In the hills, the cities

The man sits in bed, his body sour with cold sweat. His knees are drawn up close to his body, one arm wrapped around them. The other reaches out, trembling, for a glass of watered wine. He sips it, and lets his breathing subside. Just another nightmare. Just another bad dream. Just another presentiment of what was waiting for him, for all of them.

In half a lifetime of nightmares, this one has been notable. A maze of black stone and metal and flames. Hooked chains crusted with dried blood and barbed blades clogged with bone and meat. Endless screaming. He had run, but he'd known they were right behind him and when he finally tripped, and they caught up to him, he'd put his hands over his face as he whined and cried and begged and promised anything if they would only spare him, if they would just do it to someone else and let him go. They had stood in a circle around him, faces full of contempt, indifferent to his pathetic cries, their yellow-sun-on-blue surcotes pristine despite the unspeakable filth. They had raised their shining swords as one, but before they could strike, could begin hacking him to pieces... he woke up.

He puts the glass back, and leans over to place a gentle kiss on the forehead of his sleeping partner, then slips out of bed. The sheets cling to him a little. He performs his morning ablutions - it is still dark outside but he has no hope of getting back to sleep so he might as well start his day. He washes as best he can, shivering slightly at the cold water. He pauses for a moment looking at himself in the onyx-ringed mirror, tracing one finger along the gorgeous mutli-coloured tattoo that runs across his chest, that almost nobody has ever seen. Then he dresses, putting on a freshly laundered lambswool robe. His hand hovers for a moment over one mask, of beaten gold, and then he selects another. Silver-and-ivory, decorated with tiny chips of tempest jade.

Before he leaves his apartments, he takes a moment to light a stick of incense at the shrine. Kantor, his arms wide, his face hidden behind the Mask of Wealth. The other sorceror-kinds cluster around him, trying to catch the black coins that flow from his outstretched hands in their bowls. He touches each of the urns and lekythos arranged before the icon in turn, whispering their names, and bidding them good morning. He strains his ears, but he hears nothing. No delicate whispers, no hint of anything unseen in the corners.

The office is quiet. He is the first one there. He settles into his chair - it is new and he does not like it, it does not know the contours of his body the way his old chair did before it betrayed him in the middle of a meeting with one of the Imperial traders. The woman had hidden her smirk behind her hand but he had seen it, and for a moment considered having her cursed. Patrolcus talked him out of it, of course. No need to go looking for trouble.

There are a half-dozen new documents on the desk. An invitation to visit his niece in Maykop, if he can find the time (he won't find the time). A carefully couched request from a would-be merchant-prince complaining that people will not pay what his wares are worth. A request from the Grand Illarch for an update about the white granite situation. And there, on the bottom, a folded letter. He turns it over in his hand, without reading it. It must have arrived during the night. He taps it against his chin for a few moments, then crosses the room and opens the shutters. Still holding the letter, he stares out across the sea, far below. The birds have woken up, down at the docks, their raucous shrieking almost drowning out the sound of the waves.

His window looks east, to where the sun is only now rising. A glorious crimson, yellow, and blue sky that puts him in mind, suddenly, of an old rhyme his grandfather used to recite. The beauty brings him no joy; it just reminds him of the knights in his dream. He closes the shutters again. It will get hot, he knows. Stifling, perhaps. But today he could do without the golden sun peering into his business.

He settles back down in his chair, steeling his nerves. He opens the letter, deftly, and begins to read. Behind his silver-and-ivory mask, he begins to frown.

Fintan Nighthaven, Ambassador to Axos

Overview

• Axos are signatories to the Liberty Pact, but relations were seriously damaged by the Tsark Debacle

For centuries, the Empire and Axos had little communication, but around the time of Britta's death, relations thawed, primarily as a result of the Empire's successful intervention in liberating the Gates of Ipotavo from its siege by the Druj. In the years since, the Empire and Axos enjoyed relatively positive but often volatile relations, with the Empire successfully strong arming the nation into abandoning slavery and then inviting them to become signatories to the Liberty Pact.

Dealing with the Axou is always tricky, because they are a divided and proud people whose attempts to present a reasonably united front belie a seething mass of politics both between and within the five citadels, each of which is essentially a city-state in its own right. Unfortunately, the incident with the raid on Tsark and the subsequent Imperial diplomatic response turned most of the citadels against the Empire, confirming their worst stereotypes about their western neighbours.

The Axou Ambassador to the Empire is Ilarch Maxatios of the Towers of Kantor. Of the same family as the Grand Ilarch (the nominal ruler of the citadel), they have long been the primary point of contact for Imperial citizens wishing to communicate with the magicians of Axos. They often seem exasperated with their Imperial counterparts, frustrated by their apparent inability to get the Empire to recognise that Axos is a nation worthy of respect.

