Mazelton had crawled into some blankets in his wagon, propped his head up on some boots, and passed out. Exhausted didn’t even cover it. He woke that evening, feeling like hammered shit and looking it too. The meal at the chuck wagon was quiet. Nobody much felt like talking. He took a look around. Most of the Nimu wagons seemed more or less intact, though there were some chunky bullet holes through both canvas and wood. Mazelton didn’t like to think about the animal casualties. His stomach churned slightly. It seemed that eating Mendiluze’s heart didn’t change his views on eating animals.

Father Sun’s mercy upon us, the casualties must be horrendous. Concentrated machine gun fire was no joke. Killing hundreds wasn’t even a warm up, and killing thousands massed together was just nice to keep in form. Mazelton looked up into the river of stars arching overhead. Billions upon billions, he remembered hearing. Billions upon billions of stars. Billions upon billions of bullets manufactured over the epochs. The materials changed, but the basic kinetic equation didn’t. And some bastard always figured out a way to automate it.

It was a weapon of the industrial type, that is, it was a weapon that required industrialization to make. The bullets, yes, but more so the steel. The high quality machine tools to make the parts. The measuring tools to make sure each part was identical, because you had to replace parts in a machine gun while in the field. All those heavy bullets caused heavy wear and tear. To say nothing of manufacturing the powder, the gun cotton, the little blocks of compressed explosives, whatever the machine used to drive the bullets. All that needed an industrial chain too. Thousands upon thousands of labor hours dedicated to building a machine to kill more people faster.

Well. Not like he was standing on some kind of moral high ground. He was pretty curious how the Dusties came up with the notion of chemical weapon laden suicide bombers. Though, now that he thought about it, the incindiaries might kill more long term. A person could get lucky and survive the battle, but they would have a hard time surviving with all their goods and food burnt. And there was an alarming number of “unconventional” weapons floating around with the independants too.

Did anyone ever find the bio horror? Mazeton shrugged and decided to take a walk. The wagons at the frontier between the Dusties and the Collective had been pretty thoroughly leveled, and both sides had pulled away during the day. The field had been picked over for anything of use, but between the fire, the poison, the explosions and the seemingly endless machine gun fire, there wasn’t much left that was wanted. There was an awful lot of litter left behind, the detritus of burnt wagons and burnt people. Mazelton let his senses sweep through, poking around in the ashes. He was collecting cores, he told those who looked interested. Waste not, want not.

Covered under half an inch of ash and some charred canvas, there was a jar. It was about the size of a funeral urn, or a bit smaller, and covered in some kind of old writing. The lid was still on it, screwed down tight. Waste not, want not. He visibly shrugged and put it in a bag with all the other bits and bobs he had collected. He kept on cleaning the field for another hour, before going back to bed. He hurt like hell.

Next morning was quiet to start, but it got loud fast. Part of the settlement of the battle was the division of the wagons and goods. It happened every time there were losses. Generally the wagons were simply abandoned, with food or particularly high value goods taken by family or, if there was no family, by who had the bigger fist or fastest mouth. It was the old problem of weight.

Having more stuff, even more stuff you would probably want down the road, was a problem. Your aurochs had to haul it up and down mountains and across rivers. Hauling a second wagon to give you more room for stuff just multiplied your problems. The wagons were, generally, converted farm wagons. Put another way, they were ancient crap that wasn’t very good when it was new. At this point in the journey, they were breaking down a lot. They just weren't worth hauling along… unless they were all you had.

But now there were a lot of empty wagons, and a lot of people who’s wagons were destroyed. The Collective shone in times of scarcity and hardship- they had their camp sorted before everyone went to bed. The rest of the caravan was an ungodly mess, a cross between a grand funeral and an auction hall, both being held in a shipping center. And being organized by amatures. Polyclitus had to wade in with drums, whistles and shouting, just to start to bring things into order. Mazelton could see that he was forcing himself. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to the older man, but he could tell that he was taking things hard.

Mazelton made himself scarce. He could tell that people weren’t quite sure what to make of him. He had been away from the caravan… and then he was negotiating a peace between all the camps. Nobody saw him fight, but a lot of people remembered him looking like he had been swimming in blood when he was talking to the Dusty organizer. So he had to have been up to something. People had all kinds of unpleasant guesses about what a polisher could be doing on a battlefield. He felt like he should hide away, maybe write Danae a letter. He snorted. What would he even say? He heard there was a big lake about five miles or so from the camp. He figured he would take a walk.

The trail, like so much of the trails through the mountains, was a convenient ridge of mountain that had been cleared, leveled and graded some time in the distant past, and it was just too useful to abandon. Mazelton had the unsettling image of a shelf. They were trekking along a shelf, nailed high on a wall, and everything was fine unless you got too close to the edge.

He stood on the edge of the trail and looked out. He could see the tips of pine trees at eye level. The slope of the mountain was… steep. He looked out further, and, yes, about five miles away he could see a vast swath of almost electric blue, stretching like a thumb print dragged through paint between the gray-white mountains. It was all so much. So big and bright and colorful and he was part of it. He wasn’t alone. He was never alone. He was always part of this vastness. And he always would be. He just sat down and looked out, trying not to drown in the feeling.

