Chương 163: Chapter 162: The Katalin Mystery III

With the duel over, the following week was one bereft of much excitement. Caolan seemed to have had his fill of swordsmanship and politely declined Katalin's offer for further sparring sessions. On some days, the demon seemed to let the matter drop, but on others, she would bring it up once more, poking and prodding the topic with almost reckless tact. Yet, no matter what technique the Cascadian Highlord tried, Caolan maintained his polite refusal. Polina thought his pride might have been a little wounded.

There was some change in their schedule. Someone, perhaps Lord Inoue or maybe even Greatlord Oshiro, had arranged for them to have a tour of the Asamaywa Museum. One rainy morning, they left the estate donning rainhats and raincoats. The clothing served both to hide their obvious human nature and protect them from the worsening weather. Similar to the Federation, the weather always picked up shortly before a moonrain. Their liaison, Katalin, led them to the museum.

Today was one of the days she wasn't hassling Caolan for a rematch. That energy was instead redirected into the museum's displays, where the Northern Highlord showed herself to be a surprisingly apt student of Cascadian history.

"Spears," the demon said, a tinge of excitement in her voice. She gestured to a display where a dozen weapons, dull and cracked, were laid down in an airtight glass cabinet.

"From the Early Religious Wars in the second century, yes? That was the first real conflict the Eastern Terra-Firma faced after the Empire was consolidated, mmm…" Katalin hummed, drumming her fingers on the glass top.

"That is, if you don't include the War of the Spear in the first century, but that one was part of the consolidation process, if I remember rightly. Do you—" She was cut off as a nearby attendant practically hissed at her.

"Don't touch the glass!" the museum worker snapped.

"Read the signs!" Polina watched Katalin carefully. The attendant was obviously unaware that they had just snapped at a Cascadian Highlord. What would they do if Katalin revealed herself? There was a glint of something in the demon's eyes. It wasn't anger. Amusement, perhaps? Katalin removed her hand and turned slowly to Polina and the group.

"... I've been told off," she said quietly.

"There are signs," Polina said helpfully, pointing them out.

"Yes, thank you, Miss Volkova," the demon responded. She clicked her tongue and seemed to find her stride once more.

"As I was saying, do you know what the Early Religious Wars were about? It was the Sangoist Schism. One side didn't quite like the fact that the Empress was Sango's wife, spiritually or otherwise." Katalin's eyes twinkled.

"Took a quarter of a century of civil war before they came to accept it, yes?"

"That's marriage for you," Karina muttered.

"The factions established in the Early Religious Wars," Katalin continued, seemingly ignoring the Karlish Speaker's comment, "set the stage for the Three Sisters War half a century later, which is where the cities of Asamino, Asamaywa, and Asamoto get their namesake from. It's all connected, understand? History is beautiful like that, one long chain of events. It's only when you look back that you can see with new clarity how everything that happened, happened."

She led them down a corridor, past a line of display cabinets. The contents within became better preserved the closer they got to the modern day. Katalin stopped beside a set of leather armour on a wooden mannequin.

"A brigandine from the Late Religious Wars," she said.

"This one wasn't about Sangoism, but a puerile argument between the Manwese, Samino, and Ainese over what should be the official religion of the East." She shook her head.

"There were lowland skirmishes with Quinto warriors battling Sangoists who were fighting Ainese stoneworshippers."

"I know this war," Caolan said, speaking for the first time in the museum.

"It was inflamed by the Empress elevating her Demon Church as the official religion of Centralis. The missionaries she sent to the East sparked the conflict. With respect, Highlord, it was her doing." Katalin blinked. For the first time, Polina saw a glimmer of annoyance in the demon's purple eyes.

"With respect, paladin," she responded.

"I don't believe she sent missionaries anywhere. They were quite able to motivate themselves. What should she have done? Restricted the Demon Church's movements?"

"Shouldn't have made it in the first place," Caolan said quietly. Katalin held the paladin's gaze for a long time.

"What's done is done," she said, her voice low.

"All actions have consequences, Caolan of Christdom. Good and bad. We live in the paths laid out by previous generations. Complaining about them gets us nowhere." Caolan only grumbled something in response. At least he had the sense not to argue any further with their highlord liaison. Katalin continued her tour, passing display cabinets and covering the War of the Ten Houses in the sixth century.

