Daisy looked back at the receding coastline of Tanith—The Union of States, now—and reflected on what had been, and what was to come.

  She had personally met the First Bishop of Tanith, Bishop Unity. She was a cheerful, stocky woman. She had been born to farm life and had professed a simple and honest faith that had impressed her local priest so much that he recommended she attend seminary. While Daisy had dreaded the meeting after her experience with Marzian and Jovian clergy, it had begun with a cheerful slap on the back. “So! You don’t believe I have any special authority, eh?!” Daisy had shook her head, taken aback by the informal greeting. “Excellent! Would you like a job? I need someone who won’t just agree with me because I’m the head honcho! Keep me from getting a swelled head! Pride, pride…” She leaned in close to Daisy and murmured. “My acolytes find me my scripture quotes, I never had a head for it. I know what the Bible says about pride, but ask me to quote something? Auch! My worst nightmares from seminary all over again. But I know pride comes before a fall. So what do you say? Want to work for me? My yoke is easy and my burden is light, that’s Scripture I can remember! Can I get an ‘Amen’?”

  The rest of the encounter had largely gone on in that vein, with job offers as it was iterated that Daisy knew how to measure by the stars and her dragon staff, that she was capable of water sorcery, and that said water sorcery could not only create water but give sneezing fits to anyone unfortunate enough to oppose her.

  Bishop Unity had been generous, as well as boisterous. Before allowing her to set course for Honeystone, she insisted upon two boons for Daisy. First, a suit of indigo fabric, a slightly coarse fabric refined alchemically from one of the plants which actually flourished in the heat of the Marzian climate. It was bulletproof and fireproof, she said, though it would still break bones to be shot. Ruler she had also gifted a suit of indigo. Secondly, she saw to it that the finest smith in Crafton retrofitted her dragon staff to still fire with a snap of her fire branded fingertips, but that it was instead a breech-loading revolving rifle.

  She had listened with great interest as Ruler had stammered out his prophecy, telling of the war that was to come between dragon and human. Ultimately, she had said that she suspected such a thing would have to come to be, given the betrayal of trust and tribute extracted by their own dragons, particularly the water dragon. “It is unfortunate. Hopefully it does not come to pass until you have taught the troops we’re sending with you to be farmers as well.” That was the final thing she had given them. Aboard one of the largest basalt boats—still a concept that hurt Daisy’s head, even as she grokked the calculations of density—they set out with three contingents of Tanith troops, under Daisy’s undisputed command for purposes of liberating Helland.

  They spent the transit time teaching the soldiers the basics of water sorcery, a skill some of them had more talent with than others, but all showed a marked ability with it compared to Corrie and Irons as a result of their faith background. Or so Daisy assumed, as it wasn’t even possibly a result of greater virtue. The souls of her three companions all shone when she needed a light, possibly even more than her own. Then again, she was leading. And as it said in the Gospel, “Whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant.”

  On the approach to Honeystone, they witnessed a great number of boats out upon the Eka-Alumina Sea. They hailed one, and asked what the reason was. The man aboard the boat seemed incredulous, and asked where they hailed from. Not untruthfully, precisely, they answered that they came from West Helland. The man scoffed, replying that no ship had returned from West Helland in days. Nonetheless, Daisy and Ruler got their answer as the man and several of his crew hauled in nets of fish and set course back to the bay of Honeystone.

  They made it to the coast and dropped anchor. Rather than subject three contingents of troops to inspection, they left them aboard with the water and food rations and took a smaller rowboat out to the coast and walked into town. The boat would head for the docks at Ruler’s sign, a starburst in the sky. Ruler had the clever idea to use light sorcery to scry on the faces of the people behind them in line, common merchants, while they used papers saved from the grand purge which claimed them to be spades of fifth caste. Irons and Corrie were unknowns, and had been supplied with the few salvageable heart papers. They slipped through the gates without incident. Within, they set out swiftly for the docks, the most obvious place that something had gone wrong.

