“I - heard - m’glad.” 

Tomorrow. Iomedae thinks tomorrow is all right and so probably it is, he's - scared, about something going wrong, but probably they can fix it...

...if they don't specifically need him for anything right now then he would maybe appreciate if they have painkillers, it can hardly make him worse at doing anything and he's really in a lot of discomfort and - since he's safe, here - would rather be asleep. 

"Do you have Sleep?" she asks Marit. "He might be able to stay out if we put him under."

           " No," says Marit, baffled, "and even if we call someone in who has it - that's - the archmage who Gated here from another world -"

"It'll still work on him. People in Velgarth don't get stronger."

         " - right."

They will acquire someone who can magically assist Altarrin in sleeping, and then get back to the work of moving the army from outside Urgir to inside Urgir without committing atrocities against the population of Urgir.

Bastran doesn't sleep well, that night.

When he wakes up, the next morning, his first drowsy thought is that he should ask Altarrin about the Gate-research - 

- right. 

He doesn't have time to spend ten minutes in bed crying, so the feelings can go in the box and stay in the box, and he gets up and faces the day's work. All of which is awful, of course, and that's not even a new state of affairs, his morning reports have been awful for months. There are three wars going on, and they still haven't entirely dealt with the stupid factory godsabotage, and now Altarrin is missing and probably working against the Empire, kidnapped or suborned by the god of another world, and all of his options either kill thousands of people or burn resources the Empire can't afford to lose or - instead burn other kinds of less tangible resources, and it feels like there's no possible route from here to anything being okay and probably they've already lost and might as well admit it. 

Of course, the thing to do is still to get up and eat breakfast and read his subordinates' reports. Where are they on having a draft ceasefire offer to send the rebel leader in Oris. Can they do that today, please, and then he can figure out what to do about the stupid treasury. 

Delicious breakfasts are, of course, available daily for His Imperial Majesty! Cooking for him is the finest honor (and the best pay) available to any cook in the Empire or, quite often, outside of it.

And to go with his delicious breakfast, there are four drafts from the Ministry of Barbarians for His Majesty to choose from! (They are ordered such that if he just wants to skim one and stamp 'approved' the one on top will do just fine.) The top two are written in the standard imperial language for speaking with rebels ("the great mercy of his imperial majesty towards his disobedient subject", et cetera, et cetera), the bottom two in the standard imperial language for speaking with foreign countries.

The top one talks about diplomatic meetings to arrange an amnesty if the rebels surrender (which the Ministry of Barbarians expects the rebel will correctly see as an opening offer to be improved upon), the next-from-top-one offers to negotiate a withdrawal of direct imperial forces and the appointment of a member of the Orisian royal family as imperial governor if he acknowledges His Imperial Majesty's ultimately rule, the third-from-top suggest that the nation of Oris, having provoked a war with the Empire, now has the option of attempting to negotiate peace with the Emperor's victorious armies, and the fourth option is again suggesting that the nation of Oris should become an autonomous client kingdom under the Empire. Any of them are ready to send, with or without Bastran's adjustments.

(Delicious breakfasts sometimes improve his mood, but Bastran kind of just hates eating when he's stressed. He will eat it anyway and not let himself look at all visibly dissatisfied about the necessity of feeding himself, the cooks don't deserve that.) 

He's tempted to just sign the first one and be done with it, but his shoulder Altarrin reminds him that this is a decision that will affect millions of people over decades and he does, after all, make decisions with those stakes constantly, but this specific one still deserves at least ten minutes of his time. He reads through all of them, and then puts them side by side and stares at them for a while. 

...The fourth one is pretty clearly closest to what Altarrin was aiming for. Bastran is really not sure that's an argument in favor of it, at this point, but...he gets why. It gives the rebels the most dignity, and 'client state' is still something that can be spun at court. He's going to pick that one, unless anyone wants to argue with him. 

Nope! The point is to ensure that the Emperor has freedom of choice while still only leaving him with good options to use this freedom on. Nobody will argue and the draft will be Gated out to the army along with a diplomatic team.

It's going to take days to reach the rebel leader, probably, they do not currently have good lines of communication. The one silver lining is that the delay is greater because the rebels are not currently gearing up for a battle; it would be very awkward if they attacked when the ceasefire offer had been made but before receiving it. 

He has NOT forgotten about their financial problems and will be available to meet with the Minister of Finance again soon, and he ALSO has not forgotten about their OTHER TWO WARS and will after that be available for meetings about Tolmassar. First, though, he wants to find out if the mage-research department has made any progress at all from a day with Altarrin's notes, and separately, if the Office of Inquiry has learned anything more from Aritha, including any insight into what mix of compulsions and the right incentives would buy her loyalty. 

The mage-research department has made any progress, in the sense that there are now lots of loyal people reading his notes and speculating! There are reports on the Minister of Progress's desk that can be delivered to the Emperor!

There are not scries or gates to the other world that they can cast, no. There won't be for a bit, even in their most enthusiastic reports.

