Essa talked with Zerus in the White Pantheon’s grand cil room. “Essa, we will not san charities.”

  “Why not?”

  “Are you being seriht now?”

  “We’re the White Pantheon. The world trembled at ht in the past.”

  “And now we’ve lost Helenna, Iniri & Kavaa’s Orders. We’ve lost Leona. We’ve Atis. We don’t even know where Alsaria is. antheon Essa?”

  “You were always too careful.”

  “Kirinyaa and Ausa will fold uhe embargos eventually, there’s no reason to be hasty.”

  “And the Rancais workaround?”

  “We san them.”

  “Very well. Zerus, very well”

  Arascus looked around his hotel room, a grand pce, even if all the furniture was too small. The bed was just rge enough to fit Olephia, but he was easily te for it. Abakwa had set him up well, although he supposed he had paid for it with stopping Olephia from destroying the city and with assistan the up operations. The minor tasks were handled by the Crisis Forces, the fires and the like. He was only here for the things that would take a month or two to fix.

  Pulling that ship out of the water was o had been a grand dispy of strength too, he couldn’t do it at first, but when he felt the awe of Igos’ popution behind him, that gave him strength. When the ship started to move, he felt them start to believe he could do it. Then their belief maed into his reality.

  Olephia was in a long dress fit foddess, all purple with dashes of bck. She herself had made the design and forwarded it to Abakwa, who had it ready the same day. She ainting and listening to musiother work of art, this one was a grand ndscape piece of Igos itself. Arascus had carried her through the air to show her what the city looked like from the o, and now she was busy f that sight onto paper. She had already given two paintings to the city, both were now in museums, both apparently well received by the popution. There weren’t many tries that could boast of having art created by the Divines. Even during Arascus’ st meeting with the Premier-General, the man was talking about how he hoped it would cause a tourism boom in Igos, and how he hopes that Olephia will stay long enough to fill up a se dedicated eo her pieces.

  But other than that, it was a b stay. There wasn’t much to do, gohe days of pnning ba the Headquarters, of tless operations being made, their pns then scrapped and redrawn from the ground up. Arascus trusted Iliyal would not make any hasty moves as he turned on the news. Ausa news was c him still, with a panel of men and women talking about how the cost of the damage done by Olephia’s storm was only retively minor because of Arascus’ involvement. One man ying Devil’s Advocate and trying tue against Arascus being granted further permission to stay, but all the arguments were rather weak.

  And so, half a day went by. It wasn’t until the ph. An unknown number. Olephia stopped painting and turo Arascus. She poio the phone. “I know, I know.” Arascus said as he moved away from the window and answered. “Arascus speaking.” There was a moment of silen the other side uncharacteristic of Igos officials. When they wanted something, they’d ask immediately. Then a voice came through, a voice Arascus instantly reised. Deep and dired curt and anding.

  “Kassandora.” Arascus’ face burst out in a smile, Olephia saw him and put her paints down.

  “I’m putting you on loudspeaker, Olephia’s here too.” He put the phone oable as Olephia came from the other side, put her elbows oable and leaned in.

  “ she hear me?” Olephia looked up at Arascus, her eyes wide and her mouth open. There was a notebook with a pen tucked in oable for Olephia to unicate with. She immediately went to grab it.

  “She .” Arascus said, still smiling as Olephia wrote something down. Her hand moved like a blur and she had the paper in front of Arascus. Tell her: Hello and that I missed her! “Olephia says hello and that she missed you, with an excmation mark.” Olephia smiled, closed her eyes, and nodded.

  “Hello Olephia.” Kassandora said from the other side. “I missed you too. We’ll meet each other soon enough. I actually called because I have a problem, and I was hoping you could help me, dad.” Olephia’s eyes widened again. And she once again got to writing. We’ll help her of course! What is it?

  “What is it?” Arascus asked. Kassandora audibly sighed from the other side of the phone.

  “This line, I assume it’s not secure, is it?” Kassandora asked.

  “It’s most likely tapped.” Arascus said.

  “Our mutual associate, the eighth man.” That meant Iliyal. General of the Eighth army, the eighth man. “He’s sent me a design for what I need.” Olephia’s mood soured and she started writing again as Kassandora talked on. “For the material to burn the Jungle, I’m sending Helenna and going with her to Nanbasa tomorrow to try and lobby the Kirinyaans, but I know Ausa has a firewall. I’m sure they have produ capabilities.”

  Olephia slid the paper to Arascus: This is so like her. She’ll only call or seers when she needs something done. Arascus took the pen from her fingers and wrote back. It’s cssic Kass.

  “So you need me to ask them if they produce it here?” Arascus asked.

  “I do.” Kassandora replied. “And then send it to Kirinyaa.”

  “How much?” Arascus asked and Kassandora let out a humoured chuckle over the phone.

  “Enough to coat the entire Jungle.” So there wasn’t any limit then.