  There was a large crowd assembled already at the docks, which the clubs were trying only to keep from harming themselves. While they couldn’t hear over the shouting of the crowd, hearing had practically become a vestigial sense for Daisy in a land where she didn’t speak the local tongue and Ruler, and then his gutfish, had telepathically supplied meaning to her. When they got in range, she tuned in to the abomination’s words.

  “For the last time! I may be a deuce of hearts, but I have the fish! You want to eat, you acknowledge my authority!” So the food shortage had not had anything to do with Daisy or Ruler. This was interesting.

  The police at the docks were nervously holding back a crowd armed nearly as well as they were aside from the guns, and guns only held so many bullets. Meanwhile, their captain or leader or whomever was arguing that they were the civil authority and the fisherman had better hand over the catch to be rationed at sanctioned dispensaries. The argument sounded, even through the lens of the disinterested gutfish, tired and slightly desperate. Daisy counted the days that had passed since the shortages in Crafton and wondered just how long they had been having this argument.

  Her staff had acid runes, like most guns, and so she was spared the laborious and slow process of loading her dragon staff before she pointed it, empty, into the air and let off a shot. She’d intended to get the attention of the people around her, but it turned out to have been a mistake. Things were much more tense than she had surmised, for the crowd surged forward and the clubs were shortly floating in the Eka-Alumina Sea next to the docks, as the mob tried to jump aboard the fisherman’s ship as he pulled back out into the harbor. Some intrepid souls even tried to run across the Sea itself, but were rebuffed by the fisherman’s crew.

  Seeing her chance, a fisherwoman rowed her ship into the slip abandoned by the fisherman, heedlessly crushing a club between boat and dock. What she shouted next shook Daisy to her core. “Clockmaker catch! Profess belief in the Great Clockmaker and receive His blessed catch! Don’t none of you Unchained come lying, for the Lord knows what is in your heart!”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Hearing this, the other fisherman reversed his course, and slammed his boat into the docks at an angle. He was unable to get entirely into the slip, but he was able to step off his boat onto the dock. “You don’t want any of that Clockmaker nonsense! You want to save your souls! Living water for fish, for all the honest Unchained in the crowd! A cup of water for a day’s meals, get your ventfish right here, right now!”

  The fisherwoman objected, immediately. “Now see here! I’m here to feed people of true faith! The prophet Ruler told of a coming war, and as we all know a prophet is the ultimate authority before the One God!”

  “The prophet Daisy was the one who brought the Truth to Helland! Ruler was only her helper, he was the one who came before the one who was greater!” Daisy winced as the misapplication of scripture. Finally, with a sigh, she indicated to Ruler that he may as well send up his starburst. Any semblance of order had been lost long since in the face of food shortages.

  The starburst caught the attention of everyone in the crowd, rather like Daisy had hoped to do with her blank shot, but whatever worked, she supposed. There was a general hubbub and people looked around curiously and then someone shouted, “It’s the prophets themselves! Let them decide the matter for us!” Daisy winced again and felt slightly green around the gills. She was not any kind of prophet… but that was not the argument at hand. She suspected they’d face the ignominity of death by mob if she didn’t address the matter on their terms.

  Daisy raised her head and declared, “‘Don’t argue about words to no profit, to the harm of those who hear.’ We preach the Gospel, Ruler and I. Believe in Christ Savior, trust in the One God, and make a home in your heart for the Holy Spirit!”

  The fisherman protested, “You are speaking for the one who actually knows one of our tongues! Let him talk!”

  Ruler, too, raised his head, and projecting declared, “‘Don’t argue about words to no profit, to the harm of those who hear.’ We preach the Gospel, D-D-Daisy and I. Believe in Christ Savior, trust in the One God, and make a home in y-your heart for the Holy Spirit!”

  “Nice symmetry,” Daisy said under her breath.

  “But who gets the fish?!” someone in the crowd demanded.

  Daisy answered, “‘All who believed were together, and had all things in common. They sold their possessions and goods, and distributed them to all, according as anyone had need.’ All should get the fish, from the heart ace who made the catch to the ten of clubs who runs the police, provided they profess faith!”

  “But there is more than one faith! There are the Clockmakers and the Unchained and the Wholists themselves!”