Chief Inquisitor Siman is happy to answer questions! The Office thinks she is completely disloyal except to her compulsions but that her loyalty wouldn't be hard to win; she's been abused by the head of the mage-research division (Kottras is the usual unpopular-but-gets-results-and-has-connections, is his approximate state) and could be brought around without much difficulty if he was presented to her as unusual. He thinks that the typical threaten-execution-for-worst-thing-in-her-history-then-get-her-a-personal-pardon-from-the-Emperor trick would work, especially if they reassign her out of Kottras's command and keep her out of it.

They'll attach what they've picked up from the interrogation, of course, but so far it isn't much. Interrogation is an art, not something that can be rushed.

(Altarrin personally dislikes Kottras, Bastran recalls, and just hasn't prioritized the matter because the man is, at least, good at his job, and adroit enough to avoid going around causing offense to important people. Altarrin always made a face when he put it that way. Bastran hates it too.) 

...He also hates the threaten-execution-then-personal-pardon strategy but...it does work. And they in fact do need Aritha very badly, and - urgently - and it sounds like she's sensible enough to recognize when she's being handed a lifeline and had better take it. He can definitely get her out from under Kottras, that seems fine, he can assign her to his personal staff, which does include some research specialists (sometimes the Emperor needs special-purpose new spells designed urgently and also discreetly.) 

He is aware that the Office of Inquiry does not like to be rushed on their interrogations. He is at this point still inclined to override them and swoop in and get Aritha working on their very urgent other world potential invasion problem. They can finish questioning her afterward, if it still even seems relevant at that point. 

What's the worst thing in her history that they would be threatening execution for. 

Officially, plotting to go over to the otherworldly invaders, violation of her sworn oaths of service, and intrigue against the empire.

(The incidents in question were her assumption the otherworldly invaders would compulsion her to serve them after they conquered the empire and not doing anything to stop this such as telling people she thought there would be an invasion, obeying illegal orders from Kottras to violate regulations, and obeying illegal orders from Kottras to violate regulations for the purpose of petty intrigue.)

The Office will yield, but yield in the "I'll go put pressure on my people who will put pressure on their people" sense unless the Emperor is Extremely Firm about this.

Of course. He'd like the Office of Inquiry to wrap up their remaining questioning by noon or early afternoon, and then - they probably don't need to be too in-your-face about the execution threat, Aritha sounds like the type to take even hinted threats very seriously, and he doesn't want her too traumatized or she won't be useful for weeks. He'd like a final report on the rest of her interrogation by suppertime at the latest, which is probably plenty of time to let her stew in hinted threats of execution, and he can go pardon her then. 

(If the usual amount of firm is enough to get him Aritha by the end of the day, he'll take it. It probably won't be, but he hates being Extremely Firm, and will hold off until after his list of agonizing financial and war-related meetings; if he hasn't gotten an interim progress report by then, he'll go back and be firmer.) 

Finance meetings. Do people have any new ideas for him. 

The usual amount of firm will probably be enough. They'll want a pardon sealed with the imperial seal, of course.

The Ministry of Finance has a long list of tradeoffs, which they have assembled into a set of horrible possible plans!

The Optimistic Option is to hope all the wars end soon (we're winning fairly decisively in Taymyrr, even if Tolmassar is being slow, and we're about to withdraw from Oris), borrow money if we need to, and be in a financial crisis if war breaks out with another world.

The Ultra-Pessimistic Option is to cut infrastructural, educational, and so forth and so on spending to the bone (which will be tremendously unpopular with the other departments) and focus on the assumption that there is about to be a war with another world and it will last for twenty years and we need to not run out of money by the end of it. It makes every non-long-term concession.

There are, of course, a variety of plans between them, all of which trade against different sacred values of the empire (selling very minor toleration of religion, losing imperial authority, giving up territory, devaluing the currency, allowing nobles to raise private armies) or practical values like "having a very large army" and "keeping infrastructure repaired" and "keeping your word to your people about pensions and wages."

(Among other things, the two legions that were garrisoning Oris were mauled, and there's the tradeoff of trying to rebuild them fast enough they'll be useful again in war or keep them somewhere they don't need to fight and understrength, which has lower maintenance costs but, uh, obvious problem.)

There are exciting new ideas, but they're all exciting new bad ideas. They might be a little less bad than some of the other ideas? There's plans to buy or buy-at-fixed-rates basically the entire diamond supply of the empire for extradimensional trade, which might be a hell of an investment or might be a disaster?

Yeah. He's not very fond of any of those plans. 

...He does not think a war with the other world would last twenty years. He can imagine it lasting a few months, maybe; he can also imagine it lasting ten minutes, though in that case the loss condition is probably 'Tar-Baphon mind-controls Bastran and takes over from the top' which they should really try to avoid. 

