Daisy’s two contingents of troops, one for occupying Oracle City and one to occupy Watergate, traveled in the compartments of the rich. For purposes of deceit, they had sewn rank-equivalent spades onto their uniforms, the official story they were presenting that they represented conquering forces from what was now East Helland. When they arrived at the station in Oracle City, they found a scene of chaos. Lines snaked back and forth across the concourse, progressing almost imperceptibly slowly.

  Daisy had given orders to her soldiers—boy was that not where she had expected to end up on Marz—that they seek out quarters and meet up to proceed as though business were as usual. But that would take place later, she hoped, after she, Ruler, Irons, and Corrie had proceeded into the city proper. Given the state of the line, she was doubtful.

  At least, as the only passengers, they were at the front of the back of the line, she thought wryly. She asked the person ahead, who had come from Watergate, what the big holdup was. A thin-lipped individual with the wealth to assume the facade of a pallor, clearly a merchant, replied that there was a crackdown on draconic influences in the capitol. Nobody was permitted into the city who bore a trepanation scar; they were instead… well, they weren’t in a position to waste the water of sending them back by train. As though to punctuate the dire pronouncement of the merchant, a shot rang out. The crowd seemed unfazed, evidently this had been going on for a while.

  Daisy asked Ruler as an aside whether he could hide his trepanation scar with light sorcery. In answer, he made a simple mask which, when she looked closely, she could see was him scrying on the other side of his forehead. He could focus on his sorcery while the gutfish provided them with the words to translate Lider into Jovian-Draconic pidgin and back. Daisy asked if, given two native speakers of Marzeilles, it couldn’t translate directly from her and Ruler’s pidgin to Marzeilles, and thus attract less attention. It whined, but acceded that with a slightly delayed response it could probably do that, provided their minds were open.

  Daisy marveled at how openly she conversed so casually with what she would have reviled as an abomination—it was, technically, classified as such—just a few weeks prior. She had the dark thought that perhaps it was the influence of the abomination itself that she accepted it so readily. There were tales of psionics users puppeteering unwilling victims. Being unwilling, Ruler wouldn’t even have read as a tainted soul. She summoned a globe of water and reached for the gutfish and found… nothing. It chuckled in her head. “Sentient I might be, but human I am not. Still don’t trust me, after all I’ve done for you?”

  Daisy sighed and shook her head. It wasn’t that she didn’t—well, okay, it was entirely that she didn’t trust the thing further than she could throw it. She could just presumably throw it pretty far, for the access she’d given it to her mind. Putting it aside, she explained the plan to Corrie and Irons, and watched as they felt the ticklish presence of the gutfish’s psi. They seemed more comfortable with it than she was.

  When they finally made it to the head of the line, Daisy asked conversationally what the crackdown on dragon servants was. The five of clubs just shook her head and said to ask a civilian, she had no official stance on the matter. Ruler lifted his bangs for the woman and they were let through. Sighing and shrugging, Daisy proceeded out the door into the unwelcome heat of Oracle City. Shortly, she was spotted and joined by her contingents. They went directly to the dispensary, not because they needed water or food, but because it was the only place to socialize with the hostile and oppressive churchyards. They passed the front of the line slowly, eavesdropping on what they could as they walked. The contingents did not follow, but consolidated their baggage and sought out lodgings.

  There were angry mutterings about greedy dragons and reduced water rations because the city of Watergate was unable to pay the rising prices. One person angrily demanded of another whether that wasn’t why they had raised the taxes on salt from South Helland. His companion replied that the tax on salt was why the ventfish they had stank to high Heaven, was because they had simply stopped exporting it. Rations in general seemed to be getting a bit slim, everything had been preserves the past week. The first’s reply was lost as Daisy and her retinue continued onwards.

  Daisy spun on her heel and took Irons and Corrie aside. “The dragon is dead. This is the work of the Waterborne.”

  Corrie’s eyes grew wide, and she repeated Daisy, “Dead?”