This war, Katalin adamantly emphasised, was one born entirely of the bickering politicking of the East and not at all to do with Imperial influence. No one dared to question her on that. They entered the museum's main room. A huge domed ceiling framed the largest single exhibit in the museum. It was the skeleton of an arcwhale, hanging above their heads from a hundred steel cables. The bones, bleached white and held perfectly in place, circled the massive room.

Two-thirds of an arcwhale's length were its twin tails. Hundreds of bone segments, each heavier than Polina, traced a path, forming a complete circle.

"Child of Rhaknam," Aldous whispered in reverence. He made a hand gesture and muttered a Murian prayer.

"Beautiful," he said once he was done, "even in death. How old is this one?" he asked Katalin.

"This specimen was found three centuries ago," Katalin answered.

"An adolescent. If it were an adult it wouldn't fit in this room. It's far from the largest skull on display in the Empire. Centralis has that record…" The demon trailed off. It took Polina a moment to realise she wasn't talking about larger arcwhale skeletons, but the monstrous skull of the Titanlord excavated from the Centralis depths. Speaking of Titanlords, this room was dedicated to the Long Discordancy. The centrepiece was a single cabinet, holding a lone weapon.

It wasn't the largest weapon in the museum, but it was the most important. It was a spear, and not any normal spear. This one was inscribed. Runic Writing was spaced along the handle and even etched into the metal spearhead.

"They still glow," Katalin murmured.

"The Writers of the past knew their craft…" They followed the demon as she approached the cabinet, as if drawn in by an invisible force. It wasn't unexpected to see the demon so taken in by the legendary weapon, considering her reputation as a training-obsessed warrior. Katalin stopped before the blade, looking at it with a complicated expression. She raised a hand, as if to reach out and touch it, before stopping inches from the glass.

Human or demon, Polina knew it was every warrior's dream to have a Written weapon. So few remained in modern times. Even the recent advances Christdom had made in the area didn't come close to the lost capabilities of the old Writers.

"Now that's a weapon," Aldous said, letting out a low whistle.

"Almost seems a waste to have it displayed. Imagine what this could do in the hands of the right warrior."

"Not this weapon," Katalin said softly.

"This weapon has finished its fight." The demon pointed to a nearby plaque. Polina bent down and read the Imperial script.

"It is the Final Blade," she read.

"The last of the Thousand Blades used against Illuyanka, the Titanlord that ruled the East during the Long Discordancy. Elana, then called the Hero from the West, drove it through the creature's eye, causing it to fall from the continent and into the lumina." She glanced at her colleagues, and then at Katalin.

"A thousand blades?" Polina couldn't help but ask.

"That isn't literal, is it?"

"I don't believe it was exact," Katalin responded, still looking at the spear with an expression that seemed almost forlorn.

"But it was around that many. Illuyanka's hide was tough."

"You would have thought," Polina said, "that after the first hundred or so blades didn't do the job, she might have thought to try a different tactic." Katalin burst out laughing. It was such an unexpected, sudden change in the demon that it took Polina by surprise.

"I suppose she was stubborn," Katalin said, throwing Polina a look full of mirth. She's a strange demon, Polina thought. It wasn't the first time she had such thoughts, nor was it a particular cause for alarm. Demons were strange. It was probably why Amelia seemed so at home with them.

"It is good to see it cared for," Katalin said before turning away and examining the surrounding cabinets.

"Look, they have skeletons of the Enemy. Let us look before we return to Lord Inoue's estate, yes?" Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. For the next few minutes, they wandered the room, examining the carefully positioned remains. There weren't just bones; there were recreations as well, made from painted clay and decorated with feathers and leather.

They were beasts that were said to blend in with the night, stalking the wilderness that spread across Cascadia, sporting spiked spines, carnivorous teeth, and scaled hide that resisted most strikes. Demons were stronger on average compared to a human, and stood roughly a head higher. Even with such a physical advantage, it was hard to see how the Empress' armies had fought back against such creatures.

Just as Polina was tempted to ask, she spotted a plaque full of information under each skeleton that named the species and talked about the tactics that were developed to counter each one. As powerful as they must have been, they were just animals. They had weaknesses to exploit. The worst of them were, understandably, the earthburrowers and rockeaters.

It was these worm-like monsters that had systematically forced the survivors to seek solid ground, setting the historical basis for the existence of Cascadia's plateau cities. While the variety and presentation of the creatures were excellent, Polina couldn't help but notice they were missing a key part of Anathema's armies. To an intelligent observer, the question would linger in the room as large as the physical arcwhale hanging above their heads.

