"Sama. The Golden Hag is visiting rather late today?" the captain of the guards at the gate asked, more than a little curious. His gaze shifted to me, lingered, then went back, his thoughts clearly going down rather earthy avenues that they shouldn't.

"This is a guest of mine I'm showing around the capital. The grounds of the Palace look better in the evening without all the leeches wandering around them, Horonio. Don't get any lewd ideas. The Emperor will be long dead before he gets me in his bed, and probably all of his Palace Guard with him, because they'll have to be helping him out." The man flushed as she leaned forward, slowly drawing her teeth back. "You don't have any orders to that objective, now, do you, Horonio? Boys?"

Her eyes flicked right and left. All of the guardsmen instantly backed up, including the captain.

"Right. You know me, boys. If you see me coming, there's no threat, unless you start something. I advise you not to start something. Let's go, Edge." Without invitation or permission, she sauntered past the men, who just stood aside to let her enter.

"They are so staring at your ass."

"Staring is all they get, and this ass has been stared at by multitudes!" she sniffed brazenly.

"The gardens?" I had to ask.

"They really are rather well done. The feng shui isn't the best, but these folks have just about no profound sensitivity to such things, and the local mystics are about as helpful as a box of clams with anal blockage."

"Don't be shy. Tell me how you really feel about them!" I said dryly, as we took some side stairs that led us away from the main building.

"This Empire has no emphasis on education whatsoever. The most glorious thing you can do is pick up a sword and hack down anyone who says education is more important than swordswinging. Even I know you want to max out the gift of your Powered. You aware of how power swings around here?" Sama inquired of me.

"They've done some studies on it in Zanzyr, at least among humans. The average native human of this world has about a one in twenty chance of manifesting enough resonance with mana to wield it. The chance to be able to wield the energies of the Mystics here is about one in ten, if they've the Stats to support it. Clerics can use magic if their Immortal Patron says they can. Sorcery is suppressed entirely since Darkmoor.

"In certain bloodlines, especially those from the original homeworld of the Delphans and the Freir, the random potential can rise as high as twenty percent. Caergard and Verdain bloodlines are ten percent or higher, on average. If you actually come from a pairing of wizards, the chance is usually absolute, but even random peasants can have children with magical ability, they just don't have the resources to back them that Powered parents tend to.

"Some of the old stories from the Freir indicate that their former homeworld was so magical that almost anyone with an Intellect above average could be a wizard. It was actually more common to be a wizard than it was to be a warrior!"

"And instead this empire is built on slave labor and gladiatorial games." Sama paused to let me look over the layout of the gardens, blooms swaying in the dusk and early moonlight, with few people about to distract from the view.

A striking human woman in superb condition caught my eye. She wore only knives for protection, but it was plain she had a dangerous edge to her beauty. Her hair was honey brown, her eyes dark and mysterious, and her figure just right to tempt any man looking at her.

She was nonchalantly wearing a fortune in gold and diamonds, and would have fit the image of a warrior empress to anyone watching. Some apparent bodyguards were nearby and keeping her in sight, but obviously well-trained not to follow her around. She looked like she owned the place and belonged there.

Dread pinpointed her instantly as an Immortal. If she was Tenya, I was aware that she'd had at least a dozen Avatars occupying this palace at different times. Not hard to deduce when one of your Sims encounters her multiple times over the centuries, sometimes on a daily basis.

"Your expression is not particularly appreciative of the view," I informed her as she didn't look at the Imperial Concubine. "Wrong angle?" I inquired blithely.

A very, very dangerous half-smile flitted across her face. "I deign to train Magni in things he can barely grasp because he's the Emperor and not giving him the chance to make a fool of himself is a direct insult, plus it shows how goddamn weak-minded these twats are about spiritual matters. If the Emperor can't learn what I have to teach them, what chance lesser men?

"She's actually expressed an interest in my lessons, and I kicked her out of the room. I have no use for a woman who pours acid on the wounds of another after she's stolen their husband. You might say we haven't gotten along since then, although she's refrained from badmouthing me to him. I thought it was because she didn't want to end up a pile of white dust somewhere, but if she's actually Tenya, it's more like she respects another woman warrior of my skill."

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We started moving, and not in the direction the Concubine was going in. "I see. You want the chance to cross swords with a goddess who has no problems being a husband-stealer. Briggs probably treats her like air, I imagine."

Her eyes lit up happily. "Fuzzy takes his oaths seriously, and that includes our marriage vows. We're both old enough to have taken other lovers if we need to, and we don't do that, either. The ass-hattery of so many societies just throws into greater relief what it means to hold to a promise here. He won't come to the Palace if she's present, regardless of what Magni says. He wants something from Briggs, he comes visit us, and I won't carry his messages for him, either."

