[b]Haman ab-Marduk![/b]

The breeze you ordered comes wafting over the garden wall, curling about your guests as they applaud the esoteric that you got for the garden. It is appropriately exotic. The Macaw chanter and Lynx musicians standing by one of the fountains begin their own performance, performing the Twenty-Seventh Prayer of Celebration. It, in turn, is appropriately familiar and soothing. The entire garden moves like a well-oiled mechanism, and this is just as it should be. You appreciate it when everything does what it is supposed to. When things do not work as they should, you are unfortunately forced to press the issue. It's such a bother.

A successful party like this, tastefully restrained, appropriately indulgent, adds to your reputation. Naturally, you are the Seneschal of Caphtor. Of course you are. Why wouldn't you be? You proved yourself in the Hymissian Reach against the foes of the High Gods, fearsome but ultimately pathetic devils and unholy beasts, leading first a company, then a legion, then an entire Expeditionary Force. You secured spoils and broke every weapon that was arrayed against you in the name of the High Gods. Your promotion to civic administration was deserved, as was your rise through the ranks.

You even had three children, one of whom was actually promising. The most the other two can offer is not disappointing you. Not shaming you. You're not meant to break [i]them[/i], after all. Not unless the Inquisitors are circling.

You take a sip of your black wine and breathe through your nose. Yes. All is as it should be.

"My lord," the Thornback hisses apologetically. Your gaze drifts down to it. Your execrable wife's favorite. Maybe that alone makes it worth breaking. You arch a perfect brow and say nothing so viciously that it digs its talons into its own palms. "You have a visitor awaiting your pleasure in the Eightfold Nave. The honored and esteemed Asahel ab-Shamash of the House of White Steel offers his congratulations on this, the celebration of your incomparable daughter's upcoming examinations, and bade me insist on a moment of your time."

You press your drink into its hands and stride away without a word. Asahel. Now what does the Huntsman want with you? He knows you are busy tonight, and he knows better than to waste your time. He is not the first Huntsman of Caphtor you have seen during your administration, and he has wisely kept his distance.

When you enter the Nave, he is pacing in his ridiculous flight-jacket and boots, his veil close-fit to his face. "Haman," he says, with undue familiarity. There is sweat beading on his forehead. "They're coming here."

You take a breath. Your fingers curl. He will regret every word he has just spoken by this time tomorrow. "Slow down," you bid him. "I fear your wits must be addled by the high airs. Take a seat. I will call for drinks."

"No time," Asahel says. "They sent word by courier, they want a hunt prepared for them, suitable accommodations, we will need to advance their feast days--"

The blood turns to ice in your veins. You reach out and take Asahel by the breast, fixing him with the furious eyes that made your soldiers quail and advance time and again from the trenches. "Asahel. What did you overindulge in?"

He wordlessly hands you what he should have offered you from the first: the tablet, golden and gleaming. The commandments, each one carved perfectly. The seal of Shamash, the Breaker of Horses, who turns the stars in their wheels.

For the first time in centuries, one of the High Gods descends upon the unworthy from the heights of Babylon.