As far as the Bureau were aware, while Cascadia officially didn't keep it a secret, they didn't like to publicly talk about it outside of academic circles. They much preferred to frame the Long Discordancy as an invasion of mindless Black Beasts led by what they liked to call the Malignant Darkness. Barring the Titanlords, the beasts of the Long Discordancy weren't intelligent. Yet the armies they formed had structure. For unintelligent beasts to have structure, they needed to be trained.

The scale of the invasion was too great for a single god or their Titanlords. So, who trained the creatures of Cascadia's long night? Who fought with them? And where were their skeletons? Polina considered raising the question, but quickly decided against it. It was not the time nor the place to question the Imperial version of events. Not only that, but the Federation's secular answer to the question would bring a further challenge to Caolan and his Christdom education.

It was best not to annoy two birds with one stone. With Polina keeping her mouth shut, they finished their tour with a cup of tea at the museum cafe. They drank in silence, reflecting on what they'd seen. Katalin, Highlord that she was, must have been in one of her differing moods after seeing a weapon that had been held by the Empress herself, for she forwent her normal addition of sugar in her mint tea, choosing to drink it unaltered. Karina reached into the centre of the table and picked up a bundle of papers.

It was that day's broadsheet. She read in silence for a moment, her eyes briefly widening before muttering, "So, Cascadia's really doing it…" The Karlish Speaker turned the paper, showing the headline to the table. The words, as bold as they were in text as they were in meaning, read: HOUSE OF LORDS PASSES FRAMEWORK FOR REPUBLIC ANNEXATION. An awkward atmosphere descended. Not unexpectedly, considering the Cascadian Highlord sitting next to them.

If that weren't enough to temper their responses, the fact that Katalin was from the North cooled them even further.

"Took them long enough," Katalin said with a small smile, taking an even smaller sip from her tea. She sat with perfect, feminine posture, yet something about her reminded Polina of a coiled snake, ready to bite the head off anyone who challenged the Imperial news.

"I will hold my tongue," Caolan said, "out of respect for our liaison."

"Mmm…" Aldous hummed, not revealing his thoughts any more than that. Karina took the cue to fold the paper and place it down, where its headline could offend them no more. Polina took a slow breath, and focused on her mint tea. While she drank, however, her mind was racing. The Bureau was well aware that it was coming; they just hadn't known when. With a regrettable Cascadian victory in the Republican War for Independence, any objective mind could see that Cascadia needed a new legal framework to secure their win.

The previous treaty that governed Cascadian control over their overairs territory forbade them from either deploying territorial troops or bringing it under the Cascadian system of governance. Cascadia would want to tighten its grip over the quashed Republic. Whether that was to maintain enough of a deterrent to put off another conflict, or to use the territory as a springboard for a larger war, only the Empress knew.

Since she wasn't here in person to ask, Polina had no choice but to do what she did best and determine the most likely path analytically. Despite the supposedly demigod status of the Empress of Demonkind, the loyalty afforded to her by her Cascadian subjects was not freely given. Should they be pushed far enough, an annoyed enough Overlord could splinter away. Heavens, the Southern Overlord tested the Empress' mettle as a hobby. Cascadia wasn't as stable as some might like to think.

The Northern Terra-Firma had a growing anti-Imperial sentiment, while the East was facing a brewing Civil War led by the Ainese. The South was, well, the South was how it always was. The Tasalsul would find any excuse to spill blood and determine who was the strongest. And the West… Well, little was known about the Western Overlord's opinion on the Empire. They seemed happy enough to trade and provide a limited amount of travel visas. Finally, there was Centralis.

If there was a hub of stability in the Empire, it would be the collection of plateau cities sitting in the Centralis Basin. Although, that stability was more of a natural consequence of the extreme amount of interconnectivity of each Centralis city. Was Cascadia planning to annex the Republic into the Northern Terra-Firma, as Polina and many at the Bureau had predicted? It was the most obvious move to satisfy the grumblings of the North, but it didn't come without its consequences.

The Republic was majority human, even after the terrible amount of casualties it had faced in the conflict. The Northern Overlord would have difficulty integrating the population, and if she used too firm a hand, it could cause everything to collapse. With those thoughts in mind, they finished their tea and returned to Lord Inoue's estate. Their trip outside had renewed their motivation, and over the next few days, Polina and the rest began wording their requests for a meeting with Amelia.

