[b]Bella and Redana![/b]

There is a small fairground here, operated by the skillful dead. Clowns and mummers, comedians and jugglers, beings of rare skill collected by Hades from across the galaxy. They entertain each other and swap stories in their little sideshow in Tunguska's downtown. When you arrive they scramble to their positions, snatch up their instruments, and a real carnival begins for just the two of you. 

It takes a rare talent to serve in the House of Hades; shades of artists who could make grim-faced Hades laugh or weep. Acrobats of prodigious talent and clowns with perfect insight. They know when they are called upon to entertain and, just as importantly, they know when to step back and let their guests move on to the next attraction. A small man in a false moustache and bowler hat argues ferociously with some ancient knight in cloth armour. A group of dancers whirls and crackles with clawed sexuality - their primitive lungs don't allow them to dance and sing at the same time, but machines sing for them in distorted electronic tones. An unassuming looking person sits in a corner and writes and writes and writes and even though you are not reading their text you get the sense that it must be magical to command such focus.

There are prizes in the carnival, and to earn them you need tickets - strangely printed rectangles of green paper, elaborately illustrated with woodcut graphics. Win them from games of skill or chance and turn them in to the machines to have them dispense eerie drinks hollow and devoid of nutrients and flavour, shrink-wrapped items of clothing, or even plush sharks who have been waiting patiently for this moment in eternity when they might be taken home by girls who needed them. The tickets come easily and fall away just as fast, but the machines spread far beyond the grounds of the festival; the longer you walk the more of them you will find, each one with some new selection of exotic prizes.

[b]Alexa![/b]

"Yeah, well," said Cerberus. "Where does it get them, really?"

She looked around at the shops, the lights, the screens. Somehow you can see reflections of more than just that in her glass-light eyes - broken stone pillars, shattered glass towers, crumbling white pyramids. The digital screens cracker and flicker around her. People vanish from commercials, leaving empty corridors. Populations empty out of cities as the vines move back in. Concentrated sand returns to sand and the desert buries mighty statues. On and on and...

"Neat how this stuff piles up, isn't it?" said Cerberus. "Because this is what it's all about, right? This is what it's all [i]for[/i]. All of humanity builds and builds and builds and destroys-destroys-destroys. You know, the boss used to think he got the worst deal out of his siblings? He got a barren, empty realm to lord over. Now it's full to bursting and those upstairs keep finding fresh marvels to send down. It seems to me that the [i]reason [/i]for all that up there is to decorate the House of Hades."

[b]Dolce![/b]

Somehow it feels like nothing you could say to her could ever reach her. She is silent. She is still. Her ears still take in every breath and every click of metal.

"No, no problem, captain," she says, the strength of Zeus keeping her voice casual. The choice is hers? She knows [i]exactly [/i]what it means to make a choice without power. "Totally get it. Couldn't live with yourself. All I needed to hear."

Isn't this the true nature of Empire? Captains and lords, assassins and princesses, making heartful statements of ideals while the Kaeri lurk in the shadows? She knows exactly where she stands now.