"And the Emperor tolerates such behavior?" I had to be amused.

"The Emperor is not a fool, and Briggs is the best smith and engineer in the Empire. If Magni's led around by his second head, that's on him. As for the last guy who claimed Briggs was pussy-whipped in public, he was found dead of a hundred lacerations, tied to the statue of his noble ancestors in front of his manse. No one ever found the killer, but given it was an Angrusi baron who absolutely loved whipping his slaves to death as a motivational example to others, the Blitzengard sure haven't liked us too much since."

"And he couldn't be Raised from the dead, either," I noted rhetorically.

"Terrible, these local assassins, possessed of such strange and fell magicks to deny the very favor of the gods in returning one of Hell's own back to the living! Someone really should go in and clean them out…" she mocked back to me as we turned around to the back of the palace. "The flowers on the other side are milder in color and flow together better."

I thought on the aggressive reds and yellows and explosions of color in all hues, and the breeds of flowers at work there, now that she had pointed it out. "How often does it get replanted?" I had to ask. There hadn't been many bushes and longer-term plants, on reflection.

"Concubine Istaya's gardens are always in bloom. That is the power of commanding skilled men to do your bidding," Sama snarled back promptly, while we walked through a grassy area with many sculptures, large and small areas meant for socializing, with a large pool area and even an amphitheater for imperial performances and speeches or something suitably political. "Quite rapturous and exciting to behold, the power of men over nature and the world, all at your beck and call."

I lightly scanned sculpture in the 21 to 25 QL range, with one ancient one wrought in granite and losing its battle against the elements showing echoes of a 28. I surreptitiously Cast a Mending on it to show me the proper original form, and then Shaped it back to its original form in passing.

A flicker of Sama's eyes told me she'd noticed the subtly shifting stone, but we did not stop our casual pace.

I noticed that absolutely nobody was making any attempt to seek her out, including any of the servants, and were politely giving her a wide berth if they came upon her suddenly. "Influence of the Concubine?" I inquired of her.

"The last person who tried to gain some favor with the Concubine by thinking that mocking me here was something I'd let slide never regrew all of his teeth, and was dismissed from the Imperial household. He was really sorry about that, especially when Magni assigned him to the skirmish zones on the Isle of Kheper as an adjutant to one of the less capable commanders there. I understand he didn't last a month."

"Your relationship with Her Church?" I asked quietly.

"Strained," she replied in clipped fashion, as we reached the end of the 'party' area and turned into a milder area with higher hedgerows and so more privacy, probably mostly restricted to the Imperial household. One of the guards at the entry was going to challenge us, his partner shoved him back and looked right past us stoically as we walked by.

This area was much more open and palatial, with open expanses of grass, as well as plazas and a definite practice area set off to the side. There were rather more guards posted about, but they just glanced at Sama and then ignored her, saying nothing.

"They all know that if they can see you, you aren't here to kill anyone?" I asked, amused at this rather substantial deference to her.

"They've all had lessons from me. Magni sends all his personal guards to the school for training. I've beaten all of them many, many times. If Magni ordered them to attack me, they'd probably throw down their swords, lay down on the floor, and put their hands behind their heads instead." The curl of her lip was not proud, but it was grim, and I could belatedly see the gaze of a teacher in her eyes as she looked back and forth. Anyone who had to straighten up under her gaze was already too late, and they knew it, too, flushing when they realized they'd been seen right through by her.

Our course took us naturally towards the small garden there, and we stepped past the screening hedges just in time to bump into a woman there.

She looked like she'd once been a noble dark-haired and brown-eyed beauty, but time and stress had not been kind to her, and it was plain that she wasn't putting more than required efforts into looking presentable.

Without the minimalist diadem on her head, I wouldn't have pegged her for the Empress at all.

She blinked in shock at suddenly finding the two of us in front of her. Her attendant stiffened in alarm, especially when none of the watching guards reacted at all.

"Empress Mauria," Sama greeted her warmly, reaching out to grasp the slender hands of the aging woman, all the while fixing the attendant with a stare that almost physically drove the younger woman back and away. "A pleasure to run into you here, Your Majesty."

The aging and extremely depressed woman there rallied helplessly under Sama's regard, clasping her hands with frail strength. "Sama," she breathed out in a mixture of surprise and envy. "You do not usually visit so late…"

"I was showing the Lady Edge here the Imperial Palace. She has a morbid interest in statuary, and I wanted to prove a theory of mine."

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