dream and reality.

You feel a lethargy comes to you, an unfamiliar sensation. How long has it been since you've truly been tired? Decades?

[Corwin]

Seira transports the two of them to a room for visiting dignitaries, surrendering herself to the dream once she's safely in bed.

[Anastasia]

Sleep.

Sleep comes like an old friend, a forgotten memory found once more.

Dream.

You drift over a vast plain. The tall grasses of the plains blow in the fall winds, crisp and with the scent of apples and smoke teasing your nose. Beneath that is perhaps the first taste of winter, the promise of snow coming from a gray, overcast sky. A looming threat, the lingering warmth of a fall day quickly fading to a deep, bone chilling cold.

War. Winter.

Ahead lies a country cottage, smoke rising from the chimney, promising warmth within. It is well kept and built, prepared and with its fields tended and livestock within a barn behind it. Here men and women work, putting away the harvest.

[Corwin]

It's a lucid dream, isn't it? Seira read about them extensively, but doesn't get to experience them often.

The accursed Status Quo!

Images of efreet slave camps follow. The same complexes, but those within are always different, for their lives are harsh and short. The information from Aurora's raid on and capture of their ships, the vile device drawing on the life-force of the slaves in their bellies and stealing their very souls upon death.

How are they different?

The next images are those of the Hells. Their own slaves, too, and their victims, but also the way they mistreat each other. The misery and pain and suffering inherent in the very society of the Hells.

Do we need to wait for this to finally act?

Lifasa, every tree upon it burnt except for the one from which dead elves hang, their souls crying for release. Benfal, at the mercy of a devil that overpowers any resistance. Atrocities committed upon their inhabitants and upon the very essence of those Primes, while the heavens, Cauldron included, didn't act.

As diplomacy failed, the answer is war.

A righteous war, a crusade. There is no shortage of examples, and Aurora is only the most recent. They could all come together for that worthy goal, so how is this any different?

[Anastasia]

You drift in the dream. You drift into a starry forest, ethereal starlight piercing through the nighttime canopy. Here you see it, a brave hunter following a great silver wolf. As the hunter follows, readying his bow to strike unseen? Your field of view rises up. Following the hunter are dozens of wolves. Some stalk it, others watch. But so many more are there - and you see some wolves stalk other wolves, and are hunted by other hunters. A great web of it, vast and vaster yet.

Yet you zoom back in. Here the hunter fires and wounds the wolf, an arrow going into it - as a wolf pounces from behind in that moment of triumph, hamstringing the brave hunter. He falls to a knee, bleeding as other wolves close in, surrounding the hunter.

Sorrow.

Before you the hunter fights valiantly, but in that moment is vulnerable. He fires another arrow and hits a wolf, but another strike, knocking him down, savaging him, tearing his throat out.

Your view goes out again, expanding. Here you see this happening a hundred million times over, hunters and wolves in a web of warfare.

No war is without pain and without loss. Only in dreams can a war be bloodless and triumphant. Only in dreams can a war be a single war without opportunism, attacks and politics.

The vista changes. Here Queen Morwel kneels before a sea, a sea unlike any other you have seen before. It is a sea of tears, a sea of sorrows and hopes. She kneels and prays silently.

We seek an answer to your question, for in greater conflict is greater chances for loss and sorrow. A brave hunter and a brave champion may yet fall, victims of opportunity. Do not think she will not strike when you are at your lowest, exhausted by the efreet. Nor that any other will not take the chance if they see one to be taken. Nor do not think that others have not planned for this war and seek to turn it to their advantage.

We do not avoid war out of cowardice or weakness. We war carefully, because an errant war threatens to win a battle and lose the greater conflict.

At times the cup raised to our lips is not one of power and might, but of tears and the bitterest sorrows.

Be wary that you do not find yourself supping on a cup of sorrow, Seira.

Evil is a master of sorrow, is it not?

[Corwin]

I understand. Trust me, I do.