Axos

• Status: Foreigner
• Ports: Kantor and Issyk
• Ambassador: Fintan Nighthaven of Navarr

The Tsark Debacle

• The Axou blame the Empire for major losses sustained during the failed raid against the Mountain of the Moons

Back in the Summer of 384YE, the Grendel Paymaster Muireall proposed a joint venture into the Mountains of the Moon, suggesting that they would join forces with the Empire and Axos to attack the heavily guarded mountain passes. The territory is rich in white granite - a lightning raid would have bypassed the defences, and allowed those involved to steal granite and other valuable resources. In the end the Empire opted not to give their support to the raid.

The Axou claim - based on the official diplomatic communications they received - that the Empire informed the inhabitants of Tsark that the attack was imminent, hoping that the Grendel would suffer heavy losses as a result. That certainly seems to be what happened, but unfortunately nobody elected to warn Axos and so they also suffered significant losses in the raid. They were incandescent with rage, perceiving that their own people had been sacrificed, just to ensure that as many Grendel died as possible.

Subsequent denials by the Empire utterly failed to convince the Axos they were wrong to blame the Empire for their losses. If anything, every attempt to disavow responsibility for the collapse of the raid only served to further antagonize them. They scoffed at what they saw as the Empire's shifting narrative and made it clear that Axos would assume that the Empire could not be trusted in future.

The Axou fundamentally conceive of themselves as a proud, dignified nation, with as much of a pedigree as any of the nations of the Empire, and with just as much right to seize the good things of the world from the malicious and barbarous. However, unlike the Empire, they are fundamentally not a great power: they are a small nation with little military might, and it is an undeniable truth that if the Empire bordered them they would be defenceless if the Empire attacked. This made the Tsark debacle even more devastating: it reminded them that, at least in their view, they are simply pawns in the game of nations to the Empire, and that no friendship struck with them can ever be one between equals.

Eventually the Empire agreed to provide reparations for the Tsark affair, and Axos agreed not to mention the matter again. They have been blunt that the betrayal had done irreparable damage to the relations between the two nations but further discussion were not going to improve matters. Instead, they formally acknowledged receipt of reparations and agreed to move on. They do not wish to hear anything further from the Empire on this matter, unless it began with a grovelling apology and the heads of the citizens involved.

So, while they have dropped the matter, it does not mean they like or trust the Empire. In particular, recent efforts to suggest that the two nations might cooperate militarily are being received badly. There is currently no possibility of any kind of military cooperation with a nation they believe betrayed them to their deaths the last time they attempted to fight together against a common enemy. They would like to see the Druj destroyed, and the civil service believe they might move against the Druj (though details on the precise military capacity of Axos are as scarce as they have ever been) if the enemy were fatally weakened, but they are not going to coordinate those efforts with a much more powerful neighbour they simply do not trust.

The five Axos citadels are far from united, so it is true that some citadels are more favourably inclined towards the Empire than others. The citadel of Ipotavo, is probably the most positive, a legacy of the military assistance they received less than a decade ago. There are individuals in Kaban who also favour the Empire, having enriched themselves in recent trade deals with Imperial citizens. These views remain the exception at this time however, advocating for the Empire is not a popular political position, and even those who have personal reasons to like the Empire feel the need to give lip service to their perfidy over the Tsark debacle.

Liberty and Dignity

• Defending Axos' right to be a signatory to the Liberty Pact has gone some way toward mending the damage done by the Tsark debacle

The decision by the Empire to prevent any changes to the Liberty Pact were broadly welcomed by the Axou. The nation was well aware that the Commonwealth and the Sumaah Republic wished to see their nation ejected from the Pact, simply because the nation is not as large or powerful as the Empire. In theory Axos could have vetoed any changes to the Pact, but the Commonwealth were clear that if that happened, they would dissolve the Pact and form a new one without Axos.

Only the intervention of the Empire prevented that from happening. By thwarting the Commonwealth's ambition, the Empire has made a concrete step to improve relations with Axos. This action has been noted and acknowedged, even by those most hostile to the Empire, in part because it involved treating Axos as a peer and a friend.

If the Empire had permitted the Commonwealth to expel Axos from the pact, it would have been seen as another betrayal. With things as bad as they are, that would have ended diplomatic relations with Axos for generations. Instead, the steadfast support of the Empire for their former allies has helped to mitigate some of their fury. If there is more diplomacy of this kind in the future, icy relations with Axos may yet begin to thaw.

Unity and Understanding

• Ilarch Kyther Deianeira has offered to hallow one item to Understanding for each member of the Assembly of the Nine
• Each recipient must swear an oath to bear the item for a year
• In return the Ilarch has asked for a hundred doses of liao and a letter from the Throne thanking the Ilarch

In recent months, an Axou scholar named Theodosia - a minor member of the ruling clan of Ipotavo - traveled to the Empire, in the main to pursue some in-person talks regarding Bawn-Watch, the unique artefactual Pilgrim's Shield of Vigilance. Whatever the outcome of those talks, they would appear to have been successful, to a point. It is true that Theodosia left the Empire early - and she was not the only one. It seems in part that the Emperor's inaugural address regarding Imperial unity, while well received in the Empire, was alarming to Axou ears. It was likely unintentional, but some of the words seem to have confirmed the persistent Axou fear of Imperial conquest. However, while she is known to have left carrying a shield, it does not appear to have been the shield she arrived with.