Anyway, he would be - more willing than usual - to reallocate a lot of this year's budget toward infrastructure maintenance and education. The bridges aren't going to collapse in a few months even if no one reinforces the spells on them, and the children in school now aren't going to be grown until long after the war is over, one way or another.

(And he's more reluctant to go there, it's a sacred value for a reason, but - if they do cross that line and devalue the currency now, well, contact with another world is going to be a far bigger deal as disruptions go; his shoulder Altarrin is pointing out that it's inevitably going to transform the entire economy, in both good and bad ways.) 

It will obviously be enormously unpopular, but if there isn't a war, or they win or, or they manage to negotiate a truce and a peace, then in six months time they might indeed be able to sell their entire Empire-wide diamond supply for vast sums, and make everyone happy. Though they should not move on that until they actually have scrying, because if the other world doesn't contact them first, and they're unlucky with what Aritha knows, that alone might take six months. Gating will take longer. He has not yet gotten an answer he trusts from the research team on how long but he really doesn't believe the optimistic 'a few months!!!' claim. 

...Or, you know, they could reconsider the matter of reconciling with Norean in Tolmassar and getting that tax base back. He's not going to push that but he'll mention it briefly. A few time, including in passing to the Minister of Finance when they're packing up and happen to be alone in the room. 

Pelias Declane will admit that there's someone in his department, who he trusts, who has family on the other side, and who might be able to get a deniable message (or work as a personal connection) over to the pretender, if the Emperor wants to hear what the pretender has to hear about the whole idea of reconciliation.

He quietly thanks Declane for the information. He's definitely going to think about it. 

....Later, because right after this is a meeting with the Minister of War and the other military advisors, to talk about Taymyrr for the most part, and more decisions that were mostly made by other people long before Bastran saw them, and he's so tired but - one foot in front of the other. Keep going. It's not like he has a choice. 

After dinner, does he in fact have an Aritha available for him to go dramatically pardon?

Aritha is not actually a kind of person the Office of Inquiry hasn't seen before, or taken apart before, or put back together before, and once they have the Emperor's orders they set her up very easily. She's in fact been fighting back terror that she'll be executed from the minute that they started on her and it doesn't really take more than a mention of what they're charging her with to make her practically unable to think about anything else. A tiny part of her is blazingly angry - at Kottras, at Altarrin, at the Empire - but mostly she's terrified and desperate and shattered and would probably burst into tears at the slightest scrap of compassion, which her interrogators do not extend her because that's not in this particular script.

Instead they have her admit to knowingly breaking regulations, to knowingly aiding Kottras in espionage, to learning of a threat to the Empire and not reporting it, to being motivated in that not-reporting-it by, perhaps, the vague hope that she'd be personally advantaged by the conquest of the Empire. They extract a very thorough confession; nothing in it is false.

They leave her alone, for an unknowable length of time but not enough that she sleeps, which she hasn't done since they woke her early yesterday back at the northern base.

And then they tell her that the Emperor has decided to see her, and she feels a desperate hope, for the first time all nightmarish day, because it's said that the Emperor is merciful, sometimes, and then an even more desperate terror, the terror that comes from having your choices possibly matter, from playing for your life instead of watching to see if it ends, and she tries frantically to think what to say to him - he won't care, that several of the charges are Kottras's fault, Kottras is more valuable than her - unless she can convince him she's valuable -

Which is to say, yes, all set, should go very smoothly.

He strides into the room like someone impatient and in a hurry, as though about to bark orders to the guards, and then - slows, stops himself, and actually looks at the exhausted, haggard, terrified woman in the cell, on a wooden stool which is the only item of furniture currently in the shielded stone room. 

"Have a chair brought," he says to one of the guards, not sounding impatient at all now. "- One for her, too, please." 

This is done in a hurry, and he sits, and he doesn't smile but he does meet her eyes. 

(It's a performance, of course, but it also isn't not genuine. He doesn't feel like hurrying and he doesn't feel like smiling, but he's also not angry. He's - not really anything except tired, and he lets a little bit of even that show.) 

"When did you last eat or drink?" he asks her. To the guard, "- bring her some water." 

They made her eat and drink at some point, but she has no idea when. 

"Your Majesty," she says. "I'm not sure. I'm sorry."

"You don't need to be sorry." Sigh. "I want to ask you some things, but it's important that you be - thinking clearly." Well. Compulsions aside, but that can be taken as assumed. "Is that doable, right now, or should I wait until you've had something to eat?" 

"I'm thinking clearly, your majesty." She's too full of terror to actually feel her tiredness.

He nods. He's still not smiling; he looks very serious, but definitely not angry, just - thoughtful. His attention is fully on her, and he has the skill of making 'giving someone his full attention' a somewhat intense experience. 

"Do you think you could reinvent the spell," he says quietly. "Not cast it yourself, necessarily, if you don't have the power, but could you replicate it to teach to someone more powerful? And what would you need?" 

Oh. 

Of course. 

She is, still, valuable to the Empire. More valuable, even. As long as she can replicate the work of Altarrin himself.