Seira spins a different scenario, one where the hunters work together. The wolves strike, often at the hunters and sometimes at one another. But the hunters form a circle, facing out during a concentrated attack. They fight together, in pairs, back-to-back while displaying a level of trust the wolves in the dream are incapable of.

Some do fall, even a pair that ventured too far into the field of battle. But as they do, they look past the attacking predators and towards the cowering prey that fearfully observes the battle.

We can only do our best. I tried diplomacy and subterfuge, but Celestia's actions escalated matters and the Sultan's demands backed me into a corner. The easy option would have been to accept his bribe and token concessions, and keep the status quo. But the cost, Queen Morwel. The cost in those who are too weak to protect themselves.

It was an impossible decision, but at the same time the only one I could even contemplate. It was because I realized the truth, through my arguments to the Sultan. I appealed to his greed, to his ego, even to his fear when the softer approach bore no fruit.

This is a battle of ideas. Shar's loss and sorrow cannot be defeated by war, by fire, by force. We can bring down her servants, yes, and we must use all those and more to defend Creation from her. But true victory lies in defeating the very concepts she stands for.

How can we do that, if we cannot defeat slavery? How can we succeed, if we embrace that concept of slavery as an ally in our fight against loss and sorrow?

Please help. There is no greater battle than for the fate of our souls.

[Anastasia]

Queen Morwel looks up. Her face is serene and yet sad, an echo. A moment of sunlight and moonlight wash over you as she speaks. "Celestia desires this war, I do not know why. It is a time where events begin to spiral out of control. As of yet, my prayers are unanswered." Flowering her hands and rising, Queen Morwel extends her hand out to you. "Walk with me, Seira."

[Corwin]

Seira closes the distance, taking the proffered hand.

[Anastasia]

In an instant you walk just above the sea of sorrows and hope. Before you there is a gentle rain of light, dots of light. Souls. Souls come here and sink into the ocean, going into the depths and out of sight.

"If you are committed, I will help you." Queen Morwel says. As she speaks, you feel it. Sorrow is added to the pool. Sorrow leeches from the souls, out from them and into the sea. "Once, long ago, I cried this ocean into being. Here the Queen bears the sorrows of her children, so that they may reincarnate free of those pains. I know the pains and sorrows of war better than almost any other in Creation, for so many who come here are scarred by it."

[Corwin]

"I am committed," Seira agrees, shivering. "I'm terrified beyond anything and I'll never be able to show it in public, but I'm all in. I fully believe in this, ethically and logically. We'll save their slaves, free the spirits of the entrapped, prevent future atrocities like that and, with a lot of work and a lot of hope, we'll hopefully manage to save the souls of many efreet. Despite my threats to the Grand Sultan, I don't want to eliminate their empire or people."

She gazes out at the sea of tears, saying, "I need your help. If something in Chronias is driving Celestia towards irrational actions, you will be a balancing influence. If I drift too far, you could show me another way. Militarily, the stronger our forces compared to theirs, the less bloodshed we should see. And we might show our enemies a truly unified front, which is important beyond measure, for they cannot coexist with that idea. Perhaps, with luck, the concept will even take root in some of them."

[Anastasia]

A hug. A simple hug, a thing of warmth and support.

"No. I know Zaphkiel. I know not his motives, but he is not irrational. There is meaning to this - frightening meaning perhaps, but there is meaning."

[Corwin]

Seira enjoys the contact, drawing support from it.

"Finding the Answer through any means?" she ventures. "Simply not willing to abide by such actions, not again? And unlike the Hells, the chances of triumph on the Inner Planes are higher."

[Anastasia]

"Of the three of us who rule the Heavens, Zaphkiel is the wisest," Queen Morwel mentions, "Whatever his reason for this choice, it works on many levels." Here she adds, "All of our doings are often opaque to one another, but fear not. You will have my aid, champion of Androlynne."

[Corwin]

"Thank you, Queen Morwel."