“Elm for your thoughts?”

Mazelton looked around. A haggard Lettie stood next to him, covered in grime and more than a little blood.

“I am being offered a tree? Thank you, but really, I wouldn’t know how to look after it.”

“No, it’s a small coin they use in Huecho Xtia. It’s about a seventh of a penny.”

“What’s a penny?”

“What are you thinking about, fuckwit.”

Mazelton smiled softly.

“That my faiths were fully compatible all along. That my loneliness is fair enough, but… I don’t have to carry it. I am not as alone as I thought.”

“The Great Dusty World is with you.”

“More or less.”

“And, of course, the extra-dimensional nightmares your family worships.”

“Them too.”

“How are they doing?”

“Better than me, I suppose. Although, it's never wise to judge them by our standards.”

“Right. The whole-” Lettie waved her hand'' ``so alien that we have more in common with ants” thing.”

“Infinitely more, yes. Though you can work with them. With care.”

“I could say the same about you.”

“Which bit?”

“You are so fucking alien to me right now I have trouble putting it into words. But you are also the only person in this whole camp who I can talk to on any kind of similar level. I just wonder if I am trying to explain compassion to cholera.”

Mazelton just smiled sadly.

“You were a shitty Jasmine, huh?”

“I’m pretty sure I never said I was a Jasmine?”

Lettie thought about it. Her memory was excellent, but right now, she couldn’t remember or care. But another title popped up instead.

“Oh. Not a Jasmine but a Lilly. Well that figures. Yeah, that just about figures.”

Mazelton forced himself to his feet, his ribs screeching in protest. With the skill of long, if recently unused, practice, he formed his greeting. Straight back, feet shoulder width apart. Point the toe of the left foot, sweep up and out in a perfect semi circle, bringing it back behind you. The right hand extended, fingers crooked, acknowledging one of the Pi Clan, the curled pinky acknowledging her status as a member of a branch family. His left hand formed the symbol of the Ma, pinky straight, the whole hand tilted a bit to the side to indicate his status as a member of the Outer Courtyard. Back rigidly straight, eyes locked on the person in front of him, he performed his bow, angled to within a tenth of a degree of perfection to demonstrate his honoring their respective status’.

“Old Radler Chapter, Ma Clan, Mazelton, initiate of the Outer Courtyard and anointed Hurricane Lily. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Lettie just looked at him, not responding to his greeting. He stood up from the bow, and let his hands return to his side. His ribs were on fire.

“I. Can honestly say that I have seen some wild things, but that is one of the freakiest. All those things you did with your hands have some ritual meaning, right?”

“It’s not in the shared memory?”

“We don’t get everything that everyone knows, we’d go insane. We just keep what’s important. There is always filtering going on. You are an assassin.”

“No, not really. Mostly it’s public relations.”

“Jasmines are public relations, you…”

“Do this.” Mazelton waved at the burnt out battlefield. “We shape the battlefield. Battles are fought by people. Shape the people, shape the battlefield, give the Clan the edge.”

“Make friends into allies, turn the world against your enemies…”

“That's right. Although, yes, that does involve killing people. Much fewer than you would think, though, and mostly in duels.”

“I thought you didn’t get challenged much?”

“I didn’t. I was a very mediocre duelist. But I was blooded and had kills to my credit. It gave me credibility with the bravos and young bloods of the Clans.”

“And all this. The hundreds of dead. Including some I knew and liked, by the way. Some very nice, decent people. Friends might be pushing it, but people I was friendly with.”

“All this? It’s me putting down my first piece on a board whose game is already well under way. I’m not even playing the same game as everyone else. But here I am, making moves.”

“Your first move.”

Mazelton nodded.

“War is coming. It’s coming here. I really, really want to run and hide from it. I aim to do just that, actually. But I don’t think it's really possible. So I have to shape the environment. My co-religionists should be given advantages, my enemies should be disadvantaged, and everybody should treat me as… if not a friend, than someone useful. Someone better to have alive and on your side than dead.”

“All for a quiet life, huh. Just stack the dead until you can’t see the living hurting each other.”

“More or less. Actually, that was pretty much the whole plan, initially. Now, though?”

Mazelton looked out over the pines, and the gloriously blue lake and impossibly vast mountains stretching into a sky so big and blue it hurt to look up. He took as deep a breath as his ribs would allow, then looked back at Lettie.

“Now, I am no longer Mazelton the Hurricane Lily of Old Radler. Now, I am Patriarch Mazelton, of the High Ramparts Ma. I will carve a space for my Clan in these mountains, and since I lack the strength myself, I will use my enemies as laborers. I will take their bones and blood for our orchards, their flesh for our fields and their hides for our tents.”

He gave Lettie his first honest smile in what felt like forever.

“And give me the damn glowing skull back. It’s going to be my wedding present to Danae.”