  “I’ll see what I do.” Arascus said. “How are you doing? Olephia wants to know too.” Olephia that.

  “Dandy.” Kassandora said. “I ehe Juh Kavaa and Fer. We took Iniri out of there.” There ause for a moment. “Then we made it out. Also the Jungle should stop produg diseases now.”

  “Should it?”

  “We did a fair bit of damage.” Kassandora said as if it was nothing. “Thanks for the help dad. The formu is on the eighth man’s email. You know the details right? He said you did.”

  “I do.”

  Arascus looked up at Olephia’s ft gaze as the woman started to angrily scrawl. “That’s all. We’ll talk when we meet each other.” The phone beeped to marked the other person had disected.

  Olephia angrily smmed a piece of paper down oable. That is so Kass! She calls just for work! She did this back then too! Never hi! Never a hello! Never a how are you doing?! She’s always been like that! Each excmation mark was bigger tha. Olephia angrily crossed her arms, shook her head, then added some more text. She’s just ruined my mood!

  “She’s like that.” Arascus said as he leaned bad sighed. Kassandora had always been like that, he assumed she would always be like that. She cared, he knew she did, but when her mind got set to a task, she would single-in on pleting that task and ighe rest of the world. “At least she told you she missed you.” Olephia threw her bck hair bad shook her head again as she stood up ao the freezer. They were well-stocked with alcohols and other things, but Olephia liked ice cream the most. She got one on a wooden stick, it was ically small in her hands, and she devoured it in a few bites. “You’ll get brain freeze.”

  Olephia threw the stick at him and grabbed another ohis o even faster.

  She closed her eyes, her chest rose as she took a deep breath, and she went to her painting. “I’m going to Abakwa then, see what I do.” Arascus said, he logged into the email him and Iliyal had set up to quickly send each other information. It was from a server his own men had set up iern Karaina, he used magic to push the keys down on the keyboard, his own fingers were too big to press the individual keys. There was a note. Goddess Kassandora wants both of these. One was the chemical formu for napalm Ash’s team had designed. Ash himself had not done any work on it, chemical warfare was not his speciality. The other was simply entitled Binturong Schematics. Iliyal had edited the design to simply be the schematid nothing else, there was no refereo how it was an evolution to the ons used he end of the Great War.

  Arascus printed himself off one spare copy of each, one for Abakwa, and theed the files. The mouse moved by magic too, it was unbearably small to use. “Do you want anything?” Arascus asked and turned Olephia. She looked at him and poio the freezer. More ice cream. “Any fvour?” She quickly drew a cherry on her a spare piece of paper. “Got it.”

  Arascus went to the baly ahe cool wind blow in from the o. It was always windy here. He took a step over the railing and floated in the air towards the Igos Parliament. From below, crowds stopped and pointed up at him. In the nearby skyscrapers, people went to their windows and waved and pointed and those who had balies went out to shout their greetings. Arascus gave them a single wave as he the Igos Parliament. It was a grander building than the tral Crisis tre right o it, the buildings were joined with bridges that could retrato the walls to break the e, with ns for decoration and statues of men holding axes, but it was still an Ausa building. The windows were narrow, there were etions on the roof, the walls thick.

  “God Arascus!” They always had some butler or maid or attendant on duty for him now, although it was mainly because Arascus came a as he pleased. This time, it was young man in his mid-twenties with fashionable hair and in a nice suit. “It is a pleasure as always.” Arascus could actually believe it, the effort he had pnted during the up now had a bountiful harvest of good will. It was helped somewhat by the fact the Pantheon had decided to san Ausa for harb him.

  “Is Abakwa free?”

  “He is in a meeting with General Domkat and Minister Abubakar right now. I ring.”

  “Please do.” Arascus said. It was annoyiill had to e here, but it was what it was. He wasn’t in charge so he couldn’t expect that people would go to him. And they had all the leverage iionship, he was staying in their nation, not the other way around. Arascus waited for the man t and heard Abakwa’s voice reply to send him in. The man turned aended his arm.

  “Follow me, the Premier-General is free right.” Arascus followed along. This building was one of the few that was built with sideration to Divihey ceilings were tall, the doorframes spanned wide although even then, it was obvious they were for Alsaria’s measurements. He was a good few ialler than her, and the top of his hair brushed against the frames. People turned and work stopped whenever he came around, although it was only for a moment. A few men saluted, a maid who led him previously waved, Arascus merely raised his hand to aowledge them and followed the young man up a wide staircase.

