A parade entered the big top through the wide-open doors. In the lead was a band of drummers and brass, and directly behind them a piano rested on the center of a slowly-moving float. The music was repetitive and discordant, complemented by the disturbing vocals in a language Adrian could not understand. All the participants in this display were marching in lockstep, like well-trained soldiers, however they were also clearly not alive. At least not fully alive. They looked like corpses, skin gray and tinged with sickly green or purple corruption. Their clothes were in tatters.

  An oversized coffin was carried in last, behind the float with the piano. The occupant of such a coffin, Adrian surmised, would be nearly as tall as the Elemental Queen of Souls, who regarded the procession with satisfaction. The coffin was dark gray and ornamented with light gray filigree and bound in huge verdigris-crusted chains. When the parade reached the ashen ring in the center of the big top the lead musicians veered to one side and began to form a long circle, facing the souls in the crowd.

  With a carnival of piano and woodwind and brass the music reached a crescendo as the coffin was hauled upright by the huge chains. Two massive skeletons, animated perhaps by sorcery or by some other power in the strange Domain, ducked into the big top and glided up to the coffin in absolute silence. One of them hauled up a huge metal spike and the other a hammer. The first wedged the spike atop the coffin and the second slammed the hammer down, unsealing the lid, which fell forward and crashed into the volcanic sand and kicked up a huge gray plume of dust.

  The music abruptly stopped. All the undead, including the two huge skeletons, collapsed into rotting piles arrayed chaotically around the ring. The dust was slow to clear.

  The creature that lurched out of the upright coffin was enough to cause Scylla to gasp. It was the biggest bastard Adrian had ever seen, towering even taller than the Elemental Queen of Souls. Muscular and savage, with a body covered in occult tattoos. For clothing the hulking behemoth wore only the tattered hides of some animal. Or perhaps, Adrian thought morbidly, the skins of his enemies. In each hand he carried an oversized butcher's cleaver, the blades stained red-brown with long-dried blood.

  "Brother," Scylla said with a voice that carried across the tent. "What have you done to yourself?"

  "Oh! Scylla!" the behemoth beamed. "My dear sister, whatever do you mean? You were the one who exiled me from the elf tribes. Did you expect me to stay an elf forever?"

  The hulking man slammed the tips of his butcher's cleavers into the gray sands. Then he brought his hands together in front of his chest and his fingers seemed to sink into his breastbone. With a strained and somewhat painful look on his face he ripped his own chest open, revealing viscous webs of blood-colored viscera within. There were one, two, three, at least four hearts visible beating away inside his chest. He grinned at them wickedly.

  "The Queen of True Death created this lovely body for me," the man explained. "I swore an oath that I would keep the souls of the original four Signatories with me until I can see their work undone. What better way to keep souls nearby? Their hearts still beat within my chest."

  "Abomination!" Scylla cried.

  "Wait," Adrian said. "Are you telling me that you have the heart of my ancestor, the founder of House Maryy, inside your body?"

  "That's right! Hehehe."

  "And his soul?"

  "And his soul, haha! He started squirming when he saw you, Maryy. I can hear him screaming. The other three Signatories correctly surmised that you have betrayed them. Hahahaha!"

  "Enough!" Klara bellowed. "Kai, why didn't you come to us before you did this? We could have used a warning, you know."

  The massive man, who was presumably named Kai, waved his hand dismissively.

  "That's not important," he said. "I knew how both of you would react. And Reyndell and Monroe too. Though, I do admit that the scions of Varelion and Maryy surprised me. I was expecting our dear Klara to take direct control of all the Taisians to resist Reyndell's inevitable attack."

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  "What the hell is he talking about?" Adrian demanded. "Klara, what does he mean?"

  Before the woman could answer, Kai snapped his fingers and a book appeared in his hand. From that distance, it looked like a small book relative to his hulking form. However, the man marched across the ring and reached up and offered the book directly to the four of them up on their premium seating platform.

  Adrian took the book from the man, which was actually quite bulky. It was bound in dark gray leather and stamped with light gray accents. In contrast to the cover, the pages inside looked ancient, yellowed and foxed, as if the book had been rebound multiple times. Line after line, page after page of short two to three word notes. Names, Adrian guessed. A book filled from cover-to-cover entirely with names.

