All in all it would be about two weeks of marching before we got to the capital. That included time spent waiting out bad weather, repairing carts, and moving even more very slowly up and down mountains. The only good to come of it was that I did end up spending some time talking with Alanna and Ciel'ostra, mostly at night, via godly whatsits.

The conversations were mostly friendly rather than substantive; we made small talk, which Lucile clearly appreciated and Murn mostly didn't. For Murn, that had a lot to do with the fact that she was used to filling her empty time with... well, quality time spent with her harem. However, when she did deign to talk with me, it was pretty clear that she didn't choose her bed partners for their personalities. She seemed genuinely surprised any time she implied something and I picked up on it, or anytime I understood something without being told. I... had to hope it was just my timing, that she wasn't used to good conversation late at night, and that the other generals were not as dense as her stable of studs.

For her part, Alanna had a lot of questions, about things I'd been through lately and things from Earth--Terra, as they called our planet here. It was still weird, but the more we talked, the more natural it felt. I was a little surprised how many things I knew that were genuinely useful--little things like yes, physics can be reduced to math (unless magic interfered), or that infections were foreign life and needed to be killed, but that other diseases could be different... that yes, boiling water and alcohol were good for sterilizing things, that kind of thing. I admitted that I didn't know when I didn't know, but there were a lot of things she either had never known or had heard but didn't quite believe.

Mostly, though, we talked about little things. I had trouble conveying complicated things even through the godly link, but somehow it was easy to pass gossip and talk about things. She seemed interested in Raine's progress, although she knew little about the woman; she'd met her, had a few conversations, but the woman ran in circles that didn't involve the church. Maybe that was why Lucile was fascinated to see her transforming bit by bit into a real Vicar.

And she was, bit by bit, changing. I wasn't clear on what happened, but Raine was coming around to the idea that her powers came to her thanks to a god, and she was more and more cognizant of the fact that she was succeeding where she should have failed... thanks to my power and Tammy's love. It was... a little hard to monitor her progress without actually connecting to her, which I suppose I could have done, but I wanted to be a guide, not a ruler.

Eventually, in a conversation with Murn, I discovered that Raine was partly responsible for routing an enemy attack--something about sensing an ambush and leading a group to counter-ambush them. She wasn't the sole reason the enemy attack failed, but she saved a lot of lives, enough that when she retired, if she lived to do so, she'd likely get a bounty as big as mine, if not bigger. Considering what I'd done to get a bonus, she must have played a big part in the fight.

Anyway, after that achievement, she was promoted, and was working with some heavy-hitters. She had enough sway now to refuse to attack anything but enemy military, and made liberal use of her position to chew out rank-and-file soldiers who were too bloodthirsty. That made me smile, which seemed to amuse Murn.

"To be young like you," she commented. "You see a little progress and hold on to hope. But you must teach the same lessons to every generation, and whenever you slip up, it only gets harder for generations after." Murn's shadow raised a mug to her lips for a moment. "Every time we succeed, it is worth celebrating. But I have seen too many failures, been a part of too many atrocities. We are hated... not just on the southern front, but the northern one as well." Murn shook her head.

"What started this war, anyway?" I looked into the sky; I was sitting by a wagon wheel, in the waning light after dusk, in a lean-to made from a little tarp and some rocks. It wasn't much, but the weather was warm enough that I didn't need much. There was just a bit of spitting rain, and people were willing to leave me alone, which was all I really wanted.

"The war started the war," quipped Murn idly. "This continent was never at peace. At the beginning there were more than three, but once it was down to us... none could beat the others. And because whoever won against one would win against the other... whoever got ahead got stabbed in the back."

"Hm." I considered that quietly. "Not necessarily, you know. The winner will have a double handful of new troubles. Even if they received all the gold of the loser, would the losing soldiers fight for them? They'd have a new warfront they have no experience on, they'd have to control people who hate them. Their own people would probably cause trouble with the losers, so they'd have to step up policing, or else face rebellion from the conquered... it's not trivial."

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Murn's shadow gave me a sense of a very long, very measured stare, one masking confusion and surprise.

I shrugged at her. "Just history. Terra is advanced in many ways, but you can learn a great deal just from stories told about old wars. And..." I wasn't sure how to broach the topic of wargames, whether performed in the field, tabletop, or computed, though of course she wouldn't understand the last. "...once you understand some of the principles, there are... mental exercises, and other things you can do to learn new lessons. It's hard to anticipate some of the more eccentric behaviors, but you can learn principles by... working through it."