Since their reasons for meeting her were so different, they were each making an individual request. Whether Amelia would see them all at once or independently, that would be up to her. It was quite difficult for Polina to word her request. Amelia was now a Lord-Prospect, and somehow, a living saint of the Demon Church. Polina had to come up with something a little more than just 'Hey, it's me, your old friend. Want to talk?'

She would be competing with requests from Cascadian Lords, wealthy merchants, and all manner of people of import. It didn't help that it was normal in Imperial high society for requests to be leaked. It was an indirect way for nobles to communicate to everyone else what kind of requests they found important and what kind of people they wanted to associate with. To prevent indirectly insulting the highborn, Polina had to make her request—coming from a Federation civilian—seem sufficiently important.

To make matters worse, she had to do that without revealing anything too personal or relying on her personal connection to Amelia. Such things were frowned upon in Samino society, especially. Although, deep down, Polina wasn't sure that Amelia cared about that too much. What if Polina did just say, 'Hey, I'm around. Want to meet?' Maybe Amelia would want to accept that. It was the kind of thing she would appreciate, wasn't it? Ah. This was difficult. It was nighttime when Polina gave up.

She'd spent the last few hours looking at a blank piece of paper, her mind running over scenarios again and again. How could she spend so much time looking at an empty page and have nothing to show for it? She'd once had a friend who wanted to be a novelist. They'd talked about their mind being stuck in some strange manner, unable to find the right words to put on paper. They had described it as a mental block. Polina hadn't understood it then, but she did now. She sighed. Putting her pen down, she left her room.

The nightingale floor squeaked with every step. She was sure there were at least a dozen aether users who were now keenly aware of her movement. Well, let them listen. It wasn't like she was trying to escape. She was just going to walk and get some fresh air. She left the building, and began pacing around the veranda. The estate had changed since their arrival. Reinforcement had been added to the buildings' roofs, and the internal gardens had a temporary protective cover built.

The Blue Moon's moonrain was coming, and no-one wanted the waterbirds to get hit by an unfortunate aetherlith. It was another strange difference from Federation architecture, who built their buildings solid enough from the start as to not need further reinforcement.

"Trying to escape?" Polina's heart lept. She'd just rounded a corner when Katalin had spoken. The demon was sitting in a chair, relaxing with a cup of tea. They looked at each other for a moment.

"Have you been training?" Polina asked, eyeing the sheathed weapon on the demon's waist.

"Yes," came the answer.

"And now I'm drinking tea and reading." Katalin picked up a book and waved it. The Mathematics of War.

"And, of course, keeping an eye out for escaping human spies, yes?"

"I'm not escaping," Polina complained. She sighed and sat down.

"And I'm not a spy. I'm not that capable." Katalin smiled.

"When I was young, I never thought I could do the things I've done. Achievements that seemed impossible. Achievements that I thought were only in the realm of more capable people. You'll be amazed at what you can achieve, Miss Volkova, if you put your mind to it."

"... Are you…" Polina narrowed her eyes.

"Encouraging me to escape?"

"Don't do that," Katalin said, her eyes twinkling with mirth.

"I'd have to cut your legs off." Polina wasn't sure if the demon was joking or not, so she changed the subject.

"I see you're reading it again," she said, gesturing to the book.

"It is a good book," the demon responded.

"Although," she tapped the book's cover, "not all of its suggested reforms played out in the manner it predicted. The author missed a few factors."

"Your opinion seems to have cooled," Polina said.

"The other day you were full of praise."

"Ah, was I?" Katalin tilted her head, a curious expression on her face.

"As you say, opinions can cool, yes?" She is a strange demon, Polina thought once again. Honestly, it's like she is two people sometimes.

"Enough about my book," Katalin said.

"Is your writing going well?"

"I… can't find the words," Polina admitted.

"I know what I want to say, but I don't know how to say it. Lord Inoue told me chances were the request would be leaked, so I must be careful in what I include, but I also must not word it in a way that would trouble Amelia or other Cascadian Lords." She shook her head.

"The more I think about it, the more it feels like being a noble is living in a gilded cage." Katalin's smile widened.

"Believe me. I understand." Before Polina could say anything else, the demon put her book down and clapped her hands.

"Let's go for a walk. It is a beautiful night, with Bluheim so close. The city turns off its aetherlights when it's this near, for their light isn't needed."

"A walk?" Polina frowned.

"Where?"

"To Lord-Prospect Thornheart's estate, of course."