  Ruler spoke up, as they would clearly have to take turns to manage the mob. As he talked, Daisy shooed Irons and Corrie to disperse back to a less busy part of the docks, ostensibly to help the Tanith troops land. In reality, she feared for all their lives. “If y-y-you believe in the Creator Supreme, Christ Savior, and Holy Spirit, then y-you are a believer and a part of the body of Christ, the Church of the One God! Does y-your nose say to your toe, ‘Starve, that I-I-I might feed’?!”

  “What of us?!” the fisherman demanded. “Are we to give away our fish to those who just profess to share our faith?!”

  Daisy replied evenly, if loudly, “That would be the Godly thing to do, yes. And then when you need your nets mended, let a clothier give you thread. Perhaps she will be the one you gave fish to before.”

  Spluttering and finally righting himself from his landing spot in the harbor, a man with a seven of clubs emblazoned upon his uniform clambered onto the docks. “Arrest them! Two caste elevations to the one who arrests them and helps me put these fishermen and the alleged prophets behind bars!” He was still climbing as he shouted this, and realized his mistake all too late.

  “Wait!” Daisy cried, and when nobody was listening to her and surging towards the club, she fired her staff into the air again. “I said wait! ‘But I tell you, don’t resist him who is evil; but whoever strikes you on your right heel, turn to them the other also.’ Let him go! Let him flee and live with the poison in his soul!”

  Finally, it seemed, people were listening to them. By the time the indigo-suited Tanith forces had arrived, Daisy was peacefully distributing water to the same people who were agreeably receiving fish from whichever fishmonger was available. Irons approached Daisy from behind and asked, “We never preached in Honeystone. How did the Gospel make it all the way here?”

  “Differences of doctrine aside, that’s the virtue to preaching a message that can be repeated. I’d imagine that it went with traveling merchants, and anyone who had an excuse to travel from Oracle City to Honeystone. I mean, after all, how did we wind up with you and Corrie tagging along?”

  Irons colored, then smiled. “I guess we did sorta attach ourselves to you.”

  Daisy smiled. “It was for the best. You two have skills we don’t, even if it’s just knowing how to get around in this nutty society.”

  The captain of the Tanith troops stood before Daisy and saluted. “Royal hearts and clubs sequestered, ma’am. Do we feed them?”

  Daisy sighed. It did seem to be a Marzian universality that they were willing to do evil against anyone they saw as outsiders. She’d have to ask Ruler if it was that way on Orth, for it certainly was on Jupitre.

  Speaking of Ruler, she wanted to find him. Now that they were on land, they could find some time to be alone. She couldn’t remember the last time they had had a private conversation, and she found she was missing the intimacy of their two-person proselytizing group. That was, she supposed, a side effect of having acolytes. She wrinkled her nose. Irons and Corrie were not acolytes. If anything, they were more like adoptees. She felt tenderly towards them. Which wouldn’t be wrong, but one rarely loved one’s acolytes—love. She realized that her admiration of Ruler had only grown, and that she had moved past her unease with his trepanation and gutfish. She loved Irons and Corrie, but even more… she loved Ruler.

  She issued orders to the Tanith troops, leaving one company as interim governors, and directing the other two to prepare to requisition a train before the day’s end. She found Ruler and loudly addressed the people, who seemed almost eager to have peace. She outlined that the blue-suited soldiers did not care for caste, and that Tanites were not the demons their religious leaders had led them to believe. They would represent her and Ruler as final arbitrators, but as it said in the Gospel, “If your sister or brother sins against you, go, show her her fault between you and her alone. If she listens to you, you have gained back a sister.”

  Then she took Ruler, and found some empty dockside quarters, and she told him very seriously, “I do love you. I love you for your faith, different though it may be from mine—I just spent, what, half an hour telling these people minor differences of doctrine don’t matter? I love you for your bravery. And I love you for loving me. I was a difficult person, on Jupitre. That you see the light of my soul makes me happy.” She took his hands, and she kissed him on the lips, his breath warm on her face as he parted his lips to say something. “Hmm-mm,” she said, silencing him with yet another kiss.