  Irons, on the other hand, gently knocked their hand against Daisy’s dragon staff. “So that’s why the name and the large bore.” Daisy protested that it had been an accident. Irons raised an eyebrow and asked why she carried a gun if she was going to accidentally kill dragons with it. Daisy waved her off, telling her to ask Ruler about his gun that pointed one way and fired blanks.

  “Hey now!” Ruler objected. “Those blanks got us out of jail pretty handily!”

  “Can we stay on topic? We need to be careful. If the Waterborn know the dragon is dead, and they’re raising prices, then they probably know that I’m here. Association with me has become—”

  “Dangerous? As though it wasn’t already?” Irons asked saucily.

  Corrie asked why they would raise prices when they were already freed from tribute to the dragon controlling the gate, one of many concepts she had expounded upon during the transit across the Eka-Alumina Sea. Wait, speaking of dragons… “When last I asked about dragons in the gateway, I received blank looks. They’re getting desperate for a scapegoat if they’re letting it be known that Marz has no native water. Little. Little native water.” Tanith and diplomatic negotiations with them had established that there was a little water on Marz, deep beneath the surface, and once brought to the surface it stayed in the atmosphere as clouds.

  The gutfish reported that there were three minds approaching directly towards them, at more than a casual pace. Daisy was startled at its helpfulness, and felt its gentle reproach followed by the suggestion they address the threat and then insult its willingness to aid what was, after all, a legitimately draconic mission.

  Though they were dressed in simple garb announcing them as threes of hearts, they were drawing decidedly impermissible revolvers and stiletto knives. Daisy was still reluctant to actually kill anyone, but she leveled her dragon staff at the three approaching, knowing it would be immediately recognizable as a threat and as having seen them coming. With any luck, like any ambush predator, highlighting their position would scare them off. Ruler drew his revolver, and Irons was ready with a cheese knife. Without acknowledgement, the armed individuals sheathed their weapons and melted back into the background. Daisy checked with the gutfish whether they had actually given up or were just obscuring themselves with sorcery. For good measure, she had Ruler scry on them, and verified they actually were where they appeared to be.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “You don’t trust me, yet you make all these demands of me. If I weren’t on a draconic mission—you know, I’m not sure you’re even teaching wrath to Ruler. I want some serious lessons to start. You’ve got spade paperwork, get him some rounds and some powder. I want my boy to kill somebody the next time it’s necessary.”

  Ruler replied blandly, “Haven’t I established it’s never necessary to fire a gun, by now?”

  “Your Daisy had to kill a dragon to get here, and now we’re paying the consequences of not properly respecting dragonkind. The Waterborne are raising rates for water, taxes are going up on South Helland, which will rise up if it hasn’t already in practice, because West Helland is sending back ships of dead soldiers when anyone returns at all, and your death cult doesn’t care that they’re killing their own source of income because they’re a death cult.”

  Daisy put a hand to her temple. “Wait wait wait. Say that again a bit more slowly?”

  Despite not respirating, the gutfish did a respectable imitation of a telepathic sigh. It repeated what it had just sent, a bit more slowly. Daisy turned to the group and iterated what had been said. Irons and Corrie were nodding, while Ruler was stroking his thin beard thoughtfully.

  Corrie asked, “Shouldn’t we go grab a squadron if we’re going to be attacked? I mean, we’re bulletproof, but I think they even warned us bullets would break bones, and they’re not very stab-proof.”

  Daisy shook her head. “Not until we have a clearer picture of what’s going on. As soon as we rouse the donjons to action, we’re going to face more resistance than two contingents of guards can overcome. They’re securing us quarters that are defensible. In the meantime, we’re doing what we’ve always done. Spreading the Gospel and dispensing water. Corrie, you’re on point. Irons, you’ve studied a little longer, handle questions. Ruler, you’re in charge of resolving differences of doctrine and spreading your prophecy. I think they’ll be receptive to it, seeing as they’re blaming the drought of water on dragonkind.