  "That's The Book of Dead Pilots," the behemoth said with gray eyes gleaming. "It took me eight hundred years to compile all those names. I used the Gray Baby to bring them all back at the same time. I knew that if they were all born as Taisians that would create a war between Klara and Reyndell."

  "Thanks for that," Klara said, in a tone that indicated no such thanks was given.

  "Not a problem at all!" Kai beamed. "And now we're all here! Isn't it wonderful?"

  "Kai!" the Elemental Queen of Souls cried, interrupting them. "You have everything under control right?"

  "Everything is under control!" Kai reported helpfully.

  "See?" the Elemental continued, addressing the crowd. "The minor oversights we experienced during the creation of this universe are going to be fixed presently, as I said. Now, Kai, why don't you tell these souls why our universe is the best universe? Why did you decide to accept our High Daughters and therefore submit yourself to exile from the elves?"

  "I would like to know that as well," Scylla said.

  Kai plucked The Book of Dead Pilots out of Adrian's hands. Then he turned and marched back to the center of the ring to stand beside the Elemental Queen of Souls.

  "We have two very unique High Daughters!" Kai announced. "We have Erika the Firstborn, First of Darkness, who gives bad luck. Also we have Titania, First of Light, who gives good luck. Most importantly, these two Elementals can grant their curses or boons at a distance, to an infinite number of souls."

  This brought a round of gasps from the crowd.

  "I, myself, have managed to snag Titania's good luck," Kai continued, "even while she was sealed away."

  "Impossible!" Scylla protested.

  "See?" the Elemental Queen of Souls said, ignoring Scylla. "We have luck in this universe! Luck actually works! Do you want luck? Then you are in the right place! Step right up, ladies and gentlemen. Exit the big top and explore the circus, and when you are ready to join our universe, I'll be right here! The first ten souls to join will be incarnated as nobility!"

  "I want to join!" one of the souls in the crowd responded. "Right now! I don't need to see the circus!"

  "Done!"

  With a flash of gray light the soul vanished from the crowd.

  Scylla continued her protests but her voice was no longer amplified across the big top. Kai stalked across the ring triumphantly and resumed his position beneath their platform, a mocking smile dancing on his lips. That smile didn't quite reach his eyes, however.

  "How did you do it?" Scylla demanded. "How did you get Titania's luck?"

  "When the bankers decided to corrupt the Dark Half of the Divine Power with an aversion to flying machines, this had an equal and opposite effect on the Light Half. However, if the Elemental Queen of Light herself was subjected to this reaction, then the two sides would cancel out. The original Signatories conspired to have this reaction, this scar, subsumed by Titania. An elegant solution if not for one simple flaw, one that the Signatories don't understand, and won't understand, until I tell you presently."

  Kai slapped The Book of Dead Pilots a few times.

  "They didn't know that Titania's power could work even though she was sealed away. I devoted myself to the task of remembering the fallen pilots for eight hundred years. This drew the ire of the Light Half of the Divine Power which resided in Titania. Even though the Elemental is sealed away, the Divine Power reserved for her cannot be sealed away. And it was this Divine Power that lanced out and granted me the boon, even without Titania's knowledge, even without the golden brands. It just requires a love of flying machines."

  He started giggling.

  "You should hear them screaming, sister! Oh what fun!"

  "Did you intend for this to happen?" Scylla snapped.

  "For what to happen?"

  "All of this. Did you intend that the Queen of Darkness would be sealed away? The Queen of Light corrupted? Just so you could get Titania's luck without being branded to speak only truth?"

  "Intend?" Kai asked, incredulously. "Why would I need to do that? No, no. You underestimate just how greedy and stupid these bankers are. They think they command the laws of nature when a number goes up on a spreadsheet. If not for the lack of certain desirable organs these bankers would have found themselves happily married to their bank accounts."

  "So what did you intend?" Scylla asked.

  "Chaos!" Kai bellowed.

  He started laughing maniacally and he danced off toward the center of the ring again.

  "This was a mistake," Scylla said. "We should leave."

  "Wait," Algot Gunn said. "My emperor, this is important."

  "What is it?" Adrian asked.

  "That... creature just revealed something very important. Something that will grant us an advantage during the war."

  Sudden realization flashed across Klara's face.

  "If what he's saying is true," Algot Gunn continued, "then maybe some of our pilots will get access to Titania's luck. If they love airplanes enough, I mean."