  This route had felt long the first time he traversed it. Now, it was very short. The corridors ba the Karainan headquarters were lohe man knocked and the door ened from the inside by General Domkat. The man was wearing his green military uniform today, Abakwa and Abubakar were both in their bck suits. “Greetings.” Abakwa said. Arascus sat down in one of the rge chairs. Two had made their residen Abakwa’s offiow that Arascus and Olephia were staying iy. The office was tall, but it wasn’t particurly big. Those small slit-like windows were behind Abakaintings of past premiers hung on the wall, along with a map dispying the twelve cities of Ausa. There should be a table in the middle, but there wasn’t unfortunately. Instead, Abakwa had his desk and the rest of the chairs made a semi-circle around him.

  “Greetings.” Arascus raised his hand to wave down Domkat’s and Abubakar’s. Generally, Arascus liked them all, they were all dired didn’t argue. Even something could be done, or something could not be done. Arascus pulled out the papers from his pocket. “I’ll be straight to the point, as always. I have proposition for pushing back the Jungle.” He got three stunned looks.

  “For pushing it back?” Domkat asked, stroking his as his eyes now stared with full attention. “We already hold it back.”

  “For actually g nd, not simply holding it at the walls.” Arascus said again.

  Domkat spoke up first. “So, how? Is it with Olephia?”

  “It’s not.” Arascus said. He stood up and put the papers on Abakwa’s desk. “Olephia should not be used.” He quickly thought up of some trite reason for not using Olephia. First, he had to sell the idea to them, then he had to vihem that everything would have to be tested and that Kirinyaa was the perfect way to test it. “For one, Olephia is one person. It would take her a millennia to clear it back. For two, Olephia leaves radiation, we wouldn’t be able to recim and fortify the area before the Juakes the nd.” Arascus poio the papers as he sat back down. “What I present here be deployed in every Ausa city, then the equipment be rented out to the other Arikan tries. It has no Diviervention, it would not force them to break any Pantheon Directive as we’ve doh me staying in Ausa.”

  “Binturong.” Abakwa rolled the word off his tongue in an odd fashion. “Jungle removal device.” That’s what Iliyal had underli with. Jungle removal device was a very clever way to disguise it from being self-propelled artillery. “And this? Na-palm.” Another word he struggled with.

  “It’s a jelly that burns over a thousand degrees, trees will simply melt beh it. It solves the issue you have now with the liquid fire that ’t be sprayed over a rge distance.” Arascus tinued. “The Binturong is a vehicle desigo fire shells filled with napalm.” Domkat and Abubakar were already stood up and iing the designs with Abakwa. “Those are your copies. The vehicles have had light testing, in Karaina by my own men. I would like to test them in Kirinyaa first.”

  “Why Kirinyaa?”

  “Because Kassandora, my daughter, is there.” Arascus said. “I don’t want to use them iies yet in case it turns out they’re dangerous or have fws. If they explode in the Arika for example. Then we’d have more trouble than they’re worth, but in the Kirinyaan Badnds, they could be tested.”

  The three men looked at each other. The recipe for napalm and the Binturong. “This.” Abaked the schematic for the Binturong with his knuckle and looked up at the two men. “This could be built.”

  “How many would you need?” Abubakar asked. “Are we talking about hundreds? What’s the cost? One would be…” He looked through at the list of materials. “Well, it is an iure.”

  “Eight.” Arascus said. “To make oeam.” Eight, to make otery. Then Kassandora would train her men on it uhe guise of pushing the Jungle back. They would have the only artillery crews in the world. “If it’s successful, Kirinyaa will buy more.”

  “Are we sure about that?”

  “They may build their own.” Arascus said nontly. To sell a product, you wao add urgency, if they felt that their window of opening was slipping, then they’d make a decision sooner. “Kassandora is going to lobby the Kirinyaans to produce these too. Ausa has the factories and refineries ready to produce these, Kirinyaa would have to build its own.” Abakwa leaned back as he opened his desk and pulled out a cigar. He lit it and blew a cloud.

  “You’ve helped us greatly over this past month.” He leaned bad spun in his chair. “And it is the dream of every Ausa citizen to repel the Jungle. Even if we ot recim the old try, to ect the twelve cities at least.”

  “The coasts would be easier.” Arascus said. “The real tests we’re doing is of the uncher.” He carefully avoided calling it a gun. “If it works, it could be mounted on a ship.” Arascus stopped the smile that wao crawl onto his face. And artillery ship, those had ed in the past.

  “We’ll ruimates and aim for sixteen, because of how fruitful our retionship has already been.” Abakwa said.

  “What about produ of napalm?” Arascus asked.

  “If you say it’s better for burning the Juhan our liquid fuel right now, we’ll want to switch over to it anyway. I’ll send it to ua to let him rus. If he says it’s good, the refineries will all switch over.” Arascus stood up. He had read up on the mixture the Ausans were using already, napalm was undoubtedly better.

  “Thank you for your time.” He said. “If you have any more questions or if you lose those schematics, then don’t hesitate to call.” Seeing none of the men had any questions, he left the office, quite satisfied with himself. Now just to pick up ice-cream for Olephia and t Kassandain, hopefully she’d be talkative this time.