  Corrie initially had little luck drawing a crowd, before Daisy set about calling, “Free water! Pay what you want! An urn or a bucket, we’ll fill it with water!” That assembled a crowd quickly. Unfortunately, it also attracted the wrong kind of attention. Waterborn, to judge from their weapons and lack of club insignia, This time, Daisy didn’t rely upon the mental highlighting of the gutfish to focus her sorcery, but she still dipped her fingers in an urn and wet her face, making an investiture of water before she attempted to disable them. She passed Corrie her dragon staff, and under her breath, she told Ruler to put on hold anyone coming up behind her. Prepared, she summoned forth their phlegmatic humor, clogging their heads with mucus. Once again they were sneezing to try and clear their sinuses, then choking on the excess of phlegm when they thoughtlessly drew breath through their nose. Daisy clapped her hands in delight, before spinning in place and drawing on her rapidly-evaporating investiture to handle those who had come up behind them and been disabled by blinding light in their eyes.

  Raising her voice, Daisy proclaimed, “These are your oppressors, these are the people who make you thirst and pay for wastewater! Take them to the jails, take them to the judges, do what you will but remember the Word of God says ‘You shall not murder’!”

  “It is the prophet and his wife!” someone in the crowd shouted. “They left us to our fates!”

  “We did not!” Daisy protested. “We were sentenced to death, death by dehydration and flame! We have returned to continue to preach the Gospel!” She turned to Irons, “Fetch a contingent of troops and tell them they’re going to teach people to use water sorcery.” Raising her voice, she shouted, “Listen to Excoriate Error! She knows the teachings and will relay them faithfully!”

  Despite her directions, people poured around Corrie to address either her or Ruler. Daisy’s immediate attention was taken up dousing with water the people who were taking violent retribution against the Waterborne. Much as she would have liked to see them punished for their roles in destroying the lives of others and, ultimately, themselves, she knew they were the product of the sick system that was Jupitre and deserved sympathy and right teaching. Perhaps, in the new Marz that was forming, they could get that.

  Daisy set about trading water for any spare vessels people could spare or buy with the water she was giving to them, until she had a good assortment of vessels she filled with water. Around then, the second contingent of soldiers arrived. They knew the fundaments; all of them could make water ripple, most of them could summon water outright.

  The crowd seemed leery of the obvious soldiery, until one of them made a grand show of summoning water into one of the nearly-full urns and shouted, “Would you like to learn to do this?! We would like to teach you!”

  Then people surged forward. “Give us this water, so that we don’t get thirsty, nor come all the way to the dispensary to beg!” The soldiers laughed and cheered, then set about turning an unruly mob into an orderly set of circles, each with a soldier at its center, explaining the fundamentals of faith-based magic. Central to it was the neglected Gospel teaching “All things that ever you pray and ask for, believe that you have received them, and you shall have them.”

  Some people were clearly already sorcerers of a different sort, air or earth, probably not fire, and had fast luck with making the water in their urns slosh from side to side. Others, however, got discouraged, and began to complain or even slip away from the groups. Irons called to them, “Take heart, sisters and brothers! ‘For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’! The yoke of Christ Savior is not effortless, it is light and it is just! You can master this, all it will take is time that would otherwise be stolen from you by your taskmasters! They have not paid you your wages, it is not your role then to labor for them, creating the works they demand! ‘In her day you shall give her her wages, neither shall the sun go down on it, for she is poor and sets her heart on it, lest she cry against you to the One God and it be sin to you’! Take your workday, and learn this great sorcery of boundless water through faith in the Lord!”

  Though one or two still slipped away, most of the stragglers returned, and once again the soldiers set about teaching water sorcery. Daisy knew it would not be fast, but her sincere belief was that it would be easier than they feared. Those of Marz sincerely believed they had been consigned to perdition for their sins, and that it was their burden to exorcize those sins by service to those of higher rank. They believed in the One God, they just falsely believed that He hated them for the sin of their very existence.

  Corrie was once more speaking up on the message that the One God was love, that nothing that was not love came from Him, when the clubs arrived in force. As one, the Tanith soldiers departed from their circles and prepared to oppose them. It was sure to be a decisive moment in Marz history, Daisy thought, before she realized that in the confusion, more Waterborne were making their way to her.