Whatever the details of that matter, since her return there are reports that her political star is rising, but not in Ipotavo where she enjoys little political influence in her own family and her elderly cousin Adonai still clings on as the Grand Ilarch. Instead, it is in the newly restored Kaban that this erstwhile scholar is making a name for herself, having apparently become a close theological ally of Ilarch Kyther Deianeira. This ambitious leader is known to be making a bid to become Grand Ilarch of Kaban and that may be the least of her aspirations.

The city has pulled itself from the ruins of the past and began to build again, a rapid regrowth fueled by a narcotics trade that is rumoured to have been conducted via back-channels with the elites of Anvil (most likely thanks to regular visitors Evander Slak and Hippolyta of Kaban). Ilarch Deianeira is linked to this trade in some way but her political ambitions are centered on her advocacy for the political ideology of Nikitis Axou. This is a phrase understood to mean something akin to "The Victorious Axis" in an old tongue of the Axou people. It states that the central thing holding back the citadels of Axos is their divided and fractious nature: they lack a clear conception of themselves as one people and culture rather than six who share history and geography. Advocates of Nikitis Axou promote the idea that it is the shared destiny of the Axou to unify in power, leadership and strength and drive the Creator's evil from the world.

Kyther promotes the idea that while the Pride of the Axou people is important, they should learn from the successes of the Empire, and seek to emulate them - implictly, so that they may one day truly be a peer. Theodosia is a known advocate of the false virtue of Peace, so her increasingly prominent role in advocating for Kyther suggests that the Ilarch's ultimate aim is not based solely on military conquest - though her precise spiritual and ideological teachings are not known for certain.

To that end Ilarch Deianeira has responded to the ambassador's missive with an open offer to the Assembly of the Nine. She has heard that the Assembly are interesting in experiencing the auras of the force many in Axos call Understanding, and the Empire denounces as Peace. Ilarch Deianeira is prepared to send an Axos priest to hallow one item for each member of the Assembly of the Nine.

There is one small catch - the Ilarch is only prepared to extend this generous offer to scholars and priests who wish to experience the power of Understanding firsthand. Any member of the Council of the Nine who wishes to take up the offer must swear an oath, before the priest and their peers, to bear the hallowed item for a year. The Ilarch will not provide a hallowed item simply to see it catalogued and then deconsecrated or stuffed in a box.

In return, the Empire would need to provide the priest - either Theodosia, or more likely one of her students - with one hundred doses of liao and a guarantee of their safety. The Ilarch has high ambitions for Axos, ambitions that would come a step closer to fruition if they can lay their hands on a significant volume of liao. In addition, they have asked for a letter from the leader of the Assembly of the Nine - that is to say, the Throne - thanking the Ilarch and recognising their good will in these affairs. The civil service believe that Kyther intends to employ this letter in pursuit of their goals. Axos may be hostile to the Empire at the moment, but some of that is fueled by their perception that the Empire fundamentally disrespects them. Kyther likely intends to flaunt the letter to allies and rivals alike, to demonstrate that, no matter how the Empire might treat Axos, they do respect the Ilarch.

If one or more members of the Assembly of the Nine wish to take the Ilarch up on their offer, then the ambassador will need to write to the Axou to confirm the Empire's interest and arrange for 100 doses of liao to be sent to them (hand in the liao and email plot@profounddecisions.co.uk). A priest will arrve at the following summit to perform the hallowings.

A Rising Need

• The Axou are interested in purchasing up to fifty wains of white granite each season for the next six months
• The Axou are offering 18 crowns a wain
• The ambassador can complete the sale by passing the goods to the civil service and confirming the amounts by letter to their counterpart

The offer of trade in wains is intriguing for the Grand Ilarchs of Axos. There are some sources of the valuable resources in their territories, but more is always useful. The Axou have apparently some large project they are looking to start soon that would benefit from access to more white granite. So in principle they would be interested in purchasing white granite if it is available at the right price. They are aware that prices for such materials have been sky high in the Empire recently, but if it has dropped signficantly then it might now be possible to trade.

To that end, Ilarch Maxatious is prepared to offer 18 crowns a wain for up to fifty wains of white granite, this season and next. To conclude the sale, the ambassador will need to write to Ilarch Maxatious to confirm how many wains they are offering and then pass the wains to the civil service (OOC note hand the wains in for use in downtime). The respective staff of the two embassies will then complete the exchange. Axos cannot commit to buying more than fifty wains a season, and only for the next two seasons, but if the ambassador confirms that there is still a glut in Imperial markets after that time, then the Ilarch will make a new offer.

Further Reading

• Axos
• Ambassador to Axos
• Axos ports