"Too often when we talk," Murn replied, "I can tell I won't understand what you are trying to say without some understanding I don't have. I imagine you feel the same way about godly matters."

"mmmMMm." I tried to give my non-verbal reply a cutesy, amused rise to it. "That, magic, history, and a number of other things. But yes, there is a whole world of experiences you don't have, as there is a world of knowledge here that I don't have. And, the knowledge I have from my own world is incomplete. Just as you know little enough outside your domain, so to, I only really know a few things."

"Truly, offworlders are a mystery." Murn shook her head. "What did you do? In your world?"

I just shook my head in reply. "Honestly? I was one of many parasites on a larger beast. A large business who thought it needed many workers, and many more to manage those, and a few more at the top. What I did need not have been done, but they made enough money that they paid for my life without complaint. For a while, at least." The rain picked up a bit, and I let my hand out from under cover and felt it on my palm. "It never lasts. The leaders sometimes make room for new workers, and sometimes go back on promises, leaving people out in the cold who needed them most. Those at the top are paid the most, but all too often, they have no idea whatsoever what they are doing."

"That tells me nothing," replied Murn dryly, "except that you had truly a great deal of money--that someone did, I mean, maybe not you." She paused. "What did you do?"

"Different things at different times. I 'managed projects'." I knew that phrase wasn't going to translate well, but I forced it out anyway. I could tell Murn didn't quite understand, but just continued. "It's difficult to summarize exactly, but we formed an idea, determined what needed to be done, organized it into pieces that others could work on. Me... I usually kept an eye on overall progress of a part, noticed when we were falling behind..." I looked at Murn's shadow, but the sense of confusion she gave off had not improved.

So I just sighed and tried to summarize. "I was a Captain," I said. "Squad leaders made sure that the work was done, and I kept them in line while following orders from above. Only, we were building, not killing. I had to make sure that the job was done, and I did, but too often I was paid to do nothing. And our generals were often eager to reduce the size of the... army, even when we needed the soldiers. So I moved from one to another, and each was different."

"Sounds like you had too much money," replied Murn somberly. "Officers with too much time on their hands always get up to mischief."

"Indeed they do, dear General." I leaned against the wagon wheel and fought the urge to fall asleep. "Indeed they do. Even when they get promoted all the way to the top."

Murn's grunt had a touch of disgust to it. "An army commanded by restless, mischievous men... sounds like a disaster."

"Mmm." A thought occurred to me. "And to top it all off, their actions created great resentment. They commanded their companies to get them great hordes of wealth, and took the largest share for themselves, which they did nothing with. Time and time again, they proved to be incompetent, but we weren't prepared to face civil war to destroy them, so they won. It is... an awful thing."

"Sounds like you were already at war," she pointed out grimly. "Only one side was convinced they were at peace."

"I suppose so." I closed my eyes, and I felt a headache coming on, one that had nothing to do with the rain, or overuse of godly powers, one that reminded me of home, of long hours in an office being unable to change anything, until sickness took even that from me. I had never put it in those terms, but after describing it to a warrior general of a primitive society, there was no denying her summary.

"If you were back there now, what would you do differently?"

"As a mortal? I could do nothing. As a god? I would need an army. Or I'd need the power and courage to face armies." As I spoke, I could see, vaguely, an image, a shadow of a dream. "To deny the will of millions, to spit in the face of fates with the weight of centuries behind them." The shadow of me that I saw, or... the shadow of someone else perhaps, but I dreamed it was me, he stood like a superhero, cape flapping in the wind, against a vague, city-sized dream-like monster, like an old Japanese monster movie. But more than pictures, it was feelings. The monster was, in the way things were in a dream. And yet... that hero stood not against some kind of metaphor or imaginary creature, but against a force that was, an impossible creation made from the souls and bodies of millions, most against their will.

There, dwelling in a half-dream, mostly unaware of what connection this vision might have to godly powers, I looked at that man in a cape, and I felt love for him, as I had felt love for superheroes as a child. Only a dream... but what a dream.

"It's still that bad, huh?" A voice I had never heard was right over my shoulder, looking at my dream. She felt... natural, like a part of this world I had met a hundred times and never recognized. "Maybe I'll have to force things." She patted me on the shoulder, and it seemed so gentle, even as I recognized the feel of claws against my skin, somehow within the dream. "We'll talk someday soon, Ryan. Of Earth and... fate, perhaps." And then she was gone.

And I slept, wondering if that, too, was only a dream.